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piracytheorist · 11 months

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Episode 31 reactions!

Okay, first off, mind. blown. There's some VERY good action in this one!

Yor's coworkers are at the "Well, we're still better off!" jealousy stage. It's a small thing but something I can definitely see people like them do. Sharon seems to be the most passive-aggressive one, so it was a bit revealing that she was the first one to go like "Hey I got beer and sausage, I'm not jealous at all!" Our truest selves come out in the hardest times...

A very beautiful shot of the ship!

By the way, if Yor's coworkers knew what she was going through, they'd definitely stop being jealous.

Yor appears a little too nervous, if you ask me. Granted, we only saw her once before working, and when she was imagining what she'd tell Anya she sounded quite secure in her abilities. But now that she's been living in a family, her way of work has indeed changed, if anything else because she's worried they may find out the truth about her.

At first I thought McMahon had kicked her in the shin, but upon rewatching I realized he kicked the leg of the chair. I'm sure if it were the Shopkeeper he'd probably kick her leg, if not stomp down on her foot just to get her to focus.

Gram was sneezing again? Should I pay attention to this or is it just a baby being a baby?

Yor is smart to try and think how the enemy would think in order to be prepared for their plan, but she doesn't take into account the fact that some of the assassins are actual psychopaths who don't care about taking innocent people's lives in their effort to do their job. That's what being too kind of an assassin will do to you XD

And it's driven to the point even more with Yor being cute like that - and probably remembering the times she played with Yuri when he was little - and Olka saying she doesn't look like a criminal. She really doesn't. Sweetest assassin ever <3

The "mmm" Yor made at the end was the exact same "mmm" Anya made while stuffing up her face with food XD

Loid is not impressed, and this is only the beginning.

It's so fun having the actual, physical copy of the manga in front of me as I watch the episode! I notice here that when Anya talked about Yor missing, she also told Loid "You miss dinner all the time", but the anime omitted that. STOP DENYING US THINGS!

Anyway, Anya calls him out for catching feelings, and Loid is quick to drop his voice a couple octaves to show how secure he is.

I AM NOT LONELY I AM NOT.

Sure buddy, sure.

The office guys are on the opposite side of relaxing and actually enjoying themselves on this trip, going out and drinking a little too much, while the "Greys", Yor and McMahon are walking on eggshells.

The anime team obviously had enough time available for this chapter, as they have a couple of added lines from the office guys, so I doubt they omitted Anya's line about Loid missing dinner due to time issues. I wonder what might be the reason - it's not like they're trying to make us think he doesn't miss dinner? We know the guy's schedule is tight as a drum.

Anyway. Assassin-ing time and holy shit.

I'm pretty sure I gasped at this.

And the rest of the scene, of course!

Obligatory mention that it's been proven time and again that torture is not an effective means of interrogation. People can and do lie while being tortured for information, so the things they say may or may not be accurate. Torture may make them speak, but whether they speak the truth or not is another issue, unrelated to torture itself. So while there can be various goals of torturing someone (illegitimate, of course, like punishment, making an example out of a "traitor", or in very few real-life cases, gratification), obtaining information has proven to not be a feasible one. I understand the point of the scene was to show McMahon's abilities and to establish that there are multiple people on board after Olka, I just needed to say that.

I've been certain they'd go the "dumping bodies into the ocean" route. A cruise is a great setting for that!

The knock on the door was intense! Especially since it's put right after the scene of McMahon and Furseal walking back to the room, but just those few seconds of slowed down tension make you think "Oh no. It's not them. It's them".

I expected the "Oh, it's just room service!" and of course, I expected the "I didn't order any" reply.

Great animation of the attack and Yor protecting Olka and Gram though I'm begging the animators to look a bit into trigger discipline, at this point whenever I see a gun my eyes go immediately on the trigger and I go D: whenever there's a finger on it that shouldn't be

But oh, McMahon is good, and resourceful!

The assassin points his gun at them, Furseal freaks out while McMahon marches on.

We also finally see one (1) eye under the reflection of his glasses. I get that the reflection makes it easier in animation and such, but still I appreciate this detail, especially in such a moment.

And more action! Yor being a badass and at the same time caring for the baby!

"I can excuse murder in self-defense but I draw the line at scaring a baby"

THE GUY WAS STILL WIGGLING. WHILE HE HAD A DAGGER THROUGH HIS SKULL.

(probably last uncontrollable movements from his dying nervous system but still. it was fucking chilling and I love it)

Also, I can understand Yor being strong enough to break the door. But I think it takes a different kind of strength to throw an object, even a sharp one, and make the object break through the door, a human skull, and then latch onto a wall. Absolute unit.

Seeing the body was freaky, too! If I'm correct, I think this is the very first time we see a person being murdered on screen in the story.

Ah no wait we do see a guy in the second episode getting a dagger to the back and falling down. But it was much more palatable than seeing a dagger go through someone's skull and practically nailing him to the wall.

I'm gonna think about this for a long time, lmao. It was brutal!

I just noticed this on my rewatch! McMahon is wearing a ring in the shape and place of a wedding ring! He then goes on to tell the ship's services that the "mister and missus had a fight" though in the manga he says "me and my wife" so is his cover that he's on board with his wife?

And here's the same thing that shows Yor's side. She sees assassins as people doing their job and "cleaning out trash" especially in her case, not people who do this job just because they have no issue killing.

I mean, I don't want turtleneck guy to defeat Yor, but he's got my respect for now.

He also says there are other members from the gangster family on board? Just how many people did manage to get on this ship XD

The eavesdropping guy tells turtleneck guy that he sells his information equally and practically tells him good luck getting ahead, so now I'm thinking, there's another eavesdropping guy, or is he selling all his intel to other assassins that weren't there in that scene?

Also, good luck getting them to work together without getting greedy and/or paranoid, lol

Furseal was actually blushing while wearing the mask XD and the plague doctor mask on the baby!

The poison guy thinks he's some dude. He has no idea who he's dealing with.

This arc will be perfect for creepy shots of Yor, won't it XD

Furseal asks for his button back and dude! Priorities much? This button saved all your lives XD

Blonde mask guy tries to go for Olka right in the middle of the crowd like wtf and the moment Yor grabbed his hands I went like "BREAK THEM. BREAK HIS FINGERS." And then she did <3 We stan <3

That's it. That's their dynamic in one shot.

While Anya is having an overdramatic tantrum, we see how even when Twilight is trying to not be on the lookout - he even says he just has to stay away from suspicious people - his skills are so fine that they kinda work subconsciously. He spots the listening devices (I mean, there are a ton of them) and notices all the suspicious people even if he doesn't make a conscious list of all of them.

Then Twilight has a fucking breakdown over one (1) silly keychain. I mean it is a skeleton keychain so his mind immediately went "IT'S EITHER THAT OR MY OWN DEATH" is anyone even surprised

Anya is still learning how easily Twilight overreacts. And like the scene with the sandbox in the hospital, she realizes she caused him a little too much anxiety and tries to take some burden off.

This entire tension is going on and Twilight is still stuck on whether he should buy a stupid keychain. This man is incapable of relaxing, you tell him to relax and he goes like "Okay spy mode on standby, parent with anxiety mode is on".

I love how this reads a bit like "Papa considers hating frogs as much of a dealbreaker as being an assassin!"

It's so weird - though fitting - to think that Anya believes she can keep this up indefinitely. She has no idea how easily they could discover each other's identities and believes she can stop that from eventually happening. It makes sense for her age, though.

It's also a bit sad, how quick she is to think that she would be abandoned if they found out about each other. It's probably what makes her go "I have to keep this up as long as possible". Her young mind can't comprehend an alternative.

And oop! Taking part of the next chapter too, I see!

I might have lost it during these shots.

"You go around having battles" is definitely something Anya would come up with. It's why she's so hard to write and why Endo should receive an applause for how accurate to her age and experience he writes her.

Next, Twilight's biggest foe; the unreadable expression of a five six year old who is trying to take responsibility for her actions.

I love how when Twilight is facing actual danger and difficult missions he's all cool and collected. Meeting Desmond? Piece of cake. Taking down entire groups of people aiming guns at him? No problem. Anya acting unpredictable? THE WORLD IS ENDING.

However funny the scene is, it slowly drifts into a sadder territory. Twilight actually worries over Anya's mental state, and though he has no idea Anya is having the time of her life, there must be a part of his understanding of her trauma that is true. Now why he undermines completely his own trauma... It's projecting, isn't it?

Anyway, he concludes that the Handler knew from the beginning that Anya needs some vacation in order to recover from her trauma, and for some reason, instead of going like "Yo give her a break" she conjured up this entire idea for a vacation... But in reality, the Handler was only saying that in order to justify his time off in paper.

Like, the man can be so off sometimes that I want to shake him and then hug him because god I cannot imagine going your entire life like this and not even comprehending the idea of actual time off.

Anya: Have fun! Twilight: Cannot compute!

Like yeah it's funny but how am I supposed to not feel just a little bit sad with how he's completely unfamiliar with the concept of relaxing and having fun 😭😭

This is going to be a disaster XD

Anya prepares to run for it, realizes he can change and wear everything within seconds, and freezes... But then Overanalyzing TwilightTM takes control and he starts spending long minutes in front of the mirror freaking out about how his weird ensemble will manage to fix Anya's mood.

This truly is his most difficult mission. Anya is the perfect age to teach him about how sometimes he cannot control how people will react to his manipulations... and then there's the mind-reading, too.

Anyway. I love how Anya goes like "That's not how I expected to win some time but it works" and just steps back into the corridor XD

OH MY GOD

I love me a good fight choreography! Here Yor pushed Olka down from the shoulders, and at the same time pushed Furseal's knees to the front so they'd bend and he'd go down just enough to miss the sickle. Awesome!

The guy just starts a fight right in the middle of the crowd. And Yor has no choice but to stop him, Anya has to hide and also keep Loid from coming out of the store...

That IS a very interesting cliffhanger! I nearly screamed when it ended there, lol. It even ends in the middle of the page! I had to cover it with my hand to avoid spoilers XD The things I go through in this crazy experience XD

Overall, awesome episode! Though I felt that the Twilight panicking scene dragged on a bit. I don't know why. Maybe it's just that I'm an angst ho and I wanted a bit more angsty vibes from that scene. It's not bad, but maybe I still haven't realized just how much on comedy the show belongs in. It has a peculiar but for some reason very efficient balance on everything.

#Spy x Family #sxf reaction

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melancholysway · 2 years

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Hello! So I saw TMNT 2007!Raph x GN!Reader: The Confession, and it got my brain pumping, Could I request an Angsty Unrequited 2007!Leo x GN!Reader, where Leo has a crush on Reader, that he didn't acknowledge or think too much about, and he only realises the full depth of it when he left (absence makes the heart grow stronger) but does comes to accepts it as a truth and plans to grow closer to them and pursue his feelings when he returns, only to find out Reader is dating Raph, they're a perfect pair and are so happy together, and Leo isn't sure how to respond but it sure hurts.

This can be as Long or short/formatted as you like, sorry if this is extremely wordy, thanks for reading!

Omg omg I’m so excited for this one!?!?!? btw, this is over 4,000 words long, so I hope this isn't too much! this was a great request and I wrote the entire thing just now lol

I hope you enjoy!

TMNT 2007!Leo x Reader: Unrequited

(also a 2007 Raph x reader, BUT ITS NOT A POLY FIC!)

Chapter key:

~ = time skip

--- followed by italic text = flashback happening

--- followed by normal text = flashback ending

+++ - scene change (minor time skip)

________________________________________-

It started small, very small

Because you’re just a person to him in the beginning, a sorry sucker that got dragged into the depths of a New York City robbery in a small convenience store.

You get out (kind of,) but it lands you being chased by the big guy who decided to point the gun at the cashier who noticed you left when he ordered everyone to stay put

But you’d rather run than get shot, so, there’s that.

Thus, you unknowingly run into an unknown savior of the city you resided in, and though you thought you’d die a sorry death in the back alley of a street you couldn’t recall the name of, you’re saved.

You thank your savior, to which, he with a slightly raspy yet calm tone answers you from the shadows.

“You’re welcome.”

And that’s it. But, who was he?

“Um…I’m not exactly sure where I ran to, do you happen to know which street I’m on?” You didn’t know Manhattan like the back of your hand at all. Not only that, but you were just…running. Though the city never sleeps, fate just so happened to make this new area you came to empty. This side was asleep. It had to be the gentrified area of Manhattan, huh?

And that’s how you meet Leonardo. Sort of. He gives you directions to your apartment complex, but you didn’t feel safe going alone.

So, when he steps out of the darkness, he’s covered in a brown hooded cloak where you can’t see his body shape or face.

He takes you home like that. But oh, here goes fate once again, and there goes this sudden gust of wind that catches him off guard, and his face is revealed.

He’s a…

“Turtle. Mutant turtle.”

And THAT’S how you meet Leonardo. He’s surprised at how well you take it, but, in all honesty, you really could use a friend in this crazy city you just moved to not too long ago.

Time goes on, his brother (Mikey) gets nosy as to why he sometimes goes solo during patrol going a direction, not in their usual route, and follows him quietly (kind of, he falls a couple of times, but meows so his older brother thinks it’s just a clumsy cat)

He watches as Leonardo stops on a fire escape and knocks on the window, the light from inside getting more intense as the window is opened, revealing why Leo goes off on his own sometimes

He watches as you rub your eyes, slightly tired as you greet his brother, only to be a little startled as another turtle…mutant turtle, lands right beside him

“Dude! Another human!? Hey!”

And THAT’S how you meet Michelangelo.

Word goes around, Mikey just can’t keep his mouth shut, plus, he accidentally set off the emergency button on his T-Phone, so Raphael and Donatello are tracking him together. Suddenly, two more mutant turtles are at your fire escape.

“Ya jokin’ right? THIS is tha emergency?” Piercing golden eyes engulfed by a red bandana look you up and down confused, then back at Mikey. You’re the threat?

“Mikey…are you harassing another human again?” A purple-banded turtle, who appears to look identical to Mikey, begins apologizing on his baby brother's behalf.

And THAT’S how you meet Raphael and Donatello

After inviting Leo and his brothers inside your apartment, you introduce yourself properly. Donnie takes it well, and Raph is always the warier one. But, he trusts his older brother. With his life, even. So, if he trusted you, Raphael felt obligated to do the same.

Plus, he thought you were cute.

Come to think of it, Leo also thought that, too.

And thus, begins Leonardo’s small crush on you.

It’s platonic. At least, that’s what he tells himself. He doesn’t act on it, and you show no signs of having a crush on him, so, why risk it?

You progressively become closer with Leonardo’s brothers, and soon- after knowing them for almost two months- they introduce you to their sensei.

He loves you, by the way. How accepting you are, how sweet you are to his sons, and he can sense the hidden affection his eldest son has for you.

Time goes on, but time is a thief- waiting for an opportunity to steal the happiness of those who take it for granted.

To: Y/n

I miss you. A lot, actually. I didn’t think I would miss you and my family so much, but, I do.

Sometimes when I’m sitting in this dark cave, I feel like you’re going to run up behind me and try to scare me like you always did when I was around. I always knew you were there, but sometimes I would fake it just to see you smile. You pouted whenever I told you that you didn’t startle me.

My training period is almost up, but I don’t feel any different than when I first landed. Are 3 months really enough to turn me into a better version of myself?

Anyway, I hope you’re doing well. I hope you’re keeping the others in line, lol. Donnie is easily overwhelmed, and I know Mikey and Raph together are nothing but trouble.

~ L

That was the first letter you had gotten from Leo where he showed his feelings towards you. The very first letter was much more lighthearted with an exciting tone to it, and you could hear Leo’s voice in your head while you read it.

You begin a collection of all the letters Leo has sent you so far in a blue folder. To look back on them when you miss him.

It’s almost been 3 months already. That’s how long Splinter made Leo’s training period. But, he was doubting himself and venting to you through this letter. Was it enough for him? No, Leo’s a perfectionist. That’s not a lot of time for him.

So, you wait, wondering just how long Leo is planning to potentially stay in South America.

Back in the city, everything is doing fine. Sure, the 3 remaining turtles miss Leo, but he’s supposed to be coming back. As long as he keeps sending his letters to them, they’ll know that he’s safe and alive. The jungle is a dangerous place, and who knows what types of threats Leo is facing over there?

You come around the Lair more to spend some time with Leo’s brothers while he’s gone. Raphael seems to be the most stoic about his absence, and upset about the fact that they can’t go up to the surface and fight crime. Mikey does his own thing, and for some reason, wanted to do something crazy and get a job. You had no idea how he was going to pull it off, but you were excited to see the outcome. Donatello is keeping both of them in line while trying to fix things in his free time. He starts to tell Mikey to break the toaster as Leo did so he has something to fix weekly. Yes, Leo broke the toaster weekly.

You were already close with Leo’s brothers, but now? You found yourself gravitating towards Raphael. The topic of Leo was on his mind, and he worried. He always did, even if he tried to hide it. Though his expression was always a straight face when it came to his older brother, on the inside, he cared. He cared so much.

And as 3 months come to a close, Leonardo isn’t back.

To: Y/n

I tried to write this particular letter so many times. Especially to you and Raph. I know it’ll be a lot for you.

I’m staying here. I can’t go back yet, not when I have so much more to work on.

I’ve already discussed with Splinter back and forth with these letters, and he thought it would be best if I wrote to you and the others in the next letter I sent.

I keep everyone’s letters. I try to keep track of the conversations we’re having. Right now, I’m having a debate with Mikey over whether the Earth is flat or not. Spoiler: It can’t. Ask Donny.

So, I guess I can ask you as well for a third opinion, do you think the Earth is flat? I mean, the Earth turns, does it not? Is that not some indication of time passing? Time passes as the world turns. Time goes on, right?

I want to keep this as light-hearted as possible, but for some reason, it’s hard to write this letter to you. I don’t want to bombard you with my feelings, but I can’t help but wonder if you think about me as much as I think about you. I’m not sure what that entails, but you are such a great friend to me, that I’m forever grateful for you.

Just a few more months. That’s it. Just a few more months and I’ll be finished. I want to come home and see you and the others again. I’ll be a better me in that time. Swear it.

~ L

He swore it.

He swore to you he would be back in a few more months.

When this round of letters comes to the Lair, Raphael is livid.

Livid because, well, he doesn’t take promises lightly. Leo promised he would come back in a few months in his letter. But Raphael was more upset that he wasn’t coming back after these 3 months. And even MORE upset about the fact that just because Leo is gone, doesn’t mean crime left with him. If anything, it’s at an all-time high. He can’t keep sitting here and watching it all happen on the news, either.

“It’ll be a few more months, okay Mikey?” Donnie tries to soothe his baby brother, as Mikey was visibly hurt by the news. He wanted his older brother back. Now.

“Don’t give Mikey false hope, Don.” Raph glares at the brown-eyed turtle, “It ain’t good fa him. Mikey, Leo ain’t comin’ back right now, God knows when he is, alright?”

That’s what Mikey needed to hear, according to Raph. He didn’t want to sugarcoat anything for Mikey. Hell, he was never good at sugarcoating anything for that matter.

It’s been almost a year. Almost a year without Leonardo. A year without your best friend, and a year without the person you cared for immensely.

You and Raphael get closer during this time. He’s the only turtle that rebels against Splinter and begins to stop crime on his own, and you appreciate him for it. You tell him that one day before you leave the Lair.

---

So as Raphael sits up from his position on the couch, he can’t help but smirk at you.

And good God, that smirk got you hooked.

By this point, the city had created a vigilante name for him: The Nightwatcher. You remember seeing a news article online in which the title photo had been a blurry shot of the vigilante, which was just Raphael in metal armor. Though the rest of the family was oblivious to this, you sure weren’t. Mikey becomes a Nightwatcher fangirl, and Donnie becomes a Nightwatcher hater.

“Wanna take Betsy out wit me tonight?” Raphael asks as he stands at your fire escape. Funny, he always gets deja vu when he stands there, it reminds him of when he first met you. How he was standoffish at first, but he found out that you weren’t so bad after all.

“You think Betsy can handle two crazies on her back this time?” You joke, looking down your fire escape and onto the street, seeing sleek and shiny ruby Betsy parallel parked in between two ivory Hyundais.

The last time you went on a bike ride with Raph, Betsy- the name you gave to it- sort of broke down. But, thanks to Raph’s fix-it skills (thanks Donnie,) she was up and running.

He chuckles at your response and puts his helmet back on. He motions you to follow him down the fire escape and hands you the spare helmet you used for all bike rides.

This one was different.

Why? Well, the others didn’t end in a kiss.

Raph let you do donuts around in an empty parking lot with his motorcycle, and he couldn’t help but smile at how happy you looked. How you wore your smile so well, and how he thought about other ways he could get it to appear over and over again.

He always thought you were cute.

But as the night went on, you find yourselves rendezvousing all across Manhattan on ol’ Betsy, letting your frustrations out about Leo’s extended absence on the highway, going 65…80…85 miles on the interstate. You lost count, you were having so much fun. You both spill your feelings about the current situation with your best friend and Raph’s brother. You’re hurt. But, can you blame him? You find it in your heart to forgive Leo after that. Raphael doesn’t. It’ll take more time for him.

When it was all said and done, you wind up falling asleep on the ride back, something that never happened. But there goes fate, again. Coming at the most unexpected times. Raphael carries you back up to your apartment- to which you tiredly ask if he stays with you. You knew- as tired as you were that Raph would get questioned by Donnie when he got back at this ungodly hour. The sun was damn near starting to rise, and sleeping over at your place is one hell of an alibi.

And then it just happens. You comment on how tired he looks, but it just makes him look even more attractive to you. THIS wakes him up, and as he wonders if he heard you right, you plant a kiss on his cheek as a thank you for staying.

Raph tests the waters a bit and takes a risk.

He kisses you. But, not on the cheek.

And that, dear readers, is how your first kiss with your now boyfriend went.

---

Raphael was right, it’s been an entire year. And now? There’s word from April that Leo is very much alive in South America. Though, you knew he was just fine. Despite the letters stopping completely, you knew in your heart Leo was okay. He knew how to take care of himself on his own.

So it’s no surprise when April gives you the news.

Your boyfriend is angry at him. Raph misses him, he told you that much, but he had this burning hatred for his brother for scaring the rest of the family like that. I mean, Mikey thought he was dead somewhere in the jungle miles and miles away.

You think about the last letter Leo sent you.

You wonder what his next letter would have been to you had he not stopped all those months ago. He sure would have had a lot to say in response to yours, anyway.

To: Leo

To answer your question, of course not. The Earth is NOT flat.

But Leo, time is a thief. You of all people should know that. You were always the philosophical type. The world turns, yes. It’s an indication of time, yes. But it matters not how much time has passed, but what you did with said time.

To answer your other question, I do think about you. I wonder what you’re doing, if you’re swinging on vines like Tarzan or something. I care a lot about you, and that hasn’t changed one bit. This time away from you has been difficult on everyone, but getting these letters every 3 weeks helps.

You can never bombard me with how you feel, your feelings are always valid to me. I want you to know that all those feelings you have for me are reciprocated.

~ Y/n

Maybe it was a miscommunication? You thought that for a while. You thought you had read his last letter wrong. Did he mean he had feelings for you? Because you had also developed a small crush on him. Before he left, you liked him.

But, what if you read it wrong? Did he just mean his feelings toward you as a caring friend who missed the yin to their yang?

Maybe you were thinking a little over your head. You weren’t even sure if he got this letter, anyway.

You never knew. He stopped writing after that. Not just to you, but to the others as well. It was simply a thought of what once was.

A few days after April comes back from her business trip, Leonardo seems to follow. It’s unexpected as hell. After spending the first half of a warm Saturday working and getting ready to head down to the Lair for the second half, you get a text message from Raph.

Raph, 8:00 pm

Babe, lmk when you come down, okay? There’s a surprise for ya

You start to think about what it could be. Maybe Mikey had a party gig earlier and got to take a slice of your favorite cake home. You always liked being surprised with a slice of cake wrapped in tinfoil when you went down to see your boyfriend.

But only it’s not cake.

You come toward the entrance of the Lair a few moments after you messaged Raph you were close, and there he was, giving you a quick kiss and covering your eyes.

“Ya might like it more than I did,” His gruff voice comments. As you’re helped by Raph into the Lair, you sense something you haven’t in a long time.

It’s Leonardo.

You knew it from the moment Raph took his hands away from covering your eyes. You were face to face with someone’s plastron, and judging by the arm muscles you knew it was Leo. He was the only one who wasn’t as bulky as Raph, yet not as small as Mikey or Donnie. He was right in the middle.

“H-hey.”

You thought a lot about how you would react to Leo if he came home. Would you cry? Would you not forgive him anymore? Would it go back to the way it used to be? You could only predict how your brain would react but failed to predict how your heart would.

You hug him first.

You always did, anyway.

Leo wished he had hugged you first right now, though. But, it’s a sweet moment between you two.

“I missed you, jerk.” You say into his plastron. On the surface to everyone but Leo, it’s two best friends reuniting after a year of not seeing each other. But deep down, it’s Leo hugging the person he’s grown to love. He loves you.

Raphael- as much as he despises his older brother at the moment- calms down for the time being since Leo stepped foot in the Lair an hour earlier. He knows that you and Leo were close before, and how much you missed him as a friend. You never told Raph about what you last sent Leo and what you thought of it. It wasn’t relevant, and it was sent MONTHS before that night you became a couple. It was sent way before you fell for Raph. And once again, it just wasn’t relevant. Leo never bothered to send you a letter that confirmed your feelings were friends or more than that. So, it had to be just friends. He saw you as just that, and you had to accept it. Which, you could. You could accept being platonic with him, and just be the good friends you were.

Once you break away, you and the others sit down in the living room like old times. Mikey’s asking Leo all these questions about South America, and Donnie’s asking about the native wildlife. You and Raph on the other hand, ask the harder questions.

“Why’d ya stay longa?”

“Did ya forget us?”

Raphael asks him these questions, and Leo’s honest about each one.

He stayed because he needed time. He never- not for one second forgot about you guys. He missed you all. He knows he fucked up.

“Why did you stop writing?” You ask.

This is a tough question. You look at him with concerned eyes, and Raph puts an arm around you.

“I um…I got caught up in my own world, and…” Leo trails off as if he was thinking of what to say. But, he lost it. That’s when it hits him. He doesn’t say anything. He’s so fixated on the way his brother is touching you, and how you let him. Almost as if it’s an afterthought.

“I ran out of ink.”

“You couldn’t like, buy any?” Mikey asks, earning an eye roll from Raph and Donnie.

No. No, he couldn’t.

+++

As you spend your evening down in the Lair and hanging out with everyone, you notice Leo going to Splinter’s room, and you hear indistinct chatter coming from upstairs. Leo had spoken to his father when he first got back. In fact, nobody even knew Leo came back until Raphael overheard them talking from the cracked sliding door.

Though it wasn’t your business, you wondered what they were speaking about.

You weren’t one to eavesdrop, but the bathroom just so happened to be across from his room, so you heard their conversation for a few moments anyway.

“The best you can do is let them be happy, my son. Which they are. You cannot reverse time when things do not go as planned.”

“I…I know, but…I realized how much I liked Y/n when I was out there. I just…I was too late.”

‘Using the bathroom could wait,’ You thought. As you continue listening. You listen to the pain in Leo’s voice as he describes how his heart shattered when he realized Raph found his way into your heart. He wondered if you noticed. Splinter says no, you wouldn’t have noticed. You would be oblivious, as Leo never took that chance to send you those letters when he was away.

He saved them and brought them home to give to you. Well, he was going to give them to you.

Leo lied earlier. He never stopped writing. In fact, that’s all he did in times of loneliness. He wrote. He wrote until his hand was cramped or he had to start over because he felt he wasn’t conveying his emotions well enough. He had as much ink as a turtle could have.

That hug meant more to him than you could think. He planned on getting you alone and giving you the unsent letters to take before you went back to your apartment. But he couldn’t anymore. He couldn’t ruin the relationship you had with Raphael. He wouldn’t- no- couldn’t be that selfish. It just wasn’t in his nature.

So what did happen with those letters?

This burning curiosity seems to take over. You take a wild guess and enter Leo’s room- seemingly untouched for the past year. There’s a small pouch on his bed, the same one that he wore when he said his goodbyes before leaving way back when. You open the front zipper, it feels flimsy from all the wear and tear. Your senses were correct, and there was a folded yellow paper in the compartment. The same color paper that Leo wrote letters on.

You lock yourself in Leo’s room and sit down on his bed to open up this folded mystery.

You’re surprised to see that upon opening, 3 more letters fall out in a crinkled mess on your lap. After sorting them by date, a part of you wishes that he sent them sooner. But then another part of you disagrees- the part that loves Raph. You were happy with him, so fucking happy. You were a near-perfect match for each other. He saw you at your lowest and was there to help you out. He was always caring, even if he didn’t always tell you- he showed it.

Not only that, but you couldn’t go back and change the past.

7/10/2007

To: Y/n

You always were so good with words. It’s the one thing that I always admired about you.

I’m glad you feel the same about me as I do about you. You’re always on my mind, Y/n. I thought it was just a little crush at first but…gah, I’m not sure. I think it’s more. I’ve never had a crush before. Haha, I’m pretty good with unintentionally rhyming, huh?

You’re absolutely right, time is a thief. I hate myself for not realizing that with all the time I’ve taken up. I write little by little, and I apologize for taking so long with this one, but I wasn’t sure how to write that I feel like I’m falling in love with you.

And I know it’s a lot to use the word love- but I’m positive that’s what it is. As I sit here and think about you, I always go back to the first time I ever laid eyes on you. How gorgeous you looked despite the situation. How you were so sweet when fate got the best of me and revealed my true self to you. How you were sweet to me even after, and how you were warm and welcoming. The average person would have run to the hills, but you stayed. You stayed all this time, and I think that’s one of the reasons why I’ve come to love you. How accepting you are of those who are different.

7/20/2007

To: Y/n

It was selfish of me to leave you all. I know that if I send this letter and the others I wrote to you months after I received yours, there’s a chance that you don’t have those same feelings anymore. And there’s also a chance that I’m completely taking what you said the wrong way.

But, if I didn’t, and you truly feel those feelings for me- the “more than friends” kind, then please, read on. If not, take what I say with a grain of salt.

I guess the saying is correct; absence does make the heart grow stronger.

With that being said, I have a rather…odd request. I know it’s a lot, I know it is.

I want you to wait for me. I should have told you this before I left, but it was just a small crush back then. I wasn’t sure if I should tell you.

I know, it’s extremely selfish to ask you to lock your heart and throw away the key until I return, but we all get at least one selfish pass, right? If you can’t, I understand. I hope you find someone that loves you the way I would have when I came back home.

But a small part of me hopes you don’t find someone, and we get to be together after all.

Then again, I can’t control anything. I can only wish. Wish upon the millions of stars that scatter the South American sky.

8/1/2007

To: Y/n

I was always the philosophical type, and I’m glad you noticed. If this is the world where I get to be with you, I’ll cherish it. I’ll cherish you. I’ll cherish us.

But, if the cards aren’t in our favor, then I know there’s a parallel universe where I get to be with you.

Perhaps all I had to do was choose to write back to you instead of waiting and getting caught up in my training. Or maybe I choose to never go to South America. All of these decisions happen in the multiverse--I just so happened to get the short end of the stick in this one.

+++

Your eyes, welling up in tears, fold the slightly worn papers back up and into the pouch, zipping it back up. Curiosity didn’t kill the cat, but ignorance sure did. And right now, as sad and torn as you are, you feel relieved that you read these. Leo would have had to suffer in silence, without ever telling a soul but his Sensei.

As you exit Leo’s room, feeling a sense of confusion and uncertainty. you ask yourself the grand question, despite being in a daze:

Taglist:

@bee-1n-space @ducky-died-inside

Masterlist

#tmnt #tmnt 2007 #tmnt x reader #leo x reader #raph x reader #2007 raph #2007 leo #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt fanfics #tmnt fanfiction #2007 tmnt #leonardo #raphael #donatello

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midnightcreator12 · 4 months

Text

Time to Ramble about Clan Hamato-Verd vs. The Turtle-verse

(title a wip)

Because there WILL be a multi-chapter fic about that at some point and I like how much I can DO with the multiverse in play. And I have so much brainrot over all the lil adventures so y'all get a sneak peek!

There are no rules saying that I cant reuse canon universes that have already appeared! (Cause I'm writing the 'rules' lol) Becasue I have a VERY strong mental idea of how I want Chula to intervene with the 2003 Leo vs the Foot.

Chula actually brings no turtles on this trip. CJ is the one who tags along and they split up to go find any signs of the turtles (they're making a network to try and track down Astra and the Clones and the turtles are the most likely people to hear news about them because 'turtle luck'). CJ actually finds them first, right as Leo is being tossed into April's apartment.

CJ stays outside for most of the fight, picking off ninja who are trying to go in and overwhelm the turtles. He manages to shoot a message to Chula that he needs her NOW and dives into the fight inside about the same time as adult Casey does.

Casey questions if the kid is stealing his thing, CJ says he'll explain later and its a long story and April yells that CJ needs to get out of here and that this is too dangerous for a kid. And CJ is like 1) hell no. 2) then explain the 3 fifteen year old turtles who are very much in the thick of this fight

The fight goes on, CJ is actually doing VERY well in it (foot ninja are easier to fight than alien death machines, who knew?) And then Shredder shows up, doing his lil speech about how he's going to burn the turtles to the ground, blah, blah, blah.

Then CJ, from the front of the shop, his back to the door, says that Shredder should consider calling this attack quits and leaving while he can. And, of course, Shredder and Hun think this kid is being ridiculous, the Foot has the upper hand after all and what can this skinny little teen playing at being a hero do?

And CJ's like 'Maybe I can't take all of you-" lighting crash, dramatically revealing Chula's form towering behind Casey, light catching her visor in just the right way so you can see one, furious, glowing green eye. "But Mrs. Verd is gonna make sure none of you leave alive."

cue a massive battle montage where Chula gets to peel Shredder out of his mech suit and is more than happy to rip his tiny alien form apart while CJ covers the Splinterson's escape.

CJ takes everyone back to the Tortuga, where Leo is quickly attended to with bacta that has him making weeks of recovery in minutes. And by the time hes up and asking what happened, Chula returns, most of the blood on her armor washed away by rain but gleefully showing off the new Shredder helm that is to be added to her collection

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

Chula finds a sainw don and finds his dimension where his fam is not dead yet and she takes the role of prime 03 don and helps them overthrow the shredder

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

Chula gets a habit of collecting turtles from bad timelines that starts with her finding a Rise Universe where the Krang Invasion succeeds and the 4 turts are the last ones standing

F!Leo is knocked out by the time Chula gets there so the other three have no escape route and are just trying to protect their Leo.

Meanwhile, F!Leo goes down and his last thought is that he's going to die. Only to wake up to a younger version of him in baggy pants and a poncho grinning and telling him "Heeeeey, I'm your lil bro now! And tall, dark, and scary in the corner is your mom!"

And F!Leo is just, '....this is not how I imagined hell.'

Meanwhile, F!Donnie is just happy to be on a spaceship that ISN'T trying to kill him

(See also, Past rise kids fighting for Chula's attention with the Future Rise kids. Maybe a subplot where the past kids think maybe Chula would prefer to hang out with other adults or/and Future boys thinking she'd prefer the younger, undamaged versions. (she loves both. both past and future versions are her boys))

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

In the same vein as that, Chula trying to 'adopt' turtles but they refuse.

I think CJ is actually from another dimension instead of the future so, Chula is thankfully doing a solo run when she finds CJ's home reality and find Master Leonardo, alive but not for much longer without treatment.

Chula, of course, trys to help him but he pushes her away and begs her to just let him die. He wants his brothers, he's tired, he wants to go home.

And, as much as it hurts, Chula understands on some level. So she sits with Leonardo until he dies and holds a burial ceremony for him when he does. She thinks she sees a flicker before she leaves, someone in the corner of her eye that almost looks like Leo.

She doesn't dwell on it and moves on to the next reality.

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

Chula drops into the 2007 universe and finds out that Leo is off in the jungle and no one has gotten word from him in a while....she leaves the Lair and is back in about 3 hours with a very confused and screeching Leo hog-tied over her shoulder and asking, "who the hell thought separating you boys was a good idea?!"

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

She meets Shredder from the 1990 movie....

She is not impressed and pretty much just bitch slaps him

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

I do not really like the Bayverse movies but I like the idea of Chula meeting them and being like, "Holy hell, a set of your four that are taller than me! Now that's a new one.'

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

But we also gotta posit Chula meeting other versions of herself. Maybe the Feral Chula from the non-canon crossover I did with Feral Leo. Or a Chula that never left Death Watch and ended up in the Empire's ranks. Or a Chula who grew up with both parents, or grew up with her mom on Lasan and became an Honor Guard.

Hell, Chula meeting other versions of ASTRA. An Astra who stubbornly stuck to the Jedi code and never tried to form a relationship with her Chula. An Astra who DID join her father in his slaving business. An Astra who ended up becoming a Sith. An Astra that ran away with Seena and they both became mercenaries dodging the bounty their father put on them.

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

Okay, this ones a lil dark and simi inspired by a vague memory of a comic I saw ages ago. From what I remember from the comic, Splinter was a lot more abusive to the boys and was training them so they could take down the foot clan. And Leo ended up killing Splinter because Splints told Leo to kill Donnie because Donnie wasn't taking the training seriously enough/was doing poorly.

SO! In my scenario, the setup is pretty much that but they're pre-teens. Leo agrees but says he should take Donnie away from the Lair so Raph and Mikey won't interfere. Splinter is like 'Whatever, just get rid of him'

Leo takes Donnie far away from the Lair and tells him that he has to run far away or SPlinter will kill them both. Donnie does as Leo asks and Leo kills a rat on his way back, showing the blood on his blade as 'proof'

Donnie runs pretty far and collapses at one point. But his crying attracts the attention of a certain Mandalorian who's looking for the turtles of this dimension.

She, of course, goes to check on Donnie and Donnie is distrustful at first but he's also a pre-teen who has had very little to no positive attention from anyone but his brothers (and even then, only when they were sure Splinter wasn't able to hear/see them)

And Chula asks if Donnie wants to stay with her (assuming that he's alone) and he begs her to take his brothers with her too.

She agrees, now very confused as to whats happening. Donnie is clearly in bad shape, do these turtles just not have a Splinter? And if that's the case, why is Donnie alone?

But Donnie is getting excited as he leads her to the Lair because he and his brother don't have to live with Splinter anymore! He gets so excited that, when they get close enough to the Lair, he breaks away from Chula and runs into the Lair-

Only to come face to face with Splinter. And Splinter is furious because Leo lied to him and the 'weak' one is back and now he has to handle this himself because Leo clearly is not the good student he thought he was-

Except, when he goes to strike Donnie, screaming murder and vengeance, he's stopped by a massive, clawed hand grabbing him up and slamming him to the ground hard enough that something cracked.

All the turtles stare in shock as Chula towers over Splinter. She'd taken her helmet off with Donnie before so they get to see the pure rage on her face. But it's gone when she turns to Donnie and quietly tells him to go pack his things and tell the others to do the same.

Splinter can't move but he still screams at the boys to attack, to defend their master. Not one moves to help him. They all scurry away, leaving Chula to freely drag Splinter out into the sewers.

The adventure ends with Chula adopting four pre-teen turtles that have no interest in learning any kind of fighting and she is perfectly happy with that and takes every chance she can to shower them in love and cuddles and constant reminders that they never have to fight for her.

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

And so much more! Everything is on the table! Even fan iterations! (there are a few I would very much want to play with ngl)

#lone hunter and turtle #tmnt #rottmnt #tmnt 2012 #tmnt 2003 #star wars #tmnt au #midnight talks #oc

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jerzwriter · 1 year

Text

I do. Me too.

Ethan & Kaycee

Ainna strikes again! How we give her a few little pieces and an idea, and she just brings it to life will never cease to amaze me! In my HC, Ethan & Kaycee's wedding day was last week, July 29th. It's a simple, informal affair held at a beach house they had rented on the Cape. It's also a surprise wedding. With guests thinking they're coming to a surprise birthday/engagement party for Kaycee, but the guests are the ones in for the surprise. Here's a little more about their big day. I'll be adding to it over time.

I hope you enjoy this little fic about how they spent the morning of their big day!

Book: Open Heart (Post Series)

Pairing: Ethan Ramsey x F!MC (Kaycee MacClennan)

Rating: Teen

Words: 1,400

Summary: They didn't want a lot of fuss, so they planned their "surprise wedding" in less than a month. On the morning of the big day, they remember they forgot to iron out a couple of details, but it all works out in the end.

A/N: @choicesmonthlychallenge (Throwback to February, Day 12, Marriage).

Kaycee peered out the bedroom window, perplexed to see the beach nearly deserted on a perfect July day. The homes on this part of the Cape owned the beaches that served as their backyards. Still, she and Ethan had had rented this property before, and on a Saturday in July, the neighbors were usually out in force. She let the curtain fall from her hand and shook her head.

“Ethan, what did you do?” she laughed to herself.

July 29th had arrived. She couldn’t say finally, as she and Ethan picked this day less than a month before, but it was hard to believe it was here. In just over an hour, they’d greet their guests, who would learn they weren’t sitting in traffic on Route 6 for Kaycee’s surprise birthday party. No, the surprise was all for them because today was their wedding day.

With the exception of her parents, Alan and Naveen, no one knew. They only caved and told them the week before, and now, she was glad they did. The four of them were happily attending to last-minute details – which she was convinced included threatening the neighbors to stay inside until the ceremony ended – leaving her to quietly enjoy her last hours as a single woman.

Also, she couldn’t have imagined getting ready for this day without her Mom. Rose had helped her into her wedding gown. Then she presented her with the pearl drop earrings she wore on her own wedding day, and Kaycee’s grandmother had worn on hers many years before. Even though Kaycee was going for a natural look, makeup still had to be reapplied after that. Now, with Rose off to ensure every flower was in its perfect place, Kaycee stood before the full-length mirror in her room, spinning in circles and watching the sheer, delicate lace of her gown dancing around her. Time spent planning be damned, she was allowed to say... the day was finally here!

A knock on the door startled her. She was pretty sure it was Rose making her way back, but just to be safe, she asked.

“Who is it?”

“It’s your future husband,” Ethan declared, a smile present in his voice. “I’m just checking to make sure you haven’t come to your senses and run away.”

“Hmmm, it was a close call,” she laughed through the door. “But Naveen stopped by and put this ankle monitor on me, so you’re safe.”

“Thank God for Naveen,” he chuckled. “You know, since Tobias still has no idea that he’s going to be my best man, I could change my mind and give the honor to Naveen.”

“Now, Ethan Ramsey! What has Tobias done for you to consider taking his title away?”

“Nothing. That’s just it; he’s done nothing, whereas Naveen prevented you from becoming a runaway bride.”

“Ethan,” she laughed. “If I was going to run away, it would have been long ago. You’re safe with me.”

Their conversation had all been in good fun, but those last four words left Ethan choked up. You’re safe with me.

“I know that,” he said with a cracked voice. “And I hope you know you’re safe with me, too.”

Kaycee leaned against the wooden door, a tender smile on her face. “Of course, I do, Ethan. Of course, I do.”

“Good,” he grinned. “And I heard two I do’s there. Excellent work, Rookie. Get practice in because I’m going to need you to say that one more time very soon.”

“Oh, I plan on it,” she reassured.

“So, we never really discussed it.. but when do I get to see you? It won’t be when you’re walking down the aisle, will it?”

“Considering we’ll be greeting our guests together, I think that’s a no. See, these are the things we would have ironed out if we had gone a more traditional route.”

“Any regrets?” he asked.

“Not one.”

“Good. But that puts me right back where I started. When do I get to see you?”

“Well... nothing is stopping me from opening this door right now.”

“All right, but shouldn’t I go grab the photographer? I believe it’s called a first look shot or something like that.”

“You could,” she replied with a question in her voice. “But I’m not of the belief that every moment has to be shared or recorded. Some of them should just be lived, and I want to share this with you and you alone. Is that all right?”

“All right?” He enthused. “I think I just fell in love with you a little more.”

“All right,” she beamed, bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement. “Let me step back, and I’ll tell you when to open the door so we can see each other at the same time.”

Ethan’s heart began to race with anticipation. “Sounds good, but don’t make it long.”

“The room isn’t that big, Ethan,” she teased as she fluffed her skirt and positioned her lace train around her. “OK,” she beamed. “You can come in.”

His hand was already on the knob, and the door opened before Kaycee could complete the words. A puff of air escaped him, and he visibly stepped back when his eyes fell upon her.

“Kaycee...” he gasped, completely overwhelmed. “You look...” he wanted to say so much, but words truly escaped him.

“So, is it appropriate?” she giggled.

A bright smile spread on his lips, and he quickly closed the distance between them before taking his bride into his arms.

“You are breathtaking,” he breathed into her ear. “I knew you would be, but,” he stepped back with tears in his eyes. “Nothing could prepare me for this.”

“So... it’s definitely appropriate,” she grinned.

“I’m glad to see that getting married will have no impact on you being the wiseass I fell in love with.”

“Oh, never!” she assured. Moving closer, she smoothed out his lapel as Ethan wrapped his arm around the small of her back, pulling her tightly against him. “You look gorgeous, too,” Kaycee whispered. “Remind me how I got this lucky?”

“You,” he asked, lifting her hand over her head and giving her a gentle spin. His eyes drinking in every inch of her. “The lucky one is me, and I won’t hear any arguments.”

“We’re both lucky,” she smiled.

“OK, I’ll accept that one!”

“So,” she questioned. “We have a little time to kill before guests begin to arrive. What would you like to do?”

Ethan smirked, leaving little to the imagination. “If I did what I want to do right now, I promise, we wouldn’t be in any condition to greet our guests anytime soon.”

“We will save that for tonight, dear.”

“Yes, and we’ll be kicking people out early! But what would you like to do now?” he asked.

“I know! Why don’t we take a quick walk along the beach? I know it’s a small guest list, but even so... once everyone arrives, I won’t have you to myself until the end of the day. So, want to take a quick walk, just you and me?”

“I’d love that,” he smiled. “But you need one thing before we go.”

“I do. What’s that?”

Ethan stepped back into the hall, returning with Kaycee’s bridal bouquet in his hand.

“I think this will complete the picture.”

Kaycee held the bouquet to her nose, inhaling the beautiful fragrance of the soft pink and white roses and peonies in her bouquet.

“It’s so beautiful,” she sang.

“It is, but it pales in comparison to you.”

Kaycee reached up and pulled him into a tender kiss.

“Aren’t we supposed to wait until the officiant tells us to do that?” He asked.

“I won’t tell if you won’t.”

“Come on,” Ethan insisted as he took her hand. “Let’s take that walk so we’ll be back in time to greet everyone. Until then, I’m showing you off to everyone on the beach.”

“Speaking of that... who do you plan to show me off to? The starfish? Can you explain why none of the neighbors are on the beach on this gorgeous summer day?”

“Briberly,” he deadpanned. “Bribery may have had something to do with it. I also told them they could join us at the reception later.”

“I knew you were behind it!” she laughed as they approached the door.

But just before they reached it, Ethan stopped and turned to Kaycee, gently taking her face in his hands.

“I love you, Kaycee. I love you more than I could ever express, and I hope you know that.’

Reaching up, she gently squeezed his hand.

“I do. And I love you every bit as much. I hope you know that.”

“I do,” he smiled.

“Thank goodness,” she grinned as they stepped outside. “I do...now you’re practicing, too!”

@choicesficwriterscreations @openheartfanfics

Remaining tags in reblog.

#choices fanfic #choices fanart #open heart #open heart choices #choices open heart #open heart fanfic #ethan ramsey #ethan ramsey x mc #playchoices #playchoices fanfic #ethan x kaycee

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lisutarid-a · 8 days

Text

[Gakuen K] Fushimi Saruhiko Route Translation

First exam

LIST OF CHAPTERS

[Translation under the cut]

Saya: (Hmmm, what a pleasant morning)

Saya: (It feels too nice and makes me sleepy, maybe because it's spring…)

Saya: * yawns* Fuaa…

Saya: Ah, sorry!

Munakata: No. It's okay. …Ah, it's you. Just in the right place.

Saya: ?

Munakata: There is something I need to talk to you about, сould you come to the President's office after school?

Saya: Okay. Understood. I will head there right after class.

Munakata: Please do. See you then.

Saya: (I wonder what he wants to talk about…)

Saya: *knock knock* It's Konohana Saya from the second year.

Munakata: Please. Come in.

Saya: Sorry for the intrusion.

Munakata: Sorry for calling you out before our club activities.

Saya: No, it's okay. Um, what do you want to talk about?

Fushimi: *knock knock* It's Fushimi from the second year.

Munakata: Come in.

Fushimi: Sorry for the intrusion.

Fushimi: …I didn't realize you were busy. I'll come back later.

Munakata: No, that's fine. What is it about, Fushimi-kun?

Fushimi: Here's a report on the daytime incident.

Munakata: Incident? Please give me the details.

Fushimi: Yes. Today at 12:35 pm. A student informed that there was a disturbance in the school store.

Fushimi: We immediately went to the scene of the incident to take control of the situation and to confirm the cause of the disturbance…

Fushimi: It seems that too many people gathered to buy “Pom Pom bread (A popular apple bread sold in limited quantities)”, which is a limited quantity menu item for purchase.

Munakata: …Pom Pom bread?

Saya: (I wonder what kind of bread "Pom Pom bread" is…)

Fushimi: No one was injured, it seems that the main cause was the Red club that increased the fuss. That's all I have to report.

Munakata: Thank you. It seems we should increase security in the school store on limited menu days from now on.

Fushimi: Well, I guess so. Especially since those guys from the Red club cannot be suppressed by ordinary students.

Munakata: By the way, Fushimi-kun.

Fushimi: Yeah. What is is?

Munakata: The limited “Pom Pom bread” that you mentioned earlier…

Munakata: Please find out when the next shipment will be.

Fushimi: Understood.

Munakata: …Are you interested too? In “Pom Pom bread”.

Saya: Y-Yeah. I've never heard of this name before.

Munakata: Then, let's buy some when they're delivered.

Fushimi: Well, I'm done with my report, so if you'll excuse me.

Munakata: Fushimi-kun. I have something to tell you as well.

Fushimi: To me as well?

Munakata: Yeah, I have something to say to you both.

Saya: (I was so impressed with “Pom Pom bread” that I forgot that Munakata-senpai had called me in to talk to me)

Munakata: Konohana-san. You will have the first exam soom.

Saya: Y-yeah. I heard that everyone in the Blue club has good grades, so I am going to do my best.

Munakata: That is a good spirit. The members of the Blue club have to have an average 90 points or they will be dismissed from the club.

Saya: Eh! Is that so?

Fushimi: That's a joke.

Munakata: No, I'm serious.

Fushimi: I've never heard of such a rule.

Munakata: Yeah, because I made it just now.

Saya: (Just now…!?)

Munakata: But her transferring was an irregular one. In light of that…

Munakata: Let's say that in order to pass the exam, the average total score for two people must be 180 points.

Munakata: If it would be less than that, I will ask you to leave the club with honor.

Saya: Both of us to leave the club…!?

Saya: Does that mean that even if Fushimi-kun's average score would be 100 when mine would be 79 points, he would still have to leave the club…?

Munakata: Yeah. I guess so.

Fushimi: Tsk…

Saya: F-Fushimi-kun. Sorry I got you into this…

Munakata: I hope the two of you will work together and do your best.

Saya: (Munakata-senpai looks so happy…)

Fushimi: Oi, don't dare score less than 80 points.

Saya: Uhm. I'll start studying from today and try to do my best.

[Prev chapter][Next chapter]

#k project #gakuen k #gakuen k wonderful school days #otome translation #fushimi saruhiko #munakata reisi #it's all because no one thought to buy him limited bread ;___;#they just left him no choice

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beardedmrbean · 1 year

Note

God the amount of people on here I’ve, not just lost respect for, but become completely repulsed by in the last few days. People I share fandoms with who every so often would reblog those stupid “goblins are Jews so anybody who puts them in stories is antisemetic and should be shunned!!!” Which I usually just rolled my eyes and moved on. Those same damn people are on here justifying Jewish people getting slaughtered and kidnapped. And even if in their minds it’s truly just about “Israel vs Palestine”, not a fucking peep has been heard from any of them about the attacks now occurring to Jews around the world. “Punch Nazis! Listen to Jewish Voices! Be aware of antisemitism!” All goes out the window now I guess?

Gonna be setting everything to do with this situation to 'mature' and tagging "middle east mess" from here on in, this situation is far too much for lots of you and I get that I'm trying to balance things out best I can.

Go into your settings to the "content" filtering as well as "tag" filtering and punch in any terms you can think of to get most of this all off your dash.

Schrödinger's POC.

One thing I've come to realize in my observations over the years is the majority of the different activists, really loud ones at least, don't actually care about the causes they claim to care about, they don't actually want things to improve for people. Having perpetual victims while they themselves are not victims seems to let them look like they're trying to help and stand up for injustice and victimized people while still covertly looking down their noses at them.

Israel is a great example of that since they do a pretty good job mostly on their own surrounded by enemies on all sides, gotten a little less dangerous over the decades but they're still in the danger zone and generally still thriving.

That and they very rarely get involved in a difficult fight, much easier to virtue signal over a video game than it is when there's some fairly complex geopolitical forces at play. And hating Israel is the easier of the two routes to go in this one, you'll also be seeing the folks that say it's not Jews it's "Zionists" even if the overwhelming majority of Jewish people are Zionists.

Which hey, you're all entitled to your opinion but before you go and start bashing Israel on a hourly basis go ahead and look at all the other countries out there and see how you feel about them and decide if you honestly think you're judging them all by the same standard or if you're judging Israel (or any others) more harshly and then ask yourself why that is.

Amnesty went in to Ukraine at one point after several schools had been targeted by russia, amnesty pointed out all of the obvious signs that the ukrainian military had been using those schools as weapons cache's or staging grounds or any of a number of other military purposes and they declared that to be a big no no and properly laid the blame on the ukranian military and government. You made it a military target by putting troops there.

Oddly even though it's widely known that hamass does the same thing, somehow amnesty still goes after Israel who will "knock on the door" of places they're about to level that are legitimate military targets, if they're also civilian buildings. hamass using the roof of a building as a place for a communications array/radio tower they'll get a dummy bomb dropped in their lap and civilians have their 30 min notice to evacuate because it's going down in 30 min one way or the other, but somehow that's not good enough.

and Oh lord I was in the notes of a couple different post and people talking about the Jewish citizens of Israel not actually being the same people that are the indigenous population to that area, which dna tests have proven that wrong, but hey they're out there repeating talking points made up by goebels so remember that next time these people call someone else a nazi, granted they're stupid enough to call actual Jewish people nazis to their faces showing that they've really just turned that word into something that's on par with butthead at this point.

Circling back round, like I said most of these activists they don't want conditions to actually improve for anyone, because they won't be special little guys helping out the poor oppressed people, they'll just be ordinary.

Cancer researchers would be very happy if they got put out of a job, professional activists not so much.

Article link

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This is all beyond very tragic both for the people of Israel and the people of gaza who just want to live their lives free of fear and hate, it is interesting to see people doing 180's on their stances on things like rape and child murder/infanticide and such given who's doing it this time round, if I were Jewish I would be seriously reconsidering my position of I want everyone who wants to and can responsibly do so to own all the guns they like, but having one isn't for me.

I'd cut that last bit out, I'd be armed everywhere I go.

There's lots of issues on both sides of this conflict, but only one side went in to a music festival and murdered 260+ people and dragged off hostages to rape, torture, and maybe attempt to bargain with at some point if the mood strikes.

That's not something the good guys do.

Side note, I'm surprised I haven't seen a specific insult tossed out between members of the Jewish community who are on different sides of this issue, for the curious it's a german word and I'm not going to type it out.

Had someone throw that one at me once which confused me given my lack of being Jewish, loses all it's punch at that point.

#anonymous #middle east mess

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pyropsychiccollector · 7 months

Text

Harem Deluxe: Night at Okinawa, Part 3

Maki: ... *pauses in dragging a bodybag behind her, the obnoxious pulsating music of the dance floor on the floor above has her on edge* (╬≖_≖) *glances about suspiciously, then goes about her way*

Anko: Whatcha got there? (๑╹ω╹๑) *suddenly draped over Maki's back lazily*

Maki: ...! *tensed up, and moves to stab Anko's face on sheer reflex, but a snake wraps around her wrist, halting her movement mere millimeters from Anko's face* ... One of you... (╬ಠ益ಠ)

Anko: Ahhh, you're the fake-ass orphanage worker girl. Caretaker. Whatever. (人◕ω◕) "Caretaker", yeah. Right. More like undertaker. (人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)

Maki: *snarls* What do you want? (╬ಠ益ಠ)

Anko: Well, I just saw you slipping out of the party, thinkin' you were hot shit. (人◕ω◕) Not very subtle, brat. Most amateurs might have fallen for your ruse and watched your distraction from start to finish, but I know what to watch out for. (人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕) *starts to unzip the bodybag*

Maki: *kicks Anko's hand away, even while restrained by a snake* Hands off, bitch. (╬ಠ益ಠ)(╬ಠ益ಠ)(╬ಠ益ಠ)(╬ಠ益ಠ)(╬ಠ益ಠ)

Anko: *tilts head adorably* You mean hands off the "merchandise"? (人◕ω◕) Gotta say, knocking out your boytoy and bagging him is one hell of a way to keep him to yourself~... Your one mistake is people are gonna raise eyebrows at you hauling ass with a "dead body". (人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)(人◕ω◕)

Maki: (╬≖_≖) There weren't going to be witnesses. I made sure no hecklers were en route to the destination, and no one was going to notice Shuichi was missing for a good hour. And even if they noticed he was gone, they were blackout drunk to do anything about it. (╬≖_≖)

Anko: And lemme guess, your "destination" was your hotel room~? (✿◠‿◠)

Maki: (╬≖_≖) No business of yours, bitch. *her cheek is licked by the sadistic kunoichi* Will you cut that shit out?! (╬ಠ益ಠ)(╬ಠ益ಠ)(╬ಠ益ಠ)(╬ಠ益ಠ)(╬ಠ益ಠ)

Anko: Can't outmaneuver curiosity, assassin-chan. (✿◠‿◠) 'sides. You weren't the only one who thought to ditch the party~

Maki: If you've got business of your own, piss off. (╬≖_≖)(╬≖_≖)(╬≖_≖)(╬≖_≖)(╬≖_≖)

Anko: Nah. Your guys' business is my business~ (๑╹ω╹๑) I mean, that haughty, pole-up-her-ass maid left the party five minutes before you snuck out. I wanna see clothes-ripping~! ... And hair-pulling. (๑╹ω╹๑)

Maki: ... ಠಿ_ಠ Tojo's down here too...? Fuck. *begins drawing up a new strategy quick* (╬≖_≖)

Anko: Meh. I think she went back to her own room. (๑╹ω╹๑) Somethin' tells me she's preppin' it for her own... kidnapping in a few. I mean, she just went back to the party. That boytoy of yours must be hot merchandise~... (๑╹ω╹๑)(๑╹ω╹๑)(๑╹ω╹๑)

Maki: *bloodlust rising* ... ಠಿ_ಠ How the hell do you know where Tojo is, if you're wasting time with me?

Anko: Shadow Clones. (๑╹ω╹๑) Can't do as many as my brat, but damn if they're not useful~... That's why I know the hotel rooms are becoming the newest hot scene. Not everyone's in the mood to party. Well. Not with total strangers. (๑╹ω╹๑)

Maki: If you understand that much, I really need to get going. (╬≖_≖) *not going to bother asking about the clones crap* ... *snake doesn't remove itself* Bitch. I will cut you. (╬≖_≖)

Anko: Can I watch~? (✿◠‿◠) Not like you'll hit a kink that I haven't done, seen, or heard about... You look like such a greenhorn. (✿◠‿◠) But I wanna see your boytoy's face when he wakes up and you're bouncing on him. (๑╹ω╹๑)(๑╹ω╹๑)(๑╹ω╹๑)

Maki: (╬ಠ益ಠ) So you've chosen death. *with her free hand, whips out gun and shoots at Anko... who dodges with ease*

Anko: Smart to use a silencer, assassin-chan, but you'll hafta clean up after yourself if you don't want the hotel on high alert~ (๑╹ω╹๑)(๑╹ω╹๑)(๑╹ω╹๑)(๑╹ω╹๑)(๑╹ω╹๑)

Maki: DIE. (╬ಠ益ಠ) *tosses the gun aside and goes for a taser instead... only for Anko to easily turn the tables and make Maki incapacitate herself* ... *thud*

Anko: *sees that she's got two unconscious young adults on her hands... new toys* ... (๑╹ω╹๑) *forms a new Shadow Clone and drags Shuichi and Maki back to her room* I'll show you brats a whole new world~ (๑╹ω╹๑) Now, I wonder if Ino-chan can mess around in their heads~... Either body-swapping or kicking their libidos into overdrive. Or both. I'm not picky~... (๑╹ω╹๑)

#danganronpa #maki harukawa #anko mitarashi #Shuichi harem #Naruto harem

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xatsperesso · 2 years

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You know, while what Marbas-Sensei did to Jazz was harsh, it was a lesson too.

I mean Jazz literally go with that strategy

Pretend they're in the trunk while his familiar took them to Allocer

It's a risky move. It's a gamble.

With another teacher, it could have work BUT....there a reason that torture is teached at Babyls. It mean that demons use it. I think that Marbas-sensei has seen here a opportunity to show Jazz "ok you want to go on this route? fine"

He gives him the choice few times, he's careful to not do something who could be permanent and tell him that medics are ready to heal him anyway.

he told him that it's brave to try to buy some time but that that kind of things doesn't work.

He's scolded after the heartbreaker exam but seen he kinda pouts about it, it must not have been a serious scolding.

Jazz was scared? I feel bad for him, really. but now he knows that this kind of bluff can have terrible consequences. and he will not do it again without more back up and preparation. Because some demons would not hesitate to do worse than his teacher, with permanent wounds or worse. This kind of bluff IS dangerous and can't be do without knowing what could happen.

yeah Marbas was SCARY but i don't think that he would have gone too far. He's a teacher, and the teachers see their students as their treasure. And he seems to be a nice and funny guy too. He just teached him a lesson "are you really ready to do that? do you know the consequences? is it worth it?"

Jazz could have won some time by telling him the password. Before saying "sorry sensei i asked my familiar to bring the first years to the closest classmate. I had just to stay silent enough time to let him the possibility to find someone of the class. But i can't tell you who because i don't know."

It was the truth, except that he know who is the classmate. so he could have told the truth without telling everything.

i mean, compared to Caim who has been literally beaten up by a teacher until being unconscious, Jazz has been scared. He seems alright when he's with Iruma after that. He's kinda scared when he thinks about it later but outside that, he's fine.

even if i admit that it was a very weird way to teach Jazz that the "you have to break me first" sentence should not be said in a so nonchalant and cocky way. Because that can be dangerous.

Nah but this is a very good lesson to teach

Like, sure jazz, you wont be able to defend your teammates if you came across a teacher, but sacrificing yourself can't be your first strategy. This is something done under extreme circumstances, not at a fucking exam

And like, this is a test. These are teachers. Jazz is allowed to create and come up with any kind of strategy to keep his teammates safe no matter how bullshit it is. No consequences. He could've literally stole a room's key and locked himself in there. Would he have survived if he did that? Not a chance. (Balam found students that were buried underground)

And what did jazz choose? In front of very strong teachers who can break him in a second? He chose to act like a fucking scapegoat. I can't even call this a tactic.

Like, kiddo, i understand. You probably thought that you're strong and how bad could it actually hurt, but no. Like no. Don't. Don't be an idiot.

And it's honestly kinda funny that the first teacher to find him is the torture teacher. Like you think dali saw jazz being all cocky sitting on the safe like "marbas, go knock some sense into this kid"

Also keep in mind that marbas could've done more. The only reason he didn't was because the school was like "woah, chill these are just kids". So like, sure, he couldn't do any damage with the things he got approved.

I'm not trying to diss on marbas. I love the guy. I'm just saying he could've done worse

Or maybe he wanted the worse things in case he went against azz or something

#mairimashita! iruma kun #welcome to demon school iruma kun #iruma kun spoilers #marbas sensei #marbas march #andro m jazz #at this point im just ranting man

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lilac-gold · 1 year

Text

Headspace Thoughts

I've been thinking about Headspace again and the deeper meaning everything in it seems to have, and just recalled a little detail from the game about Doughie and Biscuit.

A running theme throughout HS is that of isolation. Spaceboy isolates himself in bed and later on a mountain. Rococo is isolated for years in Sweetheart's walls. SWH isolates herself on her quest for love. And the Unbread Twins have been isolated for all eternity in Breaven.

It seems that at one point they must have spoken to people- it seems that the belief in them has existed for centuries, their murals are accurate and bread is still offered to them (seemingly as a sacrifice). They're respected in Orange Oasis as deities, its citizens aware of their existence, but nobody makes any attempt to find them until Omori & co.

Even then, it's dependent on chance. The gang's intention was never to find Doughie & Biscuit and set them free- it was just something they chose to do for the heck of it, but without their visit, the twins would likely be in Breaven for at least years after. Kind of like how Kel decided to visit Sunny and see if he wanted to come out- neither Sunny nor anyone else ever asked him to, but without it, Sunny would've gone down the Hikki route for certain.

When first looking at the Unbread Twins, they're funny characters. 12-year-old Sunny looked at Daphne and Bowen and his only thought was that making bread forever had to be a miserable existence, so here they are! But then I started looking deeper at some of their quotes, and began to notice a few things.

This line in particular caught my eye: "I knew that our bread would come back to haunt us eventually...". It reminded me of Sunny's denial, and of the way his guilt haunts him through the forms of Something, Stranger and Black Space.

Originally, rather than living bread, Doughie was supposed to perceive Omori, Kel, Aubrey and Hero as ghosts, saying, "Are you a ghost?" and "Perhaps they are here to exact their revenge? That would be most..." / "Unfortunate." (Biscuit)

On one hand, it makes sense that she might think this. There were creatures like Hush Puppies in the sacrificing area, she clearly hasn't spoken to anyone but Biscuit in years, and ghosts have been confirmed to exist in Headspace. On the other, this is similar to how Sunny seems to perceive Something almost as the ghost of Mari, a physical manifestation of his guilt that reminds him of what he did. Judging by the three fear battles, it's not a stretch to say that Sunny could view Something as trying to get revenge for Mari too- potentially his subconscious punishing him for what he did.

When Doughie and Biscuit find out that the HS Gang aren't there to hurt them, they simply rejoice for a moment about their safety before continuing on as they always have. They've fallen into a routine: endless, repetitive, miserable, but familiar. The thought of leaving doesn't even occur to them; they rely heavily on the system they've made, scared of leaving and viewing the idea as preposterous.

Similarly, Sunny hasn't left his house in years, and doesn't intend to until Kel comes knocking. He's also fallen into a routine, every day the same as he locks himself away, isolated and too scared to leave alone. He doesn't want to face what he did, or see people again, or look at all the places where he used to go with Mari. He doesn't want to leave, but then Kel appears and flips that all on its head because then he actually has a reason to.

"Alright, we've changed our minds... We want to leave... This place sucks!" / "BISCUIT... We've always been afraid to use the portal." / "But perhaps it's time for change..."

They don't want to stay, and they haven't for a while, but they were too afraid to leave. Then, they're motivated to, and they finally gather up the courage and willpower to go outside of their self-imposed prison.

...And immediately lose everything.

They go to the Last Resort and lose all of their clams to gambling. They decided to break the routine, and suffered as a result of it. This could potentially be symbolic of how Sunny chose to leave but just ended up getting more hurt in the neutral/bad endings. Perhaps 'gambling' has a double meaning; they took a chance on going outside, and it backfired. Perhaps I'm looking too deeply into it lol.

It's interesting to look into how each character can parallel another (e.g. Hero & Spaceboy, Rococo & Sunny, Sweetheart & Mari, etc.), and I had fun writing this! Of course, this is all just me theorising; nothing is concrete, and plenty of it is probably just nonsense, but I wanted to get it out of my system :)

Thanks for getting to the end! Expect more analysis posts to come in the near future :)

#omori #omori unbread twins #omori doughie #omori biscuit #omori sunny #omori analysis #analysis #isolation #omori hero #omori aubrey #omori kel #omori omori #last resort #random thoughts #ramblings

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bluesthebest · 2 months

Note

Of all people Blue gets a visit from, the Acting-Arceus would have been far lower in the expectations list. And yet, Heidi is here with a box of all things. Popped into existence and everything.

"Hey there! Blue, right? You're Leaf's bro. Good to meet you. Name's Heidi -- I'm Leaf's girlfriend's mom." She chuckled. "Sorry for the sudden appearance. I got a lot of visits to make, so decided to skip calling and knocking and just pop in. Anyway, today's my birthdayyy. My sister and I made this big birthday cake for the two of us, but uh... it turned out to be way too large for even the residents in my Hall of Origin, so I've been going out and sharing some with friends and family. Soooo, I wanted to share some with you, too. Hope you like it."

She gifted Blue the box. Inside the box were several slices of birthday cake.

"Oh, and if you ever find yourself in Sinnoh, feel free to pay me a visit whenever you'd like either in my lounge in Route 216 or at Spear Pillar. A brother of Leaf's is a friend of mine~"

"Oh, uh, thanks" He wasn't sure how this woman found him but seems like she was part of Leafs family tree...Probably Leaf told her. He looked to his gift seeing a fairly light box. Was it food? The lycanroc sniffing at his hand seemed to think so.

Spear Pillar? Why there? Theres a lounge there now?...I may need to swing by that region again to check out what they're even talking about. That just sounds absurd ... Actually no... Rayquaza was there and this was his wife....

"I'll see if my calendars open next month and I'll swing by! Thanks for the gift! Do you want to come inside for some tea? "

He said with a smile trying to bat off his pokemon so he could move back inside to put the box in the fridge. Knowing his team needed to eat actual food first.

#ask reply #YAYAYA THANK YOUUU!!]#this is so sweet ;v;#mxstball

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shmowder · 3 months

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PATHOLOGIC CLASSIC ACQUIRED (imagine this in the Dark Souls font)

And here I thought getting Dishonored for $6 was a steal. I bought the Marble Nest too :) Tysm for making a post because I never would have known and there's no way I could pass that up <33 The "fetishized" dialogue afj;ag;a omg

How far into the Bachelor route are you now? Do you think it's best to start with Haruspex? Seems like Changeling is usually reserved for last. And also, does it take about as long to play as Pathologic 2 does?

I'm not sure if I'll start it right after P2 or not but I am excited to have it! My poor neglected Stardew farm :') Conveniently I stopped playing right before a storm was forecasted in my game and I don't have the lightning rod recipe yet... well that can wait, you might say I'm a little hyperfixated for the time being :D

🐿️ anon

WE ARE SO BACK

I may or may not have made that post to nudge some people in the right direction in case they missed the sale. You may or may not have been the person in mind.

Okay, yeah, the jig is up, I made it for you in case you didn't see the sale. Anyone else who ended up getting into patho Classic as a result of that post is also a very good bonus.

Woo congrats on getting the game!! And yes I definitely recommend starting with the haruspex's route since you're coming from P2. It's so fun walking through the first imagining of his story and seeing how different it is than the current P2 adaptation. You keep posting at people and things like "HEY I KNOW YOU. I SAW YOU BEFORE."

So many things are different and so many things stay the same. Artemy is still Artemy which I love.

Also here are some tips for starting the game for someone who came from P2 since some mechanics are switched around.

Most important

You can save Anywhere at Anytime ingame. There is also a quick save and a quick load option with buttons.

In P2 infected houses have the best loot. The opposite is true in P1. The burned houses and districts are the ones you want to be looting at. The infected houses only offer bullets and it's better to get those through trading with kids.

Unlike P2, you can get so many weapons early on, including a rifle, and it's a powerful weapon but can only hold one bullet before reloading. Aim for the head for a clean one-shot kill. Their bullets are the cheapest, shotguns are the next powerful thing, but their bullets are slightly more expensive. Pistols, however, are absolutely shit and you need at least three shots to kill someone with it. Their bullets are double if not triple the price of shotguns and rifles.

You can't trade normal townsfolks for food in P1. All their inventories only include bullets and medicine. You'll be mostly trading with kids while the adults repair your stuff for you in exchange for money, clothes, knives, gun, etc.

Only the gaurds trade you food in exchange for various drops you get from killing looters and bandits.

Otherwise, looting burned houses or healthy ones is your main source of food. There isn't a reputation cost for stealing in this game, so go wild! but the house residents will attack you... well, only the men would, the women run away. Even then, if you're not in the line of sight of the men or in the same room, then they don't come at you at all. If they do, dw they hit with the force of a wet tissue. However, killing them does have a penalty.

In P2 you could get into any house if you knock and your reputation is high enough, that doesn't work in P1. You need lockpicks to open the door to any house, even if your reputation is maxed. They're very cheap and you can keep a stock of them on hand.

There is NO penalty for death. No max health decrease or anything. Mark's snarky punchable face doesn't show up either thank god. Just a small cutscene plays and you're back to the loading screen so you can continue from your last saved point. Don't be afraid to die, it will never lock you out of an ending like in P2.

Personal advice

In the haruspex's route, herbs around the steppe are a permanent spawn, once in a playthrough deal. They don't regrow after you pick them up, and their locations are scripted. Your main source of herbs will be trading worms. You NEED blood to begin the trade once per day, even if you don't actually take anything. After it, you can freely trade them organs– including blood, animal meat, and milk–in exchange for herbs. The most valuable organ to harvest and trade is the heart. Not just any worms, either. There are only three in the whole map, and they live in small hats spread out through the steppe.

Swindle Andrey Stamatin as fast as you can if you wanna make BANK. That idiot overpays for your herbs with bullets and a shotgun. You can exchange 50 herbs (or 25 if you get the kind worth double the price that day) for a shotgun every day! then you can sell your abundance of shotguns to any shop in town. All shops have infinite money and will buy all of your trash no matter what.

Walking diagonally is slightly faster than walking straight forward. Walking directly to the sides is the slowest.

Don't bother to cure infected bounds that aren't yours. They won't die. wait until day 12 if you want to cure them so you don't risk them getting infected again.

Eggs suck as a source of food in this game, crackers and milk are meh too. Bread is the most cost/hungerfill efficient when you do buy food. All the meats come after.

You don't need to drink water at all! No thirst, but no sprint either. Still they are usefull to collect and fill to trade with drunks in exchange for bandages.

Remember that huge amount of dough you made off of the dumb dumb Andrey? Yeah, well, if you ever happen to murder... say a child or ten innocent civilians and spread them out on the street in front of the Bachelor house to send a clear message. THEN GOOD NEWS! You can quickly erect back your reputation faster than any pill of viagra ever could! with these gaint loads of cash money. Give these fat stacks to any begger passing by, and your plummeting reputation will be as brand as new.

Keep in mind that all the bounds will lie to you in P1 so much more than P2. People are meaner and more cunning. they're only looking out for their own hide rather than actually saving the town, yes even the ruling families. Trust no one. They will milk as many free favours as they could from you, so always make sure to pick the options where you ask for a reward in return and always push for more money than they first offer. You can snag a pistol as the bachelor if you annoy a person enough, and you can secure money from Maria as the haruspex on the first day if you play your cards right.

Do check Victoria's Olgimskaya grave on the first day, there is always bread and milk bottles there. They disappear on the second day however so steal them quickly.

You can catch rats by holding shift and sneaking up behind them, and then you can enslave those rats to gamble with in undergone rat racing communities run by underage kids in dog masks. That is the only way to earn real ethical money in all of pathologic. 300 per race won. It's also an absolute horeshit source of income that cannot even pay for a single egg.

Dialogue matters much more in P1 than it did in P2. You can lock yourself out of quests if you're rude to people or if you reveal too much. Always suck up and lie to others.

You can cheese all fights, even the hardest one in the whole game, without taking a single hit if you just immediately walk backwards after every punch you give. Basically, stay far from the person, then walk forward and press the hit button halfway through before you reach them. The animation will hit exactly as you reach them. Immediately start moving back so their own punch won't land. Some fights prevent you from using a gun, so this tactic helps a ton. In P2, it is impossible to win a fight against two people at once no matter what, but in P1, I easily took out 4 men on the first day with nothing but my fists. The combat is old school clunky, and it's very easy to take advantage of that.

You can climb over fences... or well, glitch over fences and other stuff if you try. All objects have sqaure hit boxes ingame, and if you jump towards the sharp corner of the invisible square hit box, then spam the jump button, you will climb it and land on top or the other side Be careful. However, if you jump inside a closed area, you'll need a sharp edge to climb back out. Otherwise, you're stuck for life. That's how I got trapped in the cow pen on my first day as the bachelor because I saw adorable cows and couldn't help hopping the fence.

Here is me stuck in the said cow pan, slowly starving to death while admiring the cows.

But I also got on top of the polyhedron with that method once hehe

scapels are useless. You don't need them to preform surgery either. Artemy can bear claw the organs out like it's nobody's business. Best to sell.

Rats will bite you, watch out! gun or knife them down before they tear the skin off of your ankles and infect you.

the prices rise immediately 10× times on the second day, then gradually drop and rise. They don't slowly double and triple like P2 on the second and third days... I found out the hard way when I bought food on day 2 in P1, thinking holy fuck I better hurry before they double 20×. Only for them to immediately drop to 5x the next day :)

Despite what all the youtubers claim, the jump button IS NOT useless. You can parkour around furniture and evade plague clouds easily. The game "AI" is extremely stupid and easy to trick. You are a human, they are not, take massive advantage of that and oursmart the AI by confusing it. Walk on furniture, turn around a corner, do a lap around the plague cloud.

If the clouds do corner you with no way out, make sure to stick to the wall when walking through them. This way, only very little of their hit box will actually touch you, and the game might turn a blind eye bc it's old programming, and if X ≠ Y then you get away without any immunity penality or risk of infection.

You are smart. They are not. This includes the hostile npc AI. You can get looters stuck on house walls very easily and have a sitting duck running in place, waiting for you to shoot it and put it out of its misery.

There is a special type of plague clouds in P1 that are called angel clouds. They are a rich orange and suddenly fly at you out of nowhere in the middle of the street. They are extremely fast and if you panic and run away then they get faster and catch up. The best way to evade them is to freeze, don't move a muscle or your character. They will hover over you for a couple seconds without infecting you, then disappear on their own.

While protective clothes and immunity pills worked perfectly in P2 as preventive methods against the plague, they are more of a vague suggestion to plague clouds in P1. Even if your immunity is full, you can still get infected by a cloud. The chance is low but never zero. Your protective gear does help but a very very small amount, until you get your hands on the good stuff when the army arrives! Those where the days where I'd empty every single house in infected areas from loot.

Here is a mod I use for the Ingame UI. It makes it much bigger and cleaner since the original Patho classic UI is extremely small for some reason, so are the icons. I was squinting at the screen so much until I decided to use this mode instead.

It's a straightforward deal modding patho classic. Just drag the mod folder into your ingame folder then click replace when the confirmation window pops up. You can access the ingame files by going to Steam->Pathologic classic HD->options->locate game folder->drag mod files into the folder titled "date"

It doesn't change any aspect ingame, just the UI scale and icons resolutions.

Here are also some maps that helped me tremendously!

I drew that heart on those two houses because they had two shmowder girlies in each one.

This is a map of all the herbs scripted spawn locations. Remember they don't regrow so cross them off of the map as you take them.

If all of this is too much and you just wanna play the game for the plot, then use the console commands!

I'm actually not sure how they work, I never used them. However, the free camera mode does sound intriguing, so maybe I'll try it after finishing all three routes!

Using them does disable steam achievements.

There is a god mode which makes you unable to die and a spawn item command. Check the wiki for more.

Now you made it through all of this? Great job on surviving! Here is me throwing you a bone in the form of Yulia content so you'd be more tempted to play tha game.

Look at all these pretty screenshots! Look at how polite she is with the haruspex! Literally, all the other characters either treat you as a charmless idiot or a dangerous ripper.

Victor blatantly tries to manipulate you once with the same tactics they use on cocomelon by slowly walking you through the current events and explaining how they are not going to your benefits, so maybe you should do something? He has zero faith in Artemy that conversation was so hilarious. Victor kept giving walls of texts, and all of Artemy's replies were different forms of "huh...why?" or "nah"

At the end, he just gives up on you. Like fr it was a long stretched out painful conversation for him... and Artemy just stood there, twiddling his thumbs, clearly not listening to a single thing or understanding the heavy implications.

Forget not reading between the lines. Victor gave him a condensed heavy summary worth a noble prize in literature that he must have spent all night revising and rewriting, only for Artemy to not even glance at the title.

Then, it abruptly ends like that. Victor doesn't insult you. He doesn't get angry or bothered when you–Artemy–manage to somehow beat the odds and perform even worse than the low bar of expectations set for you. He just shuts his mouth and quiets down, accepting that some people's skulls are too thick for manipulation.

It is especially double the funny when you start the bachelor route and see the contrast in how Victor treats him. Suddenly, he's using euphemism and rhetorics. He basically convinces you, the player and the bachelor, to do his bidding in very little words. Daniil himself walks into this trap with his own blabbering mouth because Victor knows that man can't resist yapping.

Artemy gets the gogo gaga treatment from Victor while Daniil gets subjected to manipulation tactics that are considered war crimes by governments all over the world.

And not just Victor, even the judge tries a different approach to get Artemy to work for the Kains once. The candy approach where he butters you up, Artemy immediately recoils when he is called "master Burakh" and has to stop himself from throwing up with every sentence the judge speaks. Polite talk and prestigious compliments make the haruspex breaks out in a rash and the judge's plan backfires when you tell him to fuck off and mind his own business before storming away.

Finally it's Maria's turn who already made a very bad impression by blatantly insulting Artemy in a pub thinking he is some random hobo. Now she is suddenly sweet and a damsel in distress who needs the big strong steppe man to go retrieve a simple dairy for her.

She fails to mention how the dairy is guarded by three arson enthusiasts fanatics who are rudely insistence about shoving their fire molotovs down your throat.

When Artemy obviously refuses, she is the only one smart enough... and desperate enough out of the Kains to reach for the low hanging fruit.

MONEY.

She basically tells him yeah yeah i get it, just stfu and bring me the dairy and I'll pay you.

Artemy says nuh uh double it or nothing.

And she does, and it makes the molotov impalement sting slightly less <3

The Kains realised something that day, that it is possible for a human to be so dense that it comes back all the way around to absolute manipulation immunity. Three failed attempts in a row, they humiliated themselves and had to take the L and go to bed.

Meanwhile, the damsel act actually gets the bachelor to speak this sentence out loud during his first ever meeting with Maria Kaina.

Daniil meeting Maria Kaina for the first time:

The same Daniil, literally 5 seconds after:

HOLY MOLY DANKOVSKY CALM THE BEAST DOWN, HER UNCLE WAS JUST MURDERED AND YOUR DIGNITY WON'T LAST TO THE END OF THE WEEK IF YOU KEEP OFFERING IT TO THE KAINS ON A SILVER PLATTER.

First Victor gets him to willingly walk into a trap and lowers his guard.

Then the judge runs circles around him and makes Daniil think that it was his own idea to want to investigate the murder then sends him off to Victor again with a slap on the ass for good luck.

Then it's Victor's turn again who sends him off into the night with a dismissive wave after realising the famous Bachelor of medicine is as prone to manipulation as he is to bad fashion statements.

FINALLY MARIA GETS HIM and makes a joke out of him in the span of 5 seconds. All she has to do is pout a bit and Daniil is already stuffing himself into the nearest armor suit to be her saviour white knight.

EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THEM. IS. LYING.

This isn't me speculating! This is legit what's happening. The Kains lie,

They themselves tell Daniil that they are lying.

More than once!

To his own face!!

The Judge tells him in the first meeting that all the heads families will try to manipulate him and conceal the truth, that he should never ever take anyone's words for granted, including the Kains themselves.

And what does Daniil Dankovsky say?

"Wow you're so upfront and honest!!! Well, that just makes me trust you even more <33 I am definitely picking the right option by putting my complete faith in family that suspiciously resembles a textbook definition of a cult, what could ever go wrong??"

I want to scream at him. I want to reach into the screen, grab his shoulders and just SHAKE. shake him until his brain falls back into place because it must have gotten lodged somewhere during the bumpy train ride here.

"Oh bohoo Aglaya manipulated me :"( Artemy you must knife her rn"

No Daniil. She didn't. You manipulated your goddamn self. Saying she did it implies an active effort on her part.

This man would look at a grandfather clock and immediately fall into a hypnosis. Scatch that, even a cuckoo clock would do the job. The next day he wakes up with bread crumbs all over his suit and eggs–that are suspiciously warm–under his blanket.

Don't you understand? It's not his fault!! THE WOODEN BIRD MANIPULATED HIM INTO IT! WHAT WAS HE SUPPOSED TO DO?

#♧other #♧🐿 anon

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melancholysway · 2 years

Note

I'm an hypocrite who promised herself not to hound you and yet here I am again! I'm putting this here, answer it or not at your leisure: S/O never actually told the turtle "I love you" even though they are together. Then it comes out of the blue during an ordinary day and moment and S/O get so overwhelmed by having said it they just spill out every reason why they love their turtle. Even shutting them up if they try to say something because they're on an emotional roll and have to get to the end of it before hearing any reply.

Hi! I’m so sorry this took so long! I haven’t had the time lately to just sit down and write with work & all, so hopefully this is what you had in mind??

TMNT (Mix) Imagines: Spilling Your Feelings

2007!Leonardo

I have a love-hate relationship with 2007 Leo omg

It’s been hard, holding it in

Leo came back from his training, and the first thing he does after saying hello to his family is come see you

He jumps rooftop to rooftop like he used to do before he left, remembering your route by heart

He comes over to that window he’s so accustomed to, and knocks on it like old times

You can’t wait to see him, and you almost trip from running to the window to open it, and he’s just there.

Standing and looking at you, smiling widely and coming inside just to give you a long-awaited bear hug

Leonardo is back, and nothing could get any better than that.

“I missed you,” You say while he rubs your back, “I really, really missed you Leo.”

“I’ve missed you more, love.” Ugh, you loved it when he called you that. It was also important to point out that neither of you had said it yet, the “I love you.”

That is, until Leonardo gets comfortable, and you both decide to catch up by cuddling on your bed and watching a movie.

It’s just like before he left, he’s still the same goofball you fell for before he left for training. He’s still the same caring, loving, amazing boyfriend. He hasn’t changed. He’s visibly stronger, yes, but he’s still the same Leo you’ve come to know and love.

Once the movie’s finished, you both just lay together, becoming one while he talks of the many stories from South America.

The people he’s seen, the things he’s done, everything. It’s amazing, that Leo was able to experience something to nice as travel. It was secluded, yes, but he was able to see sights that wasn’t New York City.

“I understand if you didn’t…want to wait for me.” He knew it, that sometimes people get lonely and need someone there for comfort. But, not you. You were devoted to Leo no matter what.

“Leo,” You always hated when he says selfless things like that, he deserves to know his worth. He’s worthy of love. “I love you, I don’t care how long I had to wait to see you again and-”

Uh oh.

As a shocked look is plastered on Leo’s face, he can’t help but ask.

“You…love me? Even after I left like that?”

Well…yeah, you do.

Now, Leo hasn’t told you he loved you either. But after that whole trip abroad, the training, the long nights of just thinking. How you were so supportive of him to go and be a better leader and version of himself, despite not being able to see or touch him for a few months.

Or rather, a year. He prolonged his stay, although it meant he wouldn’t see you for longer.

But, you waited. You still waited for Leo, had hope that he was okay when he stopped sending you and his family letters. You waited when April said she found him deep in the jungle, and you waited when you had a gut feeling Leo would be coming home soon thanks to her.

You both just sit there next to each other, and you just let it out.

“I do, Leo, I…I love you. I missed you so much that I just wanted you to come home.”

He just listens to you, he listens as you continue to spill your feelings out to him without saying a word.

You start feeling anxious, because Leonardo hasn’t said anything.

Too soon? No, you’ve been together for about a year now.

If anything, you’re surprised you haven’t said it sooner. But, with Leo being gone and all, it just made you realize how you truly felt.

Your boyfriend just sees your face looking concerned, and he immediately does what reassures you.

He takes your small hands into his bigger ones, and kisses you softly on the lips.

“I love you, too.” He does, Leo truly loves you. You waited this long for him to come back that, oh my gosh, who else would do that for him?

“Thank you for waiting for me.”

Bayverse!Raphael

You literally started dating Raph like…a month ago. One month. It’s been a month.

A fucking month.

But you had this feeling about him that you seriously couldn’t shake. You loved him.

Well, of course you did, he’s your boyfriend, but, were you really going to keep it in until he said it first?

It might be an eternity before you hear Raph says that he loves you

He’s never usually vocal about his emotions, he’s an action guy.

He’s definitely shown you that he loves you, but he hasn’t said it.

You continue being (trying to be at least) cool around him. But it’s so hard. Especially when he has that smexy handsome smirk everytime you speak to him or how he gives you that forehead kiss everytime you come over to the lair and just

UGH

It’s gonna be so much harder than you think.

You’re now at your peak for wanting to tell Raph that you love him, but you seriously try your hardest not to.

I know, try not to tell your boyfriend you love him, weird, right?

Raph is a pretty good communicator, though like I said, his actions are what define him. He’d rather show you than just tell you. He knows that words are just words.

You try and at least get through this day in the lair trying not to tell him. You’re restraining yourself so much that Raph takes notice of how uncomfortable you look.

“You okay? Ya stopped countin.” Raph stops mid push-up to tend to you, but now you’re sort of on the spot with him.

“I uh, um, no.”

“What’s tha matta babe?”

He’s just teasing at this point. Without even realizing it.

And when he gets up and just looms over you like his brothers do, you seemingly crumble.

“Fine! I love you! You squeezed it out of me, happy?!”

Okay, RUDE. Raph just gives you a confused look, as you weren’t one to raise your voice or get mad at him.

“When did I-” “You knew what you were doing! You’re just over there doing push ups looking so hot- what did you think I was thinking?!”

Raphael just stares at you. He isn’t sure what to say, considering you’re on a roll (no butter)

He gets like that, too. He just goes on and on and on and on, until you just stop him from riling himself up or getting angry.

You just need to be calmed down. That’s what you always did with him after he got stuff off his chest.

“Y/n, cal-” “I won’t calm down! I know it’s been a month and all, but seriously, I love you, Raph.” That’s what you had to get off your chest.

“Ya know I love ya too, right?” Raph thought he was doing pretty good at showing that.

“I…yeah…you just never said it.”

And that’s where you and Raph find common ground.

“Just cause I ain’t say it, doesn’t mean I don’t love ya.” You’re calming down, and after that whole ordeal, you tell him that you would like to hear it sometimes. So you feel comfortable saying it to him.

Raph was still getting used to being in a relationship. Although he likes to do things his way, there may be times where he has to lean towards doing it how you prefer it. One of these things being vocal. It’s taking him out of his comfort zone, but if it makes you happier, he’ll do it. It’s not a crime to tell your s/o that you love them on top of showing them.

2003!Donatello

Dating Donatello has been absolutely peaceful. He’s probably the most easygoing turtle you knew. He just…invents things, then shows you when he’s done because he’s so excited to share it

Aside from inventing or fixing things, he loves to spend his time with you whilst doing them

You begin to pull all nighters as Donnie’s lab assistant, and honestly, the 3am talks go a little like this:

“If I was a worm, would you still love me?”

“I’d probably step on you by accident,”

“Donnie!”

Or something like:

“Do you think Walt Disney is in cryosleep right now?”

“Y/n, do you think we’re in a stimulation? I’m feeling a little…NPCish.”

It’s super cute, but some of the conversations are pretty odd.

However, one night while helping Donnie, you’re both feeling flirty and lovey that you just outright say it as you throw in the towel and go take a nap on the couch in the lab.

“Donnie…I…love you.” Okay, you’ve only been dating for a few months, and neither of you had said it yet.

Donnie was nervous it was too soon, so he kept it to himself. But, it was obvious. Terribly obvious that he loved you without even having to say it. You just didn’t realize it. But boy, his brothers did.

You begin to drift off into sleep, before you could even hear what Donnie had said.

But, when you wake up, you sort of think it was a dream. Donnie greets you as usual, on his 10th cup of coffee, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

“Hey, love.” Donnie says, tinkering with a new device in his hands, “How’d you sleep?”

You’re unsure if you told Donnie, or if he’s just unfazed, but, whatever it is, you have to know.

“Diditellyouilovedyoulastnight?” You say quickly, yet Donnie understood every word.

“Well…yeah, you don’t remember? It w-” “I don’t remember,” here comes the rambling, “was that too soon? It’s not like I didn’t mean it, but, if it’s too soon I’ll like, take it back or-”

“Woah, Y/n! Calm down, I think you knocked out and didn't hear my reply.” Donnie smiles, trying to soothe you and calm your nerves. It wasn’t too soon.

“I said that I loved you too. Though judging by the drool and the confused look on your face, you had no idea.”

Though you glare at your boyfriend while you wipe the corner of your mouth, you smile back, feeling relieved.

It’s not like there’s a time limit on how long you should wait before saying ‘I love you,’ in fact, lots of couples realize their love for each other before being in a relationship together. This may have been the case with Donnie, since he gets feelings pretty quickly.

It wasn’t like you weren’t friends before being together. It’s why you and Donnie had been working so well. You knew what he liked and disliked, as he did with you. Being friends for a year and change truly makes a difference here.

You loved Donnie, and you were so glad he felt the same.

2012!Michelangelo

Saving the world from an alien invasion definitely deserves some recognition

After saving April, and the whole fight between Splinter and Shredder, a lot of things are revealed and left unsaid, but now, it’s just time to unwind

Mikey suggests a party, and as Splinter meditates in his room, the dojo floor is all yours

You try (and lose terribly) to a dance-off against Raph, and you watch as Donnie’s only safe move is the sprinkler to try and impress April

You all eat all the pizza you can like it’s going out of style, and once it’s done and everyone is crashed on the couch in the living space, you and your boyfriend still have energy for days and agree to skateboard on the rooftop

It’s super dangerous btw, don’t ever do this

But who cares, right?

“Yolo, am I right?” No, Mikey, you’re not right.

If you don’t know how to skateboard, you gon learn tonight.

But if you do, awesome!

If you don’t, Mikey would gladly teach you, and once you get the hang of it, you start having fun, without the thought of falling on your mind.

You’re both enjoying each other’s company like you usually do, and the atmosphere is just so fun and alien-free that, you realize in this moment you love Mikey.

So, should you tell him?

Mikey has actually been telling you that he loved you for quite awhile ever since beginning to date, but you never truly said it back. You weren’t sure. Plus, Mikey is always quick to spill how he feels, and it came so easy.

You, not so much.

You start to overthink it mid-skate that one of the wheels gets stuck thanks to a rock, and now you’re basically making out with the rooftop concrete.

“Oh no! Y/n! Are you okay?!” Mikey, being the loving guy he is, runs straight to you and helps you up, with a look of concern on his face. His baby blue eyes just stare at your form, and once you sit up and you tell him you’re all good, you just say it.

And his face lights up. He understood why you didn’t say it in the beginning of the relationship. I mean, it started off by you saying you liked him, and after a few weeks, he came out and told you that he was beginning to love you. And boom, Mikey x Y/n around the Lair if you will

Though his brothers wonder what exactly you see in him, you just smile and tell them you just see a loving guy who’s so ready to give out all the love

He could die from happiness! He can finally rub it in Raph’s face that he’s the first one out of the four to get a human to love him (sorry Donnie,)

Take that, Raph!

Taglist:

@bee-1n-space

Masterlist

#tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #raphael #leonardo #donatello #tmnt 2012 #bayverse tmnt #tmnt imagines #tmnt x reader #bayverse raph #tmnt fanfiction

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yjano · 2 years

Text

Who I am now?

Part 6.

Pairing: Jake x Mc.

Genre: Angst, comedy, dark romance.

Warnings: Strong language, angst scenes. 18+ content can be found.

Words: 6.6k

Author's note: This story contains mature topics and is not fully related to the duskwood game. A different parallel with different personalities. Thank you everyone for following and liking this! lly.♡ ps. big reveal in the end.

•

Mc focus.

The warm sunshine awakes me from my small nap, and my heavy eyelids lift. I winced at the sunlight beaming down on my eyes. I started to look around quickly, blinking several times to adjust my dreary eyes to the sudden lighting.

What happened? I lifted my head to take a grip on my surroundings. I was laying on the back of a rusty blue pickup truck, messily strewn yellow straw and sawdust. The sight before my eyes made me sit up to see green fields on either side of me, clusters of cows and goats grazing outside under a wondrously blue-colored sky. The pickup truck judders along the road amongst many other similar trucks, all holding a variety of items in the back; vegetables, goats, plants, piles of hay, etc.

"What the fuck?" I exclaimed over the many animal noises, the blare of country music on radios, and the beeping horns.

"Fuck, sleeping beauty's up." I heard someone behind me curse under his breath. I whipped my head around to see Jace lying casually on the straw, arms folded behind his head and looking straight up at the sky.

I glowered at the male through half-lidded eyes. I could've escaped if you hadn't threatened me. You are a piece of shit. I mentally cursed him, fisting handfuls of scratchy straw, picking the dried stalks up, and pelting them at him.

"Why do you keep knocking me unconscious, you piece of shit?" I grunted, bombarding the guy with handfuls of straw repeatedly. "I was so close to escaping and then you had to get your damn gun out, you son of a-"

"Mc, plea-"

"I was ready to go home and see my friends again, I was ready to send you to jail! You fucking ruined it, you dick!" I now yelled, grabbing large amounts of straw to hurl at him, he responded by shielding his arms to block off my attacks.

"I wanna go home too! I don't wanna fucking deal with my doubts about you too- god, I had to give up my damn car because the police officer was on to me because of our fucking misunderstanding!" Now he shouted back, grabbing his side straw to throw back at me. But he immediately stopped when he saw my reaction.

"Oh, fuck you and your stupid car! If you're so tired of me, fucking drop me off right here-"

"I can't do that." He grunted, practically tearing his hair off his head in frustration, "Why can't you just stay quiet? Why'd you have to fucking try to escape every damn minute?"

I feel a small amount of...guilt? Yes, guilt settled into the pit of my stomach but then I remembered Jace kidnapping me, knocking me unconscious twice, putting me in his car boot, starving me for a day, and the other things he has done and the guilt inside me transformed into anger immediately.

"Fuck you."

After twenty minutes of silence, driving, and simply sitting there in a bundle of hay, I decided to speak up.

"Who's driving this truck?"

Jace doesn't turn around when he answered.

"The truck drivers from inside the chicken shop thought you fainted and wanted to help. I said our car was dead so they're giving us a lift to the next town."

I digested the information for a second before replying. "The next town?"

"The driver's taken a different road than the one we're meant to take-we've gone completely off route and because we've ditched the car," Jace grumbled, giving me a side-eye. "We're gonna be extra slow getting to our destination."

I shifted my gaze down at my lap, thinking about the situation I was in, I don't know if that was a good thing or not. It means I won't get hurt right now when we're in the truck but it also means being stuck with him for

Five-eight minutes later, I looked over at Jace who was sitting silently, facing away from me too busy watching the scenery pass by as whoever was driving the pickup truck trundles down the road.

I spotted something in the corner of my eye a greasy-looking plastic bag sitting beside Jace's backpack captured my attention. The fried chicken takeaway.

Without another thought, I leaned over and pulled the first box out of the bag, cranking open the styrofoam lid to reveal cold fries and chicken.

I was eats quickly, hunger overwhelming me as my eyes shifted over the food I was demolishing. Soon enough, I finished the junk food and with a growl from my insatiable stomach. I eyed the second box with shiny eyes.

It's probably Jace's. I quickly took the second box and immediately started to eat. Fuck him, he starved me for one whole day. I'm allowed to eat his food. I munched viciously on a couple of fries and shoot daggers at Jace's back.

"Are you eating my food?" a voice cuts through the silence settled between us. I looked up and through a mouthful of chicken, grunted out a "Yes."

I patiently waited for the curses, the insults to be spitted at me but Jace just muttered out quiet. "Enjoy it."

Well maybe I shouldn't have eaten his food...

JD focus.

Two and a half cigarettes later, the decrepit truck finally judders to a halt outside a small town based in the countryside.

I stood up, brushing sawdust and any stray strands of hay off of my jeans. I walked to the edge of the truck, jumping off neatly before leaning over again to grab my backpack. I gazed up to see Mc watching me carefully, eyes narrowed in a glare.

Rolling my eyes, I hauled my backpack onto my shoulder.

"You coming?" I asked her boringly. She just responded with an irritated pout but climbs off. Once I saw her on the ground I took the sleeve of her shirt in my grip, tugging her along with me.

After a second of being in Mc's close presence, I concluded that she seems to have chosen the decision of sulking. Now the girl sulks to the maximum - pouting, grunting incoherent disses and purposefully lagging in her footsteps to annoy me. However, It didn't affect me at all, instead with patience straining I calmly dragged the aggravating Mc to the front of the pickup truck where the driver and owner of the truck beam at Mc.

"Good to see you're okay now, sunny!" he cheered, tipping his grubby baseball cap at Mc who reluctantly smiles back, mumbling "Thank you for the ride."

"Thanks for the ride, man, you helped us out." I thanked them, feeling grateful.

The truck driver grinned.

"No problem, kids. You lovebirds stay safe now, yeah?" The guy said as he turned halfway to climb back into his truck.

I genuinely smiled, waving at the man and feeling truly thankful if it weren't for the truck driver, the police officer would've quickly realized that Mc had been the one to call him and then would've remembered and tracked down my car's number plate, arrested me and called the FBI.

As soon as the truck driver drives away, I heard Mc slowly question. "What does he mean by lovebirds?"

"Told him we were a couple to gain his pity." I replied simply, tugging her sleeve to motion for her to walk along.

Mc focus.

"You could've just said we were friends or something." I grumbled, still in a bad mood.

Jace shrugged.

"It was the first thing that came into my head - eh, whatever." he replied nonchalantly as he turned around. I followed his actions, turning around and readying myself to argue another point with him.

My sulking act vanishes into thin air when my eyes met with the bright colors, the frenzied patterns, the many different things on display, the smiles on people's faces-everything set before my eyes excited and appealed to me. It made me that I was supposed to be in a sulk.

All around us, people talk. Tiny kids chatter noisily and playfully run around in and out of stalls, old women yell at flustered stall owners to lower the prices for their cabbages or carrots, etc, and men, coming back from the fields, stomp their muddy boots into the ground as they chuckle and carry today's crops on their backs.

JD focus.

"Woah." Mc breathed out as she walked a little ahead, wanting to immerse herself in the scene as well. But my grip on her shirt sleeve stops her. She slowly turned around to see my eyes boring into hers. "Don't try to-"

"-Escape? I know, I know, I just wanna get a closer look." Mc murmurer distractedly. Turning around to survey the hectic scene before her again.

"We're passing by so you can see all you want-" I didn't get to finish because I was suddenly thrown forward, uncooperative Mc dragged me behind her, towards the marketplace, tumbling and pulling me and herself into the loud throng.

Momentarily, I can't see Mc amongst the people crowded around me. Only the feeling of Mc's sleeve in my hand keeps me reassured. I pushed past several people to maneuver my way in what I hoped was Mc's direction. A few seconds later I found myself standing beside Mc who ignored my heavy breathing and grunts, only focusing on the stall's contents with glazed eyes.

"They sell chocolate cupcakes here?" She exclaimed, standing on tiptoe to get a better look at the stall specifically selling cupcakes. I regarded her with a crease between my eyebrows.

Does she remember?

I shook my head in disbelief. Stop this crap. You can't give up.

"Oh! they're selling steak for so cheap! That's incredible!" Mc gasped, walking over and dragging me along behind her...again.

"Mm, very incredible." I rolled my eyes as yet another person jabs their elbow into my side. I had to compress my irritation and refrain from jabbing the person back.

I sighed heavily as I tried to tug Mc into the direction we are supposed to go but Mc pulled away, digging further and further into the crowd.

"Mc-"

"Look at those bracelets! They're handmade." She smiled widely looking at them.

"Look, Mc-" I started but Mc cut me once again.

"Woah! Look at these face masks!" She pointed out with a grin on her face. I followed her gaze to see a bunch of different V for vendetta movie masks. I used to wear them too...

"Hey."

Her smile slightly falters and her eyes contain a faraway look embedded deep in her irises, as if in deep thought.

"Jake loved that movie." She murmured to herself and I managed to hear her over the cacophony of the market shoppers and stall owners.

"He always told me, he'd give the world away to just see me smile." She trailed off with a sigh. She shook her head a little before planting a smile on her face.

"They must sell clothes here?" She asked as she started to wander off again.

"Hey, Mc-" I frowned, looking at her.

Mc led me a little closer to a stall where a man stands guard over what looks like a bunch of messed clothes.

"What a mess, unlucky me." Mc murmured in a sad tone as she trailed a fingertip over one of the dirty shirt. I hovered around behind her, impatiently looking around but Mc takes no notice, busy picking clothes.

I was about to yell at the next person who pushed into me, grunting out "Yes, yes, fucking messy."

And finally, with a roll of my eyes, I managed to lead a disheartened Mc away from the hubbub and into the the next street. A much quieter and calm street than the previous one.

"Sit here whilst i sort out a few things," I ordered, pulling my phone out of my jeans pocket and pointing at a bench for Mc to sit on. She simply just ignored me staring at kids playing and laughing together.

"Oh, how cute." She hummed, plonking herlself onto the swing seat. I took a deep breath before following her over to the swing set, anger threatening to spill.

Her eyes glazed again when I came to stand by the swing set. I followed her gaze to her looking on over a couple who were munching on picnic food.

"They're having couple picnic." Mc voiced with a small smile on her face. "I never had it, I only wished to have a picnic with Jake just for once at least," Mc stated as I regarded her with a raised eyebrow.

"What's up with you?" I questioned, wanting to know. "You haven't had a picnic before? And Jake? What about him?" I queried, looking down at the phone my hand.

Mc shook her head, blankly.

"I've never experienced them. I never had my family to be there for me. I never had a person to do things for me but then Jake brightened my life. His entrance in my life got me feeling alive again." She said brightly looking at the couple.

"Have you ever met him?" I asked as I was googling vehicles free to take me and Mc to their destination. Train? Walk? Bus maybe? But then again just the way Mc described him made me trying not to lose it and give in.

Mc tilted her head up to the sky slightly.

"No, but it didn't bother me at all. I felt his presence throughout the phone and it made me feel happy. You have no idea what Jake had done for me." Mc murmured, now looking down at the gravel between her two feet. "But then when Richy burned the mine, he disappeared and so did Richy. They haven't found anybody which gave me hope. But it's been 5 months already and Jake hasn't texted me yet."

"All my friends told me to move on because Jake wasn't coming back anymore. But-" She sighed looking away with a sad smile plastered over her face.

Looking up from the bus timetable I was currently studying, I voiced out.

"You shouldn't give up on your love just because others lost their hope for Jake." Just the moment I said it I regretted it.

"You don't know him by any chance?"

"How would I know him?" I rolled my eyes dismissing hopeful Mc's expression easily and continued to read whatever was written on my phone, not listening anymore. The more I listened the easier I was giving myself revealed.

"The image you've created in your head of Jake can be wrong." I mumbled, giving her a look. Her face stiffened, her beautiful eyes got wider and mouth opened slightly.

Mc focus.

Hearing his words, my blood began to boil inside. The fucking kidnapper is telling me the imagine of Jake in my head can be wrong? He doesn't even know Jake and what he had done for me.

"I can tell that you think someone like Jake could be not so perfect as he is to me but you're wrong. Jake worked hard to find his sister. He stayed up for so many nights trying to solve the case on his own. I can tell you Jake missed his breakfasts, lunches, and dinners just so I could have extra time to work with him on the case. Just imagine trying to sleep and being in fear of someone barging inside your room and suing you for something you did in the past." I laughed painfully, glaring at him, "Just imagine the stress. And how much he gave away for others' happiness. He was so careless because of me. He went into the mine because of me. I should've gone there but he didn't let me. He risked his life to save mine."

"Do you know how many times I've sat on my bathroom floor crying because he risked his life for me? Do you know how many times I've thrown up due to stress? Do you know that my own family doesn't love me and Jake was the one to convince me to try to talk to them?" I gripped the swing set chains on either side of me and continue to speak, unable to shut my mouth and stop my rant after spilling so much information already.

"Jake is not a bad guy, neither do he look down on people. So tell me how my image of him could be wrong? Why no one else tries to see the real Jake? He has emotions just like anyone else. He loses himself to save another. He'd never let me get hurt, JD." I finally finished speaking. During my mini-speech, I hadn't bothered to look at Jace but now I look up to see Jace watching me carefully, brows furrowed the slightest bit and his lips tugged into a thin line.

I froze. What... are you doing? Did you just tell a stranger your life story and problems? Why? What's he gonna do with your problems? He's your freaking kidnapper not an agony friend from a magazine or something.

"Oh my god, why'd I tell you all that?" I asked myself, mortified at the information I just blabbed out.

God, couldn't I have just kept quiet and made another escape plan in my head or something?

Now embarrassed and feeling a little awkward I cough out a laugh. "Well, don't know where that came from. You should just, uhm forget it." I admitted, chuckling to cover up my embarrassment.

With cheeks still glowing red from embarrassment, I board the bus and stand awkwardly behind Jace who purchased tickets from the bus driver, conversing lowly whilst I fidgeted. I ignored whatever Jace was asking the driver and looked around the bus' neat interior- it's clean enough, only occasional food wrappers litter the linoleum floor but otherwise, the choice of transport looks kinda comfy. The navy-colored seats are mainly stained free and no dodgy people seem to hang out in the back. The vehicle's only occupants are three other passengers, an elderly man, and a young girlfriend with a boyfriend who sits together. Their fingers interlocked as they exchange sickeningly sweet smiles with each other. Jealousy that's what I felt. I wanted Jake to be here.

"Go to the back." I swiftly jerked my head back to face Jace at the sound of his voice. The aforementioned uncomfortably stare down at me, glinting eyes boring into my face as he waited for me to make a move. I gulped at the proximity but nodded, turning away to walk down the aisle with Jace hot on my feet.

I took the window seat at the back and settled down into the cushioned chair, leaning my heavy head against the top of my seat whilst watching the people move around outside. I sighed at the sight. Wanting to walk right out of the bus and wander back down the street towards the bustling marketplace to further explore.

I looked away, my eyes flitting to Jace's if that's even his real name. Maybe he faked his id? He was still standing shrugging off his backpack without looking or saying a word to me. His was face completely neutral. He hadn't said anything or looked at me once since my sudden outburst and now I remembered the expression printed on his face when I had accidentally blabbed to him about my life and even Jake.

He looked serious, less angry-frowny, and kinda...concerned, worried?

I shook my head, incredulous at the very thought of Jace being concerned about me. Concerned? No, he probably just pitied me after all the sad shit I ranted to him, of course, he'd feel some sort of pity. I was waiting for the man who was not giving me any sign of him being okay. I sighed, looking back out of the window.

JD focus.

I took a seat at the back too, but kept two seats free in between me and mc, using one as a seat for my backpack. I settled down into the seat and folded my arms over chest, waiting patiently for the bus driver to start up the bus.

Soon enough, the vehicle judders to a start and courses slowly down the road-normally the 'slow and boring' speed of a bus would annoy me but today, right now, I revel in the relaxing pace, leaning my head against the seat and closing my tired eyes. I plan to take a small nap on the bus since I'd only managed to grab a couple of hours of sleep last night but my thoughts don't allow me to. One after the other. Thoughts start to wander into my head, taking up my mind's interior without my permission.

Is she waiting for that response for that long?

I opened my eyes to look at Mc warily through the corner of my vision. Mc doesn't seem to notice the pair of my eyes scrutinizing her and she continued to watch the trees and fields flit by outside in silence.

I mentally shake my head, why am I thinking about what she said? She said forget it, so forget it.

I closed my eyes but of course, the thought reappears unwillingly inside my head. Sighing frustratedly, I opened my eyes once more and fixate my gaze on the empty seat in front of me.

She said she throwing up due to stress. She said she'd starve herself and lose sleep just to find more time with Jake too.

My gaze returned to her figure, eyeing the girl with guilt building up inside me. Did she really spend her five months waiting?

Sighing, I grudgingly admitted to myself that I am the one at fault for making her turn into this sad person with hopes ahead in her life.

I looked over at Mc again. For god's sake, she got super excited just by looking at a fucking stall selling chocolate cupcakes.

Shaking my head I attempted to sleep again by closing my eyes and slowing my breathing rate but unfortunately, my mind produced yet another thought. I wonder what other things she hadn't been able to do without him, her perfect imagine Jake. I wondered, tapping my foot against the metal floor of the bus, thoughtfully.

Mc focus.

"Mc, what other things haven't you done without Jake?" Jace abruptly broke the silence.

I swiveled my head to face him, eyes blinking as I was thinking through Jace random question.

"Uh well, I've never been to a Chinese restaurant Jake wanted to take me out, I have never been in an amusement park, Jake promised to take me there someday. I've never seen the ocean and sunset with him in real life. I've never gotten drunk before together with him or gone to one of these friends meeting parties that we talked about-"

"Okay okay, write them down. Here." He shoves his hand into his hoodie pocket, rifling through the contents to retrieve the two bus tickets, he handed a crumpled one to me before handing me a pen from his backpack pocket.

I watched him do all this with confusion in my eyes. I eyed the items with furrowed brows and before I could question the pen and paper in my palms, Jace tersely cuts in.

"Write down all the things you haven't done before with him and you wanna do. Write a maximum of um... six." He ordered, looking away as soon as he finished talking.

I blinked my eyes at the piece of paper and the black ballpoint pen in my hand and then regards the guy with a careful look. Feeling pretty perplexed but not wanting to ask and bug him, I turned away quietly and flipped the bus ticket to show the plain side of the card. I placed the bus ticket on my thigh and hunched over to write down the things he asked.

JD focus.

It took a whole half hour for Mc to write down her list. She chewed the pen top unconsciously whilst thinking hard and constantly crossing out items on her list, but finally, she produced a complete list and handed it over to me. My eyes flitted over the words written in neat writing.

This is such a bad idea. Fuck you.

"Number one, dance in the rain." I look up upon reading the first thing on Mc's list and raised both my eyebrows at her who pressed her lips and turned away from my amused facial expression, her cheeks turned into a rosy color.

"I always wanted to do with him, to see him have fun and relax in the rain." She muttered, looking away, embarrassed.

"Okay." This is such a bad, bad, bad idea, idiot. "Number two, cook together. Could do that." I nodded to myself slowly.

Mc looks up at me, surprised.

"Wait, we're gonna do all these things? You and me?" I didn't respond, instead, I started reading the other ones.

"Number three, get drunk together. We can arrange that yeah."

I could've seen the slight smile plastering her face. Cute.

"Hm...Number four, have my first kiss with Jake."

I look at Mc get red as a tomato, hurriedly looking away.

"Don't say anything." She mumbled, her awkward fingers fidgeting in her lap as her ears turned a bright shade of red.

I stifled a small smile and read the next one.

"Number five, spend a day at the amusement park. That's simple enough, okay."

"Number six, sit around a campfire at night on the beach and watch the sunset. Hmm, okay is that all-" Suddenly I spotted something written in small under number 6.

"Number seven? Meet with Jake." I slowly stated as I squinted at the tiny script. I looked up at Mc who made a strangled noise and completely pressed her front against the bus wall, her cheeks, tips of ears, and neck burning an agitated red color.

"I was supposed to cross that one out." She whisper-shouted, cringing.

I cleared my throat loudly, staring at her.

"Don't know about the last one but I think we can do all these things before we reach our destination." I muttered, folding and tucking away her bucket list into my hoodie pocket.

She coughed and regained her posture, sitting rigid in her seat.

"So we're doing all six?" She asked gently.

"Don't you mean seven?" I asked, and this time I don't bother to stifle my grin. Mc groaned and covered her burning face with her tiny hands, mumbling about how damn annoying I was.

This is a very bad idea. It's not too late to back out-

"We're gonna take advantage of the fact that we're off route and do some things you haven't been able to do before," I explained, tugging my cap a little lower over my face before leaning against my seat and folding my arms over my chest.

"I'm gonna take a half-hour nap, don't wake me up, and don't try anything funny," I muttered, closing my eyes.

Mc focus.

Speechless, surprised, stupefied. I blankly stared at Jace.

"We're gonna take advantage of the fact that we're off route and do some things you haven't been able to do before."

Out of nowhere, a lone butterfly swoops around in my stomach, the flutter of paper-thin wings catching me off guard.

I clutched the front of my shirt, fisting the material with unease and uncertainty.

What the fuck was that? I referred back to the weird sensation that had coursed throughout my stomach a second ago. After a few seconds of self-questioning, I choose to ignore the strange feeling settling deep in my stomach. It's probably just because I was thinking about Jake, nothing else. I tried to convince myself and focus on the bucket list I produced for Jace.

Is he gonna do all those things with me? All seven. I mean, all six? But why? What have I done to get my bucket list? There are no benefits from doing this bucket list because he's not Jake, why would he wanna do this for me? And why for me? He hates me, doesn't he? For making him ditch his car and kicking him in the balls, etc?

My mind drifted back to the piteous speech I'd given to Jace earlier. Is that why? Does he feel bad for me? But he's my kidnapper? Doesn't he feel bad for freaking abducting me from my friends?

I unfisted the now crinkled shirt and looked over at Jace, confused inside. I wanted to ask him why he suddenly proposed the idea of a bucket list but the guy was slumped in his seat, his cap head lolling forwards, indicating that he was fast asleep.

I sighed and looked away, eyes landing on the mainly empty bus seats laid out in front of us and the bus driver who hummed casually as he was driving.

Upon noticing the bus driver, I realized something. I could... leave right now without Jace knowing. I could tell the bus driver to stop and let me out. I could walk right off this bus without him knowing. He'd be too busy catching up on sleep to realize the lack of presence beside him, making it easy for me to free myself. But instead, I stayed seated at the back of the bus. I'm not sure why I'm not trying to escape. Maybe because my escape plan will probably fail or maybe because I don't even know where the hell we are? Or maybe it's because I wanted to stay with him a little while longer, just to see what this bucket list business is all about?

I was waiting for Jace to wake up. Deep in thought, I subconsciously studied the guy's gently sloped nose, the set of dark eyelashes that align under his closed eyelids, the mole situated directly under his eyes, and the small scar nearby his right eye.

Fuck.

What the fuck.

I hurriedly looked away as if someone had caught me staring. My cheeks glowered a soft red, embarrassed even though no one had caught me in the act.

JD focus.

Twenty minutes later, I was gently shaken awake by a tentative hand resting atop my shoulder.

"JD." I opened my bleary eyes, rubbing the sleep out of his vision, to see a tense Mc hovering beside me.

"Hm? What?" I asked groggily, adjusting my posture and straightening up a little in my seat to get a better look at her.

Mc retracted her hand and mumbled out. "I want to pee."

I looked at her unimpressed.

"I'm not falling for that one again." I scoffed, remembering the gas station. I closed my eyes and wanted to fall asleep again.

"No, JD, I'm serious this time I do need to pee!"

Reluctantly, I opened my eyes to reveal a hard glare reflected in my pupils. Mc visibly shrinks back into her seat at this. Fuck. I should start to behave nicely. Before it's too late.

"There's no damn toilets-look out of the fucking window." Mc followed my instruction and looked out of the window to find endless fields harboring only crops of yellowing corn. There is no public toilet in sight.

"Do you see a public toilet anywhere?" I grunted rhetorically. "Hold it in."

"I've been holding it in for the past ten minutes. I don't care about public bathrooms. I'll pee behind a tree if I have to!" She whisper-shouted desperately.

"Come on, I'm seconds away from peeing."

I breathed out heavily and pinched the bridge of my nose.

"Fine. I'll ask the bus driver if he'll stop for us." Grumbling under my breath. I heaved myself off my seat and trudged down the aisle to the front of the bus.

"You're meant to stay seated until the bus stops, young man." The driver said pointedly when he noticed a woozy-looking but annoyed me standing by his side, holding on to the bus rails with a tight grip. So I'd not fall over onto the moving bus floor.

"Hey, uh my girlfriend needs to pee real bad. Is there a public toilet anywhere close by?"

"We're close to the next town. Just fifteen minutes more and we'll be there. Do you think your girlfriend can wait until then?" The bus driver asked, glancing over at me.

I didn't return the gaze since my eyes are traveling down the aisle where Mc was sitting, thighs pressed suffocatingly close together, her big eyes looking on, expectant.

I sighed once again.

"I don't think so. Could you possibly stop for a second so my girlfriend could pee behind a tree or something?"

"I can stop but I can't wait. I'm on a tight schedule kid."

My hand, once again, rised to pinch the bridge of my nose. Pure irritation is displayed on my face as I was breathing out heavily and dropped my hand from my face again.

"Fine, can you stop soon to let us off?" I briskly questioned, annoyance laced in my voice.

"Sure can. hold on." The bus driver replied shortly. I made my way back to Mc as the nice enough bus driver motioned to the side with the bus indicator, steering the bus onto the edge of the road. I sighed and hoisted my backpack onto my shoulders, shrugging the accessory on.

"Off you go, kid." The bus driver raised his voice, alerting us. I looked over my shoulder to see the driver pull a lever to crank open the tough bus doors.

"Thanks" I started to say but before I could properly thank the driver, Mc whizzes past me, nearly knocking me over as she does so. Slightly surprised, I watched her run down the aisle of the bus and out of the exit, running round the hood of the bus and down towards one of the tall trees standing on the side of the road.

"Must've been wanting to pee for quite a while." The driver mused, watching Mc dart around outside, frantically looking for a thick enough tree that'll hide her body.

"Mm." I agreed with half-assed commitment. I thanked the bus driver and jumped off the bus, walking around the vehicle to where Mc inconspicuously hiding behind a tree, peeing.

I heard the bus behind me close the hissing doors shut, the engine starting up once again. I closed my eyes for a moment, relishing the warmth beating down on my face. A few seconds later, I reopened my eyes and looked down at the mainly empty road, squinting a little due to the spring sunshine in my eyes.

"Oh no!" My head jerked to the tree where Mc stands by, a little alarmed about the evident distress in Mc's cry.

"What's wrong?" I asked, walking a little closer to the tree.

"There's a spider, fuck! There's a huge huge spider!" Mc squealed, jumping out from behind the tree trunk whilst simultaneously yanking her short shorts back up. Mc scrambles out of the shrubbery and tried to step onto the side of the road where I was standing but somehow misplaced her foot, her ankle catching onto a vine of some sort. A sharp cry escapes from Mc's lips as she's suddenly thrown back into the shrubbery.

Calm down Jake. Calm down.

Think calmly.

I tried to think calmly, standing there, fighting my irate, hungry, and exhausted self whilst sweating profusely. Don't freak out on her. With my best self-control straining, I cleared my throat and asked Mc if she could please stand the fuck up right now. But she just winced in response, glancing at me.

"I don't think I can." She replied in a weakened voice.

"What do you mean 'you don't think you can?" I questioned with mocking concern, rolling my eyes and marching over to the ditch where Mc was laying in, her face crumpled up in pain. Her brown hair is matted with dirt and twigs clinging to the individual strands. The oversized shirt she was wearing was bunched up around her waist and one of her flip-flops had slipped off her foot and now lay a few centimeters away, abandoned.

"My ankle-" Mc break off abruptly, scrunching up her nose to stem the tears stinging her eyes. I looked down at Mc's lone flip-flop-clad foot and immediately spotted the swelling red and purple bruise located on her right ankle.

"Hold on." I frowned, anger dissipating. I lowered myself onto my haunches, and I gently placed a hand on Mc's ankle, carefully pressing my thumb into the swell. Mc yelped and tried to move her foot but his actions are limited. After a few quick seconds of examining Mc's injury, I stood up and brushed the nonexistent dust off my jeans.

"You've sprained your ankle." I quietly explained more to myself than Mc.

"You can't walk so...Do you think you can jump and get on to my back?"

"Can't jump." Mc sniffled.

"Hop on to my back then."

"Can't hop. My ankle hurts."

I stood there, thinking. Mc was laying there in the ditch silently. Both of us are quiet for a few awkward seconds.

Mc focus.

"Oh for god's sake." Jace finally muttered under his breath as he stepped into the ditch haphazardly, and bent down to pick up me, slipping one arm under my arms and one under the backs of my knees. He effortlessly lift me up leaving me stunned inside. Jace walked out of the ditch easily with me in his arms whilst grumbling about how clumsy I was. I ignored his words and instead clinged to him closer. Bunching up my shirt with one fist and wrapping my other hand around the back of his neck to support myself.

Still trying to understand the fact that Jace was carrying me in his arms, I slowly dragged my gaze up to Jace's profile. From the low angle I was in, I watched on with observant eyes as he carried me down the road. His icy blue eyes slightly scrunched up at the corners to shut off the minimal but still strong sunlight beaming down into his sight as he walked down the wide road.

Worried about my weight and the poor guy's arms, I mustered up my voice and spoke up.

"JD, you don't have to carry me. I can kinda hop if you give me a bit of time there's no need for you to carry me and doing this for half an hour will-"

"Shut up."

"Okay then." I mumbled out, looking away from his face.

I felt so embarrassed.

This position. Having my captor walk around with me in his arms, was stiflingly embarrassing. Although no one was driving on this particular road and no one looked over the two of us. I couldn't help but feel awkward and self-conscious.

I wanted to walk myself, wanted to stop worrying about my weight, and let Jace relax his arms but my sprained ankle tells me the opposite.

My eyes drift back up to Jace's face and I find that Jace was still squinting slightly due to the mild sunshine. I wanted to somehow gratify him for his strangely kind actions so I loosened my grip on the front of Jace's t-shirt, and raised my hand to cover sunlight from his eyes.

Jake focus.

I blinked blankly, once, twice, thrice at the tiny palm that rested above my eyebrows which act as a shield for my eyes. I looked down questioningly at Mc, who awkwardly coughed and looked away.

"Can you see the road better now?" She asked softly, still looking away.

"Uh-" I look up, and sure enough, I don't have to squint to see the road looming ahead of me anymore. The sunlight is now blocked off by Mc's hand.

"Y-yeah. Thanks, I guess."

#duskwood #duskwood jake #duskwood mc #jake x mc #mc and jake #duskwood family #duskwood fandom #duskwood fanfiction

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foundtherightwords · 2 years

Text

Winter Light - Chapter 2

Pairing:Tom Grant (Make Up) x OFC

Summary: Vanessa, a young cancer patient, arrives at a remote holiday park in Cornwall to wait out the rest of her days, but after a chance meeting with a park employee named Tom who's nursing a broken heart, Vanessa realizes life may not be done with her yet.

Warnings: slow burn, mostly fluff with some angst (main character has cancer, so can't do without angst altogether), swearing, serious illness (cancer), discussion of death/grief

A/N: for some reason I clearly remembered there were window boxes outside of Jade's caravan, but I just watched the movie again and saw she only had some potted plants. Oh well. Somebody could've added them after she left (this takes place about a year after the events in "Make Up").

Chapter 1

A Welcomed Distraction

Vanessa told Shirley that her plan had changed unexpectedly and asked to rent her caravan long-term. Shirley seemed delighted to accommodate her, though Vanessa still had the nagging thought that those beady eyes saw more than she let on.

Vanessa took advantage of the strong signal inside the office to send off a few texts. "Have arrived safely, everything OK, phone signals patchy but will try to stay in touch, love you, Ness." That would keep them off her back for a while. She then asked how she could get to the nearby town for some supplies. "One of the staff can drive you," Shirley told her.

A few days later, Tom knocked on her door. "Shirley said you needed a lift into town," he said, holding up a set of keys.

Vanessa followed him down the path toward an old black truck with a bug-splattered windscreen, its bed full of odds and ends. "Yours?" she asked.

"It's Kai's. I'm picking up a few things for him."

Vanessa wondered why Kai couldn't have driven her himself, though she didn't say so. She had seen Kai around, an intimidating hulk with a craggy, unfriendly face and a ferocious German shepherd by his side. She wouldn't have liked a drive with him.

Tom followed the same route the cab took when it drove her to the park, and he was just as silent as the driver. Though it wasn't as awkward, the silence between them was heavy with so many things unsaid. This boy had seen her at her lowest; she had told him things she never told anybody else; it was hard now to come back from that and get to know each other normally. As Vanessa stared at the windscreen, she suddenly heard herself say, "Do you know windscreens are cleaner now because of insecticides?"

"What?" Tom didn't take his eyes off the road, but from his tone, it seemed he thought she was an alien of some kind.

"It's true. More insecticides, fewer bugs, cleaner windscreens."

"Isn't that good?"

"Not necessarily. Insecticides kill useful bugs too."

"Like bugs, do you?"

Vanessa shrugged. "I'm not passionate about them or anything, but I don't understand the hate for them either. I think they're neat."

"Wait 'til you've swallowed a mouthful and see how neat you think they are then," Tom said, and Vanessa chuckled with relief. The ice seemed to have been successfully broken. "You settling in all right?" he asked after a while.

"Still afraid I'm going to run away? I've put down a deposit, I'm not going to lose that."

This time he did glance at her, perhaps to see if she was serious or not. Vanessa put her poker face on. Tom's mouth twitched wryly.

"Maybe you can fix up the caravan a bit, that'll convince me," he said.

"Alas, home décor has never been my forte."

"I'll help."

She decided to play along. "Got lots of experience, have you? How long have you been working at the park anyway?"

"Three years. Maintenance, mostly, but reckon I could do some painting and decorating if necessary."

That surprised Vanessa. He looked around her age, in his late teens or early twenties at the most. That meant he must've started working here when he was still in school. "Used to come down every summer," he said when she mentioned it. "I wasn't going to come back this year, but Shirley called, saying they were short-staffed."

"Why weren't you coming back?" Vanessa asked, not noticing that Tom had suddenly shut his mouth hard.

He didn't answer. The silence had returned, more tense than before. Once again Vanessa wondered if it had anything to do with the mysterious Jade.

Tom dropped her off at the town center and agreed to meet her again in two hours. Vanessa went shopping, refilled her prescriptions, and even found a new book. She was flipping through it on a bench in the town square, trying to find some warmth from the late autumn sun that refused to shine, when Tom came back.

"Sorry I'm a bit late," he said. "Got you these." His arms were full of an assortment of flowering and leafy plants.

"What are they?" She only recognized the ivy.

"Ivy, heather, cyclamens, Christmas roses," he nodded at each pot. "For your window boxes."

So he had noticed the dead plants. Vanessa looked wistfully at the silvery green ivy, the purple heather, the crimson cyclamens, and the pure white Christmas roses. The colors were so vibrant after the uniform grays and browns of the sea and the sand, they almost blinded her.

"They're beautiful, but... I might not be around that long," she said. A slightly uncomfortable flicker in his eyes, but again, he didn't remark on it.

"You agreed to fix up the van. I'm holding you to that," he said. When Vanessa still hesitated, he added, "The bloke at the garden center said they'll do well in the cold and don't need much looking after. Consider them a house-warming gift." He pressed the pots into her arms. The soft petals brushed against her cheeks. She couldn't help but smile at him. He smiled back, and suddenly it was like the sun had come out after all.

***

Despite her initial hesitation, Vanessa soon found the plants a welcomed distraction. They gave her something to do, something to look forward to, a reason to get out of bed in the morning after a night full of pain and morphine. She took her time cleaning out the window boxes, filling them with the potting mix Tom also got her from the garden center, and arranging the plants into the most pleasing combinations. Sometimes, while she worked, she didn't even notice the pain.

Tom himself was becoming a welcomed distraction as well. He often walked past her caravan on his way to work in the morning or coming back from work in the evening. He never stopped, only nodded at her or said a quick hello, but Vanessa had the suspicion that he was checking up on her. She didn't have a chance to confirm her suspicion until one morning, after a particular bad night, she was stirred from her morphine-induced stupor by a persistent banging on her door. She dragged herself out of bed and opened the door, to find Tom on the other side.

"Oh thank Christ," he said, breathing a sigh of relief. "Thought you were..." He noticed her ashen face and the way she gripped the door frame. "You OK?"

"Overslept my beauty sleep," Vanessa mumbled.

"Looks like you need more of it," he said, quickly stepping inside and guiding her to the sofa, where she collapsed.

"How dare you." She tried to laugh, but only a dry croaking sound emerged.

"Sure you're all right?"

"Mmm." It took too much effort to nod. "Just need to stay off my feet a bit."

"Can I get you anything?"

"Some medical-grade marijuana would be nice," she said, half joking.

"Marijuana I can get. Don't know about medical-grade though."

Vanessa opened an eye and peeked at Tom to make sure he wasn't winding her up. He looked solemn as a judge. She gave a weak chuckle. "Better not risk it, then." The pain was manageable now, only the sleepless night was taking its toll on her. Tom still hovered over her. "You'll be late for work."

"You shouldn't be alone." He didn't add "when you die", but Vanessa understood it. She glanced at him. He was looking at the floor, chewing his lips, trying to hide his concern. She felt a little annoyed, and then felt guilty for feeling annoyed. She was sure her caravan wasn't on his usual route to work, yet he went out of his way every day just to say hi to her, to make sure she was all right. Her heart melted a little at that.

"I'm not going to die today, if that's what you're worrying about," she said, burying her head in a cushion. He mumbled an uncertain "Okay," then she heard the soft click of the door as he left.

He came back that evening, bringing a steaming pot. "Made you some stew."

Vanessa, who had been so nauseous that she could only manage to nibble a few crackers, eyed the pot warily. "What's in it?"

"Snips, snails, and puppy dog tails," Tom said. When Vanessa raised her brow quizzically at him, he grinned. "My mum used to say that when I was being fussy. It's just potatoes and veg and beef." Then he added apologetically, "Do you eat meat? Sorry, forgot to ask."

"I do," she said. She got a whiff of the pot and suddenly was ravenous. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound fussy. It smells delicious. Thank you."

Tom ladled the stew into a bowl.

The first spoonful sent warmth throughout her body, almost drowning out the nagging, ever-present pain in her bones. "You made this?" she asked, scooping up another.

"Don't sound so surprised," Tom snapped back with a laugh.

"Where'd you learn how to cook?"

"Single working mum. I had to cook if me and my little sister wanted to eat." Vanessa was quiet, thinking of her own spoiled childhood. Her mother hadn't even allowed her in the kitchen, let alone cook.

She had almost finished the bowl before remembering to ask Tom, "You're not eating?"

"Nah, it's for you. It'll keep in the fridge. If you don't mind eating stew for several days, that is."

"I don't mind," she said, touched by his thoughtfulness.

But she didn't actually have to eat stew for several days. Tom kept coming back with more hot food until Vanessa insisted on paying him, at least for the ingredients. He seemed reluctant at first, but when she refused to let him cook for her anymore, he relented. And that became their routine. In the morning, Tom would pass by her caravan, and Vanessa would wave at him from the window or the front door, where she was working on the window boxes. In the evening, he would drop in and cook for both of them. His dishes were nothing fancy, and some of his food combinations sounded downright bizarre (who had ever heard of a spaghetti sandwich?) but for Vanessa, who had been living on canned soups and crackers since she arrived at the park, what he could do with a bit of mince, a can of tomato, and some herbs and spices was nothing short of a Michelin-starred restaurant meal.

She felt bad about letting Tom do all the work while she lounged around, but the kitchen was so tiny and her pain-ridden legs were so clumsy that the one time she tried to help, she ended up sloshing a pot of boiling potatoes over Tom's hands.

"You're such a menace," Tom laughed, as Vanessa, in a barrage of apologies, held his hands under the cold tap. "Back to the sofa with you."

"But I wanted to help," Vanessa said, trying to ignore the way their fingers were intertwined.

"Fine, entertain me then. That counts as helping."

She reluctantly disentangled her hand from his and returned to the sofa. Putting on some music seemed too lazy, so she picked up the book she had left on the table. "How about I read you something?" she asked. Tom shrugged, and she flipped through the book until something caught her eyes.

"OK. This one's appropriate:

The timeless waves, bright, sifting, broken glass, Came dazzling around, into the rocks, Came glinting, sifting from the Americas.

To possess Aran. Or did Aran rush to throw wide arms of rock around a tide That yielded with an ebb, with a soft crash?

Did sea define the land or land the sea? Each drew new meaning from the waves' collision. Sea broke on land to full identity.

Well, kind of. We're in Cornwall, not the Aran."

"That's beautiful," Tom said, pausing his cooking to listen. "What is it?"

"A poem, by Seamus Heaney. You know him?"

Tom shook his head. "Not much time for poetry in Derby. Sounds lovely though."

Vanessa bent her head down, glad that Tom had his back to her so he couldn't see her quickly heating cheeks. She had picked the poem because it was about the sea. She didn't think about how it was a love poem as well. How stupid of her. It was right there in the title, "Lovers on Aran". Hopefully Tom had simply appreciated the beautiful words and not thought much about their deeper meaning.

"He's one of my favorite poets," she said, to get her mind off her blunder. "I was going to uni to study poetry, but then I got diagnosed and... that was the end of that."

"I thought about going to uni too. Maybe in Derby, so I can stay close to mum and Clare. Was saving up for it, actually," Tom said as he took the shepherd's pie off the hob. The caravan had no oven, but that didn't stop him. Vanessa hadn't even known that you could make shepherd's pie without an oven.

"What happened?"

"Nothing," Tom shrugged. "Just didn't see a point to it."

Vanessa had noticed that Tom tended to become cross whenever their conversation veered toward the future. It was as if he didn't want to think too far ahead, wishing to live in the present only. That she could certainly understand. She just didn't understand why he would feel that way. Most of the time she would let it go and change the subject. That day, however, she felt like challenging him.

"So what, you're going to faff around here, doing maintenance work for the rest of your life?" she asked.

"What's wrong with that?" Tom was getting defensive now; the faint scar on his forehead, which he told Vanessa was from a childhood accident, turned bright red.

"Nothing. But you have choices. You can plan..."

"Thing about planning is, something always happens to ruin it. You of all people should know that."

Vanessa's face fell. "Cheap shot," she mumbled. She was only gratified to see that Tom also seemed to realize he'd said the wrong thing. He put his fork down and reached across the table for her hand, patting it.

"Sorry."

Vanessa continued to glower at him, trying not to show how good his warm hand felt over hers. "OK, you're forgiven," finally she said. "But only because how good this shepherd's pie is."

They didn't talk much about the future after that. Instead, talked about their childhood, about Tom coming down to Cornwall every summer and Vanessa growing up in Surrey, and their schooldays, which, when you were just out of school, seemed like yesterday and yet so far away at the same time. Vanessa didn't talk about her family, but she liked to listen to Tom talk about his dad, a builder who died of a heart attack when Tom was nine, his mum, and his little sister, Clare, born after their dad died, whom Tom seemed to dote on.

"Do you miss him, your dad?" Vanessa asked.

"Sometimes." Tom's voice was steady, but he was misty-eyed.

"It must've been hard, him dying so sudden like that."

"Yeah. Mum never gets over it, really. I don't think she even minds him dying much, just that we never got to say goodbye."

Vanessa's thought wandered to her own family.

"Wish I could tell my family that."

"What?"

"That it's OK to say goodbye."

Tom gave her a long look. "Why couldn't you?"

"There's no point. They wouldn't listen. I was born into the most dramatic family in all of Great Britain," Vanessa said with a mirthless laugh.

And, as if the floodgates had opened up, she told him everything about her family. How they had always been overprotective of her, because she was the youngest. Her brother and sister were much older - Miles by twelve years and Julie by nine - and both had left home when she was young, so her parents treated her almost like an only child. She had always felt guilty about it. It had only gotten worse after her diagnosis. Her mum quit all her hobbies and dragged Vanessa to every treatment center she could find. Julie, who was working in Manchester, took a job closer to Surrey so she could help out. They were walking on eggshells around her, alternating between sorrowful tears and a forced cheerfulness that she found even worse than the sorrow. Things had come to a head at Miles's wedding back in June. Vanessa had fainted in the middle of the ceremony and had to be taken to the ICU. Miles and his wife, Becca, had to put their honeymoon on hold because it had seemed touch and go for a while. They had been very gracious about it, but Vanessa couldn't forgive herself. "After that, I decided to leave," she told Tom. "I don't want my illness and my death to take over their lives."

What she didn't say was that everything her family did was a constant reminder of her impending death, and she couldn't take it. That was why she'd run away. But she couldn't admit it, let alone tell Tom that. Not after she'd put up such a front about not being afraid to die, like a child who kept telling herself there was no boogeyman under the bed.

"Maybe you could still try telling them," Tom said. "Again. Louder. Can't expect people to read your mind."

Vanessa looked at him curiously. When she first met him, he just seemed like a lad, albeit a cute one, but with not much depth. Yet here he was, pointing things out in such a simple, straightforward way that she couldn't help but to see the truth in them.

Despite such heavy talk, though, the thought of death was almost absent from Vanessa's mind during those cozy evenings. The pain was still there, but it was only a faint throb, easily ignored. It only came back when Tom left, but the smile he gave her as he said goodbye was enough for her to face it.

Chapter 3

#tom grant #tom make up #tom grant fic #tom grant x ofc #joseph quinn #joseph quinn fic

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