#unless they do a rerun and let those who didn’t get to play the event before do it

[tariah23]

The boss fight is impossible for me 🗣️… Kromer…. This shit is a gazillion worse than 2-10 Arknights and I think I’ll still have a better chance of beating that eventually over THIS. This difficulty spike in LCB is so scary right at the very beginning…

[ka-za-ri]

Obey Me wants to do Too Much and in an attempt to please the fans, it’s failing them instead.

Based on the post @1abbie7​ made regarding the common complaints players seem to have with OM and its choices as a game. I just wanted to put my two (very long) cents in while looking at OM as if it is the gacha game it truly wishes it was.

MAJOR DISCLAIMER: this post is based on my experiences and is not a reflection of the community as a whole. These are observations and personal thoughts and should be taken with a grain of salt. Also, please feel free to discuss or correct me if I have any of the information wrong. For reference, I’ve reached 5-3 in OM!, 9-2 in AL, and 6-17 in AK.

Now that we have that out of the way… ON TO WHAT I WANT TO SAY. Buckle in folks, I’m rambly and I have a lot to say. Obey Me! Has a lot of potential, and it’s a shame that a lot of things Solmare does are not helping it grow in a way that it could.

So this post is MOSTLY going to be comparing Obey Me!’s (OM) gacha and gaming experience with Azur Lane (AL)  and Arknights (AK) since I feel like both those games have a very good f2p model and don’t really have any PvP/Ranking system that affects the main gameplay. I will have other examples from other games that I’ve played before as well.

Ignoring any issues with storytelling and plot holes, since I feel like there are people who are much more qualified to speak upon that than I am, I’m just going to look at the more game and gacha experience.

EVENT SPACING, GAMEPLAY, STAMINA REFRESHES:

OM! As far as I know, is marketed as an Otome game with gacha and … Rhythm??? Game??? Elements? (I’m not quite sure how to even describe the ‘battle’ stages tbh) to break up the story stages. With the battle stages being the main way you can farm for materials to power up your cards, the bottlenecks that are built into the game are surprisingly super frustrating.

OM! Does not have an auto battle option, but it does make up for it by allowing you to sweep the stage once you’ve received 3 stars. This does make resource farming much quicker, but this also means that your stamina will disappear faster than ice in a desert. Coupled with the fact that the battle stages don’t really have much interaction or strategy for a good portion of the beginning of the game, there’s no real replay value in trying for older stages unless they have the resource you want to farm.

I guess I can let this pass since interaction isn’t what’s really marketed, but it IS important to keep your audience logging in and eager to play. At Level 40-ish, my current stamina cap is around 70. WIth the average stamina cost of a regular stage being 5 AP, and the hard stages being 8. This means you’ve got 14 normal stages and less than 10 hard stages in a full bar of stamina. Assuming I log in twice a day to get the bonus AP, that’s really not a lot of stamina to work with and just enough to maybe get through my dailies. 

Having that little stamina makes farming resources exceptionally difficult especially for the high requirements needed once you get about half-way through a devil tree. Add that to dealing with farming event points almost constantly, with your limited stamina pool, you’re pretty much forced to purchase extra stamina to meet the requirements to finish said events to get the rewards. Assuming you spend all of your daily Devil Point reward on Stamina, that’s only 180 stamina a day which makes for a really tight run IF you’re aiming to get everything in an event. 

ADDITIONALLY, this is also the fact that events and new lessons don’t seem to be announced prior to them dropping. Almost every gacha  game I’ve played before will give you a few days notice before an event drops whether it be via Social media or through in-game mail. This is to mainly generate excitement and allows players some time to prepare, whether it be hoarding what stamina refreshes they have or saving premium currency for gachas to hopefully get the chase card/unit that they’re looking for. Not being able to prepare makes it difficult to stay engaged considering you CONSTANTLY have to have resources/stamina to partake in all the events and you can’t plan accordingly.

AK announcing the current event two days prior to it starting in game and on twitter:

AL’s announcement on the 12th, almost a week prior to it starting. Maintenance was on the 17th when the game reset.. (In game notices update regularly and I don’t have a screenshot of what it would look like since maintenance has already passed.)

OM! basically giving people on twitter about 24 hours notice of a new event dropping followed by announcing that the new lessons are available on the day it drops:

I understand that OM! Devs may want to keep the new cards a surprise to players. If stats and skills played a more prominent role in the game, maybe there would be a better way to tease these events to build up hype. As of right now though, it feels like a surprise slap in the face to force players to purchase currency in order to maintain that stamina requirement. IF Solmare is adamant about having back-to-back events, at least provide players with a roadmap or a calendar so they can pick and choose what’s important to them.

Just… Don’t let it become like the FEH calendar…

Please, do not let it become like this.

In my opinion, it feels like OM! Has a bit of an identity crisis. It sorely wants to bank on the money making powers of a gacha game while also clinging to the claim that they’re an otome game revolving around the plot. It’s hard to really promote the plot when it’s locked behind a power requirement that a majority of players will not be able to reach.

With how difficult it is at the end game, players are most likely going to look for transcripts or screenshots of new lessons instead of playing the main storyline in order to save what little they have for the constant limited events. Either give the players time to recoup resources to prepare for your events so they can pull for all your new cards or lower the difficulty cap to give players the story you’re emphasizing so much. 

Tl;dr: back-to-back events will burn out players and not announcing them prior does not allow players to prepare resources, forcing them to drop money on the game. The amount of stamina it takes to complete an event AND level your cards does not make it f2p friendly.

GACHA RATES AND PITY SYSTEM:

Call me spoiled, but I feel like OM! ‘S banner rates are too low. Consider the following image for the current banner pool:

That’s a combined 1% to get your UR and that’s still not going to be guaranteed to get what you want. Consider the following rates from other games:

Azur Lane:

(Ultra Rare was a new rarity that was added with this new banner. Before that the highest rarity you could pull is a Super Rare)

Arknights: 

Fire Emblem Heroes: 

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: War of the Visions

For a game that’s always introducing new cards, you’d think that OM! Would maybe consider raising those rates so people won’t be so heartbroken when they don’t have enough currency for a 10 pull. (Especially if they have been spending what Devil Points they have on stamina to complete event stages) Yes, a majority of banners have bigger pools and  the chance for a specific 6*/UR/SSR is ultimately lower; but considering in OM!, you have stories and characterization locked behind devilgrams connected to these cards, the rates are pitifully low. At least in the other games listed, the units/cards/operators/ships aren’t tied to stories. 

I will say, the pity system isn’t absolutely abysmal. Keep in mind though, this is based on the assumption that you’ve saved up for 100 pulls. Considering how difficult it is to save that much currency while being f2p 100 pulls per banner is a tall order and impossible without the help of goldie or somethin. The frequency of new cards along with the difficulty obtaining gacha currency creates an extremely predatory model of currency purchase. With no guarantee of when event banners will be rerun, you’re pretty SOL if you make it half way through this pity system and you’re sitting on shards you can’t use. 

Players will get tired of this model mega fast. Especially with these kinds of rates. Assuming that your luck is the worst on earth, you need 2,700 Devil Points to reach the pity breaker. That’s more than two packs worth of Devil Points. So we’re looking at over $160.00 USD to get a guaranteed UR. Seeing as new banners come what feels like every two weeks or so, you’re looking at over $300.00 USD a month JUST for the gacha. If OM! Was purely a gacha game without such a heavy emphasis on the characters and the stories/scenarios they unlock, I might be able to overlook it. However, since the cards themselves unlock cheats for events and outfits and devilgram scenarios, that’s a steep price to pay, so I kinda just have to say… Yikes.

Tl;Dr: For a game that has so much content tied to limited cards and events, gacha rates for OM! Feel too low. Pity system is average as long as you have the currency to complete all 100 pulls. The reason to purchase premium currency is predatory and likely will not be sustainable in the long run. 

MONTHLY PACKS AND PREMIUM CURRENCY

So, we can agree that if you don’t have some cash on hand, it’s not going to be a real fun time to play OM! So, where do you spend your money? Let’s take a look at what they offer in terms of premium currency and how far that will get you. It’s also almost 3AM here and I’m losing my patience and filter, so excuse me if I sound more angry here than in the rest of the post.

So, here’s the basic Devil Point Shop for reference: 

If we equate Devil Points to stamina, you’re looking at about 100 stamina per dollar you spend. But let’s be real, Solmare makes their money off of gacha and them pretty pngs ‘cause y’all want those spicy devilgrams and sweet outfits for your secretary.

To even get a 10 pull, you’re looking at $22.00 USD worth of premium currency. (Why they didn’t make the $19.99 pack a full 10 pull is BEYOND me tbh.) Now most gacha players that I know who are willing to go all in on a specific banner will want to spend a pack, which means they’ll go for the most expensive option as it is the most bang for your buck. That’s an $80.00 pack for approximately 4 10 pulls and some change. Let’s compare that to the price of some Originite Prime from AK: 

It takes approximately 33 OP for one 10 pull in AK. 1 OP = 180 Orundum (currency used for gacha) Keeping this in mind,  if you don’t count the first time purchase bonus, at first glance, it’s overall more expensive to purchase this currency SOLELY for gacha purposes.

Here are the packs offered for AL: 

If you’re using gems to purchase the cubes needed for the gacha, it takes about 600 gems for 1 10 pull. One pack will net you about 8 10 pulls. Out of all the models we’ve looked at, this is honestly the most value for your dollar specifically for gacha purposes.

Take into consideration what the premium currency is used for. As stated above, 1 DP = 10 stamina. 1 OP = 1 Full stamina refresh in AK, so that’s a pretty equivalent exchange rate. (I won’t go into the AL stamina and gacha system since it differs too much from OM! To really make a good comparison.)

But, what else can DP do? A quick glance under the “Items” tab in the shop, you’ll see that it can also purchase Keys to read your devilgram stories (integral to your gaming experience), Demon Vouchers for summoning, Glow Sticks to help you in battle (Integral to gameplay), and consumables for your Surprise Guests to raise intimacy (arguably connected to gameplay). Compare this to what you can purchase with your OP outside of summoning currency in AK: Furniture (cosmetic) and Skins (Cosmetic). That’s it. 

What I’m trying to say here is that Solmare has made DP the currency for so many things that affect the game itself. This subtly pressures the players to purchase DP in order to maintain the same quality of life that they might have experienced at the beginning of their gaming experience when the level ups came fast and when the rewards were plentiful for completing all the beginners quests.

“But wait!” you say. There’s ways to earn DP passively through dailies! You’re right! You’re given 18 DP per day for completing your dailies. That equates to 1 10 pull per 2 weeks if you’re diligent in keeping up with all your quests and log in daily. Comparatively, AK will give you 2,800 orundum per week for completing all your quests and the weekly annihilation runs, so just short of 1 full 10 pull in the game. However, AK gives you the specific currency used exclusively for gacha. This leaves your OP relatively free to be used for stamina refreshes, or you can hoard them for when new skins come out, or you can use a few to supplement your missing orundum for a banner pull.

Without knowing what could be coming up next in terms of events and banners, OM! Makes it very difficult for you to hold onto your DP due to the sheer stamina sink that events can be. Unless you’re really good at optimizing your resources, you’re likely going to be spending DP on things outside of gacha, making it difficult to save those 20 pulls in a month.

Tl:dr: DP is used for too many things that aid in gameplay which leaves less for gacha, forcing players to make a choice between moving forward in harder story stages or unlocking card specific stories.

Alright, but let’s say you don’t have enough for packs, but you still want to support a game. You don’t wanna whale ‘cause you got bills to pay, but maybe you’ve got enough to be a minnow or a very sad and small dolphin. For this, most people turn to those delicious monthly packs. Usually, the monthly packs or subscriptions are really a good bang for your buck. Usually, the bonuses that these packs provide will add up to a value that is much more than your initial investment in them. So, let’s look at what OM!, AK and AL offer, shall we? 

Let’s break down what the VIP gives you since there’s quite a bit and it’s presented in a less condensed format. So, at first glance, I have to ask… “VIP login bonus?” What does that even mean? When you look at the details the description is as follows:

I’m sorry, what? This vagueness will not help sell this pack to me. Most monthly packs will give you premium currency right away that is equivalent to the amount that you paid. You can see that both AK and AL list this and also let you know exactly what else you get for the next 30 days. There’s no vagueness in what these packs provide. 

Next thing to look at:

I’m sorry. What? I don’t understand why a max AP increase is the choice for a VIP perk here. This is banking on the fact that you’re going to be playing at max efficiency and will be under max stamina in order to take advantage of the refill timer giving you the extra AP. Why OM! Doesn’t just give you the stamina in your mail is beyond my comprehension. This is just saying “yeah, you could have more stamina if you’re playing this game and making sure you’re below your cap. I … no. Just why.

NEXT PERK: 

No. This is useless for higher level players. Perks should benefit all players, not just your new players that you’ve tricked into spending money ‘cause this pack is only $9.99 a month. I’m so angry at this I don’t want to look at this anymore. NEXT.

This is a fine perk. Paying for easier passive resources is fine. I don’t have anything to say.. Next.

Oh thank fuck. An actual good perk. Passively getting the harder to get resources which cuts down on your already limited farming? Hell yeah.  Also fine in my book. NEXT. 

“Spend money to spend more money! Because we know this monthly deal ain’t shit!” is all I’m getting out of this.

Finally, I need to talk about this: 

So… you’re telling me that for $10.00, I’m going to get $6.00 worth of DP and I won’t get the full value unless I STAY subscribed? If I cancel and then resubscribe, will that go back to 60 DP when I subscribe later? Why would you do this other than to give your players less than what they deserve? These packs are supposed to be designed to give you the value of your purchase and some extras as incentive to keep playing and coming back to pay. This just… as a first impression leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Also, let’s talk about the fact that you’re BILLED MONTHLY? Listen, I get that they’re trying to be ‘convenient’ so you can set this up and forget about it and reap the benefits, right? It’s about the same cost as a Netflix subscription, no big deal. But listen, that means they’re also banking on you to forget you even have this subscription if you’re a casual player and you’re going to continue to give them money Stop that Solmare. Bad.

I’m too tired to look at sales. Just as a quick glance. the discounts and deal are meh at best.

Tl:dr: Monthly pack is underwhelming and likely not worth it. Automatically being billed monthly is the worst thing I’ve seen all week and this was written in 2020. 

SOME SUGGESTIONS? IT’S NOT ALL BAD, I PROMISE.

So, how can Solmare improve? OM! Is honestly one of the most stylish otome games I’ve seen and has a lot of potential to continue growing its player base if the devs directed their energies in the right direction. Right now, OM! Suffers due to the fact that it’s trying to do too much in too little time. For a game that’s less than a year old, it’s pushed out enough content in the last three months to last six. Dialing back the gacha and collecting elements to focus on the story and a slower pace would really help, if you ask me. 

OM! Really needs to slow its roll. Events are losing their impact from being rolled out at such a quick pace on top of current pop quizzes, new lessons and banners. Every week I feel like I’m watching the more hardcore players yell at having too much to do when everything is layered on top of one another. This is not inherently a bad thing. Having a lot to do keeps the player base engaged and excited for your game.

The problem arises when you’re not giving your players any time to recover from events and just throw things at them all the time. Finding a good balance between events and downtime is difficult and it likely won’t happen overnight, but it would be nice to see them maybe give a week or two to really let the impact of events sink in and let players really find time to nurture or use the new cards/rewards they just got.

First step in the right direction would be giving more notice prior to events and lessons. Just something more than 24 hours before, or the day of. Not providing a notice makes it feel like these things are being rushed. 

If Solmare is adamant about keeping the pace it’s set up, then give us a roadmap or event calendar of when new lessons or pop quizzes are coming. They can keep the details of the lessons and quizzes limited until closer to the actual dates, but at least this will let players prioritize where they want to put their resources.

Gacha rates for URs being raised to 2% would likely make a reasonable difference. When so much story and cosmetic content is tied to a UR or SSR cards along with their frequency, it serves to likely benefit them to make it more accessible to players. Locking so much behind luck and a paywall makes it more obvious that they only care about the money that they can get from the diehard collectors in the game.

Make skins obtainable by DP. Stop locking them behind event cards. Allow players to have easier access to cosmetic features. It’s a less predatory model than what they’ve got right now. Granted, Lonely Devil has sort of helped this issue considering they’ve grouped event reruns all in one place to play at your leisure, and if I remember some of the event cards have skins tied to them. Still, just… idk sell the skin on its own. It makes more sense than to pray that you roll that UR with the one 10 pull you have. 

Make resources easier to obtain passively. I’m sure I sound like a broken record, but limited resources make this game difficult to enjoy. You’re barely through doing one thing to level up a card and you’re met with a giant wall of requirements for the next step. AL has commissions and the dorm, AK has the base. OM! Has Jobs, which gets you grimm and some items if you’re lucky, but it definitely needs expansion considering the power checkpoints late game.

Hell, just making some of those DP purchasable items actually farmable might help.

Get a publisher to work with you. I know Solmare has been around the block and this isn’t the first otome game they’ve made, but I definitely think working with a publisher who’s familiar with the ins and outs of a proper gacha helping them will benefit them. Having a publisher will help ensure that there’s adequate funding for the game to be as good as it can be. Not only that, you’re looking at a better social media presence which the player base can interact with and get more attached to.

 Literally, having a publisher could solve so many pacing and announcement issues since they would be in charge of when events come out and likely has a better eye on how players react. This way, Solmare can concentrate on making the content as quality as they can and not inundate people with a new lesson or event as soon as it’s done.

Tl:dr: Solmare, please get a proper publisher so they can help with quality control and balancing your game. Please. I’m begging you. You have so much going for you please don’t let this game die before it turns a year old.

Ok. it’s 4 AM and I spent most of the day writing this post. If you’ve made it this far, congrats and I’m sorry for being so rambly. I’m so sorry if none of this made any sense in the end.  I’m sure there are points that I’ve missed out on like stage replayability and a more engaging battle mode, and the lack of any sort of meta which makes the lower rarity cards you pull feel completely useless…  but uh… I can’t think anymore and I haven’t had time to farm in my horny ship girl game. Feel free to let me know your thoughts or discuss! 

Thanks for your time and I hope y’all have a good day. Happy romancing some demon boys!

[poepoe-thebunny]

Damien The Littlest Brother

Or: Stuff Damian does with his siblings.

Dick

Dick in some ways was another form of idolization for Damian. Damian was so very young when they first met, younger still when Ra's and the league sunk their teeth into his heart and tried their best to tear it to shreds. Dick's role, part sibling part guardian, was the first major form of stability Damian had. Little Damian had been born with the mythos of The Bat hanging overhead, and the hope of measuring up to first his grandfather's and then his father's standards had nearly broken him.

Like a lot of children Damian didn't necessarily understand or appreciate what Dick was trying to do for him until he was older. But just like other children Damian clung to the emotional support and care Dick gave him, the care he had so often been deprived of.

Damian wasn't necessarily there for the events that shaped Dick and the rest of their family, but he is growing up in the aftereffects of it. Dick chose to give Damian the love he deserved, Dick chose not to punish a child for the situation he was born into. But Dick isn't perfect. He loses his temper, he gets frustrated, he gets things wrong, he makes mistakes, he bleeds. Dick, at least initially, was real and human in a way Bruce wasn't to a little boy who already had his future decided for him.

While he may not admit it, Damian looks up to Dick because in a lot of ways Dick is a better person than most. Dick is a good man, a better man than Bruce in some ways. He shows Damian what a hero actually is, and that the concept of being a hero isn't tied to the suit. Dick shows Damian that he can and is a good person, that he can make those decisions for himself and that his own emotional needs are not anything to be ashamed of. Damian is a boy first, not a weapon.

So Damian leans into his affection. There are shared naps after patrol, and days out getting ice cream or going to the zoo. Damian wakes a tired Dick up with a pillow to the face, and pillow fights and laughter ensues. Dick comes along to the school showcases, where an embarrassed Damian has pictures and paintings of their family up for all to see. He never once mocks Damian's desires, instead listening with seriousness to every moment of Damian's vulnerability.

That's what sticks with Damian the most. That Dick wholeheartedly believes Damian is a good person, that Damian can be good and kind and soft. He sees Damian fumble with his cool demeanor, growing shy and embarrassed when chatting with students his own age. Damian knows the names of most of his classmates, takes down random details that shouldn't be important to a stranger "We're NOT friends Grayson," but Damian talks to the youngest students about animals, and how to properly hold puppies. Damian has lists of underfunded animal shelters and regularly sends them to Bruce and Tim when preparations for the Wayne Foundation charity events come up. Damian knows most of the officers in Bludhaven since he occasionally stops by with something for Dick, a late lunch or hot drink or Dick's spare clothes in case he needs out of his police uniform. After many coos, head pats and cheek pinches, Damian is occasionally "babysat" by some of them while Dick is out on patrol of the police variety. He does not realize how much he has charmed Dick's co-workers, talking about his pets or his brothers.

Dick is the kind of hero, the kind of person, Damian was told wasn't real. That heroes were childish nonsense, that mercy and love were weak. The concept that someone could love him, that he was deserving of love instead of being forced to earn it, was foreign. But Dick Grayson was all of that. So Damian puts up less and less of a fight over the silly pictures they take together. Dick buys books about animals, and Damian grudgingly wears the cute stupid animal ear headbands Dick buys him. While part of Damian knows he won't be, the part that viciously beats "heroes" and "love" and "ice cream" back with a vengeance, another part of Damian, a very small fragile part, thinks that maybe if he grew up becoming like Dick Grayson the Person (TM) it wouldn't be so bad. "Awww thanks Dami!"

Jason:

Next to Tim, the Cain Instincts are strongest with Jason. Jason is constantly ruffling his hair, calling him names, and sitting on him. Jason does not give a single iota of a damn for any sort of authority except Alfred. Jason is not afraid of Damian.

So when Damian latches onto Jason's neck ready to strangle him, he laughs like it's the best thing he's ever seen, and a wrestling match ensues. They bond over it, over the goading and the competition.

They bond over books too, over stories and musicals and words Damian shouldn't care about but he does. Damian says he's too old for fairy tales even though he never had them to begin with, never had stories told when tucked into bed unless it was for a harsh life lesson. And yet Damian will find books as gifts for Jason, and Jason will read them aloud after Damian annoys him by pressing his feet into Jason's side. He swears up and down that the exaggerated voices and accented narration from Jason are done purely to annoy him. Damian constantly interrupts him, always asking questions and Jason tells him to shut up and be patient, "learn to listen demon brat."

They watch Disney and Ghibli, Laika and Illumination, and after a very enlightening conversation with one Tim Drake, Jason introduces Damian to theater. From Antigone to Romeo and Juliet, from West Side Story to Hadestown to Heathers the Musical. Bruce has walked in on them recreating various iconic sword fights too many times to count, quoting lines while dressed in blanket robes and crowns made of craft feathers and stick on jewels. Alfred thorough enjoys their riveting performances.

Like a lion teaching his cubs through play, Jason teaches him that he's never too mature for anything and screw anyone else who doesn't like it. Jason teaches him fun in a way Damian never allowed himself to have before, to look past his mission, and do things for enjoyment. He teaches Damian defiance and rebellion, two very important things for him to learn even if it's only interrupting rude rich people and disagreeing with his father over whether he needs to attend another gala.

Damian and Jason have a strange relationship, and initially aren't quite sure how to act around one another. Such large parts of their identity and experiences were formed by an indirect overlapping influence. Jason's death and the effect it had on the family and how they treat Damian, Jason's time with the league and the lazarus pit. But at the same time they understand each other in a way some of their other siblings don't. The strength and struggle in establishing their independence and identity means that their grudging respect turns into fondness with time.

Tim:

It appears that Cain Instincts don't particularly care if one is related or not, given the sheer amount of times Tim and Damian are at each other's throats initially. But with time they settle and grow more comfortable with each other, the words turn from anger to a grumbly sort of discontent, like irritated puppy's more than anything.

They bond over pride. They bond over failure. The two aren't that different really. They've seen each other at their worst. Missions with too many close calls, where the knife wounds cut too close and the bullets bit to deep, when the snap of Gotham's jaw came to close to closing over them and the only thing saving Gotham's Rogues from the collective wrath of two angry Robin's was the weight of their family's morals.

They had to learn to trust each other. But they do.

The insults are more to fill the silence, partially affection and partially with the need to annoy. They watch reruns of Star Trek and play Legend of Zelda in pajama pants (Tim) and hoody's (Damian), half draped over each other with his feet in Tim's lap. When Damian couldn't find one to his satisfaction, he gifted Tim a new skateboard with his own hand drawn and painted design. He sends a video to the family group chat of him laughing when Tim faceplants.

They are the DEFINITION of annoying to each other. Damian chucks clothes at Tim to make him shower, they get into slap fights over breakfast, they sneer at each other's drinks. "With all the coffee it's no wonder you don't grow Drake," While handing a sick Tim herbal tea for his throat.

It's an underlying trust that rarely needs to be affirmed. But when it does Damian won't hesitate to let his opinion be known. Whether it be high school bullies mocking his gangly brother, reporters trying to pit the "blood son" against the "Boy CEO", or shady members of the Gotham elite with too much interest in his family and his company, Damian's blunt attitude comes back with a vengeance. There will be no Wayne Charm, no shop talk, no backhanded compliments, when Damian Wayne gets between them and his brother. It's "I trust my brother," and "No business with the likes of you," or even "When I said you two weren't on the same level, I meant that you were the incompetent one."

Tim always tries to scold him, tells him he shouldn't be petty, I can protect myself demon, but he smiles while he says it.

Stephanie

She teases him mercilessly, will smile sweetly while "blackmailing" him and challenges him to do things he has never done before. Damian won't admit he enjoys any of it even upon threat of death. She's loud, annoying, and demanding and unapologetically so and Damian is convinced she was dropped on her head as a child. Stephanie is his sister and he loves her as a younger brother would, hurling insults at each other while fighting over french fries drinking smoothies in some fast food restaurant at 2 in the afternoon on a day out.

What strikes him about Stephanie is that she demands respect because she knows on a fundamental level that she deserves it, that all of her hard work was her own and she knew she could do it even when everyone else thought she didn't belong. As he grows Damian comes not only to admire her, but finds this a very important lesson to learn for himself.

Stephanie pushes him, she encourages him even if it's hidden under mutually shared insults. On days where she "babysits him" (she does not, Damian tells himself he doesn't need a babysitter he doesn't) she's perfectly happy to work on their motorcycles together, or have random picnics in the park with bags of fast food, or challenge him to rounds of ping pong. They learn eventually that they make a very good team together. Either destroying Tim and Jason in video games, the occasional local ping pong or DDR tournament when visiting Gotham U, or spur of the moment plans in a night time fight. Stephanie is crazy enough to believe it will work, and Damian is crazy enough to believe Stephanie will follow.

Stephanie understands what it feels like to constantly have to justify yourself, to be told you can't measure up and that you're place isn't here, even though you know it is. To have the weight of your family's decisions hanging overhead for the judgment of others.

So they learn to love each other through healthy competition and teasing remarks. Stephanie shoos him off to "talk to kids your own age, don't be so serious!". It's normal, in some ways the closest to normal Damian has had in a long time. And though they won't say it out loud, it's nice to know someone else agrees that they are entitled to these moments of happiness, these moments they were stripped of and denied for so long. They believe in each other and their right to happiness. Damian will never doubt Stephanie's strength, as spoiler or Batgirl or robin or Stephanie, and in return she will never doubt him or his place in their family.

...

Even if that means trying to escape when she wants to play dress up. "I am not your doll Brown," "Fine fine, whatever you say short stack."

Cass:

The moments between Damian and Cass are silent, but if you believe nothing is said then you are entirely wrong. They speak to each other quite often even if they don't use words.

He watches her dance, and thinks she is so strong. Damian swears she could have been a princess in another life, if life had not sunk its fangs in and poisoned her with pain instead. Just as he would have been a prince. While he initially tried to hide it, Cass always knew he was there. Damian watches her. Damian hears her words, her joy and her tears, and puts it down on to charcoal and paper. I hear you, and he shows them to her, how her form litters his pages as she pats his head. There is, Damian thinks, a poetic irony in seeing something so dangerous create something so beautiful. She is art and deserves to be heard, and Damian is grateful that she hears him too. He lets her look at pages of charcoal and ink, at canvases of paint full of everything Damian can't put into words quite yet, and finds understanding.

But while he is a Wayne, he was an Al Ghul at one point and his mother gave him the training every prince should have, skills beyond his sword. So one day, as she stretches, he brings in a case and sets it down with a clunk. He tunes the strings and plays Tomaso Albinoni's Adagio in G Minor, as she watches him with eyes that understand far too much, eyes that say I know, I hear you baby brother. Damian almost wishes she didn't, partially due to the struggle of his own pride, but also because no one should ever have to understand that kind of pain.

Moments with Cass are quiet, but they are never silent. Cass teaches him understanding, helps teach him empathy. And while Damian knows he can never dance the way she can, he can play and sketch and paint and between them their secrets can no longer be secrets. Cass doesn't teach him how to feel ,no, he's always been too good at that. Instead she teaches him ways to coax them out when the words won't come, to look around him with the wonder he wasn't allowed to have before, to let him be defined by a different set of skills that shows he can create something beautiful too.

Duke:

Damien thinks Duke is "cool", like the kind of cool you see in movies and TV shows, the average teenage boys in jeans and sneakers who fight for the underdog and stand up to bullies in a 3-on-1 fight even if they know they won't win. There is a conviction in Duke that rivals Damian's own, and Damian can't help but admire someone willing to strike out on their own and do something when they felt others were failing.

Duke is "Chill" as Jason likes to say, he's low pressure and not pushy in a way that Damian appreciates. He's calm, not in the stoic way of some of the others, but in a way that doesn't put Damian out of his comfort zone with expectations.

Time spent with Duke often consists of puzzles and card games, or movies. Duke is very good at using Damian's own pride against him to "trick" him into playing, but together they do everything from DnD to Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters. It's relaxing.

Duke tells him about school and if Damian is having trouble with the more normal things of being a tween, like worrying whether other kids like him, or wearing something embarrasing, Duke brings him out of his own head. Duke plays along with his competitive nature, challenging him to races the few times they patrol together. He finds Damian outside drawing, and teaches him soccer. Other times they sit there together, Duke writing whatever comes to mind while Damian sketches. Damian gifts Duke a detailed portrait of himself; standing in the center of the crowded streets, body spliced into neat clockwork-style segments with patches of his Signal uniform, the red jacket from his time in the "We R Robin" crew, his sports uniforms, and casual clothing, the bright light of his powers bursting from within in a halo under the Gotham smog. He is Gotham's daylight protector, unique and gifted, and Damian respects that.

It's not easy, Damian is still young and cocky, still isn't very good at saying what he feels. But Duke sees right through his attempts to play it off, and it's always met with head pats and a "Whatever you say lil' D." Damian won't say it out loud but he thinks that the sheer conviction Duke has for doing what's right bleeds into every aspect of him, and that maybe with time it will do the same for himself. Damian admires his strength of will and determination, and the work Duke is willing to put in to get what he wants.

[celestialflamesme]

| TROIA | A Stashi One-shot | Fairy Tail Next Generation |

Ships: Nashi Dragneel x Storm Fullbuster, slight Rin Fullbuster x Rosemary Fernandez

Nashi didn't know why she ever thought letting Venetia choose a job request this time would be a good idea.

In fact she didn't exactly recall telling her she could, let alone promising her, because it was a well known fact in Magnolia, albeit in the guild itself.

Venetia plus anything equals catastrophe.

She loved her friend (don't tell the lug-nut she said that) to death, but Redfox was also the kid that stole an S-class mission at 11, so she wasn't much of a 'think before you act' kind of person.

Nevertheless, the rest of the team didn't think it was that bad of a job, and the reward was good so they agreed. Nashi had a lingering doubt about how the day's events would go, but she brushed those thoughts aside for the sake of the greater good.

The greater good being beating Team Storm by going on more jobs than them.

Team Nashi reached the village after a sickeningly long train ride that Rosemary DID NOT help ease in the slightest by knocking them out, no matter what she says otherwise.

The beautiful expanse of a land was incredible to stare at and Venetia smirked at their reactions as if to say 'and y'all doubted me haha'.

"Oh my! What are you kids doing there? Come on here!" A lady who looked to be in her mid-forties waved at them.

Sylvia tried to beat Rin to their host, but her annoying twin sauntered forward and shot her a gorgeous grin as he introduced the team.

"How polite!" The lady gushed and Sylvia grit her teeth.

She invited them in for tea and explained the situation. Her husband, the village head, and several other males had been held hostage by a group of mages that had been threatening everyone to pay hefty sums of money every month.

She pondered for a moment. "Some kids your age came here earlier actually. They said they'd help rescue my husband and the others. Are you kids their backup? Is that why you're here?"

Rosemary narrowed her eyes as she spoke, "A group of kids our age, you say? Were they from the same guild as ours?"

The lady nodded.

"Well ma'am, we best be on our way then! Can't risk waiting any longer!" The red head's eyes flickered with what the teammates could only call utter madness, before rising from her seat as she rushed out.

"Wait, dear girl? Oh, she seems to be an eager one!"

Rin let out a sigh as his eyes crinkled in adoration, "ALL the more eager when there's competition."

"You kids will need horses, if you ever want to catch up to them then! To the stables!" The woman cheered.

"Horses..."

The two dragonslayers shuddered as they stared at the monstrosities. Sylvia groaned.

"You two will be of no use then! First we take the same mission, and next, only half the team can function fully! This day just keeps getting better and better!" She threw her hands in the air frustratedly.

"Unless we use troia, of course!" Rin snapped his fingers and gave his sister a cocky grin, who retaliated by grumpily flipping a bird at him.

15 minutes later, they found Rosemary speed-walking. She gladly accepted the invitation to ride with Rin, who looked like a kid at Christmas. His grin widened further when Rosemary wrapped her arms around his waist, much to Sylvia and Nashi's amusement.

They reached their destination - A half-burnt cabin at the edge of the forest overlooking the giant lake- only to find Team Storm who'd already engaged in combat.

Rosemary joined the fray in a span of less than 5 seconds, sending spell after spell at the bandits with an evil glint in her eyes.

"What the-Rose, what are you doing here?" Reiki raised an eyebrow while throwing daggers at a goon, who squealed in terror as one hit him, leaving him stuck on a nearby tree.

Nashi grinned as she yelled,"We're here to get the job money, of course. FIRST ONE TO GET ALL OF THESE DUMBASSES ROUNDED UP GETS DIBS!"

Storm yelped, "Aw fuck, the flamehead is here too?"

"I HEARD THAT, ICE CONE! YOU WANNA GO?!!!"

"ARE YOU TWO FIGHTING AGAIN?"

"NO SIR!!" they both yelled as Reiki cracked his knuckles at them.

Seeing the pinkette distracted, a mage took this as a chance to attack her.

"Lightning Strike!"

Nashi turned around just in time to shield herself from the attack. "FIRE DRAGON ROAR!"

Venetia hollered, "JOIN US, FIRE BREATH! WE'RE ABOUT TO KICK ALL THEIR ASSES!"

They managed to round up all the bandits and tied them to the horses. Meanwhile Nova, Luke and Sylvia freed the villagers, who profusely thanked them, glad to finally be able to see their families.

"Why do I still have a feeling that something's going to go wrong?" Nashi muttered to herself.

"Maybe because something always has to go wrong in Team Nashi's missions?" Storm inputted with a smirk.

She gasped at the accusation, fixing him with one of the nastiest glare she she could muster. If looks could spontaneously combust, the whole town would be extinct right this very second.

"YOU WISH!"

"I don't have to, it's reality!" The Devil-Slayer's smirk intensified. The pinkette was tempted to rip the smirk right off his face and maybe claw out one of his godforsaken blue eyes out with a nearby branch. To no avail however, as Kai seemed to have realised that an object as dangerous as a branch was not to be kept in close proximity to a walking-talking demolition kit.

Note to self: Spit in Kai's drink as payback for confiscating a crucial element in her Quick-murder inventory. Oh, how nefarious....

On that thought, she clambered onto her horse with grace akin to a blind Walrus. Rin had briefed both of the first-timers on riding and what-not, but the keypoint that Nashi noted was that if the horse was calm and steady, she was safe. If not, a ticket to her Uncle Zeref was overdue.

Hey, at least Mavis would be more than cordial to her. And she was sure her Gramps Igneel would be on board her 'haunting Storm till he lost all sanity' idea. The possibilities were endless.

What she failed to notice during her inner monologue was the stealthily creeping Mage that had earlier managed to hide himself among the foliage, approaching her horse.

In what Nova would later describe fondly as 'the snowball effect', he yanked Nashi's leg, attempting to throw her off her horse, just in time for the Lightning Slayer to notice and send an attack that left him immobilised.

It was at that moment that Nova realised that she'd utterly fucked up.

"HOLY FUCKKK!!" Nashi was left screeching in horror as her horse decided to live out it's dream of winning the Derby.

Hanging onto it's mane like her life depended on it, she tried to (keyword being tried) mount her horse, which was impossible considering the damn beast of an animal was sprinting like it was possessed.

She faintly registered a flash of light before a sheet of ice blocked the horse's path. It steadied itself instead of trying to break through it to her relief, and she solemnly swore never to watch reruns of Mission Impossible with equines ever again.

She chose to collapse on the muddy ground, squinting at the sun as she tried to steady her breathing. The raven-head sat himself next to her as he scanned her for possible injuries.

"How many fingers am I holding?" His breathless voice questioned.

"Wait let's see, one-two-," she deadpanned, "Twelve."

He smacked her head, making her yelp, his eyebrow raised as if daring her to retaliate. She briskly stood up with a scowl on her face. The ground rattled as the rest their team caught up to them.

"The next train to Magnolia is in an hour, so you both had better hurry!" Rosemary barked.

"Gee, thanks for asking if I was okay!" The pinkette rolled her eyes and jabbed Storm with her elbow as he muttered 'Drama Queen'.

"GEEZ WOMAN! You're riding with me by the way," he bit his lip as he smirked at her face that now morphed into one of disgust.

"Oh HELL NO!"

"Get on the horse Nashi!" Rosemary's eyes narrowed. Nashi and Storm shot Rin looks of pity as his face contorted into a pained grimace when the Manipulation Mage's grip tightened. He really did deserve to be lauded for bearing with her violence.

Speaking of violence, she imagined a dozen ways of pushing Fullbuster off the horse and riding off into the sunset. Now that's a happy ending....

He lazily snapped his fingers in front of her face, and she noticed that he'd mounted the horse already. Shooting him a last annoyed look, she climbed the steed and he whipped the reins as the horse began to steadily gallop.

"Not to be condescending, but I figured you'd know that you have to hold on in order not to faceplant on the ground," she could sense the smug look on his face. Not today, Satan.

"And risk you trying to feel me up? No, thank you," she snarkily retorted.

"Oh please, if anyone's risking sexual harassment, it's me. Your hands just waiting to feel my chest up," she gaped at him and spluttered indignant.

"Well-your-your CHEST IS JUST WAITING TO FEEL MY HANDS UP!"

"Maybe it is," he tilted his head as he winked at her. Her narrowed eyes and grimace provoked a chuckle out of him.

"Pervert."

"Sure, sure," he brushed her off. He abruptly stopped the horse, sending her tumbling into his shoulder. Her hands harshly gripped his coat as she yelled profanities at him.

"Not my fault you didn't hold on tight enough," he whistled innocently.

She let out a growl of frustration as she pulled him closer and wrapped her arms around his waist. "HAPPY?"

"You loveeeee me," he teased. He winced as she pinched him, clearly unimpressed.

"Claws off me, woman. Play nice!" He scolded and cracked the reins in a fluid moment, and they were off.

And Nashi pretended as if his cologne didn't cloud her senses and the firm grasp his hand had on her didn't make her face flush.

.................

"I need a picture of both of you!"

"WHAT?!" Both the mages screeched in shock.

The village head winced at them symphathetically as his wife's eyes glittered in excitement.

"You both look ADORABLE together! When's the wedding?" She cheered as she took pictures.

"WE'RE NOT- HE'S NOT- NO NEVER! GROSSSSS" their faces contorted into identical grimaces as their oh so helpful teammates snickered.

The lady waved them off, "They always say that, now CLOSER! HOLD HIM TIGHTER!"

"Well, she's still better than Max!" The pinkette muttered as she rested her head against his shoulder.

"Amen to that."

...............

A week after, Mirajane seemed way too cheery for her own good.

"NASHI! THERE YOU ARE!"

Several heads turned to glance at the dragon slayer as she gulped nervously. She reached the bar as the older Takeover Mage grinned at her.

"Laxus requested both you and Storm to participate in this contest. Compulsorily."

She scrunched her nose slightly as she took in the words 'Couple' and 'shoot'. "Aunt Mira, I've told you this a billion times already, WE DON'T LIKE EACH OTHER THAT WAY! HECK, WE DON'T EVEN LIKE EACH OTHER!"

Mira's grin only widened as she remarked, "These pictures seem to tell a different story."

Nashi's eyes widened dramatically as she whipped her head and met the She-Devil's eyes. "YOU wouldn't-"

"Too late, I've already sent it!"

A frustrated growl erupted across the guild, and the members collectively shook their heads at the Matchmaker.

A few weeks later, Nashi was relieved to know that she hadn't won the contest after all. That was shortlived however, as Storm marched up to her table and slammed the latest edition of Sorcerer's weekly on it.

She blinked rapidly as she glanced at the picture of- wait, was that Jake and Rose?

"THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL I'M LOSING TO JAKE AND ROSE! GET YOUR ASS OFF, SALSA BREATH, WE HAVE WORK TO DO!" He lifted her off her chair, despite her squeals of protest and threats to disembowel him and, throwing her on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, raced out of the guild, much to everyone's delight.

Even worse, she didn't know whether to kick him where the sun don't shine or stare at his butt. Which was definitely a no-no.

She swore off horses and troia from that day.

............

[iiasha-archived]

genshin anon! finally lol. i keep meaning to respond - tab has been open with your last response for two weeks now... lol. oh i put a lot of work into my weapons. especially if i use them a lot. oo the 20k+ is nice though! apparently i have hu tao built semi decently so when she gets a vaporize crit it goes quite well for me haha. yeah agree. and they have updates every 6 weeks. yeah not every update is the biggest thing ever but like... its okay. no need to rush. game development takes time.

hihihi lmao again no worries!

(2/5) oh oops I spend several hours a day on the game (when i have time). to be fair, i genuinely enjoy going into coop and finding lower ar people to help with bosses and world exploration and stuff. so i can spend a long time doing that. i know i appreciated the help when i was low. plus its fun to get to chat with others occasionally. oh yeah genshin def ripped off of botw very well lol. they took botw's complaints and went yeah i can fix that. but then made it gacha.

(3/5) i saw you say you have c6 noelle now lol. i am so so sorry ): you did get keqing though? was that on the banner? so are you guaranteed the banner character next beCAUSE ZHONGLI RERUN YES. oh yeah it was so cool seeing everyone! bennett and razor were just adorable i love that friendship. loved getting to see albedo again. hes like.. my fav and of course i missed him :/ rerun plz.. ahh yeah a lot of the claymores are more for their skills i guess. except razor. so i get that.

(4/5) i also tend to use the elemental stuff a bit more but just idk claymores are SO SLOW and im just not overly fond. oh yeah polearms do less damage ahha. i like their fighting styles though. theyre faster and just idk it just -works- for me. oh that is SO CUTE they wear friendship tassels )': ooo yeah the rosaria/kaeya/diluc trio is quite fun. would def love to see more of them! rosaria grew a lot on me over 1.4 and seeing her... not be so rude all the time... lol.

(5/5) also im super excited, i did end up pulling childe! IT WAS SO CRAZY. I DID THE MAGICAL TWO 5*S IN A ROW. mona decided to give me c1 because i can never win the 50/50 and then childe was like its okay i know youve been working your butt off getting everything ready for me so here you go <3 and like )': i love him lol his playstyle is so fun and he works great with hu tao. also got rosaria and fischl (who i didnt have) which is great! were you pulling on childes banner at all or just saving?

ALSO thoughts on the 1.5 stuff??? I haven't gotten to watch completely everything yet but it all sounds so good! Zhongli rerun!!! And the housing thing seems super cool? And lower resin for weekly bosses! New world boss too! All the events seem pretty interesting as well so I'm pretty excited! -genshin anon (pretty sure tumblr still only lets you send 5 anon asks an hour or else i would've added this earlier lol)

genshin anon. lol it's okay! everyone is free to like whatever characters they want! yeah diona is.. not involved at all. although she is getting a hangout in 1.5! might be the first one i actually do. her story is pretty sad though from reading all of her profile. yeah you with noelle was me with diona. i was so mad at her at first since i pulled her like... 10 times on xiaos banner. after i got over it i tried her out and now i love her. also its okay! i took like two weeks to respond :P

but omg how do you have tabs open for two weeks.... i get stressed if i don’t leave my computer with everything closed LMAO. i mean yeah it definitely makes sense to put a lot of work into weapons bc they can be used by multiple characters so they’re a good investment!! i should start thinking about that as well......

nice!!! i’m guessing you’re having a good time with hu tao then eh :D my xiao is. okay lmao probably not doing the damage as expected of him but eh whatever <3 

if i’m like really in the mood i can invest a couple hours but most days it takes some self-convincing to even log in asfjdkldsaj like once i’m in the game it’s fine but for some reason the action of opening and loading it up is like hmm.... also most days by the time i do get to play i’m so exhausted from work </3 

omg that sounds fun!! personally i don’t like... playing with strangers that much afjdklasj so i tend to avoid co-op... but one of my friends might start playing genshin so i totally get what you mean about helping lower AR people with bosses and stuff because i wanna do that with her lmao :D 

lmao traded botw faults for the gacha system... you really can’t have it all unfortunately </3 speaking of botw my friend got my the expansion past like. literally last year lmao i’ve been meaning to play it. ugh i’m just so behind in general on all video games unless it’s genshin lmao

i wouldn’t have minded c6 noelle if i had GOTTEN ANYBODY ELSE WHEN I WAS PULLING ON THAT BANNER ;_____; like at least they could have given me a sucrose who i don’t have!!! but i did get keqing on my pity from that banner!! wait omg i didn’t realize that was how it works... i have a vague idea but if that’s true YES ZHONGLI PLEASE COME HOME GOD PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE i’m 100% skipping childe’s banner for zhongli sorry dude ajkdlfaj

ahhh yes getting to see albedo was nice too!!! even if only for a bit hehe it’s nice how they tried to rope in all the mondstadt characters somehow (except. diona jaklsdfja) 

okay mood. i love chongyun to bits but i admit after maining xiao for a while i’m definitely like why is chongyun so... slow asjfkldj but that’s literally just how it works </3 and same about rosaria!!!! she was still pretty like.... moody idk but she’s definitely better when she’s not just being straight up mean lmao

OMG CONGRATS!!!!! you seem to have much better gacha luck than me LMAOOO i envy that but i’m so glad you got everyone you wanted!!! and nah now that zhongli is definitely confirmed i’m DEFINITELY saving for him like actually the last time it was childe than zhongli’s banner was when i just started playing and i wasted all my beginner primogems on childe not knowing who was coming next........ i’m not making that mistake again LMAO

i didn’t watch the livestream but i did see the trailer and AHHHHHHH SO EXCITED omg with the housing i thought we were just getting a house but no it looks like they’re giving us a WHOLE FUCKING VILLAGE like as if i didn’t spend enough time in this game they’re introducing this like you KNOWWWW the hours about to be put into customizing our little house/villages.... 

ohhh i didn’t see the thing about resin!!! wow they really are giving it all. the previews for inazuma were also super pretty!!! and while the new characters have been known for a while this teaser definitely made me more excited for them hehe eula is so prettyyy

and yayyyy diona hangout! is she the only one coming in this version? but i’m glad to see they’ll probably add hangouts for all the characters (or at least the less story-critical ones like zhongli already has his story quest so idk if he’d get a hangout). it’s just nice to see more love given to those characters hehe <3

[murasaki-murasame]

I went into this gala with about 580 summons saved up, so was that enough for me to get Summer Norwin?

Find out under the cut :)

Just to cut right to the chase, here’s all the new stuff I got:

-Bellina [lmao at my first 5-star being a dagger unit who isn’t even one of the two featured ones on this banner]

-Summer Norwin [!!!!!!!] [He actually came home after about 20 or so summons but I decided to keep going to try and get Gala Laxi since I need more flame units and I don’t want to miss another gala unit]

-Nadine [I wanted to flesh out my flame roster so this is really nice, lol. I felt kinda bad about skipping her banner since I love her whole design and kit, so I’m glad i got her]

-Gauld [He’s not a 5-star but this is actually my first time getting him since he came out]

-Summer Konohana Sakuya x5 [I wasn’t even chasing her since I don’t think she’s that great but I managed to get enough dupes to fully unbind her while chasing Gala Laxi lmao]

-Gala Laxi [I finally got her, and all it took was about 280 summons total. I probably should have just stopped when I got Summer Norwin, but honestly I’m glad I kept going since I got some good stuff out of it]

Also in terms of random dupes I got:

-Wedding Elly [Which reminds me that one of the things I’m saving for now is a Gala Alex rerun]

-Student Maribelle [I wish I could have gotten Summer Sinoa instead but it’s not a big deal]

-Ramona [This also reminds me that I’m ALSO waiting for a Gala Elly rerun]

-Chelsea

-Siren [now she’s at 2UB]

-Zephyr [now he’s at 3UB]

-Freyja x2 [I don’t know how I managed to pull two separate copies of her, but I did, lol. To put into perspective how awkward this is, I now have TWO fully unbound copies of Freyja, and a separate 0UB copy]

Part of me kinda regrets going so hard on this banner, but because of how big of a stash I had going into it, I still have like 300 summons left over, so it’s not the end of the world. Hopefully if we get a gala remix soon I can skip it, since we’ll probably get a gala dragon at the end of August, and I’ll probably want to pull for them. Then there’s the second anniversary in September, and after that we’ll get back into limited holiday banner season. So there’s a lot I want to save for.

I at least ended up with enough eldwater after all this to get Bellina, Nadine, Gala Laxi, and Summer Norwin to 49MC each, lol.

I haven’t really had much time to play around with any of them yet [and I only have 0UB CT2 weapons for Gala Laxi and Summer Norwin so I need to go farm better weapons for them], but their damage mods and stuff are up on the wiki now, so I have a much better understanding of how they all work.

The DPS sim hasn’t updated yet, so who knows exactly how good they all are in practice, but from what I’ve seen they all look really good.

Going by what the wiki says, Sinoa’s S1 seems to have a super low SP cost and fairly high damage mods of around 1600%, so combined with her abilities I think she’ll be a very high DPS unit. Maybe around the same level as Sylas.

It’s still gonna take a while to wrap my head around Summer Norwin’s kit, but at least now I know how it works in practice, lol. It’s a really interesting set-up, since both of his skills have exactly the same SP cost, and I was right about each skill raising both skills phase levels with each use, so the idea is pretty much to use one skill, immediately use the other one, and then go back to charging them again. But you can choose which skill you want to use first, to dictate his overall rotation. Even if it only really matters which skill you decide to use at phase 4.

Also the skill icons are the same for each skill, and change based on what phase they’re at, which actually helps a lot to keep track of his rotations. It’s also EXTREMELY cute that the different phases of both of his skills have animations that depict different stages of a fairy tale, so choosing what route you want to take with his skills plays out like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

His SP costs seem high at first if you compare them to the S1 costs of other dagger units, but it’s basically a trade-off where instead of having a cheap S1 and an expensive S2, he has two skills that are in more of a middle ground, cost-wise. Specifically they both cost around 4.5k SP, while a unit like Gala Laxi for example has her S1 cost 2.5k SP, and her S2 cost 7.7k SP. So it evens out.

His damage mods also seem pretty high for how relatively spammable his skills are. Like with their SP costs and icons, the damage mods for their first three phases both seem to be exactly the same, ranging from about 1200% to 1600%. Then his phase 4 S1 doesn’t do damage but cleanses your debuff stacks and energizes the team, while his phase 4 S2 has around 2000% damage mods, inflicts poison, self-inflicts a debuff stack, and you take damage equivalent to 20% of your HP for each debuff stack you have. We’ll see how that all pans out in terms of his overall dps, but he seems very good, considering that these are two separate skills with those damage mods, and relatively low/middle-ground SP costs. The fact that he’s usually going to be using two skills back to back because of how their cooldowns line up means he might also have pretty good burst DPS during break. His team energize on his phase 4 S1 also seems pretty substantial, even though his energy = skill haste passive still seems kinda weak.

Taking into account that he also has an innate 30% poison punisher ability, I get the feeling that he’ll at least be in the same dps tier as units like Sylas and Lin You.

We already knew all we needed to know about Summer Sakuya before this, but now that I have a MUB copy of her, I hope she’s good, lol. I’ve stuck her on Summer Norwin for now since it seems fitting for him during this event, but I think he’s prefer Vayu in most cases.

I already thought Gala Laxi was weird when I read her kit, but seeing her in practice was a whole different story, lol. I hadn’t seen any gameplay videos of her before I used her for the first time, so let’s just say that it took me by surprise when I found out what her unique attack combo is like. I was wondering if she might have one, like the last few gala units, but hers is even more unique than theirs. Basically she feels a lot like Catherine, with how she shoots projectiles, which also means that she more or less doesn’t feel like a dagger unit at all. I’m fine with that, though, since I’m not a big fan of how daggers play.

She also apparently has an alternate version of her unique attack combo that you can trigger by timing your inputs instead of just spamming them, but I didn’t really get a feel for that much. It seems kinda hard to pull off.

Her damage mods feel a bit lower than I expected [850% on her normal S1, 1000% on her S1 during Eden Mode, and 2200% on her S2 during Eden Mode], but I think she has a lot of emphasis on her regular attacks, so I think overall she’s still gonna have pretty high DPS.

She doesn’t really play like I expected, since she doesn’t actually have much risk-reward stuff going on, and she seems more focused on regular attacks than using super powerful skills, plus the fact that she’s basically a psuedo-ranged unit, but overall she actually feels more fun to play than I was expecting, so I’m glad I kept going until I got her, lol. I’m also gonna have to take some time soon as well to play with Nadine a bit now that I have her.

All in all I think this gala was pretty good to me. I could have stopped after I got Summer Norwin super quickly, but I got some good stuff by going deeper. Now I’m gonna go back to saving for the next gala that interests me, which will probably be the next gala dragon, unless we get a rerun of Gala Elly or Gala Alex first.

[blissfulparker]

Safehouse—bodygaurd!tom

Summary: after a threat against you, you and your bodyguard tom are sent off to a safehouse where you and him are stuck on a beach leaving all the feeling kept deep pulled to the surface.

Warnings: mentions of sex at the end

A/n: okay so I could easily make this into a part two and three like a mini series if this does well and people want it, but here’s my first bodyguard tom so I hope you guys enjoy it!

“Well that’s all, we’re all locked up.” He came over to join you on the couch. You had the tv on to some local news station that had talked about a car crash in the city. You could give less of a shit about the car crash though. It was just a distraction, all you needed was a distraction.

“I promise we’re safe now.” He wrapped his arms around your body. You were only in this safehouse because of the threat you had. You had threats every day, this one was real though. Whoever the person or people were they knew everything down to your daily schedule. They hadn’t said this for attention, they put more time and effort into planning on hurting you then you did in your daily work.

“I know I’m just...scared, Yeah, I’m just scared.” You admitted. The news station changed to some event in the farmers market happening in town, you weren’t even listening, all you heard was toms breathing.

“We should go get some groceries,” tom told you as he actually paid attention to the television. “I mean, we don’t want to starve and we don’t know how long we’ll be up here.” He touches your hair. You look up at him and he gives you a soft smile.

“I mean, unless you can catch fish with your bare hands from the ocean then I think we need to go to the market love.” He jokes a little before getting up and checking to see if you did have anything in that large fridge of yours.

“What if someone sees us?” You ask following him. He stops and turns around before cocking an eyebrow.

“That’s what I’m here for, Yeah? To protect you?” He says and you shake your head a little realizing how stupid you sounded.

“Right, right.” You said before you sat down on the kitchen table. Tom was your best and favorite bodyguard, he made you feel like a normal girl and had normal conversation with you. He wasn’t one of the body guards who just showed up and tried to act professional and tough. When you found out about the threat and had to disconnect from society, you wanted to make sure you had tom with you.

“Well, all you have is green beans and corn. In a can. Unless you can live off of those for however long we’re here then I suggest we go out.” He tells you. If you were honest, you didn’t even know this place had food since you’ve never had a real reason to come to it.

“Okay,” you nod before grabbing the keys from the counter. You knew for sure there was a car in the garage. “Let’s go.” You told him and he shook his head.

“Yeah, no.” He took the keys and set it back down. “If someone knew we were here and saw you or me get out of that car they could track the plate number and then we’re dead.” He explained. You quickly put down the keys and gave him a look.

“We’re walking. It’s only about a fifteen minute walk and you need fresh air.” He tells you before he makes his way to the door.

“Walking? What if it gets dark on us?” You ask following him out the house.

“I’ve got my gun and it’s fine because time here is different from London.” He tells you. The air was nice, it was fresh. You were use to pollution anywhere you went, this was new and you loved it.

“We should go for a swim later.” You tell him as you walk next to him.

“Can you even swim?” He asks, it was a joke and you knew it so you played along and hit his arm.

“And if I couldn’t would you save me?” You joked and he looks over at you and shakes his head.

“No, I’d rather watch you get eaten by sharks.” He laughs and you hit him again.

The walk was short, you had your laughs and talks before you were greated with a small town where there was a grocery store in the middle. Something about tom in this hour made him look beautiful, better then before, soft gold sun hitting his skin causing freckles to pop up. You didn’t realize that he looked like this in the sun but now you wanted to see him like this all the time.

“Okay, So, we need our basics. Milk, bread, cheese, tea, coffee...” He trails off then looks at you. “Then anything we could possibly need.” You roam around finding everything tom had asked you to get, you even sat in the cart as he pushed you around.

It was times like these where the two of you fell harder for each other, domestic stuff like this where you felt normal with him and he felt normal with you. He didn’t feel like he needed to take care of you or be seen as your employee when you were like this and you didn’t see him as anything else but tom, you’re tom.

-

“Do you know how to cook?” He asked setting the bags on the counter. You knew how to cook some but everything you had bought meant by scratch and you didn’t do that stuff by scratch.

“Umm, mac and cheese? Yes. Anything else? No.” You told him truthfully, you didn’t want to lie and then make a fool of yourself.

He groaned before speaking. “I have this pasta recipe my mum taught me, we can make that just help me when I say so.” He tells you as he pulls the stuff out that he’d bought for what he wanted to make. “Where’s the glasses?” He held up the wine and you reached up to the cabinet and grabbed two.

“I wish my mum taught me how to cook.” You hopped up on the counter and poured yourself a glass. Tom looked back over his shoulder as he pulled out a pout.

“She probably did you just forgot.” He teases, you had so much to do you really didn’t have time for a proper meal.

“Shut up.” You tease him back and he just laughs a bit.

“Can you cut the tomatoes?” He asked. You quickly hopped down and grabbed the cutting board to cut the tomatoes. At first you tried and failed and at second you thought you had the hang of it until tom came over and helped.

“Not like that, Darling,” He came behind you and grabbed your hand to help you. “Go back and forth, just slice it then dice it.” He instructs you, you felt his hot breath on the back of your neck making you instantly have goosebumps.

“Tom?” You whispered and he looked at you with soft eyes. In this moment you wanted to kiss him the most.

“Mmh?” He looked down at your lips but you looked down at his pants.

“Your gun is poking my leg.” You tell him completely ruining the moment. He nods as he pulls the gun out of his pocket and walks over to set it on the table. You give him a look that says you didn’t want it on the table and he puts his hands up in defense.

“I’m serious, if there’s someone or something tries to come in I need to make sure that you’re protected. That’s the whole point of me being here.” He told you and you nod remembering how and why he ended up here when he could be at his own house or having a beer with his friends.

“Right.” You say as you go back to the tomatoes. The two of you didn’t speak to each other throughout the whole dinner making process. The only sound was of the t.v. That now played a soap opera that looked like a rerun from the 90s.

“Thank you for protecting me.” You told him as you grabbed two bowls from the pantry and he nodded. “I mean actually thank you, you could be home right now in your bed with that cute dog of yours or grabbing a beer with your friends but you’re on the edge of France with me and I thank you for that.” You touch his elbow gently. You set the bowls down with your free hand and took this opportunity to look at him.

“I don’t mind it, protecting you isn’t so bad. This place isn’t so bad if I’m being honest, it’s more like a vacation beach home then a safe house.” He laughed a little coming closer. You wanted so badly to say something cocky but you couldn’t ruin the moment again.

“It’s just we don’t even know how long we’ll be here and your friends and family don’t even know if you’re safe or not.” You come closer and now his hand is around your waist and you’re face to face.

“They think you’re taking a business trip to New York and then L.A. and that I’ll be with you for two weeks. If this doesn’t blow over in two weeks then I’ll be screwed.” He laughs a little bit was serious, having this job meant lying, a lot.

“So no one truly knows where we are?” You ask and he nods.

“Not even the best of the best detectives, darling.” That stupid nickname that everyone in england used made your knees weak when it was with just you and tom.

You knew that safehouse was going to be the death of you. Being alone with tom for weeks was going to be torture if you didn’t touch each other once. You knew the bathtub jacuzzi would be a perfect place for you to fuck, but that right now was just all your fantasy. Tom was here to protect you, but right now all you wanted tom to do was be yours.

[saleintothe90s]

390. Fire at 30 Rock and how Conan handled it (October 10 & 11th, 1996)

I kind of wanted to commemorate Conan’s 10th anniversary of being the short-lived host of The Tonight Show here somehow, and this is the butt-backwards day I’m doing it. 

In October of 1996, fire broke out at Rockefeller Center, where most of the news and talk programs at NBC have their studios. I vaguely remember this being reported on television that morning and tuning into the Today show to see how they were handling it, because you know, you can’t run a repeat of the Today show. I seem to remember Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric outside? I can’t find clips of it anywhere online, because back then people didn’t record out of the ordinary things like this. Nobody really records the Today show unless someone they like is on there that day.

''This is my office today,'' said Jeffrey A. Zucker, executive producer of ''Today,'' leaning on a Fire Department car on 49th Street, where Ms. Couric and Matt Lauer, filling in for Bryant Gumbel, were broadcasting.

The program's set is normally a windowed studio on 49th Street. But Mr. Zucker could not use graphics, commercials and other tapes stored at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, and the program moved into the street in an act of solidarity with displaced colleagues. The horde of tourists who usually line the ''Today'' windows were behind barriers a block away, where they waved and held up signs.

The studioless ''Rosie O'Donnell'' and ''Maureen O'Boyle'' talk shows were canceled, disappointing hundreds of ticket-waving fans. Network programs for 215 NBC affiliates were broadcast from Burbank, Calif. ''The NBC Nightly News'' with Tom Brokaw was shifted to Washington.

Executives of ''Dateline NBC,'' a news magazine broadcast three days a week, held staff meetings in the street, as did executives of NBC Sports, who were planning a weekend of coverage that included Yankee-Oriole games, football games and other events. Beepers and cellular phones were highly visible. 1

(The Internet Archive also has these eps as well on this playlist, look for 10/10/1996 and 10/11/1996)

The October 10th episode (part 1, part 2, part 3,  part 4 )  start with this extreme close-up of Conan. 

“We could put together a new show, but ten e wouldn’t be able to maintain our unusually high standards of broadcasting excellence. So instead folks, please enjoy this rerun.”

[His producer whispers in Conan’s ear]

“...WHAT. WE DON’T GET PAID UNLESS WE DO A SHOW?! ALRIGHT, LET’S THROW TOGETHER ANY OL’ CRAP. WE’LL DO IT ON THE STREET. WHO CARES. COME ON PEOPLE, LET’S GO.” 

I died laughing when instead of Conan’s usual theme, we saw just news footage of the firetrucks at 30 Rock at 4am that morning, and other stock footage of fires. 

Apparently all of Conan’s suits were locked in the studio, because he went casual tonight. But yet his furniture and his Eisenhower Mug made it downstairs. 

I’m a little podunk who lives out in the middle of nowhere in Virginia. I only know this part of Rockefeller Center from when the NBC Nightly News with Lester zooms out at the end of the show during the winter and you see the skaters skating near the gold statue? Yeah, I’m one of those people who don’t know squat about NYC. 

Conan’s audience looks like it was people just strolling by on their way home from work. They’re pretty dressed up to see Late Night. Conan compares them to a crowd of bystanders at an accident. Whenever he showed a clip, the audience couldn’t see it because there’s no TVs, so the audience watched Conan & Andy show a clip of O.J. Simpson from The Towering Inferno but they had no clue what they were clapping about.  At one point in part 3, two people randomly walk behind Conan and Andy headed to dinner. 

Conan even managed to find a place for Max Weinberg and his band too. I think they’re sitting on folding chairs. They play fire themed songs!  I miss Max. Has he ever been on Conan’s TBS show? *YouTube search intensifies* Yes! Yes he has! 

Oh man, I forgot about Oldy Oldeson! I also forgot about the illustrated jokes the show used to do back then: 

Conan and Andy walk mere steps over to Brookstone(s) to find a gift for tonight’s guest, Samuel L. Jackson. Remember Brookstone? Such a throwing-around-money-in-the-late-90s store. I had to Google it to see if they were still around. No more stores in malls, but they still have airport stores. Huh.

btw, Samuel loved the chair.  He said that Andy was wearing “Crippled People Shoes”. This also happened:

Tomari the ostrich delivered Conan an egg with the guests for tomorrow night’s show inside. Boy, I thought they had retired her by that point. 

Chris Kattan came by and talked about his character I love so much, Kippy Strug, Kerri Strug’s brother. They couldn’t show that clip, but I’m sure if it was a normal show they would have. Chris did an impression of his dad watching Splash.

There was an giant owl there too that didn’t want any meat. Maybe he was scared by Tomari. 

The following day, the show (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4) started with the same extreme closeup of Conan. Joel announces the show as, “From next door from the burned out hulk of Rockefeller Center, it’s Late Night With Conan O’Brien!” 

omg, Getty Images have these great press photos of Conan and baby Andy in their little sweater vests on the Today set: 

That’s Conan’s longtime producer, Jeff __ .  

Andy looks like a toddler.

 I kept hearing a baby in the background and was thinking it was some sort of joke, that all they could get for an audience was a baby due to the slap-dash nature, and I was kinda right: 

Conan brought in a family to watch the show from inside the studio. 

Oldy is back tonight with the news.

Eric Idle comes by on his way to the airport. “They said I would be out of here by now, Conan.” He also sings a song about shopping, with is 100% accurate. 

More news with Oldy.

Dang, Oldy sitting in Matt Lauer’s old chair, foretelling the future. You go, Oldy. 

They snoop on Bryant Gumbel’s locker. Is that a joke on how bland he was? 

Also voodoo dolls because never forget he’s a jerk who hates everybody.

Aw, Conan fed Oldy some bread.

I just realized. My icon this month (if you’re on Tumblr dash and its still June 2019 look to your left)  is Lorne Michals rescuing Jon Lovitz from a fictional fire at 30 Rock during the 1986 season finale of SNL. I didn’t plan it that way I swear. 

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1. McFadden, Robert, “Fire at 30 Rockefeller Plaza Sends NBC Programs to 49th St. Sidewalk, New York Times, October 11, 1996.  https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/11/nyregion/fire-at-30-rockefeller-plaza-sends-nbc-programs-to-49th-st-sidewalk.html?login=google

[singingwordwright]

The #ShadowhuntersLegacy Theory--aka our Hail Mary throw #SaveShadowhunters

UPDATED as of 8/24/18 (see bottom of post)

I wasn’t sure if I had shared this theory on Tumblr or not, because sometimes I speculate on Twitter and then don’t remember to make a post over here. It turns out, I sort of did, a really long time ago, but the theory has evolved in light of a number of events in the past couple weeks, and most of the tinfoil-hat elements have been stripped out. Now it’s just sort of a Theory, as opposed to a Wacky Conspiracy Theory.

Before I begin, let me just say outright that this is not to give anyone false hope. Let’s be quite honest and admit that our chances don’t really look that great. But as I said in my post last night, there are reasons why I can’t bring myself to call a Time of Death on this whole thing yet. And this theory is a big part of it.

Let me also add a disclaimer that none of us knows what is happening behind the scenes. We don’t know the legal ins and outs that make up the Freeform/Constantin/Netflix Ménage à Torture so this is all just guesswork based on the pieces we have and a metric fuckton lot of supposition.

This could all totally be self-serving delusion. I’m not going to lie about that. But it’s already been put out there, so I’m going to stand by it until we see how this all shakes down in the end, if for no other reason than, on the off chance that some variation of this does end up happening, I have documented proof that I predicted it might.

Everyone okay with that? Then let’s go!

Where We Stand

Okay, look, we’ve been told, straight-up with no equivocation, that “it's not possible for this version of SHADOWHUNTERS to continue.” (Source: Constantin Press Release August 10) We have to accept that at face value. There is almost certainly not going to be a season 4. Something is in the way of that happening.

I don’t believe it’s lack of interest from potential buyers. I think it’s an unwillingness to reach a compromise on the part of the parties already involved so that someone else can pick up the show.

Chances are good that the obstacle is @freeform/Disney. The show was developed specifically for Freeform as part of ABC Family Channel rebranding itself. Netflix got involved later to snag the international distribution deal, yes, but it’s possible that the show goes nowhere unless Freeform/Disney is willing to relinquish their distribution deal on it, which they may not be willing to do.

Why? Well, there’s always my DisFlix theory, which is a little out of date in light of recent developments but not yet dead in the water.

But @netflix could also be to blame. I’ve heard rumblings, and I have no idea where they originated or if they’re true or not, that Netflix’s international distribution deal gives them rights to the show for seven years. They may not be willing to give that up, and picking the show up for season 4 without being able to stream/rerun seasons 1-3 is really not going to appeal to any potential takers.

It’s also possible that @constantinfilm isn’t willing to lower the license fee on the show enough to make someone else willing to pick it up, but I honestly don’t believe that’s the case. 100% of nothing is nothing, so keeping the price jacked up beyond what anyone is willing to pay makes Constantin no profit. I see no motive for them to prove intractable in that regard, especially if they thought they could bundle a pickup of Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments with development of a series based on The Infernal Devices and make even more money.

But, really, that is all sort of outside the scope of this post. Ultimately all we know is that something is standing in the way of the show being picked up by anyone who may be interested for season 4.

Which isn’t the same thing as saying all hope is lost. It’s just lost for “this version of SHADOWHUNTERS.”

Yeah, uh, What Other Version Is There?

We’re presently campaigning for Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments. But The Mortal Instruments is ending. And by that, I mean the six-book well of source material the plot has been borrowing its vague overall direction from is coming to an end. The 2-hour movie (which originally should have been the entire fourth season, but oh well, we can’t really dwell on that) is supposed to cover the final book, and after that it would be entirely original plots.

In other words, after season 4, we wouldn’t have had Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments ANYWAY. It would have effectively been a spin-off featuring the same characters, even if the title of the show had remained the same.

And I think most of us were perfectly okay with that, or would have been had we stopped to think about What Comes Next after the book-based material ended. @janoda has been talking for months about wanting a spin-off centered around the Downworld. I’ve thought all along that the tense relations that the Downworld and the New York Institute have with the Clave in Alicante would provide a wealth of plot material once book-based material ran out. @janoda and I have been calling this hypothetical spin-off “Downworld: Revolution” but whatever you call it, it’s not “this version of SHADOWHUNTERS.” It’s a new version, featuring many/most of the same characters.

But That Was Just Talk Right?

Well, yes. Sort of. At first I thought (in my original Conspiracy Theory post) that what we might be seeing with this cancellation is a slightly more contentious scenario originating with Freeform’s recent strategy of ending shows after 3-4 seasons or so, and then spinning them off before they lose their audience through attrition, to keep them fresh and shiny. (see also: PLL and The Fosters.)

Then, once it seemed like it might be Freeform’s claim to Shadowhunters distribution rights that was preventing anyone else from picking the show up, I started side-eyeing the notion of a spin-off as a way of working AROUND Freeform. Because Constantin still owns the adaptation rights. Even if Constantin can’t continue making Shadowhunters: The Mortal Instruments, they CAN make a new show, even one featuring the Shadowhunters characters and even with those characters played by the same actors. They just can’t continue making THIS VERSION of the show.

Which, again, is okay, because effectively this version of the show was going to come to an end anyway, and a new show was going to begin.

But I sort of pushed this notion of a spin-off to the back of my mind once all the talk about Constantin developing The Infernal Devices began. Because honestly I didn’t want to muddy the waters with the words “spin off” when we were trying to send such a definite, iron-clad message that The Infernal Devices was not an acceptable substitute for Shadowhunters. I did start trying to word my emails with terms like “our characters” and “our actors” while leaving those concepts open to the possibility of those characters and actors being in a new show.

(Now, however, in light of Constantin’s statement that hope is lost for “this version” of Shadowhunters, we have nothing to lose.)

And then, two weeks ago, something happened.

Starting the night before the Last Day on Set (August 2nd), the cast introduced a new hashtag--#ShadowhuntersLegacy. It never really caught on or trended, but Kat and Emeraude in particular were pretty aggressive about using it. Most of the main cast, with the exception of Isaiah, Matt, and I think Alisha, used it at least once, and I know Jade, Nicola, and some of the other supporting cast members did as well.

It struck me as a little strange. And, yes, it may very well be just a nice way to thank the fans by reassuring us that the ways in which we’ve touched their lives won’t be forgotten. But what was pinging me about it was the way it was adopted among the cast had clearly been coordinated. This wasn’t just happenstance that they all began using it at once.

And the word “legacy” implies continuation. A legacy is sort of the opposite of something ending. It’s something that carries on.

I bit my tongue about this for a few hours, and then when I was talking about it in DMs on Twitter to avoid tweeting publicly about it, @saadiestuff pointed out something I had known in the back of my head but hadn’t actually connected.

The Originals is getting a spin-off called Legacies.

(A spin-off that--I believe--will be bringing back a lot of the original characters even going back to The Vampire Diaries.)

So those messages and a bunch of tweets using the hashtag were trickling in from Thursday night onward. Then, on Saturday morning, Kat posted this:

I mean...look at those last few lines? “The story doesn’t end here” and that parting shot, complete with a picture of her with her hand on a door?

But the cast doesn’t know anything about negotiations, right? Usually that’s true. However...

IF a hypothetical spin-off were being discussed, obviously the cast wouldn’t be part of the negotiations. But one of the first things those discussions would entail is inquiring (probably through their agents) about the casts’ interest and availability to return for the new series.

So the usual wisdom about the cast not knowing anything until shortly before we do doesn’t apply here. They would almost certainly know this was at least being discussed as a possibility, even if they didn’t know whether or not it would end up being a done deal.

There is also the live that Jade did a day or two before filming wrapped. I didn’t get to watch the whole thing because I lost my place when I was about 20 minutes in, so all I knew was that people got upset by some of the things he said which they felt indicated he didn’t feel there was any hope. @TheJessy34 on Twitter found it for me, and starting about 29:45, Jade talks about how the show in “this form” is over and how things can happen, yes, but he didn’t think if it continued it would continue in the way it has. (BEWARE OF POTENTIAL BOOK-BASED SPOILERS AT AROUND 33:00)

I’m tempted to include this tweet of Harry’s (the Monday after filming wrapped) for consideration as evidence of this possibility. Because Harry is the guy who likes to dole out clues for us to piece together (see also, 2x12 and the season 3 renewal livechat.)

However it would be dishonest of me to do so without also including the fact that he denied this tweet had anything to do with anything:

That said, boy, Kat sure was all over it, both on Instagram and Twitter:

And it should be noted that Kat is STILL occasionally using the #ShadowhuntersLegacy hashtag. As is Jade, I believe.

I’m also tempted to offer into evidence this article from TVLine earlier this week:

However, I think the evidence supporting that is sketchy at best. All the medical puns point to a medical drama, and the cast is obviously not reassembling yet (though that verbiage could be figurative, as in “they’re signing the contracts” rather than literal, as in “they’re gathering to begin filming.) Public opinion seems to hold that the show in question is likely CBS’s Code Black and I have no concrete reason to assert otherwise.

I will say that in the event of a hypothetical spin-off, there would be some new cast involved (which could explain the “returning and new cast” line.) The book the 2-hour movie is based on, City of Heavenly Fire, has a fairly high body count. Chances are good that at least some of our fave supporting characters won’t be returning.

So. The TVLine article could be about us, but I’m not holding my breath.

UPDATED 8/24/18: 

So it looks like the TVLine blind item may not be about Code Black after all.

Others, not me, did some sleuthing.

This tweet from Seitzman is dated 8/22/18. The TVLine blind item was posted 8/13/18. I would say (and others have said) this could mean that whatever deal TVLine was referring was Code Black but then it fell through, except that tonight, TVLine assured us that once the show in question is revealed, the initial article would be marked as UPDATED.

That has not happened with the TVLine article. If it had been about Code Black and the deal fell through, TVLine would have updated. Therefore, it’s looking fairly sure that TVLine isn’t referring to Code Black. 

Which still doesn’t mean it’s referring to us. Let’s be very clear about that. There have been a lot of shows cancelled in the last six months. One other show that has been rumored to be on the verge of rescue is Designated Survivor, I believe (back in May or so, there was talk that Netflix might pick it up.)

All this means is that we’re a little more solidly in the running with regards to our chances that TVLine was, in fact, referring to us. That’s it. It’s not much, but it’s something.

I have reached out to TVLine to request that if it ISN’T us, they let us know. Because I really want us to be as realistic about our chances here as possible. As I said at the beginning of this post, this is a Hail Mary throw. Our chances are microscopically slim. But they do still exist.

(End UPDATED portion)

Which brings me to Isaiah’s post on Instagram yesterday:

Again, right now we are looking at the one situation where the cast probably really would have an early clue of what is going on. Before any deal is inked, someone would have to go around and ask the cast (again, probably through their agents) “this is a possibility, if we can make it happen, are you in?” And if it was a done deal, the cast would DEFINITELY know, even if they weren’t at liberty to say anything yet. They would have already signed their contracts.

Isaiah doesn’t believe hope is lost. I have to believe he has a reason for thinking that. But we know “this version” of the show isn’t coming back. Where does that leave us?

A new version of the show, featuring most or all of our characters and cast.

So What Now?

Now, we wait. We maintain our presence. We hope. I meant what I said last night, at this stage there is nothing we can do to influence the outcome that we haven’t already done. We keep the hashtag alive. We keep emailing and sending postcards and letters and maybe the occasional gift, just to remind them we’re here.

But mostly we wait. And we find our joy in the show again. Because in the words of a certain warlock we all know and love, “if you don’t take time for the things you care about, you’ll forget why you’re even fighting at all.”

But Do We Know Who Will Be Carrying This Hypothetical Spin-Off So We Can Let Them Know We’re Interested?

Nope. Not a clue. Sorry. Unfortunately this means we should probably treat everyone as though we’re courting them. Even *gack* Freeform.

When Do You Think They’ll Announce It, If It’s Happening?

Well, *if* the TVLine blind article is about us (and again, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that I really have no reason to believe it is) it says filming could begin as early as this fall. Which means we’d have to have an announcement by then because no way is our cast--with so many social media junkies in their ranks--is going to keep that under wraps for long. So we’d know by then.

And maybe I’m being whimsical, but let’s look at Isaiah’s post from yesterday again:

See where they are?

That’s the Jade Wolf mock-up that was featured at New York ComicCon last year.

Why would Isaiah use that picture, of any of the cast that he could have used, to send us the message “don’t give up”?

I think if this thing is going to happen, we may hear it announced at NYCC.

EDIT: 8/24/18

There has been some interesting activity that has sort of slipped under the radar this week, but I’ve been watching and noting. I haven’t been making a big deal about it, because I don’t want to give people false hope, but I’ve already shared this theory so it really can’t hurt to keep it up to date. Just remember that all of this is really the stretchiest reaching of all stretchy reaching. It’s flimsy and probably entirely in my imagination. 

On August 13, after the Teen Choice Awards victory, Bryan Q. Miller tweeted this:

I didn’t notice it until about a week later, when I noticed that Todd Slavkin had liked it. When queried, Bryan confirmed that the reference was exactly what I thought it was:

So...something about the TCA victory triggered thoughts of the lyric, “I can feel it coming in the air tonight.” It had him feeling either anticipation (or possibly foreboding, and possibly of someone who had done something wrong getting a come-uppance.)

Then there’s this: 

On Monday, August 20, Matt Hastings used the tag #ShadowhuntersLives.

On Thursday the 23rd, he was unusually active and pretty much ALL about the show, except for one tweet: 

Why spend the morning making Shadowhunters tweets, drop in a single mention of The Originals, then go back to making more SH tweets?

Obviously Paul Wesley has a Shadowhunters connection (didn’t he direct an episode ;-P ?) but if he was just wanting to share memories of Paul Wesley and Shadowhunters, there was plenty of material to choose from.

Again, I have to reiterate that this is flimsy, because Matt doesn’t really need a reason to delve into nostalgia for ALL the shows he’s been involved with. It may not go any deeper than that.

But he wasn’t being nostalgic about ALL his shows. He was being nostalgic about THIS one.

So it immediately made me think of the connection @saadiestuff made when I was talking about the #ShadowhuntersLegacy tag, which is that it could be that Shadowhunters is getting a spin-off featuring the same characters, the way The Originals is getting the Legacies spin-off.

Because, as @malecficlibrary just said to me, #ShadowhuntersLives is a REALLY strange hashtag to use for for a cancelled show that has no hope. Like...?

Maybe Matt Hastings didn’t know about the #ShadowhuntersLegacy hashtag on Monday, so he used #ShadowhuntersLives. Then someone clued him in, so he dropped a The Originals/Legacies hint. 

Like I said, flimsy, but I’m putting it out there anyway. Because why not?

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #3: Series Overview (Classic, New and 50th Anniversary Series)

For an imaginary project developed over at least a decade, there’s an ungodly number of series and episodes in it compared to the actual BBC Doctor Who. Even with Doctor Who alone, 17 series were broadcast over six years with 12 being broadcast over the space of three years. Let’s take a deep look into each series.

For the purposes of this project, my main focus is on the Fifth Doctor’s episodes, but I will talk briefly about the other four Doctors as well. In case you haven’t been following this series, everything I talk about will be in the context of this project. I’m bolding it because I don’t want to have to keep explaining this when asked.

Before the Fifth

1999 to 2007 was the classic era of this project’s Doctor Who, with episodes being 25 minutes long until November 2005; following that, they would be 45 minutes long (exceptions aside). Sometimes, we would have one episode per week, maybe two or even four.

The First Doctor had 190 episodes broadcast over 38 stories, covering six seasons and a pilot series. The first actor was in the pilot series and the first two seasons for a total of 73 episodes and 17 stories. The second actor took over thereafter for a total of 117 episodes and 21 stories.

The Second Doctor had a TV movie, then 181 episodes broadcast over 53 stories, covering six seasons and a set of specials. The Third Doctor did have thirteen 45-minute episodes and three specials at the start of 2008 that were considered part of the Classic Series.

In the middle of the year, the show was transferred to another station and the Third Doctor was recasted. This would be the start of the first “New Series”. Each individual series consisted of thirteen 45-minute episodes, which would be the norm hereafter. Unlike his counterpart, the BBC Ninth Doctor, being in only one series, the Third Doctor was in four series. The original BBC Series 1 was split after The Long Game and the remaining episodes were broadcast at the end of the fourth series.

The Fourth Doctor was in three series and seven specials, with most of them being broadcast over a year. Not all the BBC Tenth Doctor’s episodes were adapted. For the remaining five specials, he was replaced by another actor, who also reprised that incarnation for one series while also playing the next incarnation. By that time, the show was transferred back to its original station, paving the way for another “New Series”.

The New Series

Broadcast 2012 and early 2013. Series 1-5 episodes were broadcast twice a week (with an exception during Series 3+4), then once a week thereafter.

Series 1: Based on BBC Series 5 with the exception of Amy’s Choice and with four additional episodes for a total of 16 episodes. Amy and Rory were replaced with Ritsu Tainaka and Kunikida (first name Doppo, not to be mistaken with the character from Bungo Stray Dogs). For the last four episodes, Kanade Tachibana and Yuzuru Otonashi were introduced as new companions. In the Easter Special, The Pony Doctor, the Doctor’s pony counterparts, Doctor Whooves and the Pony Doctor, are introduced.

Series 2: Based on BBC Series 6 with three additional episodes for a total of 16 episodes. Ritsu and Kunikida are the primary companions with Kanade and Yuzuru appearing in the final two episodes, including a crossover in the series finale, A Canterlot Wedding. An additional episode was broadcast following Day of the Moon, which introduced Nayu Hayama from Chu-Bra!! (voiced by Catherine Tate).

Series 3+4: Series are (mostly) original from this point. Kanade and Yuzuru become the main companions after the Doctor left Ritsu and Kunikida behind in the last season. The first five episodes of Series 3 are specials, the first being an adaptation of The Five Doctors (the special edition, FYI). Here’s where things get complicated. In the original version, Series 3 had 9 episodes and Series 4 had 5 episodes, with both series being followed by a special weeknight drama, consisting of 9 and 15 half-hour episodes respectively. Elements of the drama were based from the BBC Series 3 and 4 finales. The main villain of the series was the Kikuchi Clan, led by a renegade Time Lady named Ayaka Kikuchi. In the following years, both series went through a restructuring for home media releases and rerun broadcasts. The loose episodes and dramas (with a two-episode buffer) were condensed into what would respectively be the new Series 3 and 4. A couple of episodes were also replaced. This is how I will be addressing those series from here on out.

Series 5: Based on BBC Series 4, with the Doctor now taking on some of the Tenth Doctor’s character. The first three episodes were set in Equestria and circled around the events that led to My Little Dashie. Following a lone adventure, Nayu joined the Doctor as his main companion for the rest of the season. Don’t worry, her ending isn’t as tragic as Donna’s was. The series finale was a two-hour special and instead of Davros and Dalek Caan, it featured Antoni and Specter. Aside from the free-to-air broadcast version, there was a premium version that was broadcast on a satellite channel. It had an additional 23 episodes and featured more anime crossovers. Oh what the hell, this series was mostly anime crossovers anyway. I didn’t think about putting those episodes in when I made this series, but Kanade and Yuzuru do return in a three-episode arc adapted from the episodes that featured the return of Martha Jones.

Series 6: Based on BBC Series 7 Part 1. This series featured the departure of Ritsu and Kunikida. Following that, we have the return of Tsukasa Hiiragi and Squid Girl, having previously had adventures with the Fourth Doctor.

Series 7: Based on BBC Series 7 Part 2 with a split in the series. The first five episodes, which featured Tsukasa and Squid Girl as companions, were a part of an original story centred around the Salacian Time War and made up Part 1 of the series. Following that, six Christmas Specials were broadcast over the Christmas period before Part 2 resumed at the same time as its BBC counterpart. Part 2 featured Clara Oswald as companion.

The 50th Anniversary Series

Broadcast mid-late 2013. The original plan was for a singular special, but then I just kept adding preludes to it and called it a series instead. After that, I added more sequels and made the series even crazier than it already was. Linearly, there are a total of 46 episodes, along with an extra 26 episodes for the other Doctors and characters featured in November. Oh, don’t worry, I didn’t write those extra episodes. I only wrote like 33 of them. Most of the episodes are 60 minutes long. For most of the series, the Doctor is travelling with Clara, Squid Girl and Takeru Aizawa.

Block 1: The first three episodes, written by me, were centred around the other protagonist and his girlfriend. The last three episodes, not written by me, featured Hackbot and Heavy Metal Monster, monsters from a game I used to play with friends as a child (I’ll explain later), and Reimu Hakurei (voiced by Mai Nakahara who also voiced her in Musou Kakyou: A Summer Day’s Dream), who also had adventures with the Fourth Doctor.

Block 2: Four episodes featuring the return of the Kikuchi Clan as villains. Some characters and themes from Koihime Musou and Ikki Tousen/Battle Vixens (who also appeared in the spinoff series The Kongming Adventures) are also featured.

Block 3: Six episodes written by different writers and featuring different Doctors (including both Third Doctors). They revolve around Kumiko Hayashi and her “mother” as they go on strange and successive adventures with the Doctors. Kumiko accidentally gets an instantaneous MTF sex change near the end of this; from that point on, the name “Kumiko” becomes her real name instead of an assumed name. I also introduce a group of Impossible Girl-esque characters that are explained in Block 6.

Block 4: Four episodes revolved around the other protagonist’s friends thinking that it would be a good to forcibly marry him with another autistic classmate of his. That was also the plot of the first half of Series 4 and I should point out that the classmate has Asperger’s (that’s not why he doesn’t want to marry her btw, it’s because they don’t have feelings for each other).

Block 5: Four episodes of separate adventures (with one written by Steven Moffat). One of the episodes signifies a changing of an era as we see Fifi Forget-me-not pass away (based off a fanfic from EmmaKoeni) and Akari preparing for her wedding. It should be noted that by this point, the protag had already parted with Fifi long before that episode happened. He came back and stayed with her for a day as she passed on, so I dunno if others would consider that cheating.

Block 6: The big one to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Doctor Who. This is where the extra 26 episodes are set; everyone is in the same episode for the start and end, but they have their own adventures inbetween. The entire thing would have taken up 16 channels (my list has separate feeds for channels because at the time, I was going with what Japan was doing for their digital TV) unless you put them back-to-back or something. I also adapted The Name of the Doctor for the protag; basically, he would make a contract with Kyubey to become a magical boy, then scatter himself throughout his timeline, creating the Impossible Girl-esque characters from Block 3.

Block 7: Two episodes broadcast back-to-back as an experimental format. The first episode just revealed mysteries (most of them didn’t matter after that) while the second features segments with the prototypes and their partners.

Block 8: Five episodes of random stuff circling around the protagonist as he has adventures both with the Doctor and by himself. I took quite a few ideas from other episodes.

Block 9: Another big one with five Christmas Specials. The prologue features the wedding of the soon-to-be Hiroki and Akari Ichigo and the departure of Clara, Squid Girl and Takeru. The next three episodes go full-on as Girl Power teams up with the Daleks, Antoni and the Master in a war unlike any other. There is also a Dalek civil war arc going on with the bronze and gold Time War Daleks going up against the red and multicoloured New Paradigm Daleks (I don’t know why they were so hated, I personally think the BBC should have used them more). The epilogue is Hiroki Ichigo’s first adventure before he officially coins the name by the start of the next series.

Spinoffs

I had little to no involvement in these, but these are the spinoffs that spawned in the two years of my time writing Doctor Who:

The Fourth Doctor Adventures: As I stated before, this series is an extension of the Fourth Doctor’s adventures. Some episodes lay the groundwork for the animes and cartoons that are still featured in the series.

Doctor Whooves/Doctor Who Equestria: Adaptations of Doctor Who featuring Doctor Whooves and the Pony Doctor respectively.

MLP:FiM: Storm Dasher Series: A webcast series featuring new adventures for Storm Dasher. I think it may have been cut short because the last 12-13 episodes are the same as some of my own episodes in the main Doctor Who series.

Torchwood: Basically what it says on the tin. I wrote two episodes for that, then realised that most of it is also the same as the main Doctor Who series. This is getting stupid, honestly.

The Kongming Adventures: Adaptation of The Sarah Jane Adventures, but with Zhuge Liang instead of Sarah Jane.

Pobol y Dinas/EastEnders: I don’t know what the hell I was doing with that one, because these are two unrelated soap operas that came as spinoffs from a sci-fi series. The name Pobol y Dinas is “People of the City” in Welsh and I got the name from the actual S4/C soap opera, Pobol y Cwm.

Puella Magi Takumi Magica: Details Takumi Kamijō’s adventures following his regeneration and the establishment of Torchwood Pleiades, an organisation dedicated to bringing together magical girls around Mitakihara and beyond.

Hidamari Sketch x Honeycomb: Different to the actual series of the same name, this details Kumiko Hayashi’s adventures of living as a girl in a boy’s body due to the circumstances she was placed in following his regeneration.

Well, that took a bit of work to get through. We’ll continue this in the next instalment.

[gutsybitsies]

bakery au (oldie but a goodie)

Part 1

“He hates me,” Bitty moaned, flopping on his couch. Holster was raiding his kitchen, listening to his rant about Jack Zimmermann.

“I don’t even know what I did wrong! Maybe it was because I told him that he played a hard game last night the first time he came into the bakery? All he does is glare at me and say stuff like ‘Eric, the coffee is too sweet,’ or ‘Eric, you need more protein.’”

“Brah, maybe Zimmermann just has a total resting bitch face,” said Holster as he pulled out a leftover pie from Bitty’s fridge. “Guy seems fucking intense. At least he’s good for business.”

“He keeps on glaring at me! And he comes in, like, three times a week. Orders a coffee and just drinks it in his corner, ignores my attempts at conversation even though, mind you, he has already said some pretty rude stuff!”

“The guy’s a celebrity, he probably has his head so far in his ass and doesn’t care about shit, and also just wants some privacy. Bits, you haven’t been taking pictures of him and posting it on twitter have you?” Holster asked, alarmed.

Bitty gasped, “Adam Birkholtz! I would never!”

“Then just treat him like an antisocial customer, he can’t be the only one going to the bakery who doesn’t want conversation and just wants service and food,” Holster said, dropping down next to Bitty on the couch with two tins of pie.

“I know,” Bitty sighs. “He’s just...so handsome. And he was so nice to Nursey when that fool tripped. And he tips generously. And he’s just so gorgeous, even when he’s glaring at me and speaking in grunts whenever I ask him how his day has been. I just want him to like me!”

Holster navigated the TV to a rerun of Golden Girls and handed Bitty one of the pie tins. “I think that’s your problem. You’re an amazing person, Bits, but maybe you can be a bit too friendly for resting bitch face robozoid Zimmermann. Maybe stop asking him about his day and just let him chill.”

Bitty stayed silent for a while before turning to Holster. “You don’t think it’s because I look...you know.”

“What?” Holster asked, spraying pie over Bitty’s nice floor (it’s hardwood because he knew how his friends are like, and it’s so much easier cleaning liquor and other fluids off of hardwood floor).

“Gay,” Bitty whispered.

Holster considered that for a moment. “Nah, I don’t think so. Anyway, Ransom would’ve mentioned it.”

“You’re right,” Bitty said. “That just means it’s something personal with me.”

“Brah, you can’t make everyone like you, man,” Holster said.

“That’s easy to say from someone who hates everyone,” Bitty said.

“I don’t hate everyone, I’m just in a constant state of mild annoyance at a majority of the population. For example, you’re excluded from that demographic.”

“Thanks, I guess?”

Holster glanced at Bitty, shifting a little. Alarms started ringing in Bitty’s head.

“No. Holster. Bad boy. Stay there. No.”

“Too late!” Holster flung his empty tin away and tackled Bitty. “It’s time for bro cuddles!”

“Adam Birkholtz!”

“This is just to show how much I love you, brah!”

“I don’t want your friendship anymore!!”

Jack had a routine, usually governed by whatever calendar event Georgia’s assistant hands him and the rest of the team. Recently, his routine underwent a change the moment he first entered a small bakery around ten blocks away from where he lived. It had a homey atmosphere, but still managed to look adorable and modern. There were a few customers in line already, and a few more sitting down on cute tables and eating breakfast.

He had rushed out of bed that morning, upset about a phone call with his father the night before and hadn’t had any breakfast. Ransom had always said stuff about finding new places to eat at, so Jack figured he’d take a risk with the one shop that caught his eyes.

“Good morning! How’s your day been!” Before he knew it, Jack was at the front of the line and a handsome young man was beaming up at him. He had warm brown eyes and peeling skin on his nose, with a dash of pale, almost imperceptible freckles dusting his face.

“Um.” Jack replied.

“Well, what would you like today, mister?” The young man, Eric (and his name tag was also so fucking cute), asked.

“Coffee,” Jack spit out.

“Anything else with your coffee, sir?”

“Um,” Jack said again. His vocabulary was immensely impaired at the sight of Eric’s pearly whites.

“Very well sir, here’s your order number and it’ll be ready in a jiffy!”

Jack wondered if Eric recognized him, the other patrons certainly haven’t. They were either in a hurry or too tired and engrossed in their own business. Maybe Eric didn’t watch hockey? Jack knew that Poots would humble brag about being a hockey player to get dates, but he never felt comfortable about that sort of behavior.

“Number 45!” A clear voice called.

Jack turned and accepted his coffee from a tall, sleepy looking man. When he turned to leave, he heard another voice call out to him.

“It was a hard game last night, Mr. Zimmermann, but you played really well! We’re all rooting for you!” It was Eric, smiling and waving at him.

“Um.” Jack said. Think! Say something! Say anything! Do something!!!! “You should really wear sunscreen unless you want skin cancer.” What the fuck.

At the sight of Eric’s confused face, Jack hightailed out of the bakery and tried to push the whole embarrassing experience out of his head.

That was supposed to be the end of that. But Jack found himself standing at the entrance of the store a few days later. There were a few customers at the shop, but no one on line at the register. A familiar sleepy looking young man was manning it, and there were no signs of Eric.

Good, Jack thought. He just wants a cup of good coffee and maybe a croissant. No need to embarrass himself in front of a stranger.

He walked into the store, and browsed the pastry selection. Jack didn’t eat sweets often, or at all. But Nate said that today can be a cheat day, so he can have a slice of cake.

“Can I have a slice of key lime cake and a coffee, please?” He asked the man, Derek.

“Right on,” Derek replied. What happened next happened fast. One moment Derek was walking over to get a slice of cake out, and the next moment he’d tripped and smashed his face into the counter, fell on the floor, and was clutching his nose.

“What in tarnation is that noise?” From a door located behind the counter, Eric rushed out and gasped at the sight of Derek on the floor. “Nursey! Oh sweetheart, are you okay?”

A few of the other patrons walked over to see what was happening.

“Should I call an ambulance?” A kind looking old woman asked.

“No, no, I’m fine,” said Derek. “Think I just sprained my ankle and bruised my face.”

Eric felt Derek’s nose, the other man winced but stayed still.

“Good thing is that you don’t have a broken nose. I am so terribly sorry for this commotion, y’all!” Eric apologized to the customers. “We have this all under control. Derek, I’m going to call Chowder and have him pick you up, okay?”

“What? That’s bullshit, I can still work.”

“Honey, your ankle is the size of a tennis ball.”

“I can take him to the hospital,” Jack offered. Both Derek and Eric looked up at him in surprise. “I’m free this afternoon, I can drive him over. It’s partly my fault he’s injured, he tripped when he was getting my order.”

“You will do no such thing, mister. But I’m awfully touched that you offered.” Eric smiled at him, and Jack wondered if he himself needed a checkup at the hospital because his heart was acting strange. “No, I’m going to call someone and pick up this walking disaster-”

“Hey,” Derek complained.

“-this walking disaster, and he’ll be taken care of by his overprotective roommates. And unless you’re feeling miraculously fine later,” Eric said to Derek. “Take tomorrow off, too. Wait just one moment, Mr. Zimmermann!” He led Derek into the backroom and then popped back out. “What was your order again?”

Jack was back in the bakery two days later, this time a little down when he found out that Eric wasn’t in.

“Um, Eric’s not here today?” He asked Derek, who was moving with a slight limp.

“Nah, he’s visiting our flour suppliers. Gotta make that cake from something, y’know?”

“Oh.” Crestfallen, Jack took his coffee and cake and walked back to his apartment in a strange, morose mood.

The fourth time Jack was in the bakery was probably when he started mentally compartmentalizing the visits into his routine. Jack liked the way that Eric smiled at him and asked him about his day, even though Jack was usually too tongue tied to do anything but grunt “Mmhm” roughly and then turn tail to hide in a corner table of the place.

“Good morning! What would you like today?” Eric would ask him.

“Coffee and a ham and egg sandwich,” were Jack’s usual reply.

“Coffee and a Key Lime Cake,” were his responses when he was on a cheat day.

“Mmhm,” were used whenever Eric asked him how his day went.

Small throaty grunts were whenever Eric started talking about his own day and what he had planned for the bakery.

“Oh, sorry I must be always annoying you with this talk, it’s just me, I’m a natural born chatterbox!” Were variations of what Eric said, apologizing for talking too much, then proceeding to chatter on and on about the different types of apples and pears used in his pies.

The worst responses, however, were when Jack tried to say something witty and funny to Eric in response to whatever Eric said, and they would backfire so terribly and he would be so embarrassed he almost sprinted away from the bakery.

“You’ve never tried one of my pies before, you really should order one today!” Eric had told him one day.

“No thanks,” Jack said. Then, panicking at the fact that Eric was now looking directly at him instead of all those moments when Eric talked to him but was busy with making coffee and orders, he blurted out, “You need to eat more protein.”

“Excuse me?” For once, Eric seemed a bit offended at what Jack said.

“Um. It’s good for you.” Without another word, Jack grabbed his coffee and sandwich and dashed out the door. He didn’t know why his heart is beating so fast, maybe it was because of how he kept on embarrassing himself in front of Eric. He couldn’t help it. For some reason Jack was hyperaware of himself in front of Eric, afraid that whatever he said would be terrible, and whenever he said anything it became a self fulfilling prophecy of embarrassment.

The day of American Thanksgiving, Jack walked into the bakery after two weeks out on a roadie. He almost didn’t expect to see Eric, because he figured he’d be spending that holiday down in Georgia. But there Eric was, twiddling his fingers in an bakery unusually empty of customers.

“Good morning! How can I help you?” He smiled at Jack, and Jack knew it was a good idea to come here immediately after a roadie. Eric made him feel warm and stable, and like he’d come home. 

“Coffee and a ham and egg sandwich please,” Jack said. He waited for Eric’s usual barrage of words. Maybe he’ll tell him why the bakery was so empty, or why he wasn’t home for Thanksgiving.

The words didn’t come. Eric stayed quiet the whole time, except for a perfunctory “Enjoy your meal!” when he handed Jack his order.

Maybe it was an off day, Jack mused, as he tried to catch Eric from the corner of his eye.

But it wasn’t just one off day. Eric stopped asking him how his days went, and stopped rambling at him about how his own day went and what kind of new recipe he was looking at. Jack noticed that Eric was speaking like normal to the other regulars, but he himself only had the standard customer service “Good day!” and “Enjoy your meal!” He still smiled at Jack genuinely, but the rest was. Short. Did he catch on to how terrible Jack was being? Did Jack say something wrong?

Well.

Jack remembered all the things he had said to Eric.

“This is too sweet.” When he tried to chirp him about a sweet tooth.

“I only listen to John Mayer and that’s it. Who’s Beyoncé?" When he tried to say something about music.

“You shouldn’t ask a professional athlete to eat so many empty calories.” When he tried to joke about his cheat day.

Okay then.

He said a lot of things wrong.

It was okay, since Jack only went to Bitty’s Bites because Eric was a soothing presence and their coffee was amazing. Eric doesn’t need to be talking to Jack. Eric can talk to other people and Jack can listen in like a creep and think about how good he looks in that apron and bask in his presence indirectly.

Jack groaned and let his head fall against his steering wheel. He glanced at the coffee in his cup holder and the empty sandwich wrapper.

Pull yourself together.

[wishingfornever]

10/5/17 – No Contact:  The Rerun Post

Currently, it’s 1 in the morning.  Just did the dishes.  Max’s food bowls were filthy.  Now they should be clean enough to use for water. Which will be great for him.  I guess I’ll stay up a bit longer. After all, it shouldn’t hurt.

I’ve been thinking of you lately.  A lot more then usual.  Not sure why.  As I was doing the dishes, you were all I could think about.  Was thinking about you earlier, too.  Back when it was still the fourth of October.  Shane messaged me when I was thinking about you.  I was so happy because I thought you messaged me. A bit disappointed, but I’m alright otherwise. My mood has been… less happy since I started thinking about you lately.  You’re probably not good for me.  Or I don’t like what’s happened to us or how it happened. Specifically how.  I want to give Dennis a piece of my mind for what he did.  Not just to you and me but to Shane and Jeremiah.  Maybe to Daniel.  He’s been pretty mean with everyone but you this entire time.  And with you, he’s basically sabotaging your life.  Not even being disingenuous, either.

I have more hair on my face since I started controlling my diet and exercising.  I haven’t missed a day since I got here which is saying something because I sometimes missed days back in CA.  Lassen might literally be cursed.

I should sleep now so if I wake up early enough I can get my chapter done.  I hate to say it but the exercising is kind of a hindrance. I’m starting to manage it better but I don’t have enough time during the day.  Worse yet, I promise Shane I’ll play video games with him.  I don’t want to play video games, I want to write my book and then read it and then edit it and then publish it! >< Fuck, I’m going to be busy.  When I’m finished with the book, I’m going to begin Rosetta Stone lessons. If you decide to come down, maybe you should take them to.  I think you’d be a beautiful bilinguist.  ;)

Still upset with all the things Dennis is doing.  He is protecting you, I’ll give him that, but the thing is he’s protecting you for his own wants and desires.  He doesn’t care about you.  And that’s a shame.  I encourage you to ask him anything of what you told him in idle chatter from weeks ago.  He won’t remember it in person.  Of course, he’ll say, “I’m sorry, I smoke a lot of pot” which is probably true.  However, he smokes less than you do. Yeah, I’ve learned a lot.  Like how someone saw him with your phone while you were getting super high.  He said, “Oh, didn’t realize it was hers” and walked off.  I won’t tell you who because then that’ll be even more drama if you do read this.  Just know he isn’t the most trustworthy.  Besides, I was asked not to tell you.  So, I guess I can’t tell you…  Not even in the journal.  :/ Maybe I will.  Or maybe you won’t ask because you already know. Difficult to keep things secret in such a small house. Then again, I revealed Shane’s thing… Ugh…  I’m a bad friend. >< Whatever.  I’ll be more mindful now.  Shane actually asked who I told that.  Did I tell you?  Yeah, seems Dennis thought Shane was talking shit about him when I told Daniel that Dennis was STILL talking shit about me.  Yeah, Dennis is paranoid as fuck. Might be the pot.  It’s probably the pot. Whatever… not my problem.  It’s yours.  Again, if you decide to come back I’ve spoken to Adela.  And I decided to check places where you can get a GED and there were several nearby. We could DEFINITELY take you in. Thing is, Adela is hesitant.  Not because of what’s happened.  Mostly because I think this isn’t temporary, at least not in comparison of what we were before.  And she does intend to have family over.  And other.  If you’re here, we might have to find an apartment. I kind of don’t want to.  Not because I don’t want to live on my own but because then I’ll have to invest in a BUNCH of fucking shit and I intend to move out of the country, with or without you.  Yeah, that’s right.  Even if you’re here, I still intend to leave the country. With or without you.  Again, I have my own ambitions.  I’d like you to be there with me but I’m not holding my breath.  Even if we do meet up again, I’m not expecting you to move out of the country with me. Probably not what you meant when you said “Moving on.” Moving on isn’t a relationship thing for me. It’s a life thing.  I’m focusing ENTIRELY on my life right now. My life doesn’t need you in it to continue.  It doesn’t need anything but food, water, and shelter.  But, that’s minimalist. I’d like to have a TV.  To have internet.  To have you. Speaking of you, I’m backtracking a little.  Shane called you a whore.  I was uncomfortable with that.  You called yourself a whore.  I’m uncomfortable with that.  I wish people were more respectful towards you.  You’re not a whore.  It was one person.  Big fucking deal, the problem isn’t volume but context.  Dennis is a piece of shit. You are gullible but you’re not a whore. If you call yourself a whore around me, I’m going to lecture you.  Stop it.

Sorry, that really bothers me.  I really shouldn’t care, but I’ve invested in your image.  I’m going to protect it.  -,-

Speaking of image, you can continue your porn here.  That’d be nice.  Nicer. If I lose a bunch of weight, I’ll be more comfortable being in your porn.  Ironically, I haven’t seen any porn since I left. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve fapped but my problem is I was thinking of you.  I fap to my memories.  ><

That’s okay.  Less viruses and malware that way.

I miss you.  My mood has soured a little bit, but I don’t have time to be pulled down.  Next week, I’ll be getting a job.  It’s already thursday.  UGH!!!  Dammit.  I need to redo my resume.  And I’ll have to wake up and go to work.  I’ll also need to measure the time it takes me to walk there.  Not jog.  Walk.  I don’t want to be sweaty and smelly before I start a shift.  I’ll be there a while, I don’t want to be miserable or self-conscious.

Oof. There is so much potential in life right now.  There is so much happening in life right now.  Maybe too much life.  As in I appreciate Shane being super chill, but FUCKING HELL, Arma 3 is fucking hard and that’s what we’ve been playing.  Like… it’s a time waster.  Can’t afford to waste time, I say as I write this and have a youtube video playing in the background.

I’m going to bed as soon as the dishes are done.  Once they’re over, I’m going to fill up Max’s water bowl.  Adela won’t have to do it when she gets up.  She’ll appreciate it.  Then I’ll put away the dishes.  Guess what I brought with me?  Our cups.  Oh, wait.  I told you.

I think I’ve been repeating myself.  I’m tired so I’m using that as an excuse.  It’s almost 2.  I started the dishes before midnight.  Need a shower.  Then bed. Tomorrow, I’ll do laundry.  I left one of my soap bottles in CA but there was one here still with stuff in it.  I’ll have to text my mom and ask her. I’ll probably pick it up when I come back for my truck.  Oh, that’d save us some weight too.  So I can just bring a week’s worth of clothing.  Or… we could, if we go back together.  That’d be nice. I promised you a road trip.

Oh, look at that.  I’m repeating myself again.  Oof.

Anyways, on the way back we can go to Amarillo and we can see my old apartment.  I left a lot of stuff there.  I had to because my dad rushed me.  I had no time and it wouldn’t fit.  We can’t go in, obviously…  Also, we’ll get a room there.  There is an old friend who wants to meet up for dinner.

Don’t be jealous, but it’s a she.  We might have more than dinner.  Hope you don’t mind.  Then there is a friend in Quincy near Susanville who wants to meet up for something similar.  Hope you don’t mind again.  And of course we’ll have to go to Dallas next.  We might meet my friend there.  He’s a guy.  So we might meet up for dinner. Then fuck.  I know you won’t mind.  ;) Kidding.  Ariel was invited to Dallas though.  Another piece of excrement who is just trying to get online puss.  She has a million offers a day.  She considered taking it because I’m in Texas.  I told her I’d have to bring my truck for that, so she’s holding off.

Got a lot of woman wanting to meet up right now and I’m unsure why. And by a lot I mean 3 total.  You’re not a part of them, obviously, because… events.  But you encouraged me to sleep with all the women I wanted.  Sort of how the relationship began.  You remember those sort of events and I said no to it.  Now after the new events, you think you’ll let me sleep with whomever I want again? Probably not.  Not unless you get an open relationship privileges too and if we started again we’d have to work towards it.  Hell, I probably will tell you there is no chance in hell after what’s happened.

You’re probably reading that saying, “I wish I didn’t come back for him!” assuming you did come to Houston, but too bad.  After what’s happened and how you’ve treated me, I think you’ve lost that privilege.

I know that’s not what you want to see, but understand that I know what was wrong.  I’m aware.  Things will change.  If you decide to give me another chance, you won’t need to.  Trust me on that.  Our relationship will be better the next time round.

Again, that’s assuming you trust me with another chance.  Not holding my breath.  Doubt you’d even read this, tbh.  Again, not my concern. If I stop caring to the point where I email it to you, know that you don’t have a chance in hell.  Unlike other men, I will tell you no. To me, your body is NOTHING.  To everyone else?  Your looks are the only feature they care about.  I assure you, if you were a disgusting, ugly woman then Dennis wouldn’t have done what he’s done.

Good looks are a curse to women.  I see why some muslim women prefer the burka.  Don’t know how to spell it.

It’s so hard to get judged fairly.  Especially as a woman.  You don’t need me, a man, to tell you this.  But I do sympathize.  I’m not like other guys.  You know I’m not because you had to chase me rather than I chase you.

Thing is, you’ve made a lot of promises that you never kept.  Simple promises too.  Before Dennis.  So, your word is in question.  I have every reason to doubt you.  If it takes too long for you to come back to me, I’ll move on as you asked and you’ll have to chase yet again.  That’ll be fun, no? Thing is, even if I do make you chase me, I won’t deny you from wanting to move in here. Because even if we’re not together, you’d be better off than being stuck with Dennis.  So just know that you’ll always have shelter with me.  Just not a relationship.

Christ, that washer is taking forever.  It’s 2:30.  ><

Oh, I think it’s finished.  Time to put it away.  Speak of the devil and he shall appear.

Finished. Going to finish this video before I go to bed.  If we get back together, I want you to be more overbearing with my diet.  As in you purchase the groceries.  I just haul it.  I feel like the food is already rotting.  It’s… a bad thing I do.  Feel like food is rotten.  I really need help.  Rotten food is my biggest fear.  ><

I’m watching a video with a couple youtubers playing Cuphead.  It’s old timey.  This probably won’t surprise you but old cartoons from the 30’s are… old memories.  It was a VHS tape filled with old cartoons.  I watched that rather than actual TV.  I loved them.  I feel emotional when I see them play it.  Oof.  They did a good job. I feel like they’re literally playing my childhood.

I want the soundtrack.  I’m getting it soon.

I’ll be up for another 20 minutes.  Despite what it seems like, I don’t type consistently throughout this time.

It’s finished.  Currently 3:12.  I’m going to bed after a shower.  Good night.  I still care about you.  Tomorrow, back with my book.  ;)

Series of bad dreams.  Kept waking up and going back to sleep.  It’s almost 3 in the afternoon. Christ.  x.x The first one ironically involved me being at the store.  I bought a turkey and a huge thing of ham.  Then I discovered this Latina who worked there thought I was cute, so I got to talking to her.  As I was talking to her, this white trash woman comes up and asks if she could take the ham off my cart.  I look at her, annoyed at first before telling her to go away.  I go back to flirting with this girl and I ask her number.  As she goes to write it down, I look at my cart and the ham is gone.  The manager of the girl told me that she’s an employee and can’t give out personal information on the job. I didn’t care about that.  I went out to find the lady who took the ham and I looked everywhere.  The dream ends with me road raging and having to park next to the freeway ramp before waking up. Weird, I know.

The second dream involved eggs.  I was at my parents’ ranch and as someone volunteered to cook the eggs for me, I saw slenderman. Rather than not look at him, I chose to.  He noticed me and walked up.  I kept looking at him though.  As if I were challenging him. Then he proceeding to cut out my eyes.

I woke up immediately after and my left eye was sore.

The last one involved you.  Shane and I went over to Dennis’s.  I was preparing to do something really mean to Dennis when you snuck up behind me and kissed my cheek.  Then I forgot what I was going to do. We laid down together and just cuddled.  Then I woke up.

Yeah, it’s kinda like that.

Though not a bad dream, I did wake up without you by my side and I was a bit distraught about that.  There were more dreams, but I can’t remember the rest too well.  I wish you were here.  I really do miss you.

Then again, I guess I stayed awake last night just to fantasize about you. Literally.  I have several woman who want to sleep with me setting up plans while I’m thinking about you in all your naked glory.  One such fantasy was me eating sushi off your naked body.  I’d refer to you as my table and be a dick and then surprise you by sharing some sushi with you.  I know I can share this because you’re not going to read this.  May as well.

Then there is just me sneaking up behind you and kissing the back of your neck.  Of course, I definitely want to have sex with you but the thing is I also want to do more than just fuck.  It’s hard to explain.  I just wish you were here, is all.  :/ Whatever. Enough about my weird fantasies.  Let’s talk Max.

He has been wanting to go outside.  I took him out and all he did was lie down in the grass.  We go back in and he wants to go back outside.  He’s kind of a brat.  I cleaned his bowls last night.  He has nice, clean water available.  Stayed up last night to do that. Then I took a shower.  Then bed.  Then stayed up for hours thinking of you.

In the event that you come my way, let me tell you what my plan is. First, I’ll make sure I’m clean shaven.  Not completely, just groomed.  Downstairs?  Yeah, that’s going to get shaved.  I brought that auto-razor thing.  The shaver or whatever.  So, yeah.  It won’t look like a swamp if you reach down there.  Might scratch you, though.  Still, I’ll make sure I look my best. I’ll probably tell you I’m late.  It won’t be because I’m kidding you but because traffic has been getting bad.  More than likely, if I am there first, I’ll hide behind something or blend in better.  But more than likely I will be late.  This isn’t a power move to make you feel guilty and to get you thinking that I don’t care and you’re the least important part of my day and I have moved on. It’s just that I’m late. Don’t feel bad.  I guarantee I’m not trying to be a dick to you.

Then we’ll bring you back.  I’ll take you up stairs, bringing your two inevitably heavy bags even though I TOLD YOU that you can freely leave shit there because we’ll come back because I have a job and I can afford the tickets and the drive back but no.  You’re like, “Good, we can get Haru AND NOTHING ELSE!!!”

You don’t listen.  If you do, that’d be great.  But you don’t.  I know this because you’re stubborn.  It’s one of your endearing factors.

Believe it or not, that’s a good thing.  It may not sound like it because stubbornness is viewed as a bad thing, but it’s also confidence in yourself.

Anyways, I assume you’ll have two heavy bags.  Hopefully they won’t be SUPER FUCKING heavy and you won’t have to pay for the overweight charge.  Of course, you’ll have to get another bag.  But, that’s life.  Let me tell you something else.

When we come back, we won’t have to bring back ANY heavy stuff.  Just a weeks worth of clothing.  Something to get us by.  Why so little? Because we’ll need the bags for bringing back YOUR stuff.  And also some of my stuff.  We can store some bags in other bags.  Should fit, assuming they’re small enough.  I think mine is small enough to fit in the larger bag.

Anyways, the drive will be tough.  The glass tank for Haru should be in the back seat of my truck as opposed to the truck bed.  We’ll get a rope and tie the bags onto the truck.  There is a chance I’ll be able to take Kiki, but I’ll have to talk to Adela about it.  More than likely, we’ll have to move out as soon as Kiki gets here so when we’re here, we’ll have to find an apartment with a down payment.  That basically means that we’ll no longer be able to save money.

It’d be worth it to get Kiki back.  It’d be easier to bring her back without you, to be honest.  That way Adela won’t feel like I’m totally infringing but just partially.  Keep that in mind, will you?

Anyways, when we go up there for my truck we’ll take everything we can fit and that we forgot about the first time around.  I’ll take the rest of my clothing and my airsoft gear (possibly my airsoft guns) and you’ll take Haru’s tank and Moshi’s tank and basically everything.

On the way back, we can get hotel/motel rooms.  Sleep there the night and then leave the next morning.  It’ll take 28 hours if we aren’t delayed and drive nonstop from Reno to Houston.  I intend to stop by Amarillo and Dallas.  That should be about a 6 hour drive in between them but there might be good news.  We may not have to pay for lodging while there.  We’ll have to see.

I know you’re probably reading this thinking, “He’s planned all this knowing I told him to move on?  He’s crazy.”  Maybe, but this is something I’ll be doing with or without you.  I’d rather you be there, but it doesn’t matter in the end.

It’ll take 20 hours just to get to Amarillo.  So, we’ll probably have one stop before we get there.  I’m thinking it’ll probably be in New Mexico or Arizona.  We’ll drive through Las Vegas.  I know you’d want to stop but the thing is Las Vegas isn’t any fun unless you’re 21.  I’ll drive the entire way so you can look out the window. We’ll find a place, preferably cheap.  Thing is, we’ll keep our clothing in bags.  When we get back, we’ll have to wash them immediately.  Bed bugs are a real thing and they occur in that area. I got bed bugs from a hotel.  Hopefully, we’ll be fine.  Again, we just have to wash our clothes IMMEDIATELY and take showers. Cleanliness is key.

Ignoring that, We’ll start in CA then we’ll go through Nevada.  Then we’ll arrive in Arizona.  Then New Mexico.  Finally Texas.  It’ll be a two day trip to get from CA to Texas.  Then we’ll get to Amarillo and stay a day or two.  I’ll talk to a friend who may let us stay for a little while.  She’s super sweet.  We should get her something.  She’s an old coworker of mine.  :D Then from Amarillo, we’ll see some sights where I used to live.  Maybe go to the Big Texan.  Go to Dunkin Donuts.  Possibly see the cemetery. That’s if you’re with me, of course.

After we see what we need to, we’ll head on over to Dallas which is six hours, as I said.  The road we’ll take WON’T take us through Oklahoma.  But, we’ll get close.  We’ll meet up with my friend there, we may do some drinking.  After a day with him?  We’ll go to Houston.  Meet up with Adela.  Finish settling in. Get prepared for the next part of life.

I know, it’s weird that I’m planning this and acting like you’re coming.  It’s probably weird that I keep saying it’s weird.  I guess despite knowing you won’t ever read this, I still want you to be a part of this journey.  I guess also that it’s good to write down my plans.  It makes it easier to remember.  And if I forget, I can always reread this entry.

Alright, it’s 4:30 and Max needs food.  We’re not jogging today.  I’m willfully not exercising.  Today will be a break day.  x.x

Also, I’m hungry so brb we’re getting food.

I just came back.  I remembered what the eggs were about.  I was cooking with our kids.  Son and Cynthia.  Fucking christ, it’s worse than I imagined.  >< Whatever.  Slenderman isn’t real.  I remember now because the son who still doesn’t have a name was trying to help cook and he crushed the egg in his little hand and I was like, “Dude, the fuck?” but I said, “That’s perfect!  Why don’t you go tell mommy that the food is almost started?” to get him away from the kitchen.  Cynthia wanted to use cookie cut outs on the eggs and I was like, “Yeah, no.” I guess that sounds good, but we were on my parents’ ranch.  So, if I had to live there with my parents and also children, I’d hate myself.  >< It was night time though.  While we were cooking.  Maybe it wasn’t our ranch?  Then again, maybe slenderman didn’t scoop out my eye? Reoccurring characters are fucking dumb.  x.x

Just came back from Max’s walk.  There is this white poofy dog.  Super cute.  We saw him/her today.  First time we saw him/her was with Adela.  We were walking back and the white dog was being walked by this cute Asian girl.  She seemed nice.  Anyways, White Dog saw Max and immediately started following, pulling the Asian girl with her. So, she basically followed us for a little bit.

Today, we saw White Dog again.  Just me and max.  It was being walked by probably Asian boyfriend?  I don’t know.  Point is, the White Dog wanted to play with Max but he was able to hold on to her.  However, we saw him again on the way back.  On the way back, we basically go through the long part of the neighborhood so we had a lower chance of meeting again.  But we met and again and we were so close to one another we just gave each other an awkward bro nod as the dogs wanted to play. It was cute.  :D

Alright, so it’s official.  Dennis is NEVER coming to Houston.  And it’s because I’m here.  I don’t know what he’s been telling you but he specifically told Shane that he’s not afraid of me.  Shane asked if that’s not the case then why won’t he come for a job that pays really well?  He had no answer.

It’s possible that he lied to Shane.  It’s possible that he lied to you. It’s possible he lied to EVERYONE.  But he can’t lie to himself. He isn’t profitable.  He’s not investing in himself.  I, at least, wrote a book and Shane told me that I could totally go to school here for the job he has.  I might actually take him up on that offer assuming my books never take off.  I’ll release my own book, see what the reviews say.

I might finish the series and call it a day.  Or I might be encouraged to keep writing.  The fact of the matter is, my life is flexible.  So long as I’m in Houston, I can get a lot done.  You could to, but right now you’re believing Dennis’s malarkey.

I have nothing against Dennis, but he’s just… well, he has something against me.  Clearly.  There is a lot going on.  He’s going to try to keep you from talking to me soon.  I hope he doesn’t remember our anniversary that’s coming up.  If he does, then he’ll have a time frame to act. Thinking strategically.  It’s a good thing, but comprises of over-examination.  I can’t wait to message you.  You’ll probably be upset, but I’ll talk some sense. You just need to be sensible.  ;)

[marveliye-blog]

Three Dollars, Six Dimes {Part 4}

[Leon]

“Get low, get low Zola.” Justin informs her to dunk down as we pass the police car around the corner. Six people in Justin’s used, black Sedan was a tight fit, but we made it work. I sat up front in the passenger’s seat, Marrisa in the backseat behind me, Rashad was in the middle, Sasha on the other side, and Zola sat on Marrisa’s lap. We pass the police car, and Zola gets up with a giggle. We return to our conversation about the recent school events, everyone laughs and talks as we ride with the windows down…well, everyone but Sasha. She sat in that back seat the whole time with her mouth twisted in a big scowl, her brows scrunched, and her body language read nothing but attitude. She was mad at the world, at me, with her friends and brother, and probably Justin even though he didn’t do anything but a ride and cordial hello.

I noticed from the interactions with her friends and brother that they ignored her when she acted like this. I’m grateful because she would have seriously killed the vibe otherwise. Sasha Campbell had to be the most uptight teenager that I’ve ever met. Before going to Marri’s house, we stop at the convenience store around the corner to get snacks…everyone got out of the car but Sasha. I quickly pick up a couple of packs of fruity lifesavers and head back to the car. It’s too hot so stand outside, so I savor the car’s AC and take my chances at being alone with Sasha.

I glance back at her as I get in and she doesn’t move or make a sound. It was the first time that I’d ever been this close to her. Though Marrisa and I had been friends for years my contact with her up until this point had been limited. Her presence wasn’t big like Zola’s or made you feel welcomed like Marrisa’s; it was just stifling.

“Want one?” I ask not because I am playing nice, but it’s because it was how I was brought up. She looks up at me with those deep dark eyes and her scowl returns.

She then says “Does it look like I want anything from you?”

I start to cuss her out and say some shit that would hurt her feelings and to think that I almost felt sorry for her this morning.

“What?” she asks when she notices I’m still turned around glaring at her. I didn’t know what I wanted; I was just pissed off at her unnecessary attitude.

“I was trying to be friendly.” I muster, a lump formed in my throat with all the negative words that I wanted to say.

“Don’t bother. You and Marrisa have been friends for years, and we have managed to say only about two words to each other. We’re sixteen now, so there’s no need to start.”

“You’re such a fucking bitch.” I say harshly before I can even stop it.

She takes off her glasses and stares at me hard with large dark, brown eyes. “I’ve heard that shit all my life, so I’m going to need to hear something new to be offended.” she says it cool and calmly. I’m convinced that there is a demon trapped in there somewhere.

I glance at the driver’s side window and see the rest of them coming so I turn around. “Damn weirdo.” I mumble to myself.

“Thank you.” She chirps out gleefully as the crew climbs back in.

[Sasha]

From the Casiano’s house, the walk to our apartment was only a few minutes away, but instead of walking home like we agreed on, Rashad wanted to hang out a little longer. Instead of being the little brother shunned by his older sister’s friends, he fit right in while I was the one left out. I sat at the dining room table doing my homework with Marrisa’s ten-year-old sister, Marisol, while the others sat in the living room watching Martin and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reruns. When Marrisa was halfway done with Leon’s hair, she took a little break to check on me.

“Move big head, let me talk to Sash.” Marrisa shoos her sister and Marisol looks at her in disgust.

“Why I gotta move?” she whines. “It’s bad enough that Mommy won’t let me sit with ya’ll.” She folds her arms defiantly and locks eyes with Marrisa to challenge her.

“Marisol don’t be a brat and move.” Marri demands. I pop my gum and watch the scene unfold. Siblings were the reason that we always hung out at Zola’s house. She’s an only child, and her mom is super young and lets us do whatever. Mrs. Casiano always had a bunch of rules, and her three younger siblings tend to be obnoxious. My house was ok unless Regina was there, which was quite often, she always felt the need to play boss around my friends. “Fine, you won’t move, I’ll just sit on you.”

“There are two other chairs you can sit at.” Marisol argues while Marri bounces on her lap.

“I want to talk to Sasha alone.” Marrisa insist on covering Marisol’s ears so she can’t hear our conversation. Both girls struggle with one another until Marisol gains the upper hand.

“Get your ass off of me before I tell Leon that you like him.” Marisol says with a smirk just low enough for me and Marri to hear her. Though Marrisa’s back is to me, I’m sure her brown eyes get big.

“Mama, Marisol’s in here cussing!” Marrisa shoots up off her sister and shouts. Before Marisol has time to defend herself, her mom calls for from her bedroom in a menacing tone.

“Imma get you back.” Marisol pops her sister in the arm before running off to see what her mother wants.

Marrisa looks back at me with an amused look before pulling her chair up closer to me. “Come on and sit with us. You’re sitting in her all alone being antisocial.” She pats my forearm which causes me to mess up the “S” I was writing.

“I’m good.” I stop my writing altogether to look at her. “Plus, I wasn’t alone. I was just fine sitting here doing my homework while Marisol eavesdropped.”

“Ugh, she’s so bad. I can’t believe she’s only ten.” My friend frowns in the direction of the hallway Marisol ran down. Since Marisol didn’t come back to the front, I figured that her mom made her stay back there with her and their five-year-old and two-year-old little brothers. “Come on, now stop acting like that and join us.” Marrisa insists once again.

“Acting like what?” I’m confused because for the most I’ve been on my best behavior.

“I know you don’t care for Le and Justin but you can at least be a part of the crowd.”

“I’m doing what I want to do which is my homework. I’m not about to be up half the night doing algebra work because I was sitting around, playing friends with two bubble-brained boys.” I stand my ground because I was not bothering anyone.

“You’ve been on one since Leon asked me to do his hair. Can’t nobody stand when you act like that, me and Zola included.” Her voice gets higher, and her Latina accent is more noticeable, which is a sign that she’s getting angry. For a second I believe that I’m unreasonable until I look over my shoulder at the four in the living room. They are rapping and dancing obnoxiously to the clean version of Rack City.

“I can act however I want. I’m not trying to impress them on your behalf. He’s either going to like you for you, regardless of who your friends are, or it just won’t happen. And if he hasn’t noticed you by now then he probably won’t Marrisa.” I snap because I know that this is what this conversation is about. She was starting to hang out with Leon more outside of school and wanted me to be nicer so he would want to come around more.

“God, you can be so bitchy, and you wonder why no one at school likes you.” She rolls her eyes. “You’re so damn rude to people, it’s annoying.” This conversation was taking a turn, and it was evident that Marrisa was expressing how she really felt.

“If I’m so annoying then why do you hang around me?” I pull my eyes from hers and try to focus on my math homework.

“Honestly Sasha, if me, Zola, and your brother didn’t tolerate your attitude who would you hang around?” Those words hurt but I wouldn’t let her see me cry about it. I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t thought about my friends drifting apart from me, and Rashad warding me off in fear of becoming a social pariah like myself. “He’s been a good friend to me. He was there for me when my dad went to prison, and he helps out when my mom gets sick. The only reason we don’t hang out as much is because you’re always around.”

“Fine,” I slam my book closed with a loud thud. I feel eyes on my back, and the way Marrisa glares over my shoulder confirms it. “Well, I’ll stop coming around.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I’m just saying be nicer, and people will like you more. Stop acting like you’re so much better than everyone else.” She tries to say in better tone, but the damage has already been done. I throw my books and notebooks in my backpack until my area at the table is clear. She could sit there and stand up for her stupid crush all she wanted. I didn’t have to sit there and listen to it.

“Shad, I’m leaving, and I’m not walking home by myself and neither are you.” I announce to Rashad as I storm to through the living room in a fury. They all look at me like I’m crazy, but I don’t care; I was done being “nice” for the day.

“Sasha.” My brother says my name in a tone that lets me know that I’m embarrassing him.

“I’ll wait outside.” I say firmly then burst through the Casiano’s storm door.

[Leon]

My cell phone rings at my aunt’s personalized ringtone. I go out to the front porch so I can hear her over the blaring music videos.

“Hey Tía Tia.”

“Are you home?” He huffs.

“What was that? Did you say, hey Nephew? How was your day in school, Nephew? Well, Auntie, I had an awesome day and—” I continue this sarcastic jab until she cuts me off.

“Boy, don’t play. Are you home?” She says in a stern tone of voice. Most of the time we had this great brother-and-sister type dynamic then there were moments like this when she would get this surge of maternal energy and switch up on me.

“I’m at Marrisa’s house. She’s braiding my hair.” I turn my back to the surly Sasha who’s still outside waiting on her brother.

“Leon, I’ve told you again and again about hanging out when I’m working these late shifts, especially in that part of town.”

“Tia half of my head is done. I’ll go home when she finishes. It shouldn’t take her long.”

“You don’t tell me what you’re going to do.” She snaps, and I look up into purplish gray sky wishing this conversation would end. “Your grandparents are on their way to the house. They are spending the weekend because I’m working the late shifts all weekend.”

“How was I supposed to know that when you didn’t tell me.”

“Leon Christopher Bradfort.” My name floats from her lips like a song. Tiana Camille Bradfort had been getting on my case lately about minor shit, and I wasn’t here for it.

“I don’t need them to babysit me anymore. I’m sixteen.”

“Like I’m going to give you full reign at sixteen.”

“I’m responsible,” I argue, and I hear Sasha scoffs behind me.

“It’s not about that. It’s about you doing what I tell you to do because I’m responsible for you. Your grandparents, my mom and dad, should be there within the hour and I expect you to be home.”

“Marrisa should be done by then.” I challenge.

“Look my break is almost up. You just better be home when they get there.” With that, her phone clicks off. For a few minutes, I ponder if hearing an earful from Tia and being “grounded” would be worth it. She would be too tired to fuss when she came home, and once she got around to it, she wouldn’t be mad anymore. Her groundings also never stuck, so I head back inside as Rashad was coming out. I sit back down in front of Marrisa and let her finish my braids.

© Marveliye