#had you shown them to me I totally would have guessed the names were switched

[thefuseoftemptation]

reader taking care of eddie when he's feeling under the weather

Thanks for the request!!!

EDDIE MUNSON X GN!READER

WARNING(S): cussing, not much else. NOT PROOFREAD.

—

You looked through the cabinets, eying the half empty shelves for something that might be of use to the guy in the other room who by way, has not shut up since you got there.

Not that he ever has. You think with the utmost sincerity.

It’s just that because Eddie isn’t feeling well, he won’t let you get less than arms lengths from him before he’s making a few sounds of disapproval– pulling you back into him without giving you time to react.

It isn’t until you're quite literally under his hold that you try to remove yourself at least a few steps away because well, he hasn’t stopped sneezing and blowing his nose all week. And there’s no way you’re looking to catch whatever he's got going on.

When Eddie hadn’t shown up to school you thought he was just dipping, the usual, nothing you hadn’t seen– but then you went by to be sure and maybe tell him off because he’s supposed to be getting out of there that year.

Though upon getting to the lot, you see that he really had been unable to pull himself from the comfort of his mattress. The sheets sticking to him as he laid under them, unwell.

Honestly Eddie being under the weather is just him being totally out of it. You know the whole, speaking nonsense and not knowing what’s going on most of that time. Plus, the frequent gripes here and there that make you want to put a pillow over his face because ugh, I know Munson, now shut up. 

It’s like taking care of a child. One that cusses and has way more vocabulary. And by that you mean, most of the words he says, you have no clue what they are or mean. Oh well.

You hear your name, pulled out to an unnecessary length, your guess– because you’d been gone too long for his liking. That or he needed something. Either way, it wasn’t something you looked forward to because his requests were a little much.

You could also see why his Uncle was so quick to leave when you got there. You’d be having a word with Wayne when he’d get back later for leaving you like that with his nephew. And you were sure as Wayne would put, “he’s your friend….as far as I could tell.”

He was always bringing up your ‘lowkey’ feelings for his boy in an underlying way. Or that’s what he would say.

“M’comin, m’coming…little shit.” Muttering the latter under your breath as you fill a glass up with water.

Upon getting to the room, you see Eddie swallowed by the sheets and lying on his stomach, head tucked under the pillow that muffles his voice– his unruly curls spread across. Clapping your hand on his calf as you then nudge him over so you could seat yourself down. 

He has yet to remove himself. Sighing, you throw your head back– chin tilting up to the ceiling to the flickering light. If it’s not him giving you a headache it’s that bulb that you’ve got to switch.

“Eddie?” Crickets.

“Eddie.”  The vowels of his name pulled out as you sung it and still, nothing.

“Boy, get up!” You say with a little more raise, getting to your feet as your hand comes in contact with his feet that were sticking out.

You’ve been around Wayne too much.

“Is that you Wayne?” Eddie voices.

Hence the previous thought.

The side of your mouth turns up, hands coming up as you curl them into the other, wanting nothing more than to reach forward and put them around his neck. You sigh through your nose, because yes Eddie, it’s me, your Uncle. Just without the years of experience to go with it.

“Uh huh, sure. Here.” You set the glass down on the side table and wait. Seeing his arm stretch out, hand patting around until he feels the cup, and grabs it. You see his head lift up from under the pillow, and then hear him sipping from the said glass before he puts it back.

“Eddie, why don’t you try getting up?” You suggest.

“Why?” He questions, and you swear, it’s always questions and never proper answers.

“Because it’ll be a step from lying there. The longer you stay here the more likely you’re to feel the full effects of the fever, c’mon now.”

“No.”

“Eddie.”

“Eddie says” he takes the pillow and throws it, “no.”

It was poorly done, guessing it to be thrown at you but ended up just to the side of him on the floor— still though.

There was little thought to your next move, taking the pillow and thumping him on the head.

“Get up you little shit!”

The sound of him whining at the light contact has you rubbing your hands across your face, sliding your fingers down your cheeks as you mutter curses.

Seeing there’s no use getting him up to stretch, you set yourself on the floor in front of his bed, lean back and shut your eyes. You felt shuffling from behind you, the sudden feeling of someone’s breath on your neck.

Turning your head slightly, you're greeted by Eddie’s eyes– wide and looking at you.

Without a word, Eddie lifts the single sheet, a sign telling you to get under. And you did, not even thinking about the snuffles and wipes he does to his nose anymore.

You lay there with him, heads leaned up against the other’s, your even breaths released at the same time his unsteady ones are. Clearly from the congestion. 

“I feel unwell….” He states as if you couldn’t tell from the many hours you’ve been there over the week watching him, taking care of him, when Wayne couldn’t.

“I know.” Was all you said, simply put. 

“Thanks for being here for me.” Eddie says, lowly, as sleep takes over.

And even though you yourself let out a few gripes from being there, there’s nowhere you’d rather be than there with him.

—

A/N: feedback and reblogs are appreciated.

[galraxn]

Self-Knowledge Questionnaire Below the surface everyone is pretty complicated. Based on your answers, we think the following three traits are important strands in your personality:

Elara: 

AMBITION

You have a strong sense of potential and an intense drive to accomplish difficult things. The core of this is your ability to hold together the big goals and the daily efforts. Where other people’s hopes collapse when they encounter the tedium of the journey, you keep coming back. Oddly, it is actually your ability to endure feeling unheroic that counts. You know the power of working away solidly on what’s in front of you.

INDEPENDENCE

You don’t set out to be different for its own sake; you are more easily guided by what interests and moves you. You are more concerned about what is right for you than about the pressure to fit in. In sex you are more aware than others of impulses which are not entirely conventional. You know the value of selective irresponsibility, of forgetting occasionally about being ‘good’.

RESILIENCE

You have a tendency, after a setback, to turn your emotions towards restriving. What attracts you is the idea of wiping out a humiliation by resumed action – overcoming weakness, repressing your fear. Because part of your motive is pride, you can sometimes be unwilling to admit weakness or to receive aid. But at heart, tour insistence on coming back and never folding has taught you a valuable pessimism: you know that important journeys are never easy.

Ki:

AMBITION

You have a strong sense of potential and an intense drive to accomplish difficult things. The core of this is your ability to hold together the big goals and the daily efforts. Where other people’s hopes collapse when they encounter the tedium of the journey, you keep coming back. Oddly, it is actually your ability to endure feeling unheroic that counts. You know the power of working away solidly on what’s in front of you.

SENSITIVITY

You have delicate, sensitive perceptions; you can be deeply moved by appearances – the right light in a room, or good food, or the texture of a piece of clothing. Expressive, intelligent language has a powerful hold on you; your mind works better when it is inspired and provoked by vivid imagery. It can be sad to live in a world which is often so ugly and not properly looked after. But you know that things can be otherwise, and you have the ability to appreciate the world at its best.

EXHIBITIONISM

There’s a strand in your nature which loves making an impression – perhaps with your clothes, or conversation, or in a self-revealing blog or a novel. You like to dramatise yourself, to pose as a unique, perhaps mysterious person, to joke or exaggerate your part in adventures. Though you might more than once have been called a show off, it is actually a generous tendency: you want to please and entertain others. It could be the start of good teaching and leadership.

Tagged by: @fcrvidus​

Tagging: @hxpeful-dreams​ @artxficer​ @condomglitter​ @hyaciiintho​

[ktffansub]

Bijutsu Techo: Boys Love – Interview: Yoneda Kou

This article was first published in November 17th, 2014. Translated from Japanesse to Bahasa Indonesia by kalengjelek and then translated from Bahasa Indonesia to English by KTFfansub. Source: here

When did you first encounter manga?

I was born in a family with three daughters; while my older sister likes reading Ribbon magazine, I like reading Nakayoshi. It was the era of Asagiri Yuu-sensei, when I was in elementary school. My favorite at that time were Kusunoki Kei sensei’s works and Patlabor. When it came to Shonen, I would say I was more into Shounen Sunday. I also loved Kawaraha Izumi sensei’s works. When I think about it, rather than manga that were full of passion, I’d actually prefer manga that had calm and soothing kind of vibe.

Is that so… What about BL?

When I was in Junior High, my older sister showed me Captain Tsubasa Doujinshi by Ozaki Minami and I was dumbfounded, I thought, “So, there’s also a world like this!”. After that, I started to buy BL manga. At that time, the mangaka who left the most impression to me was Nishi Keikosensei. Her works such as Mizu Ga Koori Ni Naru Toki, Tenshi Ni Naranakya have unique openings, it made me reread them many times. Uida Shiuko (now Kano Shiuko) and Yoshinaga Fumi Sensei are also my favorite mangaka.

When was the first time you draw manga?

I seriously began drawing manga in my first year of junior high. At first, I drew a pair of man and woman, but after page three, I felt something was off. So, I tried drawing BL for the next one. Just like the present, I’ve always loved less expressive and less-talkactive main characters (laughs). But the more I draw, then an attentive senpai with good personality and short haired ones like Togawa in Doushitemo Furetakunai also appeared. At that moment I thought, “Oh, this is it!”

You really weren’t embarrassed, are you? (laughs)

Well, it’s because it was embarrassing, that’s why I’m not really open about my drawing manga activity.

(laughs) But you debut as professional mangaka eventually, how did that happen?

Yes, after that… I worked as office lady. I got married not long after, but then, I was getting through a marriage blues. At that time, I was invested in Kakashi and Naruto shown by my older sister along with Comiket catalogue.

The power of moe beats out your anxiety (laughs)

It’s true (laughs). Escaping from reality, I checked a lot of circles and opened some sites. There I found a work from a novelist (now has debuted professionally) that I really liked. This is why I started writing novel at first, not drawing. I have a lot of ways to accommodate my moe needs. I also once drew Doujinshi but due to my inability to use a proper diction, the result wasn’t optimal (laughs). After drawing slowly and more at ease, I got into Katekyo Hitman Reborn fandom and drew a lot of doujinshi for that series. A year later, I was contacted by Taiyou Tosho publisher.

“With that publisher, Yoneda Kou published Doushitemo Furetakunai which has been adapted into a movie. Since the beginning, Yoneda Kou didn’t draw one-shot but serialization. For the movie, even though it only tells a story of daily lives, but the directing, composition and dialogue are impressive. About 4,5 years later, the second volume of Saezuru Tori wa Habatakanai that had the yakuza neighborhood setting was released. This has completely different feeling compared to Doushitemo Furetakunai.”

My first work was actually published in Drap, so I had it adjusted to be a less-heavy work. That’s why I ended up switching to another magazine.

Was it a demand from the editor?

Of course I only draw what I want to draw. But without realizing, I always draw them to fit the magazine. And it seems like Taiyou Tosho prefers me to draw more simple work.

So, sensei is the type who pays attention to editor’s suggestion. When you wrote the first chapter of Saezuru Tori Wa Habatakanai, did you already want Yashiro to be the main character (for longterm series)?

Right. I didn’t explain it in the first one-shot, but I always believe that no matter how you look at it, Yashiro really loved Kageyama. And (even though he’s drawn like that) he is actually a neko (uke). I think he is an interesting character. When I drew highschooler Yashiro and others, it had been decided that I wanted to write a serialization for this.

And only then the character Doumeki was born?

At that time, the character Doumeki didn’t exist, but I thought very hard about what kind of partner that would be suitable for Yashiro. I took a break from drawing for about two years. I only worked on illustration during that time, until one morning an idea suddenly came to me, “That’s right! Erectile dysfunction!”. I immediately sent an email to my editor: “A perverted impotent man!” (laughs). Afterwards, I finally worked on the first draft.

(laughs hard) Finally, the combination of Yashiro and Doumeki who are the opposite of each other was decided. What an amazing couple that can even make the readers losing sleep.

I do have this particular interest in people’s decision and behaviour resulted from a contrasting relationship that is full of conflicts. Because there are so many characters in Saezuru, I have this excel file compiling the plot for each character chronologically. Otherwise, I would’ve forgotten about it. If I didn’t seriously research (the setting of my own story), I wouldn’t be able to write anything when I made name. But even though I got through it, drawing a family with no blood ties like yakuza was still difficult. If I don’t focus, the story might turn out like Nagara Sakugyou*. That’s why now I’m just focusing on doing Saezuru.

*) nagara sakugyou: other work that being serialized at the same time

Up until now, Sensei has published 5 volumes and all of them have beautiful covers with varied tones.

Actually, the cover color for Doushitemo Furetakunai should’ve looked like red wine, but it seemed like there was an error in printing so the pink was contrasting into it. But it turned out to be good.

Then about the cover for the Saezuru first volume. It’s so impressive! The stepped-on man! All the people around me also had high appraise for this.

Actually, there were so many things happened in the process. By taking the request (it isn’t clearly explained whether it’s from editor/designer) of “Yashiro sitting alone”, I first submitted that illustration to the book designer. However, I couldn’t throw away the idea of Yashiro being stepped on, so, during the next three days I was stressed out. I’ve finally asked them to keep my idea and that’s how the cover of the first volume ended up the way it is now.

I see! For the second volume, it’s totally different, isn’t it? It’s a scenery, but when you do a double take, there are Yashiro and Doumeki!

I always want to give a different vibe in each volume. Actually I’m also a fan of the way Tsumugi Taku-sensei draws scenery.

Hoo-, sensei is a fan of Tsumugi sensei! Talking abough NIGHTS, when you open the cover, there’s a surprise in it!

Yes, if you look at the rough sketches there were 4 pages of picture that were interconnected. In the end, the desainer took picture number two as the cover and number four to put it on the bottom of the back cover. For Soredemo, I didn’t get any guide from the book designer. I combined the the feel of the story with a touch of water paint. At first, I actually wanted to make Deguchi pulling Onoda’s hand to get out of the train, but it ended up looking like Deguchi forced Onoda to stay (with him). So I decided it’s Onoda who’s getting off the train by himself with Deguchi waiting on the platform.

Do you do the coloring with computer? How about the non-colored script?

I use SAI for coloring but for monochrome I usually draw by my hand until the inking, then I do the tone using photoshop.

Do you self-learned drawing?

Well, I at least bought a lot of ‘pose reference’ books often. When it comes to buy things, it feels great, doesn’t it? But when it comes to manga, we draw to tell our moe concept.. well, I love drawing moe concept, but the thing is- I’m not really good at drawing. I like thinking about moe stuff, I also like to combine colors (inside my head) but when I do, I have no desire to draw I, even though that’s the important part. There are often times when I feel like drawing is a handful. In short, I want to draw something that isn’t too troublesome.

But, isnt it because you’re doing manga seriously that it feels difficult?

Because I’m too serious I feel like the story can be boring. Not only the work but also the author (laughs). I often read comments saying my manga is ‘down to earth’. I guess it’s shown obviously in every each of my works

Sure, there are people who think like, “In real world, there’s no way a wakagashira can be as masochist as Yashiro”, but apart from that, Saezuru still gives an impression of it being realistic. In drawing the important men’s arms and muscles in your work, sensei has done your best. Getting into the story, the characters also put extra effort to look elegant. Despite the young age, in a positive sense, sensei’s works feels like having Showa* vibe.

(*SHOWA ERA: 1926~1989)

I’m no longer young, though (laughs). Maybe this is why my works often get called “JUNE”. Especially Saezuru, I think it really fits (JUNE concept).

Are you an organized person?

I’m actually a person who have no chill (laughs). But I have this side of myself who tend to see things as a whole, look at my surrounding then step on the brake. There is also a side of me that is so energetic in creating my own moe that I turn into a selfish person. I guess that’s also my flaw.

It seems like sensei is the type who has her own editorial meeting inside her head (laughs)

I wish it’s not true, but unfortunately, I’m the type of person who is embarrased to admit that I have a relationship with manga. Even until now I have yet told my close friends about this job (as BL mangaka). I’m not that kind of person who like to share or tell others about my moe situation inside my head. When my moe concept is being visualized in public I would scream, “Don’t look! But if you want to read it, I’d be happy”. Yes, I’m that kind of person.

I wonder if sensei’s works are the manifestation of sensei’s own self-contradictions..

[intheticklecloset]

My Hero Academia Sentence Starters #51-60

A collection of the MHA sentence starters I’ve done, compiled for the sake of ease. These are all stand-alone stories.

~~~

51) Lee Deku, Ler Shinsou

“I wonder where raspberries are the worst for you?”

Deku whimpered, squirming under Shinsou’s hold but not enough for it to really be considered trying to get away. “I-I don’t know…” he admitted, flushing bright pink. “Why don’t you find out?”

Shinsou chuckled lowly. “With pleasure.”

He raspberried Deku’s ribs, his sides, his belly, even his hips. All of it made the poor boy scream and laugh and plead, though it was obvious he was having just as much fun as his boyfriend was.

His screaming turned to shrieking, however, when Shinsou switched from raspberries to nibbles along his hips and waistline. Deku bucked and thrashed, laughter bursting from him before he even realized it himself. He barely had enough breath to beg for mercy. “NONONO!! NOHOHOHOT – NOT THAHAHAHAHA – SHIHIHIHIHINSOHOHAHAHAHA!!”

“Hmm, nibbles really tickle, huh?” Shinsou teased, but he let up and allowed Deku to breathe. “I want to try one more spot. Okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” Deku giggled, unable to take his eyes from Shinsou’s. “Go for it.”

Shinsou leaned down to nuzzle under his ear, then pressed his lips to his neck and blew another raspberry.

“EEEEK!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!” Deku laughed, bucking his hips again, digging his heels into the bedsheets. “STAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! PLEHEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

“Oh, I see~” Shinsou teased into his ear. “So that’s where raspberries really get to you, huh?”

“Sh-Shinsou,” Deku said breathlessly, lungs gasping for breath. “Toshi, please…”

Shinsou tightened his grip on Deku’s arms. “Just one more. But don’t worry – I’ll make it count.”

*

52) Lee Bakugou, Lers Kirishima and Uraraka

“You know, you’re a lot cuter than you realize.”

The words were spoken so casually, it threw Bakugou entirely off his game. He blinked. “What?”

Kiri and Uraraka exchanged smiles, turning their loving gazes back down to their boyfriend, who lay on the bed with his arms pinned above his head. He’d been bracing himself for something a little – well, rough – but now they were telling him he was cute? Bakugou was beyond unprepared for that.

“She’s right,” Kiri agreed, nodding, using a single finger to trace down his exposed frame from his underarm to his hip. “I certainly think you’ve got a cute belly.” That finger started tracing circles around his belly button. “Don’t you agree, Ochaco?”

“Definitely.” Uraraka beamed when Bakugou started letting out little huffs of air, squirming beneath them both. “But you know, his laugh is the cutest~”

“No,” Bakugou pleaded, smiling wide despite himself. “Plehehease, don’t…”

Kiri dipped his finger into the blonde’s belly button. “Aw, but you love it, Katsuki~”

“Nohohohohoho!”

“Yes, you do~” Uraraka teased, leaning down to kiss his neck and ears, making him flush a dark red at the double dose of tickly, teasy attention. He’d never admit it, but it made him incredibly flustered and he could never get enough of it. “You love it when we tickle you and tease you, baby~”

“Dohohohohon’t call me thahahat.” He tried to snap at her, but it came out as more of a pleading whine, and her return smirk nearly melted him right then and there. “Plehehehease…”

“Oh, Kiri,” Uraraka hummed, looking at the redhead with a sweet smile. “I think he wants tickles, don’t you?”

Bakugou flushed even deeper.

“I think so, too.” Kiri beamed, leaving the blonde’s belly button to scratch at his ribs. “Do you think we should indulge him?”

Bakugou squirmed beneath them both, already giggling quietly. “Guys…”

Uraraka joined in, tickling his ribs on the other side, and their boyfriend finally gave up the fight and let out a string of happy laughter, showing his teeth in a bright smile. “Yes. Let’s indulge our adorable little blasty boy~”

*

53) Lee Amajiki, Ler Mirio

“Laugh for me! I know you have it in you~” Mirio teased, easily pinning Amajiki’s arms above his head and digging a single finger into the boy’s side.

Amajiki was smiling so wide it almost hurt, but he wasn’t laughing – yet. Despite himself he was desperately trying to remain in control for as long as possible. He knew his blonde friend would break him eventually, and when he did, he’d be happy to crumble. But the fight was part of the fun of surrender, so he clamped his mouth shut and shook his head defiantly.

Mirio sighed playfully. “Don’t make me make it worse.”

Amajiki whimpered, but internally he was cheering. Yes, yes, make it worse! Make me laugh!

“All right, you asked for it.” The blonde straddled his knees and dug his thumb into the meat of his friend’s thigh, and that was it. The dam burst.

Amajiki laughed.

“NAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!” He shrieked, letting himself give in at last, squealing and squirming and laughing to his heart’s content. All the while Mirio grinned down at him, still pinning him in place, forcing him to take it. “AHAHAHAHAHAHA!! MIHIHIHIRIO!!”

“Yes?~” Mirio hummed, letting his arms go to tickle both thighs at once, laughing with him when he screamed with hysterics. “Feeling better now?”

“YEHEHEHEHEHEHES!! GAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!”

“Should I keep going?”

“PLEHEHEHEHEHEHEASE!!”

Mirio beamed. He loved that he was able to make his friend so happy with something so simple. Not to mention, it was good to hear Amajiki let loose and laugh for once. “Then you don’t have to tell me twice!”

*

54) Lee Deku, Lers Bakugou and Shinsou

“Oh yeah? I bet I know how to tickle him better than you do.”

Shinsou snapped his eyes to Bakugou, glaring at him. “I dare you to say that again.”

“Please. I’ve known that nerd since childhood. You’ve been dating for what – six months? Give me a break. I can make him laugh harder, mark my words.”

“It’s not about making him laugh hard, it’s about making him desperate for it to stop. Light tickles are effective in that regard, too.”

“Uh…g-guys?” Deku stammered, looking between them nervously. “You’re both good at tickling me…”

“There’s only one way to settle this,” Bakugou growled.

Shinsou nodded. “I agree.”

Suddenly Deku was pinned on his back on the floor, his childhood best friend at his right and his current boyfriend on his left. Both of them wore matching menacing, challenging smirks.

“May the best man win,” Shinsou said.

“I intend to,” Bakugou retorted.

Then both of them were tickling Deku – four hands of twenty fingers drilling all over from his underarms to his sides, hips, knees, and everywhere else they could reach, drawing giggle after squeal after loud, screaming plea from him as he squirmed and thrashed but went absolutely nowhere.

At first it was a total blast, having both of them tickle him together. But even he had his limits, and within a few minutes his pleading became genuine.

“STAHAHAHAHAP!! PLEHEHEHEHEHEASE, I CAHAHAHAHAN’T TAHAHAKE ANY MOHOHOHOHOHORE!!”

“Who’s better?” Bakugou demanded.

“BOHOHOHOHOHOTH OF YOU!!”

“That’s not good enough,” Shinsou replied, smiling. Truly, he didn’t care if Bakugou was better than him. If anything, it motivated him to find all the little ways to make Deku completely helpless to his tickling in the future. “Pick one.”

Deku laughed and laughed and laughed, but he knew he couldn’t make a choice. Either way he’d hurt someone’s feelings – or even make them angry – and that was the last thing he wanted. So it looked like he was going to have to hold out a while longer…

*

55) Lee Deku, Ler Todoroki

“Oh, yeah, raspberries are a killer right here, huh?” Todoroki murmured, blowing another one on Deku’s hip bone, making his poor boyfriend screech with laughter. “Hmm~ Tickle, tickle, Izuku~”

“PLEHEHEHEHEHEASE STAHAHAHAHAP!!” Deku cried, laughing so hard he could barely breathe. He tugged on his restraints – a pair of ice shackles Todoroki had attached to the headboard of his bed – and watched helplessly as Todoroki flashed him a wicked smile and then did it again, flat-out ignoring his begging. “SHOHOHOHOHOHOTO!!”

Todoroki finally sat up, gently tracing his fingers along Deku’s sides. “All right, I’ll give you a short break. But just a short one. You doing okay?”

Deku nodded, giggling, grateful for the respite. He’d been more than willing to allow Todoroki to explore his interest in tickling this way, since it made him so happy and Deku didn’t mind being tickled. But it was still nice to actually be able to breathe now and then. “Y-You’re…you’re ruthless,” he stammered, blushing. “You like it a lot, don’t you?”

“Tickling you into screaming my name like that?” Todoroki smiled, digging a finger into his belly button. “Heck yeah.”

“Ehehehehehehehe!” Deku squirmed, tugging on his restraints again, both impressed and intimidated by how strong they were. For all of his thrashing, they hadn’t even shown signs of wearing down or melting at all. It was amazing, really. “Shohohohoto!”

“Thanks for letting me do this,” Todoroki murmured, his voice more sincere now. “I really love getting you riled up like this. But if you need me to stop for real, use the safe word, okay? I don’t want to go too far.”

Deku smiled at him, touched. “I will. But don’t worry – I can take a little more. So, Shoto, is that all you got? You can make me laugh harder than that, can’t you?”

The fire in Todoroki’s eyes blazed to life, and his return smile was everything to Deku. “Oh, I’m sure I can find new and creative ways to break you down.”

*

56) Lee Deku, Ler Shinsou

“Let’s play a game,” Shinsou said. “One of us pretends to be an animal. The other has to guess what kind of animal they are.”

Deku smiled at the silliness of it, but nodded anyway. “Sure. You go first, since it’s your idea.”

Shinsou got on his hands and knees and barked.

Deku laughed. “A dog. That was easy!”

“Your turn.” Shinsou smiled. Deku did the same thing, but meowed instead. “A cat. All right, wise guy, let’s see if you can guess this next one.” He straightened but stayed on his knees, bringing his arms up to form “claws” and growling low in his throat.

Deku smirked. “A bear.” But Shinsou shook his head, making him pause to think a little more. “Uhh, a gorilla? A rabid kangaroo?”

Shinsou lunged for him then, still growling, pinning Deku’s arms down and gently nibbling his teeth into his ribs, “eating” him. Deku burst into giggles. “Come on, Midoriya, what am I?”

“Ahahahahahahaha! I dohohohohohon’t knohohohow! A lihihihihion?!”

“Nope.”

“Alligator?!”

“Nope!” Shinsou moved further down to his hips. “What kind of animal specifically goes for your ticklish spots and wrecks you like this?”

Deku squealed, throwing his head back to unleash a bout of laughter that lasted several seconds before he found the breath to reply, “MOHOHOHOHONSTER!! TIHIHIHIHICKLE MONSTER!!”

“That’s right!” Shinsou cheered, shoving his arms above his head and continuing to nibble at his neck and ears. Deku squirmed helplessly beneath him, lost to his own hysterics.

“NAHAHAHAHAHAHA BUT I GOHOHOHOT IT RIHIHIHIHIHIGHT!!”

“Didn’t I tell you? The penalty for each wrong guess is five minutes of tickling.”

“FOR EHEHEHEHEACH ONE?!”

“For each one. So that’s, what – twenty-five minutes of tickle torture?” Shinsou settled his weight on Deku’s hips, enjoying the distressed squeal that came out of his boyfriend. “Better get comfortable, Midoriya. We’re gonna be here a while~”

*

57) Lee Todoroki, Ler Sero

“What? I’m only fixing this very squirmy bed cover!” Sero grinned at the moving lump underneath the comforter of his bed where Todoroki had very poorly tried to hide from him not a minute before.

Todoroki shrieked. “Stahahahahahap! Sero, it tihihihihihihihickles!”

“It does?” Sero laughed, hopping onto the bed to pin down the open end of the comforter, further trapping his friend and blindly reaching for where he thought the half-and-half’s torso was. “Well, maybe you shouldn’t have run away.”

“Y-Yohohohohohou were gohohohohoing to t-tihihickle me!”

“And by running you only put off the inevitable.” Sero smirked. Todoroki squealed and went limp under the covers, presumably using all of his energy to laugh after a particularly bad spot was found. “Aww, did I getcha, Shoto?”

“Plehehehehehehehease!” Todoroki cried, sounding like he was gasping for breath. “I cahahahan’t breathe under hehehehehere!”

Sero frowned, worried, and quickly climbed off the bed so he could yank the comforter down and reveal the top half of a very disheveled-looking Todoroki. Before he could recover, the tape hero straddled his waist and hooked his fingers under his arms. “Tickle, tickle!”

“GAH!!” Todoroki tried arching his back, but when that did him no good he flopped helplessly onto the mattress and gave in, surrendering to his laughter as Sero tickled him silly. “Ahahahahahaha! Plehehehehehease, stop! Sehehehehero!”

“But you look like you’re having so much fun!”

A dark red blush bloomed on Todoroki’s cheeks. “Am nohohohohohot!”

“Now you’re lying to me?” Sero tsked. “You know I’m just going to punish you even more for that transgression.”

Todoroki looked elated despite himself. “Nohohohohohohohoho!”

Sero chuckled. “I think you mean yes.”

*

58) Lee Kaminari, Ler Ojiro

“No, no – you don’t get to hide your face.” Ojiro grabbed Kaminari’s wrists and pulled his hands away from his bright pink cheeks and wide smile, pinning them on either side of his head while his tail continued to lightly tickle his belly and belly button. “There we go.”

“No fahahahahahair,” Kami whined through his giggles, squirming but going nowhere fast. Ojiro was looming over him, grinning that wicked grin of his, using his tactical advantage against his friend in the worst – best? – way possible.

“I think it’s perfectly fair.” Ojiro smiled, trailing the fluff on his tail over Kami’s sides next, making the blonde beneath him jerk first to one side, then the other, then back again, giggling all the while. “Besides, you like gentle tickles, don’t you?”

“Behehehehetter than mehehehehean ones.”

“Mean tickles? You mean…on your knees?” Ojiro had his tail trail downwards to said spot.

Kami’s eyes widened. “Nohohohohohoho!”

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” The tail traveled back up, settling on the dip of his hips where his shorts had ridden down slightly. “Tickle, tickle, tickle~ You like that? My tail just liiiightly tickling you to make you smile? That’s what you really love, isn’t it?”

Kaminari was bright pink by now. “Shuhuhuhuhut up…”

“Oh, but you like the teasing even more, don’t you?” Ojiro’s smile became absolutely evil. “You wouldn’t mind if I stopped tickling you as long as I kept teasing, right?” He did just that, letting his tail hover in the air behind him as he teased an increasingly flustered Kaminari with just his words. “Do you miss it already? The tickling? Or would you prefer I just keep teasing you about how cute you look, all flustered like that?”

The electric hero whined, squirming under his fellow blonde’s tight hold. “P-Please, don’t stop.”

“Don’t stop what?”

“T-Tickling me.”

Ojiro chuckled, then started dusting his tail along Kami’s shins, making him giggle all over again. “You asked for it~”

*

59) Lee Shinsou, Ler Deku

“You’re not squirming away, smug for brains,” Deku laughed, pulling Shinsou in close and kissing the space between his shoulder blades as his fingers skittered along his ribs. “Come here! Take my tickly love!”

“Ehehehehahahahahaha!” Shinsou squealed, kicking wildly and messing up the blankets, but neither of them cared about that right now. The taller boy was currently the little spoon in their cuddling position, and with Deku’s arms wrapped around him in tandem with the tickly kisses along his back, he was going nowhere fast. The gentle assault was making him incredibly flustered and helplessly giggly. “Nahahahahahahaha! I-Izuhuhuhuku!”

“Take it!” Deku continued to laugh with him, moving his kisses up to the base of his neck. “Take my love!” His hands wandered down to pinch at a hip. “Take it, Shinsou!”

Shinsou was an incoherent mess, giggles and laughter intermixing with unintelligible pleas – though whether they were pleas to stop or keep going neither of them could tell.

Deku chose to do the latter, scooting his body up so he could reach Shinsou’s ears with his kisses while continuing to pinch and scribble along his hip bone. “It’s so cute that you’re so ticklish up here,” he mused with his own giggle. “You can’t even speak when I’m getting you like this.”

“S-S-Stahahahahahaha! Plehehehahahahahaha!” Shinsou was lost in his own laughter and loving every second, secretly hoping his boyfriend would never stop. “Zuku, nahahahahahahahaha!”

Deku couldn’t help but laugh, hugging him even closer and nibbling at the base of his ear, drawing a loud screech and even more frantic cackles from the completely helpless Shinsou. “Take my love, Toshi~ My tickly, tickly love for you~”

*

60) Lee Kaminari, Ler Jirou

“What are we, five years old now?”

Jirou grunted as she struggled to pin him. “You act like enough of a five-year-old for the both of us.”

“I do not!”

“Do, too.” She finally managed to overpower him just long enough to grab his foot and scribble her fingers over it.

Denki squeaked, releasing her instinctively and then immediately wishing he hadn’t, as he’d just lost any and all leverage he may have had over her. “Nohohohoho, Jirou!”

“That’s more like it.” She settled in on his ankles and dragged her nails up and down his bare soles. “Take this, genius.”

“Nahahahahahahaha!” He flailed in the grass, wishing it wasn’t so hot out that he’d decided to go out in only his shorts this afternoon to tan. Jirou was in shorts and a tank-top as well, but that did him little good when he was at her mercy instead of the other way around! “Plehehehehehease, no! I’ll do anythihihihihing!”

Jirou smirked at him over her shoulder. “Anything?”

“Yehehehehehes!”

“What if what I want to do is tickle you silly, Denks?”

He flashed her a brief, wide-eyed look before covering his face with his hands and groaning. “Ugh, the thihihihihings I dohohohoho for you, Kyoka.”

She beamed. “Aww, how sweet. Don’t worry…I won’t tickle you too bad~”

[demonslayedher]

Tanjiro Is Not Hot Stuff

 and this is a good thing

It's easy to dismiss Tanjiro as overpowered, but in this post I'd like to disagree. For all his ability, Tanjiro is still a scrappy fighter, and his abilities have concrete reasons within the context of his shounen manga universe. Furthermore, despite Tanjiro's unique connection to the legendary Yoriichi, Gotouge continually drives home that he is just one character among many united in a common goal to eliminate all evil demons.

That phrase, 悪鬼滅殺, being the backbone of the Demon Slayer Corp, is engraved into each of the Pillars' swords. On that note, I'd like to first address that this may not be Yoriichi's sword. EDIT: On further reflection, because the color of the sword is only dyed once and being held by another swordsman doesn't change it, I've recounted on this theory and feel pretty certain it's Yoriichi's. But it was fun to consider other possibilities, and I'm going to italicize everything that I now consider an incorrect theory.

It's praised for it's Warring States/Sengoku era craftsmanship. This was a time with the swordsmen were first learning the Breath techniques (despite the Corp already having been around for centuries already). It’s also praised for its use of the singular "eliminate" idea encapsulated in the lone 滅 character. Haganezuka himself states that the person who wielded this sword must had been extraordinarily skilled. It's implied that, since Yoriichi also used a black blade (when it wasn’t red), and since this was inside the Yoriichi Zero Type battle doll, it must had been Yoriiichi's sword and therefore well suited to Tanjiro’s Hinokami Kagura techniques which he focuses on for the remainder of his battles.

However, let's think backwards a moment. This sword was produced in a time when Yoriichi, as an outright genius, had profound influence on the Demon Slayer Corp. Although everyone tried, no one could quite pick up his Sun Breathing, but they took the parts that worked for them and the Flame, Thunder, Wind, Water, and Rock techniques took form. We know that since the quality of demon slayers decreased after this generation (my guess is this is due to the mark killing them all off and therefore the lack of a mark in following generations made them seem less skilled over all). 

It's unlikely that Yoriichi, the Sun Breath user himself, would have had any use for this training doll; instead it must had been used by one of those early Breath creators trying desperately to match Yoriichi's skill, and probably using a sword that was modeled with the ideal Sun Breath in mind, and not yet taken shape to suit the Breath that user would later polish. It was perhaps after further definition of their new techniques that they left the old sword behind.

Two more reasons I don't believe this is Yoriichi's sword: Yoriichi, a genius who probably didn't allow his sword to break with improper technique, was still using a sword with a single 滅 inscription when he faced Kokushibo in his old age, and we only see him use a sword with a hilt guard of this shape.

So then who used one with this shape?

We don’t quite see if any of the other Sengoku era swords are likewise inscribed with 滅 (and the lack of the swordsmith’s name implies that this was the swordsmith’s creative choice), but we do get a peek at a few other swords. None of them have a hilt guard quite the same, but this is as similar as it gets: 

The character whom we see using a sword like this has hair in a black ponytail. It’s a little different from the Water Breath user who makes a few appearances, but not that different, and we never see what blade the Water Breath user is wielding. 

I theorize that Tanjiro inherited an early Water Breath user's sword, which made it extra suitable for his techniques. Despite the differences between Hinokami Kagura and Water Breathing being stark enough that switching takes a huge physical toll on Tanjiro, I believe that Water Breathing will always have an influence on his performance of Hinokami Kagura, or at least draws out the aspects from which Water Breathing was based.

That brings me to another thought: Tanjiro’s seemingly overpowered ability to pick up other people's techniques, like the Thunder Breathing speed he heard about from Zenitsu. With Sun Breathing being the root of all other Breath techniques, Tanjiro has grown up already practicing the formative basis of all the other techniques, including Thunder Breathing. His speed (no pun intended) in adopting new techniques does feel more than a little overpowered, but Tanjiro has long shown a history of adopting new techniques and strategies in the middle of a fight. It's also a characteristic of Tanjiro to be constantly analyzing his fighting style and battle experiences even in his sleep, so that shows it's the result of his hardworking, eldest son personality to rely more on perseverance and practice than on natural ability.

That being said, the family history under the influence of tending fire does seem to give Tanjiro some innate suitability for Sun Breathing techniques, as implied by other characters like Haganezuka pointing out his red eyes and Shinjuro noticing Tanjiro's supposed mark right away and immediately interpreting this as an unfair amount of talent. Bring a humble charcoal farmer as opposed to a hardened swordsman may be what gave Sumiyoshi the ability to grasp the essence of Sun Breathing so thoroughly and efficiently (though we know Yoriichi taught his technique to others whom Kokushibo later eliminated, we don’t know if they could perform it as accurately, especially since the rest of the swordsman had so much difficulty with it). This point was so important that Gotouge even considered including charcoal references or the name of the fire god Kagutsuchi (commonly associated with hearths and purification) in the title of the series (see more about that here.)

But, get this, Tanjiro was not originally meant to be the main character. According to an interview in the first official fanbook with the first editor, Katayama, the following exchange took place after reviewing Gotouge’s sketches for a manga idea, “Kisatsu no Nagare,” in which the main character, Nagare, is a quiet, stoic type with fake limbs in place of ones he lost in the Final Selection (he feels a lot like Giyuu, in my opinion):

What changed it from “Kisatsu no Nagare” to “Kimetsu no Yaiba”:

(Continued from criticism of Nagare being a difficult character to build a series around:)

“...after determining that with these small changes we still wouldn’t be able to change the impact much, we threw around the idea of changing the protagonist. Since [Gotouge-]Sensei hadn’t yet moved to Tokyo from the countryside, I asked one day on the phone, “Is there any other character besides Nagare (in the world of “Kisatsu no Nagare”) that’s may a little more cheerful and normal?”

Sensei answered, “There is, but I don’t know if he’s interesting or not.” When I asked, “What sort of character is he?” the response was, “He’s a boy who sells charcoal, and his little sister got turned into a demon, so he enters the Demon Slayer Corp to try to turn her back.” And I thought, that’s it, that’s THE protagonist, and said, “Let’s go with that! A normal kid is good!” 

I think we can all agree that Tanjiro’s oldest son personality is a big part of what makes him stick out as a protagonist. But, for as hard as he works and strongly as he feels, he is constantly aware of everyone else’s efforts and wishes, and he states over and over throughout the series that even if he should die in pursuit of his goals, someone else in the organization is absolutely certain to accomplish them in his place. We see the same sentiment among other characters who meet their doom, even powerful characters like Pillars, so it really drives home that this series is about the Demon Slayer Corp more than it is about any single child who has lost his family to demons. It’s for reasons like this that I really, really appreciate how the fanbooks, in how they present basic info, refer to Tanjiro like he’s just one example of a Corp swordsman; he’s not even worth introducing right away. It’s because of this focus on on everyone’s collective efforts that even if Tanjiro as the protagonist, I think it totally could have fit the story to have him die like implied in chapter 200, or proven right about his faith in everyone and be killed when he’s a demon.

Finally, a Taisho Secret around chapter 193 specifies that although Tanjiro has made a significant amount of progress in Hinokami Kagura, he's still not such Hot Stuff. If you break it into three levels, being able to go through the motions of something, then being able to refine and adapt it, and then being able to perform something in a way that maximizing its potential is all different. Even deep in the battle again Muzan, Tanjiro is only right about at the beginning points of being able to refine and adapt his techniques. 

So there you have it, Tanjiro is special, especially for his naturally positive, hardworking, and empathetic personality. But, he's no Pillar (yet), nor is his will and experience worth any more or less than all the other Demon Slayers, swordsmiths, Kakushi, wisteria house owners, crows, Ubuyashiki Clan members, and all the other supporters across centuries of history working toward one common goal, one eternal feeling: eliminate all evil demons.

[bnhabadass]

Pairing: Hawks x Reader Warnings: N/A Genre: Fluff Word Count: 4.5k Synopsis: You're surprised when your best friend tells you she's dating pro hero Hawks. As you get to know him throughout his frequent visits to the tea shop you work at, your uncertain despisal of him may just turn into romance. 

When your best friend told you that she was dating the number two hero you laughed in her face. “It’s true!” she pleaded. Her eyes gleamed against the hanging lights in your kitchen. She looked as if she were a lovestruck middle schooler doodling hearts and writing her initials in the margins of her notepad. But you knew her like the back of your hand and you were well aware of her habit of compulsive lying.

You spent the following week teasing her relentlessly for making up such an outlandish lie. Yui Nakamura, your best friend in the world. She was an up-and-coming actress who claimed that she was slowly taking Japan by storm.

“I guess I just caught the number two hero’s heart from my last film,” she told you. It was all she could talk about for a solid week, leaving you rolling your eyes and sticking your tongue out in a fake gagging motion every time his name was brought up.

It wasn’t until she brought him into your place of work that you finally realized she was telling the truth. The small jingle bells tied to the doorknob of the shop rang as you were crouched behind the counter, sorting loose tea leaves into their respective jars.

“This is my favorite place to get an iced tea in this hot weather,” her sickeningly sweet voice cooed.

Your ears perked up. Grabbing one of the jars of tea leaves, you stood up with a big smile on your face, ready to greet your friend. That smile, however, didn’t last long. Instead it was replaced with a punch in your gut and a ringing in your ears as you saw the person standing in front of you holding hands with your best friend was the number two hero in Japan.

You should have known something was off when the few people sitting in the leather chairs and at the counter looking out into the street had gone silent. Everyone’s jaws were slack in amazement at the hero before their eyes. A few people whispered about how much more handsome he looked up close or how they didn’t realize how vibrant his wings actually were.

The only person who didn’t look shocked or happy that he was there was the number two hero himself.

“(Y/n)!” Yui exclaimed. “How’ve you been?”

“Um, good,” you managed to choke out. Your eyes never left the winged hero.

“I see you’ve noticed my boyfriend,” she giggled. Her happy-go-lucky smile never left her face. It seemed as though her biggest wish had come true. It’s no secret that she had been pining after the hero for years, playing back footage of his rescues and showing them to you over and over again. She would always cover her eyes when watching his fights because she “couldn’t bare to see his beautiful face get hurt” and you would have to tell her when the scary parts were over.

“Hawks,” you spat out.

His golden eyes dug daggers into you. “Yes?” His tone was uninterested and very clearly bored. It left a sour taste in your mouth.

“I, um, well I, ya know, I didn’t–”

Yui cut off your stumbling with a fluttering laugh, the kind of laugh they romanticize in a shoujo manga. “(Y/n)-chan didn’t believe me when I told her you were my boyfriend,” she said in a sing-song voice. “Now come on, Hawky, what do you want?”

Hawks visibly cringed at the nickname she had given him. Hawky, like the sport but spelled like the bird. Even you could admit that it was pretty bad.

“I think I’ll have the iced hibiscus tea,” she said. Her hands fumbled for her wallet.

“I’ll take a small sencha.” You never expected the winged hero to drink tea. It seemed so unlike him. He seemed much more of a coffee kind of person, needing the extra energy to fulfill his hectic life.

“All right, your total is 540¥,” you said. As you brewed their tea, you couldn’t help but keep an eye on Hawks and the little things about him. Sure he was attractive, but was that really enough to satisfy your friend? He didn’t seem very interested in her as she tugged on his sleeve like a little kid clinging to their parents.

As you called their names with their orders in hand, you were surprised when neither of them went to grab their drinks. Instead, Hawks sent two of his feathers to grab them out of your hands. They were so delicate yet so strong.

Yui smiled as the feather fluttered around her before presenting her drink in front of her.

“Let’s go,” Hawks said, still with a look of boredom plastered to his face, but maybe there was more to him than you thought.

You got to know Hawks a little more during the next few months. It’s true that when you first met him he was not your cup of tea. He and Yui would come into the shop and as Yui chatted your ear off about all the sweet nothings he would tell her, Hawks always seemed to zone out or lose interest in the conversation relatively fast. From the outside it looked like he didn’t care about her and that made your blood boil. But there had to be more to it, right? You’re sure that Yui wouldn’t bother with someone who didn’t seem to care about her.

It was at the end of summer when Yui told you the exciting news. She was cast as a major role in a new film and would be flown to Yakushima Island for the shoot. As she told you the good news, her smile never faltered. It was as if all her dreams were coming true and the different pieces of her life were being put together like a puzzle.

“I’m really happy for you,” you said while pouring hot water over a tea bag with oolong in it. “I can’t wait to see the film when it’s released.”

“I can’t wait for you to see it too! It’s going to be rough being away from Hawky for so long but I think we’ll both manage.”

You turned around before she could see you rolling your eyes at the ludacris nickname. You’re not sure how it managed to stick throughout the months, and every time you hear the words pass her lips it triggers a shudder to run through you. “When do you leave?”

“Next week. You have no idea how excited I am, (Y/n).”

You were happy for her, you really were. Yet part of you felt like you were being left behind, stuck in the mud. While she had her handsome top pro hero of a boyfriend, you spent your nights alone and as she went off to chase her dreams of being one of the most famous actresses in Japan, you were still pouring hot water over tea leaves as you have been for the past two years. It didn’t seem fair, but you would never let her know that.

The next week went by quicker than you had hoped and Yui was off to the airport. She, of course, stopped by for one last cup of tea before she left.

Once she was gone the leaves began to change. Red, orange and yellow leaves fluttered through the air onto the ground and gusts of wind would push them across town, occasionally dropping them off in front of the tea shop’s door.

This time of year was always your favorite. The smell of cinnamon and spice floating through every tea, pastry and coffee shop always made you smile in delight. A new shipment of pumpkin tea had just arrived and you couldn’t resist ducking down to stick your nose in the box and smell the leaves through their packaging under the counter.

The homey smell ravished your senses. Your mind was instantly filled with wonderful fall memories. Jumping in piles of leaves as a kid, drinking hot tea by the window and watching the rain outside trickle down the gutter of your childhood home. Carving pumpkins and dressing up in inappropriate halloween costumes back in your college days. It all came back.

“Do I even want to know what you’re doing?”

The all too familiar voice of Hawks startled you, and as you leapt up out of shock, you hit your head on the counter top. “Ow,” you croaked. Reaching for the fridge next to one of the display cases of teas, you grabbed an ice pack from the freezer and placed it on your head. “Hi.”

“Hello to you too.” There was a cocky grin on his face, unlike what you’ve seen of him before.

“Yui’s out of town.” Why was he here? There was no reason for him to be if his girlfriend was gone. Since he started showing up with Yui, the shop had gotten much more traction. More people had shown up asking when the pro hero was coming next or which seat he sat in. You were sick of it all.

“I know. Doesn’t mean I can’t get a cup of my favorite tea from my favorite barista.” His cheeky smile grew and you beat yourself up for blushing at him compliment.

“What’ll it be then? A small sencha?” You grabbed one of the small to-go cups in preparation.

“Nah let’s switch it up a bit.” He eyed the list of teas up and down, ogling the glass containers with delicate tea bags placed inside. “What box were you sticking your nose in just now?”

You looked down at your feet in shame, cheeks heating up at the memory. You had hoped he would forget about what he just saw or at least wouldn’t mention it out of pity for you. “Pumpkin tea. It’s a new shipment that just came in.”

“Huh,” he pondered. “Is it good?”

Your head shot up. “Seriously? You’ve never had pumpkin tea before?”

“Nah the commission doesn’t really like it when I eat or drink things that aren’t in my diet.” He wove his hand through his blonde locks, pushing them back out of his face. “They’ve been a bit more chill about things since I started dating Nakamura, but I’m still on a pretty strict food regiment.”

The fact that he referred to your best friend by her last name almost made your heart ache. For how much she doted on him he barely seemed to care. “That sucks,” you said. “Do you want to try it?”

He chuckled a bit. “Yeah, let’s give it a whirl.”

You heated the water and poured it out in a hot stream over the tea bag. “Here you go. That’ll be 280¥.”

He slid the coins over to you and held the piping hot to-go cup up to his nose, breathing in the heat and letting it run through him. A soft smile overcame his features and he pressed the cup to his lips, letting the brew hit his tongue. His eyes shot open. “Wow. That’s incredible.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “Isn’t it really good?”

“It is!” He smiled up at you and you couldn’t help but drink in every detail of it. It was a happy and relaxed smile, one that a child would give after tasting candy for the first time. His eyes grew brighter than the sun as the tea coated his taste buds and pulled him into euphoria.

“Um, excuse me?” a small voice croaked from behind Hawks.

He moved to the side, revealing a small young woman holding hands with a little boy. He was chewing on an action figure and as he pulled the head out of his mouth you could see the bright flames of Endeavor coated in a layer of thick saliva.

“Hey there,” Hawks said. “I’m sorry, do you need to order?”

“No no no!” The rosey cheeks of the young woman deepened as chills of embarrassment filled her. “My son here is a really big fan and, well, we were hoping we could get an autograph.”

You weren’t sure how something like this would play out. You’ve seen the stares and the hushed whispers people give when watching Hawks and Yui in the shop. They almost look too scared to approach him, yet this flustered woman came out of nowhere.

“Yeah of course!” Hawks’ cheeky smile widened. He squatted so he was eye level with the boy. “What’s your name, little guy?”

The kid slid behind his mother’s hip, unsure of what to do or say.

“I see you like Endeavor. You have good taste. He’s one of my favorite heroes too.”

You watched in awe, jaw slack as if you had been slapped in the face, as you watched Hawks laugh and ruffle the kid’s hair. He signed a notebook that the kid’s mother gave him and just as he was about to say goodbye, the kid shot his arms up in Hawks’ direction. You could feel yourself melt on the spot as he picked up the giggling boy, spinning him around. It was so unlike him to do that, but at the same time it was everything you had ever imagined in the stories that Yui would tell.

That was the first time that you realized you were beginning to fall for your best friend’s boyfriend, and after that nothing would be the same.

Hawks came in and out of the shop more and more frequently, only now ordering a small pumpkin tea. As the days went by, the weather grew colder. Chilly winds howled past the store and jingled the chimes out front.

Hawks sauntered in, giving you the grin and nod he was now accustomed to.

“Small pumpkin?” you asked, gripping your scarf and holding it closer around your neck.

“You know it,” he winked.

You hated how every time he walked up to the counter your breath would hitch and your heart would skip a beat. The little wink he gave you definitely didn’t go unnoticed by you. You hid the flushed feeling by burying your face up to the tip of your nose in your scarf.

“So what’s been going on in tea land?” he asked. His fingers danced across the display of cup sizes and tea cakes to the side of the register. They stopped, resting on the side of the jar labeled “TIPS” in a fat black marker over bright colorful construction paper.

“Same old,” you replied. “How’s hero work?”

“Same old.” The two of you had grown comfortable with minimal conversation, almost finding it endearing that the two of you could communicate so much with so few words.

“And Yui?”

Hawks took a moment before answering. You looked up from the tea you were preparing but averted your eyes the second you realized he was staring at you. “I’m thinking of breaking up with her.”

You couldn’t pay attention to what he said next. All you could hear was the ringing in your ears at hearing his words. He was breaking up with her. The recent nights you had spent fantasizing what it would be like to be the one held in his arms at night seemed more in your grasp. The thought scared you a little.

“Hey, are you listening?”

“Huh?” He snapped you out of your thoughts. “Sorry, I think I zoned out a little.” You could feel your face heating up. “Why are you breaking up with her?”

“It’s been about four months,” he said, still toying with the rim of the tip jar.

It bothered you a little how he kept looking at it. Either put in a tip or leave it alone, you wanted to yell at him.

“Four months,” he repeated as if he needed to double check. “That’s when our contract is up, at least.”

You were confused. What was he talking about? “What do you mean?” The skepticism on your face made you look like a puppy being taunted with a bone.

“Heh, you’re cute when you’re confused,” he said. “Our relationship,” he trailed off in thought, trying to find the right words. “It was never real, I guess. Never has been.”

As Hawks spoke about the contract the two of them were under, that her agent and the people working at the commission made them sign, your jaw became more and more unhinged.

“Why did they force you to date in the first place?” The shrill of your voice was hard to tame.

“Her agent knows my people well,” he admitted, referring to the commission. “And they thought this would be good for her publicity. They were right since it got her the big movie she’s working on, but they told us if nothing happens after four months we can end it.”

“I see.” You were still trying to put the pieces together in your mind. “So you never really loved her.”

He couldn’t help but bark out a laugh. “I thought that was pretty obvious,” he admitted. “Look, I know she’s your best friend and all but she’s kinda hard to be around and to get along with at times.”

Deep down you knew he was right, but hearing it come from someone that you knew Yui loved and trusted made your blood boil. What made you feel even worse was the growing hope within you that if Hawks didn’t like someone like her, he could possibly fall for someone like you.

He looked down at his phone to check the time. “Shit, I have training with my intern in ten minutes.” As you slid his drink towards him he fished into his wallet to pay. Taking out an extra bill, he folded it up and put it in the tip jar. “Promise me that when I break things off with her you’ll be there to comfort her?”

The question took you off guard but you nodded anyway.

He smiled a deep and genuine smile that showed so much more emotion than could be understood by the human brain. “Thanks. She’ll need a good friend like you to keep her company.” And with that, he dashed out the door quicker than your eyes could follow.

A week went by and you heard nothing. Hawks didn’t come into the shop to tell you how it went and Yui hadn’t texted you with any of her usual updates for how the movie was going. It wasn’t until you were locking up shop on a Friday night that you received a FaceTime request from Yui. You texted her, assuring her that once you got home you’d call her back. You knew that he did it and she needed to hear from you right now.

Snuggled into the plush fabric of the side-of-the-road sofa in the middle of your living room, you called her back. It only took one ring before she picked up. Her face was blotchy and red and the makeup she wore on set was streaking down her features.

“What happened?” you asked, fully aware of the situation.

She explained in detail everything that had happened, from the warm tea she was holding in her dressing room when he called her to break things off to the way his eyes shimmered with both sadness and relief as he told her what was on his mind.

You tried to reason with her as she blew her snotty nose into tissue after tissue. Phrases like “I’m sure he doesn’t hate you” and “You’re better than him anyway” often came up. Truth be told, you were only paying attention to her side of the story half the time. You slipped in and out, mind wandering over to where Hawks may be and how he must be doing.

“Maybe he had a reason for doing it,” you finally said once she had started to calm down.

“What?”

“Do you think he, I dunno, wasn’t happy?” You shrugged a bit. Your eyes traced the rhombus patterns on your carpet as they avoided Yui’s saddened expression. “Maybe he just wanted to be a free bird is all.”

You looked up from your carpet and came face to face with Yui’s eyes. Once doughy and glossed over with a thick layer of gelatinous tears, they now held a form of anger and hurt that you have never seen from her. “How could you say that?” she asked. “How could you even think of taking his side?”

“I’m not taking a side, I–”

“Yes you are!” Her face was turning red and as much as you wished to defend the man you had caught feelings for you also wanted to be there for Yui. “I don’t know how you could defend him right now, you guys aren’t even friends.”

Hearing her say that hit you deep in the chest. Of course she didn’t know how often Hawks had swung by the shop. Of course he wouldn’t tell her.

“You barely know him, (Y/n), so why are you defending him?”

Why were you defending him? Even with Yui out of the picture, there would still be a slim chance that Hawks actually felt the same way you did. He’s the number two hero, an icon in more ways than one. His fangirls pooled at his feet constantly. Why would you, just a simpleton working at a tea shop, have a chance with him?

“I can’t even talk to you right now.” She was looking down, refusing to make eye contact with you through the small screen.

“Yui, I–”

“No. Just,” she trailed off. “Call me when you know whose side you’re on.”

And with that she hung up and you were left alone. You felt terrible, like the worst friend in existence. You needed something to calm yourself down after the shitshow you had a feeling would be your last conversation with her for a long time.

Your shaky figure got up off the couch and went into the kitchen, putting up the water for a cup of tea. Your hands visibly calmed down once you gripped the hot mug with the pumpkin tea bag swirling inside.

“Hey baby bird.” As you walked into the living room, the person lounging on your sofa startled you. You let out a scream and the hot tea sloshed out of your mug and hit your chest, the thin material of your shirt and the knit sweater you dawned doing little to nothing to stop the burning sensation. “Ah shit.”

Hawks ran up to you and pressed the sleeve of his hero costume against your chest. “I’m sorry. Are you all right?”

The wince you gave him let him know his answer. “What are you doing here?” you managed to croak out once the heat subsided. “And how the hell do you know where I live?”

“Followed you home,” he said like it was nothing.

“So you stalked me.”

“I like to call it stealth training.” The grin on his face resembled a snarky cat and as pissed off and angry you were about him and Yui and everything, you couldn’t help letting out a laugh.

The aura between you two was both friendly and awkward. It seemed as though you both wanted to say something but didn’t know what. As Hawks kept rubbing his sleeve against your damp clothes, his eyes trailed over your face and tried reading into what you were thinking.

“I talked to Yui,” you finally let out. “She’s mad at me.”

“So I heard.” He stopped moving and rested his arm on your shoulder. “You deserve better friends.”

You looked away. “No. She does.”

He let out a laugh. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. You, (Y/n), are kind, compassionate, care about your customers and you actually take time to listen to others. And I know Nakamura would say the same thing.”

Somehow the use of your friends last name didn’t bother you as much as it used to. What did cause you to blush was the sound of  Hawks saying your own name. The sound of it leaving his lips had an imprint on you like no other.

“And those,” he continued, “are some of the many reasons why I started to fall for you.”

You felt a sting in your cheeks as they grew hot from his words. He liked you? Did you hear that correctly? He fell for you? The same way you fell for him? The only thing you could think to do was let out a “huh?”

And Hawks let out a toe curling laugh. “I like you. Have liked you for a while now.”

You didn’t know what to say. You were so overwhelmed with emotion. All you could even think to do was stare at him with your mouth agape.

“Hello?” he waved his hand in your face. “Earth to (Y/n).”

You shook your head and the rest of your body, getting any jitters out. “Um, yeah.”

He barked out another laugh. “So, do you got something to say to me or are you gonna leave me hanging?”

You took a sharp inhale. “I think that I might also like you,” you said. “A bit.”

“Now was that so hard to say?” He took a step forward, raising a hand to cup your face. He wasn’t ready, however, when you stepped away, shielding yourself from him. “What’s wrong?”

“Yui is what’s wrong.”

It dawned on him how difficult and confused you must’ve been feeling, especially if you’ve liked him for as long as he’s had feelings for you. Yui Nakamura is your best friend so of course having feelings for her boyfriend, her ex boyfriend, would make you fall into a pit of despair.

“I’m sorry.” You turned away, walking back to your kitchen.

Even though you clearly wanted to be left alone, Hawks followed you and stayed in the door frame as you put up water for another cup of tea. “You remember when I caught you sniffing the heck out of that box of Pumpkin tea?”

You made a disgruntled noise of agony as you buried your head in your hands.

He chuckled. “That’s when I realized I had feelings for you. When did you know you had them for me?”

You sighed. “Look, Hawks. I really wish that things were different and that Yui wouldn’t be mad at me, but–”

“It’s a simple question, baby bird.” He reveled in the nickname.

Your eyes wandered over to the kettle and the soft heat that rose from the stove. “I think it was when I saw you give that kid and his mom and autograph and, I don’t know, you’re just...really good with kids is all.”

“Is that really all?” His cocky smirk struck you and you couldn’t help but hit him playfully.

“Shut up, asshole.” The kettle went off and you grabbed two mugs, placing pumpkin tea bags in each. “I like you, but I love Yui.”

“So I’m assuming that it would be inappropriate for me to kiss you right now?”

You handed him one of the now full mugs, your face lowered to hide your subtle embarrassment. “You are correct.” The two of you stood there in the middle of your cramped kitchen, neither darring to take a sip. “But,” you started. “We can maybe cuddle on the couch a bit and talk, if that’s something you want.”

His golden eyes brightened. “Yeah, baby bird. I’d like that.”

[waywardwrestlewritingwaif]

Waking Up Alone

This is for my anon who requested something angsty and fluffy with El Phantasmo- hope you enjoy! The idea is partially inspired by the Cowboy Junkies song "Sun comes up, it's Tuesday morning". (I am the queen of sad lady songs, I swear.)

Pairing: El Phantasmo x OFC

Word count: 3.091

Content advisory: language, sexual references

Sun comes up, it’s Tuesday morning

Hits me straight in the eye

Guess you forgot to close the blind last night

Oh that’s right, I forgot, it was me

The morning sun feels like an assault on your eyes, punching its way through your delicate eyelids and right through into your nerves. Yeah, you definitely had a few too many drinks last night. Gin and tonic with the girls, which you hadn’t done in ages. It ended up with pitchers at the dive you’d been frequenting since you were too young to get into bars, the place that truly catered to everyone. Beer after liquor, never sicker; liquor before beer, in the clear. Why the hell had you switched from liquor to beer?

Doesn’t matter now, you think, wrestling yourself into a sitting position while protecting your eyes with a trembling hand. Wrestling yourself. You sigh a little as you consider the term that immediately springs to mind. You didn’t mention the breakup to the girls. It still feels too strange, too ephemeral. Were you ever really a couple anyway? You suppose that’s the crux of the problem. You didn’t know where you stood, so you’d estimated that you were somewhere it turned out you weren’t close to.

If Riley The Perfidious Bastard were around, he would have made sure to lower the Roman shade you’d fashioned out of an old curtain and some bamboo rods. He was always impressed at your ability to create homey touches from spare parts. Now that he’s not around, you realize how much you’d liked having your abilities praised.

If Riley were here, you’d also be waking up to the smell of coffee, the most wonderful thing in the world for someone in your condition. But there’s nothing. No rich, roasted scent, no happy, burbling noises from the machine in the kitchen. You have to get up and take care of it yourself, which you haven’t had to do in a long time. Goddammit.

You run one hand over the expanse of your king bed, the plump mattress extending almost all the way to the window. Sure, the thing took up most of the room but you didn’t care. The room was only going to be used for sleep anyway. Well, sleep and that other, delicious thing. That thing you missed so much. Well, you missed it the way that Riley had done it. If he was really gone, you were going to have a hell of a time finding someone who could make you want to spend all day in bed the way he had. You still hadn’t made your way back to the center of the bed. Somehow, your mind refused to accept that things were over. You were still making space for him.

With a dramatic effort that has no one to appreciate it, you heave yourself off the bed and make your way towards the kitchen. You’re halfway through the process of making coffee when you realize that you’re wearing one of his shirts, one of the ones with his logo emblazoned on it. You must have just reached for the first thing you could find when you got home and, of course, that would be something from the pile of shirts you’d made next to the bedroom door; shirts to be given to charity because you sure as hell didn’t want to look at them anymore. That pile had been sitting there for three weeks, the dried traces of angry tears still on every part of it, and you hadn’t gotten around to carrying everything to the donation bin less than a block away.

Coffee is more important than anything right now, so you focus on that. You also shove a couple of pieces of bread in the toaster oven. Bread and peanut butter will help ease the seething broth in your gut and allow you to concentrate on the day. Which would be even more useful if your day actually required concentration. Band practice had been pushed back to tomorrow because Kyle and Lily were off in the country visiting her parents. Sure, you could work on the guitar parts by yourself, but it’s not like there was anything to learn. You had a handful of gigs coming up in the next few weeks, mostly local, all focused on your last album. Practice was just a matter of making sure you all kept tight and maybe came up with some new ways to make the live experience a little different for people.

As autumn shifted closer to winter, it was always the quiet season. Students were running short on money, the weather became unpredictable, and going on the road became less and less lucrative the closer it got to the holidays. It was approaching that time of year when people started to nest rather than seek a mate. Or at least that’s how it was for most people. It just wasn’t that way for wrestlers dividing their time between North America and Japan. You cringe at how that thought makes you recall the fights you’d had in the last few days of your whatever the hell it was because apparently it wasn’t a relationship.

It’s a very different feeling than at the beginning of spring, when everything was starting to pick up, when you constantly felt excited about what the immediate future held, and when you’d agreed to go to a wrestling show because Nadia was doing makeup for it. You and Wendy had shown up already drunk and had taken advantage of Nadia’s invitation to come backstage.

You’d stolen beer from kraft services and watched Nadia attending to her work while you tried to distract her by making her laugh. You’d been surprisingly successful but she was such a pro that she had no problems. The women took the longest for her to do, but all the performers had to come in to make sure that they’re coloring and contouring was perfect for tv lighting and that was how you’d met him.

The two of you had locked eyes as soon as he came in the room and had remained that way as he settled into Nadia’s chair. You hadn’t been able to tear yourself away from those huge, shiny orbs with their saucy expression and despite your inebriated state, you could feel that stare lodging itself in your memory forever.

“This is El Phantasmo,” she giggled.

“He’s a what now?” you’d snorted in response, relishing the flare of indignation in his eyes.

“Are we letting just anyone back here now?” he snapped.

“These are my friends!” Nadia assured him, slurring her speech as she motioned to you and Wendy. You’d been feeding her the beer you’d purloined as well.

“Like I said. We’re letting just anyone in.”

At that, you’d given his seat a shove with your foot, despite the fact that Nadia had started to apply bronzer to his cheeks. He was left with a dark streak across one side of his face and nose, which had made you and Wendy crack up.

“Come on,” Nadia chided, “I need to make these guys look good.”

“Good luck with that,” you laughed.

The man you knew only as El Phantasmo flipped you off and you’d returned the gesture, swiveling on your seat a little so that your hips were thrust forward. It wasn’t that he was the most gorgeous thing you’d ever seen, far from it. But something about him just got to you. He had such an effect on you that even as you were mocking him, you let your body move and pose in ways that were intended to resonate with his basest masculine instincts.

You’d been captivated by the show, particularly by his display of athleticism, as well as his bratty defiance to what the audience wanted. You’d booed him with everything you had and you’d been so drawn to him that you’d had to restrain yourself from running to the ring and grabbing his pert ass right there.

Instead, you’d made your way backstage again and insinuated yourself into the group that was going for drinks. You insisted that Nadia come along because Wendy had headed home as soon as the show was over. You wanted someone to hang out with so that it wasn’t totally obvious what and who you were there for. It didn’t really matter, though, because everyone was so friendly and most were so drunk that they didn’t care that they had no idea who you were.

You’d kept an eye on him for a while and then approached the bar when you saw him going for a refill, elbowing your way in so that you were right next to him, bumping his shoulder hard as you got to the bar.

“You wanna buy me a drink?” you crooned.

“No.”

“Fine, I’ll buy you one.”

“Does that mean I have to hang out with you?”

“Yup. Besides, you know you want to.”

“I really don’t.”

He was laughing a little when you said it, and when you leaned over to scream your order at the bartender, ordering him a random drink since you hadn’t even bothered asking, he ran his hand down your back and gave your ass a quick slap. You’d smirked to yourself. You knew you’d seen the spark in his eyes.

“Riley,” he shouted right into your ear.

“Deaf now,” you shot back, pushing his drink at him. “You’re skinny for a wrestler.”

“Don’t need to bulk up when you’re as good as I am.”

“Anything else you’re good at?”

“Fucking women with big mouths until they can’t say anything but my name.”

The two of you had spent the night all over his apartment and, yeah, he’d lived up to his own hype. The sex had been outright feral, biting and clawing and animal-like noises until you were both too exhausted to move.

You thought about dropping a hint that you wanted to sleep there but since it was kind of obvious that this was a one-night thing, you’d waited a while then pulled your clothes back on to go. The two of you shared a surprisingly tender kiss at the door and when you made to leave, he’d looked surprised.

“You don’t want to exchange numbers or something?” He’d sounded legitimately surprised.

“Sure.”

You’d entered each other into your phones and you went home in a cab, reflecting that you did feel more of a connection than you’d realized at first.

Still, you held off calling him so as not to look desperate, but he’d called you a couple of days later. Not knowing what else to do, and not wanting to admit you were broke until your next royalty check cleared, you’d invited him over for dinner. The two of you had cooked some pasta together and drank a couple of bottles of wine and then tore into each other again, gradually making your way to your bed. Once again, it had been mind-blowing, but the real surprise came at the end of the night.

“Mind if I stay here?” he asked quietly.

You’d patted the pillows beside you and grinned. You’d drifted off thinking that, yes, this was something a little special and you’d woken up thinking the same thing.

Craving the crisp air on your reddened cheeks, you grab a sweater, jeans and boots and that wonderful alpaca poncho you’d found when you and Riley went to that farmer’s market. It was a weird thing to find in a place that was supposed to be all about food but it didn’t matter because it was soft and full of deep colours and even though it had been hotter than hell outside, you knew that you were going to get plenty of use from it once the weather turned colder. At the time, you thought that you’d still be going for walks and dinner and drinks with Riley.

As you get ready, your phone buzzes. Wendy sending you a message.

“Never let me do that again.”

You chuckle, remembering that however bad you got last night, she was the one who ended up trying to dance on the bar, refusing to acknowledge that she couldn’t climb up on it. You’ll all have a good laugh about it later but right now, you can’t deal with it. And the reason you can’t deal with it is because for a second, you’d hoped that it was him texting you.

Your body immediately knows where it wants to go, turning the first corner and heading for the hipster diner you eat from too often. They make a mean breakfast burrito but today, you limit yourself to one of those extra buttery croissants you love so much.

Joanne is working the counter, which is kind of remarkable since you remember running into her late into the night, but although her face is flushed the same as you, she’s smiling warmly at every customer.

“Hey there, lady,” she chuckles. “Still walking?”

“Barely. May I please have coffee and a croissant? And may I ask why Peter isn’t working this morning?”

She prepares your order, grinning. “Well he had some of the guys over to watch the game last night and it turns out he’s in worse shape than I am.”

“The bastard.”

“He was totally unconscious this morning. I hope he’s not dead because being a widow would suck.”

Everyone is in a relationship. Everyone you know is in love. It hurts a lot to think that one of those things is still true of you.

Things had gone to shit over an instagram post of all things. Him during a trip back to Japan, posing with a woman who looked straight out of a modelling agency. Immediately, you’d felt in your gut that something was off and although you hadn’t wanted to seem like you were scrutinizing his every movement, you’d been unable to hold back.

“Is something going on with you and that girl in the pictures with you?”

“Going on?” He’d seemed puzzled. “I mean, we hook up when I’m in Japan. No big deal.”

That’s where he had been wrong. It was a very big deal for you. The two of you hadn’t talked about your status but you realized that you had been assuming that because you’d been wrapped up in the romance of it all that he was too. Apparently not.

It had led to a huge fight, then another resentful exchange, and then he was back in Japan for a week. You hadn’t messaged him at all while he was gone. He didn’t contact you when he got back. You’d come home one day to find your spare set of keys in an envelope in your mailbox. No note, nothing. No request to get his set back from you. Giving someone a spare set of keys was supposed to mean something. How many women had keys to his place?

You ponder it glumly for the umpteenth time as you make your way back to the home that always feels strangely empty to you now. You’d been in the place for five years. He’d been coming around for five months and somehow it feels like he belonged there. You see a figure sitting on the front step of one of the buildings and for a second, you think it’s him, waiting for you to get home, like he used to before he had keys and could go in and surprise you with dinner, or flowers, or-

Then you realize that it actually is him, sitting on your step, drinking a beer and staring off into space. He doesn’t even look up when you come to a halt next to him.

“Dude, it’s nine in the morning. Are you starting early or finishing late?”

He shrugs without looking at you and after a long moment of silence, you sit down next to him. You tear the croissant in half and silently offer it to him but he shakes his head.

“For the love of god, eat something.”

He shakes his head again.

“Fine, become an alcoholic and drink yourself to death for all I care.” You bite into the delicious pastry, humming in satisfaction and finally he reaches over and takes the other half from you.

“Good boy.”

“Here’s the thing,” he says quietly. “I thought that since you’d never said anything, it meant that you had other guys in your life. All the guys I work with either lie to their wines and girlfriends or they just have these open things going on and I guess after a while it starts to seem like that’s the normal thing to do.”

“Well I never said that I was opposed to that. I never said that we couldn’t work something out. But you didn’t even give me the chance. You just carried on as if I didn’t even exist.”

“I didn’t, though.” For the first time, he turns to look at you. His eyes are red and swollen and something tells you that it isn’t from drinking. “I said that I’d hooked up with that girl and I had. In the past. Nothing happened when I was there last time.”

“Then why did you let me believe that something had?”

“I have no fucking idea. And that’s been killing me.”

With a heavy sigh, you reach out and place your hand on his. He immediately grabs hold.

“I think,” he says pensively, “that I felt nervous about telling you I was serious about you. I was nervous because I haven’t felt this serious about someone before. And when you got angry, I think I just flipped out and thought it meant that I was wrong.”

“Wrong for having feelings?”

“Wrong for thinking you did too.”

Your stomach flips and you tighten your hold on his hand.

“Well I did.”

He nods and stares off, his face twitching a little like he’s trying to keep from crying.

“I still do,” you tell him.

He turns and stares at you, big eyes surprised and hopeful.

“Really? Because I’m an asshole.”

“Yeah,” you mutter, “I know.”

“I miss you,” he whispers.

“Why don’t you come in and have a cup of coffee?”

“Only if I can make it,” he grins. “You always put too much in.”

“Asshole,” you grunt, standing up and pulling him with you.

As you unlock the door, he leans in and plants a warm kiss on your cheek.

“Thanks,” he murmurs.

The two of you enter your flat, hand in hand again.

[inkabelledesigns]

Sam and Jan’s Apartment - Nightmares are Reality Sims

So as of late, I’ve had a LOT of ideas brewing for yet another Bendy fic, and in some of my planning for it, I’ve built one of the locations in the Sims 4 to use as reference. It’s been busy at home, and I needed this to relax, so I’m glad I took the time to do that briefly. You may have seen my previous post about Nightmares are Reality, but if you haven’t, here’s the short version: Samantha Lorenzo from 2021 and Sammy Lawrence from 1946 wake up one morning with their bodies switched, and now both have to embrace the other’s friend group to not only find a way to get back, but also stop the inevitable fate of the studio staff as shown in the novel Dreams Come to Life. There’s angst, there’s fluff, and it get pretty rough, but there’s so much to play with for this story. 

Come with me, and let’s dive into Sam and Jan’s apartment!

So first, we gotta talk about Sam and Jan themselves. Samantha is the curly haired one, and Janet is the one in the hat (she wouldn’t be caught dead without one). Unfortunately the Sims does not allow me to change heights (and I don’t have a mod for it), but imagine for me if you will that Jan is significantly shorter than Sam. I did not have a ton in mind in the way of colors for them, but together their wardrobes have a LOT of red and black, with a little white and tan thrown in. I have Sam with the lifetime goal of being a successful author, which falls in line with her love of storytelling in modern media. Jan on the other hand is a songwriter and musician that’s still trying to find her path. The two met in college and graduated not too long ago, and now they’re both hunting for work (which Janet has part time when the fic begins). 

In addition to them, we have their cat, Figaro (named after the cat from Disney’s Pinnochio, Sam is a nerd like that).

Now, we move onto their apartment!

I chose the 1020 Alto Apartments lot for this, which came with the condition of the Romantic Fireplace that I can’t remove. But I added on Home Studio and Great Acoustics so they could bump up their skills a little easier. This is my first time playing with a lot challenge, and that is Spooky, which makes it so ghosts will come over now and again, which scares the crap out of both of them. And uh, funny story...

The ghost of Joey Drew was the third one to come, and he was VERY angry when Sam met him. X’’’D I did not see that coming, but now I kinda want to make more Bendy ghosts just to see if they pop in. Would you guys be into that? I mean Depths Henry is a ghost, so I probably SHOULD make him. 

At any rate, let’s look at the layout. Bear in mind, I am not phenomenal at building houses, much less apartments, but I think this worked out. 

It opens up into the kitchen, which is filled with all the essentials (these ladies are big on their caffeine). Currently I headcanon that Sam cooks while Jan cleans, but Jan is the better baker out of the two of them. Sam also likes to have fresh ingredients, and while I can’t do a window box on this lot, I can have some indoor vertical plants.

There isn’t much of a separation between living room and kitchen, but this is the living room! Some stuff is for playing with (since I actually play with my households now and then), like the dancefloor, but others are for actual use. They use a record player to listen to jazz and other music, and the furniture would be all mismatched like that (they were broke college kids, gotta sit on something, right? probably got it from a bunch of garage sales). The photo setup is something they use, but it belongs to their friend Vincent, which brings me to the first bedroom.

I haven’t made these two as Sims yet, but Sam and Jan have another duo living with them, Jess and Vincent, who are a couple. Jess is a makeup artist who often experiments on her friends, and she hopes to get into the makeup and wardrobe side of the cinematography scene. Vince on the other hand is a photography and film guy who’s an absolute sweetheart. Those two share this bedroom (Jess had more of a say in the decorating, Vince is pretty easygoing about the aesthetic). 

I had to make sure there was a special corner for Jess’ makeup stuff, she’d want space to move around. The mirror is also something she loves, and they all borrow it a lot. Why?

Because of this creepy room nextdoor! X’’’D So I just learned mannequins are a thing, and I can dress them however I want, so I put some in this pretty much functionless closet. (Though the two masculine ones have been glitching in a way that turns their heads a little at certain angles, and it creeps me out a LOT) This is the cosplay closet, which mostly Jess and Sam use, but all four of them have some numbers in here. These four are a cosplay group, mostly for Bendy, but for other fandoms too. Jess likes going as Twisted Alice (heavy special effects makeup, go figure), Vincent likes Henry and Joey (he likes scruffy nerds and suits), Janet dresses as Jack Fain (though she’s also done some gender bends of other characters), and Samantha (as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now) is right there as the Sammy for their group. If I can ever learn how to work with custom content, I would love to have a cosplay for each of them on these mannequins, but we’ll save that for later. These nerds are absolutely the types to play around with cosplay photos and tiktok videos, I’m sure they duet often. XD

We have some bathrooms, which are pretty self explanatory, but then we have Janet’s room. She is big on the posters and loves having her instruments right there and ready to play. She plays guitar and piano, but I may have her pick up violin down the line. Both of them have the geek trait and are prone to playing videogames more often than not, but Jan is mostly found playing her music. 

We have a small corner of the hallway for the cat. And then last but not least: Sam’s room.

This is Samantha’s creative space. Much like my space, when she’s working, it gets messy. She loves turning on some jazz while she writes, and while she’s crafting. I gave her and Jan the knitting supplies, since I don’t really know how else to simulate sewing for these characters, and they also have some clutter. Sam has one additional mannequin in her room, and she’s into figures, so there’s one of those on the desk. Her closet and bathroom are pretty simple, but that closet is gonna be really important when we get into the story, you’ll see why later.

As always, I have their Sims up on the gallery, along with the apartment, in case you want to play with them for yourself. Just note: because of how apartments work in this game, it’s uploaded as a room, so you’re going to have to fill some walls in and add doors if you want it to work like an apartment would (and you can totally turn it into a house if you want to, you don’t need to have 1020 Alto if you wanna use this). Just search for KatAlystDesigns in the Sims 4 gallery! I’ve also uploaded a few other houses recently, including the DCTL cast for my BATIM mermaid collection, and Buddy’s mother and grandpa. 

I had a LOT of fun putting this together last night, and it’s given me a much better idea of how I want to work with things for this narrative. Bear in mind, Sammy’s the one who’s gonna have to live here and put up with it, so having these details established is gonna help me to make the fic go smoother. I may tweak some things, like actually using upper cabinets in the kitchen (which I always seem to forget about), but we’ll see. XD Either way, this was a good exercise.

I hope you’re all looking forward to exploring these two and their story as much as I am! As a quick final note, I actually have a blog set up for Nightmares are Reality to mimic the one Sam has in the fic, and I’m thinking of using it as a somewhat RP, somewhat fic and content delivery system for the story, so if you’ve got thoughts on that, or stuff you’d like to see, do let me know! Here’s wishing you are all wonderful day!

[ichika27]

OnS Chapter 106

Well... this chapter is making me ask questions lol. At last though, we’re back to seeing what Mika is doing but is also continuing from where the previous chapter left off. So many things happening at once.

The 2nd Progenitor Rigr Stafford vs. 3rd Progenitor Lest Karr and 5th Progenitor Ky Luc. Lest is having trouble and is worried due to facing a 2nd progenitor while his companion Ky is enjoying himself and feels confident he could win against a their enemy. Rigr realizes in the middle of battle that Ky is probably Urd's right hand man since Ky's ability surpasses that of a regular 5th progenitor.

Rigr aims at Ky's eye. Ky realizes he can't dodge it anyways so he just went straight ahead to land an attack himself. Now the two of them are too connected to each other which worried Lest since he's about to use a lightning attack. Ky just tells him to go for it.

Ky gives his sword as much blood as he could give to make sure Rigr couldn't get away when Lest uses Heaven's Fan. When the attack is done, Ky sustained a lot of injuries.

It seems the attack had worked and had injured the 2nd progenitor as well. I felt pretty suspicious at this moment cause there’s no way these two could easily beat a 2nd progenitor. Plus Rigr wasn’t really that worried despite saying so cause he doesn’t always mean what he tells them. I thought there must be a trick.

2nd Progenitor Urd Geales finally makes an appearance! Lest tells him of what had transpired and Urd isn't amused and tells him that it's impossible for a vampire to escape the cell (he made it so himself). He then tells Rigr to stop messing with his subordinates.

With a clap of the hands, Rigr is back in the cell. Rigr reveals that the entire fight was nothing but an illusion that he learned from humans. lol I knew there was a trick but I didn’t think it was all an illusion. I thought he’d easily regenerate or something.

You know what, Rigr’s teasing nature and laid-back attitude in the middle of battle reminds me of Ferid. They might not be blood-related but he is the one who turned Ferid into a vampire so it’s close.

The two former friends have a little reunion. Ky apologizes for the trouble but Urd tells him it wasn't his fault as Rigr is of a higher rank and can't be helped.

It seems he still cares...

Rigr asks Urd what the latter has in store for him and Urd says that if Rigr doesn't answer his questions, he might just kill him. Urd asks what Rigr’s plan is and Rigr tells him that his revenge plan against the 1st Progenitor hasn't changed yet after all these years so there’s nothing to say.

Urd says that in betraying the 1st, Rigr had also betrayed him and Rigr offered to be killed. He mentions he hasn't forgotten about Urd and has thought about him everyday when they were separated.

I’m sorry... these lines are getting to me. They must’ve been really close friends for them to be this way with each other. They kinda remind me of Mika and Yuu in a way except these two sort of became rivals or something.

Urd then asked Rigr about this revenge plan and how it's going.

I’m guessing the original question is asking about what the plan is specifically but it’s changed to asking if it’s going well. I wonder if Urd had realized what it might be before asking?

Meanwhile, Mika is still inside Yuu's heart. In front of him is a strange eye and he's trying to figure out what this one is exactly.

Mika touches the eye to peek into what's in it. He's then transported to this strange place and in each of the containers inside is an eyeball each. Mika finds himself possessing one of these eyeballs.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who recognized this from the Ancient Greece flashbacks several chapters ago.

It’s tiny Yuu-chan! It confirmed that this is Mikaela's room from back in Greece thousands of years ago from the flashbacks. Yuu visits here many times to try and wake up the "sleeping" Mika inside the glass. This is probably a later scenario from Ashera’s flashbacks cause this Yuu isn’t borderline emotionless and acts like an excitable child unlike the Yuu that Ashera first met.

Noya tells him it's pointless as Mika is dead but Yuu tells him that Mika will certainly wake up. It's Yuu's job to wake him after all. Noya comments that Yuu's exact duty is to be the sacrifice to awaken Mika. Yuu didn't hear this and continues to call Mika which annoyed Noya enough and in the end, Yuu was killed.

Okay, so I don’t remember if Yuu had been calling Sika Madu “Father” from before or if this is some new development because I think he just called him “Master” back then? Also, I guess this means Yuu and Mika are connected more deeply than we thought. I wonder how Yuu would be sacrificed.

Noya then uses one of the eyeballs and turned it into another Yuu. The new Yuu could talk but knows nothing. He kept asking so many questions that Noya got annoyed again and killed this one, too. Ashera tells him that it's not right and Noya just says that he just has to get used to it. Plus no one would notice how many had been killed if they made another Yuu.

We’re finally shown how they make Yuu-chan clones. I wonder what changed or how this is done as the new Yuu clone acts like the previous one: loud and excited. He’s totally not like the Yuu that Ashera met who is quiet and sort of emotionless. I thought they would start out like that quiet Yuu first and then learn to be normal but it seems the clones are more like the new version of Yuu.

The next Yuu Noya had created is the one Mika is currently possessing. Of course, this “Yuu” wouldn’t act the same as the others since Mika is possessing it. Noya didn’t question this or at least, he seems to not and just leaves this Yuu be.

So either he’s just faking and realized that there’s something really different (as that look is suggesting) or the personality of the Yuu-chan clones differ from one another that this is a possibility. Also, since Yuu-chan is a clone, who was he cloned from? Was there an original Yuu-chan? What was he then? So many questions...

The 1st Progenitor and the others have arrived. Raimei scolds the kids for entering the room without permission but Byakko just tells her to go easy on them as they're just kids.

The group (minus the 1st Progenitor) looks like their demon selves: from the outfits to the horns). Does this mean they’ve been turned to demons at this point? Also, Byakko’s personality doesn’t look as serious as he seems as he currently is as Byakkomaru. By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever heard their original names being used so not sure if these are right. I got them from the wiki when I was looking at the correct name spellings for the other characters.

Back to the present, Rigr offers Urd the choice to join him in revenge. Rigr tells them that his preparations are ready and apologizes for taking too long with it. He asks Urd if the latter has any hostages and it's revealed that the people Urd was carrying earlier are Shinya and Kureto and so Rigr asked about their demons (which are their former vampire companions).

This is making me wonder what Urd’s plan is. At first of course I thought he’s asking Rigr about this revenge thing cause he wants to know if he could stop it or change Rigr’s mind. But now I’m confused cause the way he’s asking seems like he’s... interested? And Rigr asked about hostages which Urd already has and coincidentally (or not...?) they are Shinya and Kureto who are the contractors of Byakkomaru and Raimeiki. Rigr even asked about the demons.

Like if Urd turned out to switch sides and becomes Rigr’s ally, I don’t think I’d be surprised. The current arc is just everybody switching sides and backstabbing everyone else or having ulterior motives in the stuff they do. How many opposing groups do we even have now lol.

Switching back to the past, Mika continues to observe the others through the clone Yuu. Sika Madu seem to have realized what he really is though and addresses him directly.

I’m betting this is the real Sika Madu cause he’s already left Shinoa. Plus if his other demon companions could go to another demon’s world, there’s no doubt he could do it, too since he’s the most powerful of them all.

Sika Madu tries to put Mika to sleep. A struggling Mika hears Yuu's voice telling him that in order to escape they must work together. If they devour one another, Mika would become Yuu's demon. As Sika Madu continues to use his powers on Mika, Mika finally accepts and lets himself become Yuu's demon.

--

Finally! I guess if this goes well (which there’s a high chance this would go well unless the author decides to prolong the drama), Mika would finally become a demon weapon. it’s also another sword if I remember correctly. I wonder if Yuu will use it now that Asuramaru can’t be trusted? Speaking of which, I suddenly remembered the cover art for one of Owari no Seraph’s artbooks wherein Yuu is shown with his sword and the reflection in it is Mika. Foreshadowing or coincidence? Probably coincidence since it’s the reverse in another artbook. Still it’s cool.

The Vampire side of the story is slowly connecting to the protagonists’ side of the story. It looks like whatever it is that Rigr is planning, it’ll involve the demons residing in a majority of the main casts’ weapons. They’d cross paths sooner or later.

Shinya and Kureto got caught but where are the others? Where are the rest of Guren’s squad? I wonder who the demons are that’s inside of the weapons of the others...

I’m still sad they chose not to use the nickname Mika had for Yuu. “Yuu-chan” is distinctly Mika’s nickname for him (it’s even Mika’s favorite phrase according to one of the fanbooks haha). Plus since they never use any honorifics for the way everyone else calls Yuu (Yoichi’s “Yuu-kun” and Shinoa’s “Yuu-san” are just “Yuu/Yu” now), there’s no difference. Mika calling Yuu by a specific nickname even became a plot point when one of the human soldiers trusted Mika because of how he calls Yuu. Like, I get why they’re not using honorifics in the official translation but it’s still a shame. Now everytime I see Mika call Yuu or refer to Yuu, my mind fills in the missing honorific. It will always be “Yuu-chan” to me.

Anyways, the last page of this chapter never said when the next one would come out. I wonder why? I’m hoping it’s not a hiatus but it can’t be helped if it is. I’m kinda excited for what’s to come next. I wonder what happened to everyone else? Are we ever gonna get POVs from them or are they also just left to the side since they’re not part of the main conflict? I mean they seemed to have completely dropped Narumi since I haven’t seen him in a while.

Thanks for reading this if you did!

[iamwhoami]

Haunted (Chicago Fire)

Chicago Fire 

   Y/N is a firefighter at Firehouse 51 and on Halloween night, they get a call to an abandoned and supposedly haunted house.

Warnings: None

Requested = No, just something in celebration of Halloween.

Y/L/N = Your Last Name

Truck 81, Squad 3, Engine 51, Ambo 61, house fire at 13 Ashburn Road

“Of course,” Herrmann shook his head as everyone headed out to the apparatus floor, “Only on Halloween.”

   You were confused but ignored it, getting ready with everyone else for the call.

“Does anybody else see the irony in this?” Mouch asked on the way to the given address. 

“What do you guys mean?” You finally asked, needing to know what was going on.

   Gallo widened his eyes, “You don’t know?”

“Clearly not,” You sighed, getting impatient, “Just tell me what’s wrong with this address.”

“Okay well, that would be the address of the Ashburn Haunted House,” Mouch gave you a pointed look, “And today is Halloween. It’s Halloween and we’re getting a call to a haunted house.”

   You understood now, “Oh.”

“It’s not really haunted,” Casey called out from the front, “It’s abandoned, nobody’s lived there for years.”

“Decades,” Mouch quickly corrected, “And it is haunted.”

   You quirked an eyebrow, “How do you know?”

“You know, there are stories that at night, the neighbors can hear children’s screams coming from the house,” Stella started chiming into the conversation.

“And that the house is actually built over a torn down cemetery,” Mouch added.

   Gallo laughed, “Talk about ‘over my dead body’.”

“Guys, cut it out,” Casey ordered, “We’re going to treat this call as if it were any other one.”

~~~

   The moment you guys arrived on the location and hopped out of the truck, a man ran up to you.

“I was the one who called,” He explained, “I saw smoke coming out of the windows.”

“Squad 3, you guys are on the first floor, Truck 81, you guys cover the second,” Boden instructed.

   Casey nodded, “Alright, Y/L/N, Kidd, you’re with me, Gallo, you’re on the back door.”

“Got it Captain,” Gallo said and hurried around to the back of the house.

“Okay, let’s mask up.”

   The moment you guys walked into the house, you were immediately overwhelmed by smoke.

The thick smoke.

“Where’s the fire?” You heard Stella ask.

“I don’t know,” Casey replied but the three of you continued up the stairs nonetheless.

   As you searched the second floor for any victims, you heard Severide through the radio.

“The first floor is clear, Chief,” He said.

   At that moment, you had walked into what probably would have been a bedroom and nearly laughed.

A smoke machine.

“Uhh Chief,” You said through the radio, “I don’t think there’s a fire.”

“What?”

“I just found a smoke machine,” You explained and made your way over to the device on the floor. “I’m turning it off now.”

   You switched the smoke machine off before picking it up and heading back out of the room.

“Second floor’s clear,” Casey reported anyways, a slight laugh to his tone. 

   The three of you went back downstairs and out of the house before ripping your masks off.

“So there’s no fire,” Brett looked at the smoke machine in your hands and then burst into laughter.

“Nope,” You chuckled, “But there is a lot of smoke.”

“Holy smokes what happened?”

   Everyone turned around to see a young man running up to you guys.

“Are you the owner of this?” You guessed, holding the smoke machine a little higher.

   The man nodded, “Yeah, did something happen?”

   You shook your head, “No, but your smoke machine alarmed somebody. They thought maybe the house was on fire.”

“Oh,” The man put a hand over his mouth, “I’m so sorry, I was preparing for tonight. I bought the house a while ago and figured that I would turn it into an actual haunted house for tonight before renovating. You know, for the kids.”

“Eh, don’t sweat it,” Herrmann jabbed a finger at the guy, “Maybe just give people a heads up beforehand.”

   The man thanked everyone and you handed him his smoke machine back before loading up.

“Told you the house wasn’t haunted,” Casey said as Stella pulled the truck into the apparatus floor.

“You don’t know that,” Mouch shot back.

   You laughed as you got out the truck once it came to a full stop.

“Whatever, it’s totally a haunted house for tonight,” You shrugged, “It’s Halloween, everything is haunted and creepy on Halloween.”

“Not the firehouse,” Gallo pointed out.

   You smirked, “You don’t know that.”

“I’m pretty sure we do,” Mouch raised his eyebrows.

“Do you? For all you know, the firehouse could have ghosts that just haven’t shown themselves yet,” You said and then walked away.

Let them ponder on that for a bit.

[rainbowwing251]

Oh, curious for the headcanons for the Mario Bros!

I haven’t played too many of the games in the Super Mario Franchise, but I think I can do this!

But first, I would like to make this statement: I am very sorry for all of the Mario fans out there. Fire Emblem fans may have lost a localized Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, but Mario fans lost Super Mario 3D All-Stars (I have a digital copy of that game, by the way. I want to get back to playing it at some point), Super Mario Bros. 35 (which was a very fun game, in my opinion), the Super Mario Bros. Game & Watch, and the ability to upload your courses in Super Mario Maker on the Wii U (though I guess that was going to happen at some point).

Needless to say, you guys have lost a lot. I hope that these headcanons will make you feel a bit better!

Starting off with Mario, I think he would be a ler-leaning switch who is incredibly ticklish. He isn’t as sensitive as his brother is, but he’ll still break down in laughter if someone were to put their hands on one of his worst spots.

Before I begin the lee!Mario headcanons, I would like to make an announcement: Mario is canonically ticklish! This is shown in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. There might be more, but for now, these are the games that Mario can get tickled in!

If you want to know how Mario can be tickled in these games, feel free to ask! I got this information from the Mario Wiki, and I would be more than happy to provide the links to the pages that I found all of this information on!

Now that I have gotten that out of the way, I’m going to list off Mario’s worst spots. Those spots are his sides, his knees, and his neck.

His often gets targeted by Luigi, Princess Peach, and Princess Daisy. All three of them love to sneak up on him and launch a surprise tickle attack. He’ll react as if he had just jumped into a pool of lava, and it’s one of the funniest things that you’ll ever see in your entire life.

He doesn’t squirm around or fight back all that much while he’s being tickled. He may prefer to be the ler, but he won’t get mad at his ler for making him laugh, especially if it’s Luigi. Mario seems like the kind of guy who would enjoy a good laugh every now and then, and tickling would definitely help out with that.

If his ler is Luigi, and if he gets in the mood to fight back against him, he will do so, but not out of anger. He’s not going to discourage his brother from tickling him. If anything, he’ll try to initiate a tickle fight so he can encourage his brother to fight back and turn the tables.

He is weak to teasing, but only if the teasing is coming from someone he knows. Don’t try to tease him if you are a stranger to him, he will hate it. A lot. Don’t tease him if you are anything like Bowser or Bowser Jr., either. He’ll hate it even more.

If he knows who you are, then you are more than welcome to tease him while you tickle him. He is especially weak to Peach and Luigi’s teasing. Something about Peach’s tone and the way that Luigi teases him just kills him on the spot.

Teasing is one of the few things that can make him blush. His blush will be a light pink color when you start tickling him, and it will gradually darken as you keep going. Teasing will speed up the darkening of his blush.

Mario’s lers are Luigi, Peach, and Daisy, as I mentioned earlier. The Toads will occasionally join in on the fun if they think he needs a good laugh. In Smash, the first three people in the previous list will continue to target him, but now, they are joined by Link, Ness, the Villagers, and the Inklings.

Let’s move on to ler!Mario headcanons. To me, Mario seems like the kind of ler that will tickle those who want or need to be cheered up. He will not tickle someone into hysterics (unless he is explicitly told to do so), and he will not overstep any boundaries.

His favorite way to tickle someone who’s has a particularly bad day is to lightly tickle their sides and the bottom of their ribcage to get quiet giggles out of them. He’ll keep it up until one of the following occurs:

His lee tells him to stop. He will always comply with this the request, even if he hasn’t been tickling that person for long.

His lee tells him to increase the intensity of the tickling. He’ll do his best to comply with this request without making it harder for his lee to breathe (unless he is explicitly told to tickle them until they are nearly breathless. He’ll hesitate to go through with this request, but he will eventually fulfill it).

His lee has been cheered up successfully. He’ll retract his hands as soon as his lee tells him that they are in a better mood, but if they tell him to keep going, he will comply.

Unless he is tickling Luigi, Mario will not initiate a tickle fight with anyone. He doesn’t know why, but the idea of getting into a tickle fight with anyone that isn’t his brother sounds unappealing to him (though he will occasionally make an exception).

The idea of teasing anyone who isn’t Luigi also sounds unappealing to him (but once again, he can make an exception), so unless you ask him, he won’t incorporate teasing into his tickling. If Luigi is the lee, then he will let loose a flurry of teases that are meant to make him laugh a little bit more than he already is.

Obviously, Luigi is his main lee, though he will go after Peach and Daisy from time to time. In Smash, Luigi is still his main lee, but he will also target the younger fighters. Out of all of them, Ness and the Inklings are the ones that will be targeted the most.

It’s Luigi time, now! He is definitely a lee in my mind.

I recently made a post about the most ticklish fighter for each Smash game, and how they would get into a tickle fight with one another. In that post, I said that couldn’t come up with an idea as to who the most ticklish fighter of Smash 64 would be. After thinking about it, I decided to give that title to Luigi. I hope the upcoming headcanons will make my reasoning clear.

Luigi is FAR more ticklish than his brother is. He’ll jump at the slightest of touches, regardless of whether or not the touch was intentional. He will squeak if you catch him off guard. He might fall over if you tickle his worst spots. And he secretly loves it all.

He doesn’t like to admit to it, but he enjoys being the lee due to the fact that he is getting attention. It’s not like anyone is intentionally ignoring him, but he definitely lives in his brother’s shadow for the most part. To him, tickling gives him the attention that he secretly craves, and it also gives him the satisfaction of making someone else smile, even if he’s the lee.

His worst spots are his underarms, his stomach, and his ears, but you could tickle him anywhere and he would laugh.

He is VERY squirmy! Seriously, he’s worse than both Pit and Shulk, and those two are even more ticklish than he is! If you pin his arms down to his sides, be careful while you are tickle him, because he could knock you down on accident due to his squirming.

Despite all of this, he won’t try to fight back, unless he’s in a tickle fight. If that’s the case, then he will try to get payback on his ler, even if it ends with him getting tickled to death.

Luigi can easily become overwhelmed by tickling, and he might become scared of you if you go too far with it, even if you didn’t mean to do so. This is another thing that you should take into consideration if you want to tickle him.

I probably should have said this earlier, but I can totally see Mario sending the Polterpup after Luigi if he sees him in a bad mood. I can also see him destroying his brother with tickles as payback for laughing at him at the end of Luigi’s Mansion.

Before I list off the names of his lers, I want to make one final lee!Luigi headcanon. Be warned, this headcanon will contain a spoiler for the plot of Luigi’s Mansion (and a possible spoiler for the plot of Luigi’s Mansion 3).

After the events of Luigi’s Mansion (and possibly Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon and Luigi’s Mansion 3), Luigi would therefore suffer from frequent panic attacks due to trauma. He became afraid of people sneaking up on him, and he fears that something will jump out at him at any given moment. He’s especially afraid of paintings after seeing Mario in one during the first Luigi’s Mansion and Luigi’s Mansion 3.

To help him recover from his trauma, Simon and Richter will tickle him after he makes a full recovery from a panic attack. Overtime, his anxiety will decrease as he begins to replace the terrifying thought of someone coming to harm him with a more positive image of being tickled by Simon and Richter. He hasn’t made a complete recovery just yet, but he is on the right path.

In his homeworld, Luigi’s main lers are Mario, Peach, and Daisy. In Smash, Simon and Richter will join those three, and they will all work together to help Luigi recover from his trauma.

As a ler, he is rather nervous. His nervousness can be compared to Pyra’s nervousness when she was getting used to the idea of tickling other people.

He’s always afraid of something going wrong while he tickles someone. He’s worried about his lee passing out, worried about digging his fingers a little too deeply into someone’s skin, and worried about his lee getting angry at him. Needless to say, he has a hard time with tickling other people, and he might leave his lee lying and waiting on the ground.

If this happens to you, you have two choices. You can either wait it out, or try to help him with calming down. You can even encourage him to tickle you. That way, he’ll know that you are comfortable with him, and he will regain the courage to tickle you.

He doesn’t like to tease his lees (even if his lee is Mario), but unlike his brother, it’s not caused by a lack of interest in teasing people who are not related to him. Instead, it’s due to the fact that he will make himself blush if he tries to tease his lee. He knows that people will take advantage of this weakness, so he won’t tease his lees.

Just like his brother, he won’t engage in tickle fights, unless they involve his brother. However, unlike Mario, he’ll stay away from tickle fights because he knows for a fact that he will likely lose the fight.

In his world, Mario and Daisy are his main lees. This is carried over into Smash, where Simon and Richter will join them (though Luigi tends to tickle them far less often).

And that’s that, I suppose. I’m a little nervous about posting this, but I’ll be brave and post it anyway.

P.S Is Luigi canonically ticklish? I have a feeling that he is, but I’m not entirely sure about that.

[finn-ray-nal-beads]

Flip as Barry Gib for Halloween... your thoughts?

A/N: @maybe-your-left thoughts? I have several... since you’ve asked. I hope ya like it, Kitten 😉. BTW for those who don’t know who Barry Gib is: Lead singer of the Bee-Gees and the song Stayin’ Alive is their most popular hit of the 70′s. 

Warnings: Sub/Dom slurs, Alpha mentions, creampies, cum eating, slight choking, tit slapping, purple nurples (yes I used a Chowder reference thank you), smut in general, Flip is a total Dom, we are total switch, it’s all disco to me baby, playful married banter, slight fluff at the end 

“You want me to what?” Flip scratched his goatee as you were putting the finishing touches on your makeup for the evening. 

“You’re gonna wear these platforms and costume to the party with me,” you popped your lip gloss together, scraping the sides so your lips looked extra shiny and pouted. 

“Platforms?” he chuckled at the thought of it, “sweetheart, I ain’t wearin’ these,” he lifted the white boots to examine their contents as if drugs would fall out of them at any moment. 

“Ummm,” you carefully placed your lash on your right eye, “yes, you are babe,” smoothing it out so it lined up naturally with your other lashes. 

“And why the fuck would I do that, honey,” he dropped them on the floor, lighting a cigarette to keep himself from grouching even more than he already was. 

“Because if you want ANY of this,” you gestured to your bread and butter, “then you’ll do it. Also because you love me unconditionally.” 

He snickered again huffing out a plume of smoke, “is that fuckin’ so?” taking huge steps into the shared bathroom, pressing his large figure into your bent-over backside, “last time I checked, baby doll, I was in charge of things around here.” 

Whispering into your ear, causing a shiver to run up your spine, and goosebumps to form all over your body, “well, it’s Halloween, babycakes,” making yourself as tall as possible, turning around and plucking the lit cigarette from his lips and taking a huge drag, “so roles are kinda reversed for the time being,” smirking as you exhaled the plume from your perfect lips.

“You will do it,” ashing out the butt in the sink, “and you WILL like it,” inching into his open lips, leaving a little peck as you noticed the bulge forming in his jeans. 

Snaking your arm around and patting his ass, “now, get ready, we’re gonna be late, cowboy,” you smiled bright, turning back around to survey yourself in the mirror before moving into the bedroom to put the rest of your ensemble on.  

Flip stood in the bathroom, in utter shock at your forwardness, holding in a breath and looking at himself in the mirror. He’d never been talked to so… harshly before. 

He gathered his pride to walk back into the bedroom, watching you hunched over the bed placing the god-awful shoes on your pretty feet. 

Like the good boy, he was, got dressed in everything but the shoes, staring them down as if they’d disappear to which he’d be grateful for. 

“Baby,” you sang into the room, “are ya ready?” jogging into the OK Corral staredown taking place in your master. 

“Honey,” he whined at you, “I-I don’t wanna wear these stupid things,” huffing and puffing at everything about them. 

“Now, what did I say?” as if speaking to a child. He groaned out as he moved to put the disastrous hooves on his large feet, “I know, I know.” 

Rolling his eyes and standing up to a height he never knew he could achieve, “look at my handsome Barry!” pandering and tugging at the necklace hanging into his open-chested shirt. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he pecked your forehead, “let’s get outta here before I change my fuckin’ mind.” 

“Let’s go boogie, babe!” you giddily smiled pulling him out the door, to the truck. 

_______________

The bar was chalked full of ghouls, goblins, witches, and demons as the both of you meandered to fetch some drinks. Flip towered over the crowd in the heels he wore, so getting the attention of the bartender was easier than usual. With drinks in hand, you went to find your group of friends to start the night off. 

“Well, howdy there Zimmermans!” a familiar voice chimed out, “lookin’ groovy Flip!” a chorus of chuckles and whistles followed as the faces came into view. 

“I know doesn’t my husband look so damn handsome,” petting his chest again as he gave you a death stare. 

“Very!” Ron chuckled lowly, sending Flip’s gaze to burn holes into his chest, “watch your fuckin’ mouth, Rookie.”

Grabbing his beer from his grip, “stop it, Phil, he’s only trying to be funny,” placing them on the group table, “let’s go dance for a minute, honey,” pulling his lumbering figure to the disco lights as the last song faded out. 

You both stand there a minute amongst the crowd waiting for the DJ to spin another tune. All of a sudden, the beat to Stayin’ Alive comes on full blast, and you immediately turn towards your lumberjack in an ecstatic holler. He recants with an eye roll and spins you around a few times before the both of you join the rhythm with your hips and grind on each other like teenagers at a party. 

The final chorus fades out, both of you sweaty and all kinds of hot and bothered, turn to each other and lock lips like it was the first time you’d ever kissed. 

Your tongues dancing in and out of one another, teeth clanking on teeth, if there hadn’t been so many people around you’d hear the suctioning and moaning reverberate on the walls. 

“Bathroom. Now,” he pulls off of you, heading towards the destination with you dragging behind like a lost puppy. 

The second lock is turned in the claustrophobic and dimly lit restroom, he’s on you, caging you in like an escaped animal. 

“You think you can get away with talkin’ tough to me,” he snarled into your ear, rubbing your mound as you brace yourself on the sink, “you forgot who I am to you I guess.” 

Hissing in your ear as the tingling in your spine grew to a full blaze, “well I’ll remind you little whore,” inching another large hand to grip onto your tits with as much force as possible, pinching the sensitive nipple until it was almost bleeding. 

You let out a cry in pleasure as he kept pinching, “who am I to you?” growling at your pain, “use your fuckin’ words slut.” 

You winced as he brought the other hand to grip your other tit, doing the same motions in tandem, making your back arch off the porcelain. 

“Y-you’re my alpha!” you screamed as he twisted even harder on the sensitive buds, “that’s fuckin’ right, honey,” reveling in your pain as your lips dropped open in a huge gasp. 

His primal instincts ripped the jumpsuit you had worn to shreds on the bathroom floor, leaving you completely bare to him. 

“You fuckin’ slut,” he tsked pulling his zipper down and releasing his monster cock from his bellbottoms, “wearin’ nothin’ at all underneath that lil’ number huh? That’s strike two.” 

He chuckled, “bend over on the sink, I’m gonna fuck you so hard, everyone is this bar is gonna know who you belong to.” 

You turned around slightly bending over to get your footing with your platforms, going too slow for Flip’s taste. Gripping the back of your neck, forcing you down just enough so he could line his cock up with your wetness that had formed. 

“Naughty lil’ pussy is so eager for me, huh,” he mused, slipping in his angry cock, inching it in as your walls swallowed it like a good little kitty. 

Once he bottomed out, he wrapped one hand on your throat, pulling you flush with him, and the other in a bruising grip on your hip. Thrusting up into you as you moaned on his cock, gripping your tits for support. 

“Look at you,” his lust blown eyes, gazing at your writhing in the mirror, “so fuckin’ eager for my cock.” 

Your eyes opened to view his member pummeling your squelched entrance in the mirror, “fuck, Phil,” beyond words as you watched your man take you in the bathroom. 

“You want me to fill this whore cunt up?” panting between thrusts as they became more erratic watching your movements in the mirror, “make you sit in it the rest of the night?” 

Just then he moved his hands to push away your grip on your tits, massaging them with his own and then slapping the skin as hard as he could, “You’re all mine, Y/N.” 

He returned both hands to your hips as you slightly bent over. The new angle allowing him to pillage your hole with the most fervor he could muster. 

“All. Fuckin’. Mine,” he grunted out causing your walls to flutter, as you neared your climax. He reached his right hand to circle your aching clit, causing a chorus of moans and cries from your perfectly glossed lips. 

“You gonna cum for me, honey?” he sped up his movements, causing the tingling to spread throughout your abdomen. You rolled your eyes as you came hard on his huge cock, gasping his name out in a chant as he coaxed you through it. 

“That’s my good girl,” he mewled as his hand left your center, returning to your hip as he picked up his own pace towards his release. Your walls closing in and out on him sending him into a state of complete ecstasy as he released his spend into you. 

“Fuck, Y/N,” he panted out as he dumped the last of his seed into your gaping hole, pulling out to see the leakage seep from your pretty little slit. 

“So full of me,” he scooped the mixture causing you to turn around and face him, opening your mouth in submission. 

“Good girl,” he stuffed his thick fingers into you, watching your lips close and suck on the concoction you’d both made. Pulling them out to watch you swallow the rest of it, patting you bare ass when you’d shown him your empty mouth again. 

“God, I love you,” he pulled you flush to him, kissing the sweat sheened on your skin, smelling your scent. You wrapped your arms around his midsection, “I love you too, honey,” kissing his chest and then his lips as he bent low to meet you. 

“Happy Halloween, Barry,” pushing him off of you in a chuckle and grabbing your jumpsuit from the floor, “we should head back out there. I wanna dance a little bit more, please?” 

“Anything for you honey,” he smiled, helping you zip the suit back on, “as long as you don’t fuckin’ sass me like that again.” 

“Well given the reaming I just got, detective,” you winked, “I may just act out once more to see what kind of punishment I’ll get when we get home?” 

Raising your eyebrow as you unlocked the door to walk out, “try me, baby girl,” his pupils dilated watching your smirk grow. 

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve,” leading him out to the crowd of ghosts, goblins, and zombies to finish the night off. 

________________

HOW THE TURNTABLES..... HOPE YOU ALL GOT IN THE HALLOWEEN SPIRIT!

🖤,

ray-nal-beads  

[robinrunsfiction]

Baby, You’re A Haunted House

Pairing: Gerard Way x Female Reader Rating: General (TW for blood, mentions of a suicide) Requested By: None Word Count: 6,330 Author’s Note: Here is my first story for spooky season! I had hoped to have it up sooner, but life has been busy. This story has been in my mind since this spring. I intend on writing a little bit about the location it’s set in because it’s real! It really is a seminary that was converted into apartments in my hometown. I’ll link to the post here when it’s written. And yes, that is a picture of it below!  Also!!! There is a reference to another one of my favorite bands and one of their albums, first person who can correctly point it out wins... a prize? My admiration? Not sure yet, but shout it out if you know it!

It all seemed too good to be true.

(YN)’s roommate had let her know that she was going to be moving out of town for a new job and the thought of looking for a new apartment or roommate was overwhelming. She was dreading the process, but the next day while eating her lunch at work, she spotted an ad in the paper for Holy Name Heights. The description stated the apartments were newly renovated and located in a historic building on the edge of town, so she called right away to set up a tour.

Later that week she was touring the building that had previously been a seminary for many years. The diocese had sold the second and third floors of the sprawling building to a developer who converted the rooms into apartments, while leaving the first floor as office spaces for the diocese, a Catholic charity organization, and a small museum about the history of the church’s presence in the area.

“This place is beautiful,” (YN) marveled at the space. While being only one bedroom, it was spacious, had a washer and dryer so she wouldn't need to haul her laundry anywhere, assigned parking, not to mention a beautiful view, but a question nagged at the back of her mind. “How much is it per month?”

“$850 per month including utilities,” the agent replied with a smile.

“Oh! Ok, yes, I’d love to apply!”

A few weeks later as (YN) was moving her things into her brand new third floor apartment, she realized how quiet the building was. She paused briefly at each door as she walked by, straining to hear if anyone else was there. As she arrived at her own door with another armload of boxes, the door next to hers opened and a dark haired man stepped out. She shot him a quick smile as she fumbled for her keys. 

“Do you need some help?” He asked.

“That’d be great,” she laughed and he took the box from her so she could get her keys straightened out. “I’m (YN).”

“Gerard,” he replied as she got the door open and took the box back from him.

“Have you lived here long?”

“Just moved in last weekend. I’m glad I’m not the only one up here anymore.”

“Wait, seriously? None of these other apartments are occupied?”

“I don’t think so, I haven’t seen many people around. I guess an old seminary might be kind of a hard sell.”

“Yea, I’m not sure I would have considered it either if I wasn’t in a bind. Thanks for the help with the box,” (YN) smiled as she shifted it in her arms.

“No problem, I’ll see ya around,” he smiled before continuing down the hall.

“See ya,” she called after him. (YN) closed the door behind her and shook her head. Cool apartment, good price, cute neighbor. It all seemed too good to be true.

~

The next day (YN) got up, made a pot of coffee and set about unloading the box that held her mug collection. The fact that she didn’t have to share cupboards with a roommate delighted her, as she didn’t have to worry about any of her favorites getting damaged. She put on some music and made her way over to the living room window as the smell of brewing coffee filled the room. 

Her view was of the front of the building. Trees with bare branches lined the hillside that the building sat upon and a long driveway led up to the front of the building. She loved knowing that the leaves would soon be filling those branches, and then in the fall they’d turn beautiful shades of gold, red and orange. She also liked the idea of being able to see who was coming and going up the driveway. 

After enjoying her coffee, she got back to work unpacking her apartment. The hours flew by as the pile of broken down cardboard boxes piled up near her door. As she wiped her sweaty brow, she realized she had no idea what to do with the boxes and trash that had accumulated. Had the agent even shown her where the dumpsters were? Then she had an idea. Gerard.

Should she bother him? She didn’t even know for sure if he was in. She took a deep breath as she approached his door and knocked. She wondered how long she should wait if he wasn’t there, or didn’t want to answer. She’d never interacted much with the neighbors at her old apartment building, so maybe she was being totally obnoxious. (YN) was so deep in her own thoughts that she almost didn’t notice that the door was opening.

“Hey (YN), what’s up?”

“Hi, umm this is probably super dumb, but I don’t know where the recycling bins and dumpsters are. The agent never pointed them out, and I didn’t think to ask until I realized I was knee deep in broken down boxes,” she laughed nervously.

“I can help you carry boxes down,” Gerard offered with a smile.

“You don’t have to do that,” (YN) could feel herself blushing.

“It’s no problem.”

“I mean, if you insist!” (YN) laughed and he followed her back to her door. They each took an armload of boxes and Gerard led the way to the staircase that was at the end of the hallway next to his apartment. (YN) glanced over her shoulder at the dark portion of the staircase that led up to a door, most likely the attic. She quirked an eyebrow in curiosity but continued after Gerard.

“So what do you do?” (YN) asked, breaking the silence that hung between them as they headed down the stairs.

“I’m a comic book writer,” he replied almost sheepishly.

“Oh wow, that’s really cool,” (YN) replied genuinely and Gerard lit up.

“Thanks! A lot of people think it’s kinda lame, but it’s just a different type of writing, ya know?” (YN) nodded in agreement. “What do you do?”

“Boring office work,” she said shaking her head. “I wish I had time to do creative stuff like write or draw.”

“You should try, even if it’s just a little bit at a time,” he said as he opened the door leading out into the bright sunshine. “The dumpsters are back here.”

“Thanks,” (YN) smiled as she dropped her share into the recycling bin. "And maybe I'll try to find some time to write, if inspiration strikes."

"You'd be surprised how ideas can pop up when you least expect them," Gerard replied as they made their way back to their floor.

~

Winter started to melt into spring, and (YN) had settled into the routine of her new apartment life. Or at least she thought she was. 

It quickly became clear that she must have been a lot more absentminded than she realized, and her old roommate must have been picking up her slack. She could have sworn she had more milk left when she put the carton back in the fridge, but when she grabbed it the next morning for her cereal there was almost none left. And then there were all the things that just seemed to disappear for no reason that never reappeared, no matter how hard she looked.

One thing that didn’t seem to disappear was her crush on her neighbor Gerard. Interacting with him also became part of her routine, as it always seemed they were running into each other walking into the building or by the mailboxes.

It just happened that it was one of those lucky days, as (YN) had just walked in with her bags from grocery shopping when Gerard walked by. 

“Hey (YN),” he smiled. 

“Gerard,” (YN) started, trying to stifle a laugh. “ I’m not trying to be mean, but do you know how to cook? I feel like I’ve only ever seen you with take out, but never groceries,” she said nodding to her own bags.

“I know how to cook! I am a functional adult,” he replied with feigned offense.

“If you say so, enjoy your dinner,” (YN) replied as she entered her apartment.

“I’ll prove it to you,” he called just as she was about to shut the door.

She poked her head out the door, eyebrows raised. “Oh really?”

“Tomorrow night? 7 o’clock?”

“I’ll be there,” she replied with a smile. When the door was shut behind her, she couldn’t help but let out a squeal of delight.

The next evening (YN) was digging through her drawers looking for the sweater she wanted to wear to dinner with Gerard, but she absolutely could not find it. 

“This is crazy, I know I saw it when I was putting away laundry,” she muttered to herself. She got up and went over to the closet housing the washer and dryer, in hopes it had just fallen between the machines, or maybe was still in the dryer. She looked all around but found nothing, and trudged back to her room.

‘Wait, I didn’t turn the light off,’ she said, flipping the switch back on with a shake of her head. “I need to get more sleep.”

Giving up the search, she threw on a different top and checked the time. It was a few minutes past 7 and she hurried out the door.

“Welcome to my humble home,” Gerard said with a smile as he let (YN) in.

“Hmm, seems familiar,” (YN) giggled. “Oh dinner smells great!”

“Thank you,” Gerard smiled proudly. “We’ll be having spaghetti and meatballs. Umm, I don’t drink, so I have soda or water,” Gerard offered.

“Water is fine,” (YN) replied as she sat down at the table. “How’d you day go?”

“Good, I think I have a new story I wanna work on,” he answered as he placed plates on the table and sat down himself. “How about you.”

“Pretty boring actually. I’ll have to admit, knowing that we’re gonna be having dinner got me through my day.”

Gerard smiled and (YN) could have sworn she saw a blush creeping across his cheeks as he glanced down. "I'm glad I could help."

Conversation lulled as they dug into their meals, and The Smashing Pumpkins played softly in the background.

"Ok, I have to apologize for that dig yesterday about you not cooking, this is very good,” (YN) smiled.

"I have to admit, I bought the sauce, and the meatballs were frozen," Gerard winced.

“That’s fine! I do the same,” she laughed and Gerard looked relieved.

(YN) was having a wonderful time hanging out with Gerard and she felt like she could listen to him talk forever. He spoke with such passion and enthusiasm, it drew her in and she hung on his words. They laughed and joked and the time flew by until (YN) found herself stifling a yawn and she glanced down at her watch.

"Oh, it's late! I should get outta your hair."

“Well m’lady,” he said, affecting the same posh accent they had been joking around in earlier and bowing before her, “I do hope this evening has lived up to all your expectations.”

“It most certainly has,” she said with a laugh as she curtseyed holding out an imaginary skirt. 

Gerard reached out and took her hand in his and placed a kiss to the back of it, catching her off guard as he looked up at her from behind his lashes. "I hope we can do it again sometime soon."

(YN) nodded. "Yea," she said almost breathlessly. "I'd love that."

Gerard walked her to the door and when she glanced back at him when she reached her own door, he was leaning against his door frame.

"Night," she waved before walking into her apartment and he smiled and waved back.

(YN) could hardly sleep that night, as she was absolutely buzzing.

~

Weekly dinners soon became a tradition between (YN) and Gerard, with both of them taking turns hosting the other. (YN) knew she was terrible at both flirting and picking up when others were flirting with her, but she couldn't help but feel like Gerard might just like her too.There was something about the way his friendly hugs and touches started to linger longer and longer.

One night when they had been hanging out Gerard had casually mentioned going to hang out with his brother on his birthday, so (YN) took it upon herself to bring him his present before he left that day. As she stood at his door, she felt just as nervous as the first time she was at his door asking for help with her boxes. Once again she was totally lost in thought when Gerard opened the door.

"Hey (YN)!" He greeted her.

"Hi! Happy birthday!" She smiled, holding out the plate of chocolate chip cookies and the card she picked out just for him. 

"You remembered my birthday?" He asked, his eyes going wide and pink dusting his cheeks.

"Of course I did!" She laughed. “How could I forget?” She added a little more softly.

The smile grew on Gerard’s face and (YN)’s heart fluttered. “Thanks,” he finally replied, shaking his head. “Hey (YN), I was wondering, if umm, you’d like to maybe like go out on a date, like a real date some time? Don’t feel like you have to say yes just because it’s my birthday.”

(YN) laughed again, and she could feel herself blushing. “Yea, that would be really nice,” she nodded. “And I definitely would have said yes, even if it wasn’t your birthday.”

“Great!” Gerard grinned, but the buzzing of his phone grabbed his attention. "Oh, Mikey's here."

"Have fun with him," (YN) smiled and waved as she turned to go while Gerard grabbed his jacket and keys.

"Wait," Gerard said as he locked the door and jogged over to her, just as she was reaching her door. She looked up at him expectantly and he seemed nervous again before leaning in and placing a chaste kiss on her cheek. "Thanks again for the card."

"No problem," (YN) smiled before ducking into her own apartment to swoon.

~

A few days later, it was finally the day of their first date. Gerard suggested they go to the art museum and grab coffee. Even though they hung out all the time, the fact that this was actually a date made things ever so slightly awkward. As they walked into the museum, their hands brushed a few times before Gerard took her hand in his. She glanced over and smiled up at him and he seemed relieved. They chatted and joked happily as they walked through the exhibits before they went down the street to the cafe.

Finding a table tucked away from the others, they settled in with their coffees. The sun that had been shining when they walked in was soon covered in dark heavy clouds, and big heavy raindrops began to beat at the windows. Something about it made a shiver run down (YN)'s spine, a feeling she’d almost grown accustomed to.

"Gerard, can I ask you something kinda weird?" She asked when there was a lull in the conversation.

"Sure," he nodded.

(YN) sighed and looked down. "This is gonna sound crazy, and maybe I'm going crazy, but sometimes things get moved in my apartment, or I feel like someone or something is watching me. I've checked every inch of it and there's nothing there, but I dunno. Have you ever felt that in your apartment?" She finally looked up and was startled by Gerard's expression.

"Yea," he said softly, a look of unease on his face. "I totally know what you mean. I notice it when I’m at your place mostly, but sometimes when you come around," he trailed off.

"But, I mean, ghosts and stuff aren’t real though, right? Like It’s probably just the vibe of it being an old building.”

“Yea,” Gerard nodded with a tight smile. “Ghosts aren’t real, vampires aren’t gonna hurt you, zombies aren’t gonna eat your brain while you’re at the mall.”

“Right! You are right. I’m sure it will pass.”

After the rain stopped, they headed back to their building and headed up to the third floor, stopping in front of her door.

“I had a lot of fun today,” (YN) smiled.

“Me too,” Gerard nodded. “I, I really like you (YN). I hope we can do this again.”

(YN) grinned and nodded. “I really like you too Gee, and yes I’d really love to go out again as well.”

Gerard’s face lit up, any nervousness alleviated. He reached up, cupping her cheek gently, as her eyelids fluttered closed. He leaned in and pressed his lips against hers softly, before pulling back just as quick.

“I can’t wait to do that again,” Gerard whispered.

“Then do it again,” she replied.

Gerard didn’t hesitate for a second longer, leaning back in and kissing her deeply as she kissed back. His hand found her waist as she clutched his jacket. When they finally pulled back, they were both breathless and smiling.

(YN) knew that it was the start of something special.

~

Summer arrived with warm weather and abundant sunshine, but that didn’t stop the cold drafts that would breeze through (YN)’s apartment, even when the air conditioning was off. But then the noises started. Thumps and knocks in the middle of the night, jolting her awake. Once she was convinced someone was hammering frantically on her door. In the middle of the night. She jumped out of bed and rushed to the door, checking through the peephole to see who was there. But there was no one. 

The solution that seemed to be working best was spending as much time away from the apartment, specifically out with Gerard. From picnics in the park, to going to movies, cafes, wandering around book stores or comic book shops for hours, (YN) loved every moment of it.

One evening they were watching a movie in her apartment, happily curled up on the couch together when the thumps in the wall began behind them.

“What was that?” Gerard asked, startled.

(YN) sighed. “No idea. It’s been like this for a while now. I called the maintenance guy, but he doesn't think anything is in the walls. It’s why I’ve been so tired lately, I haven’t been sleeping, like at all.”

“Do you wanna come stay over at my place tonight? Maybe you’ll sleep better,” he offered.

(YN) smiled back at him. “Ok sure,” she nodded. When the movie was over, she changed into pajamas and they made their way back over to his apartment for the night. The next morning when she woke up, she stretched and sighed happily as Gerard held her close.

“Sleep well?” Gerard asked sleepily.

“Mmhmm,” she replied, looking up at him. She reached up and brushed away the hair that was falling across his face. “Best I have in a long time.”

“You’re welcome here anytime you want, sugar,” he said leaning in and kissing her sweetly.

"I worry that I'll overstay my welcome if I’m over here that often," (YN) laughed.

"Not possible, sugar," he said with a smile. "I love getting to spend my nights with you. Days too. I guess what I’m trying to say is I love you, (YN)."

“I love you too Gerard,” she replied before leaning in and kissing him deeply.

~

September arrived and Gerard was going to be gone for the weekend with a few of his friends on a guy’s trip for his brother Mikey’s birthday. (YN) was a little nervous at first about being alone at night, to the point where she was considering going to visit her parents for the weekend. Surprisingly, she was able to sleep through the night without any noises or strange occurrences waking her up.

The next morning she got up and went to retrieve a mug from the cupboard for her morning coffee. Without warning, a glass flew down from the top shelf, smashing into her forehead. (YN) yelped in surprise and stumbled back, glass shards littering the floor. Tentatively she reached up and touched just above her brow and when she pulled back, her fingers were covered in blood.

"Shiiiiit," she groaned as she carefully stepped over the broken glass on the floor and made her way to the bathroom. Flipping on the light, she felt nauseous at the sight. Blood dripping from the gash landed and streaked down her cheek like tears, accenting the dark circles under her eyes that she just couldn't shake after so many nights of interrupted sleep. She looked like death.

"Gee must really love me if this is what he's looking at every day," she muttered as she dabbed away at the blood with a washcloth.

A few hours later while walking out the emergency department with a fresh set of stitches, she decided she may as well fill in Gerard.

Happy friday! guess where i just left!

From Gerard 💖: Work let you take a half day?

Hospital 😬 

She dropped her phone back into her purse as she made her way across the parking lot, but by the time she got the door unlocked, Gerard was calling her.

"What happened?!" He asked frantically as soon as she picked up.

(YN) sighed. "A glass fell out of my cupboard and I got a cut above my eyebrow. Just a couple stitches and I wanted to make sure they got all the glass out," she replied, downplaying the accident. She knew he'd be back in a few days and he'd know she wasn't telling the whole truth about the cut, but she didn't want him to worry or end his trip early.

"But you're ok? Do you want me to come back?"

"Yes, I'm ok. But no, don't cut your trip short, I'm gonna go straight over to my parents for the rest of the weekendI think. It's one thing when we're losing sleep with weird noises, it's another to be attacked like this."

"You… you think," he sighed, seeming to be choosing his words carefully. "That a ghost did it?" Gerard asked in a hushed tone.

"If the glass was off balance and simply fell out of the cupboard it would have gone straight down. This was thrown at me, Gee. There was force behind it."

"Fuck," Gerard muttered. "I'm sorry sugar."

"Don't worry, I'm ok, I promise."

~

(YN) was grateful that Gerard believed what she told him about the haunting of her apartment. He could have easily dismissed her or her fears as crazy and ghost her, but he didn't. He was just as concerned about the situation and her wellbeing. After that weekend they began talking about moving out as soon as their leases were up. 

It had been a couple weeks when Gerard had a meeting in the city that was going to run late into the evening, so (YN) was stuck spending the night alone in her own apartment for the first time since the attack.

As she got in bed, she wondered how long it would be before she would be woken up at night. The noises always managed to cut right through her slumber to wake her, no matter how exhausted she was when she fell asleep. And exhausted she was as her eyelids were heavy as soon as her head hit the pillow.

She wasn't sure what time it was when the noise woke her up, but she sat up in bed and looked at the ceiling. It sounded like skittering, and she wondered if it might be something as innocent as an animal stuck in the attic. 'Wouldn't it be something if it was some animal all along,' she thought as she laid back down and closed her eyes again.

What felt like only moments later she opened them again, but she was not in her room. She wasn’t even in her apartment.

“Gerard?”

He looked up from where he was sitting on the floor in front of his couch with a look of concern and fear on his face unlike any she had seen before. “(YN), are you ok?”

“No, I’m- why am I in your apartment?”

“I was asleep and some noise up in the attic woke me up, but before I could fall back asleep there was this loud bang and I went up to check what was going on because it sounded different from anything before, and you were up there on the floor like you fainted. You didn't even stir until just now when you woke up.”

(YN) shook her head. “I heard the noise too, but I went back to sleep, I didn’t even get out of bed, I went right back to sleep until I just woke up here. What could have made me faint if I wasn't even awake and can’t remember what I saw?”

Gerard ran his hand through his hair, considering her question and when he spoke, his voice shook slightly. “I… I dunno (YN). After I brought you down from the attic, I went back to your apartment so I could put you in your own bed and your door was locked.”

“But that’s not possible unless I took my keys and locked it behind me. Should we go up and look for them upstairs?”

“No!” Gerard said quickly. “I mean, I don’t want to make you stay here if you don’t want, we can call the maintenance line to let you in, but I don’t wanna go up there again. Tonight, I mean.”

(YN) climbed off the couch and sat next to him on the floor. “I’ll stay here, you know that's fine but,” she paused, taking a deep breath. “What did you see up there Gee?”

He shook his head, looking down at his hands. “We can talk about it in the morning? It’s late.”

(YN) swallowed hard and nodded. "Yea, that's a good idea."

Gerard got up, offered her a hand, helping her up. He placed a kiss to the back of her hand before leading the way to his room.

(YN) always felt safe with Gerard's arms wrapped around her holding her tight, but it was still a very poor night of sleep for both of them. The next morning (YN) and Gerard were sitting in his living room, sipping coffee in silence before (YN)'s curiosity got the best of her.

"Can you tell me what you saw up there now?" (YN) asked suddenly. 

Gerard looked up at her, the dark circles under his eyes matching hers. He sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. "Do you really wanna know?"

(YN) nodded. "I wanna understand what happened last night. Well as much of it as I can."

Gerard drew a deep breath. "Ok. I went up there when I heard the second bang. I was kinda surprised the door was open. And then I was shining my flashlight around and," he drew in a breath and shook his head. "I thought I saw someone at the far end of the attic, but my flashlight went through him. I started to panic and that's when I realized you were on the floor. I grabbed you and carried you back down here and, well you know the rest."

"You saw the ghost?" (YN) asked, her voice cracking with fear.

Gerard nodded solemnly. "I think so."

~

Gerard's words kept ringing through (YN)'s mind. There was no denying it now, she was being haunted by a ghost. She was, generally speaking, freaked out about the whole situation, but also a little curious. That's when she remembered the museum on the first floor.

The space was small, no larger than an office. Shelves were filled with books and bibles, and old black and white photos lined the walls, but one picture stood out as different from the rest. An elderly woman stood before it, gazing up at the portrait of the young man.

"Excuse me, do you know any of the history of this building?"

The elderly woman tore her eyes off the photo and looked back at (YN). "Well, I should say I do. What can I help you with?"

"I don't know how to ask this delicately, but, umm, is there any reason to believe that it might be haunted?"

The elderly woman nodded slowly. "Well, yes, I suppose there would be," she replied before glancing back at the portrait. "This was my brother, Joshua. He was in the seminary and was going to become a priest when he met her."

"Her?"

"Elenora. She was beautiful," she paused, studying (YN) for a moment, "actually you remind me of her. But he was so conflicted, he wanted to be a priest, but he was so enchanted by her. He convinced himself, and her, that the only way they could be together was in death."

"Oh no," (YN) gasped.

She nodded. "They were to jump together from the roof. He went first, she never went."

"I'm so sorry," she replied softly.

"It was 60 years ago. I had known Elenora my whole life, so I blamed myself for introducing her into his life, but I didn't blame her! I still don't. I don't admit this to many people, but we're still friends."

"You have a very forgiving heart," (YN) smiled. "Thank you for telling me all that."

She nodded. "That is what I am here for," she replied as she walked around to a small desk and picked up a dust rag before turning back to one of the shelves.

(YN) made her way back to her apartment and shut the door. "Joshua, if that's you, please leave me alone," she said. 

Nothing happened and (YN) shrugged.

~

The cool fall weather settled in and October was filled with the warm glow of red, yellow, and orange leaves on the trees outside, but by Halloween, the branches were blown bare, leaving dark, imposing branches reaching toward the sky.

Gerard's friend Frank invited them to his house for a Halloween party, and to celebrate his birthday.

A night out, dressed as Bonnie and Clyde, was exactly what they both needed after all the time they spent living in a real life haunted house for almost a year now. (YN) also loved spending time with Gerard's friends. They quickly made her feel welcome and made her future with Gerard seem even better.

It wasn't too terribly late when they decided to call it a night and headed home. "I'm gonna go change and I'll be over," (YN) said before heading into her apartment. Gerard nodded and headed to his own door.

She kicked off her shoes and dropped her jacket over the back of the chair when she felt a cold rush of air blow past her. She closed her eyes as a shiver ran through her whole body. When she opened them, again the cold air was surrounding her, wind blowing her skirt around as a freezing rain started to pelt her arms and face. Frantically she looked around, realizing she was on a rooftop. Before she could get her bearings, phantom hands were on her, pushing and pulling her toward the edge.

"No! No! Get off of me! Let go!" She screamed, flailing her arms, trying to shake off the attack. She seemed to break free and started to run toward the hatch to the attic.

The hands grabbed her ankle and sent her tumbling to the rough surface of the roof. When she looked over her shoulder, a figure made of a shadowy mist was pulling her by the leg toward the edge.

"No! Stop it! No!" She screamed again, her hands scratching at the roof, trying to make purchase.

From behind her she heard a bang. She looked up and saw Gerard at the opening to the attic. "(YN)!"

"Gee! Help!"

"Let her go!" Gerard commanded as he ran to (YN), pulling her off the ground and wrapping her in his arms protectively. She buried her face against his shoulder as she clutched his shirt. "Are you ok? I got you sugar, you’re safe now."

"No, no I'm not ok," she sobbed.

"Come on, let's get inside."

Gerard helped her down the ladder and carried her down the stairs to his apartment. He set her down in the bathroom and set to work cleaning the cuts across her hands, legs, and feet.

"Gee, I don't wanna stay here tonight, I can’t stay here anymore, I have to move or I’m gonna end up dead!" (YN) cried as Gerard wiped the blood away from her palm.

"I know sugar, I'll get you cleaned up and we'll go find a hotel room tonight, ok?" (YN) sniffled and nodded in agreement. “And then in the morning we’re gonna find a new place to live, you and me.”

(YN) had been watching as he worked, but hearing him say that she looked up at him. “Together? Even after all this? What if it follows me?!"

He reached up and wiped away the tears that were rolling down her cheek. “Together. Nothing's gonna come between us, not even a ghost."

A smile finally broke across her face as he placed bandages on the worst cuts. Then she finally changed out of her soaked and bloodied Halloween costume and into a pair of Gerard's sweatpants and an old hoodie. She didn't have shoes, but she didn't care. She wasn't going back into her apartment until the day she was going back to pack it up and move out. And even then, she was considering hiring someone to do it for her.

"Ready to go?" He asked when she walked out of his room.

"Let’s get away from here," she nodded and he took her hand. They hurried through the cold rain to his car and she sighed as she sunk into the passenger seat. She finally felt free.

Gerard started down the long tree-lined drive when suddenly a large tree limb came crashing down in front of them. (YN) screamed as Gerard slammed on the breaks.

"Shit! Are you ok?" He asked breathlessly.

"Look!" She whimpered, pointing a shaking finger out the window. Gerard looked as well at the ghastly figure on the other side of the branch. Gerard put the car in park and unbuckled his seatbelt.

"Gee, what are you doing? Gee? Gerard! Stop it, get back in here!" She cried frantically as he got out of the car. Not knowing what else to do, she scrambled out as well.

"Give her to me!" The phantom wailed, striking cold terror through her. "I gave my life for my love, she belongs to me!"

"This is not your love!" Gerard shouted back.

She moved to stand next to Gerard, interlacing her fingers with his. "I'm not Elenora! I've never done you wrong!" She pleaded. "Gerard is my true love! Let us pass!"

The phantom's face contorted, snarling, teeth growing long, fingers becoming claw-like. (YN) screamed in fright as Gerard stepped in front of her. As the ghost launched at them, headlights came up the drive, shining bright in their eyes, and the phantom faded into nothing.

The other car stopped and the driver got out. "Need help moving that branch outta the way? Woah, you two look like you've seen a ghost," the man laughed.

Gerard shook his head and looked back at (YN) sympathetically. "Well, it is Halloween."

~

A few months later (YN) and Gerard had settled into their new place. There was nothing in the new place that (YN) would describe as too good to be true. Their commutes were longer, they had to go to the laundromat to do laundry, and they were paying more in rent, but they were together and they finally had peace. And that was worth every penny.

“Hey Gee,” (YN) said as she padded into the living room one Saturday afternoon, holding something behind her back.

“Yea sugar?”

“So I’ve been working on something. I’m not sure it’s any good, but I think it’s finally ready for you to look at.”

Gerard sat up and looked up at her curiously. “What is it?” (YN) handed him a binder. “The Haunting on Holy Name Hill."

“A long time ago, back when we first met, you said I should try writing or drawing if I’m interested in it because you never know when inspiration will strike, and since moving out of that awful place I’ve been trying to wrap my head around everything that happened. So I started writing about it," she shrugged. "I fictionalized some of the events and changed our names, but can you read it and tell me if it’s any good?”

“(YN) I’m so proud of you,” he said with a smile as he got up and wrapped her in a hug. “I’m gonna read it right now.”

“If you insist. I’m gonna go to the laundromat.”

A while later when (YN) came back, Gerard wasn’t on the couch where she’d left him. “Hey Gee, did you finish reading it yet?”

“Yep,” she heard him reply as he came back from the second bedroom they’d set up as his office. “And I have something to show you too.”

“What’s that?”

“First of all, wow, the story is so well written!” he grinned.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously, you’re a natural! And second, look,” he said handing her a stack of drawings.

“What are these?”

“I was thinking, if you want, we could pitch your story as a graphic novel and these are some drawings I did when I was reading it. This is your character, this one is me.”

“Gee, these are amazing! And you really think that it’s publishable?”

“I really do,” he nodded.

“Ok yea, let’s do it. Other than being the place where we met, there should be some kind of good that comes from that awful place. And maybe serve as a warning to everyone else about things that seem too good to be true."

[jippy-kandi]

Digimon Adventure: 2020 – Episode 1: Tokyo: Digital Crisis! (Review)

Thoughts on the first episode of the Digimon Adventure reboot series.

Disclaimer: I just want to make it clear that I’m watching and reviewing Digimon Adventure: 2020 in the context of it being a children’s anime -- because that’s what it is. By design, it’s obviously going to be “dumb” to the mind of the average adult. But that’s OK, because it’s for kids. And for a first episode aimed at children? It was pretty good.

The opening credits were 99% Taichi and I don’t like it if it’s permanently going to be this way. But I’m hoping that it will change to perhaps be character-centric to the person being “highlighted” in a particular episode, going through all eight kids, until there’s a permanent one where all eight are equally in it. I also hope the same for the ending credits.

I noticed that Angemon and Angewomon were missing from the opening credits, whereas the other digimon evolutions are shown. So I assume they’re following in OG Adventure’s footsteps and doing the whole “special angel” evolution reveal? I’m OK with that. It seems really interesting how they’re setting up Takeru and Hikari to be included this time (as they were both missing in the ending credits with the other five standing opposite Yamato . . .).

Both the opening and ending songs are fine, but I prefer the original songs, especially Butter-Fly. You are missed, Kouji Wada. <3

The art and animation of this series is really good. Toei Animation are really putting money into this series. I’m impressed.

I have mixed feelings about how they chose to introduce the characters. On the one hand, I think utilising just two characters is great to really highlight them to the audience and not overwhelm them with too much information. But on the other hand . . . I think introducing all eight characters in the first episode would make it appeal to more kids, because they can easily identify with one kid and keep watching the series. But a kid might watch this first episode, not like Taichi or Koushirou, and just switch off from the series completely. But I think what they went for is probably best for how they plan to introduce the characters (particularly regarding what they have in store for Yamato being a lone wolf who joins them later).

Taichi was a bit too generic to me. But, it’s only the first episode, so this isn’t a real criticism -- I’m sure he’ll be fleshed out as the series progresses. He also seems more responsible than OG Taichi. And while I do like his new voice, I think Toshiko Fujita was a lot better; she managed to convey more personality in her voice.

Koushirou was actually quite “cute”. But I’m not sure I totally like that he’s being portrayed as shy . . . he never seemed shy to me in the original series, but just a kid who was super absorbed in his own tech world. But his shyness did make him more endearing? I’m just not used to it so I find it a bit unsettling. But it does “humanise” him more and thus makes him more relatable, rather than just a distant tech nerd, so I guess it’s a positive? I also really like his voice.

I am liking the Taichi/Koushirou friendship a lot. You can tell Koushirou is going to completely idolise Taichi for making him feel included and “useful”. And let’s be real: Koushirou has always been the most underrated character when it comes to popularity, relative to actual impact on the plot, because he’s actually the one who solves almost everything and he doesn’t get nearly as much credit for it as he deserves in the fandom. It’s nice that they’ve spotlighted him with Taichi in this episode.

So apparently Mimi’s family owns a conglomerate because they made both Koushirou’s tablet computer and Takeru’s hat? I always thought the weird “TK” scrawled on his hat was for his name (TaKeru or T.K.), but apparently it’s for TachiKawa! Wow, Mimi is insanely rich this time around (moreso than the first). Princess indeed!

Takeru’s design is so freaking adorable. I still think his clothes are a bit off, but his face is so adorable! And I didn’t really think that of OG Takeru. I mean . . . I guess he was kind of adorable, but not overwhelmingly so like this one! He hasn’t said one line but, OMG, the cuteness. *SQUISH*

Did anyone notice that in Takeru’s room, there is a poster of an ASTRONAUT? OMG I loved that! What a nice throwback to Yamato’s future career in OG Adventure (and thus to the 02 epilogue!). I can imagine reboot Yamato idolising astronauts and influencing Takeru into liking them, too. Awesome Easter egg there!

So the Crests are showing up right from the start. No rehash of finding the Tags and Crests, then! (Or will they find the physical forms later?) I really like how different from OG Adventure it already is, while keeping touches of the old as well. Toei have done a good job with mixing the old and new so far. Keep it up!

I thought Taichi’s meeting with Agumon was super cute and quite “realistic” with Taichi reaching his hand out to “pet” Agumon! Though Taichi is obviously more courageous than the average person, because uh, I would be afraid that dino would bite my hand off, lol.

I thought Agumon’s evolution “sequence” to Greymon was really cool, but at the same time, I did miss an actual evolution sequence like the OG one. It’s probably just nostalgia making me feel that way. I can accept this new version though! It feels very “updated”.

It was very fast-paced compared to OG Adventure. I’m not sure I entirely like that Agumon evolved so easily and so quickly to Greymon in the very first episode, but it also didn’t seem to hinder the episode. But where do they go from here? What do they have planned to pad out this series if things happen so quickly? I’m intrigued to find out!

Oh, remember how I said less than 24 hours ago that I might not even like reboot Yamato? Yeah, well . . . throw that idea out the window, because the dude had two seconds at the end of this episode and HE ALREADY WON ME OVER lmao. He had NO LINES and was still the highlight of the episode for me. My attachment to him is insane. (Of course, I’m hoping he doesn’t turn out to be a super douche, lol.) I like that he was “chosen” before Taichi and was in the Network before him. What have you been up to in there, Yamato?

While I LOVED the ending credits, as I said before, I hope it changes to be central for each specific character (going through all eight kids), before there is a permanent main ending that includes all the characters equally. I really don’t like how Toei Animation seems to forget that there are EIGHT CHARACTERS and not just two. Come on, Toei, do the right thing!

But . . . let’s talk about the ending credits. IT WAS AMAZING. It characterised Yamato so much without him saying a word. I love that he’s still a lone wolf, that music is still a big part of his life (a bass at 11!), and that his love for Takeru is still so genuine. There was also a pivotal scene where it shows Jou, Mimi, Taichi, Sora and Koushirou standing together, and Taichi smiles at Yamato, who hesitantly steps forward to join them. I loved that! It made me think about the discarded plot where “Yamato might’ve separated from the group entirely” -- it seems like this is a reverse version and I can’t wait to see it play out. The scene that inspired that discarded plot idea was when Yamato decides to fight Taichi, and Sora yells at him to stop -- and I just loved her reactions to him throughout that arc. Especially because, if Taichi had turned on the group, I think Sora’s first instinct would be to conk him over the head -- but she gives Yamato a massive pass and then supports him to separate from the group to find himself. My Sorato thoughts are already swirling about how Sora will react to Yamato in this reboot! Will she hate him at first? Will she ask him to join? Oh my, they haven’t even interacted in this reboot and I’m already shipping them, lmao. I hope Sorato still have a connection in this reboot!

Overall, I liked it for a children’s anime. And I never would have watched it if it wasn’t a reboot with the original Adventure cast, as I have only seen a few episodes of Tamers, Frontier and Savers . . . and a few seconds where Yamato shows up in Xros Wars, lol. I’m not interested in Digimon, I’m interested in the Adventure cast. So I’m really glad this reboot exists! I’ll happily watch all episodes of this series because it’s more of my kids goddamnit. XD

Oh, and I just want to apologise that even though the episode was focussed on Taichi and Koushirou, I used screenshots of Yamato and Sora for the episode post . . . I’m sorry, I’m a Sorato blog! XD;

I think I will do a weekly Digimon Adventure: 2020 “review”, because the episodes are only 20-ish minutes long and it’s easy enough to consume and write about. And even if I might not have a lot to say about a particular episode, I can still spam Sorato screenshots, lol. :P

I can’t wait for the next episode! Because: YAMATO. <3

[thebraingremlinsaremad]

Daily Blog #15: August 22, 2021

Dollar Tree is honestly pretty fucking awesome 👌👌👌

I set my alarm for like 6:25 this morning, but it took 6 minutes for the "Horsin' Around" theme song instrumental to wake me up. I was pretty tired lol. I just dismissed it and went back to sleep.

I only went back to sleep because I knew I had another alarm set for 7:00. That got me up.

I should mention that this was still in the RV over an hour away from the house.

After I got up, I went to go get a shower, and did so successfully.

Unfortunately, I had forgotten my brush this time and had to do it afterwards after my hair had a bit of time to dry, which did make it a little more difficult lol.

I got dressed and grabbed my stuff, putting it into my car.

I made it a point to see and say "see you later" to my grandparents before I left for the flea market.

My dad insisted that I stayed to say goodbye to my mom, so I left.

I did NOT have cell service up there, as was mentioned in my previous 2 blogs of which I could only post today, so finding my way was a tiny bit difficult until I got some service to ask Google to take me to "...".

It worked and I got there.

On my drive, I listened to 1 by Simple Kid, a CD I had previously purchased at a Dollar Tree location.

I got a call from the guy at the flea market saying that I had some people there waiting for me. He asked how far away I was, to which I said "about 10 minutes." Ironically, that call made me miss my exit, as Google couldn't talk during the call, and added about 3 minutes to my arrival time lmao.

I did sell the Xbox that he said someone was interested in. I got $40 for it. I spent 27¢ on it. Pretty good return if you ask me.

I couldn't sell it with anything other than a power cord because the controller and AV cables I had been using to play it there were for my personal console. I'm just glad I can actually hook my Xbox up and stop having to drag them to the flea market along with a small library of games.

Not too long after I sold the Xbox, someone came in and asked if I wanted to see some electronics he had in his car. I went out with him. It was a pair of 3ft speakers and a Pioneer audio system with dual cassette decks (although neither of them works) and a 25 Disc CD-changer, as well as the standard AM/FM tuner. Additionally, there was a Fisher amplifier and AM/FM tuner as well as a Fisher Direct Drive turntable. He said he wanted $60 for em, but before that he casually, and probably accidentally, dropped that he was just gonna take em to the thrift store.

Big mistake.

I got em for $35 lmao. THERE GOES MOST OF MY PROFIT.

Oh well.

I tested everything. As I mentioned, the cassette decks don't work, but everything else does apart from the turntable needing a new stylus.

I posted some new photos of the shop to Facebook, and someone soon DMed me about a stereo system.

I priced everything, and it turns out I have about $300 worth of equipment from that deal, the Fisher amp and tuner being worth about $150.

The buyer will hopefully show up next weekend, for he wants to buy the Fisher stuff ($185 with the turntable), the 3ft speakers, an 8-track deck, and a Kenwood deck we've had for a week or two.

The speakers are listed for $50 (and are worth around $100-150), the Kenwood Deck for $50 as well, and the 8-track for $35. That makes it about $320 in equipment. Since he's buying so much, I'll knock it down to $270 and essentially give him the speakers or cassette deck for free lol.

Apart from that stuff, not much happened at the flea market. I sold some records, cassettes, CDs and I think 2 DVDs. One person bought a VHS tape? That money was the other guy's though. Oh well xD.

I can't say that I didn't miss my wonderful partner while on the trip. I actually brought along the stuffed animal they gave me (who's name is Greg) and snuggled with him both nights.

I was very happy to hear from them UwU.

They let me rant and I let them rant.

I honestly give them too much responsibility over me xD. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna do this. HOLD ME TO IT."

I know I can't hold myself to anything I personally say (this blog being the only exception apparently), but I listen to them pretty well I think 🤔. If they tell me, "No, you don't need that VCR," so long as it's not some weird specialty thing, like a worldwide VCR 🥵, I'll be like "Yeah, you rite bro."

I love you man xD. You control my craziness pretty well. I'm so thankful for you UwU.

#relationshipgoals

So part way through the flea market day, I went over to Dollar Tree to buy some snack, but ended up looking through the CDs to see if there was anything good. I took photos of about 18 CDs and flipped through them online for the remainder of the flea market day.

I deleted the photos of the ones I didn't want and kept those that I liked. Surprisingly, I ended up buying 13 CDs there, but not before dropping them on the floor like the dumbass I am.

Also, sorry for all the nerd shit I spilled on your lap earlier. No one cares about amps and tuners xD.

I'M LISTENING TO ONE OF THE DOLLAR TREE CDS RIGHT NOW THO.

I already transferred over to my online library on iBroadcast and put the disc into my CD changer, which is now holding 164 CDs.

Its max capacity is 300 discs 🥵

WHY AM I NERD

Oh well

I like being a nerd gurl

Also maybe a technosexual 👀

I get really excited over some electronics. Like. REALLY excited.

Some editing VCRs are like "Holy shit that is SEXY. Look at those goddamn VU meters 🥵. And hhhh there are like 7 inputs on this thing and individual controls for left and right audio gain, not to mention Hi-Fi S-VHS recording. Hhhhhhhhhhh please gimme 😭. Why are you so expensive?"

I uh, mean, uh, *cough* look, pretty lights.

Oh yeah, I was gonna say the album I was listening to xD. MAN I GOT SIDETRACKED.

It's 37 Everywhere by Punchline. Def give it a listen; it's pretty heccin good.

Another notable album I picked up was Page One by Steven Page. I very much like the first track, "A New Shore." It's quite catchy and he has a great voice imo.

Also at dollar tree, I bought a regular bag of Fieras and 2 bags of Fieras Sticks, which were marked down to 75¢/bag because they're expiring soon.

I honestly like the generic Dollar Tree version of Takis more than actual Takis. They're a lot more flavorful when it comes to the lime, but also hotter at the same time.

Don't get the hot nacho ones tho. Hot nacho? More like hot pile of shit.

HAH

Goteem.

They're not that good xD.

THE REGULAR ONES ARE FIRE THO

"How do you do fellow kids?"

I got home and started working on putting the CDs onto my computer, and then onto iBroadcast, but not without first adding The Music Man to my digital library, something I had neglected for a month or two. The CD had just been sitting there lol.

I also switched my digital file for "The Black Parade" to that of the uncensored CD, which I had purchased before I event started working over 2 months ago.

MAN I'M LAZY

I eventually get around to shit tho lol. I guess it's just a matter of priority.

What usually takes priority is digging through everything to find something that I forgot about but then remembered, making a mess in the process that I would then have to clean up, at least partially.

I think the album just ended. I've been writing for a while xD. I'ma start "I Made You Something" by The Island of the Misfit Toys.

I'll tell you where that album came from in a minute.

In the meantime, where was I?

I kinda lost my train of thought despite reading up to see where I was. Oh well. On I go.

I ate dinner and kept working on those CDs, eventually putting my clothes from the week into the washer.

I FORGOT TO PUT MY SHAPING UNDERWEAR IN. FUCKING HELL MAN.

I wanted to wash em for this week 😭

No tight pants for Leonna I guess qwq.

Meanwhile, the box of my CD album cases is overflowing. I need another box.

I keep all of the album artworks in a big CD folder. That's almost full.

I wanna fill my entire CD changer. That's one of my big goals in life. Idk why, but I just wanna legitimately fill the entire thing.

My clothes are in the dryer now. I don't think I have the time (or energy) to fold them tonight. I'll leave that for tomorrow morning before work.

And God. Fucking. Damnit. I start school again on Wednesday. NOT looking forward to that, and neither are my 2 coworkers. We already have low enough staff, but only the two of them working is gonna be a pain in the ass.

I'll still work Saturdays.

I need to contact my guidance counselor to get out of the gym class I signed up for. I scheduled this shit before I found out I was trans, and I don't wanna deal with the fucking locker room situation 🙄 I have far more important matters.

Okay so anyway, the album I'm listening to came from a cassette. I bought this cassette a few months ago at the flea market along with a few others. The reason I bought them? They were all newer cassette releases from the 2010's, and they're all actually pretty good music from very indie bands.

Currently getting mad at iBroadcast's compression algorithm. It's unnaturally fucking anything over -10db up. Oh well, there's not really anything I can do about it.

I have like 13GB of music on my phone btw. That's about 3.5k songs on 268 albums.

I'm kind of an audiophile, but I'm too cheap to pay for a lossless service. Oh well.

They do actually have a lossless service on iBroadcast, but once again, too cheap.

Someone just sent me a friend request who legitimately posted that BLM and the democratic party are hate groups.

BLOCK.

Goodbye ho.

I don't get that. They call the democratic party a hate group when they hate people like me, and I, being more of a democrat although not fully because the 2-party system is fucked, think nothing more of them than they're very wrong about certain things, especially, as shown, that black people, as well as asian, Indian, native, and people of all ethnicities and backgrounds, are not equal to white people.

Yeh.

Totally.

You go buddy.

Anyway, yeah, I can, and do, convert music and video from analog formats to digital files in order for me to archive and listen to whenever and wherever I please. I've actually made a bit of a business out of it, but I don't get too much work from it. At least I'm not overloading myself xD.

I honestly have so much more to say, but I should probably go to sleep soon.

A few final shoutouts to the following people and companies:

-Dollar Tree

-Steven Page

-Broken World Media

-The Island of Misfit Toys

-Simple Kid

-Punchline

-My incredible partner QwQ I love you so much. Thanks for being the best all the time. I hope I can give you the best life ever.

Anyway I suppose this is goodnight. Lmk if you want a full list of the CDs I bought today! I'll link that song by Steven Page here.

And here's a good song from Simple Kid

I really like music lol. Enjoy these pieces.

Anyway, goodnight lol.

Lots of love,

-Leonna.

[flow-green]

19-08-2021

 “I think I’ve never had more chaotic year than this one,” I confessed one evening when we drove in a car somewhere. My SO gave me a warm look and I checked to the back seat where my Charlie-baby was sleeping. If somone would have told me year and a half ago that 2021 will be a true turnaround in my life, when I will throw away all the life chains and take full control, I would have rolled mye eyes and gotten back to my endless vicious circle of career. I think ever since 17-years old I have followed the norms the society has set up: graduate high school, sprint through university, meanwhile make sure you work so you won’t get drowned in depts, get a job for your field of interest, in the meantime take some loan for some random house and if you have a moment, please, make some babies. Ever since I was a child, I knew right away: that’s not me. I don’t know what it is that makes me want to break these frames. But, oh well, there is no point to raise my voice for my own good as all the other people around me are nicely stable in the system. Some of my exes are on the same line: if you are not a parent by age 31 and do not own a gorgeous house in the suburbs while paying a sickly huge loan, meanwhile ignoring your family, friends and hobbies to make ends meet just so you could work yourself to deah by age 40, then you are a loser.

Few weeks ago in Saaremaa, while tipping my toes and feet into the warm and comforting waters of Estonian sea, I realized where I have drifted with my life. Only now I have started to realized that, f**k me sideways, I am actually a living human being. A LIVING person. I LIVE.

About 2 months ago, near summer solstice, I finally felt the finalizing ticking in my brain that pushed me gently to the edge of unknown. “Will you?” the life asked and motioned me to jump. “Or will you stay here forever, wondering what’s down there?” And so, with shivering hands, I clicked ‘send’ button on the mail that delivered my resignation letter to my boss. Done. Over half a year full of mental terror and a slow suicide will come to an end. At this point I had insane regrets. How am I supposed to throw away an opportunity and 6-year long career just because I do not want to live anymore? Now you’re probably thinking I am being a drama queen and overexaggerating. Oh, dear god, no. There were days, where everything started to tumble down in one go: my love life, my family relations, friends and work relations. On these days I switched myself and my phone off, listened to some serious melancholic tunes, sat alone for hours or drove around with a car and now, admitting for the first time: I hoped that something will happen and I do not need to live here anymore. I admitted this once also in my therapy, that I have frozen up while driving, not really giving a damn about my leg on gas pedal and about the speed.

I am once again a fat, useless, lazy, clumsy, slow and unorganized. Blessed with sore black eyes, a girl with unstable nervs and flaked nails. And all this just to give myself to a work which does not appreciate any sacrifices I make.

And I did it. This is MY life. My path and my decision, I ain’t going anywhere and even if I do, I’ll go with a smile on my face and as a queen for a day.

Few days ago I realized with full heart that this was one of the most important decisions in my life. I went for a run, as I have started to pick it up again. I went and set a goal to run approx 20 minutes. I had time. No rush. Only responsibility waiting for me was one project to improve a home page of our fresh company, but there was no strict deadline nor a passive aggressive boss-lady stalking my every move and making sure I am around even off-hours. So, my 20 minute run became to a 1 hour run, which was successful, nicely progressive and easy. I enjoyed every minute, because I was present. I had nowhere to hurry. I did not worry about the future or the past. I was just excisted. And I breathed.

I think I have cried more this year than in total for all past years. In my 9 to 5 appartment cubical lifestyle I always pushed away everything that demanded at least some movement out of comfort zone. For exaxmple I always closed in when my ex partner had an idea to do some changes. Well, true, his changes did not comply with my dreams. I did not want to get a huge loan to buy a house and sprint out 2 babies just because ,,Martin and Marge had their second kid in their gorgeous house and Martin is only 1 year older than me.” OK, is nice for them I guess? Every time these silly arguments started to come up, I switched myself off into my safety bubble, all alone. I let no emotions, chaotic situatons to influence myself and I just slowly flew on my laid down path, with eyepatches on. I always knew I want something different. I wanted to fight and be heard. Every time there was a conflict at work, with a friend or family member or with a partner, I eliminated it in the early stages and just ignored the rest.

And when these eyepatches were finally removed, everything else followed. I had no pink glasses or filters for emotons. Real life was there for me, but not always in a bad way. Real life offered everything, you only had to have guts to reach out and take it, with all its plusses and minuses. Take it, dominate, take responsibility, but don’t just float by. Get yourself togeter, notice, do, learn and experience. If not now then... when?

This half of a year has thrown so many obstacles and opportunities on my way and I have caught most of them. I guess one of the most difficult period was spending some insane time at a house in the middle of nowhere, without any water or normal comforts. This has made me appreciate small benefts of our everyday life.

I think I have mentioned this earlier as well, that February and March were probaby the hardest months this year. I was given a challenge to overcome and boy, it was tough. Namely, I got pregnant. As a woman who has never wanted to become a mom due to several and long reasons which I will not discuss today, I was in a cocmplete shock. I felt happy, scared, angry. Why now? Universe has its twisted sense of humour and it turned out that the pregnancy is not carriable for medical reasons and abortion is a must. I did not have a single day to stay home and mourn and endure grief. Oh, no, they needed me back to work ASAP. So I ignored the pain of loss and carried on with even more enormous work tempo to keep up. This period started a chain reaction which pulled me cruelsomely to the edge of the cliff. Work does not sleep, it waits impatiently. Even on these two horrible days I had to go through with the process, I did some work since I had become irreplacable.

All the emotions sealed up just blasted out as soon as some smaller bebble hit my bicycle. I cried hysterically, screamed. There were no days where my eyes weren’t bloodshot and with dark underlines.

In some sort of a sick twisted way I felt good, since I was needed, everything depends on me and I am sure it will get paid off nicely in the end when I have worked until my nose bleeds. In this tunnel vision I did not realize that skipped recovery and unresolved grief had made me this maniacal, delusional self-centered zombie, who lived for her workdays. All my free time I spent worrying about next work day. I did not notice anymore how my mom is doing, how are my friends and what is my partner up to. Every time we went off to one of our van trips I just existed somewhere in my thoughts about how much there is still to do. And it’s even more sadder, that I did not even notice myself anymore in the free world.

“Yea, but how would you go on?” was the main question I was asked when with a shaky voice I admitted that I need to quit my job right now and don’t want to take such responsibilities for a while now, only for myself. Everyone can do it. If there is a will, there is a way.

I am happy that I have at least won almost the entire battle with eating disorder, although I have to admint I am not proud over the inner criticizm about my body, which has grown 8 kg heavier since last summer. This means I still have days I hide under baggy clothes and just wait until these dark thoughts pass. There are days where I absolutely veto going to the beach because ‘it’s cold’. Actually I am reminding myself of that year where I had a killer six-pack, hip bones and tiny bikinies fit me so well, but now I look more like a curvy, slightly soft female not nearly showing signs of being physically active. Although, I am now in that golden zone where my weight is not going up nor down almost at all, no matter how much or little or what kind of foods I eat (plant based always of course). I guess it is positive, my body has found it’s perfect zone, but I--- don’t really like it. This mentality here is something now that I have to work with, with all my spare and peaceful time.

Since 25 July I am (f)unemloyed. And happy. I have made sure that I will be secured, will not be homeless and have food and I have a first step of a plan prepared. Priority for now is to help myself out of this destructive black hole that influences not only me but other close ones as well.

I don’t have black shadows under my eyes anymore. I sleep deep, without any random wake ups, I finally have time and motivation to cook, bake and test out recipes that have been collecting dust since forever. From day to day I get back to introduce myself to my long lost hobbies like kite surf, reading, writing, drawing and yoga.

I have finally startrd to realize that next to me there are people that I love unconditionally and to whom I have shown insanely rude attitude. Have you ever felt that re-falling in love again? I am currently feeling it with tripple multiplications, because I have once again fallen in so much love with my dog, my boyfriend and my hero on this topsy-turvy road, my family, friends and life itself.

I will not even take a glance anymore to that 100 promises I made earlier this year. Life is just so much different with completely new challenges. If anything, then I can mark this time period here as my new and fresh chapter for my life.