#geragerasan

[junkverse-archive]

alright. i asked for permission and you gave it. let's crank it up to 100 joshneku and 8/9 (either or). destroy my fucking ass

things you said when I was crying/things you said when you were crying

They didn’t give you a manual when you got into the Game. Or Neku didn’t get one anyway. (But then he had the impression his circumstances were… unusual.) And you didn’t get one for how to handle things after you won, either.

Like, for awhile, all of them -Neku, Shiki, and Beat- still… saw things, once they came back. Faint visions of spiny wings rising from the shoulder blades of random passers-by, or the shape of animals too strange and wild to be real, flitting through the crowds. Sometimes they’d hear sounds like a Noise calling -animal growls fractured and distorted, the cracks filled with static.

This faded, after a few weeks… for Beat and Shiki.

It lingered for Neku.

He wasn’t sure why. A side effect of whatever had happened to him during the Game, as far as he could tell. 

Not like there was anyone he could ask about it.

Which isn’t to say he hadn’t tried to find someone -Udagawa had been empty the times he’d gone there, and his attempts to go to WildKat had ended curiously, with him somehow getting turned around and lost for an hour or more in what was essentially a straight thoroughfare. Sure, there was the river, but something in Neku told him that way was closed for him, now.

So, instead, he talked.

To what would’ve looked like empty air, if anyone was looking (which they usually weren’t: Neku spoke quietly, when no one living was around to hear.) He talked about school, about his parents, his friends, whatever song currently had his attention. He talked about the Game, what he had done, what he’d seen and was still seeing.

Which is what he was doing now: talking, softy, to the still late afternoon air, as he sat with his back against one of the newer CAT murals at Udagawa. (CAT still made art, but it happened less frequently, and it seemed less bold and sure, somehow). It was getting late, Neku knew, but he didn’t want to go back home just yet.

“-and I dunno how to talk about it with them?” Neku said. He gestured as he spoke, as if there were an invisible listener with him. “I think Shiki and Beat just wanna move on, and I don’t blame them, but. I don’t know anyone else who’s… who’s been where I was. And it sucks.”

A pause. “Also I can’t find my headphones? The ones I had back in the Game, I mean. I think I lost them back at Hachiko, but, y’know, good fuckin’ luck finding ‘em, they’re probably all trampled and shit.” Neku laughed, ruefully, and ran his fingers through his hair, leaning back against the wall.

For a moment he said nothing, taking in muted sounds of the city. Things were always oddly quiet in Udagawa.

“…I wish you were here,” Neku said. His throat suddenly felt tight, and something stung at the corners of his eyes. “I’m not. As mad, anymore? Like I’m still mad, dude, don’t get me wrong-” here he sniffled, rubbed at his eyes as that stinging beaded and began to trickle down his cheeks, “-but I still wanna be friends with you. Even after… after everything.”

Neku peered up and around at the empty alleyway, half hoping he’d see a familiar face rounding the corner, or settling down beside him. Someone he hadn’t seen since that strange throne room, deep underneath Shibuya.

There was no one.

Neku sighed, pushed himself up from the concrete, and brushed himself off. He cleared his throat, sniffed again.

“I’ll, ah,” Neku said, “talk to you later, I guess.” He hesitated. “That invitation to meet up at Hachiko is still standing, y’know. If… if you want it.”

Neku waited for a response, as he always did. There was none.

So he began the long walk down the steps of Udagawa, towards home. Neku reflexively reached to slip on his long-gone headphones before remembering, and sighed, grumbling under his breath about needing to get a new pair-

-when a strange crackling noise tore through the air, the sound of it somehow electric and liquid all at once.

Neku spun in place, heart thudding in his chest at the familiarity of the sound -not like a Noise, but close, static in the spaces of it, with a low barely-there thrumming underneath that made his stomach churn. It filled the narrow alleyway, echoing until it was almost a solid blanket of sound-

-and with a crack ended as abruptly as it had begun, the silence that followed deafening.

And, standing in the middle of that silent alleyway, Joshua.

Neku blinked at him, staring. Because he was hallucinating, surely, he’d finally gone off the deep end and this was all a dream or a brain-tumor induced vision or something, because Joshua looked just like he had the last time Neku had seen him, but somehow smaller and more real.

“You dropped them,” Joshua said.

“What,” Neku said.

“Your headphones,” Joshua said. He reached towards his own neck, and Neku belatedly realized that Joshua was wearing the set of headphones he’d lost. “You dropped them, back at Hachiko.”

“I-you’re-”

“I, um, held onto them,” Joshua said as he slowly took off the headphones. “For safekeeping. Until I could see you again.” 

“Y-you’re…” Neku took a step towards him, then another. “You’re real?”

Joshua nodded, minutely. “As real as you are.” He smiled a small, apologetic smile, and Neku realized, with a jolt, that he was crying. “Sorry it took me so long.”

And then all of a sudden Neku had somehow closed the distance between them and he was holding onto Joshua and hugging him for dear life, not caring about the plastic of the headphones digging into his chest, or his own tears. All he cared about was Joshua leaning into him, how he felt solid and warm and too-thin under his hands, and how he was here, with him, finally.

Eventually they pulled away from each other. Neither of them spoke at first; Joshua put Neku’s headphones around Neku’s neck, the gesture so careful that it made Neku’s heart clench.

“Now,” Joshua said, slowly, “I didn’t hear everything you’ve been telling me, so. Mind getting me up to speed?”

Neku laughed, wiping at the tear stains on his cheeks, and nodded.

“Sure, Josh. Sure.”

[olivemeister]

geragerasan replied to your post: sometimes i go through my folders of stuff that...

BUT I NEVER DRAW ANY BEAUTIFUL VANIS THEYRE ALL MEMES

[drawnbyzack]

whoops, i go and make a new art blog and then not make a whole lot of art

anyway! a twitter request from @geragerasan for that outfit prompt thing -Neku in A2, an outfit I have starting to lovingly refer to as “the Google Chrome jacket.”

[restekova]

@8bitcat @geragerasan @ghost-guro cryptid at boston MFA with other cryptids

[nekusakuraba]

caramel frappe, binch

I THOUGHT YOU MEANT LIKE “caramel frappe” AND “binch” FOR THE MEME AND I WAS LIKE “BINCH IS NOT A DRINK??”

Caramel Frappe : Favorite video game?

you know WELL AND GOOD it’s “the world ends with you” venjamin BUT my two favorite series are kh (fav entry being... kh1 or dream drop) and loz (fav entry being wind waker)!!

[olivieraa]

how does it feel to attack teenagers on the internet with such unnecessary hostility

the fuck are you talking about

[squaredmemeix-blog]

i shouldn't do this, i really shouldn't, but..,could i reserve joshua

yes he’s all yours

[junkverse-archive]

joshneku and 20 would have me on the floor thx

 prompt T./20 - Things you said that I wasn’t meant to hear

Here was the thing about Joshua -as far as Neku could tell, he didn’t sleep.

Like. Sometimes he would come over, when Neku was home from class and he would chill or play video games or eat some of Neku’s food and generally act a bit like if a cat had a human form and also god powers, but he didn’t, y’know. Nap, or anything?

Neku had asked about this, once, when Joshua first started coming over and had announced he was staying the night. (“You could at least say please or something first,” Neku had grumbled before going into the linen closet to get another pillow.)

“Don’t you need to?”

“Mm. Not really?” Joshua had shrugged. “I think I’ve passed out once or twice, but it’s… not the same. It wasn’t because I was tired.”

There was a story there, but Neku’s thoughts had shied away from what it might be, tremulous before the idea of what in the world could’ve knocked Joshua out.

“So… what do you plan on doing while I’m sleeping?”

“I dunno. Watching you?”

Joshua had laughed, light and airy, at Neku’s sputtering.

As far as Neku could tell, Joshua mostly just. Stayed up, playing Neku’s games or messing around on his phone or writing something down in a notebook he sometimes brought with him. And it should’ve been weird, having Joshua just sitting around in his room, doing almost nothing, but it was instead oddly comforting. There was something reassuring about drifting off to Joshua going through some dungeon, and waking up to him still there, finishing up and stretching from his place at the foot of Neku’s bed. (No matter what, Joshua always waited until Neku was at least marginally awake to leave, his goodbye often as simple as a quiet nod.) It was good to have some confirmation that Neku wasn’t dreaming his visits.

But one time it didn’t quite go like that.

Neku normally slept pretty soundly, but this night in particular had been rough -drifting in and out of wakefulness every half hour or so. He’d been lulled back every time by the sight of Joshua perched in front of Neku’s small, hand-me-down TV, dozing to little snatches of some game about teenagers solving mysteries via punching.

Until he woke, and the game was on the main menu, and Joshua wasn’t in front of it. He frowned, glancing around the room lit only by the TV, and finding nothing. Then he heard it.

“I’m sorry.”

Neku froze. The words were quiet, a whisper so faint that he might’ve imagined it, but there was no mistaking that voice. He turned towards it, and saw Joshua sitting on the floor beside his bed, Joshua’s back pressed against the edge of the mattress.

“I’m sorry,” Joshua said, again, his voice thick and choked. Neku couldn’t see his face, with the gloom of the night and Joshua’s head turned away, but he could see how Joshua was folded in on himself, how he trembled.

For an agonizing moment Neku was frozen, watching Joshua curled in on himself, holding in some sort of sorrow. And then he swallowed, reached out, and touched Joshua’s shoulder.

Immediately Joshua froze, his entire form rigid. Neither of them seemed to breathe.

“Neku,” Joshua eventually said, voice uncharacteristically thin, “I-”

“It’s okay,” Neku said. “C’mere.”

And for a long second Joshua seemed like he would bolt, jump up and just fly right out Neku’s window. But instead he slowly unfolded himself, got up, and crawled onto Neku’s bed, pressing himself against Neku’s side. Neku wrapped his arms around Joshua’s shoulders, tight enough to keep him close, but loose enough that Joshua could wriggle away if he wanted to. Eventually Joshua relaxed, his barely held back trembling smoothing out. Neku drifted off.

When he woke, Joshua was gone.

[junkverse-archive]

man if ur still feeling it and wanna do more of Our Boys....#5 would be something

5. Things you didn’t say at all

Joshua, for all his loquacious tendencies, was not a particularly direct or forthright person.

Sure, he could (and would, and did) talk circles around Neku and Shiki and Beat and Rhyme and whoever else about whatever subject caught his attention. His wit tended to be sharp and acerbic (but less so, now, with the months and years between the Long Game and the present, softened by some quiet desire to be better.) He would sometimes chat just to fill the empty space in a conversation, as if silence unnerved him.

Some things he talked about, but only the once.

Like the Game. Or being Composer. Or how he died.

(Neku held Joshua for a long time after that last one.)

And there were some things Joshua never said. Not aloud, at any rate.

Like. Okay. Neku and Joshua had been… sort of dating for a little while now. Neither of them had put a name to whatever they had going on. They were simply together as much as possible. Neku wasn’t sure if Joshua’s silence on the matter was because he didn’t think it’d make a difference, or if he was afraid to name their relationship. As if giving it a word would make whatever they had crumble.

Similarly: Joshua had yet to tell Neku that he loved him. 

And oddly, Neku was fine with it. Really. (Shiki had asked him about it once, worried, and Neku surprised himself with how little it mattered to him.) 

Yeah, Joshua hadn’t said it aloud. He likely never would, Neku knew.

But Neku heard it anyway: whenever Joshua hung out with him, just to be with him; whenever he curled up with Neku on his bed, even though he didn’t (or maybe couldn’t?) sleep anymore, whenever he laid a grounding hand on Neku’s chest after a nightmare. Neku heard it when Joshua bought new art supplies for him, whenever he’d pass along a link to a new song or music blog, whenever they went shopping together or whenever they just walked through the streets of Shibuya, steps unhurried by some impending Mission or Noise breathing static-sharp on their heels. He said it with the fond looks he’d give Neku when he thought Neku wasn’t looking -looks that made Neku feel like distilled sunlight, bright and impossibly alive.

Even in his quiet moments, it seemed Joshua never stopped talking.

You just had to listen.

[junkverse-archive]

genie + succubus :0

Genie (if you could wish for something and it’d be irreversible, what would it be?):

mm. My first instinct was to ask for a body that lines up more with my gender identity… but if I’m getting this wish from a genie there’d probably be a catch to that, huh.

I think… I’d ask for the chronic joint/muscle/tendon pain in my legs to be healed. That’s held me back far more than dysphoria ever has.

Succubus (what’s one thing you can’t live without?)

Art, it turns out! My mental health tends to suffer if I don’t do something creative on a somewhat regular basis.

[junkverse-archive]

1, 3, 9, 11, 20 for the music ask :P

1. A song you like with a color in the title

“Pink Lady,” by Feed Me

Not much to this. One of the songs from my dubstep/EDM phase I still really like.

3. A song that reminds you of summertime

“Lean On,” by Major Lazer feat. DJ Snake and MO

I remember this being all over the radio the August I moved here (along with that one Diplo/Skrillex song, and a handful of stuff from Walk the Moon), and it still sounds like warm summer nights to me, the night electric with the promise of coming rain.

9. A song that makes you happy

“Bet,” by Tinashe feat Devonte Hynes

Doesn’t make me happy so much as filled with a strange combination of joy and longing and nostalgia. Not sure why -something about Tinashe’s voice, with the ethereal backing music, just does things to my heart.

11. A song that you never get tired of

this one gets two, because they popped up one after the other:

“USA Boys,” by HEALTH

god, that synth hook is just about perfect. It’s been almost seven years since I first heard this song, and I still listen to it all the way through every time it comes up on shuffle.

“Gamma Knife,” by King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

Listen. Listen, this song (and entire album) is fucking amazing, and it’s another one of those songs I have to listen to all the way through when it pops up. It demands your attention, and also makes you wanna punch through infinity. 

20. A song that has many meanings to you

“Small Red Boy,” by AJJ

A song not only about recovery from mental illness and trauma, and learning to love even the monstrous parts of yourself, but taking joy and power from your own hurts and scars. Also one time I read a meta post where someone read this as a song about being trans and embracing your identity, so now this song makes me cry super hard.

[olivemeister]

geragerasan replied to your post: me: [trying to write a serious scene with ven...

you’re welcome

[olivemeister]

geragerasan liked your post:me: [trying to write a serious scene with ven...

of course you’d like this post, this is your fault

[olivemeister]

geragerasan replied to your post: my birthday is complete this was all i needed

would you like me to post it here too

do it ya scrub

[olivemeister]

sometimes i go through my folders of stuff that @geragerasan and @gracioushd drew for me and it's like "this is the most beautiful vanitas i've ever seen [goes to the next pic] THIS is the most beautiful vanitas i've ever seen [goes to the next pic] T H I S is the MOST BEAUTI-"

[nekusakuraba]

🔥 + twewy

WAIT NVM YOU DID IT ALRWASY DOSREGARD

HAHA ven’s a MEME

here i’ll give you the best unpopular opinion, joshua is a nerd

[ send 🔥 + a topic for unpopular opinions ]