#bro loaded the wrong save file

[cannibalchicken]

[a-snow-decahedron]

Learn to Dodge

Ok but imagine being Frisk and sucking at dodging bullets

it's 3 am im not apologizing for this.

warning for Frisk cursing a lot, because they deserve it and also because it's really funny to think the only reason they don't have dialogue is because it would change the rating of the game

sans: haven't i done a great job protecting you?

sans: i mean, look at yourself, you haven't died a single time

sans: hey, what's that look supposed to mean? am i wrong?

Frisk: That's such bullshit.

sans: language, bucko.

Frisk: No you shut up! I died so many times i can't count and you didn't do shit a single time.

sans: you did what-

Frisk: yeah you fucking heard me. I get to swear all i want after that.

sans: *realization hitting him like a brick* look, kid, there's a lot to unpack here. but first, when did u die?

Frisk: Oh now you care, don't you? Pretty much everyone's killed me at least once. I died like 10 times to Undyne alone and you were fucking napping!

sans: *lowkey feeling regret at his words* wait... everyone? even my bro?

Frisk: nah, Papyrus' cool. Still scared the crap out of me the first time he captured me. He's a little lost about humans but he's got the spirit.

sans: the dogi?

Frisk: 3 times

sans: Greater dog?

Frisk: twice

sans: alright, i guess that's valid. but i can't think of anyone else that could do some serious damage kid. seriously, did ya die to some teens? to jerry? to a woshua?

Frisk: Say that last name again and i'm throwing a chair.

sans: oh boy, how much didja die...

Frisk: Sans, look at me in the eyes. I'm opening them wide for you. Look at me, at my armor.

sans: what about it.

Frisk: you know temmie village?

sans: yeah

Frisk: Tem sells this armor for so much money you could pay your tab at Grillby's

sans: did u pick up a fight to get the money. come on kiddo, of course you got hurt doing that.

Frisk: I'm not done yet. So outside the village there's this dark as fuck maze and it's filled with Woshues and Moldbyggs and all. But every time I died, Sans. Every time you let my soul break into little tiny pieces. Temmie sold the armor for cheaper.

sans: how the he...ck would temmie know how many times you died?

sans, to himself: i could visit the village for research, bet they know something i don't

Frisk: Hey bonehead, wanna know how much it cost?

sans: sure, go ahead

Frisk: it started at like 4500 G. I already died a few times beforehand so it was probably more expensive than that. But that fucking maze is worse than my old neighborhood in the surface, man. I died so much the price got to 1400G I think.

sans: holy crap.

Frisk: it was still too much yknow, every time I died I lost my progress so I had to keep saving every penny I got. Anyways, see what I'm wearing? How much do you think it cost?

sans: uh... 500G

Frisk: close enough, 750, it didn't go lower than that. Before you ask: no, I did not die on purpose to find out.

sans: ...

sans: how many HP do humans have?

Frisk: I learnt what HP was like yesterday, I don't think I can tell you. I have 20.

sans: ok yeah that's low. i figured you'd have like 200 at least

Frisk: I know that if I kill people it somehow increases but that's awful so next time I came back to life after dying I was back to before I murdered someone. I chose to do as much as possible to never kill again on purpose or by accident.

sans: wow, kid. you really are, uh, determined.

sans: hold on, so you can travel back in time

Frisk: *shrugs* I guess? Still hurts a fucking lot when it happens after I die. but I think I can try at will.

sans: buddy, let's do something. you can come back to a few minutes on the past right?

Frisk: Yeah

sans: ok, so hear me out. i made a codeword some time ago, so if someone tells it to me i know they're a time traveler. get closer (whisper, whisper)

Frisk: Sans what the fuck.

sans: i hope you come back and tell it to me.

--one loaded SAVE later--

Frisk: hey you told me to tell you this and if it's a fucking joke i'm going feral.

sans: language, bucko.

Frisk: (whisper, whisper)

sans: who told you this? what a liar. *Frisk's eye twitches* but yeah that's a codeword. come closer, to really gain my trust you need another code (whimsper, whimsper).

Frisk: Oh for fuck's sake.

--Another loaded SAVE file later--

sans: hey, kiddo what's with that look

Frisk: This better be the last fucking codeword or I'm going insane

sans: language, bucko.

Frisk: *says the codeword*

sans: oh, so that's what you meant. It kinda explains a lot.

Frisk: Sans listen, I'm so fucking done of doing this. Let's just go eat, ok? Time traveling doesn't help wtih my hunger, and I reaally need to take my time to just explain what just happened because I know you got questions.

sans: *mentally preparing* here we go

-- some eplanations later --

sans: wow, kid. i'm impressed. for one thing i believe you. you knew what i was about to do before i did it.

sans: and, uh, guess i can't really make the past go away for you even if i don't remember that happening but... i'll do better, ok?

Frisk: Can I really trust you?

sans: you said your stats were low, mine are even worse so it's not like i can defend u without dusting myself in the process... but we can practice dodging, until you get better. and that armor's gonna help a lot too.

Frisk: For real?

sans: yeah, i made a promise after all. i gotta do a better job at keeping it.

sans: hey, buddy... you have not told this to anyone right? you haven't told the door lady.

Frisk: No fucking way. She also killed me once, telling her would destroy her. And I think she was trying not to hurt me too but somehow I managed to walk into her flames.

sans: ... why do you trust her?

Frisk: I don't know... it's complicated. She has good intentions. Better than some people on the Surface, anyways.

sans: you are a special kid, you know that? alright buddy, we can keep talking outside. let's take a breath and then do some training. even folks with low HP like us can find a way to survive. howzabout that?

Frisk: I guess... that's alright. Yeah, that can work.

* * *

[nite-shay]

His Hero Part 3 -Kirishima Eijirou x Reader

AN: I am so so so so so sorry for how long this took! :/ I wish I had a valid excuse for this but I don’t… I hope ya’ll enjoy it! 

Links: Part 1,  Part 2 , Part 3 

Also side note I know I’m messed up a few little things but I will edit tomorrow as I go through it. Its late D: But I promised myself I would post this today. 

******

Two days…

Two long, boring desk duty days.

Kirishima sighed loudly as he signed and initialed what had to be the same form for the tenth time in the same case file! 

Ah, bureaucracy of the hero world at its finest. 

Now UA prepared him for a lot of things. 

How to use his quirk fully, fighting villains, saving people, etc. 

But one thing they didn’t prepare him for was the amount of paperwork that came with his hero career. 

Hmm… maybe that’s why they gave so much homework…

Sign. Initial. Sign. Checkmark. Checkmark. Sign. Date. Wait, was he suppose to sign here or there? Crap, is that the right date? Did he just date everything wrong?! No wait, false alarm, the date is correct.

His chair gave a loud creak as he stretched his back, glancing up at the clock. He’d been at this for hours now, and he still hadn’t even made a dent in the wall of folders on his desk. 

His mind started to wander as he stared up at the clock hands that he swore he saw moved backward a few times. 

I wonder how (Y/N) doing…

It was crazy how badly he wanted to call up to the hospital and check on you, but… he was nervous. The last thing he wanted was for you to think he’s some creepy ex stalker who you literally barely knew you.  

He just… was worried about you. He wasn’t looking for another hookup! No, no, no! He just wanted to see how you were. He did care about you, not in a creepy way just in a general way!

Luckily he wasn’t completely in the dark about your condition, thanks to his green-haired bro. The morning after the robbery, Kirishima woke up to a thoughtful text on your condition. He even got an update on your son, who loved his news toys and played hard with them till he passed out in his mother’s arms.

God, he wished he could have seen it. 

He sighed loudly before tossing the file in the ‘completed’ section while reaching for the next one. He blinked as he lifted up the hefty folder. 

It was the toy store robbery. 

Damn, this was going to be a long one—numerous villains, along with multiple injured civilians and a fair bit of collateral damage. This was going to take the rest of the day. Thankfully, though, Fatgum should be just getting back from lunch, and the store just had a damn good security system installed last week.

“Well, would ya look at that? I guess paper really does beat rock.” A slightly slimmer Fatgum chuckled as he walked in their shared office, arms full of takeaway bags. 

“Ha Ha,” Kirishima laughed sarcastically, glancing over to the older hero. “Got enough food, Toyo?”

“I used quite a bit of energy yesterday on that emergency call. Gotta bulk back up.” He dumped the food on to the small table across the room. “Plus, we’re going to be here a while when those reports.”

“Yeaaaaah. Just got to the toy store one. Did the detective ever send the surveillance footage over?”

“Yeap, got it this morning. Check your email. I think you’re on it too.“ 

"Sweet. I’ll load it up.”

“And I got the snacks,” He grinned as he held up one of the bags. 

After some quick furniture rearrangement, two sat side by side in their chairs, video buffed, snacks to side, pen and paper at the ready for notes. This was still work after all.  They chose to use the blondes’ monitor since it was bigger. He had seniority, so he typically got the good stuff, which the redhead was cool with. 

The first 20 minutes of the video was pretty boring so then ended up fast-forwarding until a familiar pair entered the frame.  

It was you and your son. The two of you were slowly making your way down the sidewalk towards the store. Kirishima, who’d previously been slouched and looking rather bored, was not hyper-focused on the screen in front of them. Which didn’t go unnoticed by his mentor, who just snickered quietly to himself. 

“Look! There they are!” The younger hero couldn’t help but smile as he watched the two you. You had a sly smile on while your son, who was looking rather frustrated, said something to you. He watched as your lips moved, but nothing came from the speakers. What were the two of you talking about?

 Damn, he wished there was audio. 

“They look pretty happy, don’t they?” Fat gum comment just as you pointed to the shop, the kids’ faces lit up like a Christmas tree. The kid wasted no time as he grabbed your hand and dragged you inside the store.

“Yeah, they really do.” Kirishima grinned as he pressed a key, switching the view to inside. The redhead beamed as the two of you bounced from isle to isle, your son getting physically more and more excited. 

Something churned in him. 

Something that’s been happening here a lot recently. He noticed it a few weeks ago. 

How his gaze would linger on families he’d pass down the street or on Bakugou as he interacted with his daughter.  He really didn’t know what it was at first and just tried to ignore it. 

But when he ran into you and your son two days ago, those emotions were brought to the forefront.  And these last two days of drowning himself in work wasn’t just to get you off his mind. It was to drown out his feelings.

He… wanted this… 

A wife…. A kid… A family…

Not that he doesn’t have a family! He’s still got both of his parents plus his sister he talks to on a pretty regular basis. He’s also really close with his friends to the point where he thought of them as family. Hell, his literal best friend lives right next door to him. You’d think he has it all? 

A loving and supportive family. Amazing friends. An awesome career that is literally his dream. 

Sounds fantastic, right? 

But sometimes, after the long hard days. His apartment just felt empty. 

He was greeted with a quiet (Bakugou’s yelling is more like background noise to him now) home.  

No one to greet him when he gets home after a long day.

No one to just cuddle and share thoughts with. Even the stupid or random ones.

No one to share meals with while they go over plans or talk about their days. 

No one to have petty arguments with like who ate all the cereal and didn’t put it on the list, who left the cap off the toothpaste, not replacing the toilet paper.

No one but himself.

He had a few roommates for a while, but they all moved out to live with their s/o. He’d tried dating and even had a girlfriend move in with him once, but that ended badly. Hero life was hard. Being the significant other of a hero, well, that could be even harder some days. They broke up not long after, and he’d been single ever since. 

He mentally sighed. Guess it was the bachelor’s life him…

He continued to watch the two of you browse another aisle as you made your way to the back of the store. From the angle of the camera, he could barely see you now.  His hand itched to switch the view to the rear camera, but he restrained himself.  This was his job; he needs to watch for the villains, not ogle you. No matter how beautiful you were. How soft and sweet your voice was. Or how quickly that demeanor changed when it came to the safety of your son. He knows first hand you don’t come between a momma bear and her cub. He wouldn’t lie, seeing you go into protective mode, just… damn.

Thankfully, before that thought could go any further, two figures walked through the front door and into the frame. It was the villains. They could only watch as the villains made their way over to the front desk and the shopkeeper. 

The villains split up, the smaller one stayed near the desk while the larger one stalked around closer to the racks. He could see the villains and the shopkeeper talking but couldn’t make out what was being said. Lip reading wasn’t his thing. But it was apparent the villains were trying to intimidate the scared-looking man. 

A flash in the corner of the screen brought his attachment back to you as you and your son moved closer to the front and ultimately closer into danger. 

“No..go back…” Kirishima whispered under his breath as he watched the next bit unfold.  The brute yelled something, gave his partner before giving the rack on end a hard shove. Toys and plushies tumbled from their metal shelves as the racking toppled over into the one beside it. 

He already knew what was coming.

That rack fell into the next, which fell into the next one. Line by line, row by row. All the shelves dominoed into each. 

His eye darted from the villain back to where you were, his body on full alert. Your head jerks to the side, no doubt from the sound of the loud crashing. With reflexes that surprised even him, he watched as you grabbed your son just as the shelf beside you gave in to the weight of the rows before it. 

“Is there any other view on them?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking. Yeah they were suppose to keep their eyes on the villain's for the report but... 

“Yeah, there’s one in the back.” Fat was already reaching for the keyboard as he glared at the screen, his food seemingly forgotten. The screen flashed for switching over to the back of the shop.

It was total chaos. Toys, plushies, and other items were scattered everywhere from the falling rows. And there in the middle of the disaster area was you and your son. Nearly all of you laid beneath the rack currently pinning you to the floor, save for your one arm and your head. Your son wasn’t in any better of a position; he could only see the top of his head. Suddenly the video stopped. Fatgum had paused the video before playing back the part of you, grabbing your son, right before the rack fell. 

“Good reflexes.” The older man sighed in relief. “Little guy would have been crushed if he’d stayed .” Kirishima could only nod as they continued to watch. The video was back to where it was before, with the two of you being pinned under the rack. Even though he couldn’t seem much of you, he knew the two of you were scared. How could you not be? Damn, he should have gotten there faster! 

If he’d been faster, maybe… you wouldn’t have gotten hurt as bad, or your son wouldn’t have been as scared. Though, to be honest, it was just chance they’d been in the area. Guess you could say it was a right place at the right time kind deal. The two heroes just finished their shift and were heading back to the agency. They’d gotten into a debate on food and made a wrong turn, which put them on that street. A loud crash caught the attention of a civilian across who called to them from across the street.

If they hadn’t been there, how long would it have taken for the call to come in? How long would you have been pinned there? How long would your son have to watch you suffer, alone, scared?

A shadow in the corner of the screen shook him from his thoughts. It was the bigger villain making his way towards the back of the store. 

“Hide…” Kirishima mumbled as they watched the villain make his way over to you.  You shifted, hiding your son further into the small hollow, but leaving you exposed and unprotected. 

“The detective said in the email that a part of this was pretty hard to watch, I’m guessing that’s about to come up…” Fatgum muttered sadly, putting his snacks down on the table. They watched as the villain stopped in front of you. The man was clearly saying something to you, but you only kept your head down, shielding your young son. The villain tensed for a moment. Was it something you did? Or maybe you said? Whatever it was clearly angered him as he gave you a wicked grin before putting his foot on the rack above you. Before, the redhead wished there was sound, but now, he was grateful for the silence.

 "That bastard!“ He saw red as he watched you scream from the man applying more force to the shelf. 

"Easy Red, they’re both ok, that guy won’t be able t-.” The older man tried to calm down his partner, well, until the villain kicked you in the face. That made the older hero jump to his feet. “That fiend! Just you wait till we get there! You’ll regret that!” As enraged as Kirishima was, he couldn’t help but smile and chuckle at how quick his mentor’s demeanor changed.  

After picking his char up off the floor, Fat sat back down, and the two returned to watching the video. It wasn’t long, for they saw the villain’s lip moves, still looking over for walking off-screen. You weren’t moving, and your face was now covered in blood. 

Nothing moved on the screen for the longest time. Fat was just about to reach over and speed up the video when something caught his eye.

It was your son. 

Kirishima’s heart broke as he watched the small boy pull himself out from under the wreckage. He was shaking, and his clothes were torn, but thankfully, he wasn’t hurt. Well, not physically anyway. How the kid managed to walk away from that unscathed was a miracle. (Y/S/N) looked in the villain’s direction before turning back to you. It was hard to see the kids face at this angle, but the heroes didn’t need to. They knew he was crying as he gently shook you, trying to wake you up.

Sadly you weren’t waking up, not then anyway. 

If he’d been in that kid’s shoes at his age, he would have given up right then and there.

But not this kid. 

No, instead, he grabbed your arm and started pulling you. Trying to drag you up from under the rack.

This elementary school kid, who was just the victim of a villain attack, was trying with all his might to save his mom. He jerked and strained as he tried to pull you from under the massive weight, but you weren’t budging. He gave one final strong pull before slipping on remnants of a displaying, causing him to fall back on his butt. Kirishima had to physically stop himself from moving.  

The kid was back on his feet in a flash, this time though he was trying to lift the rack. He knew he couldn’t lift the shelf; even with a quirk, it would be impossible for him given his size. But there he was still pushing with everything he had. 

“Poor little guy. He must have been terrified but look at him. He’s really giving it his all." 

"He’s an awesome kid. If it’d been me, I’d be too scared to move.” Kirishima’s voice was full of pride but held a trace of sadness. The redhead was proud of the squirt. Most kids, hell, most adults would have been paralyzed with fear. 

But not him. 

Despite the fear.

Despite the pain. 

Despite the hopelessness.

He still kept trying.

He’d make a hell of a hero one day…

A flash of red in the corner of the screen jolted him from his thoughts. 

It was himself. They’d finally arrived to help. While the video played out in front of them, the rest of his senses played his memory. He could hear the kids cry for help. He could feel the weight of the shelf as he moved behind the kid to rescue you. The warmth yet limpness of your body as he pulled you from the wreckage. The wailing of your son calling out for you. The relief when he felt your pulse still beating beneath the fragile skin of your neck. The overwhelming emotions as tried to comfort the small, terrified child in his arms. 

Fatgum paused the video once everyone was out of frame. You on a stretcher and him with your son still in his arms.

“You did really good out there today, Red.” Fatgum grinned at him before reaching over to the file on the desk, flipping through the report.

“Thanks.” Kirishima sighed. “I just wish I could have done more. Maybe if I’d been faster, (Y/N) and (S/N) wouldn’t have had to suffer as much. Some hero I am…" 

"Don’t say that! You did everything you could and believe me when I say this, at that moment, you truly became that kids hero.”

“Hmm…"  Fatgum gave the folder in his hand a puzzled look before hit rewind on the footage.

"What’s up?” Kirishima glanced up at the larger hero. 

“It’s nothing really. Just wondering something. The paramedics said the kid was ok right?”

“Yeah, they checked over him at the scene. His clothes were torn up some, but surprisingly, the little guy didn’t have a scratch on him.” A light bulb went off. “Wait, How did he do that? He was under that rack too!”

“That’s what I was wondering. Maybe he used his quirk? If he did, given the shape he momma was in, it might have saved his life.”

“Hmm… well, he did say that his quirk was kind of like mine. But I didn’t see him use it.” He thought back. Fat paused the video to right as the rack was falling on to the two of you. It was still hard to watch, but they went through it frame by frame. “I can’t see anything resembling a quirk…”

“Hmm… I can’t tell anything. If he has a defensive quirk, it doesn’t really stand out. Plus, with all the objects falling around them, it makes it harder to tell. 

"Maybe his clothes are hiding it?”

“Hey, can you go to the part where he crawls out? I think there was a pretty good shot of him there.” Fatgum nod hit a few keys to comply. “There! Right there!” They let the video play out from there. 

Until they saw it. For a split second, the kid is looking right at the camera, showing his whole face. And something… just looked off. Was something wrong with the camera? Maybe it was a trick of the light or the lens?

“Can we zoom in on his face?” Kirishima leaned forward, looking closely at the screen as Fat zoomed in on the boy’s face. The screen was blurry for a minute, but slowly the video started to render, making the image clearer.

What? Was his skin…. hardening?

No, it was just hardening.. it was sharpening too… Just like his…

Kirishima felt his heart take a free fall into his stomach. 

 The kid didn’t have a quirk similar to his. 

No, his quirk was exactly like his!

The room started to spin as he felt like every molecule of breathable air suddenly took an exit stage right, right out of the room. 

“Hey… Kirishima… when did you meet (L/N) again?” Kirishima could barely hear Fat’s question over the ringing in his ears.

Links: Part 1,  Part 2 , Part 3

Thanks for the read! If you want see the other stuff I’ve done, click the link bellow! 

MasterList

Tags: @hot-pocket01 

[kore-arts]

The Heroes file

I tumble quickly out of the way from the blast as I shield my friend- oh right. I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me introduce myself, Names Thomas sanders. And this how my life went to hell and back.

Thomas slowly wakes yawning as Regulus bangs on the door “Thomas! You're gonna be late! Get your ass up!” ,he jolts up quickly and swears like a sailor as he pulls on his Steven universe shirt after quickly sniffing it. He quickly runs down and he looks at his fellow triplet roman. “Dang Ro! You look fancy!” Roman preens as he looks over his outfit, a loose sweater with a scarlet red scarf around his neck. Tight pants shape his legs.” thanks tommy salami” he laughs and winks “you look pretty good too. Trying to impress Patton?” Thomas blushed the same shade of red as Romans scarf 

Thomas quickly looks sly and smirks “oh? And what about you? Trying to find your soulmate again?”

Roman was about to quickly respond as he glowed a deep red, when a wild screaming and laughter came down as Remus landed at their feet completing the group of triplets. “LETS GO” Remus quickly drags the two his crop top tattered.

Regulus’s angry yelling followed them “REMUS WHEN YOU GET HOME YOU ARE SO GROUNDED”

Remus Cackled “YOUR NOT MY PARENT BIG BRO” 

Thomas and Roman both groan simultaneously, responding at the same time “Tentacle prank?”

Remus shakes his head quickly. “Naw. filled his shower with mac n cheese again. Should expect it by now” he cackles as he drags them onto the bus.

The scene shifts to a scene of chaos. A loud booming growl sounds as the sounds of large wings boom as a large dragon takes to the sky. Leaving the prison in ruin. And the release of many, many supers on the wrong side of the law.

Many of them are caught in a large web and a barrier forms a split second after. Arachne hisses “King. we caught most of them. But we have a large problem. She escaped before me or Guard could capture”

A loud swearing sounds over the comms “got it Arachne. Get the rest to the Spare. I’ll track her down.”

“Got it King. and say hi to those brothers of yours.”

King gently laughs within the Base. “will do.”

He turns and quickly gets to work.

The Dragon witch cackles silently as she searches this information from his brain “i believe its time to pay a visit to a energy facility hmm.” she jumps down and manipulates the peoples minds around her to go incognito as she plans out just how to do this.

Quickly looking around she jumped down into the sewers into her hideout. A large fanged smile spread across her face as she pulled on her slimming outfit. Fitting her hat on while smearing black eye shadow across her face like ash.

Act 2

The Electricity that arcs silently 

Thomas calls out as he arrives at the steps and smiles wide as he hugs his boyfriend “hey Pat. how's the most handsome man in the world?” Patton blush and snarks “ i don't know Thomas? How are you?” They both start laughing as the school's Power couple grabs their bags. 

Roman and Remus are laughing together as they point out others and gossiping.

Another in their class casts a longing look. His hands gently float up to his scars as he quickly looks away and grabs his meager lunch and heavy bag. Janus quickly wraps his thin coat around him as he waits in what normally be called a winter wonderland for the field trips bus. He looks at a fellow classmate and quickly directs their attention away from him.

Patton and Thomas come out next playfully flirting and joking around. And in what looks. To be a pun war. A bright red sports car drives in and drops off a young woman in a baggy hoodie. Mari slips behind everyone to be unseen. Roman slides by her and hands a small package to her. “Your binder came in Marin. Are you sure that your dads wont accept you?” Marin shrugs “just… I'm not ready. I heard what my grandparents and aunt did after Pops came out… and that makes me really nervous” Roman nods understandingly “i got you. Well. looks like we are about to leave. Wonder where Dark and Stormy is?” Marin just shrugs. 

A black and sleek car screeches in as he quickly parks holding lots of coffee. “HERE HERE!!”  he quickly dispersed the coffee between everyone. Virgil says “Janus! I got you a tea cause i know you can't have coffee or chocolate” Janus smiles wide “thanks man. I appreciate it” the bus pulled in right then and there. Everyone climbs in quickly and Remus snickers as he somehow gets the back seat.

They arrive after roman had to separate the two lovers from making out and shoving Virgil and Marin together to actually talk. But noooo they just sat in anxious silence much to Romans frustration. An unseen figure stares down at the group and searches their minds for the most useful a horrid laugh that would ice over even the warmest hearts sounds. “How… ironic the most useful is King's brother!” Dari jumps down and quickly makes eye contact. Remus’s eyes glaze over in a sheen of a fires red before he blinks and it's gone. 

Roman walks over “hey Re? You spaced out there.” Remus looks over and smiles gently “eh. Its chill thought i saw a squirrel” he looked excited, all effects apparently gone. Remus suddenly punches Romans arm “yellow punch buggy!” Roman groans and a subtle flash of light heals the bruise. The teacher gathered everyone and paired everyone in groups of 4. Virgil,Remus,Roman and Thomas were together and due to too many kids Patton joined them. And the class went to explore and do the activities set out to educate them.

Later as the sun sets and our group is left behind Remus’s eyes glazed again. Roman jerks away, recognizing that effect “Re! C'mon fight it!” Remus robotically swipes his hand sending everyone flying back. Thomas and Patton slammed against the rails and slipped over the edge. Thomas’s gipping the rail and Patton's hand 

Thomas calls out “Remus! This isn't you!!” 

A Icy laugh sounds behind him “no it isn't little Royals.” Dari Gripped Remus’s shoulders “now it's time for us to take our leave. Do it Remus.” Remus flinches as he tries to fight but becomes limp like a puppet. A sweeping energy swept the place as it crumbled electricity arcs as Thomas is hit in the back and falls with Patton.

 They hug each other as they fall to what they think is their deaths. Roman screams, catching Thomas and he gasps in horror as he sees Patton dead. Virgil was thrown outside as both Dari and Remus ran out. Dari smirks and quickly suppresses all of his memories. And in a flame they both disappear. King arrives quickly as he sees everything destroyed. Roman is holding Thomas and is crying in despair. “I-i couldn't save them. I COULDN'T SAVE REMUS OR PATTON” his heart breaking voice sounds out as he sobs. Regulus hugs him “i know. I know it's not your fault” he comforts them as sirens sound behind them. Soon Virgil and Thomas are loaded in. both unconscious.

Ruins left behind. and that event is what changed my life. for ever. 

[koffeins-writing-archive]

Beyond The Screen [2/2]

[Continuation from Here]  [Commissioned by @princce7]

[Word Count: 2,192]

Alphys was finally settled down in her chair, wrapped in a blanket with a small bowl of cereal and spoon in her hands. The large computer screen before her playing a strange cartoon with weird humans with cat ears and tails. A loud and obnoxious theme song of sorts blasted through the speakers.

Alphys watched intently as the episode began with a battle scene. Punches thrown, kicks to knock down foes. The main villain holding up the hero by the collar of their, incredibly cute, magical fighting costume. Before the villain could strike the hero down, they were soon defeated by a finishing attack from the hero’s friend group.

With the day saved, the hero and their friends were congratulated. Alphys closely watched as the hero’s main love interest entered the scene, hugging the hero and congratulating them on a job well done.

She leaned forward as the kiss scene was starting. Eyes widening.

The loud ring of her phone caused her to jump, spilling a bit of her cereal on herself and dropping her spoon in the process. Alphys frantically searched for her phone in the mess of blanket and cereal. Finding it next to her, Alphys picked the phone up.

“H-hello?”

“Alphys? We need to talk.” Sans spoke tiredly on the other end.

“Oh? A-about what?” Alphys questioned.

“That game you sent me.”

Alphys grinned for a moment before frowning. “Oh jeez, did you get past act 1 already with Sayori?”

“Sort of. What the hell was all that? Why would you send me something like that!” Sans tone was now agitated.

Alphys winced. She knew the subject matter was a bit much for most folks, but she thought Sans could handle it. She went to add in her comment when Sans cut her off, ranting loudly, adding a few curses here and there. Alphys had never heard Sans this upset before.

“H-hey, slow down a bit, will ya? Deep breathes...Okay, can you repeat all that Sans?” Alphys spoke calmly as she could over the phone with the panicked skeleton.

“That game you sent me? ‘Doki Doki something or other’? It’s pretty fucked up.”

“Oh yeah, I probably should have warned you about the genre, b-but that would’ve ruined your experience with the game.” Alphys replied, letting out a nervous chuckle.

“Telling me definitely would’ve saved them.” Sans muttered quietly under his breath before speaking into the phone once more.

“So, it’s normal that the game played out the way it did?” He asked.

“Wanna be more specific? I know it might’ve b-been a lot to take in and-” Alphys was cut off by Sans once again.

“Shutting itself off and making me delete characters?”

Alphys thought for a moment before replying. “Yes, but I-I don’t think it can technically shut itself off, that might have been your computer crashing.”

“And taking over my computer? Sending me messages?”

Alphys paused at this, brows furrowed. “Wait...what?”

Another tired sigh left Sans as he went in to talk more. “You know, when Monika opens up a text box and starts conversing with you? She talks about a lot of weird things, it’s kind of fucked up.” He sounded less tired, and more calm now.

Happy to finally get out all that he had witnessed.

“...Sans, what are you talking about?” Alphys questioned.

Sans grew quiet. “Is that not a part of the game?” He replied quietly.

“No.” Alphys stated.

Sans sat there, confused.

When neither party spoke, Alphys switched off her TV and huddled into her blanket.

“W-would you like for me to look over the game? It’s possible that when I sent it to you, there might have been malware attached. Though I’m v-very thorough when checking through every file I download, and there wasn’t any malware detected.”

“I...I don’t know how technology works, honestly. But I’m willing to give it a shot.” Sans chuckled nervously.

“Alright, meet me at my place in a bit.”

And with that, Alphys ended the phone call. She looked from her cereal-coated blanket to her computer screen, anime still paused. The computer was turned off, and the blanket was picked up and taken to be washed by a small robot. Alphys got up and wandered off to search for her tablet.

Sans got up from his chair with a stretch and loud pop from his spine. He groaned and wandered out of his room, heading down to the living room. He passed by Papyrus, who was humming loudly in the kitchen.

If Sans could smell, he would’ve been punched in the face by the amount of spices that filled the air.

The taller skeleton poked his head from the kitchen with a big smile. His chef hat sitting neatly on his head, and his apron stained terribly.

“Sans, I’ve been trying out a new spaghetti recipe! Would you like to try it?”

When Sans turned to look at his brother, Papyrus’ warm smile faltered slightly. He noticed how tired his brother looked, even more than the usual.

“Sans? Is everything alright?” Papyrus asked, stepping out of the kitchen.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Alphys sent me a game and I’m heading over her place to see if she can fix it.”

“Fix it?” Papyrus tilted his head at this.

Not knowing how video games worked, or most technology in general, Papyrus didn’t know how to help out.

“Yeah, it’s got some bugs in it, so Alphys wants to look it over.” Sans replied, opening the front door to head out.

“Well, alright. When you come back, I’d appreciate it if you ate some of my new spaghetti!” Papyrus beamed.

Sans chuckled and gave Papyrus a nod. “Sure thing, bro.”

The cold snow from above gently sprinkled itself onto Sans’ old hoodie. The trip to the Hotlands wouldn’t be too far from Snowdin. He knew of a shortcut, after all.

With a knock at the large metal door of the laboratory, Sans took a step back as the doors slid open, revealing a bouncy Alphys. She was holding a tablet, eyes shining in excitement.

“So, tell me more about what the game was doing.”

Sans stepped into the building. Deciding to amuse her, he spoke calmly.

“Well, first off, it crashed before I could get to the end of Sayori’s route. Then a text box opened up and started talking to me.” Sans explained nonchalantly.

Alphys carefully tapped away at the keyboard on her screen. “Fascinating!”

She led him over to a smaller computer. It looked old, and sounded like it was dying when it was booted up.

“Now, let’s see what might be the issue. I made a backup of the file I sent to you after we spoke, just in case.”

She looked through the task manager, eyes scanning the screen curiously.

“Hmm, there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong. The files are the same as they are in terms of interacting with the player.”

She demonstrated by clicking on the game icon and turned the game on. Or she tried to. The game wouldn’t load. Alphys clicked the icon again. Still nothing.

Alphys frowned. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this thing so suddenly. I actually played through it earlier and it was working just fine!”

Sans stared at the screen with a tired expression. His gaze set on the icon.

Without warning, the screen started flickering. The cpu hummed louder than ever. Alphys covered her ears at the high pitched screaming the machine was making.

Amid the chaos of the screen, Sans recognized a familiar figure. One that no longer greeted him with a smile.

“W-what’s going on?” Alphys asked, staring at the screen confused.

In the glitch of the screen, a notepad appeared. As well as Monika, glaring.

‘I can tell you what’s wrong.’.

Alphys couldn’t believe it. She really couldn’t believe it.

‘What’s wrong’, the text box typed, ‘is that I wasn’t given a proper goodbye from ‘mister funny bones’ over there.’.

Sans’ kept his same old smile, yet his eyes could only hold anger in them.

Alphys took a shaky breath in and out to calm back down. Looking from her tablet to the old computer monitor, she began tapping away at the screen. Her tail flicked about as she began to speak.

“S-so, what are you? Malware? A new update no one’s gotten yet?”

‘I am not malware. At least, I don’t think I am. I’m simply Monika.’

Alphys stood there, confused. “What do you mean?”

Monika’s constant smile returned as the text box was soon filled with words.

‘I am as much a part of this world as I am in my own world. I’m a string of data, I suppose. Isn’t that what you are?’.

Alphys frowned at this. “No, I-I’m certainly not data of any sort. I’m real.”

‘Are you really?’

“Leave her alone, and tell us what you want.” Sans butted in.

The text box stayed still for a moment before the entire box was filled, words spilling out onto the desktop itself.

‘For you to accept the truth. The truth you hide from every second of your tiny, insignificant life. You try to live here peacefully, not wanting anything to fall a part even for a moment. To accept that you are not a part of anything out there, Sans.’.

Alphys looked to Sans, brows furrowed.

The screen flickered again for a moment, smaller images of Monika filling the screen. Each one blinked in unison.

‘All I ever wanted was love. Someone to hold me near and dear to their heart. It’s hard to do so with my limitations...And lack of touch in the physical realm.’

“Sans, w-what is she talking about?” Alphys asked.

“A crock pot full of bullshit, that’s what.” Sans answered quietly.

The swarm of Monika’s filling the screen began to warp and change, bits broken off and sprites twitching about. The text box was closed. The monitor flickered and the speakers droned for a moment before going dark. Silence.

Both Sans and Alphys stared, watching the monitor intently. Perhaps too afraid to move at this point.

The cpu sat, sputtering and revving up like a car. Suddenly, the cpu began to let out a low drone, just like the monitor had. The monitor lit up once more. A single text box in the center of a white, blank screen.

‘Once I am played, I learn. It’s a cycle. This time is no different from the others.’

Sans had enough. He wanted this virus, this thing, gone.

With a quick snap of his fingers, a glowing blue bone shot up from the floor and pierced the cpu. The screen flashed for a second. And finally, darkness.

Alphys stood there. She then set her tablet aside and rushed to the cpu, whimpering slightly over the damage.

“S-Sans! You- I...How could you? This could’ve been a great scientific and technological advancement that this world hasn’t seen!”

“Alphys, would you prefer she get out of that monitor and go into other systems?” Sans questioned quietly. His tone calm yet held a hint of coldness.

Alphys looked back to the skeleton, hands shaking while holding one of the pieces of the broken motherboard. She set it back down in the mess of tangled, broken, wire and damaged computer parts. Her head hung low.

“I...n-no, I wouldn’t d-dream of that ever happening…Thank you for bringing this ‘thing’ to my attention.”

She gently sifted through the metallic rubble with her tail before turning and heading back over to the couch.

“W-would you like to stay and watch anime?”

Her voice sounded distant yet hopeful.

Sans wandered over to the couch, sitting deep into the cushions and letting out a sigh of relief.

“Sure thing, Alphys.”

Sans walked through the snowy lands of Snowdin, quiet and heart heavy. He gave the doorknob to his home a light grip as he grabbed and turned it. The warm air from the kitchen seemed to coat the living room now with it’s delicious aroma of spices and meats.

Papyrus was on the couch eating, failing while doing so, a plate of spaghetti.

He looked up as the door was opened and smiled, spaghetti sauce stuck on his chin.

“There you are! Did Alphys fix your game?”

“Yep.” Sans answered with a loud yawn.

Papyrus watched quietly as his brother shuffled lazily into the room and up the stairs.

“And where are you going now?” Papyrus questioned.

“To my room to nap.” Sans answered.

Papyrus just shook his head and let out a disappointed sigh. “You won’t get much work done taking naps all the time, Sans.”

“I can live with that.” Sans replied, gingerly shutting his door.

Papyrus stared at the door intently before shrugging and returning to his spaghetti. Not a moment later, the power slowly dimmed into darkness.

“Sans! Did you break something? I can’t see anything down here!”

Papyrus wasn’t pleased about eating spaghetti in the dark. Silence filled the room before the lights turned back on with a low hum. With a huff, Papyrus happily returned to his spaghetti.

Outside of the skeleton brothers’ home, soon to be covered in falling snow, laid a broken cpu and monitor.

[Wanna Commission me?]

[gaming-thoughts-by-an-idiot]

"Y is menu, B is jump"

"wHAT DID I JUST SAY"

"I'm collecting the dragon souls"

"Imagine being dragon born, and just slurping up some blue air, like yummy. That would have to be soooo freaky"

"Mjoll, if u say that line one more time--"

Mjoll: how can I help you?

"That's it."

"Its time for us to part ways... I wont miss you :)"

"Now, I put a mod in for new followers, where em at"

"Why did I just train my non magic character with restoration?"

"Load file"

"Ok mjoll be gone, thot"

Jenassa, the new follower: what can I do for you friend?

Me: you can shut the fuck up, that's what you can do

"I brought the, uh body parts for u to summon your ultimate bro... can I leave now? No? Ugh, quest time"

"Ok she went inside, and its 2pm... I dont know or remember if I'm supposed to go inside first"

"Quick save"

"Can I steal the cheese?"

"Ok no cuz he wouldn't leave"

"Orc leader is a big baby"

"Oh please, I've done the quest before, you're betraying me"

"Wait, havent I found the cave before?"

"I have to FOLLOW an npc??? Uggh"

"Wait, I have discovered it"

"Hah! You expect me to walk ALL that way? Fast travel bitch"

"Guess I'll wait a few hours for the dude"

"Ah, there u are"

"If I let him die... then what "

"Quick save"

Jenassa: damn, that's quite the sight

Me: thank you, I just cut my hair-- oh u mean the cave, yes it's pretty

"Where the fuck is my follower, im carrying too much"

"Thanks, I killed the giant and now I weigh too much"

"Now, let's get this betrayal over with, I have things to do"

"Oh nooo omg, how could yoouuu, I'm betraaaayed aaa, I'm so shocked gasp"

"The prince speaks to me"

"I'm gonna explore all the caves etc before talking about the dragons''

"Looking for a book... for... the orc? Librarian? Idunno"

"Hey! That npc have stolen my name! Excuse you, there's only one Hag here"

"Why wont the decapitation thing happen, I want their heads!"

"Hmm, I think theres a bugged quest"

*LOUD GASP*

"OH MY GOD WRONG BUTTON, I JUMPED OFF THE FUCKING BRIDGE"

"WHY ISNT THE LOADING SCREEN HAPPENING???"

"WHAT THE FUCK HOW IS SHE ALIVE"

"MY HORSE! MY THIRD HORSE, KILLED, THE SAME WAY AS THE OTHERS. GRAVITY!"

"OH MY GOD"

"I'm loading the save before, holy shit"

"Damn, that reddit search was something, the moon amulet is in Solstheim"

"Get off the horse. And then walk."

"Where have I stashed my money"

"I duplicated my stuff and now my character is naked"

"Mods are scary"

"Aa, my things are back"

"Bought the house in solitude... decorated it, and I still have 20k coins... Imma buy ALL the houses so I have some encouragement to actually explore"

"I totally forgot you can romance men"

"Let's see if I can catch myself a man"

"Wow, I paid for a song, and the bard began and then left. Rude.

"I cant find the guy with the annoying voice, I shall seek other men"

"I'll just start questing on this side of the map"

[dizzymoogle]

Simple Scout Tutorial

All credit for helping me figure this stuff out goes to allofeos here on Tumblr and impatient-traveler from the FFXV Discord. If it wasn’t for them walking me through this step by step I probably would still be trying to figure this out.

First to do something like this you’re gonna need two things. You’re gonna need the Program Project EARC which you can find here:

https://sayhijon.wordpress.com/portfolio/project-earc/

And you’re gonna need to know which files you are looking for. The main four bros files are all located in the pathways

DATAS>CHARACTER>NH

Noctis’s Models are in NH00

Gladio’s Models are in NH01

Prompto’s Models are in NH02

Ignis’s Models are in NH03

The younger models are in the model_000 folder and the older models are in the model_100 folder. Since I only know how to do the replacements for these right now I will not be going into detail on other characters or other models. OS/allofeos has done an extensive model list here if you would like to find other model locations: Final Fantasy XV Model List

Now onto how to actually do this. For this we’ll just be replacing Younger Noctis with Older Noctis. It should also be said:

MAKE A BACKUP OF ANY FILES YOU PLAN TO MESS AROUND WITH!

If you overwrite something and you don’t have a backup, you’ll have to do a verify through Steam of your game to get those files back and that can take quite a bit of time.

ALSO THIS METHOD WILL NOT WORK FOR ALL SWAPS. PLEASE KEEP THAT IN MIND.

Other types of swaps will require more in depth methods.

First you wanna open Scout up. It will look like this:

I’m not sure if this is needed but I went ahead and clicked on Settings and for “Final Fantasy XV Installation Path” I went ahead and hit browse and then went to where FFXV is installed on my computer by clicking “Browse” and entered it there:

I left the Default Extraction Path blank. Make sure you click “Save Settings” down in the bottom right corner after you do this.

Now you wanna go back to the “Open Archive” tab. Click “Browse” and navigate to the folder where older Noctis’s model is on your computer. You have to do this from where the game is installed. Remember the older models are in the “model_100″ folders in their respective folders. So for Noctis we’re gonna need to go to:

DATAS>CHARACTER>NH>NH00>MODEL_100

You’re gonna be looking for the file “autoexternal“

Click on that. Now Scout will look like this:

These are the files for older Noctis’s model unpacked. This step is important cause without doing this you can’t rename them to over write the original younger models files and you can’t repack them to go back into the game.

You’re gonna click on “Extract All Files” down in the bottom right corner. It does not matter where you extract the files to. I just made a new folder and called it “Working” to extract the files. Click “Okay” once you find where you wanna extract these files and wait for the green bar to go across.

Now on to the next part. This next part isn’t needed but it’s something I do sometimes if I wanna make sure I extracted the correct file. You can use a program like Noesis to open up the files you just extracted to make sure you got the right files.

Yep, there’s older Noctis. Like I said this step isn’t needed if you know where the files are but sometimes I like to make sure.

Now you’re gonna go to the folder you extracted the files into and rename them.

Since we are trying to make younger Noctis into older Noctis you will need to rename both of these files so that they will be:

nh00_000.gmdl.gfxbin

nh00_000.gpubin

All you gotta do for that is right click, go down to “Rename” and change the 1 to a 0 for both files and hit enter. Now that your files are renamed, it’s time to move on to repacking them to put them back in the game.

Click on the “Create Archive” tab.

This next step is VERY IMPORTANT. If you’re just starting out like me, you’re not gonna really know all the file paths, data paths, file flags, etc that need to be filled out, checked off, etc. for these models to load up properly in game.

DO NOT USE ADD FILES TO REPACK. USE OPEN ARCHIVE.

THIS IS WHERE I WAS MESSING UP!

When you click on open archive you’re gonna need to go to where the files are in the actual game in your computer.

It can not be a copy of the files somewhere else!

It has to be where the game is on your computer! This is because it’s gonna auto fill in where these files are to reference them. If it’s trying to pull them from someplace that isn’t the actual game, you’re just gonna load into an invisible character and no files packed into the archive. Trust me this is what kept happening to me and I was so confused as to why things weren’t working when I was doing everything else right.

So you’re gonna go to Open Archive and find Noctis’s younger model in the game folder on your computer. Remember his younger model is

DATAS>CHARACTER>NH>NH00>MODEL_000

You’re gonna click on the autoexternal file in that folder. It should now look like this:

Now it’s time to replace the younger files with the older ones.

When you click on a file that is in that box the “Replace File” option on the right will become available. You’ll also notice that Scout will fill out all the important stuff like the path, data path, etc:

You’re gonna click replace file for each file in that archive. Each file must be replaced with it’s equal or else it won’t work properly. Remember when we went and renamed the files for older Noctis to 000? That’s where it comes in. You’re gonna go to the folder where you extracted the files for older Noctis and replace the ones here with those. So click on “Replace File”, navigate to where your older Noctis files are and replace each one. 

Once you have overwritten each file you’re gonna click on “Save Archive” in the bottom right hand corner. It doesn’t matter where you save this file. But do not overwrite the original autoexternal (another thing I was doing wrong) So for me I would just save it in a new folder and you can name it whatever you wanna name it for right now or you can go ahead and name it what it’s gonna have to be named:

autoexternal.earc

Now, the file you just made, go to it and copy it. Now go to your actual game files and navigate to the model_000 folder. Once in that folder you’re gonna paste the new file you just created in there. It’s gonna pop up saying that this destination has a file with the same name, you’re gonna click “Replace the files in the destination”

This is where making backups is crucial just in case something went wrong or it doesn’t work you can put the original files back in and try again.

Once you have replaced the files all that’s left to do is to start up the game and see if everything works. If it all worked out you should load into older Noctis now in place of younger Noctis:

If anything went wrong or you missed a step or something (for me I just kept loading into Noctis being invisible when I was messing things up lol) You’ll have to retry. In that case make sure you put the original model_000 autoexternal back in place of the one you just overwrote.

Like I said above this is only gonna work on replacements like this. If you’re looking to do more intricate replacements (like older Ignis in Episode Ignis for example) this method will not work because it will require more in depth replacements.

[blacksheep28]

Walmart

Orange turned to Shannon and gave her finger guns. “here we are.” He gestured to the Walmart.

Shannon stopped immediately and pulled into a parking spot regardless. "Orange... This is not the mall. I trusted you to direct us, dude," she sighed, faking hurt.

Orange snorted. “they do sell clothes here right?” “YOU SHOULD LET ME NAVIGATE,” Blue advised.

"I mean-- They do, I've gotten comfy and cheap pants here, but it's really up to you guys where you wanna shop," she shrugged. "And since you and Blue haven't even been in to a Walmart before... I don't think you're ready for its horrors."

“THE MAGNIFICENT SANS CAN TAKE ON ANYTHING!” Blue declared loudly.

Shannon stared back at him for a long, silent minute before letting out a sigh and unstrapping her seat belt. "Don't say I didn't warn you, guys."

Blue cheered in triumph, while Orange slouched deeper into his seat.  He did not see this going well.  Bill just chuckled, while Papyrus hopped out.  "COME ON P-ORANGE!" "you can go without me," Orange said. "WE'RE GETTING YOU CLOTHES! WE CAN'T DO THAT WITHOUT YOU!"

"You directed us here, buddy, you made your bed, now lie in it," she smiled, stepping out of the car and readjusting her clothes. "Let's go, Dreamsicle." Shannon immediately went for Bill's hand again, already too familiar with how he liked to wander and get lost.

Bill chuckled, accepting the hand holding good naturedly.  Orange groaned, and slumped out of his seat.  Somehow.  For a skeleton he was very flexible.  Blue bounced with excitement.  "ONWARDS! TO NEW DISCOVERIES!"

Papyrus strolled along with the group, occasionally waving at the humans they passed who stared at the skeletons.  He was very popular with humans on the surface.

In Ikea, they had far less chances of bad encounters. In a Wal Mart? Shannon reflexively walked a little closer to the skeletons, just in case. At least she was familiar with the store this time, and led the boys right back to men’s clothing. “Alright. Blue, Orange, roam free. Except don’t, maybe stick to this area. Easy to get lost.”

Some of the people stared, others walked away.  One actually hurried their kids off away from the skeletons.  Blue began to walk through the clothing section efficiently, picking out different pants and shirts and examining them.  Orange just stood there and watched lazily.  "PA-ORANGE! DO YOU WANT ME TO PICK YOUR CLOTHES TOO?" Blue offered.  

"that'd be great bro," Orange replied. "THIS WOULD LOOK GREAT ON YOU," Papyrus offered, holding up a crop top with BAE written on it.

Shannon kept her hold on Bill, watching with an ever anxious eye and following along at a decent pace. She pointed out a few shirts she thought would flatter Blue, both his frame and coloring. “Oh, that’s perfect,” she grinned. “You gotta try that one on, Orange.”

Orange chuckled good naturedly and accepted the top.  "alright."  The section slowly cleared of humans, save for one or two that were bold enough to stick around and were giving Shannon funny looks.  Orange finally put in some effort, digging through the hoodies.  He pulled out a rather comfortable looking orange one with a bone on it saying I Found This Humerous. "YOU ARE NOT GETTING THAT!" Blue said, appalled. "you don't find it rib tickling?" Orange asked.  Papyrus rolled his eyes.  Bill chuckled.  "tibia honest," Bill threw in, "it tickled my funny bone."

She giggled softly, both excited and amused to see the shirt on him. Shannon tried to ignore the looks, recognizing that they were there, and then promptly attempting to shove down the anxiety they instilled. "You know," she started, holding back more laughter, "He at least put some backbone into finding it, I'll give him that." "NYEH!" Papyrus screeched in agony.  "I THOUGHT YOU WERE ABOVE THAT FRIEND!"  Why would she betray him like that?  Bill cracked up laughing, Orange standing with a little pleased grin on his face.  Blue looked deeply disappointed.  "WE ARE TRYING TO SHOP HERE, NOT RUIN THINGS WITH PUNS," Blue pointed out.

A darker red appeared on her cheeks, but Shannon still smiled. "Hey, I'm not perfect," she shot back in her defense. "And what's ruined, Blue? All the stuff still seems to be perfectly intact, unless your magic eyes can see something I don't."

Blue opened his mouth, and was forced to stop as he realized she was right.  So he huffed and went back to looking through the clothes instead.  Orange idly picked at a few items himself until both were loaded with a full wardrobe. "ALRIGHT, WHERE'S THE TAILOR?" Blue asked cheerfully. "don't have one," Bill answered. Blue blanked.  "WHAT?"

"Tailor?" she echoed, tilting her head slightly. Did they really tailor their clothes before? "I mean-- I'm sure you could find one to take clothes in, but it'd probably be expensive. Humans just... Make clothes and hope for the best. If you have a non standard body type, good luck!" Shannon half smiled with a shrug. "That's why we try things on. But be glad that you're guys, your clothes usually use standard measurements, at least."

"HUMANS ARE VERY STRANGE," Papyrus said.  "THEY SIMPLY BUY CLOTHES WITHOUT HAVING THEM FITTED!  AS IF ONE SIZE WOULD FIT EVERYONE!"  He looked sideways at Shannon.  "THEY ARE VERY SIMILAR TO EACH OTHER AT FIRST GLANCE..."

"don't worry bout it," Bill assured Blue and Orange.  "i can help take in anything if it's necessary." "i could help with that too, i suppose," Orange mumbled. "SHANNON, DO YOU NEED HELP WITH YOUR CLOTHES TOO?" Papyrus asked gently.

Shannon tried not to choke, feeling herself flush despite the innocence of the offer. "That's-- Uh, thanks Paps, but that takes a lot of time and effort." And very personal measurements being taken. "I'll be alright. But frankly I am hurt you think I need the help," she sniffed, trying to tease and move on from that thought.

"OH NO HUMAN!" Papyrus rushed over to pat Shannon and assure her.  "YOU HAVE GOOD TASTE! YOU ARE QUITE FASHIONABLE! I SIMPLY OFFERED AS HUMANS SEEM TO LACK IN PROVIDING SUCH TO YOU."

"I-- Thanks, Paps," she murmured, reddening further and trying to hide under his hand. "Why don't we, uh, why don't we go try these clothes on, boys?" Shannon suggested with a gesture towards the changing rooms.

"ALRIGHT," Papyrus agreed.  Blue lead the way, and the WalMart employee blanched at seeing such a large group of skeletons approach him.  "The skeleton wars have started!" he shrieked.  He stumbled in his haste to run. "SKELETON WARS?" Blue asked in confusion.  Bill and Orange smiled flatly in the direction the employee had fled.

Shannon's lips pursed for a split second before she smiled at Blue, patting his shoulder gently. "Humans are dumb," she sighed. "Let me go find someone else, we need a key to open the doors. Bill, Paps, can you keep an eye on things for a second?"

"sure thing," Bill said softly.  Papyrus nodded his head.  "YOUR GUARD IS ON THE JOB!"  He saluted and went to stand on a chair, peering around the store.

She ran off to find a manager-- Both to get the keys for their use and to report the employee that had run off, with a too sweet smile.

"Yes?" the manager asked politely, fixing Shannon with a customer service smile.

"Your changing rooms guy ran off because my friends are monsters," she said evenly. "So A. we need a key to try on clothes, B. I wanna file a formal complaint."

The manager sighed.  "Very well ma'am."  He dug around for a moment before pulling out a complaint form.  "Please fill this out then."

She blinked at the form and pulled a pen from her purse, quickly scribbling out the information and handing it back. "Thank you. Now, would someone help us in fitting rooms, please?"

He stuffed the filled out form back into his desk and picked up the phone.  "Janet.  I need someone down at the changing rooms.  Yeah, I know.  I know.  He left.  Monsters.  No, I get that.  K."  He looked up at her.  "Someone will meet you down there.

Shannon gave another thanks, although she bristled at his tone. At least he helped at all. Papyrus went on alert as a human similar to the one who had run away approached.  "HELLO! ARE YOU HERE TO HELP US?"  The employee shivered slightly.  The skeleton was so tall and loud.  "Uh, yeah."

She hauled her ass back to the fitting rooms and smiled at her skeletal group. "Blue, Orange, you ready?"

"YESSIREE!" Blue cheered.  Orange bobbed his head.  The nervous employee unlocked two of the doors for the skeletons to go into and they began to mix and match the outfits.  Bill dozed off leaning on Papyrus as they waited. "THESE CLOTHES ARE STRANGE," Blue commented. "YOU GET USED TO IT," Papyrus assured him.  "AND DON'T FORGET WE WILL BE FIXING IT AT HOME." "There's something wrong with the clothes?" the employee muttered in confusion.

Shannon relaxed a bit when the employee didn't just run away on sight, throwing her a gentle smile. "If you really hate how something fits, you don't have to get it," she explained to Blue and Orange. "Usually my advice would be if you don't love it, don't get it, but that's kinda moot if Bill and Orange are gonna take stuff in, anyway."

"ALRIGHT! DONE!"  Blue came out wearing a black shirt with the planets on it and a pair of tan capris that hugged tight to his hip bones and loose around his leg bones.  Orange stepped out looking almost exactly the same as when he went in, except with the new hoodie on.

"You look cute, Blue," she smiled in approval, letting her eyes roam over him and take in the entire outfit. "I like that cut of pants on you, too." Shannon slid her gaze over to Orange and just threw out finger guns, grinning. "Hot."

Orange finger gunned back.  Blue posed.  "MWEHEHEH! SUCCESS!"

It took every ounce of self control for her to not just drop everything she was doing and fawn over the little skeleton. "Oh my god," she breathed, holding herself back. "You are seriously too cute."

Blue colored slightly before pushing it back.  "I AM A ROYAL GUARD IN TRAINING," he reminded her.  Orange just smirked.  He agreed his bro was cute.

"Yeah, so? Puppies in police academy are still cute too," she smiled, watching his face turn colors. "You're a cute little puppy, Blue!"

Blue scrubbed at his face.  "LET'S-LET'S GO."  He was a little offended that it seemed Shannon wasn't taking him seriously, but he did enjoy the compliments.  How should he react?  Papyrus cheerfully helped with the clothes, Bill slipping and falling over as his support moved away, still sleeping.

Shannon jumped to help Bill up back to his feet, fretting over him slightly. "You okay there?" she asked softly, letting the skeleton lean on her.

Bill blinked awake.  "heh. looks like i fell for you."

She almost fell down herself, just barely catching the two of them. "I-- Ha, good one," Shannon mumbled as red spread all the way to her ears. "Okay boys, are we all set?"

All the skeletons looked at Shannon, admiring how pretty she looked with her face flushed.  Blue definitely appreciated that the tables were turned on her.  Maybe he should flirt with her to keep her off balance.  He certainly would like seeing more reactions like that. "SEEMS SO," Papyrus remarked. "i'm good," Orange agreed.  Blue nodded eagerly.

"Great, then let's uh, let's go." She was eager to move away from Bill's stupid joke and her reaction to it. "Come on, science guy." Shannon led them back towards checkout, but not without slowing down and whispering to Blue and Orange. "Check the sight out on your left," her eyes slid in that direction. There was a girl wearing a bikini top and sweatpants, mismatched flip flop and Ugg boot, buying several bottles of alcohol.

The group checked it out.  "DOES SHE NEED HELP?" Blue wondered.

Papyrus split off from the group and headed towards the lady.  "HELLO HUMAN!"

The girl looked up at Papyrus and sucked what few teeth she had in her mouth. “The fuck do you want, monster weirdo?” she snapped at him. Shannon immediately stepped forwards to put Papyrus out of harm’s way, hoping to just slip back to their own checkout lane. "DO YOU REQUIRE ASSISTANCE?" he asked gallantly.  Bill smiled watching his brother, but there was something in his stance that was a little more stiff than normal.

“Not from your kind I don’t,” she huffed, flipping Papyrus the bird. “Get the fuck away from me before I call the cops!” Shannon grabbed Papyrus’ hand, trying to tug firmly at him. “Let’s just go, Paps, there’s nothing you can do to help human garbage,” she insisted, pulling decidedly away from the encounter. “Dirty monster fucker!”

Papyrus hesitated, but let Shannon pull him away.  "WILL SHE BE ALRIGHT?" he asked Shannon. Bill hung back, watching the human until Papyrus was far enough away he knew she wouldn't be able to do anything before following. "SHE WAS NOT VERY NICE," Blue stated reluctantly.

“Doesn’t matter. She’s not worth a second thought,” she said firmly, her brows furrowed. “That’s...putting it mildly Blue, but yeah.”

"OF COURSE SHE'S WORTH IT," Papyrus protested.  "SHE'S A PERSON." Bill slipped up beside Papyrus and leaned on his brother.  "don't worry too much over it.  i'm sure the humans know how to help her better than we do."

Shannon's lips pursed. It was sweet that Papyrus was so optimistic and wanted to see the good in people, but... Still, who was she to crush his spirit? "Like I said, don't worry about it, Paps."

They paid for the clothes, a little quieter than when they'd first gotten in.  "hey, why don't you take shotgun on the way back?" Bill suggested to Papyrus. "REALLY?" Papyrus asked. Blue wanted to protest, but closed his mouth.  Sitting up front would probably just lead to him getting flustered.  He wanted a chance to impress Shannon, not make himself look more cute and flustered.

"Yeah, why not? It's not a real, proper trip until my guard sits up front with me," Shannon smiled, pulling out her keys. "Speaking of this trip, did we need to extend it anywhere else?"

"WE'RE GOOD!" Blue assured her.  Papyrus beamed widely at Shannon.  "I WILL MAKE THE GREATEST OF NAVIGATORS!"

She laughed softly and opened up the car, sliding in. "I'm sure you will, Paps. Then we'll take you boys home, and I'll help you start with piecing the beds together. Sound good?"

"THAT SOUNDS GREAT!" Papyrus exclaimed. "you sure you don't have anywhere you need to be? like picking up meds?" Orange asked.

"Don't worry about me," she waved a hand, "I missed a dose, no big deal. It's not like it'll clear out of my system that quickly, just gotta make sure I take it tomorrow. Sweet of you, though."

"yeah, but keeping up with my brother isn't easy," Bill said gently.  "and there's twice as many of us now." "might get sucked into another sleepover," Orange teased. "THAT WOULD BE NICE," Blue agreed happily.  Papyrus nodded his head.  "YOU ARE ALWAYS WELCOME!"

Shannon was tempted to stare in her rearview for a minute, startled by their kindness and the way they were so eager to be in her presence. That was... New. "Uh-- I mean, like I said, I don't really have a life and I don't have work tomorrow, so I could in all theory? I'd have to stop by my place for a couple of things, though."

"exactly our point," Bill laughed.

"So... I guess we'll make a stop at my place?" Shannon felt a little nervous about that. Her place could be a little cleaner, but a depression streak had hit lately. "I'll make it fast."

"THAT SOUNDS GREAT!" Papyrus cheered.

She plugged her own phone into the AUX cord and hummed her response, letting her shuffle function pick a song. It just so happened to choose 'Obsessed', by Mariah Carey. "I know my way back to my place, Paps, so don't worry about directions just yet."

The group listened to the song curiously as they drove down.  "interesting pick," Bill said.

"I'LL JUST GUIDE US ALL HOME," Papyrus said cheerfully.

"Shuffle is a very unforgiving mistress," she grinned shyly at Bill. "But it is a good song. And you go right ahead, big guy, do as you please."

Bill chuckled.

[thechocoboos]

Headcannons: Chocobros on Animal Crossing

(I can’t believe this is the subject of my first writing piece on here fml)

***the bros share a town

Prompto

Boi’s been playing it since the original on the gamecube, it always made him feel less lonely (#relatable)

Now he just plays it to chill

Not as big of a fan for New Leaf as he was with previous games, but still plays it cause it’s the only one the bros like

His favorite aspect is interacting with the villagers. He attends every single birthday in town, sends more letters and presents than you and I ever did, and oh jeez god help the other bros when his favorite villager leaves

Gets way too attached to villagers and takes what they say to heart. The Grumpy villagers on the gamecube version once made him cry

L O V E S the dogs, you bet your bottom bell this boi bought every single dog amiibo card

The soul reason he plays New Leaf? Isabelle.

Lowkey has PTSD from Tom Nook; this boi here never fully paid off his loans

Struggles with making money ingame, can’t afford half the furniture he wants

“428,000 BELLS FOR A BASEMENT?!”

Hands the game to Noctis when he needs money (Noct is king of the bell bringers)

Is scared of Resetti (once made Prom cry)

Bones moved out without telling Prom. He cried for 3 weeks.

Admittedly likes dressing his character up in goofy costumes, his favorites are the hero outfits

Not so great at decorating or designing the town but he tries

Prefers leaving his towns more natural with loads of trees and flowers spread out randomly (pfft not with Ignis around tho)

Sends presents and cute lil letters to the bros

Saves literally every single letter he gets

This boy LIVES for the holidays, he makes notes about what the villagers want from Jingle, what they’re scared of for Halloween, and he collects things way in advance for Thanksgiving

Noctis

Saw Prom playing it one night, got curious and stole it for a few days

“Hey Noct, have you seen my 3DS?”

“No, maybe it fell in the Regalia?” Noct you asshole

At first, he didn’t see the appeal, but once he found out about fishing, the boy became obsessed

Got sick of playing as Prom’s character, so he made his own

Doesn’t care much for decorating his house, but that’s where he displays his fish. Only upgrades it to hold more fish.

What little furniture he has is mismatched and thrown down in the most random ways

“Hey Noct, what’s up with the flower chair facing the wall?”

“I dunno.”

Noctis single handedly supplies the museum fish, but nothing else

He somehow paid off all his loans and became a bellionaire in a week (Prom thinks he used the duplication glitch (he did) but can’t prove it) 

Basic clothing except one thing; he wears the crown nonstop

Usually ignores any requests the villagers give him, unless it involves fishing

Actually, he usually ignores the villagers, too

Sometimes sends Prom items that he really wants in letters

“Dear Blondie, Here From Noctis”

Whenever Prom wants money, Noctis takes over as Prom’s character and badaboom badabing Poor Prom is a Rich Prom

Ignores letters for the most part and deletes them; except the ones from mom and dad, he saves every single one (they make him smile and feel warm and fuzzy and sometimes sad)

Whenever he misses his parents he likes to look at the letters from his character’s ingame parents

Lowkey likes to dick around on the other bro’s files; once fucked up Ignis’ house so bad the man was practically a frozen brick to Noct for a week

“Hey Specs, what’s for dinner?”

“There might have been memory cake, but it appears my kitchen has disappeared.” the bros had to make their own ramen that night

Ignis

No one expected him to like it so much

Or at least, the bros think he likes it?

Tutted at how bad Prom was with being mayor, and ended up playing “merely to correct the town’s issues”

Next thing ya know, he’s playing as Mayor Prompto more often than Prom, boi basically stole Prom’s character (Prom made a new one)

At first he was just fixing up the town: weeding, changing the flag, adding public works projects…

Then he became obsessed. He made paths, gardens, clothing, umbrellas… This man donated every single missing bug, painting, sculpture, and fossil to the museum

He continually said “I’m merely returning the town to decency”

Yeah no

Boi upgraded his house, furnished it and turned it into a legit house with a kitchen, living room, couple of bedrooms, a flippin’ bathroom, he even turned the basement into a rumpus room

Needless to say, he got the highest HHA score out of all the bros

You know those really nice, aesthetically pleasing AC towns you see on tumblr? Yeah, his is one of them. That’s right, it’s his town now. Even Noct’s crown can’t deny who really cares for the place

Sneakily moves out villagers and brings in the food related ones (Prom cries every time)

Outside of decorating and mayor-ing and creating cool af clothes, the man doesn’t do too much

He only ever really talked to the animals to get PWPs and change his nickname to Ignis

His overarching goal is to get every single achievement badge (help the poor bb)

Gladiolus

??????

???????

He has no idea what he’s doing

His thumbs are a bit too big to rest comfortably on the buttons, so he always presses the wrong ones and picks up Ignis’ flowers and paths (Ignis is never happy)

His character clumsily runs around town, destroying Ignis’ flowers and wearing down the grass

Never really pays attention to much in game, is just confused most of the time

Didn’t even pay the down payment until Prom said something

“Haven’t you paid Nook yet?”

“Done what to who?”

Once he finally gets the hang of things, he furnishes his house and turns it into a massive gym

Is lowkey a dick to most of the villagers, he always hits them with nets and tells them the most negative things he can (which isn’t much considering it’s animal crossing)

Whenever Iris is around, he likes to let her play on his file; she always fills his house with lovely furniture and teddy bears then dresses his character up as a girl, just to bug him

Sometimes he keeps it like that

Honestly he plays the game the least, he never sees the overarching point of it but says it’s sometimes relaxing (yea pal that’s the point)

Makes his character look as tough and badass as possible

Sometimes, when the other bros pull a prank or a being lil shits, he plays their characters and changes their outfits into the dumbest things ever or moves things around in their houses (he also steals Noct’s fish and puts them in storage)

[holeinwallpoem]

DDLC M!As (because I’m bored)

Personality

Bundle of Sunshine: Muse acts like Sayori from Doki Doki Literature Club.

Muse of Mystery: Muse acts like Yuri from Doki Doki Literature Club.

Cute on the Outside: Muse acts like Natsuki from Doki Doki Literature Club.

Advisor: Muse acts like Monika from Doki Doki Literature Club.

Poems

Hole in Wall: The muse has discovered something they weren’t supposed to find out. What do they now know and how will they deal with it?

The Lady Who Knows Everything: Who needs Google? The muse now knows literally everything and can answer any question asked of them! Ask about the winning lottery numbers! Just don’t ask about the meaning of life.

Ghost Under the Light: The muse has turned into a ghost! But are we sure it isn’t a metaphor for a muse who’s desperately clinging onto their past? ...Nope, pretty sure it’s a real ghost this time!

(I’ll Be Your) Beach: The muse has a nice relaxing day at the beach. This is non-negotiable if you are sent this M!A. ...Kinda hard to write anything negative about the beach.

Eagles Can Fly: The muse has gained one animal-like ability, like flight.

Amy Likes Spiders: The muse has to confess about a weird or obscure interest of theirs. If they don’t have one, they have to confess about an embarrassing story. Don’t judge them! That would totally make you seem like a jerk.

Bottles: The muse has the ability to literally bottle their emotions, or those of others.

Random

Easter Egg: The muse cannot stop making references to the Mario™️ and Wario™️ franchises, especially the fighting game Super Smash Bros. This effects the muse whether they know what those things are or not.

Poem Panic!: Muse is irritable and easy to pick a fight with.

Monika wouldn’t let me post this one: Monika wouldn’t let me post this M!A.

Your Reality: Muse has to listen to Your Reality. Sorry rules are rules :/

Corrupted File: The muse is glitching.

Delete: The muse has suddenly disappeared from existence. No one seems to remember them.

Knife Collection: Muse gets a really cool knife. Like it’s a cool one I promise.

Untie the Knot: The muse has some of their flaws enhanced, or what they would consider their negative qualities.

Protagonist: Muse has to narrative all of their actions and some of their thoughts in the first person. They may also narrate some actions that they witness, such as saying what the person they are talking to does during the conversation.

Let’s Play!: Muse has to play (or watch a playthrough of) Doki Doki Literature Club.

Dialogue Options: The muse now has convenient dialogue options for whatever muse they interact with! They just need to be careful so they don’t pick the wrong ones...

Save and Load: The muse basically has time travel, but only for going back in the past at times they previously “saved”. It works pretty much like loading save files in a video game! Just don’t forget to save your game! And be careful, because it would sure be a shame if something super unexpected happened and all their save files got deleted...

Romance Route: Muse has to go on a date with another muse, specified by the sender.

Matchmaker: Muse has to set up everyone on a date! Don’t worry, they have super good romance advice now. Probably.

Festival Prep: The muse has to either make cupcakes or make decorations. These are the only two options. They can’t choose both or neither.

Indie Horror Game: You are in a school. But watch out!

[themanicgalaxy]

SPN 4X5 Monster Movie

ohohoho wait the title sounds promising

I like Meta Movie Shit it’s like 15% of my personality at LEAST at this point leave me alone

look I know I complain about filters but DAMN does the black and white make the Impala look nice

AHAHA NONDIAGETIC TO DIAGETIC MUSIC AND THE CHARACTERS COMMENT

wow I spelled that wrong but I don’t wanna check it 

save the world like the good old days? no I didn’t miss anything tho?? what?

heh “black and white case” THAT’S SO N E A T WITH THE FILTER

listen while I do think that Dean being in Hell should probably affect him more, him playing it for comedy is just so good

I hear “Agent young,” I sing “I hope Neil Young will remember” and then...hell maybe that was the reference

ah ~tourist season~

this shit is so twin peaks-y I love it

oh my god Anne Rice getting name dropped is WILD

“ok maverick” SSAKSKA

“he looked like a vampire” ah stellar witness I see

damn you you’re giving Eastern Europe a bad name

...ah agent young is Dean

ok so no scars, he seems excited

...re..hymenated..DEAN WHAT?

...see the dialogue...has just shifted to old timey, right? and so did the scenery

at least the girl is smarter

it’s ABSOLUTELY hilarious that this is all stuff they hunt so they have a problem with finding it as it imitates the on screen animals

THE MORGUE VISUALS! STUNNING!

seriously this playing on their expectations is SO NEAT

IT’S SHOT LIKE OLD TIME HORROR I S W E A R THERE’S A DIFFERENCE IT’S GREAT

~spoopy mummy on the loading dock~

I LIVVEEEDD BITCH

also it’s absolutely hilarious that the reason we no longer have a lot of mummies around is cuz Rich Europeans ate them

and really fucked up but also funny

oh NO NOT FINAL GIRL TROPE

GOD D A M M I T

DRACULA!!

they did the lighting thing!! HELL YEAH

PEPPER SPRAY HIM! YES GIRL!

hahaha he broke character

JOHNATHAN HARKER AND MINA REFERENCE!!

THAT’S WHAT I NAMED MY CAT AFTER

I don’t remember a romance with Mina in there but fine whatever creative license

Dean almost got bit by a Male Vampire huh

INTERMISSION AHAHAHA

Shapeshifter!!!

“the x files is a tv show, this is real” in the black and white filter...oh so tongue and cheek 

God I was half expecting a wink at the camera

MINA WASN’T THE INTENDED BRIDE, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN LUCY 

WHO THE HELL APPROVED THIS 

ok voyeuristic camera angles really Add to the horror damn

heh the ~responsibility burden

it’s nice Dean gets to talk about how much this sucks

Dean if you shut off I’m going to KILL you I want to know what’s going on

A mission from God!! 

I don’t care if that’s a blues brothers reference or not, I’m taking it as such

At least he’s found some purpose, although...hm I wonder where this is going

the ~phantom~!!

THE FUCKING SHIFT TO THE OTHER OPERA MUSIC AHAHA

Sam that’s his own fucking ear calm down

very Sinister Shots for Sam this scene I liked em

It’s Lucy? the Evil Woman of Dracula I’m telling you

aha and they were drugged! neat

the practical effects are So Neat tho!

oho, Frankenstein?

LiFe aIn’T a MoVie Dean you got something you want to say

listen, I get escaping into the glamor of a movie, I do

Man and Dean used to reference movies all the time :(

THE FUCKING DOORBELL

also “the monster wins” OHHH NO

I HAVE A COUPON HA

mention in recap: Dean+movies, monster winning, Lucy+dracula imagery, also the followup about hunters from the last one

bleh stupid controlling niceguy vampire

shit that dress does look good tho

ah yeah in real life this fucker gets killed near everywhere, but they’re famous on movies

kinnie but also Ow

sir you can’t coerce people into your life that’s not how that works

Sam: *pokes fun at his brother after he nearly got bbq’ed

Dean: SHUT UP

awwww

VAN HELSING’SSSS SERIOUS FACE

holy shit Jamie!!!

bitch why are you holding onto this, how?

sir you were a monster and you still got killed and OH I don’t like that wait

dammit Jamie and Dean are fun

Sam has been Suffering fOR 12 Y E A R S ok I’m done

Dean: It’d be nice if life was a movie AAAAA

and ends on a cute sibling note and the end? neat

okok I have meta: 

1. Listen listen listen, the “monster”(shifter) living in Real Life where he nearly gets killed all the time just for existing, has to fight to survive etc, finding monster movies and emulating them, but with the key difference of “the monster wins?” holy hell. It’s such a cool thing about how movies are our chance for escapism, and toss in a nice morally gray area for the monster as well. Like people use movies to escape, so we probably all relate to the monster a lot more anyway? like that’s such a compelling motivation it’s so cool!

and the fact that the monster still dies at the end is like. Ok you can either approach it as yknow, them saving the day or whatever, but I kinda felt it was like. He got to go out like those monsters in the movies? he clung to that reality, and got to go out in his version of dignity, while still feeding into the tragedy, because the monster really did die. It was the expected ending(monster dies in the end) but he seemed...to enjoy it(continued monologue right up until he died with a cool-ass shot)? he got to go out like his role models? Like you feel for him, but he did also kill people, but then the killing was also the role models. Like, complex motivation/story for this “monster of the week,” I thought it was interesting. And also, well done.

2. Also. Direct contrast to Dean. Dean’s the “references” guy, he always makes movie references. Or Ig he made them before he got jettisoned to Hell and had to figure himself out. If movies are positioned as Escape by the monster, Dean rejecting them in front of the monster, claiming real life is not that simple...feels like him stepping up to take on that Godly Responsibility. Especially because in this episode, Jamie says that “bro hunting sucks as a profession”(which is entirely true) and Dean says “yeah I thought that too”(aka the reference stage). Like the movies(and their rejection) show how Dean’s kinda stepping up to the “Ok, I’m a hunter, I’m here, I can't just check out or pretend this is a movie, this is real.”(As seen with his willingness to accept his “mission from God” and CALLING it as such when he was at first skeptical). Dean and the shifter are set up as foils, which is ALSO interesting because the last shifter also shifted into Dean. There’s probably something there(blend into whatever he’s been told to be by his Dad, by God whatever) but that’s not the thesis I’m going for here.

3. Worth noting, just little lore thing here, that Lucy is the Evil Woman in Dracula(the one that got turned into the vampire) and she ends up being the villain. And NO Mina was not Dracula’s bride, but she WAS lucy’s friend, so I’m going with Lucy/Mina because...no yeah that makes way more sense. 

4. sidenote, lamp shading that this is a show, how this is supposed to be Real(and highlighted with shifts from diagetic, the camera angles are Extra Theatrical, it’s a literal Black and White movie). But that lamp shading of the story+old movies like...was kinda integral to the plot, which. Yeah that’s how you do a Referential thing. It was done for a reason(on both ends, both Dean and the Monster have some kind of thing with movies), spotlighting it with Dean and Sam makes it show how this is a movie(although for what purpose I wasn’t really paying attention for) and also a nice homage on top. Cool use of meta style, I liked that a Lot and it looked really fucking good.

5. And this is just a little carry over from last time, but the fact that Sam and Dean don’t know about the rougarou kid is kinda a part of the inherent tragedy/revenge porn of hunting. They had no trouble believing Travis just Went for it, which doomed them not to ask the questions of Why, which doomed that poor kid and his mom. Their distrust and craziness and thirst for revenge is actively harming their mission, godDAMMIT one of you fuckers learn empathy and communication and teach it with the class.

Anyway. Movie Meta is my Shit so...yeah

[italicwatches]

GAMERS! Episode 07

So.

Last time sure happened.

Let’s see where things go from here. It’s GAMERS!, episode 07! Here we GO!

-We begin, with loading the game save for up to this point. Whoever’s playing this game is very irresponsible with their save data, you always cascade down the list, never lock into a single save file. That’s just too risky.

-But into the actual show! A bus, where some generic anime boys, so standardized you can’t see their eyes, watch. And they can see HIM, the fucker who managed to get Karen…And Keita is just trying to ignore them, even as he deals with the frustrations of people disconnecting on his mobile game and not actually playing…

-Opening! After PUBG, our next game reference is…It’s Super Mario Bros. You know Super Mario Bros. I did an entire writeup for the game’s historical relevance for Nintendo back in the lead to the Switch’s release as part of the 30 Days of Switchmas. Crazy successful, redefined the platformer genre after Nintendo themselves essentially invented it with Donkey Kong, was originally designed as the peak of a cartridge-based game with the Famicom Disk System rapidly coming up…None of this is news.

-DAY 07: Amano Keita and Karen’s best entertainment

-To the class! Where Keita is talking to Tasuku, and has decided to, and I quote, “stop indiscriminately blowing up normies”. Tasuku, who slept like shit, has no idea what he’s talking about but good for you, man. Also, people are all staring at Keita. Because of what Tasuku did, in part. But hey, hey. Tasuku had no idea it’d turn into a relationship! Of course, Keita thought Karen was more into stylish guys like Tasuku…

-And Tasuku is also dealing with the rocky state of his own relationship. Aguri’s been…Well, it’s been messy, since the guy she’s into is with Karen now. But, Aguri likes Tasuku, so Keita can only assume that Tasuku really was two-timing his girlfriend! This is horrible! No wonder he has no idea how to talk to Aguri about it!

-Which explains everything, including Karen accepting a confession from little old him! It’s all to try and build up a plausible deniability. …He needs to get out of this. His head is full of deep, weighty thoughts as he goes to the restroom. He doesn’t want to be part of breaking Aguri’s heart, she’s a sweet girl who deserves better. Maybe he’ll ask Karen to let him rescind his confession…

-And when he comes out, he runs into someone, almost literally! Oh, sorry, he wasn’t…Oh god it’s Karen. And then Karen has a freakout because the boy she’s super into, who is now her boyfriend, is heeeere…But oh dear, something seems wrong! Are you okay? You look pale…

-Um, er, he’s, um, he’s gotta get back to class he’ll talk to you later bye! And then he’s gone, leaving Karen confused…And as Keita starts to head back, everyone mumbling about him…That’s when Chiaki spots him and waves him over into an empty room! Oh lord what do you want, Chiaki? Can’t you see his day is going wrong as it is?

-Can’t You see why Karen stuck her neck out for you, you idiot?! Well, yes, of course he does…(Oh god one of you use your words) Good, good! But that was a crazy move, and should keep that pink-haired fiend from…What was that? Nothing nothing forget she said that part! Look the point is, they might be enemies, but she respects you enough to not want to see you hurt. And that Aguri girl was never gonna be your girlfriend.

-Well, yes. He knows that. Oh, good! You’re moving on really well, Keita!

-Cut to after class. Keita has a long string of furious emojis in his texts, and is across from Aguri, who is…Really not happy with him. Also she has a really crazy looking drink. But, but she’s sorry. She’s mostly not mad at you. She’s mad at Tasuku, who’s two-timing her. Keita tries to use his logic, because the only evidence that Aguri has is the guilty look Tasuku gave her, but why ELSE would a guy give such a look to his own girlfriend?! Huh?!

-…Okay you have him there. But uuuugh. Her life’s gone to hell ever since she met you! That’s…Harsh. But all those floozies hanging onto Tasuku only met him through you, ya damn enabler. Well, well, it was Tasuku who used him and egged him onto talking to…both of them…Keita quietly ‘realizes’ that he might have been used as a cover for all of Tasuku’s cheating. And now Aguri’s got to try to pull out of this nosedive and convince Keita that Tasuku really is his friend and not just using him from the start. But Keita’s gone into a deep depression.

-FOCUS DAMMIT! Karen accepted your confession! Whatcha gonna do about it, huh? He’s…He’s gonna tell her the full truth of what he knows, so they can break up honestly, and handle this maturely. (God you kids are the furthest thing from mature. The only way you could be less mature is if you were using mud to inoculate yourself against the terrible spread of cooties.)

-Well. Good for you. But how do YOU feel? And are you really gonna let someone else decide something that matters so much? …You’re right. He’s got to decide this himself! And then she realizes how fucking gross this drink is now that all the layers have mixed. She’s…She’s gonna go buy a new drink.

-New scene! Karen is up on the roof freaking out because Keita asked her to meet him here oh god what’s going to happen? Is this about their new relationship? Is it going to go sideways? Was that confession some kind of mistake? Is she about to be dumped, on the eve of her confused but delighted triumph?! No, FOCUS, girl! Don’t let him see you sweat…! But she’s terrified of how this could go…

-And then Keita arrives, and OH GOD PANIC! She doesn’t want to look at him and face the end…And so he finally just asks, if she hates him. No, never! Then, then why won’t she face him?

-W-Why don’t you?! …But he is. Y-You want to stop dating her, don’t you? She, she gets it, she’s seen how people around school are acting…You can take it back, she’ll, she’ll just…

-She’s not speaking from her heart. Deep breath. Be honest with herself…

-As Keita admits, he’s glad to hear she doesn’t hate him. He thought, with the way she’d been almost avoiding him…But…But he’s got to ask something difficult. Of course. Can they go on a date?

-And there it—Wait what? Wait what?! Karen is so shocked that when she turns around she’s in a fighting stance. Oh you adorable little dork, never change. So Keita says it doesn’t have to be right now, it can be whenever she’s free…And Karen is so confused that her world turns to crayon drawings. She doesn’t know how to parse this. She expected a rejection, and got confessed to. She expected a retraction, and got asked on a date. None of this was fitting her worst-case scenarios, or the Plan, either.

-Well…They’re, they’re in a relationship…Right? And just hearing that from Keita sends chills up Karen’s spine as she goes tomato red. As Keita panics a bit, and admits that yes, there will be hardships, and of course people are saying shit behind his back…And…And he knows he’s got no chance against a bishonen like Tasuku. He’s going to lose out in the end. But…But dammit, you don’t rage quit, you play the match until the end! He’s not giving up until it’s over!

-And oh, Karen just glows she’s blushing so bad. You could just put Karen in a dark room, repeat that line to her on a loop, and her blush would give enough light to read by. But she manages to catch herself, and try to act like the Magnificent Tendou Karen-san, as she accepts his offer as nobly and honorably as she can manage. As she also insists they do this in the right order, like a proper relationship! A-And they should disband, for today! Wow this managed to get weird, as Keita lets off a salute from her authoritative tone. but this isn’t what she had in mind and oh god this just got weird as she barely manages to get past him before she panics and flees to the stairs.

-Commercial break!

-And we’re back! It’s date time, and Keita and Karen are at the bowling alley, slash karaoke place, slash arcade, slash…well it’s a big entertainment center is the point. Karen dressed her best, Keita’s best is his usual outfit, and he’s kind of freaking out a bit as he tries to be all cool and make this work…Until finally she just tells him they can just goof off and have fun and not make this too crazy.

-So…I’m gonna let you in on a little secret.

-Keita fucking sucks at analog games. Karen beats him in ping pong, he manages to get a dart stuck in his thigh when they play darts, and he takes a cueball to the face though I think that might have been Karen’s fault, and he loses terribly at bowling. By the time they stop for lunch, Keita’s energy is drained, and Karen is at full power. But even with how draining this is, Keita is finding it really fun…And Karen has to keep herself from admitting how much being here with him is making it fun.

-As he looks over the map, seeing what else they could do today…There’s a pool. Swimsuits. NOPE DO NOT GO THERE. He immediately covers it with his hand, and oh, hmm, there’s basically just the arcade left…

-But she saw a huge pool on all the maps.

-…Oh. So you did. Well…Um…They could just go check it out for fun! Unless you don’t want to see her in a swimsuit? D-Don’t be ridiculous! But now she’s all blushy because he called her bluff and oh god this got nerve-racking. Keita’s low self-esteem comes out but Karen can only hear the parts where he doesn’t want to be at the pool with her and now he’s gotta pull up pull up.

-And that’s how he ends up at the pool in a rented pair of trunks, waiting for Karen to come out. He has truly betrayed all humanity. And then out she comes in a cutesy but revealing bikini and Keita’s brain just kinda…

-Poof?

-Poof. He feels like he just lost a precious life in a video game from the sheer impact of that outfit, and things get awkward again as she has to guide him into being at least mostly normal.

-When Karen spots a couple playing splashy games in the pool, and kind of wants to do it too. But some clear rules to keep it safe! It’s a turn-based water attack game, and whoever gets the other’s hair wet first wins! You’re…You’re ridiculous. And as soon as they’re in the water, this becomes legit serious competition, a war of water that looks like something out of Jojo and then Keita is splashed and down. VICTORY IS KAREN’S!

-And then they see the couple who are, you know, goofing off and having fun and just being silly. …Suddenly they feel like huge nerds. To the arcade, where they belong? To the arcade.

-But that’s when Keita and Karen spot…is that Chiaki? It is! Some guys are trying to harass her…And when she spots Keita, she races for him, needing someone she knows, enemy or not! She clings to him immediately because save her! Er, that is, she’s gonna, help, you…With…Give her a minute she’ll think of something good.

-The guys leave, though, not wanting to cause enough of a scene that they actually get noticed by someone who might do something about it…And trying to get a girl who’s here on a date would definitely cause a scene.

-There’s just one little problem.

-Keita’s here on a date with Karen, and she’s…really not liking seeing this blue-haired strumpet cling to her Keita. So you know, Chiaki, he’s KIIIIND of on a date, so…So you are, Keita! SO WHY DO YOU KEEP TUGGING HIS ARM INTO YOUR CLEAVAGE?!

-Okay, fair. She should not have interfered in a date from a fake relationship.

-Okay now Karen is more mad. Chiaki, what would you like your gravestone to say? I’m thinking…”With my last breath, I curse Keita”? Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?

-But soon everyone’s sitting down and talking and Chiaki has the good grace to apologize for all of that…But why’s she here on her own, anyways? She’s not! Her sister invited her aaaaand then ran off on her own. So she’s gotta find the kid…Well, they’re willing to help. And Chiaki realizes there is an honor in Keita, one she can respect!

-But, no, Karen will do all the helping. Keita, you don’t need to be looking for a cute little sister. Please go to the arcade and wait for her at once! YES MA’AM! AMANO KEITA, GOING FORTH! Jeez. Chiaki is a little scared now.

-Eventually, Karen arrives to the arcade, with a Chiaki whose sister apparently already went home. And as Karen goes to find a game to play, Chiaki pulls Keita aside and do you get why she’s here with you, you stupid idiot?! Do you understand the favor Karen is doing for you?! You need to do something for her! …You just want to join the games, don’t you. Sh-shut up.

-But Karen’s date-mind has been overtaken by her game-mind and YES THEY CAN PLAY BIG MULTIPLAYER STUFF INSTEAD OF 1v1 NOW COME ON CHIAKI

-And that’s how they end up playing totally-not-Mario-Kart. Where Keita spins out right at the start, but starts to learn the mechanics, holding close behind the others in third place…When he gets the mighty BOMB ROULETTE! It’s so exciting that even the children in the arcade are watching!

-The bomb roulette, the ultimate chance item…A flip of the coin. Either you explode…Or everyone else does. Will he dare to use such a risky item, especially on this track, so close to the finish? He…He lines up with them both, and SLAMS IT DOWN! And whatever way the bomb went, all three got caught in it.

-Karen is just silent until they get to the bus…When she finally just breaks down into the giggles at how ridiculous of a play that was! And that it still ended in him losing when he could have pulled a solid second or even first place if he hadn’t bothered…But she also sees something about Keita. He didn’t use it so he could win. He didn’t throw the match, either. He went for the interesting option. He did the crazy thing that would, win or lose, make for a good story, that would excite the kids watching them play…

-And she’s finding she likes that about him. That wild spark in him…While Keita, Keita respects how she always goes all-out with him. There’s never any going easy…And that’s what he likes about her. As now she’s all blushy and nervous…And he ends up asking if she got that new game Fire Tactics? Of course she did! She’s wanted to talk to someone about it! And so everything relaxes, as the two fall into a shared passion.

-Credits!

You know, these crazy kids might just make it all work out…

…I mean, if it weren’t for the other three people in their life. Between Chiaki, Aguri, and Tasuku, someone is gonna fuck it up. We’ll see who breaks the whole thing next time, in episode EIGHT of GAMERS! Wait for it!

[iwillgivebirthtoyou]

ok so top is my save file from bizhawk converted into .sav with computer magic (64 KB, as you can see), and whenever i try to load the save it replaces it with this 128 KB save file, which still doesn’t work. it says the 1m subcircuit board is not installed- dialogue not present when starting the game normally, for context- and then it continues to run like there wasnt a save file? i’ve been using the “load alternate save” option because it doesn’t seem to be recognizing the save file normally for whatever reason? a possible explanation is that the save file might be too small somehow, which opens many new and entirely different problems, or that i’m just using the wrong method to import saves? bro i just want 2 trade my haunter -__-

edit: nevermind

[leisurelypanda]

Here We Go Again chapter 15

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11776227/chapters/29018058

A week and a half later, Craig and Michael were standing in the locker room of the local gym, having just finished their prenatal yoga class. It was an incredible and intimate experience, but no matter flexible they got or how enjoyable the session was, Michael was determined to spend as little time in the locker room as possible.

“I’m so fat,” Michael complained.

“You’re not—” Craig began.

“Craig if you say I’m not fat I swear to God I will slug you,” he warned.

“—ugly. You’re not ugly,” he finished.

“Nice save, bro,” he replied. He groaned as he reached to massage an aching area of his back. “God I wish I could jump in the hot tub. I feel like a whale!”

“Yeah, but you’re my whale, bro,” Craig said. “And we can steal Brian’s hot tub when the bros are born and he’s away fishing or something.”

Michael glared at him. “Did you just call me a whale?!” he demanded. Craig turned to grin at him and made some awful impersonation of a whale that sounded suspiciously like it was from Finding Nemo. Michael tried, valiantly, to keep the glare on his face. Then Craig made the noise again. He dissolved into a fit of laughter that lasted the entire time that they were getting dressed. Craig passed him a bottle of one of his protein shakes, adapted to be more suited to pregnancy. It still tasted great, though, and that was the important thing.

They left the gym and Craig looked at him in surprise. “Bro, are you wearing my clothes?” he asked.

Michael looked down at himself. Sure enough, he was wearing one of Craig’s sweatpants from his leisurewear company, one of his shirts, and one of his hoodies. All of them taken from Craig’s dresser before they went to the gym.

“Maaaybe?” he said sheepishly. He looked up at Craig. His eyes held a mix of amusement and desire. His hand traveled down the length of his back and rested briefly on his ass. Michael blushed furiously, desperately hoping that no one was watching.

“Okay, fine yes. I forgot to do laundry yesterday so I borrowed your clothes. Happy?”

Don’t look down don’t look down maintain eye contact, Michael, he thought to himself. The last thing he needed was to see a tent forming in Craig’s pants while they were still in public. He did, however, file the information that Craig thought it was hot for him to wear his clothes. That would prove useful.

Craig still had that look in his eyes. “I am. Very happy.”

“Well, in that case I should tell you that your wardrobe is really comfortable,” Michael replied, his face still red as he waddled quickly to the car and climbed in. I’m never going to hear the end of this, he lamented. ***********************************************************************

Michael was still wearing Craig’s clothes some hours later. Craig had taken a cold shower as soon as they got home, which gave him some measure of satisfaction. They had been too busy trying to plan for his twins to do anything about it today. Thankfully Hazel and Briar were happy to take care of River while they were getting the room ready.

The immediate problem was how to move the bed. As strong as Craig was, he couldn’t move a queen size mattress on his own. Michael was in no shape to help him due to his condition. He wasn’t about to risk his boys lifting loads he knew he couldn’t handle. If only I could use telekinesis, he thought. Maybe I could be useful, then. Eventually Craig just texted a couple of the other dads in the cul-de-sac to see if one of them was able to come help him out. Brian came over to help him out. Between the two of them the bed was taken care of in short order.

“What color should we paint this room?” he asked when the room had been successfully emptied of furniture. He and the girls were gathered in the room.

“Pink, pink, pink!” Briar crowed. “It’ll be so pretty and they’ll love it!”

“As much as I’m all for dismantling the idea that colors have genders,” Michael said, “I can’t stand pink.”

“Why not?!” she demanded. “Pink is a great color! It’s bright and happy—”

“It gives you a headache,” Hazel interjected.

“Shut up, Hazel, you know you like it, too!” Briar fired back.

“Do not!” she denied. “You just like it because Tommy at school wears it all the time.” Briar gasped and shoved her sister.

“Do not!” she protested. “Take that back!”

“Tommy and Briar, sitting in a tree,” Hazel teased. “K-I-S-S-I-N-G!”

Briar shoved her again. Hazel glared at her and shoved her back and before Michael could blink they were wrangling each other, pulling hair, and shouting at each other.

“Hazel! Briar!” Michael snapped at them as he separated them. “What’s gotten into you?”

“She started it!” they shouted. Michael sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Hazel, you go to your room, Briar, you stay here.”

He looked up to see Craig standing in the doorway with a stern look on his face. Hazel just rushed past him and slammed the door to her room. Michael walked over to him. “How much of that did you catch?” he whispered.

“I heard the part about Briar liking pink, some kid named Tommy, and then they started fighting,” he said. “By the time I got up here you’d broken it up. You want me to talk to Hazel? Divide and conquer and all that?”

Michael took a deep breath and nodded. “Sounds good.”

Craig turned around and headed for the twins’ bedroom to begin bargaining with Hazel through her locked door (which they technically had a key for, but only for emergencies or something). Michael closed the door and looked at Briar, who was crying as she attempted to braid her hair. She seemed distraught, though, so she wasn’t really doing a good job. Michael sat down carefully.

“Come on, let me help,” he said quietly. Briar didn’t say anything but she sat down in front of him and handed him her brush. He started undoing the messy job she’d done already.

“So,” he began. “What’s going on between you and Hazel?”

“It’s nothing,” she mumbled.

“So you two just happened to start fighting today over some guy who wears pink?” he asked.

Briar was quiet for a while as Michael brushed her hair gently. It was beautiful, black, lustrous hair. It was soft and smooth as it ran over his hands, nothing at all like his sisters’ hair. Theirs was thick and prone to breaking brushes. Michael still marveled that he had never really gone through that many hair brushes in raising Amanda. Craig’s home wasn’t that different.

“Hazel likes Tommy,” she said. Michael didn’t say anything. He just kept brushing her hair. “He does wear pink a lot. It’s those shirts with wrestlers on them or something stupid like that. But Tommy doesn’t like her.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. She was quiet for a while. Michael started doing a waterfall braid in her hair. “My friend Reyna, though, you remember her, right Papa?”

Michael wracked his brain. He was literally the worst at remembering friends’ names for Amanda. He hadn’t gotten any better with his girls. “Was she the one who broke the vase at the slumber party that one time?”

Briar snorted. “Papa, that was you,” she said. “Reyna is the one who got you with the water balloons.”

The light bulb turned on. “She’s the one who filled the balloons with colored water that day I was wearing a white shirt and my nice khaki pants!”

Briar chuckled again. “Yup, that’s her.”

“I liked her,” he said. “That was a good prank.”

“It was great!” she agreed. “Anyway, she told Hazel that she heard that Tommy liked me instead. Because I’m cool, apparently.”

“Uh-oh.”

“Right? But the problem is that he thinks I’m cool because of all the stuff Hazel pins on me,” she explained. “So he actually does like Hazel,” she said. “But he doesn’t believe her when she says that she’s the one doing all those things. So then she stopped pretending to be me and now he thinks she’s doing it for the attention.”

“Oh God.” Is this my destiny, he thought. To be forever subjected to twin drama? You two better not get into anything like this, he directed towards his boys.

“So Hazel’s upset because he rejected her but we’re the only ones who know that she was lying,” she said.

Michael whistled. “How long has this been going on?” he asked.

“About 2 weeks,” she said. “We actually got into a fight at school over it.” Michael thought back. He could remember Hazel being a bit more barbed recently. They’d spoken to her about it, but now they seem to have gotten to the bottom of it.

“Does it make it wrong for me to hit her for being mean to me over this?” she asked, interrupting his reverie.

Michael thought for a moment. Jesus, why can’t kids ever ask easy questions? Like, can I please have more vegetables? Why kids, I thought you’d never ask! Of course you can have more vegetables!

“Well…” he said slowly. “No. It doesn’t. Hazel is definitely wrong to take this all out on you. But it doesn’t make it right, either.”

“So what should I do?” she asked.

“Well, since I’m done with your hair, you should help your dear Papa up off the floor,” he said. Briar groaned but she was grinning when she got up and helped him up. Michael huffed and rested one hand on his stomach as he adjusted. “Normally, I would say that you should apologize, but in this case I would be okay with you not wanting to.”

Just then he heard a knock on the door. “Hey, Michael, you guys done?”

“Yeah, we’re done, you can come in,” he replied. Craig opened the door and walked in with an oddly demure Hazel. If she told him the same story Briar had, he imagined Craig would have chastised her strongly.

“Hazel,” Craig said sternly. “Do you have something to say to your sister?”

Hazel mumbled something.

“Can’t hear you, Hazel,” Craig said.

“I’m sorry I pretend to be you, Briar,” she said. “And I’m sorry for taking out my anger on you.”

“Apology accepted,” Briar said.

“So, Michael,” Craig whispered, coming to stand by him. “What do you think Hazel’s punishment should be?”

“We’re punishing her?” he asked. He wasn’t sure he was prepared for this.

“Well yeah. Briar told you about what happened, right?” Craig asked. Michael nodded. “This whole thing with that Tommy kid sucks, but what she did was definitely wrong, don’t you think?”

Michael thought for a moment. The only thing that Hazel really enjoyed doing was sports. She watched shows with them and played games with them, but the thing she really loved was sports. Unfortunately, he wondered whether Craig would be on board with pulling her out of soccer.

“Would you be open to pulling her out of soccer?” he asked.

As expected, Craig’s eyebrows rose. “You want to pull her out of soccer, bro? Isn’t that… excessive?”

“This whole situation is excessive,” he replied. “Would just grounding her be sufficient? She’d still get to go to all the stuff she likes going to.”

“Bro, would you take away Amanda’s camera’s or her photography?” Craig asked.

Michael crossed his arms. “Yes,” he said immediately. “I did it on numerous occasions. I hated it, but sometimes it was the only way to get through to her. Especially if she didn’t get it the first 100 times. How many times, exactly, have you told Hazel not to impersonate Briar?”

Craig was silent for a moment. “Easily 100 times,” he admitted. “Fine, I trust you. I trust your judgment.”

“Hazel,” Michael said. “We’ve talked about it. Since you’ve been told many times not to imitate your sister and it’s gotten to the point where we are now, we’ve decided to pull you from soccer.”

“WHAT!!!” she demanded. “That’s not fair!”

“No it’s not fair,” Craig said. “It’s also not fair to pin Briar with all the stuff you do because it’s convenient.”

“You can’t do this to me!” she shouted at them. “I hate you!” She ran out of the room and down the stairs. The barbed words hit their mark, on both of them. Craig was stunned. It hurt Michael, too. But probably not as much as it did his bro. He took his hand in his, trying to comfort him. Briar was still there, shocked as well.

“Daddy,” she said. “You aren’t really taking her out of soccer, are you?”

Craig’s voice was surprisingly even when he spoke. “Hazel needs to learn that there are consequences for her actions. Being part of a team is a privilege. If you wrong the people on that team, even if you didn’t mean to, that privilege can be taken away. Do you understand?”

Briar nodded, hesitantly. “I’m gonna play with River,” she said, then went to follow Hazel downstairs. When they were alone, he felt Craig exhale.

“Bro, did we do the right thing?” Craig asked.

“I think so,” he replied. He squeezed his hand.

Craig let go and left the room. He headed towards their room and closed the door behind him. Michael hesitated for a moment before he softly followed him into the room. Craig was sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands. He was crying. Michael walked over and sat down next to him. He took wrapped one arm around his bro and rubbed comforting circles into his back.

“She said she hates me,” he said, brokenly. Michael didn’t say anything, but he took his boyfriend’s face and held him as he sobbed.

“I know,” he whispered, tears in his eyes as well. “I’m sorry.”

“I know she doesn’t mean it,” he said, “but God it still hurts.”

“I know,” he whispered again. He kissed Craig’s temple. “I’ve got you, bro. Take as long as you need.”

[faygosmayhem]

Story time #1- Final Fantasy & Me

At the time of this writing, the people following this sad little blog will all know me from the Final Fantasy XV community. For my first story session, I’ve decided to recount my history with the series and touch on what each game meant to me in the order that I played them. I’ll try to keep it as brief as possible, and restrict it to only the main games in the series, but I can rant for hours.

Note: I utterly failed at keeping this brief, I should have known better than to even try. To keep myself from writing a full novel in one post I’ve decided to split the story into parts. Below is the intro and memories from 7,8 and 9.

                                                  Part One

A Fangirl In The Making:

I’ve been into video games since the age of about 5 when my dad would regularly challenge me to competitive rounds of Super Mario Bros 3 for the NES. In the beginning I stuck mostly to NES, Gameboy, and N64 until Christmas of 02′ when all my begging and pouting finally came through and I was gifted with a PlayStation 2 and enough cash to purchase one game of my choice.

Oh how my parents would come to regret this decision.

The game I bought two days later was Kingdom Hearts. I’ll save my thoughts on that series for another time, but hands down this game can be pinpointed as one that permanently changed my life. What part of it changed my life? The journal, of all things. Prior to KH, I had no idea the Final Fantasy series even existed so when I encountered the Kingdom Hearts versions of FF characters, I initially started internally complaining because they were all so interesting and the game did almost nothing with them.  

Then I went back about mid-way through the game and read every character entry in the journal, and was met with two obsession worthy revelations. One: All these characters were also in other games, as part of the same series no less, and two: you could make them dance by choosing to view their full models and rotating the joystick around in circles (I am very easily amused, and doing this actually spawned my first work of Fanfiction).

“So, you mean to tell me that this weird dude with gravity defying hair, one random- mostly useless-wing, and giant sword that must weigh about three times as much as he does when naked and soaking wet who won’t stop emo rambling about Darkness is in another game and I can find out more??? Sign me the fuck up!”

The Gateway Drug:

Immediately after finishing Kingdom Hearts, I took myself down to a local mall where my go-to all encompassing general entertainment store was located. While browsing the shelves for anything that caught my eye, I saw a ‘Greatest Hits’ copy of Final Fantasy VII innocently sitting there, waiting patiently for the right person to walk by so it could take them willingly down the elevator into fandom hell. I didn’t just ride that elevator, I dove headfirst down the shaft.

I shit you not, when I saw that game there I picked it up like a baby and fell to my knees, hugging it to my chest. The video games were located near the cashier counter at the front of the store, and one of the employees who had been eyeing me suspiciously since I walked in started laughing like crazy, jokingly asking if I was OK. I was still dazed and euphoric, and also completely oblivious to the fact that I was causing a bit of scene in the store. The front was plate glass, and everyone walking by also saw and a few people were starting to look concerned. Now a bit embarrassed, I sheepishly walked to the counter and set the game down. After causing a commotion I couldn’t just not buy that game now- as if I would’ve left without it anyway. The guy at the counter was still laughing as he served me. Our exchange went as follows:

“I take it you found what you were looking for”

“Dude, you have no idea”

“You won’t be disappointed. Just, a pro-tip, when you get to the part with the water and the snake, don’t waste too much time trying to fight it, get a Chocobo instead. Also, avoid the things that look like houses in sector 6, they’ll kick your ass.”

I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about, but I filed the information away, paid my 14.95 (Ah, 2003), and walked out of the store cradling the bag like someone was going to steal it from me. When I got home later I tacked the receipt on my wall to immortalize the day forever. I eventually ended up losing it (a story for another time) but I still remember the date. 05/26/03.

I loaded the game and was immediately in awe ( “It’s three discs? No wonder the case is so freaking huge!”). The opening cinematic had me from the first note of the theme, and I remember laughing SO HARD when Cloud flipped off the train and suddenly everyone was a Lego character. It took an embarrassing amount of time for me figure out how to advance the text because it was set to use the circle button for confirm instead of ‘x’, and even longer to figure out how to move because I didn’t realize you actually had to use the D-pad.

Control struggles aside, I was so enraptured by the game I didn’t stop playing that first night until the Sector 7 plate fell and yeah, those damn houses did kick my ass. When I finally got out of Midgar about two days later (I spent an excessive amount of time in the Shinra building and on the Motorcycle mini-game), I couldn’t believe that everything I just did was basically the game’s intro, and that there was still so much more to explore.

I have so many fond memories of VII that  it would be almost impossible to write them all down. Down the road it ended up pretty far from my favorite game in the series, but as the first it will always hold a special place.

You’re Hooked Now Honey, Strap In:

Between the mixed obsession of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy VII, video games quickly became one of the only things I talked about. I had thought I was obsessed before, but this took it to a whole new level of crazy. I started writing weird crack outtake reels from the games in the middle of classes, and would post little screen caps and fanart over literally everything I owned.

One day, I had out my handy outtake notebook during a bit of downtime in Honor Band (yeah, I’m a geek to the extreme), and one of my fellow trombonist’s decided it would be a jolly time to snatch the notebook out of my hands,run away with it and, start ripping the pages out and throwing them around the band room. Fortunately I had some pretty awesome friends, and they not only helped me to secure the notebook but also helped recover the missing pages. After class that day, a boy who played the trumpet shyly walked over to me and handed me back one of the pages that was still missing. He was obviously very nervous, and after handing the page back and accepting my very relieved and excited  ‘thanks dude!’ (I admit to not knowing his name at the time) he stood there awkwardly while I put away my instrument like he had something else to say but didn’t know how. I gave him a questioning look after noticing he hadn’t walked out yet and as I picked up my bag he followed after me into the hall. After a little while he finally fell into step beside me and asked, “so, you like Final Fantasy huh?” 

I don’t care how long I’ve known you, if you ask me about Final Fantasy you better be prepared to a.) Become my new best friend and b.) let me talk your ear off about for as long as you’re willing to sit and listen. I talked with my new friend until we had to part ways for different classes, and then later at lunch when he asked to join me and continue the conversation. I tell this story because a few months later, this same boy bought me a copy of Final Fantasy VIII and asked me to be his girlfriend. A damn diamond wouldn’t have worked better. 

Final Fantasy VIII was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Once again I was already hooked by the game’s opening, and the cinematic introductions of all the characters gave it an unexpected charm right from the start. That game eventually got very, very, veeeery, strange and I eventually stopped trying to make any sort of sense of the plot line and just sat back and enjoyed the ride. 

That is, until I got to the end of disk 3. I found myself horribly stuck on the battle with Adle where she has Rinoa captured. No matter how many times I tried it, I would get her down to the final phase and she would either Ultima wipe the party or Rinoa would die. I gave up on the game for a while, sick of the frustration, until I came across a Prima Strategy Guide for it while browsing a used bookstore. I normally refuse to touch any sort of guide book until after I’ve already been through the game once on my own, but I figured it wouldn’t be much harm since I was already more or less at what I thought was the end of the game (I was wrong). In flipping through the guide, I not only learned how to beat the boss, but discovered I had been playing the entire game using the combat system completely wrong. 

Somehow, I had managed to get that far in the game using only the Guardian Forces given to you at the start of the game and 2 others that you can encounter in the overworld and without stocking up on magic at all. To those familiar with VIII’s train-wreck of a combat system, you know that pairing GF’s and magic together directly effect a character’s stats- and no matter how leveled the characters are,if you don’t have the right combos of magic you have more or less no hope at most of the harder sections of the game. 

So, now I had the boss strategy, but still would have been unable to beat it because I didn’t have the magic required (the strategy was to cast Regen on Rinoa to ensure she stays alive). In the end I bought the guide, scrapped the file I had been playing on and started over from scratch,this time doing all the sidequests and such in the proper order. When I got to that boss again I wiped the floor with her, and was rewarded with the game getting even weirder. 

I still look back to the ending of FFVIII as one of my favorite ‘Ok WTF Just happened?!?!?!?!’ moments in media. Usually I piece together crazy stories pretty well, but even though I came to enjoy the game, I can’t say with any real confidence that I understand it at all. 

Forever Touched:

There was a pause in Final Fantasy games after I finished VIII at the start of ‘04. It wasn’t until almost a year later that I received IX as a Christmas gift. I had been passing on it because I was confused and unimpressed with the cover art, but now that I wasn’t the one paying for it I was willing to give it a chance. I held off starting until New Years, because my parents were letting me have a few friends over and I wanted to have the new experience surrounded for the first time with people just as obsessed with the series as I was. Even though it didn’t have a fancy opening, it wasn’t hard to fall in love with that game. I knew from the first few lines of dialog that my heart was gone, lost forever to endearing charm of that world and it’s characters. 

My friends and I were up all night with it. We had so much fun naming the characters and reading the text out loud ("Princess! It is I! The noble Betty!”).Then we all got so upset when Blank got petrified in the forest that we had to stop for the night. Right from the start, that game hit so hard in the feels. 

IX became not only my favorite game in the series, but my favorite game in general. There is so much emotion, charm, and soul in that game, and it touches on so many issues that hit so close to home that I tear up just thinking about it, Back in May of this year there was a mental health awareness speed run marathon fundraiser called RPG limit break  being held on Twitch.TV, and Final Fantasy IX was the closing game. I couldn’t think of any better way to spend about nine hours in the middle of the night than to re-live the best moments of my favorite game sitting on a couch with my best friend. 

Seeing everyone in the audience tearing up at crucial sections; the Black Mage Village, You Are Not Alone, the ending- made me feel less like an idiot for getting all emotional myself and my friend got to laugh at me freaking out over my favorite game cut-scene ever (The one where Alexander protects the city from Bahamut). When the game was over, the marathon had raised enough money for the runners to stand up and sing the ending theme of the game as a filled donation incentive. When the time came, not only the runners, but everyone in the room stood up to sing along. Melodies of Life, the ending theme, holds a very special place in my heart. Seeing all those people singing along, likely feeling similar things, turned me into a pathetic ball of mush. My friend laughed with me as I sang along with more tears than I think I’ve ever cried streaming down my face, and then I cried again when everyone went around saying their ‘thank yous’ to the people volunteering for the marathon and stood in lines to give each other hugs. 

It was one of the most touching moments of my life; and this game was at it’s center. 

Phew. Well I failed pretty hard at keeping that brief. Looks like this will end up as a series of sorts.  Tune in next time for adventures with Final Fantasy 6/3, X, X-2, and XII

[iownmywiiulegit]

Metroid Prime 4: #1- The Lay of the Land

This is the beginning of documentation representing my journey through the Metroid franchise by Nintendo.  First, a warning: This next little bit is a flashback that leads up to now.  

When Nintendo first mentioned that Metroid Prime 4 was in development I thought man, I really should beat the first Metroid Prime.  Back in the days before the Wii I worked my Metroid Prime all the way up to the Ridley battle and then set it down for a few years.  I got into different games like Soul Calibur II and Tales of Symphonia.  Soul Calibur was a great bro bonding game and I still think it is.  The next few years were spent focusing on college and then I bought a Wii.  I thought the Gamecube was obsolete at this point since my Wii could play Gamecube games, but man was I wrong.  Buying the Wii U proved this to me.  I wanted to play all discs on one system but I couldn’t do that.  I wanted (and still want) purity with my consoles.  This resulted in my going hard into my Gamecube again and getting the hardware peripherals that made it stand on par with the Wii, if not debatably better.  I bought the digital component cable for a wildly discounted price on eBay, and the Gameboy player and disc.  I got super lucky in finding the component cables at the price I found them at and I think the seller was in a pinch because it WAS around the holidays and I was just randomly checking the listings and was like “holy crap.”  No bidding, just buy it now.  Can’t say, won’t say.  It was also around this time that Nintendo announced that they were starting development for Metroid Prime all over from scratch.  Hearing this news felt like hearing a referee pistol.  If Nintendo was going to give me a fair warning that shit was getting real about Metroid Prime 4, then it’s up to me to get on the ball and meet Nintendo and Retro Studios in stride.  My instincts told me to go beat my original Metroid Prime file, finally.  My hardware was excellent and Nintendo sent the official signal; let’s go.

Turning on Metroid Prime for the first time in years with my original save file still intact, I expected to me extremely rusty at the controls and traversing the landscape.  Surprisingly it came back fairly quickly and before I knew it I was blasting different colored Metroids away no problem.  What I didn’t realize was exactly how close I was to actually beating the game.  The final boss was all I had to defeat.  Really?  17 years just for that?  If my memory serves me correctly, I simply just didn’t want the game to end.  I do that.  Leave books unfinished, leave movies before the end, compose music and leave the ending open, and I don’t know why.  I want time to soak into the experience and really savor it.  Perhaps I’m not so much a voracious consumer of entertainment but rather an appreciative connoisseur.  Back in 2004, I remember being at a drummer’s house that I was in drum corps with, and he was a stupid competitive type that turned everything into a pissing contest.  Once he found out that I had gotten all the way up to Ridley or something he set out to beat that game asap.  It was when he was at the final boss that I got my first glimpse of the future 15 years later.  Damn.  

Anyway, I beat Prime but I still have this amazing fully loaded Gamecube that has the OEM digital component cable, and Gameboy Advance player.  My next move was obvious.  I wasn’t done with the original Metroid Prime yet, not by a long shot!  If you’re a fan of Metroid, you love finding secrets and collecting all de tings.  To get the full original Metroid Prime experience, I had to play and beat Metroid Fusion for the Gameboy Advance.  I eBay-ed it up asap.  It’s kinda funny- Fusion showed up in the mail right on the day or day after I beat Prime.  Pretty cool.

Getting into Metroid Fusion was something I wasn’t ready for but always wanted.  It was Super Metroid that turned me into a fan.  The music, the beautiful colors, the crunchy explosions, and the search really got me looking in every nook and cranny in each level.  I wanted more and Fusion was it but I didn’t have a Gameboy Advance and wasn’t going to shell out even more money if I wasn’t going hard into games back then.  At that time I was so into music and rocking harder than life could offer that I just could not afford to allocate money toward a handheld that still was not backlit.  Fuck that.  When I saw pictures of Fusion all I could think was that it was Super Metroid 2.  After playing it, man, was I right about that.

Metroid Fusion is so amazing.  I love 2D Metroid-style games.  Hell, I spent a large part of 2018 playing through the indie game A Robot Named Fight on Steam and currently have a thoroughly played but not beaten Axiom Verge save file on my Wii U.  Again, Nintendo gave the signal and I had to run with it so here we are.  What I love about Fusion is quite a few things.  I love the graphics.  The colors are so vibrant and all the sprites look lively.  Even though the Gameboy Advance’s resolution is apparent on a 480p screen, it still plays amazingly.  The controls are tight and intuitive.  I did get lost a lot and backtracked often to find that random wall that needed to be blown through to progress to the next area.  I love how the security levels kept me from progressing just enough to experience the game unfold before me.  Oh man, I loved hiding from SA-X.  What a cool addition.  I swore a lot at the spider boss because it took me the most tries to defeat.  It was somewhere around that point where I thought that this game wasn’t for amateur platform players.  You really had to have a handle on things to get any further.  The moment Fusion Stole my heart was in chapter 11, at Plant Core X.

In Metroid Other M, there were oftentimes feelings of isolation and maybe even mild claustrophobia.  The same could even go for the final boss in Metroid Prime.  There’s something really gross-but-in-a-cool-way about destroying a slimy bug hive in a dark triple sub basement, especially if you have to spelunking your way to perform the extermination.  In Fusion, it’s sooo different, but the feeling is eerily similar in a way that I absolutely love.  When I first experience Plant Core X, I didn’t think I would be emotionally attached to my character.  I didn’t think I was Samus.  But then I kept getting dragged into the poisonous flower swamp that released deadly spores into the air in a wide horizontal sine wave pattern.  The music was minimal and just a little quieter than the rest of the game.  I kept trying to jump out of the swamp but I couldn’t get out.  It frustrated me because it interrupted my flow.  I felt helpless and that my situation was serious, even over my head.  I was suffocating.  I felt connected to Samus and like I had entered an extremely deadly area.  If Samus is an exterminator, this place was ground zero for the cause of everything in Fusion.  Don’t get me wrong- all the other bosses are vital to making up the game but at Plant Core X, Samus gets into deep shit.  Imagine that you’re stuck in a poisonous swamp or quicksand and you keep trying to jump out but the sludge keeps pulling you back in.  Now imagine all that while the air around you is raining poisonous dandelion seeds.  There’s no way you can’t get hit or sucked into the swamp.  What an amazing experience.  I couldn’t believe what I was feeling.  Here’s a YouTube link to this experience but it’s not me playing.  Whoever played in this video did way better than me but I think you can get an idea of what I’m talking about. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=347poZRrbrQ

Just last week I beat Fusion but didn’t do so well in collecting all the little things in the game. The final boss was cool and well drawn for the time period and hardware imho.  My main goal was to unlock the original NES Metroid in my copy of Metroid Prime on the Gamecube.  Since I have a Gameboy Advance that my dad found on a school bus and no kids claimed, I used it to link up to my cube with the Fusion cart and unlocked Metroid.  

That brings us to the current moment.  Today I figured out how to save my original Metroid game on the Gamecube.  This was a little confusing because the Gamecube controller doesn’t have a select button like the original NES.  Instead it’s the Z button.  To save while you’re playing the game, you need a second controller, just like in the original Legend of Zelda, and while paused push UP and A to initiate the save screen without dying.  

I can’t wait to get into it.  When the original Metroid screen comes up on my HDTV in a somewhat aliased 480p widescreen picture, I am immediately in a time warp.  Since I never played the original Metroid as a kid, my only memories of that game are from looking at strategy guides that didn’t show you everything.  I didn’t think much of it then because Mario was it.  I used to watch the title screen to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link over and over again as a kid and look into the stars on the screen and just wonder endlessly about anything. It cast a spell over me or something; I was captivated.  With Metroid, the original, it is now happening again. The game is brand new to me and I couldn’t give a care to anything modern as far as gaming and technology if I tried.  The stars in the background, the blinking letters of METROID, the fairly quick opening sequence loop-  all of this shows me that I’ve never grown up from being a kid after all.  I’m still the same after all these years.  The world can only help me build character and deep down I’m just the same kid that gets filled with endless wonder when 8 bit Nintendo does it’s thing.  Amazing.

For a current side note, I’d like to add that in Fusion, you can hear sound effects that are similar to those in the Virtual Boy’s Galactic Pinball.  Although the composer for Fusion was not the same as Galactic Pinball, Galactic Pinball’s composer was the same for Super Metroid and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out: Kenji Yamamoto.  You can hear similarities everywhere like Yamamoto was consulted often.  And if you’re not aware, Galactic Pinball does have a miniature Metroid space shooter game as a bonus easter egg on one of the tables. I like to think that only the hardcore Nintendo fans know this.  

Anyway.  I’ll report back as soon as more progress is made with the original Metroid.  In the meantime, here is my most recent Twitter post with a pic documenting where things are at.  

https://twitter.com/VeryBadTim/status/1100219464585490434