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timeflies1007-blog · 6 years ago

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Doctor Who Reviews from a Female Doctor, Season 3, p. 2

Note: These reviews contain spoilers for Season 3 and other seasons of Doctor Who, including occasional references to the classic series.

The Lazarus Experiment: This isn’t a brilliant story, but it’s a very pleasant episode that lets Martha shine in a way that she hasn’t since “Smith and Jones.” Her scientific knowledge comes in useful, we get to watch her interact with her family, and the Doctor is, for the most part, being nice to her. He’s totally prepared to abandon her at the beginning, and he does try to pull the “one more trip” thing again at the end, but she stands up for herself and he changes his mind. In between these scenes, he’s really very charming and they work well together.

Although there were a couple of scenes with Martha’s family in “Smith and Jones,” this is our first extended look at them. It’s lovely to see more of them, but at the same time they do feel like a step down from the Tyler family. Jackie had a lot to say about Rose’s travels with the Doctor, but she also felt like an important character as an individual, with a life of her own and a genuine sense of loneliness that made her into a far more serious character than her earliest episodes might have suggested. I really like the actress playing Francine, but I had to go back and look up what the character’s name was when I started writing the reviews for Season Three. Throughout the season, she’s annoyed with Martha’s dad and concerned about Martha spending time with the Doctor, but there’s never much of an effort to paint outside of those lines. Her seconds-too-late voicemail at the close of the episode is a great way of incorporating information necessary for the Master plotline, but she’s so closely linked to the Harold Saxon plot, both here and later in the season, that there’s not enough attention to her as a person. Gugu Mbatha-Raw also seems underutilized in her role as Tish; it’s delightful to watch the two sisters run around London together, but she doesn’t get much to do and sort of weirdly goes from being creeped out by her elderly employer’s harassment to being somewhat attracted to him once he’s a younger-looking creep. On the whole, I like Martha’s family, but I don’t feel the kind of emotional investment in what happens to them that I did with Jackie or even Pete.

The plot itself is pretty thin, but it’s mostly engaging. Lazarus, who alternates between being Mark Gatiss and being a silly-looking monster, is an entertaining enough villain, and there’s some fun chaos as the Doctor and company try to stop him. He seems like a pretty terrible scientist, given that his machine would have just blown up entirely if the Doctor hadn’t been there and that he would have had to kill approximately half the United Kingdom in about a month at the rate he was going, but he’s a solid version of the hubristic genius figure. His conversation with the Doctor about his need to avoid death is nicely done as well, and death-by-church-organ is a great resolution. I forgot most of what had happened in this episode after the first time I watched it, but if it lacks anything memorable, it’s also really very enjoyable. B

42: This is basically what you would get if you took “The Satan Pit” and removed all of the philosophy and the joy. There are quite a few similarities, from the deep, spooky voice that infects various members of the crew to the TARDIS sealed off in an inaccessible part of the ship to the device of characters quickly running through a seemingly endless series of doors to the danger of the location itself (this time at the edge of the sun instead of the edge of a black hole.) I wouldn’t mind sitting through a retread of the black hole two-parter if we wound up with anything approaching the quality of the original—I would happily sit through an entire season of episodes with basically the same premise if they were as well-written as “The Satan Pit.” This one, though, doesn’t make rushing about in space anywhere near as fun, and it replaces the exploration of the Doctor’s beliefs with a contrived impending catastrophe. There are some strong scenes here, showing Chibnall’s potential as future showrunner, but it’s not exactly a strong debut for him.

Knowing that Chibnall would go on to cast the first female Doctor makes me look more closely at how his episodes work with gender, and on the plus side, he’s really very good at writing Martha. Her phone call to her mother from the escape pod is particularly well done, both as a depiction of Martha’s feelings and as an introduction to the government using Martha’s mother to get to her. She and the Doctor work well together here, and she has a wider emotional range than she gets in many other episodes this season. The rest of the women are so dull that I’m not even going to bother looking up their names, so I’ll just refer to them as Killed Immediately, Killed Almost Immediately, and Plot Device. The first of them dies so quickly that you barely have time to think “Oh, it’s that actress who was on Sherlock for a while” before she’s dead. In general, the minor characters are really weak here—nobody stands out, and the group as a whole doesn’t bring out anything interesting in Martha or the Doctor.

Much of the story unfolds either with surprising slowness for an episode that depicts a real-time fall into the sun, or with too much histrionics. The Doctor’s crazed reaction to looking into the living sun is interesting at certain moments, like when he admits that he’s scared and tries to tell Martha about regeneration, but there’s an awful lot of just writhing about or yelling awkward things like “You should have scanned!!!!” The whole notion of the sun as not just a living organism but one that is sentient enough to consciously stop pulling the ship toward itself once the fuel is returned is just such an odd notion that it comes across as an awfully silly plot contrivance; it’s not quite as overtly ridiculous as “the moon is an egg,” but it makes approximately as much sense to me. The escape pod being detached from the ship is more effectively alarming, but otherwise the situation of being minutes from destruction never actually feels dangerous.

Like “Gridlock,” we conclude an immensely boring episode with a strong final scene. This one isn’t quite as moving, but the final minutes, in which Martha kisses one of the crew members and the Doctor gives her a key to the TARDIS, is a nice conclusion to an episode that had a sort of underlying theme of regret over having left things undone or unsaid. It’s a lovely ending, but out of about 42 minutes of story, we get maybe six or seven minutes of compelling material. C+

Human Nature: After a mediocre string of episodes, Season Three gets properly underway with what has to be one of the best concepts of the entire reboot. Having the Doctor become human in order to evade his enemies is a brilliant idea, and the setting—just prior to World War I—gives him a beautiful place in which to experience that humanity. Tennant is just marvelous, even in moments when I’m uncertain about what I think of the story. He’s close enough in personality to the Doctor that he’s still recognizable, but his mannerisms are just different enough to present a truly distinct persona. It must have been a huge challenge to work out exactly how closely to hew to the Doctor’s usual personality, and both the writing and Tennant’s performance manage this perfectly. The memories that emerge from his real life as the Doctor are also handled extremely well through the device of his journal, which contains absolutely gorgeous pictures of people and monsters he has met.

As a “Tenth Doctor in Love” story, it’s definitely better than “The Girl in the Fireplace,” but I have some similar qualms about the focus on the Doctor as romantic hero rather than two characters as a romantic pairing. There’s nothing that I dislike about Joan, and she does get a couple of very good moments in the second part, but in this first part she doesn’t make much of an impression. I’ve tried for a while to come up with an adjective to describe her, and I’m still having a hard time…she’s competent, I guess? I really do think that the actress is good, and there’s more attention to her perspective here than there was with Reinette, but when I try to remember pieces of the episode, what I remember is the Doctor doing cute things (like falling down the stairs out of awkwardness!) in response to her rather than anything about Joan herself. It’s fascinating to watch the Doctor fall in love in a way that isn’t influenced by the constraints of his awareness of his species, but I never really get a sense of what attracts him to her.

Martha has to put up with even more than usual, between watching the Doctor fall in love with another woman who isn’t her and dealing with snotty, racist students. I’m not a huge fan of the decision to spend so much time on having her stare sadly at the Doctor’s instructional video—the notion that she is in very unrequited love with the Doctor has been hammered in quite enough prior to this point. Even the genuinely very tense cliffhanger at the end of the episode is basically played as another opportunity for the Doctor to compare Martha to another woman, which is tiresome. However, she gets a huge amount to do on her own here, and she is holding things together remarkably well. The script makes clear just how frustrating it is for Martha to be a highly-educated, twenty-first century woman pretending to be a servant in 1913, but her lovely friendship with Jenny brings a sense of warmth to the character that nicely counterbalances all of the nonsense that she has to deal with. Aside from her lovelorn staring at the instruction video, watching Martha in the TARDIS by herself is fantastic, as is the idea that she is basically watching over the Doctor. It’s a terrific reversal of their usual roles, and she’s very much up to the task.

This two-parter is the most attention that we get to Martha’s race this season, and it’s a much more serious take on the idea than what we saw in “The Shakespeare Code.” The Doctor’s lack of awareness of what’s happening essentially forces her to assimilate into a society that blatantly discriminates against her, and while this isn’t addressed directly, we do get the implication that she has to take on the identity of a servant in spite of her education and knowledge because it’s the only job that she could get as a black woman. The acknowledgment that her experience as a time traveler is strongly affected by her race is a welcome change from the comments in “The Shakespeare Code,” but I’m still a little frustrated by the fact that the most prominent attention to race here comes in the form of a moment that is very much about the Doctor. I can see the intention behind having him say something racist, as it raises interesting questions about whether this is part of the imposed persona of John Smith or whether this is in part the Doctor’s own lack of racial awareness bleeding through; if the latter, it’s an intriguing follow-up to his remarks earlier in the season. However, his dismissal of Martha’s stories about the TARDIS as stemming from “cultural differences” is notable mostly for the surprise of watching the Doctor, even in a somewhat different form, saying something this blatantly racist. (Even in the earlier episode this season, he comes across as clueless but not as overtly prejudiced.) To me, it’s probably the most memorable line about race this season, so I don’t like that it is about the shock factor of watching the Doctor say something horrible, and not about Martha’s feelings or experiences. If we were to look for the best depiction of racism this season, this two-parter pretty much wins by default, but I’m not unequivocally happy with the approach here.

Even if I’m not thrilled about how the episode uses the 1913 setting to comment on race, it is otherwise a stunningly beautiful backdrop for the episode. The monsters who wreak havoc upon it are even better. The Family is a terrific set of villains, and the use of Jenny’s body is especially sad, but the highlight is definitely Baines. Whoever was in charge of casting did an absolutely stellar job, because he has one of the creepiest faces I’ve ever seen. He has an expression like a demonic cat standing with a raised paw over a quivering mouse, and he manages to keep that look on his face for pretty much the entire time in his role as Son of Mine. He’s so scary that I completely understand the Doctor’s determination to run away from the Family, and the addition of creepy scarecrows underscores the atmosphere of terror. I also love the way that the interactions with the Family introduce the fob watch and its capabilities in a way that doesn’t register as foreshadowing until “Utopia.” The watch looks like it’s just here to help this particular plotline unfold, so its importance to the Master later on is a nice surprise. I do think that the seasonal arc runs into some gigantic problems at the end, but the slow build toward the finale is really put together extremely well. This episode isn’t quite as emotional as the second part, but it’s a stunning introduction both to a human Doctor and to an immensely scary new set of villains. A/A-

The Family of Blood: This episode contains one of my all-time favorite Doctor Who scenes. I don’t mean the Doctor’s vision of the human life he will never have, which is poignant but would mean more to me if I liked Joan better than I do. That scene is good, but to me the highlight of the episode is the brief, terrifying attack that the Scarecrows make upon the school. The Doctor looks tragically, hopelessly out of place as he stands there with a gun, unable to shoot or even move, but the most heartrending piece of the scene is the closeups on the faces of the boys themselves. As they prepare for and take part in their first battle, the camera moves close enough to show us the tears on their faces, and watching them look so young and so scared is made even more heartbreaking by the knowledge that World War I is just around the corner. The scene is accompanied by a short verse of a children’s choir singing a hymn, and the soundtrack of pure innocence as the boys are forced to kill for the first time makes the scene even sadder. The eeriness of the Scarecrows adds a sense of horror to the tragedy, and overall it’s one of the best pieces of direction ever to appear on this show.

While this scene is astonishingly effective, I don’t feel as much of a connection to any of the boys as individuals. Latimer is well-acted, but he comes across more as a well-acted plot device than as a real character, and a result I never really engage with his plight as a bullied student or even with the war memorial at the episode’s end. The general attention to unglorious, terrifying war works very well, though, especially in Baines’s taunting lines toward the schoolmaster. “Do you think they will thank the man who taught them it was glorious?” he asks, responding merely with “Et cetera, et cetera” to the man’s boasts of his own military past.

On the whole, I like this episode much better as a war story than as a love story, but the romantic angle definitely shows improvement from the previous episode. I continue to be mostly uninterested in Joan for much of the episode, but while she’s fairly dull as John Smith’s love interest, she starts to come alive once she learns of the Doctor’s real identity. She’s smart to ask him for details of his childhood, which he can give only as impersonal, encyclopedic facts. Once he has changed, she mourns for the man she has lost, but she’s strong enough to avoid the temptation of conflating him with the Time Lord he has once again become. Even better, she doesn’t let her feelings distract her from the responsibility that the Doctor bears for how events unfolded. “If the Doctor had never visited us, if he’d never chosen this place on a whim, would anybody here have died?” she asks, and her ability to see that he wreaked havoc on her community in order to save himself is a much stronger moment for the character than anything that happens during their short-lived romance.

Martha gets a couple of wonderful scenes here, especially the initial moments of the episode in which she uses Mother of Mine as a shield and pulls a gun on Son of Mine in order to scare the Family away. Mother of Mine’s physical resemblance to Martha’s friend doesn’t give her a moment’s hesitation, and she stays focused and determined until the crisis is over. She gets another fabulous moment when she demonstrates her medical knowledge for a skeptical Joan, a scene made even better by the fact that Martha asserts herself but isn’t really used to redeem Joan from her racist assumptions; in general, this episode doesn’t give quite as much time to Martha’s struggles as a woman of color in 1913 as did the first part, but what we do see is much more focused on Martha herself. The climax of the episode sees Martha declaring her love for the Doctor, which might have been an interesting development if he hadn’t so easily accepted her backpedaling later on. Her words show just how hopelessly infatuated with him she is: “he doesn’t even look at me, but I don’t care, because I love him to bits.” The Doctor is far too willing to dismiss these words as a desperate invention in a moment of crisis, but even if he ignores the warning signs about the destructive emotional impact he is having on her, he does show her a rare, lovely moment of genuine appreciation at the end of the episode.

There are some good moments for supporting characters here, but the Doctor is definitely the star, and Tennant gives his very best performance in his run on the show. The Doctor’s resistance to the idea that he isn’t human is really nicely developed throughout the episode, particularly in his shock that the Doctor didn’t even think to put falling in love on his list of possibilities to look out for before he changed. He’s so palpably scared about losing what he believes to be his identity that the idea of his return to being the Doctor seems cruel and unreasonable. Even with my lack of interest in his relationship with Joan, the montage of his life with her is hauntingly sad, especially in the moments when the camera pulls back from the vision and returns to his grief-stricken face. I didn’t realize, throughout most of these two episodes, quite how much he had adjusted his speech patterns, but when he tricks the Family at the end and goes directly from John Smith to Doctor, it makes really clear just how different his voice is as a human. He’s not a completely separate person, though, and he acknowledges to Joan that “Everything John Smith is and was, I’m capable of that too.” This isn’t of as much interest now, but it sets up some interesting ideas about the relationship between a Time Lord and the human persona created by the watch—a concept that gets even more interesting in “Utopia.”

The ending is a very dark moment for the Doctor, who doesn’t just put a stop to the Family but essentially dooms them to eternal torment. I don’t think it’s necessarily out of character for the Doctor to do something like this, as “The Runaway Bride” has already given us an example of the Doctor’s tendencies toward violence in moments of loss. I’m not sure that I believe he would stick to this scenario, even after his initial rage had passed, but he does pay a yearly visit to Sister of Mine, and it accords with his “no second chances” line from “The Christmas Invasion.” His behavior here seems awfully disrespectful to the Family’s victims; their bodies belonged to regular people before they were taken over, and having, for instance, Jenny’s body placed into the event horizon of a collapsing galaxy seems like a cruel ending for her physical form. Still, there’s a lot of focus on the darker elements of the Doctor this season, and this is perhaps the moment in which these elements are the most impressively and fully realized.

The Doctor’s sad realization of his own inability to have a normal human relationship is much more memorable to me than the specific relationship that he is forced to give up, and that makes the love story angle a bit less emotional for me than it has been for some other viewers of the show. Still, as the story of the Doctor’s role in the destruction wrought by terrifying monsters upon the eve of the First World War, it’s a brilliant episode, and his distance from human nature has never been sadder. A

#doctor who #female doctor #season 3 #tenth doctor #martha jones #david tennant #freema agyeman #russell t davies #reviews

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catolovesclove · 7 years ago

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Casually Cruel || Thirteen

“Look. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We’re good.”

“Okay.”

“And when we make it out of this alive, I promise we’ll still be good.”

“Promise.”

The truth was simple – she loved Dalton.

When Isabelle had arrived on campus almost four months ago, she never would have predicted that she would have fallen in love with it so fast: not only with the school itself, but with the classes, the atmosphere, the community, and most of all, her friends. She had come into it expecting to hate it, but what she had found was so much bigger than anything she could have imagined.

Before she had left New York, Elina had told her that life was made up of choices, and that Isabelle was in charge of her story. She had said it after Isabelle had been pouting for a few hours straight to get her to change her attitude, but the truth of it rang far beyond a teenager’s mood swings.

Her mother’s words were running through her head on repeat now. “Your life is made up of choices, Isabelle.” To love or to let go, to be a hero or to hide, to live or to die.

This was not what Isabelle had signed up for. This is not what she had thought boarding school would be like.

She had to find Alex. She had to find Jackie. And most of all, above everything else, she had to find Madeline.

She had to find help.

Isabelle ran across the Common, darting behind one of the dorms on the far side of the circle, one of the buildings bordering the forest. It was crazy that up until now, her biggest problem had been how to sneak off campus and into the woods to party. How had that been her biggest problem? Campus was eerily quiet; the birds weren’t even chirping. Snow was falling gently, making it seem peaceful, quiet, serene, even though it was anything but.

She was shaking too much to even breathe, her breaths coming out in short, sharp puffs, floating away from her in the cold December air. Her hands, arms, and the front of her sweatshirt were stained red with blood, and at this point, she couldn’t even tell whose blood it was.

Correction: Isabelle used to love Dalton.

But after this, nothing would ever be the same.

* * *

It was crazy to Alex that here, at the end of everything, it was not Mark next to him, or Dayo or Jack, or even Isabelle. Instead, it was Leven. Of course it was Leven.

Alex pulled his phone out of his sweatshirt pocket, hurriedly calling up his conversation thread with Isabelle. He had been frantically texting her since all the chaos had started, but she wasn’t answering and he had passed panic mode a long time ago. He didn’t want to call her in case she was hiding somewhere, in fear that he would make things worse for her.

“Alex,” Leven hissed from where she was huddled up next to him. “Please, I’m begging you, get off your phone. Someone is gonna hear us or see us and I’m scared, I’m so fucking scared, please.”

The fact that Leven was practically begging was a big deal, since even saying the word please was a stretch for her on a normal day. But this was the farthest thing from a normal day that Alex had ever experienced, to say the least. He locked his phone, making sure it was on silent before sliding it back into his pocket.

“Leven.” He looked back at her over his shoulder where she was cuddled up behind his back, shaking almost uncontrollably. “Everything is going to be okay. Okay? Hey, look at me. We’re going to be fine.”

“You don’t know that,” she said, her voice wavering. This wasn’t the Leven who Alex had known for the last few years – this was an entirely different version of her.

“I do.” He reached behind him, gently putting his hand on her knee to try to stop her from shaking. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, good.”

It was absolutely blowing Alex’s mind, almost more than any of the other shit currently going on, that he was sitting here having a casual, almost normal conversation with Leven after everything that had gone down in the last couple of weeks. They had both been in the library when everyone started screaming, and Alex had instinctively grabbed Leven, dragging her under the table where they were now crouched down, hiding.

“Alex?” She piped up from behind him, her voice small. “I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it, Lev.”

“No, I just need to say it.”

“Look.” They were both whispering, barely able to hear each other even though the library was deathly quiet around them, the silence menacing. “It doesn’t matter. None of it matters, okay?”

“Okay.”

“We’re good.”

“Okay.”

“And when we make it out of this alive, I promise we’ll still be good.”

“Promise.”

Alex was looking back at Leven, wrapping his arm around her shoulder, doing anything he could think of to calm her down when she looked past him, eyes widening, her mouth barely opening before he felt an unreal pain in his shoulder. Leven was screaming wordlessly, the sound piercing through the haze of pain, and he glanced down at his knee, registering the hole in it and the blood staining the front of his jeans. Leven just kept screaming and screaming until suddenly there was another shot, and she was quiet.

* * *

Everything had been exceedingly normal when Isabelle had woken up that morning. It was revision week, which meant no classes, just an inordinate amount of free time that was supposed to be filled with studying, but was mainly just taken up by partying, sleeping, and maybe a little bit of finals prep. Isabelle planned to go to the library with Alex that morning, but had woken up late, quickly jumping up and yanking on relatively clean sweats and texting him that she was sorry and she was on her way.

He had already been at the library for an hour by the time she left her dorm room after quickly wolfing down breakfast. Jackie was still fast asleep – Isabelle knew that she had been crying herself to sleep every night since Thanksgiving, and nothing Isabelle said was helping her out of her funk. She didn’t know what to do, but she figured she could tackle that problem after finals were over and she finally had time to breathe.

The group dynamic hadn’t gotten much better since they got back from State. Leven and Isabelle were still circling each other warily, and Jackie and Jack were icy cold. When they were all together, there was a definite chill in the air, one that made Isabelle really glad that her relationship with Alex was relatively drama free, or at least nothing she couldn’t handle.

Speaking of her relationship with Alex: she glanced down at her phone as she pushed out the front door of the dorm, smiling down at her screensaver which was a Snapchat of Alex at the gym that she had screenshotted and immediately set as her lock screen. The truth was her relationship with Alex had grown so exponentially since they had met, since he had charmed her way into his life. Her feelings for him were so much more genuine than anything she had ever felt for anyone before. She wasn’t scared anymore – she knew that whenever she texted him or called him or needed him, he would be there. Her favorite thing in the entire world was quickly becoming rolling over in the morning and feeling him slip his arms around her, pulling her close to him and burrowing his face into the warmth of his neck, all without even waking up.

Isabelle was too engrossed in her phone to notice how eerie campus was. There was a light snow falling, slowly blanketing the campus and almost deafening everything, making it softer and quieter. There were no chirping birds, no students talking as they crossed the Common. Everyone was inside where it was warm.

Except for Mark and Dayo, apparently.

“Isabelle, what the fuck are you doing?” They appeared out of nowhere, grabbing Isabelle and dragging her into the dining hall, covering her mouth. They didn’t stop once they were inside, continuing through the dining hall and into the kitchen, pushing through the swinging metal doors and shoving Isabelle into the huge walk in freezer, pulling the door shut behind them.

Mark had had his hand over her mouth the entire time, so once they were in the freezer and he let it drop, she just stared at them for a few seconds before bursting out with a, “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Isabelle—”

“No, I’m already late to meet Alex. I’m not in the mood for a prank right now.”

She pushed past both of them, and Dayo immediately hit her with a tackle, dragging her down onto the ice cold ground of the freezer and pinning her there. “Stay down, Isabelle,” Dayo hissed, his knee in the center of her back as Mark sneaked past them to the door, peeking out the window of the freezer.

“What’s going on?” It was finally starting to hit Isabelle that Mark and Dayo weren’t joking around, weren’t pranking her – something was actually wrong. “You guys, come on. You’re freaking me out.”

Dayo finally rolled off her, and Mark slid down onto the floor, his back against the door of the freezer. “Someone’s shooting.”

Isabelle sat up, pulling her Harvard sweatshirt tighter around her against the chill of the freezer. “What? No, you’re wrong.”

Mark shook his head. “First of all,” he whispered, “you have to be quiet or he’s going to find us. Second of all, we’re completely serious.”

She ignored him completely, her voice rising high in panic. “No, you’re wrong. You heard wrong, you don’t—”

“Isabelle,” Dayo hissed, grabbing her by the shoulder and forcing her to focus on him. “Someone. Is. Shooting.”

It only took a few seconds to register in Isabelle’s brain. She never would have thought that something like this could happen to her, to her friends. You think you’re safe, that tragedies cannot touch you. They are things that you watch on television. Your heart goes out to the people who lost their loved ones. You watch the bombs go off. You watch the towers go down. You watch the planes crash and the bridges collapse and the people die. All around the world, there is death and destruction and pain and heartbreak. But it seems so far away, until it happens to you.

Mark and Dayo quickly filled Isabelle in on what they knew and what had happened so far. They had been in the gym, messing around and trying to avoid studying for finals when Liam had run in, panic on his face.

“You guys,” he said, his normally calm demeanor completely gone. “You’ve got to get out of here. Get everyone out of here – we have to go. Now.”

They took him seriously immediately – Liam was not the type of guy who would fuck around. “I was on my way here and I heard gunshots. You need to go to your room and lock yourself in, okay? I’ll track down the girls. Just go.”

Mark and Dayo took off immediately, running across the Common where they found Isabelle and dragged her into hiding.

“Who is shooting?”

Dayo shook his head. “We don’t know.”

“Where is everyone?”

Again, no idea.

Panic bloomed even deeper in Isabelle’s chest. Jackie, Alex, Madeline – all of them were out there somewhere. She pulled her phone out, lighting up the darkness of the freezer, but every time she tried to send a message it came back as undeliverable. “Piece of shit.” She shoved it back into her pocket. “Someone needs to get ahold of everyone. And someone needs to fucking call the cops or something or whoever you call in a situation like this.”

At this, both boys shook their heads. “We left our phones in the gym. And I’m guessing the network is probably down because everyone is trying to get ahold of everyone.”

“So we’re fucked.”

“Listen to me, Is.” Dayo grabbed her hand, squeezing it tightly. “We’re going to get out of this. We’re going to find our friends. And I’m going to find the fucker doing this and put an end to it.”

“Dayo, no.”

“No what?”

“Don’t do anything stupid.”

Suddenly Mark shushed them, kicking both of them and shaking his head, his eyes huge with alarm. “What?” Isabelle mouthed at him as quietly as she could. He gestured behind him, pointing over his shoulder to the door.

“Someone is out there,” he whispered back. “Just be quiet.”

Isabelle was shaking almost uncontrollably, and Dayo scooted closer to her, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her into the warmth of his side. He rubbed her shoulder comfortingly and she buried her head into his sweatshirt. “It’s gonna be okay, Isabelle,” he whispered into her hair, trying to disguise the tightness of the anxiety lacing through his voice. “I’ll make sure you’re okay, don’t worry.”

She didn’t see what was happening, but she could hear it. The door handle turned slowly, and Mark, who was still sitting with his back against the door, stretched his legs out, bracing himself against a box of frozen something or other, trying to keep it closed. But whoever was on the other side was either stronger or had more leverage than Mark did, and it slowly opened, light slipping through the crack in the door.

Isabelle looked up from Dayo’s side, her heart pounding so hard in her ears she could barely hear anything. They couldn’t see, their eyes adjusting slowly to the light, and all she could make out was someone standing in the open door, their shadow cast long over the freezer. Mark sat up from where he had been pushed onto the floor, turning his head to see who was behind him.

And then she realized who it was. “Ian?”

“Isabelle?”

“Quick, get in here and close the door. Someone is out there, someone is shooting, you’ve gotta hide.”

And then, too quickly for her to register, too quickly for her to do anything, there was a gun pointing at her head.

* * *

“Do you really want to talk about this now? Now when there is a shit show apparently happening outside?”

“Why not? We’re stuck here. We can’t leave and no one can get in here, so what else is there to do?”

“I don’t know, have sex?”

“Jack.”

“Fine. Let’s talk.”

Silence.

“Well come on, Jackie. What do you want to talk about?”

“Us. Everything. I don’t know.”

“Okay. So talk.”

“When did everything get so screwed up?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re sitting here in a fucking closet barely speaking to each other. There is some sort of fucked up disaster going on outside. And you won’t even look at me.”

“You kept secrets.”

“That’s why you’re mad? I kept a secret? It wasn’t my secret to tell!”

Silence.

“Jack.”

Jackie had woken up that morning with a sore throat. She had been able to feel it coming for days – the scratchiness at the back of her mouth, slowly easing its way downward, making her voice deeper, raspier. It always happened in the winter, when the wind was icy and the days dark. Winter came and Jackie got sick – like clockwork.

And now, sitting in a tiny pitch-black closet with her ex-boyfriend by her side (Was he even her ex? Could you be someone’s ex if you were never theirs in the first place?), a crazed gunman or ax murderer or serial killer or something stalking the grounds of their home, it was her sore throat that she was thinking about.

Because even though it was sore, and even though it took all her energy to rasp out a couple of sentences, it hurt even worse when it started to close up, the tears stinging behind her eyes, that awful dark gray feeling that hit you just when you were about to cry.

Jack was right in front of her, but he had never felt farther away.

Or at least so she thought.

If she looked a little closer (“You’ve just got to get out of your own head, Jac. You think too much. You always think too much. Not everything is as bad as you think it is. Okay?”), she would be able to see that Jack was everywhere, even when he wasn’t. It wasn’t just that he was in the dining hall and in class and in this closet – it was that he was in her, and not in a dirty way. He was in her thoughts and her words – everything she did was connected to him.

“Jackie, don’t, oh God, please don’t.” And she didn’t realize she had been crying until Jack was crawling over the closet floor, putting his knee in a bucket in the process, to sit beside her, putting his arm around her shoulder. “Please don’t cry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

And as the world fell apart around them, they somehow managed to put theirs back together.

* * *

“Ian, what the – what the fuck – what are you doing?”

All Isabelle could manage to get out apparently were fragments of sentences, the words getting stuck in the back of her throat. But who could blame her?

Going from a normal boring sort of day to one where you were hiding in a freezer from a school shooter – God, a school shooter. Wasn’t that just the kind of stuff you saw on the nightly news, separated from you by miles and states and comfort? But then throw in the fact that you knew him, or at least you thought you did, and she was shocked she had any words at all, even curse words.

She knew him, and he was standing here with a gun in his hand, shaking slightly, his wrist curving like it was too heavy for him, like the weight of the world had finally become too much for him to bear. Isabelle was too caught up in the complete fucking improbability of the situation in front of her that she didn’t even notice Mark and Dayo glancing at each other and backing up slowly, trying to pull her with them as if it would somehow get them all out of harm’s way.

But it was a gun. Ian had a gun in his hands. Ian had a gun in his fucking hands. “Ian, what are you doing?” she repeated, as if saying it over and over would somehow bring some clarification to the shit show staring them in the face.

“Isabelle, go sit down.” His voice was quiet, small, the way it had always been, like he wasn’t used to taking up so much space in the world.

“What?”

“Sit. Down.” It was more of a spitting demand this time.

So she did – of course she did. What else do you do in this situation? She went and sat against the wall of the freezer, cold against her back even through her sweatshirt. Dayo and Mark were still frozen – Isabelle wasn’t sure they had even let out a breath since Ian had burst in.

And then Ian gestured the gun at them, thrusting it forward in a gesture meant to threaten, which it clearly did. Dayo and Mark stumbled backwards, tripping over their own feet and each other in their haste to get away from the death staring them in the face.

“Dude.” Dayo held his hands out in what might be a placating manner on anyone else, but on Dayo just looked intimidating.

And that’s when Ian shot him in the head.

Isabelle couldn’t help herself. She started screaming, launched herself at Ian even as Mark grabbed her sweatshirt, yanking her back. “What the fuck did you do?” She could hear herself, hear the words coming out of her mouth, knew why she was yelling but couldn’t really comprehend.

Mark let go of her, down on the floor by Dayo who had dropped like a stone, leaning over him and murmuring as if he could hear him, as if he wasn’t already gone. Ian had turned the gun on Mark, but he didn’t see it, didn’t comprehend what was happening. None of them did really, not even Ian.

It looked like Ian was himself again for a second, the person Isabelle had met the first week of school, not this crazy monster in front of them. As he stared at Dayo lying on the ground, the hole in his forehead glaring at them, the veil of hatred slipped, revealing a scared kid. And that was when Mark took his chance, jumping up and slamming Ian into the ground.

They scrabbled around for the gun, their hands numbed by fear and cold and disbelief. A shot went off as they struggled, Isabelle coiling backwards. But this time it was Ian hurt. Mark grabbed for the gun, just out of his reach, sliding backwards across the frozen floor from the recoil, but Ian got it first. He didn’t take his time, firing a bullet into Mark’s leg even as the blood poured out of his own shoulder.

Dayo was dead.

Mark was down and fading quickly, the blood pooling underneath him.

It was just Isabelle left. She was still next to Dayo, her head resting on his chest as if she could will him back into existence. And Ian was just looking at her.

“Do not help them,” he said, his voice low and cold. “Do you understand me? You cannot help them. There’s nothing you can do anymore.”

She didn’t say anything, couldn’t form the words. She just closed her eyes, waiting to die.

She had seen the life go out of Dayo’s eyes. It happened right in front of her. She had watched him stop breathing.

And she was going to be next.

As she knelt there, eyes closed, she saw the last few months pass before her. It wasn’t fast, like they say, not like it was flashing before her eyes. It went slowly, so that she could see everything. Every little detail.

Walking onto campus on the first day. Running into Alex at the housing office.

Jackie bursting into their room, full of life and energy and sunshine. God, where was Jackie?

The parties at the Circle.

Dayo trying to help Liam build the bonfire, even as Liam was insisting he knew what he was doing. Dayo at Thanksgiving, so worried about everything being perfect even as they were all falling apart around him. Dayo saving Alex from fighting and ruining friendships and being stupid.

Sitting in the basement of the library with Alex during the storm.

Watching him score touchdowns. Watching him win State.

Kissing him for the first time. Kissing him for the hundredth time.

Falling in love.

Watching her sister fall in love.

It was a dozen, a hundred, a thousand small moments that added up to a life. And it was all about to be over.

* * *

“I can’t get it to work!”

“Try again,” Jen pleaded. “They’re out there somewhere.”

“I know,” Liam said, his arms around her, trying desperately to send a text, an email, a tweet, anything. “We’ll find them. They’re okay.”

They were in one of the locker rooms at the gym, Jen and Liam and Josh and Mackenzie. Liam had tried to get as many people out as possible, sending Mark and Dayo away and back to the safety of their dorm. Mackenzie had been there with Josh, over at the weight benches when Jen had come in, seconds behind Liam.

“He’s shooting,” she had said breathlessly, barely able to get the words out.

“I heard shots,” Liam told her. “Do you know who it is?”

“That kid Alex fought.”

“Ian.”

“Yes.”

Liam grabbed her, Josh, and Mackenzie, running to the giant glass front doors of the gym and peering out. That was when he saw Ian coming out of the dining hall, blood all over his shoulder and arm and chest, sweatshirt pockets bulging, gun gripped tightly in his hand.

He was looking around, like the sun was blinding him, breath coming out in quick puffs of air, one after the other. He locked eyes with Liam, who quickly jumped back out of sight, pulling the other three with him.

Liam thought quickly. “Okay,” he said. “We have to hide. We can’t go outside right now.”

“What?” Mackenzie’s voice rose in panic. She had been behind him, didn’t see Ian. “What do you mean we can’t go outside?”

“Listen to me,” Liam said, grabbing her by the shoulders. He held onto her tightly, ensuring that she would calm down, that she would listen to him, that she would stay safe. “You are going to be okay, do you hear me?”

He pulled them out of the lobby, out of sight to the locker room, shoving them inside and pulling the door shut tight behind them, wedging a bench in between the door and a locker so that it wouldn’t open no matter how hard someone tried from the other side.

They were trying to send out texts, to Amandla and Willow, Jack and Jackie, Dayo and Mark, Isabelle and Alex, Leven and Madeline, but they were all coming back, one after the other, bright red circles next to each message indicating that they weren’t going through.

“If we can’t send texts, how can we call 911?” Josh asked, trying not to let panic creep into his voice. He knew that they couldn’t, knew that Liam knew it too, knew that saying the words out loud would scare the girls.

Liam swallowed. “Here’s what we’re going to do,” he said after a moment. “I’m going to go up onto the roof—”

“No.” Jen interrupted him immediately, resolute look on her face. “No, you’re not.”

“I have to. I have to call someone. I have to make sure the others are alright.”

“You’re not going.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I won’t let you.”

Liam looked at Josh, jutting his chin out in his best friend’s direction. “Keep her here,” he told Josh, knowing that he would, knowing his girlfriend would be safe. “Put the bench back after I leave. Stack them up. You’ll be safe.” Josh grabbed Jen, but Liam could hear her screaming as he slipped out the door, knew she was pounding on it behind him even as Josh was sliding benches across the floor, trying to keep them alive.

* * *

He had left, and she was still breathing. Dayo was dead next to her, his body already cooling. She could feel the heat leaching out of him in waves, even in the coldness of the freezer. Mark was alive, but barely. His breaths were coming quickly, shallowly.

She didn’t know what to do. God, she didn’t know anything.

Ian had walked out the door, taking the gun with him, but the horror of what he had done was left behind. It filled her lungs, her nose, her air.

Blood had a smell. Everyone knew that in theory, but she hadn’t really known that until it was all around her.

She grabbed Mark, knowing she shouldn’t move him but doing it anyways. She couldn’t leave him there, not when he might freeze to death. She propped open the door with a box, not looking at Dayo as she did so. She managed to get Mark out the door and into the empty kitchen, a trail of blood behind him.

She tried to move Dayo next, but he was too big, even in death.

“Mark,” she whispered, leaning down beside him. He couldn’t hear her, slowly slipping away from her. She knew she had to get help. She knew he was dying. “I’m going to get someone. I’ll be right back. Okay? I’ll be right back.”

* * *

“Fuck!” Alex grit his teeth, the scream slipping past his lips before he could stop it. “Fuck!”

“Please,” Leven said, tears spilling down over her face, her arm clamped against her side, held in place by sheer force of will. “Please, Alex, you have to be quiet, he’ll be back, he’s going to come back.” She had pulled Alex’s shirt off, trying to tie it around his leg to stop the bleeding.

“Oh my God, I’m going to kill him, Leven,” he told her. “I’m going to fucking kill him when I see him, I swear to God.” “Alex, please, shut up, please.” She tried to drag him one-armed into the bathroom, a closet, somewhere, anywhere safe where they could lock the door behind them and figure out what to do.

If he saw that motherfucker again, he would kill him, as sure as he was here now.

He would kill him.

* * *

Liam made it to the roof, looking over his shoulder every two seconds to make sure no one was following him. It wasn’t Ian he was worried about. It was Jen. God only knew how long Josh could hold her back.

He pushed the door open, cold December air hitting his face. He dialed quickly.

“911, what is the address of your emergency?”

Oh, thank God.

“Dalton,” he breathed out. “We’re at Dalton.”

* * *

Jack poked his head out of the closet, looking around. They were on the first floor of Maxwell in the janitor’s closet, but they still didn’t know what was going on, who was out there, if it was safe.

He looked left and then right, no one around. It was a ghost town.

“Jackie,” he whispered. “I’m going to go see what’s going on.”

“What?” She grabbed the back of his shirt. “Are you out of your fucking mind? The hell you are!”

“It’s okay,” he said, reaching back and unlatching her fingers one by one. “I won’t go outside. Whoever it is can’t get in here, right?”

“You’re not going alone,” she said determinedly. “I’m coming with you.”

And that’s how they ended up crouched down beneath one of the big plate glass windows at the front of the dorm, peeking up to see out.

That’s when they saw Liam fall from the top of the gym.

* * *

It was happening in slow motion, Jen thought. It had to be happening in slow motion, because that’s what happened in your dreams when something bad happened, right? It was a dream, a nightmare, because this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.

People didn’t break out guns and start shooting each other. The person you loved didn’t die right in front of you. Stuff like that just didn’t happen.

But it did happen. It was happening.

She had followed Liam up to the gym. Of course she had. It had taken her a few minutes to get past Josh, eventually pushing one of the benches at him and darting outside before he had a chance to get up.

She had gotten to the roof too late, a few minutes – maybe even seconds – before Ian had gotten there. He was pointing his gun at Liam.

“Put it down!” Ian was screaming. “Shut up! Hang up!”

Liam was holding onto his phone tightly, up to his ear, speaking quickly. “One shooter,” he was saying. “Ian Nelson. Dark hair. Blue sweatshirt. Jeans. It’s just him. You have to hurry. He’s shooting people, I don’t know how many, I don’t know if anyone is dead—”

The shot rang out in the air, cold and clear and final. Liam dropped his phone, stumbling backwards and looking at the blood blooming on his chest. He looked up, not at Ian, but at Jen. He was still looking at her as he slipped backwards, over the ledge, falling.

She pushed past Ian, barely even feeling the bullet enter her spine as she looked at her boyfriend lying on the ground, far below the top of the gym. She kept her eyes trained on him as the life went out of her lungs.

* * *

Leven couldn’t move Alex anymore, the pain in her arm too much for her. She dropped down onto the ground next to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, panting. “I can’t do it. I can’t do it anymore, I’m sorry.”

“Leven,” he said, his breaths coming quickly. “It’s okay. You did perfectly.” He pushed himself up into a sitting position, pressing his lips against the side of her head. Something caught his eye, movement out on the quad, and he quickly ducked down out of sight, pulling Leven with him.

“What is it?” Her breath caught in her lungs. “Is it him?”

Alex raised his head infinitesimally, trying to see out the window without anyone seeing him.

“No, it’s… Oh my God. Oh my God.”

“Alex, what is it?”

He didn’t answer, struggling to get up, his leg collapsing under him even as he placed his hands on the windowsill, willing himself to stand, willing himself to stop her.

* * *

“Madeline!”

Her sister quickly whipped around, pulling her jacket tighter around her in the cold. “Isabelle? What are you doing out here?”

“What are you doing out here?” Isabelle ran up to her, grabbing her arm and looking around. She had seen Liam fall to the ground, Jen dropping to her knees at the top of the gym. She knew that’s where Ian was, knew she had to get her sister somewhere safe. She had to find someone to help.

“I…” Madeline looked lost. “I don’t know… I was studying in the lab and I… What’s going on?”

“It’s Ian,” Isabelle said quickly, dragging her sister carefully over the packed snow as she talked, trying to get as far away from the gym as possible. If they could just get to the dorm, they would be safe. He wouldn’t be able to follow them there.

“What about Ian?”

“He’s shooting.”

“What?” Madeline stopped, her legs giving out underneath her.

“We have to go, Maddie. We have to get out of here.”

“Where is everyone?”

“Maddie, come on!”

She took her eyes off the gym for one second, looking around frantically. They were too out in the open, too exposed. They had to get inside. When she turned back around, Madeline was backing away from her, hands raised, trembling.

Ian was there. He looked like he was in pain, had to be hurting from the bullet wound in his arm. “You,” he said, voice rough, gun pointed at Isabelle’s head. “I thought I told you stay where you were.”

She couldn’t speak.

“None of this would be happening it if weren’t for you,” he said. “You know that, right?” It was almost like he was making conversation, would have been if the words coming out of his mouth hadn’t been like giant black clouds hanging over them.

“Ian, I… I don’t know what to…”

“Shut up, Isabelle. For once, just shut up!”

Isabelle thought she could hear screaming behind her, screaming that sounded like Alex, but that was in her head. Even here, at the end, he was with her. She swallowed.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Ian said. She lifted her head, trying to meet his eyes. She wasn’t going to go out like this. “If I was going to do that, it would’ve been before. With Dayo and Mark.”

Madeline drew in a sharp breath, hand coming to rest on her stomach like she wasn’t even thinking about it.

“No,” Ian said. “Instead I’m going to kill the people you love. One by one. Dayo. Mark. Alex. And you.” He slid the gun over to Madeline. Isabelle watched it happen in slow motion, watched his finger curl around the trigger, felt herself jumping forward, falling on her knees in front of him.

“She’s pregnant,” she breathed out, her voice almost failing her. “She’s pregnant.”

She watched him pull the gun back, pointing it up slightly, not at her, not her sister. He hesitated for a moment before extending his arm, putting the cold metal against her forehead. She heard Madeline scream behind her. Tasted the fear in her mouth. Felt her stomach curl up.

One more shot.

It was finished.

#tw: violence #alexbelle #Amanda writes #casually cruel #alexander ludwig #isabelle fuhrman #this has been in my head for years #and it's here now #and idk how i feel about it

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flauntpage · 7 years ago

Text

Bruce Maxwell Had the Courage, and Credibility, to Take MLB's First Knee

On Saturday, the ACLU tweeted a quote from Jackie Robinson's 1972 memoir, I Never Had It Made:

"I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world."

On Saturday, Oakland Athletics rookie catcher Bruce Maxwell, a black man, became the first MLB player to kneel during the national anthem. In a moment that faintly echoed Robinson and white teammate Pee Wee Reese's iconic embrace seven decades ago, Mark Canha placed his left hand on Maxwell's shoulder. The game went on. Oakland beat Texas 1-0.

Maxwell spoke eloquently about his reasons for taking a knee. Following his tweets from the weekend, you can see that Donald Trump's fixation on Colin Kaepernick and Steph Curry rather than national issues like the destruction of Puerto Rico struck a chord with him.

Why did it take so long?

The conservatism that has always held baseball hostage is a short, serviceable answer. It's nothing new. Back when Muhammad Ali was embracing the Nation of Islam, and Tommie Smith and John Carlos were raising their fists in black solidarity at the Olympics, the most meaningful activism among baseball players was economic—the fight to unionize and to earn free agency. Even the leaders of those movements faced backlash from their fellow players, not to mention owners, the media, and the public at large.

In the decades since, we have witnessed the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, the imposition of internet filter bubbles, the optimization of soft news—of which sports is a crown jewel—and the deterioration of the American education system. Today, the average citizen cannot readily discern fact from fiction. They revert back to their trusted information troughs that validate their biases and make them feel better, smarter. Baseball players are like extreme versions of this, only with more confidence.

In the company of a few players last year, for example, I mentioned the (once again relevant) Paid Patriotism in Sports investigation led by Republican Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain from Arizona, which revealed that the Department of Defense paid MLB and other major sports leagues millions of dollars to stage many of the boutique military exercises we as players had all become so accustomed to being accessories to, standing at attention with our hands over our hearts along the foul line. One player told me that this was "liberal fake news," and that "John McCain would never do no kinda shit like that."

Baseball may value shut-up-and-play guys more than any other sport. The patron saint of that archetype is Derek Jeter, the most beloved baseball player since Babe Ruth, whose farewell tour was seen by many as excessive. What had he done but win championships? But to celebrate Jeter was to celebrate kicking ass and taking names, the Crash Davis school of never saying the wrong thing (not to be confused with saying the right thing) and only making waves off the field in heterosexual sex scandals that ultimately add girth to the legacy.

Orioles veteran centerfielder Adam Jones is one of the few players to consistently speak out about issues of race, from talking about Freddie Gray's death in 2015 to calling out fans who shouted the N-word at him in Fenway Park last season. A year ago, Jones said that Kaepernick–style protests hadn't made their way to MLB because "baseball is a white man's sport."

Jones was one of just 58 black, African American, or African Canadian players on active rosters for Opening Day this season, according to the 2017 Major League Baseball Racial and Gender Report Card. That number doesn't include Maxwell, who was called up from Triple-A later in April, nor several players who were on the DL, but the report still calls attention to "the relatively small and declining percentage of African-American players" in baseball.

It should be noted that Afro-Caribbean players born in the U.S. are not always counted in that group. I am both African and American—my parents' native Cuba was only a few stops on the Atlantic slave trade away from the Alabama of Maxwell's youth—but on the only Jackie Robinson Day in which I was in the Major Leagues (2009), I was not tabbed for that photo opportunity.

The same 2017 report card notes that there are more players of color in the league now than ever before. And the growing Latino presence in MLB creates more racial complexity that is especially hard to follow for people who don't see race and want all this race stuff to go back into the shadows. Many Latino people are racist. Many Latino people deny their own blackness. For every white-passing Latino with less than a quarter of African blood in them who speaks with an alarming NPM (niggas per minute) in public spaces, there is an undeniably African Latino who doesn't believe they're black. The individual desires of people of color to defer participation in "race" chips at the solidarity of the black community as efficiently as racism itself does. This is hard for anthropologists to follow, much less ballplayers.

Black solidarity is difficult to negotiate with a language barrier, and one should understand what might dissuade, for instance, a Venezuelan Afro-Latino from criticizing any aspect of American culture when matters are worse in every sense, including race issues, in their own country. Black people who are well traveled, especially Afro-Latinos who've traveled to many Spanish-speaking countries, eventually come to the glib conclusion quicker than anyone else, that despite our longtime and recently stoked problems here in America, there is perhaps no better place in the world to be black.

Kaepernick's protest spread slowly but surely across the NFL, where African-Americans made up 69.7 percent of players last year. Athletes in the NBA and the WNBA—two more leagues with majority black rosters—have also become fluent in peaceful protest in the last few years. Demographics may have kept the Kaepernick movement from catching on in baseball, but it's important to note that baseball conservatism has many layers.

In baseball, conformism is subconsciously enforced by the martial law of the purpose pitch, and by the ingrained biases of the people in power who make personnel decisions and drive its culture. When you wear your hat a certain way, a coach may say, "Why do you have to be different?" Your hair may irk him, and when you miss the cutoff man, it may be more irksome to him than when the guy who looks more like his son does it. There's the crappy .220 hitter and there's the scrappy .220 hitter, and the formula for who goes to AAA and who stays on as the good clubhouse guy is subjective at best.

It takes a special person to stand up, or kneel down, when you consider the full weight of the baseball institution.

Why was it Bruce Maxwell?

Three weeks into the NFL season, Colin Kaepernick is still unemployed. NFL insiders have been more reticent to say he's being blackballed than non-insiders like activist Shaun King. While Kaepernick is probably as capable as most starting NFL quarterbacks, he is not in the elite, irreplaceable strata of athletes. This gives the owners who don't sign him (i.e., all the owners) plausible deniability. It complicates the issue of Kaepernick's unemployment.

John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports

As a player, Bruce Maxwell is even more replaceable than Kaepernick. Though the Oakland A's were swift to defend Maxwell after he kneeled on Saturday, it is important to note that if he were to be blackballed, it would be virtually impossible to prove. To date, Maxwell has proven he is a light-hitting catcher worth about half a win above replacement over the course of a season. Though many ballplayers are late bloomers, Maxwell's 300 at-bats represent a sufficiently large enough sample size for him to slowly fade into journeyman status without a second thought.

But whether he noticed or not, Maxwell's path was eased by other circumstances. The Oakland A's were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs on September 22, though they were never in the race at all, and even sold off their best pitcher at the trade deadline. The length of MLB's season holds that half its teams engage in dozens of meaningless games, such as Saturday's historic, meaningless contest between the Rangers and the Athletics. Maxwell has enjoyed the luxury of relatively low stakes—in baseball terms.

Along those lines, a story:

The morning after my club, the Tampa Bay Rays, beat the Red Sox in the 2008 ALCS, a handful of teammates and I supported then Senator Barack Obama at a rally in Florida. As a rookie, I was "hazed" by being volunteered to introduce the most famous political figure of our generation with a short speech before a capacity crowd at Legends Field. We were criticized for associating the team with a political party, but it was manageable—World Series stakes or not, Tampa is a tiny sports market. At the same time, had there not been several senior teammates with me, I might not have gone to the Obama rally. I might have caved under the pressure of fitting in that Maxwell overcame. And despite a military veteran father of my own, had all of what's happening now been happening in the middle of a playoff race I was in as a rookie, especially in a major market, I would probably not have taken a knee—by myself no less—during the national anthem, either. You don't want to be labeled a "distraction" by the media, and then become one in a superstitious, cliquey clubhouse as a rookie who is a new actor in a championship run that is years in the making. We have yet to see a major baseball star in a major market make a major political engagement. We have yet to see a Kaepernick–grade athlete use the platform of a championship run, with its larger audience. The "distraction" is perhaps entirely superstition, which especially pervades sports, but its effect is real.

My money would have been on Jones to be the first player to take a knee, despite his comments. My number two choice would have been Rays pitcher Chris Archer. But Maxwell was the right guy at the right time. He was born on a military base in Germany. His father is a veteran. For a certain kind of person watching these protests—which many critics have mischaracterized as being about "the flag" or "the troops," instead of racial inequality and police violence—he had the credibility, along with the courage, to do something.

This is what Archer told the press on Sunday after Maxwell took a knee:

"It did take a while in baseball, I think mainly because the other sports that do that are predominantly black," says Archer. "Our sport isn't, so I think the criticism might be a little more harsh. It took somebody really special that had a unique background to take that leap.

"The way he went about it was totally, I think, as respectful as possible, just letting everybody know that this doesn't have anything to do with the military, first and foremost, noting that he has family members that are in the military. It's a little bit tougher for baseball players to make that leap, but I think he was the right person to do it."

What Happens Now

Maxwell was cheered by the home Oakland crowd in his first at-bat since kneeling, a line-out to left field. In Mariners veteran Felix Hernandez, he was not forced to face the kind of (white, surly) pitcher one might expect to throw at a guy to send a political message, though it's not at all implausible a pitcher of Felix Hernandez's background could have thrown that purpose pitch "for America" after reading a tea party blog during pregame.

In the last week of the season, more teams will be eliminated (including the Rays), and their players will officially have no distraction superstition as a deterrent. For these players, there will be fewer games after which to face reporters. Here is what Archer told me in a text message: "What [Maxwell] did was tasteful & respectful to all parties. I wouldn't be surprised if more guys start to follow suit."

Bruce Maxwell Had the Courage, and Credibility, to Take MLB's First Knee published first on http://ift.tt/2pLTmlv

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amtushinfosolutionspage · 7 years ago

Text

Bruce Maxwell Had the Courage, and Credibility, to Take MLB’s First Knee

On Saturday, the ACLU tweeted a quote from Jackie Robinson’s 1972 memoir, I Never Had It Made:

“I cannot stand and sing the anthem. I cannot salute the flag; I know that I am a black man in a white world.”

On Saturday, Oakland Athletics rookie catcher Bruce Maxwell, a black man, became the first MLB player to kneel during the national anthem. In a moment that faintly echoed Robinson and white teammate Pee Wee Reese’s iconic embrace seven decades ago, Mark Canha placed his left hand on Maxwell’s shoulder. The game went on. Oakland beat Texas 1-0.

Maxwell spoke eloquently about his reasons for taking a knee. Following his tweets from the weekend, you can see that Donald Trump’s fixation on Colin Kaepernick and Steph Curry rather than national issues like the destruction of Puerto Rico struck a chord with him.

Why did it take so long?

The conservatism that has always held baseball hostage is a short, serviceable answer. It’s nothing new. Back when Muhammad Ali was embracing the Nation of Islam, and Tommie Smith and John Carlos were raising their fists in black solidarity at the Olympics, the most meaningful activism among baseball players was economic—the fight to unionize and to earn free agency. Even the leaders of those movements faced backlash from their fellow players, not to mention owners, the media, and the public at large.

In the company of a few players last year, for example, I mentioned the (once again relevant) Paid Patriotism in Sports investigation led by Republican Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain from Arizona, which revealed that the Department of Defense paid MLB and other major sports leagues millions of dollars to stage many of the boutique military exercises we as players had all become so accustomed to being accessories to, standing at attention with our hands over our hearts along the foul line. One player told me that this was “liberal fake news,” and that “John McCain would never do no kinda shit like that.”

Orioles veteran centerfielder Adam Jones is one of the few players to consistently speak out about issues of race, from talking about Freddie Gray’s death in 2015 to calling out fans who shouted the N-word at him in Fenway Park last season. A year ago, Jones said that Kaepernick–style protests hadn’t made their way to MLB because “baseball is a white man’s sport.”

Jones was one of just 58 black, African American, or African Canadian players on active rosters for Opening Day this season, according to the 2017 Major League Baseball Racial and Gender Report Card. That number doesn’t include Maxwell, who was called up from Triple-A later in April, nor several players who were on the DL, but the report still calls attention to “the relatively small and declining percentage of African-American players” in baseball.

It should be noted that Afro-Caribbean players born in the U.S. are not always counted in that group. I am both African and American—my parents’ native Cuba was only a few stops on the Atlantic slave trade away from the Alabama of Maxwell’s youth—but on the only Jackie Robinson Day in which I was in the Major Leagues (2009), I was not tabbed for that photo opportunity.

The same 2017 report card notes that there are more players of color in the league now than ever before. And the growing Latino presence in MLB creates more racial complexity that is especially hard to follow for people who don’t see race and want all this race stuff to go back into the shadows. Many Latino people are racist. Many Latino people deny their own blackness. For every white-passing Latino with less than a quarter of African blood in them who speaks with an alarming NPM (niggas per minute) in public spaces, there is an undeniably African Latino who doesn’t believe they’re black. The individual desires of people of color to defer participation in “race” chips at the solidarity of the black community as efficiently as racism itself does. This is hard for anthropologists to follow, much less ballplayers.

Black solidarity is difficult to negotiate with a language barrier, and one should understand what might dissuade, for instance, a Venezuelan Afro-Latino from criticizing any aspect of American culture when matters are worse in every sense, including race issues, in their own country. Black people who are well traveled, especially Afro-Latinos who’ve traveled to many Spanish-speaking countries, eventually come to the glib conclusion quicker than anyone else, that despite our longtime and recently stoked problems here in America, there is perhaps no better place in the world to be black.

Kaepernick’s protest spread slowly but surely across the NFL, where African-Americans made up 69.7 percent of players last year. Athletes in the NBA and the WNBA—two more leagues with majority black rosters—have also become fluent in peaceful protest in the last few years. Demographics may have kept the Kaepernick movement from catching on in baseball, but it’s important to note that baseball conservatism has many layers.

In baseball, conformism is subconsciously enforced by the martial law of the purpose pitch, and by the ingrained biases of the people in power who make personnel decisions and drive its culture. When you wear your hat a certain way, a coach may say, “Why do you have to be different?” Your hair may irk him, and when you miss the cutoff man, it may be more irksome to him than when the guy who looks more like his son does it. There’s the crappy .220 hitter and there’s the scrappy .220 hitter, and the formula for who goes to AAA and who stays on as the good clubhouse guy is subjective at best.

It takes a special person to stand up, or kneel down, when you consider the full weight of the baseball institution.

Why was it Bruce Maxwell?

Three weeks into the NFL season, Colin Kaepernick is still unemployed. NFL insiders have been more reticent to say he’s being blackballed than non-insiders like activist Shaun King. While Kaepernick is probably as capable as most starting NFL quarterbacks, he is not in the elite, irreplaceable strata of athletes. This gives the owners who don’t sign him (i.e., all the owners) plausible deniability. It complicates the issue of Kaepernick’s unemployment.

John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports

As a player, Bruce Maxwell is even more replaceable than Kaepernick. Though the Oakland A’s were swift to defend Maxwell after he kneeled on Saturday, it is important to note that if he were to be blackballed, it would be virtually impossible to prove. To date, Maxwell has proven he is a light-hitting catcher worth about half a win above replacement over the course of a season. Though many ballplayers are late bloomers, Maxwell’s 300 at-bats represent a sufficiently large enough sample size for him to slowly fade into journeyman status without a second thought.

But whether he noticed or not, Maxwell’s path was eased by other circumstances. The Oakland A’s were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs on September 22, though they were never in the race at all, and even sold off their best pitcher at the trade deadline. The length of MLB’s season holds that half its teams engage in dozens of meaningless games, such as Saturday’s historic, meaningless contest between the Rangers and the Athletics. Maxwell has enjoyed the luxury of relatively low stakes—in baseball terms.

Along those lines, a story:

The morning after my club, the Tampa Bay Rays, beat the Red Sox in the 2008 ALCS, a handful of teammates and I supported then Senator Barack Obama at a rally in Florida. As a rookie, I was “hazed” by being volunteered to introduce the most famous political figure of our generation with a short speech before a capacity crowd at Legends Field. We were criticized for associating the team with a political party, but it was manageable—World Series stakes or not, Tampa is a tiny sports market. At the same time, had there not been several senior teammates with me, I might not have gone to the Obama rally. I might have caved under the pressure of fitting in that Maxwell overcame. And despite a military veteran father of my own, had all of what’s happening now been happening in the middle of a playoff race I was in as a rookie, especially in a major market, I would probably not have taken a knee—by myself no less—during the national anthem, either. You don’t want to be labeled a “distraction” by the media, and then become one in a superstitious, cliquey clubhouse as a rookie who is a new actor in a championship run that is years in the making. We have yet to see a major baseball star in a major market make a major political engagement. We have yet to see a Kaepernick–grade athlete use the platform of a championship run, with its larger audience. The “distraction” is perhaps entirely superstition, which especially pervades sports, but its effect is real.

My money would have been on Jones to be the first player to take a knee, despite his comments. My number two choice would have been Rays pitcher Chris Archer. But Maxwell was the right guy at the right time. He was born on a military base in Germany. His father is a veteran. For a certain kind of person watching these protests—which many critics have mischaracterized as being about “the flag” or “the troops,” instead of racial inequality and police violence—he had the credibility, along with the courage, to do something.

This is what Archer told the press on Sunday after Maxwell took a knee:

“It did take a while in baseball, I think mainly because the other sports that do that are predominantly black,” says Archer. “Our sport isn’t, so I think the criticism might be a little more harsh. It took somebody really special that had a unique background to take that leap.

“The way he went about it was totally, I think, as respectful as possible, just letting everybody know that this doesn’t have anything to do with the military, first and foremost, noting that he has family members that are in the military. It’s a little bit tougher for baseball players to make that leap, but I think he was the right person to do it.”

What Happens Now

Maxwell was cheered by the home Oakland crowd in his first at-bat since kneeling, a line-out to left field. In Mariners veteran Felix Hernandez, he was not forced to face the kind of (white, surly) pitcher one might expect to throw at a guy to send a political message, though it’s not at all implausible a pitcher of Felix Hernandez’s background could have thrown that purpose pitch “for America” after reading a tea party blog during pregame.

In the last week of the season, more teams will be eliminated (including the Rays), and their players will officially have no distraction superstition as a deterrent. For these players, there will be fewer games after which to face reporters. Here is what Archer told me in a text message: “What [Maxwell] did was tasteful & respectful to all parties. I wouldn’t be surprised if more guys start to follow suit.”

Bruce Maxwell Had the Courage, and Credibility, to Take MLB’s First Knee syndicated from http://ift.tt/2ug2Ns6

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elliotthezubat · 8 years ago

Text

DEATH CITY DAYS CHAPTER 40

never a dull moment

Sakuya: *nods* "Okay...Here we go..." lilac: *stumbling a bit* Sakuya: "Just one step in front of the other..." *supports Lilac* naho: *worried* -in the nurses office* lilac: *in a bed, passed out* Sakuya: "...Does he just need rest, or...?" nurse: he just needs rest for now...poor kid. looks like he's had it rough... Sakuya: "..." *nods* "Do you mind if we wait here? Just for a bit?" nurse: are you sure? naho: *she nods* Sakuya: "Please?" nurse:...very well. lilac: *asleep, shivering* -there are faded scars visible on his wrists- naho:....!!! Sakuya: "What is...Oh no..." naho: *tearing up, holding lilac's hand* Sakuya: "..." *pats Naho's back, rests another hand on her hand over Lilac's* lilac: ........*waking up* nnnn? naho: *she hugs him* lilac: ???? Sakuya: *sad smile, as he hugs as well* lilac: ????? Sakuya: "You're okay, buddy." lilac: ......??? did i....g-get sick again? Sakuya: "You...just needed some rest." lilac:...........*pulls the blanket up* you.....saw them.....d-didnt you?....t-those ugly things.... Sakuya: "...Lilac...I'm sorry. The past hurts...but it's in the past. And like scars, you can heal, however long it takes..." lilac:...*whimpering* Sakuya: "...Do you want to talk about it?" naho:....(thinking: i dont know what i can say...sakuya and lilac....they both suffered so much in the past....and i had a fairly normal life......but its not fair at all.....they should have had good lives too...) lilac: did i......do the right thing? Sakuya: "...None of us can answer that. That's up to you...Do you think you did the right thing?" lilac:...i-i dont know....i was just...so upset....h-he killed them....and i wanted to hurt him......but i....i feel like i did something really unforgivable.....i-im scared. Sakuya: "...This is beyond me, and I think beyond you...Maybe we should talk to someone else? Maybe a professional at this kind of thing?" lilac:.....mr mahiru....he's good at talking to people....but....im scared he and the others hate me for what i did......i wouldnt...blame them if they do.... Sakuya: "...You won't know unless you try...How about we meet up with Mahiru for lunch?" lilac: !!...o.....ok....*gulp* naho: hey, we're here for you, ok? lilac:....r-right... Sakuya: *small smile* "Yeah." Sakuya: "I'll call up Mahiru when we get home..." lilac: o-ok.... naho: ..... >///>; Sakuya: "???" naho: n-nothing. Sakuya: *shrug* "Lilac, want to head home early?" lilac:...y-yes please. Sakuya: *nods, holds out a hand* "Come on..." -later- lavender: *holding lilac* easy there, kiddo. lilac:...... Sakuya: "...Tsubaki, I was thinking of bring Lilac to see a friend. Would that be okay?" tsubaki: sure, who did you have in mind? Sakuya: "Mahiru?" tsubaki:.....ah. should i come with you? Sakuya: "I think it would help." tsubaki: *she nods* Sakuya: "...Lilac had a rough day. I think it's about...what happened." tsubaki: ....i'll try my best to resolve this then. Sakuya: *nods* "I know you will. You're the negotiator for this group now..." tsubaki: i suppose so. otogiri: she will be head of her family someday, so best to practice i suppose. naho: she's kinda like a princess in some ways. -w- tsubaki: ^^; i wouldnt say that. Sakuya: *small laugh* "You probably could pull off a Disney princess dress, Tsu." tsubaki: ^^; -elsewhere- Konro: *groans* kabuki: are you sure you're alright, commander? Konro: "Just sore...It's worse during some days than others. Probably the weather." kabuki:....shall i apply the medicine then? Konro: *nods* "Thank you..." -elsewhere- Jacqueline: -w- kim: *in tanuki form, on jackie's lap* =w= Jacqueline: "Are you comfortable?" *strokes her back* kim: yeah. im so fluffy im gonna die~ -w- Jacqueline: *sigh* "You can be so conceited..." *strokes Kim--and not paying attention, strokes to her bottom* kim: KYUKYU! O////O *TAIL WHIP* >//////< Jacqueline: "Ow!" *realizes what she did* .\\\\\\. "S-Sorry!" kim: 7///////7; i-it was a reflex. Jacqueline: "Y-Yeah..." *holds her on her lap* "...You are fluffy. And cute in this form." -elsewhere- Mr. Tsubaki: ^^ midori: hmm? worker: im not sure if he's a kitsune or not, but i figured you might be able to take care of him for the time being. misuzu: ah, i see. Mr. Tsubaki: *looks at Midori and Misuzu* "???" *slowly approaches...sniffs at Midori* midori: hehe. <are you really a kitsune? i wonder...> Mr. Tsubaki: "!!!" ^\\\\\^ *small fox laugh* midori: ^^ my sister will be visiting tomorrow with her friends. im sure they'd love to meet you. Mr. Tsubaki: *tentatively approaches...still sniffing* -elsewhere- Patty: *dragging Gopher into the room by his ankles* "Look what I found outside!" Gopher: x___x kirika: O-O; ...im not even shocked. Gopher: "I was in front of the door to knock--then the door bust open." Patty: ^^ "Sorry about that! I was in a rush to get out, and you were in the way." -elsewhere- Akitaru: *lying on the couch* nayumi: how're ya doing, commander? Akitaru: *yawn* "Alright. Just tired..." nayumi: ah. Akitaru: "How about you? Having an okay week?" nayumi: *she nods* i got a letter from my family, they're doing well. Akitaru: *smiles* "That's good. What are they up to?" nayumi: just the usual things. Akitaru: *nods* "Any visit you plan to make to them?" nayumi: soon, if squad 0 gets called out that way. Akitaru: "Right..." *gets off the couch* "Wait and see, I guess. Want some tea?" nayumi: i would like that. ^^ Akitaru: *follows her to the kitchen, puts water on the stove* "...It's good for you to check in with your family." nayumi: *she smiles* did i tell you how i joined squad 0? Akitaru: "Just a little bit...How did you?" nayumi: *she smiles* one day, my father and i paid a visit to the main sol temple, and there was commander miwa, offering anyone to join squad 0 as a sister. she ended up striking up a conversation with my father and he then spoke to me. he told me 'i want you to go with them. i know you are happy at home, but i dont want you to become sheltered. i want for you to experience the world, and understand your surroundings.' and, i suppose i do now, to some extent. Akitaru: *smiles* "And you get to see more of this world...not a bad lesson." nayumi: *she smiles* i will admit, its scary sometimes. but i still want to respect what my father asked of me. Akitaru: "...You value your father's advice, then?" nayumi: *she nods* i suppose the commander is a rather trusting person. Akitaru: "Yeah..." *pours the hot water over tea for both of them* "She is." -elsewhere- Lawless: *yawn* kranz: sooo? how was school today? Lawless: -_- "Exhausting...So many assignments..." licht: *already studying with julian* Lawless: "I just want to sleep for hours..." julian: but we havent even gotten to reviewing the works of Aristotle yet! Lawless: -__-; "I'll get to 'Poetics' in the morning...It's not that long..." -elsewhere- Kid: "Zzz..." stocking: hehe~ Kid: *smiles, talks in his sleep* "You're lovely..." stocking: *she kisses him* Kid: "Hmmm~" *opens his eyes* "...Oh. Am I still dreaming?" stocking: you tell me~? *smooch* Kid: *smooch* "Mmmm~ This is better than my dreams...so this is real." *smiles at her* stocking: *she smiles* i love you kiddo~ Kid: *hug* "I love you, too..." -elsewhere- Emine: *sipping water* medea: *drinking coffee* Emine: "...So, how have you adjusted to life here?" medea: fairly well, minus the doll incidents. Emine: "Hmm...I am familiar with bad deeds. Those seemed far less destructive than they could have been." *pause* "...I mean that as a compliment." medea:.... Emine: "...May I ask you something? How did you...learn about your abilities?" medea: i often heard the voices growing up, and one day i heard my grandmother's voice amongst them. and we just started talking. Emine: "...Oh. And it...was an okay conversation?" -elsewhere- Benimaru: "Hello, Sister." kirei: *she smiles* commander. Benimaru: "How has today treated you?" kirei: it went well. Benimaru: *nods* "...I wish I could say the same." kirei:...is the commander- Benimaru: "He...is recovering, as best he can." kirei: *she nods* -some time later- lord death: happy birthday shiori! Kid: "Yay!" shiori: ^o^ Yumi: "Happy birthday, Shiori..." shiori: *stumble walks over to kid* hehe! Kid: *shiny eyes, gasps* "Awwww! Come on, Shiori! You can do it!" -she made it!- lord death: *SQUEEEEE* Yumi: *recording* "So good, Shiori!" shiori: kid! ^^ Kid: "Good work, Shiori!" *holds up a large box* "Your present..." -elsewhere- Tool: "Is this good enough to wear?" chie: looks good. mana: *thumbs up* Tool: "I-I hope so...Don't want to screw this up." chie: hey. you're gonna do great. Tool: *gulp* "O-Okay..." -elsewhere- Anya: "At least I can move around enough to go to classes..." tsugumi: ^^ Anya: "I just hope that today goes smoothly without--" Lawless: "Bro, I'm just saying that if you are going to write a sonnet, you have to--" Anya: "??!!!" licht: oh. hey. *wave* Anya: .\\\\\. "Hi..." Lawless: "...Hey. Um...Glad to see you on two legs again." Anya: -_-; "Yeah..." ao: say, i'll be visiting the shrine later today, do you want to come with us? Anya: "Might as well...So long as the stairs aren't too much." -at the shrine- midori: ah, welcome. ^^ ao: i'll go get changed then. *she goes to a back room* licht: so this is a shrine, huh? Anya: "What was your first clue?" Lawless: *snort* licht: father did mention going to them when he was young, but i never actually visited one. Anya: "Hmm..." tsugumi: awww, how cute! licht: *shiny eyes* its so fluffy. Fox!Mr. Tsubaki: o___o ("Crap crap crap crap crap--") Lawless: "???" Anya: *shiny eyes* "Where did you find this pet?" midori: well a worker from a sashimi restaurant came by and dropped him off. we think he might be a kitsune, or someone's pet. tsugumi: awwww, he's so cute! Fox!Mr. Tsubaki: ("Stay in character, stay in character...") *approaches Tsugumi, sniff lightly* tsugumi: hehe~ ^^ mio: i guess he's kinda adorable. 7-7; Fox!Mr. Tsubaki: *lets himself be pet* ^^ -valentines day- misono: at least i'm feeling better now... Lily: "Yes, you are...which is good because--" *CONFETTI* "Happy birthday!!!" misono: !!! *blush* t-thanks. mitsuki: oh, you got two packages of chocolates today. misono: o/////o s-seriously?! Lily: "Oooooo..." -two packages, one from madoka, one from shinoa- misono: *opens the box from madoka*......'happy birthday'......*sigh* Lily: *hands on the side of his face* "Oh, my..." misono:.....*opens shinoa's box.........it's birthday/valentines chocolate* .///////. Lily: "OoooooooOoooooo...So couple-y!" -elsewhere- stocking: ahhhh~! >/////< Kid: "I take it you're pleased?" stocking: *pants* that was...amazing. -knock knock- stocking: !!! *she puts a bathrobe on* Kid: ._. "Um..." *puts on his robe* stocking: yes? postal worker: package from a mr b...bel..bei.. *squints* stocking: donate it. postal worker: y-you sure? stocking: yes. postal worker: ok then. Kid: -___-;; "Maybe send it to a bomb-disposal unit..." postal worker: o...ok then. -later- -knock knock- girl: ??? *she opens the door* y-yes? Postal Worker: "Donation for you, ma'am. Please sign here." girl: *she signs it* t-thank you.... Postal Worker: *nods, leaves* *The box shakes a bit* girl:.....*just stares* *The box breaks open, revealing a card and a box of chocolates...The card opens, playing Belkia singing 'My Heart Will Go On'...Badly* girl: ah....*blush* *she reads the note attached* Belkia's card: "My darling cinnamon bun, please say you will be my Valentine! Your beauty, your charm, your elegance, your--" *It goes on and on...The card even folds out to continue with a long list of compliments* girl: ah...*tearing up* Belkia's card: "I love you. I made reservations at the restaurant listed below. Please, say you will be there." girl: *she eats the chocolates, happily* (thinking: someone....really did this for me? w-was it donated out of shyness?....im so...so happy....ahaha....) -elsewhere- Wes: *holds out a rose* "Hello." liz: aww. *smooch* Wes: -\\\\- *smooch* "Happy Valentine's Day. Looking forward to dinner tonight?" liz: of course. ^^ Wes: *holds her hand* "It'll be intimate, good music...good food." -elsewhere- naho: =w= Sakuya: *smooch* "I hope a small gift for Valentine's isn't a problem..." naho: not at all~ ^^ otogiri: *in a heart sweater* Black Star: *looks at his* "...Thanks. This is really kind of you." lavender: *in a red dress* higan and i are gonna crash some valentines parties in the red light district, dont wait up~ otogiri: -.-; Black Star: "...Don't hurt anyone." lavender: the night is still young~ Black Star: *serious face* lavender: *sigh and hair ruffle* we wont kill anyone, ok? Black Star: -_____-;;; "Thank you. And no cutting. Or biting. Or anything that causes physical harm." Higan: "What about mental scarring and emotional pain?" naho: that too! Higan: *pout* lavender: we wont bite....too much~ tsubaki: be sure to keep in contact. -_-; lavender: alright alright. ready to go then~? Black Star: *GLARING* Higan: "Always." *puts a hand on his hip, guiding her...* otogiri: -___-; naho: *cringe* speakin of pervs, anyone seen belkia? Belkia: *in a suit* "Hello, hello, hello! I'm off to meet my destiny!!!" naho: of course you are. Belkia: *holds a bouquet of flowers, humming 'The Wedding March'* "Don't wait up--it's going to be a late night!" otogiri:...... Black Star: "...$5 says he comes back hacked to pieces." naho: where the heck are you even going? Belkia: "A fancy-ass restaurant to romance my delicious cupcake over a sumptuous dinner, where my magical charm will finally convince her to leave THAT DIRTY UGLY REAPER SHIT and marry me~" otogiri: .....sure. Belkia: "Maybe even breakfast with my sweet bun..." naho: just go and break a leg. -_-; Sakuya: "Break both." Belkia: "Hmph." *departs* -later- Belkia: *seated at his table, looking at this watch* "Hmm..." girl:......um..e-excuse me... Belkia: "??? Yes?" girl: y-you're 'belkia' r-right? Belkia: "Yes. Who is asking?" girl: -i-im ayami. i-its so nice..to finally meet you. Belkia: "Um...Hi?" ("Who the heck is Ayami?") ayami: w-when your card arrived for me i-in the mail...i was...so happy you'd waste your time on pitiful filth like me. and the chocolates were so yummy, and i felt i was beginning to love you even more. Belkia: "...What?" ("Something here isn't making sense...What card? What chocolates?") ayami: w-were you that shy that you had it donated? the card said to meet you in this place, so here i am. Belkia: "...'That card'? Wait..." *Thought bubble: Stocking + My Gift - Stocking + Random Girl = OH SHIT!* o____o "Uuuuuuuuuuum..." ayami: if you wish. i'll be yours forever. i-i'll do anything for you. *twitching* a-anything. Belkia: o_________________o;;; "Um...That's great. Just one question: who the hell are you?" ayami:..................hehehehe...you're so funny....im the love of your life...r-right?! *dark yandere aura* Belkia: o__________o "CHECK, PLEASE!" ayami: are we ordering to go then? Belkia: "Yes! I'm ordering myself a taxi to get the heck out of here!" ayami: w-we’re going to your place already? oh my~ U////U Belkia: "AAAAAAAHHH!" *runs away--and into a wall, falling back to the floor* x_____x ayami: oh no! y-you're hurt! Belkia: "I'M FINE! STAY BACK! MOMMY!" ayami: ....he's so shy...how cute....hehehe.. -and so- naho: hey belbel, how did it- Belkia: "DON'T TALK TO ME!" naho: !!!.... *pouts* rude. Belkia: *shudders* "Worst Valentine's ever! I need a shower..." otogiri: ?? Sakuya: "Guess Stocking didn't like her gift?" naho: nah, he's still in one piece. Sakuya: "Hmm. Wonder what happened to him?" -at the hoshino shrine- midori: .....(thinking: he looks so forlorn...poor lil guy...) Fox!Tsubaki: T_T *whimper* midori: .... Fox!Tsubaki: ("I know most of my family is safe with her...but I worry...") -elsewhere- Relan: ^^ "These are tasty..." shinra: im glad you like them. Relan: "I do--thanks! I...wish my gift was better..." shinra: its from you, so that makes it the best. *hug* iris: hehe ^^ Relan: ^\\\\^ -elsewhere- kranz: HE'S HAD HOW MANY SHOTS OF BOURBON?! licht: yeah.... 7_7; Lawless: "HA HA HA HA HA! A quart of ale is a dish for a king, bruh!" romina: i think you've had enough tonight. ._.; Lawless: *whines, pulling the drinks towards himself* "I have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking: I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment..." *HIC* licht: ugh... Lawless: "..." *ugly sob* "WHY?!" licht:...*awkward back pats* Lawless: *hug, cries into his shirt* licht: !!!!....*back pats* 7///7; Lawless: "Ophel--*hic*--ia! Why?!!!" licht:.......*humming* Lawless: *whimpers, his breathing steadies...he starts to calm down...* -elsewhere- Yumi: "I hope you like your present..." lord death: *opens his eyes* O//////////O *Yumi is in her panties, with a large ribbon tied around her chest* Yumi: "Care to unwrap?" lord death: *closes the door* oh goodness yes! Yumi: *approaches him, giving him a light push down to have him sit at the edge of the bed, as she sits on his lap and puts her arms around him* "Happy Valentine's Day, love." lord death: *he takes off his mask and kisses her* Yumi: *kisses back, rubbing his back* -elsewhere- Patty: "Thanks for winning me this big-ass sloth at the arcade, Takeru!" takeru: n-no problem. >///< Patty: "..." *kiss on the cheek* "You're cute." takeru: >//////< Patty: *holds his hand* "...Do you think I'm cute?" takeru: *blushing* Patty: *pouts* "Is that a yes?" takeru: *nods* Patty: *smiles widely--and taps her finger on his nose* "Thank you!" -elsewhere- Hibana: *holding up a spoonful of ice cream* "Excellent dessert." gabriella: im glad you like it~<3 Hibana: "Such good taste. Tell me, how often have you made ice cream?" -elsewhere- Gopher: *singing outside a window...badly* "Life is like a broken arrow- / Memory a swingin' door / I could be your great misfortune / I can make you happy every day of your life!" kirika: *right behind him* hey. Gopher: O-Oh! Um...I thought you were upstairs. In your room." kirika: i kinda figured you'd be out here. *head pats* points for effort, though. Gopher: -\\\w\\\- "H-Happy Valentine's...Day." kirika:....here. *she gives him some chocolate cat faces* so ya dont head home empty handed. 7///7; Gopher: "!!! Thank you! I will treasure these, always!" kirika: sure. (thinking: so pathetic and try hard....its almost kinda cute...) Gopher: "G-Good night." .w. *turns to leave* -elsewhere- Tool: "...I enjoyed your company tonight." saki: i enjoyed it too. ^^ *she holds his hand* Tool: *slight shudder* "Th-Thanks...Saki...I..." saki: *smooch on the cheek* Tool: o\\\\\\o "I...You...and Io are so...important to me...Thank you." -elsewhere- Kid: -\\\\\- "A bit embarrassing..." stocking: *smooch* aww. Kid: "But...for you, I can do it." stocking: ^^ Kid: *clears his throat, gets down on one knee...and sings lightly* "Whenever I'm alone with you / You make me feel like I am home again / Whenever I'm alone with you / You make me feel like I am whole again" stocking: *she smiles* awww. *smooch on the forehead* Kid: -\\\\\- *takes her hand, kisses it lightly* stocking: hehehe~<3 Kid: "I love you, my valentine. Please, say you'll be mine." stocking: i'm already yours kiddo. *smooch* Kid: *smiles lightly, as he hugs her legs* stocking: ^///^ Kid: *kisses her knees lightly* "Happy Valentine's Day, love." -elsewhere- Black Star: *holding up a jewelry box to Tsubaki* tsubaki: aww. *smooch on the cheek* Black Star: -\\\\- "I hope you like it..." *Inside is a camelia necklace* tsubaki: *blush* it's beautiful! thank you. *smooch* Black Star: *smooch* "It...seemed right for you." tsubaki: hehe. ^^ Black Star: *hug* "Happy V-Day, Tsubaki." tsubaki: *she hugs him* Black Star: "Mmm~" ^^ -elsewhere- Meme: -w- mio: h-hope you like it. *she gave meme a scarf* Meme: "I do! The color is great, it's so comfy and fluffy..." *puts it around her neck--then lets the end of it rest along Mio's shoulder* mio: o////o Meme: *smiles* "I like you a lot, Mio." mio: m-meme..... *blushing* Meme: "..." *kiss on Mio's cheek* mio: .//////////////////////////. Meme: *holds Mio's hand* "I think...maybe we need an official date to happen already...If you're not up for that, this is enough for me." mio: i would.....l-l-like that...... .///////. *head steaming* Meme: "Good...Um..." *pulls the scarf off to cool Mio down* "Let's get you some water to cool off..." -elsewhere- Fox!Tsubaki: -______-; *He is dressed in a puppy-size Valentine outfit* midori: ^^ adorable. Fox!Tsubaki: *tiny growl* midori: ?? Fox!Tsubaki: *puppy dog eyes, as he scratches at his outfit* midori: dont you like it? Fox!Tsubaki: *whining* midori:...*she sighs* hold still lil guy... *she takes it off him* Fox!Tsubaki: *slips out of the outfit, shakes his fur, sits, panting happily* midori: *she sighs* i hope we can find if you have an owner soon...they must really miss you. Fox!Tsubaki: "..." *looks down, sadly* midori:....you're welcome to sleep in one of the guest rooms, if you'd like. Fox!Tsubaki: *sniff...walks his way towards a guest room...* -the door is open.- Fox!Tsubaki: *slips inside...tries to shut the door behind him* midori: ^^; want your privacy? hehe, you're certainly an interesting lil guy. *she closes the door and walks away* Fox!Tsubaki: *sigh* *POOF* Mr. Tsubaki: *in human form* "Hate those tiny outfits..." -silence- Mr. Tsubaki: *looks around the room...yawns* "Might as well get some sleep..." -morning- Kid: "Mmmm~" stocking: ahhh.... Kid: *smiles, kisses her cheek* stocking: hehe~ Kid: "That was a good night..." *kiss* "I hope this is a good morning." stocking: hmhm~ *smooch* Kid: *small kiss on her neck* "I think...you deserve an excellent dessert this weekend." stocking: 7///w///7 oh~? Kid: "Yes..." *kisses her shoulder* "A feast fit for a queen like you...Flavorful...decadent..." *his hand lays along her leg* "Stimulate your senses..." stocking: oh my~ Kid: "But right now...I want to taste..." *his lips near hers* "...you." *smooch* stocking: mmmm~<3 Kid: *holds her in a hug* "I love you." stocking: i love you too kid. Kid: *holds her hand* "Ready to start the day?" stocking: *she nods* -at school- Meme: *in the scarf* "Come on--you can do it, Anya!" *points to where Licht and Lawless are standing* "Go on." Anya: -___-; "This is stupid." licht: just believe you can walk. if you trip i'll catch you because...*pose* im an angel. Anya: o____o "...Um..." Meme: *pushes Anya along* tsugumi: do your best! ao: good luck~ Anya: "!!!" *slowly walks over to Licht...* -nice catch- licht: hey. Anya: o\\\\\o Lawless: -_-; ao: aaaw, how sweet. Anya: "SHUT IT, AO!!!" *slips out of Licht's hands--and onto the floor* "...Ow." licht: *picks her up* i'll get you to the nurse. because im an angel. *pose* ao: fly her away to heaven~ ^^ tsugumi:..... O___O ao-chi that's really morbid. Anya: "Put me down! I'm fine! I can walk! I can--" Lawless: *follows Anya and Licht* -elsewhere- misuzu: *tending to the shrine* Mr. Tsubaki: *in fox form, curled up on the bed* misuzu: (thinking: alright. just need to clean the guest house) Mr. Tsubaki: *sits up in bed, stretches* "Hmm?" ("What time is it?") -the sun is shining through the window- Mr. Tsubaki: ("Morning? And quite late...I wonder what I should do...") *looks around the room...* -nothing much, other than what you'd expect from a traditional japanese room- Mr. Tsubaki: "..." falls onto his back, rolls on the bed like a doggie* "Ah, so good..." -footsteps approach- Mr. Tsubaki: "!!!" *sits up in bed, looks at the door* misuzu: *she opens the door* ah. hope you dont mind me coming in. Mr. Tsubaki: ^^; *small fox laugh, as he hops off bed, stands before her, smiling* misuzu: ^^ *she begins to clean the room of any dust* Mr. Tsubaki: "..." *sweeps his tail along, trying to clear up some dust* misuzu: hehe. ^^ Mr. Tsubaki: ^^ *follows her* -a little dust falls onto his nose- Mr. Tsubaki: Q~Q "Ah...ah...ah...CHOO!" *POOF* misuzu: oh dear im quite sorry abou-............ Mr. Tsubaki: o______o;;;; Mr. Tsubaki: "...Um..." misuzu:.... WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!?! *swatting at him with the broom* Mr. Tsubaki: "OW OW! Stop it! I'm the fox! I just, you know, turned into a humanoid form--as you do..." -SWAT SWAT SWAT!- midori: mother? what's- !!! Mr. Tsubaki: D: "...I know this looks bad. But I'm the kitsune you brought in...Um...Surprise?" -OFUDA'D- Mr. Tsubaki: o___o "Oh, sh--" misuzu: <begone evil demons!> Mr. Tsubaki: "No! Wait! I'm not--" -OFUDA'D x2- Mr. Tsubaki: "Crap! Wait! I'm Tsubaki! I'm not--" -OFUDA'D x3- Mr. Tsubaki: "WOULD YOU STOP OFUDA-ING ME?! I AM NOT A THREAT! I'M A TINY FOX PERSON-THING!" -OFUDA'D x42- Mr. Tsubaki: "..." *DIIIING* x___X -KO- Mr. Tsubaki: *collapses on floor, small smoke out of his mouth...* midori: what do we do? -later- Mr. Tsubaki: "...Wh-What...?" tsubaki?: i was so worried about you. Mr. Tsubaki: "...Camelia Blossom?" tsubaki?: *she strokes his cheek* im so happy...that you're ok. *she leans in* Mr. Tsubaki: o\\\\\o "I...You..." *closes his eyes, reaching out to her* -there is a warm feeling against his lips- Mr. Tsubaki: "Mmmm~" stray dog: *lick lick lick* Mr. Tsubaki: "..." ._______. "...The heck?" dog: 83 Mr. Tsubaki: "..." -_- "Hmph...Where am I?" -seems he's in a field in a random park- Mr. Tsubaki: "...Darn. That bed was comfortable." -elsewhere- Jacqueline: *pouts* kim: what? Jacqueline: *holds up heart bopper headband* "I just wanted you to put this on once..." kim: *she puts them on* *with the lights* Jacqueline: .w. "Yay..." *holds up phone* kim: .///_____///.; *SNAP* Jacqueline: "Thank you. You are quite cute like that." kim: you're evil. Jacqueline: *chuckles* "Just a little insurance for the future..." -elsewhere- Belkia: *shaking in the corner* otogiri: ??? naho: you feelin ok, bel? you've been actin weird since yesterday. Belkia: "That girl was crazy!" naho: who, the angel girl? Belkia: *shakes his head* "No, most definitely not! Crazy girl! Stalker girl! She got my gift for my darling buttercup--and instead it was some crazy broad!" otogiri: oh my. being stalked day in and day out by some pest. i wonder how _that_ must feel. Belkia: "Awful--that's what it feels like! What kind of a crazy person does that?!" otogiri:.................................................................. naho:............................................ lavender: *cough* Higan: "...You try for a 'friends with benefit' arrangement, Belkia?" Belkia: "NO!" lilac: ????? Higan: "Just suggesting...It works well for many people. And you could use an opportunity to de-stress." naho: could you talk about gross stuff like that somewhere else, old man?! -_-; Higan: "Yes, I could." *pulls out a notepad, moves his pen across it--then turns it around to show to Naho; a portrait of her disgusted face* "But I also get to practice my drawing." naho: *she goes under the kotatsu* =3= *pouts* Sakuya: *small laugh* "Ignore him..." *kneels down, pats her head* naho: =,= *nuzzle* Sakuya: -\\\\- Higan: "...Speaking of 'friends with benefits'..." lavender: 7w7 hmhmhm~ naho: WE CAN HEAR YOU OLD MAN! >n< Higan: *pats her bottom* "My room or yours?" -elsewhere- Benimaru: *staring at a pile of Valentine's cards* "...I guess I am popular." fang-hua: no kidding. ._.; Benimaru: *flips through them* "Hmm...The usual suspects...and at least 12 from Tsukiyo. Can only imagine what is in these." *puts those aside* fang-hua: there's a few from the shrine....from that one very strange person...and.....*she hides her card* Benimaru: " 'Strange person'? A threat?" fang-hua:......not exactly. -elsewhere- Relan: *jogging* ayami: ....... Relan: "???" ayami: e-excuse me...have you....s-seen this person? *holds up a picture of belkia* Relan: "Oh!" *jogs back towards her, looks at the photo* "...Can't say I have. Is he a street magician?" ayami: do you know someone who has met him?? *twitching* Relan: *noticing the twitching* "...Um...N-No? I mean, if I never saw him, I wouldn't know whether someone 'met' him?" ayami:...*runs off* Relan: "...Odd." *jogs...in the opposite direction* -elsewhere- Black Star: "Yo, Ao--you alright?" ao: oh, hello. ^^ Black Star: "Hey. I heard something happened at the temple? Everything okay?" ao: yes. everything was resolved. Black Star: *nods* "That's good. If you got any more problems, you let me know--and I'll fix it!" ao: ok. -later- Yohei: "Tool tell you anything about his date?" chie: no, but saki did. she had a great time, it sounds like. Yohei: "That's good." *pats her shoulder* "I'm sorry we didn't get to go out for Valentine's..." chie: *smooch* Yohei: -\\\\- "How's the little guy?" chie: doing well~ Yohei: "That's great..." *hug* chie: ^^ Yohei: "Heh...Imagine his first Valentine that he'll get...Probably get glitter everywhere..." chie: hehe ^^ Yohei: "After that mess Shotaro made with his Valentine..." chie: yeah... ^^; Yohei: "Still better than what Mono got..." mono: oh shut up! >///n///< Yohei: *small chuckle* "One extravagant card from Assi, Zuno giving you 28 cards because he didn't remember whether he already gave you one...and whatever that thing was Emine put in your bed." mono:.... >_________>;;; Yohei: "When's the wedding?" mono: OH SHUSH YOU! *pap attack!* Yohei: "Wow! Hey! I was just kidding!" -elsewhere- Takehisa: *hyper-ventilating* shinra: commander you ok?! Takehisa: "V-Valentine's...Gifts..." shinra: o.o ~? Takehisa: "I was too nervous...and now Valentine's Day has come and gone--and I didn't do it..." shinra: didnt do what? Takehisa: "Didn't give this gift to Maki..." shinra: oh. well, she put something in your locker. i saw it happen. Takehisa: o___o "...I never opened my locker..." *goes to open it...* -seems there is a box of chocolates with a note- note: hey takehisa. thought i'd give you something so you dont feel left out. happy v-tines. maki *there is also a little doodle of pusupusu.* Takehisa: ._. *looks at the note* Takehisa: "..." T_T "Why didn't I give her my gift to her yesterday...?" shinra: hey, its never too late. Takehisa: "..." *runs for Maki's room...* maki: yes? Takehisa: "..." *holds up a wrapped item* "Vappy Halentine's Day!" maki: aww, thanks! *hug* Takehisa: o~o "I-I hope it is...good." -elsewhere- Mr. Tsubaki: *in fox form, wandering through alleys* ("And here I am again...Darn.") naho: i think the shop is this way. Mr. Tsubaki: "!!!" naho: did you guys want to get anything while we're out? Sakuya: "Wouldn't mind a burger--with all the toppings." Mr. Tsubaki: Q~Q *stomach growl* lilac: ..... naho: hmm? you ok? lilac: y-yeah... Mr. Tsubaki: *hidden, following* Sakuya: "Maybe you're hungry?" lilac: i guess...i'll just have a milkshake... Sakuya: "There you go." *smiles* Mr. Tsubaki: T____T lilac: y-you can just...order me whatever.... naho: ok! Sakuya: "And fries...and dessert..." *drooling* -elsewhere- Rino: *holds up the kitten* "See? Cute, huh?" gabriella: aww. Hibana: -_-;;; "...You de-claw that thing yet?" Rino: -_- "No." gabriella: can we make him our mascot? *shiny eyes* Hibana: "...Seriously? A cat? Not something more elegant?" Rino: "Of course you can make him the mascot!" ^^ Hibana: -______- gabriella: *shiny puppy dog eyes* Hibana: "...F-Fine..." -elsewhere- Patty: "Big. Ass. SLOTH TOY!" *shakes it at Liz* liz: ^^; stocking: fluffy. Patty: "Very--and very kind of Takeru to win it for me! How were your Valentine's Days, ladies?" liz: it was wonderful. stocking: same. Patty: "Hee hee...I bet. I can tell from Stocking's smile--and that jewelry Sis is sporting." stocking: ^///^ Patty: *sighs, holds up sloth* "Just a few more months..." stocking: ?? Patty: "Then we graduate...and then...I don't know." -elsewhere- Yumi: *smooch* lord death: =w=~<3 Yumi: *hug* "So good..." lord death: i wuv yoooou~ Yumi: *chuckles* "I 'wuv' you, too..." *soft pat on his bottom* lord death: ^////^ Yumi: *smiles* "I love the moments of just us, together...and I love our children." lord death: UwU~<3 Yumi: *smooch on the cheek* "...You know...maybe we owe ourselves a small break...a mini-vacation, perhaps to a hotel?" lord death: oho~ planning something naughty, are we~? Yumi: -\\\\\\- "...Maybe a bit. I think you could benefit from some...discipline." *spanks his bottom* -elsewhere- Lawless: *writing poetry* licht: *practicing piano* kranz: how you two kiddos doing? Lawless: "Shhh...Geniuses at work..." kranz: *whispers* right sorry. Lawless: *humming along as he reads the words to himself--* "Blast. I can't get the meter right..." julian: would you like some help? Lawless: "...Sure. How much you know about syllables and meter?" -elsewhere- mafura: ~? Tsurugi: "??? What?" mafura: ......*leeean* zzzzz.... yumikage: -___-; what does she even see in him? Jun: "...A rock to depend on?" Tsurugi: o\\\\\\\\\\o yumikage: tsurugi if you lay a scratch on her you are a DEAD MAN DO YOU HEAR ME?! tinker: easy there, grumpy pants. yumikage: ...*hmph* im just saying, he's inexperienced with girls. tinker: so are you. yumikage: IRRELAVENT! Tsurugi: "I AM NOT INTENDING ANYTHING TO BE EXPERIENCED WITH GIRLS!" hyakuya:...anyone else confused? mitsuba: oh yeah. Jun: "I just keep my head down and focus on work...which you all should." shinoa: speaking of which, shall we get a head start on today's jinn clean up? *sunny* Jun: "Good thinking. Take a few of the team with you, and Tsurugi--" Tsurugi: o\\\\\\\\o Jun: "...Um...Either go with them, or keep being a pillow for Mafura." mafura: mafura wants to come too! Jun: *smiles* "Very good." *stares seriously at Tsurugi* "_Keep an eye on her safety..._" Tsurugi: o______o -and so, near the antique shop- mitsuba: not a lot of activity today... hyakuya: i suppose that's a good thing. mafura: ?? *looking all around* Tsurugi: "So...While we're here, do we have to do a checkin at the antique shop?" mitsuba: i suppose. Tsurugi: "..." -____- "Maybe...someone else could visit the antique shop?" mitsuba: fine i'll do it. *she opens the door* metsu: may i help you? hyakuya: just checking stuff out. mafura: *looooooks* O.O *staaaaare* Jeje: *in snake form* "???" mafura: !! metsu: ^^ mitsuba: oh! i-is mikuni in? metsu: yes, he's upstairs, shall i get him? hyakuya: yes. mitsuba: AKANE! D8< Tsurugi: -_____-;;;; "Whhhhhhhhhhy?" Jeje: *slithers up the stairs with Metsu...* mafura: o.o ~? Jeje: "Ssss...Mikuni. You have guests..." Mikuni: "???" *steps outside, not even looking* "Well, howdy there, y'all! And how may I help--" *spots Tsurugi and all...* "...Oh. So, you're here." Tsurugi: -_______________- mafura: ~? *head tilt* mitsuba: .///////////////////. hey. hyakuya: sup. Mikuni: "S'up. Tsurugi." Tsurugi: "Kuni-chan." Mikuni: *spots Mafura* "!!! Oh, hello! Who are you?" mitsuba: did it just get colder in here? hyakuya: oh fuck yeah it did. mafura: mafura-chan is mafura-chan ^^ metsu: ?? Mikuni: "...Um...And Mikuni is Mikuni. That's me! Where you from, buddy?" hyakuya: she's with us. Tsurugi: :3 "More like, she is with me." *holds Mafura's hand* mafura: OwO~? metsu:...eh? Mikuni: o____o Jeje: "...Sssssshit." Tsurugi: "Going steady. Staying together. Holding hands. All those things." mitsuba:...since when? hyakuya: oh my god. Tsuguri: "S-Since a long time now! So there! Isn't that right, my smoochy peachy?" mafura: OwO~?? metsu: ......*sweatdrop* Mikuni: "...Really now? Huh. Well, good for you." Jeje: *looks at Metsu, whispers* "Can you believe this?" hyakuya: *texting someone* metsu: i dont believe this for a moment. -_-; Tsuguri: ^^ "Thank you, Kuni-chan. Mafura and I are happy to hear..." mafura: ^^ *nuzzle* hehe~ mitsuba: *JAWDROP* Tsurugi: o_____o;;;; *slight shudder* "Oh...Um...Uh...Help?" Mikuni: "..." *crosses his arms, smirks* mafura: ^w^ -squiiish- Tsurugi: D: Mikuni: o\\\\\\\o Jeje: "...Yikesssssss." mitsuba: O__________O Tsurugi: "P-P-Please, love muffin--wait 'til we get home~" Mikuni: ._. "Good. Lord." mitsuba: is this even real? hyakuya: >->; Mikuni: "Um...Congrats? I guess. You two have fun with...whatever. I'll go back to my dolls." Tsurugi: "Y-Yeah! You go play with your dolls! Maybe have a tea party for them!" Mikuni: "...Yes. That's what I am going to do. Because that is normal. Unlike...whatever you're doing." Tsurugi: >____< "YOU WANT TO THROW DOWN?!" metsu: *chop* please dont cause a scene. -_-; Tsurugi: "Ow!" Jeje: :) Mikuni: "Hmph...Good day to you all, then..." mafura: O.O *hug* mitsuba: O-O Tsurugi: *slight whimper, whine...* "Um...Okay?" -elsewhere- Tsukiyo: D: "Did he say _anything_ kind about my Valentine's cards?" fang-hua:....you're quite enthusiastic. Tsukiyo: "Isn't that a _good_ thing? It shows I'm up for a lot!" fang-hua: *sweatdrop* (thinking: no denying that...) Tsukiyo: "Well, tell me Beni-Hottie at least liked _your_ card..." fang-hua: >_>;;; Tsukiyo: "...Oh, sweetie, you didn't chicken out, did you?" fang-hua: >///< i only made the card cause you made me do it! Tsukiyo: "..." *sigh* *pats her head* "I guess you need to take your time..." fang-hua: 7.7; h-he's my commander...it would be weird for me to give him something like that... Tsukiyo: "But...I don't want you to live with regrets. I mean, it can't hurt to be open and honest, right?" -elsewhere- Sakuya: *burp* "Man...That hit the spot." lilac: thank you for the meal... naho: now onto shopping~! Sakuya: "Awesome!" *puts money on table to the tip* Sakuya: "What you plan to buy?" -elsewhere- Shotaro: "WE'RE HOME!!!" chie: welcome back! setsuna: ^^ Shotaro: *hugs both of them* "You should have seen the good deed today--I knocked a supervillain into a wall!" setsuna: good job! mana: (thinking: at this point, he's going to become a vigilante...) Emine: *enters in after them...with a black eye* setsuna: !!! emine! are you ok? Emine: "Yes. When Shotaro incapacitated the supervillain, I called him a rude name for my bad deed. Evidently, the supervillain really loves his mother and did not take kindly to that insult." lin: *she has the ice pack on the ready* Emine: "...Aw." *takes the ice pack...kisses her cheek* lin: hehe~ ^^ Shotaro: "Emine and Lin, sitting in a tree..." -elsewhere- Kid: "Look at you, Shiori--walking all over the place!" shiori: hehe! Kid: "Wait 'til you start running...just be careful doing that." shiori: ^^ Kid: "Let's walk around and see what everyone is up to, okay? I wonder who we'll see..." -elsewhere- tsubaki: we're home! otogiri: welcome back. Belkia: *whimper* lavender: you've been out of it all day. im actually starting to get concerned. Belkia: "Scary girl...We should change the locks. Maybe move. Change our names. We'll change Tsubaki's name to Camelia, Lavender's name to Mint, and Otogiri's name to Strings." -chop- otogiri: you're overreacting. Belkia: Q~Q "She was scary...I don't think I'll ever be able to fall asleep again..." otogiri: -_-; Black Star: "Could always just knock him out with a big stick..." -elsewhere- Jacqueline: *lies down on the couch, groans* kim: you ok? Jacqueline: "I don't know...I feel sore from stacking books, tired, hungry...but my stomach also feels weird." kim: want me to help? Jacqueline: "...Yes, sure." -elsewhere- Relan: "So I ran the other way...She was...odd." shinra: that is pretty weird. iris: yikes. Relan: *nods* "It was...also familiar." shinra: how so? Relan: "...Something hereditary, maybe..." shinra: ?? iris: ??? Relan: "I am...was a creepy stalker to you, Shinra...and my mother is...well, herself." shinra:...*holds his hand* you've outgrown that though. and we're proud of you for that. Relan: "...I don't want to go back to that." *small squeeze of his hand* shinra: you wont, trust us. *hug* Relan: *hugs both of them* -elsewhere- Shinoda: *humming...* nea: =w= zzzzz Shinoda: *smooch on her forehead...then exhales his breath, which is cold...smiles* nea: zzzzz Shinoda: "I love you...my queen." -elsewhere- Stein: "...What is _this thing_ doing here?" marie: care to elaborate? Stein: "This _thing_ on my front step...who is stealing my face." Johannes: *waves* marie: *stunned* valentine: ??? oh? aya: O.O ????? Stein: *puts a hand to his chin* Johannes: *matching the movement* Stein: ._. *takes a step to the left...* Johannes: *matching his movement* Stein: -_____-;;; "I need to put a lock on my cloning lab." ???: guuuugh... marie: !! valentine: seems the patient is waking up. Stein and Johannes: "Oh, good! Let's check on them." *stare at each other...* sayaka: just cause i can heal doesnt mean i like being vivisected. -_-; *hurk* Johannes: .w. "Hello~" sayaka: ahahaha...haaaa *FAINTS* XwX;;; valentine: mind helping her up to the couch? marie: way ahead of you. Johannes: "I can do it! Let me just get a hold on her--" Stein: *pulls Johannes's arm behind his back* Johannes: "Ow ow ow..." *getting on his knees, as Stein puts a knee to his back* "I mean, I'll wait here." sayaka: X____X awawawawaaa Stein: "Good boy." sayaka: nnng... *opens eyes* doooc? Stein: "It's okay. You're safe. You just...needed some care." sayaka: oh thank god. i had a really scary dream. *hurk* i feel sick. Stein: "I'll get you some stomach medicine...and tie this clone up." Johannes: "Actually, I'm not a clone. I'm Johannes--" *SMACK* Stein: "Quiet, clone...We're going to have some fun...Heh heh heh..." Johannes: x_____x sayaka: O_____O;;;; Stein: "You can't beat the original..." *a scalpel falls from his sleeve, as he holds up Johannes by the collar* "So let's cut to the chase, and see what's inside of you..." Johannes: o____________o ("...I think I've learned a valuable lesson today...WEAR ADULT DIAPERS.") -elsewhere- Anya: *staring at her phone* "..." ao: waiting on a call? Anya: "I don't know...More like waiting _to_ call..." ao: who are you planning on calling? Anya: "...I never gave a clear thank you to Licht and his friend for intervening during that attack...and the flowers." ao: ah, i see~ Anya: *stare* "...What's with that tone?" ao: 737~*whistling* Anya: "Hmph...Fine. I might as well be proactive--" *texts Licht and Lawless* kranz: [hello, rosen kranz, licht's manager speaking~<3 who do we owe the pleasure?] Anya: "...The devil? He has his manager intercept his texts?" [anya hepburn, wishing to thank licht and his friend for their intervention when i was attacked] kranz: [ah yes! my son hyde mentioned you!] Anya: [oh? i hope i was not a trouble, seeing as your son and licht helped me against that violent menace] -elsewhere- Arthur: "I hope the gift was...okay." tamaki: i appreciate it. thanks. 7///7 Arthur: "..." *nods* "I just didn't want to screw up too much..." tamaki: *hug* Arthur: o\\\\\o "..." *hug* -elsewhere- Jacqueline: "Ah...My stomach feels a bit better." kim: glad to hear. Jacqueline: *turns over on the couch, sits up* "I owe you one." kim: 25 dollars please. Jacqueline: "...You greedy little tanuki." kim: im joking! im joking!.............just 5 dollars will suffice. Jacqueline: -_-; *pulls out her wallet, hands five dollars* "Here." kim: thank you~ Jacqueline: *sigh* "I guess I should appreciate getting the 'Kim's partner' discount." *looks at her face* "...Kim...Did you get your hair cut?" kim: hmm? no. actually i've been growing it out a little. Jacqueline: *smile* "It's been a while since you had longer hair. It looks nice. Suits you." kim: 7///7 thanks, i guess. Jacqueline: "..." ("She's so cute when she blushes...") -\\\\- "I...I mean...You look..." kim: hmm? Jacqueline: "...Kim. You look cute." kim: i know~ ^///^;; Jacqueline: "..." *brushes hair over her ear* "Pretty..." kim: o////o Jacqueline: "...I just said that aloud, didn't I?" kim: said what? Jacqueline: o\\\\\\o "N-Nothing..." -elsewhere- Kuro: *batting at a cat toy* mahiru: ^^ cute. Kuro: "This is not cute. It is training. Reaction time..." *yawn* -the door opens- Kuro: "???" uncle toru: im hoooome! mahiru: hey uncle, how was work? Kuro: "..." ("What the heck?") uncle toru: went well. the weather was a bit muggy this morning, so i had to drink my coffee from a bowl. haha! mahiru: -__-; Kuro: "Boo." uncle toru: ?! did you hear something? mahiru: hear what? *gives kuro a side glance of 'act natural!'* Kuro: "..." *meow* -elsewhere- Kepuri: "...At least it's red. But I think I added too much salt--" akaderu:....i think its great. s-since you made it....that sounds stupid, doesnt it? Kepuri: "..." *holds his hand* "It sounds supportive." *smiles* akaderu: .////////////.;; Kepuri: "Next time, I'll try less salt." *smooch* -elsewhere- Mr. Tsubaki: *looking through a garbage can* "..." hinata: *shiny eyes* hikage: cuuute! Mr. Tsubaki: "???" *looks at them* ("Twins"?) hikage: we can be foxes too! see? *fwooom!* Mr. Tsubaki: *shiny eyes* ("Babies!!!") *slowly approaches...* hinata: *pet pet* hehehe ^^ Mr. Tsubaki: ^^; ("Just don't burn me...") *stomach growl* hinata: *picks him up* come on lil guy, sister kirei will give you something to eat Mr. Tsubaki: *huddles* ^^ -elsewhere- Kid: *curled up in blanket* =w= stocking: hehe~<3 Kid: "Good." *smooch on the cheek* stocking: hehe~<3 Kid: "These are such calming moments...I'm happy..." stocking: hehe~ Kid: *rubs her hand* -elsewhere- Belkia: "...Mommy? Daddy? May I sleep with you tonight?" tsubaki: ._.; huh? Belkia: "I have nightmares about creepy girl. May I sleep in your big bed?" Black Star: -______- tsubaki: .... ^^; i guess for tonight... Black Star: *sighs* "Fine...Just don't make it weird--" Belkia: *crawls up into bed, in his doll form--in footie pajamas* "I won't take any space!" tsubaki: ^^; Belkia: "Good night. Love you." Black Star: -_-; "Good night." -morning- Black Star: *snore, hugging Belkia's doll form* Belkia: *cuddle* tsubaki: *streeetch* *yaaawn* Belkia: "Morning, Mommy." Black Star: *eyes slowly open...* o_o Belkia: "Daddy..." *Doll flung so hard he opens the door and lands in the hallway* Belkia: *squeak as he hits the wall, squeak as he hits the floor* "...No pain!" otogiri:....*she picks him up and brushes him off* Belkia: "Thank you. Is breakfast ready?" -elsewhere- Kid: *yawn* stocking: morning kiddo~<3 *smooch* Kid: *smooch...smiles* "Good morning, Love." *hug* "Ah, I'm so glad..." stocking: hehe~ *forehead nuzzle* Kid: *nuzzle* "I love you." stocking: i love you too, kiddo~ Kid: *sighs* "Can...it get any better than this?" stocking: *kiss* mmmmn~<3 U/////U Kid: *smiles* -\\\\\w\\\\\- "That's a start." *cuddles* -elsewhere- Jacqueline: *stretches, hops out of bed* "What you want for breakfast?" kim: waffles. you? Jacqueline: *smiles* "That sounds delicious." *puts on Kim's jacket, zips up* "Some fruit, too." -at school- Stein: "I hope you all are ready for a fulfilling day of lessons. I would like to introduce my teaching assistant for the day--" Johannes: *tied up* o___o sayaka: O____________O misono: what the bloody hell? Stein: "We begin by showing reflexes..." *taps a physician's mallet to Johannes's knee, making his leg kick up* -in another room- Meme: *taking notes* "So informative..." tsubaki: *also taking notes* -shuffle shuffle- tsubaki: ?? Plush!Belkia: *whispers* "Hello, Mommy." tsubaki: .____.;;; Plush!Belkia: *holds up a sign* "GOOD LUCK WITH CLASS!" stocking: *cringe* tsubaki: ^^; Plush!Belkia: *shiny eyes...waves at Stocking* stocking: *face of disgust* Plush!Belkia: *pouts* "I don't think she likes me..." tsubaki: *sweatdrop* Plush!Belkia: "Maybe flowers?" -later- Kid: "It's okay..." stocking: thanks kid. *hug* Kid: *pats her back* -elsewhere- metsu: (thinking: he wasnt even phased by today... o_o; ) Jeje: -___- Johannes: "I think I should skip visits to school..." metsu: it would be for the best. Johannes: "But I will miss some finer points about the school..." metsu: -_________- spare us the details. Johannes: *pouts* "I got to be a dummy in class...Wasn't that good enough? I got to demonstrate anatomy." metsu:...right... *sweatdrop* Johannes: "Did you know that if you hit the right pressure points..." *tapping a hand along his shoulder* "...you can cause--" *His pressure point makes him smack Jeje in the face* Jeje: -________- metsu: D8 Johannes: ._.;;; *runs away* Jeje: "Owie..." metsu: are you alright? *cheek touch* Jeje: *shakes his head* "It hurt more than usual..." metsu: *hug* Jeje: -\\\\\- metsu: feeling better? Jeje: *nods* "Thank you." -elsewhere- Benimaru: "...Where did this thing come from?" kirei: the twins brought him in. poor thing was famished... Mr. Tsubaki: *nom nom nom* Benimaru: "Odd to see foxes around here. How is his health otherwise?" kirei: he seems to be doing well, other than that. Benimaru: "Hmm. Domesticated?" kirei: seems so...almost human... Benimaru: "Will he be behaved?" Mr. Tsubaki: *puppy eyes* kirei: seems so. Benimaru: "...That should be good." Mr. Tsubaki: *wags his tail, leans against Kirei* kirei: ^^; hinata: he's so fluffy! hikage: fluffy fluffy~ Mr. Tsubaki: ^^ *hugged* Benimaru: "..." kirei: ^^; kabuki: ^^ Mr. Tsubaki: *looks at Kabuki* "..." *smiles, approaches* -elsewhere- Takehisa: "...The chocolates were delicious. Thank you." maki: glad you liked them ^^ Takehisa: "...Maybe...I could make you something for lunch. Or dinner." maki: i would like that ^^ Takehisa: *nods* "Any particular dish you would like?" -elsewhere- Anya: "...So..." licht: this is happening. Anya: "...That is a nice suit you have on." licht: thanks. Anya: "So...What do you like to eat?" *opens menu* "I was thinking of starting with a salad..." licht: melon. Anya: "Oh. You like melon? I suppose that would be tasty..." -elsewhere- Tool: *humming happily* -elsewhere- tsubaki: we're home! Sakuya: "Yo." otogiri: welcome back. lavender: hey! Belkia: "School was fun! Can we go again?" otogiri: -_-; naho: ._. Black Star: "...Hell no." Sakuya: "Your 'girlfriend' was going to pull the stuffing out of you..." naho: *giggling* Belkia: -___-; "I don't mind her getting all up in my stuffing..." naho: ew. lilac: ???????? Black Star: "Stop that--and go set the table..." Belkia: "Fine..." -elsewhere- Hibana: *yawn* gabriella: tired? Hibana: *nods* "Yes...I was picking up cat hair..." -elsewhere- Shotaro: "We picked up the pizzas!" saki: awesome! ^^ mana: ^^ Yohei: "Excellent. We got the plates out..." Emine: *opens one of them* "...Pineapple? Huh." chie: *nom* ^^~<3 Zuno: "Um...I don't remember what I ordered..." mono: *she points to a box with a name written on it* here, thats yours. Zuno: "Oh, thanks!" *opens up, takes a slice* Assi: "...I didn't know they made red-cheese red-crust pizza." akaderu: *nom* special order. nea:.... *pouts* Shinoda: "Can always have frozen pizza...or a concoction I have been working on..." -elsewhere- Relan: *holds up his camera* "Say cheese!" buttons: ^o^ *Snap* Relan: "Awesome!" *hands a bit of cheese to Buttons* buttons: *nom nom* Relan: "Such a good pet..." mikami: *looking at pictures of Lapis* Relan: "How is Lapis?" mikami: she's doing well. ^^ Relan: "That's good...Hey...What is her favorite food?" mikami: she really likes lettuce. Relan: *nods* "Rabbits tend to be so calm...and fluffy." -elsewhere- Meme: "Feel okay?" mio: yeah. Meme: *smiles* "I enjoyed tonight...Thank you for going out for a walk with me." mio: 7///7 n-no problem. Meme: "...Would you mind if we held hands?" mio: O/////O i-if guess it'd be...ok... Meme: *nods...holds her hand lightly* mio: *head steaming* ./////////////////////////////////. Meme: "...Should I let go?" mio: i-its fine.... Meme: *nods* "...Mio? I really admire you. You are so smart, so much fun..." mio: *blushing* even though im a NEET? Meme: "You are...who you are. You go out, you have friends, you are not alone. I am happy to be with you." mio: .....*teary eyed* that...really means a lot, meme. Meme: "Mio..." *hugs* "It's okay." mio: >//////< *hug* Meme: *chuckles, pats her back...kisses the top of her head* mio: .////////////////////. Meme: "...Want to head home?" mio: yeah. Meme: *holds her hand...walks with her* -elsewhere- Akitaru: *sweeping the floor* shinra: zzzzz *asleep on the couch* Arthur: *pulls out a marker...* iris: *chop* no. Arthur: >< "...F-Fine..." -elsewhere- yumikage: SHOW YOURSELF, COWARD! YOU CANT HIDE FROM ME FOREVER!! Tsurugi: *hiding in a closet* Q~Q hyakuya: its not like he did anything lewd though. yumikage: HE STILL DECIVED A NAIIVE GIRL WHO DIDNT KNOW ANY BETTER! bless her lil heart. IM GOING TO CASTRATE HIM!! Tsurugi: *clutches his hands over his crotch* Q______Q mitsuba: arent you over-reacting just a little bit? yumikage: WHO'S OVERREACTING?! Jun: -_____-;;; "Stop yelling...It's loud." shinoa: latte? yumikage:....*siiiip* mitsuba: ok, that should buy us some quiet for a while. Tsurugi: *sighs with relief...slowly steps out of the closet...* mafura: ~? Tsurugi: *holds up a finger to indicate quiet* mafura: *nods and goes in with him* Tsurugi: *tries to tiptoe away from Yumikage* -elsewhere- Anya: -_- ao: so how was the date~? Anya: "It was dinner, not a date. And it was...good." ao: i see~ Anya: "He seems rather closed off, but not rude. He tends to talk about himself, but..." ao: but~? Anya: -\\\\\\- "I suppose he is not bad...and kind of cute." ao: how adorable~ Anya: "Q-Quiet...I was just saying, I would not be opposed to a second date." -elsewhere- Lawless: "Hmm." licht:...what? Lawless: "Did you have a good time out?" licht: you were there, remember? in my bag? Lawless: "I do--which is why I'm asking: did you have a good time out? 'Cause you're so inscrutable that sometimes I can't tell." licht: ...i guess. Lawless: " 'You guess'? You weren't listening to her talking about her favorite classes, favorite meals, or looking at that thing she does after sipping on her drink?" licht: and you _were_? Lawless: "Yes! Because I was in your bag and listening and watching! And I see your face all the time, so I focused on her!" licht: then why dont _you_ date her then? Lawless: "...I...um..." *remembers Ophelia...then pictures Anya* o\\\\\o "Sh-Shut it!" licht: *smirk* make me. Lawless: *slaps his hands on Licht's face* "I'll make you, alright!" licht: !! Lawless: *tugs on Licht's cheeks* "There! You shutting it yet?! How about now?!!" licht: -_________-# -elsewhere- Stein: *sigh* "Thank goodness that cheap imitation of me was not actually a clone." marie: thats good to hear. ^^; Stein: *collapses on couch* "I don't need that stress..." *pats his shirt pocket...then remembers...* "Oh. Right. Quitting. Again." marie: ^^; Stein: "This is miserable...You ever struggle to curb an addiction?" marie: hmmm? maybe try chewing gum? Stein: "...Might as well. Got any?" marie: mmhmm! you want watermelon or mint? Stein: "...Watermelon." -elsewhere- Yumi: *showing a photograph* "Look at how Shiori demolished that slice of birthday cake..." sid: dawww! Spirit: *shiny eyes* Yumi: "It took so long to clean that mess--but she got a bubble bath..." *shows another photograph* -elsewhere- Gopher: "The plants look to be growing well." eibon: *he smiles* Gopher: "I hope the medicine created is effective." eibon: i hope so as well, my child. Gopher: "...Are there any good plants here for delicious teas?" eibon: i believe so -elsewhere- Mr. Tsubaki: *catches the ball* hinata: hehehe ^^ Mr. Tsubaki: *runs back, drops it at her feet* -elsewhere- tsubaki: ?? *checking the mail* Black Star: "Any bills?" tsubaki:.........*she looks around, the subclass arent present* a letter from C3...regarding 'negotiations'... Black Star: "...Crap...You're going to meet with them?" tsubaki: ........ note: 'rest assure, the subclass in your custody will remain unharmed.' Black Star: " 'Unharmed,' huh? I'll believe that when I see it..." tsubaki: ....do you think you could stand guard? i trust you. *she smiles* Black Star: *nods* "Always. You're going to go to C3 and talk to them?" tsubaki: ....*she nods* Black Star: "..." *pats her shoulder* "You come home..." tsubaki: i will. i promise. Black Star: *hug* -and so- tsubaki:....... Jun: "Ah, Ms. Nakatsukasa, welcome. Touma will see you now..." tsubaki:..... yumikage: .....*whispers* touma's kind of a prick, just a warning, but we got your back. *thumbs up* tsubaki:...right. Jun: *knocks on door* "She has arrived..." Touma: "Oh, hello." *stands and approaches Tsubaki, offering a hand* tsubaki:......hello. *shakes his hand, but keeps a firm look* Touma: "I am happy to see you here..." *puts his other hand on her shoulder* "We have much to discuss." tsubaki:....right. Touma: *directs her to a seat, where there is a pitcher of water and cups...he pours one for her and himself* "Let me begin with the obvious: you have had experience with vampires--far more than most humans." tsubaki: i suppose so... Touma: "Please, don't be modest, Ms. Nakatsukasa. After all, you were present during some of the earliest attacks by Melancholia, battles between vampires...and you are currently housing so many of these individuals in your home." tsubaki:..... Touma: "And you want to keep this individual vampires in proper order, yes? Make them well-behaved?" tsubaki: i've been keeping them safe and under control yes. keyword _safe_. Touma: *small laugh* "Of course." *opens a file* "I'm sure you want to make sure little Lilac is safe...young Naho Toguchi...stoic Otogiri...manic Belkia...flirtatious Lavender...aesthete Higan...bilious Sakuya Watanuki..." tsubaki: ....... Touma: *shows the file to her...with a photograph of the imprisoned Shamrock* "And one more." tsubaki: !!!! Touma: "Looks like you missed one when you gathered your close-knit menagerie..." tsubaki:....where is he? Touma: "Safe. Like your family. But that can change, can't it?" tsubaki:........what is it you want? Touma: "Information...Tell me if this sounds right. You happen to take in subclasses, all belonging to one vampire. Now that vampire is missing. I imagine...that you know where this Melancholia is." tsubaki:....no. he just left them in my care and vanished. i dont know his current whereabouts. put me through a lie detection test if you wish, but my answer remains the same. Touma: "..." *smiles* "Gladly." *presses a button on his desk--and clamps close around Tsubaki's wrists and ankles* tsubaki: !!! Touma: *turns on the intercom* "Jun and Yumikage...I need monitors for a lie detector test* yumikage: ..... shuuhei:..... hyakuya: this is inhumane! she's not a prisoner! Touma: "Relax. She won't feel a thing." *adjusts the test parameters* "This is just a clinical examination to ensure she is providing accurate information...Let's begin. Please, state your name." tsubaki: Tsubaki Nakatsukasa. Touma: *nods* "Age?" tsubaki: 21 years old. Touma: "Occupation?" tsubaki: im currently a DWMA student, EAT class. Touma: "Family?" tsubaki: my father, Sanjuro. my mother, and my late brother, Masamune. Touma: *nods* "You are a meister?" tsubaki: no, i'm a weapon. *After a few more questions to gauge Tsubaki's heart rate when telling the truth...* Touma: "When did you last see Tsubaki?" tsubaki: ....in january, during the parking garage incident. Touma: "You did not see him in February?" tsubaki: ....i think i may have seen a picture of him, but im not certain it was him, and if it was, i dont know if he is still there. Touma: "Interesting...When did you last speak with Tsubaki?" tsubaki: during the incident. Touma: "...Do you consider Mr. Tsubaki an enemy?" tsubaki:.....neutral. Touma: "Define 'neutral.'" tsubaki: i realize he has done terrible things, but i dont believe he is completely evil. Touma: "Hmmm...If you were to locate Mr. Tsubaki, would you inform us?" tsubaki: ....what do you intend to do to him? Touma: *smiles* "Protection." tsubaki: define 'protection'... Touma: "Heh heh...Now who is conducting the exam here? We will take all steps to ensure the safety of all parties involved." tsubaki: ....... Touma: "You want Shamrock to be safe, yes? I would so hate for something to happen to him." tsubaki: please, what is it you want? Touma: "I want to know...that when Tsubaki contacts you...you will give us his location." tsubaki:........ Touma: "I'm not hearing an answer, Ms. Nakatsukasa." -crash from touma's office- tsubaki: ?? Touma: "???" tsubaki: what was- Touma: *stands up to look...* yumikage: so is the meeting dismissed then? Jun: *watches Touma's exit...* "...Let her go. We'll speak when Mr. Tsubaki returns..." tsubaki:.... yumikage: like i said, touma's a prick. tsubaki:...... Jun: *opens the bracelets to let Tsubaki loose* "...You care about this vampire?" tsubaki: what do you mean? Jun: "That look in your eyes, when you are asked about him...You are concerned for him." tsubaki:...yes. yumikage: ..... Jun: "...We will contact you when next we require your services. Please continue to keep your subclasses in line." tsubaki: i understand.....please....keep _him_ safe. June: "...Yes." -in touma's office, a young woman is trying to cut herself loose from an ankle restraint- Touma: "Ah. I see you wanted attention. Here, allow me to give it to you..." himawari: !!! Touma: *examines the ankle restraint...and tightens it* himawari: *wince* p-please forgive me, i-i just- Touma: *puts a hand over her mouth* "Shhh...You were making far too much noise while I was working. You know I want quiet, yes? Quiet helps me think. I can't think clearly when I have to listen to your noise..." himawari: i-im sorry....y-you wont...punish me again..r-right? Touma: "Do you promise to stop squirming, making such a racket?" himawari: i promise. i'll k-keep quiet... Touma: "Good...girl." himawari:....*trembling, tearing up* Touma: "Now stay here...I'll be back for you soon." himawari:...... Touma: *exits the office...looks around* hyakuya:.......*glares* Touma: "..." *meets Hyakuya's stare* hyakuya:......*walks away* *to yumikage* prick? please, he's a fucking cactus. Touma: *continues down the hall, heading towards the downstairs...* mitsuba: where do you think he's going? mafura: ~? Tsurugi: "Maybe...something down there?" Touma: *follows stairs down to jail cells...* mafura: *follows* Touma: *approaches one cell...smiles* Shamrock: *curled into fetal position on the floor...looks up* "You...What do you want?" mafura: ~? Touma: "I was just meeting a mutual acquaintance of ours...a Ms. Nakatsukasa." Shamrock: "...Funny. She is no friend of mine." mafura: *listening* Touma: "Yet I imagine, should any harm come to her, your dear ‘Young Master’ would be most displeased..." Shamrock: "..." Touma: "How would he react should she have an accident? A broken arm? A pierced intestine? The separation of head from neck--" Shamrock: "Enough. What do you really want?" Touma: "...I simply want to make sure you are taken care of...because if Ms. Nakatsukasa does not provide me with whatever I ask...you won't be alive to see your previous Tsubaki ever again." Shamrock: "...You are sick." Touma: *chuckles...then reaches an arm through the cell bars, pulling Shamrock by his collar--and pulling back and forth, knocking Shamrock's skull against it before tossing him back, barely conscious* Shamrock: gnnn.. Touma: "You'll recover. So rest up." mafura: mr vampire? are you alright? Touma: "??!" ("Damn it.") *gentle smile* "It is okay, Mafura. Mr. Shamrock and I were playing a game. Right?" Shamrock: Q_Q *pulls back towards the corner of the cell* mafura: can mafura-chan play too? Touma: *approaches Mafura* "Of course...Why don't you choose the game?" mafura: hmmmm...mafura-chan doesnt know many games, the only game mafura-chan knows is when she takes father's thingy in her mouth. Shamrock: .____. Touma: "Hmm...How often have you been around vampires?" mafura: mafura-chan met mr vampire when her door was opened, but father made mafura-chan go back... Touma: "Say hello to Mr. Vampire, Mafura." mafura: hiya mr vampire. ^^. Shamrock: "H-Hi?" Touma: *removes a deck of cards, starts shuffling them...and 'accidentally' slices one along Mafura's hand, giving her a paper cut* mafura: *winces and licks at the blood* Sakuya: "!!!" *sniff...sniff...sniiiiiiiiff* Touma: "Why don't I teach you a card game, Mafura? Mr. Vampire can learn with us..." mafura: ok, mr touma. ^^ Shamrock: *still smelling the blood...staring at Mafura* mafura: ?? mr vampire? are you ok? Shamrock: *licks lips slightly* "F-Fine..." *stomach growls* Touma: "It's Go Fish...Players call out the other players for a card..." -elsewhere- Black Star: *pacing* -knock knock- Black Star: "??? Who is it?" tsubaki: im home... lavender: *hug* thank fuck, we were all seriously worried about you! Black Star: "..." *glomp* Belkia: "Mommy!" *hug* naho: welcome home! ^^ lilac:...*small hug* tsubaki: *tearful smile* Sakuya: "??? Tsu? What's up?" Black Star: "...Are you okay?" lavender: hey, higan, tsubaki's back home! Higan: "Excellent!" *exits...spots the hugfest* "...Want a portrait of this lovely reunion?" -tsubaki explains the situation- Black Star: *shaking* otogiri: so then, at least he's alive... Higan: "..." lavender: isnt there anything we can do? Belkia: "C3...Even I wouldn’t wish that on him..." tsubaki: i dont want to endanger any of you....i dont know what to do... Sakuya: "A break in...but we don't know what kind of fire-power they’re packing tsubaki: that seems too risky... lilac: t-they could- *trembles* Sakuya: "..." *pats Lilac's shoulder* naho: maybe ask mahiru and the others? Black Star: "Worth a shot." tsubaki: i'll see what i can do...im sorry that i havent been doing a good job taking care of you all... lavender: hey, *pats her shoulder* you're doing all you can, and thats good enough for us. Belkia: "Mommy has done a great job, and no one can change my opinion of that!" Higan: "We're still breathing, aren't we?" otogiri: you've been taking care of us. tsubaki: ....*tearful smile* right...thanks guys. Black Star: "..." *holds her hand* tsubaki: *she nods* Higan: "Until we figure out how to get Sham freed, and until we learn more about C3, might as well relax." tsubaki: right..... naho: *worried* Sakuya: *holds her hand* naho: thanks sakkun. Sakuya: "Any time..." -\\\\- -elsewhere- Tsukiyo: "Okay...What if you tried baking him something?" fang-hua: like what? Tsukiyo: "Cookies? Dessert? Even a meal? What does Benimaru like?" fang-hua: hmmmm.....why are you asking me this? >///<; Tsukiyo: "Because _you need to take a step forward_, girl! I'll even help make the meal!" fang-hua: jeez... -///-; Tsukiyo: "What? You want the Sister to get ahead of you?" fang-hua: w-what- i-i-i dont know what you're talking about! Tsukiyo: "...Don't lie to me, Fang--you aren't that good at it. Look, you like Benimaru. Kirei likes Benimaru. Heck, Kabuki likes him, I like him--" fang-hua: o-of course i like him, he's my commander! t-that doesnt mean i- n-nevermind. Tsukiyo: :3 "Fang-Hua...If he was not your commander, would you go out with him on a date?" fang-hua: w-what?! *blushing* i-i dont know. Tsukiyo: "..." *hug, pat on the back* "It's okay. I know you're confused. But whatever happens, he cares about you, and he would never want to see you hurt." fang-hua: i appreciate that...*shakes her head* we still have to focus on the matter at hand, we shouldnt be worrying about petty romantic subplots. Tsukiyo: "Right--the dopplegangers! Have to make sure we aren't near any fakers--" *slaps a paper on Fang-Hua's face* fang-hua:..... -___-; Tsukiyo: "...No, huh?" *takes it off carefully, puts it on her forehead* "...Well, I'm not...What next?" -elsewhere- Shotaro: "Mana, how have you been holding up?" mana: good. you? Shotaro: "Okay...I just...was...um..." mana: ?? Shotaro: "...Do you ever think about things, back home, with your family?" mana:...sometimes. Shotaro: "Maybe visit them?" mana: ....maybe someday. *hair ruffle* Shotaro: "Hee hee...Okay!" -elsewhere- Kid: "A penny for your thoughts?" kirika: yea? Kid: "How have you been? Feeling okay?" kirika: yeah, why wouldnt i be? Kid: "No reason. Just making sure, wanting to check in, have a conversation with you..." kirika: ah. Kid: "...You seem to be doing well. Mocha seems happy. Your boyfriend seems happy--" kirika: *CHEEK TUG* SHADDAP! >///n///< Kid: "OW! At least grab my other cheek!" kirika: i was, dumbass! Kid: T___T "Thank you for the symmetry..." kirika: Xp -elsewhere- Jacqueline: "I'm done with the laundry." kim: awesome! Jacqueline: *sets down two baskets* "Yours is the top one." *starts sorting the bottom* "How was work?" kim: it went well. Jacqueline: *folding* "Getting along with your boss and coworkers?" -elsewhere- Takehisa: "I hope the meal was enjoyable." maki: thanks for dinner~ ^^ Takehisa: -\\\\- "You're welcome. I--" Arthur: *BUUUURP* tamaki: -_-; Takehisa: -_-;; "...I take pleasure in knowing my food satisfies so many..." Akitaru: "Indeed! But now I got to get back to my workout so I don't put on more fat..." -elswhere- eruka: *nestled under the blankets* finally home after visiting my parents. *sigh* Free: "It go okay?" eruka: yeah. they're doing as well as always. Free: "That's good...Did they mention me?" eruka: well, yeah? (sephy: if that werewolf boyfriend of yours does anything to hurt you, his ass is grass!) Free: "Oh, good! Were they nice comments?" -elsewhere- Spirit: "More tea, Blair? Izumi?" izumi: yes please blair: ^w^ sachiko: sounds good nagisa: ^^ Spirit: *pours out more cups of tea* "How have you been, Blair? Work okay?" blair: yeah, lily's been feeling a lot better now~ Spirit: "That's good. I'm glad you're watching that guy, after their injuries." -elsewhere- Wes: *holding a cold compress to his head* soul: you sure you're ok, bro? ghost maid: *worried* Wes: *small laugh* "Just a tension headache, I'm sure...Probably staring at music sheets too long." soul: if you say so... Wes: "...Soul? Have you gone to a doctor recently? You know, for a checkup?" soul: not recently, but i'll probably do it soon. Wes: *nods* "Could you recommend a doctor? How is Stein?" soul:.... >_>; -elsewhere- Konro: "Got our drinks." *hands Kabuki his order* kabuki: <thank you for the meal> *sips* Konro: "You're welcome." *sip* "...I don't like this calm. Not with some impersonator running around." kabuki: i dont think anyone does, it worries me... Konro: *nods* "I've had parents worried, children...They could be anyone." kabuki: .... Konro: "...In any case, just be observant." *points to a table where a couple is dining* "Like making sure people actually recognize who is seated across from them." -elsewhere- Stein: *chewing gum...blows a bubble* -a few days later- misono: *in an animal suit* *panting* this job is...ha...harder...than it looks mahiru: *also in an animal suit* its not all that bad. at least the suits are warm. misono: im sweltering in this damn thing! Kuro: "I'm going to suffocate in a prison cell of felt and annoying children..." Lily: "Smiles!" *holds up phone to photograph* misono: im gonna suffocate in here... im going to take a short break to breathe... mahiru: hey! dont just give up half way! misono: *removes mask* haaa...darn you lily for getting me involved in this. -_-; Kuro: "Yes, give up _all the way_..." mahiru: dont do that either! Lily: "Little old me~? But Misono, shouldn't a leader be involved in community outreach to today's youth? Look at these children's faces: do you really want to disappoint them?" ???: misono? Lily: "???" misono: ?!?! *spots shinoa* !!!! *puts head back on....backwards* (thinking: ohgodohgodohgodohgod) shinoa: hmm.... mitsuba~ lets go get balloons~! mitsuba: how old even are you? Lily: *waves* "Hello!" shinoa: hello again, lily? is misono around? Kuro: "??? Misono...Isn't that your girlfriend?" Lily: "...Yes." :3 misono: *falsetto* misono here? naw, i dont know who that is! *shaking* Kuro: "...Oh, this will be good." shinoa: oh? i wonder if he'd be jealous if i did...this! *hug* misono: !!!!!!!! *steam begins to come from the neck of the suit, which knocks the head off* O/////////////////////////////O mahiru: i think she broke him! Lily: "Misono! Oh, dear...He's burning up! Quick, remove his suit and clothes--" mahiru: just the suit will suffice! Kuro: "Like I said, _all the way_ or nothing..." licht: hello mr cat. mahiru: hmm? oh, hey licht- licht: *pets kuro's suit* you're handing out balloons today? mahiru: O_O; uhhh... Kuro: -__-; "..." *soft purr* licht: *shiny eyes* do you like piano? mitsuba: oh my god, is that licht todoroki?! shinoa: so it is. *getting water from the vending machine* Kuro: "...I don't mind piano." licht: *pet pet pet pet* Kuro: *purring...curls up, lying on his back* "Rub my belly?" licht: he even talks! how intellegent! mahiru: you already know him licht! =__=;; Kuro: "No, he doesn't--shut up." mahiru: *sweatdrop* ?? oh? another suit? mitsuba: what is this, a furry meeting? Lawless: *goofy voice* "Hiya, kids! I'm Sonny the Hedgehog! Ready to have a way-past-cool time today?!" ("I am _so_ into this role! This will improve my acting chops considerably!") Kuro: "...I instantly dislike this person." mahiru: hey lawless. Lawless: o_o "What?! How did you know it was me?!!" mahiru: well, licht's here, i figured you wouldnt be too far off. looks like we'll be working together to day. please take good care of us. licht: *shiny eyes + flowery aura* fluffy mr kitty... Lawless: "Why do I have to do it? Can't Licht--" *sees Licht* -____- Kuro: *purring* >w< licht: fluffy fluffy..... Lawless: "Well, why not Lily--" Lily: "Hello!" *now shirtless, with butterfly wings* mitsuba: O///O; shinoa: here misono, thought this might help. misono: 7/////7; t-thanks. Lawless: "..." *sigh* "I'll be the adult in the room, then..." mahiru: that makes two of us. ^^; Lawless: *handing out balloons* "Want a balloon, little girl?" mitsuba: dont patronize me! >n< shinoa: 4 please~! mitsuba: why 4? shinoa: for takuto, im sure mr jun would appreciate it. mitsuba: oh right. licht: can i get balloons too? misono: *sweatdrop* (thinking: he has a mature body, but the mind of a child...) Lawless: *hands four to Shinoa* "Enjoy!" *looks at Licht* "...You get none. Go back to stroking your cat..." -KICK- licht: die shit rat. Lawless: "OW!" mahiru: here. ^^; Kuro: "Excuse me--I'm not feeling my tummy being rubbed..." -later- Kuro: "...This is all we got paid for that many hours of hard labor?" mahiru: at least it's something. Kuro: "This isn't even enough for a used DS game..." misono: -////- cant believe she saw me like that today...i want to die from shame... Lily: "I think she thought you were very cute~" *still shirtless, still in butterfly wings* misono: and put your damn clothes back on! Lily: *pout* "I'm wearing wings." mahiru: *sweatdrop* *stomach rumbles* ah, anyone up for lunch? misono: sure. mahiru: i think there's a cafe not far from here. Kuro: "Cool." *cat form* "Carry me." mahiru: *sweatdrop* -and so- mahiru: here we are. misono: it's not that bad. naho: hello~ right this wa-.... OwO;; misono: O_O Kuro: “Oh, it’s the fujoshi-pire…” mahiru: oh...so it's a maid cosplay cafe then? Sakuya: "Yo, Naho, we got some delays waiting on Table 6--" o\\\\\\\o mahiru: oh! sakuya, you're working here too? misono:....watanuki. naho: yeah, the three of us decided to get some part time work. arent the uniforms just the cutest~? Sakuya: o\\\\\o *can't move* naho: yeah, shall i get the 4 of you seated then? mahiru: uh, sure. -once they are at their seats- naho: ok~, lila will be with you in a moment, also, please dont make fun of him, ok? mahiru: we wont. misono: ..... Lily: *shiny eyes* "It's an entire restaurant of adorableness!" lilac: u-um...h-hello..m-may i...take your...order? mahiru: oh hey liiiiillaaaaaa..... O.O -lilac is in the maid outfit- misono: O_O (thinking: CROSSDRESSER MOE?!) Lily: "Oh, Lilac! It's a pleasure to see you again. I like your outfit." Kuro: "..." *thumbs up* lilac: um... >////< t-thank you! misono:.... -///-; i'll have camomille tea please. mahiru: i'll just have orange juice. Lily: "Green tea with honey, please~" Kuro: "Cola." lilac: o-ok, right away then. Lily: *hands on his cheeks* "OMG, so adorbs~" misono: *sweatdrop* -elsewhere- Anya: "I do look forward to a change in weather--" ???: "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO KICK ME SO HARD?!" Anya: "???" licht: because *pose* im an ange- oh, hey anya. tsugumi: hey guys. *wave* Anya: o\\\\o "Hi..." Lawless: o\\\\o "Y-Yo...How are you all?" soul: huh, small world. licht:...evans. soul: yeah, that would be me. Lawless: "Oh, Soul! Awesome!" *bro-fist* soul: hey man, whats up? licht: hyde had part time work. soul: oh? tsugumi: well, we were gonna meet meme, mio, and ao at the shopping plaza to get some shaved ice. soul: in this weather? tsugumi: maybe the cold from the ice and the cold from the weather will cancel each other out? soul: interesting logic. licht: shaved ice? what is that? tsugumi: well, its when you pour flavored syrup over crushed ice. soul: ever had a snow cone? its the same basic principal. tsugumi: right! Lawless: "Oh. Well, Licht is too sheltered to have ever had that--" licht: i want some. -and so- licht: *nom*....*shiny eyes* it's like taking me to the clouds of heaven and over the melting rainbow. soul:......interesting analogy. Lawless: *sharp-tooth crunch into the ice--* "Just don't eat too quickly--" mio: these damn celebs... *sweatdrop* Meme: "AAAAH! Brain freeze!" mio: meme! -elsewhere- Patty: *crawling along the floor* "Where did you go...?" stocking: looking for something? Patty: "...Hypothetically...I may have misplaced a child. And fireworks." stocking: WHAT?! Patty: "Look, you can blame me later! Just help me find Julie before--" julie: hiya. stocking: oh, there she is. Patty: ._. "..." *HUGE HUG* "OH MY GOD, YOU ARE SAFE AND HAVE NOT LOST ANY LIMBS OR FINGERS!" julie: ?? Patty: "Where are the fireworks, though?" julie: fireworks? -BOOOOM from outside- stocking: *she goes outside to check* what the-......oh. whats this shitty clown doll doing so far from the garbage? Belkia: *blown apart...coughs up stuffing* "I was going to light candles for you, m-my love...Why did you blow me up?" stocking: -STOMPSTOMPSTOMPSTOMP- get thrown in a trash compactor and die. Belkia: "OW OW OUCH OW oooooo that feels nice AAAAAAAAAAAH-OUCH!" stocking: *poker face while turbo stomping* Belkia: x______x stocking: *panting*.....haaa...haaa......*calmly drops the doll into the trashcan* Belkia: "Oh...At least I left you panting..." stocking: fuck...you.... Belkia: *shiny eyes* "I would love that!" stocking:.................................*closes the door* -________________________-;;;;; -footsteps are heard- ayami: oh..you poor dolly.....i'll...give you a home.....you....look just like him.... Belkia: Q___Q "NOOOOOOOO!!!!" ayami: hehehe....^^ *cradles the doll* you'll....keep me warm tonight...wont you, belbel? *faking his voice* 'of course my sweet lil ayamin~' hehehe~ Belkia: "Unhand me! Let go! No! Noooo! NOOOOO!" -elsewhere- Benimaru: *petting Mr. Tsubaki* "Is this one still being behaved?" Mr. Tsubaki: ^^ kirei: seems so. Benimaru: "Let me know whether he is getting disobedient...and I'll keep teach him obedience." Mr. Tsubaki: ._. kirei: noted. ^^; Benimaru: "Have you given him a name?" kirei: a name? hmmm. not really. Benimaru: "Well, 'Kabuki' is out..." kirei: hmmm... i'll ask the twins later. Benimaru: "Good plan..." *pets Mr. Tsubaki* "How are you holding up, Kirei?" -elsewhere- Jeje: *yawn* metsu: zzzzz.... *laying with him* Jeje: *small hug, happy sigh* -elsewhere- takuto: izza bunny, papa! *playing with the balloon* hehe ^^ Jun: "Hee hee...Yes, it is a bunny, Taku." -w- shinoa: hehe, glad you like it. Jun: "Thank you for doing this. That was fortuitous to find balloons." mitsuba: eh, it was shinoa's idea. 7///7; Jun: *smiles* "Takuto, what do you say to Shinoa and Mitsuba?" takuro: thank you ^^ mitsuba: *flusted* n-no prob. shinoa: ^^ -elsewhere in the building- Shamrock: Q_Q -silence, he is left with his thoughts- Shamrock: "...I want to go home." -elsewhere- mafura: *nom nom* yumikage: jeez, you were hungry werent you kiddo?.....*sigh* Tsurugi: ^^; "Just feeding her...Where did you get the money for the snack?" yumikage: paycheck, where else? mafura: =u= *nom nom* Tsurugi: "Well, I'm happy she's eating. Need her at her healthiest." -w- yumikage: *gives him a look* Tsurugi: "Make her look good. Nice and fed." yumikage: you better not be perving on her, you little shit! mafura: ~? Tsurugi: "..." *smirk* "And if I was?" yumikage: *guns out* *GLAAAAARE* Tsurugi: o________o; *holds up Mafura as a human shield* yumikage: O____O you...*growls* mafura: owo~? *head tilt* Tsurugi: "You wouldn't kill a man using a woman as a human shield, would you~?" yumikage:....damn you. *drops the guns* you ok mafura? mafura: mafura-chan's ok~ ^^ Tsurugi: *smirk* "See? She's fine..." yumikage: ..... -elsewhere- Relan: -w- -morning- lavender: rough night, bel? Belkia: o____o;;;; "I feel awful..." otogiri: ....*pap pap* Belkia: "I need therapy. Please, help me..." otogiri: no offense, but you're kind of a lost cause for therapy. Belkia: Q____Q "I have seen things...I think something is needed." otogiri: a lobotomy perhaps? Belkia: *sobs* "I JUST WANTED MY SUGAR MAMA TO LOVE ME!" otogiri:.....*awkward hug* 7.7;; Belkia: *cries on her shoulder* naho: did he come home drunk again? Belkia: "I was touched in ways I have never wanted to be!" naho: O___O lavender: its ok. *back pats* lilac: will he be....o-ok? Belkia: "So bad...So awful..." naho: yeah, because i noticed that his feelings regenerate 3 times the speed of a normal human. lilac: is that true? Sakuya: "Maybe we should keep an eye on him. Someone should chaperone him--" otogiri: i'll do it then. Belkia: "YAY!" naho: and there it is. lilac: O.O tsubaki: ^^; *to higan* you sure are a lively bunch, huh? Higan: "Can go all night, ma'am." tsubaki: ..... ^^;; thats....not quite what i meant... naho: are you drunk again, old man? -3-; Higan: "I'm always drunk..." *looks at Tsubaki* "...You model?" tsubaki:..... *chop* down boy. Higan: >___< tsubaki: -,-; Sakuya: "Naho, let's lead Higan away...to the backyard. And lock him outside." naho: on it! -elsewhere- Yohei: *asleep on the couch* chie: zzzzzz...... Tool: *puts a blanket over them* "They're going to crash so hard at this rate..." saki: ^^; must have been a long night. Tool: *nods* "Chie will definitely need the rest..." saki: no doubt... Tool: "...I guess I need some sleep, too. You probably, too." -elsewhere- Kid: *collapsed on bed* "Ugh..." stocking: you ok? Kid: "Sore...tired...just feel off..." stocking: ....*she holds his hand* Kid: *smiles weakly* "I'm sorry." stocking: *kiss* its ok. Kid: *sighs* "One of those days." stocking: *she nods and hugs him* im here. Kid: "I am here for you, as well." -elsewhere- Hibana: "AH-CHOO!" gabriella: D8> here. *gives her soup* Hibana: *nods, takes it* "Thank you...Did you add some chili powder to it?" gabriella: *nods* Hibana: *slurp* "Hmm...So tasty. Thank you..." *sniffle* -elsewhere- Izuku: "This a good spot for the couch?" ochako: looks good! eijiro: soooo what are we doin' again? Izuku: "We're trying to help each other fix up rooms--you know, combine forces to get the work done more quickly." Bakugo: "THESE DUST BUNNIES ARE EVERYWHERE UNDER YOUR COUCH, OCHAKO! I'M GONNA BURN THEM ALL!" eijiro: right. ochako: nooo, not the little bunnies! D8> Izuku: *chop to Bakugo's head* "No burning things. You promised." Bakugo: >3< "I STILL WANT TO BURN THINGS..." kyouka: should i call up your girlfriend? Bakugo: ._____. "...The hell you just say?" kyouka: *whistling* mina: ooooooh.... *smirks* Bakugo: "SHUT UP, MINA!" -elsewhere- PlushFix: "Stabbing the wall, stabbing the wall, hi-ho the daily-o, stabbing the wall..." saku: too noisy... PlushFix: "...I can stab more quietly." *stab stab stab the wall* saku: ....... hina: she's sure chatty, aint she? mimeca: *nod nod* PlushFix: "Maybe we need some activity for bonding...Camping trip? Murder spree? Drinking? Kidnapping? Pottery class?" -elsewhere- Kepuri: *tosses in bed* *groan* -elsewhere- Kuro: *nom nom nom* "Good cat treats..." -elsewhere- Patty: *hugs Liz* liz: hey sis. Patty: "Hello yourself! How you feeling?" liz: doing good, and you? Patty: "...I'm grounded for a bit after the fireworks..." -elsewhere- Gopher: *clutching the top branch of a tree* :< "...I'd like to come down now." kyouko: how did he even get up there?! Gopher: *slight shrug* "I was, um, trying to fly?" licht: ....!! little mr birdy, i'll help you because...*pose* im an angel tree climbing expert. Gopher: -^- "I'm not a birdie...and I thought I was an angel." -3- -up he go- kyouko: woah, he's really getting into it! Gopher: -_-; "I could've done that, too...I mean, I did, but..." -lift and drop- kirika: got ya. Gopher: o______o kirika: you ok, doofus? Gopher: *whimper* T~T *nod* kirika: you're still alive, arent ya? Gopher: "...I think my stomach is now half-way up my throat." kirika:...*siiighs and carries him back to his place* come on you big baby... Gopher: *clutches her* Lawless: "...What? They aren't going to thank you?" licht: they did with their hearts because....*pose* im an archangel who helps those in need. kyouko: *sweatdrop* Lawless: "...Dork." -elsewhere- Jacqueline: "And clothes are now put away." *stretches* "About time for some sleep." kim: zzzzzzz Jacqueline: *looks at Kim* ("I see someone already had that idea...") *yawn* *crawls into her own bed...* -elsewhere- Sakuya: "Comfortable?" naho: yeah. =w= Sakuya: *cuddle* "Have fun today at the cafe?" naho: *she nods* *smooch* ^^ Sakuya: *smooch* "...It was...interesting. But...it went well. And you looked great." naho: hehe ^^ thanks sakkun~ Sakuya: "Did I look okay?" naho: you looked quite dashing in that suit >w< Sakuya: -\\\\- "Thank you...I try." naho: hehe~ *huuuug* ^w^ Sakuya: *cuddle* "Maybe we can wear those outfits again..." naho: i would like that ^^ Sakuya: *nods* "...I...really like being with you." naho: *blush* Sakuya: *kiss on the forehead* naho: thanks sakuya. Sakuya: "Thank you..." *hug* naho: can we...do _that_ again tonight? i-if its...no problem... *blushing* Sakuya: "..." *kisses lightly behind her ear* naho: >/////< Sakuya: "Your skin is so soft...and warm." *his hand rests on her hip* naho: mmmm... >/////< Sakuya: *slight rub of her hip, as he kisses lightly along her neck* "Comfortable?" -elsewhere- Kid: *lying in bathtub* "Ah..." stocking: *washing his hair* feeling better? Kid: *nods* "Much." *sigh of relief* stocking: *she smiles and hums* Kid: *lies back* "I...have to accept some days are going to be harder than others." stocking: and i'll be here through all of them, ok? Kid: *holds her hand* "Promise?" stocking: always... Kid: "...I will be here through all of the days, for you. Okay?" stocking: ok. *kisses his forehead ala spiderman* Kid: -\\\\- "So cute, and talented." stocking: hehe~ Kid: *rubs her arm* "I love you." stocking: *smooch* Kid: *smooch...* -elsewhere- Tsukiyo: "Come out! I promise, I won't laugh at the outfit..." fang-hua: ??? Tsukiyo: "Fang, could you help me out here? The twins are afraid I'll laugh at their dresses." hinata: you picked these god awful things out. hikage: so unappealing. Tsukiyo: -_-;;; "I wanted you two to look cute, and this is how you thank me?" -elsewhere- Belkia: *sipping tea, shaking a bit* otogiri:...*pap pap* Belkia: "So creepy..." *yawn* -morning- Sakuya: "Mmmm..." naho: zzzzz..... Sakuya: "Time to wake up..." *kiss on the cheek* naho: *kitty yawn* im uuuppp.... Sakuya: "Sleep okay?" naho: *she nods* thanks.... Sakuya: "Same..." *holds her hand* naho: hey...sakuya?.....im glad you were my first... *blush* Sakuya: .\\\\. *gulps* "Y-You're welcome...I'm glad you were _my_ first..." naho: *bluuuuuuuuush* *smooch* >/////< Sakuya: "!!!" *smooch...* *hug* -elsewhere- mafura: zzzzz.... Tsurugi: *yawn...* -squish- Tsurugi: "Huh? What is go--" *squish* o\\\\\\\\o mafura: zzzzz..... Tsurugi: "Wh-Wh-Why a-a-a-a-re you in my bed?!" mafura: ~? hehe ^^ Tsurugi: " 'Hehe' is not an answer!" mafura: *head tilt* ~?? Tsurugi: "...Why aren't you sleeping in your own bed?" mafura: mafura-chan got cold. tsurugi's nice and warm. ^^ Tsurugi: "...Why didn't you put on extra clothes? Or another blanket?" yumikage: oi, tsurugi, you u-..................................................... Tsurugi: OwO;;;; yumikage:.....*darkly* start running. Tsurugi: "..." *leaps out of bed--and into a wall* mafura: O.O -elsewhere in the building- himawari:.....?? -elsewhere- Jun: "People still aren't up yet?" shinoa: morning. mitsuba: zzzzzzzzzz........ hyakuya:...mika....yuu.......*talking in her sleep* Jun: *smile* "Morning. Sleep okay?" shinoa: *she nods* mitsuba: mmmn....not here... Jun: "Where are the rest? Think I'll go check their rooms--" yumikage: there, at least you have something decent to wear, jeez... mafura: *pokes tsurugi* Tsurugi: x_____x Jun: "...What happened?" yumikage: im gonna check the others. hyakuya: *she jolts up in a shock* NO!.......*trembles* Jun: "???" Tsurugi: *flies buzzing around him* -elsewhere- Patty: *snore* julie: zzzz... Patty: *yawn, looks down...smiles* "Wake-up time, Julie." julie: *streeeetch* Patty: "Sleep okay in the big girl's bed?" julie: *she gets up* *nod nod* ^w^ Patty: "That's good. You got school today?" -elsewhere- Black Star: "GIVE THAT BACK!" tsubaki: *sigh* ok, everyone please keep calm. what happened? Black Star: "That stupid magician-head freak took my books for class!" tsubaki: belkia! Belkia: "I needed them for weapons! I could use them to bash that stalker over the head!" tsubaki: *sweatdrop* she doesnt go to our school, i dont think. and we need those for classes. Belkia: "Then give me a weapon!" *holds her arm* "You're a weapon! Let me use you!" Black Star: o_o tsubaki: *chop* down boy. -.-

#death city days

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