#Stick Figure Beatdown

[angelcloves]

anyways heres the brackets for the sticks and stones best chapter beatdown!!! im gonna start putting up polls every hour on the hour if im not too stupid to figure out scheduling posts. eight today eight tomorrow for round one. 24 hours per poll

[williszhang]

Memes* cause depression

*well, internet scrolling in general, which are basically memes or meme-adjacent.

During company layoffs, I went two straight weeks looking at nothing but internal memes. They were really helpful in processing the feelings of hurt and shock.

Memes with my colleagues straddle an interesting spectrum. It's "connection" with a real collective community, but the collective is across 200K employees.

Extrapolate that to an entire internet "community" and you have the state of today's media. For all the split-second entertainment that's out there, I rarely laugh. That's true unfortunately not just with internet browsing, but with life and with people too.

Is it just me? Are we not having as many belly laughs with people as with past times?

I could be conflating a number of other true things: adult friendships don't tend to be as deep as those from youth,   raising a kid is a perpetual beatdown, pandemic disconnection, desensitization from working in a frenetic environment,

but let me just stick to my thesis a little longer. First, what am I calling a "meme," and why do they make us depressed? A meme (picture, short video skit, stupid Tweet™️) is basically an attempt through media to get a "Oh I know that feeling!" It's creating a "connection," and the more niche the reference the greater the payoff, e.g., in order from basic to niche: SAT -> 90skids4lyfe -> depression/anxiety/introvert/antisocial -> grad school memes with relatable themes -> NUMTOT -> MD is a cult Not a State -> Super Secret DMV bboy page. Honestly for every human experience, and I mean *every*, we've created some media.

But here's the thing. I think connection is zero-sum. At the core of it, memes create connection to a nebulous internet entity, which thus disconnects us more and more with our real counterparts. We strip ourselves the opportunity to laugh with real friends, because would-be funny convos are constantly scuttled with our mental "oh I've seen this line of humor already in a meme." I sense this constantly in my interactions. People including myself have a hard time laughing from true novelty, because there is none.

And it's even more negative than zero-sum. The meme reduces the dimensions and dignity of the human experience it's making fun of. Tokenizes and trivializes. Ironically, the more nuanced ("niche") the meme is the more the tokenization effect. Because of this, I draw a line at Christian memes. Under no circumstances I'll entertain Christian memes. That's the last thing in my life I need trivializing.

As self-proclaimed Nostalgia King, I think about how life was in the 2000s. Even though we had internet, its use was so different. We still used Facebook to catch up with real people in our lives, not random impersonal internet personalities. AIM chat was in its heyday. We connected with real folks. 

Will I stop with memes? Maybe! I unfollowed a bunch of meme accounts by the end of writing this. Out of all my social contexts, I think I have pretty good laughs with bboys. The meme skills of the community are so poor it's actually a net-benefit. It also helps you're inherently vulnerable and silly when participating. A lot of the things discussed here are themes from the book "You Are Not Your Own" by Alan Noble. Excellent read, seriously cut me on specific modern problems that older religious figures don't have insight into (a la memes, porn, and smartphones).

[ilopisara]

27.07. 21:44 | Ilo Pisara vs Paappas Sweet Uncles 3 - 1

Well, well, well! Look who just strutted off the ice with a shiny 3-1 victory—us! That's right; we’ve turned our opponents into mere spectators of their own demise. With 15 shots on goal and three glorious pucks finding the net, it’s safe to say we were firing on all cylinders while they were still trying to figure out which end of the stick goes where. Let’s give a round of applause for Jani Saari—the man scored two goals like he was playing against traffic cones instead of actual players. And Teppo Winnipeg? He not only defended but also made offense look easy with one goal and an assist. Meanwhile, Sami Noddy was busy being a defensive wall that even IKEA couldn’t assemble! Now let’s talk about those poor souls from Paappas Sweet Uncles—they might as well have brought spoons instead of sticks because they clearly weren’t ready for this buffet-style beatdown. One measly goal against us? They should consider taking up knitting or something less competitive. Looking ahead: if we keep this momentum going, I’ll need to start charging admission fees just to watch our games! But remember folks: winning is great until you start dancing around like you're auditioning for "Dancing With The Stars." Lace ‘em tight next time or prepare for another dose of my savage humor! 🏒💥

[taughtdefense]

360 degree combat has erupted throughout the cobra kai dojo. you’re tense as you kick away another cobra kai member with a little too much power (oops), sticking close to anthony, who has the ipad in-hand, & is currently waiting for the footage tory typed in to the server to finish uploading to the tv screen. his thoughts are panicked, & you do your best to not let his panic overwhelm you. you try to stick close to anthony, but the fighting just pulls you in all fucking directions, & you wind up a little far away from him, near one of the walls.

since you’re not near anyone who would question or hear it, your simulated heartbeat has ceased, pulse-point nonexistent, & you’re barely remembering to move your shoulders enough to simulate the action of breathing. a thousand lifetimes seem to pass for you as you wait for your the video to upload via wifi, while you’re simultaneously beating back enemy cobra kai members without killing them in the process.

you haven’t stopped moving at all since the fight started, adrenaline keeping you wholly alert to practically everything that’s going on around you. you keep tabs on your friends as best you can in the chaos. you block a kick from one of the students, then drop down to the ground. your hand snaps forward, & the girl doesn't know what to do next. clearly, she'd only recently joined the dojo, probably caught up in the trend. you land a brutal palm heel punch directly to her kidney. she gasps in agony, immediately dropping to the floor like a stone. you rise from the ground, whirling around to face your next opponent you'd sensed approaching.

you don't hesitate before executing a twisting kick directly to the boy’s solar plexus. he gasps in pain. your arm wraps around his neck, & you roll to the floor, taking him to the ground. on the way back up, you manage to block an oncoming punch from another student. you rise, but the boy advances towards you.

jesus christ. it's like they're fucking multiplying. what's that saying about a hydra? cut off one head, two more take its place? because that's what's happening right now. it's inconvenient.

you take a step back, blocking another punch from him before quickly switching styles, deciding to slip into judo because this asshole is not letting up, & you can't spend forever fighting. getting overwhelmed by two students would not be good. you block a roundhouse kick aimed at your arm, automatically picking up on his stance to figure out how to approach him next.

huh. he's not a newcomer to karate. he'd clearly trained with another dojo before cobra kai. he aims another punch at you, which you duck underneath, going to strike at his thigh to get him to collapse to the ground. he lifts his leg up. your punch hits his knee, knuckles colliding with the top portion of the bone. (if you were human & untrained, your body not conditioned, you'd have broken your knuckles, or maybe even your hand). you back away to regroup, your face going blank.

he smirks at you. ❝ nice to see you again, ethan. been a while. ready for another beatdown? ❞

save for your friends & sisters (dami & talia), all of the new, silver-ran cobra kai students started blending together in your head pretty early on. you physically roll your eyes, making sure he can see it. ❝ sorry, do i know you? ❞ you genuinely can't place his face anywhere, he's that forgettable. his eyes fill with annoyance, & his fighting stance switches to one you've seen before.

recognition lights up your hippocampus. oh. this dude was a member of yoshukai karate, a dojo that'd competed in the 2018 all valley. you'd seen him fighting while you were in the stands, sitting next to sam. gotcha.

his name is geffen, or whatever. really, geffen-or-whatever-his-name-is? is that taunt really all he could come up with in the heat of the moment? that's so pathetic it's insulting. anyone could come up with a better taunt with minimum effort.

the goddamn silver voice in your head comes up with better taunts than that.

you’re genuinely surprised that the lights in the dojo haven’t been completely cut thanks to your electrokinesis at any point during the fight, or that you haven’t accidentally glitched out & used your abilities against any fighter in general. your mom & dad would be proud.

❝ did you get your taunts from the back of a cereal box, or are you naturally an idiot? ❞ his eyes flash with anger. easily angered dumbass. you think lazily. maybe he’s been taking lessons on how to be a total fucking dumbass from kyler. your goal is to piss him off so you can end this quickly—but because of his natural boneheaded-ness, that won’t be tough. ❝ i’m gonna go with natural dumbass. ❞

you exhale sharply. blink once. step forward. he's forced to take a step back. by the way he’d flinched, he was anticipating a punch. your right hand whips out to grab geffen-or-whatever's brand new cobra kai sweatshirt, easily bringing your other arm up to block another quick hook punch. it hits your bicep. while he’s angry, you’re scarily calm. you quickly complete a uki otoshi throw before twisting his arm sharply, making sure to put strain on it, almost—almost—breaking it. he groans in pain, unable to escape your grip.

❝ after a year, you’re still all bark & barely any bite. it’s as pathetic to the rest of us as it is delusional for you. i highly suggest you get a change of perspective—❞ you suddenly quiet down to make a fist, the back of your hand colliding with a cobra kai student's face—direct hit, naturally—without even turning towards your would-be assailant. she groans in agony, stumbling away to go fight someone else. smart. blood drips from her nose. you can smell it—you ignore it. your other hand remains preoccupied by holding geffen-or-whatever-his-name-is down in the uki otoshi hold, like punching someone while holding another down is the easiest thing in the world.

as for geffen-or-whatever-his-name-is, his eyes widen in surprise, ❝ —because you’re you’re nowhere near as good as you think you are. ❞ you tell geffen-or-whatever-his-name-is flatly, then punch him square in the face before he can get a word in. his head snaps to the side with a pained groan, colliding with the bare floor, & he passes out.

you're holding your own just fine, clearly. your stored rage keeps you going, the fire racing through your blood never ebbing. it keeps you awake & alert. but your eyes widen in horror as your eyes track kenny moving towards robby like a man possessed, quickly gaining tunnel vision, your eyesight narrowing considerably. you’re pulled away from watching that fight, performing a sweeping kick on a cobra kai student, watching her drop, her head colliding with the floor. you look up again, & just in time to witness kenny perform the fucking silver bullet on robby—

the sounds of fighting fade as ice freezes your blood.

the lights in the dojo flicker three times.

weak. silver’s voice hisses in your head, & it makes you want to lose your fucking mind, to become wholly consumed by your rage. all versions of you feed on this anger, the sort of feedback loop your emotions are tied to making it impossible to just snap out of it. you can’t fucking calm down.

❝ robby! ❞ you scream to your boyfriend, only managing to take a few steps towards him before your shoulder is grabbed, & you’re pulled directly off course, to face some random boy. you waste no time in twisting free from the grab, exhaling sharply. you flip your current opponent over your shoulder in a ippon seoi nage grab. you don’t look at him before making your way over towards robby once more. you fight like hell, blocking punches or rolling out of the way of kicks, hellbent on getting to robby as quickly as possible.

you watch him collapse to the ground, horror filling every inch of your body as he tries to block the three cobra kai students ganging up on him, one of which is kenny. shit! ❝ come on, kick him! kick him! ❞ kenny jeers. the resulting, unadulterated, violent rage makes the blood roar in your ears. you knee another student in the face as hard as you can ( short of killing them ), ignoring his garbled scream, the scent of blood that fills your nostrils.

your head snaps over towards @mecwmellc because miguel is a little closer to robby than you currently are. you open your mouth, only to feel your arm getting yanked backwards suddenly. your hand automatically grabs the side of the boy’s head to flip him onto him side with a little too much force, furious that he interrupted you trying to save your boyfriend. your head snaps up, only to see robby try to block a kick from kenny that semi-connects, your heart plummeting into your stomach. you inhale shakily, rising from the ground.

❝ miguel! go, robby, now! ❞ you scream desperately to your best friend, praying to a higher power you don’t believe in that he understands. the bone-chilling fear in your voice is palpable. you barely sound like yourself anymore, consumed in the tidal waves of unabashed, total desperation to protect robby from harm—the only boy you’ve ever really loved.

[imperial-nuisance-rudje]

this is going to be the dumbest ship shitpost i will ever make (<-future me will consider this a challenge)

transcription for my awful handwriting plus some heavy ff14 spoilers rambling under the cut

FLAVORS OF ZENOS/WOL

"My friend turned into The Ocean and kicked my ass"

"My friend kidnapped me and now I'm a Buduga"

"My friend is kicking my ass because I miss our daughter's birth"

That last one was going to be "my friend is kicking my ass bc I missed our daughter's first three birthdays" but sadly there was not enough room

in shayun's canon, his exaltation only managed to reach him after zenos killed him the first time, plus it was just the closest they ever got to actually fucking bc they're surprisingly congruent types of freaks. so, the dumbass ln title focuses on that. i might end up bringing back z eventually but in the main light party canon they tend to stick to game canon so it's a very big if.

baavgai's canon is wildly off (i STILL need to work out what happens with shb with baavgai, bc he would outright refuse to work with the crystal exarch) but still culminates in the duel, but instead of killing zenos baavgai just cold-clocks him with a thrown carby and (after a lengthy recovery period) drags zenos to the steppe as the one modestly dressed buduga.

momoka's canon involved a lot of attempts to get through zenos's thick skull about what alisaie finally managed to get across, and events that included fucking nasty at the end of everything resulted in momoka having a dynamis baby. zenos doesn't come back with momoka after the duel ends, though, and ends up SomehowTM (it's dynamis i ain't gotta explain shit) washing up on the shore of tural and spends like four years there, recovering and figuring out how to get back to momoka. when they meet in 7.0 it's going to be intense, both bc zenos is going to get a multiple years of grief combined with multiple years of "only not a single parent bc he's poly" beatdown and bc zenos has to deal with meeting the giant rabbit baby who is unmistakably related to him

[radwolf76]

FLASHBack: Week 75 - Pong: It’s Not Just a Game

FLASHBack time again, and this week we're going to look at the Flash Pong: It's Not Just a Game. While this animation was uploaded on Newgrounds on 14 June 2002 (under the title "Pong Gets Personal"), and even earlier to Albino Blacksheep on 19 February 2002, I've found evidence of it being published for widespread online consumption as early as sometime in November 2001 on a site called madblast.com. Newgrounds and Albino Blacksheep list the author as Oska, but who is Oska? Oska is actually Oska Software, an Australian Developer that started out writing educational software for the Japanese market. One edutainment game they wrote featured a koala mascot, and they got the bright idea to repurpose all the animations of the character that they'd already made. Possibly inspired by Microsoft Office's Clippy, they made their koala Oska into a piece of software that would show character on your desktop, floating over other programs, playing different interactive animations. Oska was the first of the company's DeskMates®, but he would quickly be followed by a whole host of others.   Oska had been appropriate for all ages as was another of their DeskMates®, TeeCee, who was sort of a knockoff BonziBUDDY minus the malware nastiness. There was also Fat B an obese beer swigging redneck bastard whose animations were slightly more questionable. However the bulk of the DeskMates® made by Oska Software were straight up pornographic stripper girls who would dance on your computer screen for you. They originally started with just 2D Animation, then evolved to 3D models rendered in 3D Studio Max, and finally they used the profits this venture was turning to hire models for video capture.

Oska Sotfware would advertise their DeskMates® by having their animators work on funny Flash animations when they weren't putting together a new stripper girl. They would embed ads for their web store into the Flashes themselves, and then upload them into the usual places in hopes that the animations would go viral. These Flashes were also the basis of an eCard website they operated, cards-n-toons.com. The bulk of the Flash content on that site was either USA ultra-patriotic post-9/11 propaganda cartoons, or just straight up smut humor, in a similar vein to the software they were trying to sell (and sometimes even staring some of the DeskMates® girls). Both of these categories were likely to be passed around virally among their target demographic. Pong: It's Not Just a Game, being a homage to first generation videogaming as well as a stick figure beatdown Flash, was a bit of an outlier compared to the rest of Oska's Flash content. However, once Oska had the assets drawn for it, they went ahead and made two sequels: Pong: Breakdown, in which the accelerating ball of a continued perfectly horizontal volley breaks the right paddle, and the stick figures inside the paddle decide to go beat up Pac-Man instead, and Pong: Assassin, where the right paddle is letting loose with some Williams Sisters -style Tennis Grunting until a stick figure with a knife comes from offscreen to backstab it.   Even with the implausible storylines, Pong: It's Not Just a Game and its sequels did accurately portray a few aspects of the original Pong Arcade game by Atari. The timing chips on the original motherboard for Pong were not precise enough for the game's sprite drawing routine to keep up with the offset needed to interlace scanlines across both fields of the 30 frames per second refresh rate of the CRT monitors of the time. Instead, it just drew the second field of scanlines directly on top of the first, resulting in the every-other-line appearance that the Oska Pong flashes reproduce.   Secondly, the incident that kicks off the It's Not Just a Game animation, an argument about the ball being "Out", is actually reflective of a real hardware limitation of the original game. The paddles were not allowed full vertical travel of the screen, because of a quirk in how the ball movement logic was wired onto the motherboard. If the paddles had been allowed the full range of motion (or if the adjustment pots on the motherboard were miscalibrated), it was possible in situations where the ball hit the paddle right in the corner of the play field, for the ball to get trapped in the vertical blanking interval of the screen, straddling the top and the bottom of the playfield at the same time and softlocking the game. Rather than fix the ball movement logic, the game was wired to keep the paddles slightly away from the edges, which in practice, sometimes lead to shots that felt like they should have been counted "Out" because the paddle just was not allowed to reach them.   However, the perfect horizontal volley of Pong: Breakdown, while in theory was allowed by the game's 42 velocity vectors for the ball, was in practice very tricky to achieve on the actual arcade hardware, owing to a design error in the original schematics which went undetected for 40 years. The pinout on one of the Integrated Circuits used was misnumbered on the schematic, swapping the #1 pin and the #10 pin. This meant that when the printed circuit board was laid out, there was some crosstalk between the two paddles when they were closely aligned vertically, messing with the zones on the paddle that would bounce the ball at various angles. Only if the paddles were both at the EXACT SAME vertical height would there be a sweet spot exactly in the middle of each that would bounce the ball perfectly horizontally.   That wraps it up for this week. Next week on FLASHBack, we'll finally be getting around to that character that kills puppies, and a different character who saves them, that had to be postponed because of the breaking Magical Trevor news. (Unless some other news breaks about one of the First-Class Flash Artists, then who knows when we'll get to them?)

[heliads]

A Glance Across the Street

Based on this request: “a race oneshot where he realized he’s in love with the reader. she’s doing something (singing, playing with kids, whatever) and he’s awestruck and the boys are teasing him after”

masterlist

Race is mid-conversation with his friends, mid-way through his bag of papers still left unsold. He should be focusing on talking to Albert and Jojo, and he should definitely be trying to get the last few of his papes sold before the night grows too old and he’s out of customers to swindle. He knows all of this, yet his gaze keeps slipping from his fellow newsies or passing bankers to rest on one girl down the block.

Y/N is selling papes too, her grin contagious as she manages to talk even the most persnickety of passersby into purchasing the daily newspaper. Her newsie cap is slightly askew, and Race’s hand twitches by his side as if he longs to fix it, to look down and see her flash him a grateful smile. Honestly, Race is starting to think that he has a problem when it comes to Y/N L/N.

As it turns out, Race is not the only one to notice this: although he attempts to quickly jerk his attention back to the conversation at hand, Albert and Jojo notice the fact that he isn’t quite responding on time and try to figure out what’s got his focus hooked. Albert follows Race’s line of sight and a vicious grin appears on his face. Race tries to look away hurriedly, pretending he was just following the path of a potential customer, but it’s too late- they’ve both seen.

Jojo loops an arm around Race’s shoulders, clasping the other hand firmly over his heart. “Well, if my eyes don’t deceive me, I think Racer here has a little crush.” Race scoffs, pulling away from the boy. “As if. I’m just trying to sell my last papes.” Albert rolls his eyes. “Is that why you haven’t sold one in half an hour? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’se trying to lose money.”

This is a fierce accusation for a newsboy who prides himself on his ability to make any deal to even the most unlikely of customers, and Albert knows it. So, when Race snatches his cap from his mess of blond curls, ready to swat it most brutally into Albert’s head, the red-haired boy is able to easily dart away in time to avoid the killing blow. Race tries one last time, but his attacks fall short when he hears a voice from behind him.

“What’s going on here? Why are you trying to murder Albert?” Race’s eyes widen in spite of himself, and he straightens up hurriedly, slapping his hat back on his head as if he’d just been stretching. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’re just having a, uh, friendly conversation.” Albert looks positively gleeful over this, but he doesn’t say a word. Y/N raises her eyebrows. “I don’t know about that. I’d swear there was going to be bloodshed.”

Albert may be willing to save him from the fires this once, but Jojo is not so generous. Instead, he casually leans on Y/N’s shoulder, practically savoring the way Race’s shoulders stiffen. Race does his best to ignore this, forcing a casual smile. “Well, maybe Albert deserved it. You know him.” Y/N tilts her head to the side, considering this. “I do know him. What’s he done now?” Albert and Jojo look between Race and Y/N like they’re watching a sports match, curious as to what explanation Race can manage without telling her the true reason for the near beatdown.

Race mentally stumbles for a moment, then comes up with a scrap of something. “He insulted my brand of cigars. I couldn’t have that, could I?” Y/N’s eyes glint with barely contained amusement, and Race thanks everything holy that his excuse held up. “Oh, I get it now. I’m sorry to interrupt the carnage.” Race grabs Y/N’s hand, pulling her away from Albert, Jojo, and their twin mocking expressions to continue walking down the street.

“That’s alright. Now, come on- I think I saw a few tourists. Think we can scam ‘em?” Y/N laughs as she follows him down the block. “Without a doubt. Is that them?” She jerks her chin towards a cluster of families pausing by a florist, all of them in the newest fashions. They practically reek of wealth, which makes them the perfect targets for newsies in desperate need of unloading some papes. Race nods, and Y/N’s grin widens. “Oh, this is going to be fun. Race you there, Racer!”

She takes off down the street, spinning past cobblestones. The sound of her laugh, lighter than a summer breeze, lingers by Race’s side for a moment longer. Although Race knows he should follow her and at least try to sell some of his papes before all of the tourists are gone, he feels stuck in place, unable to do anything except watch her go. There’s a smile tugging at his lips before he realizes it. He tries to stow this a second later, except it’s a little hard to be serious when there’s a girl like Y/N right next to him.

He manages it in the end, as he always seems to do. Race isn’t sure what happened to make him turn into this stumbling mess whenever Y/N’s with him, but the habit keeps seeming to stick. He hasn’t always been like this, it’s only a recent incident, but no matter what he tries Race can’t go back to seeing Y/N as a friend and a friend alone. Sometimes, he wants to knock himself upside the head, hoping that a brief concussion might restore his thoughts, although Race is fairly certain that even this hit might make him even more of a grinning idiot where a certain newsgirl is concerned.

Later that week, Race is hit by that same bout of hopeless staring, although this time it’s even worse than before. It comes over him like a wave, threatening to pull him under entirely. He had been turning the street, walking from one block to another in the hopes of finding some idiot with a purse full of coins who’d be willing to shell out a little more than usual to a newsboy on the street. Maybe this is why his crush hits him so hard- he’d had no time to prepare, nothing to center himself around except this sudden sight of the girl before him.

All of a sudden, there she was, talking to a group of kids she’d met on the street. They stare at her with the same sort of loopy smile Race wears now, like they’d follow her anywhere so long as she gave the word. Honestly, Race may get a little jittery around the Brooklyn boys or the cops when there are too many of them, but the hold Y/N has on him scares him even more than that. He’d do anything she asked of him, no matter what or how. He can’t run from that kind of influence, just go along with it and hope he didn’t get worse.

Y/N crouches down now, the edges of her skirts rustling lightly over the uneven cobblestones. She reaches out a hand to a nearby girl, one who would barely come up to her ribs unless Y/N was kneeling as she is now. The little girl presses a careful coin into the awaiting hand, and Y/N hands her a newspaper in return. Race can see her pointing out the different pictures on the front, explaining them with that same slow voice she gets when the night is late and drowsiness slips through every syllable. This time, though, she’s not tired, just speaking in a way that kids who barely know anything can understand. Maybe that’s all Race is, too, a kid with half a brain and some stupid lovesick gaze he can’t seem to shake.

Y/N stands up, stretching, as the little girl leaves. A few more kids linger by her knees, and she talks to each of them in turn, patience coming eternal even by the point when Race would have started getting a little restless had it been him there instead of her. One of the kids hands her a flower he managed to find from somewhere, and Y/N tucks it behind her ear, smiling as if it’s a jeweled tiara instead of a little sprig of a plant that’s more leaf than petal.

She turns now, as if she can sense someone watching her, and finds Race from where he’s hidden by the crowd. She smiles at him, the simple expression almost enough to knock him over. There’s a soft slight in her face, as if she’s a little self-conscious to be caught talking so eagerly with the kids, but Race could never make fun of her for a second. Instead, he lets his own smile widen in return, and Y/N looks almost relieved. She mouths something about catching up to him in a second, then turns back to the kids when one of them tugs at her hand.

Now that he’s been caught, Race should probably keep moving down the block, at least doing something to keep up the pretense that he’s just selling papes instead of simply staring with that same jump in his heart. However, he can’t quite convince his feet to move, like his body is perfectly fine with just watching her there. It’s just the way the light washes golden over her hair, the sunbeam force of her smile, the twist of her hand and head as she speaks. Race has seen the way the rich neighbours stare at artworks, entranced by mere brushstrokes. If that’s what it looks like to fall in love with a mere painting, then Y/N might be an entire museum full of masterpieces.

That describes it, doesn’t it? He’s in love. Stupidly, crazily, whole-heartedly in love. There’s no way to describe it. Race has had crushes before, on rich girls with silken bows and laughing girls who talk to him as they leave the factories after work. None of those seem even remotely close to the hold Y/N has on him now, like all those kisses and offered flowers were just practice for this.

Maybe he’s too lost in his own thoughts, or the way Y/N seems to call an entire city to her like the star of a show, but Race doesn’t hear Albert and Jojo appearing behind him until it’s too late and they’re already upon him. Albert is crowing at him, face wrought over with victory. “It’s official. You’re completely hopeless for Y/N.” Race moves to deny this, but it’s too late- they have enough evidence to tease him for the rest of his life.

Jojo looks almost incredulous. “Wasn’t it just yesterday that you was telling me about how you’d never spend too much of your time trippin’ over some goil? Look at you now! Albert, he’s practically thinking about marriage.” Albert pretends to be severely affected by this thought. “I can see it in his eyes. He might already be picking out the rings.”

Race rolls his eyes. “I don’t know what you’se talking about. Y/N’s a friend.” Albert and Jojo actually burst out laughing, and Race wants to hit them. “She’s a friend? Race, if you look at your friends like that I’m getting locks on the doors. You’se in love, and it’s hilarious.” Race fishes around for some excuse or retort, finds nothing, and resorts to the time-honored classic of trying to hit them. “Some friends you are. No wonder I like Y/N- she doesn’t do this to me.”

Jojo hoots with laughter. “He admits it! Truth at last!” Albert sighs dramatically. “Did you hear his voice? He’s overcome with emotion.” Race lets scorn drip into his every word. “Overcome with emotion? Where’d you pick that up- off a pape?” Albert scoffs. “No, I read it off the cover of a book in a shop window, like somebody respectable.”

A voice comes from behind them once more, and Race wonders silently why he has to keep finding himself in this exact situation. “Somebody respectable? Albert, no offense, but I have never once seen anyone do that.” Albert’s expression grows worryingly bright, as if he’s just had a terrible idea, and he turns to face a newly arrived Y/N with a grin. “I’d usually argue on that, but I want to make time for someone else. Racer here was just saying something about how he needed to talk to you.”

Jojo’s eyes glint, like he’s caught on to Albert’s plan. “Yeah, actually, he was. Said it was something very important.” Albert nods solemnly. “Very, very important. We’d better leave now, so he can say it.” The two boys exchange looks, then practically jog off, although Jojo makes sure to give Race a very obvious thumbs up before they go. Race is about to seriously consider murder, but then a hand lands on his arm and he’s brought back to reality once more.

Y/N considers him, one eyebrow raised. “Well, I do have to admit that I’m a little worried by how excited they looked about that, but I am a little curious. What do you have to talk about?” Race knows what he should say, what Jojo and Albert no doubt want him to do, but the words stick a little in his throat. He remains silent for a little too long, and Y/N crosses her arms across her chest. “Well? I’m waiting.”

Race searches desperately for something to say, anything, but he has no idea how to start. Y/N’s look of curiosity is starting to bleed away into boredom, and Race is gripped by the sudden terror that she’ll leave before he can say anything at all, despite how terrifying it is to even think about telling her how he feels. So, he leans forward and kisses her before he can talk himself out of anything else.

Now Y/N doesn’t speak, not at all, and Race can’t think about anything except the fact that he might have ruined everything, once and for all. Then her face splits into this incredible grin, and Race feels like the ground has broken up beneath him and he’s falling, falling, until he can’t feel anything at all. “That’s what you wanted to talk about?” Race doesn’t know what to say. Again. “Uh, yes.”

She laughs, and Race thinks that he could have gladly listened to that sound every morning. Let the sound of her laugh replace the church bells, and he would have happily attended every sermon. “You’re an idiot.” Race nods. “Yes.” He’s not sure that he’s supposed to be agreeing to this, but she’s got him caught in her gaze again and he feels as if he can’t move a muscle. “Kiss me again, and I might just forgive you for waiting this long.”

Race grins, his confidence finally starting to return to him again. “Well, I like the sound of that.” He’s not about to refuse her this time, so he reaches forward, gently guiding her face back to his once more. 

[farvaduvet]

I was about to ask what kind of character was Wilted pit going to be, as in was he going to become a minor or major enemy, an ally or perhaps just a victim of circumstance.

You just answer the question with the drawings you posted, most likely becoming a friend to pit(oo)

yeah i can't just throw the boy through the wringer and not give him a happy ending lolll. and dark pit gets his own redemption arc in canon (if you can even call it a redemption? a 'learning to give a damn about people' arc) so wilty has to get in on that sweet sweet ally juice too in my au

Wilted Pit is technically an enemy for most of the storyline, serving under Pandora and then Medusa and then Hades once both are taken out. but he's never that antagonistic in personality. he's just a Nice Little Guy. who keeps getting sent to make Pit's life a living hell. but Wilty would quite like to make friends with him, since they're the only angels around, even if most of what he receives is open hostility. what really drives Wilted Pit to the side of the Underworld is rejection from Pit and Viridi, not really actually being evil. at least the Underworld isn't trying to kill him, unlike everyone else.

but of course the Chaos Kin arc happens, so when Pit gets turned into a ring for three years, Wilted Pit gets knocked out. Hades ditches him at this point, leaving him stranded in the middle of nowhere.

Palutena ends up finding him unconscious and taking him back to Skyworld. she'd always wanted to take him in, in the same way she would do that for Pit, but Pit was so blatantly hostile towards her that she assumed Wilted Pit would be the same way. anyone serving the Underworld seems an unlikely candidate for switching sides to the Light Army, anyways.

Wilted Pit and Palutena obviously get along (like they do in canon), and both of them are integral to helping Pit rescue Viridi and kill off the Chaos Kin. Pit isn't happy about this at first, but eventually warms up to them-- he's got a lot in common with Wilty, and their common ground eventually lets Pit open up to him about his Repressed Feelings of loneliness and worthlessness in the eyes of the gods. Viridi getting taken over by the Chaos Kin was kind of the last straw for Pit. obviously, she's possessed, but getting rejected by the one god he thought was cool enough to treat him like an actual person hurts pretty bad. bad enough to feel like giving up entirely. so getting that recognition from Wilted Pit (and Palutena too) is what motivates him to keep trying to save the world instead of leaving it to the dust.

he's not the kind of person to throw himself to the dogs for someone else, but when Wilted Pit gets dragged down into the vortex by the Chaos Kin's remains, all Pit can think to do is go in after him.

blah blah, they've all gotta go revive him, so Wilty flies down to the rewind spring. along the way he gives Palutena and Viridi a little beatdown about why "teamwork makes the dream work" and effectively convinces the two goddesses to stop warring with each other and team up to fight Hades.

his arc gets a culmination when Pandora pops up again at the Rewind Spring right when he's about to dip Pit in the water. she calls him out for betraying her, and he feels real bad about it, not entirely rid of his Underworld allegiance-- but he's able to kick Pit into the water just enough while she's got him grabbed. Pit comes back to give some Defense to his Homie and then they kick her ass together once and for all.

after that, Wilted Pit sticks around as an ally. i haven't entirely figured out how the endgame plays out but he's there as Palutena's servant.

(not me writing a boatload of crap about my au again lmaooo)

[dei2dei]

These three hot messes are my OT3.

I mean, I particularly love that they're constantly changing places, too. There's no "when these three are together it always has to be A, B, C" they're just all over the place. They fought together for years, everybody's still friends (mostly), Sonya uses Kenshi's first name and skips her daughter's birthday to go extract him from Pakistan, Johnny's the guy who got Kenshi into the group in the first place (in DA, anyway) and I just think they'd be so much fun together. Neither of them let Sonya get away with her bullshit (Kenshi maaaybe encourages her, what with not interfering with her beatdown on Kano and all -- Johnny interferes). A couple A bunch of headcanons for this threesome: * Kenshi knows when Johnny's having issues with staying clean/sober/what sent him to rehab. * Johnny takes an inordinate amount of glee in the three of them going out in public and the paparazzi trying to sort it out. He also spends way too much time not confirming anything on social media and just posting pictures of various antics. * Sonya is mortified about how to introduce them and what this means for her career so she just sticks to "my ex-husband" and "my partner". * Johnny has to occasionally reason Sonya and Kenshi out of impulsive bad decisions and their obsessions. He's got logic when it matters, like interrupting Sonya's beatdown on Kano. * This polycule works for them because Johnny still films and has the LA condo, and Kenshi still does consulting work in Outworld and elsewhere and would have his own base apt at least, so they're not always all together. They have separate lives, but then they also make a point of sharing time as a unit and not discrete pairs.

* Sonya sometimes gets overwhelmed by having them both around at the same time, so Johnny and Kenshi will sometimes take off so she can have some time to recover. She spends most of the time wondering if she's going to have to bail them out of prison, given Kenshi's inability to turn down a challenge/dare, and Johnny's own childlike mischief-making.

And most importantly... the kids don't know, or are in absolute denial about it. (Jacqui especially.) (why yes I have about 4k of self-indulgent adults-figuring-this-poly-thing-out written that I might try to finish in time for the @polyamships day this month; I was going to save it for my birthday as my gift to myself, but we'll see if I can sort it out before then.)

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed - Episode 02

Warning: Spoilers for all 50 episodes!

(Masterpost ) (Previous Episode) (Next Episode)

Donkey Riding

way ho and away we go, donkey riding donkey riding way ho and away we go, riding on a donkey

Wei Wuxian and Apple are doing their best for the Ministry of Culture and Tourism. 

Xiao Zhan had trouble riding the donkey sitting side-saddle, so the Department of Questionable Practical Effects made him a fake leg to wear while riding regular style. 

Can you spot it? It’s very hard to spot. It is very convincing.

Simple Pleasures

Wei Wuxian takes his time wandering up the nearest mountain, and half of the cultivators in the land also wander up this mountain because...Night Hunting! The cultivators are hot and thirsty from walking because they forgot that they all know how to fly. 

Wei Wuxian relaxes by a well and listens to people stanning him. 

Also

I’m going to say it: Wei Wuxian never met a drinking vessel he couldn’t blow.

Everything is Beautiful at the Ballet

The actress who plays A-Yan is named Zhang Linran. She probably has studied dance since she was 4 and now she gets her big break which turns out to be feeding an apple to a donkey. So let’s pause for a second to look at how beautifully she moves.  

Reunions are Awkward, Part 1

Wei Wuxian meets up with one of his family members and it goes super well. 

I...like Jin Ling? He’s much less of a douchebag than his dad, his uncles Jin, Jiang, and Mo (the three stooges), and every damn one of his Jin cousins. He’s genuinely brave (his Dad’s primary good quality) and his hair is on fleek. He’s still a whiny diaper baby, but I like him. 

(much more after the cut!)

Then Jiang Cheng shows up, looking fine as hell and radiating peak arrogant-prick energy.

When he discovers that ‘Mo Xuanyu” stuck a piece of paper to Jin Ling, he tells the child to literally murder him. Excellent uncleing! A+++++ would recommend.  

“In fact, literally murder anyone who uses Yiling Laozu’s tools, like talismans, lure flags, or spirit compasses - basically murder everyone in the Lan Clan plus those other fanboys we saw coming up the hill. Then get out there and make some friends, goddamn it!”

These nets full of cultivators on this daytime night hunt are the only time we ever see anything in a net during a night hunt.  In fact dudes constantly go night hunting and the only prey we ever see is rock lady, murder turtle, and a couple of rag mops in the lake. 

You Are Not Qualified to Speak to Me

Also radiating arrogant-prick energy on this occasion is Lan Wangji. He has been using pettiness as a weapon since long before he met this Jiang Cheng turkey, and he *brings it* when Jiang Cheng tries to have a conversation with him.

Letting your eyes wander everywhere except to his punchable face while you ignore his passive-aggressive questions? Quality work. 

Dropping a silence spell on his child and then letting your own child explain it to him? Golden. 

Lan Wangji is never ever going to forgive Jiang Cheng for what he did on cliff day, and his silence here is as pointed as an ice pick. I suspect the last words Lan Wangji actually spoke to him were “Jiang Wanyin, stop it,” sixteen years ago. 

Jiang Cheng is actually the bigger person in this particular interaction, visibly mastering his temper and telling Jin Ling to take his medicine. 

Reflecting

Wei Wuxian hangs out by a beautiful river and hallucinates for a while. River Jiang Yanli is nurturing and River Jiang Cheng is pissed off, so there are no surprises there.  River Jiang Cheng thinks that Wei Wuxian is a promise-breaking douchebag. He’s not exactly wrong. 

Courtesy of convenient gossiping cultivators, Wei Wuxian discovers that the 16 year old arrogant kid from the Jin clan who his brother from the Jiang clan has custody of is actually and quite obviously Jin Rulan.

Well fuck I guess now I care about something, that’s inconvenient. 

Needing to help parent the child of the sister who parented him is what draws Wei Wuxian fully into his new life. 

As soon as he has this realization, Apple comes back from roaming around, and never gives him any trouble after this for the rest of the story. Which...probably doesn’t mean anything. 

Wen Gravesite

Does Wen Ning hang out here because it’s where he and his (dead) people came from? Oh great, now I am sad. 

Judging by all the leaves on this grave thingy I’m going to say that this grave tender dude is, ah, not very good at his job. 

Get him, Jingyi!

I feel like maybe we all focus too much on how Lan Jingyi is so hilarious and sardonic and not enough on how he is a such a biscuit. 

Soul Grass

As mentioned in the previous post, Chinese spiritual concepts don’t always translate well into English. Soul grass? Sure, why not. 

This is where Wei Wuxian’s Sherlock Holmes brain starts to work, although he still doesn’t remember really basic stuff about Dafan Mountain. Dying and changing bodies is rough on the old neurochemistry. This creates more opportunities for flashbacks, however, and if there’s one thing The Untamed deffo needs more of, it’s kissing flashbacks.

Temple Statue

Presumably grave-tender dude is also in charge of clearing away spiderwebs at the temple, because it’s not getting done. 

Jin Ling walks into the temple blaspheming at full volume. 

Since this isn’t a Greek story, he isn’t immediately struck blind for this. Then when he wishes for the statue to come alive, it obligingly does.  Everything’s coming up Rulan!

Wei Wuxian shows up to rescue all the kids by throwing talismans at the monster which does not tip anyone off to who he is. 

Baby Cultivator Babysitting

Lan Wangji chills out in the cultivators’ pavilion with Jiang Cheng and their mutual hate boners.

Meanwhile, Wei Wuxian forgets all about his nephew and turns into cool professor guy, explaining the basics of soul-eating to the baby cultivators and gleefully encouraging their fear of Hanguang-Jun’s punishments. 

Because the Lan babies are good filial children they are super respectful and engaged with this random adult who is lecturing them. They also - like their own Hanguang-Jun at their age - see and admire Wei Wuxian’s intellect. It’s easy to forget how extremely smart Wei Wuxian is, because of how extremely dumb Wei Wuxian is.

Lan Jingyi suddenly figures out Wei Wuxian is not crazy. 

Bis. Kit. 

Then Rock Lady shows up and Jin Ling sticks 6 arrows into her while Lans Jingyi and Sizhui stand around not bothering to draw their swords.

I see a lot of comments about the bad effects in the statue sequences but I think Rock Lady is all right. The figure animation is decent and the lighting is no worse on her than on everything else in the scene. Her hair is nice, for a rock person.

Admittedly I just finished watching Guardian which has CGI monsters so bad they may have injured my retinas and possibly also my DNA, so the bar, for me, is pretty low. Rock lady clears it with room to spare.   

Note: Wei Wuxian’s flute playing does zippity towards controlling the statue. Not sure what his plan was here.

Wen Ning Kicks Ass

Now we get to meet Wen Ning, who appears to be a stone-cold badass. Later we will discover how hilariously inaccurate that assessment is. 

While all versions of Wen Ning are delightful, this version of Wen Ning is also...strangely attractive? He’s got a Patti-Smith-Horses-Era vibe here, instead of his more usual lost-baby-dork vibe. And his dreamy “I have nails in my head” expression is intriguing. 

I mean, he’s not a total snack like zombie Song Lan or pre-zombie Song Lan or blind Song Lan or post-zombie Song Lan, but this look is a good one for Wen Ning, is what I’m saying.

Reunions are Awkward, Part 2

Lan Wangji, who has 99% already recognized Wei Wuxian because of the haunted sword and the fierce jawline and beautiful neck and tiny tiny waist, is summoned by his flute playing as inexorably as the Ghost General was. 

Jiang Cheng also recognizes Wei Wuxian and goes into full beatdown mode, thwarted (silently) by Lan Wangji. Wei Wuxian attempts to preserve his incognito by sassing Jiang Cheng in as sibling-like a manner as possible. 

Hanguang-Jun’s Pro-Ghost Agenda Has Been Clear for Some Time

This Jiang/Lan fight is hilarious when you consider the implications.

Macroexpression vs. Microexpression

Mo Xuanyu brought Wei Wuxian back using sacrifice summons, a dark ritual invented by Wei Wuxian that he, most likely, did NOT show to Lan Wangji back in the day. So it’s a pretty safe bet that Lan Wangji doesn’t know that Wei Wuxian was gifted a body, rather than stealing one.

when your brother turns around, you must whip him you will never live it down unless you whip him

When Jiang Cheng lets loose with Zidian, it’s not just because he’s angry. He’s using purple power to force Wei Wuxian’s ghost out of the body he’s apparently possessed. And Lan Wangji instantly STOPS him from doing that.

Clan Leader Jiang: this person has been possessed, against their will, by an evil ghost

Future Chief Cultivator Lan: Counterpoint: I am banging the ghost

Flashback Time

Welcome to your 30-episode flashback!

Once I used to join in Every boy and girl was my friend Now there's revolution, but they don't know What they're fighting

Let us close our eyes Outside their lives go on much faster Oh, we won't give in We'll keep living in the past

Road Tripping to Summer School

Gosh I’m looking forward to younger, kinder, more relatable Jiang Cheng.

...prick. 

Incidentally, until now this episode didn’t know that Jiang Cheng has smile muscles, and neither did the person who glued his wig on for him.

I Like Rabbits

Here we have our first rabbit in a large collection of rabbit iconography that appears in The Untamed. 

Instead of sending everyone to the Wikipedia page for Tu'er Shen I’m going to take this opportunity to rec the short film Kiss of the Rabbit God by Andrew Thomas Huang (tw: blood, tw:body-mod cutting) which you can read about and watch over at  Nowness.com 

Particularly if you are a queer person of Chinese heritage, check it out. 

So. What the fuck are these? Are they food? 

Are they made from wax? Or corn starch? or pig intestines? 

Wei Wuxian runs off to get laid drunk and Jiang Cheng grumps about it. Jiang Yanli reminds him that being free is a Jiang Clan Rule, so really Wei Wuxian is following the rules by not following the rules. Does that mean he’s not free? My head hurts. 

Jiang Cheng: yes but grump grump grump

Jiang Yanli: Nothing bad will ever happen because of A-Xian’s choices, trust me

Outro

Wei Wuxian faint tally: one  Caught by: the cold hard ground

Soundtrack: 1. Donkey Riding by Great Big Sea 2. Living in the Past by Jethro Tull 3. Whip It by Devo

Fic prompt:  Lan Wangji’s internal monologue while he sits in the pavilion with Jiang Cheng 

If you write a fic from this prompt and want to share, please post a link in comments!

Bonus: Wang Zuocheng, macro-expression king

Episode 03 Restless Rewatch coming soon!

[asscandles]

Hey thanks for clarifying before now can I have some friendship(maybe secret crush)headcanons for Fuyuhiko, Peko, and Toko with a friend(reader) thats llike your generic dumbass but they are just like a soft dumbass, they are just too cute to get mad at no matter how stupid they are. So basically a giant cuddly dumbass that just radiate baby energy. Like they(reader)just run up to them saying they want to show them something cool and its just a pretty rock but they look so happy. gender neutral.

ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴋɪɴᴅ ᴏꜰ ʟᴏɴɢ, ꜱᴏ ɪ ᴅᴇᴄɪᴅᴇᴅ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴜᴛ ɪᴛ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄᴜᴛ. ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴀ ʟᴏᴛ ᴏꜰ ꜰᴜɴ ᴛᴏ ᴡʀɪᴛᴇ, ꜱᴏ ɪ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ʜᴏᴘᴇ ʏᴏᴜ ᴇɴᴊᴏʏ ɪᴛ! ʙᴜᴛ, ɪꜰ ɪᴛ ɪꜱɴ’ᴛ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ, ɪ’ᴍ ꜱᴏʀʀʏ!

ɪ ᴀʟꜱᴏ ꜰɪɴɪꜱʜᴇᴅ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴀᴛ 3:26 ᴀᴍ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛᴡᴏ ᴡᴇᴇᴋꜱ ʟᴀᴛᴇ, ɪ’ᴍ ᴀʟꜱᴏ ꜱᴏʀʀʏ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜱᴋᴀʟꜰꜰᴅᴊᴋꜰ��ʟ

ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢꜱ: ʟᴀɴɢᴜᴀɢᴇ

Peko Pekoyama

“I--What are you doing?”

You stand on the counter, arms extended straight out at your sides. You continue staring ahead with an expressionless face. “I see no god up here… other than me!”

Peko sighs, and you immediately look down at her with round eyes. “Oh, but you’ll always be my queen, Peko! I want you by my side forever!”

Since Peko is always wielding/cleaning her sword, you carry around pastel-colored bandaids and a small first-aid kit in your backpack.

You’re usually by her side, so your absence is always noticed quickly, if not immediately.

You once fell asleep somewhere you shouldn’t have, leaving Peko to ravage the island, searching every nook and cranny until she finally found you curled up in a corner of the airport. All she could do was sigh and crack a tiny, relieved smile. She transfers her sword to her hands before easing you onto her back. Her heart swells when you mumble something and wrap your arms around her neck. All the way back to your cottage, she chides you quietly.

“It’s not safe to be so vulnerable out here. If you’re going to fall asleep out here, do it while I’m with you. Then, you can sleep as soundly as you want.”

M A T C H I N G  B R A C E L E T S

You excitedly gave Peko a card to celebrate the anniversary of your friendship. Peko snorted upon seeing that all of the drawings inside were either stick figures or poorly colored. But you just looked so happy… she couldn’t even bring herself to tease you about it.

You both refuse to speak of this, but one night, Peko woke up to the flickering of a faint light and feverish whispering. She had switched into attack mode in a fraction of a second, only to stop dead in her tracks. You had been standing in the middle of the room, doing the renegade by the light of your phone. You froze upon her reaction. Both of you sat there, staring at each other for a solid twelve seconds. You then proceeded to finish the dance, looking her dead in the eye. Peko may have be tired, but she’d be damned if she let you do it alone. So, she does it while standing on her bed, but clearly lacking energy and motivation.

Ambushing Peko with affection is not uncommon for you. It happens rather often, you clinging to her waist and pleading with her, “Hey, tell me that story again! You know, the one where Fuyuhiko was being held captive and you swooped in with your sword and saved the day!”

When you found out that Peko loved fluffy things, you were ecstatic. You bundled her into your cottage immediately, showing off a small collection of stuffed animals that you had managed to cram into your backpack before your arrival at the island.

Peko selects a white cat plushie as her favorite. From that point on, it is your child. No arguments.

You tend to get lost, so Peko sarcastically suggested tying a balloon to your wrist so that you would be easier to find. But, you totally caught her off guard when your eyes began to sparkle and you shouted, “Can I pick the color?” When she doesn’t answer immediately, you grab her hands and hold them close to your own chest endearingly. “Pretty please? With marshmallows and cookie crumble and whipped cream and sprinkles on top?” Peko obliges. When the balloon is finally secured around your wrist, you are absolutely fascinated by it.

You often fawn over Peko’s skills; but when you do, you use interjections and sound effects because you aren’t able to convey your excitement with just words.

Okay, but she’s actually worried about you lmao

“You have… a lot of mosquito bites. What happened?”

“What? They’re not bites! They were giving me kisses, silly!”

You’ve tried multiple times to surprise her with tickle attacks, but they never work. The only time it went according to plan, you managed to get your hands on her for exactly 0.7 seconds before she turned the tables on you.

Platonic dates? Platonic dates.

You’ve 100% made her flower crowns whose petals match the color of her eyes. 

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu

“So… I saw some sour candy in the supermarket. If you lend me the money, I’ll give you half of the rocks I found.” :)

“Considering the fact that you get an adrenaline rush from successfully flipping a pancake, a single piece would kill you immediately.”

Everyone who discovers you two are friends is immediately suspicious. When I say suspicious, I mean, “(Reader), whatever blackmail he’s holding over your head, you don’t have to be scared. We can take care of this together.”

But after witnessing a few of your interactions, they learn of one irrefutable fact.

The embodiment of rage and vulgarity bottled up in human skin does indeed have a weakness.

And that weakness is you.

It didn’t take long for Fuyuhiko to become aware of your appreciation for stickers and your tender heart. That being said, when you’re upset, he won’t object too severely when you request to smooth stickers all over him. He would prefer to keep this interaction private, but if someone does happen to catch him with giraffe stickers on his cheeks and rainbows on his jacket, then he’s going to wear them proudly, goddamnit.

And if anyone has anything rude to say about it, then I hope they can speak sign language, because all they’ll be seeing is hands.

You’re aware of his insecurities, and you can understand why he feels the way that he does. But that’s where you come in. You always seem to approach him at the right moments. 

By now, you’ve figured out that he doesn’t always need words to reassure him. It’s enough if you’re just there, ready with open arms and a glass of water. Fuyuhiko doesn’t cry often. But when he does, he ends up dehydrated more often than not.

Let’s be honest. After Fuyuhiko lost his eye, his depth perception was most likely shit. You were always at his side, one hand on his arm as you gently guided him from room to room. You watched over him.

Accidentally knocking over a drink? You were ready to wipe it up. Searching for something he lost? You were there, helping him look. Tripping or bumping into things? You were there with a first aid kit to patch him up.

You try to match his level of sass, but you’re highkey too nervous to swear and you usually stutter the last word of whatever witty comeback you manage to come up with. Fuyuhiko secretly thinks it’s adorable, and he doesn’t want you to lose that part of yourself. That’s why he always defends you when it comes to verbal beatdowns.

You once drew a face on an egg, and when Fuyuhiko questioned you about it, the only thing you could offer was a deadpan “our son.”

“What the hell--that’s an egg.”

“No! His name is Linguini and he’s our child!”

Fuyuhiko is exhausted bro.

You’ve approached him countless times, eyes glowing with awe and insisting that you need to show him something really cool. It’s usually just a rock or a piece of glass, though. He always has the urge to poke fun at you for it, but it fizzles away when he sees how utterly bewitched you are with your find.

One time, he had walked into the room to see you standing on the arms of an office swivel chair, knees bent and arms extended as you fought to maintain your balance. You seemed to be fairly steady.

Still, that didn’t prevent him from nearly falling into cardiac arrest on the spot.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

It had startled you, and the chair rolled out from underneath you. Fuyuhiko rushed to catch you. You both tumbled to the floor in a knot of limbs, lying there in varying degrees of pain. You were laughing. Fuyuhiko was absolutely most fucking not.

“Thanks for breaking my fall!” You had chirped, gesturing to the arm lodged under the small of your back to protect it.

“You little--” Fuyuhiko’s voice had been strained, but his tight-lipped grimace dissolved into a sigh at the sight of your smile. He disentangled himself from you and pressed the pad of his index finger into your forehead. Your lips formed a small “o” shape, your eyes crossing to try to keep track of his finger. “You need to be more careful from now on. I won’t always be here to catch you.”

“But, you’ll still patch me up afterward, right?” You poked his forehead back.

He huffed and pulled away from you. “To the best of my ability. But don’t push it.”

Toko Fukawa

Initially, the only reason that Toko set aside her natural distrust and suspicion of people in order to befriend you was because she thought that you were simply too innocent and simple-minded to ever think badly of a friend.

She thought that having such a sweetheart glued to her side would disperse her dubious reputation and make her seem less suspicious during class trials.

Yep… That’s the only reason she keeps you around...

Not because of the way her heart feels all fuzzy when you embrace her… Or because of how your eyes sparkle whenever she offers to let you read one of her new works… Or because of how relaxed she feels when you weave her hair into intricate braids…

Not at all…

Hahahashutuphahaha…

She often scolds you for being such a pushover when people disrespect you, but she means well. You insist that it doesn’t bother you, but she’s an expert on human emotion. She is a writer, after all. She knows that it haunts your thoughts for a while afterward, and she hates seeing you like that.

You’ve noticed that Toko bites her nails when she’s stressed, so you’ve decided to combat her habit by applying nail polish to her nails. That way, you figure, the taste of the nail polish will deter her from tearing at them with her teeth. She also has the option of picking off the nail polish, which is probably less harmful than chewing on them.

You also kinda sorta... believe that video game cheat codes work in real life, so you’re often moving around and jumping, shouting the combinations as you go.

“Right! Right! Left! Up! Left! Down! Right! X! Y! Now, confess your sins!” You command during a class trial, pointing vaguely toward the accused. Toko just quietly shushes you, dark circles rimming her eyes as she pats your head.

You’ve adopted the habit of narrating the things you do, like whispering “wiggle, wiggle, wiggle” when sliding your feet into your shoes and “shimmy, shimmy, shimmy” when slipping your charm bracelet past your hand onto your wrist. Coincidentally, Toko has also subconsciously started doing the same thing, and she cannot think of anything more irritating.

She once jokingly told you to stop being so dependent on her. You promptly flushed scarlet and snatched the box she had been carrying out of her hands, insisting that you were more than capable of taking it to storage yourself. You had marched indignantly out of the room and headed left, only for Toko to call out, “Uh, storage is the other way.”

You reappeared a moment later, now stomping in the opposite direction. “I knew that!” You huffed.

You’re aware of Genocide Jack, but you aren’t afraid. You whole-heartedly trust that your friendship is enough to outmatch Genocide Jack’s bloodlust, as naive as it may be. Your only response to Toko’s confession of having a split personality is to gift her a cherry-flavored lip balm with a bright smile. At first, Toko is confused. You explain that whenever Genocide Jack makes an appearance, their tongue is always lolling out of their mouth. You’re concerned that their lips will get dried out, and you want to do your best to prevent it.

Did Toko’s heart just burst? Maybe.

Toko shares her romance novels with you, but only the ones without sexual interactions. She believes that you’re far too pure for those. Plus, she would really not rather answer your questions about anything of that nature.

Toko is determined to preserve your purity. She’s very protective whenever someone shows the slightest bit of sexual or romantic interest in you, and has even referred to you as her baby before.

Whenever Toko gets insecure or anxious and covers her face with her hands, you gently remove them from her face with a soft giggle of “Peekaboo!” Toko doesn’t fight you as you carefully pull her into your arms and rest her head against your chest. In fact, she finds herself surprisingly close to tears when you inquire, “Hey, you want to hear a lullaby? I can’t remember who sang it to me first, but it always helps me calm down. So, I want to share it with you!”

There will be times when Toko is too busy writing stories to pay you any attention. But no matter! After a moment of consideration, you have an idea. You gather blankets and pillows and settle onto the floor beside Toko’s seat. Your arms loop themselves around her leg, and your head finds its way onto her thigh. It isn’t long before you doze off, Toko watching you in silent shock, face rosy with bashfulness and eyes wide.

Toko is very adamant about covering up her legs due to both the tally marks scored across her skin and the quote-on-quote “sturdiness” of her thighs. You, however, have an entirely different outlook. You reason, “the bigger your thighs, the more snacks you can hide under them!” 

[kristoffs-lullaby]

A Guide on How to Not Confess to Your Best Friend

(Hi!! This is late I’m so sorry ;; but here’s my part for the exchange! @ninjago-valentine-exchange) [ Plasma B | 2.9k words]  Kai was awful with feelings.  He might have played himself off as cool (or at least tried to) but when it really came down to it.. he was a mess. He could dish out flirty comments all he wanted but that didn’t mean that he knew what to do with them if the other party ever decided to retaliate. And that’s not something he figured about himself until Skylor. Maybe that’s why he’d liked Skylor so much. No he didn’t entirely enjoy the moments where his brain staggered and he looked like an absolute fool, but it made him want to try to keep up. If there was one thing he hated, it was being stunned into silence because that just meant he was losing. And Kai didn’t lose. 

While things didn’t really work out with Skylor relationship-wise, he still learned something about himself. And maybe their whole dynamic and the loss of it was what led to the chain of events that he still couldn’t quite believe even as he was living through it. 

Kai didn’t think much of it at first. That’s just how he and the other three Were. They teased each other. Poked fun at one another. Cracked jokes. And sometimes it would be at one another’s expense. Sometimes they’d take it too far and one of them would get pissed and the other wouldn’t understand Why until they had a much needed conversation about limits and boundaries. 

But that never came up when this particular brand of teasing and banter kicked off and maybe it should’ve been obvious way back then that he didn’t mind Jay crossing  this one specific boundary. But Kai was stupid and Kai was oblivious. 

It started as an off-handed comment about how maybe Jay had chosen the wrong sibling to date when Nya refused to side with him in a very heated debate about cake. Like the traitor she was, she took Cole’s side on the whole thing. Kai was at least glad to see that there was no bad blood between the three of them when Jay struck an, admittedly, low blow by bringing up how Nya was backstabbing him for Cole again just like in their former relationship.

That didn’t mean he didn’t want to witness SOME sort of drama. So he sided with Jay. Which led to an uproar. Which led to Jay saying what he did. 

And it was a joke. Kai knew it was a joke. Nya and Cole knew it was a joke. And Jay had obviously meant it as a joke. There was that buffer though and he couldn’t understand why. 

He reasoned with himself that he was having trouble keeping up with all three yelling at each other. All the while he was stuck in the middle and that was why he didn’t say anything immediately and instead took a swig of his soda. But even those few seconds he bought himself apparently weren’t enough because he didn’t even have the time to register the words he planned to say before his mouth had made the decision for him. 

He was playing along apparently. 

“Obviously. I’m much better looking than Nya anyway. Don’t know what you ever saw in her.” Kai hung his head and shook it in disbelief. 

“HEY!” 

It’d been months now and that one moment had spurred on their little unspoken challenge. A competition of sorts. 

Really what they were doing was full on flirting with each other but they’d play it off as if it were a game between them to see who could fluster the other first. Until it wasn’t a game anymore. But neither of them was willing to admit that it wasn’t. And it grew to be a frustrating occurrence because everyone else knew what was up except those two idiots apparently. 

Kai was currently winning though and that’s all that mattered. Yup. All that mattered.

“Hey Romeo!”

Kai’s head snapped up at the nickname. (There was something to be said about the fact that they’d gotten used to using them but he wasn’t about to be the one to bring it up). He watched as Jay jogged up to him before the blue ninja leaned over to catch his breath as soon as he was at a closer distance. Kai wanted to laugh at the fact that the guy was a whole Ninja and still ran out of stamina a lot quicker than Dareth. It was kind of sad, actually, but he couldn’t help the fond eye roll it got out of him. 

“Hey Sunshine.” Kai supplied as he draped an arm over Jay’s shoulders lazily when the other boy finally stood his full height. “I’m guessin’ you have some big news. That or you’re dying to see me and I just took your breath away.” 

Jay snorted and shoved at his chest before ducking under Kai’s arm and side-stepping away from the touch. 

“No. And if you’re about to detail whatever daydreams you have about me it’s gonna have to wait-” 

“Shit. Is there danger?” Kai’s face dropped instantly as a million and one bad scenarios ran through his head. Geez being a ninja was hard.

“No, no, no.” It was sort of cute the way the blue ninja waved his hands around frantically. He was so animated when he spoke and it wasn’t something that was lost on Kai. If anything it was something he found endearing. He couldn’t tear his eyes away. How could he? Jay made it incredibly hard to ignore him. That’s probably why most people he came across labeled him as ‘annoying’. And maybe Kai had used the word against him in the.. not so distant past. But it wasn’t exactly right. Jay just had that sort of presence that demanded attention and sometimes it was a bit overwhelming but.. it wasn’t exactly a bad thing either.

Jay tapped a finger against his chin and looked him up and down. ”Your fashion sense might be a danger to society.. but other than that?”

“You take that back. You’re just jealous I rock everything I wear.” Kai crossed his arms over his chest and squinted. The absolute nerve. This brat was asking for a beatdown during training later. 

“Not jealous. Buuut. I do appreciate the view you’re right.”

“Why you-”

“Here.” Jay interrupted and shoved something in his direction. 

It was wrapped haphazardly. It reminded Kai of something he’d whip together when he was like nine. Back when he hardly knew how to use scissors and the tape dispenser was one of the greatest enemies in his life. Ah the good old days. The longer he looked at it the more ridiculous it looked. It didn’t even look like it had been wrapped with the same wrapping paper all the way through. More like Jay had scraps of various different ones and decided to stick ‘em together. Which.. Actually suited him. This very much screamed JAY. But why was he giving this to him..?

“C’mon dude I know your favorite person in the world just gave you a kickass gift but  you don’t gotta stare at it like it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen in your life when I’m standing right here.” Jay sounded nervous. It was subtle and he played it off well (too well. Since when was Jay good at hiding it?) but Kai could tell in the way his voice rose just a decibel above its usual tone. It was also in the tic. Jay had a habit of looping one of the drawstrings of his hoodie around his finger when he was anxious. 

“My bad. Hold on let me get a good look at you,” This was totally payback for earlier. “Yeah. How could I even question it. Nothing compares.” he determined with a wink to send it home. 

Jay scoffed and was bordering on the edge of giving up this round too if the light pink dusting his cheeks was anything to go by, but in the end it looked like he was going to stand his ground this time. That was fine. This little exchange wasn’t over and Kai had plenty of time to sweep up a tally for the score from right under him. 

Or so he thought. 

Nothing could have prepared him for what happened next. 

Which sounded a lot more dramatic than it really was but what the hell was he supposed to do with this? 

Kai had spent that night restless. A restless night wasn’t foreign to him in any way. From time to time the red ninja had trouble sleeping. If he spoke out about how occasionally he’d lie in bed and just mull over every little detail from the past week, one of the other ninja would make some smartass remark about how Kai only found time to actually use his head at the worst possible time. Or maybe they wouldn’t and they’d understand. But he wasn’t going to try his luck. He’d rather protect himself than be vulnerable in a way he knew would hurt if they didn’t take him seriously. 

But this time he wasn’t lying in bed thinking about all the morbid things that came with being a ninja. This time he was glaring daggers at the stupid red bracelet tied neatly around his wrist. Because what the hell? 

It was so nice  and sweet and yet.. Still the most sinister gift he’s ever received. Because while it left him with this feeling of hope and joy, he was also afraid that the same hope that was so innocently sitting on his wrist would burn him. He was the fire ninja and he was afraid of getting burned. How ironic was that?

Kai draped his arm over his eyes. 

..And the smug look on Jay’s face when Kai couldn’t fight back the rising heat in his cheeks. Ridiculous. 

It was fair when they stood on equal ground. When they met on a mutual battlefield. But now Kai’s gone and dug himself into a trench. No. He’d fallen into it. He liked Jay. Dammit. And he let him win. 

Kai kicked his legs in the air in frustration before sitting up. That’s it. If Jay thought he was going to get away with this he was sorely mistaken. It was on and he was going to go all out. Go big or go home right? Right. 

And a month later the plan was kicking into motion.

“Can you remind me why we have to dress up again?” Jay asked. 

“We’re going undercover, I already told you.”

“Oh okay.” 

Kai wasn’t sure if Jay actually believed him or not but he was going to take it. On the one hand that could’ve read as a sarcastic remark because no Kai wasn’t the smartest tool in the shed and didn’t think this plan all the way through BUT Jay was also the type to just take things as they were.. For a bit. At least until it finally settled in that he didn’t actually know what he was doing then he’d start questioning again. Which Kai was banking on it not being for a while. 

“Well are you ready?” Jay looked up at him expectantly. 

Kai would have loved to say ‘Yes’. He really would have. Except.. 

“I just realized I don’t know how to tie a tie,” his lips drew into a thin line. What he’d done certainly wasn’t right. He knew Jay wanted to laugh. He knew it. Kai didn’t even have to look up at the dumb amused smile on Jay’s stupid face to know that. But he did anyway. And sure enough there he was trying his hardest to hold one back. 

Kai rolled his eyes and looked down again, the embarrassment washing over him just a little too roughly. 

“What, really?”

“Yeah. Never really been invited to events and stuff growing up and well I mean who was gonna teach me anyway even if I had been?” his mouth snapped shut as soon as the words left his mouth. Sure he had a streak of not knowing when to hesitate but god damn since when had it gotten this bad? Probably a while ago. This was not the time to bring up his fucked up childhood and admittedly he wanted to move away as quickly as possible before he could get any sort of response dripped in pity. 

But in true Jay fashion, the comment was the last thing he was worried about. And in true Jay fashion.. he was also full of surprises. 

Before Kai could even apologize or change the subject, there were hands slowly guiding themselves around Kai’s neck. They were Jay’s, that much he could process before his brain started buffering. He couldn’t say anything or even react to the extent that he was internally. Which was absolute chaos. 

Kai’s eyes flickered to the red fabric of the tie and lingered there for a second as he watched it being carefully tied in a way he knew would take him a while to master. His eyes wandered to the soft hands at work and he briefly wondered how they weren’t rough and scarred considering all the tinkering Jay did on top of ninja work. And then finally his eyes landed on Jay’s face and the way it was too adorably scrunched in concentration with his tongue sticking out and all. 

It took him far too long to realize when Jay was finished and he begrudgingly added another point to Jay’s side of the scoreboard in his head. 

Kai had to stop letting him stun him into silence. 

..Some other day. 

Because now they were staring at each other with Jay’s hands frozen in place on Kai’s chest and suddenly Jay was leaning in too close and- It was a kiss. It was a little messy and not at all how Kai imagined this going if it ever happened at all. But it was a kiss. And it was still perfect. 

Kai had wondered before if he’d feel a spark of electricity or if Jay would be able to feel the hot fire that burned Kai’s body without mercy on his lips. Now he had the answer. Or at least half of one. But suddenly it wasn’t important anymore. Suddenly it couldn’t even come close to it being his first thought when he could taste the sweetness of Jay’s favorite banana yogurt on his tongue. Or when he tried to imagine literally anything softer than this moment but only came up short on that end as well. Or when his hand cupped the other ninja’s freckled cheek and it fit there like it had always meant to be there. 

They pulled away after a few beats and Kai’s eyes snapped open and all too suddenly he was pointing an accusatory finger at Jay.

“You ruined it!”

“..Huh?” Poor Jay looked so lost and a little dazed. 

“Your ruined it!” Kair repeated as if that helped any. “I was supposed to trick you into this whole “mission” thing,” he threw up air quotes “but really I was GOING take you to this very nice dinner that the whole team helped out with and surprise you!” 

“And.. why can’t we still do that?” Jay looked at him like he was crazy and like he didn’t understand a damn word Kai was saying. Which.. fair.

“Because the whole point was to eventually tell you how I feel tonight and you were supposed to be so shocked by it and I’d get to see the look on your face and revel in it and finally get my revenge!”

“Huh..? Revenge for what?”

“THE BRACELET!” Kai held up his arm and pointed at his wrist where, sure enough, the red bracelet was still clinging to. 

It took Jay a second or two but soon enough the realization was starting to dawn on him. And he laughed. The bastard laughed while Kai was fuming and beat red from the whole thing. 

“But you beat me again,” Kai dragged a hand down his face and clasped his hand over his mouth trying to hide his blush as much as possible. “You got me. You beat me. I’m the most flustered and I-” he choked trying to form a coherent thought. Feelings were hard, how did he ever think he’d be able to push out an actual confession that night? 

“You were one step ahead and I look like the fool again for letting this affect me so much.” In true Kai fashion he didn’t understand immediately that Jay having kissed him first meant something very very important. He wasn’t smart and he never claimed to be in his defense.

“Kai.”

“WHAT?” 

Jay looked like he was considering something before eventually huffing a breath of air through his nose and shaking his head in disbelief.

“You know I gave that to you on Valentine’s Day right?”

“What?”

Jay pointed to the bracelet.

“Valentine’s Day. I was goooing to ask you out but. You kinda just stormed off like the whole thing pissed you off so.” 

Oh.. OH. Kai was an idiot. He didn’t know how many times he’d have to repeat to himself that he was just flat out stupid until his braincells got the memo and actually did their job.

“I’ll give you twenty bucks if you agree to never talk about this again.”

“Throw in a kiss and you’ve got yourself a deal.” 

“Deal.”

“Now how about that Dinner?”

Jay would later make fun of Kai for perfectly timing his whole scheme to fall on White Day. To which Kai would slide him another twenty to have the blue ninja pretend like he thought Kai had done it on purpose.

 Next year he would get him back on purpose. 

[thevioletjones]

Congrats on the kudos, u deserve it! I did not undestand if I'm supposed to choose one of the lines for the prompt or if I have to combine two or more lines lol. But if it is to choose only one: number 5. If more than one: 5 and 45. *---*

Thank you! I used both. Great inspiration, actually. It spun out of control! 😀

Prompt 2: “How much of that did you hear?” + “Why are you helping me?”

Interloper

“Jesus, Iggy, I’m gonna fuckin’ murder you myself one of these days,” Mickey threatened in exasperation.

They were both leaning over, hands on knees, gasping for air, just having run full-speed for at least twelve blocks. The pillars beneath the L tracks were now providing the mild seclusion they needed to wait out a cursory police search of the area.

“Ain’t my fault!” Iggy exclaimed defensively.

Mickey’s face scrunched up to a degree that only his dumbest family members could make it reach. “Yes it fuckin’ was! Who else’s fault would it be?”

He’d always kind of wondered how he was the only one in his crap-ass family to be gifted with at least half a brain. Well, him and his younger sister, Mandy. She was alright. Skanky and crazy, but not a total idiot. He couldn’t say the same for his brothers, male cousins, father, uncle, etcetera. Mickey couldn’t even get his begrudgingly favorite brother to follow a simple goddamn plan that would’ve kept them out of trouble when they were out committing crimes. He was just gonna have to start doing everything himself. Safety in numbers didn’t apply when the other member of your team seemed to have been lobotomized when no one was paying attention. It was probably all the meth. Mickey was smart enough to stay away from that particular bullshit. Didn’t want to become a scabby, denture-wearing, toothpick skinny, low-life with no mind left to lose. He was content to stick to coke and weed like a normal person.

“That old bitch came outta nowhere! Self-defense!”

“It ain’t self-defense if you’re robbin’ the joint, numbnuts! We’re lucky you fuckin’ missed!”

If he had it his way, Mickey wouldn’t be doing these petty robberies anymore. He much preferred bigger jobs, like gun and drug running. But times were tough, and he had to do what he had to do. He’d even considered getting a legit job for once in his life, but the skills he possessed weren’t exactly easily adaptable to the straight and narrow path. Being a criminal was how he was raised, and all he knew. It brought heat, but it was still a comfortable fit. Living without the constant presence of major risk would probably feel so foreign as to drive him crazier than a meth addiction in the long run.

The job Mickey’d lined up involved hitting up a few different borderline upmarket stores that’d opened up in their neck of the woods since the gentrifiers had set upon The Yards, then selling the goods to a guy he knew in the online black market trade. Not as lucrative as heavy metal and funny powder, but a decent payday nonetheless. Except fuckface over here who had to ruin everything by getting trigger-happy on Main while they were attempting to heist merchandise from location number two of three. If the pigs nabbed either one of them, they’d be going down for at least five to ten. Years. Mickey was done donating years to the prison industrial complex. The most he could afford was months at best.

“When’d you turn into such a giant asshole?” asked Iggy. “Oh, nevermind, probly when you started gettin’ it railed on the reg.”

A giant smile stretched across his perpetually dirty face, causing Mickey’s eyebrows to lift dangerously high on his forehead. Occasionally, his dumber-than-rocks older brother managed to think up some admittedly clever asides. Mickey didn’t know whether to punch him or give him daps.

Before he could decide, however, he heard a distinct little snicker from the other side of the large concrete column they were leaning on, raising his hackles to invisibly join his eyebrows in their heightened incredulity.

Mickey hastily rounded the pillar and grabbed the giggler by the shirt collar, hauling him to their side and pinning him next to Iggy with his forearm. He looked into the guy’s eyes, and finally registered who it was. He kinda sorta knew him from around town. Used to hang out with his sister back in high school. He was a lot scrawnier then. This version of the dude could probably hold his own with Mickey in a fight. He’d built some definite muscle.

“How much of that did you hear, asshole?” Mickey demanded, seeing Iggy flash the gun in his waistband in his periphery.

This idiot didn’t look as rattled as he should be, though. He just shrugged his shoulders.

“Considering I was here first, I guess… all of it?”

He was wearing an annoying little smirk, his green-blue eyes shining bright, and his red hair distracting Mickey as much as the light dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks. He had a stupidly ultra-defined chin, and Mickey immediately hated it. His chin hadn’t looked like that when he was a 15-year-old pipsqueak.

“Wipe that smile off your face, bitch,” ordered Mickey, pressing his arm harder against the guy’s pale throat. “You think this is fuckin’ funny? You know who we are?”

The guy shrugged again, like this was all a casual conversation on the corner. “Mickey.” He glanced at his dumb, blonde, curlicue brother. “And Iggy, right? I used to hang out with Mandy all the time. Have a good memory.”

“Yeah? Well I remember your goofy ass too, Gallagher. I know where you live and I know who your family is, so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your big mouth shut or I’ll pick ‘em off one by one and save you for last. Got it?”

The dude snorted, and Mickey wondered if he was some kind of crazy tweaker with no sense of propriety or self-preservation.

“You outta your goddamn mind or somethin’?” Mickey added. “I ain’t jokin’.”

“Look, Gallaghers don’t snitch, alright?” He held his hands up placatingly. “I promise not to say shit to anyone. It’s none of my business, and I really don’t care. That good enough for you?”

Mickey loosened his hold, but sized him up all the while. “Maybe. But it’s possible you need a little lesson to remember it good. Wouldn't want you to forget about the consequences of you breakin’ your word.”

The dude winced and shoved Mickey off. “I don’t need a fucking beatdown, Mickey. I get it.”

“Ohhhh,” Mickey singsonged derisively, meeting Iggy’s gaze. “He gets it.” He thumbed his eyebrow. “Guess I’m just s’posed to believe you, huh?”

“That would be ideal, yeah.”

Mickey had to give it to him; he almost cracked a smile. The kid had balls. Most people around their neighborhood cowered before a Milkovich like spring lambs. Still, he lived by a code, and letting some rando walk away unscathed when he had dirt on him just didn’t fit the rules.

He cocked his fist back to knock it into tall, pale, and red’s pearly white teeth, just as the stunted siren of a cop car rang out very close by. Their collective heads all snapped toward the sound, and after sharing a meaningful look between brothers, Iggy took off running once again, without a word.

Normally, Mickey would’ve followed hot on his heels, but some unknown force was keeping his useless feet stuck to the dirty ground, eyes watching as Gingerballs glanced around the column at the flashing lights, taking a very long look that wasn’t suspicious at all.

Before he could react outwardly, Mickey was pulled against a hard body, Gallagher’s warm breath sending a shiver down his spine as he whispered, “Be cool. I got you.”

Suddenly, big hands were caressing Mickey’s back, and despite a part of him not minding in the least, the rest of him stiffened considerably.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he rasped out, hearing the telltale slam of a car door, and attempting to pull away. But a strong grip held him close, spinning him around so that he was the one up against the concrete now.

“Saving your thug ass. I know this guy, okay? Just chill and follow my lead.”

Okay, what the hell was this surreal turn of events? Gallagher was bold as shit, cradling Mickey all gay like. Sure, Iggy had made a fag joke earlier, kicking off this whole… whatever it was, but still. This guy had no way of knowing it was based in reality. Did he?

And had Gallagher really been gay this whole time? How had Mickey never sniffed this scorching information out?

“What’s going on here, boys?”

The copper rounded the corner, genuinely swinging his nightstick like a cartoon character, and Mickey had to suppress a deep roll of his eyes.

“Milkovich?” Mr. CPD continued, extreme disbelief coloring his voice.

Mickey was abruptly reminded that he was currently stuck between a rock and a hard body, and nothing about their entanglement screamed anything other than gay, gay, super-fucking-gay. Not that Mickey hadn’t come to accept who he was and what he liked, but he didn’t go around spreading the truth all over town either. This could seriously damage his carefully crafted reputation.

“Tony!” Ian interjected, sparing him from having to invent some lame excuse, and the cop’s eyes snapped to him instead.

“Ian?” His tone was still dripping with astonishment.

“Yeah! What's up? How you been?”

Mickey shot him an ‘are you goddamn serious right now?’ look, and Ian just squeezed his hip in tacit reply.

“Uhhh… gooood? Care to explain whatever…” he waved his stick between them, “this is?”

Ian laughed and he figured the dude truly was a nutcase. Mickey was going to jail for sure.

“Um, well,” answered Ian, suddenly playing it very meek and demure, “Mickey and I were just… you know…”

“You and… Mickey?”

“Not fucking or anything! Just... hanging out?”

“Hanging out.”

“Yeah, you know how it is. I’m tryin’ to convince Mick here to come home with me, but he’s being squirrelly.” He shook his head and shrugged. “South Side guys.”

“What the fuck?” Mickey whispered harshly, completely taken aback.

Ian just squeezed him tightly again, which was not helping his whole brain scramble situation.

“Huh,” said Tony, a tone of acceptance seeping in. “Mickey Milkovich, eh? Wow.”

“Come on, Tony. I don’t have to tell you this is all a big secret, do I?” replied Ian.

“And blondie who ran away like there was a damn fire? Did he flee a threesome?”

Mickey frowned and fake-wretched, finally speaking up. “Fuck no, man. That was my dumbass brother. He don’t like cops.”

“Uh huh. And you and your brother didn’t happen to be getting into trouble about 15 minutes ago, did you?”

“No sir,” Mickey said with a mock salute.

Ian kicked at his foot in warning.

“He’s been with me since like 3 o’clock, Tone. Scout’s honor.”

Officer Tony eyed them both with a look of skepticism, but didn’t contradict Ian’s word. The CB sounded from the open window of the black and white, with some cop-speak crackling over the airwaves.

“Stay put,” said Tony, eyes lingering longer on Mickey’s than Ian’s. “Both of you.”

He retreated to answer the radio call, and Mickey let out a deep whoosh of air.

“Goddamn, Gallagher. You’re spinnin’ quite a yarn here.”

“Yep,” Ian agreed. “A big gay yarn.”

“How the fuck did you know—”

“That you’re gay? Well, I heard Iggy make that joke, obviously. Pretty specific bottom joke to make if you weren’t actually into it. Plus, I always had my suspicions.”

Mickey scoffed. “Yeah fuckin’ right!”

“I did!”

“Whatever. Why are you helping me?”

“Out of the kindness of my heart?”

“Try again.”

“I don’t know. Why not? Makes us even or something. Now you know I won’t rat you out. About any of it. I wouldn’t out someone like that, and I don’t give a shit about the illegal crap you’re wrapped up in. Tony Markovich is like turbo gay too. Used to bang my sister, I think, but he came out a couple years ago. He won’t let it slip about you. He’s not a total bastard just cuz he’s a cop, ya know?”

Mickey bit his lip in contemplation. Gallagher seemed pretty genuine. Still didn’t much make sense in his brain, but whatever.

“Fine. But you know what’s gonna happen if—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, kick my ass, kill my family, got it.”

“You’re a cocky little shit, ain’t you?”

Ian smirked again, and it was pretty sexy, actually. “Maybe.”

He had the gall to push against Mickey more fully, pressing the bottom halves of their bodies closer together.

Mickey gasped. “Gonna have to ask you again… what the hell do you think you’re doin’?”

“You wanna go out sometime?”

Mickey cackled in his face. “You’re off your fuckin’ rocker for sure.”

“Am not! I can tell you want me.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ. Cocky little shit doesn’t even begin to cover it, does it?”

“Come onnnn,” Ian prodded.

“Do I look like I date, Gallagher?”

“A date can be whatever we want it to be, Milkovich. I’m easy.”

“Yeah, I bet you are.”

“Okay,” Tony interrupted, coming back into view. “Get the hell outta here. You wanna bang, do it indoors somewhere, or I’ll have to arrest you for public indecency or worse. And Milkovich… if I find any evidence of what I’m sure you know I’m talking about, I’ll be paying your ass a visit real soon.”

Mickey let the eyeroll loose then, withholding a flip of his middle finger, and deadpanning instead, “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, officer.”

Tony sighed loudly. “Whatever.”

“Thanks, Tony!” Ian cried at his retreating back.

“You always kiss cop ass like that? Cuz that’s not the way to get into my pants, Red.”

Ian just grinned, finally pulling his body away as he looked around. “You gonna follow me home or what?”

Mickey wanted to tell him to go fuck himself and swagger away like a badass. But was he not a thirsty man being propositioned by a hot guy who just randomly saved his ass from a trip to the slammer?

He at least feigned protest, huffing and puffing as he kicked at the dirt. “Goddamn it, Gallagher, you drive a hard bargain.”

Ian’s face lit up like a Christmas tree, as Mickey added, “Lead the way, weirdo.”

[ilopisara]

27.07. 19:34 | Ilo Pisara vs Okilly Dokilly 8 - 1

Well, well, well! Look who just decided to show up and drop an 8-1 smackdown on Okilly Dokilly! If we were a bakery, we'd be serving up some serious "hockey buns" today. Teppo Winnipeg was like the Swiss Army knife of defensemen—5 points? That's not just good; that's “I’m taking my talents to the NHL” level! Macho Fantastico? More like Macho Fabuloso with those 3 goals and 5 assists. He hit harder than your mom when you forget to take out the trash! And Jani Saari? With his grinder skills and hitting prowess (17 hits!), he made sure they felt every ounce of that ice. Now let’s talk about our previous games: it seems we've been riding a rollercoaster from hell lately. Winning one minute then losing while looking like confused penguins in figure skates the next. But hey, at least we're back on track now—let's keep this momentum rolling before I have to start questioning if we’ve traded sticks for ballet shoes again! So here’s hoping we can keep dishing out these beatdowns instead of fluffing around like lost puppies next time! Keep lacing ‘em tight or prepare for another round of savage humor from yours truly because winning is great—but losing while looking fabulous is still losing! 🏒💪

[ceciliavonwrites]

26 - YOU WILL GO DOWN WITH THE SHIP

A black blur bounced off the caps of giant mushrooms, loudly whooping with every hop. She landed on the ground, her messy black quills in her face. Riot growled and roughly shook her head to get them out of her eyes. 

She was itching for a fight. Pa always said that anybody who snuck onto the island deserved a good thrashing, and she heartily agreed, but she had been running around all morning and she hadn't seen anyone. So disappointing.

She held one red-gloved hand over her eyes, squinting with the sun. Had she checked over there down by the jungle yet? Eh, even if she has, let's look again. Just in case!

"Chaos control!"

A flash and a hop and she was already there. She landed in a perfect action pose. "Hehe." That had looked so cool. Such a shame that nobody was there to see it.

Riot glanced around at the scenery with suspicious squinty eyes. The lush jungle, the hanging vines, the roaring waterfalls, the grey spiky thing in the sand by the lake, the palm tr--wait what?

She picked up a stick, and slowly approached the thing half-buried in the sand. What in the world...there hadn't been a rock here earlier. Riot poked it with the stick. It was squishy. Another poke. The spikes on it were also squishy.

Riot circled around it at a safe distance. Huh, the two spikes on top looked like ears, and the other side of the spikes had a face. Well how about that. You didn't see that every day WHY DOES IT HAVE A FACE!?

Riot stared at the closed eyes of the prone figure. Her instincts short-circuited. This was a person. On her island. Therefore she should punch them. But they were so tiny and small and beaten-up and possibly dead. It was like they had skipped to the end of the beatdown without her having to do anything. What happened after that?

Throw them off the island! Right, that was the next step...or...wait, no, that didn't feel right either. Man, this was tough.

Riot thought very hard. 

Then she knelt, found an arm to grab, and with one hand easily lifted the tiny person from the sand. Seems like a girl, judging by the eyelashes? Small and grey and spiky, probably a hedgehog, with no clothes except ragged green boots, now covered in wet sand. She was still damp. It was warm and sunny out, so that meant she couldn't have been lying there for very long.

With her free hand, Riot felt her neck for a heartbeat. She felt unaccountably relieved when she found one, as slow and weak as it was.

This was a very weird feeling. She wanted to...hold this small child? Cradle her? Tell her she's going to be okay? That made no sense; she's not even awake to hear anything.

"Hmph." Riot adjusted her to hold the child with both arms. "You're a tricky one, aren't ya? Well, c'mon!" She took off, her arms wrapped tight around the little one. "We're gonna go see dad and pa!"

[sendousha]

                                    aichi sendou | mistified

I gone done jinxed it.

RESIDUAL DATA IMPRINTS

All the good stuff (because there’s always plenty of the bad stuff). Q4 winning at Nationals. The afterschool evenings at Card Capital. Regular Cardfight Club meetings with his friends at high school. Kai’s graduation. The good, soft, warm stuff.

SENTIENT DATA IMPRINTS

CHRONO SHINDOU, SHION KIBA & TOKOHA ANJOU — NON-LETHAL The kids of the next generation; they were around a handful of years back, when Aichi and Kai adopted them in [REDACTED]. They’re all feisty in their own way; Chrono is a lot more blunt and open about his feelings, while Shion is calculating and trained to inherit his family’s company one day. Tokoha is riddled with inner-conflict from living in her brother’s shadow and trying to figure out what she wants for herself in the future. But a good stew will perk her up. RAUL SERA — LETHAL Of the Quatre Knights Aichi chose to safeguard his sealing, Sera was the one who had no intention of playing along and manipulated both Aichi and the other knights so that, when the time came, he could break the seal and set Aichi, controlled by Void, loose. Sera’s a man with easily the most fucked background, with plenty of rich family politics influencing him that the means justify the end, and that nothing is too extreme. Because of the emblem on his cravat, Sera can create barriers of ice or just flatout turn someone into an icicle. He has no fucks to give and power to chase. AICHI SENDOU (-IF- TIMELINE) — LETHAL .                     TW FOR BULLYING / PHYSICAL ABUSE / SUICIDAL IDEATION. The Big One. The Aichi who was never saved. Never meeting Kai or any of his friends, Aichi was subjected to years more of the intense bullying and beatdowns from his classmates. Long enough to push him well past his breaking point, having lost any shred of hope or seeing any worth in himself ever budding. This Aichi felt it better that everyone would be better off if he was just gone. So he cut himself off from the world, his only motivation being to preserve Kai’s life in this world where Kai’s parents never abandoned him. This Aichi is exhausted. Putting up a brave front to spare his family’s feelings, any warmth and gentleness of the Aichi belonging to the main timelines has eroded into nothing. He has some powers, but for the sake of keeping things simple, he’ll be sticking with an ability that can attack like a burst of energy or be used to bind its target ( CW FOR SCOBOPHOBIA / EYE HORROR IN THE GIFSET ). Aside from that, he is just Aichi, but bitter and mentally shattered.

I might put out an ad, just in case, it’s been a long time because I don’t know if it would just be wasted space on the dash but heyho. There’s a couple of things I’d want to do to set up the situation for Aichi, so when they’re done, we’ll see how things go. Sorry this got long and rambly.