#he took one look at akito and goes anyone want him? no? mine now.

[quietplace26]

Atlantis au (4)

Akito was in quite the pickle.

He was brusied, bloody, and being princess carried off to somewhere unknown by a masked man who barely had any clothes on!

Akito squeaks when the man held him tighter to his body, pushing the young man even harder into the rather nice chest.

What is even happening?!

Let's start from the begining, shall we.

First thing that went wrong was when a seacreature, that was bigger than the submarine, attacked and destroyed the submarine!

Akito, along with Mari and most of the crew, narrowly got out the submarine in time! The creature destroyed the whole thing within seconds!

Next was the fact some of the crew was starting to blame Akito for what happen!

Why didn't he try to warn them about that thing?!

Thing was, he did. He even showed Hannya and the crew his parent's notes, stating that their was supposed to be a guardian protecting the way to Atlantis.

After that catastrope, the crew find themselve in a cave system, which meant the next issue was figuring out what paths to take and hope they didn't die in the process as they slowly made their way to Atlantis.

Spoilers. Many people end up dying. Mostly because they didn't take Akito's warnings or directions seriously.

This leads to more hate being directed at Akito.

Neither Hannya or his wife tries to stop the hate.

There were even moments where Akito swears the creepy couple encourages the hate for their own amusment!

Mari, along with Erika, Rinko, Ed, and Dale were the only one's truly on Akito's side.

Mari was his main defender, as she had no trouble kicking or punching someone where it hurts most if they even looked at Akito wrong.

Erika shyly follows her example, just not as violently.

Rinko just calls the rest of the crew a bunch of dumbasses that can't follow simple directions, glaring harshly when anyone disagreed with her.

Ed says something similar but more quietly and with a sharp glare of his own, an explosive was innocently sitting in his hands.

Dale, while a doctor, shows what would happen if someone was dumb enough to attack Akito while he was around...

And just when things couldn't get even worse, it gets worse.

While they were taking a quick rest, a fire breaks out in the camp, quickly swallowing up everything in it's buring path.

In the chaos, Akito ends up getting seperated from his group, and tumbles down a rocky slope, falling into complete darkness.

Akito wakes up to glowing blue lights and quiet whispers.

With a groan, Akito pushes himself up and fixes his shockingly still in tact glasses.

He lets out a scream when he sees what was around him.

Cloaked figures, who all wore glowing masks, had the young man surrounded, all pointing various weapons at him.

Akito scrambles away, only getting so far before a sudden pain kicked in.

Seems like in his fall he hurt one of his legs. Thankfully, it wasn't broken but it hurt enough that Akito knew it would be hard to walk with...

One of the cloaked figures lowers their spear and motions for the other's to do the same.

This figure then makes his way over to Akito and crouches down in front of him, seemingly staring at the young man though his mask, studying him.

After a few moments of silence, the figure lets out a sigh.

It stands up and rips off it's cloak, revealing that there was in fact a man underneath.

A man with very little clothing on. A man with glowing tattoos.

Akito meeps when the man bundles him up in the cloak, picks him up off the ground, and proceeds to carry him like a princess.

Akito was confused, scared, hurt, but most of all? Tired. He was just so so very tired.

Akito's hasn't had a good night's rest since the start of this trip, and he could feel the exhaustion finally kicking in now...

Akito blinks sleepily, trying to fight the growing urge to close his eyes and fall asleep in his kidnapper's arms.

Akito still would like to know where this guy came from, as he definitely wasn't with Hannya's crew...

Actually, where are they even going?!

A yawn slips out Akito's mouth, causing his kidnapper to stop and look at him through his mask.

Akito, blushing beat red, tugs the cloak wrapped around him up and over his buring face.

He feels/hears the man's rumbling laugh. Fainty Akito could hear the man's party laughing too...

Great. He's being laughed at by his kidnappers.

The man suddenly leans his face down, his glowing mask brushing against Akito's ear.

A quiet whisper was heard. A quiet order for Akito to sleep now.

Feeling mentally and physically exhausted, Akito couldn't help but listen, not really comprehending the fact the man spoke japanese...

[sobdasha]

revenge is a dish best served long after the fact, so you can really savor the subtlety of the irony on the palate

See, the thing is, the first time I saw just that page of the Mabudachi Arc where Shigure's asking Tohru if she's having fun, spending every minute of every day with the person she loves...I assumed he was being salty.

Because I keep forgetting, and then suddenly remembering for just a moment, that there's a bit over half a year gap between the time when the curse ends, Shigure wins, Shigure gets Akito all to himself and everything he's ever wanted…

...and graduation, when Shigure actually gets those things.

It's probably like late July, the curse is broken, everyone is pairing up all lovey-dovey, Kureno's moving out of town and Shigure's taking his place as assistant to the Souma family head. And so Shigure turns up at the Main House (in a suit, because he believes in dressing for the job and while that means schlubbing it around in a bathrobe and glass of wine as a writer, being the personal assistant of the head of a wealthy and prestigious family--who is trying to symbolically break the cycle of stifling, traditional abuse by switching out kimono for Western-style clothes--means at the least investing in some nice slacks and button-downs) and asks so, when is he being recalled from his banishment and moving back in to the inside estate?

And Akito looks at him like he's crazy and says, "Are you crazy? No, you're not moving back here."

You can't leave that house yet, Akito says, because if you move out those three kids living with you are suddenly going to be homeless again, and you can't do that to Tohru.

Okay, so technically there's no reason Kyou can't move back in with Kazuma--except that the dojo is inconveniently far away from Kaibara High School, I'm not sure Japan has school districts exactly like the US but something I was googling a while ago suggested they have a similar idea anyway about how you go to the school you're easily able to walk to--and of course Kazuma would happily take Tohru in as well. But Akito can't just send Yuki back to live with his parents now.

Shigure is pretty sure this is bullshit. First of all, Tohru runs that house and manages the boys perfectly fine as it is, and in fact she could probably do an even better job without Shigure there. They'll all be just dandy without an adult in the house. And secondly, although Shigure is unaware of this argument at the time, Yuki's girlfriend manages to live alone in an apartment without dying and she's nearly as much of a disaster as Yuki.

Yes, Yuki has a girlfriend, and Shigure remains unaware of this fact for a decent while, partly because Yuki refuses to ever bring anyone over to the house. Oh, Aya has talked about Yuki bringing a girlfriend around the shop for months now, but Shigure assumed that was Aya being Aya.

The girl--some friend from school?--existed mostly in Shigure's mind as a sort of hypothetical, in potentia, a Schrodinger’s girlfriend if you will.

The box won't open until one day when Shigure's lurking about the living room, as the boys do when they're waiting for Tohru to finish dinner, and he wonders aloud where Yuki is.

"He's, um, he's at his secret base," Tohru volunteers as she's bringing dishes to the table.

"Well," Shigure says to Kyou, shooing him toward the yard, "go on then and call him in for dinner. We can't let this good food get cold!"

No, Kyou says, he's not out there. "Secret base" isn't the codeword for his garden anymore, Yuki switched it to mean his girlfriend's apartment. He's at his girlfriend's apartment. And in all honesty Kyou's pretty sure that rat is spending the night.

And here Shigure is--and has been since summer break started--stuck living in this house, having to spend all his nights alone, unable to do with his girlfriend exactly what Yuki is theoretically doing with his own, just because he's an "adult" and isn't allowed to leave Kyou and Tohru unsupervised.

It isn't fair.

"Life's not fair," Akito tells him, a comment that isn't any less annoying for its truth. "You're a walking cautionary tale. This is what happens when you sleep around: you suddenly find yourself as the legal guardian of three children that you can't just move out on and abandon."

Akito kind of low-key thinks this is great, actually. She's more-or-less forgiven him about sleeping with her mom, sure, in the sense of forgiving as "I have to let this go and stop obsessing over this for my own sake, my making peace with this in no way condones his actions, but I'm okay and can get on with my life." But a little piece of her is still annoyed that--no matter how well things worked out in the end--her ploy to punish Shigure by banishing him from her presence and using the curse against him...really didn't work in the moment.

Now he's getting his comeuppance belatedly, and it's amazing. Now Shigure has to be apart from her, and he's suffering and chafing, and it's not even because of something Akito's doing to be petty.

Akito's even learning not to mind having an empty bed and no one she can call to get in it when she's lonely at night, the revenge is that great.

And it really is poetic justice, everywhere you turn. Yuki's apparently got a girlfriend he can spend the night with on the down-low whenever he wants. Kyou and Tohru are allegedly increasing their physical intimacy now that they've dropped the burden of the curse and all their respective baggage, and Shigure can't even find it in him to catch them at it and tease them most of the time because his own situation is just too depressing.

Then there's Dr. "I don't need a new love" who's suddenly changed up the way he puts his outfits together, as if someone other than the usual Souma staff is in his closet first thing in the morning, and who also just in general goes about his work with sickening contentedness. Even Ayame shows up one day like "I think this wedding band really enhances my innate royal elegance, you know, it's so nice to finally break it out, it took us a while to unearth those little boxes out of storage and then we had to polish the shine back on them a bit but my don't they look gorgeous now! Btw Mine's been my wife all this time and please feel free to send us your gift money now."

Everyone knows Haru and Rin have been sleeping together for a while now, Ritsu's making plans to move in with girlfriend Mitsuru, and Shigure can't even hang around with Kagura and Momiji to commiserate because they both get very scathing like, "Oh really, how terrible it must be to have an actual concrete plan for your life that you know is going to make you happy and satisfied, yeah, it's so horrible seeing everyone else all lovey-dovey when you have your own guarantee you just have to wait until March to seize on."

Shigure all but stalking around for the month of March like "Aya you better have gotten your brother an apartment, once he's graduated his ass better be out of here, I will throw him out on the street" and "Kazuma if Kyou and Tohru haven't talked to you about apartment-hunting then I will, I will even do actual work like researching neighborhoods and reading lease papers and helping to cover deposits whatever it takes they are not going to be in this house come April." Everyone else has already been living the happy ending they earned over half a year ago when all Shigure's plans culminated in fruition and now he's going to get his, this is a man with motivation. Desperation. Frustration. Whatever.

Instead of getting punched in the face, Shigure got a retribution that aged like a fine wine. And I'm gonna sit here and toast to that.

[survivorindonesia]

Lily’s Responses

Well, to answer your question, I think a lot of people felt that they wouldn't be successful working with you. The whole day people were saying your name and you were considered the easy vote of that round, since you didn't have any alliances. What I find most odd is that I talked to Emily and Bodhi and they agreed to vote for Nehemiah that round. I submit my vote for Nehe and sign on after tribal (because I usually have a meeting/rehearsal during tribal) and you are gone. Now, we didn't talk once, but I didn't vote for you. I was honestly surprised that the vote flipped back on you. Your vote really helped me realize that I couldn't trust Emily and Bodhi as much as I wanted to. I'm not sure why they would agree to vote for Nehe and then switch back to you. I think if we would have talked and had a discussion about that vote that things could have gone completely different.

I certainly played an UTR game, but I was being active in every vote that happened, even though they didn't always go my way. In general, the biggest move I made was not being too intense with votes because If I was, I would certainly become a target in this game. I knew who I wanted to get to the end with and would do everything I could to protect those individuals (Junior, Elmo). So, I did my best to make sure the vote wasn't on us while naviagting all the complex relationships that were in merge. The vote where Pippa went home was the first time in merge where I felt somewhat in control, I believe I was the one who gave Pippa enough confidence to believe that me, elmo, junior, bodhi, and emily/the majority were voting for Chips which caused her to play her hidden immunity idol on him instead of herself. The following vote was also very influencial to my game. The idol I had saved since the second round of searching would need to be played. Emily played her chaos idol and there was no way I would go home with rocks. A big move of mine was not telling anyone about this idol and being able to save myself as well as give my alliance (elmo, junior, and I) a better chance against these rocks. This vote coudln't have gone better. I had wanted to target Emily/Bodhi, but it would be difficult to get the numbers on them without putting my alliance at risk. Emily did the work for me by playing her chaos idol, when she wouldn't have gone home regardless. And lastly, I will talk about the vote where I almost went home. I had to rely on my social abilities and ties with Chips to get me through to the next vote. I wasn't going to go down without letting Chips know everything. After Elmo went home, I was certain I wanted to go to FTC with Chips and Junior and wanted Chips to know how important that was for me. Chips and I had a wild ride this game, not always agreeing on the vote, but in the end I did want to go with him and even said I would give up individual immunity at F4 and give it to him. I believe it was my passion and time I had spent with him through out the game that convinced him to save me. He never said he would accept this offer but told me he would save me. My work ethic and strength in challenges catapaulted me into merge and my ability to be social with several allainces while not being precieved as a threat culiminated my success in merge. Several votes during the merge did not go my way what so ever, Shoib, Willow, and Elmo, but I was able to navigate the game despite my mistakes.

My biggest move was saving myself at F5 and successfully getting Alex out of the game. It was really a toss up if Chips would pick me and I believe my honesty and passion in our conversations got me to F4. If I didn't hone in my social abilities in that moment, I would have been toast. The smallest move I made was playing a UTR game. I believe it was after your vote, Nehemiah was talking in the tribe chat and calling me out. Normally, I would go full dramatic and engage in an intense conversation, but I knew that wouldn't get me anywhere but a bigger target on my back. I instead just didn't respond at all and that little move took the pressure off of me when I needed to remain UTR. My favorite part of the game would actually be the intense battle between me and Alex. At merge, I didn't know Alex. I got to talking to him and he is like the coolest person ever. I really loved talking to him, but there was no way our paths would line up. I think this made the game a lot more fun for me because it kept the game intense and I wasn't sure which group would end up on top. Also, in general, I really loved this cast and getting to know people better. This was just an honest to god fun game with lots of split votes. I activily enjoyed the disagreements on who would go each vote. Whew.....so mistakes. Well, I think the biggest mistake I made was Elmo's vote. There was no reason for us to flop on that vote, and we did. It was hard because we only had a limited time to decide what would happen (1 hour with no immunity) but Elmo had an extra vote advantage. We should have known to target Emily more heavily and we didn't. That is certainly my biggest regret and if I could have done anything more I would have. Villains: Shoib, Nehemiah, Pippa, Bodhi, Emily Heroes: Akito? (didn't actually play with), Sammy? (didn't actually play with), Willow, Elmo, Alex, Chips, and myself.

1. I told Bodhi, where I was searching and was truthful in where I searched, but also said "Idk what’s up with the flag but at first I thought I felt a dildo but really it was just an animal bone. Which really didn’t help me feel any better about the situation. Who wrote these?" to Bodhi. Yeah that animal bone was actually the Beauty Idol. I made sure to be descriptive of the situation and why there wasn't an idol....in reality I had the idol. I don't think people suspected me of having an idol at any point because of 1. my inability to find an idol previously 2. being very social and talking about my expereinces with idol searching made Bodhi feel more comfortable and not suspect me (I think). I didn't want Bodhi to precieve me as a threat or a target with an idol. In general, not telling anyone, esspecially you, about the idol was very difficult. You were so honest about your advantage and when you told me I almost told you that I had the idol, but I didn't want that to affect our trust so I figured it would be best to keep it secret. 2. As far as my ideal final 3 goes, it changed through out the game. Junior was my closest ally from the beauty tribe and I considered Bodhi as one of my closest allies as well. When I found out Chips was in the game (because when I see there is a Chris I don't normally make the connection that its Chips), I started to see him as another person I could go to the end with because he was a very loyal ally previously but normally pragmatic in his decisions. Then, you came along and whew I realized that there were several people I really thought I could count on and work with. I hoped that all of us would line up in merge and that I could still work with the OG beauties if they were interested in having us go far in the game. But, yeah no. Uh uh. I could sense that Bodhi was lying to me or at least not being fully truthful about what he was thinking and it may be best to go another route. Right before Willow left, I had thought about a f5 of me, you, chips, junior, and willow. I thought it had good balance, but Willow was voted out last minute and Chips was one of those votes. At that point, I was certain I wanted my f3 to be you and Junior. You both were nothing but honest with me and wouldn't be easy competition either. I wanted to go to the end with my closest allies! When you were voted out, I was hoping Chips would go to the finals with me again. I thought people would see my game as more consistant than his, but also wanted to be at FTC with a good friend. 3. I voted for Emily. Chips told me that he told you to vote Emily and he voted Alex. I think our honest mistake was putting more votes on Alex when we should I have been putting the majority of votes on Emily. 4. 1. Lily <3 2. Bodhi 3. Alex 4. Elmo 5. Emily 6. Nehemiah 7. Willow 8. Chips 9. Pippa 10. Shoib 11. Sammy (didn't play with you <3) 12. Akito (I didn't play with you <3) 5. I would vote for Emily. She wasn't afriad to stand out in this game and make bold choices. She used her social abilities to advance her in the game and completed the final immunity challenge with great success when she needed to.

My definition of a Brawn: Dedicated to what needs to be done and passionate for what they care about. My definition of Brain: Startegically capable of sorting through what they are told to decipher the truth. They think about their decisions and how they can impact their long term game as well as thinking on their feet when things don't go their way. My definition of Beauty: Precieved as trusting and loyal because of their ability to communicate. Charasmatic and understanding which builds tighter alliances and brings indiviuals together. I played like a brawn because I was always putting up my best scores when I could. Like many of us, I got busy sometimes, but I was always putting my heart on the line even if I looked like a competitor in challenges. I worked hard in the first challenge making sure our camp looked nice, I worked hard in Brainsteele, and doing as many steps as I could, I took a lead role in the music video challenge even though I had never competeted in this challenge before. I had fun while doing it and was defeinetly playing with my heart in this game too. My heart showed in merge challenges as well I got 2nd in several challenges like Casanova and spread the virus. I was never able to win an individual immunity challenge but everyone could tell that I was doing my best in each one. Because I had passion for the game and competed with hussel I proved that I competed like a brawn. I was able to play like a brain because I got better at reading people and deciding if what they were saying was actually what they thought. For example, I could tell that you were leaving things out because in a conversation with Nehemiah it was clear that you or your close alliance had ratted me out about targeting him. When Willow went home I was able to recover and ensure Emily that we were still good at least for a little while. I made sure Emily thought that Nehemiah was the liar, not me. This lie was critical for me to advance and the smart move for me. I was always thinking about all the possibilities and what could happen if I made different decisions. I also played like a beauty. I made connections with almost everyone that I was on a tribe with, this is why people weren't writing my name down. We got along well and had good conversations which made me less of a target than people who didn't talk as much. People enjoyed my company and in tribe chats I was able to communicate effectivly to get things done. I was able to bring individuals together like Chips and Elmo as well as getting one of my OG tribe members Junior close to Elmo. Bringing these individuals together was successful because of my ability to communicate with my allies. They all believed that I had their back which built stronger bonds. I played a better game than Emily because I competed in every challenge premerge with hard work and dedication. I wanted my tribe to succeed so I made sure to spend a lot of time on challenges. In Bransteele I played for hours until I got a score that I was happy with and I played more. Recieving twice as many points as Emily. In Stairway to Heaven, I got 46% of our total score and I would be surprised if anyone on my tribe did more than me on this challenge. Im certain that I was spending more time and energy in premerge games because I cared about my safety as well as the safety of my tribemates/beauties. During merge, I was still putting in this same amount of effort whenever I could. I receieved high placements on most of the challenges during merge because I was putting in effort socially and physically in games. Emily certainly crushed me in the last immunity, but a brawn isn't about winning one challenge. It is an effort exhibited through out the game. I was also stronger in my social game, I wasn't targeted until f5 and thats a testimate to my social game. I know there were lots of players who didn't target me because we got along well together. Alex and I never voted the same way and he put me as his #2 for the f5 challenge because he still kinda wanted us to work together if possible otherwise he would have to target me. I played more consistantly than Emily, less paranoid, which allowed my allies to have more confidence in me moving forward. I also believe I played more like a brain than Emily did. This can be shown in the f7 vote. Emily played her chaos idol on a whim and that was to save Alex or herself I'm not exactly sure, she wasn't thinking about the bigger picture and who would be at risk to go home. This sent one of her closest allies home, you. If she was thinking more about the decision she would have at least voted for you to make sure that you wouldn't be included on the rocks. I think she would have been set up for a killer FTC if she had thought a little more about how to make the chaos idol play. Sorry, if I rambled a bit in this and repeated a few things, but I wanted to make sure that I answered each of your questions to the fullest extent.

You should vote for me because I played a better, more consistant game. I straight up told you that I targeted you and I targeted you because I knew you were a threat to my game. When I saw that you were in this game, I knew I would have to be cautious with you and that I would probably have to target you quickly. If I'm being real honest, what I knew about you from Chamonix gave me a glimpse on how you play, but I knew that you had an ability of talking to people and getting them to trust you. While I was an inactive mess in Chamonix, I knew I had the upperhand in how your game play works and I wasn't gonna let you beat me this time. Whew. I knew that there was no way that I could be successful working with you because I told you a little bit of information and Emily immedietly came to me about what I had told you. I was excited that Emily wasn't trusting you after that and wanted to target you as well. I'm certain that if you would have made it much farther that I wouldn't have. For a good moment, I really thought that Junior and I would work with you, when Emily told me the info I just told you, I knew that you and I weren't meant to be.

I was more creative than everyone else, and I think that allowed me to meneuver the complex realtionships in this game. Also, I don't gif/use the internet, but this made me laugh so I hope it does the same for you.