#i just... i just love this scene a lot okay

[felikatze]

QoL as Kindness: ISAT's diagetic tutorials

This is the hopefully first of a series of posts I'll be doing reinterpreting ISAT's Loop through the lens of START AGAIN: a prologue's context. As such....

Major spoilers for both ISAT (all acts, including optional content) and SASASAP (all endings).

One of the biggest differences between ISAT and SASASAP is it’s QoL – it’s Quality of Life. QoL refers to all the little things that make a game just that little bit more playable; quick to navigate menus, quicksaving… tutorials.

It’s not really a surprise that SASASAP is as RPGmaker as RPGmaker gets. This isn’t a criticism, just an observation, and also a compliment to how much Adrienne’s skills with the engine improved between releases. Still, there’s some things that ISAT has over SASASAP.

ISAT’s QoL is absolutely essential to making it bearable. Anyone ever watch an ISAT playthrough where the player sighed in relief as the tutorial on picking where you loop came up?

SASASAP lacks a lot of ISAT’s QoL because it’s an earlier project without a studio backing it, but what impresses me is how this change ties into narrative.

Because the greatest chunk of ISAT’s greatest QoL is provided by Loop.

Even before you ever meet them, they’re already over your shoulder. Loop is the tutorial, speaking to you inside your brain. It’s genius, in that no player is ever going to question this. Hell, SASASAP’s movement tutorial is the exact same thing with less flavoring

This reframes what the QoL is – it’s not just a convenience to the player, it’s a convenience to Siffrin, too. It’s diegetic. It’s not something the game is giving you, it’s something Loop is giving you. Let’s look at what Loop gives you, and more importantly, why.

Zone Out

The first of the QoL features I want to talk about is the Zone Out function, the absolute bread and butter of not making this game a total slog.

The Zone Out feature as is did not exist in SASASAP (because Adrienne didn’t know how to do it yet) – instead, some doubled scenes let you just skip them entirely outright. There’s only two extremes: listen to all of it again, or none of it.

ISAT’s zone out system is much more dynamic, since it fast forwards dialogue line by line, letting you zone in whenever you’d like, and forcing you to zone in whenever a) something notably new happens, or b) whenever Siffrin speaks.

The way this feature is introced by Loop is kind of genius. Because Loop’s tutorial is about one thing – it’s okay to skip.

“You might miss what your party is saying, but who cares, right? If you make them mad, you can always loop back and they'll have forgotten all about it!”

It’s a cruel joke, or at least it seems that way on the surface. It’s also genuine advice. And a cruel joke at the same time. For Siffrin, freshly starting the loops, this is scandalous, but for Loop, who’s long since desensitized, it’s the same old same old.

What Loop’s doing here, by joking about Siffrin not listening to the party, is alliviate Siffrin’s guilt when they inevitably take Loop up on the offer. Because, even though Loop loves their party members…

From SASASAP, when sitting outside the bathroom:

(Will you get farther this time?) (Will you live this time?) (Or are you stuck listening to the same lines forever?) (…) (Stars, you’re so tired.)

Loop knows intimately well that Siffrin is going to drive themself insane trying to be a people pleaser every single loop, so this joke is telling the outright – don’t bother.

At first, Siffrin (and the player) still might. I really enjoyed reading the same conversations five times minimum because they’re fun and I’m deranged, but at some point I did start skipping them. And it was a relief to know there wouldn’t be anything new.

Siffrin: “Should I check everything again?” Loop: “You mean, should you check the same barrels, the same closets, the same objects on tables every loop?” Loop: “I mean, you can, but… You know things won’t change, right?” Loop: “If you really want to get a certain item again, or listen to your friends repeat something funny, you should!” Loop: “I personally would only check two or three things every loop, and ignore the rest.” Loop: “It will just make you crazy to expect something to change, when nothing will.” Loop: “All that might change is your reaction to it!”

The game is telling you, Loop is telling Siffrin, don’t drive yourself insane playing, please. The characters aren’t going to remember if you skipped something.

In the course of my script wizard activities, I’ve gotten an in-depth view of just how much that actually holds up. Pretty much all major differences are by Act, unrelated of how often you’ve done something. Minor variations apply for other things, but… those variations are minor.

And this also points out what all those variations are. Siffrin’s reactions!

Loop’s pre-empting Siffrin’s guilt, cuz they probably felt it themself. Hell, we do know they felt the pressure to perform and make sure nobody notices anything’s wrong, in SASASAP! Right up until the finale, Loop was driving themself up the wall.

(You have to act, you can't crack, you have to fake it and play it exactly as you did the first time for the whole way through so your friends don't find out anything is wrong) (You don't want to know what would happen if they knew their quest was in vain) (If they knew their quest for justice and change always ends in stillness and death!)

Acting everything out perfectly is one of the ending paths for SASASAP, which results in… complete and utter failure. Obviously.

(You acted perfectly normally, didn't you?) (Nothing out of place, nothing weird, every line the same as it might've been the first time?) (Ah…That was your mistake, wasn't it…?) (Because… Didn't your very first time… end exactly like this?) (The King throws the Housemaiden's body onto the floor again.)

Zoning out for too many conversations actually awards weird points in SASASAP, locking you out of the Perfect Ending. On the other hand, acting “perfectly” in ISAT… has no awards whatsoever. No special scene or or optional event or anything at all. You get nothing for paying attention!!!

So spare yourself the pain already, m’kay?

(On that note: I don’t think Loop not being sarcastic about it would’ve like… worked. At the start of ACT 2, Siffrin isn’t going to believe Loop when they say “Stop forcing yourself to relive the same thing over and over because you’ll start seeing your friends as disposable actors and lose touch with reality.” That all comes later, when Siffrin can look back on Loop’s words and see how right they were.)

Loop Back

The second biggest sigh of relief in any given ISAT playthrough is probably this specific tutorial.

Loop graciously shows you that you don’t need to loop back all the way to the beginning every single time. You can pick and choose where to go, even going forward by paying up with Memories of Skirmish.

This is a feature SASASAP does not possess, for the reason that it is much, much shorter, only covering about as much as one floor of ISAT’s three floor House.

But… since this is a character showing this to you, Loop showing this to you, we can ask… when did Loop learn this? After all, START AGAIN, Loop’s loops, do not have this feature.

“It'll save you time, so it's important, so listen up!”

This feature not existing in SASASAP means this is a thing that Loop did not know exists during their own time as Siffrin. god fuck it let’s go.

And that’s just the thing, isn’t it? SASASAP’s Siffrin does not know how to do this. They cannot pick and choose where they end up, as demonstrated wonderfully by SASASAP’s True Ending. There’s an even more wonderful implication, though –

On SASASAP’s Perfect End path, when exiting the final room before the King, Isabeau says this:

Isabeau: “…I'm glad you're feeling better, though!” Siffrin: (…?) “What do you mean…?” Isabeau: “Oh!!! Um, you were…” Isabeau: “Well! You were acting a little weird when we were way closer to the Castle's entrance……” Isabeau: “You weren't really listening to us, you were kinda smiling the way you do when you're actually not happy…” Isabeau: “…and you like, almost acted like you knew exactly where you were going?” Isabeau: “But clearly you're feeling better now! You're acting just like normal!!!”

SASASAP’s Siffrin knew how to do this, somehow managed to lock themself into the House’s last floor… and then forgot how to get back. By making this tutorial, Loop is ensuring that Siffrin never will.

“What can I do next?” – SASASAP’s greatest flaw

So, if you’ve had the pleasure of playing START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue yourself (as you should), then you’ve probably faced this scenario, or some variation of it:

I got to the end, I died to the King, but… what do I do next? The game tells me to go for the extremes, but how do I do that?

Maybe you try another loop, but just get the same ending again (or a differnet one, depending on a coinflip). You’re getting frustrated. Getting the Perfect Ending demands pinpoint precision to avoid everything weird, the True Ending demands good memorization of every single damn key in the game, and the order you do everything in. (Though, to be fair, the requirements on that one are actually more merciful than one might expect.)

Point is, in SASASAP, it’s incredibly easy to get stuck in that endless loop of “What the fuck do I do now?” It’s not uncommon to think you got it right only to get the same result anyways. What does one do in this situation?

They consult a guide, obviously.

START AGAIN’s ending requirements are frustrating. They are. When I tried to go for either the Perfect or the True Ending, I saved inside every single room, just so I could get right back to it when I inevitably fucked up five times minimum. This is both criticism… and praise. Because Loop is the major reason that ISAT does not suffer from this same problem.

Whenever you’re stuck in ISAT, Loop is just a single loop or call away at any times. And besides that, no plot requirement in ISAT demands nearly as many moving pieces all at once as SASASAP does – the “Sus Route” has been relegated to an optional ACT 4 exclusive event, instead of the game’s True Ending.

Instead of consulting an external guide on how to progress, you have one right there in the game, always ready with the next tip. They’re not infallible, mind you – enough time in Isatcord’s #game-help proves that, but Loop solved all of the moments I got stuck and frustrated in ISAT for me.

(Primarily that one time you need to figure out that a photo is similar to being stuck in time. That moment in particular is actually commendable, as you need to ask Loop about it twice before they tell you, leaving you a last shot to try and figure it out on your own.) Loop is a feature that nullifies SASASAP’s greatest flaw in its successor, and they choose to do so.

Memory of Keys

In my humble opinion, Loop does this because… they do not want Siffrin to suffer as they did. They want Siffrin to escape. And there is no greater example of their kindness than how Loop treats keys.

First of all, all keys in the game have a sparkling effect on them if you’ve picked them up at least once before, making it immediately clear where in the room they are. This means you don’t need to search every single room top to bottom for them, as you had to do for any keys and Star Crests in SASASAP. It’s some nice QoL that just means you don’t have to re-search the same area if you happened to forget which specific cupboard the key was in.

Key point being: SASASAP did not have this feature. In SASASAP, you did have to memorize where all the keys are, and doing so is expected if you want the True Ending.

Loop does not want Siffrin to have to do this. Because…

From SASASAP’s True End:

(The torch in the infirmary? That’s important!) (The key in the book? Soooo important.) (The names of your friends, that have been by your side throughout this entire adventure?) (Not worth remembering.)

Compared to ISAT’s ACT 2:

Siffrin: “How come I can see where the keys are?” Loop: “Whaaaaat? You caaaaaan? How can that beeeeeee?” Siffrin: “Is it thanks to you?” Loop: “Maybe.” Loop: “I figured you'd have other things to worry about than where a stupid key is.” Loop: “No need to thank me.”

To Loop, that they memorized the House’s layout over their friends’ names is a defining moment to their own failures. After all, in all likelihood, the True End of SASASAP is the last loop before they called it quits. It’s a traumatic experience from them, one that came from having to remember all the dumb fucking keys.

They do not want Siffrin to experience this. They do not want Siffrin to have to memorize the House, to push away what actually matters in favor of efficiency. So Loop is directly, personally, giving them a boon, so that Siffrin does not have to.

Conclusion

There’s probably more tutorial things I could talk about, but I feel like you’re seeing the pattern now, even if I don’t bring up saving level ups or keeping equipment or the “You’re stuck” signifier, least of all cuz they don’t have direct points of comparison with SASASAP like my other examples do (SASASAP has no changeable equipment, and saving levels doesn’t matter if you only have one floor, and you can’t softlock either.). So.

Loop’s tutorials all belie a fundamental kindness to their character. Everything that made their own experience trapped in the timeloop just that bit worse, they’re choosing to do away with it for Siffrin. They are choosing to make Siffrin’s time here easier.

Zoning out too much lead to them never paying attention to their friends, forgetting their names, so they make sure that Siffrin can still zone back in whenever something new happens.

Loop trapped themself for years on the final floor, locking themself out of progress that might lie further back, so they’re ensuring Siffrin knows exactly how to loop forwards and backwards so it doesn’t happen again.

Loop lets Siffrin keep equipment across loops to cut down on time spent doing the exact same thing over and over.

They are saving Siffrin time, and they are giving Siffrin comfort. At every single turn, Loop is saving Siffrin from the same pitfalls they fell into without anyone to guide them out.

It's honestly incredible to transform an increase in skill into an actual narrative element. Yes, SASASAP sucks more to play. But ISAT sucks less, because Loop wants it to. It's the perfect marriage of real world circumstance and storytelling. I could... probably pull another comparison here, saying it's like a game and its remake - overhauled graphics, expanded story, and loads and loads of QoL, because the makers of the remake realized something. They love the original, but parts of it do suck, and there's so much that can be done to make a new player's experience smoother. Metanarrative commentary,,,, woah,,,,,

Every single one of these QoL elements I’ve mentioned function as a crutch for a player’s failing memory, but also Siffrin’s (similar to what I talked about in my previous essay on ISAT’s ludonarrative - the player and Siffrin are always in sync, even in how tutorials benefit them). Loop doesn’t know the player exists though (only the Change God does), so they do everything for Siffrin.

To keep Siffrin from forgetting. To help Siffrin focus on what’s important. To make Siffrin’s journey just a little bit less miserable. Loop directly improves ISAT’s QoL. For you. For Siffrin.

From Loop’s introduction:

Loop: “See, I’m useful! I’m very useful! That’s why I’m here, helpful Loop.” Siffrin: “Why are you helping me?” Loop: “…” Loop: “Because I think you should be helped.” Loop: “I won’t always have the answers, but… I think having someone on your side to talk to is better than dealing with this alone.” Loop: “Right?”

From Loop’s hangout:

“But it’s fine.” “Whether you believe me or not, I’m here to help you.” “So you can escape this loop.”

And finally, from the start of ACT 3:

Siffrin: “Are you really here to help me?” Loop: “Stardust…” Loop: “…” Loop: “Yes.” Loop: “If you can believe anything, believe that.” Loop: “I asked to be here, so I could help you.”

And I do believe them. Loop’s feelings on Siffrin are… complex, to say the least. They love Siffrin, and they hate him in equal measure. They’re jealous, and spiteful, but underneath everything…

In SASASAP, if you die to a Sadness thrice, you get this monologue:

(Sometimes, when you loop back here…) (In the corner of your eye, you can sometimes see someone that looks just like you.) (Is it a you from another loop? Remnants of your past failures?) (Are you going crazy?) (May they succeed where you cannot.)

[stone-stars]

Transcript:

[Eldermourne Theme fades out] Murph: WEL-come back to Eldermourne, everybody! Emily, Jake, and Caldwell: Eldermourne! Murph: I'm your dungeon master Brian Murphy joined by Jake Hurwitz! Jake: The relationship with my son has gone south because I foot-- I put both feet in my mouth. [Emily cackles. Caldwell joins her.] Murph: And ya did it again! Jake: Henry Hogfish! Emily: Okay, this is, we need to tell them behind the scenes! Jake: No. Emily: We literally-- full disclosure, we-- Jake: No. No. No, don't tell them. Emily: We recorded the intros-- we recorded the intros-- Jake: It's an embarrassing story for me and Caldwell. [Caldwell laughs.] Emily: And-- Murph, edit out Jake protesting. Murph, immediately: Okay. [Emily laughs.] He's been silenced. He's been silenced. Caldwell: I am absolved. This rules. Emily: We were-- (laughing) We were recording the intro, and Caldwell realized that he hadn't been recording, so we had to re-record it. But in the original recording, Jake fucked up his rhyme, and he said "oh, good, now I can get my rhyme right." [Everyone laughs.] Caldwell: Nobody's mad at me anymore! It's so good! Murph: Maybe I'll splice in the recording of Jake fucking up the first time. [Emily and Caldwell giggle.] Jake: Wow, that's perfect. Murph: So let's go ahead-- we're gonna go ahead and cut to Jake's first intro. Jake: Okay. Murph: Let's roll that. [Emily cackles. The Eldermourne Theme fades in.] Jake: Uh-- oh fuck, uh-- Relationship with my son has gone south, because I put both feet in my mouth-- I forgot it for a second. [Theme fades out.] Jake: Yeah, good on ya, Caldwell. [The others laugh.] This is not fair! Caldwell's huge fuck up was just shining a light on mine! That's not right! Murph: That's true. That's true. Caldwell: Jake texted me and said "hey, turn off your recording so that I get another shot at it, and I obliged him. Murph: This is your dad forgetting to pick you up, and then you get mugged. This is Caldwell's mistake, and then you are really really suffering for it. [The others laughing.] Um-- Then, of course, we've got Emily Axford! Emily: Living the dream and looking like Liam! Fia Boginya! Murph: Emily, it's even better the second time, hearin' it. Jake: That's fucked up. Caldwell: Crisp, perfect. Emily: Thank you, I didn't mess it up the first time, it's so good. Actually, why don't you go ahead and use whichever one I am better at, okay? Murph: Okay. Two for two. Two for two. Jake: Jesus christ. Caldwell: Can I say my livin' la vida Liam joke again? Cause I thought that was fun. From the first one? Murph: Sure. Um, y'know, as memorable as it was, I completely forgot it. [The others laugh.] Um, and of course, Caldwell Tanner! Caldwell: Oh, Stella Vervain's special little guy who's getting swept up-- Jake: Don't fuck it up! Don't fuck it up! Don't fuck it up! Caldwell: --in her sweet little lies, Zirk Vervain. Emily: Oh my goodness. [Everyone laughs.] Caldwell: Yee-haw! Flawless dismount! All the judges love it. Jake: Swing, batta batta batta batta! Murph: Wow, two 2/2s and one 0/2. It's-- You'd think there'd be some deviation there, but… wow. Jake: Caldwell didn't really get a 2/2. He didn't record. Caldwell: Jake, you could just turn off your Zoom right now, and then we'd have to start recording again. Jake: I need another shot. Murph: This intro's way better than the other one, guys, I'm just saying! This is good. Maybe we should fuck up the show every time. Emily: I honestly was barely paying attention, and then when Jake messed up again, I… could not stop laughing. Murph, laughing: Why were you barely paying attention?? [Everyone laughs.] Emily: I was looking at my spells! Murph: Okay, alright, alright. Caldwell: She's got a lot of spells! Murph: She's got a lot of spells. Emily: I have to remember what I can do. Murph: Alright guys, let's go ahead and get into the recap.

[tender-emotional-music]

Guys, I truly do not get byler doubt over things like this. Some leaker said “Mike and Will do not have a romantic relationship in Stranger Things 5.” Okay, let’s look at that, because I know the tag will go into a frenzy anyway.

This guy has been right about Marvel leaks in the past. He has also been wrong. The vibe I get is that a lot of leakers build up credibility by saying things which are correct or easily predictable, meaning they have more leeway in the future to make things up for clout and still have people believe them. The byler plot is very contentious and is guaranteed to get attention if you post anything about it, so I don’t really believe people who are being loud and open about it on twitter with broad, unspecific claims. A good example is the RejectedScooper guy, who had the Will’s love interest leak. He also made claims like “Will’s love interest is a boy” (duh), “the UD merged with Hawkins” (popular theory given that’s what the final s4 shot indicates), and “the military is still after El” (another popular theory). He makes believable claims that might end up being right, but that doesn’t mean he ever had inside knowledge. A lot of leakers are like this

The very phrasing of this is weird. Thanks @merth-or-nothin for pointing it out, but legit leakers will give information on what IS happening, not what isn’t, since they often lack context and filming isn’t even done, so there’s half a season missing. If byler truly wasn’t happening, they’d say “Mike and El are still together in episode 4,” or “Will meets a new boy.” They wouldn’t make a broad “this doesn’t happen” statement. They would provide a scene that DOES happen which leads them to that broader conclusion

I don’t have my own direct confirmation on this, but I’ve seen many people say that everything is extremely locked down this season, and that’s why it’s hard for people to get leaks. I think I even saw a screenshot where someone asked Noah on tik tok for a video on set and he said they’re being extra strict this season. There have been other claims, like cast and crew members getting redacted versions of the scripts that only contain their parts (standard practice in productions like this) people being instructed to leave the set as soon as their part is done, and the Duffers overall being very tight-lipped. Even Millie had to beg the writers to know what El’s ending is. The only people who know the ending of the byler plot are probably the main cast and writers, and high-up members of the production team. Their NDA’s must be so tight. I don’t see how some random leaker would have that info just because he had marvel leaks in the past. If I had info about a sensitive spoiler, I wouldn’t be yelling about it on twitter either. I’m not sure about how the legal process works here, but I feel like you’d get into some sort of strife.

I’ve seen byler-positive and byler-negative leaks. Chances are a lot of them are wrong. Maybe some are right. Who knows? They’re very contradictory, so I think the only conclusion I’m taking away from it is that people like the attention posting byler “spoilers” gets them, and no one has a straight story (no pun intended) regarding what is happening next season, so I’m likely to take most things as fake, especially broad claims like this one

[moonshynecybin]

what would you consider essential marc and rosquez watching? i don’t mean races but the stuff happening around it, there seems to be so much and idk where to start 😭

BIG ass question. i think it depends what you want outta this and how you best interact with content slash consume information. for me (not to brag but. winner of multiple historical essay writing competitions in high school. for context on the kind of freak i am bringing to the table here.) the research is kind of the fun part ! like i just started googling shit! i would go to inactive blogs and just search 'marquez' on them to see what would happen ! a lot of the times that works ! but it also takes a lotttt of time lol so i'll chuck some good resources your way, why not...

okay im not sure how basic we're talkin here but um. background. so the documentaries are, i think. the best place to start. theyre entertaining and offer a good amalgamation of clips to provide context for the actual racing. and like i know you de-emphasized racing (which is fine lol who cares) but it really is like the most important thing in the world to these fools and its a pretty visual sport so i think its at least helpful. like yes sepang IS about the press conference, but its also about the conversation they have ON the race track using their motorcycles. which is also somewhat a conversation that they HAVE been having all year long...

i'd start with hitting the apex (2013), its a GREAT introduction to the "characters" that does a lot of legwork to contextualize everything. lays the scene for where vale is at coming into his relationship with marc (both personally, wrt to marco simoncelli, and career-wise concerning his flop at ducati), and also how insane marc's whole deal is in general. the second half is. materially a study on what him entering the premiere class did to the sport as a whole. the introductory chapter in many respects

marc marquez: all in. MY introduction and blissfully free online. marc comma in his own words, with all the implications of that. a self-produced documentary where he is giving feedback about the edit of said documentary straight to camera and no less vulnerable because of it which is very marc imo. revealing both intentionally AND unintentionally about his whole deal with injury, vale, and his image.

motogp unlimited. im gonna be real kind of boring. like i would still watch it ! but do it kind of later, once you know the major players so youre automatically more invested. it doesnt really give you more than marc says himself in all in tbh, and i get the sense him and vale were NAWWWT interested in doing more than the bare minimum for it.

marc's rookie doc. free and subtitled on the youtubes. the first half of this is deadass just him wanting to fuck vale so bad while every comment from vale has me saying GIRL. out loud because the foreshadowing would be genuinely shocking if this was fiction. anyways the laguna seca of it all....

next i would hit up PODCASTS ! i think it makes sense after the documentaries, because these are all podcasts that arent strictly about rosquez (even if they are in many ways the main characters lmao) and personally it helps to put faces to lesser known names that might pop up before i listen to a purely audio product and get lost in the soup of sounds. the paddock pass podcast has two retrospective episodes about the 2015 season that are really good at context, oxley bom pod has a fun recent episode on valentino that i love, again just poke around a lil

videos. these guys have never filmed a lot of content together tragically. what i wouldnt give for someone to make them do an escape room. anyways ranch visit HERE (post explaining the ranch visit here). sepang presscon (sowwy) here. vale unhinged podcast interview the month after marc's documentary came out here. vale retirement interview where he gets asked about marc here. vale talking about asking marc to the ranch here. vale postrace at argentina 2018 here. UCCIO postrace at argentina 2018 here. theres a lot moreeeee just go on my blog archive and filter for rosquez and vids its easier lol

journalism. hello. okay so you should genuinely spend some time reading through mat oxley's stuff he can write (theres a paywall but you can run that shit through wayback machine). he also loves an insane comparison which i do enjoy.... again this is one that can be solved by googling his name and tacking on 'marquez' or 'rossi' or a specific time period or race it will probably reap some dividends. in terms of specific ass articles this one is kind of load bearing in terms of sepang and some of the interpersonal competitive tensions at play. that being said there are manyyyyyy crazy interviews and snippents of articles from other journos floating around motogp tumblr (like literally too many to link) adn its fun to dig around to find them, but mat oxley gets a shoutout because i was reading this article TODAY !

other content. honestly one of the best resources I'VE found for plotting out the arc of their relationship is @kingofthering's everyrosquezpodium series. you can REALLY see it play out lol. also her tagging system rules she very neatly lays out years and races... so if something jumps out at you, CLICK ITTTT ! also all of @ricciardoes fave presscon moments series. insane.

all this to say a small little rpf fandom like this rewards some digging! i would just recommend following narrative threads that interest you ! its also a small fanbase that is pretty research oriented, so if youre ever confused about somethin, just shoot an ask or run a search on someone's blog (@kwisatzworld has endless vale resources and @batsplat is one of the most thorough researchers ive ever seen, for example) like for real theres so much... i also have a primer that i made forever ago that has some links on it so you can peruse that if you so wish. but frankly a lot of it is just using those research muscles and being sufficiently deranged enough to be screenshotting reddit threads at one am so you can post them to tumblr because they mentioned marc and vale in the same sentence and that lit up some of the neurons in your brain

(and i know you said outside of races but i think theyre good benchmarks as turning points soooo you should do some diggin on laguna seca 2013, jerez 2015, argentina 2015, ASSEN 2015, sepang 2015 obvi, argentina 2018, and misano 2019. those are the big tentpoles of insane rosquez relationship drama imo. i mean theres many more but. im limiting myself.)

[deepestnightcolor]

Just imagine Elliot ranting to his friend (Reader) how he just can‘t really put the scene from his mind onto paper, the reader of course would love to help him…

turns out the scene was about a beautiful woman masturbating, that lands her on Elliots bed with him telling her how to touch herself (to get it as accurate as possible of course) with him so close to her, watching and analyzing her every movement while he takes notes for his story

(You can add as much to it as you want)

ᴀ/ɴ: Okay, anon, wow. What is your BRAIN! I drooled a little over this, honestly. And I was SO excited to write this. I hope I hit the right spots with this, because hehehe. Had my head go brrrrrr. Thank you so much for your time and attention and your willingness to request! <3

ᴘᴀɪʀɪɴɢ: Elliott (SDV) x Fem!Reader

ᴡᴄ: 2007 words.

ᴍᴅɴɪ ✧ ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: alcohol consumption, masturbation, making out, being watched while masturbating, finger fucking, teasing, pining.

☾ ʙᴇ ᴍʏ ᴍᴜꜱᴇ ☽

Usually, Elliott tried to avoid talking about his writing on Fridays. The reason for that was simple: Fridays were spent with you in the saloon and needed to be honoured.

This Friday was different, though. Something was bothering Elliott, and even though he tried not to show it, he did show it. On accident, of course. A dramatic sigh left his lips, wettened by the beer he was sipping, eyes looking out of the window wistfully. His whole body language screamed “HELP ME OVERCOME THIS WRITING PROBLEM”, and you just weren’t one to let your friends suffer.

“What is it, Elliott?” You asked, leaning your elbows on the table so you could take a closer look at the author. “It’s nothing,” he sighed, voice filled to the brim with drama and expiration. “You sure?” “Yesss, everything is finnnnneeee.” The stretched-out “fine” ended in a drawn-out sigh, hazel eyes looking up at you, just begging for you to ask again. You sipped your own drink, eyebrow cocked at him. “You suuuuuuureeeee?” “I mean, it’s Friday...,” Elliott began, his lips now pushed forward in a cute little pout, “I don’t talk about my writing on Fridays.” “And if I tell you that it really is fine?” “Well…Maybe I would be able to make an exception then,” he murmured, adding a quiver to your lower lip. Oh, Elliott. So cute, so dramatic, lying it on thick for you today.

“Alright, it really is fine for you to tell me about you-“ “There is this scene I am struggling with,” he quickly began, scared you could change your mind faster than he could get his words out, “and I think you would be the perfect aid.” You hummed, licking your lips clean from the stickiness of the alcohol. “Is that so? And what is that scene about?”

The shimmer of mischief in Elliott’s eyes should have worried you, even more so when it was combined with him lowering his voice to a hushed whisper, telling you how he needed to tell you at his shed. It wouldn’t work here, you see, confidential information would be shared with ears that shouldn’t yet hear it. So of course you agreed, following your friend to his home without even a seed of doubt planted in your mind. “You want what?” You asked, disbelief drenching your voice. “I know, I know, it must sound absolutely ridiculous, yet you must consider! I am stuck on this scene, and I could use a beautiful muse like you!” “So, and just to be clear I heard you right, you want me to masturbate in front of you!” Elliott gave you this awkward, pleading grin, head cocked to the side: “Uh…Yes. Though it would be professional, I promise! No words will be shed about this – I just… I just really could use it for my book.” His hands clasped together as if he was silently begging you, and yet again he pulled his face into that cute little pout. “Pretty please…It is one of the last elements of my book and I-“ “Fine.” Surprise flashed over Elliott’s face, and really, you yourself were surprised. Both of you had expected that it would have taken a lot more to convince you, yet who was Elliott to complain? “Great, great! Thank you so, so much, darling! How about you lay down and get comfortable already, and I will just get my pen and paper.” “You will take notes about this?” “Why, yes!” Well, that had answered it, hadn’t it?

You took a deep, shaky breath as you began to take off your top, the little skirt that you had thrown on for the saloon. After a moment of hesitation, you even discarded the bra that had been holding your tits up, allowing them to bounce free. With a glance in Elliott’s direction, you allowed yourself to slowly find a spot on his mattress, but as soon as your head hit the pillow, you were surrounded by his scent. It would have been a complete and utter lie if you had tried to say that this didn’t begin to turn you on; lying almost naked in your friend’s bed, surrounded by his smell. About to be watched by him. Goosebumps arose on your skin, your clit twitching gently at the thought. You had always found Elliott handsome, but he had always seemed to keep his distance; most often hiding himself behind his manuscripts. This…was incredibly raw and open.

The sound of a chair’s legs scratching along the ground caught your attention. Elliot’s flustered face appeared in your field of vision, leading you to blush as well.

“You look…stunning,” he whispered. There was no dramatics in his voice, no exaggeration. Only that sweet, honest compliment. You gave him a smile, biting down on your lower lip. He had taken off his coat by now and rolled up his sleeve; his hair tied back in a top knot. He looked absolutely delicious himself, the way he started to write his notes. Hazel eyes taking you in completely, just to scribble something down on the paper. He had lit up a candle on the nightstand, the flickering flame accenting his sharp features in a way that made you want to drag him onto the bed with you, but instead, you slowly let your fingers slip down your neck, to your breast. The movement caught Elliott’s attention, and you could feel his gaze following the dance of your fingertips. You, on the other hand, shamelessly focused your attention on him. Being watched like this had a thrill to it that you hadn’t expected, but now fucking loved. Your thumb was now caressing your own nipple gently, mind wandering to the thoughts ofhow it would feel if Elliott was the one doing it. The goosebumps that appeared in your skin weren’t solely because of the pleasure you felt from teasing your nipples, but also because you believed Elliott’s hands on you would feel much better.

He scribbled something down again as your hand travelled down further, catching the hem of your panties. You lifted your hips, slowly sliding them off your hips. Your lower lip was bitten as you felt the air brush your cunt, and the throw of your panties towards Elliott definitely wasn’t an accident.

His eyes lingered on your cunt as it was exposed, taking it in with a deep inhale. He wrote something down, then scribbled over it, running a palm through his hair while shifting on his seat. “Oh, yes,” you whispered as your thumb caught your clit, giving the bundle gentle flicks of your thumb. Elliott swallowed thickly, his feather scratching the paper in a newfound frantic. You pressed your feet in the mattress and spread your legs wider, your eyes slipping shut as the gentle waves of pleasure washed over you. You had only just started, but feeling Elliott stare at you like this…Yoba, it made you wet. As if to prove it to him, you allowed a single digit to run through your folds, only to suck it into your mouth. The low groan coming from next to you caught your attention, yet when you looked, Elliott was fixated on the paper, feather just barely able to follow all the words that were supposed to spill out of it.

You slowly allowed your hand to pick up the journey along the curves of your body again, slowly stroking up and down your thighs with quivering fingers. You knew a pair of hazel eyes were following each and every touch, and you easily began to rub your clit again. More warmed up than the first time, you let a moan of pleasure leave your lips, not even opening your eyes when you heard Elliott shift on his chair, his hot breath hitting your skin soon after. “Mhhh,” you cooed, arching your back in a little just for show, dipping a finger into your cunt, your perverted mind wishing it was the author’s dick instead.

The quivering gasp next to you was the first thing that caught your attention. Looking over at the man, you could see that his hand was placed firmly in his lap, eyes wide. “What’s wrong, Elliott? Got a little hard there?” You whispered. Pride that your looks turned him on so much filled you, making you add another finger. The brunet grunted, shifting in his seat again under the pretence of getting more comfortable, but the lustful expression gave him away.

“You just look so luscious,” he breathed, his hand now wrapping around his shaft through his pants with barely an ounce of shame. “So pretty for me,” he added, willing himself to at least pretend to write down some more notes.

You didn’t really care about that, your eyes were now solely focused on his hard dick, just barely hidden behind his hand. Fucking yourself with your fingers, you whimpered his name, causing his attention to snap towards you.

You were close, you could feel the orgasm building up beneath your touch, but you just…you just needed a little more. “Elliott, kiss me? Fuck, please,” you whispered, a high-pitched moan leaving your mouth as you circled your clit again. Elliott’s lips pressed against yours in a captivating kiss; teeth clattering against teeth, tongues battling for dominance. Even though you had just asked him for a kiss, his hands automatically began to roam, finding your clit with ease and replacing your thumb there. Him rubbing patterns into the bundle of nerves while his tongue licked over yours sent shocks of pleasure up your spine, leaving your brain light and empty. In all honesty, Elliott couldn’t hold back anymore. His hips sloppily and greedily humped against your thigh while he rubbed your clit, sucking on your tongue with a tenderness you had expected from him, but also with greed that made your heat throb.

“El- Gonna-“

He didn’t let you finish the sentence, too busy to fill your mouth with his tongue again, his humping growing faster against your leg. The squeal that left you made him moan lowly, rubbing the bundle of nerves despite your orgasm already being torn out of you.

Your free hand reached for Elliott’s hair, tugging the long strands as you moaned, your body spasming at the feeling of your orgasm recking through you. Not even the tug caused Elliott to show any signs of mercy, his thumb steadily kept up its circling, with him only pulling away from the kiss to watch you shiver and squirm beneath his late touch.

“Elliott!” You cried out, eyes rolling back as you felt one of his fingers enter your sensitive gushing cunt, the grin on his face almost diabolic. “Are you going to cum a second time, my muse? It would be great for my story,” he whispered to you, working his finger into you while his thumb was still tracing patterns on your clit. His lips peppered gentle kisses upon your chest, making your heart thump against your ribcage.

“Elliott, can’t, oh, Yoba!” You tried to hold on to his wrist, but his merciless treatment of your slit didn’t even falter. “El! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Your body squirmed away and drew closer, like the tides at the beach, but in the end, he still pushed you over the edge. With a quivering cry you released, your hips snapping up to get the author’s finger knuckle deep within you, your legs spreading and snapping close – it was as if your body was malfunctioning.

As your back met the mattress, Elliott’s fingers on you began slowing down. Gentle kisses were casted upon your skin, attempting to calm you down. Your hand was still buried in Elliott’s hair as he came down next to you, one arm wrapped around your waist. In the bliss of two orgasms, you rolled around and slowly snuggled into his side, pressing your face into his chest.

“You know,” you whispered after a while, voice still hoarse, “I think your book really needs a sex scene…And I know just the muses.”

[sunflower-lilac42]

𝗳𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗶𝗿𝗹 | 𝘯𝘩13 ♔

➪ summary: in which y/n has a huge crush on nico and lets it slip during a couple of interviews or 2 interviews where y/n talked about nico and 1 interview where he spoke about her

➪ warnings: gross foods, gagging/throwing up

➪ word count: 2.4k

➪ file type: fic

➪ sunny's notes: the first ever nhl fic i posted on tumblr. this holds a special place in my heart <3 thank you for everyone who has been here from the beginning (editing this was rough)

nhl masterlist || taglist || navigation

⟹ Interview One: Jimmy Fallon - Mad Libs Theater -> reference video: mgk mad libs

“Welcome back, I’m hanging out with y/n y/l/n! Her new album is streaming everywhere, Apple Music, Spotify, you name it. Uh, y/n I want to do something fun with you and act out a dramatic scene, but first, we have to fill in the blanks. It is time for Mad Lib Theater.”

The intro of Mad Lib Theater plays and y/n readjusts herself on the seat to look at Jimmy, “Alright. So here’s how this works. I’m going to ask you for some silly words - nouns, verbs, adjectives, et cetera - and they’ll all be written onto our cue cards here, as we’re doing this. And then we’re gonna act out a dramatic Mad Libs scene. Are you ready for this?”

“Thank god I went to fourth grade.”

Jimmy laughs along with the audience and uncaps the marker, “Okay. Here we go. I want a noun that starts with a C.”

“Candle.”

“Candle’s good. Adjective.”

“Sweaty.”

“Type of bug.”

“Mosquito.”

“Animal.”

“Elephant.”

“A chain restaurant.”

“Chipotle. I used to work there.”

“Chipotle?”

“Yeah.”

Jimmy continues, “Noun.”

“Jersey.”

“Like New Jersey or a sports Jersey?”

“Oh, uh New Jersey.”

“A kitchen appliance.”

“Spatula.”

“A plural noun.”

“Buildings.”

“Sophisticated.”

“I know right.”

“Another animal.”

“A yack.”

“One of the Seven Dwarfs.”

“Dopey.” She looks into the audience and winks.

“Celebrity name.”

“Sabrina Carpenter.”

“Name me a number,”

“13.”

“Just 13, 13-”

“1386.”

“Type of profession.”

“Hockey player.”

“Hockey player? Okay.”

“Wow! Speed round. Here we go. Another plural noun.”

“Mooses?.”

“Uh, okay. Body part. Watch it.”

“Elbow.”

“Phrase that you would say if you bumped into Leonardo DiCaprio on the street.”

The audience starts yelling, lots of fans of y/n knowing how much she loves this movie as it takes her no time to come up with an answer, “Why did you let go, Jack? You should have stayed on the door. You should’ve got on the door.”

“Why did you let go, Jack? There was room for you on the door.” Y/n repeats herself for the man as he writes down her answer. 

“Another noun.” Y/n’s flustered, “You do this one.”

“Burrito.”

“Burrito, okay.”

“Type of drink.”

“Bloody Mary.”

“Another celebrity.”

“Elizabeth Olsen.”

“Verb ending in i-n-g.”

“Slaying.”

Jimmy busts out laughing, “Slaying. This is fun doing Mad Libs with you.”

“What would you shout if you sat down in a wet seat?”

“Fudge that’s wet.”

“‘Fudge that’s wet?’ I love you.”

“First concert you ever attended.”

“Madonna.”

“Wow. Madonna. You know what, that makes sense.”

“A professional athlete.”

Without any hesitation, y/n blurts out, “Nico Hischier.”

“What?”

Y/n hides her increasingly growing red cheeks, “He’s my favorite hockey player. He’s the captain of the New Jersey Devils.”

There were some hockey or Devils fans in the crowd and they let out a couple of cheers. Jimmy wiggles his eyebrows at the girl before continuing, “Another verb ending in I-N-G.”

“Blushing.”

“Yes, very good. You’re blushing right now.”

Y/n laughs, “Two words that rhyme.”

“Swiss. Kiss.”

“A long, silly word.”

“Iridocyclitis!” A man shouts from the audience.

“What?!

“Is that a disease? Is that an actual-” 

“Yeah, what is that?” 

Jimmy attempts to spell out a word. 

“Iridocyclitis. Yeah, of course. Alright, now, we’ve filled out the words for our scene. Good look to our cue card. So sorry, Roman. Are you ready to perform our scene?”

“I don’t know now.”

“Let’s go, let's do this.” 

『••✎••』

Jimmy and y/n stand on the building after coming out in superhero costumes, “Am I green?”

“No, yeah, you’re green. Yeah, you’re green. I’m red.”

“Candle girl! What are you doing here?!”

“Oh, hello, Captain Stinky.”

“Please call me by my nickname, Mr. Mosquito.”

“I’m here for the same reason you are here - to rescue the elephant stuck on the roof of this Chipotle.”

“I knew there was trouble tonight when I saw my signal in the sky- a light projected in the shape of… New Jersey.”

“Well, using our powers this rescue should be simple. I’m faster than a speeding spatula, and everything I touch turns to buildings.” Y/n says before Jimmy responds, “I have the agility of a yak. And when I get really dopey, I turn into Sabrina Carpenter.”

Y/n starts laughing, unable to control herself, “Wow. I must tell you, my back story is complicated. When I was 1386 years old, I was… I was once bitten by a hockey player.” 

She then spits out more laughter and doubles over to hold her stomach, “Oh my- Oh my god. And ever since, I’ve been able to emanate mooses from my elbow.”

“Why did you let go, Jack?” Jimmy holds his hand out before y/n places her own on his shoulder, “I know. It’s amazing, but with great power comes great burrito.” Both of the two laugh before controlling themselves and continuing the scene. 

“Your story reminds me of my own. I became a superhero after I fell into a tub of radioactive bloody Mary. But listen. We must complete this rescue. In the trapped elephant’s collar, there’s a USB drive that contains images of Elizabeth Olsen slaying.”

Y/n snorts and covers her mouth quickly before laughing, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I thought it’d be much worse.”

“And as a warning, I do have one weakness.”

“What is it?”

“Madonna.”

“That’s okay. Just remember what Professor Nico Hischier told us. He said if we’re ever in a situation like this,” Jimmy pulls out a gold button, “You press this button, and we will both immediately start blushing. Here we go.”

Y/n laughs and the two start slapping their cheeks for them to redden, “Our blushing is causing the elephant to be saved.”

She looks at Jimmy and then the cue cards and shakes her head, “Swiss kiss! We did it!”

“Yes, let’s high-five and say the secret superhero catchphrase on ‘three’. One, two, three.”

They both squint in an attempt to read the word, “Iri-dira-calaptus.”

“Dude!”

“Yeah!”

“And scene!”

The two laugh as the scene ends and Jimmy tries to get his words out, “My thanks to y/n y/l/n.”

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

⟹ Interview Two: James Corden - Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts -> reference video: sygofyg w/ ewan mcgregor and niall horan

The theme music plays as the camera cuts to James, Ewan, Niall, and y/n sitting at a table with a rotating top and a bunch of food laid on it.

“Okay. so let’s take a look at the food that we have here.” James proceeds to spin the top of the table to showcase the food, “We have a salmon smoothie. A beef tongue.”

Ewan sticks his tongue out and makes a noise causing y/n to laugh as she holds her napkin up to her face, “This is disgusting.”

“Bird saliva.” The audience yells in disgust and Niall makes a whiffing motion with his hands, “The smell just gets stronger and stronger.”

“A scorpion. Fish head. Hot sauce. “

“Is that safe to do hot sauce?” Ewan asks as he looks towards James, “We’re gonna find out.”

“And finally, bull penis.”

“Yay!” Y/n claps. 

“So here’s how this works. Ewan and I will be asking questions to Niall and y/n. Now if someone on your team chooses not to answer their question, you both will have to eat the disgusting food. Have we got it?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, Niall-” y/n cuts in quickly, “I’m already mad.”

“You’re up first. Niall, I am going to give you-”

Niall points to one of the foods, “Please don’t do that. My acid reflux will freak out.”

“Please don’t. Not the scorpion.”

“The salmon smoothie.” Y/n squeals. 

“Here is your question, So if you answer the question you don’t have to eat, if you don’t answer the question, you both have to have a big glug of the salmon smoothie.” Niall laughs, “I don’t know what I’m more nervous about, the question or the smoothie.”

“Well, I’ve just seen the question and I think it might be the question. Niall, who is your least favorite member or One Direction?”

Niall swears but the bleep covers it as he goes to clink smoothies with y/n. Y/n looks at him, “I think you should drink, I am not your publicist, but I don’t know that you should.”

“I think I might just take the daily mail hit tomorrow, and throw out a crap answer. I’m trying to help y/n.” The said girl laughs and hits him, “If it’ll help you out, I’ll drink it.”

“Don’t think of your teammate, think of your life.” 

“What do you think, Niall are you going to go salmon-”

Y/n places the napkin around Niall’s neck to make a bib, “Yeah for future life, yeah, I think I will go with this.” The two pick up smoothies and drink them, well attempting to drink them. 

James hands them spoons and they both put them in their mouths. Y/n immediately gags and goes to spit it in the trash, getting some in her hair. James and Ewan immediately burst into laughter as they watched the two. 

Ewan looks at y/n, “Are you alright?”

“It is not so much the taste, it’s the texture. It's like having salmon yogurt.” James looks at y/n, “Oh and there is some in the hair to keep for later. Right, so now y/n, you will ask your question to me.”

“Oh well, well, well.”

“Which would you like me and Ewan to have?”

“Have a look at the question first.” Niall leans over to help y/n, it was honestly like having a brother and sister team up against someone. 

“Oh, wow. Getting tactical.”

“Oh, he is going to eat. I know– Scorpion.” Y/n turns the table so the scorpion sits in front of the two men on the other side. 

“Scorpion. I think that is the easiest one.”

“Well, yeah, you say that until it is in your face.”

“Your question is, James, name one artist who you have turned down for carpool karaoke.” The crowd lets out a bunch of oos, “How long have you got?”

“Cheers mate,” James cheers with Ewan, and they eat the scorpions, seemingly without any problem. 

“What is y/n going to eat?”

“I think I’m going for the tongue.” 

“And it’s one each. You have to eat the whole tongue.” Y/n looks at him in disbelief and he just shakes his head, “I’m just kidding.”

“Oh, this is quite a cute one. Y/n you once said you had a favorite hockey player, Nico Hischier, is it true you might have a crush on the Swiss man?”

Y/n immediately blushes and places her head in her hands as everyone laughs, “Oh come on, this is an easy one.”

“Oh shit.” The bleep censors the word as y/n looks at the tongue, “Yes, it’s true. I do have a crush on Nico Hischier.”

The whole crowd goes wild and Niall playfully hits her on the arm, “Niall what would you like to give Ewan?”

“Ewan you’re up. Truthfully, all I’ve been thinking about is that saliva. Surely the question gets better.”

“It does. Sorry, boys.”

“Jeez, again, back to the bird saliva.”

Y/n looks at the boys, “How do they get it?” James and Ewan playfully try to mimic what they think happened.

Niall pulls out the card and y/n reads it, immediately bursting into laughter, “This is the greatest question ever.”

The Irish man looks up at Ewan with a grin on his face, “Ewan, have you ever shit your pants?”

Everyone laughs uncontrollably for at least 30 seconds, “The show is only an hour, Ewan.”

“I mean I could lie, there is only one or two people that would know.”

“I am really enjoying this.”

“Well, I guess, yeah.”

“Hang on, wait how old were you?”

“Well, I was very young at the time.”

“No, no there didn’t have any age in there, did it?” Ewan defends.

“Well, we’ve all technically shit our pants as babies.” Y/n looks at the man. 

“That is all I was referring to. I might have shit my pants in the 90s one time.”

“Ewan McGregor. Spilling it.”

“Okay, Niall I am going to give you guys.”

“Please not the hot sauce.”

“Some beef tongue, are you ready? Okay.”

“I’m going to have to eat this, aren’t I?”

“Niall, you have dated both Selena Gomez and Ellie Goulding. It is your last night on Earth, who would you rather spend it with?”

“Just it doesn’t hurt anyone.” Y/n says, “Y/n’s going ‘it doesn’t hurt anyone’.”

Niall places his arm on the girl’s chair, “I’m afraid it does, love.”

“The trouble is, it’s not really your last night so someone’s gonna be upset tomorrow.”

“Okay, I would, 'cause it’s the last night on Earth, Ellie is a big fan of Planet Earth by David Attenborough so I would sit and watch that with her, and for that reason, Ellie Goulding.”

“Y/n it is your turn, you now will ask me a question and select a food.”

“You know what, you guys seem so keen on the beef tongue, giving it to us time and time again, so we will get revenge. James, you are definitely going to eat that, so have you got your knife ready.”

“Yup.”

“Which Late Night Host do you prefer, Kimmel or Fallon?”

“That’s tricky. Oh, dear are we eating this?” The two bite into the tongue and y/n gags as she watches them. 

“That was Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts. Big thanks to Y/n Y/l/n, Niall Horan, and Ewan McGregor, we’ll be right back, everybody!”

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜

⟹ Interview Three: Nico Hischier - Postgame Interview

“So Nico, I hate to ask you about this but there have been these videos floating around about y/n y/l/n talking about you, have you heard about this?”

Nico nods his head as he looks at the interviewer, “Yeah, actually I have. Jack actually showed me this video and let me tell you, that was the last thing I was expecting.”

“Everyone is dying to know after she came out and explicitly stated that she liked you, do you like her, or at least have a tiny crush on her?”

“Yeah, well you know, I haven’t actually met her so I can’t say I like her but I do think she’s cute and that’s all I’m going to say about this.”

The interviewer nods, “Thanks Nico.”

[34saveme34]

IT'S FINALLY HERE !!!!

I recommend reading Sever the Ties before reading this one! As it does have references to it so reading this fic without context might make this fic more non sensical.

warnings: Gore although not explored to an uncomfortable amount, trauma upon trauma, Axol gets brought up in an awful way, I know that Mercy is from Overwatch

It turned out a bit gayer than I thought it would. If you end up having any questions after reading this, don't be afraid to ask :3 I'll try my best to answer you

obligatory @birrdify tag so you can find this beast easy !!

word count:16451

It had been a while since 3 and 4 had their rather emotional adventure. Since then, things have been better. 3 finally let 4 help him more seriously with the café while 4 let 3 help him with his videos. 3 still didn't want to just take help without anything so this was the compromise they reached. The others were peaceful too, 1 and 2 calmly doing their meme research, Meggy, Melony and Tari training together, mainly Tari since Clench appeared. Although he wasn't very fond of that. They had to give him duck pictures every few minutes to comply. He's like a toddler. Saiko was there too, although more passively, just making sure everything was okay. Everything that had been happening lately just had her really worried. Although she didn't show that, she didn't want to worry her friends. And usually when she would show concern, people many times thought she was overreacting.

Luigi was tending to his flower shop like usual, just… Very Peaceful.

Everything was just. A bit too peaceful, very little chaos present, almost worryingly.

4 started thinking about it. It was weird. He searched for Mario and, interestingly, found him in one of the unfinished rooms, watching TV. 

He only managed to find him because a set of extension cords plugged into each other were leading to a room there.

“Mario?” 4 peaked in the room to see only the TV’s light and Mario, anything else that could’ve been there was obscured by the darkness.

“... Yeah?” Mario replied a bit slowly.

“What… What are you doing up here?”

“Watching Tee Vee” Mario said cheerfully. TV made Mario very happy.

“Why here?”

“Nothing distracts me here” 

“Huh, um… alright. I was just worried because you haven't been bothering anyone for a while”

“Awww, SMG4, you miss it?”

“Um-”

“Oh my god, you miss when I mess with you guys! That's so funny” 

“Mario… I guess. I guess I did miss it”

Mario chuckled.

“Sometimes even Mario has to rest you know”

“Yeah, I get that… what are you watching anyways?”

4 asked as he walked beside Mario to see what he was so occupied with. It turned out to be what 4 would guess is a spaghetti themed soap opera, considering the vibes of the scene he saw with pasta in shape of a man and also some in shape of a woman arguing then making out and then arguing again-

“It's very entertaining”

“I… sure see that…”

4 wasn't exactly that big of a fan of such dramatic television. 4 went to leave the room but stopped for a bit.

“Make sure to do something other than watch TV though. Dark rooms…. have their effects…” 

“Okay, mom” Mario dismissed 4.

4 rolled his eyes then finally actually left. Besides, he had a lot of videos to work on with 3. It was kind of interesting working with him like this. Especially that things are really looking up now.

Although Mario wasn’t exactly respectful towards 4, he still took his word. But not to touch grass. He found a show that reminded him of Two Piece.

“Ooooh, Melony would love this!” Mario picked up the TV and ran with it in the direction of Melony. Actually, he wasn’t even running, he was flying like a torpedo. Must be all his pent up energy bursting out of him or something.

He found Melony sleeping. He repeatedly tapped her until she woke up.

“Hmm..? Mario?” she looked at him tired “Do you need something?”

“Mario found a show you might like!!” he slammed down the TV with excitement. The giddiness was kind of rubbing off on Melony. 

“I’ll take a look at it then” she smiled, clapping her hands together. 

Mario took off incredibly fast, which surprised Melony a bit. She thought cardio wasn’t his thing but guess that isn’t always the case after all.

The show was really fun for Melony, truly exploring the depths of fruit romance, in ways that resonated with her so deeply. She wished she could just… absorb it into her. She never saw romance between fruits shown so intimately. With the way they’d hold each other, holding onto each other until the end. Though she was especially sad about a pairing where one of them lost their life to an evil chef. Oh, she awfully hated that chef. She actually kind of resonated with the character that got left lonely. She wished… she could just grab her, pull her out of the screen… Tell her, it won’t be easy but… it’ll pass one day. Everything will be okay. And she also loved the way fruits rotting were depicted. She usually wasn’t quite comfortable with the topic but there was just… something so well done about it here. Slowly seeing your loved one succumb to a different, much more deteriorated life.

The deep excitement she felt about the show slowly put her to sleep. It was odd for her to sleep like that but hey! Sleep is always good.

She found herself in a black void. Though she could feel ground underneath. She breathed in. Breathed out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax.

She tried to make out anything in her surroundings. As she walked around, her steps echoed, although it didn’t sound right. The way how even just the sound of her breath would bounce off the walls, then the sound ringing in her ears. She wasn’t exactly the cowardly type but this was starting to freak her out.

Regardless, she marched on, trying to find a way out of whatever she was in. She found a doorway that was blocked by debris. She sighed then thought for a bit… She had her deity powers. She tried to pick up the debris bit by bit but for some reason, even the smallest bits felt infinitely heavy. Even just a dust particle made her sink into the floor, no matter how much she tried. She sat down on the ground. It had been a while since she felt so powerless.  She didn’t think she would find herself digging out such feelings she held. She thought she got rid of them at this point. Though there will always be inevitable things she won’t be able to escape.

She just sat there. Her breath. Echoing. Yet it was so deeply quiet. Way too quiet. Ringing in her ear, the depths of this nothingness she was trapped in. It had been a while since something was threatening to drive her mad this badly. She finally got up, walking in a different direction. Maybe she’ll find the way out that way. Or at least a purpose so she could stop feeling so worthless again. She knew her friends cared but she still couldn’t quite shake off everything she was feeling. Especially after missing out on so much. She was wondering if she felt that way because she had been avoiding new adventures so much. Sleeping away another day or 2, in hopes that tomorrow would be a new day she could finally do something more. 

As she walked, she found a doorway with a beaten up door barely in its place. As she looked at it closer, she noticed blood splatter on it. Some of it looked old… some of it new. She was starting to feel rather anxious. Although she should be strong, the sight of blood always did something to her head. As if reminding her of times she would rather forget about.

She barely thought much more as she opened the door. Hell, to her it almost felt like she was being controlled. As she looked around, a horrific sight filled her view. It was Axol. He tried to speak but…that wouldn’t have been possible, looking at his state. She couldn’t speak either. She couldn’t call out. She didn't want this. She JUST had this image slowly fading from her mind. The time when she had to kill him for the good of everyone. He wanted her to kill him at that point. They both knew there was nothing else they could do. Yet, she would still be often haunted by this scene. A scene only she had to witness. Only she had the burden of having to see the light leave his eyes, to see him go limp, lifeless. And now, it was so clearly in front of her, so deeply visceral. Just as visceral as it was in the moment. She cried, she couldn’t help it. She slowly managed to make herself look away. It was hard to do from everything that was boiling within her then. 

Wait… She couldn’t really be back there. This must just be a nightmare! A really bad one but still, it wasn’t real. She began to walk away from Axol, slowly breathing in and out. After that awful scene, the awful music of the void like rooms were almost welcoming, even if it felt like they wanted to swallow her whole. As she walked, another familiar sound filled her ears. Sounds of drawing with a pencil on paper. As she walked closer to the source, she saw herself, drawing for the manga, Two Piece, which Axol wasn’t able to finish. There were so many crumpled papers scattered around her, her expression tired, focused but emitting a sort of hopelessness. She remembered this… Starting off really wasn’t easy. So many times she just… She just wanted to give up. But with her friends around it was better. She stared at herself for a bit. She wanted to say something.

She placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey… You’ll be fine”

Her tired self stopped, then slowly looked at her. No words escaping her mouth. Yet those eyes showed so much. All the ways she suffered with everything. The amount of work she put into it. 

“I” she started again “...We… We might not make it perfect. But that’s okay. Axol wouldn’t expect that anyways, you know? We… still carried his legacy. That’s what only matters in the end” 

Her tired self teared up and pushed her away, going back to hopelessly scribbling.

“Do you even hear me?? We’ll be fine! I promise! A mediocre manga isn’t the end of the world!”

Her tired self slowly raised her hands, bruised from holding the pencil so tightly and for so long. She stared at her. Her eyes were screaming thousands of words. She knew all of it. All the pain. All the doubt. The tears, the needless bruises she bore through it all. She knew it wasn’t for nothing. But it would be too much for anybody on their own. Maybe even with help. 

With being so invested in her feelings, she only noticed an unfamiliar hand on her forehead when she heard a crack.

She woke up, sweating. She looked around. Just where she was before, with the TV still playing the fruit show. She slowly calmed down. It was finally over. Although the images that the dream left in her brain… She couldn’t bear them alone so… best thing to do is to go outside and tell someone about it. That would usually help her. She got up, fixing her hoodie.

She looked out of the room, seeing Meggy and Tari both resting and Saiko beside the 2, calmly strumming on her guitar. They must’ve been training even after she left. She admired how resilient they both were. Even Tari. After everything she had also been through with everyone, she changed a bit too. To her it felt like inspiration. 

“Hi, girls!” she cheered at the 3. 

All 3 looked her way saying hi back but stopping, all of them looking at her horrified. She felt a bit confused.

“Why are you looking at me so weird? Is… my hair looking weird or-”

“Your… face” Saiko was the only one speaking up.

“My face?” Melony slowly felt her face, from her chin to her forehead, her fingers brushing over her usual features until she felt something weird by her forehead. As she trailed along lines she could feel were like valleys on her face. She rushed to the bathroom, the other 3 running after her, with Saiko at the front of it. 

Melony looked in the mirror, her face was cracked like a mask. Wait… The nightmare… the crack before she woke up. It was starting to make sense. Too bad she wasn’t too happy about that. 

The other 3 finally caught up to her, finally being able to be by her side.

“Melony…” Tari looked like she could cry for Melony. Melony could cry too. She couldn’t take it, so she hugged Tari. Meggy patted her on the back and she got pulled in the hug too. Saiko stood there before Melony locked eyes with her and oops, she was in the hug now too. 

“I- I.. I can use all the comfort right now” she spoke quietly. Saiko understood.

They stood there like that for a while. 

“So…” Saiko started “What… happened?”

“Uh… I… I had a nightmare”

“About?”

“Well… Axol”

All 3 looked at her concerned.

“It’s been a while since he showed up like that in your dreams”

“I know! I don’t know… I don’t know why… Oh and… I heard a crack in my nightmare… so…”

Saiko already looked angry.

“I’ll look around in your room” she left.

The 3 looked after her sadly.

“I didn’t know it was still that bad…” Meggy commented again, feeling kind of guilty, as if it was her fault that Melony had such an awful nightmare.

“I thought it wasn’t either” Melony sounded sad.

Tari leaned on her more, trying to comfort her better.

“I know you were getting better! There must be an explanation for this… I think… This is unusual for you?”

Meggy and Melony shared a look, as they both realised Tari is right.

“We must get to the bottom of this” Meggy piped up, as she left the bathroom, going after Saiko. Tari followed, though stopped in the doorway.

“Are you coming too?”

Melony calmed herself a little, lightly clenching her fists, preparing herself to face whatever may come her way. Then she gave a small nod and followed after Tari. 

They all got to where Melony slept before, the TV still in there, undisturbed for the most part. As there was nothing wrong with it, except for the fact that it was turned off. As Melony was looking at it, it was as if the screen itself was crawling deep into her soul. She wasn’t sure if she felt uncomfortable by it or not. But it was a strong feeling either way.

“What is this TV?” Saiko asked Melony.

“Well, Mario showed me a cool show on it. I actually watched it until I fell asleep”

Saiko looked back and forth between the TV and Melony. Seemingly, Tari was slowly catching on.

“Do you think… the show has something to do with it?” Tari looked at Saiko, lightly cocking her head to the side.

“I would say yeah”

“But the show was so good! I’ve never watched something so nice! It’s probably just the show that made me think of the past but that’s- that’s understandable! It was genuinely nice”

“What kinda show was it?” Tari asked.

“It kind of reminded me of Two Piece actually” she cheered.

“Oh, I love Two Piece! Could we watch it together sometime?” Meggy joined.

Saiko was a bit stupefied as the 3 went on to talk about the show as if there was nothing wrong. She still couldn’t shake off the fact that Melony’s face looked like that. She had to go look for answers. And… She might have had just the right idea…

It had been a few days then, Melony’s face still cracked but it seemed she cared less and less. Everybody else around just- seemed to care less. Especially as everyone seemed to be occupied with shows of their dreams. Meggy with a show with so much action and fighting she only could dream of. With wonderful character development, she was mesmerized. Not only that, the female lead absolutely had her from first sight, perfect role for someone so interesting. Playing the whole part perfectly, trying to survive in a world that tried to get rid of her and turning up victorious against all odds. Tari was watching a cutesy show, it was peaceful but still kind of mature with the way the characters talked. She related to the very real issues the characters had while adoring their adorable designs. They seemed to lead much more normal, relaxed lives than what they’ve been having in SMG4. It almost felt idyllic to her. She was close to just… jumping into the TV to escape everything else. 3 and 4 were too busy with their work to even notice at this point. It seemed, even together they can get a bit carried away. Or maybe flirting during work did them in a bit. And nobody even noticed that Saiko was still gone.

This continued. And only got worse. 3 and 4 only realised when barely any customers were coming in.

“You think we messed up? Do they think this place is bad again?” 3 sounded worried.

“No way, we’ve been doing so well! There must be an explanation” 4 wrapped his arm around 3 to comfort him. As usual, it did sort of work. 

“I say we close up and look around”

“Just what I was thinking!”

They closed the café for the day.They first approached the castle, maybe the crew could know something about what was going on. 

They both entered the castle. It was way too quiet. 

“This is creepy” 3 quietly commented.

4 looked at him, that teasing look in his eyes.

“What’s the whispering for? Are you scared someone else will hear you and know you’re a coward?” he laughed.

3 grabbed 4’s face.

“As if you’re not scared!”

“A bit maybe” 4 laughed. 3 pressed a soft kiss on 4’s lips before moving ahead.

4 was left like a smiling idiot before moving along with 3.

They looked around everywhere, not seeing anybody.

Except… Mario. Mario was watching TV, just like how last time 4 really managed to talk to him. Because of work he didn’t manage to hang out with him as much as he wanted to. 

“Mario! Are you at fault for people disappearing??” 3 barged into the room Mario was watching TV in. It was the same room 4 found him in before.

“Shhh!!” Mario shushes 3.

“Dude! This is serious!” 4 chimed in.

They both got slapped out of the room.

“Mario’s watching TV!! Go away!!”

They both got up, it was quite the landing as Mario slapped them pretty hard. 3 had a devious smile on. 4 looked concerned.

“Hey… 4… I have an idea. But you might not like it”

“Say it anyways”

“We could… unplug the electricity! He can’t watch TV then!”

4 thought about it.

“Well- Damn it, what else can we do anyways, let’s go”

“Heh… didn’t even need to convince you this time”

“I just don’t have a better idea”

3 chuckled. They went down to the basement to turn the electricity off. As they came up, they quickly met with a very distraught Mario. And quickly he also went past them. Screaming something about spaghetti. They followed him to see that he devoured the whole fridge.

“M… Mario?” 4 asked him carefully, he was kinda scared.

Mario saw him and ran out. 3 and 4 ran after him to see him yanking the extension cords with might and devouring the TV whole. 

“Much better” he cooed as he sat on the ground, seemingly satisfied with himself.

“What… What was that Mario?” 4 was in disbelief.

Mario raised one finger then lowered it as he thought.

“I remembered I was very hungry! I couldn’t think! TV tasted kind of weird but it’s fine”

“Sure, man” 3 wasn’t even surprised anymore. Mario just pulls stuff like this.

“So… Mario…. Where are the others?” 4 asked, trying not to freak out as he remembered their original goal when they came into the castle.

“Hmmmm…. Mario doesn’t know…. Let’s look together?”

“Sure, come with” 4 said as he now led the way outside.

Walking around, everywhere was kind of quiet. 

“Oh, sure hope this isn’t like that one time Mario stopped time…” Mario sounded scared.

“We’re still moving, idiot, you didn’t accidentally stop time” 3 replied.

“Yeah, 3’s right”

“You’re only saying that because you’re gay for him….” Mario pouted, looking away, crossing his arms.

“Just because I love him I’m not gonna spare him from the truth”

“You heard him!”

“Hmmmm…” Mario wasn’t convinced.

“Besides, what have you been doing all this time?” 4 questioned Mario.

“Watching TV. Only that really”

“Damn, shut in” 3 laughed.

“I… I felt glued to the screen. So… yeah…” Mario looked away from the 2. 3 felt bad almost immediately.

“Okay dude… I guess it’s not your fault- at least you’re outside now” 3 attempted to apologise.

“You tried” 4 didn’t spare 3 of the truth.

3 rolled his eyes.

Mario suddenly stopped by a window. 3 and 4 stopped too, to see him looking at a TV.

“Don’t tell me you’re trying to watch TV again-” 4 was about to freak out on Mario. 

“No no- look” Mario said, pointing at the TV “This is just like the one I had at home!”

The 2 looked at it closely, and recognised it. Not only that, they saw familiar faces on TV. Acting nothing like themselves. Their friends were stuck in shows. 

“That looks like the TV guy’s head who manipulated you” 4 almost shouted with how angry he was at just the sight of the TV.

3 was more calm, at least on the outside. He was more scared if anything. He really didn’t want to see that guy again. 

“That means… that abandoned studio! We… we need to go back there” 4 said.

3 looked uncomfortable.

“Do we… really have to? I mean uh, it’s not like I’m scared but-”

“It’s okay, 3… I believe in us. This is… for all of our friends”

“Our friends… you’re- you’re right but-”

“You’re scared he could take advantage of you again, aren’t you?” Mario pointed at 3.

Both were a bit shocked.

“I… I am” 3 looked at him “How… How did you know?”

Mario twirled around once before finally giving a reply.

“Mario cares about his friends”

3 was a bit flustered by that.

“Aww, you’re still not used to being called a friend! 3 !!!” 4 teased him while hugging him.

“Awww, SMG3!!” Mario joined in on the hugging as well.

“C- Can- Can we just go, please??” 3 cried out. The other 2 laughed as they now got going to that very dreaded place. At least they felt a bit better now.

Just as they were about to go in, even if they likely just. Weren’t allowed to, they got grabbed from behind. 

And, my god… All 3 screamed.

“What- quiet, oh my god” the very mysterious TV man said as he stepped back from the 3.

“What are you doing to our friends? Let them GO??!” 4 was ready to throw hands. He was so furious.

“Hold your horses, SMG4, we didn’t even have a formal introduction yet!”

“Hell if I care, I just want you dead” 4 didn’t look like he was kidding. 

The TV headed man looked unamused. 

“I should’ve expected that…” he reached a finger towards 4, stopping him in his place.

“Now! Might I introduce myself! I’m Mr Puzzles, the head of Puzzlevision, a studio that is on its way to be THE best one. You’re walking on historic grounds”

“This place was a dump not too long ago”

“Oh, you must’ve dreamed that!! And what an awful dream that sounds” Puzzles grinned, a menacing aura emanating from his gaze.

“Wh… What but… you… we… we…”  3 felt scared again. 4  wanted to move so badly to comfort him but couldn’t.

Mario wasn’t sure what to do. He realised, he needed to stop thinking. And so he stopped his needless thoughts and rammed right into Puzzles like a bull. It was so sudden, Puzzles had no way to react.

“Oh why YOU-” 

It was then that Mario realised he got himself into a bit of a pickle. He didn’t have time to think, he launched himself right into the studio.

“YOU CAN’T GO IN THERE” Puzzles ran after Mario, looking so angry he was tearing up from it. 

3 sighed, looking at the still frozen 4. He couldn’t hide it, he felt a bit hopeless. He grabbed 4’s frozen hand with which he was trying to reach for Puzzles. His hand still had the warmth he was very familiar with. At least something to comfort him amongst everything.He only stopped feeling so pensive when he could feel 4 move a finger. He got so excited, he squeezed 4’s hand as he then fell over with him. 3 chuckled, feeling a little stupid, a little embarrassed. 

“Sorry, man” 4 chuckled back as he tried to get up.

“A little more?” 3 held 4 back.

“I appreciate that but- on the ground?”

“Okay okay, fine” 3 looked away as he got up. 

“No need to be embarrassed! I do love your hugs” 

3 sighed as he pulled 4 in for a quick peck on his lips.

“Yea yea but we have bigger things to worry about right now! That TV guy is still definitely chasing Mario”

“Mario! Right! Oh god, I hope he’s okay” 4 ran in, 3 followed after.

“Probably-” as they walked in, the place was in chaos. They looked around, finally finding the 2 with Mario being about to be caught.

“Mario!” 4 cried out when he saw him. Puzzles got distracted, which gave Mario the chance to fight back as he punched Puzzles’s screen. And not lightly at that. The sound of it shattering. It was as if the whole building went silent. Puzzles seemed to stop. It was so quiet, you could hear their breathing.

Puzzles slowly looked back to Mario, holding his own face. His gaze rained on Mario like an avalanche. He wasn’t exactly one to feel intimidated but here he was. It was as if the TV was bleeding pure technicolour. The TV itself still somehow worked, although glitchy. His head twitched. 

3 had enough of watching as he kicked Puzzles in his shin. It distracted him long enough that the 3 of them could escape Puzzles’s grasp. For now.

They ran and hid in a room. It was dark. Not pitch black but pretty dark. As their eyes adjusted, they noticed 3 chairs by each other. It was a bit weird. Mario took a seat without thinking much about it. 

“Mario, you can’t do that!” 4 tried to warn Mario who really didn’t give a single damn. 

“Why can’t I? It’s just a chair!”

3 and 4 were staring at Mario for a bit, nothing seemed to happen.

“Eh, might as well” 3 took another seat.

4 gave into peer pressure, sitting down himself.

“Okay, but we still need to figure out what to do about this guy… But more importantly, how to save our friends.”

“Yeah… I don’t get it. I thought we got rid of him then!” 3 grumbled.

“If anything, he acted as your wingman with how long you took to get together” Mario said rather nonchalantly. 

The 2 stared at him.

“I bet we would’ve realised without him!” 4 felt upset, 3 patted him on the back.

“Yeah! And our confession to each other would’ve been so much better if he didn’t step in!” 3 was upset at the idea that Mario proposed as well.

“Not to my knowledge”

“What do you know anyways?” 3 was agitated.

Mario just grinned so wide, even in the dark it was annoying.

Just as 3 was considering hitting Mario, light appeared in the room, in the form of a TV.

3 and 4 felt rather scared, jumping into each other’s arms, maybe even considering leaving while Mario looked excited.

“Yay TV time!” Mario cheered, as if he wasn’t JUST chased by a TV headed man out to kill him.

3 and 4 sat back, trying to calm down. A film started playing.

As the credits rolled, they recognised some names. Their friends were playing in the movie.

3 and 4 shared a glance while Mario was almost glued to the screen. 

Then the title came up.

…

“The fragmented director”

The scene opened with a montage of a cheerful kid, drawing and getting older over time. Just as the time passed, his drawings were getting better too, more advanced, as if it could escape the screen and get you. Especially because they were animated. The film continued with the now teenager making more and more things. So much of it felt like a reference to something, especially from big movies and shows. 

3 and Mario didn’t quite see it, but 4 was starting to get uncomfortable with how alone the kid seemed to be. Nobody else appeared in the scenes so far, just this kid and his drawings. 4 could relate in his own way. Thinking about all the times he locked himself up to work on things, just as lonely as this character, chosen but still painful loneliness. He was starting to feel it maybe a little too much…

“Dude.. are you crying?” 3 whispered to him.

As 4 took his hand to his face, indeed, tears were streaming down his face. How did he not realise it?

Mario looked at him too, immediately feeling worried for 4 as he leaned on him, trying to give him at least some physical comfort.

“It’s okay… I’m okay… just… a little too relatable”

3 shook his head, holding 4 himself. 4 was trapped in the hold of the 2 people he cared about the most…It was reassuring as he managed to look back at the screen.

The next scene began as the adult version of the once teen entered an office. As the scene continued, it became obvious that he got a job in the animation industry. He was still rather painfully lonely, even if there were people in the background. They were never directly interacting with him.

As the scene went on, he seemed to have more and more workload on his desk. His hand was shaking, his eyes not focused, with eyebags. He was overworked. He couldn’t stand it. It was obvious. 

The scene ended with him finally clocking out and heading home. 

4 was starting to feel weird about the relation of the title to the actual contents of the movie. This guy was nowhere near to being at such a high position, neither did he seem fragmented. It gave him a bad feeling. 

It was late at night when the scene opened again. The man couldn’t sleep. He got up and went outside. The night looked peaceful, everything looked serene. The sky was just as pretty as ever.

The man looked up at the sky, as if wishing for something, then he went inside. 

He seemed to think for a bit, before getting out a box full of DVDs of movies he could watch. As he was searching, he didn’t hear it. He didn’t feel it. He didn’t know what was coming. It was loud, sudden. Fatal. It ripped his head right off, whatever it was. The scene was dark enough that you wouldn’t be able to see too much detail, just enough to make out what happened. It left 4 stunned, but 3 seemed to take it worse as he noticeably hugged him tighter when the scene happened.

The scene slowly closed with slowly zooming in on the TV, kind of damaged yet for some reason it still seemed to be on and flickering.

The scene went dark, then it opened in the studio the guy worked at. It seemed the workplace was more alive. With some people chatting on a break, others working on stuff together, helping each other. Although it wasn’t corporate grade efficient, people were definitely having more fun.

Slowly, as the scene panned from everyone working, it seemed to go to one door. A closed door. The door slowly opened. As if for a split second it looked bloody everywhere, the red mixing with a familiar technicolour mixed within, making the scene pretty yet still gruesome. However the scene went back to normal, as if nothing was ever out of the ordinary. 

The door revealed the all too familiar Mr Puzzles sitting behind the desk in a rather comfortable chair, directly looking at the camera. He was smiling, although it started to feel more threatening. 

The scene switched back to the dark, red scene. Puzzles was holding a guy, limp. His expression and the amount of blood on him seemed to indicate that he killed the man. There was just enough detail on there to see that the dead man was dressed in formal attire. It seemed similar to what Puzzles was wearing, as if to indicate the idea that he took his place. The screen suddenly went black. 

Then the outside of the studio was shown. Time seemed to have passed, as the text “A few years later” showed up on the screen. The studio was much bigger than what it seemed to be before. It looked like Puzzles brought the place to success. Just as someone with a gun just barely managed to appear on the side of the frame, the scene changed, being on the inside, full of very happy workers. Maybe too happy. Uncanny happy. But they were working.

The scene then switched to a smug Mr Puzzles, looking at something. The scene then switched to what he was looking at, which seemed to be a list on a computer with other studios’ names crossed out. It kind of looked like a hit list for competition in a way.

 But just then. Gunshot. Screaming. And bam, the atmosphere changed. The environment coated red, with bodies littered everywhere, mercilessly. The figure that showed up in the frame before walked by, just as mysterious as before. Walking till they reached an all too familiar office. Though this time, it wasn’t Puzzles’s doing that everywhere was covered in blood. Perhaps the movie was just foreshadowing this. Because it was hard to deny that the scenes when 3 and 4 thought about it - Mario was busy thinking about spaghetti at the sight of the colour red - were way too similar for it to be a coincidence. 

The door opens again. Puzzles looked terrified but not shocked. It was almost like he was expecting this to happen. 

“I’m doing this for everyone” the chilling text read on the screen, oddly enough it was centered. Behind it the gun was slowly raised at Puzzles, who didn’t seem to do anything about it. He was expecting it for sure. 

The screen went dark as soon as the gun was fired. Then a familiar scene showed up. With 3 and 4 when they were in the ruins of the studio. There wasn’t any audio but it was obvious they were being gay. Mario teasingly pointed at the screen, making both 3 and 4 roll their eyes.

However, after they were out from the crumbling building, once they were gone, a hand reached out from the ruins. A very familiar hand at this point. And that was where it ended. Although an abrupt ending, they could sort of start to guess what happened after this.

4 wished he could beat everything that’s left alive in him at this point. He was really tired of this guy. Although the movie had him kind of confused. How did he come back to life? What was even the thing that killed him? And… How did he acquire anti meme energy?

He hated coming back to this same point that had his head in the clouds, clouds that compared to the worst storms. He did get headaches from thinking about it sometimes. He was too curious yet he couldn’t figure it out… The Godbox was no more. They destroyed it. Wasn’t that the only place where anti memes would occur? It didn’t make any sense. And yet he tried and struggled for an answer either way to no avail. But it felt like he was missing something. Like a missing fragment of a puzzle that just wouldn’t complete.

He looked to 3, seemingly with a similar reaction. 3 looked back at him. While first with confusion, his expression heavily changed when he realised.

“We brought this bitch back to life!!”

“What?” 4 was as confused as ever. Clueless idiot.

“Our meme energy? I think… I don’t know…” 3 looked down, not quite sure now himself either.

“Hmmm” Mario joined in the convo “Maybe SMG1 and 2 could help?” 

“Wow, smart!... From Mario. What a day” 3 laughed. 4 laughed too, maybe looking at 3 a bit too strongly.

Mario rolled his eyes at the gays, getting up from the chair.

“We don’t have all day… besides” Mario patted his tummy “Mario is about to crave some mad spaghetti”

3 and 4 exchanged glances, before they got up and walked to the door as well, cautiously opening it. Nothing seemed to be around. Nobody. Not a soul. So empty their tiny breaths could echo. 

They left the room, walking out in the chaos Mario left. This felt… too easy… Though, they still didn’t know what happened to their friends. Only thing 4 noticed was they sometimes showed up in the background of that peculiar movie. They weren’t exactly in the focus so it took him a bit to realise that they were appearing from time to time. 

Just as they were about to walk out of the door, Puzzles appeared again. His screen was fixed. It was quite fast for being so damaged.

“Mario can kick you again!!” Mario piped up “I’ll beat your ass”

Puzzles flicked his hand and stopped Mario in place.

He walked up to the other 2 as he shoved Mario out of the way.

“Enough of him, I wanted to offer you 2 something” his now well known menacing gaze came back.

“What?? No, I don’t want anything from you!!” 4 could care less.

“Really now? Not even your friends?” Puzzles laughed.

“Our… our friends”

“You’re a sick freak, I hope you know that” 3 tried to comfort 4 while staring daggers.

“I’ve been told, yes… but… my deal for you, SMG4”

4 stayed silent.

“You see… I’ve never seen SUCH a strong need for great content as yours. Your will to create… It’s rather marvelous. And I need it. If you joined me… We could make something perfect. I know… I know how long you have been chasing that, even if you don’t tell anybody. I know”

4  looked at him shocked. He couldn’t reply. Puzzles wasn’t wrong.

“Seems I gotcha, didn’t I?” he laughed “Regardless… I was hoping you could join me in this endless endeavor” 

“4…?” 3 looked at 4 worried.

3 didn’t take long getting angry.

“He- He’s not leaving this world behind! I know he enjoys it more when it’s authentic and fun, he doesn’t need you and your artificial concept of perfection”

“Well, just look at him! Don’t you see it in his eyes?” Puzzles leaned closer to 4 “I can see it… that utterly strong urge in him to always prove himself… to prove himself worthy of people’s attention. And I can give that to him, unlike you” 

“I helped him finish the perfect video though”

“And I got him there. I gave him the needed tool to make sure it could even happen in the first place. You 2 don’t even come close to what my tools can do on their own… Imagine how much greater… maybe even both of you would be? Wouldn’t it be great? Finally… achieving perfection, the height of creation… and, leaving behind the times when people didn’t even care about you, SMG3”

Puzzles grinned wide, seeing how he managed to get to the both of them until he got hit hard on his head.

“HUH??” he turned around to see Mario “HOW DID YOU UNFREEZE YOURSELF??”

“Kiss my ass” Mario threw it back before he started running around like crazy. Puzzles could feel something snap in him as he went to chase after him, even if that wasn’t the logical thing to do.

3 and 4 used that time to get away and find 1 and 2 to figure out what’s going on.

It took a while but at least they got away from Puzzles’s grasps.

“3…?”

“Yeah, 4?”

“You… You think Mario will be fine?”

“I… I’m sure. You know he’s strong”

“Yeah but-” 4 stopped “I feel guilty. We just left him there”

3 stopped beside 4, slightly annoyed.

“Maybe… we can lessen his suffering if we speed up and try to get to SMG1 and 2 as fast as possible!” 3 was rather snarky but it worked, as 4 shook his head then looked up to the sky, hope sparking within him.

“You’re right”

“Of course I am, now let’s get going, you lovable loser”

4 laughed at the name before he hurried along.

They got into the city. It was rather empty. No buses even going around. Cars left unattended. 3 already had his villainous look come up on his face.

“4, we gotta steal a car, dude”

“No… Not today, 3. We’ve gotta get to them without committing several crimes along the way.”

3 rolled his eyes.

They looked around more. Waited around. Genuinely, everywhere was empty.

“Okay… we’ll steal a car”

3 immediately chose one that he had been eying for a bit and got into the driver seat, speedrunning hacking it so it can be driven without a key. 4 just took the shotgun seat with a tired sigh.

“Got it!” 3 cheered.

“Alright, just start driving or who knows what will happen to Mario”

“Already ahead of you!”

And they sped off. No cops anyways so 3 wasn’t respecting any of the rules of the road. That much was expected though.

They got there pretty quickly considering there was nobody to chase them either for speeding.

They got out and knocked on 1 and 2’s door in their apartment which they had to sadly break into. There wasn’t anyone there to stop them anyways.

An exhausted 1 opened the door, who looked at them weird for a second before feeling relieved.

“Thank god you 2 are okay! Come in” he motioned for them to go inside.

Inside they saw 2 being greatly buried in research. It seemed they were looking for something. Saiko was there as well, doing her part in research as well. Though she looked more exhausted than the other 2.

“...Saiko? You’re okay?” 4 felt surprised.

She took a bit to look away from the book she was trying to get through.

“Okay is an overstatement”

“She’s been looking for a way to help Melony” 1 added context.

“What happened to her?” 4 asked.

“You didn’t see? Her face cracked, and from what I found… It might not be so great. But I… I’ve been looking either way. I wish I could help her”

“Geez… 4, maybe we’ve overdone the whole uh…” 3 turned to 4.

“We’ve been way too busy… we barely realised what was happening… How long have you been here?”

“About… a few days?”

“8 days and counting” 1 said before going back to searching himself. 

“Well… 3 and I figured something out… And it might not look so great”

“Oh? A new lead is probably what we need right now” 2 crawled out of the books then yawned. Although he seemed intent to listen either way.

“So… I’m pretty sure it’s our fault…”

“What?” 1 looked up surprised “What did you do?”

“You remember that big amount of energy we caused when we uh… mended our guardian bond?”

“...Oh”

“The TV that had been haunting us used it to come back to life”

“It seems that was his plan all along” 3 commented “What an insidious freak… kinda envious in a sense”

4 looked at him, unamused.

“Anyways” 4 continued “I don’t know if I mentioned it before but… I’m starting to feel more and more scared about the idea that he had access to anti meme energy”

“Yeah… that shouldn’t be possible. We destroyed the Godbox!” 2, although tired, was still very adamant about that.

“At least we thought it seems…” 1 said.

Everyone looked at him.

“But we saw it blow up!” 4 joined.

“But you said it yourself. And both of you felt anti meme energy so…. you would know, no?” 

4 wanted to combat it with something but he couldn’t.

“I just don’t… I don’t get it… I thought we destroyed it”

“Wait…” 3 thought for a bit “We didn’t destroy it… it was only blown up”

“Isn’t… that the same thing?”

“No! You see… explosions don’t destroy anything in a meaningful way… they tear things apart. If you exploded right now, we would still have the material you were made of!”

“... You want me to blow up?” 4 looked sad.

“No, you idiot” 3 chuckled “I just brought it up as an example. But if you continue that way…” 3 winked at 4 before getting back to the issue at hand. 4 understood the implications and became rather flustered.

“So you’re saying…” 1 seemed to catch on “fragments of the Godbox could be still out there?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying”

“Oh no…” 2 seemed to start panicking a little.

“Oh no indeed” 4 added on. He didn’t seem any better.

“We would… love to go right away but” 1 yawned “Well you know…”

Saiko already seemed to lean against the wall as a book slipped out from her grasp.

“Mhmm” she seemed to agree with the unspoken need to just pass out right about then.

“I don’t know… will Mario hold out until then?” 4 thought out loud, which made 1 and 2 go wide eyed despite their god awful sleepiness.

“What… What?” 1 questioned.

“We… only managed to get away because of Mario distracting the insane TV headed guy” 3 confessed, it felt heavy either way.

“Oh no..”

“Do we… Do we trust Mario? We… can’t go back alone” 4 proposed, although he didn’t feel good about it.

“I… I’m afraid yes” 1 felt just as bad about it. Everyone did. Mario didn’t deserve this.

They all decided to go rest up for today, they wouldn’t be quite as useful this tired anyways. 

Although the guest room was taken, there was still a measly couch for 3 and 4. Saiko offered to switch but the 2 declined, saying she needs the best rest possible. It was great to feel cared for. She would’ve felt bad if she declined at that point.

Although 1, 2 and Saiko were quickly all asleep in their respectful sleeping places, 3 and 4 had a harder time.

4 laid on top of 3, it was at least a nice feeling to be close like this. 3 was  petting 4’s head, which 4 laid on 3’s chest. 

“Are you able to sleep?” 3 asked him softly.

4 raised his head up.

“I’m trying to…”

“I’m worried too, 4…”

“I just hope he’ll be okay”

“We’ll make sure of it, okay? I promise” 3 held 4’s face in an attempt to comfort him. 4 scooted a little closer to 3’s face to give him a short kiss.

“Okay” 4 smiled.

“Now sleep, blue, a long day is ahead of us tomorrow… as if we never have big evil to fight… we should take a vacation at some point”

4 chuckled at the suggestion.

“You’re right”

They finally laid down for good, managing to sort of fall asleep.

Mario didn’t have such a great time with Puzzles. The man was chasing him endlessly and was trying to trap him in some sort of substance. The whole area around the studio was covered in it. They both felt tired and yet Puzzles persisted, seemingly angrier and angrier with every strike he attempted to throw Mario’s way. His aim was definitely getting worse. But he got so tired, he raised both of his hands up together and in a downwards motion made enough appear to cover the place with it. Mario wasn’t able to run anymore. He got sucked right in. But Puzzles did so too.

Then, Mario found himself in a dark void.

“Am I dead?” he screamed as he got up “Is this hell??”

“Shut up, heathen” Puzzles didn’t take his behaviour well “You’re being too loud for my taste”

“Am I in hell??” Mario whisper shouted.

Puzzles rolled his eyes.

“No. I actually accidentally trapped both of us” he sighed “I have to be trapped with YOU of all people” 

“You don’t like Mario and his sexiness, huh, TV man?”

“You PUNCHED in my screen??”

“You lived? Haha, cope seethe” 

“YoouUUUU” he got up again, going for Mario’s throat.

Mario tried to punch his screen again, though he couldn’t quite reach. In a moment of desperation, he bit down on Puzzles’s hand as hard as he could, making him yelp in pain, yanking his hand away.

“You ANIMAL”

“Rawwr” Mario looked ready to fight again as he lunged at Puzzles.

They fought around for a while, until both felt tired enough to collapse. Kind of weird how they ended up beside each other. Looking up into the endless void was… somehow calming. Even for Mario. He almost forgot he was stuck in some of the worst situations he ever got into.

“Why did you steal my friends again, TV man?” Mario asked, turning to Puzzles. He seemed to be genuinely curious.

It took Puzzles by surprise.

“Oh? Well… I wanted to make my studio even larger so I can have the biggest and best studio in existence”

“What’s the point of that?”

“Wha… What? Are you kidding? Being accomplished like that? It’s the best thing anyone could have happen in their lives!”

Mario stared at him and slapped him.

Puzzles once again angry, he got up, trying to tackle him. This man annoyed him so goddamn much. Mario evaded him and tried to fight back but he was failing at hurting Puzzles as well. It was almost like they were syncing up in the worst possible way. Missing and dodging in harmony.

“Are you happy?” the question sounded from Mario’s mouth, echoing in Puzzles’s mind.

“What?”

“Are you happy?”

“Why are you asking me shit like this? I thought you were a bumbling idiot”

“Not right now. Are you happy, Mr Puzzles?”

“Oh… Oh! I get it now!” Puzzles got up and turned away from Mario “Your personality is inconsistent! That’s why my powers weren’t working on you! All along, your odd character PROTECTED YOU”

Puzzles whipped around, the anger was kind of familiar for Mario at this point. Another fight, another feeling of exhaustion kicking in. Even the fight felt familiar. Maybe it was just the weird atmosphere of this dark void but he felt sort of less worried now.

Once again, they ended up lying beside each other. 

“You didn’t answer my question” Mario sounded calm.

“And I…. won’t ever”

Mario sighed. They both stayed silent for a while.

Mario wasn’t the one to usually think but he did find the behaviour weird.

“You gave up on killing me pretty fast I’ll say” Mario joked. Puzzles looked at him unamused, no verbal reaction.

After resting enough, Puzzles sat up. He kind of felt hopeless in this silence. 

“You know what, Mario?” he looked to him “I’m not happy”

“Thought so” Mario sat up. 

“Do you… want to know why?” 

“I’m bored anyways”

“Well, you’ve… seen my movie… you know…”

“I know?”

“There’s something inside me that shouldn’t be” he raised his hand to his neck, gently brushing his fingers just above his collarbones. 

Mario only now seemed to catch on. It took him this long to realise that whatever crashed into Puzzles’s living place that night was actually inside him.

“Heh, there’s lot of things inside me as well that shouldn’t be”

“…What?”

“Dumpster”

Puzzles looked at him horrified then chuckled.

“You’re truly a unique kind of a man, Mario”

“I knooow… very sexy and awesome” 

Puzzles rolled his eyes at Mario’s grand modesty. He was starting to find it weird how he was actually starting to have peace with having to be stuck with Mario. Hell, it was a little worrying. 

He never felt this way… Like, enjoying someone’s company? He only ever loved working on his beautiful creations, people were like filler to his life. What changed? Or is Mario really… this special? He didn’t know and never did being unsure in his life make him so conflicted. He always liked to make sure he knew everything, he thought he went into  his plan knowing everything at this point. His plan was flawless. And yet Mario could walk in and ruin it all. And take away the perfection he wanted so much but… In the end, Mario would be right. He doubted it would make him happy. In a weird and twisted way, he felt alright with everything being ruined.

“So… how long are we gonna be stuck here, TV dude?” Mario asked, though seemingly not worried.

“I’m… not sure myself”

“Oh… OH?? Are we stuck here forever?? What have you done?” Mario screamed, jumping up, grabbing Puzzles by the straps of his pants. 

Something hit differently about Mario’s grasp on him as he felt a sharp pain like that fateful day. He screamed as he pushed Mario away.

Mario was confused then saw the state he put him in. Although he tortured his friends, it was still hard to not feel bad for him.

“TV guy…?”

He was in so much pain he couldn’t speak. He slowly laid down, very carefully to not hurt himself even more. Mario sat beside him. His curiosity… He slowly reached out and touched that same place.

Puzzles winced in pain. He didn’t get why. 

He pressed his hand against Puzzles’s collarbone fully.

While Puzzles was in utterly diabolical pain, Mario got reminded of something. This energy he felt. He saw this before. Images flashed in his brain, remembering everything from the time they went out there… Outside of their universe. The anti meme energy. He thought he wouldn’t need to face this traumatic memory again but… Guess he was wrong. Things now started to make sense to him. Although he didn’t know how it was possible. He didn’t need to know that to see that it was. 

He didn’t know what was driving his body but he pressed harder. With both of his hands now. Puzzles screaming didn’t deter him. When he tried to push him away, he sat on his arms, making him ultimately vulnerable to Mario. He didn’t know how to feel. He pushed and pushed until he could reach inside. It was nothing like he thought it would be. Puzzles was warm like a person but not quite of the same consistency. Until he felt something hard within him that didn’t quite fit inside. The memories he had now felt even more real. It sure made him struggle. Even he stopped for a second, especially how it added onto it. Making it more terrifying than it already was. Giving him images of a world where he lost 3 and 4 to a force way beyond him. That was scary to him.

He shook his head. He knew what he had to do. He pulled again. Pulled until what was inside Puzzles seemed to loosen from its place. Puzzles fainted by this point, probably from the unbearable pain. Even though he wasn’t quite human anymore, pain was still a weakness of his.

He finally pulled it out, black blood escaping Puzzles body as he did. Mario felt a little weird now… Did he just kill a man? He wasn’t sure.

He was now alone in the void, with the wretched fragment in his hand, echoing past nightmares in his ears.

His act settled in even more now as he pressed his hands against the wound, not really knowing what to do. It only soaked his hands even more. He desperately grasped into him, just trying to think of something, anything. He didn’t want to be left alone. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Puzzles but it’s much worse without him. That was something he knew for sure. He couldn’t lose him now, no matter what.

As he desperately grasped, light appeared, in the form of dim white strings, seemingly loosely closing up the wound. It wasn’t perfect but the bleeding was getting less intense. Mario didn’t know he could do that. He stared for a bit, not really knowing where to put it.

He sighed, not thinking about it further. He just didn’t want to up his kill count… And he didn’t want to be lonely himself either. He could always get so caught up being around people all the time that he forgot how it feels to be alone. And it wasn’t a good feeling. Though the bleeding stopping made him feel a bit better as he lied down, closing his eyes.

It felt like forever passed as he kind of just fell asleep beside Puzzles. Just because he had the weirdest moment of his life didn’t mean he couldn’t go to sleep with ease. He woke up to movement beside Puzzles as he was lightly clinging to him in his sleep.

“Huh… I’m… not dead yet?” Puzzles spoke, his voice was weak. He looked at Mario. He was finding a fondness he didn’t know he could have for someone.

“Nhggh… Nope… Mario fixed you up with his… white thing”

“Wh… White thing?” Puzzles was confused.

Mario pointed to his wound. The strings were still visible.

“Oh you… you saved me?”

Mario shrugged.

“Mario didn’t know he could do that”

Puzzles chuckled.

“Very well. Thank you though. I owe you”

Mario smiled at him.

“Well, getting us out of here would be great”

“Mhmm… I don’t know how to still” Puzzles frowned.

Mario patted him on the back.

“At least this thing is out of your body” he showed him the fragment.

“Oh- Oh right” he stared at it “What… is this again?”

“Mario’s not the best at explaining things. It is evil though”

“I do agree… it did kinda kill me there for a second” he chuckled

Mario chuckled too.

“You know, Mario… Isn’t this… weird?”

“What is?”

“I don’t feel like getting rid of you anymore”

“Well if you got rid of Mario the world would end so I’m glad” he grinned as if he didn’t just drop information on Puzzles that kinda escaped him before.

“The world would end?”

“You see, Mario is the avatar and if he gets killed for good, the world falls apart”

“A… Avatar?”

“I’ll ask SMG1 and 2 to drop the lore on you” 

“Oookay” Puzzles was a bit confused but he could wait. He would wait all the time needed to have answers if he needed to. It wasn’t the first time waiting rewarded him. He knew patience made greatness.

“By the way…. Mario’s wondering how you’re feeling now?” he looked at him, feeling a bit bad.

“I feel… free in a way. Mind’s less foggy and all that. Thanks, Mario”

“Hehe, I saved the day!”

“I’m still in pain though” he looked away.

“Damn…”

He grabbed Mario’s hand gently.

“It’s probably just the fact that you opened my body without any anesthetics. Which you wouldn’t have been able to get anyways”

“Heh… Mario sees your point” Mario squeezed his hand then thought, as if the brain cells in his empty head decided to align so well this time, he could have a genius idea “I’ve got an idea, Mr TV, but you have to listen to my instructions”

It had been a bit since last night 1, 2, 3, 4 and Saiko talked. Everyone was awake, preparing for their mission. Although 3 and 4 were a bit sore from the couch. It really wasn’t made for sleeping. 

“So…what’s the plan?” 2 asked.

“Well uh…” 4 thought for a bit.

3 took a bomb out of his pocket.

“Can I?” he asked with a silly little smile.

“No” 4 said bluntly. He didn’t give a shit.

3 sulked a bit.

“Well, we know it has to do with the Godbox so… we have to go in, prepared to fight it”

“I guess the best we can do is go in and hope?” 4 sounded unsure of himself.

“Get yourself together, 4. I know you can be a coward but now is not the time” Saiko commented, making everyone look “Now is not the time to question your power to stop this, our friends are on the line here… Melony” the last part from her was rather quiet. She always tried to look out for her when she could so knowing this happened right under her nose filled her with a different kind of fury.

“I say we go in and kick ass” she finished her statement.

“Kicking TV ass does sound good” 3 added with a sly smirk on his face.

“Let’s get going then, shall we?” 1 said as he then led everyone out

It was quite the trip. Almost felt like a little road trip. 3 and 4 fell asleep along it, considering they didn’t exactly get the best sleep then.

Saiko was beside them, kind of trying to ignore them. She might have been a bit jealous. She wasn’t able to see any of the girls for a while now. Kind of hard to live like her, standoffish yet lover of touch.

She slowly got used to it. 

“Oh, they fell asleep?” 2 looked back, while 1 was driving.

“Yeah… I guess they didn’t sleep well last night?”

“Probably the couch being uncomfortable to sleep on” 2 rubbed his chin, as if he was thinking strongly about it.

“If it was anything else I’m kicking their asses, I’ll tell you that” 1 added on quietly. 2 giggled while Saiko facepalmed.

They got there, to the wretched studio, which was covered in black goop. Not fully but there was definitely a place where there was a lot more.

[tonguetyd]

If your wings won’t find you heaven, I will bring it down like an ancient bygone

I’ve always liked this line, but hearing it live made it click in a way it hadn’t before

Feels scheduled ahead

When Ves sang this line in Radio City I had the image pop in my head of the scene from It’s A Wonderful Life. “What do you want Mary, you want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and bring it down for you. Say that’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon.”

So another way to look at this line. “If you can’t find your heaven, despite the wings you have, despite the divinity you have been granted, if you just cannot find joy? That’s ok. I’ll bring it down for you. I’ll fight like hell for you. I’ll give you that joy, I’ll sauté those horrors, you postpone that funeral RIGHT now, I am going to find the heaven you deserve.”

I wish I could remember who it was (probably @melit0n ‘s Euclid essay tbh but it may have been someone else) but someone wrote a theory that Euclid is the first song written thru not the character of Vessel’s eyes, but the guy/singer/songwriter/ACTUAL dude on stage Vessel himself. And I thought it was kinda an interesting theory but I think combining that with this idea makes it a little weightier. Because, Vessel the character is very much a part of Vessel the guy by virtue of the fact he embodies the character on stage every night. Just as Vessel the guy is (presumably) in a lot of Vessel the character. They’re the same, he’s not real, hes just some guy, hes acid and alkaline, etc etc.

(Edit I reread my tags, this post from @a-s-levynn is definitely the first time I saw this idea, yes THANK YOU LEV)

So. Point being. If this is Vessel the guy singing to Vessel the character, “despite your wings and all that Sleep has given you, you still cannot find peace. So I will bring it down for you. I will be your mouthpiece, I will write the words and tell your story. And you will find the love you want.”

That’s Ves speaking to himself.

And I think that is incredibly powerful and the most self-romantic thing I have ever heard. I’ll be your my joy and bring you myself heaven and the moon.

.

Recovering from depression and wanting to leave everything behind is a long fucking road. Idk that you ever really stop being on that road. I certainly still feel like I’m on that road even all these years later, but…the biggest thing that keeps you going is for your past self. At least for me anyway. I fight for the little girl that lives in me who thinks she will never be loved and needs to be perfect and ruins everything and is constantly reminded of how unforgiving the world is.

Baby girl, if you can’t find yourself heaven, I will bring it down for you. I’ve got you. I am hugging you so tight and telling you everything will be okay, my love. Look at us now. We’re still here. And we’re just fine. We are doing great. We’re alright and loved. And I will keep fighting like hell for you and to keep you safe and happy.

And so I think this is similar to what Ves is saying to himself. And it makes it that much more of a hopeful song. “Yes, I must be someone new, but moreso…I will keep living.

I will fight, for you.”

The next time you sing that line. Sing it to your younger self. Or to the parts of you that you feel are most difficult to love. Promise to fight for them. Bring down heaven.

And try not to cry

And if YOUR wings won’t find you heaven? I got you, too. ❤️

[lunarthecorvus]

Kanej Major Injury fanfiction recommendations

part of Lunar's soc fanfiction rec series

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searching for something they call peace of mind by @patrocool

Wordcount: 2.2k Chapters: 1/1

Characters: Inej Ghafa, Kaz Brekker

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Head Injury, Concussions, Implied/Referenced Violence, Post-Canon, Post-Book 2: Crooked Kingdom, Established Relationship, Blood and Injury, wound care, Patching each other up as a love language, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Angst, light fluff, Major Character Injury, kaz infodumps abt a new safe to distract inej, Autistic Kaz Brekker,

Author's summary/notes: It didn’t take long for Kaz to realize something was off. In fact, he noticed it almost instantly; something was very wrong with his Wraith. She made noise as she came through his window. OR Inej has a concussion so Kaz takes care of her. My summary/notes: A mix of cute moments and angsty moments, this injury fic hits real good. I love the level of vulnerability Kanej have being an established relationship gave this fic. I reread this fic and damn its so good.

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Not The Waking, It's The Rising by @boybi_i

Wordcount: 20k Chapters: 11/11

Characters: Inej Ghafa, Kaz Brekker, Jesper Fahey, Wylan Van Eck, Nina Zenik, Dregs, Anika, Colm Fahey, Dime Lions

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Whump, Major Character Injury, Injury Recovery, Blood and Injury, Haphephobia, Mentions of canon backstories, Hurt No Comfort, Well - Freeform, a bit of comfort later on, Sadness, Gunshot Wounds, Canon-Typical Violence, those dime lions are in a silly goofy mood again, Medical Inaccuracies, there is pain but at least there is Kanej?, Post-Canon, Parallels to canon

Author's summary/notes: Inej was far too aware of the moment when Kaz crashed into the waves. She'd watched him teeter on the edge, barely holding his own together during the fight, and she'd watched the bullet that tore through the crowd, almost prophetic in the way that it hit his jaw perfectly. She'd watched and yet been helpless to do anything to stop it from happening. Some things even the Saints can't control. Sometimes, you just have to survive and deal with the after. My summary/notes: This fic will take you through a whol range of emotions. They wrote Inej's pain and struggle after seeing Kaz injured so well, the angst surrounding Kanej and Inej's actions hurts so much so bring popcorn and tissues. There's just a whole lot of heartbreak and then some healing.

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burn, baby, burn by @harsassypotters

Wordcount: 3.7k Chapters: 1/1

Characters: Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa, Nina Zenik

Tags: Major Character Injury, Cauterization, Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Book 1: Six Of Crows, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, (david attenborough voice), And here we see, rare footage of kaz brekker in the wild, attempting to deal with emotions, and having no idea what to do

Author's summary/notes: “Okay. Okay.” Inej sucks in a few deep breaths. The knife is glowing a shade of ominous orange-red, and she eyes it with a sort of tentative confidence. “I can do this. I’ve survived the Menagerie, and I’ve survived staring at Kaz’s hideous outfits everyday for two years. I can do this.” “You think my outfits are hideous?” +++ six of crows au, in which the stab wound inej received before the ship voyage is a little more serious, nina can't heal it, cauterization is necessary, and kaz is somehow roped into the entire thing, undergoing more emotions that he initially bargained for. My summary/notes: This fic is so interesting, we see Kaz verbally express more emotion in this scene than we do in canon and I'm a sucker for Nina + Kaz being siblings which is what they are like in this fic (I ate it up). It goes into Kaz and Inej's close soc canon dynamic more and shows how much he cares about her. You will scream when Nina says a certain thing to Kaz at the end of the fic.

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If somebody hurts you, I wanna fight by @whynotcherries

Wordcount: 2.3k Chapters: 1/1

Characters: Kaz Brekker, Jesper Fahey, Inej Ghafa, Wylan Van Eck

Tags: Post-Canon, Captain Inej Ghafa, Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Humour, Blood and Injury, Stabbing, Non-Graphic Violence, Injury, Hurt, POV Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa-centric, Major Character Injury, Idiots in Love, Matthias Helvar Lives

Author's summary/notes: Inej comes back from her maiden voyage bleeding and bruised. My summary/notes: After finding out Inej was injured on her maiden voyage and at first he feels rage, but in dealing those feelings you can see how he's been growing/healing with how he deals with emotions when it comes to Inej being hurt. With some brotherly love between Kaz and Jesper. The author Syd is such an incredible writer and has written so many soc fics I would definitely recommend all of them

[bluecatwriter]

Top five instances of Arthur Holmwood crying on people

I cackled when I read this, but very quickly learned that I do, in fact, have a Top Five in this category! ;)

Crying on Mina when they first met. When he broke down sobbing on her shoulder, got comfort, told her he'd always help her and would be a good friend, and then they promised to be siblings to each other? That was My Moment with Arthur. Like, "Okay, ideal man, actually." That is when I latched onto him like a weasel clamping onto a bird's throat.

Crying on Jack. Despite having this scene filtered through Jack men-do-not-need-much-except-a-manly-squeeze-of-the-hand Seward's perspective, we see SO much of their relationship here, and it makes me go feral. Him acknowledging that Jack loved Lucy too and being cool with it? Throwing his arms around Jack and laying his head on his breast to cry? I AM GOING TO START BREAKING WINDOWS

Crying on Jack and Quincey on what would have been his wedding night. Okay, it's headcanon that he sobbed all over them, but it IS canon that he spent the night with both Jack and Quincey after staking Lucy's body. You can't tell me that there was not a lot of sobbing at that sleepover.

Crying right when Lucy died. This whole sequence really gets me, but just the picture of him sitting in the drawing-room, not having been able to even kiss her good-bye, crying in a way that nearly makes Jack break down. MY BOY

Crying on Van Helsing. This is another headcanon one, but on September 20th when Van Helsing offers to sleep on the couch across from Arthur so he won't be alone that night, I just imagine that some crying happened then, too. (The motif of people sleeping near Arthur so he won't be alone makes me want to beat my fists on the ground. THEY'RE ALL SO GOOD.)

(Ask game here)

[callmearcturus]

okay the Eye of the Duck for each of the MI films

Mission Impossible:

I promise I really thought about the Vault Scene and I could go on for ages about it and I maybe should since it's the marker of what separates MI from other action franchises.

But my heart lives in this scene as the emotional core of the movie, where Jim comes back from the dead and tries to spin a tale that Ethan is too smart to fall for but is still tempted by. The way Jim says one thing but Ethan's already pieced together what really happened-- and doesn't like the answer, rewrites it in his head to make it fit what he wants.

Ethan's emotions and how much he cares about people is his ultimate weakness and it remains so for the entire franchise, so to see him wrestling with that all the way from the start is crunchy.

Also Ethan soulgazing the camera for that long is very affecting.

Mission Impossible 2:

the point of the EOTD is to find the scene at the movie's center that reflects its core back at you. I think Woo's vision of MI is exemplified by that final fight scene between Ethan and the villain. I remember the first time I watched the movie, this scene made me go "NO" out loud several times.

I mean, mostly because absolutely not that handgun will not fire after being in the sand for that long, there is not enough gun oil in the world.

but since I have wisened up and realized MI2 is not the worst MI movie, I think I get it more. The over-the-top motorcycle jousting, the slow-motion, but especially the cuts to the roiling ocean-- everyone shut the fuck up and let your bodies tell the story, even if the 'story' here is as simple as "I'mma fuck you up." It doesn't have to be original, it just has to be a cohesive vision, and honestly I think people would like MI2 a lot more if they acknowledged Woo accomplished his specific vision here.

I don't love MI2, but I respect it. Way more than, uh.

Mission Impossible 3:

god i hate this fucking movie but the EOTD is really obvious.

The only scene in this movie that works 100% is after the stupid vapid villain is gone and when the movie returns to the two fucking actors who carried this horrible script on their fucking backs.

Ethan has a charge in his head that is about to detonate and kill him. He's asks Julia to kill him and then bring him back to life to defuse it.

I... My hatred of this movie is legendary but I love this scene. I love Ethan staggering around like a drunkard bc he's blinded by pain. I love the way he explains how to shoot a gun to Julia. I love his little "Don't point it at me" and the way he likens the reload of a magazine to the flashlight in their kitchen, something both of them understand. I love the absolute trust here--

Esp bc I think it's clear Ethan could die right now, but he'd rather go out trusting his wife to save his life than to worry about it too much.

And Julia actually fucking saves him, and it's good! It's the only good scene in the movie other than Benji's second scene. And if MI3's goal was to dig into the Emotions of the franchise, then fine, this is the scene that's best at it.

Still the worst movie. Someone stop JJ Abrams from ever writing scripts.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

holy shit i am stunned someone clipped this bit

I am straight up stealing Brendon Bigley's EOTD scene because he's right.

This moment, right after Ethan and Brandt have escaped the river, there's this incredible lull in the action where Brandt asks "Why would that work?" about Ethan's ridiculous flare trick to misdirect the KGB dudes with the rifles.

Ethan's confused about Brandt's question because... he didn't know it would work, he played a hunch.

Brandt's bitchy lil "'kaaaaay.... so what was your scenario" and the way Ethan actually smiles as Brandt tries analyzing the logic of what just happened and why.

This is the EOTD of GP because it's the film tipping its hat to everything its doing (and everything MI will become moving forward) in microcosm. MI is not about metriculous clockwork plots and spy intrigue, it's about heart and instinct and the fucking motto of the IMF: "I'll make it work." Tacitly, this convo between Brandt and Ethan is Brandt as audience surrogate and Ethan as filmmakers' surrogate.

Why did that work? Don't worry about it, just keep saying yes and we'll get through.

(Also the bit immediately after with the best Tom Cruise Is Short joke in the series, immaculate physical comedy, love it.)

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation:

fuck all y'all I'm going to pick a single joke and obsess over it

FIRST 15 SECONDS

THAT'S IT THAT'S THE EYE OF THE DUCK

I'm not even remotely kidding, but this is related to BTS info about the gag. The script apparently only said "ethan and benji get into the car" but when it came time to film, TC was like "I can't just get into the car, it's the waste of a moment. hang on, i got it" and for the next take just DID that stupid flail across the car. Pegg's stunned look is real because no one knew he would do that.

As a writer, I love this moment because yes, just climbing into the car would have been a waste. It would have been an opportunity to put in a character moment just forgotten.

This is related to that lovely lil moment in Fallout where the team are meeting up with Walker after catching Lane, and there's no dialogue, but as they come up the stairs, Benji spots Walker, and he immediately flattens himself to the wall to get out of Ethan's way and looks back at Ethan for guidance. Ethan gives Benji a nod to say we're good, don't worry and they continue up the stairs.

These are little moments of characterization that are mostly built from actors who are just very comfortable with their characters, and this expediency of storytelling. Cut all the unneeded seconds, and make sure every second that remains in the movie is doing some kind of work.

so yeah that's the EOTD for RN.

Mission Impossible: Fallout

the EOTD for the entire MI franchise is the scene with the Parisian cop.

Ethan stopping everything to try to convince a bystander to leave and keep them from getting hurt. That's the soul of MI, the same emotional damage Ethan's carried since MI1.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

"I was hoping it'd be you."

shocker, I'm not picking the moment when Ethan literally Says The Fucking Theme Out Loud, nope. I'm picking the moment Ilsa decides she too will follow the new IMF's batshit "beat the trolley problem by pushing the trolley off the tracks" creed, and gives up everything for a woman she doesn't know who is in over her head.

History repeats, and Dead Reckoning's obsession with closing the loop and creating internal consistency out of a series that has had five directors and seven films works perfectly for me. Venice is a visual recreation of Prague in MI1, with Ethan racing down dimly lit streets to save someone but is just not fast enough.

I also have this personal read on the scene as a refutation of Gabriel and the Entity, who represent an almost Calvinistic philosophy of inevitability and fate. Gabriel tells a lot of fucking lies for a guy fashioning himself to be a prophet, and he taunts Ethan about having to choose between Grace and Ilsa.

But Ethan doesn't chose shit, he's busy getting almost suffocated by Paris in an alleyway. Ilsa is the one who makes a decision, and for a person like Ilsa who literally was the person to ask Ethan to run away with her because all this spy shit is useless and meaningless

Ilsa is the one who picks, and she decides to save Grace. Not Ethan and not the Entity and not Gabriel.

Ilsa died to save an innocent (well mostly) woman, and that's the entire point of MI. There is no such thing as acceptable losses and if you can prevent someone's death, you do it.

AND THEN ETHAN SAYS THAT OUT LOUD TO GRACE BECAUSE "YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW ME" "WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THAT MAKE?" AND THAT'S MISSION IMPOSSIBLE

okay i'm done

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

We discussed in the last episode how when Chad and I were shooting the last episode, that's when they announced that the show was coming back. But they had not offered either of us contracts. And it was basically them being like, we're good, you can leave. And we were just like, Ugh. Well alright, cool story. So then, well I finished filming and I was like, you know what I'm gonna do in this situation? I'm gonna go back home to Sterling Park and I'm probably gonna go kiss some dudes from high school and have a couple beers and then I'm gonna figure out a plan. And so remember we had our Southern Gothic productions, the production company that I started down there. And you had just made a movie with Nick Austin and I, you know, like we were, we were doing fun stuff, but I had before social media, a production webpage. Remember when we had like vlogs? The world of the vlog. So I was like, I'm gonna just, I'm gonna post a vlog 'cause news has been out that the show's getting picked up, but I'm not. So I posted a video that it, you know, has like so many views on the internet at this point where I was like, I have no control over the creative and I'm really sad. I love Peyton. I'm not coming back but still watch the show. It was a big deal. And it dispelled those rumors of someone in, someone had gone to the press and put out all these rumors that I wasn't coming back because I was demanding lots of money and being difficult when in reality I was willing to take less money so that all the other actors could get favored nations and get paid more. And so I was butt hurt about that. So I put out this video and then I get this script and I'm like, what? Okay, fine. I'm gone. Like, what more do you want from me? I, so James is directing and he's you now 22, maybe 23 years old. If we were 26 when this happened. How much younger is James? Alright, so he is 22 and he's doing a beautiful job and I see how important it's to him and how much we need to keep the drama at bay. Like we just need to show up and do our jobs. And so Chad comes and he's ready to cry and I show up and I've gotta cry in every fucking scene... -Hilarie 

[prapaiwife]

Before love sea airs I do want to talk about love in the air again like I have many times before lol. But it's just about prapai and sky especially their relationship as a whole and now that it's been obviously like a whole year since the show and i watched it so many times and I still read a lot of people like negative comments about their relationship.

There's like two scenes in particular that stand out to me and it's the scene in episode 12 when prapai reads sky's journal. And so I've seen so many people misinterpret that scene as pai being so invasive and overwhelming towards sky. When it is so far from that because from what we have seen from sky up till this point is he dissociates a lot. Which is understandable because of his traumatic past. He didn't read the journal to torture sky he didn't do it out of any malicious intent. He read the journal to see where Sky's mind was really at because the things that sky was saying didn't add up to all of the good times they had generously shared together. And he knows sky up to this point that he won't tell him his honest feelings sky will only shut down. Him reading out loud having sky listen to what he wrote was a way for him to make sky see that if this is how you really feel that's okay you can love me. And I understand that you can't tell me this because you're scared and so he made the first move towards sky for him to see like he has already fell in love with him he loves Sky for all that he is even though Sky thinks so little of himself. Sky couldn't even fathom pai liking him but at the same time in that journal he wanted pai to have eyes just for him he liked the attention in the love and they attentive caring that he was giving to him. He wanted to reciprocate that in some way so pai can see that he is just as interested in this as much as he is.

Sky wasn't going to tell him this because that would make it all too real for sky. Pai just wanted sky to to face his feelings and not in a torturous way. Sky hearing all that be spoken out made him really as we saw go into a like a very emotional state because he's in that moment now thinking he could possibly lose pai for good. But that's not what he's there for he wasn't there to break it off with him the way that sky did with him earlier in the episode. He just wanted an answer because he knows that this isn't sky like I said he sees sky and so he's not going to leave things to be when he can sense that no something is up. That hug at the end of the scene as well when Sky tells him that he loves him that's all pai wanted to hear and what he kind of already knew. But he made the first move first to tell that to sky so sky can see that it is okay because I love you just as much and I'll make the first move for us and put my feelings out there and tell you that I love you.

And if you've been watching the show it has been pretty clear as day that pai can clearly see something is wrong with sky he picked that up initially an episode 9. From that point on he always kept that to the forefront of his mind and this will also kind of explain people saying he was "stalking" sky. When literally he's been seeing this man not take care of himself at all he doesn't eat his meals he doesn't sleep he's getting sick sky is pretty much abandoning himself. And so all pai did was step up and be that person for sky to see that he sees him he's not going to just let this go he's going to take care of him he's going to be there for him all the signs that sky was showing that others may have turned a blind eye to or others were just not sure if something was wrong. Pai knew something tho which is why he followed sky so much around and try to be like a presence in his life. And in the whole process that was a big thing for sky because he doesn't trust anyone after what he went through understandably so. But him seeing the strides and the commitment that pai was making just for him touched his heart so much that he didn't want to admit it because he liked it he was scared but he liked it this feeling he thought he would never feel ever again nor did he even want to imagine that this person could genuinely like him for him especially as to how he was treating pai prior to this by declining him so many times and by saying he doesn't care who he is and he doesn't want anything to do with him. But once pai set the record straight to him after he took care of sky when he was sick about his intentions of like I just want to take care of you that's it. And like when he was taking care of sky he saw him having these completely horrible nightmares which not answers his question as to why he wasn't getting any sleep. And when he brings it up to sky he derives from that and doesn't into detail which is fine but pai from that point on always comes over to his apartment.

He also sees how important school is to sky but how sky uses school his school work as a distraction and lets it consume him more than it should he doesn't give himself any breaks he works from the time he comes back all the way to next morning most likely. To the point where he's up before all of his own friends. And so pai comes over regularly and helps him with his homework. He wants sky to rely on him he wants sky to see that you can call me text me whatever I'm always going to be accessible for you. And we see sky that starts leaning into that and gets comfortable with him coming over and helping him so much the point where he kind of scared him unintentionally because of how urgent he needed his help lol. And pai made it a pretty clear of like I always help you whenever but you have to be a little bit aware of how you sound to me this is the same man who has saw have nightmares so for all pai knows sky might be in trouble or something more. And so he was upset out of frustration because he didn't think sky is taking advantage of him he wants guy to call him he wants guy to to know that he's there for him.

But he also wants sky to know in that moment to just be more aware of his tone.I like that doesn't even stop him from helping him because he always wants to help sky if he asks for his help even if he doesn't pai is a helper and a giver he's a big brother after all the two of his siblings so it falls in line with his character if you ask me it's not out of line him sticking around sky it's not stalker behavior. It's really him seeing this person who's clearly going through something in their life and they don't have anyone looking off for them nor are they looking out for themselves and so they need someone who's going to be around them to just kind of keep an eye on them and make sure they're okay.

And so he gives him his meals he just need sky to see that someone was there and can see that like I said something was wrong but he didn't even ask he just wanted to see that he sees him and that it's okay he's with him. and you need someone who's going to tell you that you need to and I'm going to be there with you

And then on episode 13 last episode after sky was almost about to be assaulted. Pai yells at sky but it wasn't meant to be taken I think in a horrible way. He's once again seeing sky dissociating from everything around him, including him. What he needed in the moment was for sky to see that's he's here. When sky gets like this he is completely cooped up and it makes it hard for pai to understand and or help him the best that he could.

And so when he did that it brought sky literally back to this reality. When sky really fully realized that pai was in front of him you can see like that relief in front of his face. And pai telling sky just asking him to just cry just to feel what he's feeling this moment because he knows it's not good and it's making him hurt just as much as sky is seeing the man that he loves in pain. They are both hurting in that scene but the same time sky was once again able to see that throug pai reassuring words that once again he's not alone as he thinks he is in his head about all of this.

He has this man in front of him that loves him so much he would do anything for him right now comforting him and taking care of him. And no I'm not saying that pai can fix him but what he can do is be this amazing life partner for him and walk through every stage of his life with this with him. Because you know this has happened this guy it's not going to make him as a person what he went through and I think he wants sky to see that.

I would say even in the special episode we saw a character growth and turns out sky was actually wasting out his feelings too pai. In the bathtub scene when he tells him he doesn't like having his exes coming up to him and telling him how they dated him and how he's going to leave you just pretty much dishing out of pai used to be before he met sky. Pai heard him out and said I'm so sorry that my past is still becoming a hindrance it seems sometimes in our relationship because of the people that I've been with and them being so disgusting towards you. I will make sure that that doesn't ever happen again and in that way I love it because sky says I know you love me you love me so much and it just shows that like he doesn't even how to think twice about pai love for him because he can see it clear as day. And so he has no problem now voicing out his uncomfortableness with that and telling him because he's like I know you love me and you will try to do something to help this not be such an issue. At the same time this guy was like I'm still going to get my little payback just because lol but it just shows their communication is so much better and sky is able to have a lot more confidence in himself as to when he told that ex off in the restaurant. Because he's so much more confident I think in his relationship with pai and himself.

Okay that's it just thinking about it and needed to write it out 😭😭

[kymsys]

(okay i was going about my day yesterday but i really couldn't get the merman au out of my head😭😭 i just imagine for a while somehow geto managed to sneak satoru into the palace and then it's a whole ordeal trying to hide him. panicked geto and oblivious gojo and really for all that image is stuck in my head i still have yet to write a proper interaction w them but!! it's not proofread so sorry if there are mistakes and it's a bit scattered but i had to get this one scene out that was brewing in my mind so🥺 ignore this if you want❗️❗️)

--

From the mezzanine, everyone looked like ants. Suguru had to squint to make out familiar faces in the crowd, and even then, the only person he could identify was a distant aunt of his that he had never really liked. Usually, he'd have been able to pick apart anyone of significance; he'd have known their name, their title, their interests. 

Suguru would've known, he always memorises the details before public events — he spends days in his room at a time, talking into the mirror and telling his reflection things about these people who he has never met. Perhaps, lately, he'd been busy with Satoru.

Suguru smiled. He didn't feel as guilty as he thought he would.

A hand clapped on his back, and he jolted. Shoko beside him, cocking a brow. “What's got you looking like a dumbass?” Her voice was flat, eyes busy scanning the crowd and Suguru knew who she was looking for.

He cleared his throat. He couldn't really tell her that he was keeping a siren in the little pond in his private garden — well, it wasn't exactly little, but that information held no relevance anyway. Shoko was his dear friend, and he knew she would always support him, but he had to keep Satoru a secret, more for her sake. Suguru bit his lip in thought. If only Satoru didn't have such a strong taste for human flesh.

“Is meat more nutritious than fish?”

“What?”

“Nevermind.” Suguru winced at the look he was being sent. He didn't mean to blurt the question out, but he'd been thinking about it for days. The salmon that he'd been feeding Satoru probably wasn't enough to sustain a creature his size — especially when he was so active — which would mean he burnt through a lot of calories very quickly. “Utahime is on the balcony,” Suguru pointed in the general direction, giving Shoko a pat on the shoulder, “good luck.”

From his peripheral vision, he could see Shoko roll her eyes as he walked away, but she muttered a small 'thanks' before she turned to find the other woman. He was glad she finally had someone to open up to other than him — he saw how happy Shoko was with Utahime, and with the burden of inheriting the throne giving her sleepless nights, it was all Suguru could want for his closest friend.

He turned his attention back to the winding flight of stairs before him. Now, to find some meat.

KINGGGGGGGGGGGG (can i call you like that??)!!!! ♥ GAHHH IM SO HONOURED AND HAPPY, you actually wrote MORE??? bless you, this is truely amazing, this has me by my throat. thank you so fucking much, i love it!! <3 WHY THE FUCK WOULD I EVER IGNORE THIS, are u out of your mind. i LOVEEEE the way suguru keeps thinking about his little "pet" gojo and what would probably be the best food for him! like indeed he is a massive creature, he will probably need...a lot?? but also at the same time i can imagine that he is maybe not that....needy. isnt that a thing with lots of sharks or deep sea fish that they eat very little, just because its so hard to get by food? so their organism is evolved to survive on very little food and thrive nonetheless. MAYBE suguru just thinks gojo is in need of lots of food, but actually gojo just likes to eat bc he enjoys the food, but doesnt neccessarily need it?(he is also a mystical creature, so in that sense anything is possible really xD) I ALSO LOVE HOW SUGURU JUST RANDOMLY ASKS SHOKO ABOUT NUTRITIONS AND SHOKO IS JUST LIKE WHAT, i adore that ; u ; <3 AND OMG gojo lives in a pond in his private garden??? HOW CUTE!! so that makes me wonder (pls indulge with me) why would he bring this technically "monster" into his home? generally i would think maybe that a creature like that needs its space and would need their freedom? so MAYBEEEEE smth has happened? maybe gojo got hurt, maybe even when he was caught in the fishernet situation? MAYBE suguru needs to take care of him until he gets better and maybe gojo, the curious creepy creature that he is, enjoys the change of environment and the new feeling of being cared for?? its exciting for both! what do you think ?? 👉👈 maybe you had a different idea?? im so excited to hear your thoughts!! AND AGAIN THANK YOU, i love it SO much, i feel so lucky that you actually like it so much that you wanna write about it T___T ♥

EVERYONE LOOK !!!!!!!!

[erabu-san]

HI ERABU!! FREMILLEI ANON HERE!! (Not here to talk about fremillei ironically lol)

Sorry about your trouble with Cyno and Tighnari :( I totally get the frustration of just seeing something as a cute friendship and having 90% of the fandom see them as romantic.

We live in a society (the genshin fandom). Us platonic Cyno and Tighnari enjoyers have to stick together✊

With that being said, I've been kinda on a Collei and Tighnari brainrot the past few weeks sooo, hope you don't mind if I ramble about them👀

Can I just say, how much I adore their dynamic. Whether it's father/daughter or big brother/little sister, they're so sweet and care about each other so much🥹 On Collei's side, besides Amber, Tighnari was one of the first people she's ever opened up to, or has felt comfortable around. He's so kind and patient with her and she's really grateful for it!! (Her relationship with Cyno is similar but I do think it was a little awkward at first since Cyno reminded her of her past...)

And on Tighnari's side, well, at first he saw her as a student. But he immediately felt this...urge to help her. Like she had been through so much, and he felt like he had to try and help her in some way. (You brother comes in at the middle of the night asking you to take care of this random traumatized child wyd). He enjoyed getting to know her, and teaching her. And he felt such a strong sense of pride when she gets a good grade in a test, or is able to write something coherently. Overtime, he got to see more of her, more of her personality and quirks, and he developed so much affection for her, treating her like he would a little sister💞

I do think that maybe Collei has trouble talking to him about things. Maybe since she's scared of being judged (she knows he wouldn't, but the feeling is still there). So she ended venting to trees. I like to imagine one day, Tighnari was looking for her when he overheard her talking to a tree. At first he was like "why is she doing that??" But decided to leave since he didn't wanna eavesdrop. But then, he caught her talking about HIM.

"Master Tighnari is so patient and kind with me... I know he would never judge me, or make me feel bad. But...I still find it hard to talk to him. He's usually busy...I don't wanna bother him."

And that just broke his heart :( He wanted Collei to feel comfortable talking to him, he WANTED her to come to him whenever she had a problem. He left, but after that, he would subtly encourage her to talk to him if she needed to, reminding her that she wasn't a bother or anything like that, and that he cared about her. And it made her happy to hear!! And she slowly started coming to him more often!!

Also SLIGHT fremillei (I'm sorry I can't escape the chokehold they have on me) I picture this scene, where after Collei finds out about Freminet being apart of the Fatui, Collei immediately runs home, so many emotions going through her head. Hurt, fear, guilt- she's so overwhelmed. She arrives back and while she's passing by Tighnari's house (house? Cottage?? What do you call those?😭) he calls out to her, noticing something's wrong. She stops, and looks at Tighnari, breathing heavy from running. She doesn't know where to begin, what she should tell him, IF she should tell him. But, she looks at him, looks at the concern on his face, and runs towards him and hugs him tightly, sobbing into his chest. Tighnari is confused, but he doesn't question it, and immediately wraps his arms around her.

"It's okay...I'm here."

I'M SO SORRY FOR THE LONG ASK BUT THEY'VE BEEN ON MY BRAIN. I feel like not a lot of people talk about them alone, which kinda sucks since their relationship is so sweet :(

Again, sorry to bombarde you with the long ask😭 You art is beautiful, and I love hearing your genshin Sumeru headcanons. Thank you for listening to my rambles. Have a lovely day and take care of yourself!! <3

WAAAAH I AM SORRY FOR LATE ANSWER BUT WHEN I READ THIS I WAS ON THE FLOOR I LOVE IT, IT IS SO ADORABLE

Anon you have such a big brain and I HOPE YOU KNOW THAT 🫵

Oh the part when Collei hugs Tighnari and he is just saying that he is here

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

you know, i like hordak as a character. he's interesting, he's likeable, he's a good example of an abuse victim who isn't overly infantilized and coddled by the narrative. his relationship with entrapta was cute, his relationship with horde prime was tragic and i like that he at least gets a proper confrontation with his abuser, where he is able to declare his own independence and get some closure from his trauma.

however, there are two main problems i have with his character (some of which i've already talked about but i want to go into more detail):

1. hordak was not an effective villain. heck, he was barely a villain at all.

you cannot tell me that hordak was the main villain of the first four seasons when the majority of his screentime was spent with him either lurking in his sanctum or canoodling with entrapta.. in his sanctum.

at first i thought that hordak was going to be this looming presence that had control over everything and puppeted everyone's every move, and was this evil masterpiece who orchestrated everything behind the scenes but.. nah. turns out he's just an incompetent manchild who needs a literal teenager with no battle experience to plan everything out for him. how did he conquer half of etheria before that? who knows? not important.

hordak also has no meaningful relationship with adora, the hero. there were actually a lot of parallels that could be drawn from hordak and adora both being raised by abusers who valued perfection over everything else. granted, in that aspect, hordak is more like catra but there isn't even that many parallels with him and catra. there are, in fact, more parallels with catra and shadow weaver or catra and horde prime.

and okay, not every hero and villain needs a deep intertwined relationship or complex narrative parallels. but at least give us something? a proper interaction?? the show even acknowledges the fact that hordak and adora have absolutely no connection with each other, when adora asks him why he kidnapped her and he basically replies with "lol who are you again". and then he just randomly remembers her at the end of the finale and it’s supposed to be this touching, emotional scene except you feel nothing because these characters literally never interacted, what are we looking at?

adora is supposed to be fighting the horde, but it seemed like she was just fighting catra most of the time. as the hero who opposes etheria's oppressors, shouldn't adora mainly be targeting hordak, the person who started it all? and shouldn't hordak, as the leader of the horde, be more concerned about the rebellion having an actual god on their side? i guess it doesn't really matter if said god can be easily defeated by a inexperienced catgirl

it just feels like hordak didn't have to be a villain at all. we only know he does horrifying things, because the narrative says that he does. oh, and he tortures catra once and sends her to crimson waste, so i guess that qualifies as being a villain.

the point of a villain is to drive the central conflict of the story. to oppose the hero and to pose an actual threat to the status quo. any character who doesn't do this is merely an antagonist. in hordak's case, i don't even know if he counts as an antagonist. he's like that one edgy antihero with a dark past where he murdered countless people but it doesn't really matter in present time. it’s just there to add flavor and to enhance his tragic past, because war is obviously a fictional fantasy trope and totally not something that has happened in real life. /s

2. like many other characters in this show, hordak's character almost completely revolves around his love interest.

yes, entrapta taking care of hordak and boosting his self-esteem is endearing. yes, hordak breaking his defenses and being vulnerable around entrapta is very sweet. but apart from entrapta, the only characters who have any kind of effect on hordak is horde prime and catra. and.. i guess, imp? but again, imp is mostly just a stand-in for the cute animal sidekick.

i know that hordak was supposed to be a recluse but it's impossible to believe that this kind of person was able to start an army and feed them with false propaganda. again, if you read my post about cults and their methods of indoctrination, you would know that cult leaders are often very charismatic and friendly people. and i know the horde isn't exactly a cult but we are supposed to believe that at least some of the cadets raised there genuinely believed that they were on the side of good, when their leader was a mysterious shut-in who basically didn't do anything substantial and their mentor/superior officer was just actively radiating Evil Vibes™.

i just wish they did more with hordak’s character and actually made him interact with some of the other characters. he doesn’t even interact with shadow weaver that much, and she was his second-in-command. even if it’s not direct interactions, it would have been interesting to see the characters mention hordak more, especially the ex-horde soldiers. apart from the general “oh no he’s evil and wants to kill everyone”, that is.

like we see people talking about shadow weaver. we see adora open up about her relationship with shadow weaver and ponder about whether there’s some good left in the woman who raised her. we see glimmer talking about how powerful shadow weaver is and how she could help the rebellion. we see catra complaining about how shadow weaver treated her in comparison to adora. we see angella talk about how shadow weaver shouldn’t be trusted.

when you think about it, shadow weaver was much more of a looming menacing presence in spop, despite not even being a villain, let alone the main villain.

even when she was on the good side and helping the princesses, there was always a ceaseless feeling of unease and fear, because we’ve seen what she’s capable of. we weren’t just told that “shadow weaver is sooo abusive, she’s bad!” we see how she treats adora and catra, we see how she manipulates situations and people for her own benefit, we see how she slowly starts to get into glimmer’s head. the show actually does a good job with shadow weaver, and i have to give credit where credit is due. shadow weaver was genuinely a well-written character.

hordak is just.. there, most of the time. he acts evil enough to be considered as one of the villains but he’s not actually a villain if you consider it for more than five seconds. he doesn’t really do anything for the bulk of the narrative, he has one kinda cool scene where he stands up to his abuser and then he just peaces out with entrapta.

i don’t really understand the point of taking a main villain of the show and turning him into this. sure, the OG hordak was more of a comedic villain and wasn’t super complex, but from what i know, he still played an important role in a narrative and his humorous moments made up for the lack of a tragic backstory.