#believe it or not i wasnt even using a reference when i drew this but then i saw how i did almost the exact same pose LMAO | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

igirisuhito · 4 years ago

Text

Title: Out of my mind Relationship(s): Kamukura Izuru/Naegi Makoto Rating: Teen Summary: Naegi goes to confront Kamukura Izuru, based off their scene in dr3. For Kamuegi week Day 5: Scars/Future Foundation Trigger Warnings: Medical Trauma, Medical Abuse, Broken Bones, Dr0 References/Spoilers, PTSD

[Ao3 Link]

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Future Foundation were kind enough to disclose all information that led to the Tragedy of Hope's Peak to its survivors. Naegi read through the files of the Hope Cultivation Project, the project that was being funded by the school's reserve course. The same event that led to its downfall.

It was utterly petrifying to him.

The fact that a talentless student would volunteer himself for such brutal experiments was unfathomable. He saw the logs of Hinata Hajime's descent into inhumanity, becoming a creature nobody could ever hope to perceive as a regular person.

There were 3 surgeries in total, all additional operations were performed through electrical stimulus or injections of medication. The first one was a whole two days after Hinata had signed that contract, the aforementioned contract that had disappeared from the Biology building before it could have been recovered. Which was unfortunate, but they were already so lucky to have been able to obtain the Project's logs that nobody really cared about what had been lost.

The first surgery was the one that scared Naegi the most. The severing of the connections between the prefrontal cortex and parts of the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain. Kirigiri had explained this to him simply, "They performed a leucotomy. You know what that is, right? A lobotomy?"

They'd learnt about it in highschool, surprisingly their years of education were the memories most easily recovered. Naegi never really paid attention to lessons in psychology. Perhaps he should have, as a knowledge in brain ablation somehow ended up being something he actually did need later on in life.

The fact remained that this was the first step in inducing Kamukura's apathetic outlook towards life. This was where the despair began, the despair he wanted to reverse. But how can someone reverse the effects of permanent brain damage? It's impossible, right?

Things seemed to only get worse the more he read. The thing Naegi hated most was how positive the post surgery notes were, as if what occurred was a miracle.

The subject is responding well, his aggression has reduced and he has become more passive towards his doctors. The subject's anxiety seems to have been quelled and he has been dissociative and nonverbal. Fortunately, he is still able to use his vocal cords and form words, as evidenced by his reaction to pain stimulus.

He could only gag. The school Naegi admired so deeply was willing to do this to a human being? He couldn't force himself to imagine the student identification photo of Hinata bearing those same lifeless eyes of Kamukura.

It was all so so fucked up. Enough to make him groan and slam his head down onto the desk, as if giving himself brain damage would fix Hinata's.

Naegi recalled Munakata placing a hand on his shoulder, interrupting the break he was taking from cross-examining the files. He had jumped on instinct from the sudden contact. Flushing in embarrassment at the fact someone has seen him act so childishly.

Munakata hadn't seemed phased. He just looked over at the papers scattered on the desk, skimming, scanning. He spoke up in his rather gruff voice.

"They wanted you to read up on the destroyer of Hope’s Peak, right?"

"Uh, yeah…" Sheepishly, Naegi nodded. "This guy had to be awfully messed up to volunteer for something like this."

With a loud click of his tongue, Munakata removed his hand from the boy's shoulder. He backed himself up to the table in which Naegi had been reading at, before lifting himself and sitting on the table. "No person would volunteer for this. He was manipulated by Hope's Peak and allowed despair to swallow him whole."

Naegi sat up in response, awaiting elaboration from the Council President.

"Hope's Peak obviously omitted the full details of what would happen to Hinata Hajime when he signed the contract." Crossing his arms over his chest, Munakata met Naegi's intense gaze with a sigh, sounding almost mad that Naegi couldn't read his thoughts. "Of course, most of the Future Foundation doesn't want you to think that. Hope's Peak academy was never the shining beacon of hope it pretended to be, it's platitudes were just worthless lies told to deceive."

"That's terrible!" Naegi cried, slamming one hand down on the table for emphasis. "Though, now that I think about it it makes a lot of sense that Hinata didn't know everything. But he still orchestrated the first Killing game, right? Why would he have done that?"

"Actually Kamukura Izuru was framed by Enoshima Junko." Munakata sighed in a pompous manner that reminded him all too much of Togami. "Unfortunately, he woefully succumbed to despair, though it was indeed Enoshima who led him down that path. The sheer amount of murder he did go on to later commit proves that in reality he isn't redeemable."

"Framed…? So it wasnt Kamukura who orchestrated the first killing game?"

"Of course not!" The older man hissed. "Do you seriously just believe anything anyone tells you?"

Naegi's breathing hitched in fear as the other slammed his hand down onto the desk with much more intensity than Naegi had earlier. "N-no… I'm sorry…"

Munakata slid back off the table, causing it to groan beneath his weight. "You should be more careful, Naegi Makoto. It's purely luck that that blind trust hasn't gotten you killed yet."

Next thing he knew Munakata was gone with a loud slam of a door. God that guy was hot-headed.

But he was wrong, about Kamukura, that is.

For some reason that experience was all Naegi could think about as he looked at Kamukura's back. Stiff shoulders hidden beneath the black fabric of his uniform, dark hair billowing in the wind. He created such an eerie silhouette against the golden sunset in the background, beautiful, yet filling the other with a sense of trepidation and fear.

The man Naegi had spent the whole day searching for, of course he was in the last place he looked. He could almost sigh at how awful his luck could be sometimes. His feet ached from searching all around Hope's Peak, between all the different labs and even that freaky hidden room beneath the statue of the founder.

"Naegi Makoto. The Super High School Level Hope, also known as the former Super High School Level Good Luck." A monotone voice that sounded too close and too far away all at the same time suddenly broke the silence. "You've come on orders to kill me."

All that trepidation was causing Naegi's hands to shake from how tightly wound up he was. The sound of someone else's voice made him flinch. "H-huh?! You know?"

"Of course I do." Kamukura spoke again, now tilting his head to the side to glance back at Naegi. "It's not that I'm omniscient, I just bear the talent of the Super High School Level Analyst."

It was strange to have his mind read before he even got the thought completely through. Naegi squashed that feeling down, opting to focus on the task at hand.

He cleared his throat, attempting to still his nerves. "If you knew this, why aren't you running?"

"Hm?" Kamukura turned himself around, now offering his complete attention to Naegi.

Naegi shivered under those piercing crimson eyes, they bore an even brighter colour than that of Ishimaru or Celeste's eyes. They seemed to target him and lock on like a rifle, loaded and ready to fire at a moment's notice.

"Do you honestly believe that you can kill me?"

The breath seemingly disappeared from Naegi's lungs. He drew his hand over his mouth to muffle the faint whimper that escaped his lips. Kamukura's aura was overwhelming, an aura of pure superiority and death.

This whole situation reminded Naegi of his own execution. The pure despair coursing through his veins. The way Monokuma grinned at him. The loud pounding of the press behind him that shook his body from head to toe.

Ah, that was the sound of his own heart beating uncontrollably.

"My presence is bringing back unfortunate memories for you. I apologise, I am aware that you are not here to actually kill me." As if sensing Naegi's fear, Kamukura spoke slowly and clearly.

The other boy nodded slowly, refusing to take the hand from his mouth as stinging tears threatened to spill from the corners of his eyes. His blood was rushing in his ears, drowning out all sense, overwhelming him with the pure power that was Kamukura.

Kamukura stepped towards him, a move that startled Naegi more than it probably should have. He stepped backwards in turn, but quickly set his foot down on a small and unstable piece of rubble. Instead of Naegi launching off to run, his ankle rolled at an unnatural angle.

Naegi yelped as he fell forward, his forehead barely grazing the dirtied ground. He quickly rolled over, desperately shuffling backwards and away from the older man whilst attempting not to hurt himself any further.

"Hey, listen to me! Calm down."

His body froze completely upon hearing the command. Kamukura touched his own lips in thought, a little confusion at his sudden break in character. He briefly pondered if his past emotions were through from standing in the classroom of 77-B.

But he deemed the thought unnecessary, for now, instead focusing back on the boy in front of him. "You're here to offer a compromise, are you not?"

Naegi sucked in a quick breath, grateful for the reminder of what he was actually here for. Unfortunately the pain from his ankle was really beginning to set in, he needed to make this brief. Nodding quickly, he attempted to regain his composure. "Yes. I know I couldn't kill you even if I wanted to. But I don't, you deserve a chance at redemption."

"I cannot be redeemed. I was created to be a tool, I have no free will and only act on the orders of others." Kamukura spoke bluntly, tilting his chin up a little. "Your redemption means nothing to me."

Naegi paused. He was expecting this kind of answer, the kind Togami gave him when Naegi said he forgave him for his actions in the killing game.

"Huh? I don't want your forgiveness. My actions are always justified." He had said. The memory brought a little smile to his face.

"Okay then." Tilting his head up, Naegi showed that smile off to Kamukura, as if showing him a sign of peace. "Would you like to know more about Hinata Hajime?"

"The previous inhabitant of this vessel? Why do you believe he would mean anything to me?" It was phrased less like a question, and more like an expression of confusion. As if Kamukura didn't really care about the answer, that he already knew the answer, he just didn't quite understand why Naegi Makoto, of all people, would have any interest.

"Because you're here." Raising his right arm, Naegi gestured vaguely around the room, before wincing and putting it back down. "Why would you come to a classroom full of students you didn't know to replace the flowers for Nanami Chiaki? The girl who was Hinata's best friend, the girl you murdered."

Kamukura's brow furrowed. He began to move in large calculated strides, right up to where Naegi sat, before leaning over him in a display of authority. "So you are smarter than you seem."

It was difficult to tell if it was Kamukura or Naegi who had let down their guard, perhaps a mix of both. But a small detail like that didn't bother Naegi, as his smile only widened beneath Kamukura's attempt of showing power. He had him, that much was obvious.

"Well, Kamukura-kun? Why are you here?"

Kamukura pursed his lips for a moment, thinking to himself for a second, before answering the question. "Because being here makes me feel despair."

He curled his fingers into fists and glanced away briefly, sighing as he realised he would have to answer the inevitable question. "There are a few places in this world where I feel emotions. The classroom of 77-B, the Reserve Course building, and the third floor of the biology building."

"The third floor of the biology building?" As he thought to himself, Naegi unconsciously brought his hand to his chin. "That's oddly specific."

"The neuroscience institute." Kamukura elaborated.

"Oh…" Naegi moved his hand up to his mouth again, feeling a mix of sympathy and horror.

Of course he would feel despair there. After all, that's where Kamukura would have been made, where he would have been tortured and experimented on. Had his brain destroyed and enhanced over and over to produce the perfect hope.

Where Hinata Hajime… died.

"It's an odd feeling, emotions. The emotions I experience from being in these places are perhaps the only reason I'm still here. That and the fact I have nowhere to go, no purpose left in a world without Enoshima." Kamukura began to mumble somewhat as he rambled on.

Jeez, at least let Hinata rest in peace.

Naegi bit back the thought, shaking his head and reminding himself of what he was really here for. "Come with me then. If you want to experience more emotions, then I can show you the Neo World Program."

There was a slow blink as Kamukura processed the offer. "The Neo World Program?"

"Yeah! We put it together using research from the Super High School Level programmer, therapist, and neurologist." Naegi grinned excitedly as if he was talking about how proud he was of his own child. "It's a simulation that allows people to live out peaceful days filled with hope."

Kamukura blinked again. "The Super High School Level Neurologist, Matsuda Yasuke?"

"Yes?"

Those crimson eyes narrowed to near slits. "The childhood best friend and love of Enoshima Junko?"

"...yes?"

"Who developed the method that was used to wipe your highschool memories prior to the Killing Game?"

For a moment Naegi paused, unsure of how to answer that one. "I…guess so?"

Crouching down onto his haunches, Kamukura leaned in even closer to Naegi. "So you are using memory erasing technology then?"

Naegi leaned back a little, uncomfortable as Kamukura's hair brushed against his face. "...Yes."

"And, assuming you're placing all of Enoshima's protégé's in this program, you'll have about 15 students?"

"Yes, if we manage to convince them all..." Naegi's a voice dropped a little, finding himself suddenly a little more insecure about his plan. "I don't mean to interrupt but… where are you going with this?"

Kamukura was almost shocked at how naive Naegi was, especially considering he had been the one to end Enoshima. Or was he just stupid? "I'm merely baffled that you would sacrifice your own health for the sake of people you don't know. People who are murderers."

It wasn't a complete lie, most people would not have such considerations for criminals, people who had committed crimes as heinous as the ones the remnants had committed.

Naegi noted the lack of emotion in his voice. "You don't sound baffled…"

Ignoring his comment, Kamukura nodded. "I'll participate. I'll make sure the others do too."

"Wait, you will?!" Whilst sitting up a little too excitedly, Naegi put pressure on his ankle, sending pain shooting up his leg. He winced and laid back again.

"Don't do that. Your ankle is broken." Letting out a bored sigh, Kamukura straightened himself back up.

"B-broken?!" Naegi's eyes widened to near saucers in shock. "I thought I just twisted it… Am I seriously that unlucky?"

Kamukura began unbuttoning his black uniform jacket, earning a strange look from the other as he slid it off his shoulders. He then proceeded to fold it in half and kneel back down next to Naegi's broken ankle.

The other boy watched in awe as he tied it tightly, using it as a makeshift splint to prevent Naegi's ankle from moving too much. "Y-you're too kind Kamukura-kun… much more so than I anticipated."

"I'm doing this purely out of necessity. Nothing more." Kamukura muttered as he tightened the knot, causing Naegi to hiss in pain. He then proceeded to slide his left arm under the boy's knees and right arm under his back, nestling snugly at the base of his spine.

"Wait wait wait wait wait what are you-?"

Kamukura lifted Naegi up, causing him to wrap his arms tightly around Kamukura's neck in alarm. "Y-you're carrying me?!"

"It's not as though you can walk." Kamukura sighed exasperatedly. He was having no issues with Naegi's weight, his panicked yelling, however…

"B-but I'm heavy…" Naegi refuted, loosening his grip a little when he realised Kamukura wasn't going to hurt him.

"You weigh less than most girls, in accordance with your height." Kamukura spoke bluntly, scanning his eyes over Naegi's form.

"H-Hey!!"

"You're easily flustered."

"Don't tease me!" with the heat rising in his cheeks, Naegi buried his face into Kamukura's chest in hopes of hiding his embarrassment. "I get enough of that from Togami-kun!"

Kamukura shuffled Naegi in order to give himself a more stable hold before walking out of the classroom. Naegi grumbled into Kamukura's chest, pulling himself even closer.

"You're also easily placated. I do not understand how you've managed to survive thus far." Kamukura muttered, seemingly more to himself than Naegi.

"You're not the first one to say that to me." Naegi whispered, voice muffled by Kamukura's shirt.

As tempted as Kamukura felt to further tease Naegi, he decided against upsetting the boy any more than he already had. An emotional fallout would be annoying.

They walked in silence for a few more minutes as Kamukura traversed the stairs of the building, holding Naegi tightly in order to keep him safe.

It was near impossible to speak up over the overwhelming presence of the other, so Naegi remained still and quiet. Kamukura, however, was unafraid of breaking that silence, and suddenly piped up with a question.

"Would the Neo World Program allow me to become somebody else?"

"U-uh...I don't see why not? It might affect the results, however." Mumbling in thought, Naegi tilted his head up to look at Kamukura. "Do you wish to become a different person, Kamukura-kun?"

"Well, I'm assuming you'll try to reverse the despair by reverting us to our pre-despair selves. However, I do not have a pre-despair self." Kamukura dug his fingers slightly into Naegi's shoulder, not hard enough to hurt, but enough for Naegi to see he was distressed. "Well, except for… him."

Naegi pressed his lips together, trying his best not to be too creeped out by Kamukura's ability to predict exactly what was going to happen. "Well, that is what we planned to do. But I thought you were turned to despair by Enoshima?"

"I was turned to spreading despair by Enoshima. However, from the moment I was created, I have been despair. There is no joy in an existence so boring." Musing to himself, Kamukura closed his eyes for a moment, still walking perfectly straight as he did so. "When a human is an expert at everything, there is nothing left to do, no goals left to accomplish. I can predict anything and everything just as it is going to happen. Nothing surprises me, nothing brings me joy. I no longer have the ability to feel human emotions."

"I see, that makes sense… even though it is really sad." Pressing his head closer to Kamukura's chest, Naegi pondered how it must feel to live such a life. He was finding himself rather upset by the prospect.

Even if Kamukura didn't feel any human emotions, and his strength was beyond human, Naegi could hear his heart beating softly in his chest. There was no doubt about the fact he was human beneath that cold exterior.

"You pity me?" Kamukura's tone was rather confused, even curious.

No matter how much he thought about it, Naegi couldn't understand why exactly that warranted such confusion. "I… guess?"

"Even though I bear every talent known to man?"

Naegi shrugged. "It's lonely at the top."

Looking away, Kamukura took a moment to turn the phrase over in his mind. "You're quite intriguing, Naegi Makoto. Taking pity on terrorists and murderers. I wonder, what exactly led you down this treacherous path?"

"H-huh? It's just common human decency…" As he stammered away, Naegi found himself fiddling with his hands against Kamukura's back. "You guys were normal teenagers once, it's not fair that you have to die just because your lives also got ruined by Enoshima."

"Many innocent people have died at both our hands and Enoshima's." It confused Naegi how Kamukura could confess such a thing so casually, so stone-faced. "It is only just that we pay for our crimes."

"That's why it should end here!" Naegi said that a little too loudly, too passionately. He adjusted his tone to be a bit more quiet. "A-And you guys should be allowed to have normal lives too."

Kamukura merely stared blankly ahead, lost in thought. "…You really are just like your sister."

Naegi suddenly gripped the fabric of Kamukura's blazer tightly, pulling himself up a little. "You've met Komaru?!"

"No." The words were curt. "Stop moving."

Naegi was confused enough by the response to decide it was best to stop talking. It seemed his weariness from being on his feet all day was starting to catch up with him, and the warmth from Kamukura's body wasn't helping his situation whatsoever. He allowed his eyelids to rest, relaxing to the tune of Kamukura's heartbeat against his ear and the rock of his movements.

Kamukura found himself most unimpressed by this new burden. This boy had the audacity to not only break his ankle, but was now steadily shifting into REM sleep in his arms. The worst part was that ridiculously soft expression he was making, blushing slightly even in his sleep.

As Naegi mumbled sleepily, he relaxed his arms, opting to move them away from the other's neck and instead have them wrapped around his torso. Kamukura could rouse the boy, but he wouldn't dare.

"Napping in the middle of the apocalypse in the arms of a terrorist?" Kamukura whispered to himself. "You truly are strange, Naegi Makoto."

#Danganronpa #kamuegiweek2020 #Kamuegi #Naegi Makoto #Kamukura Izuru #Ficgiri #Dr #Dr3

81 notes · View notes

bladekindeyewear · 4 years ago

Text

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-08-23

More homestuuuuuck

I’m a little tired today so I don’t expect much intelligent analysis out of myself, but if anything classpecty happens I doubt I’ll be able to help myself regardless.

oh, always

(EDITS: added note on horn colors, link to ask on potential Blood powers reference)

> CHAPTER 12. Really Convoluted Metaphorical Horseshit

cuuute

In the bowels of a different ship, at a moment in time that is not pinpointable in either direction from the previous interaction, another Dave raps quietly to himself.

another dave raps quietly to himself. i am glad that phrase exists it brings me joy

(LATER EDIT: A friend on Discord pointed out that throughout this entire update, Karkat's horns are #FF0000 red. They were normal candy-corn colors in previous glimpses at the ship crew, though they used a dark single-color shortcut typical of old Homestuck at one point... but THIS time it stays STARK red even when we zoom in close later. Is this just artistic liberty? Did Karkat color his horns for fashion? Does this happen to red-bloods like the Sufferer after a certain age? Just how much time has actually passed, here? We might have to wait for the commentary for this one.)

KARKAT: I WAS SAYING I THOUGHT WE MIGHT GO, I DUNNO, ANYWHERE ELSE ON THE ENTIRE SHIP WHILE THE CLOTHES WERE WASHING. KARKAT: SEEING AS THIS DECREPIT MACHINE WE WERE SO BLESSEDLY PROVIDED WITH MAKES A WHIRRING SOUND SO PANCHAFINGLY ARHYTHMIC THAT IT THREATENS TO ERADICATE THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF TEMPO FROM THE UNIVERSE.

Karkat really has chilled out hasnt he? like this is surprisingly level for him, and that fact is hilarious.

KARKAT: AND YET SOMEHOW BASICALLY ALL THAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE WE STARTED THE LOAD IS THAT YOU’VE BEEN USING IT AS A FUCKED UP BEAT TO WHISPER TO YOURSELF ABOUT FLOWERS TO.

oh gosh that’s why he’s rapping

> ==>

DAVE: kanaya was telling me this kids story the other day about this dude who didnt cherish a flower enough until it peaced out to do flower stuff idk its not pertinent to the story DAVE: except the flower was a person DAVE: because it was a metaphor

Oh right, coming back to the Little Prince stuff I was too lazy to metaphor-deep-dive into, and literally asking the same questions we were asking about who the Little Prince’s story applies to mapped here if anyone at all, like Dirk and such, or what biases were in the retelling of it and the way Kanaya phrased it. So now we’re practically mocking it by deep diving it here, hence the last page’s “DAVE: i was just thinking through some really convoluted metaphorical horseshit”, which means we’re both about to further explore AND shit all over the existence of this story metaphor until it doesn’t mean anything and most of the meaning we drew from it earlier is made a joke~

well, not “we”, cause I was too lazy, so... y’all

DAVE: anyway what goes down in the story is that once the flower lady is out of the picture DAVE: the main character goes around making all these connections between her and everything else in the universe until every damn thing feels like a symbol for how much he fucked up and how much he will never see her again KARKAT: THIS SEEMS PRETTY FUCKING INTENSE FOR A KID'S STORY DAVE: yea thats pretty much what i said

Oh holy shit. That’s yet another way to put it. Are we doing a whole moral takedown of the Light aspect today? cause it sounds like we’re taking a dump on the Light aspect and RoboRose getting too obsessed and immersed in it, which would be excellent

DAVE: but i guess its not so much what the story was technically textually about but more like the version of it kanaya internalized and then told me when we were talkin about how she misses rose

exactly

DAVE: so like now im taking the story she told me she was projecting her feelings onto and projecting my feelings on top of that

yes absolutely, you just rephrased it a different way with that exact same bias

DAVE: this is just one big game of emotional projection telephone so feel free to go paraphrase it to roxy later and make it about whatever fuckin thing youre currently missing

perfect. i need an emoji for that Italian thing for when you pinch your thumb and forefinger together and kiss it

ah this’ll do:

its like the expression “choice” but in nonverbal form

[...] whatever fuckin thing youre currently missing KARKAT: YOUR ABILITY TO GET TO THE POINT DAVE: gotem DAVE: anyway you’re not gonna have to miss that skill of mine for long DAVE: get ready for this shit because i am about to slap you with the point so hard youll fall ass first into the washer DAVE: just scrambling around in there getting all sudsy DAVE: but your brain is gonna be so blasted from the mindfreak of a point im about to make that there wont be anything left to clean

Anytime dave is told to get to the point he is contractually obligated to spend at least 20 seconds talking about how he’ll get to the point in a way that is not getting to the point

DAVE: so its genuinely cool that kanaya can go around creating meaning that may or may not be actually present in every little thing DAVE: connecting every feeling she has to the idea of her wife existing out there DAVE: so i told her she should keep that shit up DAVE: but im having the opposite issue where im struggling to find anything to be that kind of tether because every single thing i could possibly consider about what it is were doing just reminds me of yet another thing to be afraid about

Great examples of Light being good and bad! Attaching strands of connective meaning to everything. --though, in Dave’s case AND Kanaya’s case you could argue it’s both bad in terms of effects. That it’s great for Kanaya to care, but that she should be able to divest herself and live on her own terms without idealizing Rose literally everywhere she looks, personal growth which would be useful in helping bring Rose back to her in the first place. The struggle they’re looking forward to is largely philosophical, not just physical, and until Rosebot acknowledges that she was wrong it’s not over.

DAVE: everything fuckin sucks huge cosmic donkey sack and im terrified KARKAT: OK, SO I FEEL LIKE YOU SKIPPED A COUPLE NECESSARY STEPS IN YOUR POINT CLARIFICATION PROCESS.

Pretty sure Dave was on the same page as most Epilogue and start-of-HS2 readers. This situation is pretty bleak to dump our heroes into, no matter how much we believe will be resolved in the long run.

DAVE: ok but were you going with sweet or savory please give me that much at least KARKAT: YEAH IT WAS GOING TO BE SUNDAE-BASED. DAVE: nice KARKAT: YEAH. KARKAT: DO YOU WANNA WATCH MORE GBBO AFTER THIS? DAVE: absolutely

--ah, Great British Bake-Off, can’t say I’ve indulged

do they still have that?? did they save it from old Earth? or did they go where unflooded Britain used to be and say hey, new show reboot

KARKAT: GREAT. ANYWAY, LIKE I WAS SAYING, FOR THE LOVE OF SWEET HUMAN CHRIST, PLEASE BACK UP TO WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU’RE ACTUALLY SCARED OF. KARKAT: ALSO COME HERE, IDIOT.

That last line is like, exactly as fucking sweet and awesome as we imagined their relationship to be. :)

> ==>

OH MY GOD THAT’S ADORABLE

DAVE: ok yeah this is a better position to unleash all my inner fears n anxieties from

indisputably.

DAVE: those times its like my mouth was saying words about the situation wherein our friends are AWOL and maybe dead but my brain wasnt fully letting me experience the emotion that goes along with them DAVE: man its like i cant even start genuinely thinking about how afraid i actually am for rose and john without my brain flippin its wad and whiting out DAVE: like haha fuck i hope theyre ok DAVE: now i better make a fuckin joke before i succumb to the gaping mouth of despair waiting for me to fall in it as soon as i look down and acknowledge that its there ogling how juicy my ass looks as it trembles with terror

I really hope that the writers of HS2 know full well that this feeling? the one Dave is describing here? is what many of us who got way overinvested in the well-being of Homestuck’s surviving characters felt reading the Epilogues and Homestuck^2. So I really hope they’re working through it in a way that will result in a preponderance of GOOD THINGS happening and hope-filled situations. Cause that “can’t even think about X” feeling is too familiar, and if they understand it as well as it LOOKS like they’re getting to, I’d really like them to give us a helping hand healing.

I think that’s what they’re going for? Seems hopeful for me to think so, but they HAVE been doing better as HS2 has been going forward, from an emotional standpoint anyway; definitely better than the Epilogues. And I’ve worked through some of that stuff with the help of that, because it’s MUCH easier nowadays to think about Homestuck without my gut clenching.

DAVE: i guess im just fucked up about how to worry about dirk and be angry at him at the same time DAVE: because if i get as unholy pissed at him as i sometimes wanna be i also gotta admit to myself that maybe i coulda done something different there

Mhmm, Karkat’s potentially a pretty good person to speak with here since he’s done so much work trying not to feel responsible for everything that’s ever gone wrong.

DAVE: also like DAVE: and this by the way adds a whole other layer of guilt on there that i dont really know how to fuckin reckon with but DAVE: even with all the shit hes pulled and the fact that we are more or less heading toward having to take him down DAVE: whatever that is gonna mean and whether or not he planned it like that DAVE: i just DAVE: me and him had come so far with each other and it was really cool for a while to have him and i DAVE: ugh DAVE: i dont WANT to hate him

Yeah, Dirk and Jane’s heel-turns were really shitty for anyone who was a fan of them in the fanbase, as well.

KARKAT: WELL THEN QUIT FUCKING PICKING AT THE SEAM ON MY SHORTS AND SPIT IT OUT. THEY'RE BARELY HANGING ON TO THE DEFINITION OF "SHORTS" AS IT IS.

That is an adorably real boyfriend-laying-in-boyfriend’s-lap thing to do

DAVE: the part i mentioned before about how we really have no goddamn clue how long this trip is even gonna take DAVE: i cant help but feel like its barely getting revved up DAVE: and for me and roxy and jade and callie and kan thats normal shit at best and boring at worst but we all have our immortality to thank for that DAVE: we can just dick around in space for near-eternity waiting to catch up to our friends who may or may not be our enemies now and itll be fine DAVE: i mean no itll be categorically miserable DAVE: but well survive it KARKAT: HOLD THE FUCK ON. DAVE: but you KARKAT: DAVE. DAVE: no lemme say this

Oh god damnit. Karkat’s limited lifespan. As if we hadn’t ALREADY covered a nauseatingly extensive gamut of disheartening topics of conversation. We really have to confront every shred of misery in their past, present and future one after the other after the other in the Epilogues and HS2, don’t we? >:(

I guess it had to be discussed, though.

DAVE: we dont talk about it much and i got shit to say about it DAVE: its not like i never thought about how youre mortal before but i just thought wed be able to figure it out before it mattered DAVE: come up with some kind of plan DAVE: i was just distracted being happy with you i fucking guess and so i didnt think up a way to fix it DAVE: and now thanks to dirk we have to work it out right the fuck now DAVE: because i cant spend this trip just sitting around watching you get old and die

Jesus. I mean, WE know(?) that it’s not gonna be THAT many years, but THEY don’t know that.

Unless it really IS going to be that many years and HS2 is going to shamelessly take a fucking sledgehammer to our feelings for no goddamn good reason. Which it won’t! Right??? >:T

> ==>

Dishwasher ding

> Dave: Grapple with the clean, soggy consequences of the passage of time.

Hey, don’t make it a metaphor here. --though, fuck. I suppose we are dealing with everyones dirty laundry. God damnit. SURE, deal with it all story but then GET IT OUT OF THE WAY AND PUT SOME SERIOUS FUN AND LAUGHS IN HERE so we don’t feel like we’re wading through an entire garbage dump!!! *click*

Karkat’s eyebrows-only mouthless frown is really cute.

> ==>

okay Karkat explain the nope you’re lodging

> ==>

*put*

> ==>

*foot*

> ==>

DAVE: ok go on

I mean I at least appreciate the time investment in adorable boyfriends. That’s definitely something of SOME good value they’re giving us in exchange for this misery

> ==>

That Karkat image makes me wanna do that red-shaky-gif-thing with it

KARKAT: IT'S NOT LIKE I'M NEW TO THE PARTICULAR MOOBEAST WRANGLING EVENT OF SOMEONE I PREVIOUSLY LOVED BRUTALLY TURNING ON ME AND LEAVING ME TO TRY AND CRAM MY FEELINGS ABOUT THE SITUATION BACK TOGETHER ALL ON MY OWN.

True

KARKAT: HE DID THAT ON HIS OWN. AND WE MADE THE CHOICE TO GO AFTER HIM ON OUR OWN.

Yes, and you’ll possibly convince him more of that over time, though not in this short conversation

KARKAT: I WAS FOLLOWING YOUR LITTLE TRAIL OF COOKIE CRUMB FEARS UNTIL IT LEAD TO THE BIG SNACK FINALE OF WORRY ABOUT MY FRAGILE MORTAL MEATSACK. KARKAT: IF I HAVE SOMEHOW NOT BEEN CLEAR ABOUT THIS WITH YOU YET, LET ME GO AHEAD AND RECTIFY THE SITUATION RIGHT THE FUCK NOW. KARKAT: HANGING OUT WITH YOU ON THIS LONG TRIP TO WHO THE SHITTING FUCK KNOWS WHERE IS QUITE LITERALLY THE HAPPIEST I HAVE EVER BEEN IN MY ENTIRE MEAGER EXISTENCE. KARKAT: I'M SO ABSOLUTELY BLISSED THE FUCK OUT OF MY MIND TO BE ABLE TO LOOK AT YOUR STUPID IMMORTALLY SMOOTH HUMAN FACE SKIN EVERY DAY AND NOT HAVE A COMPLEX ABOUT IT.

D’AWWW

And with that darkly angry expression too, that’s PERFECT

I mean it’s true. What exactly would they be doing DIFFERENTLY on Earth C other than enjoying each other like this? It’s pretty fucking great.

...hm. Isn’t this journey-not-the-destination stuff pretty Breathy? Karkat’s proving more balanced by the moment.

KARKAT: AND I'LL BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU. IT'S NOT LIKE I HAVEN'T BEEN EXPERIENCING SOME COMPLICATED GUILT, MYSELF. KARKAT: THE FACT THAT I'M HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE JUST FUCKING CHILLAXING AND BEING IN LOVE IN SPACE IS A CLEARLY INCONGRUOUS WITH THE REASON I'M ACTUALLY HERE CHILLAXING TO BEGIN WITH, AND I'M NOT LETTING MYSELF FORGET THAT, EITHER.

Pff. He feels guilty for ENJOYING IT so much. <3

KARKAT: BUT I RESENT THE IMPLICATION THAT MY HAPPINESS IS REGISTERING FOR YOU AS YOU HAVING TO JUST "SIT AROUND AND WATCH ME GET OLD," BECAUSE I KNOW YOU KNOW IT'S MORE THAN THAT.

I’m glad Karkat knows that DAVE knows somewhere in him that it’s more than that, because yeah, if Karkat thought he DIDN’T know that at some level that’d be a reason to take MUCH MORE SERIOUS offense.

KARKAT: LIKE, JESUS, DAVE. YOU KNOW I'M AFRAID FOR YOU, TOO, RIGHT? KARKAT: OR DID YOU FORGET THE WHOLE HEROIC DEATH THING? KARKAT: I WORRY ABOUT LOSING YOU FAIRLY FUCKING REGULARLY.

Hah!!! Point taken. Karkat must view Dave as practically more fragile than HIM.

KARKAT: ONE: WE'VE BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH HELLACIOUS PANWARPING TRAUMA THAT I REFUSE TO NOT ENJOY THIS SHIT WHEN I FINALLY FUCKING GET IT, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT MAY OR MAY NOT LAST. KARKAT: TWO: IT'S NOT LIKE WE'RE DOING NOTHING. WE’RE MOVING. WE’RE WORKING. WE’RE HEADED SPECIFICALLY TO A PLACE WHERE WE WILL UNDOUBTLEDLY ENDURE YET MORE FUCKING HELLACIOUS PANWARPING TRAUMA. KARKAT: AND THREE: WE'RE DOING THAT BECAUSE WE HAVE FRIENDS WHO WE CARE ABOUT THAT NEED US. THAT IS OUR FOCUS, HERE. NOT OUR FEAR. IT'S ABOUT THE PEOPLE WE HAVE TO SAVE. KARKAT: SO DON'T FUCKING WORRY ABOUT ME, DAVE. I'M FINE.

Okay, this is great and wholesome. I am now retroactively GLAD that this topic got brought up. :)

> ==>

Dave is still afraid. There is a part of him that will always be, he thinks. He has accepted this about himself. There is another feeling coursing through him too, though. It’s something he's felt before, though never quite so intensely. He looks up at Karkat and understands, viscerally, the simple power his words have. They pump through Dave’s own body, alive and warm and true.

He wonders if Karkat realizes it, or if he’s just, as always, saying what he feels as he feels it. Dave doesn’t attempt to dissect it further. There will be time for that later.

Every really loving moment like this is sort of undercut by the fact that it’s also, in some senses, part of alt!Calliope’s narration and, by extension, her fanfiction.

EDIT 2: There's also either a hint to potential Blood powers or even an explicit Blood power use here that I didn't recognize. I'm leaning towards it's-laying-the-groundwork-for-future-use-of-Blood-powers-but-isnt-magical-in-this-case.

> ==>

Smooooch!

That was nice. Still gonna wait on doing any commentary til next time or a Bonus update or two, cause I’m beat. See y’all next time!

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #spoiler #spoilers #Breath and Blood #Light and Void

28 notes · View notes

nightmaretyrantvantas · 5 years ago

Text

Ok so guys i finally got part of it done(like three or four days later buuuut

I drew two sets of the families for my anxceit au!

Please meet virgil's family the Ravenwoods!

And as curtesy some info about them

Daneil Ravenwood

Hes been raising Virgil and Andy on his own since virge was about 8 and a half and andy was 6 months old

Hes a english and literature professor at the local college(that logan's parents also work at)

Hes in his late 50s early 60s current time( where virgil is 21 and andy is 13)

Hes also a published and well established fiction writer, but he writes under an alias

Hes a super supportive dad and teacher, even if he doesnt understand it he'll 100% support the decisions his kids make (ex: "oh your wiccan now? Cool virgy! Im glad you found a religion that makes you happy, though...can you explain it to me again?" "Oh andy you want to be switched to the art program? No problem! I'll call your counsellors tomorrow ok?" "Oh boyfriend huh? Thats great buddy, when do i get to meet him??")

Hes got a deep hearty laugh that makes you smile

Dad jokes to virgils mortification

Hes a skeptic but loves listening to and talking to virgil about his beliefs

had the philosophy of "the punishment should fit the crime, but you should be allowed to stumble and learn with it" raising the boys and wasnt too strict with them. Also never threatened punishments, only threatened playful embarrassment

The boys got their sass from somewhere, but he does remind them to mind their manners and watch their timing

Gentle giant as he is 6'3

Black hair peppered with grey and white and usually forgets tonshave his stubble

Passionate about his jobs, can get lost in his work

Andy Ravenwood

Virgil's baby brother, and he fucking adores his brother( even sometimes babbles about him to his friends at school and proudly talks about his "youtuber big brother"

This does not stop him from poking fun at virgil of course

Art boi!! Hes the top of his art classes!!

He is the one art kid that always has like three sketchbooks on him at all times

Loves the color purple

Look ok he knows he KNOWS his hair looks like his brothers it wasnt supposed to ok the original plan baCKFIRED AND HE COULDNT TURN BACK

Unlike virgil he doesnt cover his freckles

He has the same color eyes as their dad(grey-blue)

Andy loves animals! Especially raccoons!! Those are his favorite.( he happily took on the responsiblility of taking care of virgils cat when he moved out)

Hes a pretty cheerful kid if hes comfortable around you, but shy if he doesnt know you

Hes got an anxiety disorder but hes still living his best life

Virgil Ravenwood

Our main Cryptid goth( he dialed it down for the family photo)

Hes twenty one and lives on his own in an apartment complex close to downtown, which is a good 15 to 20 minutes from his childhood home so he visits regularly( like three times every other week)

Boi loves his family to bits, and has so SOOOO many good stories he’ll happily talk about

Has both his own paranormal youtube channel and a joint youtube channel with his boyfriend Ethen where they explore and investigate haunted places(both well known and stumbled across)

He has the same eye color as their mother, blue violet, which stands out a little more than his dad’s or brother’s

He covers his freckles with foundation because hes insecure about them

Did a year of junior college before deciding school wasnt exactly for him anymore, but still goes to events for his best friend Logan

Works at a cafe downtown that stays open pretty late( they do dinner its almost a diner but not) part time, and the other half does youtube for a living

Has a cat that had to stay in his childhood home named Sally that Andy takes care of for him

Has been considering getting another cat for his apartment

Big firm believer in the unknown and the paranormal/supernatural

Hes wiccan and has an alter in his bedroom thats apart of his facecam background

He has a tarot deck but doesnt really do readings other than little ones for himself, as divination isnt his strong suit

Has a big crystal collection hes been adding to since high school

He can sing but doesnt have alot of confidence in his voice so he just doesnt

And also introducing~

The picani-sanders family! Aka ethen's big ol family

From left to right

Patton Picani

Ethen's older brother(by two years)

Him and ethen are emile's foster kids, but he adopted him when they were like nine and seven.

Patton is 23 and happily works at the library downtown as a librarian and a reader to the kids

He loves music and musicals and all things disney (partially thanks to his boyfriend roman)

He and Ethen come off as complete opposites and they have a very playful relationship, always teasing each other

He loves his family alot and loves babysitting his little brother Thomas whenever his schedule allows it, especially during times of year Emile and Remy get swamped with work

He loves to knit and sew and make things!!! He makes sweaters and jackets and dresses and customizes clothes!! He could make a living on it if he really wanted!! (but he just does it for friends and loved ones instead- Andy has a hoodie that Patton sew wool on the inside to keep him warm and Andy adores it)

Hes really outgoing and friendly and seems to make friends wherever he goes!

He’s known Roman since they were kids and was crushing on him all through school until they got together senior year

He loves to bake and cook and help his dad make dinner whenever hes at home

Hes a sappy romantic and loves cliches

He has a huge collection of stuffed animals that hes been slowly transferring to his and roman’s apartment since he moved out(theres ALOT)

Emile Picani

The dad!! Hes in his mid 50s

He works as a singular and couples therapist and can have a bit of a wacky schedule

Hes been raising Patton and Ethen since they were little and loves his kids so damn much

So goddamn supportive of what they do, sometimes to the point its embarrassing(for Ethen)

Hes engaged to Remy Sanders and once their married their just going to combine their last names

He loves cartoons and gardening! And has his own collection of stuffed animals and toys(which hes been sharing with Thomas)

He loves making dad jokes and him and Patton make them all the time at Ethen

Hes a damn great cook and has been teaching his boys to cook for years now, and loves making big meals

Not really a strict parent, more of a sit down and talk it out kinda parent

Is part of the PTA of Thomas’s school

Actually used to be a punk in school

Thomas Sanders-Picani

The youngest! Hes 8 years old!

Our boy loves to read and write! He writes tons and tons of stories!

Hes got a huge imagination and likes to daydream

Hes bubbly even though he isnt the most social he still has a good group of friends!

Our lil boi is an actor of course! He loves getting parts in the school plays and in class assignments.

Hes in his schools choir and gets vocal lessons from Roman’s mama

His room is filled with toys and books and notebooks and pencils, and even though he tries his best to keep it clean it gets messy every week.(cleaning it is his weekly chore)

He has two best friends named Joan and Talyn that hes been friends with now since kindergarden and theyve been nearly inseperable ever since, its not uncommon for one of both of them to be at each others house on any given weekend

Hes Remy’s kid but has started calling himself by Emile’s last name too since they moved in with the Picani’s

Doesnt have too many memories of his mother but the ones he does have are all happy and pleasant(thankfully)

Calls Emile baba and Remy dada to distinguish them better

Loves his older brothers especially when they play with him, He also loves watching the old videos of Ethen’s theater performances and sometimes pesters him to reenact scenes from them( his favorite is the middle school production of ‘Alice in Wonderland’)

Ethen Picani

Our other main boy, hes also twenty one

He lives with his best and childhood friend Remus Prince in two bedroom apartment across town near the college

Does youtube full time for a living

the “black sheep” of the family as he and Remus call him

He majored in theater in his two years of college

Loves reptiles but doesnt have any because their apartment complex doesnt allow pets and he doesnt want to get him and remus kicked out since their apartment is close to Remus’s work

Has a car he loving refers to as his “hand me down junk heap” Because he got Patton’s first car when patton got a new one

He loves the old thing though

Has a good relationship with his parents. He loves his dad Emile and he likes Remy well enough

Him and remy have a very casual, relaxed relationship.( Ex: “ Dad you need to stop letting sleepless bums into the house” “ He’ll stop doing that when he stops letting punk wannabes into his kitchen, now get over here kid.” )

Loves his boyfriend Virgil to death and likes to spoil him when he can(even though virgil tells him to save his money for rent)

Hes more of a open skeptic but he’ll happily debate things with Virgil, and enjoys making videos for their joint youtube channel and being proven otherwise

He also has his own solo youtube channel where he does abandon urban exploration( sometimes with Remus tagging along for the thrill)

Remus has been calling him by the nickname “Dee” since middle school when they played Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. Remus called him Dee so often he made it stick as a nickname years and years later. He refuses to let it die and Ethen has just accepted his fate

Remy Sanders

Hes around Emile’s age( mid 50′s) and looks the tallest in the family at 6′3

He came into the family later, when the boys were about 20 and 18( when thomas was about 5 or so)

Hes pretty laid back but surprising good at being strict, so he balances out Emile’s parenting style

Hes a divorcee and got guardianship of Thomas, though hes on a friendly and civil relationship with thomas’s mother and takes him to visit her three times a month( theyre currently working out more visitations and possibly thomas staying with his mother a couple weeks every months but thats still in the works)

Hes an insomiac and (usually) works night shifts as a security guard for a security renting business so his working hours can be a little unpredicitble, but he almost always works at least two night shifts and graveyard shifts a week. Hes paid both a salary plus an additional commissions by employers so its well worth it

He spends as much time with his kid and the boys as he can regardless of his wonky sleep schedule

Hes a bit of a tough love kinda person, and hes snarky and mouthy and doesnt hesitate to speak his mind

Loves Emile soooo goddamn much he talks about him alot at work to his fellow security guards. Theyre the ones who helped him pick a ring when he proposed actually

Oh yeah the two are engaged did I mention that?

He fuels Emile’s plushie collecting, even if he knows he probably shouldnt( But oh well, it makes him smile and thats all he wants to see)

Looks punk now but he was the biggest straight laced prep in highschool that comparing him now to him in highschool gives you whiplash

Would fucking die for his family. No one messes with his fiance or his kids, he doesnt care if two of them are fully capable adults

And its done!! Two of the four main families is finished!

And watch out because im also coloring these digitally(its just taking awhile :/) but those will be getting posted soon...I hope...Im trying

But here you go Virgil’s and Ethen’s families in two cute family photos!

Let me just add im so fucking proud of The Picani-Sanders photo because it was a struggle to fit them all in the picture and get the heights right and the entire side of my arm was grey with pencil lead by the time I was done but it turned out great!

Up next is Roman and Remus’s family the Princes and Logan’s family the Daniels!!

Art references are credited to @the-pastel-peach @aimasup and @underdog-arts , especially @aimasup and @underdog-arts for getting 8 year old thomas to look like a kid because im not normally good at drawing little kids but after practicing with some of their art as my reference and inspiration he turned out really well!!

I hope you guys enjoy!!

Taglist

@phantommoonpeople

@sweetsweetemo

@leesacrakon

@amazable01

@starbucks-remy

@jemthebookworm

@max-is-tired

@seriously-a-dragon

@sar-kasstic

@soupspam

@aimasup

@sugarglider9603

@underdog-arts

@strawberryjellystuff

76 notes · View notes

realize-who-i-need · 5 years ago

Text

MID SPOILERS(?):

ok so, i just finished midnight in salem 10 mins ago let me discuss some things. lets go likes and dislikes:

likes !

- more characters (though i feel like they could have been fleshed out more, didnt care for anyone other than the hardys, mei, deirdre, and lauren)

- the pancake and potion making games were fun

- drama with ned (i wish there was more, its so fun to see them argue and make up)

- the hardy boys were the saving grace of this game, i love them so much, even if they looked a little strange in this game

- dad actually answers back?? woah

- connections to history (tituba, the hathorne/parris name changes, etc)

- NANCY WENT OFF ON THE CULPRIT! actually showed a true confrontation where the culprit argued back and it almost seemed like the judge was gonna believe them over nancy. nancy really held her ground and presented the evidence well

- the town was cute if u put it on high quality

dislikes !

- i could make a whole post about how this game is clearly unfinished but we’ve all heard that and we all know, her interactive did not make this game, it’s a shell of a nancy drew game, but it was still enjoyable if u forget that it’s supposed to be connected to the previous 32 games

- if you’re gonna make a crowd in the town (it wasn’t really necessary) at least make enough npc designs where there isnt 3 of the same person next to each other. lmao.

- why the fuck can you not call bess and george?? they weren’t even mentioned? we got hardy boys ned dad and deirdre but.. bess and george,, her best friends,, arent in the game at all

- the new voice actress has a nice voice, but she is not a good actor. god. even the side characters had more emotion when speaking. she sounded so flat, like she was reading the script out loud for the first time. it really fucked up the flow of the conversation, when someone would say something like a normal person and nancy replies like a person actually trying to sound like they cant act. it wasn’t unbearable but it just made me skip thru most of the conversations

- there were like, no puzzles. a nancy drew game with like 5 puzzles max? fr?

- there was no danger to die throughout the game. nancy drew games are known for the strange and creative ways to “die” and use the second chance, but were there any at all? like maybe with the drowning part but other than that??

- there were no parts where nancy had a limited time to sneak thru someone’s stuff. there wasn’t any sneakiness at all really, and the closest that it came to was finding the tituba letter which causes lauren to find u immediately and have no repercussions. this game is way too safe

- nancy is a coward omfg. she wouldnt even attempt to get into mei’s room or the evidence room or anywhere she wasnt allowed, which is her THING! nancy sneaks and snoops and does questionable legal things like breaking and entering and flat out stealing for her cases. it makes u feel like there is real risk. there was none of that in this game :/ not my nancy

- soooo many cut scenes. it felt like watching a movie rather than playing a game

- this game wanted to force you to play how they want (ex: not letting you leave an area before finishing talking/looking around), while in past games, u could fuck around for hours and explore and play minigames wherever without having the game hold your hand or force cut scenes onto u. it was so jarring, id get annoyed when characters would randomly stop me while im trying to follow my own path

- the jumpscares? thats when i was fully thrown off and it felt like a movie. they were unnecessary tbh, nancy drew games have never relied on jumpscares to create the atmosphere of the game

- the characters speaking did not match their lips it was kinda funny

- there’s definitely more i can’t think of but these are the main points

- no actual easter eggs, and not enough reference to older games. no sonny june??:?:?

in conclusion:

i enjoyed it as a game but not as a nancy drew game. everytime i remembered i was playing as nancy drew, i would notice the bad stuff and get annoyed easily. i think everyone in the clue crew should play it, but expect it to be very very different than any other game. this is not only a new game design, a new voice actor,,, this is a new nancy. i hope the future games consider the fanbase and the charm of the original games :(

#mid spoilers #nancy drew pc games #her interactive #nancy drew games #nancy #nancy drew #frank hardy #nd #joe hardy #the hardy boys #midnight in salem #mid

37 notes · View notes

emmerrr · 6 years ago

Note

heyyyy if you wanna write a pynch vday fic, how about one where they're like... both trying to be sneaky about planning sth for valentines day and so both think the other has forgotten about it and they're both like ://// but it all uhh works out in the end?? x

what a top notch suggestion, absoLUTELY i can write that 💕💕 (uhh heads up this got kinda long, i’ll put it on ao3 too and reblog with a link later)

Adam sat alone in a corner booth of Nino’s, History notes open on the table before him. He’d written VALENTINE’S DAY?? in the margin, underlined three times. He frowned at the words, wondering why he was fixating on them, and turned his head to stare listlessly out of the window instead.

Blue was there working, but she’d been too busy to come and say hello so far, simply offering him a harried wave when she spotted him walk in, pointing him towards the table he was now seated at. The other staff at Nino’s never bothered them anymore, knowing Blue would cover their table. Adam had heard them being referred to as “Blue’s Boys” on more than one occasion.

He was currently the only one there, having beaten Henry and Gansey out of the school gates. He assumed they’d got held up by a traffic light or two, and Ronan had further to drive than the rest of them so would likely arrive last anyway.

Thinking of Ronan immediately returned Adam’s thoughts to the words written in his notes and he scowled at the parking lot. On the surface, Valentine’s Day didn’t seem like it would be Ronan’s thing. Adam wasn’t even particularly sure it was his thing. But the fact remained that Valentine’s Day was a week away, and Adam didn’t know what, if anything, he was expected to do for it.

He tried to think back to previous years and remembered receiving an anonymous card from someone back in the seventh grade; a generic heart-shaped thing that simply said ‘Will you be my Valentine? x’ inside. He was fairly certain the sender was a girl in his English class who had never said a word to him but blushed every time she caught his eye. Adam didn’t see how he was supposed to answer whether or not he’d be her Valentine if she never told him she had sent it. And of course, she never owned up, and he didn’t want to suggest it was her in case he was wrong, and he didn’t actually want to be her Valentine anyway. So it was never mentioned again.

The difference here was that Ronan was his actual boyfriend. Didn’t that mean that they were each other’s Valentines by default, then?

Adam didn’t know. He’d never navigated Valentine’s Day before. Not like this.

He was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t hear Henry and Gansey approach until they were right there.

“Oh, History notes,” Henry exclaimed. “Can I borrow them?”

Adam turned his head to see Henry already sliding the notebook towards him. “Your notes are always make more sense than mi—” Henry cut himself off, eyes widening at something on the page. Too late Adam remembered the VALENTINE’S DAY?? in the margin and slapped his hand over it, snatching back his notebook.

Henry was grinning at him. “Big plans?”

“No,” Adam muttered. “No plans at all.” He stuffed the notebook into his messenger bag.

Gansey had slid into the booth opposite Adam and watched the exchange with raised eyebrows. “What have I missed?”

“Nothing, apparently,” Henry said easily. Adam was grateful that Henry clearly wasn’t going to push it (at least not with an audience), but reasoned he could perhaps use some advice.

“So,” he started. “Valentine’s Day. Thoughts?”

“I’m glad you asked, Parrish,” Gansey said. “It was originally a Western Christian feast day honouring a couple of early saints called Valentinius—”

“Yes, thank you, Captain Wikipedia,” Henry cut in. “I’m not entirely sure that’s what he meant.”

A jug of Iced Tea was plonked onto the table without ceremony and they all looked up to Blue Sargent as she handed out glasses.

“It’s a dumb holiday invented by Hallmark to sell more cards,” she said, obviously having heard the tail-end of the conversation.

“Well, obviously there’s that too,” Gansey said, beaming at her.

Adam sighed. They were all monumentally unhelpful.

“Why the interest, Adam?” Blue asked, a knowing glint in her eye.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “I’m just…okay, with Ronan, do I just treat it like any other day? Do I get him a card? Will he think it’s stupid? Do I think it’s stupid?”

There was a short silence as the three of them blinked back at him, and then Blue carefully said, “Do you think it’s stupid?”

Adam wasn’t sure how to answer that. The truth was that he sort of did think it was stupid, but he also thought he wanted to acknowledge it anyway. He thought doing nothing at all kind of made him look like an asshole.

In the end, it all circled back to Ronan, and whether he would care. Did he have anything planned? Was he having an internal crisis over it as well?

In lieu of an answer, Adam shrugged again.

“Speak of the devil,” Henry said, and nodded towards the entrance.

Ronan, dressed all in black (of course), had just stepped inside. He scanned the restaurant without turning his head but when he spotted Adam, his shoulders relaxed, and he smiled just a little.

Adam didn’t think he’d ever get tired of seeing that.

“Oh god, you two are the worst,” Blue scoffed as Ronan started to make his way over.

“What?” Adam said without looking at her.

“You know exactly what, Adam Parrish. You and Ronan with the googly eyes. Jesus Christ, you’re in public. Tone it down.”

“You tone it down,” Ronan said jovially, hip-checking Blue as he drew level. “What are we talking about?”

“The origins of Valentine’s Day,” Gansey said delicately.

Ronan snorted derisively. “Valentine’s Day,” he said with as much scorn as he could muster, “is capitalistic bullshit invented to sell cards and flowers and chocolate.”

“Hey man, that’s exactly what I said,” Blue said, sounding pleased, and she and Ronan fist-bumped. Adam rolled his eyes. They really were two sides of the same coin.

“You’re in my seat, Cheng,” Ronan said.

“Sit by Gansey, I was here first.”

Ronan shrugged. “Fair’s fair.” He stepped up onto the seat and over Henry and squeezed into the spot between him and Adam.

“Ronan Lynch,” Gansey hissed. “You’ll get us kicked out!”

“Calm down, Dick, no one noticed,” Ronan said. He had both arms stretched out across the back of the booth, and Adam and Henry were both leaning into him a little thanks to the lack of space.

“This is cozy,” Henry said cheerfully.

It was Blue’s turn to roll her eyes and she pulled her little notepad out of her apron pocket. “Alright, I have to actually do my job now, what do you want? Gansey, I’m assuming you want your usual half-avocado monstrosity?”

“You’re a millennial, Blue, you’re supposed to like avocados.”

Her disgusted expression was answer enough. The rest of them rattled off their food order and then Blue went off to put it through.

“Doesn’t anyone want to come and sit by me?” Gansey asked. “It’s lonely over here.”

“Oh, don’t pull that face, Gansey, you’re making me sad,” Henry said, swapping sides. He scooched right the way over to Gansey and draped an arm around his shoulder before sighing loftily. “It’s hard being this popular.”

“But someone has to do it,” Adam said drily, earning him a quicksilver smile.

“And I do it so well.”

Ronan was stopping at Adam’s for the night, but they had each come to Nino’s in their own cars so separated in the parking lot to drive over to St Agnes in a convoy.

Ronan was already peeling out of the lot by the time Adam reached his shitbox, and he was held up further by Henry calling his name. He turned and Henry jogged over, Gansey nowhere to be seen and most likely still inside saying goodbye to Blue.

“Oh, sorry,” Adam said. “You wanted my History notes, right?”

“No, that’s not — well, yeah, actually, thank you,” he said, taking them when Adam handed them over. “I actually came over here to give you some unsolicited advice.”

“About the Valentine’s Day thing?”

“That’s the one.”

Adam shrugged. “It’s not entirely unsolicited. But anyway, it doesn’t matter anymore. You heard him.”

“Yeah, I heard him. Sounds like posturing to me.”

Adam tilted his head to the side. “You think?” Ronan certainly was prone to posturing.

“Sure. I mean, I have no doubt that he really does think Valentine’s Day is what he said in there, but I wouldn’t let that put you off doing something, if you wanted to.” Henry waited for a response, and when Adam didn’t offer one, he prompted, “You do want to, don’t you?”

Adam smiled wryly. “Is it that obvious?”

“Only if you know what to look for,” Henry said, but before Adam could think on that too much, he continued. “Look, I don’t know Ronan as well as you do, but even from the outside, it’s clear how he feels about you.”

Feeling himself blush, Adam immediately looked down at the ground. He did know how Ronan felt about him. It was often whispered to him in the middle of the night when it felt like they were the only two people in the world. It just took him off guard to hear it so plainly from someone else.

“Think about it, Adam. Regardless of how Ronan personally feels about what Valentine’s Day stands for, do you really think he’s going to let a day when he’s practically green-lit to be as obnoxious as possible about you just pass him by?” Henry shook his head. “Not the Ronan Lynch I know.”

Well, when it was put that way. “Did he say something to you? Do you know something?”

“Not a thing,” Henry said, and Adam believed him. “It’s just an observation and an educated guess.”

“Huh,” Adam said thoughtfully. He pulled his car keys out of his pocket and tossed them in the air, catching them again, ideas already forming in his head. If Ronan was going to be obnoxious, Adam could be obnoxious too. “Thanks, Henry. I’ll see you tomorrow. Don’t lose my notes.”

“I will try my level best.”

Adam gave himself three rules for Ronan’s Valentine’s gift:

1) It had to be heartfelt.

2) It also had to be in good humour and not take itself too seriously.

3) It had to be cheap.

He was too sensible to spend money he didn’t have on some arbitrary gift Ronan wouldn’t appreciate. Not to mention that Ronan was impossible enough to buy for as it was; firstly he was rich enough to buy himself pretty much anything he might want, and secondly he could literally manifest his dreams. It was going to make future birthdays and Christmas’s an absolute nightmare.

(But what a wonderful problem to have.)

What it all basically meant was that Adam had to go homemade, and given that he had school and work (and Ronan) to work around, he didn’t have a whole lot of time to do it.

He borrowed Gansey’s laptop during lunch-break on Monday at Aglionby and made Ronan a mix-CD of the cheesiest love songs he could think of. It featured such classics as You Make My Dreams by Hall & Oates, Heaven by Bryan Adams, True by Spandau Ballet, and many, many more. It wasn’t even remotely Ronan’s kind of music which made it funny, but as embarrassing as some of the songs might have been, they did actually somewhat echo Adam’s own feelings. He got to be a sap in the guise of it being a joke, and Ronan would get a kick out of it.

Obviously, he also added the Murder Squash Song for good measure.

Next up was a card. He could have bought one — his budget would have allowed it — but all the store ones were godawful and Adam couldn’t even imagine giving one of them to Ronan ironically.

Luckily he had an ace up his sleeve.

The first time that Ronan had stayed over at Adam’s after they were together in the very early days of their relationship, Adam had woken up to a frozen Ronan with a handful of strangely lovely flowers, the exact shade of blue as Adam’s eyes.

Adam had kept them in a cheap vase on the windowsill until they died, but unbeknownst to Ronan, he’d also taken one and pressed it to make a little print; his own private memento.

He was obviously keeping the original for himself, but he took it into the school library a couple of days before Valentine’s Day and scanned it, printing it out on some high quality photo card he’d ‘acquired’ from one of the Art rooms.

Once the ink was dry, he folded it down the middle as carefully as possible and put it inside his heaviest textbook to keep it folded and flat until he got it home.

He spent longer than probably necessary trying to decide what to write, but in the end, he went with:

Ronan,

I think maybe it was always you. I think it always will be. Happy Valentine’s Day (gross).

Love, Adam x

He didn’t have a nice envelope to put it in, so it had to go in a bigger manila one that Adam still had lying around. He slipped both the card and the CD inside, and wrote Ronan’s name in capitals on the outside.

He looked at his offering. It somehow didn’t seem enough.

Valentine’s Day was on Thursday, so on Wednesday— after school but before a shift at Boyd’s— Adam found himself in the kitchen of 300 Fox Way. He’d bought everything he needed to make chocolate brownies before he’d realised he didn’t have a tin in which to cook them in. He was also severely lacking in several other kitchen utensils, to be honest. One panicked phone-call to Blue later, and he had everything he needed and a helping hand.

Well, ‘helping’ was a strong word.

“Why brownies?” Blue asked from where she sat perched on the kitchen table.

“Because brownies are the best,” Adam said, frowning at the recipe he had printed out.

“Alright, can’t argue with that,” Blue said reasonably.

Adam was aware of her watching him while he slowly got out everything he needed and started weighing out ingredients. He felt unreasonably nervous about it, even though he knew that provided he followed the recipe, everything would be fine. Baking was a science, after all, and Adam was good at science.

But looking at it all now with Blue scrutinising his every move, he felt flustered and unmoored.

“I thought you were going to help,” he said pointedly.

“I am helping. I’m supervising,” Blue said.

Adam smiled at that. “I see. Are you the kind of supervisor who can grease this tin for me?”

“I suppose so,” Blue said loftily as she launched herself off the table.

Blue started chattering away after that which helped Adam calm down and focus on what he was doing, and it didn’t take long to make the mixture after that. Adam tilted the pan while Blue used a wooden spoon to scrape the mixture out and into the brownie tin.

After that, they just had to put it in the oven and wait.

Blue brewed up some of Maura’s least offensive tea as they sat and waited, and Adam finally asked what he’d been dying to all week.

“Do you know if Ronan has anything planned?”

Blue smiled and shook her head. “Honestly, Adam, I have absolutely no idea. He hasn’t said a word. I’ve barely seen him though, and never really without you there.” She shrugged. “If he’s got a plan he’s keeping it close to his chest.”

Adam nodded; he’d assumed as much. “I just want to know if I’m doing too much, or not doing enough? I dunno, it’s stupid. It’s only Valentine’s Day.”

“Yeah, but it’s your first Valentine’s Day together,” Blue said, not unkindly. “I get it.”

“What are you and Gansey doing?”

“I made him a card and found him a couple of ‘slovenly’ t-shirts at the thrift store. I’m gonna hazard a guess that he’s getting me flowers, and he told me to keep the evening free so he’s probably taking me somewhere. Wherever it is, it better not be expensive.”

Adam grinned. “Maybe it’s Nino’s.”

“God, don’t even joke, I’d murder him. Again.”

He started to laugh, and after a couple of seconds Blue joined in. When it died down, Blue put her hand on his arm.

“Don’t overthink it, Adam. Ronan will love whatever you give him, because you’re the one it’s coming from. It’s not about the gifts you get or the meal you have or how much money you spend. I think it’s more about the gesture. That’s what’ll mean the most to Ronan.”

Adam managed a small smile. “I hope you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” Blue opened a drawer and gasped, then pulled out a heart-shaped cookie cutter. “Oh my God, Adam, you have to.”

She held out the cookie-cutter towards him and he took it, sighing. “Really?”

“Yes! This way, they’ll all be exactly the same size and I get to eat all the cut-offs. Y’know, as my fee for helping.”

And that’s how Adam ended up with nine perfect little heart-shaped brownies.

Adam didn’t see Ronan that night, thanks to finishing late at Boyd’s and then having homework after.

When he woke up in the morning, he was hit by the realisation that he and Ronan hadn’t even arranged to see each other that day at all.

He half expected Ronan to show up at St Agnes unannounced with a bouquet of dream flowers and some donuts or something. But that didn’t happen, and Adam slowly packed his messenger bag for school, remembering to include the Tupperware of Valentine’s brownies and the envelope with its enclosed card and CD.

He wasn’t sure when he’d be able to give them to Ronan, but it was better to be prepared.

Adam walked down to his car, scanning the parking lot and the street to see if there was any sign of a shark-nosed BMW. But there was nothing, and there was nothing on the way to school, and Adam made it all the way through to lunch without seeing or hearing from Ronan.

Obviously, he had no phone, and Ronan hated his own phone. But Gansey had a phone, and Ronan could have got in touch that way if he had felt so inclined.

Adam didn’t know what he’d been expecting; that Ronan would show up at the Aglionby gates with a boombox over his head blasting out Lionel Richie songs? That he’d get back to his car after school and find out his favourite hooligan had broken in and left him a giant teddy bear and a box of chocolates?

It all seemed stupid now, and Valentine’s Day was stupid, and Adam was irritated that he’d let the pressures of the day get to him. It didn’t matter. It was a meaningless day.

So why did he feel so deflated?

At the end of the day, he caved and asked to borrow Gansey’s phone.

First, he sent a text that said: it’s adam, i’m about to call you so answer the phone

He gave it a minute until he’d seen that Ronan had read the message, and then pressed the call button.

“Parrish,” Ronan said in lieu of a hello.

All at once, like always, Adam was happy to hear Ronan’s voice. And yet he still couldn’t quite shake his irritation, even though the one who’d got his hopes up was himself.

“Hey,” he replied. “Listen, were you planning on coming over tonight?”

“Nope.” It was a little difficult to tell, but Adam thought Ronan’s tone was just a little off. “You come here.”

Adam sighed. “Ronan, I have school tomorrow so I wouldn’t even be able to stay that late. Can’t you just come here?”

There was a long pause. “Opal wants to see you.”

“So bring her with you.”

“Are you kidding, Parrish, she’s filthy. She’ll mess up the interior.”

The BMW wasn’t exactly spotless inside so this seemed a flimsy excuse. Adam started to wonder whether Ronan even wanted to see him at all.

“If you don’t want to see me today that’s fine,” he said, tone clipped.

“I didn’t say that,” Ronan said, tone just as clipped.

It felt like they were heading for a fight. Adam didn’t want to fight. He wanted to give Ronan the stupid sentimental CD he’d made. He wanted Ronan to make fun of him for the brownies. He wanted a hug.

Adam was abruptly exhausted, and it didn’t matter that he’d gone to the effort and Ronan hadn’t. He just wanted to see him.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m gonna go home and shower but then I’ll head over to you.”

“Okay, good. See you in a bit,” Ronan said, and hung up.

The sun was down by the time Adam pulled up at the Barns. The heating in Adam’s car was dodgy enough on a good today, and today wasn’t a good day. It had barely come on, so his hands were like ice as he got out of the car.

He walked straight in when he got there and made his way to the kitchen. He hovered in the doorway; Ronan’s back was to him, a tea towel strewn over one shoulder, straining pasta over the sink.

Adam rapped his knuckles against the door-frame and Ronan turned around.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” Adam replied. “You cooked?”

Ronan shrugged. “It’s just spaghetti.” He gestured to Adam’s messenger bag. “You brought homework with you?”

All that was in the bag was the Valentine’s gifts for Ronan, and he shook his head. “Nope.”

“Okay,” Ronan said with another shrug. “Sit. Let’s eat, I’m starving.”

Adam pulled himself a chair out, and it scraped against the floor noisily in the otherwise quiet. He waited for Ronan to finish serving up and then asked, “Where’s Opal?”

“No idea. Haven’t seen her since this afternoon.”

Adam took a bite of his food. It was good. “I thought you said she wanted to see me.”

“She always wants to see you,” Ronan said smoothly. “I’m sure she’ll turn up when she spots your car.”

They finished eating in near silence, Adam waiting for Ronan to say something— anything— to acknowledge the day. But he didn’t, and the longer the silence dragged, the harder it seemed to break it.

Adam started towards the sink to do the washing up afterwards, but Ronan stopped him with a hand on his arm.

“Just leave it, Parrish.”

“But—”

“Leave them. I’ll do them in the morning.”

Adam sighed, uncomfortable in the tension. He didn’t know what to do now. Did Ronan just want him to leave? And if so, why had he told him to come in the first place?

“Look, do you know what day it is?” Adam asked, unable to take it any longer.

“It’s Thursday,” Ronan said, chin jutted out, arms crossed. Adam glared; Ronan clearly knew exactly what day it was.

“Okay, great,” Adam said tiredly. He opened his bag and pulled out the Tupperware and the envelope. “Happy Valentine’s Day, I guess.”

He put them on the table and stepped away, leaning against the wall and crossing his arms. He watched Ronan’s face, the expression on which had softened immediately. He looked to Adam, stricken.

“Parrish, I—”

“It’s fine, Ronan, just open them.”

Ronan snapped his mouth shut, and pulled the envelope over to him. Adam immediately felt self-conscious about his meagre homemade gifts.

“It’s not much,” he said quickly.

Ronan’s only response to this was a slight furrow in his brow. Then he took the CD out, quirking a smile at Adam’s inscription: LYNCH’S CHEESY LOVE SONG SINGALONG. It was surrounded by lots of hand drawn love-hearts that Adam now thought seemed excessive.

Ronan looked up and raised an eyebrow at Adam, a half-smirk on his face. “No track-list, Parrish?”

“It’s a surprise,” Adam said, smiling weakly, but relieved. “You’ll have to play it to find out.”

“I’ll do that,” he said with a sage nod. He put the CD down and reached for the Tupperware, pulling the lid off and tossing it aside. He looked inside and snorted. “You’ve really stuck with a theme here, huh, Parrish?”

“Hey, Valentine’s Day is all about the hearts, apparently. And to be fair, the heart-shaped brownies are Blue’s fault. She found a cookie-cutter and insisted.”

“She knew about this?” Ronan said.

“Yeah, she helped me make them.”

“That little sneak...” Ronan trailed off and let out a sharp laugh. “I asked her if she knew whether or not you were doing something, and she swore blind she had no idea.”

Adam thought about asking why Ronan had even wanted to know, but instead he pointed at the envelope. “There’s a card in there, as well.”

“In here?” Ronan turned the envelope upside down and the card slipped out into his hand. Adam watched as he took in the flower on the front, smiled a little, then did a double-take, glancing at Adam. “Hold on. Is this what I think it is?”

Adam rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah. I, uh, I pressed one, before they all died. I wanted to keep it, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Ronan said, something akin to awe in his voice. “I dream about them all the time.” He opened the card and read what Adam had written there, then dropped his face into his hands.

“Parrish...” he mumbled. “I feel like a fucking asshole.”

Adam went over and gently pulled the card out of Ronan’s hand, sitting down on Ronan’s lap. Ronan’s arms circled his waist automatically and he tucked his face into Adam’s neck.

“You are a fucking asshole, Lynch. I love you anyway.”

Ronan grumbled something incoherently against Adam’s skin, and Adam smiled. “What was that?”

Ronan lifted his head so he could be heard. “I said I love you right back.”

“Good,” Adam said.

“I thought you’d forgotten. And I didn’t...I didn’t want a big deal, and this day is a fucking joke or whatever, but you didn’t mention anything. And I even thought you might borrow Gansey’s phone and like, text me or something this morning? But then you didn’t and when you finally called me you sounded annoyed and I didn’t know why, and I didn’t even think you wanted to come over. So then you finally got here and you seemed mad, and so I was mad and...I’m sorry. I was here thinking you didn’t give a shit and you made stuff for me?” He hung his head, penitent. “I love my gifts. These lame brownies smell great. I’m fucking sorry, Parrish.”

“Hey.” Adam cupped Ronan’s head in his hands. “It’s fine that you didn’t get me anything. Honestly I think I just let this whole day get into my head as having to mean something when it doesn’t. I don’t need a special day to let you know how I feel. And I’m sorry if I seemed mad. I just didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t mean to make it weird.”

He leaned in and kissed Ronan briefly. “And Lynch, you cooked for me. You made me a whole meal. I’m pretty sure we’re even.” He kissed him again, until Ronan pulled back and covered Adam’s hands with his own.

“Um...you should come with me,” Ronan said, and he almost sounded sheepish.

They stood up and Ronan swiped the mix CD off the table and shoved it in the pocket of his hoodie, before taking Adam’s hand and leading him out the back door.

Confused but intrigued, Adam followed closely behind, clutching tight to Ronan’s fingers. It was cold outside and neither of them had their coats on, which Adam was about to point out when they walked around the corner of the nearest barn and he was rendered speechless by the sight before him.

In the middle of the grass was a small gazebo tent, the base of which was covered in luxurious looking blankets. There was a laptop in the middle of the floor, hooked up to a projector which was pointing at the outer-wall of the barn. A precarious tower of DVDs was piled up next to the laptop; Adam couldn’t see the titles from here but imagined Ronan had assembled a variety of choices. There was a big thermos, contents unknown (coffee? Hot chocolate?), and various other treats; big bags of marshmallows and Hershey’s Kisses and Reese’s Mini Peanut-Butter Cups.

And everywhere, there was light. Ronan’s twinkling little dream lights, some in jars under the gazebo, others hanging in the air, changing colour, like little fireflies.

“Ronan,” Adam finally managed hoarsely. “What the fuck?”

Ronan smirked. “You thought I hadn’t done anything.”

“Uh, yeah, because you let me think that!” Adam said. He was struggling to process how cosy and romantic it all looked. Let it never be said that Ronan Lynch wasn’t an absolute sap.

“I didn’t let you think anything, you jumped to that conclusion all on your own.”

Adam scowled. “Now I feel like a fucking asshole.”

“Don’t,” Ronan said, pressing a kiss to Adam’s temple. “Anyway, this is nothing.”

“It is so far from nothing,” Adam said. He stepped forward and took a turn around, taking everything in as he walked in a slow circle, stopping when he was facing Ronan again. “I thought Valentine’s Day was capitalistic bullshit?”

“Oh, it is,” Ronan said happily. “But for one, I didn’t spend a penny. And two, a whole day where I can spoil you as much as I want to and you don’t get to complain about it? Sign me the fuck up for that.”

Adam burst out laughing. “You’ve just reminded me of something Henry said.”

“What did he say?”

“I told him that I wasn’t sure whether or not you’d do anything because we hadn’t talked about it, and he said, and I quote: ‘do you really think he’s going to let a day when he’s practically green-lit to be as obnoxious as possible about you just pass him by?’”

Ronan was grinning now. “Cheng’s pretty smart.”

“Yeah,” Adam said. He caught one of the floating lights in his hand and then let it go again. “Just for the record, I think your dreaming abilities give you an unfair advantage when it comes to stuff like this.”

“Excuse you, Parrish, the only thing I dreamt up was the blankets because they’re heated. Oh, and the projector. And the gazebo. But that’s it.”

“‘That’s it’, he says.” Adam rolled his eyes, then accusingly added, “You dreamt up the lights.”

“Well, yeah, but not for this. I already had those. And the food was stuff I already had in the house, and the DVDs are ones I already own. I didn’t want to go overboard.”

Adam stared. “You are ridiculous,” he said, shaking his head. “Come here.”

Ronan went, without question or hesitation, and Adam wrapped his arms around his neck.

“This is the sweetest thing anybody’s ever done for me,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Ronan whispered, kissing a line up Adam’s neck and across his face, the tip of his nose, his forehead, “for the brownies, for what you wrote in the card...Jesus, Adam. It’s the same for me. You know that, right? It’s always you.”

Adam squeezed tighter, feeling dangerously overcome. He breathed in the familiar, comforting smell of Ronan, and then released his grip. “And for the CD, obviously,” he said.

“Of course,” Ronan said, and smiled sharply. “Speaking of...” He pulled it out of his pocket and walked over to his laptop. “I’ll let you pick a movie in a bit, but first, I wanna listen to my present.”

He popped the CD into the drive and pressed a couple of buttons on the mouse, and a moment later the opening track started to play: I Wanna Dance With Somebody by Whitney Houston.

Ronan laughed, once, soundlessly, then came back over to Adam and held his hand out.

“Well?” he said when Adam didn’t move. “Are you dancing?”

Adam grinned. “Are you asking?”

“I’m asking.”

“Then I’m dancing.” He took Ronan’s hand and together they swayed, far too slowly for a song this upbeat, but Ronan didn’t seem to mind, and Adam certainly didn’t.

They didn’t speak while they were dancing, both perhaps a little shaken at the near-miss of an argument, both relieved they hadn’t let it get that far. Both content to be in each other’s company, away from prying eyes and expectations.

It was still early days. They were still learning how to do this, navigating firsts and futures and each other, but they were both quick studies, and Adam couldn’t think of anything more worthwhile than building a foundation— and a life— with Ronan.

There were trickier days to come, but for now, they’d survived their first Valentine’s Day as a couple. As they lay curled together in a blanket watching The Princess Bride projected onto the side of a barn, Adam thought he’d have to mark this one down as a win.

“Happy Valentine’s Day, Parrish,” Ronan whispered into Adam’s hair.

“Ugh,” Adam said, and kissed him. “Happy Thursday.”

#the raven cycle #pynch #tumblr prompts #lesbianparrish #adamparrishes #trc

275 notes · View notes

moodycastiel-writes · 6 years ago

Text

sacrifice

summary: reader undertakes the trials to close the gates of hell in sam’s place. this is a little au that takes place during the season eight finale!

pairing: sister!reader and winchesters

warnings: angst. lots and lots of angst. foul language. y’know, the usual. there’s not a happy ending with this one. please don’t hate me (:

author’s note: i wasn’t originally going to write the confession, but i had a lot of ideas on how to establish a relationship between reader and the brothers, and i felt having her confess to her sins would make her more of an empathetic character. so yes, this is a small au that i had in mind where reader is sam & dean’s older sister who does the trials instead of sam. (((oh, also, cas does end up believing metatron and him and naomi kill metatron so the angels never fall.))) ((double also, crowley calls reader ‘fatale’, which is a rocky and bullwinkle reference, since he calls sam and dean moose and squirrel. just wanted to throw that out there in case anyone was confused to that reference!)) anywho, yeah, i hope y’all enjoy!!

——————————————————————————————————

You could hear your blood pounding in your ears as you stood at vestibule of the run-down church, your shaking hand loosely holding on to the can of red spray paint, eyes trained on the devil’s trap you painted. This was it. Everything that has happened this past year is finally coming to an end.

You let out an uneven breath as the doors opened gently, the heavy footsteps of your brothers approaching you with caution.

“Do you have him?” you asked, not bothering to lift your tired eyes to meet them.

“Yeah,” Sam spoke, a level of uncertainty to his voice. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I have to,” you answered, turning around curtly and brushing past Sam and Dean, leaving the church as you neared the Impala. It was only a few moments before they were both at your side again, the hot sun doing little to warm the permanent chill that settled into your soul when you first started the trials.

“We should get started,” you said, turning to Dean, “the sooner the better.”

Dean nodded his head and smiled at you, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He opened the trunk and pulled out a handcuffed Crowley, completely at your disposal. Dean walked the demon into the church to get him ready, leaving you alone with Sam.

“How are you holding up?” he asked you as you grabbed the jar of holy oil from the back seat.

“Fine,” you responded, an unintentional iciness to your voice. “I’ll be better when this is all over.”

Dean walked back outside to meet you and Sam, wiping his hands on his pants. “Crowley’s all prepped and primed,” he turned to look at you, “How we feeling about this?”

“Honestly?” you asked, looking between your younger brothers, “Good. Better than what I have in a while. I think we’re finally going to win. This is all going to be over,” you sighed, a ghost of a smile appearing on your face for the first time in a long while.

Sam clapped a hand on your shoulder, but Dean cleared his throat behind you two. “All right, well, no dancing in the end zone until we're finished. What's the good father's playbook say now?”

You looked around the outside of the church eyes falling over the stained-glass windows. “Well... Now that we got the consecrated ground, I just, uh,” you cleared your throat, “I slip Crowley one dose of blood every hour for eight hours and seal the deal with a bloody-fist sandwich. That oughta do it.”

“Your blood's supposed to be purified, isn't it?” Dean remembered, “You ever, uh -- you ever done the ‘forgive me, father’ before?”

You shook your head, gaze dropping to the ground. “No, never. I have no idea what I should even say,” you admitted.

A thousand things were running through your head. All the countless times you’ve fucked up over the years. From the second your mother burned on the ceiling of Sam’s nursery to now, there was so many things you could confess. All the lies and betrayals, the murders and all the innocent people you’ve let die. Tears pricked your eyes, but you cleared your throat and blinked them away.

“Well, I could give you some suggestions,” Dean tried.

“O-okay, yeah. Sure,” anything could help.

“Alright,” he glanced at Sam, who had a disapproving look on his face. “Well, there was the whole siding with the demons thing. Or, um, ditching me when we were in Purgatory. Saying yes to Michael. Oh, also—”

“I get it!” you cut him off, not believing all the things he was currently throwing in your face. A wave of guilt washed over you, and an unsettling silence washed over you three.

“Well, we’re not getting any younger,” you finally said, passing Sam the jar of holy oil before making your way to the church.

“Hey!” Dean called after you, “Maybe open what you did to Penny Markle? In the sixth grade?”

You shot him a confused look, “That was you.”

Dean paused, the memory of what he did to poor Penny coming back to him. Clearing his throat, he waved you off. “Nevermind! Carry on.”

You rolled your eyes at him and made your way back into the church, closing the door behind you. You did you best to ignore Crowley’s eyes following your every move as you walked into the confession room, taking a seat on the bench.

“Okay,” you let out a shaky breath, “if anyone is listening, here we go.” You paused, your eyes screwing shut tightly. “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.” A cool blast of wind rushed by you, ruffling through your hair. You took it as a sign that someone, somewhere was listening, and continued on. “I have made a lot of mistakes. I have so many regrets, so many sins, that I don’t even know where to begin. I watched my brothers die, so many times, for what? To fulfill some stupid prophecy? I should have protected them. I—” you stumbled on your words, tears threatening to fall from your eyes.

You wiped at your face and continued on. “I never should have let Dean sell his soul for Sam. It should have been me. I was supposed to do everything I could to protect those boys. If I just strapped on a pair, Dean never would have went to hell, and the seals never would have been broken. This is all my fault. I have to fix it.” The tears were falling freely down your face now, but you didn’t care enough to wipe them away. “I shouldn’t have let Sam ever say yes to Lucifer. I could have said yes. He never would have gone to Hell and lost his soul. It’s all on me.”

You took in another shaky breath, trying to calm down. “Leaving Dean alone in Purgatory… I don’t even know what I was thinking. I was so stupid,” you let out a humorless laugh. “I thought I was doing my best to protect him, but deep down I was trying to get away from him. From Sam. I caused so much pain in their lives, that it would be better if I just disappeared from their lives all together.

“But those things I’ve confessed, those sins I’ve committed, they’re not even the icing on the cake. I have so many things just piling up that I could sit here forever, but I don’t have enough time. My greatest sin, the tip of the iceberg… What I want forgiveness from the most is how,” your voice broke as you choked back a sob. “My greatest sin is how many times I’ve let my brothers down.”

An ache settled in your chest as you confessed what you never thought you’d say out loud in a million years. Another breeze of wind brushed past you, and you took it as a sign that your confession was over. You wiped your face, leaving behind all the traces of your confession in that booth and stepped out, your guilt weighing on your soul heavier than before.

Crowley stared at you with a smug look on his face, no doubt he heard everything you had just said. Eyeing a roll of duct tape on the table with your gun, the needle, and holy water, you grabbed it and ripped a piece off, tightly taping the demon’s mouth shut.

“Not a word,” you sneered, walking out of the church. You saw Sam and Dean talking with Castiel at the Impala in hushed tones. You couldn’t make out what they were saying from the distance you were at, and crept closer to them to make something out.

“—You’re asking us to leave her, Cas. Now, if anybody needs a chaperone while doing all the heavy lifting, it’s [y/n]” you were able to make out from Dean’s whispering. His confession about you was like a slap in the face. Did he really not trust you that much? Thinking you needed a chaperone for everything you did?

“You should you,” you announced, startling your brothers. You knew Cas was aware of your presence, and did nothing to acknowledge him.

They turn to look at you, a guilty look on their faces. “Seriously,” you added, not wanting to continue this conversation.

“Yeah, and leave you alone with the King of Hell? Really?”

You frowned at Dean, not understanding why he can’t trust you to do this one thing. Did he really expect so little of you where he is always prepared for you to fuck up and need someone to clean up your mess?

“Yes, really,” you snapped. You ignored the look of hurt that crossed over his face. “You two can’t do anything to help me. This is on me. I think I can get through one little thing without fucking it up.”

“[Y/n], you know that’s not what this is about,” Sam said gently. “It’s not that we don’t trust you. We don’t trust Crowley.”

“Crowley is bound to where he sits,” you argued, “nothing, not even the king of Hell, can get through both a devil’s trap and the chains we have him in.”

“Fine,” Dean said, “Start the injections now. If we’re not back in eight hours, finish it, no questions, no hesitation.”

“Yeah,” was all you responded. Castiel placed a hand on each of your brother’s shoulders and with the flap of his wings he was gone, leaving you alone at the church. With a heavy sigh, you made your way back into the building, facing Crowley. His words to you were muffled under the duct tape, but that didn’t stop him from blabbing. With a roll of your eyes, you ripped the tape off of his mouth, ignoring his wince of pain.

“You really think injecting me with human blood is gonna make me human? Did you read that on the back of a cereal box?”

You ignored the demon as you picked up the needle, pushing it into the vein in your arm. You drew enough blood and slowly ejected it, and walked over to Crowley.

“Are you listening to me, brat?”

“Shut up,” you sneered, thrusting the needle into his neck. He howled in pain as you yanked the needle away.

“You're miles out of your league, kid,” Crowley barked at you as you turned your back on him.

“See you in an hour,” you called over your shoulder, walking to the table at the altar. Your arms began to glow that golden color that always appeared after you completed the trials. Why was it showing up now? You bit back your pain, your hands forming into tight fists, waiting for the pain to go away. When the light finally faded from your veins, you let out a breath of relief and sunk to the ground, your back resting against the altar. You looked up at the cracked statue of Jesus on the cross and closed your eyes, waiting for your watch to beep, signalling the next round of injections.

—————————————————————————————————————

When your watched finally beeped after an agonizingly long hour, your were up on your feet as fast as you could get, the needle already in your hand. You ejected more blood from your veins into the syringe and made your way back over to Crowley, who looked at you with a mischievous glint in his eyes. You ignored the look in his eyes and issued the second dose of injections into his neck. In the blink of an eye, Crowley’s head turned and his teeth sank into your forearm, hard enough to draw blood.

“What the fuck!” you exclaimed in pain, drawing your arm back and clutching the new wound in pain. You gave him an exasperated look before punching the demon across the face. “Seriously? Biting? What are we, five?”

You shook your head as you walked away from him, placing the needle back onto the table. You spared Crowley another bitch-face as you walked out of the church, slamming the door behind you. You walked to the trunk of the Impala and grabbed bandages to wrap up your arm. As you secured the bandages, your arms began to glow again, and you fell to the rubble on your knees.

“Stop it,” you groaned as the light grew brighter. “Please.”

Finally, the light faded again, leaving you struggling to get a grip on your breathing. With struggle, you turned your body to sit upright against the Impala, your head falling back, staring at the sky. The sun had begun to set in the distance, the sky painted with beautiful sparks of color.

“I can do this,” you whispered determined to yourself, “I can do this.”

—————————————————————————————————————

Another hour had passed by and you made your way back into the church, stuffing more bandages in your pocket before doing so. At the sound of the door opening and closing, you heard Crowley chuckle.

“How we doin’, Fatale? Ready for another round of injections?” he asked, a joyous tune to his voice. You ignored him and filled the syringe with another dose of your blood.

“Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes,” he began singing, you instantly recognizing the David Bowie song, “turn and face the strange. Ch-ch-changes, just gonna have to be a different man. Time may change me, but I can't trace—”

His singing was cut off by a loud sound, the church beginning to rumble. You quickly turned to face Crowley who seemed unfazed by the sudden shock to the church.

“What did you do?” you shouted at him over the sound of the quake. He remained stoic, but the hint of a devilish smirk rose to his face. The floorboards began to creak under your feet, a large crack running down until it severed the devil’s trap that you painted right down the center.

“Did you really think you could kidnap the King of Hell and no one was gonna notice, dumb nuts?”

An expression of fury and fear took over your features as the door to the church were ripped open, Abbadon revealing herself on the other side of the door.

“Now that’s what I call an entrance,” she gloated, patting herself on the back.

“Abbadon?” Crowley questioned. “They told me you were dead.”

“So not.”

“Where’s the rest of the cavalry?”

“It’s just little ol’ unkillable me,” she smirked. You turned quickly, reaching for your discarded gun, but with a wave of her hand, Abbadon sent you flying across the church and into the wall, your head slamming against the wood. You groaned as you landed on your stomach, your vision going blurry.

“Brilliant. Why send in a few grunts when you can send in a knight? Say your prayers, Fatale,” Crowley smirked. You tried to get up, but the Knight waved her hand again and sent you through the stained glass window to your right, immediately falling unconscious.

—————————————————————————————————————

When you came back to, it took you a minute to remember what had happened. You scrambled to your feet, hoping not a lot of time had passed in your impromptu siesta. Looking around for a weapon that you could use against Abbadon, your eyes settled on the jar of holy oil you had given to Sam. He must of left it for you, in cast of an emergency. You let out a silent thank you and patted your jacket pockets, striking gold when you felt your father’s lighter in your pocket.

You crept to the entrance of the church where the doors were still open and peered inside, eyes landing on Abbadon hovering over Crowley. You snuck inside, careful to step around any loose pieces of wood to prevent any unnecessary noises to alert your presence.

“Right now, you and I are going to talk about a regime change,” Abbadon said, crouching down to send another punch to Crowley’s face.

“You little whore,” he barked, “I am your king!”

She punched him again, this time hard enough to shut him up. When she went to stand back up, you ran forward and threw the holy oil over her body.

“Burn, bitch,” you spat, throwing the lighter on her. You watched with a smirk as her body lit up in flames and she screamed in pain as her vessel burned. Her mouth opened wide and she exited the body before any further harm was done to her, and she escaped the church in a flash of black smoke.

Without wasting any time, you made work of picking Crowley back up and fixing the chair so it was back in the devil’s trap. He groaned as he came back to consciousness, watching you with a glint of something… admiration, maybe? to his eyes.

“You did good back there, Fatale,” he congratulated you. “I'll deny it if you ever quote me, but I'm a proud man. I'm proud of you.”

You ignored his comment, instead focused on gabbing the can of spray paint you left on the table to fix the trap where it broke.

“Wait, what are you doing?” he asked.

“What does it look like?” you snapped, overly agitated at the events that had just transpired. You finished up the devil’s trap and threw the can to the side, it clattering to the ground noisily.

“Are you joking?” he asked, incredulously. “I just saved your life!”

“Seriously?” you dead-panned.

“Seriously? Me, seriously? We just shared a foxhole, you and I. We beat back the Tet Offensive, outrun the --the Rape of Nanking together! And still you're gonna do me like this?!”

You ignored his tangent and grabbed the needle, filling it up with your blood and jamming it into his neck before he could get another word in.

“Aah! Aah!” he exclaimed in pain, before a whole new emotion washed over him. “Band of Brothers? The Pacific?” he asked. “None of this means anything to you? All those motels, you never once watched HBO, not once?” You shook your head at him, confused at where he was going. “Girls? You're my Marnie, Fatale. A-and Hannah, she just—she needs to be loved. She deserves it. Don't we all—you, me; we deserve to be loved. I deserve to be loved!” he shouted, before lowering his voice back down to a whisper, “I just want to be loved.”

You cocked your head the the demon. “What?” you asked.

A confused look washed over him, and his expression mirrored yours. “What?”

As the moment of Crowley’s tangent passed, a wave of fatigue passed over you. The pain of where the needle was injecting into you suddenly took a toll on you. You walked back over to the table and placed it down, grabbing the spare bandages from your pocket. You wrapped where the puncture wounds were tightly, wishing right about now you had some extra strength tylenol. You took more blood from your opposite arm, wanted to be prepared for the next dose of injections just in case something else was going to happen.

“Would it be possible, Fatale, I’d like to ask you a favor,” Crowley spoke, his voice sounded drained and exhausted. “[Y/n], earlier you were confessing back there, and… well, I didn’t hear much, not really, so I’d like to know what you said.” You gave him a look that read ‘that’ll never happen.’ At the sight of your expression, he instantly clarified his statement. “ I only ask because, given my history...it raises the question... Where do I start...to even look for forgiveness? I mean…” he trailed off.

You paused, shocked at the revelation. The cure, it was working.

“You start with this.”

You held the needle out in your hand, showing him what you meant. Crowley tilts his head to the side, exposing his neck where the marks of the past injections were. You gently pushed the needle through at his submission, and unlike the past ones, he showed no signs of pain, but rather contentment.

“This is going to work, Crowley,” you reassured. “You’re going to be cured, and you’ll be redeemed. I promise.”

A gust of wind blasted through the church, and your arms began to glow again, but this time there was no pain. “We’re almost done,” you whispered, not sure Crowley even heard you. “It’s time.”

You took a deep breath and began the exorcism, the final piece to purify him. “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, hanc animam redintegra, lustra.”

As you pulled your knife from its holder, the light grew brighter, and you sliced across your palm. You walked closer to Crowley, and as you were about to feed him your blood, footsteps barreled through the church.

“[Y/n]! Stop!,” you turned at the noise, coming face to face with the worried looks of your brothers. You backed up from them, your hip bumping into the arm of Crowley’s chair, a confused expression on your face.

“Easy there,” Sam coaxed gently, putting his hands up. “Take a deep breath.”

“There’s been a slight change of plans,” Dean said, slightly more aggressive than Sam.

“What? What’s going on?” you asked. “Where’s Cas?”

“Metatron lied,” Sam explained. “Him and Naomi are going to confront him.”

You shook your head at him, still not understanding what was going on.

“You finish these trials, you’re dead,” Dean said bluntly, trying to get you to understand what was happening. You looked between your two brothers, then back at Crowley. You scoffed and shook your head, looking back to face them.

“So?” you said, your voice slightly breaking.

Sam and Dean’s faces melted from worry to an emotion you couldn’t place, but it was somewhere along the lines of hurt and betrayal. Betrayal. Even now, after you’ve confessed and sought forgiveness, you were still letting your brothers down in ways you couldn’t stop. It had to stop. Finishing these trials with your death, it’ll all stop.

“Look at him!” you exclaimed, pointing down to Crowley. “Look at him! Look at how close we are! Other people will die if I don't finish this! Who cares about me?”

You could feel the tears pricking at your eyes, but you ignored the sensation. Dean took a small step forward, his brow creasing. “Think about it. Think about what we know, huh? Pulling souls from hell, curing demons, hell, ganking a Hellhound! We have enough knowledge on our side to turn the tide here. But we can't do it without you.”

“You can barely do it with me,” you fired back immediately. The confused look on his face egged you to continue. “I mean, you think I screw up everything I try. You think I need a chaperone, remember?” you couldn’t help the single tear that fell from your eyes as your voice cracked on the last word.

Sam frowned. “That’s not what he meant—”

“No, that’s exactly what he meant!” you exclaimed, cutting him off. You let out a humorless chuckle. “You want to know what I confessed in there?” you asked, pointing to the confession booth with the hand that you didn’t cut. “Do you want to know what my ultimate sin was? The thing that held me down the most?”

When neither of them answered, you continued. “My greatest sin was—is— how many times I’ve let the two of you down. I can’t keep doing it. Not again. Finishing this, it’ll end it all.”

“[Y/N]—” Sam tried, but you continued talking.

You held back a sob as the tears finally began falling. “You two don’t trust me anymore, I can see it in the way you look at me. Like I need one of you with me at all times. You haven’t trusted me in a long time, and it took me awhile to realize it, but now that I have I feel so fucking stupid for not seeing it before.” Another humorless laugh escaped your lips.

“I know I’ll never earn your trust back, there’s nothing else I can do to prove that I love you both more than anything. You don’t see it, and I’m tired. I’m so fucking tired of watching you guys turn to other people when you get sick of me.” At their confused expressions, you elaborated. “Who will it be next? Another demon? Another angel? Another vampire?” You shook your head.

“You have no idea what it feels like to see the two people you thought—”

“Hold on, hold on!” Dean cut you off, finally breaking you from your tangent.

“You seriously think that?” Sam questioned, taking a step forward to be back in-line with his brother. “Because none of it, none of it is true.”

“Listen, [Y/n],” Dean began, “I know we’ve had our disagreements, all of us, okay? Hell, I know I have said some really fucked up things to get you thinking the way you are but you need to understand… I killed Benny to save you. I'm willing to let this bastard and all the sons of bitches that killed mom walk because of you. Don't you dare think that there is anything, past or present, that I would put in front of you! It has never been like that, ever! I need you to see that. I'm begging you.”

Your shoulders slumped at his confession, and the tears fell faster from your eyes. You looked between Sam and Dean, then down at your bleeding hand, and in a split second you made your decision. You turned and brought your hand up to Crowley’s mouth, and instantaneously you felt him drinking your blood. The pounding in your ears resumed, and you barely heard Sam shouting words of protest behind you.

You pulled your hand away, and the light erupted throughout your entire body. “Kah-nuh-ahm-dahr,” you whispered. Crowley let out a gasp, his eyes flicking to his demonic red, then faded completely back to his human eye color.

“It worked,” you laughed, turning to face your brothers. They looked at you with wide eyes, not daring to move. You had no time to celebrate your victory of the trials, instead a large rumbling echoed throughout the church, and the ground began to crack again.

This time, underneath the cracks in the ground, a hellish light peeked through, eating away at the floorboards. A hole opened up underneath your feet and you jumped back far enough to the edge, opposite of your brothers as your watched with wide eyes as black smoke broke through all the windows of the church, glass shattering everywhere. The sound of hundreds, if not thousands, of demons screamed as they were forced back into hell against their will. The wind picked up harshly and you were thrown back from the portal to hell, losing the sight of Sam and Dean through the smoke.

When every last demon was through the portal, it closed up tightly, no signs of what had just happened anywhere. When the smoke cleared and the dust settled, you looked across to your brothers, a smile creeping up on your face.

“I did it,” you whispered, pinching yourself to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

Your heart hammered in your chest and you groaned at the pressure, stammering back an inch. Immediately, Sam and Dean were at your side as your legs began to give out, helping you to the ground. “I did it,” you repeated, your voice getting weaker, your eyelids becoming heavier.

“Yeah, [Y/N],” Sam sniffled, “you did it.” He gripped your hand tightly, squeezing it in his large one.

You smiled weakly up at him, using what little strength you had to squeeze his hand back. You looked to your other side to Dean, whose eyes were red-rimmed.

“I’m s-sorry,” you whispered at him, at the both of them.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Dean said, finally looking over your pale form.

“You have to… you have to promise me,” you croaked out, struggling to get out your final words. You coughed, doubling over as it overpowered you. Raising your free hand to your mouth, you coughed up blood into it. “No bringing me back,” you finally said. “I’m at peace.”

“You can’t ask us to do that,” Sam said. You turned to look back at him, smiling sadly at him. You grabbed Dean’s hand with your free hand, feeling your last breaths creep up on you. You could have sworn you’d seen a person standing over Sam’s shoulder, but they had disappeared before your vision could focus.

“I love you both, so much,” you whispered, you eyes falling shut. Your grip on your brothers’ hands loosened, and your chest stopped rising and falling. Your head lulled to the side, your body completely still.

You stood over your two brothers, holding your body in their arms as they wept for you. A cold hand rested on your shoulder, and you turned around with a gasp.

“Tessa,” you said, staring at the reaper.

“[Y/N],” she greeted, a welcoming smile on her face. “It’s time.”

You nodded your head and she stuck out her hand. You spared one last look at your baby brothers, and grabbed her hand in yours, your soul leaving Earth to face judgement. You did not know where you were going to end up, if your final quest was good enough to outweigh all the shit you’ve done in your life.

You knew that Sam and Dean would be okay. They always were without you.

#supernatural #supernatural one shot #supernatural imagine #supernaturalimagine #supernatural x reader #dean winchester #dean x reader #Sam Winchester #sam x reader #sister!reader

97 notes · View notes

bottlepiecemuses · 5 years ago

Text

kaidos inspiration is the shuten doji and his crew shares his oni theme

kaido resembles the modern day oni) (the horns, and the thing that kaido wears resembles what onis wear, the loincloth and the bracelets onis are depicted with kaidos spiked bracelets

en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Oni there is the expression “oni with an iron club” (鬼に金棒 oni-ni-kanabō?), that is, to be invincible or undefeatable. It can also be used in the sense of “strong beyond strong”, (matches kaidos description and equivalent to kaidos strongest creature title) or having one’s natural quality enhanced or supplemented by the use of some tool. ) for it was said no one could kill him and that he is the strongest creature on land , sea and air

and the fortress of the oni in the momonosuke story resembles the place we saw where the guy called for kaido.

in its shape they are the same

kaidos island and the demon island that momotaro went to in the story have the same name Onigashima.

Kaido’s characteristics such as his weapon, appearance, position as King of Onigashima (for being “king of ogres/demons”), also corresponds to the character of Shuten-Dōji and Momotarō legend in which orges of Onigashima were defeated by Momotarō and three animals, a possible inspiration source of Momonosuke ( who gotten the help of luffy (monkey) and inuarashi the dog only the pheasant is missing but japanese phoenixes have the head of pheasants so marco could represent the pheasant) ,

or the monkey, dog, and pheasant could be luffy, garp ( who wore a dog mask) and his ship had a dog on the helm and was one of the people who took down the original rocks pirates ) and dragon opforum . net/threads/wanos-new-monster-trio . 96982/

Tama (Her unnamed Devil Fruit power seems to be based on Momotarō of Japanese folklore, who also used kibi dango to recruit his three beastly retainers: a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant. So far, Tama is known to have befriended two of the same three types of animals that Momotarō has; only the pheasant is missing) , and her befriended animals.

The word “oni” is sometimes speculated to be derived from on, the on'yomi reading of a character (隠) meaning to hide or conceal, as oni were originally invisible spirits or gods which caused disasters, disease, and other unpleasant things. These nebulous beings could also take on a variety of forms to deceive (and often devour) humans. Thus the Chinese character 鬼 (pinyin: guǐ; Jyutping: gwai2) meaning “ghost” came to be used for these formless creatures.

and kaido representing an oni since moriah coveted the corpse of oars and oars jr who resembled an oni (onis skin may be any number of colors, but red and blue are particularly common.)

and kaidos top 3 guys are called the calamities/disasters ( which basically mean the same thing)

the more accurate translation

jack the drought (unpleasant things , queen the plague (diseases) , king the wildfire ( disaster) all three of their epitaphs reference something onis bring

oni are said to crush and destroy humans solely for enjoyment carry out horrible punishments (kaido boiled oden) and make up armies of the great generals of the underworld(the zoan army)

They all possess two horns on their head, much like Kaido, and two of them carry a spiked club similar to Kaido’s kanabō, thus giving them traits similar to those of the legendary oni

The invisible oni eventually became anthropomorphized and took on its modern, ogre-like form, partly via syncretism with creatures imported by Buddhism, such as the Indian rakshasa and yaksha, the hungry ghosts called gaki, and the devilish underlings of Enma-Ōwho punish sinners in Jigoku (Hell).They share many similarities with the Arabian Jinn.

Doflamingo’s title was “Heavenly Yaksha” and it would fit for him to work for a guy who represents an oni like how he represents a yaksha and oniare portrayed as having massive size

and kaido was shown with an iron club

kaido doesnt just allude to oni in general but specifically to the shuten doji the king of the oni who had a fondness for alcohol and went on drunken rages

en . wikipedia . org /wiki/Shuten-d%C5%8Dji

There is a proverb in Japan Oni no Me nimo Namida (鬼の目にも涙 Even ogres/demons shed tears.?), meaning “even the hardest of hearts can be moved to tears”. This also fits to Kaido’s side to be a maudlin drinker and pitied for Doflamingo.

Kaido (怪童 “Mysterious Kid?) or Kaidomaru (怪童丸?) are also old names for both Shuten-Dōji and Sakata no Kintoki in their youths

about shuten doji( 酒呑童子 or 朱点童子 )

en . wiktionary . org/wiki/%E6%9C%B1#Kanji

Shutendoji is made with the character ‘sake’ … (酒呑童子) the word "sake” (酒, “liquor”, also pronounced shu)

nihongoichiban . com/2011/07/02/%E9%85%92/

and kaido was drinking from a sake gourd

and the kanji for “Ten” was written on the bottle which kaido was drinking

天

en . wiktionary . org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9

the word “sake” (酒, “liquor”, also pronounced shu)

There are three monsters who are considered the greatest and most evil yokai in all of Japanese folklore: the ghost of Emperor Sutoku, the nine-tailed kitsune Tamamo no Mae, andthe dreaded king of the oni, Shuten dōji. He met another demon child like him, named Ibaraki dōji (most likely inspiration for 1st mate of kaido), who became his chief servant. Over time, the young man and his gang gradually transformed into oni, and eventually he had a whole clan of oni (beast pirates ) and yokai thugs who prowled the highways, terrorizing the people of Kyoto in a drunken rage. He and his gang eventually settled on Mount Ōe, where, in a dark castle, he plotted to conquer the capital and rule as emperor. Finally, a band of heroes led by the legendary warrior Minamoto no Yorimitsu managed to defeat

the kanji for “Ten” was written on the bottle which kaido was drinking which combined with shu gets shuten

en . wiktionary . org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9

It has been said that Shuten-dōji was the strongest oni of Japan. Academic folklorist Kazuhiko Komatsu (ja) has counted Shuten-dōji among the three most feared yōkai in medieval Kyoto, alongside the vixen Tamamo-no-Mae and the demon Ōtakemaru (ja).

shuten doji wasnt born an oni

Shuten dōji was a troublesome orphan child. He was very strong and very smart; so much so that people believed his father must have been a demon or a dragon (some stories has shuten dojis father be the 8 headed dragon yamato no orochi ( sometimes its depicted as a dragon in others its depicted as a snake. and he later became an oni

folklorethursday . com/legends/three-evil-yokai-japan/#sthash.EtH9NC71.dpbs

kaido as a drunk dragon going on a revelation

and kinemon has a hatred for dragons plus this supports so it fits that kaido ate the dragon df it reflect the parts in shuten dojis story where they were connecting shuten doji to dragons.

Kaido’s habits to favor alcohol and to lose self controls are similar to the legend of Yamata no Orochi, a famous hydra like dragon and incarnation of floods, or a god of mountains and rivers in Japanese mythology (Yamata no Orochi (八岐大蛇 (ヤマタノオロチ), “8-branched giant snake”) or Orochi (大蛇), is a legendary 8-headed and 8-tailed Japanese dragon so in depictions the yamata no orochi is sometimes portrayed as a snake and sometimes its depicted as a dragon where a character who is supposed to allude to the orochi can have a snake theme )i, and Shuten-Dōji, lord of demons and bandits who was slain by famous Shitennō

and some storys connect shuten doji to the yamata no orochi and orochi from one piece works for kaido (both the shuten doji and yamata no orochi possessed a matchless thirst for sake (some say orochi fathered shuten doji

and Both Yamata no Orochi and Shuten-Dōji were slain by being incapacitated with alcohol. and their heads being cut off

the yamata no orochi was killed by susanoo the storm god ( and roronoa zoro has multiple storm based attacks) by susanoo getting all of yamata no orochis heads intoxicated to the point it fell asleep and while it was asleep susanoo killed it so sake played a part in its demise

en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Yamata_no_Orochi

So His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness, at once taking and changing the young girl into a multitudinous and close-toothed comb which he stuck into his august hair-bunch, said to the Deities Foot-Stroking-Elder and Hand-Stroking-Elder: “Do you distill some eight-fold refined liquor. Also make a fence round about, in that fence make eight gates, at each gate tie [together] eight platforms, on each platform put a liquor-vat, and into each vat pour the eight-fold refined liquor, and wait.” So as they waited after having thus prepared everything in accordance with his bidding, the eight-forked serpent came truly as [the old man] had said, and immediately dipped a head into each vat, and drank the liquor. Thereupon it was intoxicated with drinking, and all [the heads] lay down and slept. Then His-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness drew the ten-grasp sabre, that was augustly girded on him, and cut the serpent in pieces, so that the River Hi flowed on changed into a river of blood. So when he cut the middle tail, the edge of his august sword broke

maybe odens sword ame-no habakiri will end up breaking

The Ame no Habakiri (天羽々斬あめのはばきり Ame no Habakiri?, literally meaning “Snake-Slayer of Heaven”) is one of the most famous Totsuka no Tsurugi, appearing in Japanese mythology as a blade used by the Shinto god Susanoo to slay the legendary monster serpent Yamata no Orochi. “Haba” (羽々?) is an archaic term for “big snake” (orochi).

maybe zoro will end up being given the ame no habakiri after he kills orochi and the sandai kitetsu breaks to signify his status as the person who killed orochi

and for shuten doji

The gods give Raikō the “sake [which is] divine elixir, poisonous to demons” (神便鬼毒酒, jinben kidoku shu)[l] which will rob the ogres of their ability to fly and stupefy them

As in the oldest text, Raikō’s party pretending to be yamabushiascetics gains entry at Shuten-dōji’s dwelling-place. Raikō disarms the ogre’s suspicion by explaining that they as yamabushi follow the ways of En no Gyōja who he says was compassionate and hospital towards demons.[35] The warriors drink up the blood sake and heartily eat the human flesh in order to gain furthter confidence.[36] At the height of the drunken revelry, Raikō offers Shuten-dōji the divine sake poisonous to demons.[37] Shuten-dōji begins to tell his life story (he is originally from Echigo Province according to this text), and also recounts how his henchman Ibaraki-dōji lost an arm in an encounter with Tsuna, one of Raikō’s men.[n][38]

As in the older text, the warriors equip their hidden armor and swords and raid Shuten-dōji in his sleeping chamber. The three gods have arrived to help and chain the ogre’s limbs to the pillars. As Raikō positions himself with his sword Chisui in hand, the ogre faults the warrior for his sneaky underhanded tactics, exclaiming: “How sad, you-priests! You said you do not lie. There is nothing false in the words of demons”. The warriors attack with their swords and sever Shuten-dōji’s head, but as in the older text, the detached head attempts to get a bite at Raikō, and the hero is protected by two helmets stacked on his head: his Lion King helmet on top the hobnailed helmet (hoshi kabuto (ja)) given him by the gods. Subsequently, Ibaraki-dōji and Watanabe no Tsunaengage in a prolonged fight and while they grappled, Raikō decapitated Ibaraki-dōji. The female prisoners are liberated and the warriors return triumphant.

so alcohol played a part in both orochi and shuten dojis death and the original plan was to kill orochi and kaido while they were drunk partying

and one of the methods of ancient japan to ward off onis were to erect monkey statues and sun wukong who luffys based off was a stone monkey a monkey born from the stone and given moriahs connection to luffy moria may be involved in wano and nightmare luffy will return

3 notes · View notes

madokasoratsugu · 4 years ago

Text

therefore you and me post-production notes (or: murphy’s law as a project that has been two years in the making)

ive had this idea for ‘therefore you and me’ and Fritz ever since i first played CindPhenon. nothing ever fell into place until i played Evermore though, so here we are!

drafting this project was pretty easy tbh (see: hubris). the parallel imagery and everything about the lyrics was right up my alley aha.

fun thing with the lyrics: TadanoCo uses ‘要る (iru)’ in the line ‘Which do you want (iru)? Or do you want neither (iranai; aka negative form of ‘iru’)?’

‘ 要る ‘ as a verb can mean ‘to be wanted’ or ‘to be needed’.

hence, the line can also be read: ‘Which do you need? Or do you need neither?” or any other variation of the verb’s usage.

it’s halfway through drawing the lineart that murphy’s law began. 1) i drew ~15 panels on the wrong dimensions, and had to redraw them all (lol), re-grey tone (LOL), and re-ink (LOLOL). it was not a fun three days.

then i lost momentum because of lunar new year (happy late lunar new year btw! happy year of the ox :”) )

anyway: the moment i regained momentum for the project again, i hit a roadblock in the form of overconfident, sloppy drafting (see: hubris is my downfall).

because of the lack of clear drafting for certain panels (and changes to previous panels), i had to redraft two different sections of the PV while keeping in mind that there was the bridge still to be drafted. fun !

i decided to simplify the bridge. can you believe it was supposed to be another animation. i can’t. so i scrapped it.

(slight tangent. Evermore’s release honestly cleared up a lot of uncertainty regarding the direction of the PV and whether or not to include Fritz’s mother (who I still fondly call Beatrice). im really happy the PV never came to fruition before Evermore’s release, as im not sure i would have done half as good a job without Evermore’s content.)

back to the hubris of proceeding with a messy draft - there was a lot of push and pull internally for me as to how much i should keep to the original PV and how much i should just put my spin on things. i ended up doing a bit of half-and-half, i think.

but really, it only delayed things as i ended up redrafting and having multiple drafts of certain panels haha//

the last two choruses were honestly my favourite parts to draw. the shift from Varg’s clothes and colours to Fritz, Fritz’s acceptance of Varg and the soft way Varg looks at Fritz (and no one else). there’s something cathartic about acceptance and acknowledgement. i think that’s what i aimed to really capture.

also: in between drawing all the panels, murphy’s law 2) my Evermore itchio game file ? got deleted off my computer ?

it’s a very old, barely functional brick so im lowkey unsurprised but at the same time it was a crazy experience and setback when i needed to reference certain scenes. oh, and Steam decided to not download Evermore too. i still haven’t fixed that one. haha. ha.

i have screenshot posters to thank for uploads of certain CGs, although im still pretty sure its best not to post a ton of those publicly at one shot?

also, i had to scrap the recreation of the famous ‘did you love Varg’ scene because of this aha. looking back now, i think it worked out.

(another tangent: using referencing as an excuse, i actually took the opportunity to replay Fritz’s route for the third time. i ended up checking nothing at all and falling in love with the masquerade scene again.)

up till the very end, im still not sure if everyone got that the line “You are love itself.” was meant to be said by Lucette to Fritz. i colour-coded Lucette with her own unique blue for the PV, which was the same hue as the line. i hope that it got across, aha.

with that said, video production was a whole entanglement in and of itself. i think murphy’s law really took up a hammer and swung hard at this stage.

timing was actual hell. im usually not this bad at it, but this project in particular was tricky bc TadanoCo uses a lot of background beats that aren’t overt, which his PV also matches - i think? or maybe im just not good at recognising beats from lack of video/music production haha//

hence there were certain scenes i was stuck at and kept revising because i wasnt clear where the beat was meant to be, what transitions i should use, and when the transitions should be.

subtitling was actually really fun! until i rendered my first version and realised all the subtitles were completely off and blurry.

turns out my project properties were different from my video properties, hence the off-alignment. huh. didnt know those were Actual Things(tm).

also, quick tip to all vid-making amateurs like me out there: you may have to double the dimensions of the font’s media properties if you dont want them to come out fuzzy. another thing i didnt know lol.

anyway all this lead to: me needing to spend another evening to redo subtitles. haha. it was not a fun two back-to-back 3am nights + extra evening afterward.

in between all this was countless rendering tests to guess-and-check what’s causing numerous errors in the video btw.

and with those rendering tests came: glaring mistakes in the panel art that i only now spotted and had to fix, and refix, and refix again. then reimport into sony vegas, put it into the video, render and double check if it’s alright. rinse and repeat countless times ! haha ! PV making is fun !

i think i nearly redid a certain scene with the exact same panels once. like i said: not a fun two 3am nights.

that said: i dont know how all this technical issues (and more) popped up and were resolved over two 3am nights and one evening. im not about to question it either.

at this point: panel art - fixed ! subtitling all redone ! render works fine, everything checks out.

i make the mistake of uploading it directly to yt instead of leaving it unlisted first.

murphy’s law 3) when im watching the vid on yt, the yellow parts in the second verse were completely unable to be seen.

panic put it on unlisted. people are already watching it and leaving (very sweet) comments. panic delete it.

btw if you’re one of the first three commenters reading this: thank you for the quick response !! it means a lot and made me really flustered in a good way :”))

cue me re-colouring those scenes, redo-ing the section and oops, is that a panel in the masquerade scene where Fritz literally is missing his mask ???

i think i lost my mind entirely at this point. from then on i was fueled by spite to complete this cursed project.

at thereforeFINAL.mp4, (version five of the full PV, version maybe 10-11 of all the rendered videos, including tests) finally. finally it is done.

i upload it.

the end !

(except, not really. because here you are at post-production notes detailing the worst luck i’ve ever had with PV making.

i learnt a lot from this though, and honestly on hindsight i should have learnt all these from my first PV but nothing went wrong at this magnitude so i kinda just...shelved it aha//

but really, im relieved it turned out well, and that i took the time to redo scenes until i was satisfied. for a PV that’s been waiting in the background for two years now, i think this is the least it deserves.

if the comic about Fritz and Varg (which i referenced in one of the last choruses, i wonder if anyone caught that?) was meant to be a love letter to Fritz’s route, i think this PV ought to be a tribute to the character himself.

although - hm, this isn’t quite as good a tribute to Fritz as it is to his route, maybe? i don’t know, haha ! maybe it’s just myself wanting to make excuses to create more for him//

i was thinking of continuing on about the PV and it’s significance to Fritz and Varg, but hm. maybe not on this post. maybe some other one, some other time.

but at it’s core, at it’s simplest, most raw - i think i just wanted to explore what it means to Fritz to ‘want’ and to ‘need’ with this PV.

thank you for watching the PV, and thank you for reading this.

- blu.)

#linear notes #notes #bluh bluh text #long post

0 notes

briarjay · 7 years ago

Text

klance and discourse (rant; sorry)

just because it won’t be canon, doesn’t stop anyone from still shipping ANYTHING. seriously, this is not a shock. but what IS a shock is that people are actually going to act all sad and shit about the interview. guys, just do what you do in the klance tag and be happy they’ll even continue to interact in the show canon anyways. it’s cool. i’ve seen it happen before.

but what i WILL say, is that if they actually want to make ka//ura a THING, then there will be SERIOUS ass pulling they need to do in order to even MAKE this “ship” have any micro-ounce of chemistry. hell, if ka//ura WAS planned “years” ago, then why the FUCK does keith no give a shit about her in season 1, and even more so in season 2 when he seriously looked so dead when he had her in his arms? i dont care if it IS a “slow burn” for ka//ura, even if ka//ura is “supposed” to happen because it’s “pre-written” then where is the “hints”? since klance probably wont be canon, then i can use it in this argument. HELL, even klance interacted more and has more moments than ka//ura and klance probably wont even ever be canon! goes to show the people at dreamworks are sure shit headed assholes who don’t know how to write romance.

they’re afraid to make klance a thing. im surprised that they want to retcon all the klance just to ass pull for future ka//ura shit shows. they were afraid to even consider klance. when they were writing the scripts, did they not realize the klance set ups they were giving? hell, even for sha//ura too (im referring to back before they “made” allura a teenager and therefore suddenly retconning the sha//ura moments). too cowardly to do klance. too “late” to change stuff. too fucking bad dreamworks. maybe you should have drawn keith’s face when he was holding allura, to make it like he at least CARES about allura’s safety. that was the LEAST YOU COULD DO TO MAKE KA//URA VIABLE. but no. he literally could not give a SHIT about having a GIRL in his arms. you could have drawn lance’s face when he was talking about keith in season 2, to not look so love sick like he cant believe how cool a guy keith is...but no, you drew his face to look like it wasnt platonic, but romantic. AND *WHO* was the one who said “facial expressions matter/are important”? someone who works on the show.

this is all fucking BULLSHIT. and i am more MAD rather than sad about the klance interview. the only thing that fazes me is THIS stupid bullshit that involves retconning shit just for the sake of a ship barely ANYONE asked for (ka//ura).

i’ve been open about it before, but im even more open about it now: I HATE KA//URA AND EVERYTHING IT REPRESENTS. it is lazy, makes NO sense, was never even hinted at, they gave keith and allura moments with OTHER characters instead of one another thus far, and any moment they DID have in season 2 was FORCED AS ALL HELL BECAUSE THEY NEVER INTERACTED LIKE THAT BEFORE SEASON 2. no set up, no chemistry, it is forced, and lastly, it is heteronormative. pairing a boy and a girl together just because they are 1) both teens, 2) a boy and a girl, 3) main characters.

all fucking BULLSHIT that dreamworks should answer for. if you can seriously explain to me how they can retcon sha//ura by making allura a teenager...then fucking try. please. they had those sha//ura moments before it was “confirmed” she’s suddenly “Actually a teenager.” also explain the facial expressions in the klance moments. keith originally started out kinda disliking lance, but they hold hands, lance says they’re a good team, and keith SMILES? meanwhile he has a GIRL in his arms and he frowns!?!?!?PLEASE FUCKING EXPLAIN THIS, DREAMWORKS. TRY TO. I FUCKING NEED YOU TO TRY.

fuck dreamworks.

#klance #sha//ura #klance discourse #vld discourse #ship discourse #vld ships #vld ship discourse #ship rant #klance rant #dreamworks #@dreamworks #fuckers #answer me #ka//ura

6 notes · View notes

spaghettiintherain · 7 years ago

Text

Youth

Summary : After deserting what they deem as a worthless party, Dan meets Phil, and through an overly sweet bottle of peach schnapps and a push into the pool, they discover something special.

Words : 1,883

Warning : cursing, underage drinking, mentions of sex

Someone once told Phil that parties were the highlight of any college experience. That the smells, the sounds, the sights and taste of these gatherings would give him a high nothing, or no one else could. And yet here he was, one months and two days away from the end of his senior year, and he still hadn’t found a party he had enjoyed. Parties, in his own description, were useless, sweaty, booze-filled attempts at forgetting classes and tests and people. But Phil also believed that they could have their moments; like the time he slow danced with Jack Brooks in a questionably built gazebo, or skinny dipped in the neighboring lake, accompanied by a rather large bottle of vodka. But in his overall and very personal opinion, parties sucked.

Dan had somehow managed to go through most of his entire freshmen career without going to a party. It’s not that he enjoyed school, he just had found better things to do than sit in a dimly lit house with kids drowning themselves in alcohol. But here he was. Sipping on a lukewarm beer and sitting awkwardly on a couch. The couple next to him had started by making out, and slowly yet surely they ended up laying down, grinding, touching, making out, all to close to Dan for a sane state of mind. He stood up much too quickly, causing said couples heads to slam onto the couch, but they didn’t give it much of a thought. Dan shook his head, on the edge of tipsy after several bad beers. He stumbled over empty cups and forgotten shoes and made his way into a deserted back porch. Deserted, all but one person.

Phil glanced over at the boy as he came out, eyes entranced by the glimmer of the pool. While he was distracted, Phil was able to take in the stranger. He was wearing a large army green sweater and black jeans despite the end of spring heat. His hair was slightly curly, doing graceful loops at the ends. The stranger finally glanced over at him, locking eyes.

“Hi. I’m Daniel.”

He didn’t move from his spot in front of the pool, only turned towards Phil.

“I’m Phil.”

Dan not so subtly looked at the bottle of peach schnapps at Phil’s side, walked over to Phil, all long legs and pretty eyes.

“Care to share? I’m sure this would be much better than the shitty beer inside.”

Dan laughed much to excitedly as he sat down, throwing his head back and smiling wide. Phil noticed the dimple in the side of his cheek, and then smiled himself due to Dans behavior.

“Knock yourself out.”

Dan picked it up and took a swig, twisting his face into a grimace as he swallowed.

“Thats really sweet.”

“Peppermint is better, but this is what they had.”

Dan smiled as he took another sip, and looked at Phil.

“So, Phil. Why are you here?”

“Well, someone told me college parties were going to be the highlight of my life. But here I am, so close from graduating, and if I’m being honest, they’re not all that great.”

Dan realized that Phil was a senior, but kept his own age to himself. Maybe a couple more drinks would change that. Dan nodded his head to Phil’s response, although he only half understood it.

“So you’re looking for something to be your party experience. Something to make all of this worth it.”

Phil looked at him with wide eyes at nodded, furrowing his eyebrows.

“What about you Daniel?”

“I had nothing better to do?”

And as Dan thought about it, it wasn’t a truly truthful answer. He could’ve found something to do; like studying for the test next week, or getting a normal amount of sleep for a change. Maybe he could have just stayed home and looked at the internet like he did most nights. He came because he felt drawn, because something in him knew that he had to go to this party. Maybe Phil was it.

Phil was studying Dan carefully as he chewed on red lips and half closed his eyes under fluttering eyelashes. Phil snatched the bottle and took a drink himself, relishing in the sweet burn as it made it’s way down his chest. They continued to talk, and Phil learned that Dan was going to school for law, even though he wasnt that interested in it. He eventually learned that Dan was years younger than him. Dan learned that Phil was studying english. He learned that he was set to graduate much too soon. As Phil looked, Dans eyes were preoccupied by the stars above him, and he looked up there too, pinpricks of white dotting the otherwise midnight blue sky.

Time passed like that, staring up at the vast abyss above them, leaving small talk behind. They continued sharing the bottle of schnapps, and after forgetting the sweetness, they drank it thankfully. Dan couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from Phil’s face. His face was flushed and his eyes were the color of the pool in front of them. His lips were pretty and pink and much too kissable. Dans brain, though intoxicated, realized that he was attracted to Phil and his eyes widened. He stood up swiftly, and as Phil looked up at him with those big, oceanic eyes, Dans breath was taken away. He beckoned him flirtily, and moments later they were standing in front of the pool, the green yellow water reflecting on their faces.

“Phiiillllll,”

Dan whined, looking back at the pavement where they had been previously sitting. Phil looked back at him, eyes questioning.

“You left the peaches.”

Phil giggled, and as Dan went to fetch the almost empty bottle, he looked back out at the water. He noticed that sometime through the night he had lost his shoes, and navy blue fox socks were all that were shown. He closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of chlorine and sweet alcohol, and a sense of calm washed over him. He heard the bottle clink next to him, and then Dans fingers were dancing over his back. His breath caught as they twirled across his spine and shoulders. A graceful ballet played as Dans hands slid down his sides and Phil’s breath regained once again, choppy and shallow. Phil didn’t know how his body was standing here; closed eyed and a small sense of calm, while a beautifully confusing boy was oh so close. Dans hands wrapped around Phil’s hipbones and swayed him slightly. They wrapped around to his front and drew lines up his chest, and dangerously close down his thighs.

And then, with one swift jab, Phil was pushed and was flying towards the water. Instantly, things were switched into slow motion and he fell in. He heard Dans drunk cackle behind him, and felt different from his own splash. He was soon submerged, and as he rose out of the water, he was all too aware of his own wetness. He felt his socks squish against the floor, soggy and uncomfortable. Everything clung to him, but as he squatted back down into the water they flowed around him gracefully. The water was cool, and the shock of it pushed him into a slight sobriety. Much so enough that when his eyes looked back up at a now shirtless Dan, his breath was taken away. His skin was lightly tanned, and in the turquoise glow of the pool it glistened. His jeans rode low on his hips, and Phil’s eyes traveled down too far. A fiery blush ignited his cheeks, and his breathing quickened.

“What? I got much too hot in that sweater.”

Dan struck a pose, and Phil’s heart leapt.

He watched as Dan jumped in, splashing him once again. He resurfaced and shivered,

“Damn that’s kinda cold.”

“You’ll get used to it.”

Phil legs kicked in the water despite the fact that he could touch. He watched, more like stared, as Dan flipped onto his back, showcasing his bare chest to the universe. Despite the chilly combination of pool water and night air, Phil’s face felt warm. He began floating next to Dan, and

they were both quickly trapped by the silence.

“The moon is beautiful.”

“So are you.”

Dan smiled as he heard this, and glanced over at Phil. He looked heavenly as he stared at the stars, with big blue eyes and chewed red lips. Lips. Red lips to be specific. Phil’s lips were too distracting, they were teasing and taunting him.

Before Dan knew it, he was back on his feet, facing Phil. Soon enough, they were facing eachother, and as Phil smiled Dan lost his breath. The water was chilling as it sloshed against his bare back, and somewhere beneath himself he shivered. Their were entranced in eachother, the yellow-green glow of the pool light reflecting onto their faces. Dan hadn’t remembered stepping closer to Phil, but here they were; too close and too far. Dan’s lips ghosted over Phil’s, but all the alcohol in the world wouldn’t give him the confidence to kiss him. Phil closed the distance with a gasp, and then they were kissing. Phil felt euphoric as he kissed Dan, arms wrapped around his bare hips and electric skin. Dan’s hands were exploring the places that he had wanted so desperately to; his hips, his shoulders, his chest, the small of his back. They were lost in eachother, surrounded by a field of delicately flowing water and sweet touches.

“Yeah Phil get it on!”

They broke apart with a start, and Phil laughed at his friends antics but couldn’t tear his eyes away from Dan. He was gracefully breathless and his face was flushed. Dan’s eyes were trained on Phil’s perfect lips, but wandered down to his revealed collarbones. Somewhere in the mix a few buttons had come undone, and his bare chest gleamed in the light of the pool. Though neither of them realized it, they were relishing in each others perfection, and neither wanted to let go.

Someone once told Phil that college parties were the highlight of any life, and he had to agree. At one fateful party he had met the light of his life, and that had started it all. Memories of Dan had replaced his past, and he couldn’t be happier. Slow dancing with Jack Brooks was replaced with their first dance as a married couple. Skinny dipping in the lake was replaced by baths full of bubbles; Dan making beards and full of larger than life laughter. Failed games of beer pong were taken over by game nights wrapped in blankets and eachother. Drunken one night stands were replaced with the ethereal image of Dan, crumpled and breathless beneath Phil with kisses like moonlight. Dan filled Phil with memories of sunflowers and baby clothes and laughter. Though now it seemed so long ago, the night in the water began their life together.

#phan #phanfiction #daniel howell #amazingphil #phan au

6 notes · View notes

iamahumanbeingnotjustascreen · 6 years ago

Video

First off fiction dose not effect reality so jot that shit down 😜. and if you really believe that Well the hunny you shouldn't be watching Camp Camp should you? With a Mini Hitler and Children finding a sex dungeon. Oh the humanity! South park oh it should be banned what if kids are gonna go out amd try to fight zombie rabbits because an obviously fiction show told them to. Not to mention that you need to be 13 to even use tumblr and if a 13 year old child thinks that a grown man dating a child is okay because someone drew pictures of it I think they need more help then from the justice warriors of tumblr XD. Really you people need to stop with this argument. It clearly holds no water

Secondly. No Im not refering to your post as a "relentless attack" im not that sensitive to your bullshit dont worry!❤ I'm talking about the people and cause you are helping support ^^ Purposefuly attacking something that has nothing to do with you. Things getting labeled as "Maxvid positivity!" When its talking about how disgusting the people who ship it are. Or instead of blacklisting the tag you go after someone who supports it instead because obviously thats better use of your time then to just ignore it. (Ill admit im a hypocrite here 😜)

I see must of slipped my radar after looking for it in every different way. So obviously it wasnt as DETRIMENTAL as you people all make it out to be. Oh wow look jokes. Lets twist these and attack people with it! I have to be these people (who have own voices mind you) justice warriors because I dont like something. If it was a problem. They would make a public announcement it would be somewhere. But its not is it. They made jokes. Maybe its not their cup of tea. Thats fine. But unlike you. There not saying people cant ship it because they dislike it. Because people can ship whatever the FUCK they want.

4 people. And from what I can see. No. They really dont.

I love the ship I dont support pedophilia thank you💝 and maybe stop responding if your getting your poor panties in a twist. I keep sneezing looking at your post.

For you see. Im deathly allergic to your bullshit❤ have a good day❤❤

Here it is, folks! MAXVID IS CANCELED

4K notes · View notes

megashadowdragon · 5 years ago

Text

Kaido’s a dragon with oni devil fruit and his son will be a pink dragon)

youtube

megashadowdragon . tumblr . com/post/179891683812/kaido-is-based-off-shuten-douji-and-his-crew

“oni who kaido resembles (the horns, and the thing that kaido wears resembles what onis wear (as in the current version of the oni), the loincloth and the bracelets onis are depicted with kaidos spiked bracelets en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Oni there is the expression “oni with an iron club” (鬼に金棒 oni-ni-kanabō?), that is, to be invincible or undefeatable. It can also be used in the sense of “strong beyond strong”, (matches kaidos description and equivalent to kaidos strongest creature title) or having one’s natural quality enhanced or supplemented by the use of some tool. ) for it was said no one could kill him and that he is the strongest creature on land , sea and air

and the fortress of the oni in the momonosuke story resembles the place we saw where the guy called for kaido.

in its shape they are the same

kaidos island and the demon island that momotaro went to in the story have the same name Onigashima.

and kaido representing an oni since moriah coveted the corpse of oars and oars jr who resembled an oni (onis skin may be any number of colors, but red and blue are particularly common.)

and kaidos top 3 guys are called the calamities/disasters ( which basically mean the same thing)

jack the drought (unpleasant things , queen the plague (diseases) , king the wildfire ( disaster) all three of their epitaphs reference something onis bring

oni are said to crush and destroy humans solely for enjoyment carry out horrible punishments (kaido boiled oden) and make up armies of the great generals of the underworld(the zoan army)

They all possess two horns on their head, much like Kaido, and two of them carry a spiked club similar to Kaido’s kanabō, thus giving them traits similar to those of the legendary oni

Doflamingo’s title was “Heavenly Yaksha” and it would fit for him to work for a guy who represents an oni like how he represents a yaksha and oniare portrayed as having massive size

and kaido was shown with an iron club

kaido doesnt just allude to oni in general but specifically to the shuten doji the king of the oni who had a fondness for alcohol and went on drunken rages

en . wikipedia . org /wiki/Shuten-d%C5%8Dji

Kaido (怪童 “Mysterious Kid?) or Kaidomaru (怪童丸?) are also old names for both Shuten-Dōji and Sakata no Kintoki in their youths

about shuten doji( 酒呑童子 or 朱点童子 )

en . wiktionary . org/wiki/%E6%9C%B1#Kanji

Shutendoji is made with the character ‘sake’ … (酒呑童子) the word "sake” (酒, “liquor”, also pronounced shu)

nihongoichiban . com/2011/07/02/%E9%85%92/

and kaido was drinking from a sake gourd

and the kanji for “Ten” was written on the bottle which kaido was drinking

天

en . wiktionary . org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9

the word “sake” (酒, “liquor”, also pronounced shu)

the kanji for “Ten” was written on the bottle which kaido was drinking which combined with shu gets shuten

en . wiktionary . org/wiki/%E5%A4%A9

shuten doji wasnt born an oni

Shuten dōji was a troublesome orphan child. He was very strong and very smart; so much so that people believed his father must have been a demon or a dragon. and he later became an oni

folklorethursday . com/legends/three-evil-yokai-japan/#sthash.EtH9NC71.dpbs

image kaido as a drunk dragon going on a rampage

and kinemon has a hatred for dragons plus this supports so it fits that kaido ate the dragon df it reflect the parts in shuten dojis story where they were connecting shuten doji to dragons.

and Both Yamata no Orochi and Shuten-Dōji were slain by being incapacitated with alcohol. and their heads being cut off

en . wikipedia . org/wiki/Yamata_no_Orochi

maybe odens sword ame-no habakiri will end up breaking

maybe zoro will end up being given the ame no habakiri after he kills orochi and the sandai kitetsu breaks to signify his status as the person who killed orochi

and for shuten doji

The gods give Raikō the “sake [which is] divine elixir, poisonous to demons” (神便鬼毒酒, jinben kidoku shu)[l] which will rob the ogres of their ability to fly and stupefy them

so alcohol played a part in both orochi and shuten dojis death and the original plan was to kill orochi and kaido while they were drunk partying

there are many theories regarding kaido being connected to to vegapunk due to the symbol on his flag is similar to warning sign on punkhazard

imagine kaido being a dragon ( which vegapunk is interested in ) who ate an oni df

about kaido being a dragon who ate the mythological df hito hito no mi model oni

this adds to why moriah specifically got the corpse of oars and oars jr who resembled an oni ( oh

but it would explain why he stole ryuumas corpse and used it since ryuuma was a dragon slayer

that would give him a connection/similarity to chopper who is going to have a storyline in wano since wano is based on japan and japan is known for its sakura blossoms/ sakura blossoms important in japan and sakura blossoms are what hiriluk saw that he said was what healed him and he was passionate about finding a way to bring it to drum island and make a chemical to make snow like chery blossom pink

youtube

Those Sakura trees are commonly found during the spring seasons in the far east asian regions and islands. This is most likely hinting to me that the Sakura trees of the One Piece world are commonly found on Wano Kuni, as Wano Kuni is based most likely of Japan due to the Samurais. Samurais are often referred to travelling landmarks with alot of Sakura on them.

and Chopper’s has created the Rumble Ball, a drug that can enhances a Zoan DF’s power kaido would be interested about that along with chopper being a reindeer who gained intelligence by eating a variant of the human df I mean brook had a df similarity to big mom in that they both rely on souls so why not have chopper have a similar circumstance to kaido in that they were both animals who ate dfs of the hito hito family which would make him interested in chopper ( also kaido is a blue dragon chopper has a blue nose

and since kaido alludes to a shuten doji this adds to the theory for

Shuten dōji was a troublesome orphan child. He was very strong and very smart; so much so that people believed his father must have been a demon or a dragon. folklorethursday . com/legends/three-evil-yokai-japan/#sthash . EtH9NC71 . dpbs

eastern dragons have transformation abilities like the ability to turn into humans

there are a good number of times where dragons are portrayed as having the ability to take human form in media and various stories and this has it’s roots in Far East mythology with there being a myths about emperors being descendants of dragons and kaido is an eastern style dragon

kaidoś dragon form is a chinese mythical creature and is known as a loong in china In chinese mythology loong can even transform into a human

so kaido being a dragon with a df allowing him to transform into a more human like form would reference this eastern myth.

exemplore . com/misc/Shape-Shifting-Dragons-of-Folklore

Also big mom called kaido a thing not a him and he is called the strongest creature on earth" so it is implied that he is not human oda doesn’t just use words for no reason there are a bunch of creatures from japanese mythology in wano why cant kaido be one of them

the strongest creature on earth"

plus this talked about how if we compared kaidos dragon form and momonosukes it would be like comparing father and son so it would be even more fitting for kaidos son to be a pink dragon imagine if kaidos son looks alot like momos dragon form if he is a young dragon )

actually given gyukimaru case what if kaido is a dragon who naturally has the ability to transform into a more human like state without having a df

#one piece #one piece theory #op theory #kaido one piece #kaido the beast #op kaido #one piece kaido

0 notes