#So there may be some errors in this that I'll probably fix later.

[gridanian-red-mage]

At the Bottom of a Mug

Summary

While the newly named Warrior of Light Arielle Solinar is running errands, her chocobo Mina catches wind of something that she thinks is worth investigating. Which leads them to a certain bard who doesn't quite have all of his wits about him.

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[Aaaand here's the first Arielle fic of several more that are to come in the future! (This one's a little long.😅) I actually have quite a few things written containing Arielle in my Word docs, so I'll be posting more of those here as time goes on and as I get further into the expansions. But anyway, this generally takes place before the move to Revenant's Toll, so roughly about 2.1-ish. I hope you enjoy!😊]

(AO3 version)

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“All right, so we’ve delivered that odd letter, took down some pests in the area, wrapped up that small squabble from earlier, and helped with another delivery for that nice elder,” Arielle listed. “Have I missed anything?”

Mina shook her head.

“Good. I would hate to have missed something.” Arielle sighed. “Having dealt with three primals in near succession and helped Alisaie with Bahamut for the time being, on top of the tasks we’ve just completed I think we’ve had quite the busy handful of days.”

A tired kweh.

“But we’ll probably have something needing our attention at the Waking Sands, so we can’t rest just yet today.”

Mina sighed.

“I know. I’m tired, too. But the faster we get there the faster you’ll be able to have some of those fruits I bought earlier.”

“Kweh!” The bird reared up excitedly to take off only to stop abruptly, cocking her head as she listened. She then made the chocobo’s equivalent of a confused expression.

“Something wrong?”

Mina chirped to confirm before gesturing not too far ahead of them.

“The Coffer and Coffin?”

“Kweh!”

“Lead the way, then.” As Mina headed off, Arielle began to ponder. She combed through her recollections of everyone they had helped just recently, carefully going over what she had been asked to do and where she had needed to go. She even retraced her steps from a few days ago. But as far as she knew they had done everything that was asked of them. “Are you sure we haven’t forgotten anything?”

“Kweh!”

Arielle hummed. “All right. If you say so.”

A few minutes later they had arrived, and she dismounted before leading Mina to a spot off to the side. Glancing around, she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, nor did anyone seem distressed. But Mina usually had a good sense of her surroundings, so she didn’t really have much of a reason to wave Mina off.

Upon heading inside, Arielle could see that business was just about as typical as could be. Patrons were behaving as . . . they usually did in a place like this, and—

Wait. Almost immediately she recognized one of the men at the bar. “Thancred?”

Surrounded by at least four women and enough mugs for her to know it was far too many (even if they probably weren’t all his), was the man himself—getting very tipsy giggles out of the women with a slurred quip.

“Arielle!” Thancred practically beamed. “Wond’ful t’see you, as always!”

“How long have you been here?”

“No’ long at all. In’t that righ’, ladies?” At least three of the women burst into giggles.

“An’ jus’ who’re you s’posed t’be?” the fourth woman, an Elezen, questioned.

“Someone who is taking him home,” Arielle replied. Thancred reached for another mug only for her to take it out of his reach. “I think that’s enough for now, Thancred.”

“Ever th’stern one,” he joked, right before hiccupping. That pulled a sigh out of her.

“Come on, let’s go.”

“We were here first!” one of the women whined. “Especially me!”

“He’s, um . . . a very busy man and has many things left to do,” Arielle explained.

“He’ll be too busy to leave once I get him alone!” another woman replied, giggling afterwards.

“Well . . . he’s. . . .” Think, Arielle. Think of something to ward them off. She straightened up. “He’s been especially busy with me recently.”

All four women made an assortment of disappointed noises loud enough to turn some heads, making Arielle wince.

“I knew he was too good to be true!” a Miqo’te woman sobbed.

“Ladies, please,” Thancred tried to assure. “Thr’s plenny o’ me t’go’round.” Another hiccup.

Arielle tried not to cringe. “Of course there is.” Three of the women in the group pouted in various ways while the Miqo’te continued to sob. “I suggest the four of you find other suitors elsewhere.” But before the women could protest, the bartender stepped in.

“Go on, ye heard the lass. I won’t be havin’ any fights ‘round here, especially a cat-fight.”

“Ahh ’Shtola—as pow’ful asshe isss rad’nt,” Thancred declared as the women shuffled off.

“Yes I completely agree,” Arielle said. She turned to the bartender. “You have my thanks, Roger.”

“Don’t mention it,” Roger said before sighing. “Sod’s been ‘ere for bells. At first he was mutterin’ into his mug all serious-like—”

“I w’s not muttering,” Thancred argued. Another hiccup.

“But seein’ as how it was his business I let ‘im be. An’ before long, one mug led to countless others, an’ now he’s in a right mess. I suggest ye take ‘em to the closest inn ‘round here.” He leaned in. “Between you an’ me, I think he needs someone to talk to.”

“Thank you,” Arielle said.

“Y’really should res’ ev’ry now ‘n then,” Thancred said.

“So says the man who overworks himself.” She began to help him up. “Come on. You’ve been alone long enough.”

“I c’n walk jussf’ne, Arielle Solinar.” Another hiccup, making Arielle frown.

“How much did he spend?”

“Don’t ye worry ‘bout that,” Roger replied.

“Roger—”

“Yer friend’s more important than the coin.”

“At least let me pay for half.”

The man sighed. “Fine. Half, an’ that’s it.”

Arielle handed over the amount before taking her leave, and she could feel a few pairs of eyes on her. Once they were outside, Thancred squinted at the change in lighting, and Mina kweh’d cheerfully only to cut herself off. Upon noticing his current state, she gave a curt but concerned look.

“Ih seems Mina’s unhappy t’see me thi’ time,” he said. “I s’posed I must’ve u’set ‘er.”

“She’s just worried about you. We both are.”

“I’ma grown man, Ar’elle. I c’n handle m’self.” Mina made a noise of concern before lowering herself down. “Riding u’ fron’ fer once, I see.”

“Mmhmm.” Arielle positioned Thancred before mounting herself, making sure she had her arms around him just securely enough.

“Care t’tell me where we’re goin’?” He tipped to the side a bit, and Arielle readjusted him.

“The Quicksand. Or at least the Hourglass. I’ll not be letting you go back to the Waking Sands like this.”

“ ‘T’will be good t’see M’modi again.”

“And I’m sure she will be happy to see you as well.” Arielle could already picture the woman chiding him should she manage to spot them. “Easy now, Mina.” She shook the reins, and Mina went off at a steady pace.

“I’ve had many a w’mn witheir arms ‘round me, m’ny ‘o them not quite as fair as you.”

Arielle held back a grimace. “Yes I’m . . . very much aware of the women you’ve charmed.”

“I do r’m’ber a Miqo’te th’was very frisky, whish remns me of an’ther exceptionally fair lady ov’at. . . .”

She half listened to him while occasionally keeping him upright, making sure to give short replies every now and then to appease him. She knew she had made sure to check on him during his recovery from his possession alongside the others, and every time he would assure them that he was fine and merely needed some rest. Then he was finally returning to his duties, and she had gently reminded him to take it slow.

He takes so much responsibility for so many things. . . .

“. . . an’ oh th’r’ther tall woman fr’m Limsa—v’ry fr’ward in’er adv’nces.” Another hiccup.

I really hope he doesn’t do this again. . . .

~ ~ ~ ~

Finally, after several subject changes and mood swings that thankfully did not include anything too extreme, they had crossed the Gate of Nald and arrived at Ul’dah. Thancred had eventually fallen silent only minutes beforehand, and Arielle wondered if he had either exhausted himself or was stewing. In fact she wasn’t exactly sure which was worse.

The sun had already started its descent, so it was likely that the Quicksand and the Hourglass would be busy. Assuming he didn’t decide to talk to every person inside, they could just slip right in and find a room.

I really hope there are some rooms available.

“I’r’mber f’nding you here,” Thancred mentioned. “St’ndin’ up fer tha’ woman. . . .”

“It was the right thing to do,” Arielle replied. “I couldn’t let her be treated like that.”

“. . . You’ve a good hear’ Ar’elle.”

“And so do you.” The trio arrived at the Chocobo Station, and Mina lowered herself to let Arielle help Thancred off.

“Good evening. Rough day, eh?” the Chocobokeep inquired.

“Somewhat.” Mina gave a greeting to the Keep.

“And a good evening to you, too.”

She sighed at Thancred hiccupping again.

“Thancred!” two women cooed as they waved.

“Ladies!” Thancred practically beamed into Arielle’s ear as the women came up to them. “How l’ng’s it been?” But before the women could say anything else, Mina loudly and testily kweh’d at them, making them jump. “Mina, be nice to—”

She repeated the noise, successfully scaring the intruding duo—or at least to her they were intruding. And when they looked over their shoulders, she ruffled her feathers with a curt noise as if in warning.

Thancred sighed. “Som’t’mes I wonder if Mina wans me all t’herself.”

The Chocobokeep blinked a few times while Arielle laughed awkwardly, and he cleared his throat. “J-just for the night, miss?”

“Two nights, actually—in case we need the extra rest,” Arielle replied, and Mina gently nuzzled her and Thancred as if she had not just scared off two passersby. “Good night, girl. Be good for me, all right?”

With a quiet kweh Mina nudged the pack on her saddle with the fruit inside.

“All right, hold on.” Arielle glanced between Thancred and Mina in thought before having him lean on the bird.

“I’c’n stan’ b’m’self, you know,” Thancred argued.

“Frankly not,” the Chocobokeep muttered, but was quickly silenced by Mina’s hard look. She adjusted herself accordingly to properly support Thancred as Arielle fed her a couple fruits. Afterwards she nudged the pack again with a chirp.

“I’ll give you some extra ones in the morning, but right now Thancred needs to be looked after,” Arielle promised. Mina seemed to contemplate for a few moments before giving an agreeable kweh, and Arielle scratched the bird’s chin. Once things were settled, she continued their journey on foot. “We’re almost there, Thancred.”

“You h’ve m’c’mplete trus’,” he replied, hiccupping mid-sentence.“An’ you b’sure to let Mina know th’same.”

“Don’t worry, I will.”

It wasn’t long before they entered the Quicksand, and Arielle readjusted Thancred to make him seem as normal as possible. As she expected, Momodi was already occupied with quite a few patrons and then some. A few adventurers Arielle had helped out once or twice waved to her, and she waved back, although she winced once Thancred decided to again yell into her ear unintentionally.

“Momodi! Rad’nt an’ fair as always!” he announced, every pair of eyes in the room now on them, including Momodi’s.

Nophica help me, here it comes. A nervous grin worked its way through as Arielle appeased his apparent desire to speak to Momodi. And hoped she didn’t regret her decision.

The Lalafell placed her hands on her hips. “And hello to you too, Thancred.” She let out a sigh. “All right, where’d you find him?”

“Central Thanalan,” Arielle said.

“Coffer an’ Coffin, I wager?”

“Yes. If it weren’t for Mina I would’ve likely passed right by him.”

“Good bird, she is. But anyroad, I’ll leave you to keep an eye on this one, then. Should be a couple o’ rooms available over at the Hourglass.”

“Thank you. And, um, if . . . anyone asks for Thancred or me, please don’t say anything. I know he’ll send a few people into worry with how he is now.”

“Mum’s the word. Now go on an’ get him some rest.” Arielle nodded.

“C’m now shurely we could spare a mom’nt to—”

“I’m doin’ you a favor, Thancred. Can’t have you embarrassin’ yourself any further.” The duo then made their way over to the innkeeper (or rather Arielle tugged Thancred along before he could say anything else).

“Good evening,” she greeted. “I was told you had some rooms available.”

“Indeed we do,” the innkeeper replied. He glanced between the two of them. “How long will you be staying?” The arrangements were made for at least a couple of nights, and the two were finally able to step away from any more curious eyes.

Arielle closed the doors to their room with a brief sigh. “Are you all right? Do you feel ill?”

“‘M fine, Ar’elle,” Thancred said, leading her to frown. Upon being led to the bed, he unceremoniously plopped onto it.

“Try not to move, all right?”

“O’course, Miss S’l’nar.”

Moving aside the book and quill on the table, she began to place her smaller weapons onto it, keenly aware of Thancred’s gaze. She let out a breath as she removed her very well-used gloves, flexing her fingers for a bit. She supposed she was due for a new pair, but that was a problem for another time. Her current ones could last her a bit longer until then. After all, they have lasted her a pretty long time.

“Y’should be th’one to claim th’bed. I’ss only proper.”

“I’ll be just fine.” Her mind drifted to what she had asked of Momodi. Tataru’s probably worried. It is getting late. . . . “I’m stepping out for a bit, so don’t move.”

“Aye!”

Arielle left the room, leaving the doors open a crack as she made use of her linkpearl. And it barely took a minute before her call was received.

“Arielle?” Tataru asked.

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Oh, thank the Twelve! I was beginning to think something had happened to you! Is Thancred with you? He said he had ‘another matter’ to see to before he continued with his work, but I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Yes, but he’s . . . in an odd state, to say. He’s not hurt, but we won’t be returning to the Waking Sands until tomorrow, the day after at the most.”

“. . . He overdid it, didn’t he?”

“. . . Somewhat. Mina and I found him in Central Thanalan. With company.”

Tataru sighed. “And here I was thinking he was in trouble. . . .”

Arielle peeked through the crack, and Thancred was now more or less laying properly on the bed save for one leg hanging off the edge entirely. I think I prefer this kind of trouble over the other kind. “I’d rather the others not begin to worry, especially Minfilia, so. . . .”

“Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of everything.”

“Thank you.” Once the two disconnected, Arielle entered the room.

“I’ma right messs, ar’nt I?” Thancred said after a couple moments.

“As of right now, somewhat.”

He sighed a bit loudly. “T’think I could cont’nue to b’in such a state. . . .”

“You have not continued to be a mess. You’ve been strong and supportive.”

“It’s ne’er enough,” he retorted instantly. “I’m never enough to acc’mplsh what needs to be acc’mplishh.”

“Yes, you are, and I’ll not have you thinking this way.”

Thancred snorted. “I’m supposed to be f’ster than the enemy. T’keep Minfilia an’ th’others safe. An’ I’ve left you to burn before Ifrit more than once.”

Arielle furrowed her eyebrows. “More than—” She stopped herself as she remembered talking to him at the Waking Sands. She knew she had seen a trace of remorse in his eyes after he had told her about Ifrit’s return. “We’re all safe, and you did not leave me to burn. You—”

“Arielle can’t you understand that had you not held the Echo you would have been put to death with the others?! A kind woman whom I’ve dragged into nothing but countless trials and near death!”

Her fingers curled, and she found herself avoiding his unfocused but tormented eyes. He was right, and she knew it. Without the Echo, she would’ve been tempered like the rest of the people with her and put to death. “. . . Neither of us could have predicted what would’ve happened. But I would not have put someone I felt was a good person at fault, regardless of only having known you for a short time then. So . . . I do understand.”

“Frankly I don’t think you do.”

“And frankly, I think I do, Thancred Waters.”

“Really? And what of all the suffering I caused—”

“While you were not yourself. No one faults you for anything you did. It was Lahabrea who did all of those things. And I most certainly do not blame you for supposedly ‘leaving me to burn’ and any other troubles you think you yourself have caused.”

He let his head hang, and she leaned forward a bit to keep within his line of sight.

“You are a good man, Thancred, and you strive so hard to protect those around you. Sometimes too hard. But I would not have any other person for a friend.”

He chuckled to himself, albeit bordering on a slurred snort. “‘F’I didn’t know any better I’d say you were a bard, putting m’el’quent words t’shame.”

“I meant every word.”

“You always do.” He tilted toward her, and she caught him before sitting him upright. “’M a mess. . . .”

Arielle resisted a frown. “Try to get some rest.”

Thancred sluggishly situated himself as she rose. Undoing her hair, she ran her fingers through it before settling onto the floor. And when she glanced to him, he was already asleep.

I wonder if I’ll be able to find some tea for him in the morning. I think the brew I have in mind should help with any lingering grogginess he should have.

She fingered the pendant of her necklace, wondering if he would remember anything that had happened within the past small handful of bells. At best he would likely have foggy bits here and there—or so she assumed. I suppose only time will tell.

~ ~ ~ ~

Thancred had still been asleep even after she had gotten ready for the day and requested the tea for him. She had expected the knocking to rouse him, but it would seem his sleep was deep this time—which probably should’ve been expected. And he hadn’t shifted positions at all, so she deemed it safe to assume he wasn’t going to remember much of the previous night.

As she prepared the tea, she briefly glanced to him. Assuming he didn’t feel sick to his stomach, he would likely need something in it, obviously. Of course, she knew he was probably going to want to throw himself back into his work, but not if she had any say in that. Besides, she had given him another day to rest, so he’ll probably at least accept that.

Fruit should be fine for him for now. And for Mina. I did promise her extra. . . .

Once she was finished, a groan brought her attention back to him, and it was followed by a louder groan and him massaging his temples.

“Where. . . ?” Thancred rolled onto his back and draped his arm over his eyes, attempting to clear his mind and block the sunlight flooding in from the window for a few moments before rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Registering the bed he was on, he sat up as quickly as he could, ignoring the wave of dizziness that hit him. He looked around the room for a bit in confusion before his eyes finally landed on Arielle, and immediately dread flashed across his face. “Oh gods—!”

“No no no no, you’re fine!” Arielle quickly assured.

“Agh, not so loud, please!”

She winced. “I’m sorry.” She watched him miserably swing his legs over the edge with a groan.

“Please tell me I did not do what I think I did.”

“You didn’t. I brought you here after Mina and I found you.”

He sighed in relief. “Thank the Twelve. . . .”

She studied him for a bit. “How are you feeling?”

“Well, my head is pounding, but I seem to be well enough.” He sighed again. “You’ll have to excuse my . . . less-than-gentlemanly behavior. I’m sure I was an absolute fool.”

“Well . . . um . . . I’m sure it could have been worse.”

“That does not give me any sort of comfort.”

Arielle frowned. “Well you were certainly very talkative. And moody. And . . . surrounded by women. But I managed to shoo them off.”

“Ah. I think I remember some displeased voices, although the memory is a bit muddled.”

Arielle briefly glanced down. “Why did you go off on your own like this?”

He hunched over, resting his elbows on his knees and trying not to squint. “To be honest, it was never my intention. But, when one’s mind wanders to less than cheery thoughts, it’s almost all too easy to drown it all away.”

She frowned again. “. . . You still feel at fault. . . .”

He didn’t answer her for a few moments, barely recalling himself lashing out and kicking himself. “. . . If you were in my place, wouldn’t you?”

Arielle briefly closed her eyes. “. . . I think I would. And I know you would tell me the same things that I’ve said to you. The others would likely agree with me. But I know that I cannot imagine the torment you must have endured while Lahabrea had your sense of self in his grasp.” She frowned. “I wish we had found out sooner. . . .”

“Then, I suppose you would expect hearing your own words coming from me, Arielle Solinar.”

“I think I would, Thancred Waters.”

He gave her his usual smile, and his eyes caught the tray of tea behind her. “I suppose that’s rather cold by now.”

“Oh!”

“Agh!”

“Sorry.” Arielle went to give him his cup. “I thought it would help clear your head of any remaining drowsiness. It should still be warm, I think.”

Thancred took a small sip. “And you are correct. You have my thanks.”

“It’s not too strong, is it?”

“Actually, no. It’s perfect.”

“Good.” The two sat in silence for a few minutes, Thancred trying not to wince at the clinking of the cup and saucer as well as the sunlight coming in from the window (and why it did not have any godsforsaken curtains was beyond him).

“This has an odd taste to it.”

“It’s good for you.”

“Is it supposed to be musty?”

“Yes, now drink while it’s still warm.”

Thancred refrained from grumbling as he did as told. She’s like a mother hen.

A few more minutes of silence went by, and he was beginning to taste another odd flavor in the tea. But he decided to keep his mouth shut.

“Thancred.”

He looked to her.

“If there is anything you need from me, or if there is something bothering you, call upon me. It doesn’t matter what I may be doing or what time it may be or if you think you would be a bother. I want you to lean on me, or if not me, then one of the others. We’re friends.”

“The same goes for you. But, I will try to remember that.”

Arielle smiled at him. “But we won’t be setting a single foot outside this room until you are absolutely well.”

“Arielle—”

“Thancred.”

“There are things that—”

“And I’m aware of them and have also let Tataru know that we won’t be back until today or tomorrow. Everything’s taken care of.”

Thancred frowned. He hated to admit it, but powering through his blasting headache and his temporary oversensitivity to light and sound wasn’t the best idea. He wouldn’t want to worry everyone any further, especially Arielle given what she had already done for him yesterday. “There is no arguing with you, is there?”

“No, there is not.”

He sighed in defeat. “All right. I’ll be staying put, but that includes you as well. It’s only fair since you are in such high demand nowadays.”

“. . . Fair enough.”

“And, some curtains would be lovely.”

Arielle glanced to him partially squinting and then the window. Ah, right. He’s a bit sensitive to light now. “Well I’m no weaver, but I’ll see what I can do.”

[spongeofaces]

Matchup exchange for @thecurrator 1/3

---

First of the three matchups! I'm sorry for taking so long with these 🙇‍♀️

Really loved the one you made by the way, super cute.

Hope it lives up to your expectations!

Do tell me if I made any errors, I'll fix it up right away.

---

Romantic

I match thecurrator with...

🐉 Malleus Draconia 🐉

-:-:-:-

Malleus may be an absolute sweetheart of a partner, but he is also new to this kind of relationship. He does try his best, however he may not always know what is expected of him; what's too much or too little. Just be patient with him, okay? He'd wait an eternity for you, after all.

Typically, Malleus talks to others in a respectful yet somewhat cold tone, but fortunately he's comfortable enough around you to drop the polite walls he's built up. At times, he may find himself making small jokes or teasing comments that he usually wouldn't make with anyone else. Slowly yet surely, he'll become more and more willing to act childish if he wishes to, not feeling the same shame he used to when he acted in such a way. You've helped him become a lot more open with his words and actions, and he appreciates that.

As someone who has had personal experience with feeling isolated for a long time, Malleus has made it his personal mission to make sure that as long as the two of you are together, you'll never feel lonely. He needs you to know that no matter the situation, no matter the time, he is willing to be by your side. There's no need to hesitant or worry if you want to ask Malleus to spend time with you, I assure you; he'd drop anything if it meant he could be with you instead.

Malleus can take on any role in a conversation, switching between speaking and listening depending on the current mood. Whenever you speak, he is sure to pay his utmost attention, treasuring the words that leave your lips, storing away any and all information you give him in his head. You may make a one-off comment about a show you sort of like, and a day or two later he'll be bringing it up, having watched some of it to learn more about your tastes. Whether you feel like fast-paced banter, meaningful conversation, sudden rants or complete silence, Malleus is always happy to oblige.

This guy does not hold back on the compliments, always finding some sort of excuse to praise you. No matter how mudane a task you complete is he'll have something positive to say about you. Just by the look of utter adoration in his eyes, you can tell that it isn't empty flattery; he means every word of it. At this point, you find that he's truly enamoured with even your smallest actions and behaviours.

Definitely a gift giver. He'll experiment with different types of gifts, trying to get a read on which kind of trinket you treasure most. At the start, he'll stick to the default gifts, flowers, jewellery, clothes, plushies. The only thing that isn't stereotypical about the gifts he gives, is the amount. You'll be recieving something every other day, some things small, some things large. His gifts will become more personalized as he learns more about you.

He adores spending time participating in your interests with you. He'll organize movie nights or days to binge entire shows, just so he can listen as you discuss the themes and delve into the characters.

He is not going to help with your habit of getting lost in new places, if I'm honest. Pretty sure he'll just play dumb and let you lead you both off-track, feigning ignorance when you ask if he has any clue which way to go. Oh, but he doesn't have any malicious intent, he just finds the act of going on a simple, spontaneous walk with you pleasant.

He'd go absolutely anywhere if only you'd invite him. If he's the one choosing a date location, it would probably be somewhere out in nature, with a pretty view or scenery. He may start getting sappy and compare you to a flower or something, how you react to that is up to you.

Make him a music playlist, and it will be the only thing he listens to for practically the entire month. He might seek you out to talk to you about how he interprets certain lyrics and songs. He's grateful you took time out of your day to make something so thoughtful for him.

You two share the 'unapproachable' vibe. You because of the rbf, him because of his intimidating presence. But hey, at least you two know that the other isn't as scary as they look.

If you ever space out, he'll just sit in silence and watch you affectionately, wondering what could possibly be going through your mind at that moment. When class is about to start, he may poke your cheek to snap you out of the small daze.

Other options: Silver and Jade.

[wings-of-ink]

Hear ye, hear ye!

All of you who have been anxiously awaiting Chapter 4 can send a big thank you to the Microsoft mayhem that happened on Friday. Because of it, I have had two entire, unprecedented, days off of work during which all I did was write and edit chapter 4! Stuff like this never happens to me either, so I ate it up. My work computer is still super broken too, so who knows what will happen tomorrow, lol.

So, chapter 4, barring anything disastrous that I do not yet foresee – is coming very soon. Like, any day this week soon. For now, I am looking for bugs and other errors until I feel comfortable getting the update loaded. I will also be updating the warning list and some things on the itch page. I keep feeling like I'm forgetting something I wanted to do, and am having a hell of a time remembering what it was…

Anyway, if it interests you, more details below!

In going through some of the Google Error Reports, I had a couple that I either could not resolve or find.

It was reported that checking player stats in chapter 1 would not work – that it would flash only for a moment. I could not recreate this. If anyone else has seen this, please let me know.

In the end of chapter 2 where there are multiple ways to spend your time there seems to be some issues with how choices become unselectable after certain clicks and it just doesn't seem to function correctly. I have fixed the issues I have found, but could not recreate all of the instances that were reported. This section may get an overhaul in the future since I understand the coding a bit more now.

It was also reported that fonts are not changing. There is definitely a weird issue with this and it will take some time for me to sit down and hammer out. The fonts do change for me, but notably, I don't think they are switching to the correct font types. They don't even appear to be the same fonts from when I first starting this project, lol. This issue is on hold for now.

The last 2 bonus segments for the end of chapter 3 are being pushed aside for the time being. I kept finding myself feeling like I was hammering them into the chapter and it was a little exhausting. If I force it, it will be less enjoyable to read. The segments that are missing are the ones for hanging out with Zahn and Nathanael. Zahn's is easy to wiggle in elsewhere at least, but I'm not sure if Nathan's will make it in or not. We'll see, my motivation was purely for chapter 4, so now that it is ready to go, I'll have another crack at it before I drop or move them completely. They aren't super important to the story, but are just for fun (and if Oswin got his, it's only fair that Zahn gets theirs too). That last section of chapter 3 ended up way too long, so it may get adjusted later anyway.

As with any work in progress, I can't guarantee that your old saves will work. That's probably how we are going to have to roll for a bit until I really get things nice and smooth. Eventually, I will add an option to start from a later chapter and go through and make the (MANY) relevant choices to skip ahead. This may be implemented when Chapter 6 is ready to go since all the ROs will be available.

I also want to figure out how to implement named saves to make it easier for you to sort. I appreciate IFs that feature this, but I do not yet know how to do it, but I'm going to research. I like to play through with several MCs, and I'd like to offer enough info in the saves and/or Stats Menu that you can do this and easily know who you are playing as. Let me know what you would like most in the Player Stats Menu too. Note, that some options do not appear here until you choose them in the story.

Coming up…

Since Chapter 4 is down, I will soon be posting a big poll about future IFs. I've been compiling info for it here and there for a couple weeks on possible options for me to write in conjunction with God-Cursed. So, stay tuned for that in the coming days.

I will FINALLY get to my inbox in earnest as well! I will keep reaction asks paused until further notice since they take me the longest to answer. Feel free to still send in comments or quicker questions. If your question is too spoilery to answer, I will not be able to post about it.

Anyway, hope you are all doing well! I can't wait to see what you think of chapter 4. I hope you enjoy it. I'll get it out just as soon as I feel comfortable enough with it. ^_^

[inconspicious-random-thoughts]

I know people have had fanfic ideas about Lucifer hunting Valentino down for sexually harassing Charlie, but honestly, I don't think Charlie is going to even mention that moment to anyone. Charlie is already ashamed about how things went down at the studio due to how her actions affected Angel, she's probably to consumed with guilt to even care about Val's drool on her arm due to how minuscule she'd see it as compared to what Angel went through. Plus, her promise to not interfere with Angel's life outside the Hotel would also contribute to her not getting her dad involved despite hating Valentino's guts enough to nearly fight him herself.

Hello my friend,

I actually never read read those fics. There are too many fics that it is overwhelming and not enough time to read them. So, having someone defend Charlies honor and beat Valentinos ass for sexually assaulting her isnt in my main interest in fic reading in the fandom.

I understand the sentiment and appreciate it. Its even sort of sweet. I also can see how it be satisfy for readers and writers to have a story one.

Nonetheless, I agree with you. I don't think she even mention it to anyone beside possibly Vaggie who she shares everything with. If she did mention it to Vaggie, I think Charlie pretty much forgotten about it until she was retelling it to Vaggie and just shrugged it of after verbally rant her disgust of the action. Because seriously who greets people like that?

The other part is, she reacts much more of Val suggesting she star in a film, more than the act of Val tongue running up her arm.

I'm sort of like Charlie here. I dismiss a lot of things I shouldn’t have just not to make a fuss. At the time I would make excuses for it and and it seems like a minor thing, and it sort of is yet isn't.. I'll even dismiss it so easily that I forget about it until much later in retrospect, wish I was vocal how uncomfortable, uneasy it made me feel of just plain wrong. I think Charlie is similar. She the "Good girl."

By good girl, I am talking about the way of thinking how woman have to endure their suffering in silence at the expense of other people's comfort. The do what your told and don't talk back, don't make a scene, fuss or trouble, and always put other needs before your own.

We see Charlie act some of these out. She just a good person in general so most of it is just natural to her but she also believe that the sinners are caple of the same thing...and they are...yet they are sinners who are not motivated to be so. She more than likely let things slide in the offenders favor just in her hopes they can be better with their second, third, upteeth chance. So Charlie will continue to dismiss situation involving her light to diffuse the situation in hopes the offender see the error of their way. But in reality she just letting them continue the cycle as they are not suffering any repercussions of their actions.

She shown to dismiss her own issues (she avoids her issues by fixing everyone else said by Husk and by Alastor commercial) or attempt to minimize the issue. “Pfft, it’s no big deal.” When she clearly showing she bothered by it. Like how she was talking to Vaggie about her mother's absence.

Going by this and her personality and always trying to be a “good girl.” And constantly trying to diffuse the situation. From what I remember, Charlie only gets upset when she witness disrespect of her people. (Adam talking down about her people or Val treatment of Angel. I think when it comes to events like Val happen to Charlie, She rarely gets worked up about it, it’s generally people get angry for her. Similar to how she gets upset for her people. 

I also doubt she going to run to father and immediately and bring up Val’s actions. Charlie and her father are just starting to mend and re established their relationship. The incident may be brought up about past the point that is recent, but I don’t think it be brought up with Lucifer nearby unless Charlie was use into it as and example to lead a group therapy session.  I definitely think Lucifer would go overprotective daddy mode once he aware of it and want to kill Val but I think if Lucifer did act, he would threaten/warn and flex his power and status as King. I think if Lucifer were to act out beyond threatening and actually double dead Val, there be too many repercussions. The other Vees wouldn’t take it lying down and would drag Lucifer name through the mud, along with Charlie’s name and the hotel. Not only that, Charlie may be touched but greatly disapprove as she trying to lead by example of forgiveness and rehabilitation.

I also agree with your assessment that Charlie would be hesitate to bring up her issues with Val. She doesn't want to stir up more trouble by sticking her well meaning nose even further into Angel business. Yes, its her issue and not Angles, but it would directly affect Angel as it involved an asshole of a person who owns Angles soul who would not hesitate to retaliate or vent out his frustrations towards and on Angel.

TLDR: I understand the Catharsis of writers and readers wanting protective daddy Lucifer killing the PoS Val for sexual assulting Charlie but I don't think it be canon compliant from what we see and know.

[bitchyfoxymama]

Angel - Pietro Maximoff x F!Powered!Reader

Warnings: fix it fic where Pietro doesn't die at the end of Age of Ultron! Medical jargon is probably incorrect.

A/n: Anyway this is for a friend of mine who asked where Wanda's brother's fics were and why I haven't written any. Heres to you 🫡

All grammatical errors are my own bc I don't have beta readers.

...

“Male, Caucasian, approximately 22-24 years of age, multiple gunshot wounds to the chest, abdomen and arms. His breathing is labored and blood pressure low.” One of my nurses says as we wheel this unknown man into the O.R.

“Alright! We need gauze, bowls and scalpels and blood! GO! GO! GO!” I yell at my team trying to save this young man’s life. I may be only 20 and one of the youngest surgeons in the world but my team knows I care about them and only yell when it’s something crucial.

“Here ma’am, everything you need.” Maria, my head nurse tells me while I walk into the room gloved and masked.

“Alright ladies and gentlemen, we are going to save this man’s life.” I say looking around the sterile room.

*6 hours later*

“Alright we did it, great job guys. Move him over to an empty recovery room and let them know their friend is fine.” I say walking out. I go and stand near the coffee machine and buy myself a cup.

“So Doc, how's the kid?” I look up and see an old friend.

“Well, Stark, how many times have I told you not to call me Doc? Reminds me of Bugs Bunny, and he’s doing fine. We managed to save him, just barely. He lost a lot of blood, had multiple breaks, what the hell were you guys fighting?!”

“Uh robots, and besides if you had come along with us like I keep suggesting and using those wonderful powers you have-“ I cut him off before he can even finish his thought.

“Stark I’ve told you before, I’m not properly trained for combat, I’m just a doctor, and I’ll tell you what I’ll go and heal all his wounds right now, that way you’ll have him back.” I say sipping the black hot liquid.

“And I told you (y/n) there’s more out there than just shitty coffee and white walls. Listen I'll pitch the idea to Fury to have you move to the compound and become an avenger, you could help a whole lot more people if you agreed” He says as he walks back down the hallway and out the door.

I threw the cup of coffee away and walked into Pietro’s room. I learned of his name after the operation. He honestly looks very peaceful just lying there sleeping. I go and close the blinds and shut and lock the door. I don't need anyone not authorized to know about my powers to come stumbling in the room.

I take off my glove and remove his blanket from his chest; I take a deep breath and lay my hands on his chest. A white light filling up the room along with the slight hum of the machines connected to him.

When I finish he begins to slowly open his eyes. “Is that an Angel I see? A beautiful angel?”

I blush slightly “No Mr. Maximoff, I can assure you that I am no Angel. I am your Doctor; my name is (y/n) (l/n).”

“So I do have an angel in front of me because only an angel would have such a beautiful name as that.” He said smiling.

“Well it’s good to see you are getting back to normal brother” a female voice came from the door.

“Well that is my que to go, I’ll be checking back on you tomorrow and if everything looks good, you should be free to go within the next few days” I say sliding out of the door.

“She seems nice” I hear his sister say as I walk back to my office. Wait, how’d she unlock the door? Did she see me use my powers? All these questions went on swimming through my head.

******

“Good morning Mr. Maximoff, how are you feeling?” I asked while walking into his hospital room, looking at his medical charts “are you eating alright?”

“Good, I've gotten my strength back and maybe that means my speed came back?” he says, getting up in his bed. 

“Wow there mr maximoff you've only just started healing and you only recently had surgery. It might take some time for your speed to get back.” I say while gently lying him back down on the bed.

“Alright but promise me once we're out of here and I'm no longer your patient we will hang out and be friends yes?” he says while smiling the dorkiest of smiles I've ever seen.

“Yes, we are already friends but when you get released we can hang out” I say while grabbing my clipboard and walking back out of the room and closing the door. I lean against the wall outside and take a deep breath, wow i can't be falling for my patient but he wont be my patient next week, no next week he’ll be my teammate. 

Just before walking into his room this morning I had gotten a call from Stark informing me I would become an official member of the team, healing them whenever necessary as well as healing those injured during missions. 

This will surely be a fun experience especially when I have a handsome man like Pietro on my team. 

[jebewonmorelike]

✰⋆⁺ Steal Your Heart ⁺⋆✰

*ੈ Part Four: The Emperor ♡ Shen Ricky

♡ Steal Your Heart Masterlist

♡ Read this Introductory Post and the Masterlist for details!

♡ Read Part One, Part Two (Gyuvin), Part Three (Jiwoong), & Part Four (Yujin) Here!

˚☽˚｡⋆ Steal Your Heart: An Interactive Fanfiction Game

... Collect Points to Determine Your Love Interest and Special Ending!!

⁺⋆✰ wc: 10k (i'm literally so sorry, but IN MY DEFENSE. i made you read 0 words all year, so i think you can handle this. you've rested, you've relaxed. you've got this. and it's really goooood)

⁺⋆✰ reader-insert pronouns: none used; n/a -- reader is the 10th member of AU ZB1, but the group is referred to only as an "idol" group. no mentions or descriptions of gender of reader.

⁺⋆✰ chapter warnings: crime (reader was wrongfully convicted of a crime), swearing, depictions of alcohol/club/speakeasy scene, suggestion of a drinking problem, ricky thinks he's drugged but he is not, ricky fault-in-our-stars a cigarette, mild violence, angst, a couple mild suggestive jokes... and lots of fun and insanity! all ages welcome; pg-13+ themes.

⁺⋆✰ summary: for series summary click here. (y/n) attempts to convince ricky to join the phantom thieves to increase their funds for medical supplies by taking a little trip to luxury club jeune et riche. plus: hao requests a bedtime story and a choice between late night shenanigans. inspired by the jrpg persona 5.

⁺⋆✰ please download the scoresheet for the game here!

・゜゜ . . * ✧･ﾟ・ ✧･ﾟ: ・゜゜・．

Long time, no see, Player! Get your scoresheet ready-- we're diving back into the fifth part of our game. Are you ready to see how your Chapter Choice from Part Four plays out? You probably need a little refresher so I'll remind you briefly where we are: Yujinnie just had his awakening in the Metaverse and the Phantom Thieves have decided to recruit Ricky (known (Y/N)-hate BOOOO!) into the fold bc they need his money for medicine and supplies. **also fixed error in last chapter: forgot to put +1 Hanbin Point at the end of Hanbin's choice between him and Matt. So if you didn't add +1 Hanbin point and chose Binnie for that, pls add +1 point to your scoresheet! Remember to tally your points! Let's see what our Emperor arcana has in store...

THURSDAY JUNE 22ND -- AFTERNOON

 All of Gyuvin’s “research” he’d been presenting to the media for the past year finally pays off as the Phantom Thieves sit on their laptops, sifting through the real life evidence you could match to President Kim’s and Manager Sang’s Metaverse confessions.

“Oh sh*t,” Yujin whispers, leaning in closer to his screen. “Guys, I think I found something!”

Rushing over to Yujin’s screen, the rest of you fight for a good view of the document. As you read the scan of TCM’s monthly finance statement from May, Yujin points to two entries.

“Right here, marked ‘Shareholder Contribution’: a payment to the company from Ricky hyung for 34 million won on May 15th,” Yujin says before moving to an entry a few slots below it. “And here: a payment from the company to an account named ‘Choi Byung-chul’ for 34 million won on May 17th.”

“A transfer of the exact same amount as Ricky donated just a couple days later?” Gyuvin poses, scratching the back of his neck. “I’d say it’s suspicious.”

“They’re both signed off by CFO Lee though,” Yujin says with a shrug.

“But who is... Choi Byung-chul?” Jiwoong asks, frowning as he reads the name from the screen.

You’re already on it, searching the name on Naver. You scroll down through the results, finding some retired athlete and a bunch of social media profiles belonging to old men. You’re about to give up, when you spot an idol profile website in the middle of all the results.

You gasp audibly at your discovery. It’s a biography profile for President Kim. And hidden in the “Interesting Facts” section is one incredibly interesting sentence:

Some fans have suspected Kim Hyunwoo’s real birth name is Byung-chul due to an alleged leak of his birth certificate in 2011, though Hyunwoo has denied this.

“Yujin-ah,” you say with a proud grin. “Pick any restaurant you want. Dinner’s on me Saturday night.”

“Huh!?” The youngest asks excitedly. “Why?”

“Because that semester of college has already created a genius,” you say, roughing up his floppy hair. Yujin grins, putting his head down on his arms folded across the desk to hide the shy blush on his cheeks.

“Hey,” Gyuvin pouts. “I’m the one who got the document in the first place.”

You glare at him. He’s always too tall to accurately read the room. Still, you walk over to him and reach up on your tiptoes to ruffle his hair as well. “You certainly are. And I am forever in your debt.”

“Aw, come on. I want dinner too,” he grumbles.

You turn around, finding Jiwoong looking a bit disappointed in his lack of contribution. You fight the urge to giggle at the sight. “And thank you for all your help, Woongie. We couldn’t do this without you.”

Jiwoong pouts, too. “Could’ve fooled me.”

You can’t help but laugh, walking over to him and pinching both of his cheeks. He laughs, shaking his head to escape your grasp. 

“So...” You step back, looking at the rest of the Phantom Thieves. “What’s the plan?”

THURSDAY JUNE 22ND -- NIGHT

“Then if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back,” you read the last words on the final page of The Little Prince, turning the book around to show Hao the illustration. You’d started reading the book to him last night, but he’d fallen asleep halfway through.

You close the book, setting it on Hao’s nightstand. Glancing at him, you can tell his tired eyes are watery. 

Mini-Decision: Hao looks like he's about to cry. Will you Make Fun of Him or Comfort Him?

If you chose Make Fun of Him, read below:

“Are you--... Are you f*cking crying?” You ask, jaw dropped as you let out a laugh.

Hao’s brow furrows as he shakes his head quickly. “N-no... Of course not!”

“You totally are,” you say as Hao wipes his eyes with his shirt sleeve. “You’re crying over a children’s book!”

“What the f*ck, (Y/N)?” Hao spits, a pout forming on his lips. He, unfortunately, looks very cute.

“How does it feel? Hm?” You prompt, pouting back at him to make a point. “You make fun of me all the time. And now I can finally make fun of you again. Properly.”

Hao raises his hand and you’re sure he’s about to smack you, but, instead, he gently takes the book from your grasp. He looks at the cover, turning it over in his hands.

“I never even heard of this book until you said it was your favorite a couple years ago,” he remarks with a frown. “They asked us in that Buzzfeed interview.”

“Oh yeah, the normal one,” you reply, recalling that bizarre day of press. “And then after that, they made us read all those Thirst Tweets.”

Hao rolls his eyes. “The fans were saying a whole lot of dirty things about you and not nearly enough about me.”

“Probably wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore,” you say with a laugh.

“Definitely,” Hao corrects, shaking his head. “I definitely don’t, now that we’re having a comeback without you.”

“Wow,” you scoff. “Almost thought we were gonna have a nice moment for the first time this whole year.”

“Mm, I considered it,” he replies with a shrug. “But you just made fun of me in an incredibly vulnerable moment, so I’m thinking we’re gonna rain check that to never. Now get your fat ass off my bed.”

“Right. Okay,” you agree saltily. Maybe you didn’t make any new ground with Hao, but it was totally worth it.

Your bond with Hao has grown stronger. +0 Hao Point. Please add +0 Hao Point to your scoresheet.

・゜゜ . . * ✧･ﾟ・ ✧･ﾟ: ・゜゜・．

If you chose Comfort Him, read below:

Somehow you find it in you to suppress the urge to mock Hao ruthlessly, even though you know he wouldn’t do the same for you.

“It’s kind of scary,” Hao says, a tear rolling down his cheek. “All I keep trying to do is get back to my roses. What if--... What if I disappear too?”

“Well... There’s nothing to worry about now, really,” you answer tentatively. “The company’s preparing a comeback for you guys so—.”

“Oh, you know full f*cking well that we’re doomed before we even start,” Hao huffs annoyedly, sleeve coming up to wipe his eyes. “I just can’t figure out why they’re doing this. President Kim said he’d get me out. That I was worth saving. I don’t understand why he’d push a group comeback all of a sudden…”

Hidden underneath his insufferable self grandiosity, you’d be remiss not to notice Hao’s doubt of President Kim. Even before your incident, you’d never heard Hao express his doubt of Total Control. You wonder how long he’s had these thoughts.

“I don’t understand either,” you reply honestly. Hao’s eyes dart to meet yours in surprise, like he’d forgotten that you were there.

“You’re just pissed you’re not involved,” he says, brow furrowing annoyedly at you. 

You shake your head, confessing truthfully, “I’m not.”

“F*ck off,” Hao replies with a sardonic laugh. 

“I’m not,” you repeat earnestly. “Of course, it makes me really sad. But even more than that, I’m relieved. That you all have even a semblance of a shot to get back everything you deserve. All I’ve wanted this whole time was to finally stop hurting you.”

Hao just blinks back at you for a few moments, clearly conflicted by what you’ve just said. Finally, he rolls his eyes and kicks you with his foot. “Go to bed. You have a long day of doing everything I want you to tomorrow and I won’t be accepting any slacking off.”

Your bond with Hao has grown stronger. +1 Hao Point. Please add +1 Hao point to your scoresheet.

・゜゜ . . * ✧･ﾟ・ ✧･ﾟ: ・゜゜・．

All Continue Reading Below

“Well good night, Little Prince,” you say, hopping off of Hao’s bed. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the businessmen bite.”

You quickly dart your hands to his stomach, fingers touching the exposed skin before tickling him mercilessly. He yelps in shock, arms flying up to pry your hand off of him.

“STOP IT!” Hao shouts, unable to contain his laughter. “(Y/N) STOP! F*CKING STOP!”

You sprint to the door, throwing it open and calling over your shoulder, “GOOD NIGHT, LITTLE B*TCH!”

THURSDAY JUNE 22ND -- LATE NIGHT

Even though you should probably be getting ready for bed so you could be energized for the mission tomorrow, you’re feeling a little too anxious to sleep just yet. You open Kakao Talk, finding only two of your friends are online...

Mini-Decision: Will you choose to spend some time with Gunwook or Taerae?

If you chose Gunwook, read below:

You’d started playing Genshin Impact last September. At the time, you’d all still thought that Gunwook not coming out of his room was a phase. It wasn’t. 

Though you’d originally kind of hated the game, you realized the first couple months after your arrest that you were growing desperate for any interaction with your former friends that you could get. Gunwook had sent multiple messages in the groupchat (that you’d been kicked out of) begging for someone to play with him. Perhaps you were both lonely in the prisons of your own making.

So you started playing, eventually leveling yourself up enough to unlock the multiplayer mode. You sent him a request and he ignored it for a couple days, sending out one last desperate plea to the other members. No one responded.

And that’s how you broke the ice again with the recluse. Sort of. The only thing he’ll entertain your virtual presence for is Genshin. But that’s enough for you, for now.

“F*CK YEAH!” Gunwook exclaims now as you finally defeat the boss you’d been grinding at. He readjusts the arms of his glasses under his headset as you relish in your victory, trying your best to remember not to let any sound out of your mouth. “That was all you at the end there, (Y/N). You’re getting kind of good.”

Thanks, you type into the chat box.

“Took you long enough,” he ribs, that wide, gummy grin lighting up the darkness of his room. “You’ve been playing for months and I’m pretty sure that’s all you have to show for it.”

D*ckhead, you send in reply. He laughs really hard at that and it warms your snowy heart. I’ve basically learned everything I know from you, so I think you’re really the one to blame for the poor progress.

“Oh, so you’re implying I’m a bad teacher,” Gunwook considers, nodding his head. “What if you’re just a bad student?”

Two truths can exist simultaneously, you type after a moment. He adjusts his glasses again, this time pushing his mop of hair out of his eyes. You always forget how youthful his face is, like a teddy bear. Which makes you think of something...

I think I deserve a prize for that win actually, you send quickly.

“Ah yes, why am I not surprised by that line of thinking from you?” He says with a knowing smirk. “What did you have in mind?”

A hug, you send finally after a long moment of hesitation. A really, really big Wookie hug that makes everything okay again.

Gunwook appears to stop breathing, impossibly still as he reads what you wrote. You knew you were taking a risk, but you don’t regret it. He looks down at his lap in anxious contemplation.

Doesn’t have to be now, you send with a sad smile. Just some day.

He presses his lips together as he digests your patient encouragement. It’s not enough to break down his fear and that’s okay. Sometimes it��s just good to let someone know that you miss them.

“Let’s get back to the game.”

Your bond with Gunwook has grown stronger. +1 Gunwook Point. Please add +1 Gunwook point to your scoresheet.

・゜゜ . . * ✧･ﾟ・ ✧･ﾟ: ・゜゜・．

If you chose Taerae, read below:

“Stay 내 눈물이 마를 때까지...”

The sound of perfect vocal tone and the smell of delicious tteokbokki in the air makes you sigh with contentment. What a beautiful summer night on a fairy-light adorned city street. It’s how you feel every time you round the corner to Kim Taerae’s pocha and tonight is no exception.

“Stay, my dear, stay, my dear,” Taerae sings, nearing the end of the song as he strums his guitar thoughtfully. There’s one older couple standing a few feet in front of him, admiring his talents. Oh, how the mighty fall...

The gentleman hands Taerae some money as he and his partner walk in the opposite direction down the street. You take the opportunity to sneak up behind Taerae as he counts the money, quickly grabbing his shoulders when he least expects it.

Of course, you’re treated to the incredible main-vocalist shriek that you were hoping for. You grin evilly as he clutches his chest, glaring up at you.

“Don’t f*cking do that!” He scolds, smacking your leg. “Are you trying to kill me?”

You shake your head, feigning offense.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot I was talking to the Prime Minister of Innocence,” Taerae says with a snort. You frown, actually offended now. “Oh stop. You’re the one who attacked me in the middle of the night.”

You roll your eyes pointedly at his dramatics.

“What are you doing here anyway?” He asks suddenly, one eyebrow piquing suspiciously. “You want tteokbokki again? That’s a lot of junk food for one week.”

You kick him lightly with your foot as you pull out your phone, your screenreader vocalizing, “I came to hear you sing.”

Taerae laughs. “Sure you did. What do you really want?”

You sigh, typing, “I couldn’t sleep.”

Taerae’s lips part at this. Back when you were trainees, you had the worst sleeping health ever. Taerae was your roommate and he’d frequently wake up in the middle of the night to you pacing or having an anxiety attack or crying from exhaustion. One night, he just started singing lullabies and didn’t stop until you’d laid back down and fallen asleep. Eventually with some counseling and improving your daily habits, your sleep pattern mostly returned to normal. But the few times you’d had trouble after that, Taerae would always sing you back to sleep no matter what time it was. Sometimes he’d fall asleep next to you too.

“And walking around the city at night is gonna help you?” Taerae asks, trying to pretend he doesn’t understand. “Go home. Lie down. Close your eyes. I’m gonna start packing up anyway.”

“Just one more song?” Your screenreader asks as you smile at him as cute as is physically possible. “Then I’ll leave you alone.”

“Go,” he orders again, standing up and walking over to his tteokbokki cart-- starting to pack up his supplies for the night. You sigh disappointedly, walking back down the street the way you came. But before you can get too far, you hear a voice start to sing the same melody it sang five years ago...

“Baby, I'm dancing in the dark with you between my arms...”

Your bond with Taerae has grown stronger. +1 Taerae Point. Please add +1 Taerae point to your scoresheet.

・゜゜ . . * ✧･ﾟ・ ✧･ﾟ: ・゜゜・．

All Continue Reading Below

FRIDAY 6/23 -- LATE NIGHT

Ricky takes a drag from his cigarette, blowing out the smoke before he can actually inhale. Just like he always does. Lounging on the purple, velvet vintage couch, a live band plays jazz music as about fifty of the highest elites in East Asia chat and drink around him.

There’s an idol he used to fancy a few years ago talking his ear off next to him. He hasn’t heard a single word they’ve said. But he can’t help it. Every time he tries to focus on something, his mind takes him to a different time.

A time when you were the one talking his ear off every Friday night at the newly opened Club Jeune et Riche. Funny how things change...

Now you can’t even talk.

And even if you could, you’d have to make up for a lot of shit before he’d lend an ear. And that was impossible.

He runs a hand across the purple velvet fabric of the couch, starting to smile to himself at the color before quickly setting himself straight. He makes a mental note to get the couch reupholstered before next week.

“Are you even listening to me?” A voice asks as Ricky stands up and walks over to the bar.

“Martini. Dry. Make it a double,” he says to the bartender flippantly.

“Sure thing, Sajang-nim,” the bartender replies, quickly fixing the drink and sliding it over to Ricky. Ricky nods in thanks.

He takes a sip from the glass with not so much as a wince. It burns, but it doesn’t phase him anymore. He remembers how every drink used to burn when you all were younger. How you used to pour a whole bottle of Grey Goose down his throat after a particularly stressful work week. He always wanted to quit halfway through, but the disappointment in your eyes would be too much for him to bear.

He suddenly wonders if it had always been your desire to destroy him, whether that be by ruining his career or giving him alcohol poisoning.

You made all of his best memories. And you were the worst thing that ever happened to him.

So why does he catch himself wishing you’ll show up at his club again every Friday night?

~

“You can do this,” you mutter to yourself, standing in the dim light of a street lamp across from Ricky’s club: Jeune et Riche. It had been awhile since you’d dared to venture to Cheongdam, what with your rapidly decreasing savings account and tattered reputation. 

Jeune et Riche is packed with beautiful, wealthy people tonight, per usual-- you even recognize a few idols and actors lined up outside, waiting to be let in by the black-tie bouncers at the door. You hadn’t forgotten about the tight security at Ricky’s posh club. How could you, when you were the reason it had been tightened in the first place?

It was a funny story actually. Back before Ricky hated your guts, you used to party every possible Friday night with him and Jiwoong-- occasionally accompanied by other members when they were free or willing, but it was mostly a three-person shindig. When Ricky bought Jeune et Riche last May before the incident, you were still all so busy with your idol schedules that he realized he could only manage to open the club one day a week. He chose Friday as a tribute to you and Jiwoong’s tradition. 

Opening night of Jeune et Riche, you’d gotten so sloshed that you accidentally spilled an entire bottle of Grey Goose on a very angry chaebol son that vowed to come back to the club next week and “bring back-up”. 

Your tall, blonde friend stood in front of you, effectively shielding you as the guy grew more threatening until a couple bouncers finally dragged him out. It’s safe to say Ricky’s security budget tripled because of your drunken mistake. At least he only had to pay them one night a week...

You look at the clipboards the bouncers are holding, knowing full-well your real name isn’t on the list of approved guests. No matter. Tonight, you’re getting into the club as:

Time to see how your Chapter Choice from Part Four plays out, Player! As a refresher, Choice 1 was to go to Ricky's club as Yourself and Choice 2 was to go to Ricky's club in disguise as American art collector Rebecca Song.

⁺⋆✰ If You Chose “YOURSELF”:

Tonight, you’re getting into the club as yourself. Because you’re breaking in. 

After you got off of probation duty yesterday, you’d taken a little ride over to Jeune et Riche to survey the grounds. You put on a beanie and discarded your reflective vest in the backseat of your car. Phone in hand, you snooped around the building as unsuspiciously as possible-- hiding from the only security guard on duty in the early evening. 

Though it took a bit of searching, you’d found a window panel at the back that could easily be removed. You poked your head in, finding that the window was tucked behind the giant, winding staircase that leads to the second floor. It’s a convenient location that might provide you enough coverage to get in unnoticed so you can search for Ricky.

You’d just need to hope that security would be at the front of the building at the time of your little heist. Lucky for you, Gyuvin had given you the perfect idea to guarantee just that.

You make your way towards the lines of people waiting for entry into the (second) most sought after nightlife destination in Cheongdam, wearing your most elegant, couture outfit in order to blend in with the crowds. You settle towards the end of the line, placing the drone Yujin had bought Gyuvin for Christmas last year on the sidewalk in front of you. 

The drone begins to rise off the ground, higher and higher into the sky. You hope and pray Gyuvin knows what he’s doing for once in his life. 

Backing away from the end of the line and high-tailing it around the corner of the building, you hear confused security guards start to yell behind you. The distraction is working. You spot the broken window panel just as two guards start walking your way. You duck behind the wall as they breeze by you. 

“Can’t believe we’ve never had a drone incident before,” one guy says with a huff.

“I know,” the other responds with a chuckle. “What idiots came up with this? Don’t they know we can track the owner from the drone’s hard drive?”

F*ck. You’d have to worry about that later.

As soon as the coast is clear, you sprint to the window panel and start moving it aside. It’s a bit heavier than you expected and, for the first time tonight, you’re really missing your team of Phantom Thieves. Distracting security guards and breaking into buildings isn’t nearly as fun without a team of endearing imbeciles next to you.

The panel finally moves aside enough for you to climb inside. You land on two feet on ornate carpet behind the large staircase. You dust yourself off a bit, fixing your hair before stepping out into the open. You’re shocked at just how elegant everything is.

It’s suave and fashionable and dazzling, just as you’d tried to convince Ricky to design it when he’d first given you a tour of the building last May. You couldn’t believe when he rejected this idea that you felt suited him so well, especially in favor of keeping it “comfy” and “casual” at the time.

Ricky had never particularly liked comfy or casual anything. Why he’d said that originally was beyond your comprehension.

You walk towards the main bar of Jeune et Riche, hundreds of people packed in a vintage Hollywood style lounge. It’s dark, much more like a typical club environment and the music playing is an alluring mixture of house and brass instrumental. You keep your head down, as you walk the perimeter in search of Ricky but he’s nowhere to be found.

You make a haste exit, rerouting to where you remember the VIP lounge being. One door is propper ajar, though red velvet ropes block you from stepping inside. You observe from the entrance instead, since the room is smaller and a bit more well-lit. It’s themed like an up-scale speak-easy and jazz music blares from a live band in white tux jackets. Several celebrities and young public officials stand out to you, the VIP lounge populated by important and beautiful people. The kind of people you don’t fit in with anymore. The kind that Ricky still feels at home amongst.

But he’s not in this room either.

“When I catch you Ricky,” you mumble to yourself. “Ricky, when I catch you...”

Turning around to search the building further, you bump face-first into the impossibly cool fabric of a black, satin dress shirt. The tip of your nose vibrates as the owner of the shirt says, “Oh, do continue. I’m quite curious as to what it is you’re going to do when you catch me.”

You step backwards, eyes meeting steely-blue contacts that don’t do the malicious amusement of the platinum blonde standing in front of you nearly enough justice. He’s in a suit so dark it looks like a void, a red rose in the jacket pocket the only thing lighting up the sea of black. You imagine his eyes are either of these colors behind the contacts.

“Oh, hey Ricky,” you greet quickly, trying not to break a sweat as you feign nonchalance. You’re suddenly glad you didn’t overestimate your acting chops and come in disguise. “Fancy seeing you here! You--... you come here often?”

Your heart drops as he raises his eyebrows quickly at you, one pointer finger gesturing to the ceiling. “Upstairs. Now.”

“Yeah, for sure,” you agree with a sheepish wince as Ricky takes your forearm in his big, slender hand and guides you to the spiraling stairwell. You trudge up each step silently, heat radiating from the spot where Ricky is holding you too tight. At the top of the stairs, he unlocks a pair of large, arched doors and ushers you inside, quickly locking them again behind him.

Much to your surprise, Ricky has brought you into his art studio. And even more surprising, the room is completely empty aside from clean, white canvas tarps covering every surface inch. 

“How did you know I was here?” You ask, eyeing him warily.

“A security guy said a drone had been flying around the perimeter for a bit. They traced the signal back to TCM, so I figured one of you was wreaking havoc on my establishment,” Ricky explains curtly. “I walked around for a bit downstairs and then I smelled purple, so I knew it was you.”

Your left eyebrow piques in confusion. “... What did you just say?”

“I smelled purple so I knew it was--...” Ricky’s mouth closes immediately. “I--... I’ve always thought you smelled like the color--... Oh, forget it.”

“Ooookay,” you agree awkwardly, as Ricky fiddles with the rose in his pocket. You can’t tell if what he just said was meant to be an insult or an accidental compliment, so you just decide to let it slide. Maybe you’d never know what that was supposed to mean. “Hey, how’d you manage to get out of the Friday night meeting?”

He snorts. “Well, the company’s not gonna tell the biggest shareholder not to make his money, now are they?”

“Point taken,” you agree with a nod. “So, where’s all your work? Kinda thought your studio’d be a little more showy.”

“Sold it,” he answers.

“What!? All of it?” You protest with a frown. “What about the one with the cherry blossoms? You said I could have that one!”

“Like you could afford it,” he quips with a sneer.

“Such a f*cking jerk,” you mumble, shaking your head as you turn the other way.

“Oh, I’m the jerk?” Ricky retorts, amusement fading fast. “Last I remember, I’m not the one who murdered someone in cold blood.”

“Do you really think that? Do you really think that I’d ever do something like that?” You ask, head whipping around again. “F*ck Ricky, I know I’m no angel. But if you’re willing to believe after all our years of friendship that I’d ever be capable of that, then... Maybe we were never really friends.”

He looks down at his expensive Italian shoes. Shoes you bought him as a birthday present at Milan Fashion Week. He told you not to waste your money when he could buy them himself, but it wasn’t a waste because what else is there to do with money other than spend it on the people you love?

“Maybe not,” Ricky whispers. “Maybe I never really knew you behind the liquor.”

There could be truth in that, you think. Just not in the way he’s intending it.

“We used to have a pretty good time though,” you muse out loud. “I don’t think I’ll ever feel invincible the way I used to here with you. So f*cked up and everything was just...”

“Perfect,” Ricky finishes and for a second, you think he’s about to smile. “And now everything f*cking sucks. Because of you.”

You nod to yourself, before a thought crosses your mind. “Not everything.”

He laughs callously. “Oh yeah? Please, tell me how you’ve improved my life this year.”

“Well, you finally took my speakeasy theme suggestion,” you say with a shrug. “Seems to be a pretty big hit with the guests.”

Ricky rolls his eyes. “Whatever.”

“It’s f*cking amazing, Ricky,” you assert, throwing your hands out in emphasis. He blinks at you slowly. “It’s exactly like how you always dreamed it would be. It fits who you are so perfectly! Elegant, mysterious, charming... I can’t believe you ever said you wanted to keep it ‘comfy and casual’! It literally SUCKED before-- compared to this.”

Ricky clears his throat suddenly, looking back down at his shoes. “Well, it wasn’t that bad before...”

“Yes, it was,” you insist, crossing your arms. “Maybe alcohol does rot the brain. Literally, what were you thinking?”

“I was thinking about how before I bought the place you said all you wanted was a ‘comfy and casual’ hangout spot for us to party!” Ricky blurts exasperatedly.

You stare at each other, unblinking for a moment as your lips part in shock. “You--... you bought the club for me?”

He shoves his hands in his pockets annoyedly, looking at anything but you. “I... I didn’t say that.”

“Ricky...” You say, eyes starting to water. He looks up at you, his gaze softening.

But it doesn’t last long as the inside of his cheek fits between his teeth. “I guess that doesn’t matter now though.”

You swallow hard. “Because now you wish you never met me. Now you hate me.”

“Yeah,” he affirms, looking you up and down for the first time since he’d caught you-- brow furrowed in introspective hesitation. “But it’s...”

You wait patiently for him to sort through his thoughts. And you’re glad you do.

“Seeing you alone, face to face,” Ricky says, eyes filled with sadness. “It’s become clear again that it’s more complicated than I try to pretend it is.”

Your bond with Ricky has grown stronger. +1 Ricky Point. Please add +1 Ricky point to your scoresheet.

・゜゜ . . * ✧･ﾟ・ ✧･ﾟ: ・゜゜・．

⁺⋆✰ If You Chose “REBECCA SONG”:

Tonight, you’re getting into the club as Rebecca Song: esteemed, American art-collector. It would be the role of a lifetime and you’d been prepping vigorously for the past 48 hours in order to perfect your performance. Jiwoong had found a slinky, black Versace evening dress that some random hook-up had left in his hotel room once (ew, but at least you didn’t have to spend money on an outfit). 

Gyuvin had snuck into the stylists’ storage space while at the company on Thursday and found a long, sophisticated blonde wig from one of the episodes of your old variety show you’d filmed a couple years ago. Taerae had played a character named “Tammy”. It’s better if it’s not explained any further than that.

Yujin had enlisted a very confused but elated Hanbin to teach you to “slay” harder. You’d mastered werking and serving since your debut, but you have to admit that slaying had never come particularly easy to you. Hanbin fixed your issue in a little over an hour, with lots of accompanying laughter and blackmail photo-taking from your maknae.

You’d even enlisted the help of Gunwook to make a realistic, credible website for heiress, art-collector Rebecca Song. He’d looked at you strangely through his webcam, one eyebrow raised in suspicion as he stared at the document of information you needed him to include. Right as you thought he’d been about to refuse, you wired him 150,000 won through Kakao Pay. He got to work right away after that and the result was... convincing enough for Ricky.

The final touch was a very official-sounding text message from Rebecca’s representatives, which you sent from a fake American number around dinner time this evening. Though he’d been skeptical at first, the link to the website Gunwook made is enough to convince your genius-of-art but not genius-of-smart ex-friend. You request an invite to Jeune et Riche for tonight.

Hook, line and sinker. ‘I hope she looks forward to meeting with me.' Classic Shen Ricky.

And now, you make your way to the VIP line outside of Ricky’s club. You have to admit, it feels pretty good to be considered a VIP again. Even if you have to pretend to be a completely different person to receive the special treatment.

Much to your surprise, Ricky is waiting outside-- pacing nervously back and forth nervously as he wrings his hands together. When he spots you in the red velvet roped line, Ricky jogs over to you immediately. 

He nods his head respectfully, a hand outstretched for you to shake. “It’s a pleasure to make my acquaintance, I’m sure of it. I’m Ricky.”

Your hands are covered in long, elegant satin gloves; your eyes shielded by fashionable sunglasses and a haute couture wide-brimmed hat. “Charmed,” you reply, a glimmer of hope lightening your spirit at the believability of your American accent. “Miss Rebecca Song, of the American Song elite dynasty.”

“Wow,” Ricky says, looking you over from head to toe. He appears to be delighted by your appearance. “You’re absolutely breath-taking. I mean, seriously. This must be how others feel when they meet me.”

You look at Ricky, fighting every urge in your body to smack him silly. He does kind of have a point, though. From the icy, blonde hair, to the sleek, all black formal attire... You realize you’ve accidentally dressed up as the female version of Ricky.

It would only make sense that he’s attracted to you like this. You’ve caught him flirting in the mirror with himself more times than you can count.

This was not what you had intended. But if it would help the chances of a successful operation, you might as well just roll with it.

Ricky keeps your hand tucked delicately in his as he leads you through the entrance of Jeune et Riche and into the VIP lounge. His presence is met with happy uproar, men in suits standing up to clink their glasses with his and guests of all genders ogling him with desire. 

Amid the chaos, Ricky laces his arm through yours to keep you steady next to him. He escorts you to the bar-- a black-tie bartender shimmying over faster than lightning to assist his employer. “What will you be having to drink, Sajang-nim?”

“I’ll have an old-fashioned,” Ricky responds before looking to you. “Miss Song?”

“I--.”

“Actually, could I make a recommendation?” Ricky asks with a smile and, honestly, you’re a bit distracted by that smile. You haven’t seen it in such a long time. You nod. “We’ve just added a cocktail that’s become quite popular with guests already. It’s called the French 76.”

“French Seventy... Six?” You ask, assuming he misspoke.

Ricky laughs. “Yes, it’s a new spin on the French 75. Instead of gin, it’s made with vodka.”

You freeze. “Vodka?”

“Yes, it’s really very good,” Ricky encourages. “You can’t go wrong with Grey Goose.”

Grey Goose. You haven’t had Grey Goose since...

You look up at him cautiously, searching his eyes for any sign that Ricky’s already recognized you and is putting you to the test. But your search comes up empty. He’s just really excited about the new cocktail.

It would be suspicious if you refused. So you nod quickly, forcing a small smile on your lips, “Sounds divine.”

Ricky’s arm laces with yours again as you ascend the spiral staircase up to his studio. Slaying on level ground had become fairly easy, but Hanbin hadn’t mentioned anything about slayage at an incline. Short form: you were thankful for Ricky’s uncharacteristic thoughtfulness.

How lucky could one (fictional) girl be?

Pulling a keycard out of his wallet, Ricky unlocks the arched doors that lead to his studio. He holds the right door open for you as you step inside.

You’d actually never been inside Ricky’s art studio before. It was a space that had always been strictly  off limits to you and the other members, so to finally be seeing it like this made you feel a bit…

Guilty.

The room is large but surprisingly humble in decor, the floors and walls all covered in white cotton sheets. There’s splatters of paint scattered throughout the well-lit studio-- easels with finished work displayed on them gathered at the center of the space, too far away to see them properly.

But as you step closer to the painting in front of you, you gasp as you recognize the subject depicted in them immediately...

It’s you.

“These are my exclusive pieces from my canceled gallery. It was titled Ambivalence,” Ricky says quietly. “It means to have conflicting or opposing emotions at the same time toward one subject.”

You swallow, trying to regain your composure as you move to the next painting and then the next and the next. They’re all of you. Different degrees of hatred seeping into each depiction of your likeness; purple and red the main color motif throughout the gallery pieces. Some of them feature other members of your group alongside you.

Some of them are just you. 

“Who--...” You stammer, trying to swallow down the lump that’s forming in your throat. “Who is the subject?”

Ricky stiffens. “Someone I used to know.”

“Used to know!?” You exclaim indignantly. Clearing your throat, you bluff, “I mean... I’ve seen many artists who... paint one subject over and over, motivated by intense emotion. The colors and technique you use suggest that this is still a fresh wound.”

“Hm,” Ricky hums, looking down at the floor as he considers your words. “Perhaps I’ve been too obvious in my approach. I should throw these away and try again...”

“NO!” You shout, grabbing his arm and keeping him from shredding up his work on the spot (which you know is a regular pattern of his). Ricky’s gaze falls to your gloved hand wrapped around his arm. “No, I find them worthy of my collection... because of their rawness.”

Ricky turns back to the painting in front of you. “I see.”

“Could you explain to me what the two colors represent?” You ask, urging him to spill a little more to you.

He nods slowly, pointing at the canvas with his pinky finger to the fiery red washes across your face. “The red, of course, represents anger. Resentment. Hatred. Loathing. For what they did. And how they hurt me.”

“Right. Of course.” Your cheeks burn red just like the painting at the intensity of Ricky’s distaste for you. He moves his finger to the rich, purple washes on the painting.

“The purple hues... “ Ricky trails off, coughing lightly as if he’s embarrassed by something. “The subject wears a fragrance that smells like the color purple to me. So I always associate purple with them.”

You raise your eyebrows at this. Ricky had never mentioned associating you with the color purple before.

“I think that the purple represents the subject themself,” he says, nodding definitively to himself. “And, the truth is, I’ve always truly adored the color purple.”

The sudden confession makes you dizzy. Lightheaded, you stumble into a very surprised Ricky’s arms. 

“Oh, Miss Song,” he says, holding you close. “I’ve touched you with the tortured depths of my soul. You’ve fallen in love with me, haven’t you? This wouldn’t be the first time this has happened...”

Ricky is close to you. Too close.

“How funny,” he says slowly, in a way that suggests he’s noticed something very unfunny. “You smell like purple, too.”

You jerk backwards, trying to get out of his range of scent but you stumble on the hem of your dress-- falling backwards into an easel...

Your wig snags on the corner of the easel, falling off your head as your sunglasses clatter to the floor. Ricky is alarmingly silent as you wince at the ground.

“Guess you can give it up,” he says, your eyes meeting finally. “The aversion to the Grey Goose makes a lot of sense now.”

“I knew you really hated me, but,” you say quietly. “I didn’t know it was enough to fuel a whole gallery of paintings.”

“It could probably fuel a few more galleries, honestly,” he replies with a shrug. “But, like I said, it’s more... complicated than that.”

Your bond with Ricky has grown stronger. +2 Ricky Points. Please add +2 Ricky points to your scoresheet.

・゜゜ . . * ✧･ﾟ・ ✧･ﾟ: ・゜゜・．

All Continue Reading Below

You nod slowly. “Is the... complication... the reason you haven’t kicked me out yet?” 

“No. I’m actually kind of flattered that you’d go to such lengths to spend some time with me,” he answers with a sad smile. “Something must be really wrong. So spill.”

“I--... I need your help,” you confess after a moment with a heavy sigh. “I really, really need your help with something.

Ricky swallows hard, eyes widening slightly at your request. “Why me? Can’t you ask Gyuvin or Hanbin hyung or--?”

“No, I can’t,” you interject quickly. “I need your help, Ricky. And I... I can’t really offer much more of an explanation than that until you see the situation for yourself.”

Your tallest, blondest friend looks at you for a long time. Then he laughs, a small smile turning up the corner of his lips. “I always knew you’d come begging for my help some day. I honestly can’t believe it took this long.”

“Ugh, I hate it when you do that,” you reply, rolling your eyes. “You’ve always gotta turn everything into one big Ricky d*ck-suck.”

Ricky coughs awkwardly at your sudden familiarity. “So, what’s the ‘situation that I have to see for myself’? I should probably assess it before deciding whether or not to provide assistance.”

You take your phone out of the Gucci purse slung over your shoulder and check the time. 11:57 P.M. The boys would be done at the company soon. “We can go now, if you want? I’ll drive.”

“You want me to get in a car with you behind the wheel? Seriously?” Ricky asks, staring at you like you have two heads. “Your driving isn’t exactly award-winning.”

“Don’t you fucking say another word,” you say, kneeling in front of him as you grab his tie in one hand and cover his mouth with the other. He stares at you, shocked by the assertiveness and close proximity-- his ears turning red even as you loosen your grip.

“Let’s go,” Ricky says quietly when you remove your hand from over his mouth, standing up and brushing off his black suit pants. 

“Yeah. Let’s.”

~

You’ll never admit it to Ricky, but you’re extra, extra careful as you drive him to the Total Control building. You were always a good driver, but you really didn’t need any more flack from him. Ricky calmed down after the first few minutes and a slightly comfortable, slight uncomfortable silence has settled over you.

That is until you realize something major.

“HOLY SHIT, MY VOICE!” You yell, the sudden blast of sound causing Ricky to jump in his seat and clutch his chest. “You never said anything about my voice!”

“Oh, right,” he replies, rubbing his collarbone anxiously. “Honestly, Hao showed me a PowerPoint presentation he made a few months ago claiming you’d been faking it this whole time. He was pretty convincing so I sort of just went with it.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Hao,” you say through gritted teeth. “But it’s not true. My voice came back on Monday, actually. I’m--... I’m trying to keep it on the down low.”

“Are you asking me to keep your secret?” Ricky asks as he stares at the side of your face. “You can’t possibly think the chances of that are very good.”

“Not yet,” you agree, pulling into a parking spot on the street behind the company building. You scan the back entrance for the other boys, but they’re nowhere to be found. “But I’m willing to bet they’ll improve drastically in a few minutes.”

“Didn’t remember you being so hopelessly optimistic,” Ricky remarks with a frown.

From the back entrance of the building, Jiwoong suddenly emerges. He looks around and you flash your lights to let him know you’re there. 

“C’mon,” you command, stepping out of the car and walking toward Jiwoong as Ricky follows far too leisurely behind. “Would a little urgency kill you?”

“I’d prefer not to take any chances,” Ricky answers with a smirk. 

When you reach the door, Jiwoong ushers you both inside. He removes the black face mask he’s wearing, putting a hand on Ricky’s shoulder. “Hey man. How are you?”

“You are not getting invited back to Jeune et Riche,” Ricky replies coldly. “So don’t even think about it. Do you know how much I had to shell out to get the paparazzi to delete those pictures of you making out with the President’s son?”

“President Kim doesn’t have a son,” you reply with a frown.

Ricky chews his cheek, correcting, “The President of Korea.”

Jiwoong presses his lips together in embarrassment. “Good to see you too.”

“What are we doing here?” Ricky asks, looking around the dusty basement of TCM. “I’m allergic to poor air quality.”

“Isn’t everyone allergic to--?” Jiwoong starts to ask needlessly before you cut him off.

“We’re going up,” you say, walking over to the open elevator and stepping inside-- Jiwoong on your heels. 

“Who is this ‘we’ you speak of?” Ricky asks, following you onto the elevator and then shoving you back out into the hallway. “You are legally barred from stepping foot on any foot occupied by TCM property or personnel. There’s no way you have the money to pay the fine for that.”

At this point, he’s probably right, you think as you force your way back onto the elevator. Luckily, you and the rest of the Phantom Thieves had already devised a plan in case things go awry. You could count on them, couldn’t you?

You glance at Jiwoong, who is busy pressing every elevator button to every floor in the building and giggling like a little sh*t.

What’s another few hundred thousand won?

Though you have to go through a few extra floors, you eventually reach your destination: the business and finance department. You step off the elevator, pulling a face mask up to shield any of your identifying features.

“Where are the others?” You ask, looking around for Gyuvin and Yujn’s hiding spot.

“Others?” Ricky asks a little too loud. You and Jiwoong shush him mercilessly and he snarls in response.

“I dunno actually,” Jiwoong whispers as you round the corner. “Gyubinnie just said to trust him.”

“And you did!?” You whisper-scream back at him. Before he can defend himself, the door next to you suddenly opens and a large hand pulls you inside a room. Gyuvin shuts the door quietly behind Ricky as you all file in. You look around, realizing you’re in some sort of utility closet. 

“Okay, with no due respect, what the f*ck is going on?” Ricky demands, quickly growing tired of this whole thing. 

“So, this is gonna be hard to believe but--,” Jiwoong starts to explain before Yujin cuts him off.

“We’ve got three minutes left of our break,” Yujin says, checking his phone. “He’ll be fine. None of us got an explanation beforehand.”

“An explanation of what?” Ricky prods again to no avail, tongue poking at his cheek in frustration.

“He’s right,” you agree, nodding at the youngest. “There’s nothing we could say that would actually prepare him anyway. So let’s go.”

"COMMAND RECEIVED. NAVIGATING TO: THE METAVERSE: LEVEL 1 SAFE ROOM. ENJOY YOUR STAY."

Despite the MetaNav registering your command, the atmosphere fails to change. You wait for a moment and then another and another... 

“I’m leaving,” Ricky announces suddenly to which Gyuvin responds by blocking the door. “Step out of the way. I did not sign up for nonsense.”

“It’s not nonsense,” Yujin argues. “Just hold on a second.”

“Unlike you four, I actually have a life to attend to,” Ricky says, starting to wrestle with Gyuvin to ge to the door handle. “So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be--.”

Ricky grabs the door handle, throwing it open to reveal a giant castle vault in place of the plethora of office desks. Piles of gold line the stone floors and rows and rows of small, locked depositories line the walls.

Ricky stares at the sight before him, gobsmacked as he takes it all in. “You--... You...”

“... ‘You deserve an apology’?” Gyuvin finishes for him, rubbing the spot on his rib cage where Ricky had shoved him. “I think that’s what you were trying to say.”

“You f*cking drugged me!?” Ricky shouts, fuming as his gaze fixes on you. “I thought you--... I really thought you needed me. But you were just playing a sick f*cking joke on me! I’m so f*cking stupid.”

You blink back at him, a bit stunned by the sadness in his voice.

“I thought I was going to get to trust you again.”

The bitter disappointment in Ricky’s eyes is enough to break your heart all over again. But you’d only have to endure the pain for a little while longer. Hopefully.

He walks to the center of the vault, picking up a small gold coin and flipping it over in his hand. Then he throws it at a vase, shattering it into innumerable pieces. “F*CK YOU!”

“Should we stop him?” Jiwoong asks, grimacing at the uncomfortable sight.

You shake your head. “No, he needs to--.”

Your sentence is cut short by the sound of a metallic clink hitting the stone floor. You walk over to the shattered vase, sifting through the debris to find a gold key. Picking it up, you turn around-- taking a closer look at the vases littered around the atrium of the vault. There’s a set of English letters inscribed on each one. 

“Our initials!” You exclaim. “Each vase has one of our initials on it. This one must’ve been mine.”

“Where’s Ricky’s?” Gyuvin asks, immediately running over to begin searching. 

“I found it!” Yujin calls, beckoning you all over. 

Ricky looks at the vase confusedly. “This is a really weird trip.”

Jiwoong grabs a gold coin, waiting for your signal before smashing the vase-- a key clinking to the ground. You pick it up, examining the key and comparing it with yours when you suddenly hear a ‘hm’ from the other side of the vault. You turn to find Ricky looking at the rows of safes on the back wall.

“What’d you find, bud?” Jiwoong asks cautiously.

“Our initials,” Ricky answers after a moment. “They’re on these safe boxes, too. You know, I really would’ve thought I’d be hallucinating less of you all.”

“Ricky, you’re amazing!” You exclaim, running over to him and forcing up his hand to high-five you. 

“I know and I’m not surprised you’d think that,” Ricky agrees-- shaking his head. “But no amount of flattery is going to--.”

You shove him out of the way, looking for Ricky’s initials as he sulks in the corner.

“Got it!” Gyuvin says, tapping on the copper safe. You hand Ricky’s key to him, but as Gyuvin presses it into the lock...

BRRRRRRAAAAAAANG. BRRRRRAAAAAANG.

“Sh*t,” you exhale as a piercing alarm sounds, pointing to a hidden conclave to the right of the wall of safes. “Hurry, in here!”

Four shadow guards march into the vault, equipped with glaives that seem much bigger and sharper than the ones previous guards held. Directly behind them, is a figure that you’ve seen before, dripping in gold-threaded silk...

Chief Financial Officer Lee.

President Kim’s ex-wife’s older brother, CFO Lee had been brought onto the company quite recently after the collapse of TCM’s stocks last year. The previous CFO quit in a hurry to save his reputation and President Kim needed an... easy... replacement. From what you read online, he does at least have a college degree. In graphic design.

Suddenly you realize that, in the race to the hiding spot, you forgot to take Ricky with you. Well... Maybe it would speed up the awakening process... Best case scenario...

“CFO Lee?” Ricky asks, closing his eyes really hard and then reopening them. “What--... what are you wearing?”

“Really? That’s his first question?” Yujin asks with a frown.

“Ricky-sshi, how good it is to see you,” CFO Lee bellows as he and the guards move closer. The Phantom Thieves assume the defense as you signal for them to hold their fire. “You were missed at the last shareholders’ meeting. And the one before that.”

Ricky’s brow furrows. “I had a thing.”

“Oh yes. You always have a thing,” CFO Lee says with a malicious smirk, approaching the wall of safes. CFO Lee twists the key still sitting in the lock, opening the safe with Ricky’s initials on it. From the conclave, you can see that inside the safe are dozens of parchment scrolls, each tied with red, velvet ribbon. He removes the largest scroll from this safe, untying the ribbon and handing it to Ricky. “You make it so easy for us to make our financial decisions without you.”

Ricky opens the scroll, reading carefully what’s written on it. After a moment, he shakes his head. “I--... I don’t understand. This is just a list of all the shareholder donations I made to the company this year.”

“A closer look, perhaps?” CFO Lee suggests with evil delight. “How about you read it aloud for us all to enjoy?”

“Bastard,” Gyuvin mumbles under his breath.

“Below is a list of every contribution made by top shareholder Shen Ricky to the receiving parties...” Ricky pauses, brow raising in shock. “Kim Hyunwoo and Lee Jungil? But--... But...”

“The King has had such a hard time managing his kingdom,” CFO Lee says, ripping the scroll from Ricky’s hand. “He can hardly afford his penthouse in Hannam-dong or the new BMW he had to buy after his... accident.”

“What!? No,” Ricky asserts, grabbing the scroll back from CFO Lee and reading it over again. “No, that can’t be true. I--... That money is supposed to keep the company afloat. It’s supposed to go toward all of our dorm expenses and debts until our contracts expire.”

“Oh, do not fret, Ricky-sshi,” CFO Lee replies, voice coated in venom. “Your contributions also helped us pay off the expenses of bribing the court for (Y/N)-sshi’s trial.”

“This--... this is just a hallucination... This isn’t real,” Ricky attempts to assure himself, but you can tell it isn’t really working. You press your lips together, waiting for him to come to his own realization. He looks down at the scroll. “But I--... How can I read this so clearly? Shouldn’t it be all jumbled and blurry? Or not make any sense?”

“How about we test this reality?” CFO Lee suggests, motioning to the guards. The four shadow guards charge at Ricky, prompting you to give the Phantom Thieves a signal to attack. You dart out behind the corner into the atrium of the vault, each directing your powers at a different guard. But for some reason, the guard Gyuvin targets does not take the damage and it instead reflects back at your best friend. Ice engulfs his large hand before shattering to the ground, leaving a wicked frostbite across every inch.

“Ai-ssh,” Gyuvin seethes in pain, but you’re too busy watching in horror as the guard left unharmed pierces the fabric of Ricky’s suit jacket at his shoulder, pinning him to the wall of safes. 

You see the shift in Ricky’s eyes. The pure terror, the anguish, and finally the rage that this is real. He screams, sweat trickling down his face. It was a close call and, luckily, it was just close enough to break him...

I SEE YOU HAVE FINALLY AWOKEN. HOW LONG-AWAITED OUR FIRST MEETING IS. I AM GOEMON, FAMED ROBINHOOD OF JAPAN. THE PLEASURE IS ALL YOURS, OF THIS I HAVE NO DOUBTS. LET US NOW BE ONE AS WE TAKE BACK THE RICHES THEY’VE STOLEN AND GIVE THEM TO THOSE IN NEED.

Schrrip...

New Confidant Unlocked: Emperor *ੈ Shen Ricky

“I assume that never gets any easier to watch,” Jiwoong whispers to you, wincing in horror.

You shake your head solemnly. “Never.”

A slow, dark laugh draws your attention back to Ricky, still pinned against the wall of safes. He grabs the glaive by its handle and rips it out of the wall, shoving it through the guards’ shadowy head. 

The guard disappears in a cloud of black smoke, revealing Ricky in a spotted cat mask. You help surround CFO Lee, smirking at Ricky as he takes control like a natural. He extends his hands artfully, almost like he’s about to paint across a canvas.

“Keynes, Hamilton, Li Ka-shing... Lee Jungil,” Ricky says, eyeing CFO Lee like he’s prey. “What do these men have in common?”

CFO Lee gulps. “We--... We’re all finance guys?”

Ricky smiles.

And you’re all dead men. ‧ ₊ ✫ ˚・

A blast of thick, black paint pours from Ricky’s fingers, coating CFO Lee entirely. He begins to cry for help as the paint leaks into his mouth and eyes. No one moves.

New Skill Unlocked: True Artist's Grace ᝰ.ᐟ

“You-’ll--... you’ll pay for this,” CFO sputters as paint drips down his throat, liquid body collapsing to the ground. “You’ll--... Pay...”

Only a black puddle of paint is left in front of you. 

“Ricky,” you call, running over to him. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine,” he answers quietly, eyes devoid of emotion. He looks completely drained. “Can we just--... can we just leave this place? Whatever it is?”

You nod. “Yeah, I think it’s about time we head out. Back to the utility closet.”

When you finally finish explaining everything to Ricky, he stares straight ahead at the Han River as you sit parked at the overlook in your car.

“Why did you pick me?” He asks suddenly.

You tilt your head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, surely there were better choices of members to get involved,” he reasons with a shrug. “Taerae, Hanbin-- Matthew gets here Sunday. They’ve all been far nicer to you in the past few months than I have. So why me?”

“Honestly?” You offer, bracing for his reaction. “We need medicine and supplies if we’re gonna do this. Luckily, you didn’t get hurt in there but... Last time, Yujin took a real beating. I was incredibly hesitant, but he suggested that we bring you on board because we don’t have the money to get it ourselves.”

Ricky chuckles to himself sadly. “I appreciate the lack of sugar-coating.”

“But I’m really, really glad we did choose you, because--.”

“I’ll do it,” Ricky cuts you off. “I’ll help you. So save the theatrics for someone who wants them.”

You look down at your lap awkwardly.

“In exchange for a favor,” he adds quickly. You look up to find him smirking at you.

“I don’t like that look,” you say, grimacing. “But fine. What do you want?”

“I’ve been feeling like my art has really suffered since last year. Between running the club and helping with my father’s business in China, I haven’t had time to return to the basics like I should,” he explains.

“Where is this going?” You ask, growing annoyed.

“Will you be my model tomorrow evening?” Ricky asks, charming eyes staring back at you. “I’ll be focusing on perfecting... the human form.”

“EW!” You squeal, smacking his shoulder. He winces a little too hard and you consider criticizing his theatrics. “You are so disgusting.”

He laughs genuinely now. “I was right: the look on your face is, in fact, priceless. I don’t actually need any favors from you. I’m in. But if you wanna come by my studio tomorrow evening and be a fully-clothed model for me, you’re more than welcome. I--... I’d really like to--...”

“I’d really like to catch up with you, too, Ricky,” you finish for him, whether it’s what he was going to say or not. And you mean it.

The only problem is...

You told Yujin that you’d treat him to dinner tomorrow night.

⁺⋆✰ Chapter Choice ✰⋆⁺

It's up to you, Player. Will you choose... Please note that only readers that are Yujin’s age/minors should choose Yujin, as this choice will have slight romantic elements. Thank you!

CHOICE 1: Dinner with Yujin

OR

CHOICE 2: Paint with Ricky

[ussjellyfish]

20 questions for fic writers

thank you, @mylittleredgirl for tagging me! Have I done this...perhaps. Will do it again! It might also be new? the questions are fun.

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

423

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

2,817,922 (hitting 3 million should be fun). I average 6661 words (ha) per fic. Which is interesting. I have 43 drabbles and 7 fics over 100,000 words so they must even out.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Once Upon a Time (though not for years). Star Trek the Next Generation, Star Trek Voyager, Star Trek Discovery. Stargate Atlantis and Agents of SHIELD. many other things, but not a lot of fics. (12 or less).

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Stray Feathers and Scales (Emma Swan/Regina Mills, Once Upon a Time) I almost listed this one as Maleficent/Regina, which it isn't..kind of is, could have been poly if I'd thought about). This fic has HUGE stats for me and I haven't reread it in years. Parts of it are really detailed though, and it's VERY me. It's all the tropes.

Lost Leaves of Autumn (Catelyn Stark/Ned Stark, Game of Thrones) This one is very soft and doesn't really belong in the GoT universe, which is so brutal, but I really love Catelyn.

Thawing Deep (Sansa Stark/Margaery Tyrell, Game of Thrones). They could have worked! I haven't read this one in ages either.

Her Majesty's Mercy (Maleficent/Regina Mills, Once Upon a Time) The best Once fic I wrote, in my opinion. I remember the fun of writing this one.

A Funny Thing Happened at a Stark Tower Gala (Melinda May/Phil Coulson, Agents of SHIELD). Maybe this got recced somewhere? Maybe AoS fandom was just big that year? It's cute and fun, and for some reason has a bunch of kudos.

(this is long)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to? If it's a fic that I'm really into I'll reply. I'm kind of giddy about comments on the ones I'm writing right now. If it's an older one that I am sentimental for I try to reply. If I'm not into it at the moment (I am kind of burnt out on Once Upon a Time, and I haven't been into Chakotay lately so I've been kind of meh on my own Janeway/Chakotay stuff). I try to, but I am fickle.

I did just have this really positive experience where I posted my chapter of Quantum Variations (which is my long Disco WIP) and the chapter was kind of a mess, but I was so happy to post it, I really didn't care) and people found things for me to fix and were really kind about it. It felt good, for a chapter with a bunch of errors.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I killed Elizabeth Weir once, but she came back, so the ending was pretty hopeful. I don't write much angst without a happy ending.

I have Janeway rather self-destructively run off with the Borg Queen but... uh...it wasn't that angsty. Dark, but she kind of wanted it.

There's probably something really angsty I'm just not thinking of, but I don't reread my really old stuff often. (some of them I honestly have no idea what the fic is about).

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

there's a really sappy SGA one where they have a bunch of kids.

Firefly (Star Trek Discovery, Philippa and...learning to have feelings). maybe? Considering how messy Philippa's feelings are, she ends up happy, and more human, and she goes on a very long journey about it.

8. Do you get hate on fic?

Not lately. I did, I have, but it's been years. Once Upon a Time fandom you were a wild ride.

I did make massive drama back in the day with Janeway/Crusher, because I really wanted to get to play with them in the fandom space I was in, but that was not the space for that.

9. Do you write smut?

Sometimes! I'm on a somewhat lazy sort of fade to feelings place at the moment. I wrote a somewhat detailed one awhile back, but it was pretty tame. The fic is good though! I really like that one. Trapped in a turbolift and then later they have sex.

Migrations and other recurring phenomena (Star Trek Discovery, Michael Burnham/Laira Rillak). Happy Birthday, madame captain...

10. Do you write crossovers?

Not often, I do have a SGA and TNG crossover where the Enterprise turns up at Atlantis, which is odd but fun, and for some reason (there's a space battle) it got outside my usual audience. I really liked the challenge of all the characters meeting each other.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I recall.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes! I think a OUAT one? maybe two? It has happens but...I don't remember which fic it is.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes! Jackie and I wrote two really long ones together (which were a blast). I don't think she's still on tumblr but, @shinewithalltheuntold, I love you).

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I am really into whatever I am really into at the moment, because I get REALLY into things.

Right now it's Michael Burnham/Laira Rillak, underappreciated ship of my dreams. Michael gets to date the president of the Federation, as a treat. fun bonsu for me is that they have scenes together! and a relationship arc and that's really fun. (even if it's not romantic, it's something and I adore them, so I'll take it).

All time ever? Kathryn Janeway/Beverly Crusher, which made drama, ruined some of my fandom relationships, but really gave me something I needed.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

I have a few that I just ended, which I'm okay with. I've taken longer hiatuses than I'd like, lately. (life's just been a lot).

I have three right now. Only one is posted and I'll finish that one! (Quantum Variations on a Love Theme (Star Trek Discovery, Michael Burnham/Laira Rillak) is my favorite. It's my heart right now. It's long and it's sometimes hard to write and there's backstory and plot threads BUT I love it.

And it has it's own little following and really that's all a really long fic needs: a handful of people who read it.

The other two I need for Year of the OTP so I should get those done too. (Firefly universe crosses over into canon-adjacent universe and Michael rescues sick Laira fic).

Hopefully they all get finished. (I'm fairly certain they will. I am not answering the question well).

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue. Soft feelings. Incremental character growth. Long, slow, introspective character journeys. Friendship and found family moments. (there are some Tilly and Philippa moments I really like in Firefly, and Tilly and Laira and Tilly and Michael and...people having loving conversations is fun).

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Description. (I feel like I'm really lazy with this most of the time. They're there, you know what they look like).

Urgency. (my fics do not move quickly, or really with a lot of certainty in their direction).

Plot. (frequently feels like an afterthought so people can have feelings).

Focus? I drop plot threads, all the time.

Writing by myself is hard. I ALWAYS want to show whatever I've just done to a person and sometimes people are busy and I am so unmoored by that. (post it anyway, dammit). I adore having someone tell me it's good before I post it.Sometimes I have to post it anyway...

I also write the thing I want to write, over and over in different fandoms and with different a characters and I've written my own variations on "pregnant person goes on a journey with her feelings and grows as a person" at least 10 times.

and I'll do it again.

And I love midly sick character, which I will do again.

I feel bad and don't feel bad? It's what I want to read so I have to write it so I can read it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I google translate, or skip around it, or switch POV so I don't have to deal with it. It's hard to do and I can usually avoid it. I use a lot of fantasy name/word generator for alien words.

It's mostly [alien name goes here] and hopefully I put something in.

I borrow words (or spelling conventions) from languages I know little pieces of (Finnish, German, Welsh) when I need to for alien things.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Trek the Next Generation. (Stranded, Beverly Crusher/Jean-Luc Picard, Will Riker/Deanna Troi, adorable future children who are lesbians). One of my oldest fics is ON Ao3! it is like 22 years old I think? it's a mess and I should fix the formatting but it's SO LONG... It's fine. It's there. It's really not bad for my first long fic.

It's fun to see how far I've come. I wrote that one so long ago that I wrote it under my real name on a usergroup. Then posted it on my own website that I made with html on geoctities.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

Whatever I'm working on right now is usually my favorite. I have fics I am especially fond of.

Her Majesty's Mercy. (Once Upon a Time, Regina Mills/Maleficent) one of the darker things I've written for them, that has a very happy ending it's just...kind of all raw messy feelings)

When I the Starry Courses Know. (Star Trek Voyager: Kathryn Janeway/Borg Queen) very depressed Janeway gives herself up to the Borg Queen, which kind of a Faustian twist to it. It's one of the better things I've ever written).

Fedvision (the Federation does eurovision, with Beverly Crusher/Kathryn Janeway and most of Voyager and TNG at their party). Fedvision is wonderful I should write it again, because it should happen every year. (Disco needs it). This fic is full of bubbly happiness and hats and love. It's full of love.

Firefly (Star Trek Discovery: Mirror Philippa Georgiou and Michael Burnham, and feelings, and learning to trust people). I used to live in a state of angst waiting for someone to comment when I posted...this fic has chapters without any comments at all. I had never written anything this long that didn't depend on a romantic pairing, this one doesn't have one in the center. I took huge break...and came back! I didn't have a beta or an alpha and I lost friends in the time it took to write it, and it still turned out. I grew as a writer and poster with this fic.

Quantum Variations on a Love Theme (Star Trek Discovery: Michael Burnham/Laira Rillak) is my favourite right now, because it's a me fic. It's a long meandering jellyfish fic and Laira's pregnant and I love it. It's the most fun I could have. It has really good parts. (not all of them but, there are some stellar bits). Also it has some detailed world building, and that's fun. This is the me fic that owns my soul at the moment so of course it's my favourite.

I'll just have five...

Tagging @aleksandrachaev @that-one-curly-haired-chick @purlturtle, @winternightjewels @regionalpancake @galactic-pirates @jackabelle73 @holdouttrout (if you fancy it)

and you, if you feel like it, person who made it all the way to the bottom!

The questions!

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

2. What’s your total ao3 word count?

3. What fandoms do you write for?

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

8. Do you get hate on fic?

9. Do you write smut?

10. Do you write crossovers?

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but probably won’t?

16. What are your writing strengths?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

19. First fandom you wrote for?

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

[raspberrii-soda]

i swear to god im going insane, if anyone ever happens to care about specifically the sugar rush speedway adaptations i'm making this post for them and also so i don't forget this stuff. also i just have the energy to write about the stuff today lol

Info may be incomplete because I wrote this at 2 am and set it to queue

Sugar Rush is one of the fictional games from the Disney movie Wreck-it Ralph. it's a kart racer game similar to Mario Kart, but with a sweets and candies theme. alongside other games like Fix-it Felix jr, Hero's Duty and Turbotime, this game had multiple game adaptations and related minigames. here im gonna talk about 3 adaptations: Sugar Rush Speedway, LEAP Motion Sugar Rush Speedway App and the "Baking" and "Racing" games from the Wreck-It Ralph Storybook Deluxe. i'll be ignoring the Sweet Climber minigame from the wreck it ralph app because its a simple endless jumping game.

ill try to go from my percieved idea of which one is more popular, in descending order.

Sugar Rush Speedway

if you remember having played a sugar rush game, it was probably this one. available as a browser game until it stopped being playable beyond the first map because of a game error and it was later removed somewhere in 2018.

can you still play this version of sugar rush? yeah...but not officially, it is available and fully playable on Bluemaxima's Flashpoint (god save flashpoint)

its got 4 cups, each cup being 1 track normally, in reverse and flipped. you go trough 3 laps in most of these.

it has all 10 sugar rush racers, plus you can unlock king candy trough the code KINGCANDY (wow, original) but it does not include vanellope or the recolors. there is also a lost japanese version whose only diference was that it replaced Minty Saki with Minty Sakura and the code to unlock King Candy was 7ELEVEN (lol). items work just like any common denominator kart racer, random items from an item box.

since this game was released very closely to the movie's release, some of the stuff is based on concept art and deviates from the game we see in the movie, also the graphics are a bit unpolished as it is expected for a browser game from that time, more info and images on the wiki.

Wreck-It Ralph Storybook Deluxe Games

the wreck it ralph storybook deluxe app was a paid app that, as it says, has the story of wreck it ralph in storybook form, alongside a game you can play. the app costed money and its been retired from both the play store and the app store.

is this version of sugar rush still playable? no. unless you have the app still installed on an old phone, i have the apk but it doesnt work on modern phones.

there are two "games" from the wreck it ralph storybook app, the Bake one, which corresponds to a simplified and less gimicky version of the bake-a-kart minigame, where you get to customize your kart. and the "Racing" game, which is, of course, a few sugar rush courses. 3 in this case, and 3 diferent difficulties as well.

unlike the other game, this one only has 4 of the sugar rush racers, but it also has vanellope, which automatically makes this the superiorest version of them all. in this version instead of random items you get character specific abilities.

LEAP Motion Sugar Rush Speedway

im kicking and biting and maiming and

the sugar rush speedway app for leap motion it's a purchasble app from the leap motion store, while its meant to be used with a leap motion device that tracks your hand movement it can be played without, its the same game as the browser sugar rush speedway with a few key changes: the races are only one lap, the graphics have been enhanced, and it had a bake-a-kart mode more similar to that in the movie.

is this version of sugar rush still playable? hell no, unless you had it installed previous to the shut down of the leap store.

some other changes are that king candy is no longer playable and one of the items is missing, i've only found 6 videos on youtube and a few screenshots of the game, more images and info on the wiki.

while some of the game content is out there and someone probably still has a copy, at least in my opinion, the playable game could be considered partially lost media,

[tuzesdays]

Sorry I haven't really scanned your blog, so I'm guessing you've probably gotten asks like this a lot. But be patient with me while I ramble, 'Kay?

I found your artwork for the comic where YN turns off the lights so Moon could go after a rule breaker. It's hilarious, I love all of it and it's such a mood! I don't have kids or deal with kids, but just that comic makes so much sense! I love it, I think about it a couple times. I had to find out just the this evening just to get my fix of laughter from it... But I never realized the link till today!

Your writing for "Daycare Go Figure" is.. mine is drawing a blank on intellectual words I could give you, but to the term of the emoji chef's kiss 👌❤️ It is an absolute delight I have laughed so much in the first three chapters. It's, jokingly, almost sickeningly sweet but I adore all of it! It syncs so well with me:

• To be appalled at the lack of care that the daycare attendance have dealt with on their own.

• Wanting to bring them books or craft supplies, Just to make things easier or better for the daycare and the children. (I have a plethora of old kids books and crafting is a delight, So seeing YN bring those things in, was an absolute treat.)

• Clean the boys, yes! Because stars above with just about any daycare attendant story I've crossed, I always wonder how clean they are. I mean, Those bois are always surrounded by children who could get their hands sticky by just ✨existing ✨ Heck, babies are born with a grip, so it's not a surprise! But the care is still warranted and appreciated.

I can relate fearing getting too attached, and then inevitably in a short amount of time getting attached! It's just- you made YN so.. human. The amount of empathy I feel in relating to this human is astounding. Most of the creators who I've read daycare, attendance stories for do such a good job with all their YNs. Their wyoms could be cocky, nervous, doubting their own abilities. I may have only just finished chapter 3, but I relate to yours so strongly... Doesn't give a feeling of reassurance, but it's just some sort of... (Error: Failing to find the right words) It's a genuine connection, I could at least say that. And it feels so good! I love their openness, I love the communication, their doubts for their personality out shining to where they may be rejected by the people they are closest to can be related to so many people and I feel it in this story too.

Also relatable, as a nocturnal security guard, I do my damn this to stay on night shift. Seriously, I found the dread for the daylights from YN simply delightful. Satan laughing in the background while wanting to mutter curses to higher ups who just don't give a flip and say "Do it." Oooh, I taste the ire on my tongue. I'll applaud YN if they ever get used to that schedule, because that would make them stronger than me lol!

But the attachment you could get from genuinely connecting with someone, especially when you are kind of a recluse. It makes sense. Tabitha, It may hold a minor significance for the name, but it was still a name I connected with for reasons, that just sing this child. Cling to YN made me smile in delight. To call her a little shit in one breath but internally count them as yours/your kid. Wanting to help them, but also needing your own personal space just to breathe. Again, genuinely, relatable!

And Moon teaching more ASL to YN? Be still my hecking heart. It was precious, yet another scene I was kicking my legs and rolling around in my seat with just the lead up and how precious each scene is.. That has also happened to me repeatedly. You might as well just change the name of your story to daycare serotonin (/jk) There may be angst later, but I'm barely on chapter 4, But I just needed to shake you with how much I love your writing. Again, I'm not kernel so I should be in bed by now. At least an hour ago, but I don't want to stop reading 😭❤️ Even knowing I got stuff to do in 7 hours, I'm still contemplating it with the idea of "Who need sleep? Tehee 😋"

I got giddy seeing I had chapters ahead I could read. I'm sorry I didn't find your writing any sooner, but it's a delight to know that I don't have to stop for a while. I am devouring these like I've just got out of the great depression, or more specifically reading "Grapes of Wrath". If you don't know what grapes of wrath is, good, don't. I was in AP and I still couldn't get myself past chapter two... If I remember right, they spent four pages talking about a turtle crossing the street. Fuming Again, I don't recommend. But YOUR story, haha, I need a hard cover copy to add to my book collection.

You know BamSara or Naff? Easily up there ✨ Again, I haven't ran into the angst yet to find out how good you are at plunging something into my heart. Cause BOY so those creators know how to treat me apart! But this story is just as great to me, Thank you Thank you Thank you so much for creating it! I have no clue if you're still working on more chapters or if it ends at chapter 17. I'll definitely be finding out and shaking you again because your writing makes me get why people put on tennis or tags "devouring". I get it, stars above I get it.

Sorry for taking your ear off. Your comic page that brought me to this point is a delight. Your writing has brought me so much joy. I am positively dreading any angst to come! 😂 Thank you for what you've created, Please make sure to take care of yourself, know the effort you put into your work is greatly appreciated, and may creativity and inspiration stay by your side ❤️

okay for the record i'm only publishing this so i can keep it on my blog forever? forever maybe? i love? you wrote me an ESSAY!!! and no, i DONT actually get asks that often - seeing this much text in my ask box before reading anything was a little scary ngl - but you!!! grabs you!!! THANK YOU! okay okay i'm normal i'm gonna go paragraph by paragraph like a normal person.

I'm pretty sure that one silly comic is MOST of the reason Dayshift has managed to get as many readers as it has, and honestly, for that you can thank theohnocorral (who took a long break from tumblr but recently came back!) who was nice enough to talk to me while i built up confidence to actually start posting DCA art (i don't think it's been touched in a while, but Bug Love is my personal favorite of their fics for the AU concept alone). Seriously, I actually made a secondary comic just after paper-lilypie found it (who im NOT tagging bc i dont think i can take a Second Time) and set off a whole new rb chain that's STILL GOING, TO THIS DAY. Wild.

thank you thank you thank you i love writing it's one of the few things i'm absolutely 100% confident in and i'm so glad you like it!!! besides basic plotting, the majority of the joy i get out of writing Dayshift is seeing how close i can get to how real people work and think and live and breathe and i really, really like characterization. my one true love, i'm so glad it shines through.

speaking of: yeah, sunbite has a fair amount of issues, but i always liked stories where theoretically unlikable characters (the loners, chronic liars and manipulators, outcasts) get to have Real and Genuine Connections with other people. it's good for their growth! its good for readers sense of self and self-love! you don't have to be an amazing person all the time, you can just BE!

and Tabitha <3 kids are a delight. bright personalities in tiny little humans with NO mental filters to speak of. the kids were always going to be important here.

bro you CANNOT come in here and say things like i'm as good as Bamsara and Naff you CANNOT do that i'll cry rn

I'll look forward to your feedback on the rest of the chapters <3 have fun reading and thank you for coming to visit me

[internerdionality]

Question game! Tagged by @dragonmuse and @thetardigrape 💕🙏🏻😊

if you're a writer and you see this, consider yourself tagged if you want!

Do you write in order?

Nope. Frequently quite the opposite. I tend to start with the climactic scenes of a fic, the big emotional cruxes, and then figure out how to get the characters there.

There's definitely exceptions, especially when writing more humorous or lighthearted fics, and I've been experimenting more in the last year with posting works-in-progress, which requires writing much more sequentially than I used to!

WDYDWADS and A Fucking Duel, my most popular fics so far, each started with a very cracky premise and I had no clear idea where I was going when I started with them. I had the occasional out of order moment—I've been sitting on the next chapter I'll be posting of WDYDWADS since July, because I wrote it and then realized a bunch of other stuff needed to happen first, and the third chapter of A Fucking Duel was written before the second. But mostly they were written in order and I posted up each chapter before finishing the next.

But my longer fics like Soaked to the Skin and Mutually Beneficial were written much more chaotically. Chapters 17 & 18 of Soaked to the Skin have some of the earliest scenes I wrote for that verse. It's been a bit longer since I wrote Mutually Beneficial, so I don't remember the exact order, but I know that the moment in Chapter 14 where Clark goes to his knees was the first one I envisioned and one of the earliest ones I wrote.

How fully formed does your writing come out the first try?

I tend to think over the scenes first, and then workshop sentences and paragraphs as I'm writing them, so it depends what you mean by "first try." Most of the time, the fic as you would read it after my first fully written draft is pretty close to the final version. It's just fine-tuning after that, unless something isn't working.

However, sometimes something isn't working, and then it can change a lot. For example, the aforementioned Chapters 17 & 18 of Soaked to the Skin were originally one chapter, and all from the Lucius' POV. After I'd written a bunch of the rest of the fic, I realized that we desperately needed to see what Izzy was thinking during it, so I ended up splitting it in two, expanding both parts, and flipping the POV in the second half. That doesn't happen to me very often, but pretty much every longfic I've written has at least one chapter that ended up getting overhauled, sometimes multiple times. The one I tend to remember with agony is Chapter 9 of Welcome to the Mouth of Hell (please mind the tags if you follow that link)—I actually swapped out one of the major characters in that scene twice before finally figuring out how to make it work.

How many drafts do you go through?

Well, that depends on what you consider a draft, lol. The longer and more serious the fic is, the more I tend to pore over it. I also tend to reread and fine-tune earlier chapters of a longfic to get back into the right mindset before writing more, so chapters written earlier may end up getting fiddled with a lot more than later chapters. But it's all a pretty incremental process, so I don't usually have multiple "drafts" of the entire fic in the way I did when turning in assignments in school.

If we're counting every time the text changes as a different draft, though—at least two? At the very least, I'll write out a fic in Google Docs, import it into AO3, and read it over again in the rich text editor, looking for import errors and fine-tuning as I go. I think the most I've ever gone over a chapter before posting it is probably around ten times? I do also reread over my old, posted work sometime (especially the smut, that's why I write smut!), and I'll fix typos and fine-tune sentences even years later if I notice them.

So an old smut like A Private Nightmare... and Fantasy, I've probably gone through three or four "drafts" since it was originally posted. As far as drafts that are substantially different from each other though, the record is three, for that chapter linked above.

Tell me about your process.

Well, I think I covered a lot of it as I blathered on through the previous answers! I tend to seize on something that seems important or interesting (preferably both!) to me, whether it's a dynamic between two people that I couldn't get out of my heard, or a piece of emotional growth that I went through and want to model, or exploring a sexual kink or orientation that resonated with me, just a particular premise that I thought was funny! (Or well, sometimes it's just 'write the smut you want to see in the world'...)

I usually try to have at least the broad strokes of what I'm going to write worked out before I start, although as mentioned previously, there are exceptions! With longer fics, I write outlines—I'll use the heading feature of Google Docs to lay out the main beats, then block out how many chapters I think I'll need, usually with a little summary of what I'm trying to do with each one.

I get somewhat overly married to (what I think are) clever story structures sometimes—for example, the alternating POVs in Soaked to the Skin, or each chapter of A Fucking Duel aligning to a number in The 10 Duel Commandments. I have one outlined WIP that using a four-person rotating POV. We'll, ahh, see how that goes if I ever start actually writing it.

[perpetual-fool]

-

Not sure this is actually progress: I had the revolutionary idea that other people may not be operating on an alternative form of logic, but rather regular ordinary logic during which they've made an error.

For instance, I've been playing Kenshi, and Kenshi has RPG mechanics wherein a character gets better at a task by performing that task. So to get better at fighting, you have to get in fights. Except you start off so weak that literally any fight you participate in will kill you, game over. And doing the obvious is deliberately omitted, you cannot simply have two friendly characters spar, there's no mechanism for it. But there are a handful of 'training' apparatuses, so the developer could have 'fixed' this and chose not to. There are convoluted work-arounds, but the whole game is convoluted work-arounds. So what am I supposed to do? I have to do X but I cannot do X? That doesn't make sense.

Point being, everyone who has even marginally understood always agrees with me on this kind of thing. No one ever has said "I think it makes sense, because [bizarre alien logic]". So I'm probably not interpreting things wrong.

So I'm trying to work out what the basic logical understanding process is, and that's been very difficult for some reason. Maybe because I'm trying to use the process itself while it's still broken. The simple part is sensory input and parsing. That is, some signal has to get to your brain (e.g. hearing noise) and then you organize it (e.g. distinguishing words) into.. qualia? whatever. But then once you've recognized the thing you 'do' something with it. You recognize you're looking at a pill bottle, then you remember you forgot to take your pills. You see a boulder on a slope, you predict it's going to start rolling down. So it's something like 'the thing is placed into a pattern' but I don't have a grasp on that yet. And I think the main problem is here, since a fault here would lead to perfectly coherent responses but not appropriate to what's actually happening.

Sleeping on it didn't help. I'm feeling a bit different, so I presume my brain is working on it.

Unrelated, I'm upgrading my computer because Kenshi isn't running so well. Apparently the main problem is that Kenshi only uses a single thread, so the very frequent 'loading' pauses really cannot be fixed. But I am legitimately running out of ram in certain regions or when I try to switch between characters in different locations. And I'm still using a hard drive instead of an SSD; when I built this PC eight years ago SSDs were expensive, small, and thought to be unreliable. So I have to finally decide how to organize my files, which I don't really have the energy to do. I'll probably just put the ram in now and deal with the rest later. And I'm worried that my system will just fail for whatever reason. I'm dependent on this thing for the trickle of mental stability that I have, so yeah, anxious. I should probably get a refurbished netbook or something as a backup.

There is so, so much to worry about though.

[s-lycopersicum]

Okay, I actually want to ramble about this... So, the best wine version for it seems to be 8.21-staging. Any others I tested (including the current 9.12) have some weird interface bugs.

Given that, I set up some scripts (Lutris can do that too, but I like to suffer) to use pre-built wine binaries at that version (that I got from here), ...HOWEVER! The default Adobe setup simply would not work with that. I don't know why, something to do with msxml3. Anyway, the process then ended up looking like this:

1 – With my system wine (9.12-staging) I create a new 64-bit prefix, set to Windows 7. Which may or may not be important, but.. y'know

2 – Then, two rounds of winetricks commands:

$ winetricks atmlib gdiplus vcrun2005 vcrun2008 vcrun2010 vcrun2012 corefonts fontsmooth=rgb $ winetricks msxml3 msxml4 msxml6

The msxml ones go later because they mess up the installers for the vcrun ones. Also, Photoshop CS6 shouldn't need vcrun2012, but I was seeing weird lines of the logs without it, so... superstition it is.

3 – Now goes the installer. It takes quite a while and it will fail after all that time (the audacity), but its after installing everything except for a few redists (you can check the error summary they give you to be sure). Photoshop will already be on Program Files.

4 – Then I shutdown the prefix with the system wine, and change over to the 8.21-staging wine. Ran a winecfg on the prefix, wait for it to update, etc etc.

5 – Now the cherry on top: The usual bug with the gpu acceleration in Photoshop is that the canvas will always be a step behind when it's on (as in, if you draw two dots, dot 1 will only show when you place dot 2). To fix it, just set "__GL_MaxFramesAllowed=1" on the env before running. That's it. Outrageous, isn't it?

That's basically it. Again, changing wine versions is probably easier done with Lutris, for the less bash script inclined. I'll add more if anything comes up. I spent so much time to get this right, I don't even want to think about it. Whew

cool party trick where you give me a laptop with linux and after half an hour i give it back with a stable, fully working, gpu-accelerated installation of photoshop cs6

[syzekrom]

Kirby Translation Docs Masterpost

I was told on Discord I should really compile these somewhere. I may post these directly to Tumblr or WordPress or something eventually, but for now here is a masterpost of links to Google Docs.

These are various documents I've made translation sections of content from the Kirby series.

Please note that I do not consider myself fluent in Japanese, or even a Japanese speaker/able to read/write in Japanese in the first place. At best, consider these a step above some cleaned up machine translations.

𒈯𒈯𒈯

(09/07/2023) Triple Deluxe Miiverse Behind the Scenes Developer Posts, as well as for Drum Dash Deluxe and Fighters Deluxe.

(07/15/2023) All boss pause descriptions and dialogue from Kirby: Triple Deluxe, redone.

(03/11/2023) Return to Dream Land boss pause descriptions, for both Deluxe and Wii

(05/08/2022) Team Kirby Clash Deluxe August 2017 Issue Nintendo Dream Interview with Kumazaki, including info on King D-Mind and the Parallel bosses. Also talks about Planet Robobot and making games as a student.

(04/02/2022) Kirby and the Forgotten Land masterpost.

Master post for Kirby Star Allies: The Original Artbook translations:

𒈯𒈯𒈯

Older Translations

𒈯𒈯𒈯

(08/24/2021 Though apparently I never shared it after I made it until now whoops) Descriptions mentioning Galactic Nova. If anyone can find a scan of the Japanese Super Star Ultra manual's description of Milky Way Wishes, please send me a message or tweet at me @dsgiratina.

(06/07/2021) All Kirby Fighters 2 text.

(06/04/2021) All boss pause descriptions and dialogue from Kirby: Planet Robobot. Note that Kai-alone released his own version of this which I'd recommend trusting over mine, but feel free to use this as a second opinion. Please check that out here.

12/28/2021 Edit: Included the Pres. Haltmann 2.0 description which I forgot, and fixed an error in Galacta Knight's description due to accidentally deleting a character in the Japanese text.

(01/01/2021) All text relating to Another Dimension across all Kirby games. Please note that this is the oldest document, so if these descriptions appear in my later ones above, please check those instead since I might forget (or just out of laziness) to update this doc with better made translations.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ETFQB_joXKdPfALyVtGy3xDFZu_Wbm6lohlwN9fETVI/edit#heading=h.4rtrqzvic6gr

[in-superbloom]

did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen? (a.i.)

right where you left me: prologue

pairing: ashton irwin x olivia jones (oc)

warnings: uhh a kinda grieving theme i guess? but no deaths. it has a sad tone overall, but nothing major (in this chapter hehe). foul language because i can't help myself. the tiniest mention of alcohol, but as a memory. think i should probably warn you that this contains a very sad ash. also not much dialogues. this is mainly for explanation and introduction, but very important for the story. if you find anything else that might be triggering, please let me know so i can add it here !!

author's note: oof okay. so. this is the prologue of a series very very dear to my heart that i've been working on for what it feels like my whole life but really it's been just a few months. but i'm in love with the story (which rarely happens with my own writing) so i hope you can enjoy it too !! this is also my very first time posting a fic since 2013 so pls keep that in mind <3 no i am not shaking as type this ofc not also: although i have the full story ready in my head, this is the only chapter that's written. i wanted to wait until i had at least a few ready before posting this but i'm too anxious for that lmao just saying this bc it will take a good while until i have any more chapters, so <3 (p.s.: i went over this thing a million times since may so if you find any errors pls look away, i'm not fixing this thing anymore. thanks <3)

another note: anna from the future here to say that i completely forgot about the playlist i made for the story lmao here it is in case you're interested k thanks bye <3

credits: title is from taylor swift's song right where you left me. model in the picture: paola locatelli. banner by me.

i also wanted to take a minute to thank some really nice friends that i've made here over these past few months & that i'm extremely grateful for @wastelandcth @suchalonelysunflower @littledrummerangie i cannot thank you babes enough for inspiring me the way that you do & for letting me yell about this to you && for encouraging me so much 🥺 i'll never be able to explain just how much this means to me, so i'll have to settle for saying thank you at any change that i can get <3 i love you all 💜 also gem my baby, thank you for the inspo with the banner 💚

@bluesdelis look babe i did it 😌 you know how grateful i am for you & for you letting me have a breakdown every week about my writing for the past 8 years so let's not dive into that or else i will write something bigger than this prologue jsjsjdjd love you 🖤

i hope you all have a good reading and a nice day ♡

let me know what are your thoughts about the fic ! ♡

word count: 4.1k

☆☆☆

Cold. That was the first thing that Olivia’s brain processed.

Still with her eyes closed, she buried herself more into the duvet, while her arm blindly reached for the furnace in human form that she calls boyfriend. However, as soon as her arm was only met with cold sheets, her eyes shot open.

Blinking the sleep away, she sat up on the bed, searching for the infamous red clock resting on Ashton’s bedside table that was supposed to look like a vintage alarm clock. Olivia had ordered it online at an auction website a couple of years back, as a gift for his 23rd birthday, since it was something he had mentioned multiple times prior that he was looking for, but still hadn't found. But when it finally came in (two weeks after the due date), it looked nothing like the picture she saw on the website. Feeling beyond frustrated, she wanted to send it back immediately and ask for a refund and maybe leave a not so polite review on the seller's page. But Ashton stopped her right away, laughing like the situation was absolutely hilarious to him, while saying, 'I like it, it’s quirky'. So, the clock stayed and found a home right next to him in their room.

Some days, however, she would wake up at some ungodly hour because of the blaring noise of the only ringtone the clock had. But whatever annoyance she could feel towards the object, it always vanished as soon as she felt Ashton's lips gently touching her face in a good morning kiss before he would get up to start his day, leaving her to catch some more hours of well deserved sleep.

As the furthest from a morning person as a touring musician could possibly be, Olivia had always feared that living under the same roof as Ashton would turn her into an early bird like him, but she's thankful that it never happened (not that he needs to know about that).

When she sees the red clock, she smiles at the sudden but welcome memories of them flooding her foggy brain, but frowns slightly when she realizes it reads 12:13 pm. Ashton rarely lets her sleep past 10 am.

Gathering all her strength and will, she rises up from the bed, smoothly picking up a grey wool sweatshirt from the chair (way too baggy on her slim body, but it smells like him), pulling it over her head and relishing on the soft material warming up her body. Making her way to the door and calmly going down the stairs, she can’t help but stop for a minute to admire the picture frames on their walls, one in particular catches her attention – probably one of the most prized pictures and memories they had. It felt older than it actually is, but it was around 4 years ago, she's sure – a little while after the two of them met. The picture was of their group of friends that still remains the same: Ashton and his best friend, Luke; Olivia, her best friend, Calum and their old hometown friend, turned into Calum’s new friend at college, turned into everyone’s friend, Michael; and her then newly band members, Suki, Eli and Ravi. Together, their group was the life of the party through all their college years, and it showed by the big smiles and drinks in hands they all had in the picture. It was a very special night, the first time Olivia’s little band played for the public – for a small audience sure, but it was a wonderful night nonetheless. What a long road it had been since that night.

Her nostalgic thoughts were interrupted by a shiver that went through her whole body, and it made her realize how oddly cold the whole house was, not only their bedroom. Which, granted, it was November in New York and the weather was just getting colder, but that’s exactly why Ashton always made sure to keep the house warm enough. As much as she loved the chilly season, the warm weather always reminded him of his hometown, and who was she to deny him that?

The smell of fresh made coffee could be sensed even before she reached the kitchen. Arriving there, the curly haired woman still found no signs of her boyfriend, so she went straight after the coffee maker pot sitting on the far left corner of the cream marble counter. Smiling softly at the tons of memories of Ashton's sleepy figure making their favorite beverage, she reached for a coffee mug on the cupboard on top of the counter and poured the remainder of the hot liquid on it (it's her favorite mug, if she must choose – it was a gift from a fan, and it had printed on it a collage of the pictures of her and Ashton that were posted on social media through their first year of relationship).

Moving to the glass doors that lead to the mini garden they cultivate, she didn't have to open them to spot the 6-feet-tall man sitting on a bench outside, looking oddly small in his oversized clothes, coffee mug tightly held between strong hands. Something about his figure made Olivia frown, however: he was staring with an unwavering look at her small but eye-catching pot of yellow daffodils that were almost as much of a pet to them as Stitch at this point. Sensing that there’s something definitely off about his semblance, she made a mental note to talk to him and find out what’s wrong later. So she goes back to the kitchen, knowing that he might need this quiet and private moment for himself.

She lost count of the minutes that went by (couldn't have been more than five) before she hears the garden's door opening and closing, and then his bare feet are dragging his brawny body to her. Except, he goes over to the sink, walking right through her, not showing any sign that he even saw her hunched figure over the counter table in the middle of the room.

Alright, someone's in a mood.

Olivia tries to swallow the annoyance already bubbling inside her – he knows how much she hates to be ignored, no matter how mad he might be – by trying to think of what she can say that won't piss him off. This is always a hard feat to accomplish when Ashton gets in these moods, but there’s a reason for them to work so well together.

“I missed my favorite body heater when I woke up,” she says in her best sweet voice, knowing how quickly his resolve crumbles when he hears that voice.

Still, no reaction.

That settles a worry at the pit of her stomach, because Ashton is never like this. Even when he's not in the mood to talk, he always gives some kind of reaction to her words; it doesn't matter how small, just enough to make her feel acknowledged.

When he's finished washing his mug and the few scattered dishes across the sink – she noticed that he already had lunch, if the lone plate in the drying rack is anything to go by –, he dries his hand in a towel, turns around and throws it on top of the same counter Olivia was leaning up against. Once again, he walks away not even sparing her a look.

Indignant, she leaves the now empty coffee mug on top of the table and follows him as he walks up the stairs, any determination to not aggravate his mood now well gone.

“Hey! In case you didn't notice, I'm right here. Whatever got you in this sour mood, I'm certainly not to blame, so can you stop being a child now and talk to me?!”

Ashton just keeps walking – more like sluggishly dragging his body – until he reaches their bedroom and suddenly stops just merely two feet inside the room, looking around with vacant eyes; like he was expecting to see something that wasn't there.

“Okay, that's really mature of you. Are you planning on ignoring me all day then?” Olivia questions exasperated, staring angrily at the back of his neck, where the condor tattoo lives – her favorite of his, but that sight doesn't bring her any peace today like it usually does.

Her glare only breaks when she hears the familiar sound of dog tags swaying on her right side. Shifting her gaze to the direction of the sound, Olivia notices Stitch, their small, black & white French bulldog – who she thought was outside in the garden – slowly trudging his way from around the bed until he stops at Ashton's feet, looking up at one of his humans with sad eyes. That realization only makes the worry in her stomach grow uncomfortably.

“Hi buddy,” Ashton's voice cracks a bit from the lack of use, but he smiles softly at the sweet dog, and crouches down to pet him.

Olivia can't help but gasp as she notices three things all at once that leave her overwhelmed: first, how she didn't even notice Stitch was in the room when she woke up – which never ever happens, in fact, most days he wakes her up whenever he deems her bedtime as finished and can't ever contain his excitement when she finally gets up; second, how the windows blinds are closed, which, again, rarely occurs under their roof, not if Ashton can help it. And third, how sad and melancholic the whole scene in front of her is – how sad and melancholic Ashton is. Pointless to say by now – that's also a very rare occasion.

A chill creeps up Olivia's spine, putting her body into high alert and also serving as a reminder of how everything looks out of place today. Trying to keep her head from spiraling down way too soon, she wraps her arms around herself and crouches down beside her two favorite boys, trying once more.

“Ash? Can you hear me?” even with her throat closing, she softly asks, purposefully putting her face in Ashton's point of view. Her only answer is the low whispers he's letting out to Stitch, while cradling the tiny dog in his arms, spreading gentle kisses on his head.

“I know, bud, I know. I miss her too,” is the only whisper she could understand and immediately wishes she hadn't. The weak wail that comes from Stitch's throat seems to fit perfectly with how the three of them feel.

Ashton then looks up and for a couple of seconds, and Olivia can swear he’s staring right into her eyes. But when he shows no reaction, she knows he’s just staring ahead and not at her, with that look that says there’s too much going on inside his head. She feels the urge to embrace him and get him to talk about whatever is on his mind, so they can share that weight like they always do, but when Ashton gets up from the ground and settles on the bed with Stitch, Olivia can physically feel the crack in her heart caused by the feeling she’s left with.

While Ashton is pulling the duvet over him and the dog, with clearly no intentions of getting up anytime soon, Olivia stands up on her feet with a new-found determination – she needs to figure out what the hell is going on.

This nightmare had to be just that, right? Nothing but a very vivid dream – she's had those before. Scary sure, but they always go away, and soon enough she's back into Ashton's arms, with Stitch jumping on the bed ready to lick their faces off. She just needs to wake herself up from whatever fucked up dream this is – right?

She's running down the stairs this time, frantically in search of something, of what exactly, she doesn’t know – but she knows she needs an answer. The more she looks for something, the more desperate she gets, not knowing what to look for. Then suddenly, something catches her eyes.

The white and blue calendar that's held up by magnets on the side of the fridge. She knows their calendar is red and yellow. They got it from their favorite flower market. Slowly, as if scared of what it might be there – “It's just a calendar, for fucks sake” – she approaches the damn thing. Upon inspection, she deems it as a normal calendar – she really doesn't know what she was expecting – until.

She knows what's wrong with it now.

It's November. She knows it, because the Asian and last leg of her first world tour is about to begin November 21st, eleven days from today. Right after Mike's birthday, she knows this.

Then why does the calendar say today is January 14th?

☆ ☆ ☆

Ashton woke up with a jolt. He quickly sat up, frightening the little Frenchie that was asleep right next to him on the bed. Trying to make sense of his surroundings, he roughly rubbed his face to get some sleep off of it and soon reached for the dog that was staring at him with sleepy but sad eyes. Ashton is sure Stitch understands far more than a dog is supposed to understand about their current situation.

The room is covered in shadows, almost pitch black, but he can see the sunlight even through the thick dark grey blinds covering up the windows. Ashton knows he won't be able to sleep again at that moment, so he gets up from the bed – much slower than he used to. His heartbeat is still out of control because of the nightmare that woke him up, but he can't bother to pay attention to it when Stitch is softly wailing beside him. Ashton lets out a ghost of a smile when the dog rests his head on his right upper thigh, looking up at him with an expression Ashton knows all too well.

“C'mon you little ravenous creature, let's feed you,” the bulldog excitedly jumps to the ground, already running his way down the stairs, not even waiting for Ashton to get up.

That gets a real smile out of him, but it vanishes as soon as he glances at the alarm clock on his bedside table. It reads 5:13 am, nothing out of the ordinary for him. But that small and inoffensive clock, with its red paint peeling off, holds a lot of memories for him. Memories that two months ago would bring joy to his heart, but now he almost wants to throw the object across the room.

It was a stupid thing, really. He had been wanting a vintage alarm clock and Olivia got one for his birthday. But the product they received was definitely not the one she bought, and if he's being honest, he didn't like it as much as he made out to. But seeing her so excited in the weeks before it arrived, and how disappointed she was when it did, he couldn't help but try his best to make her smile that luminous smile again. It's part of his nature by now.

That's also the reason why he lets her think that he doesn't notice when she wakes up at some ungodly hour (her words, not his) along with him, because of the annoying and only sound the alarm clock is able to produce. He always leaves soft kisses in every inch of bare skin he can find on her sleeping figure, so she goes back to the dream land and doesn't wake up before 10 am. No one wants to deal with that kind of bad humor, not even him.

As much as he likes being a morning person and absolutely enjoys her company in the mornings, he knows she'll take any and every extra hour of sleep she can get before starting the day. And that's why he loves that she's so stubborn that his early bird tendencies never got to her – he knows she feared that this would happen when they moved in together, but he met her like this, fell for her like this. He wouldn't change a single thing about her.

Ashton drags himself out of the bed, wincing slightly at how cold the wooden floors are under his bare feet. He doesn't bother putting some socks on, or a sweater – the cold weather in the house is uncharacteristically comforting to him. Nothing feels warm without her anyway.

While descending the stairs, he mentally curses himself for not being strong enough to look past the picture frames on the wall. One in particular catches his eyes – a picture from the night of Olivia's first concert with her band. The memories of that night are still painfully vivid in his mind: the laughter among their group that eventually infected everyone at the pub, Suki and Luke's first kiss and the silly smile that didn't leave his best friend's face all night, the standing ovation Olivia got after her three-songs set, and her captivating and breathtaking smile that made him realize right then and there, while watching her sway to the music, that he was definitely falling in love with her and there was nothing he could do to stop it – not that he wanted to.

So many memories held up on that wall, in the relatively short time since they met, that he can't help but wonder if that's all they'll get in this lifetime.

Ashton is abruptly taken out of his thoughts by Stitch's barks coming from the bottom of the stairs. He quickly jogs down the few steps left and goes straight after the dog's food in the kitchen's cabinet. After Stitch starts to happily devour his breakfast, Ashton goes to make his coffee, doing enough for two people like he always does, since Calum drops by most days for a chat or to drop Duke before going to work. Although all three of them know he just can't bother to make food for himself in the morning, while Ashton is the group's elected chef. Ashton always says he just needs a boyfriend – Olivia says Calum already has one who makes him breakfast every day.

He grabs an apple from the fridge and makes his way outside to their garden. Even though a lot of their memories took place there, the garden is the only space in the house where he doesn't feel like suffocating all the time. At least here, he can breathe some fresh air and look at the sky when he's feeling overwhelmed – which is basically all he's been doing for about a month now.

Yet, a lot of the garden has Olivia's name written all over.

He remembers vividly the day she came home after spending two weeks in LA doing some pocket shows, with a pack of daffodil seeds and the largest smile. She excitedly told him that a friend gifted it to her when she mentioned the little garden they were planning to build together at their new house. The friend told Olivia that daffodils symbolize rebirth and new beginnings, so as the good lover of symbolism that she is, Olivia loved the idea of having those flowers to symbolize their new beginning.

Ashton, on the other hand, wasn't a fan of the flowers at first – he just didn't see the appeal to them. But nonetheless, he indulged her, letting Olivia plant the seeds near the bench they used to sit during the quiet and unrushed afternoons, so they could admire the sunset, and she could happily look at the daffodils.

Pointless to say – the damn flowers grew on him.

Now, however, looking at them without Olivia and her contagious joy next to him, they were back to be as dull as they were before, if not more so.

Still lost inside his head without any sense of how much time went by since he sat down, Ashton doesn't hear the front door closing, and doesn't notice that he's no longer the only person inside the house until someone sits next to him on the bench. Yet, he doesn't show any sign of acknowledgement to them.

A few minutes go by before either of them speaks up.

“Luke said you didn't go to see her yesterday,” Calum starts softly, not wanting to disturb the calmness of the morning.

Ashton takes a few seconds to respond, “No point in doing that.” The black haired man licks his lips while thinking carefully about his next words.

“You know staying inside this house all day by yourself won't help either,” Calum turns his head to his left and takes a good look at Ashton's uncharacteristically hunched over figure, and immediately thinks that anyone can tell this man is not himself anymore. His second thought is that Olivia would hate seeing him like this.

“And what exactly do you expect me to do? Move on with my life like nothing happened? Like I'm not slowly and painfully losing the love of my life? Just because it’s easy for you doesn't mean it's easy for me.”

Calum closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He knows Ashton doesn't mean it, it's the anger and frustration talking. He knows it. Doesn't make it sting any less.

“I'm not telling you to move on with your life, because that's far from what I'm doing, and I certainly don't expect you to do it. I'm just saying you need to occupy your mind or else–”

“I'll go insane? Think it's a bit too late for that,” Ashton interrupts with a bitter tone that doesn't belong to his usual chirpy voice.

“You know it's not,” Calum sighs and drinks the rest of his coffee, moving his body slightly, so he's facing the blonde man, “I got a job interview for you at that school you talked about so much last summer, the principal said you can go any day this week. I went ahead and sent her your resume as well as explained everything that she needs to know about Olivia, so you don't have to. You just gotta put on some decent clothes and show up.” he sees Ashton's face softening a little and takes it as a victory. A few beats go by and then, “Maybe take a shower too. That's gonna make you feel better.” Calum leans in closer to his friend's personal space and takes a sniff, causing Ashton to deflect from him slightly, but not to push him away – another small win.

“Definitely take a shower, you stink. When was the last time your hair saw shampoo?”

“Fuck off,” is Ashton's only reply to the younger man's inquest. But Calum can see a smile creeping up on the blonde's face, which brings out a smile of his own.

“I'll send you all the details later today,” he checks the hour on the watch on his wrist and gets up, “Just please, Ash, go. I can't lose you too.”

Calum gently lays a hand on Ashton's shoulder and squeezes a little. The man doesn't look up, but gives a curt nod to his friend, who's satisfied enough. Calum stops on the threshold of the garden glass doors to give some kisses to Stitch – who came to make Ashton company as soon as he finished his food –, and then he puts the coffee mug on the dishwater. And soon enough, he's on his way out of the door. But not before snatching a tangerine from the fridge.

Ashton is left by himself once again. As he hears the sound of the front door closing, he thinks that this might be his life from now on. Just him and Stitch, trying their hardest to make it through another miserable day without the love of their lives. While everyone else comes by just to make sure he's still breathing. Breathing, maybe, but alive?

Swallowing the tears, he looks up at the sky. It's a deep, beautiful mix of orange, pink and blue, but he knows that it won't last long and soon the rain will be pouring down. He thinks about how much Olivia loves the rain.

God, he needs to pull himself together. She would hate to see him like this. Maybe he should take Calum's offer after all, he really needs to occupy his mind.

Making a mental note to thank Calum later, and also to apologize for how rude he was to him this morning, Ashton slowly gets up from the bench to put his mug on the sink and makes his way to the living room, with the small dog loyally following his every step. He puts on some cartoon that for once doesn't remind him of her (she always lovingly made fun of him for still watching those) and cuddles with Stitch on the couch. He can take a shower later.

Not half an hour goes by, he falls asleep and has a good dream for a change. He dreams of the days he spent with Olivia in the Philippines last February, right before her first world tour started. Some of the most magical days of their lives – surrounded by delicious food, a whole new culture to learn about and the warmth of the sun. Infinite counted days full of love and passion, where they were the only people in the world.

Even his subconscious knows to hold on to that brief moment of happiness, because he might never live that again.

[subjectnumberx]

Thumbnailing: Subject's Way

Thumbnails are an important workflow tool artists use to make creating their works more efficient. They are essentially tiny, low detail versions of the idea you may have in mind, and save time by helping you catch potential compositional errors, clashing colors in palettes(if you blob some colors on), and poses that simply might not.. work in character art as well as many other things not mentioned.

I am a very visual person and sometimes putting ideas to paper really helps me focus better on the task at hand. Organizing things into steps on the page really helps me not get overwhelmed. It might prove helpful to you as well.

In this tutorial, I'll take you through my workflow process when planning paintings and simple character illustrations.

I start off the process by doing a ton of sketches of whatever thing from many angles, poses, etc. Usually if I have a certain image in mine I simply sketch that and adjust little things like angle, placement of limbs, etc. Work teeny tiny, you can enlarge it later. I,t really depends on what the goal is for that piece what the process looks like. Here the goal was to just draw a character, so I have many options.

environment sketches look a bit different for me, as I will sketch them in literal cubes. I am still working through the technique. I just haven't gotten good enough at them yet to consider a tutorial by me would be helpful to anyone though.

Like with piece D, it's good to plan compositional elements here too. I added the moon that would go in the eventual background, swords in the hands of B and E, etc. Had I had more time, F would have gotten rough roses, but I digress.

After I have base sketches, I do very rough lines so I know what I'm looking at, and it primes me for what I could possibly have issues with in doing the final. I keep it VERY loose and don't dwell too much on details. If I'm drawing a character, I'm not even going to look up references, unless their silhouette is very complex. There is not much need for accuracy here. Just to nail down your subject's silhouette.

At this point, you can start eliminating which poses you don't want. Here I was very indecisive so I went through with sketching all of them.

At this step ill also take the time to plan variants if I feel like I would be indecisive about them/need them for certain platforms (optional).

Here's where things start to actually take the form of thumbnails. I work large and draw most of the anatomy of the subject so that things are positioned correctly in the frame. Draw the whole of something, even if you know it's going to get cropped out. There is nothing worse than trying to draw in a way that is already cropped, it messes up your anatomy bad, and you'll spend more time trying to fix it, especially if you are just starting out as an artist.

Physically drawing a box around them to help with framing is really good to help plan the composition of the final piece. Again, you can eliminate stuff here as well if they don't make interesting compositions. Consider the rule of thirds and how much breathing room you want or need in your piece. The one not in a box was eliminated because I didn't like the pose nor would it make a very interesting piece.

I also use different colors on the boxes so I can overlap them and keep my eyes from getting confused where one "drawing" ends and one begins.

If I'm planning portraits/art in my painterly style, I'll take the time to block in some colors just to see what I should shoot for in the final. I will also do several pairings of colors in their own sets of thumbnails if the piece needs it/i want varients. I highly suggest blobbing so that you can see how potential colors will play with one another. Learning the teeniest bit of color theory will help, I promise, but for now, i'lI'lll refrain from the mini-lecture.

these three two (you'll see), I figured would make better cel-shaded/quicker pieces due to how zoomed out they are, any true details I would want to focus on don't exactly work for my current style faraway. Be sure to tailor compositions that suit your style. I will be keeping these sketch ideas for future reference.

It's important to remember that just because an idea doesn't get used in this piece, that doesn't mean it can't be used in a further piece down the road. I actually have a horrible habit of deleting my thumbnails after I'm done with them, but if I'm thumbnailing in a sketchbook? I find myself browsing back over them for future pieces to get some rough ideas of what could work later.

One last thing, you don't have to plan as many thumbnails as I did, but I do suggest at least 3 or 4 to really stretch your creativity.

Thumbnails also make for a good warm-up. If you're curious, I did the initial sketches in this order: A C E D B F. I think it helped me loosen up a bit, but you can be the judge of that.

I went back and tried another approach for a painting, but now I have the base for 3 paintings I could pursue, albeit rough, but it's good to learn how to paint like a sculptor, I digress.

That's all there is to it. the key is being clean enough to get the idea down, but rough enough to save time. work small, using basic shapes to create silhouettes. You can enlarge it later and use it as a base sketch.

Last two cents: I've also learned that sometimes if a piece is just not working, it's probably more than likely a compositional issue, anatomy, or perspective, Which is why thumbnailing can help you catch these issues early.

happy drawing :)

a/n: this is my first time really creating a tutorial. this might not be groundbreaking information for some of you and that's okay. this tutorial was initially created for someone in an art server I'm in on Discord, hence the slide-text-slide format. I have taken the images and text from that and compiled them here to make it easier to pick up the tips. I do not consider myself a pro on any of the things mentioned by any means, merely my take on it all. Get multiple sources, educate yourself, practice, and find what works for you. - Sub

[reluctant-fan-girl]

My thoughts on 139 as an Ereri shipper

Buckle up for a long read and some unpopular opinions haha. Feel free to add on/ correct me but this is only how I feel so take it with a pinch of salt, I'm not asking anyone to change how they feel because we're all feeling some feels right now and your grief is valid. I just really wanna talk about the chapter before I go back to my Yaoi ship. (Forgive my grammar errors and all I wrote this at 5am and I'll probably come back and fix the spelling and stuff later today)

Thoughts on ch 139:

Well... here we are guys. The last chapter, it's been one hell of a ride and even though I have only been a part of the community for three years I'm still sad it ended. (Not to mention it finished 4 days before my birthday but that's just an extra oof) I keep seeing a lot of Mikasa hate and even though I used to despise her this chapter really got me thinking and damn, she's definitely one of the strongest characters (second to Levi at least in terms of resolve but hey I'm biased lol) she killed the person she loved, who pushed her away time and time again, and until the very end wanted to save him yet she was the one who ended it all. I doubt I could do that if my girlfriend was doing something similar... but I guess most people are like that. I admit, when I read the chapter at work I began crying in the break room, not because the ending caught me off guard, it was about what I was expecting, but I'm still sad Eren died. All this stuff was foreshadowed through especially the last few chapters and I kind of hopped into the manga around when Zeke blew Levi up, and even then... I feel like I knew this would be how it turned out some time last year? It was mostly predictable since this story, from it's inception, has done nothing but break the shonen stereotype time and time again and this was just the kind of ending that would shatter the mould and make it worthy of that moniker. Now am I happy that Eremika is canon? Not really, in fact not at all I'm mad. Although tbh it's not that I really expected a same sex, age gap relationship to be canon in mainstream manga, but this is what fan fiction is made for right? Besides as much as this manga has challenged or straight up ignored it's very obvious what the intended ship was going to be from the start. Even still the confession at the end by Eren is honestly OOC from most of everything else he's said/done and feels forced but, 🤷🏻‍♀️ like... the ending would have been better if Eren's feelings stayed vague so we could come to our own conclusion. If I had my way I'd have Eren confessing to Levi and they'd run off to live in secret but again... that isn't how it ended and I'm accepting that even if I don't like it. (Plus I can read/write a fanfic of a 'better' ending to make myself feel better) but I'm glad I stuck around for such a bitter sweet end.

Eren's character:

Now I love Eren as much as anyone else, but I see lots of people crying "character assassination" and I feel this personally isnt true at least not completely. We're all grieving right now and I know he was so cute and lovable at the start (hell in a way he still is) but this has always been his character. He is the one who most desperately yearns for freedom because feels trapped by his fate more than anyone else. The line "I felt like I had to and I let myself get caught up in the flow" is proof he *knows* he isn't free despite his father's reassurance, and his own repetition of the phrase. There's a common phenomenon with mantras or the practice of repeating something over and over in your head, the more you say it, *the less you believe it* and IMHO Eren never really felt free from the start. He knew his fate was sealed and he probably could have, no... *should* have acted differently yet he himself couldn't change what fate had in store. He just kept moving forward for no other reason than he wanted to save Mikasa, Armin, and his people. He (may have?) sacrificed Carla, not to serve as motivation, but so that he could save Armin later on by eating the Colossal titan instead of burning to death. It must have been a heart wrenching choice to make but he cares for his friends more than anyone else. He gave them a fighting chance and his death gave the alliance a good name so the world (or the 20% left of it) would see they aren't the same as him. Of course I'm thinking, "What if he had Dina free Carla or just let her eat Bert I mean Grisha probably would have passed on the Attack titan to Eren even if Carla had lived," but Armin very well could've died in another way or things could've turned out so much worse for everyone else. But even if Eren hates his choice I think something to note here is he doesn't seem to regret it, taking some of Levi's advice with him to the grave (quite literally) Plus you guys have to remember he died at 19 years old, that is *young* and I may only be a few years older but 18-21 is a huge period of change and you wont make the best choices, he's dealing with all that on top of the memories of the other titan holders, and the founding titan which I think really messed with him more than anything. He even says he only wants to live 10 more years ;-; the poor thing deserved a full life too even if his perception of time is warped and he never got a chance to become an adult.

The aftermath:

Well, everyone seems happy for the most part which is great! The one thing that I didn't expect was for the ending to be bitter sweet rather than total annihilation. Historia really does seem... fuck it I don't know and this is the part that bugs me most is she never really got the ending she deserved and felt kinda... forgotten? It's hard to tell but I think she ended up loving her child in the end... maybe... she's smiling while holding her... right? Levi is out beyond the walls and he may be wheelchair bound and half blind but he's still alive! Now this is honestly my saving grace here I mean god imagine him surviving a literal bomb only to die such a lame and pointless death in the last chapter. My boy made it through everything though and he's still got them dad vibes with Gabi and Falco which is kinds sweet... but I still hate Gabi. I still really hate Gabi, but it's nice to see that they're all somewhat okay. (Plus okay... Eren Canonically being reborn as a bird is kinda hilarious yet fitting since he got his freedom... Parasitic Jaeger haha good one Isayama.) Who knows if the war will ever end, heck Isayama himself said this is only the begining and while the fight goes on they have a chance thanks to Eren sacrificing himself the way he did. He could've made so many other choices and I don't know what could've/would've been better. Maybe Isayama knows but time travel and altering the past opens a whole ass can of worms that is just... like the killing your grandpa paradox kinda thing and if I were writing this story I wouldn't wanna try and deal with that either, especially after writing one story for eleven years.

(LEVI LIVED MY BEST BOI LIVED WHOOOO YESS 😭😭😭 ALL I COULD ASK FOR AHHH) *cough* sorry I had some crying fan girl in me that demanded to be seen too

Anyways this was just my thoughts for now, I may eventually write more and hell I'll probably go back to sweet sweet denial myself, posting contradictions because dammit I love my ereri too much and some people have good points or some posts are just funny in general. Have a good day, stay safe, and we are all in this together <3 Thanks for reading all the way if you did! (And here's a good meme to lighten the mood too)