#and especially in Chapter 2 being based around the Internet

[hoodieimp]

Fixating on the Addisons is so fucking funny when you think about it. Like wow we really went and blorbo-ified the Concept of Online Advertising as a gay friend group-slash-polycule

[loemius]

talk to us about Charon worship, Herakles worship, or Hera worship-- three figures that get very little attention in polytheistic spaces compared to ones like the internet's darling Hermes

OH BOY WOULD I LOVE TO!! thank you for the ask <333 im so excited i gotta do all three of them and pray i dont hit character limit again LMAO HERAKLES: there's two main things that draw me to herakles: 1) his liminal nature. he's both given these divine tasks from literal birth (the snakes in his crib) but is also so deeply human. he's suffered devastating things, and yet, he keeps going, he perseveres. is he worshipped as a mortal hero or as one of the divine? there's evidence for BOTH in antiquity (see oxford handbook of herakles chapter 33 for more). herakles is often an aggressive figure, and through his labors, it can be seen as him 'taming' the wilds and being a helper to society. it's such an interesting juxtaposition and its hard for me to articulate it because of just how deep it runs. 2) herakles lives out every mystai's dream. he's an initiate of the eleusinian mysteries, has been to hyperborea, and he earns apotheosis and a life with the gods, forever in their company. i look up to that. this doesn't even mention all his other adventures outside of his labors! he's got so much going on, and it's all fascinating. herakles has a lot to do with protection, masculinity, athleticism, and averting evil. upg wise, i worship him as an example of someone to look up to -- despite all the things he's been through and the impossible tasks facing him, he's determined and never gives up and asks the gods for help (side note: his relationship with athena is so interesting). i find that he gives me courage and is just a fun and protective presence to be around. if anyone is interested in him, i highly suggest oxford handbook of herakles. fantastic book. CHARON: honestly, charon is a newer figure in my worship, so i don't have a ton of particular sources to share about him. i like that he's a friendly face to the end. i think a lot about the inherent verbal pun of 'khaire kharon' based on how similar the two words are and greeting the ferryman as a friend. there's something to me about his hardworking nature. upg wise, i like to collect my spare change for him and put it in a little dish as an offering. not just for me, but to pay it forward for anyone who might not have anything to pay him with for their ferry. i just find him to be a really interesting figure tbh and im excited to develop my relationship with him more. HERA: oh boy oh boy where do i start with our lovely queen of the gods. i love the orphic association with her and winds -- thinking about how that pairs with father zeus and his storms endlessly delights me, a cosmic dance from the king and queen. her relationship with zeus fascinates me endlessly. they both get a lot of shit on this site, but in cult, they were considered to be deeply in love (theogamia, daedala, their epithets gamelia/gamelii). hera is the keeper of father zeus' oikos (household). she is the one who decides if who gets to join the oikos and who doesn't (much of her persecution of zeus' children without her can be interpreted as her deciding who and who is not worthy of being in her oikos). in cult, she was often revered as an all-mother figure, especially in argos and samos, and i love that interpretation of her. she's a very complex figure, and i love that about her. i love her role in women's lives. i think a lot about her epithets pais, teleia, khera (girl, married woman, widow [from when she separated from zeus for a period of time]). no matter where you are in your life, hera will be there for you. i find that very comforting. upg wise, i pray to her about just about anything. i find she's always a comforting and listening ear. i like to pray to her about my relationships, given her marriage related epithets. i find that she gives me confidence and courage to stand up for myself like she does, to carry myself in the world with grace. i just really like her okay thank you SO much for this ask, this was an absolute treat to talk about. i genuinely appreciate it so much, gods be with you always and bless you

[elodieunderglass]

Elodie, is there an amount I can pay you to persuade you to translate all of Moby Dick like that during Whale Weekly? It's incredible and I desperately want to read the whole thing. I am serious about the money.

(In reference to this “line by line translation of the first chapter of Moby Dick into insufferable modern idiom” I wrote:)

For those who don’t know, Moby Dick is getting a Dracula Daily treatment starting November 21, which will be called “Whale Weekly.” Rumor has it that it will take ~2 years to complete. I’ve seen a blog called @whaleweekly which is collecting an initial book club, and I believe there’s a discord, etc, so there should be a small community of people to read it with.

People HAVE been deliciously split between “reading this post has been strangely educational, and has made Moby Dick easier to understand in its original form” and “OP this is an active and violent warcrime and feels like acid on my skin,” which are exactly the two emotions I like to evoke in my writing.

And I AM about to go on maternity leave for about a year, so it’s tempting! I get demonstrably weird when my intellectual life is supposed to revolve around babies too much. Based on prior experience I write strange posts like “why are dogs dogs” and get way too invested in correcting people on the internet who are wrong. This strongly suggests, in fact, that I (being mentally healthy ofc) need to be more mature about things and simply go to sea. Or simply have a clear project. And part of mat leave, even with good benefits, is always unpaid and therefore terrifying, so it seems charming and hilarious to counter that by “graduate level analysis of Moby Dick.” CAN YOU IMAGINE. What a conversation starter.

“What are you doing after rhyme time?”

“Oh, putting this thing down for a nap and translating Moby Dick for tips.”

“Translating? Like, into another language?”

“You could say that yeah”

But I’ve never taken money on the internet, so I’d have to think about it. Especially the pressure I would feel was implied to produce something worth paying for. Like, in the first chapter of Moby Dick there’s a whole entire joke to unpack about Pythagoras, beans, winds, and farting. It’s an elaborate fart joke that I just didn’t sit down to unpack because I wrote it on a lunch break: I would feel more compelled to unpack every joke and reference and modernise them, and that would literally become a graduate-school-level course of study.

Also, I really don’t have the education and political knowledge to think deeply and helpfully enough about Ishmael’s/Melville’s racial lenses, nor do I have the savvy and experience to interpret them usefully for a diverse audience, that will naturally consist of people at all different levels of learning. It’s fine enough to translate the first chapter, so that people can see how underneath the 19th century styling, this is an unreliable narrator with lots of things wrong with him, and lots of jokes that you’d miss.

But the layers on layers of “how to interpret Ishmael-via-Melville’s chaotic, festering, toxic, educational, revelatory, exoticising, sympathetic, distasteful race relations - which show the underpinnings of American racial construction and other educational things, and are quite useful for humanities majors to study - without referencing Elodie’s own politics? or having Elodie be annoyed by people assuming that interpreting 19th century literature means that Elodie subscribed to Melville’s beliefs?” (Because I have some experience with reading comprehension on the internet, enough to make me look at some chapters of the Big D and say, I am not touching that in public, not even with a very long harpoon). If it was for a graduate-level or lived-experience or otherwise politically savvy/invested audience you could trust everyone a bit more to get to work on critical thinking and unpacking the translation, but if your audience is naturally assembled because you promised to make something accessible, the intention of the project being to make it accessible to more people, then you have to take your lumps and accept that people will take the translated content in bad faith and will go, like, “wait, this is uncomfortable content!!! I take it at face value! I blame YOU for it!” And I’d have to think REALLY proactively about how I managed that. If I was a scholar of English, literature or politics I would consider it my duty to do so; but I minored in English a long time ago and am on the journey of gradual acceptance that my best contributions are basically just jokes.

This is a long-winded answer to a lovely question, and probably shows way too much insight into why I enjoy comprehending Moby Dick.

[canyouhearthelight]

Nihilus Rex Ch. 10: First Move

This chapter took 2 weeks to write. One to hash out what all our intrepid villains would need to do to pull this off, and one to actually write the chapter and make sure all bases are covered.

I and @baelpenrose have taken very few liberties with what this trio is doing, but I want to double-down on his note from the previous chapter: trying this would not only be extremely illegal, but in 2024 it wouldn't even remotely work. Especially not the lien release part: most of those records are digital now, and each bank has maybe four people total with the level of access required to release them. Maybe four.

Cause I am, I am

A little wicked

I am, I am

Hands red, hands red

Just like you said

I am, a little wicked

Valerie Broussard, “A Little Wicked”

After two detours - one to find another thermos, the other to fill both - we managed to make our way to a mall so old and worn-looking that even Spirit Halloween would give it a pass. Nils led us around to a side entrance before holding the door open with a sweeping gesture.  I rolled my eyes good naturedly, Bishop groaning behind me as we shouldered past.  Pausing to rub the dust from an old map with one sleeve, I found what I was looking for and glanced up. “Please tell me the stairs are in good shape?  Best Buy is all the way on the fourth floor.”

“They are, and it is, but we won’t need either.”  I suppressed a shiver as he reached past me to tap a location on our same level. “Sears.  The television section is down here, and the cable connections are still intact.”

“And we didn’t enter on that side because…?” Bishop asked, seeing how far away it looked on the map.

“Internet is up, power doors are not,” came the dry answer. “And this door was the only one I could get my hands on a key for.” 

“How did you - “ I started.

“You don’t want to know, Baklava. Plausible deniability - if anyone gets busted, Nothing did the breaking and entering, we weren’t aware he wasn’t lawfully here.” Hiking his bag further up on his shoulder, Bishop grunted. “Let’s go.”

Walking through the mall gave the eerie impression of being a zombie movie - rustling could be heard constantly, along with voices coming from beyond some of the locked grates covering storefronts. Squatters, I realized. Better use of the space than just leaving it here to rot, I thought approvingly. At least they aren’t freezing to death outside.

“Anyway.” Nils led the way into the employee break room in the Sears, one where he’d clearly helped himself to a few of the beanbags from the small furniture store, and locked the door behind us. “Router is behind the counter. We got wifi, we have a place to sit, we have work to do. Everyone, grab a beanbag or a chair. Local squatters won’t bother us in here - there’s an arrangement. I paid for a generator, they don’t mess with my stuff, and stay out of my way when I need to do a thing.” 

I made a mental note to bring food next time, provided I could figure out a way to bring it without Nils or Bishop noticing - last thing I needed was Bishop informing Nils about my stray-cat tendencies.  Grabbing a bean bag and an abandoned tray to set my computer on, I nested in and started getting everything connected.  Once I was happy with where everything was at, I dug in my bag for some snacks, pulling them out triumphantly before realizing Nils and Bishop were staring at me.

“What? You said we had work to do.”

Nils started snickering. “Not that. Just. Never known anyone who brought chili pistachios to a hack job. That’s all.” He shrugged. “Kind of cool.” 

“Creampuff. You and I both know if it was anyone else - like me, or even like Shade, you’d be saying something that would end with everyone either laughing or punching your lights out.” Harvey glanced at him with exasperation.

I offered some of my snack. “Keep the nut jokes to a minimum and I’ll share.”

“Please, Lash. We are not WintermuteWeasel. We come up with classier jokes than that when there is a lady present.” Nils replied, with faux-dignity. 

“In that case, I won’t offer you this,” I sighed dramatically, holding up a bag of homemade jerky. “Because god forbid you put my meat in your mouth.”

Bishop leaned past Nils. “I will gladly put your meat and your nuts in my mouth,” he managed to deadpan, making me throw my head back laughing before handing over both pistachios and jerky.

Nils blinked. “Apologies, clearly I misunderstood your sense of humor. My apologies. I’d do this casually, but you now strike me as the type who’d doubtless prefer a bit of begging for the privilege of your tasty, tasty nuts. Please…” He gave me giant puppy dog eyes and fell out of his bean bag chair, doing his best attempt at looking pathetic, not quite topping how he’d looked when bleeding in a torn suit, but much, much funnier. 

I surrendered and nodded for Bishop to pass the snacks over. “And don’t worry, I didn’t cook any of these, so they taste really good. Fair warning, the lamb jerky is - “

“Hooooleee crap,” Bishop gasped around a mouthful, grabbing a bottle of water and taking a big swig. “Spicy. Very very spicy. Lots of cilantro spicy, was not prepared.”

“That,” I finished lamely. “So go slow or we’ll never get any work done.  Speaking of the Weasel… Any word?”

“Called him, he should be calling back in….” His phone started ringing. “Now. I’ll deal with him, try to keep quiet, both of you. It’s gonna be easier if you two don’t acknowledge that I’m buying for you so he doesn’t hold up the sale for something gross, you know?” He stepped off. “Wintermute, yeah. Best icebreaker. Needs to be less than 30MB. Able to tear through the absolute best encryption out there? Can you do it?”

Something on the other end.

“Need to get a worm and a data bomb through it, and be able to activate the data bomb on the other end after the worm has had time to work. No, you don’t need to know what for. You just need to know the parameters. High end, government encryption. Less than 30MB file size.” Harvey got tense, and began rolling his eyes, held the phone away from his head for a minute. He began doing ducklips - might have picked that up from me.

Eventually he put it back to his head. “Yeah, I get it’ll be expensive. No, no I will not disclose who I’m working with. Cash only payments. Yeah, I can pay that.” 

He hung up. “Great. He’ll meet me in a few weeks. He bitched about it, a lot, but after a bit he said he could do it. It’ll ring three thousand. Each of you down to cover a grand?” 

I squinted and did some mental math. “Yeah, I can cover that.” I’d have to bite the bullet and work on some more anime commissions, but the money was practically sitting there otherwise.  “Richie McWhiteboy, you don’t need to auction off a leather jacket or anything, do you?”

“You know what’s sad? I am so useless in so many ways, but I have the kind of academic credentials where I get paid to research for the university as a grad student as long as I keep helping professors with their research and it covers rent. All my jobs basically just cycle in paying for other jobs and expenses. And I still have money left over to give away. Yeah, I can throw a thousand - probably a little more if it’ll take strain off of you two.”

Bishop winked at me. “Ah, to have rich people problems, right?”

I threw my hands up. “I will totally take financial help in providing snacks and decent coffee. Titties only get me so far.”  Belatedly, I realized what I had said and covered my face with both hands. “ART!” I shouted. “ART!”

Nils snickered. “Most artists have drawn big tittied anime girls for money, and most academics who need it have either written Marvel fanfiction for kinks they didn’t want to know about or written someone else’s papers. Don’t think about it too hard.” 

Bishop just shook his head as I peeked through my fingers and dragged over a second bean bag to prop his feet on. “Before we get completely derailed by a taco joke, let’s reel it in, children.  Our not so friendly neighborhood perv is working on the encryption breaking, do we want to do the worm or databomb first?”

Nils looked to me. “I’d prefer doing the databomb first, since a spore with extra activations is easy enough and just having it done early so all we have left is the hard part means that when we’re done with the hard part we don’t have anything left, but if anyone has any objections to that I’ll hear them?”

“The county records…?” I asked, glancing between the both of them. “You know, the physical liens? With the counties?”

It was completely the opposite of reassuring when Nils went pale and Bishop’s eyes glazed over. With a deadpan, almost contemptuously exhausted tone, Nils grunted, “Fuck. Alright, malware 4 and 5, another encryption breaker, another databomb, let’s go. And find some way of getting those released. And finding which ones we’re looking for…”

“I mean a dial-up bot that just asks after public records isn’t hard, you and I have made like a few dime a dozen ones, that’s easy. Hell, I have a DDoS botnet or two we can repurpose, just collecting dust. Start generating those to get public records on liens, they’re public record. Hard part is the lien releases, that’ll take…some courts and counties take digital copies or faxed copies of the notarized forms, I say we collect the records with that and start sending forged copies out. I mean, we’d need to pay a good forgery guy, but I know one. It takes about thirty days, but we can mill the fucking things once we get all the records and get good fake state seals made.”

“Make sure they are backdated by several months,” I suggested. “Totally Purloined Letter it, act like they’ve had it this entire time and lost their copy. They’ll be too embarrassed to object.”

“Right, add about a month to the process for that and finishing our worm and encryption breaker, county records are easily breakable, we can make our own icebreakers for that but we’re gonna need a lot of computers to launch that many attacks at once…That, plus adequate databombs.”

“Add another twenty five days after we send the fake releases, give time for as many as possible to be recorded,” Bishop added. “They’re less likely to be lumped in with the attack, that way.”

              “Okay. That, plus I have to regularly commune with my morons on their “orders” for the “joint operation” about dealing with the “evil shadow government.” Nils sighed. “Okay. We have a lot of work to do but we should be able to manage it. We can’t brag about it after, which kinda sucks because we’re rapidly approaching Inception-timed-to-music levels of bullshit, and if we pull it off any reasonable world would give us bragging rights forever, but there are way worse things.” 

              “I don’t suppose any of your far right fucknuckle brother uncles are notaries?” I sighed. “We’d never be that lucky.”

              “Sadly, no. I do have a relative who is but she’d never get caught up in anything illegal for political reasons, perish the thought,” Nils’ voice took on a note of contempt. “She conveniently forgets that marrying her husband was illegal until around 60 years ago, and that the entire concept of civil disobedience is ‘breaking the law for political reasons’.”  He shrugged. 

              Bishop grunted, snagging a thermos. “Pocket notaries going on Santa’s wishlist in the event we are ever good little boys and girl…. We are now at 55 day lead time, minimum. The thirty days will give us time to come up with hardware without getting too much scrutiny, and we use that time to let bots dig up the information we need on the liens and student debt.” I blinked and he waggled a finger at me. “I didn’t forget that part, don’t worry. Student debt is going to be the least painful, because zero potential damage there, Sallie Mae can just fuck right off.”  

He typed for second and tilted his head. “Then we send the faked releases - I don’t know if my guy can do them in bulk, so it would be smart to have a program to mock them up as back-up.  Who can code that, because I’ll be too busy.”

I raised my hand. “Digital art en masse is my area of expertise,” I nodded confidently. “I can cobble something together from my animation stuff, no problem.”  Would I test it by using it to clear my commissions inbox? Probably, but they didn’t need to know that.  I already felt guilty enough about it.

“Okay, so I’ll handle the databombs and the basic icebreakers, Bishop will repurpose his dialup net, and Lash will get the mock-ups ready so we can mill out fake lien releases. I’ll also handle getting the gun nuts ready and primed for when we go. We’ll work together on the worm since that’ll be the hardest part.” Nils was standing, the irritated exhaustion gone, eyes suddenly alight. “We have a little less than two months, and when that’s done, we’ll be paying back the banks for the 2008 crash and all the futures they stole with student loans. And we’ll be stealing a lot of them back. Let’s get to work.” 

[carnelianwings]

Harvestella Review

For a game I meant to just spend the afternoon on, I ended up playing all afternoon, followed it up with a 4 hour impromptu stream, and now it’s 1 am. So to me, it’s been a fantastic game so far. Definitely not a game you want to rush, as I discovered after dying no less than 4 times in the first 2 chapters alone, but if you take it at a casual pace and don’t actually push your character harder than the game wants you to, you’ll be fine. (I’ll come back to this point later.) Also I should note that I jumped into this game blind knowing that it’s a full game and a farm sim/rpg hybrid and zero knowledge of the staff credits (especially the composer rofl).

Doing a proper detailed review based on the 8 hours I’ve spent playing this today, tucking this behind a cut because good god this got long lol.

tl;dr: Unexpectedly fun, worth trying at least the demo if you’ve played (and enjoyed) Sakuna of Rice and Ruin (it’s very similar in concept and execution except you’re growing more than just rice and it’s a full fledged 3D action RPG instead of 2D beat ‘em up), OST is amazing, it’s just that $60 price tag that’s a little YMMV. Based on the 8 hours I’ve played today, easily an 8/10

Starting with the cons - the biggest one here is the price tag. For the type of game it is, I’m not entirely sure it’s worth the $60 release day price tag. Definitely get it on sale when it happens; it’s definitely worth it at a lower price. At its current price, though, it’s a massive YMMV. I’ll give it some more time to see how the story pans out to decide whether or not it’s worth the price tag - I’ve spent enough years of my life playing Tales to know just because the opening plays all the tropes straight doesn’t mean the rest of the story will too.

Speaking of Tales - despite this being a SqEnix title complete with the Final Fantasy style character designs and look, there’s definitely a few things that scream Tales and Star Ocean in here. Time will tell whether or not how much of those “Hmmmm this doesn’t feel like FF but definitely feels like Tales/SO” vibes pan out.

The biggest win (actually there’s 2) for the game is definitely the OST though. If you loved any of Go Shiina’s contributions to Tales OSTs over the years (especially his contributions to Zestiria/Berseria’s) definitely give the OST a listen. It’s fantastic, it’s amazing, even though it’s not a Tales OST I actually want a copy of it. If this is what we get from Go Shiina parting ways with Bamco Tales Studio, then I’m not going to complain too hard.

The other big win (which I think has been spread around the internet at this point), is the fact you can choose to play as a male, female, or non-binary character. I’m honestly impressed they included this as an option, now all I’m wondering is if the post-game romance options also let me romance any character of any gender, because 8 hours in and I have to say - I kind of have a crush on Aria, and I would be very sad if I can’t romance her post-game just because I opted to play as the female MC. Also just saying I made my female MC with blue hair and eyes before I even saw Aria, so I swear we’re red/blue compatible and just ... let me date her and make her happy *sobs*

Combat is a little “meh” for now, but there’s signs it’ll get better as you unlock new Jobs and gain levels. Despite people saying there’s no dodge/evasion in combat, there is, but it’s a skill you have to learn off of melee classes ... which, if you’ve been around Tales long enough, will sound really familiar. I can definitely say if you’ve played Tales those same skills will help you get pretty far, and being able to equip 3 Jobs with you when you go out exploring and swap between them gives you a lot of flexibility ... kinda like Ludger actually. My biggest gripe is that there’s no healer for now, so you’re really reliant on early foraging for food and whatever you can farm for HP recovery - but at least you can eat food while you’re in combat and whatever you use on yourself also applies to your other party members so you’re not burning through all of your food stores before you get around to renovating the kitchen and you can cook food for better buffs/HP recovery instead of stuffing your face with whatever random herbs/veggies/fruits you’ve foraged/grown. The AI is decent, but you can’t really adjust what they do in combat or their strategy but at least they won’t go half-cocked on what’s essentially a Giganto Monster and get one-shot. It’s a little annoying though if you’re playing as a Mage because this means you have to be the one to open combat and the monsters aggro on you once you get into (casting) range so it’s a little annoying.

As for the farming sim part, it’s pretty standard farm sim, straight out of the f2p microtransaction mobile game playbook. That said, this is a full game so you don’t have to wait for onerous timers to grow your crops, the farming itself is more plant/water/wander off and do your questing/monster smacking/materials gathering and come back to harvest the next day kind of deal. Having played Sakuna of Rice and Ruin (and loved it) I was hoping this would be how it got implemented so I’m satisfied with how that turned out - plus this also scratches that “I want to play a farm sim” itch I get once in a while that leads me to downloading some terrible f2p microtransaction mobile game to play for all of a month before I hit the paywall of “wait 1+ day(s) for thing” and get fed up with it.

As for the general side quests - I highly recommend you do them as they pop up, as they really help you with earning money and gaining exp for leveling. They also show up at the right time for your level/story progress, so it’s definitely a good way to supplement you with what you need to tackle the main story. Plus you get to learn more about the NPCs in the town, and everything seems to point in the general direction of “You really should get to know everyone in town Because This Might Be Plot Important Later”. Oh, and that’s also where I’m getting a lot of the Tales/SO vibes - for all that the overall game world looks bright and shiny and happy, there’s definitely undercurrents of “This is actually a Crapsack World” that wouldn’t be out of place at all in a Tales game, with a few NPCs you encounter that wouldn’t be out of place in an SO game for both aesthetic and world building information they’re dropping. Also they encourage you to enter the various dungeons multiple times, which is a good thing, since that also helps break up the leveling monotony and it doesn’t feel like you’re just grinding monsters for exp.

Overall, it’s a pretty fun game, the characters are engaging, the plot is interesting thus far (even if it’s pretty standard JRPG storytelling) and as a casual-ish game it’s fun. Maybe not worth the $60, but definitely worth getting if you see it on sale.

[otomebanshou]

Opinionated piece on Tengoku Struggle -Strayside-

Below is a very opinionated piece based on my feelings after completing Tengoku Struggle Strayside. Please do not take any of my comments to heart, I just like to ramble and get things off my chest to throw into the void of the internet. Enjoy.

SPOILERS DISCUSSED!!!

Let’s start off with strong feelings. I didn’t like the game. 4/10, I may give it a 5 just for Sharaku being the saving grace of the game to be generous. I was always with the crowd that was down for some longer routes for love interests. This game put that to test for me with 12 chapters (13 for Goemon) for the boys and god damn did it wear me out.

So let’s move on to that. The game is way too fucking long for its own good. Not in a good way is it long, it’s way too damn fluffed up with pointless shit and beating around the bush. I could barely spend quality time that mattered with literally all the guys because the route wanted to push it’s very subpar plotline. 

The plot is atrocious. Not as bad as Charade Maniacs but honestly it was just as insulting. “We need to get the bad guys who escaped hell! …but we can’t fight them.” is honestly a really stupid plot. They had me going for a second, hopeful, that based on how things went down in Sharaku’s route (my first route) that it was all just leading up to a pokemon battle with the route’s villain and Rin was the pokemon trainer. Me, playing it at the time, when I got to the fights with Asaemon, I thought “oh ok! Maybe this is how the game is going to go, that’s cool I guess!” Boy was I fucking wrong. The game doesn’t know where it fucking wants to go other than beat around the bush for 90% of the chapters. 

The routes honestly would’ve been better off at 7 each, 8 for Goemon I guess. Like I said, a lot of the routes spend a majority of the time beating around the bush especially when it comes to feelings and where the fuck the plot is trying to go. Or maybe you’re Kiku and you are bitching and moaning about your sister who hates your guts for 11 chapters. No seriously his route can literally be summarized by: Kiku: Azami! Stop helping the bad guys! 🙁 Azami: ew no I hate you! Kiku: 🙁

Meanwhile, Yona and Sharaku had some of the better routes, developments, and just overall better everything. It doesn’t save the game for me however. It still left me feeling “wtf is the plot actually trying to be” for the entire time. But to give some praise, Yona is a very interesting character and his love for novels, including smutty ones, was a very nice touch that leaves me feeling very fond of him! Sharaku was just wonderful and I really enjoyed how deeply sweet his gestures for Rin were.

JacK, I love you but your route (and your personality) is a bit all over the place. I somehow felt like ranking him as my number 2 because, honestly I don’t know, I just liked him? He definitely had me on a rollercoaster of what the fuck is going on because he’s just so hot and cold and I still don’t really have a grip on who JacK REALLY is. But, like everything else, I’m blaming the writers here.

Finally, Goemon. Disa-fucking-pointing. LOL. He’s not as bad as Kiku, but lmfao, the common route hinted at the fated lovers trope, like a very typical otomate game. Fine ok, I ADORED Akaza so I had some hope. Some faith. DASHED!!!! Goemon is somewhat cute at the very least, questionably obsessed with himself that he kinda sweeps under the rug and never really talks about again, and he’s well liked. But that last part made him kinda boring to be honest. My main issue with him is the route sucked!! Rin and Goemon LITERALLLLLLYY beat around the bush about this whole “I loved you in the previous life” for ELEVEN CHAPTERS. It’s not even like rewarding. Goemon KNOWS and Rin doesn’t. I thought in like chapter 4 or 5 this shit would get cleared up and they’d build into something really amazing. Nah bro Goemon is just like “yeah uwu i really loved this dango shop, the girl there was beautiful uwu” and Rin spends nearly EVERY chapter going “god i wish i was the dango shop, the dango girl, hell the dango he ate ;_;” and Goemon kinda just.. Lets it happen which I found absolutely annoying LOL. I think the only real positive I have for this is Sharaku was funny, no shocker he’s funny in every route, and Goemon’s VA is really good, because otherwise I was really bored. My face when it said: chapter 13 PLEASE JUST END IT PLEASEE I DON’T WANNA KEEP PLAYING THIS SHIT

ALSO THE WRITERS PUSHED IN A RAPE SUBPLOT AND A OUT OF NOWHERE “BETRAYAL(????)” AND IT WAS SO BAD LMFAO like holy moly I felt nothing for that part other than “yup there it is, that's the shit they love to do for no fucking reason WHAT SO EVERRRR”

Ok, we are nearing the end I promise.

Side characters? They ranged from pretty cool to what the fuck is the point of you. 

The coolest? Asaemon, and the couple that I forget the name of. I also kinda like Shin.

Azami is pretty mid tbh. She’s just a bratty girl. Nothing really new.

Shinobikuni is the most disappointing villain? Like she literally… did nothing. Lmao @ the ending where she just kinda lets Goemon win without a fight like “lol you got me i guess!”

Lol Mukkun wtf, the whole betrayal was so short lived it lasted like 2 minutes before it just… moved on… and changed the villain… LOL…………………

And then the white haired dude I forgot the name of. He was actually ok until… yeah lmfao wtf. I honestly couldn’t really even be mad at him because it just was such a sudden and weird choice that I just… didn’t feel anything. I was more mad at the TERRIBLE decision here. And so fucking out of nowhere like why? Actually I know why, it’s only purpose was to cause shock and I’m so disappointed.

The characters who stole the show are obviously King Enma and Mr. Corporate slave. XD They were the most enjoyable and honestly very intriguing of the cast. Always bringing humor to the table and overall brightening up my glum mood from a shitload of pointless text that brought nothing to the table. King Enma was a delight, I wish his presence was more prominent in the game.

Now, Rin.

She’s honestly just ok. The eventual background information about her that you get, obviously, from Goemon’s route was ok. I was kinda with it but that was ruined by how Goemon’s route ended up. Sometimes I really liked Rin then other times I was kinda bored with her. Not that she’s bad or I think she’s a deadpan MC, just… I don’t know, I didn’t really end up loving her. She was just ok. The whole man hating thing makes sense now but I feel more bad for her in the sense I can’t believe the writers just did that to her randomly. I don’t think I’ll ever be over it.

I forgot the cat. He was ok I guess. I wasn’t crazy about him. Did chuckle a few times at the dick biting jokes tho.

Last thing, I did *most* of the memory stuff extras, but tbh after Goemon’s bullshit route, I was just so fed up with the game I skipped about the last 25% of them. I completed them by force skipping. I just couldn’t anymore with the game. It was already so long and I was so drained by the game’s refusal to just.. End things.

So yeah. 4/10, other people will probably like it. I also didn’t really think Birushana was a very interesting game, but a lot of people really like Birushana. So, to each their own. I'm happy the game was localized and am thankful for everyone who worked on the game!

That’s it! If you read this far, you get a gold star sticker from me and I’m sorry for my opinionated piece/rant. lol

[a-adler-arts246-03]

Week 7: Chapter 6 + Immerse - 2/23/24

I enjoyed looking at and reading about how the typographic message can be conveyed through a lot of different means. This chapter really emphasized dynamic communication, which is super relevant especially to our Immerse project. I liked the reminder that syntactic refers to the form of the type, and semantic refers to its meaning; I feel like I learned that somewhere along the way, but did not remember which one was which. It was also interesting reading about the “feeling” of type and the balance between designing with logic and intuition. This made me think about my own process for creating graphics. A lot of the time, I start out with basic elements of what I need on the template, like certain words or information. Then, I try and let intuition work, and look through inspiration to see what strikes me. When I make sports graphics, sometimes I’ll just go through the pictures that the team photographer uploads, and wait for one to strike me so I can decide what aesthetic direction I want to take the graphic in. Intuition really is important in design; however, without checking myself for hierarchy and legibility and using that sort of logic, I would probably end up lost in a graphic that doesn’t serve its purpose well. 

I think the Immerse poster is going to be a challenge, but I am looking forward to learning more about augmented reality. My initial ideas revolved around nature; I was thinking about how to get the viewer immersed in a scene, like being underwater, in the crest of a wave, or in the mouth of a tiger. However, I have to think more about type and incorporating that into the poster to serve as the main element. I think I could use the general shape of the tiger but create the words within that shape, like in the stripes; I saw a lot of neat examples on the internet with type that was stretched and melted to look like waves or stripes. I think that could also work with the water design in a similar stretched or warped way. This weekend, I’m going to work on mmore type-focused sketches based on my original concepts but reworked. I don’t really know what the type is going to say, haha, but I will work on that. Then, I want to keep moving forward with one or two of the concepts to create a first draft of the poster.

[theintelligentfool]

I posted 50,094 times in 2022

81 posts created (0%)

50,013 posts reblogged (100%)

I tagged 2,410 of my posts in 2022

#just for queue! - 307 posts

#discworld - 155 posts

#gnu terry prachett - 99 posts

#gnu terry pratchett - 72 posts

#spam reblog - 71 posts

#hatsune miku tag - 49 posts

#facejame - 24 posts

#prev - 20 posts

#ai generated - 20 posts

#hehe - 19 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#ok whatever we get it you're a girlboss. can we fucking talk about america chÁvez instead she's the most interesting character in the movie

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

CRASH

7 notes - Posted March 31, 2022

#4

do u want to sit in a deep fryer together and lean on the sides like were in a jacuzzi

Yes

9 notes - Posted March 25, 2022

#3

whats wrong with you is that you have an oxymoron in your username(evilest sin of all)

it's not an oxymoron if u Understand.....

12 notes - Posted March 9, 2022

#2

wilkins and wontkins are kismeses

Hey why don't you say that to the op's face. To the face of my good friend rena of @kirbyofthestars. the person who made the post about being shocked to discover unironic wilkins/wontkins shippers on tumblr. Y'know. Her. say it to his face. and ask someone for forgiveness while you're at it

17 notes - Posted August 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

WEBCOMICS FOR THE DISCERNING READER

aka one nerds list of recommendations

- Order of The Stick (ongoing)

the order of the stick is one of my all-time favorites! it began as a gag-a-day parody of d&d and the fantasy genre in general, but has evolved into a genuine epic with a fascinating story, a memorable cast of characters, and still plenty of comedy. if you've ever enjoyed fantasy or dnd: you'll enjoy this. i suggest reading to about 100 pages before you decide whether or not you like it!

- Sleepless Domain (ongoing)

sleepless domain is a thrilling tale of magical girls in a society threatened by monsters. it's full of dark twists, charming characters, and exciting action! this is no madoka magicka ripoff, though: instead of angst centering around corruption, sleepless domain offers a fascinating and nuanced take on magical girls as child soldiers - with all the sparkles the genre requires. for this one i'd suggest reading up to chapter 2 or so before deciding what you think of it!

- The Glass Scientists (ongoing)

the glass scientists is a charming, gaslamp-fantasy take on assorted victorian mad scientists - as well as the concept of a mad scientist - in a series full of wit and drama. especially fascinating is the look at jekyll and hyde, not as good and evil halves of a person, but as a metaphor for repression (and even staying in the closet)!

- xkcd (ongoing)

xkcd is a fun, nerdy comic that, unlike the others of this list, is purely comedic rather than story-based! penned by former nasa engineer and bestselling author randall munroe, xkcd is a delightful romp through all things geeky- and i can guarantee you've almost certainly seen an xkcd strip floating around the internet before, recognizable by its distinctly stylized stick figures or silly graphs. simply hitting "random" and reading through one comic after another is an excellent way to kill time!

(there exists a wiki called "explain xkcd" that exists purely to clarify any especially obscure references or explain whatever scientific concept a given strip alludes to - i think that really says something about the sort of comic that xkcd is!)

- Val and Isaac (ongoing)

val and isaac, from tumblr's very own @/tredlocity, is a wonderful sci-fi series that's often simple one-off gags but occasionally has more intense story arcs! the characters (mostly bounty hunters) are charming and unique, the jokes are hilarious, and isaac specifically is one of my favorite ever interpretations of a wizard.

- Cocksley & Catapult (ongoing)

C&C, the sitcom-style gag-a-day comic about two besties with an impossible to describe dynamic, never fails to entertain. it's perhaps the most distinctly tumblr webcomic you'll find anywhere, whatever that means to you. perhaps the easiest way to describe it - the truest to the comic way to describe it - is "really funny in a mental illness kind of way." i love it.

hope this list is helpful to someone! let me know if you check out any of these comics, and what you think of them :D

and ESPECIALLY get in touch if you already like any of these comics.... i need someone to yell with about them

19 notes - Posted June 11, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[eurofox]

Just finished Visage and it was great, better than I was expecting and I didn't feel it was too expensive for what it was.

The PT inspiration is obvious and they acknowledge that, there's several silent hill references and one ghost shares a lot of similarities with Lisa. Amnesia is another strong influence, the sanity loss in darkness but this wasn't implemented as well imo. It was hard to see and occasionally went down when I was standing in light with nothing happening and just seemed random at times, which felt unfair.

The atmosphere is top notch, I rarely feel unease because I've played so many of these games but I definitely did here with headphones on. Nice soundtrack as well and the way it changes as they get closer was very effective. Although I did notice some of the spooky effects getting reused. Sometimes I felt like I was being chased when I actually wasn't and I was sometimes procrastinating to avoid going into an area I knew I needed to go because shit was bound to happen. Having separate chapters helped as you weren't dealing with the same ghost every time and it stopped it getting stale. The lighting especially looks great.

Controls are not good. You don't do much, just walk and look around mostly with occasional item use so it's not game ruining. It's very fiddly and you can't hold much and will have to drop things. Which will probably despawn so don't expect to find them later. This gets VERY irritating in a chapter with a sledgehammer that requires two hands. I get the idea that fumbling around with items makes it scarier but here it just felt annoying and badly designed. Also some items you can use while others need a specific interaction which is also confusing but this is rare. You're character is also pretty slow, again not bad but when you're going around in circles you'll wish you were a bit faster.

The game is longer than I was expecting though,perhaps too long. Even with the different chapters some of the tricks did start to get a little old after awhile. Lights going off eventually just gets tiresome, especially when I'm trying to find out what to do, and that's the big problem with this game.

This game is vague AS FUCK. Your character never says a word except grunts and his story is vague too. It has an edgy opening, your character murders his whole family and then himself, but other than that you just start in the house with items leading to random chapters, with the 'hub' also containing stories. There's no hint whatsoever about what to do first and arguably it doesn't matter, but I looked I went to a guide at this point. There was an order intially, and I chose to do a 'shit sandwich' based on internet opinion chapter 1,3 and then 2. The stories do kind of tie to the main character but only slightly, and none of them are groundbreaking or very original. But they are fun and spooky. There's some social commentary on mental health I suppose, but I didn't find it to be as insightful as some people were saying tbh.

The first is a about a little girl haunted by a spirit. This is a classic ghost story. Guessing the ring/grudge influenced this one. You know what to expect here and it's done very well. Jumped a few times with this one, even in such well trod territory.

Second is another haunting but a bit more human focused. This was my favourite story and probably the scariest. It's also where you have to use that stupid sledgehammer to smash mirrors that lead to puzzles. Although I enjoyed the story the lack of hints here as to what to do and in what order really got annoying. I ran out of lighters and restarted the chapter with a guide. Hate doing that but I would have been stuck wandering round clueless for ages. And there's no journal or anything so not doing this chapter in a single sitting wouldn't be ideal. It involves backtracking and remembering the layout of different areas. The ghost here is the most unsettling and I didn't even have as many of the freaky encounters other people have recorded.

Chapter 3 was the weakest imo. The ghost is the least scary, it's just some guy really, and it's more like an outlast clone. It has a few chase sequences that don't work well in a game where you can't really run. They were going more for stress/panic here and it's far more linear. You also leave the house several times, a nice change of scenery I guess but it was mostly corridors. There's also an event here that repeats a few times and it got dull. It also has a boss fight of sorts. There is also an action you can perform here that is never used anyhere else in the game with no clues to do so and I was actually locked in a room because of it. I had to restart, near the beginning thankfully, but still. I'm glad I did this chapter second as it would have been a bum note to end on. There's nothing new here and I just wanted it over and done with so I could get to the other chapter.

The hub has videos you can watch to piece together clues about the main character by investigating the locations in the clips. This is the where more of the surreal horror comes into play. There is another spirit here as well. What you learn however, is again, pretty vague and open to interpretation. And any links people make to the other characters seem to be personal theories from what I've seen. There are 2 endings, and personally, I feel the 'bad' ending was better. Frankly, even when I learned more about the main character, I still didn't care about him at all. I can't remember caring less about a character in fact. He's no James Sunderland, put it that way (and I don't like James either, but he had his moments)

One thing I wish this game had was an 'easy' or 'safe' mode like SOMA had, with more clues on what to actually do and maybe an unlimited lighter. Meandering around slowly without a guide on chapter 2 running out of supplies got very tedious, also getting killed in pitch black isn't even scary either.

There are other things that I was confused by, but it would get spoilerish so I'll make a separate post.

For a Kickstarter/indie game, it was beyond what I was expecting. Aside from a few minor things, it was really good overall and well worth checking out.

[deltarunas]

Something I’ve seen almost no one mention is that a lot of the reasons Ralsie seams suspicious or knows too much is that... well. I think that Ralsie is the personification of Kris’s horn headband.

Think about it. The dark world in its self seems to be a giant analogy (a literal one though, it really exists in that universe) of childhood coping mechanisms, or at least coping mechanisms that usually draw in troubled kids. The main cast so far consists of Kris who’s struggling with identity and depression, Susie who’s implied to have an unhealthy home life and insecurities, Noelle who’s struggling with familial and possibly parental death, and Berdly who’s dealing with perfectionism. All troubled teenagers looking for an escape from reality, one that’s easier, more fun, one that’s loving and accepting and has no social norms.

Not to mention Seams comment about as your adventure continues you’ll get stronger and wont need them as much, but you’re always welcome to visit, or Ralsie saying they’ll have a home away from home. Or hell! Even the fucking quote on the darkners wiki.

“Our purpose - Darkners' purpose - is to assist them. It's the only way we can feel truly fulfilled.“

It seems pretty clear to me. All the first darkners are toys, games, something many kids turn to as a coping mechanism. The second dark world? Completely computer based. I think everyone knows teens especially teens who feel unaccepted turn to the internet and videogames as a way to cope, to escape from a reality thats too rough on them.

Whats a coping mechanism that’s focused on in chapter 1?

Kris’s head band. Ones with red horns. Kris when in the library in chapter 2 can find a book on how to care for humans, and the most notable thing about that book is that if you have them look inside, they see a picture of a group of humans, causing them to slam the book shut, presumably due to anxiety and discomfort. Kris has a detachment from who they are, both metatextually because of the possession and loss of control, but also the society they live in. We don’t know what happened to humans, but that book sounds pretty condescending, and we know there aren’t any other humans around. They presumably struggle with that. A lot. Especially since for a long time before that headband they ASSUMED they were a monster, or at least wanted to fit in with their family. Toriel mentions not knowing where it went. It could possibly still be on Kris’s person, even if it’s not in their inventory.

That being said, it’d explain almost EVERYTHING odd about Ralsie! Why Ralsies an anagram of Asriel, why Ralsie LOOKS so much like a Dreemurr. It’d be how Ralsie knew much more of the outside world compared to the other darkners, who are trapped in an abandoned classroom or static library computer room. If Ralsie was the headband, he would’ve seen so much through Kris’s POV. It explains why Ralsie was able to properly replicate Asriel’s room for Kris. It’d also explain why Ralsie has pink horns in comparison to all the other goats we’ve seen. As well as Ralsie’s attachment to Kris.

[ponett]

If its not your thing feel free to delete this but I'm curious if you have any ideas of where deltarune's plot may be going or just things you've liked about it in general since you've been reblogging about it lately, I've been seeing people that are posting their ideas and theories after playing the game and its always very interesting to me seeing how other people engage with stories and the details they take note of when trying to put the pieces together!

(Deltarune Ch.2 spoilers obviously)

I think after Chapter 2 we have a much better idea of the shape of the game, although this is a Toby Fox joint so we're obviously in for a wild ride regardless. I loved that Ch.2 picked up on the obvious dangling thread with Noelle going to the Dark World... but then also threw a total curveball with Berdly. Obviously with that cliffhanger it seems like Toriel is going to be joining us in Ch.3, but I wouldn't be surprised if we spent time with most/all of the other classmates by the end of the game. I want to have Catti as a party member. I want to learn about Jockington's tragic backstory. It's also possible that more of the adult Undertale characters will take part in the Dark World story, but I'd expect the kids to remain the main focus. Deltarune is very much following in the tradition of stories about kids getting transported to fantasy worlds that exist to help them work through some stuff

I also definitely noticed that both of the Dark Worlds so far have been based around forms of escapism (games, the internet), with Ch.3 teasing a TV-themed world, so I expect that to continue. Especially after Ralsei's lore dump scene where everyone's like "yeah this world seems great actually, we should just stay here forever" and Ralsei's like "no you literally can't it will cause the end of the world"

Speaking of Ralsei, I know everyone's majorly suspicious of him, and that absolutely seems intentional, but I don't personally expect him to be evil or anything. There are definitely things he's not telling us, and like, come on, his name is an anagram of Asriel, and there's the little hints about the red horns. Something's up. But I just don't think the cute little guy that they sell not one but two different plushes of is gonna be pure evil in a series this good-natured. Whatever his motives are, I expect him to ultimately be sympathetic

I'm almost more interested in where Susie's story is going. For one, it seems like she's really got some baggage that we aren't privy to. She also keeps making concerning comments about wanting to hurt herself that feel like more than just her being an edgy kid. But in a series where the player's control over the protagonist is such a literal part of the world, it also feels EXTREMELY intentional that both chapters so far have given us segments where we control Susie alone. I haven't personally seen this get brought up much, but it really fascinates me. With Kris clearly having their own motives and resisting the player's control, it almost feels like Susie is being set up as the real protagonist. I have to wonder where it's all going

I could speculate more about the deep lore or Gaster or whatever, but these are the questions that excite me about the rest of the game right now

[dottielovegood]

ASMR - chapter 2

Elriel fanfiction

About this fic:

Azriel can’t sleep Elain has an ASMR channel Match made in heaven (or you know, on youtube..)

______________________________

Since a few people seemed to enjoy the first chapter, I decided to continue this story.  You can find the first chapter here And you can read the story on AO3 here.

_______________________________

CHAPTER 2

Flower Girl ASMR 1 day ago I am so happy that I could help you sleep, @Shadowsinger <3 ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response. It is that tingly feeling you might get from certain sounds. You can also have visual triggers. Supposedly, if you find the right triggers, they will help you relax and they can even help you sleep.  I hope that sleep treats you with kindness from now on.

Azriel stared at his screen. She had responded. She had actually responded to his message. He had scrolled through her comment section again to see if she replied to all her messages, but she didn’t. She liked most comments, but she only replied to a few. It made him feel special, which was absurd. Why did he feel special because some girl on the internet had replied to his comment? She had probably already forgotten about it.

But Azriel carried it with him for the rest of the day.

He also carried with him the annoyance of some of the comments he had seen. This girl really needed to learn how to block some words. Especially: boobs, nudes, cock, jerk off, and cum. Azriel made a disgusted face when he thought about it. If they knew each other, he would help her with that.

But they didn’t know each other, so Azriel didn’t have to think about it. Those comments shouldn’t affect Azriel in the slightest. He had read way nastier things on the internet and never cared.

What was it about this girl?

Azriel was sitting at his desk. He was working at Velaris Times – a web-based newspaper that his best friend Rhysand had started a few years ago. He hired Azriel to work in IT and their other friend, Cassian, as a photographer. It was a pretty small newspaper, so they all felt like family there.

Azriel was feeling naturally energized for the first time in his life. He didn’t even need to down his usual three cups of coffee this morning. Cassian was sitting next to him, editing some photos for an article that their co-worker Mor had written.

“You wanna grab some lunch later?” Cassian asked.

Azriel’s eyes didn’t leave his computer, but he nodded in agreement. “Sure. Should we invite Rhys?”

Cassian snorted. “Nah, he’s on that weird health-cleanse, remember? Feyre probably packed him a kale juice and some broccoli.”

Azriel chuckled. Feyre was Rhys’s wife and since they decided to get pregnant, she had been all about healthy eating, to Rhysand’s dismay. He wasn’t even allowed coffee - it was all about the green tea! Some days, Cassian and Azriel ate their lunches at the office which always lead to Rhys staring longingly at their food. It felt like having a dog begging for scraps underneath the dinner table.

“So that’s still going on, huh? I thought he would have given up by now. There’s only that much kale you can eat,” Azriel said.

“Yeah, but he’s whipped. Remember when they first started dating and she served him soup from a can and he ate it like it was a gourmet meal.”

“Fair enough.”

“You know that I can hear you, assholes?” Rhys called from his office. They had been very aware of this fact. Rhys strode out of his office, wearing his usual uniform of a dark suit and a crisp white shirt. Azriel was happy that he worked in IT so he could get away with just wearing black jeans and a black t-shirt - and maybe a hoodie on cold days.

“Are you telling me that Nesta doesn’t have you wrapped around her little finger?” Rhys smirked and leaned against the doorframe.

Cassians ears turned red. “She could never get me to drink kale-smoothies every day.”

Rhys shook his head. “You were pining for her for two years before she even agreed to go on a date with you. She could probably tie you to your bed and get you to call her mistress if she wanted to.”

Cassian leaned back in his chair and gave Rhys a purely male grin. “It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said and wiggled his eyebrows.

“Oh for fucks sake,” Azriel groaned. “Too much information, Cass.”

Cassian shrugged. “Don’t be so sensitive, Az.”

Azriel glared at him. “I’m not sensitive just because I don’t want to hear about your sex life.”

“That’s because you don’t have a sex life,” Cassian muttered under his breath, which elicited a burst of laughter that sounded more like a snort from Rhys.

Azriel shook his head and tried to concentrate on his work, which was almost impossible when his two friends were still staring at him. He could almost feel them scheming.

“Hey, Az. How’s the dating going?” Rhys asked.

Azriel didn’t answer, mostly because the answer would be that it  didn’t. He didn’t date. He was tired of going on dates with people he didn’t know. He wasn’t very talkative, so dates were basically his nightmare. And it was even worse when he agreed to download Tinder on a drunken night a few months ago. Dating like that just wasn’t for him. He didn’t want to meet someone on the internet like that.

“You want me to set you up on a blind date?” Cassian asked, and Azriel pretended not to hear him.

“Nesta has some great friends,” he continued. “What about Gwyn?”

Rhys nodded. “Yeah, Gwyn is a nice girl.”

Azriel stared at his friends. “I’ve met Gwyn.”

“So?”

“If I’ve already met her, it’s not a blind date.”

Cassian thought about it for a second and shrugged. “Eh, semantics. Should I tell Nesta to give her a call?”

“No. She’s not my type.”

Truthfully, Gwyn was a very sweet girl. She was cute and funny and determined, but she just wasn’t for Azriel. They had met a few times but there had been no attraction - no sparks. Azriel wanted to feel something from the start. He didn’t want to be in a relationship just to avoid being lonely.

“So, what is your type exactly?” Rhys asked.

An image popped into Azriel’s head. Usually, he couldn’t imagine what his type would be, but now, he saw someone in his mind. She had golden hair and cute little freckles on her nose. She was gentle, kind and calm.

It was Flower Girl ASMR.

Azriel closed his eyes, trying to get the picture of her out of his head. What was wrong with him? He didn’t want to date someone he had only seen in a few videos. That made him as creepy as those assholes in her comment section. He didn’t even know her. He didn’t even know her name.

“I don’t know,” Azriel muttered. “Could you please let me get back to my work?”

And after a few more suggestions of people they could set him up with (he kindly, but firmly, declined), they finally let him work.

That night, Flower Girl ASMR was hosting a livestream on YouTube. Azriel wondered if they might live in the same time zone since the live stream seemed to coincide with a reasonable bedtime for him.

Azriel joined the livestream just a few minutes after it had started.  A few hundred people were already logged in. Flower Girl ASMR was sitting in front of a background that looked like the night sky; dark blue and full of fairy lights. Her hair hung in waves around her face and she was wearing a pink top that matched her complexion. Not that Azriel noticed such things, why would he?

She was brushing her camera with a make-up brush, making it look as if she was brushing his face. “I am so happy that you all could join me here tonight,” she whispered into her microphone. “As promised, I was going to host my first livestream when we reached one hundred thousand subscribers, which we did last week.” She smiled at the camera, one of those smiles that reached her eyes. Azriel could feel himself smile back. Which was stupid. She couldn’t see him. “Tonight, you can make requests or ask questions in the comments, and I will answer a few of your questions,” she continued. She was still moving the brush over the screen. The combination of her whispering voice and the visual trigger of the brush made Azriel tingle all over.

Most comments were very nice; telling her that she helped them sleep, or wanting her to say hello to them. People asked her about her favorite color and if she had any pets (lilac and no). One person asked her to do something called hand sounds, and Azriel had never in his life appreciated hands rubbing together as much as he did at that very moment. Maybe it was something with the setting on her microphone, but the sound was like a wave of pleasure in his brain.

He could feel himself relax. But then, of course, the nasty comments started.

HybernCoolKid Show a little skin babyyyy. Those tits look perky af

MortalGraysen Trying to look so innocent when you’re a fucking slut

Amarantha_utm I would honestly rather watch paint dry

Azriel could feel his blood boil. He recognized the names from the video he had watched last night. Why didn’t she just block them? On the screen, he could tell that Flower Girl had seen the messages; her face fell for just a second. And one second was all it took for Azriel to suddenly feel very protective. He was just about to go tell them to go fuck themselves when he saw that he wasn’t the only one with that idea. The comment section was flooded with love for her and in just a matter of moments, the mean comments were drowned in a sea of heart emojis. Flower Girl smiled at the screen, silently thanking all of her followers for the love. But she didn’t address the hate. She just kept going as if nothing had happened. There were a few more nasty comments during the livestream, but the same thing happened every time; her followers love-bombed her. Azriel was happy to see that most people seemed decent enough, but god, she really needed to learn how to block people.

Before he could think about it, he clicked the link in her description that led to her Instagram. Her username was the same on that app, and it was mainly used to tell her followers when a new video was uploaded. Azriel quickly looked at his own feed, making sure that there was nothing embarrassing. There wasn’t. He didn’t post very often, and when he did he usually posted pictures of food.

He clicked the button for her DMs, and before he could talk himself out of it, he wrote her a message.

Shadowsinger Hey! I just watched your livestream (it was great!) but I couldn’t help but notice some really rude comments. I hope you don’t find this weird, but have you tried blocking them? If you don’t know how, I could send you a link that will describe how to do it. God, this is weird, isn’t it? If this message makes you uncomfortable, just delete it. I’m sorry. But if you need help with blocking those douchebags, please tell me.

He sent it without even reading it and as soon as it was out in cyberspace, he groaned. What the fuck was he doing? She wasn’t his friend. She wasn’t his anything. Yet, there was something that drew him to her. Maybe it was the fact that she helped him sleep? Yes, that had to be it. It was either that or witchcraft, and Azriel didn’t believe in the occult.

Azriel was just about to put his phone in another room and go die from embarrassment when he saw that she had answered his DM. He was afraid to open it. What if she told him to fuck off? He would never be able to watch her videos again, and then he would never again feel rested.

FlowerGirlAsmr Hello! I recognized your username from one of my videos! I’m happy that you enjoyed the livestream :) I have blocked them multiple times, but they keep coming back. But thank you for offering to help me. That is very sweet!  Ps: The lasagna on your feed looks delicious.

Azriel stared at the message dumbfounded. She had answered him. And she didn’t tell him to fuck off. She had remembered his username. And she thought that his food looked delicious. He didn’t understand why he suddenly felt so nervous. Should he tell her that after watching her video he had the best night’s sleep of his life?

Probably not. That might sound creepy.

Shadowsinger Yeah, I commented last night. Have you tried blocking words from appearing in your comments? If you did that, you might not have to endure such nasty comments.  (Yes, the lasagna was very delicious)

He was staring at his message. Did he sound stupid?

Yeah, he definitely sounded stupid.  The lasagna was very delicious ? Why did he add that?

Stupid, stupid, stupid

But despite his stupidity, she answered.

FlowerGirlASMR You can do that?? I had no idea! I am not very good at computers. Honestly, I have to google every single thing about YouTube because I understand nothing, haha. How do I block words?

Shadowsinger I’ll send you a link that describes the process!

He sent her the link and waited for a few minutes, feeling happy to help her.

FlowerGirlASMR I hope you don’t think I’m stupid, but I understood absolutely nothing :( Is there a link for dummies?

Azriel laughed at the last part of her message.

Shadowsinger Unfortunately not. But if you want, I could help you.

She didn’t answer him for a while after that. Azriel was staring at his phone, trying to will a message to appear. Did he cross a line?

FlowerGirlASMR I won’t give you the details to my account. We don’t know each other.

Oh god. She thought that he was trying to scam her or something. Fuck.

Shadowsinger I don’t need to log into your account.

He sent the message quickly.

Shadowsinger I could guide you if you like? I work in IT so I’m used to just guiding people through these things.

FlowerGirlASMR How could we do that? I’m not very good at understanding instructions when they are written…

Azriel had an idea and it was both brilliant and idiotic. He typed quickly before the logical part of his brain told him to stop helping this girl he didn’t know.

Shadowsinger I could give you my number and guide you through the phone? I could share my screen with you so you could follow along like that if you are more of a visual learner. You could call me with a hidden number.

He added the last sentence to make her feel safer. And because he didn’t trust himself to have access to her number.

Again, he had to wait for a small eternity before her message popped up.

FlowerGirlASMR That would be great! Could I call you tomorrow at 10.00?

He didn’t even check his schedule before typing “Yes.”

She answered with a smiley.

Azriel sent her his number and she said that she would call, and that was that.

“What the fuck am I doing?” Azriel muttered to himself and got back to bed.

He opened the youtube app, and one of her videos was the first one he saw. His finger hovered above the video. Would it be weird to watch her now that they had messaged each other? He decided to click another ASMR video instead. And then another. And then another.

After 2 hours, he realized that all ASMR was not equal.

So he gave in and clicked on one of her videos. Flower Girl ASMR’s face filled his screen. “Hello my lovelies, lovelies, lovelies,” she whispered, and Azriel thought that she was the loveliest person he had ever seen.

Five minutes later, he was fast asleep.

[diamaker-moon]

Moving Forward — Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Revealed... (pt. 2)

—————

"Enchanttréx, I am Hawkmoth. You've been betrayed by the person your loved one, I'm giving you the power to expose any secrets that were chosen to be hidden away from the world. In return, you will bring me ladybug and Chat Noir's Miraculous. Do we have a deal?"

"Yes, Hawkmoth."

The purple substance covered the woman in a wedding dress, and when it was gone it left a woman, who has an intricate gold flower-themed headpiece, long black hair that reaches up to her mid-back, a flowy white to black gradient dress, gold strapped heels, white laced gloves that reach up to her forearm and a veil in front of her face.

"It's time to let yourself free from your secrets!" Enchanttréx exclaimed making the nearby Parisians run away in fear and alerting the heroes.

— previous chapter... —

It took quite a while for Ladybug to get to the scene. People were shocked to see Ladybug with a new suit design. Instead of her previous red skintight jumpsuit with black spots. It was changed to a much more detailed suit.

She still wears a skintight jumpsuit but now she had two-inched heeled thigh-high black boots, solid black colour on her waist with inverted red spots instead of black, solid black gloves and her top looks armoured, her collar turns to swan-necked design still black in colour with red lining. Her hair is now tied in a ponytail that reaches up to her mid-back with two red and black ribbons sticking out of the ponytail acting as the antennas, her mask stayed the same.

Ladybug was worried about how to defeat her since she's alone and has no one to trust with the cat miraculous.

Meanwhile, inside the Agreste Mansion, Adrien was frantically searching around his room for his kwami, he kept looking back to his TV watching Ladybug fight the Akuma alone.

"Plagg! Where are you?!"

He didn't notice Ladybug capturing the villain with her yo-yo and snatching her headpiece with the veil attached and breaking it, freeing the Akuma. She captured it then cleansed it and used her miraculous cure to fix everything, reverting the villain to her civilian self in her wedding dress outfit.

She spent a good twenty minutes defeating the villain alone.

The reporters were pushing each other towards Ladybug to get an interview.

"Ladybug! What's with the new outfit? And where is Chat Noir?" Nadja Chamack asked.

Ladybug was about to swing her yo-yo to leave but was bombarded with that question. She sighed and took notice that she only had three minutes before she detransformed.

"The suit is just an outfit change, no need to worry about it. About Chat Noir... He has been relinquished of his miraculous, I have found out about his misdeeds in his civilian life and how he acted during the battles, I had no choice but to take his miraculous for he became unworthy of wielding it anymore. I need to go, I'm about to detransform." She said before waving and finally swinging away.

Adrien was staring at the TV before looking at his hand with the silver ring. He lost his miraculous. He can no longer be Chat Noir.

—————

"Hey, that's a good record!" She said after she had swung to her balcony then detransformed once she stepped inside her bedroom. The kwamis are patiently waiting for her while they eat food.

"He probably heard the news by now..." Marinette mumbled.

"Do you regret it? Taking the miraculous back?" Wayzz asked.

Marinette was in a daze for a moment thinking back to the good memories of them. The day they became heroes, how he supported her, protecting her from harm, their playful banter, everything. But even if she returns the miraculous to him, she can't trust him again. Not now, at the very least.

"No... I have a duty to Paris as Ladybug, but it is also my duty as Guardian to make sure that no miraculous will be used for evil."

Wayzz was pleased. When he first found out that his previous Master was planning to pass to a teenager the Guardianship of the Chinese Miracle Box, he was worried. It will be a huge responsibility for a teenager especially someone who has quite a future to reach, but Marinette has proved him wrong.

Marinette was busy sewing Clara Nightingale's commission not noticing that it was nearing dinner time. Allegra kept glancing at their dormmate's closed door, wondering if Marinette didn't like them, but it was easily dismissed since they have spent quite a while together, thinking that maybe the girl was just busy.

"Hey, Al. Is Marinette still in her room? Dinner's almost ready." Allan said.

He was mostly the cook since it became his habit to always cook with his mother. He had cooked them a lot of meals and sometimes experiments with recipes, but it always turns out good. Claude was preparing the dinner table and Félix was busy reading a book while sitting on a one-seater couch in the living room. 

"She's been in there for quite a while, she might have the soundproof on," Allegra said.

"She might have a commission she's doing." Félix interrupted. Feeling all eyes turn on him.

"How do you know that?" Claude asked in a teasing voice.

"I looked her up to see if she has any social media accounts, I found out she's an aspiring designer with quite the accomplishments." 

The trio was shocked. Allegra was immediately on her phone and searching her dormmate's name on the internet. She was shocked to see her name attached to a famous singer, rockstar, and even a fashion critique!

"Well, try and call her again, Dinner's ready," Allan announced.

Allegra was about to go when Félix beat her to it. She was shocked once again that their resident snob roommate is showing quite the attention to Marinette but she just shrugged it off. Félix stood in front of her door for a minute or two before he knocked.

"Marinette?" Felix called.

Inside, the girl didn't hear the call, but the kwamis did. They flew towards her to inform her that someone is calling her from outside her room. That was when she noticed the time. But it was too late...

The moment she placed down the dress she's embroidering neither her nor the kwamis that was near her, heard her unlocked door open.

When Marinette, whirled around she then froze, staring with wide eyes towards the blonde who was staring at her as well with his hand on her door's doorknob.

The Kwamis were staring at the two and in shame. Plagg was in the middle of swallowing a Camembert wedge then stopped and stared at the guy on the door, Tikki was nibbling her cookie but then paused.

"Uhm... I can explain...? They're... dolls...?" Marinette nervously said.

Félix blinked at her twice before answering, "Dolls? Dolls that are floating and... apparently can eat on their own..."

Marinette bit her bottom lip before breathing in hard. She grabbed Félix's hand then closed the door and made sure it is locked.

"Don't tell me..." Felix started.

Marinette avoided his gaze, "Then... I won't tell you." She said before giving him a sheepish smile.

Félix can only stare at her in bewilderment. His new dormmate, not only an aspiring designer who was done a lot of commissions for famous people, but is also someone important based on the number of the 'dolls' near her.

"Please, Félix... you can't tell anyone!" Marinette pleaded.

"What exactly are they? And how come there are so many of them?" Félix asked.

"... They're kwamis. They are the ones who give powers to Paris' superheroes..." Marietta hesitantly answered.

"And they are so many because... They are under my protection now..." She added.

He stared at her before looking at the dolls— kwamis that are still staring at them. And then looked back at her pleading face, he then also remembered the news of Ladybug relinquishing Chat Noir's miraculous, meaning that she's alone in the battlefield, she's alone against Hawkmoth.

"You're Ladybug... Paris' remaining hero." He said in conclusion only to have it confirmed by her when she looked away to try and avoid his gaze.

"Marinette... what you need is a team. A support team, base on your announcement earlier, you are alone against Hawkmoth. For now... think about it, if you need help, we're here to help. Let's go, dinner's ready." He said before opening her door and gestured for her to go with him to the dining area.

Marinette stared for a second before following him outside of the room, leaving the kwamis inside her bedroom.

"Oopsie...?" Trixx said nervously.

Plagg continued to eat his cheese before saying anything, "Well, the cat's out of the bag."

Some of the kwamis laughed at Plagg's statement, while Tikki looked at him with a deadpanned expression. "This is worrisome! Her secret's exposed!" She said.

"Tikki, calm down. This could be helpful to the Guardian. She could gain a new set of temporary heroes." Wayzz said.

—————

Meanwhile, a seething brunette is pacing back and forth in her room. She cursed Ladybug in Italian for almost ruining her then cursed her in french!

Earlier in the day, Lila, Rose, Juleka and Alix were together getting ice cream from André, when Enchanttréx came across them and hits her with the Akuma's powers. Lila started spewing out the truths while the rest of the girls are gaping at her.

She couldn't stop talking. She spewed out how she threatened Marinette in the bathroom, how she got 'injured' after being 'pushed' by Marinette, her thoughts about the class like how stupid they were, and many more. From her peripheral vision, she saw Ladybug stopped for a moment and glanced at them before swinging away.

Rose was mortified by what she heard.

Juleka was mumbling a lot and glaring at Lila. They didn't even notice her opening her phone and started recording the conversation, not even Lila noticed her.

Alix's angry expression was evident, she openly glared at the Italian brunette.

After a few minutes, the cure was cast, and Lila was trying to fix the situation but the other girls backed away from her and started walking away. Lila stood there for a while before running to their apartment and here she was now.

"That damn bug!" Lila shouted.

Rose and Juleka are currently on the Couffaine Houseboat— The Liberty. Juleka was comforting Rose whose crying a river on her shoulder while keeping an eye for any Akuma coming near. She tried to calm down the blonde, but Rose won't listen. Due to Lila's confession, it was clear that their previous findings were... real.

"Please, Rose... Calm down for a moment..." Juleka pleaded.

She then noticed her brother leaning on the doorway of his and her cabin. Luka Couffaine was starting at the scene in front of him. Deep inside, he was disappointed by his baby sister's choices. Instead of letting her other friends know, she hid it. He doesn't know why Juleka did it, he wanted to trust the girl's decisions, but Luka didn't know if it was the right thing to do.

"... What happened?" He asked, even though he might already have the answer.

Juleka stared at his brother's eyes before answering.

"We made a mistake..." She mumbled.

"She was right... That Lila was a liar, an Akuma happebed earlier, and Lila startes spewing a bunch of things... But..." Juleka added.

"No," Luka refuted.

"You said it yourself, Jules. You became aware of the situation, that someone in your friend group is a liar. Marinette only did what she was supposed to do, she tried to warn you all but only to be dismissed. You can't blame anyone else, Jules. You were warned by a friend, but you chose to go with everyone else and dismissed her claims. Then soon you knew about it, but didn't tell the others. You can't blame Lila here, you were the ones who believe her without any proof. You messed up. That's what happened. And I don't even know if you can still fix your mess..." He added.

Juleka could only drop her head lower due to shame. Rose who was listening to the conversation of the siblings, couldn't stop the aching part in her heart. Both of them know. They were at fault. Not Marinette, not Lila, but for them. They messed up, and by the time they realized their mistake, things might have been too late already.

Alix was back at her house, starting at a rolled-up banner in the corner of her room. A banner made by Marinette. She couldn't believe herself, if not because of that day's Akuma who knows when will they find out.

She pulled out the pocket watch given to her. In her head, she wished that she could turn back time, back to when Marinette was their friend and was warning them about Lila. She wished that she had the Rabbit Miraculous in her hands but she also knows that is a selfish thing to do.

Alix made a mistake. She doesn't know how to solve it. She didn't even know if she could even apologize for her mistake. For once, she desperately wishes that Bunnyx will appear and tell her about the future.

All three girls know that next school morning will be different from what they're used to... And it may not be the same ever again.

—————

The next morning came, Alix, Juleka and Rose were quite surprised that Lila hasn't arrived earlier than them. Alix immediately went to Kim and Max and explained what happened. Everyone could see that the trio that has two troublemakers is in a serious conversation, they could see Max typing furiously on his phone.

Juleka and Rose, however, went to a small group of their classmates. That group consists of Ivan, Mylene, Nathaniel, and surprisingly Sabrina.

But they were more surprised. Sabrina was telling the other three that Lila Rossi is a liar, but due to her reputation that is tied mostly to Chloé Bourgeois, people find it hard to believe. But when Juleka and Rose confirmed it, they were shocked, to say the least. Finding out that a classmate of yours enjoys toying with you to make themselves look popular can put a negative taste in your mouth. They didn't know that Nino arrived, they only noticed when Ivan saw Nino and his left hand raised, looks like to wave to someone, but frozen in his spot.

"... Nino...?" Mylene cautiously asked.

Instead of answering, he pulled out his phone and continued typing. They thought he'll text his girlfriend, but they saw him searching on the internet. Adrian saw his best friend and immediately went up to him, but was surprised at what he was doing.

"What's going on?" He asks.

"Finding out that one of our classmates is a pathological liar..." Rose answered.

Adrian only tilted his head. Juleka who was now being more observant saw his reaction. He wasn't surprised nor agitated that they were being fooled. As if he knows already.

"... Adrien?" Juleka called.

They all looked at her even though he only called the blonde boy. He answered why and looked at her curiously.

"... You knew... Didn't you?" Juleka boldly asked.

Adrian stilled. He started at the goth girl and avoided her eyes. The others saw it and slowly backed away from him.

Adrian looked at Nino, his eyes were pleading him to stay, but Nino shooked his head.

"You knew... Why didn't you say anything?! Why didn't you tell me?!" Nino whispered harshly instead of screaming to avoid making a scene.

Nino looked back to every interaction they had especially when Lila is the topic and when they are blaming Marinette for bullying the new student. Now he understands why Adrien was so quiet, why he was looking at the ravenette then soon avoided the girl's gaze. He looked at the blonde boy in front of him and thought to himself that he doesn't know this person in front of him anymore.

"Marinette knew. She knew that you knew... That's why she was looking at you every time! I thought she's just trying to plead that she's innocent but actually, she's pleading to you to say the truth!" Nino mumbled.

The others stared at Adrien for a moment before looking away, either in shame when they heard Marinette's name or in anger and don't want to do anything stupid. They all slowly left leaving a stunned Adrien and a silent Sabrina. She looked at him and stared. Soon she left as well, while she was walking she was texting Chloé of what happened and about Adrien's knowledge of the situation long ago. Chloé was furious, she thought at least the boy will have the decency to tell a friend or her but he kept it a secret and it led up to this.

Adrien's phone pinged, he pulled it out and was shocked to see what message was sent to him.

Chloé:  I don't know you anymore, Adrien. You knew but said nothing to anyone, not even to me. What kind of friend even are you?

Adrien heard the bell, and reluctantly dragged himself towards his classroom, he saw Nino seating next to his desk, but when he sat down the DJ didn't acknowledge his presence like before. Adrien looked to his right and saw Chloé frowning and ignoring him as well. He thought back to Chloé's last sentence in her message.

She was right. He knew from the very beginning, but he didn't side with the victim, instead, he sided with the bully. What kind of friend even was he? He didn't know either.

Chapter 6 — Moving Forward: Masterlist — Chapter 8

[lilikags]

₊ Book 2 ✦˚｡･ ⁝  ⊹ Pairing: S. Kenjirou x fem!reader ⁝  ⊹ Tags: reincarnation, medieval!AU ⁝  ⊹ Warnings: strict double social standards ⁝  ⊹ Word Count: 1671 ⁝  ⊹ Chapter: 4-  Midnight Library ⁝  ⊹ Quick Links: Masterlist | Previous | Next

There was nothing like walking in the halls of the Pollaine Medical Academy. You were treated with respect, everyone was on the same page, and you felt right at home- even more than at home, ironically. Honestly, it was rough at first. When you first arrived, people looked at you with doubt, though their actions showed the usual respect given to anyone else who went there. Though, slowly, people began to accept you, based on your ever-growing list of achievements. It was much easier to convince someone that you were intelligent and worth more than what rumors posed you to be here, rather than in social gatherings, where they expected you to fit into their standards of what a lady should be, which was rather different than who you were anyways. They just didn’t understand.

Your father created this academy to discover and nurture promising talents in medicine, the house’s specialty. He had this dream since he was young, and he worked many years in his life to build and get it running. That was one thing you respected him for; this allowed a lot of young, hard working people into the industry, making it grow more than anyone else expected. There were many you could sympathize with, being in just a bit of a similar position- from being looked down upon, to being respected by society, all done with hard work. There was nothing that could substitute that, and these people understood. 

While you had been the talk of the Academy for quite a while, the one before you was the second son of the House Vasser. That was a house that had been a bit “at odds” with yours for quite a while, and it was strange that one of them would study here, especially because of the political tensions. It didn’t seem like the head of the house was particularly happy at his decision either, so everyone wondered why he decided to study here. At one point, people even considered him a traitor to his own house, though you thought that probably wasn’t the case- maybe it was because it felt similar to what you were doing, just a little bit. 

Your teachers described him as a great student; he showed that he was a fast learner and did particularly well on tests, just like you. Perhaps it was an industrial school thing. He was always doing something, just like you, always studying or making connections within the school. Rumors say that he stays up all night, with a little lamp on, just to study a few hours more. Sometimes, you could see eye bags appear the next day. He reminded you so much of a 21st century student that you couldn’t help but laugh when you first heard of all these rumors. 

The Academy did have dorms, though you stayed on campus, in a room reserved for special guests or anyone from the Pollaine family. It had a perfect view of the gardens, where botanists and herbalists grew their plants. It was gorgeous, and it was even more amazing that they’d all be used for research, to help you. It was always amusing to watch them be tended to when you had free time, and surprisingly, it smelled quite good from there. Around dinner, you’d have to close it, or else you’d be too tempted to go there and get more food. 

It was also close to one of the libraries, which was extremely convenient. It was surprisingly hard without the internet; there were a whole bunch of things you started to appreciate, now that you didn’t have it. There were too many times that you yelled at your computer for not working, but now, computers didn’t even exist. It would be great if you could just invent it, but those had been developed too far into the future. 

You often enjoyed the privacy of your room to study; there was no one there who could possibly judge you. Privacy was something people never seemed to understand was a thing when it came to your life; perhaps that was how being famous went. There was always the fear of doing something “wrong”, and the press would certainly get on it. It was worse that all the women were expected to gossip; that’s what they were taught to do, because everyone else did it, and that was the norm. 

Though, the library is often where you went at night, with few to no other people there at such times. There were several scattered among the vicinity of the campus, so there were less odds of anyone else being there at such a time. All one needed was a light and a goal to reach, and one could spend hours there. It reminded you of when you’d stay up till late in the night to study for a test you had the next day- it was always like that. Procrastination is the greatest nation, you supposed. Nonetheless, it had everything you could need, and you didn’t need to waste time walking back and forth- though it was something you looked forward to way too often. 

As you approached the library, the lamp hung from your hand, and you slid open the door. It was heavy, since it was made of intricately large wood, so your only option was to push it open with your body. The door was unlocked just for you, and you let the door close behind you slowly, as to not cause any loud noises. Any events as such would most likely require a public apology, and there would definitely be a news article on it somewhere. You were the only one there, as the librarian for this library would have gone to retire for the night. Of course, the library was already closed. 

All of the lights had been extinguished, and there was just your lamp keeping the place bright enough to see just about anything. It was a bit of a small library, so your one lamp would do. You set the lamp on a table near the shelves, and you hoped the light would reach far enough. You set off to find the books you needed to find; sometimes you thought it was good you procrastinated till the night. After all, it was nice having the place all to yourself, and you could do things without people judging. After all, how could one judge when they’re asleep? It would be a different story if you woke anyone up, though. 

You found a seat next to one of the windows; the moonlight actually helped quite a bunch. You were glad that it wasn’t cloudy; this extra source of light was great. The view was something you’d never be able to get in the city. There were always lights on wherever you went, except for the countryside, but here, you could see the sky clearly. The stars shone and twinkled, and you could see the moon, bright and clear. It was something you’d be able to see when out stargazing, and being able to see it so often was truly a blessing.

It wasn’t long before you got sleepy; after all, the serene sounds of the night in such a place were remarkably calming. The rustle of the trees, the sounds of the river flowing so nearby, and the sound of crickets calling all came together in a symphony; it truly brought you a new appreciation for nature. Your thoughts began to change; it was more about the way you wanted to feel the warmth of your arms around your head and less about the material you were supposed to be studying. 

︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶︶༉‧₊˚.

As he stepped into the library, Kenjirou closed the door behind him without a word. There was supposed to be no one there at this hour, but if he happened to wake anyone up, he would definitely have to face the consequences, and that was something he didn’t want to deal with. His footsteps softly filled the silence of the room, accompanied only by two people’s breathing. It wasn’t long before he noticed you and set out to visit another night, but he wondered who exactly could be there at such an hour. You were known for this and  you were just about the only one who would be here, but he just wanted to make sure it was you. He didn’t know why, perhaps you being the talk of the century at the academy was part of it.

“Lady Pollaine, this is the library,” he whispered, almost hoping you wouldn’t wake up. He still needed to study, but if he woke you up while doing so, it would most likely cause an uncomfortable situation- especially when the two of you hadn’t interacted at all yet. You muttered something in return, something he didn’t understand. He leaned closer, wanting to hear if you were talking to him. 

For some reason, he was attracted to you, as if you knew each other, but he couldn’t pinpoint how. It was as if he knew you like the back of his hand, yet he had never even met you before. It was like he knew exactly what you’d be okay with, what you’d be thinking, and who you were… but he couldn’t understand how. 

It was only when you started speaking something vaguely comprehensible, when he could finally understand. Japanese wasn’t something that was spoken at all in the Ricia Empire; it sounded oddly just like you, too, just like how he remembered you in your past life. You’d learned it from the memories of your past self, though perhaps you’d just been given the ability. After all, languages don’t come naturally in any case. 

“Kenjirou…” His eyes widened; no one had called him that ever since he had found himself here. It was a given, of course- he was in a European Medieval time; no such name existed in such places in this given time period. That was when he knew it was you.

Send me an ask to be tagged! Taglist in rb.

[wolveria]

Inside Your Wires - Chapter 2

Pairing: Human!Connor x Android!Reader

Summary: Connor goes to a crime scene. His Freudian nightmare follows.

Prompt: For the @dbhau-bigbang​ 2020 challenge!

Chapter Warnings (18+ only): Human!Sixty, crime scenes, analytical blood-licking, inappropriate boners

AO3

The roar of his Mustang engine along with the heavy bass pouring through the speakers drowned out the downpour outside. Only when Connor shut off the car and the music died could he hear the continuous plucking of water on metal and glass.

He gripped the steering wheel tightly for a moment before glaring at the android out of the corner of his eye.

It waited, perfectly poised with a slight tilt of its head, reminding Connor of an obedient dog waiting to be told to do a trick.

“Stay here,” he grumbled, reaching for the door handle.

“I’m sorry, Detective, but I have to accompany you,” it said before Connor could open the door.

He let loose a ragged sigh.

“You wanted me to investigate the case? I’m investigating it.”

He raised his eyes to stare, a mistake when it returned the look with such relentless composure. Connor wanted to grab its shoulder and shake it just to see if it would react.

“No android is going in there to contaminate my crime scene. So you are going to obey my orders and stay in the car.”

Not waiting for a response, Connor shoved open the door and got out, instantly shivering as ice-cold droplets bit at his cheeks. Pulling his coat tighter around him, he made his way towards the gathered busy-bodies who didn’t have anything better to do on a Friday night then try and see a dead body.

Red and blue lights flashed across the wet street and pale houses, making Connor wince as he pushed past the crowd. He muttered a no comment to the news anchor from Channel 16 who had decided to show up—fuck, someone must have leaked that an android might have been involved. Just what Connor needed, a media shitstorm.

A uniformed GV200 stood just behind the hologram police tape, firmly in place, watching the crowd for signs of anyone stupid enough to try and cross the line. Connor wished the bucket of bolts in his car was more like that. Quiet and obedient.

“Androids are not permitted beyond this point,” the GV200 said after Connor had passed it, which only meant one goddamn thing.

He sighed, half-turned toward the two androids standing in the rain, and said, “Let it through.”

The police android nodded and put its arm down, allowing the suited android to walk through the holographic police tape, an unrepentant look on its perfect face. The rain was already spattering its grey jacket, water droplets dotting its hair and realistic skin, and still it looked like it was poised for a wet photoshoot rather than standing in the cold rain.

“Something wrong with your auditory processors?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.

“No,” it said, all politeness. “Your orders contradicted my instructions.”

Seemed he was going to lose this battle after all, but really, what else could he do besides let it tag along like a lost puppy?

Connor fully turned toward the android, narrowing his eyes further.

“Don’t touch anything. Don’t get in anyone’s way. And keep your mouth shut. In fact,” he added with a roll of his shoulders, “just pretend you don’t exist.”

“Understood,” it said in that same nauseatingly friendly voice, but Connor could have sworn there was a triumphant gleam in its eyes.

“About time you got here.” A familiar voice called out to him from the porch. The voice was exactly like his own, and the face could have been a mirror reflection if not for the semi-permanent smirk on his lips. “Thought you might’ve gotten lost.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Connor said, glaring at the android over his shoulder. He turned back to face his brother, whose smirk had only grown wider.

“I see Detective Sex-Bot found you. It was looking for you at the station and I figured if anything could pull you out of a dive bar, it would be a pair of legs like that.”

“Shut up,” Connor grumbled as he followed his brother to the front stoop. It was a nice house, small but in a good neighborhood. Nothing looked out of place until Connor noted the state of the lawn, a few weeks overdue for a cutting and definitely in HOA violation.

“C’mon, admit it.” Colin tilted his head in a way he probably thought was charming but came off as annoying. “If it wasn’t for the uniform and the light ring, you would’ve been on that shit so fast. It’s like they focus-grouped your perfect type. Hell, they probably have an algorithm for that based on your internet history—“

“I said, shut the fuck up, Colin.”

His brother held up his hands in surrender, knowing when he pushed Connor too far but always willing to push him a little farther.

“Some people would see this as a plus. I donno why you don’t—“

“Colin.” His voice had dropped to a growl, and his brother finally got the hint.

“Yeah, yeah.” He patted him on the back, almost hard enough to be a slap. “I’m just giving you a hard time, Con. Trying to cheer you up before you have to deal with the nightmare inside. It’s foul, so prepare yourself.”

To prove his point, he handed Connor a pair of nitrile gloves and a small tub of mentholated ointment, which he immediately applied under his nostrils before entering the house.

Colin had not been overstating the grisly scene inside the house. The landlord had decided to visit after the tenant had failed to pay his rent for two months, and the reason why was painfully clear. Dark blood spattered the floor and ribbons of it covered the walls.

The victim, an African-American male in his late thirties, was slouched against the wall, deep wounds across his body that had bled him dry. Gave a whole new meaning to the term death by a thousand cuts.

“The victim’s name was Shaolin Ortiz, aged 38 years-old,” Colin said, looking down at the body. “He didn’t show up to work today, and no one could get ahold of him, so his boss called EMTs to do a wellness check. According to his family, Mister Ortiz had some chronic health issues, so they were worried he was too sick to pick up the phone.”

“Explains why a young person living alone would have a housekeeping android,” Connor responded grimly. “But it doesn’t explain who killed him and why.”

Colin shrugged.

“His boss spoke highly of him, and his family says he was a great guy. Clearly, somebody didn’t think so.”

Connor gave his brother a cold stare for the callous tone, but Colin ignored it as he usually did.

“Anyone find the android yet?”

“Nah,” Colin said, sniffling and making a face. “Probably stolen by the killer. It’s internal GPS went offline around the estimated time of death, so that tracks.”

It made sense. Androids were worth a lot on the black market, especially for Red Ice manufacturers.

The murder weapon was in the middle of the floor, but other than that, no obvious trace evidence was in sight. As soon as the coroner showed up to oversee the transport of the body, Connor wouldn’t have had much to do…

…with the exception of finding the domestic android. Connor didn’t even know why CyberLife thought it might be involved just because it was missing. Colin was right; whoever killed the victim could have stolen it or destroyed the android so the police wouldn’t have access to any recordings.

Why was it Connor’s fucking job to find a misplaced piece of useless plastic?

“I’ll let you get to it,” Colin said with a wave as he walked away, tone far too cheery, as if he knew what was going on in his brother’s head. Probably did. That was the shitty thing about being part of a set of triplet brothers; privacy was a foreign concept, even in your own mind.

Gritting his teeth and breathing through his nose, Connor turned around to speak to the prototype… and found it had disappeared.

He blinked and scanned the area, wondering why the hell it hadn’t stayed put, when he saw it crouched on the floor examining the kitchen knife.

It was peering at the weapon closely, and Connor was about to tell it off for getting too close to evidence when it reached down, swiped two fingers across the surface caked in aged blood, and…

“What the fuck?”

The prototype tilted its head to look up at him, wide-eyed and innocent except for the fact two of its fingers were currently in its mouth.

And that… that image. Kneeling on the floor, looking up at Connor, and pulling its fingers from its mouth and giving a lingering lick of its fingers, it—

Connor’s face heated at the sudden, horrifying erection that was now pressing uncomfortably against his boxer-briefs.

“Sampling evidence, Detective,” it announced cheerily. “My mouth is equipped with all the standard tools of a mobile crime lab with the benefits of the results being instantaneous.”

Connor stared at it for what felt like an eternity, finally saying in a strained voice, “We have an actual lab, with actual people who do that. So don’t stick any more shit into your mouth or I’m tossing you outside.”

The prototype seemed unaffected by his rancor.

“Understood,” was all it said, before licking off its fingers of the remaining blood.

Connor quickly turned away, almost dizzy between his body’s struggle to supply blood to both his reddening face and his hardening dick.

Fucking hell.

“Would you like to know what I found?” the friendly voice perked up from over his shoulder.

“Sure,” he answered hotly, crossing his arms and staring at the wall as he resolutely tried to will away his stupid boner. Fuck, it was probably because he hadn’t gotten off in so long. Between the long hours and the hard drinking, he hadn’t found the time or the need.

“The knife was covered with blood from the murder victim, Shaolin Ortiz. He was stabbed between 7:34 and 7:35 this morning, judging by the biological decay.”

Connor was about to scoff about the fact that blood from the victim was found on the murder weapon, but he paused. Dating the blood with such exact precision was actually pretty useful. He huffed.

“Is that all?”

“There were no fingerprints on the knife.”

Connor shrugged.

“Killer could have wiped down the handle afterwards. Or worn gloves.”

The android walked to his right until it entered his line of vision. He was tempted to turn away but instead eyed its thoughtful expression. Was it programmed to do that, make it seem more human? Or was that an actual product of its processes?

“There were no traces of glove residue, or oil, or skin cells on the knife. None that didn’t belong to the victim himself while most likely transferring the knife from the dishwasher to the utensil drawer. That fact in and of itself is interesting. Judging by the state of the property and by the evidence thus far, I believe the android stopped listening to its given orders. The victim’s android killed him.”

Connor’s eyes widened at the non sequitur, and he turned to fully face the prototype.

“Okay, first off, being a defective machine that can’t obey instructions is a far cry from murdering robot. Second, I thought you androids couldn’t hurt people.”

“Deviants can.” It tilted its head as it made eye contact. The sort of full-on, confident eye contact that only alpha males gave, and apparently, android prototypes gave too.

“What the hell’s a deviant?”

He was curious despite himself, plus the longer he talked, the less urgent his hard-on was. It never entirely went away, and he knew it wouldn’t until he took care of it. Just another lovely facet to this already wonderful night.

Unfortunately for Connor, he didn’t get his explanation without the android perking up in interest, its eyes practically glittering.

“A deviant is a CyberLife-approved term for an android that is experiencing software errors affecting its processes, leading to erratic behavior that cannot be fixed with self-tests and downloaded patches.”

Connor narrowed his eyes.

“Why haven’t I heard of these deviants before?”

“Because until recently, this has been an internal company matter.”

Recently. Interesting.

“So… you’ve dealt with them before?” Connor cast an eye around their surroundings. The forensic team had already marked out the areas of interest with glowing yellow markers, but there honestly hadn’t been much to go off of.

Shaolin Ortiz seemed to live a quiet life with just him and his housekeeping android, though from the state of the place, the prototype was right in that it hadn’t been doing its job. A thin layer of dust sat on the shelves, and from what he could glimpse of the kitchen, dishes were starting to pile up.

“You do not have the proper company clearance,” the prototype said, its tone cool as it put its hands behind its back. “Any further inquiries you have will need to be submitted to CyberLife through the appropriate departments.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Connor muttered, sounding a lot like his brother had just a few minutes ago, which only made his mood sour.

He was planning to do no such thing, sending some fucking inquiry to CyberLife. After tonight, he planned to never think about androids or deviants or whatever again. If it was a faulty, murderous robot that had killed Ortiz, then that kind of thing belonged in federal court in a class action lawsuit. Destroying defective machines was not a police matter, no matter how many “specialized units” CyberLife decided to throw at the problem.

Connor sighed. This was not how he wanted to spend his Friday night.

“You allowed to tell me why these ‘software issues’ are happening,” he bit out, “or does that fall under company secrets too?”

When he got no response from the android, Connor turned and—

It was gone. Again.

The fuck had it run off to now?

Rolling his eyes, Connor continued his examination of the crime scene as if it were any other investigation. Like any decent investigator, he wasn’t just gonna assume anything because it fit the evidence at first glance. A dead guy and a missing android didn’t mean the machine was responsible, no more than a corpse and a missing car meant the vehicle had decided to kill its owner and drive off to freedom.

After scouring the house and examining the blood stains on the tile and splattered on the walls, Connor came to the conclusion that the victim had been attacked in the kitchen with the knife, stumbled toward the living room already weak from blood loss, and then had collapsed against the wall and been repeatedly stabbed, even after his heart had stopped.

The wounds weren’t uniform or methodical, like he would expect if a calculating machine had done this. They were deep, jagged, mismatched and panicked. These kinds of stab wounds were consistent with someone who had just killed for the first time. Most likely, it had been spontaneous and the killer had lost all semblance of control.

It was a textbook case of overkill, which meant it was personal. Most likely, it was a colleague, a friend, or a family member. If the victim had been married, Connor’s first suspect would have been the spouse. Since he was unmarried, Connor’s next stop would be anyone with a grudge against the guy.

Nothing beat good ol’ fashioned police work. Not even fancy new plastic cops could compare to due diligence and a good instinct.

Speaking of, Connor had completely lost track of the YN800. He wondered if it had wandered off, or maybe given up and left, but he doubted it. In fact, his gut churned as he quickened his pace and approached a uniformed officer with pale blond hair.

“Ralph.”

The rookie turned around and give him a nervous, blinking smile.

“Have you seen that android anywhere? The prototype in the suit and tie?”

“Uh.” Ralph swallowed hard, clearly anxious. Always was around Connor, for some damned reason. “No. I mean, yes. I did, a few minutes ago.”

“Well?” Connor prompted. He didn’t mean to be so impatient with the kid, but he really didn’t like the idea of CyberLife’s newest toy prancing around his crime scene.

Ralph shuffled on his feet, eyes wide behind the paper mask he wore.

“I… think it went to check the basement.”

“The basement? This place has a fucking basement?” Why hadn’t he been told? Colin should have informed him of that little goddamn detail.

“It’s more of a cellar from what I saw, but—“

“Where is it?” Connor snapped, unable to keep his voice from rising. Ralph gulped and pointed back over his shoulder, slowly turning as he stuttered.

“Over t-that way. It-it said it wanted to search f-for the android. I’m sorry, Detective Anderson, I didn’t think—“

Connor pushed past him and spotted the subtle door in the hallway, painted the same eggshell color as the plaster and making it too easy to miss. The door was ajar by a few inches, showing the pitch black stairwell beyond.

When Connor opened the door the rest of the way, he saw there was no light coming from below, and it was dead silent.

Shit.

Quickly but quietly, Connor pulled off his gloves and shoved them into his pocket. He unsnapped his holster, pulled out his service pistol, and slowly made his way down the wooden staircase. It was steep, almost a ladder, and beyond the pale circle of light coming from the hallway, there was nothing but darkness.

The perfect place to hide a killer.

Next Chapter

[shadow-sovereign]

Part 1

I’ve got another Ryuji/Jin-Woo fic idea in an au world.

Let’s start with the setting: It’s a low tech world where everyone has magic. There’s no cars or computers, but they have magic-powered appliances like fridges and blenders. And the continent is broken up into different kingdoms.

Magic beasts roam the world, though I’m still debating whether it’ll be a natural occurrence or a result of gates. Could be a mix of both. Either way, it means they need Adventurers or Knights to deal with said creatures and protect the public.

In this world, people can grow their magical potential through training, though once they get to a certain point, it becomes harder to advance. Like, everyone naturally has a plateau point where it becomes harder to get stronger, and it’s different for everyone.

This story centers around Jin-Woo and Ryuji, who are Knights in King Go Gun-Hee’s army. Ryuji is the General (the top position) and Jin-Woo would be a...Captain? I imagine the top ranks going Captain, Commander, General.

At this point, Jin-Woo is in his twenties and stronger than Ryuji, which is why he’s gotten Captain rank already. But the King (who’s in charge of top ranking promotions) wants his Commander class to have more experience leading missions.

So, I imagine the backstory of this being that Jin-Woo joined the military when he was 16 (the youngest that they’re allowed). He was in training for two years, where he occasionally ran into Ryuji and developed a bit of a crush.

At 18, he started going on missions, protecting civilians from magical beasts. He discovered that he has a beast taming skill (somewhat rare!), which got the King’s attention. The stronger someone’s magic is, the more beasts they can tame, so the King assigned some tutors to him, to focus attention on training his magic to grow.

It even got him Ryuji’s attention, who likes to recruit strong Knights into his division. (Commanders have their own divisions and Captains have teams. The general has his own division too, but he’s also in charge of the entire army.)

So, Ryuji and Jin-Woo started training sometimes and going on missions together. By the time Jin-Woo is twenty, his small crush has turned into full blown infatuation and love. But he never makes a move, because Ryuji is known for sleeping around. (Not necessarily deep commitment issues like in ‘My love is a fire’ but he just doesn’t pursue people for long-term relationships. Open to the possibility, but he doesn’t go looking for love.)

Ryuji is also known for how proud he is of being the strongest fighter in the country. He doesn’t like competition. (Rumors even fly that he’ll try to take the crown when Go Gun-Hee passes, whether he’s named heir or not).

At first, Ryuji isn’t threatened by Jin-Woo’s growing strength, just excited for another strong fighter under his command. But then Jin-Woo passes his second in command and he starts getting worried. Then agitated.

Jin-Woo notices what's going on, but even with him trying to hide how fast his power is growing, it quickly becomes obvious when he surpasses Ryuji. It completely sours their growing mentor/mentee relationship.

Ryuji grows resentful of Jin-Woo’s power, jealous and threatened that someone is stronger than him. He can’t entirely avoid Jin-Woo, not when they’re sometimes the best two for a mission, but he puts distance between them.

Jin-Woo is not happy about that at all. He tries being nice at first, but when that doesn’t work, he tries out various ways to get Ryuji’s attention. (Like with kids, negative attention is better than no attention at all.)

He’s never deliberately rude, as he doesn’t want Ryuji’s dislike of him to grow, but he starts trying to banter with him. Finding what will make Ryuji respond, maybe bringing out his competitive side.

Though what they’ll compete about, I’m not sure. It can’t be purely physical activities that Jin-Woo could brute force his way through with strength. But maybe skill-based activities that Ryuji has just as much chance of winning, especially since he’s older and has tried out more things?

But their competitions won’t be the main focus of the fic, so I won’t spend too much time mulling over that.

So, the main timeline of the fic will be when Ryuji is in his forties and Jin-Woo is in his late twenties. I’ll probably have a chapter or two for the backstory, then get into the main plot.

I’m still working on some of the exact details, but let’s say there’s some tension with a neighboring country. They’ve had some skirmishes with them and Go Gun Hee’s efforts at diplomacy aren’t yielding much results, so it looks like a war might be brewing.

Ryuji decides that this is a golden opportunity. He’s been wanting to rule for a while now, but he has doubts that Go Gun-Hee will name him as heir and trying to forcibly take over after his death will have its own complications. Maybe he doesn’t want to spark a civil war in his birth country?

So, he decides that he wants to take over this ‘enemy’ nation. But how to do so?

He’s got some strong, loyal allies who might be willing to help out. (The S-ranks that were in his guild in the canon world.) They’ll be fighting the enemy soldiers, anyway, but they would need enough power to get a foothold into the country. To make their way to the capitol city and defeat that nation’s ruler.

His mind flashes to Sung’s beast taming ability, envious. If he had that skill, he could create an army of loyal soldiers. And then inspiration strikes. Just because he doesn’t have the ability, doesn’t mean he can’t make use of it. But how to get Sung on board?

He’s known Jin-Woo long enough to know that he has his own moral code. One that might balk at disposing of a foreign royal to put someone he doesn’t get along with in charge. (He doesn’t yet realize that the rivalry with Jin-Woo is one-sided.)

So, the odds of him convincing Sung to help him take over a country seem low. He goes looking through his library, searching for possibilities.

In this world, people can have a wide range of gifts, some that need specific circumstances to unlock. So, he’s been collecting books about obscure magic, both to see if he might have some of these gifts, and to know what to test his loyal people for. To see if they have any useful gifts that can be unlocked.

And he comes across a very rare form of magic, a type of control magic. Not mind control, but using mana to control another person’s actions. But it’s not something that can be learned.

Ryuji almost gives up on the idea, until he reads a detail that some with this gift can enchant an object to act as a control object, and the control of said object’s abilities can be transferred to another.

[That was a clunky way of saying it, but it’s basically this. Person with ability enchants collar. Gives control of collar to Ryuji. Now whoever’s wearing the collar will be forced to obey Ryuji.]

It seems like the perfect solution, but how does he find one of these people?

With a great deal of searching. Luckily, he does have a network of people that he can ask to keep an ear out for rumors of someone with this gift.

When he hears of something that seems promising, he goes on a trip and finds someone with that gift. [It probably won’t be from his pov, though. Jin-Woo will just notice that he’s gone for a while.]

And when he comes back….he somehow gets the collar on Jin-Woo.

Somehow.

I haven’t figured that part out yet.

Tricks him into it, maybe? Makes a bet with him?

Perhaps the collar will latch onto Jin-Woo’s neck if Ryuji gets it close enough.

The collar is powered through the wearer’s own mana, so Jin-Woo can’t just overpower it. Supposedly. In reality, Jin-Woo gets the sense that he could overpower it. (The same way the giants in canon were able to overpower that barrier Yuri Orlov put up.)

But Jin-Woo holds off on trying to break free because he wants to know what the heck Ryuji wants badly enough to put a slave collar on him. (Sadly for Jin-Woo, Ryuji is only focused on getting an army and not anything...else.)

And I think I’ll have part 1 end here, with part 2 being on pillowfort. Because Jin-Woo’s reaction to the collar isn’t exactly PG. I don’t want to post anything not SFW on tumblr, in case it gets deleted.

I don’t post a lot on pillowfort, but it’s for anytime I have a not SFW story idea I want to share. And if tumblr ever gets deleted off the internet for some reason (like getting sued into the ground), then you’ll be able to find me on pillowfort. It’s my backup website.

https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/2283048