#i am a max level priestess in another world

[seras-elessar]

The award for "Least Cis Reaction to Finding Yourself Genderswapped" goes to...

[qqchurch]

🏳️‍⚧️?

[mlembug]

can't even force fem men these days

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Kara raging at Lena and Alex. Because honestly? She gets blamed for everything. She kept herself secret to protect Lena and Alex is kinda responsible for her being Supergirl in the first place. "If making Kryptonite is okay if it's for a good cause then why not me keeping my identity secret? Killing my aunt, Alex, was okay as long as it was for a good cause, but I'm a monster if I so much as twist someone's arm too hard!"

Kara ignores the knock on her door.

Alex lets herself in anyway.

She meets Kara’s unhappy gaze, takes in the suit she still wears, and offers a grim smile. “Didn’t go well, then.”

“She hates me,” her sister mutters thickly. Her eyes are dry but her voice is thick from recent tears. Alex joins her on the couch, wrapping her arms around her shoulders. Kara leans against her, shrugging helplessly. “She didn’t even let me explain, Alex.”

A moment later, Kara pulls away, vibrating with anxious energy. “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t tell her! She made Kryptonite for Rao’s sake. Which, was I supposed to thank her for making the one substance on Earth designed to hurt me?”

Kara gestures sharply, then falls still, waiting for Alex to chime in. When she doesn’t, Kara’s eyes narrow.

“What?”

“You don’t agree with her, do you?” Kara accuses. Again, Alex hesitates. “Alex!”

“Maybe I’m not the right person to weigh in on this,” Alex hedges.

“You’re my sister! You’re the only one who gets to weigh in!”

Alex shrugs. “What do you want me to say Kara? Last year I had Kryptonite armor! And it worked!”

Kara scoffs, shoving to her feet to start pacing. “Unbelievable.”

“Kara…”

“You defended me in the dark forest. So, what– were you lying?”

“You’re my sister, Kara, of course I defended you. And I didn’t lie– it is personal. I just don’t know if there’s one right or wrong answer here.”

“No,” Kara argues, “there is, because Kryptonite– it kills me!”

Alex pushes to her feet. “I understand that, believe me. But just a few years ago you were training under Kryptonite radiation, sparring with me. It helped you learn how to fight. And since then, we’ve faced multiple threats who could only be stopped by Kryptonite–”

“Yeah, I remember!” Kara cuts in sharply, voice lifting in rage. “I was there! I was there when they pumped my aunt full of Kryptonite to torture information out of her. I heard her scream for hours as it burned her from the inside. I remember when you put a kryptonite blade through her heart!”

Kara’s shout rings in the silence that follows. Alex freezes– she can hardly breathe for the reminder of the heartache she caused Kara. For the loss that nearly drove them apart. She thought they’d moved past it– days of working towards a new normal and countless nights spent talking for hours, trying to heal. Maybe they did heal. But Kara will never forget.

“It’s not just a tool, anymore,” Kara continues, reduced to a whisper. “It never was. It was the DEO’s reminder that I answer to them. My reminder that they could end me if I ever stepped out of line.”

Alex shakes her head. “No, it was never–”

“And now my best friend has found a way to not only make it, but make it more deadly, and all you have to say is that maybe she has a point?”

The air suddenly feels thick around Alex, pressing close against her. Her throat locks tight, and she has to swallow several times before she can summon her voice.

“Kara, I–”

“You should go,” Kara says flatly. She folds her arms around herself, suddenly small under her cape.

“Kara.”

“Either you go, or I will.”

Alex presses her eyes shut. She nods. “Okay.”

She collects her purse and lets herself out without another word.

Kara knocks her fist against the door and freezes between a grimace and a giggle when it splinters with a crack. It opens a moment later to an angry Lena, who glares at her warily.

“Sorry,” she says. “I’ll– I’ll replace that.”

She staggers inside, belatedly spotting the gun in Lena’s hand. Oops. She turns to offer reassurance that she isn’t going to hurt anyone, but loses track of that thought when she nearly unbalances.

“Are you drunk?” Lena asks. Her brow knits with reluctant curiosity. “Your metabolism–”

“I can with Aldebaran Rum,” Kara tells her stoutly, “and guess what? The corner market carries it now. We’re coming up in the world.”

Lena’s jaw tightens. “You should leave.”

“No, you should leave.” Kara pauses. “Actually, don’t. You should sit. We need– to talk.”

“I’m not interested in talking.”

“Then don’t! You can listen, like I did when you called me fucked up.” Kara waits, but Lena doesn’t move. “I’ll yell at you standing up if you want.” Lena still doesn’t move. “Okay, fine. I’m fighting with my best friend and my sister– why would this be even a little easy?”

She paces unsteadily, wading through murky, sluggish thoughts. Her cheeks feel a little numb but this time it’s not from smiling. It just is. It’d be easy to drink just a little more, and let that numbness spread to the anguish roiling around in her guts.

But not yet.

She needs that anger.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Kara declares.

Lena only rolls her eyes. “Yes, we’ve already established that humans are unaccustomed to the pain of near-invincibility–”

“No!” Kara shouts, whirling to face her. “No, you made me sit there and take everything you said. Now it’s your turn to listen.”

Lena’s eyes widen, then narrow. But she remains silent.

Good.

“You don’t know what it’s like, to have to hide who you are. You project all of yourself into the world, for better or worse, and whether they love you or hate you, it’s you. Do you remember what you said to me? The day you met Supergirl? You said, we can’t live in fear. Well, I do! I live in fear. Every day, I’m afraid that someone will learn who I am and use it against me– that they’ll use it to target my friends, my family! I’ve been so afraid that my best friend will find out, and that I’ll lose her too.”

Lena scoffs. “You distrust me that much–”

“Oh, don’t even!– try to lecture me about distrust!”

“I have always been open with you–”

“Yeah, I remember! You were so proud to show off your fancy new alien detection device last year.” Lena freezes, and Kara feels a small trill of triumph. “Yeah, don’t think I’ve forgotten how gleefully you explained it to me, completely unconcerned that it would ruin lives. So long as you turned a profit, you were happy.”

Green eyes sour at the accusation, but she doesn’t say a word. Suddenly, Kara deflates, losing some of her righteous anger as hurt crept in around the edges.

“Did you?” she asks, plaintively. “Did you really think I’d forget that my best friend created a device that would allow businesses to deny me service? To kick me out of my apartment and leave me homeless?”

This time, Lena has the decency to look away, cheeks reddening under the criticism. Instead of fueling her fury, Kara blinks away tears.

“What would you have done? If I hadn’t damaged it? If it confirmed I was an alien?” Kara’s throat closes painfully. “Would you have turned me out right then and there? Would you have requested a different reporter the next time CatCo asked for an interview?”

She blinks, and the wavy figure of her best friend sharpens as her tears fall free. Maybe she imagines it, but she swears Lena’s eyes are shining too.

“Would you have ended the best friendship I’ve ever had, before it even started?”

Lena inhales sharply. “Maybe, I could swallow the secret identity easier,” she grates out, “if it didn’t mean that my best friend treated me like a villain for daring to create the one tool that was able to stop a Worldkiller.”

But Kara shakes her head no. “You didn’t make the Kryptonite for Reign, Lena. We both know it.”

For a long moment, the truth hangs heavy between them. Quiet lingers, before Lena finally takes a shaking breath.

“The threat is there, Kara,” she says. “Whether you want to admit it or not. Less than a year ago, Superman was ready to kill, even if it meant leveling the city to do it. And you– you threw Cat Grant off a balcony. Maybe you weren’t in control, but you still did it. Are we just supposed to sit back and pray you’ll take mercy on us the next time it happens?”

Kara stares at her. Then she laughs. It starts slow, bubbling in her throat before spilling out of her. Soon she’s doubled over, guffawing so hard her sides start to ache. Lena looks truly unsettled, and only that serves to curb her mirth.

“Sorry,” Kara wheezes, still grinning as she wipes her eyes. She flops onto Lena’s couch, breathless. “Whew!”

Lena swallows. “Good to know you find that part of my concerns hilarious.”

“Oh, pfft. Don’t be stupid. What’s funny is that both those examples you mentioned? The two times Supers have been a danger to humanity in the decades since my cousin started protecting the planet?”

She pauses, meeting Lena’s gaze as a fresh giggle tickles her throat.

“Was because of kryptonite! Because Maxwell Lord tried making Kryptonite, screwed up, and turned me into a monster, and because Queen Bitch Rhea waved some silver Kryptonite to turn my cousin into her personal attack dog. And your solution is to add more Kryptonite to the mix. That’s what’s funny.”

Instead of looking cowed, Lena’s jaw tightens. “And why did Max need to make Kryptonite in the first place?”

Kara sobers in an instant. The face of her aunt flashes across her vision, green-veined and twisted in agony. Then Reign’s face, chased by the phantom image of the dark priestess.

“Are you and Superman the only Kryptonians left?” Lena asks.

Lena knows they’re not. She knows about Argo, has given them the means to survive.

“Are you and Superman even the only Kryptonians on Earth?”

A lump forms in Kara’s throat. “No.”

“And can you guarantee that none of the other Kryptonians on Earth or elsewhere will never try to harm humanity?”

She doesn’t think they will. Those on Earth have spent decades hiding, even when Clark became Superman and their refuge planet fell under attack by alien threats. But she can’t guarantee it. She can’t.

“No.”

“Then I have a responsibility to ensure humanity has the means to defend themselves if the need arises,” Lena tells her. Her voice is calm, devoid of the emotion that gave Kara hope they could salvage even a small fragment of their friendship. “If you can’t understand that, then… I don’t think there’s anything left to say.”

Kara stares at her. Her heart throbs in her chest, like the space around it suddenly turned hollow. Words– the very thing she’s supposed to be good at– fail her, leaving her throat painfully dry.

Finally, she slowly pushes to her feet, struggling not to stagger as she pulls her puse onto her shoulder. She licks suddenly dry lips, grits her teeth, and meets Lena’s gaze.

“Fine,” she says stiffly. “Nice knowing you.”

Kara pushes past her, and escapes into the safety of the night.

[silvaruslupus]

Persona 5 Personal Opinions (aka I held off on this write up because I’m a lazy bastard)

Right so warning there will be massive P5 spoilers under the cut but as for my none spoiler recommendation:

Fucking buy it. 

If you have any interest in JRPGs, have a PS3/PS4, need 90+ hours to kill, and really want to get attached to a gang of absolute dorks this is the game for you. As per most recent Persona games, this game has a slow-ish start. Takes about 5 hours to give you full control but it’s still better than Persona 4 that took 3 hours but that was almost entirely dialogue. P5 actually gives you combat to do in the 5 hour “tutorial.” 

Combat is an A+. Some bosses are a bit easy but I died way more times in this game than P4, god damn random shadows suddenly being smart. I also had to use way more SP restoring items including a Soma on one fight.

Character wise, I like the P5 cast more overall compared to P4′s (fuck P3′s cast only ones that matters in that game are Shinji and Aigis). All the links were great, or at least the ones I did lol

My only grips with the game might be sometimes the dialogue is redundant but it wasn’t enough to bother me. Some people might bitch about the English VA’s (I’ve been seeing Haru’s getting shit) but I think they’re all fine and you can download the JP dub for free so what the fuck ever. A lot of the confidants don’t unlock until certain parts of the story but it’s not like you never have any to work on.

Anyway spoiler time.

Here’s some record stuff and general favorites before I move on into some plot stuff. 

Ending: True (much easier to get the True ending than P4 I’d like to add)

Final Level: 79

Confidant Links Ranks:

Fool - Max (auto link)

Magician - Max (auto link)

Priestess - Rank 5

Empress - Rank 1 -_-

Emperor - Max 

Hiero .- Max

Lovers - Max

Chariot - Max

Justice - Max (auto link)

Hanged - Rank 7

Death - Max

Temper. - Max

Tower - Rank 8 ;~;

Moon - Max

Sun - Rank 1 -_-

Strength - Rank 1 (because I always fail at the fusing link, eh I’ll do it in my next playthrough)

Judge. - Max (auto link)

I didn’t start Star or Fortune, rip me. I’m terrible at time management lol (and figures I don’t do one of the best links)

Social Stats:

I really wanted to max all of them in my first playthrough but I missed some stuff at the start and wasn’t able to (I didn’t know about the plant for the longest time) I think my charm was really close to max though.

Proof I completed and play time:

Who I made my girlfriend: Futaba (fite me)

Favorite Party Member: Makoto, she helped me so much and I didn’t get to max her link ;-;

Favorite Confidant: Mishima, Sojiro, or Futaba 

Favorite Battle Song: 

Again, fite me

Favorite Dungeon Song: (and favorite dungeon actually, 2 birds one stone)

Also Meguro, how dare give this song that title.

Right now that I got some of the general stuff out of the way I want to talk about the character that conflicts me the most, Goro Akechi. God, where do I start with him. 

So right away I knew that he was gonna betray the group. I miiiiight have seen a picture of his creepy face he does before he “shoots you in the head.” That was like the only spoiler I knew about. He was pretty obviously not going to go along with the Phantom Thieves’ plans. But to my surprise the gang knew that he was up to no good all along. So okay then, go Phantom Thieves you guys are way more savvy and take more initiative than the Investigation Team! I’ve seen a small handful of people comparing Akechi to P4′s Adachi but like no. Are both characters murders, yes. But Akechi is an unwanted child trying to prove himself to the world but losing to a gang of “nobodies.” Adachi on the other hand is a selfish manchild that didn’t get his way and thinks the worlds “sucks” and everyone deserves to die. You can also claim the respective gods in both game manipulated each of these characters in fulfilling their roles as another wild card but they are still responsible for their actions.  

Back on topic, I don’t agree with people that say “Akechi did nothing wrong.” Hell no, he was a murder and manipulated the criminal system to make it look like he was solving cases. His redemption came with his death, or at least I think he’s dead (watch ATLUS prove me wrong). That’s not to say he doesn’t deserve pity and understanding, he does. Basically Akechi is a complicated character and you can’t just paint him with black and white morals. He had his reasons for what he did but that does not mean he did nothing wrong. 

Okay no more drama I’m just gonna list some random headcanons to end this.

Akira (MC) actually does need glasses but only for like reading stuff on a chalkboard. He has a pair on contacts but decided to wear his glasses to look more innocent after he got a criminal record......He’s also totally hot wired a car for fun.

Morgana tells Akira to go to bed so much because he has a terrible sleep schedule and would probably go to bed at like 4 am if he wasn’t forced to. 

Morgana only lets Futaba pet him only because Futaba would do it anyway. 

Futaba frequents all the weird ass image boards for the lulz

Yusuke and Futaba shit talk each other in personal phone chats before bed almost every night. 

Yusuke has tried to eat grass when he ran out of food one week.

Ryuji and Ann go out to eat a lot....where they proceed to yell at each other about manga.

Haru weight lifts so she’ll be strong enough to carry the fertilizer and soil up the stairs for the plants on the roof. No one dares question her....And Futaba has hung on her arm once after asking nicely.

Makoto totally wants a motorcycle. She’s worried what Sae will think.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Another lengthy list of Persona 5 thoughts and bullet points, before tomorrow’s inevitable ten-hour marathon of play.

(Spoilers through late June and the third boss dungeon)

Makoto is my favorite character, full stop.  If you have read my epic capslock, you may have already figured this.  She is so fierce and so badass and yet also, the whole judging her self-worth based on her utility thing resonates so hard with me, and I love her and if she weren’t seventeen and also fictional I might propose, but probably I’d just stand back in awe and crush forever.  My new game goal is to max out her social link.  Given that starting it requires significantly more knowledge than I currently have, I forsee a lot of studying in my future...

Current social links I do have: Fool, Magician, Emperor, Hierophant, Lovers, Chariot, Strength, Justice, Death, Moon, Sun.  I am waiting on either stats or trigger events for Makoto (Priestess), Iwai the fence (maybe Tower, I’m guessing now? because who the fuck knows???), the fortune teller in Shinjuku (I am assuming Fortune...), my homeroom teacher who I have been told is an SL (maybe Temperance?  IDK, she seems very ‘sigh why me I just can’t’, which isn’t quite Hanged Man, but whooooo knows), and the two party members I know I’m getting but don’t have yet.  (I’m going to randomly guess Empress and Hermit just based on their character art and the fact that a hacker navi seems Hermit-y to me.)  That counts up to 17 out of 22.  Judgement and World/Universe always auto-level, so I’m still missing three--Devil, Star, and Hanged Man if all of my probably-terrible guesses are right.  Really hoping Sae Nijima is one of them.  Besides that--the reporter lady who gave me Kaneshiro’s name, and maybe that rival model of Ann’s who is such a bitch?  Maybe?  WE SHALL SEE.

Pretty sure I need to do Mishima’s damn Maidwatch thing to start an SL, damnit.  I know I’m not going to max everything (I will max Makoto if she is the only thing I do so help me), but I refuse to deliberately not start something.  Sigh sigh sigh.

Speaking of social links, I’m actually loving Strength most of all right now???  Mostly because of the twins talking about that mysterious list.  I want Margaret or Elizabeth to have written that list for vague arcane reasons more than I can possibly explain.  I am so curious about how these twins and their relationship with the protag is going to develop.  So curious.  That said, the whole ‘how did whoever wrote this list know our next guest would have  Wild Card’ thing???  Who ever goes to the Velvet Room without a wild card?  How is the Velvet Room even remotely useful to anybody without a wild card?

Also speaking of social links and also previous game references, WHO ELSE NOTICED TAKEMI CALLING UEHARA-SAN AT THE HOSPITAL AND MADE HIGH-PITCHED NOISES BECAUSE I SURE AS FUCK DID.  Jesus those two need to be drinking buddies.  I need one million words of Sayoko and Takemi going out to bars together.  Maybe they go out in Shinjuku and run into the reporter-lady.  GIVE ME SOMETHING.

Ahem.  Moving on, can I just say some extremely enthusiastic words about dungeon design in this game?  (Fun fact: it is possible to do the full exploration of Kaneshiro’s dungeon in one day in-game.  Stock up on HP and SP restoration items first, but I have done it and I feel very proud of myself for it.)  It’s so puzzle-y and labyrinth-y!  There was definitely a while where I felt like I was being deeply frustrated by one of those point-and-click escape games I always find myself playing, which I enjoyed immensely.  Everything is so cool and so full of stuff.

So far, we’ve robbed a castle, a museum, and a bank.  We know we’re going to climax with a casino heist.  What else do people classically rob?  Thinking about Leverage is not super-helpful here; they took on a bunch of super high-security office buildings, but I’m not sure they have Sterenkos in the Metaverse, and beyond that it was either new and unusual locations or a lot of museums.  Maybe some kind of ancient tomb/pyramid thing, with lots of traps, very Indiana Jones/Lara Croft?  Possibly a temple to some dude who thinks he’s a god.

I have been theorizing that, as we go through bosses and dungeons, we’re going through the seven deadly sins--seven is a solid number for total dungeons in a Persona game (matches the number in P4), and I feel like we’ve been on par so far.  Kamoshida’s lust, Madarame was specifically called out as ‘vanity’ (which is a subset of pride), Kaneshiro I would’ve expected to be greed but was explicitly called ‘gluttony’, which certainly makes sense with all the pig imagery.  Which means we still need envy, greed, sloth, and wrath.  I could see greed as a ‘greed for power’ final boss dungeon, but I can only imagine what sloth looks like in a P5 boss.  Curious to find out if I’m right!

There have not been a lot of plot developments for me to mull over since last I did a big long one of these.  Not a ton of other things to say on that!

I keep batting ships around in my head, thinking about what-if’s and maybes.

It’s cold and October when the protagonist invites Ann back to his room, just Ann.  They both know what it means.  He kicks Morgana out for the evening and makes coffee and doesn’t meet Sojiro’s eyes, but upstairs it’s... It’s strange, like their lives are strange, this big empty attic-room, this weird outside-of-the-world world where this boy lives like a kid and like an adult and like a thief, making lock picks and training his HP, watching DVDs on rickety chairs with his cat.  And it’s strange because these two people...they lost everything months ago and rebuilt themselves anew.  Panther and Joker are rough and scarred and ferocious, furious, determined.  Panther and Joker don’t do this.  They kill, shadows and now humans because this thing they started once keeps getting bigger and bigger than both of them and sweeping them along with it and they are young gods with magic at their fingertips, and-- here in this room, right now, they’re not the Joker and the Panther, they are.  Children.  They’ve never done this before, because the boy who is now the Joker (most of the time, even when he’s not wearing the mask--how will this train me to be a better thief, how can I use this person, what choices do I make?) well he was quiet and nobody and some core chunk of him still is, under so many masks that he doesn’t know himself any more.  Ann’s never touched anyone like this, not really.  And they are soft to each other, lying on their sides face to face under the covers on his bed, soft and a little wondering and he touches her, shoulder, waist, skin, and she touches him, chest, hip, face.  Very few people have been soft to either of them in a long, long time.

Akechi joins the Phantom Thieves (we all know Akechi already has a persona by this point, right?  Akechi who can understand Morgana from the very beginning, when the game makes such a damn obvious point of Makoto not just a few days later?) and Akechi runs with them and Akechi sells them out, because look if it’s not a fake-out then it’s more interesting that way. Akechi sells them out and the protagonist knows right away that it must have been him, because there are ways and ways they play this game.  They are not soft to each other and they are not done yet.  And however he escapes that jail cell--it is escape, not release, with cops and hounds at his heels, and the help of his team, probably, but our Joker is clever and he manages to twist the facts or appearance of the situation to make it very very clear that Akechi helped in that escape, maybe even masterminded it (even though he probably did no such thing.) That’s it, then, you’re stuck as one of us, boy, one way or another.  The protag meets up with the rest of the team just long enough to make sure everybody’s alive and then they scatter, because he was in there too long and talked too much, and the people watching on that camera have every single name they need.  Everyone in Tokyo is after them.  They need to get out of the city and they need to split up and lie low.  Protag calls his social links, sends party members in ones and twos--get to Shinjuku, the fortune teller will put you up.  If you can slide through Yongen-Jaya without attracting attention, don’t go to Sojiro they’ll look there, go through Takemi’s back door.  Drags Akechi with himself, no questions asked, and they end up in the secret basement Iwai so clearly has for the illegal crap he so clearly sells. Why didn’t you tell them? Akechi says, and the real answer is because that’s not the game, and that’s part of it, but also... We need you now.  You need us.  We’re stronger together.  And also, also, because the team is everything and everyone is at risk now, game or no game, if you do anything like that again I’ll kill you myself, and he will if he has to.  Maybe.  If he actually can. But they spend thirty-seven hours trapped down there in the dark and the dust and the cobwebs, and it’s not the first time they’ve had sex, but every single time previous it was some how much does he know that I know masque of intent and suspicion, and this time, they know.  They know everything.  They’re still enemies.  They’re still closer than the best of friends.  That’s how a good enemy should be.

So look, I don’t know if Morgana ever stops being a cat or not, but if he does, there is going to be Morgana/protag bedsharing fic and I am going to write it.  I don’t even necessarily ship it but that needs to exist.  What’s more in your space than a cat that insists on curling up in your bed, at the small of your back, on top of your face, right next to you night after night?  What’s more ingrained into our protag’s life than the cat in his bag voice in his ear?  What happens if and when that suddenly goes away?  (Sex.  Sex happens.  I am just saying.)

I am weirdly into Makoto/Ryuji right now?  Because okay, look.  Everybody assumes when they get paired together for divide-and-conquer team activities, it’s so Makoto can keep Ryuji out of trouble--impetuous, chariot, loud and somewhat reckless Ryuji.  And it is, but it’s also so Ryuji can keep Makoto out of trouble--because everybody looks at the girl with the grades and the brain and the planning skills, and lets themselves forget the girl who marched into Junya Kaneshiro’s nightclub with absolutely none of that on her side.  Her inner soul is a motorcycle made of light and she’s every bit as much a rebel as any of them, full throttle, no holding back. And so I see Makoto and Ryuji tasked with doing something together, casing out the next target, exploring some bit of a dungeon, and she’s getting a little bossy and he’s getting a little snappish back until, “Come on, Skull, we both know I’m here to keep an eye on you” and he shoots back with, “Nuh-uh, I’m here to keep an eye on you.”  And they face off in annoyance until they discover that no, their leader literally told each one of them separately to keep the other on their best behavior.  And look, it’s an effective personnel management technique.  They respect that.  But also, goddamnit. It makes them both want to do something reckless, just to prove the team wrong.  Nothing to jeopardize the mission, that’s the opposite of effective, but.  But hmm. So maybe they show up to the next meeting both of them on the back of Makoto’s real-life motorcycle, the one she’s said she has a license for, Ryuji squished up against her back with his arms around her waist in a borrowed helmet, and act like nothing’s changed at all while people gape.  Maybe they go a little wild together.  It’s good for both of them. (And they have conversations, the stop-start time that runs into awkward walls but then finds a way around, about their missing fathers, the female relatives they want to do right by and just keep disappointing, their self-worth, their dreams.  Ryuji keeps up with her.  She wasn’t expecting that from him.  He doesn’t take over and he doesn’t try to, but he matches her.  So okay, yeah.  Sure.  Yeah.  This will work.)

They have to flee in the end, every one of them, the whole eight-person-one-cat team--out of Tokyo, and let’s leave all of Japan, and let’s leave the Pacific, leave Asia, get half a world away and regroup.  They’ve got a hacker and they’ve got skills and they end up in Paris because that feels inevitable, in some grand loft apartment or a converted warehouse that looks like the hideout from Inception.  They’re not real adults yet but they’re going to have to act like it, because every adult in their lives is long left behind.  They were the teens and the children rebelling against the shitty grown-ups, but they have to figure out how to be the grown-ups now.  Good luck not being shitty about it They steal because they need to get by and because they’re good at it, and to keep themselves from turning into just exactly the same sort of assholes profiting off the weak they target the biggest assholes they can spot.  Not just in Paris--that’s too close to home, that was part of the problem, wasn’t it?  They spend a week and a half in Belgium, the better part of a month in Germany, a very long weekend in London wrecking things from the base of a couple of hotel rooms, and then they go back to their beautiful huge empty warehouse loft with the tall high windows pouring in sunlight that traces beams through the dust hanging still in the air, and they figure out how to live next. They’re all on top of each other, every one of them, and the boundaries rub away from friction and proximity until they sleep on top of each other in strange piles, until touch comes easy--a hand on a shoulder, a back, a neck, a face.  They pretend to date each other for cons and cover in a dozen different combinations until nobody remembers who’s supposed to be dating who any more, until it doesn’t matter.  They fuck in pairs behind the screens they set up for something like privacy, and there’s no real privacy to it, so instead they start fucking in threes and fours and maybe that’s better. There’s no real rules here except the ones they make for themselves.  They make those unanimously--well.  Let them make this one, then.  The team is the only family, the only life they’ve got.  Let it be everything.

[qqchurch]

new strat to confirm if you're in a video game isekai:

strip

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that is genuinely one of the most atrocious power categories I've seen lmao

going from talent level (novice) to metals to elements/planes then back to talent level, c'mon now

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foxes, yippee!!!

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sao reference jumpscare