#in one handy place

[convexicalcrow]

All The Fkn Lore Drops From Mythical J. Sausage's Empires Stream on Feb 4, 2023

And I mean, ALL OF THEM.

(source: Sausage's Empires livestream 4/2/23)

(commentary is in parentheses)

No time stamps bc this took long enough as it is and my hands would not forgive me if I did anything more. There are some approximate time markers I chucked in as I went but nothing specific.

Also this is Very Long, there are like 3.5k words of notes I took while watching this. I mostly focused on the lore stuff, but there's also a bit of extraneous commentary as well and some suggestive quotes I had to include. But yeah. Mostly it is lore, which says a lot lol.

we (the audience) are the watchers (from Evo lore) watching Sausage

he can see us, bc he can see everything (like Dr Strange apparently idk shit about Marvel stuff tho frfr) and he can communicate with us

he's had these powers for millenia but he's now unlocked them bc he's woken from his watcher slumber. bc the rift gave him his memories back from every life he's ever lived.

he literally said Sir Carlos is dead, everyone's dead, but he's not going over old/dead lore.

(please remember him saying Sir Carlos is dead, bc he gives us some Sir Carlos lore later on that contradicts this)

promises to put signs up for everyone who becomes a member (he will live to regret this at the end of the stream lol)

(sausage after dark needs to happen plz sausage i need the fwimmy fanfics bc ofc he ships fwhimmy lmao)

lore trees! done with magic. based on the Tree of Whimsy. Mini Trees of Whimsy.

suggests stealing the Tree of Whimsy from Bdubs like a normal person lol

he will worship Sun God Bdubs and communicate with him one day

there's Something in the Cathedral that's lore-related that he can't show us (may be in the ep that's coming out today?)

if he goes back in time, he can see The General

gotta shake Sunny's hand when you greet him

Bubbles and Athena have been fighting for two days; she stole Bubble's food lol. Athena guards Sunny.

Eddie always wants to go visit Oli, but Oli's never around, and it's dangerous in the Olipelago.

Eddie's getting Thicccc, been working out a lot lately.

Eddie's going to the Olipelago for two weeks for a holiday. That's Canon lol.

rip Diedre the Dodo ;_; (literally NO ONE spelt her name properly bc Ren's accent is a hot mess. XD)

makes a point of telling Sgorby that he's gonna start making out with everyone on the hardcore server now

he technically knows about the Wither Rose Alliance now. But he's not supposed to tell ppl that he knows, bc it might fuck with things. Black Collar Bubbles told him not to tell ppl. Could rip spacetime.

normal things he does in Sanctuary: he's just walking around, doing some farming, checking the visitor centre, that kind of thing.

leatherworker shop for Maria??

Maria's single and looking for love in all the wrong places.

Just looking for a good time, not to get locked down with anyone. Bunnies are party people.

Carlos has been living in the tavern, hasn't had his trades locked in.

Came in on a boat a while back and been living in the tavern ever since.

Could it be Sir Carlos? Maybe, maybe not.

OG Sir Carlos is long gone in this world.

Hermes is home-schooled, so they don't really need a public school system.

Hermes is the only child in Sanctuary. All the other children are in other realms/elsewhere/not in Sanctuary.

Technically Sunny is a child, 2 wks old, but they're an AI system so. Smarter than everyone in this world.

Technically did you see Sir Carlos die? In lore and in canon? Did you ever see him die at the end of the season? The last thing we saw of him was that he had to leave suddenly. We didn't see him go. He had to leave, go off on an adventure, he couldn't say, had to go somewhere specific. Sir Carlos is cursed, turned into a chicken by some other being. Legendary knight who's been around for a very long time. Is he immortal? Not immortal, but very powerful. Has been known to shapeshift. Technically he could be somewhere in the background. Maybe he came from an adventure somewhere, just showed up. Not as a knight anymore. But maybe, just maybe, be might have found us again, he says, looking at Carlos the villager. Came on boats, both time. Funny that. Sir Carlos of Mythland usually comes on a boat at a dock. From time to time. Whenever he's needed. So yeah. Strange.

(3 hours isn't a long stream, Sausage, not when you watch Cub's speedrunning vods lmao)

Can Sir Carlos dimension jump? He's a special being- er, person. Gods love your boy, and superpowered beings too. They gravitate to him. It's nbd.

We will see more of Sir Carlos later. Sausage has Plans.

Keralis and Bdubs were the first tutorial/series he watched, and he got to kiss them both in lore and in canon

jimmy villain arc fanfic tiem!

jimmy is a toy backstory, then the villain arc.

(i'm only 43 mins in btw lolololol)

jimmy's villain arc, chapter one, by mythical j. sausage:

jimmy's a toy and everyone knows it except jimmy. then he has a realisation. why is my skin so hard? oh, i'm made of wood! D: looks back as a shot fires, and out comes a demon, was it xornoth? No! a western demon, dressed all in black. I cursed you boy, and now you can see. Everyone sees it, open your eyes, boy. I did it, you're gonna do nothing about it. You're right! I was blinded this whole time! Demon disappeared, laughing his whole time. Hit by lightning, the wood starts burning! He starts melting and turns into a pile of ash! The demon comes back. He waves his hands in the air and the ash spews up into the air, all jimmy ashes, and it creates Jimmy from the ground up, but now he's made of ash. Eyes are dead. Yeeehaaaa motherfucker! Cursing up a storm now, and goes around killing everyone. Can fly into the sky like an ash tornado. Demon tells him to murder all the empires. So he goes, and the tornado goes out the door of the saloon. Shoots a gun, has two six shooters now. Goes all the way to Stratos, to kill Joel. His first victim. Jimmy goes to Stratos, straight into the heart of the god's realm, to take out Joel, for all the time he called him a toy, even though he was right. Passes the statue of Saint Peril and donkey Jeremy. Jimmy's cussing all over the place, no longer PG. More lighting! Joel's clapping his cheeks! Just practicing lol. Sausage wasn't around, he was resting under a tree in Sanctuary. Look, it's the stupid little toy! Jimmy's cursing and shooting Joel in the face several times. Empties his guns. Joel's dead. Has just killed a god. Jimmy laughs. Bullets were made with some kind of evil juice that enabled him to kill a god. Then Hermes shoots into the sky! Looks down at evil Jimmy! He's mad! You killed my father! D: You're gonna die now, little man! Jimmy looks up at Hermes flapping his little wings on his feet. Always wanted to kill you! But Hermes doesn't let him finish and shoots him in the eye with lightning and Jimmy explodes into ash. The demon appears and is like, you can't do that! but Hermes kills him too. He's crying now, going down to daddy Joel. Not today, Daddy, and kissed him on the forehead, and Joel came back to life. What happened? The toy's dead, no need to worry about him anymore. Oh, cool! Starts clapping his cheeks again lol. The End. (this is paraphrased in places but that's the gist of it)

it's fanfic not canon, jimmy's a good man.

Empires!Sausage would write his own fanfiction about his friends. It's Canon.

yassify that demon! he says about the western demon he created lol.

(i will Not document the slander happening rn frfr)

(ya boi is procrastinating real hard on the tree clearing ngl)

next fanfic is what evil sausage was doing while he was away

is it gonna be headcanon or lore? who knows?

(one hour in and we have started cutting trees)

(we're tree-clearing for a Lore Build)

("the bush is more important than the sapling")

(he loves False's lore as well <3)

evil sausage can't be the good twin.

s2 Sausage is Extra Good now. s1 Sausage had Issues, did some bad stuff. Mix of good and bad. But this version of him has zero evilness. Nothing bad now. Goodest of the good boys. It's bc Gem in s1 took every bit of corruption and badness in him. There's nothing left. He jokes around, but there's no evil intent. The Other Sausage has all of Sausage's evilness.

you do need a little bit of both though. Being completely good can mess things up in the future. Too much of a good thing can be bad, he says, so keep that in mind. (<_<)

there's no canon on the hardcore server, just killing everyone at the end lol.

"Oh no my chests are gone!" he says as he enters his storage room, before they appear a moment later. "That's lore!" (right, ofc it is)

("This is my one and only junk drawer, don't tell Pearlescent Moon")

Blood sheep are long since gone, and can't come back. They're gone. Been thousands of years since they were last seen. Might be elsewhere but he won't be investigating.

are blood sheep extinct? technically he hasn't seen them in a very long time, but he's also very far away from where mythland would have been so maybe they're around there? but no one's seen them for generations. they're not around here.

all blood sheep are red sheep but not all red sheep are blood sheep - he's talked with all the red sheep he's found around Sanctuary and they're just regular sheep.

The Mythland Song! D: It's apparently now the dimension warping song. He has to warp dimensions every time it comes up now. >_>

(he has sound effects and everything >_>)

(I SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING SAUSAGE)

(1h 20min in for those keeping check of the time)

Bubbles told him not to do this, but he's here now so.

"I got warped back, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine…"

We're just in another realm.

Can't get into the summoning circle tho. >_>

There are blood sheep around.

About an hour before the End Times.

Xornoth could be around, bc he was around at this time, but doesn't know where he is.

Going to look for Bubbles now.

Just minding his own business when he met Xornoth for the first time.

Thinking of warping the blacksmith into Sanctuary bc he needs an autosmelter. It's where he first met Xornoth as well. >_>

Going to see The General. :D

(Bubbles is the ultimate being but forget he said that >_>)

Blood Sheep Lore! After they rained down on Mythland! What caused them to rain down? 1) he sent Evil Sausage into that pocket dimension, an exact copy of this world. It was other blood sheep from that world too, and Evil Sausage destroyed Mythland in that world, including the blood sheep, for absolutely no purpose. They're happy to be sacrificed for a greater purpose. But if there's no greater purpose to their sacrifice, they get angry. That's why they got upset with Sausage. 2) the salmon/cod explosion ALSO caused it, and that triggered the big explosion of blood sheep to rain down on them. They became cannibalistic. Ate everything and everyone out in these realms. General was eaten alive. Villagers dead. Every animal, person, being got eaten by blood sheep as revenge for what Sausage did. Went on for many, many years. He can never save the people in Mythland. He couldn't change it. Ate everything in sight until the only thing left was blood sheep.

He's gone downstairs after seeing House Horse. There are blood sheep down here too. and he looks at the cells and he's like, …wait. am I in the wrong… Mythland? D: is this where-…? wait. no is this where evil me… did he rebuild-? D: i have to leave now. leaves immediately bc that [the bars of the left hand cell I am assuming] were open last time.

we're fine, we're back.

In denial about it being That Mythland. It was probably regular Mythland right? And he wasn't there that long. It's fine. He's fine. It wasn't where Evil Me was. Just coincidence that thing was sealed up.

evil sausage def isn't hanging around looking for a way to get back, trying to cling onto me and find his way back here (or words to that effect, ya boi mumbled that a bit ngl)

(tangent about the mcytblr sexyman polls bc ofc)

(scar is a very sexy man, and sausage is 100% right and he should say it)

(ftr i still kinda don't really get the tumblr sexyman concept even though i have tried to understand it but you do you tumblr <3 i am just enjoying the chaos and the fun and the polls lol)

someone tells sausage that shelby's got a lil skulk thing going on and he's rightfully a lil concerned about that

promising something special with lore in the next ep, very good lore.

is the story over now the crossover's done? well, that was like the mid-season finale for that ep with the crossovers, bringing that arc to a close. Still a lot of stories left to tell. A lot of things and unanswered questions from lore which will be coming back before the end. Pages and pages of written stuff that he's been planning, and we're not even close to getting to that spot. Don't worry, there's a lot to come. Wanted the Pearl thing to feel very special. All the unanswered stuff will be answered before the end. No end date yet. There's story things to get to, and things that are gonna build on that, so there's no end date yet. Things gonna ramp up very soon and a lot of crazy things are gonna happen.

Sausage the matchmaker, pretty much everyone he matches up works out

before all things said and done, The Chart is gonna be a billboard. Gonna get with every new person lol, add all kinds of weird things to the chart. Out of spite, but also out of fun. (i think it was out of fun, it was hard to catch that word)

("wood daddy chopping wood and slandering people in the chat room")

("at least you put it in the back and not in the front")

evil sausage: what is he doing now? is the title of the next fanfic lol

(lowkey appreciating the lack of lore in this part of the stream bc my hands needed a break lol)

invisible axolotls? D: D: D:

the song playing rn is the one where he met Pearl from the crossover and it wasn't Santa Perla and he needed consoling. But he remembers her now.

Pearl's holding her godly powers back so she can be a normal person for once.

if e2!Sausage was an animal, he'd be a lion. like mufasa. he likes tragic characters (yeah I had noticed Sausage lol) big giant mane, furry chest, etc.

wood-chopping sausage with a lil fur on his chest.

(irl sausage would pick a lion as well.)

"look, that's magic! there's a lore with that" - sausage about a floating vine

there's a cat that's been hanging around ever since he settled in Sanctuary and that cat may be important to the story. (it's an ocelot)

ppl are reporting on jimmy stealing the dragon egg on the hardcore server, and he's like, i'm on Empires I can't go over there and kill him now!

("oh my mouth hole got moistened")

(I am not writing out your fanfics Sausage. Except for summarising them for this post)

the song from Afterlife where Vampire Scott killed Angel Sausage. He came back as the evil wither man. But in order to do that, he had to have the blood sucked from him.

who buried Angel Sausage? Was it Scott? bc he felt bad for killing him? Maybe Oli. Probably Oli. Or Scott. Let's say it was Oli bc it makes sense in lore. After he killed him, he came back to finish the job and suck him dry, and then Oli buried him in the grave. Then he came back as an evil wither man.

then Oli came back and sang him a song while Sausage shot himself into the sun

will it be real lore or fanfiction for evil sausage? we'll have to find out

technically, you know how this area [Sanctuary] is Latin-inspired? For all the ppl who watched Afterlife, what was the first angel Sausage build style? It was Spanish-inspired. A Spanish hacienda. How odd that he would have picked that build style to start out his life as angel Sausage. Hinting that that is the style he wanted to do after coming back from the Afterlife and Pearl sent him down. And what is the first style he did after coming back from the Afterlife? Spanish. Latin. Columbian. Lorelorelorelorelore.

from the beginning he wanted Afterlife to be connected to Empires s2 and his afterlife after s1.

"we've had a lot of lore drops today" looks at my 2.8k words of lore notes that isn't even finished yet yeah just a lil bit o.o

(and now Sausage's new ep has gone up, and I will Not watch it until I'm done with this stream)

(~30 mins to go)

("Oh it's 5am for you? I'm sorry. Have you tried not living in the weirdest time zone?" cries in GMT+8, the Worst time zone ;_; this was not about my time zone I don't think bc I don't have chat on when watching yt streams/vods bc it moves too fast but I felt that so hard)

evil sausage lore/fanfic tiem!

is this actual lore or am i telling you now a fanfiction about evil sausage in another realm? will i say if it's real or not? we'll see what happens.

this is called 'the story of evil sausage a.k.a sausage supreme a.k.a the bratwurst man a.ka. that boi thicc but he evil a.k.a who hurt you?'

back when he was sent back to another realm. he's pure evil. upset. angry over time. after swallowing xornoth and getting all the power that he possessed, he became stronger. still trapped in a pocket dimension. he went to every empire in search of clues to find a way out. days passed, months passed, years passed. his powers only grew as he found many old tomes in old libraries. he needed an outlet to use those powers. blood sheep were still around. but blood sheep weren't the only night creatures out at that time. other creatures too from other realms. every one he found he devoured to get stronger. back then, every single life was sucked away, never to be seen again.

(cue Oli gatecrashing)

the evil bratwurst man couldn't hold it in any longer.

(oli has muted a tab with the stream open and doesn't realise it for a hot minute)

"I'm doing fanfiction lore of my evil self!"

the evil version of me actually did escape one time. how did he do it? he did it by accident. he decided to sacrifice himself like sausage did through the summoning circle. why? bc he couldn't take it anymore. he was done being all alone in a pocket universe and wanted to end his life. so he did it in the summoning circle. where did he end up? in the council with the other bubbles. they didn't know what was happening, freaked out, what's he doing here in the spirit realm? every other bubbles wanted to banish him. but one wanted to give him another chance. so she sent him somewhere else. he left that pocket universe. was it the grey collared bubbles? maybe it was. well, if you're going to let him loose, you have to watch him. so that's why whenever you see him, you also see her. could this be lore? could this be real? or could this be fanfiction? whenever we travelled to see him, all of mythland wasn't destroyed. why would that specific mythland we saw in perfect condition? also wonders what's stopping him from sacrificing himself again and travelling here? idk what is stopping him. is it the bubbles? is he only trapped in that dimension? he's no longer in the pocket universe. the man is on his own. only that bubbles is there to stop him. if anything were to happen to that bubbles, who knows where he could go? she's the meanest bubbles. she's the bubbles that likes to hurt ppl. if something ever happened to that bubbles, or if sausage went there and they joined together, there's many ways he could escape, but he's in his own timeline in mythland. apparently one that there's no one there to stop him. probably why we saw Wither Rose Alliance heads in the dark tower bc maybe he murdered everyone. Is this real lore and canon? Or is this fanfiction? who knows? could be either one! :D

how could be still be alive after 1000 years?

what if he's not in the future, but it's still just the past for him?

never said his timeline matches his own.

can only travel to dimensions he knows.

time has passed but not that long.

if evil sausage joined with sausage would he become his ultimate self? who knows?

some nice juicy lore, or was it fanfiction? :D?

sausage refusing to clarify whether this is lore or not, which makes me feel like It's Definitely Lore bc he was Very Clear about clarifying the fanfic earlier.

(well done, 3.5k words of lore notes, ty sausage DX)

(sausage just wants to eat his bagel and ppl keep becoming members lmao)

And we're done.

collapses

goes to watch Sausage's new ep and then go to bed

[whorishirishpunk]

my battle jacket! pls excuse lack of patches on the back, i started this last friday. pretty proud of it thus far. any tips?

[goatsandgangsters]

another reason jack and alan didn't fuck on the lyric is that jack force fed alan his entire bottle of lube when he was unconscious and didn't have any more

(meanwhile there’s alan, waking up on the floor and a beautiful man is pointing a gun at him and his mouth inexplicably tastes like olive oil and he’s gotta be like “okay either a microaggression happened... or the ancestors are speaking to me and they want me to fuck this man.”)

[toomanycharr]

A reminder that male and female charr have different horn/ear set ups!

(Of course, do what you want but- It seems a lot of newer charr people just don't know!)

[hellfire--cult]

i had to.

[flamingspud]

The Clockers Family Modern Au Master Post (Chronologically)

Moths to the Flame

Little Brother

Jimmy’s Little Shadow

Nights Like These

Bdubs’ Best most Brilliant Plan

Nosy Neighbours

The Ballad of Etho’s Dishwasher

How to Defend your Brother’s Honour (Goes Horribly Wrong)

An Alright Day

The Ranch

Oh, Rats!

Babysitter

Study Pals

Christmas with the Clockers

Father Figure

Bdubs Runs Away

The Drawing.

Mother’s Day

Sleepover Shenanigans

Party Rockers

Fun at the Funfair

Sick Day

A Very Clocker Christmas

Fanworks because omg they’re so cool ahxhjzhcbs-

An Alright Day (fan art!)

As the Clock Mocks Me from Across the Room (fanfic!)

[trilliath]

Looks like we're having a real normal one here in the voter's guide this year 🤣

[gibbearish]

ive seen ppl saying smth in the wider plagiarism discussion to the tune of "don't worry anxious people, it's impossible to accidentally plagiarize!" and i feel like that lacks a lot of nuance that anxious brains like mine latch on to to just dismiss the possibility outright, as well as a lack of life experiences fueling it.

it is possible to "accidentally plagiarize" in that you can read something, forget about it, then a while later have your brain spit the ideas back out without telling where it got them. so of course you just assume they're yours and share them as such, because That's Where Most Of The Thoughts In Your Head Come From! and it both is and isn't plagiarism, you weren't /intending/ to pass someone's else's work off as your own, i'd even say in a way you were just as much a victim of misinformation as your audience. but you very much so did still resuse the work of someone else, even if you don't remember it.

but in my experience, this kind of thing also happens to a lot of people. you tell a friend a joke then wake up in a cold sweat two days later realizing the reason they didnt laugh was because they'd told you that joke a month ago. you reply to a friend's text and after sending you realized you ended it with the same exact phrase as theirs. you're writing edgy poetry and write a line you really like only to see it in a text post two days later saying youve already liked the post. like, it happens. so if it DOES happens and you're just honest and explain, people will understand. something like "oh shit im sorry, i totally have read that, i mustve forgotten and only remembered bits and pieces and just thought they were mine. thank you for letting me know and for the source" works wonders.

people know you can forget things. people won't automatically doubt your apology just because all true plagiarists say it was accidental. HOPEFULLY people can understand the nuance between a genuine remorseful explanation, and a thief who hoped no one would find out scrambling for excuses for why they did it. and those who can't, that's a them problem, not a you problem, you've taken responsibility for your actions as much as you can. they think the answer is simple, that the only thing stopping you from saying "yes i did it on purpose, i knew the whole time and deliberately copied them" is shame/inability to admit to your actions. but sometimes things AREN'T that simple, so imo ppl who are shitty to you for not following the script they made up for you in their head should be ignored

[belovay]

anyways as a general note / reminder, yelena is also not a s.h.i.e.l.d. agent.

[hiddenbeks]

what if next year i learned how to make mods.. hehe

[idolcandy]

Merry Christmas! And for the first time in 19 years, Hanukkah day 1 falls on the 25th as well. Chag sameach!

Alexa, play Party for Everybody by those Russian Eurovision Grannys

[storm-of-feathers]

enough of that bc its too much work but if you unironically like the old web scene stuff go follow @xx-featherz-xx . It's the only one of my feather blog subsets that's active

[lil-melody-moon]

I started wondering lately if there's something like addiction to reading. Now that I have free afternoons - them ending in October - I have 400+ pages book for one week and then I crave to read more.

Even during semesters I much rather preferred to read than to do anything on pc. It was a good way to let my eyes rest, after some classes where I had to use pc. And after using phone too much because some classes were just fucking boring - watch me searching for pdfs of books from "Jedi Apprentice" and reading them during lectures or watch me reading books on Legimi if my public Library gets the access to it.

[010101010101000]

omg i’ve been using the lose it! app for the past week and i really liked it but i went to check my fasting timer and calories and stuff and my fast is gone. i had a 1 week trial of premium but i didn’t know fasting was a premium feature :,) FUCK

[azikarue]

MayBlade 2023 : Day 8 : Glitter

Daichi/Ming-Ming | FFN Rating: K | FFN Link ❖ “Atta boy, Strata Dragoon!” Daichi cried as his beyblade landed one last powerful blow.

The force of the hit sent Ming-Ming’s blade flying into the forest, where it embedded in one of the trees with a sickening crunch. A flock of birds fled in a mass of flapping wings and fallen feathers, after which the clearing was strangely quiet.

“Oh, no – Venus!” Ming-Ming ran to free her beyblade as the dust settled.

Daichi recalled Strata Dragoon. It hit his palm forcefully, but his hands were calloused enough that he barely felt it. He gave his blade a cursory once over – a few bumps and bruises, but nothing Kenny couldn’t help him iron out – before shoving it back into his pocket and turning his attention to his opponent.

Ming-Ming was delicately picking her way back out of the forest, her beyblade clutched against her chest.

“It’s not broken, is it?” he asked when she made it out.

Ming-Ming opened her hand to reveal Venus cradled inside. It looked fine from where Daichi was standing and he breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t need her teammates coming after him about dicing up her beyblade before the tournament had even started. He’d just been so eager for another battle…

“It looks okay…”

Ming-Ming gave him a smile that would make steam come out of Kenny’s ears.

“Just a little scratched,” she confirmed and slotted her blade back into the case strapped around her leg. She gestured to the wide open space that served as the scene of their battle and said, “The landscape is worse off.”

Daichi looked around at the deep trenches their blades had cut into the ground and shrugged. “Nothin’ a good rain won’t fix.”

Ming-Ming giggled. She was always doing that, laughing at him when he didn’t mean to be funny. He could tell his confusion was showing on his face, but Ming-Ming didn’t bother explaining herself. Instead, she took a deep breath of the sea air and walked to the edge of the lookout.

Daichi joined her. It felt rude to walk away when he’d been the one to invite her here to battle. He should’ve known she’d want to look at the scenery afterward. Girls liked that kind of junk. He guessed it was nice; the stairs lined with trees, the clearing with benches, and a nice open view of the ocean below. A little polished for his tastes, but nice.

“Do you have a coin?”

“Huh?” Daichi looked up from the pebbles he was kicking past the railing and down into the water.

“For the binoculars,” Ming-Ming elaborated with another one of those smiles.

“Oh.” Daichi flushed; he felt flustered that she’d caught him not paying attention. He reached deep into his pockets and found one of the coins he kept on hand in case he ran into a really good vending machine. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, Daichi.” Ming-Ming’s hair bounced when she spun back around to face the ocean. Everything about her was bright and bubbly, but it didn’t get under his skin as much since BEGA went down. He thought that maybe it was because the leftover annoying traits belonged to her and not the caricature BEGA had splashed all over billboards.

“Yeah, sure.” He shrugged and leaned against the rail at the edge of the outlook.

Beside him, he heard the click of the coin dropping into the binoculars, followed by a metallic squeal as she turned them to take in the view.

Daichi sighed and drummed his fingers on the railing. He watched a couple birds floating on an updraft for a while. One of them dove down to snatch a fish out of the water before shooting off into the distance. The ripples it left behind disappeared in seconds, swallowed up by the pattern of the wind on the water.

“It’s so pretty here,” Ming-Ming said wistfully. The binoculars timed out with a click and she sidestepped closer to Daichi, their elbows brushing. “This would be a perfect location for a music video.”

“I guess…” Daichi mumbled. He had no opinion one way or another, but he knew somebody who would. “Hey are you coming out with any new music? Kenny’s been wondering since they announced the tournament.” Maybe if he brought an answer back, Kenny wouldn’t be too mad that he’d let Venus scratch up Strata Dragoon.

Ming-Ming hummed, suddenly stoic. She looked out to the horizon, letting the breeze brush her bangs out of her face and carry the sweet smell of her perfume away with it.

“Kind of.”

To Daichi, who’d been waiting for an answer that sounded like one of her old interviews, it was an odd response.

“What do you mean ‘kind of’?” he asked, studying her closely.

Ming-Ming looked pensive. She didn’t meet his eyes, instead gazing out over the water like she might find the answer to his question on the horizon somewhere.

“It’s hard,” she said, pausing hesitantly for a brief moment before continuing, “after everything that happened with Boris and BEGA.” She sighed and everything from the curls in her hair to the frills on her shorts seemed to droop as her shoulders did.

She was looking down now and Daichi was hoping against hope that she didn’t start to cry or something. “That wasn’t your fault,” he said, hoping she didn’t notice how alarmed he got when the next breath she took was shaky.

“My record label thought differently.”

Daichi remembered as soon as Ming-Ming said it; Kenny had cried about her label dropping her for weeks! He winced. “I’m sure you could find another one,” he said in a hasty effort to backtrack.

“It’s not just that,” she said, sad brown eyes meeting his. “A handful of labels have reached out. Some even thought we could capitalize on the tournament to boost sales. But all of them expect the Ming-Ming from before, and I don’t know if that’s who I want to be on stage anymore. I don’t know if she exists.”

“Oh.”

He’d always known that parts of Ming-Ming’s persona had to be exaggerated. Nobody was that over-the-top and irritating. But he was just now beginning to realize that a version of her had existed before BEGA, and she had been hurt as much as her other teammates by the whole thing.

“Yeah,” Ming-Ming said, smiling again. It didn’t reach her eyes. “It doesn’t help that every time I try writing songs, I get stuck. None of them come out like they used to.”

“Maybe they shouldn’t,” Daichi said with a shrug. He’d never cared for her old music, anyway. It was all earworms and repetition. She could probably do better.

“What do you mean?”

Daichi gulped, thinking for a second that he’d offended her. But when he snuck a glance, she just looked curious.

“Well…” He trailed off with a frown, furrowing his brows thoughtfully. He didn’t know how to elaborate without sounding like a jerk. He scanned the scenery, looking for anything that would help him get his point across so they could go back to normal.

“There!” he called, pointing out at the ocean with one hand. The sun was starting to set now, reflecting in a spray of colors over the surface of the water.

“The ocean?”

“It’s pretty, right?” he asked, fixing her with a fierce look.

“It’s beautiful.” Ming-Ming nodded. “Especially during the sunset.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty on the surface with the light shining on it and stuff,” Daichi scoffed, “but there’s more to it than that. There’s a whole world underneath that nobody ever gets to see that’s way more interesting than some waves and colors that go away after the sun sets.

“Would you rather somebody talk about the sunset over and over? Or learn about everything else hiding under the surface?”

Ming-Ming looked confused. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re all frills and fluff and glitter on the outside and that’s what BEGA made you focus on,” Daichi said, wrinkling his nose in distaste. He could go his entire life without ever hearing another ‘Hey! Hey!’. “But I think all the stuff stuck underneath is probably way more interesting. If all you write is more pop garbage like BEGA made you put out, you’re really just writing about the same thing over and over. It’s no wonder you’re stuck!”

Daichi finished with a firm nod. At some point he’d looked out at the water again. When he turned back to Ming-Ming, she was staring at him like she’d never seen him before. For a second he thought he saw tears shining in her eyes and was ready to hightail it outta there, but then she blinked and they were gone, replaced with some emotion he didn’t recognize.

Daichi cleared his throat. “Anyway, that’s my two cents,” he finished somewhat awkwardly, rocking back on his heels.

“Thank you, Daichi,” Ming-Ming said. Then, without warning, she grabbed his shoulders, leaned over, and kissed him on the cheek.

“Hey!” he shouted as she pulled back and started hurrying away. He could feel his face heating up. “What was that for?!”

Ming-Ming didn’t answer, but she did turn around once, at the bottom of the stairs, to wave goodbye.

Daichi watched her go until she reached the top and disappeared from sight, feeling completely clueless. Slowly, as if he was in a daze, he reached up and touched his fingers to his cheek. They came away covered in sparkly lip gloss and he snorted to himself.

He should tell her to keep a little glitter in there, too. For Kenny’s sake, of course.

[shynmighty]

Chapters: 3/? Fandom: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game) Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Female Jedi Consular/Rass Ordo Characters: Female Jedi Consular | Barsen'thor, Rass Ordo Additional Tags: Fluff and Angst, Denial of Feelings Summary:

A collection of prompts I've gotten on Tumblr for Aeseca/Rass, each are small, self-contained stories with a few connections to one another