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notebooknonbinary · 2 years

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Chapter One of All the Time in the World is finally posted!

(this is the fic i've been talking and talking about writing for like two months. Finally posting the first chapter... orz )

Summary: Mike and Will navigate life after the Upside Down. The first year, trying to figure out their new normal. Hospital visits, Sophomore year, dating, therapy. Through it all, they have each other.

Edit 12/4: Chapter 1 Under the Cut for my non-Ao3 folks

The drive to the hospital is conducted in shell-shocked silence. Will and El are both passed out from power-overuse, heads on both of Mike’s shoulders. In the front, Hopper is driving just above the speeding limit, one hand on the wheel, the other tangled with Joyce’s. Mike’s keeping his own in a tight clasp on Will’s limp hand, jiggling his good leg, and trying to breathe through his anxiety.

It’s hard to accept that everything is really over. Mike’s spent the last four years of his life practically stuck in fight-or-flight. The idea that they’ll never have to fight Demogorgans or Vecna, or any real monster ever again, almost makes him nervous. And it’s worse , that the general public doesn’t even remember anything apoplectic happening past the “Earthquake” and its “aftershocks”—he’s worried that the dissonance will make it hard to know what’s even real anymore.

The anxiety is winning.

The doctors try to put him and Will in separate hospital rooms, and Mike has a full-blown panic attack. It’s far from the first panic attack he’s had in the past four years, but it’s the first one where he can’t just slip away and suffer in silence. Instead, he’s fully unable to help himself from melting down. He can practically hear his dad at the back of his mind, berating him for crying; but Mike couldn’t give less of a shit about his dad right now. The patriarchal garbage that he spouts isn’t important, especially compared to Will’s safety.

He’s so terrified that everything is, in fact, not over—that if they’re separated, Vecna will rise from the ashes a third time to kidnap Will again. And Mike can’t take that. Never again.

It’s an irrational fear, he knows it is.

But rationality has never seemed to matter in his brain when it comes to Will.

So, in the end, they are roomed together, where Mike is free to look over every twenty ten five seconds to make sure that the other half of his soul is still there.

It sounds cheesy even thinking of it like that, but it’s true.

The path that led Will to Mike in the Upside Down, the way they’ve both known that the other is alive since then—the safety that they both feel by simply being near each other. Their hearts are intertwined. Maybe they always have been. It should be scary, that thought. It should make him want to create some distance. Instead, it just feels comforting. Safe. Especially since he knows it’s a bond he and Will chose.

“Staring at him won’t make him wake up faster,” a voice teases softly.

If it were anyone else, Mike would guiltily jerk his eyes away from Will. But El’s been aware of Mike’s crush on him for months. He just smiles, slowly looking over at her. She is leaning against an IV poll, and he’s got a sneaking suspicion she’s not supposed to be out of bed yet. He’s not a snitch, though. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired. My head hurts.”

“Yeah, I bet.” He’s not the least bit surprised. She’s probably refusing extra pain medicine. He knows she’s not the biggest fan of hospitals, not that he can blame her—he’s honestly a little surprised she hasn’t had Joyce check her out early.

“Are you in a lot of pain?”

Mike shrugs. “I can’t feel it. They’ve got me on the good drugs.”

His neck is still bruised from the two separate times Vecna choked him, mottled purples and reds on top of greens and yellows, and a throat that clicks painfully whenever he swallows. On top of that, a Demadog shredded and snapped his shin like a twig. The doctors had to bolt his bone back together. If he’d ever wanted to go into sports (not fucking likely) that dream is pretty much done now.

Still, he’s far better off compared to Will and El. On top of all their other injuries, they’d both lost so much blood that Mike had been legitimately terrified that they would bleed out or get brain damage. El, her body being far more used to it, woke up first a few hours ago—woozy but brain intact. Will’s still unconscious, but the doctors think he’ll wake up soon. Mike just wishes soon meant now.

“He’ll be okay,” El says. She stumbles over to sit on the chair by Mike’s bed. “We all will be okay.”

If it came from anyone other than El, Mike wouldn’t believe them. But he knows she’s not the type for platitudes. “I know.”

They sit in silence for a moment. It’s the good, companionable kind of silence. He’d worried, after they broke up last April, that he’d lose her as a friend. He’s glad it’s only improved their friendship.

“How’s Max?” Mike ventures, knowing if El’s making escapes to visit other patients, Max would be her first priority.

El frowns, but there’s a hopeful spark in her eyes—one that’s been gone since they learned about Max last year. “The doctors say that she’s had increased brain activity. She might wake up soon.”

More promises of soon . Mike doesn’t fully trust soon. It’s like a parent telling their kids maybe —if something falls through, and that maybe turns into a never, it’s not their fault, they never actually said yes, Michael.

But Mike keeps this thought to himself.

He gets a steady stream of visitors after El leaves (read: is politely escorted back to her room). The first ones being Mom and Holly. It’s such a relief to see them that Mike almost cries again. Nancy, he knows, is elsewhere in the hospital, dealing with a broken hand and a concussion. He has no idea where his dad is (probably home), and, frankly, he doesn’t care.

“Mikey, you’re okay!” Holly almost lunges onto his bed—something she’s done hundreds of times at home. At home, however, he doesn’t have a bunch of wires and IVs attached to him. Thankfully, Mom manages to scoop her up in time to stop her.

“Hey, kid!” Mike holds out his arms for her to pass Holly to him, which she does after a moment’s hesitation. Holly immediately cuddles up to him, sticking her head under his chin. He presses a kiss to her hair.

“Mommy said you got hurt.”

“Yeah, I hurt my leg pretty bad, Munchkin.”

“In the Earthquake?”

Mike meets Mom’s eyes over Holly’s head. They and Nancy have already agreed that she’s too young right now to know about the Upside Down. Mom shrugs helplessly.

“The Earthquake scared a mean dog,” he compromises. “And it bit me. But, I’ll be okay soon. And, in the meantime, you and Will can decorate my cast so it looks awesome, yeah?”

Holly’s quiet for a long moment. Finally she says, “Yeah, okay. And I can draw whatever I want on it?”

Mike grins. “Sure, just make sure you leave room for everyone else, kay?”

“Okay. I hope your leg gets better soon. Daddy isn’t good at telling me stories like you.” Holly leans up to press a kiss to Mike’s forehead, and he feels a rush of affection. He hugs her tighter.

“Thanks Hol’s, that’ll speed along the healing process. I already feel a bit better.”

Holly’s the only family member Mike’s never resented. That probably says something mean about him, but the fact remains—Holly’s his favorite. And he’s missed getting to hang out with her. So he’s perfectly happy to listen to her talk about the playdate she’s having tomorrow, and how she’s been helping Mom volunteer at the crisis center by handing out juice boxes.

Unfortunately, he’s still in pain and on drugs, so he gets worn out very quickly. Mike falls asleep cuddling with his baby sister. He has no dreams, thankfully, only the soft warmth of knowing he’s safe. When he wakes up, she and Mom are gone.

Steve’s passed out in the chair by his bed, head tilted back and snoring like a chainsaw. Mike grins. Swapped one parent out for another, he thinks wryly. Even after all these years, he and Steve’s relationship is still a little contemptuous. They’ve never really grown out of the reluctant acquaintances stage they had when Steve and Nancy were together. It’s actually the relationship that Mike and Max pretend to have: ‘You and I will never see eye-to-eye, but we have several mutual important people, so I can’t entirely dislike you.’

Still, it’s nice to see that Steve cares enough to visit. Even if, judging by how dark it is outside, he’s likely picked this time because Mike is supposed to be asleep. He’ll allow this plausible deniability for now, Mike decides. And he turns over and goes back to sleep.

He sees Joyce and Jonathan at least once a day—usually more. He knows it’s more to check on Will, but they always spend some time talking with him too. He appreciates it.

At this moment, however, Joyce is with El. She’s getting checked out soon. Earlier than the doctors wanted her to, but later than Mike thought she would.

Jonathan is sitting by Will's bed, smoothing his hair back. It reminds Mike of first seeing Will after Hopper and Joyce rescued him from the Upside Down—still unconscious, and Jonathan refusing to leave his baby brother’s side.

“You were the blueprint,” Mike blurts without meaning to.

Jonathan jolts. “Huh?”

Mike flushes. “When. When we were little, I always saw how good you took care of Will. So. When Holly was born, I asked myself what kind of big brother I wanted to be, and…” He shrugs. “I wanted Holly to feel as safe around me as Will feels around you.”

Jonathan doesn’t speak for a long time, only studies Mike in a way that makes him feel like he’s under a microscope. Finally he smiles, soft and fond. “Thank you, Mike. That means a lot.” He looks back down at Will. “He needed safety and stability, I couldn’t do anything less. He's my little brother. I love him.”

“It’s easy to love him,” Mike murmurs, mouth moving without his permission. He resists the urge to hide under his covers, as Jonathan immediately jerks his head back up in surprise.

The microscope look is back. Mouth firm, he says, “He deserves love. Unless that love hurts him again.”

Shit. Jonathan is far too observant. “I think anyone who loves Will would kick their own ass before hurting him again.”

Jonathan smiles and nods, getting to his feet, like the matter is settled—even though Mike only half-understands what conversation they just had. “I’m gonna go check on El and my mom. Feel better Mike.”

When he’s gone, Mike turns to look at Will’s still sleeping face. “Please wake up soon—having all these weird chats on my own is driving me nuts.”

But Will remains unconscious, even as Mike receives more visits.

El and Lucas switch off giving him updates about Max—they don’t want her to be alone when she wakes, so once El’s released, one of them stays in the room with her at all times. Mike doesn’t think this is particularly healthy of them, but he can’t say he’d be any better if it were Will in a year long coma.

Thinking about how he’d been when Will was possessed, it’s safe to say he’d probably be worse.

“She’s been twitching a lot lately,” Lucas reports brightly. He’s downing his third cup of coffee, and his hands are jittery from the caffeine and, likely, lack of sleep. There are bags under his eyes. “Especially when we talk to her.”

While Mike’s glad to hear that, he’s seriously getting worried about Lucas. “She’s gonna kick your ass when she wakes up and learns how run down you are. You need to take better care of yourself, Lucas.” When they’d still been fighting Vecna, Lucas had been able to put some of this nervous energy into that fight. Now that Max’s (and Will’s) condition is the only big thing to worry about, the stress is getting to him.

Lucas doesn’t take offense to Mike’s worry—he’s entirely too self aware, so he clearly knows and doesn’t care. He shrugs. “I look forward to it.”

Mike can only hope that Max convinces Lucas to practice a little bit of self-care once she wakes up.

Some time after Lucas leaves, Mike’s visited by Nancy. She’s checked herself out by now, a cast on her wrist and a To-Do list as long as she is tall. She brings him news, and, joy of all joys, a burger . He’s so sick of hospital food.

“Have I mentioned lately how awesome you are?” he asks rhetorically, immediately digging into the food. Grease, Mike’s in heaven. He doesn’t even give a fuck that it hurts slightly to swallow it.

Nancy smirks. “You could stand to mention it more.”

After he’s inhaled half the burger, Mike speaks again. “So, what’s up?”

“I can’t just visit my favorite little brother?”

“I’m your only brother, Nance.”

Nancy lowers her voice, “Owens is going to get us all sorted, alibi-wise.”

Ah. It hasn’t occurred to Mike to worry about that. It’s kind of callous, but, as far as Mike’s aware, the Army people that were after El (and, later, Will) either came around to their side or died in the fight against Vecna. But, assumedly, the Army people talked to other Army people outside of Hawkins.

(There’s also the fact that some of the town still blames the Hellfire Club for Vecna’s murders.)

“So what’s the plan?” Mike wonders, around a mouthful of burger.

She sighs, sitting at the chair by his bed. “I don’t really know all the details yet—he’s going to keep Joyce and Hopper updated. But, officially, there’s been evidence found linking Jason to the murders.”

Found, in this case, obviously meaning planted.

The hamburger turns to ash in Mike’s mouth.

As much as he hates Jason, and all he did—and is secretly a little glad he’s dead—the idea of planted evidence leaves a sour taste in Mike’s mouth. It reminds him too much of recently refreshed memories; of ‘evidence’ planted at the quarry.

But this is a best case scenario in this situation, so Mike’s going to keep his mouth shut. Instead, he shifts the subject. “How’s Eddie doing?”

“Better. He says he’s glad to have a heartbeat again. He and Wayne will stay at Steve’s house until the charges get dropped. Technically they’re under house arrest, but their place is still a sinkhole.”

“Which is why they’re at Steve’s?” Mike’s been under the impression that Steve and Eddie don’t exactly get along, but maybe he’s read them wrong.

“Most of the Party is at Steve’s, Mike. His house is big enough. Argyle is staying there until he decides what he’s going to do. Lucas and Erica’s house is still trashed, there’s still a hole in Dustin’s living room. So their parents are there, and they'll be there once they’re out of here. And until Joyce and Hopper settle on a new house (of the few that aren’t in shambles), the Byers and Hopper are staying there too.”

“Wait, what?” Mike blurts, sitting forward. “I thought the Byers were gonna stay with us!”

Nancy gives him a fondly frustrated look. “That’d require telling Dad why , Mike. All the other parents are in the know except him. It’s safer if they’re at Steve’s.”

“I know, but…” Without meaning to, Mike’s eyes flicker to Will’s still form on the other bed.

Nancy’s smile turns soft and a little bit knowing. “Dad’s less likely to notice you’re gone on daily sleepovers than if there are extra people in the house.”

Mike knows she’s speaking from experience—the summer before the Byers had moved to California (the summer of Starcourt), Nancy had spent more time at the Byers’ house than home. Their dad hadn’t noticed. “I guess that’s true,” Mike acquiesces.

“And the both of you are still in the hospital for now anyway—Joyce might have found a house by time you’re both out. Then we’ll be able to see our Byers’ boys whenever we want.” Nancy’s grin is a little too mischievous for Mike’s liking.

He throws the burger wrapper at her, but she catches it. She gets to her feet, still smiling.

“Get better soon, baby brother.” She presses a kiss to his forehead—just as Holly had a few days ago. Then she leaves.

The next couple days pass in what is quickly becoming a routine of doctors, and visits from those of his friends that are awake and mobile. And, still, Will remains asleep. Mike’s been at the hospital for a week and a half. He’s getting anxious that something has gone wrong. But the doctors continue to tell him that Will will wake up soon.

Soon is such a stupid word.

Today's visitor, to distract him from his worry, is Dustin.

Dustin has gotten discharged before Mike—which Mike feels is a little unfair, considering they basically have the same injury. Even if Mike’s is, admittedly, worse. They’re both in casts. The hospital had to rebreak Dustin’s ankle to set it correctly. Dustin’s already used to walking around on a crutch, though, so he’s been teasing Mike about still being bedridden. It eventually turns into them riffing off of each other about their fucked up legs.

“We’re twins, practically,” Dustin laughs. Mike grins.

“Between the two of us, we’ve got a pair of functioning legs.”

“We’d kill it at three legged races.”

It’s not really all that funny, but it makes Mike wheeze out a painful cackle. Dustin looks far too pleased with himself. There’s a low grumble from the other bed that makes them both freeze.

“…’S loud,” Will whines, attempting to turn over. The movement jostles at the wires and IV connected to him. He blinks, then winces. His head hurts so bad —as bad as any of the migraines he got after his possession. “Fuck,” he hisses.

“Want me to go get the nurse?” a familiar voice asks.

“Yeah, thanks Dustin.” A beloved voice. Mike.

If he had any energy, Will would cry. He’s so, so happy that Mike is okay. Eyes still closed, he tries to smile in the direction Mike’s voice came from.

A wave of love and relief drifts his way—wrapping around his mind and somehow easing his headache a little bit.

He’s too tired to send anything back, but manages to whisper, “You too,” so that Mike knows he felt it.

Dustin comes back with the nurse, who brings, blessedly, more pain medicine. As soon as the headache begins leaching away, Will passes back out until the next morning.

Mike’s already awake when Will sits up the next morning. He still feels a bit like death warmed over, but the relieved grin Mike sends him helps a little bit.

They can’t talk about all the things they need to talk about—not out in the open like this, with all the medical staff and their family around. And there’s an unspoken agreement between them, that their relationship needs to be something talked about out loud.

It’s enough, for now, to send warm feelings back and forth. Now that they’re not in an emergency situation, they can play around with the lighter parts of their connection. They figure out how to play mental games of tic-tac-toe and hangman, and think about maybe planning a campaign together—before quickly deciding that the idea is a little too raw to deal with right now. Out loud, they talk about (and to) their friends, show off their get-well presents to each other, and act like they have for the last eleven years. Just because they’ve confessed their feelings for each other, doesn’t mean they’re not still best friends.

Mike is, inevitably, released well before Will—even with his leg casted up to his thigh for the foreseeable future. He knows that’s partly because of lingering worry over Will’s head, but mostly it’s because the In the Know Scientists and Doctors are intrigued by Will’s naturally developed powers. (Shocker, turns out you don’t actually need to torture kids in a lab! In other news, water is wet.) Still, Mike feels mostly safe leaving Will with them, because Joyce and Hopper (and often El) are in the room whenever they interact. That’s the deal Owens agreed on. (It also helps that Mike will know in an instant if Will ever feels unsafe. They’ve both silently agreed to keep this part of Will’s powers a secret from the doctors.)

That doesn’t mean Mike doesn’t come visit at least once a day.

Even though getting to and from the hospital in a clunky cast and on crutches (occasionally in a wheelchair if he gets too tired) is annoying and exhausting, it’s worth it to see his friends every day—to see Will every day.

But, again, he can't be with Will the whole time. Thankfully he’s not the only one visiting the hospital daily. He ends up spending a lot of time with Lucas, El and (often) Erica in Max’s hospital room.

Even though Lucas has been one of his best friends since second grade, he doesn’t really know Erica all that well. When they were younger, before Erica got involved in the Upside Down business, she was just Lucas’s Little Sister (similarly to how he’s sure many of the others see Holly).

But he was able to talk to her at least a little bit during that one ill-fated Hellfire game—she’s funny and has no issue snapping back at anyone idiot enough to make assumptions based on her age. And she’s damn good at DnD.

He’s gotten to know her better now, what with her being in Max’s hospital room with El and Lucas half the time (that’s enough to know that she’s a good sister too). At this point, he knows that the Party considers her one of them—himself among them. He knows, from the half focused commentary he’s kept up with Will at the back of his head, that Will agrees. Dustin already gave his enthusiastic blessing (is actually pissed to be missing it, but he's gone for the next few days, helping his mom move back into their house).

(He thinks Max will too—once she’s awake. She’s continued to show signs of waking the last few days, so everyone is hopeful that she’ll come out of her coma soon.)

The only person who likely doesn’t know Erica is a part of the Party now is Erica herself.

The four original Party Members had one induction ceremony together—they’d come up with some basic rules and a few secret code words (the codes are long lost to the passage of time), then gotten pizza and played DnD. El never got an official ceremony, though they’d explained some of the rules to her, and then by the time she was around all the time, Mike had felt himself too grown up (cue eye roll) to do something as ‘childish’ as an initiation ceremony. Max—Mike spares a look at her still form—was the only one of them outside of the originals, to have gotten a full ceremony (after they’d closed the Gate, but before Mike had begun dating El).

Now, though, the idea of officially welcoming Erica into the Party feels like a forgone conclusion—one that should have happened two summers ago, even.

“Lucky seven,” he says. Lucas and El both hide their smiles—they know his speech is coming, and he knows they think it’s corny. He doesn’t care.

Erica doesn’t look up from her book. “What?”

“Having you in our Party, even unofficially, played a big part in why we’re all still here. With you, we make seven.”

Erica looks up finally, confusion making her annoyed. “What’s your point, loser?”

“It’s past time we made your place in the Party official.” Mike sits up straighter, attempting to look at least a little bit dignified. In the back of his head he can feel Will’s warm amusement. “Erica Sinclair, the Party has decided that you are more than worthy, if you are willing, to become one of the core members. With this, you will be let in on Party secrets that the Extended Party is not privy to—if you swear to keep them secret. If you ever need help, no matter how mundane, we will be at your side—as you will be at the aid of your fellow Party Members. What say you?”

Erica stares at him for a long moment. The silence stretches like taffy. Mike’s struggling to keep his back straight.

Please don’t laugh, he silently begs her.

She tilts her head, thinking.

…

“Okay. I so swear, or whatever.”

Mike lets out a relieved sigh in time with Lucas’s.

“That was some next level nerd shit, Wheeler.” Erica is pretending to look annoyed, but out of the corner of his eye, Mike can see she looks a little pleased.

With him being in her room so often, Mike’s there when Max wakes up. He’s probably one of the last people Max would want to wake up to—but Mike’s only just managed to convince Lucas and El to take a break and go get lunch with Max’s mom. They’ve been sitting in here practically every day since the battle ended.

Naturally, as soon as they’re downstairs, that’s when Max twitches into consciousness.

“El…? Lucas?” Her voice is tiny and crackly from disuse, and probably leftover pain from the tube the doctors only recently removed from her throat.

Mike immediately presses the call nurse button. A few times. “Sorry, MadMax, it’s just me. They literally just stepped out—I can go get them.”

“No,” she whispers. “I don’t want to be alone.”

“…El’s gonna kick my ass when she finds out I didn’t go get them—but okay.”

They sit together in silence for a moment. Mike has the sudden, wild (reckless) urge to take Max’s hand. Just so she knows he’s here. He bites his lip, and is just about to try, when she speaks finally.

“How long’s it been?” she whispers. A weak, no longer broken, but likely pained, hand reaches up to touch the bandages over her eyes.

From talks with El, Mike knows Max had been there in the final fight—mentally at least—so he thinks Max is asking from then. “We defeated No-nose a little less than a month ago.”

Max chokes on a snort. “Don’t make me laugh, dickhead.”

Mike grimaces, thinking about how much it had hurt to laugh (or cough) right after he’d gotten choked, he figures her throat can’t feel much better. (He’s seen those feeding tubes that go down the throat, they’re scary .) “Sorry.”

“Mike, shut up with the sorries already.” She pauses. “Everyone okay?”

“Yeah, we’re all alive—partly thanks to you.”

He can’t see her roll her eyes, but he recognizes the tone when she replies. “ Seriously. Don’t get corny on me just ‘cause I’m an invalid right now, Wheeler.”

Any further playful bickering is halted as three doctors and four nurses swarm the room. Mike stays mostly out of their way, only speaking up when Max begins to cough.

“Can she have water or something?”

A nurse—one he recognizes as a regular in Max’s room—answers him. “She can have ice chips. Her throat isn’t strong enough to swallow regular water right now.”

“ She is right here,” Max grumbles, once she‘s stopped coughing. Her voice is even more hoarse than earlier.

“Yeah, but I bet talking hurts like a bit—” Mike eyes the adults still moving around and cuts himself off. “—pretty badly. My throat is still bruised from…the accident…and it took like two weeks before it stopped hurting like acid to swallow anything.”

Max grimaces, silently conceding the point.

The nurse comes back with the cup of ice, handing it off to Mike. Before she goes back to nurse stuff, Mike has an important thought and flags her down again. “Can you have someone go get El and Lucas, and her Mom?” he asks quietly. “They’re in the cafeteria.”

The nurse nods and leaves again.

Max grabs his attention again.

“You’re better now though, yeah?” She’s back to talking in a whisper.

Mike nods, then remembers she can’t see him right now, and says, “Yeah, for the most part. My leg’ll be in a cast for a while though.”

Max grimaces. “Me too, probably, from what I can feel.”

“You, me, and Dustin can form a gang,” he jokes. “We can go around beating people up with our bulky casts.”

Max snorts. Then she coughs again, just a brief wheeze. “Hey, ice boy, what am I paying you for?”

He carefully feeds her the ice chips. In between he catches her up on what little news there is to be had. The only thing that really shocks her is that Will has only been up a week longer than her.

“What was wrong with him?”

Mike makes sure the doctor’s are far enough away before he replies. “He went a little heavy with his new powers near the end. El did too, but she’s more used to it.”

“She’s okay?”

“Yeah, her and Lucas have been practically keeping guard here. At least one of them is here pretty much all the time.” He bites his lip. “It doesn’t have to be right away, but Lucas is more likely to listen to you, so if you can convince him to take more breaks, it’d probably do him some good. He’s kinda been running himself ragged.”

Max sighs. “Dammit Stalker. Yeah I’ll try and bring it up at some point. El too.” She motions for more ice. “But, anyway, Will okay now?”

“Yeah, docs are keeping him a bit longer, but he’s up and his head isn’t hurting as much.”

“That’s—”

They’re interrupted by the door opening abruptly. “Max!”

“Max, you’re awake!”

Mike quickly gets out of the way of El and Lucas. They’re both in tears, but smiling broadly, and they sit on either side of her to take her hands. Max’s mom stands near the doorway, hands over her mouth and tears streaming down her face—but not saying anything, and not getting any closer.

“I missed you,” El whispers, pressing her face to Max’s hand. “We missed you so much.”

“I missed you too. Both of you. All of you.” Max grins weakly. She turns her face towards Lucas. “You’re taking me on that movie date, I hope you know.”

Lucas’s laugh comes out as a sob. “I’ve been planning it,” he chokes out. He presses a kiss to the tips of her fingers—and it’s a sign of how emotional they’re feeling that Max doesn’t say anything about Lucas being cheesy.

Mike feels a little choked up himself. He also feels a little bit like he’s intruding. He’s never been especially great around people crying. Maybe he can go hang out with Will for a little while. He’s about to attempt a gracious exit, when Max’s main doctor interrupts the reunion. “If your friends would like to step out, Max, I can give you and your mother the details of your injuries and treatment.

“They can stay. They’re family,” Max interjects firmly.

Lucas and El he understands, but Mike kind of wants to point at himself and say, me too? Really? But Max can still probably beat him up from the hospital bed, so he keeps his mouth shut. There’s a warm fluttering in his chest that he tells himself is heartburn (it’s fondness).

“Alright then.”

Even though Max can’t see the grim look on the doctor’s face, Mike thinks she can sense the tension in the air. She’s always been far too astute (often much to his consternation).

“Give it to me straight, doc,” Max says, all forced cheer.

Mike kind of doesn’t want to be here. Even though Max literally wants him to stay, this feels like an invasion. Max is part of the Party—there’s little Mike or any of the others wouldn’t do for her. But this feels like something only the closest to her should be a part of—Lucas and El.

A lot of what the doctor proceeds to go over is old news. Max adopts a politely shocked expression when the doctor tells her the details around her falling into the coma—though Mike knows that El summarized to her when they were in the Upside Down. Mike’s stomach clenches, however, when the doctor begins to go over the extent of her injuries. Arms and legs broken in multiple places, collarbone snapped, spine slightly twisted out of alignment, and eyes injured. It’s a gruesome list. Mike’s glad when the man moves on to Max’s treatment and recovery. By now, her collarbone has healed, and the few open wounds have closed and healed with minimal scarring. But it’s her eyes that Max wants to know about.

“I’m blind, aren’t I?”

The doctor sighs. “Yes, I’m sorry. You may regain some light perception, but it’s unlikely you will ever return to full vision.”

Max nods, clearly unsurprised. “Before I—” She pauses. “—fell unconscious, I couldn’t see.” She takes a breath, grits her teeth. “What about my arms and legs?”

“On that, we have some better news!” The doctor is clearly glad to move on from the dour mood. “As you’ve most likely already noticed, while you will likely retain some aches, your arms are progressing nicely towards healing—and even full use; with physical therapy, of course,” he adds chastisingly, as Max slowly rolls her shoulders and immediately grimaces.

She huffs. “And my legs?”

“You have a chance at regaining partial mobility of your legs—though you’ll likely be in a wheelchair for daily use.”

Eventually the conversation with the doctor ends, and he goes outside with Max’s mom to speak some more. They’re silent for a moment after the two adults disappear.

Mike has suspected a lot of this, but it still hurts to hear. He thinks about Max and her love for skateboarding and bites back the urge to cry. Then he thinks about her as-of-yet unbeaten scores at the Arcade and feels even worse.

“I mean, it means I don’t have’ta see your ugly mug, Mike,” Max jokes weakly, trying to break the bad mood.

Mike laughs weakly, the sound wet with tears. “Lucky for you.”

“And this does not get you out of that movie date, Lucas.”

Lucas sobs. “I wouldn't dream of canceling.”

El is quieter with her tears, trying to keep up a brave face. “After you are out of the hospital, we can have a sleepover?” She asks.

“Hell yeah!”

The room lightens up slightly as they fall back into more casual topics. Mike scrubs away his tears when Lucas and El aren’t looking. In his mind, he curses the very existence of Henry Creel down to the deepest pits of a hell he isn't sure he even believes in. With a deep breath to clear his mind, Mike dives back into the conversation.

When Max’s mom returns, she’s alone and looks like she’s cried some more. Still, she puts on a (clearly fake) smile. “Thank you all for being such good friends to my Max. I’m sure she would appreciate it if you came back tomorrow—or maybe this weekend.”

“Why’s it sound like you’re doing that thing where you’re trying to politely convince people to leave?” Max groans.

Her mom immediately flusters, called out but not wanting to seem rude. “Well, it’s getting late, and I’m sure your friends are tired.”

Max turns her head in the direction Mike’s been standing. “Mike, what time is it?”

Put on the spot, Mike stammers for a second, before looking at his watch. “Uh, it’s, like, three PM?”

“I’d bet that visiting hours don’t end ‘til, like, five,” Max says. “They can stay as long as they want to.”

Mike thinks that Max’s mom probably has the power to kick them out nonetheless, but the woman doesn’t do that. Likely because she’s distracted by what Max says next.

“Anyway, has dad been to visit?”

Her mom’s breath hitches. “What?”

“When you told dad about the accident, did he fly down to visit?”

“Max…” She mumbles, but doesn’t say anything else. Her face is visibly guilty. Mike’s stomach twists.

“Wait, did you never actually end up telling Dad?” Max snarls suddenly. “You didn’t think he’d wanna know that his only child could have died?!”

“But you didn’t die , Max,” her mom defends desperately. “What would be the point of worrying your father if—?”

“You know damn well I could have,” Max snaps. “I’ve been in here for a year mom, and I know the doctors probably weren’t jazzed about my chances for survival. He never would have been able to say goodbye.”

Her mom mumbles something about a “clean break” that makes Max’s face go white in anger.

“No, he loves me! Just ‘cause you hate him, doesn’t give you the right to cut him out of my life—especially when you chose to bring two monsters into our life in his stead!”

“I did what I thought was best for us,” the woman chokes out. Even though Max can’t see her, her mom reaches her hands up imploringly. “I wanted us to be happy.”

“ No , you did what you thought was best for you ,” Max snarls. “Fuck being happy, you wanted us to be normal .”

Her mother’s face falls. “I tried my best,” she whispers.

Bullshit, Mike kind of wants to say. This is not his fight, however. He watches Max’s grip tighten on Lucas’s hand.

“Please leave,” she says through gritted teeth.

Ms Mayfield blinks away tears. “Max…”

“You can come back tomorrow, but if I see—” She cuts herself off to laugh bitterly. “—if I have to hear you for a second more, I’m going to say a lot of shit I won’t be able to take back.”

There’s a long, extremely tense silence. Mike chews on his lip and exchanges a look with Lucas. Lucas shrugs helplessly and keeps his mouth shut.

“…Alright,” her mom says. “I’ll come by tomorrow. I love you.”

With some hesitation she steps towards the door, then bows her head and leaves. The door shuts with a quiet click behind her.

Max waits until it has completely shut to reply, quiet. “I love you too.”

The room is silent for a long tense moment. Mike anxiously shifts his feet and, again, debates leaving. Finally, Max is the one to break the quiet again.

“So, did Mike end up having to hear all that, or did he escape the confrontation?”

“I’m here, jerk,” he prods, too gentle to come across as mean. “What do you mean, escape?”

“You can’t handle any drama that you can’t help with—makes you twitchy.”

Mike opens his mouth to argue, shuts it, opens it again, and finally says, indignant, “Rude, and untrue !” He turns to El and Lucas for support, but they both avoid his eyes, smiling in amusement. “Attacked on all sides.”

This, at least, at last , breaks the somber mood. The other three proceed to gang up in teasing Mike. Mike pretends to be offended, but, really, he’s glad to see Max laughing. To see El and Lucas smiling.

Eventually, after Max has fallen back asleep, both hands occupied by Lucas and El, Mike steps towards the door. “I’m…I’m gonna go see Will,” he whispers. “Tell him that Max is—” He pauses. “—well, not awake , but um. Out of her coma.”

Lucas gives him a soft grin. “Thank you for being here, Mike.”

Mike gives him a wobbly smile. “‘Course.”

#i'm literally so anxious about this lmaoo #byler #will byers #mike wheeler #stranger things #vee attempts to write #byler fic #screaming crying throwing up i backdated it to yesterday im so ;-;#edit: put in the whole first chapter since EM is doing freaky things with AI and ao3 so I locked my account to non-ao3 peeps #long post #vee fic

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bmpmp3 · 2 years

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JUST finished heishi’s route in norn9 hold on i wanna talk about whatever i just witnessed (also might have spoilers for kakeru and senri since those are the other two ive finished) (also also spoilers for amnesia memories because i always wanna talk about amnesia memories)

SO LIKE ive been playing norn9 in the slowest way humanly possible (started in 2017 and im three routes down half a decade later LOL not a bad game tho!! the soundtrack is fantastic and the comedy writing is really great even if the plot stuff so far feels a little disjointed, its just a 9 love interest game is a little overwhelming hfjdksjsfkdls) and like i have a tendency to take several month long breaks between routes as well as whatever my brain decides is a natural stopping point and last time i played heishi’s route was like. some time last year. i was unmedicated at the time so i dont remember where exactly but it was like JUST before his first attempt at a confession on the top floor/roof thing of the orb they live on, and like

i think ive mentioned before how while ive heard that Toma’s behaviour is explained in the amnesia fandiscs as his mild possessiveness being amplified by time loop wackiness, i still choose to believe he’s just Like That because i think its hilarious to add just one more strange incongruous thing to a simultaneous grounded and out there game like amnesia (like how mathematicians in this universe seem to wear a lot of belts????????). well ive decided in my head to view heishi’s route as the opposite HJFJDhjlkfdssjflkd

like RIGHT after he got his confession wiped from his memory by nanami to stop ron from shooting him, he got like WACKY like it felt like i was playing a different route with a different guy and i dunno about the fandiscs yet but in game its explained as heishi losing control over the emotions he’s been suppressing because he’s in love and stressed out but I CHOOSE to believe that the mind wipes scrambled his brain because i like. the speculative fiction implications of that JKDLSDJs

girl his bad end. girl oh my god. girl what WAS that like seriously i havent been this caught off guard by otome game love interest since I first started playing them and got Toma’d, like GIRL oh my god

the other bad ends i played werent quite this level like kakeru’s had him getting wacky cause of his mind control earring which was nuts and i loved it but it like. was foreshadowed. and i dont remember senri’s bad ending at all (as forementioned i was unmedicated while finishing it so i dont remember everything orz i do remember natsuhiko being like ‘jesus christ is that a fucking gremlin” every time he saw him tho which was hilarious) but i cant imagine it was that nuts, but girl. oh my god

everyone always talks about ron (haven’t gotten to him yet but like. looking at him in other routes i can guess how he’s gonna be. which is kind of a shame and why i dont really care for the yandere routes being obvious LOL like okay the sketchy amoral guy is sketchy and amoral. who coulda guess. im being mean sorry i think i just love wild shit happening in otome games, i just think itd be really funny if instead of being fucked up, after all his behaviour in other routes, ron was just like a normal dude in his own. keep my on my toes otome games) but i hadnt heard a LICK about heishi. actually maybe thats why it worked so well... i was so prepared for whatever’s gonna go on with ron that i let my guard down with heishi fsjkldkfjsd

gonna be like 28-53 business days until i play another route but im gonna do akito next, hope he’s normal, koharu had a reasonable time with kakeru and a great time with senri yet nanami can’t seem to catch a break orz praying for her

#i originally set a rule for myself not to start any more otome games until i finish this one #i have a habit of setting that rule with lots of video game genres and mediums #but i think im starting to embrace that maybe i dont work that way. maybe i need to switch things up often #like im 3/4s of the way through 12 jrpgs rn and maybe thats just the way i thrive #so im gonna let myself take breaks as i need them (especially with denser games lkie norn9...9 entire dudes to keep track of)#what otome game should i play in between. maybe something shorter. maybe i'll catch up on the ikesen routes or play a voltage story #i love starting video games and not finishing them for a decade

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actualbird · 3 years

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(post here)

not adding this to the post itself bc i am beyond terrified of adding commentary and i go off into another direction HAHA but yeah. yeah.

when you're some kind of creator or artist who draws upon real life or memory as inspiration, this state of being is a blessing and a curse. i write fiction and nonfiction, and a lot of what i write is derivative from my own experiences, so im extra aware of what is happening to me at all times, just in case i can use it later for art. which is fine for me normally tbh, like it makes me be more aware of all my experiences, makes me appreciate every day and what it brings. i personally dont mind the constant voyeur that is myself in my mind making me keep track of every experience with a notepad and pen.

but it gets Not Fine when like. the dynamic shifts from "this is my life as it is, it can be used for art perhaps" to "my life Must Be Art, Must Be Mine-able For Future Content, Must Be A Good Story, or else how will a create worthwhile things in the future?"

THAT is INCREDIBLY FUCKY TO THE BRAIN and i rate it 0/10 stars and i hope nobody ever ever ever experiences it. if you do, god, im so sorry, and i havent figured out a way to fix mine yet orz.

it's a bad time because life.....isnt designed to be a good narrative. life in it's original form is Just Like That, it doesnt follow the rules of art or literature, and trying to mold your life into those rules will cause a Lot of bad feelings. as an example, when i relapsed into Bad Mental Illness time, a few months ago, all i could think about was how sucky this was for my one essay where i talked about my mental recovery, how shitty of a narrative that is to finally reach the top, the ending of the story, and then start from the bottom again. "it's not a good story" morphs into "im not living life correctly" and ehhhhh you can see how damaging that kind of mindset is....

somebodys always watching, in your head. it's you. and based on how you live your life, that watcher-who-is-you will either be more present or less present. i dont think theres a way to "turn off" this part of the brain that wants to watch and pick your life for things to turn into art, but hopefully staying grounded in the fact that life is just Life can help keep watcher-who-is-you from staying as just that. a watcher. not the one trying to call the shots

i havent had breakfast yet, so this all probably reads like mumbo jumbo!!!

#dootdootdoot #okay im gonna have some eggs now

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demonslayedher · 3 years

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Any Kny character you've grown to love/appreciate more??

Thanks for waiting, Anon, I have been trying to really, really hard to narrow this down, but the answer remains: the vast majority of the cast. The only character I loved right away was Tanjiro and that love kept me watching, as with almost every new character I was like, "ugh, I hate this guy. Here I was, having fun being emotionally invested in a high quality anime, and this might ruin it for me." But then the instant I see a different side of their character, I'm like, "...Oh." To go into some examples...

Zenitsu: I could not stand him right away, I hate womanizers, and his conniptions would go on so long that they held up the story. But Gotouge/Ufotable strung me along perfectly, the first glimpse of Thunder Breath made me immediately pay attention and think, "oh, that was cool. I want to see more of that." Seeing him protect the box pretty firmly put him in the "I need to protect this child" box in my heart. And then the spider demon happens, and I'm sending desperate reaction messages to a friend like "NOOOOOO!!!! BABBBBBBBBBYYYYYYYY!!!!" And then he annoyed me all over again at the start of Functional Recovery, ahaha. It's hard to remember how annoyed I was because I'm such a Zen Stan now, and he was a very firm favorite of mine by the time I finished binging the anime up to the last couple episodes, which I waited for as they came out. Inosuke: He was one of the reasons I was curious about the series, I saw some promotional art and was super curious about Nezuko's muzzle (I was one of the people who thought it was some ancient scroll or something, haha) and the kid with the boar mask. The art I saw showed his face, and I assumed he'd be some kid with a cracking voice performed by a female seiyuu. As much as I love Matsuoka's performance now, initially, since I knew what his face looked like, I found it grossly off-putting the moment I heard it. Then every chaotic thing Inosuke did dug a deeper hole; I very quickly decided I hated him, especially when he started beating up on the kid I was starting to like. As his chaos subsided he just became a character I tolerated, and then this happened:

Images you can hear, am I right? This immediately flipped the "BABY" switch in my heart. It was also a lot of fun to understand the Inosuke memes I was seeing everywhere. So by the end of the anime, I loved, loved, loved, loved the Tanjiro/Zenitsu/Inosuke interactions and desperately wanted more (still didn't like how Zenitsu bothered Nezuko, though). I was so impatient for more, but the manga art looked disappointingly off-putting. I figured the anime was successful enough that there'd eventually be more of it, and I wanted to be patient, but then I poked around, read some spoilers, got back into Tumblr to look at fanart and memes, saw a spoiler image of Tanjiro affected by Muzan's poison and the binge-read began. (That's kind of a lie, but I'll get to that.) Let's back up a few episodes. There I was, having a great time, the guy who I forgot about from Episode 1 was back and haha, I guess everyone hates him, and the chick who I figured was going to be a medic who saves Zenitsu in the nick of time turned out to be savage, awesome. I was sending reactions to my friends who were ahead of me, and then we left off seeing the Pillars staring down Best Boy. And I...

Well. Uh. Here, I've dug up an old convo for you, my comments are in blue.

Immediately followed by a passionate vocal rant, which I have transcribed here:

“I feel like what happened was that the mangaka was sitting around with his assistants and was like, ‘welp, gotta make this whole cast of characters, they gotta be so-o-o-o many more levels of extreme than all the other characters I’ve had so far, which isn’t hard, because all of the background characters are cannon fodder and I’ve just gotta leave them all with black hair and no personality traits. So! Gotta go to the opposite of the spectrum with the BIG! POWERFUL! People so no-o-o-body can be normal.’ And so he and his assistants sat down, and they all wrote down just random words or traits, and them put ‘em all in a hat. And then for each character, they pulled out a few of them and said, ‘OK. We’re gonna put these things together, now we have a character.’ And he was probably also like, ‘Iiiiiiiiiiiii’ll flesh them out later. For now, they just need t’… be there, and make an impact. How do we make an impact? By making sure it’s super, super clear what their character traits are. Here, we’ll have this guy repeat the word //HADE//…. ////HA DEEE//// over and over and over… to show that he’s a /showy/ person. Because he /cares/ about that. And he //should// care because that is his character and that’s why he’s powerful.’ OH MY GOSH, it’s so dumb.”

......orz I feel like Genya looking back at how he acted at the end of the Final Selection. I'm sorry, Gotouge, I had not even encountered your love for these characters yet in your little alligator form. Nor had I encountered the yet unseen-sides of these traumatized dragons and tigers. ...*coughs* Um. So. I was pretty harsh.

So this was my mindset, I went into the manga not caring about most of these characters and just wanting more Kamaboko squad interactions and wanting to hurry up and catch up to the battle with Muzan. And it's worth stating that I didn't mean to read it at first. I encountered a few spoilers, and just wanted to look for the context surrounding those parts, and then hunt for the (non-existent) build-up to those parts, and so... uh.........

I read a lot of the manga out of order, and yeah, that did affect how much I cared about what was going on. I didn't actually properly process a lot of it until later re-reads. But to try to state some things simply about each Pillar:

Giyuu: He was just 'ok' to me for a long time, I could see the appeal for why people I knew were fangirling over him but he didn't do it for me. His soft spot for Tanjiro was indeed endearing, though, and I firmly liked him by the time chapter 200 came out and I was properly heartbroken on his behalf.

Shinobu: She was intriguing, and then I liked her as soon as I saw her savage side, she was one of the characters I went hunting for spoilers for.

Rengoku: That stare really put me off at first, but I fell for him over the process of Tanjiro falling for him. When I first finished the train arc I sat back and said, "wow! That's going to make for a good movie!" and then in psyching myself out for the movie several months in advance, I fell hook, line, and sinker and was totally excited for him each time I saw the trailers. And then the movie was *stunning* and I love him even more. Uzui: He was the Pillar I hated most upon first meeting them. I blame the repeated use of his catchphrase. But then when he let his hair down to sell the kiddos the change in design helped warm me up more to him, like, "oh, there was a human in there." It took a long time for him to become more interesting to me, and an uncharacteristically subtle journey to becoming a character I liked. I am currently getting more and more psyched out for him and eager to see how much more I'm going to like him with the shiny Ufotable treatment. Mitsuri: At first I didn't remember her name, I had code-named her as "Boobs." But I kinda had a feeling she was going to grow on me quickly, and I was right, she's one of my easy favorites now. Muichiro: Who? Oh yeah, that kid who always kinda fell to the wayside in my attention. I'd see a lot of Muichiro-themed blogs and hear a lot of little girls looking at merch and showing a clear favoritism of him, and I'd like always react like Muichiro and just be like, "...", and then when I read his major battles I was more emotionally invested in things going on concurrently with other characters, and I was still like, "...", and then two days ago I revisited a Muichiro scene and was suddenly like, "......OH!!! MUICHIRO!!!!!" Himejima: I never really hated Himejima, even if I found his first impression kind of wimpy (haha... oh, I was so wrong). I had a pretty easy acceptance of him too, so I would generally count him among characters I like, but if you were to ask me why, I'd draw a blank. It's kind of a weirdly mature, subdued appreciation for him rather than passionate fangirling. But weirdly when I was daydreaming the other day I found myself thinking, "if I had to marry someone in the KnY cast, it would be Himejima." So like, not a fiery romance, but I see him as my dependable, sturdy rock to grow old with??? What is up with you, sub-conscious?? Iguro: My interest in him rises and falls. Being a Mitsuri fan helped warm me up to his character in the first place, which was the emotional tie I needed since his backstory didn't grip me much (I found it a frustrating distraction while I was desperately reading weekly updates). Reading more subtle details about his character in the fanbooks has brought me around and made me more curious about him, like I'd really like to be a fly on the wall for the conversation he had with Uzui one day about their pasts.

Sanemi: Hahaha, wow. He was so unlikable in the beginning, wasn't he? His character design (yeah, the eyes) was really off-putting too. But then I got to know him and there was no going back, I got totally played. He's a character I'm pretty fond of now and one of the characters I've enjoyed delving into most in fanfic. To keep this answer from getting too long, for the vaaaaaast majority of the cast, I was initially like, "meh" or "OK" or "ew" but now am like, "EEEEEEEEE, I LOVE THIS TOTALLY RANDOM UNIMPORTANT SIDE CHARACTERRRRRRR" so you know... times change. And the more time I spend obsessed with Kimetsu no Yaiba, the more I like them all, so even the characters I'm lukewarm on will probably have their eventual days when they take over my heart and smash it.

#what do I even tag this?#it's not meta or nerdery #it's just me being a fangirl #Kimetsu no Yaiba #Demon Slayer

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franeridart · 4 years

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Anon said: Opinions on Ochamina?

Cute soft and pink! Would be my main ship for those two if I didn’t ship seromina and ochadeku as hard as I do

Anon said: Hi there i was just wondering if its okay to ask you some questions about your art tools i work on paper a lot but i want to switch to digital art and want to know what to buy to get started you know?? if its not okay to ask thats fine, have a nice day!

I use Easy Pain Tool SAI and a wacom tablet so old I’m pretty sure they don’t even make them anymore haha if you’re just starting then anything is fine, really! The first thing you’ll need to do will be to get used to the feel of it, you won’t need anything fancy for that imho

Anon said: Yet again, I’m sleepy and feeling sappy so I luv youwu~

Awwww thank you so much!!! <3<3

Anon said: well guess who now has A LOT OF FEELINGS about Seromina after your reply? This anon. Holy, now I need like all the content about them. *goes of in search* Thank you for sharing your headcanon because it made me feel a lot of fluffy feelings!! Which yay!! I need more fluffly feelings in my life!! Also love love love your art. All of it original content and everything else (with a very soft sport for kiribaku and the bakusquad)

Ah heck thank you!!! And I’m very very glad to see I could make you see why I like them!!! :D

Anon said: how do you draw hair? i keep trying digitally, but it just seems so difficult! i tend to have so much trouble because i keep comparing myself to artists like you and the way you draw/shade/highlight hair is such a mystery to me!

Hmmmmm this is a hard question because I honestly mostly just go by gut feeling - I try to keep in mind gravity when it’s applicable (aka when it’s not gravity-defying hairstyles like kiri and baku’s)? But that’s the most conscious thought I put in it by this point. This might be an annoying advice to get but as always my only proper one is to look at real life people and study the way hair naturally falls on them, studying from real life is always the fastest way to learn how to draw something as far as my experience goes... and this one is gonna be hard but try not to compare yourself too much to others? Doing things your own way at your own pace will make the learning process a lot more fun!

Anon said: opinon on the lack of kiribaku interactions in the show recently? they have been interacting less and less since the provisional exam arc :( and even lesser in the manga. i miss my bois but bless you for the content omg😭💞

The truth is that they haven’t been the protagonists of an arc at the same time for so long that they’ve had little to no reason to interact with each other, and also that when Hori has characters interacting with them in the background it’s usually to have them reprimend them or tell them to shut up and at first they covered that role for each other but now they’re such good friends that all their interactions end up being them being nice to each other and Horikoshi needs his silly sketches thrown in the background at any possible moment so now Kaminari is the one you’ll see interacting with them the most, because he’s silly and doesn’t mind being a dick to either of them whenever given the chance. Or at least that’s the conclusion I came to after rereading the manga a couple months back. On the bright side they HAVE started interacting more again! We’ve been seeing them often just chilling together in the background, so cute, I love them best friends ;;;

Anon said: User kawaiiastar has reposted some of ur art just wanna let u know :)

Thank you for letting me know, I’ll look into it and see if I can get it removed orz

Anon said: ur drawings are so warm but like?? i just realized how much u talk in the tags and so ive been reading them and they actually add alot to ur art and its entertaining. idk just a little thing :) never stop doing krbk aus if you enjoy them!! would love to see stucky and soul eater if you can !! and i hear u about the reposters. they are all over instagram and its honestly quite upsetting. ive heard of artists that left the fandom because of it which is unfortunate. hope you are having a great day!

Hahaha I’m glad you like my talking too much in the tags since sometimes I just can’t avoid it lmao I have many things to say about my stuff most time than not..... anyway, I hope you’ll have a wonderful day too!

Anon said: i fight instagramers every day for you 💞

Thank you ;;;;;;;;

Anon said: I love you so please stay safe!!

Thank you!!! I hope you’ll stay safe too, anon!!!

Anon said: During quarantine all I have to look forward to is your posts, it’s always great to check tumblr for the 14th time and see a new post by you.

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; heck, I’m so glad I can make this tiring time a little more pleasant to you, anon!! <3

Anon said: I have class (online) at 8am and it’s currently 3:42am yet I couldn’t stop scrolling on your page!!! I’ve been going through the tags for like 30 minutes omg. I came to look at your seromina stuff and now I’m looking at EVERYTHING. I’ve been following you for so long and I love your art so much I’m screaming! I’m literally accidentally unliking then liking everything again cuz I’ve seen it all and keep forgetting I already liked it! Your account is like food for my soul ily!!!!! Thank you sm!!!

Ahhhhh anon thank you so so much!!!! You’re so kind I’m gonna tear up TTATT please do try to sleep next time you have to wake up early!!

Anon said: I read a headcanon saying Bakugo smoked. That would never happen because Kirishima would kill him.

To be fair that would never happen because he straight up said so in the first chapter of the manga lmao but I’m of the opinion that if people want to ignore canon in their headcanons to have fun they have all the power to do so!

Anon said: Idk if you’ve been asked this before, but how do you feel about Momo x Jirou? :D and I love your art!

One of my top Jirou ships! I’ve drawn stuff for them in the past actually, they’re in my momojirou tag!

Anon said: I love you way more than it’s healthy.

Thank you ;;;;;;;;; I love you a whole damn lot too, anon <3<3

#fran answers #some!!!! replies to questions i'd left to pile up in my inbox #now slep

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coollyinterferes · 4 years

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SPEED: One of the first things you need to know if you’re interacting with me or plan to do so is that I’m slow, and I really mean slow, with any and all of my replies. It can take from minutes/hours to days, weeks, sometimes even a month or so. It always depends on a variety of things, and how real life is going at the moment, as I tend to get busy at times, and also my mental health is not always at it’s best (as you know, I tend to go through episodes of anxiety and/or depression p often, and that usually ends up affecting my activity here) and I also happen to get distracted a lot sometimes. Add the issue I’ve been dealing with this past month with my laptop on top of all that, too orz

REPLIES: I tend to miss some sometimes when tumblr’s notifs fail and I don’t have them on my tracker yet, or when the tracker is not working properly (like it was some time ago). I try to get to them as soon as I can when I see them. There are times some threads pique my muse’s interest more than others and, as such, he will bug me and make sure we get to those asap. As stated in the rules, it’s nothing personal, just a matter of the muse currently being more invested into those threads/replies. In regards of content: I always try to make sure I’m giving my partners something they can work with for their reply and to keep the ball rolling and the interest on the thread alive. However, I can’t do this alone, and I expect my partners to do their part on this. Being forced to carry all the weight of a thread sucks all the fun out of it, so if you ever feel like I’m failing to do my part on this, please, please! let me know so I can fix that as soon as I can!

STARTERS: I’m not great at them, which is why I tend to go with small ic posts every now and then that serve as “open starters” of sorts. This does not mean that I won’t write you a starter if you’d like one from me, though! All you need to do is let me know you want one or, alternatively, write me one and tag me in it if that feels best for you. We can always plot something for it. It doesn’t have to be super in-depth. We can just set the outlines and go from there, if that’s best (I’d actually appreciate some input if you happen to have a muse from a different jojo part/fandom, or an OC, this to make something we’re both equally comfortable with).

INBOX: My ask box is open all the time. Anon is on, too. Anything and everything is welcome, save for anon hate and stuff of the likes of it that no one wants to see (and as long as its within the rules, of course). If you ever want to send your muse over here, you can do it anytime! Same if you ever have any questions, if there's anything you want to know about my muse, anything you'd like to ask him about other muses, about his relationships with them and so on. Crack-ish, serious, angsty, etc. The possibilities are endless. And, as stated before, anon is on, so if that's best for you, you can always go with that! I'm a bit slow replying to asks sometimes, but I try to get to everything as soon as I can. I rarely ever delete asks so, if I haven’t replied to yours one way or another, then it most likely means that either tungle ate it, or it failed to notify me about it orz

SELECTIVITY: I'm pretty flexible on this and I'm open to interactions with pretty much anyone and everyone regardless of their writing/rp style and so on. I don't always follow everyone back, mainly cause I try to keep a somewhat uncluttered dash. As stated in the rules, I usually don't follow back personal/non-rp accounts or accounts that post a lot of personal/non-rp posts (I sometimes follow some of these personals/non-rp accounts from my personal, though), blogs that don't trim their threads (2 or 3 blockquotes are fine, but more than that not so much) and etc. However, none of this will affect any possible interactions as I'm always open for interactions with mutuals AND non-mutuals.

WISHLIST: There are a few things I've always wanted to try my hand at rp-wise. I've always wanted to explore more of Robert's past, from his childhood to his days as a gangleader. This can be done in different ways, especially if we happen to go with something more "EoH-like" or set in different verses, or even AUs, or with muses that may have known him around that time and etc. Speaking of AUs, I’d also like to explore some of my AUs (the vampire AU, mainly). Another thing in my wishlist that probably comes as no surprise at all would be the chance to roleplay some jonawagon and/or some jonaeri+jonawagon. Like, yeah, it's true that Robert truly fell head over heels for that big bara guy the moment he kicked his face, but I'd really like to explore their relationship as a whole, to see some of the development they had in canon through all those months of peace that came after that horrid battle in Windknight’s Lot, to see them captivating each other and realize that "shit, this is not just some childish infatuation like i thought it was", that it's the real deal, something much deeper than anyone would’ve expected, to see them come to terms with this “obscene” relationship, to see them deal with and overcome the obstacles and issues that being gay in Victorian England carried, and see them go from friends to something else. To see them get intimate, but not only in a sexual/sensual way, but also like sharing all sorts of intimate moments together, opening themselves to each other. To explore all the good but also all the not-so-good in their relationship, to explore all those sad and bitter moments they spent together, healing together, trying to overcome their traumas together, from those they acquired together since that day the stone mask changed their lives to all the heavy baggage they have both been dragging along since their childhoods, and so on. All those aspects that aren't always explored or even talked about when it comes to the ship as a whole and see them have the long happy lives and the happy ending they deserved either as a couple or as a polycule (in the case of jonaeri+jonawagon). In regards of relationships (and this includes romantic relationships with other characters/muses), I'd like to continue seeing Robert develop relationships and forming bonds of all kinds with other muses as well, especially with muses from part 1, since I've rarely ever had the chance to interact with many since I made this blog about 3 years ago. Some romance is always appreciated since Robert is a bit too much of a romantic fool when he's in lerv, but I'm always open to all sorts of bonds and relationships -platonic, romantic, familial, hateships, etc-.

HONEST NOTE: I'm shy and a lot of times I find it a bit hard to socialize or i plain out don't know what to say (and language barriers sometimes get in the way, too), but I always try my best to keep a conversation going if I feel the other person is interested in it as well -else I’ll feel like I’m boring them to death and won’t say much more :’D-. It might take me a while to figure out what to say and build up the courage to talk to you first, but please never hesitate to reach out to me if you ever want to talk, even if it's just about our muses or about any plot ideas, headcanons, to share some plot bunnies and so on. Same if you ever want to send your muse our way! It doesn’t matter if we haven’t interacted before. Just like with every other reply from me tho, I tend to be slow (and forgetful, too), but I try to get to everything as soon as I can. That said, please never worry about taking your time to write a reply for me, be it ic or ooc. I understand and would never get mad at you for it.

tagged by: speeb sees, speeb steals >:jc ( stolen from @shabcn and @jojoingjoseph ) tagging: I’ve seen this on the dash a few times today, so idk who’s done it already and who hasn’t so, if you see this and want to give it a shot, consider yourself tagged!

#;psa #(?#[might rb later since some bits here i think are important to be kept in mind and stuff]#[but it's late and the dash seems a bit dead atm]#[and idk how many will see it ddfgfhgjh]#[for now i'll see if i can coax robbo to do some replies]#[won't promise much tho]

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venus-says · 5 years

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Kamen Rider Movie Wars #1-#6

So... what is all this stuff?

When I decided on starting my Kamen Rider watch I was determined to watch as much as I could, everything seemed okay but there was always a huge problem: the movies.

I didn't know where to look at for information so most of my research was done in the Wikia and if you visit the Kamen Rider Wikia you'll see that the way they list the movies IS CONFUSING AS HELL so I set my mind in watching only the stand-alone movies and any extra released after the show ended that wasn't part of any crossover project.

I decided to do this way to try to avoid spoilers of the previous series that I haven't watched, not necessarily because I didn't want to know what exactly happened in those series, but because I didn't want to have a certain impression of a Rider before I could watch their own show and don't be so judgemental about it before actually knowing that character and the set of extras that'll orbit around it.

But then we cut to 4 months later and I'm watching a video on youtube about W and they comment about how in the crossover movie they explain the events of Beginning Night and I go "shit, these movies DO have necessary information, I think I'll need to watch them orz", so here I am.

Before I go talking about these movies let me just say I think they're all pretty stupid. Like, even calling them movies is a low move, they're extended episodes of each series that converge on an awful CGI battle scene at the end, it's not a lot of fun considering the thing that sells the movie usually don't last longer than 30 minutes. I think the thing that just really pisses me off is how they aren't very considerate of people who didn't watch these movies and they'll usually bring up in the show events that only happened in the movie to the show itself, don't explain them, and expect that the audience will already know what the things they're referencing means. I know it seems like a dumb complain since I'm watching these seasons after they aired so I can watch the movies in the proper time if I want to, the thing is I shouldn't need to watch a movie to understand a thing that happened in the show, the movies should be extra material. And I'm not saying these movies shouldn't be canon, but they shouldn't be integrated with the main continuity in a way that would exclude people who didn't get the opportunity to watch said movies to understand them.

But that's enough for my rant let's get to these movies.

Movie War 2010

So, for the original Movie Wars, I watched only the W's portion, I didn't watch either the Decade part or the conclusion because of the reasons I mentioned up there.

This movie was more or less just a huge flashback, this is also the movie that pisses me off the most because it introduced Skull and the Lost Driver that are things that would become key elements not just for the show but also for their movie and well I already made a huge paragraph about this issue so I won't repeat myself.

I honestly don't remember much about it, but as many problems as I have with this whole set up, I enjoyed this movie. Huge part of it was because Skull was there and he's cool as heck, I'll admit, but I had fun. Though nothing will change my mind that this should've happened in the show not isolated in a movie.

Movie War Core

The next one in line is Movie War Core, I had more fun with this one but this was still pretty bad.

W's portion of it was pretty decent, seeing more of Skull was great, and it was also nice seeing what would lead up to the events in the Accel movie. My biggest problem here is that Akiko never seemed so against the Kamen Rider before so it seemed a little off that she would freak out like that only now, but oh well, it was still nice seeing Skull, I wish we had a movie exclusive to him he's so cool he deserves it (I know it's probably late for me to ask for this, just let me leave XD).

Sadly from that moment on the movie got really boring. I wasn't interested in the attempt of reviving Nobunaga plot, I feel like things were happening way too fast in that, and also Kamen Rider Core was just awful as a final villain, I hated that.

Movie War Megamax

The Fourze x OOO movie is probably my least favorite of the bunch. I really didn't buy that thing of a Kamen Rider from the future coming out of a black hole after meteors were falling, the implication that the medals weren't destroyed in OOO's final battle kinda weakens the ending of the series and the fact they didn't explain Ankh being back just shows how this plot wasn't very well thought. Also, the Kamen Rider from the future coming back at the end just to give OOO the Super TaToBa medals was very dumb, that form also doesn't look good either.

And the Fourze portion was awful because they decide to "give" Gentarou a "girlfriend" and that was just the most stupid plot EVER. They gave the girl a rider form but even that they screwed up, it still baffles me they made the girl attack with her butt. I know this is a show that has primarily boys in mind but you don't have to make every female character like that, especially in a live-action where real people have to act that with their bodies.

Gosh, I hate this movie so much.

Movie War Ultimatum

The next movie wasn't as bad, it was just way longer than it should've been. I watched the director's cut and that is almost two hours, that's absurdly long for a movie where not a whole lot happens. This movie was also pretty weird to watch because they did a whole bunch of homages to older tokusatsu, and while having those didn't make the movie any less good or bad it was still off, you could tell those weren't creatures that originated in this world/franchise. I also wasn't really here for this time travel concept, especially in here it was done in a very messy way, it wasn't cute.

But you know, for the part while I was still paying attention I enjoyed it. The Fourze cast is way more bearable when they're not stupid teenagers, seeing them as adults was quite fun, I like how it started like an actual action movie with Ryusei and that girl from the Fourze movie doing some spy work, and I also like to see that he and the goth girl still have their thing. Gentarou as a teacher looked like a mess, but I like that they put him to be a teacher, it makes a good amount of sense for his character. The students were also a bit interesting so watching Fourze was actually fun for me for the first time! But once again Fourze was there being nasty and doing a whole bunch of close-ups in the girls' tights during the fighting while one of those two was supposed to be a teenager in school and that's just gross. Nadeshiko also comes back for this afterward and ew the butt attacks came back, she even jumped at a monster once where it looked like she was reverse cowgirling him and that was very uncomfortable to watch.

The Wizard portion was quite decent as well, I like the concept of the "farm of monsters", I wish they had used more of these smart ideas in the actual show, Poitrine was fun and I like the reveal that in the end, she was actually the Donut Shop keeper, but I think this portion was longer than it needed to be, especially considering they don't do much. But I guess this is the best way to describe this movie. The joint part was pretty bland, but I like that they had a good amount of out of suit fighting, that kept my attention for a while.

Fateful Sengoku Movie Battle

This was an odd one, kinda like Core this one had a decent first portion and a meh one for the current season but overall it was still pretty bland. It was good seeing an actual epilogue for Wizard, I wanna complain about jetpacking in this plot because Haruto was in Brazil for some reason and then in the next scene he was in Japan again, but he has a teleport spell so I can't call them out. But it sure was funny to see they randomly put a Rider on Brazil for the second time in this movie series. The thing of using a 3D pen to make another Koyomi and make her the villain was a fun twist, but I feel like it wasn't used at its fullest.

The Gaim portion was just awful, I didn't care for this parallel world where they revived a Sengoku battle, I feel like this is one of the things that works better with people who actually have knowledge of Japanese History, but I believe that even if you have knowledge this would still such because we're in those Gaim early days where the characters aren't very likable yet so it's really not enjoyable to watch.

This movie also introduced crossover power-ups and Holy Jesus, this is probably one of the worst ideas this franchise has ever made because none of them look good. And speaking of things that don't look good, they ruined a very good design Bujin Gaim had going on for it in order to make him this weird CGI flower thing that doesn't look good, neither intimidating, it was just awful.

Movie War Full Throttle

Last in the list is the Gaim x Drive movie and while this isn't the movie I disliked the most, this is the movie I less cared about, this is the movie I less remember about, which is weird because I watched it twice. I think my problem comes from the villains for this movie, I didn't buy the idea of this apparently alien race defeating an actual space god and capturing another one, I also didn't care for their designs they were pretty bland. But this movie gave Gaim an actual closure so I guess it wasn't so bad. The Drive portion was weird because it seemed very disconnected from the plot. I like this story and I like Lupin's design, but this should've been, if not an actual episode, a TV special, especially considering they give Krim's backstory about how he ended up being in the belt and nothing can change my mind that this should've been explained in the actual show.

Ironically enough, the part of the movie I remember the most is when Gaim and Drive use each other's powers and they get in those awful crossover forms. Again, this idea was a mistake, Drive's hat looks like a fucking trash can lid, it's awful.

Just like these movies. I had fun at moments, but I'm not gonna lie, I wish I could have those hours back, these movies aren't good, they completely drained my energy. I think I'm gonna wrap up for now, what are your thoughts on the movie wars, let me know in the comments. I'm gonna try to be happy again now. I'll see you guys tomorrow for the second Drive review.

#Kamen Rider W #Kamen Rider OOO #Kamen Rider Fourze #Kamen Rider Wizard #Kamen Rider Gaim #Kamen Rider Drive #kamen rider

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kitsunebishake · 5 years

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Why Hríd is such an amazing character who just got done wrong during his “character arc” (SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE BOOK II AND FORGING BONDS)

WARMING: THIS IS JUST ONE LONG ASS LOVEMAIL POST FOR HRÍD

this was originally written as a thread on twitter but i’ll try my best to put it all here because someone asked for it some time ago

I’m putting it here because @chascah suggested i uploaded it here as well for those people who actually appreciate the icy boy

this is basically an analysis to most if not every quote from hríd, also adding some translations and little details from the japanese quotes (and some lore behind the whole idea of hríd’s new year alt)

let’s start then!

lemme start with the fact that hríd only appeared in 3 out of 13 chapters, yet is the character that caught my interest the most (funny because i already had a crush on alfonse, then i saw hríd and was like "oh, hello there")

hríd arrived like a half-dead yet somehow composed prince who somehow (x2) survived by himself in múspell for weeks (maybe even months, there's no exact timeline but it is canon that alfonse and the others spent some weeks in nifl, it probably also took them a while to navigate through múspell until loki arrived as ylgr)

he served as some kind of excuse to not put bruno too much with the main characters, practically a messenger only despite this guy being alive with burns and a broken sword (the crack on gjöll's blade hurts bc he couldve actually lost his sword and ended up defenseless in battle oof)

so, there was no really much use of his character other than being a magical solution for everything

he even helped unmask loki (though they never explain why hríd suspected of ylgr, we only know loki's own take)

btw, can we talk about the fact he probably outsmarted loki while the others weren't yet in múspell? he terrorized surtr's army and even outsmarted laegjarn and laevatein

and since he survived for so long i believe most of his wounds were made by surtr himself

they never really say whether he actually managed to kill surtr or not, but let's say yes just to add up on all of the things hríd does just in the story

at first glance it looks like he's doing nothing, but reading further into it and applying some logic

hríd's... he's pretty impressive for a prince so young

gotta also add how hríd appears less impulsive in japanese than in english

when "alfonse" blames him for being a traitor, hríd gets to the defensive immediately in english

in japanese, he's more in shock, probably because after all he's tried, he's being doubted by his allies (which shows a lot how much he cares about being perceived as perfect, something i'll get on to later if i have enough time)

I added this part in the middle of the whole thing because it was a different thread so excuse the sudden change of topic, kinda. It’s supposed to be from the last conversation in Book 2, where Fjorm tells Hríd she’s going to stay in Askr despite her “condition”.

"I understand your feelings, Sister. By all means, go. I will pray for your safety."

this is one of the quotes i'd like to put in that one hríd character thread i want to make

the feeling behind this quote got completely lost in translation, as there's no way to translate it properly

in japanese, hríd uses a pecular way of speech to refer to his sister here he says "... I get it. If that is what you wish, it's alright to go. I'll pray for your safety." the peculiar part, aside from hríds "..." is where he refers to fjorm, the "you"

hríd normally uses "kimi" to refer to people, which is like a more... gentle? way of speaking? men usually use it towards women bc they want to treat them nicely, and jps in general use it with people they don't know (it's that, or "anata" or "[name]-san")

yet here, hríd decides to use "omae" to refer to fjorm, which is more informal and even rude (specially for someone who normally uses "kimi", it means he wanted to express some kind of anger or frustration about fjorm's decision without saying it directly,,,,,,,,,,,,,which is very japanese to do so,,,,,, *looks into the distant "most japanese people i've known don't directly say 'no' and instead go 'hmmmmmm' '*very indirectly rejects*' and it's probably a fact*)

it feels like instead of being supportive, hríd just understood there was no way of convincing fjorm to stay with them

so he gave up and felt hurt by that

please protect hríd

Back to the rest of the analysis.

now let's talk about forging bonds, in the wiki there's only the opening part transcribed in japanese, the rest is only on english (i curse not having started playing 3 months earlier orz)

the first thing you can notice in the japanese version is how informal hríd is when he's stressed

while he speaks in an usually softer manner, here, he doesn't even greet ylgr and gunnthrá, he goes directly to "gunnthrá... ah, ylgr is here too" (he kinda does the same in the mainstory, where he just says “ah, fjorm, you’re okay... ylgr too :)”)

AND IMMEDIATELY, HIS NEXT TEXT IS HIM CALLING GUNNTHRÁ WITH "OMAE”

ALREADY DEEP INTO THE STRESS OF MÚSPELL INVADING THEM

this shows how easily stressed hríd gets and how much he lets his emotions dirve his attitude and actions (which makes sense with the part where he tells fjorm she should be the one wielding leiptr and not him, he's too emotional despite how much he tries not to be)

in these parts we also see some level of deattachment from gunnthrá, on english he goes "sister..." by the end of the opening conversation

in the jp, however, he stays silent, he doesn't even call her name

idk if it's just me overanalyzing it, but from my experience with animoo and vidya, it feels a little weird that he says nothing there, like he's thinking (this is probably foreshadowing hríd's inner feelings oof)

something that i particularily like about this event is that hríd seems so at ease when he's on the dreams, even in the english translation it seems like that he mentions it might be because he feels at ease with kiran but i feel like it also has to do with the fact they're just a dream, it's not the real world, there's nothing to worry in a world where there's no war

at least, that's the feeling his dialogues give me

the closest thing to that hríd is his lvl40 speech and ny hríd (who's happier)

the only quote where hríd mentions some type of concern for his mother btw

from here on it only gets worse when it comes to hríd, though

he speaks about the invasion and such he talks in a way that implies he's probably taking the role of a commander (same as how it is implied he trains the soldier, or that he trains with them, though since he's been training alone with fjorm for so long, it's most likely the former) aside from that, he's weighting on himself the responsibility of what happens to nifl and what happens to his family

and since he's doing so, here's when it comes the part of hríd not being able to care about himself

this young man is carrying a heavy weight, the hopes and dreams and lives of many innocent and PEACEFUL people who barely even know how to fight, on top of those of his loved ones

it doesn't seem like anyone asked him to, not even his mother or sisters

he just decided it on his own that he needed to be "the perfect prince/king" in order to "protect" them

/even if it costs him his life/

he prepared his sisters for that moment (which, might give an insight that hríd knew more than he says, but let's leave my conspiracy theories aside lol)

and to THAT PART, we can add this from the mainstory

in english, when he's rescued, he thanks them for doing so

but in the jp text he actually apologizes for it

not sure how to exactly translate it, but it's something along the lines of "my apologies...for having to be saved..."

idk you guys, but it sounds like what someone who just failed to commit suicide would say, instead of someone who's grateful to be alive

and it makes sense, with how obsessed hríd seems to be about "dying for his loved ones" despite it not being entirely necessary

i mean, look at that, he survived surtr and was aided by bruno as he escaped (probably? they never say what exactly happened, but since they're looking for hríd and not for bruno, it's most likely that they just found each other by accident)

and yes, even though he seems to calm down with those thoughts during the sequence, it is only a dream and we know he has no recolection of them

he forgets completely about that motivation to keep living, which leads him into further down the path of death (whichinnorsemythologymightbecalledhríd,,,,,,orgjöll,,,ykow?)

im still not done, havent even gotten to his unit quotes lmao

hríd still did his best to survive for as long as he could, but it feels more like his strategic "i'm making time for fjorm and the askrans to make their moves" purely, out of the fact he didn't seem too happy to survive until he saw fjorm and ylgr

hat's all of hríd's quotes from that event, i can finally move on to his unit quotes

let's start with this one, luckily it is practically the same quote in both languages

this immediatelly counters any "hríd is boring" comment

though that is subjective, in my case what drove me even further into loving hríd was how different he was from usual characters related to ice

he might come off as cold sometimes, but it's purely because he's actually really dense/has a really bad sense of humor

in jp he tries to make an ice joke, but says "it's not suitable for him" (which is funny because in english he does have ice puns and i hate it)

1. he doesn't mention his mother 2. hríd blaming himself and being kinda gloomy part 1

"I should have protected my people and sisters, I couldn't play that role... I can never forget that."

this part hurts a lot (it's a little more poetic than the og one, i like it lol)

he could be talking about himself, about his sisters, his people, or all together, since the four of them have expressed desire for peace, and all four ended hurt by such thing

this part is scary, though it's not as much in english

NOT BECAUSE OF THE TRANSLATION, but because of his battle lines in eng (i'll get to that first and then come back to this one)

the most shockingly different skill trigger is the second one

the first one is exactly the same the third one in jp is "this is the last blow" (or smth like that) the fourth one is a little weird to translate (ice upon you works, but "freeze your life" sounds a little scary??)

OKAY BUT THE SECOND ONE ALONG WITH THE VOICE CLIP

IT KINDA SCARES ME A LITTLE FOR MY CUTE SWEET MOCHI BOY

it literally says "no mercy for the enemy"

IT'S LITERALLY SUGAR COATED, hríd went from a gentle giant to a merciless killer (who knows how many muspellians he's killed???) thanks to surtr and his fucking ass

hríd blaming himself and being gloomy part 2

the fact that he has not one, not two, not three, but about 5 to 6 lines that imply he's still dueling over everything that happened during the war is hurtful, he really can't forgive himself for that

he also sounds a little dead to me here (it’s one of the voiced quotes from his status page!)

which brings me back to the initial scary one

hríd is obsessed with earning his peace no matter what

and for that, he wants to get stronger

for that, he's willing to even perish, for everyone's sake

it's so sickening for me since i can kinda relate???? it reminds me a lot of the kind of wording they use for depression-themed japanese works, with the "peace" part and his willingness to just die anytime (which, is actually pretty normal for a warrior outside of FE. outside)

iT MAKES ME FEEL BAD BUT AT THE SAME TIME i kinda like he's written this way

AND EVEN WHEN HE'S LIKE THAT, hríd is still a gentle sweetheart who speaks so kindly you kinda forgets how merciless he is in the battlefield

like, the audio where he holds kiran's hands???? where he speaks about how the order of heroes saved nifl????? EVEN WHEN HE GETS STARTLED

he's always such a gentle and kind person

it makes me hate surtr even more because they didn't deserve this

hríd didn't deserve going through all of this fucking shit HE. DESERVED. HAPPINESS. AND PEACE.

then there's the ny hríd

he's an angel

a happy angel who makes me a little sad bc og hríd is not as happy

From here on everything was written like 2 weeks after the previous stuff :’) i’m sowwy

he's a resolute prince, he has the resolution of saving even at least one person,,,,,instead of being a "king", instead of being a "brother", or a "prince", he just wants to be "a hero",,,

hello, this is my opening statement of why ny hríd makes me cry with just existing

welcome

let us start with something that makes his quotes even better, particularily the previous quote and his lvl40 speech, which is the powerful meaning of this alt itself for a character such as hríd

in japan, new year used to be celebrated not at the end of the year, but at the end of winter, which is where geishun comes into the scheme, as it currently means "new years greetings" but in those old times, it was actually "welcoming spring" (or something along those lines i suck for precise translations)

and that's where our next quote comes into the picture

hríd speaks about nifl's winter, about how it practically symbolizes the nifleans' strength and will power

the alt itself is a more positive hríd, one who's willing to try his hardest for everyone, who doesn't regret his past, but looks into the future and has the purpose of being even better than before

of course, this hríd didn't suffer the same fate as the OG hríd, as he still has all 3 sisters (i want to believe ylgr was with them, just not shown bc of the lack of space for a sixth character) and now also 2 new allies to power their search for peace and strength to defend that peace

so, while our normal hríd is desparate to become stronger and suffers, this hríd is like his pole opposite, it's like the sun and the moon (too bad this hríd has no default special, sol would've fit him so well)

can we talk about how he feels so comfortable wearing the celebratory outfit?

the obi (the.....thing that acts as a belt) should be tied strongly enough so the hakama (the pants) doesnt fall down while he fights, yet he feels comfortable with it

i mean, it isn't as constrictive as a kimono as it doesn't prevent him from moving around freely, but he still shouldn't normally feel as comfortable with it as he is, he's never even worn something like that (it is implied, at least) yet he's loving it, isn't it adorable???

one time i joked about hríd being able to feel when winter is coming or when snow will start falling but

i think this quote pretty much confirmed it (YOU CAN'T SAY IT'S BECAUSE IT'S WARM, IT DOES SNOW IN ASKR WE'VE SEEN IT)

blessed boy munchs a whole fucking piece of mixed flour with FOUR HUNDRED GRAMS OF FUCKING SUGAR

he's got a sweet tooth i know it, i know my people when i see them

it's just that he doesn't seem disgusted, and he also only mentions the mochi so we can assume he didn't drink sake or matcha with it

he ate the fucking thing alone and apparently liked it

we have a sweet angel, guys

i just think this quote is cute, he loves cold just as much as i love him

t HIS IS SUCH AN IMPROVEMENT FROM OUR NORMAL HRÍD HE'S SO POSITIVE AND DETERMINED I LOVE HIM SO MUCH

though in japanese, the last quote is a little more gloomy

im not entirely sure of how to properly translate it *looks at the jisho page of the kanji he cant understand* it's certainly a word

but it could be something like "to be in such a predicament from so early in the year... I'm unable to say it's pathetic..."

i???? imagine he says he "can't say it" because he's trying to be positive?????? or something along those lines, but saying it proves he's taking it way to the extreme

nasakenai can also be shameful or miserable, pitable, disgraceful stuff like that

i'm not sure how to describe this quote?

this time it's the english localisation that kinda throws me off, i don't understand what he's trying to say lmao

in japenese he's saying something about having been graced this early in the new year

7 years speaking english and i still can't break down complex phrases the only reason i've survived this long is through the power of deduction abilities

pray for me

u know hríd's damaged quotes in english are all grunts, right?

in japanese, this hríd has a peculiar quote i find adorable when he gets damaged

he says "as expected from you...!"

hE'S COMPLIMENTING HIS ENEMY, THIS IS THE SAME MAN WHO SAYS NO MERCY AS HE KILLS THE FOE

btw listening to his english quotes is so funny

he sounds so damn cool in japanese and in english he

he sounds like a fucking nerd

I THINK IM TAKING A LIKING TO HIS ENGLISH VOICE ACTING PURELY BECAUSE HE SOUNDS STUPID

compare this (JP) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/1/12/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2_jp.wav

to this (ENG) https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/6/6a/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_SKILL_2.wav

it's the exact same quote by the two different VAs

HE SOUNDS LIKE A NERD IN THE ENGLISH VERSION I CAN'T

back to translations and analysis

i hate this one

his eng quote is more positive while the japanese one is something along the lines of "I was useless... I'm sorry..."

HATE

look, say whatever you want, but hríd is such a sweet man

he cares for people and he tries his best to be the perfect prince everyone thinks he is

AND FOR HIS *MORE POSITIVE VERSION* TO SAY THIS AS HE IS DEFEATED IS JUST

WHAT DID HE DO TO U INTSYS TO MAKE HIM SUFFER THIS MUCH??

despite how "im so useless...!" his japanese version is

he way he says these two quotes sounds way more positive in japanese lmao it's the same translation, only that he's more "I'll repay you!!!!!!" in jp ( https://gamepedia.cursecdn.com/feheroes_gamepedia_en/3/34/VOICE_Hr%C3%ADd_Resolute_Prince_MAP_3_jp.wav )

adorable

can’t use emojis on this pc so i’ll just leave the whole screenshot here

you see this quote here?

this is what it actually says

I DON'T KNOW WHY THEY CHANGED IT BUT I THINK IT'S CUTE BECAUSE I THINK HE DIDN'T JUST SWALLOW THE WHOLE MOCHI

HE ATE IT NORMALLY AND THINKS HE'S GOT SOME ON HIS CLOTHES BC PEOPLE ARE LOOKING AT HIM LGHDSKLGSDFKS

why are u so cute aaaaaaa///////////

this is probably the translation of hríd's quotes i hate the most in english it just...sounds so rude

in japanese it's more like "could you please tell me if i'm wearing these clothes wrong? i'll fix it fast"

he's trying to be respectful to the hoshidans sobs

THESE TWO QUOTES ARE SO DIFFERENT BUT SO EQUALLY ADORABLE AND POWERFUL

THIS 180~195CM OR SO MAN IS THE MOST ADORABLE PERSON IN THIS WHOLE PUTRID PLANET AND IM GOING TO TELL YOU WHY

first, this is my fave quote on english

he sounds so confused as to why people think the hoshidan clothes suit him

HE'S. NOT. AWARE. OF HOW FUCKING GOOD HE LOOKS.

TELL ME THAT'S NOT THE CUTEST SHIT EVER HE JUST DOESN'T GET IT

to make it more adorable, in japanese, the original quote is something like "I wonder what makes a type of clothing 'suit' you..."

HE'S GOING ALL PHYLOSOFICAL ON THAT SHIT probably because people keep telling him he looks good in that kind of clothing

this man's density is so powerful that he can't even begin to understand people find him attractive and that the attire literally makes him go from a 10 to a 1000000000000000000

he doesn't get it and he wants to know if it's really true so he goes out of his way TO ASK KIRAN

i love hríd so much he's so adorabl e

i want to give him a hug

with this i finish my thread for now

for now

hopefully we will get another alt for hríd and i can come back to spam about how adorable his quotes are

please stan hríd he's literally an angel

#analyzing #overanalyzing actually #i read his whole quote set like 30 times for this #it took me a full hour to put this on tumblr from twitter aaaaaaa #I DON'T EVEN HAVE HALF A YEAR IN THIS FANDOM AND SINCE I CAN'T BE UP TO DATE WITH ENSTARS I TOOK IT UPON MYSELF TO ACTUALLY ANALYZE HRÍD AS #A CHARACTER #HE'S AMAZING PLEASE LOVE HIM #HE'S ACTUALLY WELL WRITTE IN CAN'T BELIEVE THIS #could've added facts about his name origin and such as well but #anything to do with his name and gjöll is just theory #pretty sure they sadly just chose a cool name set for the nifleans #hríd #hrid #icy blade #prince of nifl #feh #heroes #fire emblem #fire emblem heroes

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dckxn · 5 years

Text

SO! I saw the sweet @rxincarnatxd‘s follower appreciation post, and I decided that since I had some artwork lying around on my iPad, that I could use it for this 80 90 (!!!) FOLLOWERS APPRECIATION POST! AND OMGOSH LET ME JUST SAY THAT THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE RESPONSE TO AN OC OF MINE! I’ve been roleplaying for a very long time myself across a variety of different places, and Howl’s only been around for a little over A MONTH and there’s already like NINETY OF YOU! I know that I’m not following like each and every one of you (and I’m honestly following a bunch of blogs at the moment!), but I really appreciate you guys none the less. I’m just super happy that you guys like this guy, and man, I’ve just had quite a few OCs, but they never quite stuck. Howl feels very different though, and he’s certainly wormed his way into my little heart and I don’t think he’ll be leaving any time soon. SO THANKS!! I’ve got some special mentions, so here we go as far as that is concerned (BUT I DO WANNA SAY IM SO BAD WITH NAMES IM SO SORRY OTL):

@xmenageriie ARIEEEEEEL! GOSH. WE’VE TALKED ON AND OFF. I’VE LEFT AND I’VE RETURNED AND YOU’VE STILL BEEN AROUND AND IM SO HAPPY AND GLAD FOR THAT. you are such a great person and it’s always so much fun being able to talk to you and even though we haven’t been talking recently, i’m just glad ot be able to see you on my dash as well because you have some great muses and i have a lot of love for sanji and and my zoro and your sanji will always be in my HEART FOREVER. THAT ONE TRUE PAIRING WILL NEVER DIE!!!

@mcnypieces: CAN I JUST SAY I LOVE THE PORTRAYAL OF ALL BUN’S MUSES?! BECAUSE I DO! I DO SO MUCH! We don’t talk too regular, but when I am able to hit them up for a chat, they always seem to response and are pretty much a joy to talk to. they’re so nice and i’m glad to be able to have such conversations and interactions!! IM SUPER EXCITED FOR MORE INTERACTIONS WITH BELLA!! UWU

@shrapnelsong: OH MY GOD NAT! I LOVE ALICE! I LOVE ALICE! She’s such a sweet woman who can also be stern and even scary when she needs to be! She’s got so many verses so there’s a little something for everyone and the roleplayer is always nice when I talk to them! \o/ I can’t wait to see how Alice and Howl evolve from this point on!

@rxincarnatxd: KIKI! DUUUUUUDE. I GOTTA LOT OF LOVE FOR KAGS AND I’VE ALREADY GUSHED OVER HER IN YOUR OWN APPRECIATION POST BUT I LOVE HER. SHE IS SO SWEET AND WARM AND COOL AND HOWL TOTALLY APPRECIATES HAVING HER AROUND. she is good for him. ;w;/ and you!! gaaah your name escapes me OTL but i love you sooo much! it’s so fun talking to you and talking about kags and howl and you got that sideblog that i gotta interact with. im super excited for that. xD

@hxgure: HI. I NOW KNOW AND WILL REMEMBER THAT YOUR NAME IS VEE!! omgosh! orz BUT ANYWAY. I HAVE SO MUCH LOVE FOR YOUR NIC! LIKE! HE IS AMAZING! GOD. HE’S SO GOOD AND HIS INTERACTIONS WITH HOWL ARE GREAT. THEY’RE BOTH DUMB CHILDISH OLD MEN AND I LOVE IT! I CANT WAIT TO SEE WHAT’S IN STORE FOR THEM! BUT ALSOOMGOSH VEE! TYOU ARE SO COOL! it’s always just like, chill? relaxing? to talk to you. it’s good. sometimes i just have something that i wanna say and you don’t mind me dropping off little messages to your IMs and i’m so glad for that because im definitely comfortable with ya. xD

@dracaelum-faerie: ANNA IS LOVE. ANNA IS LIFE! TUBBS IS THE UNIVERSE! TOGETHER THEY ARE FOREVER IN MY HEART! Such a interesting variety of crewmembers, but anna and tubbs claim the top spot for sure! I talk to you on discord from time to time (or in IMs) and it’s always fun! \o/

@pasttorn/akrasva: YOU! I LIKE YOU! Though we haven’t really started anything up yet, i love talking to ya when you have time and just talking and gushing over our muses and how they could potentially interact! it’s always a good time my friend and i am glad to know you.

@frosthub: I really like being able to talk to you and honestly, your muses are so cool! Infe is smooth as heck and he’s also a bit dumb and he’s a joy to talk about and interact with and I just love him!! thank you for writing him. ;w;/

@mondxs: YOU ARE LOVED KATT! It’s never a dull moment when i talk to you and you always seem to have something interesting or new to say. i know we’re not doing anything write now, but that doesn’t even matter. i’d follow you just to keep an eye on your threads and stuff. uwu

@nvrcmplt: I KNOW I ALREADY GUSHED ABOUT YOU TOO IN THAT POST, BUT GOSH YOU ARE SO COOL. LIKE, SERIOUSLY. IT’S LIKE .. IT’S PRETTY CHILL BUT SOMETIMES HYPE BUT IT’S GOOD. it’s fun being able to talk to you tala and i just feel blessed to be able to interact with some of your muses! i cant wait to write more with Liwanu and Motoharu. i love those boys. ;___;/

@slf-sxcrfe: IT’S SO FUN TALKING TO YOU. AND I LOVE RAY. HE’S SO... IDK. HE’S JUST GOSH. I LOVE HIS ATTITUDE?? AND ITS FUNNY WHEN SOME OF THE THINGS HOWL DOES JUST CONFUSES THE HELL OUT OF HIM. I think ray could teach howl a thing or two tbh, so i cant wait to see how they grow together and get more used to each other!!! OwO/

@gengakki: I am so proud of you. Even though things have happened, you still managed to keep your muse for Kank and I really hope and feel that things have gotten better for you and that makes me happy. im glad he’s still going strong. i love your kank and i always will and i will never NOT want to interact with him, so please throw him Howl’s way whenever you damn well want!! O/

@overoaks: HEY YOU! ALL YOUR MUSES CONTAINED INTO ONE BLOG? HELL YEAH! HELL YEAH! HELL YEAAAAAAAH!!!!!! Your Crocodile is Impressive and I LOVE YOUR LUFFY AND JESUS CHRIST PLEASE JUST LET ME LOVE JINJI! gosh ILOVE THAT MAN! HE’S WONDERFUL AND ADORABLE AND I HOPE FOR GOOD THINGS WITH HOWL AND JINJI WHATEVER THEY MAY BE. THEY ARE SO COOL TOGETHER! gosh. UWU/

Special Mentions:

@velvety-love who was the very first person to follow me and even though we only chat a bit from time to time on tumblr, I’m glad to be able to do that when we both have time!

@hailxthexkiiing who i only really talk to from time to time on tumblr, but they’re a very cool person! c:

@despairforme we don’t talk to often at all, but BOY DO I LOVE THEIR NNOITRA!! so good!

@bucketfullofocs at some point, i hope to be able to get around to interacting with your other OCs as well. bucket is super nice and never seems to mind chatting with me which is cool ‘cause i can be a chatter box when i’m comfy with someone!

@trafalxar JUST Thanks for always popping up to say hey! it really makes me happy. i love hearing about what’s currently going on with you and just keep being yourself.

@icycoldavatarstate is a nice roleplayer with a cool muse! she’s a hell of a woman who will continue to grow and mature and i can’t wait to see how she turns out overtime! \ouo/

THIS IS NOT EEVN THE TIP OF THE ICEBURG THOUGH! There are quite a few more of my followers that i appreciate especially if i talk to you on discord and i just want to see that i appreciate you guys as well even though you weren’t mentioned up here! DON’T FEEL BAD AT ALL. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. c:

AND TO ALL MY NEWEST FOLLOWERS THIS PAST WEEK AND LAST WEEK: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR GIVING THIS GUY OF MINE A CHANCE. ouo/

#FOLLOWER APPRECIATION POST #but you got the message now ; /psas&news #it's a little different now ; /long post #I'M ALSO SORRY THIS WAS LONG AS HELL.#I HAD TO READ MORE ouo

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sweetcatmintea · 5 years

Text

A Stranger’s Stress

Flash fiction Friday! :D Remember way back when I said A Stranger’s Kindness was a stand alone? And then went and made a bunch of discount continuations? We’re at it again folks! I hope you enjoy another day with the stranger and the kid (and aren’t getting sick of them yet <u<;;)! Feedback is appreciated ^u^

Thanks again for organising and hosting @cawolters!

Prompt: We Are Not Alone

Words: 1499 orz

Previous parts: 1, 2, 3

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Sometimes you have a bad day. Just a heaping pile of unwanted events. You get up, three new rejection letters. You boil the kettle and the milk’s gone bad even though you know you only bought it last week. Your awful bitter coffee spills down your shirt – your favourite, naturally – after you trip over a toy that you specifically remember having asked the night before that it be put away. There’s a notice that the rates are going up again and now the window’s broken thanks to a bored kid losing control of a ball. Thoughts nag at you that the kid should be in school or something. You know this but you don’t know it it’s safe yet and you haven’t worked out a cover for why you have a kid who, for some reason, has missed a lot of class time. No pressure but if you botch up, it’s yours and the kid’s necks on the chopping block but how are you supposed to be able to work that out and maintain your late grandmother’s cottage and look after Sudden Child and find a job and those rejection letters aren’t going to read themselves and that takes time. You know, just your run of the mill stuff. It might just be me. It seems unlikely that these experiences are universally shared. Although, I am sure that a lot of people have been in a similar situation as me now, kneeling over broken glass, duct taping it out of the carpet. I guess you can say I’ve been a little … tense lately.

The kid’s settled in well. His nightmares haven’t been so bad since we put up those stars. He’s really taken to gardening as well which, I’ll never admit out loud, is somewhat touching. We haven’t heard anything from his folks or the police. It should be singing and smooth sailing, but I feel paranoid. Like disaster is looming over us while we carry on, oblivious. There’s no way it was that easy. It’s in every story. The instant the villains..? heroes..? Characters, breath a sigh of relief, crunch! Beartrap. I’m serious about schooling as well. I’ve got to sort it out, I want to, bit damn if it’s not nauseating to think he might be recognised.

“I’m really sorry.” He’s not as whistley now his front teeth have grown back in. Unfortunate buck teeth until the rest of him catches up. He’s been hovering – figuratively, those wings are still too small to be more than decoration yet – the entire time I’ve been cleaning. Of course I’m not letting a seven year old pick up glass. How stupid do you think I am?

“I know. It’s fine.” I think I’ve got all the pieces. Another tape canvas to be sure.

“I tried to stop it, but it was too fast.” His fingers worry the fraying hem of his shirt. I’ll have to get him new clothes again soon. More money.

“Look kid, accidents happen. It sucks that the window broke, but no one was hurt. That’s what matters. Now you know to be more careful next time. You can help me put the new panes in when I get them. Fair?”

He nods eagerly, brightening despite my frank tone. At least he’s gotten used to that.

I get up, bones creaking in protest. I feel old. Tired. It was lucky I didn’t break my ankle on that damn toy. Kid follows me to the kitchen. Might as well get a start on lunch. Paper catches my eye when I get the bread from the pantry. The calendar month is wrong already. Where has all the time gone?

“Could you fix the calendar?” Probably better to get that sorted before I forget again.

“Yep!” He’s as zealous as ever. Why do kids love doing all those little mundane things? Y’know, pushing crossing buttons, taking tickets from the deli dispenser, pulling sticky note sheets off, that sort of thing. Weird little goblins.

“Guess what!”

“What?”

“It’s my birthday month!” He thrashes his tail, nearly sending the trashcan flying in his excitement.

Already? I don’t let my hands slow. One small act of keeping it together. My mind races on. Stars above. The window wasn’t enough? I have to get him something, obviously, kids deserve birthday presents. And a cake. Would he want a party? How am I supposed to facilitate a party of one?? I’ll run out of money soon. I thought this would be a whole ‘new leaf’ situation. But if I keep getting rejections, I’m going to have to start stealing again. At least it’ll get those guys off my back. What about giving the kid a decent role model? I can’t give him much, but I thought I could do that for him. If I go back to my expertise and get caught, that’s it. All anyone will hear is that some crazed thief kidnapped a little boy. He’ll get shoved straight back into their hands no questions. A pat on the back to his rescuers and I rot. I can’t let that happen. I’m trapped. I’ve never been trapped before. Not like this.

He’s still waiting for a response. The enthusiasm draining from him the longer I delay.

“You… You’re not cancelling my birthday, right? I’m really, reaalllyyy sorry about the window..”

“ENOUGH ABOUT THE DAMN WINDOW!” I regret it immediately. He cowers, stumbling over apologies.

A second to breath.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have yelled at you.” This time, I do stop. Giving him my full attention, crouching to look him in the eye. “I’m not mad about the window. I told you, it’s fine. I was… feeling stressed and snapped. It was wrong for me to take out my feelings on you. Can you forgive me?”

He pauses. This is not something he’s gotten used to. I wonder how many time’s he’s been given an apology. He considers my words, then nods.

“I forgive you.”

“Thank you.” I finish up the sandwiches. “What do you want for your birthday?”

“Um!” Another pause. Faux thought. He already knows what he wants. “Can we go fishing? I’ve always wanted to try!”

“Fishing?” That wasn’t what I expected.

“Yeah! You know, on a boat, catching fish with strings! You’ve got a boat, right?”

“What? Why do you think I have a boat?”

“Well, you do live near the water and, you know, you kinda have lots of things that maybe you shouldn’t have…” Not wanting to commit to the accusation, he trailed off, twiddling his thumbs.

“Do you think I’ve stolen a boat?”

“Mayybee…”

“Do you know how hard that would be? You can’t just decide to acquire a boat for the fun of it. You have to sell those things.”

“Is that a no..?”

I sigh. I don’t fish but it is his birthday. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises but I’ll try.”

“Really!?” Stars, his eyes shone. “Thank you!” He launched a hug at me. Kids.

“Okay. That’s enough. Take your lunch and off with you. Go do whatever it is gremlins do. I’ve got a call to make.”

He gave a final squeeze before running off, giggling. I flip open my phone, plugging in the one person who may be able to help. She answers on the third ring.

“Hey Grace, it’s me.”

Quiet laughter. “I know who you are dummy. Caller ID.”

“Right. Uh, you remember Grandpa’s old boat?”

“The one Gran left me? Yeah. Hard to forget when I can see it now.”

“How would you feel about going fishing with me and someone?”

“You hate fishing.” There’s a note of accusation in her voice. I hope this is the right decision.

“I do. It’s cruel and unnecessary. But that’s a rant for another day. See, there’s this kid…”

“What kid? Why do you know a kid?” She doesn’t leave room for an answer, barrelling on. “Wait! I swear to god, if you tell me you stole a kid –“

“First of all, there are a lot of unfair accusations going around today. Second, I’m deeply offended that you think the only way I’d know a kid is through dishonest means. Third, you’re right, I did.”

“What the actual – actually, never mind. Two minutes then I’m calling the cops.

“The long and short, he’s Tainted and his parents were pretty much torturing him. I’m trying to help him, I swear.”

Grace was silent for a long moment. We’ve had our differences. Bridges a patchwork of scorches and repairs. I don’t know how she will respond but I hope she can at least sympathise. She was always the one to bring home injured animals when we were young. If she wants to cut ties after this, that’s fair. As long as she doesn’t rat me out, it’ll be okay. Finally, she sighs.

“That sounds like the sort of dumb thing you would do. Alright. What can I do to help?”

I guess we aren’t as alone as I thought.

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Tag list

@cawolters, @inkovert, @snobbysnekboi, @kainablue, and @i-rove-rock-n-roll

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Sorry if this one isn’t at my usual quality. My brain’s kinda fried today :T Hopefully things’ll be running smoothly again next week ^u^

#writing #Flash Fiction Friday #fff21 #my story #original story #short story #slice of life #writblr #A Stranger's collection

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