#if you made a 1:1 transfer from the game it would be boring as fuck so i'd expect some creative tweaks

[87dvhnk]

mouthwashing is so prime to be made into a movie. i wonder if some group would actually attempt it.

[enbyleighlines]

Leigh plays Tellius prt 26

I love how this game does not shy away from how fucked up some of the people can be. Like this man was seriously intending on stuffing a laguz and giving it to his child. The anti-laguz prejudice in Daein runs so deep, man.

It was around this moment that I realized that I didn't have a meteor tome for Soren to use on Micaiah, and if I wanted to get that conversation, I needed to steal the meteor tome on this map. Unfortunately, getting Heather close enough to the mage to steal the tome before the mage used up all 5 durability of meteor AND without Heather dying proved to be trickier than anticipated. And once I finally managed to get Heather to the mage in time, it turned out her strength wasn't at a high enough level to steal it.

And so I had to restart the map from the beginning, return to the base, and try to get Heather's strength stat up. I only had enough bxp to level her up twice, but she needed 3 more points of strength. So I gave her blossom and finally, finally, got her strength up to 19.

All of that hard work for one meteor tome. Ugh. I really should have remembered to transfer Calill's meteor tome to the Greil Mercs via Neph or Brom, but I guess I wasn't thinking that far ahead.

Oh, well. At least I managed to pull it off.

And we're back with the Dawn Brigade! I am glad that Sothe reacts so strongly here. I do understand where Micaiah is coming from— she can read Pelleas's heart, and knows that his intentions are good. Even knowing that, I can't help but feel frustrated at this part in the story. I'm not blaming Micaiah, but man. The whole situation just sucks.

However, I am judging Micaiah harshly for this line. What the hell, Micaiah? Why would you even say that? You do know that's the exact reason you shouldn't be joining this war, right?

Anyway, I'm going to skip ahead a couple of maps. The fog of war map was long and boring, and the whole time I was just distracted by how nervous I was about the next one. In order to get all the extra content that I want, I have to A. have Soren attack Micaiah, and B. have Ike attack the Black Knight without dying.

And I was right to be nervous, because this chapter was a nightmare. I lost count of how many times I had to redo this map.

Getting Soren to attack Micaiah was the easy part. He has already become a dodge tank, so I wasn't worried about leaving him within the range of the wyvern knights. I just gave him an Elthunder and he easily wiped them all out.

Anyway, I love this conversation. I really wish Soren and Micaiah got to interact more. I also love how Soren starts out cold and indifferent, but the second Micaiah brings Ike into the equation, Soren's temper flares to life. To be fair, I always thought it would be uncomfortable to interact with Micaiah. I love her, but imagine being around someone who can look into your heart and read your thoughts. I feel like it would feel so violating. Especially for Soren, a man who deeply values his privacy.

On the other hand, getting THIS conversation took a lot of trial and error. It wasn't necessarily getting Ike and the Black Knight to interact that was the hard part. It was 1. ensuring Ike's survival, and 2. making sure that no one else entered the Black Knight's range. Twice I made the mistake of leaving someone in the BK's range. Once it was Boyd, and once it was Soren. And the worst part was, I had battle saves that locked me into those situations, so Both Times I was forced to redo the battle from the beginning. Ugh.

However, at long last, I finally managed to make it to the end of this chapter without losing a single unit. Thank Ashera.

And that's it for this part. This was definitely the hardest part of my playthrough thus far, and I think I need a little break to rest and recover. See you all in part 27!

[knght0wl]

just finished the game

botw and totk shouldve released together as a packaged deal to make it worth the total $70, like a chapter or part 1 and 2 kind of thing. i get making games takes time and you cant please everyone in the corporate world but still

gripes. annoyed you can’t find and wear gerudo vai clothes anymore, peeved they saved the data of your horses but not all your clothes, and the items you’d hung up on the walls of your hateno house (they honestly couldve just had bolson hold onto your stuff in storage for your newly bought house in totk). Ticked they didnt transfer over the data from your shiekah slate compendium to your purah pad, link should already know what all/most of the edible food stuffs, creature ingredients, and monster parts are if youve played botw on the same device.

something i hated but this extends to most japanese games: i wish we could skip cutscenes especially if they were the same animation x5. also didnt like the way they introduced the tutorials via shrines, mainly boring and sometimes frustrating. went into two of the temples not realizing i needed the characters to be there and say their dumb little comments before activating them. very handholdy and feels like theyre talking down to you, not trusting you to make the conclusions on your own/can’t pick up on where the designers are pointing to or where they want you to look or go

HATE HATE HATE how they made the dark skinned great fairy hypersexual that says innuendos constantly, double hate how some npcs have light lips that look a little too similar to jim crow art, its 2023, jesus fucking christ.

wish you could just summon the sage’s wills through a wheel or assigned buttons like in botw, having them out like that was clunky and the ai was not fun to work with especially the mecha and riju, turning em off is an option, and running around the same monsters all the time that riju and sidon can kill in 2 or 3 hits is also an option.

wish the depths were more spooky/scary or atleast darker in themes, more stuff to interact/look at, Something. skeletons laying around everywhere, gibdos even, maybe apparitions of the lost souls standing or laying around or in a fighting pose idk the entire place was pretty big but bland/lacked character. that can also be said for the sky islands too really.

storywise, it wouldve been cool to see past heroes and princesses coming together and teaching link and zelda stuff alongside rauru and sonia’s powers. wouldve been way more interesting to see the different heroes’ journeys and how they defeated their version of ganon/related event (that would then contribute to how to better defeat our ganon?) in times past, rather than the rehashed cutscenes with the powerstone holders or whatever getting decimated from each of their perspectives

the ganon fight cutscenes made me wish we were playing that game instead of running around looking for zelda. i did like the game, but only in the sense that i liked the artstyle, the ascend ability and the fact that the roads, strongholds, and towns feel a lot livelier. and i really liked the end fight with ganon, that was tense and fun (personalized opinion since i didnt have enough sundelion meals and was on 1 heart before the transition to the dragon fight); a major step up from botw’s ganon fight

[nathank77]

11/16/24

8:45 a.m

I'm glad I looked into her eyes. It's stupid but it made a difference and made me less negative and feel safer. I know she cares about me even if I never hear from her again bc actions speak louder than words.

Anyways i ended up smoking a cigarette bc after being awake for 2 hours my nicotine withdrawal got so bad it was just a I have to otherwise I stand absolutely no chance of falling asleep at this point. My arms hurts like a bitch, my shoulders too so that made sleeping harder too bc I wouldn't take ibuprofen bc I took Melatonin... they can interact... maybe I should take Ibuprofen in a little bit. I guess they can cause a raise in blood pressure.. so I hardly ever take it unless I skip Melatonin.

Anyways after my cigarette and my tv turned off after 30 minutes of listening to it, i laid in the fake silence and eventually I must have fallen asleep. If I had to estimate how much sleep I got not including before I woke up, it was maybe 1 hour and 30 minutes maximum. Making me have gotten about 5 hours if I passed out by 11 p.m last night. Which is reasonable I did pass out very quickly.

I didn't end up taking any other drugs to help me. I was planning my morning. Making eggs, starting laundry and just watching TV all day. I did have a weird dream. A couple. One of them she was in but I dont remember much other than her blocking me and I woke up wanting to check bc I woke up in a panic bc she changed into a new person I didn't know and I said, Nathan it was a dream and if she did seeing it now will only make sure you don't fall back to sleep but she prob didn't. We can check when my alarms go off...

The other dream was weird a huge house i was moving into with a spiral staircase in the middle and 4 floors. It was gorgeous. I don't remember much about it besides going up the stairs that were in the middle of each room.

Idk what I'm going to do.. bc I looked up why would someone have a hard time falling back to sleep. I mean I just have a hard time falling asleep ingeneral and it says a sleep disorder. I prob should eventually ask to see a sleep specialist for a sleep study.. but I dont want someone else taking over my xanax. I know it sounds stupid but my Dr is fucking reliable. I'll be getting xanax as long as I dont pick up early or abuse my prescription until I'm fucking dead. If she left my office, my script would transfer to someone else in her office and id get a new primary. I really have a good thing with my xanax script. Reliable is the word. So long as I don't call in days early asking for it I'm never going to lose it.

A lot of Dr's make addicts out of their benzo patients sending them to rehab by discontinuing the script and I don't want my xanax from anyone except my primary bc I'm not joking when I'm 80 I will still be getting that same script as long as I keep doing what I'm doing.

If I see a sleep specialist then they are taking over for my chronic condition inwhich I see my primary every 3 months for... and they could take it over... and I'm terrified of them not being reliable. Of them making me have to go to rehab bc of it. Finding a dr to percribe my script reliably is fucking hard.

But yea i know i prob have a sleep disorder. Despite that I know if I could smoke weed then id sleep like a baby every night and fall back asleep easily every night for the rest of my life. And I'm not 100% sure I want to know what my sleep disorder is. It could make it harder to fall asleep. It could scare me. It could give me anxiety.

I control caffeine intake. When I had my cigarette at 5 a.m I had Powerade with it no caffeine. I cut myself off of caffeine at a certian hour every day... I also know that the shows i listen to when I try to fall asleep don't help even at low volumes bc I either can't hear it and I hallucinate anyway or parts of the show gets louder... I've been watching the impossible game show bc its boring and mostly low. I'm never watching American dad again it really wasn't the best show for sleep.

So I know my sleep environment isn't great bc I'm always trying to make my auditory hallucinations get drown out. But yea that's how i feel today, tired af and sore from my workout. I got to take Ibuprofen soon but at the same time I want to feel the pain to know how badly I fucked myself up or to feel the normal muscle pain so that I don't numb it bc I want to know if I overdid it. If that makes sense.

I'm not sure I'm up for a red bull day bc of the lack of sleep... I may just do laundry and take a shower and have a red bull day tomorrow but I got to make up my mind... video games require much energy... and I may not have it bc of my lack of sleep...

Mom still hasn't heard back from the rescue. I may reach out myself. She showed me her phone proving she called and left a message.... but I still got a contact there maybe i can speed it along. I got to get Riley out of here.

Id play silent hill but she's going to barking all day and even still it's a lot of energy, more than just doing laundry... even though that is too... I got to clean the dryer if I do laundry... but i mean 5 minutes and that's done. Concentrating on a game all day is hard. But cleaning the dryer will hurt my muscles...

Idk i had more to say but I forgot

[slimylittlemaggot]

Hello so I got fallout and now am suffering from "autism having me by the throat"

So I'm ranking the companions I guess. Off of memory. Because I'm bored.

Hancock: 7/10, he is charismatic as hell but the hat is both necessary for me to like him and stupid as hell

Preston garvey: 5/10 golden retriever with cardboard cutout personality. Not as annoying as everyone says he is tho

MacCready: 9/10, only romanced companion so far, very wholesome, and actually likes it when I "Strategically Transfer Equipment to an Alternative Location"

Curie: 7/10 actually makes me like a French person, very nice, very happy, but won't stop indirectly insulting me whenever I pick up stuff I need for crafting (or for selling, but mostly crafting) so actually 6/10

Nick Valentine: 9/10 WHY CANT I ROMANCE THE ROBOT GODDAMNIT HE IS SO COOL!!!!!! his quest is awesome, relatively difficult, and has a good payoff. What's not to love?

Piper: 8/10 very nice, super happy to be helpful, always asking too help, and honestly the only reason she isn't higher is because SHUT UP I KNOW IM CARRYING TOO MUCH LET ME GET TO MY DAMN BOXES

Dogmeat: 11/10 doggo good boy in funny armor with a lil bandana I would kill for him (Still not bringing him on missions tho he can't exactly use guns and I need my companions for ranged help)

Codsworth: 10/10 British robot man burns my enemies alive and then cuts them open with a circular saw. Also fren from B4 war

Paladin dance: 4/10, the irony of his story is funny (no spoilers) but also fuck the brotherhood of steel y'all straight up fascists and racists. Somehow those don't combine. Luckily. Anyways fuck you buzz lightyear

Cait: 6.5/10, she is good at what she does, but other than that she isn't noticable tbh. Can't remember half her lines. If I remember correctly if you get her relationship high enough you can get her to stop doing drugs and that's good I guess

X6-88: 1/10 I would go lower but he is a robot so I can't (reason: fuck yea robots kick ass)

Deacon: 7/10, funny, gave me a good pistol that carried me through most of the game. But also would it KILL YOU to say ONE thing that isn't a fucking lie

Sentinel control system: I don't have that "mini dlc" but also ITS A ROBOT FOR FUCKS SAKE 8.5/10

Ada: skip, dont have automatron (spent the two dollars on Beholder 3 (best known for having the stupendium make a really good song on it))

Old Man Longfellow: skip, don't have far harbor spent that on Fortnite

Gage: skip, don't have nuka world. Fortnite again

Any thoughts on my rankings would be much appreciated

I have no idea what this means, but I appreciate being made aware

[salty-dracon]

Heading into spoiler territory now so I'll put everything under a readmore.

Yeah, this was a damn good game.

Twist #1: The Ring of the Overlord (or whatever magick Galerius has) is not a ring of mind control. I theorized that there was something weird with the rings, that maybe Alain's himself was mind control? But the real twist is that the Ring of the Overlord is just a possession ring. It channeled Alcina's soul into Eltolinde's body. That strongly implies that Galerius, since I doubt he's the final boss, is actually the dead soul of a man named Galerius inside the living body of the man named Valmore. Likely due to Baltro's or Alcina's magic.

Noooooo. The final boss isn't an evil unicorn >:( It's probably a dragon. AGAIN. We do this like every Fire Emblem game.

Also is Alcina really going to be the whole "I (lowborn) was in a relationship with royalty (highest born) but he went to marry someone else (higher born than me) so now I must take revenge on all of that king's descendants". Auuuuuugh.

Unfortunately, The Sacred Texts say that in order to unleash the Ring of the Unicorn's full power, you must get married. Fortunately, The Sacred Texts never said you had to get married to a woman :)

Oh thank god they made the anthropomorphic animals sound decently normal. Thank god. And also just be otherwise pretty normal in general.

The story is boring as hell but it's also really good in a way because you just know that the Vanillaware twist is going to hit, and hit hard.

The chicken chasing sidequests are actually very funny. You thought the mascot of this game would be a unicorn? No, it's a chicken.

With the reveal that there's a blue gem that can somehow cleanse the tempered bestrals' minds of corruption, it makes me wonder if basically, we're going to get pieces of the full picture from all five nations, which, when put together, will reveal the endgame. So from Drakenhold, we learned something I don't remember. From Elheim, we learned that the Zenoiran mind control spell actually transfers souls between bodies, including souls of the dead. From Bastorias, we learned that there's a blue gem that can cleanse spells that cause people to recklessly attack each other.

And from Bastorias, we learned that this blue gem can "birth humans anew", and turn them into bestrals.

People were speculating that Scarlett and the princesses of each nation are the main romanceable options, which includes the two Elheim sisters, Cornia's very own Princess Virginia (yes, Alain's first cousin. WTF) and Yunifi for some reason. The fact that she's actually the lion princess, and therefore Bastorian royalty, is, uh, a completion of that. But, the marketing would never let Alain be gay for either of the Drakenhold princes, right?

angel country angel country angel country

Part of me finds it funny that every single country we've been to has less genetic diversity than the human Cornians and Drakenholdians, save for Bastorias where there are catpeople, wolfpeople, bearpeople, goatpeople, a different type of wolfpeople, lionpeople, peoplepeople, etc. There is not a single dark-haired elf or angel to be found in these lands.

okay ngl i thought that nigel and foq-whatever were the same person. too many fucking blondes

"how do we make these angels seem high-class and floating above everyone in the english language without inventing new pronouns for it?" "Hit 'Em With The British Accent"

YOU. FUCKING. ANGEL TWINK. NEVER TRUST PEOPLE WITH WINGS

oh my god that battle was so fucking long

oh. okay. so he really just wanted to maintain faith in the church and was willing to use a necromancer to do it. honestly, all of the angels in the stories i write have done far, far worse.

this story feels so basic so far... i want carnage. i want bigger twists than "the mind control ring is actually just a slightly more advanced mind control ring"

NONBINARY ANGEL NONBINARY ANGEL NONBINARY ANGEL-

i find it hilarious how everyone except for alain keeps pulling angels. scarlett was apparently bffs with two guy angels, and sharon and ochlys have some yuri going on for sure. then there's nigel who apparently had a whole army of angels

oh my god how does scarlett keep pulling so many angels (okay well i guess her home was in the land of angels)

time for the true ending requirement quest but NOOOO i gotta get married first :(

oh SHIT. oh SHIT INFODUMPING.

The Cornia sanctuary sages state that Alain's true duty is to aid the souls of ancient Zenoira's people using the sages' power of cleansing. The single night that it fell in was actually a failed ceremony to give up one's corporeal body. Eventually they grew angry from watching the world run by them, and needed to be sealed away in a realm called The Beyond (so, not a euphemism for death or the underworld.) And, as I suspected but probably didn't write down, Galerius seeks to literally resurrect the ancient Zenoirans using the bodies of the Fevrithians.

Also, the ancient Zenoirans were from outside of Fevrith, including Galerius. But after a civil war killed everyone, Galerius instead sought to conquer Fevrith. Fevrith's smaller kingdoms all struggled under his rule. However, it can't be ruled out as to what the relationship between Valmore and Galerius actually is.

The Elheim sanctuary sage states that unicorn, which did exist in this world, was sacrificed by Zenoiran sorcerers in a bid to create immortality. But the unicorn's purifying power contradicted their wicked hearts and ripped their souls from their bodies. So the sanctuaries were constructed to house the screaming, angry, wandering souls of the ancient Zenoiran empire.

But there was one success- the "Maiden", I guess- a girl who could commune with the tortured unicorn. Alongside the Turenos and the pontifex, they made the sanctuaries. After becoming the first queen of Cornia, she relenquished her immortality and passed on. Her soul became a pair of rings. One was the purifying unicorn, the other was the communing maiden (or dude maiden, if you want to be funny about it).

The Drakenhold sage states that Baltro was a talented mage with 0 regard for ethics, an actual ancient Zenoiran that is still alive. He uses some way of conveying the souls from the temples to himself, then transfers those to living bodies.

The Albion sage states that 800 years in the past, Zenoira attempted to fuse the power of the unicorn with the people of Albion. That's how we got angels. The lone success was the first pontifex, and Scarlett and her father are his distant descendants.

The Bastorias sage states that the Bastorias Blue stone, which was the focal point of the Bastorias arc, was actually an elven relic akin to a dragonstone that could turn the ancient Bastorian elves into animals to fend off the invading Zenoirans.

And just like that, everything falls to shit!

Hello, Not-Alcina, Not-Berengaria, Not-.... shit which one were you? and Not-Elgor.

and one crazy walls battle later, it's time to actually kick his ass. he's out on the field. we've got rolf. and a bunch of hammer-wielding warriors. and probably some really good anti-cavalry teams.

I also theorized this! That we would have the ability, when fighting the final boss, to spare him.

WHAT.

I suspected that Ilenia wasn't dead. I suspected even that Galerius wasn't going to be the true final boss. but what do you mean that ILENIA WAS GALERIUS.

Well, at least she's alive, even if we've got to- oh old man i do not like that lip flapping, i hate it actually

why is there a move that's literally just "summoning a unicorn-shaped amalgamation of the souls of the damned" and no actual unicorn

oh he was a skeleton.

oh the sages were his STUDENTS-

damn ilenia looks FINE in that dress-

ooh there are FE-style epilogue blurbs

good night everyone. i will be insufferable in seven hours

[absolutepokemontrash]

The Demon Bros Play DND!

Who’s ready for some Stupid Headcanons?

So, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s claimed that the tabletop RPG known as Dungeons and Dragons had the power to turn your children into satanists and devil worshippers. So of course, the brothers have totally played DND after hearing about all the human world nonsense.

Lucifer the Back-up Back-up DM

He’s too busy to play this game dammit, stop inviting him! What do you mean both Satan and Simeon can’t DM the one-shot? Ugh... fine.

Despite all his UUUUUUUUGGGGHHH, Lucifer is a damn good storyteller, prepare to be immersed as hell.

Also, sorry guys, he’s a rule whore. If something’s against the rules, YOU AREN’T DOING IT.

He’s also a complete sadist who will randomly get everyone to roll perception checks for NO REASON.

Lucifer has definitely stood up and slammed his hands on the table while giving a description for extra effect, Mammon screamed and nearly fell out of his seat which REALLY ruined the mood.

“Everyone, we’re rescheduling, I’m too busy.”

He’s been a player a few times, and he’s NOT good at it. All his characters end up being really generic and boring. He’s better at being the world and everything in it, not the dummy wandering around it.

Human/fighter lookin’ motherfucker

In conclusion, he’s a good DM, but he’s probably too busy to play.

Over-Powered Self Insert (Mammon)

This game is for nerds! He’s not playin’, Levi!

Fine, his character is great and amazin’ and is also him. MC! What do these numbers mean-

Mammon’s the type of player to make his character a self insert and not take it too seriously, then get really REALLY attached as the campaign progresses.

He’s the type not to make a backstory for his character either, so go wild DM MCs!

He also both purposefully and accidentally metagames a whole bunch. Like dude, YOU know this, YOUR CHARACTER DOES NOT.

Shit he forgot his dice, can he borrow some?

“Okay MC, that’s five points of piercing damage.” “I RUN OVER AND HEAL THEM! I’LL SAVE YA MC!”

Mammon goes out of his way to save MC’s character long before it would make sense in-character to do so.

“Well, as your first man it’s my duty to save your character! You’ll probably be a blubberin’ mess if I didn’t...”

He’s not the best role player, but he’s also not the worst at it either. He tends to break character when things get too serious and he doesn’t know what to do.

Notes who? He came in here with one sheet of printer paper and it’s for doodling only.

He and Asmodeus start the tavern brawls. No question about that.

Theft is very common, he’s stealing from everyone, including but not limited to: the party, the royal guards, the dead enemies, the giant fuck-you dragon that Satan dropped in there to deter Mammon from stealing...

“I’m gonna steal that crown from the dragon.” “Roll stealth.” “Nat 20 BITCHES.” “Fuck you.”

If his character dies, may the Demon King have mercy on his greedy little soul because he’s going to mope about it for a damn long time.

Over-Powered Self Insert Again (Leviathan)

His character totally isn’t a self insert, shut up! He just looks and acts like an idealized version of himself!

He’s the one with twenty pages of character info and backstory AND the amazing commissioned art.

Levi has about 40 sets of expensive blue dice that he claims gives him the best rolls but an average session with him usually leads to roughly 10 crit fails.

While his luck with dice isn’t that good, he’s the player who will get as much out of their turn as possible, AKA break out the calculators and notes we’re doing some math.

His turn goes on for at least ten minutes because of all the shit he’s doing. When you finally think it’s over he goes “I still have my movement!”

Takes notes like a madman, every bit of lore and character info is being written down, meaning it’s a headache for everyone involved if there’s a continuity error because Levi WILL point it out.

“So you all head to the east, the great Valley of-” “Hang on, valley? In the second session you said there was a mountainous area to the east.” “Levi, shut up.”

Levi is the self appointed “guys come on let’s get back on track!” player, and whoever’s DMing is grateful to have him.

Levi is kind of the opposite of Mammon in terms of character seriousness, at first he’s taking everything super seriously and then as the campaign goes on he slowly loosens up and has some fun.

Out of curiosity one day he searches up a magical girl DND class and he’s ALL OVER IT. PLEASE LET HIM BE A MAGICAL GIRL NEXT CAMPAIGN-

Damn good at roleplaying, he’s carrying the entire in-character discussion until everyone else gets into it.

The Done With Your Bullshit DM (Satan)

So, this is the game that’s supposedly summoning him all the time despite the fact that he hadn’t been up to the human world since the 50s... what the fuck is everyone on up there?

It was the 80s, probably a lot of drugs.

When Satan DMs, you can only break the rules if it enhances the story... or if it fucks with Lucifer’s really boring character.

He will fudge dice rolls every once and a while, he also gets very attached to the characters everyone has made so he doesn’t want to perma-kill any of them unless they roll a DND quadruple natural 1 sin or something.

As attached as he gets, he isn’t above completely raging, killing everyone’s characters, and ending the session if everyone’s being annoying.

Don’t worry, your characters will be safe and sound next session once everything calms down... just don’t mention how Satan burned your character sheet right in front of you. It’s your fault if you didn’t make a second copy of your character sheet!

He’s pretty decent when it comes to improv when a player stumbles into something he didn’t plan out, but that’s not going to stop him from getting a little annoyed.

Though, if you somehow manage to get to the big bad too soon... yeah sorry, he’s got a way more dramatic fight scene planned, your player’s getting conveniently blasted out of there.

As a player, Satan is pretty decent at the game overall, but he tends to be a little aggressive if there’s an overarching mystery to be solved.

He needs to understand what’s going on! He doesn’t care if it upends the plot or it’s too early to find out! He needs to know!

His character is actually distinct and different from himself, Satan thinks it’s more interesting that way. All the books he’s read have made him a pretty awesome role player!

Satan’s notebook both as a DM and a player is filled to the brim, no detail is too insignificant to be put on the page.

Satan doesn’t fear dungeon puzzles... dungeon puzzles fear Satan.

“Are you all stupid?! This puzzle is so easy a four year old could solve it!”

I ROLL TO SEDUCE- (Asmodeus)

At first he didn’t want to play, he doesn’t play these kinds of games, sweetie. He’s too pretty.

When he’s finally convinced he puts a decent amount of effort into his character, but leaves the backstory pretty open.

Asmo would probably be the bard... right? No. He’s the warlock with the magic sugar daddy patron, and the warlock patron is spoken to as such.

“Hey baby... how’ve you been? Have I been good~?” “...”

Huh! Who woulda thought that all the bedroom roleplaying would transfer so well to DND!

Simeon is the only DM that doesn’t immediately shut this down, so Asmo will be extra inclined to play if Mr. Nice Shoulders is DMing.

When he gets really into it he buys a bunch of sparkly and very pretty dice, they bring him good luck in every roll!

Asmo has a fictional harem, no question about it. It gets to the point where Satan, Lucifer, and Simeon stop describing NPCs as attractive.

He’s rolling to seduce either way, he’s turned many an antagonist into a lover. To be fair, Asmo’s horniness has gotten everyone out of a lot of jail cells... so they can’t complain.

His notes consist of really random comments about the plot and the other players. It’s also COATED with doodles.

‘Wow, this character is such an asshole, I hope Belphie kills them.’ ‘Shit.’ ‘MC looks so cute when they play their character!!!!!!!! :D’

Poor bab forgets the rules a lot... it’s just too much to remember, okay?! How was he supposed to know that he ran out of spell slots an hour ago?!

Please help him, MC...

*Dice Cronch* (Beel)

Homeboy has been given edible dice, no question. He has also eaten the non-edible dice...

Beel goes to Satan for help with making his character, and he ends up really loving the character! :D

Problem is, he’s not that good at roleplaying... D:

“Can my character eat that person?” “Beel, no- you know what? Let me check what you’d need to roll to do that.”

I’ll save you MC part 2 electric boogaloo, but when it comes to Beel, the entire party is getting protected, no matter how little it makes sense in-character.

While Beel does take notes, a lot of them don’t end up being very important for later events. For example, he’ll jot down stuff about the layout in one room, but it turns out he didn’t take notes for the room that was actually going to be used for a boss fight.

He’s always nice to the NPCs, shame Belphie doesn’t show them the same courtesy.

Murder Hobo (Belphie)

Chaotic evil.

“Belphie, your character’s alignment is neutral good, remember?” “Fuck that, this guy’s annoying me.”

If Belphie doesn’t like an NPC, it’s up to the rest of the party to stop him from derailing the campaign and killing them.

He has space themed dice because cow-man likes space and thought they were pretty.

Notes? NOTES? You think Belphegor, the Avatar of SLOTH, takes notes? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA-

He’s drooling all over the notebook... ew. Someone wake him up and tell him it’s his turn.

He puts about 35% effort forth to make a halfway decent character, and approximately 4% effort to actually roleplay.

Belphie sleeps through important plot details so he’s almost always really confused. He’ll turn to MC and ask them to explain what he missed before not learning his lesson and going back to sleep.

Wake him up for the dungeon puzzles though, he and Satan love those.

“Okay, we can’t see what’s in the room because none of the conscious party members have dark vision?” “Nope, what do you do?” “...I shove Mammon inside and shut the door.” “WHAT?!”

Bonus! The Best DM (Simeon)

Our favourite angel has homebrewed this entire campaign and boy fricken howdy are these players going to enjoy it.

Simeon fudges the dice rolls to avoid anything too irreversibly bad happening, buuuuuuut he’s still a total asshole who does the random perception rolls to keep everyone on their toes.

Everyone gets a character arc god dammit, even if they don’t have a backstory, one will be provided!

He’s got a map, he’s got miniatures, he’s got dice and backup dice for the backup dice, he’s got DM notes for days!

Simeon could be a voice actor with the amount of character voices he can do, no one ever gets confused with who’s talking.

Did someone just uncover a massive bit of plot that was meant to be found out later? Good job! No harm done! Simeon’s DM improv is second to none, and the plot will adjust accordingly!

[dreamescapeswriting]

Juliet ~ OT7 [Request]

WORD COUNT: 3.5K

PAIRING: ot7 x reader

GENRE: Mafia au, ot7 mafia, singer reader, 

A/N: Hiya love, you didn’t mention if you wanted it to be platonic or love so I made it platonic I hope that this is okay for you!! Mentions of Ateez in here too! :) @plotolonlye

Working for one of the most well-known mafia groups set your dating pool into the shallow end, there weren't that many people that were willing to date someone who was working for bangtan sonyeondan...Or BTS as they were better known as. It wasn't easy telling someone you were dating who you were working for so you did your best to keep it under wraps though it was hard since the boys treated you like a sister so far everything had been okay. The guy you were dating currently - Yeosang-  had been understanding about the boys and even agreed to do some of their stupid tests to see if he was suitable for you. It was stupid little games to see if he was "worthy" enough of you or making him run errands for the boys so that they would have someone to do their boring work for a while until they agreed he was okay for you. 

"Babe?" You glanced over your shoulder when you heard the familiar voice of your boyfriend calling you. He smiled at you as he stood at the changing room door just watching you. The dress you were wearing clung to your body perfectly as stylists worked around you trying to make sure your hair and makeup was done to perfection. You were a singer for the boys in one of their many, many clubs that they owned in the middle of Busan.

"What's up?" You questioned looking at your boyfriend through the mirror as one of the assistants attached a microphone to your cheek, applying a little surgical tape so that it would stay well attached while you moved around on stage. Yeosang began scratching the back of his neck, something he normally did when he was nervous about something so you got up from the dressing table to try and give him a kiss on the cheek with some words of encouragement but he yawned, stepping away from you. 

"Is your room upstairs empty?" He questioned not being able to meet your eyes as you stared at him, 

"Yeah...You're not watching me tonight? I'm performing a new song that the boys wanted me to sing..." You whispered as you reached out to take his hand, hoping that he would at least stick around long enough to see how much emotion you would put into the love song you were going to sing. 

"No, I'm just a little tired. Jimin's had me doing extra work all week," You nodded along with him as he began running towards the staircase that was just towards the back exit of the bar. That was all he had been saying for weeks now, that Jimin had been working him to death and it was starting to bug you. You figured that once the boys let him pass his trails he would be free to go back to working his own personal job and not the errands the boys wanted him on. Yeosang was far too innocent to be placed into the Mafia lifestyle, the boys were dangerous and you didn't want Yeosang to get hurt just because he was busy working for the boys. 

"Y/n, you're up in two minutes." Your stage manager called out as she looked at you, you'd been staring at the space where Yeosang had been standing thinking back on everything. 

"I'm coming," You mumbled going over to her and peeking out from the small gap in the curtain. 

The bar you worked in was decorated to look like an old 1940's bar and people loved coming there, there were always old drinks...The workers all dressed as though they were from the 1940's everything looked as though people had travelled back in time. Including the stage, it had old microphones, old musical equipment and it was amazing to work there every night. 

"3...2...1..." The music started up and you came out from behind the question, smiling as you started singing in time to the music looking around to see some of the locals that were in there tonight. A lot of the same faces were looking at you but there were seven all-too-familiar faces that made you feel angry inside, your blood boiling as you sang what was supposed to be a love song.

"Ooo, I know you're probably thinkin' what's the use. I promise it's the little things things that you do," You sang out as you began walking around the stage, stepping down onto the bar floor as you tried to make it look like this was some kind of choreography, walking around the floor of the bar singing to people. 

"What's she doing?" Yoongi asked as he watched you close, interacting with different people on the floor as you made your way over to the boys.

"I think she's doing her job," Jin said sarcastically as he watched you, it wasn't the first time that you had walked into the crowd to sing people seemed to love being close to you, getting to hear you sing.

"Baby, been a minute since I had something so sweet, Mmm...Oh hey," You looked directly at the boys as you made your way over to them and they knew that they were in trouble for some unknown reason.

"What did you do?" Yoongi accused Jungkook looking to the youngest member of the group, everyone following his lead. 

"Nothing. Not recently at least," He grumbled downing the glass of scotch that was in front of him. They may have been some of the scariest people to everyone else but you scared them, especially when you were angry they'd known you long enough to never get on the wrong side of you.

"I want you to keep speaking my love language. Baby, talk your shit all night!" The music ended and the lights went down which was when you would normally head behind the stage curtain and be replaced by the next performer but you didn't, you stayed at the table the boys were sitting at and laid your palms flat on the table, staring at all of them. 

"Stop making him work for you, I thought the little games you were doing were over," You snapped as you glanced to Jimin, your eyes felt as though they were staring into his soul as he stuttered over his words, 

"I-I haven't even had him around-" Jimin tried to speak but you cut him off

"You've been making Yeosang run around for you and it stops. Now." You demanded as Jimin shook his head, glancing to the boys to see if they had been the ones doing it but they all shook their heads. 

"Y/n...We left him alone months ago." Namjoon said slowly as you stared at him, your heart dropped to your stomach as you thought about why Yeosang would lie to you about something like that. 

"Y/n?" Taehyung questioned as he placed his hand on top of yours but you snatched it away, walking towards the backstage area with your head down trying to pass off the thoughts of what Yeosang was doing behind your back, you had a set to complete before you could even find out.

Walking into your room after the night finished all you wanted to do was collapse onto the bed and sleep for a week but when you entered the room you realised you weren't alone. There were noises coming from the bedroom and clothes scattered along the floor, not just Yeosang's clothes either. Women's clothes. Deciding to sneak up into the bedroom you quietly walked towards your door, skillfully avoiding the creaking floorboards. Swinging the door open you saw something you never thought you were going to see. Your heart felt as though it dropped to the floor and everything smashed around you. 

"Shit," Yeosang cried out as he covered the woman he was laying in your bed with, 

"You finished your set already?" You scoffed at the audacity to ask you something so stupid while he laid, naked, in your bed with another woman. 

"Are you serious?!" You yelled out as you could feel your body heating up, 

"Who are you?" The girl laughed loudly as she looked you up at down, you could feel the judgement seeping from her. 

"I'm the girl whose bed your sleeping in, who the fuck are you?!" You snapped back knowing that it wasn't her that you were angry at, it was Yeosang but you couldn't help but transfer your anger onto everyone else.

"Areum. Yeosang's girlfriend and this is his apartment," She quipped as she began attaching herself to Yeosang's neck as if she was some kind of Plecostomus on the side of a fish tank.

"Really? His apartment? Did he tell you that?" You laughed loudly as you looked at him, your stomach doing flips as you thought about him sleeping in your bed with someone that wasn't you.

"You know what...Keep it, burn it...Do whatever the hell you want just stay the fuck away from me." You threw the keys at him, hitting him in the chest as he grunted. Getting out of the bed and chasing after you as you headed for the door 

"You're not going to tell the boys, are you? T-They'll kill me...Actually, kill me." That was all he cared about. The boys finding out that he had been cheating on you 

"How long?" You questioned,

"How long what?"

"How long has this been going on?" You turned to look at him, your eyes burning into his as he realised he was going to have to tell the truth or you would find out one way or another. 

"Since the start...I was just-"

"Using me to get close to the boys? Using me for money? Which is it, cause I've had them all." You snapped as you walked out of the door, slamming it behind you as you began heading down the stairs and towards the back exit, ignoring your manager as she questioned where you were going. Away. You needed to get away from everything and everyone. You were sick of people using you just to get close to the boys to use you in order to get into their good books. No one ever wanted you for who you were and you were always left feeling abandoned and neglected.

The next night you knew that you had to go into work or the boys would do something and you didn't want the blood of someone on your hands, even if you weren't pulling the trigger yourself. 

"Here," Your manager said as she handed you a hand-held microphone after you stepped into a long black dress, all day you had been teaching one of the stage performers how to play a song you had written so that you would be able to perform it live. It would make a change to sing something you had written yourself for a change, the boys always gave you the freedom to do what you wanted. 

"I don't ever ask you...Where you've been. And I don't feel the need to...Know who you're with," You started off low, staring at the back of the room not being able to look at everyone knowing that you would probably burst into tears.

"I can't even think straight, but I can tell...That you were just with her...And I'll still be a fool. I'm a fool for you." The piano picked up and you managed to look over at the boy's table where they were all staring down at something, probably working on their next big break. 

"Just a little bit of your heart, just a little bit of your heart. Just a little bit of your heart is all I want," Jimin was the first to look up when he heard your voice crack in the middle of singing, something you would never do because you were all about professionalism but as soon as he saw you he knew there was something wrong. You looked like you'd hardly slept and your eyes were red with tears building up. 

"I think something's wrong," He whispered as he began nudging Hoseok beside him, making him look up at you too until they all stared at you, watching as you poured every heartbroken emotion that you had into every word you sang. 

Tears streamed down your cheeks as the song was coming to an end, Yeosang was sitting at a table with Areum their hands locked together as though they had done nothing wrong and were just there for the show. 

"Just a little bit is all I'm asking for..." The ending note trailed on until the lights went off and you rushed off the stage, your whimpers could be heard thanks to the microphone but no one besides the boys seemed to notice, giving you a standing ovation.

"What made her so upset?" Jungkook mumbled before Jimin pointed over at Yeosang who was already kissing Areum down the neck, chuckling to one another as he left marks up and down her pale skin.

"I'll fucking kill him," Yoongi growled but he was held back by Jin who was looking over in the direction of the backstage, 

"We comfort Y/n first...She must be broken up inside." He told the boys as he got up, trying not to make it look obvious that something was going on.

When they reached backstage you were gone, a car had been waiting for you and you left without a word. 

"Where are you going?" Namjoon snapped as he watched Yeosang out of the corner of his eye walking towards the staircase that leads to your apartment. 

"Y/n gave me the apartment, I'm going home." He had a giant smirk plastered across his face as he kept his arm around Areum's waist. 

"What makes you think we'll let you live after what you've done?" Yoongi questioned as he grabbed Yeosang by the labels of his coat, pushing him against the wall roughly causing him to hit his head. 

"Uh, uh, uh I wouldn't...I have some very powerful friends that would be interested to know that Y/n is one of your weaknesses." The boys froze as the words left his mouth in a cocky tone,

"What-"

"You really think I would date someone so close to you? It's been a plan from the start, Ateez will be interested to know what's going on behind closed doors..." Yoongi let him go at the mention of another Mafia family in Busan. 

"Remember all those errands you sent me on? I'd be careful unless you want company secrets leaking out." He chuckled darkly, pulling Areum up the staircase as the boys exchanged worried glances with one another at the thought of something happening to them. It didn't matter if something happened to the company it was you that they cared about more than anything else in the world. 

As more time passed the boys began to grow worried about you, you would go to work and perform before heading back to lord knows where. They weren't able to find you and couldn't get into contact with you until one night you came to work with a plan. You'd been planning it for months since the incident with Yeonsang had occurred, you wanted to get him back for everything he had done so you spent months making your plan foul-proof. Making yourself known as Juliet in one of the bars that Ateez owned in downtown Seoul. You'd changed your whole identity getting a wig, makeup and everything else perfect for what you wanted to do. To the boys in the club, you were Juliet to everyone else you were just a blonde girl who went to the bar every Friday night like clockwork.

"Tonight is the night," You told the boys as you sat across from them in their large car, all eight of you together.

"Do you remember the plan?" You questioned JImin still a little unsure that they understood what was going to happen tonight.

"You head to the bar first and the band they have gets sick...We come in as your own personal band and the rest moves like clockwork." You smiled at the thought of it, Hongjoong was out of town along with Yeosang, Mingi, Jongho, Yunho, San and Seonghwa leaving Wooyoung all alone to look after the club all on his own. 

"I'll take care of Wooyoung, you focus on everything else." You whispered as you handed them the code to the safe that was in the boy's office, you'd managed to swipe it from one of the not-so-great guards that they had. 

"I never thought I'd see the day Y/n got into a job with us," Jungkook chuckled as you got out of the car wearing a tight red dress, heading straight to the club doors and acting as though you owned the place. Confidence was key. 

Wooyoung sat beside you with a smile on his face, handing you a drink while six out of the seven boys stood on the stage in their disguises, singing and playing their instruments you smirked at Namjoon on the stage.

"Hey, quiet night," You motioned around the club that had around 20 people sitting at tables and talking amongst one another. 

"I knew you would be coming, I wanted a quiet night." You smirked up at him, the lipstick you were wearing was his favourite, the dress his favourite you made sure to do your research on everything he knew and loved. Swiping a martini from a waiter you sipped on it while looking at Wooyoung, 

"Why would you want a quiet night for that?" You questioned sitting a little closer to him, your chest against his side as you looked up into his eyes. The boy seemed to stutter a little as his eyes scanned over your body, 

"We could always go to my car out back..." You giggled softly raising your eyebrows at him, his jaw practically dropped to the floor. 

"You want to get involved with someone like me?" You nodded in answer to his question and he smirked, licking his lips as he glanced around for a guard. 

"Take care of the floor, I'll be back soon." You pulled him out from the booth, dragging out towards a back door where a black SUV was waiting for you. 

"Who's the guy?" Wooyoung asked as you attached your lips to his neck in the back of the car, sucking on his skin so you could leave marks. 

"My driver, don't worry...He was just leaving." You mentioned as you stared at Yoongi in the review mirror, he nodded before getting out of the car and heading into the club. 

"Now...Where were we?" You giggled as you attached yourself onto Wooyoung's neck once again, kissing up and down until you reached his lips where he kissed you back. 

"How about a drink?" You asked innocently as you pulled out a bottle of champagne from the door with two glasses. 

"I love it," He popped the bottle not noticing as you slipped some sleeping pills into the glass, pouring the liquid in and smiling to yourself as the man downed it in one. 

Weeks of torturing yourself to get close to him were paying off as you hauled his money into the bag you were carrying. So much money you had to call Yoongi back to put some into his pockets, Wooyoung must have been dumb for carrying so much cash around but you were too busy taking it to care. 

"Sorry baby, you were cute but I needed what I needed." You cooed, placing a red lipstick kiss on his cheek before getting out of the cab and leaving him there for the night.

The boys made a break for the car with everything they could carry, bags of cash and jewellery along with everything else that Ateez seemed to store in the safe.

"We have to do this again," Jimin breathed out as the car you got into began speeding back to Busan, all of you celebrating happily that you had pulled off a large plan together, organised by you and you alone. 

"We do," You confirmed as you downed some wine, looking at Namjoon with a questioning look. You knew there was no way you could go back to just singing in a club now that you had done this, 

"Nobody does it like Juliet." He winked at you referring to your fake name as you smiled brightly at him.

Months later and headlines were splashed with articles about you, "Mysterious woman strikes again," Attached with a photo of a giant question mark, everyone questioning who you could have been and who you could have possibly been working for to pull this kind of stunt off.

"Who would have thought," Jungkook chuckled as he looked over your shoulder at the article you were reading, 

"People start to turn and stare, everywhere she goes, and insider told us today as they claimed to have seen the mystery lady," Jungkook readout, passing the article to Namjoon who smirked,

"She will steal your soul...set her sights on billionaires all she wants is gold." They all laughed loudly and you could feel your body heating up at all of the attention, 

"Juliet needs to lay low...Just for a little while," They all agreed with you, not wanting to get caught too soon.

Tagline: @lyoongx @mitzwinchester @rjsmochii @taestannie @kneel-begyourpardon @sw33tnight @innersooya @sweeneyblue1 @agustdjoon @jin-from-the-block @acciocriativity @mwitsmejk @anxiousbobatea​ @justbangtanthingz​

[hopelesshawks]

History of Us Part 11- Qualifiers

Summary: Once upon a time Todoroki and (y/n) were best friends. Now they haven’t spoken in years. When (y/n) is forced to transfer to UA, will she and Shoto reconnect or will their troubled past keep them apart? A childhood friends to enemies to lovers hybrid fic.

If you don’t want to see History of Us content blacklist #hopelesshou

Masterlist Kofi

The moment right before the start of the sports festival is shockingly nerve-wracking. Each step through the tunnels, closer to the main field of the arena, fills you with more dread and excitement and anticipation. You keep your head raised high, wearing your UA gym uniform proudly as the roaring of the crowd starts to meet your ears. With Bakugo on your right and Kirishima on your left, you almost feel invincible. This is your chance, your opportunity, to show everyone what you’re capable of and show all of Japan that you refuse to be defined by your father’s tainted legacy. Present Mic’s voice booms over the speakers, his grinning face plastered across the monitors as you finally step out onto the field, astroturf crunching beneath your feet as he sings the praises of hero course class 3A. The crowd’s enthusiastic cheering is addictive. You make a point to soak it in while you can. Right now each and every one of them see you as a hero. While some of the students lamented not being able to wear their costumes for the event, you were secretly glad for it. The uniform made you a generic UA student; for now, unburdened by the past.

“This never gets old,” Kirishima grins next to you as you all step into the central area and the other classes begin to filter out into the coliseum as well. A few of them grumble, giving the hero classes jaded looks, but even their ire cannot dampen the overall atmosphere. You instinctively find yourself seeking out a familiar pair of heterochromatic eyes, eventually finding them next to Midoriya, Iida, and Uraraka. You can’t help the way your heart trips over itself when you lock eyes with Shoto. Memories of the night before and of waking up in his arms float to the forefront of your mind and you scowl before shaking your head to physically dispel the image from your mind. You turn away from him, missing the hurt that flashes across his eyes. He redirects his attention back to Principal Nezu, chief umpire as usual for the third years. “Now Shoto Todoroki will give the class pledge,” Nezu announces before ceding the floor.

The school had made the executive decision not to let Bakugo give the pledge after that first year. Midoriya had nearly passed out when it was his turn second year (as much as he has grown, public speaking still isn’t quite his forte). This made Todoroki the obvious choice for this year’s class pledge. As he approaches the mic he can’t help but think of Bakugo’s first speech. He remembers Midoriya telling him later the apparent narcissistic declaration that Bakugo had made to be number one had actually been to box himself into a corner to make sure he followed through. The more he thinks on it the more Shoto relates to that desire. His eyes scan the crowd until he spots his father amongst the rest. He makes sure to make direct eye contact, his eyes boring into his father’s as he leans down to speak into the mic. “I pledge... that we will create a new legacy of our own and destroy legacies of old,” he says confidently. He thinks he sees a flash of hurt and disappointment in Endeavor’s eyes even from the great distance between them. He turns to stride down the stairs of the stage and he can’t help but seek you out amongst the crowd of fellow students, hoping you got the message.

You tense a bit as your heart skips another beat. That boy is going to give you heart palpitations. Bakugo nudges you harshly in the side, causing you to jerk your head to scowl at him. “You good, nerd?” he asks, concern softening his usual bite a fraction. “I’m great. Ready to start kicking ass,” you reply, pushing down all your Shoto-related feelings for examination later. “Good,” is all Bakugo replies before his attention returns to Nezu. You can’t help but smile a little at Bakugo’s concern. He’s a surprisingly good friend and you’re grateful Kirishima introduced the two of you. When the direct elimination round comes around you’ll be merciless, but you have full confidence the two of you will make it through the qualifiers and you know the two of you and Kirishima will make for a great team for whatever the second round will be. “Don’t forget loser. I better see you on the fucking podium,” you remind him with a smirk. “You ain’t gotta worry about me idiot. Worry about yourself,” he replies although there’s no heat behind the words and he’s smirking just as much as you.

As the first game is announced you resolve yourself to staying middle of the pack for now. You don’t want to draw too much attention and let everyone discover your identity too quickly. You’re keenly aware that the second round is almost always a team event and without knowing how many people will be on a team, you can’t rely on Bakugo and Kirishima. Furthermore, any team you’re on would only become a target. Bakugo would kill you if he knew you have no intentions of trying your all in the qualifying round of course but you have to be strategic. No one pays much attention to the lower ranks from round 1, it’ll be easier to slip under the radar. Then, in round 2, you’ll kick it up a notch to prove your worth. At that point winning will become the only important matter. Creating a new legacy while destroying the old, as Shoto put it.

So that’s exactly what you do. The first game is a so called “Tower of Terror” that had been constructed in the preceding weeks. The task is simple enough in theory: scale the tower, cross from there to the ramp connected to the stadium, and return to the field. Only rule is that falling off the tower entirely is an immediate elimination. The amount of people being promoted out of the qualifying round is, as usual, a secret but you do the math to get a good idea of how many would optimally be removed and think you have a good estimate to ensure you’ll remain relatively anonymous. Your strategy pays off and you finish in the 30s out of the approximately 50 who qualify. As you finish your slide down the ramp, glowing faintly as you heal the minor injuries you’ve collected, a fuming Bakugo is storming up to you and you roll your eyes.

“The fuck you doing half and half?” he demands as you dust yourself off. “None of your goddamn business Pomeranian,” you fire back. “What happened to trying to be the best huh? Didn’t think you were one for dirty tricks,” he accuses. You feel your temper starting to genuinely flare at that comment. “I’m not pulling dirty tricks I’m trying to survive asshole. Not all of us can afford to be showy right out the gate,” you seethe. “I didn’t take you for a coward.” “I didn’t take you for an idiot.” “Say that shit again and I’ll blast you out the fucking stadium.” “I’d like to see you fucking try.” Both of you grip hold of the front of each other’s shirts, your right hand raised as your quirk makes shadows pool in it and one of his hands raised already popping off explosions. Before either of you can draw more attention to yourselves or actually act on your anger, you’re frozen in place. Literally. “All that work you did to keep your identity under wraps will be for nothing if Present Mic or Nezu comment about you and Bakugo fighting between games. Especially if they decide to disqualify you over it,” Shoto says as he approaches the both of you before melting the ice keeping you and Bakugo from pummeling each other. “I don’t recall fucking asking you,” you spit back, whirring to face your former friend. “I’m only trying to help,” Shoto responds placatingly but it’s too late to quell your anger. “Well fucking stop trying to,” you tell him before storming off. You need to focus on the next event anyway and not stupid Shoto with his stupid face and his stupid need to stick his nose in your fucking business.

The second event is...

Rough.

To say the least.

You and Bakugo were still too pissed at each other to make a proper team so you’d ended up with Yaoyorozu, Denki, and Sero. You admired their quirks and objectively they were strong, but it wasn’t exactly a perfectly complementary combination of skills. Each member of the team was given a target they were required to protect, almost exactly like the provisional licensing exam held during your first year, except with one major twist. Every member of your team was linked together by a short leash attached to their wrists. Last four teams standing would advance to the finals. Without his costume or support items to help direct his lightning Denki’s quirk was difficult to utilize without risking stunning the entire team. Sero’s quirk was more useful but the placement of the leash made it difficult for him to use it without tugging around the hands of the teammates on either side of him. You and Yaoyorozu, the only two whose quirks weren’t actively impeded, struggled to compensate for the other two and coordinate your actions. In the end, the four of you had barely qualified, leaving you frustrated.

So much for crafting a new legacy.

As Present Mic gleefully announces that the teams of Midoriya, Bakugo, Monoma, and Yaoyorozu will be moving on, a picture of all those advancing flashing on the monitors, you can’t help but sink deeper and deeper into regret and frustration. The others head to the cafeteria as the lunch break is announced but you storm off in the opposite direction in hopes of getting an opportunity to cool off and clear your head before the break ends and the next game begins. The universe, however, seems to have other plans because instead you crash into another, much larger body. As you look up your apology shrivels up and dies on your tongue as you find yourself staring into the eyes of the only man who inspires similar ire in you as your father does.

Enji Todoroki aka Endeavor aka the (second) largest tool in the entirety of Japan.

“Where are you sneaking off to?” he asks, making no attempt to mask his suspicion of you. “None of your fucking business,” you retort. You move to step around him but he quickly steps back in front of you. “The cafeteria is the opposite direction,” Endeavor informs you. “Gee thanks, I had no idea even though I literally go to this fucking school,” you reply, each word dripping with sarcasm. “Then what could possibly have you traveling this direction instead?” “Like I said. None of your fucking business.” “Your suspicious behavior is my business. I made a mistake with a (y/l/n) before, I won’t make one again,” Endeavor swears and you reel back almost as if struck. “I am not my father,” you spit out. Your quirk activates unbidden in response to your anger, black shadows curling out of your clenched right hand and forearm. “Sure looks like it to me,” Endeavor scoffs, looking pointedly at the shadowy tendrils rising out of the right side of your body. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a familiar voice asks from behind you and you wish the earth would swallow you up. Shoto steps around and in front of you, taking up an almost protective stance between you and his father. “Shoto step aside and-“ “No,” Shoto insists, staring down his father in challenge. He and Endeavor’s gazes stay locked in a silent argument, neither willing to back down, so you take the opportunity while they’re both distracted to slip away. You make it to about halfway down the hallway when a hand catches your shoulder. You whirl around knocking it away to find Shoto there looking genuinely stunned at your hostility. “Jesus christ will you fuck off!” you snap at him and maybe it isn’t fair but you’re frustrated and angry and you fought with one of your best friends and you’ve barely squeaked through each round so far and the last thing you are mentally or emotionally prepared to do is confront your increasingly complex thoughts on Shoto fucking Todoroki whose father just all but accused you of attempting to sabotage the competition.

“Hey I just wanted to check on you,” he says and for some reason, the show of compassion only pisses you off even more. “Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?” you demand. “Please (y/n) I-“ he tries to say, clearly confused by your rage. You know most of your anger is actually directed inwards and not at him but you don’t care. “I get that you are trying to grow as a person or whatever and pity me because you were a complete and utter dickhead a decade ago but I don’t want your fucking pity friendship so leave me the fuck alone Icyhot,” you spit with all the venom you can muster before promptly spinning around and continuing your path down the hallway, leaving a stunned Shoto behind.

No one needs to know that you’ve already started crying before you’ve even turned the corner away from him.

A/N: Oh you thought the good feelings from last chapter would last? Nah, have some angst 🙃

Taglist: @sorrythatspussynal @miss-bakugo-writes @pixelwisp @larkspyrr @sokkaandzukosimp @akkaso @sunaispretty @mindofess @todoplusultra @oliviasslut

[baconpal]

pokemon rant time

this one’s about the 2 new things, and is at least slightly intended for people actually excited/interested in them, click keep reading or perish

Gonna try and keep stuff short cus there's a lot of topics this time and I've already gone off about how pokemon Isn't meant for me or meant to be a good video game anymore, but gamefreak is right back on their bullshit, so I feel I need to at least point it out.

I'd like to preface all this with, if you are a fan of pokemon still, please realize you can ask for more out of this series. Expect perfection, even if you don't think you'll get it anytime soon. Pokemon won't go anywhere, the old games won't go anywhere, and gaming is a hobby, not a necessity; don't accept low quality products from a company just because you feel like you're supposed to.

With this next wave of pokemon games, gamefreak is clearly testing how little they can put in to a $60 game while still keeping the 2 major audiences they've cultivated. By responding to the most obvious and vocal complaints from the community, gamefreak is aiming to make games that seems like what most players want, without having to put in the work on quality products.

GEN 4 REMAKES Pokemon BS (I am not calling this shit BDSP) is intended for the audience that put up with let's go and RS remakes. The most vocal and obvious complaints for these games is their failure as definitive versions of the games they are remakes of, such as missing features/content, or drastically changed story/dialogue/style. In a way, the recent remakes are inferior versions of incredibly old games, which shows a lack of improvement in pokemon as a whole.

To address these issues, BS is very, very, VERY clearly aiming for a more 1-to-1 recreation of the DS games, but with fully 3d graphics. Clearly the map layout has been transferred exactly, and gen 4 already had mostly 3d environments to begin with, and everyone knows about the future-proof pokemon models at this point, so the amount of effort required to create something like this is absolutely minimal. Assuming dialogue, trainer teams, move lists, etc. are also lifted directly from DP, then this game could be developed in basically no time at all, leaving the team time to ensure the product is of decent quality and includes ALL of the content of the originals, if not more, like the earlier pokemon remakes did to ensure they were truly definitive versions of the games. That being said, it is unlikely the team behind BS has been making use of this saved time to improve the game.

One failing already clear is that the quality is not very good, at least graphical quality. The footage we have shows environments lacking in color compared to the original, with messy, unpleasant textures that contrast poorly with the simplistic environments. The characters especially do not work. As cute and fun the fanart of tiny dawn has been, BS dawn and all other characters look awful. They have gorilla arms that reach down to the floor and lifeless faces, as well as incredibly stiff/simplistic animations. As it stands, BS is a visually inferior game to DP, though most consumers will simply see it as 3D>2D without any understanding of what an artstyle is, so this might not be a problem for many, but that doesn't mean you should accept it.

What remains to be seen is what content will be added/missing from pokemon BS. It is very possible that massive parts of the game, such as the underground, variety of online modes, postgame areas, and content from platinum could be missing entirely. We also do not know if pokemon from after gen 4 will be worked into the region, or even supported. Gen 8 still currently does not support a large number of pokemon, and the remakes may continue this limited dex trend.

Even assuming the remake includes everything from the DS games and doesn't add anything that slows down the story or harms the experience, it will still only be an exercise in forced obsolescence. The main reason people can't really play DP still is that the online isn't supported anymore. If BS turns out to be exactly the same as DP, then you're buying the same game for at a higher price, only to play it until the online service goes away again, or the next game comes out, if both don't happen at the same time.

Don't let yourself buy a 13 year old game at twice the original price.

GEN 4 NOT-REMAKE KIND OF NEW THING On to legends now, gamefreak is targeting the people who put up with sun/moon and sword/shield. The obvious problem with those games to most people was simply a lack of change from the standard pokemon formula. Even when changing the gyms to trials or stadiums, most people still understand that the format and story structures are mostly unchanged. Of course, this problem has seemingly been addressed by changing the game structure a fair bit, but almost entirely by removal.

Trainer battles, and by extension, gyms and tournaments/elite 4 have been confirmed to be absent, meaning all battles are only vs single pokemon, in spite of the player likely having a team of 6 pokemon. Even if battle difficulty is increased to compensate (doubtful), this will still drastically increase the simplicity of combat and make it even less likely for the game to include any meaningful challenge. Exploring towns and meeting NPCs is also seemingly missing, as the game is confirmed to have only a single village, which frankly looks incredibly boring and we've yet to see a single NPC inhabiting the village.

Battles now use an ATB format instead of a turn-based format (for those of you who don't know what that means, it basically means nothing, it's still turn based, it just means the speed state determines who gets more turns instead of who goes first, that's it), but beyond that there seems to be no noteworthy changes, pokemon learn 4 moves with limited PP, type advantage will still definitely be the most important aspect to battle, and the player being able to walk around during battle provides no meaningful impact. While the little dash the pokemon do to approach each other is cool, it is already a sign that gamefreak will not be addressing the issue of lacking animations for pokemon battles, as they can't even be assed to animate and program pokemon walking around the environment during combat, and lucario doing 1 kick for a move described as a series of punches isn't a great sign either.

On the topic of lacking animations, the new "pet simulator feature" for legends seems to be an advancement on the ride system from sun/moon, which presumably people missed from sword/shield. Being able to ride on your pokemon to do stuff sounds cool, but in all likelihood, this system will be limited to only a select few pokemon who will each do a select few actions, and is not a reasonable replacement for all the other pet raising features that have been removed in the past. Similar to BS, the total number of pokemon included may also be limited arbitrarily, in spite of the fact that no new pokemon need to be added, as these games are not claiming to be a new generation.

The largest issues I personally have with this new game is the horrible technical quality and gameplay quality shown in the initial trailer. Unfortunately, these types of problems seem to be difficult to explain to the average consumer, even though the issues seem incredibly obvious and inexcusable to people like me.  Most people were able to understand the problem with the berry trees in gen 8, because it was easy to explain, "this tree doesn't look like the other trees, and it sticks out, isn't that weird?", and so gamefreak has eliminated any immediately obvious issues like that, sticking with a very consistent artstyle for legends, making it almost impossible to easily explain its faults to the average pokemon fan.

People have been really quick to compare legends to BoTW; the game that invented grass, trees, and mountains. In spite of these comparisons, nobody seems to point out that legends looks dramatically worse than that almost 5 year old game from the previous generation. Plants are stiff and lacking in energy, draw distances are poor, colors are drab, and textures are messy. Many parts of legends seems to ape BoTW on just the surface, essentially just following market trends. Even the controls seem to follow after modern 3rd person shooters/stealth games, including a seemingly pointless roll and a clunky looking ball lobbing arc that feels unfun before even getting to play it myself.

The largest issue, painfully obvious to some, and impossible to explain to others, is the framerate. The trailer clearly was ran on actual switch hardware, and not prerendered, which would be a good mark for gamefreak if it didn't result in a trailer that never once hit 30fps. Even with empty fields, with only 1 or 2 characters on screen, the game was incapable of meeting the target speed, and had to resort to optimizations like reducing the frame rate of pokemon only inches away from the player to stop-motion levels of choppy. If situations with almost nothing going on result in slow-down, how will the game perform during actual gameplay? Even though slow-down is something everyone can feel, many people aren't capable of identifying it.

The major things to wait and see for legends is if the removed aspects of the series are made up for by some additional systems or content, and definitely wait to see if the performance improves. As with BS, preordering a game like this only shows that gamefreak only has to market the game by saying it's different, not improved, like they've been doing for years now.

TL;DR FUCK GAMEFREAK One major thing of note is that gamefreak is releasing 2 games based on gen 4 at the nearly the same time, meaning they have no obligation to design new pokemon or even include pokemon not from sinnoh, and also that the sales of each game can be used as an indicator for which of their 2 audiences is more loyal to them. Both BS and Legends are in a position to be pushes aside if they fail, but if either succeeds, gamefreak can continue in the direction of the more successful game and reap the benefits, without any need to innovate, improve, or adapt to criticism.

The last thing I feel I have to remind people about is that gamefreak is a company; you don't need to be "grateful" to them. I've seen that word thrown around far too much by people who seem to buy pokemon games like its a tax, and not something they want to do. You don't have to suck up to a company that made games you liked as a kid if the games aren't what you want anymore. Pokemon is so wildly successful that it can't possible die, so don't buy the games out of pity, or out of some feeling of obligation. Buy the video games you want to play and nothing more.

Basically, if you are considering getting any of these new games, please wait until the games are out before purchasing them, and decide for yourself if they are worth your money, and more importantly, your time. Preordering these games only lets gamefreak know their audience will buy and put up with anything. They have no real competition at the moment, so the only thing the audience can do to encourage improvement is show some of restraint.

[ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa]

With Cherries On Top

Chapter 3: The Ring & The Save

Summary/Author’s Note: I’m so fucking excited for you all to read this I am like BOUNCING. Max in all of his glory being a fucking SHIT. But we love him dearly. 

You and Max start learning a little more about each other. Your current predicament calls for a drink...or seven. And the two of you land in Alaska to meet your family. @pedropascalsource for gif credit. Look at that fucking shit and that grin...it happens a lot in this chapter as he starts to schmooze your family.

Pairing: Max Phillips x Reader (The Proposal AU) Word Count: 3.5k Warnings: R/18+ - drinking, alcohol, sass, so much sass, sexual tension, sexual innuendos, Max is a bastard man but he is...getting better?, also does he own casual clothes?

[Chapter 1] [Chapter 2] [MASTERLIST]

You had taken Tylenol before you even went through security, but at this point you were pretty sure the entire bottle would not have prepared you for flying with Max Phillips. The non stop flight from JFK to Juno was almost ten hours and you had thought multiple times about stabbing your eardrums out with an ink pen. It wasn't that the flight was bad, in fact the flight itself was quite nice. First class was definitely a new experience but you could get used to it. The padded leather seats and extra leg room meant you could lean back and stretch. You propped yourself up with a pillow, and a book and was content to relax. There was just one problem, Max.

His presence was about as loud as he was and he insisted on chatting up the cute stewardesses, reading over your shoulder, and reminding you almost every fifteen minutes that this flight was boring. He at one point in time asked if you wanted to join the mile-high club and you fought the urge to snap your book shut and smack him with it.

The flight attendant walked by and asked if you needed anything and you sat up and gave her a warm smile.

"Yeah, um, I'll take a vodka cranberry, please."

Max raised an eyebrow and looked at you, "It's nine thirty in the morning."

"Oh, shoot. You're right!" You threw yourself over his lap and leaned into the isle to catch the attendant. Max grunted from the sudden weight of you and you bit back a grin. "I'm sorry, can you make it a Bloody Mary? Thank you."

You leaned back into your seat and opened the binder from immigration. Max dusted off his slacks and continued to look at you with curious disdain.

"Maybe you should eat something first?"

"It comes with celery, I think." You said without looking up. You could feel his eyes on you but refused to give him the satisfaction that it bothered you. The words on the page were suddenly the most interesting thing you had ever seen in your life and when he gave a heavy sigh, you grinned.

The attendant came back with your drink and you smiled as she set it on your fold out table tray.

"Is that the binder from I.N.S?" Max said and you nodded as you wrapped your lips around your straw and drank deep.

"Yup, and we have one week to learn all of this about each other. Which will be easy for me, because I can answer all of these questions about you--but you know nothing about me." You looked up and glared as he snatched the binder from you and started flipping through it.

"You expect me to believe you know all of this about me?"

"I do," you took another drink and turned in your seat to face him. "You never stop talking about yourself--and I've been listening to it for five years."

"Well," he said, flipping the page dramatically and looking at you with a grin. "I am my favorite subject."

"At least you can admit it."

He sat back in his seat and crossed his ankle over his knee, balancing the binder on his leg. "Alright, let's have at it then. What's my favorite color?"

"Red." You said without hesitation. "Which is ironic now, all things considered." He ignored the quip about his vampiric state and you leaned over the seat, making your drink slurp obnoxiously. "You know? Because of the blood--"

"Yes, I get the joke, dear." He moved his finger down the page. "What am I allergic to?"

"Soy, gluten," you ticked off on your fingers before waving your hand. "And a whole spectrum of human emotion."

"Are you going to be like this the whole time?" He looked at you exasperatedly and you shrugged. He sighed and shook his head. "Where did I grow up?"

"Transylvania."

"Okay. I'm done." He snapped the binder shut and you almost felt bad...almost.

"No! Okay, okay, come on, Max. I'm sorry," you put your hand on his arm and he looked down at it, making you pull back like he had burned you. "Queens. You grew up in queens. See?"

"Well, you grew up in Sitka. One down. Only two hundred and ninety-nine more questions to go."

You groaned and threw yourself over Max's lap again and held up your finger. "Excuse me, Ma'am?" You hailed the attendant. "Another Bloody Mary, please."

"Will you please, get off of me?" Max said, and you finished your drink and gave his nose a playful tweak.

You plopped back into your seat and leaned back against the headrest. "Next question."

"Do I have any scars?" He turned in his seat to mirror you.

"You have a pretty bad one on your knee. I see it every time you have your meetings with Ted. A.K.A--racquetball." Max nodded, indicating that you were correct and you continued. "So, what's it from? College sports, I'm guessing. What pretentious, frat-boy sport did you play? Soccer? Lacrosse?" You gasped and put a hand to your mouth. "Ultimate Frisbee?"

"You're very funny." He sneered and shook his head. "And I'm not telling you."

"What about me, Max? Do I have any scars?" You switched up the game. Proving that you knew everything about him wasn't going to get you very far with the government unless he could return the favor.

"No," he leaned in and lowered his voice. "But I'm pretty sure you have a tattoo."

You choked on your drink and the action made him smile. Taking a deep breath and a moment to wipe the tomato juice off of your sleeve, you glared at him. "Pretty sure?"

"Yes, when you had the nerve to be out with the flu and they stuck me with that idiotic temp, she accidentally transferred one of your calls to me. It was to confirm that you wanted to cancel your appointment with a laser removal company." He balanced his chin on his palm and continued to give you a smug grin. He was enjoying this now and it was suddenly a lot less fun.

"What are you getting at detective Phillips?"

"So, what is it?"

"No way," you took another large sip and blushed, turning away from him. "I'm not telling you."

"You know they're going to ask. I have to know. Is it a dolphin? An infinity symbol?...'live, laugh, love'?" He gave a mock gasp and put a hand to his mouth. He was imitating your earlier jest about his scar. This was still a game to him and all you had managed to do was encourage it by baiting him.

"You know, I really am glad you're having fun with this, but do remember I could go to prison. Give me that--" you snatched the binder back from him and he let you have it. "Next question. Whose place do we stay at, yours or mine?"

"That's easy," he kicked back in his chair and folded his hands on top of his chest. The action made you realize just how long he was. Between his broad shoulders and impressive calves, he barely fit in the chair. It had to be the alcohol talking. "We stay at mine," he said simply, drawing your gaze from his body.

"Why wouldn't we stay at mine?"

"Because I live at Central Park West. And you no doubt live in some squalid little studio apartment full of houseplants and a dusty, lonely, wine rack that you never use, because it's for guests you never have." He waved his hand as if imagining it and your jaw dropped.

You stayed quiet and closed the binder placing it in the pocket on the back of the seat in front of him. The small bursts of moments when Max wasn't being an asshole, it was easy to forget how real this was. He was charming and you both threw it back at one another so easily that it felt like a game. But when his real nature came roaring back to life and his dig against you was just a tad too deep--well, you didn't want to play anymore.

"What are you doing? We have more."

You sucked the rest of your drink down and put it on the edge of the tray for the attendant to take.

"We should get some rest." You said flatly, pulling the thin airline blanket up over your shoulder. "Knowing my mother, she has a big dinner or something planned."

"Wonderful," he said, folding his hands across his chest as he settled back into his seat.

The two of you stayed quiet for the majority of the trip. You frequently looked over your shoulder to see if he was even still next to you, as he didn't make a sound when he breathed. It was unnerving but no doubt had something to do with him being undead. Did he even need to breathe? You had certainly seen him do it. Was it an act? Fuck all of this was going to send your family over the edge.

The last time you pulled back your silk, airline stamped eye mask, Max wasn't in his seat. His table tray was pulled down and sitting on top of it was a small black velvet box. You looked around but he was nowhere to be seen.

Your fingers traced the shape of the box gently before you picked it up and pried it open. The ring that sat inside was stunning. It was gold, with a few small diamonds in the band on each side before leading up to the main piece--a large teardrop ruby rimmed with more diamonds. You weren't sure if the red stone was meant to be a joke but regardless, it was actually very pretty.

It slid over your finger in a perfect fit and you watched it sparkle in the sunlight from the window over your shoulder. Despite your frustrations, you had to admit, Max Phillips continued to be full of surprises.

--

Seeing Max rattle in his cramped seat while the puddle jumper took you from Juno to Sitka brought you more joy than it should have. His broad shoulders were folded in on themselves as and he was glaring straight ahead like finding a fixed point on the wall would keep him from committing murder. You knew the flight wouldn't be long, and after the amount of Bloody Marys you had consumed on the last plane, you were too buzzed to care.

As soon as your feet stepped down off of the stairs and onto the tarmac, you saw your family, waving and jumping on the side of the airstrip with a 'welcome home' sign. Oh boy. Here we go.

"Chad! Talk to me, champ." Max said loudly and you turned around to see he had put in his Bluetooth. It made you roll your eyes and you didn't bother to wait for him as you started towards your relatives.

Your mother was soft and sweet and the joy you felt as she squealed and threw her arms around your neck couldn't compare to any other kind of happiness. She smelled like home and fresh baked bread, like holiday candles and clean laundry--things that made you think of home. She pulled back to look at you like you had grown so much since she last saw you, despite being practically the same, and you laughed as she kissed each of your cheeks.

"Oh, I missed you!" She said, hugging you again before passing you off to your grandmother.

"Missed you, too, Mom. Hey, Nana," you said as you stooped down to hug the older woman.

Your mom paused and pulled you back close enough to sniff the air in front of you. "Honey, have you been drinking?"

“Oh--” you leaned back and shook your head, which was a mistake as the world spun just a little bit. “Of course not. There was a guy on the plane and he--”

"We don’t care about any of that," Your grandmother waved a hand to stop your mom from continuing to make a fuss over you. "Where's your man??"

You stopped breathing for a moment as you were suddenly reminded that you were lying to the people who loved you the most. With a bite of your lip, you looked over your shoulder and gestured to Max who was slowly making his way over to you and still talking on his earpiece.

"That's him, the one in the suit."

"Oh, my," your mom said, lowering her welcome sign and taking in the sight that was your boss and now assumed lover.

"You've been keeping that from us for five years?" Nana said as she elbowed you in the ribs and your mother glared at her. “He seems a bit overdressed.”

“Yeah,” you said, glancing down at your leggings, warm boots, and well worn over sized sweater in comparison to Max’s custom blue suit and silk tie. You hoped to god that Max had brought more suitable clothes for what was supposed to be a relaxing family oriented week in Alaska. “He does, doesn’t he?”

“Chad--I think I lost you. Can you hear me? Hello? Helloooo? Shit.” Max tapped the device in his ear repeatedly as he looked around like he would be able to see where there would be better signal. He had yet to acknowledge either you or your family and you clenched your fists at your side.  

“Honey,” you said and Max had the audacity to hold up his finger to you as he continued to turn in a half circle. “Honey.” You tried again and finally you raised your voice curtly, “Max!”

“What?” he hissed and you reached up and took the earpiece out of his ear. It took everything you had not to turn and chuck it into the harbor. You gestured to your mom and grandmother and Max’s face changed into his large and inviting smile.

“We agreed not to bring work onto this trip, it’s family time, right?” You raised an eyebrow and he glared at you. “This is my mom and grandmother,” you gestured to them, keeping a firm hold on his Bluetooth and almost daring him to try and get it back.

“You won’t get any reception on that thing anyway, dear,” your grandma waved to Max and then around to the vast landscape. “Too many trees.” She took a few steps over to him and gave him a hug like he wasn’t a complete stranger. You had to give Max props, he hugged her back and managed not to look entirely uncomfortable as he silently worried she was going to wrinkle his suit. “Now, do you prefer to be called ‘Max’ or ‘Satan Reincarnated’? Because we’ve heard it both ways.” She laughed as she patted his chest and smiled up at him.

“Nana!” You looked at her wide-eyed and Max grinned from ear to ear. How was it that the elderly managed to get away with saying the most inappropriate things?

“Oh, have you?” he glanced at you and you felt your face get hot. “Max is fine. As long as I can call you Nana.” He continued to offer that grin that you knew to be his trademark salesman smile but it made your grandmother positively beam.

“Of course!” she said, patting his chest again and adjusting his pocket square. You ran a hand through your hair wanting to scream.

“Shall we?” You interjected and grabbed your suitcase with one hand and your mother’s arm with another. The two of you walked pointedly towards the edge of the pier and she looked at you with parental concern.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” you reassured with a shake of your head, slowing down for Max and your grandma could catch up. “I’m just tired.” If you continued to lie this much you were certain your nose was going to grow pointed.

Your mother helped the elderly woman down the ladder that connected the main strip to the edge of the pier where the family speedboat was parked. The chill off of the water made you shiver, it was definitely coming up on winter time and with the constant overcast came icy waters and snow. Max was just lucky it wasn’t summer time as the non-stop sunlight would have been an issue.

Looking over the ladder and feeling your body sway without even being on the water, you were starting to regret the amount of drinks you had had on the plane. You put a hand to your lips as a small amount of indigestion came up to the middle of your throat. Max stopped beside you and held his hand out expectantly.

“I’ll take my headset back, thank you,” he snarled and you ignored him. “Are you going to be sick? Pull yourself together--”

“Pull myself together? Pull m--” you shook your head and slapped the small device into his hand. “Unbelievable, you’re unbelievable.”

“This is going to be a long fucking week,” he said, looking at the boat as your family settled in. “I’m not getting in that. I cannot get these wet. They’re Armani.” He gestured to his shoes and you vowed in that moment that if you did wind up vomiting, it would be on those shoes.

“Hence the boat,” you gestured. It was the only way of getting to the island that the tiny town resided on, you were happy to make him swim but somehow you doubted that would go over very well with your family. “Either you climb down or you can stay here and I’ll see you in a week--”

“Fine. Fine.” He stopped arguing and climbed down the ladder, hopping the last few rungs to land firmly on the pier. He held up his arms as you passed down the suitcases and tossed his shoulder bag to him and he placed them in the back of the boat. “Are you coming?” he added impatiently as you leaned heavily on the railing at the top of the ladder.

“Give me a minute,” you said through gritted teeth.

“I told you to eat something. You’re drunk--”

“I am not.” You argued with him, straightening your posture and turning around to climb down the ladder. You were going to prove him wrong even if it meant that you landed on your ass. It was simple, all you needed to do was put one foot down in front of the other and keep a tight hold. Rinse and repeat until your feet were firmly planted on the wooden boards--simple.

“Lookin’ good, sweetheart,” Max said, and you didn’t have to look to know he was staring up at your ass. “Those leggings are nice--are you wearing a thong?”

“Oh my god, shut up, Max,” you paused and leaned your head against the ladder, wanting to both strangle him and dive into the pier and let the ocean take you far away from the week ahead of you. After a few moments, you regained your sense of self and took a few more rungs down.

“Almost there,” he encouraged and you let out a heavy sigh. “There ya go--annnnd, congratulations. I am now five hundred years old.”

“Good for you, old man,” you quipped and tried to push passed him. Your boot caught on one of the loose boards and there was nothing to catch yourself on as you started to tumble. Despite refusing to admit that Max was right, maybe you should have eaten something. Your desperate attempt to forget your current situation was about to land you in the middle of the freezing gulf. You heard your mom gasp from the boat but instead of hitting the water, Max’s arm shot around your waist and pulled you back against his chest with ease.

You stumbled and grabbed the front of his suit coat as you tried to turn around and he tightened his grip. He looked down at you with a grin that was much different than the one he had been giving your family. “Got ya.”

“Nice going, Max!” your grandmother cheered and you knew there would be no living with him after this.

“Thank you,” you said curtly and tried to move from his arms but he didn’t release you.

“What, no kiss?” he smirked, keeping his voice low enough that your family couldn't hear him. “I did just save your life.”

“Let. go. of. me. Max.” You said through gritted teeth and you braced for him to force a kiss on you for the sake of your family, but to your surprise, he released you. The way he watched you as you climbed into the boat, all dark eyes and wide grin, sent a shiver down your spine.

--

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[shyrose57]

It works very much like illusions. Ranbob can see him but can't touch him. While Dream can touch him (though it feel like more of a faint touch). The entire time Ranbob feels like he's dreaming but due to physical evidence, like notes left by Dream, he knows it isn't a dream. He's just kinda existing. But in actuality he's not completely "there", sometimes he is aware of what's going on (though he never remembers more often than not) but that's when Dream allows it, other than that he's either floating aimlessly in the void or dreaming. Not aware of what's happening. 

Definitely, Enderman tend to be 7 ft+. Infact when traveling and Enderman spot Ranbob, they always voice their worry about him being so short. They know he's a hybrid so he was always going to be shorter than them, but he shouldn't have been this short. His growth is permanently stunted. Its a miracle he even got those 2 inches to be honest. Ran was definitely caught off guard seeing Ranbob so short. But quickly dismissed it in favor of attacking him. But later on as time passes, he can't dismiss the unease and concern he gets when he thinks about the difference so easily as he did eailer. The Gladiators notice right away but don't comment on it, the Fishermen think Ranbobs height is normal so when they meet Ran and learn Enderman hybrids typically grow that big and bigger their caught off guard, Cletus and Charles attempt to question Ran what its like to be so tall but Benjamin stops them. 

He did, the Dream Mask has a small bit of it broken off due to it being dropped (Ranbob didn't break it. He suspects maybe when it was being transferred it got dropped in its holding box and thats what broke it). Ranbob picked it up because he meant to throw it away, but he forgot too. Giving Dream more time to get a hold on him. They talked about whatever came to mind at first since Benjamin didn't want to start off with the rough questions. But eventually the two did start to talk about what happened to Ranbob and who/what Dream was.

Dream does not consider it important enough because he thinks he's never going back there. So it falls into disrepair and gets all dusty with some mold even growing in the room. 

Dreams petty and likes being in control of everything. But Dream would just kinda wander, making sure no ones alive. Every now and again he'll get bored and just destroy something. The fishermen explored and read about the history of Mizu while they were there, then after Ranbob attacked them spent most of the time arguing about what to do with him. 

It just leads to Cletus being mean/rude to Ranbob and taking much longer than the others to be comfortable around him. If that's what you mean.

-------------------

Yes! When it was down to just 4 people left alive in Mizu, Ran stumbled upon the 4th person dead, then it all kind of clicks in his head, as the only other person currently alive is a Council Member, that it has to be his brother. So he rushes off to find the Council Member so they can stop Ranbob, only to find Ranbob standing over his dead corpse. Thats when the chase around Mizu ticks off that ends with Ran fleeing Mizu. 

Cause while spiders are passive in daytime, creepers aren't, and don't burn in the light. Plus they are loud with their explodes (yet oddly quiet) which can give his position away.

Eh I'll say. Their not really super common because mixing them can cause serious side effects during and after mixture. But the healing, sleep aids, and infection mixtures are common as they've been figured out and can safely be made. Fun fact: Subbin actually has an entire community and an official place in the government for figuring out potion mixtures, making new ones, and making the mixing process as safe as possible. 

The group doesn't really use the mixtures much, expect for Rans sleep aid and a every now and again healing mixture when a Pit match goes wrong. Cause Grievous used to intern in a potion shop and learned all about them then.

He really did. 

Your right! Not many people traverse it. Because he was a Technoblade follower, and they typically get taught the bare basics of surviving in environments like the Nether, deserts, snow, caves, etc in their teachings. He got da book from his Idol teachers, everyone in his Idol group got a book as well. 

You can ask! I welcome any and all questions.

There's gold coins (I forget the actual in-game name oop) ore deposits in the Nether, so he mines that. Not any specific ones, cause there is still a language barrier and a mostly gesture barrier (expect for the universal ones like wait, ok/good, no harm, etc). 

They made a group decision to try to check the Nether on a whim. Though mostly cause one guy just wouldn't shut up about it. They found a broken portal and managed to repair it enough to enter.

The Fishermen and Ranbob where kinda confused (cause Ran hadn't fully told them about his time on the run.) But expressed sympathy at his house being burned down. Jackie and Grievous wanted to search it for anything usable, Ran didn't let em cause he thinks there's nothing left. Watson shoots Ran a sympathetic look and declared that he wants to keep moving to find shelter. Benjamin quickly agreeing and the group moves on.

---------Tip of The Iceberg-----------

He does not expect in all of their times he's still the God of the world. 

Honestly, most of them were fine. Bad was the only one who was mad and wasn't ok with it. The Masquerade, The Pit, Sam, Sapnap, Quackity, Foolish, Ranboo, Skeppy, Tubbo, Tommy, and Karl all say the Egg wrote it because they all have had experience with the Egg. The Haunted Mansion, The Wild West, George, Fundy, Eret, Jack, Niki, and Puffy all say XD because they've either had no experience with the Egg or believe in XD's existence. Philza and Technoblade actually go both ways. (If I forgot someone, oops). 

Technoblade, Phil, Niki, The Pit, The Wild West, Puffy, Sapnap, and Sam are all on the Frontline. While the others are all split between research into the egg (The Masquerade is in this one of course), and running tests. Fundy is a runner, delivering orders, requests, or new information. Foolish is on both the researching, testing, and frontlines, he is on the frontlines when needed but otherwise is researching and testing. Karl is typically somewhere with one of the many Traveler groups. Quackity, Eret, and Sam (when not on frontlines) are on planning duties. 

The Egg is strong enough to propose a real and constant threat to the groups. Everyone is typically on the move to avoid the reaching of the Egg and its Eggpire. 

Bad hasn't gotten what he wants, which is Skeppy. And as he has "opened his eyes" a bit he sees the hypocrisy, manipulation, and lies that surround the Egg and wants out. 

----------------------

Ye ye Brothers AU sorry.

The fishermen get to their home, wake up the next day, and Ranbob is already making a field for wheat and potatoes. Benjamin fucking squawks and races out to make Ranbob stop. And Isaac eventually has to come out and help cause Ranbob is refusing to leave. Cletus laughs at Ranbob and makes fun of him but stops when he sees Charles sadly staring at him. A silent ask to stop. 

He does but Porkius is chill and let's the Gladiators do whatever they want as long as they are still in fighting condition for matches and gives them money every week. Plus he's chill and is kinda friends with them. But sometimes Porkius has them go to extravagant parties with him. They all hate going, not just Ran. Mostly cause the rich people are snobs and either 1. Constantly insult them in conversation than act surprised when they get mad at them and report it to Porkius. 2. Talk with them but talk exclusively about themselves and are insensitive to the Gladiators. But sometimes there's actually people at the parties who are genuinely curious and kind and want to get to know the Gladiators. Those conversations are pleasant and the Gladiators, no matter who it is, actively enjoy the conversation.

Ran has always been mischievous. Even witnessing murder, being traumatized, hunted constantly, and fighting non-stop hasn't changed that. If anything he got more mischievous over time. 

Something extra I wanted to share: 

-There is music in world and the player the Gladiators share get brought on the trip so they can play music the entire time. 

  -Ran and Grievous fight over who gets to pick music often.

    -Fun fact about why I did this: Every single part of this story and all others has been either created by or inspired by music. For example the Tip of The Iceberg AU was solely inspired by the song True North (by Vocal Line), while Brothers AU was made from Ruler of Everything (by Tally Hall) and partly Mind Electric (by Miracle Musical). So I wanted to include music somehow. (I actually have a entire playlist with music that I've used for certain parts of the Brothers AU.)

Brothers AU:

Interesting, interesting. What triggers these 'dreams'? Can Dream do it, or is it like just something that happens?

I'm assuming only the brothers would know what the Endermen are saying, but there's also body language, so how does everyone react to that behavior? Do one of the brothers ever tell them what's being said, or? What's everyone's thoughts on Ranbob's height, seeing as the Fishermen were surprised, and the Gladiators immediately noticed?

How does Benjamin feel about what he hears? Is he a bit skeptical at first, or fully believing Ranbob's words?

So the room's in disrepair, interesting. At some point, it's mentioned that they go back there, I think, so does that strike anyone as odd?

He destroyed stuff? Like just general items or artifacts? How did Ranbob feel, if/when he was aware?

------------------

Why didn't he assume it was the Council Member? What clues led him to his brother instead?

Understandable.

Oh, that's really interesting!

World building galore, fantastic!

Who was the one guy?

He thinks? Was there something left then?

-----------------

Tip Of The Iceberg AU:

Still the god? He didn't expect that? Was someone else supposed to be? If so, who? What's his reaction to learning such?

Bad seems to be straying from the egg, does he intend to leave it? Or does it have a way to keep him?

Do we have any particular groups here? People who fight or work well together, and kind of drift to one another? What sort of dynamics do we get with all of this, especially since everyone's on the move constantly to avoid the Eggpire.

------------------

Brothers AU:

Benjamin: Whatcha got there?

Ranbob: Excessive labor when I should be resting.

Benjamin, gasping: NO!

What are the parties typically like? Do they behave or cause havoc? Switch it up? Anyone in particular they don't hate talking to there?

Always mischievous, just better at hiding it. Wait, that means Ranbob would have known he was like that, wouldn't he? He'd know exactly what to expect. Would anyone else? Either way, that should be amusing.

------

What kind of music do they have, and what does everyone prefer to listen to?

(Time to go on a song-spree!)

[skinsharpenedteeth]

Coming Up Easy - A Series of Firsts (Part 1)

Synopsis: AU where Alex and Michael are FWB since high school. Series of firsts in their relationship. Hopefully I’ll post one every Wednesday. No clue how many I’ll have. Feel free to send me ideas.

Part 1. First Apartment

    It was the worst decision Alex had ever made if Michael had anything to say about it. He was across the country building himself a new life and Michael didn’t like it one bit. 

    “You can come visit,” Alex said, brushing a stray curl from Michael’s forehead. He was watching his own finger and tracing the loops of the curl instead of looking Michael in the eyes. “Friends visit each other.”

    “Right, I know. You’re right. I can visit,” Michael agreed, his stomach feeling queasy at the fact that if he wanted to see Alex he would have to visit. He couldn’t show up unannounced because he was lonely or having a bad day. No one would be waiting for him at the Wild Pony for drinks. His friend would be too far away in a different bar, possibly making new friends.

    Michael stared down at his phone, the chat window he shared with Alex open and depressingly inactive. No blinking dots to say Alex was typing or thinking about him too. He sighed and tossed the phone onto the bar in front of him, signaling Maria’s new bartender to get him another beer. Once the beer was in front of him, Michael opened his phone screen again and stared at the chatbox some more. 

    ‘Fuck it,’ he finally said to himself as he began to type. 

Me 11:15 p.m.>> You up?

    He set the phone down again and sipped his beer, watching the other patrons through the mirrors behind the bar. There were some guys at the pool table that he could go swindle for a game or two. Liz, Max, and Kyle were in a corner booth all laughing and talking animatedly. He could hear the whoops and cheers from someone taking a turn on the mechanical bull outside the bar. There were so many things to distract him, but all Michael wanted was to talk to Alex. 

Alex 11:20 p.m.>> Are you seriously booty calling me from five states away? Me 11:21 p.m.>> I mean, this isn’t that different from when we were in college and you had that late chem lab and I kept getting bored waiting for you to get out… Alex 11:23 p.m.>> That’s not a very subtle way to ask for nudes. Me 11:24 p.m.>> I mean, I wouldn’t say ‘no’ to nudes if you’re offering them, but really I’m just at the Pony missing my best friend. Alex 11:26 p.m.>> You should call Isobel then. I’m sure she’d be glad to hang out. Me 11:27 p.m.>> Jerk. Me 11:27 p.m.>> Wyd? Alex 11:29 p.m.>> Staring at the black void of my bedroom listing all the things I need to get done tomorrow after I get home from work. This is basically like when I moved in with Kyle in college except I have more boxes and no one to guilt into unpacking them for me.

    Michael stared at the phone and thought about that first apartment. He’d moved in with Kyle after Kyle’s dad died. Kyle had transferred from Michigan State back to UNM in Albuquerque to be closer to his mom, but he was still on the pre-med track so living in town was out of the question. Michael remembers them all getting wasted on whiskey that first night and after Kyle had passed out on the futon mattress (which was on the floor and not on the still-disassembled futon), he and Alex had escaped to his room. 

Me 11:33 p.m.>> Remember the rug burns you gave me that second night? Alex 11:35 p.m.>> You deserved that for the hickies you gave me! It looked like I'd been attacked by an octopus in my sleep!

    Michael grinned into his beer. He didn’t regret the hickies. They’d been drunk and horny. He’d pinned Alex to the shitty, half-deflated air mattress and left marks in a constellation from his neck to the inside of his thighs and the little shit had loved every fucking second of it. Then Alex had tried to roll them and just ended up knocking Michael over off the mattress. They’d laughed and Alex had apologized into his mouth between kisses. He’d tasted like whiskey and cheap pizza and Michael remembered being blissfully happy somewhere underneath all the horniness. The rugburns hadn’t come until the next night when Alex had fucked him hard on the floor, carpet digging into Michael’s knees, elbows, and cheek. It’d been worth it to see Kyle the next morning try to figure out how to address the thinness of the wall between their bedrooms. 

Me 11:39 p.m.>> Fucking worth it. You were so mad about those hickies, but I wore those rug burns like badges of honor. Alex 11:40 p.m.>> The fuck you did. You whined every day until they were gone. Me 11:41 p.m.>> Not how I remember it at all. You must have me confused with your other friend you occasionally fuck. Alex 11:42 p.m.>> I could never. 

    “Oh shit, I think Valenti’s passed out. Should we fuck with him? Draw dicks on his face? Make him pee himself?” Michael asked, giggling into Alex’s warm, shirt-covered shoulder. They were sitting pressed side by side against the living room wall. They’d been telling dirty jokes and arguing about playing Halo for the last fifteen minutes. The bottle of Jack Daniels was down to the backwash at the bottom of the bottle, having been split between the three of them as a celebration for Kyle and Alex getting an apartment together. No more sneaking into dorm rooms or paying roommates to find another place to sleep. 

    “If you’re so desperate to see a dick, I got something better we could do,” Alex had slurred into his hair as he tipped toward him. 

    “You’re fucking drunk, can you even get hard?” Michael had asked. Better question was could he get hard… they’d had a lot to drink in a short period of time. 

    “Why don’t we go to my room and find out? Help me break the place in. Christen it before Kyle can,” Alex suggested, grin salacious and eyebrows mischievous and hair slightly sweaty and mussed from their hauling boxes and putting together furniture. Michael couldn’t remember wanting him more. He surged forward and captured his lips in a messy, wet kiss that somehow didn’t suck for all its faults. They were both panting gently when they pulled back. 

    “Yeah, let’s go,” he agreed quietly, eyes still closed and enjoying the taste and smell of the moment, the feeling of his hand against Alex’s neck, and how much he wanted this forever. Alex pushed back and stood up unsteadily, leaning on the wall for support, and Michael followed suit. They stumbled into the bedroom, legs tangling and making them fall onto the air mattress in a heap, laughing breathlessly as they started to pull at their shirts. The apartment still smelled like paint and carpet cleaner and the new plastic of the air mattress, but it was a refuge from the world and if Michael could live in that moment forever, he might just. 

    “Ugh, you’re getting sappy,” Alex mock-complained as he pushed Michael onto his back and straddled his hips. 

    “Me? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Michael countered with a grin, his hands, and expression betraying him as he let them both roam all over Alex’s body fondly, familiarly. Alex rolled his eyes, but his grin stayed in place. He grabbed Michael’s hands and pinned them to the floor by Alex’s knees. 

Alex kissed down Michael’s chest and stomach, leaving dark red marks where he sucked the skin into his mouth until Michael whined for him to stop. He kept moving his own body down until he was hovering over the obvious tent in Michael’s shorts. He grazed his cheek against Michael’s bulge, staring up at him with a dirty tilt to his lips. Alex lifted Michael’s hands from beside him and buried them in his hair. Michael looked down at him curiously, but Alex didn’t explain. He simply pulled down Michael’s shorts to mid-thigh and took Michael’s cock between his lips. 

Warm, wet ecstasy exploded through Michael’s nerve endings and he cried out, neck arching as he sucked in a breath at how good Alex’s mouth felt on him, his fingers tightening and pulling Alex’s hair. Alex moved his mouth fluidly over Michael’s cock and Michael was helpless against the sounds pouring out of his mouth. He pushed when Alex pulled, not wanting to be without the tight heat of his mouth any longer than he had to be. Alex’s hands were digging into his hips, probably bruising him, but Michael couldn’t focus on it, only let the dull pain heighten his experience of the pleasure. 

“Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, Alex. Christ,” Michael exclaimed between whimpers. Alex was going fast like he had a time limit. “Slow down, baby. We got all night.”

Alex popped off him and replaced his mouth with his hand, taking in a deep breath before continuing. 

“Exactly. Let’s get the first one out of the way. I want to still be fucking when the sun comes up,” Alex gasped, squeezing his hand and making his grip on Michael’s cock almost too tight. Michael didn’t have an answer for that, was too busy imagining it, and Alex took his silence as acceptance of the plan. He bent down and took Michael back into his mouth. 

Me 11:55 p.m.>> I could go for some hickies right about now Alex 11:56 p.m.>> Well, I can’t exactly come down to help you with that. Me 11:57 p.m.>> Guess you shouldn’t have moved. Alex 11:57 p.m.>> Something tells me you will survive. :P Me 11:58 p.m.>> Putting it on my Christmas list right now, though. Better come through for me, Manes. Alex 11:59 p.m>> You’re going to scandalize Santa asking for hickies. Me 12:00 a.m.>> He’ll understand. Alex 12:01 a.m.>> It’s past 1 here. I need to get some sleep. Miss you. Don’t get too drunk. Me 12:02 a.m.>> Miss you too. Dream about me. 

[babiesdreams]

Superhuman +18 Chapter 1

Warnings: Violence, mentions of blood, smoking, mentions of suicide, gore(?.

Renjun’s story:

She came to me when I was just sixteen. I knew something was wrong with me since a long time ago, but her presence made it worse. She always makes feelings much more intense and pure... It’s really hard to leave feelings aside.

You know my... powers are related to feelings, the purest feelings are the strongest power source. I’m basically a generator. Anger and sadness are usually the best ones.  

I finally got out of my home, I was gonna start a new life, a new stable and normal life. For once I wouldn’t be judged for being too shy, or not letting my feelings in, or for being “a psychopath” 

But then she passed by, offered me a cigarrette and whispered how she knew everything. I felt like my whole life plan ended right there, but she was right. If I simply ignore my abilities I’m only making it worse, I had to learn more about them, and use them in my own advantage. I needed to know how to properly control it before getting into another messy life, before hurting anyone else, so she was a savior at the time.

-------------------------------------------

“You have to meet them” 972 shouted at me. “I don’t want to, we can just go as a duo” I screamed back. “Huang Renjun, your anger levels aren’t under control, please relax, or I’ll have to call security” 

“I don’t want others to get involved with me” A soft wave moves the air around me, as I start getting more and more angry. “You know what happened” 

“Huang Renjun, control yourself or I might take action” 972 kept her angry tone, making it worse. “Let me go alone on the mission” My eyes fire up with anger, feeling how my power grows inside of me. “Stop. Now” She demands, making everything worse. 

A big explosive wave brushes the whole place, destroying everything on its way. I fall on my knees, crying for what I just did. “I can’t have a team, I’m a monster, I’ll fuck everything up” I shout with a broken voice tone. For a moment I thought she was dead, but then her voice sounded in the distance.

“We all are monsters here” Her voice whispers as her hand rests on my shoulder. “We... all... are” She whispers with a sad tone.

Shotaro’s story:

Since I was born, the weather changed along with my mood, if I cried, it would start raining. If I was angry, it would turn into a thunderstorm. I think you get it. The thing is that at first I was quite good at controlling my mood, but growing up made it harder and harder, to a point that I couldn’t control anything about it. I got scared of feeling, and isolated myself for months, but that only made it worse.

When I got in here, I wanted to learn how to destroy my powers, ended up knowing how to control them. Now it’s not at all linked to emotions, more like I have full control over the weather, I can change it as I want. 

I was known for being the best at controlling my powers and even if they’re not the most powerful ones I think my ability to control them made me stronger, that’s how I ended up being the leader.

---------------------------------------------------------------

“Guys you need to practice more” I say calmly. “Why would we practice? we are quite strong” Jisung says, not taking his eyes off the screen as he plays some stupid videogame. “It doesn’t matter how strong you are if you can’t control it” I say calmly, trying to make them understand. “You’re just jealous of our powers” Jaemin spits out, taking another chip into his mouth.

“You all are bombs, uncontrollable bombs, that’s not useful at all. Sure you’re powerful, but you’re basically dangerous for everyone” I say with a more serious tone. “Should I make him think we are training?” Chenle asks to the rest. “I heard you” I tell him.

But all the mess calms down when Renjun stands up. “Let’s go train, he’s right” He says with a serious voice and everyone follows. I sigh, feeling useless in comparison to his natural leader abilities, but yet glad that he helped me with it. 

Jaemin’s story: healing body (His fluids heal any harm)

I realized when I was a kid, I used to cry whenever I got hurt and then everything was fine. It got more intense when I kinda saved my mother.

I was holding her hand, focused on the beats produced by some machine. The sudden beep, made me anxious. I didn’t really know what to do, I panicked and started crying and when I realized she was fine again. 

With time and some exploring I realized it wasn’t only my tears that healed people, but all my fluids. Someone could be dying and if I licked his hand, they’d be completely fine. It feels like a lot of responsability tho, you never know the story behind someone dying.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The agonizing man starts choking on his own blood, trying to breath, yet unable to do so. I roll his body, getting him to rest on one side, to stop him from choking. I take his bloody hand and lick his index finger. 

Seconds later, the blood stops coming out from his mouth, and the cuts on the man’s stomach dissappear. “What did you do?” He says with a low voice tone. I look at him challenging, sometimes people really are ungrateful. “I just saved your life” I reply, proud of myself.

“Nobody asked you to do so” He shouts at me. “S-sir, I saved your life” I say stuttering. “They are gonna get my family if I don’t die you idiot” He shouts at me. I step back, scared of his words, letting tears fall down my cheeks. “I-I didn’t, I didn’t know that” 

That’s where I discovered that saving a life sometimes mean killing others. Butterfly effect. Maybe someday I could have saved a serial killer and then how many deaths would I be responsible for? I needed to learn that I can’t save everyone and sometimes I need to let people die. 

Jeno’s story:

I was an average student when I found out. Well actually I was a pretty stupid teenager. Classes were boring so I just went around with my friends, play games, and live life I guess. One day I saw soe students bullying a transfered kid, and I got into the fight.

I have always been pretty strong, so fights were an easy task for me. However those kids were much older than me, and I was alone. So they basically beated me up, until I did it. I don’t even know how I did it, I was just angry.

Trash from bins started floating, making people concern as to what was happening. I’ve heard my eyes turn red whenever I use my abilities so that might have helped to make them fear me. But after that day I became the school’s king.

Being at that place I started to hating my powers. I just wanted to feel normal, to be normal. But I guess that’s something none of us can really achieve. So I just kept training my brain and try to be better.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

“Get out of the way” I say to Jaemin. The scared boy gets behind me, making me feel his shaking hands on my back. “So you want to die sir?” I say, looking at him with a fierce look. The man nodded, so sure of his decision, and I smiled at him.

“Have a nice trip” I say, while concentrating on the knife resting on the floor a few meters away. I held the knife mentally in front of him, pointing at his neck. “Do it” He says, crying desperately. “Look away” I whisper to Jaemin, before tearing his throat open. My figure gets covered by the man’s blood, while he dies slowly in front of my eyes. 

I throw the knife a few meters away, still not touching it for a split second. “It’s done” I say lowly, turning around to face Jaemin. My bloody hands hold his face, trying to calm him down. My fingers clean his tears, replacing them with blood.  “It’s fine” I whisper, letting him hug me tightly. 

The bloody scenario felt specially creepy under the moonlight, so I understand how Jaemin felt so guilty about everything. Still, he needed to grow up for future missions.

Jisung’s story: 

I remember looking up to superheroes like Spiderman or Hulk, or Superman. But being super strong isn’t exactly the best. Plus people don’t trust me when I say I’m strong. Of course, I tried to hide it, since all heroes in movies do that. But, it felt wrong somehow... Letting people take advantage of weaker people. Even letting people take advantage of me. 

So I decided to go anonymously, that way nobody would know who I was. But, again, nobody took me seriously. My family was also not doing so good, so I got into some illegal businesses. 

A guy decided to trust me and I started getting into street fights. I won money thanks to people’s bets. It wasn’t the best job, but at least I had something, and I stayed anonymous so they couldn’t interfere in my normal life. 

However I started to get tired of it and I stopped going there. I didn’t expect them to find me so fast.

----------------------------------------------------------

“We had a contract” The old man says. I couldn’t stop trembling from fear. “Put the gun away” A woman’s voice says from behing the old man. He turns around, to find out how his bodyguards were already dead on the floor. 

The gun the man was holding started melting in his hand. “W-what are you?” He asked stuttering. The girl chuckled, and inmediately after a hole appeared where the man was standing, making him fall. His fingers held the floor, to stop himself from falling helplessly. 

“Hi, Park Jisung , I’m 972, I would like to recruit you into our team. What do you say?” Her eyes were fiercer than any eyes that ever looked at me, kinda hypnoticing. The grunts of the old man resonated all over the room, but they eventually stopped when she stepped on his fingers, breaking them with her heels. The fall was slow and long, ending with a disgusting sound, as the old man reached the floor somewhere at the bottom of the hole.

“I’m interested” I finally say, shaking the smiling girl’s hand.

Chenle’s story: 

Changing people’s percception is so funny. I can literally get away from every situation. I’ve never got punished for anything at all. Plus I can do whatever I want, no limits, no judgements. 

Sure, sometimes I don’t quite control what they are seeing instead of what I’m doing, like that time I was borrowing some clothes from a shop and people were seeing me pee on the clothes. I got arrested anyway. But I know how to use my power, that’s why I think training is stupid. 

We are basically gods, our powers’ limits are barely there, so let’s just have fun right? right?

-----------------------------------------------------------------

“Let jun take care of this” 972 says, making all of us stay aside. I turn to look at Jaemin and Jisung, changing their perception so that they would see everything going fine, but I looked.

A loud sound scared all of us, and the buildings around the zone he was in started falling apart, getting reduced to ashes. People’s screams were really horrifying, something I will never be able to forget. And a loud growl from Renjun followed, filling the air with anger. “W-what happened?” Jaemin asked confused. 

“You have some work to do hyung” I told him, letting him finally see what really happened. He fell on his knees seeing all the victims from Jun’s powers. “You think you can do it?” I ask him doubting the limits of his abilities. 

“I can” His voice was shaky but I trusted 972′s plan. “Zhong Chenle get the living victims and make them think nothing happened. I’ll get the buildings back to normal. Lee Jeno, find the enemy’s body and bring it here. Remember, no fingertips on anything. Osaki Shotaro and Jung Sungchan get Na Jaemin to the victims. Park Jisung, you stay here in case I need protection” She ordered, while the buildings started getting back to normal. 

“On our way” We all shouted at the same time. It was something chaotic, but it worked out. “Now I’m gonna get an agent from unit V. Thanks for your collaboration, Unit D. You can all go now” 

Missions are always like that, cold-hearted and all about “Getting the job done”

Sungchan’s story:

I touched my grandma’s old clock. And I saw my grandfather, when he was younger, fighting in war, leaving home, giving her the clock. Everything happened in front of my eyes so fastly, I couldn’t really...

It took me a really long time to really get used to it. And when I did I hated the feeling. I wore gloves everywhere, so that I wouldn’t touch nothing directly. But avoiding it made it worse. Much worse. Because when it happened accidentally I could see more than what I normally would have.

The thing is that I thought my powers were more of an inconvenience than something useful. Until my father got that complicated case about a “Suicide” I touched the letter she wrote, and the chair he got over to hang herself up. Except it didn’t happen like that. 

Someone else wrote the letter and she was forced to stand on the chair that the man kicked, making her die instantly. I told my father my theory, and they got enough proof to take the responsible man. That’s when I felt like a hero. I thought I found my future profession as a detective.

I read all Sherlock Holmes books, idolizing what he did, wanting to be just like him, and now I have my chance.

----------------------------------------------------------------

I touched her face, and I saw everything she went through, who she really was. 

“Jung Sungchan, we talked about this didn’t we?” She says calmly. I nod, recalling her words about not touching her, probably to avoid me knowing her secrets. “We all have secrets here, we need to help each other okay?” I nod once again, and watch as her figure gets lost in the distance, still trying to process the information.

--------------------------------------------------------

Masterlist –requests open– How to request?  Check out your score.

Check superhuman series in here

[goeymoey]

What if you tricked me?

A BBS short! (Part 1/??)

Hope you enjoy :) !

——-

Nogla’s mic popped as he sat down in his chair. The signature black headphones already perched on his head.

“ Okaay, what we doin’ today boys?”

Miles away, in a different country, Tyler sighed. “ You really gotta get that mic fixed, man.” He turned on his web cam for emphasis and gave Nogla’s profile picture a frown. “ It sounds like shit.”

“ What do ya mean?” Nogla faked a whine. “ It sounds great! everybody loves the sound of my voice through this here mic! Am I rights boys?”. While turning on his web cam as he talked, Nogla leans back in his chair with both arms spread wide open.

“ I sound like a god!”

A neon green light highlights around Brian’s box as he snickers. “ Yeah...the god of shit!” Brian flicks his web cam on but, instead of being greeted with a smiling Irishman, he shows his middle finger.

Nogla sticks out his tongue. “ Shut yer fuckin mouth, traitor.” He crossed his arms with a pout. “ You’re the one who gave me the mic in the first place!”

Tyler and Brian lock eyes on the screen as the later smirks widely.

“ Why do you think that was?”

Nogla shrugs. “ I don’t know! I thought it was because you were being a good friend but-“ He gives Brian a hard stare through his screen “-OBVIOUSLY I was incorrect in my assumption! Hmpf!”

Another mic pop echos through the others headphones after Nogla’s shout, and it makes the two begin to snicker.

“ Sorry for trying to be a GREAT FRIEND and give you something of mine!” Brian says through a laugh. “ I guess I’ll go fuck myself next time!”

“ Shut yer cunt mouth you dirty-“

Nogla’s mic pops as it cuts off the final word to his sentence.

“- Next time I see ya, I’ll make sure to stick my foot up your dirty arse!”

Tyler bangs on his desk with a closed fist before taking off his head seat and walking away from the screen.

His faint laughter can be heard even as he walks out of his office and down the hall.

Brian smiles wide at the echoing laughter of his friend. He hunches over his keyboard, to be closer to the screen, as if he was about to follow Tyler himself.

“ You made the man leave the room, Nogla! how do you feel?”

Nogla scowls. “ I feel nothing towards any of ye cunts now...fuckin hate y’all...”. He mumbles. “ Especially-...Hey! Brock!”. Nogla cuts himself off as the discord ping of someone joining the voice call rings in his headset.

“ Just the man I wanted to see!”

Brock sighs and turns his web cam on. He stares at Nogla with a slack face of indifference.

“ Hey Nogla.”

The tall Irishman smiles wide. “ Did ya miss me?”

Brock scratches at his chin. “ No.”

“ What? Come on, Brock! I’m giving you all my love right here and you just-“ Nogla exaggerates his movements while shaking his hand in front of his face. “-give me this!” He slouches back in his chair. “ You give me nothing.”

Brock smiles. “ Okay...Hey Brian.”

The other Irishman smiles at the acknowledgment and tips his head. “ Hey Brock. How’ve ya been?”

“ Oh, y’know...” Brock holds in his laughter at the sight of Nogla giving him a deadly stare through the screen. “...same old things everyday, every night...the use’.”

Brian stretches his arms behind his back causing the bottom of his shirt to ride up a bit. “ Oh the woes of a single man in he early twenties. Never having any fun.” He rests back into his chair with both arms laying in his lap. “ Bet you wish you would have taken me up on that trip to Ireland, huh?”

Brock rubs at the back of his neck. “ Kinda...but not really.”

Nogla has given up trying to get Brock’s attention back and is now glued to his phone.

He mumbles something under his breath, but the other two males don’t catch it.

The door to Tyler’s office shutting muffles in the back ground of everyone’s head phones as the tall man comes stalking back to his chair. His attention is also focused on his phone, but his face is a mix of confusion and frustration.

He doesn’t reciprocate the others greetings and instead hastily shows the screen of his phone to the web camera.

“ Did any of you guys get this message from Evan?” Tyler’s grip on the blue cases phone tightens as he asks the question.

“ It says he sent it to me a while ago, but I left it down stairs.”

While listening to Tyler speak, both Brian and Brock brought out their phones.

“ Ummm...Yeah...” Brian starts awkwardly. “ I got a message from him too but...but it’s just a link with no url...” He mimics Tyler by holding up his phone to the web cam. “ It’s just a grey box...is that what you got?”

Tyler nods and sets his phone out of view from his camera. The screen facing up at him...just in case.

“ Yeah...it’s weird...How about you, Brock? Nogla?”

“ I got the box.” Brock shows the two his phone.

From his slouched position, Nogla mumbles. “ Same here.” His eyes stay glued to the screen. “ I already clicked on it, and it doesn’t seem...weird.”

The three watch as Nogla sits up and exposes his screen. “ I think it’s just a new game, or something like that.” He faces his phone towards him and then scrolls up on the screen. “ It’s like asking for my email and stuff like that so, I’m just guessing that’s what it is.”

Brock puffs out his cheeks. “ But what if it’s a virus?”

Brian shakes his head while tapping on the link. “ Evan wouldn’t send us a virus. He’s too smart for that.” His eyes shine against the brightness of the phone.

He flips up and down on the screen and then nods with a hum. “ Yeah, I think this might just be a new game for us to play. It all looks that way.....you wanna check it out togther?” Brian looks up from his phone. “ It says it’s multiplayer.”

Tyler purses his lips in an unsavory frown. “ I don’t know...it still seems a little sketchy.”

“ Aww, please, Tyler?! Please!” Nogla clamps his hands together in a plea while bowing his head. “ I’ve already set up my account and made my avatar! It’s too late to back out now!”

Brock huffs. “ Maybe for you.”

Nogla points at the screen with a strict finger. “ You shut yer fuckin mouth you god damn short prick!”

“ Hey! Don’t call me short!”

“ But you are!”

“ No I’m not! I’m 5’9!” Brock glares with his arms crossed. “ It’s like the average height.”

Nogla makes a ‘pft’ noise. “ That’s just what short people say! Now-“ bouncing up from his seat, Nogla waves his phone around dramatically “- hurry up and make y’all’s profiles before I start without ya! I’m getting bored!”

The others sigh at Nogla’s childish behavior, but fill out the link anyway.

It takes a few more minutes then Nogla would have liked- since Brian couldn’t decide whether he wanted his character to have blue or brown hair- but he refrained himself from succumbing to his impatience.

Brock was the last to finish his avatar with a worrying smirk as he tapped the ‘save’ button.

“ Okay, I’m ready. Who’s making the game?”

Nogla pipped up with shimmering eyes. “ I will you slow cunts! I’ve been waiting forever, let’s do this!”

Tyler rolled his eyes. “ It’s been like five minutes.”

“ Well, it felt like a long time!”

Brian scoffed at his friends whining. “ And yer just making it longer by complaining about it.” His arms sit across a wide chest as he laid back with the black cased phone sitting on his desk.

“ Just make the game already, jeez.”

Nogla huffed. “ I’m going I’m going....Okay, what are your guys usernames? The same as always?”

All three nod in agreement.

“ Yeah.”

“ Mhm.”

“ Weirdly, yes. I didn’t even have to change the ‘s’ in ‘Terroriser’ to a ‘z’ or add a 0.”

Brock hummed. “ Same here, and usually my names the first to go.”

Nogla rolls his eyes. “ Whatever, boring. It should be sending you an invite riiight....now.” He points to the screen just as three simultaneous dings pop in the others headphones.

“ The game won’t be able to start unless we all accept so, hurry up!”

Tyler looks down at the acceptance button suspiciously. “ I still don’t feel good about this...but fuck it! Let’s do this!” He taps the button and waits for the others to join.

Brock nods. “ Yeah, it might actually be fun!” He accepts the request.

Brian hesitates as he reads the short paragraph of rules before accepting.

“...this may be too much for some audiences...viewer discretion is-...I think this might be a horror game!” Brian exclaims with glee.

Brock’s face turns pale. “ A horror game? Does it say what it’s about? I didn’t read the warnings!” Brock looks down at his phone with worry as his free hand fiddles with his hair.

“ I wouldn’t of accepted if I had read that...”

Tyler snorts. “ Quit being such a pussy, Brock. It’s a mobile game. No mobile games are scary.”

“ Except for Five Nights at Freddie’s.” Nogla interjects.

“ That’s different.” Tyler responds.

“ How is that different? It’s a mobile horror game?”

“ It’s different because FNAF is based off of real life human things...like the fear that toys are alive or...yeah.” Tyler bites his lips in thought. “ Stuff like that.”

“ That sounds dumb.”

“ You’re dumb!”

“ Shut the fuck up, Nogla.”

“ No. You shut up.”

Brock sighs in irritation. “ Brian, hurry up and accept the invite before I blow my brains out from listening to these two.”

Brian absently nods as he reaches the end of the paragraph. “ Yeah yeah...im almost done.”

He taps the accept button.

“ I was just-“

“ Ooh Shit-“

The world turns black for all four men as their bodies slump down into their chairs. Phones slip carelessly from hands as headphones ride up on their heads and chairs creak beneath pounds of dead weight.

Tyler’s web came shakes as his head slams down on the desk in a dead black out. The door to his office jiggles behind him, but stays shut.

Brock’s head rolls back over his chair as his jaw unhinges to let his mouth hang open freely. The top of his headphones slide forward onto his forehead while his shoulders rise up on the chair.

Nogla’s arms simply drop dead and hang off the armrests of his chair while his head props up, unmoving, on his shoulder.

Brian’s body fully slips out of his chair as all dead weight transfers to the front of his seat and sends the furniture flying backwards. His camera also shakes as his body slams against the ground without trying to catch himself.

Then everything is still.

A green highlight appears around Tyler’s web cam as a bird chirps outside, but nobody moves and nobody talks.

...

Soon, their chests stop rising.

[argylemnwrites]

He Knew

Pairing: Colt Kaneko x MC (Ellie Whitnall)

Book: Ride or Die (post book 1)

Word Count: ~4600

Rating: R (language, referenced sensual content, referenced violence)

Summary: The five times Ellie came back, and the one time she didn’t

Author’s Note: Written for @rodappreciationweek Day 2 - Colt Kaneko. This is my first time not only writing Colt, but also my first time writing for one of my Choices couples that don’t end up “happily ever after.” I adored the bittersweet endings we got in ROD, and I wanted to keep that vibe here. This is pretty different from my usual writing tone/genre, so be forewarned - this is not a happy tale, but the crumbling apart of a relationship. It think the warnings listed in the rating section cover the content here.

It wasn’t really goodbye. He knew she’d be back. There was no way she would be able to stay away, to just fall back into a world where her only thrills came from acing a test. That was too easy for her. She needed more, the push, the challenge, the adventure. He knew because he was just like her.

He wasn’t sure exactly when she’d be back, though. He was sure she’d be back in LA for Thanksgiving, but he didn’t expect her to come looking for him then. Besides, the shop was still in ruins. He wouldn’t be easy for her to find at this point. He rode past her dad’s place early on Thanksgiving morning and saw her blue Shokai Fourier sitting in the driveway. But he didn’t see her then.

Same thing about a month later, her car parked in the driveway when he drove by a few days before Christmas. But it didn’t surprise him that she wasn’t ready to come back to his world, not just yet. That first semester of college probably had enough novelty to keep her from getting too bored. New friends, new freedoms, new knowledge.

It’s not like he wasn’t busy, too. Hunting down the remnants of the Brotherhood while not attracting any unwanted attention was a new mission, one that required a new sort of careful calculation and anticipation. He wasn’t the type to sit around pining, moping, waiting on some girl, just like he was sure she wasn’t longing for him. They were alike in that way - they didn’t let their emotions define them.

It wasn’t until the anniversary of Pop’s death that he really felt it, deep down, that he… fuck it, that he missed her. Because no one else got him, not the way she did. No one else was quite like her. He was a few drinks in, sulking in the room he was renting from X’s old roommate when he did the thing he swore he would never do - he pulled out his new phone and searched “Ellie Whitnall” on Pictagram.

Her hair was darker, no longer highlighted, but still pulled back in that ponytail. And that damn sweatshirt was nowhere to be seen. Instead it was her in a crop top and a skin-tight pair of jeans in a line with six other girls, a smile on all of their faces as their arms wrapped around each other’s backs. Her lounging on the grass with one of the same girls, textbooks sprawled out around them as they both laughed. Her eating a slice of pizza in some tiny restaurant, a blond dude who looked like a preppy douchebag sitting in the booth next to her.

She looked good, happy enough. It made him proud, but the worst parts of himself wished she was just a little miserable. Not just because he was mourning and miserable himself, and misery did fucking love company, but because she didn’t belong in a world that was bland and ordinary. She burned too bright for such pedestrian experiences. She would see that soon, and she would be back. Until then he just had to keep working on avenging his father’s death, making the Brotherhood pay for all the shit they’d done. And that’s what he did, not noticing as May and June passed by. But then July came.

He was working at the sideshow, trying to find out where Wallace had last been spotted when he saw her on the dance floor. She was wearing a little white tank top and a light blue skirt that was short enough it barely covered anything. It took all his willpower to listen to what the little punk was telling him and not just march over there and kiss her, welcome her back where she belonged. But business had to come first. Besides, she was only dancing with her brunette friend, Riya, and the guy who had worn the orange tux to prom.

“I knew you couldn’t stay away” he murmured into her ear when he finally, finally could join her. She tensed at first, as he came up behind her, snaking his hand around her waist, his fingers tracing along the thin strip of skin between her shirt and skirt, but she relaxed into him when she recognized his voice. She spun to face him, her arms reaching up to rest on his shoulders.

“Who says I’m here for you? Riya and Darius just wanted a taste of what I was up to last spring.”

Colt shook his head. “Nah, you wouldn’t have worn that if you weren’t here for me,” he said as his eyes traced over her gentle curves, settling back on her face, just as beautiful and determined as he’d remembered.

“It’s July in LA. Some of us actually dress for the heat.”

He chuckled lightly, leaned down, and kissed her. She tasted the same, her fingers felt the same as they crawled up his neck and clutched onto his hair. When he tugged her out of there and handed her his spare helmet, her arms felt the same as she wrapped them around his chest. And when they got to his new studio apartment in Broadway-Manchester and stumbled towards his mattress as they stripped as quickly as they could, she felt the same as he sunk into her, both of them moaning in relief.

After, they talked all night, lounging on his mattress, drinking cheap beer and eating the string cheese they found in his pathetically empty fridge. About her classes and seminars, her roommate from some tiny town in Nebraska who had never seen an escalator before coming to Langston, and her upcoming research project. About his plans to reopen the auto body shop next year, now that the heat was finally dying down and he could go back. About how Ximena was still around, ready to help out, but how Toby had made his way north to San Fran, working for some startup that was looking to get into the high-tech auto accessory game. About how Mona would be up for parole in a few months.

“When do you head back?” he finally asked as the sun started to peek through the window, his hand tracing along her spine as she curled up against his side, her head resting on his shoulder.

“Tomorrow,” she said, after a moment, “Dr. Frisch wants me to start on my research next week so that we can get a prototype built before the end of the fall semester.”

Colt swallowed before sliding his fingers under her chin and tilting her head up, looking straight into her brown eyes. “You happy?”

She nodded gently. “For now.”

“Not bored?”

“Not yet.”

“Just want to make sure they aren’t wasting your talents.”

“Colt…”

“Just remember, you shouldn’t settle for bland.”

“I know, Colt. I know.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Even though it had been over a year since he last saw her in person, he knew she would be back someday. She had his new number now, and every so often she would send him a little text or photo. They had no agreement, had made no promises to each other, still her messages were sometimes flirty, sometimes sexy. The blond idiot still hung around her Pictagram, but if she didn’t feel obligated to keep things between them… friendly or some shit, it wasn’t any of his business really.

The summer after her sophomore year at Langston, she stayed out east, hired on for some summer research program. But Colt was busy, too. The shop was open again. It wasn’t officially under Colt’s management, not until the statute of limitations ran out next year, but he had a couple of mechanics he’d hired on, keeping things on the up and up for the moment. Everyone knew Colt was running the show.

One day in October, he was at the shop, on a creeper under some rich asshole’s Porsche Cayman GTS when Ricky, his newest hire, called out for him.

“Hey, Kaneko. Some chick is here and says she needs to talk to you.”

He rolled his eyes as he pushed himself out. Ricky was talented, but he was far too much of a pushover. “I’m in the middle of this, Ricky.”

“I know, boss… but she kinda acted like you guys were… she seemed like she knew you personally.”

Wiping his hands on his pants, he strode over, ready to tell off whatever entitled little girl thought she could demand to see him, but then he caught sight of her. The sweatshirt was back, but her hair was even darker than it had been last summer. 

“Ellie? What are you doing here?” He was shocked by her appearance in his shop, in the middle of the semester, and every instinct to tease her about not being able to stay away went out the window when he saw the look on her face, so hollow and lost. He ushered her into his office, closing the door and hearing it all. How her dad was in the ICU at UCLA after he’d suffered a massive heart attack. How she’d had to go on a leave of absence for the rest of the semester.

“The doctors think he’s going to be okay, but I can’t… I can’t go back to the house alone. Not after everything,” she finished, perched on the end of his desk.

“You’re here by yourself?”

“Riya transferred to UC Oakland to be with Darius, so other than you… I don’t really know anyone here anymore.”

So the blond douche didn’t come with her. Either he was even more of a dickwad than Colt pictured, or he wasn’t that important to Ellie. Either way, it was all Colt needed to know. He tugged her onto his lap and wrapped his arms around her. He didn’t tell her things would be alright, because unlike some people, he wasn’t stupid enough to try and lie to her. To make her promises he couldn’t keep.

So he did what he could. He took her back to his apartment, poured her shots of tequila, and fucked her senseless. There was nothing he could do to make things better. But he could make her forget, at least for a little bit. It’s what she would have done for him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“Ellie coming tonight?” Ximena asked as Ricky spread out the takeout on the table in the breakroom.

“Haven’t seen her around much lately,” Ricky said, opening the containers of fried chicken.

“She’ll be back,” Colt said with more confidence than he actually felt. It wasn’t that he doubted that she’d be back… eventually. But she was pissed at him. Really pissed. And he wasn’t sure how long it was going to take her to cool off.

It was absurd that she was angry with him when he was the only one who wasn’t handling her with kid gloves, instead treating her like the grown-ass woman she was. Her dad was recovering just fine, but Ellie kept putting off going back to Langstson. When she’d told him she’d pulled out for the spring semester, though, he’d told her exactly what he thought about that. That she was being stupid. That she was only sticking around out of guilt over her last few months of high school. That she was wasting herself.

“What happened to you telling me I would always have a spot on your crew?” she’d yelled at him, tears flowing down her cheeks.

“Not like this, with you just bumming around, aimless. Fucking around, not really doing anything. You’re better than that, Ellie.”

She’d stormed out of his apartment after their fight, and he hadn’t seen her in eight days. He assumed she was with her dad. It wasn’t worth dwelling on. She’d be back once she’d cooled off and realized he was right. But the days continued to tick by, with no sight of her around the apartment or the shop. After three weeks, he rode past her dad’s place, but the Shokai Fourier was still in the driveway, so he knew she was still in LA.

Finally, almost one month later she showed up at the shop, just as they were wrapping things up for the day. She walked straight into his office without so much as saying hello to anyone, so Colt took his time, finishing up with the spark plugs he was replacing before he joined her. She was sitting at his desk, scrolling through his spreadsheets, reviewing the shop’s finances. So damn presumptuous.

“I didn’t realize you were an accountant now,” he said, crossing his arms as he closed the door. 

She spun in his chair, glaring at him. “Just seeing if you can afford to hire a mechanical engineer.”

“By my math, you’re only half a mechanical engineer at this point. That has to earn me a bit of discount on your salary.”

“I’m here to negotiate. If I’m going back for two more years at Langston, I need to know it’s going to be worth it. So make me an offer.”

Colt couldn’t fully suppress a smirk as he quirked an eyebrow at her. “What, am I supposed to write a number on a sheet of paper and slide it over to you?”

“I’m being serious, Colt.”

He rolled his eyes. “The offer’s the same as it’s always been - equal partnership, you and me, running this place.”

“And that offer will still be on the table in two years?”

“It hasn’t changed in the past two and a half, has it?”

She stood up with a nod at that, crossing the small office to stand in front of him, staring up at him, somehow looking imposing from five foot two.

“Should we shake on it?” he asked, widening his eyes to tease her, just a bit.

“I think we can do better than that,” she said before she stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him with all she had, shoving him back against the door in the process.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Colt glanced at his phone. 11:45 pm and no new notifications. She was supposed to be back from Riya and Darius’s wedding today, but as the minutes ticked by, he wasn’t sure if she was more upset than he’d anticipated.

Technically, they were both supposed to be back from the wedding today. But he’d gotten word about some… hot merchandise that was too good of a deal to pass up late on Friday, and so he’d shot Ellie a text to send Riya and Darius his congratulations before he turned his phone off. He’d figured she’d understand. She was as ambitious as him, after all.

But seeing as it had been radio silence all day Saturday and now Sunday, he was wondering what sort of Ellie was going to walk through that door. Either she was pissed, or something had happened to her, but he didn’t think she’d been in any danger in Napa.

His finger hovered over her name in his contact list. She hadn’t answered any of his calls earlier today, so he didn’t have much hope for this one. Just before he pressed down to foolishly call her yet again, headlights flashed through the front window of their apartment’s living room. She was home.

Less than a minute later, the deadbolt turned. There was Ellie, her little duffel bag in one hand, a garment bag in the other. She looked exhausted, and when she glanced up and saw him sitting at their little table, he noticed that her eyes were bloodshot. She didn’t say anything, just shook her head at him as she walked straight into their bedroom.

“Ellie, come on-” he started, chasing after her, but she slammed the door right in his face.

“I don’t even want to look at you right now,” she called through the door.

“It was three million worth of merchandise for only four hundred thousand. I couldn’t pass it up.”

The door flung back open, Ellie practically trembling with anger as she braced herself against the door frame.

“I was the fucking maid of honor, and my plus one didn’t show up!”

“None of them like me anyway.”

“Hmm, I wonder why,” she practically sneered at him as she shoved past him, stomping into the bathroom, slamming that door this time.

“You know we need to move more volume if we want to keep growing the shop. You’re the one who wants us to expand our territory into Vermont Knolls.”

“Fuck you!” echoed through the door.

“What do you want me to say? I made the call that I thought was best for our business.”

“How about ‘Sorry, Ellie. I was a total asshole’ as a starter?”

He winced at that. He probably should have led with an apology. He just didn’t think it would piss her off this much that he’d missed the wedding.

“Ellie, I am sorry. I just thought you would be fine with it since you told me to skip your cousin’s wedding last spring so we could close that deal-”

“-You didn’t even ask me this time.” she called out.

“I didn’t have time. And they are your friends. It’s not like I left you all alone with people you don’t know.”

The bathroom door swung open, but Ellie pivoted on her heel, sitting back down on the toilet seat.

“You say I’m your partner,” she said with a heavy sigh, “but you always make these decisions without me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, this was a no-brainer. The pure profit on-”

“I don’t mean business partners. I mean in our… personal life.”

He frowned at that, crossing his arms, “What the fuck are you talking about? Where is this coming from?”

Ellie just shook her head. “I don’t know. Sometimes it just feels like… like no amount of growth at the shop will ever be good enough for you. Like you are never off the clock.”

“I’m not ever off the clock. That shop is Pop’s legacy, and with you, it’s grown bigger than he could have ever imagined. I don’t know why you’re acting like this was all me. We’ve built everything we have together. You’ve always been hungry to prove yourself in this world.”

“Look who’s talking! Don’t you ever think that maybe your father wouldn’t want you sinking into this world so single-mindedly after he tried to keep you away from it for so long?”

It was an old argument from her, one he hadn’t heard in years. “My pop made a lot of bad decisions. Underestimating what both of us were capable of was just one of them.”

Ellie’s phone chirped, and Colt felt lightheaded as he watched her stand up and pick up a pregnancy test off the counter next to the sink. “Well, I hope you do better than him,” she said, shoving the piece of plastic into his hand. “This decision’s all mine, and I’m keeping it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was his own fault she was staying with her father for a few nights. He’d been careless and just a little too reckless. The contact on the new stock of Tesla Model S’s had been a friend of Ricky’s friend. He should have vetted him better. He’d been too blinded by how good of a deal it was. But it was a mess from the start, and now they owed a crew in West Adams seven million in either cash or vehicles. At least he hadn’t gotten arrested. He’s pretty sure Ellie would have murdered him if that had been the case.

But he’d gotten them involved in a bad deal. It was 100% his fault. Not only was Ellie pissed at him for not being appropriately cautious with their business, but pregnancy had reduced her fuse significantly. She’d gone off on him when he’d returned from the drop with the terrible news. He didn’t blame her for wanting to take a few days away from him and the shop. He figured it would go a long way if he’d worked out a safe way to repay their debt by the time she came back, hence staying late in his office, trying to brainstorm the quickest way out of this mess.

At some point he must have nodded off in his chair at his desk, because suddenly he bolted awake, disoriented and panicked, grabbing for the handgun he kept in his top drawer before he recognized Ellie standing in his doorway. He let out a rough breath and moved to offer her his chair, but she just shook her head.

“It won’t be worth the effort it takes to stand up again,” she said, reading his intentions in a second. “I was waiting for you at home, but when it hit midnight and you weren’t back, I thought I might find you here.”

“I thought you were gonna stay with your dad for a few more days.”

“He was asking a lot of questions about us that I didn’t exactly want to answer. Besides, I figured you might need some help coming up with a plan.” Her hands rested on top of her stomach. She still had three weeks until her due date, and Colt had no idea how was going to stand up if she got any bigger. Not that he told her that.

“It's my mess, Ellie. I can take care of cleaning it up.”

She shook her head, rubbing her hands along her bump. “That’s the thing, Colt. Your messes impact all three of us. So even if it’s not my fault we’re seven million in the hole at that moment, I need to help you fix things. And the two of us working together has always gotten us better results than either of us working independently.

“But Colt, I need you to take a step back from this ‘high risk, high reward’ approach. It was one thing when it was just you and me, but we both need to be a bit more careful going forward. Our kid deserves parents that are alive and not incarcerated, alright?”

He sighed but nodded. “I just don’t want us to lose our edge. But I get it, Ellie. I do.”

She sighed as well before she said, “Come on. Pack up your stuff and meet me at home. We can work on solving this from the comfort of our bed, okay?”

“Sure thing. I’ll see you there.” 

She gave him a little smile, so forced and empty it nearly shattered him, before turning and walking out the door. He wished he knew how to earn her trust back. But she was like him. She had high standards. Fixing things with her was going to take ages.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Colt ran his hands through his hair, trying to calm his breathing. She had to come back. She had to. She had his daughter.

This fight had been bad, worse than any other than he could remember. When Ellie had seen the news coverage of Shaw’s shanking in prison, she’d turned to him, horror etched across her face. She hadn’t even needed to ask if it was him. She’d just known that he’d ordered it.

He tried to get her to understand, to see that he’d only done what he had to do. Shaw had his initial parole hearing coming up soon. If he so much as breathed a whiff of freedom, not only was their entire shop and crew in danger, but so were their lives and Margot’s. He was just taking a necessary precaution.

But she’d not wanted to hear any of it. She’d marched into Margot’s room, throwing her clothes and toys into a bag before hefting her out of bed and marching her out to her car, strapping her into her booster seat while she was still sound asleep. Ellie hadn’t so much as said a word to him as she drove off. Of course she’d ignored every call and text from him since that time.

He’d taken to riding past her father’s house daily. Her Shokai Fourier was always there, but he was never lucky enough to catch a glimpse of her or Margot in the yard. It had been nine days since he’d seen his kid, and he was getting desperate. He didn’t know what to do.

He sat along the edge of the cliff, watching the waves crash along. It wasn’t calming him tonight. Nothing was going to calm him. He didn't know how long he sat there, but eventually he heard a car engine approaching behind him. He would have known that paint job in his sleep. The engine quieted and he felt Ellie approaching him, sitting down next to him, almost close enough to reach out and touch. Almost.

“This is it, isn’t it?” he asked, staring out over the Pacific, inhaling the salt of the sea air.

“Colt… I can’t raise her in a home where killing someone is an acceptable solution to a problem. You had to know I wouldn’t be able to stand by you when you ordered that hit.”

Her words stung, burned his soul. Of course he’d known that. She’d always had her lines her morals didn’t allow her to cross. But how did she expect him to just sit there and let a threat to the safety of his family potentially walk free?

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked. He could hear the tears in her voice, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her, to see revulsion and disgust in the place of love and trust.

“What is there to say? Nothing I can do will make you come back.”

He heard her sigh before he felt her fingers, tiny and gentle against the back of his hand. He turned his hand over and threaded their fingers together more out of habit than anything. He knew her well enough to know that this wasn’t a gesture of love or hope.

“Colt, I’ll always love you, but…”

“I know, Ellie.”

“Are you even sorry?”

He paused, thinking over her question. He knew what she wanted to hear, but he’d always respected her too much to attempt to placate her with pretty sounding lies. “I don’t regret it at all,” he finally said, “I did it for both of you.”

She didn’t recoil from him at that. He hadn’t said anything she didn’t already know in her soul anyway. She’d always understood him in ways others just couldn’t. After all she was just like him. Just like him in so many ways.

They were only really different in one key way. She tried to pretend that there was a way to live the life they did and to be “good,” to keep to some sort of moral code. He knew that wasn’t the case. Or maybe she was just a better person than him. It was hard to tell right now, when he felt so hollow and drained.

“We’ll work out times for you to see Margot,” she said after a few minutes of silence. “I think we probably both want to keep lawyers out of this.”

Colt just grunted in acknowledgement. Ellie gave his hand a little squeeze before she tugged her hand free. She pushed herself up off the ground and walked back to her car. He couldn’t bring himself to watch her drive away, so he just stared ahead as he listened to her ignition start.

It was goodbye. He knew she’d never be back.

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