#All Might's Attack Chicken [Original video]

[someawesomeamvs]

Warning: Potential spoilers, violence

Title: All Might's Attack Chicken

Editor: Mämmi Kunniaan

Song: Chicken Attack

Artist: schmoyoho

Anime: Boku no Hero Academia, Fairy Tail, One Piece, Naruto Shippuden, Dragon Ball Z, Jujutsu Kaisen, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Kimetsu no Yaiba, Shingeki no Kyojin, Hunter X Hunter (2011)

Category: Comedy

Awards: Suomen AMV Masters - 2nd Place SacAnime Winter 2024 - Best Comedy

[myovergrowngarden]

Chickens (a prose poem by Stephanie Rose Hold, first published in Beyond Words Literary Magazine's "My Greatest Fear" Anthology)

I am embarrassed to admit that a part of me is afraid of chickens. I’m afraid of plenty of other things, but chickens are without a doubt one of the strangest things I find myself petrified by. Spiders, rats, bats, and snakes are at least common fears, even if they aren’t all equally rational. These creatures can carry disease or deadly venom. Most people wouldn’t question my fear of them, even those who keep them as pets. I have met people who have nearly been killed by snakes or been bitten by spiders and feared for their lives. None of these things can be said of chickens. To some they’re pets, to others they’re food, and to those who have never seen one in person they’re funny little creatures from cartoons. They are some of the smallest and weakest of the birds who can’t really fly. They don’t hold the might of the emu, who defeated Australia in war. Nor do they hold the aggressive reputation of the goose. 

When I think of the goose, I start to understand why chickens scare me. Geese are reviled as villainous beasts. Creatures of pure malice with the power to back it up. There are video games and comics written on the subject of their wrath. I've heard more jokes about evil geese than I have about chickens crossing the road. Despite all of this bravado offered to the goose, I know exactly how I would defend myself from one. I’ve done enough research to recite it by memory. If they begin to charge you, you’re supposed to keep calm as you move out of its range. If it flies at you, you’re simply supposed to duck or evade without breaking eye contact. One should not break eye contact with a goose, or let it believe that you’re afraid of it, otherwise its attack will have validity and it will not back down. The main reason you shouldn’t hit a goose if it attacks you is that it will inspire other birds to join the goose in its assault. It’s not because the goose is an almighty god that cannot be stuck down, but instead because it would force you to answer the question of exactly how many birds you can fight at once. 

The best defense is a cool head, and a slow retreat. Humans are naturally superior to geese in physicality, intimidation is their only meaningful weapon. I don’t really fear geese because there are so many clean and easy ways to keep them away from me. I cannot say the same for the chicken. The best advice I’ve gotten to deal with a chicken attack is to wear sturdy shoes and thick pants so that their attacks won’t be effective. I find it deeply troubling that the only way to deal with a hypothetical chicken encounter is to hope that your leg coverings will endure until it grows tired of violence. It doesn’t have the same social rituals as a goose, nor the elongated neck that makes for a weak point in the worst case scenario, you simply have to wait it out and pray that the clucking horror takes mercy on your poor limbs. 

Unsatisfied, I did some research on the subject, but what I discovered was far more upsetting. The number one tip for dealing with a chicken is to “cuddle” it into submission. One is supposed to hold the chicken gently, but firmly, until it is no longer consumed by wrath. I found this to be a truly horrifying notion. Everyone else is so unafraid of chickens, and sees them as such a minimal threat, that the solution to an attack is a comforting embrace? If I’m afraid of something I’m not going to hug it, especially if it’s attacking me. Even if I did, it would be a weak hug, and that would ultimately cause me more suffering than simply letting it attack. 

This is why the chicken, the most covertly monstrous of all creatures, lingers so heavily in my mind. I may fear nearly everything nature has to offer, but the chicken is a problem with no rational solution, with no means to reasonably defeat it. This terror has no origin. If there was a childhood experience with a vicious fowl it didn’t linger in my memory. It isn’t one particular trait they hold that other birds don’t, it’s the lack of a clear answer to the question of how to evade the monsters. The grand majority of people would see it as a silly question: chickens are friendly, they aren’t quick to anger, every chicken I’ll see in my lifetime is domesticated. But this round, soft, backyard bird is a thing of nightmares to me because I have no way to fight it. I simply have to hope that my fear is as irrational as everyone says it is, and that I can keep a wide berth of chickens for as long as I live.

[pareidoliaonthemove]

Shark Safety DocuVid

I'm going to be honest with you, I have no idea where this story came from.

A co-worker sent me the image, you'll see below (originally published on canihascheezburger.com), and I was happily minding my own business, when I got ambushed by Gordon doing science.

So yeah, just remember, kids: sharks live in the ocean. You don't. Respect them. Respect their home.

“Shark Safety DocuVid”

[Video Starts]

[Gordon Tracy is reclining on a lounger beside a pool, in the background, part of a building can be seen.]

Gordon: Hello, World. Gordon Tracy here, coming to you from poolside at Tracy Island. Now, you all know that as part of International Rescue, I see a lot of death and injuries – not a cool part of the gig, to be honest. But, because I’m the aquanaut, I also see a lot of underwater life – and that is the cool part of the gig.

Now, I know we’ve all seen a lot of …

[air quotes]

Gordon: … “shark attacks” in the media recently, and I just wanted to remind you all that we’re just visiting their environment. It’s where they live. “Attack” is the wrong word to use. It implies that the shark means to do harm, that the shark wants to hurt people. Nothing could be further from the truth. Poor shark thinks people might be food, so take a bite to check out that hypothesis. Shark science, if you will.

Now, I know a lot of you have seen this meme going around:

[Screen changes to image of great white shark swimming in ocean. Text superimposed over the image reads: Why are you always blaming us for shark attacks? If a bucket of fried chicken came skateboarding through your living room, what would you do?]

Gordon: So, in the interests of human science, I thought I’d do a little experiment and share the results with you.

*        *        *

[Text Card on Screen: Skateboarding Fried Chicken Test subject 1]

[High angle shot showing the Lounge in the Tracy Island Villa. Virgil Tracy is sitting at the piano, playing an involved piece of classical music. A skateboard bearing a large container filled with fried chicken trundles into view, passing by him. Virgil does a double take, but resumes playing as the skateboard trundles off the edge off the balcony.]

*        *        *

[Text Card on Screen: Skateboarding Fried Chicken Test subject 2]

[High angle shot showing the Lounge in the Tracy Island Villa. John Tracy is sitting at the desk, working. Skateboard bearing a large container filled with chicken trundles into view. John does a double take, and gets up to investigate, stumbling and bumping into the skateboard, spinning the container and chicken on the floor.]

*        *        *

[Text Card on Screen: Skateboarding Fried Chicken Test subject 3]

[High angle shot showing the Lounge in the Tracy Island Villa. Grandma Tracy is sitting in the lounge circle, watching TV soap opera on holovid. Skateboard bearing a large container filled with chicken trundles into view. Grandma does a double take, looks around, and gets up angrily, bearing down on something hidden outside the field of the camera.]

*        *        *

[Text Card on Screen: Skateboarding Fried Chicken Test subject 4]

[High angle shot showing the Lounge in the Tracy Island Villa. Alan Tracy is standing in the lounge circle, playing a VR reality game. Skateboard bearing a large container filled with chicken trundles into view. Alan continues playing, completely oblivious to what is happening around him.]

*        *        *

[Text Card on Screen: Skateboarding Fried Chicken Test subjects 5 & 6]

[High angle shot showing the Lounge in the Tracy Island Villa. Brains and MAX are standing by the desk, apparently waiting for someone to arrive. Skateboard bearing a large container filled with chicken trundles into view. Brains stares disconcerted at chicken, MAX intercepts chicken, and gently returns it on its original vector.]

*        *        *

[Text Card on Screen: Skateboarding Fried Chicken Test subject 7]

[High angle shot showing the Lounge in the Tracy Island Villa. Kayo is sitting in the lounge circle, reading. Skateboard bearing a large container filled with chicken trundles into view. Kayo considers chicken, scans room, and stalks off camera, apparently pursing someone running, judging by the sounds of rapid footsteps heard.]

*        *        *

[Text Card on Screen: Skateboarding Fried Chicken Test subject 8]

[High angle shot showing the Lounge in the Tracy Island Villa. Scott Tracy is sitting in at the desk, working on reports. Skateboard bearing a large container filled with chicken trundles into view. Scott considers chicken, scans room, and gets up to retrieve chicken; he again scans the room, picks up a piece of chicken, and sniffs it cautiously. After scanning the room again, he shrugs, takes a bite, and returns to desk with chicken.]

*        *        *

[Image returns to Gordon Tracy, poolside.]

Gordon: So there we have it, folks, out of eight ‘shark’ encounters our surfing chicken was completely ignored three times; accidentally bumped into once; ignored in favour of …

[air quotes]

Gordon: … “more suitable” prey, twice; relocated once; and attacked once. So, in summary I think you’re pretty safe from sharks in the water. Just remember if you see a shark, CALMLY remove yourself and others from the water. Don’t splash, don’t thrash, and don’t panic. Just calmly and slowly swim back in. And so, folks –

[A shadow falls over Gordon, and Scott Tracy steps into view. He is wearing a t-shirt emblazoned with the words “Danger: Killer Shark”, and is obviously very angry.]

Scott: Gordon, you wouldn’t happen to know exactly what. Happened. To. ALL. MY. SHIRTS.

Gordon: I gotta run. Peace out.

[Gordon moves to run as Scott moves in, upsetting the lounger Gordon was lying on, and knocking over the camera, which lies on its side, blocked by the lounger. The sounds of a struggle can be heard, culminating a massive splash.

The film ends.]

[millenniumfae]

Video Game Cooking: Sugars (Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice)

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice is a standalone historical fantasy made by the famous people who also created Dark Souls and Bloodborne. It became an instant hit, and garnered massive critical acclaim. You control the broody shinobi Wolf as he battles entire armies and legendary beasts.

One of the many consumables in-game are the Sugars; Gokan’s Sugar, Ako’s Sugar, Yashariku’s Sugar, Ungo’s Sugar, and Gachiin’s Sugar. These candies are named and colored differently, and each offer a different effect. One raises your attack power, another makes you more stealthy, and so on.

Today, we’re gonna be re-creating these Sugars with our own recipe. And true to my tradition when it comes to Video Game Recipes, we’re gonna be taking our ingredients accurate to the setting. Which in this case is Sengoku period Japan. This recipe meta draws especially true to my own heritage, as a Taiwanese person.

Sekiro Senpou Temple Sugars: Recipe (makes 10-20 individual candies, depending on the size)

Base candy recipe:

3 3/4 cups granulated raw cane sugar

1 1/2 cups golden syrup/brown rice syrup

1 cup water

Corn starch for mold making (optional)

Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Flavorings:

Fresh ginger slices (Gokan’s Sugar)

Dried lotus seeds (Gokan’s Sugar)

Red cherries (Ako’s Sugar)

Dried Astragalus (Ako’s Sugar)

Ginseng (Ungo’s Sugar)

White peaches (Ungo’s Sugar)

Sake (Yashariku’s Sugar)

Dried Cocklebur fruit (Yashariku’s Sugar)

Dried Orange peel (Gachiin’s Sugar)

Dried Goji berries (Gachiin’s Sugar)

Food coloring

(Sekiro won the 2019 Game Of The Year award, the first FromSoftware game to do so.)

To make our Sugars, we’ll be infusing a traditional candy base with various ingredients, unique for each candy. Every ingredient is based off of TCM, which is an acronym standing for Traditional Chinese Medicine. For those unacquainted with TCM, it can be hard to explain its influence. There’s no true western equivalent because it’s more than just ‘old household remedies’, it’s almost a given that Asian citizens take various TCM practices seriously to a degree. Like westerners do with honey lemon tea, or chicken noodle soup.

It’s also accurate to the game. Sekiro takes its setting very seriously. Everything from weapons, to hairstyles, to interior decor, even down to the kanji on Emma’s note in the beginning of the game is true to the Sengoku period, and some levels even go backwards a bit to the Heinan period, to reflect an ancient atmosphere. You can reasonably minus the historical inaccuracies on your own volition; giant snake gods, lightning powers, and automatic prosthetic grappling hooks weren’t indigenous to Japan.

Except there’s in fact one tiny detail that you might be surprised to learn is actually anachronistic; disk-shaped hard candies. The Sugars.

Hard candies aren’t traditional East-Asian treats. Sugar was always readily available in the form of sugar cane, true, but sweets almost always took the form of fruit, and candy-coated/infused ingredients. This is true worldwide until refining sugar into its white form became common, but East-Asia in particular wasn’t munching on lozenges while Marie Antoinette already had cough drops.

The Sengoku period stretched from the early Renaissance to the Baroque period. While Wolf was parrying his way through the Ashina Outskirts, the first King James Bible was published. There was plate armor and court jesters, but also firearms and photographs. Japan didn’t get access to matchlock firearms until 1542, and since the Sunken Valley clan seems to define themselves by the expert use of these guns, it makes sense that the intro to the game itself dates Sekiro as specifically taking place in the latter years of the Sengoku period.

All throughout this stretch of two centuries, Japan has been under constant war and political strife, lending to the Sengoku period’s alternative name, the ‘Warring States Period’. Japan consisted of separate nations, all led under Daimyo and warlords and various nobles that demanded their armies scramble for more land and resources. Living under this kind of conflict for so long means that innovations and education are rare. There’s no opportunity to invent the telescope when you’re all constantly worried about your lives.

This means that the food of Sekiro would have very much been the same it’s been since centuries beforehand. Even though by this point, the Columbian Exchange has been well underway and Europe was experimenting with tomatoes in their food, Japan wasn’t enjoying this same golden period. Any developments would have been weaponry, not candy making methods.

This means that, for our recipe, we’re not using anything that a Senpou monk wouldn’t have access to. No potatoes, corn, vanilla, etc. No beet sugar, or fruits that aren’t native to Japan. Even the raw cane sugar we’re using is pushing the authenticity envelope, because the ‘raw’ granulated sugar you find in grocery stores aren’t completely raw, they’ve still been refined using lye and carbon to strip much of the molasses. True raw cane sugar, when boiled down from its juice form, makes a traditional Asian ingredient called black sugar, which is very dark in color and not suited for making the brightly-colored candy disks that the Sugars appear to be.

(Shinobi aren’t samurai, but Wolf’s relationship with Kuro is so clearly samurai-ish that we can assume Wolf was being paid buckets as a high-prestige warrior. He also would have access to better food, including white rice; which, while already genetically modified through breeding by the Sengoku period, wouldn’t have looked like modern rice. Or maybe Wolf wasn’t enjoying the high life, because he dresses in rags compared to Genichiro and apparently didn’t know rice was supposed to be cooked.)

Knowing all that history about the Sengoku period, it’s almost silly to see candy consumables in-game, looking like they came right out of a bag of Werther’s Originals. The developers of Sekiro made many lengths to ensure everything was authentic, so why are the candies so modern-looking when they could instead have been a traditional Sengoku period sweet like something mochi-based, or agar (seaweed) jellies?

The lore behind the Sugars are that the evil Senpou monks were mass-producing these candies, and selling them all across Ashina to fund their crooked child experiments. They’re not just (presumably) tasty, they offer benefits to your health. That’s definitely in line with TCM culture, and gives us some inspiration for how to pursue replicating them.

One important note; the Sugars are some of the lesser consumables Wolf can use. Almost all other consumables are better, offering more powerful effects for a longer duration. So what if these candies were true to TCM and were mere treats infused with medicinal ingredients, only capable of giving you a small boost? Especially in comparison to the Divine Child’s rice, which would be like an Epi-Pen in this analogy.

But there’s even more depth to the consumables than that. Kuro gifts Wolf a ‘sweet rice ball’ at some point, which is almost certainly an Ohagi bun; made out of glutinous rice, red beans, and sugar, and its a traditional offering for the Buddhist observance of seasonal equinox. Eating it is sometimes said to bring protection. In order for Kuro to make Wolf this rice ball, you gotta give him some of that special rice from the Divine Child. Wolf offhandedly mentions that her rice is “sweet when you bite into it”, and Kuro realizes that Wolf has been eating these rice grains raw all this time, like the feral 5′5 goblin he is. Kuro vows to give his loyal protector something nice to eat, for once, and makes him three Ohagi dumplings.

The food of Sekiro is symbolic. The Divine Child is able to make rice out of thin air, like a deity of fertility. Kuro takes this divine rice, and his sweet rice ball is more powerful than the magical blessed Sugars because it was made with compassion. And eating Kuro’s lovingly-made rice ball reminds Wolf of once being fed a rice ball when he was young and starving, given to him by his assfuck of a father who’s compassion is heavily in question.

The Sugars are described as giving the eater a ‘benediction’ of power, and who knows what the translators were thinking, but the word choice reminds us of communion, and the flesh and blood of Christ. It’s not a true comparison; communion is about replicating and worshiping the Last Supper, reminding Christians about Jesus willingly dying cause humans are sinful. Consuming the ‘flesh and blood’ of Jesus in the form of bread and wine is very different than eating a candy apparently blessed by an ancient Japanese warrior. It’s not like communion wafers are supposed to empower you, or protect you.

Looking at the in-game image of each Sugar, you can see the likeness of a person behind it, likely the very warrior the Sugar is named after. We don’t know if these people actually had a hand in these Sugars, somehow transplanting their power into each individual candy, or if the monks just named the candies after them. Either way, the process of receiving the benefits of the Sugars isn’t just about crunching it between your teeth, Wolf also takes a moment to strike a‘warrior stances’, which, according to the descriptions, is a required detail to properly absorb the candy’s effects. Each Sugar has their own corresponding ‘stance’ that Wolf performs. It’s a weird detail, and raises even more questions about the Sugars, the monks, and the warriors behind the candy.

(Observant players will note that the five Headless boss enemies drop ‘spiritfalls’, each of which share names with the five Sugars, and offer upgraded versions of their corresponding Sugar; Ako’s Spiritfall is basically a better version of Ako’s Sugar, and so on. We can assume that the Headless are, in fact, the very same legendary warriors that powered the Sugars, especially since the game itself states that the Headless are undead remains of powerful individuals.)

True to FromSoftware tradition, details are included with purpose. And also at the same time, some details are just meant to be taken at face value. The various centipede-themed enemies in Sekiro are associated with kegare - spiritual defilement, death - explaining visually their willing abandonment from Buddhism. But there’s likely no lore explaining why Wolf can automatically hoover up all nearby enemy loot like a vacuum with the press of a button.

The inexplicable details of FromSoftware games are almost certainly because of gameplay convenience. Many characters are 9-10 feet tall for no reason, towering over Wolf, who’s already short to begin with. Lore-wise, it doesn’t make sense for so many completely human characters to be so gratuitously large. Gameplay-wise, it’s a lot easier to observe an enemy’s telegraphed movesets if their model is scaled up. Helpful, in a game like Sekiro.

The ‘stances’ of the Sugars might fall into both these categories. They exist for both gameplay and story reasons. The developers wanted a lag between consuming these powerups and being free to fight, so the player is forced to time these powerups carefully. You need to avoid enemies taking a free hit while Wolf’s animations are occupied. Then they storified this gameplay-based lag into a lore-based reason. Wolf has to take a ‘stance’ when eating these candies to receive its powers. For some reason.

I wasn’t able to further research the ‘stances’ Wolf strikes. Maybe they’re based off of known martial arts. But the description also offers some additional insight; according to the game, these Sugars contain ‘excess karma’ that is apparently the source of their power. Now, Buddhist karma doesn’t run in ‘excess’, a better choice of word would be ‘transfiguration’. One person can experience another’s karma through a variety of means.

“Bite the candy and take the Yashariku stance to impart its inhuman benediction.” In accordance with Buddhist folklore, these warriors are dead and imitating them can impart their previous life’s karma unto you. Our recipe won’t have magical karma powers, but we can certainly infuse our candies with medicinal herbs. You can just imagine the Senpou monks stirring up a big pot of sugar solution, and throwing in handfuls of dried Goji berries.

(This isn’t the first FromSoftware game that draws heavily from Buddhism. Dark Souls’ stagnant world of undeath is a rejection of Buddhist rebirth, clinging onto your legacy in a bid for immortality. Bloodborne decided to further explore the ‘time and madness’ angle of the same concept, while Sekiro went in the opposite direction to expand the ‘death and karma’ side.)

To make our Sugars; begin by first boiling the 1 cup of water with the corresponding flavor ingredients. Essentially, we’re making a batch of 10-20 candies with one flavor at a time, to make things easier on us. Ako’s Sugar requires you boil sliced ginger and dried lotus seeds, and so on.

After the water has been properly infused with the medicinal ingredients, strain the water and add it to another pot with the rest of the candy base ingredients, then boiling it all down until it reaches 300f. It’ll take a while, and you’ll notice that there’s gonna be a point where it seems like the temperature isn’t rising again. But keep at it; all the water needs to be boiled away. But the flavor will remain.

Once it reaches 300f, add the food coloring, and then keep boiling again until it reaches 310f. Then immediately take it off the heat and pour it into molds. Disk-shaped candy molds do exist, but you can easily make your own by pouring a lot of corn starch into a pan, then pressing a disk-shaped object (like another candy) into the starch to make indents. When you pour the candy mixture into a corn starch mold, you can use a spoon to gently and accurately fill each hole without distorting the powder. After perhaps three hours, the candies should be completely set and cool, and you can tumble away the powder and store the candies. Any mold method is gonna give the candies a flat side, but a true disk candy requires factory-standard molds that we don’t have.

We’re not using natural food colorings, ‘cause I tried my best to research natural alternatives that could retain their dye after boilings. And it was super hard, especially blue. Take it from me that Sekiro’s Sugars shouldn’t have been so brightly colored; intensely colored food did exist, but it was with things like powdered dried beets and matcha and pepper powder. Boiling these ingredients (rather than mixing it with dough or jelly) will change the colors drastically, sometimes completely bleaching it, or changing red to purple and so on.

As for the various medicinal ingredients; I took a gander in my mom’s soup-making cabinet and took stock of the medicinal herbs we ourselves use in our lives. The ones included in this recipe are some of the more commonly used ingredients of modern TCM.

Gokan’s Sugar, as a posture-retaining consumable, is described as a popular choice amongst shinobi hunters, a job that requires “a body with an unshakable core”. Ginger and lotus seeds are great for restoring energy through chi, a person’s lifeforce.

Ako’s Sugar raises your attack power. This candy actually proved one of the hardest to find medicines for, since, you know, most medicine is about preserving your health. Astragalus root increases energy and resistance to stress, and red cherries are a warming food according to TCM; warming meaning that its a yang property that further enhances your energy levels. (Keep in mind that food warmness-coolness is more about keeping those two in balance for optical health.)

Ungo’s Sugar reduces the amount of health Wolf loses. Very protection-centric, so we’re using ginseng, for longevity, and white peach slices for their heavy association with divinity. Both of these ingredients have some of the most well-known history in Asian food culture.

Yashariku’s Sugar is a double-edged sword, since it reduces both your health and posture so Wolf can be super powerful for a little bit. So you’re gonna add sake to the candy mixture around the 300f mark, and the dried cocklebur fruit is an immunity-boosting medicine ... but the plant is mildly toxic and can cause diarrhea. You know, Wolf gets super powerful and aggressive when taking this candy cause he needs to shit his brains out. Don’t worry; we’ve got this in our own pantry, and it personally doesn’t make my mom’s stomach upset, but it does me so it must range from person to person.

Gachiin’s Sugar makes you more stealthy, which I took to translate into ‘quieting your thoughts and emotions’. Like when you hold a baby and it can feel your own inner turmoil and starts to cry? Orange peel and goji berries restore your chi, your vision, an irregular heart rate, and stress.

Enjoy your candies! Pop them before tough situations like speaking before a big crowd, or having to wait in line at the DMV, or when you have to fight the Headless Ape for the first time. Tell your friends to stay away from the Senpou brand, so you don’t support their unethical practices.

[catsandstrawberries]

Hi do you take request ?If yes, can you do a platonic BTS x reader where reader is coming out to them ?

(I’m personally Bi , aro ,ace and non binary,but if you’d rather do something else it’s fine too!)

Sexual Identity Crisis 

Pairing: 8th member x bts (platonic)

Word Count: 1.6k 

A/N: I hope you don't mind but I made the reader bisexual and use she/them pronouns, I also made it platonic as in 8th member. Hope you like it! (this is unedited so sorry for grammer)

It was the little things that you first started to notice.

The way you would blush on stage during a performance when an army would call your name. The squeals for your attention no longer embarrassing or cute but stirring something deep within you. You never liked the idea of dating as an artist, too much drama, too many things, too many feelings.

But it wasn't until you were preparing for one of your solo songs, one of the noona artists your age fixing up your makeup, you started to notice. You started paying attention to the way some of the noona's would wear leggings that fit tight to their bodies, or how gentle their hands felt on you.

It only confused you more when you felt the same for guys. The harsh jawline, the big hands, thinking about it made you flush.

During interviews, as you sat next to your brothers, and tried not to seem as disinterested as you felt, they would ask you the question.

"Who is your ideal type?"

Images. Images of curvy bodies and plush skin, hard stomachs, gentle hands to caress your face, and thick fingers to ground you.

"I don't think I have a type." You respond with a smile. Deflect a few more questions, just as you deflected the feelings within.

Whenever you felt panicked you liked to make lists. You were good at that. A few things to take note of,

One: You might not be straight.

Then you met Shawn Mendes and Camilla Cabello and fuck you've never wanted to have a threesome so bad.

One: You're bisexual.

Then you had another jaw-dropping, mind-altering revelation.

It was caused by TikTok. BigHit thought it would be a great idea for BTS as a band to post a series of TikToks to help gain attraction and give content to the fans.

It was really fun.

Pulling pranks on the boys like cutting the power in Jungkooks room when he was playing video games or handing Jin salt instead of sugar for his coffee gained a huge following.

But on rainy days when you had no work to do (which rarely happened), instead of making videos, you would scroll through the app. It caused your heart to stutter, the users on the app who smirked and winked at the camera made you feel so nervous. As if someone would spot you and your secret would be revealed to the world.

But then your eyes would linger on a few guys. As the only girl in BTS oftentimes you were trademarked to be the girly girl, or on the extremist side of the gender spectrum. But you had always secretly wished to hold the same power your brothers did. Some days you hated the weight on your chest and wished your boobs could pop right off. You wanted to be like Jimin who was so fluid in his gender identity and wear tux's and give

smolders to the fans.

Two: Your pronouns were she/they.

Three: You need to tell your brothers.

Well, you didn't need to tell them. But you wanted to. As the youngest and declared golden maknae duo with Jungkook, they had practically raised you.

You love them.

You started small.

"Hey, Hoseok, have you seen (G)I-DLE's new music video, oh my god'?"

You were in the dance studio refining the black swan dance for an upcoming performance when you asked him. Taking a chug of water as you watched his reaction.

"Of course I did! They're trending right now, after I watched the teaser video I was hooked."

"Soojin looked hot." Fuck, you meant to bring it up more calmly but it comes out rushed in one breath.

You feel yourself flush but get back onto the dance floor, hoping that it will pass off as exhaustion.

"If you want to hang out with her, I'm sure PR won't have an issue with it," Jin comments from the side, and you just nod hoping to change the conversation.

The next time it happened, you and the boys were traveling in America to go on James Cordon's show. It was supposed to be a casual interview but nothing ever casual in America.

"So Jungkook, (y/n), you were at the Grammys a couple of weeks ago, right?"

You and jungkook both nod, and you get a strange pit in your stomach for being called out like that.

"Well, you both had such strong reactions to meeting them!" Oh shit oh shit oh shit.

"(y/n) Shawn Mendes is quite beautiful, isn't he?"

"I think a lot of people are beautiful, but he is very good looking." You wince as you feel Namjoons gaze burn into the back of your head.

"Interesting."

James continues asking questions to your brothers and delves into several female celebrities, and after what feels like forever, it's over.

Then you're in the car with Taehyung, Jin, and Jungkook and the maknae starts to mimic you.

"I think a lot of people are beautiful but Shawn Mendes is so cute oh I could look into his eyes forever-

"Shut up Kook!" and then you take a breath and mumble under your breath,

"Camilla is pretty too." Little did you know that Jungkook was too busy making kissy faces to hear you, but Jin and Taehyung definitely share a look.

The third time is when the band is having a dress rehearsal and the style is very edgy and the boys are dressed in jewelry and punk rock and eyeliner, but they want to put you in this white frilly dress even though you have to dance, and...and you just don't want it.

So when one of the Noonas isn't looking you grab one of Yoongis discarded outfits and put it on, a pair of black skinny jeans, a metal chain, and a white tea with a black suit blazer.

When you go to show the boys they don't make a fuss, and you hope no one notices it's not your original outfit. But then one of the noonas is bringing you the dress and you're casually walking away from her but she starts to shout,

"(y/n), isn't this your original outfit? Where did you find that?"

But then Jimin is throwing an arm around you and glancing you up and down, "Ugh, our little maknae is growing up, can she wear this instead noona?"

And the girl just huffs out a fine while Jimin pats your cheek lovingly, "I got your back."

But you never could have imagined telling them like this. You wanted to sit all of them down and pass around hot chocolate and have a revelation about your sexuality and gender status.

But no, nothing can ever go your way.

Hobi was introducing Becky G to the 7 of you in person. It was a few months after chicken noodle soup had come out and she had decided to stop in Korea for a break on her solo tour. Hobi thought it was only right for the rest of BTS to meet her since they had worked so well together.

It was the way she walked into the room with so much confidence, wearing whatever the hell she wanted, and glancing at you with a wink as she bowed and repeated the mantra she had been learning for weeks.

"Annyeonghaseyo, (y/n)!" Respond back to her, it's not that hard. Just say hello.

"I'm so fucking gay."

You could literally feel the temperature in the room change and even some of your security guards passed you a look.

Shit.

"Well not like, fully gay, I'm bisexual."

Why are you still talking!?

An awkward chuckle left your mouth as sets of eyes stared at you, and as if you couldn't make things any more uncomfortable, you added,

"I want to use she/they pronouns."

"(y/n), love, we aren't mad." You had just arrived back at the dorms and immediately sprinted for your room but Namjoon was hot on your heels.

"Got her." You squealed as Jungkook wrapped his arm around you and practically dragged you to the common area.

"So you swing both ways?" Jimin added nonchalantly both of his legs tossed over your lap, "that is the best way to live life, dear."

"Jimin! Not helping" Jin berated before taking a seat next to you on the couch,

"How long have you known?"

"I feel like, subconsciously I've known for a while, but I didn't really accept it until six months ago."

Jin winces at your words,

"did you think we would be mad? Six months is a long time."

"It must have been hard to keep that to yourself," Yoongi adds, rubbing a soft circle into your palm.

Namjoon sighs from the loveseat next to Tae, "Look, (y/n), you're our little sister, and we will never be mad at you for doing what you need to do to be comfortable in your own skin."

"We'll always support you, in fact, if you need any lady advice-" Tae's suggestive smirk is cut off by Hobi who smacks him on the back of the head.

"Now is not the time!?"

"Whether or not you want to go public with this information is up to you, but we'll need to talk to Bang PD if so." You nod at Namjoons words but thinking about going public makes your head spin.

"But Namjoon, if they don't want to, we can keep it our little secret, right?" Jimin's use of the pronoun causes you to shift your eyes to him, and before you know it you're attacking him in a hug.

Namjoon adds with a smile on his face,

"of course, whenever they're ready."

[doubleshotofsomething]

To Hell & Back

Part Four:  “My wings are frayed and what’s left of my halo’s black”

--

Summary: Your exit strategy involves your neighbour... Well, it is your neighbour.

Prompt: "I don't want to live on this planet anymore."

Warnings: swearing. (Typos that will be fixed). That's it??

Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Reader

-----

Series Masterlist

-----

You weren't always this...angry.

You weren't always this spiteful and short tempered, and malicious enough to deliberately poison muffins.

At one point in life, you were everything you'd ever wanted in a friend. Kind and compassionate. Even patience was a virtue you had an abundance of.

Then, one day, some guy from Asgard came with an army of aliens and ripped a hole through your father's finances. Apparently damaging a bunch of buildings, including the one your father worked at, was bad for business and so it closed down.

Just as your mother's job had barely managed to get your family out of the red, her boss gets murdered at some important meeting that blew up – along with some world leaders. In her boss's place, the son took over and ran the company into the ground.

Luckily, your sister had a bakery that made just enough to cover your parents' costs and your summer jobs had saved you enough to get you through college. Then, some other guy came with another alien army, and decided to take half the world with him – or whatever he did

The wrong half of the world, in your opinion. You could have lived without watching your sister's husband run her business into the ground. And life would have been a little easier if you didn't have to stretch yourself thin, to make sure your mother saw the next day.

"Then half the world came back," you continue, eyes focused on the cat. "And some random family showed up in my apartment. I'm pretty sure the husband had a heart attack when he saw me–"

Bucky places another beer in front of you. You hate the taste, but coffee on an empty stomach has never worked well for you.

"–so I moved," you take a final sip of your second beer, before placing it down and reaching for the one he just placed in front of you. "Now, I'm here. Stuck with a nosy neighbour and his cat."

"You can keep her." Bucky sighs, leaning against the wall next to you. Your shoulders brush. "I don't know the first thing about cats."

You frown and look up at him. "Barnes... You are cat. And I already have you, why would I want another one?"

He scoffs, blue eyes meeting yours. "I am not that kind of lady."

"Oh god," you roll your eyes.

"Gotta buy me dinner first, doll–"

"Not a doll."

"Maybe take me dancing," he continues, lips twitching at the sight of your scowl. "If you're lucky, I might invite you in for tea."

You glance at the coffee machine, still boxed, sitting on his counter but don't comment. You know what it means, you know why he bought it, and the thought alone makes you queasy.

So you look back at the cat, curled on your bare lap, and sigh. "Sorry I came in without pants."

You don't say anything else and he chuckles. He found you in nothing but an old shirt and socks that night, so he's not really surprised.

"Sorry I helped you without a shirt." He replies. He would've answered you immediately, the second you said his name, but he had to find pants first.

Silence falls between the both of you, and it takes actual effort for Bucky to look away from you. Tempering down the disappointment that has the audacity to knaw at you, at your stubbornness, you turn back to the screen of his laptop.

He was reviewing CCTV footage of your building's basement garage. Two hours into the viewing and he heard you calling him from the balcony, so he had to pause.

Now, four hours, three beers on your side and a weird trip down memory lane later – you're helping him sift through footage at a faster rate.

"So," you begin, eyes glued to the screen. "I have a question, about that whole serum thing."

"Hmm?" It's the first question you've ever asked about that part of him, that part of his history.

"How does it work when it comes to diseases?"

Blinking, Bucky has to pause the video to look at you. "Diseases?"

You nod. "Like flu, chicken pox, tonsillitis. You know, that stuff."

"I'm confused–"

"Do you not get it or does it run through you like water?"

"What?"

"Or does your immune system just basically butcher it within the hour?" You blink at him, eyes wide with curiosity. "'Cause like, I had this friend with one helluva immune system. He never got sick, so does it work like that?"

He pauses, lips pursing as he considers you. "Do you wanna know if my blood cells can cure AIDS?"

"If that were the case, you'd be in a CDC off-site lab right now–" you put down the beer you've been cradling. "–so, no. I wanna know what kind of illness can knock a super soldier out long enough for me to use it as an excuse."

He blinks. Once. Twice. "Huh?!"

"Saturday is in a few days."

Oh.

"What does that have to do with me?" His face scrunches up into the most confused expression you've ever seen.

"As we both know," you narrow your eyes at him. "Ever since you saved my life, like the asshole you are, my parents have taken a liking to you. And since I poisoned their favourite couple last week, I'm in deep shit this week unless I can find a good reason to not show up."

"I'm not gonna apologise for saving you."

You raise an eyebrow. "Of course not. That would mean admitting it was very selfish of you."

This is not how he expected this conversation to go. Or how he wanted it to go. So, he decides to turn back to the screen and continue watching the footage.

You know you struck a nerve, and it would be easier for you to blame it on the beer, but you can't. You want answers, just as much as he does.

You want to know what gave him the right to knock down your door, or the audacity to have his friend fly you to the hospital. He won't straight up tell you, you tried when you woke up in the ICU and found him there, and it pisses you off that he might not ever tell you.

Bucky frowns at the screen. "The camera's get switched off right after I leave–" he glances at you. "Did you bribe security to switch them off?"

"We have security?"

"The guys at the front desk?"

You frown at him. You know those guys, you bring them baked goodies from work three times a week.

"Hang on," you place the cat on the couch next to you, cross your legs and turn to move closer to him. "Let me get this straight."

Your knees gently press into his thigh and he forced to look at you.

"You're telling me that Laurence with sinuses, down in the lobby, and Percy with the three-legged rabbit. Those guys–" of course you'd know that. "–they're security? For this apartment building? We have security?"

"You can't be serious–"

"We have a biometric system at the door and like cameras, and a patrol car that frequents this neighbourhood–" you're pressing a little to hard on your fingers and he's worried you just might snap one off. "–what the hell do we need security guards for?"

You continue rattling off all the safety measures the building has, which means your fingers have to suffer throughout the list, unless he does something about it.

Which he does. Almost as if instinct, his hands are clasping yours before he can make the decision to reach for them. They're warm and cold against yours, but the right kind of warm and cold that makes you frown at them.

His hands swallow yours, which isn't something that surprises you. It's the way you're not pulling away, the way you're not fighting it, the way you can't blame the alcohol because it almost feels...normal.

You haven't felt normal in such a long time.

"You gonna stop tryna break your fingers?" Bucky starts. "Or do I have to stay like this 'til you knock out?"

You blink. "Does a concussion knock you out long enough to warrant an excuse?"

"You're relentless."

"Says the guy watching CCTV footage because of a cat."

"It's... For a good cause."

"Me missing Saturday dinner is a good cause, Barnes."

He sighs. "Doll–"

"–I'll owe you one."

Bucky is about to argue, his mouth was halfway open before your words registered. That's really what happened.

It's not like he was looking for an opening or anything. A way of asking you, that wouldn't resort in an argument or anything.

It's not like those were the words he's been waiting for, for quite some time now.

Not at all.

Of course not.

But, who is he to argue with the mysterious workings of a universe.

The room you're in is dimly lit, the only light originating from the kitchen and the streetlights. But you can still see that dangerous glint in his eyes.

He grins. "Is that right?"

You swear you heard yourself gulp.

-----

"Okay–" you're fidgety and anxious, and can't seem to stand still as the elevator doors close. "–now, let's go through this again. What's our exit strategy?"

Bucky turns to fully face you. He's been trying to keep you calm ever since the parking lot, but even he can admit that he was far too distracted to be helpful.

It wasn't even his fault he was distracted, it was completely yours. When he invited you to Sarah's party , the party celebrating the expansion of the success revamp of the boat business, he had said to dress comfortably.

Not dress like you were put on this Earth to be the end of him.

He was waiting in the parking lot, the same one that had the camera's switched off right after he left, when you came barrelling towards him.

You had narrowly escaped your sister. She was getting off the elevator just as you were nearing it, so you quickly opted for the staircase beside it. You were a flurry of floral black and white and pink in a summer dress, your hair barely in place – you tried using pins and thought about ribbons, but then forgot about them when you couldn't find your other shoe – as you basically pushed him inside the car.

You used the passenger window to try and fix your hair, as best as you could. And he spent the drive trying to reassure you that you looked fine.

You looked more than fine, but he couldn't seem to muster up the words.

"Doll–"

"Not a doll." Is your automated response.

"You look fine, " sweet as sugar, is what he wants to say. "And, well, there is no exit strategy."

You gape up at the mammoth of a man in front of you. His words, a ballad of heathens in your book, echoes in your head.

"No exit strategy?" You whine, fisting his shirt as you desperately meet his eyes. "Bucky, no. Please. You can't do this."

The elevator doors open before he can respond to you. Sam is waiting on the other side of the doors, champagne glasses in both hands.

Hands still gripping into Bucky's shirt, hair almost presentable, Bucky's face flushing from hearing you say his name, and your expression portraying pure fluster. You and Bucky both turn to find Sam staring at the scene in front of him.

His eyebrows shoot up, golden brown eyes lighting up at the sight. "Okay. This definitely makes up for you being late."

Bucky blinks, seeming to snap out of his stupor. "Wait, wha–"

"No–" Sam cuts in. "–I know how you 40s guys are about kissin' and telling. I won't pry."

"Hang on, Sam–"

"Bathroom's on the next floor," he has the audacity to grin. "Just be quick about it. The speech's in twenty minutes."

With that, he steps away from the elevator, gives a curt nod and – with a Cheshire grin – walks away.

You slowly peel your hands away from Bucky and take a few steps back.

Bucky clears his throat. "So, about the exit strategy..."

---

TAGS :D : @sunflowerxbarnes , @ginger-swag-rapunzel , @arctic-duchess , @sltwins , @thewayilookatbacon , @buckyisperfect , @paryl

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Q&A

Simple Questions for Seigi-kun (Parts 1 and 2)

Thank you very much for these questions from several people. We had Seigi-kun take a look at everyone’s questions right away and answer as many as he could! Not all of them can be published, but please enjoy Seigi-kun’s answers!

Q.: Seigi-kun looks good with black short hair, but is there any hairstyle that he looks up to? It does not seem to have changed much from when he was a child, but there is this impression that people often do college debuts, so here goes this simple question. The photo on the cover of volume 6 was wonderful. His set-back hair looked very good on him. (Black Short Hair-san)

A.: Hello! I guess it’s the first time I was told that my hair style looks good on me aside from Nakata-san and Richard; thank you very much! As for an image I look up to, huuum, there wasn’t any in particular when I was little, but nowadays, I look up to the two I just mentioned. They’re of different vectors and just really cool! Ah… this is embarrassing, so please keep it a secret. I have the feeling that they already know, though.

Q.: Any words you want to send to your past self from before meeting Richard? (Inu-san)

A.: “Nakata Seigi, you might be reckless, but you technically haven’t done anything wrong! Probably! Hum, you’re mostly thoughtless! But you’re not mistaken! If you see someone being attacked in a park, don’t hesitate to shout and go help him! Also, you might be compensated for doing your best at cooking. Good on you.”

Eh? There’s something from Richard too? “Seigi-kun, you are already passionate enough, but make sure to take a better look at your surroundings. Make sure to cherish yourself. Also, if you get invited to work at a TV station in Shibuya, make sure to just accept it.” Ah, yeah, yeah! I’m also counting on myself for that last one.

Q.: I am a college student just like Seigi-kun. When I have free time, I play video games, read books and talk about fun things with my friends. Seigi-kun, what do you do? Do you read books about gemstones and study after all? (Anzu-san)

A.: Hello! Indeed, during my free time when I didn’t have classes, there were times when I’d do self-study and learn about stones, but when I got together with my friends in the cafeteria or lounge, we’d get roused up over trivial talk. Everyone had a rough idea of the timing they should focus on their studies, so when I think about it nowadays, that might’ve been a “let’s make racket while we can” kind of mood. Looking back on it now, it was fun.

Q.: I am bound to fail every time I make sweets. If there is any trick to making sweets, please tell me. (Satou-san from the Heavens)

A.: Aah… I feel like someone’s already asked me a similar question. Ahem. T-That’s right! First things first, let’s try to stop treating “sweets” like they’re special! I guess this is the trick I can think of. They’re simply like an arithmetic test or a chemistry experiment; it just so happens that, if you mix up the set ingredients, a chemical reaction occurs and you reach the same results. If you lead it to the decided answer, you’ll manage to make something tasty, is all. Try to stick strictly to the recipe, and if it still doesn’t turn out right, I think it’s good to do a reflection on where you might’ve gotten it wrong. Eh…? If it doesn’t go well even then…? Aah… I’m gonna leave my phone number here, so if you have anything you want to eat… Eh? Richard, you want me to knock it off? That’s right. It’s not like I always have time. I almost did something irresponsible. Sorry. I’m cheering for you! See ya!

Q.: Where do you start washing your body from? (Yukinekoya-san)

A.: I’ve never thought about that~! It’s from the hair, but that’s with shampoo and doesn’t count as my body, so… *moves his body as if scrubbing it* I start washing from the neck and ears! But what’re you gonna do by asking that?

Q.: What’s your favorite meat? (Reihenbach-san)

A.: If its for Japanese curry, pork! If it’s for Sri Lanka’s curry, fish or chicken! If it’s for sukiyaki, cattle! I love all kinds of meat! But what flashes in my mind regarding “my favorite meat” is the meat and potato stew that Hiromi used to make, so I guess it’s gotta be beef. There wasn’t much meat in it, so I was able to taste it rather well.

Q.: I am a middle school teacher; Seigi-kun, who was the teacher that left the biggest impression on you? Please leave out Richard-sensei! (Kikuchi-san)

A.: Ah, that question is relatively easy to answer. It’s someone named Yamazaki-sensei, who was my class teacher in high school. He’s a graduate from the faculty of economics at Kasaba University, and he’d compliment me at random. Like, “You sure are working hard” or, “You’re so smart”. So I got cheeky, admired him, and when I told him I wanted to be like him, he said, “Then, how about you aim for my alma mater?” and I replied with, “Yes!”… Since Kasaba is a private institution, it was just a suggestion where I was getting ahead with my feelings, but though Hiromi made a bitter face, she wasn’t against it. Maybe she thought it was better than having her son say that he wanted to start working after graduating from middle school. Sensei was transferred when I was in my first year in university, but I hope he’s doing well.

Q.: Seigi-kun, if you were to compare Richard to an animal, which do you think it would be? (Himawari-san)

A.: If Richard were an animal… I wonder which. Richard feels a bit like an animal even now, so it’s hard, but I’d say human…? No, Richard is a human being. My bad, my bad. An animal with whooshy golden hair and blue eyes… I once had the feeling that the air about him is a bit like a creature named miacis, which I saw before in some illustrated reference book. It’s an ancient animal and seems to be the ancestor of dogs, cats and the like, and its exact appearance isn’t known anymore, but when I think of it as the origin of the beauty of all the animals I like, I wonder if he wouldn’t be something along those lines… Richard, Richard? Why won’t you look at me in the eye?

Q.: Is there any time you laughed the most when you were with Richard-san? Alternatively, if there was any time where you ended up laughing without thinking, please tell me! I am rooting for you! (Heartbreak Akira-san)

A.: Eeh…? Is it okay for me to talk about this…? Ah, I’ve received permission, so I’ll say it. Erm, this is a story from when I was studying French; I suddenly felt like doing a prank when I couldn’t make any progress at all, so I asked Richard-sensei something nonsensical, like, “If you don’t mind, please say ‘steamed bun’ in a really French-like way; I think it’ll definitely sound French to me”. And then the answer that came at me was a perfectly French-styled “steamed bun”… I died of laughter. Sorry for being too descriptive with the details. If you have a French friend close to you, I think you should try to make the same request. I think it won’t sound like Japanese to you. It’s already a bit amusing just remembering it. Hey, Richard. You didn’t find it all that funny? Ah, it was funny when I rolled over laughing? Then I guess we can call it even.

Q.: What are the dishes and desserts that you want to try challenging yourself to make? (Tsugiumi-san)

A.: I get interested in the stuff that I think looks delicious, but they’re a little different from the things I decide to try my hand at making. Richard, is there anything you wanna eat? I’ve noticed this recently: I don’t have much will to make stuff only I want to eat, but if it’s something that someone important to me feels like eating, I suddenly get motivated. That’s why, if there’s… Ah, ah, why’re you punching the cushion?

Q.: Looking at Richard-san and Jeffrey-san, are there any moments or points in which you feel that they are similar? (Yoshimura-san)

A.: Yoshimura-san, hello. There are; from my perspective, there are many. There sure are, but… from the face that the person next to me is making, it seems better not to say too much about it. Let me put this one on hold.

Q.: What was your favorite school lunch menu? For lunch boxes, what were your favorite contents? (Nanatsuji-san)

A.: Hello! I used to like all the school lunch dishes, but as expected, curry was what made me happiest. As for lunch boxes, I’d mostly get an allowance to buy the sandwiches and lunch boxes I liked, and whenever I got more than 500 yen, I’d get to buy a large serving of hayashi rice and would be happy over it. After all, the servings have to be big for a school boy, if nothing else.

Q.: If you switched bodies with Richard upon waking up, what is the first thing you would do? (Sango-san)

A.: Eh...? How? Would it be magic or something? I’d probably think, “Is this a dream?” and go back to sleep. But why would I be in Richard’s body...? I wonder if my head would malfuction from talking too much about how beautiful he is and things would turn out like that. If I got cocky and tried to imitate Richard, I feel like he’d give me one hell of a cold look with those elegant eyes of his, so hum, I wouldn’t do anything, just sleep until the magic wore off. I also think that Richard would be happier when I have the face of Nakata Seigi rather than his own.

Q.: When did you get your growth spurt? (Middle Schooler-san)

A.: Does that mean the time when I got taller? I think it was either in my third year of middle school or first year of high school. It was neither too late nor early among my friends, so while not minding it much, I ended up surpassing Hiromi’s height.

Q.: Seigi-kun, hello.  ♪  Seigi-kun, what kind of fashion do you like? Where do you normally buy clothes? Also, have you changed your style or been influenced after meeting Richard? If you can, please tell us. (*^^*) (Yuriko-san)

A.: Hello! Fashion, huuh... To be honest, before I started working in Étranger, I used to feel like I only needed to keep my clothes as clean as necessary and that they were okay as long as they didn’t look sloppy, but as expected, once you enter a jewelry shop, the number of clothes with high collars increases. Then, I met Richard, and ever since I started working for him, my opportunities to wear a suit increased, but what he often tells me is, “Wear what you like however you like the most you can within the limits”, and speaking of which, I kinda seem to look up to suits with a large silhouette and felt hats, like the ones people used to wear in prewar days. I think this is probably the influence of an actor my Grandma liked. In the past, there was a black-and-white photo of him decorating the apartment where Grandma lived. It would’ve been great if I could’ve showed myself wearing a suit to Grandma.

Q.: Seigi-kun, hello! A question for you. Seigi-kun’s “senpai”, Vincent-san, is a user of Jeet Kune Do, but you are also a black belt at Karate, so I am very curious about what would happen if the two of you actually fought. Since you both master your own matrial arts, so I feel that I would be able to see a cool fight between you. Also, this is just my ponderings, but Seigi-kun, I want you to tell me, from your point of view, how strong you think Vincent-san is and what changes you have of winning. (Monaka-san)

A.: Hello! Erm, when you say “fight”, is it okay to interpret it as a head-on brawl? I think you probably do not practice any martial arts, Monaka-san, so I am going to answer based on that: martial arts abilities and fight abilities are completely different. See, the rules of each martial art are pre-determined, and if you fight within them, you won’t suffer serious injuries and you can decide who wins or loses, but there’s none of that in a brawl, so... Also, I believe both parties know that, if a person who did martial arts to some extent hits someone in earnest, it’ll result in something that can’t be undone, so I think they can’t bring themselves to throw fists with each other. But on the other hand, since we can tell to some degree that we both seem to have have this awereness, I think it’s okay if I so much as throw a paper ball at the back of his head. Vince-san might hit me back, and then I guess I’d fling a straw bag at him next. We might get along a bit better if we both let it out. Sorry that it’d be the light type! I hope this served as an answer.

Q.: A question for Nakata Seigi-kun! To be precise: is there anything that makes you go, “This is the one thing I want to tell Richard-shi!!”~? Even if it is something that is normally hard to say, you might be able to say it here. (*^^*) (Sui-san)

A.: “I’m happy when you eat my pudding; thanks! But I’m begging, for health reasons, that you’re at least careful not to eat too much...! I wanna be with you for a long time. Please. And... also... thanks for always. I’m so grateful to you that I can’t say it enough. It’d be great if I could.” This is it! Aah, that was embarrassing. Eh? “You’re always telling me that much”, you say? Is that so?

Q.: What is your favorite sweet? (Tanaka Milk Tea-san)

A.: That’s a difficult theme... I don’t seem to have any that I’m obsessed with, but anything looks delicious to me if it’s a sweet that Richard eats with relish, so I grow to like it. But when Richard doesn’t eat all of a sweet and leaves some of it, I go, “Could it be he left it for me because he thought I’d like it?” and they also turn out to be so, so tasty. Basically, I like everything. Unless I buy and eat it by myself.

Q.: Nice to meet you; as Seigi-kun faces people very straightforward and honestly, I read every volume while confirming over and over that I also want to live on facing people like that. Is there anything that the aforementioned Seigi-kun always puts in his bag? (Sumiyaki Yuuma-san)

A.: Sumiyaki-san, hello! Being told that I face people honestly is flattering. I do think it’d be great if I actually manage that, but the “honesty” I’m thinking about is my own concept of it, so it’s not like this honesty is something only comfortable for the other person. That’s why being told so makes me all the happier. Thank you. This is from after meeting Richard, but what I always have in my bag is candy. Royal-milk-tea-flavored ones. When I don’t have them, I pack in some other sweet, and just from thinking, “I’d give him this if he were here”, it kinda feels like having a fragment of him with me even when he’s not by my side, and it’s reassuring. It helps me out. Other than that, my phone. Thanks for the question!

[radramblog]

Ultimate^2

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate has finally unveiled its final DLC character, with reactions ranging fully across the spectrum. Hot takes abound.

I mean, statistically, just about every possible opinion is going to be represented. There were at least 500,000 people watching the reveal stream, and that’s not including those viewing through restreams. That’s insane for a trailer of any kind, let alone for a console-exclusive video game DLC.

Now that it’s been like… a day and a bit, I think most of the spciest takes have probably been made, which is the perfect time for me to chip in with my own milder opinion. More of a butter chicken, really.

(no images in this one i’m lazy tonight)

I figure I’m this late already, might as well drop some notes on the other ones first.

Piranha Plant was kind of the definition of an unexpected pick. Not only was it from an already well-represented franchise, being fucking Mario, it’s also just…not a character. As such it makes an odd choice for a DLC fighter…except for the part where it was free. If you owned the game in its first month. And frankly, I don’t think people would have been happy if it wasn’t. As it is, though, it’s a perfectly fine character- surprisingly cute, actually.

I’m unsurprised about Joker’s inclusion. With how huge Persona 5 became in both Japan and the west, capitalizing on it to make a shitload of money makes perfect sense. The character plays well enough, though the meter gimmick was kind of a daunting sign of things to come. All that in mind, though, the most surprising thing about Joker being in the game is that they still haven’t put P5 on the Switch. Atlus please.

Hero and Banjo/Kazooie were announced on the same night, and I distinctly recall someone saying that this was one for the Japanese audience and one for the Americans. I mean, I’ve never played Dragon Quest, so I guess I fell into the latter? Both series have a long, well-regarded pedigree (Banjo’s lack of recent offerings notwithstanding), so both arguably deserve their respective positions. Hero is the much more notable character gameplaywise, though, with the incredibly complex mana and spellcasting mechanics. Complaints about RNG in Smash aren’t completely unfounded- though it has existed in the past in the form of, say, Luigi’s misfiring side-B- but I know a lot of people think Hero took it too far. If I’m honest, though, the weirdest thing is just having Akira Toriyama-ass 3D models in the game. Banjo’s gameplay is…awkward. The kit is kind of a mess, but at least the gimmicks weren’t going too hard, you know?

Next was Terry, perhaps the most obscure character on the entire list in 2021. I actually really like Terry in this game- while he’s still trying to emulate a similar feel to Ryu/Ken, the difference feels more natural, if that makes sense. Maybe it’s because I’ve never really devoted significant time to them, but Terry’s kit feels easier to work within than the Shotos when going between characters.

Finally for the first Pass, we had Byleth. I think it’s for the best that they announced the second Fighter’s Pass before this released, because if both 4 and Ultimate had ended their run on Fire Emblem DLCs then people would have been pissed. I mean, people were already pissed, but like…moreso. As someone who has played Three Houses, I do think the game is worth celebrating, but having yet another Fire Emblem Protagonist (read: basically a blank slate) in the game over all the substantially more interesting characters 3H has to offer is just really frustrating. Also the final smash looks like dogshit, like FE3H has overall worse animations than Smash for obvious reasons but I’m pretty sure this attack looked better the first time around.

FP2 opened with Min Min, which brings ARMS to the table. ARMS. The only first-party fighting game Nintendo has outside of Smash, so it looks a bit less weird next to everything else but…come on, man. I think this was the most confusing pick of all of them- the game came out in 2017, and having Min Min in Smash would serve as promotion for a sequel…which hasn’t been announced. There was a graphic novel in the works, but it was cancelled earlier this year. Oops? At least the stage was fun.

As much as playing them is awkward and complex, the Minecraft addition was fitting. Only the best-selling game around. I think people weren’t sure if Microsoft would go for it, but they let us have Banjo, so sure. I’m mostly just annoyed that they couldn’t get any of the songs from the actual game in there- like, you got one in from the fucking mobile game, but you couldn’t just get C418 on the phone?

Sephiroth is definitely one of the hype-ier releases from this pass. The character is iconic, as is his theme and his home game. I’ve never played any Final Fantasy game, but I can still respect the name. Once I remember how to spell it. The whole bossfight aspect to his release was also quite cool, while it lasted.

On the other hand, I have no love for Pyra nor Mythra. There’s so much wrong with these ones, frankly. They’re another swordy character, immediately following Sephiroth too, and they go back on Smash’s very deliberate decision to split characters like Zelda/Sheik and Samus/ZSS up (Yes I know Pokemon Trainer does the same thing but I have a lot more leniency for them). Add in their being from a JRPG much less well-known or remembered than the previous couple characters and the designs being…questionable, I have a big issue with the whole thing. This was also around when I kinda stopped playing the game in general, and they definitely didn’t help pull me back in.

Kazuya might have, though. With the exception of him and Sephiroth, all the characters from the Fighter’s Passes were pretty much protagonist-types, but this motherfucker pulses with the essence of bad guy. What I’m saying is that he’s fucking cool, and while he’s ludicrously complex, that makes perfect sense since…I mean just look at the combo lists from Tekken 7. His inclusion also kinda rounds out the list of biggest fighting game franchises out there being rep’d in the game, though I imagine now I’m going to have stans from Mortal Kombat or whatever on my back. They’re not going to put a fatality-capable character in Smash, guys!

Finally, this rounds us around to the original point of this article. Let’s talk about Sora. And by that I mean…I don’t really have a huge amount to say about him. Kingdom Hearts is a franchise that completely passed me by growing up, and I don’t think I have the time or energy to devote to it now. I’m sure it’s good, people seemed really excited for him to be in the game so they have to have gotten that love from somewhere, but I don’t share that feeling.

That’s not to say that I don’t think he deserves a slot. The idea of “deserving a slot” in Smash Bros is kind of an odd concept, even though it’s come up a lot so far this post. But a slot in this roster isn’t just a place in a popular fighting game, because at this point, Smash is kind of a museum of (mostly Nintendo) games- and so having representation is a forever acknowledgment that the franchise is, or has been, an icon to so many. Kingdom Hearts, to my knowledge, has 100% earned that position, and so Sora getting to be playable here makes perfect sense. He wasn’t my pick (Touhou representation never I guess), but I’m happy for those who wanted him.

As far as the actual gameplay looks, he reads like a character that kept in mind what people didn’t like about Hero when he released. It’s another sword-based character, which I think at this point speaks more about the demographic of video game characters than it does about Smash. But I appreciate that the Magic Bullshit is toned down, and that it’s also his only real gimmick (The 3-hit combo feature is A Thing, but other characters e.g. Bayonetta have already done that, so whatever). His recovery potential looks patently absurd- like he just gets Pikachu/Pichu’s Up-B as a Side-B that can also be chained with his actual Up-B? This guy better be light as hell or he’s going to be super hard to take out. I dunno, I think he looks solidly fun enough- more dynamic and aerial than the other swordfighters, at least- and that’s good enough for me.

And I guess that marks the end of Smash Ultimate. Not with a bang, but with a key…dude. It’s been a very solid run, the game managing to keep itself fresh across several years of development, even as other games have risen and fallen. Smash is kind of forever at this point, I think, though the finality of Ultimate’s ultimate character implies that this particular iteration may be coming to its end. And seeing as it is always one Smash per console, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Switch itself was nearing its endgame as well.

Okay but also it’s pretty funny how they heavily censored everything Disney out of Sora’s DLC except for that little Mickey charm on the trailer, like how much must that one shot have cost them, was it even remotely worth it, I don’t know but I kinda want to

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #455

“but you didn’t have to cut me off  /  make it like it never happened and that we were nothing”

Are you and the last person you kissed in a relationship or just friends? We're besties! :') Has anyone ever pointed out that your laugh was unusual? No. Would you get a lip piercing? I already have a vertical labret. I've considered getting spiked snakebites (they might be called devil bites?) too, though. With a vertical labret, it looks sick as FUCK. It might be a bit much too close together for me, though, idk. Nose piercing? I want my right nostril re-pierced. What are you currently waiting for? Girt to message me back. I've decided what I want out of our relationship and just want to see him. Do you have feelings for anyone? Hit me pretty hard through a lot of examination of my feelings that yeah, I do. Have you ever run over an animal? Oh my god no, I would be DESTROYED. Have you chewed gum after someone else already has? bro what the fuck When people sneeze do you say ‘bless you’? I do only out of expectation. I don't want someone to think I'm an ass or something for not saying it. When was the last time you were on a bouncy castle? A few years ago for my niece's birthday. She was scared of how loud it was and was very reluctant to get near it, so my fat ass got in there with everyone else to show her it was fine lol. I can't remember if she eventually got in. She loves them now, though. :') Have you ever went on a bouncy castle whilst drunk? No, but thanks for the idea, ha ha. Have you ever entered an art competition? Yes. What is one thing you will never do? Try hardcore drugs. What is one food that you detest? Asparagus. Did you have a rebellious phase growing up? Not really. What religion were you brought up with? Roman Catholic. Are you still that religion? GOD NO. Do you often find yourself questioning your future? That's my full-time job. How many friends do you have on Facebook? 124. What sort of music did you listen to when you were in high school? The same I listen to now. What pet names do you use with your significant other? I'm single rn, but usually, I go for "sweetie/sweetheart," "hunny," "love," "dear," stuff like that. What’s the name of the store you usually get your groceries? Wal-Mart. Have you ever seen a theatre show? Yes. What’s your favourite vegetable? Broccoli. Have you ever missed a flight? Yes. I was SO fuckin upset because it was on Sara's birthday and planned in secret, and I was supposed to wake her up. It still wound up being a big surprise to her when she walked into her room and I was chillin' at her desk, ha ha, but I still wish it coulda gone as originally planned. Do your neighbours have any pets? Have you ever met them? Yes; they have a yappy-ass dog that doesn't shut up. I haven't met them. What color is your bedroom door? White. If you were ever to become famous, would you grow annoyed at fans? This may sound very ungrateful, but I have heard A LOT of celebrities say it: it would get old, being stopped constantly in public for signatures, pictures, etc. Like yes, I still WOULD be grateful, but I'd miss just being off the radar and able to go outside carrying out chores and stuff like a normal person. Have you ever met your favourite band/singer? No. :( Are you embarrassed by any of the songs/singers/bands you like? Nah, not nowadays. Have you ever written a story? Yes, a kinda short one when I was little. Think of the last poem you wrote: What inspired you to write it? The breakup with Jason and the fact we're just strangers again. It was really short, but I like it a lot, honestly. Do you have a chance with the person you like right now? I think so. What’s the weirdest thing you were scared of as a child? A skeleton in my closet, lol. Literally. Are there any embarrassing stories your family tells about you? alkdsjflakjwle yes In your opinion, what is the funniest TV show? That '70s Show. 3rd Rock From the Sun is high up there, too. What is the maximum number of children you’d ever have? HYPOTHETICALLY, two, but I'm pretty damn serious about having none. I just always feel kinda bad for children without a sibling, but three would make me pull my hair out. Have you ever been concerned you had a serious illness? Yes. I overreact to even minor symptoms to ANYTHING. Are you comfortable with who you are? No. Pretty much everything about myself embarrasses me, even if it shouldn't. Would you date someone even if you knew you’d get made fun of for it? Yes? Others' opinions don't affect how I feel about someone. Does popularity matter to you at all? No, outside of trying to be a successful photographer. Would you ever consider homeschooling your children? If they really wanted that and it would benefit them, yes. Who told you about the band/singer you are currently listening to? I discovered them myself. Do you ever read fanfiction? Nah. Would you rather die in a plane crash, ship wreck or fire? Jesus. A plane crash, I guess, because in a lot of cases, it would be an immediate death. What are your top five favourite TV shows? Meerkat Manor, Fullmetal Alchemist (and Brotherhood; shut up, they go together), That '70s Show, Ginga Densetsu Weed, and Deadman Wonderland. What is your favorite superhero movie? Logan. If you died next week, what would be the cause of death? Uhhhh idk... I guess maybe a heart attack? Judging by doctor appointments, my heart is just fine, but the fact still remains that I'm technically obese, so that's always a risk. Have you ever taken a break from Facebook or other social media? Why? Facebook, yes. It was just depressing me. I was playing the comparison game REAL hard. Who is the most talented person you know? I dunno. I know many people talented in a lot of areas. Are you currently platonic friends with anyone you’ve had sex with? No. Where did you and your current interest go on your first date? Bowling. Have you ever experienced two people fighting over you (physically or mentally)? What happened? Jason and Juan pursued me at the same time. They'd known each other in the past, and Juan hated him for "winning" his ex-girlfriend. Then when Jason and I got together, Juan wasn't the happiest for sure. Have your parents ever thought you were gay? What happened? Before I actually came out as bisexual, I don't think so? Are your parents more liberal or conservative? Conservative. Mom is more open, but still conservative. I think. What year are you going into at the beginning of the next academic year? I'm not in school. How far away does your closest family member live? I live with Mom. If you’ve seen both, did you prefer the Disney version or the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland? I actually strongly prefer Tim Burton's. Would you have sex before marriage? Why or why not? Yeah. I just want to be in a long-term, serious, healthy relationship to reach that point and be as safe as possible about it. Are you more liberal or conservative? Liberal, but I do have some conservative beliefs, too. Who is your favorite Harry Potter character? I don't have one, given I never got into that franchise. What’s the worst that could come out of letting gays marry? Not a goddamn thing. What’s the most sexual thing you’ve done? Done "the thing." Name something that you are against. I'll go with an unconventional one that's a problem as of the late: making owning reptiles illegal. Why are you against it? Because reptiles are perfectly capable of being brilliant pets and, most importantly, can tame people's fears of them. I think that it's very important to see the worth and beauty in all animals, and reptiles are one of the most unappreciated families out there. :/ Have you ever played the Tomb Raider games? I played some of either the first or second one. I could never beat it. Old games are hard, man. Do you like it or hate it when your partner is clingy? I absolutely believe that it can get to an extreme that I don't like, but for the most part, I don't mind a clingy partner because hey, I am too. Beatles or Rolling Stones? Stonessss. When was the last time you changed your opinion on somebody? It'd been on my mind for a while, but I *officially* realized that I really do like-like Girt a couple days ago. And since then it's gotten a bit hardcore and all I wanna do is talk to him bc fuck me and how attached to people I get. What was the last thing that made you feel proud and why? Every single time I go to the gym, I feel proud of myself because it REALLY takes a lot out of me. Do you feel uncomfortable when people you hardly know confide in you? Nope. I'm willing to be a shoulder to cry on for like... anyone. If you're hurting, talk to someone. I'll be there as an easy option. What was the last thing to fascinate you? It was... INCREDIBLY disturbing and almost nauseating even for me, but I saw a video of a dead whale explode. It was GRUESOME. Guts just kept coming and coming and coming and :x Is there a certain noise/sound which scares you? Hmmm... I'm sure there is, but what, it's not coming to me. Sudden, loud noises are an obvious answer. Do you have a favourite microorganism? ... No, I can't say I do. Out of the people you know, whose birthday is next? Girt's, actually. It's in October. If you have pet fish do you bother to name them? I did when I actually had them as a kid. Do you keep your eggs in the fridge? Ye. Have you ever owned chickens? No, but that'd be cool. Fresh eggs from a properly cared for chicken taste SO much better. When did you last listen to music? Currently. NOW I'm obsessed with Melodicka Bros & Violet Orlandi's cover of "Somebody That I Used to Know." It's done in a gothic metal style and is amaaaazing.

[jurijurijurious]

Rambles on watching PotC in reverse...

So I finished my "watching Pirates of the Carribean films in reverse order" thing. Had a blast, tbh, not seen them for so long it was almost like seeing some of it fresh and all the feels came back! The music is stunning, particularly in number 2 and 3; Hans Zimmer and co. knocking it out the ballpark. Gave me goosebumps!

Anyway, ramble ho!

I appreciate watching a series backwards is a bit odd. It certainly opens your eyes to the nuances (or weirdness) of character development that occurs, but instead of you seeing it flow naturally from origin to conclusion, you end up picking up on where all the little seeds were originally planted long after you've witnessed what the final "bloom" is going to be; a "reverse order" watching also highlights some gaping plot-holes and even the odd awkward and utterly retconned plot point (Jack's compass story, for example, appears to be completely re-written in the fifth film when it is clearly stated in the second that he bartered it from Tia Dalma. There could be a convoluted explanation but it certainly looks like a writing fuck-up, or a case of "we give no shits any more". I'm wondering if the team behind the fifth film even re-watched the other movies?)

I feel like I have much more respect for Elizabeth's character than I once did; I don't think I paid her nearly enough attention back in the day, and watching her story backwards made me recognise how, from the start, she was always more pirate than Will; she was brave, a total geek about pirate lore (her child-self was super excited at the very prospect of pirates!), and she was brave enough right at the start of her adventure to be asked to be taken to parley with the dread Captain Barbossa — just in her nightgown. (Christ, she even tries to kill him! Gutsy lass.) It is only natural therefore that she continues to use her wiles, cunning, and to a degree her sex, to trick and deceive whenever the need calls; in "Dead Man's Chest", she even uses this guile to sacrifice Jack to the locker!

She also, right from the start, learns a lot from ol' Barbossa, and this runs on into the third film; Hector Barbossa is no spring chicken but he has managed to remain captain of a ship of unruly thugs for nigh on ten years following his own mutiny of the original captain, Jack Sparrow. He would never have been able to hold onto that position without a measure of competence, skill and bravery. Elizabeth recognises this and, whether consciously or not, begins to both emulate and acquire knowledge from him, becoming something of a willing student to his ways.

Now this is something I should probably have taken on board more before as I used to write and read "Barbossabeth" fanfiction regularly (probably the most far-fetched alternate pairing in the saga; in reality, Hector is probably the only central male figure Elizabeth doesn't kiss/have a fling with/get engaged to at some point). In truth, as aforementioned, Elizabeth proves from the start to be a match for Barbossa, who is certainly no fool himself, but even in the first film, she starts to learn from him — his line about the pirate code being"guidelines" which he throws at her early on, she literally parrots nearly word-for-word when it suits her later on in the film; and in "At World's End", she works well with him in a team and soaks up how he holds a crew together and the way he rouses loyalty and action through skilled oration; his speech at the Brethren Court, for example, she again regurgitates later on in the film to galvanise her crew for battle. As a pair they banter and tease and argue, but push each other in the right direction when they need to be pushed, and, by the end of the third film, they have both respect and admiration for one-another. It's one of the most subtle but fulfilling character-and-relationship arcs across the original trilogy and deserves more attention.

On the ol' "Barbossabeth" note, to be frank, there's little sign in the films that they would or could be a romantic item; Barbossa teases her in the first film and seems like he might have an idea to make her a"pirate bride", but there seems little chance of him being able to subdue her spirit. There is that wonderful jokey moment in "At World's End" however, designed to trick us all, when Will asks Elizabeth to make her choice regarding his proposal of marriage to her (in the midst of battle) and Elizabeth shouts out in return "Barbossa!"

And just when we all think, along with poor Will, "what the Hell, when did he come into the equation?" she finally finishes her sentence and we realise she is asking Barbossa, in his capacity as the ship's captain, to wed her to Will. (I still remember seeing the film in the cinema and my heart popped at that moment — I'd take Barbossa any day.) But those of us who take a shine to Rush's scarred old sea dog can dream, I suppose.

I think when all's said and done, standing back and looking at these characters and what they go through, Barbossa comes out best at the end. Even though we are introduced to him as a black-hearted brigand who pillages and plunders with his cursed crew, and is allegedly "so evil Hell spat him back out", we finish up with a rogue who has aimed to live his best life, and whose dedication to his ship is unshakeable. When the Pearl is threatened by the Kraken in "Dead Man's Chest", Jack's first thought is to save himself and he sneaks off in a longboat; irrespective of the fact he does have a change of heart and comes back to save the day, we should contrast this with Barbossa's tale of the Pearl being attacked by Blackbeard: the ship is possessed and turns on him and his crew, the rigging coming alive like snakes, wrapping itself round and round his leg. In his head, Hector knows he has to escape to be able to live so he can plot to retrieve his beloved ship and save it from this dark magic; in order to do so, he cuts his own leg off to get away. There is no universe in which Jack Sparrow would have cut his own limb off to free himself, but Barbossa does; there's a steel and strength to this character I don't think is always fully appreciated; he sails the ship like a boss, will hold up in the darkest of battles, and ultimately in the final film gives his own life when he knows his time has come and he owes it to the child he has left behind. There's your hero; Jack Sparrow is your comic relief and nearly always goes in for self preservation.

The other behemoth of these movies which I can not fail to mention is Davy Jones. Though Captain Salazar is a force to behold as the creepy-ass, psychotic undead captain in the final film, the best real menace of the saga is Bill Nighy's captain of the Flying Dutchman. Hans Zimmer composes him a musical theme unlike anything we've heard before, a theme full of deep organ blasts which hits you with clout, and though Jones is entirely CGI, he is still utterly Nighy. To be honest, he's perhaps one of the most incredible CGI movie characters ever created; he looks utterly convincing as the rain pours down his face or his eyes flash at his crew. Considering he first appeared on our screens 14 years ago, this is one Hell of a feat; there have been few better CGI characters on the big screen since. He's extravagant and perhaps hams it up too much for some people to appreciate, but it's a pirates film, you expect extravagance; I never get tired of watching Davy Jones. A piece of artistic wizardry, a cinematic masterpiece.

I will probably think of more to wax lyrical about some time soon. I currently have a plan in my head for a storyboard I would love to get down, at least in sketches, though part of me would love to make a video to mock a scene up, all based on Barbossa's tale about how he lost his leg and the Pearl to Blackbeard. It'd make a cracking scene, I've no doubt, but it'll be a job and a half to realise

[kumoriyami-xiuzhen]

Hakuoki Shinkai Kaze no Shou Drama Translation - Shogunate Dogs and Puppies

last post of the month!  so as always, i’ll end by asking if you can please support through ko-fi, through paypal or patreon, the latter will give you early access to my stuff and blog translations (changed the tiers)…. also let me know if you have any hakuoki drama cds that you’d be willing to share that are on my looking for list  since i either do not have audio for those cds or do not have audio that i can share... 

Anyway! im finally done with this! AND I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE HOW LUCKY I AM THAT THE AUDIO WAS POSTED FOR THIS RECENTLY!

also the 3rd and 5th sanan tsukikage chapters were re-posted so I saved them as pdfs this time (also kazama’s 7th chapter was taken down but i thankfully already had that saved as a pdf). if im lucky, that translator will repost the other chapters they took down... tho i’m likely not going to translate any of that since i still have a shit ton of stuff on my to-do list plus... ginsei no shou is what im interested in... and i really wanna find some saito stuff to translate lol. especially given the cgs. they’re sooooooooooooooooooo pretty!

lol. as always, final edits will be done on the video (will be delayed due to me being busy)... and since I translated this before I actually heard this cd, I just went with what the Mandarin pingyin reads as for several things in this drama translation. also, there’s a lot of barking not directly mentioned in my tl that i didn’t see in the original TL i used for this.

Aside from the Shinsengumi Oni-tan drama, this is the 2nd drama I’ve always wanted to translate... with the 3rd being ???? xD. only translated track 6 of that one for some reason, and it’s a +30 min drama so i have no idea when it’ll get posted (the 4th would be the Thumb-sized samurai one cuz i’m still annoyed at how i only got tl for 4/7 tracks while the 5th would be the vita zuisouroku one”手紙” for the same reason since im missing tl for tracks 1-6 for that. T_T did find tl for the 妖刀始末记 drama cd i was missing translations for though i don’t have the audio for that). 

image from suruga-ya.

enjoy~!  do not repost this elsewhere!

Hakuoki Shinkai Kaze no Shou Drama CD “Shogunate Dogs and Puppies”

Translation by KumoriYami

Hijikata: ha.. really. I didn't expect to work so late. the sun's already gone down/set.

Yamazaki: Although we planned on getting back before dinner... it is unlikely that we'll make it.

Hijikata: Yeah.... now that dinner is over, i hope that those idiots haven't eaten everything.

Yamzaki: vice-commander, if you wish to hurry, we can take shortcuts/a shortcut.

Hijiakta: shortcuts? is there a shortcut nearby?

Yamazaki: Yes, it's not a well-known [??] shortcut, (and) could affect the vice-commander's safety, so I don't really recommend it....

Hijikata: No, it doesn't matter. Lead the way. If the Shinsengumi's vice-commander doesnt dare to go, it would be a problem.

Yamazaki: I understand. Then please, go this way.

Hijikata: So/Originally, as long as you passed this road we'd be near headquarters. But/However this shortcut feels a little creepy.

Yamazaki: There were reports of wild dog attacks here. I'll go first, also vice-commander please make yourself quieter----What was that noise/sound?!

[I assume that Yamazaki means for Hijikata to make quieter movements though I can't say that for certain. "也請副長多加小" literally word for word: also please vice-commander much/many add/plus small]

Hijikata: Yamazaki! Get ready! (sword gets drawn) It's in the grass over there!

Yamazaki: Wa! Wh-what... is that a wild dog?

hijikata: no, it's just a puppy. did it get separated from its parents?

puppy: wuwu.....

Yamazaki: Do-don't come (over)/cause trouble....go!

Hijikata: hey, when you meant wild dogs, did you mean this guy? Although it's a bit surprising, however isn't this cute? I thought it was a bandit/robber——

Kazama: hm, I was wondering what was making so much noise over here, it turns out it was the Shogunate's hunting dog/lackey playing around with a stray dog? What a funny display/an interesting sight to behold.

Yamazaki: You are Kazama Chikage....?!

Hijikata: Che! In a sense, this guy is [even] worse than a bandit/robber...... Why have you come here?!

Kazama: That's my line/what I should bee saying. Avoiding the main road, taking this shortcut to imitate a dog and steal a chicken [idiom], all I can see in my eyes/before me are people with no sense of shame.

Hijikata: Hey! Look at yourself before speaking of others! If you show up here, it also means that you're very suspicious.

Kazama: Hm, applying [accusing] what you saying to others/applying what you are doing to others is proof of how despicable you are. [As expected of the] Shogunate's hunting dog, truly how shameless. I originally had no business with you today, but I am not so forgiving as to ignore a bunch of bastard dogs who are always trying to pick a fight.

Hijikata: Interesting. Want to fight?

Kazama: Hmph, just watch how I cut you, and your sword covered in dog filth.

Hijikatta: That's what I was thinking/just what I want, I'll be able to rid myself of you!

Kazama: hmph, "the weaker dog will always bark/the weaker the dog is, the more it will bark" and that barking has been happening from the start.......This is only the start.... and I'm bored to death! What's wrong, I've been shouting since just now!

Yamazaki: C-calm down, dog! come on! come, sit down!

Hijikata: I think I've suddenly lost my will to fight.... Oi, Kazama! Is this dog yours? If it is, hurry up and take it with you [away]!

Kazama: How stupid! How could I have taken in such a filthy dog. Since you're all dogs, it should be a companion of you guys!

Hijikata: Who knows, we don't have a clue. But, what's to be done about this guy?

Yamazaki: The way it''s been barking, has ruined the atmosphere for a fight.

Kazama: Really...... it's no fun if you're saying that you were disturbed by a puppy barking as an excuse for losing. (sheathes blade). Hey, I'll wait. You guys get that dog to shut up now.

hijiktat: don't talk to yourself!

Kazama: Hurry up! Talking is a waste of time.

Hijikata: Che[? the definition of the TL here is 'to yawn' so i'm guessing that this might be more of a 'tsk' or 'che']! hey yamazaki, you think of a way to get the dog to shut up.

Yamazaki: M-me? If that's an order, I will comply...... but just now it didn't quiet down at all.

Kazama: Haha...... the Shogunate's hunting dog has been fooled by a wild dog? You indeed all resemble each other. 

Hijikata: You don't have the qualification to talk to us! Hey, have you gotten it to shut up yet?

Yamazaki: It apparently seems to be warning us, as long as we aren't hostile, it should be quiet.

Kazama: Oh.....then you've truly given up. It was probably barking because of how dreadful/awful/fearful/hideous your faces look. Do you want to cover up your faces?

Hijikata: What are you saying about our faces being dreadful? Your face looks more awful than ours, so it was probably barking at that? What do you think? Yamazaki.

Yamazaki:......Uh, ah! yes! I believe Kazama's face is extremely dreadful.

Hijikata: hey, wait...... why was that silence just now?

Yamazaki: It, it's nothing! It absolutely didn’t mean anything!

Kazama: Quit it with the senseless questions and answers. Quickly get that dog to be quiet!

Hijikata: damn it! When this is over, remember this (for me [will probably omit that])! Yamazaki, let's go! Hey, isn't it time [for you] to shut up now? If you don't calm down, don't you know what the consequences will be?........Damn, the barking is really difficult to deal with. Be good, don't worry, so stop barking.

Kazama: hey, just now were you guys trying to please [coax?] it?

Hijikata: ah? Don't bother me!!

Puppy: wanwanwanwan, wanwanwan!!!

Yamazaki: Vice-commander, this is counter-productive. it's rare for that guy to be a bit honest......

Kazama: One or two stray/wild dogs cannot be ordered into doing something, it seems that the dignity of the Shogunate's hunting dog is of no use.

Hijikata: You mouth speaks very well...... however in the end, this guy only started barking after you showed up.

Yamazaki: Indeed. That is to say, the reason for this barking isn't us, rather it is you!

Kazama: What? Being unable to get this dog to shut up, you decide to blame someone else? How unsightly.

Yamazaki: If you were unrelated as you say, why does this dog keep barking at you?!

Kazama: Apparently this lowly dog is unable to understand its position. Then I shall personally get it to shut its mouth.

Hijikata: What do you want to do?  Could it be you want to...!

Kazama: It'll only takes a moment to shut it up!

Hijikata: Hey! Stop.... Nn? What's that?

Kazama: ah, since it seems like you want to eat this dango [i’m assuming ‘dango’ is said here since the tl is ‘dumpling.’ usually whenever i see ‘dumpling the audio puts it as dango], I'll give it to you to eat. Dislikeable/ Disagreeable/ Annoying dog [kinda like 'what a disagreeable fellow' i guess? can't really say for certain since no audio].

Hijikata: I thought you were going to kill it!

Kazama: To always cut down those who hinder you........ is it because you normally do such a thing, that you can only think in this way?

Hijikata: There's no such thing! To use food instead of words/To actually say such a thing using food, you're so/truly despicable/mean!

Kazama: That is completely baseless, I only made the use of everything to stop this. Anyway, this guy is only a domestic animal, it's impossible to for it to not have an appetite. What's the matter? Now that it's satisfied, it's quiet so come——

puppy: wan! wanwan......!

Hijikata: What's wrong? It didn't quiet down/calm down at all.

Yamazaki: That seemed to have the opposite effect. It seems to be asking for more/for you to feed it again

Kazama: che, don't you know how to be grateful? what are you dissatisfied with?

HIjikata: Seeing you speak like that, it seems that you also aren't able to accomplish/do it?

Kazama: Let me first say, that it is barking for different reasons. It's barking at you guys because it think your faces are terrible while its barking at me is to ask me to give it more [feed it again... i think makes more sense].

Hijikata: Whatever you say, regardless/in the end, this problem still hasn't been resolved.

Yamazaki: It's as he says/He's right. What are you going to do this time/So what are you going to do with it......

Kazama: Leave it to me, I'll show you what I can do.

Yamazaki: Kazama! You're still trying to kill this dog---

Kazama: Insignificant and lowly dog that is barking! Shut up!!

puppy: wuwu......

Kazama: hmph, see? My majesty/prestige/dignity/authority [??? i guess something like 'behold my authority'?]

Yamazaki: You're just threatening it to keep/stay quiet....? Eh? (It's) Not barking?

Kazama: Okay, now that the annoying guy has shut up, we can continue.

Hijikata: So the outcome/result was like this..........Good grief. Are you ready?

Kazama: I'm up [assuming im ready/prepared].

puppy: wanwanwan! wanwan.......!

Kazama: You guys....! I ordered you to shut up, why are you yelling/barking again?!

Hijikata: What's wrong? You'll have to calm it down and show us.

Yamazaki: Kazama Chikage, what do you intend to do? You took charge of this dog/The dog is in your charge.  

Kazama: Hah....! (sheathes sword) Hmph, dogs and dogs really fit together, I truly am stupid for playing around with you guys. I'm going.

Puppy: wan! wanwan!

Yamazaki: Exactly what does this puppy want?

Hijikata: Is it trying to get between/obstruct/hinder us.... Maybe it's trying to stop us from fighting.

Yamazaki: This... how is that possible/how can this be?

Hijikata: Okay, we've wasted enough time, it's time to go.

Yamzaki: Yes. However/But, how should the dog be handled?

Hijkata: It's impossible to bring it back to headquarters, though it might be heartless... but/however, I believe dogs have their own world. Even if we don't worry about it, it'll survive.

Yamazaki: I understand.

Kazama Chikage, Tsuda Kenjirō Hijikata Toshizou, Miki Shinichiro Yamazaki Susumu, Suzuki Takayuki

--End--

....i wanna complain that ive had no motivation to do anything music related since the pandemic started... tho i’m guessing part of it’s owed to listening to increase of songs from TSFH and metal gear, the majority of which don’t really work on piano... maybe that’ll change if i start a certain switch game lol....

next month, i have various translated things from various mediums scheduled.

[applsauss]

Origin Story

Description: You’re the hero of your own story. (Prelude to BLiNK: The Story of an All-American Hero)

Fandom: My Hero Academia


Pairing: (Eventual) Bakugou Katsuki/Reader

Word Count: 2.2k+

Warning(s): Brief Description of Domestic Abuse (Father/Daughter).

“I am not worthless! Stop talking to me like that!” This isn’t the first time your father’s yelled at you and it’s not the first time you’ve talked back, but in this moment, something in him seems to snap.

You hear the sound of his hand hitting your face before you register the pain of the slap. It’s a loud crack, and it makes your head whip to the side. You hear your grandmother gasp from over by the sink, and your cheek begins to itch, becoming unbearably hot with pain.

When you finally manage to turn back and look at your father, he’s huffing with fury, shoulders squared and rising and falling with each loud breath he takes. You’ve never seen him fight in the ring, but you imagine that this is what it looks like. To have him direct that sort of expression at you is bodily terrifying. 

“Get out,” your grandma says before you can react at all. Her sudden interjection has both you and your father turning towards her in surprise. Her eyes are narrowed in a hard glare and she’s clenching a dish towel in her shaking fists. 

Your dad opens his mouth to say something, but is interrupted again by your grandmother. “Get out!” she shrieks this time, taking a step towards her son. It’s almost comical, her accent, how small she is compared to your father’s imposing height. “Get out! Get out!” She takes a step towards him, and he jumps, a slack-jawed expression stuck on his face. 

“Get out! Get out of my goddamn house!” She shouts, voice shaking in anger. She begins to angrily approach your dad, throwing her hand out to whip him with the towel, and he finally jumps into gear, stumbling backwards towards the front door. His back hits it, and still, he says nothing as he stares, wide-eyed, at her. 

She whips him with the towel again, this time on his collar, close to his face, and he’s shaking as he fights with the doorknob, then falls into the hallway. “And don’t you ever show your face here again! No son of mine lays a hand on his daughter like that!” She continues shouting, chasing him out to the stairs. Then she steps back into the apartment, and slams the front door shut so hard it rattles in the frame.

Your cheek stings, your face is hot with shame, and you’re frozen in the kitchen, shoulders so tense you feel like they could cramp. You stare angrily at the floor until it blurs, and then you hiccup. 

“Oh, child,” your grandmother tuts as she returns to your side, gently smoothing your hair away from your face, then dragging you down into a hug. “Stop your whimpering. You’re fine.” 

At the gentle affection, you start to cry harder, clutching onto her apron and burying your face into her shoulder until you have no more tears left. She leads you to the kitchen table, and you sit, pliant and emotionless, as she serves you an early dinner. 

“Eat your food. You have lessons after this, don’t you?” She urges gently, like she’s forgotten she hates how you insist on learning Muay Thai, the same sport your father had dedicated his life to.  ‘Look what good it did him,” she would usually tell you after cuffing the back of your head. She doesn’t say it now, though.

Your father’s words ring in your ears: “You’ll never be anything but a sad bitch. You’re a waste of space -- worthless.” 

When you were younger, even if he only showed up when he was out of money, you thought of him as a hero. The people he fought in the underground rings he frequented were the villains, and he would punch them into submission, save the day and come back to you and your grandma. 

Worthless. He’s wrong, you know he’s wrong, but he’s your dad, and what if he isn’t?

“Eat,” your grandma urges you again, this time pushing your spoon towards your bowl.

You nod slowly, then drag a spoonful of chicken adobo into your mouth. You wipe your teary eyes, and reflect on how even when everything else in the world feels grey, her cooking manages to taste like home.

***

You’re mopping the sweat-soaked floor of the Muay Thai studio below your apartment when the owner and your teacher looks up from his desk in the back room. “Have you ever heard of UA?” 

“No.” You pause and lean against the mop, exhausted muscles twitching from your training, and now the clean up. “What’s that?”

“A hero school in Japan. It’s All Might’s alma mater.”

“The hero?” 

“Come here,” he beckons you with a wave of his hand, and you do as he says, leaning the mop against a wall and picking your way across the studio, barefoot. 

He shows you clips of All Might, the hero who came from nowhere, the hero who always smiles, and he tells you that he’s a real hero, someone to really look up to. You identify with All Might more than you have anyone else before, and when your teacher sends you upstairs for the night, you can’t help but feel like he’s trying to tell you something. 

That same night, you wait for your grandmother to fall asleep, then sneak back out into the living room and pull open her laptop. It takes a couple minutes to load, and then you spend the rest of the night soaking in every length of video featuring All Might in existence.

A hero who helps people. A hero who smiles. A hero from nothing. 

You forget all about your dad, and the yellow bruise taking shape on your cheek.

You think of UA, and you recognise that your decision was made for you the moment your teacher asked you if you’d ever heard of it. 

All Might grins and the sparkle in his smile becomes the star you shoot for.

***

Two years later, you get hit hard. Your vision swims and blurs. You feel yourself hit the ground, and your strength is pulled from your grasp in the same moment the impact forces the air to rush from your lungs. 

The gritty concrete scrapes your palms as you struggle to push your body up. The crowd roars. You feel goopy liquid drip from your mouth, and you wipe it with your forearm only to realize it’s blood. You ball it with saliva in your mouth, then spit it out. You look up and your vision clears just enough to see your opponent, standing at the end of a dark tunnel, and behind her, white glory.

You never got a response to your application from UA, but it did nothing more than make you stumble because you’re going to show them all what you’re worth, and if your parents are out there, then you’re going to show them too, and they’ll regret ever doubting your greatness, and UA will regret passing you over, because You Are Here. 

State, regionals and nationals -- you’ll do what it takes to get that phone call -- and she, the girl standing over you with a vortex of a quirk, is the last match you have to win until you claim the underdog title that is yours. 

Still stooped over, you keep your eyes trained on your opponent and you know in your heart, in your soul, in your bones, that you’re going to beat her. You swear you’ll beat her. 

You’re going to prove to them your worth. You’re going to follow All Might until you surpass him, and then everyone will be looking at you, your mother and father included, and they’ll have no choice but to recognise how great you are. How despite them, you have become the greatest hero in the world. 

You’re going to beat her. 

You stand, and your head is buzzing. Your balance is dangerously off, but all you can see is that girl, and she is the only thing standing between you and victory. You take a moment to prepare yourself, body tensing, strained muscles bunching and charging, and then you feel the crackle of energy that zips through the air and you blink out of existence, and then flicker back again right behind her, body twisting through the air with the force of which you throw yourself into the attack. 

Your shin connects with the side of her head with a thunderous crack. You don’t feel the pain, but she sure does, and as you watch her crumple, you feel nothing but blood-pumping victory.

***

It’s the second day of class 2-A’s second year at UA, and everyone is buzzing with excitement. Already caught up with each other and thrown headfirst into schoolwork, the buzz is focused around the new exchange student that will be arriving today, a champion from America.

“That’s her!” Mina says excitedly from across the classroom. She has her phone out and is showing Shoji the clip everyone’s grown familiar with, the one where the exchange student takes first place in whatever national competition she was in. 

Bakugou chews on his cheek thoughtfully, relishing the idea competition, but unwelcome of the hubbub surrounding you, the student who came from nowhere, the student who took home first place in some competition he’s never heard about, the student who’s transfering to class 2-A, the top hero class in Japan, from some dumb unnamed highschool in some dumb city he doesn’t give two shits about.  

Everyone had searched your name on the internet as soon as they heard they were getting a transfer, and a couple of them found news articles and clips of your victory, of your half-told origin story. It was researching the competition that drove Bakugou to pour over every clip, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t at least a little entertaining to watch your wild fights.

The clip Mina is playing is getting to the part where in a sudden burst of ferocious violence, you leap to life and take down your last opponent with one final push: You use your warp quirk to appear behind your opponent and deliver a swift kick to her head, with a deadly twist of your torso, the follow-through torque brutal -- and then --

“(L/N) wins!” The announcer shouts, and Bakugou is familiar with the way the camera zooms in on your heaving form, with the way you turn to the crowd, visibly shaking, hands clenched at your side, and then you throw both fists in the air, suck in an elated breath, then bring your elbows down like you’re flexing, and let out this pure, victorious, elated shout that stirs something primal in his chest. 

You look terrifying in the clip, this ball of pride and rage; You look victorious, you look like no one else, sweat and blood on your face and bare arms, this monstrous gleam in your eyes. Afterwards, you turn towards the shaky camera approaching you, point, and announce in choppy japanese, “I am transferring to UA next semester.” Your voice is hoarse and strained, but still manages to rumble like thunder.

The paramedics rush toward you and your opponent, and then finally -- finally, you stagger, and collapse into the one approaching you. 

The clip ends and Mina excitedly gauges Shoji for his reaction, and Bakugou rolls his eyes, then glares straight ahead at the blackboard.

When Aizawa enters the class followed closely by the transfer student, he struggles to remain only half-interested. Out of the corner of his eye, he scrutinises you, and is confused when he learns that you look decidedly normal and not murderous, though still foreign, and out of place in a school uniform.

His eyes narrow as you follow Aizawa up to the podium, and the scream you’d let out after your victory sticks to the inside of his ears, contrasting with the reality of who you are. Your expression is… blank, maybe a little upset. You look nervous, but approachable, and are making the effort of meeting various students' eyes. Bakugou openly stares when you force a smile.

Aizawa says good morning, he says that you’re the exchange-student they’ve heard about, and then tells you to introduce yourself, and you do -- your voice like any other student’s, not at all like thunder, and maybe your japanese is a little accented, but it’s passable, if a little stiff, but when you say your name, it sounds decidedly American. 

“Does anyone have any questions they’d like to ask (L/N)?” 

There’s a volley of questions, mostly from the girls, and then a few from Kirishima and Kaminari. Bakugou doesn’t listen to any of it because the first one was about your favourite food, and then Aizawa addresses the class again.

“Thank you. (L/N), you may take your seat; in front of Yaoyorozu, in the back.”

Yaoyorozu raises your hand and you make your way through the rows to the back. When you pass Bakugou’s desk, your eyes fall to his, and his interest is piqued when he finds some of that ferocious energy from the video clips still in them, like you’re daring him to rise to your challenge.

His face drops to a scowl at the idea, and as you pass, he follows your movements with a glare. You take your seat between Deku and Yaororozu, two rows behind him, and he decides that you’re competition, and he wants to do nothing more than mop the floor with you.

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[shielddrake]

Psychonauts: Setup and Payoff Done Well (If Not Perfectly)

So about a year ago I posted a long lecture about how Final Fantasy XV and Kingdom Hearts 3 had major problems in the story department when it came to setup and payoff. I basically said that Final Fantasy XV had lots of scenes with payoff that were not set up very well and Kingdom Hearts 3 had some excellent moments that set up story elements but never followed through on them. And while I think some of those issues have been addressed with some of the DLC released for both games (I reserve my right to be a little salty Episodes Aranea, Luna, and Noctis were canceled) I still stand by my statement that these games have big problems with this.

 During the past year, I have received a couple of comments regarding my position on this, ranging from “Can you give a good example of setup and payoff?” to “Well, if you’re so smart, why don’t you come up with a better example?” And I thought, well, what kind of game would be a good example of excellent use of setup and payoff? What game or series would I say does the job so much better than any writer has or does, video game or otherwise?

 And then, the middle of a repeat playthrough I always do before a game’s sequel comes out, it came to me:

 Now Psychonauts has been out since 2005, so a spoiler warning might seem a little silly here, but I think a lot of gamers have been playing it for the first time since the sequel was announced, so just in case: Major spoilers for the original Psychonauts game under the cut.

 Whenever someone tries to argue whether or not video games can be considered art, one of the first games that comes to my mind is Psychonauts, and not just because of its amazing aesthetics. It has some of the best storytelling, script writing, level design, music, voice acting, and art direction I have ever seen. This game is possibly one of the best video games I have every played, despite the flaws that it does have (I’m looking at you, Meat Circus), and it is easily on my list of top ten favorite video games.  Is it really any surprise that Psychonauts 2 reached its crowd-funding goal of over $3,000,000 in about a month? And yes, I admit that I am one of those backers, just to put out there any bias I know I have.

 But this isn’t meant to be a review of Psychonauts.

 I replayed Psychonauts a few months ago with the idea of the first game being fresh in my mind when the sequel comes out, which is supposed to be sometime this year of 2020. I was absolutely inundated with examples of effective setup and payoff as I played, so it seemed like the obvious choice to go over how this story-telling technique can be used not only well, but also to the point where it’s almost like there are far too many examples.

 Honestly, I could go on and on and on about setup and payoff in Psychonauts’ story, but for our purposes here most of the focus is going to be on just three big things that are really important to the main storyline: Linda the Lungfish, bunnies and meat, and Raz’s dad.

 One thing about setup and payoff is that the setup has to actually happen in a way that the audience, in this case the player, can’t miss it.  There are several moments in the game that Linda is mentioned, the first time being in the opening cutscene, where Bobby teases Dogen about the monster at the bottom of the lake.  You can’t miss the setup when it is thrown in your face that way.

  But that’s not the only time we get references to some sort of lake monster. Before going into Basic Braining, the first official level of the game, if Raz talks to Mikhail, the adorable Russian psychic mentions a “giant, hairless bear” in the woods, asking if Raz has seen it and wanting to wrestle with it. Now, it’s not said for certain if Mikhail is talking about Linda or if he’s just referring to the telekinetic bears you meet later on, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all if it’s supposed to be the former.

  The first time the player heads for the lake, Elton will run up to Raz and mention the “brain-eating fish” that supposedly lives there. Well, now we’ve got both a mention of the lake monster and the fact that it goes after brains.  Hmm, sound familiar in retrospect?

  Optionally, Raz can also talk to Elton about the fish being spooked by something in the lake.

  Although only the first lake interaction with Elton is mandatory (whether it’s when you go to see Milla or before then), both of these moments act as reminders of the setup of the lake monster established in the opening cutscene.  

 And then there’s the scene in the woods between Raz and Lili on the way to Sasha Nein’s Secret Lab. Raz says that something was watching him, a shadowy being that smelled like pond scum.

  I absolutely love Lili’s face in this scene, by the way.

 We kind of get distracted by their interactions and Lili basically trolling Raz, but that’s part of what makes good writing. The scene is foreshadowing something without making it overly overt…not that the game is subtle every time, but the point still stands. This game does a great mix of the obvious and the subtle.

 The game also has optional dialogue with Coach Oleander and Raz reporting on a UPE (Unidentified Paranormal Entity), which he suspects is aquatic in nature. And Oleander seems oddly insistent that the lake monster does not exist, that it’s just a camp fable.

 Finally we get to the Brain Tumbler Experiment. Needless to say, it’s in this level that a lot of the elements come together. We come across a demon in the form of a big, shadowy figure that spits out a diving helmet. Again, does that sound familiar at all?

  There is a minor mention of the lake monster in the mental vault below the spooky thorn tower (more on that near the end of this post), but other than that there’s a break in the game where the lake monster isn’t mentioned for a while. We don’t get another explicit scene about it until Raz and Lili meet Linda properly at the edge of Lake Oblongata…where Lili gets kidnapped, we go through the boss sequence under the lake, and enter Linda’s brain of Lungfishopolis.  And the final payoff occurs with the Hideous Hulking Lungfish transporting us to Thorney Towers and giving Raz her real name, Linda.

  Now would any of that be nearly as rewarding if we had never heard of the Hideous Hulking Lungfish of Lake Oblongata prior to her official appearance? Every single player would just have visible question marks hanging over their heads if Linda just showed up out of nowhere. Deus Ex Lungfish, anyone? But that’s not what the developers did.  They spent plenty of time building up to Linda, making her reveal not only make sense but also weaving her into the story so that her reveal is more than satisfying.

 There is just one thing I’ve always been curious about, a sort of chicken-and-egg scenario. Did the legend of the lake monster start because genetically-altered Linda showed up and starting attacking campers?  Or did the legend already exist and Oleander used it as an excuse to write off any “sightings” of the monster? Any ideas?

 Moving on from Linda, we come to the imagery of meat and bunnies.

 Without knowing the full ending of the game, most players would think that it’s a bit strange I would stick meat and bunnies together in the same category. Sadly, the connection between these things is a bit on the morose side, and they are actually first introduced at the same time as well.

 When I first played Psychonauts, the first time I actively thought about bunnies and meat being related somehow was during the Brain Tumbler Experiment, but that’s actually not the first time the game introduces these. Anyone else notice that Basic Braining has figments of meat cleavers, butcher knives, a pig, a duck, and a fox? I could logic that a meat cleaver and butcher knife fit with the whole army theme, but a pig, duck and fox?

  Kind of odd animals would be included in all this, especially animals that are either butchered or hunted. At least that’s what I thought at first.

 It is in Oleander’s mind that we first see the “meaty plant” that Lili saves from being squashed by Raz. It’s also here that we see bunnies hopping around the snowfield with the Gatling gun. This early in the game, is this important or just set dressing?  I’m ashamed to admit, but I thought it was just weird set dressing when I first played, but it makes more sense as the story goes on.

  Turns out it’s important all right, since the next time we see both meat and bunnies is in the Brain Tumbler Experiment. “Mr. Bun” seems like a rather random animal to have in Raz’s brain, but then again bunnies showed up in Basic Braining as well.  Is there a connection somehow? Sasha tells Raz that an animal may represent a primal fear or memory.

 He’s right on the latter, although a player going through the game for the first time might not know why (and I admit, on my first playthrough, I didn’t). And there’s more meat and meaty plants here. Raz doesn’t directly mention these (at least he didn’t during my most recent playthrough, to my recollection) but they are pretty obvious, to say the least.

 So that’s two things connecting the Brain Tumbler Experiment and Basic Braining.  Is this a normal occurrence? Maybe these things just show up in brains? Lili does mention she had been dreaming of meat plants, after all, both in Basic Braining and in the cutscene before Raz enters Milla’s mind. Maybe it’s a primal need for meat? Don’t tell the vegans I said that. The Vegan Police would be very unhappy with the final level of this game.

 After the Brain Tumbler Experiment is finished, we know that the brain interference was coming from Oleander, but it’s not explained why there are meat and bunny references up until that point.  There’s actually no mention of either at all in the subsequent levels until the last.  Lungfishopolis, The Milkman Conspiracy, Gloria’s Theater, Waterloo World, and Black Velvetopia are devoid of all meat or bunnies, which possibly leads the player to forget about the whole thing for a while (and when I say “the player,” I really mean me).

 In fact, we don’t see any sign of either until the final level of the game, Meat Circus. And, oh boy, Meat Circus.

  Yeah, it should come as no surprise that I hate this level. I hated it so much that on my first playthrough of this game in 2005, I rage quit and didn’t look at Psychonauts for several days. I eventually went back to it and beat it, but let’s say I was more than a little relieved that they lowered the difficulty for it in subsequent releases.

 But I digress.

 We reach Meat Circus, the combined consciousness of Raz and Little Oly, and the payoff of all the meat and bunny stuff we’ve seen thus far. We have Frankenstein-esque meat bunnies, platforms made of steaks, rail grinding on bones, trapeze and trampolines of bones and skin, and of course the dark versions of both Raz’s and Oleander’s fathers, who not only are evil but also become a giant two-headed monster.  When Sasha said that problems seem larger in your head than in real life, I should have known it would be taken more literally in this game.

  I mean, is it really any shock that Oleander is carrying some trauma after seeing his bunny friend be decapitated by his own father? It’s never said how old Little Oly is, but considering his behavior he is clearly younger than Raz, so this happened when he was in the single digits of age. That’s really not something a little kid should see. That’s just asking for PTSD.

 Anyway, back to setup and payoff, which is pretty obvious at this point. We have plenty of mentions of both bunnies and meat throughout the game, leading to the final boss that is both creepy and downright terrifying. Not only does this boss conclude Oleander’s trauma with his father being a butcher and killing his favorite bunny, but it also allows Raz to defeat his inaccurate mental image of his own father.  Both of them are able to move forward from that point on. Defeating this monstrosity acts as the ultimate payoff and conclusion for both Raz and Oleander.

  Speaking of Raz’s dad…

 Raz’s relationship with his father at the start of the game is strained, to say the least. When Raz goes to learn Levitation from Milla, the very mention of his father showing up to take him home from the camp makes him nervous. Not the best sign here, and his other comments regarding his dad don’t make it much better.

 Once Raz reaches cadet ranks ten and twenty, we get cutscenes of Raz talking with Cruller in tutorials for Pyrokinesis and Telekinesis. During Pyrokinesis, Raz first mentions that his father, Augustus, hates psychics and trained Raz in acrobatics to the point where Raz worried his dad was trying to kill him. During Telekinesis, Raz reveals his suspicions that his father is psychic as well. The memory vault we see of Raz running away from home only reinforces Raz’s perspective.

  We’re led to believe that Raz’s statements are the truth, which is a logical conclusion since he’s the game’s protagonist, but the end of the game shows otherwise. At first I thought this meant Raz was simply an unreliable narrator, but that turns out to not be the whole story. While Raz is an unreliable narrator in that there are a lot of things he just doesn’t know, it’s not malicious in any way. Raz simply doesn’t know that he father really does care about him. That’s the magic of using the third-person limited point of view.

 Up to this point, we’re led to believe that Augustus is a neglectful father at best, but it turns out that Augustus does love his son. He’s just apparently really bad at showing it. The very fact that he is the only one able to break into Raz’s “hard to penetrate skull” shows that there is a deeper relationship between them.  And Augustus is clearly distraught that his own son sees him as a monster in his mind. Poor Augustus.

  I think that a lot of the interactions between father and son in this game was cut out due to both budget and time constraints, because I feel like there is more to be said with these two than what we get in the final product. (I’m thinking we’re going to get more of that in the sequel, but that is up in the air at this time.) This doesn’t bother me too much though, since we do get effective enough setup and payoff that it doesn’t seem like it comes out of nowhere.  They do finally talk to each other and express their concerns, mending their relationship…in the middle of a battle with a two-headed father monster.

  Clearly these two have communication issues. The morale of this story is that it’s important to talk to one each other.

 And this is certainly paid off in the end cutscene of the game.  When Sasha says they want Raz to come along to rescue Truman Zanotto, Raz doesn’t just run off with them again.  He turns around and gives his father puppy-dog eyes, clearly asking for permission to go this time. And Augustus not only gives it, he gives Raz his blessing and encourages him to “show them all.” Contrast this to the backstory of the game, where Augustus flat out forbids Raz from having anything to do with the Psychonauts and Raz running away in secret.

  And if that’s not satisfying use of setup and payoff, I don’t know what is.

 That’s not to say that all of the setup and payoff in Psychonauts is perfect. To be fair, there are times when the setup can be missed, and therefore the payoff that comes later can be confusing. The most obvious example of this is the nightmare that attacks you in The Milkman Conspiracy. When I first played the game all those years ago, my first thought was, “What in the world? What is this thing and where did it come from?”

  Of course, on subsequent playthroughs, I did find the demon room in Milla’s mind, showing the same nightmares she had caged away. This is the difference between a sane mind and an insane one.  Milla has all her demons under control (although notice that they have not gone away) while Boyd’s run amok because he has no way of mentally dealing with them, since his brain is a little bit busy with this, well, milkman conspiracy.  The nightmares that attack in Boyd’s brain make more sense after I saw the ones in Milla’s brain. In this case, the payoff wasn’t bad since the nightmare miniboss wasn’t a bad fight, but context in the form of the setup made the payoff better.

  Other times the setup can be missed?  The other big one is the resolution of all the campers’ storylines. Unless the player spends time going around camp throughout the game and seeing the interactions the other campers have with each other, the little scene you have with each one once they are re-brained won’t make a lot of sense. The love triangle between J.T., Elka and Nils? J.T. and Chops having conflict about J.T. abandoning his best friend for his new girlfriend? Crystal and Clem attempting suicide to become more powerful? Chloe thinking she’s an alien? Maloof basically becoming a mob leader with Mikhail as his right-hand man? Elton and Milka’s blossoming love? …Just to name a few? Yeah, the context of all that is missed if the player doesn’t bother to talk to the other campers throughout the game, but I attribute that more to the player than the game.  The developers accounted for this in the story, so it’s more the player didn’t look for the setup rather than Double Fine just not bothering to include it.

  That’s just some examples of setup and payoff that I feel are probably the most important to the main storyline of Psychonauts.  They are far from the only examples. Really far from it. Oh boy, could I go on about the scenarios of setup and payoff that happen in this game.

 Dogen talking to the squirrels, who tell him that the short man is going to kill everyone, only for them to really be talking about Oleander?

 Elton saying that Oleander’s recruiting office in Basic Braining resembles a dentist office, only to find out that one of the main antagonists, Dr. Loboto, is in fact a dentist?

  Oleander having a mental vault trapped behind some mental cobwebs? Well, he has something to hide, despite him saying he doesn’t when you first play through Basic Braining. Of course, getting angry at Raz for snooping around a room with a curtain doesn’t give off the idea that Oleander has something to hide. Nope. Not suspicious at all.

 Agent Crueller having all the different personalities around the camp, hinting as his unstable mental state?

 The Hand of Galochio appearing in the lake as a reference to Raz’s family having a curse to die in water, and said curse just so happens to show up not only as a gameplay element but as a story element during Meat Circus?

 Raz being able to read Lili’s thoughts when she doesn’t mean for him to, then for him to do it two more times near the end of the game?

 How Lili’s cold stops her from sneezing out her own brain?

 Sasha’s hatred of tacky lamps having to do with his past working in a tacky lamp factory? Or the shoeboxes indicating his father was a cobbler? Or the bed as the location of where his mother was horribly ill and died?

 Raz needing to climb the “creepy thorn tower” in the Brain Tumbler Experiment, only to later need to climb Thorney Towers Home for the Disturbed?

 The mention of the town of Shaky Claim on the giant tree stump at the camp entrance referring to the sunken town that is (somewhat) explored during the boss sequence under the lake?

 Raz talking about being back in high school in Black Velvetopia despite being ten years old? Not to mention the stories the dogs tell about Lana/Lampita and Dean/Dingo?

 Lastly, do I really need to mention the incredibly weird and seemingly out of place mental vault below the creepy thorn tower? A brain chicken hatches out of an egg, meets a fish in water, goes to a circus, gets placed in a teacup, and blasts people to death? Kind of a summation of Raz coming out of the egg in the Brain Tumbler Experiment, meeting Linda at Lake Oblongata, entering the Meat Circus, and getting placed in a brain tank and defeating two people? Was the mental vault a foreshadowing of the main plot of Psychonauts? I don’t know.  What do you think?

  *Takes a deep breath.* See what I mean when I say I could really go on and on about setup and payoff in Psychonauts? There are so many examples that it’s kind of ridiculous. It could be said that there’s too much of this kind of storytelling in the game, but I fail to see how that is a problem.  There is such a thing as too much of a good thing, but when it comes to setup and payoff, Psychonauts is not it.

    Credits 

Screenshots courtesy of the following:

Comic Foil, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN-Y6XDe0oWyhgjcGunJqGw

 Global Gaming, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pjsxNSwSSA

 StoryGamer, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXZ1vDFp_dw&t=139s

 ThatNotSoAznKid, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ford0MGvWIc

[notaburgler]

Morning meetings are such a drag... Endeavor x assistant Fem!reader SFW

His shadow passed your desk, each thump of his massive boots echoing along the hardwood floor, “Good morning, Satan,” he grumbled. Oh that cute little nickname he had for you… Such a sweet boss.

“Good morning Mr. Endeavor,” you greeted him with a smile and a small wave for the three interns trailing behind him like ducklings. “I’ll be in your office shortly to go over your schedule for the week.” You were sure your chipper tone was almost as annoying to him as you were, both facts he made obvious by immediately storming away. 

It wasn’t that your boss hated you. On the contrary, he absolutely needed you — and he hated it. He’d forget his head at home if it wasn’t attached to his neck, and he despised knowing that someone as tiny and weak as yourself would always remember it. You didn’t even have a useful quirk. You were just some college graduate who managed to snake their way into a job as a receptionist at his front desk. He clearly didn’t think you would stick around as long as you had, especially with how difficult he was to deal with at times. But five years later, you had unintentionally taken control of his entire schedule.

You grabbed a green smoothie and pulled out his schedule book for the day. Picking up your tablet, you made your way to his office, ready to fight. You originally had his schedule downloaded to his phone, but the man is so technologically inept that he had no idea what was going on when he looked at it in the morning. Paper copies only for the top hero Endeavor. 

You wrinkled your nose as you passed the thermostat, giving it a menacing glare. No matter. A quick adjustment and you were off to ‘ruin his day.’

“Damn it,” he growled. You could only guess that he had hoped you wouldn’t make good on your threat.

You held out his schedule book, already open to the proper page, knowing that otherwise he wouldn’t even glance at it. “We will start the morning with a staffing meeting, and you need to stop touching the thermostat.” 

“I get too hot!” he snarled, slamming his hand to the desk.

You gave him a beatific smile, as if you hadn’t had this conversation before. “Turn off your flames when you’re in the office.” 

He huffed in response. You went on. As you glossed over his day, you reached for the can of Red Bull on his desk. Lifting it by the rim with a smile and direct eye contact, you dropped it in the garbage. “You know these give you kidney stones.”

He snarled as you replaced the energy drink with the green smoothie. “This is much better. And it prevents this from happening again.” You held up your phone, showing an image of Endeavor curled up on the floor in the fetal position. 

You didn't bother playing the video, he knew what it was and the last thing he would want was his young interns to hear him crying in pain. It would be thoroughly humiliating. And you, some demon woman spawned from the depths of hell, had a video of just that to use as blackmail. 

“Who is that? And why did Endeavor call her Satan when we showed up?” The green-haired intern called Midoriya asked quietly.

Endeavor’s intern and son Shoto sighed, shaking his head before dropping it into his hands, “Endeavor is stubborn, and his assistant, Miss (Y/N), makes sure he follows his schedule.” 

You kept going about his day. “You have a meeting with other heroes, a lunch meeting with a tabloid paper to get them off your back, more meetings, and finally patrol. He sunk lower into his seat with each meeting you mentioned. God did he hate meetings. Even worse, meetings with the media.

“I don't like talking to the tabloids — cancel it.”

“No.”

“Just who is the boss around here?” 

You stopped reading and glanced up. He hated that look. You were so calm and so sweet on the outside. It actually played to his advantage. Most of the time you were at his hip with his schedule book, coordinating his day and making sure that he wasn't going too far off schedule. Not many knew how much control you had, and if they did, he would be in for quite a headline in the news the next day.

Side by side, you stood at about his lower chest. He’d smirk with crossed arms when you'd try to get sassy.  He even bought you a step stool to keep in his office as a joke. When you got mad and wanted to glare him down, you could stand on it and nearly be at his eye level. He still eclipsed you, even on the stool, but it made him chuckle and reminded him that he could crush you at any second if he so desired.

You let your glare fall and went back to your list of things he needed to do that day.

“Endeavor is afraid of some twerp like her?” The third intern, Bakugou, clearly thought Endeavor should be ashamed. But, there was a calmness about the pro hero. Like he had dealt with her for so long, he didn't even get upset. He just pretended to listen then did as he pleased.

With a sharp tap of your nails on his desk, you caught Endeavor’s attention once more. “Did you hear that last part?” you inquired sweetly.

He tilted his head and rolled his eyes in response. You knew he hated how you had taken over. All he wanted was to go fight crime and leave the boring shit to the staff he hired. He often grumbled to the effect of “why do I have staff if no one is doing all of this shit?” 

“You have patrol from one to three. I need you back by four for an interview— and you will be there.” As his flames sparked and burned higher, you pulled your face into a stern grimace. “Don't you flash your flames at me!”

He rolled his eyes again. You relaxed your face at that, knowing he was internally cursing your very existence. 

“Miss (Y/N) plans and executes Endeavor’s entire day and week to the second. If it wasn't for her, he'd probably starve.” Shoto mentioned under his breath, earning himself a glare from his father and a tiny flicker of flames.

You smiled, catching Endeavor’s attention again. “I've preordered your meal for lunch today and no, you won't be able to bribe the staff into getting you a big steak. You promised you would watch your red meat intake after your doctor's appointment, so I got you that chicken dish you like.” He grunted, seemingly mollified you got him some form of meat and not the dreaded salad. 

“Oh, and don't bother looking for the candy stash in your top left drawer. I already confiscated it and won't be giving it back until you get down to your normal weight and BMI.” 

Shoto let out a small chuckle at his father’s thunderous expression. 

“This girl is scary.” Midoriya noted, taking out a notebook to scribble down all the information he could on Endeavor.

“I'm also not taking the lock off the training facility until you can prove to me that you are getting a good night's sleep and eating well. You overwork yourself and end up dehydrated and malnourished. People depend on you to be in top shape and we can't have you passing out, again, because you haven't eaten all day.   Eat a protein bar, drink a bottle of water, sleep for eight hours, and I'll unlock it for you.”

Shoto’s eyes glinted. You guessed he was enjoying this more than his friends knew. If only you’d been around when he was growing up, he might not have quite the daddy issues he does. You keep his father grounded and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, practically forcing him to take care of himself. You could only hope your interference would help Shoto realize he wasn't the only one Endeavor was hard on. He was just as strict with himself as he was his son. If only the boy’s mother had shown the same ability to keep Endeavor in line, his childhood might have been vastly different.

With a pointed sip of his green smoothie, Endeavor tapped the touchpad on his laptop a little harder than necessary. He frowned, clicking faster. Just as you were about to call him on his electronics abuse, he gritted his teeth and puffed out his chest. “Unlock the Wifi.” 

You turned away, ignoring his request in favor of double checking his schedule for the day. It was going to be long and those kids would be trailing him. “I'm not invoicing the city for this morning’s villain attack and subsequent defeat. You are behind on your pro bono hours and now that you are the number one hero, you have more to do than normal.” You glanced back and flipped through a few pages in his schedule, “I have added more times where I expect you to do pro bono work to keep up appearances.”

The three students exchanged glances. You imagined they hadn’t realized how busy a real top hero was. Meetings and events to promote. A personal assistant to keep them on track. Countless sidekicks to take on the little work that the hero was above doing or couldn't get to. It was all amazing. A hero’s day wasn’t just comprised of fighting villains and catching the bad guys. It was bound to be a rude awakening to the real world that they hadn’t seen the last time they were out with heroes.

As Mr. Aizawa had made clear, this time around, the work would be more rigorous. It would be closer to the real thing than any of them had experienced. They anticipated fighting villains and late night patrols. They anticipated getting beaten up and tossed around only to have the hero they worked under rush in to save the day. What they didn’t anticipate was sitting in a boardroom for three hours going over profits and losses and how to make up revenue. No, being a hero was more like owning your own business. They had to track expenses and factor in labor costs. A lot of work goes into being the top hero, and most of that work was behind a computer. It was no wonder why Endeavor was so annoyed. None of them would be thrilled about meetings and public appearances. 

They had spent a little time working on interviewing skills, but they didn’t think they would be so important. Midnight tried to press the issue, but each student, the present three in that room included, didn’t care much about the political part of hero work; an important, albeit annoying aspect of the job. Not even the number one hero was immune to the force of the media. You made that painstakingly obvious to the trio as you went over the approved questions you would give the reporter at the lunch meeting.

“Unlock the wifi.” He demanded again, this time his voice showing his irritation.

Again, you continue on with your rant, not paying any mind to his demand. He did this every morning. He would sit on his phone, not paying any attention to your debrief. You masterfully solved the problem by changing the password every day before he arrived and only giving it to him when you were done.

You turned and placed your hand on the growing stack of papers on the corner of his desk, “Procrastinating will get you nowhere. All of these papers need your signature and to be filled out completely by the end of the day; No exceptions.”

You finished your briefing and looked to him for questions. He stayed silent not wanting to drag this on any longer than it already had.

“Oh and Mr. Endeavor, Sir.” Your usual bubbly and happy go lucky demeanor got a bit more serious, “The doctors called… about your wife.”

Shotos attention was undivided. Once he heard doctors and wife in relation to his father, he stopped relaying information to Bakugo and Midorya about the unusual relationship between his father and his assistant, and focused solely on you.

You saw his face go white, “Don't worry Shoto, it's nothing serious.” You hoped your smile would calm him down, “It's just been a minute since someone made an appearance.” Your glare burned holes through the flame hero. 

He hated that glare. And he hated this topic, especially in front of Shoto. He felt a bit embarrassed about visiting his wife more often now. He’d leave her flowers, of course, you would go pick them up for him. 

“I'll go see her later. I've more pressing matters-” 

You cut him off. “You know, I think you have time tomorrow. I'll schedule a visit for you.” You smiled. 

He grumbled at your reaction. This was not the time or place for this subject. But thank the holy heavens this briefing was over. 

****

Your day went by quick. Endeavor had been showing his son around the small changes made and his classmates followed. You couldn't help but notice that the other two boys had been getting neglected in his training. You called over Shoto to have him help you, much to Endeavors dismay. This forced him to spend some time training the other two and not focus solely on his own prodigy.

The end of the day arrived and as your boss left, you stopped him, “Those papers?” You asked with a tilted head and a cute smile.

“I'll have them done later.” In public, he puffed his chest and showed a more dominating side not shown in private.

“This is when it gets… interesting.” Shoto whispered knowing that the assistant respected her employer a bit too much to cause a scene in front of the people that thought of him as the sole ruler of castle Endeavor.

“I need them done today.” You repeated your earlier demands. 

You really didn't ask for much. All you needed was for him to complete the tiniest of tasks you needed from him and to be where he needed to be at the time he needed to be there. It wasn't hard. As a matter of fact, all of his speeches- if he even does them- were all written by you. All of his interviews were arranged and practically directed by you. You write the questions they would ask, you write the answers he would give- or at least a readers digest version. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, so you’d have to make sure that they were questions he could answer on the fly.

He was clearly irritated that day. He started his day in a foul mood, and it was no shock to anyone he would end it that way or worse. 

“I said I'll get it done later.” He yelled having raised his voice at you for the first time in years, “I know you think I can't live without you, but I'll have you know, I'm perfectly capable of doing all of this myself. I use you to make life easier on me. Don't go thinking that you aren't replaceable.” 

You looked at him like a deer in headlights. To think that he would say such a thing after all you had done. You had got him coffee and scheduled appointments that were not even work related. You spent countless hours calling tailors that could cater to his massive physique and wouldn't take forever. You picked up dry cleaning and went grocery shopping. You found the restaurants that served a healthier version of his favorite meals since he requested that you make sure he stopped gorging on junk food and garbage like instant ramen.You woke up in the middle of the night to do nothing about his kidney stones and just watch him writhe in pain on the floor until they passed. All he wanted was moral support while he squirmed and cried for hours. He trusted you. Maybe even loved you, to a certain extent. So these words, they hurt.

“You can do it alone, huh?” You gripped the papers in your hands tight, turning your knuckles a ghostly white.  

“Fine!” You tossed them in the air, letting them rain down on him like a baptism of clerical duties, “Do it yourself!” You huffed, grabbing your purse and jacket to storm out. “I don't get paid enough to deal with this shit.”  

Every single eye in the building was on you as you stomped to the elevator. Endeavors flaming shoulders were like ice cubes compared to the heat your rage was putting off. People parted like the Red Sea as you made way through the many desks and cubicles.  If you had any strength, the force at which you pushed the elevator button would have crushed the whole pad and destroyed it entirely. 

You waited, tapping your finger to your forearm. The stares from everyone were noticeable, how could they all not stare? This was a big commotion in the office. Everyone thought you and Endeavor had such a good relationship. You bickered, of course, but mostly it seemed the two of you had an understanding.

The door opened and without hesitation, you stepped on- or tried to. You were tugged back gently by a large hand, your body staying in the elevator door, stopping it from closing. His tough face donned a pout. His flames had been extinguished. He tried to stay tough, not wanting to show weakness in front of his staff, but he knew he’d have to eat crow. 

“Can I help you?” You asked with sass.

“Please,” He looked to the floor, “Don't le….”

You heard him. He tried to hide it, but you heard him. The question was: Was it enough?

“I'm sorry Mr. Endeavor, I can't quite hear you.” You cupped your ear with your free hand.

“Please don't leave.” He said louder, standing tall and gaining his composure.

He was so damn stubborn. This was your chance to finally get him to stop acting like a goddamn child and realize that he needs to take some accountability for his own Hero agency.  That means not having someone holding his hand all day to get him to do his work, even if it wasn't hero work. 

You tilted your head implying what it was you wanted to hear. “I'll take your morning debriefs more seriously.” He said with a sullen tone.

“And?”

“And we can discuss a significant raise if you keep helping me the way you do.” 

“And?”

He’d catch on in a second.

“I'll go get those papers done.” He sighed, having been defeated by a midget in a dress, “Right now.” He let go of your arm.

You looked up at him with a cocky grin on your face and walked back to your desk.

You sat down and organized the papers you had thrown and glanced to the three boys standing shocked at what had just happened, “Like a fiddle.” You smirked, going back to your duties and watching his defeated form pass your desk and back into his office.