#though i gave it some thought and. ultimately i cannot describe them as anything else but friends

[spideryspade]

Woozy Winks is described multiple times as the apple of Plastic Man's eye, Plas gets extremely upset whenever something happens to Woozy, to the point of not being able to concentrate on his job, Plas has described Wooz as his boy friend in a disguise, they even share a bed on and off screen,

[imasimpforshanks]

Hello, I just saw the alphabet requests. Could I please get the fluff alphabet with Luffy? Thank you sm!

Fluff Alphabet - Monkey D. Luffy

a/n: hi hi hi! thank you for requesting! I hope you enjoy 💗

A-Activities (what do they like to do with their s/o? How do they spend their free time with them?)

Luffy is a complete child at heart. He enjoys doing anything and everything! So long as you are there with him, he doesn’t particularly care what it is you are doing – if it’s with you he knows he’ll have the time of his life.

However, if Luffy were to pick something as his favourite activity to do with you, he would choose a water fight (weird considering his vulnerability to water but that doesn’t cross his mind in the moment). Chasing one another around, stomachs aching from laughter, cheeks sore from grinning too much. He’s never had so much fun, and he can’t tell if it’s because of the activity itself, or because it’s with you (ultimately, he decides that it’s both).

B-Beauty (what do they admire about their s/o? what do they think is beautiful about them?)

One of the things Luffy admires most about you is your unquenchable thirst for adventure; it’s own that rivals his own. You want to explore, live life freely and on your own terms. In Luffys eyes there is nothing more wonderful than that.

Honestly, Luffy thinks everything about you is beautiful. Every. Single. Thing. Right from the top of your head to the very tips of your toes. But, there is something about your laugh that he just finds so unbelievably intoxicating. When he hears you laugh - so carefree and so happy - his grin grows even wider. He wants nothing more than to hear that laugh for the rest of his life.

C-Comfort (how would they help their s/o when they feel down/have a panic attack etc.?)

This captain is a lot more emotionally intelligent that people think. He’s very in tune to what people like and dislike and he uses this knowledge to help comfort people. For example, on thriller bark after they find Zoro injured luffy attempts to give him a whole ass barrel of sake because “Zoro likes sake so it’ll make him feel better.” This same logic would apply when he’s trying to comfort you. He’ll find or do something you like because well it’ll make you happy. If food makes you happy, he’ll get you some food. If cuddles make you happy, well then you best be ready to be suffocated.

Another way I can see Luffy comforting you is by trying to make you laugh and smile. When people are laughing and smiling, they’re happy, right? So, by that logic all he’s gotta do is be goofy and then you’ll laugh like you usually do!

D-Dreams (how do they picture they future with their s/o?)

When he becomes the pirate king, you are right there with him. He can’t see himself settling down (by this I mean living in one place permanently). Luffy wants to travel the seas with you forever, going on adventure after adventure after adventure. He hasn’t really thought much about kids or anything like that, but all he has thought about is you and him growing old together.

E-Equal (are they the dominant one in the relationship or rather passive?)

Luffy is definitely not the passive one in the relationship, but I also wouldn’t say he’s the dominant one. He’s dependent on you and you’re dependent on him. It’s a relatively equally balanced relationship but it could even be argued that it’s only that way because of how Luffy is. He often just does what he wants when he wants regardless of your opinion. However, he also allows you to do the same. That’s not to say he doesn’t sit back and listen to your concerns if you voice them.

F-Fight (would they be easy to forgive their s/o? How are they fighting?)

Fights are a very rare occurrence in your relationship. Luffy isn’t one to maintain an argument for very long often cracking a joke or doing something silly causing you to laugh and break the tension.

On the very rare occasion that you are having a serious fight, Luffy can be extremely stubborn. Once he’s got something in his mind, its hard to make him think otherwise, so more often than not you will have to be the one to apologize if you want to move on from this.

G-Gratitude (how grateful are they in general? Are they aware of what their s/o is doing for them?)

Luffy is very aware of everything that you do for him, and he absolutely gushes about it to everyone he comes into contact with. He can’t stop talking about you. People who have never met you before suddenly seem to know about every single time you gave up a portion of your dinner to Luffy because he was still hungry but Sanji wouldn’t let him have anymore because dinner was over.

H-Honesty (do they have secrets they hide from their s/o? Or do they share everything?)

Luffy is an open book. He cannot keep a secret to save himself. Not even a good secret like a surprise party for you or something, in fact, the crew have to be the ones to plan surprise parties for you on luffys behalf cos he gets too excited and just blurts it out straight away. Basically, if there is something he isn’t telling you the only explanation is that he genuinely forgot. But as soon as you ask him, he’ll tell you - without hesitation.

I-Inspiration (did their s/o change them somehow, or the other way around? Like trying out new things or helped them overcome personal problems?)

Being with Luffy has helped you to be a little more carefree. He has taught you to embrace your youth. What’s the rush in growing up? Why does everything need to be so serious all the time? It’s okay to loosen up, and goof around as long as you are still dependable.

J-Jealousy (do they get jealous easily? How do they deal with it?)

Luffy does get jealous. But, not in the usual sense. He doesn’t get jealous of other people interacting with you, or with you interacting with other people. He trusts you fully, so there’s no reason for him to be jealous in that front. However, what he does get jealous about is you spending time with others, without him. Luffy gets serious FOMO, so if you’re doing anything and he’s not invited, that is when he gets jealous. This sweetie just wants likes to be included! On the off chance that you are doing something without him and Luffy starts to feel jealous, he will simply insert himself into the conversation or the activity. He does NOT care (LMAO).

K-Kisses (are they a good kisser? What was the first kiss like?)

Luffy is a very energetic kisser. There’s no real rhyme or reason to his movements he just smashes his lips against yours. He’s eager and enthusiastic, which can make him a bit sloppy at times, but he doesn’t care.

Your first kiss took you completely by surprise. The two of you were just hanging out then before you knew it, he had kissed you. It happened so quickly they you barely had time to process what happened, but he was just sitting there looking at you while giggling his little heart out.

L-Love confession (how would they confess to their s/o?)

When it comes to telling you how he feels, he approaches it as he does everything else; directly. He’s never been one to beat around the bush, rather always speaking his mind and being up front. With you it’s no different. The second he realizes how he feels about you, he’s on his way to tell you. No hesitation, no doubt, just 100% honesty. It doesn’t matter where you are or who might be around, Luffy will tell you in that very moment.

M-Marriage (do they want to get married? How do they propose? What would the marriage be like?)

Marriage isn’t something Luffy has really thought about. The two of you are together constantly, you know you love each other, so why would you need to get married? It’s not that he’s against getting married, it just isn’t something he’s particularly concerned about. Well… that is until he hears the words ‘wedding’ and ‘party’. Once he’s heard that Luffy is set on getting married right then and there (that’s basically his proposal too). Any excuse for a party.

N-Nicknames (what do they call their s/o?)

To be honest, Luffy mostly just uses your name. He likes it because it belongs to you which makes it special. He does like to find out what nicknames you had as a child, he thinks those a pretty fun and makes him feel as though he’s known you for your whole life, so he does also use your childhood nickname/s.

O-On cloud nine (what are they like when they are in love? Is it obvious for others? How do they express their feelings?)

Luffy gets even more clingy. Clingy may not be the right word, but it’s the best way to describe it. When he’s in love he feels an overwhelming urge to be near you all the time. He craves your presence and your attention so is constantly asking you to play or chat or anything! He really just wants to spend time with you, more so than usual. The whole crew actually picked up on it quite instantly because they noticed the lack of Luffy in their day-to-day schedule. They knew it was more than platonic relationships Luffy had for you when he was five minutes late for lunch because he was too overjoyed by your attention.

P-PDA (are they upfront about their relationship? Do they brag with their s/o in front of others? Or are they rather shy to kiss etc. when others are watching?)

He’s all about showing affection both platonically and romantically. He catches you (and others) so off guard because one moment its silent and the next thing you know you’re hearing “gomu-gomu no…” and being tackled to the ground by a pair of rubbery arms. If Luffy wants to kiss you, he’s going to kiss you. He doesn’t have a care in the world about who may see.

Q-Quirk (some random ability they have that is beneficial in a relationship?)

Can promise you a life full of excitement. You never need to worry about your relationship getting ‘boring’ or ‘being stuck in a rut’ because that will never happen with Luffy. Each day is filled with adventure and something new to experience. There’s a whole world out there that you can experience together.

R-Romance (how romantic are they? What would they do to make their s/o happy? Cliché or rather creative?)

Many people wouldn’t expect it, but he is indeed romantic. It’s far from cliché and strays from the typical notions of ‘romance’ but it’s romantic, nonetheless. Luffy is just unapologetically himself. Because of this anything he does for you (even the littlest of actions), you know it’s sincere and comes from the heart. That is what makes Luffy romantic.

S-Support (are they helping their s/o achieve their goals? do they believe in them?)

Not supporting you in your goals and dreams goes entirely against Luffys character. He truly believes you, and anyone else for that matter, can do whatever they put their minds to. He is your number 1 supporter, actively helping you every step of the way. No one believes in you more than Luffy.

T-Thrill (do they need to try out new things to spice out your relationship or do they prefer certain routine?)

When you’re with Luffy you don’t need to worry about spicing up your relationship. You will never once experience a boring day. The relationship is constantly filled with new places to go, and new things to see, and you’re fortunate enough to be able to do all of it together.

U-Understanding (how good do they know their partner? Are they empathetic?)

Contrary to popular belief, Luffy is very emotionally intelligent (I said this earlier actually). He can read people freakishly well, and his s/o is no different. In fact when it comes to you his emotional intelligence only multiplies.

V-Value (how important is the relationship to them? What is it’s worth in comparison to other things in their life?)

As with most of the other relationships (platonic and familial) in his life your relationship is very important to him. For Nico Robin, he declared war on the world government. For Sanji, he went up against a Yonko and her crew. You would be no different. He would go to the ends of the earth (maybe further) for you. It’s just how he is. His relationships and his dream to be pirate king are not mutually exclusive, meaning, he can’t have one without the other.

W-Wild card (a random fluff headcanon?)

Brings you random little knick-knacks, or like a little memento from EVERY SINGLE island you go to. The items range from a pretty shell he saw on the beach to a funky looking figurine he spotted in a market.

X-XOXO (Are they very affectionate? Do they love to kiss and cuddle?)

Luffy loves to kiss and cuddle. He’s an extremely affectionate person. He practically clings to you like a koala bear. That physical contact is something he enjoys a lot; it’s really reassuring for him.

Y-Yearning (how will they cope when they are missing their partner?)

As long as Luffy is distracted and kept busy, he’ll be able to cope. He entertains himself and slowly counts down the days until he can see you. He builds up the excitement and he becomes like a child the night before a school unable to sleep or keep still; he just wants to see you.

Z-Zeal (are they willing to go to great lengths for the relationship? If so, what kind?)

This has been established already. All relationships (platonic, romantic, familial) hold a special place in Luffys life. He declared war on the world government, fought countless fearsome opponents all for the sake his friends (sometimes even people he just met). Your relationship with Luffy would be no different at all. In fact, for you, he would do all of that and much much more.

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Analysis on Tommy’s character’s mental state as a result of the exile arc.

Hey guys, I often makes posts discussing Tommy’s character and one thing that absolutely can’t be ignored is how his character has been traumatised by his experiences during exile. So, I thought I’d discuss in depth and how it’s impacted his behaviour.

In exile Tommy usually described himself as lonely. This is somewhat true but it’s actually a little misleading if you take it at face value. It’s not really loneliness that was his main issue, that was just the easiest one to express. Indeed, people did visit, they just didn’t really help with the issues that were really plaguing him. And there were a few.

-Tommy felt powerless. He was weak and attempting to get stronger himself only lead his hard work to be wasted. Therefore, he was reliant on others for help, and was utterly unable to give them anything back for any help offered. 

He also felt trapped, he had to stay on the island so people could find him and visit him but he was not allowed to choose to send time with others himself. He was completely reliant on others deciding to visit him. (Him building not one but two bridges to make it easier for others to visit was all he could do to increase the odds of someone coming to see him.) It wasn’t just loneliness so much as it being something out of his control. 

-Tommy felt worthless. He felt like L’Manburg had just seen him as a liability and was increasingly feeling like they were better off without him. No one really cared about him. He didn’t feel like he had value anymore as a person. 

He didn’t want someone to visit him, he wanted someone to stay with him - he wanted to feel accepted, validated. That’s why he spent time making a guest tent, so people could spend the night. And was so ecstatic at Mexican Dream agreeing to live with him. 

-Tommy is a very clingy person. He’s extremely sociable and becomes attached really easily. He has a hard time letting go too. In exile he constantly missed Tubbo and obsessed over the fact that he hadn’t visited. Leaving on bad terms hurt him. He couldn’t resolve anything and instead his frustration and bitterness grew and grew. He was put into such an awful and dark mindset! Its during this that he lets himself grow attached to Dream instead, who subtly encourages him to believe Tubbo didn’t care. 

So, Tommy said he was lonely, but he was way more troubled than he let on. 

...

Dream also took advantage of Tommy and performed abusive actions that both confused and traumatised him. 

Dream forced him to drop his items, hitting him if he refused and threatening to kill him if he continued to resist. He then acted nice, protecting him, keeping him company and joking around with him.

He lent Tommy his pickaxe and trident. He helped Tommy get primes. He repeatedly blew up Tommy’s armour. He regularly destroyed any diamond tools Tommy got and talked about ‘letting’ him keep some things, like he was being generous. Dream talked about how L’Manburg was prospering with Tommy there, suggesting everyone had moved on while he was the one responsible for sabotaging Tommy’s relationships.

Dream acted like an authority figure, dressing up all his actions as reasonable and Tommy was at fault for making his actions necessary. He lied about Tubbo not caring about his compass. He promised to invite people to his party and then didn’t, letting Tommy believe they chose not to come. Dream’s actions left Tommy increasingly dependent on him, as he was both physically and emotionally very vulnerable (as Dream had induced) and Dream took advantage of it. Finally, when Tommy did a relatively minor act of rebellion, Dream blew up everything. He killed Mushroom Henry and destroyed anything else Tommy was attached to - his tent, the campsite Wilbur built, the prime log.

Now, one of Tommy’s key character flaws is that he is rather irrational. While he can be perceptive, he often gets driven by his emotions rather than logic. (Its part of why he gets attached to things so easily). Usually he doesn’t actually let his feelings control him, but the exile put him under huge emotional turmoil.

-Logically, he always knew that Dream was responsible. He never forgot anything, he was just struggling to process it.

Dream was acting like he cared and Tommy clung on to that. Even once with Techno he described his confusion at his exile and noted that he recalled all the events perfectly but was confused emotionally and basically wasn’t able to deal with his feelings on Dream at all. He knew he ought to hate Dream but wanted to trust him still. 

Thinking more on emotions is also why he took Tubbo exiling him so personally - just before Doomsday he apologised and said he understood why Tubbo did it (I think he said it was the right decision even) but at the time he was hurt and felt like Tubbo didn’t care about him. Tommy often acts in the heat of the moment but fixes things afterwards. The issue with his fight with Tubbo was that they were unable to see each other and therefore resolve things, causing it instead to fester and get worse. 

So, that’s basically what happened to him throughout exile, but how did this affect his actions? A few different ways.

-He became extremely depressed and almost ended his life. Though he ultimately chose against this, his sense of self-preservation is notably lower. He didn’t seem to be afraid at the possibility of dying during Doomsday. And he was also prepared to confront Dream again over his discs - he had nothing left to lose as far as he was concerned. Once Tommy realised that Dream didn’t want to kill him, he took full advantage of it. He walked up to Dream completely unarmoured while Dream was in full netherite and confidently ordered him around. He was not afraid of dying. And again, he threatened to kill himself if Dream didn’t return after already killing Dream twice. Tommy’s only slowly gaining back his zeal for living. 

-He became angry and lashed out. Jack visited him at one point and Tommy spleefed him into lava, killing him absolutely ruthlessly. This is not a nice anger, its a cold destructive one, a result of all his bitterness from his unjust suffering. A minute later, he can only ask, why did he do that? Sometimes, Tommy might seem meeker, but it’s just hiding pain and rage that comes out in the worst of ways.

When no one turns up to his party, Tommy destroys part of the bridge he built for people to visit as he’s angry and has no real way to lash out - it’s not logical but as Tommy expresses: if they really want to visit then they’ll have to make an effort. A few days later he builds another, not because he’s better but because he’s so desperate for company he doesn’t even care if they don’t really care as long as they show up. 

His actions while with Techno have him torturing Fundy and Connor, interrogating Ranboo and helping Techno release a wither on L’Manberg. This is not the normal Tommy. This is him releasing his bitterness and rage in a destructive way, with his twisted mindset being vaguely approved of by Technoblade (though even he thought Tommy was going too far!) 

-He grew unhealthily attached to anything that gave him any stability in his warped, messed up world. That’s why he started fixating on his music discs so hard. And why he clung to Dream so hard for a while. And why he clung so much to Technoblade, quickly growing dependent on him, desperate for any sort of care and validation.

It’s why he even agreed to help Techno destroy L’Manburg at all. He was in such a warped mindset and wanted to trust Techno even if part of him was appalled by the idea, but his anger at L’Manberg was also clouding his judgement, and he wanted to agree with Techno because Techno cared about him. It’s not Techno or Tommy’s fault but their relationship was messed up thanks to Tommy’s trauma. Tommy was so dependent on Techno and was not able to function properly alone and he was very driven by his emotions, which were in a mess. He could barely sort out his feelings on Dream, let alone L’Manburg or Tubbo. He even let himself believe that all they were doing was minor terrorism, when Techno hadn’t hid his intentions that much at all. 

-Tommy blames himself for all that occurred. When the anger faded, and he was a little less powerless, Tommy began to get back his own sense of agency, which he’d been lacking for so long. With more clarity, he realised that of course he wanted to forgive Tubbo and make amends. His experiences lead to Tommy feeling like it was up to him to apologise - and he did. 

In some respects, there’s some excellent development here - it’s amazing to see him put feelings to one side and realise that his anger and bitterness were hurting him. And he held himself responsible - that his actions, traumatised or not, didn’t justify hurting others. He had been becoming the person he didn’t want to be - and rejected it. 

But there’s some worrying signs too - his experiences left him in some ways too apologetic. His sense of self-worth is still low. He didn’t blow up the community house but at one point said he wouldn’t bother defending himself anymore as there was no point, nothing to be gained from arguing about it. He apologised to Sapnap for releasing Mars - wonderful but it was never really necessary. When interacting with the egg, he said he didn’t want to cause yet another war, having internalised the idea that he’s responsible for most conflicts. At one point he even said he blames himself for Doomsday. It’s not healthy to have such a low sense of self-worth. He no longer blames others for not caring about him - but he does blame himself. 

....

Well this has been a long post. I hope that better expresses how Tommy’s been affected from his exile. I feel like I’ve seen posts complaining about apologists using trauma to excuse his actions. Not at all! Merely to explain. You cannot discuss Tommy’s current character without discussing his trauma. Likewise, it has been treated seriously by the narrative and Tommy continues to have it affect his character. It’s ongoing. He is improving but it has had a long-lasting impact. Indeed his mental state still feels fragile enough that us fans have been very sensitive to anything that might impact him. Tommy should be handled with care, and few of the characters on the server realise this. 

[teamxdark]

They say the pen is mightier than the sword...

My Dearest Arthur,

Today, as I was heading back to the castle, Galahad stopped me. He pointed out a bird, small and blue like the sky, drinking from a puddle on the ground. We both stopped, watching it as it drank its fill, stretched its wings, and flew away.

It made me think of you.

My love, you try so hard to be the best leader for us all. You do it without complaint, struggling with the problems of a populace, making the decisions that a lesser being wouldn't dare consider. I know how much this burden crushes you, but all the same, I cannot for the life of me think of anyone more worthy than you to hold such power.

I have heard the complaints of those who disagree with your choices. They throw about opinions without care for consequences. They know nothing of the thought you put into every decision you make, and every time I hear some scoundrel run their mouth about how they would do better than you, I feel the urge to silence them, with my words or my blade, I care not which.

The things you do to me, my love...

Yes, you are the most worthy king, of that, I am certain, but you are also the most deserving of the freedom you crave. I see it, Arthur. I see the way you stare out the window, into the sky, beyond the clouds, with such profound longing that I know and understand all too well. It is enough to make a man weep.

...I have wept, I must admit. For you, and over you. If I could grant you your freedom, I would do so in a heartbeat, even if it meant that you would be gone, leaving like that bird, flying away without a backwards glance and never looking back. My grief at your absence would only be assuaged by the knowledge that you are finally unburdened. That you are happy.

Sometimes, I like to imagine that you take me with you. I imagine your hand in mine, and your smile reaching your eyes, the portrait of joy that should never have left your face, and I follow you, just as I have vowed, to the ends of the earth and into the world beyond this life.

I know it is selfish. I know it is impossible. You, Arthur, are the most selfless man I know. I have seen you grow over many years, becoming more and more responsible with time and experience. It is I who has become selfish. It is I who indulges these fantasies of taking you away to bask in your brilliance that I can never get enough of. But you could never betray your people. You could never say yes to a premature freedom. You will not be king forever, and this we both know, and you are willing to wait for the end of your reign while I still imagine ripping you from this life without a care for those that remain behind.

My desires are inconsiderate, not just to you, but to everything you've worked for. To everyone who needs you. To those who need me, too.

I shall never be worthy of you, Arthur, but my heart shall never beat for anyone else in the way it does for you.

Forever yours,

Lancelot

...

Darling Arthur,

Do you remember when we were young? Do you remember when we were but boys, training until we were collapsed on the ground, day after day?

Do you remember the first time you called me 'Lance'?

I hated it back then. I warned you to never call me anything but 'Lancelot' again, for it was my name. It was the name my mother had given me, my mother who saved me and chose me before I even knew how to walk. My name was my link to her, an important part of my identity and my proof of being wanted.

I was, truly, a stupid child.

Now, I treasure the name you gave to me. I do not allow anyone else to use it. 'Lance' is the name you bestowed upon me, a name to signify our own link, our bond... one so close that it makes me dizzy with happiness when I remember just how much we mean to each other. I now hold that name close to my heart, next to my mother's 'Lancelot' and my son's 'Father'.

It pains me that I do not have such a name to give you, my love, save for the endearments in these letters that I shall never send. Yet I never miss how blissful you look when I call you by your given name. You appear unhappy by 'Your Majesty'. You appear troubled by 'my liege'. You appear vexed by 'Sire'.

And so, when I am able, I call you by your name. I call you my friend, so that you know that I love you and that you mean the world to me. You always have, even before my feelings shifted into what they are now.

I see you smile and it is as if I have been struck by lightning. I hear you laugh and I fear I might swoon. If I do even one thing to make you happy, I feel as though I am walking on air, and I wish to do it again, and again, and again, over and over, endless until you never know pain again.

Arthur, the way I feel for you consumes me, like a fire that will never go out. My feelings scorch me, leaving burns and scars that will never fully go away, hidden on the inside where you will never see them. You will never truly know just how deeply this arrow from Cupid's bow has pierced me... I dare say he's emptied his quiver on me, for the mere thought of life without you, without your smile, your warmth, your brilliance, your bravery, your understanding, without you and everything that you are...

I don't dare tell you about these newer feelings of mine. I know you, and I know you will not treat me any different if my particular type of love for you does not match that of yours for me, but my head is clouded by fear. I cannot stop imagining that you shall become uncomfortable in my presence, that you will hold me away at arm's length, that you will look for someone else to court in an attempt to help me move on... All the possibilities are so painful, Arthur. I would rather nothing changed, even though I know my fear is irrational. I should believe in our bond, trust in our friendship, rely on the knowledge that you would never push me away...

I am a coward, my love. To be called the Ultimate Knight feels like a joke, for I am so afraid that I cannot listen to the logic in my own head. My strength of body means nothing if my strength of mind is as fragile as glass.

Yet, even as I long for something different in my relationship with you, I cannot say that I am unhappy with what I do have with you. Perhaps this, too, is why I will not speak these words nor send these letters, for what I already have with you, such a close, personal friendship, is more than I can ask for.

You have always been enough for me, Arthur.

Eternally yours,

Lancelot

...

Glorious Arthur,

I must apologize. I must, for I fear my mind is spinning out of my own control.

Every day I think of you. Every morning when I wake up, every night as I go to sleep, in every spare moment of my life, you are in my waking thoughts.

You haunt my dreams, too. At all moments, it seems, my mind conspires against me. All I want is to be happy with what I have with you, but it appears my desires are only growing, not fading, with time, and they eat me alive with every passing day.

I imagine your forehead against mine, with your hands on my waist. You lift your head, kissing me once on each eyelid, and I feel weaker than I ever have in my life.

I imagine your hands, removing my armor so that they may rest upon me, touching my back, my shoulders, my chest, all areas that I keep guarded under steel and promises. You disarm me, and I allow it. My foolish heart wishes to be vulnerable before you, for I know I will always be able to trust you with myself.

I imagine the lightest touches on my arms, spreading like trails of fire as your fingers slide along my person, and I let myself be consumed.

I imagine your lips pressing to mine, and I lose the ability to breathe.

I imagine your eyes, looking into mine, glowing with care and love and happiness, and I drown without a second thought.

Sometimes I dream of things I dare not write down here, my sweet, for it makes my face burn and my heart race and all I want to do is apologize for thinking of you in such a way. It feels terrible, as though I am taking advantage of you in my thoughts, and I fear that one day you will discover the fantasies of my mind and feel discomfort or disgusted by me.

If I ever lost you, Arthur, I know my world would shatter, and I would never become whole again.

Apologetically yours,

Lancelot

...

Arthur,

I can't stand it. Today, I cannot stand it at all.

I feel desperate, like a caged animal. I feel my soul clawing at my body from within, needing to come out and indulge. My composure is in shambles, my mind is in disarray, and though you are not at fault, it is all because of you.

Arthur, I burn for you. My heart screams and cries out and it's painful. Every inch of me aches for the smallest touch, I long for the basest of acknowledgement from you, a look, a word, a smile, Chaos, anything! Just the thought of you giving me your attention sends me into a fit, and I know that even the brush of your arm against mine as you pass me in the corridor would be enough to bring me to ecstasy!

My head is pounding, my ears playing and replaying the sound of my name coming from your lips, and I crave it. I crave you, my love, and it has never been so powerful or so consuming before. I don't know what is wrong with me. I don't know why today is the day that I might go mad. I am afraid, Arthur. I am afraid that my need for you is pushing me to the brink of madness and that I will not be able to stop myself from jumping down into it.

Arthur, the love of my life, how can I even begin to fully describe this? I've written so much and yet it is only a crumb of what is flaring inside me. I think of you and I burn up. You are not an inferno, for that is a small candle compared to the one that burns inside me. You are nothing less than the sun in the sky, approaching me to incinerate me in an instant, but even that feels like a pale comparison today.

Arthur, I am deeply sorry, but I fear writing this is only making things worse. I must stop before I

...

My love,

My upcoming mission to Acorn Kingdom is fast approaching. Soon it will be time for me to depart. I hope that, when that day comes, you are not too busy to see me off.

I will miss you terribly while I am gone, but I take peace in knowing that I am doing this for Avalon, and for you. To make this world a better place, and for you to have one less thing to worry about.

It's pathetic, is it not? As a knight, I should be focusing on the best for my kingdom, as I vowed to when you first let Caliburn descend upon my shoulders and gave to me my title, and yet I know the truth.

It's for you, Arthur. It's always been for you.

...

In his study, the king shoves away the stack of letters, his face burning as a chorus of emotion swells within him, unable to take the guilt at having read so many of Lancelot's secret letters. His hands tremble as he searches around his desk for something to write with.

...

Dear Lancelot,

My wonderful Lancelot,

To Lance,

My dearest

Lance,

Please come see me when you have a moment to yourself. Do not be afraid.

Yours,

Arthur

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Buck Cluck

(Usually I’d say “WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!” here, but we’re talking about a character from Chicken Little. If you care about spoilers for that movie, I gotta question your sanity.)

Gendo Ikari. Shou Tucker. Goku. Anime is filled to the brim with the most heinous, evil, deadbeat dads imaginable. But standing tall above them all is one dad, a dad from an American anime (anime means cartoon, you nerds): Buck Cluck. You’re seeing this right. This ain’t no April Fools joke either; I take Chicken Little absolutely seriously.

Buck Cluck is one of the most infamous fathers in all of animated history. He is basically Disney’s take on Huey Emmerich. If something in the world goes wrong, it’s probably Buck Cluck’s fault. The thing is, though… none of this was intentional. None of it. Buck Cluck is amazing because he is supposed to be a good father, albeit one who is emotionally distant from his son. But the movie bungles this all so badly that Buck Cluck ended up as one of the most disgusting fathers ever put to film by complete accident.

Motivation/Goals: Buck’s only goal in the film is to try and feel some sense of pride in his son. His nerdy, ostracized son. He refuses to love this kid until its convenient and turns his back on him at the drop of a hat. Really, you can sum up Buck’s motivation by asking yourself in any given scene “What is the exact opposite of what a decent parent would do?” Buck always chooses to do the opposite.

Performance: Of all the people on Earth who could have played Buck, they got Gary Marshall, director of The Princess Diaries movies, Pretty Woman, and Overboard to play Buck. And he’s not bad by any means, but boy, what a weird choice. I think he actually does give this charm to Buck, and by that I mean he makes him sound like a charming, affable guy despite being a disgusting deadbeat. If it was someone worse or more sinister, I think that the film would have ended up too self-aware. Buck has to sound like a chummy dude you’d get a beer with or else he can’t fail as utterly as he does.

Final Fate: For some reason, his son forgives him and they reconcile. Personally, I would have rather seen Colonel Sanders come in and roast this fat bastard alive.

Final Thoughts & Score: Before you get excited, no, I’m not giving him a ranking, because by the technicalities of the film he is in fact not a villain. But this, ultimately, is what makes Buck Cluck so fascinating to me.

This is a character who, throughout the film’s runtime, acts horrendously neglectful to his child, only paying him any mind when Chicken Little is succeeding and getting positive attention. He throws his son under the bus at every opportunity and seems outright ashamed by him, never really bothering to stand up for him until the very end when he has been soundly proven wrong about the sky falling and the aliens. He comes off as extremely self-serving and egotistical, only giving his son love when he can reap some sort of benefit. And it’s pretty obvious Disney wasn’t expecting him to come off this way. They give him moments where the film is desperately trying to get you to understand him, but it’s so utterly bungled that you can’t really view Buck as anything other than a cruel, emotionally abusive father.

A good contrast to Buck is Perry Babcock from ParaNorman. Both serve similar roles in the plot, being somewhat neglectful dads who need to learn a lesson about appreciating and accepting their son. The major difference is that, while Perry is just as much of a jackass as Buck (to the point where his mother’s ghost describes him as such), the narrative paints a very complex view of Perry that leaves him sympathetic enough that the ultimate resolution of the plot and his reconnection with his sonf eels genuine, earned, and heartwarming. Buck, on the other hand, never really does anything to earn the forgiveness he gets, and is never really called out by the narrative. He’s made to look like a poor victim of his son’s rambling nonsense about the sky falling. We’re supposed to want to see Chicken Little earn the love and respect of his parent, and since the world they inhabit is a world of jackasses, there’s no one to call Buck out.

The end result of everything is that Buck Cluck elicits the same seething, visceral hatred of a character like Shou Tucker or Huey Emmerich while having done nothing as grandly evil as either. The reason, I think, is that he is just too down to earth and relatable. Shou Tucker fused his daughter with a dog; that is evil, but can’t happen in real life. Buck Cluck emotionally abused his son, only gave him love when it was convenient, and treated him like an embarrassment while never standing up for him. Some of you out there have a Buck Cluck for a dad, and that’s just not pleasant to watch. And unlike with Huey, you can’t really love t hate Buck because there’s no cathartic release, there’s no punishment for his actions. Buck gets away, getting a good relationship with his son and love he doesn’t deserve.

...You know what, fuck it. Buck is so goddamn evil and disgusting, he’s getting a (dis)honorary 8/10. Buck fails so hard at being a good parent or even a flawed shades-of-gray parent that he ends up coming across as abusive and evil. I cannot comprehend how bad a character has to fail where they end up like this, or I should say, I shouldn’t be able to comprehend it… But I live in a world where Buck “The Cuck” Cluck exists. God help us all.

[allsassnoclass]

Hello everyone!  Today is the one year anniversary of my favorite fic I’ve written (so far), Puzzle Pieces!  I thought I’d give a full length director’s commentary to commemorate the occasion.

Spoilers for the fic below!

The idea for this fic stemmed from a few things.  I’ve always been fascinated with the idea of a soulmate au where colors appear on your skin when you first touch your soulmate(s).  I think I initially encountered this in a newsies fic that I’ve since lost track of that was heavily focused on platonic soulmates.  I liked this convention because the possibilities for multiple soulmates are endless and I like the idea of colorful splotches on people.  I also think that identifying soulmates via touch rather than the first sentence they say or some sort of other identifier gives a lot of opportunity for relationships to grow and develop before they know that they’re soulmates.  I am always a little bothered when soulmate aus have people fall right into a relationship and kissing and intense emotions right away when the two people don’t know anything about each other.  This seemed like a way to combat that a little, but I’ll speak more on that later.

The Beginnings

The first record I have of this fic is a message I sent to Helen on May 8, 2020.  The fic was very much only in the idea stages then, as I took over three more months to write it and wrote Too Close to See during that time.  A google doc for the fic wasn’t started until July 20, 2020, and it was titled “soulmate colors au.”  My method for writing is going in order these days, and for this particular fic there wasn’t a specific scene that I started with in mind.  I really was just going or it and making it up as I went, chugging along and seeing what happened.

The Colors

A pretty significant part of this fic is the colors.  When I figured out that colors would appear on people when they touched, I knew that figuring out who had what color would be very important.  Initially I was going to have each pairing have their own color (so for example cashton would both leave blue on each other but malum would both leave green on each other) but I quickly decided that I didn’t like that and that each individual should have a color that they leave, instead.  I sent a message to Bella asking what colors she thought the boys would be, but I can’t find that message anymore and know that while it was similar it wasn’t quite right.  Here’s some reasoning behind each of the boys’ colors:

Michael: I went with red not just because of the iconic red hair, but because it’s a pretty loud and brash color.  Michael (especially when he was younger) doesn’t really filter things, wears a decent amount of his personality on his sleeve, and first reaction that said red to me

Calum: Calum has always been forest green.  This is partially influenced by the empahty hoodie, even though it’s a bit brighter than the green in my mind for him here, but I also think green is a very dependable, stable color.  (I used that color symbolism in one of my fall out boy fics years ago lol) It reminds me of pine trees, and I think Calum can give off that same sense of reliability in weathering the seasons.  It’s a quieter color but can really pop next to another one.  It also worked out nicely that Calum and Michael’s colors were compliments

Luke: Luke gets gold because he is a sunshine boy!  Luke actually was the person I had the most trouble with, because I was flipping between gold, a lighter blue, or pink.  Pink ultimately was too close to red to make me be able to visualize what the marks looked like on each boy to my satisfaction.  It just looked ugly and clashing.  I went with gold because there is a lot of outward brightness in Luke.  He’s the kind of person where if he’s happy everyone else gets a bit happier, and gold also seemed fitting for the eventual shift into a rockstar and the amount of talent he has

Ashton: Ashton gets purple, but a deeper purple.  Dynamic but still relatively stable, has a lot of depth.  Purple is a secret color, but it’s still beautiful and it draws people in.  When I visualize it it ends up being a really dark shade, but in reality he’s probably more of a royal purple than a plum purple.  I feel bizarrely passionate about his color specifically.  I don’t know why that is.

The colors didn’t have any sort of influence on the fic, but they were deliberately chosen.

The World of the Fic: Chosen Soulmates

So here’s the thing.  I feel very strongly about love being a conscious decision that people make over and over.  It takes work.  It takes a deliberate commitment.

Soulmate aus kind of negate that.

So, how do you fix this?  Well, I did that by having these marks not necessarily indicate soulmates.  The way that the marks are described in the fic is that they indicate how easy it should be to love someone and how compatible two people are.  It doesn’t automatically mean that you’ll adore them forever and never leave their side.  You still need to put in the work.  (Luke shows this early on when Michael asks if he loves Calum and he says  “I don’t think I know him well enough for that yet.  I know I will, because the colors say it should be easy and I want to, but not like you do.”  He has made the decision to work toward loving Calum, but he knows that just having the colors doesn’t immediately make them love each other.)  In that way, it almost isn’t a soulmate au, at least not in the traditional way.  Things aren’t inevitable.  There is still an element of choice.

This was also shown with Ashton.  I don’t remember when I made the decision to give Ashton a Tragic Background with his dad, but I know it was relatively early because by the time I wrote his introduction I knew that would happen.  I wanted to give a bit more of a reason for his hesitation to let them touch him, which I was already including because Ashton has always been the least touchy of the band, and I saw this as another opportunity to show that necessity of choice.  It’s sweeter to me for the boys to choose each other rather than to just be stuck with each other, and if Ashton hadn’t actually been a soulmate of theirs then I wanted there to be the assurance that they could still love him just as much, because all love is chosen.

In the end, having a broken soulbond in Ashton’s past was a good way to accomplish all of that.  It’s heartbreaking to not be chosen despite the fact that it should be easy, but once Ashton accepts that Michael, Calum, and Luke are vehemently choosing him with or without the soulmark, it makes his acceptance of their love very sweet to me.  He’s saying that he trusts them to put in the work to love him.  The scene where he talks to Michael in the car and the scene where he accepts their touches and soulmarks are probably my two favorite scenes in the fic.

The World of the Fic: Touch

In a world where the first skin-on-skin contact can indicate whether it’ll be extremely easy for you to love someone, how common would touch be?  Would we greet people with handshakes still?  Would gloves be more common fashion accessories?  Would touching someone be a Big Deal?

Hence, the First Touch was born!

I figured that, with touch possibly being a lot more significant in this world, people would be a lot more careful about whether they make skin-on-skin contact.  Kids would be taught that it’s impolite to try to touch someone, to a more extreme degree than they are now.  Handshakes simply are not a greeting anymore.  Instead, sometimes the first contact people make is considered a big deal, seeing as it can indicate whether two people are soulmates or not.

I figured that Luke especially would enjoy important first touches, because he’s a sentimental sweetie.  Of course, his first touch with Michael ended up being special simply because it was with each other :)

This also let me really lean into Ashton being touch-adverse.  Now on top of not liking touch, he also has another reason to avoid it, which makes every cuddle moment after the first touch even better, because he’s definitely touch starved.  The band cuddles him so much once they share the colors.

The World of the Fic: Platonic Soulmates

Guys. GUYS. I love platonic soulmates. I love them a lot.  I feel very passionately about them.  Romantic love is not the pinnacle of human love, and as someone who cannot at this point see myself with a romantic partner I really wanted to ensure that platonic soulmates were a thing.  Given that information, it’s a no-brainer that I included them in this fic.  Part of the appeal of this type of soulmate au was that it gave opportunity for more than one soulmate and more than one type of soulmate.  As such, platonic, familial, and romantic soulmates could all be indicated by the colors.  I also really liked that there wasn’t any sort of differentiation between the types of soulmates.  One type of love isn’t hailed over the others.  It’s an even playing field here.

That was one of the things that immediately drew me to this type of prompt, actually.  I wanted to write a fic about Michael parsing through his emotions and figuring out what he feels for Calum.  The difference between platonic and romantic love has always been very interesting to me, because I find that the line can be pretty blurry personally.  The best way to do that was to give him a set of soulmates who he cares about equally but in different ways.  

The following excerpt really is the theme of the story to me:  “Calum is an old, comfortable sweater, but Luke is like a favorite pair of shoes.  They both fit him perfectly.  He feels more at home when either of them are around, and although the love he has for Calum is different, he thinks he could love Luke just as much.”  Each of us love everyone we meet a little differently, because everyone is a different person, but different doesn’t mean unequal.

While the fic is about Michael figuring himself out, it’s equally a love story between all four of them.  The moments where Michael finds out he’s soulmates with Luke and Ashton were just as important to me as the moment he and Calum get together, and I really wanted to be sure that each relationship had it’s time in the limelight.  That’s ultimately why the idea of puzzle pieces became a theme (that I added on editing).  I like the idea of all of them coming together to create something bigger than themselves.  They fit.  They click.  They are better for it.  The first time someone referred to this as an ot4 fic it threw me off, because only malum is romantic in it, but I really like that classification for it, because it is.

Asexual Representation (Accidentally)

I didn’t know I was writing Michael as ace until about 4 days before I posted the fic.

Looking back, that’s a little bit ridiculous, because I was brainstorming this fic for three and a half months and actively writing it for two before I realized.  I believe there was a conversation in the discord about ace rep in fics (Bella and I think Heath were part of it, I can’t remember any other participants), and I thought to myself “hey I’m ace and like ace rep, Michael in the soulmate colors au could probably be ace.”  Lo and behold, he already was.  All I had to do was add a few sentences and finish the fic (I hadn’t written the scenes in England yet).

My asexuality definitely influenced the way I had been writing Michael’s confusion over his feelings for Calum.  Part of the reason I myself see the line between platonic and romantic as so blurry is because I’m ace and so much of romantic love in media is tied in with sexual attraction.  When you don’t feel sexual attraction, that can get confusing, especially since most strong feelings of love are depicted to be romantic.

While Michael and I had very, very different paths to figuring out our sexualities, I drew on my own experiences of ace-ness to write him.  This was a bit more apparent in the sequel scene Bedroom Activities, but it ended up becoming a core of the story.  I genuinely don’t know how I didn’t realize that’s what I was writing.

As an ace person, ace rep means a lot to me, given how little of it is in popular media.  I’m glad I explored it so early on in my 5sos fic career, and I’m proud of this one.

Miscellaneous Things

The process of writing this story was, as I stated before, pretty linear.  I went from the start to the end without a lot of planning.  I specifically had no clue what was happening at the Hot Chelle Rae afterparty until it was happening.  The kiss came out of no where.  However, I want to point out that initially I thought this fic would be 8k.  It is now my third longest fic ever written.  I have never learned to correctly estimate how long a fic I’m writing will be.

I have a few various favorite lines, but one repeated theme I love is Michael craving Calum’s touch.  I say he’s touch-starved for him twice, once relatively early on and once at the end, and I love that Calum’s touch has been a constant for Michael.  They had their first touch accidentally and became best friends immediately in the way that little kids do, so Michael has always had him as a constant, tactile presence in his life.  That’s why losing him to Luke scared him so much and why then gaining Luke and Ashton as soulmates is so good for him.

I really like referring to Michael, Luke, and Calum as a triangle.  I first did it in this fic, but it’s now my tag for the three of them.  Idk I just like how equally distributed a triangle is, all sides touching, no one left out.

Branching off of this, one of my favorite lines is when Ashton and Michael do their first touch: “The dark purple reminds him of spilling grape juice on his clothes as a kid, and when he collapses into Ashton he feels like they could have known each other at that age, too.”  There is something so charming about meeting someone later and feeling like you’ve known them your whole life, and that was significant here because Michael has known Calum and Luke since they were younger (although Luke did come in the picture when they were tweens/young teens instead of kids).  I wanted to be sure that although Michael, Calum, and Luke are the triangle, Ashton is an equal part of their soulmate group.  He doesn’t have the same history, but that doesn’t matter because it feels like he does.

Luke’s obsession with soulmate statistics is a convenient plot device and partially a result of his mom being a math teacher.  Above all things, it’s a manifestation of his desire to be loved.  The guy just wants to be loved!!! and he wants others to be loved, too!!!

This is by far my favorite fic that I’ve written.  It’s not perfect (there are for sure two lines that I would change, and I think I could’ve done things differently with the very slight OCD I gave Michael that manifested in his hand washing), but I love it dearly.  It’s the type of fic that I would’ve loved to read, and the response to it has been wonderful.  Thank you to everyone who has read it and special shout out to everyone who has made it to the end of this very long director’s notes <3

[luzarya]

Performance

Summary: It's just another day for Yuu and Engel at the Mostro Lounge.

ao3 link: here

warnings: none

songs: this

part: 3/3

-> 1 (first)

-> 2 (previous)

word count: 1,950

--

Lively.

That is what one would describe the lounge as. Lively.

There was a singer on stage, singing ever hypnotically. They had captured most of the customer’s attention, drawing them in with their voice.

I'm gonna wear blue

And find a pair of flat black leather shoes

But shine more than a diamond, mine could do

And add something new

Engel took an order from a table, their footsteps unheard as they yelled out the order to those preparing it. In a matter of minutes, the drinks came out, Engel quickly swiped the drinks, already walking back to the table.

They set down the drinks to the Savanaclaw students, who only glanced at the drinks in acknowledgement.

To another table they go.

I drop a hint and then my keys

And then I cast a net

To catch someone who's even searchin, night he won't forget

The night continued on like that, taking orders and serving them. Many more people came in by the sheer number, enraptured by the voice that sang.

Engel was one of the few waiters out there- the other being Octanivelle students, who were inherently less affected by the voice. After all, a siren cannot enchant a fellow mer like they do with non-mer.

Engel stole a glance at the singer- their beloved Yuu. It was near the end of the song, and Engel knew that as soon as Yuu would finish their song, there would be an influx of orders for a proper meal.

Gonna drop the yellow pages

Finally then she had a thrill

To dress me up and make me look like someone else instead

It's time for my rehearsal, the ultimate reversal

You see, I've got it planned

I'm coming back as a man

With the last of the notes of the song, there was an audible increase of chatter, customers talking amongst themselves. Engel didn’t bother to listen to the chatter. They had to focus on their job, otherwise they knew they would make a mistake should they listen in on the gossip.

“How’s the night going, Engel?”

The question broke Engel’s concentration, as they turned to the owner of the new voice. It was Jade, who was manning the counter- it looked like everyone had a drink or a meal, so the vice dorm-head had free time, it seemed.

“Oh! Everything is going well, Jade,” Engel enthusiastically replied, as they gathered another batch of orders, “Is Yuu taking a break right now?”

“Yes,” Jade smiled, “Although, if you wish to catch them before the next song, I suggest you do so in the next few minutes. They have another song coming up, though I suppose you know that already.”

“I see, thanks for the heads up! I’ll see you in a bit, Jade!” Engel nodded as a means of farewell, their hands occupied. They left just as Jade their own farewell, their feet quick to take them to their destination.

After setting down the plates to a group of Scarabia students, Engel then speedily walked to the employee break room. Upon opening the door, Engel squealed in delight, running up to an exhausted Yuu, who readily accepted the unexpected hug.

“Well, hello to you too, my love,” Yuu chuckled, “Careful with the suit. I don’t want your efforts going to waste, aight?”

“Ahhhhh, Yuu!” Engel only squeezed them tighter, “You did wonderfully! You never cease to amaze me with your voice!”

“Thanks?”

“It’s a compliment, silly goose!”

Engel released Yuu from their suffocating hug, eyeing Yuu up and down. They wore a suit- one that Engel had created with their own two hands. It was a tux, but with extended tails (the rear end of the fabric, from what Engel had learned). It suited Yuu well, giving them a slightly more feminine appearance with how long and ruffled the tails were.

“Ah, your makeup is a bit smudged,” Engel noticed. “Let me get the kit Vil gave us…” Engel left Yuu’s side for a moment, retrieving the item, then returning. Utilizing what they had learned from Vil, Engel managed to fix up Yuu’s make up. It was put on in a way that it made Yuu’s face look more masucline than usual. It was enough that no one would recognize Yuu bare-face, allowing them to evade others from recognizing them as the hypnotic voice from the Mostro lounge.

“Thanks, love,” Yuu quietly replied.

“Anything for you, my dear.”

An alarm rang out, disrupting whatever moment Engel and Yuu had. Yuu gave an apologetic look to Engel, who, in turn, only shook their head. Engel pulled Yuu up from their chair, and led them to the door. Before opening the door, Engel raised Yuu’s hand and kissed it softly, watching Yuu’s face become flushed from the small action.

“Good luck!” Engel teased, as they opened the door and left, leaving Yuu a moment to their thoughts. Yuu shook their head after fully processing it, and then left the silence of the room, entering the lounge.

It was time for another performance.

----

It was quiet.

No one would have thought that this was the same lively lounge from a few hours prior. It was empty, save for a few souls that needed to stay behind, and clean. Azul sat at one of the booths, Engel and Yuu in front of him, Jade standing at the end of the table. Unseen, Floyd was elsewhere, the sound of food sizzling distantly heard.

“Thanks to Yuu’s performance, we earned the same amount of profit as last week.” Azul looked over the papers, quick to do the math of how much was earned. He was evidently pleased with the turn of events- a smile staining his beautiful face.

“That’s great,” Engel softly replied. Yuu quietly sat next to them, unable to speak. The performance had left Yuu drained of all energy. It took too much energy to even speak.

“The number of people asking about Yuu increased,” Jade casually commented. Engel raised a brow, slinging an arm around Yuu.

“Is that so?”

Jade noticed the interaction, and chuckled, “Fufu, worry not, I do not believe they were asking for malicious reasons, Engel.”

“If you say so,” Engel happily chirped, though there was an edge to their words. Azul briefly glanced at them, but didn’t comment on it.

A slam grabbed their attention, as everyone turned to look at the source of the noise. In very typical fashion, it was Floyd- who kicked the door open, a large plate of some sort of pasta in his grasp.

The eel mer sauntered over, placing the large plate right besides the papers.

“Floyd, careful with that.” Azul moved his papers, scooting over to the end of the table and moving the papers, so that they wouldn’t be any stains. Jade took a seat, as did his brother, although Floyd sat next to Engel.

“So,” Floyd began, giving some utensils to his brother- who graciously took them without a second thought. “How long will the contract with Shachi-chan and Selkie-chan last?”

Yuu didn’t say a word.

“Hmm,” Engel pondered, “I think it’s for life?” They had signed the contract, although they had forgotten most of the details already- it’s been about a month or so since they did.

“Correct. It’s for life,” Azul paused his reading, “Yuu will be under my employment until retirement, since I’ll be providing them a means to live once they graduate from here.”

“Oh?” Floyd smiled as he took another bite of his meal. Engel eyed the plate- it was large. And the twins already ate a good small portion of it.

“What about when we’re fourth years, and the year after?” Jade questioned, wiping his mouth. It was a valid question, considering the fact that fourth years would have to leave the school on internships, then there was the fact that Engel and Yuu were technically a grade below them.

“Who do you take me for, Jade?” Azul grinned, propping his arms onto the table, “I have a plan to ensure that the business continues when we’re in our fourth year. After Engel and Yuu have finished their fourth years, I’ll make sure that they’ll live comfortably down in the deep blue sea.”

“Really?” Engel’s eyes sparkled with hope, “Thank you!”

“No, no need. I have to thank you,” Azul corrected, “The two of you brought in more profit than I would have by myself. Truly, Yuu’s voice is astounding- it’s quite the good thing that their voice is almost useless against mer. And you Engel, you brought in a few customers yourself, if a bit fewer than Yuu had brought in. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

Yuu glared at Azul, but they remained silent. Engel wondered how they brought in customers, but they had a suspicion it had to do with the fact they were a selkie- Engel didn’t quite like the implication of it, but they too, remained silent.

Azul continued, “With the profits, it’s more than enough to pay for your living expenses, now and in the future.”

“Oh? So Shachi-chan and Selkie-chan are gonna stay with us forever?~” Floyd appeared to brighten up at the idea, turning to look at Engel.

“It does seem that way, fufu.” Jade smiled. Engel felt unease by it, although they couldn’t pinpoint as to why.

“Nonetheless, we’re doing well, financially.” Azul sighed, picking up the papers and organizing them into a folder. He glanced at the clock on the distant wall, “We should finish this up and head to bed.”

With that, they cleared the table.

----

Ramshackle dorm was quiet, not a sound heard, save for the subtle footsteps. Engel and Yuu made their way up to their dorm room that they shared. Engel clutched onto their pelt, which was large enough for Engel and Yuu to fit inside as they had came from the Octanivelle dorm in the cold.

Engel never had their pelt more than 20 feet away from them.

They entered their room- spotting a snoring Grim on the bed. On performance days, Grim was left alone to his own devices. The two mer quickly shifted out of their work clothing, donning comfortable clothing. They gently moved Grim, laying themselves down. They faced one another, Engel’s pelt laid over them, with Grin right at top.

“Today was nice.”

“Yea. It was.” Yuu lazily smiled, their eyes droopy.

“Sleep well, my darling.”

“G’night, love.”

Yuu quickly fell asleep, but Engel didn’t. Sure, they were tired, but they remained up to look at Yuu’s sleeping facial features.

They recalled the time when Yuu was introduced to them, after their mother was taken away. They recalled when Yuu had become their friend, and consequently, their beloved. They recalled the painful moment when Yuu was taken by the carriage after the two of them were drawn into the forest. They recalled how they searched for Yuu for months. They recalled when they, too, were finally brought to this world, better than the old, and thus reuniting with their beloved. They recalled Yuu’s first performance, and many more moments.

It was hard, no doubt. It was one plight after another, but they stood together through it all, even when they were separated for a good amount of time. Engel touched their bracelet- its warmth brought a smile to their face.

Sure, they’re practically bound to Azul via contract for the rest of their lives, but that didn’t matter. They no longer resided in the old, barbaric world. No longer did Engel have to fear the worst, and no longer did they have to worry.

After all, didn’t they promise to stay together, even through hell itself?

Engel fell asleep with that last thought on their mind.

[katarina-elaine]

I’ve been busy with Adult Things and didn’t know it was up yet...so of course, when I saw this message, I nearly sprayed hot tea all over my computer screen as I scrambled to go look! Since we weren’t told too much about Alastor in the pilot episode of the show, I knew that the comic would likely tell us a lot more about his personality, as the other comic did an excellent job of sort of slowing things down and zooming in to focus on Angel Dust’s character. This made me VERY excited about the Alastor comic...and I am far from disappointed.   @iveneverbeenmorestressedinmylife​, you probably weren’t looking for a lengthy ramble about the comic, but friend, thAT IS EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE GONNA GET!! (I’ll be nice to everyone who doesn’t care about my thoughts by putting this under a read more, I went completely friggin’ feral over m’boi, my eyes have been blessed)

I adore the detail of the first three pages. I also find it hilarious that Alastor is legit just vibin’, and everyone else is dodging out of the way like “N O P E”. Even the worker at the cafe is just like “why tf did this walking nightmare on speed have to visit on my shift?!” There are no words to describe the way I felt upon seeing Alastor just sitting at the table reading a newspaper, I made the most embarrassing noise b/c I am soft!! I just really want Good Things for our best boi?!

The bit with the birds was...something. I thought it was precious that Alastor shared with them, but later on I just sort of narrowed my eyes at him, b/c it’s totally possible that he knew what would happen and couldn’t resist a bit of violent entertainment. One could also argue that he hoped they’d just share the egg, as he does walk out shortly after the one bird decides to wreck ALL the things (RIP that poor employee’s peaceful morning). However, I wouldn’t put it past Alastor to stir things up and then just walk away. He didn’t even close the hell hole he made in the pilot when he crushed Sir Pentious, so  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I need to know what’s up with the roses. Does every flower that manages to grow in hell instantly wilt? Does Alastor just have that effect on people flowers? Did he make it wilt, and if so, why? Is Alastor just having a hecken exasperating morning b/c it’s hell and disappointment and agitation will always be in the forecast? I also wheezed with laughter when the other sinners literally noped away in the middle of Alastor saying hello. Poor boi cannot get an uninterrupted introduction to save his life! ~That must get rather lonely~ 8) On the other hand, he seems to be very well-known and accepted in the cannibal colony! It’s good to know he has friends...and fangirls. That group is an entire MOOD! I would totally fight the lucky lady who caught Alastor’s hat. I find it slightly tragic that we didn’t see him wearing that hat though, because I will always need to see him wearing a hat that adjusts for his antlers and ears (they are ears, I will never believe otherwise). The person playing sax on the street is so beautiful?? I cry?? Also, bless Alastor for tossing the guy a coin. “All hat and no cattle!” Alastor. Sweetheart. Darling. Baby boi. *cries for a long time b/c he’s such a dork and I flippin’ adore him* Also, Alastor cursing was oddly amusing? All Vox did was be a showoff, but Alastor friggin mutters to himself for what looks like at least a few city blocks? Like?? Calm down, sweet pea, you’re undoubtedly giving Vox exactly what he wants, and that glorified box of static didn’t even have to work for it! The panel on page eleven where we see Alastor mid-step confirms that he is one very lanky boi! I would also like to know how often he glows?? We saw him glow a few times in the pilot, but it doesn’t seem like the light is always there. Maybe the glow is involuntary and is connected to his emotions, such as being overly agitated/excited? Of course, it could just be another intimidation tactic (mission accomplished on that last one, babe, you can stop being a firefly now). Also, I am hecken annoyed on Alastor’s behalf, hE JUST WANTED TO GET SOME FOOD AND NEARLY GOT ATTACKED INSTEAD?? HE LITERALLY DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG?! I know it’s hell, and to be fair, I would probably prefer to be armed against someone who was notorious for being *gestures toward Alastor entering hell and forcing people to take notice of his badassery* Like That, but it’s not exactly good business, now IS IT?! “I want fresh meat, not bubble gum!” Okay, listen...I love this man. A lot. This line? Perfection. Alastor both amused me and gave a perfect description of so many disappointing cuts of meat I’ve had to practically dissect before consuming. 11/10 would trust Alastor to do my shopping. I was NOT expecting Alastor to be so polite?? Even after the butcher clearly makes a move to attack Alastor when his back is turned, Alastor basically just gives a passive-aggressive (and probably very static-filled) warning, lets the incident slide, and thanks the guy for his service?! He even held the door open for the lil sheep bab, I cry!! Too bad the sheep is likely terrified of him now. On that note...the last panel on page fifteen. I am LIVING for that panel. Say what you will, but with consent, I would definitely still smooch the murdeer while he looked like that. It also shows that, contrary to what I had originally thought, Alastor’s ultimate spooky look isn’t just a slightly elongated (and antlered) version of how he looks while crushing Pentious. Apparently his eyes and mouth turn into oozing black voids of death! *cackles* I am so very glad the comic came out before I wrote certain scenes for my fanfics...and I hope Alastor enjoys his meal! >8) This does make me wonder whether complete dismemberment (such as being torn/blown to pieces or having your body squashed) truly kills sinners, as I wouldn’t think this would be all that difficult to accomplish or even all that rare. For example, the guy in the pilot who snatched the drugs from Angel likely got smeared into paste by that falling debris. Is he double-dead now, or will his body veeeery slowly regenerate? If it’s that easy to truly die in hell, why would heavenly weapons be such a big deal? Is it just that they can kill someone with less effort? We really need a list of ways that sinners can permanently die or at least a brief explanation of the rules, it’s one of the few things that’s seriously bugging me!  I’m gonna be rereading this comic for ages, especially since we get so many lovely shots of Alastor. Do I technically have the time to do so amidst work and grad school? No! Am I going to do it anyway? Yes!

[glorious-blackout]

Self-Indulgent Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino/Simulation Theory Crossover Part Five

@rock-n-roll-fantasy Still haven’t settled on a more fitting title than ‘Mark Needs A Hug’ (though my brain keeps coming up with The Shining/Hotel California references) but he does get several of those in this chapter if that helps? 😉 Part Six should be up soon as well! 🥰 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four

**********************************

Mark wakes to find his face half-smushed against his pillow, limbs heavy and sluggish from sleep as his mind clings to the last remnants of a pleasant dream.

An aura of peace lingers like a warm flame as he recalls the circumstances of his fantasy. He’d been sitting on the floor of a modest living room, clad in pyjamas that were too small for his rapidly growing limbs; too entranced by the shiny electric guitar in his hands to make note of his surroundings. It was the exact model he’d been begging for on a daily basis since spotting it in the window of a music store, and had no doubt been living in his parents’ closet for months as they coyly teased him in the run-up to Christmas. Music was playing from a battered old CD player residing on a stacked bookshelf, and he strummed along despite not having the faintest clue how to play a single chord.  

His lack of experience couldn’t have mattered less. Nothing could have broken his contentment in that moment. Not even his mum asking him to “turn the music down, love” so he could pay heed to his other presents had disturbed him from his trance, and Mark had awoken with a pervading sense of peace as the unmistakable melody of The Strokes’ ‘Last Nite’ wormed its way into his brain.

It was one of those dreams that feels more like a long-lost memory than a fiction. One of those subconscious reminders of a simpler past that manages to elicit a smile even when the world at large is falling to pieces. Mark knows this cannot be the case here. He has too many memories of partying his way through the seventies to reconcile those experiences with the notion of being a teenager at the height of The Strokes’ popularity. And yet, the sweet taste of childhood nostalgia is one he appreciates all the same, enough that the thought of waking sends a sharp ache through his heart.

Seeing no obvious reason as to why he shouldn’t slip back into restful slumber, he lets his eyes flutter shut and sighs as he feels his limbs go pliant once more. He can almost taste the sweet embrace of sleep, only for it to be yanked from him once again with a brutal shove. A low whine escapes his throat as a persistent intruder nudges his shoulder, and he swipes a vicious arm in their direction in a wordless protest. His efforts are ultimately feeble, not to mention futile. The nudging continues, now accompanied by the constant repetition of his name, and when his tormenter gives no indication of surrender, Mark is forced to abandon his state of bliss and re-enter the realm of the living.  

He squints, bleary-eyed, at the formless blob hovering over him as he lifts his head from the pillow, flattened hair clinging to one cheek as his brain swims in the wake of his rude awakening. It occurs to him that doesn’t remember how he got here. Judging by his position he must have collapsed face-first at some point in the night - still fully-clothed if the wrinkled cotton of his shirt is any indication - but all memories leading up to that point are absent. He only vaguely recalls receiving a call from Murphy in the evening and senses that it must have dragged on far longer than usual, but he would not be able to describe how the call ended even with a gun to his head. Not that it particularly matters. He’s only grateful for the fact that Murphy must have taken pity on him at some point and let him surrender to his all-consuming weariness.

His vision finally clears following several exaggerated blinks, rendering him somewhat relieved when the humanoid blob morphs into the fretful form of Nick. The man is dressed remarkably casually for someone who likes performing in three-piece suits, and his shoulder-length hair hangs lazily around his face. It takes Mark far too long to realise that Nick’s informal apparel is no doubt related to the fact that he has inadvertently given him several days off from his day-job.

“Hey,” Mark croaks, cringing at how utterly wrecked he sounds as he settles his aching back against the wooden headboard.

“Hey yourself,” Nick replies with a breathy chuckle which does little to mask the concern etched on his face. His outstretched hand is still resting on Mark’s shoulder, as though he suspects he’ll drift off into the abyss again if he dares let go. “I were startin’ to think you were out for the count.”

Mark frowns at that, casting his eye to the bedside table in an instinctive search for his phone, only to find that it isn’t there. He spots it lying neglected on the desk by his computer, too far away to bother checking the time. The room is illuminated by a soft yellow glow as the hanging lights do their best impression of the afternoon sun, and beyond the circular window he can see that the spotlights have bathed the hotel in blinding gold.  

“How long’ve I been asleep?” he asks, rubbing the lingering exhaustion from his eyes and groaning as every movement sends a dull ache shooting through his muscles. No doubt the question will be impossible to answer, given that even he doesn’t know when he slipped into unconsciousness, but Nick may be able to give an indication of how badly he’s overslept at least.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Nick admits with a shrug, before lifting himself from his crouched position and coming to rest on the edge of the bed, his hand finally leaving Mark’s shoulder. “Jamie came by to check on you about eight hours ago, then Matt popped round at lunch. Doesn’t look like you’ve moved much in the meantime.”

Mark frowns. It isn’t like him to sleep so heavily. Usually a single nudge is enough to have him wide awake and alert. He shivers as he envisions two of his best friends waltzing into his suite without him having any recollection of their presence or even of his sleep being disturbed. He trusts Jamie and Matt implicitly of course, but the notion that he has been so dead to the world makes him feel too vulnerable for comfort. Anyone could have swanned in, and by the sounds of it he wouldn’t have so much as shifted in his sleep.

“How’d you get in?” he asks, trying not to sound suspicious and doing a terrible job of it. He tears his eyes away from Nick’s face in shame and decides that tugging on the duvet will be a better use of his time. The fact that he’d awoken with it wrapped snugly around him strikes him as odd. He doubts he’d had the mental faculties to pull it around himself last night. A bittersweet smile tugs at his lips as he pictures Jamie giving up on his efforts to wake him and proceeding to tuck him in instead; the mental image filling him with a strange sense of longing.

When he braves a glance at Nick’s face, he feels fierce heat return to his cheeks as he takes in the man’s confused - almost hurt – frown, and he inwardly scolds himself for planting that expression there.

“You gave us all keys on our first day, remember?” Nick reminds him, extending a hand into the pocket of his jeans and revealing the offending object, complete with shiny silver keyring in the shape of a bass guitar.

“Oh, right,” Mark says lamely, eyes glued to the set of keys as though seeing them for the first time.  

Of course he remembers giving the lads keys to his room. He has copies of all of theirs too, set aside for emergencies. He remembers the painstaking effort it had taken to pick out individualised keyrings, and the delight that lit up his friends’ faces when they received them all those years ago. It just strikes him as odd that the keys have barely seen any use in all that time. They don’t tend to hang out in each other’s suites anymore now that the lads have families of their own, and barring one miserable fortnight where Mark had been holed up with the flu, he’s rarely been in such a state that he’s needed someone to keep a constant vigil over him. If his friends have been driven to this level of fretting, he must truly look horrendous.

When Mark doesn’t say anything else, Nick shoves the set of keys back in his pocket before lifting himself to his feet. Anxiety tugs at Mark’s heart as he half-expects his friend to leave him alone, but it quickly turns to relief when Nick makes his way over to the coffee-machine instead. Good coffee seems like an excellent idea given that for all the sleep he’s had, he still feels utterly bone-weary. At a guess he must have been out for upwards of sixteen hours, yet every muscle fibre in his body is telling him that he won’t be fully sated until he’s been comatose for a week. At least.  

He groans as he sits up straighter, shoving the duvet away from him in the process, and he’s forced to bring a hand to his forehead as a persistent throb settles behind his eyes.  

“Bad hangover?” Nick asks from his perch by the kitchen counter, the coffee-machine giving off a low rumble as it brings the water to boil. Mark can’t help but laugh at the assumption; it’s certainly a fair guess.

“Surprisingly no,” he admits, lowering his hand and pointedly ignoring the way one of Nick’s eyebrows quirks upwards in subtle disbelief. “Haven’t had a drink in four days, believe it or not.”

“Coulda fooled me!” Nick scoffs, and despite the lightness in his tone, Mark can’t help but flinch. His discomfort must not be very subtle, for Nick’s smile drops instantly and he directs his gaze to the floor as though silently ashamed. “Sorry. It’s just... We’ve been worried about you. Me and the lads. It’s not like you to cancel shows without running it by us first, and whenever one of us tries to check if you’re okay, there’s no answer.”

Nick’s tone isn’t accusatory in the slightest, but Mark still wonders if the guilt unleashed by his words will swallow him whole. It’s true. He hasn’t said a word to his friends since he abandoned them after their last show, and even before that he’d been aloof and stuck inside his own head. He’d cancelled all of their upcoming performances without even notifying his bandmates first; no doubt they’d turned up to rehearsals only to be chased away in bewildered confusion by the orchestra’s conductor. And while Mark has barely checked his phone over the past few days, he has noticed several missed calls and unread texts which hadn’t struck him as particularly urgent at the time.  

The others have no idea what’s got him so wound up. They don’t know about Matthew, or the armed guards who came after him, or the cupboard with the flashing red lights in the impossible corridor. For all his thoughts of calling Jamie in the hope that he’ll somehow rationalise those events with logical ease, Mark has neglected that opportunity at every turn.

“I’m sorry,” he says finally, unable to bring his gaze to meet Nick’s for fear the shame will kill him. His voice sounds impossibly small and he feels completely unsure of himself in a way that he never has before. Even the self-consciousness that characterised his youth cannot compete with the crushing uncertainty which consumes him now. “Truth be told, I haven’t really been feeling like meself these past few days. Probably needed some sleep if I’m being honest.”

“Well, you certainly got some of that,” Nick jokes with a fond smile, and a surprised laugh breaks free from Mark’s chest as he shrugs in wordless agreement.  

The coffee-machine finally halts its racket and Nick sets about preparing them both a simple Americano, having correctly assessed that anything more complicated would likely not be tolerated in Mark’s current state. Mark swings his legs over the side of the bed and briefly closes his eyes as a new wave of pain racks his skull, but he greets Nick with a smile when he settles beside him, gratefully accepting the proffered steaming mug in both hands.

They sit in companionable silence for a while, cradling their mugs and blowing off steam before taking careful sips. Mark’s eyes close in satisfaction at the first taste of coffee – prepared just the way he likes it – and while he doubts it’ll achieve the impossible task of revitalising him, he feels a little more human with every sip.

When his mug is half-empty, Nick takes it upon himself to break the silence with a gentle, “Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” Mark admits with a sigh, unable to tell whether he’s being entirely truthful. Telling the whole story is out of the question. He has little desire to leave Nick questioning his sanity, and he doubts he’d be able to explain everything that happened that night in sufficient detail even if he prepared a script beforehand.  

Nick isn’t going to let him get away with saying nothing though, judging by the bemused expression on his face.  

“Fine. I met someone the other night and he just... freaked me out a little,” Mark attempts eventually. That part is true at the very least. “Haven’t been able to get him out of me head since.”

It’s a lame explanation and he knows it. Even if that wasn’t already obvious, the way Nick’s brow furrows in confusion hammers the point home with all the subtlety of a brick smashing through a car windscreen.

“Did you and he...” Nick starts, before thinking better of it as his face becomes alight with flame.

“What?” Mark asks, only for the insinuation to become clear as day with the spreading blush across Nick’s cheeks. “Oh no, definitely not. It weren’t like that.”

No doubt his current state of mind would be less confusing if he and Matthew had simply stumbled into a drunken mistake, but the man’s looming influence isn’t driven by any romantic inclinations. It strikes Mark as odd how easily Nick had accepted the possibility, though he can’t say he minds. He’d almost prefer the prospect of his aloofness being driven entirely by shallow ‘guy problems’. At least there are plenty of words in the English language to describe dilemmas of the heart. In contrast, the explanation “A stranger presented a rather compelling argument for our existence being nothing more than an elaborate, pointless lie before disappearing into a cupboard which no longer exists” is a little less run-of-the-mill, and that’s before you throw in the notion of a boss who may or may not be the mastermind behind the whole sorry affair.  

Huh. Somehow in the midst of his exhaustion, he’d forgotten about Murphy and the smug satisfaction plastered all over his face towards the end of their call.

“Well, whatever happened, he’s clearly left you in a bit of a state,” Nick remarks, oblivious to the turmoil raging within Mark’s head. His voice cuts through the noise and serves as an anchor, returning him to the present, and he can’t quite hide his relief as his mind quietens. “Do you want one of us to have a word with him? Give him a warning shot, perhaps? Matt’s taken up boxing, I’m sure he’d be all for it.”

“Absolutely not!” Mark retorts with a burst of shocked laughter, before descending into a fit of hysterical giggles as Nick indulges in a victorious grin. It doesn’t take long for Nick’s laughter to accompany his own. The prospect of his bandmates collectively ganging up on an unsuspecting Matthew is so ridiculous that the absurdity of it lightens his heart. Though he’s not sure how to explain that if they’re going to beat anyone up, he’d much rather they go after Murphy instead.

“You wouldn’t get the chance anyway. He’s already gone,” Mark clarifies once their laughter has settled. He neglects to mention the unusual circumstances surrounding Matt’s disappearance, settling instead for polishing off his cooling mug of coffee. “And honestly, it weren’t like that. He was a nice guy, all things considered. Just a bit strange. He had a way of getting inside your head and I don’t think he realised he was doing it. Besides, all of this is my fault. I shouldn’t ‘ave let him get to me like that.”

“Right,” Nick says sceptically, no doubt still hoping for something or someone to blame for Mark’s recent state. Mark can sympathise. He imagines he too would be frustrated if he were forced to bear witness to one of his bandmate’s private struggles only to be offered no obvious means of fixing the problem.  

“Seriously Nick, I’m okay,” he insists, turning his body to face his friend head-on and suddenly feeling more sober than he has in days. “Or I will be soon enough. I just... I needed some space. Have done for a long time if I’m being honest. I reckon the other night were just the breaking point.”

He aims for flippancy, but watching Nick’s face fall is enough to inform him that he’s missed the target by a country mile. Concern darkens his friend’s kind eyes and sends guilt coiling in the pit of Mark’s stomach. He’d give everything to wash away Nicks worry; to convince him that he isn’t worth the anxiety his friends are wasting on him. He feels responsible enough for dragging them to this blasted rock in the first place, away from their homes and families and ambitions. Lumping further pain upon their shoulders is simply unforgivable.

“You could have just told us that, you know,” Nick says after a while, not unkindly, and Mark feels his heart ache. He does know. No doubt all three of his bandmates would have leapt at the chance to hijack Murphy on the phone and bully him into offering Mark some time off, but he’d never wanted it to come to that. The running of the hotel and the responsibilities associated with it are his to bear alone. The band is a separate entity entirely - something pure and liberating amongst the daily deluge – and dragging his friends into his messes has never been his intention. Not that his efforts have come to much in the end.  

“I’d miss a million shows if it meant you were okay,” Nick adds when Mark doesn’t say anything, twisting the knife deeper without intending to. “I’m pretty sure the others would do the same.”

Moisture gathers at the corner of Mark’s eyes but he furiously blinks it away. His face is sticky enough with dried tear-tracks, though he can’t remember where they came from for the life of him. Heaving a sigh, he tears his gaze from Nick’s face and rests his head on the man’s shoulder, closing his eyes in quiet contentment. Nick’s frame stiffens for only a moment, before he wraps an arm around Mark’s shoulder and gives him a gentle squeeze.  

This is okay, Mark thinks to himself. Despite the madness of the week, it finally feels as though the lost, fragmented pieces of his identity are coalescing into a coherent whole once again.

“I love you all,” he says without a hint of reservation. “You do know that, right?”

“I dunno,” Nick retorts with a gentle shrug, careful not to shift Mark’s head from its perch. Mark doesn’t need to look at him to sense the gentle, teasing smile on his friend’s face. “You’re usually shitfaced when you say it so I’ve always been doubtful.”

Nick gets a light punch to the side as punishment for his jest, and he laughs before pressing a soft kiss to Mark’s temple.

“We love you too, you daft pillock,” he says, sincerity dripping from his tone like syrup. He hugs Mark closer as though frightened that he’ll slip away if he loosens his hold, and the hand perched on his shoulder starts tracing a path down to his elbow before creeping back up. The action is so soothing that the effects of the coffee instantly vanish, and Mark thinks he could easily drift off again. He wonders if doing so will take him back to that peaceful dream, with the guitar in his hands and a loving family within reach.

They stay like that for a little while; Mark on the cusp of a peaceful doze and Nick doing very little to dissuade him from slipping away. There’s still an unmistakable sense of unease clogging the air – a sense of foreboding that has burrowed its way into every corner of the hotel since Matthew’s disappearance - but Nick’s presence keeps it at bay like a shield warding off demons. No doubt that protection will vanish in the same instant Nick elects to leave, and Mark will be left to fend for himself against unseen monsters lurking in the dark, but for now he can’t remember the last time he was so content.  

He almost finds himself lost in the dream again – can feel the sensation of rough guitar strings dancing beneath his fingertips – but he’s pulled away at the last second by the buzzing of a phone. It isn’t his, though even if it was he wouldn’t be inclined to check it. Nick pulls his own device from his pocket and replies to the message as subtly as he can, but the damage has already been done. Mark opens his eyes and makes note of the softer light outside as the spotlights dim to a soft orange glow in an attempt to simulate an evening sunset. Deciding that he’s wasted enough of the day as it is, he finally lifts his head and stretches his weary limbs with a groan.

“You know what you should do?” Nick says, pocketing his phone and taking advantage of his newfound freedom to rise to his feet, giving the impression of towering over Mark even more so than usual.  

When Mark’s only response is a half-hearted shrug, he goes on: “You should get yourself out of those clothes and go hop in the shower while I make you a very late breakfast. No, I don’t want to hear any complaints, Turner; you reek and something tells me you haven’t eaten a proper meal in days, so I’m not giving you a choice. You’re going to eat what I make you, then you’re going to get dressed up nice, and then we’re gonna meet the lads at the bar so we can all get properly wankered. Sound like a plan?”

Well, that solves the mystery of the buzzing phone. No doubt one of the others has noticed Nick’s extended absence and is attempting to rescue him, all while trying to put a stop to Mark’s reclusive act in the process. It’s ingenious really, and he can’t fault their line of thinking. Part of him can’t help but be wary of returning to the bar given his last visit is what reduced his mind to a frazzled mess in the first place, but knowing the others will be with him lifts his trepidation somewhat. And now that he dwells on it, Nick’s other suggestions don’t sound half bad either. He can’t remember the last time he ate, and a low growl emanating from his stomach implies that his body isn’t best pleased about his neglectfulness. He can’t even recall when he last changed his clothes with any certainty, let alone took a shower. Perhaps some food and a wash will make him feel alive again, or at the very least make a start to the process of resurrecting him from his zombified state.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a genius?” Mark asks, grinning without restraint as Nick releases a bashful laugh topped off with a modest shrug of his shoulders.

“It’s a burden I must bear,” he concedes, his expression settling into one of fondness before his parental instincts take over. “Seriously though. Shower. Now. The more time you waste, the less time we have to get shitfaced.”

Mark doesn’t need to be told twice.  

************************************

The calm before the colossal, world-ending storm lasts all of two hours. Two hours in which Mark manages to wash the sweat and tears from his face under a piping hot shower, before adorning the most casual t-shirt and jeans combo he can find at the bottom of his drawers. Two hours in which Nick thrusts a hastily prepared cheese and ham sarnie into his hands – mocked up from what little food he has in the fridge – and insists that he eats every bite with crossed arms and lips pressed into a stern line. Two hours in which they eventually make their way to the ballroom to meet Jamie and Matt at the bar, where Mark is greeted with a crushing hug from Jamie and an enthusiastic “Welcome back to the land of the living!” from Matt. The latter tops off his greeting with a firm embrace of his own, before ordering the first round of beers with renewed vigour.  

For those blissful two hours, Mark feels as though life is finally returning to normal. The burden of responsibility is temporarily lifted from his shoulders, and he lets himself laugh at his friends’ lame jokes as he downs the first pint and swiftly follows it with another. They must resemble a bunch of teenage holidaymakers who have accidentally stumbled into a high-end establishment – their casual attire clashing with the sharp suits and stylish frocks of the waltzing guests – but Mark couldn’t care less.  

At one point Jamie turns to him with an unvoiced question resting in gentle blue eyes. Palpable concern radiates from him like heat and for a moment the scrutiny is unbearable, but when Mark responds with a genuine smile, Jamie’s worry melts away in a heartbeat as he follows it up with one of his own. A light buzz takes hold after the third pint and Mark’s aware that he’s done little more than smile like a fool all evening, but he cannot bring himself to care. Those two hours are the happiest he can remember experiencing in a long time. A tiny microcosm of perfection that he wishes he could live within forever.

And then the world shudders.

It begins subtly enough. Little more than a low rumble permeating through the air, barely resonating over Nick and Jamie’s spat as they intensely debate over which of them looks better with long hair. Mark is the only one who takes notice as the rumbling begins to rise in volume; brows furrowing as narrowed eyes scan the ballroom in search of the culprit. Nobody else appears to be alarmed. The guests are mostly in the process of getting royally drunk over a dinner of roast beef or venison, and the waiters continue about their business without a trace of panic.  

Only, the sound doesn’t abate with time. With great effort, Mark tries to drown out the surrounding ruckus and closes his eyes to focus solely on the new disturbance. The groan sounds like it’s coming from far away – like a distant car-crash or fireworks display – but the harder he listens, the more it feels like the rumble is creeping towards him from beneath the earth.

“Can you hear that?” he says to no-one in particular, having to raise his voice to be heard over the cacophony of violins and chatter and clinking glasses. Three pairs of eyes turn in his direction – the petty argument momentarily forgotten – but as they listen intently, Mark sees only a growing sense of cluelessness clouding over their features.

“Hear what?” Jamie asks eventually, which strikes Mark as odd, for that persistent groaning has now become so loud that he can practically feel it hammering against his skull.

He draws his gaze to the half-empty pint resting on a coaster before him and watches with detached curiosity as ripples spread across its golden surface. It isn’t just his glass either; the same effect is visible across the entire countertop. It’s little surprise when the faint clattering of glasses joins the growing commotion. Mark looks up towards the bar and sees unopened bottles trembling against each other on the shelves, vibrating in time with the ground which has started to shift uncontrollably. A bottle of scotch topples to the floor with a mighty crash but no-one pays it any heed, and it is soon followed by several priceless bottles of champagne, drenching the floor with booze and fragmented glass.

The low rumble graduates to a deafening roar as the room begins to shudder relentlessly, and Mark lets out a sharp cry before shielding his ears and pulling his head towards his chest. Logic screams at him to get out - to take his friends and run to safety - but whether by fear or something deeper than that, he finds himself immobilised on his chair. It strikes him as odd that nobody else appears to be panicking. The air is alive with the clatter of shattering glass, the rattle of the looming chandelier, the roar of the moon’s underbelly as she protests against those who have desecrated her surface... but not a single scream. No frantic activity or barked orders from level-headed security guards. Not even the chatter which overwhelmed the hall only moments before remains. The room is filled with hundreds of people and yet, as the world trembles around them, they are all as silent as the grave.

Mark included.  

It occurs to him that he hasn’t taken a breath since the ground began to shake and his chest burns in protest, but even the simple act of gulping in air feels like a complex task. He clenches his eyes shut as his heart begins to roar in his ears, but doing so offers little relief. If anything, the sudden blackness makes the situation worse. Imagination runs wild; he pictures cracks snaking up the walls and the floor giving way to the rocky depths below. Envisions ivy crawling through those very same cracks and burying the entire building until it resembles an abandoned ruin on Earth. Envisions the curved ceiling giving way and burying him alive beneath several layers of marble and plaster.

He still can’t tell what’s causing the floor to shake with such ferocity. Can the moon experience earthquakes? The thought is so ridiculous that he finds himself giggling hysterically, but what is the alternative? Unless his perception of time has been drastically altered, the quake has gone on far too long to be secondary to an explosion, and the space station is too far away for any launches to be felt as anything more than a minor shudder.

Hours seem to pass. His skull whines in protest as he presses his hands even tighter against his ears, and a single tear spills from the corner of one eye from the effort it takes to keep them clenched shut. His jaw aches as the shudders grind his teeth together and he can feel acid rise in his throat, his gut protesting against a cruel wave of fear. Everyone else remains eerily silent, even his friends who surely wouldn’t have left without him. He knows he could always open his eyes to check on them, but a burst of terror as he comprehends what he’ll find stops him in his tracks. Instead, he simply remains sitting there, curled up like a frightened child, as his surroundings continue to shatter around him.

And then, without warning, the world becomes a brilliant white behind his eyelids and everything stops. The cacophony reaches its abrupt coda as all sound is sucked through a vacuum. Only his shuddering breaths remain, followed by a desperate sob. The whiteness refuses to abate, and for a moment it occurs to him that he may well be dead. That he might be nothing more than a shattered bag of bones, crushed among the ruins of the very hotel he built from scratch. There’d be a certain poetry in that, he thinks, though the persistent cramping of his muscles and the burning in his chest implies that he hasn’t ascended to ghostly status just yet.

It’s impossible to tell if hours or mere seconds pass. The world is so still, so silent, that time loses all meaning and Mark can feel his mind begin to empty, as though the featureless light is consuming him whole. When small details finally do make a reappearance, they do so slowly. He becomes aware of his elbows digging into the hard oak surface of the bar counter. A glass clinks somewhere off in the distance. He becomes painfully aware of the cool sweat on his brow, and his inability to take in a deep breath without his chest hitching with choked hiccoughs.

The silence is finally broken by a single unprovoked chuckle, followed by a muted wave of laughter echoing across the walls. With the flick of an unseen switch, the usual chatter flares up once more and the violins resume their task of reciting an old Tchaikovsky piece, seemingly unaffected by what has just transpired. With a considerable degree of trepidation, Mark tears his hands away from his head and opens his eyes to face a complete wall of booze with no missing bottles in sight. No glass fragments or wet stains litter the floor. No cracks creep up the walls; no ivy sprouts from the ground. The ceiling above remains stubbornly unmarked, and the chandelier glitters as immaculately as it had on the day it was installed. Casting a glance over the assorted faces around him reveals only unaffected smiles, with no trace of fear or even the slightest acknowledgement of the quake that rocked the ballroom only moments before.  

Even drawing his attention to his friends brings little clarity. Rather than looking as shellshocked as Mark himself, Nick and Jamie have settled for resuming their debate – this time arguing over who looks best in a ponytail – while Matt grumbles something about not being able to grow his hair without sprouting an afro.

The world has elected to carry on as normal, and yet Mark can’t shake the feeling that everything has irrevocably changed. That the very foundations of the ground he walks on are set to crumble at any moment, taking him down in the process.

It’s impossible to keep his breathing under control, and a weak sob rips from his throat as air escapes in frantic gasps. The sound draws Jamie’s attention back to him, and his eyes widen with fear as he extends a hand to rest on Mark’s shoulder with a careful, “Hey, what’s going on?”

The contact doesn’t help in the slightest. Mark tries to answer but his throat seals shut, turning his words into a low whine, and he settles for shaking his head instead. He needs to get out of here. There isn’t enough oxygen in the ballroom and he can feel the weight of the gathering crowd suffocating him, and before he can think twice, he stumbles to his feet and pushes away from the bar. 

That turns out to be a terrible decision. The sudden change in posture has his stomach dropping, and his vision narrows to a fine tunnel before blurring altogether. No doubt the only reason he doesn’t collapse to the floor is because of the hands which appear out of nowhere, holding him upright as his ears drown out a puzzled, “Easy!” followed by a shaky, “Let’s sit you back down mate”. His friends may as well be faceless for all the attention his broken mind grants them.  

It feels like his frayed nerves are dangling by a thread; the cool blades of a scissor resting barely a hairs-breadth away, threatening to sever his sanity with an unfeeling snap.

And then the dam breaks.

The buried chest keeping his memories concealed behind a rusted padlock bursts open. Assorted moments in time spill forth from the wreckage, drowning him beneath their weight like the horrors trapped within Pandora’s Box. Only instead of horrors, his mind is suddenly overcome by melancholic nostalgia and untouchable bittersweet memories.

He remembers sitting by the piano as an eight-year-old boy, trying in earnest to play the tunes his dad loved to listen to on his record-player. He remembers sitting in class, drawing his eyes away from the window in silent awe as the profound beauty of John Cooper Clarke’s writing set up camp in his heart. He remembers listening to The Strokes’ debut album with Jamie and Matt before begging his mum for a guitar, followed by the sheer contentment that consumed him as he strummed his new love by the light of a Christmas tree. He remembers countless shows - from shy appearances in small clubs to major headlining slots at massive festivals - and the thrill of terror and excitement that thrummed through his veins before each one. He remembers all of his loves and all of his heartbreak; remembers how the latter had always been overcome by a pervading sense of joy, as he dwelled on how lucky he was to do what he loved with his best friends by his side.

And he remembers the hotel. Remembers excitedly developing the concept and expanding the world and the characters within it. Remembers crafting the model by hand, carving his creation out of cardboard and wiling away the hours as it slowly came together. Remembers the rush of pride when the model was finally complete. Only he had never intended the hotel to be a real place, and he certainly had no inclination to run it.  

Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino was always intended to be the setting of an album and nothing more. The fact that he’s currently confined within its walls is nothing short of impossible.

He doesn’t acknowledge that his vision has faded to black until colour slowly creeps back from the fringes. A persistent burn lingers in his chest and it occurs to him that he should probably breathe, but doing so only encourages another sob as hot tears spill down his cheeks. He lets himself be manhandled onto a chair without protest, his limbs reduced to jelly, and even when his eyes offer a glimpse of his worried friends gathered around him, all he can focus on is a section of wall directly ahead. A voice breaks through the roar of blood pounding in his head – a panicked “C’mon Mark, you’re scaring me now!” - but he cannot identify its owner, nor can he bring himself to look at his friends closely enough to see whose lips are moving.

A further memory spills forth from the unlocked chest, prompted by the frantic hands holding him in place. The setting appears to be Bonfire Night, judging by the ecstatic burst of colours lighting up the darkening sky and the acrid smoke wafting from the fire in the local park. They’re gathered in one of the lad’s gardens with a stolen pack of fireworks; far too young to be playing with them on their own, but too swept up in the rebelliousness of it all to care about the inherent risk. Jamie and Matt are chasing him around the garden with sparklers in their hands, mindful of the unlit fireworks planted on the grassy lawn, but his younger self decides to push his luck and edges just a little too close. He doesn’t realise his mistake until he trips and falls, taking his sparkler down with him and inadvertently lighting a fuse.  

He clearly recalls the rush of panic and the realisation that he is far too close. All he can do is stare in wide-eyed terror as heat dances along the fuse, threatening to release the firework at any moment and send white-hot sparks of flame in his direction. Before he can brace himself for the exquisite pain however, two pairs of hands grasp his arms and yank him roughly to his feet, dragging him as far back as he can possibly go until he slams against a solid wall. Mere milliseconds later, a burst of sparks erupt from the ground and a high whistle shoots into the air, followed by a stunning explosion of scattered reds and golds.  

They remain frozen for what feels like an eternity, until the panicked silence is broken by a high-pitched “Fuck!” on Matt’s part and the release of hysterical laughter on Jamie’s. All he can remember doing himself is staring up at the sky – eyes fixed on the lingering embers of the firework that nearly melted his face off – and noting at the back of his mind that neither Matt nor Jamie have released their crushing hold on him. No doubt they were experiencing the same aftershocks of terror that were gripping his tiny frame.

Eventually Jamie had let go, and he remembers his ten-year-old friend stepping forwards, donned in a navy-blue tracksuit, before turning to the others with a crooked smile and a shaky declaration of, “That were a close one, weren’t it Al?”  

A similar form of fearful desperation clings to Jamie now, as he crouches by his side. There’s no relief in his friend’s features this time, only panic and an unmistakable sense of frustration borne of cluelessness. It occurs to him that his inhalations are still coming thick and fast and his head is swimming as he sways in his chair and yet, paradoxically, his mind feels infinitely clearer than it has in years.

“Mark?” Jamie asks cautiously, bringing a warm hand to his cheek in an attempt to anchor him. “Wanna tell us what’s goin’ on?”

The utterance of that name sends a flinch shooting through his body, and before he can even think, a hand shoots out and grabs Jamie by the wrist. The man stills, blue eyes widening as they draw level with a determined gaze, and though he can sense Matt and Nick edging closer, he doesn’t dare break eye contact as he utters his next words.

“Alex,” he hisses, chest heaving with the effort required to voice that old, familiar name. “My name is Alex.”

[hoedameron]

but before i go looking in the tags, let’s talk about my latest gifsets!

what a worker bee i was both yesterday and today with prodigal son AND loki <3 never have i created so many gifs in a short amount of time it’s a damn miracle that my photoshop didn’t straight up cough up blood and keel over. alas, us bitches are stronger than that! if this post gets flagged because of the scenes i included....that would just mean that i made the right decision to exclude those scenes ajsdksajkldsa

malcolm stabbing martin

when the episode finally downloaded, i took a peek at the ending before it aired to see how it all ends (just in case it doesn’t get renewed </3). GOSH, was i just in a TIZZY when i saw this happen and i couldn’t tell my dad what i saw because we were straight up watching the show as it aired. anyways, keeping my secret knowledge, i got to work on making this gifset. i missed a huge chunk of the episode bc it took me over TWO hours to make the six gif set. i was really torn on the “artistic” approach aka which scene to gif and which to leave out. because i saw the ending before anything else, i couldn’t play it out loud and i didn’t have my headphones to listen so i was like FREE FORMING THE SUBTITLES. plus the captions weren’t synced up so it was really hard to decipher what was being said :( 

i really thought i would be able to create the set before 9 but i was running into unforeseen issues such as the subtitle problem, which on top of that, like i said earlier, my photoshop is c/racked and janky so....you catch my drift. i was actually going to gif the bisexual moment in the cafe which i think would’ve been MUCH easier but i jumped the gun and wanted to make the gifs of the shocking ending. funny part about that is the shocking part wasn’t even included in my set (malcolm driving the knife into martin) because i felt like the scene was too short...anyways, let’s talk about the positives:

i really do like the coloring of this one. i used a psd that i’ve used before and luckily it’s meant for outdoor scenes with greenery so the gif really popped. sharpening, buddy ole pal, love you sm. the caption was kinda last minute but i hoped to save it with the gradient. cropping was a bitch because for some reason, it takes forever when you’ve made multiple gifs beforehand (cache innit) pero we pulled through! i actually started not saving the psd files to try and save time which is very unusual for me pero i was getting frustrated with photoshop so i was like y’know what....so i just gave up entirely and stopped saving. i do save when i’m taking my time but jeez, it’s a bad habit. i like saving the psd file because i never know if there is a mistake i missed in post and when i go to publish it, it’s blatant and it needs to be fixed. please, save your psd files idc if it takes up space u can just delete them later. IT HELPS !! TRUST ME!!

first & “last” appearance

i actually premade gifs for this gifset! unfortunately, i didn’t realize that three of the five gifs were the wrong size (pictured above) because i flipped the ratio. instead of 268 x 250, i made them 250 x 268. i don’t know HOW i managed to fuck that up but luckily i saved the psd files (wink, wink) so the coloring was still intact. i think i had to restart photoshop or it was getting too late so i picked it back up in the morning. sucks that i had to remake the entire gif from scratch but we will take some wins xx

coloring is the same with the previous gifset (listen....it’s a good coloring) and i actually did have an alternative coloring that was very warm pero i didn’t end up using it. almost melted the two with the “last” appearance of gil but ultimately didn’t go through with it. also i was thinking of using baby malcolm as the first appearance because technically, that IS his first appearance in the show but i was like...just use adult malcolm lol. also i know that scene of dani isn’t the “first” but the first scene she has goes really quick and she is planked by gil so there isn’t much of a solo (even though this scene isn’t much of a solo either pero it’s better than the former). the lighting is weird in this episode and my coloring tried their best :/ i know gifmakers make each gif a diff coloring pero i’m lazy okay and looking to be time effiencent. another slight tangent is that i actually queued the post for the morning but since i woke up to a storm, i was like, i’m here so i’ll publish it myself.

other than that...i didn’t run into any other problem. i was actually hesitant to make the caption that because i wasn’t sure how to really describe the team. i have poor memory so if there was ever an official name, i do not remember it. i did a quick google search pero it turned up nothing. i stuck with “dream team” because, well, that’s what they are. plus i didn’t want to tarnish the gifset with any mentions of p/olice (i was thinking about putting sumn along the lines of ‘the nypd team’) so DREAM TEAM IT IS because it’s true! you cannot have the show without these five! also, i should’ve used quotations on “last” because there is a bunch of talk about a renewal pero...just in case... sorry y’all :/

odinson brothers parallels

this was made in the spur of the moment. i saw that the teaser trailer with shirtless loki dropped in hd, i came A-RUNNING! it was posted like 47 minutes after the fact and i was like...somebody probably already made a gifset of the scene so i was like...gosh, to make the gifset or not all the while i was trying to download the video. trying because again, this was in the middle of a storm so my wifi was acting up and wasn’t at its strongest (whatever that may be). so i was getting frustrated because neither cc nor 4kdownloader was downloading this small one minute clip. that’s when i knew i was gonna be too late to make the loki gifset so i was like whatever ig...

then i had an idea.

i love parallels so luckily it hit me that this paralleled with thor and how his hair got chopped off. so, i knew i had ragnarok downloaded and got to work <3 wasn’t sure what dimensions to use so i went with 268 x 268 to make perfect squares. because the loki scene was short, i could only make three so i was like..okay, i can work with this. three for loki, three for thor, they’re brothers and they share! i wasn’t planning to add subtitles but i had written them down for the plain gifset so i was like alright, we’re going all in. i didn’t take that long to make since again, they’re small gifs and i did have a coloring in mind that i always use for ragnarok (it’s my fave for non-marvel edits as well). there was a slight adjustment to the final loki gif because i realized the gif had that dark fade into the scene which i didn’t know if it was an artistic choice for the show itself or was added for the trailer only (it happens when companies cut a bunch of scenes together and it’s not at all how it actually plays out). i didn’t want to take any chances so i cut those parts out. i know the gifs are short on the loki side pero...that’s just how it is in show business.

thank you so much for listening and hearing me out! i like discussing my work and i try to have pride in them even if the numbers don’t reflect what i hope they would. either way, still learning, still growing, still thinking about buying p.s. like deadass this shit is RIDICULOUS -_- imagine opening up ps and like...it opens up in less than two minutes...shivers

[askthedespairkids]

(P)DK 5th anniversary: A Day in the Life of the Ultimate Barista

//Heyo everyone! Yesterday, December 16th, was the official 5 year anniversary of PDK’s first post! As such, I can think of no better day than to bring you an idea that was proposed a while back of the Ultimate Barista who runs the cafe in the Future Foundation and their experiences serving the members.

//Thank you all for your continue support, I hope you all enjoy this story! Something nice when we’re preparing for the inevitable carnage

You may not know me, but that’s okay. My name isn’t really important. I’m the Ultimate Barista, and I get to run this little café at the Future Foundation. I enjoy a lot about my job. Compared to other branches, it’s a lot less stressful, people always seem happy when they’re in here. Best of all…it’s a total hotspot for couple. I can’t even deny it, I’m a sucker for love, but I’m way too busy to look for anything myself, so I have to take the pleasures in imaging the type of relationship I could have.

…that sounds a little lame. Don’t think too much on that, thank you. The point is, I get to create a paradise where couples get to forget any troubles they have, even if it’s only for an hour. I like to think I have a lot to be proud of. So, for your viewing pleasure, these are the stories of the couples of the Future Foundation.

-Kyouko Kirigiri and Makoto Naegi-

“One black coffee and a milk tea. Enjoy!” I served the drinks to the two. Kirigiri-san and Naegi-kun are the It couple. They’ve been together from the start and it totally shows. I’ve heard Kirigiri-san can be rather strict as a branch head, but I’ve never seen that side of her. Maybe Naegi-kun just relaxes her that much?

I don’t mean to listen in, but I can’t help catching parts of their discussion. “I’m really glad I was able to get this time off. I’m sorry, I feel like I never give you enough of my time.” Kirigiri-san apologised. Ah…I suppose being the boss of a branch would give you little free time.

“I don’t mind. I still get to see you after work and in the morning. I know you’re giving it your all, so I’m super proud of you. Don’t feel bad for doing your job.” Naegi-kun put a hand on Kirigiri-san’s and I genuinely have to stop myself from reacting because these two just have the purest form of love and I just wanna support them so much.

“Y-yes, thank you.” There it is! The infamous Kirigiri-san blush! Ahhhhh, I’m so happy I got to see her happy like this! I hope whoever I fall in love with can make me blush like that. They go to sipping on their drinks, but they looks they give each other warms me more than any kind of coffee or tea could ever hope to.

“Also, your birthday is coming up. Is there anything you can think of that you’d want?” Naegi-kun asked. I glanced up at the calendar as if I actually knew when Kirigiri-san’s birthday was. That was stupid of me.

“You don’t have to get me anything, Makoto. I tell you every year that it’s not necessary.” She replies, taking a sip from her coffee, “Honestly, I think I’d like to relax this year. Though that might be too much to ask for.”

“If that’s all you want, then I’ll figure something out.”

“What?” Kirigiri-san’s eyes widened. “Makoto, I can’t just take the day off because it’s my birthday-“

“Then we can ask for help. Maybe Sonia will be up for taking over for the day?” Naegi-kun suggested. Kirigiri-san looked at him, clearly unsure, “Look, Kyouko, you’ve been working harder than anybody else. You deserve a day off to enjoy your birthday. It’s not selfish to look after yourself, and nobody is going to get mad at you for it. You know you can count on us to help you.”

Kirigiri-san drummed her fingers on the table and let out a defeated sigh, “I really can’t argue with you when you’re like this. Alright then, I’ll talk to Sonia about it next time I see her.”

“I’m looking forward to your birthday then.”

Kirigiri-san smiled softly as she took another sip of her coffee, “as am I.”

A black coffee girl and a milk tea boy. A match made in heaven, clearly.

-Mondo Oowada and Kiyotaka Ishimaru-

Have you ever served two black coffees to two polar different people before? It’s odd. Despite now different Oowada-kun and Ishimaru-kun are, they have the exact same order. Maybe that’s another kind of match made in heaven? Different from Kirigiri-san and Naegi-kun, but still totally perfect.

They thank me and I head back behind the counter and start cleaning the machinery. It’s literally only me and them in the café at this time in the morning, so I promise I can’t help overhearing them.

“Are you annoyed at me?” Oowada-kun asked. Uh oh. I think I’m about to hear something I shouldn’t.

“Of course, I am. I cannot believe you left your underwear lying around like that again!” Ishimaru-kun scolded. Oh god, I really shouldn’t be hearing this! He’s got such a loud voice, I’d probably hear him even if I was in the back.

 I know you can’t hear someone blush, but from the sound Oowada-kun made, he clearly wasn’t happy about him saying it so loudly in public. “L-look, I didn’t realise they missed the basket otherwise I would’a put them in. Just…q-quit yelling about it.”

“Also, how long have you owned that leopard print pair? You should look into asking the Ultimate Tailor to make you some new underwear.” Ahhhhh why must I be subjected to this?!

“I will, but can we please not discuss my…underwear in public?” He lowered his voice, presumably looking over at me. Just stare at the machinery. Don’t acknowledge what you hear and act like all is normal.

“I just worry about your habits. If you don’t look after your environment, you might forget to look after yourself. A-and I know that seems like a stretch, but in these uncertain times-“ The poor guy was just worried, clearly. Ugh, it’s a shame. A lot of people are probably feeling that way about their friends and lovers.

“I hear you. I promise you; I’m looking after myself. You don’t gotta worry so much about me, Taka. I’d never wanna do anything that would make you worry.”

“Yes. Yes, you are right. Apologies, Mondo.” I turned back and saw them holding hands across the table. I never used to see Oowada-kun as much for affection, but it seems even he has a soft side when it comes to Ishimaru-kun. I hope whoever I fall in love with will be comfortable enough with me like these two are with each other.

Two black coffee boys. Another match!

-Sonia Nevermind and Gundam Tanaka-

“One orange juice and one espresso shot!” I set down the drinks for Sonia-san and Tanaka-kun in that respective order. The two glances at each other before swapping drinks…huh?

The princess ordered the espresso? No, it’s more surprising that Tanaka-kun ordered orange juice. “S-sorry about that! E-eheheh…”

“Not at all. The cafeteria get it confused as well. Thank you for the drinks.” Sonia-san smiled radiantly. Ugh, I can’t believe Tanaka-kun is getting to date a princess. It’s like something out of a manga…I let them get to their drinks. I’m not even gonna lie…these two are such a good-looking couple. I love Tanaka-kun’s dark aesthetic and he’s got such a handsome face and Sonia-san is just the dictionary definition of beauty. I can’t even decide who I’m more jealous of…maybe the other couples that have to compete with models like these two…

“Did you enjoy the movie I loaned you?” Sonia-san asked. Awww they even loan movies to each other? I bet it’s something cutesy if Sonia-san gave it out. “Which kill was your favourite? I personally thought the most creative was the shotgun carousel.” …huh? Did she say kill?

“Keheheh! You think I would feel a need to even rank such ruthless acts mortals in such a film? There was no such need.” He replied. D…did it not just sound like he didn’t watch it and dodged the question?! Does Tanaka-kun not like horror movies? Th-this seems really backwards all of a sudden.

“Ahhh, I understand. You could not pick a favourite.” You misinterpreted! You definitely misinterpreted that! “It is your turn to pick a movie next. Luckily, I have time to watch it with you this time. What were you thinking?”

“I have found a tale of lost soulmates who reconcile at a festival after being away from their domains for an eternity! They begin to rekindle what they lost and deal with the difficulties along the way!” Tanaka-kun described. But…doesn’t that sound like some cheesy romance movie?! It’s totally backwards, what’s with you two?!

“Ah, it sounds delightful! I always enjoy the movies you give me so much. Such beautiful stories, they bring a tear to my eye when I watch them. Since this will be the first time, we get to spend the night together in a while, I’ll make sure to grab some kind of snack. I’m sure I can convince Teruteru to let us have something.”

They don’t get to hang out much? That’s…kind of sad. I don’t think Sonia-san would let Tanaka-kun stay in a room with her because of her status as a princess. Are these rare nights really all these two get? I feel sorry for them. But even if they don’t spend much time together, they seem so close. Maybe it’s because of their schedules that they get that much more excited at the chance of getting to spend a movie night together.

And…even if they aren’t how I thought they were, they seem to complement each other well. I didn’t think a girl who orders espresso in the afternoon would get along so well with a guy who orders orange juice, but maybe I should revaluate my drink compatibility chart…

I hope whoever I fall in love with will compliment me like these two do.

-Junpei Yokozawa and Orochi Kamisaka-

I don’t know what to do about this situation. Yokozawa-kun came in all groggy looking and without ordering, he slumped into a seat and passed out with his head on the table. I tried to wake him, but he was unresponsive. Still alive, at least.

I waited around for a few minutes before Kamisaka-kun rushed in, looked at Yokozawa-kun with relief before walking up to the counter. “Hey, can I get a double shot of espresso and a caramel latte with oat milk?”

“Yep. Coming right up.” I said, getting to work, “did he have a night shift or something?” I nodded to the passed-out boy. Kamisaka-kun looked back at him and laughed a little.

“No. He was up all night of his own accord. I woke up to a note saying to meet him here before our shifts. Honestly, I worry about him staying up all night but I’m such a heavy sleeper that I don’t even realise whenever he stays up. Makes me feel a little neglectful in the morning.” He scratched the back of his head awkwardly as he explained the situation. Huh. So Yokozawa-kun was going through something like that? It looks like it has taken a toll on Kamisaka-kun too…

“Have you considered asking the 4th branch for some sleeping medication?”

“There’s a priority list, and he volunteered to go lower on the list so others with sleeping problems could get medication before him.”

“That’s…really selfless.” I said, rather stunned. Yokozawa-kun always seemed rather irritable but maybe he’s always just been tired. “It feels wrong to wake him up when he’s just fell asleep.”

“I know. I’ll let him sleep for a bit and wake him up before we have to leave for our shift. He’d get more angry if I let him sleep through the time he’s supposed to work.” Kamisaka-kun said. I finished the drinks and handed them to Kamisaka-kun.

“I hope it goes well. Keep up the good work, both of you.”

“Thank you. You as well.” Kamisaka-kun smiled and went to sit next to Yokozawa-kun. He brushed the hair out of Yokozawa-kun’s face and smiled with so much admiration it made my heart skip a beat. Yokozawa-kun’s…kind of incredible. I didn’t even know. And Kamisaka-kun supports him so much and sees him in a way others never could.

…I really want my future partner to look at me the way Kamisaka-kun looks at Yokozawa-kun.

-Kaede Akamatsu and Maki Harukawa-

This was…an interesting pair. Akamatsu-san was a fan of herbal teas, whilst Harukawa-san took her tea with milk and lots of sugar. I call it baby tea. Not on the menu, but definitely in my head. Despite her cold looks, she actually might have a cute side? Maybe I shouldn’t ask about it.

“How’s your tea?” Akamatsu-san asked brightly.

“It’s fine. It’s always good, you should know that by now.” Harukawa-san said back, completely monotone. Seriously, where was the chemistry with these two? Relationships with no passion make me sad. Or ones where it seems like only one person is really interested.

“Are you looking forward to getting to train today? Naegi-san is going to be joining us this time!”

“I suppose, though for some reason, seeing that idiot with a student annoys me.”

“I guess he does pay a lot of attention to her whenever we’re all together. It can be hard to learn when he focuses so much on Naegi-san. Though that’s not really her fault.”

“I know that, obviously. Besides, even if he doesn’t pay me much attention, I know you’ll always be looking at me. You make it way too obvious. It’s like a creepy old man leering at a teenager.”

“H-hey! I’m not leering!” Akamatsu-san protested. Was…that meant to be Harukawa-san’s version of a compliment? I feel like if I got told that, I would get pissed off. The again, Harukawa-san doesn’t come across as someone who readily says what they’re feeling. Could it be she still has troubles being honest about her emotions?

“Heh. You know how to get worked up easily, huh?” Harukawa-san smiled. Huh? She smiled? All of a sudden…don’t they seem like an actual couple? Where the heck is this energy all the other times, I’ve seen them? Could it be that Harukawa-san is actually getting more comfortable with having a relationship because of Akamatsu-san?

“At least I can make you smile. I don’t mind how, as long as I get to see it.” Akamatsu-san smiled back. Harukawa-san grunted and blushed.

“Shut up. Do you wanna die?” She’s still super scary to me though. If I have a lover…I hope they don’t ask me if I want to die.

-The Saga of Sly-

I don’t get it. This is a hotspot for couples, but this guy…this guy, Sly-kun. Why have I seen him in here with so many different people?! First time was with Watanabe-san! Then he came in here with Ikusaba-san, and then Naegi-san! And even that boy, Katayama-kun!

I don’t get it…which one is he dating? Is he dating all of them? But I never see any of those other people come in together. Could it be…he’s cheating on one with all the others? Or cheating on a completely different person I haven’t seen yet?!

“Excuse me!”

“Ah, sorry!” I apologised turning to find Otonashi-san with…him. “What can I get you two?” Thank god for my flawless customer service smile.

“Ooo, I think I’ll get a frappe. Cappuccino for you?” Otonashi-san turned to Sly-kun. He mulled over the options in front of him.

“Yeah. That’ll do. I’m gonna head to the bathroom, be back in a minute.” He said before heading around to the bathrooms.

Otonashi-san turned back to me and smiled apologetically, “sorry. I’m not what he’s done, but I promise he didn’t mean it.”

“H-huh? What do you mean?”

“I can tell when a smile is faked, even if you try your hardest to hide it. Don’t worry, I know a lot of people don’t like Sly-kun, but he’s actually a really nice guy once you get to know him.”

I frown, “It’s just…I see him in here with a lot of different people all the time. You’re, like, the 5th different person. Just…it’s because this is a couple’s hotspot and he and the people he comes with always look a little…well, couple-ish.”

Otonashi-san laughed, to my surprise. “Oh, it’s a misunderstanding. See, I’m Sly-kun’s girlfriend. All those others are just his friends. Though…I suppose I can understand where the confusion comes from. I think a few of them are definitely into him.”

“That doesn’t bother you?”

“I can’t control their feelings towards him, you know? And they’re all friends. I can’t just tell him to stop being friends with people because they might have feelings for him. And no, it doesn’t bother me.”

“You’re…pretty understanding.” I finished off the drinks and handed them to her.

“Thanks, I always try to be. Who knows though? Some of Sly’s friends are cute so I don’t think I’d mind, if the option came up.” Otonashi-san picked up the drinks and left for a table before I even had the chance to ask what she meant by that. A few moment later, Sly-kun came back and joined Otonashi-san at the table.

Watching them, I think I kind of understand him a little more. Even if he’s close with those other people, I can tell from the way he’s acting with Otonashi-san that she’s the one he’s really in love with. Otonashi-san knows that too.

Maybe I should be more careful making assumptions on people’s relationships.

-Leon Kuwata and Mikan Tsumiki-

It’s awkward. Painfully awkward. I’ve never seen these two together before, so I don’t even think they’re a couple. Are they even real friends? Why are they here if they aren’t even speaking? Kuwata-kun likes to flirt, I think most people in the foundation are aware of that much by now, but I’ve never seen him so quiet when he’s brought someone here for, presumably, a date.

Then again, is it even a date? Is it maybe another misunderstanding? Tsumiki-san is quiet on a good day, so I can’t imagine what reason she’d have to agree to join Kuwata-kun. It’s just not adding up at all.

“Um…so! H-how’s your drink?” Kuwata-kun asked, nervously scratching the back of his neck. Oh god, it’s painful.

“O-oh! It’s good. Th-the barista is always so good with my drink.” Tsumiki-san replied, taking a sip of her herbal tea. Not to drink-shame anybody, but I don’t understand people who enjoy herbal teas. Blech.

“Right? They’re super good here. Do you like to hang out here a lot?”

“Usually only if I wake up early before a shift. I worry about the effects the caffeine has on my sleeping patterns, but I can’t help myself to their coffee.” Tsumiki-san smiled a little as she spoke. Good, seems they just needed to get the ball rolling a little.

“I know what you mean. Sometimes I get too jittery when I have coffee though, and it makes it hard to focus.”

“R-really? Have you been drinking enough water lately? Since coffee is a stimulant, it causes jittering, and it can be worse if you have anxiety, but drinking plenty of water and even taking a walk can help with it.” Tsumiki-san rambled all that out, I’m not sure I even caught it all.

However, Kuwata-kun seemed to be hanging onto each word, “Whoa, seriously? I never knew all that.”

“A-ah, sorry! Sometimes I start explaining things unnecessarily!” Tsumiki-san covered her mouth, blushing at herself.

“No, no! It was cool! I don’t really know much about medical stuff and how shit affects the body, so I think that it’s kinda awesome you know so much about it. Then again, you’re a nurse so I suppose it’s expected…” Kuwata-kun said.

“You…really don’t mind?”

“Nah, I figure I could probably benefit from learning some stuff like that, y’know? Even though I’m an athlete, I don’t actually know much about how to take care of myself. Dieting and all that shit.” Kuwata-san admitted. Is that really something an Ultimate Baseball Pro should be saying?!

“Y-your coach never spoke to you about it? Or maybe a team manager?”

Kuwata-kun looked away, blushing a little, “I…may have skipped out on those days.” He said. Seriously, he’s an Ultimate and he doesn’t even take it seriously, you piss me off! “Although, if you were my team manager, I might’ve turned up to listen. My team manager was my cousin though, so…”

“Ehehehe…it m-makes me happy to hear that…w-wait, your cousin?”

“Long story.” Kuwata-kun held up a hand to stop that line of questioning. I watched the two chatter away over nothing until it was time for Tsumiki-san to leave. Once she did, Kuwata-kun stayed behind a little while longer and stared at where she was sitting, a smile creeping on his face.

I’ve seen Kuwata-kun flirt with a lot of people, but this seems really different to all those other times…maybe he’s finally found someone worth pursuing for real. A blooming romance between an unexpected pair. I’ll be rooting for you two! Keep it up!

--

I let out a sigh as I finished mopping the floor. Sometimes I forget how hard trying to run this café is when I’m basically doing it single handily, even if it’s pretty small. It’s been a slow day as well, barely anybody has come in today, never mind any couples.

I know it’s creepy to be couple-watching this much, but…I dunno, I think I like living vicariously through them. It’s like…if I’m not in a position to go looking for love, I wanna support the couples in the ways my skill set lets me. Even if that’s limited to a safe haven for dates.

“Ah, so this is the infamous café.”

“Hm?” I looked up as a girl walked in. She wore a tanned trench coat over her Future Foundation uniform. Her brunette hair sat at her shoulders in waves and her eyes were only a few shades darker. Oh god, she’s gorgeous.

“Sorry! Are you closed?” She asked.

“H-huh? Oh! No! No, we’re open! W-we’re kind of almost open.” I sat the mop against the wall and put out a wet floor sign before retreating behind the counter, “can I get you anything?”

“Can I get…a caramel macchiato? Oh! With almond milk if you have that.”

“We sure do!” Oh shit, our orders are almost identical. Is that her usual order? “I have to say, I know almost every face in the Foundation, but I don’t think I’ve ever spotted you before.”

“Oh, I’m new here. I just got transferred from the Hokkaido base. Heard all about this place, and decided it was worth checking out. Haven’t been to a café in years, y’know? Not exactly an option nowadays.” She said.

“Yeah, yeah. I get you. Luckily, you have this little heaven, as I call it, so feel free to come whenever you want.” I smiled my best genuine smile and she smiled back. I made her drink and dug a pen from my pocket, “your name?”

She laughed a little, “my name? I didn’t realise this was Starbucks. Also, don’t think there’s anybody else here to get me confused with.” She looked around the empty room.

“Y-yeah…um…m-maybe this is just my way of wanting to know your name?” I tried to keep my cool, but I’m probably super red right now.

She laughs again, “Okay, sure. Otsuka Minako. Minako is spelled with the characters for ‘beauty’ and ‘apple tree’.”

“And then ‘child’, I’m guessing.” I said. Her name literally has the character for ‘beauty’. “Here’s your order, Otsuka-san.”

“Thank you. Will I be getting your name as well?” She asks.

“You can call me Haru. Ito Haru.” I say.

“Ito-san then. I’ll be seeing you around then?”

“As long you come back here, you’ll find me.” I said.

“Then I’ll be back at some point. Goodbye for now.” Otsuka-san smiles at me one more time before leaving the café. I put my hand over my beating heart. Oh my god. I really had an interaction like that…and it went well? She said she’ll be back? Does she like me?

Oh god…I love my job.

[takonei]

Beta AU - Main story, Chapter 4, deadly life (Part 1)

Note of the author: Place your bets, because these are confusing times.

Also, I’ll be back to college in a few days so I’ll take longer to write chapters and I’m not hoping for a 2nd quarantine to help me with this.

Chapter 4: Dance, dance, hanged puppets - Deadly life

...

Huh?

Everyone looked at each other in confusion.

"Why... Did the body discovery announcement play?" Shuichi asked.

Ryoma glanced at everyone. "We're all here. No one else died."

Kokichi looked down. "I don't get it..."

Rantaro stared at Tsumugi's body with regret. "... The body discovery announcement played for Tsumugi but..." he clenched his fists. "Why...? No one else did this. Monokuma killed Tsumugi, we saw it for ourselves. There's no class trial to hold."

Shuichi nodded. The canon... The explosion... Tsumugi's last words...

"I knew the mastermind... was coming f-for me anyway..."

...

Did they have to find out who the mastermind was?

But still... Monokuma executed Tsumugi. Not the mastermind themselves. And Monokuma was very adamant with the rules.

"... Only the person who does the final blow is the blackened!”

And the one who did so is Monokuma.

Nothing made sense. Why-

The black and white bear appeared before their eyes.

"My! My! This class trial promises to be very interesting!"

Rantaro immediately shouted at him. "You executed Tsumugi! There's no trial to hold!"

The bear laughed. "Puhuhuhuhu! Very interesting indeed!"

He took a step back to make sure everyone could see him.

"You see, I cannot let the blackened get away as if they were spotless. Someone killed four eyes and this trial is about them!"

Kaito yelled. "What the fuck are you saying?! If I'm the blackened who killed Keebo only because of a maintenance mistake, why would anyone else other than you could be considered the blackened here??"

"Puhuhu! Puhuhuhuhu! That's for you to find out!" The bear reached for a cocktail out of... Who knows at this point. "I shall give you the Monokuma file. After a certain amount of time has passed, a class trial will begin!"

Shuichi's monopad vibrated. He took it to read the information given.

Monokuma file #4

The victim is Tsumugi Shirogane, the ultimate prodigy.

The body was discovered behind the main building.

The estimated time of death is 3:05 PM.

The victim died from an execution.

Obtained truth bullet! Monokuma file #4

... This didn't help them in the slightest.

Before he realized it, the bear disappeared.

What on earth was going on?

Why did they have to go through this again? What was the point?

Did they have to find the mastermind?

Was this going to be their last trial?

Nothing made sense. Shuichi's head hurt.

Rantaro's grip on his monopad was so strong that Shuichi wondered if he was going to break it. But more importantly...

That intense glare was back. Aimed at the Monokuma file.

He instantly got a chill down his spine.

Miu nervously looked at him. "What are we supposed to do...?"

The medic closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Isn't that obvious?"

"We need to investigate."

Kokichi waved his hands. "But for what? There isn't even a real blackened! We can't solve a murder if there is nothing to solve!"

"I don't make the rules. If Monokuma said we could investigate, then we have to do this. Besides..."

"If we don't, we'll end up like Tsumugi."

Kirumi took a step forward. "And do you have any idea how we should investigate this?"

He pondered for a moment.

"... I don't know. Just search every single corner of the academy. We don't even know what we have to find so we don't have a choice."

Kaito blinked. "All the academy??"

Ryoma crossed his arms. "Obviously the main spots and the buildings only. Anything could be a clue here."

Kirumi fiddled with a lock of hair. "It would be wise to group by two and search the labs."

Rantaro starred at Tsumugi's corpse. "... As much as I hate this, an autopsy would be a waste of time. We saw how she died. I think the mystery resides somewhere else."

"So? How do we proceed?" Kiyo asked.

They created the groups. For now, Shuichi and Kaito would be together to investigate Gonta's and Kaito's labs.

Shuichi had no idea what to do. What to think.

He thought back at her words.

She... knew the mastermind was coming to get her?

Did perhaps the mastermind set everything up so she would die?

But... Why? What did she do?

He grabbed the notebook and opened it.

Unfortunately, he realized how packed the text was. Giant blocks of text on almost every single page.

He starred at the text with wide eyes.

"What is that?" Kaito asked.

"It's... Tsumugi's notebook. She gave it to me but... I don't think it will help us. She explained that it was her deductions about the killing game so I don't think we'll get anything useful here. Besides..."

He showed the notes to Kaito, whose eyes widened.

"... I think I get it."

Shuichi shoved the notebook back into his pocket. The investigation was so unorganized, and they had very little time. Now wasn't the time to read blocks of theories.

The two reached Kaito's lab.

"You know..." he started. "I saw some of my tools in weird places when we got the bat. I didn't think much of it but perhaps it will help us."

They entered the small building. The biker immediately got into the back of the lab, where all his tools were stocked.

Shuichi tried to search through his stuff as well, but he knew so little about mechanics that it was hard to distinguish the usual from the unusual.

"Hey, Shuichi?"

The violinist turned to him. "Yes?"

"The welder was used. I don't know for what, but used at some point, not by me."

He approached the engine.

"I never leave it like this. You have to replace those parts each time you use it. I always do it before putting it back." Kaito explained.

"That's strange..."

Obtained truth bullet! Used welder

He pointed at the shelves of tools. "Also I don't remember how I placed exactly all of them, but some of them look fishy."

The two went through the tools.

"What the hell?"

Shuichi turned back to him.

"Some of my wire cutters have marks on them! Even the biggest ones! And-"

He took one of them and fiddled with it. "... This one's broken."

Obtained truth bullet! Broken wire cutters

... What the hell happened here?

The two left the lab.

Now was time to go to Gonta's lab. Perhaps they would find something.

The lab seemed pretty clean. They looked around and started going through the drawers. Although nothing seemed to be of use.

The two left the lab. But just as they were about to decide what to do next, something fell, causing a loud noise.

A piece of the roof from Kaito's lab fell, knocking a barrel over.

Kaito sighed. "I don't need my lab collapsing."

He approached the barrel to put it back in place but...

"Huh?"

He opened the lid. "What even is that?"

Shuichi approached him to take a look.

Several wood bars were inside. Some of them were long, some were small. But they looked too polished to be branches.

Obtained truth bullet! Wood pieces

"I don't remember putting... Whatever that is here." Kaito frowned.

The violinist couldn't even begin to put a finger on what happened.

He pondered for a moment. "Kaito... Do you mind if we go to the love hotel for a second?"

The biker blinked. "... Phrasing?"

"You know what I meant."

The two made their way here. Somehow the abnormal amount of weapons was still laying around.

"Sheesh, what happened here?" Kaito asked.

"We activated a trap with Kiyo this morning and this is what happened."

A trap, huh...

Perhaps he should keep this moment in mind.

Obtained truth bullet! Diverse projectiles

As they approached Kiyo's lock, Shuichi noticed the burn marks on the ground. Exactly where the cables had gone crazy earlier.

What even was the deal with them?

Obtained truth bullet! Exploded cables

Kaito looked around. "I would have gladly tried to analyze this mess but everything is completely destroyed. I can't do much."

"It's alright. I just needed to see this one more time." Shuichi shook his head.

The two made their way to the main building, where they found Kirumi and Ryoma.

"Kaito, since you're here, mind giving me a hand?" the smaller one asked. "Mechanic stuff."

"Sure. Did you find anything else weird?"

"There's a lot to cover." He turned to the mercenary. "I'll leave the rest of the investigation of the main building to you and Shuichi, alright?"

"Understood."

The two mechanics walked away.

Shuichi turned to Kirumi. "Are you okay? You got knocked out back then, didn't you?"

She shook her head. "I don't feel pain, remember? Besides the exisal didn't want to kill us. For some reason."

The violinist nodded.

"There's something I don't understand though." she took out her monopad, turning it on. "The rule 9 states that 'Monokuma will never directly participate in a murder.' But if we have a class trial, that means Tsumugi's death is considered a murder. And yet I think we all remember how everything turned out."

That was more than strange.

Obtained truth bullet! School regulation #9

"Monokuma is very strict with his rules... Why would he break them?" Shuichi wondered.

Kirumi shook her head. "I do not have a single clue."

The two looked at the main entrance, still blocked by the countless debris.

"Ryoma told me that the entrance collapsed when they turned the handle of the door. They heard something exploding and rushed out of the way." she explained.

"Either way it completely forbade us from entering this way..."

Obtained truth bullet! Main entrance door

Kirumi sighed. "Monokuma doesn't want to get the rubble away so we'll have to enter the main building via the pool area."

Shuichi pondered for a second. "Before we get inside, can we go to the dining hall?  I didn't get a chance to see what happened exactly in here..."

"If you wish to."

The two made their way to the dining hall.

As the two described this morning, many spears and iron bars blocked the door. After trying to move them, Shuichi quickly realized that it would be useless.

Obtained truth bullet! Sealed dining hall

He looked at the lock on the side and the wires linking it to the ceiling.

"Did you realize anything?" she asked.

Shuichi wrapped his fingers around a wire and pulled on it.

"What are you-"

To Shuichi's surprise, the cable was lighter than he thought. But before he knew it, the end of the wire fell from the ceiling.

"... I don't know what I expected." he stared at the object, confused.

"Hold on." Kirumi approached him. She took the end of the cable in her hand. "That thing was cut."

The violinist frowned, approached the other cables and pulled them. All of them fell down.

He went down to take a look and all of them were hastily cut off.

"What on earth..." Kirumi muttered.

Obtained truth bullet! Cut off wires

The two looked at each other.

"Let's just... Move on to inside the building. Who knows if there are other broken wires elsewhere." the mercenary suggested.

"Agreed."

After making their way to the pool area, they noticed Miu on the window platform. She immediately turned to them. "Kirumi! I need your help!"

She approached the rope and started climbing. "What is it?"

The street artist pointed at the top of the window. "Well... I tried to see what made the window unmovable but... I gotta admit I don't want to cut myself with glass shards and I'm uh..." she gestured at her entire body. "I don't exactly have anything to protect myself. Besides, you're taller than me and I can't reach for the top."

Kirumi pulled her sleeves on her hands and inspected the window. After a moment, as she passed her covered hand nearly on every border, she frowned. "Something feels wrong here."

She tried to inspect a little further a certain spot. "It feels like those parts are joined together. Shouldn't it be separated for it to open?"

Obtained truth bullet! Non-functioning window

Miu approached her hand after Kirumi assured her it was safe. "... Yeah, those parts shouldn't be together... I think?"

"It's definitely strange. But did we ever use that window? Perhaps it was never meant to be opened." the mercenary suggested.

Shuichi shook his head. 'Why would there be a handle then?"

Miu shrugged. "Well, clothes designers put fake pockets on girls' pants and we stopped questioning it. People do a lot of useless stuff for aesthetics and mild inconveniences."

Shuichi put a finger on his chin. "I still feel like we should keep that in mind."

The street artist grabbed the rope hanging in the gym and started climbing down. "Whatever. I'll investigate the building."

The boy climbed up the rope to join Kirumi. It was a bit hard to do so, but he was still able to with the help of the young woman.

The two entered the gym, mostly untouched by the fire. There were still rubbles in some places.

... Now that he thought about it, the violent quakes were not here before today. He wondered if they were normal, but now he wasn't so sure. They all appeared after a lock activated. Never at any other point of time.

Obtained truth bullet! Earthquakes

Kirumi and Shuichi started walking. The burnt smell was invading the entire building, and the air was heavy. Probably from the extinguished fire. Thankfully there was no dangerous smoke.

The more they walked through the corridor, the more broken cables they noticed, either hanging from the ceiling or on the ground.

Obtained truth bullet! Hanging wires

"... This place gives even more of an eery vibe than usual." Kirumi noted.

Shuichi nodded. But it was to be expected from a building that survived a fire.

What even caused the fire? They all knew that aside from the candles on the fourth floor, no one was able to create fire.

Especially after...

No. Now wasn't the time.

"Considering what happened I doubt my lab will be worth searching." Kirumi pondered. "I have a feeling we should try to retrace where Tsumugi went, perhaps that will help us to see where the fire came from."

Shuichi had his doubts but accepted. He could still look into her lab later.

They made their way to the third floor, where Tsumugi should have been.

On the second floor, however, Kirumi seemed to have noticed something. "Look."

She sat down near a dark pink stain on the ground, near the wall. She touched carefully, but her fingers were clean.

"This is dried blood. I'm sure of it." she explained.

"Perhaps Tsumugi was shot by a trap? Rantaro mentioned her being injured in the leg..."

The mercenary shook her head. "No. It must have been here for at least a few hours."

For a few hours?

Obtained truth bullet! Dried blood

That was... Strange. But then again, he hasn't stepped into the main building since he went to Tsumugi's lab yesterday morning. Perhaps things happened that he wasn't aware of.

After going up the stairs to the third floor, they entered Miu's lab, which was the nearest. The street artist was already there.

"Did you find anything?" Shuichi asked.

Miu shook her head. "Nothing. I mean I'm searching through here but for now, I'm stuck."

She crossed her arms. "I mean, there's not a lot of stuff to go through here. Ever since the third trial I... got myself a lock from the warehouse and some keys to lock the paint lab. And I put pretty much all my stuff in there."

The street artist took an iron key and unlocked the door. There was a lot more stuff in here than Shuichi saw the first time. All her tools were here, from the products, the stepladder, the different kinds of paint, the buckets, and everything that could be moved.

Obtained truth bullet! Miu's lab

She sighed. "Why do we have to do this? Tsumugi was... She was executed..."

Shuichi winced. "... I don't know."

Kirumi stayed silent for a moment. "If we give up now, we're done for."

The two turned to her.

"Don't get me wrong, I find this situation extremely confusing but... Between us, haven't you realized today was odd?"

Shuichi looked at Miu. "I mean... I did find some things odd... Like the pattern for the traps had changed..."

"Yeah! Nothing activated unless we did it ourselves! But those traps were even more dangerous than the last days!"

The violinist perked up. "Do you think... It has something to do with Tsumugi's death?"

The mercenary shrugged. "To be honest, I am not sure. But I feel like we need to take a step back at the situation. Perhaps that's what Monokuma was hinting at."

Shuichi pondered. "To take a step back, huh..."

That was the only possibility, but the situation didn't make sense.

No matter how you see it, Monokuma was the one to kill Tsumugi.

No matter how much they investigated the academy, the results would still be the same.

They didn't even have a plan to investigate because they didn't know what to investigate.

... Perhaps he should still follow Kirumi's advice.

Obtained truth bullet! Trap patterns

"And as much as it sickens me to say it..." Kirumi continued. "This bear enjoys watching us arguing and distrust each other. I doubt he wanted to let someone die without a trial."

Shuichi's heart skipped a beat. "Does that mean... Someone will get executed wrongly?"

The three looked at each other.

"... I don't know. I'm as much in the dark as you are."

They decided to continue their investigation. Miu left to go to the second floor and go through the other labs.

As for Shuichi and Kirumi, they made their way to Rantaro's lab.

But the moment the door of the lab was in view, they saw him.

The medic was standing in front of his lab, staring at the void.

"Rantaro...?" Shuichi called, keeping his distance.

He didn't move. His fists were clenched and his eyes narrowed.

"... I failed her."

"Huh?"

"I could have saved her. I could have tried. I failed as a soldier. Again."

Kirumi approached him. "There was nothing any of us could have done to save her, Rantaro. Monokuma is at fault."

He bitterly chuckled. "Ironic isn't it?"

Shuichi joined them. His eyes widened when he managed to get a glimpse at Rantaro's lab.

"... To be the reason she died when your role is to save her life."

His entire lab was ruined. Cables were hanging from the walls, the walls and floor were burned, leaving marks everywhere. The air may have been heavy in the building, but his lab was a lot worse, it almost made Shuichi feel nauseous. The smell of burnt and gasoline didn't help.

And in the middle of the lab was...

Tsumugi's lock.

The scene was hard to look at.

It was easy to tell it was the start of the fire.

Obtained truth bullet! Rantaro's lab

Kirumi entered the lab. "... If you do not wish to investigate your lab, Shuichi and I can do it."

"It's fine." he shook his head. "Everything is ruined. Monokuma will rearrange everything after the trial anyway."

The three investigated here. There wasn't much to see, as they expected.

After a while, Kirumi broke the silence. "This trial is going to be much harder than the others."

Rantaro turned back to the exit. "You don't need to tell me." he looked back one last time at the scene. "Tsumugi's lock was right here. She didn't even have time to activate it before the explosion."

Obtained truth bullet! Tsumugi's lock

Shuichi felt sick even being here. She must have been so close and yet...

She couldn't.

The rules were quite simple and yet they weren't able to do it.

To activate a lock between 8 AM and 3 PM.

They had spent too much time trying to get to the building that no one realized Tsumugi didn't have time to get hers.

7 hours. And still unable to do it.

Shuichi felt ashamed just thinking about that.

Obtained truth bullet! Sanzu garden rules

But just as the two stepped out of the lab...

Ding dong bing bong!

... The investigation was over.

After the other investigations, they still had an idea of what was going on, on the potential murder weapon, the way things happened, but here?

They didn't even know why they had to do a trial in the first place.

They didn't know what happened, nor what to look for.

This felt frustrating.

They could only go back to the shrine of judgment.

The walk that felt like an eternity. Kirumi was somehow still calm- although he could sense a hint of worry in her. Rantaro was clearly mad. At himself? Monokuma? Both? He didn't know.

Shuichi was still impressed by the amount of self-control they had. If he was alone, he would probably have screamed his lungs out. Although the fear was mostly covered by the immense amount of confusion this entire situation radiated.

Everyone was already here at the shrine of judgment.

Although everyone was perhaps not the correct term to use. After all, they were eight of them now. They were sixteen at the beginning, and now only half of them were still alive.

And he didn't even know if the eight of them would be back here at the end of the trial, or if one of them was going to be executed for nothing.

None of them were in the mood to talk about anything, which was understandable.

Shuichi got startled when the elevator opened, inviting them to the trial room they all despised.

Of course, the descent to the trial grounds was silent, aside from the usual noise of the elevator.

Doing a trial for someone when the killer was the one judging them... It felt ridiculous.

The elevator opened to reveal the courtroom, but something was... Different.

And that's when he noticed.

Behind Monokuma's throne, on the wall was... A giant clock?

It was one of those clocks you would see in Europe, except with a steampunk feel. The cogs were visible, ticking every second. The large iron hands of the clock were impressive, to say the least, pointing at the time. 4:30 PM.

"What... Is that?" Kiyo asked.

"Why, I'm glad you asked!" the bear cheered. "You see, I felt like it would add a nice feeling to the courtroom. Futuristic is nice and all, but the good ol' clocks are also welcome! This is mostly a piece of decoration."

He was like a child describing his room with his friends.

Except he was a murderous bear, and they weren't his friends.

For now, they had to discover what on earth Monokuma want them to find.

And hope for the best.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Bonus 3.2 - Dangan Salmon Team (Still Kaito Edition)

This is postgame content, so people shouldn’t be reading this without having already finished the main game anyway. But just to be safe: while this is non-canon character stuff, I will sometimes be mentioning events that happened in the main story, so there will be spoilers for the main game.

[If you’ve found yourself here on this post because I linked to it elsewhere while talking about Kaito and friendship, the stuff I was most likely referring to is discussed in the “Hangout invitations” section.]

Last time on Love Across the Universe: Dangan Salmon Team (did you know that SPACE), we covered all of what the game calls “dates” – but that I insistently called “hangouts” because fuck the romantic undertones of this mode – with Kaito. Yes, all forty-five of them. Yes, I had something of at least some substance to say about close enough to all of them that it didn’t feel right leaving out only the tiny few for which I kind of didn’t. Kaito is the best and is almost always being at least an adorable dork but also so often a fascinating and complex character even in silly bonus fluff like this – especially when it involves him hanging out with Shuichi, who is after all the focal point of most of his issues.

This time, we still have plenty more Kaito content from this mode to cover, including the best part!

Let’s warm up with some opening acts before we get to the main event, though. Aside from the actual hangouts we did last time, there’s some other little snippets of dialogue in this mode that may seem straightforward and inconsequential but that I still have stuff to say about. When I said I’d be covering practically everything Kaito says in this mode, I wasn’t kidding.

FTE invitations

So obviously I’ve already done Kaito’s FTEs, and the game remembers that and won’t have them happen again for me in this mode (which is just as well, really, because his final one definitely belongs in its canon context of chapter 4!). But there are still unique lines that Kaito has in this mode for if Shuichi chooses to hang out with him for what would be an FTE.

Kaito:  “You came to invite me, right? Well of course! You’re my sidekick!”

-      Spend time with Kaito

Kaito:  “Today I’m going to tell you about the best places in the universe for adventures. I guarantee it’ll light a fire in your heart for the universe!”

Shuichi:  (We discussed the most adventurous places in the universe…)

Look at Kaito excitedly telling Shuichi about SPACE. But it’s also very him that he’s not telling Shuichi facts about space or anything more scientific – this is apparently about the best places in space to have adventures. Which is to say, tiny Kaito who had all his totally-true heroic adventures on sea and on land definitely also thought a lot about what kinds of heroic adventures he would be having when he got into space, and he’s telling Shuichi all about those now. What a dork.

Kaito:  “Oh, this is perfect! I wanted to talk to you!”

-      Spend time with Kaito

Kaito:  “Just what I’d expect from my sidekick! Let’s talk it out, man-to-man! You understand? Don’t tell this stuff to the others.”

Shuichi:  (Kaito and I had a heart-to-heart between men…)

This one is really curious. It sounds on the surface like Kaito is referring to something like talking about what girls they like, or some other gendered, stereotypically masculine thing. But since that was never what Kaito’s concept of manliness was ever about, that cannot possibly be what’s happening here.

Based on Kaito’s actual concept of manliness having a focus on being true to yourself and open about your intentions, I’d want to think that his idea of a “man-to-man” talk would involve something along the lines of him and Shuichi being open with each other, and therefore talking to each other about… their emotions and issues and problems? That does fit as something that he’d hypothetically not want Shuichi to tell anyone else about, but, that is definitely not what happened either for obvious reasons.

I honestly don’t think that Kaito ever sees himself hiding his weakness as him compromising his idea of being a “man”, though. The “being true to yourself” concept is less about how you feel and more about who you are, or at least who you want to be. And of course Kaito doesn’t want to be weak and struggling, so the fact that he maybe is is totally irrelevant and definitely not something that a “man” would need to actually open up about, not when he should be focusing on being the inspiring hero he wants to be. It’s kind of like how him denouncing Kokichi for putting a mask over his true face in trial 4 really wasn’t actually that hypocritical – because Kaito may have been hiding his weakness, but he was never hiding his intentions, which were to help everyone around him as much as he could.

So ultimately I’m not entirely sure what Kaito would actually think of as a “man-to-man talk”, especially one that he doesn’t want Shuichi telling anyone else about. Which leaves me very confused as to what kind of conversation he and Shuichi did have here.

Kaito:  “Hey, I was looking for you, man! We’re gonna hang out today, right?”

-      Spend time with Kaito

Kaito:  “A sidekick wouldn’t pick anyone besides the hero. That’s just crazy! Well, now that I’m thinking about it, sidekicks…”

Shuichi:  (I listened to Kaito’s thoughts about sidekicks…)

Dammit, don’t fade to black there, game, I am itching to hear Kaito’s thoughts about sidekicks! Obviously I’m already perfectly aware of exactly what he thinks about them, but it’s still not something that Kaito himself has ever explicitly talked about. It’d be really interesting to hear him describe his idea of a “sidekick” in his own words! Why would you tease us by telling us a conversation about this happened but then not show it to us.

Kaito:  “Why the long face? You wanna talk about something?

-      Spend time with Kaito

Kaito:  “My sidekick’s worries are mine. My worries are my sidekick’s! Talk to me about anything, man! Don’t keep any secrets from me!”

Shuichi:  (I spent the whole time asking Kaito for advice…)

Of course this is here. Of course there’s at least one instance of Kaito immediately assuming Shuichi needs something and offering support before Shuichi’s even said anything yet.

Given that there’s nothing in the general context of this situation that would make Kaito be super desperate for Shuichi to need his help like in chapter 4, and that Shuichi does end up asking him for advice here apparently without any resistance, I’m going to assume Kaito’s judgement this time was correct and he picked up that Shuichi genuinely was feeling down and needed a boost. But the reminder of Kaito’s tendency to do this before even being asked for help is fun. The line between him being selflessly supportive and him being dysfunctionally co-dependent is a thin line, but both sides of it are excellent.

Also here’s another reprise of “Your worry is my worry; my worry is your worry”, or close enough anyway, which is still every bit as delightfully false and hypocritical as it was before. (Except Kaito is actually just saying “your worry is my worry” twice over, so there’s nothing false or hypocritical about it at all, right?)

Gift dialogues

While I’m here pretending to do FTEs with Kaito, it also means I get to give him presents and it doesn’t matter if he doesn’t like them. His responses for gifts he likes are fairly straightforward enthusiastic gratitude, but it is interesting to see how he reacts when he’s given something he doesn’t particularly care for.

(These bits of dialogue for FTE gifts aren’t unique to this mode, of course, but it wouldn’t have been very canon to bring the negative ones up during the main story.)

Kaito:  “Huh? What’s this? Where’d you get it? Well, if it’s a gift from you, then I’ll totally accept it.”

This is a pretty cute response – he doesn’t care about the thing at all, but Shuichi gave it to him out of thinking he’d like it, so he’ll keep it anyway just as a token of the fact that his sidekick wanted to give him something nice. (Or, these lines also apply to Kaede giving him gifts, but he respects her a lot, so it’d be the same sentiment with her, too.)

On the other hand, sometimes you can catch him with a less optimistic outlook about this…

Kaito:  “You’ve got a bunch of stuff, huh? You’re not just trying to unload some garbage on me, right?”

It’s really interesting – and kind of sad – that Kaito thinks Shuichi might actually be doing that. Surely he’d believe in how much his sidekick cares about him and that Shuichi would have carefully thought about each gift, even if sometimes he’s mistaken in what Kaito would like? But apparently it can at least cross Kaito’s mind that Shuichi really might callously unload random stuff on him without caring.

Kaito:  “Are you kidding me? What am I supposed to do with this? What’s up with you? This isn’t like you, man!”

This kind of reaction, even though it’s a more negative response to the gift, is Kaito being more reasonable. He expected his sidekick (or Kaede) to know better than to give him something he obviously wouldn’t like, but he’s just putting it down to them having a lapse of judgement while meaning well.

Kaito:  “Did you really think I’d like something like this? C’mon, man… Are you making fun of me? Nah, you wouldn’t, but…”

But again, sometimes… apparently it’s possible for Kaito to think that Shuichi could just be making fun of him. He brushes the thought off as not like Shuichi, but then he lingers on the “but”, suggesting it’s still what he’s thinking even if he doesn’t want to admit it to himself.

The fact that he’s capable of thinking that really brings to mind his “Aren’t you my sidekick? Was that… just a lie?” from trial 4 that implied a tiny part of him has always been afraid that Shuichi was only ever playing along with the whole sidekick thing while secretly mocking him. Which is a mindset that doesn’t really apply in this bonus mode in which Shuichi hasn’t been effortlessly saving everyone in trials and so Kaito has no obvious reason to feel inferior… but keep in mind that these gift dialogues were originally written for the main game.

(Kaito, if you’re worried about this, just talk to Shuichi about it, he would immediately be more than happy to reassure you that he’d never do that to you. But no, of course Kaito cannot possibly be worried about anything, and so he’d just not say a word and let that worry build up and eat away at him and goddammit Kaito.)

This idea that Kaito would briefly think the gift-giver might be making fun of him also works well enough for Kaede, who is basically as dismissive of his overblown Kaito-ness as anyone else is in chapter 1, and whom Kaito also looks up to and probably secretly feels a little inferior to thanks to her being a better leader than him.

During this bad-gift-giving session, I learned something about the emotional support robot orca which makes me Very Disappointed (see the linked post if you haven’t already for context about this). Turns out it’s not actually a hated gift for Kaito after all; it’s just a neutral one. The third comment of Kaito’s that I just quoted can in fact apply to a neutral or a hated gift, and I guess the chart that I was using for reference got that comment when they gave him the orca and assumed it was hated. I spent a very long time throwing orcas at Kaito to confirm this.

(And yes, you’re welcome for the mental image of Shuichi doing literally that. Maybe he’s trying to not-so-subtly imply that he wants to help and support Kaito with his problems, too. Not that Shuichi would ever realise Kaito has problems without some kind of outside spurring, so this wouldn’t actually happen (yet), but.)

…I am even more sad about the orca not being a hated gift after a reader went and drew actual fanart about this because of me, for what has turned out to be just a totally mistaken assumption on my part. Can we just pretend Kaito hates getting one anyway? It makes so much in-character sense for him to do so, and apparently I was not the only one who really liked being able to think of it as a thing. And it would fit perfectly in particular for Kaito to respond with the fourth and most negative of the above quotes when being given one by Shuichi – because that’s Shuichi implying he realises Kaito needs support, meaning, surely, that Shuichi really was just lying about being his sidekick and actually was secretly looking down on him and making fun of him this whole time? Damn it, writers, why did you not realise this should be a thing when deciding on Kaito’s gift preferences. I’m at least glad that the chart I used hit the one-in-three chance of mistakenly labelling this gift as hated so that I could accidentally make this a thing.

During some other testing I did to confirm this, I also discovered that a gift called the Death Flag gives most characters a reaction even worse than the regular bad gift dialogues. This is more than just something they dislike and don’t want; the act of giving it seems to be taken as an insult. It is, after all, basically as if the giver is callously telling them they’re going to die.

Kaito:  “Hey… we can still pretend it was just a joke, so put that away.”

Seeing Kaito’s line for this when I wasn’t expecting it kind of punched me in the gut. It’s more subtly hostile than he ever usually is. He really does not want to get angry at Shuichi, but he’s probably worried he’s about to if they don’t immediately pretend this never happened.

(And, uh, remember this line was originally written for the canon storyline, for half of which Kaito knew he was dying. …Not that Shuichi would ever actually genuinely try to imply that he thinks Kaito is going to die, what the hell, I feel kind of terrible for making him do this.)

Anyway let’s stop being unkind to Kaito in a way that’s obviously out of character for Shuichi just to see how he reacts, and move on.

Hangout invitations

There’s also some more little snippets of dialogue I discovered in this mode – turns out there’s a mechanic in which characters whose FTEs you’ve maxed will occasionally show up at Shuichi’s door on their own to ask him for a hangout. (Unfortunately, the character just appears in Shuichi’s room without there being any kind of doorbell-ringing first, meaning you sadly don’t get to learn that it’s Kaito who’s about to invite you out before you even see him based on how enthusiastically the doorbell just rang.)

Kaito:  “You free right now, man? I just really feel like talking to you.”

Kaito was the first character this happened with while I was playing, and it really made me smile. Obviously I knew that this was just a mechanic which could apply to any character, but still. This is Kaito being the one to initiate spending time with Shuichi – but in a way that’s not in the hero-and-sidekick context of Kaito wanting to help Shuichi with his problems. He doesn’t mention that here at all, even though you know the writers totally could have made this bit of dialogue about that, too. Kaito’s realised that he also enjoys just spending time with Shuichi as a friend and wanted to do that! That’s actually a really big deal coming from him.

On the other hand, alternatively (there’s two randomly-picked lines he can have if this happens):

Kaito:  “Alright, Shuichi! Let’s hang out! Well, you don’t really have a choice but to spend time with me, right?”

…this one is quite a bit more pushy. (Remember, he has shown up at Shuichi’s door uninvited to ask to hang out here.) It almost seems like Kaito is worried Shuichi might not want to hang out with him as his friend rather than his sidekick and is covering that up by insisting that obviously Shuichi couldn’t possibly want to do anything else.

-      Accept

Kaito:  “Yeah! No way my sidekick would hang out with anyone but me!”

His response if you accept (which seems to always be this regardless of which initial line of dialogue you got) comes across as kind of needy, too. As does his “A sidekick wouldn’t pick anyone besides the hero” back in the FTE invitations, for that matter. It’s like he’s telling himself that as the hero to Shuichi’s sidekick, he gets automatic Hero Privileges above all of Shuichi’s friends. Which he sort of does, but that’s because them being hero and sidekick already means that they’re particularly close friends. It’s not because it’s a separate thing from a friendship.

But… Kaito seems to kind of think it is. Even though he wants to hang out as friends, Kaito assumes that the only reason Shuichi accepts is because he’s his sidekick. As though, if Shuichi weren’t his sidekick, he’d have no reason to want to spend time with Kaito at all.

-      Politely decline

Kaito:  “If you’re busy, then it's fine… No big deal… I mean, it happens.”

Also quite needy is Kaito’s response if you turn him down. The first sentence alone would have sounded natural, but the more he adds, the more awkward it gets. This might sound like Kaito being passive-aggressive at Shuichi about being turned down, but he wouldn’t do that. So what it must be is Kaito trying to reassure himself that it really is just because Shuichi’s busy and these things happen and it doesn’t mean that Shuichi doesn’t want to spend any time with him at all.

If this were in the context of chapter 4, I’d be saying something very different about what’s going on here, but this isn’t chapter 4. What I’m getting from this instead is that it’s Kaito being kind of awkward and unsure when it comes to doing regular friendship. He’s fine when Shuichi’s the sidekick who’s having struggles and needing Kaito’s advice and support (so long as this isn’t the main story in which Shuichi has been the real hero in the trials and maybe doesn’t really need him after all). But when it’s not about their hero-and-sidekick thing and Kaito just wants to hang out with Shuichi anyway for reasons unrelated to supporting him? He’s subtly insecure as to whether Shuichi would even want to.

This is a concept that didn’t really come up much in the main story, but that’s because there was mortal peril and Shuichi was having a lot more issues and struggles and so Kaito was very firmly in hero-and-sidekick mode the whole time. It’s only in a context like this where there’s less to worry about and they’re supposed to be hanging out as friends (shush, Monokuma totally mentioned platonic friendship) that this becomes more noticeable.

If you think about it, it does actually make some level of sense that Kaito might not be very experienced in having regular friends. He’s always been kind of an awkward goof whenever we’ve seen him trying to interact with people on a down-to-earth level. His personality is naturally very larger-than-life, and he’d refuse to ever try and mask that because then it wouldn’t be him. That’s fine when he’s having sidekicks and him being this way helps to inspire them, but for regular everyday interactions, he probably comes off as a bit… Much, perhaps to the point that it’s a little offputting for some people.

Kaito’s behaviour towards Shuichi in his earlier FTEs, the ones that almost certainly happened before he started considering Shuichi his sidekick, showed that his idea of how to try and make someone his friend (rather than his sidekick) was to force them to listen to completely ridiculous stories about his own “heroics”. That was not, in fact, a very ideal way to make friends at all – Shuichi mostly seemed bewildered and perhaps just a little bit annoyed by the whole thing – but Kaito didn’t appear to have any better ideas. And his idea of how to make friends with Kaede, upon being excited by how similar they were and wanting her to share his enthusiasm about that, was to ask her for a hug out of nowhere, which definitely was not the right way to go about things.

Plus, that story he told in his second FTE hinted that Kaito might have had a falling out with his at-the-time best friend when he was young, one that never got resolved and that he then wrapped up in his ridiculous heroic fiction rather than think about what actually happened. If that is the case, then maybe Kaito being too offputtingly over-the-top for his former friend’s liking was the reason why. There was also that one bit in a hangout last post where Kaito seemed worried by the idea of being different from Shuichi, like he was afraid this’d make Shuichi less inclined to be his friend – almost as if he’d had this problem in the past. (That’s probably why he was so excited at seeing that Kaede was so similar to him, leading him to be so inappropriately forward in his awkward attempt to befriend her.)

[This kind of thing also incidentally happens to be Kaito being extremely neurodivergent-coded, and I love him for it.]

This could in fact be a large part of why Kaito got so big on the whole sidekick thing. If someone needs his support, then him being ridiculous and over-the-top, like he can’t help but be, is inspiring and helpful rather than weird and offputting, and so he can be more sure they’ll stick around – but also more convinced that him supporting them is the only reason they’re sticking around. Of those former sidekicks he mentioned in his FTEs, several of them were significantly older than him, so it would be very easy for Kaito to assume that they probably didn’t consider him an actual friend beyond their sidekick arrangement and would only be there for as long as they needed his support and advice. Kaito may well have already been a little bit co-dependent even before the killing game in canon made it worse.

(That doesn’t change the fact that he genuinely cares and wants to help those people, of course. The unhealthy part is the part where this may have become Kaito’s only way of forming and maintaining bonds with others.)

It’s a good thing Kaito has Shuichi, then! They started properly bonding over Shuichi needing help and being a sidekick, but he’s more than just a sidekick. Shuichi realised after he started training that he enjoys Kaito’s company not so much because Kaito’s a strong invincible hero, but rather just because he’s a ridiculous impulsive carefree goof, and Shuichi finds that kind of outlook refreshing and helpful to be around. Shuichi has always seen Kaito as not just a hero but a friend. So if anyone could break Kaito out of this cycle, could help him realise that he’s already better at friendship than he thought he was and doesn’t need to cling to the sidekick thing as his only way of keeping people by his side, it’s Shuichi.

Harmonious Heart

And on that note, it’s time for the main event for this mode! The piece de resistance, the reason we’re all here, this game’s single best piece of non-main-story Kaito content that I consider basically Required Reading for anyone who cares about understanding what makes Kaito tick, is his Harmonious Heart event.

…Okay, so I have already talked about this at quite some length in my big general ramble about Kaito’s character arc which I reblogged here. But this commentary gives me the excuse to talk about it in line-by-line detail, as well as to talk about it more as a story in its own right rather than just as a delightful source of vital information about the core of Kaito’s issues. So you can be damn sure I’m going to take the chance to do that.

Honestly, I call this my favourite piece of non-main-story Kaito content, but it might also be one of my favourite pieces of Kaito content in general. Obviously the canon story has just so many moments that are positively dripping with Kaito’s delightful issues, but… this is still pretty up there with the best of them.

I should mention that actually seeing all of this event is even more inconvenient than the hangouts were. It has a small, completely random chance of popping up instead of the regular options whenever you do a hangout somewhere, and then there are four different outcomes, only one of which can be got per playthrough. So I actually had to do four playthroughs of this mode to see all of this. I am very grateful for the people who bothered to record/transcribe all the outcomes of Harmonious Heart events onto Youtube/the wiki, making it quite easy for people to see all of these if they’re interested, because otherwise I imagine far fewer people ever would. And as I have already mentioned, this event is so important for understanding Kaito’s character; everybody who cares about Kaito should see all four of these outcomes and it makes me sad to think there are probably still a large fraction of such people who haven’t.

I managed to happen across this event basically by chance only a month or so after seeing the main game, and I’m so glad it didn’t take me longer than that, because it significantly influenced and improved my understanding of Kaito’s issues and why he so stubbornly hid everything he was going through in canon. This then led to me thinking about Kaito in even more depth than I already had and wanting to put some content out there that really talks about all this stuff, and… long story short, there’s a chance this very commentary wouldn’t be here if this event didn’t exist.

Kaito:  “…”

Shuichi:  (I wonder what’s wrong? Kaito looks deep in thought…)

Kaito:  (Damn it…)

Shuichi:  (Huh? That voice just now. Is that…?  Is that Kaito’s inner thoughts…?)

Featuring Shuichi’s inexplicable mindreading powers that he spontaneously developed because of the strength of his bond with Kaito, I guess?

Not that I mind how inexplicable this is, because it is vital. The thing that’s so excruciating about Kaito’s problems in canon is how easily Shuichi could help him with them if only he knew about them. But he has no idea, because he idolises Kaito too much to assume there could be anything wrong with him, and because Kaito never talks about any of it. So it is practically necessary for some kind of inexplicable supernatural intervention to bring Kaito’s issues to light in order for Shuichi to help him, and that’s what’s happening here.

(Also, man it makes an interesting change to be using brackets and not speech marks for Kaito. It would have been so, so fun if we’d been able to see inside his head for the whole game.)

Kaito:  (What if we really gotta stay here forever…?)

Even though Kaito should know that he’s actively working towards their escape by befriending Shuichi like this, he’s still finding himself having brief pessimistic thoughts about whether things would really be this easy and Monokuma would really let them go just like that.

(And if he can’t help but worry like this about the relatively minor concerns in this AU, then please take a moment to imagine the far worse thoughts he’d have been plagued with in canon, where people have died and he is dying and there is no apparent means of escape for all of them together.)

Kaito:  (No, what am I saying…? I won’t accept this! No way!)

Of course, this is Kaito, who utterly refuses to acknowledge negative or painful thoughts, so he immediately shoots it down and pushes himself to stay determined.

It’s very important to note, though, that he’s still having that negative thought and needing to shoot it down consciously. Again, here’s proof that Kaito cannot completely lie to himself about things that are worrying him, even if he still hates dwelling on them and tries to stay as positive as he can.

Which he should! Maybe it’s somewhat less of a good idea for him to shoot down his worries in canon about the whole dying thing when that’s a problem he should really be addressing and not forcing himself to ignore. But most of the time, for most of Kaito’s problems, including this one here, he’s already doing his best to do something about it. And in that case, worrying about something you’re already doing your best to fix isn’t going to help; it’s just going to make you feel bad unnecessarily. Don’t wallow in your bad feelings when you could be doing something to make it better! This is Kaito instinctively following the advice he always gives to others!

Kaito:  (Damn it… For me to be this weak… It’s not like me…)

But… Kaito doesn’t realise that.

Really, this part could work if the weak spot was on the word “weak”, because I would very much like to contest the idea that the thought he was having was even weakness in the first place. Everyone has negative and pessimistic thoughts sometimes! That’s human! What should matter is how you deal with them, and clearly Kaito just dealt with his in a way that he ought to consider strong.

Yet the fact that he just did what he believes people should always do and overcame his worry means nothing next to the fact that he had that worry in the first place. Other people are allowed to be “weak” so long as they’re fighting to overcome their weakness, but not him. He’s not allowed to be anything less than invincible.

And suddenly, this has become the thing he’s worrying about – not the fleeting thought that they might not escape, but the thought that he’s being weak and he’s not supposed to be this way.

Kaito:  (I can’t let Shuichi see me like this… I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick…)

Which is especially bad because right now he happens to be in the same room as Shuichi. The reason he isn’t allowed to be weak is because his sidekicks need him to be strong. As a hero, he has to be the perfect invincible pillar of support for his sidekicks, and if he isn’t, if his sidekicks see that he isn’t, then how could he ever do anything for them any more?

Way back before I ever saw this event, I was trying to understand exactly why Kaito was so hypocritically determined to hide his weakness from his sidekicks. The most obvious idea was that it was out of selflessness, but simply in the sense that he didn’t want to cause his sidekicks more distress by worrying them. Another option that occurred to me was that it was more selfish than that, in terms of his pride, because he’d hate to shatter the heroic image he likes to give off.

Of course, the worry thing is very much part of it – but it’s not the main point. This event taught me the real answer: it is about his heroic image, but that image exists much less for himself and more for his sidekicks, to make them feel as if they can rely on him and to inspire them to be stronger. He hides his weakness in order to preserve his image out of selflessness, because he is so determined to support people who need it and so genuinely convinced those people would lose all the support they’ve been getting from him if they ever realised he was weak.

So not only would Kaito rather deal with his burdens alone, but he is adding to his burdens by making himself so afraid of letting his sidekicks down and depriving them of the support they need if he lets them see even the tiniest hint of weakness from him. Kaito acts casual and carefree on the surface when he’s with Shuichi and Maki – of course he does, he has to – but beneath that, this fear of showing weakness specifically to his sidekicks means that he is so often terrified just by being around the people he cares about most. And that’s heartbreaking?

And, again, this is an AU in which even just a very minor “weakness” is something that Kaito is afraid of showing to Shuichi. Just imagine how much more terrified he’d have been in canon when the weakness that he was at risk of showing to Shuichi and Maki was so much worse.

Shuichi:  (He seems deeply troubled by something…)

This is a stock line that Shuichi has in every Harmonious Heart event, but man is it incredibly appropriate in Kaito’s case here. A lot of the other characters’ thoughts in these events are about much more superficial things, or just more specific things that are only relevant to a particular event in their past, such that “deeply troubled” seems like a bit of an overstatement. But Kaito’s thoughts right here are the problem that’s at the root of everything that goes wrong between him and Shuichi in the main storyline and literally the reason he dies. We know just how badly Kaito wants to live, but this is worse than his fear of dying. He is so deeply troubled by the thought of showing weakness to his sidekicks that he would rather suffer a slow and painful death entirely alone. Damn right that deserves to be described like this.

I’m going to be going through the four outcomes from worst to best. So, time to fuck everything up and make things almost as bad as they were after trial 4.

Deny “It’s not like me…”

Shuichi:  “I don’t know about that, Kaito… It’s okay to be afraid sometimes…”

I love how, despite that this leads to the worst outcome, Shuichi is clearly still trying to help. None of the bad outcomes to this are caused by Shuichi having any kind of inexplicable bad intent; they’re just caused by him saying something with genuine good intentions that happened to set off Kaito’s issues and make things worse.

Shuichi is probably saying this specifically because it’s essentially something that Kaito has taught him. Kaito’s pep talks have never once tried to make Shuichi feel like he should be ashamed of being afraid, just so long as he’s trying to face those fears and become stronger. Really, Kaito should already understand this concept perfectly well himself! But… that’s for his sidekicks. He’s the hero, so clearly things are Different for him.

Kaito:  “It’s not like me to make others worry…”

Of course it isn’t. Causing other people emotional pain? Nope, that’s the complete opposite of what Kaito is always trying to do. How dare he ever do that, even if he never meant to and even if his own emotional pain is far worse than the worry he’s causing others by letting them see it.

Shuichi:  “I-I’m not trying to ‘worry’ about you or anything…”

But that really isn’t what Shuichi was doing, and even if it was, that’s not the point. This isn’t about how Shuichi feels bad because something’s up with Kaito; this is Shuichi trying to focus on how Kaito feels and find a way to help him feel better.

Kaito:  “It’s fine…”

Of course Kaito doesn’t see it that way, though, because Kaito always makes things about everyone except himself. It’s definitely nothing and Shuichi should stop worrying.

Kaito:  “What have I done? I’m so embarrassed. I’ve failed my sidekick…”

But despite insisting that it’s fine, Kaito is clearly not fine. He can’t even see Shuichi’s assurance that it’s okay to be afraid as the attempt to help him that it clearly was. All he can see is confirmation that, despite how desperately he was just telling himself he needs to hide it, Shuichi has seen his weakness.

Which is The Worst Thing he could possibly have allowed to happen. How could he have been such a terrible hero? This was exactly what he was so terrified of, and now it’s come true: he’s failed his sidekick. Shuichi is obviously never going to look up to him or be helped by him ever again now that he’s seen how weak Kaito is. All of that support and encouragement he’d been giving Shuichi has been dashed to pieces. Everything is ruined.

Kaito:  “Sorry, but can you leave me alone for a bit?”

So he asks to be left alone (while apologising for it, because of course this is completely his fault and something he deserves to feel bad about, right?).

And I really feel like he’s doing this because he’s about to have a rather more minor but basically analogous version of the breakdown he had at the end of chapter 4 after having so obviously (so he believed) shown himself to be weaker than Shuichi in the trial. He Will Not break down in front of Shuichi no matter what, but keeping up that mental barrier while in his presence, blocking out everything screaming at him about how badly he’s failed, has to be mentally exhausting. He probably wants the opportunity to be able to drop that and just let himself fall apart a little bit where nobody will see, just like when he wanted to get back to his room as quickly as possible after coughing up blood at the end of trial 4.

Honestly, it’s a little hard to imagine that Kaito would be able to just casually continue hanging out with Shuichi after this, even though the game mechanics don’t care and allow that to happen anyway. I can very much picture this causing Kaito to do the equivalent of early chapter 5 in which he just awkwardly avoids Shuichi, because surely Shuichi wouldn’t want to hang out with him any more after having seen how pathetic he is?

And a relevant thing to note is that you can’t get the Harmonious Heart event again on the same playthrough after having had it once. I was kind of frustrated to learn that the game doesn’t let you try again to fix how much you screwed it up the first time, but then I thought about it and realised that actually, at least in Kaito’s case, that makes perfect sense. Given what just happened, Kaito is going to be clamming up even more in front of Shuichi, probably even to the point of completely avoiding him. He’d be even more determined not to let Shuichi get even the tiniest glimpse of weakness out of utter terror of making things even worse. There’s no way Shuichi would ever be able to get as far as seeing into his thoughts again in the first place.

At least in this context, Shuichi has a lot less reason to believe Kaito is angry at him – although maybe he’d feel guilty for unintentionally intruding on Kaito’s thoughts, especially ones as deeply personal as this, and might assume Kaito could be angry at him and therefore avoiding him for that reason. That is, however, something that Shuichi actually should apologise for, so he’d probably be able to get himself to do that. I doubt that would help that much, though, because that’s still not Kaito’s actual problem; regardless of whether Shuichi was wrong to intrude on Kaito’s thoughts, that doesn’t change what he heard  when he did so. Kaito knows that Shuichi’s never going to be able to unhear how weak he is, so how can he just pretend it never happened just because Shuichi didn’t mean to hear it?

(…Maybe upon realising that he’s not going to get anywhere with Kaito by just talking to him about it, this would be the point at which Shuichi would actually start repeatedly gifting him emotional support robot orcas, in a desperate attempt to communicate that I just want to help you, it’s okay to need support, please stop shutting me out.)

But now let’s move to a universe where Shuichi didn’t mess things up quite so badly. (I say “mess it up” like it was Shuichi’s fault, but it wasn’t. It was really on Kaito’s end for completely missing the point of his genuine desire to help.)

Affirm “I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick…”

Shuichi:  “You never show me your weakness, Kaito.”

First, let’s stop and consider the fact that Shuichi has always looked up to Kaito and assumed he’s basically invincible – if he even did so in the killing game, where it’s way less reasonable to imagine anyone truly being invincible, then he’s definitely also doing so in this AU. Which means that this sudden insight into Kaito’s thoughts would be the very first time Shuichi ever properly realises that Kaito does have weaknesses in the first place. So maybe part of what’s going through Shuichi’s head as he says this is him reeling from the fact that, wait, Kaito has been having worries of his own this whole time and he never told me any of them, despite everything he keeps saying about sharing our worries?

Yet even though he’s probably saying this due to being taken aback by this realisation, Shuichi’s exasperated-but-worried expression as he says this also reads to me like he intends to follow it up with “but I wish you would, it’s okay, you don’t have to be afraid of that”. He is still saying this with an intent to help.

Kaito:  “Yeah! No way I’d do that. It’s as absurd as saying you’re an alien.”

But before Shuichi can get that far, Kaito just jumps on Shuichi’s first sentence and insists that yes, of course he’d never do that, that’s utterly absurd, why would Shuichi ever possibly think he would. Showing weakness to his sidekick is The Worst Possible Thing that would ruin everything and obviously he’d never be so terrible as to fail his sidekick that completely, what kind of hero does Shuichi even think he is!?

Shuichi:  “It’s not *that* absurd…”

Meanwhile, Shuichi, being on planet Earth and not Planet Kaito, is rather confused by this logic. Showing weakness to someone you trust isn’t absurd, it’s just human. (Does Kaito trust Shuichi? Not in this way, evidently. He doesn’t trust that Shuichi would still look up to him even if he knew about this, despite how obvious that is to anyone else who knows Shuichi even a little bit.)

Kaito:  “No, to me it’s a really big deal.”

It really is. Especially since this is why he fell apart at the end of chapter 4 and why he never told anyone he was dying until it was far too late to save him. It’s honestly a little surprising that we actually get Kaito somewhat acknowledging what a big deal this is to him here… but I suppose so long as he does so without actually showing any weakness, then it’s fine; he’s just explaining an important principle of his that he’s definitely never going to break.

Kaito:  “But I can’t really shake this mood just yet…”

Of course he can’t. His worried mood started off just being about escaping, but then it quickly turned into him being even more worried about showing weakness to Shuichi, which is exactly the topic that the conversation is still on and that he’s just asserted would be absolutely unthinkable for him to ever do. That worry is not going to go away like that, and it’s also the exact kind of thing he can’t let Shuichi see. This is a positive-feedback loop of his fear of showing weakness being the very weakness that he’s afraid to show. He is still terrified of failing Shuichi as they speak.

Kaito:  “Sorry, but could you leave me alone for now?”

So he’s… running away from the situation, as the only way to ensure he won’t fail. He would rather pass up on a chance to hang out with Shuichi than keep risking that. (Also, apologising, because of course. To be fair, maybe an apology for not hanging out with his friend for such an irrational reason is warranted, but that’s definitely not what Kaito thinks he’s apologising for, is it.)

This one isn’t quite as bad an outcome as last time because at least Kaito doesn’t end up believing that he’s already failed. (It doesn’t seem like Kaito realises that Shuichi saw his thoughts this time, or at least he has some plausible deniability to himself about it – Shuichi would totally just make a comment like “You never show me your weakness” out of the blue because that’s just a definitely true statement, right?) But even so, this brought Kaito face-to-face with his fear of letting Shuichi down and made him really think about what he believes it’d mean if he did do that and how terrified he is of that happening. He’s probably not going to start actively avoiding Shuichi from here, because he’s obviously fine and obviously isn’t going to show any weakness to him, but all his interactions with Shuichi from this point on are likely to be undercut even more than they usually would with that constant fear of what if he *does*? What if he *fails*? Again, though he still emphatically did not mean to, Shuichi accidentally made things worse than they were before he said anything.

Before we move onto the better two outcomes, I noticed something regarding these two worst options here. Shuichi telling him “hey, no, it’s okay to be afraid” and Shuichi going “whoa, yeah, you really never do show me your weakness, do you” would probably both come about by Shuichi being very immediately reactionary and saying what first comes to mind when he hears Kaito’s thoughts. And it’s neat that those are the ones that unintentionally mess things up and make Kaito feel worse. This is a very delicate situation that needs to be approached in exactly the right way to get through to Kaito and not make him just shut Shuichi out even more, and to do that, Shuichi would need to stop and think more carefully about exactly how Kaito’s going to respond to his words and how best to get him to see sense.

Affirm “It’s not like me…”

Shuichi:  “…That’s true. You never back down from a challenge, do you, Kaito?”

It seems that this time, Shuichi’s decided to try and affirm Kaito’s stubbornness and determination and reassure him that he’s not weak. This still isn’t addressing the real core of the problem, but it seems likely to help on the surface.

This sentiment would perhaps work a little better if it really could be directed at the “For me to be this weak” statement, though. It would be more helpful to specifically tell Kaito that thinking something negative and then shooting it down isn’t actually weakness at all, reassuring him that what he thinks of as weakness in himself really isn’t. As it is, Kaito is liable to think that the only reason Shuichi called him strong is because he overlooked the part of Kaito that’s so weak in the first place. Which leaves exactly the same problem of making Kaito so afraid of showing that weakness after all and ruining that supposed illusion.

That said, Shuichi is still doing better than just a blanket affirmation that Kaito is strong. He’s saying that Kaito won’t back down from a challenge, which is a completely accurate assessment of what Kaito is like! He may struggle with things from time to time, but he refuses to give up and let that stop him!

But Kaito thinks in a far too black-and-white way about strength and weakness, at least when it comes to heroes like himself, so he’s not going to take it that way.

Kaito:  “Right!? No way a man who’s gonna explore the universe should freak out about this!”

It’s not that he was freaking out but then didn’t back down and refused to let it stop him – it’s that he definitely didn’t freak out at all in the first place, that’s definitely what Shuichi is saying and definitely what happened and he’s completely fine. Someone like him shouldn’t freak out about anything, because he’s a hero and that is not what heroes do – but at least Shuichi seems to be agreeing with him about that, right!?

Kaito:  “Especially to you.”

Kaito is implying here that, if he absolutely had to show weakness at all, he’d actually kind of prefer to do so not to a sidekick of his like Shuichi, but to a stranger, someone who doesn’t have any expectations of him and that he doesn’t have a responsibility towards.

Shuichi:  “…To me?”

Shuichi seems bewildered by this part in particular. Which does make sense – surely it’d be easier for Kaito to show weakness to someone he’s close to, like Shuichi, than to a complete stranger? That’s usually the case with most people, after all. Understanding why it’s the exact opposite of that for Kaito is the root of the problem, and Shuichi failed to figure that out in this version of events.

Kaito:  “I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick.”

Just in case you weren’t sure how important this was, Kaito is reiterating it. It’s actually kind of surprising he’s even willing to say this out loud to Shuichi, since it implies that he might potentially have some kind of weakness that he’s choosing not to show. But, again, I suppose that so long as he doesn’t show any, then he can tell himself that all he’s doing by saying this is affirming his Heroic Responsibilities that he would obviously never let his sidekick down by breaking.

Kaito:  “Just forget about whatever it was you heard before.”

However, this is interesting, because it implies that Kaito is, to some extent, aware of the fact that Shuichi just heard his thoughts? Which you’d think would send him into the same kind of spiral of “oh god I’ve failed him” as the worst outcome, but apparently not quite. It seems that Shuichi responding by affirming Kaito’s strength is allowing Kaito to convince himself that it’s not that bad, Shuichi can’t possibly have noticed how weak he is from whatever he heard, because if he had then surely he’d have said so.

But Kaito’s still insisting Shuichi forgets about it, probably mostly so that he can forget about it and not have to worry about what might happen if Shuichi thinks too hard about the thoughts he heard. He’s basically just desperately trying to paper over the problem and ignore what just happened, convincing himself that so long as Shuichi didn’t mention seeing any weakness then he obviously mustn’t have seen any at all, and so it’s totally not a big deal that he might have just read Kaito’s thoughts while they were being so weak and negative and everything is fine, right!? Right!!!

Kaito:  “I was unsure for a sec, but now I’m overflowing with motivation!”

See, those negative thoughts he might have been maybe having for a second are totally gone now, so they might as well both pretend they never existed! He’s fine! Shuichi needn’t worry about a thing! Everything is fine.

Shuichi:  (He sounds like he’s hiding something…)

…But even Shuichi can tell now that he is not fine. Which is either because his glimpse into Kaito’s thoughts just now is letting him realise that these displays from Kaito aren’t as truthful as he once thought they were, or just because this particular display is especially strained and transparent.

The event doesn’t go any further than this, other than awkwardly mood-whiplashing us with Shuichi’s standard “I think this conversation went well” comment that he has for every good-but-not-great hangout outcome. It clearly did not go well! Shuichi managed to notice that! This is nominally a good outcome by the game’s metric, and admittedly it seems to be that way on the surface because look, Kaito is Totally Fine, nothing is wrong at all, and at least he didn’t end up asking Shuichi to leave him alone this time. But this has not remotely fixed Kaito’s problem either and is just perpetuating his desperate defence mechanisms.

In fact, if anything, the possibility that Shuichi might have got a glimpse of what’s beneath them is only going to make Kaito’s façade even more desperate and strained. Since Shuichi affirmed that he’s fine, Kaito can’t make an excuse to leave like in the other ones, because that’d be like admitting that Shuichi’s wrong and he’s not actually fine at all. So he has no choice but to keep hanging out with him and keep desperately pretending to be fine despite how badly he must be freaking out over the possibility of showing Shuichi that he isn’t. Things are yet again just a little bit worse despite Shuichi’s genuine attempt to help.

Shuichi would probably notice that Kaito seems kind of awkwardly distracted and distant during their continued hangouts and figure it has something to do with what happened here. After trying to prod Kaito about it verbally and getting a predictable complete lack of acknowledgement of a problem, Shuichi might become desperate enough to fix this awkwardness and figure out how to help Kaito that, against his better judgement, he decides to deliberately tap into his mindreading powers again. So he looks into Kaito’s thoughts during one of his distant moments to try and figure out what’s really bothering him about this…

…only to find Kaito THINKING VERY LOUDLY ABOUT SPACE, he can’t wait to go to SPACE, here are all the PLANETS HE CAN NAME.

Because Kaito knows now that somehow, inexplicably, Shuichi can hear his thoughts. Even if Shuichi totally didn’t hear anything bad last time it happened, that notion that he can hear them at all is terrifying to Kaito. He can’t even afford to think about the things that are worrying him while in Shuichi’s presence in case Shuichi hears it and becomes convinced that he really is weak. But of course, that very fear of doing that would then become the topic of his thoughts and make him worry even more and make everything even worse and make him even more likely to fail Shuichi and—

…And so, long story short, to avoid spontaneously combusting, Kaito hastily cobbled together a desperate coping mechanism of running mental interference by consciously forcing himself to think about something unrelated whenever he’s in Shuichi’s company. As a result, all of his interactions (SPACE) with Shuichi are awkwardly (BLACK HOLES) stilted, because he’s constantly focusing on (NEBULAS) trying to keep an inner monologue that (JUPITER) isn’t thinking about anything else (THE BIG DIPPER. THE BIG DIPPER!) except space. (While, of course, feeling utterly terrified beneath it of letting it slip for even a second, not that SPACE no he’s not scared of anytHING HE JUST REALLY LIKES SPACE)

…I’m not sure where this story ends. I mostly just wanted to get to the part with Kaito thinking loudly about space to drown out his other thoughts, because that’s a concept I’ve had in my head for ages that I wanted to share.

So anyway, let’s rewind things one last time and actually help Kaito at last.

Deny “I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick…”

In this one, Shuichi has realised that this is the core of the problem. And that’s all he ever needed to do to fix this.

Shuichi:  “I’m your sidekick… but I’m also your friend, Kaito.”

Shuichi’s way of approaching this is adorable. Instead of telling Kaito how heroes are allowed to be weak sometimes and that doesn’t mean they’ve failed their sidekicks or make them any less heroic at all, he just throws all of that out of the window to focus on the fact that they’re friends.

Earlier in this post I got talking about how Kaito is so hung up on the idea that Shuichi is his sidekick that he isn’t even sure if he’s actually a regular friend beneath that. I’m really happy that happened to come up from those bits of bonus dialogue and deliberately went into it so much when it did because it’s a very important point that’s been contributing to his issues here.

The hero-and-sidekick thing is a useful way to frame their relationship in terms of how Kaito is helping Shuichi, but it inherently comes with all kinds of expectations, almost all of them on Kaito to continue to be that perfect and invincible hero, or else… or else Shuichi won’t have any reason to care about him any more? But friendship is so much simpler and with so many fewer expectations. Friends care about each other regardless of how strong or weak they are. Until now, Kaito wasn’t sure if Shuichi even was his friend outside of the whole sidekick deal, but… of course he is, you big moron.

Shuichi:  “Maybe you don’t show weakness to your sidekick. But you can to your friend.”

…I’m not sure I like how Shuichi is still saying it’s okay that Kaito insists he mustn’t show any weakness while he’s playing the hero role and Shuichi is being the sidekick. That’s still a totally misguided premise. (And Shuichi should be perfectly aware that heroes don’t need to be invincible to be inspiring, you’d think, based on his comments about fiction in trial 6.) But regardless, so long as what Shuichi’s saying about their friendship gets Kaito to realise that it’s okay for him to show weakness to Shuichi, that’s what really matters.

Kaito:  “…”

For once, Kaito isn’t responding immediately with some kind of fervent insistence that him showing weakness would be inconceivable. He’s actually listening to what Shuichi’s saying with a thoughtful expression.

Shuichi:  “If you don’t want to open up to your sidekick… maybe you’ll open up to your best friend. How about it, Kaito?”

Heroes and sidekicks may not, at least not in Kaito’s definition, but friends open up to each other and support each other with their problems, mutually, in both directions. That’s just how friendship works. Even Kaito with his possible lack of experience in the subject ought to understand that much.

It’s also incredibly adorable how Shuichi’s not saying “you’re my best friend”, which is the part he’d be able to say with authority. Rather, he’s saying “I’m your best friend”, even though Kaito has never actually said as much (because he’s barely even called Shuichi his friend in the first place). Shuichi is technically making an assumption here to even say that – but of course he’s right about it. Kaito hadn’t even properly realised that himself, but Shuichi could see it anyway. And it was definitely his Shuichi Saihara side and not his detective side that made him so sure about this particular truth.

(they are FRIENDS, I may have mentioned this a few times)

Kaito:  “Shuichi…”

Kaito is still pausing, thoughtful. He’s saying Shuichi’s name like he’s impressed or taken aback, as if Shuichi just said something groundbreaking that Kaito would never have thought of himself, but that actually… makes sense?

(Of course it makes sense, Kaito. You were just always being a gigantic idiot about this.)

Kaito:  “Thanks. I’m alright now.”

He genuinely means this. This is so much more subdued than all of his over-the-top insistence that he’s Totally Fine, so this isn’t a façade. Shuichi’s words actually got through to him and made him realise that he doesn’t need to be afraid of this. And thanking someone is something Kaito does quite rarely because he usually doesn’t like to acknowledge that he needed help – but he’s doing so here! Shuichi really did help him and he really is grateful, and it’s okay for him to admit that!

Shuichi:  “What? Are you sure?”

Shuichi seems surprised that Kaito would suddenly be so okay so quickly, which could seem to hint that he actually isn’t. But it’s not that – it’s just that Shuichi didn’t realise that the fix would be this simple.

Kaito:  “Now that I know you think of me like that… All my doubts are gone!”

Shuichi was perhaps still thinking that the main problem was Kaito’s initial worry about not getting out of here and was expecting him to open up about that. But that was insignificant next to the real problem, which was Kaito’s fear of what would happen if he showed any kind of weakness to Shuichi. Now that Kaito realises that Shuichi sees him as a friend and accepts and supports him regardless of his weaknesses, and that this doesn’t mean they can’t also do the hero-and-sidekick thing alongside that… the entire problem has literally just vanished into thin air.

Kaito:  “Alright! Let’s escape this screwed up academy together!”

And those initial doubts he had about escaping? Even though he didn’t have Shuichi help him address those doubts, they were already something Kaito was capable of shooting down and overcoming by himself! Damn right he’s not just going to accept being stuck here, not when he’s got a friend as amazing as Shuichi that he wants to escape with!

These outcomes to a Harmonious Heart event have a very limited length – really there should be so much more being said here than the handful of lines we get. Shuichi should still want to discuss the fact that Kaito did feel so afraid of showing him weakness, so that they can explore that and be sure that Kaito really will be comfortable opening up to him in future if he needs to. Despite knowing now in his head that it’s okay, Kaito’s still going to be instinctively inclined to hide his worries, and it’ll probably take him a while to fully unlearn that.

But regardless, I really like that even in this short space, the writing makes sure to carefully show that this does work on Kaito and genuinely gets through to him. It would be very easy for things to still come across like Kaito’s lying about being okay, but his reaction here contains enough clues that he actually means it and that he really thought about Shuichi’s words and took them to heart.

Helping Kaito begin to fix his issues was always going to be this simple. Shuichi only needed to know what the problem was in the first place, and that was the hardest part.

Graduation scene

And now, let’s imagine this brings us onto the final bit of content in this bonus mode, which is the scene you get with Kaito after the ten days are over and they’re going to get out of here because they became appropriately epic friends. (shush, Monokuma DEFINITELY MENTIONED FRIENDSHIP)

It’s a little unclear as to whether everyone else is also going to escape just because two people achieved this, or whether they’re the only ones escaping – I’m pretty sure all the graduation scenes kinda just skim over that topic. But let’s assume that everyone gets to leave, because neither Kaito nor Shuichi would stand for it and be able to have this happy reflection about their time here if that wasn’t the case.

The wiki mentions at one point that successfully getting the best outcome for the Harmonious Heart event is necessary to unlock the graduation scene. Unfortunately, the wiki is wrong. You can very definitely fuck up the Harmonious Heart and still get this scene – heck, you can probably not even happen to trigger it at all. All you need to do is max a character’s FTEs to get five hearts of affection and then do enough successful hangouts to get another five hearts. It would, after all, be kind of unfair for the game to expect you to get the Harmonious Heart right, because you can only attempt it once per playthrough and so getting it wrong would screw you out of that character’s ending on that playthrough.

…I say “unfortunately” because, at least in Kaito’s case, it’d narratively be a lot more fun if you really did have to succeed in his Harmonious Heart event to get this ending. It would be really neat if the kind of close friendship that Shuichi and Kaito needed to achieve in order to be able to leave is a more equal, healthy friendship than they ever had in canon, in which Kaito is also able to open up to Shuichi about his own issues and be supported in return. That’s very much the kind of friendship I like to imagine them having in this AU once they leave and continue to live happily ever after as adorable best friends on the outside. Or in any AU in which they both get to live, for that matter. They deserve it.

(Because, you know, Monokuma and the audience definitely care about emotionally healthy and nuanced relationships showing these complex characters helping each other overcome their issues, since such a thing is a more meaningful and compelling part of a relationship than simply whether or not the feelings involved are romantic and is equally possible when they aren’t. That’s totally what the audience is watching for and not just ARGLFLARGL ROMANCE, right.)

There’s also the fact that in all of the Harmonious Heart outcomes that aren’t the successful one, things would likely become at best subtly awkward between Kaito and Shuichi, and at worst Kaito probably starts outright avoiding him. That wouldn’t be the best environment for this ending to happen in.

Kaito:  “I thought I’d be happy about it, but I don’t want it to end… I’m a little sad.”

Shuichi:  “It was just for a short while, but we did go through a lot. I’m a little sad too.”

Yeah, all those things they went through that totally, uh, you know, happened. Shuichi’s wording implies he’s talking about things that aren’t just hanging out with Kaito and becoming friends with him, as if there were some actual overarching plot events to this mode, which, ha ha.

Shuichi:  “Are you going to go back to astronaut training when you get out of here?”

Kaito:  “Of course! No way I’d give up on my dream of becoming an astronaut!”

Obviously! Kaito is going to live happily ever after as an astronaut who goes to SPACE lots of times under normal circumstances and comes back alive each time!

Kaito:  “I’m gonna make up all my lost time as fast as I can!”

Shuichi:  “That’s true, while we were in here, the other trainees were training every day.”

Haha, yes, those other trainees. Kaito’s going to hit something of a roadblock upon learning that he was never an astronaut trainee in the first place… but like hell that’s going to stop him. It’s still going to be him making up for lost time, just the lost time of never having actually trained in the first place. (His fake memories of training will help a bit, though.)

Kaito:  “But, y’know, coming here… I think it was good for me. One reason was because I got to meet you…”

Aww. He’s about to talk about how being here helped with his astronaut training, but he still wanted to mention meeting Shuichi first, because that’s very much the best thing he gained from being here. They are friends.

(Coming here was also good for him because without it he wouldn’t exist. Existing is good.)

Shuichi:  (The most important thing for an astronaut…) “Good communication, right?”

Every character’s ending scene asks you to remember something they mentioned during one of their FTEs, and this is the one for Kaito. Of course communication skills are relevant to the time they spent here! Or… at least they would have been if this AU had had any semblance of a story to it.

Kaito:  “No matter how great you are, you can’t be an astronaut if you can’t communicate. A fight in a spaceship because of bad communication could be fatal, right?”

You know what else could be fatal on a spaceship because of bad communication? One of the astronauts not telling everybody else when he’s feeling sick, which could potentially endanger not just the astronaut himself but also the rest of the crew. So thaaaat’s a thing they’ll have to train out of him – though maybe the help Shuichi’s given him in this AU has already started to do that.

Kaito:  “Being shut away and told to live together… Living together here was probably even harder than living on a spaceship.”

It actually is kind of analogous! Astronauts are stuck with the same handful of people all day every day for months on end while up in space, which is why they need to be able to get along so well. That’s also basically what happened at this academy. Too bad this place contained a few people who are so horrendously bad at communication and teamwork that they’d never have been allowed to become astronauts even if they tried. I guess that’s why Kaito says it was even harder than being on a spaceship.

Shuichi:  “Well, you learned a lot about communication here. Living here must have been good training for you.”

Yeah, with all of the communicating among each other that everybody definitely did, it’s not like they just stood unmoving in the same spot in the courtyard for ten days or anything. Gah, this mode’s lack of a story.

The actual canon story would also have helped Kaito learn a thing or two about communication, in theory, at least if he’d lived and had been able to continue to use what he’d learned. If he’d lived, then presumably, during whatever change to the canon events caused him to actually get his illness treated before it was too late, the main lesson he’d learn would be an emphatic tell people when something’s wrong with you, dammit. Important lessons about communication there.

Kaito:  “Just how living here helped me in my astronaut training… I think it helped you with your detective work, too. Maybe the time you spent here will be useful for your future, y’know?”

A nice sentiment, but one that definitely only really makes sense for the main story. In this AU, apparently all Shuichi did was hang out with people all day, with no attempt to unravel the mystery of what’s going on here.

Kaito:  “Isn’t there something you gained here?”

It’s marred by the lack of any semblance of a story backing this up, but it’s still very Kaito that he’s trying to encourage Shuichi to think about what he’s learned and how he’s grown.

Shuichi:  (And above all else… I was so lucky to make a friend like Kaito.)

That’s definitely a thing that we can all agree he gained here, though! And that’s what’s most important – for Kaito as well.

Shuichi:  “Thank you for everything. I’m really glad I met you, Kaito.”

Awwww. It’s so lovely to hear Shuichi fully expressing how much he’s grateful to Kaito, while Kaito is there to hear it. Shuichi never quite said anything to this extent in canon while Kaito was alive, which I may have mentioned a few times was kind of heartbreaking.

Kaito:  “What are you talking about!? That’s my line! I’m glad I got to meet you, Shuichi!”

So… since this is this AU and not the canon story, I’m going to assume that Kaito brushing off Shuichi’s heartfelt thanks isn’t because he doesn’t feel like he deserves it. Rather, it’s just that, despite that he constantly presents the fiction of himself as this awesome hero who does this for people, he’s kind of awkward and unsure about how to respond to such earnest gratitude acknowledging that awesomeness as the genuine truth. So instead, he does what he always does and turns it around to use it to help Shuichi feel good about himself, too.

Kaito really does mean this, though. He’s just as grateful to Shuichi as Shuichi is to him – especially if we assume that the Harmonious Heart’s best outcome really did happen in this story. They are friends! Not just hero and sidekick, friends, which is such a big deal to Kaito. Shuichi is already the closest friend he’s ever had, and that means the world to him.

(I definitely hadn’t forgotten about this line when I wrote my own thing about Kaito getting heartfelt thanks from his sidekicks and responding with “that’s my line”, so this… probably somewhat influenced that, yes.)

Kaito:  “You’ll always be my sidekick, alright!?”

Again, since this is a happier AU with much less messed-up co-dependency going on (especially with the Harmonious Heart having helped to fix that), I’m going to assume Kaito means this in a good way. Not as “I need you to always depend on me”, but just as “whenever you do need me, I’ll always be there for you”. Everyone needs someone else from time to time. You can’t just graduate from being a “sidekick” who relies on someone else’s support into a “hero” who doesn’t need anyone at all. Heroes and sidekicks aren’t that black-and-white. Kaito considered the sidekicks from his backstory only former sidekicks by now, but that isn’t how things should actually work at all.

Once Kaito’s sidekick, always Kaito’s sidekick, because no matter how strong those people are now thanks to him, they’re still going to need help sometimes, and because Kaito is always going to want to be there for his friends.

Shuichi:  “Yes, of course!”

Look at Shuichi not even being slightly awkward or put-off at the idea of being Kaito’s “sidekick”! He understands exactly what Kaito means by that here, and it was never about Shuichi being lesser than him.

Shuichi:  (Kaito and I beamed at one another and shook hands. We both put all our strength into the handshake.)

They are friends! I love the implication that they both want to get across the strength of their friendship in that handshake, communicating without words.

Shuichi:  (I’m really glad I met Kaito. So in at least *one* way, I’m thankful to Monokuma. I’m sure Kaito feels the same way. But we don’t have to tell each other that. We don’t need words. I know exactly how Kaito feels, without them.)

Communication without words! Shuichi and Kaito also kind of did some of this, during trial 5, so it’s especially appropriate for them that this is one of the things the writers put into their scene here. Friends who know each other so well that they can do this is one of my favourite friendship tropes and melts my heart.

I suppose we can assume that Shuichi’s inexplicable mindreading powers have reverted to something less supernaturally intrusive and more realistically just him being able to intuit how Kaito’s feeling because of how well he knows him. Maybe this means he’ll be able to take a leaf out of Kaito’s book and pick up on when Kaito’s feeling down and needs to talk to him about something, even when he’d have hesitated to mention it otherwise? I hope so. They are friends and equals who can support each other, like they always should have been.

[chwrpg]

It’s about time. We’ve been waiting for you guys. -- Nova Lisbon

A NOTE FROM ADMIN B: If anyone can hear screaming in the distance don’t worry it’s just me!!!!!!!!! It’s no secret the Lisbon sisters are the loves of my life so I’ve always wanted to have the full set on the dash to really get into that family dynamic of theirs. And now, thanks to resident angel™ Tiff, we’re one step closer! I love the way you’ve written Nova-- like the other sisters she has that enigmatic manic pixie dream girl facade, but there’s so, so much more behind what everyone else projects onto her. I cannot wait to see her finally get the attention she deserves.

OOC NAME/ALIAS, PREFERRED PRONOUNS, AGE & TIMEZONE:

That Bitch FKA Tiff . 26 . CST

DESIRED CHARACTER:

Nova Lisbon

HOW ACTIVE WILL YOU BE?

7

SECONDARY CHOICE:

-

DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER:

If John Green had ever met Nova Lisbon he would have had a field day with that one. Everything about her from the way she walked with a little skip in her step to her more arbitrary habits like the way she dotted her i’s with hearts and took Buzzfeed personality quizzes when she was bored in class was more than enough material for her to inevitably become someone’s manic pixie dream girl. It wasn’t even that there was necessarily anything special that made her stand out from everyone else, people were just naturally attracted to her because she was an enigma; an experience that they could talk about at class reunions in the years to come. The Lisbon sisters were known in town for the air of mystery that followed them, enticing those who enjoyed a challenge to go to great lengths in hopes of catching the attention of one of the elusive sirens. Catching the eye of one of them was like winning a lottery ticket or climbing Mount Everest. While her sisters preferred to shy away from this portrayal that had been placed on them since their move to Rosewood, just trying to live normal lives, Nova reveled in all of the extra attention, more than happy to take her sisters’ share. Being caught smack dab in the middle of so many personalities made it so that it could be difficult to not get overlooked and that soon became one of her biggest fears, being forgotten and ultimately left behind, even by her own family. A fear that she never shared with any of them out of fear of sounding more irrational than her mother often made her feel. How could she tell them not to be themselves because it made her feel small compared to them when their parents had already stifled almost all enjoyment out of their life? Instead she began doing outrageous things and getting into unsavory habits for the sake of standing out. And in a way showing that she had control over her life, that no one told her what to do, even her parents. Though as mature as she tried to come off she was still a naive, hopeless romantic who could easily be taken advantage of. She fell in love easily. It seemed almost weekly. Unfortunately all of those people were out of her life about as fast as they had come in. But in that desperation to become a person of importance in others lives, in fighting so desperately to not become just another passing flavor of the week, she gave pieces of herself. Until she had given so much there was nothing left to give. Until all that was left was for her to get her shit together and pick up those pieces herself. And slowly but surely she was learning to do that. No offense to Alaska Young, but she was going to become the one who would control the narrative to her own story.

SAMPLE WRITING:

When Nova had first proposed the idea of a peer counseling program she had been met with a couple of chuckles, little bouts of amusement which soon took an awkward turn when the realization hit that she was completely serious. They were completely in their right to believe that she had been joking of course. Up until recently she wasn’t known for taking anything too seriously, much less known to dabble in humanitarianism. How on Earth did this girl, the same girl who throughout high school threw fits mid lecture over something as simple as a break up note think she was equipped to share any kind of advice with anyone? But that was exactly why Nova thought she was a prime candidate to participate in a peer counseling program. While, yes, she had been raised in an extremely sheltered environment she had somehow managed to find herself going through certain hardships that weren’t universally shared in such a short amount of time. Sure, as the whispers around town had led everyone to believe once the girls had all effectively left their time in captivity in their house, there probably wouldn’t have been so many speed bumps along the way if she had just listened to her parents. But she also wouldn’t have learned any of the life lessons she had if these experiences never occurred. For as much as she had been shamed at the time for her mistakes she felt no regrets. These moments and lapses in judgement that she was demonized for, especially by her mother who constantly berated her for being a free spirit, had molded her into the person she was today. The thing with Nova was that she stopped letting herself be bound by the rules the moment they settled down in Rosewood. Which really should have come as less of a surprise considering the compounding frustration that had slowly built up in the girls, passing on the baggage from the sister before them like a rite of passage.

Being part of such a tight knit family had always felt like both a blessing and a curse. The Lisbon sisters had always been as thick as thieves, so close that growing up Nova even believed they all shared a soul. That they all took different parts of it and together completed a whole person. Tessa had snatched up the compassion and understanding, Marina the brutal honesty and vicious protectiveness, Bridget the loyalty and adaptability, and Cecily the courage and patience. At least that was how she coped with their situation, by doing what she always did and romanticizing everything. Perhaps that was where the real problem lied though, that their codependence ran so deep they lost their sense of individuality. But what else were they supposed to do when their growth had already been stunted so severely by denying them the ability to form any true relationships outside of their own household? Even Nova had always been more open to the public than her sisters left a lot of things unsaid, things she didn’t think were of much importance but explained a lot about her character. Things she wanted people to find out about her by looking deeper than surface level. She left hints here and there, little moments with different people, like a scavenger hunt waiting to be solved. It was a path many had tried to venture but very few actually made headway along.

These who truly got to know Nova knew she was like a hurricane; calm and still at times like the eye of the storm, the still point in the turning world as one of her many suitors once stated. But destructive in passing, wearing her heart on her sleeve, and often making a scene when she felt  like she was being played. Maybe that was why no one could quite understand why it was she felt the need to start the peer counseling program. Was it to gain some kind of karmic retribution for all the lives she had turned upside-down? Or was it to live vicariously through the lives of others by listening to their stories like they were retellings excerpts from books in some vast library of life? The truth was much more simple than that. Nova just loved people. And she liked to help them, not out of self interest despite this desperate need to be loved in return, but because she was fundamentally a caretaker.

This was how she found currently herself the only running some errands for colleagues and shopping for holiday decorations to spruce up the little office they used as the peer counseling center. She had taken a bit of a detour in the beauty department when the wails of child snapped her out of her own thoughts. Turning to scan down the aisle and see where the ruckus was coming from she spotted a little girl, no more than two or three years old. Around how old her child would have been had things turned out differently. The kid seemed to be lost and crying out for her mom but there was no one in sight who seemed to be coming to her rescue. She shuffled back awkwardly to the end of the aisle, looking all around to see if anyone was making their way back over for her or even if there was an employee whose attention she could get, but there was no one. Part of her told herself to just go and pretend like she didn’t see anything, it wasn’t her business anyways. But this wasn’t something she could overlook, it didn’t sit right to not do anything. Seeing this tiny person so upset because she was lost and didn’t know what to do reminded her of herself, and how she felt growing up.

“Hey sweetie…Did you get separated from your mom?” She asked timidly, slowly making her way closer to her, crouched down slightly so she was level with the kid to not make her feel too intimidated of this stranger coming up to her. The little girl simply nodded in response, wiping at her eyes and nose with the sleeve of the jacket she had on. “Okay. I’m gonna take you to some people that are gonna help find her, alright?” The Lisbon girl offered in the most reassuring tone she could muster up to reassure the child that things would be okay. Gracelessly she led the little girl through the store towards the front, to the customer service area where she knew the girl would be safe and there were people who were more trained on what to do in this kind of situation. Whose hearts probably wouldn’t be on the brink beating out of their chest from anxiousness of having someone else’s safety in their hands, especially when the girl reached up to clutch her hand only managing to hold onto a few of her fingers as they walked.

As awkward as she herself felt, the unknown leading the unknown, she did her best to keep a brave face all the same. The same forced smile she plastered on whenever she went back home, which she hadn’t been back to since her miscarriage. Nova had never been great with kids. They were a huge responsibility, they required lots of time, they were very dependent. They asked for much more than she currently had to give, more than she thought she would ever have to give. And quite honestly she hadn’t had the best examples of parenting. The fear of screwing up another life because of her own damage was real. It was why as shitty as she felt thinking it she was actually sorta relieved when she miscarried. It was a sad situation knowing there had been a life inside of her and losing it from one minute to another. But it didn’t feel sad to her. To be honest she didn’t really feel anything when it happened other than a weight off her shoulders. It felt like she had been granted a second chance at life. A chance to do everything over but better this time. But currently this tiny person was being so strong and entrusting her whole life with someone she didn’t know. The least she could do was act like she had her shit together for a few moments. 

When they made it to the service desk the employees got straight to making an announcement calling for the girl’s mother. Nova turned to head back to finishing her errands but stopped in her tracks when she felt a tug on the back of her shirt. It was the little girl. She begged for her not to leave and Nova didn’t have the heart to tell her no. So she stayed and played the few schoolyard games she remembered, like patty cake and rock paper scissors, with her until her mother arrived. 

The mother’s face was covered in tears as she scooped up her kid and held her close. She thanked Nova over and over again. “I don’t know how to repay you.” She said through her tears. 

“That’s not necessary, ma’am. Seeing how happy you two are is enough repayment for me. Just remember to cherish her the same way you are now always. Even when she gets older and starts giving you a hard time.” She said with a soft laugh and warm smile. As happy as she was for the happily reunited family she felt a pang in her chest as she thought about how broken hers currently was, everyone going in completely different directions once they had left home. It pained her heart to see someone have the kind of relationship she had always wanted with her mother, to see someone be revered simply for existing and not looked down on as if she was a mistake.

Maybe this was a sign. She had overcome every other problem in her life. Maybe it was time she faced the last one holding her back. Letting go of the anger she felt towards her parents. Or at least confront the issue instead of running from it. She pulled out her cellphone and dialed the number of the one parent she wasn’t scared out of her mind to talk to.

“Hey, Dad…How are you?” She asked softly into her phone.

ANYTHING ELSE?

1985

[cherryeoo]

How Convenient

Cold nights like these were nothing new to Kihyun. Every night was the same. Drunkards staggering through the narrow alleyways to their next destination, couples sitting hand in hand as they occupied shops and cafes while workers burning the late night oil race home to their families. All of them not the least bit concerned about the thing called life. Each of them go about their daily routines, some even repetitive, not worried if this day could be their last. Each one taking life for granted.

But that didn’t go for everyone.

Kihyun would occasionally run into, sometimes literally, someone who lives each and every day as their last, and for some, that day is their last. Those people live good lives and for that, are granted a good afterlife. Nevertheless, however, those that live such lives can be tempted into living different lives - coerced into abandoning sound morals and logic.

That’s where Kihyun comes in.

He’s not your typical man - hell, he’s not even a human being. Though his physical appearance is that of a delicately masucline one, Yoo Kihyun is actually a demon whose sole purpose is to tempt people into doing his own dirty deeds - occasionally carrying them out himself - to ensure that not everyone has the coveted afterlife. He deems it as a sort of balance - like nations who utilize population control, or the serpent in the Garden of Eden.

There are the rare few that are not to be touched and those that cannot be tempted no matter his efforts. Such persons are those who are usually reborn so demons like him can get another chance at trying their hands at temptation, but those happenings are slim. Likewise, only those acquired by near death experiences are able to garner a second chance at redemption.

Entering the familiar location, Kihyun made his way to the back of the dimly lit restaurant’s bar. A lone table in the farthest and darkest corner of the area became his favorite spot. It gave him the perfect view of the entire building making it easier for him to spot unsuspecting targets. Also to his pleasure, he found joy in the speedy process of doing so - after all, Kihyun was the best at what he did.

As expected, Kihyun noticed a slightly intoxicated male near the bar. It should be stated that Kihyun didn’t exactly have any special powers of sorts, he was just a master at the art of persuasion. Many would attribute such professionalism to his appearance because despite his human skin, his physical features were a bit outworldly - some might even deem him supernaturally perfect.

Midnight black hair that shone deeply - almost as if the thick strands were breathing, and perhaps they were. Piercing, yet mesmerizing eyes like a dark abyss capable of disappearing into at a mere glance. Tall and thin - ethereal, really. Every human who encountered him described him as though he were some heavenly being instead of a demon, but to humans, demons were grotesque beings - not someone who looks like a strikingly alluring man.

In addition, each of his targets claimed they didn’t remember anything after encountering Kihyun. With blank memories and only their hands and bodies at crime scenes, the targets would ultimately get blamed for the crime, thus becoming tainted - their chance at a good afterlife lost.

Approaching the rowdy male, Kihyun steadied his hands before he had the chance to spill his drink on Kihyun or anyone else. Leaning closer he whispered into the now still male’s ear before pulling back and looking deep into the stranger’s eyes before watching the man pay his tab and make his way out of the building and into autumn’s chilly night air. A devious smile slowly curved Kihyun’s lips at another deed done that he’ll surely hear about on the news the following morning.

Turning around, Kihyun noticed a woman in the typical short, skin tight black dress eyeing him as if he were a gazelle and she was a lioness. Little did she know it was the opposite - him the predator and she the prey.

Might as well have some fun, he thought to himself before approaching her with long, confident strides.

Daylight poured through the cracks in the curtains. Kihyun picked his coat off of the floor before slipping through the door without uttering even the slightest farewell. Not that he deemed it important - it was a one night stand, after all.

Making his way to his apartment, Kihyun thought of trying a new location tonight. He was starting to gain too much popularity at his usual spots, so he really had no choice but to pioneer onto somewhere new. With a mild sigh, he unlocked the door before slipping into his apartment - shoes immediately kicked off at the door before he moved forward to enter the kitchen for a quick bite.

The apartment was small, but comfortable. Shockingly cozy and cheerful with light colored walls and furniture - definitely not the type of place anyone would think someone like him would live, but Kihyun was different. He enjoyed daylight and living life as a normal human, or what could be perceived as such. When he was alive, he didn’t get to enjoy much of the one he was given, so now he makes up for it the best he can in this life while also carrying out the orders of a demon.

Call it a balance.

Cleaning up after breakfast, he takes a quick shower before laying down upon his bed to run through a mental list of what he could tempt someone to do tonight. There were so many possibilities that he found himself slightly stressed with the realization of just how little time there was in each day. With a sigh, Kihyun closed his eyes before drifting off into a deep sleep. He might be a demon, but he, too, needs his rest.

Waking up to the sound of his alarm, Kihyun sits up and rubs his eyes bore looking out the window to see a veil of darkness from the sunless sky. A small pang constricted his heart upon the sight - he’s becoming more familiar with the sights and sounds of night than he is with daylight. He missed the feeling of the warm sun on his skin, the warm breeze, the sight and sound of an afternoon rain showers and the scent thereafter. He missed all of it, but there wasn’t much that he could do other than release his hand’s grip upon his chest before getting up and readying himself for the long night ahead.

The air was colder than usual. Pulling his jacket tighter around his frame, Kihyun made his way down the opposite end of the street he usually walked. Naturally, he wasn’t too familiar with this area, but he didn’t have anything to worry about - nothing can happen to demons. He had been attacked once by a drunk man that resulted in him being stabbed, but he felt no pain, nor could he die. His attacker, however, could and did at Kihyun’s hand, no less. After all, he couldn’t risk the exposure.

Kihyun had been aimlessly wandering about, zig-zagging through the streets without paying attention to where he was going. Stopping at a corner, he noticed a small convenience store across the street from where he stood - almost ironically as his stomach growled. Caressing his tummy, Kihyun made his way into the building.

The store was vacant except for girl working the register and a younger man browsing through the assortment of alcoholic beverages while stealing glances at the employee every now and then, not even bothered by Kihyun’s presence or the fact that Kihyun was aware of his actions. It disgusted the demon, but he didn’t do anything. Instead, he grabbed a bottle of water from the cooler and a bag of honey chips before making his way to the counter, but as he did so, the other man pushed his way past Kihyun as he slammed his selection upon the counter before leaning in with a haughty smile.

The girl at the register looked calm, but Kihyun could sense that she was nervous. Silently, the demon watched her and the guy in front of him closely as a perfectly shaped brow raised.

Kihyun presumed she was around the same age he was - shoulder length black hair framing her face in a cute and chic way. A baggy hoodie and a pair of black skinny jeans covered her figure as a tired expression seemingly permanently etched itself across her face. Noticing the books beside her, Kihyun realized she was a college student before nodding - this must be one of the ways she’s paying for her schooling.

He had to give it to her, she seemed like a good person, or responsible at least, and for once in his life, he felt conflicted. Despite her good nature, she wasn’t off limits to him, but there was something in the way she acted and carried herself that struck fear into him; almost conscious-like like when he was a human, himself. She seemed like she was living the best life she could for herself and he didn’t want to jeopardize that. He could always easily find a new target, like the guy in front of him.

As he was observing her, the young man before him had become quite bold. It was obvious that he was hitting on her, but his fingers and palms were getting touchy and too close for the female’s comfort. She tried backing up as best as she could, but the small confines of the counter didn’t allow her to escape his reach. Reaching his hand out he went to run his fingers across the side of her cheek, only to be stopped before he could lay a finger on her. Kihyun whipped his hand up and grabbed his wrist. The man spun around shooting daggers at Kihyun as he looked to his wrist and back to Kihyun.

“What the hell, man? Let me go!”  The young man was slurring every word that left his lips.

“I would strongly suggest you not touch her.”

Staring intensely at the man, Kihyun slowly pulled the drunk’s arm back down to his side as he leaned forward to whisper a task into the man’s ear before releasing him. Watching closely, the man took the alcohol back to the shelf and walked out of the store. Turning back to the slightly shaken woman, Kihyun gave her a gentle smile before placing his items on the counter. Returning his hands back down to his side, Kihyun noticed her sigh in relief as tensed shoulders relaxed. Carrying out the transaction, Kihyun smiled at her as he grabbed the bag from the counter before bidding her a goodnight and to stay safe.

“Thank you.”

Her small, soft voice echoed through the now quiet store. Kihyun turned around to glance at the girl once more. The sound of her voice resonating deep within him. He felt frozen. He knew he should open the door and leave, but his body would not respond. Locking gazes with the girl before him, he could see the appreciation in her eyes and almost instantaneously, he felt his body frost over completely.

Is this how people felt when they looked at him? Who was this girl? Why did she have such an effect on him?

Snapping himself out of his daze he blinked rapidly and looked away from her. Clearing his throat, he opened the door as his voice cracked, “Take care of yourself, okay?”

That’s all that Kihyun asked before leaving without waiting for her response. Quickly walking outside and back to the opposite end of the street, his head cleared almost instantly. Briefly halting, he dipped into the shadows before turning back to face the store. He could see the girl staring in his direction, but he knew she could no longer see him. Kihyun watched as she played with the small blue gem dangling on the necklace that hung just below her collarbones, her eyes shifting away from his direction to fall upon two females that walked into the store. Taking the opportunity, he snuck back down the street, but only to turn back once more to peer at her with ever-burning confusion.

An hour later, Kihyun found himself perched up on top of a roof of a nearby building. He couldn’t bring himself to leave the vicinity of the store. He couldn’t leave her. Snacking on his chips and water, the demon watched as the girl hastefully made her way around the store before doing one final check to make sure everything had been completed and the store was vacant. Grabbing her belongings, she switched off some of the lights before making her way out into the night. After locking up, she spun on her heels before heading down the same street Kihyun came from.

Making his way off the roof, Kihyun kept to the shadows as he followed her back to her place. Once he knew she was safe inside her apartment, he made his way back to his place. Gnawing on his lip, Kihyun was deep in thought. He had heard stories about demons being affected by humans, but he always thought they were myths, but now? Now, he was starting to question everything.

Why couldn’t he bring himself to leave that store? It’s like she was gravity and he was being pulled to wherever she was by an unseenable force.

With a sigh, he flopped down onto his bed and rolled onto his back. Staring up at the ceiling his thoughts consumed his brain.

“Humans can’t have an affect on demons, can they?”

[codicesandflora]

hellsingmongrel replied to your post “I just realized something… Maybe God has acknowledged that Crowley is...”

Honestly, my headcanon is that God knew she would need them together, fighting against their opposing sides in the end, so Crowley didn't particularly Fall, he was PUSHED. On a personal level, it seems cruel, but she knew he and Aziraphale would be happy together, in the end, and Crowley's suffering would mean that the rest of the world could saved from the Armageddon. In the end, it was the kindest option for everyone, Crowley included, even if he doesn't know it.

This leads into something I’ve been thinking a lot about: the question of free will of the characters versus everything being according to God’s “Ineffable Plan”.

Personally, I think another word I’d use to describe God’s plan aside from “ineffable” is “fluid”. It’s not static. It changes with each action, each decision, and each outcome.

And yes, this is still compatible with Free Will. There does seem to be this pattern of God setting up the choices and then people making them. Then God adjusts Her plans accordingly which leads to the next set of choices. There’s contingency after contingency set aside for every possible permutation of decisions made due to free will. Thus, it truly is an ineffable plan because of the sheer complexity involved with having a plan that is both dynamic and goal-oriented. 

In that sense, Aziraphale was right. There has to be choices, that is at the core of the Ineffable Plan and is the intent behind God’s directives. He was mistaken, however, in thinking that this plan only applied to humans....

Because, I think God extended Free Will to Her servants in Heaven as well. Some of them used their Free Will to focus on obedience and strict adherence to God’s commands (in the letter of them if not in the spirit) and would include people like Gabriel, Uriel, Michael, etc. Others decided that their own will gave them the right to decide what is moral and “good” without anyone else’s input which is why Lucifer, Beelzebub, Hastur and their lot decided to stage a rebellion on Heaven (and ended up Falling).

Then you have Aziraphale and Crowley. Two people who demonstrate that God didn’t have a straightforward plan for all of Her celestial children.

My thought is that Crowley should be considered a bit of the classic Unreliable Narrator. Is he the sort of malevolent evil that Hastur or Beelzebub embody? No...but I don’t think he was completely innocent either. He says that he “only asked questions” or “only hung around the wrong people”. But I think he has a blind spot to his very real flaw of carelessness. He does things, sometimes brilliant things (well, brilliant in the sense that he’s good at his job), but he relies more on his wits to smooth out any difficulties rather than thinking carefully about the consequences of his actions beyond his immediate goal. 

It’s why he gets foiled by his own demonic plots such as taking down the phone system (making it harder for him to get in contact with Aziraphale when he needed to) and the plot for the M25 (making it harder for him to leave London later on...not to mention the grand scale suffering humans experiences versus the low levels of bad vibes he had planned on). This even extends to his relationship with Aziraphale where he makes the (unintentional. granted) mistake of giving the most backhanded compliment he could (”how can someone so clever be so stupid?”)....which is the exact same sort of terrible treatment Aziraphale gets from Heaven All. The. Time.

This is why Crowley simply could not stay in Heaven. A being who is supposed to act as God’s agent cannot just “wing it” for the sake of getting things done with no thought of how they are getting done. I agree that Crowley did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards because he was never going to be able to direct his free will into complete submission. It is cruel in some ways, but forcing Crowley to squash the qualities that make him not compatible with Heaven is another, worse sort of cruelty. 

With Aziraphale...it’s a whole other problem. Because, I think, he does have questions and did have them all along. I firmly believe that is part of why he’s far more welcoming to Crowley than other angels would be. It’s not just because he’s fundamentally good (and tries harder to hold to the spirit of God’s directives than his associates), it’s also because Crowley asks the questions that he thinks a lot about himself. He knows Heaven’s rhetoric for every occasion and will recite it to Crowley, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t wondered if Heaven is getting it right. 

This gets to the heart of what I think Aziraphale’s main flaw is: his inflexibility. It’s a trait that doesn’t attract too much attention in Heaven as long as you’re staying with in the company line. However, it does make things so much more difficult for Aziraphale because, once he decides he is acting in the Best Interests of God, Crowley and all the humans on the Earth, he is extremely reluctant to revise that mindset....even when he makes himself suffer because of it.... 

Thus, he sticks to rhetoric he’s told in Heaven because he’s decided that God’s Will is good and so he shouldn’t question it. He knows that angels are supposed to consort with demons, so he draws a line between himself and Crowley and won’t allow himself to question if it’s necessary (and in spite of the fact that it’s definitely not what he wants and probably isn’t what he needs). 

Even during Armageddon when so much is at stake, Aziraphale is still hesitant to go against everything he’s decided on a long time ago even though another part of him knows that he can’t just do what he’s always done. When he does yield enough to go along with Crowley’s schemes, he makes his own decision about how he’s going to handle it (”I’ll stop the Antichrist from coming into his powers, and if I can’t, I’ll ask the Almighty to fix things.” “I’ll keep up the Agreement, but I’ll also make sure to keep it on my head if anything goes wrong”.) Consequently, he wouldn’t confide in Crowley when he should have and he created far more heartbreak than ever needed to happen.

This is why Aziraphale needed to go to Earth. He simply has too many questions for someone so inflexible and is deliberately, consciously, too soft to execute the unyielding rule of law that Heaven often hands out. Whereas, on Earth (and with Crowley) he can learn about the necessity of not just questioning but also acting on those questions when needed.

Ultimately, Crowley and Aziraphale are the same (questioning the status quo, not really belonging in Heaven or Hell), but also different (one acting recklessly, one too paralyzed to act). They complement each other and are stronger together than apart. 

In the end, I agree that it was God’s Ineffable Plan for them to be together and save the world, but they still had to rise above their flaws and act on their own free wills in order to get there.