#this was extremely self-indulgent but I had to get it out of my system okay

[kusuguricafe]

Down Bad for Wanderer

A/N: I finally did something with it hehe, I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Lumine teaches Wanderer about tickling and shenanigans ensue

Characters: switches Wanderer and Lumine

“Hey, are you ticklish?” Lumine asked innocently.

“Ticklish?” Wanderer replied, perplexed.

“...You’re kidding, right?” Lumine asked.

“No, I’m not.”

Lumine put her hand on her chin. “You were never tickled as a kid? Aether and I had tickle fights all the ti—”

“It’s not like I had a childhood, you know. I was ‘born’ in this form.”

“Oh, right… Well, would you like to find out?” Lumine grinned.

The two of them had taken a trip to Mondstadt, as Lumine felt it appropriate to show the new anemo user around the City of Freedom. A feather had brushed up against the anemo boy’s neck whilst he was showing off some of his new combat skills, causing him to stumble backwards in the air a bit. This piqued the traveler’s curiosity.

“That depends,” Wanderer replied. “Can you give me some sort of explanation first? I’m not just going to let you trick me.”

“Of course. Let’s see… It’s sort of like, well, uhh…”

“Spit it out.”

“It’s hard to explain! If you touch certain areas in a specific way it uh, tingles? No, that's not right. It feels… funny. Most people find it annoying, but others really enjoy it. Ugh, can I just show you? I promise it won’t hurt.”

Wanderer narrowed his eyes.

“Pleeease!”

“Fiiine,” Wanderer rolled his eyes.

Lumine cheered a silent “Yes!” and began walking towards a nearby Statue of the Seven.

“We can go sit under that big oak tree,” Lumine pointed.

“Whatever you say.”

Lumine sat down in the shade of the tree and patted her lap. “You can sit here, if you want.”

“No way,” Wanderer said, taking a seat beside her instead.

“May I touch you?”

Wanderer paused for a moment. His expression changed from shock to worry to embarrassment in seconds. “Yes,” he finally said.

“Thank you,” Lumine smiled. “We can use a safeword, if that would make you more comfortable? How about… Dango?”

“O-okay.”

“Turn your back towards me, it’ll make it easier.”

Wanderer’s eyes widened.

“Aw, c’mon! You can trust me, right?”

He hesitated, then slowly faced the other way. Lumine took the opportunity to wrap her arms around him. He started.

“Hey! I never said you could hug mehehEEHEHEHEHEHE w-whaaAAhahahahaha!? Whawhahahat ahahare you d-dohohoing??”

“Tickling you!”

“W-well c-cut it ohout!!”

“You know the safeword if you actually want me to stop~”

Oh. Right. How had he already forgotten? He had been persuaded to agree to this somehow! It wasn’t that bad—er, well, actually…

“Ahahaha! It feels weheheird!!”

“Not bad though, right?”

“I d-don’t knohow!”

Lumine was scribbling her fingers across his tummy and up and down his sides, making him giggle. In an attempt to find a more sensitive spot, Lumine dug her fingers in between his ribs, but Wanderer slowly stopped laughing altogether.

“Eh? Not ticklish here?”

“A-am I supposed to be?”

“Most people are, but everyone’s different. Don’t worry abou—”

“Do you have any idea why?”

The hint of shame in Wanderer’s voice pained Lumine. “Well… People are generally more ticklish on areas of the body near important organs, or where there are a lot of nerves. It’s sort of like a defense mechanism, in a sense. Actually, now that I think about it, I suppose it would make sense for your ribs to not be ticklish, since you don’t need to breathe, and you don’t have a—”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Ah, I’m sorry! Let’s try a different spot. How aboout… Riiiiight… Here!”

Lumine emphasized “Here!” with a squeeze to Wanderer’s hips. He squeaked, and Lumine responded with more rapid squeezes.

“WAIT WAHAHAHAHAAAHAHA! TH-THAT’S SO MUCH MOHOHOHOHORE!!”

“Hehe, found a good spot, then?”

“YEAHAHAHA I GUESS!”

What a strange sensation! It was almost tortuous, the way Lumine’s nimble fingers wiggled around in just the right places… yet somehow pleasant at the same time?

“YOU’VE GOTTA STAHAHAAAP!! M-MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE!”

“Aw, I think somebody likes this~”

“YOU SHUT UHUHUHUP!! YOU’RE GONNA REGRET THAT!”

“Oh, will I?” Lumine quickly grabbed Wanderer’s torso, pinning him down onto the grass, and changing positions so that she was now sat on top of his legs. Wanderer’s hat fell off and landed behind him. Lumine laughed mischievously.

“What the hell is wrong with yohOHOU! OHOHO ARCHONS HAHAAA NOHAHAHA TH-THAT’S SO BAHAHAADAHA!!”

Lumine was now expertly squeezing Wanderer’s thighs. “Jackpot!” she triumphed.

Wanderer was seemingly having a difficult time controlling his reactions now. His cheeks were bright red, he was wearing the widest smile Lumine had ever seen on him, and was pounding the ground with his fist while the other hand swat wildly at her.

“You look adorable—” Oops. Now it was Lumine’s turn to blush.

“I WHAHAHAHAT!?”

“I didn’t say anything!” Panicked, Lumine whipped around and grabbed hold of one of Wanderer’s sandals, taking it off and scratching underneath his toes.

“EEEK!! NONONO STAHAAAAPSTAPSTAPSTAP DANGO! DAHAHANGO!!”

She let go, but didn’t get off him just yet. Wanderer laid there panting for a moment before he was able to say anything.

Lumine wiped the nervous sweat off her forehead before turning back around to face him. “Have fun?” she asked.

“Get offa me, worm,” he ordered, but he couldn’t hide his slight grin.

“Oh, right.”

The two sat in silence, not-so-secretly enjoying each others’ presence.

Wanderer finally broke the silence, saying, “So… Can I do that to you?”

Lumine froze. It was only fair… “Uhm, sure! Go ahead.”

Wanderer scooched closer to her. He gently placed his hands on her waist. He had never touched her like this before. He flushed and, upon realizing he had absolutely no idea what he was doing, flushed even harder. He was avoiding eye contact. He gently squeezed her sides a few times. No reaction. Surely it can’t be that hard. He tried again, a bit firmer this time. Still no reaction. What gives?

“Am I doing it wro—” he cut himself off when he finally looked up to see her expression. Lumine was as flushed as he was, eyes squeezed shut, clearly not breathing.

“Oh. I see how it is.” Gaining some confidence back, he reached for her hips and tried his best to replicate what he had felt her do.

“WHAHAHAHAHAAAA!” the dam finally broke.

“I’ve got you now!”

“NAHAHAHAA!!” Lumine squealed.

He suddenly remembered what she had said earlier and began digging into her ribcage. She practically screeched, making Wanderer wince, as his thumbs dug into two small spots at the bottom of her ribcage.

“OHMIGOSH NOHOT THEHEHEHEHEHEHERE!!”

“Hehe, how d’you like it, huh?”

He was ruthless! But really, what did she expect?

Lumine reached out desperately for something, anything to help her, and she felt something soft on the grass. The feather from earlier! Thank Barbatos, the wind must have blown it over here! She grabbed it and brushed it up against Wanderer’s neck.

“EEHEHE!” Wanderer pulled back his hands in surprise. What was that?? The unbearable sensation appeared again, this time on his ear, and he burst into giggles.

“What the—stahahahahahap!” He covered his ears and closed his eyes, and then suddenly felt the sensation move to his toes.

“NOHO! LUMINE!!” he opened his eyes, catching the culprit red-handed.

Lumine responded with his signature taunt, sticking her tongue out at him.

“Why you… C’mere!”

“No!!” Lumine got up and sprinted as fast as she could away from him.

Wanderer caught up almost immediately, using his anemo boosters to fly after her at top speed. He tackled her to the ground, causing the two of them to roll down a hill a few feet. Lumine was already laughing as Wanderer pinned her wrists to the ground, straddling her. He experimentally scratched underneath her arms and��

“NONONONONOHOHOOOO! P-PLEHEHEASE I CAHAHAHAHAN’T! LEHET GOHOHOO!!”

“Nuh-uh.” Wanderer was thrilled with his discovery.

Lumine would have said the safeword by now, but truthfully, she was having the time of her life. No one had tickled her like this in a long, long time. She’d missed it.

“What d’you have to say for yourself now, huh?”

“NOHOHOTHIHING!!”

“You’re tougher than I thought.”

Wanderer moved down her legs a little so that he could reach her thighs. Feeling bold, he slid his hands up her dress ever so slightly and skittered his fingers across her inner thighs.

“AAAAAAHAHAHA!! NOT THERE! NOT THAHAHAHAT!! NONONONO PLEASE PLEASE PLEHEHEHEEEEASE!!”

He felt like he could never get enough of the way she squirmed beneath him, but he was also quite embarrassed at the scale of the reaction he had caused. The sound of her bright laughter and the way she twitched under his touch…

“I CAN’T! I CAHAHAHAAAN’T! DANGO DANGO DAHAHANGOHOHOHO!!”

Wanderer snapped back to reality. He apologetically rubbed where he had been tickling, thinking it would maybe help to make the sensation go away.

“Stihill, still tihihickles!”

He pulled his hands away entirely.

“Thahahank yohou.”

He stood up and offered her a hand which she happily took.

“That was fun,” Lumine admitted. “Let’s go back and get your hat.”

“Oh, right, yeah.”

The pair walked back to the Statue. Lumine picked up Wanderer’s hat and put it back on for him.

“There you go,” she beamed.

“Thanks. And uh, thanks for showing me that. Tickling.”

“Haha, of course! I should get going now, so I’ll see you later, okay?”

Lumine snuck under Wanderer’s hat to give him a quick peck on the cheek.

“Hey, wha, you can’t just—!”

“Byeee!”

“Lumine! You get back here right now!”

“You’ll never take me alive!!”

[gaybananabread]

☾༺Just a Bit Longer༻☽

~So I’ve been brainrotting over RW&RB for a solid month now. The goblins need a walk, and I cannot productivity until they get one. I love these two’s dynamic; they’re just so silly. Not my best work, but writer’s block be damned; I needed to post something this week. This is completely self-indulgent, but if it’s your thing, I hope you Enjoy!~

Lee: Alex

Ler: Henry

Summary: Alex is overworking himself, going late into the night and working hours without breaks. Sick of his lover’s dreadful work-life management, Henry takes it upon himself to get Alex to sleep.

Warnings: mild Red, White & Royal Blue spoilers! This is a tickle fic, so if you don’t like that, scroll away!!

Life for Alex Claremont-Diaz was the best it had ever been. Henry came over almost daily from his Brownstone, and he finally felt like he had a definite idea of where his life was headed. The only downside: he was still in school.

The NYU Law course was a bit more rigorous than he’d expected, but it was definitely what he wanted. Sure, that meant long, painful hours of reviewing for extremely difficult exams, discovering that tort is a real word, and trying to figure out a system for coursework that didn’t make his brain want to explode.

His sleep schedule was already shit, so he didn’t think any of it would be a problem. If he just pulled a few all-nighters and pumped out some late-night essays, he’d be fine. What he didn’t think about, however, was how Henry would take it.

Alex was working late on another essay, running off of coffee and pure determination. He hadn’t meant to put it off, but with the three exams he’d had that week, his mind was a scattered mess.

Henry had put up with it for most of the night, but as two AM rolled around, his understanding had run dry, replaced by concern.

Knocking the “shave and a haircut” pattern on his lover’s door, Henry entered the room. He was immediately greeted with the strong smell of coffee and desperation.

There sat his boyfriend, hunched over a computer with a half-eaten ham sandwich (he couldn’t handle turkey anymore) by his side. The blonde couldn’t help the sad sigh that escaped him.

Alex looked up, his glasses nearly all the way down on his nose. It was unfairly cute, though Henry shoved that feeling down for the moment.

“Uh…hey, Hen. Not done yet; gimme, like, another half-hour.” Alex’s gaze was back on his computer in seconds.

Henry rubbed his temples, already feeling a headache brew. For once, why couldn’t Alex just use common sense?

“Alex, darling. It’s two in the morning. You need to sleep.”

Alex scoffed, not stopping for even a second. “Says you. You stay up later than I do most of the time.” While that wasn’t untrue, Henry’s problems were because of insomnia. Alex was just a stubborn asshole.

“Look, I’m going to be brutally honest here. You look terrible, you seem exhausted, and the bags under your eyes could fit the entirety of the Royal Wardrobe. Go. To. Sleep.”

Henry laid things out bluntly, crossing his arms. It was meant to leave little room for negotiation, but defying Henry’s expectations was Alex’s special talent.

“This is due at eight AM…uh, today. I’ve only got six hours to finish this thing, but I’m almost done. I promise, just a bit longer.” This would have been more comforting if Alex hadn’t already said that three times.

“Alex, please. If you sleep now, I’ll wake you up at six, and we’ll work on it together. It hurts to see you like this, dear.” He used pet names, trying to sway Alex to listen. It was a last-ditch effort; if he still refused, Henry didn’t have much of a plan left. Sure enough, he did.

“It’s fine, Henry. I’m all good, just a little spacy. I promise, the moment I’m done, I’ll eat your face. Okay, baby?” Alex flipped the other man’s strategy back on him, hoping to fully bury the concern. He was fine: end of story.

For Henry, though, the tale was just beginning. He racked his brain, searching for anything to help him get Alex to cooperate. He could only remember one time anyone was successful.

Alex had invited him to the White House for June’s birthday party. As the night dragged on, everyone but Alex was drunk and exhausted. To tire him out, June had employed some rather…unconventional methods.

Methods that would be extremely useful to him at that moment.

Casually approaching his boyfriend, Henry put a hand on the laptop. Then, after making sure the work was saved, he closed it. He pointedly ignored Alex’s scoff and protests, grabbing his chin and pulling him in for a kiss. Alex still squirmed, though a smile was breaking out on his face.

That was all Henry needed to continue. He gripped Alex under his thighs, lifting the man up and plopping him down on his nearby bed.

A surprised sound left him, his cheeks gaining a nearly imperceptible red hue. He was expecting some push-back from Henry, but nothing this active.

“Just couldn’t wait for me, could you~?” Alex weteased, starting to sit up on the bed. Henry was quick to stop that, grabbing Alex’s arms and pinning them above his head.

Before his lover could make another joke, Henry tapped a few fingers on his side. That shut him up, if only for a second.

“Henry, I swear to fucking god, if you try anything-” He was cut off when Henry squeezed his side, resulting in an indignant squeak.

“Sorry, dear, but I’m afraid I already have~” With that, Henry clawed his fingers into Alex’s stomach, straddling him.

The tired man tried to bite his lip, but the coffee wasn’t quite enough to give him that energy. A few giggles slipped out, quickly followed by tiny curses.

“What’s the matter, Alex? Something bothering you?” Henry chuckled, leaning down further to try and hold him still.

Kicking and squirming, Alex tried anything to get away from the evil fingers. He was tired, though; his brain was moving at half-speed and felt like it was running through soup.

“Gehehet ohoff me, youhuhu prihick!” Henry has decided to move up to his ribs, scritching and scratching between each bone.

Even on a good day, it’d be hard for Alex to get out from under him. With no sleep, coffee fumes and pure spite, he had no chance.

“Why on Earth would I do that? I’m quite comfortable here. Besides, you seem to be enjoying yourself, if that blush is any indication,” Henry taunted, jutting his chin out. He didn’t really need to, but it was a sure-fire way to rile Alex.

“Fuhuhuck off! Hehenry, I swehehear- quihit!” Alex tried to bury his face in his shoulder, though he only drew attention to a new target. Henry leaned down, blowing a raspberry on his boyfriend’s neck. Alex would rather die than repeat the squeal that left him.

“Wow, Alex. Perhaps the Barbara Streisand accusation wasn't so far off,” he teased, his voice about as smug than Alex had ever heard it.

The typically witty man was in giggly shambles, trying his best not to sound like a child. He wasn’t very successful.

“SHUHUhut uhup, youhu douche!!” Laughing like a toddler, Alex was still pumping out insults. Henry was about to put a stop to that. Going for the kill, he hooked his thumbs into Alex's hip divots, kneading and squeezing the area.

That seemed to work quite well.

“GAH- HEHENRY! You- YAHAHA! FAHAHACK!” The law student lost his shit, practically cackling under his boyfriend.

Alex arched his back off the bed, only bucking into the ticklish feeling. There was no room in his mind for witt; the best he could do was “fuck fuck fuck it tickles oh my god-”

Hearts practically formed in Henry’s eyes at the adorably hysteric reaction. Still, as cute as it was, he had a mission.

“This all ends the moment you agree to rest. Or…would you like me to continue? I bet I could just tickle you senseless all night. You’d surely be exhausted then, wouldn’t you?”

Alex couldn’t even get a word out, shaking his head as he laughed. His curls went wild, getting in his eyes and puffing up. Henry wanted to brush it from his eyes, but he had to keep his priorities in order. There would be time for fawning over him later.

“HEHENRY! PLEHE- snrk” It took a solid minute, but Alex’s resolve was weakening. He was already tired beforehand, and laughing his ass off wasn’t helping. The squirming had died down almost completely, snorts slipping into the lax cackles.

While it wasn’t an agreement, the Prince could tell that his lover would be out in seconds. Henry stopped, switching to gentle traces down his sides. The first son tried to calm down, a steady stream of giggles pouring from his lips.

“H-hoholy shihihit… Thahat was evil.” He tried taking some deep breaths, rubbing his cheeks. Alex hadn’t laughed that hard in a while. He was close to just passing out right there, pure exhaustion hitting him like a freight train.

“Possibly. You deserved it, though.” Henry leaned down, gently kissing his curved lips. This sight was one of his new favorites: Alex, his toned skin flushed, practically a puddle of giggles beneath him.

Alex flipped him the bird before melting into the kiss. He weakly pulled his boyfriend down, snuggling against him. He’d all but forgotten about his essay, eyes closed the moment he laid still; the poor guy was wiped. It wasn’t terrible by any means, but all his energy was gone.

Carefully grabbing his phone, Henry set an alarm for six AM.

They’d finish that research paper; he was certain of that. With a bit of sleep, Alex would be a writing machine. True, the slightly rushed grammar would be atrocious, but that’s what Henry was there for. Pulling the sheets up over them both, Henry breathed a happy sigh.

“Good night, love.”

[neoncherryblossom]

Ao3 ask game!

3, 7, 12, 28 and 29 👀👀

Hello!

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

Did some thinking and honestly? The works in my series going through Darius and Eber's grief. (Just barely in second place being Hanahaki Darius and Metal Sonic stuff). I reread parts of it when you commented and yeah. I am still proud I wrote that and finished it. Definitely not my most popular (even in my TOH works) but wow.

*pats self on back.* All my stuff is things I wanna see and that should be the warning symbol people get reading my stuff because yes. I am going to be extremely self indulgent. Moving on.

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most?

Okay now this is tricky. I don't really follow any single artist as much as I find an animatic/cover and put whatever character is in that situation.

(The original title idea for Darius' Hanahaki is actually from Hamilton? Don't know what that says about me as a person but the lyrics 'love doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints it takes and it takes and it takes and we keep loving anyway' really felt Darius coded to me. And that's all the songs I pull from honestly. How character coded is this song to this charcater.)

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

Considering how life will absolutely not let me finish anything before basically Christmas, active WIPS is about...

six? And that's ignoring all my insane ones I started just to get an idea out of my system.

28. Favorite work you wrote this year?

Hard one. I think at this very second, my gift fic for TrishaCollins 'ill be waiting till i see you again' and 'Cover Your Face and Turn a Blind Eye; You Never Cared for the Truth' but honestly it changes depending on what I haven't read lately and what I'm itching for. They are all self indulgent hell.

(Selective Mute Eber comes in second.)

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

Any of the snippets I posted here are examples of something I adored. But.

---

It wasn’t fair, none of this was fair. 

“It wasn’t,” Plagg quietly agreed and Nooroo leaned harder into him, because he was still too afraid of touching him directly but wanted to eat all the comfort Plagg was radiating, lick up all his worried love. “But we’re here now. You don’t have to hurt alone Nooroo. We’re your big siblings. Let us help you.” 

Nooroo just cried, his head hurting as he leaned into Plagg hard enough that he could feel Plagg’s reserve, felt the roaring ocean that made up Plagg’s, his eldest brother's power. 

And he felt safe.

(Definitely not my strongest by any means. But dude, I had been building up to this moment in the fic for months at this point, so when I think of favourite I just think of this, because I had finally reached a point I had been so so excited for.)

[mendimore]

The Danmei Series 01: Tf is Danmei?

Note: This is an effort to convert more unsuspecting fandom children into danmei because I need more people to talk to about this. Enjoy!

Danmei.

If you haven't heard of it before, HAHAHA, you are in for a ride.

Basically, Danmei is a Chinese fiction genre (the name directly translates to indulging in beauty)that features m/m relationships.

Mendi, isn't that just bl? Yes, but specifically Chinese.

Well, Mendi, what difference does that even make? It's all the same thing.

No. It is not.

...Okay, it is a little bit.

BUT, danmei is its own genre for a reason. China, just like any other country is rich in culture. I acknowledge this may be a bit biased, but I am overjoyed that Danmei is flourishing. But, anyway, let's talk about it.

If you have heard about Danmei media in the West, even just a little, It's pretty likely that you came across one of MXTX's works. MXTX or Mo Xiang Tong Xiu is the pseudonym for a popular Danmei author on Jin Jian Wen Xue Cheng (jjwxc) a popular web novel site(a whole lot of Danmei authors publish their work on this site).

MXTX has three novels, and if you hear about the MXTX fandom, it refers to the enjoyers of all three of her novels. These three works consist of Scum Villain's Self Saving System(svsss), The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation(aka Mo Dao Zu Shi, or mdzs), Heaven Official's Blessing(aka Tian Guan Ci Fu, or tgcf). The first of their works to become very popular was mdzs, which has several adaptations(basically any adaptation you can think of). If you were into cdramas at all around 2019, you might have heard of The Untamed. The majorly successful live-action adaptation of mdzs. Or maybe if you are in the anime/donghua community, you heard about the mdzs donghua adaptation. And if you were a fandom child who found Ao3 at the right time, you might know of "Sexy Times with WangXian" which broke Ao3 with the number of tags it had and forced Ao3 to have a tag limit, or a fanfic of the lead actors of The Untamed making Ao3 illegal in China.

Have I scared you? Sorry. Truly, the mdzs fandom is not as problematic as it sounds. I started my own Danmei journey with mdzs, and it holds a soft spot in my heart. I also have way too many opinions on the adaptations and how new viewers of mdzs should approach it to get the maximum emotional value, but that is a discussion for another time.

Anyway, Heaven Official's Blessing, also skyrocketed in popularity when it came out. It has its own donghua that you can find on Netflix with a fully English dub. As well as an extremely beautiful manhua and audiodrama. But of course, I encourage you to read the novels first, especialy because these adaptations are not finished, unlike mdzs.

Scum Villain is the heavily underrated middle child as far as adaptations go. It absolutely does not mean that it is bad. It isn't. I don't wanna get into the debate about how someone isn't a true mxtx fan if they haven't read it, and how it's so much better than the other books. I personally disagree with the last statement. I do also hold a lot of love for Scum Villain, Shen Qingqiu is one of my favorite MCs of all time, the premise is a lot more relatable than the other two, but it's pretty clear that svsss is Mxtx's oldest work. She has definitely been improving. Obviously. go read it, especially if you enjoy her other two works.

But, before you come at me for only talking about one author out of ALL the Danmei out there, I would like to point out that MXTX works are probably the most accessible in the West in regards to Danmeis. They were the first to get a full English translation and along with 2ha (The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun, another very popular danmei written my an author under the name Meatbun), I was able to see them perching on their own little stand in Barnes and Noble.

So, you may have noticed something. I talk a lot about the web novels. maybe if you're into bl or yaoi, you will notice that a lot of those adaptations are in the form of graphic novels. Why is it that there is more emphasis on the actual novel? I know I know, why do these people want to make us actually just READ words instead of look at pretty pictures of pretty people. Disgusting. I understand your pain. I actually do not have anything largely conclusive to tell you why this is, but based on my observations here are two contributing factors: 1. it's easier to hide subtext, specific cue words, and satire in text media(I mean it's pretty clear when a character is desperately holding on to another character, yelling "My, love, when will you return," when you skim through a manhua, then if there are just a bunch of words), this also means its easier to hide from censorship; 2. the Chinese language itself is very poetic and if you have interacted with Chinese people, the number of references and idioms will drive you nuts as a language learner, in manhua form it can lose some of its humor and imagery, particularly with Danmei because a lot of the subject matter and the nature of the romances is kind of idealized and poetic; 3. Danmei is actually very plot-centric, the romance is often like a little cherry on top of the mounds of story, drama, and character, and so when you see even manhua or donghua adaptations of the stories, I would say that often quite a bit of the depth gets lost for the characters and the story, it's the same as what happens with a lot of blockbuster films. I'm sorry but book >>> movie almost every time.

Of course, there are options for you if you are stuck on graphic novel-style stories. Chinese manhua generally has a distinctly pretty and clean style. It does depend on the artist, obviously, but if you are a huge fan of pretty art, I tell you Manhua knows what's up, just give it a shot.

Anyway, all this yammering and I haven't talked about the actual content.

Many things set a lot of Danmei apart, content-wise. Chinese fiction has its own fantasy genres of wuxia and Xianxia. Wuxia, translating directly to martial hero, is a low fantasy genre that centers around martial arts in a historical au including sects, master-apprentice relationships, cool fights, etc. It has a lot less supernatural or magical elements, and instead often focuses on what is feasible with the human body alone. Xianxia on the other hand(translating directly to immortal Hero), can vary with very cool magic systems and worldbuilding based on Daoist and/or Buddhist influences. Xianxia is high fantasy and often includes supernatural themes, immortality, spiritual cultivation, etc. It may include mentions of the three realms. where you can ascend to godhood, haunt the mortal realms being unable to find the land of the dead, or go through the cycle of reincarnation.

Danmei can be based in some Chinese historical settings as well, separate from wuxia and can be from ancient times or during the more recent period of militant china, often with some emphasis on Peking opera.

Of course, Danmei has plenty of works set in contemporary or futuristic timelines as well that are similarly unique in their own way.(right now I just started Little Mushroom, and I really enjoy the futuristic worldbuilding so far)

Additionally, I mentioned before that Danmei is in fact very plot and character-centric.

Ha, yeah right, Mendi. Plot. The plot is romance, that is the genre, what plot could there possibly be.

Well. A whole lot.

I gave you a little taste with the mentions of some cool worldbuilding, but you will get a taste of insurmountable joy and boundless despair, reading some of this stuff. Many of your favorite tropes appear often, from enemies to lovers to pretty guys with long hair falling down cliffs(ok that is just an MXTX thing, I don't care if you think my taste is basic because i love MXTX, the stories are good). Also, you get a dose of east asian ideals and culture. For Asian Americans like me, it was very refreshing to feel somewhat understood in a way that I didn't see in Western media. The emphasis on family relationships, age hierarchies, reputation, and the way your asian aunties will gossip about you both right in front of you and behind you and have no sense of boundaries, and dramatic-ass idioms(iykyk). The way that these relationships are built is through the plot, and that is something I miss sometimes with a lot of the romances I've read. There are plenty of points of interest, from being do-gooders trying to be a good person and then getting roped into and wrongfully blamed for some elaborate scheme, or a hefty, intricate revenge plot based on some deep hatred and a not so healthy does of body horror. You will have a blast.

So, now that I have sold you on danmei content. Let's talk about another factor why you may not already be a Danmei enjoyer.

Danmei is enjoyed by many women in China and internationally, which also means there is a lot of controversy regarding the fetishization of m/m relationships. While I agree that this is a problem, I disagree that enjoying a gay romance is fetishization. it can be, but it more than often is not. Just like how I can enjoy a poetic, well-set-up, straight romance, I enjoy a lot of really beautiful Danmei stories in much the same way. For a lot of Chinese women, Danmei allows them to remove the societal constraints put on women in a relationship. it's a way of escapism, this might also be a reason as to why a lot of these romances are so poetic, even if tragic at times. Having the stigmatism of fetishization might push more heteronormativity into media. As long as you can enjoy the romance healthily, appreciating the characters as characters, and the plot as plot, and not specifically enjoy the fact that the relationship is between two gay men, you should be in the clear. The fact that some people are driven away from these stories because of the stigmas around boy's love saddens me. You don't have to be a connoisseur or anything, but if the sole reason you reject a piece of media is because it has a gay pairing in it, that is pretty homophobic. Although I will say, there is a difference between not wanting to read it because it's gay and not wanting to read it because you don't want to read smut. I understand some Danmei has smut, and some people aren't comfortable reading that, ok. But if you are intrigued by the premise, I would say just do your best to skip the smut scenes, if you really don't wanna, ok, but I think for things like smut, you can really get away with not reading it usually. Also if you think all danmei has smut, you are sorely mistaken. There are plenty of Danmei fics with no smut, and a lot of the adaptations sometimes don't even have real romance, which is sad, but if that is your concern, seriously don't. Also, in regards to censorship, if that is your issue. Unfortunately yes, it is an issue, but, there are plenty of options in the Danmei world, I'm certain you will find something.

Anyway, some of this is just my opinion, I am still actually relatively new to Danmei, I have read my fair share, but if this encouraged you to get into some Danmei, I have fulfilled my mission.

I will be back, probably talking about mdzs adaptations next time or some recs or working on some reviews, but I hope you enjoyed!

NOTE: About MXTX official translations, I have heard some mixed reviews. I, personally, read all three of the works as popular fan translations online, so I have not reread the full official translation. I have heard there are some distinct changes, including smushing some of the chapters together, which is something I am not sure about. it's unfortunate, but its only something to keep in mind. The novels should still be faithful to the original story.

[bellis-apis]

January Book Tracker

This is my first time doing this but new year, new way of keeping track of books! Thanks to @waytooseriousabouteverything for the format that I'm stealing :)

Tress of the Emerald Sea: This was the first one of the Brandon Sanderson Kickstarter books and it was SO GOOD. I read it in 2 sittings on accident because I just couldn't put it down. I love the main character (Glorp but she goes by Tress) and her voice - she didn't think she was a hero but kept doing braver and braver things while insisting she wasn't a hero until the end when she's like WAIT... I AM a hero. It was so good and very trope subversive for fantasy. Speaking of fantasy, the magic system was so cool and interesting!! Definitely my fav book of the month, Brandon Sanderson rarely misses for me. Looking forward to the other 3 coming this year!

The Eye of the World: Okay, I did not finish this book. I was having a hard time getting into it, and I mostly started it because I knew Brandon Sanderson finished the series but then I realized there's like 20 books in this series and I just couldn't do it. They're so long. There's so many. I can't.

This Woven Kingdom: I recognized the author name when I saw this and got excited BUT I was wrong about which author it was, so that was disappointing. The plot was very tired but the setting was interesting (Plot: Djinn and humans live together but the human oppress the Djinn, who are magic BUT magic is illegal OF COURSE. Our heroes are the last Djinn queen - who is working as a servant and is the most magic out of anybody- and the human prince of their super oppressive fascist kingdom who falls in love with her instantly) Another bummer was the way Tehereh Mafi writes is really distracting to me, like WAY too many descriptive words and everyone is so dramatic all the time. Extremely cool cover art tho.

Gods of Jade and Shadow: This one I read on @ariestip's recommendation and it was SO fun! It was historical fiction/fantasy set in Mexico, which was new for me. The plot was also pretty unique a human girl and a god become bound together and have to travel across 1920's Mexico to restore his godhood, but the longer they stay bound, the more human he gets. The ending surprised me and was kinda sad, but I really liked it. Definitely will be looking into other books by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

The Empress of Salt and Fortune: Also from @ariestip's list, this was a short story told as memories being recorded by an archivist. The old woman telling the story recounts her time as the handmaiden and confident of a banished empress. It's set in a fantasy location based on imperial China and it gave so many hints about the larger world, I wanted it to be longer! It was VERY good, and also one of the few books I've read with a character with they/them pronouns which really threw me for a second until I figured out what was happening lol but once I got it I appreciated the representation!

Hunger Pangs (+ Crewel Intentions): I finally checked out @thebibliosphere's book! Of course, I got the flirting with fangs edition with all the steamy scenes :) I really enjoyed this one! It felt like the author had a lot of fun writing it and felt very self-indulgent (in the best way) so I had fun reading it. I loved Vlad and his projects and schemes (very relatable) and that it had a happy ending! It did feel like the stakes never got too high, and the saving the world plot point was wrapped up very quickly, but I didn't really have a problem with that since it was more about the romance. Can't wait for the sequel!

Blade Breaker: I really liked the Red Queen series when I read it a few years ago, so I was excited that Victoria Aveyard had a new series, but I had a hard time finishing the first one and I might not even finish this sequel. I don't even know why, I'm just not really into it!

Wow this got long! January has me at 5 books so far, not counting DNFs, and no rereads (yet). Kind of a slow month, but I've been job hunting all month so

[elysianslove]

Hello! I know this may not be your thing but I decided to give it a shot, if not no biggy!

I was wondering if you would be interested in writing Gojo and/or Sakuna with an asexual lover? (One that doesnt feel sexual attraction but doesnt mind kissing and cuddling etc and loves physical affection but nothing beyond that?) And like, how a relationship with that kind of person would come to be?

Because Sakuna and Gojo both give off *he totally fucks* vibes.

So how they ended up with an asexual lover would be interesting, maybe the MC rejects their advances because fear of being hated for being Ase? Because they know that the other person definitely fucks.

How would their relationship work? How would the guy react/comfort the MC.

(Maybe it ends with a epilogue with no sex(as in penetration and blowjobs to be exact but mc later in a relationship would be willing to do things like handjobs and other hands on/Using toys to pleasure their partner because they cant in that way) but lots of passionate makeout sessions/kissing/sucking and worshiping the mc's body? Especially the collar bone)

If you arent into it that's cool! I totally get it!

This is pretty self indulgent after all ahahaha it's hard being an asexual in fandoms lmao.

hi my love!! okay to start off, i’m really honored you sent in this request to me. idk just the fact that you’re trusting me with it is really sweet hehe. i’m fairly knowledgable about sexuality but i don’t like to write about things i’m not 100% sure about because i don’t wanna risk doing anything wrong or accidentally offending you! but!! thank you for going into detail with the request, and i hope this is what you were looking for, and that i didn’t do any mistakes <3

i wrote headcanons so i can go into detail and write for both!! 

some nsfw under the cut, my loves! <3

ryomen sukuna 

i’d say, to begin with, it would take a small while for sukuna to even be accepting of his own feelings towards you. nothing having to do with your sexuality, just you in general, specifically that you’re human and so different from him. i don’t think sex ever crosses his mind, at least at the start, because he’s too busy being really angry over the way he can’t seem to control his reactions to every little thing you do. so he himself won’t actively work at starting a relationship with you.

but he will realize, over time, that you’re not doing anything either, even though he’s been noticing that you’re not pushing him or his advances away. like any act of protectiveness that involves him physically touching you intimately, you don’t reject, and you’re always ready to retort at any quip he had. he could tell that these feelings he had for you were mutual, he was just so confused as to why you weren’t doing anything about it.

sukuna’s a thousand year old cursed spirit. he does not know shit about sexuality. i think the way he’d look at it is fuck who you want and fuck who you like. i feel like nicki minaj’s said that before, has she? he doesn’t like thinking too much about it, you know? 

his confession would probably be a kiss because words? he doesn’t know them. when he feels you return the kiss he’s, deep down, elated, really, and this is simply because of his naturally sexual personality, he starts hinting at more, until you stop him. he’s really confused because you just kissed him back? you’ve been kissing him for so long why do you want to stop now? he can see the fear steadily growing in your eyes and he’s even more confused now he’s just. humans are so weird. 

when you cautiously tell him, “i don’t want to go further than this. is that okay?” you look like you’re waiting for the world to erupt in your face. he just frowns and shrugs like, “yeah but that’s not the point. do you not want me?” 

it takes about an hour and a half for sukuna to properly process what you’re saying. at first he’s so thrown off by it, not by you! he just can’t process the fact that someone doesn’t feel any sexual attraction towards someone or doesn’t crave sex at all. it’s not that he’s rude about it, it’s just a really foreign concept to him, you know? when you add that it’s just sex, and you’re okay with a lot of other things, the gears in his brain finally start working again and he just goes. 

*shrugs* ok. 

literally lmao. like i said earlier, sukuna doesn’t give a shit like whatever do what you want. 

because of the rush of emotions he’s feeling towards you, and the fact that this in itself, a relationship, and a relationship with a human too, he doesn’t really focus on the fact that he might want more from you. he’s easily satisfied with a lengthy make out session, and he admits it to you every time he sees you get a little anxious or unsure of yourself. 

however, his needs do grow with your relationship. it’s kind of clumsy, your transition into a proper long term relationship, especially with sukuna, but you two make it work. 

you agree to try different ways to pleasure him, even if he kinda rushes through them because he’s generally just excited to have your hands on him. at first he’s content with anything you’re offering, but it makes him feel kinda useless when you won’t let him touch you and you have to remind him that your needs are different than his and that you’re sated differently.

i see sukuna as a curious and experimental guy, so he would definitely let you use toys on him. nothing too extreme, because he still needs that sense of control, but you do use some toys like a fleshlight or a vibrator to rile him up. he likes using your hand too, because it’s always so soft against him and it feels a hundred times better than any toy. he learns not to overstep any boundaries though, and not to do anything that might make you uncomfortable even if it takes him a little longer. like i said, the whole idea is just different to him, so it takes him a while to understand, and he’s still learning as he goes!

he loves your make out sessions, especially after you establish your boundaries and your limits and what you’re willing to do for him. he absolutely adores leaving your skin a sky of blue, pink and purple it sends chills down his spine marking you like that. he’s always touching you all over, and just loves to grab and knead at your skin. 

in the proper long term, he doesn’t mind it at all tbh. the two of you develop a system, and he’s okay with it. the same way you would never cross his boundaries and force him to do anything he doesn’t want, he’d do for you too! it really never truly mattered, and it truly never will.

gojō satoru

different from sukuna, i think gojō would definitely be knowledgable about things like this. idk he just seems like the kind of guy that’s innately so aware of everything around him, and can read people exceptionally well.

he probably picked up on the fact that you weren’t comfortable with sex, or just didn’t experince sexual attraction, on his own, but never really brought it up because it was never his place. but the same way he picks up on that, he picks up on your obvious crush on him. he pays both details no specific attention until he starts to realize his own feelings for you, and begins on his subtle advances.

he tried to make his advances as sfw as possible, you know? just in case his suspicions were confirmed to be true. he was just extra flirty, sometimes touchy but never in an inappropriate way. very subtilely like always having your shoulders or knees touching or dusting of your jacket or feeding you a piece of his food. cute little things like that.

he gets super worried when he notices you start to distance yourself from him, because he can’t imagine what he might’ve did to push you away. he overthinks a little, worried that he overstepped his boundaries or made you uncomfortable in any way, but he isn’t afraid to approach you about it, to make sure he doesn’t repeat his mistakes, especially with someone like you, who he’s slowly growing more and more infatuated by. 

when you admit to him you’re asexual, he realizes he was right, but then he’s like, “and? did i do something?” and now it’s your turn to be confused because here you were worried about rejection but here he was worried about you? 

this specific incident is what makes you let loose and finally just freely admit your feelings for him. he’s ecstatic about it, seriously! all that’s on his mind is that he gets to go on a date with someone he really likes. sex is the last thing on his mind, and yeah, you’ll eventually have to talk about it, but not for now. it’s for later, when things get a little more serious. 

they do get serious, to both your delights, but the dreaded moment is approaching you. gojō definitely sits you down and says, “we’re only having this talk so i know never to do anything outside of your limits. everything about this relationship is 50/50, and i want to know ways to make you feel good, too.” 

please sir your hand in marriage.

i definitely believe gojō’s a kinky guy, and is more than willing to try out literally any sex toy you pull at him. genuinely, he’ll try anything you wanna try. if you ever offer a handjob, he’ll ask a million times over if you’re sure. usually, he likes to just do it himself, but have you there next to him. he won’t touch you, but your hands will be in his hair, and you’ll be kissing his neck, or just murmuring how much you love him in his ear, just spurring him on. he knows the last thing on your mind is anything sexual, but there’s just something about being under your watchful, almost bored gaze as he fucks himself.

anyways before i get too into it lmfao, he loves kissing you. loves loves loves it. not even full blown make out sessions, just gentle, serene kissing. he can kiss you for hours. 

he is also incredible at body worship and praise. paints your pretty collarbone pink and purple, whispers about how you’re perfect for him, describes all your features to you like poetry. he’s an incredible lover, really. nothing can make him fall out of love with you, absolutely nothing. 

[numptypylon]

Epilogue

I added a short epilogue to Reunion and Intersection today, but I also wrote a much longer one, full of fluffy comfort, to get through the angst-writing in the first two chapters. It’s unedited, unfinished and ridiculously self-indulgent, and I don’t think it really goes with the story, so I elected to not post it, but I’m attaching it here, under the cut, for those interested. Keep in mind it’s a reject for a reason though; this is what my writing looks like in the explorative phase where I’m looking for the point, and in this case I didn’t really find it XD

~2K under the readmore

Callum got there early. A lot of people eyed him warily, but a letter from Queen Janai was a good smoother-of-grumpy-elf-tempers.

No-one had seen Rayla, so… she was probably not here yet.

He went to the inn, bought a large room, lit a roaring fire in there, activating the Sunfire rock he used to keep warm at night under the covers of the bed, and calling for the tub to be filled. It had the usual Skywing heating arrangement, only needing a good Fulminis to heat the water.

He resisted flying out to find her. He risked missing her again, and her leaving town before he got back.

It was about… hitting the point of intersection.

So, he waited at the city gates. He didn’t have to wait nearly as long as he expected, considering the distance she would have had to traverse. Maybe she had recovered and had travelled faster than he thought.

It was definitely her though. A small, lone figure on the mountainside.

He intended to wait for her until she got to him, but then she stopped to lean against a tree and he realized that she had not recovered and was up there sick in the snow… and that resolve evaporated like it had never been.

Like he would ever let her struggle alone a moment longer than she needed to.

 **

 It was a measure of her exhaustion that she didn’t notice him until he was basically right in front of her, and even then, her reaction was so much slower than usual.

It still… it was hard to believe it was real. For her too, surely more so.

He numbly pulled his scarf off, packing it around her neck and head. He grazed her cheek and felt it and she felt it and… she felt it, because the tears that had built up in her eyes spilled over at his touch, slipping down her dirty and flushed cheeks.

She looked ready to drop, and felt it too, when he put his arms around her and her disbelief gave way to relief. Whatever ridiculous level of stubbornness had kept her upright for the last day and night of walking through snow and up mountains when she should have been in bed… fell away and she slumped almost completely in his arms.

She sobbed hoarsely for a bit, and he let her.

And she let him, when his hand cupped the back of her head and her hair tickled his fingers and it hit him too that… it was really real, she was here.

They needed to… get to the inn though, so he pulled away and wiped his face. They could… and probably would… have a longer cry and a longer hug later. But she was sick and cold and there was a roaring fire and a filled bathtub two minutes of flight away.

“Let’s go,” he said. “I knew you were coming this way and that you were sick. And I booked a room for… you.” For them both, he hoped, but-

“What?” she blubbered. “But… aren’t… aren’t you mad?”

“I mean, of course I am, but… that’s not really… that can wait.”

“I’m…” she laughed weakly, more tears spilling over. “I’m so happy to see you and there’s… so many things I would like to say and… and I’m such a mess right now and so tired and I’m just… I’m so tired I cried earlier just because a stupid pine branch hit me in the face and knocked me off my sled and it continued down the mountain without me and I’d have to walk instead and-“

“Hey, hey!” He stroked down her flushed, wet cheeks, along fresh scratches where presumably that branch had hit her. Sledding, huh… she always was extremely resourceful and oh so daring. And that explained how she got here so fast. “Rayla, it’s okay. You can rest first. I’ll take care of things… of you. For as long as you want me to, but… definitely for the next few days.”

“How c-can you… are you… here-”

He leant his head against her forehead, relishing in the feeling of contact, even if her skin was clammy and too-hot. “That’s… complicated,” he said. “And also simple. You called me here. I came.”

“Manis. Pluma. Volantis.”

 **

 She staggered, when they set down, steadying herself on his shoulder, and Callum was glad he had elected to land in front of the inn instead of at the city gates.

She definitely wasn’t well yet, her breath rasping in her throat, her forehead beading with sweat, cheeks and ears flushed. The fever had maybe broken, but it hadn’t quite left. And she was exhausted, trembling with the effort of staying upright, her eyes dull and glassy.

People were staring, when they went inside, but the innkeeper came over and recommended the soup of the day, and their house-made herbal tea blend with Sky Yak milk, and assured them it would be brought to their room shortly, with a look of very obvious sympathy at Rayla.

And then the door shut behind them.

“I owe-” she started, but he cut her right off.

“No. You’re owed,” he said tightly.

“Owed what?” She sounded… nervous.

“Soup. Hot tea. A warm bed and a fire someone else made. General fussing. Love. Forgiveness. Kindness. A damn break, for once.”

“L-love?”

“Yeah, love.”

Her clumsy fingers fumbled at the clasps of her armor. They were still ice cold when he touched them, the skin red and no-doubt sore.

But she for once didn’t resist any help he gave, sinking gratefully into the tub he had prepared. A warm bath was possibly not great for her fever, but… it was pros and cons and he needed to warm up her hands and feet.

She was barely conscious when he helped her back out of the tub, so he just put her down on a towel on the bed, drying her hair as best he could. He at least managed to get her awake to pull off her own wet underwear and pull his clean night shirt over her head.

 **

 “Callum?” she asked, because… she wanted things, and she could have them. “Stay with me? Please.”

He pressed against her back, warm and real.

His hands engulfed hers, big and soft and familiar.

Full of real little details that her brain hadn’t accurately recreated.

The callus at the side of his right index finger, from his charcoal pencil. The scar from a clumsy sparring accident at the second knuckle.

His voice when he said her name and when he told her it was okay.

His kinda… snuffling non-snoring sleep-sound.

And new things, that she hadn’t known to add.

His arms, still skinny, but stronger than they had been.

His too-long hair flopping over his ears.

And things she had yet to find out.

 **

 “Morning-“ she muttered, as she woke, feeling warm. And her throat felt a lot better, too and most of that sticky, gross fever feeling was gone, although there was still some sluggish daze, everything just a bit vaguer and floatier than it should have been.

“Afternoon,” Callum corrected lightly, but there was something not so light underneath. “You slept for… 14 hours. I bet you’re hungry.”

“I bet… you were worried.” That was a long time to worry and not wake her to assuage it but just sit in it, watching her sleep.

She reached out to stroke his furrowed brow. Her hands were bandaged though, so she couldn’t touch him properly. She didn’t remember, but did recall something about Callum saying he had called a doctor, and then she must have conked out pretty hard and slept through it.

She clenched and released her hands experimentally. Seemed alright except for being stiff and sore?

“What’s wrong with me?” she asked, staring down at the thick bandages.

“Except for the illness that nearly killed you because you’re such a massive dummy? Lots of things.” He took her hands, starting to unwind the bandages. “For your hands, hopefully only frostnip. I’m supposed to check that, when you woke, take you back to the doctor if there’s signs of deeper frostbite.”

There was some thick ointment, probably the reason for the bandages. Her hands looked reddened, the fingers a bit swollen, but… not so bad. Nothing was white or black or blistered, so really, nothing to worry about, where frostbite was concerned.

Callum wasn’t satisfied with a visual inspection though, cupping her hands in his, methodically checking she could feel all her fingers and make a full fist.

“I think it’s okay,” he said, breathing out, relieved. He did tend to catastrophize- “No… no risk of amputation this time-” His fingers slid across her left wrist, the faint whitened scars from where the binding had dug into her skin and where the sunforge blade had burnt her.

“It’s definitely okay,” she said. “Barely hurts.” She cupped his face, feeling his skin just fine against her fingertips. “It’s not like back then, okay?”

“How do you feel today?”

“Better. Way better. I’m ready to go, if-”

“What?!” He stared at her in disbelief. “Absolutely not. You didn’t hear what the doctor said. But I did, she got here while you were sleeping. And absolutely not.”

“What-“ Was it not just a regular bug?

He breathed, slowly and deliberately. “You’re okay, it’s a regular winter infection going around. But you did a number on your own immune system with the hypothermia and mountain climbing and… she said you were undernourished, dehydrated, stressed and critically exhausted. And that you would do well to take a week or more to fully recover, during which you should eat and rest plenty, stay warm and keep stress down. Does that sound like your regular travel, to you?”

Well… not so much.

“So, I’ll ask again, how do you feel today?”

“Tired,” she sighed. “My hands are stiff and achy. My throat hurts. My legs are wobbly. My head feels full of snot.” She smiled, despite all that. “My heart is happy to see you. It’s okay if you’re- I know… that it’s complicated.”

“It is. We have… some things to talk about. Promise you won’t leave until we do?”

“I promise.”

“Okay. Then, I think we should put the complicated things away for a few days. Until you’re better and it doesn’t hurt your throat to talk. Because… we have a lot of talking to do.”

“You don’t… need to stay. For those few days. If it’s hurting you to-”

He sighed heavily. “It does.” Yeah, he couldn’t say that it didn’t. Being around her with so much… unresolved. She didn’t want that for him. She didn’t… want to have those long and hard conversations right now either, when she was still tired and fevered and liable to burst into tears at the slightest provocation. “But it would hurt me more to leave. Didn’t it hurt you? To leave?”

“Yeah.” So, so much.

He reached out to pack his scarf around her throat more closely, the soft, warm knit a soothing feeling against the raw ache.

“Lie down, okay? Be sick? I’ll read you a story. It has murder and dismemberment in it, I asked the innkeeper specifically.”

[unrestedjade]

Baseless Ferengi headcanons no one asked for and that get increasingly queer-navel-gazing and self indulgent because the horrible space goblins have consumed my brain:

- Mobile ears, because if hearing is so well developed and important to them they should be able to aim those big stupid radar dishes. Also because then they can emote with them and that's cute. THE AESTHETIC IS PARAMOUNT.

- Since they canonically sharpen their teeth with chew sticks and sharpeners, their teeth must grow continuously. So I submit: subcultures that let certain teeth grow out as a fashion/political statement. Ferengi punks and anarchists with 5" tusks. Ferengi with all their teeth filed flat (mom and dad HATE it).

- Corollary to the above, most of their teeth are crooked. At the least, they don't share our fetish for straight teeth. What if their teeth are deciduous, and there's no point in trying to force them into perfect alignment, since they'll just fall out and get replaced? So like, sharks but their teeth can also grow longer with no limit. WHAT HAST EVOLUTION WROUGHT ON FERENGINAR :V

- Parents nagging their kids to sharpen their teeth "or they'll grow up into your brain and you'll die :)"

- Personal space? Don't know her.

Okay I need a cut because there's too many now. WHOLE SOCIETY OF GAY HOMOPHOBIC UNCLES AND AUNTS GO I HAVE A PROBLEM

- I can't remember who on here put forth the idea of them having retractable claws but Yes. :3

- Pushing back against the worst canon episode a bit but: relative ear size being the only obvious sexually dimorphic trait, and even that having enough of a gray area that the only way to be 100% sure you're talking to a male or female Ferengi is if you do a blood test. Unless they're intersex! *shrug emoji*

- This is why they're so fanatical about gender conformity and their Victorian "separate spheres" attitude to men and women's roles. Capitalist patriarchy is fragile! And as artificial to Ferengi as it ever was to Humans! (self-indulgenceeeee about gender shiiiiit)

- You know how with domesticated rabbits, the rabbit getting groomed and paid attention to is the boss? Yeah. Go ahead and paint your bestie's nails, just don't be surprised if she cops a little bit of an attitude with you from then on.

- Their fight/flight/freeze/fawn instincts skew heavily toward the last three, and what a lot of other species read as annoying sucking up is the Ferengi in question feeling anxious and unsafe. Especially if they don't feel integrated into the group. Even being at the bottom of the pecking order is better than not being in the flock at all.

- If they DO opt for fight, it's ugly and typically their last resort. Bites or scratches will get infected without intervention-- microbes that their immune system can handle could cause big trouble for aliens. You might wanna check for full or partial teeth that break off and get lodged in the wound, too.

- Too many of these are tooth related but I don't care. :B More teeth stuff: you know what else has teeth that grow constantly? Puffer fish. Likewise, Ferengi can chew up mollusk shells as easy as potato chips, and they need the minerals for their teeth. (Imagine grandpa Sisko offering Nog a crayfish for the first time and watching as he just...pops the whole damn thing in his mouth and crunches away...)

- Their staple foods seem to be grubs and other arthropods, high in protein and fat. I've unilaterally decided their cuisine also involves a lot of edible fungi, ferns, plant shoots and seeds. Gotta get those vitamins. Overall flavor profile leaning toward umami, vegetal, and fresh herbs, and pretty mild (or "delicate" if you wanna be snooty about it, which a Ferengi probably would let's be real).

- Not much sugary food. I'm basing this solely on Quark's aversion to root beer as "cloying". Which could definitely just be his personal preference, but most of the people I hear hating on root beer cite the actual sassafras/sarsaparilla flavor (saying it tastes like medicine) not the sweetness. Nog might be the weirdo outlier for being able to enjoy it.

- Their home planet isn't bright and sunny, so their eyes are better at discerning shades of gray in low light conditions, with relatively weak color vision. Which could explain why they dress Like That.

- Conversely, human music has a reputation for stinking on ice because a lot of it is juuuuust lightly dissonant or out of tune because we can't pick up flaws that small. Ferengi can, and it drives them up the *wall*.

- Music? So many different kinds. Traditionally, maybe lots of percussion and winds, and water as a common component of many instruments to alter pitch or tone. Polyphony out the ass. Some of the modern stuff is an impenetrable wall of sound if you're not a species with a lot of brain real estate devoted to processing sounds. Pick out one melody to follow at a time.

- Yes, back to teeth again I'm sorry. It's a sickness. At some point in their history, pre-chewing food was just something you did for your baby or great grandma as a matter of necessity. Possibly your baby gets an important boost to their immune system and gut biome from your spit. At some point takes on a more formal intimacy aspect and gradually drifted from something all adults and older kids do to something only women do. Your husband and older kids have perfectly functional teeth, but you love them, right? =_= (Think old memes about husbands being useless in the kitchen if little wifey isn't there to cook, but even more ridiculous. Ishka was right about everything but especially this. Thank you for making your family chew their own food, Ishka. Not all heroes wear capes. Or anything!)

- How did they get started on the whole men: clothed vs women: unclothed nonsense? My equally stupid idea: men just get cold easier. Those huge ears dissipate a ton of body heat. Cue Ferengi cliches like "jeez, we could be standing on the surface of the sun and my husband would put on another layer." At some point, again, this got codified and pushed to ridiculous extremes in the name of controlling women and keeping everyone in their assigned box, to the point that women just have to shiver if they really are too cold and men have to pass out from heat stroke if the alternative is going shirtless, because That Would Be Inappropriate.

- Marriages default to five years, but they're also the only avenue for women to have their own household or any stability. Plus their religion places no emphasis on purity save for pure adherence to the free market and the RoA. So, curveball to the rest of their patriarchal bullshit: female virginity isn't a concern in the least. Bring it up and they'll rightly side-eye you.

- Family law is absolutely bonkers and lawyers that specialize in it make BANK. I feel like custody would default to the father usually but oh wait, the maternal grandfather has a legal stake in this, too, and your next father-in-law is asking HOW many kids are you dragging into my daughter's house, etc etc. Growing up with a full sibling is way rarer than growing up with half or stepsiblings, since it usually takes both men and women two or three tries to find someone they vibe with. (Not love, unless you're super cringe.)

- A misogynistic society is a homophobic society. Imo those flavors of shittiness just come in pairs. Homosexual behaviors are fine within certain parameters (aka "always have sex with the boss") but not on your own terms. To add spice, bisexuality is their most common mode (because I'm bi and these are my hcs for my fics I'm not writing, so there), but capitalism demands fresh grist for the mill so you better get het-married and pop out some kids you lowly peons. You have a choice so make the proper one. :)

- Corollary to the above, that doesn't keep all kinds of illicit "we're just friends with quid-pro-quo benefits for realsies" affairs of every stripe and every gender from going on everywhere. Many Ferengi have a lightbulb moment somewhere in early adulthood when they figure out their dad's business partner or the "auntie" who visited their mom every month had a little more going on.

- Plus there's way more gender non-conformity and varying degrees of trans-ing than the powers that be have a handle on. Pel isn't unique, even if most would have to somehow make it out into space to be able to thrive.

Damn a lot of these are just my personal bugbears plus THE GILDED AGE BUT WITH HAIRLESS SPACE RODENTS ain't they

- Women can't earn profit, okay. But lending or "lending" things to each other isn't commerce, riiiiiiight? To be assigned female is to master navigating a vast, dizzying barter/gift economy. Smart boys and men leverage this, too, and there are splinter sects that view this as the purest expression of the Great Material Continuum.

- Of course plenty of women make profit anyway, and just do their bast to dodge the FCA. The tough thing about insisting on using latinum as currency is that cash can be so hard to track, you know?

- Because of the RoA, guys are discouraged from doing favors or giving gifts without setting clear expectation of getting some return on investment. This can twist into an expression of friendship (and of course women do it too), and the ledger will keep cycling between debit and credit among friends for decades. A common mistake aliens make is to tell them recompense isn't needed without explaining why, or return their favor or present with something that zeroes out the debt. The Ferengi will assume you want to break off the friendship. (I cribbed this from dim memories of an African studies course I took in 2007 and whose textbook I know I still have but I can't frigging find it...)

- Flirting, they do a lot of it for a lot of reasons. Roddenberry made it clear that they're just straight up pretty horny, but there's no reason it can't pull double duty for building alliances with other people, smoothing over feuds or disagreements, or cementing friendships. Ferengi who are ace and/or sex-repulsed are possibly viewed similar to the way we'd view someone who's "not a hugger/not big on touching" and if they flirt just don't get offended if it doesn't go any further; aro Ferengi don't garner much comment aside from an occasional "wow how badass, never falling in love with anyone."

- where to even start on making sense of the Blessed Exchequer??? Like seriously, what is this literal prosperity gospel insanity, I need to force myself to re-read Rand and like, some Milton Friedman for this shit. Help.

- fuck I'm probably going to actually do that, RIP me...

[rovelae]

Behind the Scenes of “Hologram”

           Today marks exactly one year since I posted arguably my most popular fic. “Hologram” is a postgame Saiouma one-shot about escapism, loneliness, and running away from the past. I put a lot of myself into this fic and I’m blown away by all the love it’s received, not only on AO3 but in Discord servers and other social media. All that excitement made me keep thinking about it, so I thought I’d share a (very self-indulgent) behind-the-scenes of sorts about how I wrote it, as well as what I think of the story.

           This essay will contain spoilers for the whole fic, so if you’d like to read it first, you can find it here. Of course, if the tags scare you off, that’s valid, but you might want to skip this post too since I’ll be quoting it throughout (so, just to be safe, expect the warnings I’ve posted on AO3 to apply here too).

           If you’re a Lorde fan you’ll recognize the lyrics in the fic summary – “Nothing’s wrong when nothing’s true,” from “Buzzcut Season.” The inspiration for this fic came to me while I was on my way to an early shift at work, and I needed a good song in my head to give me the will to live for the next eight hours. Not sure why I chose that song in particular, but maybe part of it is because I like imagining stories to go along with the songs I listen to, like AMVs playing in my head, and I’d never been able to pin down exactly what this song reminded me of.

           The mood of the music is really what compelled me – there’s something lonely about it, and the lyrics sound like the singer’s trying to convince herself that everything’s okay even when all evidence points otherwise. There are “explosions on TV”, and “The men up on the news / They try to tell us all that we will lose,” but “we live beside the pool / Where everything is good.” Despite everything going wrong, despite the notes of fear creeping into the pre-chorus, the character will “play along… in a hologram with you” and “never go home again.”

           From there, it was an easy jump to “postgame Saiou” and that was that.

             There’s a cloud of seagulls hovering in the air around him, and a dozen or so more standing just out of reach, staring him down with beady black eyes. Kokichi takes a slice of bread from the loaf he’s holding and tosses it to one of the birds, watches it catch it and stumble under the weight, watches its head bob as it tries to swallow the whole thing at once. It gets remarkably far before four other birds descend on it, shrieking wildly.

           “Mine, mine, mine,” he mumbles into his folded arms, wondering if Shuichi would get the reference.

           He really wishes Shuichi was here.

           Kokichi upends the rest of the loaf of bread onto the sidewalk and laughs at the resulting chaos until his chest aches.

             To start off, I wanted to create the same lonely mood from “Buzzcut Season” in Kokichi’s simulation. He’s not exactly trapped there, but he’s refusing to leave, because as long as he’s on the fake Jabberwock Island, he can pretend the killing game never happened. The trade-off to that escapism is that the only people he can talk to are the NPCs, who aren’t complex enough to be remotely interesting to him, and Usami, who… well, tries her best, but is more of an informational / moderation program and can’t offer him what a therapist could.

           The only thing Kokichi has to look forward to is Shuichi, who he’s convinced is an extremely lifelike computer program rather than the real thing, because the real Shuichi would definitely hate him for everything that happened during the killing game. He’s so locked into this line of logic that he doesn’t let himself consider that Shuichi has forgiven him – he doesn’t even have a good answer for why the Future Foundation wouldn’t just keep the supposed Shuichi AI on indefinitely, believing it’s their way of baiting him into leaving the simulation.

           It’s not a healthy or sustainable lifestyle in the slightest, but Kokichi stubbornly refuses to do anything but wander the islands aimlessly, passing the time with ice cream and feeding seagulls until the next time he can see Shuichi.

             He dreams that DICE is here in the simulation with him, smiling and carefree as they explore the weird music venue. One of them has gotten the karaoke machine working, and another found a box of kazoos and maracas in the back room. Kokichi already pities anyone unfortunate enough to walk by the building tonight.

           “Not going to sing, Joker?” one of his DICE asks (over the sound of their youngest member shrieking through seven kazoos at once), sitting on the bench next to him.

           “Some games are more fun to watch than play,” he answers, leaning back on his hands and sighing.

           “Like a killing game.”

           The warm dream-atmosphere turns cold then, and Kokichi’s head snaps over to look at him—but his brother is gone and Kaito’s looking back at him instead, blood in his teeth and face ashen pale.

           “You... we don’t have to do this, man,” Kaito says, but it’s a lie and they both know it, and he doesn’t want to look behind him because he knows the machine’s looming over him with its unyielding steel and slow slow slow descent—

           “You’re not real,” he snaps at dream-Kaito, who doesn’t respond except to lift him up again. “Nothing’s real, none of—PUT ME DOWN! LET GO OF ME! DON’T PUT ME BACK IN THERE!”

           “Death is more mercy than you deserve,” Kaito says, and Kokichi claws and bites and kicks his way out of Kaito’s grasp like a wild animal, only to end up in front of a prison cell full of—

           DICE, his beloved DICE, trapped and hurt and afraid, bloodied and beaten and helpless.

           “Why didn’t you save us, boss?” says his second-in-command, clutching the bars with bleeding hands. “Why didn’t you do more? Now we’re all dead and it’s because of you.”

             Moments like this are my reference to Buzzcut Season’s pre-chorus, where the not-okay starts to creep into the illusion. Despite Kokichi’s valiant efforts to forget, he’s still dealing with the aftermath of seeing his family hurt and in danger, watching his friends die, orchestrating the deaths of two of them, being killed himself— and then being told every bit of it was made up to entertain an audience who sees nothing wrong with that picture. Running away is not the way to heal from trauma, and one day soon it’s all bound to come crashing down around him.

             “Do you know what this … island paradise represents, Kokichi?” [Hinata] asks, and Kokichi’s really not in the mood for a lecture but he continues anyway. “Jabberwock Island … was the setting for the fiftieth season of Danganronpa. The golden anniversary, they called it. It was my season.”

           Kokichi hunches over, hugging his arms over his torso and stifiling a scream. He does not want to think about this right now—

           “They wanted it to be the best season of all, which, unfortunately for us, meant it was also the bloodiest,” Hinata says. “Twice as many participants, deadly traps hidden across each of the islands— they even changed the way the motives worked, like when they told Fuyuhiko to cut out his own eye so Peko could have a quick death instead of suffering for days.”

           “Do I look like your therapist, porcupine-head?” Kokichi hisses. A sharp pain is pounding into his skull, and there’s a bitter, metallic taste at the back of his throat. A taste like poison and blood.

           “There was so much going on that the simulation malfunctioned,” Hinata says. “When people died, their Ultimate talents downloaded themselves into me. I’m told that the stress of so many personality grafts came close to liquefying my frontal lobe. I’m lucky I woke up at all… especially considering more than half of the others didn’t.”

           “Why are you telling me this?” Kokichi grates out through the static building in his head. If he opens his eyes, will he see the beach or the dull chrome of the machine closing in on him?

           “Because I know how much you want to forget about what happened,” Hinata says. “Believe me, I get it.”

           ….

           “These things that happened to us… we can’t erase them, no matter how much we want to. Some things have to be remembered.”

             I’d mostly like to leave Hajime’s season up to interpretation, but there are a couple things I wanted to say about it. I imagine Danganronpa is like the Hunger Games in that it’d go all out for big anniversaries. So, there were twice as many participants for the Jabberwock Island beatdown that was probably subtitled “Bloodbath Bay” or something equally appealing. The game’s formula changed from a focus on the mystery and the trials to “look at all these kids massacring each other a la Lord of the Flies,” and since the VR system wasn’t equipped to handle that many people and their deaths, it malfunctioned, giving Hajime way too many Ultimate talents and putting half the cast into comas from which they never woke up.

           Viewers either absolutely loved or absolutely hated this season, depending on whether they were DR fans because of the “blood n’ guts” factor or the “mystery and psychological thriller” aspect. Team Danganronpa faced quite a bit of backlash for actually causing the real-life deaths of half its participants, but were able to weasel their way out of serious legal repercussions because of the waivers the participants had signed beforehand (plus a lot of bribery and falling back on their longstanding popularity). So, the cast of Season 50 failed to end the killing game, but helped provide great evidence for the “Danganronpa is morally wrong” argument.

           Hajime works as a victim liaison for the Future Foundation and has been trying to take down Danganronpa since he got out of it. He’s like that in a few of my fics, actually; I like the idea of Hajime acting as a big brother of sorts to the V3 cast. It’s especially entertaining to imagine his interactions with Kokichi— though maybe not so much in Hologram, since to Kokichi he’s a representation of the past he’s trying so desperately to forget and the future he refuses to acknowledge.

             “SHUT UP!” He launches himself at Hinata, his hands wrapping around the other man’s throat as he uses his momentum to slam him to the ground. “SHUT! UP!”

           “Ko— ghk—” Hinata coughs, eyes wide with surprise, but aside from moving his hands up to grip Kokichi’s wrists, he doesn’t seem all that worried about fighting back.

           The thought only fuels Kokichi’s rage until he’s choking Hinata so hard his knuckles are white. “If you want me out of this simulation so badly, you can kill me,” he snarls. “I’m never waking up! I’m never leaving, do you UNDERSTAND ME?”

           Hinata grimaces, the outline of his avatar flickering, but he still doesn’t struggle, and Kokichi hates him all the more for it, despises him with a seething malice that festers low in his stomach. He wonders distantly if he’d actually kill this man in real life. Or if he’d be able to stop himself, feeling like this.

             Kokichi’s breakdown here is more out of fear than anger. Like I mentioned, Kokichi sees Hajime as another piece of what’s hurt him, and no matter how Hajime tries to help, Kokichi will always remember Danganronpa whenever he sees him.

             Warm yellow-orange light casts a relaxed, cozy glow over the dining hall. It’s an ambience compounded by the flickering candles on the table, which seems overly idyllic, but Kokichi will let it slide because of the adorable way Shuichi flushed when he noticed them as they sat down. Well, if he’s being honest, everything about Shuichi right now is adorable, from the way his hair keeps falling into his eyes to the way he’s nervously fiddling wth his chopsticks. Kokichi wishes he could keep staring at him forever.

           Ah, not… not in a weird way, though, just… because Shuichi’s beautiful, and when Kokichi looks at him he can forget everything bad that’s ever happened, can create some new and brighter world to exist in.

             This is an idea I wish I’d had room to explore a bit more in the story— that is, just how far Kokichi will go to pretend everything’s fine. I thought about making him border on delusional, like having him talk to people who aren’t there or forget what’s actually happening around him because he’s so lost in his fiction-within-a-fiction. It would have creeped Shuichi out a whole lot.

           Unfortunately, there wasn’t much room for that past the plot I’d already nailed down, so I focused on his loneliness and escapism instead. I do touch on it later in this scene, though— the couple paragraphs where he slips into fantasizing about being a phantom thief having a surreptitious meeting with his detective under the not-so-subtle supervision of his DICE. There would have been a lot more of that if I’d gone with the ‘delusion’ stylistic choice, to the point where even the readers would be confused about what’s real. Maybe I’ll look into writing something similar in a future story.

             Eventually, Shuichi sets down his bowl and looks away with a little sigh, and Kokichi clenches his teeth because that’s the sigh he does when it’s time for that conversation.

           “Um… Kokichi?”

           Kokichi’s only response is to exhale the breath he’d been holding in a quiet hiss.

           “I-I know you don’t want to, but… but I really need to talk to you about something,” Shuichi says. “Please?”

           “My Mr. Detective can talk about whatever he’d like!” Kokichi says with a lilt to his tone that makes it sound more sarcastic than he wants it to. He takes the last bite of curry and wishes that it burns hot enough to hurt.

           “It’s about Kaito.”

             This more serious part of the date scene is meant to reflect the little bridge in “Buzzcut Season”:

“Cola with the burnt-out taste

I’m the one you tell your fears to

There’ll never be enough of us.”

           It’s a part of the song that sounds especially bittersweet to me, a bit of self-awareness between the insistence that everything’s okay.

           Really all I think I managed was to reference it when Kokichi’s internal dialogue comments on his drink being “so sweet it tastes burnt” and then later not tasting like anything. But hopefully the mood’s still there.

             “Tell him… that I have nothing against him,” he says.

           “That’s … not a lie?” Shuichi presses.

           Kokichi shakes his head idly, still not raising his gaze. “I wanted to wreck the killing game and he wanted to save his friend. We both got what we wanted. I’d say the end more than justifies the means.”

           Was that a lie?

           (I don’t want to die Shuichi I’m sorry I’m sorry save me Shuichi please I’m sorry ithurtsmakeitstop—)

           His fingers tighten into clawlike shapes, nails digging sharply into his forearms.

             I really don’t think Kokichi would have anything against Kaito, even if here he’s not being completely honest with how much he’s affected by what happened. It wouldn’t make sense to him to hate Kaito for something he himself proposed, but I think there’d still be a subconscious barrier between them. Too much history.

             “Don’t go, Shuichi, I’m so sorry, I— that was so dumb, what I said, please don’t be sad anymore.” He’s not sure if he can’t breathe because of the exertion of running or because of the hysteria boiling over in his head. “Please don’t go, I didn’t mean to hurt you— please don’t leave, Shuichi, I’m so sorry.”

           “Oh, Kokichi….” Shuichi’s tone is strange, soft and pitying, like he sees something Kokichi doesn’t, and he shakes his head slowly as more tears follow the paths of the others.

           Kokichi goes to his knees, ready to grovel if that’s what it takes, but Shuichi follows him down, closing his other hand over Kokichi’s, and then they’re both crying and he doesn’t know why, and all he can do is repeat a mantra of I’m sorry and hold on as tight as he can.

           It’s horrible. Shuichi’s horrible. Shuichi’s wonderful, and kind and lovely and perfect and Kokichi hates him, Kokichi adores him, and it doesn’t matter because Shuichi’s not actually here but Kokichi doesn’t want to be alone, just let me pretend some more, please, please let me have this—

           “I’ll… I’ll stay,” Shuichi says at last. “I can stay a while longer.”

           You shouldn’t, Kokichi wants to say, but his mouth won’t obey him. You shouldn’t stay if you don’t want to. I don’t deserve having you here. I’m not worth your mercy.

           But there on the bridge, crying tears of relief, he soaks up as much mercy as he can get and hopes it’s enough to drown him.

             I wanted to create a contrast between them that highlights just how the isolation and trauma Kokichi’s experiencing has affected him. He has an almost unhealthy reliance on Shuichi as “the only thing that makes this world bearable,” and panics when faced with the prospect of being alone again so soon. Part of why Shuichi’s crying is because he’s realized the extent of Kokichi’s desperation. It’s not that he thinks Kokichi’s apology is insincere, but that he’s hardly heard him apologize for anything before, so Kokichi going this far has him realizing how bad things really are.

             The door rumbles and slides open when they approach, revealing the bright light of the log-out point that took Shuichi away every time, that would wake Kokichi up in his real body if he walked into it. Shuichi stops just a step away from it, biting his lip as if searching for something to say, but before he can find it, Kokichi reaches out to tug at his sleeve.

           “Shuichi?” he says, distant as the waves on the beach that he can still hear if he listens closely enough. Shuichi turns back toward him. “Before you go, can I be selfish one more time?”

           “Huh…?”

           Shuichi doesn’t move when Kokichi steps closer, reaches up to ghost his fingertips over Shuichi’s jaw and around the back of his neck. He lets Kokichi tilt his head downward, lets him hover inches away, close enough to feel their breath mingle in the night air. Kokichi pauses there to give him the chance to pull away. He doesn’t.

           So Kokichi closes his eyes and the distance between them.

             That last line is a ZEUGMA! It’s a literary device where one word refers to two more in a different way. A popular example is the hyenas’ line “Our teeth and ambitions are bared” from The Lion King. It’s my favorite grammatical trick and I’d love to see more of it in fanfic.

             Slowly, he slides his hand down to Shuichi’s shoulder, using it as leverage to push himself away. That hurts even more. He can’t seem to open his eyes, and he feels so weakened, breathless, fragile. Cracked open, hollowed out.

           When he finally does open his eyes, Shuichi’s are wide with some mix of astonishment and a dozen other emotions. Kokichi bows his head, taking a deep breath to ground himself. “Sorry,” he whispers. “I just wanted to know.”

           “Kokichi,” Shuichi breathes, like a bullet through his heart.

           “Goodbye, Shuichi,” Kokichi says, and shoves him into the light.

           Shuichi’s little yelp of surprise cuts off abruptly as he falls through the door, vanishing into the glow, and all too soon, Kokichi’s alone again in a dream that suddenly seems far too vast. Alone, with the faintest taste of Shuichi’s lips still lingering on his own.

           And he thinks, It was enough just to know you.

           It’s a lie.

             Nothing to say here except that this is my favorite scene and I’m so happy with how it turned out.

             Fake sun rises over fake ocean, fake seagulls glide through fake sky while fake wind tousles fake palm fronds. Kokichi lies on his stomach in the fake grass and talks to his fake family in the fake notebook. Gives them fake names and runs through everything he remembers about them. Apologizes, over and over, wishes he could hug each of them goodbye one last time. Wonders if it would be more painful to die or to never have existed at all.

           He leaves the notebook of his memories on the seat of one of the Ferris wheel cars on the fourth island, because one time he promised them they’d steal the London Eye together.

           He buys a can of fake soda from the fake convenience store on the first island and sits on the fake beach watching the fake waves. Wonders when he’d hit the end of the simulation if he started swimming, or if he’d drown first.

           White sand, blue sea, bluer sky. Washed out, like an amateur watercolor painting.

           He opens the soda can and raises it to his mouth, but … even the thought of drinking it makes him sick to his stomach. He sets it down in the sand and flicks it over, watching the bubbly liquid run down and sink into the sand. The color’s all wrong, like blood streaked against a metal floor.

           He walks the fake streets of the fifth island, passing fake skyscrapers and fake commuters and their fake conversations, until he finally stops outside the factory he’s never been able to bring himself to go into. Smells like oil, and metal and machines and he can hear the sounds and he’s immediately back in the hangar, dizzy on adrenaline and desperation and leaning heavily on Kaito so he doesn’t keel over and die then and there. Kaito says something about how maybe he should sit down for a minute, and Kokichi didn’t agree back then but he does now, goes down on all fours and dry heaves.

           When his vision solidifies and he can stop gasping for breath, he sits up and presses his back against the factory wall, covering his ears and hiding his face in his knees. Tries to convince himself not to imagine Shuichi’s there with him, holding his hand again, promising everything’s going to be okay.

           “I’ve got you. No one’s going to hurt you anymore,” or maybe, “Breathe with me, it’ll be over soon. You’re safe now.”

           I love you.

           He laughs until there’s nothing left in his lungs. He called these little daydreams obsession, before, but now they just seem sick and insane.

             I wanted to indicate throughout this scene that Kokichi’s gotten substantially worse. Instead of halfheartedly interacting with the NPCs or finding something to spend time doing, he’s aimlessly wandering the islands, focused on how fake all of it is. Not even talking to his sketches of DICE can make him feel better. The suicidal ideation starts to slip in even if he doesn’t realize it— a fixation on wondering what death is like, purposefully triggering himself by walking by the factory….

           The thing I want to talk about most though is the italicized I love you. I left it outside of quotation marks and dialogue tags on purpose because I wanted it to be ambiguous as to who’s saying it. If it’s Kokichi’s line, it’s sudden and almost out of place, like he couldn’t hold back from thinking it anymore. But it could be Shuichi saying it, too. Since it’s outside quotation marks, unlike the previous dream-Shuichi lines, it’s more vague, almost a whisper in Kokichi’s thoughts— like he can barely bring himself to imagine it and even feels guilty doing so, because there’s no way it could possibly be real.

           Which do you think?

           Eh, I don’t have an answer. When I hear it in my head, they say it at the same time.

             “How did you know?” he finally croaks.

           Shuichi’s breathing still sounds shaky, too. “Because you said ‘goodbye,’” he says.

           Kokichi finally looks up at him in a silent question.

           “You never say goodbye,” Shuichi says, rubbing his sleeve over his eyes. “It’s always….”

           “‘See you later,’” Kokichi finishes for him. Despite himself, a tiny huff of astonished laughter escapes him. “I didn’t even know, not until a couple of hours ago. And you figured it all out from one word?”

           Shuichi bites his lip at that. “You kissed me,” he says.

           Kokichi’s stomach twists and he looks away. “I said I was sorry—”

           “No.” Shuichi squeezes his hand into a fist and lets it fall to thump against Kokichi’s chest, like he’s trying to knock some sense into him. “It was so honest, and vulnerable, and… and I know how much you hate showing how you really feel.” Another tiny sob catches in his throat. “And so it felt like … like something you’d do if you weren’t going to s-see me again.”

           “Shuichi….” Kokichi trails off as Shuichi muffles his cries in his hand again. He’s so breathtakingly smart. There’s no one else in the world who thinks that way, no one else who could possibly be that attentive and that clever. Not a programmer, not a team of shrinks… how can an AI manage it? How is it that Shuichi always manages to take him by surprise? How can he see straight through him when he least expects it?

           Kokichi’s hand reaches up to Shuichi’s cheek. Reverently traces the path of the tears falling down it.

           “I wish you were real,” he confesses in a whisper.

             Kokichi’s stubborn. So, so stubborn. And he’s not used to being cared about, if the way he does everything by himself is any indication. So it makes sense to me that he’ll refuse to believe anything good can happen to him even in the face of convincing evidence. He’s pretty self-hating for someone so arrogant.

             Kokichi’s weak, deep down to his core, weak for this man. Already knows he’d do anything for him, and the thought is terrifying—that one person could have that much power over him, even if he doesn’t realize it.

           But what if he has realized it? Couldn’t this all be an elaborate ruse, a lie he knew Kokichi would be so desperate to believe that he wouldn’t bother questioning it?

           …Shuichi’s never hurt him, though. Only that one time, when he really deserved it. Shuichi wouldn’t … betray him, even for what he thinks is Kokichi’s own good. They’re… different from each other, that way.

           But still….

           “I’m so scared, Shuichi.” It’s barely a whisper. “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”

           “You won’t be.” It’s so hard to be skeptical, lost in his eyes. “I’ll be right there with you, for as long as you want. I won’t let you feel like this anymore.”

           Promise me, he wants to blurt out. Promise you’ll stay. Promise me you’ll never leave me, Shuichi, he wants to demand, but that’s wrong, that’s manipulative and selfish and everything he doesn’t want to be for Shuichi anymore.

           Shuichi, of course, says it anyway.

           “I promise, Kokichi.”

…        

           “Kiss me again,” he says. “Please?”

           Shuichi leans in close, then pauses, his brow furrowing the way it does when he catches him in a lie.

           “I’ll kiss you again in the real world,” Shuichi says. “Okay?”

           Kokichi shakes his head. “Shuichi, please.” Please, I don’t think I can do this. Please, I don’t want to wake up to a lie. Please, one last kiss for me to remember in case it was all fake.

           Shuichi reaches out to tilt his chin up and Kokichi closes his eyes, savoring every second, burning it into his memory.

           Shuichi’s soft breath ghosts over his lips.

           “Trust me,” he murmurs.        

           Kokichi’s eyes flutter back open, searching his face. Shifting him around on the white board in his head, seeing what categories he fits into this time. Weird, of course. Suspicious, maybe not. Trustworthy?

           Trustworthy….

           “I do trust you,” he realizes.

             Kokichi’s still hesitant to accept all of this— Shuichi kissing him didn’t magically fix everything. He’ll still doubt all the way to the log-out point, but at least now he realizes that this simulation is only hurting him— that if things are to get better they’re going to have to change, too. He’s got a long way to go before he’s all right, but he’s not going to have to face it alone anymore.

             And that’s a wrap!

           Once again, I’m really proud of this story, and I feel like I grew as a writer because of it. There are a few things I would change if I wrote it again, but for all its flaws it’s still my baby and I like how it turned out.

           Thanks again for all your support for “Hologram,” and thanks even more if you actually waded through all this nonsense of a director’s cut. It’s a huge confidence-boost to think that people liked what I wrote, and even wanted to hear what I had to say about it. If there’s any interest, I’d love to review some of my other fics here, or theorize or brainstorm or whatever else  you’re into. (Ask me what Byakuya’s Thing is in my superhero AU, I dare you 😉)

           I do have a WIP in my folder of bits and pieces currently titled “boy finally gets that kiss”, and it’s a post-Hologram scene from Shuichi’s point of view to just sorta… tie it all together, have them talk things over again… and kiss, of course. We’ll see if anything comes out of that.

           Until next time!

[systematic-advice]

Hi! I hope you don't mind if I ramble? :')

I've started to realize I may be part of a system, and I've been thinking this for I think almost 2 years now? but I'm still not sure and I'd like to just kinda talk about my experiences because it's been really confusing lately! I think about 2 years ago, I was researching dissociative disorders because I knew someone in a discord server who had one, and a little bit before/after that (not sure if it was before or after) realized that my repetitive childhood experiences *do* "really count" as trauma, and that was when things started to click. For a while I thought it could possibly be OSDD-1b, but recently I've realized that I've always had a lot of bad memory problems, and around winter I think (I don't remember for sure when it was), I had what seemed like total blackouts? Basically what happened is that I was in my room, and I "woke up" with the lights completely off (I'm extremely afraid of the dark so I wouldn't have done that purposefully), I was holding a stuffed animal, and one of my sketchbooks was on my pillow under my head, and one of the pages had scribbles on it. I asked my entire family if they had turned off the lights, and all of them said no? I've been thinking to myself that it could've been sleep-walking or something, but I talked to my family about it, and apparently I've never sleep-walked before, even as a kid, let alone recently. Other things that happen are that I would get random thoughts in my head that didn't feel like they were from me about "being" a certain character (even ones that I hadn't thought about/paid attention to at all since I was I think 7 or 8?) which I think could be introjects? But I'm not sure. I would also feel like someone else is controlling my body, and from the times I'm aware of, would constantly avoid looking in the mirror/reflections because it didn't look like "them", and it caused great distress. I've also described some of what I think are different parts to my long-term friends, and one of them told me that he would talk to someone who met the exact description of one of them when we were younger, which I don't really remember. Which to be fair, could be because it was 5+ years ago, but at the same time I remember a lot of things from when I first met those friends, and those memories are very close to my heart because of how close we are. Not to mention I have very common feelings of not knowing who I am, and one of the possible parts that I'm aware of makes total sense coming from one of my traumas. (his personality clicks exactly to how "I" would act while the trauma was happening, and he looks a lot like a character that gave me a lot of comfort during that time. I seem to have a lot of introjects, which I assume is because I've coped with fiction for as long as I can remember, and indulging in a "world" that wasn't the one that hurt me so much has always been really comforting to me)

Sorry for the book of text, and sorry this is all over the place, I just wanted to get some confused, scared, and lost feelings out ;;v;; By the way, I hope you're doing alright! And thank you so much in advance!

That's okay Anon! Sometimes we just really need to get these things out.

I read your ask and a lot of those things sound like what we went through in our teenage years, so you certainly could be experiencing Systemhood. As I've said before- I'm not a medical professional so I can't diagnose, but a lot of those things do sound like things we have experienced.

Introject heavy Systems are just as valid as any other System, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. There are so many reasons why a System might be introject heavy, but you seen to have touched on your suspected reasons so I'll leave it at that.

All in all I hope you're also to sort all of this out. I know how confusing mental health is and when you're trying to figure out what makes you tick it can be exasperating. Lots of research and self reflection, that's always been our advice! I wish you the very best going forward.

[gaybananabread]

Game On! 🎮

This was 1000% self-indulgent, and I love it.

Ler: Leo

Lee: Donnie

Summary: Donnie's gone game-crazy. Leo decides to play his own, with a tickley twist.

Warnings: light swearing. This is a tickle fic, so if you don't like that, scroll away!

Tucked up in his lab, Donnie tapped away on his phone. He had gotten a new game, "Turtle Tapper", and he was addicted. He hadn't slept much the night before, too focused on beating the game. When he didn't show up for dinner, Leo called it and went to check on him.

He slipped in, bypassing the normal security systems. He must've forgotten to turn them on.

When he looked at Donnie, he got very concerned, very quick. His eyes had deeper bags then normal, and stray food/trash was littered about the room. His eyes were bloodshot to the center. Memories of The Purple Game filled his mind.

"Donnie, you missed breakfast, and you're about to miss dinner. Vamonos, hermano!" He tried tugging Dee's arm away, but a mechanical claw smacked his hand. "No Nardo this is important now leave me!" The entire sentence was rushed, as if every second spent talking was one wasted.

That wasn't gonna slide. One hand went for his goggles, distracting the claw, while the other snatched his phone. Leo ran for his life, bolting out of the room. Behind him, a pissed-off Donnie was hot on his heels, battle shell abandoned for speed.

Leon tore through the kitchen, disrupting the peaceful dinner. As he ducked into the living room, he heard Raph yell, "No broken bones!".

Using his sword, he made a portal to Mikey's room an tossed the phone in. On the other side, the phone landed safely in a blanket pile, hidden. When his purple brother entered the room, he held up his hands, smirking.

Putting two and two together, the flung himself at Leo, knocking them both onto the ground. Leo, having more upper body strength, had Donnie pinned and straddled pretty quickly. He situated them on Raph's beanbag, cushioning his soft shell.

"Nardo, you have three seconds-" Leo cut him off, an extremely smug look on his face. "Actually, I've got the upper hand, Don-Tron." After some thrashing around, Dee came to the shocking conclusion that his brother was right.

"Let's play a game. You have to guess where your phone is in three tries. Fail and suffer the consequences."

Leo's game was stacked against him. Anywhere in the lair is a lot of spaces, and he only had three guesses. Escaping was not a feasible option.

"Fine. Is it in the kitchen?" He could've tossed it in during their chase. His twin shook his head. "Noooooope! Two guesses left!"

Where's a Leo spot to put something? It wouldn't be in his own room, too predictable. He would, however, hide it in his room/lab, just for the irony. "Is it in my room?"

He made a comical buzzer noise. "Eeeeeeee! Strike two, brother! Can he do it folks? Not likely!" Now he was just being annoying.

Okay, come on. If he were Leo, where would he hide it? Somewhere he wouldn't think to look, like his brother's room! Fifty-fifty shot on which one. Maybe Raph, he has a lot of stuffies to hide it in.

"Raph's room!" The look on Leo's face was as mischievous as ever. "Sorry, but that's incorrect! As our all-time loser, you now have to endure our penalty!" Gosh, he was so haughty! He just hoped the dumb penalty was short.

The blue-themed turtle held his hand up, pretending it was a person. "Tell him what he's won, folks!" The hand 'spoke' in a dumb, high-pitched voice. "A session of brotherly bonding, via tickles!"

Dee's eyes widened, and he twisted and kicked, trying to get out from under Leo. He failed, Leo smirking and cracking his knuckles as he watched. "Nardo, I swear I will murder you in your sleep! Get off!"

"Tempting, but nah." He scratched and skittered across his sides, Donnie ending his protests with a strangled gasp. Pushing Leo's arms away wasn't working. Stubborn till the end, he held in his reaction, making Leo work for it.

"Come oooon, DonTon! You know you wanna laugh! It would be a lot easier if you just let it out~" The teasing was working, a few titters escaping the genius. Still, for the most part, he held strong.

Leo shook his head. "I didn't wanna do this, but desperate times call for desperate measures." While one hand scooped up Donnie's arms, the other attacked his armpits. The dam burst, bright laughter erupting from the purple-themed turtle.

"GAHAHAHA! NAHAHARDO GEHET OHOHOF!" Going for a bad spot right away was a Leo special. He didn't really have a reason, other than being a little shit. He dug into the sensitive area, driving his twin up the wall.

"LEHEHEO! CEHEASE YOHOUR NONSEHENSE AT OHONCE!" He was obviously ignored, the slider continuing his torment. The genius kicked out, trying to dilute the crazy ticklish feelings.

Not wanting to wear him out so fast, Leo switched to scribbling on his plastron. Don's arms came crashing down, too tired to do anything more than grab his brother's wrists. Bubbly giggles greeted Leo, with not so sweet words behind them.

"Fuhuhuck ohohoff you duhumb duhuhumb!"

Leo gasped, getting his drama-queen on. "So rude! I go out of my way to take care of you, and this is the thanks I get?" "Yohour lihihihiterally tohorturing me!"

Finally, he got back on track. "If you eat dinner AND take some melatonin, I'll quit." Donnie made a noise like a strangled squeak. "Scohoff! Thihihis ihis tyrahahahanny!"

Leo sighed, expecting the snarky denial. "Thought you would say something like that. Time to die, Othello."

Flipping him over, Leo scribbled across his soft shell. Not wanting to hurt his bro, the touch was light and soft. That ultimately made things worse, the gentle tickling driving Donnie to hysterics. "NAHAHAHAHOHO! I CAHAHA- NAHAHARDOHO!"

He shrugged. "You had your chance. Now suffer, shadow the edge-hog." Leo traced little shapes, invisible smiley faces and stars covering his shell. For once, there were no thoughts in the soft shell's mind besides 'Holly truffle mac n' cheese it tickles!'

Raph peeked his head in the room. "Don't kill him, Leo!" He got a thumbs up, chuckling and shaking his head as he left.

Seeing Don reaching his limits, Leo gave him another shot at mercy. "Promise you'll eat and sleep? And by sleep, I mean at least seven hours."

"IHIHI PRHOHOMIHISE! PLEHEASE STAHAHAHAP!" Satisfied, he stopped his torment, switching to rubbing away the phantom tickles.

"Now was that so hard?" Donnie kicked him, earning a quick tazer to the side. When he regained his breath, Don drug himself to the kitchen, earning head pats from Raph and a few laughs from Mikey. Leo just smirked.

Leon: 1, Donnie: 0

[scnteria]

( alex wolff, cis male, he/him, muse b ) oh snap! is that THEODORE “TEDDY” WELLS ? they work over at high volume where some of the other employees have labeled them as THE MISCREANT. that’s probably because they can be a bit ( affable ) but also pretty ( misguided ). they’re 22 and they’ve been living in woodstock for FOUR YEARS. it must be their shift because i totally hear RADIOHEAD blasting from the record store. 

( @volumeupdates )

hi everyone !! phew i’m so hype to be here... hello... you can call me wren ! i’m in the est timezone and use she/her pronouns. a lil bit about me: i love making playlists and my silly little lattes every morning, i have two puppies at home that i love more than anything, and i’m currently watching ted lasso and falling in l*ve with jason sudeikis and no i do not think i named teddy after ted lasso but it might’ve been an unconscious thing idk

anyway, i’m going to try not to ramble too much about my boi teddy but you’ve been warned:

sweet boy theodore ! he mostly goes by teddy. i don’t think he minds being called theodore but he DOES hate the nickname ted. sorry to mr. sudeikis

he was born and raised in chicago but his father is from woodstock. he has some distant family here but growing up, it was teddy, his mom, dad, and older brother mccartney ( mick !! )

( alcoholism, hoarding disorder tw ) teddy’s older brother was like a refuge for him in a household that was pretty tough to live in. his mother is an extreme hoarder so teddy felt pretty trapped in his own home. on top of that, his father is a functioning alcoholic who had a tendency to pick fights when really wasted. ( end tw )

teddy shared a room with mick, so that was like their little escape from it all ! but mick left for college because he’s a Smart, Good Boy when teddy was fifteen ! so he took it super hard to be living alone in this environment

( depression tw ) naturally, at that age ( and with evident mental health issues running in the family ), teddy started to show signs of depression. in an attempt to alleviate that, his fam fulfilled a lifelong dream and adopted a lil border collie pup ! ( end tw )

he realized his home wasn’t suitable for him, his mental health, or his dog winnie. he saved up money by working odd jobs throughout high school and on his eighteenth birthday, he and his pup moved to woodstock.

his dog winnie is named after his celebrity crush, winona ryder ! he absolutely carries a polaroid photo of her in his wallet because truly that is his child and god bless you if you even mention dogs around him

he got the job at high volume four years ago so he’s been around for a bit ! jerry was actually really good friends with teddy’s father, so he’s known jerry pretty much his entire life. 

( drug use and alcoholism tw ) teddy has a chronic intestinal disease that basically attacks his immune system and can be preeeetty painful ! it’s manageable ofc and although teddy would say: “kurt cobain had it too so it’s fine,” it still Sucks to deal with. he is on medication for it, though another prescription works wonders for pain too...... and that ‘prescription’ is just Weed. he smokes a lot lol and also likes to drink, both as a source of self-medication and just because ! ( end tw )

( violence and ptsd tw ) oh haha also he saw jerry get shot in an alley but i imagine he is currently going through the many phases of ptsd at this moment. very much trying to keep it together but in reality, he’s a ball of pure anxiety and could crack at any given moment. definitely going through some bouts of denial and doubt ? jerry is not only his boss but he’s a family friend and someone he kind of looked up to, so it’s safe to say he’s not Doing Well ( end tw )

ok now more about his CHARACTER:

teddy is a sweetheart. he’s got golden retriever tendencies, i’d say ! verrrry sociable, loves to be around people.

he’s pretty independent and self-sufficient for someone who makes dumb decisions and doesn’t vibe with being alone  ! he has learned to look out for himself but at the same time, he’s one of those people that make you wonder how he got this far ??

overall, a pretty great friend to have. he’s a man of his word and basically likes to make people around him feel comfortable and happy ! 

kinda charming, an accidental flirt at times. like i don’t think he realizes when he’s flirting ? he’s a little oblivious and definitely does better with people who are direct with him. like if you’re dropping hints that you like him or need him to do something, he won’t pick up on it at all lol the boy is stuck in his own little world that has karma police playing on a constant loop

walking into a shift with him means you’ll either be: entertained, annoyed, distracted, or high lol

( drugs tw ) like he has shown up to work high before and probably has smoked outside during a slow shift i’m SORRY ( end tw )

messy, messy boy makes questionable decisions because he doesn’t quite think them through. he’s SO responsible with his dog, but himself ? a hot mess

perhaps he’s not ... wise when it comes to money... i’ll leave it at that for now :)

perpetually running late and rambles a good amount

weak-willed and self-destructive ! he’s easily swayed to do pretty much anything bc he’s kind of a happy-go-lucky kind of dude. pretty much does Not say no to plans and maybe he pushes his alcohol tolerance from time to time

CONNECTION ideas !!

he moved to woodstock four years ago and i wanna say he lives alone but tbh a roommate would be Cost Effective ( must like dogs tho )

that being said, if your character happened to grow up in chicago let’s do some childhood connections ! maybe an old friend, previous unrequited crush, etc.

pls give me a favorite coworker that just doesn’t get anything done when they’re working together

he absolutely will get on people’s nerves. he gets on MY nerves. so give me enemies of any sort lol

i don’t think he’s much of a relationship guy. i could see one longterm relationship in his past so an ex is a possibility ! 

a previous one-night stand is pretty accurate for him too, but i don’t see him thinking it’s weird or anything. i see him being pretty casual with hook-ups in general, so... do with that as you will

friends ! teddy is a talker and really likes to get to know people, so i can see him having friends of varying levels lol whether you’ve spoken twice but he’s like That’s My Guy ! or you regularly see him walking his dog or you just vibe at work... truly this man will talk to a wall. the possibilities are endless

a BEST friend ! i would very much like someone that teddy spews mostly everything to. he will indeed lay his life on the line for this person lol

party-goers, fellow druggies ! this is a scene teddy OFTEN dabbles in, whether you indulge yourself or provide. >:)

could definitely see him on the receiving end of a mom/dad/parent friend kind of relationship. like that john mulaney quote GET SOME REST, TALL CHILD

okay i seriously need to stop this got so long please end me anyway hit me up here or on discord for all of the plots. i really like to get into the nitty gritty of plots so if that’s your jam, let’s make some toast, baby ! i’m SO excited to get things going !

[bittersweetmelxdy]

bittersweetmelxdy’s 20th Birthday

Surprise! Today is my 20th birthday, and my present to the rest of you is an extremely self-indulgent set of headcanons for the boys (and Shaw, thank you so much @meowrain​ for your help) celebrating your birthday. I hope you all enjoy it (and don’t criticise me too much for Shaw, it is my first time writing him). Love you all, Hannah x

Core Four + Shaw celebrating MC’s Birthday

Victor:

At first, he was a little confused, Victor was accustomed to celebrating his birthday in true CEO fashion, with a fancy gala, a mass of people only seeking to curry favour with him and a plethora of fancy gifts.  

But when you told him of the low-key birthdays you always had at home with your dad, and Victor could see the shimmer in your eyes, and he was then determined to make this birthday just as special.

You woke up on your birthday to the sound of your phone ringing, blearily you reached out to grasp it just as it stopped ringing, blinking twice to refocus your eyes, and you were surprised to see along with the many well-wishes of your co-workers and friends there were multiple missed calls from your boyfriend, Victor. Just then the phone rang again.

“Hello?”

“Dummy answer the door, breakfast is getting cold.” Victor’s voice hazed through the phone.

“...” You looked around confused when you heard the muffled knocks on the door, “Wait, you’re outside my place?”

“Where else would I be, idiot?” Victor’s sharp words contrasted his soft affectionate tone, and you giggled as you tripped your way out of bed and ran towards the door.

Opening the door wide, you revealed you scowling boyfriend, and you threw yourself into him, hands wrapping around his neck, Victor stumbled slightly but managed to catch you whilst not dropping the container in his hand, he loosely wrapped his hands around you, patting your back slightly and pressing a kiss to your temple before whispering a “Happy Birthday” into your ear.

Once he had herded you back into the apartment, he presented you with the food inside the container, which was freshly made pancakes decorated with your favourite toppings. You clapped your hands excitedly and quickly sat down and dug in happily. Victor sat opposite you, watching you with softened eyes, and noticing his gaze you raised your fork towards him to feed him a bite, Victor shook his head good-naturedly and opened his mouth to indulge you. You alternated in feeding yourself and him until you had finished your breakfast.

Whilst you got dressed and showered, Victor cleaned up, and once you were dressed you followed him down to his car, where he drove you to his house. You chattered along the way, between answering calls and texts from family members and co-workers, and Victor simply listened.

You arrived at his house, and to your absolute surprise, Victor had decorated his house for your birthday, the decorations at time mimicked the ones you had made on Victor’s birthday, and you fingered the clumsily made paper chains, tears pricking at your eyes. Victor watched you a tad nervous, trying to mask how much he wanted you to like what he had done in terms of decoration. But when he saw how touched you were, he knocked his knuckle playfully against your temple, as you wiped the tears from your eyes, and he led you into the kitchen.

To imitate a tradition you had with your dad, Victor and you spent the rest of the day making and decorating the birthday cake, whilst Victor’s soft music accompanied the two of you (Victor is a music snob, so he wouldn’t let you have control of the music system). Amidst the serious baking and precise measurements (Victor for some reason, measured not only everything to the exact gram, but also measured the exact positions of each decoration which he checked with a ruler), you had fun sneaking tastes of the batter and the icing, and booping Victor’s nose with a dollop of icing, which to his surprise you then kissed off, relishing in the adorable hue he turned.

Once the cake was finished and you had tidied up, it was nearing dinnertime and Victor parked you at his dining room table, where he then placed his gourmet dinner in front of you, to your surprise as you hadn’t seen the dishes whilst you were in the kitchen.

Victor loved feeding you even more than you loved eating, and once he had finally given you the okay, you dug in munching the many dishes happily, your eyes upturned in joy and cheeks puffed out like a hamster. Victor ate at a steady pace, watching you and proud that you were having fun.

After clearing the table, Victor turned off the main lights, bathing the room in the golden glow of the fairy lights, and Victor then appeared with the cake, the candles flickering daintily, and his soft baritone voice sang ‘Happy Birthday’ as he approached. A couple tears escaped your eyes as you clasped your hands in front of you, closing your eyes tightly to make your wish, and after blowing out the candles, Victor wiped your wet cheeks with his thumb affectionately calling you a “crybaby”.

He cut you a slice of the cake and then spoon-fed you the piece, before offering you his hand, and confused you placed your hand in his and he kissed the back of it, pulling you up into his arms. He then hummed a soft tune and then slow danced with you and the golden glow of the twinkling lights surrounded you.

“Thank you, Victor.” you smiled up at him, “This was a perfect birthday.”

Victor pressed a kiss to your forehead, not pausing in his dancing steps, promising you sincerely, “Every birthday you have from now on, I’ll make as perfect as this one.”

Lucien

Lucien by nature was a very private person, so he had no problem at all when you asked in you could spend your birthday in private. He lived right next door so spending the day with you wasn’t going to be a problem for him, as he could just pop next door.

He simply smiled, ruffling your hair slightly, as he asked you what your favourite memories of your birthday were, and you snuggled into his side as you were lost in the tales of your memories with your late father.  

When the day approached, Lucien told you he’d pick you up, take you out for breakfast and then you’d go out. Lucien had been observing your habits and he knew your favourite fruit (read: MY favourite fruit (sorry if you don’t like them)) was strawberries, and he had planned accordingly.

You woke up excited, smelling the fresh summer breeze and the observing the clear blue skies, and you knew today would be a good day. Lucien waited for you at your front door but looking at your outfit and your bare legs and arms, he made you go back inside to put sunscreen on and to grab a hat.  

Throughout breakfast at a cute café you and Lucien frequented regularly, you tried to probe your boyfriend for answers of where you were going next, but Lucien smiling like a cat who got the cream as his answers danced circles around you.

When you arrived so bit your lip excitedly, grabbing Lucien’s arm tightly, eyes lighting up as you saw the sign detailing your activity for today ‘Strawberry Picking’, an activity you had told Lucien you remembered doing with your Dad once when you were very little.

You loved it! You spent most of your day toteing Lucien down each of the aisles, leaning down and parting the leaves to pick the perfect strawberries. Lucien noticing you went for strawberries that were the largest of the bunch, so he often picked strawberries of that size to give you, but to his surprise whenever he raised a strawberry to give to you, he would turn his head and you were holding a strawberry to his lips for him to taste. He let you feed him strawberries, enjoying the warmth of your actions.

When you had eaten your fill of strawberries, Lucien surprised you once again at the gift store where he bought you a punnet of white strawberries (which you cooed over and hugged him tightly in thanks).

Arriving back at your apartment building, Lucien steered you into his apartment rather than yours, and you smiled seeing the covered cake resting on the coffee table, the room covered in metallic hues of streamers and paper chains. You were led over by Lucien and once you were sat down, he retrieved a box of matches from his kitchen and proceeded to light the candles, whilst his soft rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ floated through the room.

After sharing a piece of cake between you and you settled down to cuddle with Lucien, your voice dropped to a whisper as if it would shatter the atmosphere around the two of you, “Thank you for making my birthday so special”

Lucien pressed a kiss to the top of your head, “Thank you, for filling my world with your colour.”

Kiro:

As Kiro cannot remember his own birthday, he feels it a privilege to celebrate you, and deep down he is a little envious that you had family to return to after the Black Swan experimentation when you both were kids, who could remind you of such mundane details.

Kiro was used to lavish and jam-packed hectic birthdays on his agency assigned birthday, but he loved your birthday, because although you shared the day with millions and millions of people across the world, that day was yours, and wasn’t given to you by anyone else.

Also, if celebrating your birthday in private means Kiro gets to have HIS Miss Chips all to himself for a whole 24 hours, sign him up!

However, Kiro being the extroverted ball of sunshine he is, didn’t let your wish to spend your birthday in private stop him from organising a small intimate party with your closest friends on the day before. He just wanted to see you be loved, okay?

But your actual birthday... that was all for him, he woke you up bright and early... to the sound of the fire alarm ringing in your apartment. You stumbled out of bed, thinking an intruder had gotten in and started a fire (your brain was still addled from the comic you had read last night), and the last thing you expected to see was your superstar boyfriend, wearing a party hat, standing with a sheepish expression on his face as he held a smoking pan in his hand containing a charred blob that you assumed was pancakes, judging from the bowl of leftover batter on the side.

You giggled, opening the windows to release the smoke before turning around and hip-checking him out of the way, and taking over the breakfast making, although Kiro wanted to surprise you with a perfect breakfast-in-bed, he knew that if the two of you actually wanted to EAT breakfast, he should let you help him.

After watching Kiro drown his pancakes in syrup, you joined him on the table with your stack of pancakes decorated with your favourite toppings. You both munched away, when you stopped and asked a little confused.

“Kiro, not that I don’t want you here, but how did you get into my place?” you asked and when Kiro reached into his pocket and dangled your set of spare keys in front of your face, you rolled your eyes playfully knowing he must have swiped them the last time he was in your apartment.

Once you had finished, Kiro dumped the dishes in the sink and then herded you into the bedroom, opening your closet, and rifling through your clothes and drawers, pulling out a cute and fashionable outfit that matched his, when he gave you your first surprise of the day.

Kiro pulled a white hooded jacket out of a bag he had brought with him a jacket that was identical to his albeit in a smaller size, he handed it to you and you noticed that there was stitching on the left side and in cursive it lovingly read ‘Miss Chips’ and looking up you watched as Kiro pointed to his jacket where it said ‘Sunshine’. You reached out to trace the letters, smiling with wet eyes, as you knew Kiro and you could wear the jackets whenever, and not only would your relationship still be lowkey as it was a generic jacket style, but also you both would be connected whenever you were.

Once you were dressed and Kiro pretended to be shot in the heart at the sight of you as you posed dramatically, you then took a cute couple’s picture (with you positioned with your face buried into the crook of his neck, so your identity was hidden), and Kiro led you downstairs where you climbed into his car.

When you had parked outside of the Amusement Park, Kiro fished his disguise out of his glovebox, and after you adjusted it slightly, you then stepped out. You spent the day running around, going on whichever rides took your fancy, Kiro and you taking plenty of pictures to document your time together. You also ate ALL of the overpriced park food (What Savin doesn’t know, won’t hurt him right? Right?)

As the sun began to make its descent towards the horizon, Kiro grabbed your hand and led you towards the Ferries Wheel. You and he settled in and Kiro sat opposite you, his leg bouncing as he watched you stare entranced at the changing hues of the sky. You had plenty of time to watch the sunset, as the Ferris Wheel stopped as each cabin reached the top, and Kiro soon joined you on your side of the cabin, wrapping his arms around your waist and he kissed the crown of your head.

When you reached the top, your breath hitched as a cool sensation graced your neck, you looked down to see that Kiro had placed a dainty necklace around your neck. You spun around, and threw your arms around his neck, and Kiro smiled into your hair before whispering, “Happy Birthday Miss Chips.” adding the final sentence in his mind, ‘And thank you, for being alive.’

Side note: You know he begged the mysterious chef of Souvenir *cough* Victor *cough* to make you a super sugary birthday cake, that he left in you fridge, and whatever time you reached home, you both ate cake (even if it was the early hours of the morning).

Gavin:

Gavin was Stressed, you were the and I mean THE most precious and important person in his life, and when you had put this much responsibility upon him, he was both touched... and terrified.

He was already struggling with the gift he was going to buy you, and now he had to plan your entire birthday as well, MC are you trying to kill him?! He has called everyone for help, your co-workers, your high school friends, he even suffered through a 2 HOUR phone call with Minor, which very quickly derailed from helping Gavin buy his girlfriend a gift to what Minor wanted for his birthday from Gavin (a birthday that is months away).

Sighing as he hung up the phone after Minor’s call, somehow exhausted and needing a bit of a nap, when Eli poked his head into his office at STF.  

“Hey, Gavin?” Eli called.

“Yeah?” Gavin answered tiredly.

Eli came close and placed a neatly wrapped gift box atop his desk, “Can you give this to your girlfriend, I heard it’s her birthday?”  

“You got her something?” Gavin glared at Eli, and in response Eli leaned in closely to Gavin, a teasing glint in his eye.

“Why you didn’t?” Eli teased, but when Gavin stood up as if to punch him, he quickly added, “Kidding.”  

Gavin sighed and collapsed back into his chair kneading his brow, before Eli broached the topic, “Hey, are you struggling to get her something?” at Gavin’s tried nod Eli tapped his chin thinking before offering an honest suggestion, “If you’re having trouble with a gift, why not show her how much you mean to her instead.”

“What?”

“Well, good luck, tell me how it goes.” Eli didn’t help any further and ducked out of the office before Gavin could question him further.

The morning of your birthday, Gavin appeared brandishing the latest popular breakfast that you had mentioned a couple of days ago, and after catching you as you ran into his arms, breathing in the summery scent of your hair as you giggled, and carrying you back into your apartment before dropping you back onto your feet, and nuzzling your nose whilst saying “Happy Birthday, Love.”

After you had eaten and gotten dressed, Gavin dropped you off on Sparky, kissing your forehead in farewell, watching as you disappeared into your company building. Then he sighed, before flipping the kickstand and driving towards the supermarket.

Gavin frowned, walking down each aisle slowly, constantly checking his phone, where he had his shopping list, and making sure he picked the best ingredients. He finished, and had just packed the bags in the storage compartment on Sparky, when he realised he had forgotten to get you flowers. Cue him standing in a florist, completely red in the face as he explained to the amused florist what kind of flowers he wanted.  

After leaving the store, the florist wishing him good luck and waving as he left, Gavin made his way up the staircase up to your apartment. After letting himself in, Gavin found a vase for the flowers, scrunching his brows as he read and followed the instructions, arranged them haphazardly in the vase.

After that Gavin took a deep breath, laying the ingredients out on the counter, and then he set out on the daunting task of cooking for you. Gavin had never been more stressed in his life, he didn’t cook on the regular and when you cooked together, he wasn’t anxious as he knew you were always right beside him. But now he was completely on his own (Minor had offered to come and help him, but Gavin would rather not have that extra headache on his hands).

After making dinner he then had to bake, which was honestly just as bad, the cake thankfully turned out fine, but whilst he was decorating he finished but it just didn’t look right (think the bakery AU end card from the anime). But by the time he had finished decorating with a mix of light blue and gold balloons, and a few paper chains, he heard the sound of your key turning in the lock.

You stared wide-eyed at Gavin, your eyes bouncing from decoration to decoration and finally back to your boyfriend, “Gavin?”

“...Surprise.” Gavin said, scratching the back of his neck, nervously.

“You did this for me?” your smile grew, touched.

Gavin led you to the table, pulling out your chair for you and when you were sat down, he then went to the kitchen and presented the food to you, he watched with bated breath for your verdict. Pushing down the tears pricking at your eyes, you complimented Chef Gavin, pointing out your favourites out of the dishes that he had made.

Then Gavin, after gathering the dishes and making sure you remained seated, hurried into the kitchen and then his soft tone began to sing, and you gasped, Gavin carefully carried in the clumsily decorated cake that you could see was even a tad lopsided, and the tears you had kept at bay came flooding out.

Gavin hastily placed the cake on the table and then hovered nervously around you, you reached up and cradled his face, Gavin covering your small hands with his larger ones, watching as you smiled through your tears.

“I know it’s a mess, and it’s not as well-made as-” Gavin began, but you quickly shook your head.

“It’s perfect. Perfect Gavin.” You interrupted, “You did all this for me? Why?”  

“You say that you look after me because you love me...” he reaffirmed and at your nod he continued, “Well, because I love you, I wanted to show you, in the best way I know how.”  

You pulled Gavin close and the two of you rested your foreheads against each other as you calmed down, before Gavin reached back into his back pocket and pulled out a box, and he then clipped a necklace around your neck. Pulling back you lifted it up, the golden gingko leaf catching the light, and the accompanying silver circle pendant, had both your birthdates engraved upon it. 

“Gavin you didn’t have to.”

“But I wanted to, because as you told me, the purpose of a birthday is the celebrate the person and show how much you love them.”

Gavin had to brace himself as you threw yourself at him, and for the rest of the day you two cuddled on your sofa, feeding each other bites of the birthday cake, that you could say ‘hand on heart’ was the best birthday cake you had ever tasted.

Shaw:

He teased you so much that because you were now an “old lady, you probably couldn’t handle a party anyway.”

“Shaw I’m only two years older than you!” you had pouted, pushing him as he laughed out loud.

However when you told him about the birthday you spent with your father, he froze completely, although Shaw’s relationship with his father was basically non-existent, he could see how much you treasured the memories you had with yours. So, he agreed (pretending to be reluctant) to spend your birthday with you at home.

However, that being said, he does surprisingly put a lot of thought into celebrating his birthday, after all you are his girl, and being the competitive person he is, there is no way he is going to give you a regular old birthday.

He spends months, planning it, and when he saw one of your favourite artists was holding a small-scale concert in a hole-in-the-wall bar just outside Loveland City, you can bet he stayed up all night to snag two tickets for you.  

However, that doesn’t stop him from pretending he had forgotten your birthday whenever you “casually” brought it up. Your sad puppy-eyes and pout tugging at his heartstrings but he smirked inwardly knowing how much more exciting the reveal would be on your actual birthday.

“You know we’re coming into (zodiac sign) season.”

“Yeah, real interesting isn’t it?”

“...” you huffed and pouted, cheeks puffing out like a hamster.

“You know if the wind changes, you’ll be stuck with that ugly expression on your face.”

“Shaw!”

When your birthday finally arrived, you woke up sighing, answering messages on social media, a little put out that your friends from high school still remembered your birthday, but your boyfriend didn’t, when you heard a knock on the door.

To your surprise, you opened the door to reveal a smirking Shaw, who then he spun you around and herded you into the bedroom, pulling an outfit out of your closet, teasing you on your more girly and frilly articles, and then pointed at the bathroom telling you to “get dressed already” as he waited for you, he threw himself onto your bed to take a quick nap. Re-emerging, you saw him softly breathing, and you felt a little sorry for him as you knew he had just pulled an all-nighter to write his essay, so you gently woke him up, shaking him and calling in a soft tone.  

Waking up Shaw couldn’t help but comment that you “took so long, I fell asleep”, and to be fair he deserved the pillow you smashed into his face.

You were surprised to see that Shaw didn’t have his skateboard with him, and not wanting to give away the surprise he smiled secretively and said you “wouldn’t need it where you were going.” Arriving at the Subway Station Shaw left you at the counter to buy breakfast, whilst he grabbed the tickets, and then he as he walked back, he noticed a couple of guys eyeing you up. As quick as lightning (see what I did there 😉 ), Shaw had an arm locked around your waist, guiding you to the right platform, glaring at the guys as he passed them, throwing in an affectionate “babe” for good measure.

You were bouncing in your seat listening carefully at each stop for the name of the stop and watching Shaw movement’s to hopefully clue you in on what was going on. Finally, Shaw helped you off the train, and it was only when you arrived in the queue you noticed the posters and it all clicked.

“Shaw, you did not.”

“What did you think we were here for, to sightsee?” Ignoring Shaw’s comment, you threw your arms around Shaw’s neck pressing a kiss to his cheek as you giggled excitedly.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” you called, and highs of Shaw’s cheeks pinked, as his hands rested lightly on your back.

To stroke Shaw’s ego even more, you remained starry-eyed throughout the entire concert, dancing and swaying, singing the lyrics at the top of your lungs, whilst Shaw watched you fondly and bemusedly as your dancing was still as awkward as ever, but you looked like you were having the time of your life, and he remembered what captivated him in the first place, your “weirdness” had always been endearing to him.

As you left and made your way home, you continued to chatter to Shaw the whole way, Shaw remained silent but watched each of the minute expression changes you went through. However, when you stepped out of the Subway Station, a deluge fell down, you frowned when Shaw grabbed your hand and pulled you into the rain.

“Shaw, what are you doing?” you called, shielding your eyes from the downpour.

“What I thought you loved this kind of cheesy romance?” he laughed as he led you into a dance, and you frown soon grew into a smile as Shaw danced you through the heavy downpour, soaking your clothes completely, and you looked fondly at your boyfriend, hoping for many more birthdays containing more spontaneous adventures.

[emersonfreepress]

okay so is there content that you had planned for the ROs and story in general but then scrapped cause there wasn’t a good place in the story to stick it in? and if so, can you share what it was? 👀 👀 👀

yes, definitely. *rubs hands together* oh man, you done asked THE question today xD I can't wait to get into this 😁

Academics. I almost decided to have classes and grades be a minor part of gameplay, but the more time I spent designing it the more I realized I wanted nothing to do with it 😂 I haven’t really enjoyed academic gameplay in other interactive fiction because I 1) hate having to choose between studying and interacting with awesome characters, 2) have terrible short term memory, and 3) hate school in general!! So instead I just opted to have the MC be really good at school, point blank period so I could focus on social drama and relationships instead! 😆

Physical skills. I spent literal months crafting the catering scene around setting up stats for stamina/endurance, dexterity, and strength instead of just magnetism, confidence, and persuasion. They had their own backstories with the MC’s parents being overly invested sports parents instead and I think the background choices were like... martial arts, gymnastics, and track? But yeah, I ended up scrapping it all because I was spending hours on research about those individual sports so I could integrate them into the MC’s narrative organically but like... when I tried to think of what use they would be in the actual story, I came up blank. Best decision yet, esp since it means a lot less coding!

Skin tone customization. For one, I noticed that a lot of my favorite IFs don’t offer that customization and it hasn’t impacted my experience at all. For two, I originally realized I might as well not implement it since I am striving real hard not to introduce any customization that won’t actually be mentioned in interesting or meaningful ways in-story. I don’t think it’s really all that common for real life friends (esp in high school?) to comment or compliment each other’s skin and like... when it comes from someone who doesn’t share a similar complexion or ethnic background, that type of commentary gets... d i c e y. So then I wanted to be sensitive to that but what’s the pay-off? An RO mentioning how they love your skin tone once? Awkward sentences with the MC referring to their own skin color? Idk, just wasn’t vibing with it. I’m open to revisiting it in beta or something but for now it’s scrapped.

Singing, Rapping, and Gaming as Hobbies/Talents. I feel bad about scrapping these, honestly 😂 They’re great and I really wanted to incorporate them but it just came down to already having a lot of stuff to code. Plus, I know I can write the Hobbies/Talents I stuck with far better. And for Book 2 purposes, as well!

Leo. as @sourandflightypeaches ​​ asked me about a long while ago, I had to scrap an entire RO 😢 His name is Leo, he was the nephew of wealthy west African diplomats residing in Emerson, and I love him dearly! His backstory was largely based on my mother’s childhood and the circumstances she lived through after immigrating to America. and... ok, i’m about to go on one hell of a tangent so buckle up and bear with me if you can 😅

my intention with this story, aside from writing things that I personally enjoy (graphic violence, spooky woods, social drama, romance, conspiracies 😚), is to explore greed, wealth, and how the ways people and families interact with those two things influence young people and who they grow up to be. here i go sounding pretentious af 😝 and here’s where I apply a cut for those who want to preserve a little mystery to the main characters!

With Gabe, we’ve got someone who grew up with very little stability or financial security but who has found unscrupulous methods to gain status and money, with both noble and selfish motivations.

Kile has some of that childhood experience in common with Gabe, having been in the foster care system since infancy, but they lucked out when they were adopted into massive wealth by a caring, loving couple—a couple that uses their wealth and privilege to be far more lenient and protective of Kile than is actually reasonable or responsible.

Jack comes from a prestigious wealthy family on his dad’s side who he loves dearly but there’s no getting around the fact that they love him back as much as they despise his working class mom.

Jessie is a spoiled sweet heiress (being the baby of her family and the only girl) and while she lives blissfully ignorant of the harmful source and impact of her father's income and career, she bears the weight of the expectation to fulfill very traditional gender roles, including her behavior and appearance, but also extending to her career and life plans.

Rain's wealth led to them growing up sheltered and isolated but also extremely accommodated, giving them maximum freedom and opportunity to discover and develop their personal talents and interests. However, they have almost no positive relationship with their parents who have essentially decided to give up on a kid that couldn't be exactly the accessory they tried to mold them to be—both in terms of their identity and personality.

Rupan/Rohan, at their very core, rejects everything about conformity, self-importance, and excessive luxury—which means they have never, ever truly fit in with their peers. Going full non-conformist, however, has resulted in them becoming alienated from much of their family, as well, despite them all loving each other very much. Their history with false friends and betrayals has led them to over-indulge in their vices and reckless behavior to compensate for that isolation. Sometimes, they just get in over their head and many times, they know better. Every time, it's just that the feeling of finally belonging is utterly intoxicating.

Vivian/Vincent has two extremely successful parents who didn't inherit but instead built up their wealth and they aspire to be just like them, to a degree that is well and truly unhealthy. Their mother specifically is an over-achiever and applies mountainous pressure for them to follow in her footsteps, especially academically. Vi is completely capable of achieving what their mom expects of them, but they were already an extremely sensitive perfectionist so this has made them intensely critical of themself. This is a large part of why they are such a rigid, no-nonsense person and that in turn has made them one of the most disliked people among their peers—which is a huge personal failure to them since their father is a very well-liked and socially successful person in town.

And the Emersons are peak privilege: inherent high social status, brains, looks, charisma, athleticism, and massive wealth. They could never have been anything less than extremely popular, just by virtue of their last name and the nature of the town's social dynamics and politics. And they do enjoy that privilege (esp Curt lol). However, it should go without saying that being so high profile, even (or maybe especially) just in the isolated scope of your hometown, isn't always a boon. Their family's and their own perceived failings are widely discussed and privately mocked and/or celebrated. Real friends are scarce while fake ones and snakes are plentiful. Plus their dad is a gigantic dickhead who sees his kids as extensions of his own status and reputation and not much else. Public shortcomings make for an unbearable time at home and the world outside the estate is at once overly accommodating, full of assumptions, and even subtly hostile at times—all unrelated to their own actions or character.

And with the MC, I think the narrative will make it clear there are several ways that story can go. You start off with irresponsible parents that have lost their wealth due to their own mismanagement and material ambitions—how that affects any individual MC should differ based on choices and consequences!

So why bring any of that up when I was supposed to be talking about my cut OC? 😂😂

Leo was going to be the unwelcome recent addition to his uncle’s household, the son of a brother his aunt hates for (petty af) Reasons, and she took that resentment out on him directly by restricting his access to nearly every aspect of the family's wealth. Especially material goods and living conditions. He was basically treated like the help, tasked with playing nanny for his many younger cousins and burdened with doing the homework and providing academic cover for his dumb as rocks cousin in the same grade as you all. To sum it up, he was basically a victim of trafficking at the hands of his own family with his uncle out of town enough to feign ignorance to how bad his wife was treating his nephew and his aunt going out of her way to keep him busy, at home, and isolated. This is sadly a super common form of trafficking in Francophone African cultures (although I don't think most people view it as trafficking. and I’m sure the same is true of other cultures but I don’t want to speak outside of my purview). And like I mentioned above, it’s how my own mom's (and idek how many cousins') child/teenhood went.

It’s a perspective on modern wealth, privilege and greed that I really, really wanted to tell. I am confident in saying it hasn't been explored in interactive fiction yet (though correct me—and direct me 👀—if I'm wrong) and out of all the wealth/greed explorations I came up with, it's the one I have the closest personal ties to and the strongest feelings about. The characters and plans I had for it were detailed and I'm proud of them but at the end of the day... I just couldn't find a place for Leo in the story at large.

Leo was, in fact, the last main character I came up with, when I had already designed and fleshed out the larger story and started crafting the timeline of major events. I think the worst thing I could have done for a story and perspective that I care about this much is shove it into a plot that didn't have room for it at the very base level, regardless of how well the character or his story is written. Shoe-horned characters always stick out. I didn’t want to disservice Leo by having him be the character that did nothing or could be removed from the main plot without affecting it at all, y’know? That’s so much worse than just forgoing the indulgence, imo :((

ugh.... Leooooo 😭 I'm so sorry bb, I failed youuu 😥

[dudeandduchess]

Kyōjurō x F!S/O: Pillar (Hurt/Comfort, Modern AU, SFW Scenario)

Summary: Wherein Kyōjurō calms his wife down when she has a panic attack.

Note: This is extremely self-indulgent. Also, thank you for the heartfelt messages. I promise I’ll answer them soon. I just wanted to share this. Thank you.

Warnings: Talks of Mental Health Issues and depictions of their symptoms

***

Crawling out of bed at twelve in the morning was something that wasn’t out of the norm for (Y/n). Getting hungry around that time was such a common occurence, that her husband didn’t even stir as she pushed his arm off of her— right before getting out from her spot next to him.

‘What to eat, what to eat?’ She thought to herself, as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes. Then, she reached over to her bedside drawer, grabbing her phone from where she’d left it charging; knowing full well that she was going to wake up at midnight to unplug it.

She was nothing if not a creature of habit, after all.

With one last look at her husband, to check if he had stirred awake and wanted anything, only to see that he was still asleep. She would have woken Kyōjurō up, as she found eating with someone else much more enjoyable than eating alone, but she didn’t have the heart to wake him up.

(Y/n) padded off to the kitchen then— scrolling through her social media applications all the while. It was a short walk, and she only bothered to turn on a few lights in her wake— as opposed to Kyōjurō who would have turned on all the lights inside the house.

A quiet but affectionate chuckle escaped her lips at that thought, making her sigh as she set her phone down on the kitchen counter.

‘Now, for what to eat,’ The young woman mused to herself once more, all while making her way to the refrigerator so she could look through its contents. However, nothing in there struck her fancy; with most of the ingredients requiring much more effort to cook, than she was willing to put in the work for.

And so— with her mind made up that she wasn’t making an elaborate snack for herself— (Y/n) turned her attention to the eggs on the counter; closing the refrigerator door, and then getting started on making the least fussy thing she could think of: hard boiled eggs.

It wasn’t the most palatable snack, but it would do to tide her over in the meantime. Unless, of course, she woke Kyōjurō up and asked him to get her a burger and fries from the nearest McDonald’s.

But she wasn’t that selfish or insensitive, so she would let her husband get his sleep— and then ask him to get her a burger and fries in the morning, maybe even one of those apple pies.

Her mouth was already watering at the mere thought of biting into the warm and sweet treat.

Still, as she lost herself in her daydream of eating a deep-fried pastry, she set off to start cooking her midnight snack. And with that task already underway, (Y/n) took a seat at the counter and picked her phone back up— setting up a timer for her cold-start eggs.

As (Y/n) waited for her snack to cook, she resumed scrolling through her phone; even smiling at all of the funny memes that she came across, and also leaving likes on posts that she found worthy of them.

However, the deeper that she got into scrolling through her phone, the more that she could feel her chest tightening up. And before she knew it, she was having a harder time breathing. It wasn’t that she was hyperventilating, but every inhale made her feel like her chest got even tighter than before— to the point where her heart had also began beating rapidly in an onslaught of panic.

She shook her head then, trying to brush the oncoming panic attack off, but having no such luck as even her hands began to shake. It made holding her phone difficult, so she set it back down on the counter and got up from her seat.

With her heart practically hammering inside her chest, she tried to pace around the kitchen in an effort to walk it off. She had even taken to leaning back against the counter and bouncing her right leg, all to offset the panic that was setting in inside her.

It was scaring her to no end, because she didn’t even know why she was panicking. She didn’t know what was off, yet her body was telling her that something was incredibly wrong.

(Y/n) had been going through the same ordeals for years now, yet they didn’t let up. They got better, especially after she met Kyōjurō, but they never stopped— and they always happened at random intervals.

No matter how hard she tried to take her attention away from her own panic, though, her mind always came back to it. Even telling herself to watch the eggs didn’t do anything for her.

Hell, even her hunger had dissipated when her panic set in.

Her feet then began carrying her from end to end of the kitchen, while she hugged herself and told herself that everything was going to be fine; that nothing was wrong. Yet, the more that she tried to comfort herself to make it all go away, the worse that her feelings got; to the point where she could feel tears pricking the backs of her eyes.

Before she could help it, she had already shut off the stove and turned off the timer on her phone; not wanting to bother with the eggs anymore.

And with gritted teeth, she sat back down in her seat and began tapping her fingers against her arms— as she had also returned to hugging herself.

But when even her pseudo-Butterfly Hug was not enough to calm her down, she opened her mouth and let out a shaky cry. “K-Kyō.”

It was so quiet at first that she knew it wouldn’t wake her husband up. So, she tried once more; louder, that time.

“Kyō!” And with that call for his name came a sob as well, just as her tears began falling from her eyes. “Kyōjurō!”

More and more tears streamed down her face then, as she couldn’t hold back the torrential downpour of her own emotions. She didn’t even know what she felt anymore— fear, sadness, apprehension— just that her heart was still beating like crazy, and that her entire body was so shaky and weak.

“Kyō!” (Y/n) called out once more, swallowing past her tears and almost sighing in relief when she heard the sound of covers being quickly thrown off, before being followed by the sound of feet rapidly thumping against the floor.

“What is it, ba-” The young man couldn’t even finish his question, as the sight of his wife pathetically trying to comfort herself while crying in the kitchen greeted him. “Baby, what happened?”

All the sleep was wiped out from his system then, making him frown as he closed the distance between them. And slowly, he stood between her thighs, as he wrapped his arms as tightly as he could around her— cuddling her right against his chest, and perching his chin against the top of her head, so that she would feel even more secure in his arms.

Judging by the shakiness of her body alone, he didn’t even need to ask further. (Y/n)’s panic attacks were something that went hand in hand with her anxiety issues, and he had been fully prepared to deal with them when they’d met— even after she’d tried to push him away, because she didn’t want to subject him to something that she thought was so unsightly and pathetic.

It was never pathetic to Kyōjurō. In fact, it made him want to stay beside her all the more, because he never wanted to let her suffer all alone.

“I don’t know, Kyō. I don’t know what’s wrong,” (Y/n) answered through her tears, sounding so desperate and defeated— even to her own ears— which broke her husband’s heart a little, since he knew that there were only very few things that he could do for her.

One was to hug her like he already was doing; which she slowly began to return, with her hands snaking up his back and clinging tightly to his shirt— in an effort to offset the shakiness in them. And the other was to try and soothe her with his words.

They almost always seemed to work, and he prayed that he would manage to calm her down with them that time— as he really hated the thought of her hurting in any way.

“It’s going to be okay, my love. You’re safe; I’m here to keep you safe,” Kyōjurō whispered softly; his normally loud tone simmering down to something that was akin to a soft melody against (Y/n)’s ears.

And when he started running his fingers through her hair, she could feel her heart beginning to slow down from the breathtaking pace that it had taken on earlier.

“I’m sorry...” The young woman whispered, sounding muffled and barely perceptible with her lips pressed against her husband’s chest.

But Kyōjurō heard her loud and clear, what with the thick silence that surrounded them. It made his chest tighten up with sadness, because he didn’t like it when his wife apologized to him for things that weren’t her fault. No one in the world had ever asked for a mental health issue, so he didn’t want her apologizing for that.

“Don’t be sorry, baby.” He then pressed a tender kiss to the top of her head, as if to punctuate his words. “I’ll always be here for you, okay? I’m never going to leave you; ever. You’re the most important person in the world to me.”

More tears began falling from (Y/n)’s eyes at that, yet her hold on Kyōjurō only tightened even more; which had the blond smiling affectionately, despite her silence. She might not have responded to him verbally, but it was evident in the way that she clung to him— as if he were her only lifeline— as well as the way that she kept pressing her lips against his chest, that she appreciated his words, and returned them wholeheartedly.

[kirankickskancer]

Halfway.

I am officially halfway through chemo - I have completed 4 rounds of Adriamycin and Cyclophosphamide, and survived the havoc it has wrecked on my body. I feel weary, not just physically but also mentally. It has already been a long haul and there is a lot of fight left to fight. But right now, as I lie awake in bed at 3am because I was so tired that I slept at 9pm, and also because I drink so much water that I have to pee like a racehorse in the middle of the night, I am allowing myself to feel victorious. I made it through the hardest part of treatment. My body fought hard for me every time it was pumped with poison and more cells were killed. My nail beds darkened, my nose hair fell so my nose was constantly dripping, my brain was only half working most of the time and the worst part of all was being incapacitated by tiredness, in all it’s various forms.

There is chemo-induced tiredness the first week when you cannot get out of bed and you don’t even have the mental energy to read or watch a show. Then there is the extreme fatigue related to low white-blood cell count exactly one week after chemo which feels like complete and utter depletion - your brain is back online but your body has been zapped like a character in a video game that is on its lowest energy bar. Finally there is the cumulative effect of all four rounds that makes you feel like you have aged a million years and need to sit down after doing anything. This is the worst one because I don’t know when it will get better and it means I can’t play with the kids the way I used to. I’m missing out on their summer: trips to the pool, playing in our new backyard, exploring the town, fruit-picking, play dates, day trips, beach trips - I can’t do any of the things we did last summer and it stinks. Whatever precious energy I have I reserve for them and I am so grateful on the days I feel well enough to even spend a few hours a day playing with them like I used to.

So here is my list of advice for anyone else who has to go through AC. (This may be TMI for anyone else!)

1. The nurse will tell you to take either Zofran or Compazine for the nausea. Take both! Be as aggressive as possible with the anti-nausea meds. I also started taking Omeprazole twice a day for the heartbearn and acid reflux after a terrible Round 2. Even then, be prepared for constant stomach discomfort. I had to change the way I eat to smaller frequent meals because it felt like everything I ate was about to come right back up.

2. There will be days you have diarrhea and constipation on the same day. Your digestive system will be a mess, keep track of your BM (bowel movements) like they tell you to. Err on the side of constipation because diarrhea sucks. I started off taking Senna every night but ended up with diarrhea. Then I only took it on days I didn’t poop.

3. Definitely suck ice chips during the Adriamycin infusion so you can preserve some feeling in your tongue. And invest in a big insulated water bottle with a straw. Your body wants you to hydrate and I was constantly thirsty and didn’t feel like drinking anything but ice-cold water which I sipped all day. I hate getting up in the middle of the night to pee and find it so hard to fall back asleep so right before bed I would use my Biotene dry mouth spray instead of drinking water and some nights I actually slept right through.

4. You will spend a lot of time with your thoughts as you lie in bed and the rest of the world goes about their business. Make them happy ones. Try not to Google yourself into a rabbit hole of depression with search terms like Metastatic Breast Cancer (1 in 3 cases of breast cancer end up metastatic, FYI.)

5. I love food so I would eat even on days I wasn’t hungry. It gave me a sense of normalcy to eat with the family. Texture becomes important when you start losing your sense of taste, I felt like eating crunchy foods. Fruit is great for hydrating when you don’t feel like drinking, yay for summer watermelon. You may want to over salt your food to compensate for taste, try squeezing limes instead. Eat whatever you feel like and whatever makes you happy not what you think you should be eating or what people tell you you should be eating. You have the rest of your life to make lifestyle changes. Right now you are in survival mode.

6. Aromatherapy. Your sense of smell changes dramatically so get things that make your room and your body smell nice. For me this was possibly the worst side effect. My own body smelled terrible to me. The smell in my room made me nauseated. I can’t explain it but everything smelled unfamiliar and toxic. Candles helped and so did being outside in the fresh air. Neutral smelling body products like talcum powder or kids Honest body wash also helped.

7. When you’re lying in bed all day, it’s hard to get a good nights sleep at the end of the day. Get some exercise if you can. If not, smoke some weed or have melatonin. It’s no fun being awake alone at night. See 4 above.

8. Friends. You need them more than you think you do. Text, call, visit, reach out. Your family is amazing and you couldn’t do this without them but no one can lift your spirits or distract you like good friends can. Work also helped me feel normal. There is a time for wallowing and then there is a time to just get on with your life.

9. Your newly bald scalp will feel sensitive. Buy some caps because it feels cold when you’re used to having a full head of hair. Buy a neck pillow because you will be sitting up in bed a lot. I hate my wig because it feels like I am pretending to be someone I’m not. You will wear it for others not yourself. Mosquitos love bald heads.

10. Love yourself. Love your body. Love your fighting spirit. If I could go back and tell me pre-cancer self anything, it would be that she is perfect. The extra pounds don’t matter, the house doesn’t have to be clean, the kids can watch all the TV they want, it’s okay. Self-care is not indulgence, it’s necessary. Treat yourself as you would treat the most important person in the world, because you are.