#��Somehow or other I ended up supporting Genos?

[iwillgetridofyourangerforyou]

The Good Doctor Kuseno

More questions than answers Possible Spoilers ahead!!

@gofancyninjaworld​ has a few excellent posts about this already please read them if you’re interested. These posts are well researched and provide a different perspective than my own. I recommend that everyone consume different perspectives to help inform and diversify their own. I also reference a few of them in my post here.

https://gofancyninjaworld.tumblr.com/post/612670463398772736/when-cancel-isnt-an-option 

https://gofancyninjaworld.tumblr.com/post/612685729355759616/what-about-if-the-mad-cyborg-was-created-by

https://gofancyninjaworld.tumblr.com/post/190986677872/the-nysh-forward-the-following-meta-has-been

https://gofancyninjaworld.tumblr.com/post/187738207032/so-conflicts-of-interest-with-whowhat-else#notes

https://gofancyninjaworld.tumblr.com/post/184129389540/how-to-grow-old-and-stay-mad

What do we actually know about the good doctor?

As Fancy Ninja noted: 

He claims to have been chasing ‘that cyborg’ for longer than Genos has been.

He used to be angry over some injustice.

He’s not afraid to take up arms in person.

He’s a skilled scientist/engineer, specifically he “likes to dabble with mechanical engineering”

He’s deeply invested in Genos. Seemingly in both the literal and figurative sense.

Additionally and significantly, He’s not a monster.

Why is 6 important? I mean, if Garou teaches us anything it’s that the lines between Human, hero, and monster are not as clear as we may have initially assumed. And yet, Monsters truly exist in this universe and their existence is significant. (It's also notable here that we have seen a few instances where monsters appeared as the humans they were before they consumed monster cells only to reveal their identity later, but for the moment this seems to be unlikely of Kuseno.) One of the possible interpretations of this fact is that despite his past anger and continued obsession with hunting this cyborg he still has something within him that keeps him human. I’m not sure exactly what that is in this case because if I’m honest, I’m not super certain what makes humanity human in general, in OPM or otherwise. Aside from that, we know fairly little about the good doctor. We know almost nothing about his past.

What he tells us: 

“When I and Genos first met, we didn’t have a single ally. It was as if the pair of us were lost and alone fumbling in the darkness… I dived into research with all I could, trying to come up with some way to fight back at the forces of evil... and yet our troubles were just beginning, because me and my boy-”

vs  THis: 

What does Kuseno have to gain from all his tireless effort into Genos?

Despite my reservations about Dr. Kuseno I’d be remiss to fail to admire his work on Genos. Kuseno has done an incredible job with Genos’ upgrades. The aesthetic and humanizing touches he’s given Genos are so, and I cannot emphasize this enough, important. He has a human looking face and hair. Kuseno has even been aging Genos appropriately over time, he can even eat food normally. (And we all know he’s been keeping Geno damn hot in the process) The things that he’s done to humanize Genos is sincerely one of the most compelling arguments that Dr. Kuseno is a truly good bean. But he’s not off the hook yet. 

When he says that seeing Genos reminded him of his youth when he was righteous and feared nothing always charging in without thought of consequences and I have to wonder, what consequences did Dr. Kuseno experience in his life that changed him? If he’s experienced so much in his life why is he still walking the path of vengeance and promoting that path for Genos? Even if he’s not promoting the path for Genos but merely ‘supporting’ Genos on his path wouldn’t you think someone who was so similar in their youth know better than to fuel a revenge mission? But I’m not particularly apt to believe Dr. Kuseno is merely going along with ‘pushy’ Genos. He definitely has his own motives here and we’re not very clear what those are yet. For this I recommend reading Ninja’s conflicts of interest post to get some different perspectives on his varied motives. One possibility is that he’s effectively living through Genos. There is a scene in Season 2 of the anime where Dr. Kuseno is standing in a beam of light talking about his quest for justice in his youth and Genos stands under Kuseno obscured in shadow. That image made me shudder. Now the care and attention Kuseno gives Genos feels much creepier, like a doll to be dressed up and played with. I hope that’s not the case.  

Who is this Dr. Kuseno and what is his relationship with Genos? Fatherly? Or Patronizing? And what are the ethics and implications of allowing Genos such extreme body modifications.

I love a found family as much as the next person, but I find it slightly suspicious that a doctor that just happens to be an expert in cybernetics arrives in time to save Genos’ life after his village was destroyed by a CYBORG. So, we’ve learned that Kuseno was chasing the mad cyborg before Genos was so maybe that explains the convenient meeting but that makes me wonder, when and how did the Cyborg’s trail go so cold that neither Kuseno or Genos seem to know where it is at the moment (or maybe Kuseno knows something more about this and is hiding it from Genos)? We’ve also since learned that even though cybernetic components are relatively commonplace in this world modifications over 30% are extremely rare. ‘Enhancements’ as extensive as Genos’ are almost unheard of and extremely risky, including a risk of madness. How did Dr. Kuseno become such an excellent doctor of cybernetics? I couldn’t have just been overnight? Learning takes trial and error and mistakes. God knows Genos has given that man more than enough trial and error for a lifetime but what about before Genos?  

Ninja noted that in all of the lab frames Dr. Kuseno stands a fair distance away from Genos. I immediately think of the anime Dororo from 2019 and the way Jukai handles Hyakkimaru, who is likely not less dangerous than Genos in context. Jukai is genuinely fatherly and close, only teaching Hyakkimaru to fight once it became clear the boy would not walk a different path. In the lab Kuseno is cold and distant and the atmosphere is draped in shadow. The contrast between Dr. Kuseno’s behavior toward Genos in public verses in the lab is notable. I don’t really know what specifically to note about it, except that it reinforces for me that the two men barely know each other, which is disturbing given that Genos has known Dr. Kuseno probably longer than he’s known anyone and Kuseno was effectively Genos’ guardian. How much does Genos really know about the man who holds his life in his hands if Genos didn’t even know Dr. Kuseno had a battle suit? What else is Kuseno hiding or omitting? At the same time Dr. Kuseno notes seeing a new side of Genos at Saitama’s apartment. Does Dr. Kuseno know Genos as well as he thinks he does when he says things like “you remind me of myself in my youth.” ? 

Genos believes he isn’t good enough and never will be good enough. Intentionally or unintentionally Dr. Kuseno feeds into this insecurity. Does that mean he’s responsible for Genos’ insecurities? No. But it is a piece of the troubling looking puzzle connecting the two of them. Unfortunately, when Genos goes to see Kuseno it’s often in defeat so he didn’t get much meaningful encouragement from the doctor. Even in victory, after G4, Dr. Kuseno doesn’t give Genos much encouragement. “There are still areas where we can improve you” even after getting a completely new upgrade neither Dr. Kuseno nor Genos seem to be satisfied. We consistently see Kuseno chiding Genos for being reckless and begging him to be more careful and to stay alive at the very least. Perhaps Kuseno is more concerned about losing his investment than the psychological health of his charge? Kuseno is more of a scientist than anything else and it's difficult to fault him for his excellent skills but can you imagine how actually damaging it is for a growing human to literally be a never fished project in the eyes of the person who should be loving you unconditionally. We all need to grow and change constantly, but there is a difference between acknowledging a person’s strengths and weaknesses and only acknowledging (in any meaningful way) a person’s failures. It’s a habit Genos has made for himself but unfortunately, even if not intentionally, Dr. Kuseno may have helped build that habit. Ever since Genos’ family died everything in his life seems to be reinforcing the ‘not good enough’ narrative. Not good enough to save his family, not strong enough to protect anyone. Every victory is shallow and meaningless in his mind because his eyes were set only on the final goal of defeating Mad Cyborg. Which is, likely as not, unattainable. 

Genos may see Saitama as his mentor but he is dependent on Kuseno for his growth making Kuseno far more practically his ‘mentor’. There is an important part of a typical hero’s journey story when a hero must move past the teaching of their mentor and grow on their own. This is a fundamentally important stage to help the hero see that they are ‘good enough’ they have the tools they need to succeed. Sometimes this transition is painful, think back to Iroh refusing to speak to Zuko while they were in the fire nation or when Jukai refused to help Hyakkimaru anymore. Both Zuko and Hyakkimaru were angry and devastated, but it was in the end a vital part of their progress. I fear a mentor who is either not willing or not able to allow them to surpass them. 

Whether through compliance or malice the system created by the relationship between Genos and Dr. Kuseno is one where Genos relies heavily on Dr. Kuseno. If Genos is compromised he could put Dr. Kuseno at risk but the battle suit indicates that Dr. Kuseno may be more prepared to deal with risk than an average scientist. But if Dr. Kuseno is compromised that could put Genos in an early grave. Regardless of the scientists intentions Dr. Kuseno is holding Genos back. Since Genos’ latest upgrade in the anime we’ve learned that Genos used to have safety restrictions on his parts but when we first meet Genos he is about to self-destruct his own core. So what were the safety restrictions for? The practically seem more about preserving an investment than protecting the human being. Garou’s story seems to indicate there is an important part of the path for one to push their limiter is possibly to get to the brink of death itself (probably not the only way) but possibly Genos’ safety restrictions have been holding him well below his limiter for ages. Maybe he can’t break his limiter because of his cybernetic body but I honestly don’t think it’s so cut and dry. (Also I find it sad and notable that when Genos is about to self-destruct he apologizes to Dr. Kuseno for letting him down. Genos wants to live badly, but he’s so deeply self-destructive just the tip of the iceberg of emotional issues Genos is battling. When he apologizes to Dr. K, even though he’s the one who would lose his life! It’s like he’s so afraid of failing the Dr.’s expectations again he’d rather die.) Genos needs to be able to repair himself. I’m desperately afraid that the practicality of complete cybernetic repair will render Genos dependent on someone forever. 

We already know that Genos would do anything to get stronger but what has ‘doing anything’ looked like for him? What does it mean for him? I don’t really know how you can take one look at this guy and deny he’s already made painful sacrifices to get stronger. It looks like he’s willing to sacrifice his dignity, youth, life, respect, independence, joy, all sensual pleasures, and much much more for his goal to be stronger. That goal servers a purpose and that purpose was given to him by Dr. Kuseno when his village was destroyed ‘defeat Mad Cyborg’. But what will his goal for ultimate strength be without the purpose that will almost definitely be taken away from him. Even if it isn’t and he accomplishes it what will he do then? Will the sacrifices be worth it in the end? Will he be able to rebuild a new purpose and a new life for himself?

[nntheblog]

One Punch Man Manga Chapter 169 Review

Advertisement It’s taken me quite a number of days to prepare this review because time hasn’t really been friendly. But I’m happy i was able to do it all the same. This entire chapter was flawless. It was the perfect conclusion to the Monster Association saga. It received a perfect 10/10 from me for drama, intrigue and substance. As we go through this chapter, let's take a look at it 15 pages at a time. 1A. We can conclude that we have reached the end of the first page. Garou had sensory ability as he stated he couldn’t sense any presence before he was punched. The reason this punch was so powerful was because it was a punch from the future. Saitamawho had grown in power exponentially. And so, the punch was far too lethal for that version of Garou who was yet to begin his mimicry of Saitama’s abilities. B. B. These were mostly C-class heroes and Tank top Master's disciples. 2. Genos connected to the future version of him from another timeline and plugged it in. He was flooded with memories. Since this core was held by the future version of Saitama(who’s not a cyborg), all through his battle with Cosmic Garou, quantum energy, bearing the memories of all that transpired in that timeline were imbued into it. And so, as the bodies of his future and past self merged, Saitama lost his memories of what actually transpired but Genos’ mechanical core retained them. I believe this is a summary of Genos’ ambiguous explanations of the theory of relativity with regards to the occurrence of this phenomenon. 3. It’d seem that Saitama wasn’t the only one who traveled back in time. Temporarily but Somehow, Garou’s spirit made its way back to the past alongside Saitama long enough to see and awaken Tareo. It’s unclear if this was meant to save his past self or if he truly missed Tareo and wanted to see him one last time. 4A. The next 15 pages explain the attack on Garou by the lower-ranking heroes. Although Garou didn't understand why he was so badly hurt by Saitama's single punch, he accepted the consequences of his actions. And although he was still clad with the power of god and obviously had the power to beat up the Heroes bullying him, he didn’t resist this assault but instead taunted them more with the sole intention of provoking them to kill him. It was likely that his past self orchestrated everything. B. He was unaware that Garou had been defeated because Saitama interacted in the past. The Heroes didn't know either. Flashy flash was the one who suffered from vertigo after sustaining injuries in the battle against Garou and platinum sperm. Though he saw a naked silhouette, he couldn’t make out who exactly that was. He concluded that it was Blast, when it was actually Saitama. 5. Manga chapter 113 is the story of Homeless Emperor's encounter with God and how he gained his power. In chapter 153, Homeless Emperor is killed by an unknown force. It was therefore not surprising that Zombie Man stopped an angry attack of Heroes on Garou to ask about his power and any connection to god. Similar to chapter 138. In chapter 138 Blast explained to Flashy Flash and Saitama about a mysterious being which communicates with people, and grants them special heavy cubes that give them power. This mysterious being is not other than God. And so this was why Flash was able to bring Blast’s mention of God to remembrance. 6. Tareo's quick intervention and King's timely intervention saved Garou from the wrathful hands of Sweet mask, who was determined to execute the Hero Hunter because of his crimes. Bang also commented that Garou wouldn’t be allowed to die that easily as he had to make atonements for the many crimes he committed. Saitama also supported this by saying that in the end, Garou’s goal to become ‘Absolute Evil’ only succeeded in exposing the goodness in his heart as he saved Bang, Genos and King from the hands of dragon level monsters in chapter 154. Though Garou escaped, Saitama had faith that he had changed for the best as he refuted Genos’ words that Garou was going to go back to committing crime. Going forward, he also had faith in Bang’s ability to rehabilitate his wayward disciple. 7A. Contrary to what happened in the webcomic, Metal knight and his army of robot drones suspiciously arrived when the battle was already over to clear the Nuclear Fallout that resulted from Garou’s Nuclear punches in chapter 165. He also directed the heroes present that they submit to immediate nuclear poisoning decontamination. It’s unclear what motive Metal knight has for choosing to join the battle at this time when he outrightly refused to join the mission to rescue Waganma, son of Narinki, founder of the Hero Association in manga chapter 86. Bofoi might have an ulterior motive. However, time will reveal the truth. B. It’s seem Z-city was completely destroyed during Tatsumaki’s battle with Psychos. It’s no wonder Saitama said once Dr Kuseno fixed Genos, they’d go to look for what is “left of their apartment”. It’d be interesting to see what happens from this moment forward as we march into the Neo heroes saga. We appreciate you reading our review. If you are able, please comment or leave a response. You can let me know if I missed anything important. We’ll be happy to inform us about this within the comments So write your comments down below. We appreciate you reading our anime blog. Read the full article

[gofancyninjaworld]

OPM Webcomic Chapter 141 Review

Intro

Normally I like to take a couple of days and a few rereads to see how I feel about a chapter before reviewing it, but with ONE’s unpredictable schedule, I’d best do this now.  It’s longish.

The first thing to say is that this chapter really messed me up.

The cavalry has a stone in its shoe

The first thing that fucked me up was realising what the sound effect in the first two panels of the chapter was: the sound of the doctor’s increasingly agonised breathing.  What a horrible thing to have to hear, made worse by the three Machine Gods showing up and reporting that their latest kill would have a 0% chance of survival after 5 minutes.

If you thought then that this chapter would be about a by-the-skin-of-the-teeth save, you’re sadly mistaken.  Genos was awesome.  He spared no power (nor powers for that matter) in fighting the three dragon-level machines simultaneously, aiming to kill them as quickly as he could and get that time.

ONE’s grasp on choreography has improved immensely and he’s used it fantastically here.  He’s always been versatile, but this time, Genos was plasticity itself, wielding heat, freezing, magnetism, anti-gravity, electricity and much more.  In turn, they didn’t commit the mistake of trying to attack one at a time, analysing his moves as they went and attacking in unpredictable formation.

it might not be psychic power, but being able to move and warp anything magnetic is a damn useful substitute

Machine Gods may vary in form, but they do share a basic interest, which is in understanding heroes, and a basic personality, which is a snarky wit that’s quick to mock. Machine God Tech lobs a back-handed compliment to Genos, saying that if he’d mastered these variable abilities, he’d have been able to aim for the top of the hero world.  For their confidence, Tech and Ray end up dead in pretty short order, smashed to pieces, leaving an outraged Machine God Body howling about how it simply couldn’t be that a mere ex-human cyborg could outdo them, these magnificent AIs.  He takes up the components of the other two to strengthen himself further, but  he’s dead soon, smashed to bits by an appropriately named Final Smash.

Genos hurries to the doctor, but there’s no let up.  Seven more high-powered robots appear. Thankfully so does Saitama, still in his underwear. He takes on the five approaching from the front, leaving the last two to Genos.  Saitama casually walking through the assault, not even bothering to shape a punch has to be one of the scene-stealers of the chapter and one of the very few light moments in it.

And then it’s over.  Saitama picks the doctor up to try ferrying him to hospital, but the doctor refuses, preferring to tell Genos where to find a secret, final upgrade, to use it to run away from Them (looks like the doctor knows exactly who killed him) and to beg forgiveness.

what a way for a beautiful relationship to end

Genos doesn’t say anything. Nor does he hurry after Saitama, but after the latter has left, he bows deeply in gratitude and says that there’s nothing to forgive, for the old man did nothing wrong in his eyes.

The action recommences at dawn.  For the avoidance of all hope, we see that Saitama has buried the doctor in the forest with a chunck of the lab wall as a headstone and the shovel still stuck in the earth by the grave.  Genos comes out of the repair pod with a new body and the two of them take their leave.  Genos intends to take out Metal Knight immediately, before whatever the plan for a ‘general offensive’ is executed.  Saitama agrees to accompany him.  But as they walk along, there’s a light over the nearest city.  It seems ‘The Plan’ Machine God Tech talked about has begun.

Indeed, on the ground, there’s carnage as a formation of robots marches through, burning every building they pass and shooting down anything that moves.  Various heroes look on in numb horror as the army advances. 

That’s where this monster of a chapter ends.

never ones to half-ass things

Meta

Unsurprising Surprise

The Organization strikes at last.  Our longest-running villains finally show their hand. They’ve measured, they’ve planned, they’ve done their homework, made that list and checked it twice.  Fitting in with Metal Knight’s warning about a shadowy power waiting its time (in the manga, not the webcomic), they’ve struck right when the heroes are at their weakest.  We don’t know the extent  of it. Is City W the only place being scrubbed off the map, or is this part of a much more widespread trend?

Well, now we really do know that when Genos spoke of not only acting for himself when he introduced himself to Saitama, he was just telling the truth.  He might be looking for vengeance, but his scope was always much bigger than just himself.  It’s a shame things have had to deteriorate to this extent for us to see it.

If not now, when?

So this is it! This is as good as it gets for him then. If he is to survive, Genos will have to take a page from Drive Knight’s example and quickly master everything his new body has to offer.  We’ve (well I’ve) complained before that he’s merely competent at using what the doctor gives him, throwing parts and bodies away without giving himself a chance to truly get the best out of them.  No choice now.  And it looks like there’s a world to save -- no time to luxuriate in practice. Or grief.

Forgive me

A few years ago when I was still new to Reddit, one of my first posts was to ask if Dr Kuseno was a good man. Against his manifest good deeds in supporting Genos as he did, it didn’t sit well with me that he’d performed a Reverse Pinocchio on an ordinary boy, turning him into a living weapon.  Not hard to imagine that it wasn’t received too well by the sub, lol.  In time, as we got to see more of Kuseno, my position on him softened, but what the hell, doctor?  never went completely away.

With Kuseno’s dying words being apology, we see that he knew he’d done wrong by Genos.  He knew that roping him into his quest for justice came as much from his own selfishness and rage as it did from a desire to set the world to rights.  I’ve repeatedly said that the cyborg body Genos has has nothing to do with health. It was all about gaining the power to fight and forgoing a chance to have a life in the process.

And so Kuseno died, in agony, weeping and begging for a forgiveness that he never heard come.  He was buried like a dog in what had been his backyard. By a stranger.

Fuck.

That’s cold.

Now I’m not faulting Genos for not forgiving the old man to his hearing. But there’s a hardness to him that he’ll want watching lest it grow more.

this is why the Machine Gods always fail despite their detailed calculations.  They just do not understand the depth of the human heart, nor its importance.

But I’ll add one more thing.  Dr Kuseno did not just raise a warrior.  In the end, he raised a damn fine hero too.  In the end, I really hope that some great good might yet come out of this.

Saitama and compassion

I’m glad that Saitama is here.  I’m even more glad that he’s not been acting to try stealing the show, instead supporting Genos when the latter needs it. It’s not ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ But it is compassionate. 

What’s next?

Why fighting of course.  Lots of it. I hope that somehow, the fog of war ends up nevertheless clarifying the relationship between the Neo Heroes, The Organization, Metal Knight and possibly Drive Knight.  I’m ready for this arc to build to its crisis and resolve one way or the other.

Bits and pieces

Number 23 on the list?  If Kuseno weren’t keeping such a low profile, I’d be insulted on his behalf.

I surmised last chapter that Kuseno must have an extensive basement as the superstructure of his place looked positively humble.  West basement?  With multiple hangars?  That’s not a basement, that’s an underground castle.  I hope Genos has locked up after himself.  If he succeeds in putting sword to his enemies, he’ll want what’s in there.

Finally, with the way living and dying works in this world, I wonder if the old man might yet have survived if he’d not decided it was too late for him.  I guess we’ll never know. At least I hope not.  I hope he’s beyond the clutches of those who’d raise him to an undeath for their own purposes.

[prettyboyjackhughes]

-Little Crosby- |D. Cozens| [Epilogue/Part 8]

This is the end of Little Crosby and I don’t think I've ever been this sad for one of my fics to end. I fell in love with Dylan and Ava’s story and I absolutely loved getting to write this with @prettyboycozens​. This story turned into something I never thought it would and I am so thankful to everyone who supported, encouraged and got to read this story! So thank you for all the love and support for Little Crosby! Enjoy the last part!

“Momma?” I hear Wes call from the top of the stairs as Dylan tugs me down onto the couch next to him.

“We’re down here, Baby!” I call, relaxing into Dylan’s arms. Wes is 4 now and looks just like Dylan. Dad says he acts just like me though. He’s your typical little boy, all dirt, loud and hockey. He loves hockey, of course, and getting to go to his dad, grandpa and uncles’ games and spending time with all of his family. He’s grown up surrounded by cousins which he absolutely loves, even if they are 3 hours away.

“We have to leave for dinner in about 15 minutes. Are you ready?” I ask, looking up at Dylan. He shrugs and I move off of him, letting him get up.

“I need to change and let the dog out, then we can leave.” He says, heading back to our room. Wes runs out of his room. He rushes down the stairs and jumps up onto the couch, a Sabres jersey hanging off of his already tall and skinny frame. As he jumps, I see a flash of black and I smile. Underneath the Cozens jersey he has on is a Crosby jersey; the one Dad got him for Christmas last year. When he knows he’s gonna see Dad, he always wears both jerseys.

“Hey Buddy, why don’t we pick one jersey to wear tonight? You’ll want the other one clean for tomorrow’s game.” I say, walking over to the couch and sitting down as he bounces over to me.  

“We’re gonna see Grandpa! We’re gonna see Grandpa!” Wes yells, still jumping on the couch.

“Yes we are. Why don’t we take Daddy’s jersey off and you can wear it tomorrow. Wear Grandpa’s tonight.” He finally stops and lets me tug the Sabres jersey over his head, leaving the black Crosby jersey on.

It’s been 6 years since the Canada trip that Dylan and I met on. Dylan and I have been living in Buffalo for 5 years, having just moved into a new house right before Wes’ last birthday. We still haven’t gotten married but the ring Dylan gave me all those years ago, that still has a place on my finger, still reminds me and him about the promise he made, what seems like forever ago in that hospital bed. So we’ll get around to getting married one day. Everything’s been going wonderfully in Buffalo. Dylan’s been playing well, Wes is loving preschool and I’m working at a doctor’s office as a pediatric nurse. With it being the first time I’m more than 20 minutes away from Dad and my family, even after 6 years, it’s taken a while to get used to planning weekend trips to Pittsburgh and Chicago to visit Dad and the uncles, along with Kirby and Carter.

Carter and Kirby stayed together while Carter was in college on the west coast, and are talking about getting married now that she’s graduated, which is really exciting. My uncles’ kids have all started to grow up and become actual humans, which has been really fun to watch. They’re all happy and living life. The biggest change has been that Marc and his family moved back to Pittsburgh. He ended up getting traded back to Pittsburgh, which meant our not so little family was all together again, at least when Dylan and I come to Pittsburgh. He plans on retiring in Pittsburgh with Dad, Kris and Geno, when the time comes.

“Come on Dylan! We’re going to be late for dinner!” I call as Wes returns to bouncing on the couch. Dylan finally comes out of our bedroom, our dog following behind him.

“Let me let Milo out then we can leave.” He calls as he opens the back sliding door and Milo runs out, barking. Dad had called a family meeting while he and my uncles were on a road trip to Buffalo. He usually only calls family meetings when something important happened so I was a little nervous to see what he needed to tell us. We were meeting at a restaurant about 20 minutes away from the house with a big room since there were going to be all 16 of us together in Buffalo, for the first time since Christmas. Dad hadn’t mentioned anything happening the last time he and I had talked on the phone earlier this week but maybe something had happened since then. Wes climbed into my lap and snuggled into my chest. I knew he wouldn’t stay this little forever but I wanted him to. I loved how his big brown eyes somehow managed to get bigger when he was talking about something exciting. I loved how he talked with his hands, waving and pointing to make sure everyone understood exactly what he was saying. Most of all, I loved how he called me “Momma” and loved to cuddle and be cuddled. Dylan and I had talked about having more kids, which I loved the idea of, but I was savoring every minute of it being just the 3 of us.

“Okay Baby, let’s get going.” Dylan says as he lets Milo back inside and gets him into his cage.

“I’m nervous, why am I nervous?” I ask as Dylan tugs his coat on then kneels down to help Wes zip his coat and put his shoes on.

“Because the last family meeting your dad called was when we told your uncles you were pregnant?” I roll my eyes and zip my coat up.

“You’re really not helping.” Dylan laughs as he picks Wes up and we head out the door.

“Maybe he’s retiring?” Dylan offers as I climb into the passenger seat and he straps Wes into his carseat. Wes is preoccupied by his ipad, oblivious to what Dylan and I are talking about.

“He would’ve told me first. If it was something that big. But I really have no idea what it could be.”  Dylan shrugs as he gets into the driver’s seat.

“Babe, it could be nothing. Maybe he just wants us all together. Don’t think too much into it.” He says, softly kissing my cheek before starting the car. We drive in silence, the only sound in the car is Wes’ ipad. As we pull into the parking lot of the restaurant, I see Carter and Kirby heading inside.

“Okay this must be really big. Carter and Kirby are here too.” I say, trying to fight the building anxiety rising in my chest. Dad wasn’t old, only 39, but he had been playing in the NHL for 21 years. Maybe he really was retiring. Or maybe something else had happened.

“Momma! I’m hungry!” Wes cried from the backseat, his ipad now forgotten on the seat next to him.

“Alright Buddy, we’re gonna go inside and see all your cousins and aunts and uncles, and Grandpa. It looks like Aunt Carter and Uncle Kirby are here too!” I say, turning around and smiling at him as Dylan puts the car in park. Wes bounces excitedly in his seat, waiting for Dylan and I to get out and unbuckle him. Carter must’ve seen us because she and Kirby are waiting in front of the restaurant for us.

“Whatever Dad tells us, promise me it’s gonna be okay?” I ask, looking over at Dylan before climbing out of the car.

“It’s gonna be okay. Everything’s gonna be fine.” He says, watching me with intent eyes. I nod and open Wes’ door, unbuckling him and holding him close.

“I wanna go see Uncle Kirby, Momma!” He shouts, excitedly. So I let him down once we reach the sidewalk and he runs to Kirby who scoops him up and tickles him. Dylan’s hand finds mine and we meet up with Carter and Kirby.

“Any idea why we got told to come to Buffalo for the weekend?” Carter asks. I shrug and she grimaces a little.

“Are we in trouble?” She asks, taking Kirby’s hand as Wes runs ahead of us and waits at the door to the restaurant.

“Not that I know of. Why, did you do something to get us in trouble?” I ask, nudging her and laughing. She shakes her head and leads the 5 of us into the restaurant. The hostess leads us back to the room where my 3 nephews are running laps around the table while my nieces are huddled in the corner with one of my aunts. Wes runs to join the boys and I spot Dad on the other side of the room with Kris. We exchange a wave and I notice a woman I’m not familiar with next to him. Geno and Marc are sitting at the table, making sure the boys don’t break anything.

“Who’s the lady?” Kirby asks, attempting to hide himself pointing at the woman next to Dad.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Kirbs.” I say, shrugging as Dad walks over to me.

“Hi Sweetheart, good to see you!” He says as my hand slips out of Dylan’s and he hugs me. No matter how old I get, my anxiety seems to melt away whenever Dad hugs me.

“You know, you’ve had me freaking out ever since you called me to tell me about dinner.” I say as Wes jumps into Dad’s arms.

“Hi Buddy! I told you on the phone there was nothing to be worried about, Ava.” I cross my arms and look up at him.

“Uh huh. You know how I get, Dad.” He nods and wraps an arm around my shoulders.

“I think you’ll like this announcement.” I groan internally but nod. Dylan’s hand has found its way back into mine and he leads me over to where my uncles are now all sitting.

“Who’s the lady with Dad?” I ask as we sit down with the 3 of them.

“Kathy? You’ve met her, Ava. She works for the team as a physical therapist.” And as Kris answers, I start to realize he’s right.

“Oh yeah yeah I remember her. But that doesn’t explain why she’s here.” I say, looking between her and my 3 uncles sitting around me.

“She always travel with us.” Geno says, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

“I’ve told her about 10 times that she shouldn’t be freaking out but she doesn’t listen to me.” Dylan injects, his arm resting around the back of my chair.

“Hey you’re the one who reminded me that the last family meeting we had was to tell everyone I was pregnant so now my mind is going all sorts of places.” Marc laughs and shakes his head.

“I don’t think it’s anything that big. Just calm down Ava.” I shrug and look around the room, watching Wes, who is still clinging to Dad, talk animatedly to his cousins gathered around them. Kathy is standing with Veronique, Marc’s wife, talking. I watch her glance at Dad whose eyes are already on her. There’s definitely something there but I can’t put my finger on what. Dad finally lets Wes down and he wanders his way over to Dylan, climbing up onto his lap.

“Daddy I’m hungry. Is it time to eat yet?” Wes asks, cuddling into Dylan’s chest.

“Almost. I think Grandpa has to tell us something and then we’re gonna eat dinner. Did you have fun with all your cousins?” Wes nods, playing with the hem of his jersey.

“Did you show Grandpa that you’re wearing his jersey?” I ask, smoothing Wes’ hair down. His hair is dark, just like Dylan’s and is in a constant state of bedhead.

“He liked it. He told me a story about when you were little and had one of his jerseys, Momma. Daddy, I’m wearing your jersey for the game tomorrow.” Dylan smiles as Wes slides off his lap. He runs over to Dad, who is now standing at the head of the table.

“Hey, if you wouldn’t mind, I think it’s time for my announcement.” He says he picks Wes up and everyone starts to sit down.

“It’s great getting to see everyone here, together. Especially with the news I’m about to share. Everyone, this is Kathy. Ava and the guys know her. But she’s one of the physical therapists that works for the team. Um, she and I have been dating for the past 3 years. I asked her to marry me a little over a month ago and she said yes. So...We’re getting married.” My mouth drops open and Dylan glances at me, trying to gauge how I’m handling this news. As I glance around the room, trying to figure out if I heard that right, everyone’s faces look the same as mine.

“You didn’t know about this?” I whisper, turning to look at Marc with wide eyes.

“We had no idea! He doesn’t tell us things!” Marc says, his eyes as wide as mine. It takes Dylan’s hand finding mine to keep me in my seat and somewhat grounded.

“I know this is a shock but we’re very happy. And we want you all to be a part of our wedding.” It’s like everyone gets snapped out of a trance. Everyone is up, congratulating Dad and Kathy and I’m still in my seat. I’m frozen, unable to move from the shock. I see Dylan glance back at me, before talking to Dad. Kris comes to check on me, kneeling down in front of me.

“You okay, Kid?” I shake my head and he stands, tugging me to my feet and into a hug. Wes runs up and hugs my legs.

“Momma! I’m gonna have a grandma! Does that mean she’s your momma now?” He asks, his eyes bigger than dinner plates. Somehow, that manages to snap me out of my trance and Kris lets me go. I bend down to Wes’ level and he puts his hands on my shoulders.

“Sorta. She’ll be my step mom, Baby. Have you told Grandpa congratulations?” He shakes his head and I gather him in my arms.

“No! I wanna tell them ‘gratitations!” He says, bouncing in my arms. I smile at his mispronunciation of the word and start to walk in the direction of Dylan and Marc.

“Let’s go find Daddy and then we’ll go tell Grandpa and Kathy congratulations.” Wes rests his head on my shoulder and wraps his arms around my neck. My family has always been a comfort to me, and it’s definitely one I need today. I’ve always wanted Dad to find someone and fall in love. But it’s just been him and I for so long, even with my uncles and aunts, cousins and now Dylan and Wes. My heart hurts a little, thinking about letting Dad go, but I see how happy Dad is and I can’t help but push those feelings aside for him to be happy. He’s put so much on hold for me, waiting until I was ready and on my own, I can’t help but do the same for him. But there’s still a part of me that’s not sure about all of it. A part of me that’s terrified about losing my dad. That fear keeps me from being able to be as happy as Dad deserves me being.

“Hey Baby.” Dylan says, his arm automatically going around my waist and pulling me close. Wes squirms out of my arms and runs to Dad who is now walking over to us, Kathy in tow. He presses a kiss to the top of my head and ruffles Wes’ hair.

“Congratulations Dad. Kathy, I can’t wait to get to know you better!” I say, trying to hide the other emotions threatening to break through.

“Thank you so much, Ava. I’ve heard so much about you and the last time I remember seeing you was probably when you were in middle school. You’ve grown up so much. And you must be Dylan.” Kathy says, reaching out to shake Dylan’s outstretched hand. He nods, the smile on his face genuine, unlike the fake one I’m trying to pass off as real. Dad keeps glancing at me, probably because he can see right through the fake smile.

“And you’re Wesley. But you like being called Wes, right?” Kathy asks, bending down to Wes’ level. He grins shyly and leans against my legs.

“I’m Wes. Momma, can I say ‘gratitations now?” He asks, looking up at me with big eyes. I nod and he grins.

“Gratitations! Are you gonna be my grandma now?” He asks, looking up at Kathy.

“I’d like to be your grandma. Is that okay with you?” He nods and launches himself at her, hugging her. She smiles, hugging him back and then returning him to my arms.

“I think we should definitely think about doing dinner or something soon. Maybe before you guys head back to Pittsburgh.” Dylan says, looking down at me. His hand slips into mine, stopping me from twisting my ring. It’s been a habit since he put it on my finger, usually one that’s a sign of how anxious I’m feeling.

“We definitely can do that. I’d love to see your house.” Kathy says. I’ve spent the last few minutes just watching Dad. He’s been focused on Kathy and the look in his eyes says everything. He loves her, which should make me happy, to see Dad this happy but it’s still tearing me up. This is so much harder than I ever imagined it would be.

“We have a puppy. His name is Milo! He likes to play hockey with me.” Wes says, obviously warming up to Kathy already. He’s not really shy, usually he talks strangers’ ears off, so it doesn’t surprise me that he’s comfortable with her already. Dylan and I have had to talk to him a couple times to get him to understand the whole stranger danger thing. It doesn’t make sense that both Dylan and I are pretty reserved, quiet people and somehow we end up with a kid who is the most outgoing child ever.

“Well I would love to come over and meet Milo.” Wes suddenly runs off, calling goodbye to Kathy,  going to play with his cousins.

“He’s a sweet boy. He looks just like you, Dylan.” Dylan smiles. Kathy and Dad share a sweet smile and I stay quiet.

Eventually, everyone sits back down and we have dinner. Everyone laughs and talks. Carter, Kirby, and Dylan won’t stop checking to make sure I’m okay, even though I’ve told them all a thousand times I’m fine. We make it through the evening and head back home. We’ll see everyone tomorrow at the game so it’s just a few quick goodbyes. Carter and Kirby come over to the house and Wes ropes them into watching Cars 2 with us. The day has taken a lot out of me and I fight sleep the whole movie.

I feel Dylan get up from beside me, taking Wes from where he was laying, cuddled between us. Carter and Kirby left a little while ago, whispering goodbyes since Wes fell asleep about halfway through the movie. The play menu for ‘Cars 2’ lights up the living room and I sit there, lost in thought. I need to call Dad, talk through today. But I can’t bring myself to grab my phone off of the table and press call on his contact. I’ve only ever wanted Dad to be happy, that’s what he’s always wanted for me. After spending most of the evening talking to Kathy, I know how in love she is with Dad and that she’s good for him, it’s just hard letting go of my dad.

As I’m sitting there, contemplating calling Dad, my phone starts to ring. It snaps me out of my thoughtful state and I rush to check to see who’s calling. Dad’s name stares back at me as I pick my phone up. I take a deep breath and press the answer button.

“Hey Baby.” Dad’s voice breaks through the noise in my head.

“Hi Daddy. It’s late, why are you still up?” I ask, tugging my knees into my chest and running my free hand through my hair.

“I’ve been thinking about you. You seemed off tonight. You okay?” I sigh and lean my head against the back of the couch.

“I’m-I’m okay. I was just a little surprised with your announcement, that’s all.” His voice sounds tired.

“I know Sweetheart. I wanted to tell you sooner. I wanted you to meet Kathy before I told anyone, before anything happened. Are you sure you’re okay with this?” Dylan suddenly appears in the doorway without Wes. He must’ve gotten Wes into bed pretty easily. He raises an eyebrow, making sure I’m okay and I nod. He comes over to me, dropping a kiss on my forehead and whispering he’s going to bed. I nod, squeezing his hand as he walks away.

“I just wasn’t expecting it. I’m really happy for you both, Dad. There’s plenty of time for me to get to know Kathy before you get married and even after you guys get married. You put so much on hold for me while I was growing up. But I’m all grown up, now it’s your turn. I’ll always be your little girl, no matter what, but I have Dylan to take care of me now. You need someone else to take care of now, and that person is Kathy now. So don’t worry about me, Daddy. I’ll be okay.” And as I say I’m okay, it's the first time in a few hours that I’ve actually felt okay and haven’t been lying. I hear Dad sniffle a little on the other end of the call, which of course makes me tear up.

“Baby, you’re absolutely amazing. You’re a wonderful mom to Wes, you love Dylan so much and I would never trade being your dad for anything in the entire world. You’ve been the highlight of my life. Not winning the Stanley Cup, not playing in the All-Star game. You are the reason for all of it. Getting to share you with our family and now with Kathy is beyond a dream come true. Thank you for being so supportive.” His voice breaks a little and I’m full on crying now.

“I love you Daddy. I’m happy for you. Dylan and I are happy for you. And I know Wes is so excited for Kathy to be his grandma.” Dad clears his throat and I try to control the tears running down my face.

“I love you too, Ava Grace. Now you probably need to head to bed so I’ll let you go. Good night.” He lets me say goodnight then ends the call. I lean my head against the back of the couch and take a deep breath. The tears slow and I regain my composure.

“Hey Avs, you okay?” Dylan asks, sitting down on the couch next to me and pulling me into his lap.

“I thought you went to bed? But I’m okay.” He kisses my forehead and relaxes into the couch.

“I could hear you on the phone. I wanted to make sure you were okay.” I snuggle into his chest and sigh.

“It’s been a long, surprising day but I think I’ll be okay.” I can feel him smile and he moves so we’re laying down on the couch, me resting on his chest.

“Your dad is happy. He’s going to have what all your uncles and we have. I think it’ll be fun to plan a wedding with your dad. Speaking of, we need to talk about us getting married.” Dylan says, looking down at me. I sit up a little, resting my chin on my hands and looking into his eyes.

“Oh I like when we do this. I want a big wedding.” I say, punctuating my sentence with a kiss on his lips.

“With all of our friends and family. And Wes as the ring bearer.” He says, twisting a few strands of hair between his fingers as I smile.

“Oh he’d be so cute in his little suit!” Dylan smiles and I settle back down on his chest again. We spend pretty much the rest of the night talking about our wedding and everything the future would bring, including siblings for Wes and in the morning, Wes finds us cuddled up on the couch and joins us, snuggling into Dylan’s side.

Dad calls a little after breakfast and asks to take Wes for the day, giving him some time to get to know Kathy. I agree and he picks him up, Kathy sitting in the passenger seat of his car. I wave from the doorway and she smiles, waving back. As I close the front door, Dylan scoops me into his arms and we head back to our room for his pregame nap, even though the game isn’t till later tonight. We end up sleeping until right before Wes gets home and Dylan needs to leave to be at the rink. Wes ends up laying down for a nap, which gives me some time to pick up the house a little and start getting ready for the game tonight. I love getting to spend games with my aunts and the rest of my family. It’s also nice to see all my uncles, Dad and Dylan all on the ice together.

Wes wears both of his jerseys, like he always does for Penguins-Sabres games, and is so excited to leave and head to the arena. Since I wear Dylan’s jersey for every other game, my tradition is to wear Dad’s jersey for games when he plays Dylan. All of the aunts, the kids, Wes and I hang out in a box, the kids running all over the box and back and forth with the other wives’ boxes for both the Sabres and the Penguins. It’s nice getting to sit and talk to my aunts. I don’t get to spend as much time with them as I do with my dad and uncles. We spend the whole game talking, making sure the kids don’t get too rambunctious while also watching the game at the same time. The game ends with the Penguins on top, 3-2 but Dylan scored and Dad did too with an assist from Geno. We all celebrate with dinner and drinks back at our house, giving me a chance to give my aunts an official tour, not over facetime. Wes shows off his playroom, bedroom and rink down in the basement that Dad and Dylan built him for his birthday. It’s the perfect ending to a family-filled day.            

Thank God Dad waited till the off season to get married. I couldn’t imagine planning a wedding during the season. But if I see one more sports website or magazine with the title ‘Sidney Crosby to Marry Team Physical Therapist! Letang, Malkin, Fleury, and Cozens among those in attendance’ or something like that, I will scream. It seems like this is the event of the year and it’s all anyone can talk about. Kathy and I have spent months, along with my aunts to plan the perfect wedding for her and Dad. The boys had been no help at all, being typical boys. Kathy and I had tried to get Dad involved in the planning but he had just kissed Kathy’s forehead and told her to do whatever she wanted. That night, I had gotten off the phone with the caterer for the wedding and collapsed into bed beside Dylan.

“I swear, if you don’t help me plan our wedding, I might break up with you before the wedding even happens.” I groan, rolling over to face him. He smirks and rolls over, eyes locked on mine.

“How do you manage to still be absolutely adorable while threatening to break up with me?” He asks, gently kissing me.

“Because you love me.” I say, smiling and letting him pull me closer.

“You’re right. I love you very very much.” He says, his forehead pressed to mine and his eyes wide.

“You’re cute, Babe. Now go to sleep. I have to fight with the florist in the morning.” He laughs but doesn’t say anything else. I manage to fall asleep, a list of what we still need to do for the wedding playing over and over again in my head.

The time between that night and the wedding flies by and before we know it, it’s the rehearsal dinner and I’m having to make a speech. And as I stand in front of my family and a few other people, I realize just how lucky I am.

“Hi everyone. You all know who I am so we can skip the introductions. But anyways, Dad and Kathy, congratulations. I had been waiting for the day that Dad told me he was getting married. And honestly, I was a little worried it would never come. But then Kathy came into the picture. She turned Dad’s world upside down and with that, turned everyone else’s lives in our family upside down. And I will always thank her for that because of the light and love she has brought into our family. Our family is complete now with her in it. So Kathy, I just want to say thank you. I can’t wait for you to officially join our family tomorrow. So here’s to Dad and Kathy, enjoy your last night apart.” I say, raising the glass of wine I’ve been sipping on all night. Everyone filling the dining room does the same and we all drink. The rest of the evening is carefree, enjoyable and fun. We all leave the dinner exhausted but excited for tomorrow. I collapse into bed and manage to sleep without having to worry about wedding plans.

The next morning is complete chaos. Everything that could be going wrong, seems to be going wrong and everyone is panicking. And as I try to get everything figured out so Dad and Kathy don’t have to worry, Dylan pulls me aside and kisses me softly.

“You’re doing amazing, Baby. The wedding is going to be perfect, don’t worry.” He says, running his hands up and down my arms, eyes locked on mine. He automatically calms me down and I’m able to finish getting everything worked out.

Thank God the wedding went off flawlessly. Dad only cried a little, I cried a little; everybody cried a little. Wes made it all the way down the aisle, only getting distracted by his cousins sitting in the front row and he looked adorable in his little tux. Dylan and I walked down the aisle together, being the maid of honor and Dylan being a groomsman. The whole time we’re walking down the aisle, in front of everyone, Dylan is whispering goofy things in my ear and making me giggle. Wes keeps looking up at Dylan, making silly faces throughout the whole ceremony. And as soon as we walk back down the aisle, he’s off and running with his cousins. Everywhere I look during the reception, there’s a hockey player. Which is something I should be used to, after being the kid of a hockey player and now dating a hockey player but I’m not. The later it gets, the more everyone drinks and the louder the music gets. After Dylan and I have both had a few drinks, Dylan pulls me out onto the dance floor and we dance the night away.          

A few weeks after Dad and Kathy’s wedding and honeymoon, he and Kathy drive up to Buffalo to spend a couple weeks with us. It’s wonderful having them at the house with us, giving Dylan and I a little break from Wes. One night, we’re all having dinner when Dylan turns to look at me.

“We’ve been together for how many years now? 7? And you know what? I still get butterflies every time you look at me.” Dylan says, looking deep into my eyes. I smile, watching him and trying to figure out what’s going on with the sudden outburst of mushiness.

“What I have with you? I don’t want it with anyone else. I choose you and I’ll choose you over and over again. You and Wes are the best things I could’ve never planned. I’m getting the future I’ve always wanted, with the girl I always wanted it with.” He says, taking my hands and pulling me to my feet. Dad sits behind us, Wes in his arms and Kathy holds close to his side, watching everything.

“I know I’ve done this before but we were young. So I’m doing it right this time. Ava Grace Crosby, will you marry me?” Dylan asks, slowly getting down on one knee and opening a ring box. My mouth drops open and I know I shouldn’t be surprised since we’ve already done this once but after what he said, I can’t help it.

“Are you kidding me? Yes!” I cry, pulling him to his feet and kissing him, my hands cupping his cheeks. I can hear Wes and Dad cheering, Kathy clapping. I pull away from Dylan, laughing and resting my cheek against his chest as his arms encircle me. Dad lets Wes down and he runs to us. Dylan scoops him up and he’s giggling, clapping his hands.

“Gratitaions Momma! Daddy!” He shouts. Dad and Kathy both join us and hug us. As I stand there, surrounded by my family, I think about how I’m getting the happy ending I’ve always wanted. I have the future with Dylan that I’ve thought about since we met, a son who I love more than anything in this world, the most amazing, supportive, and loving family. It’s everything I could’ve ever dreamed of and I’m completely in love with my life.

Tag List:

@theblushinglittle

@2manytabsopen

@nhlboyshavemyhart88​

@kirbyy-dach​

[aloetech]

Cyboyfriends Week Day 3: Prompt- Hand Holding

Woooah hand holding. Scandalous. Anywho I wrote some fic for this one, under the cut! It'll be up on AO3 too, the link'll be in the first reblog!

The lights were out.

Suddenly, the wires running out of the monster made sense- the monster had electric powers, and must have been powering the entire building. It only made sense that the power would go out when its source was killed. But right now, that wasn't Drive Knights main concern. His current blindness was slightly more pressing.

At the moment, until his optics booted back up after being overloaded with electricity, he was effectively blind. He shuddered at the memory of how the crackling of electricity felt, like pins and needles, and of course the surprise of finding his vision suddenly dark. It had been unpleasant to say the least, and had left him vunerable. Not that that had been a problem, with Genos there.

His vision had cut out about the same moment the lights did- The only reason he knew for sure that the lights had gone out in the first place was because Genos had exclaimed as much after he struck the finishing blow to the monster that Drive Knight had incapacitated. He'd managed to trap it in his checkmate contraption, but the manoeuvre had been risky. It had cost him his sight for the time being, after all. Had they had the time, he would have preferred to come up with a better plan, but it had been a rush job to scout the building out- they couldn't have known such a powerful monster was hiding in their heart of it.

He's ended up relying on Genos quite a lot this time around, it seemed. He shook his head; it wasn't as though it embarrassed him, but he would have liked to avoid being seen as weak.

He couldn't complain, really. They'd completed their mission fairly efficiently with the two of them, even if his sight was gone for the moment. The only thing he really wished had gone differently was that it wouldn't have been good if he had managed to get a sample of that monster before Genos incinerated it...

Oh well.

"Genos?" He called out. He turned in what he assumed was the direction the Cyborg was in as he pushed himself to his feet. "Are you there?"

"Yes! Over here."

He heard Genos call out from a completely different direction to where he'd expected him to be. Not being able to see had thrown him off significantly- if his optics weren't useless right now the daek wouldn't even be a problem, he'd be able to use the night vision or infrared functions.

He took a step towards where Genos seemed to be, and his foot caught on something, possibly a cable from before. Whatever it was, it sent him quite gracelessly to the floor.

"Are you alright?" He heard Genos rush over, and soon enough felt hands helping him to sit up. He was capable of doing so on his own, but... The concern wasn't unwelcome.

"I am fine. No major damage... however, I can't see." He reached a hand up to his face, just below his eye. "It knocked out my optic... It won't come back online for a while."

He could practically feel Genos frowning, accompanied by the small, displeased noise he usually made.

"I'm sorry. If I'd been able to incapacitate it myself, then you wouldn't have needed to-"

"Stop. There's a reason we're in a team, Genos. I took a necessary risk. My sight is a temporary loss."

"But still-"

"No buts. For now, lets focus on leaving. Can you see at all?"

Drive heard the movement of metal joints and cloth as Genos stood up, anys soon found himself being hauled to his feet by hands under his arms. He swayed slightly, disoriented, but remained upright.

"I can- Dr Kuseno made sure to give me a night vision mode." It seemed as though he was going to list more options, but thankfully decided not to. Drive Knight already knew about most of his capabilities. "My arms are still active and glowing as well."

"It seems like you can see just fine, then. I'll be relying on you to lead the way."

He really was relying on him too much this time, but it couldn't be helped. It wasn't as though he could go ahead, blind like this. He was honestly glad that no other heroes were here with them. Not only would it likely damage their view of him, but it would reveal a weakness to them as well. And as he still wasn't sure if there was a traitor among them, that could be disastrous.

He could be confident it wasn't Genos, though. Even if he was new, he had a certain degree of trust in him- he'd had more than one chance like this where he could have taken him down if he really wanted to, and he hadn't.

He could trust Genos.

...

Right?

Having such an analytical view of things wasn't such a boon sometimes. Being unable to see made Drive feel uneasy to begin with, and that wasn't helped by his thoughts at the moment, thinking of every tiny detail that could even be slightly incriminating. It was ridiculous to think Genos could betray him, and yet...

He flinched as he felt a touch of his hand, unceremoniously pulled from his thoughts. The contact was hastily removed.

"Apologies, Drive Knight." Genos said hurriedly. "I didn't mean to startle you."

"It's fine... What were you doing?"

"I was just going to lead you along. Is that okay?"

Drive Knight paused for a moment, and then simply nodded. He was fairly confident he'd been looking at Genos when he did so. He waited for Genos to reach out again, expecting to end up holding onto his arm or maybe his shoulder, but instead finding that Genos carefully took him by the hand.

His hand was warm.

To be expected really from someone with features like a built in flamethrower, but still. It seemed to melt away the icy unease that had crept up on him and he found that he relaxed somewhat. He let Genos lead him along quietly, their footsteps echoing in the empty corridors.

"How are you doing, Drive Knight?" Genos asked, breaking the silence.

He squeezed his hand gently at the same time to get his attention. Drive returned the gesture without thinking about it much.

"Fine. As I said, the damage is minimal... My optics should come back online soon."

"You won't need repairs?"

"There's little to no physical damage- it was only overloaded."

"I see. That's a relief..."

A short silence followed. Drive stumbled in that few seconds, but caught himself with Genos's support.

"I've told you before, you don't need to call me by my full hero name." It was a minor thing to bring up, really. But it had been nagging at him. "Not when we're alone, in any case- just Drive is fine."

"Ah, sorry."

"It's fine. I just..." He paused. "I just quite like it. You calling me by a nickname, that is."

"Oh. Well, the same goes to you."

"Genos, I've never called you by your hero name."

He heard Genos hum softly to himself. "... You haven't. I didn't realise that before..."

They'd been walking for a little while now. Either they were approaching the outside, finally, or Genos was lost. But Drive Knight had faith in Genos's sense of direction. Even if he didn't, it seemed like it would be hard to get lost with a built in GPS.

"I've never put much stock in hero names." It was a shame a hero name was the only name he had. "And I prefer to call you Genos."

"I like it too."

What might have been an awkward silence was cut short by Drive Knight tripping on something again, cursing his current lack of sight for it as Genos caught him and set him upright once again. He cleared his throat, or at least made a noise like he did, before continuing.

"In any case... Did you find anything that might tell us who wired that monster up to this place?"

"Wired it up...?"

"It couldn't have done all that wiring by itself. Someone, maybe a group, had to have done it. Did you find anything?"

"I didn't. The cleanup team might later- you could go back in with them?"

"I'd rather look into it on my own, but I may have to. A group harnessing monsters like that is worth looking into before it gets problematic. This one was relatively low level, but if they began utilizing more dangerous ones..."

Genos went quiet for a moment- there was that displeased noise again. He probably hadn't thought out the full ramifications of it until just now.

"I shouldn't have incinerated it like that. If there was something left of it, it might have been useful."

"It was necessary. It's likely there will be some traces left of whoever did it somewhere in the building. We'll have to include the possibility of it in our report. I don't want the cleanup team going in there before I get the chance to look things over..."

"Can I come back with you?" Genos asked.

"...I don't see why not. I could use the extra pair of eyes. You're sure you want to?"

"Yes. Just let me know when you're going."

Drive chuckled quietly to himself. "A date, then."

They were still walking- this building was a real maze- when his vision flickered back to life. It took a moment for him to adjust even before he turned on night vision. It was odd, how seeing pitch black was somehow different to not being able to see at all. Once he was ready, he activated his night vison and moved to walk next to Genos, rather than a few steps behind.

"I can see again." It was worth telling him so he didn't have to worry about guiding him so much.

"Oh?" It was nice to be able to see Genos smile when he looked over at him. "That's good."

He could let go of his hand now if he wanted- Drive was pleasantly surprised to find that he didn't. He considered being the one to let go, but... They were still alone for the moment. He'd have to drop it for appearances sake once they exited the building...

Holding on just a little longer wouldn't do any harm.

[harley-style]

my eleven am brain and my friend present to you:

Cross x Geno

Me: have you considered: Geno x Cross dynamic

Friend: Oh boi Friend: I didn’t but I do now

Me: :3

Friend: I’m laughing because I’m thinking of Cross being a total bottom no matter the situation

it basically happens like this: (click Keep Reading to continue!)

during the DT experiments, Geno does something with the DT test tubes, and instead of transporting to the Anti-Void, he’s transported to the blank state of X-tale.

there, he meets cross, who is immediately wary of this new person.

geno, on the other hand, is curious of this other sans so drastically different than he is. he thought it was like, some unwritten rule that all sans must be lazy. clearly he hasn’t gotten the memo.

cross hasn’t met ink yet.

geno gets cross to explain his situation. geno is understandably upset at the humans, and is very sympathetic to geno.

geno and cross spend a lot of time together. like, theres nothing else to do. geno doesn’t know how to get back to his own timeline -- his shortcuts only work in world-space, if that makes sense.

cross gets to know geno more than anyone ever has. geno sees a new side to cross that no one has ever seen.

yes, they eventually fall for each other. geno is not that surprised, he’s not THAT much of a virgin guys, come on. he’s not new to relationships. he’s had ‘em.

cross, on the other hand, very much IS. oh boy.

as for xchara....idk, we’re still debating.

but anyway geno is the one who confesses that he would like to date cross. cross, poor bab desperate for any consistency/commitment/permanency, agrees immediately.

sets off bells in geno’s head, but he can deal, he just needs to ease cross into it

immediately geno’s made aware of how painfully naive cross is when it comes to interpersonal relationships. so geno tries to teach cross about it as best as he can -- he doesn’t force his own opinions onto cross no matter how much he wants to. just lets cross decide who he considers friend or foe.

whos more emotionally stable? technically, it’s geno. but cross is better at controlling what emotions rule him in times of crisis.

who’s physically stronger? cross, duh. geno is a lazy bum. cross is a royal guard.

who’s smarter? geno. the guy’s a genius. cross is a himbo, most definitely.

who delivers smoother pick up lines? geno again. he loves showering cross with tons of affection and making his himbo boyfriend blush is one of his favorite pastimes.

who’s sappier? cross. he’s an emotional wreck and just...he’s a crying puppy himbo, okay, please love and protect him.

who’s better at fighting? equal, but differing strengths. geno, despite his godawful stamina, enjoys playing the long game. he toys with his opponents and has a masterful control over his abilities. time in the savescreen will do that to you. cross is more driven by instinct and combative abilities. he’s extremely intuitive and his reaction time is flawless. put them in a team together? oh boy.

ink never shows up for some reason. he was supposed to.

xchara is slowly going insane because theres nothing he can do or think of that could restore xtale. the protector who possessed xgaster’s soul isn’t showing up, and the longer xchara remains in cross’ consciousness, the more xchara fades away.

but yeah, eventually xchara fades away. sorry xchara.

somehow, some way, the emptiness of x-tale starts to get to both geno and cross the same way geno does when he ends up in the anti-void that starts up the process to become error

but...it isn’t the anti-void, and geno isnt alone. cross is with him, and is just as scared.

something within the code of x-tale shifts, almost corrupting both cross and geno in the process. as a result, geno has his body physically altered. for cross, because he is one of the original inhabitants of xtale, gets a power upgrade.

cross gets the power of the overwrite. completely.

geno asks cross what he wants to do now. cross decides he wants to stop as many of the threats to the multiverse that he can, or timelines that have the potential of breaking apart like xtale did. with the power of the overwrite button, its possible. geno fully supports cross.

because of...shenanigans, geno and cross accidentally gain the titles of ‘the destroyers’ , bc in this series of events, error never came to be. the geno that was supposed to become error was subverted into an xtale timeline and snowballed from there. i know, i know, many holes, but just...let it happen. pretend ink was getting so bored of the normal aus that he decided to do the x-event with xgaster, regardless of the presence of the truce. okay? okay.

anyway, more cute stuff: geno and cross go on dates whenever they step into a new timeline. they’re just enjoying life whenever possible, you know?

[aforrestofstuff]

What type of kid do you think the OPM characters were at school? I know not all of them went to school, but what if....

Thanks for the request anon! I’ve basically just written a handy-dandy little high school au for y’all lmfao.

OPM Characters in High School

Tornado of Terror: Absolutely 0 respect for authority. She’s tiny, but she can fucking fight and everyone knows it. For that reason, she’s feared and avoided at all costs. She often feels lonely because of this and finds it hard to make new friends, but she’d rather go through high school suffering alone before she dare let anyone get close.

Silverfang: Tries to recruit his peers into this little club he’s made where he tries to teach martial arts but the only kid that joins is this little shit named Charanko that doesn’t really care at all about what’s being taught. He’s really reliable in group projects and is overall a good student, albeit a little wise beyond his years.

Atomic Samurai: The kid that drinks alcohol under the bleachers during transition periods. He fails almost every class except one. However, in that one class, he is an absolute genius. His talents are few and niche but he really soars when given the chance to embrace his full potential. He’s really dogmatic and almost rude at times, but he’s managed to get himself a small group of friends that are keen on following him ‘till the end.

Child Emperor: Prodigy student. Straight A’s, extracurriculars, extra credit, you name it. He aces it all. Everyone wants to get a peek at his homework and he obliges kindly almost all of the time out of pure politeness. He’s also in marching band because he gets a thrill out of dooting a trumpet (is that an instrument in band? I can’t fucking remember). Overall, he’s very well-liked, although not respected. People kind of walk all over him because they know he’s all-too-eager to lend a helping hand.

Metal Knight: Polar opposite to Child Emperor. He’s a prodigy student as well, but he will NEVER lend a helping hand to anyone. If you’re paired with him in a group project, he’ll just brush you off and do the whole thing himself because he doesn’t trust anyone else with his grade. Teachers get pissed off at him because he’s always correcting them during class. He pushes people around and treats his peers as if they were lesser than him based solely on their intelligence, and thus doesn’t have many (if any) friends.

King: Doesn’t study at all but still gets A’s somehow. He’s got the teachers fooled thinking he’s some sort of prodigy kid, when really he just finds ways to copy off of other people’s work. He’s got a PSP under the table at all times during lectures and sits alone during lunch. People think he’s mysterious and cool but he’s really just an anxious kid trying to get by.

Zombieman: The cool, mysterious kid that skips class and smokes outside. The teachers don’t mind him because he doesn’t cause any trouble. He’s only got a handful of friends, one of those being Child Emperor (whom he’s really close to) and people think he’s just trying to cheese himself out of a failing grade by copying off of CE when he’s really fine all on his own. He’s surprisingly smart and quick-witted, just not in the way that report cards show. Still though, he passes with solid Bs and Cs.

Drive Knight: Set the school on fire once. Blackmailed a principal on the basis that they were having an affair and threatened to release this information unless they extended lunch period. Studies hard and gets good grades only to compete with Metal Knight. Their rivalry is well-known in school and everyone thinks it’s just a joke but Drive Knight is dead serious.

Pig God: The lunch ladies have second servings ready the minute he walks into the cafeteria because they know he eats like a horse. He doesn’t say shit in class and is overall just really quiet and shy. People bully him because he’s the fat kid with no social skills, but he’s really nice to the few friends that he has. Teachers either pity him or join the bullies in picking on him. It’s kind of sad.

Superalloy Darkshine: Football jock. He’s a little dumb but he’s actually the sweetest person ever. People often try to take advantage of him because he’s always ready to help, but he’s got a lot of friends that warn him when that happens. He’s overall just the most supportive, warm-hearted, social butterfly in school and he brightens up every room he walks in to. Nobody dislikes him. The coaches all put their faith in him during the season and he always delivers with winning scores (I don’t know shit about football lol).

Watchdog Man: Does absolutely buttfuck nothing in school. He only does the bare minimum. Like, he’s so close to flunking out that he’s among the bottom 1% in the student body. Still, somehow, he always pulls through just before finals and comes out with a barely passing grade. Every. Single. Year. He has no friends, doesn’t talk to anyone, and never raises his hand in class. People wonder if he’s actually a student or a ghost that wandered in.

Flashy Flash: Track star. Fastest kid this side of the fuckin continent. He put the school on the map by winning so many championships. He’s ridiculously handsome and has a lot of secret admirers too, but he ignores all of that to focus on sports. Even the teachers kiss his ass because he’s kind of a legend. Although everyone wants to be his friend, however, he’s actually quite the loner. He spends his down time during school hours running on the track or sitting alone to read a good book.

Genos: Teacher’s pet. Absolute ass-kisser. He tries his absolute best to study and never wastes a single second not having his nose in a textbook but still only manages to get Bs. It frustrates the living hell out of him. He’s adopted a lot of unhealthy ways to stay awake during the school day because he spends all night going above and beyond on homework, like drinking a full pot of coffee or smuggling energy drinks into class. He follows Saitama around because he wants to learn the secret to getting good grades without actually trying.

Metal Bat: He’s intimidating and mean-looking. Upon first glance, you might think he was a bully but it’s actually the other way around. He doesn’t tolerate bullshit like that while he’s in the vicinity and is not afraid to cuss anyone out should they ever pick on another student, teachers included. He’s been reprimanded so many times for that exact reason and has gotten a plaque in the principal’s office for breaking the district record. He’s a pretty shit student, but it’s not because he’s dumb. He’s actually pretty witty, but due to his terrible dyslexia and devotion to his little sister, his grades have suffered.

Tanktop Master: Best friends with Superalloy. Together, they carry the football scene for the entire school. He’s a bit smarter and quieter, but he’s just as nice. He aces all of his classes and is the sole reason Superalloy isn’t failing because he allows this dumbass to copy his work. He has a crazy amount of secret admirers but disregards them to hang out with his homies on the football team instead (and he always wears tanktops to school lol).

Puri-Puri Prisoner: Theater kid with such a drastic flair for the dramatic that people have actually gotten hurt trying to act out his ridiculous ideas. He’s super huge for his age and people often mistake him as a teacher. He’s one of those kids that have a full-grown beard at age 17 and he doesn’t quite know how to take care of it or shave properly yet so it’s kind of gross and patchy. Also, he’s the resident gay kid. It’s embarrassing.

Amai Mask: Also a theater kid but he’s way better at it. On top of that, he’s a choir star. Whenever there’s an opening for a solo, it always goes to him. There’s an ongoing conspiracy that all of his teachers pick him as favorite despite him being a bit of a dick at times but it’s still up in the air. He’s ridiculously attractive and has an outrageous amount of secret admirers, but he actually makes an effort to humor them and “entertain the crowd”. He’s still single, however, and devotes all of his time to mastering his craft in the ✨fine arts✨ (and singing. Idk if that counts as a ✨fine art✨ but whatever).

Iaian: Kamikaze’s best friend. They do everything together. He’s a bit of a doormat, though. He’s always seen carrying Kami’s books or doing his homework. Despite all that, he still manages to maintain an A-B average. He’s very studious and studies hard while participating in sports, despite only having one arm. The other kids would bully him for it but nobody wants to be known as the dick that picks on a disabled person (and rightfully so. Shit’s fucked up). He’s pretty quiet, serious, and mostly keeps to himself. Teachers always trust him to turn his work in on time and set an example for the rest of the class.

Okamaitachi: Another one of Kami’s best friends. She doesn’t fall for his bullshit though. She’s always seen in ridiculously fashionable outfits and holds a separate bag just to carry her extra change of clothes (in addition to her gym outfit). She always looks her best and does her best, super high energy 24/7. She’s a social butterfly and makes friends easily, especially while doing theater. She’s not as exceptional as Amai Mask, but she’s still talented in her own right.

Bushidrill: Yet another best friend of Kami’s. He also doesn’t fall for his bullshit. Bushi is another one of those kids that has a full beard at age 17, but he actually knows how to take care of it. He’s weirdly wise beyond his years and is everyone’s go-to for advice when they find themselves in a bad situation. He drinks illegally as well but keeps it a secret because he’s not an idiot (unlike Kami). Overall, he just keeps to himself and minds his own damn business despite knowing everyone’s drama.

Fubuki: Networking queen. She was voted “most likely to be a CEO” in the school yearbook. She’s head of the student body and negotiates like a pro. She’ll organize events and get good grades all while still managing to find the time to hang out with her friends outside of school. She’s always go go go 24/7. Nobody knows her and Tatsu are sisters, though. She doesn’t go out of her way to keep it a secret, but she would feel pretty terrible if people found out because she doesn’t want to be compared with anyone else.

Saitama: Does buttfuck nothing in class and never studies but still gets As anyways because he remembers all of the material effortlessly. I’ve said this before in a previous hc, but he was one of those insanely gifted kids that never developed a work ethic because he’s never had to struggle to get by academic-wise. He minds his own damn business and stays out of everyone’s shit but still manages to get caught up in a ton of drama somehow. He shares his lunches with Genos because Genos often forgets to eat. Fubuki has tries to recruit him into student government but he refuses each time. All in all, just an average kid that is always in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Mumen Rider: Studies hard, is a teacher’s pet, and gets perfect grades. His mom packs him really nice, healthy lunches and she leaves little love notes in there so he knows he’s got a good family waiting for him back home. The reason for that being, he gets bullied a lot. There’s no real reason why. He’s a nice kid and there’s nothing wrong with him, but a lot of his peers see him as an easy target because he’s scrawny and wimpy. He does have a handful of friends though. One of those being Saitama, who stands up to those bullies on behalf of Mumen.

Sonic: Wild card. He’s also on the track team and it’s just as good as Flash. They’re rivals and everyone knows it. He and Flash were childhood best friends until they drifted apart sometime before junior high, only to meet again while doing sports at the beginning of freshman year. Coaches often pit them against each other because it’s fun to watch the top two go at it. Academic-wise, he sucks. He’s the dumbest motherfucker in all of his classes and manages to get by solely because he uses his status as track star to get everyone to let him copy their work.

Garou: Another wild card. Teachers absolutely hate him. He’s loud-mouthed, awkward, and doesn’t really fit in. He has a lot of interests and wishes to get into some extracurriculars or clubs but he’s too worried about getting bullied. Like Mumen, there’s nothing really wrong with him. He’s not a dick for no reason, but people just see him as an easy target somehow and decide to pick on him relentlessly. He and Silverfang were once friends, but Silverfang betrayed him sometime before the start of the new year. His grades are atrocious because he can’t focus during class. Someone help this boy.

[metalbatandzenko]

“Dude, you’re like, an asshole.”

Aka which of the characters are assholes and which ones aren’t. 

Judged on my completely unbiased scale of which characters I find intolerable and which ones I have a soft spot for, so take this with a grain of salt as canon.

Disclaimer: This is a joke list and very few of these are thoughtful placements.

Minor Assholes.

Kind of a variable category. Mostly characters who are assholes in the sense of like. Being terrible people, but at least they like, have morals and shit. There’s a lot of variation here.

Sonic-Already a hot take. Listen. Maybe he does murder sometimes but like. He’s somehow less intolerable than the major dipshits below. And at least he has like, morals and shit. You think Metal Knight has that? No way.

Garou-Once again, suuuper not objective. He’s 100% an asshole, but he’s got a pretty strict moral code and lines he would not cross, and his end goal is good. I do wonder how he was planning on becoming a symbol of fear without killing anyone though. Like I’d say he’s an “ends will justify the means” kind of guy but like...his plan was to scare people into banding together and killing him and...not killing anyone himself? I’m confused and he is too. Anyways he’s somehow less of an asshole than some of the other characters.

Atomic Samurai-He’s arrogant, but he’s not a bad person. I love clowning on this man with strict morals and a massive ego.

Flashy Flash-Kinda a mix of Sonic and Atomic Samurai. Like he’s a dick, but boy is it fun to watch him call people out (looking at you Death Gatling). I do think his moral compass is more fucked up than Sonics is though. Does that make me dumb? Has Sonic’s ass rotted my brain? Idk I can’t speak to the webcomic bc I know we get more of his and Sonic’s backstory there but ik vaguely about the Ninja Village.

Watchdog Man-He makes everyone sit at a professional meeting with him while in his fursuit. He eats like a dog. Subjecting people to your fursona 24/7 is rude, man.

Major Assholes.

You know when Sonic “I-assassinate-people-and-play-bodyguard-for-the-dregs-of-society” One Punch Man and Garou are minor assholes, we’ve got some heavy hitters down the line.

Metal Knight-This one is self-explanatory. Fuck this guy. 

Drive Knight-A wise man once said “he’s the kind of guy who’ll send you an NSFW link at work then report you for clicking on it.”

Amai Mask-Listen, [webcomic spoiler] or not, he’s an asshole. I don’t care that he’s sad, man. He’s still a dick.

Puri Puri Prisoner-We all know why.

Blast-This bitch really just fucking noped out of hero work bc he does it for fun. How many people have died bc this blank faced fuck decided he’d rather go take a vacation to OPM!Six Flags instead of idk, helping people?

Not an Asshole.

Mumen Rider-Does not have a mean bone in his body. We all know he is the king of good samaritans.

Tank Top Master-Almost put him in minor asshole bc of Tank Top Tiger and Black Hole, but the rest of the group seems chill. He’s a genuinely kind guy.

King-Kind of dickish for hiding him being a fraud but he’s good.

Pig God-Minds his business. Gentle. Seems to genuinely care about Child Emperor’s safety/concerns.

Child Emperor-He’s baby.

Bang-His advice can sound a bit like a fake deep quote from pinterest, but he means well and he’s not hurting anyone. 

Bomb-Just a supportive bro.

An Asshole, but Has a Good Heart

Tatsumaki-I cannot defend Tatsumaki’s behavior, but I love her and she clearly cares about civilians’ safety. She’s an asshole but she’s doing her best.

Fubuki-Beneath that social climbing, she’s got a good heart too. She just lets her self-doubt control her and ends up being an asshole to others because of it. I mean, she tried to kill or at least seriously maim Saitama.

Genos-He’s mean as fuck to anyone who isn’t Saitama or Dr. Kuseno. And it’s not just because he has a hard time reading social cues, he like. chooses to be rude to Fubuki, and stuff like that. He genuinely cares about doing what’s right though, he’s got a lot of compassion for the defenseless.

Not an Asshole, just Grumpy.

Saitama-Stays in his lane. Does right by people for the sake of doing good. Just wants to get a good deal.

Zombieman-He just wants to take a nap, but this annoying fucking idol won’t shut his trap. So if a few sharp insults come out every once in a while, can you really blame him?

Metal Bat-Full of rage and love for his little sister. Has a lot of bravado and an ego, but will throw all that away to make Zenko happy. Rescues cats in his free time. Apparently is a pacifist despite his entire fighting strategy being braining monsters with a baseball bat.

The Narrative Surrounding This Character Makes Me Uncomfortable and Their Actions Qualify Them as an Asshole But the Narrative Doesn’t Acknowledge That.

Superalloy Darkshine-They really should have changed his backstory.

[scumerage]

Thinking about Season 3: the vertical battlefield... that won’t happen (a response)

[The original essay on Season 3 by @gofancyninjaworld​]

Well.... this topic was going to revisited this topic sooner or later. Just as Genos is the most frequent discussions of OPM for @gofancyninjaworld​ ....mine, while simpler (and maybe even more wrong), the OPM webcomic/manga/anime adaption. So please forgive me if I come off as arrogant, pigheaded, and high horsing. That is not my intention.

The whole arguement in the original essay as to why Saitama vs Orochi can't be the finale, whereas Tornado vs Psykorochi can, is...

The conclusion of Tornado's fight and downfall of the heroes is necessary for Season 3 to make sense.

Saitama vs Orochi is too deceptively conclusive as a heroic victory.

The first one is a complete story argument, not arc structure argument, and the second one is the second greatest argument in support of the first ending.

(A) Tornado vs Psykos and the downfall of the heroes aren’t necessary for Season 3:

Tornado vs Psykos and the heroes downfall, are they neccesary for the entire saga? Yes. But is the story up to Saitama vs Orochi problematic without them? No. It's a simple story of heroes defeating monsters and saving the world. Basic? Yes. Short? Absolutely. A measely appetizer compared to main course coming? 100% agree. But it works as a complete story, just as Season 1 did (and webcomic readers are far more justified in discrediting the Tornado vs Psykorochi fight by the same logic... it’s a fake ending vastly inferior to the true ending of the saga)

(B) Another 3-4 year hiatus is the OPM anime’s greatest enemy... not the short seasons:

It was stated earlier that the deceptive happy ending of is the second greatest arguement in support of the first ending? What is the first? The grave danger of another 4 year haitus... or even longer. Doesn't matter how well animated, how good the storytelling, and how many episodes the new season has... if mainstream fans don't come back to watch it. And the production committee, insulated as they are in their corporate bubble, know that.

The perfect example why trading time for quality eventually fails is Attack on Titan. The anime is pretty consistent with beautiful animation and banger war saga throughout, that began with even more popularity than OPM. But after a single 4 year wait for Season 2... what is it now? Just a very popular anime, on par with other series like Demon Slayer, MHA... or OPM Season 2. Yet somehow... somehow, OPM, which had one 3+ year haitus, AND a worse animated sequel... with recover after a second 3+ year wait?

Again, quality only matters to people who watch it... anyone who drops, forgets, never gets around to, or plain moves on with their lives? Even if OPM Season 3 was the best anime ever made... it will be absolutely worthless... to people who never see it. (That and JC Staff is by far the favorite to make Season 3... so story, not animation, would need carry).

(C) The manga is far, far away from the end of Tornado’s fight:

First off, ending, not with the climax of Tornado vs Psykos, but the start of the climax? That would be akin to ending with Saitama facing off against Boros, or Garou facing off against Death Gatling. That is not a conclusion. Not at all. There is no falling action. There is no story being completed. There is no satisfaction for the audience. Even the end of Season 2 was far, far superior... Garou’s lone wolf hero hunt ended. The Monster Association captured him. The heroes failed to stop him. The prologue of Garou and the Monster Associations’ story was over. The end.

Second, waiting for the end of Tornado vs Psykos as the Season 3 finale? The online manga hasn’t even started their climactic battle of the gods... Tornado and Psykos just reached the surface. Let alone the printed manga. And it won’t simply be a solo duel between the pair, even if Murata/ONE’s storyboard leaks aren’t to be believed.

Many heroes are rushing in to save civilians.

The S-Class heroes are being pulled to the surface.

Garou, Saitama/Flash, and the executives will still be running around underground.

The HA and the civilian populace will be watching the entire event.

This is no fast paced straight to the point boss battle like Boros’ invasion or Elder Centipede that can be covered in a couple hundred pages. There are too many variables, too many players, too many storylines being tangled together (at this point, Dr. Bofoi and Sonic might as well take action, if Mumen Rider can save civilians from Psykorochi, then Sonic sure as hell can wipe his butt and head over to hunt down Saitama! Same with Bofoi, where are your nukes?). This is is looking far closer to a 500 page battle royale. Which would normally mean the better part of a year for Murata to complete online, to, say, early 2021. But the current schedule is far from normal.

(D) The adaption schedule is still getting worse...

With Volume 22 delayed to October, and Volume 23 with Saitama vs Orochi delayed to who knows when, even the best schedule for Season 3 is late 2021/early 2022... 2.5 years since Season 2. Dangerously close to another 3 year hiatus... and that’s the best case scenario.

800 pages from Volume 22 (October 2020) to current chapter...

+500 pages to reach the Tornado ending

1200+ pages/6 volumes minimum

+2 years for the printed manga to reach the Tornado ending. End of 2022.

+1 year for Season 3 production. End of 2023.

[This is not accounting for any more major redraws by Murata... could be 2024 for all we know]

Not simply a 3-4 year wait for Season 2, but a 4-5 year wait for Season 3 ending on Tornado... that is a timeline disaster which would all but guarantee that OPM will be just another manga whose anime petered out due to loss in popularity and relevance. Popularity doesn’t equal quality... but neither does quality equal popularity.

[Even magically ending Season 3 on the “faceoff of Tornado and Psykos” would be Volume 26, released early 2022, pushing the anime to late 2022/early 2023, still a 3-4 year wait.]

(E) Why Season 2 suffered.... and comparing the two options for Season 3:

Last note: there is major difference between “rushing production” and “relasing a shorter season sooner”. The first reduces quality, the second reduces quantity. When looking at OPM Season 2, what were the main negatives?

Less Saitama...

Worse animation...

A cliffhanger ending...

Both versions of Season 3 will have less Saitama. Both will have similar animation quality (if anything a longer wait for two would be more rushed, for fear of a too long hiatus. That and two cour anime are generally lower quality than one cour). But to claim that Tornado vs Psykos is less of a cliffhanger ending than Saitama vs Orochi? Right after arguing that the heroic victory is too deceptive? The only argument, bad as it is, that can be made for Season 3 not ending on Saitama vs Orochi is the same one against Season 2 not ending on a cliffhanger.... webcomic fanatacism: “Screw hiatuses, screw the anime industry, screw the casual fans! Give me Saitama vs Garou!”

[jaypelt]

Cheers for Five Years of Undertale, and its Everlasting Effect on Me

Been a while since I’ve done one of these... I might even be rusty at it! Honestly, what I’ve got right now are more vague thoughts than coherent words in my head. I wasn’t sure if I’d even do this, since I felt it wasn’t entirely necessary. Everybody had so much to say! But spurned on by the display of someone very close to me, the cogs in my head couldn’t help but start turning for me too. So here I am. This isn’t going to be easy, though. Because if you read this, I need you to understand the depth of my feelings. Even if just a little. So I’ll do my best to bare my heart yet again, for the sake of it and everything its done for me. Everything it’ll keep doing for me.

The beginning is usually always one of the hardest parts. A blank space devoid of anything, that you’ve got to somehow miraculously fill with thoughts somebody else could understand. But Undertale is rarely a subject I ever have to struggle so much with. It’s been a long, long five years.

This is re-treading old ground that a number of those who know me are already familiar with, however, I don’t think this would be complete without it. But it will get very, VERY personal. If you’re not comfortable with that, then uh... giving you another warning now. But pushing forward...

Right before UT came out, I hadn’t begun to really unravel quite yet. But I was very close. It was somewhat of a rough transitional period as I moved on from my middle school to high, losing very dear IRL friends and generally continuing to struggle with school, as I had been for years. Untreated ADHD is real nasty. But I’d always had at least some friends, either online, or ones I made throughout the year, to rely on. And I didn’t really think about things. The start of this school year was no different. Even having a... perhaps questionable choice of boyfriend, but, well, he was my first.

I struggled with just about every aspect of school from basically the start, but having a small group, and especially an online partner to come home to everyday, helped me at least get through. In the coming months, however, I’d start to encounter more turbulence. Through aforementioned partner, I met someone who’d come to rely on me far more than he should have. Made even worse by the fact that he was a full grown adult while I was only 14, which will be a recurring trend. And has been for most of my life.

We hit it off pretty quickly, becoming good friends and talking to each other outside of mutual friend spaces. And through that, he started to open up about his problems. Living with a family that treated him poorly, suicidal urges, and particularly, an abusive boyfriend. If you know me well, I’ve probably definitely talked about this at least a little.

My daily routine starting becoming supporting this person through all of his troubles. Sitting in skype calls or exchanging messages for hours at a time on the daily. Rarely did a day go by where I didn’t, slowly sinking into an apathetic pit from overextending myself for the sake of his mental health. I couldn’t even help him improve, all I could do was just try to keep him alive. Which, well, I did. For months.

Everything else fell to the wayside as I was constantly stressed about the life of someone I cared about. Obviously my school life suffered even further. I grew withdrawn from everyone, and kept only to the few online friends I had. However, in the midst of this downward spiral, just before the ball really got rolling, a certain game came out. Exactly a month after it had come out, October 15th, 2015, I’d become interested after all the talk on tumblr about Undertale.

After watching a playthrough on youtube(I didn’t play for myself at first, a pity), It’d personally resonated so strongly and gotten me so hooked that it was something I invested a fair amount of my time into consuming content about. I grew super attached to all these characters that’d made me laugh, smile, cry... just this whole spectrum of emotions. And someone in particular, Alphys, really caught my attention after things had begun to get worse.

She felt so... relatable, though I couldn’t possibly tell you all the reasons. When I think about it, we’re not really the most similar, but something about her just hooked me. Maybe because she had all these things going on that nobody knew about. And that she lied. And felt so anxious interacting with anyone after she’d previously been much warmer and closer. That she was closer to “disappearing” than she seemed.

Whatever the reasons, the months moving further along, consuming content about UT practically became my lifeline. I reblogged heaps and heaps of posts  about it, watched videos, listened to the soundtrack, even started drawing because I’d been so inspired. When I was just stuck in this horrible pit of second-hand depression, it was the one thing that still made me happy. I started to really think about why it mattered to me and how. It’s funny, I’d read books obsessively for years before then, but UT was the thing that really got me thinking. It was all downhill from there, I tell you. Now I’m an artist and a writer. Horrific.

But, unfortunately, for all its good... it couldn’t stop what was to come. I was still getting worse and worse, with no end in sight. I’d already been supporting... let’s call him Phil, for a few months. And in December of that year, my boyfriend completely dropped off the grid for a while. I’d see him appear online sometimes and I’d message him, but no response, then right back to offline. Finally, he came back, approaching me with something he obviously was uncomfortable about.

To make a long story short, he’d come to the conclusion that he was straight, and decided to end the relationship. What’s bad is that... honestly? I was already doing so poorly that I had a hard time caring. But we did pretty much stop talking, and I leaned into Undertale all the more. Anyway, time continued to pass. Not without its few ups, and mostly downs. I got used to being called “mature”, usually followed by “especially for your age.” “Phil” told me that if I were legal, he’d date me. I’ve got a crippling fear of screwing up with people that’s stuck with me to this day, after a few occasions involving him. I considered doing some... not so great things to myself. Thankfully, I was always so averse to physical pain that it didn’t become anything extreme.

As for the few ups, there was “Phil” finally managing to leave his abusive relationship, when he’d tried previously and fallen into such a bad depressive episode I had to talk him down. So that was something. He’d even started going to therapy after the second break up.

Not that it did a whole lot. The school year began approaching its end and nothing had really changed. I’d been going through all the same motions for around half a year or more. My sleep was terrible, I was passing almost none of my classes, had practically no friends to speak of, and just felt... tired. All the time. But during this... the minute beginning of a monumental shift started. Another character in UT had begun to clutch me in his grasp. Even more strongly than Alphys. Flowey. Through the posts a singular person on tumblr had made about him and my experience with the geno run, I came to understand the dumb little flower more. Which is also funny, because he was previously my least favorite. Even, yes, after the Asriel reveal.

I’m having a difficult time weaving together this convoluted timeline of events, but it was around... perhaps March or early April that the person whom I’d been supporting for almost a full fucking year completely disappeared. Without a word. The one thing I’d tried to stick to for so long was just. Gone. So I drifted about with, well, no purpose.

By the end of the school year, it probably goes without saying that I was... not doing great. But one those aforementioned acquaintances I’d only just started to become actual friends with came forth to me with a question. That being if there was some way for us to keep contact during the summer. So I gave her my email, which would turn out to be a decision that saved my life. Because things would only get worse before they got better.

This is getting to be way, way, way too long. So to summarize, summertime came around and I’d been in pretty close contact with... I’ll just call her V. She was... well, unlike anyone I’d ever known. Someone who stood out with the intelligence you could just see in their eyes. Outgoing, charismatic, compassionate... all those sorts of things. We were opposites in a lot of ways. Or, at least, it felt like it.

Some things happened, like “Phil” coming back after months of nothing. Me immediately slotting back into my role of being a pillar of support, but then screwing up and hating myself for it. But honestly, that ain’t shit to the rest of the whole shitshow.

For a bit of context, my parents are divorced. So for most of the previous years, I’d been going to my mom’s place during the summer and staying with her the whole time, to make up for how rarely we’d see each other otherwise. That year... she was beginning to run low on money. She lived next to my granny, but still basically alone, compared to how she’d been staying with someone else in hotels for the few prior years.

After learning she didn’t have enough to pay rent and might be kicked out, she tried to appeal to her mom, who said she wouldn’t let her stay. Why? I don’t know. After that, she spiraled into a panic. And, well, the ever faithful little worker bee, I stepped forward to try and console her in any way I could. She seemed to recompose, at least a little. It wasn’t great, and she thought she’d have to do some unsavory things in order to survive, but... I thought that, just maybe, I’d done something.

But... later that night, she started drinking. Which... well, put her in a mood. Exacerbated by the day’s earlier events and the fact that she was taking medication that responded poorly to alcohol. She came over to where I was sitting, my little makeshift desk I’d put together to set up my desktop, with my little sister just in the other room. Just... a warning for this next part, it’s... grim. More grim than anything else in this thread.

She proceeded to tell me she was going to go upstairs and grab the gun my granny kept in her room. And berated me for thinking I’d done anything to help, saying she “wasn’t like my little friends” that I could simply talk to. With that, she walked away, heading upstairs. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so crushed in my entire life, to this day. I broke down crying, sitting in that chair.

Yet, somehow, I managed to stop when I saw her coming back down. She walked back over, pointed the gun at her head, and told me to give her a reason she shouldn’t do it. And also to this day, I.... still don’t know if I said what was right. It was all I could think of. I quietly told her that if she did it, I’d pick that gun up and do it to myself. Same as her. And I asked if she wanted to be responsible for that.

It was true, too. By that point, I didn’t care anymore.

And if there’s one thing I can say about her, it’s that she’s always cared about me. In a horrible, twisted way especially, that night. It was enough to make her silently pull the gun down, go back upstairs, and put it away. One last time... she came down, walked past me to the front door and simply said “I love you.” before going out to sit on the porch.

I’m not sure I’ll ever truly get over the events of that night. I spoke to V afterwards, as I’d been keeping in regular contact, as I said. And even been speaking to her throughout the day about what was happening. I think she was panicking just as much as I had been, and told me to go find the gun and unload it. So I did. Bawling my eyes out the whole damn time. Afterwards, I took the bullets and threw them in the large neighborhood garbage can.

The rest of the night’s a blur. I don’t recall if anything else happened, I just remember waking up tired the next day. My uncle was in the house, as he’d been staying with my granny for a while, but hadn’t been around the night before. I tried to talk to him, but.. couldn’t bring myself to open up. Even though we were pretty close. I went back to my dad’s.

That wasn’t the end of it, either. For the next coming months, I’d get drunken calls and live in fear of being put right back in the same situation. It got so bad that I stopped answering my phone altogether. I broke contact with my mom entirely. I still hate answering or making calls.

Anyway, a few other things happened in the summer, like my applying for online courses. And the subsequent ridicule from my dad’s side of the family for the decision. Tell you what, the stress of taking a test to try and join that online program, then going to golden corral and having to struggle to not cry in front of everyone there was... not the ideal way to spend a birthday. Happy 15 years to me.

So.... that was that. I still went through with online courses and everything kind of... slowed to a crawl. I tried to do school work, but depression and still yet untreated ADHD prevented me from making any substantial progress beyond a few finished classes. For a while I simply... existed in a limbo. All I did was get up, get on my computer, maybe talk to a few people, and play Overwatch. Maybe look at tumblr, as I remained into Undertale. V and I lost contact after school started back up. I never blamed her for it. In fact, I preferred it that way. She didn’t deserve to have such a burden placed on her, and I still... feel guilty for leaning on her so much.

But I’m very thankful. I hope she’s out there living a good life, wherever she is.

And this! Is where we finally get to the not depressing parts! And only... what, 29 paragraphs in? Sheesh... I know I wanted to really illustrate just how shit things were to demonstrate just how much UT did for me, but this is taking it a bit far, isn’t it? Ah well... already made it this far. In for a penny, in for a pound. If you’ve made it this far, congratulations! I’m sorry. Truly. And I love you so very dearly.

Time went by and I kept doing my thing. Playing Overwatch(a practically self-destructive behavior deserving a therapy, frankly), talking to the few friends I had that I kept at an arm’s length, that sort of stuff. “Phil” and I no longer talked, thank goodness. Obviously I was depressed as all hell, not bothering to shower, eat, clean up, or do laundry for days on end. I spent more time asleep than I did awake, on most days. Did I say this was where the not depressing part was? I may have lied a little.

Blah blah “more months go by”, you know the drill. Until... I believe, November of 2016. After cementing my love of Flowey ever deeper, I’d started to follow more blogs putting out content for him on tumblr. In particular, the most important ones being I’lltrytobegood, Flowey-Answers, and later happyflowey and Corruptedflora.

It all started with a stream. I joined an art stream of LLA(Lovelyladyartist) on picarto as he worked on ITTBG. I kept quiet for the first few streams I joined, being too anxious to really out myself in any capacity. But little by little, I was coerced out of my shell. Particularly by one SilverKhaos, who I think at the time went by SilverSlayer or something. Anyway, he got me talking. And through that, I started making friends, bit by bit.

Also through the stream, I was introduced to CC(CuteCatDoodles) of Flowey-Answers. I obsessively read through the entire blog in a single sitting, just... having such a good time with it. And... strangely enough, it... got me feeling oddly better. Like I’d finally started to breath after not being able to for what felt like such a long time. If just a little. The next day, I got out of bed early, cleaned up, took out some garbage, and made breakfast. Just a simple plate of scrambled eggs. A simple, easy morning for most any average person. But for me? It was one of the most special mornings I’ve ever had.

Likewise, I did the same with Ding’s happyflowey, of reading through all of it in a single night. My head hurt like a motherfucker, but I tell you, it was worth it. The effect perhaps not as profound, but still very meaningful to me, as well as sowing the seeds of yet more relationships to form. If far off in the future, as far as this timeline is concerned. I still adore all of those dumb, charming little flowers so much. Mania would come to inspire my first ever OC, in fact. Thinking about that blog makes me miss when the UT fandom was more active here, even though I never participated in the fandom at large. But I’m grateful for the memories and incredible amounts of enjoyment getting to read it all brought me. I have way too many cropped images of Hysteria.

I wasn’t immediately better, but it was all the start of something new. I kept up with the streams, also joining in for CC’s. For hours upon hours a day, I’d just hop into them and spend the day talking away. I had something to really look forward upon waking up, starting to adjust my schedule so that I at least didn’t miss TOO much. I was able to really make friends, it felt like. Even though I wasn’t and still am not the most socially adept.

And as luck would have it, because picarto chat was and probably still is pretty unstable to this day, it just happened to go down and that led to... the creation of the discord server! It started off small, but steadily got more and more joiners from the growing population of the streams. LovelyLadyArtist, CuteCatDoodles, BrySkye, Flowers-Without-Pots, SilverSlayer, KRS, Donut, Mr.Quarter, Dragoler, Stilla, Chara, RotmModdy, Rowdy, Dunal, and probably at least a few others I’m forgetting... all names I encountered there and most of which I still see daily.

Through that server, we started keeping up even when there wasn’t any stream going on. Just goofing off and having a good ‘ol time. Already I was... well, doing a helluva lot better than I had before. All because of the gathering of a small community surrounding this indie gem. And even further centered in a niche specifically about Flowey! Who, and I’d forgotten to mention this before, I’d found a surprising amount to relate in. He’d become a big, BIG hyperfocus. Which is why I’d met everyone at all. Truly, it’s crazy to think how possible it is for me to have never come down this path.

From there on, I continued to meet new people, established new relationships. I even got invited to an RP server, creatively named “Flower RP” :p. At first I was hesitant, perhaps not even initially 100% interested. But as people really got into it, I felt an incredibly strong Fear of Missing Out. Leading to the creation of a character still near and dear to my heart.... Zorch. The result of contributions from many friends, from design ideas, to character concepts, and even his name(thanks for that, Rowdy). And... I began to write. It wasn’t great at first. very short form, and I didn’t know how to approach the roleplaying mindset, or even how to properly characterize him.

But over time... I got better. I became more confident. I really got into the nitty-gritty of character writing and discussion. I joined in on hours long discussions about the characters, lore, and narrative of Undertale. I’d wake up just to be there as soon as chat began to move, all the way to the point where everyone was finally asleep. I started to be able to help people again. For months, participating in this RP, in this chat, in this community was what I lived for. The joy that I felt in being among friends all working towards and talking about a common goal and interest is, well, honestly still somewhat unrivaled.

Paci, Pots, Neue, Castor, Silver, Nightmare, Rowdy. Me. All of us joined together in mutual love for a game, spurred on to feverishly create our own content about it. I kept up for months on end, living by the mostly same routine for probably the longest I’ve ever stuck to anything. Eventually... things happened and the server’s gone quiet. We had problems with management, people feeling excluded, targeted, etc etc. It was a very... consequence heavy RP, most of us were almost complete newbies to the roleplaying game, and many came to care rather deeply about the ongoings of it. Perhaps too much. But, well... I’m not sure it could have been prevented.

Sometimes, I still wish I could go back to that point of my life. I know someone else who does too. Even more than me. But I know not to try and emulate the past, as alluring as it may seem. So I push forward. Leading to yet another server with its own events. Clement, myself, Rowdy, Zielo, Neue, Moddy, Vee, Mini, Nappy, Tia, Silver. Some familiar names, some new. All still with the foundation of Undertale, but it quickly became a thing for us to just... chill and talk about anything. There was real love in that place. It was at this time that I even started going to therapy! After some struggling with the family. It helped a lot.

In time, that server, too, went under. For reasons that have long since been buried and forgiven. It no longer exists, after being deleted entirely, but I’ll always remember it. And we did eventually all(mostly) gather back together someplace new, which is still being talked in. Even gaining some new additions recently! If any of you guys are catching this one, I love you!

And we come to the final and most recent group. One I wasn’t actually a founding member of, instead being a late joiner. Comparatively smaller than all the ones before, but filled with just as much love. Pip, Ding, Kink, and Cola. Remember when I mentioned happyflowey sowing seeds, and then didn’t even expound in further detail about corruptedflora? Well congratulations, you’ve reached the payoff.

It all started after I began interacting with the mun of CF, Kinko, and became mutuals with them. We usually just spam reblogged from each other on occasion for a while. That is, until I got messaged, then sent a friend request through Discord. Which, even still, didn’t immediately go anywhere. But eventually... some things led to another, and we joined up in a particular server. Not one I’ll be naming, but times were... turbulent in there. It went under and we lost contact a bit after that.

That is, until completely out of the blue, I just get invited to a server with them and some pals to just join in on Roblox shenanigans. Imagine me, sweating and anxious as hell after getting asked to join a server with two people behind blogs I adore, considering Ding was there too. Cardiac arrest, I tell you. And obviously more than just them too! But the night turned out to be so fun that I forgot I’d ever been so anxious in the first place.

From there on... the rest was history. There’s been many, MANY ups and downs, but I’ve found yet more people I love very, very dearly. And they’ve gotten me to open up about the way I feel the most. In the past years, I could never tell someone I loved them, no matter how much I really wanted to. The words just couldn’t come out, but they... they brought that out in me. And now I can say it whenever I want! Like now! I love you guys!!! So much!!!! And not just you all, but everyone else too!!! And much love to Kink especially for being a driving force behind me making this, as well as just being a goddamn star.

So... as a final ovation... LLA, CC, Bry, Drago/Paci, Pots, Silver, Donut, Quarter, Stilla, Chara, Moddy, Rowdy, Neue, Castor/Skater, Tia/Nightmare, Clement, Zielo, Vee, Nappy, Ding, Pip, Cola, and Kink. As well as some stragglers like Log, Ingrid, and Jai. I’m probably still forgetting some... but thank you all for being my friends. It’s been a long, long five years. And yet, many of you are still in my life. In at least some form. There aren’t words enough to express my gratitude towards every single one of you for the most incredible years of my life and pulling me from what can be called nothing less than the fucking abyss. You all made and continue to make life worth living.

And thank you, Undertale. The game behind all of these relationships.  The game that inspired such strong feelings in me when nothing else could. That made me into an artist and writer. The reason I’m still alive. The game that changed my fucking life and will continue to affect me, I believe, for the duration of it. I really cannot overstate just how important you were and still are. There’ll never be anything else like you.

[iwillgetridofyourangerforyou]

Consequences

A sequel to “Genos is the worst”

!! This post has webcomic Spoilers sprinkled throughout. !!

I started thinking about something a while back which I needed to spend some time philosophizing over before I was ready to share it. There is something I can visualize so clearly looking at the One Punch Man Universe. What it looks like is a field of vectors acting on and emanating from the ‘nouns’ in this show, especially the characters. Put together it looks a bit like a river with various rapids, inlets, and currents. Each hero, as far as I can tell, has an intended vector direction of some kind, which if followed exactly would lead them to their ‘ideal hero’ goal. However, as in life, they also have a complex array of internal and external acting vectors that skew their intended direction in some way. 

For example: Amai Mask is skewed from his path to his ideal hero by the external forces of society’s prejudice and ignorance. He also skewes his own path internally by grotesque perfectionism. Instead of becoming an icon for self-love, Amai is almost narcissistic in his shame. His trajectory is also impacted by the fact that as a result of his illusion he has almost no one around him to support him in a moment of uncharacteristic vulnerability. If it weren’t for Saitama and Genos, Amai might have been burned alive by the same crowds that adored him moments before. So at the end of the day by failing to correct, redirect, to calibrate for certain vectors which acted against his idealized self Amai experiences a significant and painful setback, hopefully only a setback. (I’m actually really worried about Amai.)

What particular forces act in favor or to the detriment of certain character’s goals are a bit subjective and so if you want to be a better predictor of what happens in this show you have to start asking yourself, how does ONE think about these characters? What does ONE think is important? And since you can never truly know the mind of someone, often even those closest, good luck with that. (but since I can be a bit crazy and obsessive I’ve been on a continuing endeavor to understand him a little better). In the end I realized I’m still chasing my tail. I’m still searching for my personal avatar/philosopher's stone. I’m still asking the same question that I’m always asking and looking for the answers in the wrong places.

But I’ll share a bit of what I picked up along the way. 

One of the most useful things I think fans can do to improve their interpretation of One Punch Man, is to abandon the expectation that the heroes (other that Saitama) with necessarily and always act the way you’ve been conditioned to believe heroes will be and instead follow the trail of cause and effect, track the consequences of the heroes’ actions. What I’m talking about isn’t a revolutionary idea, in effect weaving together a series of ‘cause and effect’ reactions is the basis to any plot. What I think makes OPM different is the author’s fidelity to the details about a character and the impact those details will make in the unfolding of the individual character’s plots. ONE seems to be idealistic and good-hearted and often shows ‘good’ winning out in the end over ‘evil’ (ONE’s sense of ‘good and evil’ is a whole different conversation). But good winning in the end isn’t usually done in a startling upset, and even when it’s a startling victory ONE seems to make clear that it wasn’t necessarily because the hero had somehow done something extraordinarily outside of their skill-sets but rather that their skills-sets were uniquely capable of handling that difficulty or that something had changed for the villain that disempowered them to some extent. 

A while back I wrote an intentionally controversial piece which was best concluded by @gofancyninjaworld​ here: (https://gofancyninjaworld.tumblr.com/post/621211638647898112/genos-is-the-worsttm ) This was never intended to fully represent my views, complete, or the end of the story. It was however a very important exercise for me personally. What I was hoping to do, partly, is to clarify for myself a number of the vectors that are or may act against Genos’ long term goals directly or indirectly. This isn’t meant to be a moral judgement on the character for certain behaviors. ONE himself seems to have a wide tolerance for some ethically ‘gray’ behaviors. BUT one thing that watching Mob Psycho 100 helped clarify for me is that those actions have inter and intra personal consequences. Those consequences aren’t always a judgement either. Mob doesn’t finish the race because his body is not strong enough yet. Reigen finds himself under scrutiny and almost losing everything because of how he treated Mob and his questionable business practices but as a consequence of Mob’s compassion he is spared a worse fate. Saitama loses all his hair as a consequence of becoming a hero. From the broad to the mundane ONE seems to be good at tracking keystone behaviors and their long term ramifications. 

Genos has one goal -effectively- and that, similarly to Amai Mask, is nothing less than perfection. It’s not just revenge, it’s not just protecting people, it’s not just being the strongest, it’s not just being validated by Saitama or being Saitama’s best disciple, he wants it all. Which has turned him into a bit of a whirl-pool. When perfection is what you seek every action is pain. Every move is contradictory to another goal. His previously discussed faults, in addition to the flow and tragedy of life, will accumulate into a storm which he will have to weather. In my view the storm has been brewing for a while and more recently in the webcomic, it seems you can taste it in the air. Genos and Amai have mirrored each other before in subtle ways, are we going to find that Genos, like Amai, finds himself vulnerable with no one on his side? Even Saitama has been distancing himself from Genos recently. Will the consequence of Genos’ pride and determination to carry the weight of the world on his own shoulders break him before he finds a way to let go?

[flashyslash-moved]

Something has been irritating me for a very long time and I feel I should rant about it because whatever at this point right?

Why the fresh hell does so much of the opm fanbase not care about the story? Or the supporting characters? Or the depth of the plot and messages? Like, hello? Bueller? I think too many people think opm is just “lol bald guy always wins what a joke shounen!” uh no? First of all, I truly believe that Saitama does have meaning, we just don’t know what it is yet. It may end up being a statement on heroes vs villains, since Saitama is the strongest entity yet only works for fun. Garou on the other hand, being somewhat of an opposite (despite being miles less in power) became a pseudo-villain to change the world for the better and works super hard for that pay off. And that’s just--what I assume--would be the two main characters. We also have a supporting cast of incredibly interesting characters (and I will only list off the mainish ones to save time), like Genos, who despite being obsessed with achieving absolute destructive power, works towards a peaceful goal. Sonic, who we met as just an obnoxious assassin, we now know at one point desperately wanted to be a hero as a child and somehow fell into chaos. Tatsumaki, who acts arrogant and flaunts her power without caring how the world sees her, still loves her sister and has what I see as a case of ‘angry depression’ and isolation. Fubuki, who is beautiful and popular, is constantly trying to better herself and be like Tats despite it being pretty pointless. 

But I swear to fucking god you bring any of this up with the fanbase and for the most part they just stare at you and go ’lol wut I don’t care’. For them (and I’m talking about fanboys and fangirls here) it’s best girl titties, who Saitama could beat in a fight from an irrelevant series, or best ships. Not to be a complete dick, but how is that in any way not an insult to ONE’s writing? How can anyone call themselves a true fan when they deliberately ignore everything but 10% of the storyline, which is Saitama, and kind of misinterpret what he represents or could represent? It is in fact deeper than so many give it credit for and I hate feeling like I’m completely alone in that thought process. Thank christ I have Tumblr where I can find at least some good conversation with you guys.

So anyway, I am frustrated.

[gofancyninjaworld]

(1)The Neo Heroes arc does have a lot threads going on, eh? I'll likely be wrong, but here are my 2 cents. Saitama joins Genos on his Bofoi hunt honoring Kuseno (whether injured or dead), but he lets Genos take the lead since it's personal to him. With the duo (and most of the significant HA) out of the way for the moment, the Neo take it to the next level and start policing the world almost like a totalitarian regime.

(2)Eventually some of the HA will realize the the Neos are scheming something somehow. I think the initial anti-Neo Heroes force will consist of Suiko, the neighbor trio and the Hero Name Victims association. Sonic, Garou and Sweet Mask will be the significant reluctant allies for them since they need their power and have common enemies. The Neos we know about (CE, Suiryu, Bad, Darkshine) at first won't be able to rebel or act against because of some serious consequences.

(3)In the meanwhile Genos and Saitama eventually find Bofoi. When they confront him Drive Knight appears and places some "evidence" for the world to turn against him. Around this time the truth about the Mad Cyborg is truly revealed. Saitama will return to finish off a small yet significantly strong part of the Neo/Organization that won't be recorded very well and the public will be more focused on the initial anti-Neo force for standing up against them. Heroes can pick their own names though.

(4/end) I realize this sounds more like the basic summary of a fanfic, without delving into the specific character arcs. This is more of a concept of how I think all these characters can be utilized well within the arc and be given time to shine without going into anyone specifically. Sorry if it's a bit of a hassle to read and comprehend my thoughts. I hope it at least brings you some food for thought. Thanks for reading this far!

Well, that’s a missive! I think that all the parts are in place for this powder keg to blow up, splattering scenery and characters alike.  I think what clinched it was Drive Knight insisting that Genos had to take on Metal Knight now now now, not even waiting for one other S-Class hero to get back from their journeys as support.

The Neo Heroes are going to need taking on pretty damn soon and yes, it does help that they’ve made some very powerful enemies they shouldn’t be pissing off. Enemies who exist outside their organisation and who are thus free to act against them.

I think Bofoi is ultimately the wild card in all this. Whether Drive Knight and the Neo Heroes are one and the same or two different enemies, we’ll soon be finding out and I think it’s going to be the big missing piece that links all this mess together.

So the important question is: when new chapter?

[garrou]

garou arc timeline because i was having trouble parsing exactly how many days it lasted

all off the top of my head so i may have some points mixed up

day 1:

garou is introduced to the story. he beats up all of the criminals gathered by the hero association as well as the three heroes that were supposed to be acting as guards for the meeting

garou defeats tank top vegetarian

garou defeats tank top master and some of his underlings (did this happen on a different night ??)

day 2:

garou defeats several lower-class heroes he happens upon in the street

garou meets tareo for the first time

garou defeats golden ball and spring mustachio

garou meets saitama for the first time unknowingly, but is of course immediately dispatched with a chop to the shoulder and passes out for the night in the middle of the street

day 3:

garou wakes up in a pile of trash bags that he was apparently moved to in the night

garou meets tareo a second time

garou fights metal bat, ending in a draw

garou is first confronted by the monster association but declines their offer to join

garou seeks out watchdog man but has to withdraw from the fight

day 4 (and probably eventually late enough at night to technically leak into a fifth day):

garou wakes with a fever and plans to lie low for a few days, but tareo happens to be forced into the shed he’s staying at by his mean “friends” and they talk for a bit

garou is ambushed by several heroes but defeats them all despite being ill. tareo gets scared of him and runs away

genos fights garou but is interrupted by bang and bomb, who beat the shit out of garou. to his credit he keeps trucking the entire time

but regardless before either side can be victorious the bird costume guy just. picks him up by the arms. and flies away. garou screams at him and complains the entire time but eventually he passes out while they’re in the air

garou wakes up at some point mid-day in the monster association. they tell him to go outside and kill a hero. sword hands guy and bug guy are sent to tail him

garou eats an inhuman amount of food at a restaurant without paying and is followed by saitama (who forgot his wallet and used chasing after garou as an excuse to get out of it)

garou comes across tareo again and saves him from some bullies

saitama finds garou and garou tries to pick a fight with him but is knocked out immediately. tareo manages to wake him up shortly after, however

sword hands guy and bug guy show up and fight garou. garou tells tareo to run and holds his ground fairly well until a third monster shows up having captured tareo, which distracts him just long enough that sword hands guy lands a hit, which in turn is enough to put an end to whatever fumes garou is running on. garou gets cut to shit and is presumed dead by all present

tareo is taken back to the monster association hq

garou wakes up sometime in the late evening or night, completely vital again. at this point he’s not entirely human anymore, though he still looks it his regen abilities have skyrocketed and his clothing is fused to/a part of his body.

garou enters the monster association hq to look for tareo (though he wouldn’t admit that’s why)

garou begins eating monster corpses as he kills those he comes across, presumably because his transformation is using up so much energy that he’s starving All The Time

garou breaks into the cell that sword hands guy has taken tareo into and kills him and starts to lead tareo out

they come across rover but he gets them away by backing away slowly which surprisingly works

three other monsters attack them and garou takes care of them but not before they agitate rover

garou and tareo split up, tareo runs away while garou fights rover

rovers attacks end up landing garou in the room with gyorogyoro and orochi where he confronts them

garou fights orochi

??? (orochi wasn’t in the webcomic and this is as far as the manga has gotten so it’s unclear what’ll happen here to make up for the discrepancies)

garou resurfaces outside of the monster assoc hq to confront the remaining heroes, having begun to show physical signs of transformation into a monster

various s-class heroes try to confront him but all fail. saitama cant manage to catch him at this point and garou ignores saitama in favor of the s-classes

garou threatens to kill tareo if they don’t stop him. no one really makes any moves to stop him but eventually saitama intercepts

garou is still like “i’m gonna kill the kid over here if you don’t stop me!” and saitama points out that tareo isn’t even where he is headed, that he knows tareo isn’t in that direction, and that he is bluffing

garou and saitama fight sorta; garou can take saitamas punches pretty easy at this point. saitama calls him soft and points out that he’s holding back/going easy, i.e. that he isn’t fighting to kill

as they fight some s-class heroes gain vitality and garou acts surprised and saitamas like “dude. You Were Fighting Them Non Lethally. You Left Them Alive On Purpose.” which garou refuses to admit

garou gives his longass speech about his actual reasoning for doing what he’s doing—it’s not just that he wants to be a monster, his ultimate goal is to be a unifying factor for all mankind by being something everyone universally hates and fears; he naïvely believes that prejudice, war, crime, bullying, etc. will all be cast aside in favor of trying to defeat the God-Level Monster Garou. he demands to know why saitama is a hero, to which he of course replies it’s a hobby

garou gets pissed off at the fact saitamas motivation is so menial and that he can’t land any real hits on saitama and transforms further and then further again but he still can’t really do shit and he starts to lose steam and get to be more small and humanoid again

saitama really starts to dig into him at this point like he points out that what garou really wanted was to be a hero, but he thought it wasn’t going to work out so he settled on being a monster instead because “a monsters job is easier”

saitama punches away his monster form. literally punches it away and it crumbles and he’s like, inside there. what’s up with that

garou, seeing his purpose as being null, loses the will to go on

bang beats him up a little bit and he doesn’t bother to fight back, but he notes bang isn’t really trying to hurt him that hard

other heroes insist garou has to die, but tareo cries and insists he’s not a bad person because he’s saved him multiple times in just a few days

tareo’s support makes him realize he doesn’t really want to die here

garou escapes, with only saitama being able to actually process what direction he even went in bc he was moving so fast, and isn’t seen again in the webcomic for literally half a decade!

some unspecified time later idk a few days

king, while visiting an old abandoned dojo with a mummy, starts to go to a waterfall out back to get a drink but gets scared and runs away upon seeing garou is there

garou notices him somehow despite the fact that he’s sitting under a fuuuucking waterfall like hello? well that’s fine sweetie glad to see u again

[whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer]

salty ask #3 and also #19 (naruto)

Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? 

So far no. I do have opinions that would make me unfollow a person though. 

Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not?

First off, I have not finished Naruto so please keep that in mind. 

When a person thinks of anime Naruto is one of the series that first comes to mind because of its popularity. I never watched anime as a kid if you don’t count Avatar the Last Airbended and 1984 Voltron but even I knew of Naruto. Eventually I got into anime - just few years prior I had read Sailor Moon and watched a few episodes of Ouran High-school Host Club but neither were something that made me further interested in trying out other manga/anime, Death Note was what brought me into be ing interested in anime/manga - therefore late last year (hc this year has gone by) I decided to give that really popular ninja anime a try. 

I would not highly recommend Naruto despite really loving some of the characters in the series. (Also it depends on the friend because of their preferences and drawbacks because I have several series I have recommended to one friend but won’t try to get another friend to watch because I know she wouldn’t be able to watch it.) If I was to recommend to a friend I would give them the pros and cons of the series without trying to spoil it too much because Naruto has interesting characters and concepts but I get frustrated by how they are handled. Which to be fair not all series have to be well written to be good. Sometimes a series being fun is and should be good enough on its own but after so much of the series has its main character promising to fix things and bring their friend back home I feel like a fan’s frustration on not having these things fulfilled is reasonable. Especially since the narrative of the ending of the Naruto series isn’t sometimes the heroes lose, sometimes you can’t get everything you want, but rather treats it as though it’s perfectly fine. 

Naruto sweetie you are a hat wearing dog in a room on fire. It is not all right. 

Why I wouldn’t recommended it: 

1.) The series begins with Naruto being the underdog who wants to achieve the goal of becoming Hokage so he can be acknowledged in a positive light by the village that has neglected and hated him but as the series progresses he (and Sasuke) become more and more powerful until they’re apparently reincarnated of a son a moon goddess. Having an overpowered main character is not of itself a bad story. How you handle that idea is what makes or breaks it. (Also if the main female character has been working her butt off so she can be at their level and has finally reached her goal only for the author to gives her two teammates powers ups - don’t even get me started on Naruto healing Kakashi’s eyes - I’m going to be upset on principle even if I wasn’t a Sakura fan.) Look at One Punch Man. 

Saitama can defeat any opponent with a single punch but the series is not boring. Saitama before the story began decided he wanted to be a superhero and does workout routine which somehow not only gains him the ability to defeat any opponent it also took Saitama’s hair. Okay, in all seriousness (though Saitama does lose his hair because of the workout - I wasn’t making that up) One Punch Man is the story of how a person obtained their dream and falls out of love with it because there’s no challenge in it for him anymore and, with no challenge, one cannot grow. Saitama is stagnant. The story of One Punch Man is relatable despite again the main character being able to defeat anyone with a single punch. Because of this we are rooting for Saitama when he finds another goal and we appreciate Genos who is helping Saitama with fighting his depression. 

Now with Naruto the first series was a tale of an underdog only for Shippuden to take place and the writer pours that important part of the original series down the drain. 

Not only is Naruto a tailed beast he is the vessel of the most powerful tailed beast, he is the son of the former Hokage, he is from clan that gives his an abundant amount chakra and the clan is almost completely gone besides a few other members, he’s the reincarnation of the first Hokage and the reincarnation of some son of a goddess who became the last boss fight in the series. 

Again having an over powered character in and of itself is not a bad thing. How you handle it is what makes and breaks the idea. The attempt in Naruto was poor because it majorly contradicts the theme of the first part of the series. 

2.) Reminder: I have not seen all of Naruto and I haven’t read a single issue of the manga so I may be wrong about this. I’m also probably going to piss off a lot of people with this point but this is a salt post. 

First off let me say there is nothing wrong with Naruto wanting to be Hokage as a child. He was neglected and hated by his village that he was a child soldier for. But as he grew older I wished Naruto realized how he could never have the two things he wanted: to be (positively) acknowledged by the village and to change the system. In normal position of power a leader will not be able to please everyone so in a society that’s been set in its ways and has only known a system where children are soldiers. This was a system Naruto wanted to change and he needed to realize if he wanted to become Hokage he was going to have to give up one or another. The pretense of the village acknowledging him or fixing the problems.

Naruto as far as I know never has this debate nor to my knowledge does Naruto ever wonder if another person would be a better Hokage than he would. 

3.) The treatment of female characters. Sakura deserved so much better and I’m leaving it at that, Konan shouldn’t have been forced to support Naruto because it contradicts her goals and my paper angel should have came back with the other Akatsuki members when Edo Tensai happened, Hinata deserved to punish her father and the other members of house who were pro Hyugga slavery and to not have her children anywhere near that asshole, and Ino deserved to be fighting with her teammates against Hidan & Kakuzu and she deserved to beat Sakura during their fight in the Chunin Exam especially since whatever Inner Sakura was was never acknowledged in the plot afterwards.

 I’m not naming all of the female characters and the reasons they deserve better (because they all deserve better) because I’ll be here all night. 

That said they all also deserve better than how the majority of the fandom treats them. :) 

4.) Orochimaru is not dead despite all the horrible things he’s done to children and just in the series in general. The salt to that injury is Tenzo (a child Orochimaru experimented on) is having to watch Orochimaru who gets off scot free and it’s treated like this funny??? It’s not funny writers. All it makes me want to do is Charlie Bone myself into the series so I can hug Tenzo and murder Orochimaru myself. 

5.) The Uchiha Massacre being once again covered up. 

[ariahearthockey]

Love Me, If You Will - Chapter 3

Prologue | Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

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Fandom: Men’s Hockey RPF

Pairing: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin

Tags: 2017 NHL Playoffs, Concussion, Memory Loss, Medical Inaccuracies, Unexplained Medical Conditions, Alternate Reality, Time Travel (sort of), Pining, Fluff, Porn With Feelings, Happy Ending (sort of)

Soundtrack: Dancing On My Own - Calum Scott

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Chapter 3

He feels odd walking down the familiar hallway towards the locker room in the PPG Paint Arena. Everything looks as it should be and yet, it feels somewhat difference. He has just finished a brief chat with Sully in his office, relaying the good news after his follow-up check-up with the team doctor. As expected, Dr Vyas has cleared him to play in game five but not before he is reminded to keep a look out for any more symptoms. He has decided not to enclose his issue with his messed-up memory, and it is arguably the most conflicted he has ever felt. It feels a lot like a betrayal of trust to the management, but with the playoff on the line, too much is at risk.

On the drive from their house to the rink, he has some time to think about the matter on hand and he has decided not to let anyone know other than himself and Geno. He is still shaken about it for sure, but years of practice has allowed him to compartmentalise his fear and do what needs to be done. And what he needs is for this to not interfere with his chance to go for the Stanley Cup with his team.

It took him more than half an hour in the staffs' parking lot to convince Geno. Geno has looked so offended when he has first suggested to keep it a secret. Geno was absolutely appalled and almost recruited Brisson to talk some sense into him until he begs Geno not to. He talked to Geno with as much sincerity as he could muster, reasoning with Geno that there would not be a quick fix to his condition. What if Dr. Vyas decided to pull him out for the rest of the playoff? What good will that do to the team?

And Geno had been so angry that he said to hell with the playoff because everything else pales in comparison to Sidney's health. Sidney would have been really touched by that, that Geno is genuinely scared for his sake. If only he wasn't a selfish bastard.

He pried further into Geno's weakness and used it to his advantage. He pleaded Geno to understand his desire to keep playing, telling him how much it would mean for him if he could raise the cup over his head again, how happy it would make him if they could kiss the cup again and bring it home together. And that if his memory never comes back, then at least he could have this, and they could build new ones together. It was a cheap shot, borderline manipulative to be taking advantage of Geno's kindness like that, but he was desperate, and it did get him what he wanted. Geno's reluctance was torn down bits by bits, and finally crumbled down when Sidney promised to come clean right away when he feels any worse.

So, as of right now, the secret is safe. 

In a moment of honesty, he is willing to admit that he has never been as shaken as he has. He is somehow thrust in the center on an entirely different life that he knows nothing of. He has a husband and a beautiful, doting 3-year old daughter. Sofya, the child who is rightfully theirs through surrogacy. He is still not done digesting the fact that his own sister has volunteered to donate her egg and carry the child to term. It feels all too weird at first, but when he sees the picture of his—their daughter—on Geno's phone, he has never been more thankful. Dressed in tiny hockey gears, bright smile on her face, and clutching a giant penguin plushie in her tiny arms, she is just a ball of sunshine that makes him want to weep. A little bit of Geno and a little bit of him, she is just the perfect little miracle that melts his heart through and through.

And then he wonders to himself, how could I have forgotten my own child, as sweet and as beautiful as her? And all that has accomplished is making him dispose of any doubt he has for keeping his condition under wraps. This whole thing about not remembering is messing with him quite a lot. He can't seem to shake off the gnawing feelings his guts. It grows stronger with more stones being turned, and he can't ignore that something is disproportionately wrong with him. He thinks that it is his body trying to tell him something, that maybe his time as a hockey player is dated. That thought leaves him petrified and that further pushes him to make the most out of whatever time he still has.

He doesn't know what to expect when he pushes the door into the locker room. It smells just as it should be right after every practice session and just as loud too, maybe even louder. The picture of twenty over something men in all states of undress is a comfortable norm to him and for brief moment, he feels at home for the first time since he woke up. He doesn't know why but he comes in, prepared to feel somewhat out of place, but the warm greetings and lame chirps from his teammates give him a sense of familiarity he didn't know he craves until now. It calms him.

Geno is already out of his gear—thankfully with his undershirt still on—when he makes a beeline over to Sidney. He ducks down to give Sidney a chaste kiss on the mouth and hears some of the guys in the room hollering at them to get a room or something along that line and Geno chirping back. He doesn't know what to make of that little display of affection, nor he has the time to, because his mind is still reeling with it as he is being escorted back to Geno's stall. It isn't much, just a brief touching of lips on lips but it is enough to keep him stunned for a bit. The guys don't seem to bat an eye to see their captain and their alternate kiss, which tells him that it may be something of a frequent occurance. 

Oh, yes. Of course it does. He just remembered that he and Geno have been married for five fucking years. They are practically one of the old married couples now.

"Sid, talk with Sully okay?" Geno asks and he almost can't hear it when the younger guys throw a couple more dirty chirps their way that comprises of their sex life. Sidney blushes and nods at Geno as a respond before they are once again interrupted, this time by Cully who comes by and gives his back a couple of friendly pats.

"Hey, babe. Good to have you back in one piece. You scared the hell out of a lot of us when you stayed down on the ice, especially your protective Russian bear over here."

"It's true, I can attest to that." Chimes Phil who looks like he has just came out of the shower judging by how his hair matted on his forehead. "You know, this guy here looked about to hurl when you went down and it took three of us to physically stop him from going over to make Niskanen pay."

Sidney chuckles when Geno grumbles disapprovingly at the two babble mouths and to his surprise, he finds Grumpy Geno kind of adorable. "Well, it's really just bad luck that he got me that way. It's just how it is, right? I don't think it was on purpose or anything. It's just ill-timed, is all. I think he left me several texts, probably apologising, but I haven't check them out yet, so."

"Ill-timed my ass! More like perfectly timed to me, man. If he hits any harder, who knows if it's gonna end it for you right there and then, huh? I don't know about you guys, man, but Flower definitely agrees with me, right Flower?"

"Huh?" Flower looks up from his lap where his helmet is on, and takes a few moments looking back and forth between Kuni and Sidney to catch on to what is being asked of him. He tosses a roll of tape onto the bench and smooths his long fringe away from his eyes. "Oh, yeah. For sure, man. Sid, so glad you're okay. What Nisky did was so not cool and I'm gonna make sure he knows that we're very upset with him."

Sidney frowns because Flower is usually not much of an instigator but he must say, he is curious to see what Flower would do to show his dissatisfaction. "Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry for making you guys worry about me. But hey—it's game four. You guys are gonna kill it tonight, eh?"

"Hell yeah, baby!"

"You bet your gigantic ass we will!"

"We're gonna take this game for you, man!"

"For Sid!"

"Watch and learn, boys. I'm gonna make Ovi cry like a baby tonight."

To say that Sidney is touched by the support from his teammates is an understatement, especially when Horny make his way over without a word and gives him a tight, bone-crushing hug. It lasts longer than any ordinary locker room hugs should be, and probably longer than Geno has liked because it has him practically prying Horny's arms away to end it. When they part, Sidney thinks he caught a glimpse of Horny's watery eyes before he heads out of the locker room. At that moment, he thinks himself as the most privileged guy to be surrounded by these group of good people and he is grateful.

He stays in the room while he waits for Geno to come back. Geno is with Dana in the equipment room, sorting out some issue Geno has on his pair of new skates. Some of the rookies come to him and they talk for a bit, mostly asking how he is doing and talking about how to improve their plays. Shearsy—who is also out for concussion—sits quietly beside him and listens when he comments about Jake's wrist shots.

It is nice to be having these talks with the boys. It makes him feel like he is contributing something to the team, as much as it distracts him from searching for answers that never seem to be there. For what it is worth, apart from being called Mrs Malkin every five minutes or so—all in good fun, of course—the team is still more or less the same. They are still the same driven group and he wants nothing more than to help them achieve their best game, regardless if he is playing or not.

Optimistically, everything will return to normal once he regains his lost memories. But realistically, the brain is quite a fickle thing and God knows what will happen to him in the near future, if his health will deteriorate drastically at some point. Whichever way his health leads him to, he wants to be able to look himself in the mirror and says that he has done everything he can to help his team be the better team.

"Okay, rookies. Time's up. I'm take husband back now."

"Come on, Geno. Don't hog Sid all to yourself, man."

"I'm hog because I'm put ring on it. Now fuck off, Olli."

Geno squeezes himself into the space between Olli and Sidney and pushes Olli's blonde head away. Olli pushes back playfully and it makes Geno loses his balance a little, causing him to land onto Sidney's lap. Sidney catches a lapful of Geno and his hands flies up to Geno's waist on instinct, just as Geno wraps his arms around Sidney's shoulders. He has to bite back a moan when Geno moves to sits himself more comfortable and—probably not deliberately—grinding onto his crotch. He can't help the blush that rises when the rookies give them some horrified scandalous looks.

"Oh, come on. Really? Stop with the foreplay, dude. You know we can't unsee this, right?"

"Don't be baby. You see worse." Geno snarks at Jake as he make a show to tease the watchful eyes around them by tracing his hand slowly down the line of Sidney's spine. Sidney can't help the shiver that wrecks through his body and hides his profile behind of Geno, shielding his blush that is unmistakably colouring his cheeks.

"Ugh, don't remind me. I'm still trying to bleach that image of your naked ass out of my brain."

"Hey, is good ass." Geno counters and defends his ass further when the rookies shakes their head in disbelief. "You not believe me? Wait, I'm show—"

"Yeah, okay. I think we're just gonna go now and leave you two to it. And Sidney, try not to drain too much out of Geno, okay? We kinda need him tonight? Alright. Good talk, team. Dismiss!"

It is amusing to see how fast the rookies can disperse at the threat of seeing Geno's ass. Just in a few minutes time, Sidney finds himself alone with Geno in the room, with Geno still perched comfortably on his lap. He is in no hurry to get Geno off, and he will never admit it to Geno, but he is starting to lose feelings in his legs.

"Sorry for long wait. I'm make sure Dana do job."

Sidney glances up and stunned to have Geno's face just inches away from his. "It's fine, G. New skates, I know how it is."

"Yes. Dana say Sid worse than me."

Sidney shoves him away with a firm push and laughs a little guiltily when Geno lands on the carpeted floor with a thud.

"Hey, why Sid push me? What I'm say?" Geno asks as Sidney straightens his suit and heading for the door.

"Yeah, keep playing dumb, Geno. Come on, I'm hungry. Hurry up or I'm leaving without you." He shouts over his shoulder just as the door closes, and hears Geno chuckling lightly on the other side of the door.

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