#Interactive games for school transportation

[justsaying4041]

5 Games that can be played on the way to a field trip

Field trips are an exciting break from routine, but the journey to the destination can sometimes feel long. To keep students engaged, enthusiastic, and entertained on the way, incorporating games into the trip is a fantastic strategy. Here are five games that can be played during the journey, ensuring that every moment—whether on a bus, van, or train—is part of the fun. 1. I Spy A timeless…

[jigeuminunbich]

cherie amour | han dongmin (taesan)

synopsis — in which dongmin finds himself falling head over heels for the regular that comes into his job (at a vintage record shop) every afternoon.

genre — college!au, fem!reader, s2ls (strangers to lovers), and fluff

content — halfway proofread ngl, kinda has a princess & the pauper vibe (reader is quite privileged & goes to an elite college), quite a few awkward pauses and bashful stares, and dongmin can’t flirt for the life of him

word count — 2k

author’s note — first work out of the neo realm, hope you all enjoy!

playing — my cherie amour by stevie wonder, can i call you rose? by thee sacred souls, and all i do is think of you by the jackson 5

A bead of sweat trickled down the side of Dongmin’s face. The rickety fan his boss had found from storage was doing absolutely nothing to shield him from the wrath of the summer heat— and the fact he refused to turn on the air conditioning wasn’t helping him in the slightest either.

Despite feeling like he had been transported to the sixth circle of hell, Dongmin didn’t mind his job, it had actually been a juvenile dream of his to work in a place much like this. Somewhere with artifacts filled with history, antique furniture and decor, a devoted community of customers— and surely, that’s what he got following being hired for this position.

But he definitely wasn’t expecting to be overworked as one of the few underlings for his incompetent boss who had inherited the place and having to endure the smell of what could only be described as vintage.

The continuous buzzing of the fan that whirred beside Dongmin’s propped, beat-up sneakers was muffled for a brief moment as in came one of the meager reasons he decided to put up with his job— only, even.

You.

Following the chime on the door, a wave of heat entered the record shop but you graciously came with it, so Dongmin couldn’t really complain. You greeted him with a smile as he hurriedly straightened in his seat and adjusted his posture stiffly. The smile was returned to the best of his abilities, but he’s sure it came off wonky and jarring.

Silently, you waltzed around the shop. It wasn’t very big, and he’s positive you’ve walked each aisle at least a few dozen times but it still had you coming back every other afternoon.

It was ritualistic for you to stumble into the small-scale record shop nestled between an antique boutique and a genuine crystal shop— Dongmin had become hip to this months ago when he had first began working here. Though, it was obvious to him that you had been doing this a lot longer than his time, judging by the way you interacted with veteran staff and even that dense boss of his.

You were around his age, clear from the cardigan you wore that was proudly embroidered in fancy cursive of what he discovered was your home school— the elite college that rivaled his. It had been an initial thought of his that maybe you were an alum and just liked the comfort that the sweater offered but after miraculously seeing you at a rival game between your two schools’ football teams— he knew for sure that you were close in age.

Unfortunately for him, those were the only details he had found on you. Alleged things about you floated around between his coworkers and to his own ears but he ignored them for solid truth. The truth was, you were clearly a devout music lover from a realm he didn’t know of, a school he could only dream of attending, and a lifestyle he had absolutely no experience in.

“Anything new that you recommend?” At the arriose sound of your voice, Dongmin came to a realization that he had been staring at you for far too long.

Under your curious gaze, he stilled. Nearly forgetting to breathe over the fact you were speaking to him. Another fact he had come to realize, is that you enjoyed your solitude. It wasn’t often that you spoke to him outside of your purchase of a vinyl or the rare CD. But when you did, Dongmin always fell into the same trap as if it was happening for the first time again.

“I—uh— what’s your genre?” He knew this already. You had an affinity for 60s music— he came to conclude from the dozen of vinyls he had previously rung up for you.

You hummed, glancing to the spotty ceiling as you contemplated. “I always go for oldies. Anything recent that you like?” As you asked this, you drew closer to the counter where Dongmin was quickly breaking out into a cold sweat over the fact you were verily nearing closer to him.

Your eyes didn’t waver from him, it was clear that you were genuinely interested in his own opinion.

“Well, I don’t listen to too much recent stuff myself, actually.” He managed to respond, not having the capacity to filter his honesty.

Now opposite of him by the counter, you giggled. Dongmin swore his heart skipped a beat, or two for that matter.

“Well, I guess you’re no help then?” Your voice lilted with humor, your head tilting.

“Heh. No, I guess not…” To Dongmin, he was sure your bout of conversation would end here. You would choose something along the lines of your usual, get rung up with some sort of small talk, and go on about your day while he finished out his shift wallowing about how he wished he could’ve said more to you.

“What’s your genre, then,” you squinted momentarily to double-check his nametag. “Dongmin?”

For a moment, Dongmin had forgotten his name was his own. You watched him blink at you for a few beats before visibly collecting himself.

“Me? Well, I like rock— like Nirvana and My Chemical Romance. But I like easy listening stuff too…”

You nodded, “I assumed just as much.”

Dongmin’s eyebrows shot up into his fringe, eyes wide with surprise. “Really?”

An endeared smile etched onto your lips instantly. “Yeah, every time you’re here they’re always playing over the speakers. But I hear the Carpenters every now and then, too. You have good taste.”

Dongmin fought the flattered expression that attempted to spread across his features, clearing his throat in an effort to swallow his excitement. “Thanks.”

You nodded, a silence floating in the air as you two both seemed to wait for the other to carry on the conversation. With the atmosphere starting to feel cramped, you open your mouth to ease the awkwardness but Dongmin thankfully beats you to it.

“We—uhm— actually just get in some new vinyls that I think you might like…”

You visibly perk up at this. “Did you?”

Dongmin nods, his tone coming off a bit hesitant. “Well, you get a rotation of the same artists, I noticed…”

Your laughter eases the weight on his shoulders, he finds himself smiling fondly as you nod your head in agreement. “No, yeah, I do. I guess I’m quite predictable,”

Dongmin shrugs. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I think your music taste is good too.”

You find yourself smoothing a hand over your jacket, flattered. “Thank you,”

“No problem.”

You both lock eyes for a beat longer than expected, your own being the ones to flit elsewhere as could feel the flutter of butterflies swarm in the base of your belly. Dongmin’s gaze on you is only interrupted when you clear your throat before speaking again.

“Did you want to show them to me?”

“Oh! Yeah, sorry,” As if he had been split from a trance, Dongmin lurches back into reality to begin leading you towards a dusty corner of the shop.

A giggle leaves you as you follow close behind. “No worries.”

It’s safe to say Dongmin did not fabricate that the new selections would be to your liking. You find yourself rifling through the crate carefully, multiple familiar artists’ cover arts calling your name. Dongmin can’t help but admire you as you work your way through the vinyls with pure amazement in your eyes.

“Anything catch your eye?” He gestures toward the basket that you were leisurely searching through.

Your gaze shifts upwards to where Dongmin is standing, sheepishly remembering that he was there. “A lot. I’m supposed to be on a budget for stuff like this but— Oh my god! I’ve been looking for this,” you excitedly pull out a yellowed Lesley Gore vinyl.

Dongmin’s amused laughter catches your attention and you roll your eyes at him before shaking your head. “Damn, why’d you have to know me so well?”

“Heh. I can get you a discount, if you’re interested?” Dongmin approaches you, delivering his sentence carefully to test your reaction.

You jerk away in surprise, shocked that Dongmin would even offer to do that for you. But you can tell he’s genuine as he watches you intently awaiting your response. “No, no. I just need to practice some self-control…”

“You sure? I can’t promise that old guy won’t buy up all the Marvin Gaye in here…” You follow his hands as they skim the top of the distressed and begrimed vinyls, almost like a hypnosis.

A huff leaves you, the memories of your elder competition that most likely had no idea was your competition coming to mind. “Shit— you’re right. Okay, fine. I’ll indulge myself just this once.”

You decide to humor Dongmin and yourself, picking through the crate again to remove several LPs that caught your attention. Dongmin nods, finding confidence in being able to bond with you. After you make your final decision, you both head back over to the counter to finalize your transaction.

“You didn’t have to do this, y’know. I’m sure this is actually against the rules…”

“Nah. It’s fine my boss does it all the time for customers he likes too—“ Dongmin realizes his slip of tongue a little too late, his expression reminding you of a deer in the headlights.

“Really now?” You muse.

“Uh—yeah,” Dongmin coughs. “That’s your total…”

Your eyebrows jump instinctively at the outcome, gladly digging around in your bag for your card. “Damn. I’m glad you like me because inflation is killing me right now, here,”

Dongmin accepts your payment and you don’t miss the way he avoids your eyes bashfully. When everything is squared away, your hefty bag in hand, he decides he’s capable of addressing you head on.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around then?” He visibly forces out, internally hoping it comes across as natural (he doesn’t).

You nod automatically but have a sudden train of thought that you decide to take a chance and verbalize. “Actually… do you get off any time soon?”

The boy across from you is clearly stunned at the inquiry, blinking at you a couple times before answering. “Uh— in about an hour, actually…”

“Cool. I’ll be at the café across the street, if you don’t have anything to do that is… I feel like it’s only right that I repay you…” The last of your sentence trails off as you feel you’re rambling on, but Dongmin couldn’t have looked more interested in you.

“No! I mean, I don’t have anything to do— I’m free, yeah.” Dongmin shuffles, setting himself in a pose that he hoped conveyed how nonchalant he wanted to be but was clearly failing to do so.

You find yourself amused with his antics— a bit flattered as well. “Alright then, see you in an hour?” He nods intently while he watches you back away from the till.

“An hour it is.” He affirms, returning the wave you spare him before the shop’s door chimes again. Promptly, your warmth leaves him to the humidity of the shop. But he holds his pose knowing he’ll be engulfed in it once more.

© jigueminunbich ‘24

[englishotomegames]

Meiji Tokyo Renka Full Moon (明治東亰恋伽 Full Moon)

Release dates (Steam, Nintendo Switch) Japanese (Original PSP version): September 26th, 2013 English: October 3rd, 2024

"The main character, Mei Ayatsuki, an ordinary high-school girl, is transported back in time to the Meiji era by the self-proclaimed magician Charlie, whom she meets on the night of a red full moon. It was a slightly mysterious Meiji period “Tokyo” where the existence of Mononoke was recognized.

With Charlie’s guidance, she arrived at the Rokumeikan. The protagonist sneaks into the party and is met by historical figures such as Ougai Mori, Syunso Hishida, Otojiro Kawakami, Kyoka Izumi, Gori Fujita, Yakumo Koizumi, and Tosuke Iwasaki.

Through her interaction with them, the protagonist realizes that she is a “Tamayori” and has a highly prized ability in the Meiji period that allows her to see Mononoke. Having ability changes her relationship with them....

In this unfamiliar time, love affairs grow as she comes into contact with good-looking men during her daily life. Will the protagonist be able to return to her original time or...? Does love transcend time and space: ...... How does it end?"

This is an otome game originally released in 2013, now released in English for the first time by Dramatic Create! You can buy it for the Nintendo Switch here, or on Steam here.

[ohsohoney]

When it comes to love you're just as blinded.

Part Three

Eminem x Musician

Summary: It starts with a drunk embarrassing video, it spirals into something a whole lot more.

Note: Ah this took ages to write but I actually really loved it- finally they meet!! Hopefully I got a few things about Detroit right too but I don't live there so lemme know if not! Also I appreciate all the love the last two parts have gotten, means a lot!

Warnings: Some heavier topics surrounding a rough childhood and abuse of substances.

Set in 2014, just after the release of LP 2 || Em’s daughters are renamed here because it felt weird not to and also have different ages– doesn’t affect the story much but just a warning! Rosie's nickname is also Z:)

Masterlist

It was far too early to be up. Especially after the night I’d just had, tossing and turning until I’d eventually passed out from sheer exhaustion. Something I hadn’t quite anticipated after my call with Em, but sleep had seemed near enough impossible once I’d hung up. No real reason as to why, simply that my mind had gone from a dull sluggish buzz to over-fucking-load in a mere matter of seconds.

Thankfully I had a flight to catch which meant that, even though I looked like my mum after another week long bender, I would be able to catch a little sleep before landing in Detroit. 

Detroit. That was the singular thought my tired mind kept pausing on. Stupidly, it felt just like yesterday that Marshall had first bridged that gap between us and phoned me, only it had been weeks since then, during which the most unexpected friendship had blossomed. He’d called again that next day and the timezones separating us had been made all that more obvious, him having not long dropped his daughter off at school whilst I’d been returning from lunch. He never really had given me the real reason as to why he’d gone and gotten in touch again so quickly, only that he’d wanted to double check that I was still down to fly out and work on a song or two. 

It hadn’t phased me. Neither had the next few calls that had followed, nor the texts that I’d found myself composing to him at odd hours of the day. 

We’d spoken about music at first: “Who inspires you?” He’d asked me which had led into a ramble. Something I only ever tended to do with those who knew me best, never having really mastered the whole art of social interaction yet, even after the fame. But he’d let me go on, before I’d eventually spun the question back around on him and listened quietly to a passionate speech about the handful of artists that had transported him out of the tiny room he’d grown up in and into something other.

I mentioned my sister after that. Em had heard her shouting at the tele one evening whilst she’d played some game that always seemed to bring out her most profane language and laughed, asking after the roaring gremlin in the background. I’d told him bits and pieces, added to the story in odd quips and mentions over the passing weeks, enough that most wouldn’t quite catch on to what I’d been avoiding, but Lottie had been around more often than not and the man had quickly worked out that she lived with me. He’d never outright asked me the reason as to why, though I liked to think that he was simply waiting for me to tell him, because this thing that we had, it was all about building trust. And Marshall? He was almost as unforgiving with who he gave that out to as I was. 

Soon enough our calls and Facetimes had become a featured part of my day, one I actually looked forward to. But even saying that, I was still shit scared of meeting him properly.

As much as it might humour him for me to admit it, I was a big fan of his. Had been since I’d first heard Guilty Conscience when it had hit the UK charts. I’d been swallowed whole by the rest of his LP, had even nicked a cd copy of it off a stall down at the market, alongside Aquemini, because I’d liked it so much. In truth, one of my earliest memories even featured the man. It was of my uncle bagging tickets to Em’s first real show down in Notting Hill, his girlfriend at the time’s brother having managed to somehow score a couple on a whim. It had been all they’d talked about for weeks on end.

I’d been around long enough now though– having dived headfirst into the industry before dipping a toe in first– that I knew just how meeting your icons wasn’t all it was chalked up to be. Still, this felt different to us just bumping into one another at some show or a party. And, who was I kidding– it was entirely different. Impossibly so. I’d said it to him then and I’d reiterate it again, he had been the last person I had ever expected to call.

“Passengers boarding the 09:53 flight to Detroit, Michigan please head to Gate B7.”

I sucked in a deep breath at the overhead announcement, figuring that it really was now or never. Two weeks in a big old house working on music with Eminem, I supposed stranger things had to have happened. So instead of lingering on the inane concept, I popped an anti-sickness tablet and dragged my carry-on over towards the gate. 

…

Truth be told, I much would have preferred not having slept on that flight. God, I was still embarrassed, but even so I couldn’t help the muted giggle that bypassed my lips whilst I waited for my luggage to drift on by. 

I was just thankful that I’d had the foresight to wear a hat and sunnies the entire time. Mostly out of habit, yes, but also so that I could keep this whole Detroit trip hush hush, because Marshall really had gone above and beyond to bring me out here and so I didn’t want to reward him with a swarm of unwanted questions. Not that anyone would even add up the notion of me being here and allude that it was down to him. That was probably the most unlikely headline somebody could conjure up.

But back to the whole Flight from Hell. Well, I had the tendency to sometimes be dramatic so not Hell per se, it had just been humiliating. Being shaken awake only to realise you'd been drooling the entire time and the rest of the passengers had already disembarked was more than a tad bit mortifying, especially when the air steward’s eyes had widened a fraction when I’d tried to sort myself out and wake up. 

I wasn’t entirely sure if he’d recognised me, or if it had just been down to the fact that Marshall had put me in First Class— a matter which I had complained about, justifiably— and that I had one of those faces he couldn’t put a name to. But either way, I hoped he wouldn’t expand too much on it.

I caught sight of my suitcase just as it pushed its way through the heavy black flaps on the end of the conveyor belt and so I slid past a man in a bright green Packers jersey to grab at it. And even I had to wince at the sight of the offending article. In all places, really? I wanted to ask. Wrong fucking move there, mate. 

By the time I finally did make it out of the crowd that had amassed, it had been near enough an hour since I’d landed and so I had a few messages waiting patiently for me.

Messages  The Martian Blacked out GMC parked out front Tap twice on the back window

Then…

Flight ok?

My mouth quirked upwards on its own accord at the quick relay but I was quick to shoot something back.

Messages  Might have passed tf out Woke up and it was just me and the steward there:))) Also tap twice?? Do I look like James Bond to you?

Although I had to Google what the fuck a GMC looked like, I did eventually work my way out of the terminal to spot the sleek SUV sat a way down in the drop off zone. ‘Course he’d have his driver park there, I thought pointlessly to myself as I manoeuvred past a handful of tired faces with a polite smile. Though to him it was probably easier to deal with whatever fine he got plastered with than it would be for me to attempt to find the thing in pickup parking. Not that it would be all that hard, it was huge.

Anyway, by the time I managed to hone in closer on the vehicle I felt my nose scrunch up in slight embarrassment at the thought of having to knock twice, as though I really was some sort of spy or, more than likely, a dodgy dealer. But just as I approached, prepped to knock and give the driver my name, I heard the far side door open and a pair of shoes hit the rough tarmac. 

Jumping back a tad, my head swivelled left to better view the figure who was then rounding the car. My eyes widened at the sight I was met with.

His smirk at my evident shock was ascued by a heavy hood and the brim of a dark cap, but it was there. Stayed there actually, all whilst he easily manoeuvred my luggage from out of my hands and into the boot of his car, whilst I simply stood there stock-still. Eventually, he came to stand before me about an arms length away. I blinked and my gaze skittered over the rest of our surroundings before they finally returned to his tilted head and piercing eyes. His back was turned towards the airport, away from the trio which had since grouped around their suitcases to wait and a handful of people that exited the terminal one or two at a time.

“What, I don’t get no hug?”

The mirthful lilt of his deep voice surprised me and my mouth worked over a plethora of words that couldn’t quite take stage before I was laughing softly into the shoulder of his jacket, his arms coming up to wrap around me. 

It felt oddly surreal to finally meet him, even if I had been so caught off guard by his sudden presence.

In fact, I jolted back at the very thought and thumped his arm, my eyes narrowed even whilst my smile never appeared to falter. “Why are you here?”

His tongue darted out to wet his lower lip, arm moving to cradle the offended limb in sly mocking, before he huffed out a low laugh. “No, hello? No, wow, Marshall, I can’t believe you’re really here!”

My mouth gaped at the teasing tone he took on, much like something I’d heard on one of his songs, and then I was laughing too, shaking my head at his antics. “That’s how we’re playing this?” I quirked a brow, but eventually mimicked, “Wow, Marshall. Gee golly, I just can’t believe that you’re really here!”

Marshall dipped his chin in supposed approval, gentle eyes roaming over my face in a way similar to what I must have done when he’d first arrived. I wondered briefly what he saw but hastily brushed the thought aside. “The American accent still sucks, by the way.” He acknowledged just as he stepped forward to open the passenger side door, surprising me yet again as he slipped by me, “So if you’re goin’ into acting, take note.”

My glare was mocking at best, lacking any real heat as he waited for me to climb inside, it was only once I’d glanced back at him with a thankful smile that he moved to shut the door. I took in a sharp lungful of air at the quiet that then engulfed the car and watched him move around the front of the hood. He was achingly familiar and yet not at the same time. And it was such a strange thought to latch onto that I took the initiative to just take things as they came over the next few weeks, which turned out to work in my favour when he joined me in the car and the engine revved.

“I can’t believe you’re actually here.” I found myself saying as he slowly peeled his way out of the drop off bay. “Thought you said you’d have someone come get me.”

Em simply shook his head whilst I observed how his hands slid around the wheel with an effortless ease. “I said there’d be a car.”

My eyes widened to accentuate my point. “Exactly! There’d be a car! So I just figured a cab or something.”

His eyes flickered over towards me just as we came to a stop at the busy intersection outside the airport, then pulled away to look left and right again. “Well, you should stop figuring then.”

I couldn’t stop the eye roll I gifted him, even as I laughed heartily to myself and took in the comfort of privacy the car offered, as opposed to the flight I’d just been stuck on. It was then, whilst we merged onto the highway and followed into the flow of traffic, that I got the chance to really look at him. 

I was still attempting to get over my evident shock, having expected to meet him much later on, once I’d been dropped off at the house or maybe even a while after that. But it was nice to know that he’d driven all the way here to merely pick me up when he could have just as easily sent someone to do it for him. 

Marshall looked about the same as he had when we’d first phoned in truth, only it was easier now to see all of the minute details he offered the world, those tiny imperfections. 

The slight dip in his chin was much more prominent now what with the way his lips had since pursed in concentration. The skin there was smooth, as though not much time had passed since it had last been seen to by a razor, and it wrinkled only around his eyes when they narrowed into focus. His nose was pointed, whilst simultaneously being both strong and soft. He had eyelashes that I could only envy, dark and long, and freckles light enough to dot both sides of his face.

He must have felt my gaze on him though because he soon chanced a glance back at me with a single raised brow. My eyes slid away from his profile and instead I opted to gesture my chin out towards the tinted windows that encased us. “These legal?” I had wondered, but mostly asked just to steer his mind away from me having been caught staring.

With a short snort, his brow dropped and the beginnings of a smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. “What d’you think?”

I chuckled in retort, having expected that, and then looked away again, out towards the grassy verge that separated the long stretch of road from small grey buildings that littered both sides in the distance. It was my first time in Detroit and I wanted to make the most of it, remember every part.

It was quiet for a while after that, Em having switched on the radio at some point after asking after my flight, the two of us more than content to just let the silence linger around the hum of something so familiar, music.

He pointed things out to me here and there on the journey, nothing of real importance but dropping comments that would either make me hum or laugh loudly. He was a funny fucker even when he didn’t seem to be trying, I figured that was what I liked best about him. 

We drove through Downtown Detroit at one point and I listened intently when he spoke about Ford Field, the home of his favoured Lions, and again when we stopped at a traffic light and he gestured over towards where the Fox Theatre sat. Even during the daylight it drew the eye.

Once we’d rolled away from the inner city and its skyscrapers though I felt myself relax further, pleased by the vast amount of green that I started to see. Most of the time I’d spent in The States often left me confined to the major cities, to their bustling crowds and hectic commutes, mostly because I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter, what with venues and tours, interviews and recording sessions. So this would probably be the first time I’d get to see a slice of the country’s suburbs and it wasn’t all too different from what you’d typically see back home. Not exact sure, but similar in a lot of circumstances. 

It took me a while to realise that Em had been nodding his head along to the radio, following the beat in an exact tempo. The sight had me hiding my grin behind my sleeve but the move captured his attention and he must have seen the growing joy my glazed eyes gave away to when he peered over at me because his forehead furrowed. “What?”

Instantly I shook my head, “Nothing.”

His eyes darted out towards the road, shifting gears before the back of his hand shot out to tap the side of my knee. “What?” He prodded again and I was startled by the easy nature of his touch, remembering then that it was possible now that we weren’t stuck between screens.

I snorted softly, dropping my arm seeing as he’d already caught on to the grin. “Just strange, is all. Being here.”

I watched closely as he gave a slow blink and waited, propping my arm up against the window whilst slumping a little in my seat.

“Good weird, or bad?”

The answer had to have been obvious and yet, I still answered him, “The good kind.”

“Good.” He hummed and my grin softened at his own small smile. It remained there for most of the drive. 

I didn’t know what I had expected to see once we finally did pull up to the house, but it didn’t fail to live up to its owner's accomplishments. It was beautiful, big yes, but beautiful too. Terracotta in colour and with a long gravel driveway. He had trees and flowers around the fenced gate to further keep out any prying eyes, but they were vivid and lush. Pretty to admire. 

Marshall turned towards me once we’d slowed to a stop and I smiled, unbuckling my seatbelt before he huffed a chuckle, turning off the engine and moving to do the same. The door shut behind me once I’d jumped out and I let myself breathe in the change of air. Having been cooped up in the Big Apple for the last few days it was refreshing to be able to actually enjoy it and not just think about all of the heavy city fumes. 

I was quick to snap out of it though when I heard the slight beep that sounded from the back of the car when the boot reopened. “Hey, I can get that.”

Marshall's eyes cut over towards my approaching figure. “So can I.” He tugged the heavy suitcase out with one hand, “See?”

“Mature, Mathers.” I retorted, leaning past him to at least grab my carry on, but he was there too, our hands clutched the handle at the same time, his encasing mine. “I can get it.” I repeated, turning slightly in my stance to lift my brows up at him. 

He was close, thigh pressing into the ledge of the boot whilst his other hand still held onto the door stationed above our heads. “You’re my guest.”

His tone was gruff, low enough for only me to have heard, even though there wasn’t anyone else mulling about. My eyes shifted, flickering back and forth between his own. “Then let your guest get their way.” 

He blew out an amused breath, the weight of it fanned my face and had a few loose strands of hair fluttering. “You’re so fuckin’ stubborn.”

I shifted and his knee knocked against mine. “Here’s the pot calling the kettle black.” I quipped with a growing smile.

There was the slightest shake of his head, his mouth twitched, and then he was leaning in closer. I held my breath. Waiting. For God knows what, when—

He snatched the bag out from under my hand.

“Marshall!” It was almost indignant the yell I made, shocked by the sly move he’d played and the fact that he’d already jumped back to make his way towards the front door before I could even properly react. I heard his bright laughter echo back to mock me.

“Too slow.” Marshall called in turn, shrugging as he shot a smug look over his shoulder. “Lock her up for me?”

The tap he then gave his right trouser pocket evidently had me frowning and so I looked down on impulse, only to spot a set of keys dangling from the belt loop on my jeans. Baffled, my head snapped upwards, just in time to see him laugh and wheel my suitcase inside.

I took a deep breath, then let it go.

“Such a prick.” I muttered to myself, though not unkindly, as I jumped up to grab the boot door and slam it shut, using the fob to then lock the monster truck up.

By the time I made it up the rest of the drive and through the front door I was a little less peeved about the whole thing, which was mostly down to me having been a little humoured by his methods of undermining.

“You treat all your supposed guests like this?” I blew out.

Marshall only greeted my entry with a snort. “Uhuh, that initiation we talked about? Starts here.”

Rolling my eyes, I stepped further into the entryway to observe, making the effort not to gape at the sheer size of it. Because in truth, he could’ve easily fit a half a dozen Harleys in the space between the door and the stairs.

“Where do we start the sacrifice then? Can’t imagine anyone would be all too happy about staining these pretty floors.” My toe skimmed a stark white tile as I said it, peering over at him through my lashes whilst I thought back to an earlier conversation we’d had and the fact that he’d actually remembered. 

“Basement, baby!” 

He used the term in ridicule, to accentuate the gaiety in the back and forth we’d just begun. His hands shot out wide in a gesticulative fashion and so I used the moment to grab at the handle of my suitcase he’d left by the door, thankful that the thing had wheels. I grinned at the small victory.

“You were saying?” I dragged out around a pleased smile.

Marshall shook his head at me, like he actually couldn’t believe I’d attempted to one up him— and managed it. Though he thankfully left it alone. Still, that was probably only due to the fact that he then said, “Want a tour?”

And who was I to deny?

“If you don’t want me getting lost, then yes please.”

He scoffed, but wore the ghost of a smile as he pushed further into the house, leading me this way and that until we finally wandered up another set of stairs onto the second floor.

“Bedrooms are there.” Marshall pointed out to me, hands stretched towards both the halls that lined either side of the staircase. “Mine’s just down here, Z’s too.” He explained further, gesturing towards the two doors on the far right side, Rosie’s bore a bright sign with her name and I was humoured to see that the usual silver handle had been switched out in favour of a neon pink.

He caught my slight smile at the sight of the door and nudged me with his shoulder.

“Quit it.”

I snorted softly, pursing my lips to dampen the grin I wore. “I didn’t say anything! But I do love it.” Honestly it was too cute seeing him all mushy like that, and the fact that he’d gone out of his way to make something like a door handle special for his daughter was endearing.

Marshall grunted out a hum, then took a deliberate step over toward a room a little closer, the door had been left slightly ajar. He pushed it open to reveal a room that could have resembled a hotel room had it not been for the much warmer sense of comfort it offered. I reckoned it was down to the little souvenirs and decorative pieces that had been jotted around the place, like the snowglobe of Big Ben and a little British flag, as well as the articles of clothing which had been laid out on the bed.

My attention caught on those first and I glanced back at Em, who was now leaning against the doorframe, to ask a silent question. The man shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t pressed to the wood and suddenly looked a tad bit sheepish, “Rosie’s idea. Wanted to give you something, like, so you’d feel welcome or some shit.”

I let my fingers brush over the pyjama’s the little girl must have picked out. They were soft and dotted with tiny woodland creatures, bunnies and berries. My heart ached at the lovely gesture, never really having had anyone do something like this for me, let alone someone so small and sweet who had gone out of their way to make me feel welcomed of all things.

“You lucked out with her.” I murmured  and was granted a doting smile when I peered back up at the girl’s father.

“She’s aight.” Marshall reasoned, pushing out a small breath as he took a step further into the bedroom. “Room okay then?”

Smiling, almost a little stupidly, I chuckled in disbelief and took another peer around the room. “It’s perfect, thank you again for this.”

He rolled his eyes at me and made a gah sound, “Say thanks again and I’ll take you to the nearest motel.”

My eyes widened just as my jaw dropped, “A motel, really? Wow, and here I thought we were truly bonding.”

“You know what they say, don’t assume.”

Narrowing my stare into something a bit more intense I waited for him to crack, but he must have been half-alien or something because the man held his own much longer than I did. “You’re such a dick.” I eventually chuckled, shaking my head.

“Get used to it,” He retorted and stepped away to wheel my suitcase further into the room, placing my bag down on the end of the plush bedspread. “You tired? Figured we could grab something to eat once Z’s home if you’re down.” 

It was something I was used to, the whole jumping back and forth between serious and teasing, but I still found it sweet how he would tend to ask after me, simply to make sure that everything was still good.

I hummed in reply and took one last look at the pyjamas I'd been gifted. “I’m good, slept on the flight–”

“And drooled all over them First Class seats.” He butted in, earning himself a short glare which only proved to make him grin. 

I should have known to have kept that shit to myself, fucker would probably lord it over my head forever.

“Uhuh, hilarious.” I deadpanned before continuing on like he hadn’t interrupted, “What’re you thinking of getting?”

The question went unanswered because it was then that the front door sounded, creaking open on its heavy hinges before it rattled closed. I jumped at the unexpected noise whilst Em simply glanced back over his shoulder, “That’ll be her.” He commented, confusing me for a second when he raised his hand and started a countdown on his fingers, “3, 2, 1–”

“Dad!”

I snorted at the precise timing, Marshall already moving towards the door at the call of his name and so I went to follow. It was just as we made it back out onto the hallway’s landing that he paused, “I can keep her occupied for a while if you wanna settle in, take a nap or something.”

It was an offer and a half from any parent to attempt to keep their kid at bay, I mean I’d done it a fair few times with an excitable Lottie over the years, but I waved it off, smiling when the girl’s voice called out again. “Dad?”

Marshall leaned in closer, hand clutching the bannister, and lowered his voice whilst his face got all serious, “Get out whilst you still can.”

Huffing out a mirthful breath, I couldn’t quite hide my smile. “I’m good, I'm actually excited to meet her.”

He paused and observed me for a moment, as though he was trying to see the truth behind that sentiment, which made me unsure. But I hoped he did find the sincerity in my words because it hadn’t been a lie, I was nervous to meet his daughter sure, wanted her to like me and not feel as though I was suddenly imposing on her life, but I had genuinely enjoyed her witty remarks and scathing comments when we had spoken the night before. She reminded me of a little of a younger Lotts. 

Em eventually nodded at me, cheek dimpling ever so in a possible attempt to dampen his reaction, but before I could question it, the man was jogging down the stairs. “Up here, you monster. And what I tell you ‘bout yellin’?”

A familiar face poked its way out of the hall at the bottom of the staircase and the smile that dawned on it was beaming when she spotted her dad. “How are you gonna hear me if I don’t yell?” She replied, squealing when the man swept her up off feet and into a hug, peppering a line of kisses into her hair, “Dad!”

Marshall snorted at the reaction he’d garnered but eventually lowered the girl back down onto her feet, whilst I just stood at the bottom of the stairs watching them with a fond smile. “What?” He said in a put upon voice and ran a hand over the girl’s head, bulging his eyes out wide when Rosie pulled a face. “How was school, kiddo?”

Rosie pushed up onto the balls of her feet before she rocked back, “Good, I ran out to the car quick to get home ‘fore she gets here.”

The smirk the man took on was almost evil and he laughed when he cocked his head out to gesture behind the girl. “Just about managed it.”

A curtain of honey coloured hair swept over her shoulders when the girl twirled around on her heel, eyes widening in sudden surprise to find me standing there. “El!” She called out, a grin breaking across her features before she hurried over to engulf me in a hug too.

Even as surprised as I was by the gesture, I chuckled and lowered myself down to squeeze her back, smiling at Em from over the top of her head. “Hey,” I murmured gently, staying crouched even as we pulled apart, “Thanks for the pjs, they’re probably the best gift I’ve gotten in ages.”

That statement appeared to thrill the girl, who’s eyes twinkled under the soft lights, “I got a matching pair, guessed we could wear them tonight and watch a movie so you’d feel more at home.”

My heart burst at the thought, I was sure of it.

But then Marshall went to speak and I already knew what he’d been prepared to say, so instead of letting him ruin Rosie’s sweet plans, I was quick to jump in, “I’d love that.”

The smile she gave me was award worthy and she turned back to face her dad with that settled. “See, if you had gotten the same ones like I said, you could’ve joined!”

I snorted at the expression that then crossed Em’s face, his head jolting back a tad. 

“You really didn’t get some to match?” I egged the girl on, mouth dropping open in a feigned amount of shock.

We were both met with a disbelieving shake of his head as the man blew out a heavy breath and turned away. “I’ll watch what I want and wear what I want, it’s my house.” He threw back at us as he headed further into the house, murmuring under his breath, “Women.”

Rosie and I shared a conspiratorial grin before we made to follow after him. 

“It’s rude to just dump your friend, Dad.” Rosie commented once we’d wandered into the kitchen to find Em grabbing a couple of bottles out of the fridge, the girl slid onto a stool at the end of the island whilst I bit my cheek to keep from outright laughing.

Her words were met by an unimpressed stare that didn’t appear to phase her as she continued to swing her legs back and forth. The man let the fridge door slip close as he made his way over to join his daughter, handing her a bottle before sliding the other across the counter to me. “You got homework?”

Rosie’s eyes flickered from her dad to me, then back again, “Maybe, but it’s Math.”

“Well, we ain’t goin’ nowhere til it’s done.” Marshall told her with a small shrug, even though I’d seen his eyes widen at the thought of having to deal with numbers and sums. “Get changed and we can start on it, okay?”

The girl emitted a soft sigh but ultimately moved to jump down from off the stool, “You any good at Math, El?”

Biting down on my smirk, I ignored Em’s murmured warning of the girl’s name and answered, “Not bad, I might be a little help.”

“Anything’s better than my Dad’s attempts.”

“Yo, I try.” Marshall was all too quick to quip back in retort, his arms now crossed over his chest as he stared his daughter down with a slight frown.

Rosie’s smile was precious, but her eyes told another story. I knew then that she understood exactly how to keep her dad wrapped around her finger. She was a little menace and I already loved it. “I know, Daddy, my teacher said that my English homework was the best she’d read in a while.”

Em actually seemed to take pride in that and so I guessed he’d had a hand in that homework too. His daughter also appeared to take note of the fact that he was pleased because she hurried off then, calling out over her shoulder once more, “Be back in a sec!”

“Yellin’!” Marshall yelled, defeating the whole purpose of his previous argument, before he sighed and gestured me over towards the seat Rosie had just vacated. “See what I have to put up with?”

Scoffing, I moved to take up the stool whilst he picked up a few stray notes lying on the counter and placed a glass that had been left behind at some point into the sink. “You ain’t seen nothing yet. Wait til she’s thirteen and debating the point of riding a dirtbike to and from school with you.”

Em barked out a real laugh at that as he turned his back on the sink to shoot me a look that said ‘Really?’

I heaved a put upon sigh, fingers toying with the water bottle I’d been gifted. 

“That’s not even the worst of it.” I told him as my mouth worked over a smile, “Before I left she asked if she and a few friends could stay at the house alone whilst I was away, because, and I repeat, ‘If there’s six of us then that basically equates to one whole adult’. I’m still genuinely scared that she went through with it even after I said no, keep checking the security cameras to make sure there isn't a herd of teenagers working their way inside.”

He wore an amused smirk but I noticed there were more than a few questions hiding behind his stare. They’d been there for a while now.

“You can ask.” I eventually said, appreciating the atmosphere his home offered, from the warm walls and the pictures that decorated the place, to the odd bits of mess that made the too large house look lived in.

Em worked his tongue into the curve of his cheek and watched me for a moment, before he eventually settled his forearms against the counter and leaned into it. “Kinda figured you took care of her, even before you mentioned that she was your sister.”

My gaze flickered down to the water droplets that clung to my fingertips, the bottle sweating from the change in temperature. “Yeah. I mean, I’m a lot older than her, so we sort of lived through different shit but I went through a lot as a kid, with like my mum and all the issues she had. When I found out that she was pregnant again it was through this woman who used to work with her at the local greengrocers when I was little. I just remembered thinking that I didn’t want that baby going through the same thing I did.”

My mind flashed back to the memory. Thinking of Annie’s wrinkled face and the relentless rain that had only just begun to let up. She had congratulated me.

“I was sixteen, had long since packed my shit up and left, but I’d never had the money to get too far. So I’d still spot her out and about.” I licked at the corner of my mouth, unwilling to meet his eye. “I went to see her after I’d heard, mostly out of anger. Her new boyfriend had moved in and I remember just being thankful for the fact that my brother had a friend that didn’t mind putting him up. She said she wasn’t using, just fags and the like, a cider here and there. Was surprised to see me, though she expected a big song and dance about the new baby.”

I picked at the water bottle’s label.

“When Lotts was actually born, her dad was locked up proper– facing sixteen years for armed robbery. Mum had her in a ward two months early and ended up leaving her there to go visit him. She was a preemie, tiny, too tiny, you know?” I murmured and could still picture her that small. “Mum she came back that same night mostly for a bed to sleep in, but had already found herself a fix. The nurses must have noticed that something was up, they’d asked to run blood tests and shit, but mum wouldn't have it. Would come and go during visiting hours whilst Lotts was in the NICU. I stayed, only leaving when I had a shift to work, and even then I’d come running straight back.”

Marshall just stood there listening and in truth I was thankful that he hadn’t thought to interrupt me to offer words of comfort or probe deeper. Although his eyes were serious when I finally managed to look over at him, listening intently.

I rubbed my lips together before getting on with it, “I moved back in with her when Lottie was finally able to come home. Ended up taking care of the kid when I was still just a kid myself, only so that she didn’t get tossed into care or fucking overdose on whatever shit mum and whoever else left lying around. It was just the two of us for a while, before my brother, Danny, came back. He’d gotten caught up in something with these older lads on the estate and was still at school, so I worked nights down at this pub under the table to keep up with rent and he’d watch over her for a few hours. It was there that I started performing just for extra cash, like on mic nights and stuff.”

Em squinted and for the first time he opened his mouth to contribute something, “That’s where you got found, right?”

I was sure I hadn’t mentioned that in any of our conversations and so I could only guess that he’d done a little bit of digging on me, the thought made me want to laugh but instead I simply smiled. “Yeah, some scout just happened to be passing through.”

He hummed, taking that in.

“But by the time anything really came about, my brother had long since gone off to join the army and Lottie was seven.” I mentioned, eyes jumping back and forth between him and the bottle I still clung to, “I’d always taken care of her, but then I was suddenly needed elsewhere to make these dreams come true, to make money, to give her a better future.” 

I knew that he could relate to that, to the utter struggle and fear I’d faced, terrified it would all fall through and I’d be left with nothing again.

“I didn’t really have a choice about leaving her though so she stayed with a neighbour at first, then her dad’s aunt who was nice enough to pop round sometimes, she was an older frail woman. I managed to actually land something eventually and started work on an album, but even after that the weight of anxiety had settled and I was working so hard just to keep all of these producers' attention.”

I swallowed thickly at the next flashback that had hastily followed. 

“Shit went down while I was over here in The States.” 

I felt sick each time I thought about it, hardly even dared even attempt to bring it up even to those few that knew. Lotts didn’t really remember any of it though, didn’t recall the hospital scare or my frantic need to make sure that she was okay for weeks after it had happened.

“I flew back that night and managed to sort of work things out. Threw a fucking toaster at my mum’s head I was so angry–” I snorted stupidly, “It missed. But after that I couldn’t trust her. She’d lost any sort of love I’d held for her. That was about five years ago now though, so she’s a bit different. Trying, she says. But Lotts stays with me until the very second I can’t help it.”

Blowing out a shaky breath, I willed my gaze to meet his and was taken back by the intensity of his stare.

“Sounds like a piece of work.” Marshall eventually commented and it honest to God made me laugh, allowing me to fill that hollow in my heart for a second and be grateful for the ease of it, because I really wasn’t too sure if I’d been about ready to cry at his kitchen table. “But I get it.” He added, “I think it’s great what you did for her, too. She probably won’t realise that til later but you should hear it.”

I glanced away, eyes suddenly stinging and tried to smile. “Yeah, well.” I tittered, wiping the corner of my eye discreetly, “She’s staying with her now and it’s got me on edge.”

Marshall moved around the kitchen island to place a careful hand on my shoulder, squeezing slightly before he ended up dragging me into a one armed hug. “You’re tough. Which means she’s gotta be too. I’m sure she’s just doing what kids do and messin’ around with her friends. Remember that’s all I did growing up, anything was better than bein’ in that house.”

A small snort escaped me as we parted, though he stayed near. “Because that’s so reassuring.”

He clucked his tongue and grinned, knocking shoulders with me, “I was a good kid, didn’t do nothin’ bad.”

“Uhuh,” I felt the need to drag out, “The image of an angel, Marshall Mathers.”

“Too fuckin’ right.”

“Dollar!”

It seemed we both jumped at the sudden reappearance of Rosie, who came sweeping into the room with a finger pointed at her father and an armful of school supplies. The skin between my brows pinched in confusion before the man beside me answered her, giving me the explanation I needed.

“For what?”

“You swore.” The girl shot back at him and climbed onto the stool beside me to settle her notebook down as well as a few pages of paper and pens. 

Marshall ended huffing, unable to deny that he had and moved towards the cupboard by the large, sliding glass door. 

“Maybe don’t eavesdrop on conversations. Reckon you owe a dollar for that, girlie.” He’d since grabbed a plastic tub and I was honestly surprised by the sparse amount of notes that were hidden inside it. Em must have spotted my surprise though and equated it to what it meant because he spoke again, “It gets emptied every couple a’ weeks and that monster over there gets to choose what we spend it on.”

Rosie perked up at the mention. “Last time I got him to take me fishing.”

“Fishing?” I wondered, blinking at the revelation. I looked back at Marshall and laughed, “I’m sorry but I can’t imagine you in that scenario.”

“Ha ha.” The man said impassively, widening my grin whilst he tugged two dollars out from his back pocket and shovelled them into the jar before he returned it to its rightful place.

“He only caught one.” Rosie piped up, already having written the date in that backwards way the American’s preferred, “It was real cute.”

I raised a brow and shot it Em’s way. “Cute?”

Rosie’s smile was big and bright, “Yeah! He said we had to let it go though ‘cause it was so small.” 

Marshall rolled his eyes and then pointed between the pair of us. “You two keep this whole thing up imma go out to eat by myself. Bunch’a bullies, I swear.”

Rosie and I broke into a fit of giggles at that which only made the man’s expression flatten that much more, he waited for us to get over it before he looked between us and the notebook which had been laid out. “Enjoy Math, I’m gonna go grab a burger.”

“No!” I laughed brightly, spinning on my stool when he started to walk back around the island, “We want food too.”

“Yeah, we’ll start a riot, we're that hungry.” Rosie told him and I couldn’t muffle the rest of my giggles. Marshall merely rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time.

“Math, then we can talk food.” He declared, tickling his daughter’s side as he slid in beside her to get a better look at the worksheet she had. His eyes widened. “They got you using letters now too?”

Rosie’s laughter filled the kitchen and I got a first row ticket to watch her and her dad’s light ribbing as we started in on the first question. The sight of it made my heart swell in truth, it was just so easy to see how much love they held for one another.

[dea-thynote]

Death note au (dimension travel?)

Light yagami gets transported to a dating sim, except he doesn't know it and he keeps making the genre horror like the universe is like sir 😭😭 stop killing people pls and start embarking the life of romance. I know the story includes mystery and police but it's only for the plot because somehow at that time the genre of detective dating sim were popular.

Events that happened prior to waking up the next morning after getting electrocuted. He turns to a corner and bumps to a (pretty) gangster and in his mind he's like (oh wow I'm gonna kill this guy). Days later he does write the guys name on the death note because he saw them steal or something. Next day, he trips over nothing and into the arms of some rich narcissistic dude who kept asking him to pay for his clothes, he does, although reluctantly. Or like meets his kind shy classmate (who is also a capture target) and manipulates the man like 😭😭

- alright my idea was that, sayu forced light to play the dating sim (aka force him to solve the puzzles ) that interested her because she heard ryuga hideki was there only to be disappointed that it was just a fake name by the greatest detective L, which isn't her type and stops playing

- he stops playing too, and continues to write in his deathnote until he idk trips and smashes his head his computer. get electrocuted and wakes up in his bed but keeps the death note for some reason

- continues to kill criminals but... he notices something weird (its normal for people to be clumsy at times, but for him? And as many times as to embarrass himself in front of people? That's not normal), and now he's having auditory hallucination that he hears sounds when he talks to other people.

- L doesn't exist in light's universe aright? So imagine lights surprise when the broadcast confrontation happens. He goes to sayu to ask her about the game and sayu is confused and was like "what game?" And when he retells the event, she's like I went to u last time to help me with my quadratic formula? Are u okay brother?

Ah, I must've forgotten due to stress of the exams

- sayu doesn't remember the game

(He accidentally goes to L's route because he intrigued him by literally becoming a suspect for being a mass murderer. While in the game, the only way to go to L's route was by choosing police officer as a career and try to solve crimes with L. Even then u guys only interact via call lmao)

Logic: protagonist shapes the world of the game, so when light remembers his school and its location its still the same. There are, although, some things that are constant which is the capture targets and their inevitable meeting with the protagonist, but only takes form of what is in the protagonist reality (likr with the classmate). If the character is not someone he knows then it would take shape to the games reality (like the appearance of L and his successors).

Possible Plot twist: no lawlight, light's an aroace and the dating sim was doomed from the start.

[satoshi-mochida]

Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon for Switch, PC launches October 3

From Gematsu

"High collar nice guy” otome visual novel Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon will launch for Switch and PC via Steam on October 3 worldwide with Japanese audio and English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese subtitles, publisher dramatic create and developer MAGES. announced.

Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon first launched for PS Vita on August 25, 2016 in Japan. It is a ported version of Meiji Tokyo Renka, which originally launched for PlayStation Portable, featuring a new route for one of the characters, as well as other new content.

Here is the story synopsis, via the official website:

About

Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon is a historical romance fantasy game in which the main character travels back in time to the Meiji era and meets and falls in love with the great figures of history.

Key Features

Powered-Up Version of Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon – With the addition of Tosuke Iwasaki’s (voiced by Yoshimasa Hosoya) route, Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon (released in August 2016) is now available on Switch and Steam, featuring even more new elements!

What is Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon? – Meiji Tokyo Renka: Full Moon is a historical romance fantasy game in which the main character travels back in time to the Meiji era and meets and falls in love with the great figures of history.

Additional Content – Newly drawn key visual illustration by the artist Karu. Addition of a newly written bonus scenario for the Switch and Steam version.

Multilingual – Language support for Japanese, English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese. (Voice-overs in Japanese only.)

Story

The main character, Mei Ayatsuki, an ordinary high-school girl, is transported back in time to the Meiji era by the self-proclaimed magician Charlie, whom she meets on the night of a red full moon. It was a slightly mysterious Meiji period “Tokyo” where the existence of Mononoke was recognized. With Charlie’s guidance, she arrived at the Rokumeikan. The protagonist sneaks into the party and is met by historical figures such as Ougai Mori, Syunso Hishida, Otojiro Kawakami, Kyoka Izumi, Gori Fujita, Yakumo Koizumi, and Tosuke Iwasaki. Through her interaction with them, the protagonist realizes that she is a “Tamayori” and has a highly prized ability in the Meiji period that allows her to see Mononoke. Having ability changes her relationship with them… In this unfamiliar time, love affairs grow as she comes into contact with good-looking men during her daily life. Will the protagonist be able to return to her original time or…? Does love transcend time and space? How does it end?

Watch the opening movie below.

Opening Movie

[kikyoupdates]

Changing Plotlines ⭑˚💞⭑ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑔𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡'𝑠 𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑎𝑙

yandere!ocs x f!reader

yandere, reverse harem, yandere reverse harem, original characters x fem!reader, slowburn, isekai

A desperate cry on your deathbed leads to you being given a fresh start at life. You're overjoyed at having finally obtained a healthy body and a real chance at living normally, only to discover that you've been transported into a yandere game, where danger lurks at every corner. Determined to protect your new life at any cost, you vow to stay as far away from the major characters of the game as possible. But things don't always go as planned.

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So far, you’d already met two of the yanderes. You weren’t entirely sure how that had happened, especially when you were so resolved to stay away from them, but given how brief your interactions had been, you were fairly certain that they would have already forgotten about you. Everything was okay. Again, as long as you made sure not to needlessly interfere with the main plot, to them, you would be nothing more than a passerby. A side character. An extra.

I never realized how stressful it would be to deliberately not stand out.

You were especially on edge because you’d been recently informed that your classes were starting soon, which meant that it was only a matter of time before the protagonist made her appearance. It was all happening a lot faster than you’d expected. You’d been hoping you would have a bigger buffer before all the shit started to go down.

But all of this was still manageable. Just avoid getting in the way of the yanderes as they sought the protagonist’s hand, and you were as good as gold.

“Going to school for a change will be fun,” you hummed aloud, taking your time as you prepared a satchel full of belongings. Just the usual school supplies. Some notebooks, pencils, pens, a knife... really, nothing out of the ordinary.

It was obviously impossible to completely push the issue of the dangerous plot out of your mind, but it wasn’t as if that was all this world had to offer. You were perfectly healthy now, something that you couldn’t have imagined in your wildest dreams. There were so many things that you would finally be able to enjoy, like the average person. Instead of focusing on the negatives, you were going to try and look forward to the positives.

A knock on the door roused you from your reverie. You turned to find Lizbell cautiously peering into the room, while holding a cup of tea on a small plate.

“Would you care for a warm beverage?” she asked you.

“Oh, yes please. Is this the same tea I had last time?”

“Why, of course. It’s your favorite, my lady.”

She smiled and walked over to hand the tea off. The “you” from this alternate game universe really was a carbon copy of who you’d been in your previous life. You had all the same interests, the same personality, even the same preferences when it came to food and drinks. It was strange how you’d been transmigrated so perfectly into a world where you’d never even existed to begin with.

You blew on the surface of the tea, then slowly took a sip.

I really am curious about how all of this even happened. Well, not that I’m complaining. It’s infinitely better than being dead.

Lizbell tilted her head, her gaze panning down to the satchel overturned on its side, with some of the objects peeking out of it. “What have you got there, my lady?”

“Hm? Ah, nothing much. Just some things to bring along with me to the academy.”

“The bag looks to be quite full,” she frowned. “You’ll strain your shoulders if you’re carrying something so heavy all day. Are you sure you need all of this?”

“Lizbell, wait—”

Before you could stop her, she’d already lifted the satchel up, and several of the items came tumbling out.

Lizbell’s expression turned to one of pure horror. “Lady [Name], what in Zodin’s name are you doing with a knife?”

“I can explain,” you began.

“No, I’m not sure you can!” she fumed. “Bringing a weapon to school? Absolutely preposterous! Not to mention that you could hurt yourself!”

“It’s, er, just in case of an emergency...?”

She grabbed the knife in a hurry. “I’m confiscating this.”

“What, no! You can’t!”

“I can, and I will.” She paused to raise her brow a hair. “Unless you’d prefer that I speak about this matter with your parents?”

You slumped your shoulders, defeated. “Ugh. Fine, take it away.”

I can just sneak another one tomorrow morning.

“And I’ll be patting you down tomorrow morning so that you don’t get any funny ideas,” she warned.

Goddammit.

“My word,” Lizbell huffed, angrily storming out the room, “you’re going to be death of me one of these days.”

You sipped at the rest of your tea, a touch irritated. Granted, bringing a knife to school probably wasn’t the best idea, but you just felt better knowing that you had some sort of weapon to protect yourself with. But the plot hadn’t even begun yet, and the yanderes didn’t begin exhibiting dangerous tendencies right off the bat, so perhaps you were jumping the gun a bit. First days at school tended to be rather boring anyways. This wasn’t a movie, or some sort of novel.

Yeah, you’d be just fine.

This is actually really exciting. I’m fangirling a bit.

It was one thing to be able to attend school normally without being crippled by your health—which you were immensely grateful for—but it was even more incredible to be able to take part in a universe that you’d once believed to be purely fictional. You’d gone from being nothing more than a player who could make a few limited choices on behalf of the protagonist, to actively participating and having complete control over your actions.

You had to admit, this situation was pretty freaking cool.

Currently, you were standing at the gates of Zodite’s finest institution, the renowned Central Academy. And boy, oh boy, was it intimidating. The colleges and universities from your previous world were arguably bigger, some of the campuses even being referred to as “tiny cities”. But what Central Academy lacked in sheer size, it more than made up for in extravagance. Seriously, you knew that you were technically rich in this world, but everything here looked so ridiculously bourgeoisie that you couldn’t help but feel out of place.

“I’m not used to being one of the elites,” you whined hopelessly. A random student passed by while you were talking to yourself, and they gave you a scathing, judgmental look. A bit rude, but you were admittedly acting a little weird right now, oohing and awing at everything you saw.

Anyways, you were here now, but you didn’t have a clue where your classes were, or how you were meant to find your way around campus. Lizbell had provided you with a list of the classes that the previous “you” of this world had apparently enrolled in, so you were just going to have to use your best judgment in finding the buildings, and then perhaps go by process of elimination. You’d never attended college before, but in the movies, everyone always got lost on their first day. Which is exactly why you’d arrived with ample time to spare.

Feeling optimistic, you walked past the front gates and officially made your way onto academy grounds. It was nowhere near as busy as what you’d expect from a modern-day college campus, but things were lively enough in their own way. Central Academy was an academy restricted specifically to the upper class, which meant that everywhere you looked, nobles of some reputable pedigree were walking about. Some were alone, others still were with friends or colleagues. You sort of wished you had a friend of your own to walk with. Close friendships were another thing you’d lacked back in your previous life. It sucked, but most people weren’t selfless enough to be tied down to someone who was sickly and frail, who couldn’t participate in most activities, especially in the so-called “golden years” of a young adult.

Maybe I can finally make a really good friend here.

You were hopeful. Unordinary circumstances aside, this was the sort of life you could only ever dream of having before. It was best to enjoy every moment.

Although you were still unsure as to where your classes were located, you couldn’t quite seem to wipe the grin plastered across your face. Today was going to be great. You were going to make it great. There was absolutely nothing that could stop you from finally enjoying the campus experience you’d always wished for.

Until you saw her. The protagonist of Zodin’s Benevolence, Flora Tillberry.

“Fuck!” you cursed aloud, immediately ducking behind a bush. You weren’t entirely sure why you were hiding, especially since she had no real reason to walk over and talk to you. It was probably your fight-or-flight mode kicking in. You instinctively knew that wherever Flora was, danger followed.

You felt a bit bad for having such a visceral reaction to Flora. After all, it wasn’t as if she was to blame for any of this, and she was so sweet and innocent-looking—cute as a button, really. If not for the unfortunate fate that awaited her, she was undoubtedly someone you would’ve liked to befriend.

But you had no choice. Avoiding her was the best way to guarantee your safety. You had to completely cast aside any potential guilt you had surrounding her unfortunate circumstances and focus purely on yourself.

If she’s here, then that means the plot has officially been set in motion.

It was okay. You’d been prepared for this from the very start. No matter what, the story would unfold just like it always did, and you would be none the wiser to it.

You held your position for a while, waiting to make sure that she left. You didn’t want to allow any accidents to occur, whether it meant her accidentally stumbling into you or even stopping to ask you for directions. As far as she was concerned, you didn’t exist.

“What on earth are you doing?”

A familiar voice. Why was that voice so familiar?

You turned, dread gradually washing over you. No fucking way. Was this seriously happening for a third time already?!

No matter how much you wanted to believe you were dreaming, there was no mistaking that it was him, Cassius. Staring down at you with heavy judgment as you hid like an idiot, with your butt sticking up in the air.

You gritted your teeth. This was seriously impossible. You were starting to believe that maybe your choices weren’t your own after all, and someone was getting a kick out of toying with your emotions.

Well, just perfect. You’d managed to avoid one of the key characters of the game and ended up running right into a different one. Actually, come to think of it, Cassius was the first yandere that Flora ever met, and their meeting took place right here, on the first day of classes. Had you unwittingly distracted him with your stupidity and prevented their crucial interaction from taking place?

If so, then... fuck.

Why am I the way that I am?

You didn’t have time to berate yourself for too long, since he was staring pointedly at you and clearly waiting for some sort of answer.

“I, uh, rolled my ankle,” you said quickly, then proceeded to grip at the ankle in question. “O-Ouch! That really hurts! Anyways, yeah... I kind of just needed to stop and take a break. It’s probably going to feel better soon though, so I should get going.”

You stood up and did a rather pathetic job of pretending to limp. Cassius didn’t look like he was buying it.

He rolled his eyes at you. “Do you take me for a fool? It seemed like you were spying on someone, what with that suspicious expression on your face. Whoever it is you’re looking out for, I’d just like to let you know that you’re doing a terrible job of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d already been discovered.”

“Thank you very much for your input,” you gritted out insincerely. “But please, don’t let me take up too much of your time. I know you’re a very busy man.”

Now, you were definitely ready to get out of here. It was okay. The situation was still salvageable. Granted, he’d caught you in a bit of an awkward position and you’d impeded his first interaction with Flora, but you were sure the plot would find some way to set itself back on track. This was really no big deal. He clearly thought you were a bit strange, but he’d walk away soon enough and think no more of it.

Except Cassius didn’t walk away. Instead, he continued to stare at you, with eyes widening as though something had just dawned on him. “Wait a second... I remember you now. You’re that same rude woman who ran into me in town that day. For crying out loud,” he sighed, shaking his head disappointedly. “Your parents must have done a terrible job of raising you, seeing as you have no manners.”

I beg your fucking pardon?

This struck a nerve with you, because even in your previous world, your parents had only ever been lovely, supportive people. They’d gone through hell because of the weak constitution you’d been cursed with, but not once had they ever taken out their frustrations on you or tried to make you feel guilty about it in any way.

You were so riled up, in fact, that without thinking it through, you snapped at him.

“Don’t speak ill of my parents,” you glared. “You have no idea how much they’ve endured.”

It only took a moment for pure, unfiltered shock to color Cassius’ expression. You blanched in turn, realizing that you’d provoked someone who was not only obsessive, but had the potential to be incredibly dangerous.

Cassius was quiet for a few moments, and when he spoke next, his cold yellow eyes were concerningly narrowed. “If I recall, you are from the [Last Name] household, correct?”

“Uh, nope,” you hastily denied. “I’ve never heard of them before.”

“What is your name?”

Play dumb. C’mon, play dumb!

“I, uh, don’t have a name.”

Not that dumb, holy fuck!

“Absolutely ridiculous,” Cassius scoffed with a roll of his eyes. “Your behavior is the very height of stupidity. No matter. I’ll find out for myself exactly who you are. The nerve you have, to talk back to me...”

He made sure to glare at you one last time for good measure, then walked away.

The second he was gone, you collapsed to your knees and began pulling at your hair.

“Why, why, why?!” you cried out. “Why me?”

Yeah, things were not good. Things were really not good. Bumping into him before was just a minor offense. He didn’t even know who you were at the time. But now he was going to be actively seeking you out with a vengeance. If only you’d kept your goddamn mouth shut. Curse you and your fondness towards your family! It was moments like these that you wished you had the sort of parents you were okay with being shit-talked.

“It’s okay,” you tried to reassure yourself, breathing shallowly. “He’s a bit pissed off, but even he wouldn’t kill someone just for talking back to him. Right? Right?”

Even if you were blowing things wildly out of proportion, you just couldn’t help it. You’d played the game. You’d seen firsthand what these maniacs were capable of.

As if the situation wasn’t shitty enough, you could also hear that same voice in your head, and they were flat-out laughing at you.

Forget what you said about first days earlier. They didn’t just suck in the movies. They sucked always.

The truth was that the rest of the day had been rather uneventful. Even following your terrible run-in with Cassius, you’d still had plenty of time to make your way around campus and find where your classes were. You actually considered calling it a day and going home to cry in bed like a baby, but you ultimately decided against it. Giving up so soon would mean setting a terrible tone for the rest of your lifetime here.

The classes themselves were perfectly fine. The content wasn’t too difficult to follow along with, especially since this was a less advanced time setting than the one you were used to, and you already had knowledge of far more sophisticated concepts, such as future scientific discoveries. Even though it was the world of a game, it still appeared to obey roughly the same laws of physics, chemistry, and biology.

The biggest difference was unarguably the presence of magic and magical ores, that helped to channel power into many different facilities. The topic of their discovery and usage was covered quite extensively in your history class. Here, you really didn’t have any previously existing knowledge, but your memory was good enough that you weren’t too worried about getting by.

All in, your scholarly aptitude wasn’t that big of a concern right now. You were frankly much more worried about having essentially become Cassius’ nemesis (although that was perhaps giving yourself too much credit).

“Welcome back, my lady,” Lizbell beamed. She was right there to greet you in the foyer when you made it back home. “How did your first day of school go?”

“Terrible,” you groaned, dragging your satchel behind you. “Just awful.”

“Oh, good heavens,” she frowned. “It couldn’t have been that bad. You’ve always been a quick learner. That’s the whole reason you wanted to attend the academy in the first place. Were the classes awfully difficult?”

“The classes were fine, but the people sure weren’t.”

“What do you mean by that?” She gasped, covering a palm over her mouth. “Don’t tell me someone was bullying you!”

“Not so much bullying, but there was a bit of a disagreement.” You pursed your lips, peering over at her cautiously. “Hey, Lizbell. Is Cassius Crowe really such a horrible person? Do you think he’ll put out a hit on me just because I argued with him a little?”

Lizbell’s eyes nearly bulged out of her head. “You got into a disagreement with Lord Cassius?!”

“Ugh. Please, your reaction isn’t helping.”

“Ahem,” she coughed, quickly regaining her composure. “My apologies. And, erm... well, he certainly isn’t very well-liked, but what do you mean by ‘put out a hit’ on you? I’m not familiar with the term.”

“What I mean is, will he chase me to the ends of the planet to ensure that I pay for my crimes? Will he capture me and string me up in town to be made an example out of?”

“Lady [Name], sometimes I really do worry about what goes inside your head.”

“That’s not an answer!” you whined.

“It should be just fine,” she reassured. “He might hold a bit of a grudge, but I’ve never heard of him doing something so drastic purely because someone displeased him. His infamous reputation may be somewhat exaggerated. He actively contributes to the academy’s research, and I’m sure he wouldn’t want to tarnish his image.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case,” you muttered.

Lizbell tried to bite back a smile. “Well, I’m sorry that you had somewhat of an unpleasant interaction, but might I just add that you really are something to behold. Not a day goes by that you don’t find yourself wrapped up in something interesting. Serving you will never get boring, that I can say with absolute confidence.”

You rolled your eyes. At least one of you was having fun.

“Don’t worry, my lady,” Lizbell said cheerfully. “I’m sure the situation sounds much worse in your head than it really is. Lord Cassius is too busy to chase after petty altercations. Quite frankly, this situation is beneath him.”

Can’t tell if that was supposed to be a diss on me or not.

“We’ll see, I guess,” you replied, still rather unconvinced.

“Oh, I know! How about I bring you some pastries to snack on? The sugar will help lift your spirits right away.”

Never one to turn down food, you nodded absently, and Lizbell bowed before leaving the room.

Mentally exhausted from the day’s ordeal, you collapsed backwards onto your bed, letting out a resounding huff. Lizbell was right, in a certain sense. There was no point in beating yourself up over it, especially when it was already in the past. You were learning to use a sword, and besides, soon enough, Cassius would have his hands full trying to win over Flora. You were the least of his concerns, really.

“How did the order go, again?” you mumbled aloud.

Cassius was the first yandere Flora met in the game. She ran into him at the academy, which was apparently meant to have happened today, and then proceeded to ask him for directions since it was her first day on campus. Naturally, Cassius was every bit as rude to her as he’d been to you. He was dismissive and haughty, both qualities that gradually softened up as he began to develop romantic feelings. Since you’d accidentally gotten in the way of their first encounter, you really had no way of knowing when or how they would actually meet. Oh, well.

Next was Lawrence. In the game, Flora met him while attending a gathering of nobles, after receiving an invitation from the villainess, who sought to humiliate her publicly. The villainess regularly bullied Flora at school, and even made her burst into tears during the party. It was afterwards that Flora would run into Lawrence, who being the superficial goody-two-shoes he was, would pretend to console her even though he could really care less.

The third yandere Flora met was Triston, son of a foreign powerhouse family, who came to stay in Zodite Kingdom as part of an ongoing business deal. A public function was held, mandating the attendance of the noble families, whereupon Triston would give a speech. Flora ran into him there, and they had a brief interaction during which they introduced themselves.

Lastly, and also by far your least favorite of all the yanderes, was Friedrich. Flora’s meeting with him was... honestly, you didn’t even want to think about it too much right now.

Anyways. You knew exactly how Flora was supposed to meet the rest of the main characters, so there was no way you were going to mess things up any further. You needed for the plot to move along smoothly, in order to make everything easier to predict. You knew that you were an anomaly, and your very presence in this world was affecting things, but your safest bet was really to let all of the love interests have their time with Flora, making sure to give them plenty of space to do so.

“Haha. You look rather troubled. Watching your interaction with that man earlier was quite amusing. It sure seems like you managed to get under his skin.”

That stupid voice again. It was another issue that was grating at you, but you were completely powerless to do anything about it.

“Stop it,” you snapped. “Cut it out. Quit spying on me.”

“Why would I? I’m having such a fun time.”

“You said I would find out who you are,” you said exasperatedly. “Well? I’m still waiting. And to be frank, I could use some good news right now.”

Just like last time, there was an unnecessarily long pause before the voice spoke again.

“Hm, no. It’s still too soon. I’m going to wait a bit longer before I answer your questions. I’m curious to see what other fun stuff you’ll get caught up in.”

You rolled your eyes. “Typical.”

Seriously, nothing was going your way today. Hopefully tomorrow would be better, but you had a nagging suspicion that wasn't going to be the case. 

More chapters are available on Quotev!

⊱.⋅follow + post notifications on for story update announcements or join the author's discord!⋅.⊰

💞 main masterlist ♡ character appearances

[internetgiraffekid1673]

What the Hell is Wizard101 (and Pirate101)

I'm making this post for the lovely @ellazimmermansblog, who is very sweet and wants to actually have half a clue what's going on in the fandom that I'm in but she's not. And oh sweet cheese and crackers. You asked for it. I tried to leave this in the comments. I really did. This is gonna get long, so feel free to read this in chunks or disregard it or just read it whenever you get the time.

Genre:

Wizard101 is a JRPG or junior-role-playing game that's also an MMO or Massive Multiplayer Online game that was big in the 2010s. In case you don't know what those are:

A JRPG is a game where you basically play as the protagonist of a middle grade fantasy/adventure story, meaning the target audience is usually 7-13. Think Pokemon or Kingdom Hearts.

An MMO is a game where everybody who plays the game is playing at the same time, in the same world. You can always interact with other players and are heavily encouraged to team up and collobarate.

While it is advertised as "free to play," it's only free for like the first hour or so of playtime. You can do the tutorial and like two other areas before you have to fork over some cash for a membership.

Basic Story:

Anyway, the spoiler-free story of Wizard101 is that you are a young Wizard enrolled in Ravenwood School of Magic by Headmaster Ambrose. He found you magically transported from "a strange world that doesn't believe in magic" (read: Earth). He believes you may be "the one we've been searching for." After doing a personality quiz to decide which school of magic you belong to, your enrollment is immediately crashed by Malistaire Drake. He used to be the Professor for the Death School, until his wife fell ill and he went mad with grief and turned evil trying to bring her back.

After beating up your would-be teacher, you learn that he's been unleashing scores of undead onto Wizard City, mind-controlling people, is going after major infrastructure, and is just being a dick in general because he's eeeeeeeeviiiiil. Ambrose turns you loose in the streets to help a number of other student NPCs save the city and do general damage control.

The main story of Arc 1 basically has you trekking after Malistaire like a lunatic, cleaning up his messes and trying to stop him from breaking the world apart while he attempts to ressurect his wife. This is where me and my brother J-Dog are at in our playthrough.

But there are 4 arcs, and the story continues WELL after you mop up the Malistaire problem. It's basically the Young Wizard saving the spiral from major threat after major threat, trekking through quirky worlds willy-nilly, and meeting a massive and entertaining cast of NPCs, all with different motivations and sidequests and problems for you to solve (or cause).

Each world in the spiral is also kind of an analogy for a real life place or a popular fictional story, but you replace all the humans with anthropomorphic animals (I'm really not sure why this game isn't more popular with furries). Marleybone, for example, which is where my brother and I are right now, is analagous to Victorian era England and populated by a bunch of stiff-upper-lipped dogs that nobody likes, mutliple crime rings of cats, and a contingent of Irish foxes that only appear in the less-popular but very good companion game: Pirate101 (I'll get to that).

That's the most basic I can make the gist, but there's still a lot of other basic information that might matter when I talk about it, so I'll put that under a cut!

Magic Basics:

The 7 main schools of magic that you can play as, and what they're general purpose/ability is are as follows:

Storm: Hit things really hard in exchange for a low accuracy rate and lower base HP. Glass cannons basically. This is what I'm playing as.

Fire: Also hitting things, but focuses more on damage-over-time spells that kill your enemies slowly.

Ice: Damage Sponge. They have the highest natural health pool, access to some decent spells early on to reduce damage, and even have a taunt spell that can draw enemy fire onto them (this isn't very useful in practice from what I've heard).

Those are the three elemental schools. The next three are spirit schools.

Life: Healers. What did you expect? They're the only class with the ability to heal other players. They get a high health pool, really good accuracy, and a lot of healing spells, but they're less good at hitting things and dealing damage. This is what J-Dog is playing as.

Myth: Summons. You can summon lots of different minions to help you out. From what I understand, each minion plays slightly differently and you're supposed to build different strategies around what they give you.

Death: Drains. Stealing health from the enemy basically. A lot of their spells will hit the enemy really hard, and then give half of that back to you. Because of the capability to hurt and heal in the same turn, they're the best to solo the game with.

And finally there is a school that lives in between Elemental and Spiritual:

Balance: battlefield control. They have a lot of damage increasers and damage reducers, and have the capability to mess with the powers of any of the other schools.

While each class does have it's unique and specific niche, they do all have the same main function: summon a monster to hit your enemy. All the combat in the game is done in a summoning circle where you take turns summoning monsters to hit each other. Each side can have up to 4 allies at a time (are we sensing a number theme yet).

Each enemy in the game has an assigned school that they belong to. Casting spells from the same school as them does less damage, while spells from the opposite school are stronger. Opposites are as follows:

Life and Death

Fire and Ice

Myth and Storm

Balance is a special snowflake that has no opposite :)

Your ability to cast spells depends on your Mana, which can be restored with blue wisps of magic floating around the world. Your ability to not be dead depends on your health, which can be restored with red health wisps.

Most spells that you cast, especially damaging spells, have a chance to "fizzle" or fail to cast. It's like missing in a pokemon game. This is the bane of every player's existence.

There are also Astral Schools later that do other things, but I ain't got there yet, so it's whatever.

Extracurriculars:

There are a number of other fun things you can do in Wizard101 that don't involve saving the world:

PvP: player versus player combat! Get the shit beaten out of you by people with more time and money! For fun! Beat the shit out of other people and win arena tickets, which can buy you cool prizes like better gear!

Pets: You can have a number of adorable little animal companions that, if you take good care of, will help you in combat! Some of them cast spells on their own, some of them give you extra spells to cast, some of them have passive abilities that increase your strength, and all of them will get more helpful the more you train them. You train them via minigames, like teaching them to dance or having them eat snacks off a stage or FIRING THEM OUT OF CANONS (amongst other questionable activities).

Gardening: Take care of the weirdest assortment of magical plants you've ever seen, in exchange for harvesting them for money and crafting ingredients and treasure cards and stuff. All of them are puns btw. Like. I have laugh-o-dils, despairagus, baby carrots (literal screaming baby carrots in diapers), and dandelions (which have actual lion faces) to name a few.

Fishing: Pull weird magical pun-based fish out of the water and sell them for exorbitant amounts of cash or stick them in your aquarium or something!

Monstrology: Study various creature types by killing them a lot until you become an expert and can either summon them as minions, stick them in your house, or just get EXTRA good at killing them.

Crafting: Use natural ingredients you found across the spiral (reagents) to make better gear yourself!

There's also photomancy, but that's just a glorified screenshot feature and we all know it.

NPCs:

Me and everybody else who plays this game is fucking obsessed with all of the non-player characters in both games. There are so many of them though, and they're so different from each other, that you're better off just asking who's who every time I post about one.

Pirate101:

While the Wizard is off being a tragic chosen one saving the spiral from various world-ending threats, there are other adventures going on underneath their nose! Pirate101 takes place at the same time and in the same universe as Wizard101, but never interacts beyond vague references.

The basic spoiler-free plot of this one is that you are a young orphan who got thrown into prison after crossing the Clockwork Armada, a tyrannical army of steampunk clockwork robots who want to conquer the world and end our God Given Right to steal shiny things (and also suppress free will or something. Idk. I never got that far).

You're broken out of jail by eccentric pirate captain Boochbeard and his monkey first mate Mr. Gandry, drag a fellow captive along with you, beat up one of the high-ranking members of the Armada, and are taken to the pirate safe haven of skull island. You're introduced to it's steward, the successful and retired pirate Captain Avery, who immediately enlists you as his errand boy/girl/goblin thing. You meet one of the first companions of your crew, Bonnie Anne, and together you run some turncoat sharks out of town.

After proving yourself to Avery and getting swindled out of a real ship, you basically spend the rest of the game chasing after untold gold and riches, beating up the Clockwork Armada, and helping out unfortunate souls where you can.

The critical difference between wizard and pirate though: The wizard makes temporary NPC acquaintances and even a few true friends, but they're always left to fight alone with just themselves (and a few other wizards if you're playing the game multiplayer, as intended). Meanwhile, the pirate is collecting ragtag companions for their motley crew like they're pokemon cards. Some of them are looking for adventure, others money, others freedom or a new life, and a lot of them just feel like they owe you because you beat them up.

All of these NPCs join your crew and you can have up to 3 of them in a fight with you, in addition to a pet. They all have highly entertainig personalities and different sets of abilities that are useful in different scenarios.

Pirate101's combat is much more up close and personal, playing more like chess where you have a bunch of different pieces that you have to strategically move around to hit different attacks with.

The different classes of pirate, which are determined by which crime got you in jail at the beginning of the game, are as follows:

Musketeers (my fave): guns and traps. The idea is that you don't have to get too close with them.

Witchdoctor: magic! They function sort of similarly to wizards in wizard101, but they can also hit things over the head with their staff and get stabbed, so no they don't.

Privateers: Healing, boosting, and commanding other pirates

Bucanners: Big sword that hits one thing very hard (and also big defense) at the cost of more agility and freedom to move.

Swashbuckler: Also hitting things, but less defense and health in exchange for more agility.

Pirate101 also has ship combat. While Wizard has convenient magical teleporters to move you between worlds, Pirate101 said "get in your boat and drive there yourself." You basically fire canonballs at each other until one ship gets damaged so badly it stops moving and gets boarded, at which point you transition to regular combat.

Pirate101 is in general, the neglected younger sibling. Kingsisle doesn't pay a quarter as much attention to Pirate, but it's still really good.

Apart from the companions and the combat, the biggest difference in pirate is probably your lack of supervision. You don't constantly have people glaring over your shoulder and telling you what to do, you just have a ragtag gang of misfits and a general order to "get money, don't die, and don't be a dick." The pirates get to be very chaotic in comparison to the wizards.

Holy mackeral, that was a lot. Anyway, I played both games a lot as a kid and spent my summer allowance on memberships for them. Now that I have an adult brain and adult money and am a lot better at video games, I have returned to enjoy them again, and I am dragging my brother along with me (don't worry, he's having fun too).

I highly recommend that you play them both, they're very fun. But this post should be a good guideline if you don't want to put that much investment into it, but still want to have half a clue what I'm talking about when I bring up either game. Thanks so much for asking!

[yurimother]

The 2023 Yuri Guide - Visual Novels

Your ultimate guide to the best Yuri content with over 200 curated titles from every genre and medium.

Blackberry Honey

• Shakaijin • Drama • Romance

Forced to work for fourteen hours a day, with little chance to rest, Lorina, the newest maid to the Lennard family, is bullied by the senior maids and the youngest Lennard daughter. One of the only maids who deigns to speak to Lorina is the mysterious Taohua – but Lorina wishes she wouldn’t. Her aloof, almost cat-like personality, coupled with her peculiar complexion, eyes, and name, have inspired more than a few rumors around the Shropshire countryside that she might be a witch. Lorina knows she should keep her distance from Taohua, and she wants to most desperately… but maybe there’s a pinch of truth to all the rumors, because she soon finds herself under the older woman’s spell.

~Developed and Published by ebi-hime~ Available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Mac, and Linux

Black Closet

• School • Drama • Romance • Mystery

A noir story that places you in control as the student council president. To protect yourself and the school’s reputation, you must command your minions to solve mysteries by investigating scenes, looking for clues, performing surveillance, and interrogating students. Remember, never let your attention falter, no matter what sweet nothing your minions whisper or sly glances they give you. Because one of them… is a traitor.

~Developed and Published by Hanako Games~ Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

Butterfly Soup

• School • Slice of Life • Sports

Laugh-out-loud funny and featuring characters that each feels like one of your best friends! This gentle visual novel by Brianna Lei follows a group of four, queer Asian high school students living in California. The girls join an all-female baseball club together and spend their time playing the game, falling in love and memeing. A sequel, Butterfly Soup 2, is available for PC, Mac, and Linux.

~Developed and Published by Brianna Lei~ Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

The Curse of Kudan

• School • Horror • Mystery • Yuri Harem • Friends to Lovers 

Feelings start to bud between student Sakuya Kudan and culinary instructor Touko Shima after coincidence brings them into one another’s orbit. However, their peaceful lives are abruptly shattered when Touko sees Kudan, the harbinger of calamity. The rumors say that anyone who lays eyes on her is doomed within seven days. The hours tick down as Sakuya rushes find a way to combat the curse, and her search brings her to the academy’s Occult Research Club and its president, Koto Ashinaki. Now she must face off against the unknown in order to protect the people she loves…

~Developed and Published by SukeraSparo~ Available on PC

The Expression Amrilato

• Isekai • Slice of Life • Romance

"...Why is the sky pink...?" Rin should know this area well, but the unreadable letters on the signs and the strange language the people are speaking have made things unrecognizable. Suddenly transported to a parallel world, Rin is saved when Ruka, a girl so cute she could be an idol, appears and extends a helping hand. Now a guest in Ruka’s home, Rin, and by extension the player, must learn Esperanto through interactive lessons to navigate this strange world. This is the story, pure and sometimes frustrating, of two girls intertwined through their fumbling efforts to communicate.

The sequel, Distant Memoraĵo, continues Rin and Ruka’s story and romance and reveals the secrets of Ruka’s past. Two storeis of the struggles that come with attempting to connect with one another across age, language, and even worlds.

~Developed by SukeraSparo, Published by MangaGamer~ Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

The Fairy's Song

• Romance • Fantasy • Adventure

Marnie is a young goth girl with a less-than-cheery disposition. Her parents are going away for a week of sun and surf in Bordeaux, and Marnie has been palmed off in her grandmother’s care in the backwater English village Fenchapel.

While exploring, Marnie happens upon a young female knight in a glade, clutching a sword. The knight has been sleeping for many centuries, but Marnie (inadvertently) awakes her. The young knight calls herself Leofe. She does not know why she went to sleep, but she knows that the forest itself is plagued by a horrible curse, and she is the only one who can lift it. The sequel, The Fairy’s Secret is also available on PC, Linux and Android.

~Developed and Published by ebi-hime~ Available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Android, PC, and Linux

Fatal Twelve

• Isekai • Supernatural • Adventure • Mystery

One day, Shishimai Rinka dies in an explosion—yet she finds herself continuing to live her ordinary life as if nothing had happened at all. That is, until a few days later, when she encounters the Goddess Parca in the dream world.

"Good evening, my lovely little slaves to fate." Rinka discovers that she is one of 12 people the Goddess has invited to her game. A game that could undo their deaths. In this maelstrom of life and death, Rinka must face a myriad different emotions, as well as the truth behind her own demise. What will her final decision be...?

~Developed by LYCORYS, Published by Sekai Project & PROTOTYPE~ Available on PS4, Nintendo Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux

Flowers (Series)

• School • Adventure • Drama • Romance • Mystery • Multiple Couples • Yuri Harem • Friends to Lovers

In the middle of a forest isolated from the rest of the world lies Saint Angraecum Academy, an all-girls school. This private boarding school is isolated from the rest of the world, allowing the girls who attend the space and freedom to develop into young ladies under the guidance of their teachers. This is where Suoh Shirahane, a painfully shy girl, will begin her first year of high school. Follow her and her classmates in this four-game series as she navigates new friendships and attempts to unravel the many mysteries at the academy, including occult rituals and the mysterious disappearance of fellow students, all while trying to pass her classes. Suoh must learn to overcome her anxieties as she navigates new friendships. These bonds of friendship grow even stronger within the academy's special Amitié program, and Suoh's heart will open for the first time. But is it okay to like a girl?

~Developed by Innocent Grey, Published by JAST~ Available on PC

GOOD LUCK BABY!

• Mystery • Fantasy • Comedy

Japan, 2002. Bad luck is something we all experience - but for high schooler Hifumi Tanaka, it’s become an unwanted way of life.

Broken alarm clocks, lost wallets and bumped elbows; she starts wondering what she did to deserve this unrelenting misfortune. Her luck finally changes for the better upon meeting Kasumi Itou - a sunny delinquent with a heart of gold. But just as their mutual crush begins to bloom, the girls find a surprising sight awaiting them on Kasumi’s doorstep…a baby with wings and a halo!

Hifumi, Kasumi, and their newfound friends embark on the journey of a lifetime to solve the mystery behind this baby; kicking off a chain of events that affects the fate of the world itself. But with the ruthless Empress Metis following their every move, will good luck be enough to save them from the ultimate evil?

~Developed and Published by Noodletub Games~ Available on PC

Heart of the Woods

• Adventure • Drama • Romance • Supernatural • Mystery • Multiple Couples

Maddie Raines has had enough. After years of serving as manager, editor, and general business-handler for her best friend Tara's popular paranormal vlog channel, she's finally ready to move forward with her own life. But when she agrees to take one last trip with Tara to the mysterious village of Eysenfeld, she's suddenly surrounded by wondrous and dangerous supernatural events. One in particular captivates Maddie in a way she’s never been before: the ghost of a young woman, Abigail.

~Developed by Studio Élan, Published by Sekai Project and Sekai Games~ Available on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Mac, and Linux

Heaven Will Be Mine

• Sci-fi • Action • Romance

It’s 1981, and the dream of a new home in space for all humanity is dead. After fighting for decades against an intangible and ephemeral existential threat from beyond the solar system, Earth command has declared the war effort a huge waste of time. The honeymoon is over, and a future of glittering cities across the solar system and cosmic battles between giant robots just isn’t going to happen. The outcome is clear: it’s time to come home.

But we don’t care. Giant robots may not make any sense. Celestial cities across the solar system are silly dreams. They are, however, extremely awesome. We, the girls who were raised in space, to be special and incredible and pave the way for a new future, aren’t giving up so easily. We’ve got invincible Ship-Selves for ferrying human bodies through time and space, and we have the weight and power to make a fantasy of the future real.

~Developed and Published by Pillow Fight & Worst Girls Games~ Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

Letters From a Rainy Day -Oceans and Lace-

• School • Romance • Drama • Mystery • Senapi/Kouhai 

The prestigious private girls’ school, Kikyou Academy, educates young ladies from elementary age to university. With cell phones forbidden on school grounds, letter writing is a pastime for many of the girls… for better or for worse.

Student Mikoto Kurahashi receives a disturbing blackmail letter, forcing her to ask out younger student Shiori Minato to protect her sister. The story switches between the two girls’ viewpoints, displaying both sides of this unconventional romance as Shiori works to discover the reason and the perpetrator behind the blackmail and Mikoto longs to get her new partner to engage with her more.

~Developed by Lily Spinel, Published by Hublots and mirai works~ Available on PC

Lilycle Rainbow Stage!!!

• School • Slice of Life • Comedy • Multiple Couples • Friends to Lovers

Sweet, heartwarming, and bursting with cheerful, colorful illustrations features a swarm of adorable Yuri couples. As every character’s perspective is shown, you could say that they’re all the protagonist! A love triangle between two friends and a recent graduate, a young maid and her precocious mistress, student council rivals, a wallflower and her socialite companion, and more. This Yuri buffet is overflowing with cuteness!

~Developed by PARTICLE, Published by MangaGamer~ Available on PC

Linghua (Series)

• School • Drama • Romance • Multiple Couples • Fated Lovers • Tragedy 

A Yuri visual novel series about young couples bound by fate and tragedy at an all-girls’ private academy. In Melancholy Love, an elite student, born into privilege, and a delinquent who longs to break free of her chains meet amidst the garden of scented dreams. In Symbiotic Love, a devastated Zihua discovers a mysterious diary after the death of her lover, Jisuo. One by one excepts begin to appear, revealing the truth behind the tragedy.

~Developed by White Dew Game, Published by Kikai Digital~ Available on PC and Mac

Lingua Fleur Lily

• Drama

The introvert Yuyi arrives at school every day with a secret deep in her heart, a truth she has kept hidden from everyone, even her beloved old tutor. But when she is paired with the excitable Yile, the eager girl helps Yuyi come out of her shell, confronting the bittersweet memories of her past and coming to terms with her identity. This tender hidden and emotional hidden gem is not a romance story, but a story of healing and accepting oneself, a gift given to Yuyi by an earnest and caring friend. Its gentle illustrations and enchanting soundtrack heighten this simple but poignant story. 

~Developed and published by Narrator and STORIA~ Available on PC

A Little Lily Princess

• School • Drama • Historical • Slice of Life

Sara Crewe was raised like a princess by her doting Papa, always given the best of everything. Now that she is old enough, she must be sent away to boarding school in a foreign land, relying on her love of books and fairytales to help her make friends. But, what would happen to a little princess if she lost everything? This Yuri retelling of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel gives players the option to plan Sara’s daily activities and bond with her peers, leading to several potential romances. 

~Developed by Hanabira, Published by Hanako Games~ Available on Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PC, Mac, and Linux

Mizuchi 白蛇心傳

• Fantasy • Romance • Slice of Life • Mystery

Abruptly finding herself at the bottom of a snake pit, an impoverished girl named Linh is bound and helpless for a crime she did not commit. Left to the mercy of the village snake god, a mysterious entity appears before her, offering to save her in exchange for her soul. Finding herself in a new reality, she is torn between staying with the beautiful temptress, Ai, who had rescued her from death, and the resourceful wanderer, Jinhai, who promises to set her free.

~Developed and Published by Aikasa Collective~ Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

a new life.

• Romance • Slice of Life • Tragedy • Love at First Sight

A short, simple, and beautiful experience. A classic love story: Meet, marry, grow old. But when your loved one hurts you, what do you do? Is it better to love and be hurt, than never love at all? From their first meeting in college until the bittersweet end, this short visual story is a beautiful and emotional highlight reel of two women in love.

~Developed and Published by Angela He~ Available on iOS, Android, PC, Mac, and Linux

Nurse Love (Series)

• Fantasy • Slice of Life • Horror • Mystery • Yuri Harem • Slow Burn

Surviving a near-death experience as a child left Kaori Sawai with the dream to become a nurse and heal others. And today is finally the day, as she leaves school to join the Yurigahama Hospital, mending injuries with the magical touch of her hands and navigating sweet, strange, and exceptionally disturbing relationships with her quirky coworkers in Nurse Love Syndrom.

Set in the same world, Nurse Love Addiction follows Asuka Osachi, a ditzy and easy-going girl, who graduates from high school and enrolls in Teito Nursing School along with her younger sister, Nao. With their two classmates Itsuki and Sakuya and their instructor Kaede, the girls will experience what it means to be an adult... and a nurse.

~Developed by Kogado Studio, Published by Degica~ Available on Nintendo Switch and PC

OshiRabu: Waifus Over Husbandos

• Comedy • Slice of Life • Romance • Already a Couple • Love at First Sight

Akuru Hayahoshi is an unlucky otaku office worker who just can't pull her husbando in the gacha game she's obsessed with, no matter how much money she throws at it.

Until one day, she runs into the garishly gorgeous and freakishly lucky Ren Furutachi. A series of misunderstandings causes Ren to full-on pursue Akuru. One thing leads to another, and in order to bring her husbando home, she ends up... bringing Ren home?!

In the sequel ~Love･or･die~ a fit of jealousy and more misunderstandings lead to a Akuru unthinking accepting one of Ren’s many joke proposals… and by the time she realizes what she's done, it's too late. Ren is in bridezilla mode and starting to plan the wedding!

~Developed by SukeraSomero, Published by Hublots and mirai works~ Available on Nintendo Switch and PC, iOS and Android

Perfect Gold: The Alchemy of Happiness

• Fantasy • Romance • Enemies to Lovers

Marion LaRue is not having a fun day at all. What was meant to be a harmless little fire turned into an explosion that has her stuck in detention, missing out on one of the rare opportunities for her to enjoy life outside the academy. And of course, she just had to be stuck with Audrey Clary, of all the high-class LeFay students she could be in detention with.

Determined to not miss out on the long-awaited festival, these former lovers begrudgingly work together to escape detention and find their way to the festival. As they explore the city and celebrate the Sunflower Festival together, an old friendship is rekindled, and new feelings begin to bloom.

~Developed and Published by Yangyang Mobile, Published by Mama Morin (Console/Mobile)~ Available on Nintendo Switch, PC, iOS, and Android

Please Be Happy

• Slice of Life • Romance • Fantasy

Born as a fox in the forest of Korea, Miho carries with her the memory of a traveler who showed her kindness and spoke of home. Now more human than fox, Miho has spent a long, long time searching for her person. She arrives by airship to Wellington, one of the jewels of the floating island of New Zealand.

Despite her years spent observing humans, she still has a lot to learn about their culture and society. She's made a living so far as a thief, her heightened senses allowing her to easily take advantage of people. She's also seen a lot of the worst of what mankind has to offer.

It's only after meeting Juliet, the owner of a small library, and Aspen, an aspiring novelist, that Miho starts to understand what kindness is, and that there's more than just the bad stuff when it comes to people.

~Developed by Studio Élan, Published by Sekai Project~ Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

Salome's Kiss

• Romance • Drama • Historical • Tragedy

Letitia Reed is an unremarkable woman in many aspects. Meek and mild, she prefers to keep her head down, and fears drawing undue attention to herself. As a governess to the wealthy Mortimer family, Letitia devotes her humdrum days in London to the schooling of her pupil, Clara, to better mould her into the image of an ideal lady.

Lurking beneath Letitia’s placid mannerisms, however, lay desires so intense they begin to unnerve her. As Clara matures, Letitia finds her feelings towards her maturing too – until, in the end, she can no longer bear it.

~Developed and Published by ebi-hime~ Available on PC and Linux

SeaBed

• Romance • Drama • Mystery • Tragedy • Slow Burn

A mystery told through the perspectives of three women: Mizuno Sachiko, a designer plagued by hallucinations of her past lover; Narasaki Hibiki, Sachiko's friend and a psychiatrist researching the workings of human memories; and Takako, Sachiko's former lover who has been rapidly forgetting her past, including how or why the two women drifted apart, despite being together since childhood. All three live in different worlds but seek the same goal. To separate truth from illusion. To make sense of their own lives.

~Developed by paleontology, Published by Fruitbat Factory~ Available on Nintendo Switch and PC

A Summer's End - Hong Kong 1986

• Shakaijin • Romance • Drama • Historical • Love at First Sight

Michelle is a young professional working woman living in Hong Kong during the heydays of the 1980s. She meets Sam, a free-spirited woman and an unconventional entrepreneur, by chance after an incident involving a broken heel. They share a mutual attraction. As their relationship progresses, Michelle is forced to make a decision between traditional propriety and her newfound feelings.

Inspired by classic Asian cinema, this beautiful game depicts the intense curiosity, confusion, and desire whirling around this incredible romance. Michelle A Summer’s End is a modern romance. A dazzlingly vibrant and intimate experience that explores identity, family, queerness, and love in a rapidly changing and highly political world.

~Developed and Published by Oracle and Bone~ Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

Synergia

• Action • Sci-Fi • Mystery

Cila, a veteran cop with a sour outlook and anger issues expects nothing more from life besides the smell of ozone, blinding neon lights and the ever-present manhole steam. At least, until a shady friend replaces her broken-down housedroid as a favor. Advanced, more efficient and remarkably perceptive, unit M.A.R.A. begins to penetrate Cila's toughened exterior and possibly even heal her new owner's old wounds – if Cila can decipher the recurring nightmare the process brings. Soon Cila and Mara forge a unique - if sometimes uneasy - bond. Unbeknownst to Cila, just as her life begins to find its new normal, the technological giant Velta Labs gets wind of Mara's existence and takes a mysterious interest in the android. A war unlike any before it is brewing on the horizon, its players are silently being selected and one android's fate may spell the difference between peace, war, the blossoming of a new religion, or a technological singularity beyond comprehension.

~Developed by Radi Art, Published by Top Hat Studios~ Available on PS4, Nintendo Switch, PS Vita, PC, Mac, and Linux

Who Is The Red Queen?

• Horror • Fantasy • Romance

Alice falls down the rabbit hole into a Wonderland not quite right. Meeting an eclectic collection of people, animals, and some things in between, she sets out on an adventure in this odd new place to find the missing Red Queen. Or, more specifically, to find the pieces of the dismembered queen whose body has been strewn across the land.

~Developed by 4noki, Published by Studio Élan~ Available on PC, Mac, and Linux

Yumeutsutsu Re:Master

Slice of Life • Mystery • Slow Burn

Set in the town of Koenji, not far from the imperial capital of Tokyo, where a small game studio called Eureka Soft has set up shop. The heroine Ai, a country girl, joins her sister Kokoro who works there, after receiving a mysterious email from studio head.There she meets the quirky all-girl (and a dog) cast: the big sisterly head of the studio, her sister, giving her a cold shoulder, the maid/voice talent, the "tiny dinosaur" scenarist, the uniformed artist, and Banako, the dog and vice-president. Ai starts learning about game making as she slowly pieces together the mysteries of her colleagues. Ai's world will expand bit by bit, as the game production begins.

~Developed byKogado Studio, Published by Degica~ Available on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PC

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[miukki960]

Okay, so I just finished Love for Love's Sake and..... I have so many thoughts. I could wax poetic for hours about how much I loved the show, but right now what I really want to talk about is my theory on the ending and the whole concept of the "game."

Please bare with me as I don't make posts like this (or any at all for that matter) often. Please forgive me if it's incoherent, my thoughts tend to run faster than my fingers can type lol.

Here we go!

First, who is the author sunbae? I think he's the embodiment of death. When Myungha wished on the shooting star for 1. Someone to care for him and love him and 2. To disappear,he was wearing what I'm pretty sure is the same outfit as when we first see him in the bar back in episode 1. This leads me to believe Death heard his wish, so when Myungha decides to end his life and regrets his decision in the last moment, Death decides to give him a chance to change his fate.

So he creates the "game" based on a novel he supposedly wrote. I believe this is a false memory he gives to Myungha so he will willingly play the game and try to change his fate. Which leads me to my second point...

Myungha is the author. The show did a very good job at keeping this subtle at the beginning. We as an audience are led to believe he is simply transported into the videogmae world and is at the mercy of the dating sim, but they show us multiple times that that's not the case.

Once, when Myungha mentions that the missions are written in his handwriting, a second time when we get a flashback of him actually writing these missions in a notebook at the bar, and a final time when we see him pen the shows Ultimate Mission using the Author's Pen, "Please make Cha Yeowoon Happy."

I started to get the idea that Myungha was the author back in the first few episodes when we started to see the side missions. Every mission he got screamed to me "this mission is actually for you, not Yeowoon." What was the first thing he did when he was supposed to get Yeowoon more friends? He befriended Kyunghoon himself. Save 3,000,000 won? For himself. Get Yeowoon followers? Using HIS Instagram. Which leads to point number three....

The game Myungha is sent to is actually a reenactment of his senior year of high school. All the characters he meets are actual people in his earlier life, his grandma, Kyunghoon, Sangwon. But in his original "playthrough" he didn't bother to befriend or interact with them, so they went about their lives unaffected, and he forgot they existed. I say all this with the exception of Cha Yeowoon.

Cha Yeowoon is a mirrored reflection of Myungha created by Death and inserted into the game. Myungha said himself at the beginning that Yeowoon was his favorite character because he reminds him of himself. Later on, we learn that their backgrounds are almost identical too. Yeowoon lost his mother, has an absent runaway father, and was raised by his grandmother. Myungha has a dead father, absent runaway mother, and is being raised by his grandmother. So at the beginning when Death asks Myungha if he will change Yeowoon's fate and rewrite his story, he's really talking about Myungha.

Adding to this, I also noticed something rather spectacular narratively in the second half of the show. The whole show, we watched Myungha try and (mostly) succeed at making Yeowoon happy. But suddenly I realized, as we watched him get happier and happier, Myungha was falling deeper and deeper into a sadness rivaling how we saw Yeowoon in the beginning. We stopped seeing the calculations of Yeowoon's affection level, and instead saw error messages and system malfunctions, representing Myungha's emotional state.

Which begs the ultimate question on everyone's minds to be answered. If the whole point of sending Myungha back to his 19yo self and giving him Yeowoon was to get him to love himself and be happy, why were the system malfunctions so devastatingly awful and cruel? Answer: because Myungha is the author, and he's depressed and self-destructive.

He begins to feel happy with the changes he's made, he sees Yeowoon happier and he feels like he's succeeding, yet the countdown message to his death still appears. It's ominous and impending and a constant reminder that he's failing. So as the author, he tries to revert back to factory settings by getting rid of the major changes to his life, Yeowoon and his grandmother. The two people who love him most, and the two people he thinks he deserves the least.

Sangwon said it the best. Myungha's main issue is that he refuses to receive love, both from others and himself. Which is why he fails the game and dies a second time. He followed the missions for Yeowoon and refused to let them break down his own walls like they were ment to.

But Death does see the change in him through Yeowoon. Being Myungha's mirror, Yeowoon represents the change that was supposed to happen to Myungha. So when Myungha (the him he hates) deletes himself in order to make Yeowoon (the him he loves) happy ("please make Cha Yeowoon happy"), Yeowoon is able to go full-meta, breaking through the game and rewriting the mission to "Please make Tae Myungha happy."

Thus saving Myungha and allowing him a third chance at a happy life, where he receives just as much love as he gives.

Don't ask me about the "he comes back disjointed from Yeowoon's timeline" thing bc I don't understand it narratively but it sure does make for a visually pleasing ending.

[quartz-tsw]

Demo | Forum

You are a high school student passionate about writing interactive fiction novels. Grammar, story structure, character design, and story design are foreign concepts to you, but that won’t slow you down because you have passion and the power of friendship on your side. A tragic accident sends you into a coma, transporting you into the world you have created.

Explore a world filled with bugs, excessive stats that cancel each other out, and ambiguous choices. Romance one-dimensional characters, overcome poorly designed challenges to escape the hell you’ve created, and become the Strongest Writer!

The game is primarily narratively driven, even though there will be silly challenges sprinkled here and there. Some random elements are present, but they won’t stonewall your progress. You will never be forced to replay an encounter because you had a bad die roll. Ridiculously difficult or poorly worded mini-games will pop up here and there. But the ones that have “correct” solutions are accompanied by a skip button that can be used without any punishment.

You will have a mobile base of operations, a castle that can fit in your pocket, where you can grow plants, make potions, train with your companions and decorate your rooms. After you reach a certain point in the game, time will advance when you complete quests, making the plants grow. The plants can be used for brewing potions that will add more flavor to future encounters but aren’t a prerequisite for progress.

At the end of each chapter, you will enter a dream-like state where you can communicate with the Real World via a powerful artifact. However, the communication is limited to sending updates to the game you’re trapped in and reading the player’s feedback on the forum.

After the first part of the game, you will get to have a say on how the Empire grows over the course of the story by voting on policies. These policies will get enacted if you and your crew complete quests that will sway the citizens in your favor. You will be free to tackle specific issues from a progressive or conservative lens without having the game punish you for making the wrong choice. Scratch that. Whatever you choose will have catastrophic consequences on the Empire but in different ways. By the end of the story, the Empire will be in crisis.

The game is split into three parts: Escape from the Underworld, Rise of the Empire, and Fall of the Empire. In the first part, you will escape the Underworld, the hell of your fictive world, with the aid of your fully customizable romanceable companion, Olympia/Olympus. You will gather a party of virtuous souls and traverse the Great Barrier into the surface world. Upon escaping the Underworld and entering the MC’s fictional world, the “Real” World, you and your companions become Immortals, overseeing the fate of the Empire for centuries to come.

At the time of writing the story, the MC was sick of all the medieval fantasy stories that resort to misogyny for the sake of realism, so they wrote an “inclusive” setting that “solves” inequality issues only on a surface, superficial level. The Empire is a mishmash of Ancient Rome and Ancient Greece under constant assault by progressive barbarian hordes who enslave and torture citizens equally, regardless of gender, race, or sexual orientation. Political decisions in the Empire are ultimately made by a supreme ruler, Caesar, but every citizen has a right to express their grievances and opinions in the Forum (an actual roman style forum, not an online one).

As generations pass, you and the Immortals will oversee the Empire grow from antiquity to a steam-punk future near its decline.

Olympus/Olympia

age: unknown/ timeless

race: unknown

gender: player selectable

appearance: custom

Olympia/Olympus is the first immortal that the MC encounters in the Underworld. The self-proclaimed soul mate of the main character, Olympia/Olympus, is the primary romantic option for the player. Kind-hearted, straightforward, overpowered, and with a non-existent sense of personal space, Oly will accompany the MC almost everywhere. The only times when you will be apart is when you have to do challenges alone.

Bellona

age: 27

race: human

gender: female

appearance: average height, athletic build, olive skin, brown eyes, long brown hair in a high ponytail.

Bellona is one of the finest warriors of the Empire, who knew no equal on the battlefield until she found her end at the Kālá’s hand, whom she managed to take down with her to the Underworld. Abandoned at a young age by her parents, she had to learn to fend for herself and develop a can-do attitude that no one rivals. Impulsive by nature, she has no regard for diplomacy - her creative swear words are common in any heated discussion. The one thing she hates more than whining and weakness is others picking on her friends, even for the most trivial things.

Athena

age: 30

race: human

gender: female

appearance: tall, slim build, fair skin, green eyes, undercut, blonde hair.

Athema is a scholar, politician, and equal rights activist. She died at a banquet where a political adversary poisoned her wine cup. Outspoken and articulate, her opinions have sown the seeds of critical thinking within the Empire, prompting a vocal minority to question whether the Empire will be remembered as a bastion of enlightenment in history or a shameful asterisk. Competent in rhetorical debates, she never backs down from a winning argument, even if it means losing political currency. Although she stands her ground firmly in intellectual standoffs, physical confrontations are a no-go for her, looking for cover at the first sign of danger.

Hera

age: 22

race: human

gender: female

appearance: petite, light skin, heterochromia eyes (blue and green), braided, black hair.

Hera is a quiet, reserved young woman whose life ended in mysterious circumstances. She does not remember how she died or does not want to tell anybody. Although she does not enjoy getting involved in politics too much, she is convinced that the best way to organize society is through clearly defined gender roles. Family is the most important thing to her, and she hopes that she will be able to start one as soon as possible. Her cooking and organizing skills are unmatched, which is why she was often employed by wealthy nobles to host their lavish banquettes.

Vulcan

age: 46

race: human

gender: male

appearance: burly, gray hair, groomed silver beard, dark skin 

A respected inventor, this reclusive self-reliant man found his end at the hand of an ambitious experiment to replicate the sun in his forge. Even though he feels more at home with his inventions than with people, he is kind and gentle despite losing his temper from time to time. Vulcan will be the main driving force behind the rapid technological advances that the Empire will go through during the game, and you will have a say in what innovations take priority.

Plutus

age: 33

race: human

gender: male

appearance: tall, thin, blond messy hair

This neurotic treasurer got on the wrong side of a knife after uncovering a circle of corrupt aristocrats who were siphoning gold out of the treasury. His obsessive compulsion to account for every penny spent makes him an excellent financial advisor for your team. His expertise will be invaluable in growing the Empire over the centuries.

Kālá

age: unknown

race: unknown

gender: unknown

appearance: short legs, wide hips, elongated torso with thin, long arms, large hands. Dark skin, black eyes, bald. Wears extravagant clothes.

Little is known about them besides their affiliation with the Barbarian hordes and unorthodox fighting style. Before the encounter with Bellona, Kala was undefeated in combat. Has the role of the main antagonist of the story.

Olympia/ Olympus will be the only RO with which you can have a meaningful, long-term romantic relationship. There will be the possibility of having flings with minor, episodic, one-dimensional characters. But you will not be able to be in a relationship with other immortals (but that does not mean you can’t try). As far as the attraction to Oly is concerned, you have multiple options: regular attraction, no attraction, “platonic” attraction, “asexual” attraction, too much attraction, and attraction once you get to know each other better. There will be no explicit sex scenes, but you can expect bizarre scenes that kind of resemble it.

[bisonofyesterday]

Voices Of The Void Event Ideas:

>Whenever you enter the computer room after a new day starts/whenever you've just woken up Kel will be turn around and see an exact duplicate of himself standing in the doorway, you are then teleported to the doorway perspective with nothing further amiss. >If you're out driving at 3:33AM, you will hear a faint but clear voice whispering "look behind you...", this is ONLY while you're driving though, and there will be nothing there. >If you're out driving at 3:33AM, a ghost dinosaur will start chasing you, its AI will be short and direct though, so losing him will be easy, since it's at night, you cannot actually see the dinosaur, but the roar will be sudden and a notif will advise you to keep driving. >If you're doing hashcodes at night (not 3AM specific), there's a chance your compass will target you to a random patch of ground rather than the relay you've targeted, for maximum comedic effect, maybe the compass selects a random hostile alien to guide you towards on the map. >In continuation of the previous idea, your base could just be Gone whenever you're returning from hashcodes, leaving and coming back'll fix it. >Sometimes during a lightning storm the silhouette of a giant will appear at the edge of the map in the EXACT position to stare directly at you through the computer room window, it disappears if you get too close, it'll never show up again. >In continuation of the first idea, whenever Dr. Kel wakes up/a new day starts outside of the computer room, going there he will see himself enter the room with the door immediately closing behind him, entering the room afterwards shows nothing amiss. >Sometimes the base will just be in Space, outside will be a starry sky, going outside (or rather, opening ANY outside door), will send you flying out, earning you a game over, eventually the base will return to Earth safe and sound. (This is already similar to an already existing event where the base gets teleported to a void but I think it adds an extra layer of mystique.) >Whenever the radio tower's down, climbing it will have a chance of spawning a little green imp either above you on the ladder or sitting at the top of the tower, either way looking at it for more than a second will cause it to despawn. >Bigfoot. >If you finish doing hashcodes at night, you will be caught in the tractor beam of a flying saucer, you will float upwards and the screen will turn white, and then you'll wake up in your base, there is no mystique or horror here i just think it'd be randomly convenient. >If you do the hook trick to get to the bottom of the lake between Tango and Oscar instead of buying scuba gear, there is a random chance that an Actual Great White Shark Just Straight Up will spawn and eat you.

>Similarly if you're in the woods at night/during a storm a polar bear will spawn, it will also eat you, this is a reference to Lost.

>Sometimes while walking around outside Kel will be transported to the surface of the Moon, Earth in full view, he will start choking to death, right before dying though he'll be transported back safe and sound, as a goof.

>If you don't grab your daily 1AM supply crate quick enough, sometimes an Ambulatory Skeleton will spawn and steal the items, you cannot get them back.

>Sometimes a jet will be flying way too low over the valley.

>If you shunt too many of your duties in a row the base will just blow up with you inside, there is no timer, it's just the chance of this happening will go up from 0% to 1% if you don't do your work.

>Dr. Kel finds his own corpse in a ditch while walking around outside sometimes, you CAN interact with it, but attempting to move it out of the ditch will cause it to disappear.

>If you activate Kerfur, he won't turn on, he will instead be inside your desktop, turn the computer off and on to fix this.

>Sometimes a nightmare will be Kel in his underwear in his old school.

[pxmun]

Cleo Cupper S:F Parents: Schemee & Kara Cupper Age: 11 Siblings: Darius Cupper, Romeo Cupper Birthday: July 21 Conductor # 401 Height: 4' 10" First Appearance: Season 1, Episode 2 Special Notes * Cleo is the youngest sibling out of the "Trainyard Trio" and the only girl. *She is a history fanatic, Cleo loves reading and researching various historical events. *Her grandpa Schemer lovingly gave his granddaughter the nickname "Piggybank". *Cleo is Near Sighted; her glasses help Cleo see objects further away. *Cleo helps her older brother Darius and grandpa Schemer with their taxes. *Her favorite band is the Beetles, favorite song "Octopus's Garden". *Cleo looks up to her godmother Stacy Jones.

Cleo is a very clever girl, highly intelligent, Cleo can regularly be seen making high grades in school. Cleo does struggle greatly with being social and making friends, usually due to a form of anxiety. When Romeo disappeared, Cleo helped her oldest brother Darius and grandpa Schemer track down his trail to the abandoned Shining Time Station. Cleo and Darius were transported to Sodor by riding aboard Lady the magic engine. The realm of Sodor is strange and frightening to Cleo as the reality she knows is broken by this real of magic and sentient vehicles. However, with the help of her brothers, the Hatt's, and Thomas the Tank Engine, Cleo begins to warm up to Sodor and begins to befriend its human and vehicle residents. Teaming up with Thomas the two help the Earl of Ulfstead Castle in his quest to uncover the hidden history of Sodor, its magic, and why the island was sealed away from the rest of the world. Thomas and Cleo While afraid of Thomas at first, Cleo is able to become friends with the little blue engine and help balance each other. Cleo keeps Thomas's cheekiness in check by making sure he doesn't go over board with his jokes and pranks on the others, while Thomas's friendly nature helps Cleo break the ice and interact with others.

The two bond over their adventures throughout Sodor. Thomas learns a lot about the normal realm through Cleo and wishes to one day see her world and explore it with his friends.

Cleo, Annie, and Clarabelle Along with Thomas, Cleo also befriends his two faithful coaches Annie and Clarabelle. The three girls get along very well, and Cleo will often speak up for them if the coaches feel unheard. They often enjoy playing little games during long trips or if there is a long stop/wait at a platform or signal.

[nokonomi]

Tada! Here’s Helina’s redesign! By the way, to be clear, I do NOT SHIP HELINA WITH BEN. Ben is 12 years old canonically and I will not be shipping any Majora’s Mask OC that I make!

But to introduce, this is Helina! She is a minor character/NPC in Majora’s Mask and is a friend of Link. She has darkish-brownish-orangish sharp dead-end hair and some side bangs which are cut. The top of her hair resembles a sort of crown. To make her look even more superior. Hehe…

In her past life, she was a 13 year old who has seemingly played Majora’s Mask before and somehow had a connection with Benjamin’s disappearance. Before he was last seen, she had written a statement saying that she had been trying to search for Benjamin for 5 years, but had never successfully found him. She keeps searching for him because she believes he can still be found even if he CAN’T.

Her full name in her past life was Helen Martinez, and she was of Hispanic descent. She spoke pretty fluent Spanish and was a good friend of Benjamin for a while until his disappearance. She became depressed after because of the constant peer pressure from people at her school, who had pressured her into trying to do alcohol and drugs. She absolutely hates drugs and despises them.

One day she decided to buy this copy of Majora’s Mask from GameStop. She had bought the copy, slid the disk into the game console, grabbed the controller and started playing the game as she smiled. There was something off about the game though. Everytime she interacted with the NPC of a supposed character named “Helina” her face would disappear. Obviously, thinking this was a glitch, she restarted the game only to find some of the files in the selection missing.

She thought this was weird, but instead of throwing the game away, she just continued playing. That was until things started taking a turn for the worst. In a matter of moments; she had suddenly glitched into the final boss battle where Link is usually fighting the boss.

Suddenly she see’s that the boss is glitching, it’s head was bleeding and so was Links. For some reasons, she had started to think this game was cursed. She tried to restart the game again but it didn’t work. She ended up doing this 24 times until she gave up. There was no hope. Her only option was to throw it away. But when she was about to, she heard a little giggle coming from her room. She paused in her tracks as she quickly ran towards her room and stared at the empty bedroom, searching for signs of an intruder.

“W-who’s there? Show yourself!” She screamed as she looked at the empty bedroom. That was until she felt a hand and screamed, when she realized it was just her mom. “Sweetie, que pasa? Why are you so shaken up, mí nina?” Her mom asked. Helen was a little shaken up from the incident with the game, but her mother calmed her down.

“Uh, nothing. Just…had a terrible nightmare and thought you were the terrible monster- hah- y’know…the usual! ‘Ehhh…”

She said as she stared at her mother before she let out a sigh and pushed her mom aside respectfully, going to the bathroom and washing her face as she did so. That is until she heard a faint whisper coming from the vents, as she panicked. She stood there silently, wondering if the voices would get progressively louder and louder. She covered her ears, TRYING HER HARDEST TO BLOCK THE SOUND OUT. That was until she saw her own reflection, creepily smiling back at her as she screamed.

She ran out the bathroom and sobbed as she cried harshly into her pillow. What was happening? Why did this happen in the first place? Was it some kind of hacker? Why? Why did she have to deal with this shit? Why her?

And then somehow….one look at the game console and she was immediately transported into the body of Helina. Her soul breathed heavily, she couldn’t scream: she couldn’t move. She was stuck like this forever.

“You’ll be here with me forever, Helen.”

That…..was the last thing she heard.

By the way, my discord buddies, I did tell you that she did get trauma from a camera that a pervert had set up in the game, but I will discontinue that. Instead, before these events occurred, she had a deep phobia of hidden cameras because of sexual trauma she had before with cameras. She despises them.

And her soul is stuck inside the cartridge of the game itself. It’s the same cartridge that Benjamin had gotten sucked into before he become what we know as Ben Drowned.

But the mystery remains, why was she sucked inside the game itself if she didn’t have anything to do with Benjamin’s disappearance? Maybe Ben wanted her to stay with him forever in the game. Wanted her to feel the same terrible fate he did when the cult sacrificed him and drowned him into the lake her father and her used to go fishing in.

Maybe that could be true.

I’ll post more lore about her later! Until then, the 2024 season comes to an end. Good night everybody and have a wonderful New Year!

[bethie-crossing]

🍓 New Animal Crossing Ideas 🍓

I predicted some things in horizons let’s hope these happen too lol, my main want is more progression!

Island types: choose between a classic walled in or “forest” island, a tropical island, a snowy island, a desert island, like Happy Home Paradise! You can still pick the hemisphere. Because there’s many types, you can have multiple saves but you have the same character (to avoid online issues etc)

Transport: arrive by train, taxi, boat, water plane, or bus, depending on the type of island you pick! You can use a bike and cart when doing deliveries for Nook

You can buy and use a bike of your own as you progress, you can add a cart & a hand basket, very customisable, add decorations like flowers, bell or horn, & lights, lanterns! You can also buy & customise a caravan! (Stationary?)

Camp ground: tents and caravans overseen by Harvey, you can do cute outdoor activities like roasting marshmallows, pitching and chilling out in a tent, & cloud watching / stargazing! Celeste comes by sometimes with a telescope, you can invite her to the museum this way!

Villagers interests & hobbies: learn about villagers favourite foods, items, activities, dream job, etc. There is special dialogue when their related favourites are mentioned or with what they interact with, maybe you can encourage them to pursue their dream!

You can also invite them to do activities and mini games (they can say no if you have low friendship or are sick or enraged)

Activities: meet-ups (e.g inviting to hanging out in a certain area), and mini games, you can invite animals to do these in dialogue or letters (for later dates), you invite friends to do these via the NookPhone

Odd jobs: work for Tom Nook to pay off the first debt, Brewsters coffee job in New Leaf returns, working at Able Sisters!!! Offering styling to villagers, unlocked with Labelle? Shine shoes at Kicks? Put together bouquets requests with Leif! Cook and serve at the restaurant / café! Design shops and animals homes!

You’re payed in bells and special items. Animals can also work odd jobs depending on their interests. Doing odd jobs can increase friendship with NPC characters

Shops: Tom Nook upgrades to Nookingtons, Able Sisters has a top floor where the sister live that you can visit when you gain friendship with them, Auto Shop from Pocket Camp to buy Bikes etc, restaurant, school(?), and hospital are customisable & furnishable (happy home paradise), Gracie Gracie, Kicks, Re-tail, shampoodle, theatre (dr shrunk), Katrina fortunes, HHA, dream suite also returns

In the theatre, you can obtain emotes from Shrunk and buy cinema food & drinks. Villagers with a theatre interest will also do short performances on stage which plays when you sit down, you can leave at anytime.

Villagers with a film interest will showcase or act in “films” (depending on their preference for acting or filming), similar to stage performances. If you have high friendship, you can be invited to join in on these!

The Hospital building is where you will go when you fall off your bike or faint, villagers will also go here for the same reasons as well as extended sickness (can happen if not given medicine). Gulliver can be found here if you don’t find him on the beach the day before. If not new NPC, possibly Luna or Leilani runs it

Shop functions: other than odd jobs, you can order food and drinks, buy a custom bouquet, and be styled by your villagers and NPCs, return of post office to send letters and gifts

Tasks: NPC / special characters and villagers can ask for more things like craftable items and foods, shop items like paper for letters, and obtainable clothing and accessories

Personal interests: you can set your own faves (in the scrapbook) which you can mention to villagers and NPC when relevant, they can give you items based on these and share their opinions in dialogue and letters

Collecting: stickers and stamps, medals (achievements), gyroids (you can give these to Brewster), crafting recipes, bugs & fish

Scrapbooking & letters: type or hand write letters and draw on them, as well as your scrapbook. You can decorate both with stickers and stamps! You can also send letters to special characters like Isabelle!

The Scrapbook is where you can see a calendar, planned events, interests, friendship levels, collections and recipes, achievements (medals), saved letters and photos! Custom designs also

NookPhone: you can use the phone to call or message villagers to locate them (sometimes they ignore you!) or make meet-ups, friends list & messaging, online shopping, and take photos! (All the Social things)

Event planning: events from other games return but you can also make your own! There are templates but you can do custom events, also set optional tasks to do at these events

Rainbow day - basically a pride parade, similar to festival, face paint & colourful outfits, a proud atmosphere, can march along a selected path

Beach party - take part in beach activities and mini games with animals and friends (sunny warm days only), vacation juice crafting recipe obtainable

Valentines Day - craft chocolate to give to animals or encourage them to give to others, high friendship villagers can also give you chocolate! Kaitlin can teach you to make chocolate related recipes on this day

Friendship levels: you can progress from small talk and exchanging letters with animals, tasks, exchanging gifts, meet-ups, being invited over and inviting them over, getting their photo, photo booth photo together (customisable), can hug them or ask for a hug

Friendship levels also apply to animals, your villagers will gain friendship with other villagers! Most will inform you if they have a best friend, but more polite villagers will only talk about who they’re not friends with / might dislike at a high friendship level

Crafting: instead of recipe cards you can read books (take one a day) in the Museum Library (Celeste runs it as well as the planetarium), or are given certain types of books by villagers with the relevant interest or NPCs - Tom will give you some to start out (furniture) and also sell all skill books

Cooking & baking: so many more recipes and you can do relevant mini games if you choose to do so! Giving a villager their fave food homemade will avoid them getting sick when it’s cold! It will also make them feel better after taking machine if the medicine doesn’t heal them the first time

Many cake options for birthdays and also event themes. You can also learn to cook from Franklin, he stops by occasionally to sell food at events! Joan and Daisy Mae will teach you turnip related recipes. Katie’s mum, Kaitlin, will teach you baking recipes and icing piping at her night class (at the restaurant or café)

More fruits & ingredients: all the New Leaf fruits return plus strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, red and white grapes, black currents. You can also make pasta. When sending food items they appear as a cake box or delivery box and open like a wrapped gift

Online & other stuff: Tortimer Island returns! A new plaza area for players? Shows featured player custom designs, showcases player homes and customised houses, you can auction items, race bikes with friends!

Custom designs: shirts, jumpers, hoodies, dresses, shorts & trousers, skirts, shoes, hats, face paint & accessories. You can change the length and style of each item!

I have more ideas probably but I can’t think of the rest rn, I might draw some concepts :]

[ansbobcar]

EP 9. Run along

WORD COUNT. 1263

Link to overview

_ _ _ _ _

“You want us to investigate into Innocent Zero’s whereabouts?” Rinka didn’t have much to add in particular but it felt outside of their expertise given the lack of information. “Didn’t you try that before and dropped it after losing two Divine Visionaries?” She didn’t want to cast away faith towards the director in particular but it felt more personal when she worded it as such, focusing on the long bearded man in blue who sat there silently, evaluating the situation.

“That was before Ryoh joined us.”

“Regardless of Ryoh’s involvement, we can’t rule out the use of a large scale teleportation spell inorder to transport the dwarves to that location. I’d rather not risk it for something that incurred a tremendous loss,” she argued. “We’ve already lost Alexa, you can’t be expecting to lose 2 more.”

“Then please continue to question Slagturn in the meantime. If there are any more leads, let us proceed cautiously with the investigation,” compromising the tense atmosphere. In light of a similar topic, the director pivoted their attention elsewhere.

“Anything worth noting regarding Darren Randel?”

“She’s an odd one,” he chuckled, “mastered every learnable offensive spell before she even knew a simple spell like Venetris. Although she’s a bit behind in her subjects, her magical power is on par with her fellow bright peers.” That’s to be expected as someone who learnt at such a school such as Walkis. “She seems to be collecting coins rather quickly to participate in this year’s candidate exam,” even if she didn’t show an interest in it before.

‘What was her stance on it again?’ She tried to remember, keeping a poker face from the information. ‘That girl stirred up a lot of paperwork, I don’t remember why specifically.’

“I trust that you’ll continue observing her, Wahlberg.”

“Of course.”

With that, their meeting concluded and the two Divine Visionaries left the room silently.

No words are spared in their interaction as they briskly walked back to their department. They had schedules to tend to after all, preparations would be needed, reaching back to his office but it seemed like the Blood Cane had other plans as she took out a deck of cards.

“Wanna bet on a game of bullshit?”

“Like what?” Intrigued by her choice of game. “If it’s ‘the winner gets a favour from the loser’ I’ll pass.” Although his expression didn’t show it, he seemed to pay attention to her. Claps erupted in her mind at the sight as they sat down at the couches and she dealt the cards quickly.

“What about a dare?”

Although by principal they were the same, he accepted it with little reluctance, watching her split the cards between them evenly. There’s a violent glint in her eye as they began to place cards consecutively with little loss. The quick succession of the game led to the point they held a respectable 3 and 5 cards.

“Queen of Hearts,” she placed down, face stilled with confidence.

“Bullshit,” he uttered as the card was revealed to be a 7 of spades and she piled the cards towards herself. “You’re not cautious,” he criticised. She had been caught for a dozen cards already to not learn her lesson readjusting her bandaged wrists.

“You’re not Rinka either.” 

Perhaps the Desert Cane was too obsessed with her. From the way she rolled up her grey sleeves, wrapped her bandages, the touch of her sickly pale skin, the warmth of her slender fingers, to the melodic tune of her whispers, and the way she could stay clung to such a regulatory busybody with little pushback. She manically laughed at her ridiculously vivid scenes in her mind.

His nose scrunched in disgust at her voice changed into a higher nasal voice. “Ortie, what took you so long to figure out?” Dispelling the transformatory illusion magic. Blonde became ginger, brown eyes lost their richness for a grey hue, yet the skirt and bandages remained.

“Molly?” He scoffed at the sight of the failed investigator who stood up at walked over. Of all people it was her? Did his parents buy her out? “I’ve told you: I don’t like you.”

She gripped onto his shoulders. “You don’t like her either. You can’t lie in my face… she knows it too.” While the paparazzi and gossip networks seemed to believe in such entertainment, in the eyes of a obsessed woman, fully capable of disarming a hoard of single-line magic users, their story lacked a convincing build up. 

“What proves to you that I don’t like her?”

“You don’t know anything about her, you’ve barely even made an effort to hang out with anyone since he died. And suddenly, you decide that you’re gonna date her?” Hysterical by the turn of events. If we were to discard the delusional aspect of Molly Armament, we would be left with the key information that she graduated from the same batch of the man who despised her existence. With an obsessive infatuation, while clearly not as obstructive as before, continued to run amok. A woman who clearly believed she knew the original, unaltered Orter Madl. A man much more laid back in comparison.

The past is the past though. He took a deep breath as he processed her words and violently ripped her hands off from him. 

“If you want a reason, it’s really simple: she doesn’t get on my nerves, she doesn’t even try to take advantage of me like every other woman tries to do, if she does that means I lost a bet we both agreed to. She’s detail orientated but not a perfectionist, and prefers to spend her time helping out other departments when she’s free due to the lack of personnel running around here. Can you leave now?”

“You’re mad,” her voice cracks. Wasn’t their love a sham? Why did his words hold a strong resentment towards her and appreciation towards that older woman? It didn’t make sense. “You’re mad, Orter Madl!” Leaving him with a deck of cards unorganised.

A chuckle of amusement travelled the room, revealing the real Rinka at his desk. “You lost the bet.”

Irritated by the previous situation he briefly asked, “What do you want this time?” He was actually busy today as he checked his wrist. “Kaldo’s trying out some salmon for dinner at his place, you gotta eat what he serves you.”

“You’re kidding.”

Now he regretted losing the bet. “Should’ve put up with that for another few hours regardless of my pride.”

“That’s the fun thing about pride! It’s--”

“--she completely got you wrong. Especially in regards to your mannerisms and preferences. You’re left-handed and she’s not. It’s the things that are second nature to you that make up your character as well.” To the average eye, Molly Armament had completely fooled them with her act as the Blood Cane. Maybe she was trying to prove her statement to little avail. Even if she were to become an informant with her disguising magic, she would be better off concealing her presence in a crowd to gather information instead. “I couldn’t continue playing along when she played bullshit. Even Tsurara is much better at the game when she does play.”

She ruffled his head much to his dismay. “Did you drink recently?” Her gaze held but a pinch of curious concern towards him. After all, his demeanour seemed to resemble a childish outburst--a nitpick for an otherwise inconsequential bet. How insulting, he sighed.

“I didn’t.”

She took out her phone, “I’ll contact Agito to keep her busy for a while.”

“Much appreciated.”

_ _ _ _ _

This was originally one of the originally planned mini arcs but I got bored of Molly Armament so I found a good and extremely disgusting replacement for future episodes! Hope you guys enjoy this. I honestly wanted to write this very early idea but like... it was a pain?

Originally, there was supposed to be this whole mini arc where Molly got jealous and kept bugging Orter even though they're in different departments and would be so obsessed she would adopt the mannerisms of Rinka and become her to out the lack of love/chemistry between them (yes that random animation meme of that i knew you were in trouble cover where i'd eat 11 bees and sail the 7 seas one). But as I stated, I found a better replacement for all the torment and hate crimes I'm gonna commit to her and I wrote too much depth into Molly Armament than I intended. She was supposed to be one note. She sounds like she's trying to be one note and it's not working properly. You'll never hear of her again.

You'll realise at some point I have no idea what I'm writing. Oh but right now, I'm writing a beach episode, it'll probably get published in late April or something as a special episode or oneshot because it takes place in Act 2 of this story!