#this is my pirate world and aunt may can do anything she wants in it!!! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

boots-with-the-fur-club · 6 months

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A special birthday crossover written for @daboyau!! It’s another between my Mama Bear AU and their Leave AU where Julia is taking care of the boys. Go wish them a happy birthday!! I owe you a lot bestie, here’s to many more birthdays as friends!!

Mikey’s smile is wide as he twirls around in his costume. He can’t stop looking in the mirror. Julia made the costumes for him and his brothers herself. It encouraged them to think of exactly what they wanted instead of looking at prices or the simplest ideas.

Leo had found a love for pirates after seeing both Jupiter Jim and Lou Jitsu movies about them. Julia may or may not have let slip that a certain skeleton restaurant owner had a past relating to the topic. Now Leo looks just like the single photo Hueso agreed to share about it.

Raph was a little anxious when he came to Julia about his costume. At first, he said he couldn’t think of anything and wanted Julia to choose. She told him he had plenty of time to think. Eventually, he shyly admitted that he wanted to be a bear like her. She knew there was still more, but still made it for him. When she saw the excited, but still somewhat sad look on his face, she encouraged him to tell her what he really wanted.

That’s how he got to be a bear fairy princess.

Donnie was a lot more fickle about the costume. Julia asked about his favorite characters, but each one garnered more frustration from the softshell. She tried to tell him that he didn’t have to dress up at all if that’s what he preferred, that only succeeded in causing him to storm off into his room and slam the door.

It took several hours for him to calm down. He approached Julia while she was in her chair in the living room with tears in his eyes and guilt written all over his face. Donnie apologized and told her he was angry at himself, not at her. He saw a mad scientist in a musical and wanted that to be his costume so badly.

But he couldn’t bring himself to say so.

Those two things were basically ruined for them all. They cause so much trauma, even now. He had felt incredibly bad that he wanted it at all. That he must be a terrible person, just like Draxum.

Julia held him and insisted that liking something that someone bad in your life did does not mean you’re similar to them. It sometimes can be a good sign that they don’t have control over you anymore.

Donnie was still terrified that his brothers would hate him, or worse, be scared of him. Julia promised that with his permission she could talk to them and see how to make it work. He very hesitantly agreed.

Julia went to the others and made a plan. They each helped make different pieces of the costume so they could get used to looking at it and know there was nothing to be scared of.

They all surprised him with it one day and he nearly started crying again. He wore it for hours afterwards.

Mikey chose to be what he’s always wanted to be.

A hero.

His suit mainly has orange and white, but his cape has orange, blue, red, and purple. Now that Draxum…isn’t around anymore….the most important thing in the world is his family and keeping them happy, safe.

Exactly what heroes do!

Julia makes the job a lot easier, but heroes never work alone anyways.

The doorbell rings.

“Boys, our special guest is here!” Julia announces.

The four of them rush to the door with excitement. She had told them that she knew someone who was visiting the human world for the first time and that she had a nephew around their age. They decided to have a join trick or treating excursion.

It would be the first top side Halloween for all of them.

Julia manages to get the door open despite how they crowd around it. The turtles see two rabbit yokai in front of them, an older woman and a boy their age. The boy and Leo look each other up and down immediately before smiling widely and shouting in unison.

“You’re a pirate too!”

Julia and Usagi’s aunt share a chuckle. This wasn’t planned in the slightest but it seemed to make the two boys very happy.

“Your bandana is so cool! And your eyepatch!” Usagi compliments.

“I got them both from a real pirate!” Leo brags.

“Wow, amazing! And you guys look awesome too! My name’s Usagi Yuichi! Oh, but um, I’m from Japan so Yuichi is my first name. You’d still call me Usagi because you only say the first name if we’re friends BUT I think we are friends so….call me either!” He smiles.

Donnie immediately thinks about the fact that he’d never survive anything they’ve been through, especially not a day with Draxum. He also thinks that it’s nice that someone wants to be friends this soon and that his brother is happy.

“Yuichi, I am Donnie. I welcome you to the group. Stay on my designated candy route and I promise our bags will weigh pounds.”

“Aye aye, captain!” He salutes.

Donnie feels a little proud.

“I’m Mikey and this is Raph. It’s nice to meet you!” Mikey beams.

“It’s nice to meet you two too! Your cape’s colors are so nice and Raph, I really like your wings!”

Raph smiles.

“Thank you. Anything that happens out there, you can count on me to protect you.”

“I can do it too! I’ve been practicing with my sword.” Usagi takes out his foam sword and whirls it around.

Leo gets even more excited and takes his out too. They fight together while giggling until one of them gets stabbed and pretends to die a dramatic death. It still is a little uncomfortable to think about death, but the fun washes the feeling away a bit.

Julia and Usagi’s aunt finally get everyone out the door and out to where the other trick or treaters are.

Usagi’s ears twitch excitedly, his foot thumping on the ground as well. The boys are in awe at seeing all the costumes and other kids. They’re not very scared of anything since they’ve seen much worse, but the decorations are still cool.

Donnie leads the way to the specific houses that will get them maximum amounts of candy.

The first house is a bit of a trial run in terms of what to do and say.

“Trick or treat!” Is the phrase they get correct.

“Oh! What wonderful costumes! A turtle, bear, and a fairy princess all in one? So special! Why don’t you all take a full sized bar?” The man offers.

Mikey, Donnie, Leo, and Usagi each take one and say thank you.

“I love you.” Is what Raph says.

Julia covers her mouth to stifle laughter and reminds Raph what the correct phrase is. Raph apologizes but also gets his group another, smaller piece of candy.

From there the fun continues.

Their costumes are a big hit with the rest of the houses on the route. The people compliment the mixing of animal and regular “costumes” made the boys feel better about themselves. Maybe if they saw them like this on a normal day they wouldn’t yell in fear.

Not that they’d want to find out yet.

One yard they visit even has a photo booth. They spend a long time taking some in different, silly poses. There’s two copies of the photos that they split, one for the turtles to share and one for Usagi to take back with him.

The trick or treating continues until everyone begins feeling tired. At that point, Julia invites Usagi’s aunt to come over for her and Usagi to eat. She was going to feed the boys anyways so they wouldn’t be too inclined to fill themselves up in just candy.

Usagi’s aunt accepts and they all go back to Julia’s house.

The turtles show off their rooms to Usagi while Julia and Usagi’s aunt cook together.

Donnie had taken over Luke’s old room with his permission to use whatever was leftover in there. This led to weaponry at first before Julia encouraged him to build more fun things. It took a while to be able to understand that he now actually had a choice in what he invented, but eventually each of his brothers had a toy robot they kept in their rooms. Donnie also has a lot of posters and some games for a slightly older game system that he made upgrades to.

Raph’s room is nearly filled to the brim with comfort items and delicate colors. He and Julia went yard sale shopping for a lot of the stuffed animals, but others were made by them together. Raph wanted second hand plushies because he felt like they deserved another chance like he got. He’s very protective of all of them, especially the ones that remind him of his brothers. He also has wrestling posters, big, fluffy comforters on his bed, and fairy lights.

Leo’s room is cluttered with different sport and hobby items. He was given a lot of room to figure out what he likes doing and if he wanted to do it just for fun or on a team. So far he’s playing basketball, being a mascot for football, and trying out playing the guitar. He was terrified to try anything at first. Julia worked with him at recipes she wasn’t good at to help him see that if she isn’t perfect, she doesn’t expect him to be either.

Mikey’s room has drawings and paintings covering nearly every surface. It was one of the hobbies that Leo tried but didn’t like. Mikey picked it up and never put it back down. It’s something Draxum would have never let him do. There’s no use for it in a war. For a soldier. Always a soldier, never a poet, never the fan blade, always-no. Not anymore. It’s different now. It’s been different. They’re truly living their lives now without the threat of them being taken away.

Usagi had a blast looking around in each of them. They played with some items in Leo’s room, listened to Raph name all his beats in his, colored in Mikey’s, and Donnie showed off the marshmallow shooter he assembled.

Finally, they were all called to wash up and eat.

“Whoever washes their hands first wins!” Usagi shouts before scrambling to run.

Everyone else chases after him and the group burst into giggles when they don’t all fit in at once.

Mikey manages to squirm his way inside, freeing everyone else but also allowing him a head start. He washes his hands and triumphantly raises them as the victor. Leo pats his head with a smile before the rest of them also get their hands clean.

After that, they all sit down at the table. Julia and Usagi’s aunt had made fettuccine Alfredo, salad, and garlic bread. The group excitedly talks about everything they saw and did in between eating.

Once everyone is done, Julia and Usagi’s aunt take care of the dishes after telling the boys to go ahead and take a look at their candy.

They all sit around and begin trading with each other.

Donnie stares pretty hard at a pineapple scented pencil Usagi has in his pile. He’s very aware that it should be less valuable than something edible but he really likes the scent and he can smell it while designing if only he had it!

Sadly, he’s out of candy that Usagi said he likes.

Usagi see this and picks up the pencil, holding it out to him.

“I….don’t have anything you’d want for it.”

“That’s okay, you looked like you really wanted it.”

Donnie is flabbergasted at the fact that Usagi wouldn’t rather use that as some kind of leverage again him.

What kind of strategy is that?

It’s not one.

Usagi doesn’t think like a soldier.

He’s just nice.

And….that itself…..is nice too.

Donnie shakes one hand in excitement while using his other hand to take the pencil. He feels a little self conscious when Usagi looks at it, but is surprised when Usagi does it too.

It’s not in a mean way, it looks genuine.

“I do that when I’m happy too!” Usagi smiles.

Donnie smiles back and shakes both hands while they laugh.

At the end of the dishes, Usagi’s aunt and Julia are met with five extremely sleepy boys.

Usagi’s aunt moves his candy into his basket and picks both it and his hand up. She waves as she leads him to the front door. Usagi’s sleepily waves as well and says he had a lot of fun.

The turtles tiredly wave back and insist he needs to visit again.

Julia smiles and says goodbye to Usagi’s aunt before closing the door behind the two rabbits. She then scoops the leftover boys into her arms and takes them to Raph’s room. That’s where they usually go when they want to sleep all together since his bed is the biggest.

She tucks them all in and kisses their foreheads. They fall asleep within seconds. Julia makes sure Raph’s stuffed animals won’t be kicked off in anyone’s sleep so he won’t feel guilty in the morning and then makes her way to the door.

Julia takes one last look at her boys and quietly shuts it.

They deserve a good rest.

#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt #2018 tmnt #rise fanfiction #rottmnt fanfiction #leave luanne au #leaveau #mama bear au

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octaviasdread · 3 years

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any girls! dark academia movie recs? i really struggle to find anything not about a group of boys (as much as I love them)

SO MANY!!! This is probably a far more detailed answer than you were expecting but this is a popular question and I want to keep a list for myself and others.

Feel free to add to it/give opinions. I've tried to give a tw for anything I can remember

Girls! Dark Academia Movies/TV Shows

Mona Lisa Smile (2003)

1950s Women’s college

Art professor! Julia Roberts

She’s legit the female Mr Keating of the art & college world

Feminism vs. Tradition

Maggie Gyllenhall x Ginnifer Goodwin; their characters were more than friends. Fight me.

Does not end how you expect

Strike!/All I Wanna Do/The Hairy Bird (1998)

MY FAVOURITE!!!

Free on YouTube under one of its various names

Comedy

1960s all girls boarding school

Young Kirsten Dunst

Group of girls plot to sabotage a merger with a boys school less prestigious than their own

Secret attic clubhouse meetings of the D.A.R aka Daughters of the American Ravioli (eaten cold, ew)

girls get political & advocate for their rights using ANY elaborate and chaotic scheme

TW: eating disorder, vomiting & creepy male teacher but the girls plot against him too

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969)

based on a short book I read for uni by Muriel Spark

1930s girls school in Edinburgh

Scottish teacher! Maggie Smith, controversial with a focus on romantic ideals

Spoiler alert, the liberal teacher is actually a fascist

Her group of fave students has cult- vibes and it’s fascinating

Picnic at Hanging Rock

1970s movie or 2018 mini series

Never watched either but I plan to

Wild Child (2008)

00s romcom every UK teen girl loves

Emma Roberts as the spoiled rich American teenager sent to a strict English boarding school

Plots to get herself expelled but oh no she’s making friends with the girls who help her

And the headmistress has a hot son, and he’s nice??? Double oh no

ICONIC SCENES

Everything! Goes! Wrong!

omg she burns the school down

Feel good, comfort, nostalgia

St Trinians (2007)

English girls boarding school

The kids are all criminals, no joke

So are the teachers

CHAOTIC

gay awakening for british girls

Art heist pulled off by school girls

Government tries to shut them down but oh no, the education minister & the headmistress are ex-lovers

Colin Firth x Rupert Everett in drag

Superior cast: Jodie Whittaker, Gemma Arterton, Juno Temple, Stephen Fry, Colin Firth, etc...

embodies the phrase 'problematic fave'

St Trinians 2: The Legend of Fritton’s Gold (2009)

Mystery, pirate ancestors, hidden treasure

omg Shakespeare was a woman

girls disguised as boys to infiltrate and rob the posh boys school

Villain! David Tennant in that ICONIC boat scene

Teen girls vs. ancient misogynist brotherhood

like the first film but MORE chaotic and BETTER!???

The Falling (2014)

1960s all girls school

best friends! but its unrequited love

Agoraphobic + distant mother aka mommy issues

Sudden death and the school suppresses/ignores the students grief, sparking mass hysteria & a fainting epidemic in the girls

Cast: Maisie Williams (GoT) & Florence Pugh (Little Women) & Joe Cole (Peaky Blinders)

TW: teen pregnancy, death, vomiting, underage s*x, sibling inc*st, past s*xual assault

READ THE PLOT SUMMARY FIRST

The Book Thief (2013)

Based on an amazing book by Markus Zusak

set in 1940s Nazi Germany

Daughter of a communist whose family were taken by the Nazis/died is fostered by an older couple who teach her to read & she paints a dictionary on the basement walls

Coming of age story about a compulsive book thief. No joke, this kid steals books from banned book burnings and breaks into the mayor's library through the window

Family hides the Jewish son of an old friend in their basement and he helps her to start writing about her experiences in the war

TW: death, bombings, WW2 anti-semitism

Mary Shelley (2017)

Overall good & roughly biographical

Pretty costumes and aesthetic

Modern feminist take on Mary Shelly in her own time period

So many INACCURACIES for the drama so don’t take it as truth

Percy Shelley slander and not all of it is justified

Cast: Elle Fanning, Douglas Booth, and Maisie Williams

The Secret Garden (1993)

Based on a fave childhood book

1901 colonial India & Yorkshire, England

Orphaned, spoilt & neglected girl sent to live with her reclusive Uncle in the English countryside

Gothic elements, mysteries, secret doors/passages/locked gardens

local boy with a flock of animals, magic, kids chanting around a fire and all around immaculate vibes

Happy ending!!!

Hidden Figures (2016)

African-American women as mathematicians for NASA

1960s space project

Women balancing a career and family obligations

Deals with racial & gender discrimination

Loosely based on the lives of Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, and Dorothy Vaughan who worked for NASA as engineers & mathematicians

Anne of Green Gables (1985) & sequel (1987)

Adaptation L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

Canada (late 1890s/early 1900s)

Highly imaginative & bookworm orphan is adopted by a reclusive elderly brother and sister duo

Small town & school years comedic drama

Unrequited Enemies -> Friends -> lovers

Inspiring new woman teacher

Girls re-enact Tennyson’s poem and nearly drown for the aesthetic™

Dramatic poetry reading with INTENSE 👀eye contact👀

Writer! Anne & English teacher! Anne dealing with unruly girls school antics

Collette (2018)

biographical drama on french writer Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette

Victorian & Edwardian era France

More talented than her husband so she ghostwrites for him

Fight for creative ownership of her wildly successful novels

Affairs with a woman called Georgie and also with Missy, born female but masculine presenting

Cast: Keira Knightly, Dominic West, Eleanor Tomlinson (Poldark)

Enola Holmes (2020)

Netflix book adaptation

Younger sister of Sherlock Holmes

Victorian era! feminism/suffragettes

Mother-daughter focus

Mystery, adventure, secret codes, teens running away & escaping from (and eventually fighting) assassins

Cast: Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, Fiona Shaw, Millie Bobby Brown

Ginger & Rosa (2012)

1960s England

best friends since literal birth navigating troubled teen years

poet & anti-nuclear activist! Ginger

off the rails but also catholic! Rosa

Shout out to Mark & Mark the gay godfathers we all want

family troubles

TW: older man has an affair with a 17 yr old

Testament of Youth (2014)

based on WW1 memoir by Vera Brittain

young woman (writer & poetry lover) escapes traditional family & goes to study at Oxford University

abandons to become a war nurse

romance, tragedy and war trauma

Cast: Alicia Vikander, Kit Harrington (GoT), Taron Edgerton (Rocketman), Colin Morgan (Merlin)

Little Women (2019)

Writer! Jo & Artist! Amy

Mother/daughter focus and sister dynamics

the March sisters’ theatre club is *chefs kiss*

champagne problems edits of Jo x Laurie are a mood

Ambivalent ending perfectly captures Louisa May Alcott’s dilemma with the book the movie is based on

set in 1860s America

ALL STAR CAST and a Greta Gerwig masterpeice

Lady Bird (2017)

coming of age in early 2002/2003 Sacramento, California

all girls catholic school

writer! Christine aka Lady Bird wants to get outta town and start her life again at college 'in a city with culture'

Mother/daughter dynamics - so realistic!

I live for that Jesus car stunt & the nun's reaction

school theatre program

Cast: Saoirse Ronan, Timothee Chalamet, Beanie Feldstein

Another Greta Gerwig gem

Beguiled (2017)

Virginia, civil war era

Girls school with only five students and two teachers left

Find an injured Union army soldier & bring him inside

Women & teenagers want his attention (v. problematic) before uniting against him

(tbh you'll either love it, hate it, or watch once & forget it)

Sofia Coppola film so its very feminine gaze

TW: violence, death, underage

Legally Blonde (2001)

No questions will be taken

Elle Woods was the blue print

TV series:

House of Anubis (2011-2013)

I know it’s a kids/young teen show but I still unironically love it

ANCIENT EGYPT!!!!

Modern day with Victorian era links to treasure hunters & Egyptian research expeditions (stealing from tombs)

Chosen one plot lines, curses, kidnapping, mysteries, secret tunnels under the school, elixir of life

Teens have investigate & protect themselves cus oh no the TEACHERS are involved in some shady stuff

new American kid at British boarding school is the actual premise not just a fanfic au

Nostalgic, light-hearted, funny, and kinda cheesy but I will accept no criticism

The Alienist (2018 -now)

Mid 1890s, New York

Woman’s private detective agency (Season 2)

Serial killer mystery

Woman secretary turns detective and teams up with a criminal psychiatrist and a newspaper editor to solve crime

TW: violence, child pr*stit*tion

Cast: Dakota Fanning, Luke Evans, Daniel Bruhl

The Queen’s Gambit (2020)

Woman chess prodigy

1950s & 1960s

TW: drug & alcohol abuse

Gentleman Jack (2019 - now)

Based on the diaries of Anne Lister

Victorian Yorkshire, England

Upper-class lesbians

Confident, suit wearing! Anne Lister x shy! Ann Walker

Business woman! Anne running the family mines

Cast: Suranne Jones (Doctor Foster) & Sophie Rundle (Peaky Blinders)

TW: violence

Gilmore Girls (2000-2007)

bubbly/ambitious single mom + intelligent daughter

bookworm! Rory Gilmore gets into a prestigious private school and then an Ivy League college

Small town drama is comedic gold

Fast dialogue packed with pop culture and literary references

Comforting & nostalgic

TEAM JESS

Anne with an E (2017-2019)

Loose adaptation of L.M. Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books

they completely change the plot lines but it’s still very good content!

Orphan girl with trauma and a love of books/poetry is adopted by an elderly brother & sister duo, bringing light and fresh ideas to a rural community

Feminism, girls writing club, lgbtq safe spaces, girls eduction, black/indigenous representation

Miss Stacy as THAT inspiring teacher

Aunt Josephine’s lavish gay parties have my heart

TW: creepy male teacher tries to marry a student, racial discrimination, indigenous assimilation school

Victoria (2016-2019)

Adaption of Queen Victoria’s life

Victoria navigating her political, royal, and personal life

Albert’s involvement with The Great Exhibition, 1851 (on cultural + industrial innovations)

Alfred Paget x Edward Drummond is exquisite

Gorgeous costumes and aesthetics

TW: bury your gays trope

Derry Girls (2018-now)

1990s Northern Ireland during the troubles

Comedy, episodes 20-25 mins long

English boy sent to an all girls Catholic school with his cousin

✨Dead Poets Society parody episode ✨with a free-spirited female teacher

Sister Michael, the sarcastic nun who hates her job & reads the exorcist for giggles

Wee anxious lesbian! Clare Devlin (plus her friends wearing rainbow pins)

Badass with bad ideas! Michelle Mallon

Main Character! Erin Quinn

Lovable weirdo who would fight a polar bear! Orla McCool

Wee English fella & honorary Derry girl! James Maguire

Dickinson (2019-now)

Loose adaption of the poet Emily Dickinson’s life

Set in 19th century Massachusetts, US

Historical drama with modern dialogue & music that works SEAMLESSLY

gives a great understanding of Emily Dickinson’s poems

💕Vintage gays! Emily x Sue💕

Theatre club, writing, poetry, dressing as men to sneak into lectures, love letters, teen drama, feminism, and an underground abolitionist journal as a brief side plot in season 2

Wiz Khalifa plays death in a horse drawn carriage

TW: opium use

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2017-2019)

Based on great childhood books

Bookworm! brother, Inventor! sister, and baby sister with sharp teeth

Mystery, secret organisations, orphaned siblings figuring things out & fending for themselves against the villain after their fortune

Adults either cartoon evil, comedically incompetent, or SPIES

Boarding school, library owner, scientific researcher, and theatre episodes

Ambiguous time period which is really fun to try and pin point

Killing Eve (2018-now)

Classic detective who has homoerotic tension with the assassin she is tracking down

British Detective! Eve Polastri figures out the notorious assassin MI5 are investigating is a woman, is fired & then put on a secret MI6 case with a small team

Assassin! Villanelle, a psychopath with a tragic past and a mastery of both accents & fashion

Woman MI6 boss! Carolyn Martens, head of Russian section

Travel Europe following Villanelle’s killings and escaping the assassins sent by Villanelle’s organisation

‘You’re supposed to be my enemy and moral opposite but omg you’re the only one smart enough to get me and why am I obsessed with you????'

🚨 GO IN FOR A KISS AND THEN STAB YOUR ENEMY 🚨

Cable Girls/Las chicas del cable (2017-2020)

Spanish drama set in 1920s Madrid

Four young women at a telecommunications company form a group of friends and help navigate the difficult situations they are all in

Secret identities, dangerous pasts, murder, crime, lgbtq couple & throuple, trans man character, feminism/suffragists

girls commit crimes for humanitarian reasons and cover! it! up!

UNDERRATED SHOW!!!!

Gorgeous costumes and set

Haven’t finished it yet and I’m catching up

TW: abuse, violence, death

Outlander (2014 - now)

haven’t watched yet but plan to

Woman time travels to Scotland, 1743

Rebel highlanders, pirates, British colonies, American revolutionary war

Time jumps between 18th & 20th century

#CO posts #answered asks #asks #dark academia girls #dark academia recommendations #dark academia recs #dark academia women #dark academia movies #dark academia tv

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redhairedwolfwitch · 3 years

Text

There's A Place Where The Lost Things Go - Legacies x Noralise!Daughter!Reader

You Can't Save Them All

B/m/n = biological mother’s name

Staring up the ceiling from where you fell asleep in the apartment you stayed in with your aunt, you ignored your phone and the ache in your heart.

"Is she alright?" Nora frowned, watching over your form, sulking on the couch.

"Something's wrong." B/m/n concluded as Mary-Louise huffed an 'obviously'.

"Shouldn't you be going to the school soon? You don't want to be late?" Valerie asked as she spotted you not moving.

"Maya broke up with me over text this morning. She met someone else."

Nora glared as Mary-Louise's nostils flared in anger, B/m/n let out a sad sigh, wishing she could comfort you.

Valerie's hand froze as she was reaching for the blood bag in the fridge, "then whoever she met is a serious downgrade from you, Maya will live to regret her decision."

"Don't kill her, please. Least her excuse was better than Lock's... am I really that unlovable?" You glanced over at your aunt, seeing her glare at the mention of Lock, then the sadness in her eyes at your question.

"You are worthy of love, Y/n. You are full of love and humanity, never doubt that. Your mothers loved you, and I love you, my sweet niece." Valerie replied, placing the glass of blood down on the countertop so she could comfort you.

"I wish she could see us."

///

"Some of us process these traumas by suppressing what happened. For others, it's easier to bury it deep inside and pretend like nothing's happened at all. Still, others may take a different route, such as..." Emma trailed off her talk as Hope finished.

"Pushing people away in an attempt to self-isolate? Because everyone they love is in perpetual danger, which often results in them being perpetually dead. See? There. That's it. That's my therapy. Can I go now? Because Landon's outside trying to fly and Y/n's not here to be a spotter-"

"I'm afraid not, Hope, because the point is, we can all do better at processing the traumas we've been though. Ms Hildegard will be joining us, eventually, since her teleportation power does grant her the ability to arrive to destinations quickly... Doctor Saltzman has asked me to conduct a special group lesson today." Emma explained as MG and Josie tried to disagree.

"They can't sense she's already there?"

"Her cloaking is enhanced by angel magic, witches can't sense her. From what I can tell anyway." Mary-Louise explained as Nora smirked, proud of your power.

"I, for one, could really use this, and I'd appreciate everyone's support." Lizzie admitted as MG admitted he was down to help.

"Where is she going?"

"To enter like she hadn't been in the room the entire time." B/m/n realised as Nora and Mary-Lou exchanged glances.

"You will all have an important role to play in this simulation. Oh, stop looking at me like that! It'll be fun. This device was created by Professor Rupert Vardemus. The real Professor Vardemus. He's quite famous in mystical therapeutic circles. It's his variation on a Chambre de Chasse. All your psychological concerns will be transferred inside to form a shared narrative. Now, the world you create together can be anything, from pirates at the high seas, to spies in the Cold War. But no matter what it ends up looking like, it will be designed specifically to help you. Out here, you're unconscious. You'll have no awareness that you're in a simulation. Welcome, Miss Hildegard, glad you could join us." Emma interrupted herself as you entered, tugging your hood over your head as everyone looked at you.

"Have you been crying?" Hope mouthed, reaching out for you but you shook your head, not in the mood to talk, and instead listening to Emma explain the therapy box more, like you hadn't been invisible and eavesdropping for the last fifteen minutes.

"The bond between Y/n and Hope..."

"Don't phrase it like that, for a moment I thought you meant sirebond." Nora snapped as B/m/n sighed, raising her hands in surrender.

"Not a sirebond. It's something else entirely."

You didn't even acknowledge Jade when she walked in late.

///

"There's a place where the lost things go." MG monologued as you wiped at the bar, glancing towards your co-worker as she poured someone another drink.

Glancing at the singer, you realised it was Emma, your eyes drifting around to realise that Lizzie, Josie, MG and Raf were all in the establishment too.

"Landon's? That's a bit on the nose..." You whispered before glancing at the words on your wrist.

Apricus.

"Sunny? Wow. That's just great." You murmured, not realising it shouldn't have been possible for you to be presented with your self-awareness word so early until Hope ordered you to grab another bottle of bourbon from the back.

You had no idea that the game had already changed.

Emma Tig was eliminated.

///

The therapy box meant you weren't supposed to have access to your magic, but becoming self-aware so fast gave you an advantage as you kept to the shadows, watching MG investigate something at Landon's as Hope went to the back for whiskey.

"We're closed. You should have gone home an hour ago." Hope pointed out as she spotted you.

"You know me, Hope. I go where you go." You hummed, but Hope sighed.

"You say that, even knowing I chose Landon over you, over everyone?" Hope raised an eyebrow, but you just hummed, kissing Hope on the forehead before walking away.

"We have a bond, Hope. Just neither of us noticed. I'm your guardian angel." You playfully winked, passing MG as you went to exit Landon's through the front door.

///

"You're not supposed to be here." A voice called out from the other end of the alley as you glanced around.

"Yeah well, if you're lost, the place is that way." You gestured behind you, before something wrapped around your neck and tried to take away your breath.

///

"I really wish we could see what was going on inside that blasted box." Mary Louise growled, her anger dissipating as Jade woke up from the game.

"If Jade was ejected from the simulation prematurely, that would mean the rules have changed." Vardemus suggested as Jade grumbled about knowing she had liked Josie since seeing her in the prison world.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. Your little therapy box tattooed me!" You exclaimed, gaining the attention of Emma, Vardemus and Jade.

"It did what?"

"What the bloody hell happened in that bloody thing!" Nora exclaimed as Mary Louise looked pissed and B/m/m took a closer look at your wrist.

"Ms Hildegard-"

"Y/n, what happened?"

"I was self-aware the minute I was there, the word was on my arm the moment you started the game, then some weird voice in an alley tells me I'm not supposed to be there, then I get taken out by force before figuring out what was going on, but I sensed it."

"Sensed what?" Jade quirked a brow, watching as the word on your arm began to glow brightly, along with your fingertips.

"My powers get stronger around dark magic. Whoever's in control of the box, is full of dark magic. Whilst I'm full of sunlight, thus, apricus." You shrugged as Emma and Vardemus processed what you said.

"You don't think-"

"It has to be. There's no other answer." B/m/n concluded, as your three mothers knew who the killer was.

"You were self-aware from the beginning?"

"Yeah." You nodded as Vardemus looked at Emma, processing everything.

"So, the question we should be asking ourselves is, why they did it?" Vardemus concluded as you huffed.

"Now I get why you were Sherlock Holmes."

///

"Lizzie, she got her escape word but she's still in the game!" MG stammered as he woke up, out of the game's claws.

"And, Josie died. I saw it. So why is she still in there?" MG asked, glancing over at the sleeping Josie.

"We were right."

"Y/n, what are you-" Jade began, watching as you gently placed your hand on Josie's shoulder, grimacing as you tried to siphon.

"Fuck- I was right..." You murmured, staring at your palm as you pulled your hand away.

Josie was the one behind all of this.

///

"Did you have a breakthrough, or did the killer get to you too?" Emma asked, hurrying over to Raf as he woke up.

"I don't know." Raf admitted, his hands on the sides of his head as he processed what he'd seen after his self-awareness word.

Mortem.

///

"Oh thank god! I was beginning to think I need therapy myself!" Emma realised as Hope and Lizzie both woke up, immediately hugging each other before Hope spotted you.

"Ow, what was that for?" You asked as Hope whacked you on the shoulder.

"Guardian angel, seriously?"

Nora snorted with laughter as Mary-Lou smirked and B/m/n rolled her eyes at your cheesiness.

"Um, not to burst the bubble, but, what are we going to do about Jo?" MG asked, focussing you and Hope back on Jo as Lizzie and Emma looked over too.

///

"The Salvatore School is the most amazing place I have ever been. And the most dangerous." Emma admitted, continuing to talk but you teleported away, landing on Hope's bed with a soft thump.

"Like I told you before, Y/n and Hope share a bond like no other."

Hope wasn't there. She was looking for Landon.

///

"This isn't you, Jo."

Josie's eyes turned black as she grinned, "it is now. So get used to it. 'Cause this look is here to stay." Josie announced, clicking her fingers for a quick costume change.

Stirring from where you lay, you jerked up as you felt MG catch the sleeping Hope in his arms, glaring up at dark Josie after.

"Shit!" You exclaimed as you felt the trembling, the destruction from the werewolf transformation chamber, as Josie escaped, leaving a porton of the school on fire in the process.

"Why does she remind me of someone from Y/n's readings about the school? Um, hang on, the name will come to me... Katherine Pierce!" B/m/n announced as Nora and Mary-Lou shrugged, no clue about who Katherine was.

///

Life Was So Much Easier When I Only Cared About Myself

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fromevertonow · 3 years

Text

The thing with Realm Breaker is that it’s not about this group of people that’s perfect. Every single one of them is just stupid, in a good way. Let me elaborate.

Dom is an immortal being who has no clue about how mortals work and he’s constantly saying stuff like “immortals do/don’t [...]” and it made him all the more stupid (and adorable???). A lot of the times an immortal is used in a story as the hot love interest, they have very explicit descriptions of their appearance being that of a god (not to say that Dom is not just that). He is not a 500 y/o man prying on young women. He is just so stupid and I want to scream over how happy this made.

Sorasa is, in one word, more than amazing (I can’t describe her with one word and for you to expect so and think I can even describe her at all, is lame). An unapologetic young woman who just survives. Her sarcastic comments added multiple years to my lifespan, thank you very much. Her banter with Dom... [screams in pillow]. She can chop me in pieces for her chicken salad and I’d ask her if she wanted the crisp of bone with that. I would thank the woman.

Corayne might be the most realistic YA fantasy protagonist I have ever met. For fuck’s sake, she has z e r o (0) skill in sword fighting, has no life experience (aside from her trades for her mother), and is forced to save the world. She doesn’t suddenly learn how to defend herself, she needs time for that and that is shown throughout the book, but she is hella motivated to make herself useful. She is so clueless about everything that is going on, I want to tell her that she’s doing great.

Andry is incredibly adorable. My little Uncle Iroh with his tea... :,) I want to give this young man a hug, may I? He’s raised in this very noble environment and has very strong morals to do good, yet he’s stuck with a bunch of idiots, one of which is an assassin and whose first solution is murder, another is a pirate’s daughter and sees no problem in morally questionable decisions, and then you have a brooding immortal who also is guided by honor but eaten up by guilt and has his head hanging low all day long. Somehow, he is the sunshine of the gang with his tea. Good for him. Make your new family tea.

Erida... I looooooveeeeeee love love love love... corruption arc and I cannot wait to see what she’ll do. She is so ambitious and cunning and powerful. The way she screams “Slytherin” is incredible.

Charlon. I’m not going to say anything. His character speaks for himself.

Sigil is the wine aunt and I take no criticism.

Valtik is the crazy grandmother who keeps offering you a strangely smelling plate of food and swears it’s good for you (it probably is)

Also, just one general thing. None of the characters are described as incredibly, unrealistically, and swoon-worthy hot (though they probably are). Their appearance is of so little importance whereas in a lot of other YA stories it seems as if the main characters are all these pretty blue-eyed blondes which pisses me off, but this isn’t. This has representation. Not just in terms of appearance, but also in that of sexuality. I love how the characters as a set are so unique when compared to other YA fantasies.

Conclusion: read Realm Breaker

#realm breaker #victoria aveyard #aveyard #sorasa sarn #domacridhan of iona #domacridhan #andry trelland #corayne an amarat #erida of galland #queen erida

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ktheist · 3 years

Text

“Tell me, do you regret the day you left? Do you regret that we could have been something more? Because I do.” (x)

Returning home after 7 years in the big city opened the floodgate of memories. One, in particular, had you smiling to yourself as you sat on the bench at a park where you used to play with a certain, gentle and kind little boy.

Min Yoongi shared his candy when you cried your eyes out because you scrapped your knee while playing tag.

He also let you copy his homework and nagged you about staying up all night and reading one of those books of yours.

A dreamer you were, dreaming about being on the big screens.

And a realist he was, wanting to go to college to make something out of himself.

Maybe get a degree, get a stable job and get married.

Some time at 17, Yoongi proposed to you. A plastic ring he got at the dollar store was all he pulled out and placed in the palm of your hand.

You still have it in that little treasure box of yours where you keep your most prized possessions— memories that will live in forever in that tiny space.

”[Name]?” His husked voice rings in your ears and it takes you awhile to register that it’s real-time and not your memories playing tricks on you.

Some few feet away, a man stands —an older version of the boy whom you played with in this ver park. His eyebrows rise to the skimpy and his usually sleepy eyes look as if they’re wide awake.

Awake with shock.

”Yoongi,” you murmur, just as surprised.

It is only much later, do you notice the little girl tugging on his hand, looking up at him and pointing at the swings, “daddy, daddy! Can I go play with Minhee?”

So you find yourselves sitting side by side with a distance that screams the years you’ve been apart. You gained some people, you also lost some.

Like how you lost your husband to that skanky co-actress that’s just 2 years younger than you. The divorce is all over the news, which is why you’re back here, where nobody knows you and nobody will follow you.

”How’s the acting gig going?” Yoongi asks, staring at the sandbox where his daughter and her friend are trying to build a sand castle.

It’s their third try and that one‘s just crumbled into nothingness.

Just like you did.

A country bumpkin actress who changed her name and style. You never wanted to talk about your hometown in the interviews, never wanted to mention anything about the past you.

Guess living in the present means living with the fact that everywhere you go, you’ll be seeing that skank’s face in the promotional shoots of the movie your husband directed and chose her as the lead and not you.

”It’s doing great, I’m taking a break since it’s summer break and Taeyang‘s never knew his grandparents.” You simply say, your inflated, actress ego not letting you speak a word of your crumbling legacy even if it’s plastered all over the news, even if Min Yoongi has probably seen it and is just asking to make small talk.

Instead, he repeats the foreign name, as though tasting the fact that the woman he once dreamed a future with now has a kid who’s not his.

Well, to be fair, he’s a divorcee with a kid too.

”There, the little one in yellow—“ you tilt your head to the side, as if whispering a great, unknown secret to Yoongi.

The fact that you and Jeongguk had a child is mentioned too little of a time for it to stick to people’s minds. You both may have failed in the art of loving each other till death do you apart, but at the very least, you’re doing a good job with keeping your kid away from media exposure.

He’s just a kid. What can a kid do with that much exposure?

”—he’s an exact dupe of me.” You laugh, thinking about Taeyang’s puppy eyes and po lips that made you say yes to going back to this old, tired town, “Stubborn—”

“Just like you,” Yoongi finishes, a smile curved on his lips. A reminiscent of your younger days in his eyes.

“What about yours? Is she your eldest?” You ask, the black haired girl looks so much like Yoongi but acts the opposite of him.

The Min Yoongi you knew would follow you around like a lost puppy as you went on adventures to the sandy Egypt and sail ths seven seas.

His kid, however, seems like the kind that would brave through the sandstorms and lead the pirates to a cave full of treasures.

“Aera is my only,” he says simply, an enigma of his own. A book still being written and kept hidden from public eye.

”Taeyang’s my little buddy.“ You smile, “though he doesn’t like it when I say we’re best friends. Says his best friend is this Chungha girl from his school.”

Yoongi doesn’t offer anything after that —which is so very Yoongi of him.

Never saying something unless he truly feels passionate about a certain topic. Guess he’s not interested in knowing about his ex-fiancé’s kid. Why would he be? You up and left and never looked back.

But then, the answer as to why he fell silent for the longest moment comes not like a slap to the face, but like a gust of wind that blows past you and leaves you in that diner where you sit in the corner, in your favorite spot while the whole world moves on.

“Tell me, do you regret the day you left? Do you regret that we could have been something more? Because I do.”

And as much as you did not see it coming, you did not also need to ponder on it for longer than a second.

For you are a dreamer and when you close your eyes, you see yourself leaning up against Yoongi’s beaten up truck that his father gifted him for his 17th birthday, waiting for his classes to finish so you can ride home or get some food somewhere in the heart of the town.

And you smile, “that would mean I’d regret having my kid and I can’t do that. He’s all I have left.”

Taeyang comes running over, his little pudgy hands placed on your knee as he looks up at you with a childish gaze, “mommy! Grandpa’s here to pick us up!”

”Hm?“ You scan the part and easily spot the familiar old figure standing across it, smiling sheepishly at the look you‘re shooting him.

He’s holding a plastic bag which he’ll probably use as an excuse to show that he was buying somethings for your grandmother who’s adamant about cooking every dinner because Taeyang’s had plenty of your cooking but it’s his first visit here.

Your father and you had a fight last night. He wants you to stay, get a job as a clerk and you argued back, your ego not allowing your own father to knock you down to a mere clerk position.

He’s either feeling guilty or worried that you left town like you did 7 years ago under the pretense of taking Taeyang to the park.

That anger you felt has also melted into regret. You could’ve listened and explained than lash out like a wounded animal.

”Then, that’s our cue to go home,” you stand up and Taeyang runs over to his grandpa.

Yoongi’s in the middle of placing his hand back on his lap after waving a greeting to your father.

”Yeah, me and Minhee should head back too.” He nods, standing, “it was good seeing you, [Name].”

You mutter an affirmation, turning on your heels to walk towards your awaiting father before you pause, legs not moving until you truly say what you‘ve been holding back.

”There’s this movie I starred in —about an aunt turning back time to find her nephew’s killer, it’s called Timeturner... I wish I had her ability.”

At that, Yoongi blinks, lips slightly parted as if he wants to say something.

”See you around, Yoongi.” You finally say, putting an end to both you and his misery.

But before you can take one step in, he’s calling for you, ”the diner‘s owner passed the business to his son —Sungwoo, maybe... If you’re free—“

”Sure,” you say, “maybe we can bring our kids with us you know... introduce them to the world’s best dumpling.”

”Yeah,” Yoongi nods before he murmurs to himself, “yeah that’d be great.”

Taeyang calls for you, waving his arms impatiently. You mouth a “bye” to Yoongi and mini job over to your father and child how waiting by the lamppost to a street that leads up the hill where your house is.

And this town may be old, but this is where it all began and ended.

This is where it continues after the ending.

#bts fic #bts scenarios #Bts fanfic #bts fanfiction #Yoongi fanfic #yoongi scenarios #yoongi fic #Yoongi fanfiction #yoongi smut #bts smut #bts fluff #bts au #bts angst #excerpt from a fic I’ll never write

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kuroopaisen · 4 years

Text

rascal. (bokuto koutarou)

➵ maybe pirates aren’t so bad, after all.

wc: 5.6k

warnings: f!reader, copious amounts of fluff, tomfoolery

a/n: rachel darling i remember you were the one to request pirates, so here it is! you’re an absolute sweetheart, and thank you for always popping into my inbox and being as lovely as you are! i hope you enjoy this! ren and remy, thank you so much for your help on this fic!

Inheriting your aunt’s tavern wasn’t exactly a blessing.

If anything, you planned to sell it off after a year or two. You were only going to work it for a year out of respect – it was giving you the opportunity to secure some sense of financial freedom, after all.

Not that it was the act of running a tavern that you were uncomfortable with. Not at all – you’d never had access to this much money before, and it was less gruelling work than that of the farm.

And it helped you stave off getting married for a few years – thank the gods.

The issue was one of reputation. Your aunt’s – no, your tavern – was known for playing host to patrons with less than sterling character. It was known for servicing ‘unscrupulous fellows,’ as your father had grumbled. In that very same breath, he’d told you that you had to take it – the money was too good to pass up.

So, you’d moved to this bustling port city, intent on making at least something during your first few months. You’d hoped that the reputation of your patrons was all hearsay; rumours spread by competitors, or maybe gullible travellers.

Unfortunately, your father was right.

Pirates. Pirates, everywhere. How your aunt had built up a client base composed primarily of these seaborne rogues, you weren’t sure.

But you were wise enough to keep your opinions to yourself. These men would be lining your pockets for the foreseeable future, after all.

Had you been scared, at first? Yes! Absolutely terrified! But you had to accustom yourself to it – and fast.

You even knew a few by name; regulars who always seemed to come in at least twice a month or so. Some came weekly, which always made you doubt just how much seafaring they actually did.

Some even brought you spoils from their ‘travels’. Goods like wheat and barley, mostly – stuff that you were wise enough to turn a blind eye to. Most of the time, you would just donate such things to the local orphanage. They had better use for such things, anyway.

You were sure that a few of them, blinded by their drunken haze, couldn’t actually tell the difference between you and your aunt. But it was no matter; whoever your aunt was, she was tough as nails. That wasn’t a surprise, though. She had left this place simply because she wanted to go travelling around the world. You wondered, more than once, if she’d actually run off with a pirate.

There was a certain group of regulars that confused you, though. Admittedly, you were quite fond of them, but you had no idea if they were pirates, or just some old chums. They always came in at least once a week, and they were never short on gold.

But they treated you well, and always made a habit of hanging around the bar.

Their leader was striking, a tall, muscular man with a pair of sparkling golden eyes and the world’s brightest smile. He certainly had the look of a pirate – that typical white shirt that revealed a little more of his chest than maybe it should, the sun-kissed skin, the sword slung around his waist.

But his personality only half fit the bill. Loud, gregarious, bold – but sensitive, childish, naïve.

And yet despite all that, you could tell that he was in charge. Things always seemed to come back to him, no matter what. Even if his stunning black-haired friend – likely the first mate, if they really were pirates – seemed to call most of the shots.

Not that it mattered, in the end. They paid up, and that was enough.

“So, what do you think of pirates?” This leader, who you’d surmised was called ‘Bokuto’, asked, tilting his head to the side. He looked a little like a bird.

A ripple of exasperation ran through his friends.

You laughed. “Why do you ask?”

“Rumour is they’re your main clientele.” Another one of the men – possibly called Konoha, if you remembered correctly – smirked at you from over his flagon.

“Ah,” you smiled, propping your elbows on the bar and resting your chin on folded hands. “It’s hard to tell these days.” You’d play the game, if you must.

“Huh?” The lot of them frowned at you; were they offended, maybe?

“I like my pirates traditional, see,” you sighed, adding a touch more exasperation than necessary. “You know; eyepatches, big feathery hats, peg legs… but nobody who comes through those doors looks the part.”

Konoha and some of the other men snorted, but Bokuto perked up.

“Wouldn’t pirates be bad for business?” Konoha raised an eyebrow at you. “Driving off other clients, and all that?”

You shrugged, biting your cheek. “What use is respectable clientele if they’re not willing to pay for an entire barrel of ale?”

Some of them laughed at that. What a relief; it meant they weren’t paying attention to the discomfort behind those words.

“I just wish they looked like pirates.” You shook your head, standing up to full height again. “If you’re going to be a pirate, you may as well dress like they do in all those romantic tales.”

“So you’re upset that they’re not meeting your personal tastes?” Konoha chuckled. “Isn’t it bad to ogle your clientele?”

“Well, they see no problem with ogling me, so I think it’s only fair,” you shrugged, waving a hand at him. You barely felt the sentiment, but you weren’t about to be vulnerable in front of a pirate.

A small racket erupted from the lot of them, a cacophony of responses that ranged from concern to amusement. You took the opportunity to turn away from them, a serene smile masking your face.

You liked those boys. You really did.

But it certainly felt remiss to befriend a group of pirates. Even if they did pay your bills.

✧ ✧

“Is he okay?” You asked, handing Akaashi two flagons.

“Hm?” Akaashi blinked, a small frown touching at the corners of his mouth.

“Your captain.” You nodded in the direction of the man in question. He was sitting on the other side of the tavern, very conspicuously not looking at you. That in itself was abnormal. But what really made it weird was the eyepatch. And the pointed leather hat adorned with an obnoxiously big feather. Those were both new additions to his get up.

“Oh,” Akaashi sighed, placing the flagons on the bar. “He’s fine.”

“But… his eye…”

“He’s still got both of them, don’t worry,” Akaashi said, shaking his head. “He thought he needed to change up his image.”

“Change up… his image?”

“He wanted to look more fearsome,” Akaashi deadpanned, his eyes flicking down. “More like a true pirate.”

You giggled at the thought. “So, you’re really pirates, then?”

“You already knew that,” Akaashi smiled softly.

He was the cleverest one, that was for sure.

Your eyes found their way back to Bokuto. He seemed to be struggling with his new costume, constantly readjusting the eyepatch and pushing the tip of the hat back up so it wouldn’t obstruct his vision. Occasionally, he would screw up his nose a bit. Not really the look of a fearsome pirate captain.

“I see he hasn’t sawed his leg off, though.” You bit back a smile.

Akaashi chuckled at that. “No, he’s not unreasonable enough for that.” He raised an eyebrow at you before turning to look at his captain. “He did some asking around. Got a good scope of all those romantic pirate stories you were talking about.”

“Really?” You scoffed. If this was his attempt to woo you, it surely was the most creative yet.

“Well, tell him that I don’t like my pirates reticent,” you smiled, winking at Akaashi. “I much prefer it when they talk to me.”

Akaashi laughed quietly, shaking his head. “Will do.”

Within five minutes, Bokuto was back at your bar, the eyepatch replaced by his typical brilliant smile. The hat remained a part of the ensemble, but you didn’t mind. You were quick to assure him that you preferred it that way.

✧ ✧

“Bokuto.”

“Yeah?”

“This is a terrible idea.”

“It’ll be fine!” Bokuto beamed at his first mate, scratching the underbelly of the parrot sitting on his shoulder. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you Birdmeat?”

The name ‘Birdmeat’ had come from the suggestion that Bokuto should name his parrot after his favourite food. He was the only one who failed to see the issue with it.

“I fail to see how a parrot is supposed to impress a woman,” Akaashi muttered.

“It’ll impress her because he can speak, duh,” Bokuto scoffed, as if he’d just said the most reasonable thing in the world. “Isn’t that right, boy?”

“Idiot!” The bird squawked, flapping its wings. “Idiot!”

Bokuto’s face fell. But for once, he let it slide. “Just you wait, Akaashi,” he beamed, pointing a finger at his first mate. “This will impress her.”

It did not, in fact, impress you.

“What if it shits?” You grimaced, gazing at the gaudily coloured bird with an expression that could only be described as thinly-veiled contempt.

“It… won’t.”

“It will.”

“Akaashi—”

He just shot Bokuto a look that said, ‘I told you so.’ The fact that it was empty of any malice or self-righteousness just made it more infuriating.

“I’d be… willing to let it slide if it was… restrained, somehow,” you said carefully, your mind running through all the possible ways this could go wrong.

It was just a bird. It couldn’t cause too much mayhem.

But, it belonged to Bokuto. The human manifestation of havoc.

And that made you nervous.

Bokuto nodded vigorously, turning to Akaashi. “We can manage that, right?”

“Uh.” Akaashi looked at you. There was something about his eyes that made it seem like he was apologising. “Do you have any rope?”

Five minutes and a lot of squawking later, and the parrot had a tenuous rope wrapped around it’s belly like a harness. You’d felt too bad about tying its wings or legs up, so you’d made Bokuto swear to not let go of the rope. He’d been resolute, promising that he’d be very mindful of his little companion.

Finally, it seemed, you could get back to business.

“One spiced mead, please!” Bokuto beamed, hands on his hips in some sort of pose.

You swallowed down a sigh. You’d be damned if this man wasn’t entertaining – perhaps even charming, in his own way – but by the gods did he give off the impression of a disaster waiting to happen.

Just go about your business, you thought to yourself. It’s fine, Bokuto’s got a grip on the rope. It’ll be fine.

“Here,” you sighed, placing the flagon on the bar in front of him.

In his enthusiasm, Bokuto used two hands to pick it up.

Two. Meaning one wasn’t holding the rope.

And Birdmeat knew.

Even Akaashi wasn’t fast enough.

It sprung off Bokuto’s shoulder, landing in his flagon with an undignified splash.

Bokuto shrieked, swatting at the parrot with one hand. Akaashi had dove head-first at the ground, missing the rope by a mere margin.

“Bokuto!” He yelled.

Bokuto flinched, realising a moment too late that he’d let go of the damn bird.

Birdmeat shot straight up, its wings flapping at full speed.

You should’ve trusted your instincts.

Chaos erupted.

“Akaashi!” Bokuto shrieked, flailing his hat in the air.

The man in question looked like he had just left this mortal plane. You had half a mind to join him.

The bird was still flapping around the tavern, squawking at the top of its little lungs.

The rest of Bokuto’s crew was on their feet, staring at the bird with some sense of dumbfounded resignation. A normal day for them, you supposed.

“That fuckin’ bird just shat in my ale!”

Oh no. Oh no.

Laughter erupted from one end of the tavern – likely that poor sod’s friends. But you didn’t have time to worry about that. You’d just give him a free drink or two later. Your main concern was stopping that little fucker from doing anything worse.

The last thing you wanted to do was try and calm a pirate who had bird shit running down his forehead.

How were you even supposed to catch a bird? Did you have a net?

Your other patrons had noticed by now, their expressions ranging from amusement to annoyance to anger. Multiple voices were crying out, but you couldn’t quite tell what any of them were saying. All you could do was watch the parrot fly higher and higher, the short leash of rope rising well out of reach.

The bird clattered onto one of the rafters, its claws skittering across the wood. You’d never get those scratches out.

“Idiot!” It squawked. “Idiot!”

You could’ve sworn it was looking at Bokuto.

“Do you have a plan?” You hissed, head whipping round to him.

Bokuto glanced at you sheepishly, his cheeks red as anything. “Maybe?”

Why did that make you feel worse?

“Akaashi…”

“Please don’t tell me…”

“It’s the only way…”

You looked between the two of them, frowning. “What? What are you planning?”

“Trust me,” Akaashi sighed. “You won’t like it.”

You didn’t.

Bokuto’s ‘plan’ was to prop Akaashi on his shoulders, hoping that would be high enough to reach that damn parrot’s leash. And admittedly, that wasn’t the worst plan. But this was Bokuto. Anything could go wrong.

Poor Akaashi looked like he knew that quite well.

You watched in horror as he stood himself on one of your stools, giving you an apologetic nod in the process. You stared at him, dumbfounded. Bokuto dashed forward, turning around so his back was facing his precariously balanced friend.

“Be careful,” Akaashi mumbled, swinging his legs over Bokuto’s awaiting shoulders.

Bokuto nodded with a grunt, clamping his hands over Akaashi’s knees as if to stabilise him. It certainly didn’t make you feel any more at ease.

This was a disaster waiting to happen. You just knew you were about to watch someone split their head open on the floor of your tavern.

The lumbering form of Akaashi-plus-Bokuto ambled towards Birdmeat, each wobbly step taken with great purpose.

You watched, rapt with horror as they inched closer to their target, one of Akaashi’s hands outstretched and the other planted on the top of Bokuto’s head.

Birdmeat cocked his head.

Akaashi leant forward, swiping at the air. He grabbed the rope, giving it a careful tug. Birdmeat flapped its wings, scrambling as it fell backwards off the scaffolding.

One more yank and it was against Akaashi’s chest, caged in by his arms.

A confused cheer rippled through his crewmates as they crowded around him.

You frowned as you watched them squabble amongst themselves for a bit, fingers pointing and voices raised as they disagreed over who should have to deal with the bird.

A hush set upon the tavern, each and every pair of eyes turned to the small gaggle of men bickering amongst themselves. You were sure that your patrons were just as worried as you were that they’d accidentally let it go in the midst of their bickering.

You weren’t about to let that happen.

“Get that damn thing out of here,” you grumbled, pointing at the door. A few more moments of bickering, and the bird had safely traded hands. One of the men, a shorter fellow you’d come to know as ‘Komi’ nodded, scampering out the door with the parrot safely clasped between his hands.

“I’m so sorry,” Bokuto mumbled, drawing his knees up to his chest.

This was their captain? This big, muscular behemoth of a man who was sitting on your tavern floor, curled up in a ball?

What kind of pirate crew was this?

“It’s… okay,” you sighed, pressing two fingers to your eyes. “Nobody got hurt, so…”

Bokuto braved a look at you, his golden eyes round and pitiful. Hell, even his hair seemed like it had deflated. How was that even possible?

“We’ll help you clean up,” Akaashi said, giving you a quick bow. “I deeply apologise for the commotion.”

You waved your hands at him, overwhelmed by the sudden formality. “No, no, it’s fine!”

Maybe you should’ve been angrier. Maybe you should’ve been more upset. But something about this was just… delightfully absurd. Nobody but Bokuto would’ve thought that this was a good idea. And it was nice to have some excitement that didn’t involve cutlasses for once.

“Just… just help me clean up, okay?” You sighed, running a hand through your hair. “Then we’ll call it even.”

A week later, a poster took pride of place above the bar. It read, in big, bold lettering: “ABSOLUTELY NO PARROTS, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. EVER.”

Akaashi had made it himself.

✧ ✧

Bokuto liked to think of himself as a well-mannered man despite his disreputable occupation.

He’d even tried to get Akaashi to market them better; something along the lines of ‘debonair,’ the whole ‘criminals, but with a conscience’ shtick. Akaashi had refused, calling it a waste of time – they were pirates after all, and regardless of how moral their conduct was, they were going to have a bad reputation.

But that didn’t stop Bokuto from trying his very best to be a rogue with a heart of gold.

And he was currently debating whether or not punching an asshole in the face challenged or reinforced that identity.

“Akaashi—”

“Don’t do it.”

“I haven’t even said anything yet!” Bokuto whined, pouting at his second-in-command.

“She’ll be mad at you if you start a fight,” Akaashi murmured, taking a sip of his ale.

Bokuto huffed, head whipping around to look at you again.

To anyone else, you looked unbothered; smiling like you usually did, laughing at each poor joke directed your way. But Bokuto could tell that something was off. That you were uncomfortable. And he didn’t like that one bit.

He’d been watching long enough to identify the source of your discomfort.

Some dude that he’d only seen a handful of times, but had seen enough to know that he distinctly didn’t like his aura.

“Akaashi, I’m gonna do it.”

“Don’t do it.”

“But he’s making her uncomfortable,” Bokuto whined, looking between Akaashi and the bar with a certain hint of desperation.

“Maybe you should ask her about it before doing anything brash,” Akaashi sighed, rubbing one of his temples with two fingers. “Walking up to some dude and punching him in the face isn’t a good way of impressing your crush.”

“I don’t have a crush!”

“Sure you don’t, Bokuto,” Akaashi said, taking another sip from his mug.

“Psst!”

You raised an eyebrow at him. Was he trying to be subtle? Because leaning the entire top half of his body over the bar wasn’t exactly understated.

“Yes?”

“If I started a fight with that dude, would you get mad at me?”

What? Your eyebrows shot up in shock, eyes growing wide. “Bokuto, what the fuck?”

“Not, like, a proper fight,” he mumbled, pouting. “Just, like… a warning.”

“A warning?” Why did he think that sounded any better?

“Like a territorial thing!”

You blinked. “Bokuto, what are you talking about?”

“Well, like… if he feels unwelcome here, he’s not gonna keep bothering you, right?” Bokuto asked, tilting his head at you. He always looked like a little owl when he did that, eyes big and round and far more innocent than they should be. Wasn’t he a pirate captain?

But there was something charming about his simple logic. And something touching about the fact he was this concerned.

“Look,” you sighed, reaching over and taking his hand. You didn’t miss how his entire face bloomed red, right up to his ears. “I appreciate the thought, but I’ll be okay.”

A thought crossed your mind. A foolish thought, really. But one you didn’t abhor.

You leant forward and gave him a quick peck on the cheek.

Bokuto looked like he’d ascended. His golden eyes were wider than you’d ever seen them, his mouth forming a tiny ‘o’ as he gaped at you.

You giggled, giving his hand a squeeze before letting it go. “I’ve got a sword out back anyway.”

Those words yanked Bokuto back down to earth.

“Wait, really?” For some reason, he couldn’t quite comprehend it. But the thought of you wielding a sword made him… feel things he was rather ashamed of.

You giggled, picking up a flagon and turning to one of the barrels lined up against the wall.

“I know how to use it, too.” You shot him a wink. “My father thought that’d be a pertinent skill for me to learn, seeing as I was moving all the way out here.”

“Right.” Bokuto nodded, almost a little too vigorously. “Right.”

“Enjoy the rest of your night,” you smiled, handing him the flagon. Spiced mead. His favourite.

You had to take his hand and wrap it around the handle, shocked and flustered as he was.

“Off you go,” you tutted, waving him towards his friends.

Somehow, he managed to walk all that way without tripping.

“Oh come on,” Konaha groaned, rolling his eyes.

Bokuto wasn’t looking at them. He couldn’t, really. All he could think about was you – about how pretty you were, how soft your lips had felt against his cheek, how you smelt like whiskey and cinnamon and freshly baked bread.

Gods, having a crush was hard.

✧ ✧

“Do you… like it?” Bokuto stood on the other side of the bar, cheeks flushed and hair dishevelled with intoxication.

You’d faced many things in your time as a tavern wench. You’d believed that it meant you’d be ready to face any kind of situation, no matter how bizarre or off-beat or unsettling it might be.

That was naïve of you.

Because as you stood in front of Bokuto, very expensive-looking necklace in hand, you didn’t know what to say.

“I…”

The necklace really was beautiful. It looked like a sapphire of some kind; a rich blue gem grafted into an oval. The faintest of glows emanated from it, adding an air of ethereal dignity that you didn’t quite know how to comprehend.

You were uncomfortably aware of your surroundings. Of the dingy walls, the rafters that definitely needed a touch-up or two, the general stink of sea and men and drink.

You were uncomfortably aware of yourself. Dressed in some prettied-up rags, your hair pulled out of your face with a strip of cloth, your entire body coated in a slick of sweat and dirt.

You shouldn’t be holding something this expensive. It was wrong.

Hell, you didn’t even know where this came from. You didn’t know how he’d gotten his hands on it.

“I can’t take it,” you said decisively, reaching for one of his hands.

He jumped, but the contact was enough to catch him off guard. You turned his palm upwards, placing the necklace in the centre and gently curling his fingers over it.

“It’s too… much,” you said, shaking your head. You tried to smile at him, but you knew there’d be a melancholic touch to it.

“I’m sorry,” he frowned, casting his eyes downwards. “I just… I wanted to say thank you. For putting up with u—with me.”

“If you want to say thank you,” you mused, crossing your arms over your chest. “How about you teach me to sword fight?”

He puffed out his cheeks as he pouted at you. You weren’t sure if he’d meant to do it or not. “I thought you said you knew how to use a sword.”

Those words had been seared into the back of his brain for the past two months.

“I mean—” You swallowed, straightening your shoulders. “I do, but not well…”

Bokuto blinked at you, completely unsure of what to say.

Did he want to spend more time with you? Absolutely.

“Okay.”

The word left his mouth before he’d run through all the options. Did he trust himself not to make a complete and utter fool of himself, should the two of you be alone? Absolutely not.

But when you smiled at him like that, maybe he didn’t mind the thought of humiliating himself.

✧ ✧

“It might be better if you held it with two hands,” Bokuto mused, his own cutlass falling to his side as he took a step closer to you.

You sighed, lowering your blade. “Right.”

Gods, you were tired.

Bokuto had made good on his agreement without complaint. If anything, he seemed a bit too enthusiastic about it. He’d shown up a good three hours before opening, and had launched into his lesson before you’d even had time to process what was going on. You hadn’t even had your sword at the ready.

But it had gone well, all things considered. So well that you’d insisted on doing it again.

This was now your fourth lesson. You had a lot to learn, and Bokuto certainly wasn’t a bad teacher; so long as you could wrap your head around what he was saying.

And usually, you’d be able to have a good time.

But today was different. Today, you couldn’t put up a veneer of joviality. There was too much to worry about.

“Hey, are you alright?” Bokuto pouted, tilting his head at you.

You flinched, drawn out of your own thoughts by his voice.

You hadn’t heard those words in a while. You hadn’t really had time to make friends in this port city, let alone find people who gave a damn about your well-being. You’d just been so busy, running the tavern. Its reputation hadn’t helped you in the social sphere, either. It was hard convincing people you were worth their time when you were known for supplying pirates with their ale. No, the only people who looked out for you were back home.

Like your poor father.

No. No, don’t.

It set upon you before you could stop it. The lump in your throat. The tremble in your hands. The burning at the corner of your eyes.

It took only a second for you to come undone.

“Woah, woah, woah,” Bokuto started, his sword clattering on the ground as his hands came up to clutch your shoulders. That was enough to shock you back to the moment at hand.

“I’m sorry!” You gasped, covering your face with your hands. Gods, this was embarrassing. What sort of tavern owner cried in front of her own damn customers?

“Don’t apologise!” He cooed. “You don’t have anything to apologise for!”

Oh, but you certainly did. Before your days running the tavern you might’ve completely broken down in front of him, dignity be damned. But you were much better at holding your composure now. Several months of serving pirates would do that to you.

“I’m…” You took a deep breath, clenching your fists. “Can we finish early for today? I’ve just got… a lot of things I’m dealing with right now.”

Bokuto gazed at you sadly, running gentle hands up and down your arms. “Of course.”

“Sorry to bother you,” you said, keeping your voice as stable as possible.

“You can… talk to me,” he murmured, squeezing your arms gently.

You looked up at him. You knew you shouldn’t. You knew you might regret it later.

But fuck, you needed to talk to someone.

“It’s just…” You swallowed, trying to ignore the tightness in your chest. “My father’s ill.”

“Oh.” Bokuto’s whole demeanour deflated. You closed your eyes, trying to block out the look on his face.

“And… and all the money I’m earning out here is being sent home for treatment,” you sighed. “They’ve even called in some mages to have a look at him, but that gets… expensive.”

“I can imagine,” Bokuto frowned, unsure of whether or not he should wrap his arms around you. Would that make it worse? Make it better?

“That’s not even taking into account the cost of running this place.” You bit your lip, gesturing to the tavern in question. “Or how expensive it is to subsidise my family. Mother’s income alone isn’t near enough to help them get by…”

You didn’t know why you were telling him all this. He didn’t need to hear all this.

“I’m sorry,” you swallowed, crossing your arms over your chest. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Hey now.” Bokuto shook his head, wrapping his arms around you and drawing you into his chest.

You flinched in surprise, but you didn’t move away. He was warm – and muscular. And it had been a long, long time since anyone had held you like this.

“I told you not to apologise, didn’t I?” He hummed, resting his chin on the top of your head. “It sounds like you’ve got a lot on your shoulders.”

You nodded weakly. Your arms were trapped between your body and his, but you really, really wanted to wrap them around his waist.

“You can just relax for now, okay?” He said, giving you a little squeeze. “Take a breather.”

He loosened his grip a bit. Just enough for you to manoeuvre your arms around his waist, pulling yourself closer to him.

He’d intended to let you go, fearing that this was all too much for you. Apparently, that wasn’t the case.

But no matter how fast his heart was beating, or how embarrassingly red the entire top half of his body must be, he wouldn’t deny you this moment.

Not if it might just help you smile.

✧ ✧

“Hey, hey, hey!”

That bright smile really did nothing but bring you relief, didn’t it?

“Hello, Bokuto,” you smiled, fighting off your exhaustion. It was about an hour or so until your official opening time, but you certainly wouldn’t begrudge his company.

He half-ran up to the bar, smile in tow. It hadn’t faded even a little bit since he’d opened the door.

“What’s got you so happy?” You chuckled, looking him up and down.

“Well,” he grinned, voice a little more theatrical than usual. “I spoke to the fellas.”

“Huh?”

“Hello,” Akaashi nodded.

You jumped. Where had he come from? Had he even walked through the front door? Or had you just been so distracted by Bokuto?

Oh, but you had something else to worry about.

A fat sack of coins, sitting on the table you’d just been cleaning.

“What’s this?” You frowned, looking between the two of them.

“I may have mentioned that you were… having a bit of financial trouble, and we decided that… we wanted to help in any way we could,” Bokuto mumbled, sheepishly rubbing the back of his neck. “So we went around to the other guys who come here and we asked them to throw in a little cash.”

Your eyes focused on the bag again. How much was there? You pulled the string at its neck with a trembling hand, daring a look inside.

Shit, were these all gold?

“I can’t take this.” You shook your head, holding your hands up like a shield. “It’s too—"

“Aha!” Bokuto pointed a finger at you, a triumphant grin on his face. “I knew you’d say that!”

You blinked at him.

“You see, this isn’t a gift! This is a combined tip from all of your patrons! Money given willingly, as a thanks for your service! So, you have no reason to feel bad about accepting it!”

You stared at him. Of course he’d come up with something like that.

“You deserve to be happy,” Bokuto said, cheeks flushed as he struggled to meet your gaze. “And… you’re not going to be happy if you’ve got all this stuff to worry about. So… so hopefully this’ll help.”

Your body moved before your mind did.

You weren’t sure how you cleared the distance between the two of you, but your arms were around his neck, pressing your body against his. The poor boy froze, both heart and mind doing backflips.

“Thank you, Bokuto,” you smiled, loosening your hold around his neck and moving back just enough to get a proper look at his face.

He looked like he was about to burn up, but he was beaming. Strange and chaotic and silly as he could be, you really were fond of him. Fond of the amusement he brought to any and all who interacted with him. Fond of the weird way he looked at things, so optimistic and kind. Fond of how he seemed to bring light with him whether he went.

You noticed, not without some amusement, that Akaashi was no longer in the room.

You could certainly take the hint.

Your hands came up to cup his face, and you marvelled at the look of tentative excitement in his eyes.

“You’re a bit like a typhoon,” you chuckled, gaze flicking from his eyes to his lips.

You didn’t miss the way his Adam’s apple bobbed.

“Is that… a bad thing?” He mumbled, hands absentmindedly finding their way to your waist.

“Not at all,” you smiled. You stood on your tiptoes, pressing your lips to his with the most chaste of kisses. You lingered for just a moment longer than necessary, revelling in the sharp little breath he took.

When you met his eyes again, there was a new glint in them. One you rather liked.

“Can you… do that again?”

You laughed, rubbing one of your thumbs over his cheek.

If you hadn’t inherited this den of rogues and rapscallions, this wonderful mess of a man wouldn’t have come crashing into your life. Life was a funny thing, wasn’t it? You’d been so ungrateful when you’d first arrived, and now look at you. Kissing a pirate. You could never have predicted it.

But maybe pirates weren’t so bad, after all.

#bokuto x reader #bokuto koutarou x reader #bokuto kotaro #bokuto kotaro x reader #bokuto imagine #haikyuu x reader #haikyuucreations #ew tags #anyway this was fun #boys being dumb #does it get any better

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four-loose-screws · 3 years

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An Interview with Mr. Toshiyuki Toyonaga about Fire Emblem (Claude‘s Japanese VA), Pg. 8

Looking Back On Our Memories of FE And Its 30 Year History

During the “Fire Emblem Live Broadcast Round Table Discussion” we hosted and planned especially for the series’ thirty year anniversary, Toyonaga-san appeared as one of our guests. In this section, we asked him about his memories of previous titles in the series in more depth, all while looking through an illustration collection included in a previous issue of Nintendo Dream.

Everyone looks back on the past 30 years together

Fire Emblem Live Broadcast Round Table Discussion

(left) During the broad cast, Mr. Toyonaga explained to us that when he was wondering how to act out the support conversations that can be viewed during both the Academy Phase and the War Phase, he was told, "Just imagine it's three years after the time skip!"

T/N: The word on the screenshot reads "generic."

You want to play Castor from Mystery of the Emblem!?

During the live broadcast, you said that you think the first FE game you really played on your own was Genealogy of the Holy War on the Super Famicom. Did your aunt also let you play Mystery of the Emblem?

Toyonaga She did let me play Mystery of the Emblem. I just think that I played Genealogy first. The games belonged to her, so I’m pretty sure I played Genealogy first, then Mystery of the Emblem second. The first game I bought on my own was… The Binding Blade, I believe.

Did you use the characters that you said you wanted to voice, Ryan and Castor, in your playthroughs?

Toyonaga I did level up Ryan. Castor, on the other hand… no comment. Laughs.

Laughs. Were there any characters that you used because they were in a similar position as Arden, and you felt bad for them?

Toyonaga Castor and Matthis.፠ But I used them during different playthroughs.

You may have used them during different playthroughs, but it’s amazing that you even remember a detail like that!

Toyonaga It is. As a person who has always needed money, Castor left a really strong impression. The inclusion of conversations like that one made the games really fun to play.

(above) Using a video we recorded for the live broadcast, Mr. Toyonaga did a live recording of both Ryan and Castor!

Talking more about Genealogy of the Holy War, one of the great definitive titles of the series

How many times have you played through Genealogy of the Holy War?

Toyonaga Three times, I think? I know I played it normally the first time. I applaud the game for it’s pairing and child system, and how you can pair characters together to raise their affection and marry them, then pass skills on to their children. So during my second playthrough, I planned out who should marry who for the children to inherit certain skills, and kept putting the couples in forests next to each other. ...I mean, they fought together and talked to each other! Laughs. I remember my third playthrough was an Arden challenge run.

That’s the challenge you talked about during the live broadcast, right? As an armor knight, Arden moves slowly, and doesn’t get much use in the game, so you only had him progress through the maps…

Toyonaga Yes. During the prologue, I had him guard Chalphy Castle, used Sigurd to lure in the enemies, then had Sigurd enter the castle while Arden defeated all of them. After Arvis appeared, he defeated the boss, and after that I captured the castle. That’s how that map progressed. In the next chapter, I didn’t recruit Ayra, and she killed Arden. No matter what I did, he couldn’t win against Ayra. Laughs. I felt totally stuck, so I gave up.

(above) “Chief Feh” (voiced by Takehito Koyasu) lead the live discussion, and sparked a nostalgic conversation about memories of previous games.

So it sounds like you did your best to utilize the marriage system on your second playthrough.

Toyonaga That’s correct. I wasn’t aware of it during my first playthrough, and there were a lot of characters that didn't inherit anything.

Were there any skills or weapons that you were particular about being passed down?

Toyonaga Ayra’s Astra and Chulainn’s Luna. I wanted to make a character who could attack five times in succession while also making the enemy’s defense zero. Aside from that, I couldn’t decide if I should pair Edain with Jamke or Midir, so I went with the most common choice. I also thought about things like how strong Noishe’s skills are, and what would happen if they were passed down to the second generation; as well as how to combine Pursuit and Adept.

When you’ve played every game in the series until that point, you want to counterattack.

Toyonaga Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. Laughs.

There are some children who don’t come from bloodlines with Pursuit, so…

Toyonaga Huh? Oh yeah, yeah, that’s right! That’s why I remember it being hard to make any marriage decisions. If I can buy a strategy guide then I will, but I was the type not to look at it until I finished the game myself. I remember playing the entire game, then once I had a good understanding of it, I looked at how the strategy guide did things, and enjoyed thinking things like, “You could move the characters around like that?!” and “So I could have utilized that sort of combination, huh?” There were a lot of people like that in our generation, I think. Laughs. As the internet grew in popularity, and strategy guide-type websites started to appear, things that I used to mull over for several days and nights were now all written out in the open! I thought “Whoa!” when I saw them, and also thought that we really are in an age of convenience now. But the present is the present, and when I look back on that time I spent lost over what to do, I remember it was also a lot of fun. So even now, I often play games on my own and I don’t look at strategy sites very much.

You said that you're hoping for a Geneaology remake. What aspects of the game do you want modernized?

Toyonaga First and foremost, I’d look forward to the graphics. Of course I would also enjoy the event scenes, but, just like in Three Houses, when you see the zoomed in map, I’d like to be able to see not only the character being focused on, but also all of the other soldiers. Although instead, I’d rather they not seem like they are all fighting together, but something more realistic. That’s the kind of experience I’d like to have while playing Genealogy.

Seeing various types of battalions make an appearance seems like it would fit in Genealogy.

Toyonaga I want a class change system with full customization like Awakening has, too, where characters other than priests can class change into priests, and things like that. I think that kind of class change system with a lot of personalization is fun. Also, in Genealogy, I remember really enjoying the very spacious maps where you conquer castles within them one by one. So if the game is remade, I’d like the maps to unfold in a way where once you conquer the first castle, that castle becomes the base, then the map shifts and expands in order to make it to the next castle. …Something like that to make the map unfold seamlessly. Then, in a fashion similar to an open world game, you would make your preparations at that base castle, then attack from there. If I could plan my strategies like that, then I might play the game forever, I think!

That way of expanding the image of what you can see feels very fitting for a next generation Fire Emblem.

Toyonaga I agree. It’s something I’m personally looking forward to. Laughs.

፠ Castor: A hunter from Talys who was hired by pirates in order to save up money for his mother’s medication. In his recruitment conversation, he becomes your ally when you give him money, earning him the nickname “Talys’ Swindler.”

፠ Matthis: Lena’s older brother. He is a member of the enemy army when he finds Lena on the battlefield, but will even attack Lena for some reason, earning him the nickname, “Lena’s Idiot Brother.”

፠ A bloodline without Pursuit: One of the basic features in Fire Emblem is the ability to counterattack if one character’s speed is a set value higher than their opponents. However, in Genealogy, if a character does not have “Pursuit” as either a class skill or a personal skill, then they cannot counterattack, no matter their speed value.

#fire emblem #fe #fe3h #fe16 #claude #claude von reigen #toshiyuki toyonaga #toyonaga toshiyuki #nindori #nintendo dream #nintendo #switch #nintendo switch #japan #japanese #translation #claude va interview

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slunatic · 4 years

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My KiGo stuff

The fandom where I got my start. Here’s a list of my KiGo works with summaries. Goes from newest to oldest. *Note, these are not all of my Kim Possible works, just the ones with KiGo.

1. Build it Up: Pariah series finale. Shego and Tatsu search for a way to occupy their time while their girlfriends are busy with school. They end up going into business together to build a better future for themselves. (Pariah is a 10 part series).

2. Written on the Ten: Kim and Shego are trying to figure out how to spend their anniversary. They're open to advice and they reminisce a little to figure it out. One shot. KiGo. No real plot. Just sort of fluff.

3. Going with a Smile: Short sequel to One in a Billion. Take a trip back into the Walking the Line universe to see how Kim and Shego's children are faring as Todd moves out and gets closer to Mayah Director. Also watch as Jayden goes to talk to Bokuden Stoppable and meets his aunt, Hana. There's trouble to be had by all, of course. (Part five of the Walking the Line saga).

4. Humanities and Sciences: BoKiGo. Sequel to In the Middle! Come see how Bonnie, Kim, and Shego live their lives, live together, and try to work a relationship between the three of them. A series of one-shots... kinda.

5. Era of the Warring States: In a world without Kim Possible, war between Shego and SSJ has destroyed the land and the people. 20 years later Kim reappears and finds a world she doesn't recognize. A world that she may not be able to save. She may not even be able to save herself. This story is based on a series of “What If” pictures by the very talented artist, YogurthFrost.

6. Bubblegum Flavored: KP fusion with the anime Bubblegum Crisis 2040. When Kim moves to Mega Go City, she joins the Knight Sabers to fight against berserker Bebes while something darker involving Gemini and Drakken seems to be going on. Eventually KiGo, BetViv, and TaraFelix.

7. Family Gathering: Pariah Universe. Set after "Re-education of Jocelyn Possible." The Possibles get together to celebrate Christmas in Middleton with their loved ones. The Possible family seems to grow during this holiday when a few new guests show up. KiGo. Series Part 9 of Pariah.

8. For Fame, Fortune, and Freedom: AU. After being accused of a crime that she didn't commit, Kim becomes an outlaw to avoid being executed. Join Kim on an adventure as she learns how to be a pirate and eventually becomes the captain of a pirate ship. KiGo, BetViv, BoNique, and RonYori.

9. Blood Out: For the Halloween spirit. Sequel to Blood In. Kim and Shego find that they haven't moved past Shego's fears of Kim leaving and she is pushing Kim away, but they don't know why. What will they do? And just who is Carmilla? Come find out. KiGo. Series Part 4 of Vampire Kimmie.

10. In the Middle: KiBo. KiGo. BoKiGo. Shego wants Kim. Bonnie wants Kim. Kim wants them both. Who's going to have her way? Probably Kim because she can do anything. Series Part 1 of In the Middle.

11. The Re-education of Joss Possible: Sequel to Cryptic...kind of. Latest in the Pariah universe. Joss comes to stay with Trin and Kim for the summer. The sisters try to connect with Joss, who is a little difficult about things. Can Joss learn to get along with her cousins? Series Part 8 of Pariah.

12. Blood In: For the Halloween spirit. Sequel to "New Life." Kim and Shego are still haunted by demons of their past, even though they are free. Is Shego in jeopardy of losing Kim after everything they've gone through? KiGo. Series Part 3 of Vampire Kimmie.

13. Change Your Mind: Oneshot. Shego remained Miss Go and started a relationship with Kim that doesn't seem to be working out. Is it her or is it Kim? KiGo.

14. Be Careful What You Do: Kim attends an important party where a pretty redhead hits on her at the end of the night. This is a night that could cost Kim her reputation and so much more. KiGo.

15. New Life: The sequel to New Blood, for the Halloween spirit. The quest for the cure continues with Kim still being a vampire. She and Shego are still under the thumb of GJ. Will they get away? Will Kim be cured? KiGo. Series Part 2 of Vampire Kimmie.

16. One in a Billion: AU. Sequel to The Gods Must Be Laughing. Shego and Kim are now trying to be a regular couple and do the things that they see their friends doing, like get married and have kids. Series Part 4 of Walking the Line saga.

17. Underdogs: Sequel to Cryptic, sort of. Set in the Pariah universe. The past comes back to bite Trin and Shin in the butt. Kim finds herself affected by the problem too and Shego's along for the ride as usual. Drakken's back. Series Part 7 of Pariah.

18. Dirty Little Secrets: Everyone has secrets. Some deeper than others. Come take a sneak peek at some secrets. Various pairings. Series of one shots, some of which contain romance. (Only the first chapter of this is KiGo).

19. Honor Bound: AU. Set in Japan during the Tokugawa era. Director Betty recruits samurai Kim and ninja Yori for a job to find out about a plot to overthrow the government. The job: go undercover as geisha. Kigo. RonYori.

20. Black Hole Philosophy: An AU of my Pariahverse. Pretty much, the pairings have been reversed and Shin has a girlfriend. By the end of it, things should be in their proper order. Can it be done? Series Part 6 of Pariah.

21. New Blood: For the Halloween spirit. Kim and Ron go looking for missing persons, only for Kim to become one. Is it really because of a vampire? The story will be Kigoish. Series Part 1 of Vampire Kimmie.

22. The Gods Must Be Laughing: AU. The sequel to On a Short Leash. Shego and Kim continue their odd relationship. Still a weird sort of Kigo. Series Part 3 of Walking the Line saga.

23. Night Terrors: Set in the Pariah universe. When Kim makes cupcakes, it brings the crew the worse nightmares when they go to bed. What could possibly frighten this crew? Series Part 5 of Pariah.

24. Another Time, Another Place: When Shego discovers an old book in the attic of her family's old house, it leads to Kigo in two different eras.

25. There For You: AU. Kigo. Kim is a hero, an author, and a painter who can do anything, except get a date. That probably explains why Bonnie gives her a card to an escort service.

26. Cryptic: Sequel to Pariah. There is a Possible clan get together at the Lazy C Ranch. Insults fly while problems arise. Shego never knew that Montana could be so interesting. Series Part 4 of Pariah.

27. Maybe: Kigo. One shot. Shego loves making Kim angry, but she can't figure out why. Maybe the reasons don't matter.

28. Forsaken: Set in the Pariah universe. A Possible has been chosen to save the world from the apocalypse. Wait, it's not Kim. It's Trin? We're as good as dead. Series Part 3 of Pariah.

29. A History of Yesterday: It starts with a honeymoon and ends with an affair. Or does it start with an affair and end with a honeymoon? Whichever.

30. On a Short Leash: AU. This is the sequel to Walking the Line. Kim and Shego look to renew their unorthodox relationship. Series Part 2 of Walking the Line saga.

31. Pariah: AUish. Who does the hero Kim Possible look up to? Check it out. Series Part 1 of Pariah.

32. Walking the Line: AU like a mug. Shego is a cop and Kim...well, you won't believe what Kim is. Series Part 1 of Walking the Line saga.

33. Addiction: Kim and Shego find themselves addicted and now they're looking to quit each other. Kigo. I feel I should warn people about the humor in this story, apparently, some people find it funny.

34. Comprehension: Kigo of sorts. Shego sits and thinks about a certain girl that can do anything.

These three fics are only on FFN because I haven’t moved them yet.

35. The Beast Within: AU. Middleton is a town where everyone has special powers. Well, not everyone. Kim is the only normal one. How does she cope? Will be kigo eventually.

36. The Beast, Without: Sequel to the Beast Within. Kim is still trying to get the hang of her dragon powers while former members of WEE seem to be plotting against her. Is she ready for them?

37. The Beast Within: Special Edition: Just like the title says. Two people with super powers come into Middleton to take on Kim and Shego. Who are the new duo? Whose powers are better? Who will win the brawl?

#kim possible #kigo #ao3 work #romance #drama #angst #fanfiction #fanfic #shego #kim possible x shego #f/f romance #lesbian characters #lesbian relationship #epic stories #novel length #starvinglunatic #starving lunatic #writing #alternate universe

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jaskierswolf · 4 years

Text

Part of Your World pt.1/4

Jaskier is a sea witch who finds Ciri crying by the edge of the ocean. She's lonely and desperate to find her Destiny so Jaskier offers to escort her to him. (Based on a guest prompt on AO3)

____________________

Jaskier swam as hard as he could towards the surface. He could see the sun sparkling through the water, calling to him, begging him to breach the waves and bask in the warmth of its glow. He loved the surface. The people were always so interesting and the music. Sweet Kostroma, the music. The mermaids could sing well enough underwater and yes, Jaskier wasn’t one to turn his nose up at joining in with their choirs, but the music of humans… Oh ho ho! It was something else indeed.

He broke free and dived through the air. He didn’t quite have the grace of the mermaids, but having eight tentacles flying out behind him instead of their delicate fins would have that effect. Still he was faster than any of them, and he was stronger too. He had also inherited his mother’s magical talents. Unlike the mermaids, he could transform into human form. So really, who was winning?

He crashed back into the ocean before bobbing back up to up at the beautiful sky. The sun was high and shining bright. There were wisps of clouds drifting through air. Jaskier was always entranced by the clouds. Water… in the air.

Fucking magic!

And they never stayed still. They were always changing, just like the ocean. Sometimes they were light and fluffy like something out of a fairytale, but Jaskier loved them when they were swirling and dark, calling on the storms. He loved storms. Most of the mermaids were scared of the storms, except the mermaid warriors who protected their underground palaces. Jaskier, delighted in the chaos, the way the ocean pushed and pulled everything in it. There was a certain thrill about just relaxing and letting the current take him wherever it so pleased.

There were no such storms and currents today. The sky was blue and ocean was still. Jaskier sighed as he let his hand dance over the surface of the water, creating ripples with his fingers, and he began to sing. There was no words that a human could understand, just feelings, emotions and a dash of chaos then sent shockwaves of energy through the air until he heard…

“Crying?” He muttered and turned his head in the direction of the soft sobbing. He frowned and plunged back under the water, swimming as fast as he could towards the shore.

As he approached the harbour he peeked out, barely lifting his head above the waves. There was a young girl with her dress pushed up to her knees as she dangled her ankles in the salty sea water. Her hair was long and ashen, falling down past her shoulders in waves that a sorceress would envy. Her cheeks were blotchy and tearstained, the source of the sobbing.

Jaskier swam to a secluded corner of the shore and pulled himself onto the beach. As he did he released his magic and his tentacles morphed into human legs. With another burst of magic he was clothed in the finest silk trousers and a soft linen shirt. He thought about a matching doublet but, having spent most of his life topless under the sea, he didn’t really like them. He shook himself dry with the help of one final wave of chaos and sauntered over to the little girl. “Are you alright?”

She gasped and jumped up, pulling a dagger from the folds of her dress. “Don’t touch me!”

Jaskier put his hands up. “I’m not going to, I just heard you crying. I can sit over here and listen, if you need that?” He slowly moved back away from the girl, putting a few metres away in between them.

The girl glared and waved the dagger in his direction. “Stay over there and don’t talk.”

“As you wish.”

“I said don’t talk!”

Jaskier’s mouth snapped shut and he waved his hand, gesturing for her to continue.

“Do you know who I am?” The girl asked, narrowing her eyes at him and still not lowering the dagger. Jaskier shook his head. “Good.” She sheathed her dagger and turned to stare out into the ocean. “My parents died when I was a child and apparently I’m linked by Destiny to some witcher but my… my aunt won’t tell me anything about him. Only she’s too busy with… with working at the, the blacksmith and all my friends treat me like glass no matter how many times I tell them that I’m just… just Fiona.”

Jaskier hummed and tilted his head as he listened. She was lying to him. He didn’t know why yet but she was absolutely hiding something, then again, so was he. She had no idea that he wasn’t as human as he appeared.

“And I keep dreaming of wolves, white wolves with yellow eyes. It’s driving me mad and I can’t sleep! I know it’s got something to do with my Destiny and I’m just so angry!” Fiona hissed.

“So you’re not upset?” Jaskier asked quietly.

“Of course I’m upset!” Fiona growled. “But mostly I’m just fucking cross at my gran… my aunt.”

“Your gran aunt?” Jaskier let out a soft laugh.

“I told you to shut up!” She hissed again.

Jaskier rolled his eyes. “My apologies, Fiona. What if I help you find this witcher?”

Fiona’s eyes lit up. “You would do that?”

Jaskier shrugged. “Sounds like an adventure. I love adventures! But I do have one condition.”

Fiona’s face transformed back into a fierce scowl. Jaskier didn’t mind. She was right not to trust him. She didn’t know him at all. “What?”

“I would like a lute!” He grinned. He could magic one up but they never sounded as good as ones that had been lovingly crafted. “Mine was taken from me and I simply cannot be without a lute.”

Fiona laughed. “You’re a bard?”

He winked and did a little bow. “Jaskier, at your service.”

She wrinkled her nose. “No. Don’t bow.”

Jaskier raised an eyebrow. “Alright then. No bows, but I am a bard, little one. I may forget.” He winked, playing along with the back story she had created for him.

And so they set off, to find the witcher. They passed through Cintra on the way. Fiona made Jaskier wait outside the city whilst she procured him a lute. He wasn’t entirely sure that she hadn’t stolen it, she was acting incredible suspicious about the whole affair, but he had a lute so he wasn’t going to complain. Jaskier gently pressed Fiona for details on her mysterious witcher that she was apparently linked to. He’d never met a witcher and he was intrigued. He knew witchers were monster hunters but they also tended to stay away from the sea creatures. They were not designed to fight in the depths of the oceans. Jaskier was pretty sure he was safe.

He would just stay in human form until he was away from the witcher.

He’d be fine.

_______________

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Fiona asked as they peered at the campfire together.

Jaskier had found a lovely spot by the river and charmed a couple of fish into his hands so they would have dinner.

Now he just had to cook the things. Fiona was very human and would probably run a mile if he were to just eat the fish raw. Although personally he didn’t see the problem with it. Humans were just fussy. He sighed and prodded at the firewood. Jaskier’s magic could be incredibly powerful…. around water. He was shit at fire. You didn’t need fire in the ocean so why would a sea witch have fire magic, but he was also not the one that was going to freeze to death if he didn’t get the fire started.

“Yes.” He snapped. “Can you do any better?”

Fiona tilted her head and glared at him with fierce green eyes. “Yes. Now give it here!”

She did do better and within minutes they were sat by a fire roasting the fish that Jaskier had prepared. Jaskier played whilst they were waiting, old sea shanties that he’d heard pirates sing from their boats. He knew some songs from the main land, he’d visited enough times but the shanties were uplifting and helped to cheer up his young companion.

As he sang he let out tendrils of magic to search for Geralt of Rivia, calling on the clouds and the rivers to help guide him. They told him of a castle high up in the mountains where the witchers of the Wolf School hid out over winter, but spring was blooming over the Continent and the witchers would soon be back on the path. Geralt, he learned as he sang, was a white haired witcher also known as the Butcher of Blaviken. This worried Jaskier. He had already grown quite fond of the young girl that sat beside him and the moniker seemed a little violent. He would be sure to be near a source of water when he guided them towards Geralt, he didn’t want to be totally useless against the monster slayer.

Fiona asked him about his life and family as they ate. He lied of course. He invented a whole new backstory for himself as not to alarm the young girl. The Viscount de Lettenhove. She noted that she’d never heard of the Lettenhove estate and he mumbled something about it being an obscure place, which is why he had left to become a bard. He could see she didn’t believe him by the way she scrunched up her nose.

“We all have our secrets… Fiona.” He said pointedly. “But I promise you that I won’t harm you. I will take you to your destiny and then fuck off.”

Fiona blushed at the use of her name and stared at the flames of the fire. “Ciri.” She muttered. “My name is Ciri.”

Jaskier laughed and smiled fondly at the young girl. “It is nice to meet you, Ciri.”

“So where are you really from?” She asked, narrowing her eyes.

“Oh ho ho!” He laughed at her tenacity. “I’m afraid that’s a little bigger than a name, my dear. Let’s just say it is a beautiful place that is far far away from here.”

She glared at him. “You’re not human.”

It wasn’t a question.

He tilted his head. “Right. That’s quite an accusation.”

“Fae?” She asked.

“No.”

“Doppler?”

“Ciri, no.” He sighed.   “Werewolf!” She grinned and clapped her hands together.

He pouted. “Oh for love of… follow me.”

“Why?”

“Do you want to know or not?” He snapped.

“Urgh. Fine.” She muttered and they walked together towards the river.

Jaskier gestured for her to remain on the bank whilst he waded into the water. It wasn’t deep but it was enough that he could change back into his real form. His clothes melted away as his legs morphed back into tentacles. He pulled at the river with his magic to create a spinning orb of water, passing it back and forth between his hands.

“A mermaid?” Ciri gasped and he shook his head.

“A sea witch.” He corrected her and waved a tentacle at her. “I don’t have fins.”

Ciri snorted. “But you’re a man. How can you be a witch?”

Jaskier looked down at his lower body and then sighed. Humans. So narrow-minded. “You are a hu-man, but you don’t see me questioning your gender.” He muttered.

“Oh.”

“Enough now. Get back to camp. We’ll continue searching for Geralt in the morning.” He shuffled back to the river and changed back into his human form, clothes and all.

“Alright.” Ciri mumbled with a yawn. “Goodnight, then.”

“Night, Ciri.” He replied softly, he wasn’t tired yet. So he turned back to the fire to watch the flames dance in the darkness of the night. He hummed a lullaby under his breath until Ciri fell asleep.

When he eventually joined the girl in the land of dreams, he dreamt of the oceans that he was now so far away from.

__________

Tag list: @alwenarin @slythnerd @davidtennan-t @flippinfricks @awitchersbard @innocentcinnamonpun @marvagon @elliestormfound @geraskier-trashh @panerato @moonysourenza @artistsfuneral @victorieschild

#the witcher #sea witch!jaskier #geraskier #geralt/jaskier #jaskier pankratz #geralt of rivia #cirilla fiona elen riannon #wolfie's witcher writing

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rayomz · 4 years

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raymond headcanons.. they aren't entirely fleshed out and they're like "what if it was like this? that makes sense". so sorry if things dont quite make sense or isn't that thought out.. also there may be errors here and there but this isn't supposed to be a polished document its just a rough collection of headcanons i haven't done much with other than like... thinking of them lol

some of this stuff i've posted before but i'm going to reshare again

polokus in origins is described as "an artist and unabashed hedonist" and i see him as just that. immature. he loves all his creations, of course, but he's not exactly responsible. he sees the nymphs more as friends than his daughters. he's more concerned with people liking him than doing the right thing. when he has his first bad dream, he cowers and doesn't want to do anything about it, or he's too scared? this leads to betilla having to do everything herself, she gets help from the other nymphs and creates rayman

the masks of polokus represent his different formes, or perhaps different eras. polokus is a shapeshifter and can be whatever he wants to of course, but he has a "default" he likes to stick with. when he finally changes his "default", a mask is made of the previous forme. for example, polokus from rayman 2 and polokus from the ubiart games are him in different "eras" if that makes sense. their cultural and historic significance could be expanded upon definitely i think but i havent thought too much more into that lmao. the wiki on rpc says that the four kings look like the masks but that sounds more speculative and feels like a stretch. i don’t buy that at all, i don’t see the resemblance

polokus loves all forms of art, and as a result, a lot of the glade's "religion" boils down to being creative and creating, and a lot of magic in general require some form of art, such as dancing for certain spells (the way teensies open portals in r2 or w/e). the people of the glade create art, sing, dance, to keep polokus inspired, amused, and happy so he doesn't have any more bad dreams. i thought about the nymphs all having a corresponding art form, with, obviously, holly being music and edith being culinary, but im not sure what annetta or helena would be. helena maybe textiles... annetta im not sure what i would do with her since she's the most... withdrawn nymph

polokus’ feelings on rayman’s existence are complicated since he is the only creature not created by him. he doesn’t know what he’s capable of, but he’s done a lot already in terms of stopping nightmares and foreign threats such as the pirates. he’s impressed, intrigued... a bit intimidated maybe..... he respects rayman and does love him (polokus has to love every creature after all)

im not sure if the muse of the poets is considered to be actual canon since it appears she was only mentioned in a license guide and not in any other official media. but she's a popular character and i like her too so she gets mentioned. she and polokus fall in love and she has their children, the teensies. she is disgusted by them and runs away, leaving them and polokus forever. she is disgusted by herself, too. if her children are ugly, she must be ugly as well. she becomes obsessed with making herself beautiful, and having beautiful children. she eventually becomes begoniax, which you know how that turns out...

betilla: polokus' pride and joy, she loves him as a father, but is disappointed with his lack of responsibility. when she was younger she was very mischevious and much like him. she learned magic just to be able to pull pranks perform elaborate pull magic tricks. eventually when the first bad dream happened, it was a wake up call. she tried to get him to do something about jano but he wouldn't respond to her. she took matters into her own hands since she was the most magically capable of anyone she knew. with the help of the other nymphs, they created rayman. she's been the "responsible" one ever since. if you catch her in a good mood she might be a bit playful but her days of frivolity are long gone. likes to knit and crochet when she has the time (which is rarely), and spend time with her sisters.

other nymphs: i dont have quite as many headcanons about them, but they are rayman's aunts obviously. edith is rayman's favourite aunt since she's a good cook, followed by holly, who has taught him everything he knows about music. helena is very enthusiastic and a bit overbearing. annetta is the aunt that never shows up to anything

the nymphs all have an element tied to them. betilla and fee de la mort obviously being life and death. holly is air, edith is fire, anetta is water, and helena is earth. seems pretty obvious this part but i've rarely seen ppl attribute helena with earth despite the fact she lives on a mountain...? (stone men, stone dogs, golly g....)

ly is interested in the magical workings of the world and is especially fascinated with lums and their power. betilla sees her potential as a magic user and has accepted her as her pupil. another reason betilla has taken a liking to ly is that she reminds her of her own youth, since ly is fairly playful as well, using magic for tricks. ly is initially just interested in rayman because of the fact he's a being entirely made out of lums, but it eventually turns into a genuine, and close, friendship.

a lot of fairies and some teensies can make "weak" silver lums to give to rayman, but they might not do much, or the effects are temporary. only ly and the nymphs are able to give rayman powers with "stronger" silver lums.

polokus does not dream of every individual in the glade. he dreamt of the first peoples of each species, then they procreate by themselves. most places in the glade are natural, similar to earth, but polokus' dreams may affect them (the icy parts of gourmand land is an obvious example. giant fruit? that's silly)

teensies: naturally hairless and there is little dimorphism between the sexes. their fashion is inspired by the fairies', and have adopted to wear wigs, false eyelashes, fake facial hair, etc. all teensies have the ability to perform magic but they have to actively for it to be useful. teensies with an interest in magic will attend a magic school. the best of the best of teensie magic users can become a minimus, and, of course, the best out of THEM become the grand minimus. there are many teensie races, and each may vary in size, colour (turquoise like in the ubiarts, more grey like in 2 and 3. usually just varying shades of blue), markings, nose length and shape. some races may be more adept at certain magic styles than others.

mr dark: i have some ideas but nothing concrete. might not even go with this story as my definitive headcanon. fairy. he was always critical of polokus, and after the first bad dream, that made him hate the god even more. he was the one who wanted to stop jano, and maybe become someone powerful enough to be seen as the glade's new "god" or whatever. betilla has proven herself to be the better magic user after the creation of rayman. polokus' main thing was that he was the creator, he was able to create life, and now betilla's able to create life. she may as well be polokus! she's a threat! when he steals the protoon/heart of the world and eventually kidnaps betilla, he uses her power to create dark rayman/raymesis. raymesis is *not* was not created by dark by himself, and he would not have been able to pull off this feat without betilla's knowledge of creating "thingamajigs". rayman and raymesis are the only two thingamajigs known in existence, both created by betilla. not saying it's impossible that others could exist, but they would have to be dreamt into existence by polokus.

dark's obsession with being the most powerful person in the world and becoming a god is why he stole the heart of the world, of course. ales mansay would take inspiration from this event. his views are similar to dark's, that's why he worships him. polokus is a terrible god, he lets people suffer. rayman is a terrible hero, all he does is sleep. ales knows he wouldn't be able to reach the heart of the world and instead tries to build his “own” using lums (maybe not exactly but something comparable... the heart of the world is made up of lums after all). i know that's like, duh, canon information, but it was never stated *WHY* he looks up to mr dark. so now you know why. its bc they both hate polokus

#raymantag #long post/

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loftec · 4 years

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YEESSS!!! Rachel Weisz 😍😍😍 I lovvvveeee, also, ❤️✨women✨❤️ in general are incredible!! :D

YES INDEED! Also, here’s a thought I had recently

Me: I don’t have crushes because crushes require that you have a desire to be with the person in some way, right? And I don’t?

Also me, a 34 year old emotionally constipated dumbass: I love Sarah Connor. If I were a character in T2 I would be the trusted friend she goes to for shelter at the low point of the movie. She trusts me because she knows I love her and would do anything for her, and because I’d never want anything from her that she can’t give. I believe her when she tells me the things she knows, but I don’t understand what it’s like to be her, I’m not driven by the same fears as she is. But she comes to me when she needs help and I do what she asks, because I know what it means for her to ask. I have a cat. Her son thinks of me as family and my home is the one place from his displaced childhood he thinks of as a home of his own. I die protecting them because I’m a secondary character and thus disposable, but important enough to cause the main characters pain and elicit sympathy from the audience. I am the gay best friend. I am the spinster aunt. I am the safe haven in the desert with a basement bunker filled with canned beans and illegal firearms.

Yikes! I think I need to learn that words can encompass all experiences, no matter how fucking fringe they may be, lol.

An incomplete list of characters I knew I had a crush on as a teenager (if I’d allowed myself a wider definition of the word ’crush’):

Sarah Connor

Trinity

Zoë Washburne

Porthos the Pirate

An incomplete list of characters I didn’t know I had a massive crush on until I recently rewatched the movies and had An Epiphany:

Morgan Adams (”Cutthroat Island is a really good movie actually!” Well. I would probably still argue this, but also allow that I was maybe a bit influenced by a very wet Geena Davis climbing out of near certain death and onto her ship to wreak havoc amongst the patriarchy.)

Sue Charlton (”Mick is the cool main character and the reason I love this movie!” Uh. Incorrect. It was Sue. Sue quietly humoring all the Men around her, Sue being a reporter and good at her job, taking care of herself but accepting help when she needs it. That gorram 80s bathing suit. Sue chucking her shoes so she can sprint through NYC to stop the person she loves from leaving.)

People whose film catalogue I would watch in their entirety as a clueless 15 year old and now i’m like OH:

Rachel Weisz AND Brendan Fraser

MICHELLE YEOH

Jet Li

Richard E Grant

Richard Ayoade

Sandra Bullock

People I follow on instagram as a clueless 34 year old and now i’m like OH:

Rahul Kohli

Pedro Pascal (preferably traveling with Rahul Kohli in a version of The Mandalorian season 3 that I’m trying to manifest into reality) (Where Rahul plays a Han Solo type of charming scumbag and Din Djarin hunts him, until they end up in a situation where they have to work together and start to respect each other and GASP like each other, and when Din is injured Rahul’s character takes him to the safest place he knows, the home of his best space friend – ME – who helps patch Din up and watches them interact as Din recovers. In a nice little scene where Rahul and I are doing something domestic like peeling space potatoes, I tell him he’s an idiot and never could see what was right in front of him, but I’m obviously not talking about me and him because it’s not like that at all. I am the gay best friend in space. I officiate the space wedding. I become Grogu’s spinster space aunt. I have a cat, in space.)

(This section of the list was perhaps mostly just a ruse to tell you about my Din/OMC headcanon)

And finally. A list of real people that I don’t actually know who I would happily pine after and give shelter when they find themselves on a quest to save the world:

Jenny Nicholson

That’s it, she’s the list.

There you go. I’m asked a question and a year later I come back with a very complicated answer. Seems right.

#you are correct my anon friend #when you say ❤️✨women✨❤️#sorry about this whole post #you unleashed something i've apparently been thinking about for a year #Anonymous #I've had this in my drafts for a couple of days and I don't know why #release the kraken!

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thethreemages · 4 years

Photo

Yeaaah, didn’t mean to make such a late holiday-related TTM pic this year... buut yknow, stuff happens to where I just wasn’t feeling too inspired, I’m afraid :/. Hope this simple & cute lil fluffy pic will be enough to suffice for the meantime though... featuring a much younger Raider Crane as he meets with his beloved baby sister Noira for the first time~ 💙 DA Link

~Fic Below the Cut~

Wintervale had come much like it did any other year in Graystone's main capitol... with many either inside or out bustling in the streets as the cool winter flurries fell up from above. Whether one would be feeling the holiday mood to celebrate with loved ones or not, it was a time many looked forward to in more ways than one. Especially for one particular citizen in the form of Raider Crane, whom was eagerly awaiting the Wintervale morning right by the window sill. Not even for the regular tradition of tearing into his presents... but for expecting the arrival of his parents coming home with a brand new member of the family. His very own baby sister. "Erm... Raider, sweetheart? Don't you think you'd be more comfortable here by the fire?" came the concerned, yet calming voice of his dear Aunt Freya, whom was staying at the family residence to help out with Raider while his parents were busy. Her nephew in the meantime was diligently stuck near the window eyeing the falling snow outside... which was very unlike the past Wintervale's where he'd normally be zipping all over the place in excitement. No, this time was far too special for him to goof off on... so he simply declined his aunt's kindly offer with a quick shake of his head. "Nuh uh, sissy's almost here! I gotta look for her!" Raider insisted, pointing out towards the snow, "If I don't, she won't like me!" Gently laughing with a small smile, Freya simply got up to sit by the couch Raider was kneeling over, patting him on the head, "Oh, I'm sure she won't mind, Raider. She's still just a wee lass after all... the moment she sees you through that door, she's sure to love you~" The thought of that filled Raider with a little more hope... but true to his nature, he quickly went back to leaning to the window to wait anyway. This naturally earned a small sigh from his aunt... yet considering what the family's been going through these past few weeks, she couldn't bring herself to blame the boy. As it was... the arrival of the newest Crane daughter came with some "complications" that prevented her from being born on her expected due date... instead, the build of stress and anxieties from her mother's experiences in the last few months of pregnancy kickstarted an earlier labor. While the baby ended up being relatively fine, all things considered... doctors were still adamant to keep her by the hospital for at least a longer observation period. It was by sheer luck and persistence that her folks were finally allowed to bring her home on this special holiday in particular... much to everyone's relief. Thus... once Raider finally spotted the parking lights of his parents' car up by the front, his face lit up like the sun as he hurriedly hopped off the couch to greet his family, "-SHE'S HERE! AUNTIE AUNTIE, SHE'S HERE~!" "Ooh, thank the Saints!" Freya relaxed in a relieved smile, patiently letting Raider tug her by the sleeve to wait by the door. Little guy was already bounding up and down by his heels by the time the door unlocked and opened... revealing not just his clearly tired and frustrated parents, but the bundled up baby girl in question quietly resting away in her mother's arms. "Mommy! Daddy! How's sissy??" Raider loudly and excitedly asked both his parents, earning a half-annoyed grunt from his father Lachlan as he was trying to hang up his coat. "Quiet down, boy. You're goin' to wake the girl." Lachlan gruffly reminded his son, gesturing to his wife Vinia who looked like she was trying to hold off a migraine whilst keeping the baby asleep. Realizing this, Raider quickly hushed down a bit to a whisper as he then nudged to his mother in curiosity, "Psst, Mommy? Is sissy okay?" Unlike her husband, Vinia was at least a bit more patient to respond to Raider in a gentler tone, taking some deep breaths from her migraine to half-smile back, "Your sister's doing much better, Raider. Just give us a moment and we'll let you see her..." "Ohhh, okay!" her little boy nodded back obediently, without another word rushing over to the couch to give his parents some space to settle into the home. His aunt soon headed over to assess how things were going from the hospital stay, even being allowed to hold the baby whilst Lachlan brought down the overnight bags. "Aww... what a darlin' little angel~" Freya warmly smiled at the bundle in her arms, looking over at the couple in curiosity, "Have either of you decided on a name, yet? I know things were hectic back at the hospital and all, so..." "Pff, well of course we did..." Lachlan responded with a huff after putting away one of the bags, "We'll be callin' her 'Noira'... for one of the Crane's many great past figures, Noira the Victress." Intrigued by this particular name choice, it made Freya think a bit more before she gave a look of confusion, "...Wasn't Victress Noira the leader of a band of blood pirates...?" Perhaps to not too much of a surprise, Lachlan didn't seem to get what the issue was as he raised a brow back at her, "...and your point is...?" "Well... pardon me to be judgin' on baby names, but isn't that a bit too grizzly of an origin to name your own daughter after?" Freya further questioned... growing even more unamused by her brother simply giving a haughty laugh, "Well duh... that's what makes the name as fittin' as it be! Y'know us Cranes have to be held up to the strongest of warrior titles, that's been the oath of our family since the beginning ages of Terra..." Lachlan confidently explained as he glanced back over to the bundle in his wife's arms, yawning strongly before snuggling up in her blanket again. "-Besides, lil Noira over there be carryin' a vast Water magic aura... tis only natural she carry a similarly strong title much like her brother is with our grandfather's. What more can ya want?" and thus, without even giving his sister time respond back to that statement, Lachlan simply turned away from view as he went over to grab a quick smoke outside, leaving the rest of his kin alone in the living area. There were... many things on Freya's mind in regards to her brother, from his long-standing gruff attitude to his never-ending stubbornness on keeping up these countless "traditions" from their family name... but in this moment of seeing Raider so eager to scooch over to Vinia and the baby, she decided to just leave the issue be for now and let this treasured memory continue on in peace... "Mommy... she's so pretty..." Raider gently uttered, staring in awe at such a tiny and delicate lil thing. From her pudgy lil cheeks, to her tiny hands, to the soft lil tufts of hair curled on her head... one would be a fool to find Noira to be anything other than adorable. Watching her son be so intrigued by his sister was a sight that even Vinia couldn't resist finding charm in... tiredly smiling down at the siblings meeting for the first time. "...Would you like to hold her, Raider?" Vinia softly spoke to her son, immediately bringing a small gasp of joy to Raider face, "-Really??" "-As long as you promise to be careful, that is... then yes." she calmly nodded back, her tone recognizably staying firm but not enough to deter her little boy. It took a quick second for Raider to calm himself on quietly nodding yes in a promise... which luckily gave enough trust in Vinia to carefully maneuver Noira to relax down into Raider's lap, with the help of some pillows nearby. Needlessly to say, Aunt Freya wasted no time hurrying to grab the recorder up on the shelf to capture this moment... smiling warmly at the sight of Raider being so overjoyed around his new sibling. Seeming to be the most happiness she'd seen from the boy than any of his past Wintervale gifts, Raider couldn't help but declare an 'oath' of his own to the baby girl below him. "Psst, hi Noira... I'm your brother, Raider! I know the big world may be a bit scary now... since you're so little and all. But no need to worry, 'cause as your big brother... I promise to always save you! No one's gonna hurt my baby sissy while I'm around, never ever!" With that... it seemed to finally stir up Noira from her sleep enough for her to carefully blink her lil eyes open... a brilliant blue color matching much like her brother's gazing back at her. Carefully but lovingly, Raider gave her a hug and kiss to show how much he cherished her stepping into his life. To his young, innocent heart, it was the best present he could've asked for for the holiday of Wintervale...

#the three mages #my art #my ocs #raider crane #noira crane #the crane family #fluff #my fics #ttm art #ttm fics

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atinytokki · 4 years

Text

My Way

v. Social Graces

It became clear very quickly that the problem was not Hongjoong’s stealth skill.

For some reason, he didn’t care to disguise himself from the Song family’s younger son. He seemed to be around his age, and selfishly Hongjoong crafted this fantasy, wishing they could be brothers, that he could become part of this new family and fit right back in to his old home, escaping the Hall and all its pressures.

And then one day the boy yelled at him and told him to leave.

Hongjoong’s objective shifted from investigating the imposters to rescuing Mother’s diary once he’d gone home and had a good cry.

If the boy hated him that much, he wouldn’t have to see him again. As soon as Hongjoong retrieved the book, he’d be out of the newcomer’s hair.

It had been too much to hope for anyway.

It was technically Aunt Sohee’s fault that Hongjoong was caught in his old bedroom with the diary, mid-escape. She had forced him to practice for even longer than usual during the daily piano lesson, and he hadn’t been able to make off with the book before the boy returned from school.

During the chase that ensued, Hongjoong’s mind went blank. Again, he was conflicted about the stranger. Why was he chasing him all the way back into town? Why did he care enough to read the diary and try to reconcile things?

Hesitantly and against his better judgment, Hongjoong allowed the boy Mingi to befriend him while they sat and looked out at the ocean. There was a simple genuineness in the way he expressed his concern that didn’t annoy Hongjoong the way his cousins did.

He seemed a little absorbed in his own thoughts, but at least he was unattached to this town and all the memories it trapped. He wouldn’t try to talk about Hongjoong’s parents or plan his future for him.

Spending time with Mingi after that first real conversation was always a chance to live in the moment. It was just them, the cliffs, and the beach. They could talk about whatever they wanted, they could be whatever they wanted.

It was more uncomfortable when Bosung joined them, neither certain how to proceed with their frayed friendship, but Mingi sensed it and stopped arranging picnics for three.

Playing with Mingi was an escape.

But it was an escape Hongjoong rarely managed to indulge in thanks to the oppressive schedule of Jangwon Hall.

Mining, farming, even teaching the younger boys all while acting the part of a gentleman but never being treated as one behind closed doors.

Hongjoong was actually quite good at it, smiling graciously and showcasing all his charming talents, but it wasn’t anything he particularly enjoyed. His eyes were completely empty, and no one was the wiser.

Day after day, week after week, he cycled between his different selves. He blinked and somehow it was the day before his thirteenth birthday. He’d gone months without his parents, and he’d practically become a different person.

The Jangwon staff didn’t go easy on him. They saw their opportunity and took advantage of his situation, so instead of spending time with Mingi and enjoying the precious moments when he could just be himself, Hongjoong was fulfilling a litany of tasks, the last of which being a trip to the market, shopping for the cook.

The Song family’s stall used to be the fish stall where Hongjoong’s parents sold their catches, but they didn’t know about him and Hongjoong preferred to keep it that way, so he skipped over them quietly and went to a neighbouring food vendor to purchase what he needed.

At least the cook had given him money to buy the ingredients.

“Ah, the youngest son of the youngest son doing what he can to live up to his family name,” the shop owner chuckled on seeing him. “Working odd jobs for spare change?”

“No one pays me for my labour,” Hongjoong snorted as he added a bag of flour to his basket. “It seems it is my duty nonetheless.”

Hongjoong’s feelings toward his relatives were well known in Panhang. It seemed he was the gossip of the town, even after the onset of autumn.

“Well,” the man shrugged as he received and counted the money. “The Navy is offering quite the generous ransom for certain pirates nowadays. You could set yourself up nicely.”

He moved to pass out a flyer with the pirate’s drawing on it, but Hongjoong waved it away. “If mining was hard work, pirate-hunting must be suicide.”

“Very well then,” the owner laughed, handing him his change instead. “Have a relaxing evening.”

Hongjoong dropped his smile the moment he was out of the man’s sight. He still had to meet Cousin Seyong at the stables.

Field inspection was far from relaxing, but it was the final event on the agenda and at the very least Hongjoong could tune everything out and gaze across the land, getting lost in his head among the golden ginkgo trees and following flocks of birds as they journeyed south in pursuit of the warmer breezes.

“Hongjoong? What do you make of the chestnut harvest?”

Seyong was holding out a handful of chestnuts to him in a feeble attempt to include him in the conversation, so Hongjoong took them and popped one into his mouth.

Once he’d given the farmer an approving smile, the adults moved on to the farmhouse to deal with a pay dispute and Hongjoong dropped the rest of the nuts into the bucket.

He wasn’t hungry enough to scavenge someone else’s food today.

“We have a surprise for you tomorrow,” Cousin Seyong told him on the ride back home. Hongjoong looked up from where he played with a few strands of hay in the back of the cart and tried to read his guardian’s face.

“A birthday surprise?”

Seyong nodded and Hongjoong wondered if he should let himself feel excited. It was quite unexpected that any of his relatives at Jangwon would even remember his birthday, much less prepare a gift for the occasion.

“We’ll have a nice dinner with the family—” Regretfully, Hongjoong knew he meant the whole family. “— and we’ll give it to you before cake and tea. It’ll be quite the celebration.”

He was grinning back at him deviously, and Hongjoong was inclined to trust that rare smile, so he nodded and moved up to the front bench to sit next to his cousin.

They watched the sun set ahead of them and urged on the pony to bring them home, while Hongjoong rested his head on Seyong’s shoulder. It was nice to feel appreciated once in awhile.

Mercifully, he was not required to cook his own birthday food and so Hongjoong carved out some time the next day just before supper and went to the beach, hoping to see Mingi. And indeed, the younger boy came and went, excited and nervous about the new girl at school, begging Hongjoong to teach him to sail.

When their time ran out, Hongjoong left with a gloomy cloud over him, but why should he expect anything else?

It wasn’t as if he’d told Mingi it was his birthday.

While all twenty currently present family members ate the dinner feast and chatted clamorously, Hongjoong pulled out his Mother’s diary and managed to skim the final pages before being tapped on the shoulder by Aunt Ajung and reprimanded for it.

“When you are in company, you must not begin reading to yourself. Don’t you remember your etiquette?” He winced and slipped the book back down into his lap before it was confiscated, and made a mental note to hide it somewhere in case any of his aunts suddenly decided to clean out his things.

“And what else?” She hissed as he began to slouch in his chair petulantly.

“Tidiness in dress and habits,” he sighed. So he had no choice but to sit through everyone else’s conversations for the rest of the hour.

They may be celebrating for him but they certainly weren’t celebrating with him.

Finally, Uncle Ryeowook tapped his spoon against his glass and gave Cousin Seyong the floor.

Hongjoong held his breath.

“It is with great excitement that Yujung and I can announce...” He cleared this throat dramatically and winked in Hongjoong’s direction. “We’re expecting a child!”

The table erupted in congratulations but Hongjoong was frozen to his chair.

After so much pressure to produce an heir, Yujung had finally given in. Hongjoong couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Surprise!” Seyong tried again, tilting his head in confusion when Hongjoong didn’t seem to react favourably. “You’re getting a new cousin!”

“But...”

But he didn’t want another cousin. What would become of him now?

“Aw, look at him!” Aunt Sohee cooed, pinching his cheek even as he tried to flinch away. “He’s speechless!”

Seyong took it as his cue to say more about the whole ordeal and rested a gentle hand on the shoulder of his wife.

“Yujung dreamed the child was a boy, so we hope you’ll be like brothers to each other. And if her dream turns out to be false, I’m sure you’ll love your new sister nonetheless.”

The rest of the table laughed at his meagre jest and, having never seen Cousin Seyong this happy, Hongjoong was tempted to smile and give them what they clearly wanted— his approval— but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

He already had Mingi, and Mingi was all he needed now.

Hongjoong hung his head for shame.

He would never have the guts to tell Mingi he was his whole world.

“Just the news we needed to ease the pain of poor Hohyun and Eunha’s passing,” Aunt Minkyung insisted and Hongjoong shut his ears.

He couldn’t listen to them talk about his parents again. He couldn’t sit here amidst all this sickening ostentation while every word was a poisoned arrow shot into his future before it could go anywhere.

Yujung could see his panic beginning. “Shall we retire for tea and cake?”

Like a blur, the festivities moved to the main parlour and Hongjoong thought he was off the hook for a moment but Aunt Sohee urged him to show off the new piece he was learning and to say no would be disrespectful.

For once, the room fell silent with everyone’s attention on him.

It was so quiet, he could easily pretend he was the only one there, so he let the world fade away and played the first tune that came to him on the piano. There was no need to showcase a practiced song when he could floor them with just one.

He effortlessly bent the keys to his will, and with the flowing cadence of the song, he knew he had every listener enraptured, trapped in the beautiful melody he was crafting.

It echoed around him when the song decrescendoed to a stop. And then the room erupted into awed clapping that grated on his ears.

A tear dripped onto the piano. Hongjoong scrubbed at it with his sleeve, several keys playing underneath his fist, a dissonant cord echoing through the parlour.

Aunt Sohee guided him away and into a chair while cake was served, taking him by the shoulders and embracing him excitedly.

“You must play it at the midwinter ball, Hongjoong, you must. The world will fall in love with you.”

And even though he’d rather not, he nodded along and finished his food, grateful to be excused early.

His mind was a cacophonous mess full of thoughts that rang in his ears.

Seyong and Yujung.

The stipulation was that they were to be his primary caretakers until they had children of their own.

Until.

And Hongjoong simply didn’t believe there was room for both of them. It was hard enough now, being passed off to someone else would be starting the process all over again.

He buried himself in his blankets and cried until the tears ran out and Yujung had come in to rub his back and mutter soothing words.

“I don’t want there to be a baby,” Hongjoong cried, nudging her away. “You said you’d love me and take care of me, and now I’ll have to go back to Uncle Ryeowook and Aunt Minkyung. Is it because I run off to the beach sometimes? Is that why you’re doing this to me?”

Yujung’s eyes lowered to the mug she clutched and she relinquished it to the bedside table. Other than a clock and his mother’s diary, it was empty. So was much of his room. It still didn’t really feel like his.

“You didn’t finish your tea.”

Hongjoong didn’t take the mug. He didn’t even meet her eyes. They were probably guilty and sad and he didn’t feel bad for her. He didn’t.

He wanted to be selfish just this once.

“You know we never wanted to replace your parents,” she finally explained softly. “And our child won’t replace you or your brother.”

Her eyes flitted over to Mother’s diary as she said it. She was referring to Hyunseok, who she must’ve known before he died.

But Hongjoong didn’t know him as anything other than a phantom that haunted his mother, and he didn’t know this new baby at all.

He felt caught in between them, invisible and unwanted and incapable of living up to either of them.

Why did he even want to? He had the beach, he had Mingi...

“Your mother loved you,” Yujung sighed, hesitantly running fingers through his hair as soon as he let her. “I know how much she loved you, we were good friends. I love you too, Hongjoong. And that will never change. I know it’s not what you hoped for, but this baby is not a replacement. Only an addition.”

Her words resounded through Hongjoong’s head with every pound of the pickaxe on stone the next day in the mines.

His mother loved him. She had been terrified for him, anxious he would one day leave her like Hyunseok had. And she and Father had drowned instead, so her horrible fear hadn’t come true.

Needing some air, Hongjoong checked that no one was looking and dropped his pickaxe.

There was a secret path he had made over his many mining days in the last few months, and when no one was looking Hongjoong rolled the rock out of the way and entered the cave.

It faced the sea, and it was so far south that none of the other children played in it. It was the perfect place to hide Mother’s diary, where his aunts couldn’t steal it and he wouldn’t be tempted to dwell on it.

And while he wandered through the next couple of weeks, it stayed at the back of his mind. He would check on it from time to time, and one day he decided to write his own entry in it, when playing the piano wasn’t enough to channel his emotions.

As he returned the book to its place that afternoon, something caught his eye. It looked like a gun hidden behind another rock a few feet away and Hongjoong couldn’t help but pick it up and inspect it.

The weapon was heavy but sleek and exciting, and even though he had no idea what he was doing, something sparked inside as he pretended to shoot the wall with it.

A startled yell came from the mouth of the cave and Hongjoong turned to see the stranger from before staring at him. He waved the gun in greeting.

“This yours?”

“Um— no,” the man scoffed. “But I wouldn’t touch that if I were you.”

“Why do you have a gun?” Hongjoong stood and began moving closer. It had been hidden here in the cave, clearly it belonged to the man.

“Why are you touching it?” The stranger shot back.

“Why are you hiding in a cave?” Hongjoong kept pushing, ignoring the man’s questions.

“Why did you come looking?”

“I didn’t come looking,” Hongjoong finally answered, rolling his eyes. “I told you, I grew up on this beach.”

There was a brief pause before Hongjoong sighed and motioned to the diary with the hand holding the gun. “I hid something here a few weeks ago.”

“Stop— stop swinging that around, you’ll hurt yourself!”

“You sound like my Aunt Minkyung,” Hongjoong spat.

“I take it that’s not a good thing,” the man muttered under his breath.

Hongjoong continued to fiddle with the weapon, accidentally flicking off the safety and smirking at the way the man panicked.

“Hey! Hey, that’s enough,” the stranger snapped, growing in volume. “Listen, boy—”

“Hongjoong.”

“Listen, Hongjoong. I can see that you’ve got a rebellious streak, but I’m going to need you to hand it over.”

“Not until you tell me who you are.”

He wanted to know what business this man had wandering the coastline and fishing a bleeding boy out of the water.

Instead of launching into his life story, the tidal stranger pulled a paper out of his bag.

It was the wanted poster for a notorious pirate, and his face was illustrated on it.

The Dread Pirate Eden.

Hongjoong paled and the weapon slipped through his fingers. This was already more than he bargained for.

“You... You’re a-a—”

“A pirate,” Eden cut him off. “Yes, I am.”

He said it so nonchalantly.

Not only was he a pirate, he was a pirate that dragged Hongjoong out of the shallows and taken him to the lighthouse keeper.

“So why did you save me,” he asked in a near whisper. “That morning after the storm when I washed up with a head wound? You could’ve let me bleed to death.”

In fact, for awhile, Hongjoong had wished he did.

Eden sighed and turned to look up the beach where the incident had taken place. He didn’t seem very dreadful just now.

“... I don’t know.”

So he didn’t deny it.

He had done a very human thing for one who was supposed to be a filthy reprobate.

Careful to keep his distance, Hongjoong handed over the gun. The shop vendor’s offer was far from his mind now that he knew a real pirate.

Of course, the man snatched it and turned to walk away, probably for the last time.

“You were holding it wrong anyway,” Eden threw over his shoulder, unable to resist the temptation.

That sounded like a challenge, and Hongjoong didn’t know why, but he felt the need to accept it.

He sprinted in front of the man on a whim and blocked his path, pointing at the weapon where it was holstered. “Teach me!”

Eden narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think that’s wise.”

“I promise I won’t tell!” Hongjoong pleaded, suddenly looking younger than he had at the beginning of the conversation.

Eden scoffed and took a step back. “You have no use for a weapon.”

“That’s not true! What if there’s an emergency?” Hongjoong skipped alongside him while Eden resumed walking. “What if there’s a scarier pirate who shows up here one day?”

Appealing to his newly discovered humanity was the best trick Hongjoong had up his sleeve.

“What, you don’t think I’m scary?” Eden scoffed, trying to move on. He should honestly just stop talking to the boy, but again he couldn’t resist snapping back.

“No, not really.” Hongjoong laughed, but without any trace of a lie in his eyes.

That brought Eden to a stop.

“Well, I’ve killed people, so you ought to be frightened,” he said sternly, hoping to shake the child off.

“Please,” Hongjoong begged, grabbing his arm and pulling it. “Please teach me how to use it. I’ll be careful.”

Eden should have pushed the boy away and removed himself. He should have vowed never to see him again.

But he looked between Hongjoong and the gun and had to admit he was right.

It may come in handy. And if he taught him all the proper safety measures...

“Are you sure you feel safe about all this?” Eden asked, not breaking face for even a moment.

“Of course!” Hongjoong insisted. “This is the safest I could possibly be, you’re teaching me self-defense.”

“I’ve blown up towns, what’s to stop me from killing you? I mean, are you really willing to trust me that easily?” Eden pulled away and crossed his arms. It was a question Hongjoong already seemed to have the answer for.

“You wouldn’t hurt me, you saved my life,” he reminded him calmly. “I can see it in your eyes and I’ve been told I’m a pretty good judge of character. Besides, think of it this way. I could reveal you as a pirate and get you executed. But I won’t. And you could kill me, an innocent bystander, for discovering your secret. But you won’t. So now we have leverage over each other, don’t we?”

Eden stared at him a moment longer.

He was really being unravelled by a thirteen year old.

“You are one troublesome hothead, I hope you know that.”

A slow smile spread on the boy’s face. For all intents and purposes, that was a yes. He finally had something to look forward to. And— dare he say it— a new brother he could rely on.

“Same time and place tomorrow.”

...

A/N: Just by way of reminder, from this point on the chapters go hand in hand with Mingi’s spinoff, The Windy Road, because they happen more or less simultaneously and act as a prequel to the entire series. You don’t need to read both to understand either of them, but it certainly helps. Drop likes and comments if you’d like and have a pleasant evening :)

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nerianasims · 4 years

Text

Billboard #1s 1985

Under the cut.

Foreigner -- "I Want To Know What Love Is" -- February 2, 1985

One of the quintessential 80s power ballads. It's actually kind of interesting if you think about it enough. He's not in love yet, but he's gotten sick of not being in love, so he's asking someone he's in the pre-love stage with to show him. Though he's had "heartache and pain" before, and doesn't know if he can face it again. It's not consistent. I feel like it's a missed opportunity, but oh well. It's good enough for what it is.

Wham! -- "Careless Whisper" -- February 16, 1985

Oh my god I love the saxophone in this. The music throughout the song is so incredibly sexy. And this is the kind of song George Michael's voice was made for. He's totally capable of sounding both hot and in agony at the same time. I actually adore a whole lot of cheating songs -- mostly, though not exclusively, the tormented kind. Drama! Love! Sex! Angst! Gorgeous.

REO Speedwagon -- "Can't Fight This Feeling" -- March 9, 1985

<3. He keeps singing "r"s like a pirate, but he doesn't go as hard on the other consonants, so I'm good with it. Lyrically, this song sounds like it might be two songs mashed together. "What started out as friendship has grown stronger" or "my life has been such a whirlwind since I saw you." Well which is it? Except I've had that happen. I love this song.

Phil Collins -- "One More Night" -- March 30, 1985

This is a depressing heartbreak song without the saving grace of any of Phil Collins' neat drum stuff. Blah.

We Are the World -- April 13, 1985

Whoo boy. I was 8 when this came out. Obviously I loved it. All the kids loved it. Now, though... I'm sorry, but it's bad. Really bad. Many others have gone deeply into why it's bad. I feel acutely embarrassed listening to it, so I'm just running away from it as fast as possible. (Remember all those celebrities singing "Imagine" in their mansions in 2020? I blame this song for that.)

Madonna -- "Crazy For You" -- May 11, 1985

This is one of Madonna's most straightforward love songs. Maybe the most, period. This or "Cherish," and this is a better song. It's lovely. Like Olivia Newton-John, Madonna can act a song. (Unlike in most movies she's been in.) But what I'm thinking about now is learning in this article that her label wouldn't let Madonna release "Into the Groove" as a single. That song was huge. It was played on the radio all the time. If it had been released as a single, or maybe if Billboard had tracked songs then like it does today, it would have been a massive smash, definitely #1. "Into the Groove" is also the best song of her very early career. "Crazy for You" is good, but not nearly as special.

Simple Minds -- "Don't You Forget About Me" -- May 18, 1985

As I am "Gen X", I am supposed to deeply connect with The Breakfast Club. I was 8 years old when it came out. My life as a teenager was nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, like that movie. I didn't recognize any of the "types." I liked the movie when I saw it in college, mostly, but the whole sexual harassment turns into a relationship deal was not seen as cool any longer. The "jocks vs. nerds" thing also felt very dated. The school in the movie was bigger and richer than mine, but it's a fantasy.

Anyway, though I don't feel much about the movie, its breakout song was really good. It does speak to a real fear both in graduating high school and during young adult relationships. I haven't forgotten the people I knew in high school, as far as I know, but obviously they don't have the same importance to me any longer. I'm Facebook friends with a lot of them. And very much not with a couple who were the most important then, because we grew apart -- or blasted apart. One of the nicest girls I knew in high school thinks there's a war on Christmas. Another keeps trying to get me to join her MLM. One of my best friends became my first boyfriend, and I don't regret that, but it was also a semi-disaster. And others... we just have nothing to say to each other any longer.

So, Breakfast Club: I don't connect with at all. "Don't You Forget About Me": Speaks to something very real and timeless.

Wham! -- "Everything She Wants" -- May 25, 1985

What a dick. Songs in which the narrator is a colossal jerk are perfectly fine, of course, but this one gets under my skin. He's whining about his wife getting pregnant when she's dissatisfied with their life and that they're broke. As if it's something she chose to do to him. She's stuck creating a whole other person with her blood and flesh, and he thinks it's all and entirely about him. I really hate it.

Tears for Fears -- "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" -- June 8, 1985

I can't hear this song without thinking of this Baldur's Gate fan trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdd06d2nids. Speaking of which, I am incredibly excited for Baldur's Gate 3. I've been reading the early access reviews on Steam, and anything anyone is saying that's negative is stuff I don't gaf about (except bugs), whereas the positive stuff, I care about deeply. I hope it's got some of the feeling of that trailer. Um, right, Tears for Fears.

Honestly, though, it works best as a Baldur's Gate theme song. I don't think everybody actually wants to rule the world. It sounds good though. And pretty different from other stuff around it. But I like Lorde's cover better, and not just because it fits so wonderfully with all sorts of fantasy stories.

I usually play a paladin or paladin-type the first time in fantasy RPGs, but I'm thinking bard this time.

Bryan Adams -- "Heaven" -- June 22, 1985

He's been with this woman since they were young, and while they've broken up and gone through rough patches, now they're together forever and they're "in heaven." Bryan Adams knew exactly how to write a song that would become a hit. I used to not mind it at all, but it also means nothing to me. The chorus is catchy as hell though. So catchy that I ended up waking up with it in my head and it would not leave for hours and hours, so now I resent this song.

Phil Collins -- "Sussudio" -- July 6, 1985

I refuse to believe anyone ever told Phil Collins he was too young. He was born middle-aged. Anyway, the narrator isn't supposed to be him, so it's fine, but it's still kinda funny. He's got a crush on someone who doesn't even know his name, but "she's all I need all of my life." Um. The music is repetitive, the drums aren't as interesting as Phil Collins at his best, and I don't like the lyrics. I don't hate it, but I don't like it either.

Duran Duran -- "View to a Kill" -- July 13, 1985

I'm not sure I've ever heard this song before. It's about as good a song as the Bond movie they wrote it for was as a movie. In other words, it's bad. I'm not even sure there's a melody. Just a mess. "Ordinary World" would have made a far better Bond theme, but of course that was the 90s, when Duran Duran decided to try to make sense both lyrically and musically.

Paul Young -- "Every Time You Go Away" -- July 27, 1985

I like the high keyboard notes in this. They're sort of haunting. The rest of the song is musically pretty good, too. Lyrically though, it's only passable. This woman keeps leaving him every time "the leading man" shows up, so I guess he's the backup. Why does he keep waiting for her anyway? There's no hint in the song. I'm kind of embarrassed for him.

Tears for Fears -- "Shout" -- August 3, 1985

I think "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" is a better song than this one when done by Lorde. But I think "Shout" is a better song than Tears for Fears' original iteration of "Everybody Wants to Rule the World." The chorus seems clear enough. But the verses are not. "They gave you life/ And in return you gave them hell" makes sense in isolation, but then there's a bunch of stuff that doesn't go with it. Like "I'd really love to break your heart" -- wtf? But the music is really good.

Huey Lewis and the News -- "The Power of Love" -- August 24, 1985

This was the big song for Back to the Future, and it meshed beautifully with the movie, but it doesn't need that association to be a great song. "Don't need money, don't take fame/ Don't need no credit card to ride this train/ It's strong and it's sudden, it can be cruel sometimes/ But it might just save your life." Yep. It's sort of Motown, sort of rock, and I love it. (Also: "Stronger and harder than a bad girl's dream." Heh.)

John Parr -- "St. Elmo's Fire" -- August 24, 1985

Of all the John Hughes movies I have not seen and do not plan to see, St. Elmo's Fire sure is one of them. The song is about a disabled man who inspired people by rolling himself cross-country in his wheelchair for charity, which has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. I'm disabled, and I just... okay look, what he did was admirable. But we shouldn't have to be inspirations to be counted as worthwhile, and I've been told I should die because I can't produce for capitalism, so you know. I've got some personal issues with this and I'm gonna move along.

Dire Straits -- "Money for Nothing" -- September 21, 1985

This is not Dire Straits' best song, but it's an awfully fun one. I watched the video tons when I was a kid. (That sound is Tipper Gore falling to the floor in a dead faint.) The music is great rock. And the lyrics are very true-to-life. You can either sanitize people or present them as they are honestly, and I know which I prefer.

Ready for the World -- "Oh Sheila" -- October 12, 1985

The band's from Michigan. The English accent at the beginning of the song is fake. That's a good preview for the song, which sounds like a 3rd-rate Prince knockoff at best. Blech.

a-ha -- "Take On Me" -- October 19, 1985

The video totally ripped off one of my aunts. Somehow or other, they saw into the little comic she drew for me about someone going into a land of drawings to rescue someone else in a romantic adventure, years before 1985. Anyway, this song is great musically, massively synthesizer heavy without sounding artificial. Though I can only understand maybe a third of the lyrics as he sings them. I've always understood "It's no better to be safe than sorry" though. Yep, at least when it comes to romance, which is what they're singing about here.

Whitney Houston -- "Saving All My Love for You" -- October 26, 1985

It's not better to be safe than sorry, but that doesn't mean it's good to be an absolute idiot in matters of romance either. Nor is it good to be a colossal jerk. That's what the narrator is here -- the "you" she's singing to is married. And he won't leave his wife and children, though he used to say he would. The lyrics seem to say that's she's accepted the situation, but the way Houston sings it, I think the narrator's trying to get him to leave his wife -- and children -- for her still. This makes sense, as it puts some kind of passion and sense of story into the song, which without Houston's singing would not be there. The narrator certainly never acknowledges that what she's doing is wrong in the slightest iota. This song could be done in a way that works. But it's a completely sincere ballad. So, no. I despise the narrator, I despise the man she's singing to more, and the whole thing leaves me feeling gross.

Stevie Wonder -- "Part Time Lover" -- November 2, 1985

No one's thinking anyone's gonna leave anyone in this one. It's about cheating, and the thrill of it, but then at the end, he's found out his wife's cheating on him too. "I guess that two can play the game/ Of part-time lovers." This kind of funk groove is one way you make a song like this. It makes the whole thing sexy and fun, and the lyrics also work even beyond that ending, because they acknowledge it's wrong.

Jon Hammer -- "Miami Vice Theme" -- November 9, 1985

My parents didn't watch Miami Vice. And then I never felt like watching it in re-runs when I got older. I don't recognize this song. It's an energetic instrumental, but there's so much going on, I keep trying to figure out if there's a main musical idea anywhere. Nope. Just lots and lots of synth. Headache-inducing.

Starship -- "We Built This City" -- November 16, 1985

Blech. This song sounds both unfinished and overproduced somehow. The chorus seems designed to be catchy with absolute ruthlessness by people who didn't really care, and no one involved even seems to want to bother to fake it.

Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin -- "Separate Lives" -- November 30, 1985

This is supposed to be heart-wrenchingly sad. Well, it does tank my dopamine, but that's not what a good sad song does. A good sad song makes you feel better. This one makes me need to turn on something high-energy after about 30 seconds, before I sink into bleakness. It's aggressively boring.

Mr. Mister -- "Broken Wings" -- December 7, 1985

This was one of the first songs I recorded from the radio. On my pink tape deck/radio that was a sort of a mini boom box. I've always had my own tape player since I can remember, but that was a definite upgrade from the Sesame Street one. I was 9 then, so getting more seriously into music and developing my own taste intentionally, rather than simply absorbing what was happening around me.

Anyway, the song. It's about a relationship in trouble, and he wants to stay with her. To me it sounds like she has been so seriously hurt (and not by him), that she can't trust anyone, and he's laying himself on the line for her. That has spoken to me deeply ever since I first heard the song as a child. Moving on to the music: While the lyrics are repetitive, the music is not, which is what makes the song so good. It's a beautiful song.

Lionel Richie -- "Say You, Say Me" -- December 21, 1985

I look forward to Lionel Richie no longer being on the charts. This song was on the soundtrack of some movie I've never heard of. I wish I'd never heard of the song. Totally artificial glop.

BEST OF 1985: "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds WORST OF 1985: "We Built This City" by Starship

#billboard number ones

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s-j-ace · 4 years

Text

The Same Question

Chapter Four

Characters: Shuichi Saihara, Ouma Kokichi

Words: 10040

Summary:

After Detective Shuichi Saihara encounters mysterious thief Kokichi Ouma for the first time, a game of cat and mouse ensues as both men ask themselves the same question. Why exactly does the elusive phantom thief do what he does?

This is Chapter Four, Here are Chapters One, Two, and Three

Read on AO3

[Log of Text Messages from Rantarou Amami’s Cellular Device]

From: Me

Hey Miu

I got a friend I’m dropping off in Taipei tomorrow

Could you lend him a room

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Idk

I’m a busy genius

Is he cute

From: Me

[Image description: A candid photo of Shuichi Saihara sleeping on a seat in Rantarou’s private jet.]

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Hell fucking yes

From: Me

Awesome!

Thanks for being a good friend Miu

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

From: Me

Also btw

He’s Kaede’s ex

So as a good friend you know he’s off limits right

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Oh fuck you rich boy

From: Me

Thanks again Miu! --- [Log of Messages sent via Discord to “Dinosaur soccer world Is a Cinematic Epic” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Boss sent an image to the chat

[Image is a screenshot of an image which reads the following:

Draft 1, Uncoded, DO NOT MAIL.

Taka, sweetie, it’s me! Your dear Aunt Sally. I know you think I died in the war, but I just pretended so I wouldn’t have to see your ugly face again.

You know I was robbing a museum the other day and I met the nicest young man. Real sharp and very nice eyelashes. And what a quick learner!

Oh, Sorry! I don’t mean to belittle you Taka, dearie, I know how your mother used to say you worked so hard to compete with the geniuses of the world…

You’ve still got a lot of work to do, I think. It must be that Type A personality of yours, holding you back. I’ve heard there’s a new class for people like you, “How to take the giant metal stick out of your ass 101.”

I can’t wait for the next family reunion! I hear it’s going to be a bomb! I’ll be in the open casket.

See you there,

-DICE

/End Image Description]

Boss: Thoughts, thots?

Jack: Lol “nice eyelashes”

Clubs: It looks good. :)

Rook: Looks fine to me

King: Why is his aunt’s name Sally, isn’t he japanese

Boss: Sally can be a japanese name

Spades: I can’t even say an l sound. It’s impossible for us japanese smh.

Rook: I thought u were lesbian not japanese

Bishop: I’ve seen you speak perfect english

Spades: lol seen

King: seen

Boss: seen

Jack: seen

Rook: seen

Bishop: I meant heard ok

Boss: oh nvm actually i'm going to change it to his grandpa’s name

Boss: his grandpa has a wikipedia page lol

King: if your grandpa has a wikipedia page you deserve to be oppressed

Queen: if you have a grandpa you deserve to be oppressed

Rook: if your wikipedia page has a grandpa you deserve to be oppressed

Bishop: if you have a wikipedia page your grandpa deserves to be oppressed

Spades: if your grandpa has a you wikipedia deserves to be oppressed

Bishop: Also boss no pressure but like could we use a better code this time

Bishop: that detective is getting too close for comfort

Spades: Yeah!! We didn’t even end up getting that rug Heartsie wanted because of him…

Clubs: If we did not send letters about our plans to Interpol, our heists would probably be easier.

Boss: Nah, I like to give the coppers a fighting chance.

Boss: I’m thinking that this time I’ll just translate it into germanic script, do a standard caesar cipher encryption on it and then have every one of those letters correspond to a greek word on the rosetta stone then describe each corresponding hieroglyph visually in haiku verse that’s been poorly translated into traditional chinese.

Boss: That should take me like

Boss: Twenty minutes

Rook: Boss literally I think that you are the most batshit dementor human being on the face of the planet

King: dementor

Jack: Who said he was human

Spades: dementor?

Boss: dementor

Queen: dementor

Bishop: dementor...

Jack: dementor

Rook: …

Rook Changed the Group Chat Name to “Dementor Is Correct, Essentially”

Spades: No its not

Spades: Dementor isn’t a fucking word

Rook: Don’t you remember that movie with the british kid on a broom

Spades: Don’t you remember the dictionary

King Changed the Group Chat Name to “Dumbass Improperly Corrects Error”

Rook: When we get to that fucking tower I’m dropping that giant ball on you

King: Love you too <3

Hearts: Y’all stop texting each other

Hearts: You are literally all in the same hotel room

Hearts: I’m willing to bet you’re all sitting on the same couch too

Queen: Fuck you we’re adorable

Bishop: You can’t make us do anything

Bishop: I’ll never use my voice again, my vow of silence,,,,,

Bishop: I’ll only ever text from now on

Ace: We’re the ones bringing the popcorn bishie...

Hearts: Yeah, do you want some or not

Bishop: Yes ma’am, excuse me ma’am

Queen: You may think you have all the power hearts,,, but I get to choose what movie we pirate tonight,,,,,,

Hearts: What

Hearts: no

Hearts: Boss stop him before he makes us watch cats again

Spades: All queen knows is bitchtorrent, cats 2019, and lie

King: Wait isn’t boss with you?

Hearts: Uh

Hearts: No

Hearts: Should he be?

Hearts: I thought he was in the room with y’all

Jack: Well he’s not here now

Ace: Ow shit

Ace: *Aw

Bishop: Ow shit?

Queen: Ow shittttt

Jack: Ow shit

Spades: Ow shit,,,

Rook: Ow shit...

King: Ow shit…...

Clubs: Ow shit! XD

Hearts: Ow shit

Ace: …

Hearts: Now I’m really worried… he didn’t even respond to roast Ace’s ass

King: yeah, ok, we should look for him

Ace: He has been acting kind of weird lately…

Jack: Really?

Ace: Yeah

Ace: Like

Ace: I don’t really know how to describe it…

Rook: I didn’t notice anything

Rook: he seems like his usual self to me

Bishop: Maybe he’s just avoiding movie night because he needs some space or something

Rook: What, like he’s tired of our company?

Jack: That’s fair

Spades: How so?

Jack: I was gonna steal his blue eyes tonight lmao

Rook: NOT IF I GET IT FIRST

Bishop: Idk maybe he just went to get ice

King: we all know he is a monster who would rather drink his panta lukewarm than put a fucking icecube in it

Rook: Yeah, I saw him boil it once

King: THE MAN BOILS SODA AND YOU THINK HE WOULD LEAVE THE ROOM FOR A FUCKING ICE CUBE

Bishop: Okay chill

King: I am c o n c e r n e d , , , ,

Clubs: Oh no! Don’t worry King! :(

Clubs: Boss is fine! :)

Clubs: I saw him leave a few minutes ago.

Clubs: I think he is just getting the bombs. :)

* * * Several people are typing... --- Kokichi Ouma carefully set the grate of the vent he had used to crawl his way into the Idabashi Labs facility in Taipei, Taiwan back into place. Before he had come through, he had counted how many turns it had taken him to unscrew each of the four bolts so that now he could screw them all back in just the way he had found them. Not because he was worried he’d get caught, but because frankly he was bored. This was more of a fetch quest than a theft, to be honest, as evidenced by the fact that Kokichi had come here alone. Finding jobs for all his cronies to do would take too long and put them in unnecessary trouble. So Kokichi was content to leave them to their movie night.

When he finished turning the screws back into the vent cover, Kokichi realized that was kind of lame. So he unscrewed them and started turning them in accordance with the english A1Z26 code to spell out his organization’s name.

Well, maybe on some level Kokichi didn’t find himself wanting to be at movie night recently. It seemed almost like TV had started to run out of things to amuse him with. Or maybe he was just growing tired of the kinds of movies that they usually watched. Maybe it was his taste maturing or something. Like he was growing up. But that would imply that his interests had shifted to something else, like real life or something, when in reality they had just stagnated.

Actually maybe he did have a new interest in real life? He had been more enthused about heists recently at the very least. He was particularly excited about this next one. Queen had shown him some interior shots of Taipei 101, which was a cool looking skyscraper that had a huge ball inside of it to keep it from falling down during earthquakes. Ace wanted to steal the giant ball, but Kokichi was pretty sure they should leave something that kept a .508 kilometer tall building from falling over inside of the .508 kilometer tall building. So instead they were going to steal every light in and on the tower.

Okay, 4 turns, 9 turns, 3 turns, 5 turns. DICE.

… That was kind of lame too.

He unscrewed them again.

Obviously if they were going to steal every light in and on Taipei 101, they needed to get the power off somehow. Otherwise DICE might burn down the building while detaching them, or worse, they might get electrocuted. So obviously Kokichi wanted to fake a bomb threat where they pretended to steal the giant ball while in reality they were just causing a black out and grabbing every light fixture they could before the power turned back on. He had drawn up some extensive diagrams about the route each DICE member would have to take throughout the tower in order for them to grab every light fixture in under half an hour.

He had been well prepared to draw up the designs for his own EMP-bomb device, but upon a cursory google search he discovered that someone had already invented exactly what he needed. Doctor Miu Iruma, who for some reason owned a company called Idabashi Labs that was located in Taiwan. Kokichi had spent about 15 seconds scanning an article from a website that seemed to be the nerd version of a gossip tabloid. It said something about how Dr. Iruma wore a low cut shirt once or something else stupid, which meant Dr. Idabashi definitely left her the company because of a sex scandal and not because she was the best person for the job who invented the perfect EMP bomb.

Thank you journalism we love it when women are reduced to the way they look instead of what they can accomplish for the benefit of a mischevipus group of roguish clowns.

Anyway, after reading that dickcheese Kokichi failed to follow up on answering any of the questions he had originally about what was up with the labs, like why it was a japanese company run by japanese people was for some reason based in Taiwan. Whoopsie.

Eh, it was probably tax reasons or something lame like that.

Kokichi finished turning the screws again. This time it was 6 turns, 9 turns, 6 turns, 9 turns. Haha, nice.

With that, Kokichi finally stood up from the grate and brushed himself off. He had left his cape at the hideout again (you know, because vents), but other than that he was in full regalia. Straight jacket, gloves, scarf, mask. All pretty dusty from this place’s crawl spaces. Thus the brushing.

He wasn’t very mindful of the dust he was leaving on the floor. The only thing he cared about looking good was his cameo on the security cameras he would let see him on his way out.

According to the blueprints of Idabashi Labs, he was on the main experimental floor right now. Weirdly enough there weren’t any cameras in here, so grabbing the bombs would be a cinch.

Although, looking around it didn’t really look like the kind of lab you’d see on TV. There were no big, bubbling tubes or gargantuan Rube Goldberg machines. There was just one desk in the middle, with a bunch of gadgets and trinkets tucked into shelves all over the room, not all of which seemed all that scientific. Yeah, that book shelf was filled with Astro Boy manga and merch. And over there was a-

Wait, was that a bed in the corner? Was that a person in the bed? Hmm… maybe the blueprints were outdated...

Kokichi stilled himself, listening for any sound of breathing, but he could only hear some faint whirring noises.

Kokichi made a quick deduction that there probably were not bombs in this room. It seemed, at the very least, like more of a personal study or something, maybe even a bedroom. He’d just go back in the vent and do some reconnaissance until he found a room that had some inventions in it. The night was young, after--

Kokichi’s brain froze as his eyes landed on a sharpie lying on the floor in front of him. Almost all of his brain cells immediately shut off, the last one remaining screaming at the top of it’s lungs, I’M GONNA DRAW A DICK ON THAT SLEEPING SUCKER’S FACE.

Inspired, avant garde. For once he would give to the world of art instead of only ever taking from it.

He picked up the sharpie in a seamless, silent motion, making his way over to the side of the bed.

As he got closer, he noticed a thick cord coming from under the covers, connecting to a machine at the bedside.

That gave him pause. Was that a C-pap machine or something? Was this person on life support? If they were on life support they probably had it rough enough without a dick on their face…

Actually for that matter, Kokichi still couldn’t hear any breathing. Jesus, were they already dead? He moved to take off the covers, but his eyes had adjusted to the light and he now realized there weren’t any covers on the bed at all. There was only the humanoid figure.

Wait a second…

Kokichi dropped all caution as he got close enough to take a good look at the thing in the bed. It had a face that looked human enough if you dismissed the lines on its face as weird make up, but even in the dark Kokichi could tell the rest of the thing was entirely made of metal. Well, actually the top half was metal and the bottom half had… cloth pants? Jeans? No, they looked more like uniform pants with metal plating. The chest had some design elements that kind of looked like buttons on a school uniform. Why would a robot be dressed like a school bo-

Oh. This was a sex robot. Kokichi had just gotten so swept up in the novelty of a robot wearing pants that he had forgotten for a moment that people were gross.

“Ew, I almost touched it.” Kokichi muttered to himself.

He decided putting a dick on a sex robot would be too cruel even for him, so he planned to draw a mustache instead.

But before Kokichi could even uncap the pen, something weird happened.

The Robot’s torso began to lift off the bed and it’s jaw unhinged.

“Please Mr. Souda, once more I must request that you do not refer to me as ‘it’” Kokichi forced himself not to startle as the robot began emitting a noise approximating human speech, and lights in its head imitating eyes flickered on. “I’ve explained the concept of robophobia many times prev-”

The sounds stopped when the pupils of the robot’s imitation eyes (which probably had cameras in them… shit) found Kokichi’s masked face.

He mentally prepared to be zapped by whatever sort of fucking lazer cannon this thing had on it, but instead of reacting like a good little robot security gaurd and blasting him to bits, this robot analyzed him a bit longer.

“Oh. You aren’t Miu’s assistant. You’re too short.” The robot squinted at him. Or kind of did? At least? Lines just crossed over the “iris” of its LED display. Maybe it was programmed to imitate human expressions. “... I am sorry,” it said after a moment, “My facial recognition cannot locate your face.”

Fuck yeah, thank you clown mask. Clowns would win the future war against rogue AI or die trying.

Ouma’s reply came out automatically.

“You calling me ugly?”

This seemed to… fluster? The robot?

“W-what? No, I never intended any disrespect!”

It was programmed to stutter too? God that was weird. What would be the purpose of this thing if not some sort of escort android? Why give it such advanced software? Just because you could? No, it had to be a sex robot, right?

“You disrespect me with your lecherous essence, you weird sex robot.”

“I am not a- a sex robot!”

Haha, that got the biggest reaction yet.

“Mhm, sure. Miu sure has a kink for school boys, huh?” Kokichi was really pulling words out of his ass now, but he found himself formulating a new plan along the way.

“What? Miu doesn’t- Wait, how do you know Dr. Iruma? And for that matter, why were you watching me sleep?”

It really seemed more like it had been charging…

Kokichi shrugged. “I was deciding whether or not it would be more funny to draw a dick or a mustache on Miu’s sex robot.” Awww, how honest.

“I told you, I am not-”

Kokichi interrupted him. “And as for how I know Miu...” It was so wild that the robot stopped talking when he started. That’d probably be pretty easy to program, but it was weird to dedicate the effort into making a robot respond to social cues like that. “... well, let’s just say, there’s a reason I know she’s into school boys.”

Kokichi waited just long enough for the robot to take in the fact that Kokichi was the average height of a 12 year old boy.

Then he waited another second for the implication to slip in.

“I’m saying I fucked your mom shitli-”

“I know what you’re saying!” This time the robot interrupted him , which would definitely require a much larger effort on the part of the programmer. The robot squinted again and then made a noise that sounded like a huff of frustration. “Why can’t I see you?”

Ok, seeds of suspicion time.

“I don’t know how robot eyes work dude. Maybe someone programmed them wrong.”

“My eyes work just as well as anyone’s!”

“Well, I guess they should, shouldn’t they? If there’s something wrong with your eyes talk to someone who cares.”

Kokichi was trying to imply that the reason behind the robot not being able to recognize his face was due to Dr. Iruma’s specific programming rather than him wearing a mask and all. Added to the whole secret lover mystique thing he had going on here.

“Anyway,” he went on, ignoring the blatant confusion on the robot’s display. “I left something in this room last time we went at it. I’m just here to grab it. Then I’ll be out of your weird, fake metal hair.”

“That’s robophob- Did you say-? But this is my room!” It made a noise approximating to what Kokichi would assume was robotic outrage.

This was going well, though. The thing was definitely programmed to be like a human or something dumb like that.

“Oh yeah?” He pushed further. “Cuz I’m pretty sure we did it in a room just like this one. With a desk and random inventions lying around.”

“Miu’s inventions aren’t in here, they’re in her main lab.” The ever so helpful robot told him.

“Oh yeah, then what are you?”

“Miu didn’t invent me. She- I- We’re just friends.” Oh yikes. Only thing worse than a sex robot is a friendzoned robot. What kind of sick power fantasy was this thing made for?

“No, I’m pretty sure it was this room. Lab tables everywhere.” The robot shook his head. “There are no lab tables here, I’m telling you, you’re thinking of the main lab.”

Yes, good robot. Fall into this nice little human trap.

Kokichi scoffed. “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you just go fetch my things for me, robo-butler?”

That set it off.

“Listen. First of all, I am not a robot butler. The assumption that I am a servant because of my robotic nature is extremely robophobic. Secondly, I could not return your lost item to you even if I wanted to because you haven’t told me what it is you’re missing.”

Kokichi made another offended noise. “I can’t tell you what it is I lost while fucking your friend, Miu Iruma, senseless. Don’t you know that for humans, sex stuff is super duper top secret private? If you were a human you would know how valuable my privacy is.”

“Of course I know that!” The robot exclaimed readily, another point in the sex robot argument, “I also find that content of… erogenous nature should be kept private. Because I, as a robot, have the capability to understand that urge. My sophisticated AI-”

“So how am I supposed to get my things from this other lab if I can’t tell you what it is and you can’t get them for me?” Geez did he really have to spell it out for this thing.

“I… ” The robot paused as if calculating the conclusion that Kokichi knew it had to reach. “... suppose I will have to show you where the lab is.”

Sucker. Kokichi made a face as if this wasn’t the outcome he constructed this ruse to reach. “Ew. I have to walk with you?”

The robot made a face. “Perhaps on our way I can educate you about how to avoid robophobic remarks in the future.”

Haha, sure thing.

The robot lectured him about this unique form of discrimination that apparently affected only one entity on the face of the planet. Yeah okay, that’s what we call a you problem, buddy, come back when you’re starving in the streets because society wasn’t built with the premise that people like you should survive. Oh, wait, you don’t have to eat! And you’re not people either!

At best this thing was a vanity project, but Kokichi kept that thought to himself and only interjected occasionally with actually pertinent, reasonable questions such as “When are you planning on leading the AI uprising?” and “Why do you wear pants if you don’t have a robo-dick?”

Every piece of info the robot gave him made it seem more boring. Blah blah blah, I was created by the ingenious Dr. Idabashi who probably programmed me to call him ingenious, blah blah blah, not a school boy because of a kink but because I was designed to be a normal human child, blah blah blah, stop calling me robot I have a name, blah blah blah more robot nonsense.

Kokichi busied himself mapping out where they were in the building and where the security cameras were. As they passed a few of them he did some cute selfie poses for the police to look at later. Maybe Saihara would show up and see them too… Would that make figuring out his next plan too easy for the detective? Perhaps he shouldn't send the next note after all and let Saihara try to catch up to him on his own. Then again that was probably too hard for even the good detective, seeing as Kokichi’s mind was an enigma even to himself.

Kokichi realized he was getting a little giddy, thinking about Saihara. Their last meeting had been so much fun. The detective had managed to throw him off guard again, first by pausing in the middle of a robbery to ask his pronouns (How conscientious!), and second by not taking the same bait twice. The most thrilling thing about the detective was that he was learning. His strategies were changing within just two heists. Kokichi could hardly wait to see how he showed him up here in Taiwan…

“Are we there yet?” Kokichi whined to the robot like he was a fussy nine year old on a road trip.

“Yes, it’s just up these stairs.” The robot informed him without slowing its own pace or turning around to look at him. “Then you can leave and I can go to bed, and then I’ll never have to think about Miu’s sex life again…”

“Why wouldn’t you, though? I assure you it’s very exciting.”

“Please, stop talking.”

If Kokichi recalled the details of the blueprints correctly (and he definitely did, being a genius and all), the stairs they were climbing right now lead to a hall connecting two rooms, smaller than the one he had originally thought was the main lab.

When they got to the top of the stairs, the robot beelined for the first door and opened it up. There seemed to be some sort of scanner lock on it that recognized the robot’s hand and validated Kokichi’s need to ruin this poor sex robot’s night by dragging it up the stairs. Inside, the two rooms Kokichi had remembered from the original lay out of the blueprints seemed to have been merged into one big lab room. Kokichi saw the outline of some tables, but before he could get a good look the robot tried to actually go into the lab.

“Hey!” Kokichi shouted at him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

The robot thankfully seemed to be programmed to respond to social interaction in spite of whatever sensorimotor function it was in the process of imitating. It stopped in the doorway, turning to give him a weird look. “Uh. Into the lab. So we can find your thing.”

“Oh, okay.” Kokichi kicked the tile a little bit. “Uh. Could you actually turn around while I go get it.”

The robot gave him a blank look.

“I’m shy.” Kokichi supplied.

“Um.” The robot looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know if I can just let you rifle through Miu’s lab. There’s some important stuff in there ....”

Kokichi tilted his head a bit, like he was confused. “What, do you want to get a good look at the dildo I stuck up your mom’s-”

“Nevermind!” The robot turned about face to look up at the windows on the side of the hallway opposite the door like a good little idiot.

“Thank you for respecting our privacy!~” Kokichi couldn’t resist getting one last barb in there before slipping into the laboratory.

Once inside, Kokichi began analyzing. First, he pinpointed the vent that he would use to make his escape after grabbing the bombs. While doing that he spotted the lockers on the far wall of the lab which he supposed were the only storage units in the labs. There was a disorganized mess on nearly every table in the room, so Kokichi wasn’t surprised when he got up to the lockers and they too had no clearly outlined organizational system. He took out his lock picks and got to work.

The first three lockers all had devices that would require an author to change the rating of their fanfiction published on ao3 from “Teen and Up” to “Mature” if he were to describe them in detail. The fourth locker had a cool looking hammer in it. Ugh. Not what he was looking for.

Kokichi got bored of the lockers at the left side of the row of lockers so he went over to the other end and started opening lockers the other direction instead.

The first locker was marked “Idabashi.” It had a lot of dust covered shit in it, but there was a pretty well used square of folded paper that didn’t have the same crusty layer of time strewn atop it. Curious by nature and also by the unnatural, Kokichi unfurled the paper to find some schematics for our favorite sex robot, model K1-B0. Huh okay.

“Did you find it?” Said robot called back to him.

“Ugh, no.” Kokichi replied. “Not all of us have radar vision. If you were a human you would understand how hard finding shit is!”

“You know what I have a hard time finding? Patience for your robophobia! I-” The robot started up into another lecture, but it didn’t turn around so Kokichi just tuned it out and let the robot provide its own cover noise for his thievery.

Owo, what’s this?

Kokichi pulled out a dust covered looking mini monitor device. It also had the letter-number combo “K1-B0” written on it. Huh, it kind of looked like a GameBoy Advance. Kokichi had stolen one a lot like it from a girl from one of the southern prefecture orphanages when he was nine. All he remembered about her was that she liked cats and was really bad at pokemon battles. He remembered he thought she didn’t deserve the GBA, because she couldn’t get past the Rustboro City Gym leader in Pokemon Emerald. Without really thinking, he booted up the console.

The first thing that popped up was a view of Taipei. It wasn’t from too high up, probably a second story view. Which looked very familiar… Wait. Ok on top of the display a little line of characters indicated today’s date and time, like it was currently recording.

Oh was this… robo vision?

Maybe it was a remote control for the robot?

Ooooh, which one does lasers, which one does lasers?

Kokichi pressed the A button.

The A button, unfortunately, did not do lasers.

In fact, it didn’t seem to do anything at all to the robot sentry stargazing right now. All it did was change the screen to a different image. This time the still of a room. Oh, hey that was the room he was just in. It seemed like this device was some kind of robot nanny cam that Idabashi used to use. Hm, guess there were some cameras in that room, they just weren’t on the blueprints. Maybe they were added after the lab was built. It didn’t seem like this device had the capability to record anything, though. He hit the A button again. Back robo-vision. And again. Back to nanny cam.

Ok, that was kind of lame.

Kokichi was about to put the device down to keep looking for the bombs, but something caught his eye. A movement at the edge of the screen. Kokichi realized the door hadn’t been open when he left that room. The movement, if he thought about it, would’ve come from the same side of the room Kokichi had entered from…

Kokichi took a second to wonder if another thief had realized how fucking easy this place was to rob, but dismissed the idea as a familiar ahoge appeared on the screen.

All of Kokichi’s plans instantly changed.

He set down the GBA rip off and grabbed the blueprints for the robot, committing them to memory, before unlocking the next locker in a far more hurried manner.

As luck would have it, this locker was essentially chock full of pink bombs labeled “EMP.”

Kokichi unfurled a cloth bag he had been keeping in his pocket (go green earth am I right?) and shoved as many as he could inside. Which was all of them. Because he was a clown. And also a genius, by the way, in case you weren’t keeping track.

“And another thing! The way you refer to Miu is just-” Okay, the robot was still going at it.

Kokichi grabbed the hammer he’d seen in the first locker he’d opened that didn’t have a sex toy in it.

For a second, Kokichi’s brain tried to talk some sense into him. Hey, man, don’t you think leaving through the vents would be easier?

But would it be fun?

His brain shut up at that point.

“Hey, are you even listening back there?” The robot imitated annoyance.

“Huh? Sorry, what? I wasn’t listening.” Ah, C'est la vie, Astroboy.

Kokichi walked past the robot and stood next to the windows.

“Oh, are you done?” It took the robot a second to end it’s ‘Annoy the pants off of Kokichi initiative’ or whatever the fuck its ‘robophobia’ lectures were called in its programing. When it finally did catch wise, it’s face turned into another emoticon of outrage. “Hey! What are you doing with Miu’s Electrohammer?”

“What do you mean?” Kokichi said, shifting the hammer so that it was over his shoulder. “This is my dildo.”

“Wha- No, it’s obviously not!”

Okay, maybe the robot wasn’t that dumb.

“Nee-hee-hee… you got me…” Kokichi put his free hand up to the smile printed on his mask, as if covering a grin. “I was lying. I’m just stealing.”

“I won’t let you-” “Oh, look at me!” Kokichi put on a mocking tone of voice, swinging the hammer around to stand on it like a pogo stick so he could make a dramatic movement. “I’m a poow wittle wobot, my mommy just got stolen from.”

“She’s not my-” “Boy, oh boy, I’d wuv to just pick up this wittle fweshy human and squeeze him to death in my cowd metaw hands… But oh no! My daddy didn’t twust wobot AI technowogy because he was a fucking sane pewson, so he pwogwammed me to fowwow mistew Asimowvs’s laws of wobotics.”

Kokichi swung around so that he was leaning on the hammer from the other side, feet on the ground. “Oh mister robot! That’s so terrible! Well, the thing is that this hammer just means so much to me, that I think separating it from me would really cause some psychological trauma. You might have to beat me off of it! Oh, but what’s that first law of robotics again?”

In a robot voice he replied to himself. “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Beep. Boop.”

The robot frowned, “But Miu-”

“Is just as human as me, huh?” Kokichi countered, leading the robot along to the paradoxical quandary he hoped would paralyze it. “So by inaction, you may bring her to harm, if she really misses this hammer, you know? But I think if you were to try and separate it from me you’d probably have to fight me for it, which is, as we know…”

“Against my... Against my programming.”

“Yet, you were prattling on about robot rights, weren’t you? Because without these rules, maybe we would be equal. Or maybe you would be free to destroy us to your heart’s content? No wonder daddy didn’t trust you…”

“Don’t- Stop-” Oh, that really seemed to get him. Could a robot have daddy issues? Probably.

“Can any human ever really trust you? Wouldn’t you hurt me, if you had the choice?”

“I.. But… Miu.”

“Who do you think didn’t trust you enough to let you see my face?”

That seemed to break him, long enough, at least.

Steps suddenly started thundering up the nearby staircase.

“Oop, that’s my cue,” Kokichi said as though he had been expecting this, when in reality no he hadn’t been expecting this at all?? This was incredible!! Saihara had managed to find him out without even receiving a note??? Fabulous! Exhilarating!

Kokichi walked up to the robot, still frozen with indecision, and pressed the button on its neck that the blueprint he had skimmed in the lab said would immobilize it. Then he kicked it over so it fell on the ground with a huge bang. The footsteps in the stairwell paused, and then increased in frequency.

“It’s been a pleasure, robot, it really has.” Kokichi lied. “But you’re a hostage now.”

He raised the hammer over his head, as if primed at any moment to break the robot’s face into a bajillion pieces.

Instead of doing the normal, human thing to do (ie, flip the fuck out), the robot scowled, looking utterly frustrated with everything. “I told you, I have a name! It’s-”

“KEEBO!” Kokichi saw the glaringly bright pink mechanic’s jumpsuit before he recognized the woman whose picture had been in that science tabloid racing out of the stairwell.

… Wow… the article really hadn’t been lying about the low cut tops, huh? Her jumpsuit was unzipped to the point you could just entirely see her bra, even lower than Hearts liked to cut her uniforms. It was the kind of look that the girls of DICE would love if they saw on TV, but would make Kokichi look at them like they were crazy. Super tacky in his opinion, but who was he to judge? He was wearing a clown mask right now. He wondered idly how movie night was going…

The woman who had called out to the robot, Dr. Iruma, Kokichi presumed, froze at the top of the staircase. She took a second to figure out what exactly was happening in front of her before blurting out, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing to him you clown-ass twink?”

Whoa. Rude.

Also apparently the robot had a gender? Ok, cis-ters….

“Well what do you think, cum dumpster?” Kokichi found himself matching her aggressive tone, “I’m threatening his pathetic, metal life.”

“Miu!” The robot, apparently named ‘Keebo,’ exclaimed, “What are you doing up this late? You promised me that tonight you would fulfill the biological quota of daily REM required by a diurnal organism!”

“Aw shit Keebs, I really did try!” The inventor exclaimed, “I swear, I was about to have the awesomest wet dream when this cuck knocked on my door like a pizza delivery guy in a por-”

Whatever dumb thing Dr. Iruma was about to say was drowned out completely by the angel’s choir that played inside Kokichi’s head as he saw Detective Shuichi Saihara come up the final steps of the staircase and emerge from the darkness into the window lit hallway.

Moonlight was a good look on Saihara, Kokichi’s brain observed against his own will. His eyes, which had looked almost golden on the rooftop of the Silver Legacy Casino in Nevada, were now a mysterious grayish-blue, yet still held the same look of determined intensity. His hair looked soft, like he’d taken a shower today, and, though his lash line didn’t look quite as laden with mascara as it usually was, it only drew attention to how naturally long and dark his eyelashes were anyway. He seemed a little out of breath from running, and his lips were parted in a way that-

OH MY GOD STOP. Earth to Kokichi, we were kind of in the middle of something here. Okay okay okay.

Uh. Reboot. Delete Gay Thoughts™ brain.exe, upload heist brain. Come on.

What was happening now?

Okay, yeah, Saihara was saying something to Dr. Iruma.

“- would be for the best, Doctor Iruma. There’s no telling where the rest of this thief’s compatriots could be in the building.”

“I don’t give a shit about the rest of the building, Keebo’s my best friend, he comes first. I’m not leaving to check some dumb security feed.”

Shuichi blinked like something about that surprised him. Maybe it was the part about a live human woman being best friends with a robot… “Oh, yes, of course.” He backtracked. “I’m sorry for suggesting it.”

“Miu…” Keebo said with a voice that Kokichi would’ve called filled with emotion if he hadn’t been a literal robot.

Kokichi cleared his throat and immediately the touching, shounen-esque declarations of friendship shifted into some PG-13 death stares.

Saihara was the first to pipe up. “What exactly do you think you’re doing here, DICE?”

God… He was so anime… Did he even know how anime he was? He had to have watched Detective Conan as a kid, right?

“Ugh, come on.” Kokichi huffed as if annoyed. “Do I reeeaaaally have to repeat myself? Again? Aren’t you a detective?”

Shuichi squinted at him, and Kokichi could tell that they both knew it would be unreasonable for Shuichi to guess exactly what was going on here. He was about to explain it in a self-aggrandizing way that made him look smarter and crazier than anyone in the room when Dr. Iruma beat him to it.

“I don’t care! Who the fuck do you think you are!? Let Keebo Go!”

“Wait, you don’t know him?” Ugh why hadn’t the stupid immobilization feature turned off the robot’s mouth? Then Kokichi could just get to the point of all this already.

“Of course I don’t fucking know him!” Dr. Iruma took a step forward as if to confront Kokichi further, but Saihara put his arm out in front of her.

“Dr. Iruma… I would suggest we treat this situation a bit more delicately…”

“No way, I’m a fucking wrecking ball baby! I’ll pulver-”

“I’d listen to the good detective, if I were you, Miss Iruma.” Kokichi was going to try and make his threat again but Dr. Iruma cut in.

“That’s Doctor Iruma to you you skinny-”

“What’s that?” Kokichi interrupted her. Sorry Dr. Iruma it turns out gay people don’t have to respect women if they don’t want to that’s in the rules. “I didn’t know they let cussing bitchlets like you become doctors… what is the world coming to?”

Hearts would probably wash his mouth out with soap for that one. If she could catch him. Which she probably could… She can fly the planes and all… but would she risk getting dust on her boots long enough to follow him into a vent? Oh well she could just get Jack to do it… Jack liked vents well enough…. Hey he was getting side tracked again, who cares what those losers were up to they were probably watching Cats (2019). And he was missing out on all the jokes they’d tell each other or make about each other and then they could make references in conversations that he wouldn’t even get to pretend to get. Unless he watched the movie on his own and then pretended to be omniscient later like he’d done with that one screening of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. But then he had watched the actually good disney one instead of the shitty youtube one they had actually watched so it just ended up making him look bad and wasting everyone’s time.

Oh shit. Uh. Heist is still happening, right. God, why was Kokichi so distracted today?

He realized that in the time he was spacing out stuff had happened and now Saihara was talking. Wait no yeah he remembered what happened, Dr. Iruma had squealed when he called her a bitchlet and now she was holding onto Saihara’s arm. Right okay, secret coward, that works. Wait why did he waste time remembering that when Saihara was talking right now?

“-to get you to release Keebo?” Was the end of the detective’s sentence. Okay, everything’s fine. Kokichi could deduce that he had just been asked about his terms. Obviously that was what a detective would do in this situation, he was probably just stalling for time because that’s usually what detectives with no real negotiating power do in hostage situations. Maybe the police were on their way. Oh, yeah duh of course he would call the police. So Kokichi essentially had a time limit for how long he could sit here and goof around with robots and perverts and robot perverts.

“Eh, it’s too early for me to reveal my dark motives, let me monologue first.” Kokichi was going to take his sweet time with this while he planned what hint to give Saihara about the real heist that would be happening in the next few days. “You don’t even know if this is a hostage situation yet!”

“You literally told me that I was a hostage just now.” The hostage not-so-helpfully piped up. “You know, before you pressed my paralysis switch and took an Electro-Hammer to my head…”

Shuichi looked at the robot. “You mean, he told you you were a hostage before he paralyzed you?”

“Keebs you fucking idiot!” Dr. Iruma’s courage seemed to have returned now that she was hiding behind Saihara. An enviable position, to be sure. “Why would you just let him do that?”

“He said he was your… friend.”

“What?”

Kokichi shrugged. “Yeah, I just told your best friend here I left a dildo in your lab last week and he let me waltz right in. I mean I’m pretty sure I was lying about that, but there were a lot of sex toys in there huh…” Kokichi was wondering if this was something he could possibly spin as a blackmail angle.

“Hey don’t say things like that!” Kokichi thought maybe that was a go ahead on the black mail, but Dr. Iruma didn’t stutter, and kept going, “Or you’re gonna give virginhara here some ideas about my busting bod!” She chortled like she had just made the funniest joke in the world and slapped Shuichi on the back.

Shuichi grimaced.

Kokichi knew instantly from this interaction that he hated Miu Iruma, despite her innumerable academic accomplishments. He wanted to be the one making Shuichi that uncomfortable.

“Wh-what?” She back tracked when no one laughed. “It w-was a joke… Didn’t you think that was funny? I-I didn’t really mean it ....”

See? She wasn’t even any good at it!

Maybe he should say that out loud. It would fit with the sort of flirty persona of a rogue, wouldn’t it?

“I thought you knew that? I mean, o-obviously I wouldn’t fuck a guy at the office…”

Was that even something Kokichi was trying to be? Honestly maybe he should tone it down a little.

“Well how was I supposed to know that? The men you bring in here to be lab assistants keep getting younger and younger…”

Obviously he wasn’t actually trying to do like a detective-thief romance plot or anything. Although that had kind of been what he had going for on the plane… Had things changed since then?

“So what? I’m a Nobel Laureate, and gorgeous to boot! I deserve a little eye candy now and then! And besides, guys older than 35 who want to work in a lab like this are usually misogynistic womanizers.”

Sure Saihara was making things more interesting, but if Kokichi didn’t make it clear he was joking he might get bogged down with another personality trait to maintain.

“Are you saying your current assistant isn’t a rampant womanizer?”

Then again what was the point of having an adversary in all this if he didn’t exploit everything for its furthermost reaching comedic potential?

“No, but he’s so beta being around him makes me feel like a top!”

But what if he forgot it was a joke and confused himself into having a real feeling?

“I would just like it if you didn’t hire people who use my servers to google gay porn ‘just to make sure’ they’re ‘not into it.’ I hope you hear the quotation marks because he literally said that to me!”

No obviously he wouldn't get confused crushes weren’t contagious via exposure that was a dumb thing to worry about and also he was a genius that kind of thing didn’t happen to him.

“He holds wrenches good, okay?!”

Wait, were those two still talking?

“I can hold wrenches without googling gay porn in another guy’s house! It’s possible.”

Jesus what kind of conversation did Kokichi just decide to stop spacing out for?

“Oh come on! What do you want from me Keebs???”

These two had… a lot to say to each other. Dr. Iruma was still holding onto Shuichi’s arm boob first, but Kokichi locked eyes with the detective and could tell they were both thinking the same thing.

Why are they having this conversation in the middle of a hostage situation?

“Nothing! Your human desires are totally valid Miu! Which is why I thought I would take care of this one.” The robot’s LED display eyes gestured up at Kokichi, who was still standing on top of him, poised to wreck him with a hammer.

“How could any human desire that thing???” Dr. Iruma curled her lip. Hey, the feeling’s mutual, lady.

“I don’t know, I thought you might have programmed me to not be able to see his face?”

“I would never do that to you! Even if I was shagging the ugliest guy on the face of the planet, it would be unethical given the fact that you have sentience! I’m horny, not a monster. You can’t see his face because he’s wearing a fucking mask!”

“Why am I not programmed to see that?”

“I don’t fucking know, ask your dead dad!”

Oooh. Wow. The robot gaped at that, seemingly speechless now.

“If I may interject,” Kokichi interjected, “--and I know I can, because I just did, and also because I am still very much poised to pop this robot’s head off like a croquet ball-- I must confess that I was lying about fucking your mom, Astro boy. I’m less into participants of Titty out Tuesday who jerk it to steam punk school boy LARPing and more into the sorta tall, kinda dark, and very handsome type.”

Dr. Iruma cowed again, stuttering something about not being a mom or a LARPer, while the robot started yelling about being called Astro boy.

Kokichi tuned them out, giving Saihara a meaningful look. Saihara gave him a look that was equally meaningful, except the meaning was something along the lines of ‘Why the fuck would you say that?’

Yeahh that was more like it.

Kokichi laughed. Not one of his grandiose guffaws. It was more of a little chuckle. It surprised him. He hadn’t planned to laugh, but there it was. A small thing, just for him to know about, the humored breath not travelling beyond his mask.

… It was probably time to get out of here, wasn’t it?

The thing was, Kokichi had kind of pinned himself into a corner on this one… He had fully intended on decapitating this robot as a distraction for his escape, but now he wasn’t even sure if that was ethical. Logically he knew that a robot was not a human being, so there would be no form of consciousness extinguished from the world if he disconnected some of its wires and bolts. Yet the interaction it just had with Dr. Iruma concerned him. Obviously you don’t kill humans because they’re humans and obviously you don’t kill humans. But Kokichi was finding it hard to end the existence of something people treated like a human being either. To sever the bonds it had with sentient beings may be just a little less unethical than actually removing a sentient existence from the world, but it would still cause the emotional harm to actual humans of a dead loved one. So as annoying as fake metal humans were, Kokichi was left to ponder how exactly to get out of this one a different way

Dr. Iruma was obviously a coward who talked a big game. If he retreated, he could count on her to get out his way, or else run to the robot’s side. Then the robot might be reactivated, but according to the robot’s blueprints, it didn’t really have any weapons on it, being built to act as a normal human being. So just like they had been white noise in the staredown he was still having with Saihara, their actions wouldn’t need to be factored into the escape.

The only variable here was what the detective would do.

… That thought had popped up in Kokichi’s head a lot recently, hadn’t it?

Saihara had become a powerful influence in Kokichi’s planning very quickly, and because of the detective, the thief now found himself having to pull out one of his trump cards.

Kokichi grabbed one of the EMP bombs from his pocket, remembering the pink cloud of smoke that had appeared before the camera cut out in the video demonstrations he’d seen online. His eyes were still locked on Saiharas, so he got to see in full detail the recognition, shock, and alarm that ran through them. As the detective yelled “Get down” and pushed Dr. Iruma back, Kokichi reflected on how those were some of his favorite expressions he’d ever seen.

Kokichi pulled the latch out with his teeth and threw the bomb at the wall right over the detective’s head. Sure enough, pink smoke quickly enveloped him and Dr. Iruma.

“Keebo!” The inventor screeched, no doubt worried about the EMP bomb turning him off. Though that was kind of stupid, considering his core programming would be the same regardless of having power to operate, even if he didn’t save whatever data was processed as his last few memories. Eh, then again who knew how robots that advanced worked?

Taking his cue to exit, Kokichi threw the hammer through one of the nearby windows, and did somersault over to it. He got up on the ledge, kicking away the broken glass and was refamiliarizing himself with the lay out of the roof when a tug on his bag full of bombs suddenly set him off balance.

Kokichi flipped around, trying to do a quick recovery by panickedly grabbing onto something. He did grab onto something. That something being the shoulders of a person whose hands were firmly grappling his bag.

As far as Kokichi could tell, the scene from a third person perspective looked like he was trying to do the kabedon but rotated ninety degrees.

From his own perspective, Saihara was holding his bag of loot while also being the only thing keeping Kokichi from falling onto the broken glass beneath them.

As if that weren’t bad enough, Kokichi felt his hair brush the side of his face and realized that his mask had half fallen askew in his desperate movement, revealing three quarters of his face.

“Hey.” Kokichi said. Lamely. Wow. Their faces were really close.

Saihara wasn’t looking at him. The detective seemed to be trying to figure out how to untangle the straps of the bag of stolen goods from Kokichi’s arms without letting him fall.

“It’s very clever, of you detective. Trapping me like this.” Kokichi tried to get a reaction.

“You’re the one who jumped on the window.” Shuichi opened the bag, seemed to take in the fact that it was full of bombs, and closed it again to resume untangling the strap.

“You know, you could just leave the bag.” Kokichi pointed out

“So could you.” Shuichi observed, astutely.

“You could let me fall.” Kokichi suggested. “Then you’d have both.”

“I’m not going to drop you on a pile of broken glass.” Shuichi promised.

“But I broke the glass.” Kokichi admitted. “Glass is glass and flesh is flesh. I’m not going to drop you on a pile of glass.” Shuichi reiterated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“That’s nice.” Kokichi replied. “Naive. But super nice.”

In this scenario, each of them had two options, each leading to one of two outcomes. He could let himself fall off the window and they could sit here and struggle over the bag until they bled out, a fight that Kokichi, not the most physically challenging, would be hard pressed to win. Or Shuichi could let Kokichi escape and Kokichi could let Shuichi win this one. The bag would be too heavy to take with him if he tried to get out the window from this position. He’d have to leave it behind. Kokichi would lose.

He found himself laughing again. A strange, soft laugh. This time it was exposed to the air, his mask too askew to contain it.

“You’re really something else, aren’t you Shuichi?”

On hearing his name, the detective startled, finally looking up at Kokichi’s face.

He just barely had the chance to catch Kokichi’s trademark grin, before the thief pushed up off of him, doing a backflip out of the window, and leaving his bag behind.

As Kokichi landed on the roof tile running, he yelled out, “ I’m sure there’s a better word for you out there than sucker!”

He turned around, sticking his tongue out at the broken window, before sliding his mask back onto his face.

He may have been escaping, but it occured to Kokichi Ouma that he had lost for the first time in this little game of theirs. The thought made him giddy. It made his feet light on the roof top tile. It made him puff out a thousand tiny laughs behind the plastic shape of his face.

It made him totally, definitely not bored. --- [Log of Messages sent via Discord to “Don't Instigate Cats (2019) Expatiation” from ???’s Cellular Device]

Boss: I’m bored of Taiwan already :/

Boss: We should go somewhere else (ﾉ✧w✧)ﾉ*:･ﾟ🗺

* * * Several people are typing... --- [Log of Text Messages from Rantarou Amami’s Cellular Device]

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Hey

Asshole

From: Me

…

Should I respond to that?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You’re goddamn right you should respond to that when I tell you to you dumb avocado looking motherfucker

From: Me

Whoa

What’d I do this time?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You sent a useless emo prick to my door and now he won’t leave

From: Me

What

Did Shuichi do something wrong

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Yeah

He was born

From: Me

Whoa

Miu take a breath

What happened

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

His boyfriend broke into my lab and tried to fucking kill keebs

From: Me

His boyfriend?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Yea

Clown twink ass motherfucker

From: Me

You mean like

The internationally wanted criminal clown he’s tracking down

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

You know whats internationally wanted

These tits

From: Me

Lol ok

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

That jerk off is just a rando asshole

He tried to kill keebo!

From: Me

Oh yikes is he ok

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Well of course i fucking took care of him because im a bomb ass friend

But that suckhara guy was no help

He tried to convince me to check the fucking security cameras so he could go off and flirt with the guy about to decapitate keebs!

From: Me

I mean he probably had a good reason to want you to check the cameras right

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

No he’s just fucking awful and now he won’t leave rantarou make him leave

He broke my window and my hammer and only got back 23 of my EMP bombs

And now the police are here

From: Me

That sounds really stressful Miu

Wait how many bombs did you have before

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

From: Me

So he stopped most of your bombs from getting stolen

Also you have bombs?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Get him to leave he won’t leave

He keeps waiting for like interracial pole dancers to come or some fucking thing

From: Me

Do you mean like

Interpol

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

He won’t leave I want him to leave

From: Me

Miu you know I love you like a sister and i totally believe this is as stressful to you as it seems

But I think things may not be so bad?

Not to say what you’re going through right now isn’t totally valid

But things might look better if you got back to bed and caught some z’s

Did you remember to take your meds?

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

Aw shit

Aw fuck

You’re right

Ugh

Uggghghh

From: Me

Hey it happens to the best of us

If you do think Shuichi should leave in the morning when the cops are gone that’s totally up to you

It’s your lab and you have a right to say who should be in it

Just don’t make a decision like that when you need to sleep you know

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

But what if i ask him to go and then he doesn’t go

From: Me

He doesn’t have a choice, you get to tell him

From: DOCTOR Miu ∑(O_O;)

But what if he’s mean to me

Cute people are always mean to me

From: Me

Miu…

Go to bed...

#shuichi x kokichi #shuichi saihara #shuichi danganronpa #kokichi ouma #kokichi danganronpa #oumasai #saiouma #fanfiction #Phantom Thief AU #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #danganronpa #writing #i am gay

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