#i don’t think anyone understands the chokehold this series has on me

[microwave-core]

SWSH Headcanons

I love sword and shield and the chokehold these characters have on me, but if I ever tried to write dialogue for most of them I would have a stroke, so have this instead.

I’ve written a bit for Sonia before, but there is one point that I completely forgot to bring up, and that is how absolutely excited she is to share her research and discoveries with you. She loves her job (most of the time), and is absolutely going to blab to you about it, so be prepared.

You don’t have to understand everything she’s saying, you likely won’t, but that’s okay. Just listening and trying your best to work through what she’s saying will be enough for her. Feel free to ask as many questions as you want, she will answer each and every one of them with incredible enthusiasm. But if you understand what she’s talking about, she would fucking ascend on the spot from happiness.

Please have a girl's night with her. Get holed up in her room while spilling trashy gossip all night while painting each other’s nails over cheap wine, she’ll love you forever. She’d jokingly ask if you had a crush on anyone when you’re already dating and act all innocent and teasing about it, like, “aww, you had a crush on me??” when you’ve literally been dating for years.

Yamper goes everywhere Sonia goes. You can expect him to be begging at your feet whenever you meet up with her, wanting nothing more than for you to bend down and shower him in love and affection. He’s a good boy and he knows it. Sonia might send him off to fetch you when she’s busy, so please trot behind him slowly. He wants to lead you there and doesn’t want to fall behind.

I’ve brought this up before, but Leon would be so supportive. Sonia is his bestie, so when you get into a relationship, he wants to meet you as soon as possible. Man just loves his friends and is so happy when they get into loving, meaningful relationships. He also knows a lot about you because Sonia has gushed about how much she loves you to him on several occasions. He can seem kind of intimidating with his status and all, but he’ll definitely end up thinking highly of you.

And I have to mention Hop as well, because he’s also very supportive. He takes it upon himself to be Sonia’s wingman when she’s pinning. When Leon’s not available, she’ll blab to Hop instead. The second you meet, he begins planning your wedding. Be prepared. 

But that’s not all, because Nessa is also Sonia’s bestie. She’s the only one of the three that you really have to worry about, as she won’t hesitate to speak her mind if she has any kind of issue with you, but she ultimately knows how much you mean to Sonia, and so she has no choice but to be supportive. Anyways, if Sonia takes too long to confess her feelings for you, she’ll get Leon and Hop together to form a plan to make it happen. Sonia is mortified.

Nessa… Need I say more? She is the woman of all time, with one of, if not the, best design in the entire series. She’s gorgeous, she’s powerful, she’s described as having an “indomitable nature”, what more do I have to say?

Unfortunately, as both a model and a gym leader, she’s a busy gal, always running to and fro to get work done. She’ll always try to squeeze in time for you, but that doesn’t always work out, much to her dismay. It also means that many, many people are going to be jealous of you. This goes for all of the gym leaders and champion as well, considering they are essentially celebrities in Galar, but Nessa may as well be in a league of her own.

Many people have crushes on Nessa, both young and old alike, so finding out that she’s taken is a crushing blow. You’re gonna end up with weirdos that hate your guts for daring to date their crush, which sucks. But on the other hand, you’ll also have weirdos who are completely obsessed with you and  your relationship and want to know every little intimate detail. You decide which is worse.

Speaking of being a model, expect to be roped into a photoshoot every now and then. Nessa loves you and thinks you are drop-dead gorgeous, so, naturally, she’s not above pulling some strings to fit in a shoot or two with you. Expect to at least have a Valentines photoshoot every year, since it’s the most obvious way to show off how great of a couple you two are. 

Nessa yearns for the ocean. Having grown up in a sea-side town with fishermen for parents, she’s used to floating out into the ocean and just relaxing. When she’s feeling stressed and pent up, she’ll drift out into the blue abyss with one of her pokemon, staring into the sky above while being rocked gently by the waves. She’d love it if you joined her sometime.

She also really likes fishing. She often comes back to her roots, which leads her to pulling out the full fishing ensemble, “fish fear me women want me” hat included, and getting onto a dinky boat to sail off into the middle of the ocean to fish for hours on end. You are asked to join her on these trips, but they aren’t super exciting unless you absolutely love fishing.

She has pictures of you everywhere. In her gym locker, in her wallet, on her phone, around her house, in Sonia’s lab, everywhere. They’re almost entirely pictures that she’s taken, too. While she is by no means a photographer, she knows a few things about taking good pictures from modeling, and loves to use that knowledge to take wonderful pics of you (not that you don’t look wonderful all the time). Her phone’s lockscreen and wallpaper are also pictures of you, obviously.

So I don’t have a sword so I am not as familiar with Bea, but her design alone is enough for me to write for. 

Girly pop is stoic, but she’s not unbreakable. It’s not the easiest task, but it’s absolutely worth your time to make her smile and laugh. That being said, it makes her very embarrassed and flustered, so please spare her and her image and only do so when in private.

She thinks about you a lot. Bea’s been trained to remain calm and collected, even in tense situations, which makes it difficult for opponents to read her in the heat of the moment. Little do they know she’s just thinking about what her girlfriend is up to at the moment. Were you doing alright? Were you in the stadium watching her match? Were you cheering her on? She hopes so.

Is not above using you to indulge in her love of sweets. She has the biggest sweet tooth in the league, but has a hard time actually eating them without garnering too much attention. So, when she wants to have something sweet, she’ll bring you with her and play it off like it was your idea, therefore she was just following you and being a good girlfriend and not just getting dessert.

Training never stops with this one. She works out all the time, and will invite you to come sometimes. Her training is incredibly rigorous, though, so you likely won’t be able to keep up. Sitting on the sidelines and cheering her on or helping her workout in some kind of way are more than acceptable in her mind. Easiest way to help her is to sit on her back while she does push ups, it helps her workout while also getting to be close with you. Don’t expect her to be talking too much, though.

Her training sometimes brings her to remote locations in the region, and she sometimes forgets to warn you ahead of time. You might spend your entire day trying to get ahold of her and asking others if they’ve seen her, only to receive a text from her hours later that just reads like “ out training”, no further elaboration. 

Bea’s a tad bit touch starved, so she thrives off of your affection. However, she’s not very good at vocalizing her wants, so it falls to you to notice her longing stares. She wants to hold your hand and cuddle and sling her arm around your shoulder when sitting close, but she’s too nervous to initiate on her own due to her lack of experience.

 Her only ask is that you keep your relationship pretty lowkey in public. PDA makes her a little uncomfortable, both because she’s shy with affection and also because she knows people are watching. Hand holding is as far as you are gonna get with her before she breaks a little inside.

Melony my beloved. They did not have to cake her up so much but goddamn I am not complaining because ahjdkgh milf. She’s hot and also incredibly caring and sweet and supportive. 

First things first: you have to get along with her kids. This is non-negotiable. She already has a rocky relationship with one of her children, she doesn’t need to jeopardize that relationship further, or the one’s with her daughters, for any reason, even for love. It’s a lot to suddenly have five step-kids, especially if you don’t have any kids to begin with, but if you aren’t willing to at least try, Melony isn’t going to be sticking around.

She doesn’t want to overwhelm you too quickly, but meeting her children is something she wants to happen early in the relationship. Once things get serious, she’ll invite you over for dinner which, surprisingly, goes very well, with little family drama being drudged up in the process. It takes a monuementous amount of effort to convince Gordie to come over, but he does, reluctantly. It’s probably pretty stressful because, uh, if you mess up then your relationship is toast, but it’s worth it in the end. 

Also, congrats, by doing the bare-minimum, you become Gordie’s favorite mom. This is by default, considering the previously mentioned rocky relationship he has with Melony. She’s just happy that Gordie isn’t upset about her hopping back into the dating scene, same with her daughters, and that they actually like you.

Not normally what I write about with these, or write about in general, but, when it comes to arguments, Melony can be a little difficult because she’s used to being the one in charge. Most of her arguments are with her own children, over both silly and important matters alike, and so she’s used to taking the perspective of “mother knows best”. It’s never her intention to control or demean you, but it can easily come off like that. If you bring it up to her, she’ll do her best to work it out of her mindset (communication is important kids). Not to say that arguments happen often, of course, but they can be incredibly annoying to deal with when they crop up.

Melony loves to cook, and would love to both cook for and with you. It’s maternal instinct to make sure you’re well fed, there’s simply no way around it. Expect her to make you adorably packed lunches and plenty of home cooked dinners. You’ll almost always end up with leftovers, since she’s used to cooking for five people. But she’d love it if you joined her in the kitchen for some quality bonding. If you’re lucky, she might even show you how to make the snomlette. 

It’s honestly incredible that she has time to do so many things for you and her children along with her duties as gym leader with time to spare. It’s the mom magic.

Marnie, despite being punk, is shy and sweet in equal measures. Even as a gym leader, she has a streak of being a little stand-offish and awkward. That’s not to say that she’s meek or a push-over, or that she gets nervous in front of a crowd. She’s just easy to fluster and is usually on the quieter side.

Like many others, Marnie’s got a lot on her plate. Of course, she’s got her duties as a gym leader to tend to, but she’s also working on restoring Spikemuth to its former glory. These don’t just eat up her time, they also leave her tired. Please hold your arms out for her to fall into when she walks through the door after a long day, it’s her favorite way to recharge. 

Morpeko loves you more than anyone else, a blessing you should be thankful for. He’s kinda like a cat, in that he can be very sweet at times and an asshole at others. Oh, and he shows his love through biting. He likes Marnie well enough, but she’s not safe from being bitten or scratched. You, however, are a different story, as he seems to always be sweet when you’re around. Marnie’s convinced he does it out of spite.

Keeping up with the theme of “talking about other character’s important to this specific character”, Piers. He wants the best for his baby sister, considering that he basically raised her and all, but he doesn’t even try to be overprotective or intimidating. Does it sting to watch Marnie grow up, seeing her get into her first real romantic relationship? Of course. But he knows that she’s got a good head on her shoulders, so he sees no reason to butt into her relationship. 

He’s an overall chill guy with a lot more time on his hands since he’s no longer a gym leader. As long as you’re chill, he’s chill, and won’t mind your company. Hell, he might even start looking forward to hanging out with you, thinking of you as part of the family, when you’ve known each other for long enough. The only issue he might have with you is your music taste.

This is a bit more general, but I like to think that Marnie and Hop are good friends. They didn’t know each other too much during the gym challenge, since all they really had was a common friend/rival, but they actually got to know each other once the champion cup was over. It’s not super easy to hang out since they’re both striving towards their own goals, but they find a way.

It’s funny, because I don’t think they would have much in common outside of their music taste, but they’re still friends who hang out and complain to one another. While he’s dropped his dream of being champion, Hop still gets excited over the gym challenge every year and loves to watch her matches. Marnie’s not the most knowledgeable when it comes to pokemon research, but she finds it all interesting and tries to lend a hand. She’s not that helpful. She also is the only person preventing Hop and Bede from throwing hands when they run into each other.

Oleana is the pinnacle of “very busy and very tired”. Gatekeeping, gaslighting, and girlbossing all day takes a great deal of time and effort. She’ll trudge home and fall face first into the couch, perfectly content to call it a night if you don’t step in and make her come to bed.

She loves the chairman dearly, but he also stresses her out immensely. There’s really no point in going out to meet loyal fans on the way to business meetings, but that doesn’t stop Rose from doing that anyways. She badgers him to the best of her ability, but he still takes his sweet time. While she appears composed, she’s screaming internally, waiting until she can go home and scream about it externally when venting to you.

Speaking of the chairman, it seems as if she cares more about him than she does you at times, but she does her best to reassure you otherwise. The chairman is, unfortunately, her priority due to being her boss, but that’s more about admiration than love. Consider the fact that he (unintentionally) makes her incredibly stressed, whereas you don’t. That alone gives her a reason to love you.

Also consider that the idea of coming home to you at the end of the day is part of what keeps her going. Sure, her job is stressful, considering the fact that she is essentially the backbone of the Macro Cosmos company, but she always gets through the day because she gets to see you once it’s all said and done. The tension within her bones dissipates upon walking through the doorway. Hold her in your arms, brush your fingers through her hair, get shitty take out to eat over trashy TV that neither of you are really watching, and you’ll win her heart in an instant.

While she shows her more… aggressive side to you when ranting passionately about all the issues involved with her job, she reverts back to her poised and punctual state whenever in public. Due to her professional nature, expect little PDA. The most you’ll get is hand holding. Unless she’s jealous, at which you’ll get a hand wrapped around your hip which grips just a little too tight until she calms down.

Date nights are typically spent indoors unless she has a day off, which is incredibly unlikely to happen. Firstly, she wants to rant, and she can’t do that in public without destroying her public image. And secondly, she’s tired of dealing with people given how much shit and disappointment she has to deal with throughout the day. You get her, so why would she want to be around anyone else?

Also! Garbador is an absolute sweetheart. She knows how much you help Oleana and that makes her so happy. She tries to show her affection but is a little awkward about it because she doesn’t want to gross you out since she’s… literally made of trash. She usually just watches from afar, all smiley and happy to see you two being happy, getting embarrassed if you catch her doing so.

Sooo I wasn’t originally gonna write anything for Klara because, again, I don’t have sword and am not as familiar with her as I am Bea, but thoughts started rolling so here we are. Also kinda toxic behavior incoming because it’s Klara.

Girl is a pop star, or is at least trying to be one, which means she’ll naturally write love songs about you. And by love songs I mean songs that describe how much she loves you but are also not really love songs because they’re lowkey toxic? Listen, it’s Klara, what else do you expect when that is literally her thing. She also has songs about her exes, which contain… worrying content, but that’s neither here nor there.

In general? Don’t break her heart. She will key your car and slash your tires and will attempt to instigate physical fights and will also write a song about you and how much she hates you and all of the things she hopes happen to you. Again, it’s Klara. But if she loves you with her whole heart and soul, then you have nothing to worry about. She’ll be more than happy to do all those things towards people you don’t like instead.

She's not the best at showing her love. Her goal in life was always to be loved by everyone around her without having to do much in return, but your existence has disturbed that goal because she actually really likes you and actually wants to try for you? And she kind of hates that, and it takes her a while to even figure out what the hell was wrong with her, and she ends up resenting you for a hot minute for making her feel so weird.

But she gets over that and decides to put in actual effort into your relationship, trying to be a better person both for you and herself. She takes the time to listen to you and work out your likes and dislikes, and puts effort into coming up with cute date nights, and does her best to be there for you when you’re down or need to get something off of your chest. Just normal girlfriend things. She’ll never admit to changing how she acts, though. This unintentionally turned into an “I can fix her” post whoopsie.

Klara loves to take pictures of herself and photoshop them, so expect to be sent most, if not all, of them. Sometimes, she just thinks she’s looking exceptionally cute and just needs to share her hotness with someone else. She also expects you to send pictures back in return, as it’s only fair. Like Nessa, she has a large portfolio of pics she’s both snapped and received of you.

Anyways, Klara posts shit like “I love doing wifey shit for my girlfriend <3” while burning down the kitchen trying to make you scrambled eggs.

I also originally wasn’t going to write anything for Peonia but I had a change of heart because, after thinking of it, I couldn’t not write embarrassingly supportive supreme dad-of-the-year Peony hyping her up.

Peonia’s biggest mistake in life was coming out to her dad, because the man is simply too supportive. The moment she tells him this vital information, he is searching every store and market for all of the lesbian flags he can find. She has an entire pile of them in her room because she literally doesn’t have any space on the walls to hang them on. He also sews smaller ones onto her clothes and jackets upon being asked to do so,

If he ever sees her talking to another girl, he’ll ask about her afterwards. He just needs to know if she’s into this new person he’s never met before. Peonia always tells him off in an attempt to subdue her embarrassment. Thankfully, he at least waits until the other girl leaves, or else she would literally combust.

That being said, don’t think you can date Peonia without Peony putting up an overprotective fight. At the end of the day, that’s his baby. His darling. His pride and joy. Sure, she’s grown up and is more than capable of making her own choices in life, including her choice in romantic partner, but he’s still her father. He just needs to make sure you have her best interest in mind, then he’ll back off.

But once you’ve gotten past the over-protective dad phase, you get yourself a new father figure. He’ll come to think of you as one of his own. He’ll also provide you with plenty of embarrassing childhood stories. At some point, he’ll start referring to you as his daughter-in-law. Every minute you spend talking with him makes Peonia rip her hair out. Again, Peonia is happy that her dad is supportive of her sexuality and your relationship, but she’s also on the verge of dying from embarrassment.

Even though she is incredibly embarrassed by her father’s antics, she can be super supportive and exciting when it comes to doing anything with you. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and when she realizes how she acts similarly to her father when it comes to spending time with you, she dies a little inside.

Enough about dad. Please go with her on Dynamax Adventures. Not only does she have a blast with them, but she can show off how cool and strong she is as a trainer. Please swoon over her and how cool and brave she is, being as dramatic as humanly possible. RIP to your teammates who are forced to third-wheel on the adventure, but at least Peonia is having fun.

Also, please help dye her hair. The pink looks great but it was a pain to do by herself, and she’s too embarrassed to ask her dad for help. Besides, it means you get to hang out and she gets your input on what color to use. 

[existentialbogwitch]

I grew up Christian and regularly wore a WWJD bracelet.

I want to repurpose the concept but with What Would Janeway do?

I really want to do a mental health related podcast that is also a Star Trek watch through series.

I would love to have a partner in doing this, but I don’t personally know anyone in my life who loves Star Trek as much as I do AND has an interest in personal growth, mental health, analyzing human behavior, spirituality, the “hero’s journey” / tarot major arcana character arc personal journey, story telling, mythology and folklore. And is anti-capitalist and preferably queer. I will also likely discuss a lot of neurodivergent themes.

And talking about coping in a crisis and handling moral dilemmas.

I don’t know if this would even be interesting to talk about to anyone else, but it would be a very fun time for me. I love this kind of conversation and it isn’t something I get to do much anymore.

I miss school, but I’m studying design and we don’t get to spend time waxing poetic about spiritual ideas the way I want to.

There’s a large facet of my personality that wants desperately to probe the unknown.

That was kind of a visceral description, but I think it speaks to the depths of my fervor.

I need a place to unleash my Star Trek opinions.

It is often easier for me to develop ideas in conversations with others.

If you find this idea intriguing, I’d love to talk about it more so please reach out!

It is an idea that has been floating around in my mind for a long time.

For several years, one of my favorite podcasts was Harry Potter and the sacred text, where two seminary students read each of the Harry Potter books, one chapter a week, and did some sacred reading analysis practices to further examine the story from a spiritual lens.

I loved it particularly because one of the hosts was a Jewish atheist secular humanist and the other a Christian. They offered really interesting perspectives and I learned so much from listening to them.

As someone who was seriously considering going to seminary and honestly enjoys religious studies, it was such a joy to listen to that podcast.

Unfortunately it turns out that JK Rowling is a terrible, terrible human.

I have made every attempt possible to erase the right chokehold Harry Potter had on maintaining my own mental stability. In my efforts to “replace” Harry Potter in my mind, I dove into other stories by authors who were less problematic.

Star Trek was one of those things. There are a lot of books, movies, and television that have been supporting my mental health since things in reality have started to take a turn for the worst.

Star Trek is at that top of that list.

It is something that is very important to me in a way I often have trouble adequately expressing.

Anyway, I love Star Trek with my whole heart and this is something I really wish I could do.

Does the world need a podcast about using Star Trek to help process your feelings, understand yourself and other humans, heal emotional wounds, and confront ethical dilemmas? I dunno.

But it would be a lot of fun to try it!

[sage-nebula]

Top 5 Jounouchi moments

5.) “I’ll never give up on myself, or on you! So you don’t give up either, okay, Yuugi?”

There’s a whole lot more to this scene than just that line, but basically: during Death-T, when they’re locked in the falling block room but before the blocks start to fall, Yuugi has a minor freakout because he thinks it’s his fault that everyone is stuck inside there with him. In return, Jounouchi has a minor freakout because he’s upset that Yuugi is blaming himself. And that’s all well and good, but what makes this scene stand out for Jounouchi is that he ends up opening up to Yuugi (and Honda and Anzu, since they were also present) about how much he used to absolutely hate himself but how that changed when he met Yuugi and returned the piece of the Puzzle he stole. This is significant in a couple ways:

One, Death-T happens smack in the middle of the school arc, and so it’s still fairly early in the series. When the manga starts, Jounouchi is chock full of toxic masculinity that informs his behavior and choices, and part of that toxic masculinity is a refusal to be vulnerable with others, or to show any kind of sensitivity. See: how he didn’t want to admit that he believed in fortune telling in chapter . . . four, I think it was, and so he blamed them going to see the fortune teller on Anzu rather than admit that he was the one who wanted them all to go. But here, he’s opening up and revealing vulnerabilities about himself. He’s admitting that he used to absolutely hate who he was, that he took his self-hatred out on Yuugi, and that he started to like himself for the very first time when he returned the piece of the Puzzle he stole. He’s being vulnerable in front of his friends, which is something that he absolutely would not have done at the start of the manga. It’s a significant point of growth for his character.

Two, it’s also significant because the reason he’s doing it is not for himself, but rather for Yuugi, which is something consistent with Jounouchi’s character throughout the manga. Jounouchi is incredibly selfless and would quite literally die for those he loves. Here he’s vulnerable not because he wants the others to know that he has had horrific self-esteem throughout his life, but rather because he wants to show Yuugi just how important Yuugi is to him and make it plain that Jounouchi himself is better off because he has Yuugi in his life. He makes sure that Yuugi knows that Jounouchi will always believe in him and always be there for him and presses Yuugi to acknowledge the same. This is especially poignant considering the next chapter, wherein Yuugi tells Jounouchi and Anzu about Atem, and Jounouchi once again reaffirms that he will always consider Yuugi his best friend, no matter what other spirit resides in him (or the Puzzle as the case may be). It’s just a really beautiful moment.

4.) If you tell Jounouchi he’s going to die, he will face an Egyptian God and walk backwards into life.

Sure, he “lost” the duel. (“Lost” being in quotation marks because if they weren’t playing with holograms the attack would have counted and he would have won.) But the fact remains that Jounouchi Katsuya played a Shadow Game against an Egyptian God and not only tanked the hit, but even though he did die, that death was temporary. A direct attack from an Egyptian God during a Shadow Game only managed to kill him temporarily. He spent, what, a handful of hours in that hospital bed, tops? A handful of hours and he was back on his feet like nothing ever happened. And it’s not even like this was some random-ass Shadow Game either. This particular Shadow Game delivered direct damage to his body / life force with every Life Point he lost. He took hit, after hit, after hit, with the finishing blow being the fires of Ra and he still managed to survive. Like, yes, he died for a little while. For a couple hours. But then he woke up and was fine. And he’s not like other characters in this series, who are reincarnations of ancient Egyptian mages or who have Millennium Items backing them up. Nope, he’s just a punk from the wrong side of the tracks who is too goddamn stubborn and determined to live to be killed. Whether gang leaders (Hirutani), professional serial killers (Chopperman), revenge-driven Millennium Item wielders (Malik), or actual gods (Ra), no one can kill Jounouchi Katsuya for long, and that’s goddamn amazing.

3.) Throwing Hirutani off the roof and out of his life.

Okay, listen. We all know that I love the Trash King Bitch himself and that I do wish that he had come back later on in the manga, even though he wouldn’t have any interest in Duel Monsters and so it wouldn’t make much sense for him to be involved in those arcs. Despite this, though, I have to say that I do love how his part in the story wrapped up for Jounouchi. When we first saw Hirutani, Jounouchi (understandably) had to be saved by Atem. He didn’t get to settle things with Hirutani on his own terms. So when Hirutani comes back in chapters 48/49, Jounouchi gets a chance to settle the score and close the book on that part of his life for good, for himself. Yes, at first he’s put into a bit of a jam when HIrutani has Yuugi literally hanged by the Millennium Puzzle, but Jounouchi manages to save him, and then—with Yuugi’s encouragement—is able to tell Hirutani to go screw himself when Hirutani suggests that Yuugi will be safe so long as Jounouchi complies with what he wants (which Jounouchi did consider, until Yuugi spoke up and said that would never happen, giving Jounouchi the strength to agree). But even without my own Wishshipping bias, the entire fight on the roof was just [chef’s kiss]. Hirutani reminiscing about their past in an attempt to sway Jounouchi’s feelings, Jounouchi winning the fight despite Hirutani throwing glass in his eyes, and then finally, knocking Hirutani off the roof of the warehouse. It was a way to win the fight, yes, but it was also symbolic. He knocked Hirutani off the roof and out of his life. He closed the door on that relationship for good, and it was a very poignant and important moment for him that often gets overlooked.

2.) “Yuugi, I will stand with you on the edge of the River Styx . . . but I won’t let you cross over!”

Everything about the scene where Jounouchi saves Yuugi from the Black Crown fire is just . . . [chef’s kiss] Let me count the ways in which this scene is incredible:

1.) Jounouchi realizes pretty quickly that Yuugi will not leave that raging inferno without putting the Puzzle back together and freeing it from the table. He just won’t. And instead of continuing to fight with him about it, Jounouchi quickly takes control of the situation and tells everyone else to get the hell out while he stays behind to help Yuugi. Once everyone else is out of harm’s way, Jounouchi calmly stands there amongst the raging flames and thinks the above line. He’s literally willing to stand at the edge of death with Yuugi, no matter how bad the flames or the smoke is, but he’s equally as determined to make sure that Yuugi lives. But even setting aside my Wishshipping bias (again), I feel that this is such an incredible display of Jounouchi’s character, particularly in contrast to how horribly the anime liked to portray him. Jounouchi quickly analyzed the situation, took command of the others there and got them to safety, and then held his composure in the middle of an inferno while he watched over Yuugi. He thinks quickly on his feet, he’s decisive, he’s strong, and he’s resilient, and this scene showed all of those qualities beautifully.

2.) Jounouchi is the one who figures out how to free the Puzzle after Yuugi has put it back together (and Yuugi has passed out). Although Atem does manage to psychically connect with Jounouchi while Jounouchi is trying to pry Yuugi’s fingers off the Puzzle, in the manga all he says is Jounouchi’s name; Jounouchi is the one who spots the pipe and uses it as a wrench against the table to free the Puzzle from where it was stuck, declaring loudly that they were not going to die in that fire as he did so. Again, he’s resourceful and thinks quickly on his feet. Any characterization of Jounouchi as stupid just because he has bad grades and his mouth runs before his brain catches up sometimes is flat out wrong, as proven by this scene here.

3.) And finally, that scene where he carries Yuugi out of the flames . . . absolutely beautiful, a masterful work of art, 10/10, even better in the fully colored version of the manga. He holds Yuugi in a bridal carry and gets him out of that burning building, making good on his word to not let Yuugi die there. Absolutely immaculate. [chef’s kiss]

1.) Sacrificing himself to save Yuugi at the pier.

Anyone who didn’t see this coming just does not know me at all, but yeah, the pier duel is my absolute favorite part of the manga for so many reasons, and again, I feel like I have to count the ways here:

1.) First of all, it is impossible to talk about this without talking about how Jounouchi managed to break the Millennium Rod’s power over him. As stated above, Jounouchi is just a boy from a broken home. He doesn’t have an Ancient Egyptian preincarnation, he doesn’t have magic powers, he doesn’t have a magical artifact. All he has to his name is ¥600 and unmitigated gall. And yet, despite practically anyone casting him aside as unremarkable, he and he alone managed to completely break the power the Millennium Rod held over him, through nothing but sheer determination. This is, again, not talked about very much, despite it being one of (if not the) most remarkable feats in the entire manga canon. No other character managed anything even remotely close to this. But although the Rod held Jounouchi for a time, just like Ra’s attack, the effect only lasted for a handful of hours. Jounouchi throws off the chokehold of dark magic in a handful of hours like it’s nothing. His audacity is unparalleled and I love him for it so much.

2.) Jounouchi’s connection with the Red-Eyes Black Dragon is never explained, but it’s extremely present both here and when he comes back to life later on (which in-universe is like two days later, tops, because so much happens in so little time in YGO), but it’s still worth remarking upon. In this particular instance, Red-Eyes was on Yuugi’s side of the field. The duel was over. There was absolutely no reason for Red-Eyes to react or listen to Jounouchi at all. But when Jounouchi called for her, her eyes flared to life and she attacked him as he requested before her hologram vanished. That moment will always stick out to me, particularly since we don’t know why Red-Eyes has such a connection to Jounouchi, but she very obviously does in a way that we see with only a few other humans and monsters in the series. 

3.) Jounouchi Tarzan-swinging across the pier on the chain of his handcuff and swiping Yuugi’s key before they’re both dragged into the ocean is just an admirable feat of athleticism and dexterity that is just [chef’s kiss]. Sure, he doesn’t have enough time to unlock Yuugi before the anchor drops, but he has enough time to grab Yuugi’s key, and considering how tiny that key was and how deep the box that held it was, that’s still pretty impressive.

4.) And finally, the big one . . . although Jounouchi’s self-esteem definitely got better after he befriended Yuugi, there’s a huge difference between “better” and “good”. Jounouchi doesn’t give up, he refuses to go down without swinging, he doesn’t take kindly to others putting him down. But while Jounouchi doesn’t take insults from others lying down, that doesn’t stop him from insulting himself or from feeling very badly about himself and his own capabilities. He’s very quick to blame himself for things entirely beyond his control, and to feel that those failures are a result of his own inadequacies. For example, he blamed himself for Shizuka being afraid to remove her bandages, saying that it was his fault and that he wasn’t good enough to give her the courage that she needed. This was the entire reason why he entered Battle City: so that he could give her the courage she needed. (And then he stays in Battle City to fight Malik and help Yuugi, but that’s a digression.)

The reason why this is important is because part of feeling like you’re inadequate, like you’re responsible for whatever goes wrong, like you’re a screw-up who will never be good enough, is also feeling like you’re not really deserving of the love or respect of other people. Again, it seems a bit paradoxical to say that’s the case with Jounouchi given how he’ll talk himself up when it comes to certain subjects and how he doesn’t stand for others belittling him, but a.) his bravado is often false, and b.) just because he won’t let others bully him doesn’t mean he won’t bully himself. When it comes to Jounouchi’s loved ones, he puts them on a pedestal and therefore, on some level, sees them as being better than him. Shizuka and Yuugi can do no wrong, so whatever goes wrong in their lives is probably his fault somehow, whether it’s because he caused it or because he can’t fix it. And he always needs to be better, to be deserving of the love they give him. He needs to earn it, you know? (In his eyes, at least; you know they wouldn’t agree with that.)

All of this is relevant because Yuugi telling Jounouchi that he loves him here just . . . shakes Jounouchi to his core. As Yuugi is giving his little speech, Jounouchi actually tells him to stop, not only because he can tell what’s likely going to happen after (because after all, Yuugi said that he wanted to buy enough time to say what he wanted to say), but also because hearing that someone loves him, and loves him so strongly, is basically earth-shattering for him. To be clear, in Japanese culture people don’t really say “I love you” to each other. Culturally, it’s just not a thing at all to tell your friends that you love them. Even married couples very rarely say it. It’s like a “you might say it on your death bed” kind of thing. The word that Yuugi used, too, is incredibly strong; “daisuki” is basically “head exploding levels of love and affection.” There’s a reason why, in stories like this, it’s usually reserved for dramatic confessions of love. But setting my Wishshipping bias aside once again, I’m not bringing this up to make an argument of how much this comes across as a romantic confession (though it does), but rather to explain just how strongly that would affect Jounouchi. To hear Yuugi say “I love you” using a word as strong as “daisuki” . . . I doubt he was able to even fully process how that made him feel until days later, much less in the minute he had before Yuugi’s life points hit zero and the anchor dropped. For someone who feels as if he’s never been good enough, for someone who has to deal with the fact that his own parents don’t love him . . . being told that someone he cherishes and holds so highly does love him is beyond profound.

But then, to build on that — the anchor drops, they’re dragged under the ocean waves, Jounouchi frees Yuugi from the cuff. He apologizes . . . and then he says thank you with a soft smile on his face. Jounouchi knows he’s going to die (although he is going to try to use the key on his own cuff just in case), but he’s still thanking Yuugi while smiling. He’s thanking Yuugi for loving him. He is, indirectly, saying that he loves Yuugi, too. And he smiles as Yuugi’s eyes open a little, because if nothing else he wants Yuugi’s last image of him to be one of him smiling in gratitude and love.

Excuse me while I go cry at this beautiful and poignant moment. 

(But also yes, the entire scene really does come off as a romantic confession, especially in the original Japanese, and especially when you compare it to romantic confessions in other manga aimed at the same demographic, and if one of them was a girl there wouldn’t even be a question about whether it was romantic or not, thank you and goodnight.)

[luckgods]

Uncivil Conflict, Part 1: Intake

Prompt: “Forcibly stripped” for Bad Things Happen Bingo Warnings: forced nudity, minor violence, implied mistreatment of prisoners Word count: 1.9k Series summary: see the masterpost Summary: Imrah encounters someone unexpected during a routine prisoner intake, which quickly becomes not-so-routine.

—

Imrah doesn’t like working intake. There’s intense scrutiny from the officers who bring in the prisoners, for one, and the procedure itself is far stricter than her usual patrol and sentry assignments. (The horror stories that older guards such as Nobu and Ori had told her about transfers who’d come with knives—and once, memorably, a bomb—hidden in their clothes didn’t help, either.)

But she doesn’t have a choice if she wants to keep her job, and the pay’s good enough, so she reports in just after sunrise and prepares herself for a long day of manhandling prisoners and watching her back.

The first set of transfers passes without incident. The second brings trouble.

The prisoners are brought inside by the army escort and shepherded into the temporary cell that pretty much everyone calls “the fusillade,” although nobody’s ever explained why. Then, one person is detached from the chain, searched, attired, questioned, and sent on their way to their new cell.

These prisoners are grubbier than usual, which makes Imrah wonder where they’ve come from, but it’s not her position to ask, so she doesn’t. The first has an impressive black eye and further bruising across his rib cage. Even through the quick change of clothing, he stays silent and expressionless, which she respects.

She tunes out the questioning process, focusing her attention on the prisoner. He’s older, maybe the same age as her father. Greying slightly, but still well-muscled, and probably a troublemaker, if those bruises are any indication. (She almost wants to see what injuries his opponent walked away with. Probably bad ones, she’d bet, if she had anyone to bet with and any way to find out.)

It’s the same process with a few more, the only interruption a sudden coughing fit from one of the prisoners in the fusillade as Imrah and her partner are fetching another transfer for search. She tosses an irate glare in the general direction of the irritant but pays it no more mind.

At least, she doesn’t until she’s changing the shackles on the next prisoner and realizes that underneath the grime—soot, possibly—is a face she knows as well as her own, possibly better. Cazimir.

Her hands fumble and she almost drops the chain, and she can see Caz’s shoulders jump like they always do when ze’s trying to suppress a laugh.

“Come on, Merari, what’s the holdup?” moans her partner, the insufferable bastard. “Rookie got startled by the big bad newcomer?”

“Up yours, Neron,” she says, finally re-placing and locking the shackles. She wants to say more, but the officers are watching, and policy is that they avoid indecorous speech in front of prisoners. It gets a whole page of examples in the rulebook.

Instead, they silently march Caz to the search room, where ze’s unceremoniously unchained and told to strip by Neron.

Hir eyes flicker to him, to Imrah, and back.

“No,” ze says.

“No?” Neron repeats.

“No.”

Neron is impatient with bullshit at the best of times, and Imrah can practically see the spring winding up in his skull.

“For fuck’s sake, kid, just make it easy on all of us. I don’t want to strip you myself but I will if you don’t get moving.”

Caz doesn’t shift.

“Well?” Neron says.

“I think you should do it,” Caz says.

Neron glances at Imrah, who feels just as confused as he looks.

“What?” he demands.

Caz purses hir lips, as though there’s something simple they’re not getting. 

(Back home, it was usually Imrah making that expression. But she’s not going to think about that now.)

“I said, I think you should do it. The only way my clothes are coming off is if you do it yourself, and obviously we’re all going to be stuck in here until that happens, so… do it. Get a move on.” Ze makes a chopping gesture with hir hands, in that awkward slightly-too-slow manner ze always did, which is yet another piece of this situation that is intimately familiar and yet so out-of-place it makes Imrah want to scream.

There’s nothing in the rulebook about what to do about this. Imrah looks to Neron, as he’s technically the senior guard. He looks about two seconds away from pinching the bridge of his nose and heaving out a sigh, and although he refrains from the former, he does allow the latter.

“All right then,” he says. “Am I gonna need help with this one, or will you cooperate?”

“Would you believe me if I said yes?”

“Probably not,” admits Neron. “Merari, with me. You take the left, I’ll take the right, with any luck we’ll have this over by lunchtime.”

Caz holds statue-still as the two guards approach, and then explodes into action once they’re in range. Ze stomps on Neron’s instep and uses the pivot to line up a punch at Imrah’s gut. She dodges out of the way and manages to only take a glancing hit to her side, and Neron has already sent an elbow at Caz’s face, knocking their raised protective arm out of the way.

Imrah launches her own punch, clips Caz’s cheekbone and that’s enough to disrupt hir kick at Neron, who retaliates with a knee to hir stomach and then catches hir in a headlock when ze doubles over.

“The fuck’d you learn to fight like that?” Imrah asks, still running on more adrenaline than sense.

“Probably their precious revolution,” Neron suggests, spitting out the last word like it tastes foul.

Caz doesn’t answer, panting and squirming, still trying to escape Neron’s hold.

“Aw, give it up, fishy,” Neron says. “We got you. Merari, get this reb’s pants off, then we’ll swap holds for the top.”

Imrah doesn’t want to, but… it’s her job. She approaches slowly, wary of a stray kick catching her, and undoes Caz’s belt.

“Fucking bastards,” ze hisses.

“Right back at you, sweetheart,” Neron says sweetly, as Imrah pulls down Caz’s trousers, and then hir smallclothes.

Hir legs are spattered with bruises, and hir right knee is scabbed over. Imrah focuses on this, and nothing else. Not the circumstances. Not the ache in her side. Just the bruises.

She pats down her… friend? Former friend? And then gives the all-clear to Neron. He tells her to restrain Caz’s hands behind hir back with one arm and set the other around hir neck, as a precaution. She does.

Caz continues writhing all the while, occasionally kicking at Imrah’s shins as Neron rolls his eyes, then pulls a knife out of his boot.

Caz wrenches in Imrah’s grip.

“Hey, hey, calm down, it’s just to get your tunic off.” She glares at Neron over Caz’s shoulder, just in case he disagrees. He nods. “We can’t let your hands free if you’re acting like this, so a knife is the only way. Just don’t move and you’ll be fine.”

Caz’s shoulders are shaking again, although Imrah doesn’t see what’s so funny about the situation.

Neron approaches and grabs the neckline of Caz’s tunic, slicing down to the hem.

“There,” Imrah says, as calmly as she can, “that’s one part done. Only the sleeves to go.”

She nods at Neron, who steps in closer, and Caz jerks forward and snaps hir teeth at him, like a caged animal.

“Woah!” says Neron. Then he smiles. “Careful, kid. Wouldn’t want my knife to slip... on accident, or anything.”

Caz lets out a sound that’s halfway between a groan and a growl.

“Get it over with,” Imrah says. She feels feverish. She feels like she’s going to melt from Caz’s body heat, going to shake out of her skin from Caz’s shuddering.

Neron slices down each sleeve with no further commentary. With the tunic out of the way, Neron completes the search, and confirms that Caz isn’t carrying any weapons.

“Let them go,” he says, still holding the knife.

Imrah raises her eyebrows to confirm, and he nods. She releases her chokehold and then Caz’s wrists, stepping back and raising her hands into a defensive position immediately, in case ze decides to attack again.

Caz crumples and stumbles sideways, away from both Imrah and Neron, then staggers upright and immediately heads for a wall, placing hir back to it, hir eyes darting between the two guards.

Imrah wonders at how ze doesn’t seem to mind hir total exposure at all, even as she tries to block it out. Ze could have just cooperated. It didn’t have to happen this way.

“I’m done with you, kid,” Neron says, Caz’s clothes collected and pressed under his foot. “If you want us to chain you back up and walk you out of here buck-naked, we can do that. If you don’t, your new clothes are on the shelf.” He jerks his head towards the cubby-hole shelving on the wall opposite the singular door, where the pale prisoners’ outfits are folded and arranged by size. “Have at it.”

Caz looks at him, brows furrowed, then quickly at the clothes and back again. Slowly, ze begins to sidle towards the shelf, keeping hir back to the wall. Once again, Imrah doesn’t understand. What happened to the Caz she knew? That Caz wouldn’t have laughed at the idea of getting hir clothes cut off with a knife, or felt the need to watch two members of the Royal Army like a mother cow protecting her calves, no matter the circumstance. Why doesn’t ze trust me anymore?

Instead of looking at Caz as ze dresses, Imrah watches Neron watching Caz. He looks angry, which makes sense, given that Caz attacked him. His hair is mussed, and he’ll be annoyed if she doesn’t tell him before they head back out to the processing room, so of course she won’t tell him. Serves him right for being such a peacock.

“Are you going to let us chain you again, or do you want to take your chances against my knife?”

Neron sounds angrier than he looks, angrier than Imrah has ever heard him sound. She collects the handcuffs from where they’d been discarded on the floor.

Caz scowls are him and steps forward until ze’s halfway between Neron and the wall. Then, ze drops into a kneeling position, bowing deeply before sitting up and presenting hir hands, wrists together, palms up.

Oh, you sarcastic bastard. Imrah fights the urge to smile. Some things don’t change, at least.

“Cuff them,” Neron orders, voice nearly trembling. “Then pick them up and get them out of here. The sooner we get this bitch locked up, the happier I’ll be.”

Imrah obeys.

The three of them return to the processing office. The administrator in charge of today’s intake—M something? N?—looks up at them with thinly veiled disdain.

Well, I’d like to see you deal with an unruly prisoner, Imrah thinks viciously. You’d deserve anything Caz did to you.

The administrator dips her pen in the inkwell of her desk and asks “Name?” in a near-monotone.

This is usually where Imrah would start ignoring her but… it’s Caz.

“Cazimir,” Caz replies.

“Full name?”

“Cazimir,” Caz repeats.

“No family name. I see. Very well. Place of birth, then?”

Oh, shit. If Caz gives Merar, then Imrah is in for… well, something. She’s not sure what, actually. Probably an interrogation on what she knows about Caz (which is a lot), whether she has any connections to the insurrectionist movement (which she doesn’t), and a lot of teasing from her fellow guards. She’d never live it down.

She schools her face calm, and Caz says, “Bywater Strid.”

It’s not a name Imrah recognizes, which perhaps shouldn’t be surprising, but it is. Where has Caz been, in the two years they’ve been apart? Caz, Caz… what have you done?

“Stridi. It will do. Well, Cazimir Stridi of Bywater Strid, you have been sentenced to imprisonment for the duration of the insurrection, subject to review at the end of such by a judge of the courts. Guards, they are to reside in cell number ninety-two. Dismissed.”

[To be continued.]

[welcome-to-the-end-of-eras]

My dad used to play club hockey when he was in college and has a lot of stories about different fights he got in, but he just told me about one and I can’t stop picturing the foxes so here we go:

-It’s a few years after the events of the book, and everyone except Neil has graduated

-The foxes make it to the championships, and to absolutely no one’s surprise they’re facing the ravens again, but thankfully the foxes will be at a home-court advantage

-Obviously both teams had changed a lot from the time R*ko was there, but I like to imagine that the ravens are still gargantuan pricks, just y’know less murder-y

-But none of the og champion foxes can’t bare to leave, so they’ve all gotten jobs helping around the stadium (student loans are also a real bitch and the school pays them pretty well)

-Matt, Dan, Andrew, and Renee work security for obvious reasons

-Allison and Nicky work the front desk (for the sake of this story he and Erik moved to the states) bc they like to shut down people looking to get in for free/being pricks about where their tickets are

-Aaron’s out selling the tickets bc he knows that if he sees someone being especially rough in the crowd Andrew’s gonna fight the guy and he just knows he’ll get roped into it

-But Kevin decided he’d come back and ref for the game, along with some former ravens to make sure it’s fair to both teams

-So the game’s going, it’s neck and neck, and Neil scores an point for the foxes that puts them just in the lead

-The ravens are having n o n e of that shit, so the next play Neil’s mark starts getting especially rough

-Like REALLY rough

-Kevin’s got his hand on the trigger with a red card, but the other refs are being bastards and saying “he hasn’t made an illegal play” and “it’s just a rough game, you’re being biased”

-But suddenly the guy marking Neil breaks off and starts going after some of the freshmen players, and Neil’s Captain/Mom Instincts start kicking in and he’s ready to fuckin demolish the guy

-The poor freshman his mark is targeting is trying to hold Neil back and tell him it’s not worth it, but as the kid turns his head Neil’s mark comes in swinging and does a baseball swing with his racket at the freshman’s head

-Ding ding, round one, Neil goes absolutely fucking batshit on the guy

-Kevin sprints over to break it up and he’s trying to pry Neil off the guy, but then he starts hearing all the shit his mark is spewing about how Neil’s “a psycho” and “deserves to rot like his dad”

-Ding ding, round two

-Suddenly THE Kevin Day, the same Kevin Day whose father is planning on making him run the Boston Marathon three times over if he so much as thinks about making a shit call on the ravens, is swinging on this guy with everything he has

-The people in the stands are going absolutely fucking nuts, the reporters are having a field day, and both teams have left the bench to help their respective teammates

-The security squad made an attempt to stay on task and make sure the crowd doesn’t riot, but as soon as one of the ravens knocked the cage off of Neil’s helmet Matt and Andrew took off running for the court

-Dan and Renee followed, intending to stop the two of them from getting involved, but they hear someone call Neil a fairy and suddenly Renee has her knives out and Dan’s knuckles are bruised and bloody

-Aaron went inside to hang out with Allison and Nicky after the game got started, and they all overhear some of the other stadium staff calling over the walkie-talkies for someone to call the campus police, so they turn on the monitor to see what the hell’s going on

-Aaron just mutters “ah, Christ” under his breath and makes a beeline for the court, Allison on his heels

-Nicky stayed behind to call the campus police, but as soon as he dialed the extension someone from the ravens put Andrew in a chokehold and started saying things in his ear with a smirk

-The small, almost imperceptible crack in his cousin’s apathetic facade had Nicky sprinting to catch up with Allison and Aaron

-On the court, Neil’s still swinging on the guy who hit the freshman when he notices Andrew in the chokehold

-If Neil wasn’t seeing red before, now he was drowning in it now

-Neil tears off towards them, rips the guy off Andrew, and takes the guy down

-Mind, the guy’s nearly twice his height and three times his width, but Neil is five feet and three inches of Rage and doesn’t stop wailing on him even after the guy passes out

-Andrew eventually gets Neil to stop, but at least 5 more guys are coming for them, so he grabs the guy’s racket and starts swinging it around

-Andrew: you want me, you gotta get through 6 feet of Christian

-Random Raven #1: only hockey sticks are called Christians, exy sticks-

-Renee, six feet of Christian: *body slams the guy*

-(I’m a simple lesbian and I love Tall Women so I choose to believe Renee is at least 6 ft tall, do not attempt to tell me otherwise)

-Eventually campus police get there and break up the fight, but over the years they had gotten pretty familiar with the foxes bc of their shenanigans, so they just go up to Neil and ask him “what’d these fuckers do to you to make you hit them so hard?”

-The ravens are fucking livid bc it’s OBVIOUSLY not THEIR fault (note the sarcasm), but no one’s rage can compare to Wymack’s

-Whew boy is man’s pissed

-He sits them all down (og foxes included) in the locker room and absolutely tears into them

-Wymack: WHAT THE FLYING FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO TELL THE DEAN HUH??? THAT MY GUYS GOT IN A FIGHT AND THE FUCKING R E F JOINED IN??? THAT SECURITY STARTED BEATING THE SHIT OUT OF THE OTHER TEAM??? THAT THE KIDS AT THE FUCKING DESK STARTED THROWING HANDS???

-Nicky: but coach you don’t understand, they’re fuckin pricks-

-Abby has to physically restrain him after that

-So the og foxes decide to have a little sleepover after things get sorted at the station and of course they get roaring drunk

-It’s a mess

-Kevin’s crying because he messed up the fox’s chance at a 4th consecutive championship title

-Matt can’t stop laughing and yelling “THAT’S MY WIFE” at the press footage of Dan bodying a girl on the ravens who tried to attack Allison while her back was turned

-Aaron just passes tf out. He’s Tired Of This Shit.

-Andrew and Neil aren’t quite as drunk as the others, but they’re a little tipsy when Neil asks why Andrew got involved if they got rid of their promise of protection

-Andrew just glares at him

-“117%”

-When they wake up the next morning, it’s to a series of missed calls from Wymack

-Neil answers after about 6 missed calls

-Neil: coach it’s 8 in the morning-

-Wymack: GET YOUR ASSES DOWNSTAIRS NOW

-So all of the v e r y hungover foxes drag their asses downstairs and who do they see but the dean of palmetto state holding up this morning’s headline that reads “NCAA Exy Championship Game Ends in All-Out War”

-Wymack is revving up to tear into them again despite being hungover himself, but the dean stops him and reads them all the statements from their favourite southern Californian exy team, who had been in the front row of the stands and witnessed everything firsthand

-“‘...the ravens were absolutely to blame,’ says former USC exy captain Jeremy Knox, who witnessed the altercation firsthand. ‘That backliner was way out of line, taking a shot like that at a kid half his size, and the rest of the Ravens were egging the guy on.’”

-Matt: I mean no shit-

-Dan: just keep reading, honey

-“‘...this is exactly the type of thing to be expected from one of Riko Moriyama’s protégée,’ Jean Moreau, both a former Raven and a former Trojan, tells the press. ‘Not only did he deviate from the game over a petty rivalry, but his teammates targeted specific players and staff with severe PTSD. The Raven’s should be held solely responsible for the altercation.’”

-Nicky: we already know that coach, what’d you drag us out of bed for???

-But before anyone could finish the article, someone in an official looking suit came in, wheeling the championship trophy into the middle of the confused group of kids

-They explained that both Jean and Jeremy’s first-hand accounts, as well as videos of the incident, convinced the board that there could absolutely not be a rematch between the two teams, but that the foxes would still be crowned the victors by default

-If Ichirou’s influence over the board had anything to do with their decision...well, a win’s a win for the foxes

-And that’s how the foxes, both old and new, ended up roaring drunk at the local Denny’s at 10 am on a Sunday

[kaisooficrec]

College AU Request

This is part two of this post. 

Last college au request was over a year ago and since this is a very popular au the list is insanely long! There are some fics older than the last req but that weren’t recommended yet so I included those too ^^ enjoy and don’t forget to leave kudos & comments to the authors ♡♡♡

La Taille Parfaite - (ongoing) soulmates au, kyungsoo dreams of his soulmate’s dick and can’t wait to meet him

Criminally Romantic - kyungsoo is an author and jongin is a huge fan

Yes, the Brisket is Braised - (ongoing) Kyungsoo works part-time in a restaurant in which he meets the campus’ most popular jock jongin and is an asshole to him

Our Season - (ongoing) wolf & abo, they’re in the same frat house and are attracted to each other, but there are other guys who want a piece of kyungsoo’s ass (read: junmyeon is a little piece of shit)

The Deflowering of Do Kyungsoo - (ongoing) kyungsoo is very insecure about himself but jongin loves him and wants to show him just how much 

Sucker + Supermassive Black Hole - last two parts of a series where the boys are in college, established relationship, they deal with the struggles of life and how to keep their love going

Flawless - (ongoing) kyungsoo likes to crossdress which make people judgmental about him. he thought jongin was like all those people who make fun of him but jongin genuinely likes him

this gap can’t keep us apart - (ongoing) kyungsoo is in college and takes the bus every morning where he meets businessman!jongin and they start talking and getting close. turns out jongin is sehun’s older brother who is kyungsoo’s friend and they meet at their house when jongin discovered his girlfriend cheated on him again

Prank Gone Wrong - kai is a known prankster, so his bf ksoo decides to prank him instead one day. it backfires in a way he didn’t expect

Coffee - jongin found out taemin cheated on him which led him to the cafe where kyungsoo works~

Wild Flowers Worth Knowing - (ongoing) ot12 vampire au, kyungsoo’s life has changed for good after discovering vamp!jongin’s secret

i just need the time and place to come through - after ksoo’s been dumped jongin wants to teach how to fuck around, until he realizes he doesn’t want anyone else to have kyungsoo but him

run batted in - sports au, they’re from different colleges and during a competition they meet and voilà it’s instant love

Draw Me Like One of Your French Girls - (ongoing) kyungsoo is in a studio art class and jongin is his nude model

lately all i want is you on top of me - *cries hearts* they both think they’re straight until jongin accidentally sends a pic of his ass to kyungsoo and it marks the beginning of their gayness

Campaigning For Your Heart - elections au, enemies to lovers, they both support different people and get into heated arguments, which is all just bottled up sexual tension really

there are no wrong mistakes - /heart attack/ kyungsoo is a homebody who’s quiet and thinks he is boring. his roommate’s best friend thinks otherwise. 

Pay Me Some Mind - (how was this not recced before? lol) fwb to lovers, kyungsoo doesnt know jongin’s had a crush on him for a while but that doesn’t stop him from catching feelings

Hurricanes - *my absolute fav* bad boy!jongin meets not-so-innocent!soo and they fuck, but kyungsoo thinks its a mistake and jongin is intrigued (liiiight angst)

You times infinite - they become study buddies and then kyungsoo is turned into a vampire and doesn’t know how to stay close to jongin without hurting him

A Certain Romance - sports au, they’re from different schools but during a competition, a certain captain catches ksoo’s attention and maybe he’s interested in football after all

Signal Lost (& Found) - /looooove this/ soulmates & coffee shop au, jongin gets tattoos of what his soulmate draws since he was a child and then one day it disappears, and he’s confused about what happened to his soulmate

Just Say You Want Me (That’s All It Takes) - god yes. established relationship and library fucking with top!soo and slut shaming. need i say more?

A Different Morning - (YEEEES) childhood bffs!kaisoo and vlogger!jongin, MUTUAL PINING but they’re both oblivious!!! 

Break a Leg - drama club au i liiiive for this! they had a one night stand and ksoo is kind of a bitter asshole who doesn’t want anything to do with super popular jongin after it

vertigo; crash - abo, omega!soo is accidentally put in the alpha dorms and jongin thinks he hates him

Clandestine Romance - arranged marriage but they love each other, ksoo is in his last year of college and his husband turns up to become his new dance teacher

Pumped Up Kinks - (ongoing) kyungsoo goes to a gay strip club for his 21st birthday and gets more than he bargained for

We Can Go Home - broken kaisoo, jongin has to ask his ex for help in maths, and then... KISS & MAKE UP

Mirrors - (ongoing) ksoo is a famous youtuber whose fans start a online fanwar with kim jongin’s fans. he decides to be mature about it and text jongin himself to apologize

So You Have a Crush (Here's How You Grapple with It) - sports au, jongin is a taekwondo player and has a crush on the judo captain ksoo, and tries to get him to teach him chokehold techniques. (smutttt)

Hair - (ongoing) kyungsoo found out he has stage 2 spinal cancer, so he decides that he wants to take some risks before he has to die, like have sex with a guy. and this is how he meets jongin

If Only I Knew - soulmates au, jongin wants to wait to find his soulmate to be in a relationship but when he meets kyungsoo he changes his mind (warning: character death)

Some Kind of Start - ksoo likes jongin and the latter knows but chooses to ignore it since he doesn’t like him back. sehun asks ksoo to fake date so he can make junmyeon jealous, but jongin is also a victim of jealousy

hold onto me tight and never let go - het!kaisoo with fem!soo, she has trouble letting go of her barriers and jongin really wants to get to know her more

P.S. You're Cute - (ongoing) jongin liked his senior’s profile on tinder and they matched

Cloud9 - transition from hs to college, jongin expressed his crush for ksoo although nothing happened, they meet again five years later in college

Perfection - vocal major!ksoo meets dance major!nini and decides he likes him and will take care of him

A Slice of Summer Love - jongin has a crush on the pizza delivery guy and orders too much pizza (very cute uwu)

I’m sorry I broke your hand, date me so I can make it up to you (kinda) - jongin tripped during a party and groped ksoo’s ass by accident, and ksoo’s reaction was to break his arm, but he took care of him as a form of apology

Aspartame (Just As Sweet) - jongin’s friend creates him an account on a sugar daddy website as a joke but he was curious and kept it and met kyungsoo

Kim Jongin's Must Kiss List - after an accident during a bake sale in high school, ksoo doesn’t stand jongin. in college nini puts up a “would kiss” list with ksoo’s name on it among others, and an angry ksoo retaliates by putting up a “would never kiss” list with only nini’s name on it, which is the start of everything

Love In Control - bdsm!au in which kyungsoo wanted a partner that would understand his needs and how to dominate him, and that person is kim jongin (warning: obviously bdsm and everything that comes with it. please read the tags carefully!)

No buts, just beauty - wolf au, kyungsoo is bullied and being told he’s ugly, jongin is making sure he feels beautiful

[Ain't] My Fault - top!soo greatness :-) they meet while jongin’s still with sehun but they break up soon after bc sehun cheated on him, and ksoo’s here to pick up the broken pieces

Treasure Trove - dragon au, ksoo is sick n jongin went to his room to give him candy and then they netflix and chill (literally)

Waiting for You to Make a Move - i’m fucking in love with this fic omg ;___; JONGIN IS A DRUM PLAYER and they were crushing on each other during the bus ride in the morning and then ksoo goes to chanyeol’s band’s gig and THERE HE IS JONGIN THAT SEXY MOTHERFUCKER. yes read it please (smut)

This is a start of something new.. - police officer!soo goes to check a college party that wasn’t reported and is stuck with a flirty jongin

Cafe Eau Laid - /sweats profusely/ wolf au and coffee shop au, jongin has a crush on a cute costumer that comes otfen but thinks the friend that comes along is his boyfriend when he’s really just an idiot. (public sex n size kink, you know its good)

My Universe - set in college au but it’s also mama au, jongin is having weird dreams that seem like memories of another life, and dreams of a certain guy that he seems close with.

Sweep You Off Your Feet (Or Mop Around) - kyungsoo works as a janitor at nini’s college to help support his family. they get to know each other and kyungsoo doesn’t tell him he’s not a student but after an incident, he’s fired from the job and has to forget about jongin as well

This is the college au tag for older requests ♡

- Admin Macaroon

[majirocksoff]

Majima breaks Kiryu out of prison; now with alt backstories. Majima x Kiryu / Kiryu x Nishiki (implied) Takes place during Y1. (Longfic, 70k words+)

His name is One-Thousand-And-Five.

Yesterday he was someone else, had been given, with the manners of a machine and the politeness of policy, the name, Mr. One-Thousand-And-Six.

Tomorrow he will be someone else again, at the ringing of the perfunctory bell that divorces one day from another: Mr. One-Thousand-And-Four.

In between the going-aways and the coming-tos, he collects names like dust. He goes to the chow hall, and he becomes Wait Your Turn; in going to the yard he becomes Thirty Minutes More. At the shower he gains a uniquely ephemeral identity: Batch-Two-Quickly-Now. He goes in, let the water scald off his skin, be reborn in water burning so hot it strips him red. Coming out shiny like a cooked lobster, he can wear a new identity for the rest of the night: The Dogshit of Dojima.

— —

In his prison cell he is nothing, his action is waiting.

Waiting is not inaction, this is the second thing you learn in prison.

Before prison you have assumptions, and the assumption is that waiting is just something that happens while the rest of your life is unraveling, becoming, acquainting itself to happenstance; fusing itself, in chemical reaction to coincidence, so that events may soon happen. You are always about to do something while you are waiting: buy groceries, run errands, break someone’s neck. Waiting is anticipation, a pre-meditated murder of time.

You were wrong, you know that now. Waiting is action, this is what you learn in prison.

It is an action that must be actively done. You fold yourself as small as possible into diamond-shaped patterns in the privacy of your cell (waiting is not done in public, it is sacred). You may sit cross-legged or seiza, stand on ceremony or leaning coolly, curled up in your bed with an arm tucked behind your head. Sucking your thumb, if you must.

Your exterior does not matter when you’re waiting, what matters is your interior, which must be shrunk. You shrink yourself inside, small-small as possible, until you can be turned around and poured out, and out-plop comes your soul and it won’t fill even a leaky thimble. You do this by stripping identities out of yourself.

Once upon a time you might have wanted to be great, for example, to follow in the footsteps of Kazama-san, to trace yourself in his shadow.

You take this desire and you erase it, line by line from the top, beginning first from the greatest concept then extending to everything else. You first forget the sentence whole; then you dismiss in inches and angry nights everything else: Kazama-san, the concept of greatness, the idea of footsteps, the desire of wanting, an entity of ‘you’, the stretching of time, once of the past, until at last you can be left alone with nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

Then you wait.

— —

The first thing you learn in prison, is that you have no identity.

You’re given an ID the moment you step in, and you think philosophical thoughts: ah, is this what I shall be? You were wrong, of course, because a series of number is an identity, and that identity is more solid than what you’ll eventually end up with.

Your identity becomes the days you have left, because 8-1-5-7-6 rankles your ears and bedevils your patience. At roll call, they put existential fear into you: will you be here for eighty thousand days, each by minutes longer than the last? You cannot. You fear. Your soul trembles and weep. You cast it off and take a new name: Mr. Three-thousand-six-hundred, all ten years to be waited tattooed on you; it is a long time but it can be waited. In contrast eighty thousand is forever.

When you take on the others it becomes easier; take them on in the secret corners of the prison where lips can split, skulls can break, nails torn one by one out of grasping flesh. There are many corners where the guards don’t see, willfully blind, and here you can be beaten by anyone: your seniors, your juniors, your hitmen, your old friends, your new enemies. Gradually in blood you extract from them new names:

The Dogshit of Dojima, that fucking backstabbing cunt, the lil Tojo shit, why ya staring, asswankcuntsucker, goddamned cocksucker, oi fuck off, are-ya-happy-now-ya-murdering-cunt, and so on.

They’re fine names; at least they don’t have numbers.

— —

The man with the one eye comes and instantly breaks every rule. He is an earthquake: in his presence you must obey new rules, run for high ground, cower in clear spaces.

He comes, swinging his hips like a new officer, twirling his hands holding an invisible bat, eating with his lips a pop song five years too new for you. He peels back the skin of the cell the moment he arrives. He overturns containers. He looks into the toilet, opens up the flusher, cracks open the sink to examine the deep sadness of the hole in the middle. He takes out his sheets, folds it messily so that he can lay in it like a well fucked boy.

All this you see, his cell is right opposite yours.

“Yo,” He says. He puts his legs up in a cross, carefully, making space for the steel tips he must have worn once. He straightens the eyepatch he was allowed (they had tried taking it from him, but realized too late it was too much a part of him, it would have killed him).

“What’s yer name?”

You are surprised. It is a terrible question, a faux pas, an abhorrent question never asked in prison. How could he, how dare he?

A name? He wants a name? But you don’t have a name, you’re a condemned spirit. You’ve worked hard to get this far. The Japanese dream: work so hard you don’t know who you are. Once you had a name, and it’d laid discarded in a laundry pile. You wait for him to understand how rude he’s been and go away.

“Oi ya deaf? Ya want me to go over there and beat it out of ya?”

There’s three feet of corridor and two sets of bars separating you, and you see that he means it.

You lick your cracked, chapped lips, tried hard to recall…

“My… Name?”

“Just my luck,” He swore. “I’m roomed with a fuckin’ idiot. Your name! Your name! Are ya daft?”

He needs to be patient. Names are the first thing to go, and the last thing to be replaced. He doesn’t know what he’s asking, demanding a name. Oh, the weeks to come, wracked in the throes of identity. Does he not know? Does he not care, how much this hurt, to recall a name?

Reluctantly, slowly (time itself is slow here) it is said.

“My name is… Kazuma. Kiryu. Kazuma, Kiryu, Kazuma. Yes, that’s my name.”

Oh, he says, mouth perfect on an O. The Dragon of Dojima? That Kazuma-fucking-Kiryu? That you? The Dragon of Dojima? The fucking Dragon of Dojima?

“Hell yeah! Always wanted to fight me a dragon! Sit tight in that cell, dragonshit, because I’m comin’ for ya Kiryu-chan!”

— —

Majima Goro was introduced to him in bits of nerve, bones, and tissues.

Kiryu goes as far away from him as he can. Now that he has identity it is not so easy to walk the hallways of the prison; it clings to him like bits of plastic wrap, tight and suffocating, each piece determined to make themselves be remembered. Every nook and cranny and day and night that once he’d lived as a young man of Kamurocho, clamored to be the one to dice his anonymity to pieces. He will not be forgotten, he cannot forget, not if they have any say about it.

In the manner of Majima’s walking and the dance of his fingers on the cutlery he sees the glittering manner of a younger Kamurocho, a visitor, a stranger, here to tell him: time has passed, but not enough time yet so that you can see it firsthand. Time is here to visit. The outside world has been let in, poured angry but fearsome into his cells.

The rattling of Majima’s bars replaces his roll call, his silent private mornings.

“Hey,” He screams (he is always screaming, he has no other verb). “Hey Kiryu-chan! Wake up, I’m bored!”

At night he rattles them like chains, screaming again: “Tell me a bedtime story, Kiryu-chan! Hey? Ya ignorin’ me? I can’t sleep, why don’t ya stay awake too? We could play imaginary shogi, how 'bout that?”

He is gyoku; the king that has come to sweep all of Kiryu’s neat, patiently-allocated time away and replaced it with himself, loud and trying, rolling over all the hallways into the secret corners where he is allowed to beat up Kiryu.

The first time he does this he shatters bone, broke clean through in one piercing fist Kiryu’s entire cheekbone, part of his jaw. Lovingly Majima brought him to the sink and tended his wounds; he tended him five times, smashing Kiryu up-down-up-down onto the metal until it shatters Kiryu’s nerves, it was so loud, and the metal had caught him in the ear. Majima left him tended, tender, tenderized, lying in a pool of blood leaving him rapidly for the freedom of the drains. The water, slow and warm now, cascading over him, lights bright and disorienting, the smell of soap mixed with the secrets of prison bathrooms.

He is made to realize he is fuhyo; a low mere degraded pawn. Like a pawn he could only move forwards, could not retreat, could then only be pushed into Majima’s arms, holding him in a chokehold over metal plates of curry and rice.

“Ya not such hot shit, Dragon of Dojima,” Majima tells him, whispering in his ear. “Ya just plain shit. I’m so disappointed. Ya disappointin’ me here, with your lousy ass performance. Kiryu-chan, ya need to shape up. Ya the best entertainment I’ve got around here and you’re so. goddamned. boring.”

He cracked his neck and laughed the whole time Kiryu goes down.

Once Kiryu remembers, he would have soared with Majima in his clutches and brought him down like thunder, would have stepped on him and never realized it - ah, might have thought, it’s dirtying the soles of my shoe, the little soul of Mad Dog Majima stuck in the rubbery meat he walks on.

“Kiryu-chan!” The hound howls. “Kiryu-Kazuma-chan! Come on, let’s play imaginary shogi! Are ya mad I beat ya? Or are ya mad that I beat ya up? Don’t be such a princess, Kiryu-chan! Let’s play, let’s play, let’s play!”

The hellhound becomes a puppy at night, frolicking in the lonesome cells; his cell bounded by Kiryu’s bounded by others. Only other people don’t matter to him; only strangely, Kiryu mattered to him. Kiryu was fun, Kiryu was gokudo, Kiryu had a past. The others Majima couldn’t wake up, couldn’t ask: who are you? What did you do to end up here? They can’t answer him, all of them mute and anonymous, because most of them have worked hard to forget, and unlike Kiryu could not be brought back.

With their sad sunken eyes and closed eyelids they watch Kiryu and Majima play imaginary shogi; kei-ma leapt over kin over gin, pushing aside hisha, storming onto kaku. Who are you, Kiryu whispers one night in bravado. He pressed his head back against the cell bars, sitting with his eyes closed to better remember the shogi board. Hands folded loosely across his lap, moving invisible pieces around.

I am Kei-ma, Majima whispered. Kiryu collects this identity, examine it in the moonlight, thinks fragmented thoughts –

“Are ya an idiot, Kiryu-chan? It just looks like my name - it’s a joke! Ya stupid ass thinking it means anything?”

He grinned, laughing so hard he overturns their imaginary board; neither can remember now which pieces were where. “This prison getting to ya, you’re a goddamned old fuck now.”

— —

Trapped now in the machine of his identity, Kiryu loses his numbers. He realized this one day when he had to go down to the office, to ask with form in hand exactly how many days he had to wait; the answer came back and surprised him, he is holding less numbers than he thought he had. They had slipped through his fingers and rolled into forgotten corners when he wasn’t watching.

He is now Mr. Nine-Hundred-and-Fifty, a whole month having passed him in scorn. Those numbered days he could no longer wear; Majima had forced his identity back onto him and they won’t go on now, came on like a loose coat, baggy in the elbows. He can no longer wait, at least wait the way he used to. There is no patience to be had, with Majima strolling bored and callous into his privacy, intruding with answers, leaving with questions.

Why are you here, Majima-san, he asked - desperate to give Majima more form, more identity, to know more so that he can become less to Kiryu.

What crime did you commit? Who did you kill? How did you live?

“Wouldn’t ya like to know, Kiryu-chan? I’m bored, bored, so maybe I’ll tell ya - but ya have to beat me first.”

They dance in the yard. They have exactly six minutes before the officers come with batons and extra days, so they must be quick, trading fists until their faces are bloated with blood and torn epidermis; Kiryu dancing better now but still far from a match to Majima, so that Majima danced with him only because he had no better partners. A fallen dragon made of shit was still better than just plain shit. Majima pivots on the officer, says: it’s me, I started this.

An act of generosity. It surprises Kiryu, he doesn’t know what to say, Majima taking this sin into the confession of his records.

“I ain’t plannin’ ta stay here twenty-five years, so what’s a few months that I won’t be around for?” He bared nasty teeth at Kiryu. “I ain’t like ya. I ain’t the wallowing sort. I’ll be out before six months is up.”

Oh, Kiryu said. Glad but sad, sad and glad. He is relieved that Majima in leaving will restore him to his formless mass again; bittersweet that he loses such a strict mold. Kiryu Kazuma Kazama Nishikiyama Dojima. Things he can’t forget as long as Majima is around, rooting him, anchoring him without his permission and against his wants.

“Whoooo—”

— —

The days are slipping away so fast now that he has to seize it with both hands clenched so tight his knuckles go white. Stay, he commanded. Stay. Seizing his miserable days in his hands, he watched Majima prepare for flight. By inches and minutes and lost seconds he withdraws from Kiryu, become more and more likely to disappear during yard time and bath time and free time, to meet with associates strange and shapeless huddling in the other yard.

Lined up against theirs but separated by a fence is the small-timers, the low-hitters, the off-ballers, little people who won’t be doing more than six months in the most deprived luxuries, off-site beside them, counting less than one-hundred-eighty-days.

It is these people that Majima meets, forehead-to-forehead like lovers, whispering convoluted plans calculated like algebra. When they hide, when they bother to hide, Majima scratches at the fence with loose-tipped fingers, plucking the fence like a guitar, plucking tunes at his associates until they come: unwilling but bowed by Majima’s boys who’d sequestered themselves in the smaller prison.

Where is — He demanded.

What is —

How shall —

How does the flight mechanism work? How does Kiryu find out? He finds out in nerves; Majima sometimes, sidling up to him, having the nerve to ask: I have a question. Where is the control room for —

Kiryu frowning, turning away, saying go, go I don’t know, don’t trouble me, I’ve never seen, I couldn’t possibly know, I never meant to go, never meant to leave, this prison is for me, nine-hundred-days only left to be. Majima beating him with his fists until he lay shivering and nurturing wounds on the ground, beating his identity into him.

Tell me what you see, Majima demanded.

“Kiryu-chan, don’t ya lie to me. I’ve been watchin’ ya watchin’ and ya know it. Ya just don’t know that you know it. Well, that’s what I’m for. I’m going to beat your piece of shit memory into your head.” He seized Kiryu by the collar, lift him up so that he could be closer to the sun, shaking him over and over again.

“Tell me! Where is it? You know where it is!”

Come, Kiryu told him, spitting out blood. Led him to the dark places in the prison where things can be seen, push him into corners angled right, take him away from plans angled wrong. You’re not doing this right, he told Majima. This control room is patrolled all the time, six-at-a-go, it’s a no-go, a no-show, what you want, really want, is this other place. You won’t know it unless you’ve been like me; a man without identity, they don’t let anyone see if they’ve got eyes. The crow-pig comes and pluck out your eye, one on each side, if they see you waiting to watch.

“I get it,” Majima said. “Thanks.”

More, “Hey, ya wanna come with—”

No, he said, he only had nine hundred more to go, it didn’t mean anything to him. All he wants is for Majima to leave, and quickly - so that he can once more be subsumed by anonymity.

— —

In bits and pieces he watch Majima assembled his plan; in his patience Kiryu had learned to see everything, and in so seeing saw that his plan would work before Majima himself knows it. Majima shrunk and wrapped himself in ignorance until the plan itself is executed. He goes with the flow, himself. Doesn’t need to have foresight. He’ll work it until it works, even if he fails this time. They waited calm and nerveless in their cells for the escape that will come soon.

“It’ll work,” Kiryu told him sleepily. Tomorrow, he’s thinking. This will be their last game of imaginary shogi, so he slipped: slipped the golden knife in and ate Majima’s king whole.

“Damn, ya good, Kiryu-chan. Ya totally wreck me this time.”

“Thank you for teaching me how to play.”

“Teach ya? Kiryu-chan, ya always knew how to play. Don’t ya know? Don’t ya remember? You could do anything you wanted - that’s why you were the dragon. All I did was make ya remember.”

Oh, he doesn’t remember anymore; all he’d wanted to was forget. Tomorrow when Majima is gone, he’ll go back to forgetting again. Reverse-engineering an onion, putting back layer by layer his thin skin to cover the sound of the silence inside. Eight-hundred-something more days to be lived. The days had leapt from his hands but he’ll have them back under rein again. When Majima is unleashed.

“Good luck, Majima-san,” He said.

“Thanks, Kiryu-chan. Couldn’t have done this without ya,” Majima said.

— —

He comes awake, frightened by the silence.

Kiryu sat in the dark and listened: there were no sounds. Not just the greater sounds of the outside world: cameras that had stopped working, alarms silenced and napping, doors grinding to a halt in mid-air. There is silence in him everywhere that frightens him - he can no longer hear the sound of forgetfulness, he’s forgotten how to forget…

A knife pressed itself tightly to his jugular, nicked him not because it’d miscalculated. Its owner was just sadistic, wanted him to bleed, wanted to see the sheen of a dragon’s blood.

“Kiryu-chan.” whispered Majima. “Ya coming with me.”

“No,” He gasped. “No.” He wanted to stay, was terrified by the outer world.

“I ain’t givin’ ya a choice. Ya coming with me, whether ya like it or no. Ya my present to that fucking Nishikiyama cunt.”

He pushed his knife in. Hissed orders at Kiryu until reluctantly, Kiryu unfolded himself and groped with seeking hands in the darkness. At length he found the thread of the plan, and began to follow it as it unraveled in the darkness of the prison, its silvery length glowing with hope. They walked down the halls quiet and empty illuminated by the shining spool. Somewhere somehow Majima had secreted all the officers away.

The inmates lined row by row in their rat-holes to watch them, trapped in their cell that wouldn’t open. When they realized what had happened, they howled like hell itself - unfair! unfair! unfair! - and hands scratched, brushed, rend at them from all sides. The inmates will drag them down to the pits if they could only reach…

Outside.

Air the same but different; they’re on the other side of the fence now. There is a motorcycle waiting, a snakeskin jacket, a small tanto and a helmet. A set of clothes prepared by someone who thought Kiryu was as big as he’d seen Kiryu last. Untrue, he has shrunk now, made skinny by the weak broth of prison.

“Put on the helmet,” Majima said. There was only one.

“Don’t you—”

“I can’t fuckin’ see with a black glass on, asshole. Vision strictly 10/20. 'sides,” He smiles. “That skull of yours worth ten of mine, isn’t it?”

Kiryu knew nothing; there was too much not being said. He climbed onto the motorcycle, clamped loose hands around Majima’s middle, and then they flew, across snowy landscapes into the cold and a freedom he never wanted but had received.

[sanaseva-archive]

okay, hi. it’s me—the annoyance in this fandom. and i’d like to talk about something, so bear with me.

 there’s a problem in this fandom that doesn’t need to be discussed. why not? it’s not up for discussion, basically. it’s up to you all to sit back and learn that this shit you all are pulling needs to be stopped. period.

 i’m breaking it up to a couple of core parts so you all know what i’m talking about.

 first of all, let’s talk about the islamophobia and racism in this fandom.

 here’s the deal: shut up and listen. is that too hard? then just shut up and close your browser. delete your blog. take a walk. go on with your shitty life.

 i don’t know why this needs to be explained—seriously. i don’t understand it. it’s not physics or the study of runes. it’s the basic thing called logic thinking and common decency at the least.

 you’re all doing something incredibly harmful and it’s not okay. when you started calling a brown character a rat i—i thought it was a joke. and when it was pointed out it’s racist, by people of colour in this fandom, you kept doing it. why? do you take enjoyment in calling brown people rats? do you think you can get away with it? guess you can, but you can stop doing it to people of colour. it’s disgusting.

 next. the idea of this season is: please don’t let me be misunderstood. the reverse of this? please don’t let me be understood. just so we’re clear. there’s no reverse. the song was in reverse, the message was clear. so you can shut up about that.

 so when the fight broke up, and sana was hiding in the bathroom stall, what did we hear? the two white random, irrelevant white girls talking about how they thought (assumed, didn’t know but talked anyway) it was about homosexuality, and how muslims are homophobic. was it there for the lols? no. it was there for us. to know. that it wasn’t about that.

 my point: shut the fuck up about it. it’s tiresome, getting old, it’s toxic. if you keep talking about this, you’re spreading harmful messages to others. what messages? that muslims are homophobic. which they can be, i’m not saying some aren’t. i’m saying that that’s not the point of this season and that non-muslims are equally likely to be homophobic. don’t believe me? wow, i guess it’s something that has been fed to you by media representation and… dare i say it? people talking shit of shit they don’t know on social platforms. precisely what you’re doing right now.

 second thing we need to talk about: the series. yes! let’s talk about what content we have right now and why us people of colour and why muslims are upset, shall we? (note: we have all the right to be upset.)

 let’s first get this out of the way: we know it’s written this way to prove some point later on in the season. probably something along the lines of muslim and brown boys not all being homophobic and shit. you know. that thing you keep shutting your eyes from. we understand that, we know that.

 we’re just. not. happy. about how it’s written. it’s kind of doing a lot of damage right now. look at some of the messages some people (people of colour, muslims, muslim people of colour) receive. and what we should be getting is much more healthy scenes between muslims, muslims and people of non-faith, people of colour and white people, to weigh up to the damage its doing. we don’t get that much of that. and it’s frustrating, because we understand why (sana’s lonely) but there are so many ways to portray loneliness than completely erase healthy interactions between people on the fucking screen.

 don’t bring up the hei briskeby videos, because they don’t count. i’m talking about the real episodes here. the real clips. the clips that the casual viewer will watch.

 so yes. the series itself is… partially at fault here. the writing, i would say. especially filming only the people of colour in a fight and—wow. that chokehold they had on the only black guy? yikes.

 what’s worse is that they surely know—or at least have a slight idea—of what outbreak their clips will give. and they keep doing it. keep feeding this shit to us, and leave us to either deal with it, or completely shut down our inboxes. which results into people thinking we’re selfish, because we don’t answer their wish to learn more about culture and islam and the experiences people of colour have.

 third thing we need to talk about: vilde and noora. yup. i’m putting them on the agenda.

 i, as a lesbian of colour, wholeheartedly believe that vilde’s character is poorly written this season. she’s obviously not too different from earlier seasons, but she’s definitely had more emphasis on her ignorance, and how that ignorance is dealt with is—less acceptable. i do believe, on top of that, that she will be “redeemed” (i’m just not sure i’ll buy into it) and that she will learn, apologise and maybe grow the last episode or something, since we won’t be getting any more.

 but what bugs me the most about the way they’re writing her this season is that, she’s coded as possibly lesbian (or bi, if you prefer, but i’m gonna talk about her being lesbian, and you can make your own post about her being bisexual). and she’s literally the only character fully coded this way. if you’re interested in why, just… google it. believe it or not, we aren’t google. but the key point is that she is doing a lot of what us lesbians perceive as compulsory heterosexuality. and they completely villainised a potential lesbian this season which is just falling into the same shit people have done over and over again. lesbians are bad, lesbians are racist, lesbians are this and fucking that and that pisses me off. if, by the off chance, she eventually is canonically declared as lesbian, i’m not sure i will rejoice or throw my phone through my computer screen. they ruined her character to me, they ruined a (coded) lesbian to me, a lesbian, simply because they wanted to put her to be the ignorant girl who keeps shitting all over sana.

 and noora. man. i’m not too mad about noora as a character herself. she’s flawed, she has her good moments and shit. but she takes up so much of her own storyline from sana’s. it’s a mess. she’s talking about herself, her problems with dickhelm, and sure, that’s what friends do—talk about what bothers you. but we’re so frustrated that she’s once again on the screen, talking about the same old thing, and rip the minutes that could’ve been spent on sana from our hands.

 don’t get me wrong. we all know that sana is a listener. but there’s a line. and they jump over it, time and time again.

 and then there’s the misogyny in this fandom that needs to be addressed. and this is a harder one, because it’s hard to spot.

 during the course of season three—up to this day, i see this shit—people keep shitting on sonja and emma for no other reason than them being girls who got hurt in the process. sonja? remember her? she got cheated on. and while even kept saying he felt controlled by her you somehow got the idea that she’s toxic. she isn’t. a toxic relationship would not end with isak thanking sonja for the help she’s given. she knows even and—well, at the most, she might have been a bit controlling because she doesn’t understand that even is his own person with or without his bipolar disorder.

 and emma? she outed isak, which is fucked up and there’s no excuse. but stop thinking she’s the absolute villain to isak’s life because she’s a girl, who got hurt, in the process. accept that, move on, because isak sure did.

 you thought i’d end there? really? nope. ain’t gonna happen. i’m gonna bring up vilde specifically again.

 you think she’s just a dumb ignorant islamophobe? partially true. she’s islamophobic and is not a good friend to sana. she’s ignorant, yes. but you’re reducing her character to something she isn’t. you’re reducing her to the blonde dumb girl, which is just as shitty as people defending her islamophobic behaviour. her islamophobia does not correlate to her dealing with whatever she’s dealing with (compulsory heterosexuality, if you will), but if you reduce her to a two-dimensional character it’s quite misogynistic itself. if you’re woman and doing that—check yourself in the mirror.

 same goes for noora, basically, but i don’t think anyone is genuinely despising her for anything else than the shitty line here and there and the serious screentime she’s clocking.

 we also had a run in with the lovely subjects of biphobia and ableism too. you all can’t stop anywhere, can you?

 since we aren’t discussing, let me just point out these things:

 bisexuality does not equate to cheater. a cheater can be of any sexuality. the stereotype is that bisexual people are cheaters is harmful and it ends here. whether a bisexual person/character has cheated can be discussed without bringing in their bisexuality to the conversation.

 and mental illness… it seems it’s harder for you to grasp this part. so let me put it this way: think of the most embarrassing shit you’ve done. called your teacher mum and everyone laughed? peed yourself in public? pretended to talk on the phone and your phone ended up ringing? whatever. the most embarrassing shit you’ve done. think of that. feel what you felt at that point. oh my god, what did people think of you?

 do you want your crush or your partner of a few months know… that? say it involved a second person. say you… shat yourself on your best friend’s expensive, newly bought couch, felt so embarrassed you left the house and deleted all your social media and never answered their calls.

 say your partner brings them up.

 would you… tell them that?

 i don’t mean to trivialise mental illness here (i’m struggling with my own). it’s much more complex (guilt, self-blaming, embarrassment, sadness) than what i’m saying here. i’m just breaking it down to a point where hopefully even the most abled person can understand.

 you’re expecting someone who deals with this every day to just tell their partner. it’s not that easy. it’s a lot of compartmentalising that needs to be done, so you can tell that story without breaking down completely. what happened to even broke him enough to switch to a new school. that’s not something you just tell someone, regardless if you’re together with them, without having thought it through for weeks—even months—and analysed each possible turnout and reaction. that’s not something you tell someone unless you really, really, really need to.

 that’s not to say that it’s… bad. that even and sana weren’t honest with isak from the start. but it’s what it is. even isn’t perfect. sana isn’t perfect. isak isn’t perfect. none of these characters are completely perfect. why not? because they’re supposed to be realistic, human and resound to us. we’re supposed to be able to relate to them, in a way.

 lastly, but most importantly: stop thinking you’re so bloody entitled to send shitty asks to people, especially the muslims, people of colour and disabled people of this fandom.

 now that i’ve said my piece, kindly don’t find your way into my inbox and think it’s time to discuss. as i said, it’s not up for discussion.

 don’t understand what i’m talking about? congratulations, you just won the prize: read this post again until you get it.

 peace the fuck out.

[theworstbob]

yellin’ at songs, 5.19.2007 & 5.20.2017

the songs that debuted on the billboard chart this week and last year this week.

5.19.2007

27) "(You Want To) Make a Memory," Bon Jovi

I was so fucking stoked for a real-ass power ballad before I remembered that Bon Jovi was country in 2007. This song was boring. It's kind of weird, though, like, a couple weeks ago, I argued that, if you're gonna name your song something like "Johnny Cash" or "Marvin Gaye," you need to produce something on par with your song's namesake's catalogue so that people can justify listening to your nonsense instead of their works. This is a spin on that idea: how rough is it to be Bon Jovi and have to justify your continued existence when people liked the things you already made? Like imagine trying to tell people that this pop/country ballad deserves a place on your shelf alongside "You Give Love a Bad Name." The burden of expectation is rough, and I try to evaluate songs based on what they are and not what they could be but like I could have listened to "You Give Love a Bad Name."

53) "Working Class Hero," Green Day

Socialism is so hot right now. Look at all these Johnny-come-lefties hopping on the bandwagon now that the cool grandpa from the election made socialism palatable for a mass audience. Fucking poseurs. REAL socialists have been on board ever since they heard that one Green Day cover when they were 17.

77) "Do it Just Like a Rockstar," Freak Nasty ft./Crazy Mike

My first thought upon seeing this song was, wow, the turnaround time on this ripoff is outstanding! I'm glad they could get Saunter the Jewels to collaborate on this, impressive work! And then I sat down to listen to this song, and it was... this? To call the production quality of this track amateurish would be an insult to amateurs. This was fucking awful. But not only that, when I tried to FIND this song on The Youtube, dot com, I was directed to the Freak Nasty - Topic page I am used to seeing for the bar bands I enjoyed as a teen, the - Topic page for the songs no one remembered. YouTube thought I was searching for "Party Like a Rockstar," and that is fair. This is all the research I cared to do: according to Wikipedia, this was indexed on iTunes as "Party Like a Rockstar," and it was indexed as such for two weeks before the Shop Boyz released "Party Like a Rockstar" digitally. 30,000 people bought this song thinking it was a GOOD shitty song, and they ended up with this nonsense because this song so shitty the people in charge of putting it onto the internet didn't even bother to get the title right. This song just randomly made $30,000 one day. I don't know what Freak Nasty's cut of the profits was, but I hope he bought something fun with his bonus. I want an oral history of this song immediately.

93) "Lean Like a Cholo," Down AKA Kilo

I don't have a lot of things to say about this one. After listening to Freak Nasty, I was excited to hear something akin to production values, and hey: rapper of Mexican heritage! Always interesting! This song is bad? But, hey, sometimes debut singles are safe, they aim to do nothing more than get someone to dance so you associate the artist with something that made you feel good and thus come to associate that artist with a good feeling, and as the artist builds that trust with their audience that they will supply the good feeling, they will create more complex and more satisfying works. I electing not to find out of Down AKA Kilo has created the Mexican To Pimp a Butterfly, because this song is bad, but I am not ruling out the possibility that he has created works of some worth.

You’ll never guess what the 2007 Top 20 looks like: 20) "When I See U," by Fantasia (4.21.2007) 19) "Movin' On," by Elliott Yamin (3.17.2007) 18) "U + Ur Hand," by P!nk (1.13.2007) 17) "Doe Boy Fresh," by Three 6 Mafia ft./Chamillionaire (1.20.2007) 16) "Breath," by Breaking Benjamin (4.14.2007) 15) "Stolen," by Dashboard Confessional (4.21.2007) 14) "Beautiful Liar," by Beyonce & Shakira (3.31.2007) 13) "Cupid's Chokehold," by Gym Class Heroes ft./Patrick Stump (1.13.2007) 12) "The River," by Good Charlotte ft./M. Shadows & Synyster Gates (2.10.2007) 11) "Say OK," by Vanessa Hudgens (2.17.2007) 10) "Alyssa Lies," by Jason Michael Carroll (1.13.2007) 9) "Never Again," by Kelly Clarkson (5.12.2007) 8) "Get Buck," by Young Buck (4.14.2007) 7) "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going," by Jennifer Hudson (1.13.2007) 6) "Thnks fr th Mmrs," by Fall Out Boy (4.28.2007) 5) "Candyman," by Christina Aguilera (1.13.2007) 4) "Because of You," by Ne-Yo (3.17.2007) 3) "Umbrella," by Rihanna ft./Jay-Z (4.28.2007) 2) "Dashboard," by Modest Mouse (2.17.2007) 1) "The Story," by Brandi Carlile (4.28.2007) And next week, we get an R. Kelly song! That’ll be a fun thing to deal with!

5.20.2017

1) "I'm the One," by DJ Khaled ft./Justin Bieber, Quavo, Chance the Rapper & Lil Wayne

Between the Fall Out Boy disaster not making a debut and this breezy summer jam, I'ma say 2017 clinched the W right off the bat. This, like "Cake" and "Swalla" before it, is simply a fun if slightly repugnant good time. (I don't think anyone needed to hear Chance the Rapper talk about how he makes the pussy melt. Like, come on, dude.) This is a series intended on making me think about the things I listen to, and this is a song that insists you not think for five minutes, so this song and I value much different things in life, but I will not deny that this is a fun-ass beat.

61) "1-800-273-8255," by Logic ft./Alessia Cara & Khalid

This is a song by people who have never been depressed but have read several tweet threads about mental illness and decided they had to Say Something. This is the first draft of the worst Atmosphere song, a song in which someone scared of their own darkness tries to inhabit a character enveloped by it. "What's the day without a little night?" Depression is not just a little night, you stu -- and I know you're trying to help, I understand that I'm the bad guy because I'm complaining about the suicide hotline song, but depression isn't something you go through, it's something you live with. I don't think anyone on this track understands that. I don't think it earns its message, and -- fuck's sake, THIS is the beat you're gonna use to tell me life is worth living? THIS is the backing track you think is gonna convince people to call the suicide hotline? This plodding go-nowhere PBRnB bullshit? Fuck off, man. Yeah, maybe the "I'm the One" beat would be an inappropriate call here, but you've gotta do SOMETHING more dramatic. Shit, man, someone's on the phone saying they wanna end their life, and this song sounds like someone saying, "Eh. Life's cool. Y'all should keep tryin' it, iono. You sure you're not just sad that it's raining? Eh, weather. We've had some rain past few days, people need the sun."

67) "First Time," by Kygo & Ellie Goulding

"We were sippin' on emotion/Smoking and inhaling every moment." WHO THE FUCK WRITES LYRICS FOR KYGO BECAUSE THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY AMAZING AND I LOVE THEM. Alright, between this and "It Ain't Me," I am all in on the Kygo bandwagon. He is the official EDMer of YAS. He makes songs about loving life that don’t feel like the saddest thing in the world, and I don’t know enough about him to know I should hate him like I do with Calvin Harris or The Chainsmokers. Good job, Kygo!

70) "Thunder," by Imagine Dragons

...You know, you guys didn't listen to "Hard Times" last week. No shade. I knew it was gonna have a short life on the chart if it had any life at all. But, uh, this has a higher debut? And it's probably gonna last longer? And also, this isn't related, but "do re mi" hung around for another week? I dunno. I just remember a time when our rock bands actually rocked, and that time was last week, because that Paramore song is great, and I would much prefer to think about "Hard Times" than whatever this was. Isn't this the same song as "Believer?" Like, that song was about how stoked Imagine Dragons is to be famous, this song is about how stoked Imagine Dragons is to be famous? Am I willfully misinterpreting things for the sake of having something to say, or do I have a legit thing to say? Who cares. Final review of “Thunder:” "Hard Times" is song of the year 2017.

76) "Bon Appetit," by Katy Perry ft./Migos

The most useful thing this song did is have the individual members of Migos say their names before their verse so that a polite audience who has been listening to "Bad & Boujee" for six months no longer had to wonder if it was OK to ask, or if they should have already known. Takeoff is the one with the deep gravel voice, Offset is the one with hella Southern drawl, and Quavo is the Good one. Thanks, "Bon Appetit!" You were otherwise worthless, oh boy just what I needed another Katy Perry song with a thuddingly stupid sexual metaphor (bob didn’t you like that jason derulo song) THAT’S JUST THUDDINGLY STUPID JASON DERULO DON’T FUCK WITH METAPHORS LET ME HAVE MY CONTRADICTIONS, but you have provided a world with a Dummies' Guide to ATL, and I will never forget you for doing this favor for me.

87) "Pirvacy," by Chris Brown

I am not going to listen to this for the obvious reasons, but I have to imagine a Chris Brown song called "Privacy" is the worst fucking thing imaginable. Is this fucknugget seriously releasing a 40-track double album? Not only is he not punished for the Riahnna thing, he's given ARTISTIC FREEDOM!?

90) "Slow Hands," by Niall Horan

90?! Yikes! If this 1D song couldn't even crack Top 80, I can't imagine how much worse it is than "Sign of the Times" or ZAYN's solo stuff. /// Oh, this was nice! Teens! This nice sweet boy made a fine song! Why are you ignoring him? This is the song Charlie Puth has been trying to make for the last three years. Which isn't to say it's good white boy soul, I think Niall Horan is a years' worth of pain away from being able to pull off solid white boy soul, but it's acceptable trash. If I saw this trash lying on the street, I wouldn't be happy to see it, but I'd be 90% sure it's compostable, and while I'm not quite sure what that means I'm pretty sure that means it won't harm the world. Bob please edit that comparison before you hit publish, love, your future self who wants to be taken seriously.

91) "Magnolia," by Playboi Carti

A'ight. This was pretty cool. Y'know what? We're gonna take a shower, we're gonna hit up another One Directioneer song, and we're gonna come back to you, but the early prognosis on Playboi Carti is that he is Not Bad.

93) "Sweet Creature," by Harry Styles

Oh. Oh, THIS is how you get me to appreciate "Sign of the Times." This. The most WGWAG-y thing I've had to listen to on the chart so far. Mind you, I had to listen to a whole Ed Sheeran album as part of this project. I did not make that statement without being abso-damn-lutely sure this was the most WGWAG nonsense of 2017 so far.

100) "wokeuplikethis," by Playboi Carti ft./Lil Uzi Vert

There's this stream that sometimes pops up in my YouTube recommendations called "lo-fi hip-hop beats to relax/study to," I'm sure it pops up for you as well, I'm sure it's an astoundingly popular stream, and with this and the other song, I'm not sure this young man really elevates above "patron saint of the lo-fi hip-ho beats stream." I didn't mind this song, but I also found other things to do when I was listening to this song, and the same is true of "Magnolia." I'm sure Carti doesn't aspire to be background noise, but whatever ambitions he may have didn't find their way into the songs I've heard so far. I have little sense of who he is, I just know I started reading a cool-seeming article about microcelebrity while he was doing his thing. It's Not Bad. It's not worth thinking about. I'm more concerned with the second bit.

HUGE changes to 2017′s Top 20 this week. 20) "First Time," by Kygo ft./Ellie Goulding (5.20) 19) "Heatstroke," by Calvin Harris ft./Young Thug, Pharrell Williams & Ariana Grande (4.22) 18) "Yeah Boy," Kelsea Ballerini (3.4) 17) "You Look Good," by Lady Antebellum (4.22) 16) "The Heart Part 4," by Kendrick Lamar (4.15) 15) "Selfish," by Future ft./Rihanna (3.18) 14) "Slide," by Calvin Harris ft./Frank Ocean & Migos (3.18) 13) "Now & Later," by Sage the Gemini (2.25) 12) "DNA." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 11) "It Ain't Me," by Kygo x Selena Gomez (3.4) 10) "Craving You," by Thomas Rhett ft./Maren Morris (4.22) 9) "That's What I Like," by Bruno Mars (3.4) 8) "Chanel," by Frank Ocean ft./A$AP Rocky (4.1) 7) "Run Up," by Major Lazer ft./PARTYNEXTDOOR & Nicki Minaj (2.18) 6) "Green Light," by Lorde (3.18) 5) "ELEMENT." by Kendrick Lamar (5.6) 4) "Despacito," by Luis Fonsi ft./Daddy Yankee (2.4) 3) "Issues," by Julia Michaels (2.11) 2) "iSpy," by KYLE ft./Lil Yachty (1.14) 1) "Hard Times," by Paramore (5.13) We are almost almost at the point where I can give a glowing review to a song that doesn’t make the Top 20.

Who won? 2017. It’s really hard to argue the virtues of any of the songs 2007 gave us this week, especially when you consider that one of them debuted accidentally. Chris Brown might’ve been too much weight to carry on a good week for 2007, but 2017 manages to carry it to the top. I will remember precisely one of these songs by this time next week. Pop music is bad why am I making myself listen to so much of it I have had a bad idea what am I doing 2017: 5 2007: 3

[moonshroooms]

RIPS SHIRT OFF TALK TO ME ABOUT VIDEO GAMES

1: Do you try to stay away from walkthroughs?

On a playthrough stand point, absolutely (unless I’ve been so stuck that I’m ready to throw my controller, which doesn’t happen that often. I always feel dumber afterwards though >_<). But I like to watch let’s plays and I got like, through the entirety of all the Bioshock games and halfway through Ni no Kuni before I was like ‘u know what I’m getting a ps3 and playing them  myself’

2: Company you're always loyal to?

Midna, all of my Pikmin. Uhh. Saadia. I haven’t played a lot of games where you gotta choose one side or the other XD

3: Best game you've ever played?

Zelda series, Pikmin series, Okami, Journey. 

I have a lot of favorites bite me.

4: Worst game you've ever played?

I had the one of the Spyro trilogies on my ds and oooohmygooood it is absolutely horrid. The controls and graphics are bad enough. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. The other one was called like Slime or something and you played a prince with like, fairy/monster characters who could spray ice and water, and slime and vomit, to work your way through the levels. Yeah. Vomit. Yum. Controls were disgusting it literally made me cry as a child.

5: A popular series/game you just can't get into no matter how much you try?

Probably any MMORPG (if that counts). They’re fun with friends, but if my friends aren’t there it’s like. No thanks. And most modern shooter where it’s like, an army setting and all you do is shoot people and nothing else. bishockdoesn’tcountonlycauseitsnotrealisticandalsonotinanarmysetingsotakethat alsoigetbirdpowers alsoletsbehonestthatstoryiscraycray #excuses

6: A game that's changed you the most?

The ending of Okami hit me pretty hard about helping God (or the gods), out every once in a while. Made me cry pretty hard when I was younger.

And Journey just. Journey just makes you feel things man. When I first played through it I had no internet and was completely alone, and I was just so heartbroken when it was over. I wasn’t ready for it to be gone. The second time I played I had an internet connection and I actually found someone to stick with me through most of the game and honestly, the end of the game was different in that moment. I wasn’t sad or lonely. When we walked into the light there was a sense of excitement for the next time, and while this journey was over and we’d miss it, I was so excited for the next time around with someone new.

7: A game you'll never forget?

Undertale. I didn’t think a game that took such a short time to finish could chokehold my heart like that. Sure the gameplay wasn’t much to sneeze at (though it could get difficult at times), but gosh dang. I don’t understand people when they say something is over-rated sometimes. Yes, Undertale fans went absolutely rabid (and I only played the game after like half a year when they hype had died down a smidge), but there’s a reason for that sometimes, you know? It left an impact. It made us feel things or made us think. And if a story can stir absolutely fanatic emotions in just one person, let alone enough people to be absolutely annoying, then there must be something that made it good, right? Maybe not everything in it is amazing, or will appeal to everyone, but there’s something there. There was something of substance, something we latched onto and couldn’t let go, even if it’s a dumb reason. So yeah. Undertale’s certainly I would never forget, and recommend anyone to at least try. Cast aside at the annoyance of the fandom, they’re just the dust surrounding the impact, and see if there’s something in there that you might find interesting - you never know.

8: Best soundtrack?

Zelda, Journey, Okami, Mario Galaxy. I’m sensing a pattern here.

9: A game you turn your volume off every time you play it?

Brodudes and dudebros. WHO TURNS THE VOLUME COMPLETELY OFF HOW BAD IS THE MUSIC?

I do dislike the title music from Age of Empires 3. It’s honestly horrid.

10: A game you've completely given up on?

That slime game from when I was younger. And Amnesia, a dating sim my friend told me to get since there was a sale on steam that made that made it cheaper than a candy bar. I just. My god do all dating sims give you one choice every hour after 10 years of dialogue?? And then make half the decisions for you? The girl in amnesia was so infuriating and dumb as a brick. And everyone was basically just ranting to a wall and didn’t find it odd that she says like 2 words every couple hours. She doesn’t even say anything half the time it’s soooo boringggggg. If you’re gonna give me someone to pretend to be at least give them more options even Link has more personality AND speech options than that.

11: Hardest game you've played?

Uh, uh. Civilization? Mario Galaxy? I’ve never played civilization on a very high setting honestly (I don’t even think I’ve played the default difficulty). I just get too annoyed when Barbarians are there constantly sending invaders. Why isn’t there a setting to have just the wildlife barbarians and then I’ll deal with my computer competitors afterwards? And Mario Galaxy isn’t hard, I’m just lazy and haven’t gotten all the stars.

12: Shortest time you've beaten a game in?

Journey in just a few short hours.

13: A game you were the most excited for when it wasn't released yet?

Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I haven’t been that excited for a game since I was a little kid. Honestly, I don’t know what made the hype about this game so different. I was so giddy and euphoric when I finally got it. 

14: A game you think would be cool if it had voice acting?

I don’t really think I care to have voice acting in any of my games that don’t. Pokemon Sun and Moon, I guess? Not really a deal-breaker.

15: Which two games do you think would make an awesome crossover?

Zelda, Okami. Let’s be honest they’re pretty similarly structured games. I want Wolf Link and Ammy to be on an unstoppable team!

16: Character you've hated most? From what game?

Oh god. I hate Wario from Smash Bros. He’s just. So ugly. I hate his design. And I know that’s the point, but that doesn’t mean he’s still not ugly. And HE JUST HAS FART JOKES FOR NO REASON. TOILET HUMOR, like any other humor, IS FUNNY IF YOU HAVE A JOKE AND NOT IN AND OF ITSELF.

And Louie from Pikmin just grinds my gears. He’s so shady man I want to just leave him on an abandoned, Pikmin-less planet to die.

And Lubba from Mario Galaxy 2. I just hate the fact that he exists. Him AND his stupid hub-world.

17: What game do you never tell people you play?

#noshameonlygame

18: A game you wish your friends knew about?

MMM, Journey. I finally got my one friend to play it and he liked it A+, but my other friend hasn’t even considered it and I desperately want her to.

19: Which game do you think deserves a revival?

The Spyro Trilogy. I’m probably one out of a bunch o’ people that really like the Spyro trilogy (she says, as she’s only actually played Dawn of the Dragon). But I really liked the story and the feel of the game. I have played the actual first Spyro game when I was little, in like hotels and stuff, and it was alright. I’m not much of a collect-a-thon type of gamer. 

20: What was the first video game you ever played?

When I was little I played this alien shooting game with my dad. I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called though. I think it might’ve been on X-box or something. It was pixally and 3D in the Doom sense of 3D. The camera was always fixed to whatever it felt like at the time. So like, the first level was propped up like a side-scroller (though there was still 3d space), but down the line it might go sort of top down or directly behind the character. It was actually a co-op, with the only second character being a girl who I always played (props for such an old game having a female protagonist). There were different guns, and some power-ups and such. It was probably a liiittle violent to consider it okay for a 5-year-old, but I really liked it, and I’m not a psychopath that craves the taste of bullets.

21: How old were you when you first played a video game?

5

22: If you could immerse yourself in any game for one day, which game would it be? What would you do?

Zelda, Okami, Journey. Screw around with my new superpowers, save the world.

23: Biggest disappointment you've had in gaming?

Super Mario Galaxy 2′s hubworld. It’s so flipping boring and compact and also ugly. And you just get a linear track-path for getting to new galaxies. I miss the sprawling space station and Rosalina’s lovely face.

Spore’s space and civilization stage. Keeping in mind I went into Spore with no expectations. I didn’t know who created it or anything like that. I like the first 3 stages of Spore a whole bunch, but the civilization stage was boring and the space stage was big and boring. It’s just the same thing over and over again in slightly different colors. And the Grox are annoying as all get-out.

Breath of the Wild’s story, lack of a companion, and dungeons. And like one or two tiny things.

24: Casual, Hardcore, or in the middle?

The lovechild between hardcore and in the middle.

25: Be honest; have you ever used cheats (like ActionReplay or Gameshark)?

Like cheats where you can get into the inner-workings of the game? Heck naw dawg. I’ve certainly used cheats that were already in the game, like with Sims or Skyrim, but I try to refrain from that since it tends to ruin the game. I have a really bad habit of cheating in Civilization though and I just can’t break it! >^<

26: Handheld or console?

Switch ;D

But, like, not the actual Switch

27: Has there ever been a moment that has made you cry?

Yes because I’m a big doofus. End of Okami, end of Journey, end of Kingdom Hearts, end of Spyro Dawn of the Dragon, end of LIKE ALMOST EVERY ZELDA GAME, end of Undertale, end of Bioshock 1 & 3, end of Life is Strange, end of Ni no Kuni, and probably a billion moments in between.

28: Which character's clothes do you wish you owned the most?

Every single Gerudo. Also the Journey robes!

29: Which is more important, gameplay or story?

Story, but it’s not that I don’t think gameplay isn’t important. I guess it depends on the kind of game you’re going for, but I tend to lean towards story. 

I play Smash Bros, which is almost exclusively gameplay and it’s one of my favorite games. But without friends there’s nothing for me to go back to.

I also like Life is Strange, but after seeing every option and knowing all the shocking twists and turns, there’s not much for me to go back to either since it’s exclusively story and there’s nothing else really fun to do.

That’s why I tend to drift towards games like Zelda and Okami or Skyrim and Pikmin. 

With a game like Zelda or Okami I feel like it’s 60% story and 40% gameplay. Pikmin is more 70% gameplay and 30% story. Skyrim is pretty 50/50, since it depends on the player how story-oriented the game will be.

Either way, I tend to like games that lean just a bit more towards story. Story is something keeps me thinking about the game even after I turned it off and lets me connect with the poor sap I’m piloting. Gameplay keeps me entertained even as I revisit old stories, and sometimes it’s specifically what I go back for.

30: A game that hasn't been localized in your country that you think should be localized?

Mother 3 - but not because I want to play Mother 3 or have even played or watched any of the Mother/Earthbound games - but because I don’t have a game I want localized and I want people to have their Mother 3 so they can stop being sad about it.