#for the limitations of these figures they honestly did a great job with em

[pokemonkidsdaily]

day 30

ariados #168

[beelsnack]

I know this happens to plenty of people. You work in fast food or retail and your just trying to make a living. Whether your saving to get out of a crappy household ASAP, no matter the job, paying for college, or any other reason and you WILL have shitty jerk customers (At my first job and first day, I was asked if I spoke English because I couldn’t understand him with the mask and there’s a glass in front of the food. Buddy, shush. Didn’t help that I’m sensitive, ended up crying the moment I got home. These jobs are ones where you learn to really respect these workers cause of the crap they go through when you have it as a job)

In this request, the boys visit MC in the human world when they have the chance. So, my request is how would the brothers and Diavolo (the limit was 8 right?) react to coming to the human world one night to visit MC and they see them just crying and just frustrated in general due to shitty asshole customers from work?

I feel it's necessary to let you know that I actually started working on this request while on my break at my retail job.

I'm sorry you had to deal with that, friend. Pour one out for the retail workers out here busting ass during a global pandemic.

Thanks for being patient with me, friend, I know I don't really have a consistent upload schedule.

-----

Lucifer: In hindsight. he could have planned this out better.

Perhaps his own pride was to blame. He had planned to surprise the human by showing up unannounced after their shift, but he had gotten so caught up in the thought of them jumping into his arms out of sheer joy that he never considered that it might not be a good time.

"Hush now, my dear," Lucifer sat down next to where they had slumped against the wall of their living room. The carpet was slightly stained and part of him wanted to recoil, but there were more important things to worry about. "Those wretches aren't worth your tears."

He brought his arm around their shoulders, tugging them against his side and letting his cloak drape over them like a blanket. They snuggled into him almost instinctively, and he couldn't help but preen a little bit.

"I know," they hiccupped, burying their face in the crook on his neck. "It's just...sometimes it's hard not to focus on it, y'know?"

Lucifer didn't, but that didn't mean he lacked sympathy. The demon placed two gloved fingers beneath their chin and tilted their head upwards.

"Then how about you focus on me instead?"

Mammon: Turns out every Realm had its Karens. Who knew?

When Mammon had first popped into the human's place and seen them face-down on the kitchen table sobbing, his initial reaction had been violence. He wanted to find whoever made his human cry and wring the reason why out of their throat. But, after the initial bloodlust subsided, he realized that he had something way more important to worry about.

He sat down on the chair next to them, taking one of their hands and gently running his thumb over the bumps of their knuckles as they choked out what had happened. Mammon had worked his fair share of part time jobs, he was no stranger to the specific torture that was retail. So hearing that his human had to go through that made his heart break a tiny bit.

Not that he would show it, of course.

"A'ight, human, the Great Mammon is here to help." he grinned, standing up. "I know just what you need."

He strode over to their kitchen like he lived there, flung open the fridge and pulled out a bottle of alcohol.

"Mammon," the human rubbed at the dried tear tracks on their cheeks. "Not that I don't appreciate it, but...how did you know where I keep my liquor?"

"Minor details, human!"

Leviathan: His first instinct was to panic.

The human was flopped face first onto their couch when Levi showed up, and his specialty had always been jumping to conclusions. He almost took himself out on their coffee table in his haste to make sure they were breathing.

And then the human almost took him out because the logical reaction to someone suddenly bursting into your home and getting right up in your face was to a) scream and b) punch.

After the comedy of errors skit was over, the two of them were sitting upright on the couch. The human looked exhausted, both emotionally and physically, as they filled him in on their day from Hell.

(Except not because their actual days in Hell were a lot better than working retail, but that was beside the point.)

"...so not only did I have to interact with people, which is already more than enough, I got screamed at because this old lady didn't like the price of something! Yes, Helen, I personally made the prices higher just to piss you off, you've figured out my master plan!"

"Ew, no, do not want." Levi winced in sympathy. "My personal remedy is playing beat-em-ups."

"Your solution to everything is video games, Levi."

"Shh, no thoughts, only Smash Brothers."

Satan: He had so many questions.

What happened? How long had the human been sitting there stewing in their own misery? Where was he going to hide the body?

Satan was a pro at suppressing rage. So even though he wanted to go rip out the vocal chords of every soccer mom with a let-me-speak-to-the-manager haircut within a five mile radius, he reigned it in enough to settle himself down on the couch next to the distraught human and rub soothing circles on their back while they tried to tell him what happened through their sobs.

"Next time, summon me and I'll kill them for you."

"I don't think corporate would appreciate me summoning a demon in the middle of a department store."

"I don't appreciate corporate telling you that you have to stand there and be verbally abused by a wrinkly old hag who couldn't figure out what the word 'expires' meant." he huffed. The human let themselves flop heavily against his side, and when he looked down at them he noticed that the corner of their mouth had twitched up in the barest hint of a smile.

"She was, like, thirty, Satan."

"She was a wrinkly old hag in spirit."

Asmodeus: "Oh, darling, what happened?"

Usually Asmo preferred to be on his knees for a different reason, but the human was refusing to look up, so kneeling in front of them was his only option to be able to see their face. He reached up to cup their cheeks, wiping away a few tears with his thumbs. "Shh, it's alright, I'm here, darling. Tell me what happened."

They sniffled, a few fresh tears spilling over when they blinked. "I-I'm sorry, Asmo, I - "

"No need to apologize, darling." he moved some of their hair behind their ear. "Just let it all out. Bottling up all of those negative emotions will make you break out."

After a few more minutes, they finally calmed down enough to recount the torture that had been their retail shift.

"Ugh, honestly," Asmo shook his head. "Hearing those kind of stories just makes you wonder. How do people get so entitled like that?"

He stood from his kneeling position, reaching down to hold their hands. "I refuse to let any of those awful people contaminate your beauty, darling. You," he let go of one of their hands to boop them affectionately on the nose. "Need a spa night."

"A spa night?"

"Mm-hm!" Asmo hummed, already on his way to the bathroom. "You let Nurse Asmo was all of those icky feelings away."

Beelzebub: They hadn't even made it fully into the living room.

When Beel stepped through the portal into the human's apartment and saw them curled into a ball near the doorway, he was immediately on high alert and checking for danger. Only after he realized that he didn't smell blood and had made sure to inspect all of the places for danger to hide did he lower his hackles.

The human was watching him through watery eyes, and Beel realized belatedly that he hadn't even greeted them. Well, bit too late for that. He crossed the living room in a few long strides and crouched down in front of them, lifting their hair out of the way to check for injuries.

Satisfied that there was no immediate danger, he scooped them up into his arms and deposited them on the couch. "Do you want to talk about it?"

They shrugged, wiping furiously at their eyes. "Just...people at work were being jerks, is all. I'm probably just being a big baby about it."

"No you aren't," Beel sat down next to them. "You're allowed to be upset if people are being hurtful."

That only brought on a fresh wave of tears, and Beel felt a little guilty. He pulled them closer until they were practically in his lap and tucked them underneath his chin like he could physically shield them from all of the awful things in the Three Realms.

"I'll make us some dinner. Everything's worse when you're hungry."

Bephegor: They started nap time without him.

Well, that's what it looked like when Belphie first popped through the portal. But, upon closer inspection, he noticed that the lump under the blankets that was the human was definitely not sleeping. Their breathing was quick and staccato, interrupted here and there by low, hiccupping whines.

They were crying.

Well that wouldn't do. Crying yourself to sleep just gave you a headache.

"Hey," he peeled back the protective layer of blanket to look at the human. Eyes red-rimmed and puffy, with a little wet spot on the pillow where their tears had landed. They sniffled, trying to shrink back into their blanket burrito, but Belphie held first. "Let me in."

He wiggled his way into the cocoon until they two of them were snuggled together, with their head against his collarbone. "Wanna tell me what happened?"

"Humans suck."

"Didn't we solve this issue already?" Belphie snickered when they pushed weakly against his chest. "Why in particular do humans suck?"

With a shuddering sigh, they recounted the events of the day. How they had been screamed at by customers, then scolded by their boss when said customers complained, then treated like actual garbage by their coworkers when the boss took their anger out on their employees.

"...Yeah, humans suck." Belphie tugged them in a little closer, burying his face in their hair. "But you've got your favorite demonic nap buddy here, so you don't have to worry about humans, okay?"

Diavolo: He felt powerless.

It was not a feeling Diavolo experienced often as the Crown Prince of the Devildom, and the few times he did experience it, he didn't like it.

If they had been in the Devildom, he would simply order whoever had made the human upset to be tortured for a decade or two - well, actually, he would have them brutally killed, revived, and then killed again, but the human was a merciful soul and likely wouldn't let him. But this was the Human Realm, where the only influence he had was the intimidation factor of his height and size. So all he could do was hold the human as they sobbed against his chest.

"This isn't fair to you," he mumbled into their hair as they sat on the couch. "You should be in the Devildom, treated like the noble you are. You shouldn't have to deal with these ingrates who think they're better because you're on the clock at that particular moment."

They whimpered softly as Diavolo murmured sweet things to them. Even if it was merely a fantasy, it was nice to think of a world where they wouldn't have to put up with all of the bullshit of retail.

Maybe one day they would take Diavolo up on his offer.

[bqstqnbruin]

F is for Friends - part 3

Whoops I'm in class rn but I just finished part 3 so here it is! I think this is the longest part so far, but not much longer than the others, so have fun.

But yeah, ignore typos, I might fix them eventually, but knowing me, I'll miss them so call em out if you feel like it.

Read the other parts here: Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 4

________________________

“I don’t get why it has to be him, though,” Keelan whines on the other end of the phone. You did the stupid thing and reminded him that Nolan and some of his teammates were visiting your classroom to do a lab with your honors kids today, and he reacted exactly how you expected him to while you were driving in that morning.

“Because Anderson is an ass and Nolan volunteered.”

“Ok, but why Nolan?” he asks, saying his name like it was cursed

“Because when I called Tom Holland he said he was busy.”

“You know what I mean,” he mumbles.

“No, I don’t.” Yes, you did, but you weren’t about to tell him that.

“Why couldn’t you have invited Fran and Lindsey?”

You sigh, pulling into your parking space outside the school, Javier already waiting for you by the door. “Because they had to be prominent and I don’t think anyone needs the two of them trying to do an experiment. Now, I have to go, Nolan and the guys will be here after lunch, I’m already fucking nervous because of Anderson. I love you, goodbye,” you tell him, hanging up before he can get another word in.

“Are you ready?” Javier asks, handing you the cup of coffee he had picked up for you, waiting outside by his car like he did every morning.

“I almost threw up, like, five times getting ready this morning and Keelan is being an ass about this,” you huff, struggling to swipe your ID to get into the building. “Why isn’t this working?”

He takes the ID out of your hand, flipping it around in his fingers before swiping it himself. “Holding it the right way might help.”

You take it from him, clearly annoyed. “If this is any indication as to how the rest of the day is going to go I’m quitting and looking for another job at 3 pm.”

“So you’re not going to be dramatic today, I see,” Javier jokes, earning a glare from him as the two of you walk up to your classroom, greeting students as you passed by them in the halls. “Hey, listen. You’re a great teacher,” your friend assures you once you unlock your classroom door. “You’re going to be fine. If you need me, I have my free period during your first class they’re here, and I think Charlie has a free period during your second if you still need someone to run interference when Anderson is there.”

“Thanks,” you tell him, turning into your classroom to get ready for the day. Your phone was buzzing with texts, some angry from Keelan about what he was now referring to as ‘the neighbor situation,’ and one from Nolan asking you to confirm yet again where they were supposed to go.

“Are you buying lunch today?” Javier comes back into your room with his own to stash in the fridge that was in the back corner of your class. It wasn’t yours, nor was it for food technically, but that didn’t stop you and Javier from stashing your lunches in there instead of walking down to the teacher's lounge on the other side of the school.

You sit there for a minute, trying to remember if you even grabbed it when you were heading out the door that morning. Between Keelan busting your ass about Nolan, thinking of the lesson the lab that you were doing that afternoon, and just the general morning antics of getting out the door on time, you left your lunch bag on your kitchen counter. “Is there still a box of cereal in there?” you ask him when he opens the fridge.

“Yeah.”

“That’s my lunch then,” you say, keeping it in there so it wouldn’t be exposed to chemicals or attract any sort of rodent or vermin that you had no desire in dealing with. You knew today was going to be hell, and you weren’t even prepared for the college prep kids you were going to see during the second and third periods. You do your best to scramble and get everything you needed, thankful for the first time that you were giving them a test that you could grade during lunch and last period (and honestly, at home since that’s where most grading took place) instead of having to worry about teaching them when your mind was occupied by your honors lesson that day.

By the time your college prep kids were done with their tests, you were trying to mentally prepare for the lab, only to freak yourself out. Your computer dings, right before the bell rings, a message from Anderson saying that he would be stopping by during the second period to observe since ‘it was his job to make sure you were doing well as your superior.’ God, you hated him. The bell for lunch rings, your students filing out of your room as you grab the mug you kept on your desk and poured as much cereal into it as you could.

Javier comes back into your room, grabbing his lunch and plopping himself down at the table, eating his lunch as the two of you fell into conversation as you always did. Not even five minutes in, your classroom phone rings right as you hit print for the instructions you wrote up for the boys.

“Y/L/N’s room,” you answer, the school’s secretary telling you that the guys were in the office waiting for you. “Oh, wow, ok, I’ll be right down.” You hang up, throwing your hair into a bun, and grab your mug of cereal. “I’m getting the guys, do you want to come with me or wait here until we come back?”

Javier comes with you, both of you practically running through the halls out of panic that your students would bombard whoever Nolan brought with him. You were munching away at the cereal as you open the door to the main office, seeing Nolan and two of the other guys in their Flyers jerseys, all of them looking awkward with their hands in their pockets, unsure of what else to do. “Hey, guys!” you greet them, Nolan the first to turn around. Fuck him for looking good and making your heart skip a beat. It’s not fair, is it? “Uh, this is Javier, one of the other chem teachers,” you introduce him once you collect yourself, trying not to focus all your attention on Nolan.

This was at most a crush. Just a crush on the boy who lived next door to you. Who was also hot and sweet. Just a crush that you shouldn’t even be thinking about at school to begin with, so who cares? Having a crush on a boy does not mean that you loved him or that you loved Keelan any less. Oskar and Travis introduce themselves to you and Javier, the five of you walking back to your classroom while you continue to eat the cereal, suddenly very conscious of how weird it looked.

“No Kev?” you ask Nolan, the two of you lagging behind the other three guys while they talk.

Nolan shrugs, feeling nervous to even be with you in the school hallway. Every single thing he’s thought about you in the last how many days started flooding back to him, something was telling him that besides the fact that he shouldn’t be thinking them at all, he shouldn’t be thinking of them in your school. “He said he didn’t sleep well last night so he was going to stay at our place.”

“Hey, Y/N, what are we doing today?” Oskar asks, pulling your attention away from Nolan once you get back to your classroom.

“The kids are going to be designing a lab where they have to use the ideas of limiting and excess reactant to get the desired product.”

“What does that mean?” Travis asks, Javier sitting back and watching everything happen.

“So you’re not always going to have a perfect ratio of chemicals, nor are all reactions going to go to completion where everything reacts with everything,” you start to explain. “Think of it this way: you guys have your roster of however many players, yeah? You need three forwards, and two bluelines out on the ice in a normal five-on-five. Say every line is locked in; it can’t be changed, you can’t move people around, you can’t have people playing with different players outside of their line, it’s always the same five people. If you have nine forwards and 8 defensemen, how many line combinations can you have?”

“Three,” Nolan answers you.

“Why?”

“Because you have enough defense for four lines, but only three lines when you’re looking at forwards.”

“Right,” you say, not noticing the looks that Oskar and Travis were giving Nolan, “so your forwards in this case, are going to be like your limiting reactant, your blueliners are your excess because you would have two of them leftover.”

“And what are the kids going to do?” Oskar asks you.

“I’m going to give them a desired product, tell them how much of it they want to make, and they’re going to have to figure out how much of each reactant they’re going to need to make that.”

“And they can do that?” Travis asks.

“Knowing Y/N, they can,” Nolan mumbles, his cheeks turning red.

Before you can respond, the bell rings indicating the end of lunch. “Well, alright then.”

The boys and Javier lean against the back counter, your students coming into your classroom as you tried to down the rest of your cereal that you forgot about while you were talking to the boys. You knew that you wouldn’t be able to eat during the lab given the chemicals, but you definitely had to eat something.

“Ms. Y/L/N, who are they?” Spencer asks.

You hold up your finger for him to wait a minute, some of your students knowing who they are, one of your girls going absolutely feral in the corner opposite from where they were standing. The bell rings for you finally start class, getting your 24 students to quiet down as they wondered what the guys were doing. “We have guests today!” you tell them in your cheeriest teacher voice. You were genuinely excited for them to be there, but now that they actually were in the same room as your students, your nerves were threatening to take over. “From the Philadelphia Flyers, we have Oskar Lindblom, Travis Konecny, and Nolan Patrick to do our lab with us today! And for this period we also have Mr. Emillion, and later Mr. Fitzgerald later, so we’re going to have a lot of adults in our room.”

You start explaining your agenda for the day with your kids, knowing that some of them were focusing on the boys more than they were on you. You get into your lesson anyway, starting with your review questions. “If you have a reactant that remains after the reaction, is that the excess or the limiting reactant?”

“Excess,” Nolan mumbles under his breath as one of your students says the same thing. You ask another question, Nolan answering again, Travis and Oskar looking between him and each other.

“So, since when do you know so much about chemistry?” Travis leans over to Nolan while you’re explaining the directions to your students.

“I don’t. Y/N already explained it to me.”

“Let me rephrase it: since when do you care about chemistry?” Nolan just shrugs, pretending like he didn’t know what Travis was getting on about. “Oh, come on. Kevin told us about you liking her. At least be less obvious about it if you aren’t going to ask her out.”

Nolan takes in a deep breath, “We’re not doing this now.”

The students go off to do their thing, trying to brainstorm the procedure when you go up to the guys. Javier was already walking around and listening to the students chatter about their ideas. “So, you guys can guide them through everything, don’t outright tell them any of the steps they’re supposed to have written down. Follow what Javier and I are doing, I guess,” you tell them, having to force yourself to look at Oskar and Travis instead of just Nolan. They nod and start walking around, clearly confused.

This was going to end very poorly and you knew it. Especially with Anderson coming in. You watch the four guys walk around, the three hockey players clueless as the students try to figure out how they can interact with them. You realize the copies you made for them were still sitting in the printer tray in the other room, running to get them before anyone noticed you were gone. You were so scatter-brained by everything today, adding to the general anxiety you felt going into the lesson.

You start walking around, listening to the students and guiding them as they needed you to, thankful that they were actually getting the procedure they needed without much difficulty. “Alright, it looks like most of you have the procedure down,” you say to your class, walking around and hovering over your student's shoulders. “Make sure that before you start, either Mr. E or myself have to sign off on it, then our guys from the Flyers can help you with the lab. Sound good?”

Your students all agree, calling you and Javier over to read through their procedures so they can start. You were getting more nervous over the threat of the bell ringing soon and knowing that Javier had to go and teach his class, leaving you alone with the boys when Anderson came in to observe, too. You were running around, trying to scan through the procedures to make sure they were right so they could start working after the bell rang.

The bell sounds, your students starting to get chaotic, “Alright guys, you can take a break now or once you get your reaction heating, but not both. It’s up to you but you get five minutes either way.”

Some of your groups leave to go hang out in the hallway while their other friends move to their next class, some of your students get right to work with their lab goggles to start mixing. You were just waiting for Anderson to come in so he could rip you to shreds for whatever he felt like today.

“Hey,” Nolan says, taking you out of your trance. “You’re doing fine.”

“This experiment has to go well with the three of you,” you tell him, watching Oskar and Travis trying to help some of your students. Trying was the keyword there, but the students looked like they were having fun teaching the guys what to do.

“You’re an awesome teacher, it’s going to go well. Look at them. They know exactly what they’re doing and you barely had to tell them. That’s a great teacher,” you hear him say. You give him an unsure look. “Come on, would I lie to you?”

You shrug, a smile on your face. You could feel the heat rush to your cheeks as he scoffs when you tell him, “I don’t know.”

“Miss Y/L/N! Nice to see you!” you hear that voice calling you when the bell rings, all of your students filtering back in and getting right to work, knowing that Nolan heard you start mumbling under your breath as soon as Anderson appeared in your doorway.

“Hi, Mr. Fitzgerald,” you say, fake sweetness dripping in your voice when Anderson comes right up to you. “Class, say hi to Mr. Fitz!” you call him the nickname you knew he hated.

He looks around your room, trying to see who you brought. The fake smile he had plastered on his face drops when he sees the three guys. “You know the Flyers?”

You tried your hardest to hide the obvious smile on your own face, seeing the anger build inside him knowing that you had someone more impressive to work with your students. You shrug, “Yeah. Nolan here is my neighbor,” you introduce him, Nolan offering up an awkward wave, “I mean, they aren’t the president of a school in a university, but I think the students are having fun.”

“So what are the students doing?” Anderson asks, his face red with jealousy that you brought the boys.

Nolan walks away, as you start to explain that your students are going to make zinc chloride from an anhydrous copper chloride and solid zinc solution. He had no idea what it meant, but he knew that it was a silver piece of metal with a blue solid that you dissolve in water and it’s supposed to create a milky-looking liquid.

He starts walking through the class, listening to your students as they do the experiment, even though he still had no idea what they were talking about. One of your students was sitting in the corner, watching everything happen around him but not participating. “Hey, bud,” Nolan approaches him. “How’s it going?”

The student just nods, not taking his eyes off his paper while his partner does the rest of the work.

“I’m Nolan,” he says, sitting down next to the child. He watches the other student continue to mix the solution to get it to react. “So you let that sit now, right?”

“Yep.”

You and Anderson stand and watch the students, Anderson saying something about how the experiment was going, but you weren’t listening to him at all. You were making sure your students were doing what they needed to, working on the additional practice problems they had while the solution was sitting, seeing them get out the hot plates and set them up for when they would need them later, interacting with each other.

“Anderson,” you say, cutting him off once you see Nolan in the back corner, “look.”

He follows your gaze to Darren, your student who normally didn’t say a word, talking with Nolan and explaining everything to him. Nolan had a huge smile on his face that mirrored Darren’s and his partner Sydney’s. “I’ve never seen him talk with someone before,” Anderson says, dumbfounded. You knew Darren had been assigned to your class because Anderson wanted to see you work with ‘an unworkable student’ as you had overheard him telling Javier at the end of last school year. Darren was laughing with Nolan and Sydney, doing the work and actually helping his partner more than just doing the work on paper and passing it over to Syd like he normally did.

You both stand there, watching the three of them interact. You had a huge smile on your face, feeling the heat rush to your cheeks when Nolan looks away from the students and smiles at you, Darren holding up the beaker with their pale blue solution in it to show you. You give them a thumbs up, turning to Anderson and boasting, “I think they’re doing well.”

Anderson mumbles something under his breath, probably for the better since you had a feeling it was something about you as a general person.

You scan the room again, watching Travis and Oskar interact with the students, still not really sure what they were doing, but they all had smiles on their faces, so you couldn’t complain. You leave Anderson, walking around the room, making sure your students were doing ok. One of the groups asks you a question about the review worksheet they were doing, leaning against the table to help them. You listen to them talk through the problem, seeing Nolan staring at you out of the corner of your eye. Why couldn’t you focus on your students when he was right there?

You look up at the clock when you finish with that group of students. “Alright, y’all,” you get their attention, “Eyes on me for a minute. We have ten more minutes before the bell rings, which means we need to be cleaned up by then so you guys can get to your next class. You can leave the mixtures on the hot plates if they aren’t done heating and I will watch them. What I want one person to do right now is get a paper town and write you and your partner’s names on it and put it on the back counter for them to cool and we can mass them tomorrow, ok?” Your students agree and start scurrying around the room to do what you told them.

You move out of the way, going back to Anderson. “I’m impressed,” he says, a hint of genuine shock in his voice.

“Oh, really?”

Before he can answer, you hear something drop, the distinct sound of glass shattering on the floor. “No one move!” you say, all of your students halting as you try to figure out who dropped what.

Your student Nina waves you over as you rush to get your dustpan and brush, Anderson rushing over to help you clean up. “Are you alright?” you ask her.

“I cut my hand a little,” she lets out, showing you the scratch on her finger.

Anderson cleans up the glass, the rest of your students careful not to break anything else. You knew something had to go wrong. The day was going to perfect for something to not ruin it. “Let’s clean you up.” You help Nina wash her hand, making sure none of the chemicals got on her as you search for a bandage. “Was that the beaker with the zinc chloride?” She nods, you see a tear threatening to roll down her cheeks, knowing that she just ruined the product they had spent the entire period making and heating. Nolan watches you comfort her, feeling his heart flutter at the sight of you bandaging up your student. He pictured himself coming home after a game he got a fight in, you being there and helping him clean up a little more.

“Dude,” Travis whispers, scaring Nolan out of his fantasy. “You’re drooling.”

He waves him off while he watches you comfort your student who had started crying. “Hey, Neen,” you coo, a smile on your face, “It’s ok. Accidents happen. Remember I told you I was a lab assistant when I was in college? I can’t even count how many things I broke during one semester, let alone the entire time I was in the lab. We worked on the motto: if you break things that means you’re working hard. The harder you work, the more you break.”

“But we have to redo it,” she lets out.

You give her a nod, scrunching your face up. “Yeah. But if you get it started I can watch it heat. Do you have a class next period?” She nods. “Alright, hey Spencer?” you call over Nina’s partner, “Come here for a sec? Do you have a class next period?”

“Yeah. But I have a free period first period tomorrow. I can come in then.”

“Ok, here’s what we’re going to do,” you start, “Tomorrow, Spencer is going to come start the experiment, then Nina, do you have a free period at all?”

“Second period.”

“Perfect! Spencer will get it started, Nina will finish it, and if it’s not completely dry by class, I’ll give you an extra day to do the calculations. Sound good?”

They both nod, the bell ringing as you tell your students goodbye. That had to be the most stressful double period of your life, thanks to all the men who had to be in your room with you, the fourth of them now standing there staring at you.

“Not bad, Y/L/N,” Anderson says. “Only one thing broke. That’s gotta be a new record for you.”

He leaves before you could protest, your mouth hanging open even though you weren’t sure how you could even rebuttal his statement. You look at the three guys, Nolan looking significantly more upset than he probably needed to be. “That’s the first time something’s broken in three months.”

“He really is an ass,” Nolan says, grabbing a seat at one of the tables.

“I told you.”

“So, uh,” Travis starts, looking between you and Nolan. “Do you have another class or anything?”

“Nope. I have my last period free, but I have to go to the library in case any chem students need tutoring. You guys are free to go. I really can’t thank you guys enough. I’m not sure what I could ever do to make it up to you, but anything. This was huge,” you gush, really meaning it. The students loved it, and other than the one beaker breaking and Nina’s slight break down as a result, it went really well. You had done the lab in the past where the students had to redo the lab three times before it even worked, this time, you only saw one group redo it one time.

“Yeah, Nolan can probably think of something,” you thought you heard Oskar mumble, Nolan glaring at him. “We should get going, then.”

“Actually, Y/N, do you mind if I get a ride home with you?” Nolan asks as you gather your things to head down to the library. “You know, so they don’t have to go out of their way to drive me home?”

Travis’s mouth hangs open, a stupid grin on his face as he nudges Oskar, both of them looking at you as you’re clearly caught off guard. “Uh, yeah sure, we just have to go to the library, like I said. Are you sure you want to stay? I won’t leave for another hour and a half.”

“Yeah, I do,” he tells you, his cheeks bright red.

“Ok, um, you guys go back to the main office and sign out, I’ll just call down and tell them you’re staying?”

Travis and Oskar leave after bickering over something with Nolan that was out of earshot for you. Why would he want to stay? He had mentioned that Travis didn’t live that far away, so the ‘going out of their way’ argument seemed invalid.

You shake it off, leading Nolan down to the library. “You did a great job with Darren, by the way.”

He shrugs, taking the seat across from you at the empty table you found. Students were walking around, you hopeful that none of them would need help from you. “He’s a good kid.”

“I’m so excited to tell his mom about today,” you say, typing away on your computer. You look up, reading Nolan’s confused expression. “Getting Darren to talk in the class has yet to be successful for me. His mom asked me at the beginning of the year to tell her whenever he has a good day. I’ve never seen him talk that much and genuinely enjoy it.”

“Do you email all the parents when their kids have a good day?”

You shake your head, “I try to. High school kids, because they’re teenagers, don’t always get the praise and excitement from adult figures in their lives because they’re in that period of ‘you’re still a child and are treated as such but are expected to act like an adult.’. Even if it’s something small like they were participating a lot more than normal like in Darren’s case. It makes them more motivated and willing to learn if they know you recognize when they do something good.”

“Really?”

You force yourself not to make eye contact with him, knowing that you would see him blushing as he always was and that would, in turn, make you do the same. “Come on,” you say, pretending to watch out for kids who could be coming for tutoring, “don’t you remember when you were in school getting excited over the simple act of a sticker on a test you got a good grade on? I remember my senior year we were sitting in our world language class and everyone got an A on the test our teacher gave, and we all started begging for stickers because she had given them the last three years we had her. She was so annoyed with us, but every test after that, no matter what grade we got, a sticker was always on the test. It’s little, but it’s fun.”

“Teaching is a lot more than I thought it was,” you hear him say. Honestly, he wasn’t really paying attention to the words coming out of your mouth; he just loved that you were talking about something you so clearly loved.

You laugh, “Yeah. It can be a lot. You haven’t seen my college prep classes. Honors is a little easier because the students are slightly more independent in terms of their work, but my CP kids just have more needs for them to learn the same material.”

“What?”

“It’s the ‘lower level, but the difference is it just takes longer for those kids to learn the same information. So what we did today, I’ll probably do in a month or so with CP, and I would give them the procedure, either straight up or have them fill in the blanks depending on the child and the group.”

“Depending on their group?”

“Yeah. Each lesson has to meet the needs of every child, which means modifying and accommodating it based on if they have an IEP, a 504, which falls under special education plans, or if their parents request it or the student themself requests it but it’s not written. Like, I wouldn't interact with you the same way I would interact with Fran, or Maddy, or Keelan," or elaborate, swallowing hard at the mention of your boyfriend's name. " You interact with people based on how you need to interact with them and what their needs are. Kids aren’t one size fits all, so why should their education be?”

You kept talking but he stopped listening, hating himself for the realization that he came to while you talked about teaching, a soft smile covering your face while you continue to look around for students instead of looking at him: whatever feelings he had for you were more than just a crush, Kevin and Travis sadly being correct. He wasn’t in love with you, but he wanted, needed to be more than just your friend.

But you were still with Keelan.

The bell rings, signaling the end of the day, you and Nolan going back to your classroom until you were contractually allowed to leave. “So what are you doing tonight?” Nolan asks you. He wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but he didn’t want his day with you to end once you pulled into the parking space outside your apartments.

You shrug, looking around your desk for the tests that you had given your CP kids that morning. “Grading these,” you tell him, holding them up before stuffing them into your bag. He opens his mouth, about to say something when you get cut off by the sound of your phone. “Oh, it’s Keelan!” you squeal, Nolan’s entire body deflating at the sound of your boyfriend’s name. “Hey, you’re on speaker, I’m here with Nolan.”

He lets out a sigh before giving you a monotonous, “Hey, guys.”

“What’s up?”

“What are you doing tonight?” he asks you, Nolan’s heart dropping, knowing where this was going.

“I was just telling Nolan that I was going to grade the tests for my CP kids, why?”

“Can that wait until tomorrow, do you think?”

Running through your schedule in your head, you tell him, “Yeah, they’re not expecting them back for a week anyway.”

“Let’s go out tonight.”

Nolan could feel himself getting sick listening to this conversation, for no other reason than he wanted to be the one with you tonight. But he knew he couldn’t as he watched the smile on your face grow. “Where?”

“I want to take you somewhere nice, you know, treat my girl how she deserves to be treated. We haven’t had a date night in a while and I miss you.”

“What time do you want to go?” you ask him, your heart racing. It wasn’t racing in excitement to be with Keelan, but because you were suddenly incredibly aware of Nolan being right there as you were being asked out by the guy you were sure you loved.

“I’ll pick you up at five?”

“Sounds great. I’ll see you then.”

“I love you, Y/N.”

You hesitate, looking at Nolan who was no longer making eye contact with you. “Love you, too, Keel,” you force yourself to get out. You hang up, looking at the clock to see that it was thankfully time for the two of you to leave and go home, giving you around an hour to get ready by the time you got home and got as much ready as you could for school tomorrow. “We’re free to leave now, if you want,” you offer him, packing up your bag for the day.

He just nods, waiting for you at the door as you walk out to the car, driving home in silence, only a mumble goodbye as the two of you get out of your car and go inside.

Five pm rolls around, Keelan getting out of his car to greet you as you go running up to him. Nolan watches you from his window, knowing he was being a creep, but he couldn’t help it. You looked perfect in the dress and heels you had on, your hair and makeup done to make you look more beautiful than he had ever seen. He watched you run into Keelan’s arms, Keelan lifting you off the group as the two of you kissed, Nolan green with envy as he watched him get the door for you for the two of you to drive off to the night he wished he was experiencing with you.

[ziracona]

so can u tell us a little about ur characterization of Lisa?? What's she like inside and outside of trials? Does she have a lot of lucidity, what were her relationships with others like, would she ever get better, do you think? ( im SAD.) Just. What's she like!! Also, same for Sally? Oh! And I'm rly enjoying two songs by Meg Myers which maybe you'll like? Running up that hill (Cover) and Desire. Maybe check em out? :3 - Sleepy

Sure!

My Lisa is from a bit before the archives for her placed her (early 1970s), because I wrote ILM back when there was no date given for many killers or survivors, so I just hoped they were historically accurate with the things they did mention & went through a fairly exhaustive list of drained swamps in the Southern US & paddleboat makes & placed her according to that data (it’s been a bit so I don’t remember the exact date without looking up my notes) in the 1920s-1930s, I believe? And in her early 20s, since she’s described as a girl & young woman, which DbD usually does only for characters in their early 20s. (Which I’d still assume is her age, bc even though her archives, if you go by them, have her in her teens, they’re not connected to the events of her disappearance/definitely happened before them.)

In trials, Lisa has like 0 lucidity. I talk about this some in chapter notes, so I’ll try to give a quick overview instead but sry if I restart myself. She’s so starved that any time she sees a living being, she is just completely overcome with hunger and can’t do anything but operate on it. Very scary. Feral. Like being attacked by a starving animal. She’s super out of it, and is completely wild and violent and has no control, only the need to eat. Outside of trials, if no one is around, she’s lucid again, but will remember trials and what she did to people, and spends that time in horror and despair. She’s tried to kill herself before, because the last thing she ever wanted was to become the thing she swore vengeance on (the Entity’s a real cruel motherfucker. Did the same to Rin, to Philip, to everyone it could. Likes to really twist decent people into what they would most despair to be), but in the realm, she’s stuck as it. She’s not really aware for trials, but remembers them with decent clarity, and is in constant agony over what she’s done. Unfortunately, suicide does not take in the realm, and every one of her attempts failed, just like her attempts to maim or tie herself up so she wouldn’t be able to hurt people did. She’s horribly alone and despairing, and also in physical agony. She’s at the worst end of what a human can be at as far as emaciation and starvation while still being alive goes, and that’s physically awful. It fucks up your brain chemistry too, and everything is just really fucking miserable all the time. It hurts to move, it hurts to breathe, your breath smells tastes like rotten fruit but in a way that’s so much worth than that can sound. She’s so hungry, her addons are things like dragonfly wings consumed to give her extra stamina. That’s the kind of bare sliver of relief she ever gets. God, poor Lisa’s life is hell. She’s completely heartbroken and isolated and almost dead. As far as relationships go, she didn’t have any for a long time. No one can really interact with her, because she goes feral at the sight of food. She’s kinda utterly alone. But briefly, when Alex, Philip, Vigo, Benedict, and Sally were a group, she kind of got stumbled into, and after a kind of nasty first encounter, was able to regain lucidity around other people, and had a truly sweet and memorable and invaluable bit of time with love and friends and other people. She was kind of in love with Sally, who did her hair for her and was really kind to her, and Sally liked her too. They were close. Lisa was close with all of them. But when things ended the way they did, the Entity took that away. Lisa remembers it, but she could never get them or it back, and was cast aside and left behind until the end of ILM, when she finally got peace and found happiness in finally getting to be at rest in the arms of a friend. Overal, she’s a fairly young and wide-eyed, bright, cautious, fun and sweet girl by nature, now massively traumatized and hopeless and broken, but still with a truly incredible amount of that kind nature retained. She would have really loved reading fantasy novels aloud and exploring the worlds of lore and history, travelling, seeing other cultures and geographic features and animals. Enjoys fashion too, and has a heart for designing and making cool, personal and cultural and symbolic tied designs, and would have been both great at that and loved it if she’d lived long enough. (Shoutout to @artianaiolanthe who inspired the fashion take & it is so suited to her I love it). A little shy, but an extrovert at heart under it, just a nervous one. Loved people. Liked climbing trees and fording brooks and baking bread and throwing rocks and baseballs to knock a target out of a tree and win a prize at little town fairs. Didn’t get the length or quality of life she was owed, and it’s just not fair or okay at all. Liked to watch the stars.

As far as getting better goes, mentally, totally. If they could get her out of the realm or break the Entity’s connection, she’d immediately stop killing. She has never done it of her own free will. She’s a sweet small town kid who was just trying to live her life. As far as physically goes though, Lisa is in one of the worst possible spots. Unlike say Amanda, who was on death’s door but healed by the Entity, or the Legion, who weren’t injured at all, Lisa was on death’s door and like Adiris, did not get healed. Just preserved in that near-death state and forced to work in it. Honestly, it’s possible she could survive long enough to get to a hospital and be saved, but at best, she’d probably live another year. When you starve, your body begins to catabolize/eat your own tissue to save itself, starting with fat, and ending with muscles and organs, which, when it reaches the heart, kills you. Lisa was so close to dead, the organ damage was probably awful, and would leave her with complications that would take her very young. The most likely thing, since she was saved literally seconds before death, would be for her to step outside the realm and immediately die. However, it’s possible she got lucky on body damage and could be saved—kinda up to interpretation—and if say, she was around for Quentin’s Vigil going healing batshit, and got some organs repaired that way, she’d have a real shot. (I also am sad. Lisa was actually the only determinate character in ILM to me/that I wasn’t sure the ending for, and while I am very happy with what ended up being her closure, I also would like to see her live for even more love and peace TuT. Lol, if I ever end up doing my goddamn four fate route fics like I’ve joked now a truly dangerous number of times about doing [>.> me @ me] then maybe she will get a variety of lives in the end). I’m glad you wanted to know! I really like and pity her. This poor kid really did nothing wrong, much like Rin, and just got eternally tortured for asking for help and justice against the monsters who took her life so violently. Fuck Brittany. (Read: the Entity.)

Ahhhh Sally. My sweet, sweet girl. Uhhh, not sure which of the Lisa questions you meant for her too, so I’ll try to speed-answer them all? Sally’s intelligent and understanding and thoughtful, patient, polite, almost elegant despite how impoverished she spent most of her life—she just tries to act like a lady and treat people with as much respect and esteem as she can (unless they suck lol). She’s also very mentally damaged and not there though, and has extremely unstable mood swings, especially into despair. Her relationships with the other killers were limited. She talked to & was on polite terms with any who would talk to her and not be condescending or a dick so openly she’d pick up on it (so like, on cordial terms with Evan, Herman, Caleb if she’d been there that long, but not like, Kenneth or Freddy or someone who wouldn’t bother to put up an act). But mostly, after figuring out she wasn’t really of any use to them, they quit communicating with her. Sally has been extremely isolated since shortly after being taken. She believes that the survivors are innocent and suffering and knows that they don’t deserve the hunt, but has no way to stop the whole system, and has been convinced by the Entity that if she does a good job and earns moris, the ones she strangles to death get to stay dead instead of coming back after death to suffer endlessly again, so she works very dedicatedly and slowly trying to earn kills to save them. It took her physical eyes when it got her and lets her see through it’s powers, and uses that to randomize what survivors look like in her memory so she doesn’t catch wise it’s the same people over and over and she’s not saving them at all. It’s extremely tragic. God it’s one of the most cruel Entity tricks, which is saying a lot. Poor gentle woman is Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill day after day year after year and she doesn’t even know how hopeless and meaningless it all is. : (

When the Vigo-Philip-Alex-Benedict team was going, though, she met and attacked, then was convinced to instead befriend them, and quickly became very attached and well liked by them. Met Lisa while with the group, and became extremely fond of her and loving towards her and was truly, truly happy for a brief period of time. Still remembers her, even as lost as all her memories are. Not her name, but what she looked like to Sally, and how her hair felt, and how nice it was. Sally would have considered everyone in that group a dear friend, and in ILM, Philip most definitely becomes her deepest, closest, and best friend, just like she does to him. She’s a very faithful woman to her soul. Loved her family, loved her husband and mourned him, worked as hard as she could. Cared for her patients, and did her best in that hell until the Entity slowly whittled away at her sanity until it broke her mind and left her convinced the only way to end their pain would be to give them death, and she had to do it to save them. Sally loves little pretty things and neatness and collections. Flowers, bows and ribbons, china and colored glass. She would have treasured gifts like decorative holiday cards and carved animal figures and left them on her mantle or carefully tucked in lovingly organized and decorated books she could open to revisit the memory. Likes dresses and skirts and the way the wind feels. Hopeful and very enduring. Loving. Had a mom heart, and will never really get entirely over the loss of her children, but is strong and kind and will find new love that makes life still worth living in other people. Will remember both kindness and cruelty a long, long time. Loved Quentin from the second he gave her flowers (Dwight: Quentin, why did the entity let you have three moms? Quentin: Because I fucking earned it >:[“ [author’s note: he did. God that poor kid...]). Loved Kate from the day she sat with her in a hospital and held her hand. Is like that. Remembers small kindness and treasures them.

Sally could definitely recover. Not all the way probably, physically or mentally, but by far enough to be complete and happy and realized and who she wants. She never meant to hurt people, so she really just needs some stability, and I think she finds that with her new family. I mean, it is a lot to adjust to. It’s been like nearly 100 years. The Entiry broke her mind, and she’s got some damage that just probably can’t ever be fixed, but a lot can be, with drugs and treatments and therapy and kindness and a good support system, and honestly, the biggest things she needs are people to keep her memories together and herself present, and influences to protect her from being manipulated and controlled now that she’s so suggestible and easy to hurt, and she’s got that. I am 100% certain that while some things—the scatteredness, the ease of slipping into other moods especially deep sadness, the different way of thinking altogether—never leave her, she gets better in the most important ways and is truly happy and quite functional and what she wants to be. While there’s no way (yet anyway lol. Cybernetics that good when?) to give her new eyes since the Entity ripped hers out, and she’s blind now, and can’t be changed, her seeing eye dog does a great job for her, and she’s very happy and adjusts well. She has a lot of friends to be her eyes, and learns to lean into what she can do and has a quite fulfilling and blissful life outside the realm in ILM.

Also: thanks for the recs! I’m going on a run soon, and I’ll add those to my iPod and give ‘em a listen if I can. Hope this answered what you wanted to know! ^u^

[theokotrain]

Vestige - Chapter 3: Someone Else Will See It For Yourself

Wattpad Version

In the middle of the vortex, the wind picked up

Shook up the soot, from the chimney pot

Into spiral patterns, of you, my love

---

Who said that?

It sounded distant, but I could almost tell it was meant for me. I shut the door as fast as I can manage, locking it behind me. Turning around, I glance further into the cabin.

"Shaela? You here?" I lightly shouted, hoping she would just be in her room or something. No response.

I moved to the backdoor, looking out the window to see if she was waiting in the backyard. The trees and bushes are noticeably rustling from the wind. The door to the generator seemed to be open, but I had absolutely zero interest in checking that out, let alone going outside. I reach for my pocket, aiming to grab my phone so I can call her, only to find out it isn't there.

Shit, right, I left it with Liam.

I open the backdoor a crack, sticking my body half out the door, "Shaela! Where the fuck did you go?"

The eerie silence of the wind is all that returned, leaving me spooked, to say the least. I close the back door, choosing to head back out front. As much as I wanted to hide inside the cabin for the rest of this bullshit, I couldn't just leave Shae and Liam out there. I step outside, closing the front door behind me as softly as I can manage. As the door shuts, I feel an unnerving amount of pressure building up in my ears and softening the sounds around me. I step down the creaky wooden steps, heading back down the driveway.

"I swear to god Shae if this is you just trying to scare me..." I huff, looking through the nearby trees, "...It's fucking working. Now cut the shit!" I know that situation is unlikely, but it's definitely the preferred outcome out of all the scenarios my anxiety-ridden brain is currently playing out.

Maybe she called Liam again and met him at the lake because I was taking too long? I definitely would've heard her on my way up to the cabin if that were true, though. Any reasoning at this point is useless anyway, it's easiest for me to just head back to Liam, then I could at least have my phone and call Shae to see where the hell she went.

The fog seems to be a bit clearer near the highway, which instills at least a minor amount of confidence in me. I cross the asphalt road as fast as I can, trying to hear for any cars that might come barrelling down the limited-visibility highway. I start walking down the trail towards the lake, each step filled with the determination to get the fuck out of this forest, and at least back with Liam. My ears twitch at every minor sound that fills the nearby area, the whistling of the wind, the rustling of the flora, the skittering of the local wildlife. I can't help but feel watched, despite the minimal evidence I have backing up that fear. Well, with the exception of whoever the fuck was talking to me a few minutes ago.

Did I really just skip over that major detail? Someone was talking to me, but I didn't see anybody around. Am I going insane? It could have just been the wind, the voice lacked the substance of someone actually talking. The problem with that, though, is that the wind doesn't typically sound out actual fucking words. Whatever, any of these ideas are just my anxious thought-process trying to make sense of the information it's been taking in.

When I reach the clearing by the lake, I can barely see out into the water. It was typical for it to get foggy by the lake during the spring or fall, because the warming temperatures didn't collide well with the cold air and freezing lake, although rarely to this extent. That doesn't matter now though, the important detail that hadn't registered in my mind yet is that Liam is nowhere to be found. The blanket, along with the rest of the stuff I brought is still lying exactly where I left it. I look around the clearing..

"Liam?" I shouted, hoping he was close by.

Someone has to be fucking with me at this point. Did he go up to the cabin? Maybe he saw the fog and decided to head back? Obviously not, cause I would've at least heard him! I try not to expect the worst, but it feels almost impossible not to at this point.

The jarring sound of my ringtone brings me back to reality. The vibrations of the phone are quieted by the blanket it lays upon. I pick it up, looking to see the Caller ID.

Tyler?

I answer the call, still trying to figure out what's going on, "What is it?" I said, a noticeable irritation in my voice from the situation.

"why did you wake me?" He replied. His voice sounded almost hollow, like a memory.

"Wake you? Dude, you called me? Just tell me what you want cause I'm kindaaa busy right now!" I said hurriedly, trying not to come off as rude.

"i wanted so much to be at rest."

"Wha- then go to back to bed?!? I don't see why you had to call for this, dude. Besides, it's like one in the afternoon? Shouldn't you be working right now?" I remarked, eager for him to get to the point.

There's a long pause between us, I didn't count the time, but it was long enough to be noticeable, and for me to quickly get impatient.

"it's different now, i think"

...

"What is? Just- can you stop speaking like you're reading poetry and say something actually coherent?"

There's an even longer moment of silence, he doesn't seem interested in answering my questions.

I sigh deeply, sitting down on the blanket that was left behind, my face in my palm. "What's different now?" I said bluntly.

"somewhere i lost whatever else i had"

"What, are you writing music now? Testing your lyrics out on me? Very poetic. But this is not the ti-"

"i wasn't over you"

That does a pretty good job of shutting me up. I bury my face further into my palm, trying to escape whatever bullshit I've gotten myself into as the wind picks up around me.

"...Yeah. I know." I admit. I could tell whatever explanations he came up with last night were pretty clearly a façade, but for him to admit it like this? None of it seemed real. "Is that why you called? ...I'm sorry, Tyler. You're a great guy, better than you care to admit. B- but I'm happy now. I hope you can get to that point soon, too."

"there's so much travel yet, jake."

I take a moment to process his words, when I hear the sound of leaves crunching distantly behind me. I jerk my head towards the sound of the noise, hoping to see Shae and Liam coming to find me, to no avail. It feels like there's thousands of eyes on me all at once as I try to ignore my surroundings.

"I- I know." I say, not really wanting to continue my thought process. "You know, some part of me wishes it went differently... back then." I can feel the wind getting stronger as I continue.

"who would you be now?"

"...someone better, probably. At least I'd have things figured out," I sighed. "Everything's been so uncertain lately, I don't know what my life's gonna look like in a few months, let alone when I'm older."

"don't worry, someone else will see it for yourself."

"Wh- what do you mean?"

The wind quickly dies down, and the only sound remaining is the tone coming from the phone, signalling the connection was lost.

What the fuck just happened?

I go back to my phone, dialling Ty's number once again. The phone rings a few times before he finally answers.

"Hey! Whaddya need? You kinda caught me at a bad time, it's pretty busy right now at work." He replied sincerely, his voice noticeably different from moments ago.

"Oh, uh, sorry! Did you just call me?"

"Call you? Uhh, I don't think so? Unless I butt-dialed you or something?"

"Ah, robocaller must've spoofed your number or something." I didn't have any way to rationally explain the previous events without sounding crazy, so I opted to stay casual, repressing the thoughts back to where they came from. "So, you're able to come tonight, right?" I said, trying to shift the topic.

"Yeah I should be able to if they don't make me stay late again! You need me to bring anything over?" He inquired.

"Uhh, I'll get back to you about that in a bit. I am currently at the lake near the cabin and have no clue where Shae and Liam are." I exclaimed in a sarcastically perky voice.

"...What?"

"I- It's probably fine, they're adults, they're probably fine. I'm just paranoid." I said, lightly laughing to lighten the mood.

"Oh, well, let me know if you find 'em! I'll try to keep my phone on me." He assured.

"Yeah, will do!" My eyes widen, and I let out a sigh, "God, I'm just bothering you at this point. I give you permission to go back to work now!" I joked.

"Nah, you're good! I like talking to you." He said, I could almost hear the smile in his voice.

I laughed a tired laugh, "Yeah. You too." A moment passed as neither of us spoke up, "Well, I should probably at least try calling them."

"You haven't tried calling them yet??? Remind me to never let you lead the search party if I go missing," He joked.

"Yeah, like I'd even be considered for leading any search party," I remarked sarcastically. The both of us laughed. "I'll let you know if we need anything, I should get going." "Sounds good!"

We said our goodbyes and I hung up, my mind returning to focus on the lake. I gathered the blanket and anything else Liam left behind and started walking back up the trail. The wind had reduced to subtlety at this point, but the fog was still in full force. I said to Ty that I would call them, but I needed a few more minutes of uncertainty. Any of the fears that occupied my mind earlier were long dissipated as I thought over some problematic dilemmas.

If Ty didn't call me, then who was I talking to?

It sounded just like him, minus the usual substance of his low-toned voice. And unless he was lying to me when he said he didn't call me the first time, then maybe I'm just losing whatever remnants of sanity that I had before today.

Honestly, what's even the point of me rationalizing this? What would I even tell people? That I heard a voice talking to me, but no one was there? That Liam and Shae essentially vanished off the face of the Earth? That I got a phone call by the water from my ex, speaking incoherent poetry, admitting that he wasn't over me?

I cross the highway.

Yeah, there's no combination of words in any language that I could piece together to explain that without losing the respect of everyone around me. I'm sure I could at least get an explanation from Liam and Shae about wherever they ran off to.

I step up the stairs onto the front patio of the cabin.

Whatever, this is just some anomalous twenty minutes of my life that I'll probably forget in a week or two. The simplest solution is to just move on, there's a lot of time left on this trip for me to not have to deal with shit.

I try the door knob, finding it unlocked. The door creaks as I open it, peering inside.

"Fucking hell, where were you?!?"

[mieczyhale]

a messy explanation of things and unnecessary information about life lately

soooo... right. i’m sorry i haven’t really been around aside from popping in here and there, and that i’ve been taking longer than usual to reply to things / not replying to things at all. it’s NOT that i’m upset with anyone or trying to ignore / avoid anyone, and it’s not that i don’t care / don’t love talking to you (whomstever you may be) i love chatting with y’all and wish i could get myself to reply to things quicker but i do not control the me lmfao honestly my sleep has never had a schedule but in recent weeks it’s kinda been operating like there’s a lil gremlin in my head who spins a wheel and picks my sleeping times at random - and it’s either like.. two hours or most of a day. there hasn’t been a lot of in between so that’s a thing!!

also in a fun added mix of maybe sleep?, missing meds, being stuck in the house more often than not, and the FUCKING EVERYTHING happening in the world right now my mental health is... probably run by the same goblin that runs my sleep schedule lmao consistency whomst?? since the lockdown started the depression has of course been around more but actually, worse than that, is how my anxiety - and by extension: my ocd - have really amped up and i need y’all to know that the struggle is painfully real (and another thing that affects shit like my replies and writing. reading as well. fics have been kinda stressful and that should be illegal. who authorized this?) i don’t hate talking about it but i don’t really like it either?? especially like.. in depth. but i will say there has been crying, screaming, pain!, and i’ve acquired a few physical injuries.

so

yeah

on a personal level - a ‘just me’ level - shit is an even bigger mess than usual lmao but all these things will get better eventually - they always do. 

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

NOW

ON A PERSONAL LEVEL - THE FULL LEVEL - THINGS.... are pretty great actually! i mean aside from the state of my fucking house e__e but Josh has been working from home for two (2) months now and it’s been really nice - people complaining about their partners being home?? can’t relate. yknow what?? i just might love that tall bastard even more from all this.fuck all y’all miserable fucks

we’ve been going out for drives and we’ve gone fishing and the only place i’ve gone too that’s re-opened is goodwill. because i require.. the shop. they do have a masks required rule! (at least at the one here) and, alongside that, the places we’ve gone that never closed (like grocery stores and the gas station and the hardware store) have social distancing rules and stuff in place which i love. can we keep social distancing after this is all over?? more things here in wisconsin are opening up and we might go to some. idk though. we also might not. either way its still a weird kind of exciting to see things opening back up?? even though i do think we’re not totally in the clear because most of our gov. sucks (our mayor tried to extend our stay-at-home order - keyword there is TRIED. we are the land of cheese, cows, and no fucking braincells for anyone) 

having pets is obviously not a new thing for me but it’s still a thing. so it takes time and effort and energy and patience and love and a certain disregard for your own safety (claws. they really be as sharp as you think) so... it can be stressful, especially cuz we’ve had to keep them inside more as it gets hot out and something keeps breaking our porch screens (our cats are allowed onto our screened in porch or they can go out in a harness but we will never let them run free outside. fuck that noise)  my bbies are all so cute and their personalities and idiosyncrasies are just... *chefs kiss* i love em and they’re definitely a part of what has made quarantine better

i’ve seen my mom a few times, like for my birthday and when she needed help moving Isaiah from one dorm to another and such, but that’s primarily been an option because she has become anti-mask and anti-stay-at-home-order. initially she wasn’t - she gave Isaiah and i fun lil masks since at that time trying to buy them would be impossible and she thought nothing of staying home - but i guess either as its dragged on or as she’s consumed her middle-right wing news that changed s o. she does take social distancing in public very seriously though, so at least there’s that. our favorite coffee shop, where we - pre-lockdown - always went one (1) or two (2) times a week to do art for hours re-opens on monday and that’s one of the few things i’ve truly missed.

josh’s camping trip for this weekend with his friends had to be cancelled because the parks weren’t going to open in time. so today they’re going somewhere to do at least some of the things they would have done if they had gone camping. bikes, bonfires, and cigars. i’m kinda jealous negl but he was really excited about it so mostly i’m happy

trying to figure out how human services was running things during lockdown was rough but thankfully it didn’t take much to get it sorted. mostly because my mom made the phone call i was supposed to lol (the phone anxiety is on its own level) so wednesday afternoon my mom sat with me while i had the appointment with my psychiatrist over speakerphone (which was.. an experience)

ummm.....

OH YEAH! Probably absolutely my favorite thing that’s happened is: WE’RE STARTING THE SEARCH FOR A NEW HOUSE!!!! it doesn’t mean we’re gonna be moving soon or anything, we don’t want to make the same mistake twice (buying the first house you tour that you love) because while it is a great house ultimately it is way too small for us. i mean there’s me and josh, all six cats, and ALL OUR SHIT. listen: i have an entire room dedicated to my various hobbies. and a walk in closet that isn’t big enough. and we both have collections we love and want to display (right now upstairs its hello kitty and downstairs its astronomy and the titanic. and then there’s pop figures, mtg, collectibles, our bottle collection and various knickknacks, etc.) plus all our books! then furniture and cat furniture (i.e towers) and all their shit because they are spoiled babies. and god forbid we ever have a human kid?? yeah. it’s just not big enough. 

so we’re gonna take more time with this choice but what we do know is:: we wanna live out in the country (i’m paranoid and don’t like to be looked at and he loves the outdoors, lived on a farm for awhile. i also enjoy the outdoors but mostly since we moved into this house i’ve struggled with doing anything outside... while we only have one neighbor on our road. but there’s one across the road and one at the other side of our backyard and that’s just too much lol) 

lets see.. um.... my birthday was may 2nd and that was pretty nice, for a pandemic birthday. there’s been a lot of stuff happening involving josh’s family but that’s not something i really wanna get into on here, tho i will say things have been better in recent weeks and it’s been... really nice. josh and i went to his mom’s house the other night and got drunk with her for fun and i actually had a really good time?? and didn’t complain about going?? that’s kinda unheard of.

i don’t have a job anymore - haven’t since early march-ish - and it kinda sucks but also the universe really did me a solid because my choices were either allow myself to work until i have a mental break again or quit. and i was leaning towards quitting (things had been going down hill with the owner and other employees and just the business as a whole for awhile and there’s a limit to the amount of bullshit i can take thanks) but now it doesn’t seem i have to. why do i think i’m jobless? i was barely working anyway, bc of the snow business was slow, and in march i got really sick and stayed home for a week. the day i was supposed to go back i was still sick, and covid19 was starting to become more of a serious situation everywhere, so josh called in for me and explained that between still being sick and my anxiety over covid (asthma + a not so great immune system) i wasn’t going in that day. i never heard from them again. so. 

but it’s all good - there are some options but i’m not looking into them seriously until it’s safe to.

SO

THAT’S ALL OF FUCKING THAT ON THAT

i felt it wouldn’t be a bad idea to come on here and explain A. what’s been going on and B. where i’ve been and C. that if i haven��t responded to you or acknowledged something you sent me / tagged me in it’s literally just because i either forgot to (for all reasons and none) or i don’t have the mental space / energy to. but that doesn’t mean you have to stop talking to me! even if i don’t respond or respond immediately i do read everything and i would die for any one of you fuckers (especially my clowns and the tom hardy movie) 

oh! and just btw - sometimes i don’t get notifications (quelle surprise) tumblr and skype should really pair up and talk about their truly great systems that function so well /s 8| ANYWAY: the best and most reliable ways to get my attention are twitter ( @/mieczyhale) and discord (same name) because i have yet to see their notifications fail. ahem.

i feel like i’m missing things / forgetting things but honestly this post is long enough and also enough of a rambley mess that i’m just gonna try and ignore that feeling and carry on with my goddamn day so i might actually accomplish something. sorry if there’s spelling off or missing words. i’m not taking the time to re-read this and might even delete it bc it’s already giving me anxiety bUT WE’LL SEE ALRIGHT HI AND BYE I LOVE YOU GUYS <3

[calliecat93]

Top 5 Things I Liked About RWBY Volume 1

(Top 5 Dislikes)

Well, got the Dislikes out of the way. So let's move on to the Likes! While V1 is my least favorite volume, I still adore it. I mean it is the volume that got me and many others into RWBY and without we, well... we obviously wouldn’t have a show. I can forgive many of the issues that I listed, as well as things like limited animation and amateur voice acting since it was V1 when they had a smaller budget and were figuring stuff out. ANd there were still plenty of things to love, especially now.

So let take a trip down memory lane and look back at some of the best parts of the beginning of our journey with RWBY Volume 1~!

#5. The Character Trailers

Okay, this might be cheating since they’re technically not part of the volume. But they were made to lead-up to it like the later trailers were for later volumes and they have story relevance later, so I’m counting it! Plus I want to talk about them somewhere because I freakin’ love these so much~!

These trailers are what got me into RWBY. I remember looking up stuff about the show when I started getting interested in it back in late 2013, and I went to watch them when I found out about them. Making these was a very smart move. They introduce us to our characters early on, gave us a feel of each aspect of the show, and of course created hype to ensure that people tuned in when the actual show started. The Red Trailer shows off the amazing fighting animaiton, White shows off the epic soundtrack, Black introduces plot elements and shows that there will be more than just cool fighting, and Yellow brings 'em all together in one badass package. When I binged through all four of these, I became a fan very quickly. I started the show that night, finished the next afternoon as V1 had practically ended just before I started, and I haven’t looked back ever since. And when parts of them came back into the plot later like the bar that Yang trashed in V2? That made me even happier cause it made them have a point outside of just hype.

The trailers were all fantastic. RT was clearly betting a lot on this show to allow Monty to do these, and the gamble paid off. All four of them have their own unique style and aesthetic and still looks amazing even now. It’s why whenever I see anyone ask where to start with RWBY, I tell them to watch these first. They do a great job of introducing you to this world, and with us going into the seventh volume, their impact is still being felt. I couldn’t not put these on here, but since they aren’t technically part of the volume, I left it at Number 5. But still, these are great and if you skipped them, go and watch them. Now. The list will still be here when you get back.

#4. Fight Animation

...what? Are we surprised that this is on here? Monty’s fight animation is amazing. Even years later, they still hold up. Monty got his start at RTwuth his fight animaiton in RvB, which truly brought that series to the next level. Then he got his won show with even more freedom to go crazy, and boy did he deliver. Sure it didn’t always work well, like when he did it for Penny in the finale and gave away the reveal s a result. But it’ still a badass sequence. All fo the major fights are. The trailer fights, Ruby in Chapter 1, the Nevermore fight in 8, everything else in between and after, it all looked incredible. They were fast, creative, and just so much funt o watch. while I am one fo the people who strongly disagree that the fights went downhill after V3, Monty’s style cannot be duplicated. Nor should it be. We may never have Monty’s fights again, but they will forever live on. That’s honestly for the best.

#3. Weiss Development/Rewatch Value

I was a little harsh on Weiss in the Dislikes post, so let's fix that! I love Weiss. She is my second favorite character and one of the best developed. While I complained about her writing int he finale, outside that? She was good. She was snooty and bitchy, but we saw in Chapter 8 that she is aware of her flaws and did save Ruby as well as give her a pep talk... kinda. But The Badge and the Burden is where she really shines. She’s mad about being led by a childish girl who pretty much got allowed into Beacon, Port gave her a stern but encouraging talking to, and Weiss began to try and improve herself as both a teammate and as a person. It’s simple, but for Volume 1, it was nice and made her likable after how mean she was in the first half of the volume.

Then the rest of the series happened, and Weiss in V1 becomes even better.

It makes Weiss’ attitude make sense. She had to work and fight to earn her way into Beacon. Her father outright forced her to fight a Grimm Knight to earn the right to leave and almost lost an eye due to it. Then she meets this careless girl who rushes into fights, gets in her way, and as far as she knows did nothing to get into Beacon while she had to fight tooth and nail. Then the same girl got to be leader despite generally goofing off and not taking anything seriously, and it makes Weiss being angry 100% understandable. She still acted poorly, hence why Port’s talk was necessary, but it isn’t Weiss just being a stereotypical mean rich girl. She has reasons why she acts the way that she does, and she can recognize those flaws and work to fix it. Even with my complaint about her in the finale she DOES follow it up and improve her attitude towards Blake, Faunus, and her team.

Weiss is a fantastic character. V1 gives you many reasons to dislike her, but over time you grow to love her. This volume was the first step in her breaking out of the toxic and hateful environment and mindset that she was raised in, and she took that step in spades. Rewatching her in this volume makes you appreciate her character so much. Again, her development here is simple, but important and overall solid outside of a few spots. I think that Weiss’ arc has the most rewatch value in this volume, and I appreciate it so much. It is a little spotty though, so I put it at Number 3. But we have another good character arc to talk about, one that I think is underrated to be honest.

#2. Ruby Development

Ruby is my favorite character in the entire series. She was since I started the show, and she still is to this day. Many call her a flat and boring character, and it annoys me. But I do see the complaint that up until recently, she hasn't developed. That she is the exact same as when she started. Ugh... yeah, no. I know that V1 was a while ago and that a lot has happened since then, but she developed greatly in this volume and beyond.

In V1, Ruby is just a girl who dreams of being a Huntress. But it’s kinda like a childish fantasy. One that she’s genuine about, but one that she isn’t truly prepared for. She thinks that all she needs is her badass scythe, and she’ll be fine. She’s reckless, charging into battle to prove that she is capable fo being at Beacon. SHe’s awkward and doesn't want to make friends or teammates. Not because she’s anti-social, but because she’s an awkward girl who is already feeling pressure due to not wanting to be received as special when she got let into Beacon early.

This volume greatly sets Ruby on the right path. Her recklessness gets her into trouble, and she only survives because of characters like Weiss helping. She isn’t able to truly take on Grimm until she starts working as a team with the others, in which she stands up and takes the reigns. She starts channeling her recklessness into crazy plans, like the slingshot, which shows her out-of-the-box thinking that becomes a major asset to her. The Badge and the Burden shows her acting childish, goofing off in class and not paying attention. But we also see that she’s anxious in her new role as leader and if she truly belongs in Beacon or if Ozpin made a mistake in letting her in. But Oz gives her a nice pep talk and we later see that she fell asleep while studying, showing that she is trying to put effort into her studies and into her new position. Encouragement that she later gives Jaune, showing that she took ti to heart.

As with Weiss, it’s simple stuff. But it’s still major progression for Ruby. While her goal of Huntress is still somewhat of s childish fantasy, it’s genuine. She is genuine about wanting to help people and make their lives better just because she wants to. Not out fo any personal goal or thrill, just because she wants to do good. We see that she’s learning as she tarts to put her anxiety aside to work with her teammates, learn to take school seriously, learn to not be so reckless and not be so worried about proving that she can do this, and of course begin to take her first steps in becoming a leader. Steps that will lead to great things for her, especially in V6. I can’t properly gush about Ruby in this post, but I love her growth here so much, and it’s one of the best things in the volume for me.

#1. Players and Pieces

So... you’re probably wondering why this is Number One. Well... it’s because while the trailers got me to watch RWBYm this was the episode that convinced me that it was worth something. I enjoyed Chapters 1-7, but I was kinda waiting for that moment that made me see why it had gotten so popular so quickly. I didn’t watch RWBY when it started I hadn’t even heard of Rooster Teeth at that point. I just saw my friends talking about it, got curious, and started watching it. It was nice... but it didn’t really impress me or get why people were loving this so much. It just felt like a slightly above average web series.

Then I got to Players and Pieces.

This episode wowed me when I watched it. You know how I said that the trailers introduced certain aspects and yellow brought them all together? Well, this chapter did that for something within the show. Awesome fight animaiton? Check. Weiss development? Check. Ruby development? Check. It had good humor. It was paced well. It felt satisfying. And the soundtrack? Holy crap the soundtrack. Yeah, I had to force myself to not put ‘Jeff Williams Music’ on this list because it would be redundant, and putting it on every list would get old. But the moment that Red Like Roses Part II kicked in, everything ramped up. Especially when Ruby slayed the Nevermore. That scene is outright iconic.

This chapter took everything that the first seven was building up to and it delivered an amazing payoff. The characters were great. The animaiton was great. The tone was great. It was funny, heartwarming, and badass in every single way. This was when I realized just how amazing this show was going to be. This is when I decided to hop on board the hype train. This was when I became a real fan, and I am still going even six years later. It’ crazy to me that we’re going into V7, cause whenever I rewatch the moment where Ruby is launched at the nevermore and urns up that cliff, I remember when I first saw the scene. And I still feel the same awe that I felt the first time. When I need to remember why I love this show, I turn to this. It was amazing then, and it’s still amazing now and will always be something that I treasure.

And that’s a wrap! My Top 5 Things for RWBY Volume 1~ It was so much fun to go back through this volume. It’s still a fun ride from beginning to end, and will always have a special place among RWBY fans. So now it’s time to prepare the lists for Volume 2~ Thank you all for reading, and I hope you’ll check out the remaining posts for the remaining volumes~!

[overazielous]

Hey, Raziel! I’ve been a big fan of you for well over eleven years now and have admired, loved, and respected you ever since I first played Legacy of Kain but I’m relatively new to this blog so if this is a question you’ve already answered I do apologize. What were your honest feelings about your brothers and Kain before the execution? Did you respect any of them, feel as if you needed to protect any of em or even hate one or more of them?

[[Welcome & thank you for saying nice things! You may immediately regret asking because I wrote a goddamn novel in reply. I’m so sorry. Also sorry if you don’t vibe w/ my interpretation of the brothers! Especially Turel!]]

“A fan of me? That’s very kind. Perhaps a tad disconcerting but kind of you nonetheless.” Raziel said with an open gesture of his claws and a nod in acknowledgement. Today found him propped up against the hearth of a great fireplace. He looked at once out of place among such fine stonework but comfortable in his chosen spot. “You want to hear of my brothers than? A far cry from what we were & yet not so different at the core…” He mused as he folded his claws upon his cloaked chest. “I’m going to entrust you with this gossip, Ariel.”

Raziel’s ruined wings were splayed across the hearth to the left of him. Ariel, in some semblance of being seated, was perched upon them as if they were a morbid picnic blanket. “I’m honored.” She tittered.

“So far as my attitude before I was given a long toss from a short cliff I will admit to a certain amount of naiveté. Everything was coming along swimmingly… no pun intended, unless it was explicitly stated to me otherwise. I saw nothing damning in my relationship with my brothers. Hind sight, & all that.” The wraith gave a thoughtful pause. “I was protective of all of them whether they wanted it or not. I supposed I felt vehemently that it was my job to keep the Empire running & by extension keep well those running it.”

“I would be accused now & then of playing favorites, which I did not, when I would spend a large amount of time with one or the other. I aided who needed it. It could be considered hilarious how utterly blind I chose to be to my brethren being a horde of petty, jealous little goblins.” He said, his brow creasing in frustration.

“Family…” Ariel murmured knowingly. She hadn’t meant to reflect on the feeling out loud but she was grateful to be met with a half-hearted chuckle from the wraith.

“Sometimes I would wager them better than I in their own regards… Melchiah, especially. I wore empathy too close to the surface. No one was a particular fan of it. Most had probably thought I used it to manipulate & undermine them. Melchiah knew me to be earnest but felt perhaps undeserving of it. I do hope he didn’t resent me too much. Being the Son lastly raised I felt some of the others would waste no time picking his share clean given the chance.”

“He was, however, far from being the meek youngest. Melchiah was always quite grounded in reality. He knew his strengths & his limits & how to use them. I don’t think I can recall a time he ever complained of his status or share, in front of me at least. There was no one in Nosgoth more genuine & as such we oft kept genuine company. Out of the five of them, Mel knew me best.’

“Rahab, as well, was sharply focused. The two of them in comparison made the rest of us look like a shaken cage of self-righteous fighting cocks.” The sheer sincerity with which he uttered that simile caught Ariel off-guard. She brought a translucent hand to her half-mangled mouth to stifle a laugh. “Rahab was the smartest of us, no doubt. He seemed to me always so serene even in the midst of battle. Perhaps it was his way of keeping us at arm’s length where he had more control. He was like a mirrored lake waiting demurely for one good storm. I’m not sure whether to be grateful or saddened about surely having missed such a storm in my absence.” At this Raziel paused. He was undoubtedly attempting to repackage the guilt he felt for having not been there when needed of his brothers. He knew that to be nonsensical: he was busy being dead & the remaining Sons had brought the Empire down onto their own heads. Knowing this didn’t always stop him from feeling an empty, aching longing to have helped.

Ariel gave him a moment to shift his thoughts. When it seemed he may have become caught up dwelling in a sorrow she knew quite well she asked, “And what of that chattering creature in the courtyard?” She liked to frequent the courtyard to watch the colors in the flower beds. The nightmarish devolved vampire that had taken up residence there had always had something to say.

“Ah, Zephon. I’d advise you to tell him off but that might have the opposite effect. Telling Zephon to mind his own business is akin to giving orders to Kain. Not only will he not do what was asked but he will indeed do the opposite & with great enthusiasm.”  Raziel replied. “There is a lot I could say about Zephon & most of it isn’t exactly shining praise. Zephon was the kind to have a hand in as many pots as possible with which to stir up trouble. The epitome of chaos.”

“As you can imagine, his schemes had him at odds with one or more of us at any given time. I once declined to speak to him for an entire century & I was supposed to be the patient one. Exasperating is a word. We weren’t as close as perhaps we could have been. Even though I could endure him longer than our brothers I think there is a time limit to how long Zephon can compose himself before he starts saying things he will regret. One didn’t visit with Zephon, you managed your time with Zephon carefully. Anything you said in front of him you’d then have to consider it news to all of Nosgoth.” Whilst Raziel explained his voice became emphatically incensed before he reigned in his indignation.

“The others knew better than to engage him. I was too dense with pride, among other things, to quit trying to police his behavior. He was thusly always more than happy to get under my skin.” He then breathed a curt laugh. “Dumah had none of it. I recall an instance wherein Dumah, charging ever forward, completely ignored Zephon’s jackal-like chittering & put an entire hand over his sharp face, picked him up by the skull, & moved him out of the way. A role model to us all, honestly.” Raziel readjusted his composure as he quelled his sarcasm.

“Dumah & I got along famously.” The wraith said. Tragic longing began creeping back into his voice at the recollection but it yielded as he continued. “Dumah was the model soldier. Strong, stalwart, & unfaltering. Between him & Rahab their input, strategic or otherwise, often kept any of my plans from becoming too, well, dramatic. Don’t you laugh at me coming to terms with myself, Guardian.” He coyly jabbed a claw in the specter’s direction. Ariel had pressed her lips thin & shook her head as if to indicate that she wouldn’t dream of it. He carried on after satisfied with her sincerity.

“While we were all blindly loyal to the Empire Dumah was one of the most unwavering. Perhaps it only seemed that way because he was certainly the loudest about it. Literally & figuratively. It seemed like every time I turned around there were exponentially more Dumahim in my court & I just had to accept it. Encountering rogue feral Dumahim upon my return was an immediate indicator to me that nothing could have gone well…” In attempt to power through his own rumination this time he quickly added, “Turel was the most staunchly loyal, however. It seemed at times less to the Empire as a whole & more to Kain directly.”

“Kain is exactly the sort to share only what he wants others to know & not a word more. As long as what he asked was done he couldn’t give a single damn as to how it was accomplished. Turel…was similar to Kain in many regards. Imposing, ruthless, powerful… therefore he felt he knew what Kain wanted better than the rest of us. I liked to think we balanced each other out as leaders. I get the distinct feeling Turel felt otherwise. That is all conjecture, of course, as Turel didn’t engage with us unless he needed to. I could scarcely tell you a damn thing about him personally & that’s not for lack of trying. It was like trying to relate to a stoic mountain itself that just also happened to be able to crush your skull in one hand.”

Raziel paused & squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, if you could call it that. He had to shut out the nagging possibilities surrounding the incited genocide of the Razielim. He could discuss & even trivialize most of his trauma but that was the one thing he couldn’t bring himself to unpack. Not now. 

“Turel was brilliant & unrelenting but probably hated us all. He was still my brother & I loved him anyway, which may have only further irritated him. Aloof as he was NO ONE deserved what happened to him. God help whosoever was directly responsible for keeping him in a pit like an animal because I have some words for them.”

[cosmicflowchart]

do you have any Colin + kitty + pearl family headcanons? Your writing is lovely it'd be great to hear your thoughts :)

aww thank you, that’s so sweet!! and yeah i do :D these are sort of broad and disorganized, and there’s a lot of ‘em, but here’s what i think the ritmans get up to:

kitty and colin first met at a gay bar. colin had just started bleaching his hair and was actually kind of nervous that people were now, you know, seeing him with it

kitty slid in next to him and asked, “who does your hair?” and when colin said, “I do,” she fired back, “i could tell. still, not bad for a first attempt. keep at it, mate.”

colin might’ve been a bit intoxicated, so he laughed. even if it was a bit of an insult, she came back so quickly that it caught him off guard, in a good way.

(sidenote: kitty’s way funnier than colin is. colin knows computers and timelines and conspiracies and all that shit, but kitty can make anyone laugh, especially colin.)

later, as they started hanging out more, they discovered they were the only two bisexuals at that bar and (supposedly) in that part of town

they started dating like three weeks after they first met

kitty bleached her hair the day after they started going out together and colin was like :OO and she just went “i think it suits me, what do you think?” and he was just. jaw on the floor, man.

all of their gay friends assumed they were each other’s beards/that they were both just gay/homosexuals and were like “oh that’s so sweet of you, what good friends!” but nah. they were into each other and they were still very bisexual

they had to deal with so much biphobia and erasure it was ridiculous. at one point kitty considered dying her hair the color of the bi flag so people would get the hint, but colin talked her out of it (striped hair is the one style that kitty doesn’t look good in)

when they got married, they dyed their hair the same color–bright green. was it tacky? absolutely. did it match the outfits they had picked out? nope! did they care? fuck no.

they didn’t have an elaborate ceremony, they’re both really private, but they did invite friends

parenthood????? ?? not the plan at all!!! neither kitty nor colin wanted kids–they bonded over their mutual disinterest in (and disgust with) them

kitty and colin don’t get along with their parents so they were afraid they’d turn out like said parents, and that their potential children would grow up without grandparental guidance

but when they realized kitty was pregnant, it never crossed their minds to get rid of her; they just thought “oh okay, this is happening, let’s figure this out”

and it took them a few months of slaving over the well-being of this incompetent infant ((parenting is super fuckin hard alright)) before they realized that like, hey, they’re actually doing this! somehow!!

you remember that smile colin has when he looks down at baby!pearl in his arms in that one bandersnatch path? yeah, imagine that smile, but every time he so much as looks at or thinks about pearl. he’s just like wow okay i made a human holy shit

even when pearl’s done something dumb he’s just like that’s my girl

actually. when she does do something and fails, he does the whole “you failed! and it was wonderful!” thing from meet the robinsons

kitty makes fun of him for it, not because it’s not masculine (colin doesn’t give a shit honestly, gender’s as much of a prison as reality is), but because she knows exactly who he’s looking at when he makes that exact smile and she’s like okay what did our child do now

he didn’t take nearly as many hallucinogens the older he got, parenthood makes that way less responsible–and he definitely didn’t want kitty to be the One Parent in charge when he was home

kitty. is so soft. like not just personality wise but just in terms of touch. she’s also the best damn hugger in the world

colin and pearl are notably not huggers except when it comes to kitty for this exact reason

neither kitty nor colin are very good cooks. pearl can kind of cook, so when she hit about seventeen she started cooking for them

the takeout folks know who the ritmans are. they ended up being friends of the family once kitty was about three

despite the stress and time demands of his job, colin made every effort to go to every event pearl was in, even if A) she claimed she didn’t need him there or B) he had to stay up until 4 am that night finishing something.

he had no idea how much love he had for pearl until she appeared and he just. he kind of enjoys being a dad, even though he never expected to

pearl never achieved the same level of chill as her dad (and she tended to envy him for it)

so one day she just sat him down and said how are you so calm all the time?!?!?

his answer boiled down to A) he did a ton of drugs in the 80s and it probably fucked his brain chemistry permanently, and B) [more healthily] he’s just along for the ride, and you can only really control (if that) how you react and behave to what comes at you

pearl always found that really hard to do–like kitty, she found that things bothered her even when she knew instinctively they really didn’t matter–but she started going to therapy to sort through that

pearl started being interested in her dad’s career in her early teens; she wanted to rebel (as all middle schoolers do) but when she found out her dad–who she was pretty sure was just a giant Nerd–did all these edgy, critically acclaimed games, she just went hey dad whatcha doin and started learning from him

by 18 she was making her own games–this would’ve been 2000/2001-ish, so she’d still be making 2D games and shit, but she also started making 3D games after getting the right hardware

((the perks of having a massively successful game developer for a dad lmao))

when pearl showed colin her first completed game, which was (of course) a choose-your-own-adventure, he actually cried with joy. he didn’t burst into tears, but he welled up and had trouble talking for a moment. she was like “dad you okay” and he just kinda. he threw his arms around her. he’d gotten his hopes down for whatever the universe was in store for her but she got all the best parts of him and none of the bad stuff well okay she did but she was in therapy and that was helping A LOT

she was still convinced that she should’ve removed the government conspiracy track, it felt like too much for her first game. but colin loved it.

she was worried that her competition (which there wasn’t quite yet) would try and steal her work before she could publish it…..kitty reassured her that wouldn’t happen but like. what if

(she eventually grew out of her conspiracy-theory phase, but that didn’t happen until her mid-20s, before which she and colin grew way closer)

(oh yeah, pearl definitely grew up with a bit of paranoia. it had nothing to do with living with Mr. Conspiracy Theory himself, it was just a side effect of undiagnosed ADHD)

colin had always secretly hoped she’d get into programming, but he never forced the issue. if the universe wanted her to follow in his footsteps, it’d happen on its own. he didn’t want to influence her (and if she was anything like him, if he suggested she program something, she would have proceeded to very much NOT do that.

pearl has that same “don’t tell me what to do” streak that her dad (and kitty!) has, but faced worse judgment for it for being a girl, especially in school

…..prompting kitty to offer to come to school, and later pearl’s workplace, to kick their asses (usually joking???????? you can’t really tell with kitty)

when pearl was about six, and kitty offered to kick someone’s ass (well, when pearl was six kitty just offered to ‘talk them down’), pearl just said loudly, “eh it’s okay, if they make fun of me for throwing like a girl again, i’ll just beat them up myself”

kitty looked a little worried, but colin laughed from the other room so honestly, score one for pearl

pearl was like……..half joking

by the way, she has no memory of saying this at all

but it ends up being colin and kitty’s favorite story to tell and embarrass pearl with at parties

adult!pearl built her own computer, and when she showed it off to colin and kitty, kitty was just like, jaw on the floor, this is fuckin cool and pearl was just talking her through all of the parts she got and was real proud of herself :)))

colin had this big fuckin smile on his face before he just said, you showoff, and then praised her for real.

pearl tried pot during her first year of university. just a couple times, though. didn’t do much for her.

but colin knew when she came back from school. he could tell.

as soon as pearl realized he knew she tried to explain it, but he just went listen you have no idea how many drugs i did when i was your age, don’t sweat it love

bandersnatch (2018)……oof. that wasn’t fun. that was the one big argument they had.

pearl and colin, being almost similar personalities, did have their disagreements when she was growing up, but it was never as deep or prolonged as when colin found out pearl was remaking it, starring someone he kind of cared about.

it became an off-limits point of discussion when pearl called or visited, after an argument that was so bad that kitty left the room in tears.

both colin and pearl were like…….shit. so they agreed not to talk about it.

i’m stopping there because this got a little long-winded. but there you go~

[brattywriters-anonymous]

House Party 3

Erik's POV

Ibiza, Spain

Agroturismo Atzaró, Ibiza

Transcript from Inga: Parker sent over the assignment. Target: Eliaz Cruz Age: Thirty-two. Contract: Open Compensation: ten million our intelligence told us he'll be at Club O Beach Ibiza in the third bungalow on the right end. Got it 

"It's almost 8, maybe we should head out before he gets too fucked up and leaves." Mirah was putting on her skirt, "How do I look?" I almost dropped my nine millimeter on the floor. This girl looks good, damn if we had the time, I'd..

"Hey! Earth to Stevens!" "Oh, you look good. So you bringing a knife to this gun fight?" She nodded as she stashed the blade in her bikini top. "I'm old school like that." I laugh at her, "So... This is it for you?" She pointed around my figure I held my hands out, "What? What's wrong with what I got on?" She scoffed and giggled, "Its not much is what's wrong!" "It's a pool party! What am I supposed to wear?" "At least throw on a shirt, nigga! How are you supposed to conceal your piece?" I found a compression tee I packed for my morning runs and put it on, "Better?" She took a deep sigh, "Better."

--

Mirah's POV

We left our villa to walk over to the McLaren 570GT that Inga rented us for the week."I'm driving!" I rushed over to the drivers side of the sports car. He trailed me over to the same side and shook his head, "No. You're not." I whined. "C'mon! You drove all day! And on our last mission! And on the way here! And whe--" "Okay! Okay! Damn girl! You whine too damn much!" He tossed me the key. "Yay!" I grinned and unlocked the doors.

I pressed the start button and Inga's voice blared through the speakers, "Hey team!" We vastly interjected, "We are not a team!" she chuckled, "I know! I just like saying it to get you two roweled up. Anywho, Club O Beach is about thirty-two minutes away. I sent the route to the GPS. Erik, please mind the speed limits! We can't afford anymore tickets on your license." "Actually, Inga, I am driving to our destination tonight!" She gasped, "Oh! Okay! Well, Mirah. Safe travels, buckle up, and I hope you have a safe mission." "Thank you!" As I traveled through the PM-804, we chose to travel in silence. "So....."

"Soooo..." Erik mirrored my attempt of breaking the ice."Can we talk about something? Thirty minutes is a long time to not speak." "I mean If you want to. I guess." "I do. So, tell me about you Stevens." "There's not much to tell." I sucked my teeth, "Why are you being so short with me? I'm sure we're gonna be doing more jobs together so you might as well let that shit go." I felt his eyes burning through my profile. "What you wanna know, MiMi?" "How old are you?" "Thirty-Three." "Okay. I'm Thirty. Where you from?" "A little bit of everywhere." "Everywhere like where?" He sighed hard, "I was born and raised in Oakland, Went to the Navy. I was stationed mostly in Korea until I joined the SEALS. Then I was in D.C. for three years. After I discharged, I went to Massachusetts for school. Spent six years there. After school I spent time in Harlem." "Damn, so you really from--" "A little bit of everywhere." "So which place felt like home?" I blinked in his direction, he shook his head, "None of em." "Oh..kay. Well, I'm from Miami. Born and raised. I moved to LA when I was nineteen, spent some time in film school. I wanted to become a director and screenwriter. Then I had to go back home to handle family shit." "Family shit, huh? What's that?" So he's gonna start posing questions now? Cute. "My momma lost her job and cost of living in Miami ain't no bitch. She was raised on what I like to call, Miami girl mentality." "What's the Miami girl mentality?" "Find a man with a bag. Keep that man with a bag. Boss up, and if he not keeping you, get with the next man..with a bag." 

"Tuh. Alright. What that got to do witchu MiMi?" "She kept tryna convince me to start stripping, escorting, or at least bar tending. I told her I just wanted to make films. She kept saying that's not where the money is right now, and we need money at the moment. So, I bar tended at a strip club for a year. Gave my momma half of my checks plus most of my tips for rent and she was always complaining that it wasn't enough. One night, a guy came in. He knew I was struggling and offered to help me. Under one condition." "You had to--" "Train. Sloan threw me full force into the assassin life. Gun ranges, cutlery training, chemicals, mercenary combat..all of it." "So, where's your mom now?" "I completed my first mission five years ago. I took my first commission and bought her a loft right on Ocean Drive. Paid the bills up a couple years and told her to leave me alone. She was hindering my growth. My goals. I had to separate myself. For that and the fact of my job could take away any family or loved ones I cared about at any given moment." He took my left hand. "I get it." "So what about you? You got any family?" "Yeah. My moms and pops died when I was young, I got cousins and an aunt though. They don't live in the states." "So is that why none of the places you lived back there feel like home?" He nods, "Yeah. My home is where they are." "Where is that?" We looked at each other for a moment.

Turn right on to S Rafe Joan Castello/PMV 812-2

I followed the GPS' directions. "So, where did you go to school?" "MIT." He shrugged it off like it was nothing. "Daaaammmn. You fine and you smart?" He laughed, "You think I'm fine, cutie?" Damn. I said that out loud. "Uhh.. I mean...You are attractive." I removed my hand from his to rub the back of my neck in nervousness. "Thanks. You not too bad yourself." I blush at his mediocre compliment. "So what you study?" "Business Administration. Then I went back for my Doctorate." "So, you're actually Dr. Stevens?" "Yup." "You get your Doctorate in business?" "Nah. Engeneering." Damn..he really is smart. "That's cool. So why don't you use your degrees?" "Who says I don't?" I clutched my pearls, "Ah! Ahkay! So we're multifaceted, are we?" I glared over at him, he sunk down in his seat and grinned, "We are." "That's wassup. This assassin life can be draining." "So you still film?" "Meh. Here and there. When I'm feeling it. You married? Got any little Eriks running around?" "Huh? Hell no! No wife. No lil nigglets. You got a man? Lil nigglets?" I burst out in laughter, "No. I am not married nor courted. And I do not have any little pokemon running around." He nudged me a little, "As fine as you are, why?" "I haven't been looking honestly. I never thought anybody would understand what I do or why I do it." 

"Why do you you kill, Miss Mirah?" "Dr. Stevens, I only do kills that are for the greater good. I'm not out here killing children, nor men or women that don't deserve it. The money is more than good. Which helps me gather my filming and writing equipment, pay for my expensive ass place, and my mom's." "That's plausible. I've been killing since I was fifteen. My first kill was strictly self defense. I was helping a woman, a man was beating on her in an ally back in Oakland. I was walking to my group home when I heard her scream for help. He was trying to...rape her. I saw the gun in his hand and I went for it. We were wrestling over it and I elbowed him in the gut. He dropped it and before I knew it I had it in my hand and PAA! I see his face all the time. Even during some of my other kills. I didn't kill again after that until I enlisted. All the countries I visited after, I had to kill to protect my brothers and sisters on the line with me. After that, I joined in a mercenary faction. We killed for the money. Every body I caught during that time was purely for the money. It didn't matter to me who was right, who was wrong. That's when I met Sloan. We were in the same faction. We never ran around in the same subgroups but after I left that life behind, he became my first associate." "So that's how you know each other.." "Mhm." "So why do you kill now?" He took a pregnant pause, which made me look back over at him, then he answered, "I kill now because it's necessary. Every hit now has either planned to take us or our client down. I can't have either if I want a steady cash flow rolling in. But after this one, I'm taking some time out. Spend some needed time with my family." I smiled, "That's great." "So, what you gon do witcho ten?" "Uhh.. I'm gonna buy my loft. Probably travel. Write and film more. I could finish a project just in time for the Sundance deadline." "Cool. Cool."

Continue on Es Novells, your destination will be straight ahead in 2.1 Kilometers

"If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?" Erik completely threw me off with that question. But I already knew the answer, "Africa. I don't know which country, but I've always wanted to go back where my ancestors came from." As I put the car in park, I looked back in his direction and he was already looking at me. "What?" "Nothing. I just don't hear many people say that answer." "Wouldn't you want to?" "Actually, that's--"

"Okay, love birds, it's showtime!" Inga's voice paraded through the speakers again.

--

Erik's POV

The pool's blue and purple lighting set the entire club area's mood, the up tempo Spanish music filled the space. And so did the crowd. It was so many tourists and party goers. Mirah and I both turned on our communicators, Sloan decided that he would take the lead, associating on this mission. I was incredibly reluctant to do it, but Mirah says she trusts him with her life. I agreed to disagree. "Alright Mirah, Erik. The less attention placed on yourselves, the better. Enjoy the festivities for a while. When Mr. Cruz gets back to his bungalow, I'll let you know."I held my hand out to her, "You do dance, right?" She looked at it and walked out to the dance floor, still mean. I trailed her as she began swaying to the beat. That sheer shit she got on was doing her ass all the justice I needed to see. I moved along with her, grabbed her hand, she spun around. I looked down at her face, she was taking in her surroundings. I almost forgot the mission. This is the second mission she's thrown me off of. I knew this partner thing was gonna be distracting. I looked over to my right to see our target and our intelligence, a blonde named Arin. She was his plus one for the night and she's been entertaining him with all of the drinks and drugs he could handle."Hola! You guys look so cute! You here on vacation?" a woman, probably in her early twenties, was standing to our side. I skewed my head. I don't talk to anyone I don't know. I definitely don't talk to anyone I don't know, outside the country. Mirah stepped between us, "Yeah. We are. We're--" "Newlyweds. On our honeymoon." I interjected, wrapping my arms around MiMi. "Ahh! Well, congratulations! We should toast to that!" She motioned for a waiter, he brought us champagne. "Salud!" The woman said as she gulped down her drink, looking directly at us. We followed suit, looking at each other. "I'm Teresa by the way!" Mirah took her hand as they danced together. "Mr. Stevens! No need to be a prude! She's just a girl trying to party!" Sloan's British accent came through my communicator, "You checked her out?" "Yes. Teresa Mendez, twenty two years old, exchange student from Madrid. She's a regular at the club. There's nothing to be alarmed about." I just danced alone while peeping the scene, looking for our target. He was in the pool with Arin. Her and I locked eyes for a couple seconds and she said something to Eliaz while pointing at the bungalow. I quickly stepped between the two women, "Honey! I need to borrow you for a moment!" Mirah rolled her eyes and told Teresa she'll be back. "What's up?" I turned her around and held her close to me, her head peaking above my shoulder so she could see what I was witnessing. "He's about to make his way over to the spot. Arin is gonna leave him alone, we slide in and close the curtains." She nodded, leaned back and looked me in the eyes. She looked focused, she looked ready. "Alright gang, he is going to his section! Get ready to close in." I took MiMi's hand and lead her to our destination. She pulled down my shirt, my gun was showing. I peered over my shoulder and grinned, "Now who's tryna look at who's booty?" She laughed and tapped my backside, "I never said I don't look!" I stopped, turned around and pulled MiMi really close to me, "Alright we're gonna act like a drunk couple and stumble into the bungalow. Got it?" She gave a slight nod, "Got it."

--

Mirah's POV

Erik cupped my ass and I immediately felt the heat radiating between us. I wrapped my arms around him and leaned in to seal the deal. Once our lips touched, I let a moan slip out. Damn, his lips are really soft. I pulled away from him with a puzzled look on my face, not because I didn't know what we were doing, it was because I didn't know if we were acting or not. He grinned at me and closed our gap again. This kiss was more aggressive than the last as he walked backwards. I was trailing his movements until we fell into place. I grabbed his face and added tongue, he grinned against my lips and placed a slap on my left cheek. Which made me open my eyes to realize I needed to close the curtains. I grabbed both strings holding the two cloths open.

"What the hell are you two doing?" We heard a thick Spanish accent. We slowly broke our kiss, I stared at Erik, down at my bikini top then back at him as I reached behind him. He got the clue, he cupped my breast then reached beneath it to grab my concealed blade. "You two need to leave. NOW." 

Eliaz stood up with is phone in is hand. I pulled out Erik's nine millimeter and aimed it right at his head, "I don't think that's such a good idea, Eliaz!" "Nah. I don't either. I suggest you give that to me and take a seat."

"QUICKLY! THERE'S AN UNIDENTIFIED BOGEY. HE IS RUSHING TOWARD THE BUNGALOW...FOUR SECONDS!" Erik handed me the silencer, I quickly screwed it on and cocked the gun back. Erik looked over at Eliaz, put his finger over his lip, signaling for our target to remain quiet."THERE'S ANOTHER RUSHING TO THE OPPOSITE SIDE. BE PREPARED TO TAKE THEM OUT.", Sloan warned. I reached into my clutch to give Erik my emergency .22. He grabbed it and the first bogey swept the curtain back. I pulled him in and shot him close range in his heart. He fell. Erik caught the one on the right, we heard guests screaming and scrambling. We looked at each other, pointed our weapons at Eliaz, shot him five times. I shot two, Erik, three. We booked it out of the club and blended in with the terrorized party-goers.

--

[trakdrita]

Saiki k 3d

#Saiki k 3d plus

#Saiki k 3d series

I thought about what aspects of characterization annoy me the most. Well, I have an idea of what the "fanon" characters are like after spending so long lurking in the forum. Re: Worm characterization: I'm flattered that you think it's working, although I've already seen some complaints about this story so I don't know how much my take on it is worth, haha. I'll be sure to give Eve a listen - I always enjoy having songs or a playlist for whatever project I'm working on at the moment. Kudos!Ĭlick to shrink.First of all, thank you as always for your long review! I'm glad you enjoyed RegentQuest and Saiki's "interaction" with the Undersiders. Stay healthy, sane and again, I'm really struggling to not make this post an entire page worth of praise for the amount of effort you put in this.

#Saiki k 3d plus

Plus plus ultra work for this medium-mixing chapter and I'm really looking forward to see what new, creative, artistice mediums you'll use to blow our minds next once you're free.

#Saiki k 3d series

Personally I find it mind-boggling that his songs have never been used for a series before but hey, at least that means your story won't be associated with any other anime right?īut I'm getting off subject. One of 'em could very well be the defacto song for this story (and even if they don't make the cut, they're still good songs to listen to when you need some extra energy for work stuff like your finals). Not exactly original, but you'll still have put his songs in your work before any other anime. I've been binging his work again and when a soundtrack for this was brought up, I figured I might as well recommend the artist. And finally for the soundtrack, while I'm more than fine with you making an original piece for this story, a pretty good alternative I think would be to remix some tunes from this amazing Japanese artist called Eve. Appreciate the lack of romance as well, since I feel that it's always the biggest cause for story decay most of the time (that said I wouldn't mind a one-sided, comedic "romance" in the style of Teruhashi's shtick since it's mostly done as a gag and used to improve her character). Probably as some clerk at a convenience store that every relevant Worm character likes to frequent with his luck.įor your Q&A, I'm kinda dabbling in Worm stories myself and given you haven't read the source material either I'm kinda curious on where you get your characterization from. I'm also interested in seeing what kind of job Saiki ends up getting. There's not much to talk about once you omit the best part from the review after all, but I do expect we get a bit more expansion on what that first precognition was about, given Coil's powerset. Other than that, Saiki here was his usual sardonic excellence and lastly I admit I feel kinda bad for Oni Lee taking the blame. At the very least she's still significantly less irksome than Al-hole. Along with the promise of shenanigans by virtue of her going crazy trying to figure him out after her powers told her about his limiters but stated he wasn't a Parahuman. Lisa was also good, if only because I liked her internal thought's on Saiki as well as her breif dynamic with him. Grue had to be my favorite for being a nice, accommodating straight man to his group's antics who honestly has the best chance at being Kusuo's frie- sorry, acquaintance than the others. I also enjoyed the small but entertaining interactions between Saiki and the rest of the Undersiders. Take all of Greg and or Uber n' Leet's crap and stick it right into your Ikemen bastard face. And I hope either he or JGSZX or both use their powers to turn you into the designated butt-monkey of this story. Because Alec you dumb fuck, I felt second-hand annoyance from only reading you irritate Saiki. Mind blown after all.Īnyway, to start with I think you did a great job at Regent's portrayal. I think I'll uh, just stick to the stuff before the game if I want to post my review in a way that's coherent. I don't think I can even put into words just how amazed I was over how you did such an impressive achievement. Now rest assured, I won't be badgering you about Deltarune any time soon, but just know that your secret's out you've shown too much of your hand to make any of us think you're a normal SBer.Ī visual novel. There is no way any normal writer would go to those lengths on a casual basis unless they were never a normal writer to begin with. Hawks x reader rescue.Okay, so after finishing this chapter I have to ask: JGSZX, are you Toby Fox? Because that is the only explanation I could think of that makes sense after playing a VN minigame almost a dozen times once I finished reading a "fanfic" with grade-A illustrations.

[agallimaufryofoddments]

My order of Yen Press’ paperback release of Vol 1 of Fujimoto’s Baccano! manga adaptation finally arrived, and I’m quite happy! The volume has two bonus pages of extra dialogue written by Narita himself at the end, followed by a single page containing “Carol’s Notes.” AKA incentive for those of us who bought the individual chapters as they released/for JP folks reading it in Young Gangan) to buy the volume. Sneaky.

Anyway, the two bonus pages are an extension of that Ch 2 scene where Luck remarks to Claire that Keith’s taken a “certain shine” to a lady pianist. The pages are also prefaced with the following: “Cut, with great reluctance, due to page limitations... Dialogue written by Narita-sensei, just for this manga.” 

So, what’s this extra dialogue? Well – after Luck says his line about the lady pianist, Claire exclaims, “Silent movies, huh!? I bet the talkies are going to give ‘em a run for their money. From what I hear, The Jazz Singer movie they’re making now is amazing. They say it opens next month. Your pianist might be out of a job soon, huh?” Firo, Luck, and Berga all freeze at Keith’s expression, but Claire cheerfully whacks Keith on the back and adds, “Hey, Keith, don’t look like that! If that happens, you can just take care of her yourself!” 

The reason I’m talking about it is because I initially thought this scene (and tangentially the original Ch2 line about that “certain shine”) were contradicting light novel volume four, but then I realized - oh, wait, not necessarily. And I figured it would be a good idea to explain why in case anyone else had the same thought. 

First of all, let’s acknowledge that the real-world timeline referenced here is correct. San Gennaro’s feast day is on September 19, and The Jazz Singer released on October 6, 1927. 

Why did I think there was a contradiction? For some reason, I’d had the impression that the “certain shine” line implied Keith had already met Kate. However, the first time he actually approached her in person was some time after The Jazz Singer released. ‘Oh no!’ I thought. ‘How can he have met her if he hasn’t met her yet?’

Ten seconds later, I remembered the obvious fact that (gee!) ‘certain shine’ does not equal ‘met’. That, and, oh yeah - before Keith approached Kate, he'd been going to that one theater all the time just to hear her play. That’s what Luck must have been referring to. (The ensuing ten seconds were full of deep shame).

...Of course, the fact that Luck knew about the ‘lady pianist’ before he even met her means that Keith must have...told him...that there was someone he was interested in? (???) Then again, Keith’s pretty talkative to Kate so it’s possible he was more willing to talk about her as well. Did Luck and Berga realize that he was going to the theater a lot more often (I assume he was) and ask him why? Or did he volunteer the information? Hmmm.

(Honestly I think just the idea that Luck was aware of Kate was alone enough to make me assume Keith and Kate had met. After all, how else would Luck know about her? /s)

Also, that “just take care of her yourself line...” Hm. I do think that Keith still approached her out of a sincere desire to know where she was playing next (that is, I think that his question, “What movie theater do I need to go to, to hear you play now? At the movies they show these days, you can’t see the performers’ faces, so I can’t tell who’s who.” was his main reason for talking to her...) - but I’m now wondering if Claire’s remark planted a seed of worry in Keith about Kate’s livelihood.

Ah, well. Point is, I’m an overthinking fool and the scene is fine. What’s not fine is that rereading this volume means I have to reread ‘well, never mind’ with my own two eyes.

[reimahowaido]

Tumblr no. Why you do this. I wrote a big cool intro on this that I thought up carefully, and you went and deleted it all. That took more than 10 minutes of my time. Rude. Anyway, I guess instead of being cool I'll just be quick. So. I finally got myself to play Spyro: Reignited after a year of buying the game (I also got Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but I've watched a lot of others play that game, so I'm kinda caught up on that) and I thought that since I made tumblr to just post Anything, I might as well just do that and write up my experiences, reactions and stuff as I go~ First things first. I'm playing it on a Switch Lite. I'm not really that big of a gamer, nor do I have that much money to just yeet around on every game I'd love to own, so I'm kinda limited on experience. But I did play Spyro as a kid on a Playstation. We had a short demo of the first game and some version of the 2nd game (which was my fave game growing up) - the hospital I spent time in as a kid also had all 3 Spyro games I'm fairly sure, I did play the 1st and 3rd ones there (although mostly I enjoyed watching an older kid play the games, they were skilled and little sibling culture be like). Also I Adore both old and new versions of the games. Old is Nostalgic, and seriously great, but the new one looks Amazing and I Loooooove all the elder dragon designs. Everyone working on these games did So Great! Good job! And thank you <3 Ok this got lengthy, so imma start in the next post - or if I can figure out a read-more, then there

There we go~ Ok let's go! So right off the bath, I started with the first game of the series, deciding to go in order. And honestly, this was an excellent choice in my opinion, I'll say why soon, but even before then, yes, the game Looks So Gorgeous. I wanna go to the dragon realms and just live there. It looks so nice. I want to walk around, lay on the grass and lay down, look at the sky and chill. The music is great too, I love it~ Nostalgia :2 And it's not affected in a sense that I've not been listening to the original songs in years, so my mind isn't making comparisons, it's just enjoying and going 'yep, this has that Spyro energy and feel and boy I love it so much' And here we go! My first experience! Um, well. It feels different xD Because I'm playing on the Switch and not the Playstation. It took a bit to get the controls under control, not gonna lie. Maybe it's because I don't play a lot of games as a whole, or then the Switch really does have stiffer controls. I was a little worried at first, all the way back when I bought the game, going like, what if I can't play it? What if it's hard? What if the controls don't work? What if I suck so bad I won't get anywhere? But my love for Spyro was greater than my fear and so I got the game anyway. Artisans homeworld! So there I am, falling off the first straight line to Nestor and looking like an absolute loser. But hey it's ok! We're starting out, I kinda predicted that it'd take a bit to learn stuff. Yeah it's embarrassing but new controls can be like this, right? Ok, so I get through the first bit. And after that, I kinda check on what the buttons do. Charge, Flame, Jump, yep, the usual. This button is the camera? Ok, yeah I kinda remember that being a thing, ok. Then I do the ... shoulder buttons? That's what they're called right? Well I try them and oh yeah right! In the first game these were the dodge rolls! Yeah I never used them but I do remember them being kinda silly, even if they made me sliiiightly jump in surprise because of how sudden the stuff was (and trust me, they'll make me jump a lot in the future too xD Oh god....). And then I found the button that kinda fixes the camera angle. Amazing! What a joy to discover that button~~ Good good, that's great. I've somehow gotten really used to that ability of turning the camera and having it face some optimal direction of my choice. Ok now we're set and let's go! The charging. It didn't feel as smooth, and it Still kinda has a bit of an awkward feel to itself. It's kinda, silly?, on how Spyro will charge and move forward with that charge button without me having to move the stick to have him move. I dunno why, it just, feels strange xD I forget if ye old pokemon games had you hold down B and then move or something but, muscle memory of sorts? Anyway, it didn't feel as responsive or smooth to charge. At first it felt like charging was just way too fast for my mind and I was very much content to just walking and taking my time xD I've since gotten more used to the charging, it has become very necessary so that's good First obstacles were the gem thieve Gnorks. God. Those guys were so easy to catch and roast as a kid. But now with the new controls. Boy. I. I was struggling to keep up and turn after them. Embarrassing, I know, but I was new and just getting back into things. I did catch 'em both eventually, after a tiny bit more struggling than I'd have hoped And here come the most cringe bit. Ah yes, so first game, Spyro can't swim, he'll take damage from water. And he can actually die in the Artisans homeworld. And bruh. ...... I'm here unlocking Sunny Flight before getting used to the stiffer controls or getting a hold of the precise jumping. And. I freaking Die. I touched water twice, I got hella stressed with the green Sparx being there and signifying that I didn't have much more room for errors. Oh Shoot! Maybe I should hop on over, back to the mainland and flame some sheep fodder before trying again? Yeah sounds like a good idea! I die before making it back to the mainland. Mmmmmmmmh. Yeah we're. We're

learning boys. I decide I'll unlock Sunny Flight a little later and just get used to the controls first. And I successfully unlock the level a little later on, after stressing over each and every jump in a stiff worried state the whole time. A late success but a success no less! Then the other big hurdle of Artisans homeworld. That one platform right there 'behind Nestor' that you have to glide on over to to get the chest and some gems. Gliding had already proven to not be my strong-suit with the area you release Thomas at. I had to go up the swirly thing several times to get all the gems there. But this one. This one. Bruh. I was struggling so hard. I tried soooo many times. I managed to do this as a kid. I should be able to do this now. How is this so haaaard. I've almost got this! What am I doing wrong? Is it a Switch bug? Is it impossible on the Switch Lite? Now after playing the game for several more hours I might know the reason I was struggling so much. So I Guess my thing was that I pressed jump and then to glide like immediately after, so I didn't have enough height even after charging. It was a miracle when I finally made it up there and was able to complete the stage now that I allowed myself to go clear up the way to the balloonist after I finished grabbing these gems. Good job good job. Boy we're in for a ride aren't we This got long, so I'll speak of the dragons some other time!

[at-what-cost]

How many pieces of art do you make in a month? in a year? if you count random doodles and sketches I’d say I draw about 4-5 every 2 days. Fully rendered works (including traditional) would be 5 to 10 in a month.

How many of those do you upload? i think i upload about 50% or 70% of these works get uploaded. depends how satisfied I am with the work

How many fandoms have you created art for and what are they? Oof, haha. Right now I only draw stuff about Luca, but I made fanarts for Merlin, Good Omens, Moomin, The Owl House, Camp Camp, Sherlock, Motor CIty, Gravity Falls, Steven Universe, and uhhh Hannibal :))

What are your top 5 fanart pieces based on likes/engagement?

this (colored doodles), this one (fully rendered), also fully rendered, here, and these doodles

((YES, THEY ARE ALL LUCA))

What piece of fanart do you wish had gotten more attention? why?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’m honestly just glad that people notice what I do and that I get to meet ppl with common interests

What piece of fanart have you spent the most time on? the first work I linked in the previous question. I did it on my phone and rendering there takes twice as much time as it does when I’m on a laptop w a pentab.

What's your favorite kind of comment to get? I love just getting them in the first place. There are times when ppl point out things about the work that they love and it makes me feel like I did a great job executing what I had visualized. Makes the heart explode

What’s the angstiest piece of art you’ve made? Mmmmm... I made a lot in hs. All that gory stuff you know? But it wasn’t too gory I guess. I love drawing flowers so they usually have flowers with em

What's the fluffiest piece of art you've made? think it would be all my Luca doodles. they are the manifestations of my longing

Do you create crossover pieces? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve created? nope

Have you ever received hate on a piece of art? not exactly hate, but close enough

Do you create smut? If so what kind? oh no, I don’t have the guts (or skills)

Have you ever had art stolen? not that I’m aware of. If you do find someone taking credit over someone else’s work pls. let the artist/ op know. It’s hugely appreciated <33

Have you ever had a fic written based off your art? haha i wish

What’s your all time favorite ship? Luberto! I’m still inlove with ineffable husbands and Merthur...plus there’s Hannigram

What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will? Hon, there is A LOT

What are your strengths as an artist? I think its great that I’ve taken the time to study anatomy and a little bit of color theory in hs. I drew a lot of toony and disney styled ocs and it helped break down the complexities much easier for me. I also believe I have moderate skills in portraits since I drew my friends and people around me on multiple whims. I’m not very confident with my compositions, but I think I’ve developed.

What are your weaknesses as an artist? I have little knowledge about depth and backgrounds. Mainly because perspective of buildings and landscapes are hard for me to understand. I find it difficult to incorporate my subjects to their surroundings.

What are your favorite tools to make art with? I love colored pencils...sadly I lost most of mine and have to cope with the consequence of limited colors. I had some practice with watercolor and it’s fun but ultimately nerve wracking. Highlighters and pens are hard to obtain but I love em. My jelly gouache is dried cos we don’t get along very well.

Digital art is a whole different thing. I’m still kinda figuring it out.

What colors do you like to use the most? Why? I love using vibrant and bright colors because that’s what I’m most comfortable with and happy to see. I will admit that there are times when I use more toned down colors for the sake of aesthetic tho :)) And well, I’ll use any/every color to convey the right mood or emotion of the artwork or scene that I’m trying to depict

What are your feelings on creating comics? I love making comics! I used to make these silly little ones a long time ago. I’d love to get back to making them formally/properly, but I’m afraid I don’t have the time

What was the first fandom you created art for? the very first fanart would be cn:knd. I loved the character designs so much

What’s your favorite piece of art you’ve ever made? there’s this cubism painting I made for art’s month this year. It was gouache, ironically. I passed it for my portfolio in college and I really liked how it turned out

Fan Artist Interview!

Thank @chromochaotic for this.

Tagging a bunch of the artists whose work I really, really love to kick this off:

@chromochaotic @at-what-cost @sufjan-fals @morganskii @tamak0 @garunif @bliski @candykale and last but not least @/anyonewhowantstodothis

How many pieces of art do you make in a month? in a year?

How many of those do you upload?

How many fandoms have you created art for and what are they?

What are your top 5 fanart pieces based on likes/engagement?

What piece of fanart do you wish had gotten more attention? why?

What piece of fanart have you spent the most time on?

What's your favorite kind of comment to get?

What’s the angstiest piece of art you’ve made?

What's the fluffiest piece of art you've made?

Do you create crossover pieces? If so, what’s the craziest one you’ve created?

Have you ever received hate on a piece of art?

Do you create smut? If so what kind?

Have you ever had art stolen?

Have you ever had a fic written based off your art?

What’s your all time favorite ship?

What’s a WIP that you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

What are your strengths as an artist?

What are your weaknesses as an artist?

What are your favorite tools to make art with?

What colors do you like to use the most? Why?

What are your feelings on creating comics?

What was the first fandom you created art for?

What’s your favorite piece of art you’ve ever made?

[dominicvail]

Dunno if you've ever talked about/answered this, but may I ask what you use to make your beautiful gifs?! I'm about to pull my hair out trying to prep my sets for "Densi-mber" so that they all actually move like they're supposed to without looking like completely awful quality. (I obviously do not want to take away from the amazing work you do, but yearn to make them as pretty-ful as you do!) BTW --- all your comments on every episode totally crack me up ! Love em!

I use photoshop CS5 portable, an old crappy version that honestly doesn’t have all the working features, but it does the job just fine (i got a copy of it off my friend who was doing gameart design in uni, lol). 

As for the gifs themselves, i’m not sure what you mean by looking awful quality, but here’s a few things i normally consider (i apologize if this gets super wordy, i’m not great at explaining things and some of this involves a lot of nonsensical numbers);

1) If you mean how your gifs look uploaded onto tumblr, the sizes of the gifs in pixels make a massive difference on how a set looks once uploaded. Tumblr’s image layout is 540px across, and gifs will only look their optimum quality if they are exactly 540px across the entire picture window. If your gif is 450 across, tumblr will stretch it to be 540 and the quality will visibly diminish. Likewise, if your gif is 600px, tumblr will shrink it and it will also diminish it’s quality on your dash. If you have more than one gif in a line, your set still needs to come to 540px together, each gif needs to be 268px wide to display at the optimum quality. Three gifs in a row needs two sized at 177px and the third 178px to come up to 540px across, any pixel number that doesn’t add up to 540 total will make tumblr adjust the gif size and it will corrupt the gif quality. 

One single gif (a 540px one designed to sit on it’s own) can be up to 3mb large, anything bigger and it won’t play). If you have two 268px gifs next to each other, they also cannot exceed the 3mb limit, each gif can be whatever mb size you want, but together they cannot exceed the 3mb. 

(if that made zero sense to anybody, i suggest google image searching ‘tumblr image dimensions’ b/c people have made visual guides). 

2) Colouring on your gifs makes a massive difference, and this show is /awful/ to colour. I have 4 different types of colouring for opps alone because the lighting is different from every filming angle in the room. I can’t really go into specifics literally just because i don’t have specific examples, but in general, having it too bright pixelates darkened areas horribly, sometimes it’s better to just make a gif look super shadowy by keeping dark parts dark than it is to brighten it so much it looks like a pixel storm. The higher quality screencaps you have to make gifs from, the more you can brighten them/edit them in general before they become pixelated, over-colouring low quality content next to never ends well. (but i do all this on photoshop, idk how to colour using anything else). If you’re using PS, i recommend finding a ps resources blog, downloading a couple of psd’s that people have made for free use that you like and learning how they work from those. I started off using free ones and once i’d figured out what did what I made up my own ones. 

3) what do you use to get screencaps for your gifs?? I personally use UMplayer because it’s the only program i found that will automatically take gif quality screencaps from DVD’s (supposedly vlc and kmplayer will also do this for people, but it never worked on my laptop when i tried, so umplayer it is). I just play the scene in the window while i set the program to cap it enough times a second as it plays, so that when i gif from the caps, the movement isn’t choppy, even if you craft the perfect colouring and sharpening and timing when making the gif, if you don’t have enough screencaps per second of footage, it’s still going to be choppy. 

4) But also, some scenes just aren’t very giffable? Like, i really want to gif that scene where Eric calls Nell ‘Nellverine’ but when the camera is on his face as he says it, he’s in motion the entire time, if what you want to gif doesn't have a single screencap that’s not blurry, your gif is just gonna be a blur. Can’t really fix that, i mean, maybe people super amazing at giffing can, but i’ve never managed it. 

5) sharpening. I personally like definition on my gifs, so i tend to sharpen a lot, but some people prefer smooth gifs, it’s each to their own. But, also, very low quality screencaps will not sharpen, they will only make the gif grainy. The higher pixel size your individual caps are, the more you can afford to sharpen, but it is literally on a case by case basis, i will sharpen 2 different scenes from one episode differently depending on how it looks, it’s entirely personal judgement/taste tbh, but attempting to sharpen something that is tiny in quality will only make it look worse. 

6) frame speed. I am a lazy ass who will only set my frames at 0.1 or 0.2 depending on a scene because they’re presets and i don’t have to take the time to type in speeds like 0.18 or something equally fiddly, but you have to judge what works best for the gif you’re making. Conversation scenes i normally set at 0.2 but like, action scenes i normally set at 0.1. But that’s not a solid rule, it’s just my personal norm. 

7) there are specific dimensions for gifsets that look more attractive on this site, if i’m doing say, an 8 gif set 2x2, i will make my gifs 268x180px, which is about what i think looks best on this format. Personally anything shorter than 170px high in that situation looks a little weird (unless you’re deliberately trying to do a panorama type gif). 

anyway that’s all i could think of from the top of my head (and also probably too detailed of an explanation, i do that a lot i’m sorry), but i think those are probably what things that will most of the time disrupt gifs. And thank you!!!! but feel free to ask anything, i’m not a graphc making how-to hoarder, i don’t understand people refusing to help other people making them under the guise of creator secrets? It just seems weird and like a weird form of gatekeeping to me, the more the merrier right? So i’m open to trying to help anytime :D 

[shg11]

I've been around the block on this website a few times, and I've noticed that if there are two things you bitches love, it's horoscopes and. I count myself firmly in this camp, BTW. I'm not going to act like I'm above either of those things. So I thought to myself, "Why not combine the two things betches hold most dear, into one completely nonsensical accurate horoscope?" And that's exactly what I did. Through some very careful plotting of the movement of the stars and calling upon my own photographic memory of every episode of , I bring you: What SVU detective are you based on your horoscope? If you've ever tried to convince your friends that you're an Olivia, I'm going to need you to take every single seat. Everyone thinks they're an Olivia, okay? In reality, only one sign can be Benson. And Benson isn't even the best SVU detective (now sergeant). So which of these dedicated detectives who make up this elite squad are you? Read 'em and weep.

Aries - Amanda Rollins

Yeah, I bet you all thought I’d start this list off with Benson because Aries are natural born leaders, didn’t you? Surprise, bitch. Y’all get Rollins. Rollins came into the SVU squad hot by catching that identical twin serial rapist who followed his innocent twin brother across state lines to commit assault after assault, so we all thought she was a good one. Just like you, Aries, Rollins has some promising qualities. But you know what Aries’ worst quality is? They’re impulsive, impatient, and moody. Rollins has a fucking gambling addiction (impulsive), won't be put on desk duty even though she's pregnant (impatient), and won’t stop enabling her piece of shit sister who TRIED TO SEND HER TO PRISON (too fucking sentimental aka moody)—so yeah, I think that all describes Rollins impeccably. Sorry not sorry, you secretly suck.

^See? MOODY!

Taurus - Mike Dodds

Taurus (Taurans? Tauri?) are reliable and responsible, but they can also be stubborn and uncompromising. Likewise, Dodds was a professional through and through, unlike the rest of these bozos that make up this so-called “elite squad”. Dodds did his work. He even helmed the SVU for a while. But he also refused to leave SVU for a cushy job at the joint terrorism task force that his dad had set up for him. It was a stubborn move that ultimately led to his death—and if there's one thing Taurus is known for, it's bullheadedness. Not even a pun, just actual factual. Taurus, your ability to stick to your guns is admirable, just make sure it doesn’t get you shot in the line of duty. (Ok, pun was unintentional at first, but then I decided to just go with it.)

Gemini - Ed Tucker

That’s fucking right, Gemini, you’re not even a real SVU detective because your ass can’t be trusted. Geminis are literally known for being two-faced, and there’s nobody the SVU distrusts more than Tucker over at IAB. He supposedly works for the NYPD, and yet that guy seems to have a personal vendetta against the Special Victims Unit. Why? (*Thinks back to every illegal maneuver Stabler, Amaro, etc. have ever gotten away with* Oh. Ok.) One minute, you’re convinced he’s shutting down the SVU for good, the next, he’s like, "Gotcha!! You all THOUGHT I would make you face the consequences for your actions... psych!" I just cannot figure this guy out, just like I cannot figure out what my dad will get angry about and what he'll be cool with, and my dad is also a Gemini. Coincidence? IDK, I'll bring it up in my next therapy session. That said, it’s not completely fair to paint Geminis as unpredictable freaks—you can be very thoughtful and affectionate, which is I assume how Tucker managed to win over Benson. And, I’ll admit, Ed wasn’t a bad guy and was probably the most stable and caring male figure in Benson’s life thus far. Retirement suited him well. Not saying the same goes for you, Gemini, but you might want to take that 401K seriously just in case. (Not horoscope-related advice, just general life advice.)

Cancer - Dani Beck

Cancers are the pussies of the zodiac in the sense that they are highly emotional. Hey, don’t cry at me; I’m just the messenger. This bleeding heart Dani tries to take in a child because she feels bad for her, only she doesn’t bother to do it the proper way, like, through the authorities or New York State foster care system (whatever that is). She’s just all, “Oh you’re so cute and emotionally disturbed, come sleep on my couch.” That plan went up in flames—literally. Hope she had renter's insurance. Later on, once again too emotional to make a decision on whether to stay in the SVU or leave, Dani tries to put the decision onto Elliot, who’s like “nah fam, I'm not doing this." Cancer, it’s great that you care about people, but try thinking with your brain sometime. It might get you into less trouble and life-threatening situations. There is a limit to empathy. You know what they say: Don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm. Okay, enough fire metaphors.

^Honestly, Munch, a valid question.

Leo - Nick Amaro

Everyone thinks Aries are the leader of the zodiac, but anyone who actually bothers to read horoscopes other than their own knows Leos are always shadily killing it. Y’all are warm, action-oriented, and driven by the desire to be loved. That last bit reminded me a lot of Michael Scott, but we can save e horoscopes for another day. Anyway, you Leos are Amaro, you lucky bitches. You’re a sun sign so you’re hot (I know it’s a huge stretch but please, let me have my thirst), but you’re also loyal and trustworthy. Tbh, Nick was loyal to Olivia almost to a fault (kind of like another certain partner of hers…what perfume does she wear?). However, Leos are also stubborn af and inflexible, kinda like how Nick refused to see that his marriage was crumbling right before his very eyes. Andddd kinda like how Nick was told not to hunt down pedophile David Rosen on his own accord like some state-funded vigilante, but he beat him to a bloody pulp anyway and almost lost his job and actually compromised his entire career for it. Fam. I was rooting for you, we were all rooting for you!

Virgo - John Munch

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and it also makes up one of Virgo’s major flaws, according to the random horoscope website off of which I based most of this list. As a Virgo, you’re hardworking, practical, and loyal, but you can also be a worrywart who’s overly critical. Sound familiar? It should, because while Munch is the ultimate ride-or-die for the SVU squad, the dude is also kind of a nutcase. Like, he probably doesn’t have a smartphone because he thinks the government has bugged it (and he’s probably not wrong tbh given that every WiFi device was just hacked and nobody in the media is reporting about this). Munch is always ranting and raving about Big Brother, and he probably should chill a bit, seeing as he literally works for the government. But Munch, and Virgos, will probably be right, only they won't say "I told you so" because they hate attention. Although a bit of a wallflower, Virgos are extremely perceptive. Similarly, if you listen closely to anything Munch says, you will notice that he is always getting to the heart of people's issues with this one-liner jabs, and no one ever gives him the proper acknowledgment for his biting sarcasm and critiques. Ah, well. That's life, as a sarcastic Jiminy Cricket, I suppose.

^That's the pot calling the kettle paranoid, eh, John?

Libra - Odafin Tutuola

Balanced and fair and not one to rock the boat, Libras are Ice-T to a T. Am I biased because I’m a Libra and Ice-T is my favorite SVU detective? Probably, but what are you gonna do? Arrest me? Look, Ice-T… fine, FIN, is the cool, calm, and collected detective who doesn’t get rattled, even when people call him racist slurs in the interrogation room. He’s also prone to playing “good cop” and pretending to empathize with the perps so he can get a good confession. (Seriously, watch like, any episode and I bet you’ll hear Fin say something like, “I get it. You spent all that money on dinner and she wouldn’t give it up? Who does that bitch think she is?”). Libras are all about keeping the peace and care about others, which can sometimes blow up in their faces, like when you try to not get involved with Rollins’ obvious gambling addiction but then it starts affecting her work and you end up loaning her thousands of dollars to go undercover in an underground casino. C’mon, Fin. You don’t give money to an addict. That’s like, rule number one of enabling. You’re never gonna get that bread back. Be kind, be fair, but don’t be a fucking patsy.

Scorpio - Elliot Stabler

The word “Scorpio” is basically synonymous with “psycho,” so here we fucking are, Scorpio/Stabler. Are you surprised? You shouldn’t be, because you know you’re one clever perp or issue with your kids away from taking a dive off the deep end. (You really should get those children in therapy. And also, stop calling your son "Dicky". I bet that's the root of like, 75% of his issues.) Sure, Scorpios are assertive and natural born leaders—that’s what got you here and why you succeeded for so many seasons. But, to put it bluntly, you’re also a fucking sadists who enjoy watching people suffer. Which would explain the multiple department-ordered anger management classes and the string of pedophiles who’ve almost walked away scot-free because you couldn’t control your fists in the interrogation room, ELLIOT.

Sagittarius - Dominick Carisi Jr.

Yeah, I didn't know there was a Dominick Carisi Sr., either, until I looked it up just now. Mind blown. Curious and energetic, Sagittarius keep an open mind, much like how Carisi went from being a low-key misogynist (it wasn’t really malicious; he was just ignorant) to #WokeBae in the span of only a few seasons. We also have to respect Carisi’s thirst for knowledge, as he’s the only one on this squad who’s ever made significant moves to better himself by going to law school—and no, attending department mandated therapy sessions does not count as “bettering” oneself (you know who you are). Despite meaning well, Sagittarius can sometimes put their foot in their mouth and say whatever comes to mind, no matter how undiplomatic their ideas may be. And I’d say that describes, oh, 90% of Carisi’s opinions in his first season. It’s okay, Carisi. You’re learning. Sagittarius are travel lovers, but I swear to God if Carisi leaves the show and they keep Olivia, there will be hell to pay. Do you hear me, Dick?! HELL!

Capricorn - Olivia Benson

Capricorns are responsible and disciplined, and while I personally am not living for Olivia’s character arc as of late, I’ve gotta say the woman is responsible when it comes to like, her kid and also like, not completely waving her middle finger in the face of the law and NYPD procedure (*cough* Amaro *cough* STABLER *COUGHS UP A LUNG*). Sorry. Anyway, Capricorns are good managers, and Olivia is doing a pretty decent job managing this squad of goons. (Mostly directed at Rollins.) Independent in their personal and professional lives, a Capricorn’s personal motto is “Can’t Tell Me Nothin’”. And if that’s not Olivia, IDK what is. You really can’t tell this woman nothin’. You can’t tell her not to date every man in her immediate professional circle; you can’t tell her to fucking TELL SOMEONE if she’s going to go off and secretly meet known rapist and sadistic kidnapper, William Louis, in an abandoned building; you can’t tell her that no, a woman who gets tricked into bed by a man who lied about his name and job title was not raped. Seriously, that’s not how it works, Olivia. That’s not how any of this works.

^Never forget

Aquarius - Monique Jeffries

Aquarians are usually shy and quiet, but they can have a bit of a crazy and unpredictable side. Who else better fits that bill than Jeffries, the woman who never did anything interesting until boom, one explosion and she’s gone off the deep end, going on dates with former rape suspects. Just think about that. Sorry your horoscope is kind of lame, but like, there's not a whole lot to say about you or this woman. Become more interesting and then report back to me with your results.

Pisces - Brian Cassidy

Pisces, y’all are some paranoid and hysterical motherfuckers. You get way too sentimental and it can hinder your life progress—kinda like how Cassidy gets made fun of in season one because he can’t control his emotions about the cases. And like, I get it, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to be cavalier in the face of sex crimes, but that’s why I didn’t sign myself up to work in the sex crimes division of the NYPD. Know yourself. Work on that, and then maybe you can have another brief stint in SVU a full decade later. One of Pisces' major weaknesses is their desire to escape reality, which can get them into trouble—for instance, when they sign up for a multi-year undercover operation, get into a relationship with a prostitute, get shot and almost die when their undercover status is exposed, and later on get accused of rape by a prostitute they met undercover years prior which causes them to get demoted. You know, just a totally random example. Find a healthy and less literal way to escape reality, Pisces/Cassidy.

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