okay okay listen!
there’s this energy drink that me and my mom order called Sneak.
it’s a powder you add to water in a specialised shaker and then you shake it and boom! Energy drink with!! Less sugar than normal energy drinks. The powder can come in little pouches or in tubs with a little scoop thing
I’m talking about because I just randomly thought of this:
Ratio absolutely drinks Sneak. I already picture him with a bit of a sweet tooth and not liking coffee so Sneak would be perfect.
He absolutely has like… 5 different shaker designs (I personally have about 7 in total) all with different designs of course
I can just see him drinking it and even recommending it to his students?
and for a funny scenario: Aventurine tries get them both coffee and arrives only to find a for once slightly frazzled Veritas on like his 2nd Sneak of the day and downing the drink Aven brought for him without a second thought (Aventurine got like a sweet frappe as a joke)
Aventurine was promptly confused and sat through their meeting very very dazed. Upon leaving he called Topaz to rant his confusion (and general cuteness aggression because gay)
66 notes
·
View notes
Okay so in the immediate aftermath I was actually ready to start chewing my fingers off but with time to reflect - it very definitely feels like the start of the third act of a story, y'know? Like the part where it seems like everything at the lowest point and there's no way it's ever going to be okay, end of The Empire Strikes Back kind of situation, so I'm holding out hope for a season 3 with a happy ending.
In the meantime I'm jumping on the bandwagon of the coffee thing being suspicious. It was given an absurdly significant amount of attention and framing if it was just a meaningless gesture, and given how we saw what ingesting human poisons does to angels/demons (with Crowley and the laudanum) I think it's probably likely Aziraphale wasn't entirely himself when he left for Heaven.
However, I do think it's important to consider that from an audience bias perspective we're throwing things at Aziraphale cause we know Heaven is full of shit and we can see Crowley's heart breaking in real time, but it isn't that simple for Aziraphale. He's a guardian, a defender, he genuinely thinks being in a position of authority in Heaven is the best way to protect everything he loves - Earth, humanity and Crowley.
And Crowley, emotionally, is at a different point than Aziraphale (further along a journey, say, he goes too fast). He's already been kicked out of Heaven and made some level of peace with the idea that he doesn't belong in Hell - the idea of being unmoored from his "family" is old news to him. And Hell is awful, but they never pretend otherwise. Aziraphale is trying to leave a toxic family that's constantly telling him they're the good guys, that everything they do is for his own good, for the good of humanity. It's like a cult, almost, in that he can know logically everything they've done and everything he stands to lose by leaving Crowley behind, but that kind of guilt and brainwashing and fear and programming doesn't get washed away that easily.
It's frustrating, as being at the low point of a story often is, but I don't think it's OOC, I don't think it's bad storytelling and I definitely don't think it makes Aziraphale as a character unworthy of sympathy.
214 notes
·
View notes
I'm so sorry, I'm kinda drunk and dropping another idea, do with it whatever ye will.
Yknow how in the beginning of the game, Sojiro tells Ren he won't take care of him when he gets sick?
Consider: he's not used to city germs/being that closely shoved against other people on the train. He DOES start to get sick around Kamoshida's Palace, powers through it, and then is SUPER sick just after it's over.
He plans on sucking it up and hiding it, but Futaba hears his hacking coughs over her bug even when he's upstairs, followed by wheezing, maybe even a little weeping. He's constantly in and out of the bathroom, and he's starting to run out of tissues.
Futaba nervously texts Sojiro that the kid they took in sounds awful. Sojiro is gruff at first and says he's not a baby, he can take care of himself. She responds by sending him the audio and suddenly Dad Instincts kick in
y/n
obviously it's a YES, our brainrots continue because early-game ren and sojiro dynamics break my heart every time
how dare you get me so invested in this idea, this post got too long so it's going under a read more
listen listen look i love sojiro and the coffee family okay, but early-game?? sojiro could catch these hands
ren has already been though so much by the time he arrives in tokyo, to then be put into a dusty old attic like a spare part would absolutely fit in with ren's own perception of himself at that stage. it would be almost too easy for him to put his own health on the backburner kinda like he's already used to it
very used to not taking up space, 'not being a bother', and then sojiro really reinforces this message when ren first gets to leblanc- so when ren inevitably gets ill a month into his probation, it's already doomed for maladaption
tokyo would be such a breeding ground for sickness compared to the countryside, and ren just doesn't have the consitution to deal with it. the dusty attic and poor eating habits don't help matters, and then we have the stress of kamoshida and the metaverse?? ren is not having a Good Time™
at first it's something he thinks he can shrug off, and is adamant that ignoring it is the way to go. a cold, it's nothing, he can handle this alone, no need to bother anyone else with it.
inevitably, he gets worse, because that's what happens when you don't rest and let yourself recover. a tickly cough becomes a tightness in his chest, mild congestion shifts into an attack on his senses and blurriness- but maybe that's the dizziness. he's not really sleeping, either.
it's something that's becoming increasingly difficult to brush off and hide, he even relented to finally getting some medicine (nothing as strong as he needs by this point, that would eat too much into his limited funds, but some painkillers to take the edge off). once or twice he's tempted to stay off school, at morgana's insistence, or a too close call where he definitely blacked out for a minute, but then sojiro's voice will ring in his head 'i won't be the one looking after you if you get sick', 'your parents got rid of you for being a pain in the ass', and all his worst insecurities come rushing back and he's resolved to deal with it on his own
meanwhile, futaba's been making use of her hidden audio bugs- normally they're a comfort for her in the daytime, but since the new kid- ren- has been staying at the cafe (part-timer her ass, how gullible does sojiro think she is?!), she's been listening more frequently. when ren gets sick, she figures it out quickly.
time goes on, he's not getting better- he's actually getting worse- and futaba starts to wonder if she's the only one who knows
(there's something in his sharp contrasts- the quiet kid who shuffles through the cafe and takes sojiro's scolding, to the coughing kid who cries into the silence of night when he thinks there's nobody there to see it- that stabs through her numbness. it feels like a companion to her own ghost)
one night she swears the kid gets up to be sick, and there's hardly any sound heard from the attic all night. if nobody's gonna help ren, then she will (futaba used to like helping, once upon a time).
she texts sojiro the next day, when ren doesn't say anything again, and goes off to school with what she bets is a fake assurance on his face
and you're so right, sojiro dismisses her concern really easily, claims the kid can 'take care of himself' and he won't 'baby' the part-timer. insists ren needs to learn some disipline, then maybe he'll stay out of trouble
frustration wells in futaba- if she was less fixated on what was going on with ren, she'd register it's one of the first changes of mood she's had for months- and she responds with nothing but an audio clip, an attached explanation that this is just from the past few days- it's been going on for weeks, then she waits, and hears the distant sound of her compilation through one of the bugs, a hitched breath from sojiro, curse words under his breath-
for all his earlier postulating about not helping ren if he gets sick, sojiro is immeditely struck with a pang of concern- it sounded bad, and if futaba's words were anything to go by, this had been going on for a while.
the kid's at school now (at school, being as ill as that and he was still going to class-), so sojiro will talk to him when he gets back. there's a chance he goes a bit too over the top, between the variation of medicines he purchases, supplies he grabbed from home- if you accused him for over-compensating after maybe being too harsh on the kid in the beginning, you'd be right
and you just know ren would be so resistent at first to help, or even just the offer of staying off school. in his sickness-induced fugue, ren's filter-less in rattling off how he can't stay off, what will the students and teachers think, and he has work that afternoon, and a test soon, and he doesn't want to get in the way-
sojiro's heart just shatters
this kid, whose been silently carring the weight of the world and has apparently been falling to pieces for weeks now and sojiro didn't even notice?
(a part of it reminds him too much of the other kid he's got at home, the countless ways he's already failed futaba, and now ren too? he feels useless)
sojiro focuses on what he can do, and that's making the kid rest. work will understand, school can wait, ren isn't an inconvenience, he guides the kid to bed, calls takemi immediately (who rushes over, despite the fact she's technically closed at this hour, and refuses to take any payment),
even still, there's this stilted awkwardness between them when the quiet pushes on too long- they hardly know each other, afterall. sojiro is still figuring out the 'caring for kids' thing, and ren isn't familiar with any kind of parental affection, so some of sojiro's care veers a bit too close to clinical or mechanic, and ren still struggles to communicate what kind of help he needs, but it's enough for now.
for now, sojiro is there. he's trying, and at least ren's getting some colour back on his skin.
for now, ren's willing to take a few days off and have some medicine, but he's over-apologetic and definitely tries to make up for his sickness once he's healed.
it's gonna take them both a while yet, but luckily there's always their guardian hacker, ready and able to call them out when needed (and maybe some day she'll be able to keep an eye on ren and sojiro in person)
78 notes
·
View notes