#it was a hassle to let everyone know what my new discord is

[bloody-arty-myths]

Submitted a request(?) to Discord Support. I hope we can find a solution to my problem cuz ain’t no way my Russian e-mail is approved and later I can’t even log in💀-

[filmbyjy]

MINESTREAM

SYPNOSIS > Wanting to start a new stream series with his best friends, Jay had a bright idea of playing some simple Minecraft with them. Everything was normal, until he realises there is another person in the call with them. He quickly learns that it was ni-ki’s older sister, (name). Watch how streaming a simple game of Minecraft can dig up some interesting feelings between the main leads.

EIGHT – asscrack

MASTERLIST | PREVIOUS | NEXT

a/n: the inspiration behind jake’s little world naming…that was the first word that popped into my head. don’t ask why. I’d like to know too.

finally after so long with multiple technical issues on jay’s end, the minecraft series could officially start. he could hear jake and ni-ki just chatting about the free online soccer game they found on steam. his eyes gazed the mute button right beside your username. the other boys had turned on their cameras in discord while you and angel(Yvette) didn’t.

he hasn’t once heard your voice. well, he could barely hear your voice since he shut ni-ki’s stream off earlier due to the boys attempting to catch something. he only heard your giggle once and that was it. nonetheless, in that short moment he thought you sounded adorable. his heart drumming in his chest, wondering how your voice would sound like.

he shook his head and clicked on the stream button. as per usual, he puts on a waiting screen to tell the viewers that ‘hey, we’re going to play soon. please wait.’

he unmutes in the discord, “hey, everything has been set up. I just wanna ask what should the server name be?”

“asscrack.” jake suggests as he looks up from his computer and directly into the camera.

“what?” heeseung speaks up as he was caught off guard by the weird name.

“I don’t know, don’t ask me. I’m shit at giving names to things.” jake shrugs. the other boys deadpanned at him.

“let’s name it…sunoo and the boys.” sunoo suggests.

“as if. just put the default ‘My World’ that’s the easiest. not a single hassle to the world.” jungwon adds.

“Alphas.” sunghoon voices out.

“uhh, have you forgotten there are two girls here?” ni-ki says.

“well, who cares about that. Women can be dominant too.” sunghoon shrugs.

jay sighs, “I’m just going to call it MineStream.”

“lame ass name.” jake says. jay turns on his camera on discord and zooms in the camera to his face. he gave jake a death stare and so jake awkwardly laughs it off.

“okay, you scare me. I’m sorry.” jake pouts.

as for you, the moment jay opened his facecam. your eyes widened, a tiny gasp left your throat. since no one could see/hear your reaction due to you being muted and your camera was turned off, you were basically in shock. that man is most beautiful man you’ve ever seen.

the way his eyebrow raises as the rectangle glasses suited his face. he was just in a simple black shirt and his jet black hair was parted prettily. good lord. you were going to play with him? you were going to play with all these pretty boys?? oh lord.

“okay, the world is loading so wanna do the intro when we all load into the world?” jay asks.

“yeah, we should. we have new guests here and we have to introduce the fans too!” sunghoon says.

“alright, I’ve already loaded in. I sent the world invite into the discord. by the way, there are mods that I added to make the game more interesting.” jay says.

“the only interesting thing we should try to do is do hardcore mode or like a ‘if one person dies, everyone dies’ kinda thing.” sunoo suggests.

“we could do that for another time.”

you had clicked on the link and waited to load into the world. since ni-ki helped to create your account, you could easily go in and of course he was your first friend in the game. you had finally clicked turned on the camera in discord and so everyone could see you. you weren’t exactly streaming but you were recording for a video since ni-ki suggested that putting up videos onto YouTube also generates money. once everything was settled, jungwon claps his hand and starts off with the intro.

“hello everyone, today we are-” ni-ki’s character punches jungwon’s as he was talking. “ni-ki!”

“whoops misclick.” ni-ki says. jungwon rolls his eyes.

“today we are playing minecraft! woo!!”

“the premise of how this started. jay hyung wanted to do a series together that was nostalgic and so we decided to go with minecraft because who doesn’t love minecraft!” sunoo says.

“besides our normal friend group, we have two other people on here! let’s welcome angel and (name)!”

“hello hello.” angel says. her little vtuber character moves and tracks her movement.

“woah, cool character, angel. it’s really pretty.” sunoo says.

“oh, thank you.” angel smiles. everyone’s attention was now on you.

“oh umm, hi. I’m (name). I’m ni-ki’s older sister.” you waved towards the camera. everyone was mesmerised (excluding heeseung and ni-ki), you were beautiful.

“good god.” jake says.

“you have a very sexy voice. would love to hear that all night-” sunghoon gets cut off.

“sunghoon hyung, i will find a way to ban you from this server.” ni-ki warns him.

you giggled and jay’s heart melts. god, he’s a simp but he can’t show that…his facecam was turned on. jay turns to read a couple of his comments. most of them were simping for you. kinda made him jealous, not going to lie. plus, it didn’t help that jay had this overlay thing where whoever talked, it would display the person’s facecam (if turned on) from discord to his livestream.

— “she’s so pretty.”

— “wow, she’s so…no wonder she’s ni-ki’s older sister. the family genes are so strong.”

“let’s just start playing. gather resources everyone.” jay says.

and so everyone does. each of them collected wood, from the trees. you sat there looking clueless and so jay comes up to you in game.

“something wrong?” he asks.

“oh, sorry. this is my first time playing minecraft so I have zero clue how to do things.”

“want me to guide you?”

“sure.”

jay happily guides you on how to play the game, from punching wood to making crafting benches and finally making tools. jay turns to read the comments for a bit,

— “woah, what is this visual couple going on?”

— “yoooo, they would look cute together! like wow.”

jay was satisfied by the comments. he can’t help but look at your facecam, your concentrated face as you mined for stone and attempted to make stone weapons.

“hyung!” jungwon whacks jay’s character. it causes him to turn around.

“did you have to hit me.” jay deadpans.

“whoops, anyways. ni-ki and sunoo found a cave. I don’t remember minecraft caves being fucking huge.”

“there was a huge update I believe 1-2 years ago so yes, huge cave.”

“they also found a mob spawner with saddles in the chest and jake hyung stole them to try and get horses.”

jay sighs, “can’t say I’m not surprised.”

“are you and (name) noona flirting?” jungwon suddenly asks. it causes you and jay and to look at each other in game before turning to jungwon.

“no? he’s just teaching me how to play minecraft.”

“yeah, she doesn’t know much about the game so what better way then to teach her?”

“don’t believe it one bit. next thing you know, we will have a couple in a minecraft server who share a house together, sleep together and have cats and dogs together.”

— “oooo, jungwon is onto something.”

“the comments are agreeing with me.” jungwon smirks.

“shut the fuck up, my friend.” jay shoos jungwon away. the younger boy runs off to find sunghoon, who wants currently getting chased by a creeper.

jay sticks by you throughout the whole thing, he gives you tips and even hands you some stuff.

“we are making a community.” heeseung says.

“and why?”

“because with 9 people on this server, all the resources are going to be sucked up. also I am not sharing a house with any of you. especially, (name). she’ll make the house with pink wood.”

“there’s pink wood?” you say.

“there is, you just need to find a cherry blossom biome.” jay explains.

“why are you helping her?” heeseung asks.

“because she doesn’t know how to play and I’m just being a gentleman since you guys aren’t helping her, clearly.”

jake bursts out laughing, “I’m sorry but this is the first time I see you being so gentlemanly to a woman.”

“do you want me to set myself into creative so I can blow up your shit dirt house.” jay threatens.

“go ahead, I feel like renovating it anyways. just let me move my stuff first-”

sunoo quietly hands jay some tnt and a flint and steel. before jake could even grabbing his things from the chest. jay covers his base with the tnt and ignites it. it hisses.

“(name), I suggest you run if you don’t wanna blow up.” jay warns.

“oh.” you quickly dashed out of the way and the explosion was massive. it causes sunghoon to yell.

“I had a pet dog in there…” jake says.

“too bad, mess with me again and I’ll burn your next house.” jay says.

jake definitely learnt his lesson of not teasing jay during this session.

-

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[arklayraven]

my buddy, всё будет хорошо! 💛 i think this is all the misunderstanding of intent? tell me if i am wrong but i think you were ask not to post exclusive files from discord so you take it down without a hassle, yes? we can appreciate the effort for it, so good job and thank you 😄 i see before there were others on X who do something similar and they take down their post at the devs will, so you are not alone. but the dev already ask us not to let the exclusive files leave discord and it is up to us the fans to honor it. so i think since you take down everything there should be no problem left? but maybe i am wrong. if you like i will contact the 14dwy dev on your behalf to get answers because i think this is a misunderstanding! 😧 i think you ask for communication too since i follow your posts so this will be good idea. many thanks and happy pride month if you partake with it!

Wasn't gonna say anything but need to talk about this since its bothering me again.

Yes I was asked to take down something, that was just a cropped imaged from a screenshot from the game. It wasn't even that huge of a spoiler? It was just the same status message from Ren in game from previous versions, but with his pronouns visible. Which, we know already, and the small feature was made public to all to see and know of. No matter if they play the game or not. But I still took it down out of request from a mod from that server who reached me.

I believed things to be fine now...Then was contacted again by them, but they came off so...unfriendly...And it bothered me lots.

Again. I thought the situation was resolved, but clearly I was wrong.

Also feeling I had to apologize, again, which I did just hoping this would stop.

I then realized from this all, they only reached out to me again, because they went through my blog, to find stuff to come after me for.

Then I felt honestly stalked at that point, and felt not even comfortable on my own blog and space here. I blocked the person who reached me, because again, I felt upset by this all.

It just ruined my experience for the series for me for a while, that I deleted my old writing blog for it, and felt i couldn't make edits for it as well, etc. I've been working on healing/moving on from it all however, made a new blog to start over. (tho will be keeping some stuff more privated/untagged now. since the whole situation just ruined a lot for me. especially fucked with me more since I deal with high anxiety.)

But what bothered me most over this all, is being contacted by that mod, than directly by the dev over this situation. Which I feel, could of been resolved better, if the dev just reached out to me first instead.

I understand people are busy and can't reach out to everyone on time, but would of appreciated a more nicer direct approach by them, or a attempt...Instead of being contacted by someone else with this clear power trip they had going on...and just seemed like they wanted to go after someone or start something.

Also on your offer to contact the dev, I just don't know if it'll do anything to help me feel better or others who were effected as well. So i personally don't see it as necessary I guess... (Like damage has been done from this all, you know? So yeah...)

The only best I want and ask from this all however, is this to not happen to anyone else ever again. No one deserves to be stalked or harassed, especially over a video game. It's not fun feeling like you aren't safe to post/whatever on your own blog, and not feel welcomed to just share your love a series. So I hope no one ever has to deal with this again.

[mooglesorts]

hmmm... does it sound like a bird secondary/bird model thing to be, for lack of a better word, territorial?

not necessarily in the sense of, like, getting defensive and driving people off (although if someone gets into My Territory who makes the space unpleasant for me in some way i’ll be distressed and irritated). more like... establishing a home base, i guess? and slowly expanding my comfort zone from there. people, communities, my living space, there will usually be a few that i come back to when i’m too tired or overwhelmed to keep track of everything else. 

examples: 

---

when i’m in a discord server that i want to participate in more than in passing, i’ll usually start by camping out in one channel for a while and ignoring all the others. from there, once i’ve gotten to know people who frequent that channel, feel like they’ve gotten to know me, and feel like i’m Established there, i’ll start expanding out into other channels one or two at a time until i’m familiar with the whole server. it deadass took me half a year to branch out from the vent/mature topics channels in my current main server, and then it took months more for me to catch up to the whole server. if i don’t do it this way i’ll be overwhelmed, eventually get bored, and trip off my feeling-left-out-of-a-community sore spots. 

(which is a Thing about using snake secondary to reach out and do new things. sometimes it’s a lot of fun to just go where i feel like and explore! but if a) there’s nothing i can really do without spending money i don’t have, b) i get the side-eye for being Poor and Socially Awkward and Doing Things Weird, c) i don’t happen to be into some anime fandom i don’t care about that everyone else does, and have had zero opportunity to get at least a little invested in it in order to connect with people, d) i get ignored because no one knows me or is invested in the things i contribute; or e) i just plain go past my limits because i didn’t realize going in how much energy i’d be expending on the thing... i get bored, fast. what’s the point? might as well just turn around and go home; at least it’s comfy.)

(badger secondary model?)

---

i’m prone to homesickness. i’ve gotten a little better about it over the years, and after moving so many times in such short succession, but it’s really hard to let go of My Territory the more memories and familiarity i’ve built there. it’s super rough on me emotionally from anywhere to a few days to a couple weeks, and any time i think about it, but otherwise i adjust pretty fast to my new surroundings. 

(the exception here is when i, well... avoid going out and exploring snake-style, because i don’t want to get attached and then deal with the grief of leaving it behind later on. housing instability trauma sucks, and i’m still struggling to figure out how to deal with that.)

part of that might be having stayed in one place for most of my growing up, but it’s like... pretty easy for me to designate a new place as a home base even if i still miss the old one? idk. even when i have nothing left there, i still think of everywhere i’ve intentionally planted my flag as One of My Places.

---

it often takes me a long time to get comfortable with interacting with someone on a regular, friendly basis the closer the space i get to know them in. a lot of people who are now good friends of mine i had to build up my comfort levels with for years. there’s usually a moment of like... ‘oh okay this is our Friendship Unlocked Moment. the dam is broken,’ and even if we go long periods of time without talking a lot in private i don’t feel anxious and suffocated when we do. sometimes the Friendship Unlocked moment is one thing that happens all at once, and sometimes it’s several things over a long period of time until the scale tips for good. this is one reason i get cagey about initiating those friendship moments too directly sometimes, just because i know i might need to pull back and have space for a while again for the friendship to develop, and i don’t want to hurt people’s feelings.

weirdly enough, though, this process tends to be circumvented a lot the more distance there is between me and another person while i’m getting to know them? if i had gotten into the shc community by joining a server i would be way more shy, anxious, and wary, but when most of my potential-friendship-moments interactions with people take place on tumblr where it’s easier to get some space if i need to, it makes it way less uncomfortable and anxiety-inducing to point and go ‘friend! :D’ i’d probably be fine with exchanging discords with most of the people i’ve met on here at this point. 

it’s like the difference between meeting people and making friends at a hobby group where you meet once a week, and making friends by having to invite them over to your house every day. 

---

i’m very much the kind of person who will stick close with the friend who invited me to a party, lmao, or if i’m tagging along on a trip but don’t want to be there (or don’t want to deal with the hassle of finding them again if i wander off). sometimes i’ll jump right into a new situation and start making friends, but i get anxiety pretty easily about making people feel snubbed or left out if i don’t have the time or energy to engage with everything, so often i’ll just fall back on one or two options i’m most familiar with and let everything else pass me by. i used to be the kind of kid/teenager who’d stick so close behind people on public outings that i’d constantly be bumping into them by accident. (once again, if i didn’t want to be there, wasn’t allowed to go do my own thing, or was--in hindsight--dissociating.)

---

just... hm. thoughts? to me this sounds like either snakey, badgery rapidfire bird, or birdy, badgery snake who uses the other two to cover for social awkwardness/feelings of alienation/lack of time or energy/depression from my burned snake. or shit, maybe it’s badger all along, who knows.

[willddheartt]

30 Days | Wilbur Soot

30 days to fall in love with someone? Sounds easy right?

It would be if that person wasn’t so unbelievably annoying in almost every sense. 

You’re not sure how you found yourself in this situation, but you were positive there was no backing out now…

Series Warnings: Mostly fluff and angst, and a very poorly constructed enemies to lovers plot. 

Word Count: 1892

Masterlist Series Masterlist 30 Days The beginning

You sighed, staring at the black screen of your PC waiting for it to light up. After last night, you didn’t even want to log on, but you knew if you avoided it now, it would just cause more hassle in the long run.

The monitors light up with your bright coloured backgrounds and the PC itself emitted many colours of the rainbow.  Opening Discord, you started a message with Wilbur.

Did you hear? You type, clicking through a few channels as you awaited his response. 

Yeah, how’d this come about? his message read 

Your head shook as you typed and you ran a hand through your hair, pushing it back and out of your face, I don’t know. Hop in a VC and we can discuss better? 

You pulled on your headset, waiting for the call to come through, what you weren’t expecting was for Wilbur to video call you. You had just got out of bed before logging on and didn’t even have any makeup on and you were still in your cropped top and sleep bottoms. Quickly pulling the fuzzy blanket you kept on the back of your chair around your shoulders you answered the call. 

“Hey,” You answered with a sigh, setting your head in your hand.  “Hi,” He said, monotone.  “What’s he got on you?” You asked  “My home address and credit card information, stuff like that. And you?”  You sighed, knowing if you told the truth he might think even lower of you than he already did. “Same thing and like some stupid stuff I did in high school,”  Wilburs expression changed from annoyed to something you couldn’t read, “What did you do?”  “Relax,” You sighed, “It’s nothing like terrible, terrible.” “Do you not want to tell me?” He sat back in his chair  “I’d rather not,” You mumbled, “I don’t need you thinking lower of me than you already do.”  “Fine,” Wilbur sighed, “Do you want to talk about how we’re going to do this or not?” You nodded 

“What do you think the best approach would be?” You asked, sitting up and pulling your leg up.  “Well obviously, I think we should outline what the rules are.”  “Okay,” You nodded pulling up a note, “So we’re supposed to be dating right?” You asked, Wilbur, nodded. “So we should act like a couple,” You said as you typed out  “What about how we act on and off camera?” Wil asked  “What about it?” You asked, “On camera, we act so madly in love the fans won’t even question it, off-camera we can not speak or whatever we do now.”  Wil shook his head, “I think to get the best performance we’d have to truly play into this and act on and off camera.”  You threw your head back, “Really?” You asked  “Do you truly hate me that much, Y/N?” 

“Well no, it’s just I’d rather not.”  “Too bad, it’s already written.”  You sighed, “Fine.”  “Do you think we should tell our friends about the whole situation or just leave it as we’re a couple?” You asked  “Leave them out of the blackmail part, they could slip up.” You nod agreeing. 

After twenty minutes of back and forth, you devised a list of rules doe the month. 

They were as follows:

Must act like a couple on and off camera 

Must act like a couple at all times 

Every week doing things that couples would do (i.e. dates, movie nights, going out to dinner) 

Must post announcing you’re together, on Twitter Instagram or in a stream. 

Can only tell friends about you being together 

And you must see each other regularly. 

If either of you failed to do one of these things you immediately owe the other person $50

Wilbur was still on call with you after the list was created, you ended up talking about how you think the blackmailer got your information. Both of you were in the dark. 

Your roommate came in, interrupting your conversation, “Hey, Y/N, Wanna come with me to pick up food?” She asked stopping dead in her tracks when she saw Wilbur on your monitor.  You nodded, “Just give me a second here,” She waved as she exited the room.  “Sorry about that, Wil,” You said turning back to the camera. “Seems I’ve got to go, but we can talk more about this when I get back if you’d like.”  Wilbur nodded, “It was nice talking to you, love.” 

The pet name caught you off guard, you looked at Wilbur, who had the most shit-eating grin on his face you’d ever seen. “What?” He asked, tilting his head, “We have to start somewhere, thought now would be a good time.”  You sighed, “ill talk to you later Wilbur.” 

You ended the call and let your head fall into your hands. 

Man, this was going to be a long month. 

“Sorry about earlier.” Your roommate said once you walked out of your room  You shook your head, “Don’t worry about it, it was only Wilbur,”  “Wilbur?” She asked, “Don’t you, like, hate him?” “Hate is a strong word,” You sighed. “I think I’ve had a change of heart about him.” 

-

You got home to messages from Wilbur asking if you wanted to stream with him tonight to make your announcement, you grabbed a drink and something to eat and got ready to stream. This time you were able to get ready to be on camera. You did your makeup, simple winged eyeliner nothing too extravagant, and you put on a cute top, but kept on your pyjama bottoms. 

Are you setting up stream? You messaged Wilbur 

Yeah, are you ready? He replied within seconds

Ready as I’ll ever be. 

This time you called Wilbur, he picked up within seconds.  “I know this is only fake but im nervous,” You blurted out.  Wilbur nodded, “Me too,”  “How do you think the fans will react?” You asked  “Honestly?” You nodded, “I think the overall reaction will be good.”  “What about the ones that aren’t?” You were picking at your fingers, a nervous habit, “I don’t want to get death threats and that kind of thing,” You frowned.  “I’ll take care of it,” Wil said, his words brought you a sense of peace, and you waited for him to start streaming. 

As he welcomed everyone to the stream, you weren’t on screen yet. You had a few moments to take in his appearance. He was wearing a nice white button-down, and it looked like he tried to do something with his hard but failed and just let it slump in its natural half curly-half wavy state on his forehead. You smiled at him as he kept trying to shake the hair out of his eyes but it refused to move. 

“Well, chat,” He started, “There is someone very important to me that I’d like to introduce you to.” As he spoke you could feel the knots in your stomach, nervous for him to finally show your face cam on stream. “Now, you probably already know them but,” He paused, working things out to be able to show your cam on stream, “Y/N and I would like to tell you something,” He said, and your face popped up on his stream, you waved to the chat.  “Y/N, would you like to do the honours?” He asked with a smirk “I guess so,” You put on the biggest smile you could muster before it looked fake and forced, “Chat,” You said. “Wil and I are dating!” You announced and he cheered.  The chat exploded with hearts and Pogs, of course, there were the normal hate comments, but those were almost drowned out by all the emotes. 

“Okay now, I don’t want to see anybody hating on Y/N, Okay?” Wilbur said in a stern voice, looking directly at the camera, “Mods if you can, keep it out of the chat. And chat, keep it off the social media, Okay?” He waited for responses in the chat to roll through before continuing, “If you haven't got anything nice to say, let’s not say it alright?”  You nodded along with him, secretly admiring how adamant he was about keeping the hate away, you knew Wilbur was the type of gut to do that but you didn't think he'd do it for you, especially where the two of you weren't even truly together.

“Okay, so Y/N and I here, didn’t really talk about what we were going to do on here, we just wanted to announce the news, but I guess we’ll stick around and answer a few questions for about an hour, hows that sound?”  You nodded, “That sounds good to me. Chat if you have any questions to ask us, about our relationship or just personally send them in the chat or whatever you’d like to do. 

You and Wilbur sat on stream for close to an hour talking to the chat and receiving many donations asking questions and answering the chat, they seemed to love that the two of you were ‘together’. You read a few things saying “Enemies to lovers? POG” in the chat that made you laugh to yourself, telling Wil you’d tell him later when he asked what was so funny. 

Truthfully, you didn’t hate Wilbur as much as you’ve convinced yourself you have. Sometimes the acting and just messing around on the SMP got blurry in your mind, a lot of the things you found revolting about him were things his character had done for the sake of plot development. 

Wilbur finally ended the stream, you both said bye to chat and he went off.  “That went well, don't you think?” He asked, sighing as soon as the stream was over. “I think it was good, their reaction seemed to be positive.” You sat back in your chair.  “What did you find so funny in the chat?” He asked, throwing an arm behind his head as he leaned back in his chair. You giggled as you thought about it again, “I saw some people saying ‘enemies to lovers? Pog’ in the chat and I thought it was really funny.” “I mean, they're technically not wrong.” You rolled your eyes, looking down at the time in the corner of your monitor. 

It was late. Almost three am. 

“Hey, I’ll talk to you tomorrow Wil, alright? I should go to bed soon.”  Wil nodded, “Talk to you tomorrow, Y/N, sleep well.” He smiled as he hit the end call button. 

You sat in your dimly lit room in complete silence, other than the noise of the fans in your PC. You couldn’t believe you had to do this for a month. You truly wondered how you could do this, it was only day one and you wanted to crawl out of your skin and wash off the feeling that he gave you. In your act you could see how you might be able to fall for him, but once the call ended and you were snapped back to reality, you wished to take the hottest and longest shower in the word and wash the feeling of him away, watch the dirt slide down the drain and out of your mind. 

“You can do this. It's only a month,” You whispered to yourself.

[angelicymp]

Perhaps a little coaxing is needed...

Good evening my literary friends,

I am hoping to find a suitable partner for specific cravings and ideas I have in mind.

My introduction will be brief and a bit more to the point than usual. I am quite thorough and detail-oriented when it comes to being a writer, including some of my rules and preferences. However, since I believe it to be quite a hassle to go through every point I’m making, my ad will be a bit more compact.

A brief recap: You can call me Imp; I am in my twenties and a student, striving to become a part-time freelancer as well. My main hobbies are photography, traveling, drawing and of course, the art of writing. Currently, I reside in Europe, so my timezone could differ from yours, unless you are also from a similar region.

Be sure to read through my ad to see if we’re compatible. Too many times I’ve encountered cases where the inquirers skimmed through all of the info and upon messaging me, were surprised to learn that we weren’t a match from the beginning. So if you haven’t properly read my ad, I’ll know. I’d like to urge everyone to stick with it so there won't be any misunderstandings and not waste everyone’s time.

————————


Me, myself and I

(art by: Ayami Kojima)

♦ Nickname: Imp

♦ Experience: 12 years and counting

♦ Style: 1:1 with the inclusion of doubling

♦ Rating: Mature

♦ Roleplaying Platform: Email and Google Docs

♦ Chatting Platform: Email, Google Hangouts or Discord

♦ Pet peeves: Slice of Life


After finishing the game of Resident Evil 8 Village, I was struck by yet another muse.




I am currently looking for either a pre-existing canon inspired roleplay, or, something completely original. Be sure you are above the age of eighteen, preferably 21 and upwards. I will not accept any inquires from minors - this is not negotiable.

What to expect

♢  Content: Mature. I am more interested in darker things like horror, occultism, the supernatural, you can maybe guess where I am going with this. My limits are few, safe for a couple of minor pet peeves that I have, I am pretty much open to some experimentation; such as violence, gore and sexual themes. When it comes to heavy scenes, I will not fade to black, unless it serves no purpose to the story. Not a huge fan of censorship. However, I will not force or push my partner into something they are not comfortable with. If you want to know the extent to how far I am willing to go, what sort of content, or how graphic my writing will be, you can ask me directly.



♢ Rating: I have little to no issues with delving into more sensitive topics. Since reality is often stranger than fiction, it is very interesting to explore all sides of human nature, including the less comfortable subjects such as psychology, crime, etc. But I also like to remind that this is a world of fiction and no one in their right mind would condone such things in real life. The world of adults is not easy to handle, but it sure is interesting to explore. So if you are a gentle soul and can’t take the heat of more serious moments within the roleplay, be it a character going through trying times, etc; this might not be ideal for you.

♢ Writing: My texts are considerably lengthy, detailed, and elaborate. Third-person is usually my preferred way of playing my character unless there’s a special case where an exception can be made. Word count usually fluctuates, though I have a standard form of 400-500+ words per reply. It also highly depends on the given situation.

♢ Romancing: I admit to being a hopeless romantic. There’s nothing more enjoyable than witnessing good and powerful chemistry between two characters. Preferably I go for the usual MxF pairing dynamic but I am also open to FxF and MxM, should it feel more fitting. While doubling, I can write the character/love interest to my partner’s desire, but I always aim to stay true to their personality and character. I hate nothing more than forcing characters into a relationship, especially if there’s no spark, so I won’t respond well to being pressured into letting characters act out of their personality. It’s just not realistic. As for smut, or what have you, I have no issues with adding a few spicy scenes, sometimes even drawing them out of our pleasure. When there is, however, a running theme where sexual themes are taking the focal point of the plot, it can become quite boring. It is never the center of any of my roleplays, so be warned.

♢ Plotting: I am fairly quick when it comes to building new characters, concepts, premises, storylines, backstories, etc. It allows me a certain latitude. Feel free to communicate your ideas and thoughts with me. I am happy to chat, even when it doesn’t involve the roleplay directly. Though this is a hobby, I am still extremely passionate about good storytelling and interesting character arcs. I hope to meet someone who is just as enthusiastic and willing to put in the same amount of effort. If it’s only me who’s pulling all the weight, I will lose interest and feel forced to end the correspondence.

No gos

♦ Won’t do: Pedophilia, Necrophilia, Bestiality, Scat, Vore, Toilet Play, etc. I am sure you can also think of many other strange fetishes that have developed over the years spent on the internet.

♦ Won’t write: The idea of supernatural beings trying to fit into human society. The typical bully x victim storyline. The run-of-the-mill vampires vs werewolf plot. BDSM centred stories. Slice of life. Flawless or excessively flawed characters.

What I expect

♢ Literacy: You should at least have a decent grasp of basic grammar and coherency in your spelling.

♢ Flexibility: Since we all have lives outside of the roleplay, we both need to be flexible. Sometimes our schedules may differ, and if life is currently intervening, we can take things a bit easier. Plus, I can’t always respond every second of every day, either. This should be considered a hobby and not a job. If a hiatus is on the rise, there is no problem with putting things on ice until things clear up.

♢ Experience: And by that, I don’t mean how many years you’ve roleplayed, rather the experience that comes with age and emotional maturity. Especially if you want to write stories with grit.

♢ Open to doubling: Quick explanation. Doubling is when we play two main characters each. The dynamic is as follows; I write your chosen love interest against your main character while you do the same for me.

♢ Long term: Only long-term partnerships.

♢ Sharing the spotlight: Don’t forget, this is all about you too! Let me know all your specific cravings, interests, or wants that you want to be included into the roleplay.

Cravings

♦ Urban fantasy: Supernaturals, demons, spirits, vampires, you name it. I’d be more interested in something original and unique, especially when it comes to vampirism and demonic entities.

♦ Dark Sci-Fi: So this is a bit inspired by Resident Evil. A world where monsters become a vicious reality, generating fear among the people they come in contact with. But as it turns out, these monsters are not supernatural, but rather infected or mutated by a virus that cannot be explained.

♦ History, mythology, and folklore: An interesting take on the historical timeline, where legends and myths were once a reality. However, their existence was greatly misrepresented in the storybooks, sometimes even completely distorted. Our characters could be accidental time travelers who have been sent from the future to see it with their own eyes. Inspirations are mostly Slavic, European, and ancient folklore from all over the world.

♦ Crime with a dark twist: Mafias, organized crime, and corrupted politicians run this town. All of them have one thing in common. A particular drug that grants humans superhuman abilities; but at a cost. The drug will turn force the users to reject their humanity to instead embrace their monstrosity.

Canon & Fandoms

♢ Castlevania: Rather the original games than the Netflix series. But I am also not opposed to tackling the Netflix universe.

♢ Devil May Cry: Every game is game. Except for the reboot. Never played that one.

♢ Invincible: Not so invincible.

♢ Resident Evil: Village is one of the best games I’ve ever played. Periodt.

♢ Harry Potter: Next gen anyone?

————————

If you made it this far, I am glad you managed to hold on, lol. If you found what I wrote, agreeable and have a similar interests to mine, feel free to message me on this email adress.

You can also contact me via DM on my Tumblr blog, though preferably, I would rather be more receptive on Email since I am more active there. And it’s a lot more personal as well.

Email: impish.and.angelic@gmail.com

Hope to see you there.

I wish you all a lovely day my fellow readers!

-Imp

[msparp-hell]

Alright this is going to be a saga, my bad for not remembering this. 

So, a user comes in asking about what constitutes an underage ref since they heard someone being banned for using the official John Homestuck sprites. They were, in natural course of the server, met with a hostile Thelle (I can probably find screenshots of this too, but I feel like everyone already knows Thelle is naturally hostile?? This isn't news to anyone who has seen him.) They were of course, dogpiled for asking a question in genuine good faith (they stated they were a new user and wanted to clarify this) and were genuinely pretty confused about the situation. It's still in the server if anyone wants to see, it's not hidden. I posted this twice:

And got kicked. I'm sure a lot of people are going to say that I had it coming/deserved/whatever! And that's fine, I don't particularly mind, it's just pretty funny when people were accusing the original question asker of being a predator for asking a question. And they weren't kicked. The server has a history of being overtly toxic to people who come in with questions, this isn't a new problem. I don't think any user of the server would be surprised, but i'm sure i could find a million screenshots for that.

What I was upset by was:

This response. Rather than explain why, I'll just post mine for clarity:

Since this needs prefacing as to 'Why Thelle Hates Random User', I had previously spoken in the Cherp server when the ban came out. Not to challenge the ban, but because Thelle was stating legal information about the Canadian and USA legal systems repeatedly. The posting is still there for anyone who wishes to see it, but I had taken the time to not come off as an attack, to make a request to stop spreading legal information. I work as a legal professional, and this is extremely frustrating for me but I didn't want to come off as an attack.

THIS post was aggressive. My reply was 100% aggressive, I was fed up with the server being a target arena for anyone who didn't understand the rules. I posted it fully knowing I'd be probably banned from the server.

What I didn't expect was being banned from MXRP too. Thelle even stated that, and I'm quoting because Tumblr won't let me post more pics: "The owners of the platform can decide you're not worth the hassle to have on here and get rid of you for any reason." I didn't break any site rules. Thelle took my discord username, searched up my account and deactivated it because I got fed up with people getting dogpiled for asking questions. 

well! color me surprised! except not really! there goes all the slight hope for mxrp's new management i had. good fucking riddance.

[fyrapartnersearch]

♔ Let's try this again ♔

Good evening my literary friends,

I am hoping to find a suitable partner for specific cravings and ideas I have in mind. My introduction will be brief and a bit more to the point than usual. I am quite thorough and detail-oriented when it comes to being a writer, including some of my rules and preferences. However, since I believe it would be quite a hassle to go through every point, my ad will be a bit more compact. A brief recap: You can call me Imp; I am in my twenties and a student, striving to become a part-time freelancer as well. My main hobbies are photography, traveling, drawing and of course, the art of writing. Currently, I reside in Europe, so my timezone could differ from yours, unless you are also from a similar region. Be sure to read through my ad to see if we’re compatible. Too many times I’ve encountered cases where the inquirers skimmed through all of the info and upon messaging me, were surprised to learn that we weren’t a match from the beginning. So if you haven’t properly read my ad, I’ll know. I’d like to urge everyone to stick with it so there won't be any misunderstandings and not waste everyone’s time. ————————


Me, myself and I ♦ Nickname: Imp ♦ Experience: 12 years and counting

♦ Age: 28 years.

♦ Gender: Female. ♦ Style: 1:1 with the inclusion of doubling ♦ Rating: Mature ♦ Roleplay Platform: Email and Google Docs ♦ Chat Platform: Email, Google Hangouts or Discord ♦ Pet peeves: Slice of Life

♦ Timezone: GMT+2


After finishing the game of Resident Evil 8 Village, I was struck by yet another muse.


I am currently looking for either a pre-existing canon inspired roleplay, or, something completely original. Be sure you are above the age of eighteen, preferably 21 and upwards. I will not accept any inquires from minors - this is not negotiable.

What to expect ♢  Content: Mature. I am more interested in darker things like horror, occultism, the supernatural, you can maybe guess where I am going with this. My limits are few, safe for a couple of minor pet peeves that I have, I am pretty much open to some experimentation; such as violence, gore and sexual themes. When it comes to heavy scenes, I will not fade to black, unless it serves no purpose to the story. Not a huge fan of censorship. However, I will not force or push my partner into something they are not comfortable with. If you want to know the extent to how far I am willing to go, what sort of content, or how graphic my writing will be, you can ask me directly.

 ♢ Rating: I have little to no issues with delving into more sensitive topics. Since reality is often stranger than fiction, it is very interesting to explore all sides of human nature, including the less comfortable subjects such as psychology, crime, etc. But I also like to remind that this is a world of fiction and no one in their right mind would condone such things in real life. The world of adults is not easy to handle, but it sure is interesting to explore. So if you are a gentle soul and can’t take the heat of more serious moments within the roleplay, be it a character going through trying times, etc; this might not be ideal for you. ♢ Writing: My texts are considerably lengthy, detailed, and elaborate. Third-person is usually my preferred way of playing my character unless there’s a special case where an exception can be made. Word count usually fluctuates, though I have a standard form of 400-500+ words per reply. It also highly depends on the given situation. ♢ Romancing: I admit to being a hopeless romantic. There’s nothing more enjoyable than witnessing good and powerful chemistry between two characters. Preferably I go for the usual MxF pairing dynamic but I am also open to FxF and MxM, should it feel more fitting. While doubling, I can write the character/love interest to my partner’s desire, but I always aim to stay true to their personality and character. I hate nothing more than forcing characters into a relationship, especially if there’s no spark, so I won’t respond well to being pressured into letting characters act out of their personality. It’s just not realistic. As for smut, or what have you, I have no issues with adding a few spicy scenes, sometimes even drawing them out of our pleasure. When there is, however, a running theme where sexual themes are taking the focal point of the plot, it can become quite boring. It is never the center of any of my roleplays, so be warned. ♢ Plotting: I am fairly quick when it comes to building new characters, concepts, premises, storylines, backstories, etc. It allows me a certain latitude. Feel free to communicate your ideas and thoughts with me. I am happy to chat, even when it doesn’t involve the roleplay directly. Though this is a hobby, I am still extremely passionate about good storytelling and interesting character arcs. I hope to meet someone who is just as enthusiastic and willing to put in the same amount of effort. If it’s only me who’s pulling all the weight, I will lose interest and feel forced to end the correspondence. No gos ♦ Won’t do: Pedophilia, Necrophilia, Bestiality, Scat, Vore, Toilet Play or roleplaying with minors. I am sure you can also think of many other strange fetishes that have developed over the years spent on the internet. ♦ Won’t write: The idea of supernatural beings trying to fit into human society. The typical bully x victim storyline. The run-of-the-mill vampires vs werewolf plot. BDSM centred stories. Slice of life. Flawless or excessively flawed characters.

♦ No vulgarity: Let's keep it classy. There's nothing more I dislike than slipping into senseless vulgarity, be it language, unnecessary drawn out violent or tasteless smut scenes. I'd rather have things done beautifully, even if it a subject on the darker side.

What I expect ♢ Literacy: You should at least have a decent grasp of basic grammar and coherency in your spelling. ♢ Flexibility: Since we all have lives outside of the roleplay, we both need to be flexible. Sometimes our schedules may differ, and if life is currently intervening, we can take things a bit easier. Plus, I can’t always respond every second of every day, either. This should be considered a hobby and not a job. If a hiatus is on the rise, there is no problem with putting things on ice until things clear up. ♢ Experience: And by that, I don’t mean how many years you’ve roleplayed, rather the experience that comes with age and emotional maturity. Especially if you want to write stories with grit. ♢ Open to doubling: Quick explanation. Doubling is when we play two main characters each. The dynamic is as follows; I write your chosen love interest against your main character while you do the same for me. ♢ Long term: Only long-term partnerships. ♢ Sharing the spotlight: Don’t forget, this is all about you too! Let me know all your specific cravings, interests, or wants that you want to be included into the roleplay. Cravings ♦ Urban fantasy: Supernaturals, demons, spirits, vampires, you name it. I’d be more interested in something original and unique, especially when it comes to vampirism and demonic entities. ♦ Dark Sci-Fi: So this is a bit inspired by Resident Evil. A world where monsters become a vicious reality, generating fear among the people they come in contact with. But as it turns out, these monsters are not supernatural, but rather infected or mutated by a virus that cannot be explained. ♦ History, mythology, and folklore: An interesting take on the historical timeline, where legends and myths were once a reality. However, their existence was greatly misrepresented in the storybooks, sometimes even completely distorted. Our characters could be accidental time travelers who have been sent from the future to see it with their own eyes. Inspirations are mostly Slavic, European, and ancient folklore from all over the world. ♦ Crime with a dark twist: Mafias, organized crime, and corrupted politicians run this town. All of them have one thing in common. A particular drug that grants humans superhuman abilities; but at a cost. The drug will turn force the users to reject their humanity and embrace their monstrosity. Canon & Fandoms ♢ Castlevania: Rather the original games than the Netflix series. But I am also not opposed to tackling the Netflix universe. ♢ Devil May Cry: Every game is game. Except for the reboot. Never played that one. ♢ Invincible: Not so invincible. ♢ Resident Evil: Village is one of the best games I’ve ever played. Periodt. ♢ Harry Potter: Next gen anyone? ———————— If you made it this far, I am glad you managed to hold on, lol. If you found what I wrote, agreeable and have a similar interests to mine, feel free to message me on this email address. Email: impish.and.angelic@gmail.com Hope to see you there. I wish you all a lovely day my fellow readers! -Imp

[starry-knight-skies]

Title: Meant To Be Yours Summary: From the moment they met, Logan knew he and Virgil were meant to be together. There was just something about him that called to his soul, that drew him in like a moth to a flame, and Logan did not have the will to resist. He could see their future together and nothing was going to keep them apart, he wont’ let it. Virgil doesn’t have a choice. Competent Obsessed Logan Au! Come hang out on the Discord for sneak peeks of upcoming chapters (If you like what you read, consider supporting me on Ko-fi) Chapter 1

The idle chatter of students around him did little to distract Logan from the book in front of him. He didn’t care who was up to what over summer break, who was dating who, who got caught cheating on who. It was all pointless, meaningless in a way that none of it would even matter by next week. Just as meaningless as the friendships people made, which would disintegrate when they graduated in June, distance and college making rift that won’t be filled. It was why he never bothered with friendships himself, instead choosing to spend his time focusing on his studies, knowing if he wanted a well respected job like his brother or father, then he’d need to get into a good school. Those dreams didn’t have room for anyone else, and he was okay with that.

The teacher clapped her hands in front of the room as the final bell rang, calling the class to order. The chatter died down and people moved back into their assigned seats, and Logan was grateful for the quiet. He tuned out her welcoming the students to her class, ignored the groans as she talked about year long group assignment partners. It was something she did every year, something everyone knew about, so why be upset when she brings it up? Logan already knew he’d be able to get whoever his partner was to let him do the work, avoid the hassle of having to work with someone who didn’t know what they were doing. 

One by one, the students were paired up by ‘The Hat of Fate’ and one everyone had a partner, they were allowed to get together and get to know each other a little better. Logan internally grimaced at the sound of scraping chairs, not looking up from his book still even as someone came to stand beside him. He decided to speak up before they had the chance to, idly turning a page. “I am more than capable of doing any work assigned to us on our own, but if you’d like to give me your number, I’d be more than accommodating in letting you know when each project is finished.”

The person scoffed, crossing their arms in his peripheral. “Like hell I’m letting you do all the work on your own. What kind of lazy dumbass do you take me for?”

The refusal to let Logan do the work on his own made his attention finally turn to the other person. The first thing he saw was a dark skirt, swirled with blues and purples in an imitation of the night sky, and that alone was enough to tell him who his partner was long before his gaze lifted and he was looking into a pair of rather beautiful, intense, mismatched eyes.

Time seemed to stand still to him, a strange, unfamiliar feeling twisting in his chest. It wasn’t uncomfortable though, a warmth spreading through him and his heart speeding up in his chest. His Father has once talked to him about this exact moment, how he’d know when he met The One, and his fingers itched to reach out, to touch, to make sure this was real and actually happening. He resisted, not wanting to scare his Love off, not when they’ve finally had the chance to come together. 

“Virgil Storm.” Saying his name was enough to send warmth creeping down his spine and his mind quickly went over everything that he knew about him. Kind of a loner, less than a handful of friends but fiercely protective of the ones he had. Incredibly stubborn with a love of wearing skirts, while also being incredibly talented in regards to his art. Logan had seen a few of his pieces and he remembered now being impressed. How had he been so fortunate, so blessed, to have his soulmate be someone so interesting and wonderful? He was rather looking forward to learning every little detail he could about him. “I suppose you’re going to argue regardless of what I say then?”

Virgil just raised an eyebrow, grabbing a chair and pulling it over in lieu of an answer. Logan hummed softly, feeling rather pleased that Virgil wasn’t going to fight him. He didn’t want him to go, now that he Knows, and his mind was racing with all the different questions he had, things he wanted, needed to know about him. But he just had to remind himself to be patient. They had the rest of their lives to get to know each other after all. He couldn’t wait to tell his Father when he got home.

---

Logan felt like he was walking on air by the time he got home that night, not having left the building until the sun had started to set, too caught up in spending time with Virgil. Today had been absolutely wonderful, one of his best days he’s ever had at school, and being around Virgil had been the reason why. He was so interesting to talk to, when they could, and he would gladly and willingly sit for hours and listen to him talk if he could. It had been thrilling to learn that they had a lot in common, and every little detail he learned set his heart soaring. 

He set his bag in the kitchen before making his way upstairs, his excitement in sharing the good news with his Father unable to be contained. He paused outside his Father’s study, pressing his ear to the door and hearing the sound of his Mother’s soap operas playing. That meant they were spending time together and Father may not like the interruption, but this was for a good cause!

So he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, knocking firmly on the door. He opened it quietly and stepped inside when his father called out, and he didn’t venture too far into the room. He could see his parents sat on the little couch in the room, his Mother’s attention the tv on the wall while his Father gently brushed her hair. He was so loving and attentive to her, and Logan couldn’t wait to do the same for Virgil. 

“Pardon my intrusion Father, but I have some good news I wished to share.” He waited until he had his Father’s attention before continuing. “I met someone… incredible today. Unlike anyone I’ve ever met. I’m in love.”

Those words had his Father turning to face him fully, an intrigued sparkle in his eyes. “Oh you did? Oh Logan, I’m so happy for you. What’s their name?”

“Virgil. Virgil Storm.” Logan breathed the name out with reverence, adoration clear in his tone. “I can’t wait for you to meet him.”

“To be able to capture your heart, he must be incredible. I look forward to meeting him one day, when he’s ready.” 

Logan nodded early, moving to take a step back now that the news has been shared. He didn’t want to overstay his welcome, not while his parents were together, but he paused when Father beckoned him over. 

“Come say goodnight to your mother before you go.” 

Logan nodded, stepping over to her and leaning down to press a gentle kiss to the top of her head. “Goodnight Mother. It was lovely seeing you.” He didn’t get an answer, and he wasn’t expecting one. Her attention was fickle, and hard to obtain at all when her shows were on. He gave his Father a little nod before leaving the room, a spring in his step and heart feeling full. 

He made his way down to the kitchen to start on dinner for himself, pulling out his phone to look at the photos that he had snuck of Virgil throughout the day. How had he gotten so lucky? His future was looking bright and as long as he had his love by his side, nothing could possibly bring him down. Nothing was going to stand in the way of their happiness together. He won’t allow it.

[lynneshobbydomain]

Vengeance Chapter Five

(I hope no one minds the early update, but due to a paper that I have to get done on Saturday, I thought it was best to post this now as I won’t have time to write until Sunday. As always thank you @sinfulwonders for your beta-reading and thank you sunflower_8 (do you even have a tumblr, where are you?) for helping me as well. You two are so lovely and I’m so grateful. Thank you thank you. Thank you for reading, for reblogging, and for liking my chapters as well. You’re all so kind.)

Rated: NSFW (Danganronpa I’m sorry)

Summary:  Amateur Detective Shuichi Saihara knew that searching for the “Usual 16” wasn’t going to get him anywhere. The disappearances weren’t being tracked in any news outlet, and very few families even tried to come forward to ask for help, let alone to report them missing. Yet, Shuichi can’t shake off the feeling that there’s a reason behind the disappearances, and he’s close to the answer.He just didn’t realize that the answer was going to hit close to home, in more ways than one.

Previous                      Next

You can read this below the cut or at AO3

“That’s a face."

Shuichi startled as he looked over to see Kokichi peering at him from underneath the hat. His expression was mischievous and teasing, but the violets of his eyes spoke volumes of worry and concern. He didn’t hear Kokichi approach the school’s gate. He supposed he was a little out of it. Staking out places and trying not to get caught, added to the excitement that they won a tournament, he was starting to feel socially drained. He was surprised he didn’t fall asleep during class. He knew that the circles under his eyes were going to make Kokichi force him into another “skip class for a day” situation if he didn’t find a way to get sleep tonight. “I’m sorry.” Shuichi murmured as he tugged his hat down. “It’s been...it’s been a week.”

Kokichi flicked the hat’s brim up a little. “Looks like you’re about to get turned into a ghost or a corpse at this rate.” The joke was a little off, but Shuichi didn’t blame him for it. “I thought we agreed that sleeping was a good thing, Shuichi-chan. Good dreams! Do I need to break into your house again?” They started walking away from the school and headed down towards the street.

“You’re going to break into the house no matter what I say. I’m surprised you haven’t lately.” Shuichi paused and he looked at Kokichi, who suddenly started biting his thumb. “Are...are Deuce and Trick okay?” They were the ones everyone was most concerned about, considering their home life. It wouldn’t surprise Shuichi at all if Kokichi was trying to stay out with them to prevent them from going home, or at the very least trying to find ways to shelter them.

“They’re fine.” Kokichi replied, waving off the concern expertly. “We’re just trying to think about the place of attack. The hospital was a hit. Did you see the newspapers?! They still haven’t figured us out yet!”

“I did. My uncle nearly had an aneurysm over the phone when he called me.” Shuichi smiled lightly. “He knew immediately that it was you. Deuce-kun needs to change his signature.”

“Ugh, of course he’d give us away.” Kokichi groaned as he rolled his eyes. He brought his arms up over his head and leaned into the casual posture. “But you know, maybe we should keep the signature. You know, just in case someone else wants to try their hand at mystery solving. It isn’t fun if the Saihara’s are always on the case.”

“Oh believe me, we have our rivals.” Shuichi accepted the teasing. “I just don’t think we care too much.”

“You wouldn’t, which is either a testament to how good you are or how uncaring you are. I on the other hand adore my rivals.” Kokichi let his arms down and he immediately grabbed onto Shuichi’s arm, holding him close to him. “After all if that’s how I met you then maybe someone in my group will fall for their own rival. Then our group can get bigger. We could rule all of Japan. With you by my side. What do you say?”

“You’re insane and I love you.” Shuichi offered.

“Boring.”

“I love you or that you’re insane?” Shuichi raised an eyebrow.

“The love you part, duh. I already know Shuichi-chan loves me. He loves me so much, he did all that dirty work for me without too much of a hassle. He did ask too many questions though.” The grip on his arm only tightened, and Shuichi knew that Kokichi was lying. Well, he was lying about thinking the “love” part was boring. He was pretty certain everything else he was saying was true.

As they walked, Shuichi noticed a black car turning a corner and his eyebrow lifted slightly. Remembering the conversation that he had with Aki the other night made him concerned. Considering that he didn’t see whether or not they had a plate on them or not, he decided to give the benefit of the doubt for now. Kokichi cleared his throat and he realized that he must have spaced again.

“I’m coming home with you.” Kokichi proclaimed.

“Ah, what?” Shuichi blinked.

“I’m coming home with you. You’re acting weird and I don’t think you’d get on the right train without me.” Kokichi carefully dislodged himself from his arm and slipped his hand down into Shuichi’s hand, intertwining their fingers. “You’d be all discombobulated if you got off at the wrong station.”

“Are you sure you’re talking about me and not about Shuffle-chan?”

“She’d like the adventure too much and she’d call us if she got really, really lost. Shuichi-chan isn’t all that bright. You’d try to solve the mystery before you called us to tell us you got lost.” Kokichi pouted. “And leave me and Aki-chan to worry.”

“You’d worry. I think Aki-chan would just laugh at you for being scared.”

“Waah!” Kokichi let him go as he burst into tears. “You’re so mean to me! I’m just worried about you and you’re laughing at me!”

“Ah, I’m sorry Kokichi-kun. I’m sorry!” Shuichi’s neck turned hot as he could feel the gaze of the crowd lingering on them. He wanted to hide and he wanted Kokichi to stop making a scene. “Please stop crying, I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful. I’m glad you’re worried about me. Honest.”

“Nishishi.” Kokichi’s tears immediately dried as though he hadn’t been crying in the first place. Shuichi still was trying to figure out how he could do that on command. Not even his mother could cry on demand, which was saying something considering she was a talented actress of her time.

Shuichi wanted off of that train of thought as fast as he possibly could. “You really are acting out of it. Did a certain someone try to contact you?”

“Ah no, I think that hasn’t happened in some time.” Shuichi shook his head. “Just a lot of thoughts. I’m sorry.”

“Well. No need to fret anymore. I’ll make all those worries and thoughts disappear when we get home.” Kokichi clung onto his arm again. “It’s the least you can do for making me cry, and maybe if you got some sleep.”

Shuichi sighed loudly.

                                                           X

Aki wasn’t home yet. Shuichi had put that thought away as he was busy trying to keep Kokichi from doing anything too insane. That meant being subjected to game after game, and trying to keep up with any riddles that the D.I.C.E. leader could find either on the internet or something that he made up on the spot. Right now, they had just finished building a blanket fort and both of them were snuggling, practically lying on top of each other.

“Hmm, it’s almost eight. Should we order takeout?” Kokichi mused. “I haven’t heard the door open, and Aki-chan isn’t back yet I don’t think.”

“Eight?” Shuichi glanced over sleepily to see that Kokichi was holding his phone in his hand, staring at the home screen. “Can you send her a message asking if she went to your hide out or something? See if she wants something or if she’s eating with friends.”

Kokichi nodded and Shuichi listened to the obnoxious beeping sounds of the buttons being pressed. He knew that Kokichi could change that in his settings, but for whatever reason, Kokichi wanted the most annoying thing he could find. He was just grateful that it was no longer the duck sounds.

Of course that theory went out the window as the phone blasted a horn sound through its speakers. Shuichi startled, staring at the phone and then back up to Kokichi. Kokichi nonchalantly flicked his thumb against the screen. He could hear his own phone going off in his school bag, but Shuichi felt too comfortable to move away from Kokichi or the fort that they had built. The bluish light tinted Kokichi's face and casted a shadow of concern and worry on his eyes.

“Kokichi-kun?” Shuichi watched as Kokichi moved so that he was sitting up right, legs immediately crossed as he leaned forward, his phone practically pressed up against his face. The concern only turned Shuichi’s blood cold and he quickly scrambled out of the fort to go to his backpack, ripping it open to dive for his phone that was somewhere deep in the abyss. He hated that his backpack could consume anything that was small. He was certain that he had a good assortment of blue and purple pens somewhere down there at the bottom, but he couldn’t find them, nor did he ever put in the effort of actually turning his back upside down.

He felt the vibration before he could feel his phone. He snatched towards the phone’s  direction and yanked it out, ignoring the many papers that flew out with it. He saw that there were several notifications on his screen from the D.I.C.E chat, but also Discord was surprisingly blowing up too around the same time. There was also an email that he received. He only glanced at Danganronpa, before deciding to ignore it for now. It was probably spam or some type of advertisement, and he wasn’t about to get into that when he was too concerned about why Kokcihi was suddenly on alert.

Shuichi quickly got on to the D.I.C.E’s chat and saw with a sinking heart why Kokichi had turned so pale.

[ Widow: Masashi-kun and Touru-kun are the hospital, so there’s no one at the hideout. If Saihara-san really did come by to visit us, she would have probably left as soon as she saw the lights were off. ]

[ March: Do I need to be down there. ]

[ Widow: No. We have it under control. We’re getting them out of that house. ]

[ Solo: Ouma-kun is more than welcome to stay here. I know Saihara-kun will undoubtedly want him at his place too. I’m concerned about Saihara-san. That’s abnormal. Wouldn’t she be home? ]

[ March: Shuichi-chan’s worried. He’s also reading this chat. ]

[ Matador: I’m sorry to hear about Masashi-kun and Touru-kun. If we need to be there, we can be there. I just have to find a way to let Aki-chan know that we’re there. I’m worried. She would have responded to the chat by now. ]

[ Shuffle: (,,꒪꒫꒪,,) But I thought Chi-chan was home. ]

[ March: Explain. ]

[ Shuffle: (ó﹏ò｡) Aki-chan didn’t walk with me to school today. ]

Both Kokichi and Shuichi looked up at each other at the same time. Shuichi felt his heart drop into his stomach. It was nearing twelve hours then. He knew that the first few hours would’ve been critical if someone was going to be saved. Reporting it now would be a shot in the dark, but at least a chance.

Shuichi let Kokichi handle the D.I.C.E chat. Meanwhile he sent a text to his uncle, his thumbs hitting the wrong keys as his hands shook. He didn’t realize the screen was getting blurry until he felt something warm drip down his cheeks. She told him. Just a few nights ago, she told him that she was worried. She told him that she was afraid that there was someone following her.

Shuichi hadn’t done a thing. He should have encouraged her to report it. He should have told her that she needed to call their guardian. She could have been saved. Aki could have been saved. If he just had…

[ Uncle: Breathe, kid, I already texted Keiko. I’m going to swing by the police department and file a report. Best to do it and be wrong, than to be right and never have a chance. Chances are, Aki forgot to tell us that she had somewhere to be. ]

Shuichi really hoped that was the case, but he wasn’t sure about that. Trying to distract himself, he decided to go back towards the D.I.C.E chat, and saw that Kokichi already ordered them to stay where they were, and to take care of Deuce and Trick. Shuichi didn’t have any energy to feel angry for them. He really hated that the system had let them down like it had, and he really hoped that they were okay. He really hoped that his Uncle was right and that Aki was okay. That she just was late. That she did just forget.

He also knew that if she had been, Aki would’ve texted. He also knew that if she was anywhere near her phone, that entire conversation would have had her concern in it too. She probably would have echoed the same offer Shuichi gave full heartedly about needing to be there, if they had to be there.

“Shuichi-chan?” Kokichi said quietly and Shuichi looked up to see that Kokichi had crawled out of the blanket fort and was sitting next to him. His hand was hovering between them, as though he wasn't sure if he could grab onto Shuichi or not. Shuichi bowed his head and Kokichi immediately opened his arms towards him, dragging him to lean against his body.

“What happened to Masashi-kun and Touru-kun? Did anyone specify?” The lump burned at his throat as he attempted to speak around it. His stomach was twisted into so many knots, Shuichi wasn’t sure how to start untangling them. He could feel Kokichi tremble underneath him, or maybe it was just him shaking like a leaf and unable to get a hold of himself.

“To put it mildly, parents suck.” Kokichi answered as he flicked his thumb against the screen.

Shuichi nodded, understanding. He tried to think about what they needed to do. What could they do? There was absolutely nothing either one of them could do. Kokichi could go to the hospital. Kokichi was their leader, but Shuichi also knew that trying to tell Kokichi to leave while he was like this wasn't going to happen. Kokichi knew how to be stubborn.

“What about Aki-chan?” Kokichi decided to press softly. “What did we decide to do?”

It shouldn’t warm his heart to hear Kokichi refer to himself as family, but Shuichi needed the support. “Uncle Koji’s coming home. Aunt Keiko’s already been informed. We’re…” He swallowed thickly, feeling a renewed burning in his eyes as tears threatened to spill. “We’re reporting her missing.”

Kokichi nodded solemnly as he pulled away from him and started brushing away at his tears. “We’ll find her.” He said after a moment. “She’s one of us. She’s easy to find.”

“Yeah?”

“Pfft, you really doubt me don’t you?” Kokichi’s voice raised a little. He held his finger out, pointing at Shuichi. “Did you forget that we’re a team of ten thousand strong?!”

“N-no.” There were only eleven members. “Then why don’t I ever see them at the meetings?”

“How the hell am I going to stuff that many people in our house? Jeez, Shuichi-chan, it’s called Discord. You should know it by now.” Kokichi huffed and Shuichi faintly laughed. “Honestly the audacity you have to doubt your own boyfriend, let alone your own leader .”

“Sorry.” Shuichi quickly bowed his head, and he could feel Kokichi shift. “So. You think that she’ll be found?”

“No doubt about it. So come on Shuichi, let’s go back into the fort yeah? I’m sure Koji-chan and Keiko-chan will prefer it if you didn’t worry over stupid things.” Kokichi gently took Shuichi’s hand. “Besides, what can you do right now? All we have is people telling us that she’s gone. Nothing to say where. Nothing to say who. Until we get that information, what can we start doing? It’s the city, not the wilderness.”

Shuichi couldn’t deny that Kokichi was right. There really was no way to figure out where she was at the time. He felt his phone buzz next to him and he reached for it automatically. Another email from Danganronpa.

Frowning, he decided to open the email app. He could mark it a spam so that he could focus on more important things. Just as he reached the inbox, he saw the complete subject box. The first email that was sent had the subject line of: Thank you for your tribute and your impending participation. Which felt as ominous as it sounded. The second email had the line of: Are you ready for a game of thrills, chills and kills?

“What’s wrong?” Kokichi asked and Shuichi angled his phone towards his boyfriend’s direction. “Um...what?”

“That’s my impression too. I don’t…”

Kokichi yanked the phone out of Shuichi’s hand. “If I reply to the spam email, do you think I’ll be as famous as that English comedian back in the U.K?”

“No? They’re probably going to think that you’re doing this to be like him to begin with.” Shuichi wouldn’t mind it if Kokichi tried to send a prank back at them. Maybe if he did that, he’d be left alone.

“Thank you for your tribute and participation,” Kokichi suddenly read aloud, causing Shuichi to look at him. “As you know, this game only happens once a year and with the best choices that were picked from judges. We had over thirty auditions this year, and it was hard to narrow down the choices to just sixteen.” He paused and Shuichi felt all color drain from his face. Sixteen. Kokichi glanced at him before continuing. “We hope that you will continue to participate in the game as you have done in the previous years. If this is your first time getting this email, congratulations on being a part of the Danganronpa family. We hope you enjoy your stay.”

“What.” Shuichi replied, staring at him like he just grew another head.

Kokichi quickly deleted that email and went to the next one. “Dear Danganronpa Fanatics. Welcome back to the fifty-second game! The rules have changed slightly due to audiences wishing to take more of a role in our games. We are so excited to share what we have in store for you. As you are aware, we have opened our doors to allow family members who are close to the contestants to have a special invite so that they can watch and participate too. Isn’t that exciting? Bear in mind that the audience and the family members are going to be anonymous, meaning that you will not know who is who during this time to make the voting fair. Yes, that’s right! Voting time! You will not be voting during the class trials unfortunately, as that is for the contestants to deal with. Instead, you will be voting anywhere from favorite colors to motive videos.”

“Motive videos?” Shuichi asked weakly. “Game? What do they mean by class trials?!”

“I don’t know.” Kokichi bit his thumb as he stared at the email. “It goes on to talk about that the voting is majority rules, and that you can only influence the game so much. You may get a chance to do a video talking directly to the contestant, but you have to be aware that the motive videos may be switched among the players, so you may want to choose words carefully. Jeez, for a spam email, they sure decided to go the dark route, didn’t they?”

“I no longer think that’s spam.” But what else could it be? Shuichi never heard of Danganronpa before. He doubted that his cousin would have even known about it either. They didn’t go around looking for things like that, at least he didn’t think she would. Then again, missing people always had secrets. He glanced at the wall that his computer desk was pushed up against. The very same wall that he could hear her guitar. Missing people always had secrets that even the closest relatives didn’t know about.

He never thought that there would be a day he would have to investigate his own cousin. He never thought that he would have to dig out her secrets. He looked at the phone that was resting in Kokichi’s hand, seeing the words that were printed on the screen. He doubted about the auditions. He doubted that there was such a thing.

Takahashi said it best, didn’t he? That if he was going to kidnap, he would scout out his potential targets. That was what those black cars were for.

“The Usual Sixteen.” Shuichi murmured quietly.

“Please tell me you’re not thinking about trying to use a case to distract you. I’m right here.” Kokichi pouted, but the mood didn’t match. He was trying, and Shuichi appreciated it.

“No, that’s wrong.” Shuichi shook his head. “I was thinking...Danganronpa specifically mentioned that sixteen were selected out of the thirty that they scouted.”

“Yes…” Kokichi agreed slowly. “You think that…”

“The Usual Sixteen were in Danganronpa. But why? If it’s a game, shouldn’t they have returned home?” Shuichi pursed his lips together. “That’s what bothers me about it.”

“There’s a link in the email.” Kokichi glanced down at the email. “We could...turn it on...confirm our suspicions.”

“...I think I’d like my uncle to take a look at it first.” Shuichi determined. “I’d rather have him know that I got these emails and see what his professional opinion is. Chances are, we may not have a choice but to hand over my phone as evidence, because of the links that are on it. They may be able to trace something.”

“If that’s what you want, beloved. I won’t stop you.” Kokichi sighed as he handed the phone back to Shuichi. “But can you send me those emails to my phone regardless?”

“Why?” Shuichi’s brows furrowed.

“I want Solo-kun to see if he can’t trace it.”

“I mean…” He trailed off. The police were sometimes too slow and if Aki was a part of it, then they needed to know now before something happened. “I guess.”

“Cool! Thank you babe!”

“Oh god please no.”

“Baby~”

“No.”

“Bambino.”

“Kokichi-kun, no.”

[aharris00britney]

ASKS 16

haha remember in July when I said I was gonna answer stuff every month... yeah me neither 🙈🙈 anyways lots of stuff under the cut

Anonymous said: You should get along with other Simblrs and start a new cc group now that PTS is disbanded, your hairs and clothes are always amazing! :D

Firstly thank you! Most of the clothing in AxA is 99% ayoshi with me going in after and cleaning/adding some stuff. So I give him props for the clothes :P As far as a ‘new PTS’ style group idk, there are a lot of amazing creators on simblr but I think the reason PTS was such a special thing is because the bond they all had. I feel that when working on collabs with some of my really close friends (such as the one coming out this month with @dogsill​ and @ayoshi​) because we have known each other for over 2 years now. A group of friends built only for collabing purposes would be more of a hassle than an enjoyment imo. <3

Anonymous said: HELLLOOOO! just curious bc why not but what is your favorite creation that you have made??

It varies every month to be honest lmao. If you asked me to pick a favorite hair from each month? Easy, always the last release of the month. But favorite hair ever? Awwww shucks 🤠 lmao I would say my Madison Hair is one of my favorite hair releases, I am planning to revamp it soon to work with my Mia ombre accessories and tidy the mesh up some. 

Anonymous said: hello, when will this collection be free for public download please? /post/186706149526/patreon-08-19

That came out in August luv, go to my downloads page and click AxA 2019

Anonymous said: Hi! Idk if you do wcif!!!! But if you do, wcif the freckles on the girl with the short hair on the BOP AHOOB collab?? If you know! Thank you much in advance!!!!!

Hey! You’ll need to send Bowl-Of-Plumbobs a message for that WCIF, that was his Sim otherwise I would link you. Sorry hun

@lumalinrose-sims​ said: Not a question, but you are like so cool I can't even--

thank you lmao I appreciate it, your profile pic it pretty cool :P

@ang3lba3 said: sarah is so pretty!!! is there a way to download how she looks in its entirety, or no? (sorry if this is a silly question im pretty new to the sims) 

not silly don’t worry :P the Sarah hair is for download on the post, the sim can be downloaded here but she is a bit outdated as I have changed her somewhat since then. 

Anonymous said: Hihi just stopping by to tell you how much I love your hairs!!

thank you so much! I appreciate the love<3

Anonymous said: hi! i just wanted to say that i love your cc so much i and always look forward to your posts! you make the cutest cc ever and honestly you're probably my favorite cc maker. you also seem like such a chill and genuine person we truly stan.

fgvhbjn thank you lmao I am literally TOO CHILL irl lmao I let people run over me so much but it’s whatever. Thank you again for the super sweet message. Have a great day if you’re reading this :)

Anonymous said: Heeeey we have the same name

Austin club :P great name til you’re trying to sign something and it looks awful (at least for me I can’t do my signature for shit)

Anonymous said: the collab with bop is so boring and dull it’s drier than a cracker it’s a no from me

well not everything is going to be someones cup of tea lmao I’m sure there is someone that enjoys it which counters you’re negative view <3

Anonymous said: Hi I love your cc! I have almost all of it in my game and I love your tropical punch palette so much I was wondering if you would ever consider releasing the palette.

If I ever make an ombre accessory tutorial video I will release a set of actions for the palette. If you wanna use the palette feel free to grab the hex codes from S4S.

Anonymous said: How did you become a ea game changer? Was it through Tumblr or youtube?

About a year ago SimGuruKate was the community manager and had applications for Tumblr Game Changers, I applied and got accepted. Follow SimGuruFrost on Twitter to stay up to date on when new applications are open.

Anonymous said: Are you going to upload the hair you made on your livestream? I literally love your work and am a Patreon subscriber!!!

Hey! The hair will be in my October voting (I think) and if it wins, release will be November. If it doesn’t win I will put it in November voting and so forth til it wins. Also thank you for watching the stream and supporting me on Patreon 

Anonymous said: hello!! i just wanted to see if knew is there’s anyway i can save my cc and save files somehow where i can download them again if my computer breaks so i don’t have to download it all again.?

zip your Sims 4 folder and upload it to Google Drive/SimsFileShare/OneDrive. Then when you install Sims 4 again you just replace the folder made in Electronic Arts in your Documents.

Anonymous said: what face do you make when your in love with a bee?

this is an old anon so I doubt they’re gonna check for this, and I can’t find the joke on Google so.... anybody know it?

Anonymous said: i love these collab sets they are honestly gifts from above

mhmm gifts from above for every collab except those in October... those are from below  👹 😳

Anonymous said: the pack is sooooo cute i love everything omg!!!! The male stuff is so adorable i can’t wait to download   

Anonymous said: you guys are the only ones i go to for packs i would love to see build buy items in the future we don’t get a lot mm stuff like that

Anonymous said:i just want to say thank you for putting in so much time and hard work and dedication to creating cc for us. i hope there's never a moment when you feel unappreciated, and i want you to know we all love you!

@primadonnaliferiseandfall​ said: all hail you and ayoshi for the cc pack its so pretty omg!!!!

Anonymous said: omg the kings have delivered!!

Anonymous said: since we got axa 2019 and 2018 will there be an axa 2020? 👀

Anonymous said: Great job on the pack! Everyone's items look gorgeous! Thank you for making this, you talented human being.

Anonymous said: ilysm! that’s all 💓💫

Anonymous said: just wanted to let you know that your content is absolutely amazing and i love it all :) sending love from the uk👍

Anonymous said: would you and ayoshi consider sharing the psds for some of the stuff in your collab? please?

thank you guys so much! Me and Ayoshi were super super happy with the AxA 2019 release and we are so happy with how many people have liked it. AxA 2020 will be a thing, yes. Also I have been working on PSDs that are super easy to navigate. I will get those up soon hopefully.

@graphicpickles​ said: Hey um, I dont know if you were aware of this but your discord link is broken ^^"

hey! this is super late sorry, discord link should be working now. If not: https://discord.gg/CtQR9tb

Anonymous said: Why would you include a cc hair in a preview for a cas review

because I liked the hair and wanted to use it 😗

@goddesssimmerina​ said: I just stopped by to tell you how much I LOVE your content. *_* I just went through and downloaded soooo much! xD I actually just switched to using MM hair and i'm so glad I did because I'm finding so many of you amazing creators and I thank you all sm! :*

awe thank you!! I appreciate it. Welcome to MM hair world :P

@moonbrightsims said: whats ur origin id?

AHarris00Britney

Anonymous said: how are your photos/screenshots so high quality? seriously, do you use a mod for it or idk editing? or maybe your settings?

Ultra Settings, and I use SRWE for HQ pics. 

Anonymous said: if you don’t answer this ask you’re straight

It has been answered. I am no longer straight. Was a hard two months not answering this 😔😔😔

Anonymous said: Hi, would you mind teaching us how you make the LoDs of your hairs? I opened one of them in S4S and found out your LoDs are great looking. I use decimate tool in blender and they look really bad.

I edge split everything before I decimate in Blender, I also delete the hairline and extrude the mesh inside the head before decimating as well. Really confusing to explain in words sorry. Might make a tutorial.

Anonymous said: omg ur cc finds blog has apink namjoo as icon and header. i'm.. sCREAMING. austin knows royalty

yes ma’am now where is the comeback

- it was at this point I realized I have caught up with my last asks post and have answered 4 things over again from Asks 15. Well... I guess that’s it folks

see yall in asks 17 in 2 months.... maybe the end of October idk

[plantfeed]

ROOM #O3 — lockdown.

location: escalus house, room three. characters: valentine, christian, theresa, cal. time: just after the lockdown. tensions: high.

               ok so this didn’t develop as much as we wanted it to bcos it was hard to find a time when everyone was able to be on and responding at once. but here’s what we have of our lockdown discord thread for room three ( theresa, valentine, christian & cal ).

THERESA.

03.02. still in her ballgown, theresa's pacing the floor. in one hand is a half-drunk bottle of wine. in the other is her phone, into which she's ringing  ( to no avail ) every other minute. "my god. you think someone would fucking answer." though the state of the others is hardly of the deepest concern. they've got their own troubles here to be worrying about. every so often her eyes scan to valentine and it feels like swallowing glass. how could christian be so stupid? after everything she'd done. and yet.... and yet. lo, the course of love never did run smooth. but this isn't love. this is something far uglier. "i don't like this situation any more than the three of you. but somehow we've got to fucking deal with it so let's at least try to be civil."

VALENTINE.

03.03. she sits on the couch in the living room in her pajamas, forever grateful that she started leaving a pair in christian's room for emergencies. it would have been even more uncomfortable for everyone involved if she had been forced to wear something that was obviously christian's. in this moment, she feels bad for theresa, not because they're all in this situation, but because she's the only one who doesn't have the full story as to what's going on here. there's another layer in all of this, and the reminder of the secret the three of them are holding makes her swallow the spit that's collecting in her mouth. "i promise, i won't be a hassle, i can just sit in christian's room until this is all over and then i'll go back to my place the moment it's done."

CHRISTIAN.

03.03. christian can't stop shaking his leg. he's on the couch next to valentine, arm around her shoulders and the rest of him almost vibrating with nervous energy. his unoccupied hand is keeping his phone open, texting and hoping for some update that will give clarity to the situation. a lockdown? here, with valentine, her ex, and tess, aka the reason the rest of them can't speak freely. not that christian thinks they really would-- come to think of it, they've never all talked outright about what happened. or about what's still happening. "don't be silly, we can all be out here together," he tries to assure valentine, keeping his voice as casual as he can, but it takes on a bitter edge when his gaze lands on cal. "i've got no problem being civil. as long as everyone else is."

CAL.

03.04. cal’s eyes remain trained on his phone, hoping for a text from georgina or any news about the attacker. but more importantly, trying to avoid having to look in either valentine’s or christian’s direction. this lockdown situation seeming to be his own personal hell. their odd love-triangle was one thing, but the secret that bound them all together was another. he figured it’d be easier to just retreat back to his room, but there was something oddly comforting and enjoyable about the tension in the room, which was so thick you could cut it with a knife. he smirks as he hears christian’s words, clearly pointed at him. “don’t look at me. someone’s been attacked, and as far as i’m concerned, the last thing i’m worried about is starting a fight over the obvious elephant in the room.”

THERESA.

03.05. despite her nature, despite everything she's ever tried to be, tess can't play the peacemaker when christian's actions have put them in such jeopardy. "he's right," she starts, a hand lifting to clamp against cal's shoulder  ; a united front against the adulterous oppressors. or perhaps a lack of love has made her cynical. "the three of us live here. your actions affect everyone. and we will discuss this tomorrow." her eyes scan towards valentine, and they're neither unfriendly nor warm. this is a woman who makes both cal and christian happy. this is a woman for whom boys would move the earth. and it stings that christian thinks he's found a love worth fighting for when all he's found is a well-dressed pretender versed in the art of stage. "but there are wider issues at play than this." in the back of her head she's aching to ring kit, for if it is lysander, then kit will be the first to know. her mouth tastes acidic as she dances between the two opposing camps. "and a house divided cannot stand."

VALENTINE.

03.06 she smiles politely at theresa’s words (however odd they may be), trying her hardest to ignore the implications of the girl’s gaze. it wasn’t her fault that she was in this position, it really wasn’t, but she had no way of explaining that to her. it was cal’s fault for losing his temper, christian’s fault for trying to take things into his own hands. she wouldn’t have involved christian if it hadn’t been necessary, and then none of them would be in this situation. but alas, life had to be difficult, and now she was stuck in an apartment with one person who didn’t like her, and two people who loved her and she wasn’t sure which was worse. “i reached out to kit,” she says, trying to change the subject. “i’ll let you all know if he replies.”

THERESA.

03.07. when her eyes meet valentine's there's the sting of something sharp beneath her skin — a mosquito bite. where has the girl who was raised by interseztional feminists gone, a girl who grew up vowing never to pit herself against another woman — to take a woman's side in every fight, no matter what. but this feels different. christian feels different. he's the one constant she's had who's never strayed from her side when the others thought her unhinged, and every time valentine's left him — spleen and liver on the asphalt — tess is the one who piece by grizzly pieces has had to tack and stitch him back together. so forgive her if there isn't any warmth when she meets valentine's eyes. "kit's fine, for now" tess responds defensively, for his name in val's mouth sounds wrong. she wants to reach in between her teeth and drag that name out, keep it safe in her own throat — but of course he's not her to shelter. and perhaps neither is christian. "he walked me back so i know he's at home. but if lysander follows him..." she thinks of the room across the hall and the three of them — kit, lysander and roman — locked in a duel that only blood will satisfy. "if lysander follows him we'll know before he does. we'll hear him on the stairs."

CHRISTIAN.

3.08 christian's eyes narrow slightly at tess, not just her words but the way she looks at valentine as though she's some kind of unwelcome parasite in their home. but then, tess hasn't been quiet about her thoughts on his relationship with valentine, ever since the very beginning. he knows it comes from a place of protectiveness, but right now, combined with cal's obnoxious energy, it's just setting him further on edge. but they're right about one thing: it's not what's really important right now. "has anyone heard from lysander at all? maybe he's still in police custody-- you know, from what happened earlier. with roman." christian's stomach twinges. now is not the time for his pity toward lysander to rear its head.

VALENTINE.

3.09 none of them would have heard from lysander, because he has no cell phone. valentine has his cell phone. it's locked in a box under her bed, in her apartment, where belinda is all alone with nothing stopping her from entering valentine's bedroom. fuck, this lockdown needed to be over quickly, or else she was done for. "i haven't heard anything," she says, pushing some hair out of her face. "i hate not knowing what's happening. what are we supposed to do? just....sit here and wait?"

CHRISTIAN.

3.10 christian sighs, looking back and forth between his various companions and wondering nervously how long they're all likely to be stuck here together. pointedly looking away from cal (reminding himself of cal's existence tends to be a surefire way of making sure christian is not relaxed, and right now, he really needs to be), he rises from his position on the couch and crosses into the kitchen area, opening a cupboard. from within it, he draws two bottles of deep red merlot, and a half-finished one of tequila imported straight from mexico. "i don't know about the rest of you, but if i'm staying here for god knows how long, i'd really like to be fucking drunk. anyone with me?"

THERESA.

3.44.  with the curtains shut, it's hard to keep track of the sun. it could have been hours... it could have been days. wine is ever the temptress, and tonight is no different. only this night she's drinking with christian, with cal, and with valentine — the cards, perchance, could have picked an easier fate — and somewhere in a tangle of limbs ( she can't remember whose ) tessa's dropped her phone and the only means of communication with anyone outside of these four walls. "i know, christian, but please can you look again," exasperated, she continues to pull up the sofa cushions to no avail.  two glasses later, she's forgot about the phone at all, bare feet trailing over cal's knee as she stretches catlike and swills her wine around her glass. "doesn't this feel like come dine with me?" she asks, rolling to her feet, her hands patting down the pockets of her dressing gown as she cracks the window. "you won, jane." her smile is muted, the kind that doesn't reach her eyes, something lighter about her, but at the same time more erratic. her movements are less controlled.(edited)

VALENTINE.

3.45. in hindsight, drinking with this group of people was probably not the best idea any of them had ever had, but when the question became whether she'd rather be in this situation drunk or sober, the answer was clear and apparent, and became even more apparent the more she drank. for a moment, she can forget about the murder and the cheating and the lying and can just exist. she's sitting on the couch, keeping a semi-respectful distance from christian ( meaning that instead of lying her head down in his lap like she wants to do, she's sitting next to him, shoulders and knees touching and her gaze on him ) when she's brought back to the reality of the situation with tessa's words. "thank you for that stunning commentary," she muses, not a hint of sarcasm in her tone.

[itsclydebitches]

(1) Rawb has compassion that's for sure. Man the fact that for 6 years now he would make shows and stream on Christmas day, all because he had lonely fans who he knew needed that, is amazing to me. I just like seeing someone actually focusing on empowering the younger generation of creators and he as has 12 years of experience doing this so he's qualified for that. He' using his statues of influencer responsibly. Plus giving advice on how not to act like his like his toxic younger self.

It’s definitely a challenging question to answer. Not simply because “How do we get students interested in material?” is pretty much THE concern of every teacher out there, whether it’s because they’re truly passionate about their subject and want to create as much engagement as possible, or because they’re practical and want to fill as many seats as possible, keeping their departments funded and their salary paid. It amounts to the same. More than just the acknowledgement of, “This is an ongoing question everyone is struggling with as technology/interests change” we need to remember that most teachers don’t have nearly as much control over their material as many students assume. Not unless they work at an open-minded university, have tenure as a safety net, have the leeway to teach things outside of GE requirements, have the funding and access to certain resources, etc. If, for example, I decide I want to teach my students video games it’s not enough to just get my syllabus approved by the department---a potential hurdle in and of itself, depending on where you teach. Students need to access primary texts, which in this case is much harder to achieve than just telling them to buy books (and we all know that the cost of “just” buying books is an ongoing problem as well). Does this student own an XBox, Wii, Nintendo, etc? Can’t exactly ask them to buy one for a single class. Does the school have video game platforms as a resource? Perhaps so, but it’s a hassle for the student to come to campus, get permission to access this resource, sit in a public space, and play the very limited number of games the school has on file for an amount of time that allows for even halfway decent analysis. That’s not really conducive to a good experience. Or learning. So then how about we limit the games to laptops? Everyone has a laptop nowadays. Well, not actually, but let’s take a gamble and hope. Can we play this game? Nope. It’s PC only and plenty of people own Macs. So we’ll limit the corpus further. How about this game? Great... but it also costs $40. Will the school give me money to pay for the primary texts myself? No they will not. So that’s not a great investment when you need to assign 6-10 games across the course of the semester. The students would be dropping a small fortune and none too pleased about it. 

All of which is the precise sort of thinking I had to do, weeks before the class was held with very little idea of what was available to me and no idea who would be in my class/what resources they had access to/what they were willing to acquire.To say nothing of the hundred other questions like, “Is it worth engaging with this game for a week when it’s meant to be played for 200 hours?” Or “Is a media-heavy class truly accessible?” (I had to completely re-work one visually-heavy class when I learned a week before the class started that one student was blind.) Or “Does limiting the syllabus in this way even result in a satisfying, educational experience?” A lot of the feedback I received was akin to, “Hey, why did we play this game instead of this one way more representative of the genre we were discussing?” and the answers kept coming back to, “Because this game exists on dual platforms, was $50 cheaper, and had chaptered gameplay I could easily assign. I can’t just tell you all to play for an hour because then everyone will have had a wildly different experience, especially when considering skill level. There has to be set division akin to assigning page length because that’s how school functions.” Obviously incorporating media interests isn’t always this complicated, but it does help demonstrate why seemingly simple questions like, “Why don’t more teachers include video games? People love them and it would get everyone engaged!” aren’t actually simple at all. It does get people engaged... if you can pull it off. 

Regarding incorporating other aspects, I (like many) usually fall back on creative projects. I haven’t exactly figured out a fun way to teach MLA citations yet because some information just needs to be presented without complications, but other assignments can come with more freedom. Try re-writing this story as a series of tweets. We’re talking linguistics this week, so go analyze the specifics of Discord conversations. I was just speaking to a colleague about how fandom praises AO3′s tagging system and bemoans the fact that this doesn’t exist for mainstream fiction. We were working through the potential usefulness (and fun) of asking students to tag whatever it is they’re reading in class, encouraging formal categorization as well as free-form reflections. Ultimately though, a group of 24 students are far more likely to come up with cool ways of engaging on their own if they’re given the freedom to explore and the courage to do so. I prefer to keep things broad then, knowing that with a bit of encouragement students will find a way to connect that broad topic back to their own interests. Many students do, for example, find the topic of gender incredibly boring, if not stupid or even something they’re really resistant to... but a lot of them are athletes and, with a little nudge, start questioning why the pro they look up to isn’t paid as much as another, or why this particular sport is still segregated by sex when their own experiences suggest it shouldn’t be. Suddenly they’re giving presentations about something they’re passionate about---that also fits the assignment requirements---and talking about their pro’s latest Instagram post---that’s also now cited properly. It’s about finding a balance. Some information/classes will always just be boring. It’s inevitable, especially when one considers the basic fact that what’s fascinating to one person is going to be dull as hell to another. But to my mind the more instructors who are at least taking small steps to implement the things their students are engaged with outside the classroom (What if I encourage them to take pictures of the PowerPoint and google new terms instead of just banning phones?) and the more students who have guided freedom in the classroom (What if I acknowledge that academic writing conventions can be very limiting, so let’s compromise by you learning the rules for future use but I also encourage you to break those rules here if you have good reason?) the better. 

[artificialqueens]

you and i– we’re defying gravity ch. 4 (scyvie) - amelieee

a/n:

h a h. it’s been a week, i’m so sorry for this late submission! i’ve been busy with school so from now on, the updates will be inconsistent!

special thanks to the scyvie discord for supporting me and my friend althea for betaing!

follow me @and-oddly-enough and reblogs + likes are appreciated!

word count: 8.2k

Last chapter: Brooke and Vanjie finally get together while Yvie realizes something important.

This chapter: Scarlet and Yvie share secrets, they finally become closer friends, and something goes down during Miss West’s class.

By the end of the party, despite their immense exhaustion from dancing endlessly, Yvie and Scarlet walked back to their dorm arm in arm with a jovial expression on their faces. If any student would witness this, they would think they were hallucinating since Yvie and Scarlet would never be seen enjoying each other’s company. But here they were, defying what everyone thinks as their friendship improves tenfold.

In front of Yvie, there Scarlet was: laughing and chatting with her comfortably. Yvie was so used to the cold and the hotheaded Scarlet that refused to touch her; it was quite overwhelming that Scarlet’s demeanor changed all of a sudden. Yvie knew that their acquaintanceship was eventually going to develop into something more—but she didn’t expect for it to happen so quickly. Despite how unfamiliar Yvie was with this certain kind of Scarlet, she thinks that… maybe she preferred this type of Scarlet.

This was the Scarlet Ra’jah, Shuga, and Vanjie talked about. To Yvie, she  thought their stories were merely fictional since Yvie never saw anything from Scarlet that would suggest their stories were true. She would always be some snobby, childish person who would find unique ways to insult Yvie at every chance she had. But her friends would always defend her, even if they agreed Scarlet was delusional to some degree. They say she is very friendly and open, always outgoing and able to make a conversation flow smoothly. They say she is charming and empathetic, always understanding how her friends’ feel so she can help give them the best advice possible. 

And now, she can somewhat see it.

“It’s— it’s a wand, Yvie, it’s not just, like, ‘no big deal’. It’s a fucking wand!” Scarlet says enthusiastically but Yvie shrugs. “How did Madame Visage even get a hand of it in such short notice? Does someone like, ship them out or does she—“

“She makes wands,” Yvie states, “I asked her to make one for you. The gem was an extra touch that turned out to look great,” Yvie said and Scarlet pouts at her. She still seems overly guilty that she received such an extravagant present from Yvie despite Yvie telling her that all was well.

“I have to make it up to you somehow— would you want, uhm, a free ticket to a musical? Or— or maybe we can go on a vacation trip together with the rest of the group—“

“Scar, it’s really fine! Don’t overthink it.”

“Yea but I can’t help it,” Scarlet says in a more serious tone, “I was—“ Scarlet gulps nervously, “I was rude to you. Actually, no, not just rude, I was deadbeat cruel. Like I— uhm,” Scarlet genuinely looked troubled as she tried to come up with what she wants to say. Yvie understands what message she was trying to conceive though. It was nice to finally have the opportunity for the both of them to come clean to one another, since they’ve been avoiding this for so long. 

“I think we should talk about this inside,” Yvie says as she jingles the key to their suite in between her fingers. Scarlet smiles as she lets Yvie run ahead to open the door to their place before Scarlet gets there. It was only a few steps away so it didn’t present much of a hassle. Yvie unlocks their suite easily and waits for Scarlet to arrive before they both proceed inside.

Immediately, Scarlet flops unto her bed. After the dance, Scarlet seemed to let herself be more loose than she was before. Again, Yvie admired this different side to Scarlet and wished to see it more, especially in public.

“I’m beat. But then again, the dance was so fun, so I guess I’m more satisfied about today than beat.” Scarlet says as she unsleeved the top of her catsuit, uncovering beads of sweat under the fabric. Yvie whistled as she realized how hot Scarlet’s outfit was, both in an attractive and heated sense. “Fuck this, you don’t mind if I take the top off for a while, right? I mean, you’ve seen me like this before,” Scarlet says as she slightly shimmies herself out of the top half of the catsuit, leaving her bra exposed to Yvie. Yvie, still not used to how fucking attracted she was to Scarlet, flusters intensely but manages to hide and mask it since Scarlet was too fixated on staring at their ceiling.

“I’m cool with it, don’t worry.” Yvie says as she takes her hat off and places it on one of the shelves she had above her bed. “But yea, the dance was fun. Except for the part where everyone stared at me but—it was fun.” Yvie says as she sits down on her bed while facing the exhausted redhead.

“Oh Oz, I don’t know why people stared at you like that. I mean, you just… walked in?” Scarlet says as she pushes herself up, “It was my fault, isn’t it? I— Yvie, can I confess something?” Scarlet asks and Yvie nods slowly, curious to what she has to say. 

In the process of discovering Scarlet’s new side, Yvie did notice one other thing. Genuinely, Scarlet seemed regretful for what she has done to Yvie for the past month. She appeared more vulnerable to Yvie which was something admirable coming from a person who Yvie thought was childish enough to never change her opinions on certain people.

“Let’s have a talk, okay? I want to have a talk— we need to settle things straight,” Scarlet says as she heaves herself up from the bed, sitting cross-legged on the sheets. Yvie hums as a reply as she adjusts her sitting position as well. “Y’know… I— who am I kidding— I’m sorry. For— for everything that I’ve done for the past month.” Scarlet says but her eyes were distracted, avoiding Yvie’s gaze. “I know I acted… really, really badly to you for a month and I know you probably won’t forgive me—“

“Of course I wou—“

“And��hold on, sorry, I’ll let everything out of my chest first—I promise to make up to you. Whatever you need. I just can’t believe that… that despite my terrible attitude, you still handled me well.”

Yvie purses her lips as she watch Scarlet at her most vulnerable, still unable to look at Yvie directly. Scarlet’s eyebrows were constantly furrowing as she kept looking at different things, the corners of her lips tilted downwards. Yvie reaches out and places her palm directly on top of Scarlet’s knee and in response, Scarlet looks up at Yvie with an expression mixed with sorrow and surprise. Yvie’s heart beats quickly as she and Scarlet exchange a long gaze— why did Scarlet have to be so damn admirable?

“H-hey, it’s fine.” Yvie says, managing to keep her composure, “To be fair, I insulted you a lot as well.”

“Yea but I told my— my followers about you. I don’t think I can ever take that  back without— without—“ Scarlet stops herself abruptly as she began fiddling with her bedsheets. “Nevermind I—“

“You can, uhm, say it. To me.” Yvie says in a means to sound comforting but Scarlet still remains reluctant, “Of course, if you don’t want, that’s fine—“

“I’m scared of what my followers would think of me if I tell them about you!” she exclaims, hands clenching her bedsheets as she does so. Scarlet still maintained her averted gaze as she winced, looking like she regrets what she just confessed. “Oh shit, wait, no, I didn’t mean to—“

“I think I get you,” Yvie interrupts her, making sure that Scarlet knew that she could trust Yvie wholeheartedly. Even if Scarlet was great when the subject at hand were the issues of other people, Scarlet wasn’t exactly eloquent when expressing her own struggles. But Yvie understands it, at least, since she has seen this issue occur in front of her own eyes. 

It was somewhere around two weeks ago when she saw discomfort in Scarlet’s eyes; as the attention she was getting seemed to get to her. There was constant flinching and reluctance that day that Yvie couldn’t help but feel a little bit of pity towards Scarlet, even if they didn’t get along by that time. From that day on, Yvie notices that indeed, Scarlet has built a façade that shielded her queerness from others in the hopes that she may receive more validation. There were some times where Scarlet slips up and accidentally says something that possibly displeased others. Yvie would notice a pulsating panic that Scarlet would try to contain. 

When Yvie started to grow closed to Scarlet’s small group of friends, this is when she really figured out what the issue was. Shuga spilled all of it to her and Yvie didn’t know she had a sympathetic heart up until that point. That’s when her bickering with Scarlet lessened— just because Yvie started to respect Scarlet as an individual rather than keep grinding her gears. Scarlet noticed the change and began growing with it, even if sometimes, a bit of rudeness could come out of her. 

And Yvie understands her entirely— oddballs always understand other oddballs. Scarlet would never admit she was a weirdo, but Yvie could sense it from her. With this, it was easy for Yvie to empathize with Scarlet, even if Scarlet’s hesitance never wavered.

“You don’t have to do that for me. These little chats at midnight is enough for me,” Yvie says with a smile, hoping her sharp teeth won’t translate  as something mischievous. “But does that mean I’m part of your little clique?”

Scarlet chuckles, “I think so, we just couldn’t seem to get rid of you.” Scarlet says and Yvie laughs dorkily, “But thanks gremlin, you don’t know how much this means to me.”

“Aw, I gave you a wand and now you’re all soft, how cute,” Yvie says and Scarlet blushes while laughing softly. 

“Hey— no! The wand just made me realize how much of a fucked up friend I am to you.”

“I guess the lesson for today is to give wands to people before they begin ruining your reputation.”

Scarlet pouts, “Hey, don’t joke about that,” Scarlet says with an awkward chuckle, “I said I was sorry and I really, hundred percent, swear to the Unnamed God, that I will make it up to you and I promise that I will be your true friend from now on, sounds good?”

“Hm, let’s do something then.” Yvie says and Scarlet quirks an eyebrow at her, “Share me a secret, I’ll tell you one back, and we promise not to tell anybody. And you have to go first since it’ll prove if you’re being honest,”

“What are we, some fucking grade-schoolers having a sleepover?”

“We both bicker like we’re children so yeah, sure, you can think of it like that,” Yvie remarks and Scarlet rolls her eyes jokingly as she huffs. 

“Fine, you’ve a point.” Scarlet says. Then, she begins to purse her lips as she ponders what she could confess to Yvie. It took a bit of humming and finger tapping until Scarlet found something to say, “Uhm, I, well, I’m getting to Ra’jah after we graduate…?” she says with a begrudging smile but Yvie slaps her knee softly, her eyes narrowing.

“That’s not a secret,” Yvie says grumpily, wishing to hear more than that. Scarlet childishly whines at her for that and began pondering about her “secret” even more. To motivate her, Yvie says, “I’ll tell you the secrets of the black vial—“ Yvie gestures to the black bottle next to the picture frame on her bedside table, “—and how I became like this if you tell me something about yourself,”

Scarlet’s eyes widen in curiosity, “I… Yvie, you’ve got some tough balls,” Scarlet says and Yvie shrugs with a half-smile, “What if I say… I were an oddball. Just like you. Is that… something?”

“I kinda sensed that from you.”

“Okay, I guess I’ll expound on that idea.” Scarlet says, her chipper tone decreasing, “Is it too bad for me to say that I’m sca—scared of criticism?” Scarlet says, her voice betraying her for a second. Her eyes wander off again as she began rambling, “I told this to the others but sometimes, I feel like my life depends on the validation from others. Especially from my followers,”

“Followers? More like assholes who think they own you,” Yvie remarks bitterly. Scarlet bites the inside of her cheek a bit as she shrugs, fearful to admit that her fans were awfully toxic.

“I can’t help it, Yves. I mean, I was pretty weird before I did all the theatre stuff and those were… dark times for me. No one really got me besides, y’know, Ra’jah and Shuga, but that’s about it. Gillikins are entitled assholes who just really like to judge whenever something’s different.” Scarlet gives an awkward laugh and Yvie agrees wordlessly, “I hid a lot, back then, and maybe still a bit now. I’m scared to hear that I’m terrible or disgusting just because I’m a little bit different. Kinda jealous of you though, since you kinda made it your brand without giving a fuck of what others think.”

“When you look like this for 18 years, you get used to it,” Yvie says, “What are you gonna do about them?”

“I… don’t know.” Scarlet says, “I’m scared of… what they’ll say. What they’ll spread.” Scarlet begins to shift her legs so she can hug them.

“But you do want to escape them, right?”

“Uhm, yea, something like that. I’m trying my best to let their words not affect me,” Scarlet says nervously, then shakes her head and waves her hand, “Enough about that though, that’s something to deal with for another day,” Scarlet says and brings back her wide smile. Yvie is almost startled by it since obviously, she’d love to help Scarlet tackle the issue at hand, but she was in no position to ask Scarlet to continue talking about something she’s uncomfortable with. Maybe if they got closer, Yvie could possibly, gradually, get her out of that toxic fanbase. “I think we made a promise?” Scarlet asks, really curious on what the black vial really entails.

“I guess… I guess you deserve to know.” Yvie says as she reaches for the black vial, thumbing its intricate design that was carved on the glass. It was sometime since she’s held it and it reminds her of the first time Nanny gave it to her. Nanny was a friend of her father’s who acted more of a parental figure to Brooke and Yvie than an aunt. Inside the black vial was some kind of… liquid that Yvie hasn’t identified yet. She was curious to what it was as a child and almost drank it until Nanny stopped her to. Yvie deduces that this could either be some alcoholic substance or perfume, she doesn’t know. All she knows is that her mom was attached to the vial and was something important to her. 

“Is it perfume?” asks Scarlet, narrowing her eyes as she watches the black liquid slosh inside the bottle, “Looks like oil. Like, the bad kind.”

“Uhm, I don’t know either. It’s from my mom so I decided to just keep it,” Yvie says as she lends the vial to Scarlet for her to observe, “I think it has something to do with how I look but it’s just a theory.”

“When I visited, I don’t recall seeing your mother,” Scarlet says, “I don’t know if it’s impolite but do you…?”

“No, she’s dead.” Yvie says with a hint of guilt. Yvie and her mom had somewhat of a relationship, something better than her relationship with her father, at least. She remembers that her mom was really the one who was comfortable touching Yvie like a normal child, and was the one who convinced her father that Yvie was as normal as any other baby. But Yvie remembers her reluctance at times— her mom would be frantic and disoriented sometimes, always looking like she had something to be stressed about. Yvie couldn’t really understand her mom thoroughly but she was thankful she acted the way she did— at least it was better than her father’s attitude.

“It was kinda my fault she died,” Yvie says and Scarlet looked up from the bottle in surprise.

“I don’t think it would be that bad.”

“Well, even if it wouldn’t be the case, I still made her life a living hell. If you had me as a baby, I think you would give up on me immediately,” 

Scarlet stops to visualize a baby Yvie, “That… were you born like—“ Scarlet gestures to Yvie, “Like this?”

“Yep, sadly. It caused my father to be super paranoid— like, they tried to get another baby so that the town would stop talking about me. My father would literally feed my mom milkflowers so their baby would be quote unquote “pure”.”

“That’s Brooke, right?”

“Mhm, it was Brooke. But y’know what happened. Her legs got all tangled. And when my mom gave birth to her, she died. So yea, it’s really my fault that all these tragedies happened.”

“But it wasn’t your fault you ended up this way—“

“I know but— who else is there to blame? I was literally a baby born with shark teeth who couldn’t be breast-fed because thought I would bite my mom’s nipple off. And— and growing up, I still acted like a terrible fucking person.” Yvie rambles and Scarlet’s face slightly scrunches up in concern. “And sometimes, on my bad days, if I’m outed for looking spooky, I usually feel horrible after it. Worse situation include Brooke looking embarrassed when I do something remotely weird. I just… hate it. I just hate this—“ Yvie says as she points to her face and hair, hoping Scarlet would understand her messy rambling.

“Don’t say that,” Scarlet says as she hops off her bed to approach Yvie. “You’re actually really gorgeous, it’s just that you don’t maintain it well,” Scarlet says as she begins removing the multiple pins and ponytails Yvie was using for her hair. Yvie freezes, flustering as Scarlet ran her hands through Yvie’s hair. “I can help you out—“

“Scarlet, I don’t really need that—“

“Your hair’s already down, let me do something about it,” Scarlet climbs on Yvie’s bed and kneels behind her. Yvie awkwardly purses her lips as Scarlet started to finger-comb Yvie’s dreadful hair, hoping she could smooth it out. “Dreads have a good look on you, ever tried ‘em?”

“Yea, but my father didn’t like them so I tried bringing my hair back to the way it was. Didn’t really work out that well.” Yvie replies as Scarlet painfully untangles multiple knots. “I know my hair’s a fucking mess but please be gentle to it—“ 

“Oh, of course, sorry,” Scarlet says as she grabs the ponytails again, “Have you ever tried using one bun? I think one bun will suit you a lot. I’d also recommend to keep your hair straight but it might take a month for it too entirely smoothen so… bun it is.” Scarlet says as she began tugging Yvie’s hair, curling it so it will form a bun on the center of her scalp. Scarlet also lets some stray strands of hair flow on the sides of her face to give it a fashionable look. After multiple trials of getting Yvie’s uncooperative hair to stick together, Scarlet finally manages to pull off the bun with eight pins and three ponytails.

“Perfect, this is perfect! Holy shit, Yves,” Scarlet says, astounded by her own work. Yvie doesn’t really know what she’s done until she looks at the mirror to her left. Yvie was hoping for the worst until she actually sees what Scarlet’s done— then she gasps. Her hair finally looked… likeable. The bun, even if it was humongous, made Yvie look cleaner and more pleasing. 

“Holy shit indeed,” Yvie replies, still stunned by how she looked, “What in the fuck, you are an actual sorcerer, what kind of magic did you use on my horrid hair?” Yvie asks and Scarlet giggles and shrugs.

“I combed your hair with my fingers. I don’t think you’ve ever heard what “combing” is,” Scarlet remarks and Yvie couldn’t really retort because she rarely ever combs. Additionally, her mouth was still agape as she tried to grasp wonderful her hair looked. 

“Y’know, I perhaps might be in the mood for a full blown transformation,” Scarlet adds and Yvie blinks, “Let me get my makeup— I think I can do something with that face of yours.”

“Wait— no, Scarlet, you already did my makeup before—“

“Shh, I wanna try some things out—“ Scarlet jumps off the bed excitedly as she rummages through her things to find her makeup collection. Most of the makeup she owns isn’t really used because Scarlet, believe it or not, simply does light makeup using the same five products over and over again. Yvie, on the other hand, doesn’t really wear makeup unless it’s a special occasion, like that dance party a while ago. Scarlet used some black lipstick and eyeshadow on her but it was not too heavy since Yvie refused to let Scarlet be late for her own party.

“Scarlet, it’s midnight, I’m gonna wash it off anyways—“

“I’m just practicing so you can be able to pull off a grand look tomorrow morning—“

“When did I agree to that? Scarlet don’t be—“ Yvie was interrupted by Scarlet pulling her and directing her to the chair in front of the vanity. Yvie couldn’t do much but allow Scarlet to have her fun because she sometimes forgets how her infatuation for her just lets Scarlet do whatever she wants. 

“Trust me— you trust me right, Yves?” Scarlet says as she sorts out her brushes and palettes.

Yvie gulps, “S-sure, I guess?”

“Okay then, lemme try something,” Scarlet begins to work soundlessly as Yvie closes her eyes. Scarlet worked softly, making sure she wouldn’t bruise Yvie’s face when she dabs her brush unto her cheeks and eyelids. Yvie doesn’t know what she’s applying but she does take a note off how much time Scarlet’s spending her time on her eyelids. She could also feel some light touches to the rest of her face and her neck.

“Last time I checked, I’m not Trixie Mattel, so don’t put too much makeup,” Yvie comments and Scarlet laughs.

“Yea, okay, but I promise just—“ she feels a brush lightly swipe on her cheeks, “—and done. Open your eyes,” Scarlet says with a hint of giddiness to her tone. Yvie opens her eyes and blinks a little, some of the power accidentally slipping into her lashes. When she gets them all out, though, she is able to see herself in the mirror.

Yvie looks unrecognizable. Besides the pupil-less eyeballs and the jagged streaks under on her eyebags, Yvie can tell that Scarlet did a good job on her makeup. Everything matched Yvie’s brand— the black pigment, the glossy, dark lipstick on her lips, and the little details of white to match her hair. 

Yvie sighs in marvel, “Wow,” she says, looking closer at herself in the mirror to check if she wasn’t hallucinating, “That’s amazing, Scar.”

“Oh, I know.” Scarlet replies pridefully, “But we have to get to the last step.” Scarlet says and Yvie groans, wondering what else could be added. Yvie already looked splendid but Scarlet thought it’d be a great idea to whip out her wand for— for something Yvie is unsure of.

“What else would you want to add?” Yvie asks, trying to keep her patience high. Yvie lays her left elbow on the vanity as she waits for Scarlet to explain what kind of unrealistic plan she had in mind.

“Your outfit. Your outfit could be a bit… better. Not that it isn’t good but I wanna make it have more… pizazz.” Scarlet says and Yvie doesn’t quite understand what she meant or why she’s using the wand to do all the work. Scarlet was too inexperienced to know how a wand functions yet she tries to use it anyways— Yvie thinks that despite how likeable she is, Scarlet was still a huge dumbass.

“You don’t know how wands work.” Yvie states the obvious but Scarlet shushes her as she moves her wand around. “Scarlet, wands are for sorcery, not fashion,”

“Hey, no, I’ve seen people in Emerald City use wands to design. And if they can do it, how hard could it be?” Scarlet says as she waves the wand around, hoping to stir some magic from the wand. 

“And if this goes horribly?”

“I’m sure you can help me out if it does.”

“No, as in, if the uni explodes? Doesn’t that mean Madame Visage is going to, y’know, get the wand back?” Yvie says and Scarlet suddenly lowers her wand in conflict, not wanting to risk messing up her spell. She grumbles as she gives in to not using the wand, going back to return it to its case. “Aw, don’t be all grumpy, I’ll let you design my dress if you at least attend one month’s worth of sorcery classes.”

Scarlet at least smiles at that, “I think I can work with that.” Then, out of nowhere, Scarlet seems to gain an idea. Rushing to open her drawer full of accessories, Scarlet rummages through her collection. Eventually, she grabs something from way deep in the drawer and holds it up triumphantly. Yvie gazes at what Scarlet had to offer— it was a black, rose clip the size of her palm. Despite not using a lot of floral patterns in her aesthetic, the black rose was something that Yvie thought was passable enough for herself to wear.

“Would you want to wear this tomorrow?” Scarlet asks as she approaches Yvie with the clip, holding it up to clip on her hair. Scarlet had to tiptoe a bit to reach Yvie as Yvie flushes when she realizes Scarlet was so close to reaching her face. After a few adjustments, Scarlet manages to keep the rose on Yvie’s hair, then backs away to look if it suits Yvie. Yvie pokes at the accessory for a few until she turns to the mirror to check if the black rose looked good on her. 

“I… sure.” Yvie says, examining her outfit as a whole. Scarlet definitely was an expert on fashion and design, as Yvie revelled in on how breathtaking she looked overall. “Thank you, Scar.” Yvie says and Scarlet beams from the thanks. “But I’m going to take a shower now, if you don’t mind,”

“Of course I don’t but promise me that you’ll let me help you get ready in the morning?”

Yvie huffs, “Fine.”

//

The murmurs around the class were unmissable as Yvie entered. Yvie already has emerging second thoughts as she entered, thinking whether she can run back to her room and lock herself in there for a month.

“You look fine,” Scarlet whispers, walking in with her usual smile and poise. Yvie knows that despite her joyful stature, Scarlet was just as nervous as Yvie as she’s never walked in class with her arms locked with Yvie’s before. This morning, Scarlet promised Yvie that she will start trying her best to stop letting her fans brainwash her into doing things she disliked. It was hard for her to execute all this but Yvie was glad that Scarlet was putting an effort.

“Holy shit,” Yvie hears Ra’jah whisper from her seat, “You’ve been Scarlet-ified,” Ra’jah states and laughs as Yvie and Scarlet went up to her. “What did you do?” Ra’jah asked Scarlet, still eyeing Yvie in disbelief.

“I taught Yvie what a brush was,” Scarlet says jokingly as she leans on Ra’jah’s desk. Yvie snorts at her. 

“Rude,” Yvie comments, “I don’t know why my hair never cooperates when I brush it and when Scarlet does, it just works with her. I don’t get it– it’s like magic.”

“Looks like I was truly destined to be a sorcerer.” Scarlet says poshly as she places a dramatic hand on her chest.

“Or maybe just a hairstyler.” Ra’jah comments and Scarlet makes a face at her as Yvie merely laughs.

With a loud bang, their conversation ends abruptly as Miss West enters the room with a frightened expression. Panickedly, she runs to her desk as everyone returns to their seats swiftly. “Good morning class, uh, oh Oz, but we have very little time this morning–” Miss West speaks and Yvie’s eyebrow creases as she observes how shaky and fearful Miss West was. Miss West almost trips on her way to the desk but makes it there successfully, her hands gripping the desk like her life depended on it.

“I’m sorry, class but this– this is my last day at Shiz.” Miss West starts and everyone stares at her in disbelief. Even Scarlet looked bewildered. Both Yvie and Scarlet exchange concerned glances. “I am… no longer permitted to teach. I just wanna thank all of you for your enthusiasm, your essays, your–”

Miss West’s speech was interrupted by Madame Visage strutting in the classroom, looking highly distressed. Miss West looks at her with such a forlorn look that it pains Yvie to merely watch all of this occur right in front of her. “Oh, my, uhm, I’ve to go, dear students, but never stop speaking out and always know that–”

Some other unknown figures step in the room, all of them in black suits and sunglasses. Whoever they are, Yvie didn’t trust them. Their suits literally screamed danger and Yvie was skeptic about Miss West’s statement. This was not some normal firing of a certain professor; this was something more than that. 

Madame Visage looks apologetic as the group of men began grabbing Miss West from her position, forcefully dragging her out the classroom. Some students couldn’t watch such a horrid act in front of them and some who did watched in terror. Even Madame Visage looked like she had no control of the situation despite most likely being the culprit behind this.

“Remember that they are not telling you the whole story! Remember that, remember it–” Miss West was completely pulled out of the room as she was forced to stop speaking. Every student then began whispering at one another, confused to what they had just witnessed. Yvie was the most livid person in the room, tempted to chase Miss West to check out what was actually going on.

“I didn’t dress up nicely to fucking witness Miss West being fired. What the fuck?” Yvie whispers to Scarlet and Ra’jah who both nod. They both seemed concerned and just as confused as everyone else was, not sure of what to make of this situation. Yvie turns away from her friends to stare at Madame Visage, “Well, aren’t you going to do something rather than stand there?” Yvie demands loudly as Madame Visage simply stood, looking remorseful.

“I’m sorry, Miss Yvie, there’s nothing we could do,” she says, sounding just as mournful as the rest. Then, she turns to gaze at the door, looking like she was expecting someone to come through again. Yvie follows her stare and there, someone else enters. They looked exactly like the other men who grabbed Miss West away but the only difference they had was that he was clutching something in his hand. Whatever was inside couldn’t stop mewling as if there was some kind of creature inside the thing.

“Hello class,” The man says, his voice scruffy. Yvie immediately wants him out of the campus. “I will be your new history teacher but I’ll discuss it in a more… different approach.” The man expresses an evil smirk and Yvie can feel her hand begin to vibrate. She tries repressing her powers but they seep out more and more as she watches the creep take over their class. 

As Madame Visage slowly exits the room unnoticed, the new professor makes his way to the desk. “Anyways, class, now that your… savage professor is gone, let me introduce to you a little something to start of our class.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about but Miss West was not a savage,” Yvie says angrily as her new professor impolitely rolls his eyes back at her. 

“You students think you know everything, don’t you?” he retorts then pauses, trying to bring back a welcoming attitude. “Sorry, my bad, but back to our lesson at hand, I’m going to show you something… something interesting.”

“We don’t even know your name yet,” Yvie speaks again, ready to blast him into oblivion if he says anything more.

“I’ll get to it after the introduction, okay? Just be quiet,” he snarls. Yvie and Scarlet then look at each other again, both getting very irritated by the new professor. “Okay, students, but let me show you what I have under this tablecloth because I guarantee that you will be amazed—“ he says, dramatically lifting the black sheet to reveal what he has hidden inside.

Inside of the thing was a cage. Yvie immediately winces as she spots a lone Lion cub inside the cage, trembling immensely as he sees the crowd in front of him. “Come closer, students, he doesn’t bite.” the professor states as he beckons the students to gather around the cage. And of course, because of how stupid most of these students were, they decide to crowd the cage, not realizing how fearful the Lion cub looked. Even Ra’jah’s curiosity got the better of her, causing her to see what was going on as well. “See? This is what animals should all be like— illiterate and unable to speak.” he explains and Yvie has had enough of this creep.

“Scarlet,” Yvie says, “Scarlet, you promised that you’d do anything to make up for what you’ve done, right?”

“Uh, yes? Yvie, where are you going with this?”

“Grab the cage when everyone is pushed away. Got that?” Yvie says through gritted teeth as she begins to collect her powers. The aura around her darkens just like Scarlet’s dreadful expression. 

“Yvie, I know I said I would make up for everything but this—“

“Scarlet, please,” Yvie pleas with furrowed brows. Scarlet pauses, her lips thinning as she looks back and forth from the cage and to Yvie, “I can’t— I can’t hold it in anymore— just fucking run for it!” Yvie tells her through gritted teeth as she unleashes some kind of dark energy from her palms. This directly hits everyone in front of her, causing most of them to yelp as they begin floating. All of them panic as they lose control of their bodies, trying their best to lower even if all it did was make them spin mid-air. Scarlet, thankfully and obediently, ran for the cage with all the might her heels can deliver. She grabs the cage away from their deranged professor forcefully; Yvie has never seen Scarlet this courageous and powerful before.

“Yvie, I got the cub— where do we go?” Scarlet yells at her as she grasps Yvie’s wrist with her free hand. Yvie almost forgets how to speak when Scarlet pulled her out of the class but manages to focus before Scarlet could become more irritated with her.

“There’s a forest next to the campus, right? I heard it leads directly to an animal-centered village. We can, I dunno, let the cub free around that area—“

“I forget that you’re not much of a planner.” Scarlet murmurs, “But I guess that works. Go to the northern exit and we’ll get to it faster.” Scarlet instructs and Yvie follows, both of them running quickly towards the mentioned exit. 

With their running, they were able to make to the entrance to the forest in under ten minutes. There was a lot of professors and students they had to avoid but they managed to sneak past them thanks to Yvie utilizing her powers to create distractions. When they made it there, they weren’t so lucky with the weather. Above, grey clouds hovered, about to pour its rain in a few minutes. Both Yvie and Scarlet stopped to breathe for a moment, their running causing them to pant irregularly. Scarlet also noticed how the Lion cub kept squirming inside the cage either from fear or their need to escape. 

“I think it wants to—“ Scarlet pants again, “—to get out.” Scarlet finishes as she taps on the cage door. Yvie moves closer to Scarlet as she eyes the cage, trying to find out the state of the cub.

“Wanna try opening it a bit to check him out?” Yvie recommends and Scarlet pauses before she nods, holding the cage close to themselves. Scarlet twists the cage’s knob fearlessly, opening the door quite a bit. Immediately, the cub’s arm reaches out and scratches Scarlet’s hand, which makes her shut the door in panic. Fortunately, Scarlet’s intelligence pushed through and she managed to not drop the cage. She safely places the cage on the ground as she checks her newly forming wound.

“Shit,” Yvie murmurs, kneeling in front of Scarlet to see if the scratch looks awful, “Scarlet, you’re— you’re bleeding.” Yvie states as she analyzes the wound. The scratch wasn’t too intense— it only reached from the bottom of her index finger to her thumb. Because the cub was still pretty young, the claws weren’t as developed yet, hence the scratch wasn’t to deep. Unfortunately, it still bled, and it will definitely leave a scar once it heals.

“No shit,” Scarlet says, trying to stop herself from wincing. Yvie reaches for her pockets to find her handkerchief then dabs the cloth on Scarlet’s wound. They were silent as Yvie cleans up the wound. Though they look at peace, Yvie’s breathing intensified as if she didn’t stop running. Scarlet’s hand was in Yvie’s and their faces seemed too close to each other that Yvie couldn’t help but blush. Also, not to mention how they’re literally sitting on a field full of flowers. 

This situation screamed romantic in so many different levels.

“Is that okay?” Yvie eventually says as she wraps the handkerchief around Scarlet’s hand. Scarlet looked at impressed at the improvised bandage and nods. 

“Thanks, Yves,” Scarlet says, and no matter how many times she uses that nickname, Yvie’s heart still soars.

“No, I should thank you for coming with me.” Yvie replies, “You could’ve just walked away back there.” Yvie adds sincerely and it causes Scarlet to smile earnestly.

“Didn’t I tell you that I was going to make it up to you?” Scarlet says as she picks up the cage again, making sure the door was locked. “And just to prove that, I’m going to get this cub to safety–”

“What? On your own?” Yvie asks, giving Scarlet an incredulous look. “Don’t be ridiculous, I can go with you–”

“It’s just a small walk away, Yves, I’ll be fine.” Scarlet stands up and removes the pollen that stuck to her dress. “Just wait for me here just in case someone finds us.” Scarlet instructs her to do and runs off before Yvie could get to protest. Scarlet ascends into the forest as Yvie gazes at her longingly, slowly standing up from the awkward kneeling position she was in. 

Whatever that was, Yvie ws going to treasure forever. Yvie wasn’t used to this kind of fondness for someone. The one where even if their arms accidentally brush against one another, Yvie gains an overwhelming surge of glee and thrill that bursts within her. The kind where even if she merely smiled, Yvie feels completely drawn to her.

Yvie fiddles with her fingers, what has Scarlet Envy done to her?

But Yvie has to remember– Scarlet hasn’t done anything to her– rather, she hasn’t done anything for her. Scarlet being courteous and friendly isn’t in any means to make Yvie become enamored by her. Yvie holds her breath– she was so stupid for being this hopeful. She should’ve known not to wish for miracles especially with the life she lived through.

Nothing ever goes the way Yvie wants it to go. From her appearance alone, Yvie couldn’t achieve most of what she wants. Without her sister and her nanny, she wouldn’t be able to study, and if it weren’t for Vanjie being the rogue person that she is, Yvie wouldn’t even have friends. Everything Yvie gains in life always come from convenient accidents that she probably doesn’t deserve to happen.

Yvie already knew she shouldn’t wish. She shouldn’t even try wishing for anything– wishing will only hurt her more than she already feels.

And even if she did wish, Scarlet already picked someone else. Someone so likeable and enjoyable, very charismatic that every person who has talked to her immediately connects and lights up. Not to mention, that someone was incredibly gorgeous as well with her ravishing, purple locks and contagious grins of joy.

Yvie’s not that someone.

“Miss Oddly—fuck,” in the midst of Yvie’s self-deprecation, there entered Madame Visage, struggling to make her way to Yvie because of the field of flowers. The flowers didn’t seem to tolerate the headmistress’ long skirt, hence why she was having trouble making her way to Yvie. Yvie represses as a smirk as she watches the headmistress curse under her breath every time her feet get tangled into the flowers. “Yvie, my Oz, help a grandma out,” Madame Visage says as Yvie rushes to her before Madame Visage trips and stumbles.

“Are you here to suspend me?” asks Yvie as Madame Visage finally stops walking. Yvie and Madame Visage both have a close relationship ever since Yvie attended her first sorcery class. Even if the headmistress can be obnoxious at times, Madame Visage was very social and friendly with Yvie. The headmistress eventually earned the trust of Yvie, acting more like a familial figure to her than a professor. 

“What? Of course not, that’d be stupid,” Madame Visage replies, “However, seeing that you’re the reason I had to walk through this field of ungodly flowers, I’m highly considering it now,” she jokes as Yvie laughs.

“Sorry about that— Scarlet and I planned to head back anyways after she, uhm, releases the cub.” Yvie says and Madame Visage raises her eyebrows in disbelief.

“You actually stole the cub? That’s bold. Except for the part where you made everyone float and all.” Madame Visage remarks, “But I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything a while ago. It were the orders of… of the school’s… uhm, head.”

“There’s someone in a position higher than you?”

“Yep, they practically own the school. It’s confidential, though, so I can’t specifically say who it is. But they… they wanted us to hire this new teacher. I didn’t know much about them but I had to follow their orders anyways. I didn’t actually think they’d torture a cub— it disgusts me.”

“What did you do about them?”

“I—despite the orders of the main head—fired him. I didn’t like his attitude anyways so I fired him because of that.” Madame Visage says with a proud smirk and Yvie laughs, relieved that she wouldn’t have to see that freak ever again. But that still raises the question of where Miss West was.

“What about Miss West?” Yvie asks and Madame Visage’s smirk drops quickly, her expression becoming more grim and anxious, “Don’t tell me she’s not coming back,” 

“We can’t do anything about that, Yvie. I’ll still try my best to find someone who can replace her, though— and I promise they’d be a hundred percent better.” Madame Visage says and gives her a smile. Yvie purses her lips as she nods. Without a doubt, Yvie would absolutely want Miss West to return, yet she didn’t know how to inquire about it. Maybe she’ll try to visit her in her humble cottage a few minutes away from Shiz if she ever gets the chance.

“Oh, Yvie, I also have good news,” Madame Visage says as she shuffles through the things in her pocket to lift up a green envelope. As soon as Yvie saw the color of the envelope, Yvie immediately knew what the letter entails. “Yes, I know, it took a month but I finally got it—“

“Oh Madame, I… I can’t believe this,” Yvie eagerly snatches away the envelope, examining it further to double check if it was real. The envelope was laced with gold details and was sealed with a stamp with an intricate design on it. She didn’t understand too well on what the seal meant but she undoubtedly knew that this was the Wizard’s official seal. Of course, Yvie felt rejoiceful inside, but at the same time, a jeering voice whispered that she merely got this by pure coincidence. Nothing she gained was through her non-existent hard work— a lot of time, she was basically handed something just because. Yvie just couldn’t earn anything on her own, can she?

“I’m proud of ya, Yvie,” Madame Visage says, interrupting Yvie’s train of thought. Yvie looks up and blinks before leaping at her, giving her headmistress a heartfelt hug. Madame Visage almost stumbles at Yvie’s suddenness but hugs her back proudly. Yvie forgets how uplifting a hug can be— Yvie tends to forget about the euphoria of it because of how much she lacks it.

Then, Yvie feels something drip on her sleeves. Yvie lets go of Madame Visage as she stares at her sleeves. It was wet. Yvie then peers upwards as she watched the same rain clouds from earlier begin releasing its rain. It was a light drizzle at first, but with how grey the clouds were, it was definitely not going to stay as one for long.

“Yves! Yves I got the— oh shit,” Scarlet emerges from the forest, looking a little bit more haggard than usual. The cage was still in her hand but the cub was gone; it most likely ran away the moment Scarlet let her out. “Uhm, good— good morning, Madame, are we in trouble…?” Scarlet says, sounding too polite. She covers her head with her arms to avoid getting her dress wet.

“Yes… and no— wait, hold on,” Madame Visage raises her hand and snaps her fingers. In an instance, the rain clouds disperse magically while they whiten in color. The rain seems to evaporate as well, no longer inhabiting the clouds that were once grey. Both Yvie and Scarlet watch this magical display in awe, their eyes shifting from their headmistress and the clouds repeatedly. 

“How did you…?” Scarlet says, clearly impressed by the headmistress.

“Weather is my specialty,” Madame Visage says and winks, “Sorry I didn’t tell any of you sooner but just keep it a secret from the other students for now.” Madame Visage explains and both Scarlet and Yvie nod, “Now, let’s get going? I still have something tasked for the two of you.”

Madame Visage begins to walk back towards the school, managing to stumble a bit through the field, as Yvie and Scarlet trail behind. Scarlet immediately hooks her arm around Yvie’s like she always does and grins at her. After a short while, they made it back to the school grounds, thankful that they didn’t have to walk through any more greenery. 

“Uh, Madame, aren’t we supposed to have a sorcery class?” asks Scarlet as she kept dragging her heels into the ground to get rid of the dirt that was on her sole. 

“Well, you’re correct, and I’m sad that we have to introduce you to the class this way, but I hope you’re not forgetting that the students in Miss We— pardon, I mean the students in Class A are still, y’know, floating.” Madame Visage explains and Scarlet’s eyes widen immediately. “Don’t worry, you’re not in any trouble or anything— there’s no rules in the book that goes against making students levitate,” Madame Visage chuckles, “But there is one for running away in the middle of classes while leaving the students in some kind of sticky situation. I’m afraid I have to give you a small… task to make up for it.”

“What is it?” Scarlet says softly, fearing she might be removed from the sorcery class.

“Firstly, we have to help the students down. That will be our lesson for sorcery. Secondly, I don’t want to punish you for this but I’m afraid I that they might think I have favoritism so I have to give you a task to fulfil. It’s simple, don’t worry— you just have to clean up after the Animals after they do their protests every other day. I need you to do this together for at least a month and everything else will be well,”

Scarlet and Yvie exchange glances. “That’s not… bad, actually. I expected much worse,” Scarlet says, “Thank you, Madame,” Scarlet adds politely.

“You’re welcome, ladies,” the headmistress replies as she turns right. They made their way to the classroom again and Yvie and Scarlet were both anxious to see their classmates again. Yvie knew that there was no turning back to what she did unless she undoes her magic. Scarlet was more unquestionably fearful because of the possible rumors to be spread about her but Yvie was still proud of her. 

Despite her anxiety, Scarlet stayed determined and walked into the classroom first— she definitely was not lying anymore about making it up to Yvie even if she had to ruin her reputation. And for Yvie, she trailed behind Scarlet as they walked in the classroom, ready to revert the magic Yvie released unto the room.

[pi-cat000]

MSA time travel idea (part 25)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Vivi POV, 8, 9, 10, Lewis POV, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, Lance POV 18, 19, Lewis POV 2, 21 , 22, Vivi POV 2, 24, 

Part 26: here

“Welcome to MacDonalds Sir. Can I take your order?”

The van stops at a drive through, halfway to the hospital and his Uncle. Doom hangs over Arthur like a dense grey fog. A clock slowly counting down.

“Hey. You want anything?” The demon asks, nonchalantly rifling around in the glovebox for spare change.

Arthur’s never swum in the ocean, but he’s watched enough media to estimate and guess that this is what drowning feels like. Memories crash over him, pulling him about in waves. It’s had to keep a grip on what is current and what is past. It’s hitting him all at once. Images of Lewis falling are now mixing in with frames on Darrel’s motionless body left out in the middle of nowhere, carelessly kicked to the side of a narrow dirt road. Alone. Just like Lewis. Left behind to rot. Who knows if anyone would find him. Did Darrel have a family? Arthur can’t remember. What he does know is that it’s all his fault…and he can’t stop. Arthur needs help. He desperately needs help, but there’s no one. The only people who care are miles away and completely ignorant.

‘Why?’

The question is out before he gets the chance to clarify, his thoughts not coherent enough to manage a full sentence. There must be a reason. A point to everything. Because, if there isn’t, then there is no way that Arthur can convince this creature to stop. To leave his Uncle alone.

“Cause we’re hungry. Duh. Try not to ask dumb questions.” Arthur is dismissed, the demon turning back to order. So far, it has been quiet, exuding a calm satisfaction which is only marginally better than manic joy, ignoring Arthur’s thrashing with practised ease. This is the first time Arthur’s had the presence of mind to communicate since leaving Darrel.

At the order collection window, as the serving-girl hands over a brown and red paper bag, she points to her cheek, commenting, “Um. Sir. You have a little dirt on your face. Just there.”

“Do I?” The demon laughs good-naturedly, adjusting the rear-view mirror to reveal their reflection. Arthur looks out, unable to help himself, meeting his own gaze. Bright green eyes stare right at him. The pleasant smile shifts to become mocking. The ‘dirt’ referred to is the small flecks of Darrel’s blood, which have dried a dark brown.

“I do indeed. How embarrassing,” It chuckles, taking the bag, “Thank you for pointing that out.”

The girl smiles back, “Hey no problem. Have a good afternoon sir.”

If only she would lean further out and see the prominent blood splatter across Arthur’s front. She doesn’t. He watches powerlessly, feeling his body wave a goodbye.  

“Have to say. I love these new food options. You humans have certainly been busy this last century.”

Now. This is Arthur's opportunity to talk. He needs to use it and convince this creature to stop. It probably won’t work, if anything it’ll make everything worse, but he must try.

‘Why,’ Arthur asks a second time, pulling his focus forward.

“Why what,” The demon is deliberately obtuse, taking a bite with its free hand, steering back onto the highway with the other. Arthur would be grimacing at the taste. The last thing he wants to do is to eat greasy food. Luckily, nausea is primary a physical phenomenon, so his need to throw up is entirely associative.

‘Why are you doing this. What’s the point?’  How does he get it to stop?

The demon chews and slurps down a soda methodically like it is buying time to consider a response. More likely, it knows how anxious waiting makes Arthur.

“Because it’s fun. You know...Spread a little pain and misery. Cause trouble. Mess with the cosmic balance. You do know what fun is right?"

‘I can be plenty miserable without Uncle Lance dying.’ Arthur jumps on the connection despite how tenuous it is, ‘You’ve seen my memories! I can make anything good depressing if I want to.’

“Ha. Yeah. You do know how to screw yourself over. But, regrettably, I never leave a host alive. Personal policy. Less hassle down the line and all.”

‘He’ll be no hassle.’ Arthur lies blatantly because there was no way Lance wouldn’t try to hunt them down if given a chance, ‘Nope. No hassle at all. No one would care if I vanished right now. Especially not Lance.’

“I’m in your head, I can see you lying,” An eye roll, followed by unpleasant chuckling, “Besides, nothing beats the rush of cutting one of your pathetic lives short. All that potential. Poof. Gone.” The discordant sensation of happiness is back again, and Arthur quickly withdraws, mentally flinching away, doing his best to distance himself.

‘Someone will stop you.’  

“Who will? The dog? It’s miles away. Won’t be here till tomorrow and by then we’ll be done and dusted. I was thinking of going after Lewis’s family next. Sneak on in, in the dead of night, get em all in their sleep…”

Any further attempts at reasoning fall on deft ears. Begging is just as ineffective. All it does is inflate the awful feeling of calm satisfaction. Apprehensively, Arthur watches the demon wipe the blood off their shared face, energy well and truly spent. A grin is flashed towards the rear-view mirror which has yet to be re-adjusted. Not like this thing cares about road safety. It makes Arthur want to laugh hysterically. But he can’t. He can’t do anything.

Half an hour later, after getting waylaid by some traffic, they’re back at the hospital. All up, it’s hardly been two hours since their departure. They even park in the same spot.

Before heading inside, the demon pulls on one of Arthur’s old work shirts, which he keeps in the van for spur of the moment mechanical work. It’s got a few oil stains down the side and hasn’t seen a good wash in a while, but is inconspicuous when compared to coffee and blood splatters. Now, apart from the eyes, there is no other noticeable difference between the two of them. Nothing that screams ‘I’m a demon on a murder spree, please stop me.’ The sickly green skin Arthur had noted in his memories has faded to a natural colour.

St Peter’s Emergency Ward is as cold and sterile as he remembers. The smell of disinfectant and the return to chilled air-conditioning are equally unwelcome. Nurses, doctors and members of the public mill around, murmuring and talking in low tones. ‘Someone notice! Please,’ Arthur thinks desperately while the demon obtains directions from the reception desk. Despite Arthur’s less than clean appearance no one spares a second glance. Everyone is too busy, caught up in their work and lives, to notice his one falling apart.  

An older, matronly woman, sporting a messy bun and tired eyes, ends up leading Arthur to his Uncle’s recovery room. It’s not too far from the main entrance and is, to his dismay, empty of other patents. Space, meant for a second bed, is vacant.

Arthur, the demon- he’s having trouble separating the two -both watch the nurse check his Uncle’s IV, lowering the dosage of whatever is going into Lance’s arm. Probably a mix of pain medication and anti-inflammatories going off Arthur’s previous experience. Curiosity and interest flash between their shared mind. It is taking notes, intently watching the nurse work. Please. Turn around. Turn around and notice what a creepy monster he’s being.

When she does turn, Arthur has already stepped away, acting to part of the worried relative.

��Is he okay. Everything’s okay, right?”

“Your Uncle is recovering as per normal. He’s on a low dose of Dilaudid, to reduce pain and swelling.  It’ll make him drowsy when he regains consciousness so don’t be alarmed if he has trouble forming sentences,”

“He’ll regain consciousness? That’s good. When will that happen?” Its barely contained eagerness makes Arthur want to cry in dismay.  

“Another hour or two,” The woman gives him a perplexed sideward glance. If she does notice anything strange, it isn’t mentioned. “I’ll have a doctor come by and give you a proper run down and better details shortly.”

“Good. Good. That’s very good. Thank you for letting me know,”

A nod. A kind expression. She moves to away, passing by, leaving Arthur alone. She leaves the demon alone with his Uncle unconscious, helpless in the bed. Eagerly, the demon piolets his body forward, scanning the empty room, eyes landing briefly on the solitary clock decorating the otherwise sparse walls. 4: 59. Tick. Tick. Tick. An audible reminder that Arthur is running out of time. A hand reaches into his pocket to fiddle with Arthur’s keys and the small knife attached. Both are crusted with dry blood which crumbles when touched. They clink together threateningly.

‘What do I have to do to get you to stop. You have to want something. Anything.’

“Sure, I do. It’s just nothing you can give .” Nonchalantly, it approaches the bed, finally acknowledging Arthur's presence.

‘Don’t demons collect souls?’ He asks with increasing desperation. Can he give this thing his soul? Was that something he could do?

“Some. I don’t. I think you’ll find that ‘demon’ is a very broad term, covering a wide range of individuals. Besides, your soul is super screwy. Whatever’s shoved it back in here has bound it in tight, so I’d probably have to rip it up to get it free, rendering the activity pointless. So, no deal…But thanks for the offer. I’m flattered.”

‘Please. Stop. I’ll do anything!’

Does he really have nothing? No way to save his Uncle. The only member of his whole freakin family who gave a damn and he can’t even save him. Useless. Why does he fail in all the ways that matter most?

“Oh, don’t mope. Just think, once we finish up here, you’ll never have to worry about failing anybody ever again. No lying. No stress. Doesn’t that sound nice.”

It doesn’t sound nice. It’s the opposite of nice!

The demon drags over the one visitor's chair, which squeaks along the lino flooring, slumping down to stare at his uncle, waiting. It fingers the IV tubing, tracing the piping up to the control dial and back again. Deliberately, it pinches the thin tube shut, attention jumping back to Lance, scanning for any changes.

Waiting.

The waiting is terrible. Especially, when Arthur can feel its attention, partially giddy, laser-focused onto his Uncle. Arthur’s never seen the man look so pale or sickly. Apart from the odd work-related accident, which is impossible to avoid even with strict safety standards, his Uncle has always been healthy. Even the rare times he has seen the man sick it was still ‘no big deal,’ ‘just a scratch,’ or ‘the bodies way of forcing me ta rest.’ While Arthur flip-flopped from one emotional extreme to the next, his Uncle had been a steady, seemingly indestructible, pillar of support. Arthur had never said thank you for any of that. Worse, he’d repaid all that kindness with lies and evasion. Lance should have never taken him in. He had been more trouble than it was worth in his original timeline and he’s definitely not worth it now.

“Hey. HEY!” The demon grows tired of the waiting and gives his Uncle a light slap on the cheek with its free hand, “Wake up.”

“Arthur?” The word is half muttered, barely audible. Lance is phasing into consciousness slowly.  

‘Just say asleep. Stay asleep a little longer. Someone has to come in and stop him. Please.’

“In a manner of speaking. Yeah. I’m Arthur.”

That gets his Uncle’s attention. Lance violently twitches, forcing an eye open. It locks onto him, hazy but critical. Despite being in obvious pain a hand flashes out, snapping onto to Arthur’s wrist, pulling the hand away from his face. The grip is firm abet weaker than Arthur’s expecting.

“Whoa, you might want to take it easily Uncle Lance. Wouldn’t want to pull any stitches. You were stabbed five times you know.”

“You,” His Uncle growls hatefully, eyes narrowing, “Get out of Arthur ya fuckin, slimy piece of shit, bastard.”

“That’s some strong language. And in front of your nephew. He’s watching you know,”

A loose flick and the demon frees its wrist, efficiently shoving his Uncle back down when he attempts to lunge outwards. The hash action causes Lance to grunt in obvious pain. A move towards the emergency call remote has the demon snatching it up and placing it on the small table just out of reach, tutting in disappointment.

“I’ll get ya. Mark my words…You’ll regret this,” His Uncle spits, his attempts at sitting foiled.  His face is pure revulsion and fury. That determination and fire is something Arthur’s never seen directed his way before. It’s all in vain. Nothing matters. Not anymore.

A teasing, “How? You can’t even move. Soon you’ll never move again.” The demon releases its hold on the IV and turns the control dial up to its max setting. Dismayed, Arthur watches the drug take quick effect, rapidly dulling his Uncle’s movements. Eventually, Lance just lies still and glares, even while his eyes are dropping shut.

“Don’t worry about your nephew. He’ll be safe with me. Since you care so much and all.” The glare faulters much to the demon’s renewed glee. The predatory buzz is back, coiled alongside a sensation of anticipation and pleasure.

“Arthur.” His Uncle’s voice loses its heat, softening. He’s struggling to stay conscience, drowsy, eyes shutting.

‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Please. Stop. Please. PLEASE.’

A knife is produced after a small struggle. The hinge, which usually allowed it to flip cleanly open, is stiff, jammed with blood. The key ring makes a clinking sound, hitting the side of the metal bed frame. Tap. Tap. Tap. It echoes through the room in time with the ticking clock.

“Now. How do we go about this in a way that won’t immediately alert the plebs?”

‘NONONONO!’

“Kindy slow bleed? Good choice.”

“Nighty night,” It stands upright. The chair squeaks. Blankets and paper thin robe are pulled aside in an energetic flourish, revealing the assortment of bandages covering his Uncle’s chest and side. A second is spent in meticulous calculation. The knife is carefully positioned and thrust in. The demon waits for a beat before pushing forward against any resistance, twisting, then drawing out. Cold satisfaction. His Uncle’s fingers catch on Arthur’s retreating arm. This time, there is no strength behind the grasp, and it’s easily shrugged off.

“Not….You…r… Fa..ul…t...” The words are mumbled and slurred, swallowed up by the silent room. The clock on the wall ticks.

“Eh. Suppose we’ll look a bit suspicious if we stick around.”  

The blanket is tossed back into place, covering the reopened wound. They turn, strolling towards the door, practically skipping back down to the reception. Arthur can feel himself splitting, joy mixing in with panic and grief.

Just like his life, he’s falling to pieces. 

NOTE: re-writes, re-writes for days. But finally got a version I’m mostly happy with. I’m hoping to have the next section out within a shorter time frame so people aren't stuck on the cliff hanger but no promises.

Part 26: here

[mariposalass]

Deep Pain, Deep Sorrow

Summary: The day he died the first time has come, and Philip is having nightmares of reliving the events in his mind. It is not really great, not great at all.

Setting: Mari and co.’s house in Daly City, California, present day midnight; Weehawken Dueling Grounds in Weehawken, New Jersey and the Church family house in New York City, New York, November 20-24, 1801.

Notes: Written up in the last minute in commemoration of RL Philip Hamilton’s death by gun dueling on this day 218 years ago. There are Hamilton musical spoilers and mentions of death, guns, & blood loss along with slight mention of alcohol & hate speech against Alexander Hamilton: if you’re not comfortable with any of them, then skip this and finding something more cheerful instead. Although the ending doesn’t end on a sour note though… Also tagging @husband-of-lucoa​ since I’m basing this on a RP we had on Discord with Marina’s old life dilemma before as a main theme.

Tags: character death, mention of guns, salty language, mention of blood and blood loss, existential crisis, Defying Time, Renewed Potential, Hamilton: An American Musical, Hamilton spoilers, implied mention of alcohol, hate speech, George Eacker bashing (if this is a thing), real life history

It all started with a speech, a goddamn speech on the Fourth of July nonetheless. Bloody Eacker had all the nerves to bash his father like that: no respect to the man who had to work hard from a rough life of illegitimacy and having one parent died & another far away to help bringing a nation out of the shackles of Great Britain’s control, in front of a bunch of people wanting him dead literally or otherwise, poor Theo’s figuratively blind and ambitious father included. Surely, if that fool had known the man personally much longer, maybe it have been less abrasive, but no, he was a foolish twat. 4 months had passed since that slanderous speech and he & an old friend, Stephen Price, had confronted him, both younger men being under some alcohol for some reason, in the Park Theater about that rancid work of words. A verbal fight has borne out of this confrontation and the final straw came in the form of that bastard calling him and Stephen ‘rascals’, which had the young men to challenge him in a dueling match.

Back then, most men, even the smartest and most noble of the lot, wouldn’t simply settle things in a calm and logical manner; with pride on the line, they dealt arguments with small death machines, guns loaded with bullets that could spell death to the unfortunate person on the other side. Eacker would take on Price first a day after, then him on the next day. Four shoots were heard across in Weehawken, but no one died that day. The next day came, and it was him against the foolish twat; with some advice from his father, he had started it with a delope, throwing his first shoot, a move that would ultimately cost him life. Eacker had done the same, for a fool like him, it too was a smart move then.

A minute later, neither one dared to make a move, but then, Eacker aimed for him and shot him above the right hip and into the left arm; he did shot back, but the bullet was useless. The fired bullet from Eacker’s gun was lodged to his arm, spasms came in involuntarily. Everyone was wondering and panicking while Eacker was blindly soaking in this false victory, yet he knew that the victory that fool was enjoying is fleeting and was trying his best to remain calm and collected as Death is slowly arriving at his doorsteps and he was bleeding profusely. Soon, word was spread of the duel and he was then rushed to Aunt Angelica and Uncle John’s house in the city center; Angelica, while still shocked by her nephew’s misfortune, wrote that his attitude during this trying time was unbelievably remarkable for a 19 year old nearing Death.

Horrified by the news of what Eacker did to his firstborn son and rocked by anxiety & worry like every responsible caring parent would, Alexander rushed to Dr. Hosack’s home to ask for medical help, only to learn that the good doctor was already ahead of him at the Church residence by this time, staying with his family to recover before heading to his sister in law’s place. By the time he and Eliza reached him, he was paler than the moon itself, his face ashen from the near loss of blood, almost haggard in appearance.

The older Hamilton was in despair, sobbing and clutching Dr. Hosack by the hand & salted tears running down from his watery eyes, and the middle Schuyler sister, pregnant with her final child at 3 months, even more distraught than she would let on. Pulse was faint, but still heard by Alexander, and yet time was running out for his eldest son. They had stayed by his side all the night along, 14 hours and a confession of faith later however, Death has taken Philip Hamilton away from the world and from his family at 5 AM. Only 19 years old.

He had bolted up from his bed after so many flashes running across his mind, waking up screaming and causing his roommate Ahkmenrah to wake up from his slumber as well. His horrified screams could be heard all over the house, alarming everyone trying to get a good night’s rest. The former pharaoh was startled by the stressful look in his friend’s face and checked if he was okay. Philip honestly couldn’t hide how he was feeling, but didn’t explain it to him fully until everyone else went inside their shared bedroom.

Mari has never seen him this stressed out (beside crunch time on news article deadlines and getting confused over modern day things) in the 11 months they have been together, she had sat beside him and sheepishly held onto his hand as a calming measure. Kirby, saddened to see him in the state he was in, flew onto his bed and hugged him by the side of his torso.

“Hey, what’s happening to you, mate?” Harry questioned him, sensing that there must be something that left him this freaked out.

“Yeah, we want to know why,” Kairi chimed in.

“Come on, Philip, there is never a bad thing to admit it,” Mari gently reminded him, “We’re all ears for you.”

“Nightmares, those nightmares of that duel, agh!” he groaned in agony, “I never thought of reliving those awful memories of it all over again. I didn’t expect it to send my family on a downward slope after that. It was horrible to think about it in your sleep.”

“Well, you told us all about it many times for a long time now, still there is no need to hold back just because of some a-hole trying to peg down your dad like that and shoot you in return,” Mari sighed, not knowing what else to say in return and trying to fight back in tears from her eyes.

“Philip, please don’t feel bad about that. I know that it was very foolish of both you and that Eacker guy to try to shoot each other over a speech and just sort those issues out yourselves, but honestly, I didn’t think that it was all your fault,” Issa tried to reassure him, “Besides, he’s already dead and probably regretting that he shouldn’t harass your father with that speech in the first place.”

“Your father sounds like a very important man indeed, Philip,” Ahk pointed out, “You and your siblings must have looked up to him so much. He have done some messed up things in the past like that affair thing, yes, but never a horribly terrible person at all. I would have loved to ask him questions about how he helped out in freeing and growing this nation and independence with several like-minded men.”

“Poyo...” Kirby sniffed in sympathy as he cried.

“Look, Philip dear. The past is the past, we know that we couldn’t turn back the hands of time to stop it from happening, even the Doctor couldn’t stop it in a couple of cases whenever he goes time-traveling. But it doesn’t mean that you should never be defined by those events. You got this second chance in life and you can still enjoy life even more than ever, so you shouldn’t worry about everything the second time around,” Mari calmly reassured her dearest beloved before remembering something similar that had happened to some friends a year ago, “Funny enough, this whole situation you’re in is quite similar to Marina’s case: Dyl’s friends at the Fortress Team found her unconscious by the sea and couldn’t find anyone willing to pick her up and look after her until Dylan and Lucoa (and later Lady Palutena) stepped in and took her into their large family. Even she was struggling with recovering from her past mistakes for some time, but since you came back and befriended her, she doesn’t have to worry too much about them. She still gets nightmares once in a while, but beyond that, she is doing well.”

“Well, I suppose that I should follow her example then?” he meekly asked her and everyone else in the room.

“I don’t see a problem with that, Pip,” Issa smiled back in response, “She was the first person to reach out to you since you made that public reveal of your return, so she is likely to listen all about it.”

“Since you did in a way helped her recover from her past mistakes and get help from her folks, perhaps we can contact Dylan, Lucoa, and Lady Palutena by morning and see if she can drop by to help you out as well,” Harry added, “Or you can talk to me as well. I have been through a lot of trauma in my life as well, especially with the Killing Cruse, the Horcrux Hunt, the Battle of Hogwarts, and after I disown my canon realm for good. Seriously, if you have some nightmares again, just let us know: we’re all here for you and Mari is always there for you as much as you’re always there for her.

The kind support and reception he is receiving are too overwhelming yet welcoming as everyone gathered around him to give him a warm hug, Mari’s being the tightest of all. He never felt this much closer to home than with this unlikely group of people, animals, and what have you, but it is probably true in a way. It might tempting to ask Ahk to bring his folks back to the world of the living, but that would too much hassle and trouble to ask for. The whole 11 months felt like quite a wild ride for sure and yet it is the most fulfilling he has ever lived through, and he couldn’t ask for more than find his place among these strange modern day waters and have an amazing life with his new unlikely ‘family’ and his beloved darling.

The End