#excuse me while I combine my special interests in a post

[chaoticace2005]

Spiders, their senses, and Angel Dust implications

I already screamed to @xxqueenofdragonsxx about this but figured I’d put it out there because I was doing research and I can’t stop thinking about it.

While we don’t know how canon it is to the show, this does have some implications for fanfics and is fun to consider.

Spiders don’t have ears. Or noses. Or tongues.

People have already made jokes about Angel’s lack of a nose, but it tracks with that fact. We also don’t see his ears, although we have seen his tongue (which, given he isn’t an actual spider there can be some allowances made.) Yes, he doesn’t have pedipalps to act as a substitution for his nose/tongue, but that isn’t the only place they can smell/taste things.

It’s their legs/feet(?). Their legs and bodies have sensory hair cells that allows them to detect vibrations in the air, as well as changes in electrical fields (which… Vox and Alastor implications? Can Angel sense them.) Humans hear via sensory hair cells too, but those are concentrated in the cochlea of the inner ear and surrounded by the outer/middle ear system (eardrum, etc.) Spiders don’t have that. They also have chemoreceptors that can smell and taste things.

Now, as someone who didn’t know much about spiders it’s cool to think about in terms of a character with some spider-like characteristics. But then I thought about this other aspect of Angel

His clothing

More specifically his constant usage of gloves/long sleeves/boots. We know he hates his spider feet, and yeah, the usage of gloves and his blazer can be to fit his style, but it’s also fun to think that maybe him wearing them is an active attempt to reduce sensory input? He’d still get some vibration input because the fabric won’t block everything, but it won’t be as direct. But since spider sensory organs aren’t localized like humans are, this could essentially be the equivalent of wearing a headphones. (Also do you really want to taste every single thing you touch?)

Which brings me to the second order of business: when he DOESNT wear his gloves. We do see him have to be bare for the camera, and if you consider him wearing clothes as a way of sensory modulation, he could essentially be forced to get all that input. Sensory overload would already be so ways in a place with so many sounds, lights, smells, etc. but imagine if you also have to do that when not used to such a level of exposure?

In humans there’s a condition called hyperacusis, which is basically a reduced pain and discomfort threshold to sounds. Some everyday ones can cause pain. Some neurodivergent people also have sensory sensitivities like that, in both cases sometimes headphones can help to reduce input.

The thing is though, if you constantly wear them you’re reducing your own threshold. It’s not recommended for people with hyperacusis to wear earplugs all the time because it makes them even more sensitive when not wearing them.

So, if you apply the same principle here, there is even more reason to consider the idea Angel would have some level of overstimulation just from not having his clothes on, combine that with the work environment, what he has to do, and the emotional turmoil of it all and that just makes it worse.

Which… with me anyways I’ve found when I’m too overloaded my brain tends to nope out and dissociate. So that could be what happens to Angel as well.

Then, there is one time outside of the studio we see him with uncovered arms and that’s the battle at the hotel.

Here, he’s wearing gloves but his arms are exposed. So it could be said that he’s allowing himself access to more input while also not overwhelming himself. He still has a buffer with the gloves on, but he also has heightened awareness for things around him.

Again, the amount of this actually being applicable in canon is hard to say. Sense we don’t know how spidery Angel really is (since again, he does have a tongue) and what level of research went into that aspect of their character designs. But I think it’s a fun thing to consider.

So uhhh… yeah. Totally normal about this all as someone who totally isn’t interested in audiology, hyperfixating on hazbin hotel, and neurodivergent myself.

(Update: there is now a fic)

[yamujiburo]

✨YAMUJIBURO F.A.Q.✨

Should've made this a while ago! I'm starting to get a lot of the same questions in my inbox nowadays tho and I feel bad for clogging up y'all's timelines with the same questions haha

GENERAL QUESTIONS

Who are you?

I'm Kiana, I'm a queer, Japanese Jamaican woman, and a Director/Storyboard artist at Disney Television Animation.

What are your pronouns

I usually go by she/her but I don't really mind any pronouns~

Where did you go to school?

California College of the Arts (but I dropped out when I was hired at Disney)

How did you get hired at Disney?

My bosses found me on twitter through my Team Rocket fanart. They liked my drawing style and asked if I wanted to take a storyboard test. I did, I passed, I got interviewed and moved to LA two weeks later to start storyboarding.

Is this a repost blog??

No, you might know be better as @kianamaiart. This is just my Pokémon sideblog where I post exclusively (for the most part) Team Rocket and Pokémon art.

What does your username mean?

It's a combination of the main 4 Team Rocket members' Japanese names: Yamato (cassidy), Musashi (jessie), Kojiro (james), Kosaburo (butch)

What program and brush do you use to draw?

Default brush in Storyboard pro

**************************************

GENERAL POKEMON QUESTIONS

Who's your favorite Pokémon?

What are your favorite ships?

Any ship with Jessie. Yamushipping, Rocketshipping and Hanamusashipping are my top three!

Who do you ship Ash with?

I was a big Pokéshipper when I was younger but nowadays don't really feel strongly about any of the ships involving the kid characters. I'm also in the "Ash is aroace" camp.

Do you have any trans headcanons?

You can find em here along with other headcanons! It should be noted that I don't usually marry myself to one hc (unless it's for a specific AU I'm trying to build out) and love seeing various interpretations of a character! Trans woman Jessie, Trans woman James, Trans man James, Genderfluid Jessie, give em to me!

Do you play the games?

I've played all the mainline Pokémon games and very much enjoy them! But I am much more invested in the anime and the characters in the anime.

**************************************

HANAMUSA AU QUESTIONS

Where can I read all the comics in order?

Here! I update anytime I make a new comic and list them in chronological order (since I just draw comics at random points in the timeline as they interest me). This post also already answers some of the frequently asked questions about this AU like: How did Jessie and Delia meet? What are James and Meowth up to? How old are Jessie and Delia? etc.

What does "Hanamusa" mean?

Hanamusa is a combination of Delia and Jessie's Japanese names, Hanako and Musashi respectively.

When does this AU take place?

It takes place sometime after the Mezase Pokémon Master/To Be a Pokémon Master series. So all the events that happened in the series, unless retconned within the series, happened. Ash is 10 at the start of the comics.

What's the status between Jessie, James, Meowth and Giovanni/Team Rocket?

Not great terms since they were fired, but also not the worst terms. Giovanni just let the three of them go without any further issues. I will say that I've always loved the theory that Giovanni keeps Jessie specifically around because of her parentage and he as a soft spot for her that he keeps a secret. I feel like Matori was the one that got the three of them fired and Giovanni wasn't able to make an excuse for them this time (without showing nepotism/special treatment) so he was forced to let them go.

If you headcanon Delia as a lesbian, how did Ash come to be?

Delia was young when she had Ash and I hc that she just didn’t really explore her sexuality much! I myself didn’t realized I liked women until I was 18 and didn’t know I liked ONLY women until like 2 years ago. She got married, had a baby and realized after her husband left that she liked women (trans people exist obviously but I’m also interpreting Ash’s father as a cis man).

Who do you think Ash’s dad is?

I don’t know and I don’t really care to explore it. I’m going off of the novel interpretation that he’s just a deadbeat that left to be a trainer, failed and never came back because of the shame. He’s not important.

Isn’t Giovanni Ash’s dad?

That’s a common misconception that people remember wrong from the Pokémon Live show. Delia mentions she dated Giovanni but then left him and his gang after meeting Ash’s father. I also don’t consider the live show canon personally! I follow The Birth of Mewtwo timeline where Madame Boss founded Team Rocket.

Do you think Delia and Giovanni dated at least?

Nah, I think he’s too old for her? I always got the vibe from The Birth of Mewtwo that he was quite a bit older than Jessie and it’d be sus if he was dating Delia when she was married to, and had a child with her husband at 18/19. He’s a bad guy but not a BAD guy.

You mentioned you still ship Jessie and James. Why not make a Jessie, James, Delia polycule?

I have a few reasons I’ve mentioned before! 1. I’m in super deep with this AU already and I feel it’d be very confusing for casual viewers of my stuff if James was added into the relationship haha. 2. I’ve drawn Jessie and James together since 2011 and took this AU as an opportunity to try my hand at writing them as queer, platonic besties bc I love that interpretation of them a lot as well. 3. I’m not poly myself and the way I write this ship is largely based off of my experiences with my girlfriend. I just know I’d favor the Jessie/Delia of it all which isn’t fair and not a good interpretation of a poly relationship. All that said, I DO super enjoy seeing peoples’ poly headcanons and art!

Who does James end up with in this AU?

No one. He's aroace and is happy to be single

Do Jessie and James have all their Pokémon in this AU

I think they have all the Pokémon that they did by the end of Mezase Pokémon Master (all their Pokémon that were left at HQ). Most of their released Pokémon have stayed released and the Alola Pokémon are still in Alola. I bring back Arbok and Weezing post-Jessie and Delia getting married. I may bring back Chimecho, Growlie and Cacnea if I think of an idea I like!

What are Meowth and James up to in this AU?

Hop back to the top of this post under the "Where to Start" section. All your questions will be answered.

Does Ash travel with anyone at this point of his life?

I don't have anyone in particular in mind! I could see him making new friends (Nemona???) or traveling with different combinations of old friends. Like him, Misty and Goh, him, Dawn and Cilan, him, Serena and Lillie etc.

Will Delia ever get over her phobia of snake Pokémon

Not fully! I think overcoming fears is fine and good but I think real PHOBIAS are much harder to get past and I don't want to cheapen it. She slowly gets used to Jessie's Seviper specifically and gets to the point where she can pet it comfortably with Jessie in the room. But otherwise, still scared and would need that same amount of time per Pokémon

Is Jessie gaining weight or is it just me?

Not just you! Jessie puts on a bit of relationship weight overtime as you'll see in the later comics in the timeline. Jessie grew in poverty, never knowing when her next meal would be and that continued into her life as a Team Rocket member. Once she was able to settle down (with a woman who runs her own restaurant no less) she's able to live a healthier lifestyle with regular meals and puts on some weight because of that.

Does Jessie ever feel self conscious about gaining weight?

Nope! She feels happier and healthier and hotter. She's also unreasonably excited to clear out her old clothes and get a new wardrobe.

Would Jessie and Delia ever have kids together or adopt?

Nah, Ash is enough for them! I have come up with hypothetical kids for them but they're not canon to this AU. Just a fun little thing for me.

Will you ever put this on webtoon?

Nah. People mostly ask me this because they want to read everything in the order of the timeline but to my knowledge, you can’t reorder chapters or installments which would defeat the purpose. I also don’t think nintendo fan stuff would fly there. Also, also it’s just extra work and another place to upload and I want to keep this all fun for myself~

[lindseybots]

OHOHOHOHOHO THIS IS A WHOLE AU???? This is INCREDIBLE my heart is MELTING LOOK AT THOSE SWEETIES!!! A thought to keep Wind away from the Tower of Spirits, in the Septimus Heap books there’s a rule where “when dead you only tread once more; where living, you have trod before” so perhaps Wind being a natural ghost unlike Zelda isn’t able to go above the lobby of the Tower. Cause let’s be real, he would totally go through the dungeons but Anjean would have his hide if he tried to go up the Tower.

Also, is this LU? Totally cool if not! Just the two of them having fun together is enough to get me bouncing off the walls!

Ooooo a lot to unpack with this one!

First of all, THANK YOU! I’m so happy that you love the au!! I’m having so much fun making it, so I’m glad you’re enjoying it.

Next, I’m gonna answer the LU question because that answer is going to be shorter.

Honestly, I’m kind of glad you asked because I’ve seen people mention it a few times in comments, reblog tags, etc of some of my AU posts before, which made me wonder if there was some confusion about it. So, I’m glad I’m getting an excuse to clear this up.

While LU is super great (seriously go check it out if you haven’t) and I am incredibly honored that you think they are worthy of standing together on the same playing field, it is a separate thing.

The Wind’s Track AU is not associated with Linked Universe in any way. That is to say: in the “canon” of The Winds Track AU, the events of Linked Universe DO NOT AND WILL NOT EXIST.

Of course, if y’all want to make fan content that is a blend of the two AUs, that’s fine with me. All I ask is that, if you could, please make it clear somewhere that, normally, the AUs are separate entities to avoid any confusion for people who don’t know. Also, it’d be really nice if you’d give credit to the au creators so newcomers know where to find our AUs. (Also tag me so I can see it 👀🤭)

Again, I don’t mind if people make that kind of content to combine the aus, but I would hate for people to come here expecting LU due to miscommunication and then not get it. Y’know?

Now, I can talk about Wind and the Tower of Spirits.

I never actually considered him NOT being involved in solving the floors. The idea that he CAN’T is REALLY INTERESTING. Ohhhh that’d kill him inside.

This boy is so used to being at the center of the adventures, and now he has to leave it to someone else? AND HIS LITTLE BROTHER AT THAT?? AND YOU MEAN TO TELL HIM HE CANT DO ANYTHING BUT WAIT??? OHHHH.

Not to mention the fact that this is the location in the game that you revisit the most for the story.

The way I can picture this poor boy ready to just race up those stairs, regardless of potential consequences. Anjean would probably be tempted to tie him down if he wouldn’t just phase through the ropes.

I LOVE THIS IDEA. Not only is it angsty, but it fixes so many of the potential issues I’ve been trying to solve within this AU.

I don’t think I mentioned this before, but I was also trying to figure out a way to get Zelda to go help in the Tower of Spirits in the first place. The only reasons she goes at first in the game is because Anjean tells them that it’s too dangerous for Link / Spirit to go by himself, and during that time, she is the only one available to fill that role. If Wind were able to go, then there wouldn’t have been any reason to essentially force her in the role. There would need to be a new reason made.

This idea, however, FIXES THAT. THANK YOU!!

I also love that it reserves a portion of the game’s events to just be for Spirit and Zelda. They have such a wonderful relationship in the game, so having the events of the Tower be for just the two of them could really help in maintaining that strong bond that helped make Spirit Tracks so special.

I’ll make a point to find ways for Wind to be more helpful in other parts of the game to make up for his exclusion from the Tower of Spirits’ floors.

[system-of-a-feather]

You know, I'm largely saying this because its a perspective that would have been super foreign to us in the past, but I honestly like to try to be someone who gives the best faith to people when I get the chance and I honestly think, at large, we have enough people in the world with high expectations and assumptions of people to just know everything or figure things out themselves that it's just not productive to those that haven't had it so easily put out for them.

I like to think that most people are dumb (affectionate), stupid (affectionate), and just honest to god confused and just need some help understanding things. And while I agree "you should do your own research and educate yourself", I like to think a lot of people do try that but due to a combination of difficulty understanding the topic and the amount of impersonal, complex language, and missinformation on topics, "educate yourself" is often easier said than done.

And I might go out on a branch and a bit of a stretch to state this, but I do think if you hammer away and expect everyone to "do your own research and educate yourself" or really oversimplify the effort of "learning things yourself" you kind of are largely putting up barriers to understanding to those with learning disabilities and unique and specialized learning needs. And if there are those barriers to understanding and denial of help without stigma, you kind of force people that struggle to learn things to be automatically labeled a "bad person" or a "bigotted person"

But a lot of people don't have resources to learn. A lot of people haven't been educated on a good and reliable way to learn. A lot of people struggle with reading. A lot of people struggle with more standard ways of "learning". A lot of people have trouble understanding social contexts that make it harder for them to navigate the social contexts of what people are saying and ulterior motives. A lot of people have little to no experience with topics related to what they are trying to learn and thus struggle to even fathom it. A lot of these social justice topics are actually very complex and confusing topics WITHOUT any unique challenges / difficulties accessing and understanding topics like these.

And it's why I very much love the "explain it to me like I'm three" statement; cause honestly, its okay to not know or understand things and I think its important to open up interest with the awareness that someone has tried and understands there is probably something they are missing, but can't connect it.

Maybe this is comes from the fact both of my parents that were actively abusive and harmful were both very "stupid" and thus very very harmful to me growing up, but in adulthood, when given the resources and time, it became very very very apparent that at no point did they ever have any moment of malice; they just never had the resources to understand or do better. Maybe it comes from working with neurodivergent kids that need things made more clear and explained to them in a unique way that is meant to help them in specific understand

Of course, this post isn't to say that people HAVE to educate others or that having these difficulties excuses harm done. It's never the victims fault that they were hurt, they never did and never do owe it to anyone to "educate them" to prevent getting hurt.

It's more so just to add some perspective, insight, and nuance to a lot of the social justice topics and a lot of the concept of "educate yourself" cause I think its important to have a lot more of a clear understanding of that in practice to actually help move everyone forward as a group

((And this is not meant to be just about neurodivergence; this is also about class, race, immigrant status, language barriers, environments, trauma and abuse histories, etc; this is a heavily intersectional post and is valid to apply to almost everyone. Learning foreign things is hard especially for certain people in certain situations. If you think it is only about one of these groups, you are missing the point; if enough people are missing the point I might follow this up when I have time))

[insane4fandoms]

Valentines headcanon Valentines headcanon! Can we please get a valentines headcanon with the crew?

Guess who was dying because they were sick for three days and missed a Valentines Day post, this guy :,)

As an Aroace, I -for some reason- LOVE Valentine’s Day (even though I joke about being disgusted by the holiday).

It’s just one of those moments every year where I watch and cherish those relationships and fascinated by the concept of falling in love in real life.

I know I could never actually love someone in a romantic way, but that doesn’t stop me from giving love, especially when my love language is cooking.

(LATE) ISWM Valentines General Headcanons

Mark

- Mark LOVES any kind of holiday, he always thinks it’s a great way to learn others’ cultures when celebrating and decorates the ship. He somehow managed to put a giant heart sticker on the outside of the ship-

- Makes cards for everyone on the ship, and don’t be surprised to see Captain getting the most from not only everyone combine, but 5 times more from Mark.

- He also gets more than cards for the leaders, and gives Chica the most affection (which is understandable)

Celci

- Doesn’t mind the fact Mark is going crazy for this holiday, but gets very flustered when getting anything from anyone.

- She just doesn’t expect to get one since she’s hard on a lot of crewmates, especially Mark, so she deeply appreciates that people see her as a good leader.

- She gets embarrassed when she’s gives gifts to others, especially to the leaders, because you know Mark and Gunther would tease her. If she gets a kiss from the Captain, then she fainted of the amount of blushing she experienced.

Gunther

- Gunther would 100% put heart stickers on his ADS machines. He treats them as children, and programs them to have their lasers be heart shaped.

- Is nonchalantly giving people cards, pretending it’s not a big deal, but when you give him a gift, he’ll excuse himself, turn to an empty room, and crumple to the floor while his face heats up.

- Tried to give Mack a big ol’ hug as a Valentine’s gift, didn’t work out well as Mack body slammed him (Just to remind you, Mack is very much incapable of having upper body strength, so Gunther just saw god that day)

Burt

- Love poems for DAYS. His heart is filled with passion when it comes to writing poems. Even made Mack cry (but don’t tell him I said that-)

- I headcanon Burt as someone who knits, and he’ll make those crochet stuff toys for everyone, whether it’s animals or a tiny version of people, he’s a master at crocheting.

- He has a box full of gifts from everyone, and has a special box just from the leaders. Whenever he feels a bit lonely, he checks box box and gifts, remembering that others care for him.

Mack

- Is not fond of Valentine’s Day, mainly because he got bullied as a kid for never having a Valentines. So it would make sense he wouldn’t be in a happy mood.

- When he actually got a gift, he was sure it was a joke, that someone was messing with him. But he eventually was convinced it was for him, and he cried.

- He sneakily gave everyone else cards, mostly because he doesn’t know who gave him his gift. If anyone suspects him in giving them a present, he’ll get very defensive about it.

Bonus!

Allu

- A human holiday that’s meant for love? Sign them up!! Mark would teach them all the customs of this interesting love event, and goes overboard.

- Allu Would wear color pallets, hang banners in their office, all the works! And don’t get me started on Allu looking to the holiday’s history, it’s a double score on finding out human culture.

- She’ll be like Mark and make cards for everyone, and if they get a gift in return, they will legit squeal so loud, it’ll break the windows again.

Bandit

- Doesn’t get why humans celebrate such a dumb holiday when you could just love everyone everyday, but when Captain gave her a card, bet your ass she’ll keep it.

- Gives others advanced weaponry as her way of giving, so don’t be surprised when you’re given a nuke by her. “It’ll make you think of me,” Thank you Bandit, we’ll remember you when the nuke melts our skin off.

- Of course she’ll give presents to Wug, they’re the best of friends, and Wug will give literal heart cookies. Also Bandit ate those cookies, don’t ask where Wug got the hearts from.

Wug

- Wug does not fully understand the concept, but Wug the one who- Like Allu- Goes extreme when celebrating. Chopped up cards, crushed chocolates, head of a space beast, all the things you’ll fall for.

- “WUG MADE HEART COOKIES!!” Cookies from literal heart meat. Wug means well, don’t worry, just eat it and Wug won’t get upset.

- Gets gifted a teddy bear the size of Wug, and it’s Wug’s best friend. Takes it everywhere, and thinks it’s real. Bandit and Allu think it’s cute, and don’t have the heart to tell Wug that it’s fake.

Chica

- Has no idea on what’s going on. But she loves the attention.

- People giving her love, gifts, and praising her? It’s all she ever wished for!

- She’s the ultimate good dog, and this holiday is her being treated as a god.

[fipindustries]

first course completed!

that was arc 1 of introduction to magic.

and this is the first drawing i made of the main characters all the way back in 2019

what is this

now that the first arc is done i would like to take a chance to actually stop and properly self promote a little here. it was about time.

i am currently writing a novel called Introduction to magic, an examination of a magic system i came up with by way of following the lessons of magical apprentice Katerina Dolcevita under the aprenticeship of Maria Bellanova. the best way i have to summarize the feel and tone of it all is Fantasy AU-R63! Rick and Morty. imagine if rick and morty were both women and they were exploring magic rather than sci fi.

the first arc is intended to be a prologue of sorts, to get you up to speed with the nature of this world and the nature of the two main characters.

where this came from

i came up with the story and the concept around this world proper in 2021, while reading pale. i was looking at all the extra material that wildbow had written for its magical world and i found myself really wishing that we didnt have to just see excerpts from the magical books like famulus or 100 years lost. and it came to me that if i really want a book about magic to exist then i can just write one myself.

the magic system in this story follows a bunch of my own deeply held beliefs about life and magic. mainly that is kind of silly how we insists magic doesnt exist when we have things like computers and planes and psychodelics. it occured that if we were to live in a world where magic was real we wouldnt call it magic either, we would just think of it as the normal state of affairs. there is a post i read here, which i cant find right now, which said something about how weird conciousness is, how strange the fact that conciousness arises from the specific configuration of a brain. about how conciousness is the last, mysterious, seemingly ineffable property of reality. they concluded that we live in a fantasy world where our magic system has only one spell "summon daemon". obviously a lot of it was merely poetic and rethorical devices to see with fresh eyes of wonder something we take for granted.

and a lot of this book stems from a similar wish to want to see the mundane with eyes of wonder once again, which is why i insist that low level magic in this world is things as basic as writing and lighting a fire. is also the reason why a lot of the titles that i use for the magic specializations are normal every day professions.

the second, stronger impulse was to try to come up with a system of magic that could be broad enough to grasp all possible forms of magic humans have come up with and yet simple enough that could be understood in a few pages. the classification system i use on this book is based on all the broadest, most basic forms of magic practisce that i have seen in history and fiction. manipulating signs as drawings and writing, manipulating sound as voice and song, using tools and props, moving the body, combining and refining substances and materials, handling living creatures.

what's next

as we move forward on this story the format will switch to a more traditional narrative where we will properly follow the adventures of these two ladies. ocassionally i will dip back into textbook-like sections where i infodump about another interesting concept i thought of, but even in the narrative sections most of the chapters will be an excuse to explore some concept or idea. i gather by sheer quantity 80% of the content of this story is going to be maria explaining things to Katerina.

so yeah, if that sounds at all interesting please do read this, and please do leave a comment, i really want to see what people think of this work. i dont need money or donations or to be engaged in any algorithm, all i need to stay motivated and energized and thus continuing the story is to know that people are invested in it.

thank you so much for reading.

[starlitangels]

Forget the Future

More Morgan and... more masquerades. Yup. Credit to @blutomindpretzel​ and @happywhisperspoetry​ for getting me on this streak. Also I’m going out of town tomorrow so... you can either expect more random jokes and posts from me than usual, or radio silence apart from my queue. We’ll find out XD 2.9k words

—

“Please?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on. It’ll be a great way to introduce you to the rest of the Sodality and their partners.”

“Morgan…”

“Look, they’ll know you’re a Seer and they’ll know you’re Obscura. But they’ll know you’re with me. And they’ll probably figure out quickly that you’re not sure yet if you’re interested in actually joining the Sodality. This would be an opportunity to see if you can even stomach them. Maybe see if you’d really want to consider joining the Sodality with me.”

“Yeah, but… why a masquerade?”

Morgan shrugged. “A few… older members of the Sodality were definitely not above using their powers for their own financial gain. They’re… ridiculously wealthy. They like the whole lavish parties thing. And they like to say the masks help temper the visions since you can’t see the person’s face. I think they’re placebo-ing themselves into believing that. It’s never worked for me and I’ve been to, like, three masquerades of theirs so far. That said, they also tend to invite some of the Old Bloods in the region.”

“Vampires?”

“Does that bother you?”

“No. Just haven’t interacted with vampires much.” I pursed my lips thoughtfully. “Look… I… I guess I can go with you. And I don’t care that they can tell I’m a Seer—the vampires won’t, and I plan on presenting my aura as that of an Illusory.”

“Habit?”

“Something like that.”

“There’s nothing wrong with that. I’m just glad you agreed to accompany me.”

I made a face that could have counted as a smile. “It’ll be fun to go with you. Even if it’s just for the company and an excuse to get out of the house.”

“Hey, whatever works. I’ll pick you up at five that night. We’ll grab dinner and then we can go to the party.”

“Sounds good.”

—

“You look… incredibly handsome,” I said the moment I opened the door.

Morgan had on a three-piece black suit with a white shirt and royal blue tie. The vest was embroidered with silver thread in swirling patterns. His cool black hair was gelled out of the way in its usual fashion. The tie made his bottomless ocean blue eyes even deeper. “You don’t think it’s too much?” There was a cheeky grin touching the corners of his lips.

“Of course not. You look dashing.” I held up a hand. “But I wanna see the mask, too.”

Morgan chuckled and pulled it out of his inner suit pocket, holding it up to his face.

It was well molded. The same royal blue as the tie, but with silver embellishments. Beads shaped like gears dotted it among tiny gems (probably fake) that glittered like stars, and a large starburst was dyed into the fabric right between where the silk hid his eyebrows.

“I like it. The gears are a nice touch,” I said.

He shrugged. “I wanted something… a little more personalized.”

“So you chose gears?”

“Yeah. Gears… clocks… time… future… Seer. You take the point.”

I nodded.

“What about you? Breathtaking outfit like that—I imagine the mask must be something special.”

I picked up my mask from the trestle table next to my front door that I kept a basket on for my keys and work badge. I did as he’d done, holding it up to my face and peering through it. Green, to go with the purple on my outfit—a color combination I’d always enjoyed—and silver.

Morgan pursed his lips and nodded. “Stunning. Absolutely incredible.” He blinked a few times, almost like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You… are stunning.”

“Thank you.” I couldn't quite meet his eyes as I said it, setting the mask back down to finish putting on my other shoe. He’d knocked in the middle of me getting the pair on. I balanced on one foot to pull the opposite shoe on while Morgan smiled lightly. Once it was on, I shook my head and met his gaze. “So… where are you thinking about going for dinner?”

“You ever been to Mama Rikki’s?”

“No?”

“It’s a delicious spot near where the party’s gonna be. Do you like Italian?”

“Well, I can usually find something I’d like on an Italian food menu,” I replied with a smile.

“Fantastic. If you don’t have any objections, we can get going, then.”

I glanced at myself in the hall mirror, making sure nothing was out of place yet. “Sure. Let’s get going!”

—

—

Morgan helped me out of his car at the large…

“Is this someone’s house?” I demanded.

“Yeah. Samantha Gray. She and her husband live here. She’s the Seer. He’s a shifter. She made all their money decades ago and they’re still living the high life. She’s one of the older members of the Sodality—and, to be honest, one of the first ones to offer herself up for Department protections when DUMP started to offer it.”

“This looks like a reception hall for weddings.”

Morgan took in the space, resting my hand on his arm where they’d been joined to help me out of the car. “Well… I guess it kind of is. It’s not actually attached to the rest of the house. And I know Samantha told me that they make a little extra money by renting this place out for weddings. Explains the big driveway, huh?”

“... Huh.”

“Don’t be nervous. The other Seers’ll know you’re a Seer, and I’m sure everyone here will like you. Even the Old Bloods. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Except maybe embarrassing myself in front of a bunch of upper class Seers and old vampires.”

“Don’t worry. It won’t be that bad. I promise.”

My aura was already that of an Illusory to anyone who wasn’t a Seer. I never let it present as one of a Seer unless I was home alone. “Okay. Let’s go,” I said, taking a deep breath to steel myself.

Morgan put his other hand on top of mine on his arm in support and we headed up the driveway.

He halted before we reached the hall. “What?” I asked.

“We’re at a masquerade ball and our masks aren’t on.”

I swore under my breath as Morgan pulled his mask out of his inner suit coat pocket at the same time that I pulled mine out. “Here,” I offered, holding a hand out. “Want me to tie it on?”

“Sure.”

He handed the mask to me and turned around so I could tie it. He was taller than me so I tilted up onto my tiptoes. Biting my lip, I placed the mask around his face and drew the black satin ribbons back for me to tie. I made quick work of it. “Too tight? Is it going to slip off?”

“No. It’s perfect. Thank you.” He tested the tightness of the ribbons before turning. “Want me to do yours?”

“Sure.” I gave him my mask and turned around.

He lowered the mask slowly from behind, letting me help him situate it snugly, but comfortably over my face. I held as still as I could, barely daring to breathe. I felt his hands brush the back of my head as he slowly, gently, carefully tied the satin ribbons together behind my head. I could practically feel his fingers tremble—as though he was reluctant to breathe as well. Like neither of us wanted to break the quiet stillness of the moment that was building. I bit the inside of my lower lip and let my eyelids flutter closed.

“Morgan, son! There you are!” the voice of an older gentleman exclaimed, shattering the tension. I jolted so bad the back of my head bashed into Morgan’s tie knot. I hadn’t realized he was standing quite so close. “And who’s this vibrant young thing you’ve brought with you?”

I turned to see a gentleman older than my parents coming out of the reception hall. I could tell he was one of the Seers, rather than vampires, the moment his eyes lighted on me and widened. I didn’t even have to feel for his aura. He sensed mine—felt that under the Illusory presentation, I was one of his kind. And his eyes widened because he definitely already tried to See my future and, instead, only saw the haze of an Obscura.

He looked between me and Morgan, befuddlement painted on his eyebrows’ tilt. “Another?” he asked softly. Morgan nodded. “Impossible.”

“Obviously not,” I said.

The man held his hand out for me to shake. “Darrin Stephens.”

I gave him my name in return, shaking his hand.

He glanced between me and Morgan again—seeming somewhat apprehensive—before gesturing for us to follow him. “C’mon. Come join the party, kids.” Mr. Stephens chuckled and led us into the reception hall.

I swore under my breath as we passed through the threshold. The hall was large. People milled about, sipping from champagne flutes and chatting. I held onto Morgan’s arm a little tighter. He put his hand back on mine, patting it comfortingly. “It’s okay. There’s nothing to worry about here. I promise.”

“Easy for you to say. You know these people. Meanwhile, I’m a stranger.”

“It’s not hard for you to know these people too,” Morgan said. “We’re the only two Obscura in the room. You can learn everyone quickly.”

“I can know their future. Not the same as having a past with them.”

“Fair enough.”

“Mr. Kyne!” a voice said brightly from behind us. We both turned to see a woman—sixties, brown skin, greying dark hair, lavish dress, extremely ornate metallic mask—approaching us. Morgan painted an easy smile on his face. “Good evening, Samantha,” he said. He glanced at me. “May I introduce our hostess, Mrs. Samantha Gray.”

Her eyes swept me. She was somewhat more tactful than Mr. Stephens had been. The only indication she gave me that she realized I wasn’t an Illusory was the slight nod of her head, and a tiny knowing smile. “Good evening. How do you do?”

Ooh. Classy, I thought. Somewhat sarcastically. I took her extended hand. She didn’t shake it so much as she just rested it atop mine. I gave it a squeeze. Manners of a bygone age, I supposed. “I’m well. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Thank you for letting Morgan bring me tonight.”

She beamed. “Well, when he asked if he could bring a plus-one, I couldn’t refuse. Morgan is such a dear—of course I insisted he bring someone along.”

I couldn’t tell if she was being genuine or not.

“Well, I appreciate it nonetheless,” I said.

“And we’re glad to have you here,” Samantha replied. “Now come in, please. You must meet my husband—and some of our other guests.”

Morgan held onto me lightly as Samantha led me through the party. I got introduced to what felt like dozens of people. Most of whom I forgot the moment I was given the name of the next one. The lack of full faces on new people certainly didn’t help. A few of the Seers were wearing full-face masks, behind which there were no features to make out. Most of the guests wore domino masks like Morgan and I. Little accessories to cover the eye area.

I discovered that Morgan was right. The masks did nothing to diminish the visions radiating off of people. I still saw entire futures stretched before me in fractions of seconds. Entire lives.

“Morgan,” I whispered. “I need some air.”

He nodded. “Okay.” He rested a hand on Samantha’s shoulder. “We’re going to go get some fresh air.”

She smiled warmly at us—though it felt less genuine. “Of course, darlings. The rose garden is through that door.” She waved at the east door. Morgan led me over to it and pushed it open for me.

Cool evening air bit at my exposed skin. I closed my eyes and inhaled. The scent of roses filled my nose. I sighed. Some of the stress and tension of trying to meet so many people melted away. I leaned slightly against Morgan’s arm, savoring the moments of peace. “Feels nice out here,” Morgan said quietly. I nodded. “A lot less stuffy.” I nodded again—more enthusiastically. He chuckled.

“Oh! It looks like this garden is already occupied. Excuse me,” a voice from behind us said as the door opened and quickly shut. I caught the aura of a vampire before it blurred into the magic inside the reception hall. Afterimages of a future faded into the air. I saw the same figure in a few of them. A rather petite man in his forties with shoulder-length dark brown hair, slightly greying, interacting with a young man with curly hair as black as Morgan’s—and then crouching in front of a large grey-and-tan wolf. A shifter wolf if I’d ever seen one.

“William Solaire. I didn’t think he’d be able to make it up from Dahlia this time. The Monarchal Summit is coming up soon, and he volunteered to host.”

“Maybe he wanted the break,” I suggested. “Calm before the storm and all that.”

“Mm. Maybe. Hadn’t thought of it like that.”

I shrugged. “I’ve spent a lot longer than you pretending not to be what I am.”

“I know.” He gestured to the paths crisscrossing intricate displays of rose bushes. “Shall we… take a turn about the garden, as it were?” An impish grin rose on his face at the wording. Old fashioned as it was.

“Sure,” I said.

“May I have this stroll?”

I laughed and we started to wander the cobblestone paths. The cool night air made Morgan’s hair shift with the breeze. In large chunks held together loosely by wax. He didn’t gel his hair, but he did use some molding wax to keep it up and out of his face. The side-swept look was quite dashing on him. Framed his face well.

“So… has anyone ever told you that your complexion looks really nice in moonlight?” Morgan asked.

My whole body burned. Self-conscious and embarrassed. I fidgeted with the hem of one of my sleeves. “Nope. No one has.”

Morgan pursed his lips. “Well. Someone should have. But, since no one did, allow me to be the first, then.” He gave me a smile, the lines of his face softened in the pale moonlight. “You really do look exquisite out here.” I kept my eyes on the cobblestone, too embarrassed to meet his gaze.

“Thank you, Morgan.”

“Hey,” he said softly. His hooked pointer finger rested under my chin and brought my face up to look at him. “I mean it.”

“I know. And you’re being very kind to me tonight.”

“What are you so anxious about?” His voice wasn’t sharp or harsh. It was concerned.

I took a deep breath and let it shudder out. “I… I don’t know. Being around the Sodality, maybe? Knowing that… I don’t know…”

“Knowing they can’t See you?”

I bobbed my head side-to-side. Not quite a nod, not quite shaking my head, as if to say, “kinda, sorta.”

Morgan made a face. “Or knowing that you could be associating with them a lot more some day?”

“That too.” I pulled him to a stop in a little garden square. A fountain bubbled in the middle. Speakers were set into the rose bushes so we could hear the music being played by the live quartet inside. “I… I’m not scared of the future, Morgan. But there’s something… paralyzing about Seeing the threads of everyone’s futures stretched out before them, and yet all that stretches out before me is fog. Grey and empty.”

He nodded. The almost-full moon reflected in his bottomless, ocean blue eyes. “I know. Trust me. I know.” His voice—the expression on his face, half-hidden behind his mask—it all bled sincerity. “The future might be even more daunting for us, in some regards, than it is for normal Seers. But… well. Now, at least, we’re not alone.”

I nodded. “Yeah. We’re not alone anymore.”

There was that soft smile again. He reached up and touched a finger to the bottom edge of my mask. “Hey,” he repeated, soft as ever. “For tonight let’s…” He trailed off. His gaze drifted over my shoulder toward the fountain.

“What?” I prompted. “Let’s what?”

He met my gaze with firm determination. “Forget about the future,” he said. He took a step away from me so he could face me, offering his hand. “Would you care to dance?”

I reached up and set mine on top. “I’d love to dance.”

He pulled me close and started to sway us back-and-forth to the gentle music playing over the speakers. I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. He was warm and his suit was soft under my cheek.

We didn’t waltz or do anything formal. Just swayed back and forth, spinning in a gentle circle.

“Morgan?” I asked quietly.

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

I shrugged. “For… this. Bringing me with you. Introducing me to others. Being… more than just a friend. I’ve really appreciated all the time you’ve spent with me—supporting me. Helping me… navigate a new chapter of my powers and where I want to be with them in regards to… how public I’m considering being about them.”

“It’s been my pleasure. And I told you: anytime you need me, I'll be there for you.”

“Thank you, Morgan.”

“Of course.”

—

Tag list: @ryn-halo26​

[333sth]

dove. (frankie morales)

chapter i. previous.

pairing: frankie morales x ofc (’dove’) no use of y/n.

warnings: mention of ptsd/military service, language, violence, brief mention of torture/kidnapping, injury detail, fighting.

summary: frankie was going to propose, until dove found the ring and ghosted. even santi can’t track her down.

rating: mature. wc: 1.6k

next

Dove was a nickname coined by an old general during her training. He was a traditional man, though not disrespectful. It was a term of endearment that probably softened the influx of powerful women breaching into the male territory. He’d drawled, ‘I ought to call you Dove – I ain’t never seen a girl so swift, yet so fuckin’ lethal.’ She kept the boys in line too, he’d noted. When Benny got too reckless, or Tom’s temper ran away with him, she was the first to snap them out of it. In environments where peace was a very distant concept, she played the peacekeeper.

One time, during a two-month deployment in Nigeria, the group was shoved in the back of an ancient pick-up truck for six hours. Dove was wedged between Will and Frankie, sweltering in the humid air. The stale smell of sweat mixed with blood and diesel was permeating the air, and they were three hours from the nearest checkpoint. To pass the time, she asked them what they’d do if they weren’t special forces.

That was easy for Will – he’d be a teacher of some kind. Benny waffled about sports, making some brash comment about how he’s got to channel all his aggression somewhere. Tom and Santi couldn’t come up with anything that suited them more than the forces, which was not surprising. Frankie would still be a pilot somehow. Dove had never seen him more comfortable than in the pilot’s chair.

Dove dreamed of owning her own bar or café, somewhere relaxed and laid-back. A beach perhaps, somewhere quaint and peaceful, where the air is warm well into the late evening and the waves are gentle, collapsing onto the sand like white noise. She imagined the hum of conversation meeting tinkling music, beach lanterns dotted around the decking to cast an ambient glow beneath the stars. Maybe a chef on weekends could make bar snacks. Tom had snorted at that, throwing a jab about how she can burn the water they use to make their dried food sachets.

The men had recalled this conversation, desperately trying to fathom where Dove might have taken off to. It was met with an aching nostalgia for the type of teammate she was too. That conversation had been a tactic, a peaceful one, to prevent the terrible concoction of adrenaline, exhaustion and heat forming an argument in that truck. She was a natural tactician as well as a good friend.

Frankie had recounted each country they had been stationed and exactly how Dove had felt about them. She had loved Argentina, even when she got shot and Will spent three hours with his finger crammed in the wound to stop the bleeding. But she also liked Jamaica, Brazil and Hawaii. None of their contacts in the forces had any trace of her, not even Santi’s in South America. Her family were none the wiser – they brushed it off, her dad mumbling something about it sounding like her usual antics. 

All he had was a scribbled note that read, ‘I need space. I’m safe. I love you.’ It was folded neatly in his wallet, like he was carrying the last piece of her that he had. 

*

Mexico. That was where she was. A small town on the West coast that had enough life to keep her occupied, and the guarantee of anonymity.

If people asked, she was a retired nurse, which wasn’t entirely untrue. She told them she spent a lot of her career in humanitarian aid, to explain the occasional jitters on a rowdy Friday night and the nasty scars. There was a particularly gruesome one leading from the base of her throat up to her bottom lip from a knife fight. She told them it was shrapnel, flung from a collapsing building, and she was lucky it didn’t catch her jugular. The locals had gasped in awe at her heroism. She’d flinched against the memory of how her own knife buried into her attacker’s throat instead. 

A few days into her move, Dove had found what could only be considered a derelict shed on the beachfront. It was probably the remains of an old boathouse. With some help from the locals, she had restored the ageing planks of wood. What was spare formed the bar and some rustic furniture. She pieced together a jumble of second-hand bar stools, chairs and lanterns that made for an eclectic combination. It had character and history in its walls, rather than some swanky, expensive build devoid of any personality. It was exactly what she had dreamed of, huddled in hypothermic temperatures or insomniac in her cot at base, sleep beyond her reach.

It didn’t change the fact that every time she entered her bedroom, the old polaroid of Frankie pinned to the wall hits her like a ton of bricks. Frankie knows she took it – it was pinned to the fridge at their home before she left. It’s quintessential Frankie, sat with his arms folded to his chest, biceps straining slightly against an old denim shirt that was getting a little too snug post-retirement. It was at a barbecue, his skin tanned and flushed from a day in the sun drinking, tousled hair peeking out from the sides of a dog-eared cap. Every time Dove glances at it, she wonders if he still has that hat. 

‘Of course he has,’ the voice in her head snaps back. Any piece of clothing she’d suggest replacing would be countered with, ‘over my dead body’. The man was sentimental, a little too attached to his home comforts. She’d also bought it him in a seedy gift shop in the middle of nowhere as a joke. 

“To add some variety,” she’d said. He would never let it go now.

Once, Veronica had eyed the photograph on her mirror and asked, “Who is he then? An ex?”

Veronica, or Roni for short, had lived in the town her whole life until university. When she graduated and moved home to save money, she needed a job. Dove needed a friend, so she took her on as a bartender. She was young and giddy, but harmless. More importantly, she was too self-absorbed to notice or even care that her thirty-something year old boss had bullet holes in her back.

“Something like that.” Dove had replied, rifling through her sorry excuse for a makeup bag. She’d closed the bar early to have a rare night off in the next town over, which had considerably livelier nightlife. 

“You never talk about relationships. Or men.’ Roni observed, peering over Dove’s shoulder to eye another photograph. It was a group picture of the boys, huddled in the same fraying booth in their favourite bar back in Florida. “Looks like you were spoilt for choice.”

Dove scoffed, meeting her friend’s twinkling gaze in the mirror. “Shut your mouth. They were friends from work.”

“Were? Does that mean you can’t set me up now?” 

“They’re almost twice your age. You’d tire ‘em out.” Dove set down the lip-gloss she dragged out for special occasions. “Come on, I’m not getting any younger either. It’s already passed my bedtime.”

Thankfully, that was enough to amuse the younger girl into linking her arm and hauling her out the door to the taxi, no more questions asked.

*

The hollering of spectators and thudding of skin slapping against the mat was reduced to a distant buzzing in Frankie’s ears. It was dimmed by the incessant ramblings of Santiago and Tom, discussing the files Santi had put together on Lorea. He could feel the reawakening of his rusty military senses as he follows the familiar tactics, mentally registering his agreement or noting what he might do differently. He doesn’t vocalise it though, because he hasn’t even agreed yet. Joining the debate would inadvertently signal his agreement. He didn’t want that.

There was a shadow lingering in the space on the bench beside him. It was an empty presence, not Will, who was hooked on the cage of the ring yelling encouragement to his brother. Not Benny, thumping his leather gloves together with his teeth pulled harshly over his mouthguard, judging his competitor with a predatory glint in his eye. 

The opponent was a monster, but he lumbered like his limbs were filled with lead. Frankie notes that Benny, nimble and tall, will have a breeze tiring him out. Dove would have joked that it wasn’t worth coming, that they’ll be sat here until their asses are numb watching Benny play cat and mouse. His chest twinges. Sometimes it’s too easy to remember what she’d do, what she’d say. He wished he knew what she’d make of Santiago’s proposition. She always saw through Pope’s glamourisation and Tom’s greed. 

What Frankie misses while he observes his pitiful surroundings is Tom and Santi descending into a hushed conversation. Tom nudges Santi, “You got anything on Dove?”

Santi sighs, long and solemn, “Maybe.” As Tom’s face quirks in interest, he holds up his finger, “It’s just a hunch.”

“A hunch is better than what we’ve had in the last year.”

Santi takes a sip of his beer, casting a glance at Fish, whose eyes are trained on the floor and the swirling contents of his cup. He knows him well enough to know his thoughts are the only thing that have his attention.

“I worry about him. We all do.” Tom whispers. “Getting busted just made things worse.”

“Don’t get his hopes up, man. It’s nothing solid. It’ll crush him if I’m wrong.” Tom nods solemnly before Santi continues, “A friend of mine saw an ex-Delta in a bar, a woman. He knew ‘cause of a tattoo she had on the nape of her neck.”

Tom’s eyes widen. In front of them, Benny lands a sickening punch on his opponent’s nose, complimented by an audible crack. He’s barely breaking a sweat, dancing around as the guy heaves and stumbles forward. 

Santi’s gaze doesn’t break from the ring. “Mexico. I think she’s in Mexico.”

[d-criss-news]

20 Questions With Darren Criss: How Acting Has Helped Him Make New Music

While Darren Criss has graced our TV screens with a range of characters, from high schooler Blaine Anderson on Glee to serial killer Andrew Cunanan on The Assassination of Gianni Versace, he was last spotted just being himself, on our For You Page on TikTok. “I’m walking to rehearsal with a guitar on my back with a Trader Joe’s bag ... I did not bring an umbrella because I forgot that it was raining. I’m rocking that NYC musician life,” the Glee alum explained in the hilarious clip posted three days ago.

While Criss’ acting work has earned him acclaim and stardom, he leaned into making music during the pandemic. On Aug. 20, he dropped a new EP, Masquerade, featuring five new tracks that Criss says were inspired by the different characters Criss has embraced throughout his career. After Criss wrote songs for his musical comedy web series Royalties and Apple TV+’s animated sitcom Central Park before the pandemic struck the United States, he then used those experiences as a precursor to his new EP. As Criss continues to promote his new music, he answered 20 of Billboard's questions – giving us a peek into how his new EP came together, and how growing up in San Fransisco shaped him as an actor, singer and all-around artist.

1. What inspired your latest project, Masquerade?

Although I would have preferred that it come at a far less grim cost, I finally had the time. Before the pandemic, I had written 10 new songs for my show Royalties -- along with an original song for Disney and another for Apple’s Central Park. These were all assignments in which��I was writing for a certain scenario and character. Go figure. It was the most music I had ever written in a calendar year. This really emboldened me to rethink how I made my own music— to start putting a focus on “character creation” in my songs, rather than personal reflection. The latter was not proving to be as productive. The alchemy of having this time and having set a new intention with my own songwriting and producing made me put on a few of my favorite masques and throw myself a Masquerade.

2. How do you think your background as an actor complements your music?

They are one and the same to me. I treat acting roles like musical pieces— dialogue is like scoring a melody; there’s pace, dynamics, cadence, tone. Physical characterization is like producing -- zeroing in on the bass line, deciding on the kick pattern. Vocal characterization is like choosing the right sonic experience, choosing the most effective snare sound, and mixing the high end or low end. It goes without saying that it works in the complete opposite direction. Making each song is taking on a different role literally and employing the use of different masques to maximize the effectiveness of the particular story being told.

3. On Instagram  you wrote that “Masquerade is a small collection of the variety of musical masques that have always inspired me.” Which track do you identify with most in your real life?

Everybody absorbs songs differently. Some key into the lyrics, some into the melody, some the production, some into vocal performance. When I listen to songs, I consider all of their value on totally different scales. So it’s hard to say if there’s any track I “identify” with more than any others, since I -- by nature -- identify with all of them. I think I just identify with certain aspects more than others. If it helps for a more interesting answer, I will say I enjoy the slightly more classical, playful -- dare I say -- more Broadway-leaning wordplay of “Walk of Shame,” but that’s just talking about lyricism. I enjoy the attitude of “F*kn Around,” the batsh--t musicality of “I Can’t Dance,” the relentless grooves of “Let’s” and “For A Night Like This.” All have different ingredients I really enjoy having an excuse to dive into.

4. What’s the first piece of music that you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?

Beatles audio cassettes: “Help” and “Hard Day’s Night.” I just listened on repeat on a tape-playing Walkman until my brother and I got a stereo for our room with a CD player in it, which was  when I just bought the same two albums again, but this time as compact discs.

5. What was the first concert you saw?It’s hard to say, because my parents took us to a lot of classical concerts when we were small. But I guess this question usually refers to what was the first concert you went to on your own volition, and that my friend, was definitely Warped Tour ’01. My brother and I went on our own— two teenagers going to their first music festival, in the golden age of that particular genre and culture. It was f--king incredible.

6. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid?

My dad was in private banking and advised really, really wealthy people on how to handle their money. My mom was, by choice, a stay-at-home mom, but in reality, she was my dad’s consigliere. They discussed absolutely everything together. They were a real team, and I saw that every single day in the house. They both had a background in finance (That’s how they met in the first place.) and were incredibly skilled at all the hardcore adulting things that I absolutely suck at. They were total finance wizards together. So of course, instead of becoming an accountant, I picked up playing the guitar and ran as far I could with it. Luckily, they were all about it.

7. What was your favorite homecooked meal growing up?

My dad was an incredible chef. For special occasions, I’d request his crab cakes. They were unreal. I’ve never had a crab cake anywhere in the world that was good as my dad’s.

8. Who made you realize you could be an artist full-time?

I don’t know if I’ve actually realized that yet.

9. What’s at the top of your professional bucket list?

The specifics change every day, but the core idea at the top is to continue being consistently inconsistent with my choices, and to keep getting audiences to constantly reconsider their consideration of me. But I mean, sure, what performer doesn’t want to play Coachella? What songwriter doesn’t want to have Adele sing one of their songs? What actor doesn’t want to be in a Wes Anderson film?

10.  How did your hometown/city shape who you are?

San Francisco. I mean, come on. I was really lucky. The older I get, the more grateful I am for just being born and raised there. It’s an incredibly diverse, culturally rich, colorful, inclusive, vibrant city. By the time I was born, it had served as a beacon for millions of creative, out-of-the-box thinkers to gather and thrive. I grew up around that. The combination of that with having parents, who were unbelievably supportive of the arts themselves, laid an incredibly fortunate foundation to consider the life of an artist as a legitimately viable option. It’s a foundation that I am supremely aware is not the case for millions of young artists around the world. I was absurdly lucky.

11.  What’s the last song you listened to?

I mean probably one of mine, but not by choice. I know, lame. But I’m promoting a new EP, what’d you expect? But if you wanna know what I’ve been listening to, as far as new s--t is concerned: a lot of Lizzy McAlpine, Remi Wolf, and Charlie Burg.

12.  If you could see any artist in concert, dead or alive, who would it be?

The Beatles is an obvious "yeah, duh." Sammy Davis, Mel Torm��, or of course, Nat King Cole. I would’ve loved to see Howard Ashman give a lecture on his creative process and his body of work.

13. What’s the wildest thing you’ve seen happen in the crowd of one of your sets?

I feel like just having a crowd at all, at any one of my sets, is pretty wild enough.

14. What’s your karaoke go-to?

The real answer to this I’ll write into a book one day, because I have a lot to say about karaoke etiquette. I have two options here: I can either name a song that I like to sing for me, for fun, or I can name a song that really gets the group going. The answer depends on what kind of karaoke night we’re dealing with here. So I will say, after I’ve selected a ton of songs that services a decent enough party vibe for everyone else, then I would do one for me, and that would be the Beatles’ “Oh! Darling.”

15. What’s one thing your most devoted fans don’t know about you?

What I have up my sleeve.

16. What TV show did you binge-watch over the past year?

Dave is a stroke of genius. There are episodes that I believe are bona fide masterpieces. Also, My Brilliant Friend is a masterclass in cinematic television.

17. What movie, or song, always makes you cry?

It’s A Wonderful Life.

18. What’s one piece of advice you would give to your younger self?

Get used to sharing everything about yourself and your life now, or more astutely, to the idea that you don’t necessarily get to control how your life is shared. I know it’s not really your thing, but you’re gonna have to get used to it, so start building up those calluses now. And don’t worry, all the stuff you love now will be cool again in your mid-thirties, so keep some of those clothes because you’ll be a full-blown fashion icon if you just keep wearing exactly what you’re wearing. Oh nd also, put money into Apple and Facebook.

19.  What new hobby did you take on in the last year?

I’ve always been a linguaphile. My idea of leisure time is getting to study or review other languages. This past year, I took the time to finally dive into learning how to read, write, and speak Japanese. Other than making music, it was one of the biggest components of my 2020-2021.

20. What do you hope to accomplish or experience by the end of 2021?

I hope I get to play live shows again.

[ladyartemesia]

Yooo your love story straight out seems like an e2l slow burn tumblr fic. Do you have any plans using at as a plot?? I would def read it 👀

I don’t know if I would truly call it enemies-to-lovers because—although I got irritated with him and his behavior and did snap at him from time to time—we were not really enemies. In fact we were barely friends for most of the years we knew each other—

Well.

Ok. So that’s not totally true...

We fought online constantly. From the time we graduated college (where his crush first developed and I routinely forgot his name) the two of us were always fighting on social media—usually about politics—and occasionally about other things but both of us were too smart to ever truly get the better of each other so there was a grudging respect, (his mom said he used to yell at his computer screen about me). We had it OUT several times online even though we rarely—if ever—spoke in person.

My poor sweet boy DID get himself in trouble over me in more ways than one though—even if we’re weren’t close yet...

His college girlfriend set him up to fail asked him who he would date if the two of them weren’t together and he answered immediately—vehemently—

“Viola. I would definitely date Viola if I could.”

🤦🏻‍♀️ (oh...honey...no)

(That would become a huge THING in their relationship. Every time they got into a fight his ex would shout “why don’t you just go date VIOLA then?!”—When he married me he said he felt like a real winner in that particular collection of conflicts. Playing the long game I guess 🤣😂)

Back then I was all about the music/dramatic arts scene and I was dating a string of empty headed pretty boys who bored me nigh unto death because I was young and completely stupid.

In contrast my someday-boo was painfully quiet and shy (though not really with me because he was too busy trying to prove me wrong), but everyone who met him or spoke to him really liked him and respected him.

After college we were were still in the same extended social circle (and—as previously mentioned—fighting online), but I went to grad school and my not-yet-husband decided to chill for awhile and take a job as a landscaper while he figured his life out and... here’s where it gets complicated because...

—that’s where the girls came in. You see... he’s always been a really nice guy... maybe a little too nice 🤦🏻‍♀️

The term fuqboi tends to conjure up impressions of a cocky frat bro who slyly shags his way through a mountain of willing women with disconnected efficiency and a subtext of emotional constipation.

But that would not be the case here.

You see my husband is a listener. He’s an INFP. He, unlike many of his brethren, understands emotions and can really make a woman feel seen. Combine that with his good looks, brilliant mind, and broody nerditude and you have a recipe for women who were ‘just friends’ randomly dropping to their knees (and a lot more) for him.

Never one to stand in the way of a lady’s dreams, pre-me-hubby figured that if they were that determined to (*insert miscellaneous sexy stuff here*) with him then—well—he’d let them.

I mean why not, right? No harm done.

Wrong. 🤬

And here is where our paths truly began to merge (in the real world) for the first time.

As the FOURTH girl (just in my friend group) he graciously allowed (🤦🏻‍♀️) to have her wicked way with him sobbed in my arms, I became determined to put this ridiculous man-child IN his PLACE—this time in the tactile world as well as the virtual one.

...Poor Liz

She realized that he had absolutely no desire whatsoever to be in a relationship with anything other than his WoW account and she was insistent that he had broken her heart.

So I cornered him and we had it out. (Call me meddlesome, but to be fair he was four friends deep at this point.)

The problem was that... the more I talked to him...the more he was not really what I expected... I found myself...oddly...intrigued?

Later it would come out that I was the first girl—ever—that he actually pursued. And I was not even aware of it for like the first three months.

He was pretty slick after all when it came down to it.

That man convinced me to ‘help him’ with women—to make sure he didn’t get himself into another situation where some girl with heart eyes was tearing off his clothes and expecting commitment.

HE ASKED ME TO BE HIS ‘EXCUSE.’

🤦🏻‍♀️(...I know. I’m an idiot.)

“We can hang out. You’ll teach me how to spot if a girl is about to catch feelings and take off my pants. And I will have an excuse when they call as to why we can’t hang out” (—and ...they really were always calling. It was wild.)

....I mean he WAS shy! It SEEMED plausible!

So yeah my dim self agreed to it. (🤦🏻‍♀️)

I considered it a valiant attempt to save the rest of my social circle from the most clueless ‘accidental’ fuqboi on planet earth and maybe even an opportunity to teach him how to be a real human being and what not.

And before you think ‘fake dating’—we weren’t. We were just hanging out as friends. You see when I went to yell at him (and chased him down after he laughed at me and tried to escape) we ended up talking in his car for like four hours. And then that happened like three more times randomly so... I... actually... wanted... to be his friend... 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was still 110% not interested romantically.

Your girl (me) was after some bland banker dude (🤦🏻‍♀️) and so I blissfully fell into friendship with my actual soulmate without a single second thought. And I never worried about either of us catching feelings because I had a crush on someone else and he had heavily implied that I was not his type. (He told me later that I just assumed this and he simply never corrected me 🙄)

I don’t remember falling for him. I never decided to. I never thought about it...

But one day after the whole crew was hanging out at a restaurant (and the waiter kept giving me free drinks which may have pissed my once-and-future man off) the two of us went out to his car to have our customary three hour post-chill chat...

I was teasing him about something—some girl he was still attempting to untangle himself from—and I said—as had become my habit (seriously I said this so many times as a joke)—“It’s too bad I’m not your type—you could just tell her you have a girlfriend.”

(Now. I know what you’re thinking. But I was still firmly on team platonic ok! I was just a flirt. And maybe part of me was starting to feel weird things about him—but those feelings weren’t like anything I recognized so I thought I just needed to cut back on sugar or something.)

(Have I mentioned I’m an idiot?)

ANYWAYS he looked me right in the eye. So serious. And instead of saying “that’s too bad”—LIKE he ALWAYS did—he said—

“You...are my type, Viola... You’re exactly my type.”

To which I responded—“....What? No I’m not. You said I wasn’t.”

“Never said that. You assumed.”

“You LET me!”

—followed by a good ten minutes of me having an existential crisis/yelling at him for allowing me to believe he didn’t find me attractive and lulling me into a false sense of security. He was infuriatingly unapologetic.

At the end of it all he asked me to give him—give us—a chance.

And I agreed to go out on a few dates with him (mostly to prove to myself that there was nothing there).

(🤦🏻‍♀️)

The only thing I ended up proving was that I was wrong about what I wanted and even more wrong about what I needed.

You see...

Those weird feelings turned out to be love.

(🤦🏻‍♀️)

And it was a really special experience to sit in a room full of girls who had cried in my arms over him—girls I had lectured repeatedly on the dangers of his heartless ways— and admit that I was his girlfriend.

🤦🏻‍♀️

Love was—and continues to be—nothing like I expected and frankly I couldn’t be happier.

... to answer your questions

1. I have considered writing a fic based on our story called Broken Road. The title is taken from an old Rascal Flatts song that—as insanely cheesy as it is—really reminds me of us. Don’t know if I will actually write this. Thought about it a lot though.

2. Tags I would use for this story?

#enemies-to-lovers / #idiots-to-lovers / #college au / #outgoing!fem reader(me) x shy nerd!accidental fuqboi / #reader is also a huge nerd actually / #she’s just a loud one / #frenemies-to-lovers / #the love is requited / #they’re just idiots / #pining (his) / denial (mine) / #reader has terrible taste in men / #except for that last one / #she really redeemed herself there at the end

[hiccanna-tidbits]

The RotBTD+ Gang Plays DnD! (Feat. my ships, sorry not sorry XD)

So highkey I’ve actually been wanting to do a “The Gang Plays DnD” type post for AGES now, but then I saw @hobie-brown and @ohlooksheswriting-wips do DnD AU posts for RotBTD, and then I was like “Ah shit, I really should finish mine, eh?” So thank you to both of you for inspiring me to get off my ass and actually write the post!!!

Hiccup DMs. He comes up with this super complex plot revolving around dragons (because of course) where the party has to dismantle this society ruled by evil knights who want to genocide all of the dragons. Imagine his chagrin when the party wants to do nothing but fuck around in towns and aggravate NPCs 90% of the time.

They usually end up playing at Jack’s apartment, mainly because Hiccup’s dad doesn’t really want a bunch of loud nerds yelling about 20-sided dice in his household while he’s trying to work, if he can at all help it. Jack’s sister regularly barges into their living room and roasts the fuck out of Jack and his friends for being such damn nerds and eats all of their DnD snacks they’ve set out. If they’re in the middle of a combat session, she always gleefully proclaims that they’re all going to die. While Jack is annoyed by this, the rest of the party finds it deeply hilarious.

Jack Overland plays the absolute mayhem warlock Jack Frost, who got his powers through making a deal with the archfey Prince of Frost and has absolutely no qualms about being an evil god’s mortal Sower of Chaos. He spends the vast majority of the campaign doing such useful things as creating ice slicks under annoying NPCs and freezing people’s drinks. He also plays a Tiefling because absolutely no one can talk this boy out of playing the creepy demon race.

Rapunzel plays a woodland nymph druid who is also the party healer (because of course she is). Her name is probably Sunlily or something else suitably hippie-esque. Whenever there’s downtime (or whenever the rest of the party is also dicking around, and she can get away with it), Rapunzel likes to go into the nearest forest and pick the best berries and nuts for the rest of the party. She also loves baking fruit pies and cooking the best nymph food for her companions when given the chance. Definitely the party Cinnamon Roll (every party has one!). She often will turn into cute animals to distract the guards while the party infiltrates a building.

Merida’s character is the party archer and general ranged weapon master, as well as a raging lesbian. Hiccup learns very quickly that any male NPC who tries to flirt with her will very quickly get impaled with an arrow. She can’t ever decide if she wants to be a ranger or a rogue, so she multiclasses in both for flare. She also plays a Tiefling, and continually insists that her character is both scarier and sexier than Jack’s. In combat, she either Leeroy Jenkins her way in with a sword and just starts slashing every which way, or just shoots 90% of the enemies with arrows before the fight even starts. There’s really no in between. She can get away with this because she’s highkey one of the party tanks, and consistently deals a shitton of damage.

Anna plays a human bard, basically having read over the class options and going “Wait, in this one I get to make stylish medieval music??? And wear dramatic and garish outfits and a dumb hat??? And cast wacky illusion spells??? And do silly little magic tricks??? And INSPIRE EVERYONE??? Hell yeah, I’m in!!!” She mostly uses magic attacks in combat (definitely favors Tasha’s Hideous Laughter), but occasionally when she’s out of spell slots she’ll just take to slamming enemies in the face with her lute. She also has WAY too much fun with Vicious Mockery, let’s be real.

Elsa, upon hearing Jack’s character concept, rolls her eyes so far up in her head she can see her damn brain, and vows to play his concept, but serious–solely out of spite. She rolls up a super OP elf Chaos Sorcerer, filled with lots of brooding angst about how uncontrollable her winter powers can get if she isn’t careful. She combines it a bit with Storm Sorcerer so she can create literal blizzards, and Hiccup ends up allowing it just because he thinks it’s cool. Although Elsa’s character is undoubtedly aggravated by the rest of the party’s antics, she starts becoming grudgingly protective of these idiots and can deal some pretty crazy damage when her companions are threatened. She also contains one of the party’s only brain cells.

Eugene of course plays dashing rogue master thief Flynn Rider. Although his high deception and lockpicking skills certainly come in handy, he’s the most chaotic neutral fucker you’ve ever met and will take any excuse to rob NPCs blind or cheat them out of every cent they have in a tavern card game. It’s nigh impossible to get him to cooperate with the rest of the party much of the time, and often Elsa’s character has to either bribe him with some of her family’s gold or threaten to freeze him to stop him backstabbing one or more party members. Eugene’s character forces Hiccup to add in many more heist plotlines than he originally intended. This delights Eugene immensely, and sometimes he goes a bit crazy planning elaborate heists.

Moana plays a sorcerer water genasi. She can control any body of water, but she has a special affinity for controlling saltwater (i.e. the ocean lol). She also requests an animal handling bonus, but only with marine animals, solely because she thought it would be funny. She’s also an ex-pirate who robbed a lot of wealthy merchant ships and freed their slaves back in the day, which Merida thinks is incredibly badass. Moana tends to get bored and unengaged when there are no bodies of water to play around with, so Hiccup ends up having to add a lot more lakes, rivers, and oceans to the campaign than he originally planned on. Moana also takes a sailing skill, and thus the party often ends up traveling by boat. Typically Eugene and Rapunzel will infiltrate and hijack it, and Moana will sail it. Moana probably contains the party’s only other brain cell.

Astrid plays a gigantic berserker orc barbarian who is never without his trusty axe. Astrid is hands down the party’s top tank, and unquestionably deals the most damage every combat session. Much like Merida’s character, Astrid’s character is absolutely a shameless power fantasy. Hiccup pretty easily picks up on this, but is too polite to say anything about it. Jack also picks up on this, but is hardly as courteous as their DM, and teases Astrid mercilessly. Astrid is not amused.

Rapunzel requests that her weapon of choice be a frying pan, her justification being that her character found a discarded one at the edge of a human village outside her woods and mistaked it for a highly-dangerous human weapon. Hiccup is like “…you know what? Fuck it” and rolls up stats for a goddamn frying pan. Jack has nigh-endless admiration for Rapunzel for choosing such a goddamn memey, absurd, yet oddly effective weapon and it definitely makes the poor boy even more smitten with her than he already is.

Eugene and Merida have a bet going on who can sleep with more sexy barmaids. Merida is currently winning, much to Eugene’s chagrin. She’s not even inherently better at seducing NPCs, she and Eugene have the same charisma stat–she just consistently rolls better than Eugene. Eugene is incredibly salty about this.

Anna and Elsa want to be sisters in-game as well, but neither want to change their race–so Anna decides her character was adopted. Hiccup and the rest of the party go along with it, mainly because there’s something deeply hilarious about a regular human bard being adopted and raised by a family of high-powered elf ice mages.

Astrid is absolutely the sort of player who tends to get bored and restless outside of fights, and tends to fidget and twiddle her thumbs waiting for the next combat session. Jack picks up on this, and purposely does more roleplay for longer just to piss her off. He’s also just a very dramatic fucker and highkey loves roleplay.

When she’s not causing mayhem around the town or sleeping with hot women, Merida tries to entertain Astrid between combat sessions by offering to spar with her. Unfortunately, this does not usually end well for poor Merida, as even the most hardcore and badass of tieflings is prone to getting dumpstered by an 8-foot-tall barbarian orc with an axe. Astrid is, nonetheless, grateful to have someone to fight.

Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana will humor Hiccup and attempt to actually play the main plot. Meanwhile, Jack, Merida, and Eugene are a DM’s worst nightmare. They constantly derail the damn campaign to fuck around, cause mayhem, and do inane shenanigans in every. Damn. Town. They go to. Anna is kind of a wildcard–she’ll typically go with whatever group looks like they’re going to be doing something more interesting. Astrid will go along with whichever group is more likely to get into a fight–which, often as not, is Jack and his posse of terrible Chaotic Neutrals (who have definitely pissed off a number of NPCs into attacking them).

As the campaign goes on, Elsa and Eugene become the beleaguered Party Mom and Dad. Both are quite aggravated by this–especially poor Eugene, who just wanted to play a morally-gray charming rogue who stole everything and got away with it and then accidentally ended up caring about these idiots he got stuck with.

Anna initially joins the campaign because she has a planet-size crush on Hiccup, and inevitably is the one who dragged Elsa into it too. Being the hopeless romantic that she is, Anna writes a love interest into her backstory. Hiccup eventually has the party run into said love interest, and Anna is overjoyed. He starts flirting with her as the love interest, and it’s easily the best 30 minutes of Anna’s life.

Moana and Elsa also give Hiccup pretty detailed backstories, and he works in little subplots for them. Moana gets to bring water back to a dying part of the jungle in the middle of a draught, while Elsa gets to go on a whole sidequest to explore her family history and how they came to be sorcerers.

Jack, Merida, and Eugene also give Hiccup fairly elaborate backstories, but Jack’s and Merida’s are like 99% memes and Dumb Shit. Hiccup tries to give all of them backstory-related plot hooks, but inevitably any hooks he provides are either stabbed, robbed, or frozen. Honestly any plot hook offered to these 3 will be all but spat in the face of and tossed off a cliff.

The one relevant part of Eugene’s backstory is that he and Rapunzel decide they used to be partners in crime before the campaign started. Rapunzel would infiltrate and scout out places he wanted to rob as small, unobtrusive animals (her preferred Wild Shape is a chameleon) and later distract the guards as a bunny or kitten while he went in and took every gold coin in sight. In return, Flynn Rider would bribe builders to not develop into Sunlily’s forest. Rapunzel and Eugene partly came up with this For Funsies, but also it was Rapunzel’s sneaky way of tricking Eugene into having prior connections in the party so he’d be less likely to betray them. It works pretty well–although the entire party is protective of Cinnamon Roll Sunlily, Flynn is certainly especially protective of her.

Astrid does the absolute bare minimum as far as backstories go. She is literally just here to smash stuff, slice people, and beat some fuckers up.

Rapunzel has a backstory, but she’s typically so invested in the main plot and the other party members that Hiccup rarely needs to bring it in to keep her engaged. She’s highkey the party emotional rock, and probably the only one keeping them all together.

On that note, Rapunzel’s character is the ONLY one who can get Jack’s character to take the plot even REMOTELY seriously. Like he’ll be dicking around in the nearest tavern challenging the nearest orc to a drinking game, and Rapunzel will come in and ask him to help them on a Main Plot Quest. And he’ll be like “come onnnnn I’m having funnn” and she’ll be like “Jack pleeeeeease?” and you just. Can’t resist Sunlily’s puppy dog eyes. At all. Also, whenever Sunlily is genuinely threatened, any silliness immediately goes out the window and Jack Frost is OUT FOR BLOOD.

For better or for worse, Rapunzel is not immune to being looped into Jack’s shenanigans. Occasionally if either Merida or Eugene have a particularly hare-brained scheme she’ll go along with it, but by and large Jack is the most successful in convincing her to temporarily abandon the plot and cause mild mischief with him. They once wasted half a session creating an elaborate “ice theme park” for some squirrels in the forest.

Hiccup tries to get Merida to play the main plot by eventually having there be no more sexy female NPCs to seduce in the towns they go to. Unfortunately, this backfires–Merida just hooks up with Moana’s character instead. When asked to roll for how good the lay is, Merida gets a nat 20–and thus her character and Moana’s character end up hooking up regularly throughout the rest of the campaign.

Hiccup introduces a few Wise Old Mentor-type NPCs to guide the party throughout the campaign. While Rapunzel, Elsa, Moana, and Anna actually try to listen to them and take their advice, Merida, Jack, and Eugene absolutely refuse to take them seriously and mercilessly play pranks on them.

At one point, Hiccup gives the party the option to attempt to tame a group of wild dragons and use them as mounts. They all have to make animal handling checks. Anna, Rapunzel, Elsa, and Moana pass. The rest of the party fails, with Jack and Eugene crit-failing. Hilarity ensues.

Hiccup ends up bringing back Anna’s backstory love interest as an NPC regular. Anna thinks he’s just being a good friend and a good DM and trying to incorporate her backstory as much as he can, but really, he just wants an excuse to regularly flirt with her. He hardly has the balls to out-of-game.

Merida comes out as gay toward the end of the campaign. Everyone in the group is extremely supportive, of course, but everyone is also like “Merida…with the amount of barmaids you’ve banged…and the amount of times you and Moana’s character hooked up…this isn’t exactly surprising.”

Hiccup actually finds a way to use Jack and Elsa’s same-concept-opposite-execution characters to the plot’s advantage. He decides one of the main villains will have a prophecy saying he’ll be taken down by a powerful ice mage. The party manages to fool this guy into thinking this ice mage is Jack, and sends Jack to fight him. As soon as the villain sees Jack, he’s like “WHAT??? THIS clown???” (word has absolutely spread throughout the land of Jack not using his ice powers for anything besides mildly annoying trolling). Naturally, the bad guy lets his guard down after thinking he’s going to fight this literal joke, and then Elsa crashes in from the side and absolutely dumpsters him.

Jack tries to defeat the final boss by just annoying him so much that he leaves. Unfortunately, he just annoys him so much that he attacks Rapunzel’s character. Jack’s just like “oh HELL no” and attacks with absolutely nothing held back. Turns out he’s pretty terrifying when he’s not using his magic for Dumb Antics.

During the final boss of the campaign, the Big Bad tries to one-shot Moana’s character, and Merida’s character super theatrically jumps in front of her to take the blow instead. Rapunzel just barely manages to heal Merida’s character, but it’s a really close call. During all this, Merida is like “ah shit...maybe I’m NOT just in this to get fantasy-laid.” After the fight’s over, her and Moana’s characters have a big dramatic love confession and share a Big Damn Kiss in front of everyone. It’s pretty epic.

After the final session of the campaign, Merida drags Moana outside Jack’s apartment and sputters and trips over her words for a solid minute before she finally gets out that through all this nonsense...well...maybe it’s not just in the game that she thinks Moana is hot. Moana just gets this HUGE grin on her face and says “c’mere, Leeroy Jenkins” and just pulls Merida in and kisses her. Cue the rest of the party barging in on them. Merida and Moana freeze, and there’s a moment of terrified silence...and then the entire party starts cheering them on like “took you long enough!”

The entire rest of the party could detect the sexual tension. Literally all of them.

But Eugene is like “HA, THIS MEANS IF WE DO A SEQUEL CAMPAIGN I’M WINNING THAT BET! BECAUSE YOU’RE GONNA BE DATING MO’S CHAR AND THUS NOT ABLE TO SLEEP WITH ANY MORE BARMAIDS!”

By the epilogue session, Jack and Rapunzel are dating. Merida and Moana are also dating. Hiccup and Anna STILL haven’t figured out why they’re so prone to spending half the session flirting when Anna’s love interest shows up, and Hiccup STILL hasn’t figured out why he likes to have Anna’s love interest show up so often. Bless their souls. Maybe they’ll figure it out next campaign...?

Damn I actually really like this...maybe if people like it I’ll do some incorrect quotes or a drabble or something??? Or maybe some HCs from next campaign???

[ihaveafandom-problem554]

i love your works oh my god, the wait was so worth it. thank you for doing my requests!! they all turn out great :D despite my username, I’m glad I made an account just so that I could request more of your spider bro content.

okay so uh I’m sorry if I’m requesting this a bit early since you only posted your latest spider bro today but after reading it, a sudden wave of problems and curiosity hit me so I thought:

‘yo aren’t the village gonna question why spider bro and rui only come around during sunset to night time sooner or later? are they gonna make up some excuse about them having some condition where if they stay in the sun for just a little bit they get really bad sunburn?? like “yeah so our parents died because they went out in the sun for too long so newbie demon slayers noticed this and thought they were demons in disguise and killed them, haha runs in the family amiright” idk ?? (sorry that’s a weird death) I like to imagine they pretend to be albino so that they can have an excuse in case someone ever asks them or say that they have jobs in the day time to support each other so they just visit around night time.

but honestly, I think the village would be a little sus of them but then they’ll be like “ehh they can’t be demons, they would’ve ate us already! plus they’re just so kind!!” so yeah.. (unless the village doesn’t really know about demons, then you can just ignore this)

okay so imma just start putting my ideas and prompt in here yeahh ..

so what I imagine is that the village knows about demons, but most just chalk it up as some sort of folklore to keep kids from wondering at night by themselves. however some (mostly the elders) claim to actually experience demon attacks so despite practically everyone living these two, they have their eyes on them just a bit..

the elders there would usually gather some kids and tell stories about demons roaming the night hunting for humans, and there would be people who would be as strong or stronger than the demons and slay them by cutting their heads off with a special blade- they say that there’s a whole organization dedicated for these specific people! and that those people who would sometimes come to the village with an odd uniform on are part of them.

one day while spider bro and rui visit the village, ashai drags them to where his grandfather would tell stories about demons and how the grandfather’s father were part of that organization and was called a “hashira” who mastered the sun breathing.

after that ashai would be like “that’s just gramps being all weird again with his whole demon slayer stuff, but it’s pretty interesting! it’s only a folklore though so you have nothing to be scared of. honestly, there’ll be times where I think you’re both demons or something because you guys act like you don’t know how to function as a human being sometimes, haha” and the spider bros would just be like “aha.. yeah..”

some of the elders start noticing that they only came around night, and unfortunately, not everyone is friendly. they kind of start interrogating them to the point where the other villagers would politely step in and tell them that they’re just kids with a condition that runs in their family (and rui becoming fed up then almost slashing them into ribbons). of course, a small portion of them don’t stop and are.. quite positive of it and would be a bit passive aggressive towards the two.

alright so I’ve come up with some ways it could go but I have no idea, you can decide which is better or somehow merge them together or mismatch and combine things,,, :D

1: obviously, the spider siblings can’t survive on human food. they’ll need human blood, the human food is just for when they get bored of eating humans for a bit. but.. how are they gonna get some? they can’t eat the village, and as much as they found the elders annoying they couldn’t since 1, they were pretty much right about them, and 2, if they were to eat the elders/anyone who found them suspicious even more people would start growing sus of them.

maybe.. the demon slayers that came to the village every now and then?

(name) would usually just use his spiders and take at least a cup (or two if rui’s feeling hungry) of their blood and bandage them up to go.

it lasted for a few weeks, so he thought he could control it.

him and rui did their best to try and suppress the urge, they really did.

they vowed themselves to not eat innocent people after meeting the friendly village.

but whenever a demon slayer would come to the village and whenever they took one or two cups of their blood, the more they craved just devouring them right there and then.

it was true that the two had a dislike for demon slayers, but they can’t say that most of them aren’t innocent. (I mean.. they kind of aren’t too)

they can’t do that.

but…

a few more cups won’t hurt, right?

a few days pass, and the butterfly mansion has been getting more and more demon slayers, most of them were from dangerously high blood loss, just enough for them to live and walk.. kind of.

and they all came from near the mountain.

but.. (I’m assuming this is after the fight between tanjiro and rui, but instead rui got away before tomioka could show up) didn’t tomioka, shinobu, and a few other demon slayers slay all of the demons there? unless there are a few hiding.. however they claim to not have entered the mountain, and instead went straight to a nearby village. they also claim to not have remembered anything about getting their blood taken, just waking up on a floor near the village with their arm bandaged up (it always happened at night time, too).

two or more days pass before they send some demon slayers to come investigate.

these demon slayers of course being tanjiro, inosuke, and zenitsu (plus nezuko).

when they arrived, it had been around 5 to 6, just before the spider siblings came to visit.

as they entered, tanjiro could smell a very faint scent of a demon almost everywhere (mainly around the shops and the people)- so faint that he could’ve missed it if he wasn’t searching for demons right now.

but before he could try to track it down, many young children from the village ran up to them and started excitedly asking about their uniform and their swords.

“are you guys demon slayers?”

“are grandpa’s weird demon stories are true?”

“can I touch the sword???”

it was no secret that they stood out from the crowd, and the villagers usually didn’t really question it because each demon slayer looked pretty normal and bland.

tanjiro smiled remembering his younger siblings all getting ready to eat and play during spring time.

zenitsu noticed tanjiro being confused and told them that demon slayers weren’t very well known, but it seems like it’s a folklore from around here.

and inosuke, of course was about taken aback by all of these mini humans running around them and was about to fight them until tanjiro reassured him.

ashai ran towards them thinking that rui and (name) was here a bit earlier than usual but was a bit disappointed when he got closer to clearly see their faces (and a boar head).

I TOLD MYSELF I SHOULD'VE ADDED A SCENE WHERE OLDER SPIDER BROTHER EXPLAINS TO ASHAI THAT HE GETS REALLY BAD SUNBURN BUT MY LAZY ASS SAID NO. ACTUALLY FUCK ME WHY AM I SO LAZY!?

Anyway let's do this..

Ok so the Village are familiar with demons and demon slayers but they take it as a Folklore since the grandparents keep mentioning it to the kids.

And before [Name] brung Rui, Ashai did ask him why he only came when the sunsets. And [Name] told him he was really sensitive to the sunlight, like, to the point it would actually burn him really bad.

And Ashai looked at him saying, "You could've just said you get really bad sunburn.."

And yes, his mom did smack him for saying that.

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

"Hi Ashai! You seem happy today."

"[Name]! Rui!" Ashai called out, running towards the two boys. Rui immediately pouted when he noticed the voice calling up to them wasn't one of the kind ladies trying to offer him food. Meanwhile, [Name] smiled at the boy's presence and walked faster towards Ashai.

"Yeah! I want to bring you to my grandfather-”

“Why?- Wait was is that..” Rui interrupted causing Ashai to stop walking and face Rui. “You did not just ask what a grandfather is.”

“I did. Now I want an answer.” Rui demanded his facial expression not changing a bit. Ashai sighed before explaining what a grandfather was, later explaining what a grandmother was, then explaining what a great grandfather and grandmother was.

Before Rui could ask anymore questions about people’s parents, Ashai changed the subject to the reason why he wanted to take them to his grandfather. 

‘Demon slayers’ was the first thing that came out of Ashai’s mouth and it made the two spider sibling’s heart drop. Rui’s heart dropped even deeper once he heard the word ‘Hashira’. It was almost impossible to hide the fact that it bothered him greatly.

Ashai turned around to race the two, and met their petrified expressions. Thinking they were terrified about the demon folklore, he immediately stopped talking and cupped [Name]'s face to try and reassure him.

"Oh no don't worry! It's just some dumb folklore, there's nothing to worry about! The demons aren’t real, it’s just some dumb story to keep the little ones from going outside at night. Its just gramps being all weird again with his whole demon slayer stuff, but it’s pretty interesting! Again, it’s only a folklore though so you have nothing to be scared of.” Ashai says letting go of [Name]’s face and opens the door for the two siblings to walk through. “Honestly, there’ll be times where I think you’re both demons or something because you guys act like you don’t know how to function as a human being sometimes, haha” Ashai joked, hoping to lighten the mood a bit

[Name] nervously laughed back while Rui just glared.

As the 3 boys walked inside the minka, [Name] noticed no one else was there except for the old man and Madam Yui. Not only that, but there was some strange aura in the air, as if he wasn’t welcome here. Turning over to Rui, [Name] can see his uneasy expression as well. But before he got the chance to say anything, Yui spoke aloud.

“Oh! sorry boys grandpa needs to rest, I’m sure if you come back later he’ll tell you one of his stories.”

A quiet sigh of relief was emitted from Rui. “Aww, that sucks I really wanted to you guys to here some of his stories.” Ashai pouted slightly. 

“Don’t worry, he’ll be awake soon.. Ashai, go over to the bakery and get the box wrapped in blue, its for your grandfather, don’t take to long ok?”

“Ok.. [Name]! Come with me-”

“No, I need him for something, just go over to the bakery real quick, get the box and come back.”

“But-”

“Nothing sweetie.. Hi Rui” Yui smiled, hugging the demon child who had just ran up to her. “How are you baby? Did you eat the food I sent you home with?”

“Go young man.”

Knowing he couldn’t argue any further, Ashai reluctantly went over to the bakery without [Name]. “That boy is obsessed with you, isn’t he?” Madam Yui joked. Unfortunately for [Name], he was too busy staring at the door Ashai just went through to hear what Yui said, causing him to answer a couple seconds late. “H-huh”

“The tempura and Sushi? Yeah we finished it.”

“Oh, you must still be hungry.. [Name] can you close all the blinds and sweep the floor?”

“Of course!”

“Thank you dear, I’ll be in the kitchen with your brother if you need me” Yui said, walking into the kitchen with Rui.

[Name] got straight to work, closing the blinds and sweeping isn’t anything hard...But the strange aura he felt before when he first entered, intensified. It almost felt like the air gotten thicker as well.

As [Name] swept closer to the sleeping grandfather, he noticed something right next to him. Taking a closer look, [Name]'s eyes at the sight of the samurai sword. Why does it look bigger than the usual than the swords I’ve seen.

After staring at the sword for a bit, [Name] finally looked away from the sword to finish sweeping. 

“I kill your kind with this exact sword”

...

“Is that what you tell the demons before you kill them?” [Name] questions, trying his best not to show the slightest amount of fear in his voice. “Every. single. one.” [Name] nodded, but refused to face the owner of the voice and the larger than normal sword. “Your kind disgusts me. Killing innocent souls just for your selfish needs.”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘Your kind’ sir-”

“Demons.” He spat. “I mean Demons.” [Name] only nodded, no words, justs movements. Speaking of movements, the old man began to get up and slowly move closer to [Name]. Shit, what do I do now?

After hearing Ashai say that his grandfather was a Hashira, [Name] knew that his age didn’t affect the way he moved. The retired hashira can block his way to the door in the matter of seconds. He didn’t want to question how fast he was compared to a sun-breathing hashira. So he put the broom down and finally face the old man who was ten feet away from him. “Who many demons did you ki-”

“You may have fooled everyone in this village with your little story. But I’m not naive.” The sun breathing hashira was now walking towards [Name]. [Name] wasted no time walking towards the kitchen, he could probably notify madam Yui..

If it wasn’t for the sun breather grabbing [Name] by the neck. "Like I said before... your kind disgust me. And don't get me started on your excuse of a leader 'Muzan kibutsuji' (I hate his last name. I've spent about five minutes trying to figure out if the first half was 'kitbust' or 'kibust'). You don't happen to have any information on him do you?" With every word, the hashira tighten his grip on [Name]'s neck. Making it harder and harder for [Name] to breathe. "And don't worry about him finding you after you tell me, I'll kill you the second I get the information I need."

"A-and...wh..if...don't..?" [Name] was barely audible and on the verge of blacking out with the insane grip on his neck. He could taste own blood at this point, but he wasn't concerned about the blood trickling out of his mouth, he was more concerned about how no one was here to save him. Madam Yui told Ashai not to take long, and the bakery isn't far away from here. So what the hell?

Without waiting another second, [Name] unleashed a tiny spider to go and kill the hashira. Sure he was Ashai's grandpa but, it was either this old man or him.

"Have nothing to say? Well that's disappointing.." [Name] could feel his eyes threatening to shut as he Choked on his own blood. "P-plea....sto..p" he tried to plead. "If it wasn't for you disgusting demons.. my wife would've still been alive. I swear, I will defeat your leader, and kill every single one of you good for nothing demons-"

"GRANDPA NO HE ISN'T A DEMON! LET HIM GO" Ashai yelled, alerting Madam Yui who came rushing out of the Kitchen, Rui not to far behind. "Put him down Grandpa! He isn't a demon!" Ashai pleaded, gripping onto his grandfather's hamari, tears threathing to spill from his eyes. "PLEASE STOP YOUR HURTING HIM!"

"Oh Ashai, this isn't what you call a friend. This is a human eating demon, that killed your- OW DAMMIT" The hashira yelled in pain, thus letting go of [Name].

Once [Name] hit the floor, he immediately sucked in as much air as he could before choking again.

"[NAME] are you ok?!" Ashai called, rushing over to help [Name]. Rui would've done the same if it wasn't for Yui protectively holding on to him.

"When was the last time you took your medicine? You almost killed him! He's only a child" Yui quickly scolded the elder. " Oh sweetheart.. that kick was so powerful it almost broke my arm. You should-"

"I'm not and won't become a demon slayer. Go back to your room and take your medicine. You almost killed him!"

"He isn't a kid. That thing is a demon.. And so is the smaller one your holding."

"They aren't demons-"

"They how come they only come out when the sun goes down?" To that Madam Yui didn't have an answer. She never really thought about why they did come when the sun isn't out. Thankfully Ashai spoke up just before the elder could prove his point. "Their both sensitive to sun the sunlight. Both their parents died because of that."

Madam Yui held Rui even tighter as she looked back at the elder. "Ashai go take [Name] to Ms. Reiki." She demanded. Without thinking Ashai immediately picked up [Name] and proceeded to carry him to whoever Ms. Reiki was.

"I know you wanna check on [Name], Rui, don't worry we'll go there in a minute." Yui reassures, while cupping Rui's left cheek. "Yui, your not this naive."

"You should be ashamed of yourself, hurting a defenseless child-"

"He isn't a child.. You know that demons basically have a unlimited lifespan? That 'kid' is most likely 40 years old"

"Your just delusional, you haven't taken your medicine all day have you?"

"I do not need that Goddamn Medi...cine.. What the hell are you staring at?!" The elder quickly spat at the small spider boy who stared at the two adults.

"Nothing.. I didn't know older people quarreled.. I thought only children quarreled." Rui said with pure innocence. "I thought when hu- people got older they learned how to settle their arguments maturely, rather than idiotic children that need someone superior than them to settle it for them"

The two adults stared at Rui, both with different intentions of what to do next. "Oh, Rui, It's-"

"Don't explain anything to that thing." The elder spat. Rui watched as the two adults argued with each other. For some strange reason Rui was invested slightly uncomfortable but couldn't help but listen to what they had to say.

Throughout this argument, Rui learned some new words..

...

"I'm so sorry about my Grandfather, [Name], my mom said he's been having some illusions lately.. I didn't expect it to get this worse." Ashai apologized for the 26th time. "Like... I said for 26th...time Ashai, its ok! I'm fine really.."

"I know but he choked you and called you a demon! Why are you so calm about it?! You could've died!"

".....But I didn't..So..Yay?..." [Name] jazzed-hand. Ashai just sighed in response.

"That's odd.." Ms. Reiki said to herself, but the boys were interested anyway. "What's is it Reiki-san?" Ashai asked, his voice full of concern. "You said your grandfather choked him right?..Oh nevermind it's probably nothing.." She dismisses. "How's your throat? Is it feeling sore?"

"Well-"

"Don't speak. Just nod or shake your head." Reiki quickly spoke. [Name] nodded slightly before smiling at Reiki. "Your welcome sweetie.. Oh! Yui, is everything.."

"Everything's ok.." The two boys turned their heads to face Yui, who had just walked in with a sleeping Rui. "[Name] I am terribly sorry for what occurred and your injuries."

"It's-"

"What did I say about speaking?"

Not wanting to know the punishment for disobeying a nurse, [Name] nodded again with a smile, hoping Madam Yui will see that he forgives her. Thankfully she understood and returned a smile. " [Name] you can go, just remember to take it easy on your throat and take the medication I gave you." [Name] obeyed and made note to throw out the medication, since it had no use to him.

Both Reiki and Madam Yui watched the [Name] walk out with his admirer, Ashai.

As they left, the two women looked at each other with worry some expressions. "How did it even happened?" Reiki asked immediately. "I'm not sure.." Yui answered in disappointment. "I was in the kitchen with Rui because he wanted a snack. Then all of a sudden I hear Ashai yelling something about a demon so I ran out to see him choking [Name]"

"Did he take his medicine? Or did he continue to rant about how he doesn't need it?"

"That exactly" Yui sighed. She looked down at the sleeping Rui she had in her hands. The only thing she could think about was how the situation would have happened if she didn't come out sooner.. Rui would've lost the only member of his family.. he would've been traumatized for the rest of his life.. "The nerve of him to call him a demon.." Yui spoke through her teeth in anger.

Taking a second to rid off any dark thoughts she turned back to Reiki. "I'm leaving now. I want the kids to eat something before they leave, have a nice night."

"Same to you as well"

...

"You need to eat a human"

"I'm aware of that.. But who am I going to eat?" [Name] questioned. It has passed a few weeks ever since the two spider siblings ate a human body. Sure, the human's food is tasty and gives them energy for a couple hours, but it doesn't give them the nutrients they need. Day by day they can feel their bodies growing weaker do to the lack of human blood in their system. [Name] could care less about his own health, he was more concerned about Rui and what he was gonna eat. Every couple minutes or so, he could here Rui's stomach growl from hunger.

It pained him to see Rui in this state. Yet he's been in this state for weeks now and [Name] still doesn't know what to do or who to eat.

"We can eat that old sun-breather" Rui suggested. [Name]'s eyes widen in response. "Or" Rui continued, "We can eat everyone else who called us a demon! We'll make them regret-"

"We can't do that.."[Name] sighed. [Name] knows that Rui's way smarter than this, but after weeks of being around humans and not being able to take a even a bite out of them, is bond to do something to the way he thinks.

"They've been accusing us for being demons, if they suddenly go missing, we would have a lot of suspicion towards us."

"If we can't eat any of the old people or anyone else at the village who can we eat?" Rui asked, completely annoyed. "It's already a problem that we can't go out during the day when the sun's out, so how can we- uhh... [Name] what- what are you doing?" Rui questioned as he watched [Name] create a small spider and send it out to go in the opposite direction towards the deeper part of the woods.

"[Name], What are you?- huh?" Rui stopped talking as he sees a demon slayer slowly walk towards him like a mindless zombie.

"You did so well sweetie~" [Name] cooed to his spider, gently petting the spiders head. "uhh.."

"mh? Oh! I heard footsteps coming while you were talking.. I don't think we can devour the body this time though.. they'll probably send in more demon slayers complaining about a demon."

Rui stared at the demon slayer who had no control over their body. It's right there in front of him, he has every right to devour the vulnerable human, but then at the same time he doesn't. Just because people don't know he's a bloodthirsty demon who needs human blood to survive.

"Cut the skin open, you can suck the blood off of that. Take as much as you want but don't take too much so they can't walk, ok?" [Name] said. "Wait what about you? You need to-"

"It's fine, you need it more than me, I'll just fine another-"

"No. Take some as well, we don't know the next time you'll get choked like that.. or be threaten with wisteria.. we might not be able to regenerate as fast as we used too. I won't take a lot.. A cup or two should be enough to last a week or so." Rui demanded. [Name] only nodded in response.

Rui examined the slayer standing in front of him, figuring out where to suck the blood out of. "Cut open wherever chubbiest and take some blood. I'll send out a couple of my spiders to grab some bandages so we can patch them up. Then we'll leave them here and continue with our day." [Name] said, already making bigger than normal sized spiders to send out to the village to steal some bandages.

"How often are we gonna do this?" Rui asked while using his threads make a 'X' formation around the slayers hips. "I guess every couple weeks? or when your feeling hungry..."

It was surprising how well they managed to control themselves for so long. After taking a little more than one cup of blood, they soon decided to reward themselves with another two cups. After being satisfied, they cleaned and bandaged the body. Later leaving it mindless on the ground waiting for sunrise to come and free it from it's curse.

The spider siblings decided to do this every week or two. Find a slayer, drain most of its blood, patch it up, and pretend like nothing happened. It was hard trying not to devour the human, but the managed. Sure they had to hold each other back every now an then but the really are trying..

Meanwhile the butterfly mansion was trying to solve the mystery of the barely walking slayers with bandaged arms, legs, neck, and or stomach with a dangerously high amount of blood loss.

"Shinobu! We got another one!" Aoi called from the door frame leading to the medical room. "And Yes! Its the same bandaging pattern!" Shinobu sighed, yet kept the smile that was always on her face. This is the 5th one this month, the last person was barely alive.. if this keeps going...

"Oh! Another one?" Kanae (Yes she's alive here, I really miss her) said walking into the same room as Shinobu. "Your back so soon?" Shinobu questioned. "Only for a bit... I do have to get going soon. But since it is still day, I thought I would be able to get some more information on why some of our people are coming back with a terrible amount of blood loss. You care to join me?" Kanae offered, signaling Shinobu to follow her. Without a doubt, Shinobu followed her sister to medical room Aoi was in.

...

"Wait, The mountain that's a couple miles from here?" Shinobu asked, interrupting the story the only stable slayer was telling. "Y-Yeah actually.." The slayer answered.

"That's odd.." Kanae remarked, putting her index finger to her on her chin. "Shinobu, didn't you and tomioka slayed all the demons near the mountain?"

"Yes. Indeed we did.. We even raided the shed near the mountain."

"Act-actually.." The slayer spoke up "I never went to the mountain.. I went straight to the village near the woods."

"Why go straight to the village?"

"I was going to ask the people there if they had experince any suspicious activity. But before I got to the village, I felt something bite me. That's when I passed out. I wasn't sure how long I was out for, but when I woke up.. I was all bandaged up."

"Sorry to interrupt" Aoi interrupted "But, did you ever did get the chance to go to the village?"

"uuh no." The slayer concluded.

" Why'd you asked that Aoi?" Kanae asked. "Oh I wanted to know where the bandages came from. Anyway I should get back to work." Aoi claimed as she quickly walked off.

Aww she want to contribute but got nervous.. Kanae smiled to herself before getting up with a small stretch.

"Well!" Kanae clapped. "We'll send a couple demon slayers to investigate the area... Aoi said the patients claimed that it happened at night correct?"

"Uhh Yeah.."

"Then it's settled we'll send slayers right away to the area.. please get as much rest as you can and stay healthy, we will get to work immediately. Thank you!" And with that Kanae signaled her sister to follow her once more before leaving.

"Are you going to ask any of the Hashira to help?" Shinobu asked. "Well no that's not who I had in mind.."

"Then who?"

...

"We could've got here earlier if SOMEONE DIDN'T MAKE US STOP FOR TEMPURA!" Yelled a very pissed Zenitsu. Inosuke paid no attention to Zenitsu and instead enjoyed the last bite of Tempura he had in his mouth underneath his mask.

"Well it's only 5:48 so we have plenty of time to investigate the area" Tanjiro said trying his best to cause not another fight between Zenitsu and Inosuke for the fifth time today.

Zenitsu sighed. "Well? Do you smell anything?"

"Oh um.." Tanjiro took a second to sniff the air.

The village smelled friendly. Happy kids, happy adults, happy pets, demons, baked goods, fresh food, healthy environment..

"Huh?" Tanjiro said quietly to himself. He took another sniff around, taking him about a minute to finally, fully grab the demon scent.

"It's very faint." He unintentionally reported to Zenitsu. "It's on almost everything..and everyone.."

"Wait.. on the people too?! Dose that mean it's hiding as a human!?" Zenitsu began to panic. "It seems like it... how else would the scent get on the people."

"Start tracking it down gompochiro!!" Inosuke demanded.

"Right I should-"

"Is that a real sword?" A little girl asked. "Oh uh- where did you-"

"Are you a demon slayer?"

"Are grandpa's weird stories true?"

"Why do you have a boar hat?"

"Can I touch the sword?"

"Can I wear the boar hat?"

"Is that a bird on your head?"

A whole bunch of little kids ran up to the three strange looking people and asked them all the questions that came to mind. Not giving them the chance to answer.

Tanjiro smiled at all the kids who surrounded them, they reminded him of his siblings when it was time to eat or going out to play.

"Are Grandpa's weird stories true?"

Tanjiro's eyebrows furrowed. "I thought demon slayers weren't that well known.." Tanjiro questioned Zenitsu.

"INOSUKE STOP TRYING TO FIGHT THE KIDS- huh? Oh uhh I guess it's a folklore around here.. maybe to keep the kids from walking out at night or- INOSUKE NO"

"LITTLE ONES FIGHT MEEEEEEEE!!!"

"No! No Inosuke these are kids, you know? The ones we don't fight!" Tanjiro quickly reassured. "Huh? Why not?? Their just like us but smaller! They can fight!!"

"Oh you got to be kidding me-"

"[Name]! I didn't know you were coming this early- oh hi! Sorry.. I thought you were someone else.." Ashai apologized, he thought [Name] and Ashai came earlier due to the ruckus outside in front. Instead he ran up to a couple of strangers in weird clothes and a shirtless boy in a boar hat.

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

So why did this take me a month to post? It's not even that long..

I'll edit this in the morning and answer the other asks in the morning as well.

Remember that requests are still open and have a nice night/day/afternoon/universe

[beepbeepbobop]

Back again.

I was telling my friend (who isn’t a Baccano! fan, but listens to me ramble) about my take on immortals and Czeslaw, and I don’t know where to put it, so!  It goes here.  As a warning, this is mostly me rambling and probably treads ground that has been talked about a lot in the past, but I hope it’s interesting anyway.

(This and the Infinity Train post is not a sign that I’m going to be more active in the future.  Social media and the prospect of interacting with other people’s posts still make me anxious.  Maybe one day.)

So!  The first thing to keep in mind is that change is a major theme in Baccano!.  No one is incapable of changing, but people have different relationships with it depending on who they are.  Czes can't believe that he has changed seventy years after Isaac & Miria stealing him despite clear evidence that he has.  Meanwhile, Nile actively resists change:  His greatest fear after becoming immortal was that he would become desensitized to the loss of human life and begin to devalue it, so he spent decades fighting in active war zones so that he'd never forget the reality of death.  This backfired, and instead left him inured to loss of life...but it's clear that he doesn't want to be this way?  Realizing that he's gotten to the point where his expression doesn't even change if someone dies is devastating for him.  Chane is the opposite:  While it's absolutely for the best that she stops being a hitwoman and killing machine for her father, softening up is terrifying to her because then she can't serve her father the way she wants to.   Czes is on the opposite end of the spectrum, because he wants to be better because he thinks he's a bad person (later on, he decides that he's the only bad person left in the world.  Sir.), but can't recognize it because he doesn't feel different.

And...this is pertinent to the older immortals in particular - I'd argue even moreso than with the younger ones.  Aside from the fact that the Elixir literally stops you from changing in the sense of age or injury...it also has to place inhibitors on your brain.  Your brain is, after all, a physical part of your body!  There are some....weird aspects about immortality that no one is able to figure out (for example, immortals can give birth; someone also pointed out that there are no examples of crying in reverse even though that's also a part of your body), but it's still safe to say that the brain doesn't age either because then...then a lot of the cast would be catatonic from Alzheimer's.  Even without that, the human body can only retain so many memories.  If an immortal's brain had the ability to deteriorate over time or overload based off of the amount of memories it contains....well, I don't think any of the older immortals would be able to function.  Szilard definitely wouldn't be able to function (and neither would Firo after he devours Szilard) because Szilard has the memories of over a dozen people running around in his brain.  Which brings me to my next point:  If an immortal's brain functioned like a human's, devouring would not work as a concept.  One of the hallmarks of being immortal is gaining other people's memories.  Imagine the strain that would cause.  And yet, it doesn't seem to be a problem!  The chief worry of those who have devoured other immortals is worrying that having the memories of the other person might change you consciously or subconsciously.  This is Firo's concern over devouring Szilard.

So...the fact that the brain doesn't physically grow older or change (with some leniency given because real world science sure is iffy here)...feels relevant because, mn...

Many of the older immortals feel stagnant, or stuck in time.  Firstly, if the immortals changed at the same pace as a human being, I don't think most of them would be recognizable from one era to the other.  And yet, they are!  The Victor Talbot of the 1700s is clearly the same person as the Victor Talbot of the 1930s, albeit with alterations (because what kind of person would stay exactly the same after centuries?).  The answer to that question is Elmer, by the way.  Everyone comments on how he acts just like the Elmer they remember back in the day.  But Elmer is a special case, seeing as he's our local empty shell and probable sociopath (not that he has ASPD!  ASPD, sociopathy and psychopathy all present and function entirely differently from each other, which makes it....strange that they're lumped under the same umbrella - but that's another matter).  Secondly, immortals...Uhm, they all handle grief horribly, and seem to feel stuck in the past?  Maiza, for instance, acts starkly different from his past as a rebellious noble-boy gang member, but he's never forgiven himself for giving Gretto the information that led to his death.  (Gretto being his brother.)  Huey's overarching goal is to bring his dead girlfriend back to life, and he's been working towards this goal for centuries.  Sylvie, who admittedly was not an immortal when Gretto died, held off on drinking the Elixir until she was all grown up, then set out to finding Szilard to take revenge on him for killing the boy she had run away with.  This lasted for, you guessed it, centuries.

This isn't to say that immortals don't change, or even that they don't change drastically.  I mentioned Nile, who became inured to death after fighting in war for decades.  Czes went from a trusting, innocent child to someone paranoid and self-centered enough to try and get an entire train car's worth of people killed for his own safety to someone who wants to be a good person, but thinks he never will be and that there's something fundamentally wrong with him.  But changing appears to be very, very difficult, and happens over an extended period of time in response to extreme situations.

And...this is particularly relevant to Czes (who keeps coming up as an example because he's the main person I'm thinking about with this tangent) because....it arguably hits him harder than any of the others due to being a child.  Only the best decisions were made aboard the Advenna Avis, which includes letting the eight year old drink the immortality elixir.  But...mn.  It's one thing to be perpetually in your thirties, or twenties, or sixties, and another altogether to perpetually be eight years old.  Czes can't truly 'grow up' even though he has more life experience than most adults combined, and it shows in his extreme emotional reactions, his self-centeredness, ect.  There's a certain misconception about anime-only fans that he's an adult in a child's body, but I think it's easier to tell in the light novels that that's not the case, especially since you see what he's like back before the Advenna Avis.  (He is shy.  Very shy.  Did nothing wrong ever.)  Also, the fact that SAMPLE goes, "Yes!  The perfect sacrifice!" when they specifically take a child to target emphasizes this.  It's not proof - I'm pretty sure that SAMPLE would focus on his physical age as an 'eternal child', and may or may not have the resources to analyze him and go, "This boy is still eight years old in his head," - , but it hammers the point home.

Then...mn.  One thing that's stuck out to me ever since the start is how long Czes was with Fermet.  There's such a thing as learned helplessness, and it's not like Czes had anywhere to go, so that's not what is odd to me...especially when Fermet is known for manipulating people, and could definitely seed the idea that Czes can't go anywhere.  More than physical proximity, I think about how long Czes believed in Fermet.  It's explicitly stated that Czes absorbing Fermet's memories is what made him realize that - oh, Fermet was just sadistic and everything he said was an excuse.  And...I think this is both an example of being controlled in many respects, and....another example of an immortal being stuck in the past - but in a very, very different way.

First off, learning that the people you look up to want to harm you is...difficult at best, especially when you're younger?  But being mentally 'stuck' at a certain age would make things worse, because Czes is perpetually an age where it's natural to depend on a parental figure, and at an age where the brain isn't equipped to make those kinds of calls or realizations.  There's also the matter of cognitive dissonance!  Cognitive dissonance means a lot of things, but essentially, it's the idea that you have two conflicting beliefs, but the actions you take can retroactively alter your beliefs/place emphasis on one more than the other, as the mind is predisposed to reduce dissonance.  I...take issue with how cognitive dissonance is interpreted because many examples don't account for the beliefs or opinions not being equal in the first place, but that's not the point.  The point is that, as a child, the impulse to reduce dissonance is present while also being played against difficulty reading intentions, perceiving the world outside of yourself, and thinking critically.  (For what it's worth, abusers also tend to discourage critical thinking because it damages their narrative, which would also play a part.)   So, for example...

Say that, theoretically, Czes was yelled at every time he questions the idea that Fermet's intentions are right, or that maybe Fermet doesn't have his best interests in mind.  (Czes is insightful, and they lived with each other for a long time, so this probably happened at least once unless the text directly contradicts me.)  This is tame compared to the things we know about his time with Fermet, but ignore that.  The desire to not be yelled at would lead him to hurriedly agree later on, and cognitive dissonance means that you're inclined to try to make your beliefs agree with your actions.  In other words, the more he plays along, the more his brain tells him that he definitely believes this, and it makes perfect sense to!  Fermet has shown that he cares about him, and took him in after his grandfather died, so of course.  It only makes sense.  And it's even harder for him to bridge the gap to a different conclusion because of how difficult it seems to be for immortals to change.  It's only when Czes devours Fermet (or...or at least gets his memories) that everything snaps into place, because he can't reconcile that no matter how hard he tries (coincidentally, this also happens when he gets memories of being an adult, and while I seriously doubt that Czes went through Fermet's memories willingly, it kind of hammers my point about how difficult being eternally young would make things).  So of course he snaps as hard as he does.  It'd be kind of amazing if he didn't, honestly.

TLDR:  Being immortal made it even harder for him to recognize or comprehend his trauma.  Sorry for that.

[youwontlikethisblog]

Adriana Arboleda

I find this episode so interesting and since I like to avoid many things, I've put off writing this post because I just don't know where to start.

Previously:

Armando was visibly upset when they mentioned the wedding in front of Betty, it was purely because he didn't want her to once again feel guilty and break things off. While at the same time he overheard a conversation with Nicolas and Betty that sounded like she was jealous and mad at him for "cheating" on her and that he was a bad boyfriend.

This feeds the distrust that Armando has towards Betty's fidelity and his insecurity regarding their relationship(and his role in Betty's life) as well as his rivalry that he has against Nicolas.

Betty was visibly upset with both Nicolas and Armando. For one because Nicolas really is a huge reason as to why Armando feels a certain distrust. As much as I find Nicolas endearing there's many things that annoy me from him. For example the fact that he continues to find ways to converse with Patty even though he knows that Betty doesn't like it, especially that she doesn't want Patty to know anything regarding where he works at and what he does, but Nicolas; to impress Patty, always brings up the topic of money to make himself more desirable. Yeah he's insecure and he wants to get her attention but that doesn't excuse his crappy behavior as Betty's best friend, someone that he considers as his family. That adds so much pressure, distrust, and resentment towards Betty and Armando's relationship. Yes Nic wasn't aware that they were in a relationship to begin with but Betty often times told him, reminded him, and got upset with him for telling or talking to Patsy Pats about Terra Moda or what he does for a living and the dangers of that information getting out.

Two: that Armando is getting married. For one it makes her feel inferior, that their relationship isn't as strong and that Armando isn't serious about her like she is of him.

Armando had convinced Betty to continue the affair, despite the fact he's getting married. He told her it was only for show, that he'd continue with the preparations of the wedding but call it off last minute. Mario had told him that he needed to get Betty on their side because she was the only one that could embellish the balance for the board meeting this is when we start getting the trails to the letter and why Betty rationalized Armando's behavior after reading the letter.

However that isn't the real reason as to why he goes to fix things. It's what he uses as an excuse to justify why he goes to fix things with Betty. Mario, to get him to do this, weaponized what Armando had told him earlier that day about what kind of relationship Betty and Armando have. Had Armando not shared any of what he did he wouldn't have had any ground to continue to manipulate him.

Currently:

It's the morning of the day AA arrives to Eco Moda. When Betty exist her office she sports a huge smile and greets Armando, who is absorbed by her presences and very content. His eyes follow her through his office as she moves around it and just the same, Betty's eyes are on him, barely noticing Mario. When she does, as she's about to exit the office she greets him, we see Armando with a smile just absorbed by her until Mario speaks and he composes himself to act like that didn't make him happy, joyful, at peace, etc...

Why does AA hold such a significance here?

Armando is now slowly accepting and willingly understanding his feelings(he does try to justify them as something else at times). Betty says she has felt this through his kisses and his affection towards her, that she knows that he loves her now and that he is faithful to her-when it comes to Marcela.

However as she said the previous night as she wrote in her diary that she isn't so sure about his love or fidelity when it comes to his true vice; the models. Models like AA.

Jealousy isn't something healthy in any relationship, even when media tries to paint jealousy as this normal and healthy thing that every person experiences, it's not.

In the previous post I mentioned what the definition of Jealous/y is. It's a combination of feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, or resentment but if you look up the definition of it it says "concern over the relative lack of possessions-"

Sometimes it isn't an object, rather a person, however the issue lays within the fact that person who feels the jealousy views said person as an object rather than a human. Armando's jealousy is possessive, insecure and resentful however Betty's jealousy is of inadequacy and insecurity. She doesn't feel resentful towards Armando for being attracted to "beautiful" women. She expects that from him.

AA represents Betty's insecurity as a woman in a physical form. When Betty finds out AA wants to see and speak with Armando privately she tries to stop that from happening, contrary to the past when she'd help the man out, this time she tries to stick to "he said he doesn't want to be bothered" but when Armando realizes who wants to speak to him he ignores his duties as the president of the company and the importance of him being in said meeting for the future collection, which will help Eco Moda be able to pay off its debt. Betty knows this so when she sees that Armando doesn't stop to think, at least of the company, much less consider her(the true nature of her anger), and that he is an easy prey or weak idiot to women like AA she gets angry at him but her jealousy lays where she feels the most insecure.

Armando forgets of Betty and how happy he was when he saw her that morning. Now all he can think about is AA.

AA is the symbol and the token object of Armando's weakness: seggs with society's "perfect" women. He places this "need" of his above anything, his responsibilities as president, as an engaged man, and as someone in an committed and mature relationship.

I find Mario's behavior interesting in this scene however. He stares at Armando with raised eyebrows and a frown on his face, contrary to before where he was trying to keep himself from laughing, however freaked out over Armando's feelings, this time he's annoyed at him.

I keep trying to figure out why he'd get annoyed at him for this. In this scene Betty is behind Mario, where Inesita and Armando have a clear view of her. Betty is trying to stay composed and not let the personal seep into the impersonal so Mario hasn't seen her. Yes we're fully aware that Mario is a man that is extremely detail oriented when it comes to human behavior which gives him an advantage to manipulate people and get whatever he wants out of them so he can simply assume, by Betty's tone, that she isn't pleased by this. However this scene and Mario's behavior is very much unlike him.

This is my speculation, not what we are being told.

Maybe based on how Armando had spoken about his relationship with Betty and his feelings for her, Mario was annoyed at Armando for his behavior like saying "How can you say you cherish her and that you love her as a friend and then do this to her? And yet I'm the terrible one? The one that doesn't understand why the plan is wrong? The one with iron skin?" or one could simply point out that Mario didn't want to get stuck doing most of the work in the meeting while Armando went off to spend time with a hot woman.

Later when Betty agrees that they should take a break, when Betty exits the office(I'm skipping that scene for now) and Mario is walking up to it he asks her if Armando is still in there, she tells him that he is and with AA. Mario then says he shouldn't go in there and interrupt them then but he notices Betty's demeanor and asks her if she's alright.

Betty doesn't look at him, she doesn't pay him attention. She doesn't even make eye contact with him so again Mario behaves naturally.

Of course he pretends to be unaware of the relationship Armando has with Betty. He says he won't go in there and interrupt them, but he pays close attention to Betty.

We're all fully aware that Mario would be capable of seducing Betty. He lacks all the moral and ethic rules to not do that. Mario is a villain, a well written one. So his behavior here is just odd imo.

I do believe and know based on his character, that Mario is also annoyed at Armando for screwing up once more, therefore jeopardizing the company and all that it implies. However, take into consideration what happened the previous day. Mario isn't stupid, he is way too smart. He knows that Armando deeply cares for Betty, he's known this all along though he has also tried to deny any true motive of Armando caring for Betty because she's ugly and he knows his best friend and only uses Armando's feelings towards Betty when it benefits him. He knows that Betty is important and special to Armando. Unlike Marcela.

Mario pointed this out the previous day when he told him that he[A] had made love with Marcela in the past but that from what Armando had shared it had never been sweet. He is fully aware that Betty is vastly different to all the other women Armando has been with and it's not only because she's "ugly" but because Betty is of extreme importance and significance to Armando.

Does Mario disprove of Armando's behavior towards AA being in Eco Moda? Yes.

For two reasons: One that Armando is screwing up the plan again. Two that Armando is a hypocrite who gets mad at him for making jokes about their relationship but then he goes and does that, (which is an even bigger disrespect to Betty, Armando's Betty.) all while constantly telling Mario that he is scum because he feels no guilt while he does.

Does Mario care about Betty's feelings? No and if he does it's not enough to make him have a change of heart because what he truly cares about is remaining in the social statues he's on with being the wingman of Armando.

Again even if he did care a little about how Betty feels it's not enough for him to re-evaluate his role in the plan and what comes above that is Eco Moda's ownership but it gives him more intel on how to manipulate Armando. In the meeting board, when he finally got a view of Betty when she went to sit back down at the table, Mario examined her quickly, did so as the meeting continued, glancing at her, studying her.

Resuming to a chronological order.

As Armando leaves to his office to speak privately to AA, Betty stays behind in the conference room with Inesita and Mario where as Mario said, she looked broken and not her computer like self.

Once Inesita suggest they take a break Betty says she'll go to her office, to which we see Mario with his worried expression, look at her and then turn to look towards Armando's office doors in a silent plea that Betty doesn't catch him indecent.

In their office, Armando is busy talking with AA so Betty doesn't catch some indecent Armando, but because she knows him, she knows that he's capable of acting like everything is normal. When she looks at AA she looks her up and down, insecure in herself as a woman with such a woman in the same room. Armando in this scene is absorbed by AA's body, a contrast to when he was absorbed by Betty's presence(that includes body). Barely paying attention to Betty and speaking to AA in an informal and casual way, something he doesn't even do with her. In some places in Latin America speaking formally is a sign of respect and impersonalism. When you speak more casually it implies a personalized relationship with someone: meaning that they have a more deeper connection than someone you work with, a friend, a family member, a lover, etc. Betty and Armando aren't even on that and they've had seggs.

Betty takes note of this, again, this now moves on from her simply being insecure as a woman to now being mad at Armando for behaving this way.

Once Betty exits the office to go grab their refreshments she overhears Armando call AA espectacular

Whenever Betty is mad she always places her hand to her hip. As she stops to talk to Marcela she does this, again implying her anger towards Armando.

The last thing I'll note about this whole AA thing at this time is how both Betty and Marcela react. Marcela goes into the office fuming, throwing shade and whatnot to display her jealousy towards AA and her possessiveness towards Armando, however Betty only displays her anger towards Armando while very minimalistically showing her jealousy because of AA.

Marcela's anger was targeted towards both of them while Betty's was towards Armando.

Later that day after AA leaves, Betty remains angry. When Armando tries to apologize for yelling at her, Betty ignores him and tells him they need to get back to work.

Armando not only made her feel insignificant as a woman but he also said she got on his last nerve, tell me you wouldn't feel bad about yourself and be mad at the person who did that.

Obviously Betty feels inferior to AA. Who wouldn't if we're being honest? She's hot. Again when it comes to Betty it isn't hard to understand or sympathies with her over this.

However lets just remember that Betty has always felt insecure and inferior as a human being and a woman.

Insecurity presents itself in many ways. For some it could be them acting loud and obnoxious, like Armando. For others it could be them never asking for anything or expecting anything because they believe they don't deserve anything, like Betty.

Slowly however, her relationship with Armando has built her self-esteem. She walks a bit taller, she doesn't have such a tremble in her voice anymore unless she's speaking to Marcela or Daniel. Even on this day she dresses differently. She sports a more juvenile outfit, there's a glow to her. Though her clothing isn't form fitting or revealing, she has changed her clothing. Even now since they started to date she doesn't wear the super long skirts with the very boxy blazers from the shoulders or the clothes she wore at the start of the show. She wears the green dress, the yellow, red, and black dress often and the green skirt suit(the olive green one with the skirt that's shorter than all the other ones she wears).

In the past, on one of their first dates, Betty joked that she was ugly and Armando got upset with her, told her that he didn't like that and that she needed to respect herself. Ironic ain't it?

Armando's sole attention has given her a boost of ego, but his confirmation the night they sinned(lol) that he too felt what she felt for him, which was desire, has helped her a lot. Again to recall what her first time was like, this second time around it built her self-esteem. Especially because since then Armando hasn't been able to keep his hands to himself whenever Betty and him have been alone together, out of office hours.

(Currently listening to the YSBLF playlist on Spotify and honestly I just wanna dance)

The previous night though aware of Armando's fidelity to her when it came to Marcela, which was why she said she felt no jealousy or the likes in regards to that relationship(outside of guilt) she still is very aware of Armando's s. addiction tendencies. It isn't only a matter in which Armando is weak to women like that that even when he doesn't want to cheat on Marcela or whomever, he still falls for their manipulative or even pushy tactics to get him to sleep with them.

Let's not forget that Betty knows Armando and his behavior when it comes to the Models because unlike Marcela who has only seen snip bits when she stands behind him when he's flirting, Betty has seen it and heard it all from Armando. She has been in the room when Armando and Mario discuss how to get away with his affairs, she has seen him in action, she has even heard and seen the way he plays women. However Betty lacks the knowledge we have of Armando's seggsual affairs.

What does this mean?

To Betty, this weakness of Armando is solely based on the body of the women he is sleeping with(which are all A Grade) and though to some degree this is true(his obsession with perfection etc.) there's more to it. Armando, aside from having slept with her and saying he desired her, has never acted eager to jump her bones or expressed it like he has about all the other women he has been with. He has never made her feel validated as women for her body, though she knows he has an emotional attraction to her, she doesn't believe he has a physical one(I'll get to that scene in time ok! for now I'm talking about it like they haven't screwed again) for her, or at least one that matters. So when she sees AA in the office and she looks her up and down Betty compares herself, not as Armando's girlfriend, but as a woman in general.

For us women looks are the most important and most valuable thing we're told we have. Without them, what are we?

When you grow up being the "other" of society standards for women you grow up with no self-worth. Comparing yourself to others becomes second nature. We know Betty has said she grew up lonely, only Nicolas was her friend, kids in school made fun of her. She never had this moment when she looked at herself and was at least okay with what she was staring at. The contrary, she hated it but learned to tolerate it. Her self deprecating jokes were her acceptance of it, her way to cope with the way the world treated her. It was for her to be able to not care as much about it. However the way people treat her based on her looks still stings and this time it's a lot more.

Could you put yourself in her shoes? All your life you go about it feeling lonely, ugly, unwanted, inadequate, etc. and one day after so much heart ache, a terrible relationship that left you emotionally disfigured and scarred, a man that is desired by so many women AND men, who is "educated", "smart", handsome and has a good sense of humor pays attention to you, how would you feel?

Realistically speaking; a lot more insecure.

Some people hate themselves so much that they hate when people take notice of them because it's like saying "you have terrible taste if you like me, therefore you are not as great." Burdening someone with your own self-hatred. Betty has shown this in the past, when Armando first started to pursue her. She asked him time and time again why he'd be interested in her or notice her because a man like him could never notice her as more than just his employee.

AA is the incarnation of Betty's own dilema. Her self-hatred and insecurity as a woman because in her eyes she lacks beauty. Body wise she doesn't have Meat on her bones, she has frizzy wavy hair, doesn't wear makeup and has one eyebrow plus a mustache. However, despite this, Armando has fallen in love with her and in a matter of seconds this is shattered.

Armando forgets who Betty is for him. He forgets what he feels for her, the importance and significance of her to him and his life and is enveloped with the idea of AA wanting to speak to him and not in this "fanatic" manor but as a man wanting to conquer. Betty's ego isn't only hurting but she(in complete) is hurting by this. Next to Marcela she knows she is the one to hold Armando's heart and now his desires, but next to women like AA, she is insignificant not just as a woman, but as a person in general.

Especially after Armando yells at her, after a long time of not doing so, he yells at her in front of AA, he forgets Betty is even in the room or in the world. While with Marcela he tries not to bring her up or the subject of the wedding because he knows it hurts her(visibly kept glancing towards her office when AA was asking about it, confirming that whenever he seeks her comfort when she isn't with him in the room he'll be facing or standing by her office), he doesn't even consider her when AA is the room. She's heard him say he'd forget all of his commitments and relationships and run away with AA and marry her, just that day she saw him kiss a picture of her and basically make out with it.

She believes that unlike Marcela, AA is real competition because she's hawt(even though Marcela is hawt too) however she knows that Armando isn't in love with Marcela or even interested in her for that fact but she knows that Armando is of AA. However again because Betty is so insecure as a woman she believes that she isn't even in a competition with AA, because if AA wanted to, she'd take Armando and he wouldn't even put up a fight, he'd go willingly on the first attempt. Add that to Armando saying that Betty gets on his last nerve?

He dug his own grave.

One could ask how is it possible that Armando didn't pick up on Betty being jealous?

For one because Armando has only experienced Marcela's jealousy which is loud and arrogant. She throws shade, she yells at him, she demands from him. Betty doesn't do that. She interrupts his one on one time with AA by entering his office and looking for some paper work. She drops a box full of things to ruin any momentum he could be building with AA. Her jealousy is displayed in quiet and timid ways. The one time it she makes it "loud" enough is when she hears Armando flirting with AA and steps out of her office and stands in the middle of them, until he notices her, but then, after she bumps into him, he yells at her. You can tell right away this isn't just like when he yelled at her in the past that it made her want to cry(I mean who doesn't want to cry when they're being yelled at) but this time it was something that hurt her deeply. For the reasons mentioned above.

And two because he's clueless. Though in the past episodes we have seen Armando learn to be in sync with Betty's feelings and make an effort to be attentive and understanding, all of that work of his is thrown out the window when AA appears, making Betty not only feel inferior and insecure as a woman in general but making her feel like she's nothing, not even in a "my fav. employee" type of way. He makes her feel worthless as his girlfriend.

This is when the hurt moves on to anger.

Anger at herself and anger at him for making her feel this way.

When the Love Guru brings all of this to his attention, Armando has a face of realization.

He truthfully thought Betty was just being her unaware and naïve employee self. The one who trips, who doesn't back up her files on disks, y'know, the one she was at the start of the novel. He doesn't think that Betty is acting out in jealousy because again she doesn't act like Marcela does.

When he finally realizes this thanks to Mr. Dimples, we see the sudden "oh crap" face. Like it all made sense and he knew he messed up.

It's interesting to see how these scenes play such a huge roll to Betty finally speaking up in the relationship later that night.

Sorry this post took so long for me to write. I wanted to fully understand the huge significance of Adriana Arboleda as she has been one since the start of their affair, unbeknownst of Betty.

[zosonils]

Crossover you say 👀

OKAY SO. SONIC COLOURS/MEGA MAN CROSSOVER

i don't have much in mind story wise, but i'm thinking it takes place under the same conditions as worlds collide, which i insist on believing also happened nearly identically offscreen in the game timeline because nobody can tell me otherwise. fairly basic setup of eggman and wily teaming up to cause problems on purpose and sonic and rock working together to stop them, and now there's wisps in the mix >:O i'm sure i could think up a fun excuse plot for why sonic colours happens twice and also mega man is here now, but mostly this was just an excuse to put the special interest in the hyperfixation and come up with some fun weapons for rock based on my first and favourite sonic game

each robot master is based on a wisp from either version of the original colours, which causes a little confusion given that you end up with two burst men and drill men but these ones have different EWN-XXX serial numbers and are entirely unrelated to their canon mega man counterparts. i haven't actually drawn the robot masters yet or thought up designs or personalities, just come up with their weapons and what stage they'd inhabit, but maybe i'll do that sometime. the robot masters are something like this

EWN-010 BURST MAN - weak to drill dash, gives bursting blaze, sweet mountain stage

EWN-011 ROCKET MAN - weak to cubic satellite, gives rocket jump, terminal velocity stage

EWN-012 DRILL MAN - weak to spike spin, gives drill dash, tropical resort stage

EWN-013 HOVER MAN - weak to rocket jump, gives hovering shockwave, starlight carnival stage

EWN-014 LASER MAN - weak to frenetic void, gives prism laser, aquarium park stage

EWN-015 CUBE MAN - weak to prism laser, gives cubic satellite, wii game land stage

EWN-016 VOID MAN - weak to bursting blaze, gives frenetic void, asteroid coaster stage

EWN-017 SPIKE MAN - weak to hovering shockwave, gives spike spin, planet wisp stage

i wrote up some really detailed information on how all the weapons work but i'll put that under a cut to prevent this post from getting too long! if you don't feel like reading massive paragraphs of game design ideas, here's the microsoft paint scribblings i did of all of them [sonic is there too]

BURSTING BLAZE

a chargeable attack that blasts out a sphere of fire to deal damage. charging it longer sends the fire out further and increases its damage output, but costs more weapon energy. without any charging it's a pretty standard low-range attack, but at maximum charge it functions as a screen nuke on par with the likes of rain flush, tornado blow, or astro crush. if rock takes damage while charging bursting blaze, he'll automatically release it at whatever charge level it was at when he got hit. in addition to the obvious usefulness of a fucking screen nuke, a less- or uncharged bursting blaze can be a handy way to quickly get some personal space in a tight situation.

cost: 1 unit when uncharged, 7 when fully charged [28 uses uncharged or 4 fully charged from a full gauge]. has five in-between charge levels costing 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 units from least to most powerful.

i came up with this name first because i wanted it to have blaze in it because i fucking love blaze the cat.

ROCKET JUMP

an explosion that launches rock much higher than a normal jump would take him, about the height of one screen. in addition to the explosion at the bottom dealing damage, rock's body deals contact damage until his upward momentum stops, which tears through enemies with low health or a weakness to rocket jump but doesn't protect him against bulkier foes or stage hazards. while he can still move left or right while rocketing upwards, the only way for rock to stop moving upwards is to either naturally run out of momentum, hit a ceiling, or take damage.

some platforms can only be reached by using rocket jump.

cost: 3 units per use [10 uses from a full gauge]

obviously a joke based on the rocket jump technique in a lot of video games, lmao. rock blows himself up and ragdolls so hard he clips out of the interstellar amusement park and sonic watches as he falls past every kill plane and into infinity forever

DRILL DASH

a dash attack slightly faster than the slide going straight down, sideways, or diagonally down-left or down-right, similar to the pile driver but shorter and without upwards reach. has fairly low attack power, equivalent to two mega buster shots, but pushes surviving enemies back, allowing them to be hit again and again with a chain of drill dashes. underwater, it moves significantly faster and further, and can be fired up as well as down, unlocking eight-directional dashing.

if rock hits a solid wall he'll bounce off of it, but if he hits certain types of dirt-like walls he'll drill into them, which can uncover helpful items like health and weapon refills and occasionally 1-ups or e-tanks [probably in scripted locations].

cost: 2 units per use [14 uses from a full gauge]

i've never played mighty no. 9 but i've seen footage of like the dash thingy he can do? because it probably looks kinda like that.

HOVERING SHOCKWAVE

fires a shockwave that doesn't hurt any more than a standard mega buster shot [unless the enemy in question is weak to it], but stuns most enemies and has a fairly decent range. if you fire it in midair and then hold down the attack button, rock's falling speed will decrease dramatically, and he'll continue to float until either he hits the ground, the attack button is released, or he takes damage. hovering will cost additional energy, and if hovering shockwave is used in midair it can't be used again until rock hits the ground at least once.

cost: 1.5 units per use [19 uses from a full gauge], plus an extra 3 units per second of hovering, for a total of a little under 9 seconds of hovering taking the initial shot into account.

this one's pretty directly lifted from the hover wispon in sonic forces.

PRISM LASER

a laser projectile that either bounces off or goes through anything it hits a set number of times, maybe three to five. if it destroys an enemy its movement is unchanged; if it hits a wall or an enemy that doesn't immediately die to it then it bounces instead. can be fired in all eight directions, but once fired its trajectory is out of the player's hands. basically imagine gemini laser, then imagine it being obscenely better in every conceivable way. best used in enclosed rooms where it can bounce around a lot and doesn't have much opportunity to get lost offscreen.

some rooms have prisms in them like the ones in colours that automatically redirect prism laser, guiding them to destroy enemies blocking paths and the like.

cost: 6 units per use [5 uses from a full gauge]

cyan laser was my favourite colour power when i was a little baby because haha bright colour funny sound go wheeee. prism laser is probably overpowered because of this bias lmao.

CUBIC SATELLITE

summons four [?] orbiting cubes that shield rock from one hit each. they deal damage to enemies they touch unless said enemy is immune to the power. standard shield weapon, blue cube is a lame overly situational gimmick and i couldn't think of anything better. rock can still fire and charge his mega buster while shielded, but obviously can't use any special weapons. every time a cube is destroyed, the remaining ones spin faster, looking something like the tubinaut badnik from sonic mania. that's just a visual effect i don't know what else to write here it's a shield weapon.

cost: 3.5 units per use [8 units from a full gauge]

i think i'd like shield weapons more if i knew how to use the attacking ones to actually attack. i used leaf shield about 3 times in mega man 2 and every time i flung it in the wrong direction and got hit anyway.

FRENETIC VOID

sucks in any enemies that rock is facing for as long as the attack button is held down, drawing them to a point just in front of him. when released, the blasters on his arms [which in this form morph to look like the purple frenzy mouth] crunch down in front of him, dealing slightly more damage than a charged mega buster shot to anything that's been pulled in close enough and knocking back anything that isn't destroyed. rock can't move while using frenetic void, and if anything hits him while he's vaccuuming he drops the move without the finishing bite or knockback. this move can also draw in most types of bullets, which are absorbed and disappear if they reach the void, or continue in whatever direction they were pulled in if the move ends before they get there.

cost: 3 units per use [10 units from a full gauge]

i thought it'd be cool to combine purple frenzy and violet void somehow. i used void for the robot master name because i believe in sonic colours ds port supremacy, but the decision was ultimately pretty arbitrary.

SPIKE SPIN

what top spin wishes it was. a close-range attack where spikes emerge from rock's body as he does a speen, giving him a somewhat bigger hitbox. when he hits an enemy, he bounces off of it in a manner similar to the way sonic bounces off of everything he hits. the move lasts as long as the attack button is held down, draining weapon energy over time, and rock can still walk and jump while speening. some projectiles will bounce off of spike spin [generally small bullets like those from mets or sniper joes will bounce off while anything stronger will still hurt], and holding the move makes rock immune to spikes, allowing him to walk over them safely until his weapon energy depletes.

some items may be tucked away in places that are difficult or impossible to reach without walking over spikes, requiring the use of spike spin to reach them.

cost: 4 units per second, for a total of 7 seconds of spinning from a full gauge. the first unit is depleted the moment the button is pressed so the move can't be scummed into lasting longer.

honestly now that i'm thinking about this i might change spike spin to act a little more like how pink spike spindashes, but i was overcome by a desire for justice for top man.

i don't know how to end this post lmao but i've been thinking about this crossover for days on end. i know damn well it's a pipe dream but right now i'm in just the right mode of hyperfixation that if sega and capcom announced a sonic/mega man crossover in a video game that isn't smash lmao i would ASCEND

[cheri-translates]

[CN] Lucien’s Warm Morning Date (Eng Translation)

🍒 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for a date which has not been released in English servers! 🍒

There is a call BEFORE this date which is important in establishing context: here

Valentine’s 2020 Collection: Gavin // Kiro // Victor

The date begins with MC waking up in Lucien’s bed 👀

She starts recalling the events of the night before... 

Turns out the drainage pipe in her house suddenly broke, and the person responsible for maintenance can only make it the next day.

Lucien: What do you plan to do tonight? If you don’t mind, you can spend the night here.

MC: No need, no need. I’ll feel even worse like this…

Lucien: What if I say that this is my form of gratitude for the cherries you gave me?

MC: I…

I look at Lucien’s smiling eyes and can’t seem to find a reason to refuse. I give him a light nod.

MC: Lucien, thank you! I’ll temporarily borrow your sofa for a night then!

Following the direction of my finger, Lucien looks at the long sofa in the living room and furrows his brows slightly.

Lucien: You should sleep in the bedroom.

MC: How could I do that! It’s unreasonable for the owner of the house to sleep in the living room.

Lucien: Who said that I was going to sleep in the living room?

Lucien leans over, a hint of slyness flashing across his eyes. Light laughter enters my ears. 

Lucien: I always can’t help but tease you. Did you forget that my house has other guest rooms? 

Back in the present, MC leaves the bedroom to find Lucien sleeping on the living room sofa

There’s a cup of cold coffee next to him, so MC guesses that he woke up in the middle of the night to work

She takes a look at one of the books on the table:

MC: “...tactile sensibility is located throughout the body. The level of responsiveness differs... this could be due to the differing distribution of nerves...” Response? Nerves? ...is this referring to the causal relationship between the two? 

I speak softly, trying to continue exploring this uncharted territory.

“Every part of the skin has incredibly rich and keen sensitivity, and will cause...”

MC: Rich and keen sensitivity? 

I lower my head and look at my own fingers. With a gentle rub, the smooth touch of the paper lingers on my fingertips.

I nod thoughtfully, and then touch Lucien’s sofa. 

This time, the touch feels different from the book - it has a soft, suede texture.

As though conducting my own tiny experiment, I reach out to carefully feel the items in my surroundings. 

The feeling of items which are usually taken for granted becomes interesting with my deliberate effort.

MC: What else can I test...

My eyes unconsciously��drift over to Lucien. His breathing is as steady and even as always.

MC: As long as I don't wake him up...

Enraptured by an unknown emotion, I reach out to touch Lucien’s cheek lightly with a finger.

What travels from my fingertips is a soft touch different from all the other items.

My finger lingers a while longer before I carefully draw it back.

MC: ...Lucien? 

I try calling him, but his eyes remain shut, and there are no signs of him waking up.

At that moment, an even bolder idea bubbles from my heart.

I bend down and lean closer to him, doing my best to control my increasingly nervous breathing. It’s as though every cell in my body is trembling from this small “adventure”.

Lucien’s eyelashes cast a faint shadow, and it moves in a regular pattern along with his breathing. 

I purse my lips nervously. Even though I haven’t done anything yet, my cheeks heat up involuntarily.

It’s as though there are two contending voices in my head. I remain in this position, staring at him. 

Lucien: Are you going to keep looking at me like that?

MC: ...!?

Lucien’s voice breaks my train of thought. My body has no time to react, and I remain in this posture, looking at him dazedly with wide eyes. 

His eyes are clear and bright, without the slightest trace of tiredness or drowsiness. 

The signal in my brain is finally restored. I snap out of my daze and stare at him, at a loss. 

MC: When... when did you wake up!

Lucien: Hmm... from around the time you sat beside me.

MC: ...then why did you pretend to be asleep!

Lucien: I was too curious about what this inquisitive student wanted to do, so I chose to observe.

Lucien turns over, using both hands to prop himself up. He smiles and looks at me. 

Lucien: What are you going to do next? 

My pounding heartbeat renders me unable to calmly find a reasonable excuse.

MC: I... I just wanted to use this chance to take pictures of your sleeping face!

The hand I retracted digs into my pocket, and I realise that I had left my phone in the bedroom. In my panic, I can only extend both hands to form a picture frame pose.

Lucien nods his head thoughtfully, and the silhouette from the backlight casts him in a faint golden rim.

Lucien: Is that so? This is the first time I know that the photographer has to lean so close to observe the model.

MC: ...a detailed and comprehensive understanding of the model is necessary to produce good work!

Lucien: When you’re the one being photographed next time, I’ll definitely apply what I’ve learnt.

The corners of his lips lift, and his narrow eyes curve upwards. 

MC: There wouldn’t be a next time!

Pretending to be annoyed, I reach to cover his mouth, but he breaks free with ease, and encases me in his arms.

The arms embrace me unhurriedly, forming a gentle, soft, and inescapable shackle.

The breath around my forehead tickles, and I don’t dare to lift my head to meet his eyes. 

Lucien: It seems I should pretend to be asleep for a while longer, so I wouldn’t spoil this photographer’s plan of taking secret photos.

I lower my head, not knowing if the heat on my cheeks is a result of the sunlight from outside the window, or the warm breaths from his nose. 

Lucien: However, this kind of morning is not bad. 

His low voice enters my ears. Lucien lifts his hand and helps me tuck stray hair behind my ear. 

Lucien: Good morning, MC. 

After freshening up in the bathroom, MC heads to the kitchen to wash cherries

She's still blushing from earlier

The cooling touch of the cherries makes her think about how she almost touched Lucien’s lips just now 

Lucien comes in to check on her

Lucien: So these are the “extremely sweet cherries” you mentioned yesterday?

Lucien mimics my tone, and his breath falls onto my ears, setting off a touch of warmth.

I clumsily pick out a cherry from the bowl, shake off water droplets gently, and lift my hand to bring it to Lucien’s mouth.

MC: If you don’t believe me, give it a try.

Lucien lowers his head, his hair brushing against my cheek. He opens his mouth slightly, and bites the cherry from my hand. 

The tender touch is fleeting on my fingertips. 

MC: ...how is it?

Lucien nods, but doesn’t give me an answer. There is a narrow light in his eyes. 

Lucien: There is one thing I’m curious about. You’ve been touching different things since just now. Could you tell me why?

Following Lucien’s gaze, I lower my head to look at the cherry I have 'ravaged’ in my palm, and I react immediately. 

MC: This... this is because...

Thinking back to what I did just now, my tone turns hesitant.

MC: Just now, I saw one of your reference books on how tactile sensibility is everywhere, so I got a little curious. I’ve never taken notice of the tactility of different objects, so I just... found myself wanting to give it a try.

Lucien: Are you very interested in this area of research? 

MC: ...mm, you’re right! I might even find inspiration for a program from it. 

Seeing me nod vigorously, the smile in Lucien’s eyes deepens. He asks me in a joking manner:

Lucien: Do you require any assistance from me? I might have a lot of reference books you may be interested in.

MC: I’ll have to trouble Professor Lucien then!

Lucien smiles while nodding, and doesn’t continue with his questions. 

They sit together on the sofa and Lucien explains science stuff to her using the book she was reading just now

Brace yourself for Lucien’s science rant:

Lucien: The topic this time is the effects that physical contact via different parts of the body have on dopamine secretions in the brain. Also, whether dopamine can be used in reverse - to become feelings experienced by the body. 

MC: Dopamine... feelings...?

Lucien: Mm. In our brain, there is a substance called dopamine. It is related to excitement, pleasure, and similar positive emotions. 

The combination of unfamiliar and academic vocabulary leaves me wandering around in a cloudy mist. 

Lucien smiles, unconsciously smoothening my furrowed brows. His voice softens.

Lucien: Just listening to the subject can be quite difficult for one to grapple with, but the concept itself is very easy to understand. Let me give you an example. 

He takes up the blanket on the sofa, signalling me to give it a touch. 

Perhaps due to the concentration of my senses, both my hands are covered with warm velvet, bringing with it more obvious comfort than ever before.

Lucien: Do you feel anything special? 

MC: It’s very comfortable and makes me feel relaxed.

Lucien nods, reaching out to rub my hair out of habit. Then, following the curve of the back of my head, he strokes my neck. 

The hand pausing on my neck is warm. The heat travels past my hair and onto my skin. 

MC: This is even more comfortable...

The words are blurted out before I realise it. 

Lucien is stunned for a moment, and there seems to be a different kind of light in his eyes.

His actions do not stop, and he continues caressing my neck, as though smoothening the hair of a cat. 

Afraid that the topic would continue digressing to other places, I hurriedly pull us back to the academic problem we were discussing earlier. 

MC: So these feelings are evoked because of dopamine secretions? 

Lucien: You could understand it that way. Physical contact is one reason for dopamine secretions, so...

MC: It will cause people to feel pleasure!

Like a student rushing to answer questions in class, I complete Lucien’s sentence before he can finish.

It wasn’t so that I could be praised. It is only through this way that I can ignore our closing distance, and force myself to melt into the logic Lucien has combed through for me. 

Lucien: Exactly. You learn very quickly. 

Lucien looks at me, smiling and yet not smiling, and suddenly stops his movements. 

Instead, he exerts more pressure and holds my hand. 

Lucien: However, making contact with different areas channels different feelings. For instance, right now.

Sensing the pressure and warmth from his palm, my heart rate speeds up.

Perhaps due to the concentration of my senses, every action from Lucien makes me feel different from usual. 

In contrast to how his touch made me feel relaxed earlier, his fingertips now render me unable to suppress my rapid heartbeat. 

MC: It does feel different...

I cough lightly, and try my hardest to gather my messy thoughts. 

MC: When there’s a different feeling, the brain would also release different feedback, right? 

Lucien: Such an understanding is not wrong. Which is why I’m very curious - what are you feeling now?

I bite my tongue and look around, wanting to divert the topic. 

MC: If dopamine secretions are unquantifiable, then what are these charts? 

Lucien lowers his head, and the corner of his lips turn up with an almost undetectable smile. 

As though nothing happened just now, his fingers casually point at the book.

Lucien: These charts record body temperature, breathing rates, and brain activity. This is done to turn subjective feelings into data. With such an explanation, do you find it less difficult to understand?

After saying this, Lucien taps my forehead lightly. 

I unconsciously rub the areas he has touched, and I feel as though my senses have doubled in my brain.

Even this normal action leaves a strange warmth on my skin. 

Perhaps due to extraordinary strong dopamine secretions, I hide this atypical feeling in my heart, and relish its aftertaste. 

After this, MC reads books while Lucien works on his computer

She starts inching towards him because she finds him more attractive than usual under the sunlight

Lucien notices and asks if she’s bored, but MC tells him to continue with his work and not mind her

Lucien asks if she’s hungry

But she isn’t because she has eaten half of the cherries that she bought for Lucien

She feeds him a cherry and starts blushing because d o p a m i n e

Lucien: Only little children like grabbing things and sending them to their mouths.

Hearing the joke in his meaning, I follow up with a question, unconvinced. 

MC: Why is that so? 

Lucien: As compared to the hand, the most primitive way that humans perceive the outside world is...

Lucien pauses, handing me a cherry naturally.

Not knowing what to do, I give it a bite. Before I can swallow it, his thumb gently touches my lips. 

Lucien: Here.

MC: [blushing] ...

The sudden intimate touch leaves me at a loss, and my breathing begins to speed up. 

His finger is in no rush to move away. A delicate sensation follows the warmth of his fingertips, slowly turning into a sweetness that I've never tasted before. 

His gaze carries with it a warmth even more heated than the sunlight as it enters my eyes, and is sparkling. 

The shadow and breathing continue to approach, descending on my eyelids, and I am unable to move.

Lucien: Among all the different body parts, lips are the most sensitive.

He lowers his head and smiles slyly, exerting more pressure on the finger pressed against my lips.

The touch brings with it strong colours, as though vowing to its existence, engraving itself directly into my memory.

My ability to think rationally disappears in an instant.

The sap from the cherry spreads between my lips and teeth, and an unclear affection circles in my heart. 

I seem to have lost my sense of touch and taste. My entire heart and vision are occupied by Lucien.

...I want to feel even more of his unique flavour.

I straighten my back, giving him a light peck on the lips.

The noise that has been clamouring since this morning finally settles into a calm.

The pair of dark coloured eyes looking at me are stunned for a moment, before  ripples of waves start flashing across his eyes.

The satisfaction of having my wish fulfilled leaves a dazzling dizziness in my heart. 

I put some distance between us, and speak softly. 

MC: Today, you’ve been asking me about how I feel - touch, taste... then... what do you feel now?

Lucien’s breathing halts for a few seconds. 

His eyes, which always swallow me up when I’m not careful, are filled with complex emotions.

Seeing that he’s not giving me an answer, I summon my courage and draw closer to him.

In the next second, he suddenly grabs my wrist and pulls me towards him.

Lucien: Do you want to know my answer?

His low voice descends from the top of my head, like a soft yet inescapable net capturing me.

MC: I...

Before I can respond, my lips are dyed in warmth.

The most tender touch carries with it a temperature, and makes one want to submerge into it even more than any other feeling before. 

Lucien: Is this answer sufficiently clear enough? 

I can’t help but place my index finger on his ear, feeling a body temperature that is higher than normal. 

MC: This is also the influence of dopamine, right? 

Turbulent emotions surface in those deep, deep eyes. 

Lucien: ...mm, you learn very quickly. 

Even though this is a sentence that I’ve heard not long ago, his low voice stains it with a different colour this time. 

The hand that had lightly lit a cluster of flames on my skin earlier finally lands on the back of my head with certainty, causing me to lift my head slightly. 

This time, I cooperate and close my eyes. 

An undisguised possessiveness spreads to the adjacent skin. In the midst of our entangled breaths, every suck and tender bite are his branded markings.

Soothed by each other’s temperatures, our hearts beat at the same frequency.

MC: Lucien...

I mumble his name. 

MC: Actually, whether it’s because of dopamine or not, I feel very happy whenever I touch you. Right now, aside from you... I don’t want to think about anything else.

Lucien: ...

Lucien looks straight at me. His undulating emotions return to a calm, and carries a smile that I can’t quite understand.

Lucien: This time, I should be the one calling you 'teacher’.

MC: What...!

He clasps the back of my neck tightly. I have no way to escape, and can only gradually sink into this vortex. 

The next kiss is unrestrained, frank, and telling. 

It conveys the heart without the need for words. 

When Lucien finally decides to let me go, letting me lean on his shoulder to catch my breath, he presses the side of his face onto mine, which feels extremely hot.

His fond voice burrows into my heart, not allowing me to be distracted. 

Lucien: Because when it comes to this, only you can teach me.

The translucent curtains hang in front of the French windows, and there are a few clouds floating in the blue sky. 

The sunshine is really nice. 

🍒

🌸 MOMEMTS 🌸

Lucien’s Post: Resting time in the afternoon needs to be shared with the right people. 

MC: Is this afternoon’s tea black tea?

Lucien: You’ve guessed correctly. Do you still like it?

-

Lucien’s Post: Resting time in the afternoon needs to be shared with the right people.

MC: Rest day is truly meant for a complete relaxation of the body and mind!

Lucien: Is this the reason why you’ve chosen to look for me for afternoon tea?

-

Lucien’s Post: Resting time in the afternoon needs to be shared with the right people.

MC: If we have the chance in future, we can make our own refreshments!

Lucien: I’m thinking there’s no need to wait. The kitchen and I are ready.

-

Call after the date: here

A translated comic based on this date (NSFW): here