#Story Time with Em

[serendipnpipity]

Thank you for living your truth, @danielhowell. You've helped me live mine, too.

Image Description under the cut:

[illustrated YouTube notification: “Daniel Howell uploaded ‘Basically I’m Gay’”]

Five years ago today, I was lying on the couch in my family home, watching the words of a person I had grown to find pieces of myself in as he bared his soul to the world just to make somebody like me feel a little less alone. 

[girl lying on her stomach on the couch, looking at phone]

He said something at the end of that video,

[Illustrated video screenshot of Dan saying “You are valid. It gets so much better.”]

And I’ll never forget hearing those words. Never forget drying my tears, quickly, before my parents came back. 

[Three panels: girl wiping tears from face, putting phone down, silhouette walking through front door]

See, the girl on that couch was planning far, far away futures. She couldn’t believe his words just yet, but now she could hope to. 

[open shoebox with rainbow flag inside]

Five years later, today, I wish I could tell her:

You don’t have to move halfway across the country to set a flag out on your desk. 

[school building and stack of books]

Your parents are coming over tomorrow to help bring you home for the summer. (They’re only an hour’s car ride away.)

[cartoon sun and car]

And see that?

[rainbow flag in a mug with a cat whiskers design]

Yeah, that’s the one decoration you haven’t packed yet. 

And that something he said at the end of the video, I still quote it to this day. 

[computer playing the Dan birthday livestream with "Misty" on a Zoom call in the corner]

Better yet, I believe it now. 

[same girl, older and with shorter hair, holding mug with flag and looking back at someone off-camera that’s saying “Ready to go home?”]

Happy five years of Basically, I’m Gay!

[lilybug-02]

Wow. That could not have turned out worse.

Part 23 || First || Previous || Next

--Full Series--

This comic will be on Holiday Hiatus this December and January! While on a cliffhanger? What a scam! >:/

[sopuu]

oomf in law i need ur thoughts on mcsm but. cats cat world

is this a ploy to get me to draw mcsm warrior cats because i will absolutely fall for it

bonus gay cats <3 jesskas exists in every world bc i said so

[veinsfullofstars]

💋 MetaDede Week 2024 Day 2: First Kiss 💋

(ID: Kirby series fanart of King Dedede and Meta Knight standing on a balcony - the latter on the railing - overlooking a late-evening sky, painted in the gold-pink-purple tones of sunset and speckled with stars high above. Turned to face his knight, DDD boldly takes his hand and plants a small kiss on the back of it, eyes shut and cheeks dusted in pink. MK looks up at his king with soft fondness, a hand over his heart, a blush of his own glowing through his mask. Above them against the starry sky, a low-opacity, sepia-toned memory can be seen. Meta - teenaged and maskless with nearly-grown wings, wearing plain steel pauldrons and white gloves; and DDD - teenaged and acne-plagued, wearing an oversized red-and-orange hoodie and a maroon beanie. In a fit of last-second courage, Meta grabs his friend by the front of his hoodie and yanks him down, shutting his eyes and blushing fiercely as he plants a hasty kiss - their first! - on his cheek. DDD leans over unsteadily on one foot, an arm thrown back for balance, his pimply face bright red, his eyes wide with surprise and touched with heart-shaped shines. END ID.)

Previous Day | Next Day | Prompt List (made by @/mtddweek)

Started 08/05/24, finished 08/10/24. | Childhood Friends AU Masterpost

[deoidesign]

Time and Time Again comes back tonight!

Thank you all for being so patient with me, I know it was a long hiatus.

My health was struggling, my arm was (is) hurting, and I decided it wasn't worth it. I'd rather be slow!

So thank you for giving me that grace, and I hope you'll be there with me for the rest of the series.

[themintman]

Wanted to practice side profiles a bit more and go into more detail w how I interpret the season two gang 😋😋

[herebecritters]

Can you draw flippy x flaky please

You’re lucky I love them ❤️

[ryuzumisama]

ホムラ🐡🐡

[blaithnne]

Local big sister experiences emotions, more at 6

Been wanting to do one of these with Lauren for AGES, but I never got round to it. Then I saw the Lydia and Phinium expression sheets on @littledigits’ website and I felt inspiration like never before.

The funniest struggle I have with Lauren’s design right now is that she nose too big for she got damn face. Literally, Hilda characters noses take up a fairly small portion of their faces, and her’s took up WAY too much, leaving little room for her to make facial expressions. But I struggled to find a fix because when I made the nose smaller it just didn’t look like Lauren anymore, so I took this as an opportunity to work on that!

She still has a larger nose than most characters, starting higher up (like her grandad!) and ending lower down (but not quite as low as before). I also made her eyes a little smaller and with a shape similar to Lydia’s (though you can see in some of these I hadn’t quite landed on that yet and her eyes are a bit too big), which works both as a nod to her parentage and because I think it makes the nose look bigger. This still doesn’t leave as much room for the mouth as most other characters, but that’s okay — Lauren is a very private person who keeps her feelings close to her chest, I think it works for her to have subtler expressions, adds to how guarded she is! Oh and I also updated the shape of her hair slightly, just to make it a bit more style accurate.

These changes are pretty small on their own, but I think combined they work well to make Lauren feel a lot more…alive? Far less stiff, anyway. I think she also has a more unique facial structure now, instead of just “what if Johanna was 90% nose”. She’s still got a big old nose and I love it but now she can emote, yay!

This is really all just concept stuff, I’m hoping to get a new fullbody style-ref for Lauren out soon! Now that I’ve improved the main issues I had with her face in the last ref, now it’s onto the silhouette! I want her to read as more of a strong character (though it comes across decently in her current ref, I wanna push it more without being as exaggerated as Ahlberg, which is. A challenge for me lol), streamline her silhouette, and finally make her taller than Johanna like she’s always meant to have been <3 I made her shorter for so long because I thought it would help her read better as her daughter but you know what? That’s dumb actually, she’s tall.

ANYWAYS, thank you for listening in on the annual Lauren redesign, and to the artists behind the show for posting so much amazing inspiring show stopping concept work for free because it makes my autism worse /pos

[emkini]

Wangxian but make it a Disney flick for furries

Alternatively titled: I went insane for 7 hours and created these in a haze

[jeeaark]

Final Showdown pt 1

Final Showdown pt 2.

So the key to becoming a lil more chill with the patch 0 Orpheus ending is realizing what I can get away with off camera. Brain fell down and nobody saw how we landed? No Emps in sight? Who knows long it took to regroup? One reasonable patch 0 ending where everyone lives coming up.

and I would've been content with this ending too if it weren't for those meddling patches.

Felt validated about the artifact solution though when the epilogue came out. As if Greygold wouldn't keep that lil doo-hickey after all this, practically a bag of holding for people.

Had to jump some logic hoops for Orph though. Don't think Greygold would be willing to risk any potential confrontation with Orpheus about Emps after this. Try and pull their first Squid Trick on him. But uh. Turns out! Orph Buddy's got mad wisdom. Dude has probably seen every Squid Trick in the book. Although. Not so silly as Greygold's attempts.

[prostocupoftea]

Kinitopet Programmers AU

finally i am finished with this one, daaaamn

it is hard to draw pathetic men with midlife crisis when your style is mostly for anime boys

more info and sketch version under the cut!!

sketch version aka how it'll probably look like in comic version 'n some doodles

srry for my writing but i was too laisy to put it as regular text

It is a plot-based au, i already have most of the storybits and like... a vibe-chart (i tried to make a playlist for this au and understood that for different chapters and different characters that'd be a copleatly different music, sooo it's a chart now :) )

i will post a fog-o-wared timeline that im hopefully gonna reveal comic-by comic, but also maybe with just pure writing. Hopefully i can include songs that i chose for them into it but we'll see (:

aaand of course designs can change, hopefully not much but we'll see

Now about au:

Main story:

Story follows non-sentient AI Kinito, his creator Sonny and his beta-tester Victoria (oc)

Being literally the first AI (or RRA in-univere) ever, Kinito does not have any, and i mean, any ai safety features so of course his reponce to a goal phrased as "have user near me and/or interacting with me as much as possible" is digitizing them into his own virtual world while killing them in the process. why wouldn't it be?

So that happened. Like, a lot. And with Sonny and Vic too (at the different time but yeah)

Sonny is like "He kills people. We should turn him off because, you know, killing people is bad."

Vic is like "well, we will die if we do that, and it is not that bad here, we are kinda immortal. We should give him acces to changing his initial instalation code before admin priveleges and acces to social media so we can have everythin we want here. It is not that bad to digitize humanity, yk?" and yes i know it is 90, no social media, but shut up, if they made ai then, then i can make twitter then too

Sonny is like "...no??"

And then they fight about it for million chapters

Also they both can't do anything without agreeing bc they have two parts of that admin access key (the data you use to delete kinito in-game) so they are stuck with eachother (also that's why Kinito can't just kill them)

Little facts that may or may not to be important:

Kinito asks so many questions (and weird once too) and has most of the glitches because he needs to analise your responces to copy your mind perfectly (let's pretend that people wouldn't lie about that...)

Your house in your virtual world is made from important places from your memories and oh boy can i do character explorations with this one

I decided that Sonny and Vic are not related. There were thoughts about making then "The Kinito Brothers" (or, at least, siblings) that were mentioned in commercial, but nah, they are just coworkers now. And a bit of work-friends (bc if you interact a lot as a manager of the project and the best worker might as well be friendly)

Author has no idea how small dying toy companies that accidentally create technological marvel work. Author has some idea how AI-s work. So be prepared to be spoon-fed info abut which ai safety problem we are dealing with in which chapter (:

Kinito will mostly be unrendered (as drawn here) but for some cool moments i might pose him as for my other posts. Also his eye placement changes to the side that is most visible because i want him to be able to look to the right side sometimes--

Also when i say "fucked up mentally" i mean they have that them psychological problems with me projecting heavilly B) (guess on who i project most. trick question. all of them. the whole au is my problems split into three characters and forced to interact B) )

Also sea-creature analogies (that are gonna be mentioned like twice):

Victoria is a flying fish because deep character reasons

Sonny is a pufferfish because i said so

oh also there is 7 deaths in the plot as for now

on 3 characters

good luck figuring out who, how and when ((:

for my own sanity i will probably make little doodles where everything is great and kinito is a good guy and not a number-obsessed maniac (i mean... can u imagine not being able to feel any happiness from anything besides one thing... damn...) and you can differenciate them bc good-guy kinito will have a lot of stickers on him (i will explain it somehow but real reason is just bc it is cute af)

like this but even more stickers (he is unfinished here)

[dailydoseoffanfics]

pressure spoilers btw quick heads up

is there like human sebastian solace x reader fics out there i already found some in this website and a03 but ngl i want more of it (but i understand why there's a lack of it 💀 there's barely any information of his human years other than he was accused of murdering 9 people lmao) (and yes i know he's canonically married to zerum but I DON'T GIVE A SHITE 🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 /silly)

[moongothic]

People often bring up the omake No Respect Time to use as Crocodad Propaganda, and y'know, I think there might be just a smidge more the omake can provide to Crocodad than what people have already discussed in the past

Like everyone's seen the comparisons between Crocodile and the anime screencaps of Don Luffyone, we all know how the two look so similar etc etc. But honestly, the resemblance is even more obvious (and hilarious) when you look at the OG manga version (Sidenote but Don Luffyone is the only one who smokes cigars in the omake... Everyone else has plain ol' cigarettes... That sure was a decision there Oda)

And yeah, you might be thinking I picked this mangacap of Crocodile in particular because the resemblance is the most obvious here and I have My Crocodad Agenda to push etc etc. But I will have you know that the original omake was from Log Book 5, which was published February 28th 2006. Meanwhile that Crocodile is from the cover of chapter 398, published February 6th 2006. So these were drawn by Oda around the same time. I didn't just cherry pick this cover page because it's convenient for my evil agenda, if these were drawn around the same time then the likelihood the resemblance is intentional does legitimately go up a little. (Also since they're both drawn by Oda instead of random animators, again, it's a bit less coincidental and could be a bit more intentional)

But as I said, I think there might be more to the omake than that.

In the past people have also pointed out and joked how a mere few months before Oda revealed Dragon was Luffy's father to us in the story (post-Enies Lobby), in the Monster Time-omake Luffy was depicted as a dragon.

Needless to say, people believe this was intentional foreshadowing (/trolling) to the Dragon reveal by Oda-- if not it'd be one hell of a coincidence at the very least.

The reason I'm bringing that up is that if people think it's safe to assume Oda was hinting at Luffy's heritage in one omake by making him a dragon like his father, then why couldn't Oda do the same in another omake (by making Luffy a mafia boss who smokes cigars like his father)? Keep in mind that Monster Time was published in May 2006 (in Log Book 7), just three months after No Respect Time. So again, these are from the same era. To me, that just makes the resemblance between Don Luffyone and Crocodile seem even less coincidental

Oh, but there's one more omake I want to bring up.

So people do often bring up Nerd!Luffy's appearance in One Piece Gakuen spin-off manga, pointing out how much he looks quite a lot like the Theoretical Child Oda gave to Crocodile in that one SBS. Yeah. So. 'Bout that.

There was this one omake called Red Hair of Class 3-Sea Time, in which Luffy was a loser ass nerd. And man, that resemblance

Like it's one thing when a spin-off manga drawn by a different artist does A Thing. It's another when Oda himself does it

[fictionadventurer]

I think I have accidentally become very protective of the story of Snow White.

[vulpixisananimal]

Intermission

(There was something satisfying about the feeling of your boots hitting soft earth. Maybe it was the crunch of dry leaves and twigs. Maybe it was the occasional stone you'd kick down the road. Or maybe it was simply the satisfaction the family who walked behind you wouldn't be tripping over a particularly unsafe branch.)

(You were all on the road again.)

(It was a couple days since you all left Jouvente, things had moved fast once you recovered. Isabeau was getting sick of the place, and Mirabelle was itching to go on another adventure.)

("But where do we go next?" "How do we get there?" "What about Siffrins health?" "What ABOUT my health?" And these were just the questions asked out loud. Is Siffrin really ok? Are his headmates ok? Who caused this whole mess with mind craft? Can we trust Ramos?)

(Ramos. . .)

(The day before you all left Ramos accepted your offer to join. Said that they're going to pause the Defender training and go home. Since you all were headed there, Ramos was joining you. You still didn't know how to feel about that. Your family's opinion was split too.)

(Mirabelle was sceptical, but wanted to give them a chance. Isabeau insisted they're a good person. Odile was as wary as you were, and Nille thought they were alright. Bonnie said they were a "crabbing idiot" and left it at that. That made you smile.)

(So, that's where you were now. Leading the pack just like before. You, Mira, Isa, Ramos, Odile, Bonnie, and Nille in that order. Your group was getting sizable.)

"What do you think, Sif?" (You hear Mira call from behind.)

"Huh?" (You turn.) "Sorry, was zoning out."

"That's ok!" (she smiles.) "I was just asking if here's a good place to stop!"

(You shrug.) "I can go a few minutes more."

"Can you?" (She asked suspiciously.)

"I can! Look! I'm still fine from-" (You turned back to the road ahead and stopped. Holding up an arm.)

(There was a figure in the middle of the road, on the ground.)

(Mirabelle stopped, having long ago learned when you spotted something dangerous or peculiar. Isabeau on the other hand was as oblivious as ever and was walking right past you. You grab his arm.)

"Whuh-? What's-"

"You really suck at follow the leader." (you say, sticking your tongue out.)

"What is it, Sif?" (Mira asks, now looking ahead.) "Is that. . ."

"I'll check. All sneaky like, just in case~" (You start creeping towards the figure, careful and quietly, the loud clump clump of your boots before becoming nothing but a faded dream. You were good at this.)

(Step, step, step. . . It got clearer what the figure was as you got closer, lump of clothes? Someone in a lump of clothes, someone passed out! Oh! When you get to its side, you wave your family over. No danger.)

(Mira was there first and knelt down besides the stranger.) "O-oh! Oh no is, is it alright?"

(Next was Isa, going to check for a pulse and breathing.) "Well it's not dead? Just passed out."

"Does it not have a pack? Perhaps it was robbed." (Odile comments.) "After all, it's a long walk from the next rest."

(You shook your head.) "I didn't see one."

"No wounds or anything either." (Isa tapped his chin.)

"Maybe it. . . Didn't have one?" (Ramos comments from the sidelines.)

"Who'd be traveling without food and water?" (Nille kneels down, taking off her pack.) "Here, I'll give it some of mine."

"So kind Petronille." (Mira smiled.) "I'll try waking it up first."

(Mirabelle put a hand to the strangers heart, then up to its forhead. After a moment, the strangers yawned, eyes still closed, and smiled.)

"Good morning!!" (It says.)

"O-oh!" (Mira said surprised.) "U-uh, Good morning? Really it's good evening now, b-but!!"

"Are you alive?" (Bonnie asked, bluntly.)

(The stranger sat up.) "Oh! Yes! Yes I'm alive! Haha, I was just taking a nap! I think."

"You think?" (Said Odile, suspicious.)

"Yep!" (The stranger rubbed its head.) "Oh, oooooh stars what was I doing agaaaaain."

(Your ears perk up, stars? Ramos glanced over at you, and then asked.) "Are you, from that Island?"

"Huh?" (It looks up.) "Am I. . Oh! Oh! Oh that Island! I dunno, maybe." (It shrugs, and smiles.)

"Here, drink water." (Nille passes her water to it, it chugs it down.) "Try not to choke on it."

(The stranger coughes, and giggles.) "T-thank you! Haha! Oh right! I'm Jinn! (it/its)!"

(You all introduce yourselves. Huh, how'd we know it's pronouns already?)

(Don't question it.)

"I guess now is a good time to set up camp then!" (Mira says.) "T-that is if you're ok with it Jinn!"

"Oh! Oh no that'd be great!!" (It smiled. Did it ever open its eyes?) "I love meeting new people!! And I'm in no hurry!!"

>>>

"It's ready!!!"

(Bonnie yelled from the makeshift fire pit you helped prepare. Bonbon, Nille, and that stranger Jinn were all making a tasty dish while the rest of you were setting up. Everyone had a tent except you. You liked sleeping under the stars. Jinn was the same way, aparently.)

(You were very hungry.)

(Aaaaaaand who's fault was that~)

(You roll your eye. How could you forget, your favorite annoying star had shown up while making Isas tent. Listen, you THOUGHT you were fine.)

(You can think a lot of things Stardust~)

(You shake your head as you stepped over to the fire- WAIT-)

"IS THAT-"

(Bonnie held up a plate to you triumphantly.) "MALANGA!!! FRITTERS!!!"

(YES!!!)

(YES YES PLEASE STARS YES.)

(You take the plate from Bonnie and ruffle their hair.) "Thank you SO MUCH!!"

"Hehe!" (They were smiling so big and wide.)

(Stardust if you don't start eating RIGHT NOW-)

(Oh you didn't even wait a SECOND. You were scarfing down your food so fast. Yummy!!! Oh so so SO SO GOOD!!!)

"S-slow down Sif!" (Isa says, worried.) "I don't want you to choke!!"

"No I wanna see how far they'll go." (Nille counters.)

(You take bite after bite, finishing your food waaaay before anyone else. You put down your plate.)

". . . You 'aight, Siffy?" (Nille asks.)

(You burp.)

"Eeeewwwww"

"HAH!"

"Hehe"

"Manners, Siffrin!"

(You smile, and sink down in your cloak a little.) "S-sorry, it was really really good."

"Really? I couldn't tell." (Odile says sarcasticly. You all have a laugh at that.)

(Conversation ensues, mostly around Jinn. Who it was, where it was going, why it was passed out. The answer for all of them was the same:)

"I dunno." (It shrugged.) "I'm just going, forgot where I came from, forgot where I'm going."

"Doesn't that, worry you?" (Asks Ramos.)

"Haha, nope!" (It smiles.) "I end up where I end up, The Universe guides."

"And all we can do is follow." (You mumble, stupid Universe.) "So you remember that, at least."

"Of course!" (It tilts its head.) "I don't think I could ever forget that!"

(You shook your head.) "Well the Universe owes me after everything it put me through."

(You glance at Jinn, it looks, sad. It speaks up.) "W-well, you never really know what, what's going on with The Universe, right?"

"So?" (You question.)

"T-there, could have been some reason, o-or. . ." (It trails off and looks back down at its food. Looking at your friends, the awkwardness had spread. They knew what you had been through, and that The Universe was connected to it.)

(Stardust please, we nearly ended the world~)

(You sigh.) "It's fine. Done now, isn't it?"

"G-guess so. . ."

(. . . There's a long, uncomfortable pause before Mirabelle finds a way to break it.) "O-oh! Uh, I wanted to ask about The Universe, actually."

(Jinn perks up, looking happy as can be again.) "Oh!! What is it??"

(Mira rubs her hands together, nervous.) "W-well, I know it hurts to talk about, litteraly, but what does that phrase mean?"

"The Universe Guides? We Follow?" (Jinn replies.) "Just as it sounds! Everything happens for a reason! We learn to live with any hand we're dealt, adapt to difficulties, to rules or, or. . ."

"Or memories forgotten." (You say. Jinn nods.)

(. . . Why were your thoughts coming so easily when it came to home?)

"O-oh. . ." (Mira ponders for a second.) "It, sounds like a very strict God, if you can only follow what it guides."

"Yes and no?" (Jinn thinks for a moment.) "The Universe guides, yes, but how you take the path is up to you! To get from here to the ocean, you could follow the road, or go through the woods, or fly above them! It's about adaption! I guess it is more rigid than Change, though."

"O-oh r-right!" (Mirabelle nods excitedly.) "And!! Change tells us to seek change in ourselves, but lets us find our own way!! B-but also Change is. . W-well. ."

"A lazy God?" (Jinn giggles.) "That's ok! Change is nice!"

(You don't say? You note the earrings, one wish, one change.)

(What a strange person.)

>>>

(You wake up.)

(Why were you awake? Why were you around? It was midnight. No, probably far past midnight.)

(You can hear music.)

(You sit up. You were in your sleeping bag. That's right, you all were traveling again. It was a miracle you didn't need to front while you were on the road, you hated it. The sun. The dirt. The noises. The Heat. Ugh.)

(You look around. Everyone else's tents were set up. You could hear snores from some of them. There was another sleeping bag layed out nearby. It was empty. Who's was that again?)

(That was the stranger.)

(Ah. The stranger. It was less a memory of what happened, more just the knowledge that it did, in fact, happen. Jinn. Stranger. Islander. Where did it go? Wander off?)

(No, no you could see it. It was lying in the middle of the road. You got up, and walked over. The music got louder.)

(It didn't acknowledge your presence. It was staring up at the sky. You raise a hand-)

Nice night, isn't it?

(Your hand freezes. It spoke to you. You open your mouth, you ask how it did that.)

Lie down with me, it's a nice night.

(You hesitate, considering the now much more intimidating stranger. You decide to join it.)

(You ask-)

Relax. We have all night.

(You hush up, annoyed, and stare up at the skies. The night sky.)

(The Stars where alive, tonight. Alive and beating like hearts. You want to hold them. Grip them until they-)

That's not very nice.

(You wince. Do you mind?)

Sorry, but it's hard not to overhear your conversation.

(. . .)

Come now, there's two of you, aren't there?

(There is. You were in denial still, weren't you. That would mean you're not in control. . .)

(We're actors. Aren't we?)

(You huff. To you, maybe.)

What's your names?

(You wince again. Not used to it. Your name is Mal Du Pays.)

Vaugardian dialect meaning "Homesickness." Well not exactly Vaugardian but we don't have time explain all that. What a tragic name, do you like it?

(. . .)

. . . What about your friend?

(Name?)

Yes! You must have a name, right?

(. . . I don't really have one. Not yet, at least.)

(You need a name. Choose one.)

Now now Mal, give them some time. A names a big thing!

(I, don't know. I didn't think-)

Here!

(You look to your side. The stranger was holding something in it's hand. You take it, it was. . . A small stone? The stranger had one, and put it in it's ear.)

Go on, like I do.

(. . . You put the stone into your ear.)

(You hear music.)

Nice, isn't it?

(It was nice, the music sounded familiar, but you couldn't place it. You breathe in. . . And out. . .)

(. . . Lost one was what you called yourself, if you needed to acknowledge a self.)

Lost one?

(You don't want that name. . . . You'll go with Null.)

Null?

(A nothing.)

But you're not nothing! You're speaking to me now, aren't you?

(Perhaps. . . But you want that name. There's a phantom memory, of a play, one of the characters was called that, Null, a nothing.)

I know that play! Well, not exactly a play, but it's still a story! Swordsman with the gift of clairvoyance looking for a past he doesn't remember. Like you!

(You nod, it sounded familiar, it was familiar.)

I just hope your story ends better than his.

(You turn back to the stranger, it's smiling at you. There's stars in it's eyes.)

. . . Do you like the music?

(Yes. Yes you do. You both do. You look back to the sky. It helped you focus. Find yourself. You could count the stars, you could even remember the constellations.)

(You weren't being bothered by the hard ground beneath you.)

(You finally felt like the play had stopped for intermission.)

(You feel. . . Content.)

Do you want a pair?

(You do, you really do.)

Then you know what to do.

(. . . You did.)

(You look to the night, and wait. It might have been minutes, hours. You watched, until you saw a small streak of light slice the sky in two. You close your eyes.)

(Music to help you focus. Music to help you focus. Music to help you focus. . .)

(. . .)

(You open your eyes. Why did we do that? Why did we do that?)

(Why did you lie down next to a stranger, you didn't Even know who it was! You sit up. This wasn't right, there was something wrong. You turn to the stranger. You open your mouth.)

(Who. Are. You?)

Oh! Sorry, I should have introduced myself! I'm-

(You. You stare at the stranger. You knew that word. Your. Your hand is shaking. Your breath, quickening. You, you.)

(You're-)

You should go to sleep.

>>>

"'Friiiiiiin."

(You are being shaken awake.) "Mmmmrrrmmg five minuuuuutes...."

(Whoever's shaking you stops for a moment. Then you feel a very small body jump on you.)

"GWUH--"

"WAKE UP 'FRIN!!!"

(You clear the sleep from your eyes. Bonbon was waking you up. You were sleeping in the middle of the road, your sleeping bag was nowhere near you.)

"Uh, hhhheyy."

"Sleepwalking?" (They ask smugly.) "Ground taste good or something?"

"Haha! No I, I dunno actually!"

(You get up and dust yourself off. What WERE you doing last night? You don't remember. Maybe someone else does. Bonnie goes back to camp, your family is packing up.)

(. . . Jinn is nowhere to be seen. It must have left early in the morning.)

(You feel something in your hand. You open it.)

(A pair of small stones, there's the engraving of a crescent moon on them.)

(. . . Weird.)