#it also just makes me feel unlucky in general. kicks a rock

[ebitenpura]

i really shouldn't take a handful of people breaking mootship at the end of the year as signifying anything but it does make me feel like my time in the swtor fandom is almost at an end dhdfksks

[pretty-face-breaker]

Maybe Not Now

During Pavel’s daily torment of him, Emir sees something in him that he hadn’t seen before.

c.w. military whump, sadistic whumper, forced exercise as punishment, insults, degrading language, captivity, alluding to death as an alternative to torture

 —

“That’s all for now, soldaty. Back to your dorms and make it neat,” General Levkin called. 

With a raise of his palm, collective relief could be heard above the fading grunts. Men rose from the field and dusted their palms on their trousers, snatching up their rifles. Twenty of them clicked sharply as they swung over various shoulders. Some grabbed a drink of water they had been meaning to get for hours as clouds swept over the barren training grounds. 

The drills of the day were over. 

As the soldiers filed after one another, murmuring too fast and foreign to be kept up with, Emir followed behind with a dry throat. His arms ached. He could hardly remember making that many mistakes in his basic training or what were supposedly called mistakes by Stanislav Levkin’s eye. He always seemed to catch him doing something wrong. Inaccurate aim. Sloppy position. Poor posture. 

But he had taken the admonitions, the hits and laps, nodded obediently, straightened his back or concentrated harder on his aim. He didn’t feel like fighting the corrections in front of fifty others and with the amount of sleep hardly managed each night, he didn’t doubt some were his fault. That, and for other reasons. Emir winced as a now clear head focussed on the burning in his bicep. 

The place Pavel had rubbed the salt earlier that week. 

Maybe yes, sir-ing his way through the drills had been also to spare his throat from overexerting itself more than he had torn in, wailing wordlessly among laughter and pleading in broken Russian to a man who likely hadn’t heard the word in his life. Emir grimaced and, feeling a bump of a body behind him, sped up to climb the stairs. Until he felt a hand pulling him aside. 

“Not so fast. Hey, you.” Pavel grinned as he pulled him from formation and back down the steps.

Emir froze and his hand shot to his collar, trying to keep his balance. “Podozhdite—” But Pavel wasn’t one to wait and pulled him fiercely until he tripped on the rocks, barely catching himself on the stone railing. Humiliated, he straightened up glaring. Pavel’s leer was ever present with that same colour of resentment, his eyes cold and devising. 

The taller man chuckled. “Did you even complete your recruit training? With how today went, I thought Stas was going to pin you to that target.”

Emir swallowed, trying not to dignify that with a response. 

Pavel’s face darkened in silence. “Follow me then get on the fucking ground. I’m not done with you.” 

His heart slammed in his throat as he followed without a word, feeling his fingertips grow cold as the group’s noises faded. With each moment, he pushed his feet further to the edges of the terrain where voices ended and the forest began and each step felt harder to take, the closer those trees got. He sucked in a quiet breath when Pavel stopped. 

“Drop. Feet together.” 

Emir obeyed, falling tense to the pushup form, and dug his nails into the earth for a brief moment, just to feel the cool of the grass, to ground himself. Once, he let his lungs expand with a breath and plunged. Pavel didn’t have to say a word for him to begin and he figured he could save him the trouble. Save it for himself too so he wouldn’t have to pay for it later again. 

He bent his elbows, breathing evenly and keeping them tracking alongside his body, until his chest dipped just below the angle of each elbow, then pushed back up, expelling the air. Slow, controlled so his throat wouldn’t burn like it had last time. His eyes were fixed on the trees across from him, the endless stretch of wood and darkness that he watched from his bed sometimes. 

It reminded him of the trip he had taken years ago, camping with his cousins after having convinced his mother that he would bring a gun and that everything would go well. Even now, he remembered the distaste in her head shake and the veiled worry in her tone as she had thrown up a hand in defeat. 

Fine, abni, but if you get mauled by a bear, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

A smile graced his mouth. It was like he was hardly there anymore. Though a few reps more and he felt a shift in breathing as Pavel sunk down onto the log next to him. 

“Feel like this has gotten easier for you. A hundred and fifty reps, nothing, eh?” He chuckled and patted him on the shoulder with enough force that Emir briefly swayed. “Fast learner. You don’t piss me off as much.”

“Then why do you keep hurting me?” Emir asked coolly. His jaw tightened a bit, hearing the huff. As if the question was a challenge. 

“Because you’re fun to hurt. You make fun noises, give me—all of us—a good time.” 

Pavel’s eye caught a nearby stone and he tapped on his knee thoughtfully as Emir plunged into another graceful pushup. The leer he wore quickly grew crooked and he revelled in the tiny spark of fear that stuttered Emir’s breathing. Hearing it was always wonderful because it meant the little shit was listening to him and on his toes more often than he had been. 

“I noticed your back was all fucked up,” Pavel admitted, reaching for the rock which could have easily been five pounds, “when we changed.” 

Emir’s eyes stayed frozen on the hollow of a nearby tree. His chest was beginning to burn with the onset of faint panic but he was surprised as it wasn’t his fiftieth repetition yet where the burning usually started. “Is that new?” 

The pressure of the rock came fully and at once into the small of his back and he jerked and tightened into a plank. He couldn’t move for a few seconds, realizing Pavel’s intention. 

“You haven’t finished. Keep going or the next one goes into your head.” 

Admittedly, the next few repetitions of the pushup were only slightly less comfortable, just a tinge less familiar with the weight on his spine and he felt his elbows wobble only the slightest amount. Still, Emir persisted. He had gone no more than ten before the next rock, larger this time, sat in front of the first. Hearing Pavel’s snicker, a silent rage caved in his chest. 

“You just had to fall into my hands, huh?” he laughed, patting the ground for another. “Unlucky bastard.” 

Emir was beginning to feel the onset of exhaustion seeping into an already worn body. He knew if he collapsed, Pavel would have something to say about it, presumably with his shoe. He winced and exhaled on the wrong motion, had to pause for a moment and focus his breathing before the next plunge and all while ignoring the wry laughter of the man next to him. 

“At least I’m not dead,” he muttered. 

Pavel stirred before he was about to lay the third rock on the next few ridges of his spine. At first, he scoffed off the response but didn’t resume the motion. He stayed silent for a few moments, letting Emir dip into the next less-than-graceful pushup and watched a bead of sweat roll down his dark temple. Something akin to cynical admiration passed across his eyes.

“You’d rather be alive, here?”  

This time, Emir stopped too. He kept his eyes forward, trained as usual, but too long had passed for it to feel like Pavel’s routine. His gaze gradually flickered over to the green eyes and tan skin beside him that so typically fixed him like prey, now staring at him in annoyed curiosity. “Yeah,” he admitted. 

The trees rustled softly in the background, dampening the mechanics from the camp as if they were unpleasant, fading memories. 

“You’re an idiot.” Pavel let the stone go and smirked to himself at the wince but it was less self-satisfied. “For getting caught and for thinking this is going to be better.”

“My pilot got shot and we crashed directly in front of you,” Emir grumbled, feeling a pulling need to defend his honour and that of his late pilot’s. “Didn’t get caught.” He glanced at Pavel warily and breathed out, seeing no brimming violence under his expression. “Besides, I-I have a family at home to think about.” 

The green eyes narrowed suspiciously. “You’re not going home.” 

He swallowed, not quite yielding. “Maybe not now.” 

“Maybe not ever.” 

Emir waited in silence for a minute more, saying little besides the soft, stuttering breaths that whistled in unison with the pines, gull calls, and the dirt twisting under Pavel’s shoe. He sensed it was an exercise to relieve boredom with how often he did it. He didn’t want to think about what Pavel had just said.

He thought about it too often, already. 

Slowly, he exhaled and pushed down again under the weight of three rocks, elbows bending alongside his body, and inhaled like it would be his last breath on his—shit, he had lost count. He mechanically continued, hoping that at a certain point, Pavel would stop him and let him go when he had fulfilled the day’s quota of entertainment but then, froze completely upon realizing that it had always been his responsibility to count. 

Pavel noticed his uncertainness. “What? You lost count or something?” 

Emir did nothing for a minute before lapsing into silent despair and nodding. What was the worst he could do, really? Kick him in the ribs? Big fucking whoop. He waited for the blow anyways, feeling that it would be a welcome relief to the incessant burning in his arms that threatened to have his entire body give out at that moment and crash to the ground onto that asshole’s boot. 

But in the meantime, Pavel had been quiet and uncharacteristically thoughtful. 

“Get up,” he ordered. “That’s enough.” He pushed himself up from the log and stretched to the clouds, wincing himself at the unwise angle he had been slouching in since Emir had begun the exercise. “Go back to your dorm and don’t let me see you again today.” 

Too stunned to move, Emir fixed him with a fearful look until he realized it was a serious order. He could have let himself fall to the ground and really, it was tempting. To lay there and let the exhaustion seep into the dirt but Pavel’s patience already seemed stick-thin and he didn’t want to push today’s generosity. He rolled to let the rocks fall off and bolted to standing, starting his journey back to the camp. When he turned for Pavel’s approval, the man wasn’t moving. 

His eyebrows pricked up. “Maybe not now,” he muttered. “Idiot.”  

Tagging: @straight-to-the-pain @heathenville

 Let me know if you’d like to be added/removed!

[404fmdtaejin]

aesthetic, playlist & headcanon — decipher’s 13th year anniversary

summary: decipher debuted on may 25, 2008 under bc entertainment. debuting as young fresh faces means that in 2021, thirteen years later, decipher’s still managing on as a household name. one of bc’s longest running groups with no members leaving nor the lineup changed, decipher remains a strong force that still (somewhat) takes over the charts today. despite taejin’s distaste for idol world, if there’s one thing he’s able to accept — it’s that his members are his heart and soul. playlist summary: thirteen years, and decipher’s released so many albums / mini-albums etc. taejin’s been vocal about what songs he likes and which ones he doesn’t as with any other idol and their respective discographies. however, this playlist highlights what taejin considers the “peak” of decipher, and how they were able to climb up the ladder and create a name for themselves. yes, there were detractors questioning decipher’s young age and their talents, but these songs have given substantial proof that 1) decipher deserves their clout and 2) decipher and their performance / live vocals are no joke. warnings: none wc: 778

playlist

1. replay — decipher (누나 너무 예뻐)  2. ring ding dong — decipher (링딩동) 3. sherlock — decipher (셔록) 4. dream girl — decipher (드림 걸) 5. everybody — decipher (에브리바디)  6. view — decipher (뷰) 7. 1 of 1 — decipher 8. a-yo — decipher (에이요) 9. quasimodo — decipher (화살) 10. don’t let me go — decipher (투명 우산) 11. marry you (yes i know this isn’t a decipher song but in my head let me have it in my imagination) — decipher <3 12. rescue — decipher 

thirteen years!! there’s probably a headcanon that i did for the twelfth year, but this one is for thirteen

thirteen is an unlucky number, but taejin doesn’t care — it’s just one step closer to fifteen years, and at this point, seeing as how decipher isn’t facing disbandment anytime soon, taejin just wants to hit that fifteen year mark right now because it just shows decipher’s been a household name for a very very long time

it’s shocking to him that his career spans almost a decade older than these newer boy groups (vive and quicksilver will be his 10 year younger hoobaes :’( )

still, that’s still something to be proud of, taejin supposes? like it’s more of a wistful thinking that he’s been able to manage this long inside an industry while being able to pursue his own individual adventures

luckily, aside from this quarter — decipher’s been relatively free meaning they haven’t been on the top priority for bc’s releases, giving decipher free-range to pursue individual activities

taejin’s spent that time acting and serving as faces of various brands, but in reality — he’s still an idol at the end of the day

despite his dislike for the idol world right now and finding decipher’s releases in current day more mundane, he looks back at his previous years with some fondness

like there’s nothing comparable to what he felt in 2008? especially because he was so young, the bottom of the pole and now he’s this bigger name where the people he debuted with are either disbanded or not around anymore. meanwhile, decipher’s still kicking and relatively doing well in terms of sales and charting

even though decipher hasn’t expanding sonically in the past few years, taejin says that’s okay. well, at least to him because 1) that rids the hard choreography and 2) decipher’s already been well around the block experimenting in different sounds. aka they did so much of it early on that by now, he has no regrets

being a leader has it’s hardships as well, mainly because he serves as a figurehead for his group. it’s been like this for so many years, but now he feels a bit guilty because he’s been so far off in his own activities that he hasn’t been able to keep up with his group

this means he often forgets steps, forgets old lyrics when decipher is forced to perform on stage

plus, he’s gotten a lot of promotions because of his dramas / brand deals, which also isolates him a bit from his members. this leaves this unacknowledged guilt he can’t really bring up to his members, so he tries to compensate in other ways by checking up on them and making sure they’re doing okay

(at the end of the day, they’re brothers. so, taejin will have it as that and know they have his back just as much as he has theirs)

honestly — taejin’s just really proud of decipher as much as he hasn’t talked about it that much publicly. he’s just proud of how much they’ve gone through? it’s cliche to say ups and downs, but really — decipher’s had about everything thrown their way in terms of what bc gives them and throws them into

over a decade, and bc’s still proud of flaunt decipher as their “poster children’ for good behavior. sure, maybe minor scandals have affected the members here and there? but generally, they’re well-received and plus, decipher’s managed to hold a consistent music career.

it shows their fans are still caring about them, even if they’ve out grown the “nuna” fan phase. now, their newer fans are a lot younger than them, but for the most part their fanbase stays consistent

i guess taejin’s just proud that they’re a rock-solid combination that still can kick it on stage

and taejin won’t admit it out loud, but he always keeps inside his head that decipher can out-sing any of the groups (no offense to these other groups) but decipher’s able to manage as a group, a complete live performance with no back vocals / relying on backtrack because they are that STURDY live

and taejin lowkey judges every group that relies on their back vocals and can’t sing live lmao he will talk shit with his members and bring out the latte talks, saying “man idols these days can’t sing and dance? back in our day we didn’t have any backtrack!”

2008 till now, taejin’s proud to say he’s decipher’s leader. just not happy to say he’s an idol <3

to be fair, taejin’s vocals are also still top tier as they were when he debuted :~)

[winterbl0ss0m]

assigning some of my favorite characters genshin mains and teams because i Can and i Will

i know the amount of 5stars ive assigned a lot of them is lowkey unreasonable but i dont care dhsjfbsk this is purely based on vibes or if it fits their character also this is my opinion so let me vibe please

suzuya juuzou - rosaria main definitely. he’d also love and use hu tao, xiao, and zhongli (shinopapa vibes *cries*). i realize now i unknowingly gave him a full polearm team, but honestly it makes sense bc he would Absolutely Love all the polearm users, the polearms remind him of his scythe (he wishes rosaria had an actual scythe). i also think he would love scaramouche and is anxiously awaiting him becoming playable (me too dude, me too)

nagito komaeda - bennett main !!! he would see that unlucky boy and be like , you are me, i love you, you are precious, im maining you (he would be so much nicer to bennett than he is himself and he would probably cry while doing bennett’s hangout event). i think he’d also use ganyu, xiao, and ningguang (i have no basis for the latter three that was entirely gut feeling but i think it fits honestly). i also think he would have almost every 5star unlocked, as well as every 4star at c4 or higher, because his luck is just too damn good- although his bad luck kicked in and almost stopped him from getting xiao who he really wanted, so he whaled in order to get him

inosuke hashibira - not only would he main razor, but he would probably refuse to ever switch to any other character- he would have the starters (traveler [whose name is “INOSUKE” in all caps just like that], kaeya, and amber) but theyre all level 20 and razor is constantly on life support, but he is completely maxed out (c6, level 90, full level talents, fully levelled wolf’s gravestone). tanjiro is constantly yelling at him to start using more characters (he is the reason the others are level 20) but that just makes inosuke even more stubborn. should he eventually cave, he would probably also use venti (reminds him of zenitsu), childe (reminds him of tanjiro), and noelle (for nezuko- although he had to ask tanjiro for some help on that one)

ran mitake - Definitely xinyan main <3 i mean, the sole rock n roll musician of liyue ?? you Cannot !! tell me she wouldnt love xinyan. she would also have a super rad support barbara, as well as jean (reminds her of tomoe) and xingqiu (reminds her of moca). she doesnt have the room on her team, but she also really loves noelle because she reminds her of tsugumi, and amber because she reminds her of himari. she used them for a very long time because of that, she got clowned by some players who think the starter characters suck, but its ok cause ran knows theyre wrong and she does what she wants<3

ako udagawa - i struggled here bc i think she would absolutely Love a bunch of them but lets see- she would definitely Main and kin fischl for so many reasons (her style, the way she speaks, her general personality, and she wants a pet like oz). i think she’d also really love rosaria and hu tao (she Loves their aesthetics as well as how they are in battle, although hu tao is typically on the verge of death bc she always forgets to make food), as well as jean and sucrose (those two remind her of tomoe and rinko respectively and she’d probably switch them out depending on what she’s doing)

rinko shirokane - definitely sucrose main <3 she would also probably use fischl bc ako vibes !! plus i think she would be SUPER great at doing aimed shots and would do SO MUCH DAMAGE when hitting oz with an aimed shot- as well as mona bc i hc that she’s really interested in astrology and also hc that she loves mage characters in games (whether that is canon or not, i am not sure). also she would use bennett, both for extra healing as well as really loving him- she probably feels so bad for the poor unlucky boy awww :((

rio ranger - he switches between maining xiao and childe. he also uses diluc and rosaria !! he used kaeya for a very long time, but when rosaria came out he was like “I NEED HER”- pulling for rosaria was actually how he got childe, but he didnt mind because he actually really liked childe

reko yabusame - i really tried to give her someone other than xinyan but honestly i think she would love xinyan too much to not main her. she loves her style and her backstory so much, and she really wishes xinyan got more content. she also uses childe (bc alice vibes- no its not bc of the murderer stuff, i personally think they relate in other ways), sucrose (bc nao vibes), and beidou (bc she thinks beidou is hot as fuck, plus good elemental reactions and defense)

joe tazuna - i cant quite pick a single main but i think his team would be razor (dogboy joe go brr), bennett, venti, and maybe klee !! he loves the vibes of them all. he pulled jean and considered using her because she has sara vibes, but he decided to stick with venti mainly because he simply did not feel like grinding for her materials (i mean can you blame him? im currently struggling enough with that)

mutsuki tooru - first off the only reason he started playing was bc he saw saiko playing it and was intrigued. he would switch between maining xingqiu and venti !! it was love at first sight for him. he thought he would never get venti for a long long time, bc he missed venti’s first run. he used chongyun up until he pulled venti !! he also started saving his primos as soon as he heard speculation about venti having a rerun- and sure enough, he pulled him!! he felt like the happiest boy on earth<3 he would also have xiangling because he likes her vibes as well as her abilities, as well as albedo just bc he really likes him (he’s super invested in the homonculus + khaenri’ah theories and probably would make multiple tumblr posts about it)

ibuki mioda - xiny- *SMACKED* Actually i think she would have xinyan on her team, but her main? either klee or xiangling !! she loves their vibes n they lowkey remind her of herself. i also think she would really like diona for some reason, and probably beidou, idk why i just get the vibes !! she would have a Sick diona i just know it

chihiro fujisaki - i feel like he would switch between maining yanfei and sucrose !! yanfei just bc they like her, sucrose bc he relates to her a Lot <3 they would also use ningguang bc he admires her intelligence and determination, as well as chongyun- i almost gave him barbara, and i think they would love to use her, but he probably figured its not a good idea to have a full catalyst team despite how much they love catalysts, so he went with their next fave !! plus he knows claymores are super useful so it was a huge plus. he’s Super smart so they have so many tactics he uses, they’re Amazing with artifacts, and they Live for skillfully executed elemental combos

mikan tsumiki - she would have a full healer team, no doubt. barbara main !! duuuude she would have the SICKEST dps barbara omggg- she would do So much damage And be an Amazing healer !!! plus bennett, jean, and qiqi !!! she loves them all very much <3

[alas-pancakes]

a sensory mess

long post because I was hyperfocusing 

well I don’t really do the kicking-screaming-violently crying type of meltdown anymore, unless things are Really Bad. actually, I never really did that. I was more of a cry so violently I can’t breathe, let alone speak and run away to a quiet place kind of meltdown but that’s beside the point. this makes me look like I don’t have meltdowns anymore. that observation is incorrect. 

I’ve been melting down a little more than usual recently because of sensory overload and just my like generally falling apart so I thought I’d kinda write it out to figure out what I’m like. I guess this is useful if you know me irl? 

most people cover their ears when there is a loud noise and if I do it for the duration that, say I’m walking past construction work, that’s ok. what’s bad is when I cover my ears for a long time, usually accompanied with closing my eyes, rocking slightly, tapping on my head or chewing my hands and bouncing my leg. I’m probably very snappish, if not I’m ignoring everyone and nonverbal. if it’s not a meltdown based on sensory overload, I might have destructive tendencies (ie. biting, ripping paper, tightly gripping things). more likely to be nonverbal, or producing non-speaking noises. I might also be crying. I might lash out if someone touches me or gets too close unexpectedly. I’m not really going to be in control of myself. 

shutdowns, because those also happen. people have a fight, flight, freeze response. when I shut down, I’m either nonverbal or it takes too much effort to talk. usually when I’m tired (emotionally, mentally, etc) or when it’s very noisy (sensory overload) and I will freeze in my place for a while and maybe try to run out of the room (looking at the floor) when I can move. I probably would like a hug (it helps ground me). I shutdown more than I meltdown due to heavy masking. 

dissociation, usually coupled with a panic attack. I used to like doing this when I was getting scolded and things like that but I don’t like it now. being out of control scares me. usually I just feel like there’s a wall between me and the world, I’m kinda floaty and idk what’s going on. I’m likely very spacy. happens more when I’m tired. hugs are good for grounding. I might start panicking because my body is more or less on autopilot and I can’t control it. apparently sometimes when that happens I start digging my nails into my arms or doing anything that causes pain because I don’t know how to ground myself and sometimes pain works for a little bit (this is bad, please stop me. if im unlucky the marks can stay for days)

sensory overload, my worse tormentor. kinda speaks for itself, loud noises, complex noises, overwhelming smells, overly bright light, dim light (like museum lighting/teaching streaming movie in class lighting), public transport at peak hour, non-safe people touching me especially without warning. there’s more but it’s about that. uhhh, usually leads to shutdowns or meltdowns. if it’s passing, like a sudden loud, painful noise, I might cover my ears and want some grounding but i’ll be fine after a while. if it’s Bad, then I might meltdown or shutdown but probably not full out. I would want to get out of the place as fast as possible. 

burnout. when I’m out of spoons, makes me meltdown/shutdown/dissociate more easily. best for me to just rest at home but if I’m out and can’t escape it, I’ll probably want to go somewhere quiet with a safe person and just rest with them for a while. 

in all the above scenarios, i would want my jacket. and also probably a hug but not always. and stim toys help. and earpieces probably. or running water because water calms me down. 

safe people because what counts as a safe person? a safe person is someone that I’m comfortable with, that I will go to when seeking things like hugs and will naturally gravitate to them when I see them in the room or something like that. basically whoever i’m clingy to. which makes me annoying but yeah, you get the idea. 

bonus: misophonia. I can try to tolerate but vibration (if you’re shaking ur leg and stuff), loud irregular tapping and just like chewing noises and that annoying sksksks thing (s is usually pretty bad) will make activate a fight response and also asmr. I try my best but it will irritate me and I might snap at you. it makes me very uncomfortable (think nails on chalkboard but for like everything) and I will remove myself from the vicinity of the noise if I can. if I can’t, I’ll try my best but it really makes me want to lash out so idk.  

so that’s the not so fun side of autism for you. 

(so yes, I’m going to die during camp and mostly this is for myself because I like to keep track of things)

[bluesunsdusk]

Siebren in Overwatch drabble (I can’t think of a name, again) 

Contains: Not translated Dutch, emotional turmoil, near death.

The explosions. The cacophony of gunfire. The torturous rumbling of the far too small building, causing parts of the ceiling to crumble and lights to flicker as their fixtures lost integrity. People screamed, ran, and fought with whatever they had outside and inside. 

Not Siebren, however.

Rather than stand tall and fight for his life and freedom, he shrunk. He shrunk into a corner of his quarters, his head shielded by hands and knees as tears cascaded down his face, sobs racking his body, eyes squeezed shut. Even his feet crossed over each other in an attempt to make his position as closed as possible, as guarded as possible. He rocked lightly back and forth through uncontrollable trembling. If only he could contort himself into a single atom and be gone from the agonizing chaos that roared around him. Perhaps, then, he’d at last be safe, free from this constant waiting for the rapids the universe continuously thrust him into.

He didn’t want to go back. 

Dwing me niet om terug te gaan. Alsjeblieft... Alsjeblieft niet!

“Alsjeblieft,” he begged in a cracked whisper, sliding his hands over the back of his head to bury his face farther away. “Alsjeblieft. Ik wil het niet. Ik wil het niet.”

He would rather feel death's eternal embrace than be forced to return to his last captors and smear yet more innocent blood on his hands. He rather cease to have ever been at all than be subjected to whatever it was Talon had in store for him this time. The universe would answer his pleading with nothing. He wasn’t a man of god, there was nothing he could pray to for protection, and no one on this earthly coil who would suffice. He couldn't… He-

“Ik kan het niet. Ik-” A wail slipped from between his lips.

Yet again, he was hopeless, helpless. Told to stay put and wait for Overwatch to handle this while he remained in the tenuous safety of his quarters, he could only hold so much faith in their small chance for success. It took so long, and he knew what Talon was capable of. Almost all of his being felt ill at the thought of them breaking down the door and dragging him, kicking and screaming until they knocked him out, with them. His stomach twisted into knots, his throat clenched. He clapped a hand over his mouth, one part to silence himself, one part to prevent himself from spitting up. He gulped and swallowed through his shivering, soft whimpers escaping his fragile form. 

Then it all stopped.

Disorienting and deafening fear had been cut through by something new, something stronger. Purpose. The noise had lifted. Someone else had taken the helm, but it was still him. A certainty washed over him, like someone firmly gripping his shoulder and speaking directly to his mind, dispelling all but them. He was instantaneously filled with nothing but clarity. All his fractured parts had come together, joined for a singular goal. He was afloat, through the ravaging of his safe haven, his tears still clinging to his skin and mixing with dirt and dust, with but one thought in mind. 

Bevecht dit. 

Fight this. 

He would fight this, tooth and nail, now that, if they were indeed here to steal him away, this time he was able to fight. Their violence would be answered with an opposite reaction built up from years of suffering. If that was what it took, that was what he would do. Their violence would be answered with a violence so exquisite it would shake galaxies. People were dying, and he had been given a gift that could help end that. He had to use it. It was his obligation to.

Overwatch had allowed him to decide whether he wanted to keep the equipment Talon had outfitted him with and let them make various adjustments in their labs. While they assured him there would be no deploying him into a battle, he knew to remain prepared, and he knew where to go. 

Siebren always had help equipping his harness. Even in a rush, however, he paid enough attention to know some of the steps. Sharp eyes examined each component. This harness had indeed been altered, though not enough to make it impossible to don alone. It was less crude, far more streamlined, more approachable. He knew putting this on would permanently mark him as Overwatch, but that was scarcely a concern worth keeping. Now, the wires that had to be attached to the base of his skull… They were the same. 

He put on the base of his gear, the jumpsuit, the bits and pieces that layered it. Everything, sans shoes. He wouldn't be needing those.

The way the larger and more elaborate torso section hung in the display frame with a screen turned towards it, he could have sworn Overwatch had anticipated this moment just as much as he had. All he needed to do to attach it was turn around, back into it, and connect the primary cerebral cord. The screen popped on, displaying a diagnostic in progress. Automated vertebral alignment. Interesting. It also displayed other changes. His shield generators had been significantly upgraded. No doubt Winston's doing. Good. Hopefully, it would no longer feel as though he was defending his colleagues with a sheet of paper.

He took the time it took for the machine to prepare his first time use to wipe some of the filth from his face. It was getting uncomfortable.

The machine shifted as the diagnostic progressed. There was a soft hiss. Several studs pressed into his back, down the upper portions of his spine, with a painful pressure and a pinch that passed in a mere second. The front connections of his armor clamped on, followed by the shoulders. The wiring that connected to his gloves, he attached himself, flexing his fingers to check the integrity of the connection and the fit of the material around his fingers. His leg braces were secured with a little more effort. 

What more was there to equip? A helmet? With an opaque screen? No. No, he wanted Talon to see his face when he destroyed them. He wanted them to see the man they'd turned into their own demise, not just a weapon. 

His hyperspheres… They were purely for offensive capability. He couldn’t say for certain if he was quite ready for that, even now, when he moved with such purpose. He would take them, unfolded and neatly stored on the arm of his right glove for if the need to use them arose.

Another check. Everything was in order, well within acceptable margins. Sigma… Siebren ready to deploy.

After making his way through the facility, closed up in a state of emergency but not entirely unbreachable, he found the exit. Sunlight and the screaming of both people and weaponry met him at the doors. He remained unperturbed, gliding his way past several combatants, far in the backline, on his way to the most optimal position, just as he had been made to do in Talon. No one questioned his arrival. No one could. There was no space or time for them to even begin to do so. Their eyes were trained on the skies.

So, Talon had sent gunships? Relatively lightly armored, with weak weaponry,  compared to what he knew Talon was well in their ability to deploy. A difficult problem, all the same, but not without a solution. Judging from the chatter of the Overwatch troops around him, they were holding Talon off in anticipation for allied reinforcements. All they required was time, time Siebren could offer. The gunships looked to be preparing a volley of missiles, trained on the entrance of the main building he’d just left, no doubt to cut off an escape. With an outreached hand, Siebren spread his shield, halting the barrage from striking the building. His barrier shattered from the final impact, sending the generator fragments back to him to regenerate. Though his shield had been made both larger and stronger than it had been, the structures to the side were unlucky, struck with bullets and explosions that had passed by Siebren's defenses, but the rubble could still prove useful. The shield, after a brief moment of collective surprise from his new allies, had also offered the Overwatch troops a precious few seconds to retaliate against the enemy. For one ship, this proved fatal. 

Siebren couldn't help but feel a small amount of satisfaction at its fall. Another ship found itself ambushed by an old friend. In the confusion Siebren's unannounced arrival had caused, Winston took it upon himself to launch into the opening of one of the Talon vehicles with a masterfully aimed jump. He made short work of it before retreating as the ship came crashing down. Impressive work, but the battle continued.

Guns turned towards Siebren, the Talon troops having recognized him as a threat. Loosing their ammunition on him, however, was more than a waste. In fact, it was a huge mistake. Yet again, he extended a hand, this time to grasp all matter, within a certain mass, that accelerated towards him and convert the energy into a bolstering of his personal shielding. By the time they realized this, it was too late. They needed to reload, giving Siebren time to gather the rubble around him into one collection, using both hands and the pull of gravity they generated. The strain it took was tremendous, and he could feel all the old sensations—the whispers, the muffled feeling in his head—returning. The boulder he had amassed was larger than he'd ever managed during his days with Talon, but he held fast. His mind was set on one thing. The last Talon gunship to not have retreated once things started looking ugly. With one mighty thrust of his hands, accompanied by a laboured grunt, Siebren sent the accumulation of mass flying into the gunship, a gunship with a pilot who only seemed to have gotten the hint that this battle was lost seconds before impact. Like all others, it crashed down, several Talon troops jumping out with their boosters to avoid dying in the ensuing blaze. 

Siebren observed the crash and glanced down at his hands. Part of him could feel bad for taking to this so naturally after the time he'd spent out of action, but it felt oddly satisfying using his abilities again, although about as nerve racking as it used to be as well. The adrenaline, the drum of his speeding heart pounding in his chest… he did miss that, unfortunately. At least, some of him did. 

Finally, all they had to worry about were the ground troops. Disposing of them would be a simple matter, even without his hyperspheres. He wasn't reliant on those to incapacitate an aggressor. He didn’t need them to kill either, if the need happened to arise. He didn't think it would at this point, not for him. That was, until a new rumbling grew over the horizon. 

Siebren's eyes shifted from the ground troops to the air once again. Backup. A lot of backup. Too much backup.

"Get inside," Siebren barked to the Overwatch troops around him. Some relayed his command to their allies on the comm channel and awaited approval. "Fall back, now. Get everyone inside and-" 

Oh no. No no no no no! 

The new ships prepared another hail of missiles. Siebren projected a barrier, erecting both hands to extend its surface area as wide as he could possibly manage. Oh god. He couldn't stretch it this wide. It couldn’t take this much damage. It would break before he could stop everything. Perhaps… The rubble. He could layer some of the rubble under it, just to be sure he could cover the retreat. He’d stay behind, and perhaps even be buried or captured, but the fight would be far from over. Before half of the impacts had been made, he could feel and see his barrier become unstable.

As everyone ran past him, having gotten an official order to retreat back into the base, Siebren remained put, using all of his effort to form a blanket of rock and metal growing around several singularities, as with his accretion, for as long as he could. 

The music… It was growing so loud… The laughing, the echoes, the whispers, the pulled strings of the universe ripping at his mind harder the longer he exerted himself… It was too much. His vision grew tunneled, the sounds of war had been replaced with the sound of his blood rushing, his heart beating, his mind screaming, and muffled chords that still shattered his hearing. Yet, he held. He couldn't do it for much longer, and he could no longer even tell when it would be enough, but he held. It may become the end of him, but he held. He would hold for as long as he had to, longer even. He would hold for as long as he could. 

Everything swam around him, swarmed around him, time winding in paths it wasn’t meant to take. Where was reality? Where had the world gone? Everything was a haze of noise, vision, touch, even taste and smell. He couldn't… He couldn’t- 

He was snapped out of his daze by a powerful collision, rocketing him towards the facility, away from under the hellfire that would barrel towards him the moment his focus shattered, and knocking the wind from his lungs in the process. Shatter his focus certainly did. The warm dust that rushed through the halls as the building's front section collapsed was blinding, suffocating. His body crashed against the hard ground beneath him, a nearly crushing weight pressing down on him. In the darkness that swallowed him, Siebren wasn’t quite aware if he had just died or not. Death wasn’t supposed to be like this. There should be nothing but the collapsing of time and space as the brain died, but… this wasn’t that. This wasn’t that, at all.

It took a moment for his senses to return after the cacophony that had assaulted his senses and his body. The sounds of coughs and groans among the settling rubble gave some much needed context, and assurance that people had survived. Had he been saved? Was that what the impact had been? Siebren hadn't even the chance to lay eyes on his savior before the entire group he was with got shut into a facility with what seemed to be cut power to light. 

Not having had his cranium replaced could have proven useful right now… if only for the small bit of light it may have provided in exchange for the receding hairline he actually rather liked having back. He was certain the troops had lights on them, but they needed time to recover from the shock they'd been subjected to. He, too, could use a moment to catch what little breath the dust let him have. He moved his arm, honestly a little uncertain of where it would end up, until he could feel the inside of his elbow over his mouth. It wouldn't do much, but any little bit of protection for his stinging lungs was good. Maybe that helmet would have been a diligent choice, after all.

Finally, he managed to find the ability to speak once more. “Is… Is everyone alright?” he asked with a pained groan, still looking though nothing but a void ahead of him.

Didn’t this call for more of a head count? Ah… He had never been in the military, and the only one he was close with who would know, had perished in the Omnic Crisis. These troops would do whatever protocol Overwatch knew. Asking if everyone was alright after all that, though? How naive. Of course not everyone was alright. He could hit himself over the head about that later.

[scripttorture]

Hi! I don't know if what I'm about to ask falls into torture, but maybe you have the answer. My character get drugged, and men beat her in an alley, kinda just for fun, for over 30 minutes and they just leave. Can this qualify as torture? Also, is it possible that she starts to befriend violent ppl who she knows won't hurt her to feel safe? Or is it most likely she will try to avoid any violence? I know ppl react differently, but I don't know which one is the more realist option. Thank you!

Hello. :)

 This sort of scenario is unlikely to meet the legal definition of torture, it’s an assault. But the mechanics, risks and effects on the survivor character are likely to be the same whether she’s beaten in the street or in a jail cell.

 Readers I do take questions on things that wouldn’t meet the legal definition of torture. And attacks like this do still effect victims as seriously.

 My first suggestion is to reduce the time she’s beaten for a couple of reasons.

 The first is that it’s difficult for the attackers to keep up a violent assault constantly for that long a period. Most attacks last a few minutes. Five minutes would be an unusually long time. Ten minutes would take some serious stamina.

 A good way to come up with a realistic time frame is to watch a couple of martial arts matches and try to add up how long the competitors actually spend hitting each other. Professional boxers usually look knackered and drenched in sweat inside 2-3 minutes. Yes I probably have spent too long watching Nicola Adams fight, I have no regrets-

 Fights take a lot of energy.

 The second reason is that I’m pretty sure if a group of people were hitting a victim for half an hour that victim would probably be dead.

 You don’t seem to be describing the attackers making any effort to keep the victim alive. If they are just repeatedly hitting her-

 I think in less then a minute she’d be on the floor. And the longer she’s down there being kicked, stomped on etc the more likely it is she’d get a serious head injury or multiple broken ribs puncturing her lungs or just sustain enough damage that she’d suffer organ failure.

 A person can be beaten to death in under thirty seconds if they’re unlucky. Two minutes is more then enough time for your character to come out of this injured and severely traumatised.

 If it’s important to the story that she’s controlled by these attackers for 30 minutes then that isn’t unrealistic. She might be prevented from escaping, threatened and hurt for that time. But being beaten continuously for 30 minutes is a different story.

 I do understand why authors reach for extended time frames, it’s partly because it’s hard to find a realistic time frame and it’s partly because you want to show this is serious.

 My advice is don’t try to show something is serious by using a time frame. Do it by showing the effect on the victim.

 That means showing a combination of the pain she’s in while she’s attacked, the physical recovery process afterwards and the long term psychological effects on her.

 You don’t actually have to devote a lot of words or narrative time to showing most of these if you don’t want to. A throw away line like ‘I was in the hospital for three weeks’ or ‘They reconstructed my eye socket with part of my hip bone’ tells readers that the character spent a significant amount of time in physical recovery. It also gives a medical assurance that this was serious. You can similarly shorten the description of the attack, while still showing that it was serious.

 If you do want to write a fairly detailed account of the attack there are a few things I’ve found helpful for that.

 Take a few martial arts classes if you can. If you can’t find some youtube videos that are designed to teach a martial art. This helps give an idea of what’s possible for most people and how much energy a fight takes.

 When there are more then two people involved I draw out a fight. Not in a way that requires a lot of effort and artistic skill though. I imagine I’m looking down on the fight from directly above. I draw where any walls, roads, rocks, parked cars or other obstacles are, usually as lines. Then I draw the people as circles, usually with their first initial in the circle.

 I draw this out a couple of times for different parts of the fight so I can keep track of where everyone is. It also helps to identify where they might move to. For instance an outnumbered character who is being attacked is going to try and slip through any gaps between the attackers. A character who is trying to defend someone else is going to keep moving so that they’re between their friend and the attackers.

 When you can see clearly how the characters are moving describing the fight becomes a lot easier.

 As for long term behavioural changes, a lot of things are possible. I think both of the responses you’ve suggested are probably possible but- the changes are rarely quite so straightforward.

 One of the more common long term changes survivors can experience is losing faith in people generally. They start to see all people as potential threats.

 But that starting point could lead someone surround themselves with ‘tough’ friends to protect them, or it could lead them to avoid anything potentially violent, or it could lead to neither of those things.

 I’ve seen survivors report that they tried to become tougher, that they took martial arts classes or started carrying knives but I’ve not seen any report that they went looking for tough friends. And I’ve seen survivors report avoiding people or life outside the home generally but avoiding violence is often seen as impossible.

 It’s really common for survivors to distrust everyone else. So I think if you want your character to have this strong bond with ‘tough’ people that she trusts to protect her they should be people she knew and trusted before the attack.

 But generally, this needs a little bit more work to capture how this character is changed.

 If you haven’t already take a look at the common symptoms over here.

 I think if you want your character driven towards or away from a violent lifestyle the best way to think about it is by starting with symptoms. Sure, your character will probably be afraid, but what else is she feeling?

 If she feels a bit nihilistic, like the worst has already happened and it doesn’t matter if she’s hurt, that sounds like depression with suicidal tendencies. And that could be used to drive her towards violent people and taking risks.

 If she feels on edge, like she’s always under threat, that suggests hypervigilance and anxiety to me. And you could use that to drive her away from risky situations because even normal situations seem too risky.

 You can make either of your options realistic by tying them into the right symptoms and showing those symptoms consistently. But without those symptoms and that ground work both of these options would feel unrealistic. It’s not because they’re not possible, it’s because you need to capture why the character is choosing to do these things.

 And that’s rooted in more then just fear.

 I hope that helps. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[ragewerthers]

Suga-rush!

Summary: 

Everyone on the Karasuno volleyball team is afraid of angering their captain except for Suga.

What is his secret? How can he be the only one who can talk back to Daddy Crow and also stop him from going on a rampage? The team is about to find out!

A/n: The world needs more DaiSuga fluff darn it!  They are just too precious and need to enjoy some laughs and playfulness! You can also read this on AO3 at: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17921315

Word count: 2060 --------------------------------------------------

Daichi was by no stretch of the imagination a mean guy.

On the contrary.

He was friendly, inspiring, good-natured, but should you do something to upset the quiet balance of the team, whether playfully, roughly or ridiculously, you were more than likely going to face his wrath.

Chaos in the halls during training camp?  Over exuberance on the court from a point?  All of them were generally met with hushed whispers of,‘Quiet!  You’ll make the captain angry!’

There was something about upsetting or angering ‘Daddy Crow’ that struck fear into the hearts of them all… except for one.

Sugawara Koushi.

The silver haired setter never seemed to worry or be phased by the idea of upsetting the captain.

Quite the opposite.

Suga was the only one who seemed to be able to call out the captain for acting brash, stop him from going on a rampage and tell him off in other ways without the fear of repercussions or being told off in return.

There were many who wondered what the secret to his bravery was.

Tanaka and Noya had tried, on more than one occasion, to learn his secrets, but Suga always waved them off with a little shrug and smile.

Asahi’s theory had always been that it was because they were in a relationship, but it felt like there had to be more than that.

Daichi could be in the throes of telling off a riled up teammate and one look from Suga would have him stopping in his tracks.

What could it be?!

The team was about to find out.

They had all been practicing a few receiving drills with a partner, passing the ball back and forth between them when the fateful moment happened.

Hinata had been paired with Kageyama and the pair had been bickering since they’d walked in together.  However, as the practice had gone on their drills had turned more into a competition and with that came mistakes.  Before long a stray ball had been hit and the next thing they knew the resounding smack of it hitting the back of someone’s head could be heard reverberating around the gym.

With shaking limbs the two first years turned to see who had been the unlucky recipient only to see Daichi standing with his back to them, the ball resting behind him and his shoulders shaking with barely contained rage.

“S-Senpai!” Hinata squeaked, instantly running behind Kageyama who turned and shouted at the other for using him as a shield.

The renewed bickering seemed to be what finally did it as Daichi turned around to start shouting at the younger members.

“QUIET!  THAT’S ENOUGH!” he warned, everyone instantly snapping to attention at the reprimand.  “You need to STOP!  This bickering is not beneficial to the team and will lead us nowhere!”

Suga who had been paired with the captain took a step forward and tried to grab the others attention.

“It’s okay, Dai.  You know they get excitable, but I’m sure they’re so-,”

“Stay out of this, Suga!” Daichi snapped and an eerie calm settled over the group.

For the first time that any of them could remember they watched as their strong, unphasable leader blanched and looked like he wished he could literally fly away from here.

“Suga.  Suga, I… please don’t,” he said shakily as he took a step back.

The look on the setters face was completely unreadable.  Gone was the sweet tempered looking Suga they all knew and respected, replaced with a narrow-eyed and dangerous looking hunter who only had eyes for the man in front of him.

“Suga?  Koushi?  Kou?” Daichi tried, taking another step back.  However, as soon as he did, Suga leapt forward, and then… they were off.

Daichi had quickly turned tail with the fear of god in his eyes and started running toward the other end of the gym, Suga hot on his heels, as he continued to try and plead for his life.

“P-Please!?  Please I’m s-sorry!  N-Not here, Kou!  NO!” he cried as he felt the man swiping at the back of his t-shirt, almost catching him as he tried to take a fast corner and all but slid into a wall.

By this point the other players had gathered into a more condensed group in the center of the court, watching this madness take place.

“Wh-what is Suga-Senpai going to do?” Hinata asked as he watched on in awe, Asahi shaking beside him as he caught the look in his classmates eyes and wondered if Suga had somehow gotten possessed.

“I-I don’t know, but I’ve never seen him look like that before,” the ace said as he watched the pair continue their chase around the gymnasium.

It wasn’t to last much longer.

Upon making a mad dash for the exit, Daichi had turned his head to see how far behind Suga was and ended up tripping over one of the stray volleyballs from practice sending him crashing to the floor with Suga landing on him not a moment later.

“Suga!  S-Suga please!  Please I-I apologized I… I di-hihihidn’t m-HEHEAN IT!” the captain honest to god giggled as Suga straddled his waist, his hands trying ineffectually to grab at the vice captains wrists.

It was all for nought.  With lightning quick reflexes, Suga’s hands went straight toward Daichi’s lower ribs, fingers finding the extra sensitive spots right underneath the bones that had the poor captains back arching off the floor as wild laughter escaped him.

The captain… was horrendously ticklish.

And the team could only look on in absolute shock and awe.

“You know better than to let your anger get the better of you, Dai!” Suga warned as his wriggling fingers continued to massage against the hyperticklish spot, making the captain try to curl up before arching and repeating all over again as if his body didn’t know what to do.

“I-I kn-nahahahaow!  I know!  I’m s-sahahhaorry!” he cried as he tried to push at the hands driving him crazy.  Sadly this left him wide open to those devilish fingers which instantly skittered up his ribs, making the man yelp and try to turn over and curl up.

“You yelled at me, Daichi.  You let your temper get the better of you and we know the only way to remedy that, right?” Suga asked, the scary, neutral look that had been on his face now replaced with the familiar and sweet smile he usually wore.  He allowed Daich a chance to try and turn on his side, adjusting himself so that he could now claw one hand into the poor guys stomach as the other skittered up and down his spine.

Daichi positively squealed as he was attacked on two fronts!  The clawing to his stomach had him curling forward, legs kicking out behind his boyfriend before ridiculous giggles would erupt from him as those spidering fingers would race up his spine and make him flop around like some sort of electrocuted eel.

“S-SuGAHahahaAHA!” he wailed as the setters fingers continued their quick attack, one hand staying to torment his stomach as the other left his back to reach behind him and squeeze behind one of his knees.

The poor captain positively died.  His knees had always been a weak spot of his along with his stomach and now with both under attack the only thing he could think of was the horribly ticklish sensations running through his body, his legs trying desperately to kick away from those devilish fingers that kneaded into the muscles around his knee while his hands tried to slap at the fingers that had snuck under his shirt and were scribbling against his vulnerable stomach.

“That’s right, Daichi!  You just need a little Suga-rush!” the setter giggled as Daichi snorted at his ridiculous boyfriends ‘attack’ name.

“Suga-...?” Hinata asked curiously.

“.. -rush?” Kageyama finished for him.

Suga chuckled at the uncertainty in his teammates voices and turned to them, continuing to turn his poor boyfriend into a giggling, wheezing puddle on the floor.

“It’s my secret weapon against a grumpy Daichi!” he said cheerfully, as he moved his hand away from Daichi’s knee only to bring it forward so he could squeeze against his boyfriends hip, causing the poor man to flip over onto his stomach with a yelp as he tried to crawl away.

Suga quickly righted himself from almost falling over and settled on his boyfriend’s back, tutting lightly as his let both hands quickly shoot up to tickle against his exposed underarms as Daichi collapsed once more, hiding his face against the floor while muffled, desperate laughter escaped him.

“You know how you always feel giddy and happy after having too much sugar?  And you get a sugar rush?  This is my own version of that!  The best way to fight a grumpy Daichi is to make him giddy and happy with a ‘Suga’-rush!’” the vice captain said as the other team members found themselves unable to keep from laughing at the spectacle in front of them.  There was something kind of sweet about seeing their captain looking so unlike himself.  Bright laughter escaping him uninhibited and a ridiculous smile on his face.

“Are you feeling better then, Dai?” Suga asked sweetly as he kept up the light tickling under his arms, making Daichi rock back and forth slightly on his stomach as his laughter calmed into little giggles.

“Y-Yehehehes!  Pl-PLEheheEHEase!” he squeaked before finally feeling those awful fingers stop their attack and going positively limp on the floor.

Suga couldn’t help a little giggle and covered his mouth to stifle the sound, his free hand reaching up to soothe his poor boyfriends hair.

“Good!  Now… let’s get back to practice, okay?  No more grumps from you!  Right?  Right, Daichi?  No more grumps?” he teased, giving little pokes along the captains back making the other instantly start squirming and giggling again, a noise the rest of the team still couldn’t believe the captain could make in the first place.

“Okay!  Okahahay, K-Kouhoho!” he laughed before feeling the weight lifted off of him and instantly flopping over onto his back with a bright smile on his face.

“Woah!  I never would have thought the captain could be ticklish!” Hinata said with bright eyes as Suga made his way back to the group, leaving his boyfriend to catch his breath.

“He’s very ticklish and he’s always hidden it well,” Suga said simply, turning to see Asahi approaching the puddle that was his boyfriend on the floor and offering him a hand up.

The ace was no stranger to the after effects of a tickle attack.  When your boyfriend was an energetic libero, you lived in constant fear as well.

Daichi made his way back over with Asahi beside him, his cheeks still a vibrant red from laughter and a bit of embarrassment, though a smile still lingered on his face.

“Okay.  Back to drills,” he said, voice a little more hoarse from his laughter though he did seem to be in a far better mood now.  The rest of the team seemed to have relaxed a bit as well from what they’d just witnessed, but soon broke back off into their partnered groups again.

Suga smiled softly at his boyfriend as he came closer and reached forward to give his hand a squeeze.

“Sorry for giving your secret away to the team, Daichi,” he said gently, though his partner quickly waved it off.

“It’s fine, Kou.  I stepped out of line and you were only trying to help.  I deserved it.  Besides… I don’t think anyone other than you is brave enough to try it,” he chuckled, giving the setters fingers a soft squeeze before removing his hand and ducking down to pick up a discarded volleyball.  “Now!  Let’s get back to practice!”

After the chaos of the last few minutes the rest of practice seemed to go by easily enough, and if in the coming weeks Daichi found his sides and back the targets of little pokes and light nibbling pinches then so be it.  If anything, everyone seemed to be in a little better mood with the added laughter and while they still feared their captains wrath, they knew that they had an ally who was ready to help them should things get out of hand.

Sometimes you needed a bit of a Suga-rush.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Uchitama 1 - 2 | Hatena 1 - 2 | Ankoku Hakaishin 1 - 2 | Infinite Dendrogram 1 | Hanako-kun 2 | In/Spectre 1 | ARP Backstage Pass 1 | A3 1

Rolled out one tag. I got pretty far behind, so I’ll catch up in the next few posts.

Uchitama 1

Ume and Shirai here.

I would assume this kid with the tiger on his shirt is called Tora, because I vaguely remember a “Tora” in the promotional material.

The sakura aesthetic is nice.

This switch between boy and cat forms is a bit…”weird” is the first word that came to mind, but “random” was the next.

Tora = Shirai and Ume is a character called Kuro, who we haven’t seen yet. (Had to google which roles they had.)

LOL, I like Beh already. A sleepyhead like him is perfect!

I just noticed, but Beh sometimes has a cleft palate (that little dent in the mouth).

Ume’s character isn’t too bad-looking, y’know. He’s a clumsy one though, so he doesn’t quite seem like the sort of character I’d gravitate to.

Seeing boys and girls act like cats and dogs makes me LOL.

Huh? Is cat-dog romance like your standard opposites attract romance…?

Hmm…thank goodness the mother cat wasn’t “made human”…

I’m used to Nora being a woman (see Noragami plus the Western general usage of the name “Nora”)…so this one being a guy (with nice eyes, to boot) is a bit disorienting.

Turns out the Tosa is a huge dog with a face like a pitbull.

I find this Momo-Bull romance just a bit weird still.

I got spoilt on this from the reviews, but Waiha = Hawaii.

That flash of Nora’s owner (?) was interesting!

Other notes: The narration seems to be done by the voice of Tama. Ume sounds like Ume, but it doesn’t feel like Ume because he’s playing against his normal type of character. Shirai doesn’t sound like Shirai though…it’s a completely different character to the types I’ve heard him do before (Ramuda and Io don’t sound like Tora, but Vino sounds similar to En because a lot of Ume characters are done in his usual, suave voice…Ramuda is Shirai doing a falsetto though so he’s hard to compare).

Hatena 1

This one got alright reviews, but I get the feeling I’m not going to like it, so lt’s get this over and done with.

Why is Kana the only one with the black hair…?

This OP is rather low budget compared to the others…

I fully expect Kana to go “It’s bitter…” and make a face when drinking the coff-yep. Thought so. Why do people think black coffee is the mark of a distinguished adult anyway? I don’t even like coffee, so I don’t get it at all.

The sentence in Japanese went something like “Makoto’s always been good”, so I don’t get why the word “egg” had to be introduced into the subs.

There’s an onigiri sale in the back, LOL.

The gates were fairly CGId…

The butler’s name is literally Jeeves Wodehouse, LOL.

Oh, Yumemi is blonde because of Maeve and Kana is brunette/black (?) haired because of Mamoru. Yumemi = dream seeing and Mamoru = protect.

Kana’s voice is annoying! That’s why I thought I wouldn’t like this.

Kana’s such a tsundere now that she knows Makoto is a boy, it’s annoying. I already knew such a detail from the reviews, so I’m not miffed at all.

I find it vaguely amusing that there were 3 different types of animation of a person popping their head into the attic.

Ema’s just a bit evil…Update: Nup, she just ships Kana x Makoto, that’s all.

The hardsubs weren’t encoded correctly on this episode, so they’re all blurry now. Still readable but blurry.

The pun is that the ka in Kana can be read hate in other cases.

More CG doors.

Why is Kana wearing the scarf, even after her bath in a towel???

This reminds me of Hayate the Combat Butler…

Maeve is foreign...that’s why she’s blonde. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh. (<- partially sarcastic)

Hmm…the fact you can’t tell what is and isn’t real is an interesting factor. However, the production values and the bog-standard romance being set up undercut that.

Magical girl transformation, eh? Reminds me of DN Angel or Magic Kaito, but also Phantom Thief Jeanne or something of the sort.

Hatena 2

I’m still trying to see if this is something to kick out…

This “scarf punches guy” business is getting old…I never got used to it in the old-school harems. I don’t know why it’s become a “classic” thing in anime.

This is meant to be for a boy’s perspective, so…I don’t get it. Okay, I’m dropping this.

Infinite Dendrogram 1

An isekai…oh, goody. (sarcastic) Then again, if I liked this I could try a new publisher out, so it’s win-win for me and the companies I go through to get there.

*the exposition rolls in about virtual reality* Oh great (sarcastic)…this is SAO all over again, isn’t it???

I saw HOTZIPANG in the credits list…now I’m really wary. HOTZIPANG were in the credits for Africa Salaryman and their animation production isn’t the best.

1st person cam…you suck, you know that?!

No. 13 (unlucky number)…Cheshire (Alice in Wonderland)…

Ray for Reiji makes sense, but…(consults Google-sensei) mukudori does mean “starling”, after all.

Yo…does Ray have to be blonde…? Is this some commentary on how having blonde hair is better than black hair, or am I thinking about this too much? (It’s my belief that Asians want to look European and vice versa – just look at their beauty standards! - so that’s where that comes from.)

Box? Looks like a bag to me.

Welp, just grabbing the kanji for mukudori via Wikipedia revealed the Embryo is a sword to me…*shrugs* No surprise there – as TV Tropes would say, heroes love swords (and redheads!).

So you can commit murder in Infinite Dendrogram??? (I’m joking partially, but Cheshire did say “you can do anything”…right?)

…and of course Ray drops into Altea from the sky. It’s been a cliché since No Game No Life.

“This is a game?” – Actually, I thought the same thing when I entered the website and game of TERA. Then again, this is basically trying to be SAO through and through, so I guess spouting that line is a prerequisite here.

How does anyone break both arms from running into someone…?

Well, at least this show looks nice. It’s doing its job on that front.

I was going to ask what a tian was, but the show answered it for me. Good job, show!

*Googles “dendrogram”* - “a tree diagram, especially one showing taxonomic relationships.” – Oh, so that’s why it’s called Infinite Dendrogram! (Y’know, it reminds me of studying about dendrites, which have the same appearance as a dendrogram...hence the shared origins of the words.)

Normally characters don’t jump into virtual worlds with thir brother…they’d do it with their cousin or crush or something…Hmm.

I was about to think you die in real life if you die in the game, but thank goodness this one is nowhere near as bad.

CGI bugs…of course…

That one still shot revealed a crack in this show’s visuals. I almost thought I could select it on the basis of the excellent visuals alone, but nope.

“…that…leaves a bad taste in my mouth!” – Not again, Ray…stop saying that line…

Again? I just told you in the last note not to!

Of course Ray gets the girl. I should’ve known…well she’s a sword but also a girl…?

The sentence ending -grizz is –kuma in Japanese.

I felt something special in my gut when the sword appeared, even though I’m complaining about this being like SAO, so I think it’s worth continuing.

A3 1

A3 is based on a mobile game so it looks a lot like those idol games, but it’s actually about acting according to the full name of Act! Addict! Actors!.

This kid’s eyes freak me out!

Considering this involves – according to the synopsis – a Mankai (full bloom) Company and this is called “spring and summer”, plus the metaphors from earlier, it makes sense the kiddo’s jumper says “spring” on it.

I thought the kid was singing, but turns out he’s reciting Shakespeare. I don’t know how popular the ol’ Shakie is in Japan, but I’ll take it.

Veludo Way = Broadway, apparently.

It should be Biro-do or Verodo, but not “Vedulo” like the subs say.

*sees a woman* - Oh great, so now this turns into an otome game…or, like i7’s Tsumugi, she’s an audience insert.

Someone encoded the video funny again…*sigh*

I bet the demolition guy is going to join the theatre, based on his looks. Update: According to the wiki, yes he does (as part of the Autumn troupe)! One of his hobbies is bubble wrap, which I can relate to immensely…and apparently he’s a yakuza…?

Masumi’s voice…is that Kaito Ishikawa? Update: No! It’s Shirai! I’m so surprised…it’s a very Io-sounding voice, though, so I guess I shouldn’t.

Masumi is one of those needy types who could easily fall into yandere territory…I don’t like him. I don’t like Sakuya either, though…

I know this from my recent experience, but hard work hardly works, Sakuya. Staying somewhere one year or ten years does diddly squat if you don’t have what other people are looking for. *tries not to cry*

I’m sorry guys, but even with the attack to the heart, I don’t give a s*** about you all. The troupe was just arguing to delay their deadlines and Furuichi (the demolition guy) has a point – the guys didn’t really prove themselves outside a brief but unimpressive stint from Sakuya.

ARP Backstage Pass 1

Hopefully this show is actually good, y’know? A3 just bombed…

Okayyyyyyyyyyy…from the one minute or so that I’ve seen, it looks like a Coldplay concert but with bishonen (good) and bad music (which is…uh, bad). That does not bode well for this show…also, the stage names are pretty obviously that. I mean, who cals their kid “Rage”? It’s probably Reiji (again, considring Infinite Dendrogram).

The cars from above almost look like Frogger…LOL.

Oh f*** me and my on-the-ball instincts! I guessed correctly again (Rage = Reiji)…and that’s bad news.

Wait, why is Shinji staring into space…?

There’s a kettle noisily going on in the background, so I can’t really tell what’s so awesome about this show without the music…I guess I’ll have to abort this mission until later…

Okay, so I listened to the piano bit thrice and couldn’t tell if there was a piano noise…That’s bad news. Update: Yep, listened to it again and there is no piano sound during the piano scene.

The rock music was…unexpected.

Wait, you mean the dude’s name is actually Daiya??? What???

Oh my gosh, these guys are hilarious! I know that’s dark considering they’re starving, but…LOL.

Idolmaster Side M taught me that career changes are actually pretty interesting when combined with idol anime and…this may be a band or something, but it sure works the same way.

That transition to Leon was terrible.

This appears to be Yokohama (Chinatown) and Hakone (the pirate ship).

Well, the show’s case would be helped if they had music in the right places, rather than music videos interspersed throughout.

Geesh this one is tough…some of the music is actually pretty good and the episode does get better when Rebel Cross appear (but Shinji is kinda boring, even though I thought I’d like him the most, and Leon’s singing was downright terrible), but the animation is terrible and I found myself going “But why should I care?!” multiple times in my head during the first half. The group do seem to have quite good synergy at the end and are generally entertaining, too.

Ankoku Hakaishin 1

I’ve ben calling this “Destructive God” or “Ankoku Haishin”, so this is A Destructive God Sits Next to Me. Update: It should be Hakaishin…actually.

Ooh, Natsuko Takahashi. This show’s in good hands.

Very Seki-kun.

Black Mouse Land, LOL.

“This is war!” – The word here is shoubu, which literally means “victory or defeat”, so it makes sense to change it to a more commonly used phrase.

“RIP Koyuki” – The grave said “Koyuki’s grave”…which isn’t that funny to be honest, so again, I get the decision to change it.

Hanadori still had the dog…?

“Things I Want to Forget” – Literally, the words on the page mean “black history”, which I think is funnier.

Oh, I bet Koyuki will plan the class trip…

“[T]he jerk in the next class over” – Does he have a name…?

I bet Koyuki has the worst grades in math of the trio.

Koyuki is deliberately designed like a cat, it seems.

You can see the broken window from earlier…LOL.

It’s Animal Crossing! On DS! (But what’s up with that rabbit with the fishnet stockings…?) Update: Do Japanese kids even use DSs these days? DSs must be cheap in comparison to their newfangled gaming laptops and Switches…

Is Tsukimiya Mamoru Miyano or something…? Update: Nup, Kimura. I seem to get those two confused quite a bit.

The “Muney” (sic) thing is because he (Hanadori) wrote the hyou in mokuhyou (aim, goal) wrong. By the way, Hanadori put an eyepatch on one of his banknotes.

That ending was actually kind of cute. I always prefer heartwarming comedies like these over mean-spirited ones (Osomatsu-san, Konosuba), so…yep, it’s in my wheelhouse!

I predicted the ending but the galactic reaction I got was…awesome!

In/Spectre 1

Why does this have so many names? In/Spectre, Kyokou Suiri , Inverted Reasoning (or was it Inverted Interface)…? Update: Inverted Inference. That’s the name on the manga covers.

Ooh, Saki is pretty classy-looking.

This is being framed like a romance, huh? I know this series is supernatural, but I’m not really here for the romance.

What’s the age gap? 17 (Kotoko) – 23 (Kuro)?

Lel, Harlequin novels. Those seem to be exclusive to the Western world (specifically the USA and its English-speaking country buddies), so it’s probably just romance novels in the original words. Update: I found Harlequin novels for Japan, but still, they’d be nowhere near as ubiquitous as they are elsewhere. Update 2: I kept thinking about it, so now I have an entire post with my findings. Turns out Japan does have and know about Harlequin novels (which do look like the one the samurai was holding), but they probably couldn’t state the name because of potential lawsuits or something. 

Oh gosh, Potato-kun (Kuro) – yes, I think of him much like a normal harem lead – getting your hand chomped off to the arm is a bit stupid, y’know?

Whoa! Wht a crazy cliffhanger!

Whoo! This OP (? Or is this an ED?) is crazy cool. Kinda like low-budget Kekkai Sensen.

Well, this show is kinda losing me with the romance elements, but the supernatural part is great.

Hanako-kun 2

What’s Hakujoudai? Those will o wisps? Update: Seems so.

The explanation of Yousei-san has a voice like it’s coming across a radio…interesting.

The towel…I bet it’s the one from Senpai one of the students mntioned earlier.

The subbers spelt “brooch” wrong.

This new boy – which I thought was Minamoto at first (LOL?)…he has a traffic omamori as an earring and a staff/umbrella, so he’s probably an exorcist. Either that or a massive chuunibyou.

LOL, Castle in the Sky much? (Or is that Nausicaa?)

Nene is reading from a magazine called G Cinema.

The comedy is this is slowly getting better. That’s a good sign for this, but bad for Ankoku Hakaishin…

Seagull High????? (Kamome = seagull.)

Wait, Minamoto??? You mean Nene’s former love is an exorcist??? Update: Oops, that’s (Nene’s crush is) Kou’s older bro…but that’s spoilers.

“Kou” is written with the character for hikari, or in this case “Yorimitsu”.

The action scenes are pretty good in this…I guess I kind of took them for granted in ep. 1.

Oh, I guess I should’ve known that seal on Hanako’s face…there were more of them in his possession. Also, there’s an extra V in the subs for some reason.

The stairs remind me of Muzan’s “universe” near the end of Demon Slayer’s first season.

Oh, the events of this episode tell you why Nene does the next episode stuff.

The ED visuals remind me of Ranpo Kitan’s, and I love Ranpo Kitan’s.

Ankoku Hakaishin 2

Why is Koyuki eating with his teacher anyway? I thought he was the guy from the class next door until he started talking about kids.

“Miguel Whatever” makes me laugh every time.

The cat ears on Koyuki’s phone are cute.

Sumiso reminds me of Aikatsu girls…

Uchitama 2

Bull is an “ore-sama”, huh?

I didn’t think they would continue with the “Solitary King of Destruction” thing.

Bull as a chuunibyou ham is so entertaining, but when they try to play the Momo romance hand again…I start to lose my patience...

LOL, Petstagram…

…and now it’s a (reverse) HAREM!

“[M]ad dog”, LOL, what a turn of phrase.

Okayyyyyyyyy subbers, own up! Who put a dog pun in Bull’s talk?! (I’m referring to the “doggone it!”.)

*points at dog puns*- You didn’t, subbers! You’re still adding dog puns!

Wait, Bull’s singing?! This I didn’t expect!

Well…this decision is hard. Bull’s become greater than ever…but only in relation to his romance with Momo!

Aww…seeing Bull dejected makes me sad inside too.

Oh yeah! There we go! That intro landed its gag purrfectly…to use an intentional cat pun.

Why did I take to Bull so much? Well, if he weren’t a dog, I’d find him completely romanceable, even if he were a massive chuuni.

Oh, the pun is ippai (full). Then you unintentionally switch it to oppai (boobs).

What? Wow, I never thought I’d get Ume talking about cat and dog nipples. (That’s not a sentence I’m going to be able to match any time soon.)

Okayyyyyyyyy…that one segment was a massive weird non-sequitur. I have no idea how they’d represent that with cat and dog forms.

Oh, Petstagram! We actually get to see it!

This series is more prone to “mood swings” than Ankoku Hakaishin or even Hanako-kun…yikes.

No, no, no! Who is this guy??? Haven’t you heard of “stranger danger”?!

…Oh, so the guy was Tome, huh?

The ED! This aesthetic is too good!

ARGH! Okay, okay, Uchitama! You win! I was going to pick Ankoku Hakaishin because that’s more consistent in landing its laughs and Hanako-kun would’ve been a better choice because its aesthetic is more consistently there plus it has interesting ideas with its apparitions, but Ankoku Hakaishin is fairly interchangeable with Iruma-kun…basically, if Eizouken or Magia Record don’t work out, I can loo forward to switching in one or the other, but I’m going to stick with Uchitama because *gestures wildly at screen* just look at this manservice! Even if it’s actually for a dog, I cannot deny the manservice!

[zoadgo]

somewhere to begin | Raven/Shaw | The 100

Rating: General Audiences Words: 3461 Tags: Fluff, Casual Conversation, Canon Divergent, Canon Compliant, Romance while fleeing for your lives A/N: I know people are already writing fluff for them, and better than I can, but I love them and want them to be soft and happy. my note for this one was “ wherein Raven and Shaw try to have a light conversation and it isn’t light at all. this  is blatant fluff and also an ode to ‘raven reyes deserves better’”

tagging: @zavenkru

ao3

The gentle flicker of firelight on cave walls is soundtracked by quiet murmurs of conversation and light popping of wood. None of the people talking would risk any more noise than that, there’s no chance of any sort of exclamation or raucous argument such as Shaw is used to hearing. Everyone gathered here, secreted away in a vast network of caves and tunnels, knows how much danger they’re in right now. They glance around constantly, nervous and confident that at any moment McCreary and his thugs will come racing in to slaughter them all.

They’re right to be nervous, and Shaw knows it better than any of them. If they’re lucky, McCreary will be so consumed by rage when he finds them that he will just kill all of them. The unlucky will survive that, and he’ll keep them around, to torture and kill as the whims take him. Shaw keeps that knowledge to himself, though, and lets the others fear only death.

The risk of all that, of course, would be mitigated by him leaving. Shaw knows that his staying with the group only puts them more in harm's way, and he really ought to make his escape as soon as possible. Not for his sake, because whatever waits for him back in camp isn’t going to be pretty, but for the sake of all the refugees - well, one in particular, but everyone would benefit just the same. That’s why he’s kept himself separate, simply observing from his position in a dark corner of the main cave. His presence is dangerous, and he’s not the only one who knows it.

From across the room, Shaw can feel Echo’s eyes burn into him with naked intent. She hasn’t killed him yet, but he knows that she would, if she were given just a moment without someone nearby to stop her. Sometimes, when Shaw remembers some of the more horrific things McCreary has done in the name of extracting information, he thinks he ought to let her. It would be the correct thing to do, right? But if he’s being entirely honest, Shaw doesn’t want to die.

He makes very sure not to react to Echo’s attention, avoiding eye contact and trying not to tense up. It’s hard, especially without something to distract himself, only able to study one of the small fires in an effort to prevent himself from going over there and demanding she either kill him or move on already. Shaw’s pretty used to death threats after all his time with criminals, and he has to remind himself that Echo doesn’t have any real reason to restrain herself. The Eligius criminals couldn’t kill him, for the very same reason that she wants to.

Shaw holds out for a remarkably long time before the constant observance gets to him, and he pushes himself suddenly to his feet. Several people around him startle, so caught up in their own worry that the slightest change in their environment is a cause for alarm. Screw this, though. Screw sitting there as Echo fantasizes about his death, isolating himself in an effort to… what? He knows he’s not going to leave, he would have done so already if he were seriously inclined.

Shaw makes his way very intentionally past Echo, over to where Raven and Emori are seated, tinkering with some mechanical thing. Making weapons, he’s pretty sure he can deduce that much from the snippets of their conversation he picks up on. But the way they talk is that of the self-taught; he has no doubt that to themselves and each other they make sense, but the amount of half finished sentences leaves Shaw entirely unable to fully understand what they’re doing.

Emori notices his approach first and nudges Raven’s knee with her own, leaning over to whisper something as Raven looks up at him. Whatever it was startles a smile and a half-laugh from Raven, which Shaw can’t help but smile in response to. There’s something about her that makes it impossible for him to hold his composure, especially when they’re not actively in danger, and her smile is brighter than the campfires littered around them.

As Shaw reaches them, Emori stands and passes by him, leaving him alone with Raven with no comment other than a conspiratorial wink. He nods at her as she leaves; Shaw likes her, at least as well as he can given their brief interactions. He likes her even more now, though, for giving him time alone with Raven.

“Shaw,” Raven greets him warmly, still seated amidst a pile of scrap metal, and Shaw is tempted to take a seat right next to her. But the hair on the back of his neck stands, and he glances over his shoulder to see Echo still watching him.

“Is there somewhere more private we could go?” Shaw asks, thinking only of getting away from the obsessive assassin. Raven perks up and starts to push herself to her feet immediately, taking Shaw’s hand when he offers it to her for assistance.

“Yeah, let’s just-” Raven cuts off and looks around the central cave for a moment before spying Emori again, gesturing with her chin. “Come on.”

Shaw is more than happy to follow her as she walks over and makes a vague excuse, saying that they’re going to go see if there’s any other ways into the cave system. Not that there’s any chance of that, of course, these caves were all well explored and mapped as soon as they took up base here. But it lets someone know where they are, and gives them a reason for Shaw to follow behind Raven, picking up a torch as they cut out of the main cave into one of the tunnels branching off of it.

Until they step finally out of sight, Shaw swears he can feel Echo watching him, and he has no reason to doubt that feeling at this point. He sighs with relief as the light of the main cave fades, leaving him alone with Raven and their single torch.

“She really wants to kill me, huh?” Shaw thinks out loud, and Raven looks over her shoulder at him with her eyebrow raised.

“Echo?” At Shaw’s nod, Raven shrugs a shoulder in an awkward gesture. “It’s a little more complicated than that. I mean, don’t get me wrong, she does and you should never be alone with her, but it’s not anything personal.”

“Gonna be honest, it’s hard not to take that personally,” Shaw jokes, and Raven gives him a half smile for his efforts.

“Yeah, I get that, but it’s- here.” Raven kicks a few rocks and holds her hand out, reaching towards the torch that Shaw gives up without question. She plants it in between a few rocks, and then sits on a natural sort of chair made by the rock wall, stretching her leg out in front of her with a sigh of relief. She looks up at him expectantly and pats the rock ledge next to her when Shaw doesn’t seat himself right away.

“As I was saying, it really isn’t personal.” Raven picks her train of thought back up, looking at the rocks on the other side of the tunnel as Shaw indulges himself in turning to look at her. “How much do you know of her world? In between yours and now, I mean.”

Shaw tries to recall all that he knows and comes up relatively short. Kane’s told Diyoza some of it, Clarke gave them a brief history, but he himself doesn’t know a lot of details. “Some of it. Nukes wiped out most of the planet, people formed tribes or something in the wake of it.”

“Kru,” Raven corrects him. “And while you’re not wrong, there’s a lot more than that. For Echo, she was raised from infancy to be a spy and an assassin. All she ever knew was serving her King and her people. Some of the stuff she’s told us- Well, it’s not pretty. She did everything she could for them, and then she was cast out, and that’s where we came in. We picked her up right before the world ended again, and we’ve tried to help her grow and figure out who she is beyond what she was made to be. And she has, but-”

Raven frowns for a second, gathering her thoughts, “She thinks you’re a threat to us. And she’ll do anything to keep us safe. So, while she does want to kill you, it’s not because she doesn’t like you or thinks you deserve to die. It’s the best way she knows to keep us safe. When you grow up and all you know is killing and death, it’s hard to think of any other way.”

“I get it,” Shaw admits, “I definitely understand wanting to keep you safe. It would be nice if I didn’t have to die for it, though.”

Raven laughs lightly, “Yeah, that would be nice. Stick by me, and you’ll be safe. The one thing she’s more afraid of than us getting hurt, is disappointing us and getting cast out again.”

“That’s-” Shaw thinks about it, about what kind of person Echo must be and what she must have gone through that she would let a known threat live just to avoid being left alone, and he can’t deny it touches him. “That’s really sad.”

Raven, somewhat to his surprise, simply shrugs. He wonders at that, if she genuinely doesn’t think that’s sad, or if she’s experienced so much else that it seems like nothing in comparison. He realizes, not for the first time, that he doesn’t know that much about Raven. She had a rough childhood that he understands a little too well, but surely in between then and now there must have been something other than tragedy.

“I guess I was the one who made it not a casual conversation this time, huh?” Shaw attempts to lift the mood and change the subject, and Raven turns her head to grin at him.

“Well now we’re both culprits of that, I guess.” Raven stretches her arms above her head with a small grunt and drops them to her leg, idly massaging it. “Honestly I don’t even know what a casual conversation would be at this point.”

Shaw wants to ask about her leg, but he knows that’s not going to be less tragic. He wants to know everything about her, the good and the bad, but now isn’t the time for that. They need a distraction from the awfulness of the world, not a reminder.

“Well, you could tell me about what it was like back on the Ark, maybe. What you did before you had to save to world all the time.” Shaw bumps her shoulder with his in a playful move. She doesn’t shrug off the contact, and to his delight, she even leans against him a litte.

“That seems like so long ago,” Raven chuckles, leaning into him further. Shaw barely controls the urge to put his arm around her and hold her to his chest. One day, maybe, but they’ve barely talked beyond life or death yet. “I was a Zero G mechanic. Youngest in 52 years.”

Shaw whistles, low and impressed, “Damn, I knew you were smart, but…”

“It’s what I’m good at. Fixing things, making something work with some electrical tape and a prayer. I mean, hell, I built most of the things we were using down here before Praimfiya, or at least drew up the plans for them.” Raven speaks plainly, not bragging, even though Shaw wouldn’t blame her for it. He’s gone up against her in a battle of wits and come out the poorer. “I guess that’s when I’m happiest, when I get to take a mess or something broken, and then I get to make it work.”

“So when did you get into coding?” Shaw asks, remembering her locking him out of his own ship. Not that a Zero G mechanic couldn’t learn how to hack, but he doubts that it was in her curriculum.

“I picked up bits and pieces that we needed to know on the Ark, but most of that was ALIE. She was a bitch and a half, but there were upsides to it.” Raven says, nonchalant.

Shaw racks his brain for a moment, but comes up dry. If Clarke or Kane had told them about ALIE, he either wasn’t privy to it, or had somehow forgotten it in with everything else. Admittedly, it had been an eventful hundred years, and he hadn’t had much time to study his recent history.

“Who was ALIE, again?” Shaw asks, and Raven hums pensively for a brief moment.

“She was an AI. Ran the City of Light, a virtual network in which everyone was… ‘perfect’.” She makes the air quotes around the word with her fingers. “Just put this chip in your body, and she’d take you there. No pain, no hate, no suffering. And no free will. She used me to further her plans, and I became one with her mainframe and coding. I could learn it all, it was just as easy as breathing. Even after Clarke and Bellamy saved me, I retained a lot of it. That almost killed me, though.”

Raven snorts at that, as if the concept of her almost dying is funny, and Shaw frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Well, they fried the chip in me with an EMP, and it left some nasty gunk in my brain. I started having hallucinations and seizures. Don’t worry, though, I’m better now.” Raven pats Shaw’s leg, to comfort him even though she’s the one who had such a horrifying thing happen to her, nevermind all the implications that Shaw actively decides not to pursue in that moment with being wired into an AI.

“That doesn’t sound like the sort of thing you just get better from,” Shaw insists, concerned despite Raven’s flippant tone and effort at comfort. She’s at the same time awe inspiring and concerning; that she could treat death so lightly, and also that she clearly is far too well acquainted with the matter.

“Well, not exactly. I figured out a way to fix it right before Praimfiya. It was risky, but if I didn’t try, I was definitely going to die. I figured that lowering my heart rate and brain activity to near death levels in an ice bath and then kick starting my system back into action would work, and it did. Hard reset,” Raven explains, in the same tone of voice she’d used to describe building tech for her people.

“So basically, you tried ‘turning it off and turning it back on again’?” Shaw asks, shocked that she had managed to come up with that solution, and doubly so that it had worked and not just killed her outright.

“Yeah, basically. It almost didn’t matter in the end, though.”

“How so?” Shaw prompts, and Raven shrugs, her shoulder pressing into his arm.

“I was alone in the lab, and like I said, impending death wave. I thought I was going to die there, even after everything I went through to live, just because no one would come get me.” Raven seems a little sad at that, but in a casual way, as if over the loss of a nice jacket, not her own life.

“Wait, you hard reset your entire body, basically dying and coming back to life, and you were alone during that?” Shaw doesn't even try to hide the baffled surprise in his voice. It was terrifying enough to imagine going through that, but alone? That means she must have had to restart her own heart, and after coming back from death, she would have had no one there to hold her and tell her it’s okay.

No wonder Raven is so flippant about dying.

“Well, n-” Raven cuts off whatever she was going to say with a sad little frown and a far away look, before shaking her head slightly. “Yeah, I was alone. But it’s fine, really Shaw, I’m okay.”

“No, Raven, it’s not okay. You’re fine now, I get that, but,” Shaw doesn’t even hesitate before taking Raven’s hand in his, “You shouldn’t have had to go through that alone. You shouldn’t have needed to die.”

“We’re all alone in the end, Shaw.” Raven sighs, but she doesn’t pull away from him. With her free hand, she starts tracing the tendons on the back of Shaw’s hand, and for all the sombre mood, he can’t help the happy fluttering of his heart. “And we certainly all die.”

“No, I don’t accept that.” Shaw shakes his head, and Raven looks up at him, her brow furrowed in a quizzical expression. “We all die - hell, right now we might die at any minute - but we don’t have to be alone. You don’t have to be alone.”

“What, are you going to be with me every second from now until I die?” Raven asks, a dark sort of humour turning up the corners of her mouth, and Shaw gives her a small smile in return.

“Maybe. I’ll do my best.”

Raven looks away from him at that, towards the far wall of the tunnel, but she doesn’t pull away. He wonders, sometimes, if maybe he’s coming on a bit too strong, but nothing he’s done so far seems to have scared her off. He can’t really imagine Raven being scared of anything, let alone him and his awkward, century-out-of-date courtship. So Shaw lets the silence grow, until eventually Raven breaks it.

“Do you like me?” She asks, not quiet and shy, gaze diverted to their joined hands, her fingers never pausing in tracing lines on the back of his hand.

“I thought I was pretty obvious about it.” Shaw laughs, a little self-conscious, but continues with total sincerity, “Yes, I like you.”

Raven’s hands still, and Shaw wonders for a moment if he’d done something wrong. He had thought their flirting was mutual, but then again, he's more than a little but out of practice with the whole deal. Plus, Raven's from an entirely different time and culture than him, it's entirely possible he'd been misreading everything.

“Then why haven't you made a move on me?” Ravena asks, and Shaw’s heart starts beating again as relief floods through him. Raven looks up at him, something close to accusation but much more vulnerable in her gaze. “You haven't even tried to kiss me.”

“Somehow it just didn’t seem right. You know, you were our prisoner, and then I was all beat up and- Well, the moment hasn’t been right. Running for our lives and being at war isn’t the most romantic, you know?”

“Romantic, huh?” Raven scoffs lightly and shakes her head, “Shaw, I was raised in space on strict rations under a totalitarian government, and then I came to Earth and the world has been ending in one way or another ever since. I can’t say romance has ever been high on my list of priorities, if that’s what’s holding you back.”

Shaw shrugs a little and leans forward slightly, as if conspiring about some secret with Raven. “Well, I happen to come from a different time, and believe me when I say that if there’s anyone in the world who’s ever been deserving of romance, it’s you, Raven Reyes.” Shaw savours the taste of her name on his tongue and his heart skips a beat at the slight flush that darkens her cheeks. If only they could have met before, how he would love to just take her away on his Harley and shoot the shit with her for hours. Maybe someday, they can do something like that. Shaw clears his throat and continues with a smile, “And I’d like to be the one to give you that, if you let me.”

Shaw has never seen Raven at a loss for words, but in this moment she seems to stumble for them, and Shaw’s heart swells at it. It’s incredible, to be able to have such an effect on such an incredible woman, and also sad to think that the reason she’s blushing is possibly that no one has ever paid her such a sincere compliment before. Of all the injustices in the world, this is one Shaw can’t abide.

“Yeah,” Raven replies after a moment, and Shaw’s grin grows. “I think I’d like that.”

“Well, then,” Shaw looks away from her at the firelight dancing on the rock walls around them. He raises one of her hands in his and returns his gaze to hers, pressing his lips to her knuckles in a chaste kiss. “This isn’t a bad place to start.”

[toshiro-46]

On Ruby’s True Semblance

The general consensus amongst the fndm is that Ruby's semblance is speed, or bursting into rose petals, or something of that sort. This is somewhat understandable, as Pyrrha and Qrow both refer to her semblance as such, but I still don't get it. Because really, it simply doesn't make much sense ~~if you have half a braincell~~ when you look closely. Here's the facts:

Her "speed" is - as of the V4 Short - her literally turning into rose petals. If you don't believe me, rewatch it. At 2:04 she separates into 3 balls of roses, and at 4:05 she's basically a rose petal tornado. Qrow later on in V4C8 even refers to it as such. It's transformation no different from the Branwen's.

Transforming is established (by Weiss's, Nora's, Ruby's, and Jaune's reactions to it and then later the V5 commentary) as a very weird thing and definitely not something that a semblance could be.

This is enough to definitively say Ruby's ability to turn into rose petals is not her semblance. It's clearly magic. This is fact.

Two questions now arise: 1. Where did she acquire this magic? 2. What is her actual semblance?

1. Where did she acquire this magic?

Let's look at the possibilities, going over the three methods of transferring magic that we know of.

Granted by Oz: Ozpin didn't give her the powers personally, as he'd clearly never seen her before prior to V1C1. We can cross this off the list.

Last thoughts: Transformation could act like Maiden powers and transfer to the last person in the previous holder's mind. The most likely candidate would of course be Summer. Her last name - Rose - supports this idea, as currently 4/6 magic users (Cinder, Raven, Qrow, Ruby) have names that reference their powers. And she's probably the likeliest dead person to have thought of Ruby in her last thoughts. I must say though that despite all this, I find Summer's Last Thoughts unlikely. Summer already has SE, it's unlikely that Oz would give her something else (Ruby is a special case since Oz didn't give her the powers she just inherited them), especially since he doesn't mention it when asked by Ruby in V5C7. It just doesn't make sense, and making sense is the most important thing to me.

Hereditary: This is the only remaining explanation. It can't be Summer for reasons I've already stated, so it must be her father. We have no reason to believe that Tai has transformation magic (again, he's not mentioned by Oz), so her father must be Qrow. Surprising absolutely no one. The rock-solid and obvious reasons for why Qrow is definitely Ruby's father have been gone over on numerous occasions, so I won't waste time repeating them. And Qrow can transform, so that fits. One might ask why Qrow transforms into a bird while Ruby transforms into rose petals, and I'd just point to their affinities being different. Oz likely just gave the Branwen twins the ability to transform, and then they naturally went to what suited them best. Think Harry Potter's animagi/patronuses.

2. Ruby's true semblance

It's pretty obvious that Ruby and Qrow share a semblance, as Ruby's is clearly Bad Luck*. Unlike Qrow, though, she doesn't suck ass at using it. She's able to use it on people that mean harm to her (or that she doesn't care for, though this is rarer) instead of fucking over everyone around her. I'd say though that there's a good chance this is entirely subconscious, as it seems that Ruby actually believes her transformation is her semblance. Alternatively, she could be tricking everyone around her (as well as the viewers) and know exactly what she's doing. This is certainly a possibility, see the "Ruby is a sociopath" theory (basically almost canon imo).

Either way, let's look at a bunch of examples of her using her semblance. I'm sure I'm missing some, as I'm mostly focusing on in-battle uses. In those cases, her Bad Luck mostly takes the form of her enemies forgetting something or her being saved by very timely interventions. But I'm confident that 100% of the people reading this will be convinced, as there's simply no other explanation for such prevalent and consistent bad luck. If you're already convinced (as you should be), feel free to skip to the end from here.

*Yes, it's a hereditary semblance. Makes sense that the white-haired/blue-eyed and black haired/red-eyed families would be the two to have such semblances. To explain why Raven doesn't have it, I'd wager it's linked to the X Chromosome, and Qrow received it from his mother (but Raven got her other X). This would explain why Nolan Porfirio (who is clearly Qrow's son) doesn't display any signs of it. There's also the possibility that Raven does have it, and like Ruby she's faking her actual semblance (explaining why she's able to use portals after losing her aura - but then again this could also just be due to aura regeneration), but then you have the question of Yang.

V1:

Roman in V1C1 is unable to kill her due to the intervention of Glynda, a Beacon teacher who just so happens to be on the rooftops of Vale. Unlucky. It should be noted though that Roman seems to be resistant to Ruby's semblance effects as he still manages to escape, but we'll get to that later.

Weiss unluckily misses her target and sets the forest on fire due to Ruby in V1C6. Given how Ruby is annoyed with her, I think it's safe to say that such a comedy of errors from the normally perfect heiress was a manifestation of Ruby's semblance. In fact, I would go so far as to say that much and more of Weiss's later combat failings could be due to Ruby having subconscious (or conscious, malicious, and hidden - again see the sociopath theory) dislike of her.

Now you might question why Weiss succeeded against the Boarbatusk in V1C10, but that's easy: Ruby wanted to make herself (and RWBY as a whole, hence her saying "Represent Team RWBY!") look good, because she told Weiss how to kill it.

Roman in V1C16 manages to best Sun and Blake, but again is unluckily interrupted by Ruby, who just so happens to unluckily have an all powerful android girl with her, thwarting Roman's plans. But he manages to escape for a second time, adding evidence to his resistance.

V2:

Roman shows resistance in V2C4 yet again as though he unluckily loses his precious, newly-cleaned mech to a bullshit power up, he himself escapes unscathed.

Cinder when fighting Ruby in V2C7 is clearly about to overpower her, yet is unluckily interrupted by Ironwood and forced to retreat. Fortunately for her, she'd already accomplished her objective and established an escape route before Ruby came on to the scene and so wasn't otherwise affected.

The White Fang members and Roman in V2C10-11 were completely unaffected by her semblance. Now this might prove a barrier to my theory, but it's actually quite easily explainable: her aura was out from her huge fall and she thus wasn't able to use it. By the way this whole theory also explains how she's using her transformation/speed after that to briefly escape from Torchwick - magic isn't affected by aura levels.

Building off my previous mention of Weiss, she unluckily freezes in mid air for no apparent reason during her fight with Banesaw in V2C11, leading to him winning a fight she was otherwise stomping. Clear example of Ruby's semblance coming into play, since she's nearby.

In V2C12 her semblance affected roughly all of the Grimm in the Breach, rendering them unluckily unable to do anything but sit back and be killed. This is probably her biggest and most successful usage of it yet.

V3:

V3C1, the opponents weren't actually enemies and so they weren't subject to her semblance. Though Reese's sudden inability to land on her feet is rather questionable, so I could be wrong about this.

V3C5 has Ruby in the audience while Weiss is in the arena, and again Weiss completely and unluckily forgets how to fight, leading to her being destroyed by a trumpet weapon wielded by a living meme. Fortunately, after Weiss was knocked out, Ruby's semblance then went to affecting Neon, who - despite skating literally 24/7 - trips right into a geyser. Unlucky.

When it becomes apparent in V3C6 that Yang is about to lose to Mercury, it's clear Ruby takes matters into her own hands and uses her semblance on Mercury, seeing as he unluckily loses the ability to confirm that Yang is down and then unluckily forgets how to exist as anything except Yang's punching bag. This is really the only explanation for his actions (well, rational explanation. Some people will claim he threw the fight but that's fucking ridiculous lmao), and unfortunately it becomes a recurring theme with Mercury - he's never able to show his true potential due to Ruby's interference. Unlucky.

While it may not seem like Mercury is as affected in his V3C7 tussle with Ruby, he somehow forgets how to kick her out of her transformation despite doing so just seconds earlier, which allows her to escape him.

When Ruby isn't present Weiss actually wins against the Paladin in V3C11. She's competent when Ruby isn't around.

In V3C11, Neo's weapon (specifically how the blade functions) unluckily works completely differently from how it did in V2, and this change is in such a way that she's able to be flown off the ship by Ruby. Roman is then unluckily caught in the middle of monologuing while beating the shit out of Ruby and swallowed whole. I should note that Roman likely survived this: As I mentioned earlier, he's shown a remarkable resilience to Ruby's semblance in the past (quite possibly due to his own semblance - which Gray hinted we'd get. There's also a compelling theory out there that Roman is a cockroach faunus, which explains how he easily survives the train crash without aura up and how he survived this encounter with Ruby. It also makes his character much more compelling and puts his prior racism in an ironic light), and I don't see why this instance should be any different. I'd say it's safe to expect his return in V6 or 7.

The big one: In V312, Cinder is unlucky enough to kill Pyrrha right as Ruby appears, thus triggering her SE for the first time ever. That's true unluckiness.

V4:

The Geist in V4C1 is unlucky enough to fall for Jaune's genius strategy of "We hit it, harder." and is also unlucky enough to be the sole victim of Nora's new upgrade as she never ever uses it again even though it has very few downsides and buffs her considerably.

V4C4 - Ruby appears to affect herself for a second as she forgets how many people are with her despite traveling with them for 6+ months. Weird.

V4C6 - Another timely, out-of-nowhere intervention to save Ruby's life. Poor Tyrian.

In V4C7 Tyrian briefly forgets how to see, allowing Qrow to easily beat him up despite having no weapon at the time. Unlucky. And even though he earlier displays the ability to easily react to and block things coming from behind him (the bullets Ruby fires as well as Nora), he clearly forgets how to do so and as such gets his tail cut off. Poor Tyrian.

V5:

Weiss - when Ruby is far away - again manages to take a W against the Lancers in V5C2, further proving that she's actually competent when Ruby isn't there to fuck things up with her semblance. The Knight hitting the engine is curious - could just be standard unluckiness, or could be lingering effects after being around Ruby for so long.

Weiss unfortunately is again subject to Ruby's semblance in V5C11 and unluckily forgets that she has more options in her arsenal besides summoning, leading to her losing handily to Vernal.

Meanwhile, Emerald - while doing fine herself - is unlucky enough to have Ruby's eyes trigger while fighting her, putting Cinder in grave danger against even Jaune.

Next, in V5C13, Mercury unluckily forgets that he's primarily a kick-based fighter when facing off against Ruby and so gets headbutted.

Finally, in V5C13 Weiss gets back up and apparently off screen does fairly well for herself. If I had to guess, seeing her almost dead put shit in perspective for Ruby and she realized she actually cared for her. It'll be interesting to see if she has any bouts of unluckiness in the future.

Taking all this into account, Ruby's magic and true semblance should be clear. I mean, the only other explanation that would even sort of work is inconsistent writing... but lol that's obviously not it.

[linocalvin-blog]

After 64 days my time at Clara Luna has come to an end. I leave with mixed feelings - happy and excited for the journey that awaits me, but also sad because I have created a homelike environment for myself in Puerto Lopez and Ayampe.

4 days ago Paul arrived in Ecuador and we moved to Ayampe. It's more tranquil than Puerto Lopez, I could surf whenever I want, and through a friend I got a beautiful room directly at the beach very cheaply. From here I introduced Paul to the area and showed him around. We went on a day trip further south to Manglaralto and Valdivia to visit the Aquarium there and go for a beach walk. In the evening we had dinner in Montañita and eventually planned to go to a party there but unfortunately there was an alcohol ban that night because of a referendum that was held the next day. The Ecuadorian government wants to ensure a high turnout of voters by banning alcohol. The referendum is about the limitation of the terms a president can be elected for. Anyway there was nothing going on in Ecuador’s biggest party town that night so we headed back to Ayampe early. The next day we lent bicycles and went to the beach Los Frailes and the jungle community Rio Blanco. The rain season arrived a few days ago and especially the ride through the jungle was very exhausting. The humidity is at 99% while it always rains a little and it has about 37 degrees Celsius. If you are unlucky the sun might also kick in. Totally bushed we had dinner in Puerto Lopez at my favorite place for 3,50$. The food was extraordinarily good that day, maybe because of the referendum. In general, the day seemed to be very special. Everyone was dressed nicely and went outside with their families. The buses were completely overcrowded and trucks with dozens of people came to Puerto Lopez to make it possible for everyone to vote. Now I'm under the impression that voting seems to be something they take very seriously and not for granted.

Yesterday Paul and me went for a hike to one of the huge rocks at the southern tip of the Ayampe beach. On top of the rock is a hotel that is currently under construction but one of the workers was so kind to show us around. The rest of the day we just chilled at the beach and didn't do much besides reading and eating. Today is the last day, I'll finally say goodbye to everyone and the head to Quito with Paul to meet up with Moritz and Franz.

[issyaboimoony]

Chiccolo Week Day 3; Species Swap

I cheated a bit and didn’t actually do human Piccolo but - alas. I also wrote this like... well over a month ago I believe and have no memory of it so?

Piccolo had never stepped foot in a place that seemed to hate nature as much as this one. The entire place shouted “bleak! and incredibly sad!” at the top of its metaphorical lungs. The cave loomed up above him, with sharp black rocks that jutted from every possible angle. They coalesced into one mass, that shimmered with the frothing gray waves that crashed upon them. Erosion seemed to have formed irregular lumps at every angle, and one particular one happened to be digging into his shoe in a rather unfortunate way.

Even the sand that littered the ground - all trailed up from the beach a hundred feet back, looked particularly soggy and dark when scattered across the rock bridge he’d had to climb just to get here. He glowered at the entrance, resisted the urge to swear, and stared down the unseeable.

“I know you’re in there,” Piccolo snarled. He knew how he must look - a large, green man amidst Mother Earth’s own abortion. It was clear whoever had crafted the Earth had come to a screeching halt exactly at this cave, decided “eh”, and quickly left it untouched. And now Piccolo stood here - almost worried that someone would see him, but knowing that there was no one who would ever venture to this godforsaken pile of dreck.

The cave didn’t answer him - which didn’t come as a surprise. Piccolo had come knowing that this could be for the long haul. He wished now that he’d worn more sensible shoes - Converse were apparently not what you wanted when trekking through relentless waves and jagged points that were desperate to take something down with them. He hadn’t had proper warning, though, so he merely sucked his lip through his teeth and tried not to think about it.

Across the sky, the sun was already beginning to set, and bringing on a heavy chill - along with a rather dense fog that was beginning to curl along his bicep, hugging every single part of him like a friend he’d never had. His fingers tightened against his rigid arm, where he attempted to brace himself - as if he could punch the cold away with his muscles.

“There’s no use in hiding.” Piccolo’s voice was in stark contrast to this place - where nothing could live. Nothing should live. He squatted down, attempting to hunker away from the growing cold. He didn’t know what the temperature would hit tonight, but he didn’t want to discover it before he could make his discovery. He gritted his teeth together, and shook his head, his antennae wagging against his forehead. “I already saw you - remember?”

Something sloshed in the water from inside the cave. For a moment, Piccolo felt a sense of apprehension, before settling himself back down again. Whatever it was he’d seen - it hadn’t been big enough to worry him, and the fact that he’d been able to pursue it all the way back to its cave meant that it wasn’t the most vigilant in general.

“Look - you understand me, don’t you? I saw you reading.”

That was how Piccolo had seen… the thing. He still wasn’t certain what it was. In his mind he saw flashes - amalgamations of many fragmented ideas that he couldn’t quite pull into one cohesive idea. Whatever it had been, it certainly wasn’t human. The silhouette had told him that immediately, along with the sucking noises it made whenever Piccolo had shined a flashlight on it. He’d simply gone out to throw his trash in the dump when he’d caught the thing gripping tight to a magazine that one of his neighbors had gotten rid of. He’d immediately chased it.

This time from inside the cave, he heard a tentative gurgle.

Piccolo sighed, and rubbed at his brow. “Listen - I don’t know what the hell you are, but I’m here out of curiosity. I’m…” he jutted out his arm and his jaw, “I’m an alien, too, you see? Do you get it now?” He’d discarded his disguise in favor of actually appealing to the thing in the cave. His wrist watch that normally kept him from revealing his true colors was switched off. In this desolate land, he could easily abandon the disguise in favor of how he truly looked.

“I… green…”

The creature had spoken. Piccolo wasn’t quite certain of many of the words, but he could pick up small syllables. He furrowed his brow, and he could feel his mouth settling into a harsh line. He wondered why the hell he’d bothered in the first place chasing this thing out here. It wasn’t like it was the first alien he’d seen since relocating to Earth - hell, wasn’t even the first since he’d inhabited his apartment complex. But this was the smallest, most obviously non-humanoid that he’d seen…

Normally, the aliens he came across were all like him. Most the time, when he saw them, it was because their watches had malfunctioned. He typically saw them running past, scared humans fast in pursuit. He always made sure to never make eye contact with them, and to pretend like he himself was an alien, not Like Them. His head would be down, his jaw would be set, and he’d make sure that his clenched fist remained set tight in his jacket pocket. Seeing so many watch malfunctions had made Piccolo resort to wearing two at all times - just so he didn’t have to be like those unlucky bastards.

But this thing… it didn’t have a chance in hell. During the night it had even been recognizable. If he could follow it, that meant anyone could. And, for once, Piccolo didn’t want to push his face away from the problem. He’d followed this thing as if it could make up for all the aliens he’d turned his back on prior to.

“You… what… want…?”

The thing had spoken up once more, and Piccolo shuffled forward, still deep in his squat.

“What do I want, you ask?” He heard an affirmative burble. He sat, in silence for a moment. He could hear the creature growing anxious, splashing around in the water. He wished, again, that he’d gotten a better look at the thing. He still had his flashlight stuffed in his back pocket, but he could already assume that exposure to salt water had ruined the thing.

“Like I said,” Piccolo finally spoke again, “curiosity. The hell were you digging in my trash for?”

“For… paper… like… human… look…”

Piccolo gritted his teeth. Conversation with this thing was hell on his head. He didn’t care this much, yet here he was, staring into the blackened maw of some unknown depth. He squinted his eyes up, and rubbed underneath his nose. He felt the crust of salt fall away, and grimaced at the sting it left on his lips.

“It’s too dangerous for you to do that,” Piccolo said. “Not that I give a damn, but you’re going to get yourself killed. I followed you no problem - are you a fucking moron?”

He was startled as a tentacle raised itself out of the water, and wrapped tight around his ankle. He tried to rise, but suctions stuck tight to his skin. He shouted, just as he was jerked upwards, into the air and dangerously close to the black, jagged rocks that - now that he thought about it - looked like a mouth. Laughing at his stupidity for coming out here. Laughing at him for being so stupid as to somehow think that he was going to make a goddamn different to this Eldritch nightmare that was willing to impale him over nothing.

Piccolo wasn’t impaled, though. Just shaken rather roughly until he barked out a, “knock it off!” The creature then plopped him down on his back, and he winced at the scrapes and subsequent salt that rubbed into his wounds. He glowered at the damn thing that he still couldn’t see through the murkiness - and the fog rolling in certainly didn’t help things. Smoky white tendrils that somehow darkened the atmosphere even further.

“Not… moron…”

It was the most cohesive thing Piccolo had heard it say, and he decided that perhaps that was progress. He rubbed at his ankle, and even through the gloom he could see a few purple pucker marks raised up on the skin.

“Fine… what would you classify yourself as?” If Piccolo sounded rude it was - well, it was because he was. Right now and in general.

“Curious… lonely…” The creature’s voice gurgled - and Piccolo could see several tentacles drifting close to the surface. He had to squint to make them out from the inky water, but every once in awhile they would drift and kick up a little current in their wake.

“How long have you been on Earth?”

“Long… been sleep… long time… spaceship crash… right here…” The creature’s voice had definitely gained strength and definition. It was wet and sucking now as the thing tried to talk faster. Water must have been pouring into whatever it called a mouth as it continued to talk. It seemed that with someone to finally hear it, the creature was gaining momentum, desperate for contact.

Piccolo couldn’t remember his history lessons for when the first spaceship had crashed to Earth, but he could judge the fossilization process of what this creature called its ship. The jagged stones must have come from its own planet, as they were entirely unnatural to Earth. This cave must have been untouched for longer than Piccolo could even guess. He wondered if there was even still an operational control panel.

Not that it mattered. If Piccolo even managed to defy fate and get the damn thing off the ground, the army would have him, the ship, and anything in a ten mile radius eradicated. His shoulders slumped forward at even the thought of it. The reminder of human capabilities made him scoot closer to the creature’s cave, despite his parallel fear of being dragged out by those tentacles once more.

“Humans… interesting… Like them… want them…” The tentacles rose up this time, and out of the water. They waved merrily about, and Piccolo grimaced at the sight of them.

“Yeah - well humans don’t like us.” His voice was gruff and bitter. He didn’t hang his head this time, but held it straight up, glaring at where he believed the creature to be. Its tentacles stilled, and Piccolo let out a shuddered breath. “If you show yourself like you are - they’ll kill you.” This wasn’t about hypotheticals and conjectures here. It was a certainty. If they couldn’t even stand creatures like Piccolo, who almost looked like them, there was no telling what they’d do to the creature in this cave. There was no telling what atrocities they’d do to it. Would they kill it, torture it, experiment on it? There was no way of telling. After all, it didn’t matter that they had legal access to Earth - all that mattered was that they were different.

“No like…?”

“No like,” Piccolo assured. His tone was acidic. He’d chased this creature down because of his own guilt, but now he found himself agitated at what little progress he’d made. He also found himself growing more and more frustrated with the creature’s naivety.

“You look like…” the thing seemed to grow frustrated, and Piccolo sighed.

“I looked like a human when you first saw me, yeah.” He lifted his arm, and pointed sharply at the watch that sat on his arm. It weighed like a lead stone that would drag him all the way to the bottom of this watery hellhole. “This watch makes me appear human.” He flipped the switch, and he knew now that his green skin was gone. He was human once more - or, at least, a sad facade for it.

The creature seemed more interested in him now, as its tentacles tightened into little curlicues of curiosity. He heard a break in the water as the thing’s body crested the waves. The white froth had since died down, replaced instead by the heavy fog and chill which cloaked the creature as it rose. Piccolo shot to his feet, ready to run as he heard the first wet slap of a tentacle clambering up onto the rock bridge beside him.

“Let… see human… close…”

A slice of moonlight cut through the fog, and Piccolo stared into the thing’s face.

When Piccolo had said it wasn’t humanoid, he hadn’t been entirely wrong.

At least ten tentacles sprayed out from the bottom side of the creature, each moving harmoniously in their efforts to approach Piccolo. They met and formed a webbed chunk of flesh, which flared upwards into what looked like segmented abdomen. Small feelers crept out from either side of the shell, wiggling about in the air, dragging fog all around the creature. From the abdomen came a pair of shoulders, and Piccolo saw webbed arms that were connected closely to the body. There were no fingers - just a hand shaped chunk of flesh. From the neck sprouted a head, shaped like a human’s, but with rounded lips like a fish, and sharp teeth just beyond it. But Piccolo was staring at the eyes, almond shaped and black, with a third eyelid that slid in and out of place.

The look in the eyes made him hold his position, as all he saw was curiosity. The creature peered at him, the fin crest on top of its bald head shook every time it moved, quivering with anticipation as it ducked closer to him… as she ducked closer to him.

“No green…” She was still smaller than him, and had to crane up to see him. She would occasionally dip her head rather fast, and the head crest would tickle his nose. Piccolo remained still, unsure of how she’d react to sudden movements on his part.

“I use this to hide from the humans,” Piccolo said. He hit the watch once more, and reverted to his natural state. He saw the creature retract, interest sparking in her eyes as she rested back on her tentacles. The tips of them squirmed, and Piccolo heard something wet froth at the back of her throat. “Most of us aliens do. Because humans are bad.”

The creature made a shooing motion with her tentacles, but kept her gaze focused on him.

“Humans is… bad… they hurt…?”

“Yes,” Piccolo insisted. His feet were really beginning to hurt. He needed to leave. “You need to stay in this cave.”

She made a noise of distress. “Need… book for…” Her words broke off even worse than before as she grew agitated, and she began to make a series of all new syllables and vocalizations in distress. Piccolo gritted his teeth, and grew aggravated by this new development.

“How about I bring you magazines, okay?” He hated that he said it, as he figured it might be a lie. He didn’t know if he’d return to actually follow through with his promise. What if someone followed him? What if someone saw him revert to his natural state? Sure, it was completely deserted out here, but who was to say he was the first to find this creature?

“I like… bring, please…”

Those eyes looked at him, and he went home, and eventually to sleep, with their dark shape still burned into his memory. He found he had little choice when he woke in the morning but to do exactly as he promised. He bought magazines at a little shop and made his way to back to Hell’s Gate - that craggy cave that looked no less ominous during the day time. The walk across the beach, and subsequent rock bridge were just as empty as the first time he’d made it.

And the same the tenth time, and the same every time after that when he lost track of the passage of time. It was far too late into their meetings when he finally asked if she had a name.

“China’fha lo Chi’kaghafa,” she’d gurgled - much better now at speaking than when he’d first met her. Piccolo had found that completely incomprehensible, and had decided to call her Chi Chi. She couldn’t tell him what planet she was from, or why’d she come to Earth so long ago. He didn’t know much about her “sleep” that she burbled about, but judging by her own reminiscences of Earth, he guessed that she’d actually landed prior to humans. Piccolo had gleaned, however, that she had sporadically woken up at different points in her life - and she was always ecstatic to see how the humans had changed.

“I don’t pay much attention to that shit,” Piccolo had muttered, when she’d begun pressing him for details that she couldn’t glean from his magazines. “They’d rather I be nuked than exist, so I say fuck ‘em.”

Chi Chi never liked that kind of talk, and she would always flex her tentacles threateningly in his direction. Instead of apologize, Piccolo would give an abrupt snort, and turn sharply from her. If he’d learned anything, it was that - now that Chi Chi was comfortable, she far more stubborn that Piccolo had ever dreamed of being. Whenever he would say something disagreeable, he could often expect a tentacle around his ankle to send him flying. She was also incredibly gentle, though, and would often make sure she cradled his neck when she would launch him during her tantrums. She also learned early on that standing on the rocks made Piccolo uncomfortable, and had since begun scooping him up, allowing him to sit on her most dry tentacle during their talks.

Piccolo found himself actually surprised at her ability to carry a conversation. Sometimes he could grow irritated with the pace and stunts in her language, but she had grown exponentially since he’d first uncovered her.

“Why do you care so much about the humans?” he’d asked her.

“Because… they have been around… long time like me… love to see evolution… important to me…” Chi Chi couldn’t really smile - not really - but there was a particular way that she flapped her lips that lead Piccolo to believe it was her version of it.

He found himself talking to her of things she couldn’t understand. The stress of keeping his job - while also maintaining his alien secret. It was illegal for employers to ask if someone was an alien, but there was no actual enforcement of this law. He’d happened to get lucky and work for a woman who didn’t seem too keen on randomly testing people, but he still never felt quite at ease.

He talked to her of things that he couldn’t talk to anybody about - like fond recollections of his home planet. Of that sincere yearn to be where he was from, and away from the vilification he faced on this planet. One night Chi Chi tilted her head back, lifted a tentacle that wasn’t holding Piccolo, and traced a strange line through the night sky for him.

“Namek there… I travel before…” When her eyes slid to his, Piccolo felt as if they were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, with the stars lighting up her dewy eyes. She gurgled wetly at the back of her throat, and Piccolo almost let himself smile in front of her. He almost smiled a lot around her. It was the only place he could let his disguise slip, and be with someone else who didn’t consider him a freak. It felt like a weight was lifted off of his shoulders to sit here night after night with Chi Chi, and to completely melt the stress of his home life away.

One night, Chi Chi held her tentacle out to him, and asked him a very perturbing question.

“How long can hold breath for?” She seemed giddy and excited, her bisected abdomen rolled as her tentacle reached out for him. He patted it in greeting, replied that his species could go for roughly twenty minutes. He was then plunged headfirst into icy cold water with no warning. He saw bubbles of air burst from his mouth as he was pulled down into Hell’s Gate, his body growing numb.

He didn’t even bother to try and swim, as Chi Chi’s tentacles propelled her forward with no problem - even with one wrapped around Piccolo’s waist. They didn’t go too far, as Chi Chi finally drew abruptly to a stop, and motioned with her head at a beeping computer.

“Look,” she’d said, and Piccolo was struck by how clear her voice was in the water. It sounded brash and sharp, with a tough edge that tapered out into sweet affection. It was the kind of voice that could scream at you, and then immediately comfort you about all of your worries. Piccolo found himself enraptured with the sound of it, and thought of how unfair it was that  the only place he’d ever get to hear it at was underneath this frigid, frothing tomb.

He couldn’t talk, and instead squinted up at the figures that winked at him.

“My next sleep-cycle is scheduled to come soon,” she said, her fish lips flapping in that happy way, “I’ll be able to wait until the humans have grown again! Maybe then I’ll get to leave my cave!”

Piccolo realized his stomach was filled with something far more icy than the water. Chi Chi was used to his stoic responses, though, and merely whirled happily about.

“I keep waiting for humans to learn some tolerance,” she confided, and Piccolo lamented that voice. That voice that seconds ago he was praising, because he was about to lose the only friend he’d managed to make - and he’d lose those beautiful almond eyes, and those feelers that skittered over his hand whenever he got too close. “One of these days,” Chi Chi sounded so confident, “I’ll get to walk among them.”

It took two more visits before Piccolo thought to offer his second watch to her.

“I don’t think… good idea… not the same as acceptance.” Chi Chi had tried to sound polite, but all Piccolo could think of was dunking his head into the water to hear her say it with her real voice. She’d tightened the tentacle around Piccolo’s waist and drawn him nearer to her. Her lips flapped, and she butted her head lightly against his, and his antennae wiggled against her forehead.

It took two more visits before Piccolo thought to ask her when exactly she’d go to sleep.

“Not sure,” Chi Chi had grumbled. “Soon. Know that. Numbers bit off. Machine old and under Earth sea. Salty.”

“You could still take this second watch.” Piccolo said it as a statement. He didn’t want to ask. He didn’t want to be pathetic. He watched as Chi Chi seemed to consider it, her eyes almost crossing in the middle every time she was in heavy thought.

“No… not same.” She said it decisively, and gave Piccolo a pointed look. It seemed to warn him not to try asking again.

Piccolo didn’t.

It took two more visits for Chi Chi not to be there anymore, and for Piccolo to be left staring at the inky black sea sending white, foamy crests spewing over his boots. He crouched down, and thought briefly of diving into the water and checking up on her. He knew he didn’t have the swimming power to make it, though, and so he stared dismally at the sea.

He stood, unlatched his second watch, and dropped it.

Then he went home.

**

Alternate Ending:

Piccolo awoke to a pounding on his door. He groaned, and cracked his eye open. He’d hardly slept at all as almond eyes haunted his every dream. He shuffled to his living room, and glanced through the peephole. All he could see was a mess of dark hair.

He swung the door open, and stuttered to a halt as he stared a the naked woman in front of him.

She appeared to be a chubby, thirty year old asian woman, who was so soaking wet she had a puddle forming beneath her on Piccolo’s doorstep. But when she lifted her eyes, Piccolo saw the perfect almond shape, and a familiar watch glinting at him from her wrist.

“You dropped this,” she said, and it sounded like she had underneath the water. No strain - like her true self. Piccolo almost let himself smile, but instead he opened his door wide, and let Chi Chi leave a trail of water as she came in after him.

[kayeorosuto]

Tagged by @little-murmaider Rules: Answer thirty questions, then tag twenty blogs you would like to know better. (Omg hello ^///^ I love your blog! Also, hello again as it is also I, Soft Anon! I am ready to not be quite so shy on here! :) Thank you for tagging me!) 1. Nicknames? - Kayeo Rosuto is taken from an OC who was designed to be an alter ego way back in middle school lol. In real life my name is so short (only four letters!) that I don't have many nicknames. Only Biscotti's Mom, at my work place lol. 2. Gender? - Cis female 3. Star sign? - Sagittarius! Tho I'm technically the new sign if you follow the new zodiac where they added the snake man/person? 4. Height? - 5' 4" on a good day lol 5. Time? - Currently? 1am. Having insomnia is fun guys. Also the street light outside my house is about to go out so it's buzzing and flickering a lot, so it's very Silent Hill outside and that's partially keeping me awake. 6. Birthday? - Born in '93! Go 90's kids! 7. Favorite bands? - Oh lord, so many. Um, top bands currently would have to be Panic! At the Disco, Ludo, Motion City Soundtrack. Think all the classic emo bands of the early 2000's and you've got my preference lol. 8. Favorite solo artists? - GACKT ALL THE FUCKING WAY! He's a 90's Japanese rock/pop star and oh my god is he beautiful. He's probably like 50 now, but I would still fan girl like an idiot if I ever met him. "Vanilla" is one of his best songs. 9. Song stuck in my head? - Currently "L.A Devote" by P!atD. 10. Last movie watched? - I Am The Pretty Thing That Lives in the House. It's a really interesting Indy film that Netflix picked up from a film festival. It's along the horror/psychological thriller vein, and I have mixed feelings about the ending. 11. Last show watched? - Metalocalypse! My roomie and I needed to watch something funny after our scary movie marathon lol. We've been rewatching the series with subtitles to better understand what Nathan is singing in the show. 12. When did I create my blog? - I think around '12 or '13? Had it for a while and never used it, then got back into it last year I wanna say. I'm so bad with dates lol. 13. What do I post? - A very wide variety of things lol! Usually what's interesting me most at the current moment. Right now that's been Metalocalypse, One Piece, Kuroshitsuji, Breath of the Wild and general shit posting memes lol. 14. Last thing I "googled"? - "Animal Crossing New Leaf how can you tell if a painting is fake" 'cause you can't waste all those hard earned bells on fake paintings from Redd! 15. Do you have other blogs? - So far just this one! :) I have been toying with the idea of making a One Piece or Metalocalypse side blog... 16. Do you get asks? - Haven't so far. I've done some asking of my own, but it's usually on anon cause I'm shy af lol. 17. Why did you choose your url? - Whoops answering this twice lol. From an OC created back in middle school. 18. Following? - I have never actually checked how many lol, probs 300ish? 19. Followers? - Ehhhh, like 40ish? I think? Probably would be more if I didn't block porn bots lol 20. Favorite colours? Black, purple, teal, maroon/deep red, electric blue (same color as my car!) 21. Average hours of sleep? - Depends on the night. If I'm unlucky about 3, if I'm lucky I'll just crash for a good 10 hours. 22. Lucky number? - Not sure actually? I do see repeating numbers and 45 a lot when I look at clocks and receipts. 23. Instruments? - Zero! I am musically challenged! Plus in elementary school they made us take violin lessons in like 3rdish grade which I HATED. I picked up one of the violin's and had a string snap and hit me in the face. I took that as I my sign I was not meant to play music, and had such bad anxiety any time I went to touch any instrument after I never chose to play one in middle school. I would definitely learn Cello if I could go back and redo everything. Maybe I'll learn after I retire? 24. What am I wearing? - PJ's! Tonight those are black shorts and a very old purple cami that has some how survived 3 dryers that have destroyed all the new cami's I've ever gotten. 25. How many blankets I sleep with? - 1 if it's summer and it has to be light. 2 or a heavy comforter if its winter. My guy is a very warm sleeper so I usually end up kicking on and off however many we have on anyway lol. 26. Dream job? - I would love to a professional artist and have my work displayed in gallery's, or a writer and publish novels. In reality I'll just be happy with something that lets me have a good balance between work and family/friends, and makes enough that I'm not constantly checking my bank account. Yay poor college kid woes lol. Part time was definitely worth the 6 years its taken, but I'm so ready to be done lol. 27. Dream trip? - I would love to go back to Japan and explore the northern half of the country more. I went in high school and mainly was in Okinawa, and the big cities like Kyoto and Tokyo. It would be so cool to see Mt. Fuji in person. 28. Favorite food? - Give me all the carbs and sodium; pizza, pasta (especially Alfredo), tacos, cheese (I fucking love cheese. It's amazing) and Chinese food. All your stereotypically shitty college foods lol. 29. Nationality? - American. 30. Favorite song now? - hmmm... I've been listening to "Na na na na na na na" by My Chemical Romance a lot recently, but it's not a current song. A more current song I've really been enjoying is "Square Hammer" by Ghost. I TAG (ahhh, this is where my shyness comes into play) @gnrslashandmcr @justaminorthreat @hella-gay-ships @tornadowatchimminent and anyone else who wants to do this! :)

[vectortracks]

The Trillium Trek

You may or may not be surprised to learn this, but the biggest obstacle in traversing Canada is Ontario. Ontario accounts for nearly 40% of Canada's total population and is the second largest province in terms of total area. If you throw in the territories, Ontario is the fourth largest in terms of area. So here goes phase one of the trip; The Great Trillium Trek.

Phase I: Algonquin Park to Chutes Provincial Park

Distance: 367km

The first morning in Algonquin was off to a rough start. I was still recovering from an MMA style battle with food poisoning. Needless to say, it was kicking my ass. Still we pushed forward. After packing up the car we hit the road and headed towards Chutes Provincial Park.

Chutes was an interesting provincial park to visit. It is located beside the town of Massey. When I say "beside" I mean that quite literally. Our campsite was maybe a couple metres away from the backyard of local houses. Despite being so close to the town, it was relatively quiet. So why did we stop at Chutes instead of trucking on through to Lake Superior? Primarily because of the scenery, but also because I'm convinced 8hrs in a car should count as a reasonable defence for murder.

After getting to Chutes and setting up the tent, it was time to hit the trails with the puppers. Since I was still feeling rough around the edges, I was quite happy that The Two Bridges Trail was relatively easy. As the name of the park suggests, there are some fantastic waterfalls that we got to stop and see. Upon completing the trail it was time for dinner and an early night.

By this point in the trip, I feel like I'd already gotten into a pretty good routine. Anyone who knows me can testify that I'm not a morning person. Despite that I'd been pretty good at keeping us close to that 10am departure time. So at 10am it was time to hit the road and head to Lake Superior.

Phase II: Chutes Provincial Park to Lake Superior Provincial Park

Distance: 402km

Driving through the Canadian Shield is something worth doing. The sharp rock faces covered in trees is breathtaking. It's a nice reminder of where exactly in world you are and just how far north Canada is. You also begin to realize how far from the major power centres you are. The highway is populated with billboards reminding you that the next gas stop is 200km interlaced with promotional material for towns like Wawa or intense "only Jesus can save you" advertisements. It makes for an interesting drive.

Several hours later and we'd arrived in Lake Superior Provincial Park. After setting up camp, we began our new ritual of setting of on a hike. I'm not ashamed to admit that we got a little lost but it was worth it as we stumbled upon a little secluded peninsula where we got to rest and swim in the deepest of the great lakes. However, the hike I had chosen was supposed to lead us out to the Agawa Rock Pictographs, so after a bit of back-tracking and further exploration, we found our way to the pictographs.

The pictographs are these red figures painted on a canvas of stone that record the stories from past generations of the Ojibwe people. While nature has beaten the rocks down, you can still see some of the pictographs today. Below is a photo of Misshepezhieu, a canoe and serpents. Misshepezhieu, the water spirit, has a lynx-like head with horns and a spiny mane. The Ojibwe believed that Misshepezhieu controlled the water. If he was content, then the water was calm, but if angered, he would use his tail to lash water against the rocks sweeping away anyone unlucky to be caught. If you ever get the chance to see the pictographs then I recommend you do.

Well at this point we're bound for sleeping giant just outside Thunder Bay. This will be my second visit to the Thunder Bay Region, but the first time visiting of my own volition instead of being stranded on an airplane due to snow … which now that I think about it is a pretty Canadian thing to have happen to you.

Phase III: Lake Superior Provincial Park to Sleeping Giant

Distance: 494 km

The trek from Lake Superior to Sleeping Giant was a little longer that expected. This was a result of intermittent stops to view the scenery and worship at the alter of Goose-ymandias in Wawa.  Although, with the help of some podcasts, we made it there safe and sound. After finding our campsite, we quickly set to pitching the tent as it looked like some rain was moving in. Unfortunately we were not fast enough.  Luckily the rain didn’t last for long which meant we got to spend the evening by the fire and enjoying the view.

The plan has us staying in Sleeping Giant for two nights so there was a full day of exploration to be had. After perusing the map we set out on the trails for a good ol'20km hike. It was an interesting trail as it was supposed to lead to the top of the giant. While the trail started of manageable, it became surprisingly challenging after a while. A large portion of the trail is in the thick of it, completely covered by trees. This made it difficult to gauge the distance we had travelled. I wouldn’t say the trail was overly physically demanding but was more of a mental challenge. We had no idea how far we'd travelled and at times we knew the trail was beneath our feet but the brush covered it entirely. We powered through and eventually ended up at a little harbour where we enjoyed some sandwich's and a drink. Stark is continually trying to push his limits with the water but is still very unsure about it. After departing at 11am we finally made it back to camp around 5pm. From there it was dinner and an early night before we hit the road towards Blue Lake.

Well that’s it for now. I'm officially in Thunder Bay, enjoying my breakfast from a local restaurant called Niva's. Its absolutely amazing. Apparently I just missed Thunder Bay Pride but hey there is always next year. Its time to hit the roads and finish this trek of by hitting our first time zone change!

 See ya later.

[katiehookway1]

Music Video Analysis: Your Graduation by Modern Baseball

For this essay I have chosen to analyse a track called "Your Graduation" by pop punk band Modern Baseball from Philadeplhia. The track is taken from their latest album, "You're Gonna Miss It All", released on Run For Cover Records in 2014, and the music video was directed by Kyle Thrash. Modern Baseball come under the broad genre of pop punk, but tend more towards an 'indie rock' side with the style of their other tracks- "Your Graduation" happens to be their most 'in-your-face' track, with other songs such as '@chlo3k' and 'Tears Over Beers' being a lot calmer and more indie, similar to other bands such as The Front Bottoms. The genre of pop punk, however, has general characteristics of youth angst, heartache, loneliness and bad times in the past whilst looking on to better things, and music videos are often performance based. "Your Graduation" is the "stand out track" on the album, with high-speed instrumentals and more "hardcore" vocals, potentially widening the audience for the band, at Brendan Lukens discusses uncertainity, regret and his unfortunate luck in love. "It's been three whole years of me, thinking 'bout you everyday" After looking closely into the video, meaning between the video and lyrics does become more apparent, as different representations could be drawn. Brendan, the singer who we are first introduced to, sings in an almost lazy, careless manner, which links to the hopeless undertones of the lyrics. The first lyric, "It's been three whole years of me thinking 'bout you everyday, sometimes for hours sometimes in passing", is reflected by the video as he is shown with 8 different girls throughout the course of the video, and yet in all of them he has a completely blank expression on his face and is not looking at the girl(s). Zoom outs are utilised here to show that this mentality is a result of his surroundings. The lyric is illustrated through this as it shows how he has been unlucky in love and nothing is right unless he is with the person he has been thinking about for so long. Another potent lyric is when the narration-based lyrics spot Brendan's ex, the girl who he has been thinking about, on the stairs at a party "too drunk to stand" and wonders whether he will stay with the new man forever. At the end of the video, the scenario switches, and the girl is left looking blankly into the camera at her Graduation, an intertextual link, and Brendan walks away, as the band sing, "Go ahead and walk away."  The relationship between the music and the visuals is also quite apparent. The scenes cut to the beat and after each lyric, further enhanced when the drums kick in to keep the pace up, giving the piece more rhythm. In instrumental sections, the band is depicted playing in the street in front of a crowd of enthusiastic, typical fans of the genre, [2:11]. Notable areas where the pace of the visuals change are at the first chorus, at around 1:03, where cuts are regular after every few beats, and certain images such as a rainy night are shown, connoting the angst further, and at the end of the track where the drums become more aggressive, and the visuals reflect this with a series of fast-paced cuts to show different situations in the same room, possibly further depicting the turbulent relationship. Other notable cuts are at 1:14, where the screen goes black in time with a cymbal before the next line of the chorus. During the performance based sections, birds eye views are used where the drummer is looking up to the camera whilst singing or performing, and the audience looks down on the crowd in the street for the most part, which could signal how the singers are looking up for hope with regards to their unrequited love (1:39: "Remember all those countless nights where I told you I loved you.. oh just forget it!") Pans and other movements are used during the performance sections to represent how everyone gets into the song at around this section as it where it picks up, and cuts are much faster and more frequent than in the pre-chorus. Interestingly though, during the main instrumental at the end, at 2:17, slow-motion shots are used, to show the crowd and the skateboarder (stereotypically a characteristic of the genre) which could represent how people are lost in the music and are focused on having a good time and forgetting their troubles.

Close-ups are used continuously throughout the video, both to detail the narrative and to create the star image motif- Modern Baseball are a relatively small band with a niche fanbase, and hence would look to expand on that by including performance based scenes in their video. By including scenes with the crowd passionately singing along, crowd surfing in the street and grabbing the artist, they increase the demand for the artist as it makes them seem more popular, but still keeps to the image the band wants to portray of themselves, such as the angst and meaningful lyrics. However the close-ups of Brendan are also used to detail the narrative and construct meaning, as he seems lost and blank in the repeated zoom-out motifs that are featured in the video. By contrast, Jake (the drummer) is portrayed more through the close-ups, as although like Brendan he is the only one that looks at the camera and connecting to the audience, he actually interacts by singing along during his sections, as he is not featured in the narrative side as such.

The references to looking in the video are not in a sexual manner as such, and the artist is not being highlighted prominently, but there is evidence of sexual display, for instance at the party, Brendan is shows centrally whilst everyone around him is enjoying the party, and notably there is a couple on his left kissing on the sofa. The main references to "looking" would be where Brendan looks into the camera and not around him, whilst the females are all looking/talking at him, and he does not see this as he is so fixated by the grudge-like resentment of his ex that is being portrayed.

There are a few intertextual references within this music video. The video could be compared to Modern Baseball's video for earlier single, "The Weekend", which has a very similar structure, especially at the start where Brendan is centralised looking into the camera singing, which is likened to the sections where he looks blankly at the camera in Your Graduation. There is also a repeated image of the crowd enjoying themselves and having a good time whilst the band performs, drinking and such. The other intertextual reference would be the name of the song itself and how it is represented through the video- "Your Graduation" is not mentioned once in the song itself, leaving the audience to interpret why the song is titled this, from the video I have interpreted it to be the stage when the girl walks away from the narrator, as the video seems to regress backwards through the narrative to go back to the start- at the end, good times are shown in a quick montage before the roles are reversed and the girl, presumably the ex, is left looking into the camera, and is then left. The "Graduation" could be literal, or could represent finally finishing and moving on life. The beginning of the video is left unanswered as to meaning, but it features scenes that are displayed throughout the video, such as the swings, the skate park and the party.

Videos of this genre are generally performance based with a very minimal narrative, however "Your Graduation" incorporates a much deeper narrative and a more varied performance based video. Instead of the band performing at a concert or tour like in other pop punk videos, the band are performing to a crowd in the street, quite intimately but also aggressively. The narrative allows for more meaning to the lyrics to be constructed and allows the audience to feel more of a connection with the artist, which could possibly lead to the development of sales and popularity increase. To conclude, "Your Graduation" is a narrative and performance based video that portrays a turbulent end to a relationship and the issues that followed in its aftermath, and how it effected the narrator, but also how people can relate to and enjoy the music of the band.