#if doe was a human normally id make the running joke be that everyone thinks hes evil but hes just doing his best

[waterlogged-detective]

Parabola Doe isn't real, he can't hurt you.

[yikeswtfmate]

Part 1: Ungodly Hours

Of Tinder Dates & Caramel Macchiatos - Series Masterlist // main masterlist // next part

Summary: Y/N had no idea her new work routine would bring a certain handsome bartender to her table where she drinks her coffee every morning. Steve is sweet, although a bit sleep deprived, and Natasha thinks Y/N and him would make the perfect pair. But dating him is out of the question. What happens when, tired of Nat’s bizarre behaviour, Y/N installs Tinder and meets this really cute guy who can read her like an open book?

Pairings: Steve Rogers x Reader; Thor Odinson x Reader

Warnings: language, alcohol consumption, sexual references and themes

A/N: guess who’s back! back again with a very long Steve series that might be the end of me but that i already love with my whole heart and oh god i am so nervous i really hope you’re gonna like this

Coffee shops in the morning could easily be considered anyone’s personal hell. The sheer amount of people trudging along to get their daily fix of caffeine would normally make Y/N stop in her tracks and take a turn towards the nearest coffee vending machine, even if it tastes worse than crap. At least she doesn’t have to wait for half an hour in line stuck between a very loud lawyer and that one mum who insists on buying the nastiest green smoothie she’s ever seen in her life.

However, coffee shops at 6 in the morning, right about when Peter changes the sign from closed to open, are heaven sent. Sure, the prospect of having to be out and about for work at 6 am is less than ideal, but at least she’s always been more or less a morning person. And her paycheck has been considerably fatter last month. 

Y/N takes her usual seat outside, caramel macchiato right next to her laptop. Today should be an easy day - fill out some paperwork before she heads to the office at 8.45, pick up Pepper’s coffee, and sort out whatever has been left of this week. Easy, simple and to the point, although Nat would love to argue that Saturdays are for sleeping in, and not for personally picking up documents from various stakeholders. 

“Or better yet, download Tinder and work out your stress with random guys.” Nat had suggested last night on the phone, when Y/N made the mistake of mentioning she hadn’t had any in too many months to count. “There’s this great guy I know…”

“No.” Y/N interrupted, knowing exactly where that would’ve gone. “Every time you tried to set me up with someone, it ended up in disaster. We’re not doing this again, Nat.”

“I just want you to be happy.” She muttered, most definitely being silently admonished by Bucky for trying to interfere in her friend’s life yet again.

“I am happy, sweetheart. Just because I’m not getting any at the moment, that doesn’t mean I’m not happy. Plus, you know what I think -”

“If it’s meant to be, there’s no point in me chasing it, yes.” Nat echoed with a roll of her eyes. “Sometimes your whole attitude of ‘go with the flow’ pisses me off. I say you should go after what you want.”

“Well, there’s nothing, or no one to want at the moment so there’s no point in me getting into a frenzy about it. When the moment’s right, it will happen.”

“Hey!” 

The voice cuts right through the middle of her thought, interrupting Nat’s sneered answer of ‘I just hope he won’t be an asshole like your ex’, making Y/N look up from her laptop. There’s a guy standing next to her, one steaming cup of coffee in a hand, uncertain smile on a face ragged by what can only be lack of sleep. He’s tall and broad shouldered, and she can’t place him for a second, before her eyes land on the sleeve tattoo on his right arm. 

“Steve?” She asks, just as hesitant.

“Yeah!” He grins, running his free hand through his hair, until there’s a blond mess of it. “Y/N, right? You’re Nat’s friend.”

“Yeah, that’s right. I uh- how are you?”

The whole scene most probably looks ridiculous to the outside eye - her sitting down, craning her neck to look at this monolith of a man, both of them oozing with awkwardness and hesitation. She’s always hated that touch of absurdity in interactions between people who know each other, but are not even acquaintances. Even though her job as an executive assistant requires her to navigate situations just like these, that does not mean it makes it easier for her to know how to do that in her personal life. It’s called balance - be a badass at your job, but you’re left an embarrassing mess when it comes to talking to cute guys that you don’t actually know.

“Just got off my shift. Thought I should grab a coffee and spare myself of falling asleep on the subway again.”

“Oh. You’re still working as a bartender then?” She replies, digging her claws into the faint memory of him running from one end of the bar to the other, barely managing to shake her hand after a brief introduction that one time she agreed to go out with Nat and Bucky. 

“Yep. I’m actually part-owner now.” Steve says proudly and she can’t help but grin with him. 

“Congratulations!” Y/N claps her hands - what is that, come on, get yourself together. “Hey, do you wanna take a seat and have your coffee? I feel weird sitting while you’re standing.”

“Ah, I shouldn’t. I’ve been up for almost 24 hours now.” He scratches the back of his head, checks his watch and glances at her again in thought. “But I can spare 5 more minutes to finish this. Wouldn’t want to spill it all over me again.”

Y/N smiles and does her best at clearing at least one corner of the table. He takes a seat, and she notices the way his knee brushes softly against hers, and fair enough, the table is small, but this guy is massive and he’s dwarfing everything around him - it’s no wonder they can barely fit together. 

“So what are you up to at this ungodly hour of the morning on a Saturday?” He asks after swiftly scanning all the papers and electronics between them.

“Ah, my life is definitely less exciting than yours.” She laughs. “I’m just getting to work.”

“On a Saturday?” His confusion is clear. So is his amusement as he takes a sip of his coffee.

“I see Nat hasn’t been complaining to everyone around her about me. That’s reassuring.”

“I wouldn’t know.” Steve shrugs. “Whenever they come to the bar, I’m usually working. I can barely exchange two words with them.”

“That’s right. I remember her saying something about you needing to get a break.” 

“More like a life. I haven’t had a day off in months, I don’t even know what daylight looks like anymore.”

There’s no denying the fact that he looks exhausted - if the dark circles under his eyes wouldn’t be indication enough, it’s easy to read it in the tense set of his shoulders, the way he’s more slumping than sitting in his chair. Y/N is filled with a weird sense of wanting to make this man a cup of tea and order him to go to bed already. His gaze keeps shifting, as if it can’t focus on anything for more than a few seconds, and there’s a slight hint of misery written all over his features that is cleverly hidden by his happy-go-lucky attitude, which seems superficial if analysed closely. Perks of being the best at her job, curse for people who don’t want their business pried into, but then again...they don’t know each other that well, so she keeps her mouth shut. Whatever is bothering him is none of her damn business.

“If it makes you feel any better, I have no idea what nightlife looks like anymore.” She offers.

“We’d make an invincible human being if we were to join forces.” Steve laughs. “I’ll tell you all about teenagers trying to get in with fake IDs, how to get rid of vomit in the toilets and what’s the best way to mix a Long Island and you can tell me all about traffic in the morning, rush hour at lunchtime and what kids are up to when they get off school.”

“Mostly TikTok dances.” Y/N shrugs, which earns her the cutest sleep-deprived laugh she’s ever heard in her life. 

“Is that what those are? Oh God, I feel old now.” 

She chuckles - it’s cute, he’s cute. In a lost puppy kind of way, but her final verdict is interrupted by her phone vibrating next to her hand. Now, she wouldn’t normally be so rude as to answer a phone in the middle of a conversation, especially when she is focused on the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he’s grinning at his not-exactly-joke, but PEPPER CALLING is a rude awakening that she is supposed to actually be at work in less than 15 minutes. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I have to get this, it’s my boss.”

“No worries. I should get going anyway. I think I’ve already slipped into sleepwalking anyway.” He stands up and fumbles around for a few seconds - yet another situation that neither of them seems to know how to handle. Are they supposed to shake hands? Hug? Take an imaginary hat off? 

So Y/N settles on a smile, which must put him at ease a teensy bit, because he grins back at her - that boyish grin that made her think cute way too many times by this time of the day. 

“It was great seeing you, Y/N. Don’t overwork yourself today. It is Saturday after all.”

“Says the one who’s 90% asleep.” Y/N giggles. “Bye, Steve!”

“See you around, sweetheart!”

*

Nat takes out a bottle of wine, moving around the well-lit kitchen as if she’s lived there her whole entire life, and not only for the past three weeks. Y/N is still mesmerised by the fake brick wall in front of her to pay attention to the glass thrust between her fingers - this apartment is gorgeous. She had no idea Bucky was so good at interior design, which must have been a huge selling point when they’ve decided where to live together. Christ, Y/N would have wanted to move in with him after only 5 months, for this apartment alone. But Nat is frowning - that deep line between her eyebrows leaves nothing to speculation, and Y/N knows her best friend too well not to realise that she is not happy with what she’s hearing.

“Are you going to say anything or should I just assume you’re pissed off?”

“I’m not pissed off.” Nat says, an immediate response that sounds too close to defensiveness to sound like truth. “I’m just- I’m surprised, is all. I mean, it is Steve we’re talking about here after all.”

“That’s exactly why I don’t understand why you’re reacting like this.”

Nat brings her foot up on her stool, and braces her knee while her other hand is playing with the rim of her glass. She’s avoiding eye contact, which is never a good sign when it comes to her, yet Y/N simply can’t put her finger on the reason behind her sudden change in demeanour when she’s told her that she met Steve this morning. 

“I just don’t think that Steve would be the right person for you right now.” She finally mutters and there’s a tinge of embarrassment in her tone that Y/N can’t decipher.

“Ok, you’re going to have to explain what the hell is going on because I have no idea what’s with all this hostility. All I did was tell you that I chatted with Steve for half an hour this morning. How did you connect that to me getting into a relationship with him?”

“Because!” Nat groans. “You and Steve would be perfect for each other. Not to mention you’re my best friend and he’s Bucky’s best friend and just that idea alone gives me cavities. I want you to be together!”

“I’ve seriously never been more confused in my entire life.”

“Ok, look, I’m going to be completely honest with you right now.” Nat sighs and she at long last makes eye contact. “It’s not my story to tell, but the gist of it is that Steve’s recently gotten out of a relationship with one of my friends from work. He was completely swept off his feet, even Bucky’s never seen him this infatuated with someone. The problem is that, as much as I love Peggy, she really did a number on him. He’s been a complete wreck ever since and he doesn’t even know that she’s gotten back together with her ex. I’m just saying that he’s not in the right emotional state to get into another relationship right now. And you’re in a complete state at the moment as well.”

“Me?” Y/N squeals, surprised by this sudden change of direction. “What is wrong with me?”

“Honey, you also recently got out of a serious relationship where you were practically married to the guy. I really think you should spend some time alone and focus on yourself, and not guys. Flings, fuck buddies, Tinder, sure, whatever. Do whatever you couldn’t during these past few years, but you’re not ready to jump into another serious relationship again. I love you and I love Steve, but you’d probably destroy each other if you were to get together.”

Y/N waits for a few more seconds in order to make sure Nat’s said her piece. She’s surprised by her friend’s outburst - it was only yesterday that Y/N’s explained to her that she’s not willing to get herself out there just yet and she was rebuffed by promises of friends and possibilities. This mix of encouragement and relentlessness is nothing short of confusing. Especially since Y/N hasn’t even hinted at a potential romance with Steve.

“Ok, first of all, I want you to know that I agree with you. I’m not ready to get into another relationship right now, but I also want you to understand that I’m not going back to jumping into bed with guys I barely know. Look where that got me last time! Second, I didn’t tell you I saw Steve today because I want to be in a relationship with him. We just talked. As friends. Nothing more.”

They look at each other in silence for a few moments, a sense of uneasiness that Y/N’s never felt in the whole time she’s known Nat. There’s something odd about her reaction, but she can’t say what it is exactly. She guesses she can understand her friend’s protectiveness over Steve - after all, she knows all too well how much of a mama bear Nat can be with people she cares about, but isn’t she supposed to care more about what her best friend might want? Even if Y/N doesn’t want Steve, but it’s the principle of it!

“Right.” Nat mutters. “Well, I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Nat, I’m not doing anything. I barely talked once with the guy by accident.” 

This is getting ridiculous.

“Just remember that I don’t want to be involved in this.”

“There’s no this to be involved in!”

[welcometomy20s]

February 8, 2021

Welcome to the final part of the Introduction of Nijisanji. Thanks for going through all of them, if you did. It was pain to work with so much and so little. This part would cover everyone who has debuted in the year 2020.

Nijisanji IN 1st Gen

Aadya - The name means beautiful. 21 year old, who likes to play games and sing. Does dancing as a day job, so acts as a gaming nightingale. She has a knack for games in my cursory view, but that might be just the competitiveness.

Vihaan - The name means breaking dawn, kind of. Likes gaming very much, and plays them very loudly and complaining... which to be expected from this crew.

Noor - The name means light. Likes BL, coffee and beer, BL to the point she learned chinese from watching a BL drama. Basically a middle-aged man at heart, including a very nice husky voice. Does talks and games. Sings randomly and looks up to Rion, of all people. Ange mentioned her, Ange likes to mention foreign people.

Nijisanji KR 1st Gen

Min Suha - Knows the culture through their parents and has a nice voice. Sister Claire likes him, and who doesn’t? He’s freaking cool, man!

Shin Yuya - College student in virtual Seoul. Always has a smartphone at hand, does self-searching on a constant basis. Definitely has otaku knowledge, likes singing, drawing and cute things. Doesn’t like horror games, but played a lot on stream.

Plays a lot of different games, including FPS like Apex, and this is where she gets to collaborate with Japanese senpais, which is always fun to see.

Gaon - Originally Moarin’s brother, but Moarin left, so the lore changed. Has a twintail for attention purposes. Only member of Nijisanji KR to work as a job, but quit as the end of 2020. He’s pretty cool. Not nice, but definitely not a mean person either.

Han Chiho - He’s a time-displaced psychic, and so speaks with a high register. High register is usually seen as old, people don’t use it anymore, but it’s usually perfectly understandable... it’s an interesting quirk. Other than that, pretty normal streamer.

2020 Part 1 (Jan-Apr)

Furen E Lustario - During debut, expressed a liking choking oneself... so we know who we are dealing with. Has to add using fingers, as to illustrate her math prowess. But overall a fun person to watch, and has a pretty good variety of streams.

Melissa Kinrenka - Wants to be a songwriter, but still needs help. But she is a great singer, and can write and mix songs. Usually called Meli. Has a deep side, basically.

Ibrahim - Originally an oil prince, but now runs an onsen. Acts like a child at times due to his supposed past, and he is muslim, as the lore and name implies. But overall, fits right in with the child-like male of Nijisanji... kind of.

Nagao Kei - He’s an exorcist, but really does any job. Pretty good at all kinds of fighting. Pretty old in terms of human member at the age 26. Very much like Ibrahim, but much more bishonen, which melts a woman's heart. Oh, he’s good at learning stuff. Like he tries to learn morse code, and completely memorized the KTANE manual. Just to make Fumi, one of his seniors, happy for a while. That’s some big dedication.

Genzuki Tojiro - Works as a secretary for the gods. Has that unmatching haircut. Very good at making songs and does mixing for Nijisanji events.

Kaida Haru - A demon researcher, but too lazy. Quiet and nice voice leading the viewer to see him as a mother figure, but as you guess, he doesn’t like it due to the work. Oh, said a slur on stream but got banned less than Yumeoi, which is quite sus.

Nijisanji ID Gen 3

Azura Cecillia - An alien angel. Has a sword with a really long name, but calls it Chonsuke for short. She’s pretty cute and a little bit ditzy, from what I remember. Got mistaken as a boy, which is such an odd thing, but maybe it’s the deep voice?

Nara Haramaung - A princess of a tribe. Originally released as part of 1st gen, but got delayed here, but the gen mates fit together very well. Sings spontaneously sometimes.

Layla Alstroemeria - Time-traveling history major. Definitely more airheaded of the group and most child-like of the generation. But she’s pretty fun to watch, regardless.

Nijisanji KR Gen 2

So Nagi - Traveling virtual Japan, speaking fluent Japanese with a nice clear voice. Likes Ange Katrina, which she readily repriocates. Seen as the top seed in Nijisanji KR.

Lee Siu - A female kitsune, and yes from the same illustrator as Fubuki. Likes dad jokes and an endurance player and does speak three languages. Roha likes her. Occasionally can hear the apartment announcement, which is always a fun moment.

Chae Ara - She’s an angel, and a great singer. And likes to people-watch. Has a cute voice, and good at hosting. I really liked her in the streams that I watched. There’s something about her personality that speaks to me.

2020 Part 2 (May-August)

Sorahoshi Kirame - Made her name through twitter, and traded fan art with KR members. Has the same illustrator as Kanata. Couldn’t stream due to money purposes for four days, got his PC after a month of hard work. Overall a poor and diligent girl.

Asahina Akane - 1st year high-schooler. Very energetic and follow people well. Likes a Jpop band, and likes to travel as well. Also does a lot of collabs with senpais.

Suo Sango - The youngest member of the theater club, which is the theme of the latest generation. Has a wide range, and likes Sanrio and tomato. Very motherly calm voice.

Like girly anime, you know Pretty Cure and stuff. Likes western pop music as well.

Todo Kohaku - Third-year high schooler. Said she’s a lady, but she’s definitely just a normal girl. Had a good cover of Mela, and overall a decent streamer.

Kitakoji Hisui - Middle-school transfer student. Likes a lot of different things, but Minecraft is what she is most known for... I guess it makes sense.

Nishizono Chigusa - She’s the troublesome one of the theater group. Very frequently makes sexual quips. Also I thought she was a boy when I first saw her. Definitely my favorite of the newest group, and also did a stream with Matsuri as well.

And that actually has a history. You see this is not Chigusa’s first rodeo... as it is apparent, and during her previous life Matsuri and her did a sleepover, and was quite close as well... so this is actually a really nice reunion. I didn’t know that until now.

Nijisanji KR 3rd Gen

Nun Bora - A second-year high schooler, likes drawing and playing the recorder which she has a battle with So Nagi. Quick learner, apparently. Plays APEX and Fall Guys, but is competent in pretty much any game. Definitely top tier APEX player.

Akina Ray - Japanese streamer who streams in virtual Seoul. Does a morning talk show, likes baseball, since she’s from Hiroshima, and Shadowverse. She’s actually an art student and a meat lover. But overall, the most seiso art student of Nijisanji.

Lee Roha - Idol trainee from outer space, a mixed race. A bit of a ditz, with the appropriate thumbnails. Streams in Japanese on YouTube, in Korean on Twitch. Does a lot of League of Legend on twitch, and does evening piano stream. Likes Lee Siu.

Nijisanji ID 4th Gen

Etna Crimson - Half supernatural, likes to make everyone happy. Definitely not Amber from Genshin Impact, because Amber is Kizuna Ai. Okay, bad joke. Yeah, she’s good.

Bonnivier Pranaja - Originally a fisher, but quit after being swindled. Usually appears with KR streams, actually. Maybe likes Hana? Who knows.

Siska Leontyne - Security officer for shady company. Pretty good at games involving killing... make sense considering her profession. Pretty cool and laid-back.

Nijisanji KR 4th Gen

Ryu Hari - Likes to collect nightmares, likes reading and playing the electric guitar.

Shin Kiru - A 25-year old NEET, has an odd way of speaking and strange topics. Likes Rock and horror movies. He seems pretty laid-back as well.

Yang Nari - 19-year old girl from a different world who now lives in the countryside. Pretty good at hosting with her cute voice. Likes sewing, and talks in high status. She has a thing of suffering, and that kind of comes out from lore.

Oh Jiyu - She’s a female vtuber, although she looks and sounds boyish. Third-year college student representative. Speaks Korean and Japanese, and like gacha and also singing... so maybe a boyish Suisei? I’m sure she’s more normal, though.

Nijisanji ID 5th Gen

Nagisa Arcinia - Wannabe fashion designer, speaks a bunch of languages... but that’s normal for ID... yeah, she’s cute and might be a little psychopathic. Typical.

Derem Kado - 16 year old girl going to magical school, always looking for a cat, but a special cat that makes contracts and stuff. High pitched scares and gets lost.

Reza Avanluna - He’s a world chronicler, he visits and chronicles worlds in his dreams. Has a ship going on with Hana, I think? I’m not sure. Please correct this, if untrue.

There you go! All 139 extant members as of February 8th, 2021, which is the third anniversary of Nijisanji... that was a long post... even though it was in three parts. Sorry for filling the days with this... I have been busy with collecting data and so on. But I hope you have a good inkling of the landscape that is Nijisanji.

[utterlyinevitable]

Today’s bed time story was actually fluffy??????

Like wasn’t compelete fluff but it was pretty pleasant???????

Loved it 💕 thank you ☺️

two days late on the need for fluff. better late than never ??? 

transcript under the cut 💕

Trying to Plan a Forever

So ub has been in wayhaven for about two years manning the hatches and whatnot with their detective. Mason and Lia had fallen into a relationship more than a year ago. 

One off day they’re sitting around her apartment and she’s sorting through the pile of Mail she’s ignored

She received not one, but three wedding invitations from people she’s gone to high school with. All within a few weekends of each other

She stared and groaned.

When did she get so old that everyone’s getting married?

She’s nearing 30 and her biological clock has been ticking and she’s caught herself wanting things she never dreamed of before.

She’s sitting on the couch next to where Mason is sprawled out. The three ornate invitations staring back at her. Almost mockingly.

“What?” He asks pulling her out of that weird state and face she’s making. 

“Busy summer,” she gathers the three cards and passes them to him. 

He just stares at them in her hand. Scanning one to get the gist.

“Gonna go?” 

“Probably should” she shrugs

There’s a brief pause and then her eyes meet his.

 “I’ll be out of town” he states. 

 “All three weekends?” She retorts. Shaking her head at the blatant lie.

He shrugs non committal.

“I don’t like weddings” 

“It’s different when it’s your own,” is the only argument she made, wholly agreeing on how the wedding industry is a bit too much sometimes. She can only imagine what his sense would be thrown into should he accompany her.

She half expected him to make a joke along the lines of ‘how would you know sweetheart got a husband I don’t know about?’

But he didn’t.

“Don’t understand the appeal.”

His words were laced in something she couldn’t place. Something a little unsettling.

“It’s what you do when you’re in love, Mason” 

He scoffs. 

“You don’t want to get married? Not even back when you were a human?”

“No, don’t think it was ever in the cards for me.” He takes out the lighter and fidgets with it. He rarely needs his vices when they’re together and she knows she’s teetering on a fine line.

“The whole marriage institution means nothing to a vampire. ‘Death do us part’. there’s no death in immortality”

She instinctively leaned back to look at him fully.

“So the idea of a forever is what? Something you’re not into?”

“I never said that.”

She’s looking at him critically.

“Those contracts aren’t meant to last for centuries. They’re for the government instead of the two people.”

“So you’d prefer a spiritual ceremony to civil marriage?”

“Trying to get me down an aisle, sweetheart?”

“Just trying to figure out where your heads at.”

“What id PREFER is to skip to the good part,” he winked. 

She rolled her eyes and smacked his arm. 

“I like the idea of an intimate ceremony. Nothing fancy, just close family and friends”

“Got your dress picked out too?” He chided playfully. 

When she didn’t respond and looked away when flush started to creep up her features, masons chest sunk. 

He didn’t know what to say. All he could think of didn’t surface. That quip slipped before he even knows it was happening. 

“Sweetheart...” 

She didn’t look over at the comforting pet name, embarrassed. 

He reached out for her to pull her closer and fold her into his chest. 

“I know, it’s stupid” she muttered. 

“No,” he kissed her hairline to make up for upsetting her. 

“does it really mean that much to you?” He asked

“I don’t know. Yes? Maybe...” she says

They sit like that, his arms wrapped around her and she chews on her lip thinking. 

“I think I’m just starting to realize a part of me wants a husband and a baby...”

“Seriously?”

The malice in his voice is oof

“Yeah” she says monotone.

His hands fall to just graze her. Pulling back while not actually letting her go.

“A kid? Really?”

Masons mind is on one track. Completely dumbfounded stumped and shocked. 

She shifts in the seat to face him, legs folded. “It’s just an idea!” 

“Forget it. It’s not happening” he was decisive. 

“What the fuck why not?”

“Are you forgetting I’m a vampire, sweetheart? I can’t have kids.” 

“But i can. Medicines come a long way in the last hundred years.”

“And what’re you gonna do, raise the kid for a couple years and abandon them like Rebecca did for you?” 

The words came out harsher than he meant them. He just didn’t know what else to say to illustrate the point he was trying to make. The human and supernatural worlds CANT coexist. That’s no place to raise a kid. 

“We can’t settle down in one place for too long before humans get suspicious. You won’t age and have to move around every few years”

Her face scrunched up “why won’t I age?”

And then the unintentional meaning hit her like a ton of bricks 

“Oh...”

Even though in the span of the last few minutes she’s lost out on a normal adulthood, her smile grew

he wants me to turn 🥺☺️

“Can that even happen?” She wonders out loud. The agency must have protocols against all this. And ofc Rebecca will be against it. And on one hand it will solve her inferiority amongst the team. 

His lips are pressed and eyes squinted as he thinks. He’s had the fleeting thought before but never so much as verbalized them. “I don’t know... your blood... we don’t know how it would react” he finally admits

We? She thinks to herself.

The agency had been batting around scenarios of what may happen if she was turned. She has vampire blood in her system. But could the mutation cause problems for a full immortal life? Mason is too selfish and hesitant to find out for sure. He’d gladly run to the ends of the dimension to find someone else with her blood type to do the experiment on.

“So... if I was normal you’d turn me” it wasn’t a question but a fact she hopes to be true. 

“There’s nothing normal about you, sweetheart” he reaches out to caress her cheek. He loves every flaw and infuriating thing about the stunning woman before him. Even if he hasn’t told her yet in those three words. 

He leans into his touch. Hazel eyes closing halfway to relish it fully.

She sighs and they’re in this moment for a bit.

She raises her eyebrows signaling for him to answer the damn question.

“I wouldn’t.” 

Her eyes snap open “what? Why?” Utterly confused.

“Has to be your decision. Make sure there aren’t any other human things you really want to do. Being turned before you’re ready.....” a flicker of torment passes his now sullen face. And she knows exactly why.

“So when I’m ready you’ll do it? You’ll spend forever with me?”

He chuckled. Fucking chuckled like this was a joke. She was ready to start fuming at then action.

She saw his silver eyes clear and unclouded. The pureness only something she’s witnessed a handful of times. 

Then he clarified,

“Felix could. It’d be the highlight of his existence.”

And without saying it she understood that a. Natural born vampire would have to turn her.

There was some unspoken tenderness flowing between then, transporting them in the apartment.

Lia climbed into his lap. Arms thrown over his shoulders and weight on her knees as not to fully press against him. At least not yet. 

His hands immediately cupped her ass. Then another slipped under the fabric of her shirt to rest on her lower back.

 “And THEN you’ll marry me?” She coaxed.

“Eternity’s a long time.” 

“You said yourself marriage licenses are only meant to last a few decades before they expire” she winked.

He brushed her hair back out of her face and cupped it. Her fingers twining in his long strands.

And Mason wanted to say it. He itched to say the words at this perfect moment.

But instead he pulled her into an intimate kiss.

“Kissing me won’t make me forget” she mumbles against his lips.

“I can try,” he matches her right back, playfully. “We have all the time in the world.”

-the end-

[lifeinthegladhouse]

long personal post apologies to anyone on mobile, just...scroll on by...

---

There’s so many things............I wanted to achieve in 2020, which is I’m sure what everyone has said. Somehow I still think 2017 was worse, but .... I don’t know. I was really alone then. I almost lost both my parents, this year I was safe with a better job, good partner, and only lost one (at least I got to see her once in a decade to say goodbye)....ultimately this brought me to heathenism in a weird and roundabout way. It’s hard to know she was really walking around with this poorly depicted Viking nonsense ‘false odin’ with cerberus (why?) going on, lord, she would’ve hated left heathens BUT ALSO wasn’t even a pagan to begin with (so she says, but being a pentecostal and having psychosis, while this does not a pagan make, made for a quite magickal and brutal experience). my mother was a trickster entity in living flesh. at first, i learned into having guides for the first time. i wondered if it was a coping mechanism, but i shrugged, because it was not my intention to see the numbers repeating, or the ‘loki’ every..single..day..for a week... in the weirdest fucking places... it was not my intention to lose my best friends in this city (which is not my final destination, ha) because they were too busy having poly drama, to, idk, support their friend, and then ghosted me, or came up with some weird passive aggressive bullshit. it totally dominated my 2020 - the pandemic, then mom dying, then the deities, then the loss. my card of the year was the hermit, i thought that was such a joke considering the pandemic. how could that then apply to me more personally? I haven’t had time or space mentally to recount the beautiful parts of the year because we’ve been stuck inside, inside during riots, inside during west coast smoke hell, inside where the spiders are. astoria was beautiful. it was god given. i knew what was real was real that day. it’s been seven months since mom passed, and i know her spirit has contacted me. it has brought me closer to my own spirituality which was accidentally rampant chaos magick that i was unaware of - introduced to me by ten years of tricksters who I never quite recognized. at the altar, id pull cards, i began to learn runes, and id ask, “were you always there? was that the presence that was always there?” I don’t know, much of the paranoid presence I felt my whole life ended when mom died. so much ended. i still want to write about it. again and again. because i forget that it happened, i compressed it so far back. everyone walked away and all that remained was my partner and the unseen. i would get straight answers on the altar, but never for that question. i never understood, and still hardly do, why loki came - was it to console me after the passing of my mother? somehow a veil had been lifted and my already wack ass intuition became 25% greater, somehow i felt seen and heard by others. at first, i was scared... i had always gravitated unknowingly towards tricksters and mercurial beings, loki came during the week of L*ghnasadh, after I’d been reading abt the ACTUAL “mercury”/hermes.... it was as if to be like, oh, you’re looking to NAME US FINALLY? THIS ENERGY, HERE _______. I was a little sheepish of Odin because of the association..... and I never quite got an answer. Sometimes still, I am struggling to understand this deity, however many a time loud and clear he and Loki have responded within the half-hour, be it some really weird ultra-specific shit to crop up, flickering shit, popping, knocking over. I turn to him frequently as, the more I read, the more I trust... this understanding of inarticulatable parts of myself - when I read about odr I was thinking of what this could mean for me, especially as a trans person, and it moved me. when I think about knowledge, and loss... when I think of the underdog vying that Odin (and of course Loki) represent, it is always with grace and honor that I am glad to be In It. I struggle tho, cos no matter how viscerally real my experiences have been, and no matter how little I would ever wish to disrespect them by denying faith, as a human who has run far from christianity and is skeptical of everything, every day, I’m like, ‘how much can I lean into this? is this ‘weird’ or delusional? am i acting like a child?” but, ..... I have learned from many smart and creative folks of the same ilk that we are not alone and the passage of time cannot destroy old gods so easily, and I am honored to be called to that. 2020.....that is.....to me, the year of death and rebirth. it was the only parting gift mom could give me. as she died, I told her I knew the lord had brought me there. I knew we had made it JUST in time, by many many strokes of good ‘luck’, to see her off. the last day we saw her was the last day she’d ever seen both her children together in her life. of course, she probably hardly recognized me. and she loved my brother more. had spent less time with him. oh lord, she did look at me with burning eyes of distrust and hatred, but that was not her fault. she was so ill. god she was so ill. dad joked, after she died, ‘maybe she’ll finally be in valhalla’, he didnt know what that meant. mom was a ‘devout’ christian woman of “god”. she was no pagan. she did not serve odin. but 2 months later when I discovered them, I heard his words ringing in my head, and I had to laugh. It’s been so hard...losing the queer comrades I had with me because of ? what ? exactly ? I still dn’t know, watching someone I spent 3 years being ‘close’ to basically patronize me that she always had reservations about us, never let me in, or get closer, like real friends, .... id cry and cry thinking, why, did i lose the one figure who brought me into this world, who i never had, for ten years, who abandoned me and hated every ounce of my being, and to confront this NOW in the middle of a pandemic, where i have zero way to the outside world to cope, and then to be left behind AGAIN by SO MANY PEOPLE, i felt Loki’s comforting presence. I’m trying to focus on the future again, that’s what 2021 is giving me. the “year” label, “when mom died” is over. even if that event forever changed my life far beyond that of a normal passing (?) I mean, it’s never normal when a mom dies, much less a woman like her, have mercy, it’s over. 2021 is the “year when we move to los angeles” its the “year when i start a REAL band again instead of be a side piece for a woman who cant get real with herself and her drum machine”, the “year when maybe ill take my adhd meds and hrt” we’re suspended in a stasis, there are big ups and downs. in two weeks i quit my med of 2 years, because it’s causing harm and i actually dont technically need to be on it anymore. im scared and excited. i need the change. i need the CHOICE. 

[spectralreplica]

So I loved your response on who would be most likely to witch out in the PMMM/DR v3 au, but id love to ask, what did they all wish for? (Bonus: Also did those wishes backfire?)

So, these are my thoughts for right now, but if I actually planned more of the “story” for this AU, some of them might change. For some of them I kind of cheated and came up with the power first, but in my defense it’s hard to come up with wishes without having planned more of the plot, since Kyubey tries so hard to get people to make spur of the moment wishes during times of stress.

Kokichi: I see him as totally paranoid (rightfully so) over how Kyubey’s trying to trick him but still obsessing for weeks over the perfect phrasing for a wish just in case, and then suddenly a witch traps him and DICE in a Labyrinth and he ends up contracting with a totally spontaneous wish. Something like “saving my friends” or “being strong enough to protect my family.” For maximum irony, he’d end up with powers that get stronger when fighting with/to protect others but keep trying to fight alone anyway due to not trusting other magicals and not wanting to put DICE in danger. He’d also tell people he wished for other things like, “to rule the world from the shadows,” or “an infinite supply of scarfs.” As for backfiring, he does save everyone that one time, but they’re in more danger since other magicals end up targeting them when Kokichi poaches from their territories, plus they’re in the line of fire if/when he witches out.

Kaito: Like in the game, Kaito is terminally ill and wishes for something along the lines of “being healthy enough to achieve his dreams,” but he totally lies and says he wished for something like “being strong enough to help others.” He gets the power to temporarily boost other people’s powers and/or make their bodies regenerate from wounds. He kind of avoids using the healing part at first because it’s a little suspicious with his alleged wish and then pretends it’s a thing he’s been practicing. It doesn’t really go bad for him, and I don’t think he’d regret making the wish, even when he finds out about the Soul Gems controlling your body thing. Maybe when he realizes there are no witches in space? But even then I think he’d be in denial…

Shuichi: Shuichi ends up involved in a really serious case and just can’t find the piece that ties it all together even though everyone is counting on him. At the height of his anxiety, Kyubey approaches him, and he wishes to find the truth. He basically gets super intuition/lie detection with a (mental) visual interface sort of like the DR trials (truth bullets plus the mini games). This creates drama with certain other magicals who are hiding something (cough, Kokichi and Kaito) and makes him doubt his skills since he’s relying on magic to cheat.

Maki: Still an orphan, still approached by a cult, but then approached by Kyubey. She wishes that the cult would never bother anyone at the orphanage again, and they all end up arrested, dead, or mysteriously vanished. She basically gets the power to make things/people “go away” to a pocket dimension only she can access, and this makes other people sort of forget those things/people exist while they’re inside. She sees her wish as a necessary sacrifice, like her becoming an assassin in canon, so she is Not Happy when Kyubey approaches some of the other orphans.

Kaede: Honestly not sure???? She doesn’t really have anything in her backstory that would be a catalyst for Kyubey to approach her, so I see it as more of a random chance, situation-based thing, like Madoka healing the cat. Maybe she was trapped in a Labyrinth and wished for the power to fight survive, or to save a friend? Just know it’s not related to her piano playing. That’s all practice, and she likes it that way.

(Joke answer: Kaede gets super mad at someone from a distance and wishes she could slap them across the face for being an idiot. She gets the power to telekinetically smack anything around from across the room.)

Himiko: Intrigued by the idea of real magic but not intrigued by the idea of having to fight witches. Ends up wishing for her mentor to be more popular. Not as mind-controlly as Kyoko’s wish; basically, people just find him really cool and talented and can’t look away from his shows, but they don’t like, form a cult? Sort of derails her own career as a magician (both because the audience likes her mentor more and because she has to sneak off and fight witches) and doesn’t really fix the problems in their relationship, but he doesn’t leave and never return. Anyway, she gets the power to make herself and anyone she touches more or less noticeable/popular. Really good for stealth or drawing aggro. Also for convincing people to do her favors.

Tenko: She recently moved to the city after living in a temple since she was a child, and is finding it hard to adjust. One night, when she’s out acting as a “hero of justice” like her Master taught her and preventing a suicide, she ends up trapped in a Labyrinth and saved by Himiko. She ends up really, really attached and sort of accompanies her on hunts for a while until something goes wrong, and she ends up wishing to protect Himiko. She ends up with sort of a sense when Himiko needs help and is really good at putting up shields/barriers.

Miu: Still in a bad car crash leading to a coma, butthe surgery doesn’t go as well. Kyubey approaches her in the hospital right after she’s been told she’s facing permanent brain damage. She almost wishes to put her brain back to normal but then decides, why stop there? She wishes to be a genius with a super-brain that can solve any problem, and ends up with super inspiration, mostly aimed at turning any materials around her into an invention that will help her. She can use magic to substitute for missing materials and speed up the development time, but this uses a lot of magic at once, and the finished product won’t work for anyone else. Freaks out when she learns her body is now essentially hardware, but then she realizes the possibilities for improving things… Then everyone else freaks out.

Gonta: Still a feral child who got lost in the woodsand was sort of raised by wolves (not reptites, sorry), but this affects his ability to learn language and social skills much, much more severely than in canon. Wishes for the ability to understand others, which makes him fluent in all languages and sort of an empath. Also, because he sees animals as sort of on the same level as humans, this extends to animal languages in addition to human ones. Being able to speak and mimic “good manners” improves others’ opinions of him and his intelligence, but being able to feel how his birth family really feels about him is so upsetting that he eventually ends up running away and staying with Miu and Kiibo.

Kiibo: Lives with Miu. Does not remember his wish, but he has powers, so he has to have made one? Probably human. I’m still sort of torn over his backstory, but I’m kind of leaning towards a Hijiri kind of situation, where he was created by someone else’s wish. Or magic (cough, Miu.)

Ryoma: Wishes to get revenge on the mafia that killed his family and girlfriend. Basically gets enhanced strength and a sort of sense of where all of the members are. I sort of went over how his wish ends up in the other post…

Korekiyo: Wished to cure his sister’s illness and got healing powers. Currently traveling the world to observe other magicals. Like the other cult members, offers to use his powers for a price (usually Grief Seeds or information).

Angie: Starts out living on an isolated island andacting as a priestess/oracle, but begins to doubt her own abilities/connection to her god because natural disasters are getting worse and more people are leaving. She sort of interprets Kyubey as a messenger from her god and wishes to know what’s really going on/get a better sense of her destiny. She gets the power to predict the future as long as she is personally involved. She has to actively focus on a question (What happens if I do this?) or a goal (I want to achieve this) and she’ll see the most probable path. This really elevates her sense of self-importance, and makes it much easier to make others see things her way. It doesn’t prevent a tsunami from destroying her home and making everyone leave, at which point she meets Tsumugi and Kirumi.

Tsumugi: Her life isn’t bad, but she doesn’t like herself that much and feels empty and unfulfilled until she comes across the existence of actual magical girls (well, one in particular). Like an anime come to life! Tsumugi wishes for the ability to become someone else (yes, I know this was Rena’s wish too…) and gets the power to transform into other people. If they’re a magical, she can also copy a limited, weaker version of their powers.

Rantaro: Wishes to find all of his sisters and gets the ability to track people. He has an inherent sense where each of his sisters is and their general emotional state, but he can also apply this power to other people if he focuses. It works from anywhere in the world and can be based on a photograph, but it works best when the person is close by (from a country away he knows they’re alive and northwest from him, from a building away he knows they’re sitting in a chair in the back corner of the back bedroom and feeling excited but a little nervous) and he’s met them in person. He quickly discovers that tracking a sister down once doesn’t mean she’ll stay “found” and go home. Some of them also want to travel, others have bad senses of direction and always get lost again, some find his new knowledge of where they are and how they feel super creepy and avoid him, and at least one became a magical girl already… He probably finds out about the witch thing first…….

Kirumi: Part of a family that’s been serving animportant, rich family (maybe Rantaro’s? for maximum irony?) for generations. She’s been trained to dedicate her whole life to serving others and has no real prospects outside of eventually becoming head maid and training her own children to replace her. Meets Angie and Tsumugi and is immediately drawn in by Angie’s message. Wishes for the ability to instantly transport herself and others and gets the ability to teleport to any location she’s seen (photos count). It gets harder the more people she takes along, the longer the distance, and the less detail she knows about her destination. She tells everyone—and herself—that she lives to serve and wished for a convenient power to better serve the group’s needs, but she secretly wanted to escape really badly for her own sake too.

[cynnymonsnaps]

[Dangerous Fellows Info Dump]

First thing to the fandom and it’s an info dump about all these lovely lovely characters. (Main Capture targets, side characters and our very special MC in all their goodness.)

I don’t regret playing the game but definitely didn’t plan writing like 40+ pages of notes on this, and I regret how much time I put into this.

Be warned that this entire post will have some spoilers from all routes, so I suggest you read this after finishing all routes.

[Capture Targets]

Harry:

Very polite, kind and positive. The kind of boy your parents want you to date.

Protective of those who put themselves or are in danger. Usually goes all mom on them and scolds them.

Tries to mediate among the group, but often times get’s ignored by those arguing.

Bottles in his negative emotions a lot of the times which gives him really bad migraines.

His migraines usually happen when he wants to cry. Let the boy cry gosh dang it.

Used to take medicine for the migraines but ran out of pills. Now just carries the pill bottle around to make him feel better.

Tries to keep hope for the future, what an optimistic man.

His father was an alcoholic who used to abuse his mother and him. One day his dad just disappeared and left them both behind.

He loved his mother dearly. He lost/separated from her when the outbreak began. They were supposed to go to the doctor for his migraines.

When Harry’s dad left, his mom gave him her ring which she said would bring him happiness that he always wears.

Often tries to stay neutral or see the good in people. Doesn’t like suspecting people because it would bring division among the group.

Easy to regret his decisions, slightly unsure when to bring things forward that could change the flow of the group.

Appreciates when MC looks out for him and is happy that they are willing to listen to his troubles.

Harry and Lawrence have a strained relationship that isn’t obvious to the eye. They think too differently when trying to handle peoples lives.

Quite the one for close contact. Often patting MC on the shoulder to comfort or support them. Ex. During Scarlett’s incident he hugged them from behind to comfort them while they mourned.

Ethan:

A man of few words. You can tell what he’s feeling usually through his eyes or through his actions. Ex. Looking out the window while others are out on patrols.

Very brave and willing to put himself in front of others who are weaker to protect them from zombies.

Like a big brother looking after his siblings, giving them snacks when they’re hungry, staying with them if they can’t sleep, letting them cry it all out while he comforts them.

Doesn’t like taking a gamble with zombies, but if there is benefits for the future than he’ll use force to break through.

He looks like he’s made of steel, but even he’s afraid of the zombies.

A very sleepy boi. Someone please go help wake him up. Don’t massage his hand though, it’ll make him sleepier.

Used to be on a baseball team before the apocalypse, who used to joke around with his teammates all the time. Ex. going along with MC and Judy’s married couple skit.

Doesn’t really like thinking too much, (not in a meat head way but more like in a disassociating way.) Often keeps his opinions to himself unless he thinks it’s important to say it. Sometimes can’t get social cues.

If he’s not patrolling around the school, then he’s fixing up something. (Which is why he’s always a sleepy boi)

Lawrence and Ethan almost seem to have a leader and servant relationship. Sometimes it’s a Papa and Dad relationship looking after the teens.

Ethan and Zion are bros in strength and mind. Wouldn’t be surprised to see them work out together.

Zion:

Seems like a cocky asshole, but he’s just mostly a caring rough teddy bear. 

Not good at handling vulnerability whether it’s his own or someone else’s. Ex. Often doesn’t know what to do when MC cries except for telling them not to cry because that’s not why he saved them from zombies for.

When heated up in an argument he’ll often get loud and start yelling. He has his opinions and feels frustrated when they don’t come to conclusions because of it.

Hates when people try to play the victim because he knows everyone has their own stories and problems.

Always get’s straight to the point and is always blunt about it. It makes him seem like an asshole without feelings.

Always the first to rush into danger especially when it’s to save someone.

Doesn’t like when people try to bite off more than they can chew. Warns them about it and always ends it with “Don’t get into trouble.” Even though he always does the same.

A Rowdy fellow who gets excited and proud about finding a large food haul, laughs freely with his friends, and doesn’t really care about others opinions about him.

He’ll let people do the dangerous tasks if he knows they can do it. He’d rather the guys do the zombie bashing and patrolling outside rather than some of the girls who can’t fight for themselves. Ex. Judy wanting to go on the outside patrols but Zion rejecting the idea cause she can’t really fight a lot of zombies.

Loves to tease and lightly bully his friends.

Dense when it comes to love. Can’t see the reasons why Scarlett wants to keep his student ID or why she treats MC badly cause she thinks that Zion likes MC.

His family was rich so a lot of people would want to be friends with him for his wealth. Because of all the fake people buzzing around him he’d often forget their faces. Hates when people try to use others for personal gain, so he’s gotten good at seeing the signs.

Instead of looking at his background, he wants people to look at him for him and consider his feelings.

Knows no human can always make the right decision all the time so it’s suspicious to him how Lawrence is able to do so 24/7.

Used to play soccer and can run really fast. Probably was a really good player back before the zombie apocalypse.

Sarcastic to a T.

Strangely gets very serious when asked questions about life or hypothetical situations. Also takes promises seriously which is very cute.

Doesn’t really have plans for the future and never planned to go to College.

Zion and Eugene have a very bro relationship. Zion always bragging his little achievements and Eugene always shutting him down and telling him to stop exaggerating. They both seem like normal teenagers again when they are together. Zion always scares the piss out of Eugene and makes fun of him for it.

No one let’s Zion have his fun exaggerations.

When MC tells him about hearing noises in the hallways, he brushes it off and calls them paranoid. (Which you shouldn’t do in a zombie apocalypse. That’s just like waiting to be killed.)

Eugene:

Has an attitude and not as trusting of the MC at first. But behind that attitude is kindness covered with harsh words.

Easily gets annoyed or fed up when everyone argues.

A slight nihilist, seems to always shift to the negative point of view. Very cautious because of it.

Seems whiny but can actually be strong willed in dire situations.

In his own way, reassures the MC by stating the situation, grounding the MC in the situation. (A good tactic for when you’re disassociating.)

Sarcastic little shit who can’t fight back against logic.

Pretty real with his feelings. He doesn’t shy away from his feelings at all.

Doesn’t seem like it but he tends to worry about the group when they don’t come back on time. Especially when people start disappearing.

Likes when MC is straight with him and make him look straight at the situation sometimes.

Can’t believe how understanding and kind MC is. It pisses him off that they are probably bottling up all their anger and sadness. It’s okay to let out the rage MC please.

Always wanted to become a singer when he finished school. He loves to sing and wants to make it his profession. Everyone didn’t believe he could do it though and thought that it wouldn’t make any money from it. He was very discouraged and hesitant to share it with MC.

Doesn’t really like to get sentimental, usually wants to move away from good times with the gals. You can’t hurt when they die if you don’t get close. *SOBS*

Knows how to play the piano and has a lovely singing voice.

A little weasel and eats the chips that he found during patrol. To not guilt the MC he tells them that everyone snacks on what they find during patrol and makes them an accomplice by feeding them some nice “BBQ chips” (that are actually ramen bits. No you can’t tell me those are chips, there are squiggly noodles in there. HE’S EATING OUT OF A RAMEN BOWL PACKET.)

Willing to be the bad guy and kill off his feelings to get the MC out of the school over run by zombies and get to the safe zone.

He get’s jump scared easily which makes everyone want to scare the piss out of him. He does not appreciate it. At all.

Lawrence:

Seems charismatic and like a leader with a gentle yet powerful voice.

Logical and calculating. Very smart and can make quick yet successful plans.

Seems like he cares and watches out for the others. In truth he is watching the others, finding them troublesome. When they get too troublesome he plans to get rid of them.

Knows how to get the others attention. Especially zombies who are sensitive to sounds.

Makes MC shy with his aura. Later on it turns into fear and anxiousness with how scary and creepy he becomes knowing he’s okay with mercilessly killing someone.

Always seems to have the most perfect timing when accidents happen around the group.

Has a solid mask that allows him to lie through his teeth and distance the suspicion from him.

Has a great poker face until things don’t go how he wants them. In which he becomes disappointed and very quiet.

Likes when the MC is honest with him. He doesn’t like people keeping things from him or lying, but MC would never do that. So kind, pure, and naive.

When someone talks about leaving the school, his masks slips. He does not approve.

To protect his own he becomes very violent and scary. After the giving the (over)killing blows he seems calm and airily creepy.

Possessive over his things. He will make them his. He will have his utopia.

Pretends not to know things. Like the Safe Zone (which he took down all the posters for) or the basement (which he maintained all this time)

Tries to teach people “lessons” when they get to curious and snoop around.

Was an straight A student who studied all the time. He would go to a library and have a study group. Would study for his parents to be satisfied and was probably gonna go to College and get a good job.

Wanted to learn how to bake but his parents wouldn’t allow him.

His parents were probably very controlling and didn’t let him do anything. Which is probably why he feels great to control others and be free to do whatever he wants for the future.

Met the MC two years prior to the apocalypse where they offered him their umbrella when it was raining. He liked them ever since.

Really just a kid who needed real connections and friends and the others could give him that if he stop thinking about them like his own soldiers.

His real cocky smart ass self makes you wanna beat him up.

For sure bold and daring. Dangerously so.

Together with Ethan, they researched what the zombies were sensitive to.

Smart enough to know which chemicals can poison a human being.

KNOWS HOW TO MAKE A BIG GIANT EXPLOSION. HELLO?!? WHAT?!?

Was the student council president before the apocalypse.

[Side Characters]

Judy:

A bubbly girl who is a breath of fresh air that lightens the atmosphere when she's around.

Knew MC before the apocalypse happened. Went to the same school together.

Protective of her friend and overall glad to see her again.

Doesn't like when someone attacks MC so she defends them and tells them to back off.

A touchy feely kind of person and often hugs MC close when they sleep at night. Or shoves her cold hands on their neck when they wake up.

Has a good heart and would want the best for the group. Doesn't want to push MC away even if Scarlett is trying to make her doubt MC and leave them behind.

Admits to not wanting to be alone and wants to be closer to MC, who is all she has from before the apocalypse.

Lesbian/playful sister vibes going on constantly.

Optimistic bean. Still has an imagination and hunger for food cause of it.

Not the brightest banana in the bunch, but that's not gonna stop her from helping around.

Wears a hairpin to keep her bed hair somewhat out of her eyes. (But also where is it? I literally don't see it at all)

Judy has a good sense of humor and often works off of MC's jokes for funny married couple skits.

Likes to eat food. Often craves foods like pizza and fries.

Sue:

Reserved and kind person who gives chances to people. Ex. One of the people who wanted to hear MC out when they first joined the group.

Smart and observant. Knows when something is fishy and correctly found out the culprit just by observing them.

Was probably student council president of her school before the apocalypse.

Very thorough with her searches and seems dutiful in her tasks.

Reassuring and comes to comfort MC when people start to doubt them again. Tries to make them rationalize leaving.

Hailey:

Seems nervous all the time.

Gentle yet scared like a rabbit.

Doesn't have a loud voice or presence. Often blends into the background and can be talked over a lot.

Very tol.

Looks weak willed but is mentally strong as she's willing to go on food searching patrols.

Actually blunt.

Chooses to get to know MC because she can't watch and suspect her without truly knowing.

Worried about Judy and MC eating themselves into a coma. "You'll get fat guys."

Scarlett:

To the point and a realist. She knows the risks they're taking in another person because they'll deplete more resources.

Jumps to conclusions and makes accusations.

When she see's people getting close to MC, especially Zion, she get's aggressive with them.

Doesn't want to listen to or believe in MC.

Arrogant and thinks she is higher on the food chart. Or at least she acts that way, in truth it's mostly a defense mechanism. She's actually introverted and a scared child fearing death.

Blames an unavoidable event on MC.

Okay with letting the MC get into danger. Pretty petty and okay with MC dying.

Lies to the others to make doubt on the MC.

Likes Zion and will cut any girl going for him.

Jay:

Typical spineless guy in a horror film.

Wants to conserve as much resources as possible so doesn't want MC to join them.

Often agrees with Scarlett.

Weak and a coward.

Very whiny. More so than Eugene.

Can't really fight against zombies.

Doesn't go on the patrols and often has the others do them instead.

Doesn't like danger or putting himself at risk. Will push anyone in front of him to keep himself safe. Ex. Pushing MC down the stairs so they can be a distraction for the zombies.

No one really cares about him.

[MC]

You:

Can run well and hit zombies well. (with determination and the right choices)

Survived by themself by hiding in empty homes since the beginning of the outbreak.

Got nervous being around new people and having people around that they burst into tears of relief. It reminded them of their friends and mother and they just miss them all so much.

Knows how to read the room and doesn't usually say unnecessary things.

Often the bigger person when Scarlett picks a fight with them. Ex. Not saying anything rude back at Scarlett and not punching her when she slapped them.

Often keeps things inside until they boil over. Like how they often cry after their emotions get too much.

A quick thinker. Great in critical situations and tight spots.

Often willing to do risky things to help their goal. Ex. Wandering the school to figure out what the key might unlock, searching more for Judy alone, going to the basement alone to investigate.

Has a fear of being alone.

After getting a second chance to save everyone they get very clingy to Judy.

Has an ongoing married couple skit going on with Judy.

When everyone keeps doubting them, they don't feel safe anymore in the school. They don't feel like they belong and almost leaves if not for Sue reassuring them and calming them down.

After Sue admitting her suspicions, MC is careful and acts cautiously. They observe more and doesn't blindly trust. Begins to act differently towards Lawrence from that point on and doesn't see his actions just from the surface.

Nags the guys sometimes, just cause they care for their well beings.

For some hope and positivity for the future they make small life goals that they can reach.

Wins Eugene a chick with a hat on it. (Which also has a cocky face like the boi too.)

MC mourns everyone's disappearance and deaths properly. Even if the people were unkind to them.

They used to massage their friend, Claire's hand to keep her awake during their old Bio class.

MC breaking the 4th wall to change the ending. Any previous route acts as a very bad dream that they had. (My preference for the previous route is the normal ending or Lawrence's ending.)

Very sarcastic with Zion and Eugene.

Really likes sweets.

Doesn't think that they've ever actually encountered Lawrence.

[ofkenneths]

OKAY so i actually have some info on my dumbfuck boy ken, so i’m way more prepared for this intro in comparison to the absolute serving of dust i gave y’all with winona... yikes. anyways ! once again feel free to lms for plots or w/e cos im open to anything and everything ~

ken’s pinterest: here !

content warnings: alcoholism, death, headassery

holy crap, is that THOMAS DOHERTY over there ? nevermind, it must be KENNETH FRASER, that COMMENTARY & COMEDY youtuber. isn’t it crazy that they’re TWENTY-FIVE and already have 3m subscribers? i heard that they’re known to be DETACHED, but also pretty MAGNETIC, just like a typical SCORPIO. ( lazy smiles hidden behind the glint of a silver flask, outlandish stories that you’re never sure are true or not & the longest day of the year )

OK so ! a little disclaimer first: i don’t know SHIT about scotland / scottish accents beyond what i’ve seen in outlander ok ! i really just be faking it til i make it so ! @ me if u want ~

moving on.. im gonna go off my previous setup and start with his personality cos lbr that’s what y’all really care abt ~ he’s a little shit ! a gd moron ! really goes out of his way to be obnoxious & charming UGH id like to strangle him.. think joey tribbiani mixed with cody ko… but with a horrendously unintelligible scottish accent (: he really be like that All The Time smh

not the smartest ?? your boy actually graduated from harvard with honors and yet ?? yeah he’s a little dumb but it’s chill cos he’s p much got .. no sense of embarrassment ? cannot recall a single moment of his life when he felt embarrassed or regretted doing/saying something so .. catch him making self-depreciating jokes on the daily. on the flip side tho .. if someone was gonna like constantly get on him abt it he might 100% get in his feelings and uhhh when he do.. that’s when fists start flying ? most cos he’s always on his way to a blackout binge ;)

on top of that he also has .. little to no sense of self-preservation .. will p much do absolutely anything even if it’s detrimental to his physical, mental or emotional health ! love that for him ! Makes Bad Choices, essentially ( makes rash & not-thought-out choices ). never says no to a dare, p much always dtf cos lbr his libido is .. out of control and i hate him ??? & ALWAYS willing to break a rule or twelve

& now for the fun part … he’s a functioning alcoholic ! Big Time ! at his happiest when intoxicated and will p much always have alcohol on him somehow ? he’s usually got a flask plus a buzz throughout the day sighs so smh ! honest to god he probably can’t remember the last time he was completely sober so uhhh that’s fun ig ?? the big thing is that it’s been going on for so long that his tolerance is so high he keeps needing more and more to stay buzzed .. so it’ll likely eventually … start to cause some real problems ……. would be wild if his subscribers found out *wink wink*

a phat hypocrite tho ! love it ! will literally get annoyed with people who lie and play games when thats .. all he do .. god he’s actually the spawn of the devil i want him dead

SHEW OK onto a little background ! grew up in edinburgh ( obvs, sighs ) with his parents who were both school teachers so his upbringing was p modest ?? p normal ??? honestly .. his life was super normal til he was twelve & his parents died in a hit & run when they were crossing the street :/ from then he had to live with his uncle who was … uhhh.. a Garbage Human Being lmao ! Basic rich businessman on his bullshit .. thinking he’s the absolute god of gods reincarnate.. manipulating women .. talking down to ken .. treating everyone like he was better than them .. yeah, just a general piece of shit tbh. definitely not happy to have a preteen suddenly in his charge so ken was like .. Fine ? i’ll do whatever the fuck i want then ? & basically … did everything he knew he shouldnt have done lol

the only thing he really stayed on top of was his grades in school cos it was his best chance of getting the absolute fuck away from his uncle for good and doing it without having to rely on the bastard’s money/connections blah blah whatever so even as he was acting like a fuckin’ fool, he was getting straight a’s & p much being on a first name basis with all his teachers BJOVN we love duality

it was all fun and reckless until he had a real brush with death when he was seventeen. he was fooling around with his buddies, drunk right off his ass, acting like a piece of shit & making a complete ass of himself when he found himself underneath the motorcycle he was driving so.. he ended up spending a good amount of time in the hospital & came out of it with a nasty scar through his left brow & three shattered fingers that wouldn’t ever heal properly ( he’s left handed but had to relearn how to write and do everything with his right hand after it all ).

after that he decided to get the hell out of dodge ( .. scotland ) and move to the states & honestly thank the lord he got accepted into harvard cos otherwise he’d have had to choose between cambridge and oxford, neither far enough away from his uncle & his past as he wanted to be so ((: my mans lucky ig !

in college he got rly close with the guys in his dorm + rushed a fraternity ( a BUSINESS one, not a fun one so he was not up in there partying and hazing poor, unsuspecting scholarship kids ) & that’s when he rly started to feel content with his life ?? all it took was a move to a foreign country and the power of brotherhood *rock n roll emoji* and yk.. booze !

anyways ~ he started his channel in college as a way to let out the absolute dumbass in himself in a constructive way that didn’t involve getting into fights or doing hard drugs lol it started out as a sort of vlog channel until he got tired of carrying a camera around all day and it just kinda naturally progressed into a commentary & comedy channel as he found sitting in front of a camera and talking absolute nonsense about other nonsense was kinda like his calling, even if he has to write a transcript for subtitles cos everyone complains abt not being able to understand him.. it’s fine don’t worry about it

he’s uhh p much having the time of his life, tho he uhh Does miss home something fierce ( but no worries he just drowns all that shit out with some aged whisky lol ! ) & lowkey wishes he didnt have to continuously drink himself into a stupor to get thru the day but here we are ;)

anyways im super tired of this intro lmao so just mssg me if u want any specific details ONFIJC & i dont have any specific wanted connections ? cos being unprepared is My Brand, so i’m down to brainstorm w/ everyone who wants a crack at my mans kenny ~

[cozycryptidcorner]

A monster match for the amazing @navonneedsahug​

 “So i am a capricorn and an INFP-T. Im a heavier set lady. I am currently studying archaeology and classical civilizations.  Im more reserved when you first meet me but when i open up i turn into a very affectionate(love to be hold) and loud person, i laugh like a gd hyena.  Im the mom friend who will not hesitate to fight.  Im also an aspiring author. Im big into fantasy. i love reading fantasy novels, playing dnd and  video games. If i had an alignment itd probably be lawful good. Im a walking furnace looking for my cold counterpart. Love me an accent and like em tall but absolutely can not do insects like nope sorry. Id perfer a male  and someone who can stand listening to me talk about history  or my complaining about ancient authors. I can be a little oblivious about things so hed have to be patient as it would take me a moment to understand a joke or something of the sort.”

You have been matched with a Dullahan! Your Dullahan is a calm, collected, and believes in the hierarchy of his people and their rules. Well, up to a certain point, of course. There have been some recent changes that have convinced him that the council isn’t as well-intended as he once thought they were, so your Dullahan has recently turned into a more chaotic member of the order. While the turning point for him might have been meeting you, he won’t actually admit it, at least not in the beginning. Since he was raised in the communal home for fae children, his first instinct when finding something new is to hide it from everyone else, sometimes even from the people he would call his friends. It’s something that he works to fix, but that’s why he didn’t tell anyone from his order that he met you. And perhaps it was for the best, honestly, because mingling on the mortal plane isn’t precisely what could be categorized as ‘allowed.’

See, the thing about the Fae is that while humans are kind of hilarious to just kick back and watch after a hard day at work, you shouldn’t mingle with them. That was a mistake he made when he got shot through the chest while trying to track down an obnoxious, murderous vampire, ending up on your doorstep, almost bleeding to death. He didn’t need as much care and time as an average human would have, it was only a matter of hours before he stopped bleeding and a couple of more for the wound to close completely. All you had to do was see to his other needs, such as making him some tea and toast while he lays on a couch, almost like a simple guest, if he weren’t missing his head.

He’s... not a good conversationalist, not even when his head has been retrieved. Not at first, at least. Though you try to wheedle some information from him, your Dullahan is stiff, almost cold, though you just thought it was because there was a gaping hole in his chest. And you were right; actually, once his chest wound healed up, he began to become just a tad bit more invested in talking with you, once you learn the best way to wheedle information out of him. You have to do it slowly, gradually, offering bits of pieces of yourself until he becomes comfortable enough to respond in kind. He might have stayed just a little longer after his wound finally healed, just hanging around your home out of curiosity, watching go about your day like normal.

After a little while of getting to know you further, he realizes that his wound, in fact, will never heal ‘properly,’ and it’s best that he doesn’t burden the council when he isn’t able to serve them again. Still, the urge to seek out to make wrongs right still thrums in his blood, and so he does so, quietly, under the other Fae’s radars. Getting certified as a private eye was only as difficult as coming up with some kind of false identity with all the proper papers, which with magic, didn’t seem to be too much of an issue. He passes whatever exams he has to take for the certifications, and he’s golden, going out into the world and helping people solve their mysteries and problems.

It probably helps that he has the face of an angel, something he doesn’t hide even when he glamors himself to look more human. A missing head is something that usually puts people off, so sometimes he will just replace it with an illusion spell, and occasionally he’ll stick on his actual head to go out. Even so, people seem more open to speaking to him because of his seemingly harmless demeanor. While he might have been initially put off by other humans when he first started poking around on this mortal realm, he soon learns the ins and outs of regular people conversations. A bit of flatter here, a tiny pinch of sympathy there, and it seems like clients and targets just fall over themselves to tell him everything they can.

It’s his eyes, you think, when he has them. The sandy-golden paleness of his eyes catches people’s attention as easily as though a well-known model walking down the street. Oh, and the shape of his jawline, that’s pretty nice to trace your fingers over, too. Even though he glamors over his natural skin color with a regular human color, a medium brown that matches the value of his natural gray tone, though he hasn’t quite mastered the art of looking as though actual red blood runs through his veins. His hair might be the thing that is the most eye-catching about him, um, though he rarely actually wears it. For one thing, it’s long, and usually braided down to the small of his back, the thick, white tresses almost pale enough to see in pitch blackness. You could swear that it reflects moonlight itself.

Though a bit iffy about it at first, your Dullahan also becomes adjusted to not running around headless, as that seems to draw all sorts of unwanted attention. The only exception to this is, actually, that one Halloween contest he won without even entering, with people oohing and awing at his lack of head. Luckily, you managed to get him the fuck out of there before anyone realized just what was really going on. Other than that, though, there haven’t been too many close calls where someone might have accidentally stumbled in on a very disgruntled, super headless man in your home. You’re usually on your toes about that, anyways.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 20 - 16

20. maNga - “We could be the same” Turkey 2010

You could see it in my eyes, it should come as no surprise that the highest rock entry on this ranking is OF COURSE the avant garde rock entry. 😍

It certainly isn’t a stretch to call “We could be the same” avant garde because it’s an experimental extravaganza if ever there was, a rag-rag fusion of indie rock, industrial, hiphop and folk. 😍 More importantly one that WORKS. It’s really hard to put all of these genres together and not disturb the flow between each segment, yet that is exactly what maNga do. Their song runs like an oiled machine, supported by an excellent score of orchestral rock (the fiddle is an especially nice touch.) The snappy libretto keeps the ensemble well together, creating an atmosphere of pure coolness. 

This brave and creative entry is further supported by an act that has a well-defined aesthetic and artistic vision. (another sign of good avant garde. Pay attention because we are going to boot a LOT of them near the top of this ranking). MaNga don’t need much in terms of staging (since their song is already excellent), so a clever combo of strobe light seizure + dramatic helmet removal (FEATURING ACTUALLY CUTTING METAL AWAY WITH A BUZZSAW) is all it needs. 

FOR JUST ONE NIGHT WE COULD BE THE SAME

NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY. 

Eurovision is all about taking the hand that you’re dealt and running with it. maNga did exactly that. They weren’t vocally perfect but again, rock is a genre where it’s okay to sound unimpressive because the score will always out class you. They don’t have the best song, but again, it was something special, brave and inspired. Every small aspect of “We could be the same” comes together into a whole that is much bigger than the sum of its parts and for that, I shall always cherish them. 

________________________________________________________________

19. Joci Pápai - “Origo” Hungary 2017

[2017 review here]

I was worried that Joci’s NQ in the latest contest would tarnish his legacy, but if anything “Az én apám”’s failure at being entertaining only made me appreciate “Origo” even more.😍 Let us not beat around the bush. “Origo” is art. Like all art, it’s largely hit-or-miss. You either love this wonderful fusion of rap, self-references to Samuraihood and gypsy folk traditions, or you’re a unevolved troglodyte with subpar taste.😈 Lol I remember the music journalists and juries HATING “Origo” and... honestly, I get it. Yes. I can understand that deeply personal anectodes and proudly displaying your cultural heritage can fly over the heads of those narrow of mind. It’s fine. Not every song has complex meaning. You can vote for the “Replays” of this world at your heart’s content. ^__^

Music is at its core a form of expression, of conducting emotion with sound, of telling a story. We use words as a crutch for our empathy, but truly good music doesn’t need to rely lyrics in order to spread its message around. The true message always lies in the score. “Origo” shatters those language barriers by slowly,

 but steadily

unfolding a melancholic and touching narrative

that strikes everyone silent.

________________________________________________________________

18. Krista Siegfrids - “Marry me” Finland 2013

A WILD DINGDONG HAS APPEARED

Only logical we continue from artistic complexity to figurative cotton candy. 😍 but the same musical principles apply here as well, actually. “Marry me” has an upbeat tempo flanked by wedding bells that already carries its happy-go-lucky marriage vibe across even before the first words are spoken. 🤗 It is there to indulge and delight, which it does with all the zest and pluck you’d expect from Krista Siegfrids. 

Anyway, I’m sure this will shock you but I FLOOOOOOOOVE Krista Siegfrids soooooooo fucking muuuuuch as a human and I am NOT backing down on my fanboyism. She’s one of the few Eurovision Alumni that ALWAYS makes me happy whenever she appears, either as a force of HIGH FASHION/UMK hostess or as a resident melfest flop queen.😍  HON SNURRA MIN JORD!!!

DINGEDONG EVERY HOUR, WHEN YOU PICK A FLOWER~

As it happens, “Marry me” is the perfect canvas for her over-the-top, realhousewifesque personality. "Marry me” just delivers non-stop: it has a light-hearted, infectuously catchy beat, doubles down on lyrical and visual comedy, carries a happy vibed with a deliciously psychotic undercurrent, supplemented a superb act featuring a groom-into-bridesmaids twist and some hilariously opportunistic lgbtq pandering 😍 OH OH OH OH OH

DING DONG!!!1!1!1!11!1!!

ps: this being the entry that caused TRT to withdraw indefinitely because they can’t get on board with some hot girl-on-girl action. STAY PRESSED LOSERTWATS!!!

________________________________________________________________

17. Laura Tesoro - “What’s the pressure?” Belgium 2016

“YOU’VE GOT A STUPID SMILE 😄” -- Alexander Rybak, when praising Laura Tesoro during the NF. (😍)

Lol this is where my degrees of separation come in, because I’ve met several people that personally know Laura Tesoro and... with one exception they ALL fucking loathe her. 😍 (and aforementioned exception is her cousin 😍)  The general concencus re: Laura is that she’s an insufferable conceited bitch. Now, this could have easily ended up terrible if LauraLaura was That Unfounded Girl but... um,

can we say she has grounds to be a bit high on herself? She was fucking awesome in Stockholm. If anything Laura’s diva id helped “What’s the pressure”. First of all, there is the admirable confidence with which she takes the stage and completely NAILS every twist and turn with minimal effort. This is pure performance TALENT and if you can’t see that you’re Helen Keller. 

And second there’s the message behind “What’s the pressure”, which is uplifting and cheerful in the hands of a normal person, but when brought by a narcissist like Laura becomes a hysterical exhibit of concern-trollery: “HEY PERSON SUFFERING FROM ANXIETY ~I~ *NEVER* SUFFER FROM ANXIETY. LET ME TELL YOU WHY YOU SUFFER FROM ANXIETY AND I DON’T” (god what an obnoxious human 😍 LOVE HER. 😍) 

All in all, I think Laura has the justification she needs to have an ego, something her aforementioned haters (begrudgingly) admitted after seeing her own the live twice.🤭  She is a living conduit of confidence juju, a performance wonder, a Diva trapped in the body of an antropomorphic labrador. Dynamite comes in small packages and Laura Tesoro is more lit than Chinese Newyear fireworks.  🎇________________________________________________________________

16. Hovi Star - “Made of stars” Israel 2016

I’ll be honest, Hovi Star is one of my favourite human beings to ever participate in Eurovision.🤗  He has proven himself an UNSTOPPABLE force of sass, delivering interview gold on a terrifyingly consistent basis. There are enough examples, but the ones I’m going with are his impeccable Ira Losco Snatch Game  and his hilariously petty, one-sided feud with Douwe Bob (Dutch reporter: “what do you think about Douwe.” Hovi: “Oh I don’t think about him.😊 At all.🙂  Ever. 🙃 *hairflip*” god what a King of stonecold putdowns 😍)

Having said that, even though I loved Hovi as a ~human~ going in, I was still caught off-guard by how much I loved “Made of stars”. See, you know what I think about stripped down power-ballads: I don’t think about them. At all. Ever. *hairflip*. 

However, this fucking song

pulls all of my heartstrings

with mesmerizing efficacity.

“Made of stars” showcases the best of Israel: they excel at classical drama: well-choreographed and sentimental, “Made of stars” is a genuinely touching ballad which Hovi magically imbibes with the spirit of Conchita. He whips up emotional tension so thick only his wit can penetrate it.

As an entry “Made of stars” is very emotionally intelligent and so, so brave. It has clearly defined yet subtle undertones of homosexuality that make me feel represented and loved. It is staged in good taste, elegant, introverted and clever, yet accessible, direct and poignant. The middle-eight’s crescendo-into-starfall creates a bone-chilling moment of beauty, of pride, of empowerment. 

For such a simple entry, it delivers a lot of great things, proving once more: it’s not what you perform, but how you perform it.

And this update spelled the end for Turkey, Hungary, Finland and Israel.

TURKEY

Not much to say, honestly. Turkey have three entries in this decade and two of them were good. They are a hit-or-miss nation for me overall, mostly because i LOVE them in the 80s and 90s and somewhat dislike them in the 00s. What mostly bothers me is TRT’s attitude towards the rainbow community AND their self-entitlement towards the jury vote/big five. Both are highly toxic and I’d rather they keep on sitting out until they’re willing to become a healthy part of the Eurovision community again. 

HUNGARY

Hungary are a good Eurovision country and their statistics reflect that. Boggie of COURSE ruined it by being the worst, but she’s an exception, not the rule. They are a really good country for indie gems and hopefully they’ll get their shit together. Could make a nice outsider winner pick in the upcoming decade, who knows?

FINLAND

Finland is such an underrated eurovision nation. I mean, look at that chart, and then ponder on the fact, with 7 good entries out of 10,  they NQ’d six times and that NONE of their four qualifiers reached the top 10. Finland are bullied beyond belief and it fucking needs to end. 

ISRAEL

This looks more underwhelming on paper than it is in reality. Israel’s probelm is never the song. Their songs are nearly always good. The problem is the live performance, where they get their accents wrong (ie: Mei dying from wideshotitis, Kobi being reduced to a sobstory, Dana being a giant penis joke, Harel fucking up vocally and Netta being reduced to a parody of herself). They just need to lighten up more, which they did post-Nadav resulting in a few great entries, and Toy. Overall, Israel are one of my favourite Eurovision countries, and for good reason: when they are good, they are fucking excellent. 

[ofthebrightlights]

Pre·tend verb 1. speak and act so as to make it appear that something is the case when in fact it is not.

2. lay claim to (a quality or title). 𑁋𑁋𑁋𑁋𑁋𑁋𑁋 Hope Mikaelson is forced to be a normal girl going to a high school that is full of humans as there was never a school for supernaturals. How does she handle meeting Lizzie, Josie, Landon, Rafael, Penelope, Alaric, and Caroline all the while trying to navigate the ups and downs of high school? Can she fake it until she makes it?

Not even sure if I will continue this story or not? Might just take requests for one-shots settled around this verse or idea? So wanting to get back into fanfiction writing but not sure. One shot handon prompts? Send me! Go for it!

Just pretend they say to her as they sit down for breakfast in some small little house that looks so normal, so human that it hurts. The four-bedroom place filled with no servants, no one compelled to cook dinner and her mother had spent an hour in the kitchen trying to cook breakfast while her father read the newspaper on his tablet. Hope had been getting ready, which wasn't exactly something that made her jump for joy or anything. Clothes from Target, shoes from Paris though, a nice ballet slipper style that her aunt Rebekah had given her before they were forced to go underground to protect Hope from enemies that wanted her dead. She hasn't had a magic lesson with Aunt Freya in nearly two weeks and she wants so badly to be there with her now.

Hope picks up her fork and forces a soft smile to comfort her nervous parents that think she won't make it. The pancakes taste pretty good but even at that Hope could only get down a few bites before she is pushing back her chair and getting up, fingers rising to close the lid on the syrup without magic being used making her parents look at one another but say nothing. This wasn't a family breakfast, this was hell and Hope didn't want any part of it. She took her plate to the sink, scraping off almost a full pancake into the trash before heading and grabbing her dark blue reusable water bottle that held Pepsi to mask the scent of fresh blood that was mixed in. Once a day she had to have something just to keep from passing out and her parents know this, which is why the basement has a huge fridge filled with as much blood from three hospitals that were miles away from this small town of Mystic Falls. It wasn't just her that needed the blood but her parents as well. Three different hospitals, hours away from one another with Marcel being the one having to deliver them in the middle of the night, not able to stay longer than six minutes.

Hope puts her bottle on the counter and goes and grabs her car keys and sets that on the counter as well. Running upstairs in a flash, using her supernatural abilities for the last time until she is safely shut up in her room. Her bookbag laying across her desk is quickly ripped up into her arms, throwing the strap over her shoulder so that it hangs off to one side. Pencils go flying and Hope just ignores it, instead, she heads back downstairs at a painfully human pace to meet her mother smiling at the door, it was fake and they both know it. they have to stay strong for one another and keep up with the lies.

"Can I have your wrist?" Klaus asks softly, it wasn't really a request and Hope knows it as she reaches up and offers her hand, feeling the cold silver chain being placed on her wrist, a small little click and her father lets her arm go. "Do not take it off."

Hope nods, leaning forward and getting onto her tiptoes and pressing a kiss to her father's cheek. "Don't worry dad. I've got this." She isn't exactly brushing her worries about this whole thing away but trying to soothe her parents' worries. Hope turns to look at her mother, who gives her a kiss to the forehead and a big hug before even allowing Hope to slip passed both of them to go get her water bottle and car keys. She is seventeen and so close to eighteen that it was scary. She was ready to have the freedom of being able to sign her own name onto things and be able to not have to check in with her parents every few hours but at the same time she wants to crawl into her mother's bed and just snuggle like they used to do before Hope had grown a pride that made it nearly impossible to swallow and go to her mother's bedroom in the middle of the night when she has a nightmare. Keys in one hand and her water bottle in the other she goes out the backdoor but not before shouting, "Bye!" to her parents.

The drive to the Mystic Falls High was a tad longer than she wanted, just over the town line, meaning she doesn't write Mystic Falls on her letters that would be sent out to someone, not that she has anyone to write too. Hope listens to music, belting out song lyrics at the top of her lungs not caring if she sounds horrible, which she doesn't but always thinks she does. Don't play by Halsey is the song that plays as she pulls into the parking lot, putting her car into park after she finds a parking spot and takes a few deep breathes as she cuts the engine  "You got this Hope Hollows." The Hollows, such an odd last name to use when faking who you are but it was different but not enough to draw attention to herself.  

Opening the driver's side door without paying attention is going to get herself in trouble someday is what her mama always told her and that day was today as she hears an "OW!" being groaned out by a voice that sounds male. Hope slips out of the car and shuts the door to reveal an olive-skinned boy with hair that looks like it could be used for a mop clutching his shoulder. "I am so sorry," Hope says almost automatically when she notices that he is hurt.

"It's alright," Landon said as he allows his hand to drop. "A hit from a pretty girl is totally worth it." He flashes Hope a big toothy smile that makes Hope's stomach flip flop.  "You are the new girl right?" he had heard about a new kid coming to school in the middle of January just a week ago and had been asked to show her around. "I'm your tour guide," he tells her with a gave of his hand, on the left side which hadn't been hit by the car.

Hope throws her bag onto her shoulder before pressing the lock button on her car. "So, what's your name smooth talker?" she asks as she steps around him and starts walking, leaving him to follow her.

"Landon.," Landon tells her. "And you are Hanna right?" He is joking, the name of the student that was new was named Hope. In a town so small that you know everyone it is pretty easy to tell who the new kid is.

"Hope," Hope corrects as they get to the front doors of the school. She stops and allows herself a few seconds to relax, hoping no one knocks into her.

"Right," Landon nods, he opens the door for her and allows her to slip inside with a whispered thank you. Hope seemed like one of those mean girls that will leave Landon's head in a toilet or something and the only way he talks with them is when they need something. "Hope." He liked the sound of that. Hope is a name that means that you are hopeful for the future or something. "So we need to get your schedule," he tells her, "At the office...follow me."

hope doesn't comment on the fact that she does need her schedule and she guesses a locker, a combination, and things like that. She has watched enough coming of age movies to know that is how it goes at school. Hope had been homeschooled all her life prior to this so everything was so new.

At the office, Hope gets her schedule and her locker lock, combo, and told good luck. A quick look at it and she is impressed. Advanced History, Mathematics, and English but regular 11th-grade science. She is sure that her father had made her school scores and things look impressive when he went and got them fake ids and general paperwork like school records.

At her locker, Landon is the one that puts her bookbag inside before going to his own locker that happens to only be five lockers down. Coat inside, notebook pulled out and a pencil pouch.  Hope smiles when she shuts the door to her locker and finds Landon waiting for her. "You know, I could play lost puppy and cry and beg for help if you want." It was a joke and he seems to not get that.

"I wouldn't do that, people here will eat you alive," Landon tells her as he turns around and heads down the hall. "So your first class is?"

Hope looks down at her white sheet of paper, " Advanced Lit." It was in that class that Hope found out she does not enjoy at all being the new kid. Everyone was working on a project together and was partnered up with their best friends and since Hope didn't know anyone, her teacher put her in a group with two girls that happened to be twins.  Lizzie and Josie Saltzman, who was so busy fighting over who was going to do the typing in the project that it was hard to keep up with. Hope found herself lost in doodling in her clean notebook, adding in comments every so often about what she thinks would be the best and more compelling. Her time being homeschooled had not been easy, in fact, her family did not take it easy on her no matter how many times she used to beg.

"I think the new girl is right," The blonde tells her twin. 'If we write this story about something generic as being the new kid, we won't be drawing in any attention but if we write a story about a girl that is feeling alone and hearing voices that end up being her subconscious we might get someone that feels the same way. Someone that feels like their life is out of control."

The way the blonde seemed to slink back even just slightly at the glare that her twin shot her was noticed by Hope but she said nothing, she knows who the leader is of this group and it wasn't the blonde.

"Better than the short story I once wrote in class about a flea on the back of a dog that went to the pet store," Hope tells them with a smile, trying to keep the two of them apart.  Hope finds out that she isn't funny to the twins but does somehow end up being the one that will be typing it all up.

her day goes by slowly, it seems to drag on and on leaving her mentally exhausted even when the last bell rings and students are rushing around trying to get the hell out of dodge. hope finds Lizzie following her and she turns, raising a brow at the blonde. "Why are you following me?" Thank gosh it is Friday. It was weird that Hope started on a Friday but it just worked out that way.

"Josie wanted me to get your number," Lizzie answers the question, seeming to be okay with Hope staring her down, trying to find out if it seemed true. "She wants to text you the deets about some party that is going on tonight."

"Are you going?" Hope asks, somehow this felt like a set up to her given the fact that no one really wants to get to know the new girl unless they are planning on getting her wasted and to spill all her secrets.

"No, I am on homework duty," Lizzie tells her with a look in her eyes that says that she would much rather be at a party than doing homework.

"I'll go if you go," Hope tells her. She finds Lizzie's softer side seems a hell of a lot better than Josie's harsh princess side, which clashes with Hope's.

"I don't have anything to wear," Lizzie looked panicked and Hope took as a sign to reach out and place a hand on her upper arm.

"I have a few things that you could borrow," Hope offers. "If you want to I don't know, come over and hang out?" This isn't normally how first days go, she is sure of it. "If it is okay with your parents that is."

"It's just my dad...he works here at the school," Lizzie sighs as she pulls out her phone from her pocket and texts her dad that she is going to be hanging out with a friend, not that she needs to send him anything given by the time he gets home at four he will most likely grab himself a beer and work right back up to drunk status in a matter of hours.

Hope grabs her backpack and meets Lizzie at the front doors, where they head out to her car. Hopefully, Hope's parents don't freak out at someone coming over but then again she is still going to have to sneak out to go to this party and pray her parents don't ground her for life.

Lizzie talks the whole ride to Hope's house and attempts to catch her up on all things Mystic Falls related but there is so much history there that she can't tell it all in the forty-minute ride. Hope pulls into her drive and could already hear her parents talking about things that seemed so normal. Hayley yelling at Klaus for putting his feet up on the coffee table seemed to be their topic of the moment. Hope slips from her car and motions for Lizzie to do the same.

"So this is your house?" Lizzie asks. "How big is it?" It looked a hell of a lot bigger than her house that was a two-bedroom with a furnished basement. Josie and Lizzie had the bedrooms while Alaric had the basement all to himself

"Only a four-bedroom," Hope tells her with a shrug. This was nothing. You should see the compound is what Hope really wants to say but doesn't. Opening the already unlocked door, "Mom! Dad! I'm home!" she calls even though she doesn't need to yell it. She still didn't know how she was going to sneak out tonight with her mother and father just down the hall and can hear everything and so can she. She sees her mother appeared from the living room with a smile on her face as if she hadn't just yelled at Klaus.

Lizzie looks around with wide eyes. The energy around the home was buzzing in a way that made Lizzie just want to touch everything.

"You brought a friend," Hayley said waving. "Hello, I'm Hayley and my lump of a husband is Klaus." This time motioning to Klaus

Lizzie waves back, giving a little chuckle at her words. "I'm Lizzie."

"Is it okay if she stays the night?" Hope asks hopefully as she hangs her bag on a hook and slips off her winter coat and takes Lizzie's as well and does the same.

"Of course! Just remember that your things need to be picked up," Klaus's voice travels from his spot on the couch.  Her things were picked up so she nods to Lizzie.

"My room is the first door on the left," Hope tells her before they head upstairs and go to her room. Lizzie makes herself comfortable on Hope's bed as if she had been there a hundred times.

"So, tell me about yourself," Lizzie said. Hope's mouth should have gone dry as almost all of it was going to be a lie that she told Lizzie.

"Well, I'm from a little town in Louisiana. I  grew up with two amazing parents that dropped everything to raise me. My mama was in the foster system so even though she had me young she didn't want me to have the same experience," Hope sighs.

"So is Hayley like your sister?" Lizzie asks. Hayley looked way too young to be Hope's mother so that made her wonder what had happened to her mother.

"Yeah," Hope nods. Just keep up the lie, not knowing she didn't have to lie to her newfound friend. "Our mom died in a..." she allows her voice to drop and tears to fall also on cue. "Just a month ago..." oh the lies will suffocate her and she knows it.

Lizzie wanted to reach out and take Hope's hand but Hope was across the world now trying to figure out an outfit for each of them and she guesses that is her way of coping with things. "How?" she doesn't really mean to ask, it just comes out.

"House fire." Hope turns around with a shirt in her hands, one hand wiping her eyes. "Can we drop the subject?" it was meant to be so fresh and it seemed that her friend didn't mind dropping the subject.

"Ya," Lizzie answers as she rolls onto her back and stares up at the ceiling.  "My mom left us, she is traveling the world." It hurt so badly that Lizzie had dove into her studies while Josie threw herself into cheerleading. Both of them coped differently about it. Now around Mystic falls, Caroline couldn't exactly step foot given that she hasn't aged a day since she was seventeen but she used to stay home all day cooking and cleaning and helping the girls with their homework, being a stay at home mother until one day she was walking out the door

Hope couldn't imagine her mother walking out the front door and never coming back. She is a daddy's girl for sure but that doesn't mean anything because once upon a time she had been attached to her mother's hip. The image of her mother walking out the door flash before her eyes and there is a tingle on her wrist, the bracelet struggling to keep her magic at bay. "Can you excuse me for a second? I have to use the bathroom." only when Lizzie nodded did Hope rush out of the room and shut the bathroom door behind her when she had a moment. Air in her lungs felt like there was this weight just on her lungs. she turns on the facet and splashes cold water on her face.

Meanwhile, Lizzie was looking around at Hope's room. It looked like a room that you could just up and leave in a moment, nothing really personal around not even a family picture along with the rest of the house. Her hand goes up to the wall, feeling the smooth coldness, her hand turns red when she ends up siphoning magic from said walls meaning that someone in this house was a witch. The house had some sort of spell on it, that much Lizzie could tell, these people are becoming weirder by the second. When Hope steps outside of her personal bathroom, Lizzie lets her hand drop from the wall.

"So do you want pizza tonight?" Hope asks.  "We can have whatever topping you want. Hayley and Klaus will eat anything and I am not exactly picky when it comes to what kind of pizza we eat."

"Pineapple?" Lizzie asks. "With ham?" She does believe that is called a Hawaiian pizza.

"Sure," Hope nods her head walking over to her desk, pulling out her phone and texting her mother what kind of pizza they wanted, knowing that she would get it because she is the baby girl that is spoiled rotten.

[ 📲 Hope to Mom  • sms ] —— Pineapple and ham pizza for dinner? [ 📲 Mom to Hope • sms ] ——  Sure! Anything else?

[ 📲 Hope to Mom • sms ] ——  No thank you! I love you!

Hope asks Lizzie to do her hair, just a way to talk about anything that comes to mind. Lizzie had control of the Apple music player that played girls just wanna have fun almost on a loop, which Hope found annoying but she never let it show.  Lizzie warns her about Dana and Conner, who were hooking up behind Josie's back but Josie doesn't seem to want to believe Lizzie. Hope just listens, unable to think of a way to help Lizzie make her sister believe her aside from showing her what Lizzie saw through magic but that would be revealing herself. Forty minutes and the pizza is there and her mother is at the bottom of the steps yelling up at them that dinner was there.

[pixelburied]

excuse the cropped weirdly pictures; my family/pet's foster parents are great at snapping a sneaky picture of me curled into an unattractively slouched (relaxed) fetal state. which i'm self-conscious about because it's an unattractive position for pictures even tho i am quite pretty (but they are also cropped because im just also private as hell, sorry lmao). 

bonus tho: said pet is laying ontop of me, face buried in my shoulder, twitching in her sleep as we speak!

--- but anyway. onto the actual submission:

so yeah. i saw your post! i'm here to address your call for dogs. but i dont have anymore pictures of my dog, Cash. however, i do have stuff about my cat, Allegra. 

i dont have any of them together cuz Cash lives at my family's house and Allegra lives in my apartment. and we're p sure he'd try to eat her and she'd scratch the hell out of him, so we don't try to let them meet. but, just like how Cash continued the legacy of us adopting another big slobbery dog with possessive seperation-anxiety, Allegra does fit all the criteria of those same personality traits we are such a beacon for. so i hope youll accept it as comfort nonetheless

here's a story about my cat who acts just like a anxious, cuddly, and slobbery pupper. i even bought her a pet ID tag that's shaped like a bone to honor that joke lmao) Allegra: "the honorary and tiniest mastiff" and named after the allergy medication

i got Allegra just this last year. she was a stray. now, for context: there are lots of outdoor cats in my neighborhood and they all hate strangers (they aren't feral tho, they have collars). but they all avoided my old house though because of Cash. so Allegra, newly abandoned, took advantage of that safety(?) by constantly hiding out around my family's house whenever she felt endangered

before that point tho, where i vaguely realized she existed but had no idea of what her strategy had been: i knew the cats of the neighborhood would run 15 miles away at the sound of people. but i am a small bean of cliches, so i always say "Hi kitty" anyway. even if them running away breaks my heart. and on that day, i was on my way to work for the opening shift, not early per se but i had enough time for starbucks if i wanted (and i did want) and i saw the vague mass of a cat on the lawn. predictably, i went "Hey kitty". but i also kept walking to my car due to said expectation of cats running and not wanting my heart to have that little break

and allegra did run. she just ran at me, full speed. i almost kicked this sudden HURLING THING in my peripherals like a football out of fight/flight + anxiety, except i have the aim of Charlie Brown so i thankfully missed her terribly. she was purring up a storm and crying pathetically. tho she's a Siamese, so they talk (read: complain) a lot anyway so maybe she wasn't crying. i always call her talking "crying" anyway tho cuz of the whiny pitch of it so such is a moot point. the real point was: she was ridiculously friendly

then, one morning, she was especially incorrigible. she wouldn't let me go into the car without her jumping inside too and kept scenting me, my car door, and all my equipment for this art class i was going to use for my presentation. a presentation that was a huge chunk of my grade that i couldn't be late for and Allegra was going to make late for. i had to trick her into thinking i was going to run away from my car, to which she zoomed ahead to cut me off, except i had actually done a fake-out and had really ran into the driver's seat and was already starting to slowly reverse out of the driveway. she had the sense to not go after a moving vehicle, thank god. my family texted me she cried outside our front door for hours later though. my art class that semester met once a week, so it was a 4.5 hour class that started at 7AM. and even tho that day had been a presentation day and we had less than 15 students, we still went over 3 hours. she cried during all of it. i used the "free time" to make sure i bought a cat leash and a cardboard cat carrier. but when i came back, heard no crying

i tried to get one of my neighbors to hold onto her for the afternoon. i couldnt leave her in my old house; i had family members i lived with who were terribly allergic. but i swore, so long as someone held onto her for my shift, i could take her to a shelter after. she was just so friendly and obviously new here, i just needed someone to put her somewhere safe (we lived by the freeway, by a train, by the main alternative to the freeway, and by two dog parks). but nobody really could hold onto her, so i had to hope she'd show up again when i came back from work. she didn't. i left her food out anyway.

i took her to the Humane Society Shelter closest to us because they have a microchip scanner. and she did have a chip! that was completely empty! apparently, that's a thing!! the guy there asked if i was going to keep her then, and i hadn't really thought that far. i had made the mistake of naming her and thinking she was cute, and she had done the legwork of being a cuddly motherfucker who purred constantly whenever i was around

she'd only ever appear in the early morning, when i was on my way to my shift or a midterm. about a week or two passed like this with me having no idea where she was for the rest of the day. turns out, according to said allergic family members, Allegra actually never left the house. she would hide on our roof or on our back porch's clutter or in our droopy lawn plants (like our sweetgrass) to hide from the outdoor cats or other dangers (she's a smart cat who hates the sound of cars and would hide whenever any one was particularly loud)

i'm pretty sure she's plenty well-cared for tho. in fact, i'm almost positive she's a very spoiled cat. for example, i have backups of everything x2. i have one of everything in my living area and a copy in my bedroom, should i need to close her in there when allergic family members are over (i also carry all the big allergy medication brands as a back-up in case i get a visitor who forgot to take their medication, which includes me being stocked with allegra the medication lmao) and then i also have a back-up of all her stuff in my closet should anything break. i always make sure all my windows are open when i leave for class/shifts so she can have "Cat TV" since birds do fly around the area. she has a ton of toys (she has a toy box actually) and i bought her multiple hideaways (like her shark pictured here; she also has a cactus that's pretty cute). also, ontop of having a good breakway collar, her microchip now reads my information. but yeah, im still working on the money to get her one more of everything for the house we visit for the holidays so i don't have to carry everything. i do a lot of research still-- on both cats and Siamese-- to make sure i am doing everything to make her happy, since her world is just me and our apartment now

i called out for her-- i had long since started calling her Allegra as a joke, because its a name of a popular allergy medication and so much of my family was allergic-- and shrugged sadly when she didn't come out. i had just put my stuff down to get my key out when i heard a familar crybaby. turns out, she had been sleeping in our sweetgrass and i had woken her up. she ran over and i called my family to take my things inside while i used the rest of my day to get her to a shelter. i put on a cat harness+leash before trying to out her in the cardboard box. don't buy cardboard boxes from Pet Co. they're shit. she broke out of it Alien style before i had even fully reversed out of the driveway. i had to improvise her leash into a seatbelt instead

but yeah. i say my favorite gremlin is dog-like because:

she has an overbite, so she looks like she's got her lip jutted out in a pout all the time. what's dog-like about it is this makes her slobber whenever she's excited or content (and i've grown up with mastiffs, who slobber so much you need 2 rags per room dedicated to their slobber)

hesitatingly, i called my only family member that was semi-local to see if he would be okay with fostering her until i was going to move (which was less than 6 months away) because, otherwise, i wasn't going to be able to keep her. and she was definitely going to be adopted immediately. he and his wife said of course, without hesitation. they were both huge cat lovers and they were, emotionally, my closest family members; so i had kept them in the loop about my cat quest. and they had already discussed potentially fostering Allegra, knowing my request was a possibility (read: probability). he drove over from his workplace to pick her up, with his own carrier, and drove the roughly 2 hours from our house back to his

she meows when people are at the door and greets them by begging for pets

she loves shoes. she steals my tennis shoes because she loves the laces and she will try to swat at them when im tying them. her claw getting stuck and forcing me to not continue has worked to make me late multiple times. but she also will lay down around my friends' feet and rub her face against their shoes, flipflops, and toes. one of my friends likes to joke that allegra has a foot fetish. she also can and will put her face into my tennis shoes and try to sleep like that. that's my bastard baby

i visited their house about once a week. except during finals, where i didn't visit for two or three weeks since i didnt have any exams so much as i had projects. (allegra was PISSED at me when i came back, my cuddly kitty refused to come near me and would run away when forcibly placed on my lap. she even swiped at me. by the next visit, she was grumpy but happier. by the one after that, everything was back to normal) i really liked visiting those family members too; it made us even closer. though it still annoys the male how much research i do about cat-care (as opposed to just accepting everything everyone tells me as gospel). i researched even down to "how to best pet a cat". i did this since, due to said allergic family members, i had never owned a cat and therefore didnt osmosisly process how to best care for one. i've also never been fully fauthful of people's advice that's based on "This is how we've/the media always done it". my history with mastiffs showed that not all breeds are the same and that you do have experts to utilize within your phone, and they are experts over peers for a reason. so i looked up dumbass questions like "how to best pet a cat" since i'm not an expert and Jackson Galaxy and friends are right there in my phone

she wants to play constantly. she loves tug of war the most, but anything involving chase has her going at full-speed

ive spoken to fellow cat-owners and mastiff-owners about this, and i thought this was interesting: when she isn't playing, she's sleeping. which is what mastiffs and cats do. and when i get up, she follows me. which is what our mastiffs do. and while i do stuff, she sits and waits by the doorway or else walks around my feet until i tell her to sit out of the way. which is what our mastiffs do. and then i go to sit down again, and she lays down as close as she can and goes back to sleep, which is what our mastiffs do. apparently, none of my friends cats do this; their cats just, at best, wake up to watch them leave and then their cats go back to sleep in the same place regardless of if they come back

Allegra likes to sleep at the foot of my bed for bedtime, at least for a majority of it

but, regardless if my worries, allegra seems happy! she cuddles with her claws out all the time (not sticking into my skin, just out) which is a sign of contentment. she'll also use her claws to keep me in place, like a fucking seatbelt (example pictured in post); it's where her claws will dig into the furniture and i cannot get up because of her, the possessive piece of shit. but she also gives me tons of Slow Blinks of I Love You. and she always runs to greet me at the door. and it's really funny how, anytime there's guests over, she tries to make it obvious that she's my favorite over (usually through politely tapping my leg with her paw to ask and recieve pets, and then giving everyone a very Cat Surrounded By Knives grin cuz i havent petted any of THEEEMMM lmao) she's hilarious

she doesn't like to be carried unless it means she's going with me somewhere outside the house. then she's as well-behaved as a chihuahua in a purse

she licks my hands all the time. and she licks my face to wake me up (at 4AM, Allegra, go aWAY)

she loves smelly clothes. the shoe part should tell you that much tho. for our mastiffs, we would leave them a smelly piece of clothing between washes to comfort via smell. Allegra, in a similar vein, was not impressed when i bought a laundry basket with a lid (almost carrying her to the communal laundry room once was enough, thank you!)

in the same vein as the clothes: she also loves blankets too. the more Me Smelling the blanket, the better (aka she doesn't like brand new blankets until its been like. month two or three of use). this is largely because i love blankets. but she kneads them, purring, even if im not using them. and when i am, she takes my using them as an invitation for cuddles

she sits whenever i tell her "NO" like 'who me? i was not doing a bad. i am but small creature'

she asks for a daily walk. she doesn't like the idea of being an outdoor cat. she just wants walks. like, she has lived several months not going outside and has been super happy. she made it clear on her adoption day that she was done with outside. she was perfectly content with being an indoor cat! still is, in a way! i ruined it. for myself. me. i was worried she wasn't being stimulated enough, so i experimented taking her on a walk and now i have created a monster. now she sits by the door and cries until i get out her harness and leash. which she hates her harness in a "no ball, only throw" kinda way. but she has also proven hates going outside alone since she is now ALSO scared of everything (remember those outdoor cats Allegra The Stray would hide from? how they would run away from strangers?? yeah. now that she has a Person, Allegra's turned into one of Them now). yeah.. she runs the fuck away (or as far as she can with a leash) from people she sees on her walks now. and it is pretty obvious she hates cars and dogs too, because when i have walked her outside of our new complex she is too petrified to move. like, she freezes even when just being close to a street. she likes our complex's janky carpeted hallways between the apartments, and she likes the ability to hide behind my legs. being an outdoor cat is something Allegra has decided she is not a fan of. if i try to change things up scenery-wise, she always asks to go home as soon as possible and runs into the apartment if our walks turn too much into what her life was before being adopted (aka. streets/cars, lawns, people walking). she wants walks. she LOVES and BEGS for walks. but not be outside. walks. even though she still hates her harness lmao

and that's Allegra! she's aproximately 2 years old, i've had her for less than a year, and she's assumedly a purebred Siamese cat. and she's also my ESA, or Emotional Support Animal. if applicable, a cuddly and loving pet is helpful for keeping mental health more stable. in my experience of getting one, it was fairly easy to get it permitted; especially a cat because they're super easy to get registered as compared to a dog. i am lucky enough to have regular physician as my doctor that empathizes with mental health and knows it not to be her area of expertise so much as the patient+their therapist (but also i have a history of attempted treatment on my medical record since i was 16), so my getting registered was literally just me asking for a doctor's note and her giving it to me near immediately. i can't take Allegra with me to classes or resteraunts or anything, nor do i even want to, but it forces apartments/hotels to HAVE to let me board with my ESA and to do so without an additional fee. however, i don't know if that's how ESAs work internationally or even in all of the states of America, the country where i live. but it definitely helps to have someone who needs me to get up everyday, who can never trigger me, who makes me laugh with their hijinks, and who cuddles with me regardless of if i have had a good day or bad day. Allegra is especially good at her job by being especially attentive whenever i am anxious. even if it's just me getting a little bit anxious because i'm late in turning an assignment in but have logically decided it doesn't matter because the assignment is only 2 points anyway, just turn it in late and don't focus on it; and she starts patting my leg almost continuously asking for pets inbetween rubbing herself on my legs. it's why i let her get away with never paying rent. i'm really glad she chose me. we both got really lucky with that decision ♡

i don't want to assume your situation, so i won't recommend an ESA for you so much as just remind you that they exist. i hope this all helps you feel supported and encouraged to continue to find the small wonders ♡♡♡

[per-ineptia-ad-astra]

Star Trek Episode 1.15: Shore Leave

AKA Rabbits and Pistols and Women, Oh My 

Our episode begins on the bridge, where Kirk is looking over a pad with a yeoman while awaiting a report from a landing party. He gets a kink in his back, so the yeoman starts giving him a backrub, but since both she and Spock are standing behind Kirk he doesn’t realize who is giving him the backrub. This results in quite possibly one of the most infamous lines in all of Star Trek.

[ID: Kirk sitting in his chair on the bridge, his back being rubbed by a brown-haired yeoman, caught in a moment of realization as he says, “Dig it in there, Mr. Sp--” and sees Spock walking past him.]

As everyone does their best to pretend that didn’t just happen, the yeoman says that Kirk needs sleep. Kirk replies that he gets enough of that from McCoy. Presumably he means that McCoy has been telling him that he needs to sleep, and not that McCoy is somehow giving him sleep, although really, anything’s possible. Spock says McCoy is right—wow, get that one on tape—Kirk and everyone onboard need rest after what they’ve been through the past three months. (Exactly what that is is left to the imagination.) Everyone except Spock, of course. He’s fine. He’s always fine. Evidently Kirk is too tired to bother putting up a fight about this, because he tells Uhura to send the landing party report to his quarters and staggers off the bridge.

We then see said landing party down on the nearby planet, which is so unbelievably lush and green that it has actual trees and grass instead of a soundstage with some foliage stuck on.

[ID: McCoy and Sulu walking down a sunlit grassy lane with trees to the right and tall plants at the edge of a pond to the left.]

McCoy and Sulu are naturally quite awed at this incredible beauty. Sulu says that it has no people and no animals, making it perfect for relaxation. No animals? Wow, that must be a really interesting ecosystem—how did a whole planet evolve with no animal life, while still resembling Earth so closely? The plants would have to have evolved unique mechanisms for reproduction without animal life to help pollinate them, not to mention the effect that no herbivorous consumption would have and—right, sorry. No animals means a good vacation! That’s the important thing. I guess.

Anyway, McCoy thinks the planet is just the place for some relaxation time for the crew, if they can get Kirk to authorize shore leave there. It does seem like a nice place to chill out after a lot of stress, but I question the Starfleet policy of letting crews take shore leave on random newly discovered planets as long as they don’t appear to have sapient native life as determined by some people wandering around on a small portion of it for a few hours. There could be plenty of threats there that they just haven’t uncovered—or, on the flipside, a whole crew full of people beaming down to loiter around could wreck havoc on an alien ecosystem. But, eh, it’s just plants, it’ll be fine.

McCoy comments that “you have to see this place to believe it—it’s like something out of Alice in Wonderland.” Bones, my man, I don’t know what copy of Alice in Wonderland you read, but I don’t remember its primary feature being nice-but-totally-normal-and-physics-obeying parkland.

Sulu stops to get some samples of the plant life, while McCoy wanders off happily, obviously enjoying the chance to just have a nice stroll through nature and chew on a stalk of grass. That is, until he spots something...unexpected.

[ID: A large humanoid white rabbit standing among the foliage, wearing a checked red and yellow shirt, yellow waistcoat, and brown and gray neckcloth, with an umbrella tucked under one arm.]

The rabbit exclaims that he’ll be late and hops (sort off) off through the undergrowth. A moment later a young girl in a blue and white dress runs up and asks McCoy if he’s seen a rabbit around. All poor Bones can do is point mutely in the direction the rabbit went, and the girl gives him a curtsy and runs after the rabbit.

McCoy stands there in abject shock for a moment before managing to bellow for Sulu, who comes running. Despite being only a few yards away, Sulu was evidently too absorbed with horticulture to notice any of what just happened, and there’s now no sign of either rabbit or girl. He asks McCoy what’s wrong, but McCoy can’t seem to find the words, and really, can you blame him?

[ID: McCoy standing by the edge of a pond, holding a grass straw tensely and staring in front of him while Sulu puts a hand on his shoulder and asks, “What is it, doc?”]

“Oh god, this is it. I knew this job was going to drive me insane and it’s FINALLY HAPPENED.”

After the break we get a captain’s log from Kirk talking about how nice this planet they found is. You can tell he’s tired and kind of out of it from the way he rambles a bit, and takes a moment to remember the entire stardate. Despite this, the yeoman currently talking to him in his room notes that he isn’t in any of the shore leave parties. Kirk waves this off and dismisses her, but this does nothing for Kirk’s solitude because she is immediately replaced by Spock.

Kirk asks Spock which shore leave party he wants to go with, but Spock says he’s not interested in going at all. On Vulcan, he says, “to rest is to rest, to cease using energy. To me, it is quite illogical to run up and down on green grass using energy instead of saving it.” Well, it would be. Your planet doesn’t have any green grass. The idea of going outside to relax probably would be pretty foreign on Vulcan, which is generally rather lacking in environments that anyone would consider relaxing.

The conversation is interrupted by Uhura paging Kirk to say there’s a call from McCoy. Kirk genially tells her to open a channel, little suspecting what this conversation is going to be about.

McCoy—remarkably calmly—says that either all their sensor probes are defective, or he is. Kirk naturally asks him to explain, leaving McCoy in the unenviable position of having to describe what he just saw. Kirk takes the whole story to be a joke, while Spock stands there rolling his eyes to the heavens. It’s understandable enough; even for people with as many weird experiences as these guys, giant talking rabbits aren’t something you expect to encounter, although I have heard that they appear here and there, now and then, to this one and that one.

Kirk figures that this is a trick of McCoy’s to get him to come down to the planet—that he doesn’t think Kirk will come down for shore leave unless he’s baited with a bit of mystery. Which doesn’t sound terribly like McCoy, I have to say. He seems less likely to make up a weird story about a rabbit as part of a cunning plan to lure Kirk into shore leave, and more likely to just physically drag him down to the planet by the ear.

Spock, evidently deciding not to get involved in these weird human things, says that actually he did have something he came here to discuss. He’s checked Dr. McCoy’s log—pre-rabbit sightings—and apparently there’s a crew member aboard who’s being a bit of a problem.

“[He’s] showing signs of stress and fatigue, reaction time down nine to twelve percent, associational reading norm minus three.”

“That’s much too low a rating.”

“He’s becoming irritable and quarrelsome, yet he refuses to take rest and rehabilitation. Now he has that right, but we’ve found--”

“A crewman’s right ends where the safety of the ship begins. Now, that man will go ashore on my orders. What’s his name?”

“James Kirk.”

[ID: 1. Spock looking at Kirk with a look of mock surprise and innocence while saying, “James Kirk.” 2. Kirk stares back at Spock. 3. Spock saying, “Enjoy yourself, Captain,” with a decidedly smug smile. 4. Kirk staring at Spock, now with a GTA-style overlay saying ‘wasted’.]

Weeeeelll, there’s not a whole lot Kirk can do about that devastating takedown except swallow the pill and go take some shore leave already. Spock tells him that they’ve detected no animals, no artifacts, no force fields (? was that a potential problem?), it’s just a nice pleasant green planet. But even as he’s saying this we see, down on said pleasant green planet, a rock by a pond slowly move aside on its own to reveal….A GUN! No, not a phaser—an actual, old-fashioned revolver. Dammit! The NRA got here before us!

Unknowing of the terrible threat looming nearby, a couple of crewmen—a goldshirt woman and a blueshirt man—are investigating some of the plant life. The blueshirt is intent on scanning some ferns, prompting a complaint from the goldshirt that he’s too focused on work, work, work, and not appreciating the natural loveliness all around them. The blueshirt responds that he’s focused on work because they’re working—they’ve got a report to make to the captain and things aren’t going to be nearly so pleasant if it’s not ready on time. Right after he says that, who should beam down but Kirk himself, along with the yeoman. Oh man, speak of the devil. Don’t you hate it when you’re talking about your boss and he immediately materializes out of thin air in front of you?

Luckily for the crewmen—Rodriguez and Teller, Kirk calls them—he’s not here to crack the whip. Told that they’ve finished the survey, he tells them to submit it to Spock and then clock out and enjoy themselves. Incidentally, Kirk calls the goldshirt Teller, but she’s played by the same actress who played Martine last episode. The character was named ‘Mary Teller’ in the script, but once they got on set someone noticed that they had—again, somehow—accidentally cast someone who had already appeared as a named character, and changed her first name to Angela to match Martine...but as you can see, it’s a bit inconsistent. And a bit jarring, if she is the same character, to see her so bright and happy and with budding romantic tension between her and Rodriguez, considering what happened to her last week. It worked out pretty well when they did this with Riley, but this time, not so much.

At any rate, Rodriguez points Kirk over to where Sulu and McCoy were. Kirk and the yeoman head over there, talking a bit about how incredibly beautiful the surroundings are. The amount that this planet gets talked up in the episode initially struck me as a bit odd; don’t get me wrong, it’s quite nice and pretty, but I don’t think I would call it jaw-droppingly, impossibly gorgeous. But then, y’know, I see trees everyday. I can see trees right now just by turning my head about ninety degrees. If I spent the majority of my life in a spaceship, seeing the same gray, florescent-lit surroundings every day, breathing in sterilized air and rarely seeing any space more open than Engineering, I’d probably be awestruck at the first bit of green I saw in months too.  

The captain and the yeoman find McCoy some way away, still standing by the pond and brooding over his sanity. Kirk is all ready to set into some teasing about rabbits and the sighting thereof, but while McCoy is still not entirely sure he didn’t hallucinate the whole thing, he’s got at least one thing a bit less easy to dismiss: large footprints in the dirt nearby.

[ID: Kirk kneeling in a dirt track, examining two sets of four-toed footprints.]

Those don’t look a great deal like rabbit tracks, but then, that didn’t look a great deal like an actual rabbit either. Kirk is, reasonably enough, not quite ready to commit to giant talking rabbits yet, but evidently something is going on here, so he calls up to the ship and tells the shore leave parties to stand by and not leave the ship. Right when they were about to disembark, too. You could probably hear the collective groan clear on the other side of the ship.

McCoy expresses some surprise at Kirk suspending the leave, since after all it’s only a giant talking rabbit that came from nowhere, what’s worrying about that? Kirk asks if McCoy can explain this whole business and McCoy has to admit that he can’t, and since neither can Kirk, he’s erring on the side of caution and not bringing the entire crew planetside until they figure out for sure that whatever’s going on isn’t dangerous. It’s probably not dangerous, but then again most people would say a quick checkup for a couple of isolated archaeologists probably wasn’t dangerous. A socially stunted teenage boy probably wasn’t dangerous. Someone beaming up with a bit of glittery space dirt on them probably wasn’t—you get my drift.

So nobody’s getting their vacation until Kirk gets some answers, but before they can start working on that there’s a sudden explosion of noise—gunshots. Which I don’t expect people from the twenty-third century could readily identify, but it’s obviously a big scary dangerous-sounding noise, so everyone takes off at a run to go see what’s going on.

What’s going on turns out to be...Sulu, standing in a clearing and happily firing off the revolver we saw earlier. Naturally Kirk is all “wtf, Mr. Sulu” and Sulu cheerfully explains that look! it’s a gun! isn’t it cool??? Apparently antique gun collecting is one of Sulu’s many side hobbies, and this one is a really cool old super rare gun that he’s been wanting for ages, which he just happened to find laying under a rock nearby. He seems weirdly unperturbed by a centuries-old Earth weapon—let alone the specific centuries-old Earth weapon that he just happened to want—turning up on a newly discovered, uninhabited and definitely non-Earth planet. Also, apparently Sulu’s interest in guns did not at any point include an accompanying interest in gun safety, since he thought it was a good idea to just start firing the thing off randomly for kicks.

Kirk puts his hand out and gives Sulu a stern “hand over the toy, young man” expression, and Sulu reluctantly gives it up. He tries to explain to Kirk how the gun works, but fails to mention the part about how you really shouldn’t just stick a loaded gun straight into your belt unless you want to shoot yourself in the leg, so naturally Kirk does exactly that.

Well at any rate, that confirms that there’s more going on here than one brief localized hallucination. Speaking of which, Yeoman Barrows suddenly spots more of the strange tracks they saw earlier, running right past them. Kirk orders Sulu to take Barrows and follow the new tracks AND NO MORE SHOOTING THINGS. Meanwhile, he and McCoy are going back to the glade to investigate the original set of tracks. Frankly I’m not sure how useful ‘the glade’ is as a place name on a planet that seems to consist of nothing but glades, but that seems to be what Kirk is going with. As the captain and the doctor head off, we see a strange antennae rise from the rocks and turn towards them.

Kirk and McCoy walk back to The Glade, chatting about how strange and obnoxious this whole situation is—can’t even go down for a spot of fresh air and sunshine without weird shit happening. Still, McCoy says, it could have been worse—Kirk could have been the one who saw the rabbit. At that Kirk laughs and asks McCoy if he’s feeling a bit picked on about all this, and McCoy admits that yeah, just because you know exactly what’s going to happen when you tell someone you saw a giant humanoid talking rabbit doesn’t make it fun.

Kirk says that he knows what it feels like because he got picked on a lot back at the Academy, though presumably not for rabbit-related reasons. Evidently, as he himself freely owns up to, Kirk was not just a serious student but a “positively grim” one, which made him an easy target for inter-student-body trolling. That Kirk was especially studious and strait-laced in his academic years is an aspect of his character that’s consistent throughout TOS (remember Mitchell’s remarks about Kirk being a “stack of books with legs”), but it’s one that seems to be easily forgotten about in favor of the assumption that Kirk must have been a wild, rule-breaking, carefree kind of student more interested in having dorm room hookups than passing tests. I’m just sayin’. Take notes.

At any rate, Kirk relates how there was one particular upperclassman named Finnegan who took special delight in taunting and pranking him—putting soup in his bed or a bucket of water on the top of a door. Which, honestly, as far as college pranks go that’s pretty lacking in creativity, but it clearly got to Kirk as evidenced by the fact that he’s still kinda sore about it some fifteen years later.

In the midst of all this reminiscing, they notice a new set of tracks—young girl tracks. Or, well, not that there’s anything about them that specifically says ‘young girl’, but since McCoy saw a young girl in the vicinity of the rabbit we can make a safe assumption. Kirk decides to split up; he’ll follow the Alice tracks, and McCoy can follow the rabbit tracks. McCoy’s amenable to this.

[ID: McCoy saying, “I got a personal grudge against that rabbit, Jim,” with a broad grin.]

Kirk hasn’t been alone for very long, though, when he hears a voice calling, “Jim!” He turns—and there, leaning against a nearby tree, is a young man wearing a silver shirt and an insufferable expression, accompanied, as all Irish people are legally obligated to be, by cheerful jig music. It is, or appears to be, Finnegan himself, in the flesh and just as fresh and smirking as he was at the Academy-- something he demonstrates by grasping Kirk’s shoulders in a brotherly fashion before walloping him with a punch that sends Kirk head over heels into the grass. As Kirk lays there stunned, Finnegan dances around laughing like a hyena and taunting Kirk to get up and fight back.

Now, Kirk, of course, is no longer an Academy freshman, but a decorated starship captain with ample experience in dealing with highly unusual circumstances and keeping his head in times of stress, so naturally his measured response to this impossible situation is to stay calm and evaluate what could be causing this and how dangerous—only joking, he gets up and charges at Finnegan with clear intent to strangle the bastard. I can’t really blame him, though. They cast Finnegan to perfection; the actor does a really good job at being an annoying little shit.

Before the fight can really get going, though, a sudden noise cuts across the clearing. Not gunshots, this time, but a terrified scream. Kirk immediately takes off in the direction of the sound, leaving Finnegan behind to jeer at Kirk for running from a fight.

As Kirk pelts across the grass he’s joined by McCoy, also running to see what’s going on. The two of them track the noise down to Barrows, sobbing and gasping on the ground next to a tree with her uniform all torn away from the collar on one shoulder, a rare case of the fragility of Starfleet uniforms being a problem for someone other than Kirk. And honestly I’d say Barrows gets a worse deal out of it, since the female crewmembers have so much less uniform to lose in the first place. Poor yeoman doesn’t get an undershirt, either, or, apparently, even a bra with straps.

Barrows says, rather frantically, that she was just walking along when suddenly “he” appeared—a man in a cloak with a jeweled dagger. Kirk asks if she’s sure she’s not imagining all this. That’s pretty damn rich from a man who was fistfighting his inexplicably appearing college rival a couple minutes ago. What, does he think Barrows imagined this so hard it ripped her uniform?

She gets rather rightfully pissed and tells Kirk that no, she did not dream up being attacked, you jerk. McCoy comments that the man she’s describing sounds like Don Juan. Which is quite a leap since all he has to go on is “cloak and jeweled dagger,” which could potentially describe an incredible amount of characters. Hell, that could be Barrows’s D&D character. But no, apparently McCoy got it in one, because Barrows says that actually, as she was walking through the woods, “it was so sort of storybook...I was thinking, all a girl needs is...Don Juan.”

Really? I mean, I don’t mean to judge anyone else’s romantic fantasies. But, well, I could see walking through some beautiful woods and thinking the scene just needed a charming prince or maybe a unicorn or something. Not so much, “gee, it’s so beautiful around here, all a girl needs is to be violently assaulted by a fictional character legendary for being a womanizing sleaze.”

Well, anyway, that was weird. Hey, come to think of it, where’s Sulu? Shouldn’t he be around here somewhere? Barrows says that he ran after the cloaked fellow. Oh dear. New plan: Kirk tells McCoy to stay with Barrows while he goes to look for Sulu. As Kirk runs off, the mysterious aerial appears again, seemingly tracking him, but it goes unnoticed by everyone.

Kirk soon finds himself leaving the trees and meadows and jogging out into a rocky, desert-like area. It’s still pretty out there, though, with some wildflowers growing around, which Kirk stops to admire. Kirk. Kirk, buddy, I like flowers too, but you’ve got a crewman potentially in danger here. Maybe we could enjoy the foliage later.

A moment later, though, Kirk spots something a lot more distracting than a pretty flower: a pretty woman!

[ID: A white woman with blonde hair braided in a ring around her head, wearing a dress which is half white and half black with a pink flower design on the black half, standing in front of a cliffside surrounded by plants.]

Kirk stares in stunned rapture as the woman approaches. This is not just any woman; this is, judging by Kirk’s disbelieving murmur of, “Ruth…?” someone he knows, or knew. Random woman that Kirk knows who we’ve never heard of before? Gee, I wonder what connection he could possibly have to her. I’m going to guess she’s not his aunt.

“It is me, Jim darling, it is Ruth,” the woman says, and moves in to rub against Kirk’s cheek. Well, that’s an upgrade from Finnegan at any rate.

After the break Kirk gives a rather distracted captain’s log: still investigating this weird planet, lost a crewman but found a woman so it evens out. With a last vestige of professionalism he attempts to call McCoy, but the communicator isn’t working. Kirk is exactly as bothered by this as you would expect someone to be whose phone just broke right when they needed to call someone but really didn’t want to.

Anyway, back to more important matters: “How can it really be you, Ruth?” Kirk says it’s been fifteen years, but she hasn’t aged a day. He really seems quite emotional about all this. Kirk’s always courteous to the girls of his past, but he doesn’t usually get this worked up about seeing them again. Ruth must have been someone really special to him.

Sadly, the dreamy romantic atmosphere can only last so long before it gets shattered by reality, in the form of a communicator chirp, specifically. It’s McCoy, wanting to know if Kirk’s having any luck finding Sulu. You know? Sulu? Your crewman that you’re supposed to be looking for? Might be in danger? Remember him? Apparently not, because Kirk only manages a vague “hmm?” and then, when McCoy wants to know what the heck is going on over there, Kirk mumbles that he’s sure Mr. Sulu will be just fine. Maybe he’ll find a woman too! Or another gun. Whatever. He’s fine. It’s fine.

But Kirk just can’t get a break in here, because he promptly gets another call. This time it’s from Rodriguez, reporting that he just saw a flock of birds go overhead. “Don’t you like birds, Mr. Rodriguez?” Kirk asks, so Rodriguez has to remind him of that tiny little detail that there are no birds on this planet. Or at least, there aren’t supposed to be, according to all those scans they took.

Welp, Kirk says, guess those scans were defective, how bout that, funny ol thing, probably not important though...but, for all that he clearly wants to tell Rodriguez to go away so he can get back to Ruth Time, Kirk’s captain instincts are still hanging in there somewhere, so with a sigh he snaps out of it and tells Rodriguez to have all the search parties meet back at The Glade before hanging up. Ruth tells him to go do what he must and that he’ll see her again if he wants to, then walks off back into the desert, leaving Kirk alone among the rocks with only his memories...but just for like, five seconds, because he promptly gets another call.

This time it’s Spock, reporting that they’re getting some strange readings indicating some kind of ‘power field’ down on the planet, and that there’s “a highly sophisticated energy draining our power and increasing, beginning to affect our communications.” How energy can be highly sophisticated is beyond me, honestly (is it wearing a monocle? what?), but you’re the science expert there, Spock. Seems this energy might be coming from beneath the planet’s surface, possibly indicating some kind of industrial activity going on down there.

Well, I think at this point we can definitively say that Something Weird is going on down here. Kirk heads off back to The Glade in pursuit of answers, and as he leaves we see another aerial, sticking up from a rock and twirling attentively in his direction.

Meanwhile, McCoy and Barrows are having a cheerful meander through the woods. Lovely as the woods are, though, Barrows comments that she wouldn’t want to be alone in them. “Why not?” McCoy asks. I dunno, man, because she just got attacked by an armed man with distinctly dishonorable intentions? I think that’d put most people off a stroll through the woods, no matter how nice said woods are.

Barrows hasn’t been dissuaded from the romantic ideal entirely though, and says that in woods like this a lady should be dressed in some fancy fairy-tale princess duds. I was thinking ‘long pants and hiking boots’ myself, but whatever works for you.

McCoy replies that if she was so dressed she’d have “whole armies of Don Juans to fight off...and me, too.” Not sure if “let me just remind you of that scary encounter you just had with a threatening man” is the best approach to flirting, but going by the moment of tender hand-holding they proceed to have, I’d say Barrows is down with it. (Hmm...Bones...Barrows...kind of goes together. In a morbid way, but still.) Still, the whole thing doesn’t feel quite in character for Bones, which might be explained by this plot originally being intended for Kirk (of course) with McCoy swapped in later. Kirk and McCoy are pretty much interchangeable, right? Sure.

Barrows is quickly distracted from the hand-holding when she spots something in the trees nearby: the exact kind of fancy fairy-tale princess clothes that she was just talking about, hanging on some branches. Imagine that. She runs over to the clothes and holds the dress up to herself gleefully, exclaiming, “Look at me, doctor! A lady to be protected and fought over!” When McCoy suggests the clothes would look even better with her in them, Barrows isn’t sure if it’s a great idea, but decides to go for it. Now, uhhh, if Barrows wants to wear a pretty princess dress that’s entirely her prerogative, and I don’t blame her for wanting to change out of that awkwardly ripped uniform, but putting on a set of fancy clothes that mysteriously appeared in the woods? That sounds like an excellent way to get captured by faeries and I would not recommend it.

Barrows goes to change behind some bushes, brazenly ignoring the possibility of being kidnapped by the fair folk, and McCoy is very deliberately Not Peeking when he gets a call from Rodriguez. The communicator has gone all staticy and squawky, though, and McCoy only just makes out the message that they’re supposed to meet back in The Glade before Rodriguez cuts out, and no amount of shouting “ESTEBAN!” into the communicator gets him back. Which is a pity for Rodriguez, because the scene cuts to show us that he and Marteller are in quite the spot of bother: they’re leaning up against a tree, clutching each other, while a tiger prowls about nearby. Yes, a tiger. Not a dude in a tiger suit, or a dog with stripes painted on, or even stock footage of a tiger: an actual, real, 100% bonafide, quite expensive tiger. Rodriguez tries desperately to get ahold of McCoy again without setting off Shere Khan over there, but the communicator doesn’t pick up at all this time.

Blissfully unaware of the tiger trouble, McCoy watches Barrows emerge, all dolled up. Meanwhile, Kirk is talking to Spock and demanding some answers about all this. Spock is hesitant, but Kirk says it’s his job to provide answers. Cut him some slack there, Kirk. It’s pretty hard to come up with a good scientific explanation for giant talking bunnies and magic women. Well, one that doesn’t involve massive intoxicants, at any rate. Speaking of which, Spock wants to know if they’re really sure these haven’t been hallucinations. Kirk rather doubts that, since one of those ‘hallucinations’ clocked him across the jaw. A fair point, although I would also put forth the rather relevant detail that by now we’ve had multiple people seeing the exact same thing, not a common feature of hallucinations.

Spock wants to know if they should maybe beam down an armed landing party, who I’m sure would be terribly effective, but Kirk says no, there hasn’t been any real danger so far, just weirdness (he hasn’t seen that tiger yet). Right as he says that, he looks up and sees a flock of...are those geese? Oh shit, you better send that armed party down after all, Spock, things just got dangerous.

Meanwhile, Sulu (remember him?) is walking through a nearby canyon, probably wondering where the heck everybody is, when the ground behind him opens up like a trapdoor and a samurai jumps out and starts attacking him. Man, we were getting some perfectly good character development for Sulu this episode but now we’re back to “a samurai! because he’s Japanese! get it? get it?”  

Sulu pulls his phaser on the samurai, but the phaser doesn’t seem to want to fire, and Sulu’s forced to make a run for it, right into Kirk, who is trying and failing to call McCoy. Sulu warns Kirk about the aggro’d samurai heading towards them—but he’s gone. No samurai to be seen. “Captain, you’ve got to believe me!” Sulu insists, and usually “you’ve got to believe me” is the best way to guarantee that someone will not believe you, but luckily for Sulu Kirk’s seen enough weird shit of his own today that at this point, sure, samurai, why not.

Sulu reports that he got a call from Rodriguez telling him to meet back at The Glade, but the communicators were acting up, and now it seems his phaser is out too. Kirk tests his, but it’s also dead. Great, now we don’t have any way to fight off the geese.

While they’ll mulling over this latest development, something appears up on a nearby outcropping of rock—the familiar human-shaped swirl of light of someone being transported. It appears to be Spock, but instead of the usual smooth materialization, he fades in and out several times before finally making it all the way. Just your periodic reminder that traveling through transporter is kind of terrifying.

Kirk wants to know what the heck, man, did he not just say to not send anyone else down? Spock says he had to come down because ship-to-planet communications are now completely out, and the mysterious power field is soaking up energy so quickly that he calculated that if they hurried they could just about get one person transported down before that went out too. Naturally he sent himself; I mean, he’s only the first officer, who better to risk sending through a shaky transporter beam? At any rate, that was the last of the transporter juice, so they’re all stuck down there now with no contact with the ship. The shuttles are conspicuously unmentioned by anyone—but then, if the energy-eating field is that strong, flying a shuttle into it probably wouldn’t end real well.

Back in The Glade, McCoy and Barrows have arrived (and McCoy has found another stalk of grass to chew on), but no one else is there yet. At least it doesn’t look like anyone is there yet, but McCoy thinks he hears something or someone moving around nearby. That makes Barrows nervous, but McCoy says her brave knight will protect her.

Over in the desert, Kirk, Spock and Sulu hear the tiger approaching, along with the ominous background music. They spread out to find the source of the noise, but there’s another problem in The Glade: a knight in black armor on a horse, charging towards McCoy and Barrows with lance at the ready. Barrows freaks, but McCoy is done with this shit. First a talking rabbit, then magic guns, and now this nonsense? He’s not having it. These damn things are all just hallucinations, and he’s going to prove it...by standing directly in front of the knight.

Under some circumstances, that might have been the correct option. Unfortunately for McCoy, these are not those circumstances, and Kirk and Spock come into The Glade (having, apparently, missed the tiger completely) just in time to watch their friend get hit in the chest by a very much not imaginary lance. The knight turns towards Kirk and Spock next; Spock tries to fire his phaser  at it, but of course, the phasers aren’t working. Luckily Kirk still has that gun he confiscated from Sulu—which has somehow not gone off throughout any of these adventures--and it’s working just fine, fine enough to shoot the knight right off his horse. Dang, Kirk is a good shot with that thing, considering he’s never so much as encountered one before.

Everyone rushes over to McCoy, lying lifeless in the grass. That’s right, McCoy is dead. Oh god! McCoy! We hardly knew ye! Oh, I can’t believe this has happened. And so early on in the show, too. What a tragedy.

[ID: McCoy laying prone on the grass with a small bloody hole in his chest, while Kirk, Spock, and Barrows in her princess clothes kneel around him.]

Not that I have experience with these things but that seems to be a remarkably small and clean wound for a lance to the chest.

In shocked grief, Spock, Kirk and Barrows kneel around the body of their fallen comrade. Barrows is especially emotional, sobbing that it’s all her fault, until Kirk grabs her by the shoulders and sternly tells her to get a grip. I suppose he needs everyone to have a clear head since they’re still in a crisis situation but it seems a wee bit harsh. Poor Barrows. She’s had a really bad day. Although not as bad as McCoy’s day, I guess.

Sulu calls Kirk over to the body of the fallen knight, laying in the grass some way away. As soon as Kirk gets there it’s easy to see what got Sulu’s attention: underneath the visor of his helmet, the knight’s face is plasticky and clearly artificial (although the eyes are just a little unnervingly realistic).

[ID: A headshot of a knight laying on the grass with his helmet visor opened, showing the face of a white man with brown hair but with a flat, artificial sheen.]

“It couldn’t be alive,” Kirk muses. Kirk, don’t be mean to the stuntmen.

Spock comes over to scan the body—luckily his tricorder is still working (don’t ask why). He says that the knight is indeed not a corpse but a “mechanical contrivance” which has the same cell structure as all the plants around them. Which means that not only this knight, but everything on the planet has been manufactured. Oh my god. We’re in WESTWORLD.

So a mysterious black knight just appeared out of the blue, ran down poor McCoy, then got shot and turned out to be fake all along. Okay. Sure. To be honest, you could stick that sequence of events in the Arthurian canon and it wouldn’t stand out much.

Suddenly, just to add to all the weirdness, an airplane flies overhead. Somewhere else, Rodriguez and Marteller are watching it with astonishment. Rodriguez asks if Marteller remembers “the early wars and funny air vehicles they used” that he was telling her about. One wonders how that conversation came about. Was it before or after the tiger?

Anyway, Rodriguez brings this up because that, of course, is one of those very same airplanes he mentioned. Marteller asks if it can hurt them, and Rodriguez says it can’t unless it makes a strafing run. Naturally, the plane immediately makes a strafing run. The two run off, barely avoiding the hail of bullets, and escape into some nearby undergrowth, where Marteller falls over. Rodriguez kneels down, concerned, calling her name, but she doesn’t respond. I have no idea whether she tripped, fainted, or was shot and is now dead. It’s really not clear.

Back in The Glade, something weird (sorry, something else weird) has happened while everyone was distracted by the plane: McCoy’s body has vanished, along with the fake knight. Well, that’s great.

Spock has a hypothesis. He asks Kirk what he was thinking of right before he saw the people he mentioned. Kirk thinks back and says that he was thinking about being in the Academy and his youth and all that, and then Finnegan showed up. And speak of the devil—there he is again, Finnegan himself. Kirk demands Finnegan give him some answers about what’s been happening to them, but Finnegan just laughs and runs away.

Kirk’s not going to stand for that. He’s had a bad enough day—verbally outfoxed by Spock, had a potential bit of lovely shore leave turn into a massive headache, one of his best friends is dead, and now this horrible little bastard is having a laugh at him. There’s only one thing to do—track down Finnegan and take out some aggression on him. He tells Spock to take Sulu and find McCoy’s body—and just, uh, leave Barrows somewhere, I guess—while he goes after Finnegan. Spock is a little taken aback by this sudden turn of events, but Kirk has run off before he has a chance to argue.

The chase takes Kirk back out to the desert. Finnegan keeps popping up in the distance, moving from place to place so quickly and inexplicably that it seems like he’s teleporting. All this time Finnegan’s peppy jig motif is playing, which is suitable enough for the immediate situation but a bit disconcertingly cheerful considering one of our beloved main cast members died and had his body stolen like two minutes ago.

Finally, Kirk tracks Finnegan down to a small ledge and once again demands that Finnegan give him some answers. Finnegan’s response to this is to jump off the ledge, onto Kirk. So begins a long fight scene in the desert dust. Kirk gives it a good show, but Finnegan seems indomitable. He knocks Kirk flat and then stands over him, taunting Kirk about how Kirk went and got old while Finnegan is still a twenty-year-old college student in fine fighting form. Well...a twenty-year-old in fine fighting form, at any rate. He’s got way too much energy to be a college student.

Despite being Super Old, Kirk gets back up and continues the fight. This time he’s the one who knocks Finnegan down, and Finnegan promptly starts moaning about how he can’t feel his leg and Kirk has broken his back. This is, of course, a trick, and as soon as he gets the chance he flips Kirk over onto his back. Somehow, between landing on the ground and getting a close-up, Kirk manages to rip his shirt clean off most of his torso.

[ID: 1. Kirk landing on his back in the dirt while Finnegan begins to get up from the ground nearby. 2. Kirk laying flat on his back, bruised, with his shirt torn off one shoulder almost to his stomach.]

how did you even do that

He lays there, seemingly unconscious, and Finnegan starts laughing about how Kirk can sleep now, sleep as much as he wants, sleep forever and forever. Oh. Uh. That got creepy.

Luckily for Kirk, a commercial break happens, and by the time it’s over, he’s recovered somewhat. He gets up and says, once again, that he wants answers. Finnegan tells him to earn them and throws dirt in his face, and they start going at it. Again. Seriously, this fight lasts for a long time.

Eventually, they come to a halt, both disheveled, bleeding, and covered in dirt. “Kinda makes up for things, huh, Jim?” Finnegan asks. I don’t know if the “things” are Finnegan’s bullying back in the day or everything that’s gone wrong today—or maybe both. Hard to say, because when Kirk questions him yet again, Finnegan says, “I never answer questions from plebes,” causing Kirk, clearly at his breaking point now, to bellow “I’M...NOT...A PLEBE!” as only William Shatner could.

Kirk asks Finnegan why the hell he’s here, magically still a cadet just hanging out on a supposedly uninhabited planet, which is pretty weird, y’know. Finnegan says he’s “being exactly what you expect me to be.” Which is more information than Finnegan’s provided so far, but not enough to dissuade Kirk from getting back up and finally giving Finnegan a right good sock on the jaw.

As he stands there catching his breath, Spock suddenly appears and asks if Kirk enjoyed his fight. Well, I say suddenly. It seems suddenly, but honestly he could have been standing there for the past ten minutes playing a trumpet and wearing light-up sneakers and I doubt Kirk would have noticed during that fight.

Kirk admits that yeah, actually, he did enjoy that. He’s been wanting to beat up Finnegan for years now and he finally got the chance and damn, it felt good. Spock says that this all fits into his theory: that these things and people are showing up because the Enterprise crew were thinking about them. You don’t say? I’m kind of amazed it took them this long to realize that, honestly. I mean, if something becomes relevant soon after I happened to be thinking about it I immediately notice it because that kind of thing strikes you as odd, right? And if something literally appeared in front of me right after I mentioned it, I think my immediate instinct would be to ask for something else just to see what would happen, which in this case would rather give the game away.

Anyway, Spock says that they must all control their thoughts, which is definitely a thing humans can do under pressure. He thinks that everything is being manufactured below ground and placed above via a system of secret tunnels, kind of like Disneyland. Then he starts talking about the tiger Rodriguez encountered—and said tiger immediately shows up nearby. Great job controlling your thoughts, Spock!

Apparently, Shatner wanted Kirk to wrestle this tiger, but basic sense prevailed and he was talked out of it. I wonder how that conversation went. “I gotta fight the tiger! It’s what this Kirk guy’s all about! I know, I’ve studied him!”

Luckily Kirk and Spock make their getaway without anyone having to fight the tiger. As they run back to The Glade, the airplane returns for another strafing run, so they have to outrun that too. Then, because I guess this is the part where all the previous bosses return and you have to fight them again, the samurai appears as well, but Kirk and Spock don’t have any time for that so they just push him over and keep going without even slowing down.

Back in The Glade, Barrows is in her uniform again and sadly hanging up the princess clothes on some branches. Her ripped collar seems to now be on the other side. Man, there’s just magic clothes all over this episode. And just to make Barrows’s day even worse, a leering mustachioed man appears in the brush behind her—Don Juan, one presumes. Man, somebody had a really weird idea of what women fantasize about.

Barrows screams and Sulu and Rodriguez rush over to rescue her—Sulu seems to be hoping that just kind of waving his hands around in the air will do the trick. Before yet another fight scene can break out, Kirk and Spock show up and tell everyone to stop this nonsense, at which point Don Juan just kind of obligingly leaves.

Kirk tells everyone to stand at attention and to not breathe or think. I hope he has some kind of plan beyond that because that is not a sustainable course of action. I mean, that’s how you get a giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Or just some passed-out crew. Incidentally, Rodriguez is here, but Marteller is nowhere to be seen. What happened to her? Is she dead? Did he just leave her laying in the woods somewhere? I have no idea, because she never gets mentioned again.

So the crew lines up and tries desperately not to think about tigers or samurai or vintage guns or airplanes or Don Juan or fancy princess clothes or talking rabbits or old flames or college rivals or anything else, and while they’re doing this an old man in blue robes suddenly appears.

[ID: Kirk, still bruised with a badly torn shirt, looking in surprise at a kindly-looking white man with white hair, wearing a blue robe with gold leaf embroideries on the chest and cuffs.]

Dangit! Which one of you was thinking of an old man in blue robes?

The man, who seems to know everyone’s names, introduces himself as the caretaker of the planet. He apologizes for all their troubles and says that ‘they’ only realized just now that the Enterprise crew didn’t understand what was going on—that everything that happened was only meant to amuse and entertain them. On this planet, you can imagine any kind of experience you want, and it’ll happen. Spock calls it an amusement park, and then explains to everyone else that that’s ‘an old Earth term’ for a place where people went to have fun experiences. Wait, does that mean that amusement parks don’t exist anymore? Why not? When did we lose our amusement park capabilities? Man, I don’t know about this future, guys.

The Caretaker says Spock has got it right—this is basically one giant amusement park. The whole planet, in fact, was constructed for the Caretaker’s people to come and play. Sulu expresses surprise at the idea that a species that seems to be so advanced would still play games, but Kirk says that on the contrary, the more advanced the mind, the greater the need for the simplicity of play, and the Caretaker agrees. Okay, cool planet, guys, but have you considered maybe, I dunno, putting up some signs or warning buoys or something so random space travelers who don’t know what the place is about don’t stumble upon it and have a really bad day?

Speaking of having bad days, Kirk might have his answers now, but he’s not exactly happy about his best friend and CMO getting killed by what was more or less a rogue audio-animatronic. But then who should call out but the CMO himself, who comes strolling over, looking decidedly not dead. Also he has a couple scantily-clad women with him for some reason.

[ID: McCoy saying, “Possibly because no one has died, Jim,” as he stands in front of the pond arm-in-arm with two women wearing fluffy bikinis, feathers in their hair, and what looks like a feather boa wrapped around one leg; one woman is in pink and the other in yellow.]

McCoy says he was taken below ground for ‘repairs’ and that there’s a huge factory complex down there that can make absolutely anything. They even fixed his shirt! So McCoy is fine, and we can call off the mourning, what a relief. Phew. Really had me worried there.

Barrows, though, seems less than amused by the fuzzy girls and asks what’s up with that. McCoy mutters something about a cabaret he visited that had these chorus girls and, well, here they are. Really? That’s what you were thinking about, after being brought back from the dead by an advanced alien civilization in an underground factory? A cabaret you went to once? These people have weird priorities.

This is one part of the episode that strikes me as interesting because it’s quite different from how I would expect a more modern sci-fi story to handle it. The idea of a planet-sized super-advanced alien theme park that can generate whatever you’re thinking about is in itself not a story idea I’d be surprised to encounter today. But the idea that all these creations are mechanical replicas built in a giant underground factory kind of is. You’d expect a race as advanced as that to be using, I dunno, holograms or telepathic projections or just something that’s straight-up never explained. I mean, even by the time of TNG we have regular humans using holodecks, which do everything this planet can do with just hard light or whatever. It’s a sort of linear thought process, I think, which shows up more than once in Star Trek and plenty of other sci-fi, wherein the idea of super-advanced alien/future tech is expressed as “okay think of what we can do right now, and then imagine it could be done faster and better.” Rather than taking a sideways step to imagine some completely new technology, it’s basically “well we have factories that can produce artificial things, so the advanced aliens must have bigger factories that can quickly produce more lifelike artificial things.” Of course, all sci-fi is going to have that to some extent because it’s impossible to completely extricate our imaginations from our current understanding of the world. But sometimes it’s especially obvious.

McCoy, seeing Barrows’s expression, turns the fuzzy girls loose to go pester the rest of the crew. Kirk is curious about the Caretaker’s species, but the Caretaker gently says that he doesn’t think humans are ready to understand them yet. But Uhura calls Kirk to say that ship power and communications are back on, and the Caretaker says that the crew is free to take their shore leave on the planet if they want. Well, that’s nice of them. Not everyone would share their planet-sized amusement park with total strangers.

So Kirk tells the shore leave parties to start beaming down. Spock says that he’s had quite enough excitement and is going to go back and hold the fort on the ship, and Kirk almost overrules him and says that he’ll go instead because as the captain he’s not allowed to have fun. But then he sees Ruth approaching in the distance and decides that, you know what, he’ll stay after all. Personally it seems to me that knowing that the long-lost love you were smooching was actually a plastic simulacrum of them would kind of take the joy out of it, but hey, what do I know about these things. I just hope they explain the ‘anything you think of will immediately appear’ situation to everyone before they come down, or any crewmembers with an anxiety disorder are going to get a nasty surprise.

Some time later, everyone returns to the ship, looking quite refreshed and happy. As Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and Barrows come onto the bridge, Spock asks if they enjoyed their shore leave, and they all agree that they did, very much. “Most illogical,” Spock comments. I don’t know what exactly he finds illogical about that, but then that pretty much is Spock’s fall-back way of expressing disapproval regardless of how much sense it makes.

So everyone laughs, and they fly off, and we have a nice happy ending. The filming of Shore Leave itself was rather less happy. The original script was written by Theodore Sturgeon, but Roddenberry thought it contained too much fantasy, so he handed it off to Gene L. Coon for a rewrite—but in some sitcom-worthy misunderstanding, Coon somehow thought that Roddenberry wanted more fantasy. So Roddenberry himself wound up re-rewriting the script, but at that point they were so out of time that he was writing it while the episode was being filmed. I have no idea exactly what levels of ‘fantasy’ were involved in either version of the script that Roddenberry disliked so much. Unicorns? Werewolves? Women characters not getting harassed by mustachioed stalkers for no real reason? Who knows.

The script also called for an elephant along with the tiger, and an elephant was actually hired and brought to set, but various shooting difficulties meant that it never wound up getting filmed. No word on whether Shatner wanted to wrestle the elephant too.

You may also have noticed Kirk suddenly has a new yeoman seemingly replacing Rand. By this point, Rand had been written out of the series; Balance of Terror was the last episode she would appear in (in filming order, The Conscience of the King was the last episode Grace Lee Whitney worked on). Exactly why the decision was made to write Rand out so unceremoniously is not really clear to me, and there seem to be lot of differing viewpoints on it; one thing that is clear is that it was a huge blow to poor Whitney, who was abruptly dismissed from the show through no fault of her own. To be honest, I don’t personally think that Rand was written especially well most of the time, but I think that she could have been written well, which is what makes it such a shame that she was removed from the show without getting the chance to get any real character development. Within the show itself, there’s no reason given for Rand just being gone one day (people just appear and disappear at random on this ship), though I’m sure the EU has that covered. Personally I just hope she found a ship that was a lot less stressful to be a woman on. We’ll miss ya, Rand!

TREK TROPE TALLY: We’ve got one crewmember death, followed by one crewmember un-death, plus one truly incredible case of a Uniform Unformed with Kirk’s shirt magically destroying itself between shots. Next time we’ll finally see some shuttle action in The Galileo Seven.

[misas-biggest-fan]

some detailed thoughts on an LABB movie w a ‘read more’ bc i have A Lot To Say

i want it to be a movie bc i love movies

im also open to the concept of a mini series but a full tv show might be a challenging stretch

animated or live action would both be incredible and both have their unique pros and cons

the whole thing is DISTINCTLY LA

busy streets and palm trees and the Hollywood sign and the shiny, overly false glamour of everything

would really contrast well with Rue Ryuzaki’s disturbing fake-ness

like he’s just as fake as the whole city, that both he and Hollywood have on this costume to hide tragedy and hideous deeds

i want it to have the glitz and glam and extravagance of the recent gatsby movie (which i adore, dont come for me)

if bahz luhrmann doesn’t direct i will RIOT id die for bahz luhrmann he’s Good and he has the same energy and chaotic attitude of beyond birthday himself

i want beyond to have a scene like the one where Nick realizes who Gatsby is and Gatsby turns around with the champagne flute and the fireworks go off in slow motion as he smiles that’s my favorite shot in all of cinematic history no joke

it’s HIGHLY STYLIZED. i want bright colors and weird aesthetic choices

I also want some shockingly beautiful frames of LA and surprisingly sophisicated shots of Beyonds face lit up in different neon colors or something

Indie enough to be weird and fun but pop enough to be easily digestible

it opens with mello writing his book (like moulin rouge!! a;lsdjfk)

his burn scars are just healing and he knows he’ll die soon so he has to write down all his important memories, leave something behind

he wants to write down something important to him, something that he can leave for Near, something that might put his own life and actions into context

something that might help other people understand who he was more

so of course, he thinks of beyond

who he respects and admires and pities

who has such a similar and yet different story from Mello’s own

so maybe in understanding beyond and understanding how mello feels about beyond

people will understand mello

near will understand mello

so mello gets to work detailing this story his incredible mentor L once told him, describing this beautiful memory he has of meeting with and talking to L and how L told him about Beyond

(in this scene, you don’t SEE L. you just get an idea of what he looks like, flashes and shots, so that the audience can know L well enough to still wonder about the identity Rue Ryuzaki throughout the movie)

and then of course, we dive into the story

Beyond is OVER THE TOP. he’s more than unsettling, he’s downright terrifying. but he’s still somehow intriguing and even charming at times, like he can turn the smoulder on and off at will. 

Hes a disaster nb, a fabulous hodgepodge of discarded gender roles and impressive makeup skills

Him practicing his evil laugh and trying so desperately to be this comic villain didjdjdje hes such a loser i love him that scene NEEDS to make an appearance

he and naomi’s chemistry is incredible to watch on screen because beyond dominates any scene he’s in unless naomi is there to challenge him because her acting is also so powerful that when they’re on screen together, it’s like you can’t tear your eyes away from this insane car wreck that is their relationship

and NAOMI

a;lksdfj;dlkfj naomi misora <3 <3 <3 <3 ok im ready

so naomi is also a powerful presence on screen, even though she’s not crawling on the ground or eating with her hands or you know whatever ridiculous garbage beyond is doing

more time is spent on her

her disastrous relationship with raye

her feelings over her suspension from the FBI

and really play up the whole jessica jones thing she’s got going on

i want black leather for DAYS

I want “gritty LA detective who’s on suspension from the FBI because she doesn’t play by the rules” or whatever except it’s a twist because not only is she not a man, like this trope usually calls for, but it turns out she was suspended because of her tenderness and humanity instead of her brutality

she still needs to have MULTIPLE fight scenes, a few with beyond and maybe even a few with other attackers, who she absolutely mops the floor with

but then she and beyond have a scene where they fight against someone together

he’s not a good fighter. she mostly has to save his butt every time but he’s just happy to be there and probably keeps saying stuff like ‘wow misora you’re amazing!’ and she’s like ‘?!?! ryuzaki you loser?1?! run?!?’

and of course, there’s enough twists and changes from the book to keep everyone on their toes, but GOOD changes

like maybe we go back to mello a few times and he has more of his own subplot where his relationship to near is revealed more fully, that he wants near to understand him and he wants to reach out to near emotionally in this way

contrast mello’s story with beyond’s so when we learn beyond’s full story at the end, he and mello are revealed to be foils of each other

we get shots of wammy’s house and we see a and beyond interact and we see beyond’s life-destroying grief over a’s death

we get contrasting shots of wammy’s with mello and near and we’re allowed to hope that maybe they can be happier

A and beyond become something of a subplot leading up to as death but you dont entirely realize who beyond is until the big reveal at the end

maybe beyond does some more unsettling things that are just as creepy and in-character but are a terrible surprise for those who’ve already read the book!! i can’t imagine what other horrific thing he could do to scare naomi, but there’s got to be something

i’m rly into bday massacre bc i love naomi and beyond’s rly twisted relationship so i’d love to see more of him being in awe of her, more of them connecting, more of beyond opening up to her even. maybe she tells him a little bit about her suspension. just a little.

also if we could like clean up some of the plot holes in this joint pls and thank you

id even be ok if it’s insinuated that he self-sabotaged a little, on a conscious level or not, bc i feel like that wouldn’t be tooooooo ooc i mean, he’s a hot mess. most of this is just a really twisted cry for help anyway, at least in my interpretation. he wants people to realize he’s suffering. he just… can’t do it in a normal or healthy way :/

beyond pls a;lkdfj

Anyway. Theres also a boppin soundtrack

Fire is a big motif. Maybe make a connection between wildfires in CA and beyond using this case to self-destruct

A little more closure at the end. Thats part of the drive behind my bday massacre fanfic rn is that i feel like he and naomi never got any real closure on the traumatizing, like, week or two they spent together

I also want more closure on naomi as a character arc. I want her to dump rayes sorry butt and i want her to have had some sort of real internal change. None of this “she picks up her life where she left off and never thinks abt beyond again”

Of course, L is revealed and has his glorious little spill down the concrete subway stairs. Its What He Deserves :)

And of course we have to make the obvious contrast between both beyond and mello having survived serious burn injuries its just another thing that makes them such interestingly comparable characters

If Naomi visits Beyond in prison to say goodbye, i wouldnt be opposed. If they made my fanfiction into a movie i wouldnt be opposed

Mello prints out his book in the mafia hideout, his arms folded and waiting as paper after paper comes out, just begging any of these mafia dudes to mock him for liking to write. None of them do. Its a funny moment tho

He debates sending it to near, feeling so awkward and prideful, but he finally does it, leaving instructions for it to reach near after his death.

In the end, naomi and beyond are revealed to be dead at the same time as near receives the package from his dear mello

Naomi and beyond were doomed, and so were beyond and a, but now… near has mellos last love letter to him, cryptically begging him to try to understand. And so theres hope that although the rest of these relationships were doomed, maybe near can still have one piece of mello and be happy

[hippychick006]

5.03 - Free to be you and me

Or the one where Sam and Dean don’t share any screen time or even talk at all. Having said that, there’s some good scenes that switch between the brothers to show what each of them are doing.  I also like the juxtaposition of how awkwardly Dean and Castiel work together in this episode, with how seamless Dean and Sam worked together in the previous episode.  Jared has some great scenes with Adrianne Palicki, Mark Pellegrino and some guest actors that did a great job with playing hunters.  Dean’s primarily with Castiel, though I did like the Raphael scene the first time I watched.

It’s an important episode in terms of the myth arc and Sam finding out he’s Lucifer’s vessel, but on re-watch, I’d fast forward through many of the scenes now.        

The episode opens on Sam sleeping (or trying to) in a motel room.  I’m issuing a shirtless!Sam alert for this one.  He rolls over and sees Jess is beside him.  This scene is so sweet.  I love when they manage to bring Jess back in interesting ways. We see that Sam loved her very much.  Sam says he misses her so much.  She asks him what he’s doing running away.  He says it’s different this time, “Last time I wanted to be normal. This time I know I’m a freak.”  

Jess: Even at Stanford you knew. You knew there was something dark inside of you. Deep down, maybe, but you knew. Maybe that's what got me killed.

Sam denies it, but Jess says: “I was dead from the moment we said hello.”  Jess tells him she’s trying to protect him from himself, he can’t run, the past will always catch up with him and the people closest to him will die.    Sam says he won’t make that mistake again. Jess says things won’t ever change with Sam.   Sam looks down and when he looks back up, Jess is gone.  

After the title screen, we get taken back to one week earlier.  I like the scenes we get that switch between what Sam and Dean are doing.  Sam’s dropped off (in a different car than we saw him hitching away in last week).  He’s arriving at the motel we saw him with Jess in the opener, which is in Garber, Oklahoma.   When he opens the trunk to get his belongings, we switch to Dean, closing baby’s trunk and it’s clear from the way he’s suited and booted (not to mention the weapon he places under his coat), that Dean’s on a hunt alone.  Fyi, Dean’s in Greely, Pennsylvania, which google maps tells me is about a 21 hour ish, drive from where Sam is.

Sam gets a job at a bar and Dean’s killing vampires with one liners: “Eat it, twilight.”   Sam wipes his brow while he’s chopping lemons, Dean wipes his blood covered face after chopping the head off a vampire. Sam’s cleaning the bar, Dean’s cleaning baby.

We get the same effect as the last episode in that the soundtrack song – Lynyrd Skynyrd Simple Man – changes to be heard coming from the radio as Dean is driving.    He looks over to the empty passenger’s seat as he drives.

We next see Dean in a motel room and this scene is one of the ones Hellers always pull out when everyone else says they don’t see Destiel.  Castiel appears suddenly behind Dean.  Dean jumps and thumps the sink.  He’s clearly annoyed and glares, “Don’t do that!”   He turns around and Castiel is standing far too close.  Dean can’t look at Castiel, not because of attraction, but because he’s angry at having to tell Castiel the same thing over and over and it’s awkward that he’s too close: Dean: Cas, we've talked about this. Personal space?   Castiel does move back, but he again comes into Dean’s space during the scene.  I’m at a loss for how anyone sees these scenes as “romantic”.  There’s clearly a power imbalance and it’s uncomfortable to watch Castiel continually disrespecting Dean’s wishes. 

Long scene short, Castiel needs Dean’s help to trap and interrogate the angel that killed him (Raphael), to get God’s location.  

Dean: You're serious about this…  So, what, I'm Thelma and you're Louise and we're just going to hold hands and sail off this cliff together? 

Dean asks why he should do this and receives the answer that no angel will dare harm him.  Dean: “Oh, so I'm your bullet shield.”   Castiel says Dean’s the only one who will help him.  He even adds a please.  Dean agrees, Castiel reaches up to zap Dean’s forehead, which Dean vetoes because “last time you zapped me someplace I didn’t poop for a week...we’re driving.”

Back to Sam – or Keith, since he’s using a different name – Lindsey the bartender flirts with him, asking if he plays darts.  Sam says it depends what they are playing for.  Lindsey says when she wins, Sam can buy her dinner and tell her his life story.   Sam agrees.  He steps up and I think he scores 100, but then gets distracted by the news, which is freak hail, lightning strikes and fire, all affecting a single local town.  The older bartender (not Lindsey), turns the TV off and says:  Damn. Is it me or does it seem like it's the end of the world?

Dean and Castiel have arrived in Maine.  Dean asks why they’re here (not sure why he didn’t do that on the drive).   Castiel wants to speak to a deputy sheriff that saw the archangel and his plan consists of: “We'll tell the officer that he witnessed an angel of the Lord, and the officer will tell us where the angel is.”

Unsurprisingly, Dean does not agree with that plan.  He puts a fake ID in Castiel’s coat, then adjusts his tie to be properly done up (like you would do with a child), and tells him that when humans want something, they lie.  Long story short, this is the scene where Cass holds his ID badge upside down and Dean says, “He's, uh, he's new.”   This scene would be funnier if we’d got an explanation for when Castiel had a picture taken to get a fake ID done, otherwise the scene just doesn’t make sense as it stands.

They interview the deputy who witnessed the incident (which was a riot that turned into an explosion at a gas station).  Castiel “helpfully” interjects on occasion with things like “It's angels and demons, probably… they're skirmishing all over the globe.”

Sheriff (to Castiel): Come again?  (to Dean) What did he say?

I think what’s funny about this is that Castiel is sitting nearest the ear the sheriff can’t hear with (as it got damaged in the explosion), so there’s an element of, “am I really hearing this right?” at play here.

Dean and Castiel speak at the same time and it’s certainly not winsync. Dean: nothing, Castiel: demons.  They repeat this.  Then Dean covers with: Demons, you know, drink, adultery. We all have our demons, Walt.

Once they get past the awkwardness, they learn that one guy survived the explosion, not a scratch on him.

Dean: Let me guess, he just, uh, vanished into thin air? 

Sheriff: Uh, no, Kolchak. He's down at Saint Pete's.

I had to look up Kolchak reference.  This is from wiki: Kolchak: The Night Stalker is an American television series that aired on ABC during the 1974–1975 season. It featured a fictional Chicago wire service reporter—Carl Kolchak, played by Darren McGavin—who investigated mysterious crimes with unlikely causes, particularly those that law enforcement authorities would not follow up. These often involved the supernatural or science fiction, including fantastic creatures.  

Wasn’t this what Kripke originally wanted to go with, a reporter investigating urban legends? Glad he went with the brothers.

Castiel helpfully repeats “Saint Pete's.” to Dean and not for the first time this episode, Dean really wishes his brother were here.

Down at the Saint Pete’s hospital, the survivor – local mechanic Donnie – is catatonic.  Raphael has left his vessel in a terrible state.   Dean: So, is this what I'm looking at if Michael jumps in my bones?

Castiel: No, not at all. Michael is much more powerful. It'll be far worse for you.

Oh great, that’s just…

Sam’s researching revelations (in latin), presumably because of the issues happening in the local town.  He picks up his phone and scrolls past everyone to get to Dean.  His brother isn’t on speed dial?!  He has a lot of names, a couple I think we met.  Interesting that Brady isn’t among them. He ignores my shouting, “Just call your brother, you idiot” and scrolls back up to Bobby’s number.  

He tells Bobby about the omens he’s found. 'And upon his rising there shall be hail and fire mixed with blood.' He says they’ve already got the first two, so blood can’t be far behind.   Bobby asks why Sam’s calling.  Sam questions that Dean didn’t tell him (about Sam not hunting).  

Bobby: He told me.

Sam: Yeah. So, I just thought you might want to find out who's in the area and put a man on this.

Bobby: Okay, let me see if I can think of the best hunter who might be in the immediate vicinity—oh, that'd be you.

Sam says he can’t and that he’s got to go.  Bobby protests, but Sam hangs up the phone. Bobby looks sad.

Dean’s in an abandoned house, looking through his dad’s journal.  Castiel flaps in and Dean asks where he’s been – presumably Castiel just did his usual and disappeared without explanation.  Castiel responds: Jerusalem.

Dean (sarcastically): Oh, how was it?

Castiel (perfectly seriously): Arid.

I miss this Castiel that didn’t understand humour and took everything literally.  

Castiel sets a jug on the table and Dean asks what it is.  Castiel responds that it’s oil, very special and rare.  Dean makes a joke about trapping Raphael with a nice vinaigrette. Then asks more seriously “Isn't that kinda like trapping a hurricane with a butterfly net?”  Castiel says it’s harder.  Dean asks if there’s a chance of surviving this.  Castiel says Dean does (have a chance), implication is, Castiel doesn’t.  Dean: So odds are you're a dead man tomorrow.

Castiel confirms this and Dean seems completely unperturbed (I miss these days), He asks Castiel what his plans are for his last night on earth.

Castiel: I just thought I'd sit here quietly

Dean disagrees and suggests booze and women.  He quickly discovers through Castiel’s awkwardness that the angel hasn’t ever done the deed (why would he, he’s not human?).  Dean: There are two things I know for certain. One, Bert and Ernie are gay. Two, you are not gonna die a virgin. Not on my watch. Let's go. (no hellers, he’s not offering his own services, he’s taking him out to get laid with hookers).

Back at the bar, Sam sees hunters he knows walk in and turns his back, walking away to try not to be recognised.  No luck, the hunter calls after him and blows his alias by calling him Sam.  Lindsey calls him on it and Sam says it’s his middle name, which she laughs at.   Lindsey asks if the guys are his friends.  One (Steve) answers: Hunting buddies. With his dad. Samuel here is quite the hunter himself.

Lindsey: Wow. You killed deer and things?

Tim: Yeah… and things.

Awkward!  Sam gets them drinks and Tim apologises for busting him.  I like seeing hunters from around their dad’s time, but sadly these guys will turn out to be assholes.  They tell him about the demons and that Bobby told them Sam was off limits.  Sam confirms it, but Tim says they really could use all hands.  Sam say’s he’s sorry.  Tim tries again, but Sam’s not having any of it. They leave for the hunt, telling Sam he’s buying them beers when they get back.

Lindsey: So, your parents were drunk when they named you and you shoot Bambi?

Sam says it’s a long story, but Lindsey’s had enough, she’s buying dinner and they are going to talk.  Sam says he can’t, but Lindsey is insistent.  Got to say, I’m not respecting the boundaries with either Castiel or Lindsey in this episode or actually Dean in terms of Cass getting drunk and having sex.

I absolutely have to say kudos to Misha for this next scene though.  He looks absolutely terrified as he looks around the scantily clad women: “This is a den of iniquity. I should not be here!”

Dean: Dude, you full-on rebelled against heaven. Iniquity is one of the perks.

A hooker approaches and asks Castiel’s name.  He doesn’t answer so Dean has to answer for him, which makes Castiel jump.  Dean asks her name in turn, which turns out to be Chastity. Castiel downs half his beer then Chastity tugs Castiel up and leads him away. Dean stops him, giving Castiel money saying: “If she asks for a credit card, no. Now just stick to the basics, okay? Do not order off the menu. Go get her, tiger.”  Castiel doesn’t move.  Dean: “Don’t make me push you.” 

I’m can’t help wondering if this is something Dean also did with a young Sam.

Another hooker walks by and Dean turns to follow her.  He’s having a drink with her at the bar when they hear a scream.  He goes to investigate, Castiel is standing in the hallway, more disheveled than normal.  Chastity is pissed and shouts at Castiel and then also at Dean as she angrily stomps off, still grumbling.

Dean: The hell did you do?

Castiel: I don't know. I just looked her in the eyes and told her it wasn't her fault that her father Gene ran off. It was because he hated his job at the post office.

Dean rolls his eyes: Oh no man… This whole industry runs on absent fathers. It's, it's the natural order.

They have to exit quickly, and Dean laughs when they get back outside.  Castiel asks what’s so funny.  Dean: Oh, nothing. Whoo. It's been a long time since I've laughed that hard. It's been more than a long time. Years.

Back with Sam and it looks like Lindsey has finally worn Sam down as they are eating dinner. Lindsey’s still trying to get Sam’s story and asks again about the guys from earlier.   Sam says they used to be in the same business together. When Lindsey presses for details, Sam tries to change the subject.  

Lindsey: Witness protection, right? You're Mafia?

Sam (laughs): I'm not Mafia.  

He sees Lindsey is switching off and relents a little as he tells her “I used to be in business with my brother. Truth is I was pretty good at the job. But...I made some mistakes, I did some stuff I'm not so proud of, and people got hurt. A lot of people.”

Me having just re-watched the entirety of the last few seasons.  I’m going to need to see a list of the people that got hurt because of what Sam did.  Stat!

Lindsey asks what Sam was hooked on, because she knows the look.  Sam looks uncomfortable, I’m thinking drinking demon blood isn’t something he can easily fess up to at addiction anonymous groups.   Lindsey pulls out a medallion and says she’s three years sober. Sam: “You work in a bar.”

Lindsey: So do you. Look, Keith. I don't know you and I'm the last person to be giving advice, but I do know that no one has ever done anything so bad that they can't be forgiven. That they can't change.

Castiel and Dean are at the hospital.  Castiel is pouring the oil in a circle around Raphael’s vessel explaining that no angel can touch or pass through the flames (or they die).  Dean asks how they’ll get Raphael there.  Castiel says there’s something like a phone line between a vessel and his angel.  You just have to know how to dial. He leans down to Donnie’s ear and chants in Enochian.

Dean: Just out of curiosity, what is the average customer wait time to speak to an archangel?

Castiel: Be ready. He lights a match and drops it on the oil, which bursts into a ring of flame.

Much later (that it’s turned from day to night.  Dean and Castiel are driving back to the abandoned house. Dean: “Well that's a day I'll never get back.”  

He enters the house and Castiel grabs him and tells him to wait.  There’s bright white light and Raphael is there in Donnie’s body, impressive lightning display of his wings.  Dean isn’t so impressed, he says all Raphael’s done is shot the lights in the room.   Raphael responds: And the Eastern Seaboard.   He threatens to take Dean to Michael. Dean says he’s going nowhere with Raphael.  Raphael reminds him of the stomach cancer Zachariah gave him. Dean said it was hilarious.  

Raphael: Well, he doesn't have anything close to my imagination.

Raphael’s arrogance is his undoing though as Dean says they knew he was coming.  Castiel lights a zippo and and drops it.  Raphael is now standing within a circle of fire and glares at Dean.  Raphael glares at Dean who responds.  “Don't look at me, it was his idea!”

Castiel asks Raphael where God is, Raphael says he’s dead.

Back at the bar and Sam’s cleaning up.  Tim’s back and asks Sam if he’s got something to tell him.  Sam says no and asks where the other two are.  Tim answers that Steve’s dead and that the demons told them things about Sam.  Sam refuses to talk but Reggie arrives and he’s holding Lindsey hostage with a knife.

Raphael and Castiel continue to have daddy abandonment issues.  Though it’s nice as part of this discussion that Dean puts the blame for the apocalypse where it belongs:

Raphael: Careful. That's my Father you're talking about, boy.

Dean: Yeah, who would be so proud to know his sons started the frigging apocalypse.

Back at the bar, Sam falsely confesses to starting the apocalypse.  

Me @Sam, you’re doing great sweetie.   If only the others involved would take some responsibility for their own actions. Thankfully, before I can really get started on this topic, we quickly go back to Dean, Castiel asks Raphael that if God’s dead, then who brought him back. Raphael suggests Lucifer because he needs all the rebellious angels he can find.  Castiel realises Raphael truly believes God is dead so doesn’t know anything. He goes to leave.  Raphael warns him about just leaving him here, that he will find him.  

Castiel: Maybe one day. But today, you're my little bitch.

Dean: What he said.

Best part of the episode is back with Sam as this is a great scene.  Tim has a tube of demon blood and wants Sam to take it so he can go with them and kill the demons.  Sam refuses but Tim says they’ll kill Lindsey if he doesn’t.  Reggie has handcuffed Lindsey to the bar and advances on Sam. Reggie charges Sam who impressively tosses him onto a pool table and starts punching him, but Tim takes Sam down and together with Reggie, force the demon blood into Sam’s mouth.  They force his mouth closed until he swallows.  They retreat and Sam gets up, he spits the blood in Tim’s eye who can’t see to fight back now.  Sam gets the upper hand and the kick he gives Reggie is worth watching the episode for.  Sam hauls Tim up and looks as though he’s going to kill him with Reggie’s knife, but sees Lindsey watching and she’s terrified.  He stops and tells them both to leave.   They say they’ll be back, but I’m pretty sure we never see or hear from them again.  

Dean gives Castiel a pep talk about missing fathers.  “I mean there were times when I was looking for my dad when all logic said that he was dead, but I knew in my heart he was still alive. Who cares what some ninja turtle says, Cas, what do you believe?”  Castiel believes God is alive and Dean says then go find him. Castiel asks how Dean is.  Dean says he’s good.

Castiel: Even without your brother?

Dean: Especially without my brother. I mean, I spent so much time worrying about the son of a bitch. I mean, I've had more fun with you in the past twenty-four hours than I've had with Sam in years, and you're not that much fun. It's funny, you know, I've been so chained to my family, but now that I'm alone, hell, I'm happy.

Thankfully, when Dean glances to the passenger seat and it’s empty, we see from his face that all of that was just Dean’s usual bullshit where he puts his game face on to try to convince others of what he’s saying.  

Back at the motel room, Sam is sleeping (in a t-shirt this time – wth Sam?  Pick a sleeping attire and stick to it!).  He hears Jess call his name and he wakes abruptly. Jess is back and Sam kisses her. He tells her he loves her then sits up and faces away from her on the bed.  He tells her he misses her but she’s wrong about him.  “People can change. There is reason for hope.”  Jess tells him there isn’t and then morphs into Lucifer (Sam doesn’t see this).  Sam asks how Jess can be so sure

Lucifer: Because you freed me.

Sam gets up and moves away.  

Lucifer: You are a hard one to find, Sam. Harder than most humans. I don't suppose you'd tell me where you are?

That would be a nope as Sam asks what Lucifer wants.  Lucifer wants to give Sam a gift for freeing him.  Sam wants nothing from him.  Lucifer tells Sam he’s sorry, but that Nick is just a Plan B. He can barely contain him. Sam asks what Lucifer is talking about.   Lucifer: Why do you think you were in that chapel? You're the one, Sam. You're my vessel. My true vessel.

Sam looks horrified: “No. That'll never happen.”

Lucifer: I'm sorry, but it will. I will find you. And when I do, you will let me in. I'm sure of it.

Sam realises Lucifer needs his consent, which Lucifer confirms.  Sam: I will kill myself before letting you in. 

Lucifer:  I'll just bring you back.  He sighs and continues: Sam. My heart breaks for you. The weight on your shoulders, what you've done, what you still have to do. It is more than anyone could bear. If there was some other way...but there isn't. I will never lie to you. I will never trick you. But you will say yes to me.

Sam says he’s wrong, but Lucifer says he knows Sam better than Sam knows himself.  Sam asks why him.  

Good question, Sam, let’s listen carefully to the answer:

Lucifer: Because it had to be you, Sam. It always had to be you.

Hold up there sparky, “it always had to be you” Sam, until the writers wanted to bring Lucifer back and decided that anyone can be Lucifer’s vessel, including another angel, so your entire storyline this season is now a complete waste of time, which can be added on to last season being a waste of time since all that was required to free Lucifer is a witch and a spell.  Having said that, scenes like this one over the years are why they keep bringing him back. It’s a very good scene between Jared and Mark.

Poor Sammy, the hits just keep coming for him.  Up next, the End, or the one where Jensen works his ass off, doing double time and Jared comes in and steals the episode. (paraphrasing Jensen’s words).

[dragonflybelle]

Osomatsu-san PS Vita game translation - Osomatsu 04 – Summer Scary Stories

Osomatsu: ... Karamatsu: ... Ichimatsu: ... Choromatsu: ... Jyushimatsu: ... Todomatsu: ... Osomatsu: ...That does it! Are you trying to kill me!! Todomatsu: Hey, Osomatsu-niisan, don’t shout like that all of a sudden. You’re too noisy... Osomatsu: Why!? Why did the fan have to break at a time like this!? And how are you guys able to just sit there like normal!? I’m at my limit! Oh, that’s right, it’ll be cool at the pachinko parlour...! Ichimatsu: Even though you don’t have anything to spend there? Osomatsu: Ugh...!

Jyushimatsu: Wassei wassei wassei... Clink! Yay, it’s a home run! Hehehe hehehehehe... Osomatsu: Ah, see... our cute Jyushimatsu has lost his mind? Are you guys ok with that? 

Todomatsu: Even If you say that, there’s nothing we can do... And wait a minute, Jyushimatsu was always weird. Osomatsu: Ah, you’re gonna say it out loud like that? Karamatsu: Heh... Don’t pointlessly resist, brothers. Why don’t you think of it like this? It’s not the summer heat that’s driving you crazy, it’s the heat of my heart... Todomatsu: Ah, I’ve been bitten by a mosquito here. It’s itchy! Itchy itchy itchy...! Osomatsu: So although we’ve got the window open, there’s no breeze coming through, but mosquitos are getting through? Sigh, that’s just shit. Karamatsu: ... Choromatsu: I think that one was your own fault, Karamatsu. Osomatsu: Oi, Ichimatsu, you do something about this. Why are you so complacent over there? Ichimatsu: We don’t have the money to buy a new fan. The summer isn’t over yet. ...So sitting still and conserving energy is the best thing to do. Todomatsu: That’s such lazy spirit, it’s almost refreshing. Choromatsu: Sigh... If there was at least a way we could make ourselves feel like it’s a little cooler, that would be nice. You know, like a wind chime or something. Karamatsu: Then why don’t I strike a chord on my guitar? Well, you might all be completely mesmerised and then get even hotter though... Osomatsu: A wind chime, huh... hey, we don’t have anything like that in the house! Come up with a better plan, Choromatsu! Karamatsu: ..........

Choromatsu: So why do you throw yourself off a cliff like that, even knowing that you’ll be ignored!? Your strength of will is amazing!  Todomatsu: Since we don’t have a wind chime, why don’t we fantasise about being on a date with a girl in a bikini? We’ll probably feel a bit more refreshed and cool. Jyushimatsu: Bikinis! Girls! Douff! Osomatsu: Jyushimatsu!!!! Karamatsu: Pull yourself together, Jyushimatsu!! Ichimatsu: He’s completely overheated, hasn’t he? Choromatsu: Isn’t he a bit too lacking in self-control? Isn’t that completely unreasonable? Todomatsu: Ugh... I won’t forget you, Jyushimatsu-niisan...! Rest in peace...! Jyushimatsu: I’ve had a brain wave!! Todomatsu: Uwah! Please don’t get up so suddenly. Seriously, it’s bad for my heart...! Osomatsu: Hey, Jyushimatsu, what do you mean you had a brainwave? Did you come up with some way of keeping cool!? Jyushimatsu: Yes yes yes y-yes yees!! I think we should tell scary stories. The other five: Scary stories? Choromatsu: Ah... I see. Certainly, I do feel as though my body temperature drops when I listen to a scary story... Osomatsu: Ah, that could be good. We won’t know until we try. Let’s give it a go! Ichimatsu: ...If it makes me cooler, I’ll try anything. Osomatsu: Alright! So let’s start with making a spooky atmosphere. This bright, sunny room won’t do at all. Let’s close the shutters like this first. And let’s light this candle I found in the kitchen.

Jyushimatsu: Uhehe! It’s pitch black!! Choromatsu: Huh, but... isn’t even hotter than before? Osomatsu: Just your imagination, just your imagination. You’re too sensitive, Choromatsu.  Choromatsu: Wait, what does this have to do with being sensitive? Osomatsu: Alright, let’s get started right away. We should go in clockwise order. And starting from Ichimatsu! Ichimatsu: ...From me? Well, alright. Erm... once upon a time there lived an old man and woman. Osomatsu: Hah? Ichimatsu: The old man went into the mountains to cut grass and the woman went to the river to wash clothes... Osomatsu: Hey, wait a minute! This is only a guess, but isn’t this the start of Momotaro!? Ichimatsu: Yeah. I’ve always found this story creepy. A person being born from a peach? How ridiculous! Osomatsu: Well, when you think about it a lot, it is scary... But that kind of thing is no good, next! Ichimatsu: Tsk. Karamatsu: Heh... Then I have a tale for you. This is the story of how one year ago I sold my soul to the devil. Osomatsu: Next! Karamatsu: Ah, I didn’t finish the story yet... Todomatsu: Ok, then it’s my turn. Well, this is only a story that I heard... but someone was walking along and they suddenly got a text. It said “I’m Mary. I’m at the station right now.” Choromatsu: Ah... right. Todomatsu: They didn’t know who it was and it was annoying, so they read it but ignored it, but then several more texts came. Even though they blocked it several times, they changed their ID and sent more. And Mary was coming closer to where they were, bit by bit, the station, the footbridge, the park... Ichimatsu: ...Sigh. Todomatsu: It was like Mary was using GPS to work out where they were. So they turned off GPS and put their phone into flight mode, just in case... Osomatsu: Arghh! That’s enough, that’s enough, that’s enough! Todomatsu: Eh, why? Choromatsu: The story is too contemporary and not scary at all! Why does Mary have a smart phone? Todomatsu: Of course she has one. Nowadays, it’s rare not to have one. Choromatsu: Yeah, if you’re a human being. That’s enough of that story. I don’t think it’s going to get scary even if we listen to it the whole way through. Todomatsu: Eh, but it was just about to get good... Ichimatsu: Yawn... Todomatsu: You’re kidding, right, that was so boring you felt sleepy? Ichimatsu: Well, that is true... My mind kind of went blank... Choromatsu: Huh? Well, now that you mention it... Osomatsu: Ah, seriously, that’s no good at all! There no one who can tell a proper story!  Todomatsu: If you’re going to talk like that, then you should tell a story, Osomatsu-niisan. Osomatsu: Hmm... alright. You won’t wet your pants out of fear, right guys? Did you guys know? This house’s secret... Karamatsu: Secret? Osomatsu: Yeah... The truth is apparently this land was originally used as a graveyard. There was also a burial mound for severed heads nearby. That’s right, this place is a ghost nest. If you look in the mirror at 2AM, you can see a whole swarm of ghosts reflected back. I’ve see that a number of times... Todomatsu: Eeek...! Y, you’re joking right? Osomatsu: You guys have felt it too, right? Sensed somebody behind you while you were shampooing your hair... Looked at the clock and it said 4:44!? Ichimatsu: ...! T, that’s true...! Osomatsu: Yeah... this house is cursed. The fact that we’re NEETs is all the fault of the ghosts haunting this house. Karamatsu: Was... was that what it was? I thought my life wasn’t turning out very well...! Osomatsu: (Of course I’m lying. Well, it’s so we can feel cooler, right? I can be forgiven for this level of lie.) Osomatsu: Right, and with that, my story is over. Do you feel cooler? Choromatsu: Definitely... I’m kind of thirsty... Ah, can you pass me that water? Shoumatsu-niisan. Osomatsu: ...Heh?

Shoumatsu: Yes, here you go. Choromatsu: Thanks, Shoumatsu-niisan. Todomatsu: You don’t seem like you’d have any spooky stories to tell, Shoumatsu-niisan.  Osomatsu: ...Eh? Eh? Ichimatsu: You don’t need to do anything other than be here, Shoumatsu-niisan. Shoumatsu: ............. Osomatsu: (They’ve increased. The number of bothers I have has increased by one! Who? Why is there a Shoumatsu? Could he be... a real ghost? Todomatsu: Hmm, what’s up, Osomatsu-niisan? You shut up all of a sudden. Osomatsu: Eh? No... not, not really. It’s nothing! Ahaha, ahahahaha... Osomatsu: (Wait wait wait, why have they all accepted Shoumatsu’s existence? ...This isn’t good! This situation isn’t good!) Osomatsu: Ah! I feel a lot cooler already, how about you? Let’s stop with the spooky stories already... Shoumatsu: ...Not yet. Osomatsu: ...Eh? Shoumatsu: We’re not finished yet. Osomatsu: Wait, hey... Todomatsu: Ahaha, you’re right, Shoumatsu-niisan. We’ve finally gotten into it, let’s keep going for a bit longer! Choromatsu: It’s Shoumatsu-niisan’s turn next isn’t it? Come on, get talking. Shoumatsu: ............... Alright, I’ll begin. Why am I in this place... What happened in the past to lead to this? And when my story is over, I’ll let you into to a world where you won’t even feel the heat... Osomatsu: !? (This is no good... We can’t listen to his story! He’s going to take us with him for sure! I’ve got to do something... but what?) Osomatsu: That’s it, at times like these, I should talk to that person! Hello.. blah blah blah, what should I do!?

Option One: Get out of there! Osomatsu: ...Ok. I’ll try to get out of here somehow.

Choromatsu: So Shoumatsu-niisan. What kind of story is this? Shoumatsu: Huhuhu. This story begins in the third year of the Kaiei Period (1850)... Osomatsu: Wahhhhhhh! Wait a minute. I need to go to the toilet first!! (I’ll just go right outside the house. Then I’ll be saved...!) Shoumatsu: Wait. Osomatsu: ...!? Shoumatsu: I won’t let you leave here now.

Osomatsu: Ha, hahaha... But, look, if I peed myself, that would suck... Shoumatsu: Are you running away? Aren’t you going to journey with everyone to a place where you won’t feel anything? Osomatsu: (Noooooooooo!! If, if it’s come to this...) Osomatsu: Ah! So you were here too, Totoko-chan. I didn’t notice! Shoumatsu: Totoko-chan? Where?

Osomatsu: Now! Woahhhhhhhhh! Pant... pant... pant... pant...!! Ahh, thank god...! I made it out somehow. Wait... huh? I was so scared, I slammed the door shut, but what happened to the rest of them? ...Well, whatever. I saved myself anyway. I won’t be able to go home for a while... 

Guess I’ll go to pachinko. I’ll be able to do something with 1000 Yen. ... ???: Are you really going? With just that much as a war chest.

Osomatsu; Huh, Ichimatsu? So you were ok. Ichimatsu? You’re kinda... weird?

Todomatsu: That’s horrible, Osomatsu-niisan. Going somewhere fun by yourself. Karamatsu: We can’t let anyone get ahead, right, brother? Osomatsu: Todomatsu!? Karamatsu too...! Wait... all of you guys!? (What’s this, what’s happening? Were they all actually taken by Shoumatsu!?) Jyushimatsu: Huh? You’re sweating bucketloads. What’s wrong Osomatsu-niisan? Osomatsu: Ahh, no... wait, I don’t feel very well... ahaha... hahaha. Ichimatsu: You’re alive, so you’ll feel unwell sometimes. That’s right, if you die, you won’t feel anything. Choromatsu: Ah, it’s nice to feel at peace. I don’t have to force myself to look for a job and I can go to idol concerts for free! What a wonderful world... Don’t you think so? Osomatsu-niisan. Osomatsu: S, so this means you guys... Shoumatsu: Hehehehehe... Osomatsu: Shoumatsu, you...! Todomatsu: We won’t forgive anyone who betrays us. Osomatsu-niisan.

Option Two: Try to reason with the ghost! Osomatsu: ...Right. I’ll see what I can do!

Karamatsu: Come on, Shoumatsu-niisan. Tell us your ultimate story... Shoumatsu: Ok, I will. Yes, it was in the third year of the Kaiei Period (1850)... Osomatsu: Stop with that story!! Shoumatsu: ...? Todomatsu: Hey, why are you stopping him? And just when Shoumatsu-niisan was trying to tell his story to us. Osomatsu: Let me say something to Shoumatsu first. There’s nothing to be gained by taking us with you! Shoumatsu: ...What are you saying? Osomatsu: Look, just think about it. We’re such shitty NEETs in this life, right? Ah... Karamatsu: ... Choromatsu: ... Shoumatsu: T, that’s... Osomatsu: I don’t wanna admit this myself, ok? I want to think that we’d be worth something anywhere we went. But that’s a bit of a stretch. People who’re the trash of society in one life, aren’t going to be able to refrain from being trash on the other side. So can’t you give us a break?

Shoumatsu: ............. I don’t need you guys after all. Choromatsu: Eh!? He disappeared!? Where did Shoumatsu-niisan go!? Karamatsu: You’re right... Shoumatsu-niisan... Shoumatsu-niisa... Shoumatsu? Todomatsu: Eh... is there somebody called that? Osomatsu: Of course there isn’t, you idiot. Hurry up and open the shutters!! Hah... hah...! ...I did it!! I got away without being taken!! ...Huh?

Karamatsu: ...

Choromatsu: ... Ichimatsu: ... Jyushimatsu: ... Todomatsu: ... Osomatsu: ...What’s up with you guys? That was a ghost just now. Aren’t you happy I saved you? Karamatsu: We have no money, no jobs and no girls... Choromatsu: We’re society’s trash... Ichimatsu: We’re not even worth anything dead... Osomatsu: Ah... Karamatsu: ... Choromatsu: ... Ichimatsu: ... Jyushimatsu: ... Todomatsu: ... Osomatsu: Reality is scarier than ghosts after all. Option Three: Don’t give into your fear! Osomatsu: You say don’t give into your fear... but how do I do that!? Ah, they hung up! Shit...! Osomatsu: (But... I feel like I heard on TV that ghosts feed off your fear. So in other words, if I can get rid of my fear, I can get away from him!?)

Shoumatsu: So I’ll start my tale. This story begins during the Spring in the third year of the Kaiei Period (1850)... Osomatsu: (Ahh, he’s see through! When you look at him long enough, you see the ends of his legs are see through! That’s so scary, it’s stupid! Uh oh... at this rate I’m going to be swallowed up by my fear!)

Jyushimatsu: ... Osomatsu: ...Hmm? (...Wait, is Jyushimatsu aware of the situation?) Shoumatsu: When I went to sleep that night, I heard a woman’s voice coming from the garden. I wondered what it was, so I looked out of the window and Jyushimatsu: ...... Shoumatsu: ... Are you hungry, Jyushimatsu?  Jyushimatsu: I’m ok... not! I’m hungry, muscle! Shoumatsu: Food... p, please wait a moment. It will all be over soon. So I looked out the window and there was not a soul to be seen... Osomatsu: Nice one, Jyushimatsu! That’s it, that’s how to do it! Choromatsu: Hmm? Be quiet, Osomatsu-niisan. Shoumatsu-niisan is talking. Osomatsu: Muscle muscle! Hustle hustle!!

Choromatsu: ...Huh!? Why are you impersonating Jyushimatsu!? Todomatsu: Hey, you’re ruining the scary atmosphere we’ve built up!? Ichimatsu: Yeah, you’re ruining it... hmm? Hey, isn’t there one more of us than normal? Karamatsu: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7... Huh? Seven people?! Shoumatsu: Y, you’re imagining things! Listen to my story, everyone! Osomatsu: Don’t be fooled, everyone. There’s no such person as Shoumatsu! Todomatsu: Eh...Eh!? Ehhhhh!? Then who is that? Osomatsu: Don’t be afraid of him. You’ll be taken off into the other side! Choromatsu: But scary things are scary! What should we do!? Osomatsu: Look at him. Jyushimatsu: ...I’m hungry. Ichimatsu: ...He’s not scared at all!? Osomatsu: At the very least, he doesn’t look like he’s afraid, right? If we act like him, the ghost will probably give up. Karamatsu: I see... Our pride will be torn to shreds, but we don’t have any other choice. All five except Jyushimatsu: ... Yes!

Matsuyo: Sigh, it’s hot again today. Speaking of which, the fan broke, so I wonder if the sextuplets are ok. ...Huh? The shutters are closed. That’s weird... And there’s some kind of weird smell... What on Earth are those boys doing? NEETs, I’m back...!?

Osomatsu: We’re going to beat the summer heat, two runs! Karamatsu: Even though there’s no breeze, it’s fine, inner course! Choromatsu: Even though there’s no oxygen, brushback! Ichimatsu: I’m not scared at all, nice batting! Todomatsu: Toss your fear away, centre! Jyushimatsu: How about some nice cold ice cream!