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shihalyfie · 3 years ago

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About the Adventure: reboot, the likely reason why it exists, the question of target demographic, and whether I would recommend it or not

I think this reboot has been kind of a strange outlier in terms of Digimon anime in general, in terms of...well, just about everything. I also feel like everything surrounding it has kind of been giving us mixed signals as to what the intent and purpose behind the anime is -- well, besides “cashing in on the Adventure brand”, but looking at it more closely, that might be a bit of an oversimplification.

I’m writing this post because, having seen the entire series to the end for myself and thinking very hard about it and what it was trying to do, I decided to put down my thoughts. This is not meant to be a review of what I think was good and bad, but rather, something that I hope will be helpful to those who might be on the fence about whether they want to watch it or not, or those who don’t want to watch/finish it but are curious about what happened, or those who are curious as to why this reboot even exists in the first place, or even maybe just those who did watch it but are interested in others’ thoughts about it. I'm personally convinced that -- especially in an ever-changing franchise like Digimon -- how much you like a given work is dependent on what your personal tastes are to the very end, and thus it’s helpful to understand what kind of expectations you should go in with if you want to watch something.

With all of this said and done, if you want to go in and best enjoy this series, I think it is best to consider this anime as a distinct Digimon series of its own. The relationship to Adventure is only surface-level, and by that I mean it’s very obvious it’s doing things its own thing deliberately without worrying too much about what prior series did. Of course, I think everyone will have varying feelings about using the Adventure branding for something that really isn't Adventure at all, but we are really talking about an in-name-only affair, and something that’s unabashedly doing whatever it wants. So in other words, if you’re going in expecting Adventure, or anything that really resembles Adventure, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. But if you’re able to approach it like yet another distinct Digimon series, and the other aspects of it fit your fancy, you’ll probably be able to enjoy it much better. And, conversely, I think it’s also important to remember that this series seems to have a writing philosophy with a fundamentally different goal from most Digimon series, and since it’s understandable for most long-time Digimon fans to have their tastes built on those prior series, it’s fine and completely understandable that this reboot may not be your cup of tea, for reasons that probably don’t actually have much to do with whether it’s an Adventure reboot or not.

There are no spoilers in the following post. (Although I use some emphatic language for the duration for it, these are mostly just my personal thoughts and how I see the series and the overall situation.)

On what exact relationship to Adventure this series has, and why it’s an “Adventure reboot”

If you ask why they did an Adventure reboot, the easiest answer to come up with is “Adventure milking, because it’s profitable”, but that’s kind of an oversimplification of what the issue is. This is especially when you take into account a key fact that official has been very well aware of since as early as 2006: most kids are too young to have seen Adventure, and therefore have no reason to care about it.

That’s the thing: Adventure milking only works so well on today’s children, and Toei and Bandai know this. This is also the reason that the franchise started going through a bit of a “split” starting in around 2012 (after Xros Wars finished airing), when the video game branch started making more active attempts to appeal to the adults’ fanbase with Re:Digitize and Adventure PSP. (Although they were technically still “kids’ games”, they were very obviously aimed at the adults’ audience as a primary “target”.) The generation that grew up with Adventure and other classic Digimon anime was getting older and older, and targeting that audience would require tailoring products more specifically to them -- ultimately culminating in 2015 and the solidification of “very obviously primarily for adults” media in the form of both games (Cyber Sleuth and Next Order) and anime (tri.). Note that Appmon ended up getting its own 3DS game, but since it was targeted at kids, it seems to have been developed by a completely different pipeline/branch from the aforementioned adults’ games, so even that had a split.

So if we want to talk about full-on nostalgia pandering, that’s already being done in the adults’ branch. In fact, Appmon development specifically said that they felt free to not really care about the adults’ audience because that was tri.’s job. Of course, the hardcore Digimon adults’ fanbase is still keeping an eye on the kids’ shows, and it’s good to not upset them -- and, besides, even if we’re all suffering under the hell of capitalism, people who work in kids’ shows still tend to be very passionate about the content and messages they’re showing the kids, so they still put an effort into making good content that adults can enjoy too. But, nevertheless, adults are still the “periphery demographic”, and a kids’ show is not a success if the kids (who have not seen and do not care about Adventure) are not watching it or buying the toys. Appmon ended up being extremely well-received by the adults’ fanbase, but that all meant nothing since the kids didn’t get into it.

Most kids are not super incredibly discerning about so-called writing quality (it’s not like they don’t at least unconsciously know when something is good, but they’re much less likely to be bothered by little things adults are often bothered by), so there’s a certain degree you have to get their attention if you want things to catch on with them. Critical reception does matter a lot more when we talk about the adults’ audience, but for the kids, the more important part is how much you’ve managed to engage them and how much fun they’re having (especially in regards to the toyline). Moreover, there’s the problem of “momentum”; Digimon’s sister shows of PreCure, Kamen Rider, and Super Sentai have sometimes had really poorly performing shows (critically or financially), but have managed to recover it in successive years to avoid getting cancelled. Digimon never managed to get to that point, with sales nearly dropping to half with Tamers and again with Frontier. So in essence, Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon were all attempts at figuring out what was needed to just get that “kickstart” again -- but things just never lined up for it to work.

So if kids don’t really care about Adventure, why would they do Adventure nostalgia pandering? The answer is one that official has actually openly stated multiple times: they want to have parents watch it together with their children. Both Seki and Kinoshita said this in regards to watching the reaction to Kizuna, and it was also stated outright as a goal for the reboot, but, believe it or not, there’s reports of this having been stated back as early as Savers (followed by an admission that maybe 2006 was a little too early for people who grew up with Adventure to be old enough to have their own kids). So the little nostalgia references in Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon aren't really meant to magically turn the series into Adventure as much as they’re supposed to be flags waved at the parents to get them to pay attention, so that they can introduce their kids to Digimon and watch it together with them, until the kids eventually take an interest on their own and they don’t need to rely on that kind of standby as much. (I say “as much” because of course PreCure, Rider, and Sentai all are still very indulgent in their anniversary references, but they’re not nearly as reliant on it to the point of life-and-death.)

This is also why Kizuna’s existence and release date two months prior to the reboot is a huge factor in this. The reason tri. wouldn’t have done it is that it never actually reached a properly “mainstream” audience. It’s a huge reason I keep emphasizing the fact that tri. and Kizuna are two separate things with completely different production and release formats, because tri. being a limited OVA screening released in six parts over three years means that, although it was a moderate financial success that did better than the franchise’s other niche products, in the end, it didn’t actually reach the “extremely casual” audience very well. We, as the “hardcore Internet fanbase”, all know people who watched all six parts, and the difference between tri. and Kizuna’s release formats doesn’t hit us as hard because of international distribution circumstances, but even on our end, if you talk to your casual friends who barely remember anything about Digimon except what they saw on TV twenty years ago, you will almost never find anyone who got past Part 1, maybe 2 at most. (That’s before we even get into the part where a good chunk of them got turned off at the character design stage for being too different.) Sticking with a full six-part series over three years is a commitment, and if you’re not someone with a certain level of loyalty to the franchise, you aren’t as likely to put aside the time for it!

Kizuna, on the other hand, was a full-on theatrical movie with full marketing campaign that was aimed at that extremely casual mainstream audience, including a lot of people who hadn’t even heard of tri. (due to it being too niche) or hadn’t bothered to commit to watching something so long, and thus managed to “hype up” a lot of adults and get them in a Digimon mood. (Critical reception issues aside, this is also presumably a huge reason Kizuna isn’t all that reliant on tri.’s plot; Adventure and 02 both averaged at around 11% of the country watching it when it first aired, but the number of people who even saw tri. much less know what happened in it is significantly lower, so while you can appeal to a lot of people if you’re just targeting the 11%, you'll lock them out if you’re overly reliant on stuff a lot of them will have never seen in the first place.) We’re talking the kind of super-casual who sees a poster for Kizuna, goes “oh I remember Digimon!”, casually buys a ticket for the movie, likes it because it has characters they remember and the story is feelsy, and then two months later an anime that looks like the Digimon they recognize is on Fuji TV, resulting in them convincing their kid to watch it together with them because they’re in a Digimon mood now, even though the actual contents of the anime are substantially different from the original.

So, looking back at the reboot:

There’s a huge, huge, huge implication that the choice to use Adventure branding was at least partially to get Fuji TV to let them have their old timeslot back. Neither Xros Wars nor Appmon were able to be on that old timeslot, presumably because Fuji TV had serious doubts about their profitability (perhaps after seeing Savers not do very well). This isn’t something that hits as hard for us outside Japan who don’t have to feel the impact of this anyway, but it’s kind of a problem if kids don’t even get the opportunity to watch the show in the first place. While there’s been a general trend of moving to video-on-demand to the point TV ratings don’t really have as much impact as they used to, I mean...it sure beats 6:30 in the morning, goodness. (Note that a big reason PreCure, Rider, and Sentai are able to enjoy the comfortable positions they’re in is that they have a very luxurious 8:30-10 AM Sunday block on TV Asahi dedicated to them.)

Since we’re talking about “the casual mainstream”, this means that this kind of ploy only works with something where a casual person passing by can see names and faces and take an interest. This is why it has to be Adventure, not 02 or Tamers or whatnot; 02 may have had roughly similar TV ratings to Adventure and fairly close sales figures back in 2000, but the actual pop culture notability disparity in this day and age is humongous (think about the difference in pop culture awareness between Butter-Fly and Target). 02, Tamers, and all can do enough to carry “adults’ fandom” products and merch sales at DigiFes, and the adults’ branch of the franchise in general, but appealing to the average adult buying toys for the kids is a huge difference, and a big reason that, even if they’re clearly starting to acknowledge more of the non-Adventure series these days, it’s still hard to believe they’re going to go as far as rebooting anything past Adventure -- or, more accurately, hard to believe they’ll be able to get the same impact using names and faces alone.

This advertising with the Adventure brand goes beyond just the anime -- we’re talking about the toyline that has the involved character faces plastered on them, plus all of the ventures surrounding them that Bandai pretty obviously carefully timed to coincide with this. One particularly big factor is the card game, which is doing really, really well right now, to the point it’s even started gaining an audience among people who weren’t originally Digimon fans. Part of it is because the game’s design is actually very good and newcomer-friendly, but also...nearly every set since the beginning came with reboot-themed Tamer Cards, which means that, yes, those cards with the Adventure names and faces were helping lure people into taking an interest in the game. Right now, the game is doing so well and has gained such a good reputation that it probably doesn’t need that crutch anymore to keep going as long as the game remains well-maintained, but I have no doubt the initial “Adventure” branding was what helped it take off, and its success is most likely a huge pillar sustaining the franchise at the current moment.

Speaking of merch and toys, if you look closely, you might notice that Bandai decided to go much, much more aggressively into the toy market with this venture than they ever did with Savers, Xros Wars, or Appmon (Appmon was probably the most aggressive attempt out of said three). They put out a lot more merch and did a lot more collaborative events to engage the parents and children, and, presumably, the reason they were able to do this was because they were able to push into those outlets with the confidence the Adventure brand would let them be accepted (much like with Fuji TV). Like with the card game, the important part was getting their “foot in the door” so that even if it stopped being Adventure after a fashion, they’d still have all of those merchandising outlets -- after all, one of the first hints we ever got of Ghost Game’s existence was a July product listing for its products replacing the reboot’s in a gachapon set, so we actually have evidence of certain product pipelines being opened by the reboot’s precedent. (The word 後番組 literally means “the TV program that comes after”, so it’s pretty obvious this was intended for Ghost Game; in other words, the reboot’s existence helped ensure there be a “reservation” for this kind of product to be made.)

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that Toei and Bandai have as much of a stake in avoiding rehashing for their kids’ franchises as we do. Even if you look at this from a purely capitalistic perspective, because of how fast the “turnover” is for the kids’ audience, sustaining a franchise for a long time off rehashing the same thing over and over is hard, and even moreso when it involves a twenty-year-old anime that said kids don’t even know or remember. Ask around about popular long-running Japanese kids’ franchises and you’ll notice they practically rely on being able to comfortably change things up every so often, like PreCure/Rider/Sentai shuffling every year, or Yu-Gi-Oh! having a rotation of different series and concepts, or the struggles that franchises that don’t do this have to deal with. And, after all, for all people are cynical about Toei continuing to milk Adventure or any of the other older series at every opportunity, as far as the kids’ branch of the franchise goes, this is only capable of lasting to a certain extent; if they tried keeping this up too long, even the adults and kids would get bored, and there is some point it’ll be easier to try and make products directly targeted at the kids’ audience instead of having to rely on the parents to ease them into it.

So it’s completely understandable that the moment they secured a proper audience with the reboot and finished up their first series with this, they decided to take the risk with Ghost Game right after. And considering all that’s happened, this is still a risk -- they’re changing up a lot (even if not as much as Appmon), and there’s a chance that the audience they’ve gathered is going to shoot down again because they’ve changed so much and they no longer have the Adventure branding as a “crutch” to use -- but they’re taking it anyway instead of going for something at least slightly more conventional.

Which means that, yes, there’s a possibility this will all explode in their face, because the Adventure branding is that huge of a card they’re about to lose. But at the very, very least, Ghost Game is coming in with the “momentum” and advantage that Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon all didn’t have: a brand currently in the stage of recovery, all of the merchandising and collaborative pipelines the reboot and Kizuna opened up, a fairly good timeslot, and a premise somewhat more conventional than Xros Wars and Appmon (I’m saying this as someone who likes both: their marketing definitely did not do them many favors). There are still a lot of risks it’s playing here, and it’s possible it won’t be the end of more Adventure or reboot brand usage to try to keep that momentum up even as we go into Ghost Game, but it’s the first time in a long while we’ve had something to stand on.

Okay, so that’s out of the way. But the end result is that we now have 67 episodes of an Adventure “reboot” that actually doesn’t even resemble Adventure that much at all, which seems to have achieved its goal of flagging down attention so it can finally going back to trying new things. This series exists, we can’t do anything about the fact it exists, the period where its own financial performance actually mattered is coming to an end anyway, and we, as a fanbase of adults hanging out on the Internet keeping up with the franchise as a whole, have to figure out how each of us feels about this. So what of it?

About the contents of the reboot itself

One thing I feel hasn’t been brought up as a potential topic very much (or, at least, not as much as I feel like it probably should be) is that the reboot seems to be actively aimed at a younger target audience than the original Adventure. It hasn’t been stated outright, but we actually have quite a bit of evidence pointing towards this.

Let’s take a moment and discuss what it even means to have a different target audience. When you’re a kid, even one or two years’ difference is a big deal, and while things vary from kid to kid, generally speaking, it helps to have an idea of what your “overall goal” is when targeting a certain age group, since at some point you have to approximate the interests of some thousands of children. Traditionally, Digimon has been aimed at preteens (10-11 year olds); of course, many will testify to having seen the series at a younger age than that, but the "main” intended target demographic was in this arena. (Also, keep in mind that this is an average; a show aimed at 10-11 year olds could be said to be more broadly aimed at 7-13 year olds, whereas one aimed at 7-8 year olds would be more broadly aimed at something like 5-10 year olds.) Let’s talk a bit about what distinguishes children’s shows (especially Japanese kids’ shows) between this “preteen demographic” and things aimed at a much younger audience (which I’ll call “young child demographic”, something like the 7-8 year old arena):

With children who are sufficiently young, it’s much, much more difficult to ensure that a child of that age will be able to consistently watch TV at the same hour every week instead of being subject to more variable schedules, often set by their parents, meaning that it becomes much more difficult to have a series that relies on you having seen almost every episode to know what’s going on. For somewhat older kids, they’re more likely to be able to pick and pursue their own preferences (the usual “got up early every week for this show”). This means that shows targeted at a young child demographic will be more likely to be episodic, or at least not have a complex dramatic narrative that requires following the full story, whereas shows targeted at a preteen audience are more willing to have a dramatic narrative with higher complexity. This does not mean by any shake of the imagination that a narrative is incapable of having any kind of depth or nuance -- the reboot’s timeslot predecessor GeGeGe no Kitaro got glowing reviews all over the board for being an episodic story with tons of depth -- nor that characters can’t slowly develop over the course of the show. But it does raise the bar significantly, especially because it prevents you from making episodes that require you to know what happened in previous ones.

The thing is, the original Adventure and the older Digimon series in general didn’t have to worry about this, and, beyond the fact that their narratives very obviously were not episodic, we actually have concrete evidence of the disparity: Digimon has often been said to be a franchise for “the kids who graduated from (outgrew) a certain other monster series”. Obviously, they’re referring to Pokémon -- which does have the much younger target demographic. That’s why its anime is significantly more episodic and less overall plot-oriented, and Digimon wasn’t entirely meant to be a direct competitor to it; rather, it was hoping to pick up the preteens who’d enjoyed Pokémon at a younger age but were now looking for something more catered to them. This is also why, when Yo-kai Watch came into the game in 2014, that was considered such a huge direct competitor to Pokémon, because it was aiming for that exact same demographic, complete with episodic anime. When Yo-kai Watch moved to its Shadowside branch in 2017, it was specifically because they had concerns about losing audience and wanted to appeal to the kids who had been watching the original series, but since they were preteens now, they adopted a more dramatic and emotionally complex narrative that would appeal to that audience instead. So you can actually see the shift in attempted target demographic in real time.

Adventure through Frontier were aimed at 10-11 year olds, and here’s the interesting part: those series had the protagonists hover around the age of said target audience. We actually have it on record that Frontier had a direct attempt to keep most of the kids as fifth-graders for the sake of appealing to the audience, and so that it would be relatable to them. You can also see this policy of “matching the target audience’s age” in other series at the time; Digimon’s sister series Ojamajo Doremi (also produced by Seki) centered around eight-year-olds. Nor was Seki the only one to do this; stepping outside Toei for a bit, Medabots/Medarot had its protagonist Ikki be ten years old, much like Digimon protagonists, and the narrative was similarly dramatic. The thing is, that’s not how it usually works, and that’s especially not really been how it’s worked for the majority of kids’ series since the mid-2000s. In general, and especially now, it’s usually common to have the protagonists of children’s media be slightly older than the target age group. This has a lot of reasons behind it -- partially because kids are looking to have slightly older characters as a model for what to follow in their immediate future, and partially because “the things you want to teach the kids” are often more realistically reflected if the kids on screen have the right level of independence and capacity for emotional contemplation. Case in point: while everyone agrees the Adventure through Frontier characters are quite relatable, it’s a common criticism that the level of emotional insight sometimes pushes the boundary of what’s actually believable for 10-11 year olds...

...which is presumably why, with the exception of this reboot, every Digimon TV series since, as of this writing, started shifting to middle school students. That doesn’t mean they’re aiming the series at middle school kids now, especially because real-life 13-15 year olds are usually at the stage where they pretend they’ve outgrown kids’ shows (after all, that’s why there’s a whole term for “middle school second year syndrome”), but more that the narrative that they want to tell is best reflected by kids of that age, especially when we’re talking characters meant to represent children from the real world and not near-immortal youkai like Kitaro. In fact, the Appmon staff outright said that Haru was placed in middle school because the story needed that level of independence and emotional sensitivity, which is interesting to consider in light of the fact that Appmon’s emotional drama is basically on par with that of Adventure through Frontier’s. So in other words, the kind of high-level drama endemic to Adventure through Frontier is would actually normally be more on par with what you’d expect for kids of Haru’s age.

But at this point, the franchise is at a point of desperation, and you can see that, as I said earlier, Appmon was blatantly trying to be one of those “have its cake and eat it too” series by having possibly one of the franchise’s most dramatic storylines while also having some of the most unsubtle catchphrases and bright colors it has to offer. Moreover, one thing you might notice if you look closely at Appmon: most of its episodes are self-contained. Only a very small handful of episodes are actively dependent on understanding what happened in prior episodes to understand the conflict going on in the current one -- it’s just very cleverly structured in a way you don’t really notice this as easily. So as you can see, the more desperate the franchise has gotten to get its kids’ audience back, the more it has to be able to grab the younger demographic and not lock them out as much as possible -- which means that it has to do things that the original series didn’t have to worry about at all.

Having seen the reboot myself, I can say that it checks off a lot of what you might expect if you tried to repurpose something based on Adventure (and only vaguely based on it, really) into a more episodic story that doesn’t require you to follow the whole thing, and that it has to break down its story into easy-to-follow bits. In fact, there were times where I actually felt like it gave me the vibes of an educational show that would usually be expected for this demographic, such as repeated use of slogans or fun catchphrases for young kids to join in on. That alone means that even if the “base premise” is similar to the original Adventure, this already necessitates a lot of things that have to be very different, because Adventure really cannot be called episodic no matter how you slice it.

Not only that, even though the target audience consideration has yet to be outright stated, we also have interviews on hand that made it very clear, from the very beginning, what their goals with the reboot were: they wanted the kids to be able to enjoy a story of otherworldly exploration during the pandemic, they wanted cool action sequences, and they wanted to get the adults curious about what might be different from the original. Note that last part: they actively wanted this series to be different from the original, because the differences would engage parents in spotting the differences, and the third episode practically even goes out of its way to lay that message down by taking the kids to a familiar summer camp, only to have it pass without incident and go “ha, you thought, but nope!” Moreover -- this is the key part -- “surprising” people who were coming from the original series was a deliberate goal they had from the very beginning. They’ve stated this outright -- they knew older fans were watching this! They were not remotely shy about stating that they wanted to surprise returning viewers with unexpected things! They even implied that they wanted it to be a fun experience for older watchers to see what was different and what wasn’t -- basically, it’s a new show for their kids who never saw the original Adventure, while the parents are entertained by a very different take on something that seems ostensibly familiar.

On top of that, the head writer directly cited V-Tamer as an influence -- and if you know anything about V-Tamer, it’s really not that much of a character narrative compared to what we usually know of Digimon anime, and is mostly known for its battle tactics and action sequences (but in manga form). In other words, we have a Digimon anime series that, from day one, was deliberately made to have a writing philosophy and goal that was absolutely not intended to be like Adventure -- or any Digimon TV anime up to this point -- in any way. And that’s a huge shock for us as veterans, who have developed our tastes and expectations based on up to seven series of Digimon that were absolutely not like this at all. But for all it's worth, the circumstances surrounding its production and intent don't seem to quite line up with what the most common accusations against it are:

That it’s a rehash of Adventure: It really isn’t. It’s also blatantly apparent it has no intention of being so. The points that are in common: the character names and rough character designs, some very minimal profile details for said characters, Devimon having any particular foil position to Angemon, the use of Crests to represent personal growth, the premise of being in the Digital World and...that’s it! Once those points are aside, it’s really hard to say that the series resembles Adventure any more than Frontier or Xros Wars resembles Adventure (which are also “trapped in another world” narratives) -- actually, there are times the series resembles those two more than the original Adventure, which many have been quick to point out. The majority of things you can make any kind of comparison to basically drop off by the end of the first quarter or so, and trying to force a correlation is basically just that: you’d have to try forcing the comparison. The plot, writing style, and even the lineup of enemies shown just go in a completely different direction after that. So in the end, the base similarities can be said to be a marketing thing; if I want to criticize this series, I don’t think “lack of creativity” would actually be something I would criticize it for. (Of course, you’re still welcome to not be a huge fan of how they’re still guilty of using Adventure’s name value to market something that is not actually Adventure. We’re all gonna have mixed feelings on that one.)

That they don’t understand or remember Adventure’s appeal: Unlikely. All of the main staff has worked on character-based narratives before, which have been very well-praised while we’re at it. The producer, Sakurada Hiroyuki, was an assistant producer on the original series, and I would like to believe he probably remembers at least a thing or two about what they were doing with the original series...but, also, he’s the producer of Xros Wars, which definitely had its own individuality and style, and, moreover, was more of a character narrative that people generally tend to expect from Digimon anime. (Still a bit unconventional, and it has its own questions of personal taste, but a lot of people have also pointed out that this reboot has a lot in common with Xros Wars in terms of its writing tone and its emphasis on developing Digital World resident Digimon moreso than the human characters.) All signs point to the idea they could make a character narrative like Adventure if they really wanted to. It’s just, they don’t want to do that with this reboot, so they didn’t.

That they misinterpreted or misremembered the Adventure characters: There’s been accusations of said characters being written in a way that implies misinterpretation or lack of understanding of the original characters, but the thing is, while I definitely agree they have nowhere near the depth of the original ones, there are points that seem to be deliberate changes. (At some points, they’re actually opposites of the original, and certain things that operate as some very obscure references -- for instance, Sora complaining about having to sit in seiza -- seem to also be deliberate statements of going in a different direction.) The lack of human character depth or backstory doesn’t seem to be out of negligence, but rather that this story doesn’t want to be a character narrative to begin with -- after all, we’re used to seven series of Digimon that are, but there are many, many kids’ anime, or even stories in general, where the story is more about plot or action than it is completely unpacking all of its characters’ heads. In this case, this reboot does seem to have characters that are taking cues from or are “inspired by” the original, but, after all, it’s an alternate universe and has no obligation to adhere to the original characters’ backgrounds, so it stands to reason that it’d take liberties whenever it wanted. (Again, the head writer outright stated that he based the reboot’s Taichi more on V-Tamer Taichi than the original Adventure anime Taichi. He knows there’s a difference!) Even more intriguingly, the series actually avoids certain things that are common misconceptions or pigeonholes that would normally be done by the mainstream -- for instance, the Crest of Light (infamously one of the more abstract ones in the narrative) is fully consistent with Adventure’s definition of it as “the power of life”, and, if I dare say so myself, Koushirou’s characterization (emphasizing his relationship with “knowledge” and his natural shyness) arguably resembles the original far more than most common fan reductions of his character that overemphasize his computer skills over his personal aptitude. In other words, I think the staff does know what happened in the original Adventure -- they just actively don’t want to do what Adventure did, even if it’s ostensibly a reboot.

That it’s soulless or that there’s no passion in its creation: Well, this is subjective, and in the end I’m not a member of the staff to tell you anything for sure, but there are definitely a lot of things in this anime that don’t seem like they’d be the byproduct of uninspired creation or lack of passion. It’s just that those things are all not the kinds of things that we, as Digimon veterans, have come to develop a taste for and appreciate in Digimon anime. That is to say, there is an incredible amount of thought and detail put into representing Digimon null canon (i.e. representing special attacks and mechanics), the action sequences are shockingly well-animated in ways that put most prior Digimon anime to shame, and the series has practically been making an obvious attempt to show off as many Digimon (creatures) that haven’t traditionally gotten good franchise representation as they can. Or sometimes really obscure “meta fanservice” references that only make sense to the really, really, really, really hardcore longtime Digimon fan (for instance, having an episode centered around Takeru and Opossummon, because Takeru’s voice actress Han Megumi voiced Airu in Xros Wars). If you follow any of the animators on Twitter, they seem to be really actively proud of their work on it, and franchise creators Volcano Ota and Watanabe Kenji seem to be enjoying themselves every week...so basically, we definitely have creators passionate about having fun with this, it’s just that all of it is being channeled here, not the character writing.

So in the end, you can basically see that this series is basically the epitome of desperately pulling out all of the stops to make sure this series lands with the actual target demographic of children, dammit, and gets them into appreciating how cool these fighting monsters are and how cool it would be if they stuck with them even into a series that’s not Adventure. The Adventure branding and names to lure in the parents, the straightforward and easy-to-understand action-oriented narrative so that kids will think everything is awesome and that they’ll like it even when the story changes, and the merchandise and collab events booked everywhere so that they can all be reused for the next series too...because, remember, they failed with that during Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon (I mean, goodness, you kind of have to admire their persistence, because a ton of other kids’ franchises failing this many times would have given up by now), so it’s a bit unsurprising that they went all the way to get the kids’ attention at the expense of a lot of things that would attract veterans, especially since the veterans already have a well-developed adults’ pipeline to cater to them. This does also mean that this series is more likely to come off as a 67-episode toy commercial than any previous Digimon series, but it’s not even really the toys as much as they’re trying to sell the entire franchise and the actual monsters in the hopes that they’ll stick with it even when the narrative changes.

Nevertheless, here we are. The series is over. Ghost Game -- which, as of this writing, is looking to be much more of a conventional Digimon narrative, complete with older cast, obviously more dramatic atmosphere, and pretty much everything surrounding its PR -- is on its way, presumably thanks to the success of this endeavor. It’s hard to gauge it; we have it on record that they also intend it to be episodic, but remember that this doesn’t necessarily prevent it from having an overall dramatic plot or nuanced drama (especially since the abovementioned Appmon and Kitaro were perfectly capable of pulling off this balance). Nevertheless, it seems to be a lot more of the conventional kind of Digimon narrative we usually expect, so, as for us, adult long-time fans of the Digimon franchise (many of whom don’t have kids anyway), what exactly should we make of this? Well, as far as “supporting the franchise” goes, you’ll get much more progress supporting Ghost Game than the reboot; I highly doubt view counts and merch sales relative to an already-finished series will do nearly as much for the franchise’s health as much as the currently airing series, and, besides, it’d probably do us all a favor to support the endeavor that’s actually new and fresh. So when it comes to a “past” series like this, it’s all just going to come down to a question of personal preference and taste: is this a series you, personally, want to watch, and would you find it entertaining?

For some of you, it’s possible that it just won’t be your cup of tea at all -- and since, like I said, the majority of us here have based our expectations and preferences on up to seven series of Digimon that were not like this, that’s also perfectly fine, and in that case I don’t actually recommend you watch this. Of course, I’ve never thought that it was ever fair to expect a Digimon fan to have seen all of the series released to date; the more series we get, the more inhumane of a demand that’ll become, and I think this franchise becoming successful enough to have so many series that most people won’t have seen it all is a good thing. (It’s actually kind of alarming that the percentage of people who have seen it all is so high, because it means the franchise has failed to get much of an audience beyond comparatively hardcore people who committed to it all the way.) But I think, especially in this case, with a series for which adult fans like us were probably lowest on the priority list due to the sheer amount of desperation going on here, it’s fine to skip it, and if you’re someone who lives by a need for character depth or emotionally riveting narrative, the fact this series is (very unabashedly and unashamedly) mostly comprised of episodic stories and action sequences means you won’t have missed much and probably won’t feel too left out of any conversations going forward. That’s before we even get into the part where it’s still completely understandable to potentially have mixed feelings or resentment about the overuse of the Adventure brand for something like this, especially if Adventure is a particularly important series to you.

But for some of you out there, it might still be something you can enjoy on its own merits. I’ve seen people who were disappointed by the limited degree of Digimon action sequences in the past or the fact that the series has gotten overly fixated on humans, and had an absolute ball with the reboot because it finally got to represent parts of the franchise they felt hadn’t been shown off as well. “Fun” is a perfectly valid reason to enjoy something. It’s also perfectly possible to be someone who can enjoy character narratives like the prior Digimon series but also enjoy something that’s more for being outlandish and fun and has cool Digital World concepts and visuals -- and, like I said, it does not let up on that latter aspect at all, so there’s actually potential for a huge feast in that regard. I think as long as you don’t expect it to be a character narrative like Adventure -- which will only set you up for disappointment, because it’s not (and made very clear since even the earliest episodes and interviews that it had no intention of being one) -- it’s very possible to enjoy it for what it is, and for what it does uniquely.

#digimon #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure reboot #digimon adventure 2020 #digimon adventure psi #shihameta

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fionn-n-harry · 4 years ago

Text

One Night- Part 3 (Fionn Whitehead)

GUYSS thank you for being so patient for me and waiting so long, I loved writing this and I hope you guys are satisfied with the conclusion. This is a long one, and it most definitely has some mistakes which y’all can totally correct me on. hope y’all enjoy. Also tumblr removed my italics :((((

In which Y/N and Fionn explore their new relationship....

Warnings: Vomiting, oral sex, mentions of abuse, alcohol

Word Count: 17k

It's so easy for her to do it, Fionn thinks to himself. And it makes him scoff a little, a little too loud that he's afraid someone might have heard him. He clears his throat and takes a sip of his drink.

Y/N ends her conversation with the young man and they hug, the young man lifting Y/N to her tiptoes and rocking her side to side making her laugh. Fionn watches the scene unfold and his knuckles turn white from gripping his glass too hard.

He's never thought of himself as the jealous type but the alcohol in his system makes him hazier than usual. He hasn't seen her in person since they last kissed for the first time and Fionn has yet to properly address her tonight. As Y/N pulls away, her eyes suddenly lock with Fionn's and she tries to hold his intense gaze before she nervously finds herself turning away into the crowd again. Fionn looks down at his drink and watches it twirl in his glass, downing the last bit and setting his glass down on the counter shaking his head, mostly at himself, to set himself straight for making Y/N feel nervous under his eyes.

He would go apologize but he feels too nervous to do any of it now or look at her, and the liquid courage that once flooded his body was now absent.

Y/N watches Fionn make himself another drink, staring, aweingly (though she would make sure no one else would look at her stare awingly) and she finds herself in a conversation between a group of people that she is bored of.

Fionn, in a tipsy state, feels a pair of eyes on him as he mixes. He feels like he is making it all up until he looks up and see's Y/N staring at him, her eyes softer than usual, curious and shy, Fionn picks up on it all. Fionn lifts his hand and gives her the smallest stagnant wave and then tilts his head, motioning for her to come over without much thought, too into his mixing. Y/N's heart skips a beat and she looks around to make sure Fionn had been addressing her. She slowly pulls herself away from the group and finally finds herself approaching Fionn.

"Hi." Y/N says lowly as she slides up next to Fionn catching his attention.

Fionn looks over at Y/N and suddenly a huge smile appears on his face and an arm loops around her waist bringing her close into a hug while his other hand holds his drink against the counter.

"I missed you," Fionn utters as she brings her hands to rest against his chest as he pulls her in.

Her breath fans over his lips and he finds his eyes lingering from her eyes down to her lips and up again. Y/N nervously reaches for the collar of his shirt and smiles, watching her hands fiddle with the fabric and finally training her eyes to his once again.

“I missed you too.”

First real date sorta second date. Nothing to worry about. Just the two of them casually hanging out at Fionn's flat, Y/N thinks to herself.

The meet up was last minute, everything they do seems to be last minute. While Y/N and Fionn had been texting much more frequently and regularly, doing a few FaceTime calls to laugh about something together, Y/N, nor Fionn, could really tell what they were doing, if this was just extremely friendly, extremely flirtatious, or teetering the line of unspoken sexual tension from their attraction to each other.

Nonetheless, Fionn finds himself experimenting with the idea of getting closer to Y/N and when he’s back in the city he texts Y/N and jokingly asks her to come over... and then more casually suggesting she’s always welcome to come over... and then Fionn telling her he enjoys her company similar to their first “date,” and suddenly Y/N was checking her makeup in her phone camera.

She tried to liven up her appearance yet keep it as casual as possible yet Y/N begins to question whether her black halter top showed too much skin or her jeans were too casual for the occasion.

She texts Fionn that she’s outside and tugs at the fabric under her arm to provide relief to the feeling of being exposed.

Fionn is tired, he’s excited to see Y/N and quite frankly is glad he invited her because texting her and Face Timing her had him itching to have her close like the one night they had together, but he’s also really really tired.

Fionn didn’t really try much with his appearance. He tried to look presentable, and that he did well with, but he finds himself snuggling into a hoodie and taking a nap, completely frizzing up his hair into a mess. He comforts himself by looking in the mirror and telling his reflection his jeans make the look casual and presentable, but he knows he’s lying to himself and the bags under his eyes when he’s making coffee right when Y/N texts him that she’s outside.

“Y/Nnnnnnn,” Fionn slurs out her name as he swings the door open and juts his head out to smile at her.

“Fionnnnnnnn.” She drags out back.

Both unsure whether they should greet each other with a hug or just go inside, Fionn takes a moment to look at her outfit. Fionn can’t help but feel underdressed and look way too comfortable to be meeting a pretty friend.

“You were already out?” Fionn asks hanging his weight on the doorknob, yet to step aside to let Y/N in.

“Oh... yeah, was hanging out when you texted.” She’s lying because she can’t help but feel overdressed for a casual hangout with a friend when Fionn looks like he just woke up and she kinda wishes they would have FaceTimed instead so she wouldn’t have had to explain herself.

“Oh,” Fionn says, stepping aside to give her access into his home, “You look pretty.”

Y/N smiles shortly at his compliment and walks in before he can notice her blushing or her grin

become too wide.

“You want coffee?” Fionn asks, shutting the door behind her, “I didn’t realize how tired I’d be after that flight.”

Y/N shakes her head, “I’m okay, I think I’m a little too awake.” She admits, hoping through her honesty to make conversation, he won’t catch on to what she really means.

“Did you drink? You know I didn’t take you for the party type after you took care of me that one night.” Fionn says walking to the kitchen and flicking his head in that direction to motion for Y/N to follow.

Y/N chuckles as she situates herself into a high chair by his cozy little kitchen island and he goes to pour his coffee.

“Not today, ever since you picked me up, I’ve been hoping not to embarrass myself like that again. I usually never drink like that.”

Fionn takes a sip of his black coffee and slides it next to Y/N, taking a seat adjacent to her.

“You were embarrassed? Don't I enjoy helping those in need.” He says and Y/N scoffs, “Besides you said a lot of nice things anyway.”

It’s silent for a couple of seconds as Fionn watches his coffee shake in his mug as he thinks back to the night where he had picked Y/N up after a sudden phone call in the middle of the night, where she’d said nice things to him, and thanked him for helping her out. It reminds him of the first night they met and how she helped him out, preventing him from completely vomiting on everyone and calming him down and it just makes him think about Y/N and everything he knows about her , though limited, up to this point.

“Are you always that nice?” Fionn asks.

Y/N raises an eyebrow and has the slightest smile on her face, “What do you mean?”

Fionn goes in for another sip, “I mean I think, well I guess, from all the times I’ve spoken to you that you like to help others out and you make sure they don’t feel weird or crazy but you kinda just make everyone comfortable, but I don’t know you too too well when I think about it.”

He shuts himself up by taking another sip and looking around the room avoiding her gaze.

Y/N rests her elbow on the island and rests her head in her hand, “That’s like the coolest thing anyone has ever said to me.” She shyly smiles and stares at the nails on her other hand, “Don’t like making people feel like they did something wrong for something so normal.”

“Why not? I’m sure some things are meant for people to take accountability for.” Fionn questions, digging into the girl in front of him a little more.

Y/N ponders answering, her eyes flirting up to his and becoming nervous under his gaze and going back down to her nails.

“Because someone used to do it to me.” She confesses, and for a second Fionn sees her float off somewhere else before she is straightening herself out with a smile and turning her body towards him, “You are also very nice Fionn.”

He turns his body towards Y/N grazing her knees as he faces her, “Thanks but I think you win.”

And then Y/N’s shoes are discarded near the front door, and she’s sitting next to Fionn on his couch listening to him talk about when he first met Gaby because he was close friends with her brother and she was doing an immense amount of shots and beating his entire friend group in a drinking game.

Y/N laughs at his story and brings her knees toward her chest as she rests her head against the couch cushion to listen to Fionn talk. She realizes she could listen to him talk for ages and ages and the way his hair bounces ever so slightly when he adjusts himself and the way his neck is so empty and inviting-

Y/N and Fionn had drunk. Alcohol always finds its way into their setting, and they talked about it as Fionn pulled out some wine, but Y/N hadn’t expected herself to get a little tipsy and find herself fueled by confidence.

Fionn finishes his story and suddenly feels hot and restricted by his sweater, telling himself and Y/N out loud, and lifting it off his head in one swift motion, Y/N catching a glimpse of his V-line and smiling to herself in her tipsy state.

Once he discards his sweater on his lap, with hazy eyes in a similar tipsy state and flushing cheeks, he looks over at Y/N who is leaning into the couch with her eyes trained on Fionn, a smile on her face.

“Why are you looking at me like that huh?” He questions playfully reaching out to tug at her sock.

Y/N finds herself laughing in an outbreak and covering her face with her hands. Fionn laughs with her, why he doesn’t know.

“What? Tell me.” He laughs along, reaching for her forearms to separate her hands from her face. She leans forward and falls into the crook of his neck with her arms pressed between their bodies, catching Fionn off guard as she continues to chuckle lightly.

Fionn's hands hover over her body, closer to himself than to her, unsure of what to do but still playing along and nudging her head that’s tucked in his neck.

“What? Is it something I said? Tell me, tell me.” He smiles.

Y/N, in her confident state between thinking straight and starting not to think at all, pulls back to free her arms and one of her arms slides from her side up to his neck, her thumb grazing his cheek, while her other hand finds itself between his waist and under his arm. The position is much more sensual and is a leap from the atmosphere earlier, where everything was so shy.

Her actions catch him off guard and his laugh softens as he realizes just how close they actually are.

“You gonna tell me Y/N?” He whispers into her ear.

She breathes out and her breath fans his neck, making Fionn shudder.

“You gonna touch me Fionn?” She whispers back, the hand on his torso comfortingly rubbing up and down.

Fionn realizes his hands have been by his side this whole time and he brings them up to touch her back and graze a hand down her spine that hadn’t been covered by the fabric from her shirt. He feels her body squirm under his touch.

“Like that?”

Fionn's own tipsy state had made him confident enough to even touch her.

And then there’s a kiss on his neck and Fionn's grasp on her waist tightens ever so slightly to ensure he doesn’t hurt her and his eyes flutter closed. Another kiss, and another kiss and the hand on his cheek finds its way to his hair and tugs his head back gently giving Y/N access to the underside of his jaw.

Y/N hears the slightest groan that excites her and she moves from his jaw, to his cheek, to the corner of his mouth, stopping before reaching his lips and pulling back slightly, eyes gazing at his expression and tilting his head toward her face with the hand placed in his hair until their foreheads are barely touching.

Feeling her close, Fionn opens his eyes to her curious and soft ones as she smiles patiently. Fionn uses one hand to trace her spine while the other pushes hair behind her ear and cups her cheek.

“You’re so pretty.” He whispers, somewhat disconnected to realize what he’s actually saying, “Someone should tell you nice things too.” His eyes flicker between her eyes and her lips as he speaks.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, yeah?”

Y/N’s hand behind his head falls to his chest as Y/N looks away from his gaze and down at the hand between them.

“Why’d you pick me up when I asked you?”

The question catches him off guard because it’s so odd in the moment but he answers.

“Because I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Were you doing it because I helped you first?”

“Somewhat yeah.” He answers, swiping his thumb back and forth along her cheek.

“What if I hadn’t helped you?”

Fionn wants to raise an eyebrow at her question as he only finds one real answer, “Then I wouldn’t have known you.”

She nods out an “mmm” against his hand.

“I like the way you sound when you’re not in my phone.” She smiles.

“Me too.”

The hand that rests on Fionn's waist comes up to his shoulder. “Am I too close?” She asks him timidly looking at his lips then shyly back at his eyes

“No you’re okay,” He confirms, “We don’t have to do anything, we can just be close.”

Y/N scrunches up her nose, “And do what?”

“We just shouldn’t drink anymore, don’t want any of us to regret anything.” Fionn tells her moving the hand on her spine to the other side of her cheek that is not occupied by his hand. Able to position her head, he gently brings her forehead to his lips causing her to giggle as he begins to repeat her previous actions.

Kissing her forehead, then her temple, down to her cheek and to her jaw, he nudges her jawline for permission and she raises her head, giving Fionn sight of her neck where he kisses her. Fionn’s kisses on her neck are slow and circle around and near her ear. He presses another kiss below her ear and sucks on the skin and Y/N squeezes his shoulder enjoying the sensation, Fionn making note to himself. Closer to Y/N’s jaw, he continues kissing and then sucking skin, this time jutting his tongue out to stimulate the area and he feels Y/N’s hold on the collar of his shirt tightens.

“Leave a mark.” Y/N whispers to him, eyes closed and a smile playing on her lips.

Fionn pulls back, coming back to a space closer to soberness than tipsiness, “Are- Are you sure?”

“Yeah. If you want to.” She says circling her arms around his neck.

Fionn feels himself become hard and thanks god that she didn’t decide to straddle him even though she practically sits halfway in his lap.

Fionn tilts her head to the side and her neck, a blank and inviting canvas, strips Fionn of his reasoning to pull away and stop and he peppers a light kisses where he can before sucking on an area in the middle of her neck, tongue wavering back and forth on her skin until Y/N pants quietly. He moves his hands back to her waist, gripping her sides securely yet softly, still connected to her neck and leans her back into the couch until he is hovering over her, Y/N between his hips as she keeps him in place with his arms. He pulls his lips back engendering a small smack from his lips and looks at a dazed Y/N, moving hair out of her face as she smiles and becomes giggly when she opens her eyes to see him smiling back at her.

“How is it?” She asks him.

Fionn looks at the purple bruise he has just left on her neck using one hand to trace it, “It’s there.”

She nods as he strokes her neck a little more, “Cool.”

Fionn shakes his head and chuckles leaning down towards her face and pressing a kiss on the corner of her mouth before pulling away from her hold completely, standing up and leaving her on the couch with arms on her stomach.

She starts to laugh again like earlier and Fionn smiles at her suspiciously again.

“Oh my god, what now?” He laughs with her because of her own laughs.

“You’re a little hard.”

Fionn notices her eyes at his crotch and he immediately reaches for a pillow from the couch and throws it at her making her squeal.

“Okay maybe you’re not that nice.” He says grinning and turning away to the kitchen a little embarrassed.

Y/N sits up and calms her laughter, “Hey it’s okay, I’m just playing around.”

He shoots her a look from the kitchen as he grabs himself and Y/N a bottle of water, “Yeah you should be when you were kissing up all over my neck.”

Her cheeks turn pink and she covers her cheeks with her hands falling back into the couch embarrassed herself, “We’re even.”

Fionn comes back to her with a bottle of water for himself and lays one on Y/N’s stomach.

“Drink it.”

She looks down at her stomach and sits up once again to crack it open, “Yes sir.”

Fionn raises an eyebrow at her glaring as he finds himself still getting a tad bit aroused. Y/N closes her bottle and seeing Fionn’s fidgeting movements, she places her hand to Fionn's stomach and drags it down to the belt of his jeans.

“Do I?” She says quietly and shyly and the same girl Fionn saw a minute ago was no longer the playful Y/N from before. She was quiet and too rigid to move.

“What?”

Do I?

“Do I need to fix it?” She reiterates her fingers shaking as they clutch his waistband, her eyes staring at the button of his jeans, anything but lustfully.

Fionn takes his hand in her own, pulling it away from his body, “You- you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, you know that right?”

Y/N pulls her hand out of his own and sets her feet back on his wood floor, as she shifts on the couch again and takes another sip, ignoring his words and holding herself.

“I’m cold.” Y/N mutters and she rubs her exposed arms up and down.

Fionn is confused by her change in demeanor, her want to be close, her questions, the look of obligation she felt to pleasure him, then the sudden withdrawal from him entirely. He’s not mad, anything but, he’s just unsure of how he’s supposed to feel. Maybe it’s the alcohol he tells himself.

Fionn reaches for his hoodie on the couch and hands it to Y/N who puts it on quickly.

Y/N’s unsure of what caused her to feel exposed and vulnerable suddenly. She’s embarrassed now when she starts to think about how she asked Fionn to leave a hickey on her neck in the heat of a moment when they hadn’t even kissed yet, and she’s embarrassed by the rush she feels to please him so he doesn’t get bored and so that he stays engaged with her.

Y/N credits her last relationship, her crummy and terrible ex, to needing to feel validated through Fionn validating her actions. But she’s coming to realize that Fionn is a completely different person, and she doesn’t have to dwell on past fears with him. He’s an entirely different experience.

“You okay?” Fionn asks taking a seat next to her again.

Y/N nods and pulls away from her thoughts. What once felt like a juvenile crush between two school kids scared to talk to their crush now felt like a real dynamic between two adults who could do whatever they want and say whatever they want. Y/N see’s that she’s in her home, wearing his sweater, hickey of his doing on her neck, no need to define what is going on between them, and it draws her to look at Fionn.

“I’m good. You okay?”

Fionn nods and smiles at her, “All good. You want to watch a movie?”

Y/N leaves Fionn that night with a big hug and his sweater on her body.

Fionn takes another trip and Y/N doesn’t get to see him for a little while but they occasionally text each other and Y/N musters up the courage to ask him to video call her when she’s alone and he’s laying in his hotel room.

“I didn’t think I’d be so badly jet lagged.”

“That’s what happens when you’re famous.”

Fionn rolls his eyes, “Don’t say that.”

Y/N laughs, “Well it’s a little true isn’t it? Not everyone gets to be in movie with-”

Fionn shushes her before she can continue, “I’m just a regular person, don’t see me any other way.” He tells Y/N over the phone as he grabs a pillow and positions it under his head, “Want to feel normal to you.”

Y/N gets butterflies in her stomach and rests her head on a pillow and moves her laptop to the side to look seemingly unaffected by his words.

Her hair is sprawled out on her pillows and Fionn catches sight of the faintest dusty purple and rose bruise on her neck from the glow of her laptop screen as he struggles to keep his eyes open.

“Mmm hickeys’ pretty much gone.” Fionn notes out loud.

Y/N touches her neck and blushes, “Oh. Yeah.”

Fionn smiles at the thought of that day.

“Maybe when I come back I can give you another one.” He mutters into his pillow, slightly embarrassed, slightly confident, and extremely tired.

Y/N chuckles, “Yeah maybe I’ll let you give me another one. When do you come back?”

Fionn is half asleep on the other end of the line and it takes him a second to answer, “Maybe, in a week or two, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Mmm okay, so in a week or two.”

Fionn shakes his head against his pillow at her playful response and finds himself falling asleep again, but he knows how to ignore it by focusing on Y/N’s voice.

“So, how was your day Y/N?”

Y/N is at another house party two weeks later after her phone call with Fionn, a party that Gaby found through her brother. And while Y/N wasn’t exactly in the party mood, Gaby had insisted she tag along to visit some old friends who told her they’d be attending.

Gaby pours herself a drink before tugging Y/N through the party. Y/N swears she sees a face that makes her sick to her stomach dancing next to a group of girls. Y/N shakes the idea, looking back and seeing nothing as Gabby brings her to a patio with a group of familiar faces. Y/N drowns herself out of what she thought she just saw and enjoys her conversation with her old friends. She drinks a little bit out of Gaby’s cup to calm herself down but doesn’t allow herself to drink anymore or grab a cup for herself.

She feels like she should stay alert tonight, a feeling in her gut tells her to stay sober, to stay present. Especially when Y/N notices Gaby’s laugh begins to drag and Y/N rubs her back, adding sensation to her friend's drunkenness and also to ease her own worry. Y/N feels her blood rushing and is thankful to see Gaby’s brother make his way into the group and take a seat next to Gaby after he greets everyone ensuring that he would take care of her if she went haywire, to which Gaby elbows his rib.

“Jesus Christ Gaby.” Her brother says, shaking his head and looking at Y/N , “Can you grab her some water?”

Y/N nods, heading inside when her phone begins to ring.

“Fionnnnn.” Y/N smiles to herself at the surprise call.

“Y/Nnnnn.” He answers back, “Guess who’s back?”

Y/N’s smile turns into a toothy grin, “Oh really? When you’d get back?”

“Couple hours ago, would’ve told you then but I needed to settle in.” Fionn hears a couple of people on the other line and feels like he may have interrupted Y/N, yelling at himself internally for calling randomly instead of texting. In his defense, he hadn’t spoken to her in a while, and missed hearing her. But now he feels selfish for expecting her to be available when he craves to have a piece of her, “Sorry, I should have texted, is this a bad time?”

Y/N walks into the kitchen where the noise dies down and pulls a bottle of water out of the fridge, “Not really, at a house party Gaby brought me too.” She says, “You can come if you want, think I saw Tom earlier in the yard.”

Fionn's lips press into a thin line, “You sure?”

Y/N leans against the counter to continue her conversation before making her way back, “I mean if you want to come feel free, unless you’re too tired.” Fionn is silent on his end and Y/N thinks she’s lost him, “Hello?”

“Do you want me to come?” He asks her.

Fionn knows realistically that he’d stick by her side most of the night, wanting to be near her again, rather than two people who know each other and go have fun on their own. He wants her to feel comfortable with him being around her world of fun.

“Well yeah, haven’t seen you in a while.... it’s nice when you’re around.” Y/N blushes at her confession and holds the cold bottle to her neck to cool down the heat that rushes to her ears.

Fionn swears he almost chokes as he comes to terms with the fact that he really really really likes Y/N and when she’s honest about the way she feels.

“Send me the address.”

Y/N waits for Fionn as Gaby’s brother holds water to Gaby’s mouth and Gaby protest’s, pushing over her plate of food in the process. Inside there’s a loud collective of laughter as the host begins to say a couple of things they get people riled up and the group looks inside and between the mess on the patio.

“Go inside guys.” Y/N says, “I’ll clean it up really fast, have fun.”

The group thanks Y/N and heads inside, as Gaby tells her how much she loves her and Y/N rolls her eyes playfully, reaching for a lone plastic bag and using a paper plate to scoop the food into a pile as she crouches down and her friends disappear.

“I knew I saw you.”

Y/N freezes, the voice too incredibly familiar and distasteful. Y/N raises her head to find a hand outstretched to her, and she lowers her head again and continues to sweep the food into the bag.

“I thought we were on good terms?”

Y/N scoffs as she scrapes the remaining specs into the bag, “Who told you that?”

She rises and avoids his gaze as she throws the plate into the bag and ties it into a knot.

“You literally danced with me at the club...?” He sounds confused and Y/N feels her anger settle in her arms as she has the urge to smack him.

“You mean when you forced me to dance with you? When I was drunk and you forced me to grab onto you and you just kissed me?” Y/N walks past him to a small waste bin and tosses the bag in the garbage.

Y/N remembers the night she called Fionn, the night where she was an absolute mess and had ran out of the club because her ex-boyfriend had forced her to stay close and touched her like everything was normal, controlling her to feel like she needed to be complacent with him. The night had brought a wave of old resentment she had for him and the way he treated her and she remembers how she had ran out when he looked the other way and called the first number in her head when Fionn’s face flashed in her mind in her drunken state.

“I was just taking care of you.” He says convincingly, and Y/N might have believed it if they were together but she knew better.

He comes close and she can feel him against her back and she shakes her head and pushes him away with her shoulder, “That’s what it always is right? You’re always taking care of me, you always know where I am, you always know when to make me feel silly when I need you, you always know when I’m supposed to get down on my knees. That’s what it is isn’t it? It’s always for my good, right?” Y/N turns around and looks straight into his tense expression, “It’s always, you know what I need so I should just do what you say. And you’re doing it again right now because I’m not running back to you... You know exactly what you’re doing.”

Y/N waits for him to say something and he bites his cheek looking away from her. “Why are you fucking quiet when I stand up to you? Had so much to say before...”

“Who gave you that?” He says, eyeing her neck and brushing the hair away, the last remnants of her hickey barely visible, “Is it the guy who picked you up that night?”

Y/N feels disgusted knowing he watched them together, that Fionn has been exposed to him. She pushes him away with her hand and dismisses him walking back into the house finally realizing how shaky her arms and legs are as she pushes past a sea of people, moving through the house, and out the front door.

“When you’re ready to get it together and come back again, know my bed is ready for you.” He jokes as his hand grips the back of her neck and turns her around to pull him into her. His touch is so aggressive compared to Fionn’s and she wants to throw up all over this joke of a man. Y/N finds a knot forming in her throat because he’s so convinced she’d crawl back to his cold bed and superficial love like a child.

“I’m not coming back,” she says weakly, twisting her face away from him, “I don’t ever want to see you again, I’m so much happier when you’re not around.”

And his face drops as he realizes Y/N isn’t as easy to control as she was a year ago. Y/N breaks free shaking him away and she feels her phone ring in her pocket and she quickly answers.

“Yeah?”

“Hey what’s the house number again- oh I see you.” Fionn says and Y/N looks up the street to see his car approaching the house.

Y/N feels her ex standing in the lawn behind her burning holes into her back, but as Fionn’s car nears, she finds it easier to ignore. She pulls at the car door, silently asking him to unlock it, and when he does, she hops into the passenger seat.

“Can we go somewhere else? I don’t wanna be here anymore.” She tells him buckling on her seat belt.

Fionn watches someone stare at them before they turn and head back inside and Fionn nods at her request.

“Oh yeah of course. Everything okay?” Fionn says, swinging his eyes back to Y/N.

She’s quiet and clasps her hands together between her knees, biting the skin near her lips. And when she looks at him, it’s a silent plea for him not to ask, not to stress her out, and to just drive.

Fionn reaches for her clasped hands and slips his hand between the two. Y/N welcomes his hand and intertwines their fingers with one hand bringing it toward the center console of the car to make it easier for him. Her other hand grabs onto his wrist.

Fionn smiles at her sadly and begins to drive off.

The ride is silent and Y/N is grateful because she isn’t ready to open up and yet she can also find comfort in his touch.

Fionn takes her to his place and when they get out of the car to walk inside, his hand finds hers again, tugging her against his side as he opens the door.

“Sorry for the mess I didn’t clean much before I left.” Fionn tells her turning his body into hers.

“It’s okay.” She whispers as he kicks the door back with his heel, “Just glad to be here.”

Fionn smiles and pokes her cheek, “Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop buttering me up.” He says pulling her toward the couch and sitting her down.

“I’m not buttering you up, I'm being honest.” She smiles back tugging on his wrist to tumble him into her body to fall on her.

He laughs and moves his body off to the side as Y/N let’s go of his hand and tackles his body into the couch.

“You’re back.” She tells herself out loud as she nestles into his chest.

She knows she’s being a little clingy but she’s happy to see him and just wants to be present with Fionn and forget everything from before.

“I remember we were so shy to touch each other.” He says brushing the falling hair out of her face.

“Well I’m a lot more comfortable with you now.” She mumbles into his shirt, shutting her eyes and dozing off ever so slightly as Fionn watches.

“You wanna sleep over?”

Y/N raises her head to look at him properly, “I- I don’t want to over step.” She carefully pulls her weight back and sits on the couch properly as Fionn swings his legs over the edge of the couch to straighten himself up.

“Well, you can if you want to. Don’t expect you to sleep in the same bed as me or to do anything but just know you’re welcome to tonight.” Fionn states before heading to the kitchen and making himself coffee.

Y/N has to remind herself that this is Fionn and not her ex and while she should always be cautious, Fionn isn’t going to force her to do anything or purposely make her uncomfortable to test the waters. For crying out loud it’s the drunk, doesn’t dance Fionn who she met the first night. Y/N could cry out from relief to know that maybe she actually met someone who cares about her feelings and what she wants and how slow she wants to go or how fast she wants to go and that it isn’t just about him but it’s about them.

Y/N doesn’t realize that her positive thoughts are intertwined with her negative ones that bring up countless bad experiences that make her sick to her stomach and have her standing up and running to his bathroom and belching into the toilet. Her body physically rejects every idea of her past relationship and wants to rid herself of every part of it, but she can’t scratch it off or vomit her insides out; rather she just has to accept it, maybe even as he once always said, “get over it.”

And as she flushes the toilet and pulls herself against the wall, her spiraling thoughts and the flashes of her late night calls with Fionn and all the times they’ve been together has her wondering if she is even completely and truly ready to be in a relationship with him if she has to constantly reevaluate every instance.

Y/N is angry that she has to even think like that. That someone perfect is right in front of her and that she has doubts and might even have to wait to tell him all that’s she's feeling because someone decided to play with her for years and has resurrected all her hidden worries because she saw them tonight.

She feels two arms circling around the front of her waist and kissing her cheek as they pick her up off the ground and to the kitchen, into a stool. She barely pays attention to what he says but he puts a cup of tea in front of her, hand on her back, telling her to drink it to feel better before deserting her side again.

Y/N isn’t sure how her phone has ended up on the counter but as she takes a sip of her tea she’s debating ordering an uber to take her home, because she can’t really think straight.

Fionn comes back to her with a sweater, slotting her arms through before standing by her side.

“You’re shaking.” Fionn tells her before looking down at the phone in her hand hovering over the confirm uber button, “You want to leave?”

Y/N shrugs, unable to really answer.

“I can take you home if you want. If not then at least let me pay for your cab.” Fionn tells her quietly worried about her changed manner.

She doesn’t answer yet, instead drops her phone on the counter and takes another sip, letting Fionn watch her before she sets her tea down and reaches for the belt loop of his pants to bring him closer to her.

“Why do you treat me so well?” She whispers, the top of her head grazing beneath his chin, “If you want me to do something tell me.”

A frown begins to grow on Fionn's face and he brings a hand to thread through the roots of Y/N’s hair, “I don’t want anything.”

He uses both his hands to hold Y/N’s face and lifts it up to look at him, her eyes following.

“Just want to be around you is all.” Fionn says nervously, “I really like you, you know.”

Y/N carefully grips the front of his shirt, pulls Fionn even closer and Fionn leans down tilting her head towards his lips.

Fionn looks into her eyes then down at her lips,“Can I kiss you?”

And Y/N tugs him towards her lips to crash into his. Their lips follow each other in a slow rhythm as Y/N fists the front of his shirt desperately to bring him closer, kiss him deeper as she transfers her warm lips to his cold ones. Fionn’s tongue escapes his mouth to swipe her bottom lip and Y/N opens her mouth to let his tongue meet her own. Sloppily Fionn begins to pull away for air, but Y/N brings him in for one last long and slow kiss that has Fionn run on hand into her hair to lock her in place.

Y/N pulls back and looks at the smile toying on Fionn’s face that soon finds a home on her own.

Fionn is breathless, more than he likes to admit, figuratively, that he has just kissed the girl that has been on his mind almost everyday and that he hopes he can find an excuse to text or call. Having her close, feeling her as a part of himself, has Fionn dropping his head into her neck and circling his arms around his waist making Y/N chuckle.

“Your lips taste sweet.” He tells her in her neck as Y/N rests her arms over his shoulders to play with her fingers.

“It’s your tea.”

Fionn and Y/N stay in that position for a while, relishing in the comfort of each other’s touch free from any awkwardness.

“I really like you too.” Y/N says tiredly, eyes half shut on Fionn’s shoulder.

“Best news I’ve heard all week.”

Y/N chuckles as she gently pushes Fionn back and away from her, for her to meet his own tired expression, eyes fluttering open.

“Were you falling asleep?”

Fionn nods his head and reaches to take a sip of her tea, downing the rest of it before looking back at her.

“You can sleep here in my room if you decide to stay, or I can take you home.” Fionn tells her leaning forward with a surprise kiss for her, “What do you wanna do?”

Y/N decides whether or not she should have this conversation with him now, whether she should tell him her doubts about giving herself to him in intimate ways like she wants to without feeling like she has to, but they’re both tired so she settles for Fionn’s room and being under his sheets as she convinces him to stay and hold her hand and keep her close.

And when she wakes up in the morning she’s kissing Fionn’s temple and listening to his babbling and groggy protests, too tired to realize what is going on when she takes a cab home.

Y/N would like to think that her and Fionn are just fine a week later, even though she purposefully has been letting his texts sit longer than usual and doesn’t answer his texts right away. She wants to want to be ready to be with him without having any doubts, without confusing him, and without comparing him to the past.

Fionn asks her to hang out, swing by his place, grab dinner, do anything, and Y/N is always busy, to his knowledge, and she isn’t lying, but she purposefully makes plans last minute to avoid having to meet Fionn.

It’s another late night and Y/N is about to head to bed after she gets in her sweats but Fionn texts her asking if she was up for him to give her a call and Y/N agrees because she thinks the least she could do would be to answer his call.

“Fionnnnn.”

“Hey Y/N,” He sounds groggy and worse for wear from her side and he lacks his usual enthusiasm.

“Everything okay? You sound weird.” She notes as she peels back her sheets.

“I’m so jetlagged, I’m in another country right now. I can’t even sleep.”

Y/N raises her eyebrows, “You’re in another country? Wait since when?”

“Since three days ago.” He answers bluntly.

Y/N shuffles into her blankets, “Oh really? I don’t even remember you telling me, my bad.”

The line is silent and she thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep but he finally shuffles on his end, “I didn’t tell you.”

And Y/N is caught off guard by the revelation when Fionn has usually told her excitedly about the places he was headed “Oh... why... not?”

Fionn fishes for melatonin in his bag, kicking it away frustratedly when he can’t find any.

“You’ve been busy, didn’t want to distract you.” He says, his tone filled with irritation as he unzips his suitcase.

“Oh... are you mad?”

Fionn hears her question, but he doesn’t really hear her question.

“What would I be mad about?” He says dropping to the ground to pull out his clothes messily to scan the bottom.

“Are you mad at ...me?” Y/N asks nervously, thinking he’s caught on to her avoiding him,

Fionn quirks an eyebrow at her question and sits back on the floor pressing his phone to his ear, “No? Why would I be mad at you?”

Honestly, Fionn isn’t certain why he called Y/N, he’s been on edge, stressed and restless all day and all he wants to do is calm down, and Y/N usually helps him to, but today is different and today it’s different and he can’t help but feel irritated with every way his day has been going. And truthfully he notices Y/N isn’t around as much, and briefly imagined that she may have been ignoring him, but he’s been so swamped in work and stress that he doesn’t give himself the time to entertain the idea.

“I don’t know,” She lies when she could give a few reasons, “You just sound a little mad.”

Fionn chuckles catching on to what she’s getting at, “No I’m not mad at you. Even if you had been ignoring me I want you to know that I’m always going to give you space if you need it,” he admits, beginning to slouch forward to search his bag again.

Y/N hums contently at his words, wondering how he can read through her so clearly and rolls over in bed, “Oh... thank you Fionn.”

And then it’s silent again as Fionn checks his luggage pockets and finds his melatonin, shaking the bottle into his hand and holding the gummy that comes out between his index finger.

“Everything okay with you then Y/N?”

He moves the gummy into his palm and holds it close to his abdomen waiting for Y/N to respond.

“I’m okay... I wanted to talk to you about something actually if you don’t mind.” She sighs as she presses his phone closer to her ear.

Fionn quickly and dryly chews his melatonin to answer, “‘Course, what is it?”

Y/N props her pillow behind her head contemplating to start her sentence. She wants to be honest with Fionn, and about her worries, and while she slightly worries that Fionn may not even be thinking of the idea of their relationship, she rather get it out the way now than feel like she needs to completely disconnect herself from him because she can only compare him to her experiences at the hand of another person.

"Um, well, I like you-"

"I'm glad-"

"And I’m pretty sure that you like me too-"

"I do-"

Y/N blushes and shakes her head, "so I just wanted you to know that, if I ever, well, seem weird or question you, that it's nothing personal I just, uh..." Y/N tries to think of the right words to complete her sentence, "I just have a hard time believing people's intentions."

“Okay, yeah...thanks for letting me know.” Fionn rises to plop himself back on the hotel bed and cradles the melatonin bottle on his stomach, eyes fluttering, “Is this about the guy on the lawn?"

Y/N's eyes widen, not ready to tell the story, not expecting for Fionn to put pieces she thought were obscure together so quickly, "What?"

Fionn begins to feel fatigued, rolling to his side, "Yeah, he looked familiar. I think I remember him from the night I picked you up from the club, when I drove away he was looking into the car... and then I saw him when I picked you up recently and he looked the same. I think. Are we talking about the same thing?" His eyes begin to shut, "Sorry are we thinking of the same thing?"

Y/N's lips press into a thin line. To keep them separate was all she wanted, that she could exist with Fionn without Fionn knowing the outside influence that bothers her when she is with him. Now she feels like their relationship would have an imaginary ex of her's seated between them, one that Fionn would have to make space for between himself and her. Y/N's stomach bubbles with anxiety, "I think Gaby is calling me, I have to let you go." She blurts out.

Fionn digs her head into his pillow, "Mhmm. I don't think I can stay awake if you're not talking. Talk to you tomorrow then yeah?"

"Okay, bye."

"Sleep well-"

Y/N has hung up, thrown her phone to the side, and rolls in her bed, head stuffed in pillows, lulling herself to sleep and free of worry because of the lack of oxygen.

And when Fionn texts her the next day asking if she wants to finish their conversation, she doesn't answer. Fionn follows up with his lone text, telling her when he's headed back when he finds out, but she doesn't answer that either. In fact, she never answers, and two weeks go by, and she hasn't made any sort of communication with Fionn. Fionn is terribly confused, and it preoccupies his thoughts his entire trip, but he doesn't want to overstep her boundaries (that he realizes are also his but more fear and nerve based) so he lets it be until he's back home. And when he tells her he's back, a week later, he finds his texts are still abandoned. As the month mark of his unanswered texts approaches, Fionn finds himself missing her presence, virtually and actually. He convinces himself he may have been becoming clingy and that the three weeks that had passed were perfectly reasonable. Yet, he starts to worry, just wanting to make sure Y/N is okay, and he messages Gaby... who tells him that Y/N had been alive and well, and oddly around.

She hasn't texted you? Ugh she's such a bitch sorry

Fionn blicks at Gaby's message unsure of her tone and tells her that he just wanted to check up, and to leave it at that. He tells himself he doesn't need or deserve an explanation and if Y/N didn't want to speak to him, he wouldn't force her to want him back. But when he's showering, the warm water reminds him of the sudden heat rush he felt that night on the sofa with Y/N, when they were talking, when he kissed her neck, their calls, and Y/N telling him that she likes him back.

So where did he go wrong? The question kills Fionn and makes him question if he was good enough for her to begin with. He could imagine a future with Y/N, whether they took their relationship to an intimate level or stayed friends. He appreciated her for who she was and how warm she could be. Fionn shudders, the bed colder than he expects after his shower. While they hadn't known each other for the longest time, nor explored their identities with each other or their pasts, he absolutely misses their emotional connection, and he feels like a kid yearning to be wanted again. He starts thinking too much again. Fionn hates when his thoughts race faster than his heartbeat and he can't catch a break, and his hand gravitates towards his melatonin, ready to push him to sleep.

Placed next to his melatonin is his ringing cell, a call from Tom makes Fionn shift the place of his hand.

"COME TO BARRY'S YOU FUCKER."

Fionn's friends progressively begin to annoy him more than he wants, and he's already in a shitty mood, feeling terribly insecure in his clothing, in his presence, and he wishes he stayed home rather than wrongfully believing this would prove any type of distraction. He heads to the kitchen where he is met with a plethora of liquor that he can't decide from. He recklessly mixes some of them together in one cup, having the sudden urge to drink more than he knows he can handle. It doesn't taste very good, but Fionn knows it will get him tipsy (or drunk) faster so that he can move on and begin to enjoy himself. He stands against the wall as his friends harass the DJ to play a dumb song, yet he isn't as irritated anymore, feeling the drink seep into his system.

"Y/N, I fucking hate you," Gaby tells Y/N, punching her arm much harder than Y/N expected as she gets into Gaby's car.

"Shit Gaby, what was that about?" Y/N rubs her arm weirded out by Gaby's flared nostrils and raised eyebrows.

"What was that about," Gaby mocks, "You ghosted Fionn you bitch... put your seatbelt on."

Y/N stays silent, prepared for Gaby to lecture her, and Y/N might even cry because she already feels like a shitty person for what she is doing. And she knows she is, but she would rather tell herself than have someone else tell her. Y/N was going through a lot of emotions, to be honest, Fionn as a romantic partner reminded her of what they could be, happy, healthy, and with good and solid boundaries. But she also has this looming idea that hasn't left her for a year, that in her next relationship, she could be used, disrespected, and hurt. It's not that she didn't want to talk to Fionn, she just didn't want to think anymore, and she ran away from her problems, telling herself she'll text him when she's calmed down. Yet she never texted him, nor explained anything to him, and now she's scared to text him, knowing she's waited too long, thinking he may have already dismissed her and let her be. In reality, she knows Fionn is patient and may have been waiting for her, giving her the space he told her he would give her. But the time where she grabbed her phone and told him how much she missed him hadn't come, and now that she feels it has, she’s a couple weeks too late.

"I'm not going to attack you for it. I know how things like this scare you because of him. But could you just shoot him a text or something?" Gaby grips the steering wheel as she begins to drive, "Fionn texted me, wanting to make sure you were okay."

Y/N tears up, throwing her head back into the seat, as she feels an overwhelming sense of guilt, finally truly realizing how he must feel.

"I'll text him soon, I promise." Y/N whispers.

Gaby smiles softly, "Good, no rush, just do it soon so he knows yeah? You can have fun tonight and figure it out tomorrow."

Y/N is separated from Gaby at an overcrowded gathering that Gaby dragged her to claiming, “Yeah I know this girl, I met her at another party” before Y/N runs into an old friend of hers. And that's when Fionn realizes she's there. He thinks his drink is too strong and is playing tricks on him, but after intensely staring at her features, and the black halter top he remembers running his hands over on his sofa, he's stuck in place. Watching her lips move, remembering when they touched his, remembering they were dragged across his jaw- he stops himself from thinking any further in fear that he might give himself a boner. His eye's dart from her face to the person that wraps an arm around her neck as she laughs into her hands. The guy watches her closely, wanting to amuse her, and Fionn scoffs, a little too loud that he looks around to make sure no one heard him, but it's lost beneath the music.

Y/N wraps up the conversation and the man steps forward, pulling her closer, to adjust his arms under her shoulders to hug her, lifting Y/N to her tiptoes, making her laugh. Fionn watches the scene unfold and his knuckles turn white from gripping his glass too hard. He's never thought of himself as the jealous type but the alcohol in his system makes him much more envious than he ever thought he could be. He hasn't seen her in person since they last kissed for the first time and Fionn has yet to properly address her tonight other than watch her from afar.

When Y/N pulls away, she starts to walk in Fionn's direction and immediately locks eyes with him, trying to hold his intense gaze (which is really just Fionn unsure of what to do) before she finds herself turning away and rushing into the crowd again. Fionn looks down at his drink and watches it twirl in his glass, downing the last bit and shaking his head, mostly at himself, to set himself straight for making Y/N feel nervous under his eyes. Yet also at the thought that she had just run away from him, and it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth.

He would go talk to her but he feels too nervous to do any of it now or look at her. Fionn wonder's if she's moved on, met someone new, or had feelings for someone else to begin with that made her leave and run from him here and he feels insecure in his presence again. He wouldn't be too mad if that were necessarily true, he's an adult and it happens, but it would sure break him a little. He sighs harshly, and marches back into the kitchen, prepared to fill his cup.

Y/N runs to Gaby and Y/N explains the situation, hands moving too fast as she talks, and Gaby trying to keep up with Y/N's pace.

"What do I do? I must look like a bitch-"

"You definitely do-"

"Okay Gaby, I know! I can't believe I just left."

Gaby, obviously annoyed, glares at Y/N, as she takes a sip of her drink. Y/N cowers under her gaze, "What..."

"I swear Y/N, go tell him that you're sorry and kiss him or something. You always do this. Don’t screw this up, you like him don’t you?” Gaby watches Y/N quietly nod her head embarrassed at her lecture, “So then act like it yeah? And calm down, do you want some of my drink?' Gaby holds out her drink and Y/N chugs it in its entirety.

The rest of the night is tamer than that moment as Y/N learns to calm herself down, get her fucking act together, and be an adult. But when she does, she can't find Fionn as the night becomes busier.

She’s relieved when she spots Fionn. Y/N watches Fionn make himself another drink, staring aweingly (though she would make sure no one else would look at her stare awingly) and she finds herself in a conversation between a group of people that she is bored of.

Fionn, in a tipsy state, feels a pair of eyes on him as he mixes. He feels like he is making it all up until he looks up and see's Y/N staring at him, her eyes softer than usual, curious and shy, Fionn picks up on it all. Fionn lifts his hand and gives her the smallest wave and then tilts his head, motioning for her to come over without much thought, too into his mixing. Y/N's heart skips a beat and she looks around to make sure Fionn had been addressing her. She slowly pulls herself away from the group and finally finds herself approaching Fionn.

"Hi." Y/N says lowly as she slides up next to Fionn catching his attention.

Fionn looks over at Y/N and suddenly a huge smile appears on his face and an arm loops around her waist bringing her close into a hug while the other holds his drink against the counter.

"I missed you." Fionn utters as she brings her hands to rest against his chest as he pulls her in.

“I missed you too.”

The moment is cut short when a handful of people begin to shout excitedly as a line of shots begin to be poured. It’s at this time Y/N notices that Fionn begins to push into her, tipping her over and making her support his weight as she makes an effort to not tumble under his weight.

“How much have you had to drink?” Y/N furrows her brows when she sees him pick up his cup to bring to his lips again. Fionn shrugs as he pulls the rim away from his lips now slick from the liquid.

“D’know.” He tells her slurring the end of his sentence and his head droops over Y/N’s, his hand now digging into the skin on her hip as she is forced to absorb the heat of his body from their proximity, “I’m just so glad you’re here,” he confesses, lips moving in her hair, “I thought I wasn’t good enough for you, and I thought you proved me right.” He mutters, obviously still embarrassed though his state of mind.

Y/N shakes her head against his and the hand near his neck falls to his waist to push him away and support some of his weight on the counter, “Not at all. You are more than enough.” She tells him, a reassuring smile toying on her lips.

Fionn cocks his head up at her and tilts it to the side, “What’d you say?”

Y/N notices the volume of the room and Fionn who suddenly starts rubbing at his temple, bothered by the noise. Y/N takes note that Fionn is the type of man who, when he has had one too many drinks, likes a quiet atmosphere rather than one surrounded by people as time with him has taught her. She soon is dragging him through the apartment and into a cozy bathroom, with a light dimmer she is grateful for when Fionn complains that it is a little too bright. Fionn is drunk, but he can handle his own in the current state he is in, it isn’t like the first party where he might choke on his own sweat. It’s quiet and calm in the bathroom and he isn’t overheating on the couch of a house party. Instead he’s cool, dipping one hand under cold water as he watches Y/N shut the door behind them, and turn her back to it.

Fionn settles for sitting on the toilet seat close to the sink as he continues to allow his hand to lay under the pressure of gushing water.

“What’d you say before?”

“Huh?”

“What’d you say before, I couldn’t hear you.” Fionn repeats as he nods for her to come over and sit on the space between his feet in the tile. Y/N trods over and sits on the ground facing him, in between his spread legs.

She smiles to herself as he watches her though influenced eyes, getting worked up when she leans her head into his knee comfortingly, “I said that you are more than enough,” her hand reaches and squeezes his knee, “For me.”

Fionn loves the words that come out of her mouth, but he’s still hurt about what happened earlier and he wants to let it go, but he’s still bothered, “Then why are you running away from me?” He asks sadly.

Y/N feels like an absolute prick, and his words slapped her with a sense of guilt she’d only been allowing to seep out of her in increments, but Fionn’s words, so genuinely wondering where he went wrong, drowns her in guilt, suffocating her.

“I’m so sorry,” She says looking down at the tile, “I’m so lucky to have met you and I shouldn’t push you away like that. I’m sorry.” Her hands rub at his thighs and his knees, like she’s hugging the lower half of his body.

Fionn feels himself choke on his breath and he goes a little too long without blinking. It isn’t until he realizes that Y/N has retreated her hands to herself that he turns off the faucet, wipes his wet hand on the side of his shirt and his hand is reaching for her cheek, securing her in place with his thumb tucked behind her ear.

Y/N shudders against the cold hand that holds her lovingly and she looks back up at Fionn who has a boyish grin.

“I’m just glad you’re here now.” He tells her stroking her cheek, heat rising on his own face.

Y/N is so happy that things aren’t tense because of her temporary ghost, and she thinks he’s almost too forgiving but she won’t complain. She would even dare say she thinks they are closer now. But she realizes the haze in Fionn’s eyes as his head falls back against the wall. He is drunk after all. Y/N feels like she has unintentionally taken the easy way out to avoid proper communication and she sighs again, resting her head on his thigh.

“What are you thinking about?” The wave of his voice rumbling through his body, to his thigh and to her face.

She lets out a light chuckle, “Whether or not I’m gonna have to nurse you back to health.”

Fionn sucks his teeth and the hand on her cheek slides back into her hair and gently pushes her to one side playfully, “I’m fine you. So fine that I want to take you home.”

Y/N rolls her eyes and pulls her head away from his hold, “Not letting you drive me home when you look like that.”

“Good, cause’ it’d put you in danger... but who said it would be your house?”

Y/N feels her ears grow hot and she crawls away toward the door and presses her ear to it without responding, “It’s not that loud anymore, wanna go?”

Fionn moves his head side to side, “No. I like it here, it’s quiet. And you, pretty lady, are here alone either me.”

“Are you always this verbally affectionate when you’ve had too much to drink?”

“I just want to be with you.” He admits casually causing Y/N to blush and turn away from him completely, “If you’re okay with that.”

Y/N is unsure whether he is talking in the moment about their situation or their relationship in general but she is quick to her feet to subdue her worry when Fionn starts to snooze on the toilet seat he had been sitting on and someone knocks on the door whining that they have to take a piss. She tugs at his wrist and she soon gets him to stand up. He walks on his own toward the bathroom door that Y/N holds open for him and instead of leading him back to a calmer section of the party like she planned, Fionn is suddenly guiding himself deeper into the apartment and into a bedroom and Y/N follows suit.

“I’m not trying to seduce you, m’just tired.” He tells her when he see Y/N awkwardly stand in the corner of the room as he flings himself onto the bed, “You don’t have to stay if you’re bored.” He adds as he shuffles his head closer to a pillow and tucks an arm beneath it, “But I like knowing you’re near.”

Y/N is unsure what allows Fionn to be so blunt in the moment, never really taking him for a blunt and or confident drunk but a nervous and anxious one but she realizes the circumstances are different

“How’d you know this room was here?” She asks him and she gradually makes her way over to him.

“I’m good friends with the guy who lives here. We used to be roommates for a couple of months.”

Y/N hums back at his answer as she reaches him, his back turned to her. Unsure of what to do, she settles for having her hand trace over his back for the time being and digs shapes into the skin that she is blocked by because of his shirt.

She wishes she knew how to properly respond, physically, when she hadn’t seen him in so long. It’s not the same anymore, she nor Fionn seem too nervous in each other's presence like they once did, and while that is credited to Fionn drinking, she suddenly feels the urge to throw herself into the comfort of his arms and into his side where she can rub against him. But she doesn’t deserve that right now, after she ran away from him and left him wondering about her. And she hopes she can tell him soon when he’s in the right state of mind so she can kiss all over his neck again if he decides to accept her apology. And she really really hopes he does.

Y/N isn’t paying much attention to what she is doing as she talks to herself in her head until a hand is grabbing her wrist. Fionn has twisted around to his back and his face is pink, his breath slightly quicker than usual and his grasp on her skin hot. And Y/N who tries to look him in the eye, can’t help but notice in her peripheral vision the valley that has appeared in his crotch.

“I was just rubbing your back.” She says sheepishly looking around the room and away from him entirely.

Fionn nods, “I know, I just,” his mind is racing slightly embarrassed, “I’m not thinking properly right now.” He drops her wrist and immediately turns back around face down to the sheets.

Fionn is drunk and Y/N was not about to touch Fionn the way she wished she could, everything right now is wrong, the atmosphere, the situation, the timing, it’s all wrong. There is a time and place for them to address and sort each other out properly and now is not it. She doesn’t even know why she’s still standing in the room with her hands by her side. So when she thinks Fionn is completely asleep, she tiptoes to the door and leaves him again.

Gaby is sober to Y/N’s surprise, something about not wanting to miss Y/N leaving and Gaby being unaware of where she’d gone like the party before that had Gaby crying to her brother thinking Y/N had been kidnapped. Gaby and Y/N are grateful to go home together for once.

“You talked to Fionn?” Gaby asks as she paces herself to reach a stoplight.

“A little, nothing important, he was drunk.” Y/N admits, “I feel like our connection always has to do with alcohol. I barely feel like we can be normal with each other unless we have a drink in our system.”

Gaby shrugs, “Well you both are shy as hell. I talked with Tom, said Fionn isn’t even one to do much as to meet new people unless he really really has to, and you are not exactly the type to tell a guy you miss him—”

“Well I did—”

“—Hush, you get what I mean, you aren’t straightforward when you need to be, or at the best times.” Gaby says, a hand falling to her lap as the other grips on to the steering wheel, “For that reason, I think you should take him out on a date.”

Y/N quirks an eyebrow at her friend and Gaby smiles, “Think about it. You can be straightforward at any time you want as long as you don’t kill the mood with a random downer and I know you’re itching to be lovey dovey and did you kiss him like I told you?”

Y/N swats Gaby’s shoulder in response, “You’re so nosy.”

Y/N takes Gaby’s advice and in the morning asks Fionn when he’s free so that they can talk properly. Without wasting time, Fionn tells her he can speak today or anytime during the week and Y/N chooses to prepare herself and tells him to meet her at her place two days from then. Their texts are kept short as they are yet to cross that line again, but Y/N is grateful to be in touch with him one way or another.

She’s not one to cook, but she tries to experiment for those two days, urging Gaby to come over so she can cook Gaby breakfast and dinner. Gaby is honest and Y/N won’t lie that her feelings are hurt, but Gaby’s honesty about how Y/N is somewhat a terrible cook encourages her to stay in her lane and do what she knows and make Fionn a dish she is comfortable with, which she realizes is nothing... The day of, Y/N pulls on a bodycon that teeters far from the line of formality but can rarely be considered casual and orders takeout a little before she expects him to arrive. An hour before he comes over, she’s fluffing her hair the way she likes, cleaning up the little things as much as she can and doing her best to keep the food warm when it comes in. She pats her lips in the embellished mirror that sits in her living room room when—

Hey I’m downstairs.

Y/N checks her appearance as quickly as possible and grabs her keys and anxiously walks out the door. The elevator cannot come any slower and she feels like she’s tugged on her bodycon a little too much to the point where she’s begun to stretch it and wrinkle it. No matter her nerves, she thinks she’s excited, that they can be alone and talk the way they want knowing that they can be blunt about their feelings toward each other and their affection if Y/N is totally straightforward and she can hash out the real issue that has brought them here quickly and —

Shit.

Y/N can spot Fionn outside her complex through the window pane of the double doors and he is dressed casually and past him she can see his car is double parked and running. She had forgotten to mention this was gonna be a date.

Y/N is sure her body would have let the elevator doors close and take her straight back up to her place to tuck herself under layers of covers and let her food get cold if it had not been for the fact that Fionn and her lock eyes and he awkwardly nods to greet her through the glass.

Y/N forces herself out the elevator and unlocks the front door that leads to her stoop.

“Hey,” Fionn is the first to speak as she walks over to him way too slowly before his eyes trail down her figure all the way to her toes, “Cute sandals.?You look nice too, you headed somewhere?”

Y/N sighs, “Oh, I didn’t even notice.” She looks down at her fuzzy slippers and then to the car that continues to run, “Not headed anywhere... You headed somewhere?”

“Maybe, not sure if I wanna go yet.” Fionn tells her. They are an odd distance away from each other and Fionn waits for Y/N to speak watching her sway side to side and look up and down the street, “So...”

Y/N snaps her head to Fionn, “Right uh...” Y/N’s plan to tell him her concerns have gone out the window, this is not how she wanted to do it, rushed because his car is still running and whatnot, but her stomach bubbles from the thought of telling him what she wants to, “I just wanted to tell you again that I was sorry.”

Fionn's lips purse into an “o” shape and he shakes his head nonchalantly, “You’re good, you can have time to yourself—”

But the whole point of this was for her to tell him what she wants, “But you deserve an explanation, a real one.” She adds, “I actually thought, I don’t know...,” she blushes and Fionn cocks his head to one side feeling a smile form on his cheeks because the situation is amusing, “I thought tonight we could spend some time together if you aren’t doing anything— if not we can rain check, if you want to though! — but if not we can talk and I have some food upstairs...?”

The bashful look on Y/N’s face that she so desperately tries to hide does not go past Fionn and he shifts his weight from one foot to the other biting the inside of his cheek to stop his smile.

“I forgot to tell you that I wanted this to be like a , you know, you and me thing... sorry I forgot to tell you the most important thing...” She scratches the back of her neck and stares at the ground, “Guess I was nervous or something.” She says, throwing her head to laugh shyly.

Fionn’s legs feel like jello, the butterflies in his stomach could fly out of him and there would still be a million more gliding in his veins, especially when he realizes she’s asking him on a date. Fionn suddenly feels self conscious again when his hands rub at his sides and he realizes what he’s wearing.

“I’m not really dressed for the occasion...” Fionn slurs and Y/N nods her head defeated but understanding, “I mean look at you.” He chuckles, cracking his knuckles.

They are both so painfully timid in this moment and they are reminded why their conversations must usually be fueled by alcohol.

“But I’d love to come up.”

And Y/N has the fattest smile on her face, “Okay.”

Fionn looks at his car running in the background, “Give me a minute I’ll just park and come back real quick.”

Y/N nods again worried her words will be too bubbly. She’s pulled out of her world of excitement tangled with a twinge of panic when she unexpectedly feels Fionn’s lips pecking her own quickly and gently pulling back before she even has time to realize. An encounter that has her touching her lips.

They don’t talk much on the ride up or the walk down the hall, but they are so evidently giddy about each other without having to do or say much.

Y/N leads Fionn in and has him take his shoes off at the door. She seats him at her cute little table near her window and heads to her kitchen to put the takeout on her fancy plates she's always so scared to mess up. She can see Fionn through the half wall of her kitchen, taking off his light jacket and hanging it on the back of his chair. He catches Y/N taking a sneaky look at him and he holds her eyes with his until she gets nervous and begins to set the food onto the plates even faster.

"You need help?" He calls out leaning forward on his forearms.

Y/N holds up both plates in response and rushes over to where he is sitting, placing both plates on the table, then running back to the kitchen and back to the table with two water bottles. Once she's seated, she pulls her loose hair back and grabs her fork, waiting for Fionn to take the first bite before she starts to eat.

"I'm happy you're here, I think I owe you an explanation for what I did." And then she stuffs her mouth to wait for his response.

To her surprise, Fionn is shaking his head, "You're okay, as long as I know you're okay--"

"But don't you want to know why?" She pushes.

"Well, it's not like we're together." He says much more nonchalantly and colder than he intended for that to come out. The air around them goes still as Y/N chews her food extra slow. He's right, she thinks, they aren't together, and if she pushes him away and never tells him anything, they will never be together. But they will never be together either if Fionn believes Y/N doesn’t have to share anything with him because they aren't together. Y/N drops her fork confused at his words because while she appreciates Fionn reassuring her about how much space he is willing to give her, that she is not his and he doesn't expect to take anything from her, she wishes he could tell her some things he did want, and while he doesn't want anything from her, does he want her? -- in the way that she's been wanting him?

"Well..." She starts before looking at nothing in the middle of the table in a low voice, "Do you want to be?"

There is so much anxious tension that has made its way into Fionn's bones and down to his fingers and through his throat that it feels like food is lodged in his throat and his fork is unbelievably heavy. He didn't mean for it to come out like that, he wants her to know he has no malicious intentions behind his actions. He knows that she know he likes her, but he's come to realize that isn't enough, that whether he's tried to be open about about his feelings and had the impression that he was succeeding showing such, he forgot to express his desire to be with her, the desire that a relationship would exist just between the two of them. Everything had just been up in the air. Sure they liked each other, but what were they gonna do about it?

Fionn let’s out a laugh. He laughs, and Y/N cocks her head to the side as she watches him lean over the table to put a hand on her head, causing her to blush.

“Do you even have to ask?” He lets his fingers slot through her hair, gently dragging his hand down the side of her face to bring a couple of strands forward and frame her cheeks, “That's all I want.” He sits back in his chair, staring deeply into her eyes from across the table, “Do you?”

She can feel a smile bubbling onto her face until she reminds herself why they are sat here, and the wall that stood between her and committing to Fionn.

“I just want you to know that I’m still trying to trust you and it’s not your fault I just don’t want to compare you to anyone else and their bad actions... I just want to have you.” Her eyes trail from the table up to his eyes and Fionn is reaching for her hands and squeezing her fingers.

“Okay, that’s okay, and I’d like to be here to help you if you need. Okay?”

Y/N let’s her smile finally erupt and she’s leaving her side of the table to hug Fionn, arms around his neck, and his arms swinging up to her waist, pulling her into her lap where she mostly finds herself for most of the evening as they relish in each others touch, and lips.

. .

“Another hickey?” Gaby asks, spotting it as she exits a stall and Y/N fixes her hair in front of a bathroom mirror,“Never took Fionn for the wild type.”

Y/N rolls her eyes at Gaby, though there is a grin sporting its way to her face, “It’s just for fun.”

Y/N and Fionn have a great thing going, and while they aren’t together together they are exclusive. They’re usually together when he’s not away, she’s always the first person he calls or texts at the end of the day, the first person she facetimes when she tries to improve her cooking and he’s the first person she has been with that she truly trusts herself with entirely. They haven’t had sex, and there is no rush to, but they find themselves doing small things to please eachother, not truly ready to cross that line yet.

Gaby runs her newly soaped hands under cold water and watches Y/N adjust her hair to hide her hickey again, “At least I know you’re happy,” Gaby smiles, “and I no longer have to drive you everywhere. You should tell Fionn how much I appreciate him, you know, he does me as much of a service as he does for you.”

Y/N collides her hip with Gaby’s, pushing her away, and in return Gaby flicks her wet hands toward Y/N’s face who guards with her palms.

“Y/N learn how to drive for our sake.” Gaby pouts.

Y/N feels her phone vibrate in her back pocket.

I’m outside :)))

She smiles at his text, “Speaking of Fionn, he’s outside.”

Gaby leans over to engulf Y/N in a bear hug and rocks her, “Tell your boyfriend I said hi and thank you.”

Y/N says goodbye to the rest of her friends at the restaurant before heading out and rushing to Fionn's car running out front. She taps on the glass to catch his attention and he’s unlocking his car door for his lover, immediately reaching for the nape of her neck with one hand to pull her to his lips once she’s inside.

She pulls away, allowing one hand to rub his chest comfortingly before pulling on her seatbelt, “How was your day?”

“Better with you here.”

“My god,” her seatbelt clicks into place and she reaches for his bicep from the arm that still latches onto her neck, “what a sweet talker you are-”

Fionn is pulling her back in for another kiss, this time surprising her with his tongue that invades her mouth and swirls around her own, savoring the drink that still lingers on her tongue. He pulls her in deeper and deeper, and her hand is forced to fist at the material of his shirt near his waist to compose herself from the dizzying feeling that accompanies his lips. He pulls away unexpectedly, watching Y/N wait for more and pecks one more kiss to her flushed lips before removing his hand from her neck to change gears, then to the middle of her thigh.

Y/N watches Fionn quietly begin to drive off and she rests her hand over the one on her lap, encasing his fingers beneath her grasp. She can’t tell what’s got him quiet, or so worked up to kiss her so hungrily, but she doesn’t mind. Nor does she mind him kneading and stroking the inside of her thigh when they reach a red light.

“How was your day Y/N?”

His smile is almost innocent, but she can see his eyes flit to her neck and her hickey and back to her eyes.

“Good, just went to meet some old friends, Gaby says hi.”

He hums in response and his head falls back completely onto the headrest, — tired? — eyes watching her in a way that Y/N can’t put her finger on before he’s back to watching the road, gripping the wheel tightly.

“You okay Fionn?” She asks naively.

Fionn resists the urge to laugh, and the urge to reel her back to his lips and taste her. He’s been on edge all day, frustrated, and he painfully notices what’s been bothering him when an overwhelming heat rushes to his crotch when Y/N, looking lovely as ever, sits herself in his passenger seat with his work so clearly painting her neck when her hair is behind her shoulders. If he had to tell her the truth, he’s extremely sexually frustrated, maybe it’s just all the work stress he’s told her about and the yearning sensation to have relief from it in one way or another, but he knows Y/N and he’s not truly sure how many remnants of the past that she’s still reminded of, and how he doesn’t want her to feel obligated to fix an issue that he can handle now that he realizes it. Kissing her is just enough to satisfy him for now until he gets home and excuses himself, though her kiss always leaves him wanting more.

“I’m okay just - missed you yeah?”

Y/N traces her thumb over the indents on his hand and his rigid fingers, “You’re kinda tense you know. Maybe I can give you a massage when we get to yours.” She suggests happily and his grip on the wheel tightens even more.

He puts on his bravest smile and tries to hold onto it as he feels himself crumbling and his hand gripping her thigh tighter, not enough to hurt her, but enough for her to feel it and quirk an eyebrow. Y/N and Fionn sit in silence, which she finds weird because Fionn usually is telling her something interesting when everything is quiet but this time he’s reserved. She’s learned that he’s usually quiet when he’s tired, but he’s much more calm and relaxed when he’s tired, allowing himself to find comfort in his fatigue. This she can’t put her finger on, because she’s never seen it before, and she settles on making herself learn more about Fionn and this new expression of his that she doesn’t know.

When they reach his house, it takes him a minute to properly get out of the car that Y/N is already out of the car before him. Then he’s rushing to catch up, hand over her shoulder as they reach his doorstep. He’s fumbling with his keys from his rushed manner and Y/N realizes how long it takes him when she hears him huff. She looks over at his flushed face and finds herself pressing her hand to his neck. He relishes in the cool touch of her hand, washing him with relief yet also filling him with guilt that he’s so out of it because of something so silly. She takes his keys out of his large hands and into her nimble fingers as she begins to unlock the door. Watching the lock below her, there is something in her peripheral she’s not exactly sure about but for the most part she can ignore it. She adjusts her grip on his keys with one hand and accidently drops the set.

Cursing out loud she crouches down to pick the keys up, allowing her other hand to trail from his neck, down his chest and to his lower abdomen to steady herself. Fionn rests his head against his front door as her hand stops near his hips and he grabs onto her arm to keep her balanced. He feels like she is going to kill him with her touch alone.

When Y/N grabs his keys from the ground and begins to stand back up, she notices what has been hiding from her in plain sight and is now practically looking her in the eye, Fionn’s hard on.

Fionn notices her eyes, wide as ever trained on his crotch, and he quickly lifts her up to straighten out her legs before hiding his hips into the door and leaning away from her entirely. Y/N could laugh really, in a way it is funny, but she can also tell Fionn is absolutely embarrassed and has been hiding this from her so that she wouldn’t feel that pressure that her responsibility is to satisfy him, a secret wrapped in a web of other thoughts that she only told Fionn.

But she doesn’t feel that anymore, the idea doesn’t scare her anymore, they’ve been together for a while and she’s more than ready to admit she knows how she should be treated and how Fionn will treat her just as she should be. He’s all that’s on her mind anymore, no more past thoughts and actions haunting her mind, just Fionn and his lovely self.

She opens the door and they shuffle inside before she hands him back his keys and he’s closing the door behind them.

“I’m sorry,” He utters on edge, “Just give me a second yeah, I’m gonna take a shower and I’ll be good as new.”

Fionn is absolutely embarrassed and tries to put on his bravest face when he talks to her. Though he wishes he could run upstairs and relieve himself, he doesn’t want it to weird, knowing she’s down here full well aware that he’s upstairs stroking himself wishing it were her, so his best bet is a cold shower and then he can get back to his love and-

Y/N is kissing him before he has a chance to hurry to his bathroom. Her lips capture his and suddenly his rational mind is being overtaken by his dick when she presses into the front of his body and he unintentionally grinds into her, causing him to pull away immediately after dropping his head onto her shoulder, defeated.

“Y/N please, give me just a few minutes to calm down.”

One of her hands flies to his head and kneads through his hair, “You don’t have to,” she says, her other hand finding his belt loop, “Want to help you, only if you want me to though.” She whispers into his ear.

Want to, want to, want to. A part of him feels so incredibly happy that his girl wants to rather than feeling like she needs to like she once believed. On the other hand, Fionn feels all the blood rush to his cock and before he thinks too little, he’s grabbing her waist and pushing her away to look her in her eyes, “You sure?”

She knows that you sure? is aimed at asking her if she's truly ready, and that the past isn’t something that festers in her mind and affects her present, and she smiles, “You’re all I know now...I’m sure Fionn.” And the hand on his hip falls to his belt, “Can I?”

And Fionn is dizzily nodding and leaning down to kiss her again, using his hands to pull her over to the couch and have her fall on top of him, her knee between his legs rubbing against him, causing his head to lean back and for him to whine as Y/N takes the opportunity to drag her lips down his jaw and onto his neck where she sucks on his skin as her hands skillfully undo his belt.

She falls down to the floor, on her knees, one hand high on his thigh and the other tracing the waistband of his boxers, before she peels them back to reveal Fionn’s cock. He’s not huge, but he definitely is not small either and Y/N, prepared to take on the task of making him cum, spits in her hand before taking him in her palm and moving her hand up and down against him.

Fionn is incredibly sensitive to her touch just because he’s dying to release, and when her thumb comes to the head of his cock and circles around the tip, he’s bucking his hips up toward her hand, and gripping the couch cushion beneath him, eyes fluttering as he tries to keep his moans to himself. The precum that oozes from his tip allows Y/N to glide her palm against him, and when her reaction satisfies him, she leans forward and juts her tongue out to lick the underside of his dick where a long vein trails down his length.

Fionn is absolutely breathless and he gently taps Y/N’s forehead with his thumb to push her away and give him a chance to breathe. His hands run along her hairline until they are tangled in her hair, petting her.

“I’m doing okay?”

He’s speechless, she’s doing more than okay and he nods giving her a sweet grin as he continues to rub the back of her head, “Perfect.”

She gives him a couple of seconds, Fionn seeing the stars his own eyes, and the moment she feels he’s recovered she’s leaning forward and taking him into her mouth, the grip he has on her hair tightens and he’s pushing his back against the couch as he tries to keep his hips from thrusting into her mouth. Y/N takes what she can in her mouth, and takes the rest of him in her hands, her eyes watching his reaction as he squirms beneath her and moans and mutters curses under his breath.

“Your mouth,” He says breathlessly, “Doing so well.” He trails looking up to the ceiling silent words coming out of his mouth. He’s so close he can feel it but Y/N pulls away, her lips pretty with Fionn’s premature mess.

“You okay?”

She nods and places her hand over Fionn's hand in her hair, “Help me fit more of you, push me down.”

And Fionn who can barely speak, and feels as if he has tears pricking at his eyes watches her shake his hand out her hair for a moment to pull it back, using the hair tie on her wrist to tie it, “I’m sure,” She pats his knees and gives him a smile, “Wanna make you cum.”

Both his hands are flying to the side of her head gently slotting his finger through her roots, and she turns her head to kiss his wrist before she flits her eyes at him, telling him she’s ready. Her mouth encompasses his cock and her tongue lay flat on the underside of the vein that runs through it. She waits for Fionn to move her, and when he pushes her head down and bucks his hips up hearing a gag and feeling Y/N salivate around him he’s destroyed.

He isn’t too rough, but he isn’t going very slow either, he’s chasing his release with her mouth desperately moaning and whimpering lewdly, “You take me so well, you look so pretty- fuck- so fucking pretty. Fuck, Y/N-” and he fucks his hips faster into her mouth to glide her lips against his dick and provide him relief. He’s more than familiar with the sudden fire that begins in his stomach and his hold on the sides of Y/N’s face begins to loosen as he tries to tilt her head back and away.

“I’m- shit, gonna come” he tells her as she still hungrily sucks on him, “Y/N, please... please, I’m gonna cum, love, please.” He’s hungrily watching her and he closes his eyes everytime she pulls her mouth away from his cock just to bring it back down toward his abdomen.

She pulls back swiftly and looks into his eyes which causes his thumb to gravitate from her hair toward her lips and swipe over them from the pretty little face she is making, “Cum in my mouth then.”

Y/N uses both of her hands to stroke him once more and she wishes she could take a picture of Fionn, and how needy and breathless he is, trying to keep himself at bay. She takes him in her mouth one last time, fitting what she can and stroking the rest as Fionn is too paralyzed with pleasure to push her back down. The overwhelming frustration he once felt is fueled by a fire in his stomach that grows and grows and grows until he’s squirming under her, his eyes red , wanting to cry from how good it feels, and he’s a whimpering, whining and tugging on her hair.

“Please, please...” Fionn says trying his best to pull her away from all his sensitivity as she continues to suck him dry. She allows him to pull her off and feels a good deal of pride seeing him pant and the red flush on his cheek when she finally swallows.

“Feel better?”

He’s completely fucked out, and he tries to give her the best smile he can even though he feels she just sucked all the energy out of his body, “So much better,” he tells fixing her hair lovingly, “Thank you.”

She nods back at him, tucking him back in his boxers, and wiping the corner of her mouth preparing herself to stand with her now aching knees, but Fionn stops her, the hand in her hair keeping her in place as he leans forward. The other hand in her hair moves to her cheek and he leans her in and up to him, pulling her bum off the back of her heels, and bringing her into his lips. He can taste himself on her, salty, but he could care less, she still tasted sweet, and the two flavors melted together making her undesirable. And though he just got a blowie that practically numbed his entire mind, he knew exactly what he wanted, the one active thing he could think about was her.

Y/N pulls away, her eyes and brows scrunching together as she tries to stand up, “My knees fucking hurt, give me a second.”

And he laughs leaning back into the couch, his arms falling behind the couch cushion watching her stand up and shake out her legs. When she’s satisfied, she falls on the couch by his side.

“Where were we?” She asks, placing a hand to his chest.

“I was going to try to romance you but your knees were about to give out.”

“Fucking knees.”

The room is filled with a comfortable silence as Y/N kicks off her shoes and brings them up to her chest, her clothed toes tucked beneath his thigh.

“You know,” she starts, “If you hadn’t nearly vomited on everyone that one night then I probably wouldn’t have been sitting here.”

“If you hadn’t come to my rescue you mean.” Fionn says, fixing his arm to fall on her shoulder.

Y/N drops her head onto his shoulder and closes her eyes, tired from the day, and though she and Fionn wishes they could go a little bit further, having felt and tasted each other more, neither of them have the energy. Fionn brings her closer with one arm and kisses her forehead, “What does my girl want to do tomorrow?”

“Mmmm I’m your girl now?”

“Are you?”

“Am I?”

Y/N opens one eye with a mischievous smile waiting for him to answer, and he shakes his head playfully as he looks down at her in the crook of his neck. Yeah, he thinks to himself, she could be the love of my life.

He drops his head back against the couch chuckling out loud, "Yes.”

#Fionn Whitehead #fionn whitehead imagines #fionn whitehead imagine #fionn #imagine #imagines #one night #part3 #finale #writing #fanfic #fanfiction #series #dunkirk #fluff

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hanijunk · 4 years ago

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Alright boys, girls, and nonbinary folks of the world. It’s 5:36am (1/30 when I first started) as I decide to give up on my attempt to continue to focus on learning statistics, avoid studying for my two upcoming midterms, and put off my two actual essays for two different classes.

Instead we’re going into a dive about ✨ KazuFuuma ✨ . Is this me telling you you gotta ship it? No of course not, you’re entitled to your own ships! You don’t really gotta care about it as a ship. But I do want people to recognize it’s THERE canonically, and how disregarding it is extremely unfair to Kazuki as a character particularly. Also, I’m working on the assumption anyone clicking this at least knows the bare bones about what KazuFuuma (ex. You know they are a ship of Kazuki/Fuuma from Dolce, you know they are childhood friends, you know who Dolce is, you know about Honeyworks, etc.) I’ll be making references to specific things, but I won’t always go into heavy detail. Might just hope you know it or take my word for what it is, and go into analyzing it. Some I’ll put direct references to find, but some I’ll trust you can find it yourself. If you somehow read this MAMMOTH and want reference to a specific thing mentioned, hmu I can help you find it!!

Also I hate tumblr formatting sm if you legit wanna read this 7 page essay but hate tumblr format lmk I'll add it as a google doc link instead too. anYWHO

Before actually getting into the meat of things lemme preface some stuff.

Again it’s like almost 6am so this will be disorganized and very train of thought (and likely long due to the fact when I fly by the seat of my pants I’m known to get unnecessarily extensive). It’s definitely gonna be in large part why it’s important to recognize as a romantic relationship foundation and what about it shapes Kazuki’s character in particular. Maybe a bit of how it’s been built up and its general focus and implications. Dunno yet. We’ll see LMAOO

I say f*ck. Not a lot, just a handful of times. This ain’t something scholarly this is for my own enjoyment so if you don’t like that might not wanna read. And it’s not like spitefully I just curse a lot if you haven’t...read my tags before lol

Again this is through the lens of a Kazuki stan. Of COURSE I’m going to have some level of bias, but if anything that bias may help more than hurt because that means I become FIXATED and think a lot about Kazuki. Which plays into establishing just how important it is that Kazufuuma’s relationship is recognized, especially in a romantic light at this point. Lmfao.

I’ll have a few more prefaces about the actual content below but to keep this from getting too long if you wanna read come below the cut owo

I have extremely limited knowledge of Japanese just taking a few classes in highschool (so like 3 yrs ago) and live in America. This means a lot of my knowledge is gathered through the english translations of the super duper incredible and lovely people in the Honeyworks fandom who provide translations (delaix and takanenene esp have provided so much for me being able to understand Dolce) and my own limited Japanese paired with Google Translate for things that remain untranslated.

This only will be drawing on information I have come in contact with and have access to and making assumptions based on that, most (if not all) of which is in the public domain. So things like the Dolce Manga Volumes released via Animate, exclusive 4komas, and Light Novels are out of my area for the most part (apart from again snippets of translations thanks to this fandom’s godlike and generous translators).

I will not be drawing on anything from the first Dolce album with the exception of Nade Nade. From a meta standpoint, I consider those songs as songs made as performance media as opposed to character explorations. Nade Nade is the exception because (1) it was released a whole year before the album and (2) you can tell it’s explicitly an exploration of Fuuma and Kazuki’s interpersonal relationship even if it’s in a slightly more performance based context than the songs that came out with the Dolce LNs. Easiest parallel I can make to show this is if you held Non-Fantasy, Yume Fanfare, and Samishigariya up against each other, you could tell the difference in intended audience and intended purpose the same way the Dolce 1st album, Nade Nade, and the songs of the LNs do respectively. Even if there is some basis to ground Kazufuuma, for the purposes of this essay I’ll be acting under the assumption the 1st album falls under the Non-Fantasy equivalent category.

THAT WAS A LOT OF PREFACING CONSIDERING LIKE 2 PPL WILL PROBABLY READ IT I just have a tendency to anytime I do anything analytical lay down ground acknowledgements for myself to work on just...cuz it makes me feel less guilty for any accidental misinformation even if I’m writing towards my future self to read lolll IM SORRY WITHOUT FURTHER TO DO HERE’S THE BRAIN DUMP

First let’s go ahead and establish why it needs to be recognized as an important relationship. Again, I’m a Kazuki stan. He’s my favorite character not only of Dolce but also of the entire Honeyworks series, and as much as I love him for reasons outside the ship, whether you like it or not Kazufuuma is an essential aspect of his character and narrative. Of course there’s the fact that him and Fuuma are childhood friends, so that’s going to in part define their characters and interactions with each other and those around them. They’re both going to be relevant to one another and important to one another’s stories to an even greater extent than the rest of the members of Dolce. But on Kazuki’s side at least, it’s an EXTREME amount. A running plotpoint in Dolce Diary is the sheer amount of dedication Kazuki has to Fuuma and how much his thoughts and decisions are influenced by Fuuma, whether it be how he feels happiest spending time with Fuuma, how he decided to get his piercing to represent he wanted to protect Fuuma, how he doesn’t want to dislike food so he can eat what Fuuma dislikes, etc. Not to mention running jokes about his borderline overprotectiveness and downright possessiveness of Fuuma, how proud he is when Fuuma gets praised, or that one 4koma that literally explicitly states he can read Fuuma’s mind when he thinks motherfucking ‘dirty thoughts’ about his childhood friend (Fuuma). I still don’t know what the fuck to make of that last bit. Genuinely. Or the fact it’s a fucking running joke. As in it’s not a one off. It’s been brought up multiple times. Kazuki what the fuck.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t have character outside of Fuuma or he doesn’t interact with people other than Fuuma. He’s great friends with Sara, Girisha, and Kippei and is shown time and time again to have fun interactions with all of them, generally acting as the best support friend for every member of the group, not Fuuma alone. For instance how he helps Kippei with his self confidence issues or stays over at Sara’s to protect him from a cockroach (which he fails at lol). Nor is that to say all his interactions involving Fuuma focus solely on his devotion to Fuuma, especially in instances where the manga focuses on Dolce as a group dynamic (though even in that setting there are times where jokes about his devotion are thrown in). He’s kind, he’s stupid, he’s friendly, he’s an amazing character in his own right, and I love him for all those reasons. But that doesn’t change the fact a major part of his character and his character interactions are rooted in Fuuma, and arguably some of his most interesting, eccentric, and notable behaviors and traits revolve around Fuuma (again the mind reading for example).

Hell let’s take it one step further. If you look at the character bios of the Dolce members, you get everyone’s motives for being an idol and interests. Of them, Kazuki is the only one to have another character mentioned directly, not to mention that supporting Fuuma is explicitly stated to be his primary motive as to why he became an idol. Not even Fuuma’s sister is mentioned, though two arguments can be made for this. The first would be that Fuuma’s backstory about wanting to fulfill his dream for himself and his sister was decided later to explain Fuuma’s choice to crossdress though it can be argued it was intentionally done to leave it as a reveal at a later date, to which I would argue I don’t think this backstory was a choice in post. While Fuuma’s dedicated Dolce Diary extra exploring that backstory was released a little less than a year after Dolce was revealed, the preview to set up Fuuma’s backstory was actually the first thing released after the character bios on the Dolce Official Twitter page if you exclude a drawing of Dolce from Yamako. The second argument could be that information about his sister was intentionally withheld to set up the reveal when Fuuma’s extra released to explore it. However, going by that logic (which I do agree with), that would also mean that Fuuma’s inclusion and importance in Kazuki’s character bio also set up his dedicated extra, which I don’t think would be incorrect to assume considering what his actual extra turned out being.

Which brings me to the thing that makes it inexplicable to write off the romantic implications behind Kazufuuma: Kazuki’s dedicated Dolce Diary extra, Suki. I shipped Kazufuuma before even knowing of Suki, sure. But the fact that Suki even exists is a shock to me and drove into me the fact that Kazufuuma wasn’t just my own projection. Again, it’s not a surprise that Fuuma shapes Kazuki’s life. They’re childhood friends, of course they’re going to be important to each other. But this extra explicitly brought Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma under a direct spotlight. At first I was thinking oh, this extra was just to acknowledge the fact that Kazuki and Fuuma’s relationship can have romantic implications, but the end of it the conclusion that we got was that it didn’t matter what type of “like” he felt for Fuuma. Originally, I thought it wasn’t anything more than saying there are all types of like, and it doesn’t always need to be explicitly defined, but I appreciated the fact they were aware that they were writing Kazuki in a way that conveyed romantic implications.

Then I thought about it because, again, I love Kazuki of course I’m going to think about his character extra, and realized...that’s not how these character extras have worked. There are only three character extras out as far as I know and have read: Fuuma, Kippei, and Kazuki. If we look at Fuuma and Kippei’s, each extra had a conclusion, sure, but they didn’t have a resolution. Rather, they were simply setting up explicitly what each character’s primary character arc and conflict were. Fuuma’s extra brought attention to the fact that he’s particularly a crossdressing idol by exploring the motives behind it. His choice to be a crossdressing idol is constantly under fire both by himself and the world around him. He’s not immune to those who consider his crossdressing strange, and a part of his story is both finding people who accept his decision to crossdress and to succeed for himself as a crossdressing idol. It’s an essential part of how we understand and define him as a character and it’s a central part of how he interacts with the world around him. For Kippei, it lays the severity of his insecurity under the spotlight and his journey and motives for improving himself. Again, this isn’t something isolated and resolved in the extra; his extreme insecurity and negativity is constantly affecting how he interacts with practically everyone from his fellow Dolce members to his fans despite the fact in all honesty? He’s fucking insanely talented in his own right, his own brother mentioning how smart he is and how he has amazing reflexes. For Kippei, his negativity is an essential part of how we understand and define him and central to how he interacts with the world as much as Fuuma’s decision to crossdress is to him.

Which brings us back to Kazuki, of course. In his dedicated extra, in the chapter that’s supposed to explore and establish and bring attention to an essential part of his character, the aspect of himself under investigation is how he feels about Fuuma. It’s not just how he behaves around Fuuma, it’s explicitly an exploration of his feelings, on top of the fact it’s explicitly an exploration about whether or not he likes Fuuma r o m a n t i c a l l y. Literally the conflict is spurred on by someone outright asking “Do you like him?” and having to clarify “I mean romantically.” What they decided to focus on for Kazuki’s character and emphasize and establish is that Kazuki’s like towards Fuuma toes the line between friendship and romance. His ambiguous feelings towards Fuuma (if we leave them inconclusive as Suki did) are just like Fuuma’s crossdressing and Kippei’s insecurity in the sense the weight of whatever those feelings may be are seen in how he interacts with the world around him and influences his behaviors. It would be another story if they introduced the potential and shut it down all within the extra, because then his central conflict would to me be less directly open to romantic potential and more simply about how his arc was meant to explore the dynamic of the behavior of an extremely dedicated best friend. The fact that he may be romantically attracted to Fuuma or may be only platonically dedicated to Fuuma is instead something that looms over Kazuki in the same way Fuuma’s decision to crossdress constantly looms over him. It’s what Dolce wanted to point to and say this is Kazuki’s central character conflict and central arc: exploring what type of feelings he has towards Fuuma.

Sure, it can be argued that there’s only three Dolce Diary character extras, there’s not enough to be sure about that being the purpose of the extras unless we get the other two’s extras. First, at this point I honestly don’t know if or when they’re going to release an extra revolving around Sara and Girisha just because not only has it been over a year and a half since the latest Dolce Diary Character Extra (Kazuki’s) was released despite the gap between the first and latest Dolce Diary Character Extra (Fuuma’s and Kazuki’s) were within a year of release but also because the Dolce 4komas and comics they’ve been posting to Twitter have decreased (last one being over half a year ago) potentially due to them deciding to focus on releasing Dolce manga content through the purchasable volumes instead. (This is not particularly related to the Kazufuuma argument, just wanted to put out there my two cents on what Sara and Girisha’s extra/focal arc would be. Based on a large part of the Dolce Diary in conjuncture with Can’t an Idol Fall in Love, I’d argue Sara’s would be his journey to regain his passion for performing, and if it’s not that I’d say it’d be coming out of his self-imposed isolation and opening up to people again. As for Girisha, I have less of a concrete idea but I’m assuming it’d be something pertaining to how people often misconceive him whether it be in tandem with his determination, his optimism and sociability, or his stupidity/ability to ignore those misconceptions and work past them. But Girisha is treated like the comedic relief 90% of the time so I’m not entirely sure, but his primary conflict is definitely rooted in misconceptions of him being his roadblock imo. #MoreGirishaContentPlz) That being said, I personally feel like the three are already enough evidence, especially considering it would be honestly even more cruel for Kazuki’s character-centric extra to be focusing on something that wasn’t essential to his character and character arc, anyway. And though it’s not explicitly stated that these chapters are extras exploring a central character, you can kind of tell based on how they are (to my knowledge) the only Dolce Diary updates with cover/title cards each which include their focal character front and center. So working off that fact, the Kazuki-centric chapter established that a pillar to his narrative was his feelings towards Fuuma and that those feelings are still open to romantic potential.

But if you follow me, this is why up until Can’t an Idol Fall in Love With Another Idol’s release, I was terrified of them writing that off. I would have been ok if it was just an arc that was given attention then continued to actively work in the background, as all the character arcs have been over all of Dolce’s content. The fact that they might be giving Fuuma a love interest and giving Fuuma a love arc while Kazuki’s feelings were still up in the air and were still the primary highlighted narrative for him would have been fucking scuffed. To me, it would be like… why would they make him so Fuuma-centric to the point that even his dedicated chapter was not just focused on Fuuma but focused on the ambiguity and potential of him having romantic feelings for Fuuma, yet reduce him to being Fuuma's designated right-hand man. Don’t get me wrong, friendships are just as important as romantic relationships. But again, rather than conclude Kazuki’s answer in Suki to be that his feelings were of friendship, they left it open ended and allow audience members to be actively aware that Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma still had potential to be romantically coded. It would just be so weird to quickly close off that narrative by giving Fuuma a love interest as opposed to letting Kazuki conclude it himself. It would be fucking beyond frustrating for me, at least Eventually, I kept trying to drive my hopes that they would explore Kazuki’s narrative at all down to the ground because it was a Fuuma-centric novel; maybe if anything they’d explore those feelings in his own novel after the fact. But then they kept having little drops here and there of Kazuki being even the slightest bit relevant and I’d go back to questioning “Are??? They??? Is this on purpose??? Do they know what they’re doing or are they just doing this because Kazuki’s just so important to Fuuma as his best friend that he’s there as his right-hand I genuinely can’t tell???” And um. Welp.

Safe to say Can’t An Idol Fall in Love sold me on the fact that they know what they’re doing LOL. And to anyone who thinks that Kazuki’s feelings can still be read as ambiguous in CAIFILWAI as opposed to explicitly romantic - whether it be due to a fear they may pull the “I like him as a friend” card or due to the disbelief that they have an explicit mlm main character in the Honeyworks series - I’d like to cover any bases that may make you think this way. If you think it’s just Kazuki acting like a protective friend, why do you think he calls Yui a rival? If you’ve only seen the MV and think it’s ambiguous or can be taken as the "likfe" for friend, then does that mean you think Yui’s feelings toward Fuuma are also ambiguous or as a friend? With the way Yui responds, she is trying to rival Kazuki’s feelings towards Fuuma. She and Kazuki recognize whatever feeling it is that they hold towards Fuuma, both of their feelings are the same type. I don’t think most people would argue that Yui’s confession about Fuuma was one of pure respect and friendship. Plus, if anything I’d argue of the three characters in the MV, Fuuma is the one whose feelings are left the most ambiguous despite him being the central character. It’s heavily implied that he may be forming feelings for Yui, but nowhere is it established either in the song or in the MV, especially if you compare it to Kazuki and Yui’s declarations or if you compare it to Sara’s feelings for Uru in Can’t An Idol Fall in Love. Fuuma’s romantic narrative here is trying to figure out how he feels for Yui, while for Kazuki and Yui they’ve established a rivalry because they both have mutually established they like Fuuma romantically.

If the MV isn’t enough for you and Suki isn’t enough for you for...some reason…??? You can check out the snippets of the light novel which the wonderful takanenene translated: one which revisits the conflict set up in Suki and one that covers the confession scene in the MV in more detail. If the fact that the conflict set up in Suki (aka the lurking feeling of not knowing if all he felt for Fuuma was only platonic or more than platonic) was specifically reestablished in the LN for anyone who didn’t keep up with Dolce Diary didn’t tip you off that it was something important, his behavior in the confession scene as depicted by the LN definitely should have. He’s possessive about his spot by Fuuma’s side. He doesn’t want that spot to be taken by anyone else. Even if he knows that they can help Fuuma, he wants it to be him. And this line: “Kazuki then trails off his words, quietly saying ‘That’s why…’ and then gave Yui a slightly painful smile, his cheeks turning red,” before he declares Yui a rival and states he likes Fuuma. If you can tell me you read that line and are still on the fence about Kazuki’s “like” towards Fuuma being romantic, please message me and I will see how I can get through to you. Like it wasn’t even just a romantically coded confession. It’s just a romantic confession. That “like” is romantic. And I’m so proud that he’s not only come to understand for himself how he feels, but that he’s confident enough to ask the person he sees as a romantic rival to speak in private and not only clarify her feelings for Fuuma but before she can even do that firmly establishes that he loves Fuuma with conviction. Kazuki my boy I’m so proud of you. *sniffs*

And that’s it for establishing Kazufuuma as at least canonically one-sidedly canon and why there’s not only no reason to deny it but also why denying it is a fucking disrespectful move towards Kazuki. He’s a character, sure, but that doesn’t change the fact you shouldn’t write off his struggle to come to be convicted enough to say it out loud. This has been something weighing on him at least a year, if not more (all I know is it started when both he and Fuuma were in some year in middle school). And as a character in a piece of media, I’ve been saying this the entire time, but brushing it off as non-romantic is literally chucking a fucking pillar of his character’s story into the gutter. And to those who may be saying Kazuki’s confession came out of nowhere and is pandering reread this entire fucking essay again I dare you to do it and tell me to my face it’s pandering. Again. Writing off the buildup as pandering is disrespectful to him, disrespectful to his character and narrative, and disrespectful to the wonderful people who have been creating Dolce so diligently and have crafted this narrative for us. Saying his “supposed feelings” and “ambiguous confession” is pandering is like saying Fuuma’s crossdressing is pandering which. If you say either of those I will find you and I will shank you in the fucking gut. Even if you’re not fully into Dolce, recognize these characters are actually very well developed and executed amazingly, as per every Honeyworks character that has come to exist. I don’t blame you if you weren’t aware of the weight of Kazufuuma, but now that you read this I hope you are. That’s mainly what I needed to get out there, but as follows will be me more exploring how Kazufuuma has been built up and generally waving my hand off at where it may be going. If you want you can dip, thanks for reading up to here because I know I repeated a lot because it’s just. So important to drill into your head and has been something I’ve been hung up about constantly. LOL

As for where exactly they’re taking it from this point on, I honestly don’t know. In all honesty, I didn’t even expect them to take it the direction they did. But honestly, I think the direction they went with it is really interesting and better than I could have imagined, in my opinion at least. Honeyworks never ceases to amaze me with their storytelling and narrative choices, and I don’t think there’s any that stand out to me as being severely questionable that they haven’t reapproached at some point down the line. And, again, I think they’re treating this with a lot of care and deserved respect. So I’m just gonna be gushing about how smart they set it up and how smart they’ve been executing it and maybe my own hopes on the direction it could go.

Whether they make Kazufuuma reciprocated I have no real clue or bearings, but to me my gut reaction is they will. Of course, I’m biased, but again if you trace things all the way back to 2018 and step through Dolce’s content and growth from there, I’d say even if they didn’t know if they could execute it like this and see it to fruition, I’d argue that Kazufuuma has been at least heavily implied since the beginning as a relationship they wanted to explore from both sides of the relationship. Obviously I brought up Kazuki’s character bio already, but if you look at the *goes to count* 5th Dolce Diary update already has a joke jabbing at the fact that Kazuki is technically Fuuma’s type (and the way Kippei and Kazuki excitedly react is so cute). The fifth update. And as stated before there are tons of Kazufuuma moments in Dolce Diary, whether it’s played for comedic effect or played straight (and this is post Suki but oh my god I’ve said it before I’ll say it again get yourself someone who looks at you the way Kazuki looks at Fuuma oh my jesus). But song-wise, I mentioned the one Dolce album song I would bring up is Nade Nade and this is where it comes!

Not only is Nade Nade specifically focused on Kazuki and Fuuma’s relationship as opposed to the whole of Dolce despite being the first song, it included the setup/preview of the Fuuma-centric extra prior to the full release of the Fuuma-centric extra itself and was released early as fuck. Literally between the 6th and 7th update to Dolce Diary. Sure, it could be to isolate them as a duo for marketing purposes (they’re very often the two promoted idols together if the whole of the group aren’t included), but the way it’s established as a perspective song as opposed to a general idol duet is what fascinates me. Anyone who didn’t know about Dolce prior and only followed Honeyworks for music would be first introduced to these characters through this song alone, and maybe this is where my Kazufuuma bias comes from but I was one of those people LOL. I thought it was just a cute one-off relationship that they had set up for the purpose of a song and that it was an implied friends-to-lovers story that would never get a conclusion. Also I mistakenly thought Fuuma was a girl oop-. In the full context of Dolce, this song in part helped establish Fuuma and Kazuki more solidly as a unique duo out of all of Dolce, but it also specifically explored through Fuuma’s eyes just how much Fuuma recognizes and appreciates the unwavering support Kazuki gives him to follow his dreams as he wishes. For Fuuma, he loves Kazuki too, though whether it holds any romantic potential in the same way Kazuki loves him has never been explored to nearly the same extent. But Fuuma appreciates how Kazuki’s remained by his side and does everything he can to support him, so Nade Nade explores how his way of expressing his love and thankfulness to Kazuki is by never saying that he needs Kazuki by his side. He’s glad Kazuki’s always been there for him, and his reciprocation takes on the form of being ready to unwaveringly support Kazuki and not ask for more than he already has, even if it meant Kazuki would be leaving his side, despite the fact that he really does wish they could remain together forever just as Kazuki does. The one point he lets himself say something vaguely close to always wanting to stay together, he gets a surprised expression out of Kazuki and says an ambiguous “suki dayo.” Of course, this it much less romantically coded than what we get from Kazuki in Suki and CAIFILWAI, but there is an interesting emphasis put on it nonetheless. Keep in mind, this is all established through the song, which released long before not only Fuuma’s character-centric extra released but also Kazuki’s character-centric extra released, so there is at least a substantial setup for Fuuma’s feelings towards Kazuki’s being strong as well and possibly grow to be reciprocated one day.

I think for me the most fascinating part about Nade Nade is how they tied it back around to Can’t An Idol Fall In Love with Another Idol. Again, without remembering Nade Nade, I still thought CAIFILWAI was brilliantly explored and executed, even if some people would have preferred no love triangle. But honestly, revisiting Nade Nade makes me trust even more the direction they’re taking with this. Whether or not they make Kazufuuma canon mutually (which. Even if they for some inexplicable reason didn’t I’m going down with this ship.), I’m sure they’re putting a lot of thought into the story, because the last bit of Nade Nade directly parallels the misunderstanding that arose from Fuuma mishearing the Kazuki and Yui. Fuuma is resolved to support Kazuki in any area he’s given the chance, and that explicitly includes if Kazuki had some girl he liked, which is what he assumes is going on. The fact that they tied this back around in the form of a misunderstanding was really really smart and Honeyworks is always so good at parallels and references back to their older songs, but for some reason I didn’t expect this. I don’t know how to say why, but the fact that the song that started it all, kicked off both Dolce and Kazufuuma, was directly referenced both visually in the MV with a cameo at the start and narratively despite the central dynamic being predominantly explored in this story in particular was that of Fuuma and another potential love interest and involves said potential love interest for some reason makes me think that (sorry Yui) this is all planned out for Kazufuuma in the grand scheme of things. That being said, I don’t know if me thinking it was planned all along is just me with shipper goggles, but the idea it’s come full circle nearly 3 years later is not shipper goggles and a very very well done parallel in my opinion, whether this trajectory was their plan for Kazufuuma from the beginning or not. Just wanted to gush about that some more.

There’s more I could go into especially if I went into specific details about interactions or specific implications established in Honeyworks' Dolce content about different characters that would be fascinating to explore in relation to and under the lens of Kazufuuma, but I think this is uh...plenty long enough. Plus, I doubt you'll stop seeing Kazufuuma posts from me so those ideas will probably just be miniposts or somethin.

Back to the overarching point of this segment, idk what they’ll do with this story in the end, but do I think Kazufuuma will canon? I’m used to looking at ships that aren’t explicitly apparent with a sliver of skepticism, but all things considered (as I stated before) yeah. I don’t see reason why they wouldn’t now that they’ve explicitly identified there is a romantic dimension to it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Like to me, the setup isn’t something that would be written off as unrequited? And this doesn’t have to play into why I don’t think it will canon, my personal opinion on the Fuuyui relationship (again albeit through the lens of a hard Kazufuuma shipper lmao) has it’s own merits and is really cute, I find it cute in the way I found Koyuhina cute. I personally never really shipped Koyuhina, and especially since they slipped Kotarou into Ima Suki Ni Naru I was more curious about who this kid was and how he played into things I didn’t really see Koyuhina as something that would come to fruition. Similarly, there’s more importance in the overall sense on Kazuki than there is Yui (considering he’s one of the 5 original and focal members of this generation of idols, this would be natural), as well as the fact there’s just way more foundation and exploration in Fuuma and Kazuki’s relationship than there is Fuuma and Yui. As for how much of a balance there is inside the LN itself, the fact that they seem to have spent a substantial amount relaying the foundation of Fuuma and Kazuki’s relationship and re-exploring it (at least in Kazuki’s perspective) at all on top of how much content there is covering their relationship prior to the LN ever since Dolce’s origin just feels like that relationship holds more weight. Pretty much Kazufuuma feels more established as a priority in general. The way I personally hope Fuuyui plays out is whether they wind up holding mutual feelings or not or whether Fuuma doesn’t feel that way towards Yui is they get a relationship akin to Kotarou and Arisa. Albeit, Kotarou and Arisa never viewed each other in a romantic light, but they had mutual respect and solidarity. That’s the type of friendship I hope comes out of Fuyui. And considering there hasn’t been a break-up in any Honeyworks’ canon relationships (nor do I expect there to be… they’re all perfect for each other LMAO) it would actually be interesting if Fuuyui get together but don’t endgame and Kazufuuma is established as the inseparable endgame after some realization or another, though I don’t expect them to go that route nor do I know if that’d be the best way to go about it anyway. Also final point, Honeyworks seems to have a thing for childhood friends trope anyway soooooo owo All in all, don’t know where they’re taking it, just excited to see where it goes.

TL;DR of this *counts* 7 page essay, stan Kazufuuma. Not gonna proof this. Maybe I’ll edit and repost but yall are getting a confusing clusterfuck of ramblings over 2-3 hr periods of me writing across 3 different days at around 5am each day. Uh. If you got this far like and subscribe and-- jk plz reply to this mammoth anywhere you see fit or tell me if you have stuffs to add or counter or whatnot I like hearing people talk about Kazufuuma ;w; I am Kazuki and Kazufuuma brainrot can you tell after reading this? No? Lemme just remind you I’m K--

#honeyworks #dolce #kazufuuma #kazuki haiga #fuuma shirayuki #long post #analysis #character analysis #kinda?#nobody cares trash #also keep in mind this is PURELY for self satisfaction LMFAO read it if u wanna dont if u dont idgaf either way #anyway kazufuuma canon fight me #or have intellectual conversation with me #if you want it on a google doc bc it's easier to read hmu #if you can't tell i think about kazufuuma too much #how much of this is repetitive? probably a lot...

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enderspawn · 4 years ago

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It's alright if u don't wanna answer this cuz this argument gets people really riled up but do you think c!Techno is a tyrant or nah?

Cuz many c!techno apologists argue that he isn't just cuz he's an anarchist but I've also read a lot of essays that go against it and it'd be really interesting to see ur opinion on this

i think he, in some contexts, can most definitely be called tyrannical, yes. a tyrant? no.

to avoid spamming ppl w discourse we've all def heard before (and bc this ended up MASSIVE (like 2.3k ish), but fairly in depth bc i didnt wanna speak out of bad faith and wanted to be EXPLICTLY clear-- oops), the rest will be under readmore

so heres the thing i want to preface: i used to really LOVE c!techno. i joined beginning of s2, right when exile started, and he was arguably my favorite character. since then though i've fallen out with him a LOT, to the point i almost... actively despite him at times (though mainly in a toxic kind of way which i can acknowledge is flawed).

in short, his actions started to speak louder than his words and i lost investment in his personal character struggles because of the actions he took (doomsday was my breaking point. i get feeling angry and betrayed, as well as seeking revenge against lmanberg, but his actions went too far for me to CARE and it hurt so many more characters as well.)

so when i speak, i come from a place of disliking him but also somewhat understanding the position c!techno apologists come from: i used to be one of them myself.

NOW, do i think he's a tyrant? no. for reference in my analysis, i try to look up the definition of terms to make sure they are utilized properly. while "tyranny" and "tyrannical" can have multiple uses, tyrant itself is a more specific term. to combine the top two definitions, a tyrant is referring to "an extremely oppressive, unjust, or cruel absolute ruler (who governs without restrictions, especially one who seized power illegally.)"

techno's position as an anarchist, imo, DOES indeed make him unable to be a tyrant. tyrants are rulers with very clear power over others from a structural way. anarchists are about the lack of structure or power over others and instead viewing the people around you as equals in power.

in forming the syndicate, they very explicitly worked to not designate a leader and instead make it so that no one would have any power over the others systemically. techno may have taken a integral role, yes, but it doesn't make him suddenly "the leader", its a role that wouldve had to be filled by someone (even if it was democratic to decide who to invite, they'd need someone to hand over the invite itself yknow? like no matter WHAT there needed to be A ROLE)

one could argue that he IS a leader in the shadow hierarchy of the syndicate (which, yes, is a real and professional term used in management courses despite sounding like it comes from a 4kids yugioh dub) in that everyone CONSIDERS and looks to him a leader without him having any actual structural basis behind it, but to argue that allows him to be a tyrant is in bad faith i believe. especially because to the people he would be "ruling", he ISNT oppressive, unjust, or cruel. they are his friends and support network and critical for a lot of his personal development (since feelings of betrayal and trust issues are critical to his character and why he acts the way he does). I wish we were able to SEE this develop more, but oh well.

but like i said: tyrant is fairly specific in definition. TYRANNY, and thus TYRANNICAL are not as limited. I've discussed their definitions here. originally, i made that post because i was angry at a take i had seen that claimed that, like you said, because techno was an anarchist and not part of any government or leadership position, he couldn't be tyrannical. to which i heartily disagree.

for something to be tyrannical, they simply must have an overarching/oppressive power over someone or something. it would not be inaccurate if i were to say that something is "under the tyranny" of a concept, because what it means is that something is under the power of another thing/concept. you can frankly call anything tyranny if it is widespread/overarching and you don't like it. mask mandates? tyranny, its forcing me to act in "rigorous condition". hell, theres even such things as tyranny of the majority in which people agree too much on one thing and it gives them unfair power or tyranny of the minority where people with minority opinions have too much power (thats a very grossly oversimplified definition of both, but it covers the base idea well enough for my point)

the point im making above isnt meant to be taken as "anything can be worked to be defined as tyranny thus it is a meaningless claim", it is that tyranny (and again, thus tyrannical) are very open and nonrestrictive terms.

to make it easier to define, alongside the definitions provided i want to add an explicit clause that is (imo) implied in the original definition: tyranny is... well, bad. that is to say if someone has power over a group but literally everyone is fine with it and agrees to it, its not tyranny. thats just a group of people getting along and one happens to have power over another. a leader does NOT equal a tyrant (as discussed above), so leadership should not be equated with tyranny.

thus as an example: wilbur acting as president (before the election) may have been "unelected" with power over his citizens, but no one was upset with that power. thus, he is not a tyrant and not acting tyrannically (as well as the fact his power was, arguably, NOT rigourous or absolute but thats another topic for another time). SCHLATT however IS a tyrant, as his power was absolute (he did not consult his cabinet) and forced people to comply instead of them complying willingly, thus he was acting tyrannically.

now to finally get to the damn point of this essay: where does c!techno lie? honest answer? it depends slightly on your perspective, but it depends a LOT on the future of the syndicate.

techno is incredibly clear in his goals: no governments, no corruption. in fighting with pogtopia, he is actively working to topple a tyranny-- he isn't tyrannical for doing that.

when he strikes out on nov 16th, it is because he opposes them forming a new government. when they oppose him and disagree, he launches an attack against them. is this tyranny? maybe, but probably not. he IS trying to impose his own physical strength and power (as well as his resources) over the others to stop them from doing what HE doesn't want them to do.

however its more nuanced than that:

1. hes lashing out emotionally as well as politically. he feels betrayed by those he trusted and he believed that they would destroy the government then go (i'm ignoring any debates on if he did or did not know that they planned another government, though it is a source of debate). but typically idk about you but i dont call tyranny for someone fighting with another person.

2. he also may be acting with good intent again, in HIS EYES. if tubbo was part of manburg, whos to say he wont be just as bad? he, in his pov, is likely trying to stop another tyrant before they rise.

3. and finally, and tbh the most damning from any perspective: he gives up. he quickly leaves then RETIRES without intent to try and attack again until he is later provoked. tyranny is defined by it not just being power, but power being USED. if he doesn't use his power to try and impose any will, then he's not tyrannical.

Doomsday I am also not going to touch very in depth on for much of the same reasons. My answer is again a "maybe", depending on the weight you personally place on each issue:

1. he's lashing out as revenge for the butcher army and as revenge against tommy for "betraying" him (though this one we explicitly know he was ignoring the fact tommy did not want to go through with it, however he still did trust and respect tommy regardless so his feelings are understandable anyway)

2. he sees new lmanberg as corrupt and tyrannical (which is undeniable: house arrest for noncompliance, exile without counsel, execution without trial, etc), and thus obligated to destroy it

but also, theres the implicit understanding he's doing this to send a message: do not form a government, or else. its a display of force that also works to warn others unless they want a similar fate. phil even explicitly states that he is doing so to send that message, so one could assume techno is doing the same alongside his personal reasoning listed above.

what i just described is the use of a oppressive and harsh (physical) power in order to gain compliance from people (that compliance being 'not making a government'). does that sound familiar? exactly. it follows the definition(s) of tyranny given previously. technoblade is acting in a way that is, by very definition, tyrannical.

so the debate shifts: is he valid in doing so because he is trying to PREVENT corruption and tyranny. like i said, new lmanberg was undeniably corrupt at points. i held nothing against techno for trying to topple manburg, so does that apply to new lmanberg as well? short answer: i dont know. it depends on your specific opinion of what is acceptable. its like the paradox of tolerance: to have a truly tolerant society, you have to be intolerant of intolerance. to have a truly non-tyrannical society, do you need to have a tyranny enforcing it?

personally (and bc im a lmanberg loyalist /hj) i say it is. regardless of the corruption of new lmanberg, they are also giving a threat to EVERYONE. even those who are innocent, they are presented with the exact same threat and rule set: if you make a government, you will be destroyed.

(which, small divergence here, is part of why debating c!techno is so frustrating. so many times you end up hitting a "well it depends on your political views" situation and there ISNT a correct answer there. im here to analyze characters for fun, not debate political theory)

so: the syndicate then. this is where this debate really "took off" and i think its due to one very specific miscommunication about its goals and plans. the syndicate, upon formation, declares itself to stand against corruption and tyranny. when they are found, the syndicate would work to destroy it. so heres the golden question: what do THEY define as corruption and tyranny? if you were to go off c!techno's previous statements, seemingly "any government" is a valid answer. however, he also states he's fine with people just being in groups together hanging together.

what then DEFINES A GOVERNMENT for them? what lines do they have to sort out what does "deserve to be destroyed" and what does "deserve to exist freely"

this is a hypothetical i like to post when it comes to syndicate discourse:

i have a group of people. lets say 5 or so for example. they all live together and build together. any decisions made that would impact the entire group they make together and they must have a unanimous agreement in order to proceed, but otherwise they are free to be their own people and do their own thing. when you ask them, they tell you they are their own nation and they have a very clearly defined government: they are a direct democracy. does the syndicate have an obligation to attack?

there is absolutely no hierarchy present. there is no corruption present. but, they ARE indeed a government. is that then inherently negative? my answer is fuck no (see the whole "difference between a tyrant and a leader" thing above).

but THATS where the issue of this discourse LIES. in some people's eyes, the answer to that is YES. techno's made it clear "no government" is his personal view, but does that spread to the syndicate as a whole? do they act preemptively in case it DOES become corrupt? is it inherently corrupt because its a government, regardless of how it is ruled? the fact of the matter is because of how little we've seen the syndicate work as a SYNDICATE, we don't know that answer. so we're left to debate and speculate HOW they would act.

if the syndicate were to let that government exist, then they are not tyrannical. they are showing that they are working to stop tyranny and corruption, just like in pogtopia again.

if the syndicate were to destroy/attack that government, then they are tyrannical. simple as that. they are enforcing a rule of their own creation without any nuance or flexibility under the threat of absolute destruction.

miscommunication in debates comes, in my opinion, in the above. of course theres more points of nuance. for example:

would the syndicate allow a government like i had described with early lmanberg, where there is an established hierarchy but everyone in the country consents to said leadership? on one hand, there is no tyranny or corruption present which is what they are trying to work against. on the other hand, theres more a possibility of it occuring. perhaps they'd find a middle road between the two binary options of "leave or destroy" i am presenting, such as checking in occasionally to ensure no corruption occurs.

but if they were to destroy it without, for lack of a better word, "giving it a chance" they would be, in my opinion, tyrannical. they would be going aginst their words of opposing corruption and instead abusing their power to gain compliance.

your/others opinions may differ, again it depends on if you see it as worth it to possibly stop future tyranny or if a hierarchy is INHERENTLY a negative thing.

part of the reason so many blog gave up this debate, beyond not getting very clear answers for the syndicate, is because of the nuance present. there. is. no. right. answer. every single person will view it differently, because there is no universally agreed upon truth of right or wrong here. BUT, i hope this helps shed some light on the discussion and my thoughts on it

#dream smp #mcyt #techno #syndicate analysis #YEAH IM MAINTAGGING WHAT OF IT #also i-- idk if it should be crit tagged? i tried to be as fair and open as possible #lemme know what yall think #ANYWAY ANON IM SO FUCKING SORRY THIS THING ENDED UP 2.3K WORDS LONG #I JUST RLLY WNATED TO BE THOUROUGH AND AS FUCKING CENTRIST /HJ AS POSSIBLE FJDKSLFJ #its very nuanced and theres no right answer but you sure as hell know mine now #answered #anon #im at work rn im gonna get fucking fired for this FJDKSFJKL #/HJ HOPEFULLY IN THAT I AM AT WORK BUT I WONT GET FIRED #og post #(jeb bush voice) please clap

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luminous-studiess · 4 years ago

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Ummm so I'm new to tumblr so don't judge if I did something wrong.Ummm how can I be like you? Like you know? Productive and smart.I always push myself but ended up being distracted by things (I have adhd and depression).I can't even remember anything after.I suffer,and continue suffering, from my mental illnesses.I just can't keep myself on track.My family makes fun of me for trying.I'm actually trying to find a part time job here but nothing hires minors.Idk please help meee.

hi, friend! answer under the cut because this will be long.

please know you’re doing nothing wrong, and that the fact you keep trying to become better and to push yourself to always get things done despite difficult circumstances already shows that you ARE already productive and smart.

second, it also helped me when i was struggling very heavily last year to learn two things: 1) there will always be particularly bad days when you live with mental illness, but all the little efforts you take, it slowly does get less difficult. getting better does not mean completely getting rid of all the symptoms you experience, but mostly just learning the best ways and small, gentle things you can do for yourself to manage your condition. this really requires a gentle but firm balance between pushing yourself to do the things you absolutely need to do, but also knowing when what level of work/school/self-care or hobbies is the limit, so that you don’t get too overwhelmed. this means most of the time, you don’t have to worry about being productive for its own sake. it helps me when i feel like i’m drowning to know how little i can do/the most non-negotiable bare minimum, that still helps me not to fall behind.

^ this is a small, cheap pad of sticky notes i carry with me throughout my entire day. it’s only big enough so that i can only write a few school tasks/personal things i need to do/chores, which helps me evaluate what exactly i can only get done, especially on days where i don’t feel well. checking off absolutely everything on my tiny list makes me feel like i’ve accomplished a lot, because i i have-- they aren’t necessarily a lot of tasks, but they’re the ones that i know really do need to get done. it also helps me focus when i have a lot of nervous energy, and have a panicked sense of “so many things need to get done!!!?” because i can give myself a bit of time to sit down, maybe turn on an episode of a show i like or make some coffee, and write down my tasks. it really helps me with the faint, tiny guilt and dread i used to feel day by day that i was being unproductive or lazy, because now i know i’ve fulfilled all my obligations to myself (everything from doing laundry, to making dinner) and to other people (schoolwork and other tasks). it’s okay to move at the pace that’s only possible for you right now. it’s better to feel comfortable with the smallest things you can do, and build on that as the days come. 2) getting distracted is normal, given Everything Happening Right Now, plus with a mental health condition that makes it hard to focus. it can also be hard to remember things when i study, because of my own health conditions, but i’ve found that the following things have helped: regarding distraction - use a small system that keeps you from accessing any distractions when you need to get something done. i try to leave my non-essential device in another room, and set up a timer-based blocker, to limit the websites i access. - i try to acknowledge the distractions as they come, and try to figure out why: am i hungry? am i tired? have i gotten enough sleep? do i need a break? if it isn’t anything serious, i just acknowledge that i’ve gone briefly off-track-- without guilt, without judgment. then i try to turn my mind back to the task at hand. - a good ambient playlist can make me feel more focused during hard tasks in the sense that i have some form of stimulation to keep the “itchiness” at bay. video game soundtracks and film soundtracks are also wonderful for long, tricky tasks. - sometimes i just have to start to feel motivated-- the focus actually comes in in the middle of the task. the fact of starting something may actually make you feel motivated.

- procrastinate productively: sometimes when i really don’t want to study i turn on a movie or a show and use the time to clean my room or fold laundry. my life still feels put-together, and i enjoyed myself! win-win.

- and sometimes i realize that focus may be impossible at the moment: take a break, go for a run, do something you like, take a nap. regarding learning and remembering things i used to have the worst time recalling things for school, until i prioritized two things: SLEEP, and not cramming. i used to get extremely poor grades in my first year of law school because i would put off studying at the last and latest moment-- a few days before exams, pulling all-nighters right up until the hour the exam started. i would also just use my free time to scroll on social media, instead of taking a nap or going to bed early. this was absolutely wrong. during the exam, i couldn’t recall anything because i was too tired, too frazzled, probably didn’t have breakfast, and because i had started and finished half a semester of reading in one night. my grades have gotten much better lately-- i’d like to think it’s because i’ve centered it around two things: (a) getting enough sleep every single night (helpful ESPECIALLY if you have health problems-- mental or physical), and (b) making exam day the least stressful it can be. how do i do this? - this means not only learning things for the exam, but also for classes on a daily period. you don’t have to study particularly hard, but you just have to study enough that you can understand what the professor is saying in class. set definite study hours every day, stop at a very specific and reasonable hour, and go to bed. try to get at least 6 hours of sleep. sleep helps me absorb everything better (idk science but this is from experience and also some very smart people i know ALSO prioritize getting sleep). wake up at a reasonable hour. - how to study: read the syllabus, and try to get a decent overview of all the topics you need to cover before you start testing/making flashcards/doing active recall (which is IMPORTANT bc this helps you actually train your brain to retrieve information). imho as someone low-energy i find that rewriting notes/making reviewers/making flashcards makes me very tired and leaves very little time for actual studying, so it just helps to test myself by looking at the syllabus and trying to explain the concept to myself, then peeking at the textbook or materials to see what i’m missing. mind-maps are also energy-efficient ways of figuring out how concepts fit together. - how to study for exams: the very latest you should start is a week ahead. two weeks ahead is ideal. map out how much information you need to re-learn from the syllabus. move slowly with the aim of finishing the coverage by the first week. the second is for reviewing and RESTING. - THE NIGHT BEFORE THE EXAM: do a final, gentle survey over the topics you may not understand. stop at 10 pm. go to sleep. - EXAM DAY: you’ve done the work. take the time to eat breakfast, test yourself SLOWLY AND GENTLY (avoid reading huge chunks of textbook at this point-- youll only confuse yourself), and set up your workspace to take the exam. crush said exam. as a final note: it can be hard to get things done when the people closest to you aren’t supportive. try to reach out on studyblr and find discord study with me servers, or study communities on reddit (they’re actually really nice), or with students in your class. if you need to talk, just dm me. you can do this friend, okay? take care always. gentler days will come.

#mental health support #mental health tips #student mental health #uni tips #college tips #study tips #how to study with a mental illness 2.0 i think???#studyblr #asks

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henshengs · 4 years ago

Text

About Rule 63 fanworks

I was asked yesterday to elaborate on my genderbend opinions, as a trans person, which I’m happy to do, and I’ve thought about it a bit today to make sure I’m not saying something off the cuff and not thought through. Still, this is a sensitive, complicated topic, and I’m open to discussion on it.

This also got long, so I’m putting it under a cut.

So, obviously I can’t speak for all trans people. No minority group is a monolith in our opinions and this is particularly the case for the transgender community because our experiences are so very diverse and individual.

I am very rarely hurt or offended by genderbends/genderswaps/rule 63 fanworks. I know people for whom this is not the case, and I believe the pain involved is very real. The thing is... living in this world is inherently kinda painful when you’re trans. This world’s not built for us. All kinds of random things can cause me pain throughout my day. Store mannequins. My own reflection. Lesbian poetry. Pictures of other trans people. When something triggers my dysphoria or feelings of alienation, I have to stop, acknowledge the feeling, and then consider whether the thing is, outside of hurting me, contributing to the ignorance of and hatred of people like me by its very existence.

I don’t think the basic act of asking, “What if this character who is a cis man, was a cis woman instead?” does that. I think if anything, it opens the door to then ask “what if he was a trans man? Or a trans woman? Or nonbinary?”

Asking “what if this story was about a cis woman” lets cis women talk about their experiences and see themselves in stories, something I think is valuable! and also can lead to stories exploring sexism and misogyny, things which affect all trans people too!

In the rest of this post I’m going to use the terms “rule 63″ and “genderswap” to refer to the act of creating a fanwork changing a cis/presumed cis man to a cis or not-specified-to-be-trans woman, because this is the vast majority of the work under that label, because most fictional heroes and iconic characters are cis men, and because people who create cis man->trans woman or cis woman->trans man content, in my experience, usually use terms like “trans headcanon” instead.

(A lot of rule 63 fanworks don’t explicitly specify that the now-female character is cis. We can presume that most artists aren’t even thinking about the possibility of the character being trans, but we can presume that for 99.99% of all art, anywhere. It’s not a unique evil of rule 63.)

The claims that rule 63 is inherently transphobic, rather than just something where it’s good to be extra careful to avoid transphobia, as far as I’ve seen, use two arguments: A) that making the character a cis woman is wasting an opportunity to make them a trans person, and this is transphobic, and B) that rule 63 fan art is gender essentialist and cissexist, because it ties gender to physical characteristics.

Argument A doesn’t hold up for me,

because couldn’t one then say that reimagining an abled white cis character as an abled white trans woman is racist and ableist? that reimagining them as an abled trans woman of color is ableist? No transformative reimagining can cover every identity. We say “write what you know” and talk about Own Voices, and that includes cis women who want to write about the experience they know.

It’s also not fair to tell trans people that we must always think about trans experiences, even in our fiction. A lot of the time we don’t want to have to write or think about dysphoria and discrimination and we want to live in the heads of cis characters or even just characters whose AGAB is not mentioned!

And it is also, imo, not a great idea to pressure people who may not be educated about trans experiences to write about trans characters just because they want to explore sexism or write about lesbians.

many, many trans people first begin exploring their gender identity through creating cis rule 63 content, because it’s ‘safer’ than directly engaging with trans content.

With argument B, I agree that a lot of rule 63 art looks like this

and this sucks. To me, though, it’s important that it’s not the genderswap aspect that makes it suck. Artists who do this are also designing original characters with sexist, gender essentialist designs. Artists who don’t draw sexist art in general, also don’t draw sexist rule 63.

(yes, I know She-Hulk is not a rule 63 of regular Hulk. But you guys know the kind of art I’m talking about.)

I’ve also noticed a genre of fanfic that’s like, “if these characters were girls, they’d be sensible and conflict avoidant and none of the plot would happen!” or “what if these violent, tragic male characters were Soft Lesbians who braided each others’ hair” and again, I assume these authors write canonical women the same way. The genderswap part isn’t the bad part, the sexism is.

Non-sexist rule 63 actually, in my opinion, fights gender essentialism and cissexism. When a character is exactly the same except for the ways a gender essentialist world has shaped and pressured them based on their AGAB, that’s a strong statement on the constructed nature of gender!

But the argument that making /any/ change is gender essentialist, is... I understand where it’s coming from. I am a trans person who presents androgynously and I am a hypervisible freak because of it. I would love to live in a society where visible gender markers weren’t a thing! Unfortunately, we don’t live in that society. We live in one where we are constantly under pressure to conform to one of two profiles. There are almost no gender non conforming male characters in popular media. And changing a gender conforming cis man into a gender conforming cis woman seems to me to be a neutral action at worst. Not to mention characters from historical canons, who would be under a ton of pressure to conform.

For physical body type characteristics... 65% of all speaking roles in Hollywood are cis and male. It’s harder to get statistics on other forms of media, but it’s undeniable that overall, most stories are told about cis men who do not have breasts or wide hips. Changing the story to be about a cis woman who has those features is introducing more diversity!

I typed “rule 63″ and “genderswap” into the tumblr search bar today, and I saw a lot of art of women with a variety of aesthetics and body shapes and characteristics, who looked like people I’d see out at the mall.

Again, I sure do wish we lived in a post gender society. But we don’t, and in our society, everyone, myself included, looks at a picture of a person and gender categorizes them based on appearance. It is not wrong for someone to draw “Geralt the Witcher as a hot butch woman” and give her some physical markers generally agreed upon to denote ‘butch woman’ rather than ‘gender conforming man’ to tell the viewer that that is what they have drawn. Just as it is not wrong to draw “my OC who is a hot butch woman who fights monsters” and give her those markers.

Finally, both arguments against genderswaps are, in my opinion, flawed because they implicitly posit the act of creating fanworks of the original, cis male gender conforming character design, as neutral. I think this is incorrect. I think that if you’re going to argue that drawing a cis male character as a cis woman is transphobic, you have to also argue that drawing the character as a cis man is transphobic. But I’ve only seen people do this when a trans headcanon becomes extremely popular in a fandom.

Again, I’m just one person. I’m also biased, because firstly, as I mentioned, rule 63 doesn’t usually trigger my dysphoria; secondly, I almost always come down on the side of “don’t limit what people can explore in fiction; ask them to explore it more sensitively or with more content warnings instead.”

I definitely encourage creators to seek out and listen to a variety of trans opinions. But this is mine: I love rule 63, I make a lot of it myself, and I think if no one created it we’d lose something awesome.

At the end of the day, what I really want is more trans content*, but I’d rather have cis rule 63 than just stories about cis men.

Also: I personally have nothing against the terms genderswap or genderbend. I don’t think it reinforces the gender binary to acknowledge its existence by saying you’re ‘swapping’ the character from being cis with one AGAB to being cis with the other. But I can definitely see the argument against it, so I don’t blame anyone for going with rule 63 instead.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading; I hope you have a nice day, and have fun creating and consuming the fanworks your heart desires. I’ll end by linking this comic, which is just eternally relevant.

(*by which I mean: trans content created by other trans people, that matches my hyperspecific headcanons, likes and dislikes, and doesn’t set off any of my often changing dysphoria triggers. See what I said at the start, about transgender existence being constantly mildly painful. There are many awesome aspects to being trans! This is one of the less awesome.)

#rule 63

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wu-sisyphus-gang · 4 years ago

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Motion Sickness Chapter 41

Back to Jaune we go.

If you experience positive psychotic symptoms don't ever use marijuana.

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"You think this will help?" I held the marijuana cigarette out in front of me and picked at a bug in my ear.

Greens for sure weren't likely to help with the paranoid thoughts, a goddess had her fingers in my mind, for real, or the suicidal thoughts, besides. But it just might take the edge off the bugs or the shadows.

Neo took it back from me and lit it. She took a long pull as though to say, 'see, safe.'

I took it back and inhaled the smoke in my lungs, it was still burning from where she lit it, and I took a drag. Almost immediately the bugs in my face eased. They weren't gone per se. They were muted. I could still feel them crawling around behind my eyes and in the tips of my extremities.

I coughed.

"Oh shit." I exhaled. "That's good." I chomped on the cigar and Neo beamed. "I'm going to need a box of these, just to keep it at bay." I'd brought up some of my hallucinations and Neo had picked this up for me.

She was looking up at me expectantly.

"Thank you, Neo."

She grinned up at me even though I was sitting on the bed and she was standing. We were in a different dingy motel than the one in which we'd tortured Nickel.

The greens were good. I inhaled them and leaned back on the bed. If Neo wanted to kill me this would be the best time to do it. Instead she plopped up on the bed beside me. "Well, I'm hooked." A shadow jumped out at me from the corner of my eye and I just didn't care. I was so relaxed.

I factory reset the Don's scroll. It wasn't quite as good as the military grade one I'd had before, but as far as civilian ones went it was top of the line.

"I need to go to this Merlot's lab. Cinder's boss, Salem, has some way of controlling me. All my psychotic symptoms started then. Or… well, maybe not. I need to learn about it if I want to fight it. You're welcome to come with. Cinder probably won't be there, but it's on the road to her for me. I have to go."

I brushed my new diamond studs. I'd gone all in on my new identity, Cloud, Cloud Strife. My hair was done up spikey, and I had a half cape around my waist. I still had Pyrrha's cape around my bicep on one arm but on the other I had a single long sleeve, on my pauldron side. The dark blues and blacks of my new clothes contrasted with the bronze of my armor nicely. My half cape billowed around my legs when I walked and my blonde hair shifted in any breeze. I still had a pair of long gloves on beneath my gauntlets. They ran elbow length.

I'd gotten my sword repaired, too. The warp wasn't bad to take out and I was only without the blade for a couple of hours yesterday. I'd just waited outside the smithy while they worked. What was I supposed to do and where was I going to go without my sword? Nowhere fast. And I wasn't Ruby to repair it myself. I might have been able to buff it out with a whetstone, but why take the risk when my pockets were overflowing with cash?

My weapons would still give me away, so would my face, but I'd done what I could in terms of disguising myself. Unless my friends saw me face to face or weapon to weapon they wouldn't be able to find me.

Neo made a stabbing gesture with her right hand.

"There will be people to kill and torture. At least one person. Probably. If not there will always be more in Atlas."

She made a show of considering it, one finger on her cheek. I knew how lonely she was, though. Plus I was sure she liked taking orders. It was weird but then not really. She liked having a boss. And just so long as she had people to maim, she was happy. I think she was happier working with me than she had been in a long time.

What? A girl's gotta heist.

It was a coin flip where Cinder was heading next, Atlas or Vacuo. So I'd flipped for it. It came up Atlas. I'd start digging around there in Solitas after I was done with the Merlot thing. Depending, of course, on what I learned from his lab. It was closer anyways. And it maintained my future availability of options by being closest to Vacuo over here and Vale. It was closest to all three of the other kingdoms, really, depending on how you looked at it. And the closed borders meant little to me if I had Neo with me.

I roached the joint and stared at the slightly spinning ceiling. The softly rotating fan was a pleasure to watch as I laid back. I rubbed at my chest, moving my hand in light circles over the deep scars there.

I missed Ruby and her soft touch in those moments.

Neo nodded at length. A single small gesture I felt through the bed. I sat up and held out a hand for her to shake on it. She did, a wide glittering grin on her face. Her eyes swapped colors at that.

She was wearing new clothes, too. She had a cape with some collar straps and her collar was done around inside out near her breasts. The fancy shirt ended at her midriff before a pair of nice white pants. She wore a pair of much shorter heels than before beneath that. She had a set of long white gloves on as well, much like myself.

"We'll take a train to the South to this city, Shumi." I pointed out on a map with my scroll, "From there we'll ride on horseback to Merlot's laboratory, here near a place called Wutai. A few weeks max. Then we'll be back on the hunt for Cinder. Who'll probably go to Atlas. She has unfinished business with Ironwood anyway."

She nodded along acceptingly. She pointed at where I'd thrown out the cigarette.

"Yep. We'll need a ration of those. They really help. I don't suppose you know where to find more?"

She gave me a coy nod. Hiding a smile behind her hands.

"Fantastic."

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She did indeed know where to find more.

A beefy guard waited outside a small house on the outskirts of Mistral. He was wider than me at the shoulders and had a few inches on me. At a glance I didn't feel the low hum of aura coming off of him though. He could be just withdrawn, at any rate.

Neapolitan and I walked up together. He gave us both a once over and we stood in silence. Then some other folks walked out of the house and he motioned to let us in. Controlling how many people were inside at any given time. Smart.

He held up a hand. "Your weapons," He had a slight accent. Atlesian, not unlike Weiss's but deeper and richer. "Leave them out here."

I pulled my harness off my back. Staring him straight in the eye the whole time. I didn't need Limit to kill him. I put them on a rack behind the gentleman and he stepped aside of the entrance.

Neo was let inside without any hassle, giving me a superior smirk as she twisted her umbrella in the rain. "Sure, rub it in."

She did. And even if she didn't, being without Crocea Mors made me uncomfortable. I was glad she was armed, if nothing else. Somebody to watch my back in a run down place like this was nice. And I always had Limit, just a short charge away.

We walked in on a place lined with jars and labels on them. Inside were greens of all sorts of names. Lemon Drop Haze. Blueberry Blitz. Lilac Diesel. They were all arranged on neat little rows on high shelves.

"Well I've got to hand it to you Neo…"

I was whistled at by a lanky dude in a ‘t’ shirt.

I was coming from a place of ignorance and I couldn't exactly ask Neo how the place worked.

"You been in here before?"

"No sir." I answered with a smile. "How much am I allowed to buy." Not what sizes did they come in, not anything else. What was the maximum amount of drugs I was allowed to leave with? They must have a limit to prevent resale. A closely monitored tight ship like this.

"Two ounces." That didn't seem like much. "And you gotta pay in cash, that is if no one told you."

"Not a problem. What would the-uh…" I gestured at him.

"Budtender," the Budtender said.

"Right. What would the Budtender recommend."

"For what? You wanna get high or you wanna relax?"

"Something to relax me," I told him.

"You want an indica, then. A bit mellower and a bit richer in the CBD."

He picked across the shelves. Staying away from things that had names like 'blitz,' or 'shard,' or 'rush.' He strayed towards the mellower sounding ones and distinctly avoided one which had 'panic' in its name.

"Lemon drop haze." He put his hand on one. "And...sunshine sherbet." He put his hand on another jar.

"Sounds good. An ounce of both, please."

He named a steep price. A couple hundred Lien. I whistled lowly. But the stuff Neo had given me was already wearing thin. The bugs were starting to come back and I needed relief. I could hear a low whispering too. That needed to stop. Fast, if possible.

I paid him in the cash requested without too much hesitation. The only other place I'd see real relief would be antipsychotic drugs. I didn't have the time to get a psychiatrist and as a huntsman I'd be forcibly relieved of my gear for potentially months.

PTSD was common amongst hunters and they couldn't have crazy ones running around. There were procedures in place for this that I was specifically trying to avoid. I just didn't have the time to get set up with something like that.

"You gonna need pipe-ware?" He asked.

I looked down at Neo. She rolled her pink and brown eyes and nodded. I could feel her aura against mine. Something cool with undercurrents underneath. An edge of something cruel.

"Yeah I'll need a pipe."

"They never just stop at one," he said with a smirk. Like he was sharing a closely held secret with me.

"One'll be good for now," I instead insisted.

"It'll be thirty extra for a pipe and if you want a grinder that'll be even more."

It sounded like a good idea so I took him up on it.

I paid him anyways, knowing he was gouging me. It didn't matter a whole lot to me at the moment anyways. He handed over two tins, a pipe and a grinder.

"Come back soon." He called at my shoulder. I stuffed the tins and paraphernalia into my pockets.

I took my weapon back from the man outside and gave it a once over. My serrated combat-camping knife, sword and shield all looked fine, just as I left them.

"Let's get out of this fucking town." I told Neo. "I'm done with this city."

I freshly ground up some greens while we were walking and put it in my new pipe. I took a long drag, like it was the first breath of fresh air I'd gotten in months.

She skipped to keep up with me. Making it look natural.

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"You assume there's nothing I can do to you, child. No torment I can bring upon you. You are mistaken."

I was hit with the sensation of making up but I couldn't turn my head. I rose from the train-car seat.

-then I was abruptly back in the train-car seat alone for all the world with the sensation of waking up again.

She hit me with that sensation. That feeling of waking up five more times and over what felt like subjective hours. My face crawled with bugs and I wanted to scream. I felt like I was falling for hours and hours.

-I jerked awake. There was Neo across from me in the train-car. I took a moment to get my bearings. It had been torturous. The sensation of waking up over and over again.

I breathed hard and Neo looked over at me, something like concern etched in her face.

"She's getting better at it," I said. "She's getting better at tormenting me. Cinder's boss."

I looked out the train-car window and watched the scenery pass us by. I watched a couple a few aisle's down. The man jumped and slapped his body like- well like he'd seen a bug on him. I was all too familiar with the sensation. The feeling of insects crawling across my skin and things jumping out at me from the corner of the eye. I recognized it.

I looked across from me and saw Neo's eyes narrowed in concentration. Her smile was wide in sheer delight.

"Neo," I whispered. "Neo!"

She looked at me and the man stopped his jumping-jacks. Her focus wanted on whatever illusion she had crafted. Pink and brown shifted in her hair as she changed focus.

"For gods' sake you're like a child. I'll get you people to torture for real. Knock it off."

She gave me a brooding look but nodded.

"Play some games on your scroll. For goodness sake. Don't torture just to torture. Do it with purpose."

She made a faux-angry face at me.

"Yeah I'm mad. Stop it. When we find Merlot you get to do all the torturing, sound fair? Even though he's my dad or whatever."

She gave me an odd look at that.

"I think… I think I was born in a tank. There are images of water. Muffled people talking. I think I was born pretty much full grown with whatever they had done to me already done to me."

"I don't know what they did to me. I don't know what I am. But when we find Merlot you get to be first in line for hurting him."

"They said he does experiments on Grimm, that might mean… it might mean that I'm part Grimm. That means I'm a monster. And you get to go first against the guy who did that to me. Sound even? We square?"

She didn't nod or give me any gesture. She just sat in her typical silence.

"Look… whatever. Just stop fucking with people who don't deserve it. If you're going to work for me then you only get to torment the people I say so. We clear?"

She still made no gesture.

"I said 'are we clear?'"

She gave me one firm nod. Her eyes were wary in part. Like she was anxious of making a deal she didn't want to keep. Like I was some fae of myth contracting her into bondage.

"Good. I promise it won't be all bad. And when we get to Atlas we'll have to make a name for ourselves. Make people scared of us. It's just an intermission on the torture and heists. They're not over."

Maybe I was a little antsy too. I wanted another pull of greens. The bugs were starting to become a bit of menace. And I couldn't exactly take a hit while in the slightly crowded train.

And Hell, I was bored, too.

"Plus there might be bandits out here. You can do whatever you want to them, I don't give a fuck."

"Heard there was a big tribe of bandits too. The Branwens you heard of them? Well I especially don't care what happens to them. Go nuts."

"With my luck I'm sure something will come up anyways. You'll get your kicks. Have I steered you wrong yet? That's what I thought. And I let you kill the Don even though I kinda wanted to. He threatened some disgusting stuff on my friends. I really wanted to snap his neck. Instead I let you cut him. That was grand, wasn't it?"

"So when I say you'll get your kicks in you better believe me. We just have to be patient for a bit. Play things smart and close to the chest."

"Otherwise Salem will get us," I exhaled. "Cinder and Salem both will get the two of us with impunity."

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-WG

#jaune arc #cloud strife #cloud!jaune arc #sephiroth!Jaune arc #rwby #ff7 #ffvii #war of the roses #ruby rose x jaune arc x weiss schnee #neo #neapolitan #motion sickness #white rose #whiterose #lancaster #whiteknight #white knight

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sweatersexual · 4 years ago

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In Gravity Falls, You Abduct the Aliens

Read on AO3

Read the previous work in this series

“This,” proclaimed Stan, “is not a house.” He waded through the piles of books, papers, and weird gadgets. “Seriously, who keeps a chalkboard in their living room? This is more like some kind of nerd lair.”

“I prefer to think of it as my own research lab that I have all-hours access to, but the term lair does lend a certain ambience,” said Ford.

Stan picked up a deformed skull that looked like it belonged to some kind of rodent. “This feels like the intro to a horror movie. With a plucky pair of teen heroes to terrorize and giant switches to a zappy doomsday device, you’d be all set.” He started playing with the skull’s jaw hinge.

Ford reclaimed the skull from him. “Well, it’s no doomsday device, but once I get the portal in the basement working, it’ll be plenty ‘zappy,’ as you say.”

Right, the portal. Ford had talked about it a lot on their drive up from Vegas, where the two of them had happened to run into each other and ended up reconciling. Ford seemed preoccupied by how he’d build the thing without his old flame, Fiddleford McGucket. Ford had invited him to join them in Gravity Falls as well, but when the two nerds realized they still had the hots for each other, Fiddleford had decided to do right by his wife and kid and stay in Palo Alto.

Stan, on the other hand, might be no mechanical engineer, but he was smart enough to realize there was more to this portal business than Ford was telling him.

“Man, you really have a one track mind when it comes to that portal, huh? You were even talking about it in your sleep while we were driving up here. ‘So sorry, shouldn’t’ve let my personal feelings get in the way. . . . ‘S only a temporary setback . . . won’t let all our hard work go to waste . . .’ Has somebody else been helping with the portal?”

Ford nervously spun the skull around in his hand. “Really, Stanley, it’s silly to read too much into sleep talk. I could’ve been talking about anything.”

“Come on, Sixer. If you’re gonna lie to me, you gotta try harder than that.”

“Don’t you trust me, Stanley?”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“I do, but . . . I don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”

Stan put a hand on Ford’s shoulder. “Listen, bro. I’ve been all over the world. Whatever it is, I’ll understand.”

Ford sighed. “All right, I’ll try to explain. But first, let me go get something. A visual aid, if you will.”

A few minutes later, he returned, having replaced the deformed skull with a ceramic jar in his now gloved hands. “I was lucky to get my hands on this,” Ford told him. “The Northwests hoard just about all the artifacts they can find. Please avoid touching it, I don’t have any disposable five-fingered gloves to protect it from the oils on your hands.”

He presented the design on the jar to Stan, who was doing his best to show Ford he didn’t think he was crazy. The picture was of a man with an animal pelt on his head talking to a triangle with one eye. “Don’t tell me you got recruited by the Illuminati or something,” said Stan.

“No, I haven’t joined any secret societies,” Ford assured him. “This depicts a man named Modoc from three thousand years ago, seeking wisdom from an ancient being. From time to time, this being presents himself to truly singular minds, giving them divine insight and knowledge. And now this Muse has chosen me.”

“Okay,” said Stan. “So you’ve gotten into some kind of niche religion. It’s not that weird. Just don’t drink the Kool-Aid, all right?”

Ford set the jar down on what little empty space his dining room table had left. “I haven’t joined a cult, Stan. I mean, it is a kind of spiritual experience, talking to my Muse, but there’s no organized religion involved. Ever since I summoned him, he manifests himself in my dreams. I never could’ve gotten this far in my investigations of Gravity Falls without him. And he’s helped me come up with the plans for this portal. I know it sounds strange, but there really is something otherworldly about him. And even if he is somehow all in my imagination, the inspiration has never steered me wrong.”

Stan’s bullshit-o-meter was going off, but not because he thought Ford was lying to him. Stan knew his twin’s tells, and Ford was definitely sincere about this muse thing. He couldn’t take Ford’s words at face value, but he could tell that Ford was really going out on a limb here, being honest about something that could get him called a quack at best or institutionalized at worst. So what if the guy was in his thirties and had an imaginary friend? Let him have his weird triangle dreams if it made him happy.

So Stan simply said, “Hey, whatever floats your boat, poindexter. But now that I’m here, you’re not just some weird hermit living in the woods. We’re a family. And families live in homes, not nerd lairs.”

Ford blinked, seeming surprised that Stan had changed the subject. But he went along with it anyway. “Right. Well, I have been meaning to organize everything for awhile now. My research keeps getting ahead of me. But I’ll probably be able to think better without so much clutter around.”

It didn’t take long for the twins to settle into a routine. Mornings were for cleaning and organization. After lunch, Stan would run errands while Ford struggled building his machine in the basement. Stan never imagined he’d get so excited about yard sale curtains and other furnishings, but after so many years never having a permanent place of his own, he relished the chance to decorate his own living space. Afternoons and evenings were dedicated to finding and studying anomalies, then Stan tried to persuade Ford to go to bed rather than get back to work on the portal again. He was rarely successful.

“I owe it to myself to at least stumble along with the limited mechanical knowledge I have,” said Ford. “And maybe I’ll find someone or something else that can help.”

Stan did try to help, but it took so long for Ford to even explain what he was trying to do, and it was so boring listening to him speak nothing but jargon, and Ford just didn’t think the way Stanley did. Stan would probably have better luck just taking Ford’s plans and trying to decode them himself, either way it would take ages. Instead he simply figured out how to use a welding torch and applied it where Ford told him to.

But Stan’s favorite hours were spent running through the woods with his brother. He had never expected to see a gnome for himself, or play with magic size-altering crystals. About one week into his stay, Ford was over the moon to find a sleeping gremloblin. “I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to study one up close like this!”

Stan helped take samples and measurements (it really was remarkable how heavy a sleeper this gremloblin was), then helped himself to his favorite toffee peanuts while Ford finished scribbling in his journal. Rustling in the bushes behind him turned his head, and before he knew it a red and black creature was running away from him, and the toffee peanuts that had fallen on the ground were gone.

Ford snapped to attention, too. “Did you see what that was?” he asked Stan.

“Something with a duck bill.” Stan held up his snack. “It was trying to get these.”

Ford grimaced. “I suppose there’s no accounting for taste.”

Stan rolled his eyes. Ford was so dramatic about his distaste for Stan’s favorite snack.

“Can I try to lure it back out?” asked Ford, reaching for the toffee peanuts.

“Fine.”

Once they had gotten the creature to reemerge, Ford was back to scribbling in his journal. “So the plaidypus legends are real! Fascinating, fascinating. Is it just me, or do you think it smells like maple syrup and bacon?”

They were able to track the plaidypus back to its burrow on the marshy banks by the creek, where they found a clutch of flannel-patterned eggs. To improve upon their fantastic luck, they had arrived in time to watch the eggs hatch.

“Look at that! They only have the horizontal stripes now, the vertical stripes must come in as they grow - did you get the measurements on that last one, Stanley?”

“Yeah, but what do you think the deal is with that one?” Stan pointed to a blue egg that hadn’t yet hatched.

“I have no idea. I’m not even sure that’s a plaidypus egg.”

Ford turned out to be extremely correct when the blue egg did hatch and a slimy white monster popped out.

“What the hell is that thing?” asked Stan.

Ford replied, “I’ve never seen anything like it,” then gasped when the monster mutated into another baby plaidypus. “It’s a mimic!”

“Wait - which one is it?” asked Stan.

Ford cursed. “I should’ve been paying closer attention.”

The shapeshifter soon revealed itself when instead of latching on to the mother plaidypus’s lactating glands, it sank its teeth into another baby plaidypus. “No!” cried Stan as he picked up the imposter and pried its jaw open. “Bad shapeshifter thing!”

Ford tended the baby plaidypus’s wounds while Stan wrestled the shapeshifter into a containment jar, where it resumed its original pale, slimy form.

The study of this creature quickly set Ford into what Stan liked to call Full Nerd Mode. They hardly seemed to get through a conversation without Ford bringing up how “Shifty”, as he’d nicknamed the thing, changed his DNA when he changed forms, and how the implications from that would revolutionize the field of genetics, or asking for suggestions for safe forms to add to Shifty’s repertoire. Stan had to admit it was nice to see his brother obsess over something other than that portal for once, though if he had his way he could think of several ways for Shifty to aid with some under-the-table schemes.

“Stanley!” Ford had chided him when Stan had joked about the idea. “You have a job with me now. You don’t need to get into more trouble with the law.”

Yeah, that had been weird, getting an actual, legitimate paycheck for once, and with his brother’s signature no less. And it really was quite a lot considering that Stan didn’t need to pay rent or anything. But Stan couldn’t help that niggling doubt in the back of his mind questioning whether he had enough, whether Stan’s luck might still run dry and he’d better get as much as he could while the getting was good -

Stan had simply shrugged at his brother. “A side hustle never hurt anything,” he said. “And with Shifty’s help, we wouldn’t get caught.”

“I’m afraid it’s out of the question,” Ford had insisted. “We wear masks around Shifty for a reason, you know. It’s too dangerous to have him impersonate humans.”

And Stan could see the wisdom in that, but even so, he thought he did a good enough impression of his brother to recognize the second-rate performance Shifty would put on. The little monster couldn’t even talk!

That last assumption was proven wrong one afternoon while they were working on the portal and a high-pitched voice called out, “Beans!”

Ford’s head perked up from his schematics. “Did you say something?” he asked Stan, who shook his head.

Stan pointed to the dog kennel where they kept Shifty. “I think it was -”

“Beans!” the voice repeated, and it was definitely coming from the kennel.

“Remarkable,” said Ford, replacing his mask as he walked over to kneel in front of the kennel, where Shifty could see him. “Are you hungry, Shifty?”

“Beans,” he repeated, “for me.”

“I’ll go get him some,” said Stan. As he climbed the stairs up to the house, he heard Ford ask, “What else can you say, Shifty?”

When Stan returned with the beans Shifty liked so much, the little monster was repeating the brothers’ names. “Stan,” said the little voice. “Ford. Sixer poindexter knucklehead.”

Ford laughed. “Very good, Shifty. Those are some other names we call each other.”

“Who am I?” asked the shapeshifter. Stan felt his mouth drop open. That wasn’t the sort of question a parrot asked . . .

“Why, you’re Shifty,” said Ford without a trace of the trepidation Stan was feeling just then. “Stan has brought you those beans you wanted, Shifty.”

“Beans!”

When he was done eating, Shifty went back to asking questions. “Who am I? Who is Shifty?”

“Speaking in full sentences already,” said Ford. “This is really quite incredible.”

“He’s asking if he’s a person, Ford.”

“Stan, don’t anthropomorphize him. Even parrots can repeat phrases -”

“Parrots don’t ask existential questions like that! And besides, when have we ever said anything like that around him?”

Ford frowned. “I’ll need to collect more data -”

“This isn’t about data, Ford!” Stan gestured to the kennel. “That’s a kid! A weird monster kid, but still a kid. And we’re keeping him in a cage. Take it from someone who’s been to prison.” At that, Ford glanced up at him in surprise, and Stan looked away. “It does things to you.”

Ford stammered, “Stan, I - I didn’t know - you never said -”

“I don’t like to talk about it,” said Stan. “And anyway, this isn’t about me. This is about him.”

Ford nodded. It was a moment before he answered, “Well, I will need to do more tests, and we do need to keep his abilities under control, but -” Stan opened his mouth to argue, but Ford placed his hand on Stan’s shoulder in a calming motion - “but . . . your concerns have merit. Even a parrot would need a more stimulating environment than this. Will you help me whip something up for Shifty?”

Stan grinned. “Of course.”

With Stan’s help, Ford was able to construct a walled-off enclosure in the basement, which Shifty took to happily. When Ford was able to determine that the burrow Shifty made in the corner was a bed and not an escape route, he found he could breathe much easier.

Ford spent an increasing amount of time in the enclosure, testing Shifty’s language and cognitive skills. Soon he had an impressive amount of data confirming the shapeshifter’s intelligence. Shifty was always eager to participate in the “games,” as he referred to them, and responded very well to Ford’s praise. Ford had to admit he also enjoyed designing activities to keep Shifty occupied while Ford was working on other projects. These activities usually took the form of a puzzle or scavenger hunt, with chicken nuggets as prizes.

Shifty was also making great strides in learning to read. Ford had picked up a number of secondhand children’s books, but only ones that contained no illustrations of humans or dangerous animals for Shifty to take the forms of. This still left him with a wide variety of benign anthropomorphic animal characters like Frog and Toad, Frances, and Little Critter, many of whom became common forms for Shifty to take.

Eventually Ford felt comfortable enough for Shifty to have supervised playtime in the house and walks around the yard, but he and Stan always stayed masked and kept Shifty from seeing any people or dangerous animals.

On one such occasion, Stan was keeping an eye on Shifty upstairs while Ford was getting in some work on the portal. A loud thump from the floor above broke Ford’s focus, and a second had him scrambling up the steps, adjusting his mask as he went. The last thing he expected to find in the living room was two elephant seals.

“You didn’t tell me humans can shapeshift too!” said one of the elephant seals.

“What? Shifty? Are you saying Stan turned into this elephant seal right here?”

The other elephant seal groaned, a grumbling, braying sound.

“Elephant seal,” Shifty repeated. His high voice sounded comical coming from such a blubbery monster. “I like being an elephant seal. I’ve never been this big before.”

This was a disaster. Ford had never intended to have Shifty turn into such a volatile creature. “I’m afraid elephant seals are too big to be in the house, Shifty. Would you please turn into something smaller?”

“But how come Stan gets to be an elephant seal?” Shifty complained as he morphed into Arthur Read, hands clenched into fists at his sides.

“I don’t want him to be an elephant seal either,” said Ford. “Stan? Can you try to turn back? What were you messing with, you know a lot of the artifacts I keep are cursed.”

Stan made a series of grunting seal noises, none of which were in the least helpful.

Ford sighed aggravatedly. “What happened before he turned into an elephant seal, Shifty?”

“Well, we were gonna build a blanket fort, so we got some blankets out of a trunk, then I put one of the blankets on my head and pretended I was a ghost, and Stan did too, only he used the -”

“The sealskin?” asked Ford. “The heavy one with the decorative beading?”

“I think so. He turned into an elephant seal after he put it on.”

“But that one’s cursed!” said Ford. “This is not good. We need to turn him back soon, or he’ll stay an elephant seal forever.”

Stan let out a series of angry honks and grumbles which, if translated to English, would probably be the kind of language Ford would not want Shifty repeating.

As it was, Shifty shrank into a field mouse, his ears meekly tucked behind his head. “What can we do?” he asked. “How do we change him back?”

“I’ll need to consult my journal,” said Ford. “I think I found a curse breaking spell somewhere . . .”

Ford tried to flip through journal 2 quickly, but had to pause every time Shifty climbed up to his shoulder, trying to get a glimpse of the pages.

“Cut it out, Shifty,” he said, setting Shifty back on the ground for the third time. “You’re slowing me down, and time is of the essence.”

“Why don’t you trust me?” asked Shifty.

“Come now, you know my journals are off limits,” said Ford. “Why don’t you make sure Stan doesn’t wreck the coffee table, hmm?”

A few minutes later, Ford found the page he was looking for. “Vis maleficiis expello. Fundere atque fugare in pacem. Purgare. Purgare. Purgare,” he chanted over Stan’s blubbery form.

Nothing happened.

Ford rechecked the journal entry. “Did I miss something? Let me try that again.”

The second attempt was no better than the first.

“This curse is clearly more malignant than I thought,” said Ford. “A simple spell is simply not up to the task. We’ll need to try something with a little more oomph to it.”

“Can I help?” asked Shifty.

“You can,” said Ford, “by waiting very patiently in your room while I take Stan to meet an acquaintance of mine.”

“But I can do more!” Shifty protested. “I’m sure I can.”

“I’m sorry, Shifty, but I’m afraid the risk is too great.”

“But what if he gets stuck as an elephant seal forever and it’s all my fault?”

“Shifty . . .” Ford was surprised Shifty had developed such an attachment to Stan, and a sense of responsibility. Though as far as Ford was concerned, it was entirely unwarranted. “I don’t blame you for any of this. If Stan had been more careful -” Stan snorted at that - “or if I had clearly labeled which items were cursed,” Ford conceded, “that is to say, this was just an accident. You don’t need to feel guilty.”

Shifty seemed to accept that, “But I still want to help. If you let me go with you, I promise I’ll be good. I’ll do what you tell me, I promise.”

Ford shook his head. “Shifty, it really will be more of a help if I’m not having to watch out for you while we’re undoing the curse. Don’t worry, I’ve dealt with phenomena far more malignant than this. Why don’t I refill your octahedron puzzle, hmm?” It was one of Shifty’s favorites. “By the time you’re done with it, we’ll be back, and Stan will be in his right shape again.”

Once Ford had started a reluctant Shifty on his puzzle, and gathered a few materials he thought might be helpful for curse breaking, Ford and Stan started hiking over to the lake. Well, Ford was hiking. Stan was doing more of a hobble. Ideally they would drive over, but the El Diablo wasn’t built to cart around elephant seals, and Stan wasn’t too keen to try.

“We’re going to summon a siren I’ve had some dealings with,” Ford explained to Stan. At his questioning look, Ford added, “She’s safe, don’t worry. We may have had . . . some miscommunications, at first, but we’re on good terms. Doripea’s been an excellent source of information. I just hope she’s not too busy.”

To their good fortune, she wasn’t. “Well, if it isn’t my favorite gentleman caller,” Doripea greeted Ford. Her angular face and pointed ears add to the mischievousness of her grin, aided in its brightness by the afternoon sun reflecting off her turquoise scales. “Here for another interview date?”

“Ah, sort of?” said Ford.

Stan’s snorts sounded an awful lot like laughter.

“Oh, I figured out Ford was gay pretty quickly,” she told Stan, apparently in response to a comment Ford hadn’t been able to understand. “What I couldn’t figure out was why he kept trying to summon me with a suitor’s call.”

Ford groaned. “The summoning instructions in Eatherena Aquatica didn’t specify -” He was cut off by Stan’s repeated laughter. “Anyway, I was hoping I could get your input, Doripea. You see, we’re in a bit of a pickle.”

“Aside from the shapeshifter stalking you?”

“What?” Ford whirled around, zeroing in on a deer which had frozen in place with a wide-eyed, panicked expression. “Shifty, I told you to stay in your room!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” cried the deer. “I just wanted to make sure Stan was okay! Please don’t hate me.”

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Ford realized he wasn’t wearing a mask, meaning Shifty could now take his form if he wanted. Who knew how many people or dangerous animals Shifty had come across while tailing them to the lake? How could Ford possibly do damage control on this?

“You don’t have to panic,” said Shifty. “I said I’d be good if you let me come. I’ll do what you tell me, just please, I couldn’t just wait around doing nothing.”

“Amazing,” said Doripea. “You tamed it. I didn’t even know their kind could talk.”

Ford turned to her, curiosity suddenly overcoming his concern. “You’ve seen other shapeshifters before?”

She shrugged. “Not in a long time. It’s been, what, a century and a half? I saw it come out of its burrow to feed every now and then, but for the most part it kept to itself, I think.”

“Strange,” said Ford. “Shifty has tested well when it comes to social behaviors. It’s hard to determine such things with only one extant specimen, but I would’ve guessed his kind to be pack hunters.”

“As far as I know, only one of them has existed at a time. Can’t pack hunt without a pack,” said Doripea.

“Hmm.” Ford would have to examine the implications of this later, but for now, “Shifty, you can stay, as long as you keep close to me and stay in deer form unless I tell you otherwise, got it?”

“Okay.”

“Now, Dora, the reason I came to call on you. My brother here mishandled the selkie’s revenge and I was hoping you could help me change him back to human form.”

“How long has he been in seal form?”

“No more than two hours.”

“Oh good, you caught it early. Stan, you don’t feel any strong urges to swim in this lake, do you?”

To Stan’s grunts she replied, “Well, if you get any, resist them. This curse is designed to turn you into an elephant seal in mind as well as body. Swimming in the water will kick start that process. You’ll be drawn to the other elephant seals, and before you know it you’ll be on the wrong side of a territorial beachmaster. You’re lucky we’re so far inland, and that it isn’t mating season.”

“I tried a simple curse breaking spell, and when that didn’t work I thought we would need something more specialized.”

“You got that right, Stanford. Did you bring any material we could use as a taglock?”

Ford nodded and produced some hair he’d removed from Stan’s hairbrush. Doripea listed a few other ingredients, some of which Stanford had on him, and another she could harvest from the bottom of the lake. She sent them off to gather cedar leaves while she retrieved it.

“See, Shifty, you had nothing to worry about,” Ford reassured him as the three of them set off on their short trek through the forest. “With Doripea’s help, Stan will be back to normal in no time. You didn’t need to break out of your room.”

“I guess,” said Shifty. “It’s just that you and Stan never let me go anywhere. And maybe I didn’t have to come, but now that I’m here, it’s not so bad. Why do you think I’m so dangerous?”

Ford hesitated. How wise was it, to let Shifty know how powerful his shapeshifting abilities were? How easily they could be misused? How much of Shifty’s good behavior was due to his innocence?

Before he could start parsing out his answer, something caught his eye. “Look, there! A cedar grove. Shifty, why don’t you change into bird form and help me gather the leaves?”

Shifty was sufficiently distracted by leaf collecting for the time being. But as they made their way back to the lake with their spoils, something seemed off about Stan. He would stop moving periodically, his head cocked to the east. Then he would shake his head and catch up with Ford and Shifty.

The third time Stan stopped, Ford asked, “What is it, Stanley?” but Stan didn’t seem to hear him. Instead he took off in the eastern direction.

“What are you doing?” asked Ford, running alongside him. “That’s not the way back to the lake!”

“He can’t help it!” said Shifty as he glided through the air above them, still in bird form. “Something is drawing him that way!”

“The river,” Ford realized. “It must be closer to this spot than the lake is! We can’t let him get in the water!”

“Can I turn into an elephant seal now?” asked Shifty, and he whooped gleefully when Ford gave his assent. With an extra burst of speed, Shifty flew several feet ahead of them, then dropped to the ground in elephant seal form. The two bull seals collided, and Stan looked even more frenzied as he tried to evade this new obstacle.

“Stan, don’t hurt him!” cried Ford. “You know Shifty, he doesn’t want to hurt you! Stan, look at me, you know you can’t get in the water! Snap out of it!”

Stan paid no attention to this. Clearly the call of the water was too strong. Was Stan hearing the water? Were there lower vibrations from the gallons of rushing water that elephant seals could pick up, but humans couldn’t? Ford could only think of one way to find out.

Grateful he’d thought to bring an infrasonic transducer, Ford quickly set it to the needed specifications. “Shifty, cover your ears!” cried Ford, demonstrating with his hands.

Shifty found a hole in the ground to duck his head into, just in time for Ford to press the button. Ford couldn’t tell by the sound if it worked or not, because it was far too low for human ears to detect. But Stan let out a cry and dropped to the ground, rubbing his head in the dirt.

“I’m sorry, Stan,” Ford said to the writhing elephant seal. “It was the only thing I could think of.”

“He’s mad at you,” said Shifty, pulling his head out of the ground. “But at least he’s not crazy anymore.”

“And what about you? Are you hurt?” Ford asked Shifty.

“I’m okay. It was kind of fun, wrestling like elephant seals.”

Ford sighed, relieved that Stan had snapped out of his frenzy, and that Shifty was unharmed. “You did very well, Shifty, thank you. I suppose it was good you came after all.”

Shifty turned into a dog, the way he always did when he was happy, and moved as if to lick Ford’s hand, but he paused. “Sorry, I didn’t ask if I could change -”

“It’s all right, Shifty,” Ford assured him. “You got excited. It happens.”

For the rest of their hike, Ford kept his infrasonic transducer handy, just in case the sound of the water got to Stan again. Luckily he didn’t need it. Doripea helped him grind all their gathered ingredients into a thick paste, which they applied to Stan’s body. Then, and only then, was Stan allowed to get in the lake. Ford couldn’t think of a time he’d been happier to see Stan’s face as he watched his brother resurface from the lake. He helped Stan wring his wet clothes out and put them on, then hugged him, unconcerned about getting soaked himself.

That evening, the three of them all ate dinner together, something they’d never done before, since Stan and Ford had always worn masks around Shifty. Eating at the dinner table was new for Shifty, but he took to table manners well enough. Ford could tell it would take some doing to cure him of talking with his mouth full, though.

“Why didn’t you want me to see your mouths and your noses?” Shifty asked around a mouthful of beef.

“We were trying to protect our identities,” said Ford.

“What’s an identity?”

“Your identity is, well it’s who you are? How do I explain this . . .”

“Let me show you something,” said Stan. He ducked into his room briefly and came out with a shoebox. He pulled a few driver’s licenses out of it. “These are fake IDs. Basically they tell everyone that I’m someone I’m not. They’re lies. And they’re illegal.”

“What’s ‘illegal?’” asked Shifty.

“Only the fun stuff, kid.” With a look from Ford, Stan added, “Kidding, I’m kidding! Lots of illegal things can hurt people. Like killing, that’s bad. So the government will punish you for doing those things. If I stole someone else’s ID, I could steal their money, or do bad things under their name, so they would get in trouble and not me. It’s called identity fraud, and humans take it very seriously.”

“So that’s why we didn’t want you to see any human faces,” said Ford. “Because stealing someone’s identity like that is wrong. Do you understand?”

Shifty nodded. “You don’t want me to lie and pretend like I’m a human.”

“Exactly,” said Ford. “You’ve seen our faces now, so it can’t be helped. But if you want to meet other humans, we need you to promise you won’t take their forms, all right?”

“Okay, I promise,” said Shifty. “I won’t turn into you, or Stan, or any other humans. I won’t lie.”

Ford realized he had every confidence Shifty would keep his word.

The following week went much more smoothly, now that Stan and Ford didn’t have to wear masks so much and could take Shifty with them on field expeditions and into town. It started to feel like Shifty was a third, junior member of their team.

Shifty made it clear he thought of it differently, when one night he asked Ford, “Are you my dad?”

Surprised, Ford put down the Little Critter book he’d been reading to Shifty. He shifted uncomfortably at the beseeching look from the red eyes of Shifty’s true form, which he always reverted to when tired or sleeping. “Ah, not biologically, no. I assume you’re referring to my social role as your caregiver?”

“Yeah. You tuck me in at night, like Little Critter’s dad. And we play during the day, and you take care of me. We love each other.”

Ford was surprised at Shifty’s word choice. He’d always found Shifty interesting, at least, and Ford couldn’t deny he’d become quite invested in Shifty’s welfare, but love? How did you quantify such a thing? How did Shifty even know what that meant?

“Isn’t that how human families work?” asked Shifty.

“I - yes, I suppose. I’m afraid it’s not my area of expertise. I never expected to make a human family of my own. I’m still just trying to be a better brother to Stanley.” Ford adjusted the cushion he sat on, next to the opening of the den Shifty preferred to sleep in, rather than a more traditional bed. “But you, Shifty, you’re not human. Why would you want a human family?”

“I dunno. I thought it would make me happy. We don’t have to be family if you don’t want to.”

Shifty curled around himself, rolling deeper into his den, and Ford felt his heart sink. “I do want you to be happy,” he told Shifty. And that was when he knew Shifty had become more than an experiment to him. He had more than a scientific interest in helping this creature learn and grow. He had felt that way for a long time. “You can call me Dad if you want.”

“Really?” Shifty scrambled out of his den, morphing into a dog as he went. His paws rested on Ford’s shoulders, and he nuzzled his soft, furry head into Ford’s neck. Ford reflexively hugged him back, stroking his pelt. “Thanks, Dad.”

The enormity of it hit him then. He was a father now. Another being depended on him, loved him. He was Shifty’s whole world. And Shifty was his.

Ford hugged him tighter. “I love you, Son,” he said.

“I love you, too. Dad.” said Shifty.

When Shifty called him Dad the next morning at breakfast, Stan raised his eyebrows. “Shifty’s your kid, now?” he asked Ford.

“Last night, I asked if I could call him Dad, and he said yes,” Shifty informed him.

“Really?”

Ford tugged at his collar. “Well, he is a sapient child whom I have grown to care and take responsibility for, so. It is appropriate.”

“Huh. Well, Shifty, if Ford’s your dad, that makes me your fun uncle!” He clapped Shifty on the back. “It’s Uncle Stan from now on, all right, kid?”

Shifty smiled back with Little Critter’s buck-toothed grin. “Okay, Uncle Stan.”

“Mazeltov, Sixer!” said Bill. He summoned some lavender balloons that read, ‘It’s a shapeshifter!’

“Thank you, Bill.”

“Hey, I’m just grateful you’re able to make time for me now you’re a working parent and all.”

“I’m sorry, Bill. I know between Shifty and not having the mechanical help I need -”

Bill waved off his excuses. “I told you, a solution for that is in the works. I just don’t want you getting lost in the weeds with individual specimens while your Grand Unified Theory goes unpublished!”

“Yes, of course. I’ll try harder.”

“And anyway, once you get the portal up and running, you’ll be able to find the dimension Shifty comes from. Think of how much you could learn about his species then! Things you should probably know if you’re trying to raise one of them.”

Ford hung his head. “You’re right. When it comes to figuring out Shifty, and what he needs . . . I’m stumbling around in the dark. He’d probably be happier if we made contact with some of his own kind . . .”

“Yeah, well, for now he’s stuck with you, isn’t he? With any luck, he won’t end up resenting you the way you do your dad, right?”

“Of course not! I would never treat him the way our dad treated us.” Despite his indignation, Ford was forcefully reminded of the inhumane way he’d treated Shifty all of a few weeks before, and was ashamed.

Bill clapped a reassuring hand on his back. “Oh, I’m sure you’ll do your best, Sixer.”

The deep midnight blue of the mindscape abruptly faded away, and another voice called out to Ford.

“Get out of his head!”

“Shhh, Shifty, let him sleep, he never takes a minute to rest like this . . .”

Ford opened his eyes and found Shifty in the form of a badger, scrambling to get out of Stan’s grasp. “Dad!” he said. “Did you tell the monster to go away?”

“He thinks something was attacking your brain while you were asleep,” Stan explained.

Ford shook himself awake, annoyed at himself for messing up his schedule like this. He’d only meant to sit on the couch for a minute or two . . . “Come here, Shifty,” he said, and extended his arms to Stan, who handed Shifty over.

Ford stroked his pelt and assured him, “I’m fine. Nobody was trying to hurt me. I was simply speaking with my Muse.” Really, it was quite extraordinary that Shifty seemed able to sense Bill’s presence. “Sometimes he enters my dreams and helps with my research. It’s nothing to worry about.”

Shifty looked unconvinced. “He made you feel bad. Bad shame wrong. He’s yucky.”

Ford gave an explanation that was close enough to the truth. “We were just talking about some of the obstacles setting back my project. It’s not his fault. How could you tell what I was feeling when I was asleep, anyway?”

Shifty looked confused. “You . . . smelled? No, not a smell. I just felt the, you know, the little waves, they tell you what the feelings are. I can’t feel them when I’m asleep, but I was awake. You were asleep.”

“You have a psychic sense for other people’s emotions?” asked Ford. Of course he did. Looking back, it was so obvious. Shifty had always been so confident when talking about how people felt. Ford really should have noticed sooner. “And that’s how you could sense my Muse’s presence?”

“Yes? Is that not something humans can do?”

Ford shook his head. “We can read facial expressions and body language, but otherwise, the only way we can tell how someone is feeling is if they tell us.”

“Is that why you didn’t trust me at first? Because you couldn’t tell I didn’t want to hurt you?”

“Well, yes,” Ford admitted. “I didn’t realize you were a sapient being and I didn’t know what your abilities were, or how you wanted to use them. So I kept you locked up. I’m sorry.”

“Oh. I thought I had done something wrong. I tried to be good.”

“Oh, Shifty . . .” Ford hugged him closer. “You are good. You’re a wonderful kid. I’m sorry it took me so long to realize it.”

Shifty must have sensed how guilty Ford felt, because he said, “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. I know you love me now.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t deserve to be mistreated,” Stan cut in. “You don’t have to take care of Ford’s feelings. He’s a grown up. We should take care of yours.”

“You’re right, Stan,” Ford agreed. “I know we’re at a disadvantage, Shifty, when it comes to supporting you emotionally. I’m bad at dealing with feelings, even by human standards. But I’ll do my best for you. Will you tell me your feelings so I can help you?”

“Okay,” said Shifty. “I wish you had always been my dad. I wish you had never been mean.”

“Me too,” said Ford.

“I’m glad you said sorry, though. I still love you, anyway.”

“I love you, too,” Ford assured him.

“And I still don’t like your muse. He’s mean, and he’s sneaky.”

“I’m not sure I like him either,” Stan concurred. “When you first told me about him, I didn’t really take it seriously. I’m sorry, it was just really weird. But if Shifty can sense him, and he’s actually real, well, all that stuff you said, about how he only picks one brilliant mind a century and all that? If I were trying to con you, that’s exactly the angle I’d go for.”

“But he’s not a con,” Ford said reflexively. “I don’t think I did a good job of explaining him. If you met him in person, you’d see, Bill is amazing.”

“No no no no no,” said Shifty. “I don’t want him in my head! Promise me you won’t let him in my head.”

“Okay, I promise,” said Ford, alarmed by how much this agitated Shifty. “He won’t hurt you, he won’t hurt any of us. Ever.”

Shifty was still wary, but he accepted Ford’s comfort. Ford could tell Stan had more to say on the subject, though, and he did, after Ford had put Shifty to bed.

“Ford, I’m just saying, your mind is a powerful thing. Letting some supernatural creature inside it is no small potatoes. Whatever you’re getting out of this arrangement you got, make sure he’s not short changing you.”

“Of course he’s not! Look, Stan, if you want to see the truth for yourself, there’s a simple spell you can use to follow him into my mind, next time he’s there. You’ll see, there’s nothing to worry about.”

“All right,” Stan said tentatively. “I might do that. But just ask yourself this, Ford, what is this Bill guy getting out of this? Why does he want you to build the portal so badly?”

“Well that’s simple, he . . .” Ford realized he’d never asked Bill that question before, and he’d never volunteered the information himself. But clearly that just meant his motives were pure, right? “He’s a being of the mind, Stan. Scientific discovery is its own reward.”

“Are you serious?” asked Stan. “You’ve never questioned anything he’s said, have you? I thought you were smarter than that.”

Anger flared in Ford, quick and intense. “You have no idea what the hell you’re talking about! This is just like you, to barge into things you don’t understand -”

“Hey, don’t try to turn this around on me. I’m just looking out for you, like I’ve been doing since day one.”

“I can think of at least one glaring exception.”

“Seriously, Stanford? Are you going to hold that one mistake over me for the rest of my life?”

“It just shows you have a history of ruining my work right when it’s about to pay off. You never cared about the things that are important to me, you’re only interested in chasing your cheap thrills.”

“I never cared about what was important to you? I thought I was important to you! You think I went to prison in three different countries just for the fun of it? I did what I had to, just to survive. Which I’ve had to do for over ten years, while you never bothered to stick your nose out of a book long enough to check on your brother.”

Ford’s seething response melted away at the thought of Stanley shivering, Stanley hungry, Stanley alone. “Stanley, I - I didn’t mean to imply that I don’t care about you. These past weeks with you have meant the world to me. You’re right. I should’ve tried to reconnect with you sooner, and - and I shouldn’t still be blaming you for something you did in high school.”

Stan’s gaze shifted down to his feet. “It wasn’t that I didn’t care about your perpetual motion machine. I really didn’t mean to break it, and I should’ve owned up to what I did and told you instead of trying to fix it myself. I may not understand everything about this portal, but I really do want to help you. It’s just that this Bill guy seems fishy to me.”

“And I told you, you have a chance to talk to him yourself. Will you at least try to keep an open mind about him until then?”

“I will, if you try to keep your mind open to the idea that he may not be what he seems.”

“I . . . suppose that’s fair.”

“Now will you please get some sleep? Between the kid and the portal you’ve been running yourself ragged.”

“It’s not so bad as all that.” Ford tried to shrug it off. “I think if I change the alignment on the oscillator I might get a better charge on the clux fapacitor -”

“It can wait until tomorrow.”

“It won’t take that long to test out. Anyway, I got a nap in earlier, I’m fine.”

“Yeah, a ‘nap.’ Looked more like you passed out from sheer exhaustion. You definitely need more sleep.”

“I can sleep when I’ve published my Grand Unified Theory of Weirdness.” And with that, Ford escaped to the basement before Stan could respond.

Ford didn’t want to admit it, but this whole business unsettled him. Stan was the one person he trusted best in all the world, but Bill was his Muse, the one who not only saw what Ford could be, but gave him the tools to achieve it. Now the two seemed to be setting themselves against each other. Ford didn’t want to think of what the outcome would be, should he be forced to choose between them. He could only hope it wouldn’t come to that.

Read the next work in this series

#stanford pines #stanley pines #gravity falls #found family #fanfic #7500 words #do not tag as stancest

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garazza · 4 years ago

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Action Comics #1023 Review

“The House of Kent: Part 2″

Action Comics #1022 “House of Kent: Part 1″ Review

Hoo-boy.

I actually appreciate this recap page, I really do, but it just rubs me the wrong way. I’m not sure if it’s the content of the recap that pisses me off or if it’s for the fact that they literally just took a page from the previous issue and slapped in some new dialogue (see Bendis’ Man of Steel mini for this to be taken to the extreme).

Most likely the latter, but there’s a good argument for the former because reading objective statements about what Bendis has done tends to do that. I guess what they could be going for is for something similar to when Svengoolie comes back from commercial break and it’s a still from the movie with Sven’s face superimposed somewhere and he makes a quip about the movie before it starts back up again.

But I digress. It fills me in on what’s been happening in the book and that’s what I needed it to do.

The art really goes down in quality since last issue. Romita, Jr.’s pencils aren’t as good, Janson’s inks are heavier and a lot more boring, and Anderson’s colors are bland and flat and not as lively. There are a few good spots and I’ll point them out, but they’re infrequent, and overall, the quality of the art is much more similar to the art in the Metropolis Doom arc than it is to last issue. This leads me to believe that editorial only gave the art team enough time over the pandemic-induced break in publishing to produce one good issue before forcing them back into a deadline where Romita, Jr.’s work is not as good and tends to suffer.

Red Cloud attacks and attempts to kill Jimmy Olsen instead of Lois Lane to send an even greater message to her and Clark.

For those of you that don’t know, the Invisible Mafia speak in code to avoid detection by Superman’s super-hearing and meet in areas surround by lead to hide from his supervision. In the beginning of this confrontation, no one says anything that Superman would respond to if he hasn’t already tuned it out, which is why Lois says out loud her nickname for her husband to get his attention.

It’s a sign of affection for them and could be utilized for such a scenario, but I don’t see why she had to say his nickname over anything else to get his attention. Maybe because since he revealed his identity to the world his real name is being said a lot more often in non-criminal ways, so he doesn’t respond to it as much as he has in the past. I’m not sure if I’m trying to come up with a rational excuse for what is actually a writer’s weird and out-of-character creative choice or if it’s what an actually competent writer intended for a discerning reader to infer and get joy from a successful analysis.

Regardless, it’s what got Superman’s attention at the end of Superman segment in the last issue. I don’t think what was supposed to be conveyed with those panels last issue was accurately conveyed by the art. Either Romita, Jr. didn’t sufficiently depict (but still beautifully rendered) what Bendis had directed him to draw, or Bendis had poorly directed Romita, Jr. in what he wanted him to draw. With this added context, however, these panels do make a lot more sense, but only with the added context. Without it, the scene is a little unclear.

You can clearly see the change in art with the two issues side by side like this. This issue, the art just doesn’t look as good. It’s just kinda blegh. It accomplishes what it needs to convey the story, but in a very boring and unspectacular way.

Also, this panel is very Harry Potter to me. Superman’s more subdued face is similar to that of book!Dumbledore in Goblet of Fire, but the almost hyperbolic dialogue is more akin to that of movie!Dumbledore. It’s very dissonant.

I really want to hate the humor of this panel, but it’s just so fun, so I won’t.

This is a really cool panel, one of the few standout moments, but I have issues.

First, I may have enjoyed the humor in the last panel, but Bendis’ attempt at humor with Jon here just makes me want to cringe. Whenever Bendis makes Jon talk, it just pisses me off and makes me want to stop reading.

Second, I see what they were going for with the glowing eyes, but this is some more of that dissonance between the art and the writing. It actually looks quite menacing, but the dialogue has a more humorous tone. Also, the actual effect for the glow is just two red circles, making their eyes look more like flashlights than radiating energy. I also want you to keep this moment in the back of your minds, I’ll refer back to it in a second.

I think the dissonance is the result of the Bendis-speak, where some of the characters are quippy, but other characters are playing the situation straight and are reacting accordingly to the incorrect behavior. There’s nothing wrong with a superhero comic being light-hearted, but it just doesn’t quite fit here. All the right ingredients are present, but they’re not all in the right proportions.

Another panel I really like. The smoke and its color are really well done, especially in contrast to the all black silhouettes except for their back logos of the Supers.

The eye glow effect looks much better here. It’s simple yet powerful.

I don’t know how important this revelation is actually supposed to be, so I’ll defer to the depiction of the comic instead of playing the fool and acting upset about something I’m ignorant about simply because I’m not a fan of the writer.

This moment is cool and all, but I don’t think Conner has super-breath. He doesn’t actually have the powers of Superman, he uses his tactile telekinesis to mimic some of the powers of Superman.

The “extreme high-velocity super-speed” was this issue’s first indication that Bendis might not know anything about this character he has stewardship over, but that can just be chalked up to Superman not remembering the powers of Conner. We don’t know the upper limit of Conner’s tactile telekinetic flight, nor should we care, it’s supposed to be a fun line.

The second indication is that Conner is shown to have heat vision when his eyes glow alongside Clark and Jon’s. He only has heat vision when he wears special goggles or a visor. Again, he doesn’t have all the powers of Superman. Tactile telekinesis only covers so much of Superman’s powers. But this can be forgiven because it is a pretty cool image.

“Once Is Chance, Twice is Coincidence, Third Time Is A Pattern.” This panel is the third instance of Bendis’ lack of understanding of Conner’s character. If this was the only instance, this would be fine, but it’s not. The moment is cool, but it’s a bridge too far.

Refer to my review of the first issue for more of Bendis not knowing anything about Conner.

EDIT: Thanks to @thebartallenblog for pointing out to me that Conner does in fact start developing more Kryptonian powers outside of his tactile telekinesis in the 2003 Teen Titans book by Geoff Johns, so Bendis does in fact know more about the character than I give him credit for, which is more than I can say for myself in this instance.

Also, this moment goes on for way too long, almost two entire pages. Beautiful, the art of decompression and wasting reader’s time and money.

“Should I super-inhale?” Shut up, Bendis.

Also, why is Red Cloud is so fixated on Superman’s family instead of just Superman. Does the Invisible Mafia have something against his family as well? It was my understanding that they have it out for him specifically, anything that is ancillary to him is extraneous and not worth their time.

“Hey! It’s not my favorite super-move on a good day.” Then why the fuck did you even make him suggest it, Bendis?

I don’t know if loved ones referring to Lois as Ma is something Bendis has been trying to push as a character quirk or if it’s some sort of weird one-off. Either way, I don’t like it. It’s not bad in of itself, don’t get me wrong, it’s just not my thing and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Again, I’m not sure how significant Jimmy figuring out Red Cloud's identity is supposed to be to the plot and the narrative, but this seems to be a bit of lampshading from a writer who literally has no right to be lampshading.

Couldn’t give a shit about the plot, I’m just here to nitpick. Next.

Feels a bit janky in the art department, but the dialogue is surprisingly in character. They all feel like they have their actual voices. It’s a nice little moment.

I would address all the instances of Bendis making Jon talk, but that would make this longer than it already is, so I’ll only do it when it’s particularly egregious.

Red Cloud comes back and attacks not!Jon and I couldn’t care less. Kill the bitch. Please.

The next two pages are a lot of nothing, just a boat load of Bendis-speak.

I’m pretty sure this played out a lot differently and more humorously in Bendis’ head when he wrote it down and Romita, Jr.’s art makes it all the more funny but for all the wrong reasons.

Who’s his partner? Officer Tomasi?

You know when I said that one panel with Lois, Clark, and Jimmy was written really in-character? This panel with Conner and Jon is the exact opposite of that.

Red Cloud and Ms. Leone have a fun back and forth for two pages. It’s a good example of Bendis-speak working well.

“Black Label Club?” One meta-reference is enough, but two is stupid. I actaully feel a little conflicted nitpicking this, but Black Label is in such a weird place right now, so why reference it?

But “Clark Kent walked into a bar...” is a pretty bad ass line, very John Wick.

A very cool sequence, but it’s full of Bendis-speak and very decompressed.

Why the fake-out of the Superfamily executing a gangland-style shooting with Jon being the one pulling the trigger? I get it’s a story beat the narrative is supposed to hit, but still.

The reveal is pretty funny, shrinking the club, so it’s a little forgivable, but the set up and the pay off don’t quite match. It’s just another example of that dissonance I’ve been mentioning.

I know that “supersons” line was put there by Bendis as a deliberate dig at his detractors, so I’m not going to take the bait and get pissed. Nice try, big guy.

All in all, this issue was not as bad as I initially thought. It’s series of some really big highs and lows.

#superman #superboy #conner kent #jon kent #lois lane #jimmy olsen #red cloud #robinson goode #ms. leone #invisible mafia #brainiac 5 #clark kent #action comics #brian michael bendis

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punkscowardschampions · 4 years ago

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James & Ava

James: Good morning

James: how are you, darling?

Ava: Sleepy 🥱

Ava: but all the better starting my day with you, of course

Ava: how about you? 😊

James: hopeful that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, because likewise

James: & my cautious optimism doesn’t extend to the viewing I’m currently heading to

Ava: Oh, how have they oversold this one, I wonder

Ava: the adverts are nothing short of epic fiction

Ava: there should be awards for how they can spin any - into like +++

Ava: Where are you headed?

James: it would be inspirational if I were solely doing research for the novel but alas I need a suitable study first

James: [somewhere that’s one of the places we discounted]

Ava: I can believe estate agents are all unfulfilled creatives, definitely

Ava: I’ll 🤞 all my fingers and toes that it’s the one

Ava: though I could tell you more pubs and clubs in that area than nurseries…

James: absolutely up there with the teaching profession in terms of both dashed dreams setting them on that path & a litany of thankless tasks once they get there

James: thank you though

James: I’ll let you know if it constitutes enough of a disaster to warrant theoretically drowning my sorrows, after all, there isn’t a huge difference between some of the clubs Teddy frequents & soft play so I’ve no doubt my aide for today would be thrilled to hear every suggestion

Ava: You cannot make me feel bad for teachers today

Ava: not when Mr Hawthorne has beat you to it with the against argument in the form of his 🥱 inducing lectures

Ava: 😅 I don’t think foam parties are safe for anyone, 1-year-olds especially so though

James: there’s an argument to be made that I possess the ability to do so, however, if I’m going to use my powers of persuasion for anything 😈 I would argue it is indeed wasted on Mr Hawthorne

James: oh well in that case, the hunt for my sister’s baby shower venue also continues

Ava: If you used your powers of persuasions on Mr Hawthorne, I might be a tiny bit jealous

Ava: not to mention almost as confused as he would undoubtedly be

Ava: Joy of joys

Ava: it would be typical for that to be added to your to-do list as well, but at least a place for grown women to eat chocolate bars out of nappies isn’t as much like gold dust as a decent place in central

James: I’m jealous that he’s spending time with you right now, despite your attention being less than rapt & therefore promise to do nothing that benefits him in any way whatsoever

James: including, but not limited to, refusing to assist you in the homework he intends to set by being as distracting as I can later as well as now

James: you’re not wrong, but she is her belief that to this day I remain blacklisted by an extremely high percentage of clubs, thus sparing me being delegated the role even in these hypothetical planning stages

Ava: That would be a wild rumour, even for this place

Ava: and what can I say? You’re more worthy of my time and attention

Ava: as you’ve just proved 😍

Ava: Definite blessing in disguise

Ava: Will it be a women-only event?

James: I’d be lying if I didn’t say I miss you & am always willing to prove how much at every given opportunity

James: god, I hope so, even a foam party isn’t enough of an incentive to get me there if I am expected

Ava: I miss you too

Ava: I can come see you tonight though, if you’re free

Ava: sadly, I don’t think I can make a soft-play date so that’ll have to be just you two

Ava: and you’re lucky, I’ve been to so many baby showers it’s not even funny

James: I’m supposed to work late to make up the time I’ve taken off this morning but I can do that when you’re busy

James: that’s a shame, I’ll have to throw myself in the ball pit

James: time will tell if you have an invite to Diana’s, what’s incredibly lucky is that she won’t expect you to actually attend regardless of how you RSVP

Ava: Only if you’re sure

Ava: my plans can always be more fluid than yours

Ava: Ugh 😞 I’d LOVE to push you into a ball pit right now, life is unfair

Ava: I don’t think she was impressed with my party-planning skills enough to put in that call

James: I am very sure that I want to spend tonight with you instead of at the office

James: & I’m also suddenly determined to create our very own ball pit in the new place

James: [pictures like which room do you think we should fill with plastic balls lol but let’s say it’s all really small]

James: having to forgo a traditional master bedroom isn’t at all unfair, I’ll obviously sleep like a baby among the balls

Ava: 🥰

Ava: An absolute must

Ava: why brag of a ‘cosy’ third bedroom when you can boast a gigantic ball pit

Ava: I bet the girls would be more than willing for you to do that too

Ava: Party house has a whole new meaning 🥳

James: indeed

Ava: I hope there’s not too many people there this time though, really

James: I think there are more people here than at the last viewing we went to, impossible as that sounds

Ava: 😫 How, where do all these people spring from?!

Ava: At least you’re far more eligible than most young professionals

Ava: If I was looking for a model renter

James: what a pity you aren't, your rooftop garden has much greater appeal for this particular young professional, not least because I've seen its existence with my own eyes

Ava: If my landlords weren’t so involved…

Ava: This place is far too big for us now

James: hopefully they won't drag you along on yet more insufferable viewings if, or when, they decide to downsize since you're an undeniable pro now, because for that, there would only so many apologies I can offer you

Ava: I’m sure mum’s already getting the planning permission sorted for if and when

Ava: Sadly their portfolio doesn’t extend to a reasonable price range, I did ask

Ava: but if it isn’t something that would get her in Architect Digest, or whatever, she’s not interested so

Ava: As you said, it would be fun in a way, if all this looking didn’t mean you were still without your perfect family home

Ava: It takes people watching to a new level, and seeing the landlord’s ‘decor’ choices is also as revealing

James: it's okay, being indebted to my own parents is quite enough

James: it's becoming clear if my father visualizes me living here it's because he's done a drastic rewrite of the type of young professional I am

James: I could see you here, for instance, in a draft where I don't exist as your love interest, but in terms of a family home, perfect of otherwise, where we'd put Frank & the children is anyone's guess

James: perhaps some of these people are imagining wild architecture projects the likes of which your mother would have to act undaunted by, who's to say

Ava: I don’t love that rewrite

Ava: Frank is particularly demanding with how much space he needs to recline, relax, snooze and sleep…

Ava: You’ll find somewhere soon, I know it

Ava: If nothing else, this dull lesson is giving me all the time to refresh and refresh and repeat every listing I can find

James: cautious optimism as ever for our 2nd attempt

James: [deets because I'm gonna say that this is one he ends up loving that falls through somehow at some stage because how real and frustrating and then she can be the one who finds their forever home and they can look at it together]

Ava: Okay, I can picture that one

Ava: light and airy isn’t actually a lie this time, what a concept

Ava: 😍

Ava: All the rooms are a good size so you wouldn’t feel as if either girl was getting the short straw, and you won’t have to settle for sleeping amongst the balls either

James: I do have a genuinely good feeling about it, terrifying as that is to admit in our present surroundings where it feels as though someone will sense it & immediately swoop in, but yes

Ava: I know

Ava: It’s one of those things

Ava: You have to be cautious, because so many roadblocks are between you and the end goal

Ava: but similarly, how can you be, when it’s such a big life thing

Ava: You can be as honest and optimistic as you like with me, it doesn’t need to go any further, shark-like buyers and the girls alike

James: we aren’t anywhere close to the stressful moving in stage & I’m already acutely aware that I wouldn’t have survived up until now without your help, so I will, as long as you know the continued support is appreciated beyond words or any other measure

Ava: Stressful, but fun

Ava: you get to pick what colour your new room is 😌

Ava: It’ll be reward enough, to see you get the fresh start you deserve

James: [whatever her fave colour is] of course

James: then you won’t mind seeing me covered from head to toe in it, potentially indefinitely, when we discover I can’t fit in the tub at the new place either

Ava: Oh, I don’t think I would mind that no matter the colour

Ava: but I also would not mind you having an amazing shower so we could take care of that

James: if there isn’t I won’t mind adding it to my renovations to-do list

Ava: As long as I’m on that list too I’m happy

James: the top of any list I write is where I’m happy to put you

Ava: If you put in a bid, you should do it at/even over asking price, so they’ll take attention of you and then you can make a list of repairs/quality checks etc you want done before you agree to move in, then if they do them, they’re done for you, but more likely, they’ll not want to, and you can say take that cost off my offer then

Ava: one of the 💡 tips I’ve picked up and you’d undoubtedly thought of yourself but there we go

James: here’s where I could nod & keep up the pretense to avoid giving away what a total novice I am, but there’s very little point given than you know I’ve never done this, & a list of countless other things as long as my arm, for myself before

James: instead I’ll just take your advice & thank you accordingly

Ava: There’s so much we don’t get prepared for

Ava: even under normal circumstances

Ava: It isn’t as if I was told that at school, or I get told anything vaguely useful on the day-to-day by Hawthorne or any of the others worse or marginally better than him

Ava: You shouldn’t feel like you’re alone in feeling unprepared, is what I’m failing to say

Ava: Lots of people feel it, that’s why I could never just stay here, in the bubble of SW forever

James: don’t worry, you aren’t failing at anything where this conversation is concerned & whilst it is somewhat overwhelming at times, I don’t feel alone because I’ve got you to talk it through with

James: what that school taught me, all that living here has taught me, was how to avoid facing up to situations by lying & name dropping, which probably would assist me in climbing the property ladder but I’d rather be honest, if the bubble bursts as a result, I’m prepared for that from now on

Ava: I’m proud of you

Ava: and the girls will be too

Ava: It can be fun, and there are some good people here, just as there are everywhere

Ava: but outside of the postcode, the currency of who you know and where you went to school, it’s just not real, irrelevant

Ava: I don’t want to rely on my parents’ hard work, let alone someone else’s father knowing the crest on my blazer, you know

James: yes, I know exactly what having to rely on my father feels like, it isn’t fun or something to be proud of & it definitely isn’t a precedent I’d like to keep setting for my daughters

James: the stark reality & contrast of this fresh start needs to happen soon, while I still have Jay here to teach

Ava: She’s not going anywhere

James: she’s going to have to meet him eventually even if that’s under the guise of him being one of my old friends or your brother

Ava: And I understand that that’s fair

Ava: to him, I don’t know how to feel about it in regards to Jay, and it’s not even my job to so I know how hard this must be for you

Ava: but that doesn’t mean he should get to ‘keep’ her, for God’s sake, she has had no idea who he is until now, you’re her dad

James: I have to hope that he’ll understand that too, he’s not the villain here, as much as it would make my life easier to paint him as such

Ava: I hope so too

James: it’ll be okay, for her, I don’t know if I can make the same promise for us but I want to be able to

Ava: Don’t put yourself down like that

Ava: It wouldn’t be okay if she lost you

James: she isn’t going to lose me whatever Buster decides to do next, things may have to change but never that drastically, I’ll always be in her life

Ava: Providing he plays that nicely

Ava: I’m just scared he’ll do something that drastic, and stupid

James: if he doesn’t I won’t, I’m not afraid to fight fire with fire should that be the only option he leaves me with

Ava: Good

Ava: I wish I could promise it won’t be

Ava: but I don’t know what he will be prepared to do, so you should be prepared for any and all eventualities too

James: I am, my marriage made sure I was equipped to anticipate the unexpected & not to expect rational responses

Ava: Yeah, of course

Ava: Still no word from Chloe?

James: no & no trace of a belated birthday card

Ava: Typical

Ava: Good thing Mattie got spoiled by you and had a great party already

James: Jay is devastated she has to wait so long for you to throw one for her though, maybe we can find a way to cater the housewarming party to her

Ava: Awh, bless her

Ava: If there’s one thing Chelsea HAS taught me, is that you only need a vague notion of an idea to have a party and celebrate

Ava: Does she like fireworks?

James: she LOVES fireworks, if you weren’t in Dublin she’d have insisted you come with us to [wherever we’re gonna go see some on the night]

Ava: I am pretty gutted I can’t

Ava: but I’ll have to get some sparklers, probably not Catherine Wheels or Roman Candles, and do a belated bonfire themed do for her

Ava: smores are a good idea any night

James: I wonder if she’ll expect us to dye her hair red, orange or yellow this time

Ava: 😬 accidentally set a precedent

Ava: thank god for washouts

James: I’ll do what I can to have her convinced that face paint is a much better idea by the time you get back but she’s no Mr Hawthorne so

Ava: I admire a girl who requires more than a persuasive essay

Ava: you’ll have a great time

Ava: 🤞 the endless family drama doesn’t get in the way of me having one too

James: no amount of Catherine Wheels or Roman Candles could prevent me from being on the end of the phone whether you aren’t having a great time or simply want to tell me how much fun it is

Ava: You’re the best ❤️

Ava: It should be fine

Ava: If anything, hopefully someone else is bringing more drama than my parents or siblings could accuse me of, then it’ll really give them a bit of perspective 🤫

James: if your family resembles the dynamic of mine even slightly I won’t have to keep anything crossed in order to make that happen for you, but of course I will nevertheless, just in case

Ava: How soon is too soon to clue you in on my mad family dynamic 🤔😅

Ava: Maybe when you’re in your new home, so you have a door to politely shut in my face

James: having never kept an air of mystery there I can understand why you’d want to, but I would never christen my new front door like that

Ava: It was like an unspoken rule, when Buster was here too

Ava: I don’t really care that much, and anyway, he broke it big time

Ava: Every family has struggles and secrets, or are long overdue their share if not

James: I couldn’t agree more, my mother acts as though nobody else has skeletons hung up next to their hideously expensive coats & we must stay silent come what may, but she’s the last person to feign shock when any of said secrets inevitably come out

Ava: It’s such a waste of time and energy

Ava: not to mention resolves precisely (0) of said troubles, if and when they can be

Ava: I’m so glad you don’t want to keep up pretenses together

Ava: wouldn’t make for a very interesting story

James: exactly, if I adhered to her code of silence I wouldn’t have gone to rehab or spent any time & energy on recovery, god knows what trouble I’d be in right now in that instance, but we certainly wouldn’t have this plotline to delight in

Ava: Being dubious about the potential results, maybe

Ava: but the idea your own mum would rather you suffer in silence, literally, is beyond me

James: it’s an attitude worthy of an outdated classic novel, for sure, that we can all take ourselves in hand & address our flaws with a firm word or two but she isn’t alone in her 'you don't need outside help, you just need to learn and then follow through with setting your own limits' mentality

James: in my parents' defence I was still young, despite the baby I wasn't looking after properly or the wedding I don't remember very much of at all, & I know they'd argue, if pressed, that was the main reason for their anti-rehab stance

James: therefore, I'd like to believe, however naively perhaps, on this occasion it isn't entirely about saving face with yet more pretense but rather a glimpse at some character development for both of them, if only so the novel isn't doomed by one dimensional subplots, naturally

Ava: I can see that too, again, a lot of people’s problems go unaddressed or at least are allowed to get worse because the person is ‘too young’ for it to either be a problem, or it is something they will ‘bounce back’ from once they ‘calm down’ and mature

Ava: It doesn’t make your parents the devil, I wouldn’t suggest as much, nor the first people to fall into that trap

Ava: There are definitely instances of the exact same mindset I can point to within my own family

Ava: We’d all like to see the best in people, and sometimes, that desire lets us down

James: regardless this viewing has yet to let me down unlike the previous

James: I wish you were here

Ava: With any luck, I’ll be able to come see it with you next time

Ava: The pictures look great, trying to keep the optimism at the cautious level still but 🤞🤞😌

James: need I remind you I like your optimism as unabashed as your excitement

Ava: You don’t need to

Ava: but I wouldn’t be opposed

James: [tell her about whatever cute and romantic plans you've sorted for you two tonight so she'll be happy and excited]

Ava: How have you managed to sort that whilst at these viewings and also with Mattie 😍

James: it appears I’m guilty of similarly high levels of enthusiasm & so the greater crime would be letting it go to waste

Ava: AND being an excellent multi-tasker AND AND an even greater romantic

James: Mattie can & will take full credit for the former but the romanticism is a newly acquired skill that I’m still trying to find my feet with, & entirely down to you

Ava: I should feel bad for keeping it all for myself

James: I disagree but I’ll happily rush through the book’s publication if sharing will make you feel better

Ava: Should doesn’t mean would or could

Ava: because I don’t

Ava: It’s nice not being secret, but I’m still happy keeping you to myself for a while longer

James: oh good, because I’d rather continue to multitask like this than on a novel deadline

Ava: Being anything but a reprieve from all the other drains on your time is not very romantic heroine of me, so never

Ava: what would the readers think

James: you’ve got me there, by evoking how fickle our readers are more than likely to prove themselves to be, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about

Ava: You either think the protagonist is ‘relatable’ or you hate her because you deserve the love interest far more than her

James: nobody deserves me more than you, they’ll have no choice but to appreciate you

Ava: James

James: Ava

Ava: I can’t wait to see you later

James: can I pick you up from school or do you need to go home first?

Ava: I don’t need to go home 😊

James: I’ll see you there then, unfortunately, I have work to get back to & I’ve kept you from yours for longer than I responsibly should have, lest you end up at Kings after all

Ava: 🙄 I’m sure my career’s officer would tell me they’re higher in the rankings or something else that isn’t going to change my mind more than your experience and my own, however brief

Ava: If I were rating them on chance, perfect meetings, however

Ava: A++

Ava: I’ll see you later then, try not to get TOO exhausted by soft play 😏❤️

James: I’ll be certain to tell them now that’s not a secret, it wouldn’t surprise me if they used us a ringing endorsement for some kind of meet-cute society to take place weekly in The Vault

James: the allure of soft play meanwhile needs no advertising, with or without any single mothers trying to engineer romantic entanglements of their own

Ava: I’ll square that with my conscience and you run that gauntlet, love

James: I’ll do my best

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joons · 5 years ago

Note

What is a mystery box?

In 2008, J.J. Abrams delivered a TED Talk about his writing/development process focused on what he called “the mystery box.” He bought a box at a store when he was a child that he has kept for decades without ever opening. He connected this to what he sees as a great way to deliver stories:

“I bought this decades ago, but if you look at this, you’ll see it’s never been opened. Ever. Why have I not opened this, and why have I kept it?… It represents infinite possibility. It represents hope. It represents potential. What I love about this box — and what I realized I sort of do, in whatever it is that I do — is I find myself drawn to infinite possibility and that sense of potential. And I realize that mystery is the catalyst for imagination… What are stories besides mystery boxes?

At the time, “Lost,” which J.J. Abrams famously co-created, was still on the air, and this metaphor did a great job of explaining why fans were so fascinated by the show. Then it ended in a way that … a lot of people found unsatisfying. (I have never seen “Lost” all the way through – I have no opinion on it one way or another, but I would argue it couldn’t really end any other way than retreating to something more metaphorical, because it had simply generated too many mysteries that could never be explained in a seamless way.)

So Abrams kind of created or really leaned into this style of mysterious, coy storytelling that gives you information that promises to lead to a secret or another level of the mystery. Cloverfield went so far as to market the movie this way, with snippets that hid what the film was actually about in order to tantalize viewers. And this system undoubtedly works extremely well for things like horror or even sci-fi, where discovering the world and its limitations can happen without knowing the Real Reason Behind the Monster.

But Abrams has also kind of gotten a bad reputation for setting the mystery box out in his stories and never ultimately opening it – OR, generating endless mystery boxes that he keeps opening nonstop without taking the time to question why we should care. Does a mystery reveal matter if it cannot be tied to the character’s arc in a way that challenges them? In The Rise of Skywalker, we’re told very gravely that Rey is a Palpatine, but … does she know who that is? Does it open up the question of being able to reject your bloodline, or does it contradict what we see in Kylo’s arc, where rejecting his bloodline is a bad thing that set him out on a bad path? There’s a disconnect between the themes and the plot because the mysteries have overwhelmed the more grounded emotions of the world.

Anyway, Film Critic Hulk wrote a great essay some years ago criticizing Abrams’ strategy and the rise of the “mystery box” as a staple of modern blockbusters. He writes (in all-caps because that was his shtick for a while): “IT’S NOT AN ACTUAL STORYTELLING CONSTRUCT. IT’S ABOUT MAKING PEOPLE WONDER WHAT’S GOING ON OR WHAT SOMETHING IS AND THEN JUST REVEALING IT AT THE MOMENT ONE HAS TO. IT’S NOT INHERENTLY BUILT AROUND CHARACTER, DRAMA, ARCS, AND ALL THE GOOD STUFF, BUT PURPOSEFUL TEASING.” It’s not the same question-answer-question-answer structure that has always guided fiction – it would prefer to skip the answer altogether, or at least avoid the question that should come AFTER the answer. Film Critic Hulk again: “THERE’S ALWAYS A POINT TO ALL OF IT [in mystery novels], AS THE ENDGAME OF ANY GOOD MYSTERY HAS TO RESONATE. WHICH MAKES YOU REALIZE ABRAMS ISN’T REALLY CONSTRUCTING A MYSTERY AT ALL. INSTEAD, WE’RE SIMPLY ASKED TO LOOK AT SCENE AFTER SCENE AND SAY “I wonder what that person is doing?!?” (LET ALONE WONDER ABOUT THOSE PESKY THINGS LIKE CHARACTER MOTIVATION). THAT’S NOT MYSTERY. THAT’S NOT KNOWING WHAT’S GOING ON.”

In Star Trek Into Darkness, the big reveal [spoiler spoiler] is that Benedict Cumberbatch’s character is Khan, the titular villain in The Wrath of Khan, considered one of the best Star Trek stories. But we’re in an alternate timeline where the characters have never met Khan, so the reveal is for the sake of the audience, not the characters. We have no idea what the reveal means to the characters, what questions it opens for them. The questions are for the audience to solve and puzzle out, but they rarely resonate in-universe because it’s onto the next box we have to open.

But there are some writers, like Steven Moffat and Vladimir Nabokov, who use expected structure and conventions of their mediums to create mysteries that have answers to them that are the thematic point of the piece. They allow their characters and the audience to get wrapped up in mysteries that then dissolve once it’s clear they’re just a distraction from the bigger picture. In Pale Fire, a Nabokov novel, we see a fussy professor adding footnotes to a poem his friend wrote to slowly reveal that the poem is really about the professor, OBVIOUSLY, and the drip-feed is made better by all these little clues and hints that Nabokov leaves that allude to some other literary work or that cross-reference you to another footnote that leads to a dead end, and so Nabokov is telling you the story as if you’ve been given thousands of note cards and have to assemble them yourself, like a choose-your-own-adventure book. The readers love it! But the puzzle itself hides – from the reader and from the characters – that this is a very simple story about love and fear of death and the characters trying to stay in denial by weaving elaborate mysteries that make them seem more important than they really are. If they let the mysteries drop, they’d have to face the fact that maybe their best friend doesn’t like them back, and then we’d have to talk about despair and feelings of inadequacy and WHO NEEDS THAT, LET’S TALK ABOUT THIS POEM THAT’S OBVIOUSLY ABOUT MEEEEEE, VALIDATING MY EXISTENCE!!!!!

So there’s a way to do mystery boxes that rely on conventional mystery set-ups that give your audience the expectation that what’s in them doesn’t matter because they are a way to avoid having to talk about themes. If the characters don’t want to talk about something, mystery boxes can be a great way, structurally, to have the plot mimic their frenetic energy. A character throwing themselves into a mystery is trying to avoid something obvious. But if they find, at the end of the mystery, that they are facing their unresolved grief, or their longing for a family, or the fact that they love the Doctor, or whatever, then the mystery had a purpose, just a different one than what we saw at the time.

Abrams, a lot of times, does not marry mysteries and themes in this way, and I think that’s what sours a lot of people on the idea of the “mystery box.” Not only is there nothing in there that’s satisfying for the plot, there’s also nothing in it that’s satisfying for the characters. But we’re off to the next reveal!

#meta #Anonymous #messages

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pidayforpi · 4 years ago

Text

Rigmor of Cyrodiil is a wasted golden opportunity

(I should probably only post this on reddit, where people will understand. But...I feel like posting this here as well. Probably no one will understand.)

TL;DR, I give this mod a 60/100.

This is a review of the Skyrim mod Rigmor of Cyrodiil. This is the first time I have written a review for a mod. I thought of whether I should do it (let alone post it online), but since Rigmor of Cyrodiil (let’s call it RoC, not Republic of China) has a special place in my heart, I will do it just for this mod.

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First off, disclaimer. I...

...haven’t played the prequel Rigmor of Bruma. I will probably play it, but not soon because I need a rest.

...also haven’t played the sequel “Dragonchild”.

...don’t really care about the “lore” aspect. Skyrim is the only Elder Scrolls game I have played, so I can’t say I am familiar with the ES lore myself.

...also don’t really care about time-sensitivity. I am talking about modern slangs used in the mod. It just doesn’t bother me.

...don’t care about character stereotypes. It’s not easy to think of unique character settings all of the time. Cliché and a bit boring they may be, character tropes are hard to be avoided.

...don’t care about my character being forced to be the character the mod intents for me to be. I play a male/khajiit/friend-type character in my playthrough. I also haven’t touched the Skyrim main quest, so I am technically not a Dragonborn. I know many people get bothered by the limited choices/forced role-play aspect of the mod. But in my opinion, my character is just a character I lend to the mod. The mod is the story. The mod author is the storyteller. I don’t and don’t need to have any say about my character. I am just here to listen to the story.

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Overview (spoilers, of course)

RoC, as I see it, is a romance/politics/adventure genre of story. A quick description of the story:

The first part of the story revolves around Rigmor being forced to sign a legal document due to her noble status of her hometown Bruma. Being a free spirit, Rigmor just wants to sign the document, leave, and continue her carefree adventure with her boyfriend Bobby.

However, when she is in the capital, she is framed to be a traitor, as she is supposed to be the legal queen of the empire due to her family history. Thus, the current “bandit king” (who took the throne by force) and the queen Morag want to get rid of Rigmor to protect their own power.

You (the MC) has to rescue Rigmor from exile, and during the journey on Roscrea (?), you both learn that Morag is behind all of this conspiracy, including bribing Akaviri vampires and Tsaesci samurai with human flesh, and the reason behind her immortality is that she (1) is a vampire -> (2) is Molag Bal (I think?) -> (3) is relying on a soul gem powered by the souls of children.

Back home in Bruma (with the help of a pirate old friend and his crew), Bobby (who betrays Rigmor) and his men are attacking Bruma along with the central imperial government. You fight back, and capture Bobby.

After briefly settling the attacks on Bruma, you start your attack on Morag. To destroy her, you travel through the mountains to a ruins, along with a girl with the power to destroy the soul gem with her arrow. You raid the ruins, destroy Morag (Molag Bal), and go back to the base camp.

You suddenly fall into a near-death situation due to Morag’s curse, but is later saved by the goddess Alessia. When you wake up, war has already begun between Bruma and the imperial government. You, Rigmor and the protectors of Bruma launch a counterattack, successfully driving the imperial soldiers away and winning the war.

At the ending, you and Rigmor march into the imperial palace once again (the place where Rigmor sign the document), and kill the illegal bandit king (who fakes an armistice to assassinate you and Rigmor). You and Rigmor thus become the king and queen of Cyrodiil, when Rigmor announces she is pregnant with the next Dragonborn. The story ends.

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Obviously this is a very brief run-through of the plot of RoC. I omit many small encounters both intentionally and unintentionally, because that would be a lot (examples include...

-Rigmor falling sick on Roscrea

-The battle between locals of Roscrea and Akaviri

-The battle between the pirate crew and Akaviri

-The chancellor asking for peace between Bruma and the capital

-A mysterious old priest

-A wood elf general offering help to Rigmor, who hates elves due to her father being murdered by elves (I think it has something to do with Rigmor of Bruma the prequel?)

There are probably a lot more of these things in RoC, but I just can’t remember, nor will I list them all out.)

At first, RoC gives me a very good first impression.

Actually, in general, RoC is pretty enjoyable in its first quarter (not first half, mind you). That is, the first 2-3 hours of gameplay. I will say what I like about RoC in the next section, where I list what I like and don’t like in RoC.

I first started the mod last year in April. However, I stopped at the ship ride sequence back to Bruma due to study. I wanted to marathon the mod, but it was taking up too much time.

After finishing my public exam, I started the mod again (from the beginning) this year in July. I think it took me...2 weeks to complete it (to be fair, I have other things to do).

Even after finishing it, RoC still is a gem in my eye. Unlike any other Skyrim (story) mod I have played, RoC caught my eye. I have never been hyped by a mod. It’s just a shame how it progressed towards the end. It started with a pretty good image, but kept going downhill as I played it.

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Things I like about RoC

1.Thing I like the most about RoC: Beautiful.

And I mean that on multiple layers (so that probably concludes most of the things I like about RoC).

Assets: The world of Cyrodiil is beautiful. I use no ENB, only a weathers mod (that has some reshade I think), and it’s still beautiful. I took a lot of screenshots throughout my gameplay, because the scenery is just so wonderful. Be it the wilderness on the Table Mountain, or the bustling Imperial City...It’s crazy. The only mod (I have played) that beats RoC in terms of aesthetics is Malsea.

(Yes I know (some of) the assets are borrowed from Beyond Skyrim. But that doesn’t stop them from being beautiful.)

Screenplay: The scenes of RoC are beautiful. This is actually what caught my attention when I first played RoC. The signature scenes are overlooking Cyrodiil with Rigmor on top of a tree, and Rigmor devastated with her fate in front of her childhood “secret base”. These two scenes are crazy powerful. I have never seen such powerful, sentimental scenes in a video game, let alone a Skyrim mod. Even without playing RoB, I could feel the emotions: Only because she’s born to a noble family, Rigmor has to endure all of those matters. Later, it’s even found out that not only is she chosen by mortals, but she is also chosen by the gods. Sometimes, perhaps, Rigmor may even prefer the wandering, dangerous life in Skyrim to the boring, controlled life in Bruma.

Also beautiful are some of the dialogues written. Example is when the Chancellor Blackwell describes Rigmor being tortured when she’s arrested. When her hair is cut, when her clothes are torn...I could picture the whole scene and feel the sadness of Rigmor.

Characters: Rigmor is beautiful. No, I don’t mean her physical appearance. Rigmor actually reminds me of Princess Garnet from FF9 (you can call me a Zidane): A princess yearning for freedom but caught in a destined tragedy. On the other hand, her personality makes me think of Tifa Lockhart from FF7: A seemingly strong, yet emotional young woman. That’s why I think RoC is a tragedy and its ending is a sad one. Rigmor just wants freedom, but throughout the story she’s pushed around by others (arrested, forced to save the country, bare a child, only due to her family history and fate). In the end, she’s trapped in an even harsher cage: As the queen of Cyrodiil, how can she possibly run away? The story of RoC destroys the life of Rigmor, forcing her to accept the fate bestowed upon her. Her life is a tragedy, a beautiful tragedy.

Also brilliant is the voice-acting. Most of the main characters are professionally voiced. Rigmor, Bobby and Morag Sethius (?) are my favourite. I don’t find many mods that are voiced, let alone professionally voiced.

Story: The story (to a certain extent) is beautiful. RoC is a story-oriented mod and we all know it. The story is extremely detailed. Almost all side characters have character development to a certain extent. There are many dialogue scenes for character developments, such as Rigmor and you talking about the past, as a comparison to the sad present life you are experiencing now. Side characters have backstories, such as the orc warrior and her partner from the Burma Fighters’ Guild. Old, recurring characters have (I assume from RoB?) stories that detailed why they are in the position they are in now (such as a character becoming a Jarl in Skyrim). That fills up many plot holes, to the point of developing the holes to hills.

(Mind you, detail is also a problem in itself. I will discuss it later.)

The story is rather unique and not very lore-heavy (in its first quarter, at least). A pet peeve of mine when finding Skyrim story mods is the massive amount of lore in these mods. Stories that revolve around Dwermer, Daedra (etc.) immediately put a slightly bad taste in my mouth. In my opinion, lores are unnecessary, complicated and boring. I don’t care about a non-lore-friendly story. I just want a story that connects to me in a personal level, talking about issues that we, as real-life modern human beings, can relate to.

That’s why RoC’s story gave me a breath of fresh air when I first played it. Rigmor’s story is extremely relatable at first: Being forced to do something you have been running away from. You strongly want to continue running away, but you know the problem will come back to bite you, or others will suffer the consequences for you. Should you run? Or face it? I think many of us have, unfortunately, experienced this dilemma in real life.

Relatability is a very important aspect in storytelling. You have to let the readers relate to the main character on a personal level, so that readers can feel the emotions themselves. We don’t face celestial invasions or supernatural disasters in our everyday lives, so Skyrim lore-friendly story mods are more often than not non-relatable.

That’s what makes Rigmor’s story stand out (initially, I will talk about how the story goes on later).

2.Effort.

No matter you like the mod or not, you have to admit a lot of effort is put into the mod. A lot. RoC is very long, almost like an official DLC, or even a brand new video game. We have a huge map. We have many locations. We have many cutscenes. We have voiced characters. We have composed music. The programming alone is crazy effort. We have to give applause to the team making RoC (and RoB). They really put a lot of time and sweat into making a free Skyrim story mod.

Also give a big hand to the voice actress of Rigmor. She has voiced thousands of lines for one character. And the writers, as well. Millions of lines written in books, notes, dialogues.

All these efforts are not lost on me.

I can never make a Skyrim mod myself, so I admire all modders in the community. For team Rigmor, you surely deserve a seat as one of the most important modders of Skyrim.

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Things I don’t like about RoC

1.Thing I don’t like the most about RoC: Long. Too long.

The problem is not the mod duration. The problem stems from the awkward pacing and tension.

I would like to make a comparison between two video games to demonstrate this problem: Okami and Persona 5. For people who have played these two games, you may understand my opinion better. I assume most have not, so I will not spoil...much.

(ok there will be spoilers i will keep it as small as possible)

(you can skip this section if you just want to see the mod look for the “Back to RoC...” subtitle)

(also for people who have played and loved okami please don’t kill me i know a lot of people love that game)

(also i’m aware that is a kid’s game, but i’m judging it in terms of story pacing)

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Both games are of similar length, mind you. I used a year to complete Persona 5 (with school and study, of course), but I lose count of how long I used to finish Okami (I finished it this May).

This is because Okami was...sadly, getting boring. And this is due to its unbalanced pacing.

Games, or long stories in general, should have an ascending pacing and atmosphere up until the climax. The actions should get faster and faster. The missions should get more and more important. Little exception.

For Okami, I feel like the story was loosely planned. As if the story was being forced to extend when the developers realised the story was not long enough.

From the start, it is stated that Orochi is the main menace of the world. Then you would assume Orochi to be the final boss, or at least the second final boss, right?

The part up to Orochi is great. You save a local village, another village, and proceed to the capital of Japan. Neat.

Then the showdown comes down between you and Orochi. The battle is epic. Very dramatic (though a bit stupid for comic relief). I thought the game finale was at hand, given the fast pacing and the tense atmosphere.

But no, there are still at least 3 bosses until the final boss.

Then what is the tension all about?

The next boss (Kyuubi/Ninetails) also has a pretty good buildup. It leads to the deaths of two rather major characters, and you have to destroy it in its lair. Awesome.

But it’s still not the second final boss.

I stopped after the attack on Kyuubi, because it’s getting too long and boring. I felt like the story was never ending, and my patience was running dry. You kept giving me high tension, only for it to be a fraud. Similar to how the goal of the marathon keeps shifting backwards.

When you give me something that wows me, I will beg for more wows, stronger wows, until the finale.

It’s like competition. You try a 10km marathon, you then want to try another, and the next one will be a 15km.

You try a 15km marathon, you then want to try another, and the next one will be a 25km.

You win your friends in a chess game, you want to win the community.

You win the community, you want to win the country.

You win the country, you want to win the world.

Stories and games are like this too. If you give me cheap fast-food steak after I have tried a prime angus beef steak, I feel nothing. If you continue to do so, I will feel bored. Until you give me something better (or, at least equal).

That’s also why I think the ending of Okami is rather...simple. The tension before is too high, that the ending feels like it was rushed. There isn’t any buildup between the second final boss and the final boss. I beat both bosses in one day. You just...go.

I believe Persona 5 is no shorter in length than Okami. Then what made me so intrigued in Persona 5 that I followed it nonstop for a year? Pacing and atmosphere done right.

The first boss (basically a tutorial one) is a school teacher. Okay.

The second boss is a nation-famous artist. Great.

The third boss is a crime lord/gangster boss. Awesome.

The fourth boss is your future teammate. Cool.

The fifth boss is a world-famous entrepreneur. Magnificent.

Just from the status, do you see an ascending importance from each boss to each boss? From a nobody to someone everyone knows. You are evolving from a local hero to a world hero.

Although the fourth (and sixth) boss is a nobody again, they are linked to you personally. If you don’t do something, you will be in trouble. You face direct danger.

The seventh boss is the second final boss. They are the person the game hypes to be close to the final boss (similar to Orochi in Okami), and right after beating them, the final boss is at hand.

Not to mention the increasing linkage and pacing between the bosses.

Linkage-wise, in Okami, every boss is a separate monster. No linkage otherwise.

In Persona 5, the first boss has nothing to do with the main plot other than facilitating your awakening and forming your cool team (not really a spoiler the trailer shows it).

The second boss and third boss also have little to no importance to the main plot other than making you a greater hero (this is, however, a part of the main plot).

The fourth boss’ mother investigated the power you are using to beat bosses, and died because of her investigation.

The fifth and sixth boss are parts of the conspiracy of the seventh boss. And the seventh boss is your destined arch-enemy as shown by the game.

The final boss is the reason behind every boss you have beaten.

The linkage grows stronger and stronger from each boss to each boss, making you want to continue playing to find out the mastermind behind.

The pacing does a good thing to keep you focused as well. From first to fifth bosses, there are celebrations and fillers between the bosses. But from the sixth to final, no chit-chat whatsoever. One boss, onto the next. The breaks from first to fifth bosses are also really just breaks. Short and simple. One event per intermission. These breaks also give clues to future events, such as you seeing your future waifu teammate while watching fireworks after the third boss.

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Back to RoC...

Now you know the importance of pacing and tension, let’s discuss about RoC as a case study.

I believe (from many reviews online) that the unbalanced pacing is the reason why many players do not enjoy RoC. The weird pacing hurts the enjoyment of RoC a lot (I will say a -25 point goes to that).

There are many occasions where the tension is broken and the pacing halts to a crawl, mostly using dialogues. For example, the excessive use of military strategic conferences. These conferences are boring, whenever they are placed. When you put these conferences in between battles, it feels weird and extra boring. I know it is realistic for conferences to be held to discuss what to do next, but these conferences are just too long.

Times I think RoC has had weird pacing and tension (in terms of chronological order, of course including but not limited to):

-The escape on Roscrea. There are many times you both take a breather and chat. I get that it is used for the character development of Rigmor, but that’s just too much.

-Rigmor falling sick. This whole section feels unnecessary. I get they want to include Alessia (the witch-doctor of Rigmor) as part of a foreshadowing, but with you needing to gather ingredients for the Alessia and listening to her (fake?) backstory, it takes up a lot of time.

-Sabotaging the supply of Akaviri vampires and saving human slaves (on the way home to Bruma on the pirate ship). I get that they want to include that in a realistic, strategic sense, as well as show the kindness of Rigmor to save the innocent, but again, it’s not really that important, yet takes you a lot of time.

-Military conference back at Bruma, and the meeting with Chancellor Blackwell. Bruma is under attack. The tension is high. I recommend just get to the fighting part. More dialogues hurt the pacing in such a dire situation.

-Rigmor (and Blackwell) meeting with an imprisoned Bobby. I get that is for Rigmor to officially cut ties with Bobby, but in times of war, doing that slows down the pacing.

-During the expedition (to destroy Morag Sethius), too many breaks.

-After destroying Morag Sethius, any sequential military meetings (or human problems, except wars) seem boring. You just slain a Daedra. There’s nothing more exciting than that.

-Character developments for the Fighters’ Guild side characters right before the finale...? (I don’t want to be mean but I hate that)

These unnecessary (or unnecessarily long) interactions before or in a high tension situation harm the story very much. I don’t feel anything for these interactions. If you give me more of these, I will only feel bored. Until you give me something that wows me.

I think one of the general problems with the pacing of RoC is that a very high tension event is placed in the first half of the story. I am talking about the rescue of Rigmor. Rigmor is in a life-and-death situation, either she will be killed by men or demons. Saving Rigmor, bringing her home is (at least, to me) very important and put me on the edge of the seat. Therefore, after that, I assume the story will pick up its pace, and the ending is coming soon. But that is not the case. There are still 10+ hours of playthrough, not to mention the story slowing down multiple times with the aforementioned “breaks”.

I will feel bored, until you give me immense danger again like you did with the rescue of Rigmor. Putting the Rigmor rescue arc in the near beginning forces you to pick up the pace and end the story quickly.

Another problem with the awkward pacing is a logical one. A significant example is the expedition arc. I don’t want to be mean, but aren’t you saving the world? Why are you always taking a rest? Even have time for Rigmor to take a bath? Another example is right before the finale. You have the empire at your mercy. Why do you still have time to ask a side character about her backstory? Don’t you want to get the war done? Aren’t you afraid the empire will launch a counterattack?

2.The Ending.

The problem is not that the ending is a sad one. The problem is of atmosphere and logic.

Although, having a sad ending will undoubtedly decrease enjoyability. After all, who doesn’t like a feel-good ending? With the already low enjoyability of RoC, having a sad ending surely add salt to the wound.

Atmosphere-wise, unless you really investigate the story, the ending doesn’t seem like a sad one. You don’t see Rigmor devastated with being forced to be the queen. The ending is progressed quickly without much buildup. The credit scene uses a...very epic remix of the Dragonborn theme. It looks...awkward. Similar to if Thanos snapped half of your favourite superheroes to oblivion, they and the other half are emotionless. No tears. No anger. No awesome, encouraging last words.

Logic-wise, I think neither you nor Rigmor would accept the ending. Both you (through dialogue choices) and Rigmor have always showed immense disgust with fate forcing them to do what they don’t want to. There are many occasions where both of you are like “screw the rules and prophecies”, even right before the finale. Then why would you two suddenly become so submissive and accept fate? You become the empire, while Rigmor becomes the queen and bears the Dragonchild.

You can say you both “mature” (even though I personally don’t think accepting whatever life puts onto you is being “mature”), but this is not shown. Rigmor and you, up to the ending, still refuse to accept fate. But the moment you enter the palace, you both suddenly mature and accept the thrones. This transition feels extremely sudden and weird.

3.Technical Problems

I seldom find technical problems the bane of my enjoyment. But when the problems are game-breaking, that is a problem (a famous example being Sonic ‘06).

Bugs: There are quite a number of bugs in RoC, either guaranteed or easily encountered. A significant example of guaranteed bugs is the Mara shrine scene. Again, I don’t want to be rude, but this is the first time a (serious mod, not joke) mod requires me to use console command to solve a bug. Immersion-breaking is not the problem. The problem is that if I did not know how to solve it, I couldn’t continue. I didn’t even know the command “TIM” (Toggle Immortal Mode) before I looked up on how to solve the Mara shrine bug (“TGM” doesn’t work for that situation).

Easily-encountered bugs are a lot in RoC. These bugs can break your quest, making you unable to continue your story. Examples include:

-Running from the trolls and giants on Roscrea. I think the game wants you to guide them through thin ice, so that the monsters will fall. But it just didn’t work for me. In the end I had to manually kill all the monsters (because Rigmor kept fighting/being attacked by the monsters).

-The meeting with Mr Bear. Because the meeting is placed right after a battle scene, Mr Bear will often be still in its “battle mode”, making you unable to interact with it. Worse if you (accidentally) past through the cave before the cutscene between Rigmor and Mr Bear (due to the lack of directions). I encountered this bug where Rigmor was on the other side of the mountain, yet the cutscene with Mr Bear still hadn’t finished. I had to use two third-party mods to solve this bug (by literally carrying Rigmor over the mountain).

-The battles on the sea. Did the mod team test-run the mod, or invite beta testers to test-run the mod before releasing? Given the narrow battle area and large amount of enemies, people going overboard (falling off the ship into the sea) is extremely easy. Worse when Rigmor or any quest characters have fallen overboard. I had to, again, use console command (“kill”) and a third-party mod (unlimited jumping) to kill every enemy that went overboard and get back onto the ship.

-Rigmor dying. I’m serious, this is possible. There should be an option where you can toggle her essentiality (?), but the option had to be unlocked through console command (at least for me). “Resurrect” console command will break Rigmor. A quest-given shout that should be used to resurrect Rigmor doesn’t work. Why don’t we just make Rigmor essential in the first place?

-Technically not a bug, but the game is sometimes too clueless for you. I’m okay with handholding, but not with no handholding at all. Lack of quest markers, vague directions, no signs that a cutscene is continuing...All these sometimes make me clueless as to what I should do. And it hurts the gameplay enjoyment. The large amount of flags (conditions you need to fulfil before the quest can continue) also lead to a lot of bugs, as you can easily miss those flags (such as talking to a certain person).

My recommendation for anyone who wants to try the mod is to save frequently. Not quicksave. Save. Especially before any battle scenes.

Difficulty: The mod is just too difficult. I play on Adept (default difficulty) because I want to experience the difficulty mod authors intend for you to have, but even that is too difficult for me.

Whenever there is a battle, it is almost always a large-scale one. Having a ton of enemies rushing at you makes surviving extremely difficult, let alone eliminating all enemies. I had to use a third-party (rather) OP spell to eliminate the enemies, or I would have to use whosyourdaddy God Mode. Unless you have a powerful character, or you play at a lower difficulty, legit combat is near impossible. Again, did the team test-run the mod at least once? Or is the mod supposed to be played at a lower difficult/with a very strong character?

———————————————————————————————

That’s all I have to say about Rigmor of Cyrodiil. It will always have a special place in my Skyrim gaming experience. The concept is great and unique, but the problems in execution just hurt the overall enjoyment of the mod. I will not advise against playing the mod. If you have time, please experience it for yourself, if story-oriented mod is your cup of tea.

This is the first non-fiction passage/review I have written (well, outside of school and exams). Thank you for reading!

(16-7-2020 ~ 17-7-2020)

#i still dont know why I post it here #skyrim #rigmor of cyrodiil #skyrim mod #skyrim mod review #other stuff #i dont know what else i can put here #im sorry

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gt-adventures · 5 years ago

Text

Hey Little SongBird

(SFW GT fantasy adventure short story.)

A Tale of the Mystic Woods

Staring: Yonah HaEsh the half-giant wizard. and guest-starring Ophir, the mostly human bard.

Summary: Ophir the bard needs a story to get back in the good graces of the Bards Guild and ventures into the Mystic Woods to find one. And what a story he ends up in! In the clutches of the Great and Terrible Yonah HaEsh. Can Ophir, through story, song, and dance, touch the evil “man-eating” giant’s wicked heart and avoid a terrible fate? (yes of course he can!)

Warnings: Yonah’s job is to be a villainous fairy tale giant (and wizard). That means the whole “fee fi fo fum” and threatening to eat people routine, and he’s really convincing. At no point in this story does he ever intend to follow through on the threat. ALSO Ophir tells a fairytale that ends slightly gruesomely (I actually changed it to be less so… still)

---

I hate the stereotype of bards being horny tricksters who use their voices to seduce people into infidelity. Any such stories are complete poppycock and base slander. Bards are more than pretty faces and lovely voices. We are first and foremost story tellers, entertainers! Actors and chroniclers! Often risking life and limb to get you the stories you love so much. Those fancy sword moves and fight dances you see on stage aren’t just for show.

But still. Going into the Mystic Woods in search of my next story was not a great idea. Solo’ing an adventure into such a dangerous realm was asking for death, with no one around who could tell of it. And yet. I had run out of new material and was desperate. Why didn’t I just purchase rights from another bard through the guild? You might ask. Clever, very clever, but that’s what low rankers do. The apprentices, the journeyors. Not Masters such as I. At least. Not ones who are blacklisted from the guild for not properly crediting a story. How was I to know it wasn’t public domain! It seemed pretty generic to me.

Another problem with being blacklisted? No one wants to adventure with you. Not anyone high ranking enough to help me anyways.

Regardless, to earn back my place in the guild I needed a new story, an impressive story. So I gathered my supplies and took the first teleport to the City of Luster, closest city in the Kingdom of Orr to the Mystic Woods. Sure, other cities exist at its borders, but Luster is the only one with a direct path into the Woods. A path that is safe, to a point.

It’s also a great place to get a few last minute supplies. For example, a small ukulele. My previous instrument, my precious goldenrod Oud, was repossessed by the guild. I needed something cheap and lightweight. And also I was banned from purchasing from most craftsfolk because, and I’m sure you’re tired of hearing this, im Blacklisted.

Luster is so large that I was able to find the ukulele in a pawn shop. I wasn’t after a ukulele, that’s just what was there.

Right! I was ready to go.

Whistling the first ever song I wrote, and tuning my new old ukulele, I set off down the road.

And Into the Woods.

---

Maybe I should lower my standards? Surely the guild won't be too hard on me?

Or perhaps it would just take more than a day and night in the woods to find a story.

The first day I found some gnomes preparing for a small feast of the half-moon glory. I was confident that something would happen at the party. Something had to go wrong, and maybe a hero, maybe I, would save the day! Or night, as it would be night. No such luck, it was a very nice celebration, absolutely no issues. Wasted a day!!

Not that i'm on a time limit.

The gnomes were so nice, and they made the most delightful floral scented cakes. They enjoyed my songs and tales about heroic gnomes and I left their camp with a flower crown and a sack of cakes.

I felt like today I would find a story!

Nope.

In this forest of wonder and magic and monsters and secrets, I ran into nothing. I even played music to attract trouble but Nooooooooo, guess even the beasts of the woods knew I was blacklisted!

It was late afternoon when I found some interesting deer tracks and decided to follow.

Bards aren’t known for our stealth but I’m going to tell you a secret. What’s the guild gonna do! Blacklist me?

Anyways the secret is: certain Bards learn to play notes and pitches that cancel out our footsteps and create silence.

I followed the prints to find a small herd of very interesting deer!

They had really interesting patterns, each one slightly different but only if you looked closely. That meant I needed a closer look.

So focused on the deer I didn’t watch my feet and I tripped. The deer ran off.

“HEY!” a shrill voice called from somewhere in the trees, “What did you do that for?”

No idea who was yelling at me but I was taking no chances, and like the deer I bolted. But not fast enough, not nimble enough.

An arrow shot by my leg and stuck in the ground. I stopped. And stood perfectly still.

“idiot.” the voice was now right behind me!

I turned. And looked down. It was an elf! With plum purple skin and dark green hair.

And they were laughing.

Then another elf fell from the trees to land silently next to the first. This one had dark green skin and straw yellow hair. Their long ears were standing straight up reaching higher than my eyes.

They were laughing too.

“What’s so funny?”

“You responded to ‘idiot’!” Said the purple one.

Ugh. Elves!!

Then they got suddenly more serious.

“Can’t believe it! We’ve been hunting those deer for days and you happen to trip when we got them in our sights!”

“I’m, sorry?”

The second elf elbowed the first, “he couldn’t have known we were there, Damian! Not his fault!” She spoke in elvish but I’m fluent.

The first elf, Damian, looked up and half groaned half sighed, “and I suppose, Bridget, that I should apologize to the human for almost shooting him?”

I don’t know why I spoke up but I did.

“It was an impressive warning shot!”

Damian’s ears stood up again then folded back and a little red flush appeared on the purple cheeks. As did on Bridget’s but for a different reason.

“Yes. Warning shot,” they said.

This time I managed to keep my mouth shut. Not a smart idea to quip about an elve’s bunting prowess. I still wasn’t happy to learn they were trying to shoot me!

“You’re an adventurer?” Asked Bridget.

“A bard!” I said.

“Need a place to stay tonight?”

The shadows were lengthening, I hadn’t noticed. And then my stomach growled.

“I sure do. But are you sure? I mean I did scare the deer-“

Damian shouldered their bow and nodded, “It wouldn’t be very elven to leave a stranger in the woods.”

Even not hunting they moved so silently I couldn’t take my eyes off them as I followed them to their village. We stopped by the temple, as it is the respectful thing to do when entering the village. It was set up for fall, done up in browns and oranges and paper chains. On the altar was a single brown leaf. The first one seen by a member of the village.

I’m not elvish but I still prayed to Autumn for my hometown to have a bountiful harvest.

I sat on the floor in the common dining hall as my new… friends, sat on stools made of tree stumps. They may not have caught any deer but there was some sort of roasted meat concoction wrapped in sugary leaves, crystallized to give it crunch, making a sweet and savory combination I’d never experienced before. The same sugar crispy leaves were used to scoop a sort of nut and vegetable curry. Delightful! I could write a song just about the food.

I of course told them why I was in the woods, since they were curious.

And they told everyone how I tripped and fell, exaggerating it greatly. All the elves laughed but knowing elves I was better off. They enjoyed slapstick comedy. The fact that I was able to laugh at myself seemed to gain me favor.

One elf, with lighter green skin and dark brown hair laughed like the rest and yet, their eyes were deep in thought. They were a strange one, I think. Even by elf standards they had a strange name.

Jacuzzi? Who names themselves jacuzzi?

Then they spoke.

“So, you need a story?” They asked. I nodded.

“I think I can help you,” they said, “at the very least point you in the right direction.”

At their words a lot of the company got quiet.

“If you’re that desperate, there’s,” they paused, as if they were still considering whether or not to tell me, “A wizard. If you encounter him, you’re sure to get a proper story.”

I couldn’t think why this made the elf act so strange, plenty of mages made it their job to participate in tales. Though. With wizards they were usually evil, if not a member of an adventuring party. Nonetheless! A story about a wizard sounded fantastic.

“Where does-“ I stopped myself from finishing that stupid sentence. Nowhere in the Mystic Woods stayed put so asking for directions was complete folly.

“What’s the best way to, uh, find him?”

Jacuzzi shrugged “The birds have the most up to date information. But you’ll know it’s his place when you find the tower in the garden.”

Lots of wizards had towers, few had gardens. That was more of a witch thing.

“He’ll be there? Tonight”

“Probably, he can't- well he’ll be there. If not tonight then by the morning. Don’t mess with his things.”

“Why-”

“He considers it extremely rude- You don't want to be rude”

Sound advice.

“Hold on tonight?” Damian re-entered the conversation. “Are you mad? Traveling the forest at night is dangerous! Especially alone.”

“So? I’m trying to get into trouble. Doesn’t make a difference if I find it at the tower or on my way.”

My confidence wasn’t entirely fake. I had a good meal, I wasn’t tired. I could knock this out by morning!

“Thank you, for everything.”

I swear I heard giggling as I departed. If these elves were pulling one over on me well! I don’t know what I would do but I’ll think of something. I had a wizard to find.

It wasn’t long before I realized why I should have waited for morning.

No! Birds!

From Who could I ask directions? The sun was about to set. It was only early autumn, the days were still a decent length, but it would be dark real soon. No birds, no people.

Wait. I spoke too soon. There were footsteps. It was a slim chance but maybe they could help me.

“Young man, what are you doing? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to be out at night alone?”

The voice had a deep and soft quality that wasn’t human. But they were speaking Orriandish. Really folks, dont meet strangers in the forest that you can’t see. They’re usually evil witches or sorcerers or cyclops ogres. Yeah, one-eyed ogres are skilled talkers, luring people to them. It was only after I answered I realized this could be an ogre.

“Aren’t you out alone too?”

“Why yes-” the voice was closer and then I saw them.

Thankfully it wasn’t and ogre. But it was a witch, and a dwarf one. Uncommon. Probably not evil. It did explain why they were confidently out at night. Dwarves had pretty amazing night vision. They had the traditional black robe and hat, and a cat sat down beside them. It was a really large cat, which was amusing next to the short witch. Their long braided beard was decorated with trinkets, which was a quaint look I must admit.

“But I live here.”

I stood up straight, which I guess was a bit rude.

“How do you know I don’t?” I stammered, “I could!”

The dwarf stroked their beard, “I guess it’s possible, do you?”

I sighed and slouched, “No…”

“But I am looking for trouble.” I explained my story and the dwarf listened, smiling kindly.

“So the elves told me I would be guaranteed a story if I found this wizard who has a tower and a garden-”

The witch’s eyebrows raised.

“- you know this wizard?”

The cat mrowed loudly, his tail swishing on the forest floor a bit faster.

“I do indeed,” there was an extreme fondness in their voice.

“And you know where he is?”

The witch laughed, “I’d say this was coincidence, but in these parts there are too many of those to be truly coincidental. I do in fact know the currently location, and it’s close by.”

“Really!” I almost danced with excitement.

Unlike the elves the dwarf had no hesitations. They pointed me in the right direction, and informed me of a few roadblocks and landmarks.

“Thanks so much!” I waved back at them and didn’t look where I was going and almost tripped.

Almost.

“And light your lantern!”

Oh right, duh!

Finding the tower was easy with the witch’s directions. They’d even told me the thorns were fake and the vines safe to climb up. That should have raised red flags, or some color, but I was so focused on achieving my goal.

Now, we bards aren’t really known for our… physical abilities beyond dance. We can fight sure, but a fifty-foot climb is gonna leave most bards gasping for breath. I'm proud to say I was merely on the cusp of wheezing, though I was having difficulty standing.

I needed to rest. So I lay on the windowsill.

Which I failed to notice stretched so that I could more than easily lie down. The cool night air and stone felt so nice. I looked into the tower.

And my heart stopped.

I’d gotten a brief glimpse before nearly passing out, but it was different now.

Exactly the same.

But.

Bigger.

You might know, my readers, that wizards are all human. All of them. Non-humans aren’t allowed to attend the academy. I’m sure those like I, being a quarter fairy, might be let in, but... This- this giant sized workshop didn’t make any sense. A giant could not be a wizard no way. Why would the elves say this was a wizard’s tower? Did they not understand the difference between wizard, witch, and sorcerer?

But the dwarf witch, they had to know! They had not corrected me. Plus, the workshop did have a very wizard feel to it.

What was going on here?

I needed a moment to process so I rolled over to look outside. Looking inside made my head hurt.

But a Giant Wizard. If that were real, what a story! If it were fake, then well, a giant mage is still exciting. I looked once more into the room. Three desks, one for material prepping and alchemy, one that looked like the main workbench, and one… like a spare workbench? It was not very organized compared to the other. And shelves full of things I could not identify.

And on the floor, an open trap door with stairs leading down. Down to where the wizard must be.

I was thankful I had noticed the shift in scale, or I surely would have fallen 15 feet onto the floor. Instead I got out my grappling hook and rope and rappelled down. With a flick, the hook dislodged. This place was large, I would need it again.

I could have spent hours in this room, just taking in the immense magical collection, but that wasn’t why I was there. And I heard noises from down the stairs. Water? Clinking metal? I took each stair one at a time, slowly making my way deeper into the tower.

Either the kitchen just happened to be one floor down or this stairwell was enchanted to take you to the floor you were thinking about. For just as I reached the landing I saw the massive doorframe that led into what was clearly a kitchen and small dining room. Small for the giant, who was at the sink washing pots, pans, and other things.

He certainly looked like a wizard! A tall wide brimmed hat with a curling point, and robes that matched the garish colors and patterns. He had a neatly trimmed goatee and mutton chops, and long curly black hair tied behind his back. On his handsomely large nose rested thick square spectacles. Not only was he tall, he was just plain large.

I know I talked about the false stereotypes of bards, but we weren't the only profession with them. People tended to think of Wizards as more delicate, as they spent all their time studying, never going out, forgetting meals. But this, man, for he looked more human than giant except for being over 20ft tall, well the only word for it was burly.

I’d never imagined a wizard who, if you removed his wizard robes, put him in a flannel shirt and handed him an axe would be a picture perfect lumberjack. Now such a wizard was right before my very eyes.

Suddenly I was not so confident. I should have lost my nerve back at the window, when I saw the scale of the workshop. But it just didn’t hit me until I saw the giant. I’ve seen giants before, they are actually larger than this person, that made him seem more dangerous.

Oh.

Oh no.

This wasn’t just any wizard, or any giant.

This one was evil.

Maybe I could just leave! Yeah. I would just get the fuck out of here. I was not prepared to handle an evil giant wizard.

I made my decision a bit too late. The giant stopped cleaning a plate to look up and sniff the air.

Shit.

It was futile to run, but it was my only option. I didn’t even make it up two stairs before the giant roared with delight.

“FEE FI FO FUM!”

No no no! Not that!

“I SMELL THE BLOOD OF THE HUMAN KIND!”

Well technically I was quarter fairy but-

“BE THEY ALIVE OR BE THEY DEAD, I’LL GRIND THEIR BONES TO MAKE MY BREAD.”

Yeah… I should not have come here. Evil giants tend to eat people. I’d had a small hope that this smaller giant, who was very likely a proper wizard, wouldn’t. Also the line about grinding my bones to make bread? I’m no alchemist but I dont think powdered bones make for a good flour, and wouldn’t even be enough to make bread for a giant if it were! As far as I knew giants didn’t bother with such things and just gobbled people up.

Which didn’t bode well for me as this giant made it stairwell in a few seconds and scooped me up in one hand, holding me up to his face.

“How convenient, a tasty little thief” he smiled, revealing very giant-like fangs. His breath was horrible. “I was just thinking I needed some dessert.”

“Please! Mister Wizard, I did not steal anything, I am no thief! I’m a bard!”

The giant raised his eyebrows, but did not set me down, instead he turned and walked back into the kitchen.

“A bard?” he asked, “what’s your name?”

“Ophir Shel Peh!” I said.

“Not Jack then?” The giant tapped his chin, and his eyes found my ukulele. “Hm. Yes I would say you probably are a bard! I don’t get many of those.”

He sat at the personal dining table. And set me in front of him, putting his elbows on the table, and his chin over intertwined fingers. It was silent except for his breathing, and my heart in my ears. Every breath he took blew around me, and it was just a little warmer than I expected. He didn’t say anything for a long time and I started shaking, adding my rattling bones to the noise.

“Why are you here?” he asked before I fainted (I had… somehow forgot about breathing).

“Adventuring!” I couldn’t say ‘for a story’! THAT’S CHEATING. But perhaps... Ah I can’t lie to you reader. I wish I could say I was perspicacious enough to consider this giant was a professional fairytale villain. But I had no idea. I was damn lucky he was though. And he’s really good. I understand why His Mystical Majesty hired him.

Let’s get back to me being a complete dumbass shall we?

The giant’s face hardened and I worried I’d fucked up.

“Adventuring?” he asked rhetorically, but I nodded, then he looked a little morose.

“Shame, I was thinking of letting you go-”

He was!?

“-But I guess I have to eat you after all.”

He didn't sound at all troubled by it. I mean, he had threatened to do so. I backed up and he smiled, knowing he could snatch me up no matter what. I think he could tell I was going to ask why, even just to stall.

“It’s nothing personal, I don’t like intruders on my good days. But I can’t have you out there talking about me, spreading the word of a merciful giant. You’ll only get more people killed. ”

That was a lot to process but I got the gist.

“I won't talk!”

He stood up and slammed his palms on the table so hard I finally fell down.

“You’re a bard, it’s your job!”

Unfortunately he was right.

Then he looked a bit surprised by something, narrowing his eyes at me.

“I suppose,” he said, “your job also involves performing?”

I nodded.

“I don’t get to go out much,” he said, though I wasn’t sure that the entire truth “If you give me a good show, I might consider it payment for what would have been an extra special treat. I can smell the fairy blood on you.”

I tried not to make a face. My fairy blood made me smell better? Great. And there was always a chance he was lying, just to get a show and his dessert. Evil giants might be fairly honorable, but evil wizards were notoriously dishonest. So I had no idea with this evil giant wizard.

“Wh-what do you want me to do?” I asked.

He sat back down, perfectly copying his original pose.

“Tell me a story,” he said. “And perhaps I will not eat you.”

Great. Legally there weren’t many stories I could tell. You might be asking, ‘Ophir! You’re about to die, what do you care?’ Well if I live and I'm found out, I’ll be expelled from the guild for life. I’m already in hot water.

That… and the only stories I could think of were ones with evil wizards or giants, who ended up dead. Curse my stupid brain. But I couldn’t refuse, he would eat me! Guess I had no other choice.

[(adapted from a real tale)

The story of Maestro Lattantio and His Apprentice Dionigi.

It was an old tale, from the long dead kingdom of Italy, so anyone could tell it. A wild tale of a wizard and his apprentice battling it out in ways only two mages would. Wanting to be free of his abusive master, Diogini kept turning into things, animals, creatures, to escape.

But Lattantio would transform into the exact creature or monster or animated object needed to re-capture Diogini. Eventually Diogini turned into a fish and swam down a river. Lattantio declared that he was through with these games and would kill him. Lattantio turned into a kingfisher hawk, intending to snatch him out of the water, but Diogini jumped into a basket carried by a handmaiden for the princess. The handmaiden had been doing laundry, so being a fish wouldn’t do. He turned himself into a beautiful ruby ring. The princess found it in her pocket and he became her new favorite piece of jewelry.

Then one day, the King became ill, and Lattantio was called in to cure him. He did of course, and in payment, asked for the princess’s ruby ring, for he could tell it was Diogini. But he could come back tomorrow for the payment

That night, when the princess took off the ring, Diogini transformed back into a man. He apologized for his ruse, and explained that the wizard Lattantio was his enemy, and would do anything to get him back into his clutches. The princess, who at first was horrified, saw that Diogini meant her no harm, and he was as handsome a man as he was beautiful a ring. She asked how she could help.

The next day, when Lattantio returned, the princess stepped forward and held out the ring. Then dropped it to the floor. It turned into a mouse, so of course, Lattantio turned into a cat. The princess whistled to one of the palace dogs, which leapt at the cat, breaking its neck.

Diogini quickly returned to human form and separated the dog from the cat’s corpse, tossing it into the fire. The only way to be sure the evil was truly destroyed.

Impressed by Diogini’s skill and at the behest of the princess, the King was happy to make Diogini the court wizard, and his son.

]

I concluded the story, and looked at the giant, distressed to find he looked unimpressed.

“That was,” he waved his hand in a dismissal manner, “diverting, but I could just have easily read that story.”

WHAT! I’d done voices! I was dramatic and expressive! How dare he say reading it from a book could be the same! But I couldn’t be angry because I was scared.

“Though I suppose it was decent,” he continued, “just not enough to keep you alive.”

Crap.

“Dance for me,” he said, “and perhaps I will not eat you.”

It took me a few seconds to notice he wasn’t eating me, but instead was giving me another chance. But… Dance!? On this table? With my leather boots on? And my thick pants? And no music!? This was not good.

“S-sure” I said, I was still shaking badly.

Since there was no music I thought perhaps, something that conveyed real meaning through motion. I could hear the song in my head at least, so I wouldn’t falter or look like I was making shit up.

I leapt and gestured, and waggled my body in the most embarrassing ways.

“What is this crap?” said the giant after I had danced for only a minute.

“Interpretive dance, mister giant,” I said, freezing in a most uncomfortable pose.

“You’d better pick something else,” he said. “And give it some more personality”

All I knew was he had given me a second chance. Ok. So I didn’t have music, but maybe something rhythmic would be better. I didn’t have the right shoes but my footsteps were still very audible.

So I went into a new dance. Hopping and stomping and tapping my feet. Then I started singing. I had been so stupid that I forgot I could do both at the same time. I basically re-invented a few ritual dances from my hometown, used to bless the beginning of each month. If I lived through this I would go home and teach everyone.

The giant Watched me carefully from behind those huge glasses. Judge, jury and executioner.

Finally I was sore and out of breath, jumped up to land with a mighty THUNK, ending the performance.

The giant looked a bit sorry now. Why would he look sorry!?

“That was very impressive, and your singing was a nice touch, but I think such things would best be done with a group. Alone it was underwhelming.”

What did he know! I’d danced my freaking ass off! I sat down and tried not to cry as I regained my strength. Why weren’t my best efforts good enough!? I was a Master bard. But I was at the mercy of the most subjective critic. I had to change tactics. Impressing him wasn’t going to cut it.

“Well, since it’s getting late,” he reached out a hand.

“Wait!” I shouted, nearly breaking my voice which would have been a death sentence.

The giant’s hand paused, “That was so bold I’m inclined to do so, but not for long.”

“You, liked my singing?” I asked.

The hand retreated. “You could say that.” Then he caught on. “Fine. One last chance.”

He leaned back, crossed his arms, and cleared his throat.

“Sing for me, little bard, and perhaps, I will consider not eating you.”

I scrambled to my ukulele. It was so old it was already out of tune, so I hurriedly tuned it, under the piercing gaze of the giant.

“Your voice isn’t magical is it?” Asked the giant as I tuned the ukulele.

I smiled “No, it is. My fey ancestry. Never really tested its power. Mostly I’ve transfixed crowds or made them cry with the opening notes. I’ve also played monsters to sleep.”

He leaned forward as I realized my mistake and quickly added “but that doesn’t work if you know about it! Which you now do!”

Thankfully he believed me. I was telling the truth, but there was no reason for him to trust me.

“Well, just make it a nice song. I’ve got sensitive ears.”

Oh fantastic. That meant he could probably tell if I went out of key. I had a moment’s thought to play something screeching and horrible, to make him bleed from his ears, giving me a chance to get away, or at least cause him pain before he ended my life. No. My first choice of song was probably the best one.

I sat down criss cross apple sauce, but back very straight. And I strummed the opening cords.

[

In the quiet mystic morning When the sun’s just graced the land O’er the horizon, lies a story And it begs to take my hand

Now that summer’s ceased its gleaming And the harvest’s past its prime In adventure I’ve found meaning But I’ll be homeward bound in time

Bind me not, to the pasture Chain me not to the town Set me free to find my calling And I’ll return to you somehow

As the first instrumental break started I turned my attention to the giant. His face was as stoney as ever. I wasn’t hitting my mark. So I continued.

If you find it’s me you’re missing And you’re hoping I’ll return To your thoughts I’ll soon be listing On the road I’ll stop and turn

The old strings were threatening to cut into my fingers but I just used the pain to fuel my voice, powering it with agony and sorrow. I saw the giant’s brows raise as my human sized voice grew to fill the giant room.

For the wind has set me racing As my journey now begins To leave the path I’ll be retracing When I’m homeward bound again

Bind me not, to the pasture Chain me not to the town Set me free to find my calling And I’ll return to you somehow

The second, and last, instrumental break. I had started crying at the chorus and couldn’t see the giant through my tears. My last performance, and it was for my murderer.

And still my song rang out.

In the quiet Mystic morning When the moon has gone to bed When adventure’s lost its meaning…

I’ll be homeward bound

Again

My ears were ringing from the sheer volume, I was clutching the Ukulele so hard it threatened to crack. I was numb from all my efforts. Now would be a great time for him to eat me, maybe I would feel no pain.

Then, as my ears and eyes cleared up, I saw.

The giant's eyes, red. Shiny trails of tears down his cheeks. His arms were still crossed but he looked like he was almost strangling himself. Still, I did not let myself feel any hope.

“Dammit,” he hissed and sniffed, “I should eat you for making me cry.”

No. No no no no no.

“But I won’t” he sniffed again and got out a handkerchief, “You’ve more than earned your life.”

I collapsed and started crying harder. I had done it. By the gods. I had fucking done it. I let myself melt into the table, half passing out. I didn’t want to feel or think for an entire week. I guess because he wasn’t going to kill me, the giant let me lay there.

When I finally sat up he was making tea! I very much wanted to get the fuck out of there but the tea smelled amazing, almost magical.

He noticed me moving.

“I find tea helps after a harrowing adventure,” he said cheerfully.

His demeanor was entirely different. His face was softer, his voice was higher, his dark brown eyes colder, but considering they had been blazing before, it was a friendly warmth now.

That really had been an adventure hadn’t it. One that really made use of my skill set. One that was perfect to turn into a story. It had great pacing too, with just a bit of tweaking. I’d already started writing out the flowery prose and accompanying staging in my head. My interpretive dance was going to be way better in the retelling, but don’t say anything to the guild alright? Everyone embellished.

I had to scramble away as he set the table, which meant setting down a smaller table and chair for me, and then bringing over his own cup and the teapot. He touched the sides of the pot that must be hot enough to scald skin from bone like it was nothing, pouring out near boiling tea. I watched mesmerized as he used a bit of magic to pour the tea into my teacup.

“Let it cool,” he said, as he took a drink of his own tea, “I’m not normally a fan of sweetened tea, but I thought a little extra honey would do your throat some good.”

I gingerly stood up and got into the chair. It was normal sized of course, since he was giant. But here I felt like a doll that some demonic girl had set up for a tea party.

“Thanks,” I said, and indeed my throat felt raw. I couldn’t wait to drink the tea, but it was still too hot.

“I should be thanking you,” said the giant, smiling and showing off his fangs, but it no longer felt so threatening, “That was quite a show! You must be a really high ranking bard.”

My face turned very red, “I- well I’m on probation,” I admitted, “blacklisted. So really, thanks for-”

I saw his eyes glitter, literally.

“You- you never meant to eat me did you?”

He grinned even wider, “No, but I trust you won't include that in your tale.”

I shook my head.

“I very much enjoy playing the big bad giant,” he mused, “But I have other work; I can’t have adventurers showing up all the time.”

Now I was curious, “If I may ask, what else do you do then?”

There was a short pause as he considered whether or not to tell me. I wondered if it was a grand secret.

“I’m a royal wizard,” he finally said, and there was a massive amount of pride underneath his tone. And resentment. That was concerning.

My jaw dropped, “You- A Royal Wizard?”

This might be the most interesting person I’d ever met. How did a giant, or giant-esq thing become a royal wizard!? How did a royal wizard end up running an evil tower?

“You already got one tale, but if you’re not inclined to leave so soon, I can give you another.”

I definitely knew where this was going and I definitely wanted this tale.

“But on one condition,” he said. “You cannot tell it until either I or the Mystic King is dead.”

“Are- you dying?” I asked.

He laughed, “No, but I am still a villain. I try to keep a fairly low profile, but any day a slayer could show up and succeed in killing me.”

That made sense, but now that I was not mortally terrified of him, I saw that this man was much younger than I’d previously thought. He looked barely 24, a young man, and he had to worry about slayers! It also meant it couldn’t have been in this job for that long, being evil must really suit him.

“Hopefully it won’t be for years, which will give you time to make this tale as grand as possible,” he continued.

He drank more of his tea.

“I’m not great story teller,” he started off, “but I suppose the tale of how a foolish half-giant with dreams of becoming a wizard, and ending up a prisoner in the woods, might be a good one.”

Prisoner? Even more layers. Yes. This should be a good one indeed.

Though he was right. Gods, wizards! They have no concept of narrative flow! They don’t leave out details!

And yet. It was riveting. Yonah HaEsh, for that was his name which I finally learned, was half giant, half FireWitch. His father, the FireWitch, got interested in magic, but he wanted more structured study, beyond what witches can do. So he disguised himself as human to attend school. He was found out eventually, expelled and arrested for infiltrating the kingdom as a dangerous magical monster. He was almost executed before he was offered a job here in the tower! And amazingly, the Grand Master of the school had taken pity on him and allowed him to continue his studies here and graduate, earning the right to call himself a wizard.

I had forgotten about my tea by the end and it had gone cold. That was an easy fix apparently: he pinched the cup between his thumb and pointer finger. A few seconds later it was steaming again.

I finally took a sip, it was incredible. I made a mental note to write a poem or a song about it. But I had other things to think about, to talk about.

“It’s a great story,” I said, with a cockiness I should have tried to keep in check, “but it needs a lot of work. It’s a good thing I’ve got a lot of time. I’ll need to go out and interview people.”

I stood up, “Which means, I need to hear it again.”

Yonah raised an eyebrow, “Oh?”

“I should have been taking notes,” I said, “I need more specific dates and times and names! Oh and if you can tell me how your parents met, that would make for a great prologue.”

He stood up too, clearing away his and my tea settings. But he didn’t clean them, just put them aside.

“In that case,” he said, returning and offering his hand palm up, “We should take this upstairs.”

I still hesitated a bit, but I sat on his hand and was transferred to his shoulder. I’d never been on a giant’s shoulder before. I was tempted to touch his curly hair, since mountain giants don’t have hair, I thought it amazing that this half-giant had such thick silky locks. I settled to lean a bit towards his head for steadiness. Yonah didn’t say anything as he regathered the teapot and cups, and even got a few pieces of berry-nut bread and goat cheese. Then headed up to the workshop.

Once again, he had a human sized desk that he set on his much larger one, and human sized pens (really nice ones), and a few human sized notebooks. Though I guess, since he can reduce to human size whenever he wanted (that was part of his “disguise”), and had many human friends, it made sense.

“We can go in order,” I said, “But I think I want to start on what you got up to in school. We want people to really get attached to you and your friends so that they are on your side by the trial.”

Yonah liked that idea. I think he wanted this story to show him in a positive light, even if he was officially evil.

We worked through the night. And my second cup of tea got cold.

[FIN]

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FOR REFERENCE, HERE’S HOW THE SONG SOUNDS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VooU55wzSEc

Liked this Mystic Woods story? I have more!

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[I have to mention, that I have many more Mystic Woods stories, however those contain safe/soft non-sexual v/o/r/e... But lucky for you! i have filed them them separately! and (when needed) Every story comes with detailed content warnings!]

For ALL mystic woods stories:

vo/re-scientist/tumblr.com/tagged/mystic+woods+story (take out the “/” in vo/re)

[one or two of my GT-ONLY stories are on my not so secret vo/re blog but from now on I’m posting the GT-ONLY ones here! hurray!]

#gianttiny #g/t writing #g/t talk #giant/tiny #g/t #male giant

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