#im still not really able to retain a lot of thoughts in my head

[james-p-sullivan]

Hope you’re feeling better ❤️

thank you that’s very kind! im actually forming memories and remembering bits and pieces of friday before the accident so i think that means im getting better? definitely still have a long road to recovery but I’m so thankful to those around me who have really been there for me

[yuukei-yikes]

do you think shintaka ever sort out their codependency or does it just get worse

*cracks knuckles*

they do sort it out. but it's obviously not super ideal lol

in my sick twisted mind it is all stitched together with the mess of shinaya too. I WANNA WRITE A FIC SO BAD *banging table* i have this very specific relationship hell for shintaro thought out. *scratches head*

i talk a little bit abt it here and i think in other places but heh. honestly when i link to other posts its not rly like begging u to read them its more like a disclaimer that i might repeat myself which honestly i dont mind doing bc im crazy and im gonna talk abt the same things 1 billion times GLADLY. SO... >:3!!!! ITS MY TIME. have fun:

basically. so the usual right, takane feels like if she isnt watching shintaro all the time he could suddenly revert back to being a shut in and shintaro is comfortable having takane because she's familiar and the single constant in this life and all other lives in all other timelines. ene has always been there. takane = ene while a shock, to shintaro he can barely make a big deal out of it after retaining is activated bc he's seen it a million times. of course takane is ene. if anything the one needing closure over this reveal is takane.

i think post str shintaro is incredibly kind to her about it though. i think he feels immensely guilty for route xxx and is able to be openly thankful and they have a tender moment together. i think this single heart to heart changes everything for them. shintaro acts annoyed over takane's clinginess post str but becomes terrified when she's away, and sort of desperately looks for her the same way she does for him essentially reciprocating the sick need of each other, the difference is that he tries acting all cool abt it and making excuses while takane is sort of more direct abt like. HEY ARE U ALIVE??? JUST CHECKING IN LOLLL OK TALK TO U LATER ASSHOLE LOVE UUU!!! while shintaro's like ermmm...i was calling u cuz my comp is acting weird?? idk i tried some stuff but id rather u look at it to make sure. and takanes like LOL

like takane is totally delighted. shintaro isn't resenting her, he's gladly accepting her into his life and treating her like a friend and she KNOWS him so she knows that even if he says he wants her away the way he acts says otherwise. like she can read him like a book there is nothing he can hide from her, takane is able to see everything going on thru his mind. no one but her is more mindful abt everything that retaining eyes implies. maybe ayano, but we know which one shintaro is more comfortable about HEH. the fact takane is so direct about knowing about it and how hard it must be is also immensely comforting to shintaro (AGAIN ayano also does this but ayano is scary to shintaro) shintaro reciprocates takane's need for him again bc she is familiar and a comfortable constant but also because she is taking care of feeling all the heavy things for him. shintaro is desperate to stop feeling and takane is desperate to ignore her own feelings. but it doesn't REALLY work. shintaro still feels sad and broken and terrified. and takane still feels overwhelmed and in disbelief and unsure about everything. does this make sense.

takane's thing is like... okay erm. let's put takane under the microscope for a single moment. I'll try not to go TOO crazy.

ok. disclaimer. i could get very fun and nitty gritty abt the misogyny in takane's writing, how all her povs revolve solely around haruka & shintaro and essentially ends up being a female character who revolves everything around 2 guys, if not one the other and etc. but. i will not do that. i will just mention it there in passing and do what u do with it lol. that aside, basically takane is the kind of person who desperately focuses on worrying about someone else so she doesn't have to think of herself and her own problems.

takane is dealing with... a lot. because she had given up on life. well life gave up on her rather. she was dead you know. she decides to dedicate herself to shintaro and shintaro alone. her purpose was being company for him and keep him moving. and all of a sudden she finds herself alive and having to face the life she unwillingly left behind, and everything that comes with that like. having a body, being honest with haruka, accepting her illness is a part of her, etc. i think takane deals with a lot of existential crisis LMAOO like she CANNOT BELIEVE she is real. she has 1 line saying she felt like the whole time she was ene felt like a dream and it felt like a relief to hear shintaro talk to her as takane because it made her see it really happened. and i took this line and RAN WITH IT‼️‼️‼️

shintaro needs to be needed by takane and takane needs to be needed by shintaro. lol. they got 30 mental illnesses💗 but the thing is. one has retaining and the other doesn't 💥

their relationships to haruka & ayano are important in this and play a huge part in it too not only because its REALLY REALLY REALLY funny for takane to ditch haruka all the time to go find shintaro's wallet or something and for shintaro to tell ayano ok u can sleep over tonight i practiced cuddling with takane so im all good to go like that wont make ayano scream in her pillow for the next day. like theyre so sick in the head. but anyways ITS SO mixed in with shinaya's sick as hell relationship that i already wrote like 80 posts about and im not repeating myself im just gonna assume u know what i mean LIKE THIS IS WHY I NEED TO WRITE A FANFIC whatever.

as that happens with shinaya (like actual dumpster fire sirens going off glass breaking trashcan falling over etc) takane has haruka. haruka has his own set of problems feeling not good enough for her + survival guilt (for konoha) + terrified of being alone again. but takane's aware of the codependent issue basically bc haruka keeps telling her even if not as firmly and she would need so it takes longer than ideal. it's like present in her mind that it's a totally fucked up way too feel. also haruka & takane are totally in the same page abt holy shit we're ALIVE?? AND WE HAVE OUR BODIES??? WE HAVE TO FACE OUR LIVES AND MOVE FORWARD?? WE'RE IN OUR TWENTIES??? AUGGHHHH lol they go thru it together MAN I LOVE HARUTAKA sorry im normal. i know jin is allergic to giving takane a problem that isnt related to a guy but to me she also goes thru the same omg im in my twenties thing as haruka. bc like. yeah hiyori and ayano were stuck in the daze too but haruka was also watching everything outside. like takane he was a painful bystander. even if takane's spirit wasnt in the daze she was still playing a sorta similar role outside. like u can watch but u can barely do anything!! because youre DEAD!! haruka&takane understand each other's struggles more than anyone else, and suddenly they're alive and also the oldest in the group and they're like. ok lol. let's fucking go i guess. haruka and takane existentialism crisis crying for 3 hours then having to pull themselves together bc they have to do groceries. the horrors are indescribable but we have to pay rent. i love harutaka *shaking*

and haruka is super comprehensive about takane's thing with shintaro even if it's mixed in with all his feelings of omg takane prefers him omg takane is super best friends with the dan who all probably resent me for replacing konoha omg im gonna be alone augghhh like lol he's GOING THRU IT TOO but!!! takane also helps him!!!!!! theyre there for each other!!! they dont weaponize these things against each other, in fact it brings them closer. total opposite to shintaro and ayano. so takane's getting out of this mindset before shintaro does and she is really self aware and slowly making progress and ermmm becoming a little pissed off abt how he takes her for granted. bc he does.

again. takane is a constant. that means she is always here. in shintaro and takane's relationships it doesnt go both ways how they help each other. they dont help each other, takane helps shintaro and thats it. ene's always been secretive and ene is always been ene and now ene is always been takane and while shintaro knows this he's also never... had takane as takane before? so even if she's familiar and accepting her helicoptering over him, he's also totally preoccupied with all his other issues to even think about takane's side of things. shintaro despite his babygirl tendencies is at the end of the day a very self centered person, its hard for him. i dont mean it to say he sucks or anything. i think its genuinely rly hard for him!! he's going through a lot!! and he's bad with people and words and emotions!! he doesnt... stop being self centered though. not for now at least. and takane isnt exactly begging him to help her or anything because HARUKA is helping her with her issues. while shintaro is trusting everything on takane, and ayano is begging him to open up to her, takane is trusting haruka and continuously lets him help her and also helps him with his stuff. like shinaya and harutaka are dealing with similar situations in TOTALLY different ways

so for shintaro to find out/realise takane is also hurting he's like oh my god im such an ASS because OF COURSE SHE IS!!! but he's like i thought letting her be insane abt me was enough help??? bc AGAIN he hasn't really recognized that it actually goes both ways and he needs her as much as she needs him. it only becomes apparent when takane is needing him less and less bc she's been healing outside of their fucked up dynamic and he's like wait a damn moment???!!!!! so he's like TAKANE why didn't u say anything!!! and takane's like erm idk. it just kinda played out like that it's fine haruka is there for me im working on it and stuff and shintaro is SOOO insane abt it because realising takane's been relying on someone else takes him out of this familiarity and he's like oh my god TAKANE IS ALIVE HARUKA IS ALIVE AYANO IS ALIVE OH MY GOD THEYRE ALL MOVING ON WITHOUT ME OH MY GOD and its so uncomfortable for him. its so uncomfortable to see takane with haruka the same way it makes him uncomfortable to be with ayano because it makes him so painfully aware of like. THIS IS THE GOOD ENDING. yknow.

anyways... shinaya breakup happens lol!!! takane is again here to pick up the pieces. and shintaro is SO broken over this that takane soooorta reverts back bc YIKES HES NOT DOING GOOD. shintaro is clinging on her so bad it makes him look stupid. like i said in the insane shinaya reply. being back to being despaired over ayano and crying on takane is familiar! self sabotage at its finest, its pain that he knows. new things he hasnt seen are terrifying!!! and this way.... takane is away from haruka, rather paying attention to him instead and he is dragging her down with him!!! its awful but its comforting to think for him like YES!!! TAKANE IS ALSO BAD!!! TAKANE IS ALSO STUCK WITH ME!!!! BTW THIS IS ALL ON AN UNCONSCIOUS LEVEL FOR SHINTARO LMAO.

but takane is AWARE... like yeah she gets he's sad over his breakup but takane doesnt TOTALLY revert back. like by this point its been a long time and she's totally aware of their codependency & working on it & already resenting a little how shintaro takes her for granted. and when it's been long enough and shintaro is still pathetically sobbing abt ayano, takane's been back in ene mode trying to distract him and cheer him up like always but she's like. man i have a job to get to. can we wrap this up for today. LOL LIKE takane has a fucking life so even if shintaro's (unconsciously) like omg yess its like it used to be, it isnt because takane has shit to take care of outside of him😭 she can be like. sorry man i gotta go i got a thing with haruka and shintaro's like ???? because... "normally" she would cancel on haruka for him and now she wont and shintaro's like wh??? and maybe he points it out and it REALLY pisses takane off LOLLL

ok so takane ticking time bomb abt to tell shintaro off + shinaya breakup + kanoshin insanity. *rubs hands together* shintaro about to accidentally finish destroying his relationship with takane that's already hanging by a thread. because he's dealing with all the guilt over his breakup with ayano and the newly found kinship with kano(+internalized homophobia) and he's like... so desperate. he's like. ok. there is 1 person in this world who will still have me and make me feel normal abt being this way.

sorry for shipping shintaka and being insane. shintaro wants to date takane. SORRY I KNOW its born from an insane fucked up situation and its truly the last straw for takane because she's like WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUIUUUT WHAT THE HELLLLLL bc shintaro's only going to her bc 1. to make me feel straight 💥 2. to make me feel valid💥💥💥 LIKE HES NOT THINKING OF HER FEELINGS AT ALL and i do think he'd fall for her in a little fucked up way like well idk??? i dont know but i definitely think shintaro&takane feel a very specific way abt each other and in his desperation shintaro decided to call it love LOL. takane would treat it sensibly if SHE DIDNT FUCKING KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON and she sends him to hell for it LOLLLL !!!!! this also distances haruka & shintaro because SHINTARO KNEW haruka is insanely self conscious and insecure and always treated the situation with kid gloves in fear of takane being like lol u dont like me hanging out with shintaro?? bye then. like he knows haruka has always been scared of takane choosing shintaro over him (even if not romantically) and then HE GOES AND DOES THAT AND even someone like haruka is like. bro... because listen by this point!!! haruka and takane have grown A LOT as people and as a couple while shintaro was stuck in this insane quarrel with ayano and himself and has his head so far up his own ass he couldn't see how horrible of an idea it is until he does it and ends up fucking up with friendship with both takane AND haruka. fun

SO............. umm. ur question. yes they do sort it out. shintaro has to grow a lot though. i think its his fallout with takane that is his last straw and he sort of realises he has got to make a change and accept this reality as terrifying as it is. its definitely a quartet fallout too. ofc they makeup!! ofc shintaro apologizes, of course they start talking again (i don't think they'd go long without talking btw i think takane's just like we. need time apart) and ofc they get to a point where the quartet is all together again even if shintaro and ayano are broken up, they get to be on friendly terms after enough time apart, and shintaro and takane can also be normal friends. they are still bestest friends but definitely more proper and shintaro now acts like a person to takane instead of taking her for granted and is there for her like a proper friend would be and etc. ofc it gets to that!!! but lol. isnt it so fun to have a circus first :3

THEY JUST NEED A BIT OF TIME APART..... but they are best of friends. they're one of a kind to each other💗 erm. Hi

[cursestothemoon]

hellooooo<3 so, ive always loved the idea of Harry having an older protective sister(he really need one😭) could u pls do a headcanon of how she protects harry and their relationship? annnnddd how she also is dating Fred?? my heart needs it, pls and thank u❤️

i LOVE THIS 

(also i switch from third person pov to second person in the middle of this so im sorry :) but its fine ) 

ok 

i know a common headcanon/ fancanon for harry’s sister is that she looks like lily 

but hear me out 

Y/n Potter who looks exactly like James 

i mean to the T

and Lily would always make little teasing comments about how both her kids look like their dad and james is just :)

anyway

just picture it 

dark brown, wavy hair that was just tussled enough at all times

blue eyes

and the round rimmed glasses that James used to wear

stOP SHE WEARS HER DADS GLASSES BECAUSE WHEN SHE WAS LITTLE SHE’D PULL THEM OFF OF HIM AND AFTER HE DID SHE KEPT THEM AND WHEN SHE MISSES HIM SHE WEARS THEM AND THEY ARE SLIGHTLY TOO BIG AND SIT CROOKED ON HER FACE 

i made myself cry

anyway

lets talk protecting harry first then we will get into dating fred 

so she’s older meaning she’d be in Hogwarts for before him

let’s say she's two years older

George and Fred’s year

and she’d hear the whispers about her 

obviously

and i think she wouldn't tell harry

she would know the story of how their parents died and who harry was to the wizarding community but in an effort to protect Harry’s innocence and childhood for just a little while longer she wouldn’t tell him

at least not until he got to school then she’d be the one to tell him everything 

she is fiercely protective of Harry 

if someone so much as looked at him funny she was chewing their head off 

Harry might’ve been like James 

but Y/n Potter is James 

down to the way her eyes would narrow at someone in class when they made a rude comment 

or she’d try to charm her way out of trouble 

or charm Harry out of trouble

oH MY GOD SHE’D BE IN MCGONAGALL’S CLASS AND ONE OF HER FRIENDS WOULD SAY SOMETHING FUNNY AND SHE’D BE TRYING SO HARD TO HOLD IN HER LAUGH AND SHE’D MAKE THE SAME FACE JAMES WOULD MAKE WHEN TRYING NOT TO LAUGH

Mcgonagall almost cried 

she needed a moment 

ok Y/n would take the first week or so just to show Harry around Hogwarts 

she did not care if she was late

Harry was going to feel comfortable 

oH SHE NEARLY BEAT OLIVER WOOD WITH A BEATER’S BAT WHEN SHE FOUND OUT HE PUT HER TEENY LITTLE BROTHER ON THE QUIDDITCH TEAM AS A SEEKER

she is also part of the team, a chaser

will get spend most of the first few games with Harry making sure he’s ok

yeah malfoy doesn’t stand a chance

never did

10/10 would use the cloak to prank him

all the time

nothing is out of limits 

especially after he’s been nasty to Harry and his friends

growing up harry gets all embarrassed when she protects him because hes 15!1!1! he can handle it 

she is kinda hurt 

very dramatic 

“mY WITTLE BROTHER DOESN’T NEED ME”

“y/n... please”

“nO ITS OK HARRY I GET IT, ILL GO”

“where are you going?”

“YOU DON’T NEED ME ANYMORE, I AM NO LONGER NEEDED HERE”

“you don't HAVE TO LEAVE, WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS”

Ron was giggling on the couch in the common room he thought this whole scene was hilarious 

ron thinks she is so cool

ok i think she’d also have these little bits of lily that would shine through

unlike harry and james, who could just inhale near a book and get just above average grades

she took pride in studying and being able to sit down and absorb material 

Lily always passed with flying colors because she was a good student who wanted to prove herself 

it was the satisfaction of spending hours studying and being able to retain the information and apply it to earn an amazing grade that she loved

she passed this on to you

as well as her kindness to people who she believed deserved it

and quick wit

you two also had the same hands 

you had everything else from James but your hands looked like your mothers

down to the way your nails grew and fingers held a quill

snape hated it

because he really couldn’t hate you

he was weird around you though

hes just weird

where he'd bully and embarrass Harry 

he couldn’t do that to you because you wouldn’t give him the chance to

you knew the material

you knew the answer 

and he hated how when your hand shot up it looked just like Lily’s 

but you were making the stupid face James would when he’d concentrate 

you did not like snape

at first you were impartial 

then when you heard how rude he was to Harry...

it was also over for him

he didn’t stand a chance 

you had an affinity for pranks, fiercely protective, and you had gall 

your hand writing also looked like Lilys and snape had a rough time grading your essays

tough for him 

:)

also if any rumors went around about harry you were quick to make them actually about you

harry is the heir of slytherin?

actually no Y/n Potter is, there is no evidence but we just heard that it was her somewhere 

you didn’t care as long as no one was being rude to Harry

leTS TALK DEATHLY HALLOWS

so you don’t go with them on the hunt for Horcrux 

and you’d be going insane not knowing how they were or if they were ok

because all your life you had been able to protect to some extent 

but you were completely helpless now

you could do nothing

and then at the battle of hogwarts 

pLEASE

no one stood a chance

the feeling of seeing harry again

beaten, bruised, but still alive 

it was overwhelming

then seeing Hagrid crying in his seemingly dead body

also overwhelming

because you had failed 

you couldn't protect him 

and he heard you scream first 

it was loud and strangled and Harry felt so bad but he knew he had to do this 

I like to think Y/n Potter is the one who killed Voldemort in the end 

you cant argue with me on this sorry

ok

now

lets talk

dating freddie

so he’d probably notice you here and there starting in first year

but he was an eleven year old boy and girls were not on his radar right now

but he thought you were funny and pretty cool 

and your round glasses that were just a little too big for your adolescent face made you look cute 

then you tried out for the quidditch team with him and George 

you were amazing 

not only did you have James natural talent for the sport but that paired with Lily’s tactical thinking and quick mind

you were unstoppable 

you were brought on the team as a seeker 

and you were good at it too, but it wasn’t you’re favorite position

it entailed a lot of waiting and not really moving until you caught sight of the snitch

it was your excellent flying mixed with the fact that you literally had no sense of self preservation that made you a really good seeker

you'd just

nose dive 

if you hit the bottom you hit the bottom oh well 

but when Harry showed up you were happy to give him your position as seeker and take on the more exciting (at least to you) job of chaser

it was your quidditch playing that really got fred’s attention

because you were good 

and during team lunches or team hang outs you were always the life of the party

not because you were avidly trying to be 

but like james, people jus gravitated to your goofiness and happiness 

it was about the middle of fifth year fred realized he had a crush on you

and little man was panicked 

you had noticed fred before that

obviously 

but he was always just the funny guy on the team 

but as everyone knows the potter’s have a thing for gingers 

and it was when they came to pick you and Harry up from the Dursley's just before the quidditch world cup that you saw how attractive he really was 

please its james and lily all over again

kinda 

you become the funniest person in the room when he’s around

always smiley

lilypad?

no.

freddie bug

aH STOP PLEASE THAT’S SO CUTE

YOU’D JUST STARE AT HIM WITH A STUPID SMILE 

it would get to the point you'd be just blatantly flirting 

and fred bluSHES

BECAUSE HE ISN’T USED TO BEING THE ONE ON THE RECEIVING END OF SUCH CLEAR FLIRTING

usually he is the one to pick up girls

he has the charm

likes to make them blush

but yOU CAN JUST LOOK AT HIM WITH A STUPID SMILE AND HES BE ALL GIDDY 

he could barely get a compliment in between your flirting

“Morning Freddie bug, looking cute as always.”

George thinks it both hilarious and disgusting

ron just thinks its disgusting 

but fred is ultimately the one to make the first move to be more than just friends who flirt when the yule ball comes around

he asks you

“Potter! Potter!”

“yes?”

“You, me, Yule ball....”

and as he’s pantomiming it (ya know like in the movie) he also pantomimes a very heavy make out session then what you could assume would be kisses all over your face

it was now your turn to blush as you agreed to go with him

you guys started dating after that :)

pLEASE ONCE HARRY GOT WITH GINNY AND HE SAW A PICTURE OF YOUR PARENTS 

YOUR MOM BEING A RED HEAD AND YOU AND HARRY LOOKING JUST LIKE YOUR DAD

HE WOULD NOT STOP THE JOKES

“i see why you’re with me. it’s my hair isnt it?”

“what? no its no-”

“you probably wouldn’t even look my way if i didn’t have red hair. you potters are unbelievable.”

“you are such a dummy”

“oH AM I? BUT YOU KEEP ME AROUND BECAUSE OF THE HAIR. I SHOULD’VE KNOWN IT WASN’T MY SPARKLING PERSONALITY THAT YOU LOVE.”

taglist:

@amourtentiaa

@siriusement

[dj-tak0wasa]

Explain In Detail What Things You Want In Splatoon 3?

ah there's a handful but heres the stuff off the top of my head (i ended up writing a LOT and infodumping abt headcanons and stuff as well so. stuff below cut :3 i also tried to separate them better by giving them titles n stuff cause its all janky)

regions/cities in the story mode

like what's in octo valley/canyon (diff zones; cephalon HQ, slimeskin garrison, etc) but with more worldbuilding and areas. not more levels, really, but things to explore. more levels would be nice, but i think you could do something great with open world and that train system! give me lore about other species and people nintendo please

obligatory "octavio redemption arc please nintendo please im begging"

because i am obviously very attached to him lmao- the framing in that promo art really makes him seem like he's not gonna be a villain but at the very least not hostile and i am so excited to see what is going on there. he also has a camera on his head so mmmaybe he could be playable? (as in like controlling what hes doing but youre still as new agent 4 bc like. camera pov and stuff. its hard to explain but like. hes uhh. um. looking for something. iunno.) or at least youll be able to see what he's going through when he's not with the main group? also i wanna know how marie would react to having to work with him and to see if callie would be excited (cause i like to think she retains her memories from when she was hypnotized so she remembers being friendly w him)

the rest of the dedf1sh tracks in the story mode

ill literally take the rest of the tracks anywhere but i feel like if it made sense anywhere it would be in the story mode. like in the story mode there would be SOME ties to whatever was left behind after the octo expansion (like yeah Potion Of You Are Now Furry exists but are we just not gonna talk about the metro??? the test chambers??? what did the rest of the sanitized octarians do after the thing controlling them was destroyed? reminds me of a story i wrote about dedf1sh and one of my sanitized characters. maybe ill rewrite that.)

agent 8 knows how to speak Inkling!

please nintendo i want to see 8 and 4 so bad. please i want 4 to teach 8 how to talk so they both use really stupid slang and stuff. PLEASE

evil agent 4

look if agent 4 doesnt end up being a "good" character can we at least have her doing something mean. im not even sure what she'd be doing but i want her to be like that one character who's only on the evil side cause she just is a kid who didnt really fit on the good side cause shes absolutely no thoughts head empty (think like. poison mushroom cookie maybe? but instead of being clueless and drowsy shes clueless and VIOLENT)

new callouts

please can we get "look out" or "sorry" buttons :( i wanna be able to tell my teammates to stay safe and apologize when i accidentally kill their friend in a squidparty or fail to defend them

little buddy and that huge ominous salmonid arc??

less of a want and more of a theory, but What The Fuck was that new salmonid. we didnt get a name and on one hand im thinking its just a cool special type boss (like the grillers and goldies) but on the other how the FUCK are we gonna be having fun with little buddy in the story mode while also doing salmon runs outside of that. what the fuck are you going to say, "sorry but im killing these people you used to know for money"?????? like. what. also more salmon run lore!! maybe like. a bit of story mixed into the gameplay so we know things without having to look into the maps n stuff.

a special that protects/heals teammates

listen. maybe even a subweapon that you can drop onto the ground and it heals/buffs nearby teammates but PLEASE nintendo i care about my teammates, im a backlining charger main, i want to help :(

bands. bring them back

*crying, on hands and knees* NEW TRACKS FROM SQUID SQUAD, WET FLOOR, AND AXBY PLEASE i am BEGGING. maybe even give me diss-pair if not squid squad i need warabi and ikkan crumbs

private battles sandbox

let me add hyperbombs and pits where i WANT THEM. let me make maps for my friends to play in. let me set rules (what weapons are allowed, what skills, specials, etc), give me janky team numbers ill make a 5v3, maybe even 7v1 if i want to >:0, also let me chat with them. in ranked/regular matches im fine with no chat but i dont want to get fucked over by discord or the nso app :')

taunts (instead of callouts)

instead of those callouts i mentioned can we get like. a wave or happy little jump. nothing that can be mean (we've already started wars with just flopping up and down or spinning after a kill), just cute little animations. like for a brush you do a sick trick by flipping it or with a splatling you do that happy little victory dance from splatoon one because it is very very cute i miss it

[5-falsehoods-phonated]

When Our Hands Next Meet

Series summary: Soulmates are given memories of their past lives when their hands touch. For Virgil and Logan, each memory is happier than the last.

This series was created for @analogicalweek and made in collaboration with the lovely @birdsongisland! Please go look at the wonderful drawing that pairs with this work and support them with reblogs so their work can be seen!

Credit to birdsongisland for beta reading this as well, it came out a lot better because of them!

Chapter 5: We’ll Meet in the Middle

Chapter Summary: Virgil didn’t know what he had been expecting when he asked for a tutor to help with his studies, but it definitely wasn’t who could kick flip a skateboard without even looking down and also happened to be his soulmate. 

Day 5 Prompt: Vocab Card/Skateboard

Warnings: none. If there are others please let me know!

WC: 1539

AO3 link

Taglist (ask to be added or removed): @ace-in-a-shopping-cart @janus-is-an-adorable-snek-boi @logans-library @im-an-anxious-wreck @edupunkn00b

Virgil huffed as he cupped his chin aggressively in his hand, staring down the road to wait for his tutor to show up. Not to get the wrong idea- he was very grateful to the person who had agreed to help him with his vocabulary; he just...wasn’t the best with people. He was socially awkward and very obviously had a vague emo style- wavy purple hair with white streaks fell messily over shadowed eyes and cheeks that would burn in five minutes outside despite his tanned complexion. His black nail  polish was chipping from the constant picking and he was never seen anywhere without his favorite purple hoodie hugging him like a portable blanket. But he was falling a bit behind in class because he couldn’t seem to remember the constant influx of new terminology thrown at him each week. Asking the professor about extra practice had landed him a phone number that he had agonized over for too many hours before finally biting the bullet and calling.

The voice on the other end alone was enough to make his stomach flip, light and lilting even when talking about something as boring as scheduling. Virgil knew it then and he was stewing over it now- he was absolutely done for. No one had that kind of voice without being kind and patient and while those were things he definitely needed if he was going to learn anything he was sure he’d get distracted anyway. Forming a squish from a voice- that had to be the worst joke played on him yet.

Looking up however nearly made him want to cry at the irony. That had to be him, the only person on campus at the moment standing tall on a skateboard while gripping a dark blue messenger bag. From what Virgil could see he had blue hair that was pulled to one side with the other shaved, immediately piquing Virgil’s interest with the unique look. He tried his hardest not to stare as he came closer and his jacket came into view; a leather one spiked at the shoulders and sporting pride flags at the chest. Virgil felt his own chest constrict as he stored that away for later, the pintrovert system coming in handy for what felt like the first time in his life.

Just as he was getting his crutches situated to stand up he noticed the other man riding straight for the sidewalk seemingly not paying attention to where he was going. Scrambling to his feet he lurched forward to yell out.

“Hey watch ou-” The warning died on his lips as his tutor executed a perfect lick flip onto the sidewalk, letting the momentum carry him a couple more feet before stopping and tucking the skateboard under his arms. Virgil was sure he looked like an absolute idiot as he approached him, trying his hardest not to gape while practically feeling his eyes sparkling while looking at the punk with wide eyes. 

“Hello, I’m Logan. And you’re Virgil right? The person I’m supposed to help with his medical terms?” He waited for Virgil to nod before continuing. “Excellent. Is the library fine?”

Realizing He’d been silent too long, he managed to squeak out a “Yeah,” as he reached down to swing his bag over his shoulder. Logan started towards the doors with him, shuffling things around in his bag to pull out notecards and stuff the skateboard into it. How it fit Virgil had no idea but taking in the aesthetic he honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it involved some sort of fae magic. 

They settled down at the table and Logan looked over at him, making his heart once again skip a beat as he took in the beautiful shade of brown. Shaking his head slightly he tried to focus on what Logan was currently talking about while organizing several colored pens in front of them.

“-that way you’ll be able to separate the terms better and your brain will be better equipped to compartmentalize the terms you need to remember in half the time. Does that make sense?”

It didn’t. It really, really didn’t. He had a soulmate somewhere that he hadn’t found yet and most likely wouldn’t for a long time to come, and yet here he was trying desperately to hide a blush because this person was just- he was so cool. His voice and eyes were pretty and he was obviously smart if he had been the first person his teacher had recommended to tutor him…

“Are you feeling alright? You look flushed.” Hearing this Virgil snapped back to reality and gave a thumbs up, ducking his head while trying to resist the urge to slam it into the wood. 

“Fine, yeah! Just you’re- it’s hot! Hot in the hoodie.” Praying he had saved that sentence quickly enough he dared to peak back at Logan through his bangs, who was just smiling slightly with an arm draped over the back of his chair.

“You can take that off then, if you want.” Logan pointed to the hoodie. “Since you’re hot.”

Virgil decided then, somehow managing to keep a straight face through his panic, that it was quite homophobic of the floor to not simply open and swallow him whole. Try as he might to calm himself he could still feel the remnants of the harsh flush in his cheeks as he saw Logan simply look at him with that smile, making him idly wonder if the sly bastard was really flirting with him or was actually just that oblivious.

Virgil sputtered as he wrapped the hoodie tighter around himself, shaking his head slightly. “Nah, I’m fine actually! You were saying about colors?”

“Just that color coding can help you study better. I’m here to give you tips as well so please pay attention.” Leaning forward again, Logan started explaining how to separate the different concepts and how to decide what was important and what wasn’t; honestly Virgil was genuinely surprised at how much he retained, forgetting his panic in favor of actually learning, for which he was very grateful. By the time an hour had passed he had a pretty good grasp on what he was meant to be learning and how to go about it. He stacked his much improved notecards together and shoved them in his pocket for later, shifting around in his seat to look at Logan properly.

“Thank you honestly, I feel a lot better about the class now.”

“It was no trouble, I’m grateful I was able to help. And if you’re in need of further assistance before next week, call me?” Logan smiled crookedly. “I use the library’s phone for tutor scheduling, this is for my actual phone..”

Virgil gaped at the slip of paper offered to him with a wink, fully cementing the idea that Logan had, in fact, been flirting with him and Virgil had been too infatuated with his style to actually notice. Purple nail polish caught his eye as his hand moved closer and he had the vague thought of that being his favorite color and how did he keep them from chipping? Before his thoughts could wonder further he was taking the paper and smiling, just aware enough of their fingers brushing as he remembered  being with this person, his soulmate, time and time again. Every time was better than the last as their souls grew accustomed to one another and grew over eternity, strengthening their bond with every word exchanged.

Virgil looked at his soulmate's dazed expression, the most beautiful smile he’d ever seen gracing his lips and eyes watering with emotion at having found him again. So many words stuck in his throat as he struggled with the perfect thing to say, something that would capture how happy he was to finally be together again and how excited he was to explore this lifetime together. Something that would make Logan understand just how much he meant to him.

“I think this is the coolest form you’ve ever taken.” He blurted, immediately covering his mouth and cursing himself twice over.

His heart sank as Logan barked out a laugh, snorting into his own hand and taking a minute to compose himself before laying a gentle hand on his cheek. 

“And I think this is the loveliest I’ve seen you.” 

He laughed softly as Virgil went completely red, fingers twitching with indecision over whether to flap his hand or slap the idiot beside him. Deciding on a combination of both he frantically beat a hand against his shoulder while sleeping his other over his mouth, mumbling profanities under his breath. Whipping around as his hand was caught he couldn’t help but grin at Logan’s own brilliant smile, even if his face felt like he had dipped it in a vat of boiling water.

“It’s getting late, I could walk you home?”

“Yeah,” Virgil managed. “I’d like that.”

Walking home and still slightly wishing the floor had opened up beneath him, he couldn’t help but feel lucky that he had found Logan so soon. They had an eternity to catch up on and if it had to start with fixing his bad study habits, he supposed he couldn’t complain.

Previous     Next

[loveijun]

Can we hear your thoughts on KnT Soulmate? English chapter 7 just got released yesterday.

omg hii 🧞‍♀️ ill probably talk a lot more about it later when i read the new chapter but these are some of my thoughts 💗 1 im so glad kurumi gets her own story because after the whole situation with her and sawako in high school, they had such a weird but delicate balance of friendship and i became curious abt what would happen with kurumi later on but the story moves past it and we have to forget about her sadly... 2 i just think the soulmate chapters are amazing and beautiful and I HAVE TO MENTION that it basically confirmed for me that ms karuho shiina did in fact do the questioning of sexuality type of undertone throughout the manga on purpose.. it didnt start off with the typical kurumi and eiji falling in love but with kurumi and sawako being together + kurumi in this umm head space where she's thinking of sawako from so many different perspectives (romantically 💖‼️, as a rival and a peer to learn from, a monumental figure in her life since sawako basically helped her grow as a person and guided her unknowingly to a much healthier mindset, and a close friend she actually felt comfortable with for the first time since elementary school) and coming to the conclusion they are soulmates regardless of anything else. it's also obviously kurumi's personal redemption story but not as some evil villain becoming good... she was never really evil but just a very misguided teenager who at the time made decisions with consequences. this is her chance to... almost like what happened to ayane when she finally let herself go (not a 1-time complete healing but the beginning of it: she took a step out her shell and stopped devaluing herself for deserving love) and redeemed herself in her own mind - is what im waiting for in this series for kurumi. she's confident and loves herself somewhat but is constantly quesitoning her motives, thinking she didnt deserve to be forgiven, and is full of doubt so she clashes constantly in her mind and ends up numbing her sense of urgency, gentleness, and care when dealing with herself. i really want her to cherish herself as fast as possible but she cant just overcome it on her own (omg that theme keeps coming back - you can't grow [to love yourself] in solitude) and it's lacking for her to just suddenly become better when a guy shows up and at the same time rush a discovery process like that so i really love the bit with sawako in the beginning. alsoo i cannot forget im so happy and proud that sawako matured from her intial earnest but unsettling awkwardness to a hmm not mellowed but a more transparent ease with communication and presenting herself while still retaining her honest character. i love love loveee the fact that shes also a lot more secure with kazehaya and when i saw them joking around with each other i had to pause for a moment bc in the beginning shes such a precious and selfless person and that's great and all but she didn't believe in herself at all.. like when the high school class pulled the dating prank on her the way she handled it is hard to watch and very telling of how she sees herself.. she underestimates gestures of love towards her as mere kindness and at the same time overestimates the effort she needs to put in to repay it while also setting a thick boundary and voluntarily putting herself on a level lower than others. but the way that she's now able to understand favors that ought to be repaid, the difference between that and a gift - defined a thing given willingly to someone without payment, helping others without hurting yourslef, being a healthy amount of selfish and etc ❤️ i cant get enough. she even set up a blind date for kurumi can you imagine how far we've come??? now for when eiji appears i was just observing in the beginnig but i love his personality so much it feels like he was gonna be a classic romance mc just rude and insufferable or a stuffy/overbearing kind of nice but his moments of vulnerability and unpredicatability are GENIUS bc kurumi has never met someone like this before (she gets so flustered and is so cute when shes around him sometimes

i feel like crying aww). oimg and i cant forget how interesting this is just becasue its a college setting and not highschool so its more (i hate reusing words 💢 but mature is the word and theres more oppurtunity for things and various situations i think. 'real' dates and staying over at each other's place... and i want to see them in those^ types of situations so badly but i dont think we'll see much 💔). also their dynamic is everything i love how unique their character is and shes (the author) definitely put a lot of effort into every single one of her characters but i did not expect her to give eiji that much depth (i know hes from one of her other works and i need to read it soon and i want to know what happened before he met her so bad 😭.....) ^like at all. i dont have much more to say but i hope kazehaya shows up and meets them all again bc im want their reactions, and i think kurumi is so adorable and eiji is the hottest guy of the series excluding sanada. the end 💗

[jisungsmochi]

library meetings - l.y.y

(not my gif !) 

library meetings - lyy

genre: college!au, fluff (lots!), mutual pining from the beginning tbh

word count: 2.5k

summary: finals were quickly approaching. after running into the frantic boy in the library, and sharing a study room with him wouldn’t be so bad.

a/n: ahhh the summary is kinda bad but i really liked writing this piece so enjoy!!

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

you let out a small huff, in search for an empty table in the library.

“gosh why is this place so busy?” oh wait, finals were approaching, no wonder there were so many frantic university students. you were able to spot an empty study room, quickly pacing to the door. as you were about to enter the key code to the room, you felt someone bump into you. you gave them an annoyed expression, looking up to see who they were. your expression softened once you caught sight of the light brown bangs and glamorous smile of the one and only, liu yangyang.

“oh were you going to use this room?” he started off, pointing out the obvious. no words were able to leave your mouth, resulting in a gentle nod in response. yangyang sighed, slightly annoyed as he was losing time to study for his first exam. you could tell he really could use the private space as more students were entering the library.

“how about we share it? just study separately” you suggested as his eyes lit up.

“oh yeah that sounds good, ladies first” he cracked a small smile as he gestured for you to enter the room. you let out a quiet ‘thankyou’ before seating yourself on one side of the large table. yangyang closed the door, trying not to make any loud noises. he shuffled over to sit across from you, immediately pulling out his study supplies. you watched as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“you okay?” he looked up at you, nibbling the side of his cheek.

“uh i actually forgot my pencil case, i was in a rush to get here” he explained as you listened closely. without any more words being exchanged, you handed him a spare black pen and green highlighter from your own pencil case. yangyang raised an eyebrow at you, wondering why you were being so helpful to him. he had seen you around campus a few times. you always had earphones in and most of the time, you were reading or tapping away on your phone. everybody in your year knew of yangyang. he was loud, energetic and seemed to get along with just about everyone he met.

“thanks...um” he stopped himself, realising he didn’t even know your name. you caught on to his ongoing confusion, finding it endearing.

“y/n” you introduced,

“i’m yangyang” he shot you another award winning smile, pulling his hand out to shake yours.

the next two hours was filled with silence, but it wasn’t as stiff and awkward as you previously presumed. yangyang would often tap his pen on the table top, which distracted you. he eventually caught on, mouthing ‘sorry’ multiple times. you also found yourself reading aloud, as it helped you retain information. yangyang caught on, giving you a look that said ‘are you good?’

“i just remember it better if i say it out loud, was i being annoying?” you worried as he shook his head.

“no no, i’m actually curious to your method. i might have to try it for myself” he assured you as he kept the conversation running.

“you definitely should! especially the night before your first exam” you started before shutting your laptop. “our time is up for using the room, unless you want to pay, and honestly i’d rather spend money on some food” you shrug as you finish packing away your things. yangyang follows in suit, listening along to you,

“agreed, we should do this again sometime” he blurted out the last part, not realising what he had just said.

“oh i mean, yeah sure. if you’re up for it! how about tomorrow?” you suggest, an uneasy feeling making its way to your core.

“yeah i can do tomorrow, around this time? here, take my number” yangyang wasn’t sure why he was being so confident with you. he did get along with everyone but he wasn’t usually the one to ask girls out.

you took the small piece of paper he scribbled on and placed it in your bag. you both exited the small study room and made your way to the entrance of the library.

“well i guess this is where we part ways” yangyang smirks down at you, part of him wishing he could spend more time with you.

“i guess so. i’ll see you tomorrow, yangyang, have a nice evening!” you smiled softly at him before pulling up the strap of your backpack and making your way back to your dorm room.

yangyang couldn’t wipe the smile off his face that night as he walked into his own dorm.

“dude what’s with the blushing? you good?” his roommate, haechan teased.

“i’m great. honestly, couldn’t be better” his friend gave him a look, confused as to why he was acting so weird. yangyang wouldn’t admit it, but he was secretly waiting for you to message him that night. he stuck to his phone like glue, mind completely off of studying for his exams. but you didn’t end up messaging him, only due to the fact that you weren’t sure if you were meant to. you thought the only reason he gave you his number was to talk about library meetup times. you were lying to yourself if you said you didn’t want to message him. but you were exhausted, you couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

//

you were standing outside the library doors, your thumbs hovering over yangyang’s contact name. you wanted to message him that you had arrived, but nerves were slowly taking over.

just as you were about to type the message, a figure approached you.

“hey there” yangyang’s voice rang through your ears. you immediately shut off your phone and look over at him. he was dressed in simple black jeans and a comfy black hoodie with a detailed dragon design on the back. you noticed you were wearing a similar outfit. a black hoodie with black jeans.

“h-hi” you recklessly blurted, yangyang gave you a soft smile, eyes scanning your outfit.

“dang, you really had to copy my fit, didn’t you?” he joked, causing you to make a fake shocked face.

“hey! don’f flatter yourself!” you teased back, leading both of you to the same study room. you had booked it prior to your arrival, avoiding the cluster of stressed students.

you sat across from yangyang, just as you had done the day before. he gently ruffled his hair, pulling out all his materials.

this time, you felt yourself shifting in and out of focus. the information just wasn’t absorbing into your brain the way you needed it to. yangyang could sense your frustration, unsure of how to comfort you. he watched as you rubbed your eyes, sore from staring at your laptop screen for what seemed like hours. you let out a short huff, eyes finally meeting his. he gave you a furrow browed look,

“you okay?” he practically whispered, still uncertain of how to comfort you.

“uh yeah, my mind is just going blank” you sighed, shutting your laptop. yangyang nodded along, placing his pencil down on the table before leaning back. he deliberated for a bit, looking back over at you.

“do you want to take a break? maybe go get something to eat so you can refocus?” he suggested, catching you off guard.

“but don’t you still have to study? i feel bad for cutting this session short” you honestly admitted. it was yangyang’s turn to be startled, you enjoyed spending time with him?

“it’s fine really, i can study more when i go back to my dorm. you, on the other hand, need a break. so let’s go” he hurriedly jumped up from his seat, packing his things into his backpack. you slightly chuckled at his urgency, copying his actions. as you exited the library together, yangyang began leading you to the campus cafe.

it had a range of sweet treats, as well as some basic lunch meals such as sandwiches and wraps.

“ladies first” he smirked as he opened the cafe door for you. you felt heat rise to your face, letting out a small ‘thankyou’ before leading him to a booth.

“anything grabbing your attention?” he asked, eyes scanning over the menu.

“i think i’ll just have a grilled cheese and maybe a chocolate milkshake. how about you?”

“i’ll get the same, actually” he softly smiled at you. he wasn’t sure why he felt so comfortable, going on a lunch date with someone he had just met the day before, he just knew it felt right.

“ahh you just love to copy me” you rolled your eyes playfully before pulling out your wallet.

“uh, i’ll pay, i insist” yangyang interrupts you suddenly, causing you to halt your actions.

“are you sure? i’m gonna feel so bad” you pouted at him, yangyang swore his heart was about to combust.

“i’m the one who suggested we come eat, it’s only right if i pay”

“alright fine, but i’ll pay for next time” you blurted out, eyes slowly widening at your own words.

“next time huh? i’d like that” he winked at you before making his way to the counter to order. you swear you felt your heart stop after he said that.

why did he have this effect on you?

you both enjoyed a chill lunch together, conversing about whatever came to your heads. it truly felt like you’d known him forever. the way he listened closely to your stories, eyes always locked with yours, made you swoon. he offered to walk you back to your dorm, in which you kindly accepted. it was getting cooler outdoors, you felt yourself shiver lightly. yangyang noticed, debating whether he could give you his jacket.

“are you cold?” he decided to ask first,

“uh kinda yeah” you admitted, blowing into your hands to keep them warm.

“here” he pulled out his jacket that was stuffed into his backpack, and draped it over your shoulders.

you were lucky to blame your pink cheeks on the cold, rather than the fact you were blushing.

“t-thankyou” you muttered, avoiding his eyes. yangyang just smiled at you, continuing to walk alongside you as you both jumped back into a heated discussion on whether cats were better than dogs.

“i can’t say much, i have both at home” yangyang chuckled, stopping in his tracks as you both reach your dorm room.

“aw that’s cute, i want to meet them sometime” you gawked at the image of yangyang playing with animals.

“yeah that’d be pretty fun” he smiled back softly,

you returned a similar look, eyes drifting to your door and then back to him.

“well i guess this is where i leave, goodluck with finals! i’m sure you’ll do well”

“fingers crossed, right? you’ll smash yours for sure!” he responded, really not wanting the evening to end.

“thanks yang, it means a lot. and maybe we can catch up after we’re done with all our finals? i mean that’s if you want to, i won’t force y-“

“i’d love to, you don’t even know how much i want to” he blurted, covering his mouth slightly with his right hand. you couldn’t wipe the wide smile off your face,

“see you soon, yang” you gently shake your head at how adorable he was. he watched as you opened your door, turning to wave him goodbye. he copied your gesture before turning to walk back to his own dorm. for the first time in a while, yangyang was excited to study and ace his exams.

//

after two gruelling weeks of constant exams and stress, you were finally finished with finals. the moment you exited the examination hall, you pulled out your phone to text yangyang.

you: hey! i finished my last exam, meet at the cafe in 15?

yang: yep! celebratory milkshakes on me!

you: you’re the best

you walked into the cafe, eyes meeting those of a cheery yangyang, sitting in the same booth you both did the first time you came.

“how’d you beat me here?” you sat across from him, before placing your bag next to you.

“just happened to be nearby when you messaged me” he shrugged, but in reality, he knew that you had your final exam today and was going to meet you at the hall, until you messaged him to come to the cafe.

he had already ordered you both chocolate milkshakes,

“cheers to not having to stress for the rest of the year” you exclaimed, clinking your glass with his.

as you both took sips from your delicious drinks, you noticed that yangyang seemed to be on edge. you didn’t want to say much, but he seemed more reserved and quieter than usual. you initially deemed it as exam burnout affecting his mood.

as you were both walking around campus, yangyang led you both to sit on a small bench under the large oak tree, in front of the library.

there was a short silence before yangyang spoke up,

“can i ask you something?” he murmured, almost too quiet for you to hear.

“of course, what is it?” you questioned, paying full attention to the boy next to you.

“i’ve been meaning to bring this up, but i really don’t know how. here goes nothing, i think you’re really awesome. and hella fun to be around. i like spending time with you” he paused briefly to look at your reaction. you stared back at him with doe eyes, urging he continue.

“what i’m saying is that, i don’t want to be just friends with you anymore. i wanted to know if you’d go out with me?” his lips pursed at the final words, uncertain of how you could respond. you hesitated for a bit, wanting your words to flow out smoothly.

“i like spending time with you too, yang. it’s been really fun, you’ve made me laugh more than anyone ever has. and, just between us, you really got me through finals. of course i’ll go out with you” you shyly looked away from him after you said the last part. yangyang couldn’t contain his happiness, he pulled you to his side, his right arm slung over your shoulders.

“i don’t even know what i was worried about, how could you have resisted me?”

he teased, ruffling your hair slightly. you rolled your eyes, playfully shoving your elbow into his torso.

“better start counting your days, yang” you retort, eyes meeting his.

“counting the days we are together? sounds like a plan to me” he chuckled, softly stroking your hair as you looked up at him.

from that day onwards, yangyang was no longer the clueless guy you’d seen on campus. he was no longer your unofficial study buddy. he was much more than that. and you couldn’t wait to see how the rest of your relationship would grow.

[lollytea]

Fearless (part 1/3)

(Ty/Louie fairytale au fic. i am simply a bitch writing about my au and my oc so it is all very catered to me personally and im aware not a lot of ppl will read it. but if you DO read it, i love u so much. i guess tw for blood/serious injuries relating to teen characters. nothing too graphic but be warned. Also if you’re curious, info on the au here, here and here.)

_________________________

[OCTOBER 22ND, 6:19PM] The sky was bleeding pink and orange and Louie tried to focus on it. Didn't take much brainpower to appreciate a sunset. He clung to the sight with desperation, muttering the simplest thoughts under his breath like a mantra.

It was pretty. He liked sunsets. He liked pink. He liked orange. The distraction wasn't working. The unpleasantness that was already writhing in his stomach churned. His finger was on his temple, idly tracing delicate circles against the tightly wrapped bandage. His head hurt. The point where his shoulder met his upper arm was also dressed. The stitching still had to heal up. That hurt too. Louie was pretty stupid. Which was not something he usually thought. But it was a real kick in the confidence when someone sharp-witted did something stupid. And it was a real kick in the heart when someone who didn't wanna hurt anybody ended up hurting somebody. This was stupid. He had already tried reading as a means of distraction. Too hard. Too many words. Way too much of a strain on his mild concussion. This was so, so stupid. Sitting by his windowsill, he hoped this dumb bandage would be gone soon. His forehead felt sticky and damp with sweat. He was stupid. He wished Webby were here. If she were, she'd be in the courtyard below his window sparring with Dewey. At least then, Louie could watch and keep his mind occupied. No. No, that wasn't right. If Webby were here, she would've attached herself to Louie by now, hugging him tight until his injury healed. If it had been any other incident, Louie would let her, crumbling into her arms and whimpering about the pain as his amazing, magical sister made it all ebb away. But this wasn't any other incident. If Webby were here, he wouldn't be able to accept her hugs. The very idea rubbed him the wrong way. If anyone was entitled to healing hugs, it wasn't Louie, it was--.... His face twisted up. Webby wasn't here. She was off on some quest with Lena. Probably wouldn't be back for days. So there was no point in dwelling over hypotheticals. Louie would heal on his own. They were both gonna have to heal on their own. The sunset was fading.

It was pretty. Pink... Orange.... He couldn't do this. 

Why was he doing this?! Louie always knew himself to be a coward but this was to a pathetic extent. Depraved even. He felt sick. 

He couldn't. He just couldn't. Every additional second he spent hiding in his room was weighing him down. It was suffocating. But he couldn't leave. He was too scared.

Freezing up just like always. Just stop being so fucking scared! He would have to confront what he did eventually. There was no way around it. So, why couldn't he just go now? Louie had far worse things in his life to be dreading. Far worse. A ticking clock of trepidation was seated deep inside him. A predestined future he couldn't rewrite which, on all accounts, should render him paralyzed. But he wasn't. This was the sort of thing to demolish him. Apparently. Stupid. This shouldn't be overdriving his other senses. This shouldn't be flooding his mind. He shouldn't be drowning right now. This shouldn't have his hands shaking. This shouldn't have him pacing the length of his room. This shouldn't be stealing the oxygen from his lungs. His brain was pounding against his skull, protesting his rapid back-and-forth movement. He was dizzy. He shouldn't be crying. Fuck it! He was always crying, who cares about that?! Just stop panicking, just stop crying, just stop being so selfish for once and just own up. Louie's back crashed against his door, gasping for breath. Stars were blotting his vision and he couldn't breathe and it was the end of the world. Okay. Okay. He was spiraling again. That was all it was, it would be okay. It would be okay. The prince's bed chambers, alive with the choking sound of contained distress, subsided to complete silence for just a moment. Inhale. Exhale. And then all to be heard was a small, crackling voice straining to sing himself a quiet little lullaby. ___________ [OCTOBER 22ND, 10:07AM] "Your highness, don't be an idiot. You can't just---Hey! Wait up!" "H'oh boy..." Louie's eyes flicked to the high heavens. Right now he felt like he was tasked with personally escorting this goddamn boy across this goddamn forest by the goddamn ankles. He whirled around impatiently, crossing his arms with a flourish. "Pick up the pace, Tiberius. We don't have all day." "Can you maybe not be a huge pain for like... I dunno, five minutes?" Snapped Ty, his dearly devoted retainer and most notorious pain-in-the-tail. "Can you maybe loosen up? Y'know it's a real mood killer when there's a paranoid guy on my case all the time, insisting that the whole world is out to get me. Being constantly reminded of my fragile mortality? Woo, talk about fun times." Scowling, Ty stumbled his way over a protruding tree root. "You've got a bad habit of attracting danger, you know that, right? I'm pretty sure it's a Duck thing." The remark slapped the annoyed expression right off Louie's face. Ty quirked an eyebrow. "What's that look for?" Before he could further analyse, Louie sharply turned on his heel and strode on. "It's a Duck thing." He said, keeping his tone even. Both of them knew it was a Duck thing. Ty just didn't know the half of it. "Your highness," He heard Ty gripe. "You know this is a bad idea. A prince shouldn't be out in the open like this without proper protection. And I'm unprepared right now. I can't--" If Ty weren't yakking so much, Louie wouldn't know if he was still there. He wasn't wearing his armor for once so the familiar clank and clatter of metal was nonexistent. "You got your sword, right? You can do a lot of damage with that thing." "Yeah but no juice. And I need juice. See, 'cause what if we get in a tight spot and you--?" "What do you think is gonna happen, Ty?! For the love of all that is gold, It's just a party." "It's never just anything." He grumbled. Ty jogged ahead a little, matching his pace to Louie's. His footsteps alongside him were purposefully heavy So, he was stomping now. Real mature. Louie rolled his eyes. He was fully aware Ty was pissed, he didn't have to go above and beyond to make his anger known. "You really think I'm an idiot who doesn't take safety precautions? I'll have you know keeping Prince Louie alive isn't just your problem. Prince Louie is pretty serious about that too." He gestured to himself. "If you haven't noticed, I'm incognito today. I've got no crown, no mantle, no status whatsoever. And look at these ugly peasant threads," Louie pointed out, tugging at the hem of his dull green tunic. "It's actually kinda depressing how drab I look. I'm never gonna do this again actually. But! See how committed I am right now? Who's gonna recognize me? As we're all aware, I'm pretty well known for my pizzazz." "Just 'cause you stop being a prince doesn't mean danger stops existing." "No but it makes you way less of a target. Now, are you really gonna spend your whole day off bitching at me?" 

The glare Ty shot him was petulant at best. "Well, I didn't wanna. But I got dragged along on this little adventure so guess I gotta." Louie pursed his beak, irritated. He did not drag Ty along anywhere. 

"Come to think of it, I don't remember saying you had to follow me." Well, that came out as harsher than intended. Ty didn't seem hurt. At least, there was no sign that he was. No expression cracked his stone mask. "I've got a duty." Louie scoffed. Ty and his stupid duty. It was really starting to wear on his nerves. But not today, absolutely not today. On this fine, glorious day, Louie was intent on having fun. He would show up at this little forest shindig and he would drink and dance and schmooze and whatever else any carefree person at a party would do. He would forget about everything that was eating at him. He wasn't gonna let it consume him, he wasn't. He was gonna live. While he still could. His sixteenth birthday loomed closer. Six months left. "Sorry." Said Ty, unprompted. The shadows festering in Louie's head cleared out as he snapped back to the present. Ty had his eyes firmly downcast, a noticeable slump to his posture. "It's not like I wanna be running around killing the fun all the time. I really don't. But I gotta." Louie said nothing. His eyebrows rose in quiet astonishment as he studied Ty's side profile. He remembered when Ty first came into his life. Twelve years old, brandishing a sword too big for his body and grinning lopsidedly in an unmistakably trouble seeking sorta way. A real firecracker of a boy, loud and bright. Hungry for adventure and excited to throw himself head first into the action. He remembered one of Ty's earliest and most confident statements. When he lowered himself to bow to Louie in his uncle's throne room and declared that the prince would never fear for his life again. Because Ty would protect him and Ty was fearless. Louie believed him. Make no mistake, Ty had plenty of bite back then too. He had disliked Louie and the feeling had been mutual. But he never doubted that Ty had spoken the truth with his entire heart. Ty was fearless. When Louie was with Ty, he was safe. He believed that and he always had. Despite how they clicked as well as a dagger and a keyhole. Despite Ty being annoying. So annoying. He was still annoying. But it was different now. Louie couldn't pinpoint when that permanent glowing smile of his had dwindled and a thin frown had become Ty's default expression. His sword, something he always used to proudly haul around over his shoulder, now unceremoniously sheathed against his belt. Although Louie had noticed that his right hand never strayed too far from the hilt.   Protecting royalty with your entire being was an all-consuming duty and it seemed, at some point, the reality of such an allegiance had slapped Ty across the face. He had this distinct way of holding himself now. Always stood straight and rigid, coiled up with agitation. He was prepared to fight at a moment's notice but it was clear the thrill of doing so had been long since drained out of him. He still smiled. He still laughed. But only sometimes. Ty was annoying because he was paranoid. Because he was snarky. Because he was too stiff, too protective. And man, what Louie wouldn't give to have Ty's former brand of annoying back. At least never made him feel sorry for the guy. "Can I ask you a favor?" Louie finally spoke, pushing back a drooping tree branch so they could walk below it "You can try." Ty shrugged, his gaze still fixed ahead. "What if we just turn off this whole 'Prince and Retainer' thing today. Whadd'ya think?" He turned to him blankly, complete with a slight tilt of the head that made Louie a tiny bit weak. "Wha....?" Ty was simply not computing. He looked as though Louie was throwing out algebra equations and he was supposed to solve them right on the spot. And he was not a math guy by any means. The cute clueless expression was making it a little hard to focus. Louie swallowed. "Listen." He began, his thumb dragging itself across his sweaty palm as he struggled with how to phrase this. Louie had a way with words, always had. But he had a tendency to trip over his own tongue when Ty was involved. Especially when Ty was staring at him with his soft cande-light eyes and doing that stupid adorable head tilting thing and-- "You need a break." Louie blurted out. "You're stressed like constantly and it's getting kinda insufferable and I think your Dad would sick a dragon on me if his barely fifteen year old son suddenly kicked it 'cause of a paranoia overload so I think you should just forget about being my big strong hero for today and come hang out with me at this stupid peasant party and we can just be two regular kids instead of a royal and his bodyguard do you think you could give me that Tiberius?" It was only in the following beat of silence that Louie realized how fast he spat that all out. He struggled to catch his breath. One second. Ty blinked. Two seconds. A flicker of vacant eyes and then a rush of realization. And then disbelief. And then-- Three seconds. His brow scrunched together and a snarl crinkled his muzzle. His eyes flared. Oh, he was mad.... "Are you crazy?!" Ty shouted. He was beside himself with a malfunctioning mix of fury and incredulity that had him stammering his words. "You-You can't just--.....D-do you even-- you don't...do you realize how disrespectful that is? For you to say it? For-For me to do it?! I was given this duty by the King! The fucking King! To just suddenly "turn it off" would be--....I can't--!" Maybe "mad" was an understatement. "Ty--" Louie tried. He was cutting across Louie, treading back and forth on their forest path,. Not going further, not going back. Just walking to nowhere for the sake of being too scandalized to possibly stand still. Louie was attempting to get Ty's attention by grabbing his tunic but he kept shaking him off. "I'd be a disgrace! An embarrassment! I'm trusted by the royal family to keep--...to keep you safe! I-I can't just walk around with my liege like I'm on vacation and not be on guard! You don't even get it, you--" "Ty!" Louie said loudly."You wanna maybe listen for a sec?!" Frankly, he was surprised Ty halted his tirade. His eyes were blown wide, stunned and Louie wasn't quite sure why until he followed Ty's look, snapping down. Seems in his effort to get a hold of the guy, he had instinctively reached out and snatched Ty's wrist. They stood frozen for a moment, each set of eyes boring into the touch that tied them together. Louie's fingers began to uncurl. Then he decided no. His grip on Ty tightened with a purposeful squeeze. Ty met his gaze, looking....panicked? Confused? Didn't matter. He could besottedly dissect his unreadable facial expressions later. Louie inhaled, deciding to shoulder his dignity for just a second. No safety rails of snark this time. Ty might make fun of him for being sincere later but this was important. "Don't you miss being a kid with nothing to worry about?" Louie implored. "Because if we're being real, I don't think we're ever gonna get to live like that again." Ty muttered something to himself, shaking his head a little. "But listen," Louie continued, taking a step into Ty's personal bubble. Ty took an automatic step back. But since he was still holding his hand, Louie was led a step forward. It was difficult to tell with the pink fur but he could've sworn Ty reddened. "Look I know it's weird for me to be asking but....can't we just take a risk today? It's just a party in the woods. Literally the least likely place to find any danger in the whole kingdom." "We shouldn't--" "Ty, please." Honestly, Louie was a little surprised at himself. He hadn't even planned for Ty to accompany him anyway. But in the heat of the moment, everything had shifted upside-down. Turns out there was something inside him willing to beg. Something that wanted more than anything, for Ty come along. He just wanted a simple memory of just killing time with Ty. Separated from the castle and everything that reminded him of his fate. He would like to smile without a hint of dread for once this year. So, he said just that. "I'm not just trying to make you come along 'cause I'm stuck with you. That's not it." He swallowed. "You're--....you're cool. You're fun. I wanna have you around. You know, when you're not so worked up and you're just being yourself, I like hanging out with you." He tugged Ty's hand a little. Further from his sword and closer to Louie. "I want you to come with me. And I want you to try having fun too." He may as well just tell the idiot he thought about him every time he saw a sunset. The hand he was grasping flexed its fingers. Ty abruptly broke eye contact and glanced to the side, his tongue poking out to pierce the tip of his jagged tooth. His indecisive face. "I just--.....I dunno...." He muttered. "If something happened to you--" "Nothing's gonna happen to me." Said Louie immediately. "I've got a good feeling about this. And c'mon Ty, that coming from a coward?" "You're not a coward." He said, barely a whisper. He was now staring at the ground. "I promise." "Huh?" Louie smiled tightly as Ty looked to him questionably. "I promise nothing is gonna happen. I'm gonna be fine. You're gonna be fine. Now, can you do me this favor and maybe, I dunno, trust me?" The look Ty gave him was a little sad, but it was soft. And then with only a tiny twitch, it shifted into something else entirely. It was trust. Blind trust. Maybe stupid trust. A minuscule pang of guilt jabbed at Louie. Of course he wanted Ty to trust him. He needed him to if there was any hope of achieving his goal here. But objectively, he really shouldn't. Louie was hiding way too much from him. It wasn't fair. Then Ty broke the world, shattered orbit and played around with reality itself by cracking a smile and Louie forgot every coherent thought he ever possessed. He would never put on record just how long he spent pre-preparing jokes, gunning to get the corner of Ty's lips to flick upwards. Made him seem kinda desperate. Which he was not. Ty had that oh, so stereotypical "cute boy" smile. It was crooked, cocky, it was utterly obnoxious. Louie hated it. And worst of all, it was like a little spell to kick Louie's heart into high speed. Sometimes it dazed and confused him like a blinding light flash. But other times, it was warm and if he stared long enough, he'd fall asleep. Louie loved Ty's smile. Every time he tried to convince himself he didn't, he ended up dwelling on it too much and the way his mouth would quirk up would play in his mind on a maddening loop and then it would be too much to handle and the truth that he loved it would always overpower him. So, whenever that happened (like right this second.) he gave up and admitted it. To himself, anyway. He loved Ty's smile. He loved Ty. ......Wait. That last part was new, hold up. Rewind. But he didn't get the chance because Ty was talking now. Still a little dazzled, Louie didn't catch what he said but he figured it was good since he was still smiling. And then that smile broke into a huge grin, his eyes flashed with trouble and his hands were on Louie's shoulders and-- "Race ya!" Ty cried. With a light push, Louie was stumbling backwards and Ty kicked off into a sprint. For a brief moment, Louie could only gaze after him, stupefied. Love, huh? Like the real deal? That was crazy. But then he snapped out of as he recalled the audacity of this bastard. "You just pushed your liege!" He shrieked, receiving a loud "WOO!" from Ty as a response. And then Louie was grinning. He was giddy. He didn't quite know if he forgot about love in that instance or if it was the force powering him but he was tearing off after Ty, yelling about the latter's totally unfair head start. In hindsight, he should've figured it was love a long time ago. Who else would get him to run for no reason?

[tomsdior]

“lets make it official” | t.h

Summary; you and tom have been together for quite some time now, but labels up until this point have remained an unspoken subject...                           

a/n; HEY! I took very long break but im back now, this fic has been rewritten tons of times since fucking January, yet even now im still not crazy about it. I just really wanted to get back into writing so please leave feedback!

warnings; mentions of sex and like one curse word.

wc; 2k

masterlist | taglist

—

IT WAS A COLD EVENING IN EARLY MARCH, and you had just finished taking your exams, and were more than tired because of all the time you had spent last night cooped up in the campus library trying to retain and memorize any little information that would help you out on the exams. 

Which definitely helped you out a ton due to you walking out of the room with a lot more prep in your step. Feeling all the bit more relaxed now that the exams were over and you could go back to your normal schedule that didn’t include such immense amounts of studying as well as a lot more hours of sleep, which you hadn’t been getting a lot of recently. 

So the first thing you planned to do once getting back to your apartment was to tend to your tiredness and nap the second you settled in, change into some more comfy clothing and maybe even make yourself a cup of tea and scroll through Instagram a little beforehand. But that plan was sadly cut short by a text from your roommate, Yasmine, who you shared an apartment with off campus with for the last two years.

The text explained how she last minute decided to invite her boyfriend over for the afternoon to help study for her psych class. Which wouldn’t sound like much of a problem to the average person, but for y/n and yasmine it sort worked like a code for “were definitely fucking” ( the code was mostly used by Yasmine) so you now definitely knew you wouldn’t be able to take a nap or relax even under the circumstances of your roommate moaning through the ridiculously thin walls of your apartment.

But that didn’t leave you super upset, because unlike past roommates Yasmine had the decency to tell you about her intimate activities in the apartment beforehand, (even if it was quite late) which you were thankful for. Besides you now have an excuse to go visit the boy who you’ve been giving most, if not all your attention to these last few months.

You knew he’d be back from classes so there was no need to worry about him being home or not.

Many people would even say that you and Tom have been attached by the hip, always having at least some type of contact with each other when you could. Whether it be him just walking you to class, a study date at a nearby cafe, weekly movie nights, dates at your favorite chinese place at three a.m. Or even just having a cozy night in where you're cuddled up talking about nothing and everything. 

 Which sounds pretty typical for a couple who's been together for a few months, the only difference was that you and Tom weren’t official on being boyfriend and girlfriend. Of course, you didn’t want to rush, but you felt like you should’ve at least had some type of conversation about it now.

Especially while your feelings seemed to be growing at a much faster rate for the charming brit than you originally thought they would. I mean when you first started talking you strictly remember telling yourself to keep your walls up and not let yourself fall so easily for the boy, knowing he had a reputation that didn’t lead you to believe he could stay with a girl for too long. 

But as time went on, you learned that there was much more to him than just his good looks, so worries of his reputation seemed to gradually fade. As he showed you sides of himself that others would be shocked to hear that the cocky, and arrogant “Tom Holland” was able to portray. 

Sides of his that you would only describe as kind, and thoughtful, significantly much softer in manner. Always knowing how to make you smile with his silly jokes and adoring compliments. That usually left you flustered with heated cheeks, and he of course would always sit there smirking before sweetly showering your face with soft kisses, unknowingly making your heart flutter from the affection. (and it didn’t hurt how gorgeous he was either)

Of course they were all things that clearly opposed his notorious image he upheld around campus. But, they were also the things that made you slowly fall for him everyday. Things that only made you want nothing more than to be an official couple, which is why you had made a mental note to have that talk with him sometime while at his frat today. But for now you were trying to keep your sleepy eyes open as you got there.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★ 

“y/n…” a clear look of surprise was etched on Tom's face as he opened the door to reveal you on the other end, a much rather tired version might you add.

“Listen I know I should’ve texted rather than coming unannounced like this, but I was just so tired and…” 

That was all you managed to say before you were stopped by feeling his lips on yours. At first you froze at the sudden move, but in a matter of seconds you returned the kiss, letting yourself get lost and fall deeper into the feeling of his soft lips against yours. 

He knew that if he hadn’t stopped you, you would’ve started to trail off into a little ramble (in this case it would’ve been of unnecessary apologies), something you often did when you were clearly tired. 

He soon reluctantly ends the kiss with a delicate peck, leaving you feeling more awake with a newfound blush across your cheeks. “You know you're always welcome here, love.” his hand came up to cradle your cheek as he reminded you, and from what the tone of his voice seems like the fiftieth time. And yes you knew you were always welcome to come whenever, especially when all his frat brothers treated you so nicely. It was just the overthinker in you that caused you to believe that you were overstepping, or getting too comfortable for his liking.

“I know bubs it’s jus’ that I can’t help but feel like I’m being a bother sometimes.” you tell him honestly while lowering your head slightly to hide the subtle redness that rose in your cheeks, partially from the after effects of the kiss but mostly from how his soft tone seemed to always make you melt inside.

“You're never a bother, love. Ever,” he states, making sure that his eyes were locked with Y/N’s as he muttered those words.

 “Besides I could always use some of your company.” he says with a smile, and with you still not being fully used to all the affection you received from him yet, you could feel your heart flutter lightly in your chest from his words.

｡･:*:･ﾟ★ 

“So what brings you here,” Tom asks as he hangs up your coat for you, which you thank him for.

 “Well, I was planning on getting some rest back at my apartment. But Yasmine texted me while I was on the way telling me her boyfriend was coming over.” you explain to him, and he nods understandingly. He already had a pretty good understanding of what your roommate had meant by her text so luckily for you there was no need to explain further. 

“And there was no way I was going to be able to get any type of rest with them going at it in the room next to me. so I just came here knowing you’d be back already. ” you say, letting out a small huff that was almost inaudible, but Tom still managed to hear it. 

 “But look on the bright side, love” he starts, wrapping his arms around your waist to give you a comforting hug from behind. The simple gesture makes you feel more at ease as he rests his chin on your shoulder. 

“If it weren’t for yasmine I wouldn’t get to spend the rest of the day with my girl.” he smiles, as he starts to pepper small kisses into the crook of your neck. 

And although the feeling wasn’t anything less than nice, you couldn’t help but focus on his words, specifically the last two, and although they were words that you loved to be called, you knew they also held a conversation that has yet to be had between the two of you.

But before you could bring it up, Tom had already sensed your change in mood, and eventually removed his lips from your neck to see what the problem was. “What's the matter darling,” his eyebrows were furrowed as he tried to figure out what was on your mind. 

‟W-what are we?” You ask him in a voice that’s barely above a whisper(clearly ignoring his question), but Tom could still hear it clear as day because of how close you were. 

As you free yourself from his gentle grip around your waist you turn to face him, noticing the confusion written all over it. Which you were very aware was caused by your one little question that you knew probably confused the hell out of him, but you just couldn’t seem to get anything else out but that. 

“What do you mean love?” his head is now cocked to the side with a puzzled look stitched on his face, making his curls flop to the side as well, his somewhat pouty lips making you involuntarily grin as you shake your head softly. 

“I mean it’s been a few months since we’ve known eachother now” you took a deep breath. “And we are pretty close-,” he takes your face in his hand and caresses your cheek, “and I feel we should talk about us,..like what we are officially.” you explain, almost immediately second guessing yourself before you spoke again.

“Well is having a relationship something you even want with me?” you ask nervously, looking up at him, feeling your heart start to beat faster as you await an answer.

“Of course angel,” he assures, continuing to caress your cheek. “it’s jus’ you know that when it comes to relationships of all things I’m no expert,” he says with an obvious tone. “In fact I am just about as clueless as ever,” he mumbles with a laugh, making the corners of your lips upturn in the slightest.

“But if I’m being completely honest, you’ve made me feel things that no one has ever made me feel in my entire life. Made me feel a true happiness that I didn’t know I needed until I met you. I mean You're so kind and generous, and you always know how to make me smile and laugh. And you're one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met. 

“And I know I’ve still got lots to learn when it comes to relationships, but I know I wouldn’t wanna do it with anyone but you” he affirmed.

By the end, your eyes were glossy and filled with tears that threatened to escape, you hated how you had gotten so emotional in such little time. They end up falling regardless and stain your cheeks, But Tom was quick to wipe them away with his thumb.

Once your eyes start to clear you notice the sweet look that clouded his, as he waited for you to say something. However you decided to not respond with words, and with something much more intimate.

Without a second to spare you press your lips upon his. Creating a sweet kiss full of passion from the both of you as your lips moved in sync. You kissed each other almost as if it were your first time doing the act, which was far from true, but this one had a feeling better than anything you could ever hope for.

In time you broke the kiss to catch your breath, you couldn't help but look at each other, smiling like crazy as your lips brushed against each other’s.

“I guess we’re a proper couple now, huh.” he says, giving you another peck before pulling you into his chest. “I guess we are.” You smile happily as you relax into him.

His embrace felt so warm and comforting around you, so much that it made you let out a small yawn as your eyes fluttered shut against his chest.

“Looks like someone still needs their nap.” He teases, making you smile dopily as he gives one last kiss on your temple.

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[masterhandss]

Hamefura♪ Idol AU! (part 3)

Thank you so much to the people who have voiced their interest for this AU! I honestly wouldn’t have planned on writing any of this and just planned to keep it all in my head if no one asked :’’DD Special thanks to @ineedglassesalways​​ for the song reqs for this one! please check her out she has amazing art!

Please bare in mind that my thoughts are an absolute mess and that what i’m talking about switches between Fortune Lover and Hamefura at the snap of a finger. Most info is the same, so just try to understand which i’m talking about while reading fjhgsdjhfg

(Also i’m gonna start calling this “My Next Life as an Idol?! All Routes lead to Doom!!!” or HameFura♪ now hgfjsdgf)

Directory: Hamefura♪ Part 1 - Fortune Lover ||  Hamefura♪ Part 2 - hamefura

Edit: I added a cut bc i’m starting to sympathize with the people who has to scroll passed all this gjshgf

Random Plot and World-building stuff

Sorcier Entertainment is the biggest entertainment business for the past 2 decades, bringing out and producing the best quality of idols, actors, models, composers, musicians, DJs etc. It is a parent company to a lot of branches and agencies. 

Sorcier Pro. is the main sub-branch of SorEn, being the most popular agency for producing the current hit in the market, which are idols. There a few other agencies within SorEn, but they wont be important until later. Geoffrey Stuart is the president of Sorcier Entertainment, and is the overseer of the main idol branch (no one knows why though, probably bc his lil bros are there). Entertainment is such an important and prevalent part of Society that the combination of the Stuarts holding power of the the entertainment industry, as well as Mr. Stuart being the prime minister, they are truly considered to be the most influential family in the country, which is added by the fact that every member of the family is an outstanding and well-respect individual. 

Sorcier Pro. has a variety of high quality facilities for their idols, and even had a dormitory where they can stay in. This was done for the sake of maximizing the idol’s work hours while giving them a comfortable and accessible place of rest. Not all idols are living in the dormitories, and is usually just housing the popular ones at the time. 

All of the main characters (except Sirius, and Villainess!Katarina) are living in the dormitory during the events of the “game”. Nicol and Sophia has rooms there, but they usually return to their home because they are more comfortable there. Katarina and Keith also regularly visit their parents whenever they are free, so their stay is a 50/50. Maria doesn’t visit her mother often (as her house is too far from her private school and work) so she’s always at the dorms. 

A lot of the well known powerful, political and celebrity families (that are the equivalent to “nobles” in this world) are collaborators and sponsors of the company, one of the main sponsors being the Claes Family.

I thought of just making the setting an “Idol Academy” like in Aikatsu! and EnStars!, but I though nah, that’s just too easy. Industry idols are much more interesting to me, and that plot works better for a “idol rhythm game/producer simulator”, specifically for what M.C. gets to do in the game (plus I was listening to IM@S when writing the first part so hgfsdjhfdgsj)

Most prestigious families has their kids be home-schooled, especially ones that are involved in the entertainment industry. This is so that they can focus on their career while they are still young. The exception to this was Maria, until she became an idol and had to take a hiatus from school as Sorcier Pro. expects her to focus on expanding her career. She takes supplementary classes on the weekends.

Katarina’s solo unit name in Fortune Lover is Nobelia (a combination of “nobilis or noble” and “lobelia”, the blue flower of malevolence or evil). She sometimes gets temporary teammates to join for tournaments and projects, but she is a solo idol. 

So the units are Fortuna (Gerald, Keith, Alan and Nicol), Amour (Maria, Sophia, and Mary), Nobelia (Katarina solo), Picotee (Sophia solo), Marigold (Mary solo), Alcea (Maria solo), Regalis (Gerald and Alan), Edel Herz (Keith and Nicol). 

The name’s origins being: Fortuna as the greek of ‘Fortune’, Amour as the french of ‘Love’, Picotee as the dual colored flower (that can be white and red), Marigold (bc obviously) as the flower of passion, Alcea from alcea rosea (the pink hollyhock, which almost means strength and healing), Regalis as a root word/synonym to royal/royalty, Edel Herz being just a google translate of “noble heart” in german teehee (pls appreciate all the googling I had to do dhfgsjhfdg yes it’s mostly flower names bc I have no originality)

yes i changed the names form my original post, don’t call me out asdfgh

Idols don’t really need a stage name if they are a solo idol, but most popular idols are associated with one so it just became a trend to have both stage names and unit names. 

In the original game, Maria’s default stage name is “Cinderella”, which you can then change into the username or player name. This is so that Maria can keep her name while still giving the players a custom name. 

Maria’s original stage name is a nod to a lot of things: the “Cindrella syndrome” that her character is based on, The name of Fortuna’s fans/fanbase (as most players really are a fan of the boys), and is also a reference to how you are the main love interest for the boys (as you are their true Cinderella)

Katarina doesn’t retain the same stage name “Nobelia” as Villainess!Katarina does, in fear that it might her more similar to her, leading her to a doom end. She doesn’t have a stage name, unlike her friends. Her fans would call her “Bakarina” online though, but she never finds out about it jhagjsfg

Fortuna is an all-around male idol unit, one that can take on different images and genres with ease. The image of the unit changes depending on which boy is the center/lead of the song:

With Gerald, the music focuses on the instrumentals or the orchestra, giving a royal or heavenly vibe. The songs have an emphasis on righteousness, the beauty of life and a prosperous future. The songs for the fans usually has a theme of “reminiscent love” or “looking forward to a future with their partner”. A good example of a unit center song for his is Genuine Revelation from EnStars, and Flower as a solo song from his VA

With Keith, the music becomes more mature. The songs have more seductive lyrics, and has an emphasis on “forbidden love” or “having a secret relationship” with the fans. The lyrics are usually innocent in nature, until you read in-between the lines. Sometimes, his center songs throw a curveball and becomes about a “pure and innocent love” or “longing to be loved”. A good example for his solo song is Gekkoujou no Aria from A3 (please listen to it, it’s by Keith’s VA and the lyrics screams “Keith”)

With Alan, the guitar, violin and piano take the center stage.The music usually has more instrumentals than lyrics. The songs are primarily about being one’s true self, loving who you are and looking back at the past. Friendship and Identity are common themes in his songs. Sometimes, his center songs would throw a curve ball and be about something like “not acknowledging one’s feelings until it is too late”. A good song that represents his usually themes is Bokura no Kizuna from A3

With Nicol, the music is more slow and deep. The songs are usually about self-conflict, self-development and change. His songs sometimes have a theme of having an extreme adoration for the fans, a love so strong that time nor age can make it falter. “Being the only one for him” is the theme of his more popular songs. A good example for his solo song is Sword and Soul from his very own VA!

Yeah, basically the image of the center idol is reflected in the performance.

I don’t have a full list of idol song recommendations yet, but my friend who i mentioned above already recommended a bunch of good duo songs for the boys!: (feel free to suggest stuff if you guys have any :DD)

Gerald/Keith - Es No Yutsu from A3

Keith/Nicol- Plastic Poker from A3

Alan/Nicol - Don't Cry from A3

In the original game, all four boys we’re scouted while the girls all auditioned to become idols. Now, since they are all close friends, Gerald was able to market the talents of his friends and was able to get them all scouted into Sorcier Production. 

Fortuna has a producer before Maria, but by the beginning of the game, he had to leave due to health reasons, leading to the sudden application for a new producer. While many producers offered to take care of the boys alongside their other idols, Fortuna insisted that they want a new producer who would focus solely on them. 

Mary and Sophia also have their own producers, but they are barely present because they are busy handing other idols (and eventually, will let go of Mary and Sophia once they decide that they want Maria to produce them)

While Fortuna, Mary and Sophia’s careers were able to skyrocket quickly do to their appeals and talents, Katarina’s career grew slowly compared to her friends. This is because, despite to protests of her Producer Anne, she usually takes smaller gigs in far away towns, malls and small live houses. This is because Katarina wanted to perform in front of people who can’t easily access or attend live performances outside of the internet, just like her own small town in her previous life. She knew how happy she’d feel if there was an idol performance near her area, so she wanted to share that joy to other people. 

Katarina doesn’t join her friends in doing acting and modeling jobs until much later, when Maria joins their group. 

Anne Shelley acts as Katarina’s fitness instructor, personal health manager, and producer. She was brought into Katarina’s life even before she regained her memories, only exclusively as a health manager recommended to the Claes Family. She ended up taking on more jobs that involves watching over Katarina as the years pass by, as the young girl started gaining more and more interests and hobbies. Katarina wonders how Anne is able to be qualified for so many jobs, but she just sums it up as Anne being amazing! (Katarina: I guess she’s kind of like a maid!... or a babysitter...) Anne was (somehow) able to become a producer in Sorcier Productions and was easily recommended for Katarina due to their history. Anne cares a lot about Katarina in her happiness, and will do anything to support her (both version of her, in fact), so much that she is willing to juggle so many careers in order to stay by her side. 

Katarina has a small farm that she tends to in her free time (since she doesn’t get a lot of job offers in the first place) that is located in the garden grounds near the main office of Sorcier Pro. Her visitors/helpers differ each day, depending on who is available (and who intentionally made themselves available to make sure they can spend as much time as they can with Katarina)

While her friends constantly get fan mail, the delivery man is always wondering why Katarina always specifically gets a small light box. In reality, it’s packages sent by Tom the gardener, from the Claes Mansion, showing her all his new prototypes for the snake toy. While Katarina first started out as making them out of paper before deciding on buying them online, she knew her family would be suspicious and question why she’s making such a purchase, so she was surprised when Tom started joining her in making fake snakes, until the snakes started to look even more realistic than the plastic ones online!

Maria Campbell: A Girl Chosen by Destiny

Since “Maria” is an involved protagonist, she gets to keep her name in the game, with her idol alias being the “username”of the player

Just like in HameFura, the game doesn’t give much on Maria’s actual history. 

The game does have an implied personality for her, being a kind and hardworking girl who puts all her focus on the task at hand. The game implies that she is also a bit introverted, with her personality becoming more open and outgoing as the game progresses (implied through the slight changes in dialogue choices).

She’s a bit of a country bumpkin who moved into the big city in order to experience the world outside her town. She was able to gain a scholarship to a school in the city, and moved alone to stay with her aunt from her father’s side.

Due to her father leaving the family when she was young to due to rumors that she might be the daughter of a different man, Maria’s relationship with her mother is still very strayed. Thanks to these rumors, her father left her and her mother when she was young, and her town heavily criticized the two for the adultery that her mother apparently committed. These rumors stemmed form the fact that even as a child, Maria was beautiful (with clear blue eyes and bright blonde hair, that are in contrast to her mother’s dull eyes and dull hair). While her mother was fare-faced, the appearance that Maria had was usually associated with celebrities or artists, making people believe that Maria didn’t come from her father. Despite Maria’s mother claiming that none of it was true, the rumors got so out of hand that Maria’s father became ashamed of his family, leading him to leave without a word.

In the beginning of the game, she stayed with an Aunt from her father’s side, on the condition that she somehow pays the bills by herself, leading her to want to get a job. 

Maria saw the announcement of Sorcier Production being in need of new staff, so she applied quickly in order to start saving money. Thanks to a set of misunderstandings, she accidentally got the role as a producer, despite her lack of credentials (not knowing that she was the beginning of a big project of SorEn)

Maria is an extremely hardworking person, believing that if she worked hard enough, she will be one day rewarded with the love that she’s always dreamed of receiving.  Fortune Lover makes you think that Maria is naturally able to produce 7 idols, but in reality, it’s at the expense of Maria overworking herself to the bone, with almost no time for herself at all. Sometimes she sleeps in her small desk office instead of the household that she’s paying the bills of, in order to maximize her work hours. She dedicates every second that she has on the four boys, so when they shower her with love and attention, she was able to easily fall in love with them as well (and sadly becomes dependent on their validation as a personal reward for her efforts). 

A month before one of Fortuna’s biggest live performance (or a little bit after Maria joins them as their producer), Maria oversaw the training of another idol who came to her and ask for help (not knowing that she was just trying to get close to Maria to get close with the Fortuna boys). Maria helped her train her dancing and singing, and even memorized her choreography in order to critique her steps. She became too dedicated in helping that idol improve, thinking that the girl wanted to be friends with her. When the event happened, the female idol was hit with bad karma and injured her leg just as the live started, leaving her unable to perform. This causes an uproar among the staff, as the set list was too complicated to change in such short notice. Gerald, who is aware that Maria has been helping their colleague, encourages Maria to take her place since she knew the lyrics and the dance. Thanks to the encouragement of the boys, Maria debuts in front of a huge crowd, gaining instant popularity as the cinderella idol that saved the live event. 

Most of Maria’s job as a producer in arranging the schedules of the boys, staying in contact with their costume designer, staying in contact with their personal composers and lyricists, sorting through job offers, keeping watch of their health, watching them while they practice and accompanying them in their jobs. When she isn’t there to accompany any of them, another producer temporarily takes her place. 

As Maria’s popularity increases, she is given job offers that prevents her from focusing on being a producer. Since the boys are very fond of Maria, they are very encouraging of her desire to become an idol too, and offers to help support her and themselves moving forward. 

The game itself doesn’t make the changes in Maria’s occupation obvious, since Maria’s idol life is only prevalent in the Idol Rhythm Game Mode, but in reality the increase in workload is slowly eating her up (not that she’d let anyone know that)

Maria, as an idol, gets constantly harassed by her peers (especially Katarina) for being a nobody idol who took the spotlight away from them, as well as for being a close ally to Fortuna. A lot of scenes in the story mode is the boys saving her from the harassment (leading to a lot of good CG art that are sold as posters :P)

Depending on whose romance route you are on, Mary and Sophia start out as very hostile towards Maria, as her existence takes away the attention that their loved ones were supposed to give to them. Sophia warms up the fastest, as Maria’s lack of hostility towards her makes both her and Nicol easily attached. Even after the three starts as unit as Amour, Mary’s relationship with maria is mostly professional, before she slowly warms up to her somewhere near the end of the Alan Romance Route. The three can be considered friends, but they still seemed more like colleagues in the eyes of other people. 

When Katarina meets Maria, she was very surprised to know that the Maria she played as in the game was a more humane person than the game shows up (somehow who isn’t perfect in every way, and works hard and long to be able to provide for both herself and the four boys)

Their meeting and friendship bloomed in the same way as the Otome Game version (because i’m too lazy to jot down every minor difference hgfjsdgf), surprising Katarina that baking hobby that was just mentioned in text or used as a plot device is actually real and flourishing, and is something she actively supported Maria. 

Due to Katarina’s slow popularity gain, and Maria being a novice idol, they usually took and accepted jobs together since they both needed a boost. Instead of the quick burst of popularity that Maria has in the game, this time she wants to take each step slowly with Katarina, with the desire for them to grow at the same time.

Since Katarina is now aware of the hardships that Maria must be facing as both a producer and an idol, this time Katarina and Anne often help Maria with her paperwork and organization. Whenever Maria isn’t there to follow Gerald, Keith, Alan or Nicol, Anne now takes over if she’s available or she’d recommend a colleague that she knows would assist the boys like a pro. 

Katarina insists that Maria doesn’t have to shoulder all her burden alone, and that she has all their friends around to help her and support her as they do with each other. Katarina tells her that it’s okay to ask for help and even offers her hand constantly (wow, Katarina can easily carry all these boxes of documents? My hero~) and Maria takes this lesson to heart.

Even though Maria felt nervous about joining Katarina’s friend group so suddenly, which even includes the very idols that she’s meant to watch over, Katarina was very insistent that Maria’s wonderful and warming presence would let her blend in so easily (Katarina isn’t aware of how the relationships of the characters were like in the original game since she never finished). Maria is eventually able to become friends with everyone, and is easily able to hold conversations with Mary and Sophia without Katarina around. Maria is there to act as a straight man to Mary’s exaggerated attempts at hindering the boy’s time with Katarina, and Maria often acts as an ear to Mary’s gossips about other idols. Maria, while not an avid fan of novels as Sophia and Katarina, can still join conversations about books by asking details, recommendations and insights on books she’s already read. Maria can easily get along with the boys as well, since they are in each other’s presence most of the time due to her role. They don’t hesitate to help Maria whenever they can (despite her resistance), and she’s usually the one who stops the arguments between Gerald and Keith whenever they are in the middle of a job. 

Since Katarina ended p being so attached to Maria, the boys sometimes takes advantage of Maria’s role as a producer to have her work instead of attending to the woman of their affections (of course they feel somewhat bad about it, but it’s better than watching them look so love-struck with each other!) but it ends up backfiring when Katarina lets go of all her activities in favor of assisting Maria with her job as a producer.

Whenever Maria is free, she insists on borrowing the small kitchen in the Office in order to use the small over to bake some pastries and treats for her friends. Katarina constantly endorses the amazingness of Maria’s sweets, and they are both happy whenever their friends compliments the results of Maria’s hard work.

Compared to her work schedule in the game, Maria can now work comfortably as both an idol and a producer, thanks to the support and help of her friends. 

Sirius Dieke: The 5th Love Interest

Sirius Dieke is a non-payable character in Fortune Lover, who usually appears in Gerald and Nicol’s stories and side story events to explain things about the world and the past relationship of the characters.

He is another idol in Sorcier Pro, and is an old friend to Nicol.

In reality, he’s actually a hidden character within the game that can only be playable if you get a Friendship Ending in the first playthrough. Getting a neural ending is already super hard, so Sirius being playable wasn’t revealed until two months after the game initial release. The game is so good at hiding this fact that not even the dataminers were able to find evidence of his existence outside of being an NPC. 

Getting a Sirius Route is only possible in the New Game+ Mode, with story events and side story events dedicated to him alone. He only comes with only one new song though, so people in forums usually don’t recommend going to the Sirius Route in the second playthrough (unless you’re a completionist dgjfd)

There’s also the fact that Sirius’ Route has a completely different tone than the rest of the game. The developers of the game planned on removing his route in their game update, but due to the outcry of his fans, they kept it in, and even included a payed DLC where you can instantly unlock his route on your first playthrough. 

In Sirius’ Route, it’s revealed that he was the son of a former celebrity and one of his maids, and that his real name is Raphael Wolt. His mother quited her job just before he was born. They were ultimately hunted down by Mrs. Dieke, who refused to believe that her husband had a mistress.

Raphael and his mother were kidnapped by people payed by Mrs. Dieke, and as his mother begged for her to spare their lives, Mrs. Dieke’s plans were revealed: Her own son is ill and was slowly dying from an illness, and in her jealousy of Raphael’s strong physique and health, she has decided to take Raphael as her own son, as both him and her original son both looked like their fathers more than their mothers. 

In front of his eyes, Raphael’s mother was murdered in cold blood and Raphael was left to suffer from various degrees of shock therapy and blunt forces to the head in order to forcefully induce amnesia without killing him. He wakes up in the hospital bed with no memories of who he is, and Mrs. Dieke graciously plays the part of a concerned mother who is visiting her own son in order to sell the idea that Raphael is her own. 

In the background, a news headline states that a mother and son was found dead in an abandoned warehouse.

The doctor tells Mrs. Dieke that her son “Sirius” might not recover his memories, and despite the glee in her voice, Mrs. Dieke acts and pretends to be devastated by the news. Unbeknownst to both of them, Sirius did eventually regain his lost memories over time and realizes that the woman claiming to be his mother is in fact the very person who had killed his only family. 

Sirius learns that the reason Mrs. Dieke is so insistent on having a son was to be able to nurture and create a new star that would dazzle the entertainment world, with hopes of being able to live vicariously through her son’s career and success. Feeling disgust and hatred towards the woman that he is now forced to call “mother”, he plans to enact his revenge by destroying the entertainment world from the inside, exposing its ugliness to the world.

Sirius ends up becoming an idol because of the encouragement of his “mother”, leading him to be affiliated with Nicol and Gerald. He had already met them when they were all young, and he even planned to have them as allies in his quest to destroy the entertainment industry, only to find them as disappointingly bright eyed teens when they reunited.  

When Sirius finds out that it was the effect of Maria Campbell, their new producer, he decided to wage war against her for acting as a thorn to his perfect plans. It’s revealed that a lot of the bullying scenarios in the story mode was orchestrated by Sirius himself, in an attempt to get maria to lose her reputation and her job. 

Maria was able to trace back all the incidents to him, and confront him alone in the Office at night, before he left to go home. Sirius laughed and admitted to all of his past and crimes, and mocked Maria for having no proof against him. Instead of condemning him, Maria hugs him while telling him to change his ways. Despite the violent ways that he tries to get Maria off him, she doesn’t let go, trying to convince him that his way of acting in correspondence to his grief is wrong. Sirius cries as Maria spoke sense into him and dissected the flaws in his grand plan, until only the sound of his crying is left in the cold and empty office that day. 

In Hamefura, When Sirius finds out that this was the effect of the “saint” Katarina Claes, he had orchestrated various events that could lead Katarina to being condemned by the public through her supposed “bullying” of the public darling Maria. This plans fails, so he plans on using Maria as a form of blackmail to get Katarina to leave the entertainment world in exchange for her friend’s safety. Maria disappears for a few days, causing her friends to be very worried for her, especially Katarina who is somewhat aware of the events that were occurring. During the search, she was able to find Sirius and tried to engage in some small talk, until she remembered a detail that her old friend Acchan said about a dark and secret love interest. Without any thought, Katarina questioned Sirius about Maria’s disappearance, surprising him with her sudden awareness.

Sirius admits to his crimes, and before Katarina can escape, Sirius hit her on the head so she can lose consciousness, but not before screaming about how he hates her ignorant enthusiasm, how she changed his pawns and made them better people, and how he wont let her take his heart and change him as well before he could enact his revenge, with tears in his eyes. This act leads to Katarina going unconscious for a few days. In this come state, Katarina was able to gain information from her old friend Acchan that she can use to save Sirius and Maria. 

In the abandoned warehouse where “he” and his mother supposedly died, Sirius has Maria locked up, with no plans of letting her escape until he can guarantee that Katarina is out of the picture. He is shocked to find out that Katarina and her friends were able to find both of them; he goes on a rampage about how he wants to destroy the Dieke family and everyone associated with them and the cruel world they have created, before the feeling of despair and fear for his future leads him to almost taking his own life as a final escape. 

Katarina stops him, and tells him that both of them has no future, as a secret love interest and as a villainess, and how she can’t save him the way Maria can. But that if anything else, she can a least stay by his side and take some of the weight off his shoulders, like what her friends have been doing for her since the beginning. Katarina calls him by his real name, Raphael Wolt, leading him to unlocking the final memory that he had lost from his temporary amnesia:

A memory of his mother, in her final moments, telling Raphael that she will always be by his side, and that she wishes for him to have a happy future, even if it wouldn’t have her in it. Katarina’s words made him realize that this wasn’t what his mother would wanted for him, leading him to see the error of his ways. 

In both versions, it ends with Sirius turning himself in and confessing to the crimes of both him and Mrs. Dieke, leading to both of their arrest and the return/resurface of the Wolt Family murder case investigation. Sirius’ contract with Sorcier Entertainment gets terminated, and heavy manipulation of the media was used in order to prevent the story from coming into light. 

Since Raphael lacked any crimes that would have him arrested, he was set free and left the Dieke family as it slowly fell apart from the controversy. He announced that he wants to spend his freedom as himself, but will one day come back to all of them as a better person. 

Without Katarina realizing it, Raphael confesses that his rampage was caused by his fear of his desires for her and her company, and that he was scared that if she continued to open her arms to him in such an easy-going and warm fashion, he would lose all his will to have his revenge on the entertainment industry. Much to the annoyance of Katarina and Raphael’s friends, he takes her hand and promises to come back, to stay by her side, like she had promised to him. 

In the Raphael Ending, Maria and Raphael meets again years later as both were on the way to work. Maria has already left the entertainment business and had no plans of returning, while Raphael became a changed man with a good heart and a steady job. Eventually, Maria was able to fall in love with the good man that Raphael was always meant to be/has become, and Raphael was able to rekindle the love and affection that he felt for Maria when they were still idols together.

Raphael had declared that he will back, better than ever! As an idol? who knows :3c But where will he go from here...?

Fortune Lover 2/Fortune Lover Re:Dive

Spoilers for Volume 3 of Hamefura and beyond, since this is about FL2

I’ve had a bunch of ideas that I’d like for Fortune Lover 2, but I’m not really sure if I want to put it out there because it seems too fanfiction-y in a way?

I feel like my ideas are straying far away from the original version, which disappoints me in a way, but then again, My Idol Game version of Fortune Lover is nothing like the Otome Game counterpart, so I’ll still write about it. 

If you like the premise for an Idol Game style Fortune Lover, then feel free to just absorb the content above because for (my version of) Fortune Lover 2 to happen, Katarina will still get her bad end: Public Humiliation and Self-Banishment. I’ll save how it happens in part 4 

In Fortune Lover 2, there would be 3 new produce-able idols, but in My Next Life as an Idol, there will be 5 new idols:

this is what i meant when I said the plot is gonna feel like a fanfiction :DD

Fortune Lover 2 isn’t really a sequel, as it is like a bulkier and softly rewritten version of FL, like how Persona 3/4/5 remakes are to their original games.

FL2 introduces a new Idol Agency that is affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment: Mahouka Production (also known as MahoPro), a recently established talent agency created by a mysterious Director. Despite being new, they were able to quickly gain a following through the eccentric idols in their line-up.

With a longer story, halfway through the game you start being introduced to three new male idols: Sora Smith, Cyrus Lanchester and Dewey Percy. They are idols that are under MahoPro, who dislikes the idols of SorPro and claims to be their rivals.

They start out as rival characters in the game, taunting you (Maria) and the idols of Fortuna constantly for a few chapters. Some time after your initial introduction, you slowly get to know the boys, until you’re finally able to gain their trust. You can then start to secretly “produce” them without their Director knowing (just like Shika from IM@S Stella Stage), which leads to gaining events, scenes, idol clothes, songs and CGs of the three new boys.

As the new character gets introduced later into the story mode, they are more of an optional route, as the game still prioritizes the original 4 boys over the new cast. You can still “romance” the 3 new characters, but since they are introduced late, it can only be done at the expense of focusing on them almost exclusively during story events and side stories so that you can quickly gain Relationship Points for them.

So basically, halfway through the game, you have the option to produce 11 idols: Yourself (Maria), Gerald, Alan, Keith, Nicol, Mary, Sophia, Raphael, Sora, Dewey and Cyrus. The first 5 being obligatory, while the last 6 are optional

Rufus Smith (or “Sora”, as he reveals to you his real name during the story) is new idol in MahoPro who was able to quickly gain a female following due to his attractive figure and maxed-out sex appeal. Many compare him to Nicol Ascart due to the fact that he is slowly taking a lot of his jobs (or works alongside him at times) due to his handsome face. While both of them are handsome models, the public is aware that there is no point in pining the two against each other since their beauty works in different ways.

In the story (and as hinted in a few side story events), he was a slum rat who didn’t have much for himself. One day, he met a man who had join him and his fellow slum dwellers into their territory, a man by the name of David. The man was able to give Sora a new perspective on life, his new name, as well as how to sing. After David died, he wandered around the country, doing dirty jobs for shady adults for money. A few years later, we was caught singing in the streets by a man who offered to take care of him and cultivate him as an idol at the age of 13, complimenting him for his beauty and his singing. While Sora rejected the offer, the man’s words never left his mind. He started out by singing in the street for change, then getting singing jobs at cafes/live houses/restaurants for money, until he suddenly got a small following as an underground idol. The Director of MahoPro offers a place for Sora, alongside with giving him jobs as a full-fledged idol that can help him provide for himself, leading him to be affiliated with Sorcier Entertainment. 

Sora starts out having a rather sarcastic relationship with Maria, thinking that she is one of the many women who throws themselves at him to get his attention. He always gives her back handed compliments as always has a vicious tone when speaking. As the story progresses, Sora realizes that Maria isn’t disgusted by his history, and realized that Maria is truly a good and kind person. Sora starts to unconsciously seek her out, trying to reverse the bad impression that he must have left on her and to be with someone who doesn’t look at him lowly, like the other adults and idols of SorEn who dislikes people that aren’t of celebrity-upbringing.

Dewey Percy is a young idol that auditioned for Sorcier Pro. and won, but was rejected at the last minute in favor of a less talented wannabe-idol who was related to a famous actor. The Director of MahoPro came to Dewey with an offer as an idol, acknowledging his talents in music and dancing that he evidently have been polishing for years. In his town, Dewey was known as a Music Prodigy, as he was talented in singing, dancing, acting and playing instruments, though that’s not to say that those weren’t the effects of his own hard work. Because his family wasn’t the absolute best financially, he decided to audition as an idol in order to get jobs despite being young.

Dewey is revealed to be somewhat of a childhood friend to Maria, as he lived in the same town as her. Despite this, he is very wary of her due to the bad impressions left on his by Sorcier Pro. after he almost lost his chance at becoming an idol. Dewey absolutely hated asking for help, even when it was draining him down. He is very desperate to keep his title as a music prodigy, even though he knows it’ll be drowned once he’s in a battlefield of idols. (Also he tries very desperately to be seen as a mature and hot idol, despite his youth and appearance giving him a cute one instead lol) 

Maria realizes how hard Dewey is pushing himself, and convinces him over multiple instances that he doesn’t need to be hard on himself and suffer alone. Maria offers herself as a shoulder to lean on, making Dewey embarrassed but happy at the idea that he can finally have someone to rely on, and that he doesn’t need to be alone anymore. They were also able to bond about their similar upbringing, making Dewey feel at home in the arms of Maria despite being miles away from their town. 

Cyrus Lanchester is an idol from a different agency, who was transferred to MahoPro by the time the events of the game began. He has a very strict personality, and is an overall perfectionist as an idol. He was let go from his original Agency because his strictness and tendency to scold his fellow idols caused his peers (who are a bunch of lazy and stuck up children of celebrities) to take him out because they didn’t vibe with his attitude. Before his original producer was able to tell him that he was done as an idol, the Director of MahoPro offered a place for him in their new agency. 

While being grateful to the Director for taking him in, he does not hold back in letting everyone know about his distaste for their odd Director. While is he very talented as an idol, he is just using it as a chance to learn more about the industry and gain connections that he can use to be a part of it in the near future. 

While he doesn’t start as wary of Maria as his fellow male idols, he insist on keeping distance with her due to the fact that they are of different agencies, as well as the fact that he is not good at dealing with women.

Notes

(I’ll have to rewrite Cyrus and Dewey’s descriptions after Volume 7 comes out, since I don’t have much to work with. I’ll add the Sora, Cyrus and Dewey endings in the edit as well.)

I know some part of Maria and Sirius’ backstory doesn’t make any sense but just use your imagination lol hgjgfjsfgd

More about Katarina, the silhouettes, the Director, and how it affects the story on the next part :DD my fingers really hurt from all this typing hgjsdgfjs

If ever i’m dissatisfied with what I have here and end up changing things, don’t be surprised jhfjshdgfs

Next Part is gonna be plot points that I want for this AU and a bit of FL2, so sorry if the next one might not be that exciting fsjhgfjsd

feedback and suggestions are very much appreciated! Thank you to the few people who are interested in this AU :DD

[silveryfairy]

hey man if it's not too much trouble, could you give us a brief rundown of the Nocturnes? It's just, every morning I wake up and there's a new one, and I Care everyone in this establishment a lot though I don't really know them, thank you kindly have a nice day

let my preface this by saying: aayushi, i love you, and your enthusiasm and interest for the things i create never ceases to bring me joy. you are the kind of friend i think everyone should have and i say that completely genuinely outside of this bit.

i say that as an apology in advance for what i’m about to unleash upon you, because what you’re going to see is the product of my friend @himepapillon and i’s absolute BRAINROT and what comes of it when not only two people make an oc universe from scratch but what happens when we then have to explain that universe to other people

you are in no way required to retain this information as to be completely honest me and jeremie haven’t fully either and we’re the ones who MADE this shitshow. below is the shoddy family tree i lovingly crafted in ms paint

let us begin. 

for starters, i’ll specify some things:

1. not every oc on this chart is mine, as it’s a collaboration between me and jeremie - the koenig family and bishop family belong to faer but the rest is all me baby! for the sake of your soul i will only be going into my half of this Mess

2. the universe this takes place in is a pretty wacky and silly one, just, like, Slightly removed from reality. these characters are all completely batshit insane and do things that no human being probably should. it’s all portrayed critically, as the general concept of this whole thing is “the goings-on of a bunch of unhinged corrupt rich people”. we kind of flip flop on how seriously stuff is played but if i had to slap a genre on this it’d be, like, black comedy drama. i know a lot of these concepts sound kinda fucked to write but that’s just because i’m trying to describe them in a SOMEWHAT concise way without going into Super Introspective mode

the nocturnes are an incredibly influential and rich family in the uk that tends to produce very influential and rich people. they’re also all a little bit insane. the main characters of this Saga are the sons of desmond and xanthes, the family’s resident Power Couple and biggest figureheads. they suck ass but that will become apparent the second i talk about their children.

from oldest to youngest, the nocturne boys are:

ichor nocturne, 25 - the eldest, ichor was disowned from the household when he was 18 for unruly behavior, sent to live alone on a farm so he couldn’t tarnish his family’s image any further. since then, you’d think the isolation has driven him a bit mad - he’s a very prolific cotton farmer and has been doing astonishingly well for himself, running his farm on his own with only his parents’ inheritance as help. ...that, and, of course, the blood of the people he executes to keep his crops growing - or so he believes. he moonlights as an executioner in the small town over, exterminating the ‘pests’ of the city. despite his newfound violence, he still routinely checks in on his siblings, finding ways to mysteriously end up at their door to pay visits. the older brother instinct still hasn’t left

icarus nocturne, 23 - the second eldest (only by technicality, as he is a twin), icarus is the family’s golden child! but not in terms of business or anything, oh no - icarus is a famous heartthrob teen (sorta) musician! he’s been in the limelight since he was a little boy, being an actor as a small child and getting into music as he grew. his general Look(tm), accompanied by infectiously happy rave music, is a trademark cutesy mask over his face with oversized clothing - meant to express as much energy as possible as he bounces about the stage. in reality, he lives a life as forced and controlled as possible by virtue of... living the fucked up life of a child star. but his parents have someone to take the fall - so, what of his twin?

achilles nocturne, 23 - icarus’ younger twin, which wouldn’t mean much... in any family but this one. achilles has had it drilled into his head since the beginning that he was a mistake next to icarus, to the point where legally, he does not exist. following icarus beginning his career, achilles was unpersoned completely - living in the family’s basement with the height of his education being for a very specific purpose... needing to be icarus’ body double on tours and for paparazzi - after all, they can’t have icarus’ purity tainted by all those clamboring fans! it’s a godawful situation. on the bright side, though, achilles has found a hobby where he can be himself: twitch streaming! yes really. under the name of 1upanonymous, hidden under a mask just like his brother, achilles at least has a fanbase that can love him for who he is! ...uh, kind of.

tomasine “tommy” nocturne, 16 - the youngest of the bunch, and it says a lot about his siblings’ capabilities that he’s the technical heir to the nocturnes’ various businesses and fortune. tommy is just a feral 16 year old that doesn’t give two shits about any fame or fortune, he just wants to party and drink and have fun like any other kid his age! he’s rebellious, loud, and charmingly annoying (to his brothers anyway), and has no real care for the gravity of his family’s situations beyond finding it annoying that they want him to be all PRIM and PROPER and BUSINESSY EEWWWWW. he’s just a funny loud little child trying to live his best life. loves his brothers fiercely

already a mess of people. and really, all you need to know about or really keep in mind are those four: the upcoming characters are largely just side ones we came up with because we thought it’d be funny to flesh out this fucked up family more. so let’s get into the anatra branch of the family - headed by jael nocturne, xanthes’ brother and the siblings’ uncle

jael anatra-nocturne, who i am not giving an age for my own sanity trying to decipher this fucking timeline - a crude and playful uncle, jael is someone the nocturne boys either love (icarus, tommy) or hate (achilles, ichor). constantly joking, as he expresses affection with loving insults - kind of a money-driven asshole, but a lovable one - he’s a career politician and met his current husband, joaquin, on the job. or, well... no longer current, because jael’s funny life of debauchery, toxic masculinity, and making fun of his nephews, came to an abrupt end when he was assassinated on live television. yipes!

joaquin anatra-nocturne, who also does not get an age - jael’s former secretary and current widow, joaquin is the local wine uncle. im not sure if that’s a classification but it is now, because he is one. an unapologetic gold-digger, he (publicly) took jael’s death frighteningly well, and is now living his best life with a revolving door of new boyfriends. his relationship with jael was a genuine and very loving one, and joaquin IS devastated by his death, but both of them just found the bit of pretending to be this loveless gold digger/politician couple very funny, and being as suspicious as possible around his husband’s death is exactly what jael would have wanted joaquin to do

taddeo anatra-nocturne, 14 - the youngest child of these two, a shy little boy with big Child In A Horror Movie energies. makes potions in the backyard and probably decorates his clothes with animal bones n stuff when he’s older. despite this he’s pretty harmless, nice and fiercely loyal - tommy especially thinks he’s fun and likes to hang out with him at family gatherings - just so long as you look past the creepy dolls he likes to talk to and fires he likes to set. especially close with jael and wants to be a miniature version of him, buuut still being a shy tween taddeo hasn’t been able to act on that much.

dailon anatra-nocturne, 20 - the adopted second child of jael and joaquin, dailon is a moody and unstable delinquent that was snatched up by them just as he was about to age out of foster care. while he has a chill ‘cool-older-even-though-he’s-younger-cousin’ demeanor, the tension when he’s around his parents - jael specifically - can be cut with a knife. dailon hates his dad: ‘someone who expresses affection with insults and jokes and likes seeing people pissed at him’ and ‘someone who’s volatile, short-tempered, and sullen after living in a foster home most his life’ are just as bad of a combination as you’d expect. dailon gets himself into a lot of trouble, and is an overall very self-centered prick, but we’ll get more on that in a bit.

HELL FAMILY...2!!! that’s the last of the families to cover, buuuut there are still some other names on that list - mostly connected to dailon. this is REAL “just going on in the background” shit that you also do not need to know whatsoever (except for mitzi she’s pretty important she’s just down here for organization purposes) - i just like to play god and make characters get into drama.

[tw: cheating, unhealthy relationships, stalking]

mitzi “moon” altberg, 23 - achilles must feel very far away by now, but we’re back to him for a second! mitzi is his ex-girlfriend he met online, a fan-to-employee-to-lover and one of the maybe two people outside of the family achilles has shown his real face to. however, achilles growing up deeply unstable - between his parents’ abuse, having spotlights on him and adoring fans both as icarus’ body double and as a streamer, and in general not really growing up to be any kind of well developed human being - made this relationship a complete disaster. he grew obsessive and controlling - and when she tried to ignore him, he broke his one rule (to never go outside without permission) to find the hotel she was staying at in real life and show up to confront her. the incident was completely covered up, both by the nocturnes and with their connections, and so mitzi was forced to stay silent. this entire thing is based on this song! as time heals wounds, though, mitzi will end up doing pretty well for herself and putting achilles behind her - even getting a new boyfriend, jared!

reynard fiala, 20 - dailon’s (ex-)boyfriend, who he’s enraveled in his own weird soap opera subplot with. reynard is a relatively chill person, with an interest in art and taxidermy - just as morbid as dailon’s brother, but in a more. Normal way. genuinely a sweetheart who does not deserve what happens to them: getting cheated on with dailon’s best friend. yipes^2! while it's earth shattering in the moment, all reynard will really want to do come some time to process is to move on and for him and dailon both to heal in peace... far away from eachother (which is easier said than done since taddeo thinks reynard is super cool and loves having him over, the awkwardness between them and his brother be damned)

jared summers, 21 - the most normal person here. a longterm best friend of dailon’s, and yes, the very same one i just mentioned. he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer - what we in the industry would call a himbo if his dumbassery didn’t cause very real damage - who had been pining for dailon for years and him dating was no deterrent, and dailon, thinking the world revolves around him as he tends to do, accepted jared’s confession so they just kinda started dating on the side. jared has the moral backbone of a pool noodle, and even after it causes dailon’s relationship with reynard to fall apart, will need a wholeass intervention to be staged to make them both realize just how shitty they’re being. after that, though, jared will end that mess and be on his way to becoming a better person himself - with the help of a sweet girl he’s met online.

jared and mitzi dating in the future is the most contrived thing on the planet but just hear me out that it’ll be HILARIOUS for achilles to check in on his ex-girlfriend and find she’s dating his cousin’s best friend, who said cousin was apparently dating on the side. very small world, it is. 

anyway, thank you if you’ve somehow stuck around to read this entire thing - this isn’t even getting into jeremie’s half of this whole ordeal, which includes some of these fellas’ friends and partners, as well as more crazy rich people nonsense. it’s been very fun to think about and i do love it all dearly, even if putting it all together it’s SUCH a mess.

we don’t intend to make anything Legit out of this, it’s honestly just a fun way to pass the time. it’s the adult equivalent of playing dollhouse. in our minds this is like a 20 season soap opera but actually explaining it to other people it’s just like this

but thank you again for letting me babble i hope it was somewhat entertaining! and again, godspeed if you managed to read this much XD

[friiday-thirteenth]

guys im bored hear abt how i broke my arm. TW for broken bones, dissassociation, vomiting, drugs and needles. Also this is like. Therapy. Idk.

weird thing about it was that i was feeling intense happiness, because I’d just confirmed my classes for the next year and i was jsut. Really happy.

So i did this little twirly thing??? idk. Anyway, my ankle went out under my, i put my hand back and crack.

I know there was a definite seperation between the before and after of this. Like, the adrenaline made it feel like I was aware of everything.

After I fell, and after the crack, I stood up fast. I didn’t realise my wrist was fucked until I saw it - and it wasn’t a compound fracture, the skin was still unbroken. But it looked fucking nasty. It was supposed to be held straight, but the wrist was shifted.... up. And it was floppy, but I could control it if I wanted to be in immense amounts of pain.

I started walking over to my P.E. teacher. I said his name once, really loudly - and then he didn’t hear me, so I kept walking. I was cradling my wrist against my body at this point, and I just needed to move. It helped distract from my pain at that point.

When I reached him and he saw my wrist he was like fuck. He didn’t say it, but I could see it, and he said, “ Okay, we need to get you to the sickbay and call your parents.”

Okay, this happened before that when I was walking over. One of the people who was around me had walked beside me and was asking questions, and I straight up said, “Ruby, if you don’t walk away right now, I will either scream or burst into tears and scream, please go away.” I couldn’t handle anyone being near me.

Then when we were walking off the turf (where we were doing P.E. that day, as opposed to the gym.) one of the guys saw my arm and was like holy shit and I’m 99% sure I just looked at him with a really worried look. My face was going white I’m pretty sure, which is weird because I’m naturally flushed quite a lot of the time.

We had to walk up stairs. That fucking sucked. The pain was fine whenever it wasn’t jolting me, and we were walking fast, so you can imagine how I was trying to be very careful.

I’m 99% sure I was terrified that I was going to tip over again, and that would’ve hurt. I was just focusing on staying on my feet.

We got to the office/sickbay and they sat me down. I made myself get my retainer out of my mouth because it was.... foreign. I was going to - I’d say have a panic attack, but I’m not sure that’s the correct name for it - do something bad if I kept it in, because there was something already wrong with me and I just couldn’t handle it.

Also I asked if I could swear. Like, “Um, would it be okay if I, uh, swore?” and the person in there with me looked at me like wtf child and said i could.

Later, one of the teachers who’d walked by told me that they had no idea I had that filthy a mouth on me. Swearing helped a lot.

They made me put my wrist in this makeshift sling thing, which made me want to fucking cry. They sent someone to get my bag, and I told them to leave as soon as they’d gotten it, because I couldn’t handle any of my peers seeing my like that. probably because I felt extremely vulnerable.

I never swore at anyone. I can remember not wanting to, because I didn’t feel that they deserved it? Like, I didn’t want to take my pain out on them. Very strange.

They didn’t give me any panadol or nuramol or nurofen (pretty sure that isn’t how you spell it but eh). I can remember that, because they said that it might react badly to whatever drugs they gave me in the hospital.

When my mum got there, we went over to the car and I put my seatbelt on myself bc im independant like that, before I rolled my head back and scream-said to my mother to hurry up please I feel like I’m dying. Because she was talking to my teacher.

At that point I was being a melodramatic shit, because my pain level I think? was a four, unless I moved my arm, then it jolted into a six.

Anyway. I sung/murmured hamilton songs really fast as we drove the like, five minutes to the hospital because that helped distract me from the pain.

When we got to the hospital and the emergency room, we ended up waiting like 20 minutes which were all hell. My dad came at one point and I told mum he needed to leave because I couldn’t handle having him there. Not for any bad reasons, just that I fucking hated dealing with people and if I had to deal with him I’d cry.

I didn’t cry at any point during this, which was weird. I didn’t like that.

Someone gave me two panadol or something, which didn’t help in the least. They got mum to fill out an acc form - I can remember her asking me things. The pain was bad, like a constant throbbing that was there. I’m pretty sure I started not being there at some point during the time I was waiting. It was easier than dealing with it all, because there were people staring at me and my arm and I wanted to scream at them because none of them were as bad as me and why the fuck are you staring at me.

Anyway. When the nurse came - she was really nice - she got me into a room and to sit on a bed, and then we waited for what was maybe half an hour? There was an old guy dying or nearly dying in the room beside mine and I felt like.... weird because of it. It didn’t feel right, that he was dying.

When they got me a doctor - after me scaring the shit out of a nurse who I thought was a doctor  (i still cringe at the memory) - he ws really nice. He was wearing a haiwaiian shirt and was supposed to be going home, and I was quite lucky that they’d caught him as he was leaving.

They got me on some nitrous oxide to calm me down, or to take the pain away.

Now here’s where thigns get a little less linear, I think.

I can’t remember when they put the I.V. in, whether it was before or after the x-ray. The x-ray was hell, because they made me put my munted arm flat on the cold surface of whatever the fuck they were using for the xray. I had dropped the nitrous oxide tube thingy out of my mouth at that point.

The nitrous oxide was nice. It made me feel tired, and when the dude stuck the needle in my arm and then put the I.V. in, I didn’t care about it. I hadn’t been worried before, perse, just uncomfortable because of the whole broken wrist dealie.

Anyway. X-rays. They said I’d broken the tip off my radius. Then the I.V. Then they got an anathesiologist to come in and explain what was going to happen to me.

This whole time they’d explain exactly what they were going to do, because I asked. A lot. I needed to know what was happening so that then I would know what was going on and that was jus tme reiterating what I’d just said ahaha

Anyway. He explained the options, and in the end they decided to give me ketamine.

For those who don’t know, ketamine is a horse tranquilizer. Its also fucking nasty, coming back up from it.

Mum signed a waiver stating that the hospital wasn’t responsible if I died or something.

This was because, as they explained, ketamine shuts off a part of the brain. If too much of it is used, then you die because it shuts off your breathing, your heart, etc. They had shit that would stop that, if anything bad happened. They put electrodes on me at one point. At least, I think that’s what they were called.

They also might’ve upped the dosage, because what could’ve happened was that they fucked up setting my arm the first time, and they had to cut it out and redo it. If they’d redone it, I’d’ve had to go into theatre.

The whole time this was happening I was terrified I was going to out myself to my mum. I have an odd track record of saying weird shit randomly while I’m in pain.

Ketamine also takes you into a dreamland, which is why drug addicts can get addicted. You basically lucid dream, but way more intensely than normal, if you’ve ever ahd a lucid dream. Or it can take you into an absolutely hellish nightmare scape, if you aren’t thinking good things when you go under.

I had neither. I didn’t even know I’d gone under. What happpened was that they put the ketamine in the I.V., and a minute late I was out.

It felt like blinking. When I opened my eyes, it was like in movies where they blink and its a new scene each time.

Blink. They were moving me to the x-ray. My head ached. My eyes wouldn’t focus. Someone was talking about their car.

Blink. They were moving my arm.

Blink. They were moving me back to the room I’d been in.

Every time I moved my head, it just. It was on another side. I couldn’t focus my eyes for three quarters of an hour. I felt tired, and sleepy, and like shit.

Thye got me to sit up at one point. I nearly vomited. They gave me a pill. It was chalky and the taste was nasty.

When they got me to move from the bed to a chair, I vomited.

I hadn’t eaten for longer than six hours, at that point. It was bile coming up. It burnt my throat. I couldn’t stop.

When I forced myself to breathe again and stop vomiting, they gave me water and left me for a minute. They had people they needed to get in the room, I think, so I was trying to move. They got me into a chair in a bit that was in between the x-ray room and where I’d been. Mum talked with someone else who was there with her daughter.

The cast was big and white, because of the type of break. It was heavy and they put me in a sling when I left. I was able to walk straight. They’d been concerned I wouldn’t be. I’m pretty sure I thanked everyone who’d helped, if I saw them.

Mum took me to get subway. Then we went home.

My sibling had broken their arm around about a year and two weeks before I’d broken mine. Their’s had been the two bones in their lower arm. They’d had to go into theatre for it and have trauma around it. My parents won’t get them to go to therapy and they won’t go willingly

When I got home, they had a panic attack or some shit and started screaming at me when I was short at them. Fuck them for that.

I went into a room and started messaging my friends. i videocalled them and showed them my arm. i was acting all stupid and weird about it by being really silly and stuff. I didn’t feel like any of it was happening, even though I knew it was. At some point I found out I had the electrode thingies still on me. I pulled them off.

People were so concerned about me, it was weird. I ended up responding to them individually as opposed to not. Someone thought that it was a joke and that everyone was lying about it. I gave them a play-by-play and they believed it then.

Even weeks after it happened, it still felt vaguely not real. The first time I cried about it was seven days after, when I tried and failed to make homemade macaroni and cheese.

I learnt that the chunk of bone beside the wrist - the one down at the top of the ulna - had completely seperated from the rest of the bone.

All the wrist bones and muscles had pulled back, which was my wrist had been so weird.

Everyone who helped me was really nice. I’m glad that they were nice, because I got told later about doctors who were bitches and were in the emergency department. Also got told that ketamine was really fucking weird for them to be giving me.

I got prescribed Tramadol. Mum and dad wouldn’t let me take any of it. my sibling had been prescribed it when they’d broken their arm. they’d taken it. Apparently tramadol can put you in a depressive state.

i don’t know what would’ve happened to me if I’d taken it at that point. even before the arm my head was in a bad place. I’m better now though.

I pushed through the pain on panadol.

I broke my arm on a friday. saturday, sunday, I spent at home. Monday I went to school. Felt like passing out at some point.

Yeah, that’s basically what happened when I broke my arm

[paint-lady]

Do you have any headcanons / backstory details to share for your Bee? :) I'm really interested in learning more about her!

So buckle up buddy. This is a long one. 

So uh lemme start with I still consider myself new to SWL and most of my interactions with two very nice veteran players are them explaining everything to me...then I blink twice and hope I retain some of it. Some things have stuck, some repeated interactions have boiled down to:

Them: your dps should be 10x your item power

Me: im gay and you want me to do MATHS?

I care about them, value their storytelling and patience, and I want good things to happen to both of them for the rest of their lives. 

So that utter confusion and complete chaotic panic does bleed into Maru. A lot. 

Additionally, I’m still in the Carpathian Fangs! Hopefully will be out of there soon, but I have remained almost completely spoiler free for Tokyo. So I have no idea what is going to happen and I can hear the laughter from those two players from several miles away. 

But this is the history of Maru:

-the Name: Originally, Maru was a character I played in a ttrpg called Exalted. We ended up abandoning that campaign to finish a VtM chronicle and start a new Exalted Chronicle. Maru was obsessed with demonology and researching old lore. But also a complete and utter agent of chaos. They had no gender, only a hunger for destruction of the present and renewal of lost lore. We joked in the chronicle about a play on the name Mephistopheles, a demon from the play Dr. Faustus. My name is Steph and it was a quick change to Mephistepheles. My partner also plays SWL and named his character after his Exalted character. Caesura the craftsman, who enjoyed watching Maru be themself. 

-Why Illuminati? (because i am very malleable and i wanted to be the same faction as a new friend) Here comes the headcanon. Maru was not supposed to be Illuminati. The templars took one look at that file and shredded that shit. They do not want a chaotic demolisher to be traversing their old halls in London. They will definitely get dirt and monster blood- everywhere. The Dragon looked at that file and in their best John Mulaney impersonation said,  “No no, hold back, hold back. Save it >:)” 

And then waited too long and some Triangle loving corporate ass motherfucker said, “hey kid! Hammer!” And that was a mistake. 

The two options are as follows. Either the Dragon faction looked at that ball of chaos with a hammer and thought oh this will be perfect to know whats going on inside the illuminati- or the the dice were rolled and its better for Maru to be observed as a chaotic anomaly than to be a part of the faction. Caesura, is one of the dragon faction. When my partner is able to log on and follow me around as a heal bot 3000, we started making jokes that it was Caesura’s job to check in on Maru and keep them from dying...as often. Its one of the many reasons Questions and Answers loves me. 

-Smarter than they Look...Or Head Empty Only Hammer: I have a knack for getting really really far on achievements in stealth missions on the first try, guessing the correct answers in Investigation missions (sometimes i just happen to know the answer for ?reasons?), and making my game crash by getting a fuckload of enemies to follow me at 100% aggro. 

Evidence here: Investigation 

I’ve translated this to Maru as they actually do have some sort of idea of what they’re doing. But the moment you let anyone know you have a clue of what your doing- they expect more of you, or the chaotic facade is broken. Are they just skating by on pure luck and the will of the bees? Yes. Are they a skilled puzzle solver? Yes. Would they prefer to hammer through anything in their path? Yes. 

Silly but Very Accurate Headcanons:

Malicious Indecisiveness: 

-In the second choice Maru spent fifteen minutes dancing in front of the Star spawn while I went and made tea. I translated this to in-game three hours. 

Make a choice! *Continues Samba and eating health tacos*

-I intend to do something stupid when the third choice occurs. 

Polaris

Maru was the one piloting the helicopter. Its their fault. They saw a friend. Video.

Dusty Dark

Maru talked to the Pharaoh the entire time through the dungeon. 

“Make A Wish” Maru: I wish you had some goddamn hand rails.

Maru played the music from Donkey Kong 64 Desert Region through most of the dungeon to annoy the Pharaoh.

City of the Sun God

Maru scaled the pyramid (via run glitch) and wrote “Aten Sux Maru Wuz Here”

Hope that was entertaining and sufficient! I have yet to uncover everything about this game and im sure It will take Lots of Time.

[marshmallowprotection]

There's something i havent really been able to talk to someone about so i hope you dont mind this little ramble! Dont worry, this one is lighthearted ^^

I don't exactly have a mysme oc/cmc but I do have an original character that my friend (who doesnt know mysme) and i like to put in other fandoms just for fun (via dimension hopping in-story). So it's kind of a branch-off of the actual story, cos the actual character never dimension hops, but its still totally something she would do.

For the mysme universe... well, there's a lot of factors here, but I don't want to overwhelm you with too much so i'll just dish it out throughout the conversation (if this turns into a conversation lol). But I'll start with the basics: looks and personality. She's albino with short, semi-curly hair, 5'4, and the story actually covers almost a decade of her life, but for the sake of fitting in with the mysme gang, I'll put her at 22. She wears darker clothes, like borderline grunge, but she kinda mixes a few similar styles and its never really anything extreme. She's sarcastic, with dry humour, but she's also got Weird Humour. She's most like me, just the more dry/cynical side of me fleshed out, so she also has adhd. She's a sci-fi nerd and loves inventing/improving/etc techy things like AIs and general sci-fi -ish equipment.

She grew up lowkey isolated and mostly homeschooled because of something I won't bring up right now (like i said, dont wanna throw too much at you at once), so her social skills are... not so great. At 22, they're better than when she was 14, but she still retains a lot of aspects, just a little toned down.

She's more innocent than she seems. She's got a roughness to her, one of those people with a resting "im plotting ur murder" face. But she rarely swears and a lot of innuendos go over her head (she'll take it literally, and either reply in turn or just be confused). She's blunt, straight-forward, and a master of insults. She's also fiercely protective of the ones she loves, like she's pretty much the Feral One. Won't start a fight unprovoked but will not hesitate to fight back or protect her friends/family. (She's a very skilled fighter; i'll get more into that later).

My goodness, if you put her in MC's place on Saeyoung's route... well let's just say they are a little too similar deep down. Disaster. She'd probably keep him at arms length so he doesn't see too far into her, but at a distance i think they'd make pretty good partners in crime lol

Also, Jumin would probably appreciate her because she can be rather formal/mature when need be... but most of the time she's feral lmao.

And her adopted brother and GE Saeran would probably get along pretty well.

If u dont want me to keep talking about this lemme know, but if you do, maybe lemme know what you want to know next? If u can? If.. that makes sense lol? With adhd its a little difficult to know where to start and how to order things in a way that makes sense, and i dont want to confuse you lolol ^^"

[417]

Don’t worry about babbling! Everyone knows that I tend to go on tangents for a while myself so I’m happy whenever someone gets it! I love to hear about other people’s characters! I love writing with my own characters but whenever people tell me about theirs, I tend to wind up writing with those when I get spare time to write something that I don’t normally do. We just all need to love and appreciate OCs and self-inserts.

It’s just a reminder for everyone to shriek about their OCs to me. 

She sounds really cute. I love surly and brash characters like that. There’s just something really charming about someone that can tell it like it is but still has these moments where they show this side to them that you don’t really expect from them given their aesthetic or style choices. I also just love that she’s down to fight whenever it has to be done. I hardly know anything about her yet but I have decided she’s a ten. 

I also really love curly-haired characters. I’m trying to take her seriously but I’m seeing her staring at Saeyoung deadpan as her curls bob around her head in a sigh. Because he thought of creating something before she did. Ah, nerds, that’s what we all love to see. Rivalries. I’d hate to see them on opposing sides but I’d think they would torment Vanderwood together and that’s what’s got me utterly thriving right now.

Jumin thinking that she’s got manners but then she just absolutely McFreakin’ loses it and he goes: “Huh. Well. This is happening, then?” I think she’d really get along with my MC Judas, just because the sarcasm and attitudes just fits in with how catty he can be at times. Headstrong, though, he’d push her like he’s pushing Saeyoung and that won’t end well, haha. 

I think she’s a charmer! No matter where you place her in MM, I think you’d have a lot of fun playing around with her attitude since it’s such an interesting one to push back against the RFA. Most MCs are wildly polite or just very empathetic and can tend to be pushovers, at least, putting people first before they care for their own needs. I glance at my MCs Minji and Lila and scold them for doing that so much. 

I’m interested to see how you’d tinker with the universe and play around with what happens!

[crimsonbluemoon]

8, 4, 21 minicar (holy SHIT there’s so many good dialogue options I wanted to pick like eight)

And yes I realize I mistyped minicat SHUSH I just woke up and autocorrect hates me

Okay, so just so everyone knows, I don’t know shit about airdropping or w/e so I just did what I wanted. >.> Im not gonna apologize. 

Also slight warning; a little risky, but like nothing more than some mentioned drunk sexting. No actual sexual stuff. 

AU: CollegeTrope: Meet messyPrompt: “for the last time, please stop trying to airdrop me.”Pairing: Minicat

Tyler was going to kill someone. 

He wanted to say who, specifically, but he had no fucking idea who ‘Miniladd’ was, or why he continued to try and send him things. His tablet hadn’t stopped going off for two hours. If Tyler hadn’t needed his tablet for his art project (due the next day), he probably wouldn’t have been as annoyed as he currently was. But since he did need his tablet and he kept getting notifications about if he wanted to ‘accept’ whatever this idiot was trying to send him, Tyler was close to ripping his hair out. 

“Oh my god.” Tyler’s fingers slammed into the screen hard enough that he was sure he was going to shatter the glass, even with the protector on. “For the last time, please stop trying to airdrop me.”

A second of silence passed before the familiar ‘ping’ of an airdrop notification made Tyler scream. 

“Fuck!” 

“What’s up, buddy?” Nogla popped his head into the apartment they shared, waddling through the living room with bags of groceries. 

“Some prick named Miniladd won’t stop trying to send me shit to my tablet. I don’t even know how he got my ipad’s information,” Tyler snarked out, rejecting another message. How much stuff did this weirdo have to send? 

“Oh, Craig?” Nogla’s casual reply made Tyler’s attention snap away from the screen, hands nearly dropping the ipad from shock. 

“You know this kid?” 

“Uh, he’s our new neighbor? He lives right across the hall. You met him last weekend at Marcel’s party. You know, the one you and Panda took all them shots during beer- hey, where are ye going?” Tyler ignored Nogla’s shout when he pushed off the couch, storming out of the apartment. His hand was heavy when he slammed it three times against his neighbor’s door, the other still holding the ipad that pinged with another notification. So distracted by the frustrating noise, Tyler’s mouth snapped into motion the second he’d heard the door open. 

“What the hell-” The words quickly died in his throat when taking in the appearance of the neighbor. He was shorter, but not by much, and his dyed hair almost distracted from the attractiveness of the face below. An eyebrow peeked up over stylish glasses, which framed a cute nose and bright eyes. Sweatpants weren’t normally Tyler’s first choice to wear when trying to emphasize his better physical traits. But the smooth way the cotton clung to the thighs and hips of the neighbor was working for him in a way that made Tyler’s blood warm. He glanced back up to the man’s face, scowling at the smirk curling his lips. 

“Hey, Tyler. What brings you around? You ready to make good on your promise?” The causal way he said Tyler’s name brought him back to his senses. Though he wanted to ask what the hell the guy was implying, Tyler glared and waved his ipad next to his head.

“You ready to stop being a pain in my ass and spamming my tablet?” 

“What?” The cockiness from before vanished quickly, though Tyler rolled his eyes at the feigned innocence. 

“You’re Miniladd, right? Cause you’ve been airdropping me pointless shit for two hours.” 

“I haven’t even been on my ipad. I let my nephew use it for-” Then Craig stopped, his cheeks turning pink when something clicked in his head. Tyler tried not to notice how the flushed coloring looked good on the other’s face when Craig turned his head back into the apartment. “LUI! Are you fucking with my files again?!” 

“He won’t accept my memes!” The squeaky voice that came from somewhere in the apartment sounded young, far too young to be in a college dorm. Maybe Tyler’s face showed his thought process, as Craig gave a sheepish smile and a shrug.

“I watch him once a week for my brother. He probably got your info from our conversation thread last week and just thought we were friends.” 

“Wait, we talked?” Tyler scowled when Craig nodded, scratching the back of his neck. 

“Yeah, we did. Alot. But you were drunk, so I didn’t really expect you to remember-and now you’re looking at the messages in front of me. Fantastic.” Tyler ignored Craig’s nervous laughter when he yanked his phone out of his pocket. He didn’t remember said night, because most people wouldn’t be able to retain information after downing six shots in an hour (he was proving a point damnit, and it was worth it to see Brian eat his words the next morning). He’d given Craig his number? And what kind of conversation did they-

Oh. Oh. 

“Fuck.” Letting out a slow groan, Tyler tried to ignore his own hot cheeks and jammed the phone back into his pocket. He refused to avoid eye contact when looking back up at Craig, who looked like he was the one that’d texted that he was going to to ‘fuck him against every wall’ in Craig’s apartment. There were other comments sent, too, but they all revolved around the same concept. Craig never seemed against the ideas Tyler had offered, but he also made it clear he wouldn’t engage in said acts until Tyler spoke to him sober. Which Tyler hadn’t, because he’d been drunk and forgot all about the convo. 

Until right now, that is. 

Tyler searched for something to say over his embarrassment, but his brain was blank. “Fuck me.” 

“You know, you keep teasing me with a good time and I’m going to change your name in my phone to ‘Blue balls’.” Craig’s casual reply while he leaned against the doorway and grinned made Tyler scoff.

“Tell your brat to stop messaging me so I can finish my project,” Tyler snarked out and turned around, making it into his own doorway before he huffed and looked back to Craig. “And text me when he’s gone. I probably should buy you a beer or something for…that.”

“You owe me a lot more than a beer. Good thing my apartment has lots of walls.” The wink was stupid, and Tyler wanted to ram Craig’s face into the door to get rid of his stupid grin.

But when he was reminded how good sweatpants fit Craig while he turned back into his apartment, Tyler realized he wasn’t opposed to the offer either. 

[ngame989]

“Brew” - TGG SVTFOE Fanfic Collection Ch. 6

Writing: @ngame989​

Art: @toxicpsychox​

Editing: @toxicpsychox​, @seddm​, an IRL friend

Alternate fic links - FFnet, AO3

Summary: After close to a year on Earthni, Tom's been dragged back into the princely life, and it's a lot less exciting than he'd expected. With Star and Marco away on urgent business, can Janna help him turn a boring errand into a fun adventure?

Comic Page

Masterpost

This one’s a nice change of pace from the last two chapters, I think. TGG’s still a Starco-focused work, expect these to be the exception not the norm, but I think it’s important to strike a balance. See below for the text, hope you enjoy!

“No results.” Huh? Three eyes narrowed at the screen in frustration. Maybe a different search term? “No results.” Alright Tom, no big deal, man. Maybe you just spelled something wrong. Annnnnd… there. “No results.” How could there be nothing?

Tom leaned back in the chair and sighed, exercising restraint over the little anger demons inside him as he’d trained himself to do. In the past he’d needed a physical bunny to pet if he wanted even a hope of keeping his cool, but at this point suppressing the urge was such reflex that most would think he just had a regular Mewman quick temper and nothing more in all but the most extreme of conditions, but he was getting pretty close to that point now. Grandpa Relicor’s study had everything, or so he thought, but this was the first time he could ever remember being here where it come up short. He’d checked every shelf, everything he could think in the computer, had even fireblasted a few of the shelves just to see if there were any hidden switches or anything. Even Relicor had been at a loss and had been screeching in distress on the floor for long enough that Tom’s brain had graciously tuned it out. What could be so important about this book his mom needed? He hadn’t even had time to change his casual graphic tee from a cartoon he liked, simply tossing his maroon jacket over it before heading out at his mother’s behest. He wasn’t one to say no to her, but it had been hours since he’d shown up here and he was no closer to figuring this out than he had been this morning.

Suddenly his phone buzzed, displaying the familiar beaming face of his ex-girlfriend close up to the camera. A toothy grin erupted as he picked it up, holding the phone up for a video feed. “Heya, Starship.”

“Hey, Tom!” Star beamed into the camera. “How’s it hanging? Long time no see. So,” she rambled out in one breath, “I may have a teensie weensie wittle problem.” She backed up to reveal her hair in complete disarray, sans horns, and black marks all over her light blue dress. Before Tom could even ask the question, her other hand held up charred fragments of her headband. “Someone still hasn’t learned how to use an Earth oven properly!” she forced out through gritted teeth.

“Look, gurl, I said I was like, so sorry! All the Cloud Kingdom kitchens are powered by glitter and horn blasts, like that’s just how ovens are supposed to be, that is all I am saying here,” Ponyhead’s indignant voice chimed in from behind, punctuated by a snort.

“Anyway, we just finished putting out the fires and I need a new headband and their website says they’re almost out of stock and I’ve wanted to show Marco around the Underworld for a while and- wait, is that screeching in the background? Where are you?”

Tom shuffled away from the elder demon still writhing on the floor and cleared his throat. “Just in Grandpa’s study trying to find something for my mom, she really wants it today. I don’t know if I can go- but I can still send the carriage for you guys, if you want.”

“Do you need help with that?” Marco inquired as he peeked his head into the frame, casually wrapping an arm around Star.

“Naaaah, no big deal,” Tom shrugged. “You two should go, though! I can just fly over whenever I finish this.”

Star and Marco looked at each other hesitantly. “Alright,” she said. “Carriage to our house in maybe five minutes?” A fire alarm went off behind her followed by a scream from Ponyhead and an even girlier one from Marco. “Maybe ten,” Star sighed, burying her face in her free hand.

“You got it,” Tom chuckled.

“OK, bye!” Star said with relief before hanging up. He rolled his shoulders from inside his jacket and ran his hands through his hair before stepping into the main foyer, taking advantage of the space to summon the carriage and its horses, the incantations coming effortlessly to him. Demons had been fortunate enough to retain their powers on Earthni, but the location underground and the relative lack of portaling methods available left them even more isolated than previously. While most of the other kingdoms had dissolved or integrated into a loose coalition of government covering all of the Echo Creek area, the Underworld had been content to stay completely under the banner of Lord and Lady Lucitor, and Tom found himself pitching in more and more in his role as Prince. In truth, he would have appreciated the company his friends were offering, but he knew how much it had meant to Star to be able to give this life up, and he didn’t want to drag her - either of them, really, considering Marco had earned an official title on Mewni himself - back into the boring thick of regal errands. Was Prince Thomas Draconius Lucitor really going to let some stuffy old book collection get the best of him? Hah, as if.

With a flick of his wrist, the half-demon shuttled the carriage to the surface in a pillar of flame, barely looking and instead pulling out his new phone. He was still getting the hang of the new and improved Reflectacorp’s Earth tech integration, but he’d at least learned how to open yesterday’s text conversation thread from its new message notification.

Janna: anti-gravity potion attempt 4 failed. affected bottle glass itself and launched into sky. note to self: work under roof. star and marco’s suggestions didnt work either. not all bad though, it went towards cloud kingdom lol

Tom: careful, don’t hit pony’s ego and make it fly even higher ·;) btw pony + starco are going shopping in underworld soon. im stuck working for mom though.

Janna: stores r lame. even in underworld. and srsly dude u gotta stop using starfans dumb name for them. otoh it bugs them so actually nvm go 4 it

Tom: it was mine first >·:( it saves letters when they’re together!

Janna: which is always

Tom: exactly. speaking of which, they’re here ttyl

Star stepped out of the carriage in a nice white polka dotted green dress, quickly followed by Marco, the pair’s fingers remaining intertwined until they gave him a hello hug, and Tom honestly wasn’t sure they’d stopped holding hands even then. Ponyhead burst out a moment later with her phone floating in front of her pointed at herself, and she was in the middle of a monologue to no one in particular.

“-so yeah anyway as you all can see we have now arrived in the Underwoooorld. So yeah this is, like, basically the best place on all of Earthni to go shopping as I’ll be showing you today. Oh yeah, I guess some demon boys live here too. Oh my goodness, say hello you guuuys,” she rolled her eyes as she butted in between Star and Tom, side-eyeing him for a split second before grinning back into the camera. After all this time Pony still hadn’t dropped the passive aggression over his and Star’s messy history; Tom had to admit it was a bit understandable, but did she really have to keep it up in such an annoying way? He rolled his eyes - it was Ponyhead he was thinking about here. “OK, the Ponyhead Experience will be taking a short break. Tune back in soon! Love y’all, buhbye!” She snapped the phone shut and caught it with her tongue. “Ugh, why do all of my vlogs with you dorks get like ten times as many viewers? Tom, you were in the shot for like three seconds and do you know what happened? 2000 more people tuned in! What the heck! It’s like, just because I have one less horn and one less eye I’m not exciting to you? But I can’t stay mad at my adooooring fans.”

“Must be the Lucitor charm.” He flashed a toothy smile and a pair of finger guns at her, accidentally flinging his phone across the room in the process. “Totally planned,” he blurted out with a much less authentic grin. Marco chuckled and picked it up, handing it back and patting him mock-sympathetically on the shoulder while holding back a smirk.

Star giggled but tapped her foot impatiently, looking around the room nervously. “OK, great catching up, but on the way here I checked the website and the headband shop is almost out of stock! We have to go, now! Let’s move it, people! Tom, can we borrow the carriage for the day?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “Fine by me.”

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou, you’re the best!”

“You sure you don’t need anything?” Marco inquired again.

“You heard the girl, Marco, my audience wants to see us get our shop on!”

Tom blew a raspberry, pushing them towards the carriage. “Relax, it’s nothing. I’m practically done already! Tooootally almost done!”

Marco finally relented, nodding his assent. Star was bouncing up and down so much that she looked ready to launch around the room. He giggled as she wrapped both her arms around his middle and kissed his cheek before hauling him the rest of the way into the carriage. “C’mon boo, mama needs a new pair of horns. Plus we can get whatever you need, too! I saw a few things in the catalog that would look preeeetty good on you,” she sing-songed, walking two fingers up his chest to boop his nose after they plopped down onto the seat together. Ponyhead mimed vomiting at Tom, who silently laughed in response; they were so engrossed with each other that Tom was fairly certain they wouldn’t have noticed even if he’d shouted his laughter, though. He blankly stared at the spot the carriage had been for a few seconds after it exited in a blaze.

“Pretty gross, right?” Tom started and launched a fireball in the direction of the voice, hovering away from the intruder. A split second after, his vision caught up with his instincts and saw Janna in her usual green shirt and beanie and yellow skirt, sans jacket, nonchalantly sidestep the flame. “You do the same thing every time, you really need to work on that,” she chided with her arms crossed and a devious smirk on her face.

He rubbed his temple and gestured at her in sullen disbelief. “How did you-”

“Roof of the carriage.”

“Huh.” An eyebrow up in surprise, studying her expression. “You never usually, you know, answer that.”

She shrugged, kicking a boot into the hard stone floor. “Whatever, guess I’m just bored. Besides, half the reason I do that is to get a rise out of Marco,” she slyly snickered, and Tom couldn’t help but join in. “Alright, demon boy, what adventure are we going on today?”

Tom crossed his arms apprehensively. “Just trying to find a book for my mom, not really much of an adventure.”

“Like I said, dude, I’m bored and shopping is dumb. I don’t mind hanging out here for a study session or whatever, your family’s got great taste in decor.” She picked a skull off the ground and tossed it back and forth between her hands. He grinned back at her, grateful for the company. “So what kind of creepy curses are in this book?”

The pair started walking back into the study as their conversation continued. “Don’t think there are any. It’s called ‘Historia Homewnum’, according to my mom, so it’s probably a history book but that’s all I know.”

“Darn. Demon history’s bound to be pretty cool, though.”

“You’d be surprised how little actually happens down here, it’s just a lot of maintenance. Last month the most important thing I did was a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a new boba cornshake shop, it’s really caught on here since the Cleaving. But man is it good! Marco was right, the little pearls are just so tasty, I like the creamed corn version best.”

“What is it with you and corn, seriously...” Janna shuddered.

“Don’t knock it ‘till you try it.” He knew he’d gotten distracted thinking about the delicious creamy beverage, but that didn’t seem like an adequate reason to look so horrified, especially coming from Janna. Not able to figure out any other reason she might be disgusted by his comments, he got his thoughts back on track. “Really don’t know why she wants this thing so much. Anyway, I already checked the entire study for it, and the search archives don’t have anything either. Oh well, what can you do, might as well just give up and-”

“Found something,” Janna piped up, somehow already in the computer chair with her feet on the desk.

“Really? How?” he asked incredulously, throwing his hands in the air for emphasis.

“OK, I didn’t actually find the book, but maybe we should check this place out.” He leaned into the screen to see a Mewgle search for ‘how to find weird book in underworld’ on the screen.

“I already tried that, Janna!”

“Yeah, but your antivirus was blocking this link to some place called the ‘Librarinth’.”

Tom slammed his palm into his forehead. “Of course, the Librarinth! How could I not think to look there, that’s where all the oldest books are. Why was it getting blocked?”

She clicked on the link and both recoiled at the sight: an abhorrent patterned background with almost unreadable randomly colored text and low quality cartoon images scattered all around the page. “Yeah, it’s awful,” she said in response to his obvious horror. “Seriously, whoever must made this website must be, like, a thousand years old.”

“Probably , yeah, but why does that have anything to do with-” His eyes widened in realization as he clapped his hands together in contemplation. “Right, humans and their lifespans. Go on.”

“Look.”

She scrolled past the despondent, blurry faces of demons of all shapes and sizes in the staff section until she arrived at the catalog, folding her arms triumphantly. Tom excitedly butted in, typing into the search box and being greeted with a loading wheel. “Uh, Janna? It’s not working.”

“Pfft, yeah, I might actually be dead by the time the search finishes. But that doesn’t matter because they have our book. It’s the header image for the whole catalog.” He squinted and brought his face closer to the monitor, and to his surprise the title was clear as day on the cover of the book, although all the other information was too difficult to make out. “Alright, let’s go. Main page says the Librarinth is on Floor 216.”

With a snap of his fingers, the demon elevator was summoned into a bookshelf much as it had been the day they had dealt with the Blood Moon. Relicor’s shrieking, which had slowed to a whimper since they’d left, resumed in full; fortunately they began descending, which quickly put them out of earshot. Tom awkwardly stretched his arms, unsure what exactly to say. She was his friend, yes, but he was never the best at small talk, and Janna being Janna didn’t make that any easier. After long, messy years of broken hearts and misguided feelings, he finally felt comfortable forging friendships, but even though they got along quite well there was something about Janna that made that vibe a lot less effortless than with Marco or even Star. Thoughts of his other friends reminded him of something. “Uh, by the way… how did you even know about the carriage earlier?”

“A girl’s gotta keep some secrets.”

“Pony was posting about it every 15 seconds,” he guessed, calling Janna’s bluff.

“Touché. Every 10, though,” she coolly responded. “Ha, now she’s just flipping out because Star and Marco have way more likes than her selfies.”

“Figured you’d have him bugged or something,” Tom chuckled as he scooted over to get a look at Janna’s screen, and sure enough there was a picture collage of Star sitting in Marco’s lap with tens of thousands of likes and comments already. They were laughing their butts off at themselves in a mirror in front of them with novelty sunglasses, fake mustaches, goofy props, and even a few absurd full-body costumes; Ponyhead joined the fun for a few but just as often butt in trying to take over the mirror by herself.

“Ew, no, I disabled it all months ago. Boyfriend Tom was already too cutesy for me, and you two just had a little flirty fling. Do you think I’d really want to see or hear whatever Star and Marco have going on? They’re, like, deeply in love, or whatever, and it’s gotten even worse in the last few weeks.”

He murmured in tacit agreement. Now that he thought about it, they had seemed even more affectionate than usual, but he wasn’t too keen on uncovering why that might be. The ding of the elevator saved him from any further speculation, and he and Janna stepped out of the elevator into the lobby, which was empty with cobwebs coating most of the weathered stone walls. Janna looked at him with a quizzical expression. “Anyway, so the Librarinth is basically a combination of a library and a labyrinth-”

“Right, I got that,” she curtly retorted.

“The legends say that some ancient librarian demons wanted to challenge any who sought knowledge, so they hid all the books in a giant maze that only the worthy could navigate. But everyone who made it still decided to organize it thoroughly for some reason, and you still had to check out the books and bring them back and all that.”

She ran a finger over the dust on the front counter, and the surface of the desk sizzled in response, causing her to pull her hand back before poking the bubbles that formed with a curious smile. “So why is it completely empty?”

Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “Weeeeeeell, after a few people went missing or insane, everyone realized it really wasn’t a great way to, you know, run a library. Grandpa actually started collecting books to try and get them away from this place. No one really knows what goes on in there, but as far as I know it’s still maintained even though no one uses it. The kingdom stopped staffing the lobby but they could never just shut it down because anyone who tried, well-”

“Went missing or insane. Sounds cool, I’m in.”

“You sure?”

“Dude, you brought me to a wicked hell maze filled with psychotic demon nerds. Maybe there’ll be bottomless pits or a wicked dungeon boss. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re flirting with me, Mr. Lucitor,” she purred, running a finger up his chest and flicking his nose.

“Haha, very funny. And it’s Prince Lucitor,” he sarcastically chided, poking her arm in response before crossing the room with her following, but he couldn’t help but hide that he was flustered. Seeing Star and Marco’s relationship in the past year had reinforced his already-firm convictions about romance: he wanted someone with whom he could be life partners in all ways, not just handholding and rooftop picnics. Otherwise, what would be the point? He’d made that mistake enough times, and even just a light jab at the notion of him casually flirting struck made him feel self-conscious about that past. Finally his reflection was halted when he found what he sought: a large wrought iron door furnished with ornate demonic symbols and various carvings of mythological creatures dwarfed them both. With a soft, steady flame for light, he brought his hand up and ran it over the rusty engravings. He jumped back with a gasp as the fire spread into the lines of the door, lighting up the patterns on it and causing it to creak as it slowly opened.

“Nice,” Janna muttered in awe before strolling inside, with Tom hesitantly following. She was the most eager of their little group to dive headfirst into the unknown, even more than Star most of the time, but he trusted her gut.

They started walking down the long, cramped hallways, hearing only the sound of their own footsteps on the cold floor. Janna peeked her head into a small doorway that appeared to their left, earning herself an explosive blast to the face and getting knocked onto her butt. Tom slammed the door shut and leaned in to read an inscription next to it. “Incinerator for any books too damaged or damaging for further use. Probably not the right place.”

Janna huffed, brushing herself off and finding scraps of paper among the char. “I can see that. Seriously, what kind of labyrinth labels its doors?”

“Maybe one run by book nerds,” Tom offered, gripping her hand to help her up.

“So it’s just as bad at being a labyrinth as it is a library. Neat. Great adventure.”

Tom pressed on, keeping his focus ahead of them. “Hey, I’m just here to help my mom. You’re the one that said you were fine with anything.”

“Fine, fine. Just saying, I could be working on my potions or something.” She pulled a glass bottle full of purple liquid from her skirt pocket and casually tossed it at a wall. Janna snickered at Tom’s yelp when it shattered, but found herself joining him in backing away when a chunk of stone quickly deteriorated and slammed into the ground at incredible speed. She went over and carefully kicked a pebble, finding it impossible to even budge. “See, this was just a stupid pro-gravity potion. Worthless.”

He leaned against the stable wall opposite the hole, sighing. “I’m sure there has to be something interesting here. What if we, I dunno, make it a competition or something?” His frustration with both the situation and Janna were there, yes, but he still wanted to try and get something fun out of the day.

“Go on,” Janna said, eyes flickering up from the bottle that she was tossing between her hands nonchalantly.

OK, maybe he should have thought further ahead. His arms flailed as he scrambled to come up with an idea. “OK, so, uh, whoever finds the weirdest thing in this place in the next hour wins. Just call them out if you think you found something. Or whoever finds the book, whichever comes first, yeah. Mom still needs it.”

“Momma’s boy. I respect that. You’re on, Tom.” Janna cocked an eyebrow, staring at him for a second before pushing off the wall into a sprint, opening the first door she could find. “Empty. Another empty. Three empties, dammit.”

Tom used his flight to travel more smoothly from door to door on his side of the corridor, but still found himself losing ground as he took the time to read the sign posted by each threshold. The ‘Demonic Studies’ room had a very ornately ghoulish aesthetic, with macabre skeletal models throughout. Definitely something to show Janna on the way out just for the aesthetic, and it’d have been weird for most humans, but it wasn’t any more abnormal than what the two of them were used to as a daily routine. Another room for astronomy had an exquisite planetarium dome, but it turned out to be rather useless as the Underworld did not, in fact, contain any stars since it was underground. There was, however, a plentiful selection of guides to stalactites stocked on the shelves. The next four whole sections were devoted to anger management self-help books, which only made him waste precious seconds cringing at old memories.

His pace picked up as he kept going from door to door finding nothing but normal library fare, although he had to admit it was certainly well-maintained. On any other day he might actually enjoy some of the things here, but today he was on a mission to get out of here so they could actually have fun elsewhere.

‘Bookworms’... now that had potential. What sorts of hybrid creatures could lurk behind the inches of wood? “I think I might have found something!” he shouted, throwing open the door only to receive a harsh shushing. Within were only elderly demons in cozy sweaters reading by candlelight, all now glaring at him with an intensity that reminded him of his mom’s own rare reprimands. “Never mind,” he loud-whispered back out into the hall as he gently closed the door and found Janna in a nearby corridor. “Ugh, why is there nothing interesting here?” Sparks trailed behind him from his mounting anger as he paced.

“Tell me about it, even ‘Wormbooks’ was just a bunch of regular novels, somehow,” she sighed. “I was hoping for a big long chain of open books slithering around on the ground, now there’s a party.” She slumped down against the wall next to the streak of flame he’d left on the ground, idly stamping it out with her boot until Tom sat down beside her.

“Wouldn’t a wormbook be the opposite? A big fat worm in the shape of a book?”

“Nah, it’d totally be a book made of a bunch of little flatworms all working together, duh. Still pretty lame.”

OK, now he knew something was up with her. “Janna, is- is something wrong?”

Her body slouched further down until she was almost horizontal on the cold floor, staring ahead of her like a zombie. “Being weird has just felt so pointless lately. Everything’s weird now, all the time! I’m wasting all my time trying to brew potions when there’s a shop that sells them on every corner. I got so bored that I even passed that same dumb test Marco did and now I’m done with high school, like, for real this time.”

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself, that’s pretty impressive.”

“It’s easy if you know who to blackmail.” Tom blinked a few times, not sure why he’d expected anything different. “Everyone else is moving on with their lives, but I’m still feeding the same old possums and picking up the same old tennis balls. The whole point of my routine is that it’s different, it’s me, it’s my Jannanigans or whatever Star calls it, but it’s just not the same. I’m still into all that stuff, and Earthni’s actually really cool, but… ugh.” With that, her head fully sunk to the ground.

Tom brought his palms together over her head, opening and shutting his hands while wiggling his fingers around. “It’s a wormbook,” he said hesitantly, not really sure what he was doing. It was silly amusement, but perhaps that was just what she needed right now. Janna frowned and rolled her eyes, so he snapped at her arm with his hand puppet wormbook a few times.

“Alright, I get it,” she barked out, but her sullen demeanor slowly cracked under the onslaught of frivolity as she sat back up with an unusually ponderous look at him.

“Remember that time you took me bootsledding?” She nodded. “You told me that I needed to find a life outside of Star, and- and it was really great advice. Didn’t mean I still couldn’t like spending time with Star or anything, heck, I still do! But I just needed to get out of that rut of depending on it. Maybe you just need to do that, too. If doing your weirdness by yourself is normal, then adding something normal might be kinda weird.”

“That’s it.” Janna leapt to her feet, looking very suddenly invigorated. “That’s it!”

“Well, uh, glad you liked it. It was nothing, really, just trying to be a good pal-”

“Yeah, yeah, that too,” she waved dismissively, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit scorned. “If weird is normal then normal is weird. We were looking for the craziest things we could find here, but everything that should have been weird was normal, so we should be looking for the most painfully boring room here!” All three of Tom’s eyes blinked a few times as her words sunk in. Could it be…? “Tom, over here!” He hustled over to a particularly plain wooden door. Janna pointed at the plaque on the wall, which was far more faded than the others had been. “Look. ‘Government Records’.”

A burst of energy coursed through Tom’s blood, sparking life in him once more, and he could see the same reflected in Janna’s determined brown eyes. “And the book Mom wanted has something to do with history. Maybe it’s political history! Janna, you might be a genius!”

“Pfft, ‘might’. Now we just gotta…” She grabbed his arm, aiming it at the door, and he looked at her incredulously. “C’mon, dude, who knows what’s behind there. We’re gonna bust in with a demon blast, duh. Pew-pew!”

He rolled his eyes, but the corner of his lip turning up in a begrudging smile gave away his agreement. The pair aimed at the door and blew it off its hinges before charging in through the smoke.

“I see you two have finally solved the grand riddle of the Librarinth!” A deep, booming voice greeted them from the smoke. “Janna Ordonia, Thomas Lucitor, you certainly took your time. I expected you to book it here much more quickly. No matter, for this room shall be your tome!”

“How do you know my-” Janna stammered.

“Uh, don’t you mean tomb-” Tom started at the same time before realizing the wordplay and groaning in misery. Wait a second… Epic threats, an obvious personality quirk…

“Dungeon boss!” the teens cheered together, glancing back and forth between each other and the remainder of the room in front of them obscured by shadow.

“It is I, the bookkeeper of this place. I guard the most sacred treasure of all… knowledge!” Paper rustled loudly, echoed throughout the cavernous space, far taller and wider than Tom had noticed when they first entered with a massive array of bookshelves many times taller than him in a single row near the back wall. The ground beneath them began to shake and Tom tossed a puff of light in front of him, exposing the wide chasm that had just opened up in the ground, swallowing all the shelving in the room. Neither were prepared for the sight that greeted them: a coiled mass unfurled from the abyss and slithering with purpose along the ground, finally raising itself up to stand at fifteen feet tall, swaying back and forth with enough force to create an artificial wind within the space. A closer look showed that the body was made of some peculiar segments of… books, of all shapes and sizes. The volume at the top of the chain was much larger and far more ornately embossed than the others, and on the blood red surface of the cover Tom could make out a set of eyes. As the picture became more and more clear, he could finally see what they were up against. Now THIS is a bookworm.

“Aren’t libraries supposed to be, like, public and free?” Janna blithely inquired.

“You are correct, child, but perhaps try reporting that to your friend there! The Lucitor family is the sworn enemy of this great Librarinth! That fiend Relicor pilfered our collection for his own use for millennia, and the rest tried to shut this place down for good. But worst of all, in the most egregious display of contempt I have witnessed since the dawn of writing itself… Prince Lucitor and his ilk have amassed twenty-six dollars in unpaid fees!”

The tension in the room nearly evaporated in a heartbeat as Tom and Janna paused momentarily before bursting out into raucous laughter.

“Seriously, dude? I could just, like, repay it.” He fumbled in his pockets for his wallet for a moment before being interrupted once more.

“Do not condescend to me, children! It is far too late to make up for these sins with mere currency. Revenge is my fee most overdue, now prepare to meet… Overdoom! I shall harness the power of the written word to spell your demise!”

Books were hurled from the depths of the crevice en masse. Tom stepped in front of Janna to blast them away, but they had taken on a life of their own and homed in on him, covers flapping in the air like wings. Behind Tom, Janna snatched one out of the air to thwart a flank attack. She grabbed his left arm and pointed it up, tapping his elbow frantically. He spared a glance and saw the paper tornado coalescing, and understood her intention. Demon flames surged out of both hands with Janna calling the shots for the left side and Tom focusing on his right. They used the opportunity to back up to a wall, letting them cover every attack vector but creating a stalemate they were sure to lose in time as the seemingly endless offense droned on. Overdoom for the time being simply floated out of the abyss, glaring harshly at them as more and more papers kept emerging.

“Wait, Tom, look…” Still using his hand, she pointed to a shelf that had fallen at an odd angle and hadn’t collapsed into the abyss. There was a large, torn-up poster on which he could barely make out the word “Historia”.

“That might be it,” he breathed out, starting to feel the burn from minutes of nonstop vigilant defensive demon blasts. Oddly, none of the books in that corner were joining the assault. Almost as if...

“It’s making them magical in the chasm.” Tom’s heart leapt up in his chest at the revelation, hope and adrenaline mixing in his veins to keep him fully alert. But charging in was a suicide mission and they clearly couldn’t win on raw firepower.

“Have you had enough? Are you children yet ready to come scrawling on your hands and knees to a-tome for the sins of your forefathers?” the imposing figure growled, bristling impatiently.

“Did it seriously just use the tome pun again?” Janna griped, running her hands past her eyes and down her cheeks in disgust. “For a word nerd, that’s just awful.”

“Yeah…” Tom absent-mindedly responded. He knew she was right, though. Book, tome, scrawl… even if the creature’s summoning powers were off the charts, and it wielded them with calculated ease, its cocky wordplay taunts left something to be desired. It struck him then: what if they’d been approaching this all wrong? If the battle couldn’t be won by blows, then they had to find another option, and Tom was ready to put his plan into action.

He quickly shook off Janna’s rather tight grip on his arm and stepped forward, mustering up a confident expression masking any fears he still had left. “Nice try, Overdoom. Your words aren’t scaring us. Learn to read the room!”

Its “body” immediately began wiggling violently in the air as it crawled a bit forward towards them. Tom paid careful attention to its back end, which had climbed a few feet out of the ground in the move. “How dare you! Petulant brats!” Literary fire and brimstone rained down upon them with more fury than ever, and the two backed up into a corner which was the best they could do in a room largely devoid of any cover.

“What the hell-” Janna whispered through gritted teeth. Tom wriggled his tail out and waved it in front of Janna’s face momentarily. “Now is not the time to-” She was cut off when a barrage of index cards launched at them with enough force to somehow chip the stone behind them on impact. Tom forcefully nodded his head towards the worm’s tail, waggling his own once again. Her eyes lit up much like his had and she nodded in understanding.

“Come on, is that the best you got? I’ve heard them all before, at least give us something novel!”

Janna stood beside him, and her grimace even managed to spook Tom a bit. “I’d alphabet you couldn’t do better even if you tried!” Not what he would’ve gone with, but hey, if it helped tick Overdoom off then who was he to say no?

“You can talk up a storm all you want, but no matter what volume of air you blow, all I feel is a not-so-rough draft!”

“ENOUGH!” Overdoom’s tail launched out of the chasm faster than either could follow, crossing the room in a heartbeat. Tom shoved Janna out of the way before it wrapped itself around him, dragging him much more slowly towards the abyss. His jacket and jeans mercifully protected the paper edges pressing into him, but it was still a painfully tight squeeze that left him gasping for air. His arms were uselessly pinned inside the embrace as he was dragged headfirst, but their hypothesis had been proven correct as all the books around them had dropped to the ground lifeless.

“Tom!” Janna called out. He strained his head to see she’d removed her beanie and had something purple in her hand that she lobbed at that moment. Through the haze of pain he recognized it as another of her potions. The arc was due to miss until he summoned his energy reserves and redirected it with a weak burst of flame from his boot. Though the glass was durable enough to not melt or shatter, the demonic heat changed the potion into a bubbling olive green milliseconds before it contacted a random segment of the behemoth they were fighting. All at once, its hold on Tom and the rest of its body went limp as it began floating lazily into the air before bouncing off the ceiling a few times like a balloon. Janna ran over and helped Tom up as Overdoom screamed inarticulately from many feet above. They traversed the chaotic mess towards the pile they’d spotted previous. After some digging around, he found ‘Historia Homewnum’ miraculously unscathed and protected by a large, sturdy slab of mahogany that had fallen flat on top of it. “I got it!”

“Cool, potion is wearing off. We need to go.” Janna calmly stated. Twin jets of fire erupted from his feet as he swiftly passed the book to Janna and scooped her up in his arms, carrying them across the room towards the door. After setting Janna down, he hesitated for a moment as she stood in the doorway.

“Do you think I should still pay the late fee? I feel kinda bad and-”

“TODAY MAY HAVE BEEN YOUR VICTORY, BUT TOME-ORROW WILL-”

Tom sighed in resignation with a very unimpressed expression. “OK, yeah, never mind.” And with a quick slam of the door, they were both out scot-free. They didn’t stop running until they arrived back at the elevator. Once inside, they slumped down onto the ground as they began the journey back up to the main surface of the Underworld.

“Woo!” Tom was caught off guard by Janna expressing visible joy, and it was immediately infectious. “Now that’s an adventure. Of course, demon fire is what makes the potions work. Makes a lot more sense. Stupid ink smudge, I burned all those lemons for nothing.” He belly laughed, falling over to the floor and clutching his gut as Janna kicked him in the arm.

“Sorry, sorry, couldn’t help it.”

Her foot backed off after one last good hit. “So now you just have to give that book to your mom?”

“Yeah, should only take a minute. Want to come with?”

“Dude, she’s half a story tall and cries lava. I’d be honored. Oh crud, Pony’s current stream title is ‘WHY Y’ALL CARE MORE ABOUT EARTH TURD AND B-FLY THAN ME?!?!’” Janna showed him the notification on her phone. “That can’t be good.”

Tom pulled out his phone and called to see what was up. Pony picked up after only one ring and didn’t even bother with a greeting as she screamed so loudly that he lost hearing for a moment in his right ear. Her voice carried through the elevator car even without being put on speakerphone. “Yo Tom, why do all my Pony Pals just want to watch those two idiots kiss and cuddle? What is up with that? I even gave my fanbase a stupid nickname, they eat that stuff up, so why won’t they looooove meeeeee?” Business as usual with Pony, it seemed. “An-y-way, this whole shopping spree was amaaaazing, I am all kinds of extra fabulous now. B-Fly and Earth Turd took over the stream cuz the viewers, like, wanted a Q&A sesh but I’m only giving them twenty minutes! Hmph!”

“Might as well just make a whole show about them,” Janna chimed in, rolling her eyes a few times for good measure.

“Wait, demon boy, is Janna there? What the heck have you two been getting up to? Don’t tell me you too are getting your freak on too, I could not handle that T.M.I.-”

Yeah, there was nothing more to gain from that conversation. Tom flipped his compact shut, disconnecting the call. Wait, ‘too’? Did she mean- he shuddered involuntarily. You know what, nope, just not going to think about that one.

“So glad I turned off the cameras,” Janna mumbled, curling up into a ball on the floor, clearly not wanting to touch that whole situation either.

He opted to make contact with the other group via Marco instead - why he hadn’t just done that in the first place, he’d never know - and sent a quick text. “Marco wants to get dinner at the Waterfolk Kingdom in, like, an hour and a half. Apparently Star found some earrings she wanted at the last minute, and Pony got arrested for shoplifting three seconds after I hung up.”

Janna cackled in response. “Let’s just meet them there. My jacket got ripped to shreds by the possums last week, might as well get a new one while I’m down here. Been thinking about changing it up. I kinda like that style.” She lifted up his arm and poked at a button on the sleeve of his own.

“Uh, yeah, sure, I can show you where I got it.” He stumbled over his words, still caught off guard by this new normal-person-Janna. The elevator dinged and the teens began their trek through the Lucitor castle in search of the queen. “So, the Librarinth... we’re definitely going back there at some point, right?”

“Totally, bet’s still not over. We should do this more often, you’re not so bad a friend.”

“You too, and yeah, we should.” Looking back on the day, it had honestly been one some of the most fun he’d had in a while, despite almost dying at least once. Tom still wasn’t sure what to make of this friendship brewing between them, but if it meant more days like this to look forward to? Maybe he could get used to that.