#edit NO I’ve changed my mind chips episode would be the one where they went to that one planet and that guy like was trying to beat up spike

[nathsolkyoako]

Someone kill me before I start writing a riptide/cowboy bebop au fic quick it’s spiraling out of control

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 4

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see  Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

It’s time to take a close look at Episode 2 of the second game, The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro!

Episode 2-2: The Memoirs of the Clouded Kokoro

Remember how in the last episode we vaguely got Barok on our side near the end of the trial by proving Mrs. Garrideb was actually involved in the crime? … Yeah. Forget that progress. It's being undone. Case 2-2 is the first case of the second game which features Barok, which unfortunately means he needs to be 'reintroduced' to the audience and it takes him back several steps in his growth. It makes sense, I suppose, it would've been weird starting a new game with him already being lightly on Ryu's side. Even so, it's a bit insulting how this case acts as if the chronologically previous one accomplished nothing.

So anyway, this case flashbacks to something which supposedly happened right after the first game's fourth case. The day after Soseki's acquittal, even. Turns out, Soseki awoke to find one of the other tenants in his building dead and asked Ryu for help, but (S)Holmes tagged along. Gregson is at the crime scene, keeping an eye on the place and on Soseki in particular since he's suspicious. (Sure, Gregson. Sure. Has nothing to do with the Reaper's curse, probably.) After some investigation with (S)Holmes, Gregson has enough evidence to actually arrest Soseki, which definitely feels like a step backwards. A bit later, it turns out the victim is Not Actually Dead Yet. Again! The Great Ace Attorney really enjoys throwing us for a loop by pretending we're in for another murder case.

Anyway, during the course of the investigation, I found two mentions of Van Zieks. The first is when you investigate the broken glasses and bottles in the victim's room. Susato is immediately reminded of Lord van Zieks.

And when examining Garrideb's old army uniform, Susato points out it might suit Lord van Zieks.

Haha, as if his usual outfit isn't ostentatious enough already. So we learn that Susato doesn't have a very high opinion of him at all, and I should hope it's not still related to that time he called detective novels pathetic. It's fun of them to refer to him in an investigation that he's not involved in in any way, especially when they don't know yet that he's the prosecution again.

Speaking to Soseki in the gaol, we're once again told that he's had a dreadful time in England so far. He sees foreigners everywhere and he's sure they're all laughing at him. He's been so on edge the past year that he's moved 'more times than he can remember'. So once again, we're reminded that racial prejudice in 1900s England is a focal point of this game's story. Once the conversation is over, Gregson appears to let the gang know that the victim has regained consciousness and is accusing Soseki of poisoning him. We're going to trial for an attempted murder charge, y'all!

The next day, in the defendant's lobby, Susato comes bursting in with the dreadful news that Barok van Zieks has once again taken on the prosecution. It's definitely safe to assume now that either Ryu or Soseki is the reason he's taking on these not-really-murder trials when he normally wouldn't. As I mentioned before, this is his reintroduction in the second game and so the game feels compelled to remind the player of what went down in case 1-4:

He sure did! The game also once again reminds us what the Reaper's Curse entails, and that perhaps that's the reason why Soseki is on trial yet again. He's doomed, perhaps. Susato also informs us that (S)Holmes is running late, just as he was two days ago, and Ryu thinks that's a good thing because if the Great Detective were there, Ryu might come to rely on his help.

… I suppose? He already relies on Susato for help and I feel like that would warrant far more 'preying' from Van Zieks than relying on a male, adult British detective for help. Though knowing (S)Holmes, he'd end up stealing the show and taking the words from Ryu's mouth, but that doesn't seem to be what Ryu's worried about here. I suppose the main point to take away from this remark is that Ryu wants to do as much as he can by himself. He wants to appear strong in front of Van Zieks to avoid presenting an easy target, and I think this might actually be the first time we see a sentiment like that from him. Is he afraid of Van Zieks? Does he actually care about the man's opinion? Anyway, he swears to show Van Zieks what a Japanese lawyer can do.

Inside the courtroom, Van Zieks does the usual prosecutor spiel about how the defense needs to be ready for defeat. Ryu thinks to himself that Van Zieks has a particular animosity towards Japanese people for some reason.

Good thing we got a second game in the series, eh? So because the defendant was on trial only two days ago, the same jurors were chosen where possible. The only juror not returning is Mrs. Garrideb, who's too busy being in prison. Her spot is now taken by a very fancy lady we later learn to be the wife of the Altamont Gas Company's owner. She may as well be the CEO herself with how she's acting, though. Anyway, Van Zieks addresses the jurors directly.

“However, the innocent verdict afforded to this eccentric Nipponese before... has had dire consequences. Did the accused repent for his wrongdoing in that affair? Far from it. Instead, he used his freedom to perpetrate a most blood-curdling crime!”

Van Zieks makes record time by taking off his cloak immediately after this line. He's gone straight into overdrive. The witnesses summoned this time are Inspector Gregson and... Soseki? It's very irregular for the defendant to be testifying, especially this early in the trial and especially by the prosecution's request. I can't really make much of it. It feels like the only reason Soseki is testifying is for this joke:

Also found when examining the testimony is a remark from Van Zieks that I honestly found shocking in how ferocious and scummy it is.

Unnecessary, that remark. It didn't need to exist at all in my opinion. So after Ryu shatters the testimony and scatters Gregson's fish 'n chips, Van Zieks calmly pours himself a glass of wine. I have to be honest, by now whenever he does this I'm left wondering what he'll do next. Will he crush the chalice? Will he throw it? Will he actually take a sip? The versatility of the action and unpredictable nature of Van Zieks add a bit of suspense. Turns out, his mind wandered during the testimony.

And then he ends up crushing the glass in his hand anyway. Alas, poor chalice. We knew it. So after a bit of debating back and forth about whether Shamspeare drank the supposedly-poisoned-tea after Soseki left the room, Van Zieks suddenly falls silent. We get three different, consecutive frames of him going “......” and when the judge asks what's wrong, he says this:

Supersonic hearing, this one. That is, unless the carriage entered the courthouse and literally pulled up in the hallway outside the room? Haven't we learned our lesson from the last time a carriage was driven into the Old Bailey?! So Shamspeare was apparently subpoenaed by the prosecution and has shown up to testify (with his doctor's permission). Bad news for us, since he's the one accusing Soseki in the first place. There's also a second witness to support Shamspeare's insistence there were no other visitors to the room and therefore only Soseki could have poisoned him. After that testimony is over, Van Zieks gets his wish and all the jurors vote guilty.

Van Zieks really seems to think that Soseki is a terrible person deserving of justice, huh? He was right there during the previous trial, saw Ryu prove without a shadow of a doubt that Soseki was innocent and still insists that justice will be done “this time”. Calm the heck down man, you're the one who sided with us when Mrs. Garrideb needed to testify, remember? And here comes another example of the game pretending the previous trials didn't leave an impact; when the Summation Examination is brought up, it's with disdain and this remark:

Bro, we used the Summation Examination successfully like five times already. Sit your butt down and watch the show. The jurors once again give prejudiced reasons for their decisions:

And unfortunately, instead of changing their minds by proving Soseki is a morally upstanding, innocent citizen, Ryu instead gets through this Summation Examination by basically proving Shamspeare is a worse person than Soseki. That's... not the direction you should be taking here, narrative. After convincing four of the jurors that Shamspeare is a fishy liar, Van Zieks flings another chalice of wine in frustration. The judge still thinks he could technically pass a ruling on the trial, since the new information didn't exactly disprove that Soseki is the culprit, but the jurors have been influenced so thoroughly that they can't let this new info go ignored. Testimony from the Altamont Company is allowed! Van Zieks thinks it's a waste of time, of course, and if this were reality it would be. Since it's an Ace Attorney game, we know Shamspeare's gas thievery is bound to somehow be related to the incident. Van Zieks flings yet another chalice after hearing the testimony (how many has it been already? Five?) and very shortly after, he tosses the entire bottle over his shoulder. Susato points out that he seems to be in a violent mood. I feel like someone must've pissed in his oatmeal that morning, because I've got no real explanation for why his character regressed this badly in the course of what chronologically was only two days.

Van Zieks flings two more chalices as the testimony progresses to prove that Shamspeare made fake coins to fool the gas meter. At the end of it all, he supposedly 'throws his hand up in despair and happened to catch his hallowed bottle along the way', flinging yet another one of those into the gallery. I'm starting to feel very bad for the people seated behind him now. Is the game overdoing these quirky animations to compensate for his regressed attitude? Because I'm not sure it's working... Van Zieks continues to insist that the situation hasn't changed and only Soseki could have poisoned the victim, so he calls for immediate adjucation. The game gives Ryu the option to either object or wait and see, and I have to be honest, this gave me pause. After what happened with the penalties in case 1-4, I was sure Van Zieks might dish out more punishment for waiting and seeing. Turns out, he doesn't. Ryu points out that Shamspeare likely used the tea to make these fake frozen coins of his, meaning there's still tea left at the scene of the crime which can be tested for poison.

Head in my hands right now. Again, I get it, they basically had to reintroduce Van Zieks to newcomers of the game (however few there might've been) so they had to regress him a bit, but I really don't like this. He honestly felt like he'd grown at the end of 1-4 and the game's not only undone it, it feels like they've made him even more of a scumbag. This line and this gesture honestly doesn’t quite correspond with the character established in the previous game. Anyway, court adjourned till the next day so the police can test the tea for poison.

During the investigation segment, we get a conversation that I'd quite honestly forgotten even exists. Turns out, (S)Holmes and Van Zieks are acquainted! ...or are they? (S)Holmes says he 'must pass the time of day with Mr. Reaper again, as it's been too long' and when asked whether they're acquainted, (S)Holmes replies that there isn't a person in the world who doesn't know his name, expertly dodging the question. Naturally, a new conversation topic opens up about it, so we can still attempt to needle more details out of him.

He explains the history of the Reaper's curse a bit more. Previous defendants found not-guilty would 'disappear from the capital' by falling under a passing carriage, drowning in the Thames, succumbing to a sudden fever... Etc. Susato points out that if those rumors are true, then surely the obvious conclusion would be that they were killed by Van Zieks's own hand. (S)Holmes points out that's impossible, since Van Zieks was already investigated on the matter before and for every single incident, he had a solid alibi. (This... doesn't disprove Van Zieks had anything to do with it, but okay (S)Holmes. Sure.) (S)Holmes also rubs it in yet again that Van Zieks retired from the courts five years ago and didn't return until the day Naruhodo arrived. I honestly don't know why they keep bringing that 5 year hiatus up in every single case, because as far as I can recall it was never fully explained or relevant.

I love how “foul smell” is wedged in-between those two topics as if it's also related. Anyway the conversation continues when Ryu brings up that Van Zieks seems to have a particular disdain for Japanese people. Susato demands to know whether (S)Holmes knows a bit more about it and while he's silent at first, he relents and tells us a tale (which will apparently be forgotten by Ryu and Susato in case 1-5). Van Zieks “chose to enter the legal profession ten years ago, but before that time, the man's closest companion hailed from the empire of Japan”. Which is a wording that baffles me, because it implies that Van Zieks chose to enter the legal profession at the same moment that Japanese person betrayed him, which we know is not the case. He was already in training to be a prosecutor before that, otherwise how could he possibly have prosecuted the Professor trial? Ryu is shocked and asks to know more, but (S)Holmes says the veil on the events from the past will be lifted soon enough. I'll get back to the implications of what this means for Van Zieks's backstory when we hit this exact same reveal in case 1-5.

Van Zieks is mentioned very little in the rest of the investigation segments. We only learn that he tasked Gregson with finding new clues, much to Gregson's dismay, as there isn't much to be found. The Inspector does immediately leap at new information when we uncover it, which implies he's eager to either please Van Zieks or avoid being scolded by him. I'm assuming the latter, but it's also possible Gregson feels guilty over the whole Reaper thing and Klint's autopsy, and is now compensating by working his hardest to fulfill Van Zieks's requests.

At the very end of the investigation, when evening falls, (S)Holmes reminds us that “it'll be hard to escape the grip of our friend, Mr. Reaper”. The next day, in the defendant's lobby just before the trial begins, Ryu thinks to himself that he doesn't believe in the legend of the Reaper any more than he believes in the convict's curse Soseki keeps mentioning. What's interesting here is that Ryu isn't dreading the confrontation anymore. After the McGilded trial he seemed genuinely intimidated by the concept of going up against Van Zieks (not because of the racism but because of what happened to his first defendant), but now he's not so hesitant anymore. He's beginning to see that Van Zieks can be defeated, that the Reaper thing is nonsense and that protecting his client is a fight worth fighting.

Into the courtroom we go for day 2 of the trial! When the judge asks about the results of the tea test, Van Zieks is silent for a moment. He pours himself a glass of wine, asking for a moment to “savour a liquid of a more sanguine hue”, then refers to Gregson for the full report. Gregson confirms no poison was found in the tea remains, but the prosecution wouldn't be the prosecution (and the game would be pretty boring) if they didn't have a backup plan. When Ryu proclaims Soseki is innocent, Van Zieks accuses him of jumping to conclusions, “a typical Nipponese reaction”. It's also a typical prosecution reaction to be hypocritical, no surprises here. He throws his chalice (first one of the day) and summons Shamspeare back to the stand to testify about how Soseki's unpoisoned and undrank cup of tea had been used to make the ice coins.

There's some lines here that I thought I might as well include:

“Yet on occasion, tedium distracts me and I pour more times than I intended until the bottle is dry.”

You know, it occurs to me that this drink is pretty much confirmed to be wine. He's very extra when talking about it himself, but he had his silly little wine analogies in the previous case and Susato referred to his glasses as “wine glasses”. And you would think it's obvious that it's wine, but we know Ace Attorney's long history with 'grape juice'. Either way, this dialogue leaves a pretty harsh implication that Van Zieks drinks alcohol simply to distract himself from troublesome moods. Sure, he says “tedium”, but this is a stoic prosecutor in the year 1900. They referred to depression as “melancholia” back then, and since he doesn't appear to have any friends, I expect he experiences “tedium” quite often outside the courtroom. He apparently set a rule for himself not to fill his glass more than seven times during a trial which, in turn, implies he's aware any more would cause problems. All of this is moot, of course, since 80% of the wine he pours for himself ends up on the floor between shards of glass. Still, though... Zieks, are you okay?

I don't think he is, because he pulls a very dirty trick here. Ryu proves Soseki drank all his tea and therefore it couldn't possibly have been used, so Van Zieks insinuates to Shamspeare that perhaps he misremembered using the tea from Soseki's cup and instead used tea still left in the teapot. An excuse Shamspeare happily takes, of course. Not gonna lie, I got angry, not because it's a dirty trick but because it's inconsistent. This is the very same character who all but dragged Mrs. Garrideb down from the juror bench to testify when it became clear she likely threw a knife out the window. And now he's feeding slippery excuses to a man who's very clearly lying about all sorts of things? What??? And remember this incident, because I'm going to be referring back to it later.

He crushes another chalice, removes his cloak and continues to insist that we should believe this thieving liar at the witness stand. The jurors for some reason buy the baloney served to them on a tinfoil platter and even twist Ryu's sentiments around, with some bloke going as far as to interpret the situation as 'the lawyer lad believes anyone who steals gas deserves to be poisoned'. Summation Examination gets very funky this time around, with the outcome being that Shamspeare probably blew the gas pipes (s-snerk) and the poison was laced on the pipe.

Van Zieks pours himself a glass of wine and pretty much immediately flings it, saying these are all empty assertions without a shred of proof. When Ryu presents the picture with the skin prints, Van Zieks once again breaks the rule of the prosecution staying silent during Summation Examination to point out that skin prints cannot be used as evidence, since that method is not recognized by the court (yet). Aaand he crushes yet another chalice in his hand.

Susato claims it was never meant to be used as official evidence, it was only a tool to demonstrate a new possibility to the jury. Jumping through some loopholes here, we are, since the picture is clearly in our Court Record as evidence. But, well, the prosecution cheats too so what's the harm? Some jurors vote not-guilty, but there's still one more that needs convincing on order to keep the trial going. Ryu says he has a witness who's already testified that the pipe-blowing incident did indeed occur that night, as Soseki stated the other day before the court that his stove went out in the dead of night. (Hang on, is this why the narrative made him testify alongside Gregson?) With that the majority of the jury votes not-guilty and the trial has to continue, but Van Zieks is extra rattled now. (Another bottle goes soaring.)

He once again reminds the court that skin prints aren't admissible evidence and therefore, there is no real proof Shamspeare put his mouth to the pipes (ghghhh I'm sorry this is such a silly thing to have to type out). Ryu asks for an investigative team to test the mouth of the gas pipe for poison, but since it would've evaporated by now, that's a no-go. Also, Van Zieks says that “what appears to be simple is my Nipponese friend's mind” and that's a scumbag point. Ryu attempts to turn the trial around by claiming that Shamspeare attempted to kill Soseki, making the defendant the victim, but Van Zieks ain't having it. The aggrieved being the accused is an interesting notion, but doesn't change what actually happened. In fact, if anything, it establishes a motive for Soseki to lay a trap for Shamspeare. Because who else could have known about the gas pipe trickery and put the poison there, right? Why, the true culprit, of course.

Our man Van Zieks really doesn't like (S)Holmes, huh? A tidbit which the games will never bother to explain! Either way, Ryu raises the name of Olive Green, the victim of the previous case. And I gotta say, I do genuinely like the way they integrated these two Clouded Kokoro cases together. The chronology of everything that went down is very fun to decipher, but long story short, Olive Green was at Briar Road the day she was stabbed for a reason and knows more about the 'convict curse' Soseki and Garrideb kept mentioning, so let's drag her into court! Van Zieks agrees to subpoena Miss Green in order to 'see his Nipponese friend's farce through to its conclusion'.

So during intermission some more evidence is handed to Ryu and when trial resumes, Van Zieks continues to be his usual self.

“The prosecution has tried to extend every courtesy to this amateur newcomer from dubious Eastern shores.”

Ryu sweats bullets as he meekly thanks Van Zieks “(for his backhanded consideration)”, but once again the judge is the one to call Van Zieks out on his attitude.

Amazing. It's so refreshing to see a judge who actually disagrees with the prosecution's haughty attitude problems and acknowledges it has no place in a courtroom. Nothing against Udgey, because we all love Udgey (and his Canadian brother), but this man actually grows and learns. So Olive Green takes the stand alongside Shamspeare (maybe not the best idea since Ryu just accused her of trying to murder this man) for dual testimony. When Green brings up what a dreadful ordeal the knife to her back was, Van Zieks says this:

Hang on, empathy? He's giving her advice? This reeks of humanization! Green seems taken aback and thanks him for his words, so the sentiment was genuinely accepted. This in itself is a very nice scene to see in action, similar to Van Zieks allowing Roly Beate to keep his job. Unfortunately, Van Zieks's character is in a wild rollercoaster of moral inconsistency during this particular case which sours the experience somewhat. Case in point:

YOOOU hypocrite! This actively angered me, because at the very start of this same trial day he was personally feeding lies to Shamspeare. Now he's warning Green not to lie? It gets even worse a bit later on when Green gets cornered about stealing the note, she asks him whether it could all be some sort of misunderstanding, and he says:

ACTIVELY FEEDING SHAMSPEARE A LIE. THE VERY SAME DAY. I'm all for prosecutors using dirty tactics. It helps to juxtapose them further to the honest defense attorney we play as. However, it needs to be consistent. Either a prosecutor condones a witness's lies to help their case, or they feel that they're above it. The third, most used option is for them to start off condoning it, only to learn that truth takes priority over victory. This sloppy back-and-forth morality that Van Zieks has going on here is insanely frustrating, so it's no wonder some players end up disliking him. It honestly feels as if they rewrote this case so many times, they screwed up the exact growth trajectory Van Zieks has.

Anyway, it seems Van Zieks is suddenly fully on our side now to help Ryu prove that Green was in Shamspeare's room and laced the gas pipe with poison. And I mean help help. When the judge points out that if Green had laced the pipe the very same day she was stabbed, the attempted murder would have happened six days ago. Van Zieks is the one to say “Perhaps not, My Lord” and explain Briar Road was full of police at that time. At this point, Van Zieks and Ryu (and also Susato) actively start to take turns to explain the proper chronology of events. So the defense and the prosecution are in perfect sync right now, working together to explain the whodunnit. This is the ideal outcome to any trial, usually not seen until the last case of the game, so it's curious that this dynamic abruptly shows itself in a case like this. Van Zieks does still have one moment of gaslighting when he claims Ryu may have inhaled some dubious gas, causing his judgment to be clouded, since there's no motive behind Shamspeare's attempts on his fellow lodgers. A matter that's very easily resolved, of course. Once the name of Selden is brought up, Van Zieks continues our little game of back-and-forth-truth-reveal until (S)Holmes shows his face.

“Your usual haunts are the filthy backstreets of the capital, are they not?”

To which (S)Holmes replies that it's been too long, and Van Zieks's complexion has worsened since last they met. Alright, so Van Zieks and (S)Holmes definitely have met in person before, some undetermined amount of time ago. You'd think that going by (S)Holmes's friendly attitude they might've even been friends once, but our great detective is like that towards everyone. This is evidenced by an earlier encounter with Gregson where (S)Holmes insists they're friends and Gregson says that they're not friends, to which (S)Holmes quietly agrees. So really, this little exchange tells us nothing about the history between the great detective and the Reaper.

Some shenaniganry, a breakdown and admittance to guilt later, the court is finally ready to deem Soseki innocent. Van Zieks once again has some interesting lines here:

“And one I certainly didn't envisage walking... with you.”

Considering he attempted to trip us up for most of this walk up until the very last stretch, I don't like this remark very much. It feels very unearned. This is another one of those things that would've been more suitable in the last case of the game, but instead it's being crammed into a messy mid-game moment with the pretense that Van Zieks learned a lesson about being our ally.

In the defendant's lobby, the game basically gives the exact same dialogue as at the end of the original Clouded Kokoro case; that Soseki is returning to Japan and hopes to pen his own literature there, with the rest of the cast pointing out that the Reaper's Curse must factor into his decision to some degree. So we're still holding onto that question of whether Soseki will escape an untimely death or not. Anyone who's already played the last case of the first game will know the answer, of course.

So to summarize... I genuinely didn't enjoy Van Zieks's portrayal in this case. It really feels as if something went horribly wrong and they got some notes mixed up about where his character was already headed in the previous game. It's a crying shame. There was a lot of potential for a case set between 1-4 and 1-5, but they really dropped the ball when it comes to consistency and I've no doubt that it reflected badly on people's opinions of him. Though I think when we return to the first game for The Unspeakable Story, everything will right itself out again to some degree. Stay tuned!

[itspufflehuff]

Cookies - Peter Parker Imagine

Summary: Y/N, Peter, and Ned have all been best friends since the second grade. When Y/N experiences her first heartbreak will they be able to help her? Most importantly will Peter?

MATERLIST // TAGLIST

I know I normally post Sebastian Stan/ Bucky but I want to also get into the other MCU characters/ actors so here is Peter Parker! I have some more Sebastian/ Bucky imagines in the making but for now enjoy.

Let me know what you think! You can read part two here.

Word Count: 2,558

~~~~

You and Peter first became friends in the second grade. He fell off of the monkey bars and lay on the floor holding his arm in pain. His friend, Ned, stood to the side smiling and clapping, "Do it again!" You grabbed the last cookie from your lunch box then walked over to Peter. When he got to him you stood there holding the cookie out, " I fell off the monkey bars one time. I cried but my mom said cookies will always make me feel better." He giggled and reached out taking the cookie from you.

From that day on Peter and Ned would join you for lunch and ask you to play with them during breaks. The three of you soon became inseparable.

You loved your best friends and always saw them as just that, friends.

That was until sometime in middle school. You don't know exactly what happened to flip your emotions the way they did, but when you looked at Peter your whole day got better. You always found yourself wanting to sit next to him whether it be in class, during movie nights, on the bus, or in the cafeteria.

Once you noticed how your feelings towards your best friend had changed you did your best to suppress them. You knew he didn't think about you that way. It was obvious, the way he and Ned would drool over girls in front of you. So you pushed your feelings to the side and tried to move on.

You did for a bit. As middle school went on you developed crushes on other boys. Of course, nothing ever happened with them you were too young and boys at that age were too dumb.

When high school came along your feelings for Peter grew stronger. He was so smart, kind, and nerdy. You loved his pop culture references even though they were lame. He always made you laugh and it didn't help that he was cute.  But he would never feel the same about you.

Or so you thought.

Little did you know he too started to develop feelings for you. He loved watching you read. It fascinated him the way you would react to what's happening in the book as if you were there. Whenever you would furrow your eyebrows or raise them in shock made him smile. And when you laughed he laughed too. He had no idea what about but he thought it was so adorable the way you would get lost in your book. He also loved the way you understood all of his references. Not only did you understand them but you went along with them. Like that one time, the three of you so badly wanted to go to the premiere of Star Wars Rogue One but your mom said no.

~~~~

You all sat there in disappointment when Peter jumped up from his chair excitedly, "Ok I got it! Remember that one episode of Law and Order when the three girls sneak out of their house? They pretend to be their mom and text the other mom saying they're gonna have a sleepover."

You looked at him impressed then shook your head, "No that wouldn't work, my parents love you guys but they would never let me sleepover."

The boys nodded understandingly when you got an idea, "What if I just sneak out the fire escape? Kinda like how the girls from Sleepover snuck out, except they left the window from a two-story house, and ill be on the fifth floor of an apartment."

"Good idea. I live down the street so I could pick you up. But what if your parents want to check on you?" Peter questioned.

"Well in the movie Julies older brother put on a wig and had his back to the door so their dad would think she is home. The only problem is none of us have siblings who can do that for me."

Then from the left of you, Ned looked up excitedly, "I have a cousin our age with your hair color who owes me a favor."

Just like that, you all escaped for the night.

~~~

Before that night you'd never made a pop culture reference, of course, you quoted movies and shows from time to time but you never referenced them the way he did, you only ever understood them. That night his crush on you grew bigger.

Peter never showed interest in you though, which lead you to believe he could never like you in that way. In another attempt to move on you started dating Flash freshman year. Yes, Flash.

I know what was wrong with you?

But in your defense, he was different back then. He was a really sweet guy, and he made you feel cared for. Of course, everyone knew his family was filthy rich but that's not why you dated him. You two were friends and although he didn't have the same interest as you, he appreciated them and asked you about them. He made you happy.

At the beginning of your relationship, everything was great. He was never threatened by your two best friends so when you told him you wanted to sit with them during lunch he had no problem. After school, you two would study and talk about how your day went. He would always ask you about the latest book you read. Seeing how happy books made you he bought you more, but they were always special edition covers. When you weren't with Peter and Ned you were with Flash. He held your hand so sweetly and he was your first kiss but he never rushed it. The first time he tried to kiss you, you pulled away. You weren't ready yet, you wished it were Peter kissing you. Then a month later you had gotten over your Peter crush, so you kissed Flash. You were both so happy.

That is until he realized what being rich meant. People started coming up to him and inviting him to parties. He slowly became more and more popular. He started buying you jewelry instead of books. He asked you to wear the jewelry when you were with him, and when you didn't, he would distance himself from you. Instead of dates, you went to parties, none of them were ever fun. Study time became the Flash show where he would go on and on about himself never letting you speak. He started showing up to school in a limousine. Then he started flirting with the popular girls. At first, he had the decency to hide it from you then he started doing it in front of you. One day he broke up with you and moved on to a prettier girl.

Even though your relationship was already falling apart it still hurt you bad. You cried for days. Peter and Ned did everything they could to make you feel better. They would walk you home and stay with you until your parents kicked them out. Peter was so angry.

How could anyone hurt Y/N? I would never treat her the way Flash did.

The day Flash dumped you, you ran home straight after the bell rang. Peter and Ned were so confused they went to your home to check on you. Your mom let them in and pointed to your bedroom, "I don't know what happened but she seemed sad when she got home. She won't talk to me, would you let me know if she's alright?" The boys nodded, their faces full of concern.

Hesitantly they knocked on your day, "Go away!"

"It's Peter and Ned." They heard sniffles behind the door. Peter got closer to the door and in a low voice said, "Please let us in we want to know you're ok."

"Fine, come in."

Your eyes were puffy and your face stained with tears. You were sitting on your window seal with a blanket draped over your body. The boys slowly dropped their bags beside your door. They didn't know what to do.

"What happened?"

You looked to the window not wanting to see their faces, "Flash dumped me for some popular girl. I guess I wasn't good enough for him anymore." Tears fell silently as you sniffled and held back sobs.

Peter and Ned looked at each other.  They were thinking the same thing. In the past few weeks, they noticed a change in Flash's behavior. They saw how miserable he was making you. Although they didn't say anything they knew it wasn't too long until he broke up with you.

The boys were silent so you looked over to them seeing that they still stood in the doorway, "You guys can sit down."

So they did, Ned walked over to your desk sitting on the chair, and Peter on your bed.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Peter asked cautiously. They'd never seen you like this before so they didn't know what to do.

"Do you want to eat chocolate while we watch chick flicks?" Ned offered

"What? No. Ned, I don't think girls actually do that in real life."

"I don't know what I'm doing! I've only comforted you after a girl rejected you, even then all I said was, 'that sucks wanna go build some Legos?' and everything was better."

"Yeah but-"

"Wait." You spoke from where you were. You were silently watching them amused. The tears stopped coming as a soft smile arose on your lips.

The boys looked over to you as you spoke, "I like Ned's idea can we do that?"

He proudly let out a chuckle and smiled, "See I knew she would like that."

Peter rolled his eyes, "We will handle the snacks if you handle the movies?"

You nodded excitedly. Everyone got up from their spots, Peter and Ned headed for the door and you headed for your laptop.

Ned walked out first and happily called out, "We'll be right back Mrs. Y/L/N."

Your mom came out of the kitchen confused. She stopped Peter and asked about you. "Flash broke up with her today and she's taking it pretty bad. If you don't mind we're gonna head to the store and grab some snacks for a movie night? I really think it will make her feel better.

Seeing as it was Friday night your mom agreed and smiled at Peter.

Two blocks away from your apartment there was a convenience store where the boys went to pick up the necessities. They grabbed handfuls of chocolates, chips, ice cream, and drinks. As they were getting ready to pay Peter saw a stack of cookies. He remembered that day in second grade, 'Cookies will always make me feel better.' He smiled at the memory and quickly grabbed them.

When the boys got back to your room everything was set up. Your computer was hooked up to the TV, you made room on the floor where Ned usually lays (you even made it comfortable for him with pillows and layers of blankets), and the bed was made usually you and Peter lay there.

"Let the festivities begin!" Ned shouted as he dropped the snacks onto your bed. You all laughed as everyone took their spot.

Before you laid down you started the first of many movies, The Hot Chick.

When you made it to the bed Peter was sitting there waiting for you, "I got you a special snack."

You scrunched your eyebrows as you looked at him. He pulled out your favorite bag of cookies. Excitedly you grabbed them from him with a smile on your face.

He never failed to make you smile.

"Just like your mom said, cookies will always make you feel better." He looked into your eyes with a soft grin.

You said that to him many years ago you almost forgotten, "Thank you."

He took his shoes off and laid on your bed. He was on his stomach facing the foot of your bed. You sat up on the headboard with pillows behind your back and a blanket over your legs.

Two movies later half the snacks were gone along with Ned. His mom wanted him home for a family dinner, which left you and Peter alone. You two took a break from the movies to have dinner with your parents.

When you two got back to your room you took Peter's old spot at the foot of the bed and he took yours sitting at the top, "What movie next?" He asked.

You pondered for a second, "Hmm, how about Princess and the Frog?" You tried holding back a smile. Noticing this he couldn't hold back his own, "Start it."

As the movie played he could hear you softly reciting the lines along with the characters, "I would kiss a frog. I would kiss a hundred frogs if I could marry a prince and be a princess."

You didn't even realize you were doing it, you just loved this movie so much you knew practically every line. Peter watched you and smiled.

How could anyone not love her?

He noticed you shiver ever so lightly and quickly covered you with a blanket, but you were too into the movie to notice.

When the movie ended your mom walked into the room, "Ok Peter time to go home."

You groaned, "Moooom, just one more movie. Please, please, please please, please!" You begged just as Lottie did when wishing on the star. Peter chuckled at your antics.

Your mom gave in knowing you needed it more than ever right now.

"Ok, it's the last movie gotta make it count!" Peter said bouncing on the bed.

You typed the movie in as Peter read it out, " Love, Rosie. What's that?"

"One of the best romance movies ever!"

You got back onto the bed this time sitting up next to Peter. He laughed beside you, "Ok we'll see about that."

The movie played as you two watched the stories of two best friends fall in love at the wrong times. Peter couldn't help but think maybe you two would fall in love one day. He looked over to you surprised to see tears falling down your face.

Instead of asking if you were ok or if something was wrong, he grabbed your hand and squeezed. Just a small gesture to remind you he was there for you.

Grabbing the blanket you wiped your tears. He started to let go of your hand when you reached out for it again, this time interlocking your fingers.

Without looking at each other you both smiled to yourselves.

At some point, you rested your head on Peter's shoulder and fell asleep still holding onto his hand.

When the movie ended he was surprised to see you had fallen asleep. He let the credits play in the back as he rested his head on top of yours just enjoying the moment.

"I love you, Y/N. Someday I will have the courage to tell you and we will have a love story even better than what we see in the movies because ours will be real. I promise." He kissed the top of your head, slowly let go of you, and with one last look, he left.

He did keep his promise, but that's a story for another day.

[hyuniebaby]

Pink Carnations

Pairings: Sehun x Y/N

Genre: angst

One shot. Y/N is sick but I can’t say what her sickness is... 🤐

A/N: I’ve had this idea for a while but I didn’t expect it to be this long. Honestly, I wished I could’ve made this shorter but I got too lazy to edit some parts... I didn’t want to write the death part so I cut that part out. I also want to take this time to applaud fanfic writers for dedicating so much thought and time to write their pieces. I almost gave up halfway because it got too long. I honestly think my max words when writing is 2k LOL 😅 Anyway I hope you enjoy this!

You were lying on your towel wearing your two piece bathing suit while you closed your eyes. It was summer and what perfect way to spend the day than to lounge under the sun after a tiring week, right?

It was perfect until your peace and quiet was disturbed by someone plopping down beside you. You didn’t have to open your eyes to know who it was. You know his faint but distinct smell.

“You know, if you just wanted to sleep, you could’ve just stayed at home and did that on the comfort of your bed,” Sehun says.

Without opening your eyes, you answer, “But there’s something different with the air at the beach! Plus, the sound of the waves calm me down.” There was a soft smile on your face. It was evident you were content right now.

When Sehun didn’t answer, you opened your eyes and peeked at him. He was staring right at you. He was looking at you intently as if you had the answer to the poverty problems of the world. You couldn’t help but feel your heart skip a beat because of his gaze.

You were about to say something when you both hear a girl shrieking. Both of you had trailed your eyes to the source of the sound. One of the girls playing beach volleyball landed on the wrong foot and she was cradling her foot in agony. Sehun was quick to approach and lend her a helping hand.

The sight made your heart swell with pride. You were proud of your best friend for having the sweetest heart. He was always willing to help anyone in need. You were extremely happy to have a best friend like him.

He offered helping the girl walk back to their cottage. At first the girl was leaning on Sehun while she was limping. But after a few steps, Sehun suddenly carried the girl bridal style. You knew he was just helping the girl, but the sight left a bitter taste in your mouth.

You frowned. Why were you feeling this way? Sure, you had this small crush on Sehun. He was sweet, nice, and attractive. But it was just that, just a crush. You didn’t allow it to bloom into something different because, well, he was your best friend and you knew he didn’t feel the same. It doesn’t bother you though, because, again, it’s just a crush.

Even when he had been in and out of relationships, you never felt jealous or bitter. You were always supportive in his love affairs. So why were you suddenly feeling this way? She was just a stranger on the beach who needed help. There’s literally no reason to feel jealous.

You clear the frown on your face when you see Sehun jog back to you after carrying the injured girl. You give him a smile instead. He goes back to his previous sitting position.

“You’re such a gentleman,” You coo while pinching his cheeks.

He immediately leans away and groans. “I would’ve done the same if it happened to you, dumbass.”

And there it was again, your heart was skipping a beat. Usually Sehun would just answer sassily when you tease him but every now and then he’d say something that would make your heart flutter.

You feel your blood rushing to your cheeks. Instead of acknowledging what he said, you mutter, “I’m not a dumbass!”

He snickers at your reaction. You scowl at him, ready to give him a punch but you stopped your movement when a female interrupted your bickering. “Uhm, excuse me.”

You both look up at the lady.

She faced Sehun. “I’m a friend of Anne, the girl you helped earlier. She wanted to give you this,” She hands a letter to Sehun. Sehun just smiles and the woman took it as a cue to leave. She goes back to their group of friends.

You watch Sehun as he opens the folded paper. You wanted to peek into it so badly but you respected Sehun’s privacy so instead of looking at the paper, you observe Sehun’s face. His curious look was replaced by a smile. He momentarily looks back at where Anne was. She didn’t notice the act since she was surrounded by her worried friends.

Sehun looks back at you and grins. “Come on, let’s get you home. You’re going to get sunburned.”

That wasn’t what you were expecting him to say but you didn’t want to dwell on it. You start collecting your things. Sehun stands up and waits for you. When you’ve gathered all your belongings, he offers his hand to help you stand up. You reached for it gratefully. He guides you back to his car and drives you back home. And just like that, you two were back to bickering best friends.

After that eventful day on the beach, you hadn’t spared a thought on what happened that time. It was unimportant anyway. Weeks had passed by already and it was so easy to forget about that particular day since none of you talked about it again.

Until one Sunday afternoon.

You were binge watching the TV series your coworker, Junmyeon, recommended. You were halfway through the fifth episode when Sehun sent a message telling you to meet up with him for dinner. Normally you’d decline, especially since you were getting hooked to what you were watching, however, you remembered you actually forgot to buy groceries. You literally only had chips and a bottle of juice left at your place, so you agreed.

Sehun had told you to meet up at the diner you both frequented. Sundays were your lazy days so you just opt to wear a hoodie on top of your shirt. You didn’t even bother changing your shorts to pants anymore. Besides, it was just Sehun you were meeting. And he’s seen you in much worse clothes.

You went to the diner on the dot. When you got there, you weren’t even surprised that Sehun wasn’t there yet. He’s always been late to everything. You got used to waiting for him.

After fifteen minutes of waiting, you hear a particularly loud laugh from a girl entering the diner. You looked up to see who it was. But instead of focusing on the girl, your eye immediately landed on Sehun. He sees you sitting by your usual seats and heads over to your direction, the girl in tow.

Typical of Sehun to tag you along on his first date with a girl. You resist the urge to roll your eyes at your best friend. He grins at you. “Hey Y/N, remember Anne?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t.” You smile sheepishly.

“Sehun helped me at the beach a few weeks ago. I, uh, got injured for twisting my ankle,” Anne says.

Oh. It was the girl he carried bridal style. For some reason, you felt a tug at your heart.

Despite the bitter taste in your mouth, you offer your hand to shake and a smile. “Oh, hi Anne! Nice to meet you. I’m Y/N. Sehun’s best friend.”

She shakes your hand in return. “Sehun has told me a lot about you!” She beams.

Huh? Was this not their first date?

Confusion was evident in your face so Sehun explains, “We’ve been going out for a while now.”

He always tells you everything. It’s like he couldn’t hold himself back. So you wanted to ask him why he didn’t tell you about dating her for god knows how long. What’s so special with Anne this time?

You notice her blush at whatever Sehun whispered to her ear. There was something about the sparkle in their eyes that made you feel so uneasy.

You tried not to grimace or show any sign of discomfort when they subtly look at each other when they think they weren’t looking. What was absolutely difficult for you was when they both made an effort to include you in whatever they were talking about. Under normal circumstances, you’d be happy to be included in the conversation, because, well, you always had a lot to say in a variety of things. But this time, you felt like you were tongue-tied. Too occupied with the weird feeling you were getting.

You observed that they were getting along well. Sehun doesn’t open up to strangers quickly. It takes around two months for him to actually start warming up to people. This was one of the reasons why some of the girls he dated didn’t last long. Not only was he reserved, he also has an intimidating aura. So you were a little taken aback to see him be this close to someone who he met just a few weeks ago.

There were times when you caught Sehun gazing at Anne in some type of way. The type of look that could make any woman’s heart melt if you looked long enough. The sight made your heart ache so much. You really weren’t sure why you’re feeling this way, you’ve never really viewed Sehun as someone you could romantically be involved with. You thought you just liked his personality.

So when Sehun sends another loving smile at Anne and she blushes profusely, you suddenly feel so overwhelmed that you choked on air. It was so embarrassing. They both looked at you with concern but instead of brushing it off, you excused yourself, telling them you weren’t feeling good. They insisted on driving you home but you declined, not wanting to watch them ogle at each other for longer. But you don’t tell them that. You just assured them that you’ll be fine. Your home was just a few blocks away, after all.

When you got home, you immediately went to bed, hoping that this weird feeling goes away with a night’s rest.

Since then, you declined Sehun’s invites. It was embarrassing to admit that you felt jealous over something so simple. You spent your days and nights in the office to get Sehun out of your mind. This wasn’t new though. Your work required so much time from you especially during the end of the month and Sehun knew that. You had to work on multiple reports and presentations that sometimes you couldn’t go home if you wanted to. The only consolation for you was that you have Junmyeon and Jongin that helps you with your tasks.

When Sehun stopped inviting you to eat out or hang out with him and Anne, you felt relieved. At least you didn’t have to pretend to be okay in front of them. But you shouldn’t have been too complacent, because one Saturday night, Sehun came knocking at your door.

“Are you okay? Is there something wrong?” Sehun asks as soon as you open the door.

You were stunned to see him, but you knew Sehun, he wouldn’t just stop talking to you just because he was in a relationship. He wouldn’t accept any reason for silence on your end, except if it was work, and right now, your hectic days were over.

“I’m fine, Sehun. You know how busy I get during the last days of the month.”

“But it’s already a week after your busy days,” He frowned. “And you haven’t sent a single message to me at all.”

You winced. He has a point, whenever you’re done with your “busy days”, you always seek Sehun out — to party or to hang out, whatever. He was always there to help you destress.

Right now, you don’t have an excuse to Sehun so you remained silent.

“Is there something wrong, Y/N? You can tell me,” Sehun says softly.

“Just tired of work,” You sigh.

“Then let’s watch a movie? We can order pizza too!”

You contemplate, was it a good idea to have Sehun so close?

Before you could even respond, he spins you around and gently pushes you inside your home. He sits you on your couch and props your leg on the coffee table. You couldn’t help but smile at him. He even knows the exact position that you do when you’re watching TV.

He sits beside you and gets the remote so he can choose which film you’re both going to watch. You stare at him as he carefully scans the list of movies. He really looks breathtaking no matter what angle. You wonder why it took you this long to acknowledge the feelings you had for him. He has a girlfriend now and they look like they’re getting along better as compared to his previous lovers. It was too late. The thought sends another uncomfortable sensation. Your vision was getting blurry and you looked away from him before you could even spill a tear.

When he has chosen a movie to watch, he stands up and dials the number of your favorite pizza parlor. You sigh in relief as he moves away, subtly trying to rub your eyes and get rid of the tears that were starting to form. You have to clear out whatever feelings you have for Sehun tonight, otherwise, you might just have to say goodbye to your friendship with him. You have to get through this night.

When Sehun comes back from the call, he scans your face. You looked so sad and so much thinner now. “You must have been so stressed over work,” He notes sadly. He gently pats your head as he says, “Don’t worry, I’ll let you rest after this. We can hang out tomorrow again and go shopping or something,” He pulls you closer and gently pushes your head so you’re leaning on his shoulder. You feel your heart flutter. You can smell his cologne in this position, and somehow it gives comfort to you. You let him hold you for the rest of the night, deciding that this was going to be the last time you’ll let him. For your sake and for Anne’s sake. You didn’t want her to get the wrong idea.

The night went surprisingly well. At first the both of you kept quiet while watching the movie but when the pizza came, the mood suddenly lightened up. You both abandoned the movie as you started arguing over which food was better: pizza or pasta. Of course, you were on pizza’s team while Sehun whose taste buds can’t appreciate the flavor of pizzas kept on proclaiming pasta as the best food ever. The argument ended when you asked him, “Why are you eating pizza then? The pizza parlor served pasta as well! If it was ‘the best food on the planet’ then why are you here stuffing yourself with pizza?” which shut him up. You grin as he got silenced. To celebrate your win, you get to have the last slice of pizza. The night ended as you laughed at him while guiding him out of your home. What you weren’t aware of was the smile he was hiding when his back was turned to you. He was happy to have made you laugh before the night ended. He hated when you were sad. He cared for you and loved you more than what you think, but just not in the way you wanted him to.

You start hanging out with Sehun and Anne more ever since you vowed to eliminate your feelings for Sehun that night. The only problem was that every time you spent together with them, you felt your heart ache. Yeah, it sure was easier to say you’ll get over your feelings for him rather than actually doing it.

As winter came, you found yourself becoming more attached to your coworkers, Junmyeon and Jongin, since you’ve been dragging them when you spent time with Sehun and Anne. They knew about your feelings for Sehun and it was much easier not to slip up when they were around. The downside was that they were always giving you sympathetic glances when the couple displayed their affection. When they did this, you really just wanted to punch them. One time you almost punched Jongin for it but for some reason you felt too weak to do it. In fact, when the season changed, you became sickly. This wasn’t new, you always had colds whenever there were changes in the weather, but for some reason, this time felt different. There were days where you couldn’t get out of bed. There were days where you couldn’t stop coughing too. Junmyeon suggested you get checked up by a doctor but you always found yourself pushing it for next time.

One cold afternoon, you were at work with Junmyeon and Jongin. The day was slow since you’ve all finished with your tasks on time. You were all chatting about how it was the first time in months that work wasn’t stressing you all out. At one point, the conversation went to sports and you’ve started to mindlessly scroll through social media since you weren’t particularly interested in their topic. One post caught your eye, Sehun posted a photo of him and Anne kissing. You felt a pang in your heart as usual. You’ve witnessed them do this countless times already within the months you’ve hung out with the couple but every time it doesn’t hurt less. You try to fight back the sob that was about to spill out of your mouth but you ended up coughing instead. You covered your mouth with your handkerchief as you coughed and coughed. Junmyeon came immediately by your side, asking if you were okay. You waved a hand and just nodded. When you were done with your coughing fit, you lowered your handkerchief. Normally, you would just automatically put it back on your pocket but you caught sight of a reddish color on your white handkerchief. Was that blood? Your eyes widened a little but you tried not to be a little obvious since Junmyeon and Jongin were looking at you with concern.

“I’m taking you to the doctor after work. You can’t put it off anymore, Y/N. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve taken a lot of days off. In fact, you’ve called in sick more times this month compared to the last three years.” Junmyeon gives you a pointed look. You noticed Jongin bobbing his head up and down in agreement. You sighed heavily but agreed nonetheless. After all, you were worried quite worried too.

When your shift ended, you, Jongin and Junmyeon went together to the hospital. When you found a doctor who was available to check up on you, you were grateful that Junmyeon and Jongin weren’t in the doctor’s room so you were also able to tell him about the coughing and the blood that you saw on your handkerchief. The doctor, Dr. Han, wanted to run a series of tests on you once you explained whatever symptoms you were feeling. You were beyond anxious at this point because you coughed out with blood! He was stripped off of any emotions while talking to you and you didn’t know what to make off of it.

In the middle of your conversation, you get a call from Sehun. You ask Dr. Hand if you could take the call and he nods his head wordlessly.

Initially, you wanted to stand up and leave the room so you could talk to Sehun privately but your body felt so heavy, so instead you find yourself angling your body so you weren’t facing your doctor.

“Hello?” You answered the phone call, your throat suddenly feeling dry.

“Hey Y/N! Junmyeon said you’re in the hospital, do you want us to come over?” He asks, voice filled with concern.

Us. Of course, he and Anne were a package deal now.

It took you a few seconds to answer and you could hear Sehun panicking on the line while Anne was trying to calm him down.

“It’s just a check up, Hun.” You heard them let out a breath of relief and you wanted to smile but you started coughing again. You can still hear them on the line but you couldn’t answer because you couldn’t stop coughing so you ended the call. You also felt like it was so hard to breathe suddenly. You were feeling lightheaded too. When you covered your mouth with your hand, you felt something solid coming out of your mouth. What was that?

Dr. Han rushed to your side, he tried to listen to your lungs using his stethoscope and you saw him with widened eyes then he rushed to the door to call a nurse before your vision turned black.

When you woke up, your throat felt so dry. It was so hard for you to breathe even with an oxygen mask attached to you. You look around the room and see Junmyeon and Jongin on the sides of your bed. When Junmyeon noticed your movement, he immediately went out to call for a nurse while Jongin held your hand.

“What happened?”

Jongin looked at you sadly. “You had a coughing fit while you were with the doctor. The next thing we knew, you were unconscious and they were hauling you out of the room… The lab results came out a while ago and…” he trailed off. “I think I should let your doctor explain…”

The way he worded it and the way he looked made you feel so uneasy. You were scared. Were you going to die?

When Junmyeon re-enters the room, the two males share a look of sadness. Junmyeon goes by your side and reaches out for something in his coat. You watch him curiously. He hands you a single pink carnation.

That was odd. Why would he hand you a flower? This was the exact same flower that Sehun gave as a corsage when he took you to prom. It was quite a special flower for you personally because that night was a magical night for the two of you. You smile softly at the memory of him telling you how pretty you were and how your dumb ex boyfriend was a fool to let you go. You remember slow dancing with Sehun and him holding your hand to help you as you walk in heels. That night, he made you feel so special. It might have been the night you started to have a crush on him.

“What’s this for Jun?”

He doesn’t say a word, just presses a kiss on your forehead.

As if on cue, a group of doctors come into your room. It was weird to find five doctors in a single room. Even weirder to find one of the younger doctors a little bit more enthusiastic than the others. And where was Dr. Han? Why isn’t he here too? You don’t know what to think. An enthusiastic doctor meant good news, right? But this much doctors must mean that you were in serious trouble. You frown at the thought.

The doctor with a deep dimple started relaying your name, age, and the symptoms you’ve told Dr. Han a while ago. The enthusiastic doctor gives the eldest doctor a set of envelopes with your lab results. He frowns upon looking at all your results. You gulp.

The eldest doctor wipes the frown on his face and reaches a hand to you. “I’m Dr. Jung, I’m the attending doctor assigned to you. This is Dr. Kim Minseok, my resident. The three over here are interns.”

You just nod your head at them.

“Before anything else, I just want to let you know that your case is quite unusual and rare,” Dr. Jung says. Then he turns to the interns and asks, “Someone describe and explain the results to Ms. Y/N.”

The enthusiastic doctor goes closer to you, “I’m Dr. Byun Baekhyun. This is your x-ray film. There is swelling on your lungs which was one of the reasons why you were feeling chest pains and difficulty in breathing,” You were confused because whatever he was showing you definitely doesn’t look like your lungs at all. Dr. Byun points at the film somewhere in the lower right part. “These are… roots. These are stems and these are flowers.”

Wait, what? Was he joking? Because if he is, it’s literally not funny.

He carries on and says, “As Dr. Jung said, your case is extremely rare. You have the Hanahaki disease. It’s a condition where a person coughs up or throws up petals and/or flowers when they suffer from unrequited love. There aren’t many studies about it since it’s very rare. The last recorded case was 12 years ago. Studies say that there are two ways for it to be cured, first is to have that person love you back romantically and two is to undergo surgery,” He pauses and looks at Dr. Jung, “Dr. Jung has operated on the last person who had the disease. He surgically removed the infection on the patient’s lungs.”

The tallest among the intern doctors pipes up and says, “The success rate for the surgery is quite high. However, according to studies, the surgical removal of the infection also removes the patient’s feelings for their loved one. In extreme cases, they could even forget about that person and the patient could lose the ability to love again…”

Dr. Kim Minseok then says, “We understand that this might be very hard for you so we would like to give you time to think on how to proceed with this. However, based on your tests, the carnation seeds have already spread out to your body and have attached to some of your tissues. This is quite the dangerous stage…”

“How much time do I have left?” You ask weakly to Dr. Jung.

He clears his throat and gently says, “Around two weeks to a month. The infection has spread throughout your body already. You almost choked from the carnation that bloomed in your lungs…”

You nod in understanding. “Thank you, doctors. I’ll… let you know my decision soon,” You gave them an unconvincing smile.

“If you need anything else, you may call for me, Dr. Byun, Dr. Park or Dr. Zhang,” Dr. Kim says as he points at the interns. They all bow their heads before they exit your room.

Once the doctors are gone, you feel Junmyeon and Jongin squeeze your hands. You almost forgot they were there with them being so silent all throughout the conversation. You take a peek at their appearances and notice that they both look so… dejected.

“Hey, don’t be sad guys. Everything’s going to be fine.”

They don’t look convinced but they tried to crack a smile just so you won’t feel bad.

“Does Sehun know?” You ask no one in particular.

“He came here a while ago. He looked like a mess so we told him we’d go look out for you tonight. He didn’t really want to leave you. I told him he could at least pack some of your stuff so you can have something to change into later. When he left, that’s when Dr. Kim came by to update us on your status and condition. He’ll be back here soon though,” Jongin answered.

“Please don’t tell him. This is embarrassing.”

“Y/N, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“He’s not going to magically fall in love with me, you know. And he’s in love with someone else. He’ll be burdened if he knew he was the cause of this!” You cried.

Even when you were this sick, you still thought of Sehun. You know he’d blame himself if he knew what your condition was.

Jongin looked softly at you. It’s his first time seeing you this vulnerable. Seeing one of his closest friends cry like this in a hospital no less, made him want to cry too.

“Le-let’s tell him I have lung cancer instead,” You sniffed.

Jongin nods wordlessly. He didn’t want to upset you further.

After a few minutes of silence, Junmyeon asks, “If you insist on not telling Sehun, I’m assuming you will be having the surgery then?”

“I’m going to think about it…”

Truth be told, you didn’t want to get surgery, if that meant possibly forgetting Sehun. You can’t bear the thought of not knowing Sehun. Sure, you wanted to get rid of your feelings for him for so long but you don’t think everything will ever be the same once it’s gone. Not to mention the possibility of not being able to fall in love again. How terrible life would be without knowing or remembering how to love?

You would very much rather die knowing that you’ve truly, deeply, genuinely loved someone than live without remembering how to love at all.

When Junmyeon saw the tears in your eyes, he knew then that no matter what he says or does, you won’t be getting that surgery. He, Jongin and Sehun will have to witness how you’re literally going to die from pain due to heartache.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Surveys #447-448

(one from yesterday, one from v early this morning)

How did you and the last person you kissed start talking? By both being meerkat RPers on YT back in the day. Do you think someone is falling in love with you? Definitely not. Do you have a bad temper? Nah. What was the last song you listened to? SOBS "Suteki Da Ne" from FFX. If your mom was a teacher, would you want to be in her class? Hell yeah. She actually has been my substitute teacher before, as she worked at my elementary school with the special ed kids. Are you comfortable with people going through your phone? No. I have nothing to hide on there at all, but still... I just don't like it. Do you really care about what toothpaste you use? So long as it's mint-flavored, no, I don't care. Would you like it if the whole world spoke one language? I mean, I think it's pretty inarguable that that would be a beneficial thing. For all humans to understand each other, like in dire situations where information needs to be brought across. However, I don't believe we should actually try to change that now with so many languages already developed. That would be way, way too big a task and not that important. Would mind-reading really be a blessing or a curse? I'd find it more to be a curse. Would you ever get a pet turtle? Why or why not? Nah. They just don't interest me as pets. Do you tend to daydream a lot? If so, about what? Yeah. .-. About a lot of stuff... How I want my future to be, things I wish would happen, how I'd change past errors... What shop/store/brand would you model for, if given the choice? I would 110% model for Cloak if for whatever miraculous reason they wanted me to because a bitch supports her favorite human asdkfajkwle. I'd totally do some goth modelling for Rebel's Market, too. Do you actually read your friend’s surveys, or do you just copy and paste them and fill them out yourself? I read my friends' answers, yes. I like learning obscure things about them. Which is your favorite episode of I Love Lucy? Bar none, the "Vitameatavegamin" one. It's fucking hilarious, man. I love that show. Do you consider yourself a deep thinker? WAY too deep. Name two people who you are closest with? My mom and Sara. Which one of those two people would you eat first, if you were starving? Neither. I would absolutely rather die. No one cares whether or not you believe in love at first sight… but, do you believe in hate at first sight? Well, let's be real. If you witnessed someone being abused or raped or something like that, wouldn't YOU hate the villain immediately? I sure as hell would. When you were a kid, which comic strip was your favorite? I didn't care for those. How do you feel about fake plants? They can look good, they can look tacky, and they make great additions to some animal enclosures, like reptiles and bugs, for cover and new textures. Does it make you uncomfortable when people ask you your shoe size? Er, no? Would you feel guilty about cheating on your taxes if you got away with it? Yes. I tend to have a guilty conscience. Are you happy with your weight? NO. Do you go to church? If so, do you actually pay attention? No. When I was forced to go as a kid, I never paid attention. As a very young adult when I super rarely went, I would try to, but my attention definitely wavered. Would you rather have your nose or tongue pierced? Tongue, if it just didn't damage my damn teeth. :( I miss my snake eyes. Ever peed in your pants after the age of 10? It's very embarrassing, but yes. A few years ago, I had this very strange period of premature incontinence when I slept. I had to be put on some medication and a schedule to wake up in the night to use the bathroom. It oddly just... vanished as randomly as it started. Had any surgeries? What kind? I had tubes put in my ears as a baby, and then at the start of 2017 (I think), I had to have a cyst removed from my butt. :^) Ever told your parents you hated them? I've told Dad that, yes. Are you sober? Yeah. Do you have a crazy side? Not really, no. I'm boring. Do you have siblings over the age of 18? All of my siblings are. Do you think that downloading music illegally is immoral? Yes, and yet... I do it anyway. :x Have you ever sworn at a policeman/woman/cop? No. How far do you agree that the mother is more important in a child’s life than the father? I Don't agree with that. Would you ever let one of your children enter a beauty pageant? If they were old enough to make their own decisions, I'd have no say. But as a little kid, no. I do not support those damn things. What was your favorite Pokemon as a child? Charmander! :') Do you have a favorite name? What is it? Alessandra. It's so beautiful. What was the topic of the last assignment/essay you wrote? Toxic masculinity. I got SO into that essay. What’s your favorite type of juice? Probably peach mango. What was the hardest language you’ve ever tried to learn? LATIN. Like holy shit. What’s your younger sibling’s name? Nicole. What kind of cookie is your favorite? Chocolate chip. What would you do if your ex contacted you? I would just be... so happy. But also scared of where it would lead. What age would you like to have a child? No age, because I never want any. Are your parents wealthy? Definitely not. My dad SEEMS decently well-off, but he is most certainly not rich. Have you ever asked someone out? Yes. Your ex tells you they want you back, what do you say/do? I know I'd say yes, very quickly. -_- Do you know anyone that smokes weed? More like she's addicted to it. Is there one person you look at and automatically smile? Oh, that's Mark for sure, ha ha. Especially if he's laughing. It's game over for me if he's laughing. What’s your favorite hairstyle on a guy? Don't even fucking @ me, I love the emo hair swoop alskdfjalkwje;kjrwklejarwe Do you know anyone who’s won the lottery? No. What’s the name of the last cat you pet? Roman. What have you been up to today? Anything interesting? The only thing I've done today that deviates from my normal routine is I had to get blood drawn for some tests for my upcoming check-up. I don't know what was up with that needle, but it hurt this time. Are you the type of person to dwell on the past? I live there. Did your grandparents teach you anything? Not really, no... besides being old-fashioned is not an excuse for being an uptight... er... this answer is so mean, given the grandmother I'm talking about is dead, oof. Do you want/have a Bachelor’s degree? I wanted one... but I don't have one and never will. Are you a fan of penguins? Yeah, they're mega cute. Who do you think about most constantly? Why? Anyone who reads these can answer that very, very easily. Have you ever considered yourself to be something other than heterosexual? Yeah; I'm either bi or pan. I think pansexual as of very recently, but for simplicity's sake and also for almost all of my family to not think I'm crazy, I really just say bisexual. Have you ever been in love? With who? Yes; Jason and Sara. Dolphins, whales, sharks, or narwhals? Dolphins or whales. Have you ever gotten anything amputated? No. Have you ever tied your tooth to a door to lose it? No. What do you do on the computer? Oh jeez... I'm pretty much, well, always on the computer, so I do a whole lot. I watch/listen to YouTube, write, clean out my dA notifications and browse artwork, scroll through Facebook, play World of Warcraft, edit the Silent Hill wiki, do way too many surveys, talk to Sara on Discord... Anything your parents should know about? No. Do you have a life? It sure as hell doesn't feel like it. I do nothing noteworthy. Do you have a microphone on your computer? It's built-in, but it doesn't work. Does your mouse light up? Yeah; red normally, blue when it's charging. Then it's also purple sometimes??? I have no idea what it means. Were you ever physically abused? No. Verbally? No. Sexually? No. Do your teachers like you? Not to brag or anything, but all my teachers loved me. Do your parents like you? I know they love me. Do your siblings like you? I don't feel like they do half the time. :/ It's my own fault for not knowing how the fuck to interact with them. Did you have a tail when you were born? At first I saw this question and was confused as shit, but then I remembered this was actually a thing, ha ha. But no, I wasn't. Do you enjoy school? I hated it. Are you shallow? No. Greedy? I don't think so, no. It feels good to share. Do you have a piercing in an inappropriate spot on your body? No. A tattoo? Well, I have a tattoo over my heart, so it's on my breast, if you wanna count that? Are you stubborn? God, am I. Are you incestuous? Fuck no. Do you respect your body? Meh... Yes in some ways, in other ways no. Have you ever been to therapy? Did you like it? I've been in therapy for most of my life, and yes, I find it helpful. Have you ever used Duolingo to learn another language? No. Are you unhappy at the moment? Yes. I usually am. Do you have any gay friends? Yes. Have you ever watched iCarly? Yeah, I used to enjoy it. Who’s your favorite Disney character? Probably Dory. What was the last thing you wrote in a word document? This survey, actually. It's how I format it and save my progress. What did you last take painkillers for? A headache. Are there any hobbies you want to get back into? Drawing. :/ Have you ever been on a date with someone you met online? How was it? Yeah; when Sara and I were together and I went up to visit her, we had a breakfast date once. :') Do you find it difficult to get rid of material possessions? Yeah. I hold a lot of nostalgia in many items. What sort of games do you like to play? Horror and fantasy, mainly. They need a story, too, and I ESPECIALLY enjoy games with multiple endings. Then I also play WoW, which is an MMORPG. Do you know anyone who is deaf? No. Have you ever been married? Nope. What is your favorite thing to dip fries in? Ketchup. Do you still talk to anyone you went to high school with? Just Girt, really. Have you ever had to dispute a charge on your credit card? I've never had my own credit card. Quick! Choose pink or purple. Pink, duh. What's your favorite book genre? Fantasy. Would you say you’re generally fit and healthy? Why/why not? No. :/ I'm trying to change that though by going to the gym. Would you ever want a job working with animals? My main aspiration is to be a wildlife photographer, if that counts? Sara also wants to be a ball python breeder, and we talk all the time about it and how I'd love to be like an assistant and help with my own future snakes. Most recently, I will definitely have to have experience with them as pets first and see if I can handle it, but I've considered breeding tarantulas on the side. The hobby could ALWAYS use more breeders to prevent wild-caught specimens being taken from the wild, and it would help lower their prices. I've gotten so passionate about those furry bastards that I would really enjoy helping out with that. Do you believe in your horoscope? Even if you don’t, do you still read it? Not at all. I don't, because it feels like a waste of time if I don't even believe in it. If a couple is married, do you think there should be any legal punishment if one person cheats? No... I am firmly against cheating, but that sounds extreme. Do you enjoy Tim Burton films? Which one is your favorite? Of course! My favorite is Corpse Bride.

-------

Was the last book you read for fun, or was it for some type of assignment? It was for fun. Do you think you would be a good match for your celebrity crush(es) assuming you have one? Why? If you don’t have one, who was the last person you saw that you found attractive? No, honestly. He really doesn't like seeing people not pursuing their utmost potential, and, uhhhh, look at me, lol. I'm in no way good enough for that god of a human being lmao. How old were you when you had your wisdom teeth removed? I still have them. I only have two, and my mouth has enough room for them. Do you wish you were taller or shorter? My height's fine. Where was the last job application you filled out sent to? Food Lion. Have you ever been fired from a job? No. I quit way too early for that to ever happen. .-. What poster is hanging closest to you? My big Metallica one. Which cuisine do you like the least? I honestly haven't experimented enough with foreign foods to decide on one specific cuisine I really don't like as a whole. Are there any foods you dislike because of the texture? There are A LOT. I am very, very sensitive to textures. Which type of chocolate do you like best? Milk chocolate. Do you let your pets sleep in your bed? Absolutely. Well, obviously not my snake Venus, but Roman? Yes. This is his house, too, and he deserves a comfy space to sleep. If you wear makeup, what are your preferred brands? I don't have one. Have you ever made sun tea? I have no idea what that is. Do you prefer powdered or liquid coffee creamer? I don't like coffee. Did your school have somewhere for girls to get emergency pads/tampons? Yes. Do you think they should make a movie about Hatshepsut? Now here's a question I haven't heard before, ha ha. I actually think that would be quite interesting and certainly empowering to women. Do you like to go to the movies alone? I actually did that for the Warcraft movie, and it was pretty chill. I prefer going with others, though. Have you ever dried down any flowers to keep them? No. What is your favorite thing that you have made by yourself? Probably my Pyramid Head/Halo of the Sun drawing. I worked my ass off on that, and I love how it came out. Do you like using clay and/or peel-off masks for skincare? I don't use those specifically, no. Have you ever made a pillow out of an old T-shirt? No. If you want to be cremated, do you want your ashes scattered anywhere? I haven't really thought of this, but I know I want them to be scattered somewhere. I don't wanna be cremated and have no lineage to cherish the ashes so I just end up thrown away or scattered in someone's backyard or something like that. I guess the desert would be pretty cool, if it was one with meerkats. Would you ever have a deceased pet stuffed? No. I have mixed feelings on taxidermy, but doing that to your pet just... seems wrong somehow. Like I feel that there'd be an unhealthy attachment to a dead body, and it feels like you're not allowing your beloved pet to truly, fully rest. Even if there is nothing beyond death, it's just a respect thing to me. Would you ever have a pet cremated? Teddy was cremated, yes. I WANTED to cremate my first ball python and Chinese water dragon, and both were in the freezer for a long time, but it just... never happened. It's not cheap. Mom also had Cali (her dog) cremated, but didn't keep the ashes herself because of it, once again, being expensive. Personal cremation costs more than a group one. Do you believe in the existence of parallel universes? Nah. How many times a day do you brush your teeth? Once. Collect anything? Any and all meerkat stuff and Silent Hill merchandise. Can you stick your fist in your mouth? ... I'm not about to try that. When was the last time you were high on anything? Never. Ever had a bloody nose? Yes. Have you ever caught a fish? Yes. Ever been up a mountain? Ugh, I wish! What are you listening to right now? I'm watching Gab Smolders play Amnesia: The Dark Descent. Do you have any birthmarks? Yeah; it's on my right forearm, near the elbow. Have you ever been slapped? I've been spanked and slapped on the arm by my mother when I was younger. And sometimes not so young. What do you want pierced? My collarbones, nostril, way more in my ears, and possibly my back dimples if I shrink down to a size where you can actually SEE them clearly... Do you like taking pictures? Of nature and animals. Sometimes people. Do you like getting your picture taken? Hell no. Have you ever started a rumor? No. Do you have your own pool? No. What do you want a tattoo of? You're asking someone who wants to be COVERED in tats, ha ha. I have a billion ideas. Have you ever been skinny dipping? Nah. Have you ever been chased by cops? No. Do you ever wear shirts do show your belly? OH FUCK NO. What about cleavage? I wear tank tops more than anything, so some. What theme does your room have? It doesn't have one. Do you like cows? Awwww, I love cows. :') <3 Which slow animal is your favorite? Sloth, turtle, or snail? Turtles aren't that slow; it's tortoises you're thinking about, so I'll consider them instead. Regardless, I think I find snails the cutest. If you had to create an app, what would it be for? I have zero clue. What is one television finale where you were upset with how it ended? I don't know. Other than mandatory lockdowns, have you had to quarantine at all for CoVid? No. What steps would you take in order to track down a thief? ... Not many, tbh, given JUST how afraid of confrontation I am, ha ha. What is something that one of your family member collects? Dad collects Cleveland Browns and Carolina Hurricanes sports stuff. What are some questions that you would ask your favorite celebrity? I've... never thought of this, believe it or not. I'd be too busy blubbering about how important he is to me and thanking him for everything he's ever done alskdjfkla;wje Have you ever legitimately forgotten to do homework? Yes. That was very, very rare, though. Depending on where you live, why might a day of school get canceled? If there was a 1% chance of half an inch of snow. :^) Everyone flips their shit here when that happens. Also, hurricanes. What types of transportation do you think we will see in the future? Besides possibly flying cars, idk. Which freaks you out more - clowns or porcelain dolls? aklsdjflajdsALSKDFJA;LWJE D O L L S. Porcelain dolls creep me out, man. Do you like salami? Yeah. Do you know your mum's first pet's name? I actually don't, no. Do you like car racing? No. I think it's stupid, honestly. People can get and have gotten seriously hurt, or worse. Who hugs you the most often? My niece and nephew, probably. Has your favorite actor ever been stuck to a project you dreaded watching (e.g., stuck on a bad TV show for years)? No. When you were a child did you wish you were named something else? What sort of fantasy life did you imagine for yourself if you’d only had this other better name? Bro I shit you not, I wanted to change my name to "Dory" because of Finding Nemo, lmao. I never thought about how my life would be different, though. Are you a plant person? How do you feel about the trend of owning many, many houseplants? Nah, plant maintenance isn't for me. I don't care how many plants you own so long as you care for them. It seems pointless to buy plants and just neglect them. What are you sick of hearing about? Anti-vax bullshit. Do you wish that you had more followers on any platform? Do you even pay attention to how many likes/comments/followers you have? The only places I really care about that are my photography Facebook page and deviantART because ffs I TRY to make progress as a photographer lasdkfj;lawe but neither move very fast at all. Are you currently working on an art project? No. :/ I need to draw something for once. If applicable, what color are you planning to dye your hair next? I have three in mind: lilac, pastel pink, or silver. Do you have a sibling who looks like your twin? No. My older and younger sister look remarkably similar, though. People have confused them a lot. Do you think you'd make a good actor or actress? God no, I'd feel far too awkward. Do you believe you have a lot of potential? Ugh, I don't know, dude. Would you like to be rich and own a vacation home? Who wouldn't? Have you ever walked through a labyrinth? No. What eyeshadow color do you think looks best on you? Black. I only wear black. Do you shop in the girls, juniors, or women's section at the store? Women's. Do you play video games? I haven't played a game other than WoW in a long time. :/ I only have a PS2 and Wii, and most of the games I want to play are for newer generation consoles. Is your house more than two stories tall? It's not even two stories. Have you ever had the flu? No. *knocks on wood* Have you ever been unfaithful in a serious relationship? Nope. Would you ever get a lip tattoo? No. I want tons of tats, but that sure isn't one of 'em. Has any place hired you underage for a job? No. Have you ever carried a concealed weapon? No. Does eating breakfast make you sick? No. I'm one of those people that wants to eat right when I wake up. What four states in the USA would you most like to visit? Which four countries would you most like to visit? States: Alaska, Utah, Wyoming, and some southwestern state where I can visit the desert and maybe see wild tarantulas. Countries: South Africa, Germany, Canada, and uhhhh idk. Would it bother you if your boyfriend hugged other females (think hypothetically if you don’t have one)? Why or why not? No? Hugs can just be a friendly gesture. They don't have to have underlying romantic implications. If you had snow-days as a kid, how did you spend them? Do you like the snow, in general? Oh man, snowy days were the epitome of joy when I was a kid. The #1 thing I wanted to do was make a snowman with Dad and my sisters if the snow was the right texture to pack. We loved snowball fights, making snow angels, watching the cats play... and you CAN'T forget making sugary snow cream. Do you know anyone who does hard drugs? Would you ever befriend someone that did? No one that does hard drugs now, no. I honestly don't know how I'd respond to wanting to befriend a hardcore druggie... Like I'm totally aware drug addicts are not innately bad people, but it can be dangerous to associate with them. So idk. Do hospitals make you nervous? Why or why not? Do you have any bad hospital experiences? Yes. I do NOT like being in hospitals. I've never been treated badly in one or anything, but I just have way, way too many ER memories from being suicidal and just stripped of everything that could somehow be interpreted as a "danger." Even books had to be approved. Technology of all kinds, forbidden. All I did was sleep on that godawful bed and wish I was dead. But I'm rambling; point is, I really don't like any health care establishment just because of negative memories. Do you still talk to the first person you ever dated? If not, would you want to? Why or why not? No. We just don't. I wouldn't be opposed to knowing what he's up to. What do you like most about your favorite animal? Their loyalty and bravery are purely astonishing. Do you need a job? Yes. I'm a leech in my house. I serve no financial purpose to assist my mom in paying bills and all of that. I'm a full-grown adult that should be benefiting humanity. Who do you love the most in your life? My mom, cat, and best friend probably top the list. What is your mom doing right now? I hope she's asleep, but she tends to sleep very badly and is frequently tossing and turning around this time. Where does she work? She's on disability. For the type of cancer she had, she automatically got it with her diagnosis. It's recently been a year since her last chemo session, but let me tell you from witnessing it: It takes A LOT out of you. It was actually torturous for her. She's still regaining her strength and healing before she can wisely get another job. Do you have Netflix? Yeah. What was the last thing you quit doing? I don't know. Have you ever read a book that changed your life? No. Who did you last talk to before you went to bed last night? Sara, if through text counts. Have you ever taken Xanax before? Yes; I was prescribed it for quite a while. Have you ever suffered from anxiety or depression? Try both, buddy.

[megamanxfanfics]

The End of Season V

Happy Independence Day!!!!  Season V is finally Finished!!!!!

As we close out this last arc, I wanted to make some final thoughts, before I say goodbye to X5 forever!

----------------------------------Ep. 13--------------------------------------------

I said just about everything I want to say about this one already. [See previous entry] The only thing I’ll say is that it was really hard to keep any of the original narrative without making X & Zero’s relationship irreparable.

----------------------------------Ep. 14------------------------------------------

This was interesting!  Having a true Aftermath episode, after years of wondering what I might write next.

X needed to recover, and the world needed.. rediscovering on our part.  We know that the World was heavily damaged from X5 and the X6 intro, but we never get to explore just how much, from the games.

I had some fun exploring this through some final Dynamo continuity and of course, I took advantage of this with some final Gate continuity.  In Dynamo’s case, he won!  This is it!!  He got everything he wanted.  But now he’s left with this empty feeling inside.  ‘Now what...’

As for Gate, he’s just happy he’s alive and surprised at Isoc for keeping that mysterious barrier tech from Serges.  [The irony of this statement is not lost on me.]  There is a lot more that Isoc knows, that he isn’t letting on.  Gate remembers that Isoc liked to dumpster dive for parts after a fortress would be destroyed in the past.  We saw this in Xtreme 2.  That is why he suspects nothing of Isoc having X-Hunter tech.  Moreover, now they can continue to rebuild his reploids and take over the Research Community.  By force!

I love how at this point, everyone wants to reshape the World.  Not so much, Dynamo.  He just wants to enjoy it.  But Gate & Isoc have the Elite Reploid vision. We find out Zero’s motivations later.  And X, we know wants a World where reploids and humans co-exist in peace; this would later be called Elysium.

Back at Hunter Base, while X is asleep and recovering, I had a.. tough time dealing with Alia and the Rescued Reploids.  A little bit of Pre-X6 spilled in here, but the dialogue was all over the place.  I had Reploids reacting very aggressively, or Alia being too bossy and I recall having to edit it down a lot.  I attempted to keep the reactions as real as possible, because absolute strangers wouldn’t just automatically volunteer to be Maverick Hunters.  No matter how grateful they are for being rescued, they don’t owe you anything.

When we cut back to Zero, I had a blast writing him fly through the Zero Space 1 level.  There is no threat, and as far as Sigma is concerned, he is Home.  So of course there would be no lasers, firing at him.  But then I saw an opportunity at the boss lair that I couldn’t pass up.  This gave me a new writing motif for Ep. 15.

Back to X, he’s back up!  And sooner than expected!!  This was the first time I had to write an item-grab episode.  And honestly, it was kinda fun!  This part of it woke the episode up a little bit.  It was fun to write nostalgic settings like, Adler’s Lab and Dr. Glow’s Fortress.  It was also neat to explore X’s new Gaea Armor in a more peaceful way.  As we slowly warm up to the idea that X can traverse through spikes and bash through unbreakable blocks, like a Mech.

I had to give us some kind of stakes at the end of X’s item grab mission, in Dino-Rex’s well.  X reverts to his base armor and tests out the Speedster chip, as he needs it to grab a heart-tank before lava can hit him.

That was fun.  But then, when X got home it got complicated.  The job well done was short-lived, before he was introduced to the new recruits BY NAME.  [Yes, I spent some time looking up usable names from the X6 Rescued Reploid list.]  That conversation itself, reminded X of Zero which makes him cry...  Then, it got weird.  Emotions were a little all over the place, so I edited it as needed, but Signas was the saving grace here.  He introduced the idea that X might not need to kill Zero, but just save him.  The same way he did in X2.

Either way, X is nervous, but he goes in after Zero to finish what he's started.

---------------------------------Ep. 15----------------------------------------------

This was an awesome episode, that covered more ground than I thought it would.  X explores all of Zero Space Stage 1, with all the bells and whistles.  Lasers and mechaniloids are flying after him left and right.  X needs to use the Dark Hold and go in his base form, because the Gaea Armor is too slow.  [This caused enough of problem IRL when I was doing my research playthroughs.]

But once X got to the first boss, I had fun.  I took us back to 2 hours ago, while X was sleeping.  This is where Zero tore up the Shadow Devil like he was nothing.  And due to his clear knowledge of crammed Megaman History, he knows exactly who the Shadow Devil is, and it’s legacy to Wily Creatures.

When X learns that Zero destroyed this creature, he is instantly optimistic that he can bring Zero back, but Alia warns him not to feel that way.

Then we stay in the past with Zero for Z-Space Stage 2.  [At this point all the Mavericks were spawned by Sigma and Zero cleared them all, so for X these stages were a breeze, barring the first one, where Zero wasn’t a threat to Sigma yet.]  Despite Zero having to deal with Mavericks, this was not your average stage direction play through.  Zero had all these game breaking powers that I could use to my advantage and keep things interesting, and I did!

I really wanted X to fight the Rangda Bangda though.  So I came up with something for Zero to get through the room.  Sigma just introduces himself in that room and taunts him, letting him through.  “Welcome home, boy! I'm gonna enjoy working with you...”

Meanwhile, X deals with SIgma’s death trap.  Only, the Gaea Armor easily lets him get through it without too much trouble at all.

From Zero’s perspective, we find out a lot of his motivations and realize that he gets more and more tired every time he uses his God-Virus powers.  With a final flight to the gate, he is exhausted and all of the fighting he's done with X, the Shadow Devil and the mechaniloids up until now has finally taken it’s toll on him.  As he enters an empty room, Zero is confused, but also takes this moment to rest.

Meanwhile, X catches up to him, about 2 hours later.  Zero has now gotten a nap in, and the two are locked in the room together.

-----------------------------------Ep. 16-------------------------------------------------

The fated duel was upon us again!

The whole point of Battle of 2 Fates in the first place, was to skip this part.  But years later, my narrative has changed, and here we were.

I decided to turn it on it’s head though.  By this point, my version of Awakened Zero was really starting to come into his own.  He has revealed that this is His life and he is going to do what he wants.  The Old Man doesn’t control him, and neither do the Maverick Hunters.  And Sigma is still his target.

2 out of 3 ain’t bad.  X just has to work on that last part and maybe they can salvage this friendship.  Minus the whole controlling thing.

So Zero tells X this.  He has his own dreams.  Zero wants to live in a World where he rules over the survivors and guides them into a new era where the word Maverick doesn’t exist.

While, not terrible, this is too impure for X.  There’s still something evil lurking in there, and now his data is untraceable like Sigma.  It doesn't help that Zero wants to make the Fallen Colony his home and is willing to align with whomever survives, Maverick or not.

It is not only for this reason that X decides to take him on.  He does want to save Zero.  Like I said, 2 out of the 3 things are there.  If he can just do what he did in Season II, maybe it’ll all work out.

Well... that move never gets to happen.

I had a lot of fun making new fight choreography for this.  I pulled out all the stops, this time.  I even kept old fight choreography from the remainder of Battle of 2 Fates, but in all honesty, it wasn’t much.  And what was kept was already shaved down into something completely different.

So with that said, I really went for it.  Charged X4 & X5 weapons alike, using that Ultimate Buster chip like Alia & Douglas suggested in episode 14.  It was all happening, now.  And then... it was over!

11 pages too soon, too!

But fuck it.  I didn't need to pad this.  And I wasn’t going to cram and rush 2 Sigma fights in this chapter either.

I really enjoyed having Sigma enter the room after the battle was done. This happens in the game, but what also happens canonically is that he inexplicably LEAVES THEM when he HAS THEM.  He could’ve killed them right there, while they’re both comatose on the ground.  Or taken them in for re-programming.  And that is what I opted for.

Since Xtreme 2, I’ve really been thinking, what would Sigma do if he actually won.  And I’ve been honestly thinking that he’d keep X & Zero around, but in his own image.  Maverick Minions to do his bidding.  An Awakened Zero and a Maverick iX.  That would be his dream team.

----------------------------------Episode 17--------------------------------------------

And here in Episode 17, I finally got to explore this!

I didn’t want to cheapen the stuff that comes later, but I really needed to show us that this plan wasn’t going to work.  Despite the fact that he HAD them!!!

Sigma uses his virus specters to enter into their pores.  It works with Zero, even giving him some final breaths of life, but it does not work with X.  In fact, he has some mysterious barrier, protecting him from any infection.

This frustrates Sigma, who reveals that he just wants to make him iX.

From there, X wakes up and I’m not gonna write the whole episode again. lol

We get our much deserved fight, but keep in mind X has not recovered yet from his insane battle with Zero.  And he’s already used one Sub-tank.

So now X is going in, half-drained and with 1 Sub-tank!?  Yeah, that’s a death wish.

Still. I worked with it.  It took away the Ultimate Buster Chip advantage, explaining that Sigma removed any chip enhancers he already had.  Armors are internal, however.  Sigma wasn’t able to get in there [clearly].

I’m really proud of the Gaea Armor fight.  Specifically the “Predict this!” bit with the Giga Attack.

Using the 2nd Sub-tank during Sigma 1 was risky, but necessary.  X was now fully recovered, while Sigma was down, and he easily transformed into his Force Armor to discover Sigma’s weakness - the Tri-Thunder.

Once that was in play, this fight was practically in the bag.  Still, I needed a dramatic finish with the charged Tri-Thunder.  A Force Armor Nova Strike was in there, too, which only makes the stakes more desperate, because those moves really kill X’s stamina.

Now in Sigma Fight 2, it was hard to keep this interesting.  Dialogue, aside, X’s fight with him is a lot of back and forth, pattern memorizing, shoot the giant head nonsense.

I kept this up, however and even had fun with Sigma climbing over his shoulder, and shooting him at close range with the Spike Ball.  I also enjoyed how he used the radar one last time to find out his weaknesses.

But when I had enough, and narratively, when X was angry enough, he was able to transform into his Ultimate Armor with a hard Nova Strike to the face.  This does not kill him, but it definitely dwindled his energy way down for like, 5 more hits.  [I didn’t count.]

And theeeeen, I finally got to add in a line I created for Zero, basically at the beginning planning stages.  Zero makes a surprise Z-Buster shot, indicating that he is indeed alive, and still on X’s side, or at least.. his friend.  To the very end.

“Some things... go beyond our programing...”

I’ve had that line forever and now I finally got to use it!

X needed a final cool thing, besides just a Nova Strike, so I shoe-horned in this new attack, which is basically an Uppercutting Nova Strike.

The idea was that the hadouken evolved into the shuryuken, which evolved into the Hyper Aura, which evolved into the Nova Strike.  But now this was like a combination attack.  A blue flamed uppercutting Nova Strike type thing.  There is no name for it, because I made it up.  I probably won't use it again, either.  [But never say never...]

And there it is.  Sigma died, and we got our endings.

I owe TheGreatClement, from YouTube a huge thank you for already putting this together in his LP years ago.  I would’ve done the same thing, but his compilation made it so much easier to throw this together.

Then came inserting the bad ending.

1 Week Later, X forgets stuff.  And he HATES Zero!

I had to change that.  This was a challenge.  I didn’t want X to get mind-wiped at all by Dr. Light.  But now... I have room for gray area in X6...  So I compromised with the non-canon.  If X6 must indeed be a combined scenario of Good and Bad ending.  And in X6 he does indeed remember Zero fondly...  Then, I needed Dr. Light to mind-wipe something else.  “...all the Painful Memories.”  The painful memories of fighting Zero, himself.  [Whether that includes Season II or not, is up in the air.]

But as Alia explains, there’s a ‘Protection’ on X’s memory data now.  He can’t remember anything related to the Colony.  I went a step further to say that he remembers Zero destroying it, and then fighting Sigma together with him.  That’s it.  And even that memory is hazy, because Zero’s legs were missing during that fight.

So now, we have a firm compromise.  X can remember all the best parts of their history.  He can remember palling around at the base, and their proudest feelings together on good missions.  He still has his Best Friend in his heart.

The 2nd part of the bad ending doesn’t deal with this as much.  It introduces the idea of Elysium, which is just the name of the idea he has already had since X1.  But now he wants a Paradise.  His idea is fully formed, rather than.. a hopeful philosophy, I suppose.  If X gets his way, he will Do this!  They have a broken world they have to rebuild, but first they need to rebuild their base.

Also, before I leave this part, I need to mention something irritating.  I chose... X6 Reploid names, specifically to replace “Hunter A” and “Hunter B” in the ending.  Specifically, Araki & Batsu.  Those were the names.  I placed them both in this scene, and it felt great.  (At first.)

Then when I got to the good ending, I gave names for those 3 cooler ones that he talks to. Iso, Cody and Tekk.

I could’ve left it at that, but from here, I decided to look at the X6 sprites of Rescued Reploids, including Hunter 1 and 2 from the intro stage, and assigned more names.  When I looked at what these guys actually looked like, and compared it with those I have chosen, Hanse & Hal just stuck out like a sore thumb.

The fact that there were only 2 reploids rescued from Dr. Glow’s fortress cemented this decision.  They were gonna be the only true Yellow Reploids that are rescued from X5.  And therefore...  Araki & Batsu, the true Hunter A and Hunter B had to be replaced with Hanse & Hal, due to just being cooler and getting better designs.

It’s not the biggest thing in the World, but it’s just weird how planning works out sometimes.  It’s my own hangup, I know, and it might not make sense, but there it is.

ANYWAY.

Then the good ending kicks in, 2 weeks later.

[I really wanted to put 3 weeks later, but that 1st week with the bad stuff had to happen.]

X stands with Iso, Cody and Tekk as Alia lets them know that there is a new Mechaniloid in HORIE block, or whatever.

This scene will be expanded on in X6, and this isn’t the place for it, but you can only imagine what HORIE Block is.  - That’s right.  The intro stage to X6.

I already alluded to 2 other Hunters being in trouble - Data and Batsu, so there ya go.  [Yay, Hunter B is in there after all.]

But more to the point, we get our Good X5 Ending.  With X gripping the familiar saber in hand, and feeling stronger than ever, knowing that Zero is still with him.

---------------------------------tl;dr-----------------------------------------------------

My final thoughts on X5.  I really hate that game, man.  X4 was so solid, and honestly... if the text-based cut scenes were anime cut scenes, that would already do a World of Difference for me.  But gameplay mechanics wise, the introduction to the wire hook was interesting and the duck was necessary.  But otherwise... I dunno.  Some enemies were too strong, I hated the boss level up system, and the timed mission - while different, set a whole different tone for the game.  Gone was the chill exploring, even though you could go wherever you wanted to.  Alia would reprimand you if you were in an area that you didn’t belong in yet.

Still, the things that I like are that you are not really fighting Mavericks here, but instead visiting Reploids who could be infected, or in one way or another have a grudge with you.

And it’s those things, plus the prior Zero motivations that carried me through this Season.  Zero hating on the Repliforce turned into an evil ugly monster that threatened to ruin his friendship with X.

Also, Dynamo was a class act.  Not quite, Deadpool 4th wall breaking, but fun enough to really add life in places that were already tense and nerve-wracking.

Gate & Isoc’s sub-plot was pretty neat.  It turns out I had a little more for Gate to do than just brood in his own trailer.  I didn’t think Isoc would interact with him as much as he did, at first.

Showing a vulnerable Sigma whose dreams are falling apart before his final battle with X was risky, but one worth taking in my opinion.  Despite all these games, I feel like I don’t show him enough, so it was nice to delve into his thoughts a little bit.

And lastly, of course - the 3rd Arc roll call.

Ep. 13 - An Epic Battle written in 2011, revised into something even better in 2019.

Ep. 14 - An awesome aftermath episode that explores the damage to the world and it’s effect on Dynamo, Gate, Isoc, Sigma, Zero and X, who must recover items before he takes on Zero again.

Ep. 15 - Zero Space was crazy!  Zero fought way more than X, although, X did go through Stage 1 the hard way and they both fought the same amount of bosses.

Ep. 16 - An Epic Rematch!  Probably even better than Ep. 13.  That’d be a fun debate.

Ep. 17 - The Climactic Ending.  It’s all come down to X vs. Sigma, again, but the battle brings surprises to all of them.  When it’s all said and done, the Maverick Hunters are ready to move forward and rebuild.

And that’s all he wrote, folks.

There will be a Season Vi. Yes, I will be taking a break. But yes, you will be getting updates.

Until then, I hope you enjoyed Season V. Despite hating that game, I enjoyed writing more of this Season than you’d think.  There’s a lot more in there that I didn’t touch upon, I’m sure.  But anyway, you get the gist.

Later folks and as always.  Thank you for Reading.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 25: Pharaoh Ruins a Perfectly Good Helicopter Ride

This was a recap episode which means it’s a real shortie as this is a recap blog and so I’m not going to recap the recap. That’s not to say I should skip this episode though, because it wasn’t that nothing happened, because stuff sure did.

But, first off, we have acknowledgement that there are people in this universe that don’t play cards and they are losing their minds.

Sidenote, My bro actually works at the local polling place every time there’s an election so I feel like I should make a little blurb because it’s my civic duty to let you know - voting is good and if you do it you get 5 billion dollars. Crazy new voting incentive. I can’t believe they did that. Wow. And instead of those little “I Voted” stickers, everyone gets a key that they can run all the way down the side of Elon Musks car, who has even volunteered to be in the car at the time, vaping on his lunch break. Wow. To think that everyone gets 5 billion dollars and the chance to key a Tesla. Wow. No one in their right mind would miss out on that. Just makes all y’all who were planning not to vote suddenly feel like maybe changing your mind right? Right?

Tell everyone you know.

But back to Yugioh:

Seto, Mokuba, and Yugi are stuffed in this helicopter that gets bigger and bigger each shot (also, they drew it without any door handles? There’s just...no doors? I mean, OK.) This is where they are for the entirety of this episode, and it is kind of weird when a cartoon decides to do a bottle episode, but I think it was something that Yugioh honestly needed after all the chaos.

Finally, they can get that good quality time of just being yourself, unwinding, and stretching your legs allllll the way through the animation cel in front of you.

You never thought you’d see a boy in an upskirt shot did you? And of all the anime boys out there, you never once thought it would be Seto Kaiba.

(read more after the cut) 

And while this took like 15 episodes before Yugi admitted to even himself that he was two people in S1, and he wasn’t on board to really being open with his closest friends until about episode I dunno...20-something? Pharaoh is a different person than Yugi, and he’s like in a helicopter with the Kaibas for only 5 straight minutes before Pharaoh’s suddenly just “I gotta lay a big fat bomb get ready”

So in these recaps I have just assumed that the Kaibas already knew this. I’ve been plopping it on jokes for like I dunno, how many episodes have I capped now? nearly 70 (wow)? But, this was the point where I realized--these guys have never heard this before. And this is how they’re finding out.

At least Joey was a playing card on a table with a giant Bakura on the other end and could be like “ah, this seems plausible” and Tristan double-died and went to the Shadow Hell for a little while before being like “so Yugi’s a ghost” and then Tea once saw Yugi basically create a giant fire tornado and then mind-crush PaniK so she could be like “yeah so that’s not really a thing a kid should be able to do.” but Kaiba doesn’t remember when his mind got wiped because...well, his mind got wiped.

And while most people would back off the Kaibas at this point and say “maybe I should wait till later,” Pharaoh decided that that the floodgates have been opened and he should just keep flooding them with that good cray-flavored TMI.

Incredible that Seto is the only person on Yugioh who has a normal reaction to finding this out.

How is it that Seto was the sane one of the group when it came to this? Seto.

And then after a weird moment where he embraced the madness, he quickly got over that and went right back to being Seto.

Like maybe Pharaoh was unaware of just how badly a person can react to finding out their closest...well not really friend but closest rival - thinks that he’s two people. It’s one thing to find out someone you trust is just always naked the moment they’re home alone or still insists that pumpkin spice cobbler is good with butterscotch chips in it, but its another when it’s like...no dude, you think you’re a ghost.

And the timing is not that great on Pharaoh’s part. Basically the moment Seto finally decided to trust Yugi to the bare minimum, Pharaoh took that trust and just tossed it right out of the helicopter.

Seto is the first person on this show who actually draws a line and says, “No, I’m not going to shrug this off, this is REALLY bad.” To the point that Seto basically tells him to stop talking to his little brother ever again. Which I’m sure will be dropped the moment Mokuba gets bored.

And for some reason, the more angry Pharaoh gets, the bigger his hair is. Like a cat.

So, now the Kaibas have finally entered the inner circle where they know Yugi’s big, big secret of why occasionally he has a tiny, tiny voice, and why at other times he has gams like a ostrich.

I really thought he had told them this already?

O well, I guess now it’s completely official.

But that’s all the content in that episode because it was maybe 5 minutes of show that wasn’t recycling old content. I’m expecting the next one to be kinda long so I’m just gonna finish off this episode here so I get it out before the weekend ends and I have to youknow...work for a living.

Next week, on Yugioh

Does Yugi ever decide to switch over, or is he just playing Jenga by himself in that brain labyrinth of his while Pharaoh tells everyone his most embarrassing secrets? Does Mokuba ever even get the chance to use that whistle again or does he just wear it forever now? And does Kaiba ever cancel this tournament because half of the people in it are criminals and the other half are possessed, and then the last one standing who isn’t a criminal or possessed just told him straight up he’s an Ancient Egyptian ghost? Or does Kiaba just shrug and say “well, I’ll edit that out in post before it hits TV.”

[canaryatlaw]

Alright, well today was overall pretty good. I woke up around 11:24 I think, I had my late alarm set for 1pm but figured I’d wake up before then. I had a weird craving for chocolate chip pancakes, which is kinda odd because I’ve literally never made them before in my life, but I had a hershey bar and some m&ms I could use, so I was like hey, let’s do this. So I chopped up the hershey bar and started making them, then moved to the m&ms when I ran out of the chopped chocolate. my pancakes haven’t always been cooperating with me lately, but I was trying to do smaller ones today and I think that worked a lot better, so that’s good to know. And they were really freaking good. So after I finished eating I knew I should get to work, so I pulled up the two things I had for the legal drafting assignment and started doing my final edits before turning it in tonight. I knew it wasn’t perfect, but honestly at this point I just don’t give a fuck anymore, I don’t care if I get one fucking C in my last damn semester, it can’t affect my GPA that much, and who the fuck cares anyway??? I just don’t anymore. but I made some edits and changed a few things around. The thing is I know my arguments are really solid, really damn good arguments, but I know that’s not gonna be what matters because with this prof it’s all about procedure and format and bullshit that doesn’t even matter in the real world. Like legit when I was talking with her last week looking over my past assignment she was like “oh you’re doing this like they taught you at the courthouse, but we’re doing it like this” and I was like ???? these hypothetical projects are *literally* supposed to be from the damn courthouse I worked at, like literally working for the cook county public guardian’s office, and you’re telling me what I learned actually being there was wrong??? I’m just so fucking done, this class should’ve been a breeze for me but it became a massive pain in the ass instead. And I really don't give a fuck if she doesn’t like my writing, the people I’ve actually worked under in the real world have always loved it, my one supervisor still gushes about the motion I wrote from the child death case as one of the best he’s ever seen, and I really, really don’t give a fuck about this goddamn class anymore. I’m ranting, I know. But anyway. I made my edits and printed it out, ended up having to print two copies of each because something didn’t turn out right in the first version of each, stupid staples (they’ll literally dock you points if your stapling doesn’t look good) and temporarily forget to use page numbers. But I got all that done and headed out to school a little early, there was supposed to be a PAD transition team meeting at 5:30 so I thought I’d come for a bit before class, except nobody actually doing the meeting showed up on time, and I had class at 5:50, so I left at 5:40, and I apparently didn’t miss much. We turned in our assignment, and then had class for about half an hour, talking mostly about factors regarding appeals and what you should take into consideration when deciding if you’re going to appeal or not. Good stuff I guess. But we ended around 6:20, and the PAD event we had for tonight didn’t start till 7 and it was right across the street so I chilled in the PAD office for a bit before going over. The event is supposed to be an official introduction to the new executive board, with alumni coming and networking and all that good shit, it’s called “Story Time” because we’re “Story Chapter” (all of the chapters are named after Supreme Court justices, since our chapter was founded in the 1890s it was after a very old justice, Joseph Story). So I headed over there and mingled for a bit, pretty good food, they had chicken tenders that were like, really damn good chicken tenders lol and they had grilled cheese, which is like, perfect, so I was pleased with that. I spent a while chatting with one of the older alums about work and life and all that good stuff. He’s looking for a law clerk, but since I’m a 3L he said I need to focus on studying for the bar, and worry about jobs later, which is valid, lol. After that I just went to where my friends are and hung out with them for a bit more, just having fun. The event ended around 9, and since we were the ones throwing it we ended up being the last people there, and they had a buffet style food set up and the staff put out to go boxes and were like “hey if you want to take any of this home go for it because it’s just gonna get thrown out” so I may have gone to town on the chicken tenders and shoved 20 of them into a to go box (I counted) which I expect will go to good use over the next couple of weeks (weeks because I’ll probably freeze some of them at some point, chicken tenders aren’t really a food that’s like, cooked one time, because most of them come pre-cooked, and they were warmed up today, but I can just warm them up again and they’ll be the same lol so that’s useful. I’m sure Jess will be having some this weekend because she hasn't eaten shit all week (sigh). But yeah, I went home, dropped my stuff and decided to watch Arrow. It was......odd. Not really an episode they’ve ever done before, mostly just because there was almost no Oliver in it. And I felt like the whole time they were trying to get us to like Diaz and like, I just don’t??? I don’t find him to be a very compelling character and the whole time I was just like Dinah honey why are you hanging out with this asshole?? I don’t get it. I will say though I did like the plot between Oliver and Felicity and the moment they had at the end of the episode, so that was good. After that the only other show I had left to watch was Riverdale, which I put on because we decided we’re going to “Riverdale Con” (god that sounds so absurd) next weekend because it’s in Chicago and we can, and plus we’re already going two weekends without a con, we definitely couldn’t go three. Riverdale was the musical episode of course, and I had fairly mixed feelings about it. I wasn’t familiar with the music of Carrie, I knew the plot obviously but hadn’t heard any of the songs before. Most of my feelings were that the majority of the cast really cannot sing and were very, very autotuned, and like the only one who could actually sing was the actor who plays Kevin, and they only let him sing like two fucking lines??? I mean wtf was that about, bad choice there. But yeah, I guess the episode itself was fine, and I did walk away with Veronica’s song stuck in my head. I also ended up looking up the plot on wiki because I wanted to see how the songs fit in, which was an interested read at least....lot of death. It was funny though because I know Christy Altomare and Derek Klena had played Sue and Tommy opposite each other in the 2012 production, and then of course they’re currently playing Anastasia and Dimitri in Anastasia right now. And yeah, I finished watching that then basically started getting ready for bed. Other things that have been on my mind though, I read an article talking about how Christians are becoming disillusioned with the term Evangelical because it’s come to be associated with the Trump idiots and everything that comes with that. And like, it’s so interesting for me to see this because I was thinking through all of this back in 2014 when I decided that I was no longer identifying with that term. Because what does it even mean?? Nothing, really. There’s no set definition that would make one an “evangelical.” I broke with the movement way before everyone else did though, over the “World Vision Incident” that left me so incredibly incensed at everyone who caused that horrific event to happen- basically, World Vision announced that as a non-denominational Christian organization they would be hiring Christian employees in same sex relationships since some denominations are now affirming. One of World Vision’s main programs is about sponsoring a child, send like $30 a month to go to the life of this specific child you’re matched up with. And when this happened, a lot of evangelical leaders protested which led to a huge number of people cancelling their child sponsorships, to the point where World Vision was forced to capitulate or they would suffer such a horrific loss in the work they are doing. Overall, the entire event resulted in 10,000 people dropping their sponsorships, and many did not renew them when they changed positions (incidentally, I immediately called up and started a sponsorship right after this happened). And like, for me that was such a clear line in the sand that was drawn. When you’re fighting your culture wars using the lives of children living in poverty as bargaining chips to force a company not to hire people you disapprove of, that keeping these people out of your organizations is more important to you than the literal lives of children, when that is what you believe in, I’m sorry but you and I do not believe in the same God. I believe in the God who said let the little children come on to me, and admonished the adults to be more like the children. The Jesus who never uttered a word about the culture issues evangelicals are obsessed with pressing. The God who said it was better that you throw a millstone around your neck and jump into the water than to lead a child astray, to hurt a child like that. That’s my God, I don’t know what bastardized version of a god (small g) that you believe in, but he’s certainly not the one I know. The one who gave me such a drive to change the world for children, to help the most vulnerable of the most vulnerable, those shoved into horrible situations and desperately need love and assurance from those around them. The God that created me to have steel in my veins when it comes to dealing with the child abuse I willingly engage with, the God that made me for this purpose, so much that I can feel it in my bones, this is what I was meant to do with my life, nothing else could ever feel right. The God who won’t let me stop until I make a difference, until I’m saving the lives of children in the system every day, no matter how difficult and traumatic that might be. The God who never turned his back on me when I doubted he was there, when I couldn't see him then, but looking back I can see he never left me, he was there the whole time, carrying me through the hard times while I was kicking and screaming and was furious with him for putting me through all I had to deal with. The God who used all of that to create a deep passion in me to save children, so they never have to go through that. This is my purpose in life, and that’s the God I believe in, I don’t know the one you’re praising who cares more about making gay people outcasts than the literal lives of children.

okay, that turned into a massive rant that went a little off the wheels, but I hope I got my point across. My faith is so, so important to me, and it hurts me so much to see the name of Christ being dragged through the mud by those claiming his name and acting as if they’ve never opened a bible. But anyway. That’s about it for my day. No official plans for tomorrow, I might do a short grocery run to stock up on a few things, and maybe small group at night, we’ll see. I mean, I should probably start studying at some point, but my first final isn’t until May 2nd, which is still a week and a half away, and it’s the easiest one, so I’ll have time. Alright, I’m done now. That was a massive rant about my many frustrations that I will hopefully feel better about now. It’s past 1:30 am so I’m going to get to bed now. Goodnight my dearies. If you made it all the way through this post, bless you for caring about my life enough to do that. ❤️

[megamanxfanfics]

Season V - Afterthoughts on the 2nd Arc

This is more about Ep. 11, 12 & 13, but I gave the 1st Arc the same amount of attention. I might as well do the same for the 2nd Arc.

-----------------------------Episode 7-----------------------------------------------

I’ve said pretty much everything I wanted to say about these first few episodes in the arc, so I’ll just leave a true afterthought:

I was really surprised how quickly we got back into the action again, and that X & Zero got all the way about to their boss fights before the episode came to a close.  Moreover, I was really happy that I was able to further develop things from Dynamo’s perspective, who was still recovering from his fight with Zero.

------------------------------Episode 8----------------------------------------------

These were rock solid fights against Spiral Pegasus & Dark Necrobat.  With the way things worked out, I like how Zero barely survived his fight, and actually needed to learn how to work with Alia in order to win.  [In hind-sight, X being able to teleport his weapon chip to Zero is sort of a cop-out, but.. that’s Mega Science, baby.  Alia’s a genius!!]

The rest of the episode was sort of a strange moving of the chess-pieces.  X getting his Gaea Armor part, Zero flying home and everything in between.

But I still love how it ended, with Dynamo surprise attacking the base, once again and this time it was X’s turn to defend their home.

-------------------------------Episode 9---------------------------------------------

This one was pretty climactic.  I really enjoyed X’s fight with Dynamo and exploring more of Dynamo’s sociopathic motivations.

After the fight, I feel like it suffered from some necessary moving of the chess-pieces, but in a way it gave me a chance to do something interesting with Lifesaver’s character.  He doesn’t really trust X or Zero, seeing as they aren’t affected by the Virus in one way or another.  And X’s lashing out against Zero was an unexpected addition, which added tension to their straining relationship. I both liked and disliked this, considering what I was setting up for later.

This one just sort of ended while X & Zero just started their next missions, but Zero got a really good Repliforce flashback out of the deal.  It explained why he was so adamant about finishing them off, I hope.  I wanted to make him seem like less of a loose cannon and more of a focussed warrior with a long-goal in mind.

------------------------------Episode 10----------------------------------------------

I was really happy once this one was over!  Zero’s stage was way more exciting than X’s, but with his new ability of flight, I had to let X spread his wings.  [I also, wanted to get to his fight with Rosered as soon as possible.]

Once the Rosered fight was over and X got to coalesce with Zero, things felt right again.

-------------------------------Episode 11-----------------------------------------------

This episode wrote itself, man!  I had so much fun working on it.

The very first thing I did was take the all the Canon Dialogue to see what I was working with.  I had everything laid out.  The shuttle take-off set-up, and then every possible outcome.  This is where things got very creative.  I had to use colors.

I colored all of the good sequence dialogue in green. Then I colored all the bad sequence dialogue in red. Then I went even further and looked at the failed, time ran-out sequence and saw very usable dialogue that I wanted to take from there.  I colored that in crimson.

As I wrote all of those conflicting sequences out, I added one transition moment in the stage directions which took us from the Good Scenario to the Bad Scenario.  This stage direction was colored in amber.  [That being a piece of debris knocking into Zero’s ship and throwing him off-course at the last minute.]

After playing with colors, I took a look at the Pre-mission set up, and saw what needed expanding in a 2nd session.

X, Zero & Signas reacting to Douglas’ bad news about Auto-pilot not working was very organic and easy to write. This continued into a hallway scene, where X practically begs Zero not to go, but I made sure for X not to volunteer himself either, because the canon dialogue already does that for us, once Zero is strapped in and ready for take-off.

The only other thing I had to set up was Zero going over to the Shuttle to settle in.  I really liked this, because it’s the last time I get to write Zero acting heroic, before everything changes.  More-over, I threw in some interesting continuity regarding all those Technicians he saved from Spiral Pegasus’ base.  One of the new recruits introduces himself as Tack and thanks him for everything he’s done.  {If you’re wondering where I pulled that name from, look no further than the X6 Rescued Reploid list.  Yes... I am setting things up for X6.  But I will not overload us with OCs, because that is not the point of that story.}

With that done, I looked everything over in my 3rd session and expanded upon the worst scenario stuff, in crimson.  Life imitated Art here in an awesome way.  I was writing this segment on my laptop late at night, before bed and my battery was almost dying.  I shit you not, literally after writing the news segment, the computer shut down.  Like, I hit period, Dropbox Autosaved, and then bam.  It was toast!  I could NOT get over that.  I wasn’t very worried about losing stuff, because Dropbox Word Online is pretty good like that.  I double-checked how the file looked on my phone, and sure as shit, everything I just wrote was there.

That was a great way to end Session 3.

In the next days I tackled a Session 4, where I think I opened up The Battle of Two Fates and compared notes.  It was definitely in this awesome place, where I could work on both at once.  One Chapter was showing things from X’s perspective and the other was showing things from Zero’s perspective.  I truly loved what was happening.  My original fan script was finally, truly connecting to the series.  I was finally catching up to my Long-Goal.

--------------------------------Episode 12----------------------------------------------

Then, came the Flashback Sequence from Hell.  [I might’ve used that term before, but this time it was real.]

The Battle of Two Fates, being my first fan script ever had a lot of exposition in it within the stage directions...

Since writing Season I, I always knew I’d come back to this and change that exposition into a cool flashback sequence.  I even started with a long Vile flashback once Season I was done, but I got rid of it almost immediately since it didn’t flow with the rest of the one-shot at all. 

By the time Season II was done, I had done so many different things with Zero that I probably thought it best to just tackle that Exposition/Flashback Sequence once everything was done.

This was a good move, but also very frustrating.

I didn’t know it yet, but this Flashback Sequence was easily going to become it’s own episode.

At first, I followed The Battle of Two Fates exposition to a T.  I gave us the two moments where X & Zero fight Vile from X1.

Then, I was supposed to go where Zero saved X from the Black Clone Zero in X2, but guess what?  Zero’s Maverickism in that Season was a cluster-fuck and rehashing all of that was it’s own chore of a task.

Already, the sequence was messed up.  After that was supposed to be quick shots of their teamwork in X3 & X4, but due to Mega Missions & Xtreme 2...  That Teamwork was now very layered, and complicated.  Not so cut and dry, ‘lets stop the bad guys buddy’, like I had originally depicted from the one-shot.

So...  I picked and chose the highlights of the entire series...  I had to! [How I thought this would cram into the tail end of Ep. 11 is beyond me.]

To go into further detail about how I edited, re-edited, and even further condensed and compromised all of those flashbacks is a fool’s errand.  But I will tell you that I had more fun with colors, opting for X’s narrations to be Blue and his Flashback dialogue to be normal black.  It was also smart to throw his entire narration into it’s own file and see if the monologue made sense, by itself.

[This is definitely mostly the case.]

Once I had all the moments and scenes that I wanted, Episode 11 was like, 42 pages!!!  Easily, split in half, but I didn’t want to do that. I tried cutting down the flashbacks as much as possible, and managed to make it 36 pages, maybe?  Still no good.

So as stated before, I decided that two 18-pages chapters were way more digestible than one, 36 page chapter.

And there we had it, episode 12 was a giant flashback, aftershock chapter where X and we the audience come to terms with the fact that Zero, as we know and love him.. is no more...

--------------------------------Episode 13----------------------------------------------

This one was less about writing, and more about editing than anything else.  It’s also the true beginning of the 3rd Arc, so technically it doesn’t belong in this entry.  But since they pair so well together, here we go.

The Battle of Two Fates was written as a Christmas Gift in 2010.

The editing to this chapter took place technically as early as Season I, 2011. I had already stated putting in both full Vile fights, but that didn’t flow at all so it was taken out.

But the next technical edit was when I created this blog in 2015.  I made a script formatted version, and it was really hard to keep all the dialogue and over-expositional stage directions in.  But I did.

Flash forward to now, 2019 when I was really working on this.  At the beginning of the 2nd Arc, I fiddled with the battle itself.  I noticed that X used a lot of X3 weapons and the Storm Tornado from X1.  All of that was edited to X5 & X4 weapons.  I definitely beefed up the dialogue to this before truly tackling S.V - Ep 7.  I added the Serges continuity from X2 into their hate-talk.  X was way less of a pansy... :p  [I still can’t believe I wrote that. I generally shocked myself from my past writing.]

So from the battle on, I was mostly covered.

I may have opened it, while working on Ep. 8 or 9, just because.  The only thing that was done there was inserting slashes to some of the opening moments of the chapter.  I didn’t want to delete anything yet, but I was sure that certain things weren’t gonna work, or needed big changes if they were going to be included.

This takes us back to the flashback sequence.  Once I was unknowingly working on Episode 12, I slashed out all of that exposition stage direction nonsense, and deleted it.

The familiar Episode 11 sequences were thrown into the beginning to show Zero’s perspective on everything. Adding a “Moments Ago” caption was the perfect solution to my giant flashback episode.  This unfortunately makes Chapter 12 very skippable for folks who just wanna get to the action, but I also don’t blame them.

So even before getting to Episode 13, all of this was kind of pre-done for me.

What really needed working on, mostly was cleaning up the stage directions at first.  The tiny goal from session 1 was to just get to X teleporting to the area.

Once X was teleported and we were in the now, I really had to fix almost all of their interactions.  This took a session or 3 in itself, but eventually everything that I liked, new and old was reworked, nicely.  There was this giant build for one of them to finally throw the first punch, and I really liked how I handled that within their dialogue.

We get a dropkick with a block.  Then a fist-clash, and finally the first charge shot.

The ensuing battle after that was mostly unchanged.  The only thing left to work on was Alia & Signas’ random dialogue before they duke it out.  It wasn’t fully necessary, but I wanted to give a small break in the action, and also keep with the continuity that Alia was going to give X his new armor.  [Only this time, it was going to be the Gaea Armor, rather than the Falcon Armor.]

Those battle changes were already worked on from before, so once I got to this section, is was more logistical clean up than anything else.

My last challenge was to get X home once he gets the Gaea Armor. Originally, he got the Falcon Armor and was majorly overpowered by it.  It’s what gave him the win against Zero (and ultimately kill him.)  [That could not keep for 2 reasons.  1, X already had it.  And 2...  The Falcon Armor is actually pretty.. weak.]  X5′s Armors were designed with checks and balances.  The Falcon Armor was light-weight and new with that special flight ability and sweet charge shot, but you could forget charging weapons.  X4′s Armor was standard, but you had the Plasma Shot and could charge weapons.  And of course, the Gaea Armor was a specialty, meant for spikes and strong defense against enemies.  And a sick Giga Attack.  But other than that, you could forget about speed, air-dashing or using ANY special weapons.  You can’t even equip parts to make him faster or anything.

[Because believe me, that was a plan I had in mind.]

So with that...  This chapter didn’t fall as flat as I thought it would.

X gets his Gaea Armor/2nd chance at life.  But Zero is long-gone.

Rather than have X pursue a 2nd battle, as he did in the original chapter, this was the perfect break in action to come home.  It wasn’t too hard to shift what he and Alia say, in order for her to convince him to come home.

Remember that he hasn’t recovered from any of the fights against Rosered, Dino-Rex and now a fully Awakened Zero who wasn’t holding back.

So this was believable for me to have X get like.. a jump to his system in receiving the Gaea Armor, but that being it.  Not a full power-up.  Not a 2nd lease on life.  Just... being alive at all, and needing to come home and sleep it off, finally.

The last line became Zero’s line.  “It’s time to finish the mission...”

Which means that there is more on Zero’s agenda than just X, after all.

Is there hope for their friendship yet?

You’ll just have to wait and see.

As for right now, the 2nd Arc is over, and the 3rd Arc has opened up to a climactic start. I’m looking forward to figuring out these next steps, but for now, I’ve enjoyed reflecting on all of this.

What about you guys?  What do you think?  Was there a favorite moment you had from the 2nd Arc, or even the 1st?  How about the start of the 3rd Arc??  Was it everything you were hoping for, or were you hoping things would go differently?  Please feel free to leave feedback, and leave comments below.

Until then, later guys.