#because this is how we get me crying about corvids

[chntfessions]

Okay, fuck, we need a serious heart-to-heart here.

Hi, my name is Sydney, I am the original creator of this blog. This blog has only been up for a few weeks, and I should've established this sooner.

First things first: EVERYONE has opinions, whether we like those opinions or not shouldn't matter and we all need to learn to mind our own. If a confession is something YOU don't like, then just shut up and hate privately. We try our best to filter asks and keep hate out of this community but the people posting asks aren't letting this happen and I am TIRED of being blamed for fucking discourse.

When this blog was first made me and the mods fought TOOTH AND NAIL to defend ourselves and reassure everyone that we weren't chntangrytimes reincarnated, the only people causing discourse is the people who can't respect opinions. Corvids Sydney opinion? You think I fucking agree with that? You think I don't take it personally as a Sydney fictionkin? No I don't agree with it but I'm not gonna harass them for it. Do you think I agree with any of these wack ass ships you people come up with?? I don't agree with most of them but you don't see me reblogging posts and telling you to your faces that the ship sucks.

I'm really sick and tired of opening my phone every single goddamn week to see that numb nuts is fighting with a mod because the mod said that water is wet.

If you aren't mature enough to respect other people's opinions you can get the fuck out and go cry in your room alone about how someone said something you didn't like on the Internet. I don't fucking care if "that's just how you are" because that's not a fuckin explanation or reason, if being a dick to people is what you like doing then go to a fucking american public highschool and you'll fit right in

I've noticed you guys only target corvid too, leave them ALONEEEE for fucks sake dude they've been through and are going through enough without someone crying and whining over the fact they think Sydney should be kicked in the non-existent nuts.

This is the end of my rant, if you have a problem with something one of the mods is saying or doing just DM me on my main ( @museofthearcitect ) and I will sort it out. The next person who starts an argument with one of the mods can consider themselves unwelcome in this space, go find someone else who will tolerate your childish ass.

[sister-lucifer]

I have not written a long post and was recently reminded of when you asked us how we as your followers felt about you, and so, I give you the fruits of my labor.

I would like to imagine living on an estate with you, deep within a bramble ridden forest, thunderstorms-bound over head, but neither of us care, for the sound of rain is soothing, and comforting smell of petrichor soothes the weary soul and comforts mind.

The main manor is lit only via candles and fireplaces, crackling wood mixing with the rain in the night. The corvids I’ve tamed caw outside in cacophonous manner, one that makes my eyes light up in a grin. I push a silver trolley, piled with tea-stuffs and small treats towards your personal study, one I’ve come to know most intimately with how much I clean, to keep order in this house.

Gently I open the door, so as not to disturb, as I move to you, stopping the trolley by your desk, shifting on my feet, messing with the cuffs of my finely pressed suit.

My voice a soft whisper, watching longingly as you work. As you glance up towards me, I feel my heart speed up and my gaze immediately falls to the floor, suddenly finding interest in my shoes, freshly shined and polished, all in an effort to look my best for you.

I barely notice as you rise, grunting when I feel you pull my arm, naturally falling into your lap. My shocked face turns to a chuckle, reaching an arm out and pulling the trolley close once more, grasping a small silver platter with a slice of cake. I place it on your desk next to your work, also grabbing a knife and fork, cutting a small piece and gently tapping your lips.

I watch with bated breath as you take the bite, muttering under my breath that I made it for you…

… I can no longer focus.

All I can imagine is a smile, a warm soft smile down on me as if I deserve it I do not and a soft hug around me I do not deserve love and affection. Care. These are things I have not felt in so long and yet you give them to me and I don’t understand. I cannot understand.

No matter how long I sit and think I simply cannot comprehend why in the nine circles of hell would you ever be willing to care for me. I’ve tried, tireless nights washing over like the endless waves of a violent typhoon, crashing over my skin and rocking my mind in ways I could never comprehend and it hurts.

Something deep within the bottomless void that should hold my soul aches and yearns for praise and touch and comfort and yet when I reach I instead bury myself in more work, fearing I may bother you and you will push me away like everyone else.

For being clingy.

Overbearing.

Needy.

And I cannot let that be so I sing my songs of woe and misery in the darkest corners of this manor I have poured my entire being into, hoping to one day truly and fully become a mindless drone and forget my thoughts in the piles of work and physical labor, overwhelming my mind with back-crushing labor.

If not, then the thoughts darker than night will fill my head of snatching you away and filling my darkest desires but I cannot and simply will not. I am better than this.

I should be better than this.

I have to be better than this.

… Can I be better than this?

Than this beast that rests in the hole of my heart, crying and clawing and screaming at the cage I’ve kept it in. Because I know I’m too far gone and my only option is to scream into the void and hope that nothing whispers back.

I write this at 11:57 pm. My mind is a mess and my emotions especially are all around a wild amalgamation of nothing and everything. As I write this I am in a state of euphoria at the mere thought that you may see this, but also pure, primal horror at the same time, both hand in hand as I pull and pinch at my skin, something wanting to slip from my skin and run from this place.

I apologize for wasting your time.

Perhaps if I sleep these harmful thoughts and feelings shall fade once more. As they always do.

Again, I apologize, but I simply had to get these emotions out. If you feel the need to space yourself from me, I do not take any offense. I am tired.

I am so so tired.

Goodnight, Master.

-🖋️

no time is ever wasted, my dear anon, it’s simply not possible. any time taken is always well spent.

you needn’t ever worry about being too clingy for me. i may not always have the energy or time for long purple prose of my own, but the level which i appreciate any and every message in my inbox is so incomprehensibly deep it is unable to be expressed with any language.

you have a wonderful way with words. please, never stop writing

[gymn0somata]

MASON POSTING TIME

like, 2 years ago, when i had to get my wisdom teeth removed, they gave me this funky "cocktail" of dizziness (in italy, anaesthetic gas isnt common i think? so they gave me these drops to make me stupid bc id be crying in horror otherwise)

and boy let me tell you that i sincerely believe i was high for the first time ever

so my poor, little and full-of-anxiety 16 year old body got FLOORED in like 15mins of taking this medicinal weed soup. and i mean absolutely fuckin GONE

my mom was next to me, and she just asked me "how you feelin, bud?" to which i proceed by pointing at the empty chairs in front of us and nonchalantly going "they got legs. like spiders. theyre gonna get me"

at this point, a random nurse walks by, and i still go on with my dumbass spider chair rant, and of course this poor lady couldnt have known i had taken some funny medicine juice, so when she left she just looked at me slightly concerned. my mom pointed it out, and i just dramatically held my hand out, tears rolling down my face, whimpering "no.. im so sorry... please dont send the cops after me......"

after that, i began reading the signs on the chairs, which notified others to leave one seat empty between each other, because yknow. the Corvid Nine Teen. problem was, the fucking text was in french, spanish and various other languages. my only perfect fluency is in english and italian, so just imagine this kid, high off their fucking mind, reading broken french to their mother, who at this point was recording me and almost crying in laughter

later on, i got sent in to the dentist, who laughed at my condition, and proceeded to work on my tooth

just about before we were done, i finally was back to normal, and they were putting up stitches. so, mouth open wide by that damn thingmabob they shove in your face hole to keep it open, i manage to blurt out, "hey can i keep my tooth after this" to which the doctors laughed slightly and agreed. i now have my tooth, covered up in dried blood, somewhere in my room, and i promptly named it françois

by the time i was home to rest, aka 2 weeks, the left side of my face swelled up to the point it left a damn Bruise Under My Eye. i had to eat cold mashed potatoes and cold scrambled eggs for 2 weeks as to not fuck up the stiches

thing is, in my insanely pained state, i couldnt handle that. i felt like i was gonna go insane. so i did the unthinkable.

Two Cans Of Tuna. Two Packets Of Saltine Crackers.

i put some tuna on a cracker. sandwich it with another. eat it. (by the right side of my mouth so i didnt undo the stitches)

and believe me when i tell you i CRIED SO HARD IN JOY

also i put schweppes and still frozen popsicles in a cup and smash the popsicle down to a pulp to make a shitty homemade slushie so i could have something sweet

tldr: removing my wisdom tooth at 16 made me realise how fucking good solid foods are and also that chairs have spider legs i guess

[substanceparty]

This is particularly hilarious considering I couldn't sleep last night and decided that adding a bunch of raven-themed posts to my queue was the best solution.

Raven worries sometimes. 

To read more comics like this, click here!

[moth-time]

Got tagged by @buffintruder for their end of year fic writing ask thing and promptly forgot about it hhh (check out theirs!). But yes thank you for the tag, here we go! I dunno if I can answer everything seeing as I just started writing this year, hahah.

Most Popular Fic: Hold your Heart in my Hands and squeeze (gently) Probably most popular by a combination of being the oldest + it’s pwp, people read porn (Going by kudos, because I think hits are kind of bullshit). But hey, it’s good porn! It got more attention than I expected, what’s with FMA being an older fandom and Greed/Ling not super popular. I do think it’s much more telling that the next two in line, Long Live and Hungry Ghost, have almost the same amount of kudos despite Long Live being quite a few months older. I think the MCD tag spooks people x)

Favorite Fic: Long Live the Emperor Honestly this is a very hard pick because I really like all of them. I mean I better, @magpiedragon and I wrote these fics because they’re the stuff we wanted to read but couldn’t find :p But I am still very proud of what we did with Long Live, especially. The writing is clever, okay? We wrote it cackling the entire time and throwing lines back and forth going “NO D:<” “YES >:))” about the angst we put into it, and I think it has excellent re-read potential because it hits different once you know the plot twist, too. Idk we just did a really good job at writing sad shit!

Most Unexpected Fic: I guess that’s Hold Your Heart again, just by virtue of- holy shit I wrote a fic. I don’t do fic?? And yet. A fic happened. It’s not half bad, even!

Fics for Next Year: Oh man. In no particular order, and most of these would be collabs with my favorite corvid: - Greed touch 5 + 1 - Ling finally gets to have a big ole cry - Greed/Ed/Ling pwp - Ling getting spoiled a little pwp Possibly some other pwp options I dunno. Also I make no promises on any of this actually happening don’t call me out x)

Next Fic I Plan on Writing: Kind of a toss up between the Ed sandwich and the big ole cry. We’ll see how inspiration strikes.

Gonna tag! @rollerskatinglizard, @splickedylit, @unacaritafeliz, @gaylord-zuko, @shocotate :D

[paleode-ology]

Favorite 🦜 go

bro I literally started answering this and saved a draft but I guess it got swallowed whole when I switched between mobile to desktop?? idk. anyway birdies. I'm also gonna do top three because!! birds!!! are so fun!!!!

firstly I highly respect the corvid love. I want to train a flock of crows to bring me gifts soooo badly. maybe when I am a homeowner. someday.

Red-tailed hawks! They're like the most common raptor in the US but I love them anyway. There's a leucistic one that lives in my neighborhood and I got some very subpar photos of it once lmao.

this may seem like poor quality tumblr image, but that's for real how grainy the photo is. I was using my biggest camera lens zoomed in all the way and I still couldn't focus it entirely properly :,)

2. downy woodpeckers! I love woodpeckers in general but downies are so small and very common birdfeeder birds so I get to see them more often! also they're not quite as loud as the bigger woodpeckers lmao. there's a (possibly pileated?) very large woodpecker we've seen and heard outside our house from time to time and boy. is he LOUD. i respect it tho.

here's a downy! damn this image is huge wow. anyway the female ones don't have the red spot! I appreciate their monochrome chic but I do like the red hat on the males quite a bit.

3. best for last!!!!!!! hummingbirds!!!!! my babies. my all time favorites. pollinators in general are like the theme of my life. butterflies, bees, moths. I love them all. but hummingbirds? most gorgeous perfect creatures ever. we only really get the ruby-throated hummingbird here where I live (and they don't stick around for the winter) but we get a couple accidental species every once in a while. I love them all. most perfect bird ever.

hummingbird!! baby!!!!! so everything!!!!!!! once I was sitting at the window seat of a cafe and one of these babies hit the window and fell to the ground. it was alive but just kind of sat on the ground looking traumatized for like twenty minutes and I started crying because I was so worried about it. when I say "once" I really mean "this summer".

thank u so much for the ask, star!!! i know i asked first but i was delighted to get a reciprocal ask lol :D birds are so cool

[infinitefluffderg]

Jesse’s 2022 Game Review

PHowdy folks! With another year on the verge of collapse and the circus tent to be propped up a-new with a new coat of paint, it’s time to talk briefly about videos game. In the past, I made a list of my top 10 favorite games, diluted into my infamous prose heavy stylings. Not this year. Though you cannot force me away with many bars of corvid ownership from the act of getting flowery with dialogue, I’ll at least attempt terseness. Key word: attempt. Also, 5. 5′s a nice number and it’s less painful to write for.

As a quick reminder to all unfamiliar with my reviewing style: these are games that I’ve played this year that have left the largest impact on me. They aren’t games that came out this year (usually) and they aren’t games I played a lot of this year (though if they were, then DRG would be number 1). Usually I favor uniqueness and innovation over most other factors. Every game on this list is a banger and a half and gets my highest recommendation. With that squared away, let us begin.

Runners Up:

There were a LOT of great games that I played and honestly it becomes very difficult to rank games when all of them are just so damn good. So here’s a list of games in no particular order that really blew me away this year, but not enough to make the top 5.

Tropico 6

Satisfactory

Potionomics

Fight Knight

Disco Elysium

Dead Cells

The Forgotten City

5. Grounded

I play games with my boyfriend a lot. Usually, every day, if possible, we’ll sink a couple hours into our favorite multiplayer experiences. So I usually try to find us new experiences to enjoy to go alongside favorite staples. Grounded as a “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids” survival sim oozing with style and at high recommendation from others, was one I knew would be a hit even before we played it. And then we played it. Well, he played it a lot more than I did, but, I still helped out a lot.

Truthfully, Grounded is as much an RPG as a Survival Sim as you gradually update and upgrade your gear to deal with increasing challenge in this tiny world. The combat system is robust, there’s always a new unique challenge ahead of you, and the bugs are as adorable as they are horrifying. I could sleep with the little noises Ladybugs make in this game. If someone has exported all the bug sounds from this game, hit me up.

4. Super Animal Royale

Like I said in the last game choice, my boyfriend and I play together a lot, so we look for fun multiplayer experiences. SAR was his choice, and one he picked up because free is always welcome. And yeah, SAR knocks it out of the park. Not only is the gameplay well balanced and a thrill to fight online in, but it also manages to create one of the rare Free To Play experiences where you really want to pay the devs money just to support their game.

Nothing gameplay-wise is locked behind a fee, everything you would spend real money on is cosmetic. Plus, if you did like cosmetics, it’s super easy to get enough premium currency by playing the game to afford one of their battlepasses. These passes don’t expire too! You can always go back and level older passes if cosmetics in one season stood out more than other ones. If you’re interested in a cute animal top down and haven’t given SAR a try yet, there’s really no better time than now.

3. Ultrakill

I listen to Ultrakill’s OST on and off when I need something higher energy while I work on complicated projects. Similarly, Ultrakill is the most stylish FPS with Quake graphics I’ve played/witnessed. It runs off rule of cool similarly to its direct inspiration - Devil May Cry. And it all plays so damn smooooooooth.

My boyfriend (don’t tire of me talking about him, we do games together A LOT) is considerably better at this game than I am and I feel like I judge some of my opinions over how much he plays a game. At writing, he has P ranked the entire game on all difficulties, and Cyber Grinds (endless mode) for the fun of it. He’s gotten to Wave 25 I think? I’ll need to check with him again sometime. Anyways, he’ll show me how P-2 looks since his ability is on a whole other level.

2. Yakuza 0

I finally dipped my toes into Yakuza this year and HOOOOOOLY SHIT I was unprepared for what would be a hell of an experience. As someone who has played through Kiwami and about a third of Kiami 2 (remakes of the first and second games), 0 is the absolute best way to hook someone on the series. As the title suggests, it’s a prologue introducing the back stories for the two main runners of Kiryu’s ongoing quest to be a positive influence in the lives of orphans and others. And live. An amazing soap opera thriller crime drama that hits incredible heights constantly throughout its running, silly grade-A side stories, a solid difficulty curve, and much much more.

And by starting with 0, you get the amazing build up to go with it. 0′s incredible story helps temper the lows of the Kiwami remake (which is still a good game, don’t get me wrong) so that you can bounce back into the amazing engine update utilized for Kiwami 2. It’s just a good-ass game people.

1. Super Mario Odyssey

If you told me last year that this was going to be my number one game, I’d call you crazy. As someone who doesn’t easily fall in love with AAA games, preferring indie titles, the idea that Super Mario Odyssey would be such a must-play would have been completely dismissed. But no, over so many many other games I played this year, Super Mario Odyssey is the clear superior. SMO runs on high moments, everything has been so well planned out and the world is big without being overwhelming. This. This felt like the natural evolution of what Mario 64 was. And if you’ve been noting how much I’ve gushed over this year for the last month, then it should come to no surprise that it’s here at the top of my list. Everything was planned and perfected with such clear purpose it’s perplexing.

When this game came out alongside A Hat in Time, I felt that Hat would be superior because it controlled in a way that I wished Mario did. With mid-air dive cancels, a really really fun world to explore, a funny story with great characters. It was only this year, three years later, that I found that Odyssey not only did all that, it did it better. (Well, the writing of Hat is better, but...)

Anyways, if you are interested in a Switch, Odyssey is worth getting a Switch for. Though, admittedly, more if you’re the kind of person who adores adventurous open worlds in a collect-a-thon platform setting.

This is what AAA gaming should be. Anything else pales.

[nexyra]

RWBY's Love Language - Part 2

Hello friend ! I'm back at it with a second part and whatever character I can think of ! (Among which best boy Oscar because he deserves it, and also more adults)

Let's go !

***

Oscar Pine

So ! While I love Oscar with my whole heart, honestly guessing his Love Language is no easy feat. One thing for sure : touch isn't is thing even if it's how everyone else chose to communicate their love.

I saw a post a while back detailing how Oscar is always putting his hands up as a barrier when he's scared or uncomfortable and that makes me cry a little instead but it's true TT. Anyway...

In the latest volumes we've got quite a bit of comforting Oscar-talks but I have to wonder how much of that is due to Ozpin's influence really. As a result I've decided to settle on... Acts of Service or Quality Time ! This is based on a few details : when people are upset with him in one shape or form, Oscar was always very eager to prove himself useful, give some aspect of concrete help (such as cooking a Casserole, ringing any bell ?). Plus I imagine that's the exact brand of help his Aunt would have needed most on a farm. Added to that, he always seems fairly happy to be included, be with the others no matter what's going on. Training ? Yay ! A movie with Jaune & Weiss ? Smiling puppy look. Fancy party ? Shenanigans together ! So yea, I love seeing my boy loved and hugged but please everyone settle for the loving he's most comfortable with <3

“She made a choice! A choice to put others before herself! So do I.”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I thought you guys would appreciate a hot meal after... spending all day looking for me, apparently.”

“No, it's okay. These past few days, I've been scared of the same things you were. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be... me. But I did some thinking, and I do know that I want to do everything I can to help with whatever time I have left.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Ozpin

For our favorite immortal wizard aka not quite dead Headmaster... I think the answer is rather obvious. When you're so careful with your words, but also so fiercely devoted to humanity, Words of Affirmation is a must. Ozpin constantly does his best to calm, to reassure. He's good at controlling the conversation and getting people where he wants... Except he more often than not use it to make them think and help them reach an healing ore motivating conclusion. This man is so insisten on giving and cultivating hope, so painfully aware of just how much words can change... There's no doubt in my mind that it's through these very same words that he tries to fight the darkness in others' mind, even when they don't want to let themselves be persuaded. And with some help from the farmboi, Ozpin is gaining in honesty and earnestness. And that can only help in giving comfort.

But to be honest... If you offer him a hug I doubt he'd refuse, and he definitely deserves one. Also therapy. For Oscar too. Everyone in therapy 2k21.

“Ruby. I've made more mistakes than any man, woman, and child on this planet. But at this moment I would not consider your appointment to leader to be one of them. Do you?”

“It's not every day that friends are able to come together like this. Time has a way of testing our bonds, but it's nights like these that can help keep them stronger than ever. Nights like these are ones we'll never forget.”

“Don't worry, Mr. Arc. Your journey is far from over, and the same might be said for all of you. Unlocking your Semblance isn't the end. It can still grow and evolve. Providing you are willing to put in the work, who knows what could happen?”

- - - - - - - - - -

Emerald Sustrai

Now here I'm gonna go ahead and say that the way Emerald has been taught to express her love and the way SHE would rather preffered to be loved most likely do not align. At the side of someone like Cinder, and even Mercury who isn't exactly the most emotionally vulnerable person; the only brand of love that gets an easy pass is Acts of Service, and that's probably what Emerald is the most used to. I can go on a mission with you. I can help. We go right back to the "I can be useful" mentality and I'm not sure she's been shown any other way honestly. Let's be real though : if someone offered a hug or some gentle words ? She'd probably pout & fuss but I hardly doubt she'd object.

“I don't care about Salem! But I owe Cinder everything. You want to fight her that bad? Be my guest.”

“I just... Cinder was the only family I ever had. She cared about me, taught me things... But without her here, I don't know if what we're doing--”

“I've been working on my Semblance. I can help. I won't tell anybody.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Pyrrha Nikos

What's with everyone and dedicating their whole love toward just helping their teammates anyway they can ?! Stop ! But any way, you guessed it. I'm pretty sure one of Pyrrha's top way of showing love is Acts of Service, and nothing means quite as much to her as Quality Time. For someone who's been put on a pedestal and has a hard time relating to people; both touch and words can be a bit awkward. But if they're wrapped up neatly in a training session or semblance explanations ? Well that's already a more familiar area. Pyrrha gives her whole to her friends and those she cares about. And in exchange, if anyone can simply... be there and spend time with her... May it be at the ball or simply sitting in the courtyard... I'm sure our girl would be delighted.

“Jaune, you know if you ever need help, you can just ask.”

“I'm constantly surrounded by love and praise; but when you're placed on a pedestal like that for so long, you become separated from the people that put you there in the first place. But thanks to you, I've made friendships that will last a lifetime.”

“I'll do it. If you believe this will help humanity, then I will become your Fall Maiden.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Qrow Branwen

If I say Gift Giving for the corvid, is someone gonna hit me ? Come on it's fun ! Okay, more seriously... I think this kind of love conversation is kind of a necessity for Qrow. With a semblance such as Bad Luck, making everything complicated... Qrow tries to keep his distance from those he cares about. And since he's an emotionally repressed (but caring) asshole on top of it... Well that kinda narrows down his option. You know what DOESN'T put anyone at risk but can still bring smiles on their face ? GIFTS. Shiny things, souvenirs from his missions all over the world to give to 2 smol nieces. Sounds safe right ? That said, as any good emotionally unavailable character in this show, I gotta say Qrow probably has a thing for helping out and making himself useful in relation to Oz, Tai or the rest of the inner circle. So you know what that means *whisper* Acts of Service.

That said ! When it comes to receiving some love back... Qrow probably likes everything he doesn't allow himself to have. Soft touches, loving & comforting words, spending time with a friend without his semblance making everything complicated... We know that's all he wants.

“You idiot. I know you didn't do this.”

“Look, pal, I'm not sure who you are, but you need to leave my niece alone.”

“No one wanted me... I was cursed... I gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world... I thought I was finally doing some good...”

- - - - - - - - - -

Clover Ebi

And among our newbies (and gone too soon) friends we have Clover ! Clover was a very good contrast to our dusty old crow but also a great help. Kind-hearted, perceptive and honest; he knew just how to put Qrow's self-loathing in his place and push him to give himself some credit. He always had a nice word or a joke for everyone, and visibly the rock of the Ace Ops : an expert a keeping the moral up and the mood companiable. Evidently, Words of Affirmation was his expertise. Had things gone differently, I'm sure we'd have had time for many more earnest and helpful conversations with this teal-eyed fisherman.

“It's a good thing they had someone to look up to and get them through it. Not everyone is so lucky.”

“I meant deflect a compliment. Those kids wouldn't be where they are without you. You've had more of an effect on them than you realize.”

“We don't have to fight, friend.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Winter Schnee

And today in the "emotionally unavailable" category we have... Winter Schnee ! TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS PEOPLE ! Just - I would say look at Ruby but even she doesn't talk about her bad vibes... Nor does any of the "Words of Affirmation" peeps. Honestly what's wrong with y'all people ? Anyway Winter cares so much. Is it hidden behind professionalism and a stern *big sister* demeanour ? Sure. But it doesn't negate just how much she loves her closed ones. She's fiercely loyal, and even if she doesn't let her personal feelings get in the way of her duty and doing what needs to be done, no one is allowed to say she doesn't care. Countrary to Weiss, Winter doesn't seem as good nor as aware of the love that exists in simply *being* with people. Rather, she's dutiful and ready to help any way she can when given the chance. You guessed it, yet another Acts of Service kind of love... Maybe I'm doing this wrong XD. I'm on the fence about Words of Affirmation as well. Despite her standoffish looks, Winter has always been very open & reassuring during her discussions with Penny. But she's more stern when it comes to Weiss so I dunno x)

“I don't recall asking about your ranking, I'm asking how you've been. Are you eating properly? Have you taken up any hobbies? Are you making new friends?”

“You've grown up a bit, haven't you? You're not the little girl clinging to the family name anymore.”

“You can't just buy trust like everything else! You have to earn it!”

And that's it for Part 2 ! I might do some other characters if people suggest some but I don't have a pressing need to right now. I have many ideas of songs to apply to various characters however so that's prob what my next posts will consist of (or fun templates)

If anyone has tips to create RWBY gifs or links to download the eps in good quality I'll take it ! Good day everyone !

[birdhouse-of-shadows]

Continuing the Toko w/character headcanons, how about ones with him and Tsuyu?

Absolutely! This ship is so cute, and they would be so perfect for each other <3

Platonic Hcs~

They have both silently agreed to never speak about the handcuffs

Tsu loves to cook for others, so she tries learning some apple based recipes

Tsu is Dark Shadow’s favorite person! They get along perfectly :)

Toko and Tsu like to go to on nature walks on Sunday mornings. They usually carpool with Bakugo and Kirishima, who go hiking

Tokoyami tries to be as polite as possible, so it takes him a while to learn to call Asui, Tsu

These two like to listen to older music. Tokoyami has a record player, and Tsu has a cassette player

Tsu is secretly a witch, and she practices with Tokoyami. They make protection bottles and leave them around the dorms. The rest of the class just thinks they’re just pretty decorations.

They tried to use a banishment spell on Mineta once, it didn’t work.

They spend a lot of time with the Dekusquad, just chilling

Istg, Tokoyami tried to cook for the group once and Tsu watched him fuck everything up. She didn’t say a single thing as he used sugar instead of salt, and ground ghost pepper instead of black pepper.

Secret memers

Romantic Hcs~

1-A’s cutest couple✨ Even the teachers ship it dndjdnk-

They’re such a chill couple, some people even go to them for relationship advice

The way the started dating was so funny

They were doing some really difficult training, and they barely ended up completing it. They were on the ground, close to passing out, and Asui just goes “I know you have a crush on me, so if we don’t die let’s go on a date” and proceeds to immediately fall asleep. Tokoyami was just sitting there like ➖👄👁

Aizawa just standing there like ???? Did she really just???? oh tokoyami keeping an eye out for selener passed out too...

They almost never use pet names when they’re around others

Tokoyami calls her honeycrisp because that his favorite kind of apple

Tsu calls him jellybean bc she likes jelly

You would think because they have cute pet names, that they would have cute phone names. “Corvid-19” and “Kermit”

Mina saw Tokoyami call and was like “who is that” and Tsu just goes “my jellybean UwU”

They have such a healthy relationship, and they support each other so much

Tsu teaches Fumi how to be in control of his emotions, while Fumi teaches Tsu how to be more open with her emotions

It’s basically impossible for them to fight. They both want to sit down and discuss an issue before it escalates

If either one of them gets injured during training it’s over and done with. Tokoyami almost threw someone out a window once. Tsu straight up body slammed Monoma, but nobody is ready to talk about that

Tsu got really badly injured once, and they tried to send in Kirishima to make Fumi feel better. Kirishima came out crying, but nobody knows why. (It’s because Toko was crying and they just had a cry fest)

Hawks and Asui get along beautifully ✨ They are the two person “Tokoyami protection squad”. They have contemplated murder together~

[alarawriting]

52 Project #37: A Very April Christmas

Part of this originally appeared as Inktober 2019 #17: Ornament.

--------------------------------------------------------

“Where is my fucking box of Christmas ornaments?”

April was busily tossing everything Catrina owned down the stairs from the attic garret where she lived. “April! What the fuck! That’s my stuff!” Catrina yelled.

“Yeah, your stuff that you couldn’t bother to keep neatly like I told you to, and this is seriously a health code hazard,” April said. “But more importantly, you’re living in the room I put my Christmas ornaments in, last January, and I need to find them.”

“You keep tossing my stuff around like that and I’ll kill you, mraow!”

“It’s my house, bitch, and you don’t pay anywhere near a fair rate for the rent.” April moved on to the back of the attic, where no one lived. “Ugh, this place is a nightmare.”

Catrina came up into the attic. “Well, whose fault is that, meow? All that’s your mess.”

Behind her, Kelly stuck her oversized head up. “I think Marie Kondo needs to come to this house,” she said in a strong Japanese accent. “April-san, I can’t imagine that any of that stuff back there sparks joy.”

“Hey! What are you doing in my room? Sssss!” Catrina postured at Kerry Kitty with her claws out. “No other cats allowed, this is my territory!”

“Oh, then you don’t want me to bring up the things April dropped,” Kelly said. “Okay.” Her large paws opened and dropped the pile of clothing she’d been carrying.

“Wait, no!”

“Oh, so you do want me to help you bring up the clothes,” Kerry said. “Please make up your mind.” In her accent, “clothes” sounded a bit less like garments and a bit more like taco-craving corvids.

“AHA!” April brandished the box of ornaments. “Found you, you little motherfuckers!”

“April-san, your language. Emily might hear you!”

“Emily is probably eating the Christmas tree,” April shot back. “Make way, coming through, lady with large box here!”

Kelly jumped off the attic stairs with as much grace as a 5-foot tall bipedal cat with a giant head could achieve. Catrina dodged and rolled onto her own bed, or what was left of it after April had dragged it around looking for the ornament box. April, six foot two and model-slim with a frankly impossible body, toted the large box over to the attic stairs, balancing it on her shoulders, and then tossed it down, following that with a graceful jump to the floor herself. “Everybody gather round!” she shouted in her most saccharine voice. “It’s time for Christmas decorating!”

“Doktor Zapp isn’t here,” Lovey said in her sad, slow voice. “Don’t you think we should ask him to come upstairs?”

“Pfft, no. That nerd never wants to come upstairs. Besides, what do you care? He’s scared of dogs.”

“I’m not a big dog,” Lovey said, despite the fact that she was almost as tall as April herself. “Anyway, he’s only scared of bad dogs. I’m a good dog.”

“Goo dug,” Emily Egg agreed, thick baby fingers twined in the puppy’s fur. “Wuvvy goo dug.”

“Yes, I’m sure you said something, but no one cares what,” April said. “Sheonte! Cherry! We’re doing Christmas decorations!”

“We don’t celebrate Christmas in Ponyland, and I really don’t appreciate you trying to push your human customs on me,” Cherry yelled back.

“Fuck, no, you’re a children’s cartoon. What do they do for your holiday specials? I know you’ve got something that looks just like Christmas. Get your horse’s ass out here so I don’t need to keep yelling.”

Sullenly Cherry Blossom plodded out of her room. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“On Best Pony Friends. You’ve got to have some kind of Christmas-like holiday for the holiday specials.”

“We have the Festival of Friendship… I guess it’s kind of like Christmas. We give our friends gifts, and hang up ornaments, and make snowponies, and sing carols—”

“So what you’re saying is, it’s exactly like Christmas.”

“Minus the overcommercialization and people trampling each other to get the last copy of a cheap mass-manufactured toy, yeah, I guess.”

Kerry volunteered, “I used to be on the air right before Best Pony Friends. Their Christmas is very nice-looking.”

“It’s the Festival of Friendship! Not Christmas!”

“You just keep telling yourself that,” April said. “SHE-ON-TE! We are all waiting on you!”

“A Diva is never rushed,” Sheonte yelled from her bedroom. “Beauty and style like this takes effort.”

“Come on, bitch, they threw you out of the Divazz because you tried to kill Vivi and your ex.”

“They were fucking! In my bedroom! You’d have tried to kill them too.”

“I don’t think the language in this house is a very good example for Emily,” Lovey complained.

“I wouldn’t have tried to kill them too because that would never happen to me because Chad is a real gentleman who would never cheat on me,” April said.

“Yeah, too bad you such a ho you gotta cheat on him.” Sheonte finally made her appearance, strutting into the room like she owned it. Her Afro was lightly sprinkled with pale glitter on the edges to create an effect much like she’d just been walking in light snow, and she was dressed stylishly with 14-inch stiletto heels, a green velvet miniskirt, a white blouse that did not cover her multiply-pierced belly button, and a shimmering silver jacket. And many belts around her body that didn’t seem to actually do anything. And by “stylishly”, April meant “like a cheap whore.”

“Look, it’s not my fault that Chad is such a gentleman that he’s waiting until we get married. Saving yourself for marriage is a beautiful thing in a man, and I really appreciate his sacrifice! But I gotta get my pussy pounded by someone, and Mr. Vibrator can’t always do the job, you know?”

Lovey was covering Emily’s ears with her paws. “April! You can’t say things like that in front of Emily!”

“Oh, like she understands.” April walked up to Emily, smiling. The baby, who would be only slightly shorter than April if she could actually stand up, beamed up at her from her position on the floor. “Who’s such a stupid baby?” April said in the same cheerful tone that one would say “Who’s such a good dog?” to one’s good dog. “Yes, you are! You are a stupid little baby!” Emily laughed and clapped.

“Can we get this over with?” Catrina asked. “April fucked up my entire room and I’m gonna have to spend the rest of the day fixing it, mraow.”

“Yes, we can get it going now, since I’m here,” Sheonte said. “April, where are the ornaments?”

“Right here,” April said, and opened the box with a flourish…

…to an assortment of brightly colored bits of shattered glass.

“Oh, shit,” April said.

“I think maybe you should not have thrown them down the stairs,” Kelly said.

“Bitch, you tear my room apart for this?” Catrina snarled. “These weren’t shit to begin with, meow, and then you went and shattered them to pieces on top of that?”

“Yeah, these ornaments were shit before you broke them,” Sheonte said. “What’d you do, get a truckload of shiny glass balls at Target?”

Emily began to cry. “Owwmens!” she wailed, which probably meant “ornaments” but sounded entirely too much like “omens”.

“We knew how to do a Christmas with the Weargirls,” Catrina said. “We used to go over Batrice’s mansion and decorate with lights and a ton of different ornaments, meow. Gorgeous stuff.”

“Yeah, well, feel free to go live with Batrice. Door’s that way,” April said.

Catrina made a face. “They’re vampires. They don’t have any windows, sss.”

“This is very sad,” Lovey said, her permanent sad-hound-dog face emphasizing the sadness. “I’m very sad.”

“Owwmens!”

“AwOOOO!”

“Oh, for the love of Christ shut it, both of you. I know what to do.” April closed the box of ornaments. “To the Glitter Van! We’re gonna go to the Christmas store and buy ornaments!”

“Kissmas tor?” Emily asked, cheering up right away.

“Oh! I love Christmas store! Let me get Christmas kimono on before we go!” Kerry said, and ran off before April could stop her.

“I’m not dressed for going out,” Catrina complained. “I need to try to find something I can wear, meow, since you trashed my room!”

“Yeah, this is not a Christmas store look,” Sheonte said. “I’m gonna change into something better for going out.”

“This is California, it’s not like it’s cold,” April said.

“I didn’t say better clothes for cold weather, I said better clothes for going out. This shit’s okay for just hanging with you bitches, but if I’m gonna get Seen, I need to look my best.” She strutted back to her room.

“I don’t wear clothes,” Cherry Blossom said.

“Yeah, good for you.”

“But your mane looks like a stinking pile of dog doo. You need to go get brushed and get dressed yourself before you go out looking like that.”

“I didn’t ask your opinion, you nag.”

“That is a misogynist and ageist slur among my people and I’m going to post about your insensitivity on social media if you don’t apologize right now.”

“Apologize to this,” April said, giving Cherry the middle finger.

She sat down on her couch, defeated, as Cherry trotted away. “This is totally fucked up.”

“Don’t worry,” Lovey said, snuggling against April, trying to cheer her up by being a dog. “I’m sure you’ll be able to fix everything as soon as everyone gets ready and we can go to the ornament store.”

Lovey had been in this house long enough to know that “everyone gets ready” could take upward of 3 hours, and besides, April didn’t like dogs. She pushed Lovey away. “Easy for you to say.”

The door to the basement opened, and Doktor Zapp, dressed in his characteristic lab coat, goggles, and blue shirt that he apparently never took off, stuck his tiny head out. “What’d I miss?”

***

If it had been April’s decision, Lovey and Emily – especially Emily – would not be coming with them, but Emily was the one most enthusiastic about going to “Kissmas tor”, so obviously she couldn’t be prevented from coming along, even though she was a baby nearly April’s size, bigger than Cherry Blossom and Doktor Zapp. Ugh. As long as Kelly or Lovey watched her and April didn’t have to do it. She had her hands full with her sisters. They didn’t live with her, but they leaned on her hard enough it was practically like she was being their mom.

Cherry Blossom had a bag of apples she was snacking on. Loudly. She was sitting in the back of the Glitter Van, because she couldn’t sit in a seat for humanoids, so she, Lovey, and Emily were all in the back – Emily could in theory sit in a seat, but a baby seat large enough for her couldn’t. It was amazing how loud the sound of a pony chewing an apple could get all the way to the driver’s seat.

April honked her horn. “Jesus! Get a move on, people!”

From her vantage point in the front of the Glitter Van, she could see an endless line of tiny cars in front of her. Very tiny cars, about a fifth the size of her van. Traffic was always like this. Sometimes there was one of the buses or cars the BittyFolx drove around in, and sometimes some superhero’s tricked-out car, but generally speaking it was always the little cars causing the traffic jams.

Sheonte, in the front seat next to April, commiserated. “Fuckin’ wonderful, right? No matter what time of day you try going anywhere, there’s all these tiny-ass cars on the road.”

“I should just run them the fuck over,” April said.

“Yeah!” Catrina cheered from the seat directly behind April.

“No!” Kerry, from the seat next to Catrina, and Lovey, in the back, yelled. Well, in Lovey’s case, howled.

“That’s a great idea if you want the cops up your ass,” Sheonte said sarcastically. “Now I know white girls with money get away with a ton of shit, but even your lily white tushie ain’t gonna be able to walk away from running down a dozen little Wheels o’Fire cars.”

“Fuck this,” Cherry announced from the back. “I’m getting out and I’m walking.”

“That’s nice for you, you’re a fucking horse,” April snapped. “Maybe you can kick some of those goddamn Wheels o’Fire cars out of the way so we can get somewhere on this highway?”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Doktor Zapp, sitting on the back row seat, shouted, with the German accent that came and went in his voice stronger than usual. “I have an invention that can make the car fly, will that do?”

“Well, why the fuck didn’t you say something earlier?”

***

The Christmas store was a roughly semi-hexagonal structure, if the bee creating the hexagon was drunk. Two different storefronts came together as one of the corners – a Playstuf grocery store, from the same line as Doktor Zapp, and a Pam in the Pocket clothing storefront. These were barely taller than April herself. The third side that made up half the hexagon was a large cardboard storefront, taller and deeper than the other two, with a smiley face on the visible outside of it.

The second half of the hexagon, such as it was, consisted of what had once been neatly laid out aisles of baskets containing Christmas decorations, except that the aisles had ended up scattered around by the actions of customers and employees, and probably the will of God. It was now less of a hexagon and more of a shapeless blob.

On the right of the Christmas store, outside the blob of the store’s merchandise layout, there was a Christmas tree. It, like the Playstuf and Pam in the Pocket storefronts, was only a bit taller than April herself. And underneath that Christmas tree, there were shiny boxes wrapped in reflective wrapping paper. These were very large for presents, about half as tall as Doktor Zapp.

A nutcracker soldier stood in front of the store, his jaw moving somewhat unnaturally. “Welcome to the Christmas Store! Welcome one, welcome all!”

Emily, crawling out of the van, saw the fake presents and immediately beelined for them, crawling eagerly. “Pwezens!”

“Oh, shit,” April said, as Emily, who was significantly larger than most of the people here, knocked over several of the baskets of merchandise, and at least one Puppy Pal carrying merchandise in her mouth, who barked at Emily in irritation. “Emily, what the shit? Get back here!”

“Pwezens!”

April sighed deeply, and then began walking away from the scene, toward the middle of the store, pretending she didn’t actually know Emily. Sheonte, Kelly, Catrina and Doktor Zapp were heading toward the ornaments, and Cherry Blossom had stopped to chat up a horse who was standing by the side of the store, waiting for its rider.

Emily grabbed the first of the presents and tore the wrapping paper up. “Emily, you shouldn’t do that!” Lovey said, ineffectually, and then started howling. “APRIL OR SOMEBODY, AWOOO! LOOK AT EMILY, ROOO!”

“Jesus Christ,” April muttered, “I can’t take that kid anywhere.” She stomped over to Emily, whose lip was wobbling in disappointment that the first box she’d ripped open was empty. “Emily Egg, get your baby ass out of those fake presents right now!”

Emily began to wail, sitting in her pile of wrapping paper and torn-up empty box. Lovey, never one to fail to loudly sympathize with a suffering child, started howling in solidarity. “AROOO!”

“For God’s sake,” April said. Now everyone was staring at her. “Emily, get back in the car!”

“No!” Emily yelled. “Want pwezens!”

“These aren’t presents, you idiot, they’re decorations!”

“Ma’am, you need to control your child,” the nutcracker said.

“Ugh. She’s not mine, I’m just her landlady – EMILY STOP EATING THAT!” April had to snatch silver wrapping paper out of Emily’s mouth. “Emily, if you’re not good, they’ll kick us out of the Christmas store! Do you wanna get kicked out of the Christmas store? And you won’t get any ornaments? And Santa will give you coal for Christmas?”

“BWAAAAH!” Emily wailed. “No! No! Want pwezens an owwmens!”

“Well, then you better be good! Those aren’t yours!”

“No pwezens?”

“No presents here. This isn’t even our house! How would Santa know to bring you presents here?”

“Come on, Emily,” Lovey encouraged. “Let’s go look at ornaments!”

“Owwmens!” Emily agreed, no longer crying, and crawled off with Lovey.

“This place really needs wider aisles,” April muttered.

Someone was sarcastically applauding behind her. April turned. “Jayda?”

“If it isn’t April,” Jayda said. “Winning Mother of the Year awards. I never thought I’d see you tied down with a kid.”

“She’s not my kid,” April said through gritted teeth.

Jayda looked very much like April herself, except she was black, with full, thick hair that had first been relaxed and then curled like the hair of a white movie star from the 50’s or something. “Really? There’s such a strong resemblance,” Jayda said dryly.

Sheonte came up behind April. “Jayda! Girlfriend! Ain’t seen you in for-ever! Whatchu been up to?”

“Oh, the usual,” Jayda said. “Photo shoots, modeling gigs… I just did a couple of commercials, and my agent is talking with a movie producer about getting me some acting work.” She smiled, smugly. April assumed the movie producer in question was the one that fired April for demanding top billing over her male co-star, who was in fact not nearly as famous as she was. She forced a smile onto her own face.

“Oh, that’s great!” she said in an incredibly fake voice. “I always knew you’d manage to snag a job that takes talent, somehow, eventually!”

“Anyway, April, since when have you been adopting kids? And how’d you keep the paparazzi from finding out?”

“You serious, girl? You think April would adopt a kid?” Sheonte laughed, loudly. “That ain’t April’s kid. That’s Emily Egg. You don’t recognize her?”

“I’m not really following the world of baby dolls,” Jayda said. “You know, I’m a young adult, and I spend my time dealing with young adults. We don’t really have time for babies.”

“She’s my tenant,” April snapped. “Not my best friend, and not my kid. Apparently she’s a big thing on the baby doll scene, but like I give a shit? I just care that the rent checks come in.”

“Oh, right!” Jayda snapped her fingers. “I remember now! You couldn’t get work, so you had to get roommates so you wouldn’t lose your house!” She made a very fake looking expression of concern. “Are you doing any better on the job market?”

“I’m writing a book,” April said, still unable to un-grit her teeth. “It’s a tell-all memoir about all the talentless bitches I’ve had to work with in my career. You ought to pick it up when it comes out! It’s got a whole chapter about you.”

Jayda rolled her eyes. “You’re so immature,” she said. “Better get back to your baby before she wrecks something else.”

Emily was knocking over baskets of ornaments. Lovey was moaning for her to stop and be good, but since she was a large dog without opposable thumbs, there wasn’t much she could do to stop the baby or clean anything up. “Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah, thanks for the heads up, but she’s not my kid.” She stomped off to try to deal with Emily.

“So how’s it goin’, girlfriend?” Sheonte asked Jayda.

“We’re not friends,” Jayda said. “We may have done a few shoots together, but I don’t even know you.”

Sheonte rolled her eyes. “It’s a figure of speech, girl. You gonna give me a lecture about family trees if I call you a sister?”

“Wasn’t it your sister you tried to kill?”

“No, bitch, it was my best friend Vivi, because she was fucking my husband. My sister is in high school, and she’s crushing it. Gonna be valedictorian at this rate. What’s your problem with me?”

“Seriously?” Jayda asked in disbelief. “Don’t you remember when April and Friends was competing with the Divazz, and you were a total jerk about it?”

“That was years ago.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not gonna be friends with you just because you’re part of April’s entourage now.”

“I am renting a room in her mansion. I ain’t gonna be best pals with her either. But you don’t wanna be friendly, that’s fine. That’s fine. No one needs a stuck-up snotty bitch like you for a friend, anyway.”

“Ugh.” Jayda looked at the ceiling, and then walked off. Sheonte shook her head.

“That bitch is the whitest black girl I ever met,” she opined, and went back to where Catrina was picking out ornaments.

***

Outside, Cherry Blossom was trying to talk to the horse. “So, you come here often?”

The horse nickered.

Cherry Blossom spoke words, not nickers, and had no idea what the horse had just said, but the apples she’d been eating ever since they got in the car were fermented, so she didn’t care. As much as she hated being stuck in this world where almost everyone was human and she was a universe away from her friends, there were compensations… like the fact that humans never questioned whether her apples were exactly fresh or not. Apparently humans only imbibed alcohol in liquid form, explaining why their word for intoxication was “drunk.”

“You know, if you wanted to go off on the side with me and, you know, put on a pony show?” She wiggled her rump and lifted her tail, batting her eyelashes. “That’d be nice.”

The horse nickered.

Cherry Blossom rubbed her face up against the horse’s side, trying to reach the horse’s face with her face. The horse turned its head so she couldn’t reach. “Oh, don’t be like that,” she said.

***

In the Christmas store, Kerry was chatting up Pippi Pig, a Swedish animal star almost as well known in the US as Kelly herself. “I didn’t know you were in the US!”

“I’m doing a holiday special,” Pippi said. “Pippi Pig’s Christmas! It’s my first big Christmas special!”

Kelly, who had done dozens of holiday specials, for Christmas, Obon, New Year’s, Doll’s Festival, Halloween, and many others, in America and in Japan, clapped her paws together. “That sounds so great!” she said.  “You must be so excited!”

“Oh, yes, I’m very excited!” Pippi agreed. “Kelly, can I ask you something?”

“Of course!”

“I don’t mean to be offensive, but… is your name actually Kelly or Kerry?”

“Yes,” Kerry said.

“No… I mean, which one is it?”

“It’s Kelly or Kerry,” Kelly said, exaggerating the l and the r sounds so she could make it clear they were different. Normally, when she said one of those letters, they weren’t.

“But which one do you prefer?”

Kerry laughed. “Kerry was first,” she said. “Then I came to America and they called me Kelly. Then back in Japan they wanted to be like Americans so they called me Kelly. It sounds the same but when they printed it on the merchandise, it was Kelly. And then they changed their minds and decided I should be Kerry again. So either one is okay.”

“Wow,” Pippi said. “I guess I should be glad that Americans and Swedes can both pronounce Pippi more or less the same way, right?”

“Oh, I like it,” Kelly said. “I like to feel like I can be a whole new kitty every time I cross a border. Or anytime I want to, really.” There was a loud sound of breaking glass behind them, a wail from a large baby, and a howl from a dog. “Oh dear. Excuse me, I might have to do something.”

***

“That one, meow! I want that!”

Catrina had filled her basket with glittering things that moved. So far she had a pinwheel, a top (this wasn’t much good as a Christmas ornament, because it was half as tall as Doktor Zapp), a disco ball, a Santa Claus with a glittering beard that said “Ho ho ho” when you squeezed him, several strands of tinsel, a singing bird made of mirrors, and a butterfly covered with sequins. Also, a lot of Nativity-related stuff. The thing she was pointing at now was a bird made of sequins, hanging from a tree.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do about it,” Doktor Zapp complained.

“I want you to get it for me, meow.”

“I’m shorter than you! How am I supposed—”

“Yo, Catrina,” Sheonte said. “What is with all the cheap-ass shit in your cart?”

“Cheap-ass shit?” Catrina said indignantly. “These are gorgeous, mrow!”

“They’re tacky as all fuck. What’s with all this Baby Jesus shit? Basic as f, girl.”

“Yeah, well, what kind of ornaments were you gonna get?” Catrina snarled.

“Nice stuff. Like this.” She picked up a frosted glass ball. “Understated. Not in your face being all shiny. Maybe one of these.” This one was a very delicate white snowflake made of something fragile and light. “Not all shit that makes you look like some kind of magpie.”

“I’m a cat! I like shiny things that move!” Catrina snapped. “And calling my taste tacky is rich, coming from you!” She waved at Sheonte, encompassing her outfit, which consisted of a white fur coat, tall leather boots in gold, and a black miniskirt. Under the white coat, which was half open, she was wearing a black velvet tube top over a golden silk top. She also had half a dozen bracelets on one arm.

“Hey, bitch, my taste in fashion is cutting edge. You look like you’re wearing one of April’s rejects.” Catrina was wearing skinny-jean shorts, a chunky belt, and a light blue blouse with short sleeves. Her feet were bare.

“Hsss! You take that back, mrow!” Catrina backed up and flashed her claws at Sheonte. “I have my own fashion sense, not a ripoff of April’s!”

“Couldn’t tell by me,” Sheonte said lazily.

Doktor Zapp took the opportunity where neither of the girls were looking at him to head out of the main shopping area, trying to make his way over to Cherry Blossom, and accidentally bumped into an old man from the Galactic Rebellion franchise. “Watch it!” the old guy said, reaching reflexively to his side, where he did not, at the moment, have a gun.

Neither did Doktor Zapp – he’d left his ray guns in the lab. “Sorry!”

“You better be sorry,” the old guy said crabbily. “You see these joints of mine? I got carbonite all up in them. Got stuck in carbonite once and I’ve never been able to get it all out. I’ve been practically crippled ever since.” The substance in question appeared to be brown clay, and it was in fact in all of his joints.

Doktor Zapp commiserated, showing off his cyborg leg. “A dog got my leg here. I know how it is.”

“I got a friend who got his hand chopped off, got a cyborg replacement,” the old guy said. “Wasn’t any different from a real hand.”

“Yes, well. Mine is very obviously a cyborg leg.”

“Just don’t get carbonite in that cyborg leg. It’ll fuck you up for life.”

“I’ll watch out for that,” Doktor Zapp said, making his exit. As he headed toward Cherry Blossom, he muttered to himself, “If I got something in the cyborg leg, I would just build a new cyborg leg. Idiot.”

***

Emily was wailing. She had managed to knock over and shatter an entire basket of cheap glass balls. An employee of the store, who looked like Mrs. Claus, was chastising her and Lovey, who was whimpering.

“Listen, Mrs. I set feminism back a hundred years every time a little girl looks at me,  you can shut up now. It was obviously an accident.”

“Obviously! But whose idea was it to bring a giant baby and a large dog to the Christmas store?”

“I’m a good dog,” Lovey whined.

“Look. The baby is my tenant. She pays her rent money, she says she wants to go to the Christmas store, she gets to pile into my Glitter Van and come here. And the dog is also my tenant, and was watching the baby, and I don’t appreciate your tone toward either of them.”

“Well, then maybe you’d have a better appreciation for this,” Mrs. Claus said snarkily, and handed April an invoice for all the ornaments Emily broke.

April turned to Emily. “Emily! Emily, the nice lady wants you to pay for the ornaments you broke. Can you pay for the ornaments you broke like a good girl?”

Emily nodded eagerly. “I pay for owwmens!”

“Great. I’ll pay the bill here and pass it on to your accountants, with a ten percent fee tacked on for having to deal with this bullshit, how’s that?”

Lovey gasped. “April! Don’t say that in front of Emily!”

“Whatever,” April said, rolling her eyes. “Emily, do we have a deal?”

Emily nodded again. “Uh huh, uh huh! I pay owwmens!”

“Great.” April handed Mrs. Claus her credit card and the invoice. “Run my card and shut the fuck up.”

Mrs. Claus’ eyes narrowed. “How does a baby have this much money?”

“She’s Emily Egg. She’s a star. Not my problem if you never heard of her.”

“But where is her mother?”

“Her mother is God. Now run along like a good little serf and take my money.”

Kerry reached the group. “Oh, April-san! That was very nice of you, to pay for Emily’s broken ornaments.”

“What’re you talking about? I’m sending the bill to her accountants. The kid is loaded.”

“Maybe I should get her out of the Christmas store,” Kelly said. “So there aren’t any more accidents.”

“No! Want Kissmas tor!” Emily yelled.

“More than you want ice cream store?” Kerry said enticingly, with a purr.

“Eye skeem store?”

“Yes, the ice cream store! Would you like to go there?”

“Uh huh!” Emily said. “Eye skeem!”

Lovey looked sad. Lovey usually looked sad, but now she looked especially sad. “They won’t let me in the ice cream store because I’m a dog,” she said, head hung low. “So I guess I’ll just have to stay here.”

“That is, how you say more politely than April-san says it, baloney? I’m a cat and they let me in. What if I tell them, they have to let my friend Lovey-chan in?”

“But they won’t,” Lovey said sadly.

“But they might. I am star too. Not so big as April-san but maybe big enough. Why don’t you come with us and I’ll wave money at them? It works when April-san tries it.”

“Maybe April shouldn’t be your role model, Kerry?” Lovey said uncertainly.

“Why not? I’m an awesome role model. Little girls all over America look up to me and wanna be me,” April said. “You guys go, get out of here. Kelly, good plan, you do that. Channel me.”

“I’ll be politer than you,” Kelly said. “But don’t worry, it’s not hard.”

As the dog, the cat with the giant head, and the huge baby made their way down the street to the ice cream store, which was also a Playstuf storefront, April turned around, sighing with relief that the giant baby wasn’t her problem anymore. It was in that moment that she ran straight into her sister.

Both of them fell on their butts, a perpetual hazard of walking everywhere in high heels. “April?” her sister said, sounding shocked.

“Madison?” April asked, equally shocked.

April had three sisters – Betty, Courtney and Madison—who were all perpetually teenagers. While they all looked to be approximately the same age, Madison was the youngest. They didn’t live with April, but they came around to visit and hit her up for money so often she felt they might as well.

“What’re you doing here?” Madison asked. “I thought you hated Christmas.”

“No, I just said that after the last Christmas special we did.” April had done considerable quantities of coke to get through that miserable shoot, and had been actively tweaking by the time the shoot was done. “What are you doing here?”

“Trying to buy a Christmas tree!” Madison chirped. “Have you met my new boyfriend yet?”

Madison’s new boyfriend turned out to be from the Galactic Rebellion franchise. He was dressed in a suit of futuristic armor. There was nothing organic visible on him whatsoever. “This is your boyfriend?” April said skeptically, looking down at him – he was only slightly taller than Doktor Zapp, and shorter than Emily would be if Emily could stand up.

“Yes!” Madison said. “Honey, did you find the Christmas tree section?”

“Yes,” the man in the armor said.

“Find anything good?”

“They looked dead. I told the salesperson, they’re no use to me dead.”

“Technically they are dead though…”

“Why don’t you get an artificial tree?” April asked.

“Ugh,” Madison said. “That is so unnatural!”

“Uh, yes. Yes, that is the point of having an artificial tree.”

“An artificial tree would be better,” Madison’s boyfriend said.

“They’ve got them in the back, in that area they’re refrigerating so it ‘feels’ like Christmas. Which is a terrible idea, by the way,” Madison said. “They’ve got fake snow all over the place, but it doesn’t melt, so it’s not fooling anybody, and no one’s dressed for cold weather…”

Madison’s boyfriend shrugged. “I can get the tree warm, or I can get the tree cold. Either way.”

“So can we come over for Christmas?” Madison asked.

“I’ll think about it,” April said, meaning no. “Look, Madison, I came here to buy ornaments and you’re in my way.”

“I want to come see you for Christmas,” Madison said. “Come on, April, we’re sisters. Stop being such a bitch.”

“All right, dammit, stop being such a pest! I have things to do!” April pushed past Madison, scowling.

“I love you too, big sis!” Madison yelled.

***

“Mrrow! Where are all the damn flowers?”

“What you need flowers so bad for, girl?” Sheonte asked. “We got plenty of ornaments.” They had both filled their carts at this point – Sheonte with gold ribbons, soft silk balls in white and gold, tiny beautiful angels in colors like silver, white, and gold, and fragile glass things; Catrina with nativity figures, brightly colored balls, shiny things, shiny things that move, and things that move that weren’t very shiny. Both of them had agreed that Santas and candy canes and ornament-sized stockings were tacky.

Catrina glared at Sheonte. “Back home in Mexico, we had poinsettias and lilies for Christmas. Where are the poinsettias, meow? What kind of a Christmas store is this?”

“You’re from Mexico?”

“What, you didn’t know?” Catrina looked at Sheonte like it was the most unbelievable thing possible that Sheonte didn’t know her ethnicity.

“Near as I could tell, you’re a cat.”

“Yeah, but I’m a Mexican cat, meow. All the Weargirls came from different places. Batrice was from England. Lulu’s American but she’s Cajun, from Louisiana.”

“I never hear you say anything in Spanish.”

“Eso es porque soy completamente bilingüe, puta.” At Sheonte’s look, Catrina snapped, “I’m bilingual. Been speaking English since I was a little kid. I don’t need to throw Spanish words into everything I say to remind people I’m Mexican like that puta gata, who’s gotta be all like April-san and san this and san that to remind everyone she’s Japanese.” Mrs. Claus walked past them right then. “Hey, you! Mrs. Claus! Where are all the poinsettias in this place?”

“We sold out of those last weekend.”

Catrina rolled her eyes. “Figures.”

“Guess you shouldn’t have waited for April to throw together a fake friendship trip to the Christmas store. Don’t you have wheels of your own?”

“I have a fucking motorcycle. All the Weargirls have motorcycles.”

“Yeah, well, if the Weargirls are so great why aren’t you living with them?”

“It’s not because I tried to kill any of them, I can tell you that.”

“Excuse me? Miss Sheonte?”

The newcomer was very, very short – shorter than Doktor Zapp, shorter even than April’s or Catrina’s arm. She was a Forrest-Pierce BittyFolx from the old school, but unusual looking—barely any hair, just a few red curls on the top of her head, and while most BittyFolx girls wore dresses that curved out from their bodies, her dress was completely straight.

Sheonte was plainly surprised. “Yes, that’s me. Who are you?”

“I’m your biggest fan!” the extremely tiny girl said, bouncing. “My name’s Biz. You are, like, my icon.”

“Why, thank you.”

“I love your sense of style!” Biz gushed. “I always wished I could dress like you, but…” She gestured at her perfectly straight cylindrical body. “I’m stuck with this stupid red dress. I haven’t even got anywhere I can put accessories.” Since BittyFolx had no arms or legs, and seemed to do all their moving via close-range telekinesis or something, this was absolutely true.

“Oh, girlfriend, anyone can have style.” Sheonte turned slightly to grab a piece of tinsel garland out of a nearby bin of wares. She placed it around Biz’s neck, where it looked like a boa. “There you go. You might need to tie it to make it stay on, but see? You can accessorize too! You just have to be flexible.”

“Oh, wow!” Biz lifted her boa without hands, since she didn’t have any, and gazed at it in wonder. “This is beautiful! You’re amazing, Miss Sheonte!”

“Of course I am,” Sheonte said, grinning. “But you’re amazing too. And now you can show the world.”

Catrina muttered to herself, “Back in my show, we didn’t have to teach kids to self-actualize through fashion, mrow. We just fought evil zombies.”

***

Cherry Blossom was attempting to drape herself over the horse, having consumed almost the entire bag of fermented apples. “Come oooonnn,” she slurred. “I’m loooonely. Can’t we goooo somewhere?”

“Cherry Blossom!” Doktor Zapp panted as he reached her. “You’re drunk? How are you drunk?”

Cherry Blossom smiled a huge horsey grin at him. “Apples!” she said drunkenly. “You humans never check the apples!” She then turned to the horse she was hitting on. “I got some for yoooouuu… you want one?” Using her hoof, which for some mysterious reason was able to lift apples as if it had opposable thumbs, she pulled an apple out of her bag and offered it to the horse, who nickered and tried to move away, except that Cherry Blossom was not letting that happen.

“Oh mein gott. I can’t believe this. We’re in public! Show some decorum!”

“I had me some decorum,” Cherry said. “I had frieeends. We had decorum. We saved the goddamn world, we had so much decorum! And have they come to get me? Noooo. So what good is fucking decorum?” She planted a sloppy kiss on the side of the horse’s head. “Come ooooon. I’m horny! I haven’t been with another pony since I got here!”

“The horse obviously is not interested in you,” Doktor Zapp said. “He keeps trying to get away.” The horse was tied to a post by the Christmas store. Doktor Zapp tried to grab Cherry Blossom’s mane and pull her away. “Let’s go home. You’re drunk.”

“No!” Cherry Blossom bucked, her hooves narrowly missing Doktor Zapp, who dodged. “I wanna stay right here with my boyfriend!”

“You don’t even know his name,” Doktor Zapp pointed out. “And also, he can’t talk!”

“I don’t need him to talk,” Cherry Blossom said, suggestively wiggling her rump.

A tall, thin cowboy, about April’s height, came out of the Christmas store, carrying a bag of ornaments. “Hey there, pardner,” he said. “What’s your horse trying to do to my horse?”

“She is not my horse—”

“I’m a pony! And I belong to myself!”

“She is my housemate, and she’s drunk on fermented apples—”

“And I haven’t gotten laid since I left Ponyland! I just wanna get railed, is that so wrong?”

The cowboy shook his head, not like he was saying “no” but like he was saying “I am just not even gonna deal with this.” “Well, pardner, I can see you got a feisty one there,” he said. “You’ve got my sympathies. I’ve had to drag my buddy home from a bender more’n a few times. He’s an astronaut, see, and he likes to get himself liquored up on space hooch.”

Doktor Zapp didn’t know how space hooch would differ from the regular Earth stuff, but he didn’t care enough to ask. “Thank you,” he said sincerely. “It means a great deal to me that you care. It has been a very long time since anyone cared.”

“That’s right sad there, fella. You should fix that. Make some better friends.” The cowboy sat down on the horse. The horse was Cherry Blossom’s size, and the cowboy was April’s size, and Cherry Blossom was less than half of April’s height. The cowboy’s nether end barely fit on the horse, and he had to stick his legs straight out to either side or they’d drag on the ground. “Me and Sierra need to be moseying along now. You folks take care.”

“NOOO!” Cherry Blossom cried out as the cowboy and the horse started to ride away. “He’s the love of my life! Don’t take him away from me!”

The cowboy’s eyebrows went up. “Uh, ma’am, Sierra here is a mare. Surprised you couldn’t tell.”

“Oh,” Cherry Blossom said, and then wailed, “She’s the love of my life! Don’t take her away from me!”

The horse snorted, and rode off with the cowboy more than twice her size on her back, as Doktor Zapp held Cherry Blossom back by her mane.

“Let’s get you to the van,” he said, pulling at her.

Cherry Blossom burst into tears. “No one wants to fuck me!”

“There, there.” Doktor Zapp was aromantic and asexual, and couldn’t relate to Cherry Blossom’s issue, but long experience had taught him how to pretend. “I know it’s hard. Why don’t you come on back to the van and lay down? You’ll feel better.”

“I feel sick,” Cherry Blossom moaned.

“Well, then why don’t we get you to the van for a nice cup of water.”

“Uggh.” Cherry Blossom proceeded to vomit all over Doktor Zapp’s shoes, making him jump away.

“How!” he shouted. “Horses can’t vomit!”

“I’m a pony! Ugggh…” Cherry Blossom followed her retort with more puking. Doktor Zapp had to remind himself that Ponyland was in another dimension, which made Cherry Blossom more of an alien than an equine.

***

Finally, April had a chance to shop for Christmas ornaments. She favored the kitschy Christmasy Americana of Santas and reindeers and gingerbread men, as well as a lot of colorful glass balls to replace the ones that broke earlier today.

Since they were shopping to replace her ornaments, she was expected to pay for them, so she met up with Sheonte and Catrina as she was getting ready to check out. Sheonte stared in disbelief. “Girl, you really going with that Santa and candy cane kind of crap?”

“What the fuck is wrong with that?” April glared at Sheonte’s cart. “Your shit looks like some kind of ballroom decoration, not Christmas.”

“Yeah, but my stuff is Christmasy without being ugly, meow,” Catrina retorted. “Sheonte’s ornaments may look boring and corporate but yours are just stupid as fuck.”

“Excuse the fuck out of me for wanting a Christmas feel for my Christmas decorations! All you got might as well be an entire strip club’s worth of glitter!”

“You take that back, mraow!”

“My decorations are tasteful, but I can see you bitches don’t know the meaning of the word,” Sheonte snapped. “Corporate? April’s ornaments are fucking corporate. ‘Let’s put up ugly ornaments with candy canes on them to appeal to the soccer mom demographic!’”

“I can see you’ve never been in a corporate boardroom,” April snarked.

“I’ve never been in a boring-ass one full of old white guys, if that’s what you mean,” Sheonte said. “We Divazz had a boardroom. It was cool. It had soda, and wine coolers.”

“Well, it doesn’t fucking matter because it’s my house and my tree, and I say your ornaments are shitty and I’m not buying them.”

“The fuck you’re not,” Catrina said. “You said we could get whatever we wanted, mraow!”

“Yeah, well, maybe I didn’t mean it when I said it.”

“Whatever, bitch. I’m rich enough to buy my own goddamn ornaments,” Sheonte said.

“I’m not putting them on my tree.”

“Yes, you are,” Sheonte said. “Or Catrina and I are moving out. Right, Catrina?”

“Uh…”

“Because you can’t make the mortgage on the Dream House if two of us aren’t renting anymore, right?”

“I can find another couple of renters like that,” April said, snapping her fingers.

“Yeah, no, you can’t. Have you seen your ratings on Yelp?”

“Go Google yourself, meow,” Catrina said. “If the first hit isn’t ‘April is a bitch,’ I’ll eat this ornament.” She held up one of the sparkly balls in her cart. “Anyway, if you don’t wanna put them on your tree, mrew, I’ll get my own damn tree.”

“Ooh. Yeah. I could have an amazing tree for myself and you could just put your tacky junk all over your tree and it could look like shit,” Sheonte said.

Behind them all, they heard Lovey say, “But wouldn’t it be kind of weird if everyone in the house had their own tree?”

April turned. Lovey was there, and behind her, making her way over to the group, was Kerry Kitty, with Emily Egg sitting by herself outside the general area of the Christmas store. Lovey continued. “I think that would be weird, don’t you think? Shouldn’t we all be able to enjoy the big Christmas tree in the middle of the living room?”

“It’s my goddamn tree,” April snapped.

“But we’re all sharing the living room as part of our common space, right? Don’t you think it would be weird if we all had to have different trees?”

“No, nobody but you thinks so, and no one cares what you think.”

“I don’t care if it’s weird,” Sheonte said. “As long as April’s gonna be a bitch about her tree—”

“We need to go home,” Kelly interrupted. “Emily needs her nap.”

“Who cares?” April threw her hands up in the air.

“You will, when the giant baby throws a tantrum and everyone looks at you thinking you’re her mother,” Kerry snapped.

“I can’t leave until I’ve gotten myself a tree, mraow,” Catrina said.

“Yeah, maybe you can take Emily home but as long as April’s being a bitch, I gotta get myself a tree,” Sheonte said.

Kelly took a deep breath. “All of you are idiots,” she said. “No one can get Emily home without April’s van, she is very tired and on the verge of having a meltdown if she doesn’t get a nap, and you three stupid bitches are arguing about ornaments.” Her huge kitty face got into each of the taller dolls’ faces in turn. “You are going to buy all the ornaments you want. You are not going to get extra trees. I will make your ornaments work together without clashing. You are going to shut the fuck up and buy the ornaments in your cart and then April-san will drive all of us home, do you understand?”

Everyone stared at the normally perpetually cheerful and polite Japanese idol as if her face had just sprouted tentacles like a Cthulhoid monster. Catrina and Sheonte took delicate, discreet steps backward.

April did not. “Yeah, what if I—”

Kerry was about Emily Egg’s height, but considerably wider than any of the fashion dolls. She set her feet like a sumo wrestler and shoved April up against a rack of ornaments, her giant head looming imposingly against April’s neck. “Do you understand?” she repeated.

April paled. “Okay, fine! Whatever the fuck!”

Kelly stepped back and beamed. “Very good, April-san. Let’s go home!”

***

Since Cherry Blossom was sleeping it off in the back of the van, and Doktor Zapp was watching her to make sure she didn’t vomit again, April was able to drive off as soon as she and the others were all in the van.

Back at April’s place, there were mugs of hot chocolate for everyone except Lovey, since dogs couldn’t have chocolate; she had a festively striped bone that resembled a candy cane instead. When April pointed out that cats also could not have chocolate, Kerry had smiled a very broad smile and said, “Bite me, April-san.” And then downed half her mug at once. There was no explanation where the mugs of hot chocolate came from; this was just the sort of thing that happened when you were a doll superstar.

Kelly organized the tree ruthlessly, calling on Lovey and Emily to place the “owwmens” in the places she specified. Doktor Zapp was forcibly recruited to assist; he was smaller than Kerry, Lovey or Emily, but he had a levitation belt and fully dexterous hands. Kelly might have opposable thumbs, but her paws themselves were a bit large for interacting with the more delicate ornaments. Emily babbled happily and Lovey barked and frolicked with excitement, like Christmas tree decorating under Kerry’s command was the best thing ever.

April didn’t know whether she was more irritated that she was being left out of the whole tree-decoration process when it was her damn tree, or that Kelly was actually making the wildly clashing types of ornaments work together. She retreated to the roof with a bottle of wine. Catrina and Sheonte joined her.

“All this Christmas bullshit,” Sheonte said.

“Yeah.” April took a swig directly from the bottle, and then handed it to Sheonte, her eyes a challenge. Was Sheonte going to be all prissy and refuse to take a drink because April’s lips had touched the bottle?

The answer was no. Sheonte slugged down what was probably more than one swig. “Catrina?”

“Why the hell not,” Catrina said, and took the bottle. “Mrow.”

As she put it down, she said, “Last Christmas I was at Batrice’s mansion with Lulu and Foxy and Raven. We put purple and blue lights all over the outside of the house, mreow. Then we had steak, nice and bloody, and we decorated the tree. We had poinsettias, and lilies, and colored balls, and Foxy and I chased them around before we put them on the tree.”

“Sounds fantastic,” April said sarcastically.

“It was. It was great. I had real friends.”

“Real friends,” Cherry Blossom said, pushing open the door to the roof. “I had real friends too.”

“Thought you were sleeping off your drunk,” April said.

“I did that. Now I have the biggest headache. Pass the bottle?”

“Thought you only ate apples,” Sheonte said.

“Naah, I can get drunk the human way too.” Cherry Blossom was plainly still somewhat drunk, but four legs, even unsteady ones, were better at staying upright than two legs. She made her way over to the other three and sat down next to Catrina, who passed her the bottle.

“If you had such good friends, why aren’t you with them now?” April asked Catrina. “You try to kill one of them?”

“That would never happen,” Catrina said. “Even if one of them did sleep with my boyfriend – which none of them did, mraow – I would never turn against them.”

“Oh, la-di-da, you’re so much better than us dumb fucks,” Sheonte said. “You so ride or die, why ain’t you hanging with them now?”

“Because I can’t.” Catrina took the bottle back from Cherry Blossom. “We’re monsters. Shapeshifters. Were-girls, right? I’m a cat, Lulu’s a wolf, Raven’s kinda obvious…”

“So?” April reached for the bottle, bypassing Sheonte’s turn.

“So, villagers with pitchforks. Basically. Meow. We had to split up, the cops kept hassling us and there were lawsuits, and we decided it was best to leave Batrice’s mansion, except for Batrice of course. We’re trying to find a place all of us can live, but rents are so high around here, mraow.”

“That’s so sad,” Cherry Blossom said. “No one should be getting in the way of true friendship.” She reached for the bottle, but Sheonte, who’d finally gotten it, didn’t pass it back.

“This shit’s weaksauce, April. You got anything better?”

April opened her large handbag and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. “I got this.”

“Shiiiit. Yeah, gimme some’a that.”

Sheonte passed the bottle of wine to Cherry Blossom to finish as she opened the whiskey. Cherry Blossom said, “I miss my friends. I miss Ponyland. You people aren’t even my species, and I have to perform in your movies, and do pony rides, and you know what? At home I wasn’t even an actress! I wasn’t even a performer! I ran a grocery store! I sold fruit!”

“Didn’t you say you used to save the world?”

“Yeah, me and my friends used to use the magic of friendship to defeat monsters and evil sorcerors and stuff.”

“How’s a grocery store manager get a position like that?”

Cherry shrugged. “A new mare comes to your hometown with a prophecy, you know how it is.” She threw the now-empty wine bottle off the roof. “Why haven’t they come for me? I thought we were best friends. I thought we’d do anything for each other. Why haven’t they found me yet?”

Sheonte passed the whiskey to April. “Last Christmas we all got together at Yana’s house and we stood around the tree and we strung tinsel garlands all around it. Handing off to each other. The guys were helping with the stuff at the top, it was a tall tree. We had white and gold ribbons tied in bows, and pretty white doves and shit. Had Coke and rum, and Shannon made a cake…”

“Oh, wow, you people used to have such awesome Christmases.”

Sheonte glared at April. “We did. Because we had friends. I thought I had friends, anyway. I didn’t know Viv was gonna end up fucking my boyfriend and then all of them were gonna take her side.”

“I thought I had friends, too,” Cherry Blossom said, taking her turn with the whiskey. “Last Festival of Friendship, we decorated the whole town. Featherfall was getting all the birds to help out with putting snow garlands on everything… Spark had magicked the snow so it would stick together in a garland…” She began to sob. “I’ll never see them again, will I? Maybe they can’t get here! Maybe they can’t find me, and I’ll have to live here forever and ever…”

Catrina sniffled. “Meow. I wanna get back with my friends so bad. I can’t believe I gotta spend Christmas with you bitches instead of my real friends, mraow.”

“I wanna forgive them,” Sheonte said, beginning to cry. “I wanna forgive them so bad, I want everything to be like it was before, but how can I? How can it? I want to go back to the Divazz… I want Jax…”

April, dry-and-stony-eyed, stared off into the distance as around her, her tenants all broke down crying over the Christmases they couldn’t have with friends that weren’t here. All the friends she’d ever had who’d left her had done it because she was a bitch to them, and she knew it. Sheonte could fantasize about going back to the Divazz and Catrina to the Weargirls and Cherry Blossom to Ponyland, but April had never had a group of friends like they had had. Just two boyfriends, and family, and a bunch of bitches who’d used her to get ahead just like she’d been using them.

“I fucking hate Christmas,” she said.

[misskittysmagicportal]

When Vicky Needed Honey

(An OC Kiss Week collaboration between @super-unpredictable98 and @misskittysmagicportal. No warnings, just mother/daughter love. Moonwalkers/The Umbrella Academy AU)

I woke up with that weird feeling again. I looked over at Klaus, still pretty much asleep, and grunted. On my way to the bathroom I prayed and prayed, but no luck. My period was nowhere to be found. A couple of days, I can understand, an entire week is a bit more worrying.

The last few days I've been feeling kinda sick, but it could be stress. I've been feeling kinda tired, understandable after two apocalypses. I've been feeling a little dizzy, which could easily be from the time travel... But my period wouldn't come, so that was starting to freak me out.

"Hey, Vanya... Would you buy a pregnancy test for me?" I rehearsed in front of the mirror. "No, no, I should ask Allison. She has a daughter, she'd understand, right?"

I nearly jumped when Klaus shifted in his sleep, I hoped with all my might he didn't hear what I just said. I sat on the edge of the tub and let my head roll back. How the fuck did we let that happen? We always wear a condom!

Well, technically a condom has 98% of effectiveness, according to the box, which I was reading as I thought about it. That means... 2 out of 100 women will get pregnant. With the amount of sex we have, it wouldn't be surprising that I could become part of this 2%. Damn it, Klaus! Why do you have to be so charming? Blame it on three decades of suppressed desire I guess.

I had to talk to someone, someone who wouldn't judge me, someone I could trust. There was only one person I could think of, so I went back into the room and as silently as possible, I slid the black briefcase from under our bed. The date was already set, so all I had to do was open it.

I felt that familiar pull of time travel, that endless rope that dragged me across the universe, which seemed to take forever, even though it was less than a second. As soon as I landed, I regretted it, my stomach did not like the disturbance and I felt like I was about to throw up.

"Vicky? Are you ok?" I felt a gentle hand on my back and took a few deep breaths before being able to turn back.

"Honey! Thank fucking God you're here! I need to talk to you."

"Is it Klaus? It's Klaus. Oh my god, tell me he's alright"

"Alright, I think we should sit down for this one..."

Honey nodded with a smile and took my hand as we made our way to the couch. I chewed on my bottom lip for a little while, thinking of the best way to say it, but I didn't wanna admit it:

"So, I'm gonna say it and I need you to listen because it's very complex," I started. "I think I'm pregnant, and I feel horrible because I don't want to be. Not that I don't want any kids, I do, in the future. The problem is that we just came out of the second apocalypse, everything is a mess, my family is all over the place. I love Klaus more than anything, so I don't wanna throw this onto him, you know? He's been through so much already!"

"Sweetie..."

"And I'm terrified of not being a good mother, the only mother I ever had was a robot. I love her to bits, but what if all I can give my child is robot-love? I don't even know what it feels like, my birth mom clearly didn't love me, she chose to give me away for money, I understand she wasn't expecting to get pregnant out of the blue, but... I don't understand why she couldn't love me. I feel so selfish and so stupid for letting this happen, and I keep thinking about my biological mom, I'm freaking out here," I started sobbing. "You're the only person I can talk to."

**

Honey began to live for the sound of her “kids” popping by the apartment. She brought the books home with her more often in case Klaus would come by to learn more about himself. Or Luther who really just wanted the tiny woman to hold him the way a robot never could. And Diego who well, was always hitting on her. Allison and Vicky and Vanya helped her feel not so alone.

Yeah, they were her children. They were mostly older than Honey. The discarded. The outcast. Who suffered abuse. They were the bought and sold to a billionaire. They were a magical pregnancy and 43 terrified women, one she would become 15 years from now. Thank God she already knew what one of those felt like.

Honey was checking on Sugar and Sunny as they napped. The large crow with his beak buried in his ebony feathers kept one large yellow eye on them from above. Sunny was enamored with the corvid. Klaus, despite being 35 years older than himself, was deeply jealous.

It was from their room, after hearing a familiar VOIP sound in the living room, that Honey just felt in her body something was wrong. There was an anxiety emanating from Vicky whose back was to her.

“Vicky? Are you ok?” Honey gently touched the woman. She wanted to hug her, but opted for minor affection.

Vicky's expression in response worried Honey. “Is it Klaus? It's Klaus. Oh my god, tell me he's alright.” Her lip started to tremble. For a clone of Leon, Klaus was infused with his mother.

Half an hour later, Honey could only stare slack-jawed over Vicky's guts being spilled all over the couch. So to speak.

Honey took Vicky’s hand and did what her mom would do. What she and Julia found themselves doing with their children. Whether they were full grown men or toddlers. Honey kissed Vicky's hand several times and held it over her heart.

“First of all, I can't speak for your birth mother or the others. I know Klaus told me it was a spontaneous pregnancy. Like BAM! We're suddenly giving birth. For me, even being 45,” Honey shivered dramatically, “I would rather kill Reginald and take you all. But whatever the other women did. That's on them.

“But! If anyone knows about an unexpected pregnancy, it's me. She's asleep in the other room with her brother. I think I realized I was knocked up, I just ignored it until Leon mentioned something about my body being new. We NEVER used protection. Pills in the sixties were for married women only. The fact that we had sex for over a year before anything happened is a freaking miracle.

I took two tests in the flat. Then at the clinic. Just a few weeks before, abortion became legal AND funded by the NHS. I told no one, went and made that woman tell me every single step of the process. I asked how easy the adoption process in the UK is. I wasn't keeping it no matter what.”

Now Honey took both of Vicky’s hands, “You have so many readily available options.” She kissed them both again, “But please just let Klaus know. It's YOUR choice. YOURS. Ultimately, I changed my mind. I had her on my own. Pregnancy, birth, her first six months. I wasn't even on the same continent as Leon. But if my baby would have half his looks, and his way of loving, and even an OUNCE of his heart, Leon deserved to be a dad. I WANTED to have his baby. I don't regret my decision. I don't want to regret yours either. We all love you.”

Honey kissed Vicky's forehead, “I mean I'm your mom now.”

**

I would've started crying if I wasn't already, it felt so good to finally have someone to hold my hand. I can only imagine dad's reaction if I told him I was pregnant with Klaus' baby... It was awesome to not be judged for once.

"I wanna tell him, I'm just scared... If I really am pregnant, I wanna keep it, but what if he doesn't like it? What if he doesn't wanna be a dad?"

My desperate rambling was interrupted by a blue surge of energy right in the middle of the room, that could only mean one thing... Klaus and Five fell from it with a loud thud.

I had to cover my mouth not to scream, my heart nearly jumped out of my chest, but Honey seemed pleased with the new visitors.

"Jesus Vicky... I woke up and you were gone, I was worried!" Klaus squeezed me in a tight hug.

"I told you she was fine, Victoria can handle herself," Five rolled his eyes. "It's not like she can get hurt."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to disappear."

Klaus moved to give Honey a hug as well, she kissed his forehead and urged him to sit down between us.

"I know this face, Scnucki..." Klaus placed his hand on my cheek. "What's wrong?"

I looked over at Honey and she gave me a reassuring nod. With a sigh, I took Klaus' hand, tracing the 'hello' with the tip of my finger.

"Klausie," I tried to muster the courage to say it. "I know the timing might not be the best, things are a little crazy right now, but I think I might be..."

"Might be...?" He stared at me nervously.

"Pregnant."

Klaus' mouth dropped and he widened his eyes. Shit! Shit! He hates it, he wasn't happy. He was gonna leave me right there and then.

"But we always..."

"I know, but apparently condoms are only 98% effective."

"You two really abuse your luck," Five mused.

"Timing isn't great, but if you want to keep it, I'm with you. It's our baby," a smile tugged at Klaus' lips. "And I love you, so..."

"Actually," I got up as fast as I could. "I love you too, but I'm not pregnant. If you guys will excuse me, I gotta go to the toilet, like right now!"

**

Honey watched as Vicky ran off to the bathroom. She was left with a bewildered Klaus, slack jawed over everything that quickly took place. She could only snort as Leon popped up from the same corner Vicky had just flown around. Mouth agape identical to his clone.

“Alright love,” Leon kissed her on the cheek. “Never told me the kids were coming ‘round for a visit.” He eyed up Five, still uncertain of him.

Klaus dramatically planted a fist on his hip, “Im thirty-six.”

“Too right. What's going on? Is Vicky ok she looked barmy.”

“Well we were almost grandparents.”

“GRANDPARENTS?! I'm thirty! Bloody hell I can't keep track of the ten we have now. Can't handle a baby, mate. Not coming from you. No offense.”

“All of it taken,” Klaus quipped.

“Well we don't need to worry about it. Pretty sure Vicky just overwhelmingly got her period. Better luck next time!”

Every single person in the room nearly knocked Honey flat with a loud in unison “NEXT TIME?”

She wouldn't make that mistake again.

[serialreblogger]

Crow Noises

I wanna bond with my local pair of crows (we’ve gotten to the point where they come within two arms’-lengths of me to eat the seeds I scatter, which I call progress), so here’s a list for my personal use (and yours if you’re interested) of common crow sounds. The first bit is taken from Brian Mertins’ free ebook, “What’s That Crow Saying?” The rest is cited throughout.

“Where are you?” 

Sounds like this. A short series of somewhere between 1 and 9 loud “caw” sounds, all the same length and tone, followed by a listening silence (this pattern is often repeated multiple times). 

Doesn’t really “mean” anything, but it’s a way for crow families to keep track of where each other are from a distance. 

Indicates an overall sense of safety, no fear/imminent threat.

(This particular example has a crow going “caaw, caw caw” which intrigues me. Possibility: each crow, or at least each crow-family-member, has its own unique variation on this call so that other crows know who’s doing the calling?)

“Danger!”

Loud, continuous, chaotic cawing, very variable in sound; often many crows will get in on the alarm, so you’ll just hear a bunch of crows yelling constantly.

Depending on how immediate the danger is, the volume and frequency varies--the louder a crow’s yelling, the more immediate the danger. 

This call can be kind of low-key (“hey don’t steal my food,” sounds like this), or it could be a literal call to action--“time to mob this owl” (sounds like this).

Evidence suggests that crows have different “words�� for different kinds of danger, and further evidence indicates regional differences in the meaning and comprehension of calls. 

I found this excerpt really really cool so here: Michael Westerfield writes in The Language of Crows, “American eastern crows that breed in Pennsylvania and winter in the southern states will respond to the distress call of the French jackdaw, a related bird not native to any portion of their range. Eastern crows that breed in Maine and apparently never mix with other crows, however, do not react to the jackdaw calls."

As such, it’s likely that trying to learn “crow language” would be about as sensible as trying to learn “human language”--there isn’t one, unifying meaning to every vocalization, because different regional groups communicate differently. Sure, “crow language” is probably less complex than “human language,” but the principle remains the same: the patterns one social group uses to communicate are created, not instinctual, and as such will vary wildly between social groups.

It’s like this: humans trying to find a friend will call their name in a long, two-note cry. “Frieeeeeeend’s-naaaaaaaaame,” right? No matter the language or name, we tend to fall into the same pattern when we’re casually looking for them and there isn’t any pressing danger. On the other hand, when there is danger, whatever we’re yelling will be much louder, often higher-pitched, and repeated. Crows do that too. 

We can recognize the patterns, but we don’t understand the words.

There are an immense variety of other sounds made by crows, including various churring, chirping, clicking, squeaking and rattling noises. We don’t know what most of them mean, because crow linguistics is a pretty niche field, I guess, so now I kind of want to get a PhD in it

Crows! Feel free to add on with your own socio/linguistic observations about crows or corvids in general!

[howlingday]

Jaune: Why are we here again?

Ruby: Because you have a problem with yourself and we're going to fix it!

Jaune: What; you're dragging me to therapy?

Ruby: No, I saw this ad for people suffering with inner turmoil, so we're going to try them first. Here. (Hands Jaune a flyer)

Jaune: "Heal first?" Ruby, this looks like a cult.

Ruby: Well, it's either this or therapy. Your choice.

Jaune: ...Let's just do this.

Ruby: Hello, I'm Ruby Rose and this is my friend, Jaune. We have an appointment today for him.

???: Oh, yes! Solar will be most pleased that you are here, and with 1 hour, 3 minutes, and 47 seconds to spare!

Ruby: Penny? Is that you?

Penny: Yes! It is me! How could you tell? My disguise was perfect!

Ruby: Uh... Call it a hunch?

Penny: A hunch that only best friends get right! Come, let us engage with Solar. He is currently speaking with the others, but I don't think he'll mind us starting your session. Oh, and before we enter, I must inform you that we all use nicknames here. It just makes things more fun!

Ruby: What's yours?

Penny: Dollar.

Jaune: Of course it is.

INSIDE

Penny: Elder Brother Solar, Ruby and Jaune Rose are here for their appointment.

???: Oh, hey, guys!

Jaune: Sun? You're in charge of all this?

Sun: Well, not so much in charge as it is me just taking the reigns to help with the healin'.

Jaune: (Deadpan) So you're in charge.

Ruby: Anybody else here we might know?

Sun: Well, you already met Junior Sister Dollar, but there's also Junior Brother Gray and Senior Sister Corvid.

Jaune: Who?

Raven: He means me and the Schnee.

Whitely: My name is Whitely!

Sun: Now, now, Brother Gray; Raven is still healing herself. We mustn't let our emotions run wild.

Whitely: You're right. I'm sorry.

Jaune: Alright. I'm out. (Turns to walk away)

Ruby: Jaune!? Come back here!

Jaune: Nope! I'm not getting into this hug-fest cult.

Raven: (Puts her blade to Jaune's throat) You WILL attend.

Jaune: Do it! I don't care!

Ruby: JAUNE!

Sun: (Puts his hand on Jaune's shoulder) Ah, I see now. It's all clear to me now. Don't worry, Jaune. I know just what to do.

Ruby: You do?!

Jaune: You do?

Sun: Yup, and guess what...

I've got a feeling,That you'll soon be feeling~,

A whole lot better than you feel today~.

She says there's a problem, Well that's no problem~!

It's super easy not to feel that way~.

You start to get confused because of thoughts in your head~.

Well don't feel those feelings! Hold them in instead~!

And turn it off! Like a light switch, Just go click~! (Snaps his finger)

It's a cool little healing trick! We do it all the time~!

When you're feeling certain feelings that just don't seem right~,

Treat those nasty feelings like a reading light~!

Raven: And turn it off! Like a light switch just go CLACK! (Pinches the air and pulls down)

Whitely: Really, what's so hard about that? Turn it off!

Sun: (With Whitely and Raven) TURN. IT. OFF!

Whitely: When I was young, my dad would treat us real bad~,

Whenever a dust shipment failed it's dues~!

Mother would be drinking, and I'd be thinking~,

How will my family from being abused•.

I'd see my sister all scared, and my soul was dying~.

My father turns to me and says, "Don't you dare start crying~!"

Turn it off! Like a light switch, just go click! It's our nifty, little healing trick~!

Raven: My brother and I were bandits, but he couldn't stand it~!

We both decided we were thieves no more~.

We spent the rest of our time, With a love of mine~,

And my new best friend at the weapon store~.

I left the team without any goodbyes, and the last I heard was that my best friend dies~.

Sun: Turn it off!

Raven: Yeah...

Whitely: Bid those sad feelings adieu!

Raven: With the fear that I might perish, too! (All three laugh)

Sun: When I was in my youth, My best friend was Neptune~!

He and I were close as two friends, you knew~!

One thing led to another, Soon I would discover~,

I was having strange feelings for my best dude~.

I thought about us,

On a deserted island,

We'd swim naked in the sea,

And then he'd try and...~

WOAH! TURN IT OFF! There, it's gone!

Whitely: Good for you!

Sun: My hetero side just won! (Flexes) I'm all better now~!

I've always like the ladies, so that's my endgame plan~!

And if I ever get the feeling I should be with a man, I turn it off~!

Ruby: Uh, Sun, I think we should focus more on Jaune, don't you think?

Sun: Hm... Whoops, my bad! (Steps in front of Jaune) Now you try it! Just turn it off~!

Jaune: (Closes his eyes) And... click?

Sun: How do you feel?

Jaune: Uh, I guess the same.

Raven: Then you have only yourself to blame.

Whitely: You didn't try hard enough!

Sun: Imagine that your thoughts are made of tiny boxes~!

Now find your box that's gay and CRUSH IT! (Stomps his foot on the ground) Okay?

Jaune: No, no, no! I'M not having gay thoughts!

Ruby: Hooray! It worked!

Sun, Raven, and Whitely: (Cheer) TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFF~!

Jaune: (Thinking) I should have just gone to therapy.

[conduitandconjurer]

Meta 

Klaus is opportunistic, but never in such a way as actively hurts others.  Klaus is a conjurer, a conversant with the dead, and therefore a being of change, self-actualization, and transition.  Down to the “hello” and “goodbye” hands.  He’s a harlequin, a trickster archetype, LIMINAL, nonbinary, an agent of unexpected wisdom and, again, change, change, change.  You can’t expect a corvid to behave like a lion. 

There’s apparently some static circulating the TUA fandom about Klaus’s behavior in season two. I’m well into it and still not seeing why, but I think part of the misapprehension is that he uses and then neglects Ben, rendering their partnership in the execution of his power unequal, and opportunistic, providing him the fodder that fueled his cult.  

I’d like to address that as a new fan, on several counts:

1) the desire to see Dave again and the willingness to tamper with the Kennedy Assassination timeline (unaware, so far, as to the world-ending effects) in order to spare his One Great Love from dying in Vietnam.  I will side-burner this one right now because I haven’t gotten to the end of season two yet and don’t yet know to what extremes Klaus will go to see this happen.  

2) His relationship with Ben.  The real reason why he keeps Ben a secret hidden under a bushel is, imho, complex.  This one goes out to @vericey, who thought up the headcanon, but in essence, Klaus has never wanted the powers (the “greatness thrust upon him”) that he was born with, unlike his siblings, who have savior complexes (their own highly difficult psychological battles, which I am NOT discounting here), and who seem compelled to use their powers to save others. It’s both an obligation and a validation for them.  For Klaus, that’s never been the case. HE DIDN’T ASK FOR THAT RESPONSIBILITY, SO TO HIM IT’S CONTRACTUALLY UNFAIR TO ASK HIM TO HONOR IT.  He has no desire to be a conduit to thousands upon millions of dead souls who need him to attend to their unfinished business.  Attuned and emotionally sensitive, he is already daily over-stimulated and overwhelmed by their needs and demands.  Enter Ben, the byproduct of that unwanted ability, who is the sibling who had a statue at the academy. The sibling everyone mourns.  Ben already has more presence among the other Hargreeves kids than Klaus, who is still alive.  The siblings have disregarded Klaus as a junkie since adolescence.  They never bothered to learn WHY he gets high, WHY he has his head plugged into music 24/7, WHY he runs from responsibility. It’s not because Klaus is truly unreliable or selfish: it’s because in order to bear his unwanted special ability, he has to numb the ambience.  But what KLAUS knows is that his siblings would suddenly hold great value in his presence if they knew they could use him to talk to the brother they actually DO miss.  So he mentions Ben only sparingly, and never discusses Ben’s CONTINUAL presence.  It’s a desperate bid to gauge whether or not his family values him FOR HIM. 

3) Which brings me to the cult.  A lot of fans see the Klaus Cult as some kind of comic relief that reveals the depth of his self-centeredness. It’s not entirely untrue, but there’s another layer. Klaus conceals and obscures, Klaus mutes and hides, as a way of coping.  This applies everything from his sardonic sense of humor, to his drug abuse, to hedging on the truth about Ben, to avoiding conjuring unless he must, to taking advantage of people’s preconceptions of “enlightenment” and “holiness” in order to climb the (homophobic, cissexist) social ladder of 1960s America.  

The key to 90% of Klaus’s opportunism is that it’s BENIGN.   What he does may affect others but only insofar as they choose to react in a way that harms them.  He never gives them the tools to hurt themselves; he simply interacts in the same sphere as they do, without action and without judgment.

(Klaus’s outlook on life is very Eastern-hemisphere, and it’s no surprise that when he was traveling the world in the era of oft-high white hippies appropriating Eastern thought, he visited India.)  

 Think about previous examples: robbing a convenience store for like an armful of junk food; trying to steal money from his millionaire dead abusive father; letting Ben haze a racist cop to get his sister’s husband out of jail.  It’s the same thing with the cult.  Ben levitates Klaus, Klaus quotes pop songs by TLC and Destiny’s Child to wow crowds into seeing him as a guru. People are happy and peaceful, and he happens to get lots of money and flourish in queer havens across the country, like San Francisco, where otherwise he’d probably be brutally murdered for being gay.  Does anybody get hurt? Nope.  And to me, that’s what’s crucial. 

 Incidentally: the only time Klaus was ever connected to someone else getting hurt was when Patch died by Agent ChaCha’s gun.  Be assured he blames himself for that, but he certainly didn’t ask to be kidnapped and tortured for days, nor did he ask Patch to go into the hotel room without backup from Diego.  

I think people should bear in mind that while Klaus is a master of nonaction, he is also never selfish in such a way as gets other people hurt.  He is the first person to comfort as well as sensibly aid a sibling in a moment of real crisis. Three examples off the top of my head:

A) Being the only sibling aside Allison to seriously question locking Vanya away in the very room where she was abused by neglect as a child, insisting, “this is Vanya, she used to cry when we stepped on ants!” and “Why don’t we just let her out and ASK her what happened?”  If anything, Klaus is a champion of respecting the will and rights of others. 

B) Putting a hand on Luther’s shoulder while crying himself, when Allison was discovered nearly killed by Vanya (poor Vanya, she’s a whole other kettle of fish and I frankly adore her), as well as being very kind and patient with Luther when he was drunk earlier (and physically assaulted Klaus):

C) Rushing into a police riot zone to rescue Allison while her husband, frightened of her powers, was running into danger: 

Klaus has a compassionate heart.  He just has issues with confrontation and with follow-through, because this is a life he would forfeit in a second if he could. And who can blame him?   Frankly Klaus has the healthiest outlook on Reginald Hargreeves and his abusive bullshit, of all the siblings. He’s the only one who calls Reginald out, establishes healthy self-other boundaries with his “father,” and is then at peace with the ways in which Reginald continues to fall short, certain that these failings are no fault of Klaus’s own.   Just see their conversation in the barbershop in “heaven.”

Let me repeat: 

HE DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS RESPONSIBILITY, SO TO HIM IT’S CONTRACTUALLY UNFAIR TO ASK HIM TO HONOR IT. He will try, when it concerns the welfare of family members, but he doesn’t see why he should be somehow predestined to “save the world” when he never claimed the ability to do so. 

4) And that’s not even touching Klaus’s Complex-PTSD, which began before Vietnam and is still a MAJOR and FORMATIVE part of how he behaves now.  

[were-all-going-to-hell-goodbye]

idk who you are or what you're planning but I saw your post while scrolling the bnha tag and i'm Curious.

my favorite colors are the reds and oranges of the turning leaves in the fall. my favorite food is red meat. I simp for nearly every character (excluding the todofam for kin reasons) bc I am a disaster bi. my favorite time is dusk 'til dawn, for reasons in no way correlated to the movie. my favorite animals are corvids. my favorite activity is is getting into low-stakes but high-intensity debates with friends and acquaintances. my love language is acts of service.

THIS IS YOUR VALENTINES DAY SPECIAL WITH:

Kaminari x GN reader

Warnings: A bunch of fluff, lol. Bakugou. Lots of kisses. 

Notes: I forgot how the dorm system worked and I don’t feel like researching it, so I’m bullshitting it. I also guessed on a few things, I hope I did okay!

⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡⚡

You knew your day was going to be wild when you open your dorm door and found origami birds leading to your boyfriend’s room.

Granted, he lived right across from you, but it’s the thought that counted. Picking them all up in one swoop, you saw that they were colored like different birds. Your favorites.

You clutched at your chest and felt like you were damn near crying, before going back inside your room, and setting them on your desk so you wouldn’t damage them.

Before you finish arranging them, you hear a whine before you and turn to see your boyfriend hanging dramatically from your door.

“Babe! You were supposed to come in after you got your birds.”

You roll your eyes before giving him a quick peck on his pouting lips. He blushes and hugs you too him, pushing his face into your sensitive neck causing you to laugh.

You push him away and give him another smooch on his cheek, before taking his hand and walking to his room, which, once again, is barely three feet away.

Plopping yourself on his bed, you reach out to him for cuddles and get comfortable when he joins you.

Spinning so you’re face to face, you pull yourself as close to him as possible before looking up to see his blushing face smiling softly at you.

Embarrassed, you try to smother him with his pillow, while he laughs and jokingly tries to push you off.

It’s only when Denki goes still under you, still wheezing, is when you move the pillow and lay down on his chest, breathing somewhat heavily.

Hey, no matter how much Bakugou calls your boyfriend a twink, he still has a good amount of muscle.

Still catching your breath, you can’t help but admire just how perfect Denki is. Not only is he hella attractive, he’s sweet, attentive, loving, and just too adorable not to love.  

At the moment his eyes are closed and his head is tilted back. Combined with the sunlight coming through his open window and his golden blond hair making a halo around his face, you honestly couldn’t resist kissing him.

He barely took a second to respond and, like almost always with your boyfriend, it gets heavy. You’re not sure how long you’ve been kissing, but when Bakugou slams the door open, you wish you could go back to being ignorant to the rest of the world.

“Nuh uh, nope!” Bakugou growls as he prowls towards you two, “I put up with TOO MUCH shit from you and Raccoon Eyes this past week for you to lay here and fuck it up by sucking faces all fucking day.”

He stands ominously over the two of you, the same sunlight that had made your boyfriend look so angelic, did the opposite for his friend and honestly made you feel like Satan was coming to drag you to hell.

“Now get the fuck up.”

Having said his piece, he stomps out, most likely to spend the day with his significant other.

It’s silent before Denki mutters under his breath, “Well someone didn’t get their good morning kisses yet.”

You laugh before pulling yourself off of him and offer him a hand up after stretching.

“Come on, lets do whatever you have planned before he come back with the fly swatter.”

Denki shudders before pulling you out of the building, having told Dadzawa the day before you’d both be out all day.

Walking off of campus, you intertwin your hands and look up at him.

“So, what are we doing today?”

He smiles before placing a kiss on your forehead.

“A few things. Things that you will find out as we do them.”

You whine a bit before just enjoying your time with your boyfriend.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

While walking, you begin the recognize where you two are going.

One of your first and favorite dates was when the two of you had had a picnic in the middle of Autumn surrounded by the pretty falling leave.

If you remembered correctly, Denki had found a little clearing surrounded by a ring of trees full of red and orange leaves.

While it wouldn’t be as perfect as the first time, you had no doubt it would be any less beautiful.

Getting to the clearing, you let go of your boyfriend’s hand to run to the middle of the open space before laughing and giggling while you spun around. Denki joined you not too much later and the both of you fed off of each other’s happiness before you collapsed said by side looking up at the clouds.

You both bask in each other presences before he suddenly sits up.

“Hey, so, do you remember when the last time we were here, you tried to teach me how to make crowns out of the leaves?”

“Yeah,” you prop yourself up, and face him, “What about it?”

He grins at you, before running to a bush on the other side of the clearing and races over to you holding something behind his back.

“Well, I couldn’t figure it would then, but I kept coming back here until I got and, and, well….”

He brings his hands around and shows you what he was hiding.

You gasp a bit, murmuring his name as you reach out for the crown.

“Denki,” You begin, “Denki, how…?”

His face heats up as he looks away, rubbing the back of his neck.

“W-well, um, I knew it would last long and how much you love fall so I went and got it preserved. It took a while, but I’m happy I eventually got it right.”

Eyes wide, you slowly hand it back to him before asking for his help to put it on.

After taking the time to make sure it was perfect, Denki stands up and holds his hand out towards you.

“Your Highness.”

You smile, replying with, “My King.”

Making your way out of the park, you wonder if you even need anything else to make this day perfect.

~~~~~~~~~~~

After taking you out for an early dinner, where you got beef teriyaki, he took you back to the dorms.

Jokingly, you wondered if that was all you were doing today, but he only responded with a smirk before giving you a gentle kiss.

Dropping you off with your friends in the common room, he tells you he’ll be back soon. Almost immediately, you begin debating about who had the best S/O, although before long, you make conversation with Momo about her quirk because the conversation had begone getting heated.

Going back and forth you talked about is and isn’t technically illegal that she can make with her quirk.

You threw yourself back onto the couch whining when she refused to make you a sword after trying to convince her for over 20 minutes. A few seconds later, you see a shadow block out the light behind your closed eye lids, and felt a kiss pressed to your lips.

You opened you eyes to see Denki grinning at you before he picks you up and jogs as fast as he can to his room. Throwing you onto his bed, he climbs on top of you and refuses to get up.

A while later, you’re both asleep.

However long later, your boyfriend shakes you awake.

Rubbing your eyes, you yawn as he pulls you towards his balcony.

You stare deadpan at him when he gestures for you to climb up with him to the roof.

“Babe. I love you, but it is Ass O’clock and I’m tired.”

He just cups your tired face and presses kisses to your closed eyelids.

“Come on, don’t you trust me?”

You open your eyes to see his earnest one looking back at you and you sigh.

“Fine.”

Even though you complained, it honestly wasn’t that hard to get up there and by the time you did, you were wide awake. And not only from the exercise.

Near the edge of the roof there was a few blankets and an open bag of what looks like your favorite snacks and drinks.

Gaping, you let him pull you towards the blankets and cuddle around you.

After quietly talking and laughing while looking at the starry night sky, Denki starts to count down by your ear.

Once he reaches zero, the sky starts to light up with the sunrise and you’re in awe at how beautiful it is.

Hugging your boyfriend closer, you know you would never trade him for anything in the world.

Thank you for giving me a chance!!! I hope you enjoyed it!

[patchwork-panda]

If A Moment Is All We Are (36/?)

AO3 link HERE

S1 OP2 HERE

“Wait,” I sputtered, looking from the paper to the bandaged brunette. “They said they weren’t going to be able to get this to me until—”

“Well,” Dazai drawled, “the nice lady on the phone said that it sounded like your case was pretty urgent. So she sent it over a little early as a thank you for helping them close the CORVID case from last time.”

“So, it’s not really a present from you,” I deadpanned, lowering the page and shooting him a look.

“I still thought it would make you happy,” Dazai replied, shrugging.

He grinned.

“Did it?”

“Yeah...” I begrudgingly admitted, “it did. But it still doesn’t count.”

“Okay.”

And as he stuck his hands in his pockets and turned to go, I suddenly remembered there was something I needed to ask him.

“Dazai-san, wait.”

He stopped walking away immediately. However, as if sensing what I was about to ask, he didn’t turn around.

“I’m listening,” he said quietly.

I scrutinized him.

“About yesterday...” I started. “What did you and Kunikida-san talk about in the break room after I left?”

“Hmm, yesterday...” Dazai mused, rocking back a little on his heels. “Can’t recall.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?” he asked, tilting his head up so that he was looking at the ceiling instead of me. “And how would you know that? Were you listening in?”

I flinched.

“You’re not answering the question.”

“And neither are you.”

He began heading for the front door.

“Dazai-san—!”

“If you want to know what we talked about so badly,” he said at last, pausing with one half-bandaged hand on the door. “Then I would suggest speaking to Kunikida-kun himself about it. I did tell you yesterday, didn’t I?”

He opened the door and walked out.

“It was a private conversation.”

“Dazai—!” I called out.

But it was too late. The door had already closed.

It was no longer just Yosano. Now Dazai was pushing me to confess to Kunikida, too. Even though I wasn’t ready...

Frustrated and confused, I felt the note crumpling in my hand just a moment too late and I cursed under my breath as I stalked back to my desk to smooth it out again.

“To my dearest Shin-kun...”

I skimmed down the page until I got to the place where I’d left off reading yesterday.

“In several years time, you will be a history professor at your chosen university, lecturing starry-eyed students while your research papers make it into journals read all around the world. And not only that, but you’ll have Natsuki-chan, while I...”

I squinted at the page and smoothed out the creases one more time. This was where the note looked like it had been blurred with drops of water—Kei’s tears.

“I must complete the remainder of my journey in some other way.

You must know or have guessed by now that I was denied admission to the program in England. I knew it was going to be a long shot, but I still can’t describe to you the devastation I felt upon reading the rejection. It was foolish of me, I know, to have ignored your advice and refused to apply to other schools in Japan, but I felt I simply had to leave. My parents are no longer around and the remainder of my estranged relatives have long since moved abroad.

You are my only remaining family now and I cannot bear to taint your happiness any more than I already have. I feel as if I have been a burden to you for far too long already and now that your engagement to Natsuki has been formalized, I realize I have long since overstayed my welcome.

I have a confession to make, dear brother. A confession and an apology. I haven’t been able to look at you or Natsuki the same way again after the night you proposed to her. Sometimes, I wonder if you can see it, the regret, the range of emotions that I feel when I see you two together. I must confess that I have not been as happy for you as I said I was. I lied through my teeth when Natsuki asked me if I was alright and I have been lying to you both ever since.

I do not wish to harbor any more ill will towards the two of you. Not when neither of you have done anything wrong. Indeed, it was I who made mistakes—and far too many at this point to keep track of. I have no one but myself to blame for how things have turned out and it is all because I found myself too afraid to move forward with my life.

Shin, my brother, my friend...

Do not cry for me when I am gone.

Although I attended classes with you and stayed by your side as your roommate, I had been dying a little each day since the middle of the last semester. I have learned a most painful lesson—a lesson I hope you can learn through me and not have to experience for yourself.

Shin-kun...

In remembrance of our old days, I offer you one final piece of advice.

Do not let what has happened to me ever. EVER. happen to you.

I want you to understand that if you do not move with Life, it moves on without you. You become a shade of your former self, fading a little with each passing day until you are merely a breath in a body passing through the world.

Please, if you have any love left for your foolish elder brother, heed my advice and continue to live your life to the fullest. Leave me and my broken dreams behind and chase what is precious to you.

And now... now that there is only one thing left for me to do, I would like to make a request. One final, selfish request.”

I felt my lips moving along with my eyes as I read the last sentence aloud.

“Please... take good care of our beloved Natsuki.”

I lowered the page and let it rest on my desk.

“I’ll be seeing you.”

Our beloved Natsuki?

I thought back to the elegant woman I’d spoken to on the tree-lined path. I reached for the folder with all the photos taken at Kei’s apartment the night he’d killed himself.

That’s right, she, Shin and Kei were all friends at some point in time. From what the professor had told me that day at the cemetery, it sounded like he, and probably Kei as well, had met Natsuki after getting into the university.

Shaking the contents of the folder out on the table, I moved all the photos aside one by one until I found the one I was looking for.

That photo in Professor Matsuyama’s office—the photo of the three friends—must have been taken while Shin and Kei were grad students. Natsuki seemed to be at least four years younger than her husband, so there’s no way they could’ve all met as undergrads. Which means...

I placed the photo depicting the couch, table and TV stand in the center of the table and placed a magnifying glass over the set of pictures in the TV stand.

That photo was first displayed in Kei and Shin’s shared graduate housing apartment.

And as I placed the photo showing the TV stand next to the photo of Kei’s body sitting on the couch, I began connecting the dots.

Kei had been looking at that photo the moment he pulled the trigger. And given the way he had talked in the suicide note, I was absolutely sure of the reason why...

I placed Kei’s suicide note on top of the two photos.

Kei had been in love with Natsuki.

I bit my lip.

A love triangle. Was this the reason the professor felt so guilty about Kei’s death even though it was clear that the man had killed himself? Had they been fighting over Natsuki before the engagement was formalized?

A sharp ringing pierced the air and I looked to my bag to see my phone vibrating inside.

I picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hello, Kusunoki-san?”

My eyes widened.

“Nomura-san...”

I glanced back down at the photos I’d just rearranged.

Good timing.

“Good morning. Are you calling to get an update about the case?”

“Ah, not quite...”

Nomura sounded hesitant. I could hear the sound of rustling leaves in the background.

“I’m sorry to call so early in the morning but I was hoping you could help with something.”

I raised an eyebrow.

Don’t tell me he’s going to ask me to tail the professor again?

“Uh, that depends...” I trailed off, my eyes momentarily flicking to the door. “Is it related to the case?”

“It is,” Nomura said, his voice momentarily cut off by static. “I was actually hoping you could...”

The rest of his words were lost in another burst of static.

I pulled the phone away from my ear for a moment and walked towards the nearest window.

“Hello? Nomura-san?” I half-shouted into the receiver, cringing a little as I caught the strange look from Tanizaki as he passed by in the background.

I smushed myself against the glass, pressing my phone as close to the window as I could.

“You’re breaking up. Can you say that again?”

“I was wondering if...!” Nomura’s voice returned, much clearer this time. I heard the crackling noises fade as the words finally burst from Nomura’s mouth:

“I was wondering if you could help me find the professor!”

I froze.

“What?”

“I said!” Nomura shouted, “Can you help me find the professor? He’s missing!!”

“Missing?” I stuttered. “What do you mean missing? Didn’t you just see him last night?”

“Well, yeah, but that was last night!” Nomura pressed. “I’m on campus right now. I went by his office to drop off some of his books but when I got there, it was locked. And when I peeked in the window, there was no one there—in fact, the whole room looked deserted!”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupted, “Nomura-san, why did you go to his office to return his books? Didn’t you know?”

“Know what?” Nomura asked, now sounding a little on edge.

“That yesterday was the professor’s last day?”

I gripped the phone more tightly in my hands.

“Weren’t you out at dinner last night because you were celebrating?”

“W-what?! No!”

I heard Nomura fumbling with the phone a little as he spoke.

“He just said he wanted to take Natsuki-san and me out for dinner last night. A-and that he had some more books he wanted to give me.”

“Books?”

My eyes settled upon the globe Professor Matsuyama had sent me. It rotated slightly on its squeaking axis as a small breeze wafted in from one of the open windows.

“Y-yeah,” Nomura continued, his voice hushed. “He said these were some of his favorites and that he wanted me to have them.”

Giving away his treasured things...

I chewed on my lip.

“Go on...”

“So, I figured since I still have a bunch of his things over at my dorm, I should return his old books before I got everything mixed up,” Nomura said. “And that’s when I realized there was no one at the office. Then, when I tried calling him just now...”

A sinking feeling bloomed in the pit of my gut.

“He... he didn’t answer.”

I didn’t speak. I just kept on chewing my lip as Nomura continued talking.

“Then, when I called Natsuki-san to see if maybe she knew where he might be, she didn’t pick up either. Kusunoki-san...”

The sinking feeling turned into a familiar gnawing sensation and once again, I found myself visualizing the professor standing in the graveyard before Kei’s headstone.

“...should I be worried?”

“L-let’s not jump to any conclusions just yet,” I said, sounding far more confident than I felt. “Maybe they just went out to run errands somewhere and couldn’t pick up? Or maybe they just didn’t hear...”

I started heading back to my desk, my eyes glued to the photographs and documents strewn across its surface.

“Why don’t you head over to their house? See if they’re there.”

Grabbing my jacket off its hook, I threw it on and started stuffing every last paper pertaining to the case into my bag.

“If they’re not there, call me and we’ll figure out what to do then.”

I think I might know where he is...

“I’m going to see if I can find him on my own.”

It’s just a hunch...

“O-okay,” Nomura said, still sounding just a touch nervous. “But... what if you can’t find him?”

A small, but unsteady grin came to my face.

But even if I’m wrong...

“You hired a member of the Armed Detective Agency, Nomura-san,” I said, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “Rest assured...”

I grabbed the doorknob and turned.

“I will do everything I can to find him.”

***

I closed the door to the taxi and turned towards the familiar set of gates up ahead.

The cemetery...

I gripped my bag a little tighter as I headed in, past the pair of marble angels flanking the entrance.

Honestly, I wasn’t all that confident that Professor Matsuyama was here; he could be out running errands or reading a book in a cafe.

But if he wanted to go somewhere quiet, somewhere no one else knew about so that he could have a private moment...

I paused in the middle of the grounds, shielding my eyes from the sun as I searched for the hilltop with the tree, the one on which S. Oda was buried.

Wouldn’t it make sense for him to come here?

Finding the hilltop at last, I stopped shielding my eyes and headed towards it.

Masaoka Kei... Matsuyama Shin’s best friend turned brother. Kei had met Shin in high school, lived with him as an adopted sibling and helped him with his studies. Thanks to that help, Shin had been able to attend a prestigious university for his undergraduate studies and eventually did so well in school that he actually surpassed Kei. Then, sometime during grad school, the two met and later fell in love with Natsuki.

I hiked my bag a little higher on my shoulder as I began ascending the hill.

By the end of grad school, Shin and Natsuki were engaged. Shin, having been accepted into his dream program, would go on to become Professor Matsuyama, while Kei, who was rejected from his, despaired that he no longer had any real place in the world and committed suicide.

I sighed.

Even without the added complication of a love triangle, it sounded like Kei had been dealing with a lot. It seemed unlikely to me that Kei had killed himself solely because he’d lost Natsuki to Shin, but if that was the case... why did it seem like Shin blamed himself for Kei’s death?

I frowned.

Actually, it seemed like both Kei and Shin blamed themselves for what happened.  But why? Why did each of them act so guilty when it came to Natsuki and why had she chosen Shin instead of Kei?

And as I made it to the top of the hill and paused for a moment to take in the view, I thought I saw a familiar figure standing among the headstones... a figure in pale, cream colored clothes with long, wavy sand-colored hair...

I let out a gasp.

“Matsuyama... Natsuki?”

I ran to her.

“Matsuyama-san!”

She looked up at the sound of my voice, her dark brown eyes going wide with recognition as I finally came to a stop before her.

“Oh!”

She brought her hand to her lips as I dropped my bag on the ground and tried to catch my breath.

“You’re the girl I met on campus,” she said, bowing slightly as I tried to do the same. “Nomura-kun’s friend. What was your name again?”

“It’s Kusunoki,” I gasped, wiping the sweat off my forehead. “Nice to see you again, ma’am.”

“Likewise,” Natsuki said, smiling. “Now, what brings you here so early in the morning?”

She looked around at the graves.

“Are you here to visit someone?”

“Oh, uh...”

My eyes darted back towards the hillside, where S. Oda was buried.

“Kind of.”

I smiled.

“What about you?” I asked, noting the bouquet of bright yellow flowers in her hand.

I’d thought for sure that Natsuki didn’t know about the cemetery, given that the professor had asked me to keep his visits to Kei’s grave a secret from her.

Is she here alone?

“Who are you here to see?”

“Ah.”

Smiling wistfully, Natsuki turned towards Kei’s grave.

“I believe I told you about my old friend Kei the last time we spoke?”

No honorifics...?

I studied her.

That’s right. She hadn’t used honorifics that first time either.

“Y-yeah, you did,” I mumbled, watching as Natsuki knelt and placed the flowers—Adonis blossoms—on the marker on the ground.

“Well...”

She paused and lifted one hand to the name on the headstone.

“This is his grave,” she said, tracing the characters carved on the gleaming white surface with the tips of her fingers. “I try to come and visit him at least once a year, usually on his birthday, if I can, but this year...”

Her fingers dropped away from the last number on the right—the day Kei had killed himself, almost exactly fifteen years ago.

“Something came up and I had to settle for coming today instead.”

Natsuki turned to look me, her smile growing sheepish.

“I try to keep my visits here a secret from my husband, you see. He doesn’t like to talk about Kei...”

She lowered her eyes.

“I know that makes him sound like a cold person, not wanting to talk about someone he was once so close to, but that really couldn’t be further from the truth.”

Her smile softened.

“My husband is a kind, sensitive man and I know how much it hurts him to think about what happened. I believe the kindest thing I can do for him is to try not to mention it, even if I understand that this won’t lessen the pain or help him forget. Not that either of us could, even if we wanted to...”

She trailed off, staring ahead at the grave as a light ocean breeze wafted through the cemetery. The bright yellow petals of the Adonis flowers waved back and forth on the right side of Kei’s grave marker and as I moved a little closer to Natsuki, a spot of dull beige and white caught my eye.

I stopped in my tracks.

It was the bouquet of white chrysanthemums that Professor Matsuyama had left the other day. Natsuki had placed her flowers right next to his.

“I know my husband has been coming here to visit Kei without me,” Natsuki said quietly, her eyes focused on the two bouquets. “And I understand why. Kei’s death was devastating to him and I’m sure it still haunts him to this very day.”

Her words brought back the memory of the professor, standing in her place, his voice pitched up into an agonized cry of pain...

“That’s why,” she continued, closing her eyes at last, “I don’t say anything and pretend I don’t know about his visits. And why I come here to visit Kei on my own instead.”

“So then, Professor Matsuyama...”

“He’s at home,” Natsuki said. “He said he wanted to be alone for a while and so, I decided to come here after running my errands.”

I couldn’t help breathing a sigh of relief.

“I... I see.”

Thank God. Then Nomura should be able to find him and stay with him. In that case, maybe he was going to be alright.

“I wish,” Natsuki murmured, “more than anything, that he and I could just talk about it, about the things that happened fifteen years ago. But I don’t think he’ll ever do it. I think talking to me about Kei just makes him feel unbearably guilty. Not to mention...”

Her smile grew smaller and disappeared.

“...insecure.”

I felt my breath catch in my throat.

“Matsuyama-san...”

I gripped my bag tightly as she continued to kneel there, silently gazing at Kei’s grave.

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, as another soft breeze wafted through the graveyard.

“Because...”

The breeze picked up into a full gust of wind and as I wrapped my arms around my body, Natsuki looked up at last.

“You remind me of myself from fifteen years ago.”

I froze.

“What?”

“I know,” she said, her voice breaking with the barest traces of a laugh. “It sounds crazy. I don’t even understand it myself but there’s just something about you, something familiar.”

Taking a handkerchief out of her pocket, she dabbed at her reddened eyes and nose. Even with her mascara running and her face slightly blotchy from crying, she still looked so elegant...

I tucked a lock of choppy black hair behind my ear as the wind picked back up.

How could someone like me remind her of herself?

“For some reason,” Natsuki laughed, glancing up at me from her place before Kei’s grave, “I feel as if by talking to you, I’m talking to myself from fifteen years ago and if I can tell you what I wish I’d known back then—”

She paused to wipe the tears from her eyes as they fell.

“Then perhaps all of this could have been avoided. Perhaps if I’d decided to become Masaoka-san instead of Matsuyama-san, Kei would still be here.”

Her lower lip trembled.

“But then again,” she sobbed. “If I’d done that, what if that means I’d be kneeling here in front of Shin’s grave instead?”

My bag fell to the ground.

“Matsuyama-san...”

I dropped to my knees next to her.

“What are you saying?”

Natsuki sniffled again. I waited for a moment as she blew her nose and slowly calmed down.

“I think...” she said quietly, her voice so soft I could barely hear it above the rustling trees. “Rather than listening to any clumsy explanation of mine.”

Her hand went to the pocket of her dress, from which she carefully drew out a thin set of folded papers, which were slightly wrinkled and just a touch yellowed with age.

“It would be easiest to let Kei explain it to you himself.”

And as she slowly held it out to me, I realized that her hand was shaking.

“Matsuyama-san...”

My eyes flicked from the paper to the woman holding it.

“W-what is this?”

“A letter,” Natsuki said simply. “Written by Kei and addressed to me. I got it about a week after he died. My husband... Shin... doesn’t know about it. It was sent directly to me at my dorm. Not even the roommate I lived with knows it exists.”

The tears began to fall again.

“I think if you read it, you’ll understand.”

“Are... are you sure?” I asked, glancing from her to the paper and back. “It seems so personal.”

Natsuki nodded.

“Yes. It would feel like a relief for someone to finally know my secret at last.”

“I feel a bit better after talking to you...”

I could almost hear Professor Matsuyama’s voice floating back to me on the sea breeze.

“Knowing that Nomura-kun will at least know my shame after all these years... However...”

I watched as Natsuki dabbed at her eyes yet again, her eyelashes sparkling with tears.

“I’d like to remind you to please, please keep what I’ve said to you from my wife. If she were to find out how horribly I have wronged Kei...”

I sighed.

How ironic...

Lifting my hand, I reached for the letter.

If only the two of them—no, maybe the three of them—had been able to talk more openly with one another, all of this could’ve been avoided.

I took the letter from Natsuki and began to read.

“To Natsuki-san:

I hope this letter finds you well. If you are reading this, then that means I’ve followed through on my plans to end my life and have departed this world for the next.

I know this must seem like a great shock, getting a letter from a dead man, but I’m not sending this letter in order to scare you... I’m sending this because I feel I owe you an explanation.

I’m not sure how much Shin-kun has told you about my situation but as you can probably guess, it wasn’t good. Truth be told, I’d been planning to leave the country for ages and against Shin’s warnings, I’d stacked all my hopes and dreams on it. I was hoping to make a new life for myself in England, to start over and finally make something of myself but... I failed. I was foolish enough to not have any backup plans so that when the whole situation fell through, I didn’t have any idea what to do.

My first thought was to ask you and Shin-kun for help. I thought perhaps if the three of us could continue on in the way we had, then I could find a way through. But then... everything changed. And I realized I could not find it in me to impose upon you any longer.”

He must be referring to the engagement...

I glanced over the letter at Natsuki, to see if she was watching me but she just continued to sit there quietly with her eyes closed, her lips moving as if reciting the contents of the letter from memory.

I kept reading.

“That’s why I avoided you both for the next several days. It wasn’t that I was upset with either of you or that the two of you had done anything wrong.

No, more than anything... I was upset at myself.

I was so focused on trying to carve out a place for myself in a new country, in the far future that I completely failed to notice what was happening right in front of me. I could see that my feelings for you were slowly changing from those of friendship to something more but I couldn’t find it in me to admit it to myself. In a moment of confusion, I tried talking to Shin about it a short time ago. But I’m afraid that the conversation did not go the way I had planned. Rather than allowing him to advise me on what to do, the conversation we had only made him realize that he, too, had long since fallen head over heels for you.

And how could he not?

Shimomura Natsuki, you are... kind, intelligent, beautiful and generous. I understood the danger I was in from the first moment I laid eyes on you but I paid those feelings no mind. Getting to know you and spend time with you were among the greatest joys of my life. Even now, I would not trade those days away for anything.

But those days are now past.

You’ve chosen Shin, my best friend and brother, the man I love above all others and I couldn’t be more understanding of your choice. I’m so proud of him and how far he has come and after my rejection letter came, I understood that I could not give you the happy, comfortable life that he would be able to provide.

I thought... that it would be best for me to depart for the next life with no one but the gods knowing my secret. But then I realized that I couldn’t bear to hide the truth from you any longer.

Natsuki-san...

You must have guessed by now what my secret is. I fear Shin may have guessed it as well but I sincerely hope he hasn’t. It would tear him up inside to know that my feelings for you are the same as his and I fear he may blame himself if he knew.

I do not want that.

I do not want either of you to blame yourselves for what has happened to me. What I want... is for the two of you to have the longest and happiest of marriages and as many pets, children and grandchildren as you could possibly want. I want you to leave your old friend Kei behind in the past, where he belongs and continue on to a brighter future.

Take care of my brother for me.

I leave you with love,

Masaoka Kei.”

I lowered the pages.

“This is a goodbye letter...” I whispered, glancing over it at the woman kneeling beside me at the grave.

“And a confession.”

Natsuki nodded and blew her nose yet again. I felt my heart twinge at the sight of her blotchy face and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and comfort her. But instead, I just held the letter back out and sat there silently as she took it and put it back into her pocket.

Poor Natsuki...

I bit my lip, watching as the silent tears continued to drip down Natsuki’s face.

Caught between two men who both loved her and that she loved in return...

I don’t know what I would’ve done if I’d been in such a situation.

“Thank you,” I mumbled, staring at the cobblestones between us. “For sharing that with me.”

“No,” Natsuki said, shaking her head. “Thank you for sharing my secret. It’s been fifteen years... fifteen years and one week since Kei died. I know what he said in the letter but.”

She let out a shaky breath.

“I can’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if I had chosen him instead. It’s not that I didn’t like him, you know.”

She cracked a small smile.

“He was so tall, and so handsome. I loved the way he laughed and more than once I wondered if I should pluck up the guts to ask him out.”

“Kusunoki...”

My hands twisted in my lap.

Something about the way she spoke suddenly made me think of Kunikida...

“But he and Shin were so close,” she continued. “I was afraid of making things awkward if my feelings were to become known. So, I kept them to myself. Then, during his last year of school, Kei began pulling away from me. He... He kept talking about moving away to England and starting over and I...”

She sighed.

“I was so upset that I cried for a week. I thought maybe he’d figured me out and wanted to reject me kindly. But then, I started spending more time with Shin. And I began to fall for him instead...”

She looked away. I thought I saw the traces of a blush coloring her cheeks.

“He was so kind to me. And so full of energy. I could see that he was the kind of man who knew what he wanted and where he wanted to be in life and before I knew it, we were engaged.”

Smiling a little, she lifted her left hand up to her face. The bright morning sun caught on her finger and I found myself looking at an absolutely breathtaking opal ring shining on her ring finger.

“Shin bought this for me with some money he borrowed from his parents,” she said, noticing my eyes on it. “He said opals represented love and hope in Ancient Rome and he wanted to get me something that could symbolize a bright future together.”

“That was very sweet,” I said, returning her smile. “I can see why you chose him.”

Natsuki nodded.

“You can, can’t you?”

The low notes of a ship’s horn sounded from far in the distance, across the bay and as I turned towards the water, the older woman stood.

“Thank you for listening to my story, Kusunoki-san,” Natsuki said, tucking a strand of long, sandy hair behind her ear. “I appreciate your being here to comfort a foolish woman in her moment of weakness.”

Her smile grew.

“I wonder if this may be part of why my husband spends so much time talking to Nomura-kun about history. Sometimes it’s nice to speak of the past to someone younger, someone who still has much to do and may perhaps benefit from the lessons of a bygone era. Perhaps...”

She turned slightly, facing the water as well, and I watched as the breeze lifted through her long hair and the sunlight brightened her face.

Natsuki’s smile softened as she glanced back at me.

“Perhaps it’s time to revisit the idea of adopting children with Shin...”

Having children... with the man you love...

Without warning, the image of tall, blonde Kunikida returned.

My face began to burn.

“Th-that sounds nice,” I mumbled, turning away.

Great, now I’m thinking about Kunikida again...

My heart sank at the thought of the man as I’d last seen him, sitting alone in the middle of the training room floor, his back to me and his face in his hands.

Was he still mad at me?

“It does, doesn’t it?” Natsuki said, beaming. “I hope that the two of you can find happiness someday too, whoever it is you’re thinking about.”

“Huh?!”

I spun and gawked at her as she brought a hand up to her mouth and giggled.

“Forgive me,” she laughed, her hand still covering her mouth. “It’s just... the look on your face. It’s clear you’re thinking about someone special to you the way Shin is special to me—”

“Ahh, let’s not talk about that,” I stammered, diving for my bag so I wouldn’t have to see the amused expression on Natsuki’s face any longer. “I should probably get going. I don’t even know what time it is—”

“Oh, yes, I’m so sorry!” Natsuki gasped, bowing quickly in apology. “I didn’t mean to keep you from your busy schedule.”

“N-no, it’s okay,” I insisted, finding my phone at last. “I was just going to meet up with Nomura-kun, see if he’d found—”

I stopped talking immediately, realizing what it was I’d almost said.

That’s right, the professor...!

I flipped open my phone.

I’d been here for almost forty minutes and there were no missed calls.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

If that was the case, then maybe Nomura had found Professor Matsuyama. I’d specifically told him to call me only if he couldn’t find the man...

“Nomura-kun?” Natsuki said, tapping her chin. “Ah, if you need to call him, you should probably go beyond that big tree on the hill.”

She took out her own phone and held it up so that I could see it.

“I’m afraid there’s really no signal once you’re out past that point,” she said apologetically.

“Ah...”

I felt a subtle tightening in my stomach as I nodded.

“Right, thanks for telling me.”

“No problem. I’m going to stay here for a little while longer but, please say hi to Nomura-kun for me.”

She bowed again and I did the same.

“I will, thank you for everything, Natsuki-san.”

“No...”

Natsuki turned back towards Kei’s grave.

“Thank you...”

***

So the mystery was solved...

I kept my eyes on my phone as I walked up the path and headed past the tree on the hill.

Professor Matsuyama had figured out that his best friend Kei was in love with Natsuki, same as him. And yet, because he’d asked Natsuki to marry him and she’d said yes, he thought he’d taken Natsuki away from Kei and in doing so, had inadvertently killed his friend. Sure, there was a lot going on in Kei’s mind and in his life, but in the professor’s mind, this must’ve been the final straw.

This was why he blamed himself for Kei’s death.

Hmm... I probably should’ve taken a picture of the letter but that would’ve looked a little too suspicious.

I sighed, watching the bars on my phone begin to go up as I continued up the stairs.

Lack of communication, huh? What if the three of them had been more honest with each other fifteen years ago? Would the result have been, as Natsuki wondered, her marrying Kei and then Shin killing himself instead of Kei? Did both brothers have suicidal tendencies even then?

Speaking of which...

I stopped at the top of the hill, near S. Oda’s grave as all five bars on my phone finally appeared.

I wonder if Nomura found the professor yet?

And just as the thought finished echoing in my head, the first notification appeared: a text message from Nomura.

“W-what?!”

I nearly dropped my phone as notification after notification rocked my phone, the tiny device beeping and buzzing as they kept coming, message after message, all from Nomura. I went to the message center and opened up the first one so I could read them in order.

“Kusunoki-san,” the first one read. “I made it to the professor’s house pretty quick but it doesn’t look like there’s anyone here. I’m going to try ringing the doorbell and waiting a little longer.”

The next one read: “While I was waiting, I suddenly remembered that the professor had told me where they kept a spare key, in case of emergencies. I’m going to look for it.”

I clicked “next.”

“I found it! I’m going in through the back.”

I’d just finished reading it when a flash of red caught my eye. I looked to my phone app and gasped.

“Ten missed calls?!”

I clicked “play” on my voicemail and held the phone to my ear, my stomach suddenly churning with nerves.

“Kusunoki-san!” Nomura’s voice came through, the patchiness of the static unable to hide the sheer panic in his voice. “I don’t know where you went but please, please pick up! I can’t find the professor but I found something else! He—he left a message on his kitchen table for his wife...! He—”

** A loud clattering went through the receiver and I realized with a start that Nomura had dropped the phone. The line clicked dead but the next message began to play almost instantly.

“Kusunoki-san, it’s me again, Nomura—”

He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears...!

“I—I read the letter! I need to bring it to you and show you but, oh, God—”

I had to strain to hear his next words through what sounded like a choked sob.

“It’s a suicide note...! He says—”

I sank to my knees and let the phone drop to the ground. It bounced along the cobblestones with a sharp clattering noise, Nomura’s panicked shouts echoing through the air.

“He says he’s going to kill himself!”

***

ED HERE