#hmm. we will see how far i get today with editing

[sunflowersandscreams]

thinking about surprise dropping ch3 of orchestra au

[littlemissmiller]

𝑳𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝑻𝒆𝒆𝒏𝒂𝒈𝒆𝒓𝒔

Pairing: javier peña x fem!reader

Summary: Javier is your partner while on assignment in Bogotá. You can’t seem to resist him, as much as you tell yourself you’re done fooling around with him. One night, he comes home and the next morning, you finally realize your true feelings for him…

Warning: 21+ (drinking and smoking), semi-rough sex, ass slapping, slight power play, dom!javier, sub!reader, oral(m and f receiving), partners/friends to lovers

Word count: 3.8k

A/N: surprise! it’s pedro! i hope y’all enjoy this just as much as the tom fics (which i appreciate all the support once again, exceeded my expectations). I had this one in the vault for a while, but just went back and edited it so here it is! i have another billy and coryo fic in the works, but a girl has got to diversify her blog page no? also i do plan to post more pedro stuff (given my blog name 😅)ok enjoy! ❤︎

☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎☀︎︎

“This is the last time Javier.” You panted as Javier Peña pushed you up against the wall of a small janitor’s closet. A frequent place you had found yourself in once again, fucking like teenagers. Everyone had left the office nearly, but you still didn’t want to get caught.

“Yeah you said that last time sweetheart.” He growled into your ear as he readjusted you, hoisting you up further onto the wall. Your legs were wrapped around his waist and he was fucking up into you. His pants were only down far enough to let his cock out and he continued to push your tight pencil skirt up over your thighs and hips. You moaned into his ear which caused him to pick up his pace.

“I mean it we…we can’t keep doing this.” You moaned as his lips attached to your neck. He smirked and looked back up at you. His hand slithered up your throat and cupped under your chin.

“Really? Is that why you decided to wear this tight little skirt today? To get me to stop?” He panted

“I always wear these…” you lied

“Yeah well what about this blouse then hmm.” His hand slid down your throat to tug on your collar and then slipped inside your blouse to cup your breast.

“You know I can see right through it don’t you?”

“Maybe I was trying to get someone else’s attention…”you croaked out

“Mmm I don’t think so sweetheart. I know other people are looking but they wouldn’t dare to touch you.” He replied

“Why is that?”

“You know why…” he breathed into your ear “because you’re mine…” he picked up his pace and soon enough you were both coming undone.

He held you in place for a while and rested his forehead against yours. You both panted in exhaustion, your breathing in sync. He planted a soft kiss on your cheek before pulling out and setting you back on your feet.

“You should grab a drink with me tonight.” He suggested as he stepped back, readjusting himself, stuffing his cock back into his jeans and buckling his belt.

“Javi…” you sighed, shaking your head and smirking as you buttoned up your blouse “you know my rules…”

Ever since you and Javier started hooking up, you were very explicit about how your relationship would be. You had told him you weren’t looking for a relationship, but he convinced you to be “partners with benefits”.

Your rules were clear. No going out to bars or dinner, no flirting in front of your colleagues, and nothing more than just sex. Those were the rules left anyways. Javier had a way of convincing you to break them. At first, you had told him no hooking up at work, but about two weeks later and one too many tight dresses, you had broken that rule. And the rule not to show physical affection to each other outside of your activities. He couldn’t seem to help himself around you. He would always wait until no one was around, but occasionally he’d plant a kiss on your cheek or come up behind you and plant one on the back of your neck. It would usually turn into more, but occasionally it was just in passing and very quick.

“C’mon we can go as just co-workers. Then it’s not a date”

You looked up at him and rolled your eyes. You slipped your heels back on and started to fix your hair.

“You know what I told you. I’m not looking for a relationship, especially not with you.” You looked at him pointedly and he frowned “besides if you and I get together who else is going to fuck the hookers Escobar likes the have around.” You have joked raising my eyebrow

He rolled his eyes.

“They are informants and I get very useful information from them”

“Oh besides how they like it” you smirked reaching for the door

Javier stopped you. His hand wrapped around your wrist. He looked at you and you looked back at him intensely, snapping your head in surprise and confusion.

“Are you jealous or something?” He asked

“No!” You laughed “besides we get good intel like you said.”

He released your wrist and grunted in agreement. He traced his hand over your own, moving it from your wrist to your finger tip. He moved his fingers around your palm and rubbed his thumb over your knuckles.

“You should still get a drink with me though” he insisted, continuing to stroke your hand. “Hmm…what do you say? He kissed your knuckles this time, which took you off guard but it wasn’t unwelcomed.

A part of you had put these rules in place mainly for yourself. You knew getting tangled up with Javier like this would be trouble and quite frankly a distraction. Maybe you needed a distraction, but with your own partner? Would that really happen? Maybe because you also knew, in the back of your mind, you had deeper feelings at play. You thought about it and, in that moment, you realized you were about to break one of your own rules again.

“Fine.” You started, dropping your hand to your side “just as co-workers thought. This is not a date or anything like a date.”

“Fine by me. Whatever you wanna call it.”

You scoffed and rolled your eyes. You opened the janitors closet and poked your head out. You looked around and stepped out. Javier followed after you.

“Let’s get going. And separate cars.” You commanded, looking at him seriously

“I figured.”

“Where are we meeting?” You asked

“That bar near your place. The one on the corner next to your apartment.” You answered

Of course he chose somewhere near your place. You thought he was gonna try and take you home with him after. Back to his place. You were wrong. You and him met at the bar and, what ended up being one drink became three, then a cigarette, and your night was pretty much set.

“This ain’t too bad hmm?” He asked

“I don’t mind getting a drink with you Javier. Just the principle of it I…struggle with”

He smirked at your answer “Is that so?” He slid his hand onto your knee which made you almost choke on the beer you were sipping on.

“Javi!” You gritted though my teeth in a low tone

“You said no flirting in front of co-workers or at work. Nothing about outside of work.” He smirked.

“I hope you understand that you’re not coming home with me tonight.” You remark pointedly

“Oh really why is that?” He asked rubbing my thigh

“Because we are just getting a drink as co-workers. Remember.”

Javier leaned back with a satisfied smirk on his face and downed his whiskey.

“You’re at least gonna let me walk you home?”

“It’s just around the corner.” You reminded him

“So?” He asked

“I’ll be fine, but I have feeling you’d follow me anyways” you joked

“You think I’m too overprotective of you?”

“Sometimes….” You looked at him and he looked at you not with lust but something else. A deeper longing and you knew in that moment what you had suspected for a while. Javier Peña seemed to have fallen for you.

He ended up walking you home and you begrudgingly let him in for “just one more drink” and soon after you found yourself back home with him, although you didn’t actually have sex. The two of you drank whiskey and just talked. Something you rarely found time to do. Simply connect with each other. You both sat on the couch, Javier took the liberty of your closeness to occasionally caress your thigh or play with your hair. It was simple, yet incredibly intimate. You and him eventually moved to your bedroom, where you cuddled up on him. Neither of you talked much after that. You simply lost yourself in that moment with him. You felt complete and your heart felt full. You slowly faded into sleep against him and without realizing it he had kissed your forehead several times after you had fallen asleep until he too drifted off.

When you woke up the next morning Javier was still asleep, sleeping on his stomach. You watched his back muscles as they rose and fell. He breathed heavily and you tangled your fingers loosely in his hair to try and wake him up. He kept sleeping, so you decided to take a shower. As the warm water poured over your head you thought about the way he looked at you the night before. His big brown doughy eyes that looked at you like a puppy dog. His hand on your leg, fingers playing with your hair and his charming smile. And the way you held each other until you both fell asleep. You realized that you liked him too. You had been resisting him and the idea of you two together. Especially given that you weren’t too sure how the DEA would feel about you and him having a relationship.

Would you not be able to work together catching Escobar worse get fired? You didn’t want to lose everything at work just to be with him, but you also couldn’t help but feel this way for him. Your thoughts are disrupted when you hear the shower curtain being pushed back. Javier stepped in behind you and came close, pressing his chest against your back. You kept your eyes closed as he wrapped his hands around your waist. He started placing light kisses on your neck and you reached up behind to cup his face. You could feel his cock getting hard on your ass and you reached down to stroke him. He groaned into your ear as he cupped your breasts.

“Mind if I stay?” He whispered

You spun in his arms and looked into his eyes. That same loving look from last night appeared on his face and you knew that he definitely had feelings for you too. There was no turning back now. For either of you. So you accepted that you were also in love with him and leaned into kiss him. It was passionate, with full force. He pushed your back against the shower wall, cupped your face with one hand while the other was planted on the wall beside your head. You moved up against him and moved your leg slowly up to his waist. He dropped his hand and immediately groped your thigh.

“Wanna stay in here or take this back to the bed?” He asked

“I don’t think we’ve ever done it in the shower before” you remarked

“We haven’t” he smirked

You reached back down the stroke his cock and smiled at him.

“Well Agent Peña…” you said as you continued touching him. “What do you want?”

His hands traveled along your body and settled on your waist. He spun you back around and pushed you back up against the shower wall, grabbing your wrists and holding them behind your back. You let out a breathy moan. You knew calling Javier “Agent Peña” turns him on. And you knew that it could make him go from the sweet man you cared about you so much, into a man hungry with lust. It makes him want to be in charge.

“I want you. And I suggest you behave. Got it?”

You moaned in agreement and nodded. He slapped your ass and tightened his grip around your wrists.

“Words sweetheart…”

“Yes sir…I’ll…I’ll be good” you reply somewhat begrudgingly.

Javier and you had this game sometimes when hooking up. You knew whenever you called him by his formal title, he was going to want to ravish you And you liked to give into him sometimes. Pretend you were a suspect or one of Escobar’s whores. It excited you, in a way you didn’t even know was possible. Makes you feel on edge and you like the anticipation that had control over you. Sex with Javier was usually always good, but when he was trying to find out where the next shipment was going to come in or where Escobar was going to be next he definitely had a few tricks up his sleeve. A few tricks to get girls to talk in bed.

Then he spun you back around as he grabbed your ass again. He rubbed his hand over it and slid it down in between your thighs. His fingers started rubbing your folds and you started melting up against the wall. Letting go of your wrists, he held you closer to him so your back was against his chest. He started pinching and twisting your nipples with his free hand. You let out a series of moans and whines. The hand in between your thigh snaked up and began to rub your clit. His fingers traced over it before pressing down and rubbing in a tight circle. You moaned and arched your back. He moved his hand across your sternum and pushed your back against his chest.

“Don’t move too much sweetheart” Javier demanded. “Just stay right here”

You held onto his biceps now that both of your hands were free. Your legs were shaking and everything around you was going fuzzy.

“Goddamn Peña you make me feel so good.” You whined

“I bet if you were actually one of Escobars girls I’d get information out of you real easy.”

You let out a mix between a moan and a laugh

“You flatter yourself Agent Peña”

With that he pushed you up against the shower wall some more you steadied yourself with your hands. You gasped in surprise at his sudden dominance. He pushed your legs open slightly, his hand grabbing the insides of your thighs. Then you felt the tip of his cock push into you and gasped.

“Would you tell me now?” He asked nipping on my ear lobe

“You’re going to have to do more than that to get anything out of me”

With that he pushed all the way inside you. He felt so full, so big. You couldn’t help but let out a long, staggering moan, but you weren’t about to say anything to him, about how good it felt. Not even say his name. It’s what he was trying to get out of you in this little game of yours. He started pumping in and out of you slowly at first, but he soon picked up his pace. You only let out a few soft moans as he worked his hips against your ass. You weren’t going to let him win that quickly, yet the pleasure was agonizingly good. He started pounding into you and you could barely contain your whimpers. His hand came down and sharply landed on your ass. He smacked it again and again. Each time you couldn’t help but let him hear you.

“Got more to tell me sweetheart?”

You shook your head and he growled into your ear

“C’mon now I know you wanna talk to me. At least tell me how good it feels”

You didn’t reply and he smacked your ass one last time. He pulled out abruptly, spun you around and turned the water off.

“I know what will make you talk…” he smirked

You stared up at him doe eyed, somewhat confused and scared and somewhat in anticipation. He pulled the curtain back then scooped you up into his arms. You wrapped your arms around his neck and legs dangling from the crook of his elbow. He held your naked body against his tightly and walked back into your bedroom. He threw you down on the bed and you let out a slight yelp. He crawled on top of you and started kissing you again.

“If you won’t talk to me from me fucking you…then I guess I’ll just torture you with my tongue.” He whispered

He worked his way down your entire body, kissing every inch slowly. He was methodically in his actions. Kissing, sucking, and nipping on your flesh like an animal that just caught its prey. He slowly reached your core and began teasing the inside of your thigh with his lips and tongue. Your hand moved down to grab his head and move him where you wanted. He bit down on your thigh, giving it a hard slap, and looked up at you.

“If you want me somewhere specific you’re gonna have to use your words.”

You groaned in response

You watched him as he went back to teasing you. His mouth drew closer and closer to your clit, until finally. Your hips bucked up in his face slightly as he flicked his tongue over the sensitive bundle of nerves. He held you down and started really going for it. He ate you out like he was starving for you. Javier lapped you up, sucking and teasing your core. His tongue was relentless and kept bringing you closer and closer to the edge. He could sense it too. So he kept you on edge for a while. Javier pulled back, gawking at you as your eyes and pouty lips silently begged him to return his mouth to your slit. He slowly rubbed you as he admired you. He stroked himself with his free hand and bent back down to kiss your thighs.

You squirmed when his lips touched your skin again, so desperate to cum for him. Javier kissed your clit again, his soft affectionate demeanor driving you crazy. You wanted to cry out, but you held back, still remembering that he’s trying to coax you into telling him how good he makes you feel. How bad you crave him. Javier made eye contact with you as he tasted you, his tongue delicately danced over your folds. You bit down on your lip hard, eyes never leaving his. He pulled back again, catching his breath. He rubbed your clit again as he looked at you.

“C’mon baby. Why don’t you tell me how good it feels hmm? C’mon let me hear you.” Javier nearly begged but you just shook your head. His face changed as he scoffed at you.

“Fine. Gonna be a stubborn little thing hmm? Two can play at that game.” He said, removing his fingers. You buck your hips up at the loss of his hand, your face scrunched up disappointment. He sat up on his knees and beckoned you to him. You crawled forward, eyes never leaving his. With his cock in one hand, he stroked the side of your face

“Well if you're not going to speak, then maybe you can use your mouth in a different way hmm?” He suggested. He cups your face and draws you close to his crotch.

You opened your sweet little mouth, and he traced your bottom lip with the pad of his thumb. You opened and took him into your mouth. He was so big, and you could feel the tip as it prodded the back of your throat. You gagged slightly and he cooed at you. He pumped into you, loving the way your lips became fat and plumb. He held the back of your head and he continued moving his hips. Javier tilts his head back in bliss, his grip getting slightly tighter in your hair. He looks down for a moment, reaching for your ass and giving it a firm squeeze.

“Fuck that’s good.” He quipped. He looked back down at your mouth then back up at your ass. He ran his hand in-between your cheeks and started to rub your slick folds. His actions caught you off guard and you popped your mouth off his length. You moaned and gasped as your legs started to give out.

“Oh there she is. Can’t help it now hmm? Come on, tell me how good it feels.”

You held back for as long as possible, biting down hard on your bottom lip until you can’t help it anymore.

“Mmm mmm ooh fuck Javi fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck..” you finally cried out, your legs shaking uncontrollably. You duck your head down, face against the mattress as Javier made you cum. You convulsed on his hand. He smiled, his satisfaction ever so apparent.

“Thaaaats it. Oh fuuuck, you’re so pretty baby. So pretty cumming for me like this” he moaned

You stared back up at him, eyes slightly wet and glossy from having him down your throat. With a finger under your chin, he guided your lips back up to his. As he kissed you, he gently pushed you back on your back and you spread your legs for him. He wanted to tease you still, catching you while you're still a babbling mess. He rubs your clit as he pushes himself inside you. It was overwhelming at first, and you clenched around his cock.

“Javi…I-I oh fuck your gonna make me cum again” you squealed

“Good. Tell me who makes you feel good hmm?”

“Y-you Javier ok. You win you win you win, I fuck, I-I…”

“Go on. Say it. Say it to me.”

“I want you. Not just, not just like hooking up…I want all of you please…please…”

The admission stumbled out of you and you almost regretted it as you said it but Javier simply smiled. As he pumped into, he leaned down and kissed you

“Ohh I want you too. I have for a while.”

His passion overtook him and he sped up his hips. He was practically possessed, letting his brain go numb as he continued to drill into you. Your fucked out face gawked at him, continuously looking at his face and then at the place where his cock had entered you. The feeling of pleasure consumed you, he felt so full and deep in you. You never wanted this to end and neither did he. Javier kissed you frantically, savoring you.

“That’s all I really wanted this whole time. To know you wanted me too.” He whispered

You nodded and he pumped into you more deliberately.

“Christ baby you feel so good. Not gonna last much longer.”

Mhmm go on. Fill me up. Fuck pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…” you beg over and over again until he came. His cum spilled into you, feeling warm and filling. He took a moment to catch his breath, kissing all over your face as he did.

“Mmm Javier, we’re going to be in so much trouble…” you muffled as he kissed you

“You really think…” he kissed you “that we should worry about that” he kissed you again “right now. In this moment”

You sighed against him and shook your head

“I hope you have a plan for figuring this out.”

“You know I’ll figure it out baby.” He smiled cockily

He cupped your face and continued to kiss you over and over again. You slowly melted into his touch and so did your anxiety. At that moment you didn’t care. You had him, as much as you had tried to resist him, you wanted him and now, now you had him.

꧁✹❂✹꧂



[shurislover]

Private But Not A Secret

Letitia x Black Reader

a lil soft launch , been in my drafts forever

warnings : none just Tish talking bout her baby 🥺

“ Alright so now we have the Wakanda Forever questions out the way. Let’s talk about your personal life, what do you enjoy doing on your free time ?”- The interviewer questioned

“ Aw man I really enjoy being out with my friends , I used to be such a homebody and now i’m trying to go out and have some fun. “

“ A night out with friends is always fun. I recently seen you were out in Jamaica. How was that ?”

“ Jamaica is so nice , I absolutely love being there. I definitely will be making plans to go there again this year. Have you been to Jamaica? “ - Letitia questioned

“ I’m actually going in 2 weeks , i’ve never been so i’m very excited to go“

“ You’re going to absolutely love it, and make sure try the KFC there , it’s so much better “- Letitia smiled

“ Definitely will be trying that . Now you know you have some very nosy fans as soon as they heard they could leave me questions to ask you they blew up my comments. I’m gonna ask you the main three I kept seeing. Is Ms Letitia Wright in a relationship?”

Letitia laughed and shook her head

“ Y’all so nosy “ - She laughed. Letitia felt her cheeks get hot as she started thinking about you.

“ Hmm. Should I tell you guys ? You know what, I’m gonna spill the beans, it’s been long enough I’ve been with my beautiful girlfriend for 2 years and she’s my everything. Crazy because our anniversary is today “- Letitia nodded

“For starters happy anniversary you two. Could you tell us more about her? What is she like ? Will we get to see her any time soon ?”

“ She’s the love of my life. I honestly cant imagine life without her. That woman is everything to me. We actually were childhood best friends, I lost contact with her once I moved to the UK. Then at the first Black Panther Premiere we ran into each other and honestly the rest is history. Two years ago today I asked her to be my girlfriend. It was such a nice set up, took her to Paris and asked her to be my girlfriend under the Eiffel Tower. And to answer the last question I will be keeping my baby private.

“ How come ?”-

“ I’m a very private person when it comes to my personal life. I want my baby to have a normal life. I want to make sure she’s safe when she’s not around me. I don’t want my nosy fans in her DMs or making her comments all about me since she does her little thing with TikTok , Youtube & Instagram. It was a mutual decision to keep it private and honestly keeping it private has been so nice, nobody bothering us or tagging us in each others posts and what not. I really love it. “

“ I get that 100 % , sometimes fans take it too far and it just ruins everything. I’m so glad you found someone who truly makes you happy. Where do you guys see yourselves in 5 years ?”

“ Married for sure , I can’t wait to marry her . Everyday she gives me a reason why I need to put a ring on her finger now. Hmm in 5 years maybe a baby. I believe she’d be a good mom, she’s amazing with my little sister, everytime I see them interact my heart jumps. Besides that I would love more roles in movies “

“ So what i’m hearing is the next time I interview you , Ms. Letitia Wright will be married with a baby on the way ?”

“ Depends on when you interview me but yes married and a baby on the way. “

“ Cant wait to see that and I’m wishing you and your girlfriend the best. Next question , did you ever expect to blow up on tiktok ?”

“ Honestly no , it was a shock to me. The whole world is crushing on me, you got everyone calling me their girlfriend or wife I think it’s cute. I don’t mind them at all, i really appreciate them. So many fans take so much time making edits and things like that I love them “

“ These fans really love you , okay so last question , can we expect anything new for you after Wakanda Forever ?”

“ Yes of course I can’t really tell you guys much I have two movies dropping soon and I’m very excited for everyone to watch. One movie i filmed a while back and this new movie is something new and I think you’ll love it.”

“ Cant wait to see your new projects , thank you so much for being here today and sharing everything with us. Hope to see you soon and enjoy your anniversary.

“ Thank you and I will be seeing you soon showing you wedding pictures and sonograms” - Letitia laughed

—-

babyboo 💍

you did amazing in your interview baby, come home soon i got dinner planned. i love you and travel safely

mi amor 🤭

love u so much baby, i’m in the uber on the way home. I picked you up a surprise. see you when I get home

letitiawright posted a video !

liked by dominiquethorne and 18,765 others

letitiawright my first love 😮‍💨

dreyamac finally !! been waiting for this

ayrastarr happy for you tish , cant wait to meet her

im.angelabassett miss you both

lupitanyongo oh ? so this is who you were blushing about on facetime ?

michaelbjordan happy for you lil sis

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[herotome]

Devlog #125

Hi-ho, Wudge here! Gosh! I missed last week's update.

Happy holidays from Herotome!!

I haven't drawn anything this year-- oh but hmm, I could do a quick edit, here -

Tadah! For anyone who hasn't already seen it, we got those 50 reblogs to make Warden shirtless! A pure version without the christmas lights went up yesterday, just scroll down my blog a bit or check out the #ro: warden hashtag.

I'm pleased with how much mileage I'm already getting from this picture, ha.

Anyway.

Seems like I'm gonna be focused on writing new scenes and drawing expressions for a while. They're some of the more tedious tasks for me, so I'll certainly be looking for every opportunity to do other things on the side - like coding.

Today I've decided that the LI sprites should have their eyebrows on a separate layer from the rest of their face, to offer me the greatest amount of variety in creating new expressions - and I've come up with a naming system for it, too!

I'm looking forward to implementing this. Eyebrow shapes have much, much less variety compared to mouth shapes, so I might even finish drawing every possible eyebrow for every LI sometime soon. I've already gotten a strong start with Warden and Mia's eyebrows.

Speaking of, I did turn in more expressions over on Ko-Fi!

Tadah!! Thank you again to everyone who has donated so far!

I'm realizing that in the set dedicated to Dia, Warden and Mia have the same mouth shape on the upper right side... A fascinating subconscious decision on my part.

Outside of art, I did write... once. Er, it went pretty okay. I'm usually the biggest hater of my first drafts.

I think my goal is gonna be to show off the abilities of all the characters as equally as I can; Warden and Jade have had their time to shine (during the job fair and flying MC home, respectively), and I think MC, Griffin, and Mia are gonna be queued up next.

I'll put the rest under a cut for potential spoilers and further rambling - as always, if you don't see the cut, make sure to check out my blog directly!

I have a good idea of what I wanna do with Griffin (it may or may not involve obliterating your rent debt, and I may or may not have written about that in the first-draft-I-don't-hate).

I've been thinking that this scene would involve a change of clothes btw, and did some fashion concepts for Griffin that I also don't hate;

I'm not super sure what I'm gonna do for Mia's eventual ~special show-off scene~, but I'm sure it will come to me.

For MC, I want to show off her relationship with the city, and showcase how qualified she is for the job in a low-key way. I recently discussed with a friend how Men in Black is a huge source of inspiration for me... Y'all know the scene where Will Smith has his interview and did things differently from all the other candidates?? I kinda wanna capture that vibe...!

And ah... I think that's about it, Herotome-wise.

Wudge-wise, honesty hour - I've had ssssome mild health concerns this year.

I don't want to go into detail; I want to say it's been like... nothing life threatening, thankfully, but a lot of small physical inconveniences that pile up and make it harder to concentrate.

I did rest a lot last week so no worries. <3 It's just that parts of my body have been weird and annoying, and I think it's helpful to acknowledge that the flesh prison can be a weird and annoying place. But I value it! And I'm doing my best to take care of it. Health comes first, etc, etc.

With this new year, I hope you guys take care of yourselves as best as you can, too. The person who's most qualified to take care of you is you!!!

Stay safe and keep warm,

Wudge.

[midnight-bay-if]

I played the demo today, and so far I love it!

As expected, Taj is my favorite character so far, and it's unlikely this will change anytime soon!

But one character that has me very intrigued too and that isn't among the ROs is Hunter. I don't know what to make of him, and I feel like he isn't just a rando... Makes me curious about how important or not of a choice is agreeing ouright to the "date" or refusing first and the MC agreeing only for a lack of choice... Any hints or facts you could drop about him? Because I'm equally wary and intrigued atm!

Other than that, I had a small issue on my playthrough that may or may not be a coding error: at the crime scene, when Alek finds MC is there, if I pick the option to apologize, it directly skips to Rain stepping between Alek and MC, and I feel like something is missing there? Especially considering the other options actually elaborate on what happens / what is said.

And that aside, I was also wondering if you'd consider rephrasing a bit the segment that sets off the character customization? I know it may come off as very nitpicky, but the narration says MC looks at their reflection and sees their 7 years old self. But it bothers me a bit that it implies MC's hair didn't change length in all these years, as it's pretty common to cut or let your hair grow between the time you're a kid and the time you're an adult. I sure know I had always long hair as a kid but now I never let it grow past ear length. And since we can decide if MC dyed their hair, it would only make sense to decide what is their current hair length, I think?

Sorry if it seems TOO nitpicky - I just couldn't help but be a bit bothered by that!

I'm really glad you enjoyed the demo! It means a lot to me that anyone would consider playing and then sharing their thoughts. it's very much appreciated.

Taj is definitely fun to write, so I can see why so many people are drawn to them, too.

Hunter is definitely an interesting one, but their story will be important, so your instincts are right, haha. What are some facts about Hunter I can share without being spoilery... hmm...

Hunter enjoys it when you're combative. The angrier you get, the happier he gets.

He genuinely enjoys the MC.

He's older than he looks.

He's not from Albach Bay, and he hates it there.

He's often a contrarian, not out of any genuine belief but out of amusement.

Hopefully, this will help you gather some more thoughts on Hunter, lol.

Thank you so much for pointing out the issue you mentioned. Unfortunately, it was just the result of my awful ADHD brain. I added that choice pretty last minute because I felt the other choices weren't sincere enough for the reader who was playing as a kind MC. In the midst of editing, I added that choice, intending to go back to it and add the rest. Like a dummy, I completely forgot, haha. It's fixed now, though. Thanks!

And as for your suggestion, it isn't too nitpicky to point out what you didn't gel with, haha. When writing it, I concentrated more on players who would choose to dye their hair, having a clear distinction between that and their natural hair colour. It just made sense to group the hair customisation together at that time. However, as a compromise, perhaps I can make it clear that the reflection the MC is looking at may not be an accurate depiction of what they looked like as a child, but instead an image based on how they look now since their memories of childhood are skewed.

Let me know.

Anyway, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts :)

[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Episode 92: Brunch, gonna, and fozzle - The smooshing episode

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode ‘Brunch, gonna, and fozzle - The smooshing episode. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about smooshing words together. But first, our most recent bonus episode was about secret codes, ciphers, Hildegard von Bingen, cryptography, cryptic crosswords, and Morse code romance. You can listen to it at patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

Gretchen: Also on Patreon, we have 80-plus other bonus episodes on things like swearing and linguistics in fiction and other behind-the-scenes things from Lingthusiasm.

Lauren: Bonus episodes are around the same length as main episodes, but we sometimes do slightly different things like a deep dive into a single academic paper or AMAs and updates on our other projects. Sometimes, we get a little bit silly.

Gretchen: We run on the direct support of our listeners, which means we don’t have to run ads. If you’d like to help us keep existing and making these free episodes for everyone, we’d really appreciate it if you’d consider becoming a patron. Or if you were a patron for a while, and you had to leave for a bit, we’d also love to see you back. There are more bonus episodes for you to enjoy now!

[Music]

Lauren: Gretchen, I have some words that are made up of two other words. I’m going to make you guess what the other two words are that they’re made up from.

Gretchen: Okay, sounds fun.

Lauren: Our first word is “motel.”

Gretchen: Ah, this one I know. This is a “motor hotel.”

Lauren: It is, indeed, because you can drive your car all the way up to the door of your room.

Gretchen: Absolutely. I assume this was invented around when the car became popular, I guess.

Lauren: I had thought that it was maybe a mid-century, being in the ’50s or ’60s when cars really took off, but apparently the earliest citation is from 1925.

Gretchen: That is earlier than I thought it was. Okay, next word.

Lauren: “Smog.”

Gretchen: “Smog.” Yes. This one I know – from “smoke” and “fog,” right?

Lauren: It is indeed that disgusting, thick combination of smoke and fog. That’s from 1905 – a particularly disgusting winter in London.

Gretchen: Also earlier than I expected.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. “Brunch.”

Gretchen: “Brunch.” Now, that is definitely a modern word from “breakfast” and “lunch.” I do it all the time.

Lauren: An absolutely indispensable part of my vocabulary, but it is from 1896.

Gretchen: 1896? They were having brunch in 1896. I love it!

Lauren: Yeah, because it is a very useful concept.

Gretchen: It is, indeed. Okay, I’m feeling really good about these portmanteaus so far. Hit me with another one.

Lauren: “Mizzle.”

Gretchen: Ooo, “mizzle.” I wanna say that one’s from “mist” and “drizzle”?

Lauren: It is, actually. Nice work.

Gretchen: It’s really giving me Ms. Frizzle vibes.

Lauren: If Ms. Fizzle wanted to be more efficient, she’d become “mizzle.”

Gretchen: Yeah. I have no idea how old that one is. Because all of these have been much older than I was expecting, so maybe it dates to around “smog,” I dunno.

Lauren: No, this one is much more recent. It’s one of those late-20th Century / early-21st Century as part of this explosion of these kind of words. The next one is “fozzle.”

Gretchen: “Fozzle.” That’s definitely a Muppet.

Lauren: It does sound like a Muppet name, doesn’t it? Something fuzzy.

Gretchen: Yeah, okay, no, that’s Fozzie Bear, okay. It’s a fake nozzle. It’s a fuzzy nozzle. Fuzzy nozzle is my final answer.

Lauren: Think of it in the context of “mizzle.”

Gretchen: Oh, um, wait, okay, could it be “fog” and “drizzle”?

Lauren: It is, indeed. Lots of subtle gradations on weather, apparently, require a more nuanced creation of new blend words.

Gretchen: I have never heard anyone call it “fozzle.”

Lauren: Great, good. Our final one is “brinkles.”

Gretchen: “Brinkles.” I wanna say, you know, inspired by “brunch,” that’s “breakfast sprinkles”?

Lauren: That does actually sound delicious.

Gretchen: You guys have fairy bread in Australia. That’s sprinkles on bread. That could be breakfast sprinkles, yeah? No?

Lauren: The list that I took it from has it as “bed wrinkles.”

Gretchen: Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That’s much less fun. I don’t care about bed wrinkles at all. I want some breakfast sprinkles.

Lauren: I deliberately chose some very effective classics and some maybe not-so-effective failures, but we are living in this era of portmanteau word explosions. I guess an explosion goes outward, and it’s more like an implosion of two words coming together to create some new word.

Gretchen: There’s a lot of different ways that words can get smooshed together – to use the very technical term of “smooshing.” I wanna say that in some ways “smooshing” is not a technical term, but I have actually been to a linguistics workshop where people were talking about words like “smooshing” into each other and “glomming” onto each other.

Lauren: Oh, “glom.”

Gretchen: Mm, “glom.” It’s not that this is never used, actually, despite seeming a bit silly. It’s tempting, when we’re looking at a dictionary-style sense of words, to think of them as these atomic units that have these clear, white spaces between them. But in practicality, words are often getting smooshed together, squished together, these very visceral [squish noises] words.

Lauren: It sounds unpleasantly messy to my mind, but I guess we’ll stick with it.

Gretchen: Would you say it “squicks” you out, for another one?

Lauren: It “squicks” me out a little bit, for sure.

Gretchen: Okay. I find them very delightful. I think it’s really vivid and, you know, like “slime” that all the kids are into these days.

Lauren: And, as we’ll discover in this episode, incredibly useful words are constantly coming together, crashing into each other, smooshing together as part of the process of how language grows and changes.

Gretchen: It’s a really fun concept. Portmanteaus are one relatively vivid example of smooshing because we’re often still aware of “breakfast” and “lunch” or “motor” and “hotel.” You can see the connection for how they came to smoosh together very vividly.

Lauren: In this episode, we’re gonna look at two very different kinds of linguistic smooshing and how bringing together sounds and meanings in different ways can affect the way that language is used and how it changes.

Gretchen: We did, ages ago, an episode about several different kinds of linguistic nothings, about different ways that aspects of nothing or silence or absence of a thing can mean something. Those came from a whole bunch of different areas. When we were talking about different kinds of linguistic smooshing, that also seemed like a chance to talk about different types of linguistic phenomena that all have this thing in common where the words glom onto each other.

Lauren: We couldn’t help but start with the portmanteau.

Gretchen: Absolutely. The thing that fascinates me about portmanteaus is that some of them really work, like “frenemy,” that’s great. What a good and useful combination which, surprisingly, dates back to 1891.

Lauren: I feel like it’s one of those such satisfying combinations that I’d be unsurprised to discover people have coined it and coined it again.

Gretchen: Yeah, because it’s got this great sense of dissonance between frenemies, but yeah, the OED has it from 1891, even though it feels very modern – to modern-day “Kenergy” or “Kenough” from Ken in the Barbie movie. Portmanteaus are still going. We’re still coining them.

Lauren: English in particular seems particularly prone to them.

Gretchen: I have encountered some examples of portmanteaus in Spanish. If you’re combining English and Spanish in the same sentence, some people might refer to that as “Spanglish” in English. But I’m told that you can also call “Espanglish” in Spanish.

Lauren: Oh, that’s very satisfying. The portmanteau works in both languages so similarly.

Gretchen: I have also come across “amigovio,” which is from “amigo” and “novio,” so that’s “friend” and “boyfriend” or “girlfriend,” to refer to, you know, some relationship that’s got a few aspects of both – maybe friend-with-benefits type thing.

Lauren: Ah, yeah. I do like how portmanteaus pop up when there’s this really satisfying meaning that’s carved out of the two words that come together. They often do fill these cultural niches for some period of time.

Gretchen: Exactly. There’s a really fun Wikipedia article for “blend words,” which is the more technical linguistic term for what’s popularly known as “portmanteau” that has lots of fun examples in various languages. We’re not just gonna read a Wikipedia article to you, but if you want to go click on that, you can.

Lauren: I think “blend” really highlights how you’re blending together the sounds at the end of one word and the beginning of another word, but you’re also blending together the semantics of both of those words.

Gretchen: Do you wanna hear my favourite example of an absolutely multi-step, amazing blend in English?

Lauren: Sure.

Gretchen: Okay. Do you know the word “brot3”?

Lauren: Uh, I absolutely do not. Is that a robot?

Gretchen: This is not R2D2’s cousin.

Lauren: My favourite Star Wars character when people ask now, I’m gonna say, “It’s brot3.”

Gretchen: This is a very Tumblr-in-the-2010s word, I will say, which dates me.

Lauren: I think it’s also good to point out that cultures can be the entirety of English when it comes to “motel” or Tumblr in the 2010s when it comes to “brot3.”

Gretchen: It starts with an acronym, which is “OTP,” which stands for “one true pairing.”

Lauren: Okay, acronym, another classic 20th Century obsession of English.

Gretchen: Absolutely. People who would say, “Oh, these two characters on this show” – or in this book or movie – “I think they should get together. They’re my one true pairing.” Things like that. But then this takes on a hyperbolic meaning, so it doesn’t have to be an actual one pairing that I think is the best, it can just be like, “I think these two characters should get together” or it would be interesting if they got together. Then people start saying, “Well, what if three characters got together?” So, instead of an “OTP,” you had an “OT3”?

Lauren: Mm-hmm, I’m following.

Gretchen: Yeah. But then, if you want three characters to interact in more of a platonic way, maybe like they’re bros, you could then have a “Bro-T3,” which is where the portmanteau part comes in.

Lauren: Amazing. So many processes happening to create this one lexical item.

Gretchen: It’s beautiful, and I love it.

Lauren: And, again, really carving out this particular cultural need. That’s part of what makes a successful portmanteau successful. There’s some really great work from Constantine Lignos and Hilary Prichard where they quantified what makes a good blend word, which I thought was really great. Some of those words I chose for you at the start, Gretchen, came from their less-successful list.

Gretchen: I thought those were very unsuccessful words like “fozzle” and “brinkles.”

Lauren: They also had on that list “wonut.”

Gretchen: “Wonut.” Uh. Oh, wait.

Lauren: It’s not a sad donut.

Gretchen: It’s a donut full of woe. It’s a sad donut. Okay, no, wait, it’s probably like a “waffle donut”?

Lauren: Yeah. In the vein of the “cronut,” the croissant donut, there was this – or it still is an ongoing combination of carb-based bakery foods that tend to get portmanteaued.

Gretchen: Yeah, okay, I dunno. The cronut is fine, but I don’t think wonuts are gonna happening any time soon.

Lauren: And “wegotism.”

Gretchen: No.

Lauren: I love that you refuse to even try and define it for me. You’re just like, “Whatever that is – no.”

Gretchen: I mean, I guess it’s from “we” and “egotism,” but I don’t like it.

Lauren: Yeah, it’s egotism but for more than one person. There’s nothing like seeing a portmanteau that falls flat to make you appreciate how satisfying a really good one is.

Gretchen: Tell me some other good ones. Please wash my brain out of this.

Lauren: Some of the good ones include “mathlete,” “guestimate,” and “mockumentary.”

Gretchen: All really satisfying in a way that “wegotism” just doesn’t do it for me.

Lauren: That’s because you can understand them, and you can figure them out from their constituent parts without needing me to prompt you that we’re talking about baked goods or weather.

Gretchen: One of the other ones that they pointed out as a – I’ll let you guess whether this was a good or a bad example, but I think it’ll be pretty obvious – was “groutfit.”

Lauren: A “groutfit.” Is that when you have an outfit with lots of tiling grout holding it together?

Gretchen: Well, this is the point they make in the paper is “Is it a green outfit, a grey outfit, a great outfit?”

Lauren: No, it’s a “grout-outfit.”

Gretchen: That’s the only version that’s satisfying.

Lauren: If you had an outfit that was made of grout, that would be a very satisfying blend word.

Gretchen: You can dress like that for Halloween.

Lauren: I feel like that’s low on what they call “applicability.” It’s not very applicable to many contexts except maybe if you’re at a fancy dress party for tilers.

Gretchen: If anyone has any pictures of internet groutfits, we do want to see them. One of their factors is understandability, which “groutfit” fails on if it stands for “green” or “grey” or “great.” And another factor is applicability, which “groutfit” fails on if it stands for “grout” and “outfit.”

Lauren: A word has to fit your mouth in a really satisfying way that “guestimate” and “mockumentary” do. The overlap there is so nice, and it feels like a real word.

Gretchen: It has this sense of it feels English-y already. It feels like it’s typical of the language. It helps – and think this is a really interesting factor when it comes to portmanteaus – if the combined words share a syllable or at least a sound, especially a vowel sound. So, “glitterati,” “gaydar, “hacktivism” – all really great.

Lauren: There’s a nice, big, clear hinge at the two points of the word.

Gretchen: You have that “litter” – “glitterati,” which goes from “glitter” to “litterati.” You’ve got a whole “litter” for them to overlap at, which is great, whereas something like, what do you think of “legacyquel”?

Lauren: “Lega- legacy” – “legacy” is a word, and “sequel” is a word, but there’s too much overlap there for my mouth and brain to cope with.

Gretchen: Also, they’re spelled very differently, the C in “legacy” is with C-Y, versus S-E for “sequel,” which makes it look really weird on the page.

Lauren: I’ve just looked at where you’ve written that down on the page, and like, I didn’t even look at that as an English word.

Gretchen: Yeah, it’s really bad. How do you feel about “privelobliviousness”?

Lauren: It sounds like a very fancy word, and it looks like an absolute car crash written down.

Gretchen: It just doesn’t look like the other words that we have in English. Or “gymtimidation.”

Lauren: Again, I think with English it’s such a writing-based language that for any portmanteau to have legs, it has to be satisfying written down as well as spoken.

Gretchen: They also had “condesplaining” in their list, which I will grant, written down, doesn’t look too bad, but yeah, I dunno.

Lauren: I think that’s because a lot of the time another thing that blends have going for them is that they’re fun.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: It’s a fun and playful thing, and “condesplaining” is not necessarily a thing you’ll use in a fun way.

Gretchen: I mean, like “mansplaining” has definitely caught on, but it doesn’t have that extra syllable of “condesplaining,” which really makes the word seem more insufferable. But their examples of fun words like “Sharknado” and “sheeple,” I’m like, “Yeah!”

Lauren: Yeah, I think portmanteaus are definitely a kind of word play, and the more novel-but-satisfying a portmanteau you can come up with, the better a success that is.

Gretchen: I first got introduced to the linguistic analysis of portmanteaus through a paper by a linguist that I knew in grad school named Cara DiGirolamo. She was analysing specifically fandom pairing names. This is things like if you have Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, and you call them “Johnlock” or something like that. She was analysing, in particular, names from the TV show “Glee,” which was popular at the time, and how the fans talked about various combinations of wanting those characters to get together by combining their names into portmanteaus.

Lauren: Right. A very useful activity for people deep in this particular fandom.

Gretchen: And a very useful activity for linguists because sometimes it’s hard to come up with, okay, we need these two words to combine with each other, and then we also need it to have a plausible meaning, and so on and so forth, whereas with the characters, you can just pick any two characters and be like, “What if they were a couple?” You can end up with these phonologically implausible combinations because, obviously, the creators of the show weren’t thinking, “Oh, I’ve got to name my characters stuff that will be combined well.”

Lauren: Of course, this is why big linguistics bankrolls major TV and pop culture so that we can create the conditions in which we can study the ways that people blend character names to create fandom pairings.

Gretchen: Absolutely I wish that was the case.

Lauren: I assume this is how she collected her data.

Gretchen: I think she may have been hanging out with the fandom, to be fair, at the time.

Lauren: Right, okay, was more of an anthropological observation thing than billionaire-media-mogul-creates-natural-experiment thing.

Gretchen: Please, if there are any billionaire media moguls listening who want to fund this research –

Lauren: Have we got some natural experiments for you to run.

Gretchen: We can connect you with some grad students. She has this really fun case study of the two characters Rachel Berry and Quinn Fabray, who various members of the fandom wanted to get together. At first, they made their pairing name “Quichel,” which is from “Quinn” and “Rachel.”

Lauren: Okay, I guess it is – “Quinn” and “Rachel.” “Quichel”? “Quichel.”

Gretchen: Yeah, well, so it’s sort of fine if you say it out loud, but if you write it down, a lot of people see it, and they think “quiche,” like the food.

Lauren: Oh, “quiche” – “Quiche-el.” Yum?

Gretchen: Yeah, but not exactly like the connotation that they were trying to convey. The fandom actually decided that “Quichel,” “Quiche-el,” was too difficult of a pairing name combination to have. They held a vote for what should be the replacement name for referring to the combination of these two characters.

Lauren: Very democratic.

Gretchen: They ended up with “Faberry.”

Lauren: “Faberry”?

Gretchen: Which does have this nice B overlap. Because remember if two words have a sound in common, you can overlap them at that common sound from “Fabray” and “Berry” to “Faberry.” She used this poll to argue for, okay, “What are the criteria that people are using to figure out whether a combination feels satisfying or not?” One of those is pronunciation, but another one of those is “Does the spelling seem to correspond to that?” using English’s notoriously irregular spelling system.

Lauren: So, that stuck, and they stopped being called “quiche.”

Gretchen: Apparently, yeah.

Lauren: So good.

Gretchen: No more “quiche.”

Lauren: The playfulness of blends fits into their origin in a lot of ways. People have been playing around with this way of doing things in English off and on for a long time. As we said, definitely, the 20th Century was the rise of the portmanteau, but Lewis Carroll is generally credited with making them something quite popular with his 1872 poem “The Jabberwocky.”

Gretchen: So, “Jabberwocky” starts, “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves / Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: / All mimsy were the borogroves, / And the mome raths outgrabe.” This is a poem of mostly nonsense words in between normal English function words like “the” and “and.” You can tell what they’re supposed to do, but you don’t actually know what a “borogrove” or a “rath” or a “slithy tove” looks like.

Lauren: Some of these words were the combination of two other words.

Gretchen: Right. So, “slithy” is from “sly” and “filthy.”

Lauren: That’s interesting because I pronounce it as /slaɪði/.

Gretchen: Oh, I mean, apparently Lewis Carroll wants people to say /slaɪði/. I just looked at it and said /slɪθi/ because that’s what it looked like to me, which is, again, an example of how English orthography is not necessarily a guide to how to actually pronounce something. This shows up in portmanteaus a lot. He also really wanted it to be /gæɹ̩ ænd gɪmbl̩ ɪn ðə wɛɪb/ but like, I instinctively pronounce that /d͡ʒæɹ̩ ænd d͡ʒɪmbl̩/, so you know, this is one of the things that happens with coining a word is that you don’t necessarily retain control of it.

Lauren: What’s really interesting is that some of his portmanteaus from the poem have stuck. So, “chortle,” which is generally considered a blend of “chuckle” and “snort,” has become a word that has its own life outside of “Jabberwocky” the poem now.

Gretchen: Carroll called these words “portmanteau words” because a “portmanteau” was, at the time, a relatively commonly used word in English to refer to a briefcase or a travelling case or a bag for clothes or other necessities and, originally, from French meaning a coat carrier, to carry a coat. The idea was, for him, that it was two meanings packed up into one word as if you put them in a little suitcase together.

Lauren: It’s so funny that we’ve kept the meaning of the word for words and not for transporting clothing.

Gretchen: It kind of is. I find – like, the technical linguistic term is “blend,” which is a very bland choice of like, “Okay, we’ve blended these two words together.” “Portmanteau” is interesting but also a bit obscure because we don’t use that word for suitcases anymore. We can call them “suitcase words,” I guess, but that also seems a little bit weird.

Lauren: I was devastated to discover that “portmanteau” is not actually a portmanteau. It’s long enough, and it has the feeling that it could be a blend of words, but it’s just actually a compound in French of like, “port,” “carry,” and “manteau,” “coat.” Disappointingly not a portmanteau.

Gretchen: I love it when words like this for, especially, silly linguistic phenomena are themselves examples of the type of thing they’re trying to describe. What if you could make a name for blends or portmanteaus that is itself a combination of two words? I dunno. “Blerd” for “blend word.”

Lauren: Aw, it’s hard when your portmanteau creates a word that is a word already. We have “blurred,” so that’s probably not –

Gretchen: That’s true.

Lauren: Or it just sounds terrible saying “wordbination.”

Gretchen: “Worbination,” “werbinate” – hmm.

Lauren: “Word” and “combine” don’t actually have anything in common. Trying to smoosh them together is an exercise in failure. It doesn’t help that “word” and “blend” are both words that are very short.

Gretchen: What are some other words that are related to words that are longer?

Lauren: I guess if you had a lot of blends – because they create a lot of utility in the way that we speak – you could say that a group of blends is a “flexicon.”

Gretchen: Ooo, like a “flexible lexicon.” It’s got this nice little “lex” combination there.

Lauren: I think I’m definitely stretching what could be relative to referencing a portmanteau word.

Gretchen: Yeah. And a “flexicon,” it’s a satisfying word as itself, but it doesn’t transparently connect to the meaning of a blended word or a smooshed together word or a combined word. I guess we have to keep calling them “portmanteaus” and “blends” because there isn’t a better self-defining option, but I wish there was.

Lauren: Do you know another word that’s a portmanteau word?

Gretchen: Many, but it sounds like you have one in mind.

Lauren: “Lingthusiasm.”

Gretchen: [Laughs] Oh, hey, of course it is! So, our podcast, in case you hadn’t noticed this from the byline is a combination of “linguistics” plus “enthusiasm.”

Lauren: It’s a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics.

Gretchen: We sure are. I think we did an okay job at coming up with this blend, but I will say it is a little bit hard to pronounce.

Lauren: It definitely writes better than it speaks.

Gretchen: Yeah, it writes better, but when I’ve tried to be on other podcasts or tell people about podcasts, I’m like “ＬＩＮＧ – ＴＨＵＳＩＡＳＭ.” I have to say it very carefully because having the /ŋ/ before the /θ/ is just sort of a lot.

Lauren: Yeah, that /ŋ/ is right on the back of your mouth, and /θ/ is just tucked in at the teeth there, so you’re moving really far through the mouth.

Gretchen: It’s ironic that, as a linguistics podcast, we have a name that is linguistically objectively difficult to say.

Lauren: What I enjoy about it, Gretchen, is it lets us see the different ways that people deal with this. Some people hyper-articulate and hit both the /ŋ/ and the /θ/. Some people just don’t even bother sending their tongue all the way back for that /ŋ/ sound, and instead just pronounce it something like /lɪnθʊziæsm/ or /lɪmfʊziæsm/ – I quite like that.

Gretchen: Or sometimes people introduce a bit of a K sound or a G sound in between to provide a transition the way that sometimes you hear people say /hæmpstɹ̩/ as “HAMP-STER” with a P even though there isn’t originally, etymologically a P there, but you can produce a P in /hæmpstɹ̩/ to help you say it. You can have like /lɪŋkθʊziæsm/, like give it a bit of a K there. All right, I’ll take it. It’s an interesting, fun linguistics experiment that we’re doing on everybody.

Lauren: The great thing is that this way that people either create that K by taking the /θ/ back a little bit or create a /n/ instead of a /ŋ/ and bring the tongue forward, this is a very common type of sound change process that creates another kind of smooshing.

Gretchen: This is our second kind of linguistic smooshing which is often happening within a word but sometimes happening between words when they’re said very close together and making the sounds more similar to each other.

Lauren: This is a process known as “assimilation,” which is a very useful, does-what-it-says word when it comes to linguistic sound processes.

Gretchen: “Assimilation,” as in the sounds become more similar to each other.

Lauren: Yeah. Not a great word in other contexts.

Gretchen: No, it has rather unfortunate social implications, doesn’t it.

Lauren: Yeah. People assimilation – not great. Sound assimilation – super common.

Gretchen: Very common. Really in, I think, basically all of the languages, at least languages that are actually being used by humans who have bodies in this day and age.

Lauren: We are efficient.

Gretchen: If you are learning to cook or something, and you’re a new cook, you’re gonna take your knife and chop the carrots in a very slow and awkward and clumsy process, whereas if you see a video of someone who’s very professional and they’re just like [chopping sounds] and doing this very efficient, smooth, no-wasted-movements process for chopping their onions or whatever, that’s what you’re doing with your tongue when you’re making the sounds just a little bit more similar to each other in order to make them a little bit easier to produce.

Lauren: You get these really interesting consistencies in the way that sounds get smooshed together.

Gretchen: Because we’re working with bodies that have very similar constraints. One of my favourite examples of linguistic assimilation is what happens with sounds like M and N in some contexts. Let me give you some words and tell me what they have in common.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: I have “inactive.” “inedible,” “imperfect,” “imbalance,” “independent,” “instable,” and “incurious.”

Lauren: They all start with I. I want to say they all have a prefix that means the same thing like “not.” You’re not edible; you’re not stable; you’re not cautious. They’re basically the same prefix. Some are N, and some are M.

Gretchen: Sometimes, we write this prefix like “im-” – “imperfect,” “imbalance,” “immaterial,” “immovable.” There’s loads of them. Sometimes, we write this prefix like “in-” like in “inactive,” “inedible,” and “incautious,” “infrequent.” But we pronounce it slightly differently, especially with that “IMperfect,” where it gets an M, versus “INdependent,” where it goes an N. This is because of the next sound.

Lauren: So, “imperfect,” we have a P. “Independent,” we have a D. P, like an M, is made with the lips, and D, like an N, is made just behind the teeth.

Gretchen: Exactly. In writing, we make this distinction between /m/ – M and N – but there’s actually a few more subtle differences in terms of how the sounds are made between “infrequent,” which you could say as /infɹikwɛnt/. But often, people actually move that N a little bit closer and pronounce it with the teeth on the lips as well as the F – /in̪fɹikwɛnt/.

Lauren: /in̪fɹikwɛnt/.

Gretchen: Or /in̪vəlɪd/.

Lauren: Congrats to everyone joining us on public transport or while out for a walk just going “Fuh-ree-kwent,” “Innnn-frekwent.”

Gretchen: Yeah, please make some sounds and make people next to you look at you a little bit funny. It’s fine. Welcome to the club. Or, you know, make it with your mouth and don’t articulate if you have to. There’s this /in̪fɹikwɛnt/ – and the same with something like /iŋkɑʃʌs/ or /iŋkəɹiʌs/, /iŋkəɹɛɪʃʌs/ where you tend to move the nasal sound – the N – to be more of an /ŋ/ like in “sing,” move it back to the same place that you’re constricting your tongue as with the /k/ sound – /iŋkɑʃʌs/. It’s like “ink-cautious” – “ing-cautious, “ing-conceivable.”

Lauren: It’s so interesting some of these turn up in the writing system, and some of them don’t and completely escape our notice.

Gretchen: The M is right there in writing, and so you have to remember, “Oh, you have to write it different,” but the pronunciation is right there and straightforward. Then the N in “incautious” or “incurious” is not there in the writing, but you know to pronounce it that way because it’s just easier to do even if no one’s actually told you. You’re just like, “Oh, well, that’s easier.” There’s a few that are just totally in the writing system. You also have words like “illegible” or “irreplaceable.”

Lauren: Because we’re just decided instead of saying, “IN-legible” or “IN-replaceable,” it’s just easier to make that one sound.

Gretchen: That’s just way too hard. These words – the “in-” prefix in English – goes back to Latin, so you find words like this in a whole bunch of languages that have gotten these words from Latin because already in Latin they were like, “Yeah, you just have to make it more similar. That’s what you do.”

Lauren: It’s not just in these prefixes that this assimilation happens because we saw with “LING-thusiasm,” it’s that same kind of thing with the nasal moving to accommodate for the next sound. Or my favourite, which is if you listen to pretty much anyone say the word “handbag” in rapid speech, a lot of the time it’ll become “HAM-bag,” as in –

Gretchen: The bag that you keep ham.

Lauren: The place where you store your ham. Mmm.

Gretchen: Mmm.

Lauren: But it’s pretty unlikely that you’ll be talking about ham storage situations at the same time as you’re talking about the purse that you grab every day, and so we don’t actually pay attention to the distinction because we normally don’t need to.

Gretchen: My favourite example of this is in the word “input,” which is not from the kind of “in-” that means “not,” because it’s not the opposite of “put” – you can either PUT something or you can IN-put it – it’s from the thing that you “put in,” where this other “in” means “inside of” and is not the same thing. But because it’s so hard to say “IN-put,” most of the time in rapid speech, people are actually saying /ɪmpʌt/.

Lauren: I feel like I often type “imput.”

Gretchen: Yeah, me, too! And then they underline it in the red squiggles, and I’m like, “No! C’mon, you know what I meant. This is the better way to spell it anyway.” There’s a bunch of Latin prefixes that do it like the Latin prefix “com-” as in “with.” You have “companion.”

Lauren: With an M.

Gretchen: Someone you break bread with – “com-pan.” There’s the M before the P. But “collect” – that “coll-” – the double L – is still a nasal that’s just been [whooshing noise] made to be like the L.

Lauren: Really? I’m so mad right now.

Gretchen: And “consume” – there it is as an N.

Lauren: Uh-huh, it’s not “com-sume” because that’s too hard to say.

Gretchen: Even “coordinate,” before a vowel, you just drop the following nasal entirely in that case.

Lauren: I’m also angry.

Gretchen: They’re all the same prefix. It just means “with.”

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: Same with the Greek prefix, which comes to us via Latin, “syn-” meaning “together.” So, “symphony,” where that M becomes like the P-H sound, the /f/, /sɪmfəni/. And “syntax.”

Lauren: As in –

Gretchen: All the same “syn-”.

Lauren: “Syn-” and “sym-” in “symphony” and “syntax” are the same.

Gretchen: They’re all the same “syn-”.

Lauren: Ugh, this thing with nasals turns up all over the place – and not just in English and Latin and Greek. We have links to papers in the shownotes to Jakarta Indonesian, Arsi-Bale Afan Oromo, and also Akan, which is a language of Guana. There are so many languages where this is a super common process.

Gretchen: This is basically if I found a language that had a nasal and then another consonant, and they didn’t assimilate, I’d be sort of surprised at this point.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. It’s so common that the phrase “homorganic nasal assimilation” is just one of those phrases that you pick up, and it sticks with you because it turns up again and again.

Gretchen: I like “homorganic nasal assimilation” because it seems really complicated, but you can break it down etymologically in a way that’s really satisfying. You have “hom-organic,” so that’s the “homo-” prefix meaning “same” and then the “same organ.” So, it’s the same part of the mouth – whether it’s the lips or just behind the teeth or towards the back of the roof of the mouth or various other places. You want to have the nasal sound be at the same spot in the mouth as the sound that’s coming after it.

Lauren: “Homorganic nasal assimilation.”

Gretchen: It’s really nice.

Lauren: Very satisfying. Of course, not the only process of assimilation. There are a lot of these processes that happen. They happen with vowels getting more similar to each other.

Gretchen: We did a whole episode about the kind of assimilation that happens with C and G before different vowels, like why C and G seem to come in hard and soft versions, unlike most of the other consonants, because they tend to be affected and made more similar to the next vowel that’s coming after them.

Lauren: And rest assured that signers as well as speakers are good at being efficient when it comes to articulation. You get assimilation in signed languages as well.

Gretchen: There’s a really interesting video from 1913 – which has got to be some of the older videos of signed languages – about this signer named George Veditz in his film called, “The Preservation of American Sign Language.” It shows him signing the old ASL word “remember.” In this video from over a hundred years ago, he’s signing it starting with an open hand at the forehand, and then the hand would come down and close into a fist, and the thumb would touch the top of the other thumb from the non-dominant hand. Now, it’s just the thumb at the forehead to the thumb touching the other hand, both in fists the whole time. You can see videos of this. We’ll link to it in the description.

Lauren: It’s such a charming old video. He just has this olde-y time-y – the footage is old, but he also does this little head nod while he’s doing it. It’s incredibly charming. But as you said, you go from having the open hand to a fist with the thumb, and now, over a century of assimilating the handshape, people just go from the thumb at the forehead to the thumb down at the other thumb.

Gretchen: It’s an example of making it more efficient by not changing the movement midway through the sign.

Lauren: You see a lot of these changes in signed articulation where people will just keep the same handshape, or they won’t change location for a sign where the position of the body might have moved in an older version of it to keep things efficient.

Gretchen: I think it’s neat to look at the sign examples because, when we write words down, it’s not always clear that M and P have this particular relationship of both being produced with the lips. You have to go back and think about that as a speaker. A lot of sounds happen inside the mouth so that can’t really see them very well. You can see the signs becoming more similar to each other in a way that’s obscured for us by writing systems sometimes.

Lauren: Writing systems are really holding us back when it comes to thinking about assimilation because they’re so conservative. We really lose a lot as written language users when it comes to keeping track with changes that are happening in speech but don’t necessarily reflect well in the writing system.

Gretchen: Sometimes, we do start writing words in ways that correspond more closely to how they’re being spoken. I’m thinking of words like “gonna” and “hafta,” which have been respelled from “going to” and “have to.” I don’t think very many people at all say, “I HAVE to go to the store.” You might say, “I have TWO donuts,” but “I HAF to go to the store.”

Lauren: But you definitely can’t write “gonna” or “hafta” in a school essay.

Gretchen: No, they’re not part of this formal register, but they’re very much part of the texting or social media or informal written register, and there are relatively consistent ways of writing them even though they’re not formalised. Like, “gonna” tends to be written with two Ns, “gotta” with two Ts, “wanna” also with two Ns. They have these consistent ways of spelling them even though they’re part of this informal writing register.

Lauren: It’s interesting to watch this little “to” here, this function word, which, if you say it by itself, you get the full word.

Gretchen: “Going to.”

Lauren: But when it is in these quicker phrases, you can see that it’s getting squished into the previous word. That sound is being assimilated, and that vowel “to,” which is very much at the back of the mouth with the tongue, but it gets more and more towards the middle, and the lips get less and less rounded as it becomes less articulated.

Gretchen: Yeah, it gets more and more of a neutral, default /ə/ vowel – the schwa vowel – which is the least extreme of anything your mouth can be doing. It’s the most efficient vowel that you just say if you’re making an “uh” – like making a grunt sound or an “uh,” a neutral sound. It gets made to be the easiest thing to do because these words are super high frequency, we’re saying them all the time, and you don’t really need that added information of what else could it be in that context. So, “going to” becomes “gon tuh” becomes “gon na.”

Lauren: This reduction that constantly goes on is part of how language gets used. It’s like a path that we continue to wear down, and things become more assimilated through that phonetic process, and they start to lose particularly clear meaning, and then you create this ability for the language to generate things that eventually just become part of the grammar or part of a single word through this smooshing.

Gretchen: It’s a trajectory from very concrete words to very abstract, grammaticalised words, so from something that means like, “go,” as in physically move to a place, versus something that just means a generalised, abstract concept of “future.” So, “I’m going to the store” is physically moving to place, whereas “I’m gonna bake a cake” is a notion of future that doesn’t mean that I’m going to walk to the cake in the same way.

Lauren: I love it when you eventually get to it’s totally fine to say, “I am going to come,” and it’s just like, if you think about them in their semantic sense, it’s a contradiction, but this happens across languages. The future is often created in this way. If a language didn’t have a future tense, it will create one through this process.

Gretchen: Or sometimes create a second, bonus, extra future.

Lauren: You can never have too much future. You get this reduction in the sound. You get this reduction in how much meaning is in a word, and it becomes less concrete and more abstract.

Gretchen: Or sort of, yeah, a reduction in terms of how much concrete meaning but an enhancement in terms of the ability to express more abstract concepts.

Lauren: Well, yeah, it becomes a very useful part of something that becomes more grammatical.

Gretchen: My favourite example of this process and how cyclic it is is the French word “aujourd'hui.” “Aujourd'hui” in French means “today.”

Lauren: Great.

Gretchen: That’s just what it means. If you look at it, and you have a little bit of French, you might say, okay, “aujourd'hui,” we could break that down. The “au” means “at the” or “on the” – itself smooshing from “à le,” but we’re gonna ignore that. The “jour” part means “day.” Great. Itself also a smooshing from something in Latin, but we’re also gonna ignore that.

Lauren: Yeah, it’s smooshing all the way down.

Gretchen: It’s smooshing all the way down. There’s really so much smooshing smooshed into this one word. The “d’” – the D + apostrophe – is from “de,” which is itself, again, smooshing – it means “of.”

Lauren: Oh, I’m shocked.

Gretchen: So, these are fairly well known French words if you break them down. And then you have this last part which is spelled H-U-I. It’s pronounced /wi/ – “Aujourd'hui.”

Lauren: I’m gonna guess, Gretchen, that that’s been smooshed down from something.

Gretchen: Oh, Lauren, you’re so right. “Hui” /wi/ – which sounds like the French word for “yes” (oui) but is not – is an obsolete word that also means “today,” which is what the whole thing means.

Lauren: Amazing. So, the word “today” in French, if you break it down etymologically, means “on the day of today.”

Gretchen: But we don’t even need to stop there.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: Because “hui” comes from Latin “hodie.”

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: Which is a contraction of “hac die” meaning “on this day.”

Lauren: “On this day.”

Gretchen: So, “aujourd'hui” – “au jour de hodie” – is literally “on the day of on this day.”

Lauren: Amazing.

Gretchen: It’s got two days in it. It’s not today – well, it is two-day – but it’s “two,” T-W-O.

Lauren: It is extremely today.

Gretchen: It is extremely today. It is extra much today because it’s like you had a path that started eroding, and so you put some extra paving stones in to sure it up and added an extra “day” so you wouldn’t get confused about the word “oui” that means “yes.”

Lauren: It’s stories like this and it’s the realisation that language is constantly doing this that makes me feel really comforted by the kind of processes of use. Because it’s not a wearing out of language; it’s a lovingly using and laying down – and, you know, our portmanteaus today will become concrete words, and then they might get eroded down or re-blended or used again to create new, what could be grammatical forms. It all just continues on across history. It’s easy to see when you look across time how language continues to just get loved and used and worn.

Gretchen: It’s like how we can forget that “chortle” started off as a joke word from Lewis Carroll in this poem, and we’re like, “Well, that’s just a word that means a thing.” It’s not particularly a portmanteau. It’s just a word that I have. And we could then re-portmanteau it into another word and keep doing this process over and over again and building things up and smooshing them together and then building up more stuff and smooshing it back together. It’s a really exciting process of making stuff. I like how smooshing reminds us of the physicality of language and how, when you say a word that’s been smooshed, your body – your tongue, your hands – are tracing a path that so many other people’s bodies have also traced. It’s like when you’re walking down a set of stone stairs that have this dent in the middle from this very soft groove of everyone steps in it over centuries. You can feel that you’re going where some else was going. When you’re using a smooshed word, you’re participating in this language pathway that has been part of so many people’s bodies for so many generations.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on all of the podcast platforms or lingthusiasm.com. You can get transcripts of every episode at lingthusiasm.com/transcripts. You can follow @lingthusiasm on all the social media sites. You can get scarves with lots of linguistics patterns on them including the IPA, branching tree diagrams, bouba and kiki, and our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols, plus other Lingthusiasm merch – like our “Etymology isn’t Destiny” t-shirts and aesthetic IPA posters – at lingthusiasm.com/merch. Links to my social media can be found at gretchenmcculloch.com. My blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com. My book about internet language is called Because Internet.

Lauren: My social media and blog is Superlinguo. Lingthusiasm is able to keep existing thanks to the support of our patrons. If you wanna get an extra Lingthusiasm episode to listen to every month, our entire archive of bonus episodes to listen to right now, or if you wanna help keep making the show running ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons can also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk with other linguistics fans and be the first to find out about new merch and other announcements. Recent bonus topics include secret codes, inner voices, and how we made vowel plots with Dr. Bethany Gardner. Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone in your life who’s curious about language.

Gretchen: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, our Production Assistant is Martha Tsutsui-Billins, and our Editorial Assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

[lillylvjy]

all the (lights down low)

notes; hello! Um, this took a bit to write and edit but - I hope you all enjoy! This is from @phxntomsdusk softball!wilma au! Go check it out! Love myself softball wilm-

warnings; TOOTH ROTTING FLUFF! Wilma and reader being so in love, Wilma being cocky, mentions of hurting each other jokingly!, kissing, dancing, country music…, and if I missed anything please tell me. Oh yeah, Wilma wears rings-

edited; slightly I skimmed

wc; 2.8k

who; softball!wilma x reader (gn! reader)

(I will he using this picture again in the future)

Today was pretty boring and gloomy. The sun wasn’t shining like it usually was, even though Wilma insisted the sun was right in front of her eyes shining so bright and beautiful, and rain coating everything in sight.

You were currently by your locker, getting ready to go to the last class you had before you got to leave. You were thinking about what you would do after you left, knowing that your mom already cancelled practice with the help of you begging her to because of the rain.

Sleeping, get coffee, annoy Wilma- that sounds fun!

You quickly got interrupted when someone shut your locker from behind you and kept the hand placed on the metal. From the look of the muscular hand and rings, you had a guess who it was.

“Turn around, I wanna see my pretty baby.” You could practically hear the smirk as she talked. Biting your bottom lip, you slowly turned around and leant against the locker, Wilma’s arm beside your head. Looking up at her, you quickly tried to hide your smile as she smiled down at you. Call it cheesy or gross, but you could never not blush and get flustered when she looked at you like you were the only person she’ll ever need. “Hey, don’t hide that smile from me! Look at me, please.”

You quickly lifted your head again and looked at her with a soft smile, bringing a hand up softly to rest of her cheek. “Hello my love.”

“Hi baby.” Wilma said with a soft voice as she rested her forehead on yours. “How’s your day so far?”

“Good, besides the rain. I wanted to do something today.”

“Well thank god I showed up because I have something you can do!” Wilma said as she kissed your cheek and wrapped her arm around your neck, walking you to your next class that you had together. You both thanked the universe at the end of the day for putting you in a lot of the same classes together.

“Hmm and what is that?” You looked up at her with a raised brow and a smile as she glanced down at you with a smirk.

“Since practice was cancelled, I was thinking that we could maybe….” Wilma stopped in front of the class and let you walk in first, finding the lab station you were both assigned at. “Go to the batting cage together? Throw me some pitches and I’ll do the same?”

You set your supplies down as you laughed at her question, nervousness lacy underneath the genuine words. “Like a date?”

Wilma looked at you with wide eyes, then quickly smiled and nodded. “Yeah, like a date.”

You shook your head at her, loving how she still got nervous around you. Yes you’ve only been dating for a little bit of time but, you found it cute. Showed she cared about you and how things went. You kissed her cheek as the bell rang and you both sat down.

As the teacher started talking about what you were going to be doing today in class you leant over to Wilma, voice low and head down. “I’ll get us food after if you drive.”

Wilma’s eyes quirked up to find yours as she smirked. You bit your lip, trying to stop yourself from laughing at the new found excitement in her eyes. Sitting up, you placed your hand in hers under the table as you listened in to the lab you were doing.

After the bell rang, Wilma walked you to your locker and helped you get your bag, and might you add as fast and messy as she could. Her excitement was showing very clearly and she looked like a golden retriever that was about to get the biggest toy it’s ever had in its life.

“Love c’mon! I wanna go as soon as we can before it gets busy! Wil plans on meeting us there with his partner after their last class. So before he annoys me, I wanna spend some time with you!” Wilma said as she shut your locker and grabbed your hand dragging you out of the school as freshman and other students past with tired yet hopeful looks for there last period to be over. Thank god you and Wilma didn’t have stay for an extra hour… you would’ve cried.

“I’m coming! Slow down!” You laughed as she held your backpack in her other hand while dragging you to her car. It was a little muddy from how much it had rained lately but, it added to the rustic look.

Throwing your backpack in the bed, the cover pulled over to ensure the it was dry, and opened your side of the car for you and bowed as she gestured for you to get in.

“Why thank you.” You said as you lifted her head and kissed her quickly as you got in, wanting to get out of the rain as fast as you could. Yes, it was a light drizzle but who knew what that could turn into at any moment. Not like you cared.

Wilma laughed as she shut the door and quickly ran to her side of the car, getting in and starting the old machinery up.

“My music or yours?”

“Or we could play the playlist we have together….” You told her as Wilma slowly nodded in embarrassment and quickly put the music on.

“I hate you.”

“You love me.”

“Damn right I do.” Wilma said as she quickly turned out into the road out of the parking lot, grabbing your hand in hers as the music softly rang throughout the car.

After the long car ride to the batting cages, filled with terrible singing, laughs and Wilma begging you to get food now but you convinced her to wait until after so her stomach wasn’t in pain. Wilma grabbed her softball bag from the bed, packed with two bats, one for her and the one she bought you for times like these. She also had clothes to change into, as well as some extra for you knowing this was a last minute thing for you.

Walking into the building, Wilma said hi to the worker as she asked what cages were open, and of course she chose the one that was farthest away. She always did, even if all of them were open. She liked being away from people so she could just be in her zone and spend time with you as private as she could get in this situation.

“Ok, wanna get changed? I know wearing jeans and doing all of this won’t be fun. I brought extra clothes you left over at mine so don’t look at me like that.” Wilma laughed at your expression as she threw clothes at you.

Catching them in your embrace, you quickly looked at them, then at her. “Thank you.” You said as you went up to her and kissed her cheek, before passing her to go to the restroom the place had.

Wilma stood in a trance, heat rushing to her cheeks as a bright smile took over her features, spinning around to follow close behind you.

Following through the door, you both went in your own respective stalls as you both talked.

“Please don’t kill my hand like you did last time!” You said as your voice was muffled as you put your shirt on.

“Cant promise anything darling. Sometimes I can’t handle how hard I throw!” Wilma said as she opened her stall door and went infront of the mirror, putting her shoes on and patiently waiting for you to be done.

“Fine, then I won’t try to avoid hitting you when I bat…” you said as you opened your stall door with a smile as you went next to the tall women in the mirror and made eye contact with her in the mirror.

“Please don’t! I don’t need a bruise on my thigh again nor do I need Wilbur interrogating me-“

“That was pretty funny though!”

“No it wasn’t! I had to tackle him to not tell mom and dad. Wasn’t my proudest moment…”

“Yeah yeah, cry about it- turn around so I can do this quickly, please?” You asked nicely as you smiled up at her, her annoyed expression resting on her face as she turned. You could tell she wanted to keep the act up but the small quirk of her lip going up when you smiled at her and the way she immediately relaxed into your hands once you started braiding told you more than enough. “Feels good?”

“Always, love when you play with my hair. I feel like a cat!”

“Well you are my cat so technically…” you said as Wilma smiled. You quickly finished both sides of the braid and kissed her forehead as she turned around. “Ready to kill me?”

“Oh shush you’ll be fine!”

Your laughter carried through the warehouse as you both walked back to the cage. Once you both got in, Wilma got her glove out as she handed you your bat and your own glove she insisted you needed, jokingly going through safety precautions before getting her speaker out and connecting her phone.

It became a joke for Wilma to go through tips and safety instructions before you went to bat, because the first time Wilma wasn’t beside you or behind you, helping your stance and making sure you don’t hurt yourself, the bottom of the bat ended up hitting your head and giving you a concussion. Let’s just say the hospital visit wasn’t the best way to tell your mom.

But you for sure have improved since then, and it showed.

Wilma had a routine: get in, get changed, get music on and go.

She usually had country on while she was practicing, gave her more motivation and just made her feel good about what she was doing. Almost like how softer music did when she painted or drew. It was interesting and neither of you could figure out why, but you both enjoyed it.

After the speaker made the connection noise and started playing a soft melody of a guitar, she stood up and went to the pitchers net, picking one of the balls up.

“Ok, give me one sec and… ready! Don’t go easy on me, miss. This is for you after all….” You said as you pointed your bat at her. She held her hands up in defense as she nodded at you.

The first pitch was light, you could tell. It didn’t have the speed and precision her pitches usually had, plus it was an easy hit. You looked at her with a raised brow as she picked another ball up. “Best you got? Or are you scared I might actually be able to hit them this time?”

“Ohhh okay, getting a bit cocky I see..” Wilma stood with a smile, tossing the ball up in the air in her right hand and caught it with her left. “Ok, fine. You asked for this!” She pointed at you as she got ready to pitch.

To say the pitch changed entirely from the first one was an understatement. You always forget how much power is behind her pitches. How she can even get that much power behind it? A question you ask yourself all the time. Yes she was fit, but not muscular, so it always surprised you at first. Still does but you’ve gotten used to it.

The ball left her hand with clean movements. Wrist snapping as the ball split the air in half in its wake. You didn’t have time to think or move before you heard the ball hit the cage behind you.

“Jesus-“

“Strike one, darling.”

“Oh shush, I got this next one!” You said as you got ready once again, your stance not perfect but it was good enough for now. Keeping your eye on her hand and the ball, she got ready to pitch.

Th pitch was just as hard and fast, but this time you were prepared. Your body loved as you swung your arms around, the bat following quickly with the movement. The sound of metal hitting the leather ball echoes through the building with the music. Wilma hid behind the pitchers net as the ball soared in the air, being stopped by the net that hung above you both, her smile wide as she looked at you.

“Now that was a home run!” You laughed as Wilma comes running at you. She wraps her arms around your waist and lifts you in the air. “That was so good! I’m so proud of you!”

“I literally hit a ball!” You exclaimed as she twirled you both around, excitement seeping out of her like a fountain.

“And? You hit one of my pitches! That’s incredible, barely anyone can-“

“Ok now, don’t get too cocky.”

“Am I wrong?” The taller girl asked you with a raised eyebrow in question. When she didn’t get a response from you and saw you bit your lip, she laughed. “Exactly! I’m proud of you, you hit the ball, let alone most likely got a home run if we were outside. That’s amazing!” Wilma said as she lifted you once again and ran around.

As much as it seemed childish, it was fun. It was one of the only times you two could actually be, teenagers. Forget you had responsibilities and just be with each other and act stupid. It was freeing. And it was with her which made everything better.

After she set you down, a new melody seeped into the area surrounding you as Wilma’s eyes widened.

Kind of love we make by Luke Combs.

“Dance with me, please?!” Wilma asked as she grabbed your hands in hers, a smile taking over her face as she slowly started to shimmy your arms with hers. Rolling your eyes fondly, you nodded as she squealed. Bringing you closer to her, she placed her arms around your waist as your fell around her neck, both of you falling into a rhythm and singing your hearts out.

Wilma placed her forehead on yours as the bridge came on and sang softly to you, as if the words were directed to you. And in a way they were, in her mind and yours. She did this with almost every song that had some sort of romantic connection behind it, and you kept each lyrical line she did it to in your phone.

Once the chorus started up again, she quickly pulled back and spun you around. Falling back into her arms, you softly laughed at her lovesick look on her face, it slowly making its way to your own. Wilma pulled you closer to her as she placed her forehead on yours and closed her eyes, letting the moment stay just for a little longer.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Wilma gently placed her lips against yours in a soft kiss, no one here to interrupt or make fun of you both. Love and longing all in one as the kiss continued for a few more moments, both of you forgetting about the music and where you were. Only wanted to stay in each other space and be in your own world.

“Sup bitches- ok! We are not doing this while we’re here.” Wil cut himself off as he saw you both from the entrance, his partner behind him. They both slowly walked down to the cage next to you guys and settled there.

Rolling your eyes you let go of Wilma as you turned to look at the other sibling, Wilma groaning yet her hold on your waist constant.

“If we can’t do it, you can’t do it.”

“Wait we’re actually gonna listen to him?!” Wilma asked you as she looked at you from where her head was on your shoulder, tone surprised and confused.

“Oh no! I just wanted to fuck with him!”

“Oh fuck off!”

“You love us!”

taglist; @mysticalsoot (if you want to be added my dms and inbox are open!)

[fixinglitg]

My issues with BONNIE (so far)

Hey again.

So today I'm gonna talk about my issues with Bonnie's character now that we're halfway through the season (Eps 16-18 were the latest releases in case you haven't seen so far, there are 33 in total) I'm gonna divide this into categories so if there's something specific you wanna read about the go ahead and skip to that part. I will add a few positives at the end not to seem SO negative, but I do have a good few complaints, mostly after the recent episodes.

As per usual,

DISCLAIMER: this is just my opinion, and you can disagree with me if you'd like to. How I feel about a character doing something might be different for you, and we all have our own preferences.

Now that's out of the way, let's begin.

DESIGN:

Ofc, this part isn't Bonnie's fault, but I personally think her design is borderline horrific.

Her body is a little weird, but mostly okay for the main part compared to Rafael's odd arm situation. But the main part is her head.

Thick brows? Love. But for this character design, I just don't think she's pulling it off.

The hair? It's giving "hmm, this character needs a stereotypical lesbian haircut, but we should make it worse." Like people can pull things off like that and there's probably so many pretty women with this hair. Again, I just don't think it's working out for her.

Her lips. Okay, why does it look like this poor woman has asked for the Kardashian? What plastic is in her lips? Thick lips, again, great. On the right person.

I think her character has good individual features for people in general, but putting them all together onto her and designing it that way doesn't look attractive for me.

There are so many better re-designs I've seen on Reddit, so I'll link a couple now:

Wolfcut Bonnie | Sprite Edit Bonnie | Min Bonnie

Like come on Fusebox. It wasn't that hard to fix her without changing the details too much as these edits show.

OUTFITS:

I mean, why is her fancy outfit literally a bin liner. Like what. I thought MCs style was pretty tragic in recent seasons, but Fusebox actually did this woman dirty with the outfits.

I'm not sure if they played to have her more boyish or what, less feminine seeming, but the outfits just aren't doing it. And I only need one link this time to prove my point.

Bonnie Outfit Edit

Like these outfits are such an improvement?? And it's not even like the creator chose to change the entire thing, they literally kept the basis of it. I- yeah. I don't even wanna talk about this for long, because it hurts as much as Bryson coming out in that one sleeveless top.

So all in all, it would be hard for me to like a character when I don't find them attractive physically. Both their own body and the style of clothing. However, I feel like it'd be unfair to not give a character a chance if they're written well. Yeah, about that...

PERSONALITY:

So I wasn't sure what to title this part, but you'll understand what I mean as soon as I get into this.

At the start of the season, you're able to determine whether or not you wanna have women as an option. Obviously I have no idea if the female LIs still take interest in you (trauma by Dana) if you say you're straight, but I wouldn't exactly put it past Fusebox to disregard that choice immediately.

But as I was saying.

Why is it when I say "oh yeah, I'm into women" the female LI IMMEDIATELY THINKS I'm into her. Like, no babe, sorry but I'm not the one for you.

And I hate that I've rejected her so many times, and put little to no interest in her (sometimes I would say "oh my head's a mess" etc because the other options didn't feel right for me) to the point where it's getting a little annoying to see that stupid ass lip biting sprite, and her trying to flirt with my character when I've said N.O. Of course, other characters do have that issue in the past (and maybe this season, I have no idea because she's the only person I've really rejected) but this is so frustrating to me.

I get shooting your shot but she's missed 50 times and won't stop.

The next thing I really hate might seem little but it's really grinding my gears.

Image by u/thebarbied. Additional text under the post saying "I've never told this girl I was interested in girls so idk why the girl is like this." So I'm assuming OP said they were into men/straight, which means she might be worse off wlw MC.

The thing that annoys me the most is the fact that she looks upset by not being chosen. Now I understand that there could be some people who actually chose her. Or some people that would want to take her instead of their casa partner.

HOWEVER.

When you're like me and have rejected her several times, she has no right to look this upset.

And for me, it felt a little off-putting. It's the hideaway. THE HIDEAWAY. Majority of the time, the hideaway usually involves some sort of sexual thing. Especially in these recent seasons, I feel like Fusebox has really been pushing the kinky side of things onto us with the box of things (massage oil, whipped cream, blindfolds, maybe I'm remembering wrong but I swear there was handcuffs in S6).

And to just have the mere thought of someone being upset for not being picked to go to what I love to call "the sex room" even after being rejected by myself multiple times just makes me uncomfortable.

Now of course, I'd like to add that maybe that wasn't her plan at all and she'd just wanna talk or something.

But let's be honest for a moment, we all know Fusebox. They definitely would've given us the same options of "go all the way, do bits, snog, cuddle/talk" or something along those lines, and I just FEEL the disappointment from not choosing anything but cuddle/talk.

Yet again, I will state that this can be the case for all LIs, or not the case at all, but these are just my thoughts and feelings and this is how I see things at the time of playing.

I just feel like she's getting disappointed over nothing. Like she expects to be picked despite all my choices.

And I'll even link a few posts to people complaining about Bonnie and her character never going. Sidenote: these also include some other characters that I'll touch upon in another post

u/Towerofterrorr wanting Bonnie to leave them alone | u/Emotional_Lobster778 Bonnie Rant | u/Ok-Level_99 telling Bonnie to give it up | u/Smithiexx hated her | u/Dontaskmyname98 wants to be left alone as well | u/twoofakindfinds says "Major ick and also major red flag"

I just wanted to add these so that you could see that other people also think Bonnie is kinda... Icky and creepy I guess.

It is a disease Fusebox give most female LIs though. The "women who are supposed to be bisexual but are constantly in friendship couples with men and beg for the MC to change her mind" bullshit.

Posts by u/Ok_Level_99 (same post as the one listed above in my example)

And this is why I don't like pushy characters. Like I've said before, if you've stated the fact that you do not give a shit about them, why are you still trying? It's just embarrassing by now. Do you WANT me to file a restraining order against you? Like seriously?

I get being jealous and all, but this is honestly the most unattractive thing you can do when someone isn't interested. It's the fact that she STILL believes she has a chance.

And I'm honestly just repeating myself by this point.

There was a lot more I could've talked about, but I decided to leave it there. I think I'll come back to this and make another post of some other shit happens in the remaining 15 episodes.

Hopefully I won't have to deal with this much longer. I just wanna go back to the OG boys.

[spicykaraage]

I Want to Be Santa Claus - Story Translation

[Prologue]

Ryoga: (Alright, now that practice is over, I can go see Chibisuke.)

—

Ryoma: Practice ended pretty early today, didn’t it? It’s not even noon yet.

Kikumaru: Well, it’s Christmas Eve. And we’re gonna have a party tonight, it’ll be fun~

Ryoga: Happy birthday, Chibisuke!

Ryoma: Big Bro. So you remembered my birthday.

Ryoga: Of course I did. You really thought your dear older brother would forget?

Kikumaru: I’ve said it before, but I think it’s so cool that your birthday’s on Christmas Eve.

Ryoma: Well, thanks for remembering. See ya.

Ryoga: Not so fast. Since it’s Christmas, let’s go pay a visit to the Christmas market.

Ryoma: A Christmas market? In Japan?

Kikumaru: I saw the commercial on TV too. Apparently it’s being held at this big park and they have stalls with Christmas food and other goodies.

Ryoga: That’s the one. The perfect way to spend Christmas, amirite?

Ryoma: Hmm. Well, I don’t have any plans after this, so I guess I can come along.

Ryoga: Great, done and done.

Ryoma: But how we do we get there from here? It’s at some big park, so it’s probably pretty far, right?

Mizuki: We’ll be able to take the train there.

Kikumaru: Mizuki. So you’re interested in the Christmas market too?

Mizuki: I am. It looks like an interesting event, so I’m planning on going with Yuuta after this.

Yuuta: They’re selling limited edition Christmas sweets and fresh roasted chicken and all this other good stuff.

Kikumaru: But what’s so special about chicken during Christmas?

Yuuta: Oh, yeah… it is just regular old chicken, I’ve never really thought about it before.

Tohno: Hey, that’s actually a pretty good point.

Kikumaru: Wha…

Tohno: People trying to make everything all festive and Christmas-y while not knowing its original meaning.

Mizuki: If you’re talking about the chicken, I already know the answer to it.

Mizuki: Since I’ll be hosting tonight’s party, I’d be able to explain it to you all, if you’d like?

Tohno: Just being a know-it-all is a bore. Why don’t you come up with something entertaining yourself?

Mizuki: Wha… excuse me?

Ryoga: Hey, now. Why are you getting so heated over Christmas?

Tohno: I just hate how half-assed it is. If you wanna liven things up and have fun, then you gotta be thorough about it.

Yuuta: Yeah… you do got a point.

Kikumaru: Yeah. It would be cool to look more into the meaning of it and enjoy it in your own way.

Kikumaru: If we went to the Christmas market, we could see and learn all kinds of things. I think I’ll invite everyone else from Seigaku too.

Ryoma: Huh, so now more people are gonna come?

Ryoga: The more the merrier, right? Well, let’s all get going.

[Episode 1]

Ryoga: This Japanese Christmas market’s a lot bigger than I was expecting.

Ryoma: There’s so many stalls. Plus the decorations are incredible, it actually looks pretty nice.

Ryoga: Right. Plus I heard the whole market is lit up at night.

Oishi: There’s some kind of outdoor stage over there too, what do they have planned with it?

Yuuta: They’re gonna be holding a Christmas concert. You can read about it on this flyer.

Mizuki: Well, well… it appears they’ll have a gospel choir and brass band performing. Maybe I’ll check it out later on.

Kikumaru: Huh? Where did Fuji and Taka-san go, they were just with us.

Oishi: The two of them decided to visit this big advent calendar on display.

Kikumaru: Advent…?

Ryoga: It’s just a calendar to countdown to Christmas.

Ryoma: It’s basically a wooden house with little drawers in it that are marked with the days until Christmas…

Ryoma: And each day you open a drawer there’s candy or other stuff inside.

Kikumaru: I see. Sounds cool.

Ryoga: They have a massive one on display, and they also have smaller ones over at this stall.

Mizuki: Ah, so this is what you’re referring to. It says it’s a sample product, but you’re still allowed to open the drawers.

Yuuta: Hm. Wonder what’s in them.

Mizuki: Well let’s open one and see, shall we.

Mizuki: So this one… has a candy inside.

Yuuta: A calendar with a different candy each day would be cool.

Mizuki: Not everything inside has to be candy, you know?

Mizuki: But regardless, it would be fun to count down the days to Christmas with one.

Ryoma: I wanna see what’s in the drawers in that big one on display.

Yuuta: Right. Maybe they’ll have these giant candies.

Ryoga: You wanna go check it out, too?

Kikumaru: Oh, well there’s some other stalls I wanna check out, so I’ll catch up with you guys later.

Oishi: I’ll go with you.

Ryoga: Gotcha. Welp, see ya.

—

Oishi: What did you want to see?

Kikumaru: Tree ornaments. There’s a tree at the camp that hasn’t been decorated yet.

Kikumaru: I talked with the staff and they said I could decorate it if I bought the ornaments.

Oishi: Oh, yeah? There’s a stall right around here that’s selling all kinds of them.

Kikumaru: Oh, so there is. Here’s some ball ornaments, and some holly ornaments.

Kikumaru: But they’re all pretty basic, aren’t they? It’s gonna be hard trying to pick out ones I actually like~

???: See, I knew you guys weren’t putting any thought into it!

Oishi: Wha…

[Episode 2]

Tohno: See, I knew you guys weren’t putting any thought into it!

Oishi: Wha…

Omagari: Sheesh. You yelled so loud I thought something happened, but you were just calling out to those middle schoolers.

Tohno: Well I couldn’t just stay quiet and let those halfwits half-ass what they’re doing.

Tohno: If you’re gonna celebrate Christmas, then it’s only right that you celebrate it thoroughly and with its original meaning in mind.

Kikumaru: I’m trying, but… do the decorations have any meaning?

Tohno: Holly was used to ward off evil, and ornaments represent an abundant harvest.

Tohno: There’s always meaning and protocols in the things you prepare for this. If you don’t follow those protocols, then you can’t call them Christmas decorations.

Kikumaru: So, I guess that means we should stick with the status quo. But I was wanting unique decorations…

Oishi: Well, yeah… but maybe you could make the basic decorations look unique by using different colors?

Kikumaru: Different colors…

Tohno: Hey, now that’s a good idea!

Oishi: Oh… thank you very much.

Tohno: But you have to be smart when using different colors too. It’s become a whole lot harder now, hasn’t it~?

Tohno: But you’re the one who raised the bar on yourself, so that’s on youuuuuu!

Kikumaru: Nice going Oishi, you’ve raised the bar…

Oishi: No, I was just making a suggestion…

Tanegashima: Hey-o. I’ve got meat pies.

Tanegashima: Oh, there’s middle schoolers here too. Looks like everyone’s gettin’ merry on Christmas Eve~☆

Omagari: Was the stall crowded?

Tanegashima: It isn’t now. That tree over there’s starting to light up, so it looks like people are flocking in that direction.

Omagari: That one there? It does glow beautifully, even during the daytime.

Tohno: There’s a toy soldier hanging from the tree. They’ve got pretty good taste, don’t they?

Tanegashima: I’m pretty sure that’s just a basic decoration, but you really like it?

Tohno: I think it’d be great inspo for an Execution! I’m gonna take a closer look!

Omagari: Man, doesn’t matter what he sees, he’s always thinking of executions. That figures.

Tanegashima: Atsu’s very committed, especially when it comes to his Executions. He’s always got his antenna up.

Oishi: True… that must be why he said Christmas should be celebrated thoroughly.

Tanegashima: Yeah, maybe so. Or he’s just the type of guy who wants people to put in the effort with what they’re doing.

Kikumaru: Yeah, true…

Kikumaru: Well, let’s put in all the effort we can then. We’ll pick out decorations with creative colors.

Oishi: Yeah. Let’s do it.

[Episode 3]

Yuuta: These chocolate strawberries are so good!

Mizuki: And they said these chocolate-covered apple desserts are exclusive to this market.

Mizuki: There’s many families visiting here as well. This certainly does seem to be an event that can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

Yuuta: Yeah. It is Christmas after all, I even saw some kids buying gifts.

Mizuki: That’s right, there will be a gift exchange at tonight’s party, have you gotten anything yet?

Yuuta: I haven’t yet. I’ve been checking out all the stalls, but I don’t know what to buy.

Mizuki: Why don’t you try getting something you would be happy to receive?

Yuuta: Mmm… for me, that’d be sweets. Maybe we can check them out?

Mizuki: Of course. There’s a sweets stall right around the corner, let’s go check it out.

—

Ryoma: They’re doing another street performance over there. Juggling this time.

Ryoga: Wow. I still think the clown walking on stilts was pretty cool, though.

Ryoma: Hm…? They’re selling socks over here. They look a little big, though.

Ryoga: A little. But with your size Chibisuke, you could fit your whole body into one, huh?

Ryoma: Don’t treat me like a kid.

Ryoga: Kakaka. I’m just kidding.

Ryoga: But stockings do take me back.

Ryoma: What do you mean?

Ryoga: Back in the US, we’d put letters in our stockings asking Santa for gifts.

Ryoga: I thought we could spend Christmas together like we did back then. It’s been so long, though.

Ryoma: What’s wrong. You’re getting all deep all of a sudden.

Ryoga: Mm. Yeah, maybe?

Ryoga: If there’s anything you want, just let me know by the end of tonight.

Ryoga: I’ll let Santa know too.

Ryoma: Are you treating me like a kid again?

Ryoga: Hey, now. Santa only visits good kiddos, remember?

Ryoga: C’mon, let’s go check out the other stalls.

Ryoma: Hey, don’t pull me…

Ryoma: Jeez, you’re a handful, Big Bro.

[Episode 4]

Kintarou: Hey, hey! Why don’t they sell any takoyaki~?

Chitose: Kin-chan, this is a Christmas market, they’re not gonna have takoyaki everywhere like Osaka.

Ishida: But the octopus is red and the seaweed’s green. They could sell it as Christmas colors.

Chitose: Well, that is one way to look at it. Maybe they do sell it somewhere.

Chitose: Let’s browse the stalls while we look for some takoyaki, okay?

—

Kai: Hey, Rin. That scarf looks so thick and fluffy and warm.

Kai: …Huh, he’s gone?

Chinen: He left to go get something to drink.

Chinen: …Wait, Kei-kun’s not here either.

Kite: He went to the stalls over there to purchase some hot food.

Kai: Everyone’s all over the place.

Kite: They can do whatever they want to do.

Kai: Whoa, they have a plush toy shaped like a tree. How cool.

Chinen: They’ve got all kinds of Christmas costumes too. I’m gonna look for a black Santa suit in the sale cart.

Kai: Black Santa suit?

Chinen: Fufu… I wanna be a black Santa that’ll scare all the naughty little children.

Kintarou: Huhhh! Mister, you’re gonna be Santa?

Ishida: A black Santa costume, that’d be a cool way to change things up.

Chitose: There is a party tonight, maybe I should look for something too.

Kite: Oh, so you’re all here too.

Kintarou: If you’re gonna be Santa, then please give me a present.

Chinen: Yes, right… if you’re a good little boy, then I’ll give you a present. But if you’re a naughty little boy, then I might take you away somewhere.

Kintarou: I’m a good boy!

Ishida: That’s right, Kintarou-han’s been working real hard in tennis.

Chinen: Yes, yes, I see. Alright, then I’ll give you one of the cookies I just bought.

Kintarou: Yay! I got a present!

Kite: You certainly are kind for a black Santa.

Chinen: That’s because he wasn’t a naughty child. I’m saving the scares for the naughty children… fufu…

Kai: Well I’ve been a good boy too, so does that mean I get a present?

Kite: And just what makes you believe that? Once you’ve made up for all the times you were tardy, then you can talk.

Tanishi: Hey, guys! There’s these huge sausage kebabs over here!

Kai: Whoaa, those look so good. I’m gonna go buy one too.

Kintarou: Sounds great. I’ll go have one too!

Kite: So carefree… the lot of you.

Chitose: But it’s Christmas, so it’s good to have fun. These happy vibes are actually pretty nice.

[Episode 5]

Ryoga: Here, Chibisuke. I bought you some hot chocolate, this should warm you up a little.

Ryoma: Thank you. Looks good.

Ryoma: Whew… whew…

Ryoga: Too hot?

Ryoma: I just don’t wanna burn my tongue.

Ryoga: Oh snap, that is really hot. I’ll let mine cool off too.

—

Ryoga: By the way, have you seen anything you liked at the stalls?

Ryoma: Nope… Why?

Ryoga: I already told you. I’m gonna tell Santa what you want.

Ryoma: This joke again. You’ve been teasing me all day.

Ryoga: (He thinks it’s a joke? Man, this kid…)

Krauser: Ryoma, Merry Christmas!

Ryoma: Merry Christmas. So you came with them, Krauser.

Yagyuu: He saw the ad of this place on the TV and invited me.

Niou: I came along since there’s stuff I wanted to buy, but this place is actually pretty nice.

Krauser: So you came with your brother, Ryoma. I’m jealous that you’re able to spend Christmas with your family.

Ryoma: Really? We just happened to be around each other today.

Ryoga: Oh, c’mon, quit lying. You know you chose to stick with me.

Niou: How about you try some of this magic gum? Eat this, and it’ll make you honest in no time.

Krauser: I tried it earlier and it made me very honest. I highly recommend it!

Yagyuu: Uh no, it’s snapping gum…

Krauser: Yagyuu-san, you ruined the prank.

Ryoma: Yeah, I’m gonna pass on that then.

Niou: Aw man, you’re no fun.

Ryoma: Heh… you’ve got a ways to go.

Ryoga: (…Chibisuke’s looking like he’s having fun.)

Yagyuu: By the way, there’s a Christmas concert being held soon, will you be going?

Ryoma: It’s an outdoor stage. It’ll probably be too cold to just sit still and listen to the performance.

Niou: I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Apparently there’s heaters placed at the foot of the seats.

Ryoma: Huh, it shouldn’t be too bad then… Okay, let’s go.

Ryoma: Hey, get a move on, Big Bro.

Ryoga: Hey, hey, don’t just leave me behind.

Ryoga: (I was hoping I could find out what gift he wants.)

Ryoga: …Being Santa isn’t easy.

[Episode 6]

Ryoma: They had so many singers, they were all extraordinary.

Ryoga: That choir was legit, wasn’t it. They performed the usual Christmas songs but their take on them was pretty refreshing.

Krauser: I was surprised to see a koto being played with the brass band! It was very Japanese!

Yuuta: Whoa… the wind’s strong…

Mizuki: Now that we’re away from the heaters, it’s going to feel extra cold.

Tohno: Huh? How pathetic, you’re shivering so much over this?

Ryoma: So you watched the concert too, senpai.

Tohno: Their performance wasn’t that bad to listen to.

Mizuki: It was a very nice concert. The music was superb, but the host’s presentation was excellent as well.

Krauser: He also shared a lot of knowledge about Christmas. It was very interesting.

Mizuki: I learned methods on livening things up with conversational skills and when to take breaks for tonight’s party, it was very informative as well.

Ryoma: Oh that’s right, you are hosting tonight’s party, huh.

Mizuki: Yes, I even prepared a script as the host that I’ve been working on as we speak, I intend to hold a fun party.

Tohno: That sounds great!! I’m looking forward to it, okay?

Mizuki: Oh…

Tohno: Well you said it yourself, you’re putting in the effort as a host, so everyone at the camp should at least get excited over that.

Tohno: But if you end up letting us down, it’s not gonna be pretty.

Mizuki: …Yes, of course, I understand.

Yuuta: Mizuki-san… I’m rooting for you!

Mizuki: Worry not, I will ensure that it will be a fun party.

Mizuki: …It will, it absolutely will.

Ryoga: Not getting a lil’ nervous, are you?

Mizuki: As if I would. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must finish the preparations for tonight.

Yuuta: Oh, I’ll head back with you. I think I’ve seen enough of the market.

Tohno: I should head back and do one last checkup on some things.

Krauser: What will you two do now?

Ryoma: Why don’t we head back too, Big Bro? It’s getting really cold again.

Ryoga: Yeah… I’ve still got things I wanna do. You can go on ahead without me.

Ryoma: Oh…

Ryoga: Alrighty… time to start working as Santa.

[Episode 7]

Clerk: Thank you very much.

Ryoga: …Okay, got it.

Ryoga: (Chibisuke said he didn’t want anything… but when we were together, he kept staring at this.)

Mouri: Oh, hey.

Kabaji: Good evening.

Ryoga: Oh, it’s kinda weird seeing you all together.

Ochi: We just happened to run into each other at the moment.

Mouri: Did you come to buy Christmas presents?

Ryoga: I actually plan on becoming Santa. Don’t tell anyone else what I bought, please.

Atobe: I see, so it’s a secret gift.

Ryoga: Well, yeah. You guys buying gifts for other people too?

Ochi: Mouri gave me a gift this morning, so I came here to return the favor.

Mouri: It was just a lil’ something to express my gratitude, I didn’t mean to make you feel obligated.

Atobe: I’m getting gifts for all of my club members at the camp.

Atobe: Right, Kabaji, show me the list of what everyone wants.

Kabaji: Right.

Ryoga: That’s nice, so they told you directly what they wanted.

Ryoga: I couldn’t get a straight answer, so I had to pick one I thought they’d like.

Ochi: But if you chose it yourself then that means you put thought into it, right.

Mouri: Yeah, plus I think it’d be a nice surprise.

Ryoga: But if they end up not liking it, I’m gonna be really upset.

Kabaji: When it comes to gifts, I believe people are more happy that you got them something rather than what you got them…

Atobe: Heh, that’s a good point.

Ryoga: Yeah, I get that… I hope that’ll be the case for this.

Kabaji: Why not write a letter and include it with your gift?

Mouri: There you go. A letter would be a great way to express your feelings directly.

Ryoga: That would be a whole lot better than just giving them a present. I’ll give it a try.

Ryoga: I wonder if they sell any stationery around here…

Ryoga: …Oh, I found some good ones.

[Episode 8]

Ryoma: Man, where did Big Bro run off to…

???: Ho-ho-hooo!

Ryoma: …

Ryoma: …Was that your Santa impersonation?

Ryoga: Yep, pretty much.

Ryoga: I told you you could go on ahead without me, but it looks like you stayed just to look for me.

Ryoma: Yeah, ‘cause you just disappeared and I thought something was wrong.

Ryoga: Everything’s fine, I told you there was some things I wanted to do, didn’t I?

Ryoga: But I’m sorry if I made you feel lonely.

Ryoma: I didn’t feel lonely…

Ryoga: I bet. ‘Specially since you got all these nice friends around you, huh.

Ryoga: I was really glad to see you smiling and having a good time with them earlier today.

Ryoma: Why would you be happy to see me smiling?

Ryoga: Because you’re my little brother, of course I’d be happy to see you happy.

Ryoga: I also figured you’d be fine with me being gone since they’re here, too.

Ryoma: Well, I guess being with them is pretty nice.

Ryoma: But you’re alright to hang out with too, Big Bro…

Ryoma: It feels a little better to have you around than not… Just a little, though.

Ryoga: Aw, what a cute thing to say.

Ryoma: Yeah, never mind. I can’t with your jokes.

Ryoga: I’m being serious here. You little fart~

Ryoma: Can you stop… Quit messing up my hair…

Kikumaru: Oh, there he is. Shorty!

Fuji: You’ll be late to the Christmas party if you don’t head back soon, you know?

Ryoga: Ah, it’s about time now, huh.

Ryoma: …Achoo.

Fuji: Fufu, it’s gotten pretty cold too.

Kikumaru: They were giving away these hand warmers for free. I have some more, so you can use them.

Ryoma: Thanks.

Fuji: Take one too, senpai.

Ryoga: Oh, thank you.

Fuji: …Huh, it’s snowing.

Kikumaru: Huhhh. The forecast didn’t mention it was gonna snow.

Ryoga: But seeing all these lights with the snow sure is beautiful. It’s cold, but maybe it’s lucky that we got to see this.

Ryoma: …Yeah. I’m glad we didn’t leave yet.

[Episode 9]

Mizuki: Now, let the party commence. Everyone, please raise your glasses of juice.

All: Merry Christmas! …And happy birthday!!

Ryoma: Wha… how’d you all know it’s my birthday?

Kikumaru: Senpai had spread the word about it. We may as well celebrate them together, anyway.

Ryoga: The more people celebrate, the better, right?

Ryoma: Can’t you just mind your own business… well, it’s fine.

—

Mizuki: —All right, we will now begin the gift exchange.

Mizuki: Exchanging gifts during Christmas time is said to be a custom born out of feelings of mutual consideration for each other.

Mizuki: So let us celebrate this Christmas gracefully, and share our compassion with others.

Tohno: SURPRISE!!!

Oishi: Senpai…?

Mizuki: …Oh, what is it?

Tohno: I’ll take it from here. Not that you’re a bad host or anything, you seem to know what Christmas is all about and have done a good job livening things up.

Mizuki: Nhm. Why, I’m honored.

Tohno: But I wanna spice things up a bit. I’m gonna turn this little gift exchange into an official competition!

Mizuki: What… a competition…?

Tohno: Everyone will draw numbers and choose their gifts in numerical order. The catch is that the even numbers can swap their gift with another person.

Kikumaru: That’s different, but it sounds interesting.

Mizuki: But, weren’t you the one who had said that it’s important to hold these events while upholding its original meaning? Does this not contradict that statement?

Tohno: This kind of competition is popular in Europe and the US. Besides, it’s still a gift exchange.

Tohno: Look here, these are the numbers you’ll draw that’ll decide which order you’ll pick the presents.

Tohno: And these extra slips are a little gift from me…

Tohno: They’re “Execution Test Subject Tickets”. This is a perfect time to use them!

Oishi: E-Execution test subject…!?

Tohno: I’ve hidden some of these tickets in the presents. Whoever ends up with one will get executed.

Tohno: It’s one of the best surprises you’ll ever receive. Hyaahyaahyaa!!

Mizuki: E-Excuse me!?

Kikumaru: That’s not good… if we choose a gift that has one of those tickets in it, we’ll get executed!

Ryoga: Haha, how fun!

Oishi: Huh…?

Ryoga: It’s a big surprise, but you may as well have fun with it, right?

Ryoma: I won’t care if I end up with one of those execution tickets. I’ll just get my revenge on him.

Kikumaru: Oh, really? You guys really are brothers~

Mizuki: You certainly are brave. Very well, as the host, I will brace myself and join the fun.

Mizuki: Now… let the gift competition commence!

[Episode 10]

Mizuki: Everyone, this concludes tonight’s entertainment. Please continue to enjoy your meals and merriment to your heart’s content.

—

Tohno: Keh, the surprise I worked so hard on got ruined…

Mizuki: So it did, all of the upperclassmen ended up with your execution tickets…

Mizuki: But today is the Holy Night of mercy, so why not spend the rest of Christmas Eve peacefully?

Tohno: Hmph… well, I guess I can just give ‘em all a good beating later.

Oni: Hey, that apple pie you like so much is about to run out.

Tohno: Huhh? Please, I’m gonna get some regardless.

Mizuki: *sigh*… I am utterly exhausted…

Kikumaru: Nice job. Big surprise aside, you made it a lot of fun, Mizuki.

Mizuki: It’s only natural that my skills would produce a fun party.

Kikumaru: Nyahaha. Of course, Mizuki.

Kikumaru: Oh, yeah. I’m gonna check out the gift I got.

Kikumaru: I’m happy to see all this candy in here. But what do you even call this thing…?

Oishi: It’s a Christmas Boot.

Kikumaru: Oh, yeah, that is a fitting name.

Oishi: Wow, there’s a snowman cookie in there too.

Kikumaru: You want some? Okay, I’ll share it with you, Oishi~

—

Ryoga: Looks like Christmas Eve’s almost over. Feels like the whole day just flew by.

Ryoma: It does. With going to the Christmas market and this party…

Ryoma: Oh yeah, I know I’m a day late for this. But happy birthday, Big Bro.

Ryoga: Oh wow, the birthday boy just congratulated me. Thank you.

Ryoma: Also, thanks for inviting me to the Christmas market today. It was actually kinda fun.

Ryoga: That’s good. I’m glad.

—

Ryoga: (Okay… is Chibisuke fast asleep?)

Ryoga: (Good… sleeping soundly. I’ll leave his present here, then.)

Ryoma: Mm…

Ryoga: (Crap, is he waking up?)

Ryoma: Big Bro… let’s go to this stall next…

Ryoga: (What the, he’s talking in his sleep. Must be dreaming about today.)

Ryoga: Merry Christmas… and happy birthday, too.

The following morning—

Ryoma: A present and Christmas card…? Is this…

Card: “Santa brought you a present, Chibisuke! I hope you like it.”

Card: “I’m glad I got to spend Christmas Eve with you again.”

Ryoma: Heh… typical, Big Bro.

[Epilogue]

The day after Christmas—

Mizuki: We’ll store these decorations away in this box. Please do not mix any of them up.

Kikumaru: Huhh, I won’t be able to tell the difference. You’re gonna have to label them with magic marker or something~

Mizuki: Just pay attention to the size of the decorations inside, please. We’re sorting them by size.

Tohno: Hey, I already took care of the decorations over there.

Kikumaru: Thank you very much, senpai.

Tohno: I’m not gonna rest until all this stuff’s been taken care of.

Kikumaru: Wow, so thorough.

Kikumaru: And that surprise on Christmas Eve really had us on the edge of our seats, even though it was kinda scary.

Mizuki: Yes, it was. Although it was unexpected, it did make things a lot of fun thanks to you.

Tohno: Kuukuku! Is that so?

Tohno: Maybe I should keep it up and try doing something interesting for New Year’s too, eh?

Tohno: Like maybe we could use actual bodies as the hagoita, and ring in the New Year with screams around the camp, and instead of a happy face in fukuwarai we could do one of anguish…

Mizuki: It’s still too early to be thinking of New Year’s… let’s prioritize cleaning up after Christmas for right now.

—

Ryoma: Hah…!

Ryoga: Yo, Chibisuke. You’ve been really going at it with that wall since this morning.

Ryoga: So you’re already out of the Christmas spirit?

Ryoma: Yep. I wanna become even stronger.

Ryoga: It’s always about aiming for the top with you.

Ryoga: That competitive streak hasn’t changed since you were a kid.

Ryoma: Well yeah, I’m not gonna lose to anybody… including you, Big Bro.

Ryoga: Oh-ho, is that right.

Ryoma: How about I show you just how strong I’ve become. Let’s have a serious match today.

Ryoga: …Whoa there. I hate to break it to you, but I’m gonna hold off on that for now.

Ryoga: But if it’s just some simple smackin’ the ball, we can do that all you want.

Ryoma: Tch… whatever.

Ryoma: Alright, let’s take it from here.

Ryoga: Heh… you got it.

[STORY END]

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

Hamstur - a Malevolent crack-fic

There are many timelines in Malevolent. Kayne has his fingers in all of them, trying continually to recreate the circumstances that gave us John, trying continually to see what happens if he tweaks the settings a little more.

Today, those tweaks produced a hamster.

Oops.

Technically part of the Surrogate series. In reality, PURE CRACK-FIC. @sparklyandheroic came up with the pun and... here we are.

AO3

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

[Text taken and slightly edited from Part 30, The Tenant. Also alternate timelines are a thing, SO.]

“Anyway. King in Yellow.”

 Yes.

“I don’t get the impression that he’s interested in seeking us out anymore.”

Why is that?

“Well, he had you back! I believe you were true to your word, even if you don’t remember it, that you would make things difficult for him. I think you are your own, now, John. I don’t think the King wants that back.”

What do you think Kayne did to him?

“Anything Kayne would do without motivational reason is extremely concerning.”

You made no deal.

“I made no deal.”

Hmm.

“Yes, anyway. That’s a great point, because if Kayne put Yellow back in his… more-or-less corporeal form as the King in Yellow, then everything I just said is moot. I think he would be gunning for us, more than ever.”

#

Hastur, the King in Yellow, the Feaster from Afar, the Lord of Interstellar Spaces, woke with the worst headache he’d ever known in eons of being.

No, wait. It wasn’t a headache. It was because he had a skull.

What was this? Since when had this happened? He didn’t have bones. That was mortal nonsense. Yet the fact remained, in spite of ill-wishing, that his skull persisted in containing his magnificence. He tried to reach up and touch it.

So that… was a surprise.

Tiny hands. Adorable four-fingered paws with claws on the ends like grains of rice. He stared at them, struggling with this whole three-dimensions thing, because that just made it all worse, then reached up to touch himself again.

His mask: intact. His tentacles… limited. He had a few around his face, but the rest of him seemed to be… to be…

A tremendous shuddering rocked him as if the boat he’d been on suddenly hit ground, and overhead, above, all around, light blazed. For all the world, it felt like a cloth had been pulled away, revealing him to entropy, and he squeaked in terror (squeaked?) and covered his masked face.

“See? I told you he was cute,” said an Outer God’s voice, and Hastur could barely stand it, barely handle the raw sound, the volume, the power that altered the very molecules of air it passed through.

“Awww!” said another Outer God (how the many were there here?), and Hastur abruptly found himself held in her hands.

Her hands were soft. And far bigger than he was. And he panicked.

“Haha! He pooped!” cried the first Outer God, but Hastur could consider no such indignity, scrabbling and biting to no effect at all. He could not weep in this body, but he could make panicked sounds, and did: little high-pitched screams like twisting bits of rubber.

“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay,” said the other Outer God (he vaguely recalled—Archivist? No, that wasn’t it… Keeper?). She was unbothered by his (surely) mighty teeth, and she added more hands, rubbing the back of his head, under his mask, around his flailing tentacles. “You sure he’ll be okay?”

“Yeaaah,” said the chaos god, the Bloody Tongue, one he vaguely knew as the Faceless God, and Hastur was terrified. Except the Bloody Tongue sounded almost… guilty? “Took a pinch too much to make that little guy in this particular timeline. It’ll all work out. I’ll put him back once he regrows enough not to, you know, spfoof.”

“No spfoofing,” confirmed the Keeper. “You poor thing. You’re going to be all right. You won’t even remember this afterward.”

“Could do it to yours, too,” offered the Howler of Darkness. “You could keep him here for a while. Get all that crazy out of his system.”

“He’s got enough going on,” snapped the one holding him. “You promised.”

Her petting was very nice. He had to admit it. His nerves betrayed him, tiny heart beating less rapidly, though he did continue screaming because of course he did.

“Sure, sure,” said the Crawling Chaos. “Anyway. Thought you’d like to look after him until I can put him back.”

“I will happily keep his enclosure here until he’s ready.” The Keeper tickled under his chin, reassuring, weirdly safe, and Hastur’s screaming lessened just a little. “How long, do you think?”

“Oh… maybe a week? Won’t be too long. This version of Yellow is simmering in Larson right now. Little big bigger. Should be interesting to see what happens.”

The Keeper shuddered. “Unpleasant.”

“You promised,” said the God of a Thousand Forms. “No touching my spinoff.”

“I won’t interfere,” she murmured. “Oh, who’s a cute little godling? You are! Yes, you are!”

Hastur was not cute!

Although… fine. Maybe it was nice to be… cute. Cute was admiration. Cute things were safe things. He preened a little, cleaning his face-tentacles, but couldn’t completely stop his panicked squeaks.

“Go on,” said the Keeper. “I’ve got it from here. Tabby is going to scream.”

“Have fun,” said the Stalker Among the Stars, and (thankfully) finally left.

“You’re going to be all right,” promised the gentle Outer God, the one whose handling and scent somehow told Hastur he was safe (and he refused to accept that it was his hamster-brain generating this response to whatever she was doing). “You’re going to have a lovely time before you go back to tormenting them.” And she gave him a raspberry.

It was huge. Big as his head. He took it greedily and held it with his tentacles, gnawing at his leisure.

Yes. Yes. Arthur Lester and his stolen piece. Yes.This would be fine. All was well. Safe and fed. Yes.

“Oh my gods,” said a human woman who didn’t matter and smelled of hair dye.

Hastur was fine. He would finish this, survive it, overcome as he always did, and then resume the plan. Arthur Lester would never know what hit him.

And meanwhile…

“Can I hold him?” said Tabby.

“He’ll defecate,” warned the Keeper.

“It’s a hamster. I expected as much. Oh! Ha! Keeps, get ready… Hamstur.”

The Keeper laughed, light and sweet.

Tabby laughed, just a little mean.

Hastur ate his raspberry and waited for the glorious time when he could resume his vengeance.

---

Notes:

This is all the fault of @vmprsm and @sepiabandensis, for they created the art that led to this travesty.

@vmprsm:

@sepiabandensis:

[blackhakumen]

Mini Fanfic #1127: Mishima's Shoebox Collection (SSBU X Tekken)

5:45 p.m. at Mishima Zaibatsu Headquarters.........

Kazuya: (Stands Behind a Closed Door) Gentlemen, ladies, allow me to introduce you all to our latest business brand that could potentially help reach the Zaibatsu's name to greater lengths than it already has

The members of League of Villains' (And Zelda's) eyes begins to widens in pure awe as the door opens, revealing a room filled in the brim with brand new and accesible shoes sitting on each shelves inside. The bright, shiny atmosphere of the room alone was more than enough to peak almost everyone's attention.

Ganondorf: (The Only One Who In't as Impressed as the Other) You're starting up your own shoe brand company

Kazuya: (Crosses his Arms With a Smirk on his Face) That's the idea, yes. I've always have a fondness with everything shoes related growing up. So I figured, how else will I gain more power and success to my multinational cooperation than to jump-start my own shoe brand. A Zaibatsu Shoe Brand, the name's a work in progress.

Ganondorf: (Rolls his Eyes) Of course it is......

Bowser: Hey, you don't mind if we try these shoes of yours, on ourselves, do ya?

Kazuya: (Steps Away From the Opened Door) Be my guess.

The gang cheers in rejoice as most of them (sans for Sephiroth, Hades, and Ganondorf who only walks behind) eagarly their way shoe filled room as they begin to check out and try out each pair that they find.

Bowser: (Smiles Brightly at the Pair of Brown Dress Shoes He's Wearing) Man, I am so glad I got dressed up for today. This looks perfect on me!

Hades: (Takes a Look at a Holes Filled Shoe He's Holding in his Hand) So these are one those crock shoes everyone keep yammering about....

Bowser: Yep. They been a hit for three to four years now. Or was it loner than that......

Hades: Uh-huh. (Tries the Crock On Before Looking at It Once More) And exactly why do they holes in them again?

Bowser: (Turns to Hades) To let your feet breathe a little? Either that or maker behind these things, wanted to make it more unique looking than the rest. Whatcha think of them so far?

Hades: (Gets Himself Up From a Chair He Was Sitting While Examining the Front and Back of the Shoe He's Wearing) Hmm.....It's weird looking, but comfy.....I suppose it wouldn't wearing them around every once in a while, so long as I don't have to those feet numbing flip flops again.......

Bowser: (Nodded in Agreement) Amen to that, brother.

Zelda: (Smiles Brightly at a Matching Shoes She and Mewtwo Are Wearing) These limited edition Triforce Shoes looks even more beautiful than the ones in Smash Town!~ Mewwy, we HAVE to get these while they're still on stock!~

Mewtwo: Agrred. I never felt more powerful than I already am right now.

Sephiroth: We couldn't agree more.

Zelda and Mewtwo turns to see the father and son duo showing off the matching Black Air Force Shoes they're wearing with Sephiroth letting out a sinister laugh and Pichu nodding his head while smirking.

Mewtwo: (Stares at Them With Deadpinned Look I his Eyes) We're halfway close to the end of the year ans I still fail to see why that Pichu sees Sephiroth, all of people, as a father figure.......

Zelda: (Smiles Sheepishly) At....least they're cute together. Kind of.

Ridley: (Eyes Widened in Genuine Surprise at What is in Front of Him) No way! You guys are actually selling these glass slippers?

Kazuya: No, they're rubber proof slippers actually. We originally planned on selling them as glass as first before backing out at the last second. (Starts Shaking his Head Before Walking to the Other Side of the Room) I do not have patience to go through another lawsuit right now........

Ridley: (Smiles Brightly) Works for me! (Takes the See-Through Rubber Slipper From Out of the Shelf, Gets Down on One Knee, amd Presents it to his Girlfriend in Front of Him Fpr you, mi'lady~

Dark Samus giggles softly before carefully putting her foot inside the slipper, which managed to fit on her pretty well.

Dark Samus: S-So......How does it look?

Ridley: (Gives Dark Sus a Smirk and a Two Finger Guns) Like a princess walking inside the ball room~

Dark Samus giggles once more while blushing at his boyfriend's cheesy compliment towards her.

Kazuya: (Rolls his Eyes at the Couple in the Mid Distance) ('Ugh') It's not even that clever of the compliment.....

Ganondorf: Well, what do you expect when you're selling a near replica of a shoe from some fairy tale story?

Kazuya: Fair point. (Turns to Ganondorf) Aren't you gonna find anything in here as well?

Ganondorf: (Crosses his Arms While Turning Away) ('Tch') And give you the satisfaction of getting rich off of my well earned cash? No thanks.

Kazuya: Really? (Pulls Up a Pair of Ancient Boots in the Palm of his Hands) Not even for these pair of boots well fit for an evil tyrant such as yourself.

Ganondorf: (Slowly Turns Back to Kazuya) You don't say......

Kazuya: (Simply Nodded) Yep. And since I'm feeling fairly generous today, I'll shorten the price and only charge you $35.00 for them. Sounds like a reasonable deal for you, king?

Ganondorf stares at Kazuya for a few seconds before ultimately taking out fifty dollar buck from his pants pocket and reluctantly gives it to Kazuya.

Ganondorf: This doesn't change anything between.

Kazuya: (Gives Ganondorf his Now Paid Boots Woth a Satisfied Smirk on his Face) Pleasure doing with you. You and everyone else are doing this cooperation at huge service today.

???: A cooperation you wrongfully stole......

Everyone in the room stop at what they were doing and turn their attention to an young man walking out of the elevator with his hairs looking....almost similar to Kazuya's.

???: From me.

Sephiroth: This is an interesting encounter.

Zelda: Wait.....Is that really......

Kazuya: (Crosses his Arms) Jin Kazama, my one and only mistake of an offspring. What brings you here to my lovely establishment?

Jin: (Glare Starts to Harden at his Own Father) I'm here to put an end to you and all the chaos you've brought into this city.

Kazuya: ('Heh') Real bold of you to think you have what takes to put me down so easily. And need I remind you that YOU'RE the one who caused a global warfare over your own petty desires?

Bowser: (Eyes Begins to Widened) Holy shit. Is he serious?

Hades: (Chuckles Evilly) Yeeeup! Once Jinny boy started taking over, the first and only thing he ever did in his run was put his very own universe into chaos. (Starts Smirking Smugly) Guess the apple didn't fall far from the tree in this mess of bloodline, now does it?

Ridley: Somehow I.....don't feel surprised by all of this. (Turns to Everyone Else) What about you guys?

Everyone: Nah/Nuh-uh/Nope./Pichu.

Ganondorf: This family is filled with crazy ass nut jobs.

Sephiroth: Like father, like son-

Jin: (Angrily Stomps his Foot on the Ground at Everyone Else in the Room) ENOUGH! I am NOTHING compared to this bastard, Heihachi or anyone else in his family but mines alone! I only did all of this in hopes in finding Azazel, destroy it, and put an end to my devil gene and this cursed bloodline forever.

Zelda: Uh-huh. And did it worked out in the end?

Jin: ..........('Sighs Heavily') No, it didn't. Apparently it wasn't enough to make the gene go away completely.

Bowser: So you basically put your own world on fire for nothing?

Mewtwo: Not one of your proudest moments, is it?

Jin: (Lowers his Head Down) It isn't. And I'm willing to take every bit of punishment and accountability that comes my way. (Looks Up and Glares at Kazuya) But first, I must do everything in my power to put you out of your misery for good this time.

Kazuya:You're more than welcome try and do so as many times as you want. You're only gonna set yourself up for failure. (Smirks Evilly) Or did you forget you already are one yourself on the day your mother left you only in this cold, cruel world.

Bowser/Ridley: Ooooh........

Zelda: He really went there, didn't he?

Mewtwo: (Shrugs) I've heard worst.

Jin: My mother risked her own life just to protect me, unlike yours who wanted you and Heihachi dead from very start.

Everyone (Except for Mewtwo and Sephiroth): ('Gasps')

Zelda: Is that true?

Hades: Yeah, apparently his mother was destined to sacrifice him and her husband for the greater good of the world or whatever type of goodie-goodie bullsh-

Kazuya angrily throws a chair directly towards Jin, in which he dodges it effortlessly, much to everyone's surprise.

Kazuya: WATCH WHAT YOU SAY ABOUT YOUR GRANDMOTHER, YOU INSIGNIFICANT BRAT! SHOW HER SOME RESPECT!

Jin: ('Tch') Respect? For the grandmother I barely even know? (Walks Dangerous Close to Kazuya) Or the woman who was willing end her own family's life for a clan that I recently know about from a few outside sources.

Kazuya: (Gritting his Teeth) Likely story. But did it ever occur to that woman you BARELY know, was murdered by the man who dares call himself her loving husband and my father? Has it ever occur to you that maybe, JUST MAYBE that her unexpected demise was one of the many things that scarred me throughout my childhood and continues to do so to tis VERY. FUCKING. DAY!

Jin: And you have my condolences. That still doesn't excuse her actions in the slightest and I believe this world will continue to be better off without her and Heihachi in it.

Kazuya: (Enraged) THE ONLY THING THIS WORLD WILL BE BETTER OFF WITH IS YOU!!!

Kazuya throws an electric surge punch towards Jin's face.....only for the offspring to catch it in time with red colored lightning starting to appear around his grip.

Jin: I should say the same for you as well, asshole.

Jin then uses his other hand to punch his father hard enough to send him flying towards the other side of the room before rushing in and attacking his father, starting the fight instantly.

Bowser: (Watxhes the Father and Son Duke it Out Along with Everyone Else) Well.....That was something to see unpacked in front of us.

Zelda: I know this family has problems, but I didn't think it would be THIS messy!

Mewtwo: I don't think amount of therapy will be enough to heal.this trainwreck.

Pichu: Pi......

Ganondorf: Well, whatever problems those two are having with one another is their business to have. (Takes his New Boots and Leave) I'm leaving.

Hades: Right behind you. (Notices the Crocks He's Still Wearing Before Forming a Small.Smirk on his Face and Following Behind Ganondorf) And I am taking these crocks with me.

Bowser: (Starts Rubbing The Back of his Head Back and Forth) Would ve a reeeeal shame to leave here without paying for- (Quickly Rishrs Out the Room With the New Shoes He's Wearing)

Ridley: (Picks his Girlfriend Pick on his Arms) Come on, babe, it's time to go. (Quickly Rushes Out the Room As Well)

Dark Samus: O-Okay.

Sephiroth: (Walks Out of the Room While Carrying Pichu in his Arm) Come, son. Let us show the world the essence of our Black Air Forces.

Pichu: (Smiles Brightly) Pichu!~

Zelda: (Eyes Widened in Complete Shock) What the heck! Are you guys seriously gonna steal those shoes without paying first!?

Mewtwo: Not really something to be surprised about. They're villains, remember?

Zelda: (Starts Looking For Money on her Purse) I know that! It's still wrong and we're not gonna follow their footsteps. (Chuckles a Bit) Get it? Foot- steps?

Mewtwo: ('Sigh') Yes, I get it. Clever.

Zelda: Thank you~ (Puts out a Cash of Money From her Purse) Okay, this is half our allowance, but I think a hundred is enough, right?

Mewtwo: (Shrugs) I suppose. Assuming he'll care enough to even notice it was here.

Zelda: I mean, I guess, but-

Hades: Princess! Mewwy! You two are coming or what!?

Mewtwo: (Growls and Glares at Hades in the Distance) I told you not to call me-

Zelda: (Grabs Mewtwo by the Hand Quickly Rushes the Him and Herself Out if the Room) Ignore him, Mewwy, let's go!

The gang make their way to a nearby elevator going down, leaving Kazuya and Jin to mercilessly fight one another inside the shoebox room.

@keyenuta

@cyber-wildcat

@albion-93

@theweebmaster31

@thelexhex

@tampire

[glowingvenus]

ao3 wrapped [writers edition]

I was tagged by @supermonkeyball 💕and I'll tag... hmm... @kwockwoc if you feel like it? or, yknow, anyone who wants to steal

How many words have you written this year? I am only gonna count my published word count on ao3... 93,134. Excellent in terms of my personal numerology 👀

How many works did you publish this year? 15

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? Shattered Pieces Shine... though I'm hesitant to let myself be proud of it when it's still in its infancy haha

What work of yours has the most hits? SPS natch

What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? Double Touch... only one short chapter out and there's 13 comments, wowie 💕 no idea how that happened!

Favorite title you used? I do make myself giggle with Double Touch...

If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? I don't really use song lyrics much, but I'll give Chungha a shout out for providing the title of SPS lol. The song is otherwise completely irrelevant but that was a nice phrase

Pairing you wrote the most for this year? Nichoji of course 💕

Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? ...Nichoji of course 💕 but i did enjoy exploring other pairings too and plan to do much more in the future

What work was the quickest to write? Several of the Nutvember pieces were written in a short time, but in terms of WPM I feel like Pas de Deux takes the crown. I did not sleep that night... but I did let the spirit of ballerina porn possess me. A similar thing happened with Complicated

What work took you the longest to write? I've definitely spent the most time agonizing over SPS and that will continue over the next several months-year lol

How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? 3 so far, and many more planned...

What’s your longest work of the year? SPS ✌️ (41,055 words and many more to go)

What’s your shortest work of the year? Complicated 🥪 (1,073 words)

What WIP are you taking into next year with you? SPS, Double Touch, and (unnamed fencing freaky friday fic)

What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? it's a tie between pining, light bondage, and PWP. wow... what a revelatory question...

Your favorite character to write this year? TBH I had a ton of fun with Carmen Cox and Pamela Coste (my interpretation of Nicholas's and Jesse's moms)

The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? Dante was a bit tricky, but I'm looking forward to revisiting him 😊

What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? I have a few surprises planned that I don't want to spoil. But for sure planning to tackle Haiden and... Bobby/Dante pls get a decent ship name!

Which work of yours have you reread the most? SPS wins solely by virtue of being an ongoing work that I have to reference. Second place goes to Pas de Deux... due to being written all in one night, in a bout of insomnia, it sometimes feels like someone else wrote it lol

How many kudos in total did you get this year? 279 ❤️

Which work has the most comments? SPS sweep. It has 99. I look forward to someone claiming spot #100 when the next chapter drops

Did you do any collaborative works this year? to quote saav verbatim, "melt it down (you're gonna have to eventually anyway) was a telephone fic with some friends in the Fence discord!"

Did you write any gifts this year? I didn't mark it as a gift but I guess "you make me forget" counts. At least i can say it was born of love and inspiration from starwritess's beautiful Hummingbirds series. I also wrote a little gift ficlet for inagartenforever that may see the light of day one day.

Did you receive any gifts this year? literally today I woke up to one from starwritess. My first gift fic ever ❤️ and it's wonderful

What’s your most common category? M/M... I don't know how we got here (dyke sigh)

What do you listen to while writing? NOTHINGGGG i need absolute silence. This is the main obstacle I face as a writer 😭

Favorite work you wrote this year? SPS is the obvious answer butttt I just really like the little world I've created and I'm so excited to keep expanding it

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? you're asking me to remember the shit that I've written...? Well a few ppl have said they enjoyed the blowjob scene in SPS ch7 so I'll go with that. I think it was one of the better executed sex scenes?

Biggest surprise while writing this year? the fact that I'm writing at all tbqh. I did not expect to fall so hard for Fence, or to write fic for it, or to explore so many ideas for it. My previous writing habits were... extremely sparse. But this year has really unlocked something in me and I'm so grateful for the Fence community and the new friends I've met through it ❤️

[wheeboo]

EXACTLY fear js made everyone shine 😭😭 what r ur top 5 fav svt songsndn and could u recommend some artists for me <33

exactly omg w2e is gen so beautiful and i need to listen moreee, i just listened to the songs u mentioned and csn i say im inlove. rania what are u not good at 😭😓 ahdhsj omg as a huge swiftie can i say you have such good tastete and i love champagne problems and ivy with all my heart !! do u listen to frank ocean? if u doo what songs do u like of his

canadas so pretty omgg manifesting the same luck for u bc we're always getting skipped 😓 (justice to canadian and european fans fr)

ahh omg violin is so cool 😭 i feel like ud be amazing at singing id loveve to hear u singing 🫡 hope you're having a good day and im assuming it's well over 3 pm now?? id love to see how it looks (rania always looks good regardless) and hope u ate well 💗

DGSH SAKE IS SO ADORABLE she looks so smalll 😭 she looks like she deserves all the treats in the worlddd

(p.s https://vm.tiktok.com/ZGeSKNrwa/ daily dose of seungkwan and i hope today treats u well, make sure to rest and put urself and ur health first !!)

omg top 5 fav svt songs... i'm a vocal unit girly so i love all vocal unit songs like equally;; hmm i would def say same dream same mind same night, healing, i can't run away (whole attacca album tbh), kidult, fast pace!! that was SO hard lmao. what are ur top svt songs?? <33

so happy u enjoyed the w2e songs !!! i'm mainly into like indie, bedroom pop, rnb, or just like calming songs in general... so if ur fine with that, some artists i would recommend are beabadoobee, grentperez, alessia cara, UMI, wasia project, lyn lapid, dhruv, mitski, faye webster <3

i do listen to some frank ocean!! i don't know like the entirety of his music but some songs that i have added to my playlist is thinkin about you, self control, nights, seigfried <3 do u have any recs for him??

i took some pics w a cute outfit on but i'm a bit too nervous to post, but i'll prob post right after i answer this cuz atp why not LMAOO but ahh tysm :(( do u play any instruments or sports ??

my day is going fine so far!! sadly i have to go to work later on T-T and then do a lot of homework when i get home but we can power thru 💪💪 i hope ur day was good lovely, lmk if u did anything !!

I LOVE SAKE SO MUCH 😭💞 i jus wanna give her all the treats n cuddles in the world fr !!!

STOP THE SEUNGKWAN EDIT-- literally fucking deceased HES SO FINE 😍 anyway here is ur lovely daily dose of jeonghan <3

[jaesxnuwu]

Chapter III: After Work Hours

Playing with first person pov this time

Finally, the day was over. It was easy to lose track of time with how many windowless rooms there were in the building. Knowledge of the Kalecian Guard’s operations weren’t something available to the public, so I guess it made sense.

I slipped on my jacket and left the office. A soft breeze blew behind me as the door slid shut and the automatic locks turned on. I pulled out my phone and started down the white hallway. The echoing of my own footsteps was always calming and helped me relax at the end of the day. 

Hmm. What should I eat tonight? I haven’t had ramen in a while, so I guess that’ll do. Oh that reminds me as well. Should I stop by the convenience store afterward? Those limited-edition candies should be out this week but—

“Have a good night, captain!” A nervous voice broke me out of my trance.

“Huh?” I paused and looked up to see one of my subordinates waving at me a few paces up ahead, “Oh, yeah. You too. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

One of the new recruits today. I remembered seeing him in the training facility earlier. Damn, this was going to be a lot of faces to remember. Do the higher ups really think I need this much help? Sure, there’s crime here and there, but it’s not like we haven’t been able to handle things so far.

I passed by a few more people on my way out. Some were staying behind to train on their own and some were coming in for the night shift. A gust of cold air greeted me as the automatic doors slid open. The weather sure had been nice lately. The sun was starting to set and cast a warm glow across the cityscape.

I should hurry before the restaurants start getting packed. Technically, I don’t have any official hours I need to abide by at my rank, so I like to take days off a little earlier when I can. Of course, I only do this when I happen to wrap up work earlier than expected.

I hopped on one of the train stations nearby since the ramen place is a decent distance away. It was still early, so I managed to grab a seat instead of having to stand. I checked my phone to see if there were any updates, but of course I knew there wouldn’t be. It was just a habit though. The passengers around were mostly keeping to themselves too.

A lady in a business suit looked like she was playing something on her phone. I had seen her often enough on my evening rides. I always wondered what she was playing.

There were three guys that stood out today though. It was difficult to ignore their loud conversation and laughter, and it was even harder to tell what they were talking about with how much they talked over each other. It sounded like something about a party from the other night. Their clothes were visibly dirty and slightly ripped. I imagined they were probably up to no good based off past experiences, but I really just wanted to get some food and figured somebody else would deal with them if they decided to do anything. They didn’t look too dangerous after all.

The crowds were really starting to pick up by the time I got off the train. The ramen place wasn’t too far from the stop, so it wasn’t a long walk. I thought I had gotten there in time, but once I turned the corner to the storefront, I saw a line had already formed before I arrived. I sighed. It wasn’t too long, thankfully. It could have been worse.

I got in line behind the others. There were about ten people it looked like, but maybe it wouldn’t have been too bad if some of these people were couples or friend groups. At least, that’s what I was hoping. Near the front I could see one of the workers jogging toward me, with a stack of menus in her hands.

“Hi! Welcome, here’s a menu for you to look over while you wait,” she said cheerfully as she slid one of the menus to me, “How many people are in your party?”

“Thanks, and it’ll just be me.”

“Alrighty, there are a few people ahead of you right now. We estimate it’ll be about a twenty-minute wait until it’s your turn to be seated. Will that be alright, sir? And can I get a name for your table?”

“Jae. Yeah, no problem.”

“Thank you, Jae! You can hold onto that, and we’ll collect it when it’s your turn,” she smiled and walked behind me. A few more customers had already lined up during our quick exchange. She repeated the same greeting to them as well. I glanced over the menu, but I already had a good idea what I wanted to have that evening.

Slowly but surely, the line continued to move, and I was at the front about twenty minutes later, like she estimated. The same girl greeted me past the doors. She stood behind a podium with the light of her screen peeking out from the sides. The place was packed and filled with chatter. She had to raise her voice a bit for me to hear her.

“Hi! Thank you for waiting. You were Jae, right, and with a party of one?”

“Yup.”

“Okay, okay,” she hummed as she tapped on the screen. I could hear a few muted beeps confirming each entry amidst the noisy restaurant. I shifted in place and fidgeted with my chains while I waited.

“Sorry about that. We just got a new system update, and everything’s all jumbled, give me just a second,” she looked up and smiled apologetically.

“No problem, take your time,” I waved, trying to assure her. I got it. Kalecia’s technology was great, but the speed of advancements sometimes was exhausting, and this was a pretty mundane but good example of that.

Buzz buzz

My phone suddenly vibrated in my pocket.

Who could it be?

I pulled out my phone and glanced at the notification screen.

A crime had been just reported nearby.

Seriously? How nearby are we talking though? Surely someone else can deal with it right? I just got to the front of the line!

I swiped up and checked the map. I couldn’t help myself from letting out a small groan from what I saw.

It was literally just down the street, and in a narrow alley. From the map details, I could tell it was a prime area for shady dealings. There was only one entrance, with a fence likely blocking the other side. I zoomed out. There were no patrolling Guards anywhere near as close by as I was.

If this were any other situation, I would have just let someone else come to handle it, but I don’t think I’ll be able to do that this time. The details of the report were left blank, so I’m assuming that the person sending the message didn’t exactly have the luxury to type anything down. So… they’re probably being attacked, maybe being mugged? Whatever, I’ll find out when I get there.

“Sir? And what did you want to order, sir?” the hostess’s voice suddenly registered to me.

“Sorry, something just came up, but I’ll be back another time” I felt bad for wasting their time too

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to hold your place if you leave,” she warned nervously. It seemed like she had dealt with some unreasonable customer demands before. “I know, that’s alright.”

It was going to be one of those nights.

Following the tracker on my phone, I quickly arrived at the street with the alley in question. With the overwhelming sound of cars, music, and the occasional train running through, it was easy to see how even someone crying for help in one of these quiet alleys could easily go unnoticed.

I turned the corner into the alley, and was immediately greeted by what was basically darkness compared to the bright illuminated streets I was just in. It wasn’t too hard to make things out though. The amount of light that spilled in from behind me was enough to at least see the criminals.

“I-I told you, that’s all I have on me! Please, I’m sorry!” a man’s voice cried out. He was on his knees, and his clothes had been torn and partially soaked with blood. It looked like he had been pretty roughed up already. Two men were looming over him, with each of them pointing a knife at him.

“Come on, this can’t be all you’ve got,” one of the men grabbed the victim by his hair and forced him to stand.

“N-no! I’m telling the truth! I really don’t have anything on me, I barely had enough to buy food this week. P-please I’m begging you!”

“Ah shut up already! You’re making too much noise,” the knife wielder was ready to take another swing.

I had seen enough. The air around me suddenly grew cold in response to my mana. I pointed a finger toward the crook and sent a ball of frost directly toward his armed hand. On impact, it melded into his hand and engulfed it completely, before rapidly expanding. In the blink of an eye, his hand and forearm were completely encased in ice.

“Grahhh!!” he screamed as he fell over, “What the fuck! What the hell is this!” He tried tugging at the layers of ice that had encased his arm with his free hand. He jerked his face up toward where the attack had come from, as did the other two men.

“Give up, before I freeze the rest of your limbs off,” I warned them. I was not in the mood after having my dinner plans ruined by these idiots. Normally, I was supposed to announce myself as a Guard and declare their formal arrest, but today I didn’t have the patience.

“Who the fuck do you think you are!” the other criminal decided to charge at me next. It was so easy to read, I almost felt bad for him. Still, he was holding a knife, so he was dangerous enough to warrant some force.

As he got close enough, he spun his knife toward me, aiming for my neck.

A little excessive, don’t you think?

He smirked, as he assumed that surprise attack would have caught me off guard.

Unfortunately for him.

Clang

His knife was sent flying at the last moment and fell to the floor. He looked up in disbelief at the ice blade that had disarmed him.

I’m not one to make ice constructs to fight small time criminals, but again, I was in a sour mood. I created one of my favorite weapons, my ice blade, to knock his knife from his hand. One was enough. Well, to be honest, I could have just taken him out without magic, but I needed something to make up for tonight.

“What the—” he barely got the words out before I grabbed him by his shirt and pointed the end of my ice blade at his neck.

“All done, already?” I traced the blade down from his neck and made a small incision from the top of his shirt, going down his chest, demonstrating the sharpness of the ice.

“M-mercy! Please!”

“Well, since you did say please,” I smirked and dissipated the blade back into small crystals that quickly vanished into the air. In his shaky state, it took just a small push to knock him onto the floor. With a wave of my hand, a layer of frost began to rapidly encase his hands and feet that were touching the floor.

“It’s just a precaution, so you don’t try to do anything else stupid,” I knelt on the floor in front of him, “Now behave while I call for someone to take you two in. And an ambulance for that guy.”

The victim also seemed a little shaken up by what was going on, so I had to assure him I was on his side at least. He didn’t seem to be in imminent danger, so it looked like things were about done here.

“You bastard,” he cursed at me, wanting to hold onto a bit of his pride.

I don’t hate people who have some fight in them sometimes.

“Really? I can make the call later, and we can go for another round if you’d prefer.”

Art: @/hisknn

[zstetchz]

A new script!!!

A friend has Kindly Helped me edit a New Idea for a Sketch, for if Welcome Home had been a Real Show! This sketch is about Wally Taking a Trip to the Post Office, and Growing Curious on just how Many Types of Mail there are; Eddie happily shows Wally Examples of Letters, Packages, and Postcards! [For Anyone who Likes my oc, There is a Vague Easter Egg!... I Wonder how Many of You will Pick up on it!]

As always! Welcome Home, Eddie and Wally Belong to Clown / Party Coffin! Please Go Give them Good Vibes!

START OF EPISODE

WALLY is sat outside of HOME under a tree, writing something on a comically large envelope before perking up and looking at the camera.

WALLY: Oh! Hello there, neighbor. You’ve caught me at a good time. I was just about to go give our good friend, Eddie, a visit at the post office. You see, I got this letter here,

WALLY holds up envelope to the camera.

WALLY: And I want to get it mailed out to one of my friend who lives too far away from me for me to walk it to their house. Would you like to come with me, neighbor?

WALLY pauses, for an answer.

WALLY: You would? That’s great, we should get going then; I want this to get to my friend as soon as possible.

WALLY then gets up from his spot and begins walking down the street.

WALLY: Hey, neighbor, have you ever mailed someone a letter before? I never have. I hope Eddie can explain what to do so that my friend gets this in time for their birthday. You see, I have painted them a picture of one of their favorite things as a present, and I really want them to open it on their birthday.

WALLY now stands in front of the POST OFFICE. WALLY opens the door.

WALLY: Come on neighbor!

WALLY walks in, EDDIE is behind the mail desk, carrying a large stack of packages. EDDIE sets down his packages on the floor, perking up at WALLY.

EDDIE: Well hello there y’all! What can I do for you today, hmm?

WALLY: Hello, Eddie! My neighbor and I just wanted to mail this to my friend. Their birthday is coming up.

EDDIE: Well ain’t that just the most exciting thing! I can help y’all with that faster than my meemaw can whip up a batch of flapjacks on a sunny Saturday morning in May!

WALLY looks at all the packages behind the counter and tilts his head.

WALLY: Say, Eddie, why do you have all those boxes?

EDDIE: Oh! Those aren’t just any boxes there, Wally.

WALLY: They aren’t? They just look like plain ol' boxes with some writing on them.

EDDIE chuckles as he leans against the counter.

EDDIE: Well, Wally, those are packages.

WALLY: Packages?

EDDIE: Yes indeed, packages! You see, packages are kinda like letters, but with bigger things inside of them.

WALLY: You mean… You can send more than just letters through the mailman?

EDDIE: Of course you can, Wally! There are plenty of things that you can use the post office to send! Packages and letters are just two examples!

WALLY: Well, how many things can the post office send then?

EDDIE: Well just about anything! Think about things you might get in your mailbox! Of course, you know that envelopes, as long as they have a stamp and an address, can be sent through the mail.

EDDIE gestures to the envelope that WALLY is still holding.

EDDIE: Why don’t you set that letter up here on the counter and let me take a look at it for you; I’ll make sure that it is all set to head out.

WALLY sets the envelope on the counter, EDDIE picks it up, facing it to the camera.

EDDIE: Now let’s see. Wally’s envelope has an address, telling me right where it needs to go, right here in the center. But, Wally, this letter cannot be ready to go yet.

WALLY: It isn’t?

EDDIE: Afraid not. You see, Wally, you’re missing a stamp right up in this corner. Lucky for you though, we have some stamps right here at the post office. People can buy them right up here at my desk whenever there is a letter that they would like to send. But, since we are such good pals, I’ll give you a free one, just for this occasion!

WALLY: Thank you, Eddie!

EDDIE turns to grab a stamp from a jar, WALLY looks at the camera for a moment.

WALLY: Eddie sure is nice for taking some time to teach us about the post office, isn’t he, neighbor? We should be sure to thank Eddie before we leave. Do you think that you can remind me, neighbor?

WALLY looks back to EDDIE as he places a stamp on the envelope.

EDDIE: There we go, now that fine envelope is ready to be sent out! You just leave that envelope in the postbox right outside the post office, and another mail carrier will come and pick it up this afternoon. Then it’ll get sorted and sent right along to your friend!

WALLY: Thanks, Eddie. But… We are still curious about the other types of mail you can get.

EDDIE: Oh that’s right! Well, of course, we have the things that can fit into envelopes! Letters, cards-

WALLY: Paintings.

EDDIE: Mhm! But then, we also have things that you can fit into boxes! Those are packages!

EDDIE gestures over to his large stack of packages behind the mail counter.

EDDIE: With a package, you can mail quite a lot of things! Like records, or books, or pens and pencils. Heck, there are some company’s that will let you place an order for anything that you’d like from their store, and they will mail it right to your door! Isn’t that just nifty?

WALLY, to the camera: There sure are a lot of things that the post office can send people, aren’t there, neighbor?

EDDIE chuckles as he nods.

EDDIE: And there is more than that! Sometimes, you can mail pieces of paper without putting them in an envelope!

WALLY: Really Eddie?

EDDIE: Oh definitely! You got things like magazines or newspapers! Free as a bird in the bright blue sky, straight to your mailbox! Or there are even flyers that can tell you if something interesting is going on in the area that you live in! I remember back in Texas, every year there would be flyers in everyone’s mailbox for all sorts of fun activities!

WALLY: Wow. There are just so many types of mail; there are envelopes, that hold small things, like letters.

EDDIE: Mhm!

WALLY: And there are packages, which hold bigger things.

EDDIE: Like art supplies or books!

WALLY: And sometimes there are just loose pages, like magazines.

EDDIE: Sure does sound like you got all of this under your belts now!

EDDIE grabs a few postcards from off to the side, smiling at them.

WALLY: Now, what are those Eddie?

EDDIE: Oh these? These are postcards! Think of them like little photos that have space for an address, stamp, and message on the back!

WALLY: Wow, those are some interesting pictures, Eddie. Can I look at yours?

EDDIE: Well sure thing! But be careful, a dear friend of mine took those pictures and made those cards at his store!

EDDIE hands WALLY the handful of postcards. WALLY thumbs through the small stack.

WALLY: Your friend is really good at taking pictures!

EDDIE: That he is, Wally!

WALLY: Gee, I sure wish I had some cool postcards like these to send to my friends. Don’t you, neighbor?

EDDIE: Well Wally, you can buy postcards from a whole bunch of places! I actually have a new display ready to sell some of my friends postcards here in the neighborhood!

EDDIE gestures to a spinning display next to the stamp jar, WALLY quickly sets the postcards in his hand down onto the counter. EDDIE picks them up with a soft smile. Camera pans over to WALLY staring at the different cards on display.

WALLY: There are so many options. Which one is your favorite, neighbor?

WALLY pauses for an answer, smiles.

WALLY: That one is really pretty. I think that my favorite is the one of the apples and strawberries. I think that we should buy one and keep it in Home.

WALLY grabs the postcard and goes back to the front of the mail counter.

EDDIE: Ah, what a great pick! You know, when I saw that card come in I had a feeling you’d love that card, Wally! That’ll be 25 cents!

WALLY places a quarter on the counter and takes the postcard, along with the original envelope.

WALLY: Thank you, Eddie. Not just for the postcard, but also for teaching Neighbor and I about mail today! Say “thank you”, neighbor.

Que sound effect of children saying “thank you”.

EDDIE: Oh shucks you guys, it was my pleasure! Please come back whenever you would like, I got plenty more that I can teach y’all about!

WALLY: I’m sure we’ll be back sometime soon. See you later, Eddie!

Camera follows WALLY outside. WALLY stops at the postbox, presses a kiss to the envelope and then drops it into the mail slot, then looks to the camera.

WALLY: Gee neighbor, I never thought that I could learn so much about mail. I didn’t even know that there was that much to know about mail. There are letters with stamps, and packages with goodies inside, and flyers that tell us about fun activities. There are so many different types of mail. What was your favorite thing that we learned from Eddie?

WALLY pauses for an answer.

WALLY: I really liked learning that too, neighbor. I think my favorite part was learning about postcards.

WALLY looks at his postcard again.

WALLY: Postcards are really pretty, don’t you think so? Say, maybe one day you and I could learn how to make postcards. I think that would just be the absolute most.

WALLY looks at his watch.

WALLY: Oh neighbor, I think it’s time for me to go check on Home. I’m sure Home would love to see our new postcard. I’ll see you later, neighbor!

WALLY exits, fades to black, commercial break.

[hells-wells]

The Start Of Something New 2

EDITED- It's finally here, the day you interview Seto. Fighting how he makes you feel, you try your best not to embarrass yourself.

Pairing Seto Kaiba X Reader--------- Timeline is after Duelist Kingdom and Before Battle City.

You had already tried on at least five outfits or that's what you told yourself while you ignored the growing pile on the bed. Pairing a black cami with high-waisted jeans, you looked over your body, making sure you approved before leaving for KaibaCorp. Making sure to mask any sign of circles under your eyes, after staying up late researching and listing questions. Your heart was racing the whole way there, once you arrived you could have sworn you felt it stop. Deep breath, deep breath. He's just a guy, a really good-looking guy…. While waiting you noticed two businessmen, they were standing close by. They were talking about a project, KaibaLand, quickly making a note of the name, you continued to listen in. “Didn’t you know? Mr Kaiba is putting everything into this KaibaLand.” He grumbled. “Can you imagine? A theme park about all things Duel monsters?” His voice was laced with sarcasm. Odd… Doesn’t sound like they're on board. “Eh, doesn’t matter what we think.” The receptionist called your name, brushing off the comments that were overheard, you quickly made your way into his office, finding him once again sitting behind the large desk. “Morning”  He didn’t seem amused, in fact, he looked like he was in need of a Redbull or something. “Do you intend to waste my time with useless formalities?”

Jerk. Maybe something stronger than a Redbull is needed.

“Thought I was being polite but if you rather we skip that then fine.” You shrugged, taking the empty seat he had prepared for you. You watched as his smirk grew, clearly, something managed to amuse him. “Mm, look at that. At least you aren’t completely useless… Now you’re getting it.”

Smug arsehole.

You placed a recording device on his desk, turning it on “Mind if I record? It’s easier for writing this up later.” He nodded “So, you became CEO at a young age, how did you prepare for it?” The interview went as smoothly as you had expected, it was nearing the end when you looked down at your list of questions

"Are you sing-... I'm so sorry, ignore that." Failing to hide the spreading blush that was consuming your face, you didn't look up until you heard him laugh.

I'm going to murder Tea.

Seeing how flustered you got amused him "I am."

Looking back down you saw the quick scribble from the earlier conversion. “What’s KaibaLand?” Your question caught him off guard, his eyes darted to the recording device, narrowing into a frown. Knowing you had struck a cord, leaning forward and turning it off “It doesn’t have to be on the record…” The silence seemed to last far longer than it had.

He finally spoke. “How did you even know that name?” Feeling suddenly flustered you tried remaining cool “I overheard it in the lobby” he continued to stare you down “While I was waiting.” You admitted truthfully, passing the recorder over to him, he looked taken aback “Here, check it yourself.” He held onto it, not giving any of his emotions away. He turned the device off “Hmm… It’s still in the early stages.” You nodded in understanding “Well, I’m sure with you behind it, it will be amazing.” He seemed happy with that, you started to pack away your things but you could feel his eyes were still on you. “Thank you.” You caught him off guard, summarising it’s not something he hears too often. Seto looked away, avoiding your gaze “Pfft, It was in exchange for the duel.” You smiled “Still, I appreciate it.” He quickly made his way, standing in front of you, he held out your recorder and feeling the warmth from his fingers you could feel a light blush spreading over you. “I, umm, I enjoyed today…”

Stupid! Just go live under a rock.

“Only because you don’t work for me, take my word for it.” He chuckled. You smirked “Bet I could take whatever you threw at me.” He seemed amused by your confidence “Eh, now that would be interesting.”

NEXT CHAPTER