#i think after their arcade mode they'd all be friends

[ripplefields]

listen to my abapara/elphelt/testament friendship truth

(og under cut)

[casspurrjoybell-26]

Too Old For This - Chapter 24 - Part 1

*Warning Adult Content*

As much as Leroy had encouraged Zachary to think about himself and not about upsetting his sister when it came to if he wanted to go to the fair... it didn't mean he wasn't disappointed when Zachary looked him in the eyes when they'd driven to his parking lot and said...

"You know. I don't think I have it in me to go anywhere tomorrow." Leroy had smiled, looking down at his lap, not wanting to show his disappointment.

"Oh, okay," he'd said, looking over at Zachary's lawn.

"I guess we walked around a lot today."

They had... after the movie they'd looked at stores and window shopped.

At a point, they'd grabbed snacks and even spent some time in the arcade.

They'd only started heading home when Leroy pointed out it was getting late.

Dropping Zachary off had hands down been the worst part of the day and when Leroy slept that night, he tousled and turned, occasionally searching for the man with his hands.

He wanted him at arm's length and having had a taste of that, his bed now felt too big... too empty.

When Monday came around, he went into auto-pilot mode, getting ready for work and heading out as soon as it was time.

He had his presentation around ten minutes after eleven in the morning and he just wanted to get it over with.

When it was time, he tried not to look too hard at the people present... his manager, someone else from the marketing team and two representatives from their client's business.

Leroy had expected to pretty much go through the PowerPoint and call it a day but the client representatives were engaged and asked a lot of questions about the sampling change.  

When the allotted presentation time ran out, Leroy wrapped things up and asked anyone to email him if they had any more questions.

He was stacking up his printouts when his manager approached him, standing right beside him as she stared at the open journal where he'd scribbled his notes.

"Can I have a word with you before you go?" his manager said, leaning forward.

Leroy turned to look at her before looking about the room.

He noticed his co-worker and the client representatives had started making their way out of the conference room and it was just him and his boss now.

Leroy looked back at her, raising a brow but nodding anyway.

"Sure." 

"I have a question," the lady said, sitting at the edge of the conference desk as she dangled her own just under her chin.

"How did you figure that out? Not that I'm complaining. If anything, I'm impressed. You've saved us a business deal where all we were planning to do before was pretty much summarize why we couldn't help them."

Leroy stared at his manager for a bit, looking down at the floor as he rubbed the back of his neck.

This was unusual.

He wasn't used to getting praise.

If anything, he was constantly stressed out that his role in the company would be scrapped altogether and he would be let go.

"Err... can I be honest with you?" he said, looking up after a while of thinking.      

The lady raised her brow, looking concerned.

"You're not going to tell me you outsource your work, are you? Client confidentiality..."

"No, it's not like that," Leroy said, cutting her off.

"It's not like that at all," he repeated, hoping that she hadn't assumed something and was going to run with it, without another thought. 

"Then what is it?" she asked, cocking her head or the side.

"Well, my friend, he's a copywriter..." Leroy said, cringing at the sound of the word.

He'd been calling Zachary his friend regularly it seemed but it never felt right on his tongue... it sounded fake.

They weren't dating yet and he wasn't sure how comfortable he was off-handily announcing to people that he might an inclination to same-sex attraction but he felt guilty whenever the word 'friend' left his mouth.

He sucked in his lips, letting the word sit for a bit before he continued talking.      

"I was working through the weekend as you told me to..." Leroy said, emphasizing that it had orally been her idea.

"And he was just glancing and offhandedly mentioned that the ad would create a sampling bias just by how it was written. It's not like I told him the brand we were working with or gave him any in-depth information. He just looked over my shoulder. It wasn't planned and I couldn't ignore what he said because, well... he was right."

"Ah, I see," the woman said, tapping her chin with the pen.

"Does he work for any company we might know?"

Leroy shook his head.

"He's a freelancer, part-time. He's not even under contract anywhere..."

"Would he like a contract?" Leroy blinked and then he blinked again, before narrowing his eyes at his boss.

"I'm sorry. I didn't quite get you..."

"Would he like a contract? I'll be honest. H.R. is always trying to fill the copywriting roles but there aren't enough hours to make it a full-time position and you can't really judge most people's work before they're on-boarded and then you pretty much take what you can get. How about having him on contract permanently? He can bill us hourly as a consultant and work whatever hours he wants."    

"I'll..." Leroy paused a moment.

"I'll ask him."

The conference room was silent for a minute before the lady sighed and stood up straight.

"I better start going. If he says yes, can you have his C.V. and portfolio sent to H.R. with you as a reference? For formality's sake."

Leroy nodded and his boss smiled, adjusting her skirt before hurrying out of the conference room.   

Leroy stood in the room, still in shock about what had happened.

He bit down on his bottom lip as he tried to figure out how to bring up what had just happened to Zachary.

He still had half a workday left, so he settled on texting him and breaking the news on a phone call later that day.

Message to: Zachary.

You won't believe what just happened.

MON, 12:45 PM.

Typing...

Message to: Zachary.

I think you just got a job.

MON, 12:45 PM.  

Leroy saw the bubble with the three dots show up almost immediately but Zachary didn't get his message sent until a few minutes later.

Message from: Zachary.      

What do you mean? Did you do something? Or did you see something?

Mon, 12:48 PM.  

Leroy smiled excitedly.    

Message to: Zachary.

I'll explain after work. I'll give you a call.

Mon, 12:48 PM    

The older man liked the message and Leroy took it as a hint that the conversation was over.

He tucked the cell-phone in his back pocket before making his way to his lonely office.

He couldn't really concentrate for the most part and spent the next few hours watching the time go by.

He even started packing thirty minutes before he was due to clock out and left ten minutes before, claiming he had to make the early bus.

He was equally as giddy on the bus ride back home and more or less sprinted from the stop to his house when the bus came to a stop at his usual drop-off.

"What's making you all excited? Huh?" Emilia asked and Leroy spared a fraction of a second to flip her the bird.

"Rude," she yelled after him as he hurried to his bedroom and whipped out his cell-phone.

He called Zachary, staring at the flashing name on his screen in anticipation until he heard the familiar voice.

"Hello?" Zachary said from the other end.

"My boss took me aside after my presentation and asked me how I figured out the sampling issue," Leroy started rambling, not dating hello back.

"Well, I explained that my friend was actually the one that saw it..."  

"Friend?" Zachary said, cutting Leroy off.

The younger man paused, frowning a little in confusion.

"Yes, friend...?"

There was a silence on the other end for a bit and then a sigh.

"Er... did you tell her that... just because the gay part or are we... in fact... just friends?"

Leroy wasn't sure where Zachary was going with any of this.

"I told her because I don't think I'm ready to come out to my boss..."

"Okay, good," Zachary said.

"I was worried we weren't on the same page."

[short-and-ugly]

non-assorted daycare attendant headcanons

Sun & moon are collectively referred to as "the daycare attendant". I think if Steel Wool really wanted us to think they were separate people, they'd call them the attendants.

Powered by kinetic energy! He has to keep moving or else he'll power down. He can convert caffeine into energy in a pinch.

He is the animatronic that has to be sent to parts and services the most, with Monty right below him. He doesn't get sent for maintenance or broken parts-- he was built far too durable for kids to break him, and he cleans himself pretty well. No, he gets sent for personality adjustments. He's the animatronic that has the most "breakdowns". A lot of people have quit working after witnessing/having to shut him down.

The tiny handprints on his back are stains! Clean, but he just can't get them out, no matter how hard he tries.

Sun isn't allowed out of the daycare, nor is he allowed to touch staff. The other animatronics count as staff.

Moon, however, is allowed. During patrol, at least. If he's active during open hours, he follows the same rules and regulations as Sun.

He isn't supposed to be as obsessive/needy/scary as he is in game. Man's supposed to watch kids, for Pete's sake! The virus got to him differently. Cause he's coded specifically to protect and take care of small children? Or something else? Who knows.

Nicknames for friends are just as over the place as names for him are! One person calls him Sun, another Sundrop, another Sunrise. He calls them sunshine, sunlight, sunbeam, starlight, starbright, starshine, stardust--

Touch receptors, aaaallll over. Gotta know when someone's toddler is ferociously tugging at your foam sunrays.

Which also means he can stub his toe and feel it. All that he'd be able to say about it is [boing.sfx], though. (Swears or fillers are replaced with cartoonist stock sound effects).

The destroyed staff bots in his room are actually salvages from Monty's many rampages. Most get thrown into the dump, but those that survive enough to possibly be repaired were put in the attendant's room. Eventually, they were forgotten. Sun wouldn't dare touch them, to risk getting in trouble for doing something even though no one cares anymore. Moon has no such reservations. He's the part that scribbled marker all over the bots' bodies.

He doesn't know how the arcade machine got into his room, other than it happened after Vanny made everyone... go underground. He's tried getting it out, aware that the staff has been looking for it, but he can't get it through his tube. He can only hope that no one comes in and blames him for stealing it.

Has many different voice settings: Sun, for when he's playing with kids on day mode; Moon, for when he's playing with kids on night mode; Singing, for when he wants/needs to sing something (typically a lullaby as Moon); Patrol/Intruder, for after hours; and Imitation. He collects data about the voices around him and mimics them. He usually uses this for puppet shows-- but sometimes it's fun to surprise a kid with Freddy's voice. He can't sing while imitating, though, so if you asked him to all anyone would hear is an extremely tone-deaf Freddy. If someone down the hall didn't know any better, they'd probably think Fred was malfunctioning.

Remembers nothing from patrol mode, which is why it's so much easier for Vanny to manipulate Moon.

Moon's eyes aren't red during night mode-- actually, only the one on the crescent glows, and it glows a soft blue.

He's definitely looked at his room/attic and asked what the point of cleaning the mess was. There's a little discarded broom right above the broken pile of glass. It breaks my heart thinking he broke something and started to clean it, only to give up part-way through because no one ever comes up there. I love breaking my own heart ❤️

He's also definitely used that one pillow pile next to the arcade to pretend to sleep.

A lot of people seem to think that Sun's level of intelligence is equivalent to that of a child-- but I have to disagree! Sure, he's explosive and seems childish, but have you ever seen an actual daycare? They've gotta be enthusiastic! He needs to match all the kids' energies! I think he knows a lot more than he lets on...

Probably has (limited) access to the internet. It's always a good thing to fuel a child's curiosity! Unless it's not. Then he asks the parents to talk to the kid 🧍🚶

I like to think he'd be decent at drawing. Not full-blown Da Vinci, but enough to draw a character on a kid's arm and not have them throw a tantrum. (He absolutely does still draw stick figures with them, though).

He's probably met the others on patrol, but doesn't remember. He's very cold-shouldered when in that mode. That's probably the reason why the others haven't ever gone to the daycare area for reasons outside of parties.

He doesn't count as a mandated reporter-- but the human staff do! The daycare attendant is much better at recognizing signs than humans are, and is always quick to report.

Takes pinkie promises VERY seriously.

More of a scenario but. It'd be cool if he's seen another daycare attendant. A copy from another establishment, brought in for repairs? A replacement? I just wanna know what his reaction would be... the concept of a existential Sun/Moon intrigues me in a way I can't explain. Asking if he's the first one, or if he's been replaced multiple times. Like that one scene that spurred Glam Fred's own crisis!

Can do quick scans to check for ailments, injuries, or mental states!

Could likely walk around the daycare centre blindfolded.

The hook in his back usually catches onto ropes from the ceilings, but he also has an additional coil inside of him that can shoot out from his back, on the off-chance that he isn't in the daycare.

[uselesslesbiab]

How about hcs for the Phantom Thieves finding out Ren's been found out as their leader by like 9 people (one of which is an elementary schooler). I imagine they'd be cool with Sojiro knowing cause he's the group dad (no I will not accept otherwise) but they would not be cool about some of the others (especially if they find out some of the shit he's had to do for them).

Ooh I’ve had ideas about this for a long time and I wanted to write a full fic about it but I probably won’t any time soon. The idea was gonna be post interrogation scene Ren is forcibly put on bed rest so all his confidants come over to help him and the other phantom thieves out instead of Ren having to go see them. This might be a longer post so I guess I’ll separate the bullet points based on each phantom thief?? Just so I don’t forget anyone.

Morgana doesn’t get reactions for obvious reasons. Also this kinda turned into which confidants they would get along with the most oops. Mishima is also not mentioned since they all know that he knows and runs the Phan-site

Ryuji

His “For real?!” gets louder every time someone new walks in the door

He doesn’t really think it’s a big deal that these people know. If Ren trusts them, then he trusts them.

He’s super impressed by Shinya and they actually get along really well since Ryuji’s still a kid at heart. Shinya thinks his dyed hair and attitude is cool. (CEOs of cuffing their pants so high it looks ridiculous).

Chihaya scams him out of his money so fast it makes his head spin. Ren makes her give it back but his ego takes a beating.

Politics bore him to tears, but he likes the sound of Yoshida’s voice and the way he really listens to young people. “It’s like he totally gets us ya know? You’re alright old man!”

He has a nice talk with Kawakami where she apologizes for treating him like a troublemaker just because of what the other teachers said about him.

Ann

She’s extremely surprised and a little embarrassed that all these people know about them. “Ugh you’re worse at keeping this a secret than Ryuji!”

She starts complimenting Takemi’s goth fashion immediately and is totally in love with her style

She gets along well with Ohya too. The worlds of modeling and journalism are far from strangers, so they have a lot to talk about.

She gets along surprisingly well with Hifumi considering they’re almost polar opposites. Hifumi briefly mentions that she likes sweets and Ann invites her out for crepes on the spot.

Yusuke

Yusuke is disappointed in Ren of course and tells him as much, but he gets distracted before he can finish scolding him.

He’s absolutely fascinated by Chihaya and her fortune telling. He doesn’t have any money for her to take but she gives him a free reading anyway because he just looked so excited she couldn’t say no.

Yusuke and Hifumi really hit it off once they start talking about the phantom thieves and end up becoming good friends. She’s his first friend he’s ever made at school.

He calls Iwai a true artist when he sees his skill at making model guns. He demands to witness the entire crafting and detail process from start to finish. Iwai sees another kid with no parents and immediately goes into dad mode.

Makoto

Makoto isn’t angry, but she sure as hell isn’t happy either. As the strategist, she immediately recognizes and connects the confidants with the mementos targets that were troubling them.

She turns to Ren immediately and just goes “What in the hell is wrong with you”

After she gets over scolding him for being so reckless, she actually finds herself enjoying the company of Yoshida and Ohya especially

She talks to Yoshida and Ohya about her father and the injustice in the political system.

Makoto is really great with kids and Shinya kinda flocks over to her at some point and asks a bunch of questions about her role in the phantom thieves. Shooter arcade games are actually the only games she’s ever played, so they talk about Gun About strategy a lot.

Futaba

“Okay I got given so much much shit for letting Sojiro find out and Ren was doing this the whole time?!! You guys suck!”

She brags about her gaming skills to Shinya of course and challenges him to a Gun About competition.

Takemi sees her and immediately starts ranting off about how she needs to take care of her health and how her vitamin D is deficient and how she should get tested for this this and this and-

Futaba zones out but the feeling of having an adult female figure care about her well-being makes her smile.

Kawakami hears about her shut in nature and commits to tutoring her on the exact subjects she’ll need to know for the high school entrance exam. (Futaba may be incredibly smart but we all know the bullshit high school asks us to learn about. She doesn’t learn stuff she doesn’t have an interest in.)

Haru

Like Ryuji, she puts her faith in Ren and decides to trust these people.

She absolutely ADORES Iwai and his model guns. She fawns over their design and tries to pick up all the heaviest ones. He’s extremely flustered and thrown off at first because she’s this 5’2 tiny girl wearing a fluffy pink sweater and is rambling off facts she knows about all these guns.

Even so, Iwai is a dad at heart. The second he finds out she’s an orphan he practically adopts her on the spot. Haru is happy to finally have a male figure in her life that she can feel safe with and look up to.

She’s too smart to fall for Chihaya’s traps but she indulges in the fortune telling anyway. Only as a subtle way to give her some money.