#if you want explanations for all of them im more than happy to give em if ya want xx

[the-woild-is-y-erster]

please give me songs for my spot conlon inspired playlist I’m making

rhinestone eyes - gorillaz

the kids are coming - tones and i

hayloft II - mother mother

you don't have to say you love me - elvis

pacific - chase petra

mystery of love - sufjan stevens

boys dont cry - the cure

juliet - cavetown

lemon boy - cavetown

car lights - james marriott

gut punch/dont meet your idols - everyone's worried about owen

lads among heather - the sorries

[januaryembrs]

hi em!! im so late but happy 3k, it’s so deserved you’re an amazing writer! anyway, could i order a tea? i saw this picture: https://pin.it/mv0D4zZ9s and i thought it would be fun if bushy and spencer went to the beach and he was hating it cos of germs and all that, but then he had to wear his sunglasses over his normal glasses and bugsy’s just teasing him—have fun!

description: Bugsy and Spencer have a little downtime at the beach after hiding their relationship for all of one week

length: 1.1k

warning: nothing really, talk of spider mating rituals lol. Picture nonnie was talking about included above!

part of the trouble almost all my life universe

She leaned into his embrace, her back pressing against his warm chest, his skin sticky with a meld of sweat and suncream as they watched the waves rolling into shore.

“I love them all so much,” She sighed, Spencer’s arms wrapping around her waist to lean a book on the soft of her stomach, creasing where she’d pulled on one of his shirts over her bikini, “But I miss things being just us sometimes,”

“Bug, we live together,” Spencer smirked, and she groaned, flicking a glance up at him where he was squinting behind the lenses of his prescription glasses, trying to read his novel whilst looking over her shoulder. 

“You know what I meant,” She grumbled, feeling stupid for saying it, only for him to chuckle, the sound vibrating through his chest and into the nooks of her spine. She smiled at the feeling, the grin widening when he kissed the side of her head sweetly.

“I know what you meant,” He agreed, giving her a few more pecks for good measure because as much as he loved teasing her until she was unnaturally shy, he loved the affectionate side of her more. “It’s getting hard hiding it from them,”

“And yet we’re so good at it,” She quipped, the two of them sharing a towel instead of a sunlounger, Spencer’s head being propped up by their bags and jackets, his girlfriend nestled between his legs like they were a single cell amoeba, “We could be like spies, all this undercover work. Seven whole days hiding a relationship from five of the best profiler’s in America, that’s got to be some kind of record.”

He smiled, and lay his book down flat on her stomach, sacrificing his now free hands to wrap all the way around her and squeeze her to him tightly. Because she was right. He loved the every day routine they’d slipped into at home, the natural kisses before bed and before they left the comfort of their four walls, the only space where they could be so openly themselves without prying eyes. He wished he could hold her like this every day, or atleast didn’t have to watch over his shoulder for any of the team watching just a little too closely when they would exchange loving looks. 

He loved being able to hold her so unapologetically, loved that she preened and nuzzled into his touch like it was all she’d ever wanted as well. Spencer never had to question himself a single moment he was with her. He knew every shred of love he’d ever felt for her was reciprocated, and the thought of it alone made him warm inside, where they lay comfortably on the sunny beach, only a handful of other patrons enjoying the Friday morning waves. 

He felt a headache brewing however from the light glaring in his eyes, and he cursed not listening to her when she reminded him to get his contact lenses ordered, deciding almost immediately that she would always know better than him no matter how high his IQ was or how many doctorates he polished on his shelf. Because she always knew everything when it came to him. 

“Too bright?” She asked, as if she’d wormed her way into his head, though it wasn’t difficult to guess from his squinting, the way his nose scrunched in pain as he nodded. And with no more explanation needed, she drew the sunglasses off her own nose to slide over the top of his specs. Pushing them up gently with the tip of her finger, she giggled as she saw his shaded hues looking down at her through four separate windows, and he raised his eyebrows at her. “Better?” 

“Oh, yeah, much better. I love looking like some kind of weird Spider man with an insanely hot girlfriend,” He said flatly, and she sniggered, her face upside down when she looked up at him, the crown of her head pressing against his chest. 

“I always had a thing for Spider-man,” She said, blinking up at him and Spencer wondered what he ever did to get a girl so pretty she was attractive even upside down and smeared with oily sunscreen, “Don’t know if you’d know this but I have a thing for the tall, genius guys with kind eyes.”

“I didn’t know that,” He said with a wry smile and an adoring gaze, and he couldn’t help but steal a small peck to her lips, knowing he looked a little dumb with his second pair of glasses slipping down his nose. She didn’t seem to care as she kissed him back. She settled back into his chest, picking his book up to flick through what he’d been reading, and she felt him bury his nose into her hair, his hands slipping under her shirt to paw at the free skin of her belly, running his fingertips over it lovingly. 

“Technically if you were some sort of Spider/Man hybrid, you’d need to do a mating dance to woo me away from other suitors,” She said mindlessly, and he chuckled, his headache ebbing away with the sun’s rays deflecting off his face. 

“Yes, and then you’d more than likely eat me afterwards,” He replied, and she moved a hand away from the book to trace an invisible drawing over his forearm, following the grooves of his veins and nerves where they pulsed against his humid skin, her eyes never leaving the pages of the book. 

“Good thing we haven’t mated yet then. I kind of like having you around,” She quipped and she felt him freeze, flicking him a smile so he’d know she was teasing him. Because they hadn’t gone any further than long kisses and soft touches just above the waistline. Hell, seeing her in a bikini was the closest they’d gotten to being naked, and even then she’d covered up with a shirt mere moments after. That little word ‘Yet’ dangled over them, and Spencer found himself smiling back at her, knowing they could take all the time they needed because for now it was just between them. No nosy questions from Garcia and Morgan, no intrigued if not worried glances from Hotch, no knowing smiles from Rossi and Blake. They could just be them. Just Bugsy and Spencer, the way they’d always wanted it to be. 

“Not to mention the fact you’d have to give birth to about two-hundred babies that would eat you alive,” He murmured, and she giggled, squeezing his hand in her own. 

“God, you know just how to talk dirty to me,” She said, and he chuckled, tugging the cap off his head to slide onto her own because he could feel the heat beating down on her face from here, and knew she would forget to re-apply if he didn’t step in. 

Yeah, Spencer was more than happy to have things stay like this for a little while.

[fortloser]

Hello again! Sooo kinda a personal question but what was yalls childhoods like?

(Also, hope u feel better snipes!)

-Terror

Hallo everyone! I finally got my hands on those portraits! Now most of the others became rather uncomfortable when I started questioning them about their youths. I got answers ranging from “why are you so bloody intrested in how im doing! There’s nothing special about me or my childhood, now bugger off.” to more reasonable explanations. I tried calling Scout on his cellular device but he seemed very preoccupied. Oh well, he’ll get back to you on that, onto the testimonies! Brace yourself friends this will be somewhat lengthy.

I first approached herr Demo, and getting him to open up was fairly easy. His favorite alcoholic beverage and a snack did the trick!

“ It must be me birthday if yer spoiling me rotten doc, I guess I can share something about me youth if yer willing to lend an ear. I grew up in Glencoe Scotland, a great place if you like trails and hiking. Me mum and dad were professional monster hunters and me being the wee little lad that I was wanted to impress em with the greatest catch any child could give their parents, the Loch Ness monster! I did it all on me own but it came at a cost,,”

After that herr demo just stared off in the distance and I made a mental note to ask him more about that later, The Engineer was also very open about his youth! I came to him shortly after dinner knowing he would be busying himself with one of his long-term projects and would enjoy some company, his leg was still a little stiff from a rather nasty fall and so movement was difficult at times. He was more than happy to talk while I assisted.

“Luckenbach Texas, everybody is somebody there. It was recently bought by a goat farmer. Can you believe that? He called himself an Imagineer and after that, a bunch of hillbilly musicians started moving in. Can't complain though, It breathed new life into my home, I hated going back and seeing the state it was in. My mom and pop own a small pig farm there, and I still try to visit though unlike my good-for-nothing twin with his stupid fancy job at “NASA”,,

I don't think I should share his personal frustration about his twin with the public so let's move on, yes? The next day I approached Heavy, he was last on my list and seemingly already aware of me interrogating the entire team, and as he was cleaning his minigun he told me to take a seat.

“You want to know about heavy, Da? Then I will tell you about heavy. Grew up in big town near mountain, you would not know it. Had big family, many sisters and brothers but Heavy was oldest. Family was poor but happy, loved summer, snow would melt and grass and flowers would show, heavy likes this. Went to good school had many friends, now heavy works to give family same life. Doctor is happy  with answer?”

I was surprised he was so willing to talk about his youth, I politely thanked him and left to prepare for that day's battle, I suppose that only leaves me left.

I was born in Germany, my mother was German and my father was Dutch and they both moved to Germany so my mother could be close to her family, he was a watchmaker and she was an artist, this relationship did not last and they got divorced. My motherstayed in germany allowing my father to raise me on his own back in the netherlands. I spent a lot of time in my father's workshop while he was trying to fix up old clocks. I didn't have many friends but who needs them when you have books and wildlife to observe? I excelled in all of my studies and pursued medicine, and eventually ended up here writing to you after I just finished up patching the last of my colleagues.

Stay healthy

With kind regards medic

[aquaquadrant]

Deciding to live write (react) (?) this as I'm reading this new chapter (two parts WOW, double the angst) (so part one out of two, hope that's cool). If something happens my therapist WILL be hearing about you.

The title already I'm sobbing /pos

I HATE THE WATCHERS SO MUCH OMMMGGGGG, leave them aLONE

It's very Jimmy to not like crying, I love to see it. I love when fanfic writers don't like him crying, ty.

Tango :( The RANCH, it was THEIRS, my HEART These Watchers ugghhHHHH Jimmy immediately defending Tango, please nothing else happen to them, PLEASE

Every time the watchers speak, my want to punch them grows The explanation paragraph, ugh something about it, how Jimmy doesn't immediately try to blame Tango, or just understands it well. Just bjhebwg

Bdubs being so worried for Tango, please, JUST LET THEM BE HAPPY

JIMMY DEFENDING TANGO NUMBER TWO, hate me them

Watchers ugghhe

HERMITCRAFTING BEING HIS HOME UGH IM JUST POINTING OUT EVERY LITTLE DETAIL BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL SO

DELIGHTFUL, I LOVE THE WAY YOU WRITE SO MUCH

Okay, therapy time <3 (yes I did actually read this before my therapy appointment, this was /srs and not /j)

Therapy break over, BACK TO ANGST

Awww, Jimmy not believing Tango is evil. Love to see it.

UH OH, NOT THE TIMMY ALLUSION

Nvm not alright, Watchers need to Watch their mouths

"Pity is a suitor that won’t take a hint, no matter how many times Jimmy turns it away." Is SO good???? Excuse me??? Pity x Jimmy real ship of the htp au?? /j

Maybe I hate the watchers more than I hate Atlas, hm.

I like that they all still keep an air of lighthearted-ness about, even with Tango in such critical condition, they still are friends :)

Jimmy being okay with a scar to the face if it means Tango doesn't have to unnecessarily respawn :( /pos

This description of Tango has me thinking about that kinda old drawing that lunarcrown did of Tango back when he was chained up. Like, it's literally the first post that shows up when clicking on the chronological timeline, yeah that one, it reminds me of that one.

UGGGHHHH THE HAND ON THE CHIN GETTING A RESPONSE, NO, BAD AQUA, BAD. SOMETHINGS ARE BETTER LEFT OFF IN THE ASKS RESPONSES

WATCHERS ARE NOT HELPING (x2)

Still love Jimmy calling for SOS, like yes, smart move. I wish we could've seen what it was like for the other DL to see chat and immediately go "oh shit ???" and then see the SOS and go "OH SHIT ???"

I love Impulse <3

Ooooo, getting some more cases of this fantasy (racism? Bigotry? Bad stuff) worldbuilding

"I don’t believe that just being from there would automatically make someone evil." Nature vs nurture <3 Maybe all Bravo needed was two minutes with Impulse god DAMN

Sleepy time <3

Okay, don't like the Watchers, but the "Round two!" was funny, I'll give em that

"(You cannot sleep, there are monsters nearby.)" I- I- STOP I CAN'T LAUGH BUT OMFG

Rancher :((((((

HIS RANCHER

Let me at these Watchers, LET ME AT EM

Ugh, disassociation. As someone who's dealt with this during panic attacks, it totally tracks and breaks my heart :(

These Watchers gotTA BACK OFF, LEAVE TANGO ALONE GOD DAMN

No way Tango is tryna pull the "I'm fine" card rn, AFTER ALL THAT LMAO

Jimmy is very pretty TO ME

The collar dampening Tango's fire, metaphorically and literally, is just ugh. What's more is Jimmy likes Tango's fire, he likes the warmth Tango produces physically, and he likes the sparks of creativity and burning passion of Tango's metaphorically. And they took it away! Both ways to Sunday!!!

Na because crying on someone is such an intimate gesture. To let your heart pour out of you, no one does that to just anyone. What makes this even more important is how Jimmy cried on Tango's shoulder last chapter, and now Tango's crying on Jimmy's shoulder this chapter. They are each other's soulmate, they are their each other's ranchers. They are so important to one another and soo ughguew

Not gonna cuss this Watcher out, I'll let this sweet dreams comment slide for now.

Oooo, a peak into how they reacted to everyone joining. AND we get a look at Atlas' full username <3 Love it.

Wait Tyrannicide and Phantonym joined too?? Huh, thought as scientists they would've stayed behind. Cool to know!

I can see now why you needed all those usernames lol.

JOEL THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO LAUGH DAMNIT

Hmmm, love Scar immediately jumping into action. Oop and ofc the two scientists head out first lmao

ATLAS, WHEN I CATCH YOU ATLAS, NOT BIGB NOOOO

ATLAS, WHEN I CATCH YOU ATLAS, NOT PEARL NOOOOO

Actually really funny that ATLAS got the most kills from the Hels cast. Like, damn, pop off???? Man did more work than the ppl hired to actually do the dirty work lmao.

Wonder how difficult it was to keep up with all the names, who died then got back in, who killed who, etc.

Oop, Jimmy also noting Atlas is smarter than the average bear.

This whole paragraph talking about Bravo, yes Jimmy, drag that man. Loving how he immediately is like "dude is just like a hels player" and scoffing at the nerve of Bravo to claim to be his actual soulmate. Yes.

Head in hands, Watchers about to catch these hands.

Tango immediately wanting to get this all over with hurts. Damn, wonder if he just wants to get it over with cause he thinks they all want him gone.

"I mean, everyone knows I’m a vicious monster but I don’t have to look it, right?" UGH, Aqua you're lucky I already did my therapy time BEFORE this part, UGGGHHHHHH. I need to go back rq just to tell her this god DAMN

Welp, on to act two! Thank you so much for the wonderful reading material :)

TLDR: I hate the Watchers with a burning passion.

-🍌

what’s this?? a DETAILED LIVE BLOG of my writing for ME to read??? don’t mind if i do…

ok first off, thank you SO MUCH for taking the time to write down ur thoughts and share them with me. it’s truly one of the greatest joys of being an author, and the closest i can get to experiencing my writing as if i wasn’t the one who wrote it. NOW let’s get into it…

the overarching watcher hate is so justified and hilarious, they really just exist to be the most obnoxious and toxic livestream chat ever. at least, the ones who hang around jimmy are LMAO

AHA i’m glad u liked the part abt jimmy not liking to cry, i’ve been told he’s got a bit of a prideful streak in other series that didn’t come thru as much in his double life run, so that was a little nod to it.

the ranch could not escape its destiny of being tragically burned down 🫡

(omg the therapy appointment interlude. i remember when i’ve had to pause while reading a fic to address real life business and now someone’s doing that for MY writing…. :’))) i hope the appt went well!)

this chapter was a lovely opportunity to really show jimmy stepping up for tango, with both verbal and physical reassurance. he may not know everything abt the hels situation but he knows he loves tango <3

AND YEAH YEAH THAT FIRST ART MEL DID. definitely throwing back to that w tango’s disassociated state and the collar. nice catch ;0

the chin-hand response was another throw back to old mel art, isn’t that fuuuun? ;000

IMPULSE WAS THE MVP OF THIS CHAPTER 💪😤👏

ok the watchers do get their funny moments in here and there HAH

phantonym and tyrannicide did come along! they might be scientists, but they’re as nasty as any hels player (dr l8r_h8r did, in fact, stay home to monitor the portal. he’s kinda over the whole ‘violence’ nonsense.) tango actually targeted them first bc of their lab coats.

and YUP i got a lotta good username ideas from those suggestions. and it WAS very difficult to keep track of them all thru the chat backlog. i don’t know how long i spent going thru each player’s sequence of events, one by one, JUST to make sure i hadn’t forgotten to have someone die for the last time, or show up again without a new join message.

and unfortunately for jimmy he made the classic error of “typo in the group chat.” joel did what he had to 🫡 (buuuut once he saw how serious the situation was, he decided not to push it anymore)

atlas is a clever bastard and i love that yall love to hate him 🙏 he saw a virtual ocean of wolves storming down the hill and was like “ok clearly i’m not dealing with that, so let’s see where my efforts can be better spent.” the hired grunts don’t possess that kind of critical thought 🎻

i’m SO glad you enjoyed it!! thank you again for this lovely feedback <3

[gingersp1ce547]

ok it’s jojoever i have brainrot now i need to assign stands to every qsmp eggs

ramon : Killer Queen - bombs + cat what more do i need to say

Chayanne : Pearl Jam - Just making extremely good food

Tallulah : Hermit Purple - Thorns design that reminds of Rose

Leo : Purple Haze - Color matches + rabid dog vibes

Sunny : Emerald green - using jewels to fight is perfect for her

Empanada : Paisley Park - don’t have an explanation, em just gives me yasuho vibes

Pepito : Bohemian Rhapsody - go make spider-man real king

Dapper : Gold experience - gruesomely killing your enemies with your knowledge of living creatures is such a dapper thing

Pomme : Sex Pistols - go my little sniper queen

Richas : Heaven’s door - Perfect for an artist with a taste for fofoca

Dude i saw the word sex pistols in the context of stands my brain went “part 5? PART 5!” Like a dog hearing its name being called so im more than happy to brain rot with you bout all of this!

-killer queen is so perfect for ramon. If he had it during the election arc, fit would have to have stopped him form making foolish a speck of ash on the floor after he arrested tazercraft

-chays fits so well from a symbolic, “stands are a reflection of ones soul” perspective too. Like even though he’s a warrior, at heart he the main thing he cares about is taking care of his family though both physical protection and just general wellbeing. Such a good pick for him

-Hermit purple is such a good pick with tallulah. Im imagining phil sighing as he pulls out another camera for her to destroy before they eventually start having super cheap ones on hand for that exact purpose

-Listen i see purple haze for leo, i get it i can see the vision. But my fugo loving brain refuses to let go of what purple haze means for him as a stand symbolically and wants to give it to q!cellbit EVEN THOUGH WERE ONLY TALKING ABOUT THE EGGS.

Anyways in context of only assigning stands to the eggs 100% i think she should get out purple haze, but if were talking about everyone i also think born this way would be a really good fit for her and i cant quite explain why outside of the vibes just mathcing in my head

-sunny would so be besties with emerald green. Like tubbo would have to not only give sunny stuff but also it. I can totally see her giving it a nickname and its own room and stuff

-Your so right about empanda having yasuho vibes. Something about the crypticness of the power of paisley park coupled with all the shit both the characters have been though mashes really well together

- Bohemian rhapsody is so fucking funny for pepito. Especially because like idk if youve ever read any jojo’s fanfics but theirs this really good one called chimera were long story short the ascended version of dio from eyes over heaven goes to another universe and just fucks with the dio their by basically forcing him on a part jumping self-betterment arc? Anyways during it the author had the reason ungalo’s life became so shit was because he accidentally used his stand to make the story of holes come true with him acting as the main character and now every tine i think about that stand i cant not think of that.

But anyways him and roier would abuse the fuck out of his stand and it would in fact be hilarious

-As a giorno lover, dapper is so giorno coded. He would be so fucking unstoppable with that stand even without it being its requiem version. I can so see him using it to fuck with his dad for funnsies too.

-Pomme would be so sweet to the pistols too, she would make sure they get the best treats. I think at first she would struggle with keeping them in line but with etoiles help she would be the perfect balance of stern and sweet.

-richas with heavens door would be the absolute worst. Like the biggest menace ever. He would use it on his parents to make it so they could never give him a bath again and then they would have to find a work around for what doesnt count as bath but still technically got him clean until their able to convince him to reverse it.

[coweggomelet]

i apparently enjoy putting down my thoughts on the off chance someone will read it and enjoy it so here’s rwby rewatch vol 3. i’m ready to be sad!!

(note: it’s long i’m sorry, i have many thoughts and i tried to narrow it down but oh boy do i think im funny)

- the SOUND DESIGN. AGAIN

- ruby you’re so precious. so sweet. so eager. so earnest. c’mere and i’ll protect you from all the bad shit that happens to you later

- hi cardboard cutout tai

- i keep getting an ad for a rooster teeth show called camp betrayal and the way this man says “hoo hoo hoo” will haunt me for the rest of time

- oh shit the fact that it’s called amity has such insane implications for what it’s used for later. jesus.

- “bffs!” “No.” “…/yessss/” love them

- yeet the yang

- god ruby’s admiration of emerald is so sad in retrospect like… oh boy ruby you’re in for it

- PYRRHAAAAA I LOVE YOU DONT LEAVE ME

- “even if you know how a story ends, that doesn’t make it any less fun to watch” wow cinder are you psychic

- ummmm they’re having a talk can you please respect their privacy

- thor whomst??? i only know nora valkyrie

- BROODY MAN

- hiiiii gavin

- so much mid battle banter. in the middle of a big important fight they just have to make jokes and argue. i love teenagers

- SILENCE YOU BOOB

- awww winter you’re a disaster and you’re horribly emotionally repressed because of your bitch ass dad but jesus christ you care about your little sister and you wanna know she’s doing okay and i’m emotional about it

- PENNYYYYY my love just keep being you

- jeez i forgot how early on ironwood was talking his shit about being “someone who will act”, the “only person” who will do what needs to be done, as if his course of action is what needs to be done

- every single person who underestimates emerald and mercury gets so fucked up. like so many people look at these youngerish teenagers with some funny one liners and banter and go “oh they seem capable and they’re confident and funny so i like em but i can take em” and then absolutely get the shit kicked out of them. and i think that’s why they’ve been so successful, cause nobody takes them seriously enough to consider them a threat.

- see this is why i love rwby. coco just turned her handbag into a gatling gun and cut down a field of grass with it

- god the way they hint at emerald’s semblance before fully showing what it is. *chef’s kiss*

- winter marry me

- we love an uncle who absolutely destroys his nieces at video games

- “they do and they’re called silver!” ruby i love you

- top heavy. heheh

- this dude’s weapon is a trumpet!! she’s got glowing nunchucks!! i love this show!!

- this battle music is AMAZING what the FUCK they’re fighting to JAZZ

- cinder if you keep having vague ominous dialogue people are gonna get the wrong idea

- oh yeah great idea asking a child to take on immense power which sends her into a stressed out panicky spiral and alienates her from the people she finally feels legitimately connected to and for once didn’t feel alienated from

- oh fuck. oh fuck the finals. oh god. oh no.

- she’s so happy. she’s so ready to have a good fight. i’m gonna cry

- FUCK

- and with one moment, the entire show flipped on its head

- god when i watched that the first time i fuckin freaked. i was not prepared man. i was warned. but i was not prepared for this much of a fucking tone change man. that quickly. like tone changes (in my experience) normally happen gradually, but this one happened in, what? 30 seconds?

- fuck

- god this is so bad

- and it GETS WORSE i can’t do this

- love that we can see yang’s distraught eyebrows through her bangs

- after this episode was the first time my friend asked me “how we doing buddy?” and i’ve only wanted to kill her more since then

- oh god emerald’s backstory. this poor child. she was so alone and cinder was there and said i can give you a place i can give you a purpose i can give you security and emerald latched on so hard.

- hiiiii laura bailey i wish you had more than a lil baby line and some sounds of effort

- god that little anklet

- god what a fuckin backstory episode man. backstory? evil plan explanation? idk but it was good

- great parent move. telling your kid you’ll only save them once.

- jaune you sweet good boy. what a good boy. i love him

- god this poor child. she doesn’t deserve this. FUCK i’m so sad. is that the last conversation they have?

- oooooh shit this song is so good. what the fuck i have chills it’s so fitting

- god everyone else is so happy and excited and then there’s ruby who is one of the very few people who knows how bad a fight between penny and pyrrha could be and pyrrha who’s got to decide if she wants someone else’s aura smushed with hers, which could turn her into a different person. FUCK

- peeeennyyyyy “salutations!! it’s an honor to meet you!” it huuuurts

- it makes me so sad but damn was this a good diabolical plan

- god im so sad. penny is so good. and pyrrha’s fuckin eyes. and ruby just collapsing. jesus christ. it’s all fuckin falling apart

- oh fuck here we go. those klaxons are so terrifying

- it makes me so happy that torchwick gets rescued and then like maybe a couple episodes later just gets swallowed

- the fuckin adam fight is coming up too. jesus. really piling on here

- RUBY IS USING ONE OF PENNY’S SWORDS IM GONNA CRYYY

- and she doesn’t even hesitate to save pyrrha

- the one and only time (to my memory) that ironwood is gentle is when he says no one would blame the students if they left. that might be the last time he actually remembers that they’re all teenagers and feels sympathy for these children with all this pressure on them

- oh yeah the big boy

- the first time i watched this i was LOSING MY MIND this whole time. like yang attacked mercury and from then on man. just freaking out.

- eurgh grimm juice

- c’mon blake you got this. i mean. technically you don’t. the fight goes poorly. but you fuckin try and you’re so brave about it and i love youuu

- shut the FUCK up adam you GROOMED her you ASSHOLE

- aahhhh i love velvet!!! her semblance and her whole fighting style is so goddamn cool and has such interesting implications for using weapons and powers of people who are dead

- OH SHIT SHE DOES SUMMON HERE DOESNT SHE. partly but still

- get fucked, torchwick. GET FUCKED. get fuckin chomped

- a backhanded slap feels so much more violent than any fighting with weapons

- uh oh evil katniss

- god. the fucking blood splatter turning the whole shot red. just their silhouettes. the slow motion. the arm slowly separating.

- my friend was also a big fan of “how we feeling?”

- bad. the answer is bad you fuckin sadist

- oz is… a lot of things, and one of them is a goddamn good fighter

- oh god oh noooo she’s gonna kiss & yeet AWWWW FUCK this is heartbreaking

- pyrrha i love you

- if i don’t look it’s not real

- oh pyrrha my love

- awww hey tai. what a good dad. love tai

- i’m so sad. everyone’s so sad. and then salem just has to do an ominous lil monologue where she lays out her whole plan to divide them and makes a fuckin semblance pun. she’s such a good villain

- jacque you stiff bitch

- they’re all fuckin scattered and depressed

- love team rnjr tho

- there she is. god what an ending

[thetierdslytherin]

The Avatar’s sister

Bolin x reader(korra’s sister)

2k words and it’s kinda poorly edited 

a/n there’s some cuss words and some violence?

“We were just looking for the bathroom and we got lost!”

“Ah the old I had to pee excuse you know i'm sick and tired…” I don’t catch the rest of what he's saying because I see a teenage boy dressed in pro bending gear or as I like to call him our way out of this situation. I motion for him to come over praying to the spirits that he can read the room.

          “There you two are, I've been looking everywhere for you two! It's alright Toza there with me” Up close I can see that it's actually Bolin the earth bender for the fire ferrets. Spirits can my day get any better. I've seen a few pro bending matches before and listened to even more. One of the few perks of being the avatar’s sister. While she spends her days training on air temple island I spend my days wandering the city my favorite pastime being watching pro bending matches.Spirits he looks even better up close 

          “Yeah were with him” I say flashing the man a million watt smile and he responds with 

           “so you see we’re together” Oh I like where this is going. Before I can respond Korra replies

            “well not together together” speak for yourself Korra. I'm more than happy to be together together with him. He starts to stammer embarrassed by Korra words so I try to save all of us 

            “You see Toza Bolin and I are together and my sister was just tagging along with us.” Please let this work, if not Tenzin is going to kill me for letting korra go out with me.

           “Ah I don't care I got work to do” the man begins to walk away and I pull the stammering duo out of the room before either of them could blow our cover. I turn around to see a blushing Bolin and a confused looking Korra, I really need to teach her how to pick up on social cues 

           “I’m y/n, a big fan of yours, so Bolin why don't you show the two of us around” I say while grabbing his bicep motioning for him to lead. Bolin showed us around for a while before leading us into an area overlooking the arena “So what do you think best seats in the house huh?” It really is you can see the whole arena from up here and it's much less crowded than the seats in the stadium plus there isn't a guy as easy on the eyes as Bolin down there. 

           “Oh absolutely the view just keeps getting better and better” it's not often that I get to meet people as just y/n, not the avatar's sister, or korra's younger sister. It's nice to be myself around someone knowing that they're not using me to get to the avatar. Besides from what I've seen Bolin is too sweet and innocent to do that anyways.

          “Unbelievable this place is even more amazing than I imagined” I let out a small chuckle at Korra's words. It's nice to see her getting excited at the smallest things, it shows me that she can still be a kid and not burdened by the weight of the world. It makes sneaking out and a possible chewing out from Tenzin worth it “Names Bolin by the way”

“Korra” “I know” they both look at me waiting for an explanation “well i'm just a huge fan of yours” I pause “well the fire ferrets in general” 

“Psst Bolin”

“Yeah” 

“I told you you have to stop bringing your crazy fangirls in here before the matches get them out of here” His older brother Mako whispers this to him Korra and I both hear due to the fact that they suck at whispering. It almost hurts my feelings that we aren't the only ones he brought back here but then again he's not the first guy i've flirted with here. Though he is the first guy i've flirted with that seems so...innocent.

          “Aw c'mon Mako I kinda promised them that they could stay but I got a good feeling about them there's something special about the two of them. I know it” Well he's half right there. I wonder why he lied to his brother so we could stay. He never promised us we could stay back here. Some part of me hopes it's because he's interested in me too. “Come here I want you to meet my brother Mako” he says eagerly pulling me towards him 

          “Mako! Wow I heard you play on the radio” oh boy she's totally fangirling. I personally don’t see what's so interesting about Mako or his brooding douchebag act “cmon Bolin we’re up” Mako says completely ignoring Korra walking past her, see brooding douchebag. Korra not taking the hint turns to Bolin “or I could meet him later”

           “yeah he gets real focused before a match anyways wish me luck” his comment makes me laugh. Something about the positive energy he radiates is infectious. He jogs away, I yell “good luck Bolin” followed by “good luck knock em out” from Korra 

         “So do i have to be the one to say mako is bad news or i have to let you figure it out yourself” I cross my arms giving her my best ‘i know better than you’ look. While Korra may be the older sister, only by 11 months might I add, she doesn't act it. I blame all of her teachers and instructors for never letting her live when she was younger. Now that she's basically an adult seeing the world for the first time she's very sheltered.

          “He is not bad news y/n you heard bolin he was just focused for the match! Besides, did you see him?” let her figure it out for herself it is.

          “Yes and i also saw you drooling at him” I tease 

          “Oh please like you were any better with Bolin you were practically throwing yourself at him” these are the best moments when we can just goof off.

“First off I do not throw myself at anyone, he's just sweet and insanely hot. Secondly which one of us actually has experience with boys” she opens her mouth to defend herself before quickly shutting it. Got her there. “Exactly now pay attention the match is starting” We both turn and lean on the balcony watching the start of the match.

           “The rookie ferrets came out of nowhere and made it further than anyone expected this season but tonight they face their toughest test yet folks” we watch the two teams trading back and forth blows until the fire ferrets ultimately win with Mako knocking all 3 members of the opposing team into the water. I turn to Korra to ask how her first ever pro bending match was but stopping when I see her and Mako holding each other's gazes.

          “Yes! Whoo did you see that one more win and were in the championship tournament!” Bolin yells running into the room skidding to a halt in front of me “so what'd you think y/n?” he looks down at me trying to conceal his excitement waiting for me to answer him looking happier than i've ever seen him-if that's possible. 

           “You guys were amazing Bolin!” I practically yell pulling him into a quick hug.

           “Bolins got some moves huh?” 

          “You could say that again” Before Bolin can say that again Korra grabs him by his shirt pulling him towards her 

          “That was amazing” then korra promlety pushed him away as Mako and Hasook approach arguing about the last match

          “You did more harm than good out there, you almost cost us the match!”

          “We won didn't we?”

          “Barely” 

          “Get off my case pal” Hasook yells before storming out of the room.This doesn't put a damper on korra's mood though as she addresses Mako “You guys were amazing out there especially you mr hat trick” Mako yet again walks right past her him barely paying her any attention to her half heartly saying “oh your still here”

          “What gives you the right to be such an ass mr hat trick?” I say coming to my sister's defence. Pro bender or not it doesn't give him the right to be a jerk. I even bet I could beat him sparring. He's not even good enough to be this much of a jerk.

          “Your good do you think you could show me some tricks?” no no no korra that wasn't the deal I sneak you out we watch one pro bending match and we go back to air temple island.

          “Yeah sure absolutely i'm just not sure how my earth bending might translate to your water bending but we'll figure it out” This cant get any worse if she lets them know she's the avatar we're toast. No ones supposed to know the avatars in republic city

          “Won't be a problem-”

          “korra's right it won't be a problem because we really have to go-” 

           “because i'm an earth bender” great this is j ust great.

          “Im sorry no no i didn't mean to assume ya know cause i was just figuring since well with your water tribe getup that you two were well water bender” 

          “Korras just messing with you of course were both water-” 

          “You're right, I'm a water bender too and fire bender” social. Cues. Korra. 

         “Hmm hmm i'm very confused right now” Bolin 

         “Your the avatar and i'm an idiot” Mako 

         “Both are true” Korra. I throw myself into the nearest chair running my hands through my y/h/c hair.I wonder if I beg for forgiveness if Tenzin will still ground us for the rest of forever 

          “I need a drink” I say, completely ignoring Bolin’s freak out about Korra being the avatar I've heard it all before. Just like that my chances with Bolin have gone out the window no one has ever liked me more than my sister she's the avatar I can't compete with that .I never will be able to. 

          Nonetheless I follow the brothers into the training room and sit on the stairs looking as happy to be there as Mako does. I don't pay much attention to Bolin and Korra training “so mr hat trick is there any reason why you're so prickly or are you always like this?”

          He scoffs “no i just don’t appreciate the two of you showing up like that besides your sister is a piece of work”           “No kidding hat trick don't you know being the avatar comes with a hero complex?” Okay so he's not as bad as I thought.

          “Well it's getting late so i'm going to turn in but you kids have fun”

          “Speaking of Korra we really do need to be going” I speak in a tone to let her know it wasn't an option.I stand up brushing my water tribe robes off “it really was great seeing you Bolin but we have to go”

          “Sorry my sister is being such a wet blanke-” “now Korra” 

          “Hey um y/n could you hang back for a second” here it goes. Is your sister single? Can you set me up? 

          “What do you need Bolin?” 

         “You mean other than you in my life” we both cringe after he says that.

          “That has to be the worst pick up line i've ever heard” 

         He scratches the back of his neck awkwardly “heh yeah it wasn't really my A material but the real reason i wanted to talk to you was well i was mostly just wondering well we have a match next”

          “Bolin spit it out i'm sure it isn't that bad”

          “Do you want to come to our match tomorrow then get some food after” he looks at the ground playing with his fingers. Where was the confident Bolin I met earlier? 

          “Yes”

          “Well it was a stupid idea anyways I shoul- wait yes? Really! I uh I mean of course you would want to get food with me” maybe he's more insecure than I initially thought. But then again people do have layers.

       I kiss him on the cheek turning away from him and walking to the door so he couldn't see the blush on my face “I'll see you tomorrow Bolin”

[grvntld]

hallo, ebribadiiiiiii~ i was tagged by @teremisoo 💖 thank you, bb tere for including me. i had fun answering this!

idrk what the name of this tag game is, but maybe it has somethig to do with the number five. anyway, here are my answers~

🌻five things you'd find in my bag:

scissors

cards

wallet

powerbank

alcohol

🌻five things you'd find in my room:

my framed #secretnudes artwork by christa — slothbender on ig

two storage boxes — one for hobby stuff and one for bikinis

hula-hoop

my pink 🥊🥊

mirror

🌻five of my favorite things:

bubble wraps!!!

my 🛼🛼

my winnie the pooh bolster and blanket

yoga mat

bikinisssss

🌻five of my habits:

drinking water first thing in the morning

doing yoga or anything that promotes movement

making sure my bed is made

eating sweets when im down, eating sweets to celebrate wins; basically, eating sweets whenever lol

having tea to calm my nerves

🌻five things about me that i like:

answering this category made me think of a lot of things that i like abt myself (((ive come up with more than five, tbh))) and that made me happy, bc ✨ self-love ✨ is a tough journey and im rlly happy that ive come this far in regards to that journey. now, to answer this category, here are five things that i like about myself:

i love myself. i mean, yeah, there are still times when i say, "why, self??¿?", but overall, i love myself.

i dont rlly give a damn abt what people who dont matter to me (((sometimes even people who matter to me))) think of me

i could walk out of anyone's life (((and i mean anyone; including people that are dear to me at some point))) without explanation bc ive reached the limit of bullshit i could only take. yes, you could say i 👻 people and that im selfish, but my worth and self-respect comes first for me. im just so tired of people expecting to be called out for their bullshit — dude, if you know your words, actions, self are bullshit, then try to fucking change. stop telling people to tell you when you make them uncomfortable. you have an inkling of what makes others feel uncomfortable. stop being such a dick. practice self-awareness, dumb bitch.

i know my shit, my baggage, and i try my best to work with and through it. i acknowledge the bad in me as much as i acknowledge the good i possess.

im big on boundaries. i respect people's boundaries — so yes, i expect, demand rather, the same treatment.

🌻five things i want this year:

hehe some of these ive actually done or in progress already 🙆‍♀️

open a joint bank account with boyfie

satisfy my cravings for ~going out~

grow more financially

learn a new hobby or skill // expand my knowledge // basically, just continue learning

a balbo or some weights — just some new workout equipment of some sort, ya know

there you have it! here are all my answers. getting tagged makes me feel special or something, idk, it just makes me giddy. i get kilig when someone tags me and i rlly rlly try my best to do wtvr the tag game is, but sometimes i forget 'em or like im just super busy, so im sorry if ever you have tagged me or you will tag me and i didnt get to do it or wont be able to do it. i rlly try my best!

in the spirit of number 5 (lmao), im tagging these 10 (double 5 lol) awesome and beautiful people: @herjourne @telle-tale @duumplinq @gabschase @moonlanegardens @icedcoldcofi @doesnthaveaname @potatothingz @nijuugo @helloohachuu

please 🍩 feel obligated to do this, bbs! just tagging you to spread the love~ 🌻🙆‍♀️

[myriadimagines]

Games

Peaky Blinders One Shot

Pairing: Reader x Michael Gray

Other Characters: Thomas Shelby, Polly Gray, Ada Shelby, Finn Shelby, Isaiah Jesus, John Shelby, Arthur Shelby

Warnings: smoking, swearing, mentions of death

Summary: Michael has been in love with you ever since he first met you, but has keep quiet about his feelings because you’re dating someone else. But after you get engaged, Michael can’t hide his feelings any longer.

Word Count: 3,590

A/N: surprise!!! this is my secret oneshot i ended up writing too much for. this is inspired by @fangirlsarah16​​​ and her gif imagine request! anyway this ended up being way longer than i expected it to and im bracing myself for it to get no notes but. here we are. enjoy :)

please reblog/leave comments, they’re very much appreciated!

Your name: submit What is this?

Tommy paces up and down the room, clicking his tongue as he pulls his pocket watch out of his coat to glance down at the time. From his chair, Michael can’t help but suppress a chuckle at Tommy’s clear impatience, and he takes a drag from his cigarette as Tommy shakes his head, looking around at the rest of his family and other Peaky Blinders who are all gathered in the room, per your request. They had all gotten the same vague message from you, bursting into their rooms and houses early in the morning as you called an urgent meeting, refusing to give them more details past that. Turning to Polly, Tommy exasperatedly asks, “Where the bloody hell is she?”

“And how am I supposed to know?” Polly scoffs, leaning her back up against the wall as she looks over at the front door, hoping you’ll come through any second now. 

“If she doesn’t come in the next five minutes, all of you are getting back to work.” Tommy shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. “She better be bloody dying to be calling a meeting of this size.”

Ada rolls her eyes as she shoots Tommy a look, which he ignores. Before Tommy can complain again, the doors burst open, and everyone looks up to see you quickly ushering Finn and Isaiah inside. John lets out a loud scoff as he reaches over to grab Finn, slinging his arm around him and roughly ruffling up his hair, and John grins as you pass by him, announcing, “Finally gracing us with your presence then, y/n? D’you reckon you could’ve made us wait any longer?”

“Fuck off, John,” you laugh, waving your hand at him as you walk past Michael. He smiles up at you as you pass him, reaching out to give his arm a light squeeze before you situate yourself in the front of the room. Pointing at Finn and Isaiah, you continue, “You have them to blame. I had to run through the whole of Birmingham to find ’em!” 

Before Finn and Isaiah can jump to defend themselves, Tommy raises his hand, shushing them as he raises an annoyed brow at you, “Well, go on then. You’ve already wasted enough of my day.”

“Patience, now, Tommy,” you tease, and Tommy blinks at you, in complete disbelief at your utter disregard for his impatience. With anyone else, Tommy would’ve threatened to cut them for such disrespect, but for you, the daughter of one of his close friends from the war, he’ll let it slide. 

Beside him, an amused smile sneaks its way onto Michael’s face as your gaze meets his. He can’t help but feel his heart skip a beat as you beam at him, clearly euphoric at whatever news you’re about to deliver. Your face is practically glowing with joy as you clap your gloved hands together, continuing, “I have exciting news to share with you all. I wanted to share it with you all last night when it happened, but I figured John would probably cut me if I tried to disturb him while he’s sleeping.” 

Arthur laughs as John nods in agreement. Giddily, you continue, “As many as you know, Henry has been in town to visit me for a bit.”

Michael’s jaw clenches upon hearing your boyfriend’s name, and he grits his teeth as he tries his best to forget about him as he watches as you pull off one of your gloves. Michael doesn’t notice it at first, but once he does, his cigarette falls out of his fingertips. All the sounds around him seem to distort, the entire world falling out of focus, and he can barely make out your voice as you continue talking, excitedly showing your hand off to the room.

Your hand, where a glittering, diamond ring sits prettily on your ring finger.

“And he proposed to me!” you squeal, and the entire room erupts into celebration, Ada leaping up from her chair to engulf you in a hug. John lets out a loud whoop, jostling Finn and Isaiah beside him as they laugh, pumping their fists in the air. The boys laugh as Arthur applauds, leading the rest of the Peaky Blinders to excitedly clap for you. Polly rushes to your side, her and Ada eagerly examining your ring, and even Tommy, despite his earlier agitation, can’t help but smile. Shaking his head, Tommy makes his way to you, clapping a hand down on your shoulder. 

“Congratulations, y/n.” Tommy gives your shoulder a squeeze, and you beam at him. Lowering his voice, he asks, “And he’s a good man, eh? Treats you well?”

You bob your head up and down, barely able to contain your happiness. “He’s a good man, Tommy.”

Tommy nods in approval, and you leap forward to give him a hug, and he good-naturedly rolls his eyes as he hugs you back. Letting go of him, you look past him to find Michael, and your smile falters as your eyes fall onto his empty seat. Looking around, you try to catch a glimpse of him, but the only thing you see is a blur of his coat as he walks out the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

—

Michael remembers the first time he met you, shyly smiling at him from your desk when Tommy stopped by to introduce the two of you. He had just moved to Small Heath, was getting used to his new family and new home, and when you smiled at him, he knew he was right where he was supposed to be. He was so entranced, so captivated, he hadn’t even heard Tommy calling his name until the third time, impatiently gesturing for him to keep up as he showed him around the offices. Michael was blushing furiously as you hid a giggle behind your hand.

Michael tried to be subtle when asking Tommy about you, but his cousin saw right through him. Tommy leaned back in his chair, studying Michael’s face as the two sat across from each other, listening as Michael pretended to just be interested in you for professional purposes, pretending he was eager to meet everyone when your smile was the only thing running through his mind.

“So you fancy y/n, then?” Tommy interrupted, shooting Michael a look, and Michael didn’t need to look in a mirror to know his entire face was ruby red. He couldn’t even bring himself to deny it, and Tommy scoffed out a puff of smoke before taking another drag of his cigarette, “Oh, young love.”

“Is she a family friend, then?” Michael asked, leaning forward in his seat, and Tommy chuckled. Perhaps he was in a decent mood, or else he would never entertain this. 

“I knew her father from the war.” Tommy explained. “A brave man, a loyal friend. His wife died during childbirth and y/n was all he had. I made a promise to him. I promised I’d make it back home so I could take care of his little girl whilst he was dying in my arms.”

Michael fell silent, nervously picking at the edge of his coat as a glaze fogs over Tommy’s eyes upon thinking of the war. Shaking his head, Tommy crushed his cigarette out onto the ashtray in front of him, before leaning his elbows up on the desk, his eyes piercing into Michael’s. 

“So no, she’s not just a family friend. She’s one of us.” Tommy continued, pointing a finger at Michael. “Now, it’s none of my business who you fool around with, but y/n is different. You may be family, Michael, but if you fuck up and break her heart, know that I’ll come for you.” 

—

A good man, Michael bitterly thinks as he paces through his office. Running a hand through his hair, he can hear your voice echoing in his head, the last words he heard before he couldn’t take it any longer, before he had to leave before his heart broke completely. It had been days since your announcement, and Michael had been avoiding you since, shutting himself in his office, ducking his head and turning away when he passed by your desk. He couldn’t bring himself to look at you, no matter how desperately you tried to talk to him. Sighing, Michael wonders, Is that all he is? Is that what you really want for the rest of your life?

Michael didn’t think it was possible to feel his heart splitting in his chest, but he didn’t know how else to explain the pain he felt when you excitedly announced your engagement to the Peaky Blinders. They were all happy for you, erupted into ecstatic cheers, whilst Michael could barely even muster a fake smile. How could he pretend to be happy for you, when this was the worst news he could ever possibly hear? 

They all knew of your fiancé. Henry, a nice, quiet man who you had been dating for a while, but Michael never thought it was serious. You kept him removed from the Peaky Blinders, doing a much better job than any of them at keeping your personal and professional life separate. From what Michael could remember, he was a banker, or some other mundane job. He never bothered  to learn anything about him. All Michael knows is that Henry had moved to London a few weeks prior to your engagement for better work opportunities, and Michael figured the distance would be the demise of your relationship. He figured he’d wait until your breakup to swoop in, confess his long withheld feelings for you, get the happily ever after he had expected to happen.

He waits in his office now, taking a final drag of his cigarette before he ashes it out. The entire place is empty, everyone having gone home for the night, and he looks up as he hears you open the door and step inside. He had finally worked up the courage to talk to you, stopping by your house with no explanation as he asked you to meet him in his office. You offer him a relieved smile as you close the door behind you, happy to finally see him, and you set your coat down on a nearby chair.

“I hope you’ve been preparing a grand explanation as to why you’ve been avoiding me.” you tease, taking a step towards him. “I can’t stay long, but I also have something I need to talk to you abou—”

Michael interrupts you as he wraps an arm around your waist, pulling you towards him as he presses a kiss to your lips, something he’s so desperately wanted to do since the day he met you. You freeze in shock, melting at his touch, kissing him back as you let him spin you around, backing you up against his desk before you realise what’s happening. Disconnecting your lips from his, you try to shove Michael away from you, avoiding eye contact as you stammer, “Michael—!”

“I can’t hide my feelings any longer,” Michael confesses, refusing to move away from you as he traces a finger along your jaw, tilting your face to meet his. He reaches for your hand, and you suck in a sharp breath at how gentle he is, how softly he wraps his fingers around yours. He holds up your hand, the ring glittering between the two of you, and he glances down at it before looking up at you, “You can’t marry him, y/n.”

“What? What are you talking about?” you splutter. You already know what he’s about to say, but you still ask, “Why not?”

“Because I love you, y/n,” he says, and tears well in your eyes as you shake your head, your heart hammering in your chest as you try to take your hand away from his. It all makes sense now, you realise, his avoidance towards you, him rushing out the room when you had announced your engagement. You’ve already crossed the line by kissing him, already stayed much longer than you should, yet you can’t find the strength in you to walk away from him. Michael grasps your hands in his, desperately trying to get you to look at him as he continues, “I’ve loved you since the day we met, and I can’t hide it any longer. Not when you’re about to get married to another man.”

“He has a name, Michael,” you try to assert yourself, attempting to keep your voice steady, and Michael scoffs. “Henry and I are happy together. I love him.”

“Do you?” Michael challenges you, and your lip trembles as you shoot him a look.

“Don’t.” you shakily whisper. You raise your finger, weakly jabbing it into his chest to punctuate your words as you continue, “I waited for you, Michael, but all you wanted was to play silly games with me. So don’t blame me for marrying the man who was actually brave enough to make a move.”

Michael blinks at you, mouth parted as he’s suddenly at loss for words. His voice falters as he narrows his eyes as you, and he croaks out, “You were waiting for me?”

“Of course I was!” you exclaim, exasperated, and the tears fall faster down your face now. “Bloody hell, Michael, how blind can you be? Henry had been asking me out for weeks before I agreed to go on my first date with him. And do you know why I kept turning him down? Because I was waiting for you. I was waiting for you to ask me out, to kiss me, to do something! And when you never did, I figured I had made a mistake. That all the flirting meant nothing, that it was nothing more than a game.”

Michael backs away from you, struggling to keep himself upright at this revelation. He leans up on the chair behind him, angrily gripping it as he berates himself for being so stupid. If he had known all this, he would’ve confessed his love so much earlier. 

“Have you got nothing to say to me?” you demand, and Michael looks up. “Is this it, then?” 

“No, no—” Michael reaches out to grab your arm as you try to snatch up your coat to leave, and you struggle against him as he holds you, his eyes desperately searching yours as you try to look away from him. He reaches one hand up to your face, wiping away your tears with his thumb as he continues, “I’m not playing games anymore now, y/n. I’m telling you what I should’ve told you from day one. I love you. Don’t marry Henry, marry me instead.” 

You gulp, staring at Michael as he stares back at you, looking for any hint of a reaction in your expression. Even his own words shock him, for it’s one thing to confess his love, another for him to outright propose, but Michael doesn’t regret it. Something inside of him knows you’re meant to be together, and the feeling is so strong he’s sure that you feel it, too. He can feel you soften slightly in his hands, your shoulders relaxing, and it takes everything within you not to melt completely into his touch, to kiss him and agree to marry him. You close your eyes, turning your face into his hand, and Michael feels an ounce of hope before you shake your head.

You open your eyes, and it’s not only Michael’s heart that breaks, but yours, too, as you whisper, “You’re too late, Michael.” 

Tears sting Michael’s eyes, and his hands fall limply at his sides as you step away from him, meekly pushing past him as you grab your coat. He hears you stop behind him, hesitating, before you defeatedly begin to walk away. Shaking his head, Michael turns around, squaring his shoulders as he watches you head for the door.

“Tell me this, at least,” Michael calls out to you, and you stop, hand lingering over the doorknob. You can feel his eyes burning into the back of your head, and he says, “Look me in the eye and tell me that you love him. Because I don’t think you truly do.”

You suck in a sharp breath, turning your head slightly over your shoulder. “I love him, Michael.” 

Before Michael can respond, you yank the door open, storming out as you leave him alone in his office. You hold back a sob as you force yourself to keep walking away, away from him, and your entire body feels weak as you threaten to collapse. 

You couldn’t look him in the eye. You couldn’t even muster that. 

—

Michael shuffles into the office, his feet dragging against the wood floors. He catches a glimpse of his form in the reflection of his office window, but he doesn’t bother looking up. He’d avoided mirrors for the past few days, not wanting to look at his disheveled self. He hasn’t been able to sleep since seeing you, tossing and turning under his sheets, unable to get you out of his mind. He hasn’t even bothered with a tie today, his top few buttons left undone as he trudges towards his office. He passes by your desk, angled just outside his door. He always kept his door open so the two of you could pull faces at each other during the day, making each other laugh and smile no matter how many times Tommy chastised the both of you each time he caught you, threatening to move your desk so the both of you could focus. Seeing you smile was sometimes the only highlight of Michael’s day. He smiles slightly at the memory, before he frowns as he traces a finger over the polished wood. Your papers are neatly stacked, books piled in the corner, all collecting dust. You haven’t been at work for the past week, enjoying time with Henry before he takes a train back to London.

Michael looks up as he hears someone approaching him. Polly sighs upon seeing him, and she stops to button up Michael’s shirt, trying to smooth her hands over the wrinkles in the fabric as she gently reprimands, “Do try to put in a little effort. You look a right mess.”

He ignores her remark, waving her off. “Where’s y/n? Isn’t she supposed to be back at work today?”

Polly narrows her eyes at him.  “Didn’t she tell you? She’s going back to London with Henry.”

“What?” Michael splutters, his heart dropping into the pit of his stomach. “Why?”

“Well, she’ll be staying with him until the wedding.” Polly slowly explains. “They’ll be looking for flats together.”

“Flats?” Michael repeats, his worst fears gripping him by the neck as it suddenly becomes hard to breathe. He doesn’t even notice Tommy emerge from his office, leaning against the doorway as he watches Michael slowly descend into panic. Polly glances at him over his shoulder, before turning her attention back to Michael. 

“Well, you don’t expect her to stay in Birmingham after she gets married, do you?” Polly asks, but Michael can barely hear her anymore. It must’ve been what you wanted to tell him, he realises, the night he kissed you. But he was too desperate to tell you he loved you to listen. Turning around, he marches for the door, and Polly calls out after him, “Where are you going?”

Michael doesn’t respond, breaking into a sprint, and Polly lets out a defeated sigh as she turns to Tommy. He raises an eyebrow at her, both of them knowing full well where Michael is headed, and Tommy sighs, turning to disappear back into his office, but not better muttering under his breath, “Young love. How foolish.”

Polly places her hands on her hips. “You were young once too, Tommy.”

Tommy shakes his head. Pointing to the doorway, Tommy continues, “They’re going to break each other’s hearts. You know that, don’t you?”

Polly lets out a heavy sigh. “Well, there’s not much we can do about that, is there?”

—

Michael’s lungs burn for air as he sprints towards the station, pushing past the strangers that fill the area. It gets increasingly crowded as he gets closer to the station, and Michael can still see the smoke of the train from a distance, meaning he still has a chance, a chance to stop you from leaving. He doesn’t have much else planned out, but all that he knows is that he can’t let you go. Not when you couldn’t even look Michael in the eye and tell him that you truly loved Henry. 

A whistle pierces through the air, above the chatter from the crowds. Michael’s heart almost stops as he knows he doesn’t have much time left. Waving his arms above his head, he bellows, “Stop the train, stop the train!” 

He shoves his way into the station, dodging through the crowd as he hears the rumbling of the engine. Weaker now, Michael yells, “Please, stop the train!”

He makes his way onto the edge of the platform, collapsing to his knees just as he sees the train leaving the station. It accelerates ahead, leaving him behind and taking you away from him. 

You chose him, Michael realises, now alone on the platform as a sob rises in his throat. His confession didn’t matter, because you chose Henry. And now he’s lost you, and he’s too damn late to get you back.

tag list: @lotsoffandomimagines / @multifandomsimagine / @fangirlsarah16 / @ruvaakke / @multifandomfix​

[imaginethathaikyuu]

WAIT you’d write more bokuaka!!!! i’ve reread both parts so many timesss. could i request a scenario where bokuto feels insecure and like he doesn’t get much attention in the relationship, but he just misread the situation and reader and akaashi are actually planning a big surprise vacation for all 3 of them? super fluffyy and cuddly? thanks so much, dw if u don’t like this scenario for the bokuaka series! 💓💓💓

good morning bokuaka nation, todays forecast calls for angst but there may be a chance fluff on the horizon? stay tuned to em’s 24/7 news to find out 

im just considering all of my poly bokuaka fics a series at this point - and there have been three parts so far! part 1part 2part 3

gender neutral reader

-

Koutarou was convinced that he was about to explode. 

He’d been dealing with feeling everything less than great for at least a week now, and something had managed to build up in his chest in the form of an emotion bomb. 

Simply put: Koutarou was jealous, impossibly so. And he couldn’t lie to himself anymore and keep pretending he wasn’t. 

You and Keiji had been acting different recently. Koutarou didn’t understand it - you two had been leaving him out of almost everything. You don’t even go to bed at the same time as he does - you both stay up late together every night while he’s in the cold bed, swearing he can hear you two giggling in the living room. 

And he hates himself for feeling this way - he doesn’t want to be the clingy one. But he never wanted your special relationship to turn into this. He was sure the three of you could love each other equally forever, that none of you would ever be left out, that three wasn’t a crowd. 

But Koutarou felt like an intruder in his own relationship. 

He was tired of you always showing Keiji things on your phone without letting him see them too; he was sick of Keiji handing you random envelopes as if you two were passing notes he wasn’t meant to see. There shouldn’t be any secrets, but you and Keiji seemed to be keeping a lot from him. 

More than anything, though, Koutarou missed you two. He missed your kisses and Akaashi’s cuddles; he missed how warm the two of you always kept him; he missed your random late night talks about silly things. 

And he was afraid you two didn’t miss him. What was there to miss, anyway? His loud voice? His immaturity? His - at times dangerous - forgetful nature?

His timer was about to run out. He couldn’t take it anymore - why couldn’t you two just be honest with him? 

He walked into the kitchen to find you both sitting at the table, you sitting on Akaashi’s lap, with your laptop in front of you. And neither of you even looked up at him. 

That was it. “Do you guys even want me here anymore?!”

That caused your eyes to snap up at him. 

“What?” you asked, unsure if you even heard him correctly. 

Koutarou didn’t know how to voice his frustration, emotion, worry. He was getting overwhelmed, and quite frankly, he felt stupid for even standing there. 

“You’ve both,” he started, trying his hardest not to raise his voice while also keeping his tears in, “You’ve both abandoned me for each other.” 

His words shocked you; you looked over at Keiji and could tell he felt the same. 

Bokuto stood with clenched fists as he waited for either of you to speak, to quell the anxiety he felt. His nails dug into his palm as he tried to calm down, but he just couldn’t. 

Keiji was the first to speak. “Bo…” 

And that’s it. That’s the only explanation either of you could offer him, one word, a stupid nickname that Koutarou didn’t even like being called. 

“Just forget it,” he said as he turned and stormed off. “I’ll just go to bed alone. Again.” 

And the slam of the bedroom door is what finally knocked the air back into your lungs after Koutarou’s words took it away. 

“We… haven’t been good,” Keiji mumbled, now resting his forehead against your shoulder. 

“I didn’t think… I thought…” 

You both thought you were hiding your secret from him well. You only just realized that to do that, you were completely avoiding the man so you didn’t have to lie to him. Keeping a secret from Koutarou wasn’t easy. His kind eyes and smile just seemed to pull it out of you. 

Not only that, but the secret you were keeping was one that took a lot of planning to even exist. So you had to keep it hidden for well over a week. 

You had both been avoiding him for a week. 

You were planning a surprise beach vacation as a way to reward him for all the hard work he had been doing lately; turns out, planning a week long trip to a beach resort for three was a bit more complicated than you first realized. 

“We need to go apologize,” Keiji said. “Hopefully before he does anything irrational.” 

“It’s Bokuto,” you said, standing up and leading the way. “He thinks we don’t want him anymore - he’s probably already got a suitcase packed.” 

“Don’t say that,” Keiji mumbled behind you. 

You knocked on the bedroom door, not expecting to get any response. And you didn’t. 

“You should do the talking,” you said to Keiji.

“Why? He likes you more.” 

“But you’re better at -” 

Suddenly the door opened and a sad Koutarou grumbled, “If you came here to explain why you love each other more than me, you can save it.” And then he walked back to the bed before quite literally flopping down onto it, pulling a pillow over his face so neither of you could see him. 

“Should we tell him, Y/N?” 

“Tell me what?”  he asked into the pillow. 

“Well, considering we just finished planning it, now seems like a good time…” 

“Planning what?!” 

There were so many things running through Bokuto’s mind. He had himself convinced that you two were going to break up with him then and there; he’d go from having two amazing, beautiful, perfect partners to having none; one of his biggest fears was about to come true. The anxiety spread like a wildfire. 

And then he felt the bed dip on either side of him. He felt two hands on his chest; he pulled the pillow off of his head to find you were both lying on either side of him. 

“We haven’t been acting sneaky because we don’t want you anymore,” you said to him. 

“Then why…”

“We were planning something behind your back,” Keiji said. 

“A trip, Kou, we were planning a trip - Keiji, don’t make it sound so ominous.” 

You then explained to Koutarou what the last week and a half had entailed; researching and booking and buying and planning. It was a bit of a last minute idea, and with summer fast approaching, you had to make your reservations while they were still available. It was all more stressful than you originally thought, even with Keiji’s help.  

“You’ve been working too hard for us, Kou,” you said. “We wanted to pay you back in the a way you deserved…” 

“And we wanted it to be a surprise,” Keiji said. “To be fair, that part was Y/N’s idea.”

“How’s that fair?” you asked. “It doesn’t matter - Koutarou… we love you, and we’re sorry for making you feel excluded, and - oof.” 

“You guys… I thought you were going to break up with me, but… this - this is such good news!” 

Bokuto pulled both of you into his chest and hugged you with a crushing grip because he just couldn’t help it - he was so relieved. Not only that, but he couldn’t believe you guys had been doing something so kind just for him. 

He was an idiot to think the worst - he felt really stupid, now, but most of all he felt thankful. 

“I really love you both,” he said happily. “Thank you, Y/N, thank you, Keiji.” 

“You’re crushing us,” Keiji said, and it only made Koutaru’s arm tighten around him even more. “I’m going to suffocate!” 

“Sh, you’re right where you belong,” Bokuto said to him, reaching down to kiss the top of his head. “You owe me these cuddles, you know.” 

“He has a point,” you said, and Bokuto gave your head a kiss, too. 

His arms loosened around you two to let you get comfortable, but he was stern in his request for cuddles. You rested your head on Koutarou’s chest, and Keiji curled into him, hugging his hips and using his stomach as a pillow. 

“I like being in the middle,” he giggled. “Akaashi’s usually here, he never gives me a turn!” 

“‘Cause it’s the warmest place,” Keiji mumbled. 

“And you get too hot,” you added. 

“I am pretty hot,” Bokuto said.

He was comfortable, he was happy. His mood had gone from the lowest low to the highest high so quickly - he was sure only you two could make him feel such extreme emotions; only his love for you both could cause those feelings. 

But in that moment, there was only one question on his mind. “So… when’s our trip?”

[astrologista]

jason stop dying

ooooook i just watched ditf. it was PRETTY GOOD.... i only wish there was MOOORE! watching this REALLY brought me back to 2011 times to see it and i think they did a good job with most of the character design and animations insofar as matching it to the original. (maybe i’m totally wrong but i thought it looked good for the most part... also i just really love these character designs in particular). obviously the budget is not what it would be on a feature, so there are a LOT of places where animation gets recycled and many still frames. some parts are basically a slideshow lol. but i only sort of came to that realization awhile after watching, so i think they did a fairly good job of masking this... ymmv

so let’s get into it!!! 

SPOILERS a-head! do not read until you’ve watched it because i’ll spoil everything

now obviously the thing to be aware of if you are not is the fact that this adaptation is not a panel-by-panel adaptation of the original death in the family comic. all references to jason’s mother (save one mention of her dying of illness) are completely removed, they go to bosnia instead of africa, and the circumstances around jason leaving are also heavily altered to fit the new narrative. this adaptation does slot perfectly into the universe established by the under the red hood animated movie from 2011 though, without which one would be pretty confused when watching this. it’s kind of a mystery as to why they didn’t just package this with utrh and release the entire thing as a collectors edition. instead they package it with like 4 or 5 unrelated dc showcase shorts which makes absolutely 0 sense but go off i guess. anyway

i liked that they took the time to adapt the scene from the original ditf where bruce is talking to alfred about jason! (i do not like that alfred didn’t get any lines. bad choice). tbh i can’t understand why they bothered showing us alfred, barbara and dick if they weren’t gonna give them any lines..... like come on........??

HOW INTENSE BRUCE LOOKS WHEN HE FINDS JASON IN SARAJEVO and just. grabs him lol. hes smad :)

ok so one two skip a few and we get to the first branch. instead of calling 1-900 we now get to choose whether jason lives or dies. there are 7 possible endings i think i got em all so let’s see what we got here.

“Hush” Route - Robin cheats death

hgrgdggr. i definitely think this is one of the more interesting endings, if not the most interesting one. this is also the only ending in which both bruce and jason survive the bombing. bruce is still too late, but this time jason barely clings to life and survives. as a hurt/comfort fan i was 100% on this shit from the word go but then jason? runs away from home lmao lmao i thought that was SO funny because 1) hes super messed up, how is he able to just literally run out the house that is SO funny to me and 2) implying that bruce would ever not be keeping an eye on him after that is just, lmao. it’s so zany. i call this the “hush” route because of the bandages but there are no other references to hush so ok. that’s fair. so anyway jason is now angsty for loosely explained reasons but the most fun part is yet to come.

when talia showed up, i really thought / was terrified for a second that they were gonna bring up certain “events” regarding damian’s parentage / who damian’s father is but then she mentioned bruce and i was like OH THANK GOD WE CAN STILL GO TO HEAVEN. i am so so grateful to the writers for NOT going there. cuz it was damn close ok. im not sure what the implication of this route is in terms of talia, jason and damian being a family unit but i want to believe talia sees jason as a son and damian’s brother (which is how she refers to him, damian’s brother) and not... yknow. i mean. jason raising a baby is kind of like a baby raising a baby...

no actually the reality of this scene is really dfuckin interesting like. they actually go with the “birth of the demon” (forget if it was birth of the demon or bride of the demon. one of those.) explanation for damian and that is something i’ve NEVER seen adapted so whoever wrote this can have a cookie and i kNOW this is something a certain someone will appreciate :)

not only that but the implications? are interesting? so talia’s claim is she miscarried so bruce won’t have to “choose” between damian and jason and idk if she’s supposed to be all on the-up-and-up in this universe but. i’m sitting here like GIRL YOU DON’T GOTTA DO THIS HE HAS A PRIVATE JET HAVEN’T YOU HEARD OF SHARED CUSTODY and BETTER YET HE HAS A MANSION JUST GO ON MAURY AND GET THIS SORTED OUT RIGHT NOWwwww

i’m also LAUGHING at the implications of jason thinking theres anywhere on earth that he’s going to go and hide damian’s existence from bruce. because you already know he’s just going to be tearing the planet apart looking for jason so this is actually hilarious. imagine he finds jason in one piece and also a baby. his baby. he’d be like (@ talia) “OMG WHY WOULD YOU THINK I WOULDN’T WANT THEM BOTH u are tearing me apart talia......” BUT THEN HE WOULD BE SO FREAKING HAPPY BECAUSE HE HAS TWO ALIVE SONS AND HE THOUGHT THEY WERE BOTH DEAD / (lost to crime)!!!

please lord imagine all of jason’s angst probably just originating from the fact that he has a brain injury that hasn’t fully healed and the trauma of going through all those surgeries probably gave him a lot of fear / paranoia about bruce and associating him with the joker because his neural pathways are all messed up but after he leaves he starts slowly healing back and regaining some of his lost sanity and thats when he realizes he misses bruce so much... but hes also raising his child... and every day it gets more difficult for him not to just take damian and bring him home and i ;v;

anyway i thought this route, while it had a few inconsistencies in it, was really freaking interesting and it gave me feels and plot bunnies and is probably the one i want to write about the MOST despite the fact that baby damian looks like a character from one of those web flash games in this lol

“True” End - Jason Dies

now if you select that jason dies the route basically defaults to the canon of under the red hood and the fact that utrh does not come packaged with this movie is a rather mystifying choice to me as i don’t think this adaptation would stand on its own very well. like you need quite a bit of background to really get anything out of watching this on its own, which is probably why it’s classified as a “short” and not as its own movie.

instead of showing all of utrh, it seems they took the opportunity to give a ~30 minute recap of utrh with basically entirely reused animation but they allow bruce to sort of. give his dvd commentary over it.

the biggest feeling i have on this is that it’s sad that they had to waste 30 minutes like this that could’ve been used to do something new and much more interesting, but honestly i’m not mad. it seems kind of obvious that this choice was probably made for budget and/or runtime reasons because a short does not get the same budget set aside as a full length feature film does. so they basically took the option of recycling 30 minutes of animation from the movie and dubbing new audio over it.

in evangelion they ran out of budget and that’s why the last two episodes consist of nothing more than still pencil drawings and frames while the characters engage in philosophical debates concerning the nature of reality and human connection. and i really enjoyed that. and for the same reasons, i also really enjoyed this.

i enjoyed seeing the clark kent of this universe. i enjoyed that he was basically out on a date with bruce. i enjoyed that bruce was willing to open up for once and tell clark all of what happened with jason. but what really makes this segment shine bright are bruce greenwood’s line reads. there are SO MANY good line reads in here. and i LOVED how many times he said the word “son”. very wholesome. the way he describes how he felt during the final fight with jason? probs my favorite FUCKING part.

and then him and clark joking together about contingency plans and then they’re going to work together to find jason and i ;_; this is probably the closest thing to a “good” ending but as a continuation of utrh i thought it worked really well. i really want to believe that bruce and clark did find jason in this route and that there was some closure in the end even though we didn’t get to see it.

including clark in this was DEFINITELY the right move as well, considering that he played a rather large role in the original ditf so it’s a welcome nod.

The rest of the branches exist under a separate option where Bruce makes it in time to save Jason from the warehouse... but Bruce dies......... :O

let me tell you bout it... bruce’s fucking DEATH SCENE i don’t know WHAT my man bruce greenwood is on, but the freaking LINE READS in this dialogue had me making INHUMAN NOISES. LIKE NOT ONLY WAS THE DIALOGUE GOOD, NOT ONLY DID HE SAY “I LOVE YOU, SON”, but this man is just an amazing actor. not just voice actor, but actor. he really really really really gave it the most i don’t know how else to say it....... it was very very well done and punched me sideways in the heart and i haven’t recovered and i’m not going to recover. and

ok so once we get past that.... scene.... u have to choose whether you’re going to catch the joker or kill the joker. bruce asks jason to promise not to kill the joker but technically jason doesn’t promise so........

Let’s start by choosing to kill the Joker. Jason attends Bruce’s funeral and various members of the Justice League show up to talk with him and just generally hang out. He has Alfred, Dick and Barbara as his support system, but Jason has some other plans.

This leads to a scene in a cafe where Jason meets with a man who... something something Killing Joke, flashlight, more Barbara being used as a plot device when she deserves better, Jason kills the Joker with a butter knife.

Once you do this you can choose to surrender to the police, or retaliate and escape.

Jailbird Ending

basically if you surrender to the police jason ends up in prison where he can actually attack even more criminals so.... ya

If you retaliate and escape instead you go to the Red Robin route where Jason becomes a vigilante who kills people much like the Red Hood and you get a further choice in a fight with Two Face where you can control how Harvey’s coin lands. 

Tim Ending!

If you choose the coin to land clean face up, the thing rewards you by having Tim show up and I forgot what happened (wasn’t really paying attention lol) because i was so focused on TIM!

Prolly they felt sorry for him what with Jason stealing what is essentially his outfit (ok I know it was Jason’s first, but Tim made it cool) so they let a little baby tim have an appearance :) he’s very smol

I guess in this ending Jason gets reintegrated with the family somehow and Tim becomes “Bat-kid” which is hilarious to me but you know what it’s cute. CUTE.

The one ending where the coin lands scarred side up

i honestly forget what happens if you choose to have the coin land scarred side up but let me just say this is a FUCKED route to take, not only have you had jason survive and bruce die, you’ve now chosen to kill the joker against bruce’s dying wish, you’ve chosen to attack the police, and at the end of that you really are gonna choose harvey’s coin to be scarred face up???? choosing this made me feel like a DICK because here i am supporting jason’s whole fall to madness and villainy thing the way it wants me to and now he’s gonna die HERE? i hate it here.

interestingly enough he doesn’t actually die in this route. he ends up at home with barbara and dick while dealing with the fact that he killed the joker but the route ends with jason saying “i promise” so i guess this is supposed to be kinda sad. im so confused lol ok

So that is all the options if you choose to kill the joker, I believe. You can also make the choice to just catch him instead of killing him but amazingly enough, those routes are even more FUCKED up. 

If you do this option Jason goes home, mourns Bruce with Dick, Barbara and Alfred, and becomes Red Hood BUT with a twist, he’s entirely on a bloodless operation in line with Bruce’s wishes. OR.... IS HE?

Things then follow the events of UTRH until the scene on the bridge with the van and the guys. Jason finally confronts Joker, who reveals the truth. 

Apparently in this route Jason has actually been killing and decapitating his victims just like in the original movie, but he’s repressed it so as to not even realize to himself that he’s doing it.

that is FUCKED. also. i wanna cry because jason doing all of that stuff but not even realizing it ;------; jason blocking it out, because he wanted to honor bruce’s wishes for him not to kill anyone ;______; but he’s doing it anyway ;_____; he’s actually hearing voices telling him to kill ;____; like it’s a very cheap twist in a sense and also really quite cruel but.... damn, son.

There is a branch here where you can choose to spare or kill the Joker at this point (UNDERTALE???) but from what I can tell it seems to be totally meaningless what choice you pick because you end up at the exact same point either way, I think there’s a small variation in what happens after you make the choice but after that they just coalesce back together into the following two endings. Which seems incredibly cheap to me, I mean making a choice like that should alter Jason’s path completely but, it doesn’t! So... ooook....

Either way Jason ends up on the Wayne building and Talia shows up with a re-animated Bruce from the pit. Here’s another fun blast from the 2011 past with more gratuitous Grant Morrison dreck, remember that shit? Well, they’re gonna jam it down your throat here, too.

The reanimated Bruce is the Zur En Arrh Bruce and he’s already dead so this is all meaningless but basically Jason fights him and you get to choose whether everybody lives or dies.

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Lives!

if you pick this, jason actually gets the re-animated bruce back to the batcave and they lock him up down there because he’s still pit-mad and the prognosis is not great. but i’m not sure what they expected, he is the zur-en-arrh guy so I don’t think he’s getting better. 

Zur En Arrh - Everyone Dies!

pretty much there’s an explosion and all three of them die and that’s it

I think that should be all the possible endings there are.

By the way the different ways in which black mask dies in this was actually a fairly clever running gag lollll. let that mf burn we don’t need no water.

overall there are a couple of things i would have done to SIGNIFICANTLY improve this adaptation beyond some of the obvious ones.

- the fact that all of the branching options are branched exclusively under the “jason lives and bruce dies” branch is a huge wasted opportunity. imo this is the most egregious problem with this, i was really looking for a more balanced tree / explanation of different things. i am probably super biased though being a fic writer and used to fic, we’re the ones making huge ass trees every day lol.

- the fact that there is no “good” ending here is something i kind of expected but given the context of this is lackluster. i sort of get it though because granted, the original ditf ends in an unresolved manner but it’s distinctly unsatisfying here. i secretly wanted an ending where bruce, like, figures out about the different endings and hacks reality to try to find a good ending where jason lives and everything is fine lmao. like a bat mite ending.

- i was disappointed in a sense that the narrative given in here is so basically simplistic? maybe i’ve been spoiled by games like 999 and undertale where shit gets messy and that’s not what this is supposed to be but when i play something with multiple endings in this day and age, at least play with the concept a little bit and connect some of the branches together narratively. use different devices. i was also hoping some of the choices would be a little bit meatier like you could choose to “forgive bruce” or something cool like that lol. but it looks like the majority of choices have to do with who lives or dies. and i felt like they couldve been a bit more creative with that ya know? being able to control harvey’s coin was a GREAT example of having some more fun with this.

- it is a huge missed opportunity not to have a “secret ending” on something like this. like where. the fuck. is my secret ending for completing everything. come on. and in a similar vein there should’ve been at least something in terms of bruce and jason interacting in a “true ending”. even if very brief. the closest thing to an ending this has is the “jason died” route and then the ending where he’s talking to clark which i feel like was a REALLY nice good optimistic ending as far as this goes, but it comes off as kind of disappointing i guess

there were SO many interesting nuggets locked into this thing though. i can’t deny it bugs me how many wasted opportunities there were with how they chose to structure things but i guess it’s the best you can do with limited runtime. i thought it was really well done though, makes an interesting companion piece to the original utrh, and is definitely something that i will be re-watching again soon!! overall i give it a 7/10 and some parts an 8/10+!

[second-chance-stray]

(Split Ends) RP Log: Cravs, Riylli, and Rising revisit Baldur in Limsa Lominsa.

Cravendy Hound - After entrusting Baldur, the ill-fated boy, to the healers based in Limsa Lominsa, the trio decided to head back to the company...at Crav's insistence, really. Every extra second spent in the maritime city was a second too much. And so, after taking the aetheryte home, we find the three on the company lawn.

Riylli Aliapoh lets out a stretch as they arrive, a bit groggy from the teleporting. "It's a shame you missed it Cravs, Rising ran in while I was castin' one of my spells and I knocked her a clean 20 fulms in the air!" She said, grinning with a bit too much pride. She then seemed to remember Rising was still there. "...By the way, you okay?"

Rising Lotus was patched up after their encounter as well, her right arm was coating in bandages, along with some other patches along the exposed skin of her body. She winced with each step, the healers picking all the needles from her form and now leaving her body to do the rest of the healer. She merely grumbled as Riylli spoke to her, putting her weight on her spear to take some of it off her leg.

Cravendy Hound: "Magic and melee don't mix, Riylli. But, er, 'ow are ye 'oldin' up, Risin'? That injury ye got looked somethin' fierce."

Riylli Aliapoh rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly, taking that as a 'no'. She turned back to Cravs, deciding to ignore the issue like a mature adult. "So... Y'wanna tell us what that was all about? Why're you goin' so far to help this guy's kid?"

Rising Lotus: "...I'll be fine. Kinda a feel like layin' down." she glanced at Riylli, nodding afterwards "Aye. I'm curious 'bout that too."

Cravendy Hound: "I'm still confused 'ow a cactaur of all things made it to La Noscea. Could be a freak accident, but somethin' about it doesn't sit right with me." She sighs in thought, brow knitted and bothered. "....Ah. Uh. I guess I owe ye all an explanation."

Riylli Aliapoh plopped herself down on the step, ready for a story

Cravendy Hound: "Oi, get up! I-I'm not gonna bore ye with all the details," Cravs stammers. "Look. I made a promise to the kid's father. 'is dyin' wish was to see his son grow strong, with his own strength."

Riylli Aliapoh tilted her head. "...Y'know... It aint really his own strength if we had to step in to help... You sure you should be meddlin' like this? I mean, it was just a little cactus thing"

Rising Lotus "...Someone might not want that. I remember the merchant mentionin' somethin' 'bout some folk not carin' for him or his family or somethin'." she shrugs, wincing in pain afterwards "...also cactuar are from Thanalan, don't know how one would of gotten there."

Cravendy Hound nods to Riylli. "I agree, and originally, I just wanted to see if 'e was doin' okay. But this cactaur business...I think someone /else/ is meddlin' with 'im. And if we meddle to remove the meddler, then it'll cancel out, right?"

Riylli Aliapoh 's ears perked up in interest. "Y'mean someone left that cactus out there to take the kid out? Who exactly was this kid's sire? Why's he got so many enemies that would go so far as to try and kill his kid after he's already gone?"

Cravendy Hound shifts in place, heat under the collar. Unusually, she speaks slowly and thoughtfully, as if the wrong word could set off a mine. "Kid's father was a pirate captain, but one with...'onor, I suppose. Steal from the rich, give to the poor. Which lead 'im to rob from the same, powerful set of targets."

Cravendy Hound: "If ye got raided by Captain Thorne, ye didn't -just- lose yer shite. It was a kind of...a mark. A blow to yer pride, and that didn't sit well the rich."

Riylli Aliapoh thinks about this for a moment. "...So if we know who the targets are, why don't we just hop over an' kick their teeth in? Bet that'd gettem to stop messin' with the kid!"

Rising Lotus huffs, closing her eyes tightly for a few moments before glaring at Cravs. "...So what's gonna happen when these powerful targets  learn we're helpin' the kid? Last thing I need is to be marked like the boy, or if they learn we work for Heartwood an' create problems for the others."

Cravendy Hound: "That's step one. Gotta find who's still got it out for the kid, out of a handful of options." She then turns to Rising. "As long as we don't do anythin' illegal we should be alright. And we can threaten to expose 'ow they torment a kid to keep them from doin' anything to us."

Cravendy Hound: "Nothin' illegal, alright? That means even if they're an ass, we can't just kick their teeth in." Cravs lectures to Riylli.

Riylli Aliapoh frowned. "It aint illegal if they're a bad guy! And ain’t kickin' teeth in how pirates settle their differences anyroad?"

Rising Lotus tried to give Cravs a skeptical look, but just ended up grimacing from the shift of posture, then just looked exhausted. "That ain't how it work if you're rich. Can get away with anythin'."

Cravendy Hound: "That's not 'ow the law works! And while that may be 'ow we settle problems on water, on land...under the Admiral's stink eye, we'd probably cause more trouble doin' that."

Cravendy Hound: "The rich still 'ave their pride. I'm thinkin' if word got out that the bugger pesters a goddamn child for 'is late father's legacy, it'd be enough to twist their arm."

Riylli Aliapoh looked to Rising, then to Cravs, and then up to the sky as she let out an exasperated sigh. "...Y'see? This is exactly why we Miqo'te got our own rules..." She grumbled, before finally looking back down. "Fine! We'll do it your way! But if any of 'em tries to swing at me it's fair game, yeah?"

Rising Lotus grumbled, pretty much done with the day. "Well in the case it does go tits up, we can handle ourselves much better than that boy I 'spose."

Cravendy Hound nods. What an exhausting day. "...well. Ye look like ye could use two days worth of sleep, Risin'. That's all I 'ad to say."

Riylli Aliapoh hops to her feet and dusts off her pants. "Alright! Just gimme a shout whenever you get a lead or whatever. Always happy to lend my skills to a good cause!" She flashes Cravs a grin, and very pointedly tries not to look over to the wounded Rising

Rising Lotus "...Aye. You know how to reach us. Though we ought to expect somethin' worse than a cactuar next time." she sighed and started making her way toward the door.

(Cravendy Hound) seems a good place to timeskip to next scene? any last posts and then :P )) (Rising Lotus) I'm good!)) (Riylli Aliapoh) (Timeskip ready! (Cravendy Hound) AAAHH that outfit!!! )) (Cravendy Hound) the blade harness xD )) (Rising Lotus) Oh yeah I don't think you've seen her in it yet!)) (Riylli Aliapoh) (No fair, its so hard to get glams for Riylli ;-; (Cravendy Hound) it looks extremely good )) (Cravendy Hound) *timeskips in same outfit* xD )) (Cravendy Hound) HERE we can at least start in the company so it doesn't feel like, literally seconds after xD )) (Rising Lotus) Guess we'll have to have a fashion montage for Riylli at some point)) (Riylli Aliapoh) (Yknow what, its totally canon that RIylli only has one set of clothes (Cravendy Hound) ahahaha )) (Riylli Aliapoh) (Oh, I DO actually have a glamour change! (Rising Lotus) so pick out something new then we can figure out how she got it!)) (Riylli Aliapoh) (alakazam (Rising Lotus) mask (Cravendy Hound) fjkdslf just the gloves?! )) (Riylli Aliapoh) (Theyre bandages ^o^ Shes been practicing the fire spell! (Rising Lotus) Damn I thought you were just going to throw that mask on xD))

Cravendy Hound - A week later, Cravs has reached out to Riylli and Rising for company (or maybe help?) again. It's related to the business in Limsa Lominsa, and she's wearing her disguise dress again. Oh boy.

Rising Lotus was eyeing the bandages wrapped around Riylli's hands. "...How's that fire spell going?"

Riylli Aliapoh grins to Rising. "It's goin' well! I got the basic formula down, just gotta work on intensity and duration!" She beams proudly, giving Rising a bandaged thumbs up.

Cravendy Hound: "That...looks painful."

Riylli Aliapoh gives a mock bow. "You gotta suffer for art y'know"

Rising Lotus couldn't help but smirk at Riylli's enthusiasm. "...We'll get it down before you touch anythin' we fish up..or the lava." she turned her attention to Cravs, holding back a snicker at seeing her dolled up again. "You find out more 'bout the boy then?"

Cravendy Hound: "Seems ye got some more sufferin' to do then," Cravs notes in a bright tone.

Cravendy Hound: "Right, the Baldur business - I narrowed it down to a couple of names. But that's as far as I can go gatherin' information out 'ere. Thought it'd be more efficient to ask the kid 'imself. Which means." Cravs gestures to her outfit. "I'll need some escorts to talk for me once we're in Limsa again."

Riylli Aliapoh was clearly enjoying the attention, but quieted down to let Cravs speak. "Why not just talk to the kid as Cravs? If he's lost his sire, it... might be nice for him to know he's still got people close to him out there..."

Rising Lotus "Hmm...'spose maybe she doesn't want him to turn her in for the gil? If he really needs to be supportin' him an' his mom anyway." she shrugged. "Doesn't look like the type to sell out someone who's helpin' him though."

Cravendy Hound went as white as a sheet at the suggestion. "A-ah, that's...Uhh, we've got, um. A misunderstandin' between us. If 'e knew it was me, 'e'd flip out for sure. Trust me, it's easier this way." Cravs clears her throat and then hurries out before Riylli or Rising can ask further.

Cravendy Hound - The trip over is pretty awkward. If the subject was brought up again, Cravs would simply pick up the pace and pretend not to hear. And, once the trio were in Limsa, her lips were sealed, clarification frustratingly out of reach. That said, she was definitely walking somewhere with purpose.

Rising Lotus gave up askin' fairly quick, she knew she wouldn't get anywhere at the moment. She'd pry it out of her later though, one way or another. "So... you know what he'll be up to today? Or you jus' hopin' we run into him?"

Riylli Aliapoh wouldn't bring it up again, at the very least smart enough to see Cravs didn't want to talk about it. Instead, she would offer fun facts of things she had learned so far in her research. "...So, did you guys know that a forge runs hotter than lava?"

Cravendy Hound mimes holding something heavy and swinging it around. And to Riylli's fact, she gives the miqo'te a doubting look. Really?

Riylli Aliapoh nods. "Yeah! Turns out lava is only like... half as hot as your average blacksmith forge! It aint even hot enough to melt iron! Makes my job easier, but it's kinda disappointin' y'know?"

(Riylli Aliapoh) (Thank you for subscribing to Lava Facts)

Cravendy Hound desperately wants to ask if that's how Riylli has been testing her fire shield spell - by dunking her hands in a forge. Cravs moves her hands around as if dipping them in something.

Riylli Aliapoh tilts her head, unable to figure out the mimicry. "Can't you like... at least whisper or somethin' when were alone? Surely they don't got ears everywhere?"

Cravendy Hound looks around and finds it acceptably empty. "Did ye dunk yer 'ands in the forge to test yer spell?!" She whisper-yells.

Rising Lotus narrowed her eyes at Cravs "...So he's... carrying somethin'.. then puttin' it in the oven?" she seemed to be combining the conversations. Then Cravs actually spoke. "Oohh you're talkin' 'bout that. I hope you didn't do that, use a fire or somethin' first Riylli."

Riylli Aliapoh blinks at her. "What? You crazy? What if the spell failed?" She said, shaking her head. "Nah, I've been usin' a campfire! Got a problem with the magic runnin' out too fast though..." She muttered, rubbing her poor cooked hands

Cravendy Hound stifles back laughter, and pats Riylli on the back. There there.

Rising Lotus: "I can get ya some cream for that. Know a gobbie that makes some quality stuff. Don't worry it works too, used it after gettin' a nasty burn from some giant bug sparyin' me with gunk."

Riylli Aliapoh grumbles and glares up at Cravs at the treatment, but lets it slide since she couldn't tell if it was meant to be mocking or not. "...That'd be great, thanks. I don't gotta pay for it, right?"

Cravendy Hound: "Bug....gunk? Bug gunk...That sounds. Hm." Cravs raises a brow at Rising but doesn't say more.

Rising Lotus "Well I ought to considerin' how you made me a pin cushion on our last outin' together." she snickered a bit, the first time she cracked a joke about it. "But nah, he owes me one anyhow. Next time I'm up there I'll grab ya some." she gave Riylli a firm pat on the back.

Riylli Aliapoh grumbled again, but couldn't really argue back. "...Thanks." She muttered, not exactly enthused about all this back-patting she was receiving

Cravendy Hound had earlier given Rising a notepad with names written in it. One of them, hopefully, belonged to the person who was harassing the kid. Her heels clicking on the docks, Cravs would eventually lead the little crew to a dusty corner of Limsa where the kid (B) was presently practicing his form with the ax.

Cravendy Hound - The heavy ax is far too big for the kid. Every swing pulls him comically forward with the weapon. He stops his 'practice' and looks up at the approaching trio with a wide smile. "I remember you two! You helped me with that monster the other day."

(Cravendy Hound) more back pats )) (Cravendy Hound) i demand more )) (Rising Lotus) I feel like Riylli and Rising would have back pats that would eventually devolve into a hitting contest)) (Cravendy Hound) actually cravs and rising would have to squat down to pat Riylli's back ahah - otherwise it'd be a head pat )) (Riylli Aliapoh) (Cravs and Rising know it's too dangerous to headpat Riylli, they'd probably get bit (Cravendy Hound) sometimes my tall friends would use my head as an arm rest.....annoyed me, and yet I can see Cravs doing that to Riylli lmao )) (Rising Lotus) I've done that to my shorter friends before xD))

Riylli Aliapoh perked up as she got recognized by the kid, offering him a friendly wave. "Hey! How are you holdin' up after all them needles?"

Rising Lotus watches the boy fling himself with his strikes, smirking with every swing.  "Aye that was us." she eyed up his weapon for a few moments. "You ought to get somethin' a bit lighter by the way, gonna leave yourself open if you take too long liftin' your weapon."

Cravendy Hound - The kid bashfully itches the tip of his nose. "I'm doing fine, thanks to you all...Woke up on the softest bed I've ever been on in my life, healing expenses all covered." Baldur's eyes drift over to Cravs, and then back to Riylli and Rising. "Oh, I plan to! I'm just using this old thing because it was the only thing I could afford. Once I earn enough, I'll buy a better one...after everything else, haha."

Cravendy Hound turns away, avoiding eye contact. It's overkill given that she's wearing a mask.

Rising Lotus eyed Cravendy, she had to pay for the needle removal out of her pocket. "...well I'm sure them healers were excited for the chance to de-needle someone. Don't see many cactuar over here after all, bit strange." she nodded as he brought up upgrading his armor and weapon. "A good set of armor is jus' as important as a good weapon, smart thinkin'."

Riylli Aliapoh nudged Rising with her foot to try and bring her back to the task at hand, snatching the list out of her hands. "Hey, so... Were kinda lookin' into something, think you might be able to help us out? You know any of the names on this list?"

Cravendy Hound - Baldur nods enthusiastically, dreads bouncing on top of his head. Admiration for Rising and Riylli is practically gushing from every inch of the kid. "So that was a cactaur? I've never seen one before."

Cravendy Hound - Baldur snaps into attention. "Oh, right away! I'd be thrilled to help you two out. Let's see..." He takes the list and scans it. "Only this last one. Mindred Rot. She's who I go to if I need a loan."

Rising Lotus "Aye, I grew up 'round them, used to hit them with sticks then ru-" she glanced at Riylli as she bumped her and had the list snatched away.

(Cravendy Hound) dfsd hit them with sticks and run???? chaos child )) (Rising Lotus) She didn (Rising Lotus) didn't have toys or anything xD Played with bugs and lizards and cactuars))

Riylli Aliapoh raised her eyebrow at the name. "...'Mindred Rot'? Well that's a bad guy name if I've ever heard one." She said, nodding along until she remembered Cravs' full name. "Er... Right, anyroad, what's she like? If she lends you money she can't be that bad, right?"

(Riylli Aliapoh) (Poor riylli about to learn the horrors of capitalism)

Cravendy Hound - Baldur smiles as he hands the list back to Riylli. "Oh, yeah, her name's pretty rotten. But in some ways...she looks after me. No one else'll give my family loans."

Rising Lotus "You need to get out of the woods more..." she shook her head at Riylli's comment. She hummed at Baldur's words about the woman. "Hmm, how generous of her."

Riylli Aliapoh wrinkled her nose. "Honestly I'd rather get out of the woods less... How in the world do you lot handle that salt in the air?"

Cravendy Hound - Baldur's gaze wanders to Rising's axe, and then to Riylli's staff. "So, you two must be adventurers, huh? You think you could teach me a thing or two? Punch better, smarter, harder? Oh, and! I didn't mean to be rude." He turns to Cravs. "Who's your friend?"

Rising Lotus Grinned, giving him a nod. "Aye! Do a lot of guard an' merc work. Takin' me all over, mostly back an' forth between Idyllshire an' places though. This one is still gettin' her footin' for it though." she snickered a bit as she eyed Riylli. "Oh, an' that's Singin' Gull. She's uh...a great singer an' has to save her voice most the time. We're guardin' her on her...singing journey?"

Riylli Aliapoh puffed her chest out. "Yup! Name's Riylli, Warrior of Earth!" she declared proudly, possibly forgetting Cravs and Rising were in earshot. "I'm a master of earth magic, but I'm sure I could give you some tips! Oh, and this is..." She trails off, staring at Cravs as her mind blanks on what her alias was. Thankfully Rising was there to have her back, though the Roegadyn still earned herself a glare from her little comment

Cravendy Hound 's frown twitches slightly. Singing Gull the Singer. Really? But she goes along with it anyway.

Cravendy Hound - Baldur's mouth forms an 'o' in awe. "Idyllshire? Never even heard of the place. Sounds cool though...And magic? How would I even start?" He turns back for a second to rest his rusty axe against a crate, and then hops right back into the conversation. "Like, just think really hard and magic happens? Hrrrghhhh.."

Riylli Aliapoh shook her head at the kid. "Nah, it aint that simple. It's more like... Y'know how you can move your fingers with your mind? You basically do that, but you move your aether about instead, and get THAT aether to move the aether OUTSIDE of you, and... Honestly I might not remember all the lessons, it's kinda just a reflex at this point. But you shouldn't be wastin' your talents on magic anyroad! You're a highlander right? You're gonna have plenty of muscle when you grow up, you should use-

Riylli Aliapoh -that instead!"

Rising Lotus could talk for hours about Idyllshire, but she resisted and tried to steer the conversation back on topic, which of course meant giving Riylli a light smack to the arm to get her to focus up. "Anyway, you know were we could find this Rot lady? Gull here is lookin' for gil for her next performance an' were hopin' to find some donations."

Cravendy Hound - Baldur is trying so hard to follow Riylli's explanation, but it leaves the poor kid's brain all tangled. "Huh, what? Huh? Uhh, oh, you want to meet Miss Rot? She's usually really busy so I have to schedule in advance. But I can ask if she's free to meet you all next time."

Riylli Aliapoh sighs. "Y'mean we gotta come all the way out here again..? Fine, I guess... Not like we can just go kick the doors down and demand to talk to her after all..." She muttered, offering a small glare to Cravs out of the corner of her eye

Rising Lotus cleared her throat, glaring at Riylli as she glared at Cravs "We'd appreciate that, jus' say that..uh..an up an' comin' singer is lookin' for fundin'. " she gave Baldur a nod, hoping that selling Cravs like that would make her the perfect target for a loan shark.

Cravendy Hound looks similarly annoyed, but shakes her head no to Riylli. It's not like they could go in there with wild accusations anyway - seemed worth strategizing over first.

Cravendy Hound - With the night fast approaching, Cravs motions with her hand to signal her intention to head home. Without bothering to wave goodbye to Baldur, she walks on ahead.

Rising Lotus watches Crav hurry away. "Uh sorry..." she put her hand to her mouth to muffle her words "Sort of a diva that one. Good luck out there lad!" she gave him a thumbs up before hurrying after 'Singing Gull'.

Riylli Aliapoh sighed once for not being allowed to rampage mindlessly, then once more as Cravs walked away without saying bye to the kid. She offers Baldur a wave. "You keep practicin' okay? We'll come by and see you again later, and maybe I'll share some of my adventurin' secrets with you!"

Cravendy Hound is a good distance ahead. As she passes by a stranger, there's some kind of odd collision that ends up tripping Cravs. Her mask drops off and rolls a few ilms forward as the stranger awkwardly, but quickly, makes their escape without even a sorry.

Cravendy Hound scrambles to recover the headware and fasten it back on. By the time Riylli and Rising have caught up, she's still kneeled over on the floor, troubled.

Riylli Aliapoh pretty much has to run to keep up with Cravs' long-legged walking, blinking in confusion as she notices her state. "H-Hey, you alright?"

Rising Lotus hurries to catch up to Cravs, quickly stepping in front of her to shield her face as she glanced around. "Aye..did you know that man or somethin'?"

Cravendy Hound: "I'm fine. Rattled is all." She whispers as she wobbles back up and takes a deep breath. ".....no, I didn't recognize them."

Rising Lotus looked around at the few bystanders eyeing the scene. "Maybe it'd be best to get out of here...before there's a chance to cause more of a scene." she said the last part in a whisper. Last thing they needed was the yellow jackets upon them.

Riylli Aliapoh raises her arm up seemingly to try to comfort her, only to hesitate and lower it back down. "...Let's talk outside of the city, all this salt is starting to make me sick..." She says, awkwardly attempting to give Cravs an out

Cravendy Hound: "...Right. No point in worrying about it now. Let's just get out of 'ere." She mutters.

[imagine-a-killingharmony]

Drunk V3 Boys!

How about a s/o that has to deal with the v3 boys getting super drunk and then the after math of how is the hangover. ( bonus points if drunk kokichi says the " Finland" spongebob meme) please and ty

Quickly, just imagine them as adults like I am- underage drinking is a big fat “no”, look at me being an... dork. But anyway In the less dork-part let’s say this... I’m literally a giant mess who hasn’t ever been drunk or anything, I don’t really know the effects so we’re going to use those anime-type-of-drunk which is very likely VERY inaccurate or... somewhat-realistic I don’t know. But woah.

Kiibo (Error! Error! Overheating!)

After coming back from his last check-up from Miu you were expecting to be cuddled up close with Kiibo on the couch, watching nextflix- some cheesy Disney movie which you’ve already seen thousands of time before... that’s what you thought....

Till Kiibo walked in adjusted by an trembling Miu who had her arm slung around him, she looked down on the verge of tears muttering about being “so disrespected”, Kiibo sluggishly rolls his head up bursts of steam expanded from every inch of his body.

“... U... Uuuh... there was a function I added inside of em’ to test some booze I was plannin’ on drinking... it was... uh... successful but... J-Just take him- I don’t want to be fuckin’ called out anymore!”

Miu threw Kiibo in your direction running back from once she came, wiping at her eyes as she whined about “how mean” he was... you could only watch Kiibo stir awake, nervousness pricked at your stomach as you realized she made Kiibo try an alcoholic... BEVERAGE!

“... (S/O)?” Kiibo glances up at you, blinking once or twice as he took in his surroundings, you asked if he was okay- he groggily nodded his head. “Never better (S/O)... but... Miu... I-I was just telling her about how stupid it is that she puts herself down almost all the time when she has a brilliant mind, then her very inappropriate attitude- which she presents herself to cover up that wall of self-esteem issues she has... Ah... then there was me getting onto the fact that most people are uncomfortable with the sexual intuendos she has- and for some odd reason before I could say anymore she dragged me here...”

“... I rebooted on the way... once or twice...”

“... what.” Oh. Oh my god... He... What? Kiibo said that?

“... Yes... Hey (S/O) actually I-I have some things to say about you too, look me in the eyes, look at me right now please...” Kiibo cups your face, he looks you right in the eyes, those aren’t the soft loving eyes you know- those are eyes that... are going to fucking destroy you.

Kiibo holds your face tight, escape is impossible, he sluggishly rolls his head as a soft frown falls on his face.

“... You have your errors yourself actually... like... how you...”

...

...

You failed... you are absolutely burnt, just turned into soot by the end of his rant, he’s just sleeping peacefully under the blankets that you had gotten for “cuddle night”, you don’t feel soft at all- you just feel absolutely WRECKED.

Shuichi Saihara (Sad Drunk)

You had both gone out on a party together, specifically a reunion with your classmates which Kokichi was hosting... which already sported red flags but you all didn’t question it, that is until people started to drop like flies... people who drank the punch specifically dropped like flies.

Kaede asked who made the punch... when the relevation that it was Miu and Kokichi themselves it all fell into place like a puzzle, they spiked the goddamn punch.

One of the victims... happened to be Shuichi, a light-weight he hugged your arm tightly slurring and whirling, tears fell down his face as he cried and sobbed about the world.

“... (S-S-S/O!) It’s no fair... I-Iiiii never did anything wrong so why does everything hafta’ be against meeeee...? *hic* it’s unfair.... unfairunfairunfair!”

It’s the fifth time you pat his back, he leans in for a better hold of you so you can give him more affection, he loves that so please do go on, he lets out a slurred hiccup.

“... (S-S/O) a... aaare you seeing anyone...? You always were soooo pretty... and... aaand niiiiice... *hic* and... aaand it make me really happy... I-Iiii wanted to date you since forever ago...”

... How drunk is he to forget the two of you are already dating? “I am.”

Shuichi’s eyes widen, he presses himself up against you with an wail as he starts to cry harder. “Of course yu are- H-Hic- I’m NOT CRYINGF.”

You can’t help but to wonder how he’ll feel in the morning, for now you try to give your poor drunk boyfriend solace as you explain how the two of you are already well- dating.

Luckily, Shuichi falls asleep on your lap while you comfort him, the tears having tired him out... he put his hands around your waist, he bids the world “night night”.

Ryoma Hoshi (Excitable Drunk)

Ryoma wasn’t a heavy drinker, actually he had never drank an drop of the stuff ever, prison doesn’t allow those sort of luxuries, besides he just didn’t want to ruin his reputation by drinking at about fifteen or some shit.

So... he was old enough, the two of you were going on a date here... he’d was just chugging the stuff considering he wanted to see how it tasted, which was rather gross under further consideration... but what he happened to pick up is that he wasn’t feeling all that woozy... guess he ain’t no light-weight.

But he sure ain’t no god, it takes about three whole damn bottles for the effects to start to shine.

...It takes five whole damn bottles for him to actually feel anything, you kept a close eye on your boyfriend as he put the second bottle down with a huff, wiping at his mouth with a “wew”!

“... That was uh, gross taste, heh.” Ryoma pulled his hat up, his cheeks flush slightly pink as he looked around. “Hey. Hey (S/O) you gorgeous son of a bitch look at me.” As soon as you even give him your attention he fingerguns.

... Ryoma wobbly pulls himself up, he doesn’t look like he’ll trip, honestly somehow he still has his balance as he takes your hand.

“... Oh my god I just had an amazing idea. We should adopt,,, a lot of cats,,, not like,,, any cats,,, but... buuuut like an shop full of them,,, and name each of them something silly...” Ryoma’s eyes sparkle deviously. “... Or... like... like... steal everybody’s cats... so we remain the supreme leaders of feline...”

“... Ryoma... do... do you feel tired? Want to take a nap, as amazing ideas as these sound I don’t think your in the right state of mind for... this.” If you let any of this happen, Ryoma’s going to hate himself in the morning.

“I know what I’m doing... I have a license... gimme a sec...” Ryoma pulls out a piece of paper, writes on it, flips it to reveal in sloppy handwriting: “I knwo wat Im do”

You try to survey his features after writing that, all he does is shoot his fingerguns at you.

...Okat you honestly need to take a few pictures of this to show Ryoma later oh my god he’s wobbling towards the door to bring one of those plans he’s mentioned to full-glory, you locked the door for Ryoma, his drunken brain can’t comprehend how to use a step-ladder. You just go to get him some water...

Kaito Momota (... Tired Drunk)

Kaito wouldn’t drink... much, sure, he would totally forge an certificate to like- well, go to space but that was for a good cause! Stuff like drinking was meant to be done for special events and shit otherwise you might get hooked!

And he didn’t actually mean to get drunk on you! He promised he just... kind of mistook the wine in the fridge as the grape panta, he was thirsty- and really fucking tired! Okay? He didn’t expect when he chugged the whole bottle down for the world to... to... hnnnnnn... what’s the word...?

It took a while for you to notice anything was amiss, Kaito had taken himself out of the room to “go get a drink” then he still never came back, so you went to check on your boyfriend to see if he still hadn’t gotten anything, needed some help.

What you didn’t expect to see was Kaito Momota Luminary of the Stars on the floor looking back up at the ceiling mindlessly, with that bottle of wine held tightly in his hands.

“... D... Doo... yu... think it’d be a bd idea if I trie... tried to take a np here? Jst... slep untl a hangover fcks me the hell up, everything hur ts.”

... Oh god! That’s even more errors than usual, so it’s likely on purpose! Kaito’s DRUNK!

You go to get some water for him in the fridge, Kaito’s still looking at the ceiling talking to himself slightly hushed, you don’t know what he’s thinking but he looks like he’s having an ephiphany about the world.

“Holy... Hly sht (S/O) I jst realized how fuckin... weird that Shuichi’s hair stands up like that... he doesn’t use anything to make it like that so how.”

“... Kaito I don’t think your in the right state of mind to make choices like that...” You offer some water to him, his eyes widen.

“Why... Why is everyone’s hair dyed- Like is it actually dyed? Or is it just natural- how can it be natural tho... unless... oh my god (S/O)... we’re in an anime I can’t believe it.”

“Kaito I think you need an second...”

“No. No I know what I’m sayin- oh my god we’re the main characters in some weird anime (S/O)... that’s the only explanation,,, I have to tell... Tsumugi but my legs won’t work nn nn n n..”

... You just pat his head, Kaito grimaces... he was absolutely wasted so everything he said held no inch of truth in it, you just hoped that soon enough your efforts to help him better bare fruit... So he doesn’t make anymore odd claims like him and his friends are in some “weird anime”!

Winks at the fourth wall.

Rantaro Amami (Immune System Of God)

Rantaro... wasn’t a drinker... well besides those really fancy drinks that he usually saw when you both got out, those always looked like a magical experience to try out so he usually did buy those but... he’s never actually gotten legitimately “drunk”, it may be because he never drinks too much.

Then there was the time that had asked Rantaro if he had ever gotten in all words actually “drunk” he responded with a shrug: “I guess I do...? Uh, I’m usually in the right state of mind afterwards still... enough to walk...”

... This was a topic which needed much more exploration... so you went out to a bar together, you swore that anything he got was on you... he squinted but still he bought some colorful drinks in funny-looking cups, peering towards you while he did...

...

He wasn’t actually drunk even after drinking quite a bit, what is this man, how is his immune system keeping him awake? Rantaro chuckles... “Yeah, I think that’s enough for tonight.. come on let’s go home.”

You either failed or this task is just impossible, you take the hand he offers you and walk outside with him... the only noticeable effect are the times he almost bumps into the wall but other than that... nothing...

He knows how to hold his liquor...

Gonta Gokuhara (Clumsy Drunk)

This was Kokichi’s fault, that’s all you know... he offered something for Gonta, that’s what he told you when he gave you back a stumbling crying boyfriend.

“... How did you even get him to drink this- oh my god! Gonta- baby please go lay down on the couch...” You led Gonta to the couch to sit down, he sobbed loudly into the pillow almost falling off, you gave a harsh glare to the Supreme Leader who chuckled at your displeasure.

“I told him it was “Respect Women Juice! TM! Yeah he really just drank it without an inch of hesitance...! Then he fell over drunk, it was hilarious till I had to actually bring him here.”

Gonta let out another loud sob as he fell over off the couch onto the floor, crying about how “Gonta caaaan’t see...!!!”

“You... are one screwed up... mess of a person Kokichi Ouma...” Pushing Gonta back onto the couch you tried to reassure him everything was alright, Kokichi grinned at you putting both of his hands behind the of his head.

“Oh I know... I know really quite well! Good luck dealing with him!”

Kokichi left the two of you alone together, you just let Gonta cry against you about how everything felt so weird... offering some water and some hugs, you’ll get revenge at Kokichi for this... you swear to it.

Kokichi Ouma (Angry Drunk)

... How... Who the hell had enough of your boyfriend to go and make him chug down so much alchohol he got drunk, god knows, but he was now... here... and slurring about some criticisms you didn’t know he had...

“Like... (S/O) it’s so stupid... instead of like... liiiike... getting mad at me when I insult her she usually gets off on it... it’s so gross,,, like how horny can somebody be (S/O)? How HORNY can you be?”

“... Kokichi... do you need a...” Despite how you tried to chime in he always cut you off, with a half-awake grumble...

“No... No let me say this... Hiiiii... iii... so... so what the hell is with Kaito’s sense of logic....? I know, know for a fact he CAN be stupid enough to literally TRUST everybody he meets, like even if there’s hard proof that their an asshole he’s STILL by their side... what the FUCK.”

“Are you talking about Maki?”

“SHE LITERALLY CHOKED ME ONCE YES, Y ES I MEAN MAKI...!” Kokichi touches his neck, rubbing at it. “Honestly... Maki is such a damn... damn jerk... seriously... she’s made “do you want to die” her punchline to almost any jokes she makes, we get it, your edgy as hell!”

While Kokichi grumbled the both of you didn’t notice the door quietly open up... nor did you notice it until their footsteps were in the right range for you to notice them...

Maki trails into the room with an sweating Kaito Momota by her side, she held a card in her hand with the words: “sorry for making you chug beer” in a rather sloppy handwriting...

“... Makiroll, don’t do this...-“ The astronaut tried to stop the caregiver but it was too late, she was already sprinting towards Kokichi to land a finishing blow...!

“FINLAND!”

[To be continued (But not really)]

Korekiyo Shinguuji (Beutifial,,, ohbnn)

How did he actually... get like this, well you honestly swear to god you don’t know, he just appeared at your doorstep muttering about how beautiful humanity was... in so much typos it was almost impossible to decipher a word of what he said...

“... Korekiyo do... you want some water?”

“... hdhdbnnkklllllln.” Korekiyo press his head against the pillow lethargically, he groaned afterwords grasping at his stomach.

“... Is... Is that a yes? A maybe? A... no?”

“... nnnnnnnnnnz.”

“No it is! No it is...”

“Okay! So do you want to um... take a nap?”

“... nbcbxzzz.”

Well. Well you can’t decipher any of this mess, picking yourself up you go to the kitchen to try and take in all that’s happened today...

“... I’ll just get that water anyway...” You pray to whatever god that exists... to please... pleasepleaseplease never have Korekiyo get drunk again.

[todorodeo]

fireworks - k.b.

warnings: fluff, so much fluff, also cursing? it’s bakugo what do you expect word count: 3.4k oops my hand slipped a/n: i wrote this for a friend so here you go tam ily && idk how to format this im sorry also if there's mistakes its a common occurrence what else is new Bakugo knew from the way your knuckles rapped on his door that it was you. He grunted loud enough for you to hear and looked up from his desk to watch you stumble in closing the door and falling against it, the only sounds in the room being the fan in the corner and your sigh of relief. He assumed something annoying occurred with you by your demeanor, it was probably some stupid extra keeping you from getting to his room sooner than later. The sun had started its descent, the beginnings of a sunset were painted outside Bakugo’s window. When you finally looked up and met his eyes, you couldn’t help but smile at his silhouette against the fading sky. He was unamused, his lips were pursed, and his eyes were uncharacteristically gentle looking at you. You caught him in a relaxed mood. A rarity. 

“Hey..” His voice snapped you out of your thoughts, and you were once again caught in his gaze, still gentle, but waiting for a response.

“Hey.” You smiled back brightly, you didn’t get a smile in return, but you could tell he was happy you were here. He just showed it differently. He turned his head back to his papers and continued to write, you took that as your cue to make yourself comfortable. Sitting on his bed, you took out your phone and secretly snapped a picture of him, adding it to your album of candid bakugo photos. He had no idea. Or so you thought.

A smirk found its way onto your lips when you took the hair tie off your wrist and slingshot it at his back, making him jolt up and shoot you a glare.

“The fuck?”

“Sit up straight you gremlin.” This made him growl, only making your smile wider. You had gotten to the point with Bakugo where his outbursts and overall explosive attitude didn’t phase you. If anything you were more of a catalyst for him, while also keeping him at bay. At first he found it weird, you supported him and let him loose, but you also managed to calm him down and.. make him better. Calmer, more genuine. They were the tiniest of steps but they were steps nonetheless. That’s one of the things he loved about you, though he’d never admit it out loud, you let him be himself while also making him a better person. You didn’t hold him back, but you didn’t sugarcoat things. He appreciated that. Honestly he’d be pissed if he found out you were just playing with him. But that wasn’t the case.

“My posture’s fucking fine.” The tiny voice in the back of his head knew you were right, but bickering with you always made his pulse quicken just a bit, interacting with you gave him minuscule butterflies in his stomach, a fact he would take to his grave, but a fact.

“You know I’m right, do you want proof? I have evidence.” You challenged him, holding up your phone. He scoffed at your rebuttal, annoyed again that you were literally- taking pictures behind his back. He knew you snapped pictures all the time, at first it was annoying, and he almost forced you to delete them but he decided he’d let you keep this up when he saw you beaming over them. Happy (Y/N) = Happy Bakugo.

Bakugo mumbled something under his breath and turned back to his work, this time with a straighter spine. Your ears couldn’t quite pick up what he said, but you smiled as he accepted defeat and straightened his back. You loved teasing him and he did the same all the time, but you also loved that he was letting you. You both were constantly trying to have the upper hand on each other, some kind of power play, but even others in the class could attest to how compatible you were for each other.

You snapped another picture, this time with the better posture and smiled to yourself. At this point the sunset was almost at it’s apex and the orange and yellow hues on Bakugo’s skin made you wish you had your real camera. It was left in your room, and if you went to get it your golden window of opportunity would be gone in a second, so a phone photo would do.

You sat in silence and listened to the fan and watched the movement of his writing, noting his leg started to bounce. He was content with you just being here with him, but in truth he wanted to finish his work badly. He wanted to go over and sit with you, hold you, play with your hair. He knew you’d be patiently waiting until he was done, because you knew he needed to get his work done before anything, but that didn’t stop his leg from bouncing in slight anticipation. He was exhausted and all he wanted right now was your arms around him, the scent of your shampoo in his nose, your soft tendrils brushing against his skin. Almost done.

Bakugo stole a glance behind his back and saw you had gotten more comfortable, head hanging upside-down off the bed, the latest hero magazine cover blocking your face. You felt his gaze and lowered the magazine to show only your eyes. Bakugo didn’t know how you smiled with your eyes but you did, his leg bouncing faster as he turned to finish his work.

Only a couple of minutes had passed but Bakugo was getting restless, and when he finally put his pencil down and closed his book, he swiveled around and looked at you again, still reading the magazine. He stood and walked over, plucking the magazine from your hands much to your dismay.

“I was reading that!” You pouted, looking at him standing over you, an unamused expression gracing his features.

“Does it look like I care?” His expression said no, but you knew the right answer was yes. He wanted your attention on him, not a fucking magazine.

“I was waiting for you to finish.”

“I’m finished.”

“Then come here asshat.” He scoffed at your lame insult and pulled you up as he situated himself on the bed. He leaned against the headboard on his pillow and wrapped his arm around you as you snaked your arms around his middle, burying your face into his neck. Finally breathing out a sigh you followed suit, relishing in the silent ease. He closed his eyes and hummed to himself, finally content with you in his arms—

The moment was immediately broken with the slam of the door. The both of you startled and alert.

“There you are!- Oh.. Caught you guys in a moment huh?” Kaminari winked and settled his hands on his hips. His smile quickly faded at Bakugo’s glare. He had quickly sat up and half shielded you with his arm that was wrapped around you, you weren’t indecent in any way, still your privacy was just violated. Hm what a gentleman.

“WHAT THE FU-“

“Hey! Are you guys ready-“ Mina came in from behind Kaminari, witnessing the scene and quickly assessing the situation, “Ohmygooooooooosh you guys are so cute!”

“Get out. Now.”

“Okay dude hear us out-“

“GET THE FUCK OUT RIGHT NOW!” Your hand on his bicep stopped him from getting up and kicking their asses which you knew was inevitable. Your touch immediately calmed him enough for you to stare him down and make him calm down, you wanted an explanation first before you let him loose.

“Let’s hear ‘em out.”

“No it’s probably some stupid shi-“

“What do you guys need?” You blatantly ignored him, raising your voice over his and pointing your attention at the two intruders, slightly annoyed at the interruption of your perfect cuddling time. Kaminari was at a loss of words, he was scared he’d say something to piss Bakugo off again. Mina stepped forward, a newfound glee in her aura.

“Fireworks!” Hah? Fireworks. Both you and your boyfriend had confusion written over you faces, frozen in place trying to process what that meant.

“You want.. fireworks?” Gaze still holding Mina’s you held your arm in front of Bakugo who had obviously had enough, keeping him from making another mess you didn’t feel like cleaning up.

“No, no! The class is going to go to the river and watch the fireworks show together! We thought it would be a nice ‘hurrah!’ to the end of summer break!” Mina said enthusiastically, Kaminari smiled with her at the idea.

“No-“

“That’s a great idea!” Bakugo scoffed at your interruption and now it was your turn to be glared at. You didn’t pay him any mind, smiling back at Mina and Kaminari. They eagerly celebrated your affirmation while Bakugo was still steaming.

“(Y/n) what the fuck, no we’re not going.” His voice was rougher now, he was upset and he was unable to hide it. He wanted to be alone with you and cuddle. He wasn’t going to say that but you knew what he wanted. But what fun would you be if you gave him everything he wanted? Even if the idea of cuddling and dozing off in each other’s arms sounded amazing, seeing him amongst the night sky as fireworks lit up around you seemed amazing as well. Also you may or may not have this crazy romantic wish list, and kissing your boyfriend during fireworks may or may not be on that crazy romantic wish list.

“Yes we are.” You gave him a smirk and got up, the loss of your warmth only making his grimace worsen. “We’ll be right there guys, just give us a minute.” At that Mina and Kaminari left with smiles on their faces, and you with an angry Bakugo. A common occurrence.

You went to stand and get ready when a hand grabbed your wrist and pulled you back down and in mere seconds you were face to face with a very upset boyfriend obviously wanting an explanation to your behavior. He ground his teeth and huffed out his nose, not having to say a word to show his thoughts.

“You’re cute when you’re angry.”

“You’re ugly when you ruin our alone time.”

“Oof, try again, the comeback was terrible.” You were thriving off of Bakugo’s discontent, but eventually you had to give in before it turned into a screaming match. A small sigh left your lips, “I’m sorry for ruining the moment but we can have as many as you want later. We are going out with the class because this is our last year at U.A, this is our last summer together. And I know you’re going to miss your friends once this is all over, so making these memories now are worth it in the end I promise.” Your words seemed to soften his glare, and he realized you were making solid points, as much as he hated to admit it. He was headstrong but he had gotten comfortable with the class and he’d managed to tolerate just about everyone to an extent.

Admitting defeat he groaned and dropped his head into your neck, your hands instinctively carding through his hair. He didn’t say anything which meant he agreed. You patted his back asking him to get up and he did reluctantly. Sitting up and standing you offered your hand in silence and waited for him to grasp it before hauling him off the bed and out of his room. When you met everyone in the common area you were greeted with smiles and hello’s, everyone seemed ready to be off.

“Sorry for holding you guys up..” You apologized to the class but it was brushed off and you followed everyone out of the dorm. At this point the sun had said adieu and the moon started to shine through the littered clouds. It was a beautiful evening, you thought. You looked over to Bakugo also admiring the sky but still fashioning his trademark scowl. For a small instance, he was glad you dragged him out of his room. His hand around yours tightened just a smidge. It wasn’t a far walk to the river, by the time the class arrived there was a small crowd on the bridge and along the bank.

When you found a nice area for everyone to sit, you found a spot on the grass in the throes of the people waiting for the show. You let go of Bakugo’s hand to which you exchanged a look of “are you okay?” and you both nodded to eachother, Bakugo’s attention being drawn away by Sero and the rest of the gang and you by Ochako and Tsuyu. You smiled and joined their conversation while your boyfriend was in his own.

That was another thing. Your relationship was a perfect balance of being each others rock and also letting each other breathe. You had your own friends and he had his, and there was never a problem with trust. You trusted him with your life and vice versa. You’ve been together for a little over two years now, having cultivated so much appreciation for each other while also learning so much. The class got along really well and you were glad to have had such wonderful people to grow with. Including him. He knew that. You made sure of that. You hadn’t said it yet but you loved him. Maybe there just hasn’t been the right moment for you to say it but you were both aware of each other’s feelings. It wasn’t said through words, and honestly you didn’t really need to hear it, you knew. He made sure of that.

The sky was a dark midnight blue and the clouds in the sky were scarce, meaning the display of fireworks would be easily seen. Hagakure noted that it was almost time for the fireworks to start and everyone started to sit down on the grass, thankfully the weather recently had been decent and the dew wasn’t so obnoxiously wet. You picked a small daisy at your feet and twirled it in your fingers, noting the familiar warmth that sat next to you. Bakugo sat with one leg up, his arm draped over his knee, “When are these damn fireworks gonna star-“

The booming sound of the first firework cut him off which made you laugh, looking up and watching the array of colors explode and paint the sky in streaks. You squint your eyes at first, adjusting to the bright flashes while also getting used to the loud sounds that rang out over the town. Now that you think about it, it was kinda like Bakugo’s quirk. Big, boisterous, and loud. Hm, how fitting.

“I bet you could make some awesome fireworks with your explosions.” You challenged while simultaneously stroking his ego, something he loved.

He scoffed while trying to hide a smirk, “That’s not how it works dumbass.” You were just playing with him and you had no idea how it actually worked, but you basked in getting a reaction like that out of him. At first he was so reluctant and even upset at the prospect of fireworks with the class, now, not so much. He seemed.. happy even.

Bakugo looked back up at the sky, his expression wasn’t negative, or positive, but more mutual. Casual. The fireworks lit up in his irises, and as cheesy as it sounded, you couldn’t look away. Just like how the sunset stood against his profile, lighting up his skin, the light from the moon and the colorful explosions in the sky did the same, only this time you had a better picture. You were front row and center and you desperately wished you could capture the moment, instead settling to burn the image in your mind. Beautiful.

It didn’t take long for him to notice your staring, scrutinizing you and asking, “What are you looking at?” You, silly.

You didn’t even process the fact that your thoughts were said aloud but by the sudden color in his cheeks and on the tips of his ears, Bakugo was cracking under the icky romantic feeling you were displaying. This caused him to abruptly put his hand over your face and push you away, scoffing, to which you giggled and let your eyes find the fireworks again. Yes you were both hard-asses, but you also had romantic moments. Granted they were usually in the privacy of his room and included you two, but you didn’t forget when he first held your hand /outside/ his room, letting everyone see. He was confident with you and your relationship, but you were mostly happy in the confidence he had himself.

He managed to stay true to who he is but also let himself grow and become a more genuine person, even if the original thought made him laugh. He wouldn’t tell you, at least, not anytime soon, but he believes a major reason why he is the way he is today is thanks to you. He thought back to when he finally decided to ask All Might of all people for relationship advice, feeling like he had no one else to go to. When he mentioned you, All Might only encouraged him but reminded him, /your partner is supposed to lift you up, make you a better person while letting you still see the world through your own eyes./ Yup, you fit that description pretty perfectly. God he was such a sap. What did you do to him?

Now it was his turn to watch you under the fireworks. He watched as the flashes perfectly lit up every inch of your profile, inwardly scoffing at the memory of you saying how bad you looked in the mirror. He had said you had shit for brains which was his way of calling you beautiful.

A sudden breeze came and your hair was blown into your face, momentarily blinding you and causing you to spit your hair out of your mouth. You managed to control your hair and heard your boyfriend laugh at your moment of annoyance, earning him a glare and a hard punch to the shoulder.

“Ey!” He punched back playfully which made you fake a gasp and rub your shoulder. Your lips quivered as if on the verge of tears; you pretended to play the victim all the time but at this point Bakugo saw past it and rolled his eyes at your mediocre performance. The act was this; play the victim and make him feel bad, and then hit him back twice as hard. You never failed to challenge him when you felt like it, and you weren’t a dainty flower. Yet another attribute he appreciated.

“You’re an asshat, you know that?”

“But I’m your asshat.” You cuddled up against his side, leaning your head on his shoulder, putting on your best sappy smile.

“Ew shut up.”

“Make me.” Is that a fucking challenge? Your stare down lasted mere seconds before you raised your eyebrows as if saying well? and suddenly his lips were on yours. Your eyes closed and the light from the fireworks along with the butterflies raging in your stomach made your head dizzy. Somehow you managed to kiss your boyfriend while watching fireworks. It was beyond cheesy but you could not give a shit. Soon enough your lungs were starting to ache and you had to part to breathe but were pleasantly surprised when he went back for another. The fireworks long forgotten.

“Get a room lovebirds.” You could hear the smirk in his tone. Kaminari just loved ruining your moments didn’t he. The sound of your lips parting made you blush harder than you thought it would and Bakugo immediately turned to look behind him.

“Eat shit Pikachu.” This caused everyone around to chuckle at the exchange, making Bakugo jump back to reality and realize he was in public. You watched as his blush lit up his face and he turned and faced away and towards you, embarrassed and annoyed. You chuckled and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tight, letting him know it was okay. He looked up and found your assuring gaze, forgetting about the fireworks and forgetting about everything else. You were there and that’s all that mattered. He squeezed back, letting a huff out and looking back at the sky, the fireworks going crazy in the sky as a finale. He was glad you made him come out for the fireworks. Glad that he got to make this memory with you and his class. He was glad you were his. And he was unconditionally in love with you, and he didn’t need to say it out loud. You knew. He made sure of that.

[rontra]

do you have any recommendations on how to like. Take In Umineko. I think it looks really cool and I’d like to get into it, but there’s a lot of things that are confusing (like all of the different games, the manga, the anime, ect.) and I’m not really sure where to start watching/reading it. Do you have any advice on where the best place to start is?

HOH BABY NOW THIS IS A GOOD ASK

Basically, a lot of this depends on you and how you prefer to take in media. People are different after all; some people like reading long novels, some prefer comics, u know! So let’s just go over all the avenues and how to get at them, and the rest is up to you!

I’m gonna make this post very long. VERY VERY LONG. IM SO FUCKn SORyr

First, I’ll talk abt what umineko is; then I’ll discuss the various media; finally, at the end, I’ll write down what I typically recommend to newcomers! SCROLL REALLY FAST TO THE HEADERS IF U HAVE NO TIME FOR MY RAMBLING LOL

So…here we goooo

READING UMINEKO: UNTANGLING THE WEB

OR: what the fuck is umineko and why do you want me to read it, diesel?

Since this is a general To Whom It May Concern post: Umineko no Naku Koro ni (Or Umineko: When They Cry, alternatively When The Seagulls Cry) is a murder mystery/fantasy/metafiction visual novel published between 2007 and 2011. I know “murder mystery” and “metafiction” sound pretty boring when you combine them, but trust me–Umineko’s unlike anything you’ve seen, and defies explanation. Still, I’m here to do my best!

Umineko is about a rich and complicated family, and their annual family conference–and the year it goes super duper badly. On an isolated island, in the middle of a typhoon, tragedy befalls the family–on a massive scale! Someone is killing them–all of them–and the only answer that seems to be rising is–

“Beatrice did it.”

But Beatrice isn’t supposed to really exist. Not for real!! No one by that name is on the island. It’s just a story! She’s made up–Beatrice is a legend. A witch who has lived for a thousand years–who loaned the family patriarch ten tons of gold, an insane amount of wealth, in exchange for his soul. Now she’s collecting on that loan, taking everything back, with interest–the lives of the family included.

Is the culprit a human, or not? Does the witch exist, or not?Is the culprit one of the 18 people? Does a 19th person exist? Or…?And, most importantly–when the typhoon passes, will anyone remain alive on the island?

[YouTube: Umineko opening]

I’d super-recommend Umineko if you enjoy: strong characterization, a solidly built mystery (with plenty of smaller mysteries to try your brain with along the way ;) ), complex and nuanced characters, hype magic fights, Logic-Based Combat(???), deep discussions of trauma and its consequences, large casts of characters, Genre Fuckery, coping, Meta™, and milfs Complex Lore

I would, however, NOT recommend Umineko if you are triggered by/can’t stomach reading about: body horror, gore, death, trauma, child abuse, bullying, discussion of suicide, discussion of sexual assault, etc (you can message me for a more complete list of warnings; I’m happy to provide super-specific ones if there’s something specific you’re concerned about, or even give you specific scenes to watch out for. I kept this vague on purpose, but if you message me off anon or via DMs here or at @aceyasu, I’ll be happy to answer anything!)

Overall it’s a pretty dark, emotional story, with a lot of Themes™–but it’s also full of love and genuine heartfelt Feelings. I don’t think any story has touched me the way Umineko has! Of course, everyone’s experience is very unique to them, but I think Umineko has something for everyone (provided, of course, that we’re taking into account the content warnings and excluding people who can’t/don’t want to encounter those things!). The characters, music, story and message–it all has a lot of heart and it all is very important to me as an individual. Obviously no media is flawless, but I think Umineko’s good outweighs its bad…YMMV though of course :p

Also, hype magic fights.

OKAY WITH THAT OUT OF THE WAY

Umineko’s story is told over 8 arcs–styled as “episodes”. I use “arc” and “episode” sort of interchangeably! Specific ones I just call “EP#” though. All you really need to know though is there’s 8 of them, of varying length, and you have to read them all for the full story.

Thankfully they’re numbered, am i right?? HAFDmgkdfmg

Each episode has its own focus within the overarching narrative and comes with its own fun mysteries and harrowing developments just for you! yay! But basically, the important thing is that they’re divided into the Question Arcs (1-4) and Answer Arcs (5-8).

Sometimes, to make things confusing, the Answer Arcs are also called “Core Arcs” or “Chiru”. I will use “Answer Arcs” here, but if you encounter those two elsewhere, that’s what they are. :p

ACTUALLY EXPERIENCING UMINEKO

(now that im done YAPPING)

The anime

Generally viewed as a poor product. It’s a bad adaption that fails as a standalone, too, because of the amount of important scenes that are missing. Don’t watch the anime first if you really want to get into Umineko. It’s a fun watch once you know how it’s supposed to go, though :p Covers the Question Arcs only, ends with EP4–so even if it was good, it would only be half the story… press f to pay respects. The opening fuckin slaps though, and all the VAs are solid.

The manga

Each Episode has its own manga adaption, usually done by a different artist (with exception of EP1, EP3, and EP8, which are all by the same artist). Generally solid; gets the most important parts. For people who want to get through quicker, the manga helps a lot.

The primary cost is that a lot of characterization doesn’t get to shine AS bright, as there’s simply no time to get into the nooks and crannies (still a great cast, though). However, the art is usually fantastic–since the artist changes every EP, it’s easy to deal with even if you don’t like a specific one’s style. It’ll be gone by next Episode!

A lot of moments get punched up by the more visual format of the manga. You really get a better sense of the characters interacting physically with one another! You do, however, run into the Scanlation Problem…..

I know, I know–most people, when given the option to, don’t want to pay for things. So when given the choice between fan scanlations and the official release, a lot of people would choose the scanlations. And they’re fine…for the most part…except for the parts that aren’t. Some parts (notably in the Answer Arcs) are…bad. Really bad. Even I can’t really understand it sometimes, despite knowing this story inside out… LOL

If you’re good at parsing Scanlation SNAFU or can’t afford/don’t want to buy it, you can find Umineko on MOST manga hosts! I don’t know which you prefer so I’m not gonna link ‘em hahahafkgmfh I usually use Manga Rock but that’s because I usually am reading on my phone and I like their app. The episodes are all numbered, so it’s pretty easy to find your way around!

On the other hand, if you have a hard time understanding poor translations, reading inconsistent typesetting/fonts, or simply Can afford it/prefer buying media, the manga is being officially released in English by YenPress! As is standard nowadays, you can get them in both physical volumes and digital e-books! However, YenPress’ release is currently ongoing–the first volume of EP8 is slated to release in March.

[YenPress link]

The visual novel

Ah, here we are–the head honcho himself…! This is the original version of Umineko. These are the ones we call “games”, and why we sometimes say u “play” Umineko, but. Really. It’s just reading. They’re kinetic novels. Its literally just reading. So I don’t know why we complicate things like that.

(“if she an .exe, shes a game”, I guess… xD)

This is where the characterization and voice of Umineko really shines! The style is often simple to read, sometimes even comically casual, but it cuts deep when it wants to. Even really simple lines can have a really strong impact–it’s a really pleasant style to read, IMO…pretty easy to understand most of the time, but emotionally resonant all the same!

Reading the VN is somewhat of an undertaking, because of the amount of hours required…It’s a far longer read. Depending on your reading speed and whether or not you pause to think/talk about things as you read, people clock in 100-200 hours to finish it.

But, on the upside–because it has so much more time than the manga, the VN can really get deep into the characters, their dynamics, and their inner conflicts. You really get a deep sense for everyone’s character and it makes most of the cast feel fleshed-out enough that you appreciate all of them to some extent (whether positive or negative :P)

Oh, actually–the original Umineko branded itself a “Sound Novel”….as opposed to a Visual Novel, where the emphasis is on, uh–Visuals–Umineko leans more heavily on audio to create its atmosphere. And the music? Fuckin rips!! The Umineko soundtrack is huge and has tons of absolute bangers. It’s easy to see why it decided to market itself as a Sound Novel rather than a visual novel–the graphics of the original PC version are simple, but the atmospheric sound effects and BGM really shines.

Here’s some enticing tracks to pique yr interest (be careful about the comments/etc though, there’s Definitely spoilers in there xD)[worldenddominator] [dead angle] [dir] [system0] [hope]

The VN nowadays is split into the two halves; if you get EP4, it’ll include 1-3 as well, essentially. Picking up Question Arcs (or EP4) and Answer Arcs (or EP8) gives u the whole 8 episodes. Easy peasy! Because we live in the future now, and retroactive inclusion of past games is just convenient!

There is an official English release now, which is a brand new luxury. It’s even on Steam! Wow! That’s the easiest way to get your paws on the hands-on experience. The translation has been slightly updated as well! Also, they added a new set of toggle-able graphics that are…um…I mean they’re certainly new…#BarelyContainedOpinionAlert

If you don’t want to pay or can’t afford it…uhhh….I used to have torrent links but they’re all dead. :T still, you can probably just find them, if you know your way around torrents. For the translation, you’ll have to either get a pre-patched version of the game, or use the translation group’s instructions to patch it yourself. 

If you can’t do either of those, or just don’t really have a preference, or…any number of reasons, you can also find all the games fully recorded and uploaded to YouTube (with or without commentary)!

As for the links, I’ve got them right h–

Wait–oh, sh–the graphics are bad?!? You think the graphics are bad? Or you think plain reading is boring? Y-you can’t understand what the background image in this scene is even supposed to be? Ah…the post-2007 struggle….

The visual novel, Part Deux: AH, THE JPEGS edition

OKAY SO I SPLIT THIS APART BECAUSE IT*S IMPORTANT

If you wanna spruce up your VN-reading experience, here’s the thing: they ported the game to PS3, with brand new graphics and–get this–full voice acting. Wow! There’s even CGs now…Jeez!

These are NOT the same graphics as the new ones from the official English release! That’s important!

SO, if you wanna spruce up the graphics a bit, or you enjoy voice acting with your novels, you can do that! People took apart the PS3 games and made patches for the PC version to enjoy the new graphics and voices. And now it’s available for the Steam version as well!

[SPRITE COMPARISON: ORIGINAL PC | PS3 | STEAM]You pick your favorite!

ALSO VOICE ACTING! WOW!! Remember how I said the anime got two things right and they were the OP and the voice cast?

SAME CAST, BABEY!!!! They are all excellent and do a wonderful job! It can really add some more interest if you struggle with staying focused on “plain” reading.

Okay so NOW the links:

You’ll have to dig up torrents yourself if you want those, bc its 6am and I’m too sleepy to… uzu

QUESTION ARCS[Physical Eng release] or [Steam page] +[PS3 PATCH]

ANSWER ARCS[Physical Eng release] or [Steam page] +[PS3 PATCH]

YOUTUBE[Non-commentated, with PS3 patch] you can find more just by searching but this one looks good to me :p

RONTRA OPINIONS / SUGGESTIONS

Personally, I favor the VN for most scenes, but the manga for my light casual reading. Y’know? The VN can be pretty…um…dense, at times.

Ironically, I think EP1 itself might be the biggest hurdle for total first-timers. It’s definitely paced as a “part 1 of 8″ for the first solid portion! By which I mean, it really takes its time establishing the cast and their individual situations. Which isn’t a bad thing–especially in the overarching scope of how long the story is–but if you aren’t sure about the premise, format, or if you’ll enjoy Umineko at all, it can be sort of…challenging.

It all really depends on the individual–things like attention span, investment, and personal preferences, imo. Some people just don’t enjoy reading that much text at once! And that’s fine! Some people love it and that’s fine! Some people think the intro is too long, some people think it’s intriguing from the start. Some really like watching character building, and some prefer to see action happening. Either way is fine, so it’s really up to you!

Usually, if someone isn’t sure, I suggest they try EP1 in manga form first, just to see if the general premise entices them; it’s fully possible to jump back and do the VN if you decide you like it! It sacrifices some characterization in exchange for exploring the main premise a little faster.

Similarly, if you just can’t get into the VN–you can read the entire thing with manga too, if you favor action over the deepest character lore. It’s still a good time and a good experience!

Though, in EP1′s favor–if you ARE sure about it, and are able to dedicate your attention to the first 10-13 hours of set-up, EP1 has one of the most rewarding escalations I’ve encountered! If you are able to sit and read a fairly long-winded introduction, you are rewarded with the most buck wild Popping Off you can imagine.

So there’s nothing wrong with jumping right in there with the VN, if you enjoy reading!

However, if you do find that the VN is dragging too much for you, you can go in reverse too–and finish EP1 by manga, then decide if you want to jump back to the VN or not. I promise, the novels pick up the pace too–it’s just getting all the introductions down that can be daunting, when the initial cast size is a staggering 18 people (plus the LORE has to be established too)!!

Just for you–if you want to get into Umineko, but struggle with EP1, I’ll offer my private archive of YenPress manga rips for EP1–read the manga, official english translation, for free thanks to your dealer friend, rontra,You will have to message me about it, though–off anon or via DMs, here or at @aceyasu.

My favorite setups when I play by myself are either Original PC Graphics + Voice Acting, or Full PS3 Patch. I personally really like the original PC graphics, but I understand some people think they’re kinda…um…Rough, to say the least xD PS3 graphics are a close second for me though.

I don’t really like the steam version’s new sprites. Some people don’t mind them, so it’s up to you what you prefer, but I think they don’t really convey the feeling as well as their counterparts sometimes… :/

But hey, everyone’s got their own opinions!

I also prefer the EP8 manga to the EP8 VN. If I have control over someone’s first playthrough, I always push over to the manga for EP8! In my opinion, it’s a rare instance where the adaption is better than its original. People have different opinions on this, of course, but since this section is My Opinions Central, that’s my opinioooon!!! :D

SO BASICALLY MY OWN PERSONAL PREFERRED STRUCTURE IS

->TRY EP1 (jump over to manga if struggling; if enjoyed manga ep1 until the end, hop back into the VN at EP2 and come back to EP1 if you want to later)

EP2-EP7 VN

EP8 MANGA(EP8 VN if desired afterwards, once the dust settles)

But you’re free to do what you want, of course. ;9

And then after that there’s some spinoffs that I didn’t talk about because that’s a post for another time. (There’s a fighting game! It’s packed full of spoilers.)

AFTERWORD

All in all, Umineko is…big. its very very big. it has a huge cast (the final count comes out to like, almost 70 characters!) and a huge story. and huge feelings.

The manga and the VN are the main avenues of getting into it. It’s easier than it looks at a glance; and yet, more daunting than it seems…

If you have the time and energy to pour hours of your time into it, Umineko is a super worthwhile story that tackles genuinely difficult material with a delicate but honest hand.

It clowns up sometimes and stumbles over its own demographic–see: Weird Vaguely Unpleasant Anime-brand Sex Comedy that springs up a lot in EP1, some in EP2, and then largely disappears save for a few dumb jokes here and there–but overall is a solidly built and solidly delivered story about trauma, love, loss, and getting your family ritual-murdered by a thousand-year-old witch who may or may not be real.

And if you have any questions at all (or just wanna talk Umineko), you can send an ask or IM me here or at @aceyasu–you can ask for my Discord too if you wanna really get into it. Or DM me on twitter! I’m happy to answer any question or elaborate on anything you’re confused about. I tried to go over this post quickly, so if I was too vague on something, feel free to ask!

The same of course applies to content warnings; if there’s something specific you’re worried about, I can answer it for you, whether it’s “does [specific thing] happen/appear” or “how much of [thing] is there, i can handle a little bit”! Anything! Of course I want people to read my favorite, but I also more than that want u all to be safe.

I’m very sorry that this post is literally three thousand words long. Umineko’s been my special interest for almost ten whole years. I get chatty! But hopefully my passion shines through and gets you excited!!!

LOVE, A BIG NERD

[distractedhistotech]

Ghost +1

Sydney was in the back of the van.  She preferred it back there since she could move around more.  Plus it felt weird staring out the window since losing her eye. She guessed it was the loss of depth perception.  She was still learning how to gauge distance.

“So, that was kind of lame.  Why did they think that guy was a ghost anyway?” asked Sydney as she tried to contact juggle some balls they had and dropped them all over the place.  “He didn’t even put a lot of effort into his costume.”

“They were really superstitious,” said Arthur.  “Only a few steps from being a cult when you think about it.  They decide that anything strange has to have a supernatural or spiritual cause.  Don’t even think there’s a scientific explanation because why couldn’t it be something that proves they’re right.”

“Arthur, you’re starting to ramble,” interrupted Vivi.

Arthur blushed. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. They were a bit…extreme,” admitted Vivi. “I can see why it would upset you.”

Mystery decided this was a good reason to lay his head on Arthur’s lap.  Sydney then flung her arms around him.  “Yeah!  I thought they were creepy too!”

“Sydney!  I’m driving!”

“Pretty sure they thought I was an idiot,” continued Sydney.  “I mean that tone they used with me was just insulting!  Just because I’m missing an eye doesn’t mean I’m an idiot! Lots of people are missing parts and are smart!  I’m not a pirate!”  Sydney paused.  “Actually, there were some pretty intelligent pirates.  I don’t know where I was going with that.  I seem to come back to pirates a lot lately.  I know why I do, but it’s getting kind of old.  I need to find something else to obsess with when I get riled up.”

“You could go back to talking about comics,” suggested Vivi.

Sydney sighed. “Yeah, I miss that…Why do I have so much trouble bringing comics up nowadays?  It used to be second nature, but now I have to focus to talk about them. Even though I still love comics. It doesn’t make sense.  Is this part of growing up?  Part of recovering from a traumatic event?  Both?  It feels like something’s wrong.  But isn’t that normal now?”  Sydney rested her forehead on the back of Arthur’s head, not noticing how hard he was gripping the steering wheel.  “Do you ever feel like that?”

“Yes,” said Arthur. He’d felt like it since he woke up in a hospital missing an arm, missing a friend, missing memories, missing so much… “I don’t think it’s gonna go away.” Mystery let out a whine and licked one of Sydney’s hands.

Vivi looked between the two as the mood quickly started to darken.  God, she just wanted her two friends to be happy like they used to be. She needed to find a way to change the subject and make them smile.  “Why don’t we pick up a couple of pizzas or something and then watch a couple of hours of Star Trek or Star Wars or Captain America?”

Arthur caught on to what she was trying to do and smiled.  “That would be nice.  It’s been a while since we hung out.”  He frowned. “That’s my fault.”  He’d been busy looking for Lewis.  He was trying not to ignore his remaining friends, but it was hard when he wanted to find the other one and mentioning him did…something to them.

“What the heck are you working on anyway?” asked Sydney.  “You’re not usually this secretive.  You’re not trying to make a mechanical eye again, are you?”

“No!...Not usually anyway,” admitted Arthur.

“I can see where he’s coming from,” said Vivi.  “I don’t think we can buy another eye if something else goes wrong.  We need an alternative method.”

Sydney shuddered. “Okay, point taken.  Being blind sucked.  I don’t know how someone can live with that for a lifetime. Especially if you’re born like that! Can you imagine never knowing colors? And I bet light doesn’t make a lot of sense either.  And you can’t play videogames!”

“Can’t work on cars or fabricate parts,” continued Arthur.

“Probably can’t paint either,” mused Vivi.  “Unless the various colors smelled different from one another.”

Sydney wrinkled her nose.  “Is-Is that a thing?  And I don’t mean synesthesia!  Can blind people have synesthesia?  Or deaf people?  Or anyone missing one sense?”

“What if sounds are linked to smell instead?” suggested Arthur.

“Can that happen?”

“Dunno.  Maybe.”

“Pigments are just a type of chemical compound, so it would make sense for them to have a scent,” said Vivi, keeping the conversation from veering off in a completely different direction for once.

“Depends on the chemical.  Some don’t have a scent, or at least the scent is too faint for humans to pick up on,” explained Arthur.

“I dunno, I swear I was smelling more right before you fixed my eye,” argued Sydney.

“It’s not quite the same thing.  When you lose a sense you pay more attention to the ones that are left, like reassigning roles.  We get the most information from sight, so when someone loses their sense of sight they pay a lot more attention to little things that they didn’t even realize they were ignoring.  Also, I think there’s some neuroplasticity involved.  Your brain isn’t using the part that used to be for putting together what your eyes saw, so it starts using it for other things over time.” Arthur was silent for a moment. “Um.  But you, uh, would know better than me, given, you know.  Sorry, I got a little too into the science papers I’ve been reading.”

Sydney smiled and shrugged.  “It’s fine. I think it’s pretty interesting, even if I don’t understand all of it.”  She tapped her eyepatch.  “Does losing an eye affect how much of my brain it uses?”

“Just one?  I’m not sure.  You are seeing less…”

“Can you still smell and hear more than you’re used to?” asked Vivi.

Sydney shrugged. “Dunno.  I don’t think so.  Was kind of distracted at the time.  Plus, everything looked different when I could see again.”

Vivi huffed. “It is just so unfair.  How is it that my abilities still haven’t manifested but my half of the eye lets you see spirits?”

“It is really strange,” agreed Sydney.

“Maybe it’s because your abilities are already active,” suggested Arthur.  “And you do have some control over ‘em.”

Vivi hummed in thought.  “That might be it.  There are still so many unknowns…”

“Hey, I don’t care how as long as no one else has to go blind,” said Sydney.  “Besides, I’m sure something will wake you up eventually.”

“Yeah, but what if I’m like 40 when it finally happens?” complained Vivi.  “Heck, if I have kids by then, they might have gotten their power before me…”

Arthur winced. “Do you want kids?”

Vivi nodded. “Of course!  One, maybe two.  I just have to find the right guy,” she said, giving Arthur a significant glance.

Arthur missed said glance entirely as he was distracted by thoughts of what could have been. Sydney was blind on that side. The only one to notice was Mystery, who huffed.  Why did life have to be so difficult for these kids?  The last time he’d had charges this prone to trouble…

It hadn’t ended well. Mystery would rather not dwell on the depressing memories.

Vivi realized her hint had gone over their heads yet again and decided to just move on.  “Do you guys want kids?”

“I want one!  So there can be a Sydney Scoville III!” proclaimed Sydney.  “But just one.  Don’t think I could handle more than that.”

Arthur was silent. Lewis wanted kids.  He’d be an amazing father with how well he handled his sisters.  “I dunno if I want children.  I don’t want to pass on any of my issues.”

Vivi and Sydney both frowned at Arthur’s reasoning.  “Most of your issues are due to your early upbringing,” pointed out Vivi. “You wouldn’t make those same choices and mistakes.  That would prevent most of those issues from happening.”

“They could still pick up the behavior from me,” argued Arthur.  “There’s only so much that I can change.”

“I don’t think you need to change,” said Sydney.  “I mean, yeah, you’ve got anxiety issues, but lots of people do.  You’re also smart and nice and help people and have cool hair and stro-”

“What if I attract something dangerous?” interrupted Arthur.

“Then I’ll just keep living nearby,” reasoned Sydney.  She’d live with him if he asked.  “I mean, I don’t see why I would leave Tempo.”

“Me either. Tempo is our home,” agreed Vivi. She placed a hand on Arthur’s flesh and blood hand.  “We’re stuck with each other.  For life.”

Arthur felt himself cheer up a bit at that.  He gave Vivi a smile and tried to give Sydney one as best he could.  Maybe he was being selfish, but he wanted to stay close to his friends.

And then the dashboard started to spark.  Arthur’s eyes widened.  “What?! No, no, no…”  He stomped on the gas several times but failed to pick up speed.

Vivi frowned. “Is something wrong with the van?”

“There shouldn’t be! I just performed maintenance on it!”

Sydney raised an eyebrow.  “Am I the only one who thinks the purple sparks were weird?”

Arthur blinked. “Purple?”

Sydney nodded. “Yeah, I was staring right at the dashboard.”  The high beam light looked like a jellyfish.  “Definitely purple.”

“That is not a thing that should happen!” shouted Arthur.

Vivi nodded. “Electricity’s supposed to just be white, which suggests this isn’t normal.”  The van came to a stop right in front of…Vivi blinked several times.  “A dancing mansion?”

Okay, it wasn’t actually dancing.  However, it was sort of pulsing/bopping to a beat that one could fell in their bones. It was noticeably run down and purple and had eerie lights in the windows.

“There’s no way that’s not haunted,” deadpanned Sydney.

“Erm…”  Arthur tried turning over the car again.  “We don’t, have to investigate, do we?”

Vivi thought of what happened last time they’d jumped into an investigation without any preparation.

Blood. Hospitals.  Loss.  Guilt.

“If you can get the van started, we’re leaving,” said Vivi.  “Sydney, you’re not wearing your suppressor?”

Sydney shook her head. “Still practicing controlling it on my own.”

“Good.  Don’t reign it in.”

Mystery just stared at the mansion.  He recognized its aura.  He could barely believe it.

When did Lewis come back and what did he have planned? 

Lewis was planning to exact his revenge.  The plan had been simple:  Create a mansion on a road that they often traveled along near Tempo (He couldn’t get into Tempo, but that could be because of some of the wards Vivi had tried setting up.), lure the Mystery Skulls (especially Arthur) into the mansion, separate them, bring Arthur to his location, kill Arthur, and reunite with the girls and Mystery, with possible minor changes as were needed.  He was also open to making Arthur confess what happened to the girls (They must not have seen what happened to just go along with him.) before killing him.

The plan started to unravel as soon as the van came to a stop in front of his mansion.  Part of that was because instead of rushing into the mansion on the heels of Vivi like he was expecting, they stayed in the van. And stayed.  A lot longer than he recalled them ever doing so when he was alive.

Part of it was indirectly Sydney’s fault.  He’d known that her aura was potent against malevolent spirits and the like, but he hadn’t really appreciated it until he felt it pressing down on him.  From all the way outside.  He found himself rubbing his temples.  Ow.  No wonder the nastier spirits went out of their way to avoid her.  He was actually leaking some energy.  He could last for some time as long as he was careful, but theoretically, they could just stay in the van until he was too drained to keep them here.  If they tried that, he’d have to go out and confront them.  Not something he wanted to do, but if it became necessary…

Lewis wondered why he was being affected in the first place.  He wasn’t evil…Well, okay, he did want to kill Arthur.  That was justified, but maybe it was gray enough for Sydney’s ability to categorize him as malevolent.  If that was the case, then it would probably stop after he killed Arthur and no longer had any desire to hurt someone.

Lewis was dragged from his musings as several figures started exiting the van.  Finally!  Lewis quickly started setting up the finishing touches of his plan.

It was time to end this. 

Arthur had to admit defeat.  “I’ll need to look under the hood, and I don’t want to do that in front of a haunted mansion.”  He sighed. “I don’t wanna go inside either.”

Sydney had been staring at the mansion the whole time.  She could see the music.  And anger. This eye was so weird.  “I think you’d be okay.  Pretty sure my aura will reach that far.”

Mystery could confirm that her aura did extend that far and would retain enough potency to be effective. Not that he could tell them, but it was certainly a weight off his shoulders.

Vivi started handing out various items for protection and fighting.  “It’s a tough choice.  Stay out here alone but relatively safe or go inside with us to stay close to Sydney and me.”

Arthur groaned. If he was less worried about the girls’ safety he would stay outside, but he couldn’t help but worry that if he let them go inside that he would never see them again.  It had happened before.  Even if he couldn’t do anything to protect them, he could draw fire away from them.

“I think I’ll go with you guys,” Arthur decided.

Sydney and Vivi studied him for a moment before Sydney suddenly bit her thumb and smeared some blood in the center of his forehead.  “Just in case.”

Arthur instinctively looked up with crossed eyes for a moment.  “Uh.  Okay. I guess that’ll work.”

“It should. There is power in blood,” said Vivi as she gave him some holy water and slipped a beaded necklace over his head and under his shirt.  “We can try practicing making protective symbols with it too.”

Sydney chuckled. “Like an anime.”  She nodded.  “Anything that you think will help.”

Arthur fought down the urge to wipe at the blood on his forehead.  “Can I just say that I don’t like having other people’s blood on me?” It brought back bad memories.

Sydney winced. “Oh.  Sorry.  Should’ve asked first, shouldn’t I?”

Arthur took a deep breath.  “I’m fine. I’ll be fine.  You said it might help so it’s something to try.”  The blood itched on his forehead.  “But I am totally scrubbing it off when we get out of here.”

Vivi nodded. “Sounds like a decent enough compromise.”  She handed an ofuda to Sydney.  Sydney smeared some more blood on the back of it.  “I don’t want either of you getting hurt again.  You’re just starting to get back to where you were before.”

That made both of them wince.  The last few months of learning to live with new handicaps had been difficult and frustrating in several ways.  They didn’t want a repeat with themselves or Vivi or Mystery.

All four of them silently vowed to protect the others.

The walk up to the mansion’s front door took just a few seconds.  Vivi knocked on the doors (She was concerned that the inhabitants would be excited by Arthur knocking and see Sydney knocking as a declaration of war.), which creaked open ominously.  The inched in, the doors slamming shut behind them.

The darkness didn’t last long enough for them to pull out flashlights.  Several purple wisps of fire floated by and lit candles lined along the walls and set on a chandelier.

Vivi absently noted that the layout kind of reminded her of the Spencer mansion, except a lot more purple.

“Sydney, stop humming.”

“Oops.  Didn’t notice-”

Several purple ghosts suddenly popped up.  “Who-o-o-o-oa!”

Most of the group immediately tensed up.  Vivi didn’t immediately though.  “Cute!”

They really were adorable…until more popped up behind them.  “This time I might just disa-Who-o-o-o-who-o-o-oa!”  They suddenly got pointy toothed with claws. “Oh yeah!”

Nope.  They took off running down the hallway through break in the ghosts.

“This time I might just disappear!”

A suit of armor suddenly lunged towards them and swung an ax.  Sydney and Vivi dove under the ax.  Arthur vaulted over it.  Mystery barely dodged it, having to use his kitsune magic to retract his head into his body.

“Gah!”

“Mystery!”

“)%$*&$^#$(%^)*%(&%*&$&!”

Mystery popped his head back out before any uncomfortable questions could be asked.

“Who-o-o-o-who-o-o-oa…”

They abruptly realized that the paintings lining the hall were moving.  They suddenly leapt out.  “Oh yeah!”

The Mystery Skulls leapt into each other’s arms.  Thankfully, the portrait spirits pulled back into the paintings.  “Who-o-o-o-oa…”  And then the lady painting reached out and pulled a rope next to her painting.

A trapdoor opened under them.  They fell down screaming, and things became bizarre, even by their standards.  They weren’t falling as quickly as they should be. It was more like they were floating.  Not to mention there were several random items in the space with them.  A few hours later, they would comment on how it was oddly reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland.

They floated past several mirrors.  Vivi was a bit confused by the fact that her reflection had completely purple eyes. From what Mystery could see in his cracked mirror they could see past glamours.  Arthur was facing away from the mirrors so he didn’t see that they failed to reflect his prosthetic.  Sydney did faintly notice this but was a bit distracted by how her reflection showed her right after her injury with her remaining eye leaking various colors from it.

Then Arthur’s fall suddenly sped up.  Vivi and Sydney made to grab him, but just missed him.  Then they noticed Sydney was falling even slower and tried to grab each other, but it was too late again.

Sydney let out an ‘oof’ and shot to her feet as she landed.  “I’m armed!” she shouted, brandishing the ofuda.  She turned around.  There were a bunch of boxes, a dusty bed with no covers, and… a mannequin in a wedding dress and holding an ax?  Sydney thought she was in the basement until she noticed some windows that she ran over to.  She felt her brain short circuit.  “How the *&^*) do you fall down into the attic?!”

Vivi and Mystery had landed in a kitchen where a pair of dagwood sandwiches were laid out on the center counter.  The two stared at them for several moments but managed to pull themselves away. “Right.  Separated…We should look for Arthur first.  Sydney can take care of herself in this sort of situation.” Her stomach growled.  Mystery’s growled even louder.  “…I wonder if it would be safe to grab a few pieces.”

Arthur landed on his ass in what was probably the basement.  He absentmindedly glanced upward in confusion (How did that work? Ghost logic was so weird.) before zeroing in on a large coffin with a skull and thorny vine design on the top of the lid.  It was beating like the rest of the house.

Not good.

The coffin slowly opened, revealing a jawless skull floating above a large body in a nice suit.

Lewis narrowed his eye sockets as he floated out and slammed his feet in front of Arthur.  He glared at his murderer, full of hate and anger.

Arthur stared in fear, unable to recognize his dead friend.  All he saw was a scary, probably powerful, likely dangerous ghost that had separated him from his friends.

Lewis broke the silence by pointing a finger at Arthur.  “Fuck, it’s you I hate the most.”

Arthur gulped and pointed at himself.  “Buh-buh-Why?”

It was a reasonable question from Arthur’s point of view.  Lewis…it did occur to him that he wasn’t as recognizable without his face.  He lit the braziers and let his hair form. “Does this answer your question?!”

No, it didn’t, but Arthur decided he wasn’t going to explain that this was a case of mistaken identity to a ghost that probably wasn’t going to listen.  He threw the vial of holy water, turned on his heel, and ran.

Lewis did recoil a bit at the holy water.  He was a fire ghost.  Water stung even if it wasn’t holy.  Then he threw it off, decided this was proof of Arthur’s guilt, and gave chase.

Arthur was in good shape (He didn’t understand how he was still so healthy when he’d been hospitalized and locked in his workroom so much for the last few months.) and used to running from scary things.  He glanced behind him and saw the ghost practically flying towards him.  No more glancing back.  He put on a burst of speed.

Oh, hey, Vivi and Mystery.  “Angry ghost! Run!”

Vivi and Mystery looked away from the sandwiches they were still debating eating.  They looked in the direction Arthur came from, threw the sandwiches at the angry ghost, and ran after Arthur.  Lewis didn’t bother trying to avoid the sandwich contents and flew right through them.

“We need to find Sydney!” shouted Vivi.

“Where is she?!” shouted Arthur.

“I don’t know!”

Mystery could feel that Sydney had ended up in the attic and was managing to work her way down. He pulled ahead and ran up some stairs, Arthur and Vivi close behind him.  They ran through a bunch of doors and rooms.

Sydney heard the racket and threw open the door of the room she’d wandered into.  “Angry Elvis ghost!”

That threw Lewis for a loop.  “Elvis? Are you kid-”  He saw the eyepatch.  “What happened to your-”

Sydney threw an ofuda at him.  Lewis yelped and pulled it off.  That hurt!

“You stay away from Arthur!” demanded Sydney.

That hurt almost as much as the ofuda.  “You don’t get it.  He-”

Vivi darted back and grabbed Sydney.  “What’re you waiting for?!”  She then dragged Sydney off.

Okay, Vivi and Sydney didn’t know about his murder.  Somehow. Maybe it was post traumatic amnesia or something.  Clearly, this needed to be remedied.  Also, why was Sydney wearing an eyepatch?  She wasn’t wearing an eyepatch for the heck of it.  There’d been scars peeking out.  He gave chase, now equally intent on telling Vivi and Sydney what happened along with killing Arthur.

He threw fire to keep Arthur from moving down a hallway.  Arthur turned and stared at him fearfully.  Lewis felt his desire for vengeance clawing up his heart.

And then Vivi and Sydney put themselves between them, Vivi with her arms outstretched as if to shield Arthur as much as possible, Sydney with her hands up as if she was prepared to fight him.

This was wrong. Vivi and Sydney were supposed to be on his side.  He wasn’t the enemy!  He just needed…Maybe…Yes.  That would work.  He willed his anchor towards them.

They just needed to see the proof of who he was, that they knew him.

The flames died down. Arthur was certain he knew the way to the front door from this spot.  He grabbed Vivi and Sydney and booked it.

Vivi and Sydney glanced back once.

Mystery made sure to take up the rear.

Lewis stared in disbelief and heartbreak as his murderer and the love(s?) of his life and (more than) best friend.

And his anchor fell and broke.

And Lewis switched to frustration and anger and despair and why did this happen to him?! Why why why?!

He screamed, pouring his everything into it as his fire erupted around him.

The living Mystery Skulls barely made it through the doors in time to avoid being burned alive. Mystery might have had something to do with it.  They rushed to the van.  “Go go go!”

Arthur revved the van. It started.  “I’m going!”

They peeled out of there.

None of them saw the figure watching them from one of the high windows.  Lewis watched as the van drove away.  He pressed down on his cracked anchor and looked at the picture inside.

It was from shortly after he and Vivi started dating.  He had an arm around Vivi, who was hugging him.  Sydney had an arm thrown over his shoulder while he used his free arm to support her.  No Arthur. The three of them were smiling and happy and whole and alive.

They could never go back to that.

Lewis barely noticed the tear running down his face as he finally passed out and returned to his anchor, the house fading around him.