#had to move the variables

[infamous-if]

✭INFAMOUS UPDATE IS HERE ✭

238K -> 457K WORDS

Please read this post before playing! It's finally here! After five months of writing and rewriting and salvaging and crying and sweating and bleeding I finally finished sort of kind of! Firstly, I want to thank you for your patience and understanding over this duration of this rewrite. It was stressful at times but I'm happy with the end result and I hope everyone else will be too :)

This will be the last chapter I release without beta testers/other sets of eyes so expect errors. I can playtest until my fingers turn blue but I'm just one person </3 I'm bound to have missed stuff.

Please let me know of errors! I tested it a few times with no problems but we know how it goes lol

IN THIS CHAPTER THREE UPDATE:

drama

mayhem

chaos

some betrayal

some surprises

just...read it lmao

PROLOGUE - CHAPTER 2 CHANGES:

**chapter two was too large of a file to upload on dd so I had to split it last minute and I uhhhh dont know how that translates in the demo but it should work lol please let me know if its wonky!**

fixed up grammatical errors and typos

expanded some scenes and added some more choices

you can now choose that your mc has "changed" in some way (drinking, no longer drinking, partier, no longer a partier, negative, positive, attached, detached, or a general default. I was asked to add an MC who "gets around" or hookups a lot but I'm still debating on whether I'll add that since there's already quite a bit lolol)

you can choose to have changed your band's genre before/after seven

TECHNICAL CHANGES:

you will be able to explicitly state your sexuality in the beginning. this was a big ask and I apologize for not doing it earlier! I wasn't good at coding when I started and I knew I always wanted to make the genders separate from MC's sexuality but I didn't know how to do that at the start :) So you can still choose the genders of the ROs for story purposes and variety. IF YOU DO NOT SEE ROMANCE OPTIONS THAT IS NOT A BUG. You simply chose a RO gender that doesn't correlate with the sexuality you chose for your MC. Having said that, if you do see a romance option available and it's not supposed to be there please let me know! That means I may have missed it coding-wise.

the stats have been all fixed! I've added all the necessary variables and such. The stat portion of the game has been updated with the appropriate pages but they're not finished. Still, the stats should be fine.

You will now have confessionals in the stat page! The feature still isn't a thing yet because I haven't come up with the confessionals lolol but you can click on it to see what it's about. Essentially, as you progress through the story you will be able to see confessionals from the cast of Infamous throughout. They disappear and appear periodically so if you miss it, THAT'S IT! You won't get a chance to see them again until MC watches an episode where it's relevant.

There is now a: Discography page, Infamous wiki, botb cast and staff page, and other characters page for organization. Those are not finished but they're there!

I changed a few stat names but their functions remain the same.

You will be able to choose how you would like to be described (masculine, feminine, neither, both).

O is officially gender-selectable.

You can set the genders of the ROs at the start or wait till you meet them.

PLAY HERE

[thedreadvampy]

sometimes I forget that my experience has been. um. not 'your experiences are not universal' vibes but more like 'your experiences are EXTREMELY atypical'

[bedlamsbard]

Now I'm just mad and that makes me sad. :/ I really do try incredibly hard not to hate things in this fandom, which doesn't always work out because, you know, feelings, and I don't want to think about hating things! I want to think about things I like!

[vampireddyke]

recluse roomies r the worst like. don’t you have a job? friends? passions? the desire to experience the world, wind and rain? The sun? it pisses me off bc like. why are you always here. Like there is not a waking moment in the house where I know I can talk to myself without someone else hearing it

I prommy I normally don't complain this much but like genuinelyyyyy. he doesn't have a job btw and is on break from his masters so he literally has nothing to do. all his irl friends have day jobs soooo ? I thought he would you help around the house a bit more since he isn't doing anything, but I guess he doesn't see the value in that.

like most of the time we are friends (ish? I don't think he would ever chose to hang out with me if he wasn't friends with my partner, also lives with me) so I'm like, I will put this one dish in the dishwasher and turn it on so we can all have clean dishes. but he (and his bf, our other roommate) don't ever really do the same for me so I decided today that I am stopping that. bc I actually can't keep doing it by myself any more. and I don't expect the others to be they do have jobs and are out like 10 hours a day like they're tired ofc

mandatory disclaimer that laziness does not exist, everyone is mostly doing what they can, moochers are a myth etc etc but I would just like a little help

[caffeinatedopossum]

I just realized something really sad

I have two best friends outside of tumblr (my only irls that aren't roommates basically) and one of them I try to talk to constantly but she doesn't always respond, in fact she kind of barely does. I want to talk to her all the time but I always feel like I'm boring her or like she doesn't understand why I can't do some of the things I can't do.

The other one is always trying to talk to me, usually trying to call me. But I rarely ever pick up or respond or text first. My relationship with her is really complicated because some of my alters are very hurt from some things she did a while ago, others just don't trust her, and then the ones that front when we talk love her.

I have so many mixed feelings and the switches triggered by that mean I always don't answer or forget because I have dissociative amnesia about her trying to contact me in the first place... I don't know, I don't want to make excuses for myself but I genuinely don't know if this is a valid reason for treating her the way I do or if I'm an awful friend. Of course, it could also be both. I just don't know what to do. I don't want her to feel neglected by me like I sometimes do with my other friend.

[mashkaroom]

local man once generously described as “a new accordionist in town” by local klezmer musician kinda fucking bad at accordion

[two-calicos-in-a-trenchcoat]

The horrors* are endless

[takeonmetakemeon]

no one in charge of anything large in this country should be in charge of anything

[heavenbarnes]

the obedience that came with your older bf!simon hadn’t started out as inherently kinky. it actually stemmed from a rather vulnerable admission, one that happened to come about as you were riding him.

“i need to follow orders”

it’d caught you off guard, but you’d been quick and accepting with it as your pressed your palms against his broad chest. you’d nodded, panting slightly as you tried your best.

“i want you to hold me down and really fuck me, si”

and that was it, he was gripping tight on your hips and jackhammering his own up into you until your head was tipping back and a fucking squeal was being torn out of you.

the rest was history.

simon explained it as he’d built a career off of following orders, he’d kept himself alive by doing what he was told- being in the right place at the right time.

if you wanted to see him at his best you had to tell him exactly what you wanted him to do.

after a particularly soft evening on the couch, one that would never leave the four walls of your home, where simon was cuddled into your front with your arms wrapped around him- he told you he felt safest when he had explicit instructions.

part of it was just easier that way, like when he didn’t really get the hype about sexting but you told him what you wanted and then you’d both be happy.

the other part of it was that security, he had someone who loved him enough to put him in the right place at the right time and eliminate as many variables as possible.

that didn’t mean spontaneity was out of the question, he could surprise you and you could do the same to him- but once you really got into things, he wanted you to tell him in graphic detail what you wanted him to do.

“just like that, don’t move your hand at all”

“cum inside me, please”

“bend me over, want you to use me”

“look me in the eyes, want to see you when you cum for me”

“lick my cunt, simon”

there was also something in there for him about you, sweet little you, looking this big man right in the eye and ordering him around.

made him weak in the fucking knees.

[izeas-null]

for absolutely no fucking reason

my monitor today randomly decided to absolutely reject input

i tried multiple cords

multiple devices

multiple ports

only one decided to work at all BUT EVERY FUCKING 10 MINUTES IT WOULD CHANGE

I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FUCKING FIX THIS THING FOR ALMOST 2 HOURS NOW NOTHING EVER WORKS UNLESS IT JUST DECIDES HOW IS IT THIS BROKEN

ive just now got it to read all 3 ports and all 4 devices but i still had to repeatedly jam everything in and out and im scared to even stand up lest it piss itself all over my desk again because literally me standing up is a fucking factor in this shit show

fuck you acer

[k9wa]

⟁ SENSITIVE ft. BOOTHILL.

⠀ — “you get all excited for me to fix you up and call you a good boy.”

⠀ OR

⠀ — a sensitive spot during a repair leaves him melting into your callused little hands.

⚠︎ mechanic!reader, so much flirting im kind of sick, he whimpers i have an agenda, this is like 90% dialogue sorry, he wants u sooo bad. wc 1k, from this req.

“y’know darlin,” boothill managed to breathe out through a taut jaw and clenched teeth. “you bein’ this close ain’t exactly helpin’ me focus none.”

your fingers were slow, careful, precise as they pushed a few tiny wires apart, giving view deeper inside the little panel on boothill’s throat.

the position you two stood in was one all too familiar, boothill perched on your workbench with you between his thighs— the only new variables being your face way closer than he’s used to and your fingers proding around in his surprisingly sensitive wires.

it was an…odd sensation, to say the least. a small unpleasant stinging that simultaneously stimulated a rather pleasant shiver up his back with every small poke.

“time and place, cowboy.”

you responded quietly, tone a little flat with your tease from concentration.

“can’t help lettin’ my mind— wander, can i now?” his breath hitched a bit as you nicked a particularly touchy wire.

“if you let me finish this,” you lifted your head enough to meet his eyes, free hand gently smoothing out the crease in his brow. “i’ll let you show me just how wild your imagination can get.”

boothill bit back a scruff chuckle at that. 

“that enough incentive for you to sit still?”

“well, i reckon that’s plent— mmgh!”

a pair of mechanical hands tightly grab onto your hips as his shoulders tense, a knee-jerk result of your tweezers finding the out of place wire you’d been looking around for.

your hands paused, opting to ignore the way he audibly whimpered for raising your gaze a second time to check on him.

“you hangin’ in there?”

boothill’s fingers flexed as they held onto you, relaxing from squeezing your pants to a more gentle cradle of your hips.

“you know,” he swallowed thickly— as if his throat could even dry out, likely just a natural reflex— “you got a way of makin’ fixin’ me up feel real special.”

the slight waver to his voice isn’t lost on your ears— it was quite loud in them, actually.

“i’m hangin’ in fine, don’t worry your pretty head none.”

carefully retracting your tweezers, you stood up straight enough to lightly push his hat up, giving view to his face and cupping your hand over a blue-hued cheek.

“wanna take a break?” 

he nearly had to clutch his chest with the gentle concern that laced your tone.

boothill knew he was flushed, was purposefully avoiding looking you in the eye because a few pokes to some sensitive spots had him sliding his hands to your waist like a lifeline— not that what he could distantly feel of your skin against the synthesised nerves of his palms weren’t doing much to cool him off anyway. but he did…relax, somewhat. 

he always enjoyed when you’d touch his face, getting to feel all the unique little details of you; the gentle drum of your pulse and the little calluses from your tools. it somehow always manages to make the tension in his body ebb away, draining with an exhale that lightly fans against your wrist.

he shook his head with a quiet clear of his throat— another unnecessary function that served more as a tick than anything.

“nah, nah i’m alright.” he assured. it didn’t make him any less embarrassed to be having such a reaction. 

big bad criminal until you get a little too fudgin’ touchy, apparently.

“let’s just get this finished up, yeah? maybe we can move onto somethin’ more pleasant.”

your thumb gave two gentle taps to his cheekbone before it pulled away, reaching for your tweezers for the nth time.

“that’s my boy.”

oh how boothill’s chest bloomed at the simple praise, the endearing ‘my’ that slipped in with it licking up his ribs and curling to rest along where a drumming heart should have been.

“jus’ be gentle with me, will ya sugar plum?”

“you know i've always got ya.”

each plug or untangle of a little yellow or red cable had his systems humming, fingers occasionally curling into your hips every time a little surge left him biting his cheek a little harder.

“we’re almost done,” your voice is icing on an already cavity-inducing cake, though he’ll gladly take a toothache if it’s for you. “just a little longer.”

boothill was going fist to fist and losing with the urge to completely melt under your deft fingers.

“…keep talkin’ to me,” he requested with a murmurmurmur, cautious not to move too much. “helps me stay on t—” he had to bite back another whimper, cheek going between his teeth and eyes going to the ceiling. “—task.”

boothill didn’t miss the little tug of your lips.

“you know, you do this thing when you get shy.” you mused quietly, breath meeting the shell of his ear. “you bite your cheek ‘n look away. it’s cute.”

boothill couldn’t help but let out a breathy chuckle at your deduction. he tried to regain some of his composure, though the colour in his cheeks continued to betray him.

“i don’t know ‘bout shy,” he rumbled, keeping his voice steady as he could. “but i’ll take cute if it means i get to hear you keep sweet talkin’ me. keep this up and i might start enjoyin’ these repairs a lil too much.”

his voice was a little strained, though still held his usual humour.

“like you don’t love em already.” you teased back, gently closing the panel on his neck as it re-sealed with a small hiss. “you get all excited for me to fix you up, call you a good boy and send you on your merry way.”

“i’m still waitin’ on that last bit, y’know?”

you shook your head, popping his hat off his head and placing it on your own.

“good boy,” you pinched his cheek endearingly. “you’re all done. do you want a lolipop too?”

“think i deserve somethin’ a lil sweeter than a lolipop, don’t you sugar?” boothill’s face unknowingly deepens at the sight of you in his hat, brave words betrayed by a nervous tap in his finger and more blue to the apples of his cheeks.

“we’ll save it for when you’ve got a real booboo,” you took his hat off, using the brim to lightly tilt his chin up and give him a tender kiss on the cheek. for such a heavy hunk of metal, he nearly began to float.

“but there’s something to hold your sweet tooth for now.”

…

“boothill?”

“y..yeah, sweet pea?”

“you’re overheating.”

⠀ MASTERLIST / GOT A REQUEST ?

[daemonhxckergrrl]

keyboard-based workflows are like game controllers: when properly used, they're highly effective ! and comfy :3 but watch out !! sometimes a mouse is the answer

[just-ornstein]

[JK]  My first job was as an Assistant Producer for a video game company called Interplay in Irvine, CA. I had recently graduated from Boston University's School of Fine Arts with an MFA in Directing (I started out as a theatre nerd), but also had some limited coding experience and a passion for computers. It didn't look like I'd be able to make a living directing plays, so I decided to combine entertainment and technology (before it was cool!) and pitched myself to Brian Fargo, Interplay's CEO. He gave me my first break. I packed up and moved out west, and I've been producing games ever since.

[JK] I loved my time at EA. I was there for almost a full decade, and learned a tremendous amount about game-making, and met the most talented and driven people, who I remain in touch with today. EA gave me many opportunities, and never stopped betting on me. I worked on The Sims for nearly 5 years, and then afterwards, I worked on console action games as part of the Visceral studio. I was the Creative Director for the 2007 game "The Simpsons", and was the Executive Producer and Creative Director for the 2009 game "Dante's Inferno".

[JK] I haven't played in a long while, but I do recall that after the game shipped, my wife and I played the retail version for some time -- we created ourselves, and experimented with having a baby ahead of the actual birth of our son (in 2007). Even though I'd been part of the development team, and understood deeply how the simulation worked, I was still continually surprised at how "real" our Sims felt, and how accurate their responses were to having a baby in the house. It really felt like "us"!

Now for some of the development and lore related questions:

[JK] So I ended up in the incredibly fortunate position of creating the shipping neighborhoods for The Sims 2, and recruiting a few teammates to help me as we went along. 

Around the same time, we started using the Buy/Build tools to make houses we could save, and also bring them into each new build of the game (correcting for any bugs and incompatibilities). With the import tool, we could load Sims into these houses. In time, this "vanguard QA" process turned into a creative endeavor to define the "saved state" of the neighborhoods we would actually end up shipping with the game.

On playtesting & the leftover sims data on various lots:

Basically, we were in the late stages of development, and the Save Game functionality wasn't quite working. In order to test the game properly, you really needed to have a lot of assets, and a lot of Sims with histories (as if you'd been playing them for weeks) to test out everything the game had to offer. So I started defining a set of characters in a spreadsheet, with all their tuning variables, and worked with engineering to create an importer, so that with each new build, I could essentially "load" a kind of massive saved game, and quickly start playing and testing. 

It was fairly organic, and as the game's functionality improved, so did our starter houses and families. 

The thought process behind the creation of the iconic three neighborhoods:

I would not say it was particularly planned out ahead of time. We knew we needed a few saved houses to ship with the game; Sims 1, after all, had the Goth house, and Bob Newbie's house. But there wasn't necessarily a clear direction for what the neighborhood would be for Sims 2. We needed the game to be far enough along, so that the neighborhood could be a proper showcase for all the features in the game. With each new feature that turned alpha, I had a new tool in my toolbox, and I could expand the houses and families I was working on. Once we had the multi-neighborhood functionality, I decided we would not just have 1 starter neighborhood, but 3. With the Aging feature, Memories, a few wacky objects, plus a huge catalog of architectural and decorative content, I felt we had enough material for 3 truly distinct neighborhoods. And we added a couple of people to what became the "Neighborhood Team" around that time.

Later, when we created Strangetown, and eventually Veronaville, I believe we went back and changed Pleasantville to Pleasantview... because I liked the alliteration of "Verona-Ville", and there was no sense in having two "villes". (To this day, by the way, I still don't know whether to capitalize the "V" -- this was hotly debated at the time!)

Pleasantview:

Anyway, to answer your question, we of course started with Pleasantview. As I recall, we were not quite committed to multiple neighborhoods at first, and I think it was called Pleasantville initially, which was kind of a nod to Simsville... but without calling it Simsville, which was a little too on the nose. (There had also been an ill-fated game in development at Maxis at the time, called SimsVille, which was cancelled.) It's been suggested that Pleasantville referred to the movie, but I don't think I ever saw that movie, and we just felt that Pleasantville kind of captured the feeling of the game, and the relaxing, simple, idyllic world of the Sims.

Pleasantview started as a place to capture the aging feature, which was all new to The Sims 2. We knew we had toddlers, teens, and elders to play with, so we started making families that reflected the various stages of family life: the single mom with 3 young kids, the parents with two teens, the old rich guy with two young gold-diggers, etc. We also had a much greater variety of ethnicity to play with than Sims 1, and we had all new variables like sexual orientation and memories. All these things made for rich fodder for a great diversity of families. Then, once we had family trees, and tombstones that carried the actual data for the dead Sims, the doors really blew open. We started asking ourselves, "What if Bella and Mortimer Goth could be characters in Sims 2, but aged 25 years? And what if Cassandra is grown up? And what if Bella is actually missing, and that could be a fun mystery hanging over the whole game?" And then finally the "Big Life Moments" went into the game -- like weddings and birthdays -- and we could sort of tee these up in the Save Game, so that they would happen within the first few minutes of playing the families. This served both as a tutorial for the features, but also a great story-telling device.

Anyway, it all just flowed from there, as we started creating connections between families, relationships, histories, family trees, and stories that we could weave into the game, using only the simulation features that were available to us. It was a really fun and creative time, and we wrote all of the lore of Sims 2 within a couple of months, and then just brought it to life in the game.

Strangetown:

Strangetown was kind of a no-brainer. We needed an alternate neighborhood for all the paranormal stuff the Sims was known for: alien abduction, male pregnancy, science experiments, ghosts, etc. We had the desert terrain, which created a nice contrast to the lush Pleasantville, and gave it an obvious Area 51 vibe.

The fact that Veronaville is the oldest file probably reflects the fact that it was finished first, not that it was started first. That's my guess anyway. It was the simplest neighborhood, in many ways, and didn't have as much complexity in terms of features like staged big life moments, getting the abduction timing right, the alien DNA thing (which I think was somewhat buggy up until the end), etc.  So it's possible that we simply had Veronaville "in the can", while we put the last polish on Pleasantville (which was the first and most important neighborhood, in terms of making a good impression) and Strangeville (which was tricky technically).

Veronaville:

But my personal favorite was Veronaville. We had this cool Tudor style collection in the Build mode catalog, and I wanted to ship some houses that showed off those assets. We also had the teen thing going on in the aging game, plus a lot of romance features, as well as enemies. I have always been a Shakespeare buff since graduate school, so putting all that together, I got the idea that our third neighborhood should be a modern-day telling of the Romeo and Juliet story. It was Montys and Capps (instead of Montagues and Capulets), and it just kind of wrote itself. We had fun creating the past family trees, where everyone had died young because they kept killing each other off in the ongoing vendetta.

[JK] You know, I have never seen The Lone Gunmen, and I don't remember making any kind of direct references with the Strangetown Sims, other than the general Area 51 theme, as you point out. Charles London helped out a lot with naming Sims, and I'm pretty sure we owe "Vidcund" and "Lazlo" to him ... though many team members pitched in creatively. He may have had something in mind, but for me, I largely went off of very generic and stereotypical ideas when crafting these neighborhoods. I kind of wanted them to be almost "groaners" ... they were meant to be tropes in every sense of the word. And then we snuck in some easter eggs. But largely, we were trying to create a completely original lore.

[JK] Well, I think we kind of pushed it with The Sims 2, to be honest, and I remember getting a little blow-back about Bunny Broke, for example. Bunny Broke was the original name for Brandi Broke. Not everyone found that funny, as I recall, and I can understand that. It must have been changed before we shipped.

We also almost shipped the first outwardly gay Sims in those neighborhoods, which was bold for EA back in 2004. My recollection was that we had set up the Dreamers to be gay (Dirk and Darren), but I'm looking back now and see that's not the case. So I'm either remembering incorrectly (probably) or something changed during development.

In general we just did things that we found funny and clever, and we just pulled from all the tropes of American life.

[JK] The alien abduction started in Sims 1, with a telescope object that was introduced in the "Livin' Large" expansion pack. That's when some of the wackier ideas got introduced into the Sims lore. That pack shipped just before I joined Maxis in 2001; when I got there, the team had shipped "House Party" and was underway on "Hot Date". So I couldn't tell you how the original idea came about, but The Sims had this 50's Americana vibe from the beginning, and UFOs kind of played right into that. So the alien abduction telescope was a no-brainer to bring back in Sims 2. The male pregnancy was a new twist on the Sims 1 telescope thing. It must have been that the new version (Sims 2) gave us the tech and flexibility to have male Sims become pregnant, so while this was turned "off" for the core game, we decided to take advantage of this and make a storyline out of it. I think this really grew out of the fact that we had aliens, and alien DNA, and so it was not complicated to pre-bake a baby that would come out as an alien when born. The idea of a bunch of guys living together, and then one gets abducted, impregnated, and then gives birth to an alien baby ... I mean, I think we just all thought that was hilarious, in a sit-com kind of way. Not sure there was much more to it than that. Everything usually came from the designers discovering ways to tweak and play with the tech, to get to funny outcomes.

[JK] Possibly we were just testing the functionality of the Wants/Fears and Memories systems throughout development, and some stuff got left over.

[JK] I can't remember, but that sounds like something we would have done! I'm pretty sure we laid the groundwork for more stories that we ended up delivering :) But The Sims 2 was a great foundation for a lot of continued lore that followed.

--

I once again want to thank Jonathan Knight for granting me this opportunity and taking the time from his busy schedule to answer my questions.

[thelonelyshore-if]

DEMO

Update Wordcount: 88,325 words Total Wordcount: 225,095 words

Hello hello, everyone! It's finally time. Here is the rest of chapter one, all wrapped up...except it occurred to me that there's 0 reason why this shouldn't just be chapter two. It's over 100k words long total, I'm being needlessly stubborn not wanting to call it a new chapter. So, here's chapter two!

This is a hefty update--though there are four distinct branches, so a good portion is spread out between those parts. It feels incredible to release this. I've been excited to share this for so long.

In this update you can:

Visit Ravi and crash a funeral. OR

Visit Jay and check out the animal shelter. OR

Visit Beck at work and get a lil silly with it. OR

Get coffee with Yasmin. Get to know her and chat about the horrors.

Sit down with your new friends and finally learn the truth.

Go for a drive, company optional.

( There was another section, at the arcade, that I originally had planned. I worked it and reworked it over and over, but it just wasn't happening. I figured it was better to scrap it (especially since it wasn't a very story-heavy section) and move on with the plot. )

Unfortunately, saves will likely break with the update. There are variables that have been added since the last one. I'm really eager to share with everyone. As always, the content warnings page has been updated for the new chapter.

If you have any feedback, or notice any bugs, feel free to send it to my inbox or post on the forum thread. I hope everyone enjoys!

[rizsu]

ꪆ୧ ── NOWHERE TO RUN ┊ FACE IT ﹑ JJK. ⤿ starring: sukuna ryomen ◟ megumi fushiguro.

꒰ excuses or oblivious ﹢ one way or another, they're gonna be hit with the question “what are we?” — sorta.

𖧷 · love, ‘su: writer's block had me so bad the only thing i couldve done was 𝓭𝓻𝓪𝓯𝓽 : 𝓳𝓳𝓴 𝔁 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓮𝓻

SUKUNA RYOMEN ⟡ he’ll never answer you.

“why?” you questioned him.

your voice held a tone he's not quite familiar with — it's confusing him.

you've laid sukuna flat on the bed, straddling him so he's forced to listen. trapping him under you was the only way left. sukuna's somewhat a strong man, it took barely ten percent of his energy to lift you off his desk and kiss you goodbye with sweet lies.

there's none of that now — at least during this moment. the night's fallen, he's off duties, and you're clearly not busy. there isn't room for any other variable that can counter your moment. you've calculated this meticulously.

sukuna doesn't answer. he busied his hand with the hem of your skirt, focusing his eyes more on the fabric than yours that held every unspoken emotion you felt.

the silence fails to bother you. you continued with your question despite him giving his attention to the clothes that adorn you instead of the person wearing it.

“is it a game? a push and pull game with me? you seem to enjoy deflecting.”

your once laid out palm on his chest fists the shirt, slightly tugging it. he still fiddles with your skirt, but his eyes finally found yours.

“hmm, not sure. i don't really enjoy games like that.”

a lazy smile appears on him, complimenting his visuals further.

usually you'd mirror his expressions but this time there's no mocking smile. furrowed eyebrows and a frown appeared.

“amazing, your humor never fails to amaze me.”

“the others do say i have some humor in me.”

“that's not how i—”

“i know,” he sighs, “i already know what answer you want from me— or what answer you want to hear.”

sukuna emphasizes on the last few words, tilting his head at your expression.

you're slightly puzzled. is it truly that you want to hear an answer that will satisfy you or the truth? even that brings along the question of what is the truth?

you gulped, picking at the skin on your bottom lip with your teeth.

“stop fucking with my head,” you muttered.

“then let's call it a night.” he shrugs, tapping on your thigh.

you ignore his signal to get off him. to hell with him.

a heavier sigh leaves sukuna. he has work to return to in the morning, it's quite late into the night, and he clearly isn't allowed to sleep in a comfortable position.

“fine, do what you want, but you should get some sleep as well.” his arm stretches out, cupping your face.

his palm's warm, making you press your cheek against it.

“lean down,” he says.

you're suspicious but went along with his words. surely you wouldn't come to regret it, right?

quite the opposite. the moment you were an inch away from noses touching, his hand moved from cupping your face to behind your head, pushing you down for a kiss.

“goodnight,” he whispered, pulling away from the kiss.

yet another failure added to your list.

MEGUMI FUSHIGURO ⟡ well, he had a different idea.

megumi's at the dining table, enjoying his drink as he picks back up on the page he bookmarked before bed. a proper way to start his day.

nobara's also at the dining table, with both hands crossed over her chest. not a proper way to start her day.

she's been meaning to get into it with megumi since... two days ago! what happened two days ago? she met with a dear friend she brags about and listened to relationship problems.

according to said friend, it feels as though a certain guy had lead them on. nobara, being a good friend, assured them that the guy hadn't mean it but this was an obvious attempt of comfort.

when said friend described the guy and his behaviour, she felt a chill down her spine. the description felt oddly familiar... perhaps a bit too familiar. she's sure she knew the guy, but who is it?

it was only when the sentence “with his stupid fucking hair” left the dear friend, her putting-clues-together function turned on.

the guy was megumi fushiguro, her dormmate. and also a dear friend.

ever since that day she's been planning to confront him but she procastinated. this was partially due to her not being told directly by her dormmate that he's in a ‘relationship’ so it felt like she eavesdropped.

as megumi took the final sip of his drink, he carefully placed it on the coaster. he read one more full page of the comic before he questioned nobara with no eye contact.

“is something bothering you?”

“yes! well, technically it's not me but...” nobara trails off, she's not quite sure continue.

taking a deep breath, she slams her both palms on the table, leaning in to gather megumi's attention.

“so there's this friend right?”

“yeah.”

“and they're having issues with their relationship. so, the guy kinda lead them on by being all boyfriend-y, i assume, and giving off subtle hints. whenever things get quote-on-quote advanced, the guy somehow takes the relationship two steps back. they think they're reading into it too much but also don't know what to do because the guy sometimes goes ghost.”

she hits him with all information at once. nobara rambled, ending it with a ‘phew’. her heartbeat raced for whatever reason. maybe it's because she's indirectly telling her friend he's a shitball.

“oh,” the perpetrator responds, closing his book with one hand.

if they were in a cartoon, there would surely be three question marks floating above nobara's head.

oh? just an oh? nothing else? she thinks, judging him.

“damn, that guy's an ass.” he extends his previous statement, not knowing that he just called himself an ass.

“well...!” a sweat bead forms on nobara's forehead. “what if — just what if i told you that guy is you?”

“me? you jest.”

“i fucking wish! i'm talking about you and whatever you have going on with (y/n),” she mumbles the last words, taking her dormmate's sandwich for herself.

megumi's eyebrow raises. he doesn't like what he's hearing. him? leading someone on? that someone being you? what's with the sudden twist?

“that's... hmm.” he crosses his arms across his chest, leaning back into the chair, “i thought we were already in a relationship— (y/n) and i that is.”

the sandwich wasn't a pleasant experience. upon hearing megumi's words, she immediately choked. the twists just kept coming.

“you—” a cough interrupts. “you both are fucking stupid.”

“shit — should i go meet with (y/n)?” megumi asks with urgency, staring at nobara for an answer.

“that shouldn't even be a question. make haste!”

[hazzaisagoober]

I don't understand how our d is so bad. There's more of us and somehow they manhandle the puck from us?

And not just the Panthers, it's happened in sooo many games lately that it's not the teams we are playing, it's us.

Our goalie(s) - yes plural bc everyone blamed Sammy and vv last season and hmm lookie there same fucking shit - keep getting hung out to dry.

Fucking ridic, I hate this, and losing sucks yes but losing so many times in a row, seeing the same issues happening and not getting addressed, it's just infuriating.