#like honestly when i watch the gameplay i don’t see them as romantic at all

[sulevinen]

something about soap being so casual with ghost right from the start and easily bantering with him and just not afraid of ghost at all makes me just so agajhsjasahajja

[autisticempathydaemon]

Hello! I hope you’re doing well! This is for your redacted match-up game since I thought it looked fun to do :)

(I also wanted to mention that it’s really fun seeing what songs you pick for the match-ups and has introduced me to some new favorites)(No pressure to do this quickly ofc <3)

What song are you fixated on at the moment? What lyric or verse, and why? A totally basic song, but I’ve resparked my obsession with Taylor Swift’s song “Wildest Dreams”. I love the lyrics “Staring at the sunset, babe / Red lips and rosy cheeks / Say you'll see me again / Even if it's just in your wildest dreams”. The whole song is very, like, yearning and honestly does remind me of a vibrant sunset just before it softens into a pink and yellow glow. And I like the “wildest dreams” lyric because I daydream a lot. Not to mention, I enjoy the music video for it.

What is your Enneagram type? Type 9w1

Do you love gargantuan Youtube video essays, and if so, which is your favorite and why? I like watching long videos in general. Sometimes it’s just gameplay, sometimes it’s social commentary, sometimes it’s ghost hunting videos, sometimes it’s something that randomly popped up in my for you page and looked interesting. The most recent one I watched was “Exploring the Secret Lesbian World of Interwar Paris” by Kaz Rowe.

Tell me about your childhood imaginary friend. I didn’t really have one, but I pretended to have an imaginary “boyfriend”. People at my elementary school were obsessed with dating for some reason even though we were, like, 8 and so that’s the main reason why I said it was a bf. (It’s also funny bcuz now I’m listening to imaginary boyfriends).

What is your go-to way to fall asleep? If I’m too awake from an exciting/busy day I’ll watch youtube videos to calm down. I sleep with my childhood stuffed animal. I feel bad if I don’t and hugging it makes me feel better. I also usually sleep with a night light because I hate not being able to see things if I wake up in the middle of the night. 

If you had to change your name, what would it be, and why? (In tandem, if you have changed your name, why did you pick that one?) Well, I like the name “Meri”. But if I actually had to change my name, I’d probably just switch my middle name and first name with each other, since I like them well enough.

What is your favorite of Redacted’s audios, and why? I really like David’s “Watching a Scary Movie With Your Alpha Werewolf” audio. I love his laughs so much (I could  s q u e a l  into a pillow)! It’s also really calming in the sense that it’s relaxing in a fun way (just chilling and watching a movie), so I go back to it a lot.

What Redacted boy holds no appeal to you, and why? Like, not the one you hate but the one who you don’t get the hype for. (I won’t judge, I promise.) Ollie. He’s really sweet and I don’t hate him at all, but I can only watch two of his audios in a row before wanting to change to something else. 

Tell me about that one book/movie/tv show you know all the words to. Oh! I have one for each of these: If it’s a book, then “The Princess and the Fangirl” by Ashley Poston. If it’s a TV show, then “Gravity Falls” (I watch it as a summer solstice tradition). And if it’s a movie, then “Miss Congeniality (2000)” (I love those 90s/2000s romance and comedy movies). 

Which Redacted boy are you platonically attracted to? Like- forget dating, which dude do you want to be your best friend? I totally get the romantic appeal of Sam, but I would like him as a friend because he’s very down-to-earth, caring and I like his vibes. (I'd also include Caelum, I DON'T want to date him at all, but he's a cute little guy that makes me smile a lot).

Do you have a go-to thing you ramble about when you’re tired, and if so, what is it? (For example, my boyfriend knows I’m ready to sleep when I start talking about space.) I don’t think I ramble about anything. I’m pretty quiet when I’m tired. Although, sometimes I do get “slap happy” and find a lot of things hilarious before I eventually get to the exhausted point of ‘no-talking’.

Tell me your go-to gas station and drink combo. KitKats and Coca-Cola (slushie or the actual drink)!!

Tell me about your favorite playlist at the moment. One of my private playlists that’s a mix of 2010s EDM and pop, 90s and 2000s rock, alternative music and country songs.

What’s your guilty pleasure media, and why? Listening to Redacted Audio is the biggest, and also reading/writing fanfiction. It’s embarrassing to talk to any of my IRL friends or family about it even though I’m fully supportive and excited about discussing all of those things, it's just the weird reputation it carries.

And whatever else you think tells me about who you are! I’m introverted. I have two cats! (I didn't realize how many cat lovers were in this fandom). I believe that I’m biromantic and demisexual. Some things I like to do are: write, read, go camping with friends (I love hanging out, playing card games, swimming and eating campfire food), doing karaoke, and playing dress up in costumes/outfits I’ve collected over the years. Sometimes I’ll draw or paint but not as often. I often have dance parties or a good cry to de-stress (which are like two different vibes XD but it works). The video games I like to play are Minecraft, Stardew Valley, and The Sims. I like to take quizzes. I used to take Buzzfeed and Quotev quizzes a lot when I was younger, but now I mostly go on uquiz. (I like pressing buttons).

I also really like paleontology. I can watch ghost hunting videos (as stated before) BUT I cannot do horror movies. I’m assuming it’s because I get too involved with the movie, and ghost hunting does not have as high of stakes. I guess I would describe myself as someone that is pretty quiet until you get to know me. I tend to be very watchful and cautious when I’m out in public with friends or family (which probably comes from my ‘older sibling need’ to make sure that the younger ones don’t get kidnapped or hurt). I count myself as an early bird, since I wake up around 6-7am most days. My style is pretty casual, maybe sometimes dark academia inspired if I’m feeling stylish. And my main love languages are quality time and words of affirmation. (I hope all of that helps!)

Your entry gave me so much trouble in the most delightful way. You paint me a picture of someone so easy to get along with that it was hard for me to pick one redacted suitor over the other. In the end, looking at the charming ways you’d contrast one another, I like Asher for you best.

You’re a cat person; he’s a literal dog person. You’re an introvert; he’s an extrovert. You’re an older sibling, he’s a younger sibling. You’re a morning person; he’s sleeping in till noon if you let him. You’re a cozy gamer; he’s an FPS, COD kind of guy. Yet, you two get along so well. Type Nines are characterized by a desire for peace and quiet, typical of an older sibling, and Asher as the emotionally intelligent beta of the Shaw Pack would be able to provide that. One thing that particularly convinced me was your love languages in that Asher strikes me as one of the most verbally affectionate and forthcoming of the redacted men and would be best suited for your love of words of affirmation.

That’s not to say he doesn’t indulge your need for quality time either; he’s perfect for that. Asher loves your cats, and they love him (once they get used to his shifted form). He orders pizza and wings for your romcom movie nights, most of which he hasn’t seen yet but is super happy to watch them for the first time with you. He’s always down for a good karaoke sess, whether you asked for one or not. He picks up and gets good at Stardew Valley immediately, especially when he finds out y’all can work on the same farm and that he can craft you a wedding ring. (That is, when he’s not trying to get himself an NPC husband. He is down bad for all those men, but he has a soft spot for Shane, can’t tell you why.)

Song:

We're making out inside crashed cars/ We're sleeping through all our memories/ I used to waste my time dreaming of being alive (now I only waste my time dreaming of you)/ Turn off the lights and turn off the shyness/ 'Cause all of our moves make up for the silence/ And oh, the way your makeup stains my pillowcase/ Like I'll never be the same

If you love 90’s/00’s rock and alternative, and I’ve given you Asher, could I give you anything other than a Fall Out Boy song? Obviously not, especially this era and track of Fall Out Boy. There’s something about their older songs that capture young, first love in the best, most singable way. Also, the title is a reference to the romance classic movie, Casablanca, and that coincidence really cinched my choice.

Runner-ups:

Huxley would be a gorgeous partner and runner-up for an early bird who loves camping. He’s also one of my favorite picks for someone on the ace spectrum; he just gives that vibe. (I’m also an asexual who loves Huxley, so that may be my bias coming through.) David is also a runner-up, one who almost beat out Asher except for the fact Asher would be more outwardly affectionate off the bat and would like your cats more.

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

[thebroccolination]

Hey key! Sorry for the random question but do you believe most BL couples in real life do fanservice? As you see a lot of couples who buy things for one another etc but is this all for fan service or is it genuine?? I just like to hear your opinion if you don’t mind ☺️

Hi Anon!

No need to apologize! I love random questions. \:D/

Just to be clear, though, my credentials on this are: 1) my own observations and 2) conversations with other BL fans living and/or working in Thailand. I'm a very living-in-Europe white European-American and I've never been to Thailand, so big, big grain of salt moving forward.

Also, just for context, the BL pairs/actors I've followed most closely over the past three years are BounPrem, KristSingto, TayNew, FirstKhao, ZeeNuNew, MaxTul, ForceBook, Fluke (Natouch), Gawin, Tonnam, Gameplay, Earth (Cooheart), and Supanut. I have a general awareness of others, but those are the ones I'll, y'know, drop stuff I'm doing to watch them when they go on IG live and the ones whose projects I'll probably watch even if they're not completely my taste, just 'cos I like seeing and supporting them. (And of course Boun is, has been, and always will be my most favorite of favorites.)

Okay so!

I think "fanservice" varies pair by pair. What ZeeNuNew's fans enjoy and expect is not what TayNew's fans enjoy and expect, for example. As a part-time Polca, I can confirm that TayNew bickering and complaining about each other is Grade A fanservice for their fandom. ZeeNuNew are soft, affectionate, and openly flirtatious with each other in a way that TayNew wouldn't do unless they were drunk and extremely sarcastic about it. Meanwhile, BounPrem have yet to tire of the famous "BounPrem vs. PremBoun" debate, so that's another type of fanservice.

On the other hand, you've got the stuff that fans enjoy, but isn't really fanservice. It's just how they are as people who are close on and off the job. KristSingto have a pre-performance hug ritual backstage that they never skip out on, and that, as far as I know, is just because they've been close for years even before they were famous and they genuinely want the best for each other when they go out onstage.

Similarly, ForceBook are super tactile with each other, but they're also childhood friends who had a close relationship before they started working together.

If you mean the "pretending to date each other" kind of fanservice, I think that's hard to gauge, honestly, and from what I've heard from fans in Southeast Asia, that type of fanservice is meant to be taken in a very lighthearted spirit. It's not, y'know, what western fans think of as "queerbaiting" (real people can't queerbait anyway but that's a whole separate thing). From what I understand, the marketing model of romantic fanservice between actors isn't trying to trick people into thinking they're dating.

On that note, and in that spirit, I think MaxTul are the best of the best at fanservice. Everyone knows they're absolutely platonic friends who are very good at acting and making out with each other. They're good at flirting with each other while keeping everyone in on the joke with them. I mean, I don't doubt that there are fans who speculate about them dating, but I've literally never seen anyone say it in earnest, and I tend to see that kind of thing a lot in passing even when I don't follow the actor in question.

[sigh]

I miss MaxTul.

So, that's what I think: fanservice varies, and what's "genuine" depends on your perspective.

Unrelated to fanservice, I think hookups and dating have undoubtedly happened, both between branded pairs and outside them. Not all the actors are straight, there are very real psychological "oopsie which feelings are mine and which are my character's" effects that happen to actors around the world regardless of sexuality (people write papers about it), and I think it can be fun to speculate and ship real people if you're respectful about it.

There are very few openly queer actors in the BL industry in Thailand. My understanding is that it just isn't as common in most of Asia as it is in the west to advertise which of the alphabet banners you carry. When I lived in Japan, I rarely heard a Japanese person state their sexuality (and notably, the most common slang word for "heterosexual" during the decade or so I lived there was "normal" sO). So even when actors do flirt with each other, they're very careful about their wording. Like with ZeeNuNew, they've said just about everything but that they're dating. Like, someone once asked Zee something like, "Can I describe you two as boyfriends?" and Zee said something like, "You can think of us like that, yes," rather than, "Yep."

The upper levels of the industry are quite conservative and bigoted, I've heard. More than one friend in Thailand has told me that coming out as queer severely narrows down an actor's options with potential sponsors, producers, etc. And I don't know this for sure, but my guess is that that's why there are a decent number of openly queer directors like Jojo, New, Waa, and Aof, but there are vanishingly few openly queer actors by comparison. If you're in front of the camera, you probably have to watch your image much more closely. If you're a director, the series is what matters. If you're an actor, your marketability as a person is.

Of the actors I follow, I've only heard Earth (Cooheart) come out as queer, and he used the term "LGBT". Fluke (Natouch) is commonly understood to be queer as well, but only because fans know about his ex-boyfriend, and because he doesn't go out of his way to hide that he's into men. But he also hasn't ever labeled his sexuality like Earth has as far as I'm aware. The reason Fluke is independent in the first place is because his former agency asked him to stay closeted, and he refused. But he still has to watch his image, and I've seen fans extremely earnestly defending his heterosexuality, so there's another part of the big marketing problem: fans who can't deal with their actors being queer. Earth is represented by Wabi Sabi whose CEO is openly queer and who goes out of his way to employ queer staff and actors, so Earth has a level of freedom that most don't.

Basically, I'm fascinated by the whole fanservice culture in Thai BL. I don't judge it or think of it from a western cultural standard, and that's helped me see it for the fun it's meant to be. Some people take it too far: stalk the actors, their families, etc. Demand to know their sexualities, make their friendships uncomfortable, and harass their partners, until they snap, etc.

But fanservice is fun when everyone involved knows it's for fun.

MaxTul for joint president/prime minister/rulers of Earth/etc.

[j0eyj0rdis0n]

I saw that you were taking all kinds of requests and matchups and was wondering if you could please do a stalker matchup? If not, a romantic matchup would be just as good!!

I’m a 5’4” cis girl who’s grey heteroromantic and ace. I’ve got a sleeper build, green eyes, and too many freckles on my face and body. During the Summer, I work as a head lifeguard but get zero respect from my coworkers which I’ll admit I cry over in the shower every night lmao- I’ve been through every kind of abuse so that’s also v fun and silly but I’m actually in a much better place both physically and mentally rn!

I’m doing a 4+1 in forensic science and chemistry and because of that people think I’m smart… I’m actually so incredibly gullible it’s hilarious. I have a colorguard scholarship and found my nerdy people there. I like to paint water sceneries, surf, fish, practice self-defense, watch horror movies and horror gameplays, listen to classic rock, and listen to hip-hop/rap. I’m an ESFJ-A and 3w2 so I work really hard to impress others because that’s where a lot of my happiness comes from! I hope I didn’t write too much and you don’t have to include all the random stuff but I’m so excited to see what you come up with! : ]

Hi!! Thank you for the request! I'm happy someone had the courage to ask! I'm glad you're doing better, no one deserves to be treated that way! I hope you enjoy and this hits well for you <33

I match you with... Bloody Painter! 🎨

[STALKER MATCHUP]

He's the type to watch you allllll the time

When he saw you painting by the lake, he was instantly in love

So from there he followed you home, waited until you were asleep and absolutely stalked the SHIT out of your paintings.

He probably took some too 👀

When you'd finally realize your art stuff going missing, you'd get suspicious of course. Which leads him to leaving new and different supplies at your doorstep. Often stuff that was incredibly expensive and that you probably couldn't afford

Once he realizes you're in the color guard, he'll paint equipment for you to practice with (new of course so you still have your plain ones).

He'll follow you to work, watching you from afar, sitting on your tower watching the kids and families in the water. But when he sees your coworker badmouthing you... It's over... (more on this further down!)

[ROMANCE MATCHUP]

Honestly as I was reading this, it was hard for me to choose between EJ and Helen but obviously here we are!

I feel like he's secretly attracted to your build. He enjoys seeing your muscles pop when you're doing things. Whether it's an obvious display or you didn't intend for them to show, he loves it.

The mask makes it way easier for him to hide his endearing smile when he watches you

I don't feel like he's really an outdoors person but he would certainly take time to come watch you practice with your flag or ride the waves. Just make sure he's properly protected from the sun! (man burns, he doesn't tan)

Like I mentioned before, he loves seeing the way your muscles work effortlessly when you toss your flag or when you stand up on your board against the harsh waves. (it makes going outside at least a little enjoyable for him to be able to watch you)

Often the two of you will have painting dates. He paints all the time (with blood or not) and when you ask him to go out to the lake to paint the scene, he'll happily join you. I imagine you'd take breaks to fish as well, allowing yourself to get fresh eyes. He would definitely include you fishing into his elaborate painting.

He's the type to always boost you up. He likes your painting? He'll shower it with compliments. You couldn't catch that toss? "It's okay my love, practice makes perfect!".

Just know, you don't have to work hard to impress this man at all. He's madly in love with you and he's stunned by all of your diverse talents.

When you come home in tears from your shift at the beach, he'll hold you in his arms and let you tell him what all happened to make you so upset. Throughout your explanation he'll give you soft kisses on the top of your head, making sure to let you know he's listening and he cares for you.

He's definitely a double hand holder too when things get serious like that

It'll take a few days for him to get the job done, but that's only because he's particular. Probably close to a week later you'll be greeted with a small painting when you get home. On the canvas is finger-painted hearts and his signature, along with the name of your coworker who talked badly about you.

Hopefully they can find more staff! 😁

I hope you enjoyed this! Feel free to come back and request any time! You could even give yourself your own anon emoji if you'd like 😉

[jjaybrown4-blog]

Disney Princess challenge by GinovaSims

A twelve generation legacy challenge based on the current thirteen Disney Princesses. Each generation will have a different set of goals and requirements before the new heir takes over.  Disclosure: I know there are other Disney Princess Challenges out there, but I wanted to create my own which I feel fit the films more and flowed nicely between each princess and generation. I’ve tried my best to add as many game features as I can to match their stories, but a lot of it may be down to your own storytelling. Some details have been left out because I don’t want the challenge to be too strict, or all our games would be the exact same! Feel free to adjust any rules as you see fit for your stories, it’s supposed to be fun. Tell your own stories and add your own elements, but my rules should hopefully help guide you. 

As you may know with a lot of the older princess films, the mothers often die when the princess is quite young. I know a lot of people hate the idea of their sims dying, so if you would like to forgo this rule, that is fine! I would instead recommend moving the mother out of the household and having no contact with them again.

Every generation has a prologue and then a set of rules. The prologues are there to establish the generations, and typically require more storytelling and gameplay with family members. You can use the prologues in any way you would like to set up your princesses’ stories. The requirements are for when the main part of their stories would begin.  

Rules:

Aging must be turned on, but you can have it at any length you wish.

Each goal must be met before the new heir takes over, unless specified in the rules.

Despite being ‘princesses’, the heirs don’t have to be female. You can have any gender follow the requirements. Same goes for sexuality and romantic partners. You don’t have to strictly follow the films in this sense unless you want to.

The Princesses can look as much or as little like their film-selves as you would like. Same for their names.

Mods and custom content can be used to help the story and gameplay.

The generations will offer three traits, you do not need the heir to have all three traits, but they MUST have at least TWO of them.

If you do not have all of the packs required to complete the requirements for each generation, either find a similar alternative or skip that rule.

If you do this challenge, please credit me (@ginovasims).

(OPTIONAL) Use the hashtag #GiPrincessChallenge on tweets, posts, and videos.

Thank yous:

Once again there are some lovely simmers I would like to thank for helping me with this challenge!

@SimBexBlue - you inspired me to start writing my own version of the challenge after I started watching your LP on YouTube! You have been there in DMs from the start and giving me feedback and ideas, and you’ve always been so enthusiastic and keen.

@Jackiester626 - your notes and feedback for each generation were so detailed and helpful and honestly really inspiring! You put in a lot of effort to help me out and it’s very appreciated.

@nicolesulsul - you sent me some excellent additions for the challenge which helped pad out the generations and make them more like the films. Your interest in the challenge has always been so encouraging! WATCH HERE I posted a video talking about this new challenge and created all thirteen princesses based on their original animation film-selves! You can also download my versions of the Disney Princesses for FREE on my patreon HERE.

——————————————————————————————————— THE GENERATIONS

Generation 1 - Snow White

Optional Prologue (child):

Snow’s mother dies when Snow is a child. Her father should remarry a jealous/evil woman. When Snow becomes a teenager, her father must die so that Snow is left with only her stepmother to raise her.

Requirements:

Have an awful relationship with your stepmother who makes you do all the cooking and housework.

Never leave your home neighbourhood. 

Meet a teen sim in your neighbourhood who you build a friendship and romance with, but never kiss/woohoo.

Move into a cottage as a YA, and have no social interaction with anyone (including no contact with stepmother or boyfriend/girlfriend). This includes never answering the door to strangers.

Adopt seven toddlers (dwarves) in one go.

Give the children traits that match their dwarf persona (i.e. happy = cheerful, sleepy = lazy etc.).

Never eat apples or anything to do with apples.

When the dwarves are teens, you can finally meet your partner again. (If you would like, you can have them rescue you from your stepmother who visited your cottage)

Get married and move into your lover’s castle.

Have one daughter (Cinderella).

Master parenting and baking skills.

Complete Big Happy Family aspiration.

Traits: Cheerful, Loves Outdoors, Good

Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Generation 2 - Cinderella

Optional Prologue (child):

Snow White dies when Cinderella is a child. Cinderella’s father should remarry an older lady who already has two daughters. Cinderella’s stepmother and stepsisters hate her and are always mean to her when her father isn’t around. As if history repeats itself, Cinderella’s father must die when she is a teenager, leaving Cinderella to be raised by her stepmother who hates her.

Requirements: 

Must live in the attic and do all the housework and care for the animals.

Have completely negative relationships with your stepmother and stepsisters.

Knit and wear your own clothes.

Never leave the home lot.

As a YA, you must sneak off to the magic realm in the middle of the night and meet all the sages and another powerful (but evil) spellcaster.

Befriend all four spellcasters - this is important for the next generation.

Attend a party off your home lot, disguised so your family doesn’t recognise you - they must also be guests.

Meet and fall in love with someone at the party, but you must be home before midnight.

You must wait for the person you met at the party to knock on your door at home before you can run away from your family.

Get married and have one daughter (Aurora).

Master cooking, knitting and cross-stitch skills before being rescued by your lover.

Complete Soulmate aspiration.

Traits: Romantic, Neat, Animal Enthusiast  Aspiration: Soulmate

Generation 3 - Aurora

Optional Prologue (infant): Cinderella must throw a baby shower when Aurora is born, inviting the three sages, but not the fourth ‘evil’ spellcaster. Cinderella and the spellcaster must lose all relationship. Cinderella must send infant Aurora to live with the three sages in Glimmerbrook to protect her from the other spellcaster.

Requirements: 

Have no contact or relationship with anyone except the three sages. This includes your parents.

Meet a mersim as a teen in the Glimmerbrook forest. Fall in love with them but never kiss/woohoo, and they can never visit your home.

Never leave Glimmerbrook until your YA birthday.

As a YA, meet with the ‘evil’ spellcaster. She drains you of all energy and traps you in the attic of your family home. (Aurora is now unplayable until the curse is lifted)

Each spellcaster must defeat the spellcaster in a duel, and at least two of them must win.

Sages must find your lover naturally and they are the only one who can break the curse. Aurora is playable again. (The lover must either be found by searching the worlds/neighbourhoods, or they can arrive without being invited. You cannot call them over, or directly visit their home lot)

Marry your lover and move to Sulani.

Become a mermaid.

Have seven mermaid daughters, close in age, the last one being Ariel. (You may need to live separately from your lover as the household limit will be maxed with seven children)

Master singing and dancing skills.

Complete Beach Life aspiration, but you can only start working on it when you become a mermaid.

Traits: Loner, Family-oriented, Lazy Aspiration: Beach Life

Generation 4 - Ariel

Optional Prologue (infant): Aurora must die when Ariel becomes an infant, leaving Ariel’s father to raise his daughters alone. He must befriend another mermaid who will help with all the children. When Ariel becomes a child, her father must cut ties with this mermaid and not allow the children any contact with her.

  Requirements:

Live on the small island in Sulani.

Only have friendships with mermaids on your island.

Befriend a dolphin.

As a teen, sneak out every night to visit the mainland and mingle with regular sims.

Meet a regular teen sim who you introduce yourself to, but do not build any friendship or relationship. Leave immediately after you meet them.

Return home and lose friendship with your father - don’t enter the red, but have no green left.

Runaway from home and meet the mermaid from your childhood.

This mermaid will help you become a regular sim and find the teen you met before.

Only use romantic interactions with your crush, no friendly/funny interactions.

Discover the mermaid who helped you flirting with your love interest. Lose all friendship with them.

When you have a full romance bar with your love interest, only then can you kiss them, and after this, you can start using friendly interactions. 

Rebuild a relationship with your father.

Stay human, get married and have one daughter (Belle).

Complete at least two collections - ideally at least one from Island Living.

Master singing skill while still a mermaid.

Master fitness skill but only ever by swimming.

Complete The Curator aspiration.

Traits: Socially Awkward, Child of the Ocean, Clumsy

Aspiration: The Curator

Generation 5 - Belle

Optional Prologue (child): Ariel must die when Belle is a child. Belle and her father move to a small town and he must focus on robotics. Belle mustn’t have any friends growing up. She should spend her time with her father and reading books. There is an attractive teen, Gaston, in the small town who has a crush on Belle, but she has no interest in him and she always rejects his advances.

  Requirements: 

On your YA birthday, your father unintentionally runs into a rampaging werewolf.

You must move in with the werewolf in their castle, leaving your father alone.

Have a fully negative (-100) relationship with the werewolf.

You can never leave the castle.

Befriend the maid and butler, and have no friendships outside of the castle.

Slowly build a friendship with the werewolf.

Only when the friendship bar is in the green can you start looking for a cure for the werewolf.

Start romancing when you are friends, but do not kiss or woohoo.

When you and the werewolf are lovebirds, Gaston visits and he must fight the werewolf.

Only after the werewolf beats Gaston in a fight can they take the cure and become a regular sim.

Have your first kiss with your lover now they aren’t a werewolf anymore.

Marry your lover, have one daughter (Jasmine), and have your father move into the castle with you all.

Have a perfect quality rose bush.

Write books either as a freelance author or as a hobby, but do not join the writer career.

Master writing and research and debate skills.

Complete Bestselling Author aspiration.

Traits: Bookworm, Loyal, Genius

Aspiration: Bestselling Author

Generation 6 - Jasmine

Optional Prologue (child):  Belle must die when Jasmine is a child. Jasmine’s father is still scared of the outside world because of his past, so should keep Jasmine locked in the castle for her safety. When Jasmine’s elderly grandfather dies, Jasmine’s father is left alone to raise her. He must enlist the help of an adult spellcaster, Jafar, to help him look after Jasmine.  

Requirements:

Have no friendships outside of your family. Your best friend is your ginger tabby cat.

Go on blind dates that your father arranges, and always end them by making the other sim angry.

Sneak out in a disguise to a community lot and befriend a poor sim with the kleptomaniac trait.

Go on a date with them the next day, who is now dressed entirely differently in fancy clothes.

End the date with a kiss.

Jafar finds you the next day and traps you in a room with your father. (Jasmine is now temporarily unplayable)

Your lover arrives with a friend who is a spellcaster, who must duel and defeat Jafar. (When Jafar is defeated, Jasmine is playable again)

Marry your lover as a YA and stop living as royalty. Move to the forest and live off the grid with at least two other YAs who have one baby.

Have one daughter (Pocahontas).

Master charisma and mischief skills.

Complete Chief of Mischief aspiration.

Traits: Hot-Headed, Self-Assured, High Maintenance

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief 

Generation 7 - Pocahontas

Optional Prologue (infant): Jasmine must die when Pocahontas is an infant. Pocahontas should be raised by her father and the tribe they all live with. There is a young boy who is a similar age to Pocahontas. The two must grow up as best friends.  

Requirements:

As a teen, get engaged to your childhood best friend, but never kiss or woohoo them, and have zero romance - you can cheat this up to get engaged, but then remove all romance after.

Befriend a stranger in the forest who is completely opposite to you, in  both appearance and personality.

Quickly build a friendship and romance with the stranger, but do not kiss or woohoo.

Your tribe must hate the stranger’s family, so continue your relationship in secret.

Get caught with the stranger, so your fiance fights them.

End your romantic relationship with the stranger and never have contact with them again.

Break off your engagement with your childhood friend

As a YA, fall in love with an adult sim who is a retired soldier.

Move in with them and their mother.

Get married and have one daughter (Mulan).

Live off the grid your whole life until you move out and get married.

Master painting, gardening and fishing skills.

Complete Angling Ace aspiration.

Traits: Love the Outdoors, Ambitious, Green Fiend

Aspiration: Angling Ace

Generation 8 - Mulan

Optional Prologue (child): Mulan never has any interest in tradition or expectations. She grows up very active and playful, and never has any romantic relationships as a teen. Mulan has a strict relationship with her mother, who wants her to be more ‘normal’,  but has a stronger and closer relationship with her father.  

Requirements: 

As a YA, completely change your appearance and move out of your family world.

Move in with a group of men, who are all in the military, and join the military yourself.

Befriend all of the men, and develop a crush on the leader of the group.

Constantly try and prove yourself by pushing the limits and becoming the strongest soldier in your household.

Fight your enemy who is in a rival household and win. After this fight, you must change your appearance back to how it was before.

Have an argument with the leader, who kicks you out of the household. You must return home to your family.

Sneak out one night to see your friends, and find them with the rival group. Fight and defeat all of the rivals, ending with your enemy.

Move back into the household with your soldier friends, who have accepted you back for saving them.

Fall in love with the leader and both quit your jobs in the military.

Marry your lover and have one daughter (Tiana).

Max your body muscles using the training bot machine.

Master fitness and wellness skills.

Complete Bodybuilder aspiration.

Traits: Active, Loyal, BroAspiration: Bodybuilder

Generation 9 - Tiana

Optional Prologue (child): Tiana should have a very close relationship with her father growing up. After leaving the military, he wants to pursue his dream of opening a restaurant, so he should join the culinary career. Before he can reach level 5 of this career, he must quit and instead join the military again and die. Tiana should be left to be raised by her mother, Mulan, who is poor since she and her husband left the military.  

Requirements:

Cook with your father as often as possible before he dies.

As a teen, join the barista part-time career.

Have a childhood best friend who is rich and very different to you, but stay close your whole life.

At a costume party dressed as a princess, meet a royal sim who has been cursed with the curse of repulsiveness. You are now also cursed.

Befriend an old female spellcaster and a musician in a bayou/forest.

Befriend and romance the other cursed sim.

Visit Selvadorada with the cursed sim and explore the jungle.

Only when your romance and friendship is full can both of your curses be lifted.

The spellcaster officiates your wedding.

Open a restaurant using your new partner’s wealth.

Have your restaurant reach at least four stars.

Become royal and move into your partner’s castle and have one daughter (Rapunzel).

Master cooking and gourmet cooking skills.

Complete Master Chef aspiration.

Traits: Foodie, Ambitious, Overachiever

Aspiration: Master Chef

Generation 10 - Rapunzel 

Optional Prologue (infant): Because of her parents’ curse and connection to magic, Rapunzel is born with powers and long golden hair. An old lady kidnaps Rapunzel when she is an infant, running away to a locked tower, hidden away from Tiana’s castle. The old lady, Gothel, is immediately young again, and will always stay this way when she is around Rapunzel.  

Requirements:

Never go to school or work, and never leave the confines of the tower.

Have no relationships with anyone except Gothel, and this must be negative.

Have long blonde hair your whole life.

Spend your time playing guitar, painting, baking, singing, gardening, playing chess - anything to pass the time!

On your YA birthday, when Gothel is at work, a stranger makes their way into your tower. Quickly befriend the stranger and escape with them to the woods and eventually the town.

Make lots of friends along the way, and slowly build a romance with the stranger, but not kissing or woohooing.

Get found by Gothel, and both of you are trapped back in the tower.

Gothel kills your lover, but you are able to bring them back with a death flower which you have grown.

When your lover is brought back to life, you must immediately change your appearance to have short brown hair.

Gothel instantly becomes an elder and dies of old age - you will probably want to cheat this!

Move back to your family castle with your lover, meeting your parents again for the first time.

Marry your lover and have two daughters, close in age (Elsa and Anna).

Master guitar, painting, baking and singing skills.

Complete Renaissance Sim aspiration.

Traits: Creative, Paranoid, Cheerful

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Generation 11 - Elsa and Anna

Optional Prologue (children):

Elsa inherits her mother’s magical abilities and is born a spellcaster. Anna has no abilities, but the girls still have a strong relationship. The girls’ parents are worried about Elsa’s abilities after Anna gets hurt one day. They lock Elsa in her bedroom and Anna isn’t allowed in. When the girls are teenagers, their parents both die.   

Requirements: 

Elsa (E) and Anna (A) must never have any friends or relationships growing up. They have zero relationship with each other. Neither girl can attend school.

(A) when you become a YA, meet a stranger and instantly become friends and start romancing. Get engaged on the same day.

(E) throw a party honouring your new job and invite Anna’s new fiance.

(E) argue with Anna about her engagement and run away to the mountains in Mt. Komorebi.

(A) befriend a stranger in Mt. Komorebi while looking for your sister.

(E) freeze your sister when she finds you (chillio spell). While Anna is frozen, her fiance arrives and argues with Elsa. Elsa is trapped in a basement by Anna’s fiance.

(A) return home after thawing and let Elsa out. Rebuild your friendship and become best friends.

(A) breakup and fight with your fiance. Start romancing the stranger from Mt. Komorebi.

(E) stay living in the castle and make friends with people in the world.

(A) marry your new lover and move in with their elderly mother and family in Sulani.

(A) have one daughter (Moana).

(E) master singing skill and learn all the untamed spells.

(E) complete Inner Peace aspiration, but only after becoming best friends with your sister.

(A) master charisma and comedy skills.

(A) complete Friend of the World aspiration.

Traits (Elsa): Loner, Proper, Erratic

Aspiration (Elsa): Inner Peace

Traits (Anna): Goofball, Outgoing, Family-Oriented

Aspiration (Anna): Friend of the World

Generation 12 - Moana

Optional Prologue (toddler):  Moana grows up in Sulani with her whole family. She loves the water and is closest to her grandmother, more than her own parents. The island is filthy and destroyed by environmental changes. Moana vows to make a change when she is older, but her parents think she should focus on the family and the land they live on. Moana’s grandmother agrees that she should go off and follow her dream, but she dies when Moana is a teen.

Requirements: 

As a teen, leave your family to clean Sulani. Have no contact with them until the island is saved.

Meet a YA man on the island, but have a negative relationship to begin with. 

Work together with the man to clean Sulani, and turn your negative relationship into a completely positive one.

Join the conservationist career.

Become best friends with the man.

Find The Heart of Sulani (treasure collectible).

When the island is clean and you are at level 5 of your career, return home to your family and live off the grid.

When you reach level 5 of the conservationist career, quit and join the civil designer career (green tech branch).

Influence your neighbours to always vote and live in a green neighbourhood.

Master logic and fitness skills.

Complete Eco Innovator aspiration.

Traits: Child of the Islands, Child of the Ocean, Adventurous

Aspiration: Eco Innovator

[dabisburntsack]

False Alarm

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Pairing(s): Shigaraki Tomura x GN!Reader

Genre: Fluff !

Synopsis: When your long time gaming partner brings up the topic of May Day you can’t help but romanticise the olden holiday with your ever growing crush on him.

Wordcount: 1784

This is apart of a sfw flower collab done with the bnharem discord server! I loved the prompt for this collab and can’t wait to see how everyones fics turned out!! Special thanks to @pluviophile-imagines for helping my ass through this as I had a mental breakdown٩( ᐛ )و

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

⇾  signifies texting

May Day was a traditional holiday, one you wouldn’t have really heard of had your long time online gaming partner not brought it up in discussion as you fought against him to bring down the zombies on your screen.

“Yeah you pretty much leave a basket full of flowers with different meanings to them hanging on a loved ones door”

“I would have never pegged you for the romantic type” You replied amused.

“I’m- well, I’m... I would never do it-”

“You wouldn’t?”

“Pffft no, of course not”

“Shame, I think it's really romantic!”

The line went quiet, the only audible sound being the cock of guns and explosions going off in the game. You readjusted your mic wondering if he’d cut off when his voice came again; though quieter than the usual responses you would get.

“You think?”

“Yeah! Come onnn, tell me that isn’t the cutest thing ever”

The line paused again for the briefest moment, but when he finally continued speaking the conversation switched back to gameplay as if the short discussion about May Day had never occured. You shrugged and went back to chatting aimlessly about zombies yourself, though a small part of you may have wanted to carry on with the romance talk.

You had known the player ‘Decay_God’ for going on 3 years now and were as close as online friends could be. From what you’d gathered over the years, Tenko worked at a bar and had a shit ton of roommates. Though he constantly went on about how annoying they were, you could tell he cared deeply for them. He was passionate about what he did, whether it be his job (you didn’t know what exactly it was, just that his mood in your games would be whether or not he had received good news from his end) or his game play.

In the beginning, you didn’t really like him or his attitude; both being highly ranked in the gaming community you would constantly butt heads and his childish behaviour of when you would steal a victory off him annoyed you to no end. But as it went on, his temper tantrums died down and once you got to know him, you found his quips and wit to be quite entertaining. Now two years later, you would look forward to getting home from a stressful day at work to endlessly chatter about whatever topic was of the day.

You couldn’t lie, you had garnered a bit of a crush on him.

You didn’t even know what this man looked like. He could be a catfish! An old perverted dude! Hell he could even be a criminal and you’d be none the wiser! Although, if you were being honest with yourself… you couldn’t help but make the obvious connection to a certain infamous villain. One that happened to have pale blue hair and a decaying quirk. Even in personality they seemed interchangeable, from what you had seen on the news he was also akin to throwing childish temper tantrums and scratching at his neck when frustrated (a habit you regularly scolded Tenko for when you heard the telltale sound nails scraping along side the column of his neck.)

Whenever you did think about it though you stopped yourself, come on as if you would be gaming with Shig- no, you weren’t even going to say his name. So they had a few similarities, this was a whole villain compared to your sweet gaming partner. Dumb conspiracy theories aside, you couldn’t help the small flutter of your heart when he would say your name in a teasing manner or when he praised you for a particularly hard kill.

As you logged off for the night you laid your head against the wall your bed was propped next to and stared at the blank ceiling, your mind drifting back to the May Day conversation. A blushing Tenko came to your mind, his face obscured by a large hood, nervously rubbing at the back of his head before handing you a large bouquet of flowers. Your cheeks flushed and you slapped at them to stop yourself from heating up, vanishing the mental image mid thought.

Okay, so maybe it wasn’t as much of a small crush as you wanted it to be.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

After having a three day break, getting ready for work so early in the morning proved more effort than it should have been. Still trying to blink the sleep out of your eyes, you dragged your dazed body to your front door. You checked yourself for your belongings as you unlocked it, but as you took your first step out your foot landed in...ash?

You lifted your shoe to inspect the little decaying bits stuck to it, looking down you realised there was a pile of decayed dust on your doorstep.

You paled.

Instantly you were on high alert, tearing your foot from the contaminated shoe and snapping a picture of the evidence. You placed the shoe in a bag for further examination and bolted your door before texting your boss, the number four hero: Edgeshot.

Having the job of a personal assistant to such a high ranked hero meant you were used to lives being threatened. So far it had never happened to you and although this was small you could never be too sure. With the inside information you had, Edgeshot had always told you to be aware that someone may pull something sooner or later. It wasn’t completely out of the blue.

After seeing your message to your boss had been delivered, you reached out for the metal baseball bat you kept in the storage cupboard under the stairs, your quirk not really suited for defence purposes as it was made for technological aspects.

Checking every nook and cranny of your small apartment you didn’t see anything out of the ordinary and flopped back onto the sofa. Sighing, you ran a hand through your hair before going through your phone, checking the news, any odd sightings, anything you should possibly be alert for.

However crime rates seemed to be low and the only recent stories were from three days ago. Still not having received a text back from Edgeshot, you automatically switched to your messages with Tenko to type out the events of your morning.

I think I just got threatened lol

Instant response.

WHAT?!

If you don’t hear from me in 24 hours call the police :DD

Y/N

Ok okaY, damn you’re such a buzzkill

There was a pile of ash on my doorstep this morning, with my work you know I can never be too careful 

I’m fine though, I already told my boss

You waited as three dots appeared signifying he was typing but after a while they stopped. You furrowed your brows as they started up and stopped multiple times. After a full five minutes (during which time you grew bored and changed apps) a ping popped up.

With how long he had taken to type you were expecting a lengthy paragraph, what you weren’t expecting was a simple:

Oh

Oh? That’s all?

Yeah

You placed down your phone before another ping sounded out.

Are you sure they weren’t flowers

How the hell did you come to that conclusion

The typing ceased once more and you were left to your thoughts. What the hell did he mean by that? How did he come up with flowers out of all things like-

May Day?

You leapt from your seat, stumbling to look at the calendar attached to your kitchen wall, scanning the dates crossed off before turning the page and realising it was indeed the first of May. It surely couldn’t be a coincidence Tenko had brought up the holiday just yesterday. So he’d brought you flowers, because you said it was romantic… and he’d… dusted them. Dusted them, with his quirk, because he was…

Tenko could not be Shigaraki Tomura.

You did not have a crush on Shigaraki fucking Tomura.

Luckily at that moment the chime of your phone's ringtone going off distracted you. Looking at the caller ID you breathed a sigh of relief to see that it was Edgeshot. You could finally get to the bottom of this instead of drawing up ridiculous conclusions.

Edgeshot’s calm voice came through the other end of the line, stern but familiar. It seemed you’d been right to take the situation seriously, or so he assured you. But even as he talked to you, asking if you’d seen anything or if there was any other evidence of someone watching you, you couldn’t shake the feeling that it hadn’t meant anything at all.

Of course, if your gut instinct was right and you’d been gaming (and falling for) Shigaraki Tomura for three whole years and he’d been trying to romance you then that was. Definitely something. You just weren’t entirely sure what that something was.

You’d been talking to Edgeshot for nearly two hours when a knock sounded on your front door. Had he come by? What was the point of ringing, then? And wouldn’t he have told you?

You made your way over to the door and opened it expecting the sight of your boss, but instead you were met with a large bouquet of flowers perched on your doorstep. You looked up just in time to see a mess of unruly blue hair tucked into a black hoodie turning rapidly round the corner.

“False alarm,” you said quickly, ending the call on pure impulse and making a dash after the stranger.

You weren’t entirely sure what the plan was. It seemed more and more likely that you were right with each new development. What were you going to do if your gamer buddy really was an S-rank villain? Would you still be interested? Would he? He’d gone through the trouble of  getting you flowers not just once but twice, and honestly… the idea that he’d been so nervous the first time was kind of endearing.

That was a cute image, him standing at your door, so worried that he didn’t even notice he’d dusted the flowers in his hand as he set them down, probably running away quickly so you wouldn’t see him.

You reached out to grab the sleeve of your fleeing visitor and as they whirled round your suspicion after all this time was proven correct. You were speaking the moment his eyes met yours, all hesitation suddenly gone.

“You can’t just leave me flowers and run off like that, what if I thought it was another threat?”

Shigaraki’s scarlet eyes widened as they met your own.

“Hey Tenko” you grinned.

[leonawriter]

Personal opinions on the Akira/female social link options! 

Reminder that all opinions are my own, and if you don’t agree then you’re entitled to your opinion but this is my post, thank you~

Second disclaimer: I personally read Akira as gay and potentially only coming into this during the events of the game, as shown in a couple of my more canon compliant fics, but for the sake of argument I’m just going “what if” here. This is, I’ll freely admit, mostly just a list of “why I don’t think it’d work,” but there’s also a few bits of “if it were to work, here’s what I think it’d need to address” too.

I’m also going to list off my preferred ships for the characters, but this isn’t a matter of “your ship bad because my ship good” it’s just my take on dynamics between Akira and the girls in this kind of way. 

First off, Ann. Now, I love Ann. The problem here is that Ann’s confidant revolves around a) Shiho, and b) her coming to take her modelling seriously. I like her confidant, but the Rank 10 is where it goes wonky, as Akira’s just watching on as these two girls say goodbye and “I love you” which is not very platonic of them. Honestly? I think that Ann is either lesbian or bi, I’m fine with either take, but when she asks that of him in her Rank 10 she isn’t actually in love, I think she’s just in need of a close friend and confidant since her best friend is now going away. There should be the option to say “you’re not going to be alone” without making it “me” vs. “them.”

I prefer shipping Ann with either Shiho or Ryuji or both.

Makoto is an interesting one because I tend to see-saw between “yeah, I can see them trying this out” and “oh god no, this is a bad idea.” I can see the former because I don't see either of them really understanding what they want from a relationship, so this wouldn't be a “partner found, mission over” sort of thing. They’d be figuring things out, and then they’d realise they’re better off with someone else, probably. The problem comes in with Makoto not really seeing that she’s bringing up her desire to be a cop with... someone who has Cop Trauma. I ca see there being major issues later on down the line if they ever tried to get serious, because of a breakdown in communication. I can see her thinking that things are going fine, while Akira is suffering. Not good! (Also notable is that the whole Nov. 20th plan is partly on her, and they’d have to communicate about how yes he’s alive but that also gave him extra trauma with trauma on top. And it’s partly her responsibility.) 

I prefer shipping Makoto with Haru (although even then, there’s going to be things they need to talk through, but I can see communication being less of a barrier here).

Futaba I just... I’ll be honest and say that I can see her getting a crush on him at first? I can understand why she’d get flustered near the end of her confidant? The thing is, I think it’s more that he’s the first person since her mom who she’s been able to feel safe to hide behind, and... I’m not sure if that’s a good starting relationship for her. It feels like it’d be off-balance from the get-go, with Futaba potentially relying on Akira as her key item rather than working through her anxiety for herself. All of that on top of the game outside of the whole “need to make all options available for the protagonist” encouraging you to see her as Akira’s new adopted younger sister, and... I’m gonna say no.

I prefer to ship Futaba with Yusuke, as it’s my secondary OTP, although I do see her as bi and into girls too, I just haven’t seen another ship that takes me like that one.

Hifumi is an odd one for me, as she’s the one that I saw the youtube playthrough I watched go through, and...she was my introduction to Why I Don’t Think Akira’s Interested In Girls, unfortunately. The responses I saw, as well as the gameplay mechanics, were just a total distraction, and I’ll freely admit that it coloured my view of the pairing negatively. I can mostly just see them as friends, but... not romantically. Watching them in the game, it always felt stilted and as though Akira was going through the motions rather than actually doing anything from his heart, which. Yeah. Made it somewhat uncomfortable to watch. Also, she’s a rare one in that she’s his age, but she never really gets told the details of what he’s up to. He could die and she’d only hear it later. The PT may not even know that they should tell her. That’s just... cruel.

Haru... is complicated. I feel that Haru, through her storyline and confidant, sees Akira as her own personal knight in shining armour, saving her from her fiancé, and helping her with her issues with her business among other things. The problem is that Akira is... not necessarily how she sees him. There are people who tell them that they look like they’re “good friends” or more than that, but... the issue I have with this is - do we know Akira’s take on this? Is Akira actually happy with people assuming he’s in a relationship with someone? Just as much as the game encourages relationships with any girl, it also doesn’t explicitly say that Akira is interested until you have him say “yes, I want her.” 

Even more than this, however, is that... if there were feelings for her, they would both have to deal with the fact that regardless of this, he would canonically still want to save and would find important the guy who killed her father. I think that’s. A pretty big thing. Whenever I see ship stuff for them, my first thought is how do you get around that? How do you have them communicate over it? and like... it’s important, okay. Only three weeks after she loses her father, and they already know who it was who killed him and Akira could have Akechi’s glove. Unless you don’t do his confidant, that’s going to be a thing. Just... awkward. I’m not being facetious here, I seriously would just plain want this to be talked about by the characters in-universe rather than them sitting on something that might blow up on them later. Even if Akira’s feelings for Akechi are purely platonic and go no further than “rival-friend.”

I prefer to ship Haru with Makoto, as said above.

Ah, Sumire. I love Sumire! I personally see her crush on Akira as cute. The thing is, her confidant falls into similar pitfalls as Futaba’s, in that both of them find in Akira someone that can help them figure out how to be a member of society again, and who they are after a period of not knowing, and both of them potentially run the risk of using him as a crutch rather than being his equal. Sumire’s feelings appear to develop naturally, and she even blushes a lot in her confidant and other situations because of them. Out of them all, I probably have the least issue with her, especially since she openly gives Akira a way to reject her without it feeling cruel - in that she just wants to air her feelings, whether he returns them or not. However, as I said, she runs the risk of having just regained her sense of self as Sumire only to start basing her choices not on Kasumi, but now on Akira. In many ways I feel that she absolutely needs more time before she starts any kind of serious relationship after the shit Maruki has put her through, because she needs to be able to stand on her own two feet, even in a relationship, rather than lean on others for who she’s meant to be.

I don’t really have a preferred Sumire ship.

I... okay.

So.

I’m going to freely say here at the end that my ship preferences, regardless of who is involved, are that the pairing maintains a healthy sense of equality and balance, as well as good, healthy levels of communication. There has to be signs of interest and/or attraction on both sides. 

If you take that in, then you’ll see why I disagree with or dislike the idea of these ships, in the ways that they work in canon. 

With several (Futaba, Sumire, Hifumi), there’s a power imbalance.

With yet more, there’s a potential communication breakdown (Hifumi, Makoto, Haru, potentially Futaba).

With some, there simply appears to be questionable levels of interest on one side or another (Ann, Hifumi, Haru).

And as said at he top, if some of these things could be righted or fixed somehow with better writing? Then at the very least I’d be more okay with the ship even if I still don’t personally go for it myself.

And... probably the biggest thing here, is that I absolutely see Akira as his own person. The moment you make the protagonist into their own person you can’t just have every single person be compatible with them! They’re going to be getting on better with some people than others, and getting on with different people in different ways. That’s not a bad thing. But it gets awkward when the writing of the game tries to make it seem like he could be with “anyone.”

[itsthemoofacewriting]

Drowning in the night

Among us is quite popular at the moment (rightly so) and it’s Halloween, so I was really feeling this. It pushed aside all of my current WIPs in demand to be written.

There’s a lot of similarities with the game, but I did take some artistic liberties, so don’t come at me. If you’ve never played Among us, it might be worth looking up the rules/gameplay before reading- otherwise a lot of things are going to fly straight over your head. The ship is based on the Skeld map to give you a rough layout, but there are some differences.

Title is from ‘Burning Lights’ by The Weeknd, I listened to this a lot when I was writing.

Summary: The ship’s suddenly breaking down and crew members are starting to behave suspiciously. Bonds are about to be tested as suspicion rises of an imposter amongst them. ZoNami. Among us AU.   Rating: M- Horror, Blood, Gore

Can also be found on AO3 and FFN. 

Enjoy!

Nami’s looking at the charts on the screen in front of her and frowned. The ship’s slightly off course. She’d plotted that just this morning and the weather nodes hadn’t detected anything for concern, there was no reason for the shift. She shrugged it off. Sure this was the first time it’d happened, but this wasn’t the newest ship anymore. She’d check the weather nodes shortly and keep an eye on things.

For now though, she made the adjustments and as she did, she caught Zoro dozing off at the far wall near the door. He’d been hiding away in here for most of the morning and if she hadn’t already known about him dealing with stray asteroids this morning on his watch, she’d be moaning at him about being lazy. Give it another 10 minutes and she still might.

But then she stopped and gave him an assessing look as an idea came to mind. He hadn’t moved for the last 10 minutes, he was probably in a deep sleep by now, and that thought made her hand twitch for the permanent marker that she knew was in her desk drawer. She’s done it before, and it’d been hilarious. He’d walked around the whole day with a moustache and pirate patch without knowing. Some would say it’s mean but she believed it was fair play.

“No,” he said, one eye cracked open to glare at her.

How the hell did he do that?

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She smiled at him far too innocently, hands behind her back, and his other eye opened to properly glare at her.

When it was clear he wasn’t buying what she was selling, she huffed and turned around to get back to her task and Zoro readjusted to get comfortable again as he let his eyes slip shut.

Nami and Zoro had been travelling together for years, along with Luffy, Usopp and Sanji. Only recently had they been joined by Chopper, Robin, Franky and Brook. In all honesty, Nami wasn’t sure how they coped without them. Running a ship was difficult at the best of times and before, they’d been doing with only five people and no mechanic- Usopp could only do so much. Franky had blanched when he’d seen the state of the ship.

She’d just finished her adjustments when the communicator in her ear suddenly started to screech and it’s so deafeningly loud there’s a moment where she can’t do anything other than clutch at her helmet. From the corner of her eye she can see Zoro having the same reaction, no longer snoozing against the wall.

In the next moment she’s trying to tear off her helmet, except she can’t get the final clip to undo at the back and the more desperate she was becoming, the harder it was to do. Her eardrums felt like they were about to burst any second and there’s tears collecting in her eyes from the pain.

But then it’s over. There’s another pair of hands pushing hers away and smoothly unclipping the helmet. Not a moment later and she’s clawing out the earpieces to throw them across the room. There’s still ringing in her ears but it’s fading quickly now there’s silence.

“You alright?” Zoro’s voice is rough, no doubt from his abrupt wake up call. He’s looking down at her with concern, like it hadn’t just happened to him too and his thumb is wiping the stray tear that fell.

It’s a soft gesture, especially for him, and it’s like it suddenly dawned on him what he’s done. He coughed, face flushing and took a step back, avoiding eye contact. Nami smiled to herself, he was doing more and more things like this lately and it was becoming more apparent why with each passing day.

In the early days of the crew, Zoro and Nami had spent their days viciously arguing with each other and if it hadn’t been for Luffy gluing them together back then, she wondered if they’d still be travelling together now. Their arguing had ceased as time had passed and they’d got to know one another. Now they bickered instead and it’s harmless, even if they do anger the other occasionally give it half an hour and they’re back to normal. It was easy for Nami to call Zoro one of her best friends. Because he is. He understood her and although it worked against her sometimes, she’d have it no other way.

But lately. Lately things had shifted. She couldn’t put her finger on it. More time spent together and soft looks that he thinks she doesn’t see. Yet, it’s hard to tell with Zoro. He doesn’t do anything overly romantic and as for flirting, she doesn’t think she’s ever seen him do it. He doesn’t seem like the type and that’s fine, but it made it hard to be sure. Maybe he just viewed her as a friend, or worse, as a sister. She knew that Luffy did.

When Nami nodded in response to his question, it should be awkward, Zoro still refusing to look directly as her and her cheeks were warm from his gentle touch, but the communicators were still screeching, and it could be heard from across the room. Frowning, Nami walked over to pick them up. It’s the first time it’s ever happened in all her time on board and paired with the drifting ship, she can’t help the suspicion that’s brewing.

Maybe their ship had seen it’s best already- a thought that Nami didn’t want to entertain too much. There were so many memories on this ship.

There’s a commotion outside that halted her thoughts, feet thumping through the long corridors and voices calling out to Franky. Zoro’s nodding to her then, gesturing towards the door that they should also go.

Unfortunately, Zoro took the lead.

“How many times do I have to tell you? It’s right out of navigation to get to the cafeteria!”

Zoro turned on his heel and stomped past Nami, face flushed in embarrassment. “I’ve gone that way before,” is his only defence.

Nami rolled her eyes. “You can go that way, but it takes twice as long and, knowing you, you’ll end up taking another wrong turn and do a whole lap around the ship.”

Based on his silence, that is what he’s done before.

She truly wondered about her sanity sometimes, falling for a guy that has no sense of direction. An idiot.

They’re the last ones to arrive when Franky’s explaining the issue. Something about a system that’s probably fried, although he doesn’t understand why it’s happened yet. Just that he’ll investigate and get back to them and that sounded reasonable enough to everyone as they nodded along. Franky collected their earpieces.

“Back to shouting then,” Nami sighed, imagining the chaos and noise this’ll bring. Luffy on the other hand is thrilled, and everyone knows he’ll spend the rest of the day running around the ship.

They’re breaking apart after that, back to their previous activities, and Sanji’s shouting after them about lunch being soon, which immediately stopped Luffy from leaving to tail Sanji back to the kitchen instead.

“I need to check the weather nodes, our course altered for some reason and I need to make sure they’re performing. If they’re not, I can’t anticipate any weather patterns that’d affect the ship’s course,” Nami explained as they walked back to navigation. Although as soon as she did, she realised she’s discussing this with Zoro, of all people. He’s never understood any of this and she’s sure it just goes in one ear and out the other.

Nevertheless, he nodded and wisely kept his mouth shut. At least he understood she’d need someone with her to do that. It wasn’t wise to step outside alone; there were old wives’ tales of people going missing when they went outside the ship alone.  

“After lunch. The cook’s bitching at me about cleaning the garbage shoot.” Despite his words, he still settled back down into his previous spot by the door and she knew there’d be an argument kicking off soon if he didn’t move himself.

Before she could tell him as much, the lights above them flickered and there were voices throughout the ship shouting “Usopp” and “electrical”. Usopp could be heard loudly groaning in response and his feet dragging through the ship.

Zoro grunted his goodbye shortly afterwards and Nami shouted “turn right”, but it was too late. He was gone and she knew him well enough to know he’d turned left instead. Idiot.

Nami was typing away at the screen, downloading this morning’s data and making a note to head over to admin to do it there as well. If she didn’t, it was unlikely anyone else would. Although Robin might, she had been known to do it occasionally. That woman was a blessing. Nami honestly didn’t know how she’d survived all this time with those idiots, even if they were her idiots, they drove her insane at times with their laid-back attitudes.

She’s still downloaded data when she suddenly heard a rumbling sound behind her, far too close for comfort, and she jumped, turning as she did but nothing was there. It was quiet for a moment and she could feel a cold sweat breaking down her back. It was ridiculous, she’d always felt safe in this ship but there was something about this morning that was getting to her and she’d never heard that sound before. It happened again and one of the vents rattled.

Not a second later, she was running out of the room, feeling like a spooked child, and swiping her key card to lock the door behind her.

A shiver ran down her spine but before she could do anything else, a blood-curdling scream ripped through the ship. Her head whipped towards the direction and she was running before she could even think it through, she knew that scream anywhere, but she’d never heard him like that before.

“Usopp!”

She was passing through storage when a voice shouted after her. “Nami! What the hell happened?” Zoro asked, catching up to run alongside her.

“No idea. I’m hoping he just electrocuted himself.”

But for all her wishful thinking, Usopp wouldn’t scream like that over something so menial and Zoro must have thought the same as it was written all over his face.

Along the way, they’d picked up Brook and Robin and as they narrowed in on the room, from the opposite direction was Chopper, Sanji, Luffy and Franky.

The door flew open and Sanji was the first to ask, “What the fuck was that?!”

The room looked trashed, wires haphazardly dangling from units or snapped with electricity sparking from them. Usopp was in the middle of the chaos.

“Something grabbed me! It tried to drag me across the room,” Usopp said, his voice shaking and on the verge of hysterical as he sat on the floor hunched over and clutching at his ankle. His face was as white as a sheet.

Despite the state of him, and the room, the crew were aware of Usopp’s rather… theatrical storytelling.  

“Sure it wasn’t just a rat? Maybe its tail touched you or something,” Zoro suggested, shrugging his shoulders.

Nami grimaced at that thought but she nodded. “As much as the thought pains me, it probably was a rat. You guys hardly clean very much.” Something she would make a point of nagging them about from now on.

“What’s wrong with your ankle?” Chopper inquired; he’d been quiet thus far but as the ships doctor, he’d noticed Usopp’s odd position.

Usopp cringed as he removed his hands from his ankle and the crew blanched. The yellow of his suit was ripped open and his hands were covered in blood. The skin around his ankle had a deep handprint that cut through the skin. The most disturbing part was the claw marks surrounding the handprint, the skin raw and red around the scratches. Clearly there’d been a struggle.

“Oh shit,” Sanji muttered under his breath, eyes going round.

Because not only was Usopp hurt, but that was a handprint on Usopp’s bloodied ankle.

One that looked very human.

The room suddenly felt far too heavy.

It was then that Luffy spoke. So far he’d been quiet but his frown had only grown. “Cafeteria,” he ordered, his voice firm and a stark contrast from the happy-go-lucky captain they were used to.  

“This hardly seems like the time to eat,” Franky trailed off, rubbing the back of his head as his eyes trailed from Usopp to Luffy.

“There’s multiple exit points,” Robin supplied, catching on to what Luffy meant.

That set the mood. Suddenly everyone seemed on edge as the reality of the situation settled. Luffy was being serious. This was serious.

Sanji and Zoro wrapped one of Usopp’s arms around their shoulders and they were hauling him up to follow after Luffy towards the cafeteria. Chopper scuttled after them, saying he’d stop by the medical bay for supplies before meeting them there.

Nami stood there, trying to comprehend just what was going on as everyone filed out.  

Robin walking over to touch her lightly on the arm. “If whatever this is was dangerous, it would have killed Usopp on sight without leaving a trace of him,” she reassured.

That at least got Nami out of her stupor and she gaped at her friend in horror. “That’s so dark Robin!”

.

.

.

The atmosphere in the cafeteria was tense, no one had spoken, not even when Chopper had trotted in to start working on Usopp’s ankle.

Sanji broke the silence. “Did you see anything?”

“No.” Usopp shook his head. “One minute I’m elbow deep in wires and the next I’m on the floor being dragged.”

“Full story, go from the start and tell us exactly what happened.”

“Okay, so I’m in the corner because for some reason the wires looked frayed and I thought I heard something but when I turned there was nothing. I turned back to continue but then there’s something grabbing my ankle and pulling me across the floor.” He paused then, his body shaking slightly. “It came from behind and that’s when I screamed. I started kicking and thrashing around, grabbing onto whatever I could and then it just disappeared. It was like nothing was even there in the first place.”

“Where was it dragging you?” Nami asked. She had a hunch.

“It didn’t get very far but I think it was towards the opposite corner.”

“Where the vent is?” She could feel dread filling her… surely not?

“Yeah!”

The crews gaze swivelled on Nami then, waiting for her to explain why she would guess something like that.

“There were weird sounds in navigation and the vents were rattling just a few minutes before you screamed but I ran as soon as I heard it.” She shivered at the thought, that could have been her.

“You think it came through the vents!?” Chopper squeaked, there was vents in the med bay too. There were vents in almost every room and that knowledge didn’t settle anyone.  

“What the hell is small enough to fit in there and move around so quickly?!”

“Also, the ship’s behaving strangely. It was off course this morning just after I’d plotted it out, then the communicators breaking and then the lights?!” Nami said and with each passing issue she listed, the feeling of dread grew.

“What are you suggesting?” Robin calmly asked.

There was a moment of silence, because this moment was inevitable, and they’d all been trying to delay it. Where someone would have to voice what everyone was starting to think.

That someone in this crew did it.

“Where’s everyone been this morning?” Zoro asked, solemnly.

Everyone’s rattling off their locations and, so far, they’d all been with each other, apart from Usopp. But it’s then that Nami realised, Zoro had left just before it’d happened. He’d left to go and clean the garbage shoot and by the sounds of it, never made it there as Sanji didn’t say anything about seeing him.

“Me and Zoro were in navigation.” Zoro shot her a look and she’s not technically lying but if she gets found out that he had left briefly, it’d looked suspicious as hell. But there’s no way Zoro did this, one of the foundations of this crew along with her and Luffy, their longest standing member, their second in command, and she’s not about to have people pointing fingers at him.

Zoro’s shooting her looks that she decided to ignore but he doesn’t challenge her. If he did now, not only would he put himself under suspicion, but it’d also take her down with him. It’s the last thing either of them needed.

“Then something else must be on the ship,” Sanji offered, unwilling to point any fingers.

“How? We’ve been travelling for weeks and it picks now? Sounds too sophisticated for something that’s not human and how’s it not been spotted? It’s gone around undetected all this time?” Zoro questioned.

“So what? You’re suggesting it’s one of us? The vents are too small!”

“Unless someone in this room isn’t who they say they are,” Zoro continued and although he was off to the side, he had the attention of the whole crew. “The ship suddenly breaking when it’s been fine all this time and getting around undetected. This needs knowledge, something that can be learned by being around us all.”

“There’s rumours about this. They’ve never been confirmed though because ships and their crew disappear without a trace, never to be seen again,” Robin chimed in and it had Nami, Usopp and Chopper looking at her in terror. Franky shook his head next to her.

“That’s old wives’ tales!” Usopp said, but there’s a wobble in his voice that doesn’t make it believable. “Right?”

“Had to come from somewhere and we did just pick up new recruits,” Zoro said and his scrutinising gaze is aimed at Robin, Franky and Brook.

“You better not be suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,” Sanji growled, no doubt sticking up for Robin.

“Coincidental, no?” Zoro’s eyebrow quirked.

“I think everyone needs to calm down,” Brook said, his hands held up to avoid confrontation.

“So you’re accusing Chopper, too right? Because he’s just as new as the rest of them,” Sanji argued, ignoring Brook, to call Zoro out his favouritism. It was no secret that Zoro had taken the young medic under his wing.

They both started arguing and soon enough, the rest of the crew’s chiming in to either argue for one side or try to calm everyone down.

Nami agreed with Brook. They weren’t going to get anywhere sitting around pointing fingers at each other with no proof. “Luffy, say something!”

Her plea to the silent captain cuts through the argument and everyone’s turning towards Luffy for his verdict. He had yet to weigh in on the argument, but now wasn’t a time for silence. They needed their captain to take charge.

“No turning on each other,” is all he instructed, face serious and arms crossed from his position on the table.  

“Luffy-” Zoro started, no doubt about to try and talk some sense into him as second in command.

“What if you’re wrong?” Luffy fired back, not letting up and he made a good point. Not even Zoro would forgive himself if he was wrong.

“And if I’m right?”

“Lot of ifs flying about,” Usopp jumped in.

“We’ll deal with that if the time comes.” There’s a finality in Luffy’s voice that said this part of the discussion was over.  

“Franky, what are the routes for the vents?” Nami enquired, eager to move away from that topic. They needed to move forward anyway, not in circles. “Maybe we can avoid them until we find… whatever this is.”

Franky sighed, his shoulders slumping, “I connected them all together a few weeks ago… It made more sense for ventilation.”

Nami cringed in response, it’s a bad answer and one that put him on the receiving end of a few sharp looks. Robin rubbed his shoulder consolingly, but it didn’t do much to alleviate the tension in the room. It was like everyone in the room just put him straight into the number one position for most suspicious and he knew it.

Zoro was about to open his mouth but instead of words it was replaced by an angry shrieking of the alarm and red lights suddenly started flashing above their heads.

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s the reactor!”

“So it can’t be any of us, we’re all here!” Sanji exclaimed, shooting Zoro a sour look as he spoke and Zoro returned the look tenfold.

“Not the time for that!” Nami barked, in no mood to break up a fight right now.

And then the lights cut out and they were in pitch black for a few seconds before the dim of the emergency lights flickered to life. They were far weaker than the main lights and the result was poor visibility- everything would be so much harder to do like this. The intermittent flash of red didn’t do much to help either.  

It was just one thing after another.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Nami presumed that was Sanji based on the language and the chair that was just kicked across the room.

“What do we do?”

“I’m going to deal with the reactor.” Franky shouted, already making his way to the door with Robin on his heels. “The lights shouldn’t go off like this unless there’s multiple breaks in the wires, you need to find where the broken wires are, it’s most likely in multiple places.”

He’s almost gone but he stopped at the door when Nami shouted after him, “Franky, did you fix the communicators?”

“Not well but they’ve stopped screeching, it’ll have to do for now.” He quickly grabbed the small devices from his suit pocket, chucking them towards the crew.

And then he was gone.

“Everyone in pairs, do not leave anyone alone and we’ll meet back here after!” Luffy ordered.

Zoro was instantly by Nami’s side and Sanji looked like he was about to argue until Usopp clung to his side, telling him he needed the most protection out of anyone else. Although Sanji bitched at him to get off, Sanji’s face softened as he looked at the younger man.

“Keep Nami safe, Marimo!” He shouted as he ran with Usopp towards electrical.

“Idiot, he needs to worry about himself,” Zoro grumbled, folding his arms.  

“Let’s go, we need to find any wires that are frazzled, we’ll start with the right wing.” She explained, taking off towards the exit of the cafeteria with Zoro hot on her heels. “Well… just follow me, you probably don’t even know where that is.”

“Oi! I know my left from right.”

Nami grabbed Zoro’s hand just as they entered the corridors and as much as she told herself it was so that he didn’t get lost, it wasn’t convincing enough to stop the flush from working its way up her face. Especially when Zoro squeezed her hand in response.

“So we don’t get lost,” she supplied.

Zoro snorted in response but for once, didn’t say anything back.

The peace from this morning was long gone and was replaced with thumping footsteps and shouting as the crew descended into chaos, scattered across the huge ship trying to stay alive. At one-point Brook, Chopper and Luffy ran past them and Nami was left shouting after them because it looked like they were running around with no real ambition.

It didn’t take long after that for Nami to find one of the breakages and she was left gaping at it. It looked like it’d been chewed apart, the metal was torn open with sparking wires hanging limply.

“Focus,” Zoro said, nudging her arm. “I’ll cover you, don’t worry.”

In that moment Nami was happy to have him with her. He kept a cool head in dire situations, and she needed that right now. She needed to not think about someone… something, on their crew trying to destroy their ship and kill them all. She took a deep breath in and a deep breath out to centre herself. Fix the wires first and everything else would come second, she told herself.

She clicked the light on the shoulder of her orange suit to illuminate the wires in front of her as her helmet was still clipped around the belt of her suit. No one had put theirs back on since the communicators this morning.

She was making good progress and she only had two wires left to reconnect when both her and Zoro’s attention was stolen by the communication doors closing just a few feet away. What the hell? No one was down this part of the ship.

The hallway suddenly came alive as doors started closing and opening randomly.

“What the fuck is that?”

“Someone’s tampering with the wiring or the controls.” Dread was building in her stomach; it was one thing after another. They were being sent on wild goose-chase after wild goose-chase- a distraction to keep them busy.

A crackling was heard through her communicator and she was struggling to keep up at everyone’s broken words.

“Someone- admin-”

“Not right- still- someone else-”

“I’m- route,” Brook crackled through and by the sounds of it, he’d be dealing with it.

They could hear feet running down the hall close to where they were and that reassured Nami that Brook was close and that the issue would be resolved soon.

Except that reassurance soon disappeared as Nami heard a familiar sound and it made her stomach drop. As quickly as she could, she was reattaching the last wire and stumbling over her words to tell Zoro what was about to happen. “Zoro, it’s the rumbling of the vents, that thing is on the move. Think of a room for us to hide in without a vent so we can go as soon as I’m done.”

Zoro was quiet for a moment and Nami knew how absurd it was to ask that of Zoro, he barely knew the layout… well, he thought he did, but that was an entirely different issue and Nami couldn’t think of everything herself right now. But then his hand was on her arm, ready to pull her as soon as she was ready.

As soon as the last wire was in place, she was almost pulled off her feet as she stumbled to keep up, running past communications as the door was still closed and into the woman’s room next to it.

Zoro pulled out his key card to close the door after them and she felt her patience thinning when he failed on the third attempt. Third!

“How the hell can you still not work your key card after all this time?!” She whispered huffily, pushing him aside to swipe her own key card and watched the door slide shut.

“Shut up, it’s tricky and you know it!”

“Maybe at first! How long have you been here?” Sarcasm dripping from her voice.

A scream ran through the ship afterwards and it sounded like Brook. It didn’t take long for Nami to piece together. He was in admin. There was a vent in there.

Nami choked on her sob.

Suddenly there were hands on her shoulders, and she was looking Zoro in the face as he peered down at her with a stern expression.

“Pull yourself together. Brook’s tough, he won’t go down easily and even if he does, you reacting like this isn’t going to help anyone,” his voice was firm and he squeezed the top of her arms, she presumed in an effort to comfort her. “Besides, you’re with me, don’t insult me.”

He was trying to reassure her and in doing it in his own weird way, it worked. She felt herself relaxing, well, relaxing as much as she could in a situation like this, and Zoro was rewarded with a wobbly smile. She couldn’t help herself as she pulled him in for tight hug, clinging to him as he gave her silent reassurance, and he hugged her back just as tightly. He was so warm, and, in that moment, it made everything feel better.

After a second, she pulled away to look up at him. “Okay, let’s go! There’s more wires to reattach,” she told him, fire back in her eyes and Zoro smiled at the change.

The doors slid back open and Zoro tentatively poked his head out, Nami followed suit, looking down the other end of the hallway. She frowned when she saw a purple suit at the end of the corridor, what the hell was Robin doing by herself?

Nami nudged Zoro to get his attention but just as she was about to call out to her, the middle of her suit split apart into a mangled mouth and a long, black tongue oozed out to lick the wall.

Nami felt the blood drain from her body. What was that thing?!

And was it trying to find them through taste?!

Nami squeaked before Zoro could clamp his and the thing was whipping around to peer down the hallway. Zoro just managed to pull her back in before they could be spotted as the doors slid closed behind them.

“You alright?” Zoro whispered, his hand still covering her mouth and she realised he was making sure she wouldn’t scream. Nami nodded and his hand fell away.

“I fucking knew it. She was fishy from the moment she stepped on board,” Zoro hissed, his expression furious.

“I shared a room with her,” Nami said, except there was no heat behind her words, only sadness. It was silly, Nami didn’t know her, clearly, but Robin had been her friend and she felt like she was mourning the loss of that.

They descended back into silence as footsteps could be heard thumping closer and Zoro’s hand was over Nami’s mouth again when they stopped outside the door- not that it was needed, she’d already stopped breathing. She wondered if it was trying to taste them again and a shiver ran down her spine. It was a long moment before they could hear the footsteps retreat from outside the door, but they still waited until it was gone to sigh in relief.

“I’m calling it in,” Zoro informed quietly and Nami nodded back at him as he clicked the side of his communicator.

“Everyone, it’s Robin! Keep your distance, she’s the imposter! She’s not human.”

Although Nami could hear Zoro saying it, she was in too close a distance to Zoro to be able to hear what the rest of the crew were able to through the communicator. She presumed from what she heard earlier from the others they would have received a jumbled message.

All they got in response was a variation of, “What-,” “-Robin-,” and “-Here-,” and that confirmed her suspicions.

Nami put her hand on Zoro’s arm to get his attention. “It’s no use,” Nami sighed. “We’ll need to find someone else and spread the word. We need to meet back at the cafeteria. We need a plan.”

This situation was looking grimmer by the second.

Nami stood then, determined to put an end to this as she started to make her way to the door but then Zoro stood and caught her elbow.

“Wait a second.”

And she did.

She waited but he still stood there saying nothing as he peered down at her. He looked intense and for once she couldn’t read the look on his face, it was oddly unnerving. She hadn’t had that problem with him for ages. She raised an eyebrow, challenging him to speak but his eyebrows only furrowed further. What the hell was he thinking about? Since when did he think through what he said?

But Zoro was not a man of words, he’s a man of action, so instead he leaned down to press a brief kiss to her cheek, as if that explained everything.

Nami gaped up at him but all he offered in explanation was, “Should’ve told you a while go.”

She’s still trying to get her brain to work, wrap around what he’s just done and said. She managed to string together words after a brief pause. “That you like me?” She asked tentatively.

He’s stubbornly looking at the wall, his ears bright red and he spat a “Yes!” at her.

“But you didn’t?” She had no idea why she asked that, but honestly, she’s not really thinking right now. At this point, the words are tumbling out her of mouth without any real filter. She’s still trying to wrap her head around what’s happening. This is the last thing she expected.

“Did you hear me say any of this sappy shit before?” He’s still looking at the wall but now he’s crossed his arms defensively.  

“Well, you’ve barely said anything now, so it’s hard to say.” If he wanted to be a brat about it, she was more than happy to tease him.

He rolled his eyes at her and finally made eye contact, “Fine. I like you. In a romantic way.”

Very romantic when he basically gritted his teeth through the whole thing. Yet she could still feel a blush working across her cheeks. How is this working on her?

“Why now?” She asked, trying to distract from her reaction.

“Better late than never.”

Something about that didn’t still well with her. Why was never even an option right now?

“So you’re backing down on your word?”

He doesn’t say anything but looked down at her in confusion.

“That we’re getting out of this alive,” she explained and waited for him to catch on to what she’s referring to. She can almost see the moment the bulb goes on over his head.

“No. You’re coming out of this alive.”

Her stomach knotted at his words; he didn’t mean…?

“…But you’re not?” She hesitantly asked, did she really want to know the answer to that?

“Don’t know yet,” he muttered.

This should be a happy moment. The infuriatingly annoying guy she’s liked for a while has confessed, but the reality is they’re currently being hunted and there’s no guarantee any of them will come out of this alive.

But she’d be damned if he went down without her, so in her mind it’s either both of them or neither.

And then it hits her, they may not have another moment together like this.

So for once in her life, she stopped thinking and without hesitation grabbed his face to crush his lips against hers. He yelped at the abruptness, but it was soon muffled. She couldn’t stop the amused smile spreading across her lips at his reaction.

It was by no means the most romantic kiss, neither of them had much experience before this and the mood is hardly set by the looming possibility of death, but Nami regretted nothing as they exchanged clumsy kisses. Zoro tentatively settled his hands on her waist, like he was waiting for her to tell him off, but she didn’t, instead she’s slipping her arms around his shoulders to draw herself in closer. They’re only closed-mouth pecks that occasionally linger for longer but that’s okay for right now, they can hardly start a make out session and honestly, Nami’s not prepared for anything more right now, her stomach already feels like it’s going to burst open.

They broke apart shortly afterwards but didn’t move away from each other.

“Idiot, how long?”  

“Hah?” He asked stupidly against her lips.

Christ, what an idiot.

“How long have you liked me?” She clarified.

“Probably from the fifth argument, but I didn’t realise until much later. You pissed me off a lot, but I realised I didn’t want anything else.”

That still told her nothing, they squabbled constantly, but yeah, she could relate. It’d just hit her one day too.  

“You wasted a lot of time,” she accused.

“You were hardly forthcoming yourself!”

“Forthcoming? That’s a big word for you, trying to woo me?”

“Clearly don’t need to, do I?” His voice was impossibly smug as his arms tightened around her to make his point, and it grated her slightly. “Besides, you’re the navigator, aren’t you the one that’s supposed to be guiding?”

“Arse. I can’t do everything, you know. Navigate, repair wires, open doors for you; you have to pull your weight too,” she countered, her smile broadening as he glowered at her.

He didn’t grace her with a response, but she didn’t mind when he pulled her back into another kiss. It wasn’t as clumsy this time, and that was probably because she wasn’t trying to crush Zoro into her face. It was still just as insistent, but they found their rhythm quickly and mouths were tentatively opening for tongues to brush against each other’s. Distantly, Nami wondered if she’d ever be prepared for something like this. Her hands buried themselves into his hair and she stood on tip toes to get closer.  

All of that came to a grinding halt as another siren started going off, alongside the reactor alarm and they pulled apart. Nami flushed when she realised just what they were doing, in the middle of a crisis no less. They were making out in the girl’s room whilst their ship was falling apart and being hunted by Robin. She was mortified and when she looked up at Zoro he looked nothing but smug.

She didn’t feel bad about elbowing him in the ribs.

Their communicators crackled to life and they could hear Franky rushing through his words, “Shit- O2- down- someone- fix-”

“-helmets-”

That was only a few rooms away from them and although she hadn’t said anything, Zoro was nodding his head at her. They were both taking their helmets from the belts to put them on but Nami stopped Zoro before he could put if over his head.

“To be continued,” Nami whispered, pressing one last kiss against his lips to make her point, “because there will be a next time.” She delivered that line firmly because neither of them was dying before she could do this again.

He didn’t look convinced but that’s fine, Nami was adamant about it enough for the both of them. They finished clipping their helmets on and it’d be enough to supply them with oxygen for the next half an hour until the machine was working again.

“Roger, roger,” Nami spoke clearly into the communicator, hoping someone caught that.  

For the second time, they were peering out into the corridor and they were eerily silent. Nami pushed through any of those thoughts, she’d think about that later, and took Zoro’s hand as they cautiously made their way through the hallways.

The doors behind them suddenly started snapping closed one by one.

And now the doors were being tampered with. It was trying to split them up.

“Run! We’re going to get locked in!”

As they took the last corner, just making it before they were sitting ducks in a part of the hallway with a vent, Nami could see the O2 room in the distance. She watched in horror as the door started to slide close. If she didn’t make that there was no telling if she’d be able to open it anytime soon and before she could think it through, she was dropping Zoro’s hand to sprint towards the door and slide through just as it closed behind her.

Heavy footsteps thumped from the other. “Oi! Are you okay!? Open the door,” Zoro shouted, banging on the door and as she swiped her key card to let him in, her hunch had been correct. It beeped angrily back at her; the door wouldn’t open. She would be stuck in here for the foreseeable future.

“I’m fine! The door won’t open, go find the others. Tell them about what’s going on and fix the door system, I’ll deal with O2.” He stayed silent and she knew he was about to argue with her, so she continued. “There’s no vents in here, I’ll be okay. Go!”

“Shit. Okay.” She couldn’t see him, but she knew he’s be running his hands over his helmet, wishing it was his hair. “I’ll be back as soon as the doors open again.”

And then she heard footsteps running away and she breathed out slowly. She could feel her eyes welling up as desperation set in but then she remembered Zoro’s words from before. It wasn’t over yet and he’d been right, if she got inside her head now, she wouldn’t be able to do this, and they’d all suffocate.

She had a job to do.

Cracking her fingers, she got to work on restoring the O2 and hoping everyone was piecing everything else together whilst she was busy.

Her fingers were furiously gliding over keyboards, bashing in key codes and watching bars slowly fill back up on the screen. Another few minutes and she’d be done- crisis averted. In the background, she could hear her communicator crackling with a few words scattered in but none of it made sense and she couldn’t waste time trying to piece it together.

The doors still hadn’t opened by the time she’d fixed the O2, she wasn’t sure how long she’d been in here, but it’d been a while and it was hard to tell what was going on outside.

This had been the longest day she’d ever experienced so far; it’d all started before lunch and as her stomach growled, it’s just dawning on her that she never got to eat. Oh god, she sounded like Luffy.

From the corner of her eye she could see some empty canisters, she figured she might as well pass some time filling them just in case and it beat sitting around grumbling about eating and unopened doors.

Just as she finished with the last canister the doors were slowly sliding open… except, Zoro’s not back yet and she’s caught between wanting to find everyone and waiting here for him. But then she’s just a sitting duck and the crew might need her.

She steeled herself to go out, but the lights still hadn’t been restored yet, and all alone it somehow felt even darker. Just as she’s about to leave, a spare steel rod caught her eye by the door and she’s picking it up. She had no idea whether it’d work against a thing like that (she refused to call it Robin), but it’s better than nothing.

Her communicator came alive then and there’s a frenzy of voices, she can’t quite pick out everyone but there’s enough voices to at least reassure her that the crew are okay.

“Nami- cafeteria-”

“Idiot-”

“No- engine- Nami.”

… What?

All the voices were talking over one another and with how poor the quality was she’s struggling to understand what she’s being told. From what she’s gleaned from the limited information it’s: go to the cafeteria, avoid the engine room. It’s slightly concerning that there’s still squabbling going on- but in truth, when is there not?

Before she had to make any hard decisions, a green suit comes into view down the hallway and she let out a sigh of relief at the sight of Zoro. He’d come back for her, just like he said, and maybe he’d have some idea about what’s going on.

“Zoro!” She whispered as loudly as she could, running towards him and he turned, his head nodding to acknowledge her. “Is everyone in the cafeteria?”

He grunted as she grabbed his hand and took off towards the cafeteria with him following closely behind. Although he’s normally quiet, he’s a bit too quiet considering the circumstances. She was expecting some scolding over her reckless move earlier.  

“You okay?” She looked back at him, eyes quickly scanning along his body and didn’t see anything of immediate worry. Green suit intact, helmet firmly in place.

He nodded back at her and she figured the day must be taking a toll on him. She could certainly relate to that.

Shortly afterward she’s bashing in her key card for the closed cafeteria door but stopped short when it was empty. Where is everyone?

Before she could ask him, she could hear footsteps thumping from behind the opposite closed cafeteria door and she smiled to herself. So they were just early, for once.

As the doors opened, she started to walk forward and went to speak but her jaw abruptly snapped closed. Her eyes rounded and it felt like the floor was falling from beneath her.

She watched in horror as a green suit appeared through the opposite door.

Another green suit.

As in, there’s currently one next to her that she’s holding the hand of and one in front of her, that has also stopped dead in their tracks. They all had their own coloured suits for a reason, so they were easily recognisable with their helmets on.

Oh god. One of these suits is that thing.

And with that knowledge, she’s ripping her hand away from the green suit next to her and walking back slowly into the centre of the room, never turning her back so she can put equal distance between the two green suits and see them without having to turn her head.

From the corner of her eye, one of them moved, trying to slowly walk towards her like you would a spooked deer and instantly she felt adrenaline coursing through her as her body tensed. She’s reaching into her pocket then, pulling out the steel bar to clutch it in front of her.

“Back off,” she tersely told one of the suits

The advancing green suit halted immediately and took a step back, hands raised.

Her mind’s in pieces and she doesn’t know what to do. She’s in control of the room right now, both suits watching her from their positions but she knew that could change any moment and she doesn’t know what to do.

Suddenly the events of the day come rushing back to her.

Zoro had left navigation and then Usopp had got hurt.

Zoro sleeps a lot during the day and does basic tasks, like cleaning the garbage chute and heavy lifting tasks. Something anyone could do.

Zoro can’t open the goddamn doors!

She’d just kissed him- it!

Everything had been a lie.

Who the hell could she trust after this? Zoro was supposed to be it. It!

That thing can clearly shapeshift, going from a purple suit to a green one, but then, who said there’s only one of them?

Then she remembered earlier Luffy and Chopper had been running around aimlessly and Brook had screamed, and he was with them.

Luffy told them not to turn on each other.

Franky connected the vents together.

What ifs are flying around in her mind, as all of these thoughts come together. Seriously, who was she going to trust after this? Everyone looked suspicious.

Her breathing’s erratic and her heart felt like it’s going to jump out of her chest and her stomach’s rolling. Oh god, is she about to have an anxiety attack? Seriously, now of all places?! She’s about to lose her cool and control of the room. She needed to think.

One of the green suits that had appeared from the opposite door is ripping it’s helmet off, throwing it onto the floor, and she’s looking at Zoro’s face again.

“Nami, take a breath, I need you to calm down. A lot has happened since we last saw each other, but I need you to trust me right now and come over here.” His hand’s outstretched towards her but he’s not looking at her, his gaze is locked onto the other green suit that she had just been holding the hand of. Like he’s trying to size it up, to anticipate its next move.

Nami’s eyes flickered between them, sizing both of them up and god, did she want to trust the talking green suit, but how could she?! The other green suit is looking at her blanky, head tilted, and she just needed to confirm something before she made her move.

“Take off your helmet,” she shouted, jutting her steel bar at its helmet.

There’s a second where no one spoke or moved, and it felt like Nami was stuck in one of those crappy western standoffs. The one with the helmet still on tilted its head again and it’s looking between her and the other green suit without its helmet on.

Its hands come up to its helmet and for a moment Nami thought she’d be screwed if it actually took it’s helmet off because then she’s back to square one and the tension in the room can’t possibly get any higher without anything actually happening.

But Nami doesn’t have to go back to square one because it pulled its hands away without taking off the helmet and Nami watched in horror as the mask split apart to reveal a gaping mouth with razor sharp teeth and a tongue that came curling out with saliva dripping from it. It’s similar to what she saw before in the hallway but not even that could have prepared her for seeing it up close.  

She’s frozen on the spot and it started to run towards her with what she can only describe as a screech of joy erupting from its mouth as it does. Except there’s another pair of feet running towards her too and she’s suddenly pushed down by Zoro as he covered her body with his. Zoro lifted his hand and the next second the thing is screeching in agony as he set off the blow torch in his hand.

Since when did he have that?  

The thing reeled back, hands coming up to cup it’s scorched mouth and tentacles erupted from its back to lash out in its moment of vulnerability. One of them whipped towards them and Zoro’s falling back on her heavily. One look at him has her gasping and trying to sit up to get a better look.

“Zoro you’re eye!” Nami cried out. She didn’t see it happen, but she can see the blood that’s dripping from his eye and her stomach rolled. That’s because of her.

“No time, we have to move.”

And he’s right, the thing was still stooped low, sludge dripping from where it’d been burned but it’d only be a matter of time until it was on its feet again and they needed to regroup.

Nodding, she grabbed his hand and he was hauling her up onto her feet. She pushed him aside as they got to the closed cafeteria door, but her hands were shaking too much and the keypad denied her. She’d swiped too fast. She didn’t dare turn around when she heard a much less pained screech and, thankfully, Zoro didn’t rush her.

Second swipe and they were through the doors, but it wasn’t the homestretch yet. Nami could hear metal being torn apart and better judgement be damned, she turned around.

That thing couldn’t pass as human anymore. At this point it was more mouth than body, claws erupted from the suit and tentacles furiously swiped the air around it.

The next moment is disorientating as she’s suddenly swept from her feet and manhandled to sit at Zoro’s hip on one side. She clung to him in fear of falling off and it’s not exactly the most comfortable or stable position, but it freed her up a bit.

“I can’t drag you about as you stare, you’re too slow,” he explained as he ran.

“Just don’t drop me,” she told him, eyes narrowing in determination. He can run and she can keep it at bay. To his credit, he doesn’t even break a sweat at the extra weight, but she’d give that some more thought later.

The thing started to gain on them, screeching at them and when one of the tentacles came rushing towards them, Nami’s raising her steel bar to smack it away.

What she didn’t expect, was for the tentacle to absorb the bar.

“It took my bar!” She said, outraged.

Below her, Zoro grunted and his free hand is reaching into his trouser pocket. “That doesn’t work on it, use the blow torch.”

When the thing tried again, Nami aimed the torch and watched as the flame licked away at the tentacle, black sludge falling onto the floor below it. It stopped in its tracks then and Nami watched it slowly disappear from view as Zoro kept running and rounded the corner.

“It’s stopped chasing us,” Nami informed him, slightly confused why it’d give up so easily. Then she’s looking at the blowtorch, it either didn’t like fire or the light. Maybe it was both.

Then another thought came to mind. “When the hell did you figure this out?” She couldn’t keep the wonder out of her voice when she asked, she was impressed.

“I told you, a lot happened whilst you were locked in O2.” He took another left.  

“Ah, so you spoke to Robin then.” She nodded to herself, the woman was sharp minded and no doubt, with the rest of them chiming in, they’d have worked something out quickly.

“Oi! I worked out that fire might work,” he grouched at her, offended that she was so quick to dismiss him.

“You came to save me on might!?” Of course he’d do something so ballsy and reckless.

“Some gratitude would be nice! What happened with your bar again?”

He had a point. Not that she was going to tell him that.

“I’ll give you that later,” she said lowly. It’s not fitting for the mood at all, but she couldn’t resist and maybe she needed some normality right now when they’re being hunted. Especially when she’s rewarded with an embarrassed flush working angrily up his neck.

“Okay, we can’t keep running around in circles. Where are the others?” He took another left and she frowned. If he wasn’t careful, they were going to end up back at the cafeteria and right now, they had no idea where that thing was.

“In the upper engine. They stayed behind, couldn’t have everyone running around with a shapeshifter on the lose.”

“Yeah, I get that, but why send you?” Yeah okay, it wasn’t helpful in this situation, but she had to ask.

He huffed but stayed silent, only adjusting his grip on her thighs.

“You ran off before they could stop you, didn’t you?”

“That’s not the point,” he replied indignantly, huffing. “Found you in the end, right?” It’s said with too much pride for someone who got lost constantly but she still found fondness building in her chest. Maybe they’re both idiots.

“Not hard when you told me to go to the cafeteria.”

“Don’t remind me, what idiots.” He came to a stop just down the hallway from upper engine and let her down. “We’d trapped it there and Franky had managed to block the vent but with how sketchy the communicators are I don’t even know why anyone bothered mentioning the cafeteria.”

“That vent isn’t blocked anymore, by the way, it got out,” Nami frowned, a thought coming to her, “It found me, I thought it was you, but the weird thing is, it didn’t kill me. It followed me.”

Zoro didn’t say anything in response, but he looked as perplexed as she felt. It’d attacked Usopp on sight but followed her willingly.

Those thoughts came to an abrupt halt though as she properly looked at Zoro for the first time since she’d met back up with him. He looked awful. His left eye was closed, and she didn’t know whether it was to keep the blood out of it or whether the eye just wasn’t there anymore. She couldn’t see the damage with so much blood oozing from the cut.

“Zoro, your eye,” Nami lamented, her hand coming up to cup his jaw and thumb soothing across the patch of cheekbone absent of any blood. She could only imagine how much that hurt right now. And he’d done it for her. The knot in her stomach tightened at the thought.

“It’s fine, stop fretting.” He tried to play it off and his hand grasped her wrist to gently pry it away from his face, but she wasn’t ready to let go of his face just yet.

“We’re not being chased right now; I can fret as much as I like.”

“I’d do it again,” he said gruffly, and it sounded like he was trying to reassure her about the wound so she wouldn’t feel guilty about it, but that didn’t detract from how sweet he sounded.

“Zoro,” she cooed, and he flushed a brilliant red when Nami’s other hand mirrored the action of cupping his jaw.

With her helmet on, she couldn’t lean in to kiss him like she wanted; for his sweet words, for her relief that he wasn’t a monster and that, so far, they were both alive. Instead, she’s leaning into him until she’s bumping her helmet against his forehead. It’s not nearly enough, but for now it’d have to do. He didn’t have any complaints when he leaned into her and his hands slid down her arms to cup her elbows to hold her close.

And that’s how they’re found. Standing around in the hallway, Nami cupping Zoro’s face and leaning into each other, a private moment that was suddenly very public.

“See! I told you I heard their voices,” Usopp stage whispered, eyes wide at the affectionate display.

Both of them paused, a hairsbreadth away from kissing, before whipping around to see Usopp and Sanji peeking out of the upper engine. Sanji looked outraged until his eyes locked onto Zoro’s bleeding face.

“What the hell happened?!”

Zoro groaned next to her. It was truly a testament to how bad it looked for Sanji to show such outward concern. They normally hid their affection for each other behind heated arguments and physical fights.

“Let’s all freak out over Zoro when we’re with everyone else,” Nami ordered. They were still standing in the hallway like nothing was currently happening. Zoro shot her a glare at that suggestion, something that didn’t hold much heat when he looked like that.

When they entered the upper engine room, it was empty. Just as she was about to voice her confusion, Zoro was pushing her towards the little broom cupboard in the corner.

As the door closed behind them, the small bulb in the room illuminated the rest of the crew, who were all looking worse for wear themselves. What the hell had been going on whilst she was trapped in O2?

It was a tight fit, as everyone huddled together, but it wasn’t important as her eyes jumped around familiar faces, taking in each one by one and doing a small role call in her head.  

… 7, 8 and “Brook!”

“Brook! I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see you before in my life!” She’d definitely trod on someone’s foot to reach him, but she didn’t care as she flung her arms around his neck.

“Yohoho, this sounds like a backhanded insult, but I’ll take it!”

She allowed the hug for a moment longer but then she’s pushing is head out of the way, as he whispered a “so harsh”.

There’s a sudden commotion at the door then and it’s because Chopper’s just seen the state of Zoro. A pink suit is rushing towards Zoro, disregarding the rest of the crew as they start murmuring their own concerns, and he’s slinging his medical bag from his back to the floor to start pulling out things he’ll be needing.

“It’s fine Chopper! Just stick a plaster on it!” Zoro interrupted, swatting his hand to stop Chopper’s panicking as he started to examine the eye.

Chopper squawked at the suggestion and started laying into him, lecturing him about the danger of infections. Seeing as Chopper was no longer panicking and had started to clear away at the wound, Nami tuned it out in favour of getting some information on what the hell was going on.

“Right, someone needs to get me up to speed,” she stated and as an afterthought added, “And why are we huddled in the upper engine broom closet?”

“No vents in here,” Franky answered.

“Also, I don’t think the thing knows this room exists,” Usopp added as an afterthought.

“Not surprising, this is where all the cleaning supplies are and since when does anyone do that?” Nami sighed, but she couldn’t focus on their filthy ship just yet. Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. Sanji and Chopper kept their respective rooms clean, but that was it. The kitchen, med bay and the women’s room were the only clean places on board.

Nami’s comment was ignored as Sanji started to explain, “We don’t know how long its been on board, but Robin thinks it’s-”

“Morph,” Luffy cut off Sanji, looking far too proud of himself. When all she gave him was a baffled look, he explained further, “The thing. Its name is morph.”

As much as Nami was happy to see Luffy back to his normal self, so much so he was naming a blood thirsty monster, it was so incredibly unhelpful in the grand scheme of things. Before she could scold him, Usopp intervened.

“We didn’t name it Morph; you did!” Usopp accused and Nami was glad that he hadn’t become sucked into Luffy’s actions. “I still want Nightcrawler”

Urgh. Forget it. Of course Usopp wouldn’t be of any help.  

“What happened to Rampage?” Zoro chimed in.

“No, we ditched that as soon as you left.”

“It was a stupid name,” Sanji sneered.

Nami could only stand there in disbelief and watched as the rest of the crew in front of her started to squabble about what to officially name that thing that was trying to kill them all.

“I quite like Selkie; they used to trick humans by transforming into them before mercilessly killing them. Quite like our situation, no?”

Nami barked a short laugh. Even Robin, her most trusted ally, the woman she could rely on when the boys descended into new levels of idiocy, had been sucked into naming this thing. She even noted that their lives were in danger and was still taking part. Was she going insane?

“Is this what you’ve been doing all this time? Naming this thing instead of figuring out how we’re going to survive?”

All of them looked at her, her voice cutting through their playful bickering and they all had the audacity to look at her like she was the one suggesting names in a dire, bleak situation. Maybe she was insane. She was in their books, based on the looks she was receiving.

“Don’t be stupid,” Luffy said, like he was the voice of reason here. “We did it after, when we were waiting for you.”

Ah yes, of course. She was the issue here.

She should be angry; she should throttle him but the day’s taking its toll on her and all she does is throw her head back and laugh. It’s a hearty laugh, right from her gut and it felt good. This situation is just so laughably hilarious.

“I think she’s lost her mind,” Usopp muttered and Chopper nodded next to him, looking at her cautiously.

Everyone’s looking at her as she started to calm down, wiping tears from her eyes. All she offered as explanation was, “I like the name Morph.”

Zoro caught her eye then and he smirked at her.

Luffy’s cheering then, arms thrown up in the air at his victory as the others mumble and moan about their loss. Apparently, everyone had their own name offered and with Nami voting for Luffy’s it was the clear winner.

“Right, so as I was saying, we don’t know how long Morph- I can’t do it! It’s a ridiculous name for such a serious situation.”

“Maybe that’s what we need right now,” Robin said and Nami couldn’t agree with her more. It’s why she liked it, it’s easier to deal with a shapeshifting monster with razor sharp teeth and tentacles when it’s named something so cute.

Luffy’s frowning, not budging as Sanji looked at him. “I won. Its name is Morph.”

“Nami liked it,” Usopp added and that’s enough to get Sanji talking again, seemingly accepting the name with no further complaints.

“Robin was thinking Morph’s been on board for a while because it seems to know where to go and what to tamper with to break the ship.” Sanji looked towards Robin, prompting her to take over from him.

“My theory is that it’s sophisticated enough to learn basic tasks and work out what we’re doing but Morph can’t learn complex things like language,” Robin speculated and Nami nodded in agreement, remembering Morph’s silence in the hallway. “I don’t think it likes light and that’s the reason why tampered with the lights before appearing fully. Space is very dark after all… and cold.” She’s looking towards Zoro then. “Did your theory work, Zoro?”

Zoro nodded back as Chopper was putting the finishing touches on his bandaged eye. “It seemed to hurt it and it backed off when it started chasing us.”

Robin and Zoro’s conversation held no tension like it did earlier from the cafeteria and Nami’s glad to see it. A lot seemed to have happened since then. No doubt she’d get the details from Usopp later.

“So what are we going to do now?” She’d got enough information about that thing- Morph, she corrected mentally, but now she wanted their plan of attack.

Except her question brought a hush over the crew and she’s looking at each of them to try and figure out what she’s said wrong. Usopp looked pained and Franky’s resting a big hand on his shoulder.

Luffy looked solemn and Nami hated it already, as much as his happy go lucky behaviour might irritate her sometimes, she wanted it back desperately in this situation.

“We’re leaving the ship,” Luffy said.

What? This was their home, where everything had started. “What? How can we-” She started.

“The decision’s been made,” he stated firmly and when Nami looked at Usopp, someone who would definitely agree with her, he looked downhearted but on board. This conversation had already been talked through at length it seemed. “Franky.” And Luffy’s nodding towards their mechanic to continue.

“The ships on its last legs. I’ve just barely managed to hold together the reactor, but we don’t have long, electrics are fried and on top of that there’s a monster out there making it worse,” Franky explained and as much as it pained her, she’d been out there, she’d seen the state of the ship.

“We’d have to find it and kill it, that’s even if it hadn’t tampered with the ship before we do.”

“Even then, something still might trip.”

“It’s too risky.”

Nami sighed and ran her hands through her hair. She understood but it was a lot of take on board. Ultimately, they were right. Their lives would be at risk and she remembered back to earlier when she was uncertain about how many of them were still alive.

She wanted them all to come out of this alive.

“What’s the plan?”

They’re huddled tightly into a circle going through the last few details. Franky and Usopp have prepared the emergency ship, it’ll be tight for all of them, nothing compared to their current spacious ship, but it’s good enough for now. It’s only there until they can land and find something else.

“I’m heading to the kitchen to get supplies,” Sanji informed them and Brook next to him is offering to go with.  

“I need to go to the medbay,” Chopper added and Robin’s volunteering to accompany him.

“You need a helmet,” Nami said, pointing at Zoro. His was sat in the cafeteria and its current state was unknown. Everyone else’s were clipped to their belts safely. “If O2 goes out again, you’re screwed.”

“If you’re going that way, pick up extra helmets and suits,” Robin suggested and it’s a good idea.

“Someone needs to go to O2 to get backup oxygen,” Franky told the group, the emergency ship only had so much stocked into it and seeing at they’re abandoning the ship, they might as well take all they have with them.

“They’re already filled, I did it whilst I was waiting for the doors to open. Someone else needs to grab them, I’m going with Zoro.”

No one argued that and they’re all nodding. It was in their best interest to have the navigator with the permanently lost. Zoro didn’t argue it, even though he knew the reason behind it but now wasn’t a time for bickering.

“I’m going to the reactor to grab my tools,” Franky said and seeing and Luffy and Usopp are the last ones left, they’re going with Franky.

With everyone allocated to a task and paired off, they all agreed they’d meet back in the cafeteria in 10 minutes. It was a get in and get out job, no side tracking and if a pair didn’t come back- there would be a search party. No one was being left behind. Franky didn’t have many, but he had enough blow torches for one per group, should they come across Morph on their short trip.

It was then that Nami realised they’d been in the small cupboard a while with no disruptions but before she could voice her concern, the reactor alarm was blaring again. She hung her head, it felt like she’d jinxed them.

“That’s our countdown,” Franky informed them. “I stabilised the reactor as best as I could, but we only have twenty minutes before it’s done for. We need to be gone before that.”

With that last warning, the groups are filtering out of the tiny cupboard and spreading throughout the ship. There’s a shout of helmets off until they leave and Nami had no problem with that, it’d take away the element of surprise, because as far as she’s aware, Morph can’t imitate their faces.

Nami and Zoro run next to each other through the corridors with no hesitancy. There’s no time for it and at least they’re armed now. The cafeteria’s empty and neither of them bother to check if Zoro’s helmet is intact- no side tracking. They pass by Sanji and Brook as they make their way into the kitchen. They’re running past admin and they only have to make it through storage to reach the women’s and men’s rooms next to communications.

As they made it into the men’s room, Nami gets a bad feeling. All of this is far too easy. There’re no crackling voices in her earpiece, there’s no yelling or frantic feet and despite the reactor siren going off, it was almost peaceful. It didn’t sit right with her.

“Zoro, I have a bad feeling,” Nami told him as she grabbed a bag to start shoving spare space suits into.

“It’s too easy,” he agreed with her, taking another bag to put spare helmets into and then clipping another helmet onto his belt. “But I won’t complain. Maybe it backed off because we found it’s weak spot.”

For now, she could only agree with him and hope it was just good luck as they moved into the women’s room the other side of communications to repeat the process.

Nami doesn’t have a watch, but as they finish packing, she’s sure they must be getting close to 10 minutes.

There’s a loud commotion towards O2 and Nami and Zoro are shooting each other a look. They don’t need to verbalise anything before they’re running towards the sound- if any of their crew was in trouble, of course they’d rush to help.

Except when they arrive, there’s nothing there. It’s silent. There’s nobody in sight, they can’t hear feet running nearby and there’s no sign of a struggle.

“False alarm, let’s go,” Zoro said and he’s walking towards the door.

Nami nodded and went to follow him out, except out of the corner of her eye she can see a spare O2 bottle. She frowned, she’d definitely filled all of them and she’s not sure how someone had missed that one. Despite the voice in the back of her head that told her ‘no detours’, this technically isn’t one. They might end up needing that and she’d kick herself for leaving it behind.

As she picked it up, it’s far too light compared to the others she filled earlier and when she turned the canister around, the bar’s empty.

It’s then that it all clicked into place; no sign of Morph, the sound of a struggle only to find no one’s here and a strategically place O2 bottle to distract a passer-by.

A trap.

Zoro’s already left the room and she’s running after him, shouting for him to stop, not caring how loud her voice was right now. He’s almost into the weapons room when he whipped around, alert and ready for whatever she’s about to say but it’s too late. The doors between them are closing.

They’re both running but Nami knows it’s useless, there’s no way she’s going to make it through. With the last crack left, she’s throwing through her bag to Zoro and watching the doors shut on his panicked face. She imagined hers didn’t look much better.

Shit. He had the blow torch.

The keypad angrily denied her when she swiped her key card and her stomach’s sinking at the knowledge that she’s truly vulnerable right now.  

There’s a loud thump followed by a silent curse from the other side of the door but it barely budged. Zoro’s trying to break down the door. It was no use; they’re made to withstand extreme conditions in the case of an emergency. Nami laughed at the humour, this is an emergency and now she’s in danger because of it.

“Zoro, go back to the cafeteria, drop the bags and get someone. Someone must be back by now. I’ll try the other door to the cafeteria.”

He had no choice but to agree and he left her with a, “Be careful. No reckless moves.”

Too late for that advice, she thought bitterly.

Nami turned to face the dimly lit corridor in front of her. Without Zoro here, it looked ominous, the shadows looked dangerous all of a sudden and every sound had her jumping out of her skin. But the longer she stood here, the longer she’d be alone. She clutched the O2 cannister in her hands for some form a reassurance and, as a last-minute decision, she clipped on her helmet for an extra layer of defence.

She started a tentative jog down the hallway, a stark difference from the quick and confident one she had with Zoro. She stopped at corners to peer around them, to make sure the coast was clear and yes, it did slow her down, but she needed caution right now.

It’s the home stretch when she reached storage and she wondered if her brain was playing tricks on her. Maybe it wasn’t a trap and the ship really was just on its last legs, like Franky had explained.

Just as she’s passing admin, she can hear heavy footsteps from behind her. She’s wanted to continue forward, but it also crossed her mind that it could be Zoro. He wasn’t far from the cafeteria before and if Franky or Usopp was there, they’d have the door opened swiftly.

Tentatively, she backtracked and as she peered around the corner, the relief is almost crippling.  

Zoro.

He’s standing in the doorway of storage, looking around for her and then she’s jogging towards him, a cheerful, “Zoro”, coming from her mouth.

The joy’s over when he turned to face her and she’s looking back at two steel eyes. Not a cut or bandage in sight.

That was not Zoro.

She faltered slightly but remembered earlier when Morph had followed her after approaching it like nothing was wrong. She fought down the urge to flee and plastered a wobbly smile back onto her face to continue her walk towards it.

Except this time, Morph’s not curious, Morph’s hungry. It doesn’t keep up the pretence of a human and the moment Nami sees a mouth, she’s flinging the O2 cannister at it and darting away.  

“Help, help, help,” she’s pleading into her communicator but its only static that responded back.

She was well and truly on her own.

She doesn’t dare look over her shoulder to see if Morph is chasing her, but her arms are stretching out for anything within reach she can knock over and hopefully buy herself time. As she smacked something behind her, she peeked over her shoulder and terror is almost choking her. Morph’s not close, but it is chasing her as it used its tentacles to propel it forward.

The thumping of her own footsteps is deafening, and her legs are burning as she ran down the empty corridor between electrical and lower engine, but she can’t let up her pace for even a second if she wanted to get out of this alive.

She skidded as she took a sharp turn and it definitely lost her some distance. It’s confirmed when there’s footsteps behind her, heavy and loud, and she can practically feel its breath on her neck. She didn’t dare to look over her shoulder again because she knew she’d be greeted by the sight of Morph practically on her back.

One second she’s looking at the familiar sight of upper engine just in front of her and she’s so close to the cafeteria, then the next she’s eating the floor. The impact has her face crashing into the shield of her helmet and so much for extra protection, she thought, as her nose smarted and started trickling blood.  

Her feet are pulled from beneath her and she’s being dragged back. She doesn’t have time to register the pain in her face as she flipped over to watch as the tentacles around her foot pulled her slowly towards the towering monster. Morph’s grown and there’s multiple mouths erupting from the green of the suit

She kicked her free foot out, trying to stamp on the tentacle wrapped around her ankle but it’s quickly caught by another tentacle and then she’s being dragged closer even quicker.

Morph settled over her when she’s pulled underneath it and the weight of it had the air rushing out of her lungs. If it doesn’t kill her quickly, it’s going to crush her instead.

That doesn’t stop her from throwing a fist out to punch its face- she may be about to die, but she’s not dying easily. The image of Zoro’s face distorted from the impact before reforming, but it doesn’t stay that way for long as its face split apart to form a long stretching mouth. A tongue slithered out and licked across all its teeth as saliva dripped down onto the front of Nami’s helmet. It’s enough to get Nami moving as she squirmed underneath it, hands pushing and feet kicking desperately so she can shimmy out.

She cried out in pain when a tentacle from behind it’s back stabbed through her shoulder to pin her down to the floor beneath and there’s a clawed hand digging into the side of her waist. It’s enough to stop her squirming, as tears rolled down her face and her hands are at the tentacle in her shoulder to try and relieve the pain.

But the pain is nothing compared to watching its tongue slink out of its mouth down to her helmet and lick a long stipe across the glass. She’s helpless as the tongue started to undo the latches on her helmet and its claw dug even further into her side, as if expecting her to struggle.

She can’t believe she’s about to die at the hands (or mouth) of something that looked like Zoro. There’s probably something poetic in there but now’s not the time to be thinking about that.

As the last latch clicked loose, her helmet’s thrown to the side and she’s face to face with the monster on top of her (It turned out, Morph wasn’t a suitable name. She wished she’d gone with Robin’s option). Its tongue snapped back to its mouth, but her eyes are screwing shut as it stretched to lick a long path across her neck and face. There’s so much saliva that it dribbled down the rest of her face and she can’t believe this is it, this is her last few moments.

It growled in her ear, but she can’t bring herself to open her eyes, even when she heard its teeth snap just above her. She doesn’t want her last moment alive to be looking at an imposter of Zoro. She’d much rather remember the real Zoro’s dazed face after their first kiss.

But then it’s all gone, the weight’s gone and she’s gasping in pain when the claws in her side and tentacle are ripped out.

There’s a battle cry above her head and she opened her eyes just in time to watch Luffy jump over her body and a massive flame erupt from his blowtorch. She can’t be sure, her viewpoint from the floor isn’t the best, but she’s pretty sure there’s a massive grin etched onto his face as he launched his attack.

She felt like she was hallucinating as she watched the monster reel back and try to avoid the flames as it screeched in pain. She’s sitting up to watch but it’s blocked as Zoro knelt in front of her. His mouth’s moving and distantly she heard him saying that he shouldn’t have left her but she’s too busy looking at his face, soaking in the downward turn of his mouth, his remaining steel coloured eye searching her face and the green of his hair.

She wondered idly if she’s died and this was hell and she’s being forced to watch what her rescue could have looked like if it hadn’t gone all wrong. Zoro did always tell her she was going to hell when she died. She can’t wait for him to join her so she can rub it in his face that he ended up there too.

She’s pulled out of her scattered thoughts when Zoro’s softly wiping at her face with his hands, wiping the saliva on his suit and it’s the most worried she’s ever seen him; his face is pale and drawn. “I thought you were dead,” he breathed out and she came to the conclusion that she doesn’t like that look on his face. “With that thing over you and you were so still,” he continued and he’s still looking at her like she might die any second.

“Get a grip,” is all she told him and it’s worth it because he barked a laugh and it felt like they were back in her navigation room bantering with each other.

“You’re a mess,” he said bluntly and they’re falling back into their normal routine, so she decided not to take offense. His gaze does a circuit around her face, shoulder and side.

“You too,” she joked and although it wasn’t funny, she laughed lightly. Whether it was because she was alive, or he was or that this wasn’t hell after all. Maybe it was all of it.

He didn’t laugh back; the mood dropping suddenly, and she knew it was because he was feeling guilty. That this should’ve been him, not her.

Her hand cupped his jaw and her thumb’s running along the seam of the plaster over his eye. “You’ve done enough, have to do my part too, right?”

His expression instantly told her he doesn’t agree with that sentiment but before he can respond, Luffy’s next to them again.

“We gotta go,” Luffy said, breaking them apart and he’s throwing his empty blow torch down as the black puddle down the hall started to slowly reform. “You can make kissy faces when we’re in the ship.”

Nami spluttered angrily, embarrassed but Zoro just nodded and his hands are under her armpits then to help her stand. She cringed as she jarred her shoulder and pain lanced through her body. Its yet to stop bleeding and if she’s not careful, her orange suit is going to start rivalling Luffy’s red one.

“Put pressure on your shoulder,” Zoro said and she’s being scooped up to sit at his hip again, the wound at her waist facing outward so it’s not angered.

She’s giving him a funny look before cringing as she tried to clamp her hand over the wound on the shoulder that felt like it suddenly had a pulse. Zoro understood what she meant and answered, “Chopper’s lectured me enough, some of it had to sink in.” His free hand smothered over hers to press down on the wound and she’s borrowing her face into his neck at the pain. She almost doesn’t know what to do with herself. He muttered a “sorry” lowly but didn’t let up.

“Luffy, I’m changing my vote, Morph is a stupid name. I’m siding with Robin,” she murmured, exhausted as the adrenaline started to wear off and in need of a distraction herself from her wounds and the monster that was after them.

Luffy laughed brightly as he ran next to Zoro, no doubt happy to see her alive and arguing again. He tried to dispute her change of confidence, but she refused to hear any of it.

Behind them there’s an angry screech, it’s far off into the distance and when Nami looked behind them, there’s nothing there. It’s odd but she couldn’t give a damn right now.

Instead she’s asking, “Where is everyone?”

“On the ship, waiting for us. Franky’s getting everything ready so as soon as we’re there we can go,” Luffy answered.  

“Curly cook said we’re not allowed on if we don’t come back with you alive.” Zoro’s doing his best to stop his jog from jostling her too much. It’s thoughtful but honestly doesn’t do very much.

She snorted. “I’m super tough, doesn’t he know?” It’s meant to be a joke because honestly, look at the state of her, but Zoro and Luffy only look at her with pride.

“You did really well,” Zoro murmured and his hand under her supporting her squeezed in reassurance.

The rest of the run to the cafeteria was uneventful and they should probably be questioning that but Nami’s too exhausted to bring it up. She’s hungry, in pain and bleeding. All she wanted to do was lay down and sleep.

As soon as they enter the cafeteria, the crew’s there waiting for them just before the small hallway that’d take them to the emergency ship and their faces shift from anxious to relieved.

It’s a short-lived celebration when the vent at the bottom of the cafeteria exploded open and black sludge poured out.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, doesn’t it know when to give up?” Zoro griped and his grip on her tightened.

They’re being ushered then down the small hallway and onto the emergency ship. Franky and Robin are at the front getting ready to leave and Chopper’s flitting around Nami, working quickly to staunch the bleeding. She wondered just how bad she must look when he didn’t immediately panic at first.

They’re watching as from the outside the black sludge was slowly growing bigger as it reformed, and she wondered if Luffy’s previous bombardment of fire had worn it down.

There’s an explosion in the distance that rocked the ship. Not only has that thing found them, but the reactor it sabotaged earlier has finally packed in.

They’re out of time.

“Uhh, Franky, we gotta go. Now,” Sanji warned as he stood at the back door with Luffy beside him and Zoro left her side then to stand with them just in case.

“I’m moving as quickly as I can!” And it’s true, Franky’s hands are furiously flicking switches and pushing buttons as quickly as he could with Robin co-piloting next to him.

Usopp’s down by her feet tinkering with something and Nami almost wanted to scold him that this wasn’t the time for that, but then her eye caught the ripped up top and fluid-filled bottle.

“Are you making a gasoline bomb?” Nami tiredly asked, her head lolled to the side to watch to distract away from the pain as Chopper worked on her shoulder.

“Yeah!” Usopp said proudly. “I started working on it when we were waiting for you three, y’know, in case.” His hands are quickly working as he soaked the top in alcohol (Zoro wouldn’t be happy about that later) and plugged it into the bottle.

“Franky,” Zoro barked.

“I need another minute! Stall!” Franky barked back.

When Nami looked outside she could see why Zoro and Sanji were panicking, Selkie’s almost fully reformed (Nope, not even Selkie’s the right fit). There’s still hints of different suit colours on its body, around the mouths (Nami shuddered to herself), but it doesn’t bother standing on its feet now, instead using the tentacles and long black nails slide out of its hands. She had no idea how something without a face looked enraged and furious, but it did as it screeched.

There’s a commotion at the door as Zoro stepped out, he’d pushed Luffy and Sanji out of the way and was trying to close the door behind him. Nami tried to get up too, but Chopper’s there to push her back down and it doesn’t take much to keep her down.

“Just go,” Zoro shouted, taking a step out of the ships door and facing the monster that’s only advancing by the second in front of him.

“If anyone’s going to be the knight in shining armour, it’s me!” Sanji exclaimed, puffing out his chest to stalk towards the door. Brook just managed to snag his suit to pull him back in.

Luffy’s frowning and Nami knows it’s because he’s not going to let anyone be left behind. Usopp’s calling towards Luffy as he was making his way to the door with instructions to get him inside and duck on his command. Sanji instantly stopped struggling as he pieced it together.  

Not a moment later, Luffy’s wrestling Zoro into the ship as he’s shouting at him and honestly, it’s an amusing sight. Zoro who’s almost twice Luffy’s size being overpowered so easily.

As soon as they’re inside, Usopp’s shouting, “Duck!” and they’re both hitting the floor as Usopp’s lighting the gasoline bomb.

Usopp threw it just as that thing made it to the top of the small hallway and the glass shattered on impact, gasoline spreading over its skin and it’s reeling back as it caught alight, its screeching was almost deafening.

“Close the door!”

Sanji snapped the door shut and then the little ship was blasting off. If the monster hadn’t been hurt enough by Usopp’s gasoline bomb, then it certainly was by the flames that erupted from the back of the ship.

Everybody paused what they were doing, even Chopper had stilled, and watched in silence as they slowly drifted away from their ship. The left side of the ship was slowly melting away as the reactor exploded in on itself and it wouldn’t be long until nothing was left of it.

Nami wasn’t sure how to feel. They’d all escaped with their lives, so this should be classed as a win, but it somehow felt like a loss as she watched her home slowly destroy itself. A few tears were threatening to bubble over at the sight, but she didn’t dare look over at Usopp or Franky.

The feeling was chased away when Zoro sat down next to her, taking her hand and squeezed it.

…

“I still like the name Morph.”

Usopp slapped Luffy.

------------------------------------------

Huge respect for Oda, I hated juggling just 9 characters and he does it with an even bigger cast.

Also, sorry if anyone’s disappointed that there’s no deaths or a ‘real’ imposter. I’m weak. I want happy endings always and I can’t do that if I kill off parts of the straw-fam.

As always, please excuse any errors- especially as I rushed to get this done in time.

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!

[askaceattorney]

Dear Anonymous,

That’s probably because the maker of Inga’s sprites requested that they keep the link to them a secret.  I doubt we’ll ever use his gun sprites in a letter though, so here are the talking and non-talking ones:

(Link in Letter)

Dear Anonymous,

That's an interesting theory, all right, but I doubt it would hold up in court (either in the Ace Attorney universe or the real world).  Either way, from what I remember, it seems to like the game tried to make it clear that he was the culprit behind Manov’s death, completely for the sake of revenge.  Even if he didn’t, the guy clearly has some anger to work out, so hopefully a prison sentence will do him some good.  That’s my less-hot take, anyway.

Dear Anonymous,

Clever, but I doubt puppy eyes are enough to sway His Honor’s opinion.  Heck, I doubt he even knows an iPhone from a Gameboy Color.

(Previous Letter)

Dear trearoos,

Rrroooo got it!  That’s a line from Bubs, by the way.  I can’t remember where he said it, though...  Think you could help a fellow Homestar fan out?

Dear skibot99, 

I’ll do my best at answering, though.  I like to think of ask blogs as a way to “fill in the blanks” by showing what characters are like when they aren’t fulfilling their role in their game, movie, book, etc.  For example, what’s Sonic like when he isn’t busy thwarting Dr. Eggman’s plans, what’s Donkey Kong like when things are peaceful on his island, and what’s Henry Stickmin like when things are (ahem) normal in his world?  And if the character happens to be a silent protagonist (ex. Mario, Link, Kirby, etc.), that’ll give you even more blanks to fill in, which makes it more challenging, but also more fun.

So, the key ingredients for an ask blog are a deep love and knowledge of the series your character(s) are from and a good imagination.  If you know what your characters are like in their series and can fill in the rest with your imagination, it’ll be easy for your followers to go along with the illusion that they’re really talking to people from a fictional universe, which should be your main goal, aside from just having fun with it.  As long as you can make it convincing and fun, there’s no real right or wrong way to do it.

I don’t know very much about the Kingdom Hearts series, but I assume there aren’t any sprites you can grab from a resource page, so you’d either have to make drawings of the characters, find some still images, or clip some from gameplay videos (or even make gifs from them if you’re feeling up to it).  It might take some work to get it the way you want it, but like a lot of things, it gets easier over time.  And in my experience, the best source of motivation is your love for the series and its fandom, so keep that in mind if it starts getting burdensome.  I hope that helps!

(Previous Post)

Dear starry-nightengale,

It was an announcement so much as something that wasn’t announced.  That letter was in reference to TGS 2020, which, unless I missed something, didn’t mention a new entry in the Ace Attorney series.  That may not be solid proof that it’s reached the end, but that’s what it’s beginning to look like.

But, as I mentioned before, the fandom’s nowhere near dying, so that’s good news, at least.

Dear Anonymous,

It’s an interesting idea, but I can’t say I feel the same way (and not just because I’m a closet Justicykes shipper).  Besides their considerable age gap, I see their relationship as more of a big-brother-and-little-sister one.  Whether they’re on the same side or opposing each other, Simon can’t seem to resist the opportunity to tease Athena, but he also knows how to provide help whenever she needs it.  In his own way, at least.

I also have a hard time picturing Simon in a romantic relationship with anyone, to be honest.  I’m not saying it’s impossible, but any hopeful candidate would have to put up with his moodiness, his twisted humor, and his equally moody feathered friend.  I’m sure there might be someone out there who can deal with all that, but finding them would be a big challenge, to say the least.

Dear clowncomputing2,

Not at the moment, unfortunately.  I don’t know about the other Mods, but I haven’t watched the anime, and even if I had, making sprites from it would be a bit tricky.  Perhaps that’ll happen somewhere down the road, but for now, characters and cases from the anime are off limits.  Sorry.

Dear Anonymous,

Youse talkin’ to me!?

Dear skibot99 again,

For me, it’d have to be Tahrust Inmee.  That might seem unfair, considering his murder was that of himself, but let’s not forget that he was willing to let an innocent woman and her lawyer lose their lives in order to hide the truth.  Normally, this would be enough to give me an overall negative view of a character, but his motive was to protect his wife and unborn child from certain death.  That may not excuse his actions, but it did put him between a rock and a hard place.  I’m honestly not sure what I would be tempted to do in his situation, but I know it’d be a difficult decision.

I definitely feel for Yanni Yogi, too, but we weren’t given as many details about his past, plus his only motive was revenge, so my sympathy for him isn’t quite as strong.  While we’re talking about tragic culprits, I should also mention Simon Keyes, who “was himself a victim,” as Edgeworth worded it, as well as the almost-killer Katherine Hall, who just wanted to find whoever was responsible for her adopted father’s unjust prison sentence.  Not to mention the overload of remorse she displayed afterward.

(Previous Letter)

Dear trearoos again,

Yep, I’ve been a fan of the Henry Stickmin series since Infiltrating the Airship.  I’ve been meaning to buy the collection, but haven’t made the time for it just yet.  I’m looking forward to seeing all the fails.

In the meantime, here’s some distraction for you:

Dear mungeondaster,

Not yet, but I like what I’ve seen of it...which mostly just includes the blooper reel (Strong Language Warning).  Your description of it makes it sound even more enticing, so maybe I'll get around to it soon.  I've been aching to give something a Co-Mod Seal of Approval lately, anyway.

-The Co-Mod

[earthnashes]

LAST OF UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!

I started playing the very second it was made available to play and just finished it last night at like 4 in the morning. And of course it destroyed me. I love this series man so much man. ;w;

SO! I don’t usually do this but I’m like, fuckin’ dyin’ to talk about it a lil bit so if ya have plans to play it, SPOILERS BELOW THE CUT. <:

-Aight so lemme just say right off the bat that this game is fucking. Gorgeous. The environments, lighting, visual design, the level design, everything was spot on. And don’t get me started on the CHARACTER MODELS. AND ANIMATION. Like bro that shit was lifelike in not just appearance, the characters emoted and carried themselves with so much life they felt legitimately real. They were all so unique too; characters had unique special ticks to just them (Like Ellie pinching her fingers when nervous or upset, or Joel standing taller and squaring himself when talking about hard subjects like he’s bracing himself for it, or Jesse giving his stunted headtilt when he talks) and expressed in a way that was just. Bruh. Aight I’mma stop but fuckin hell what they pull off with the characters in specific in LoU (both part 1 and 2) is just somethin’ outta this world.

-For anyone interested in playing it, the game is roughly 22-30 hours long if you’re just focused on the story, and much longer still if you take the time to explore and find all the little secrets. Some secrets include unique cutscenes and dialogue that are well worth the look; I haven’t found all of ‘em yet but I’m considering trying a completionist playthrough.

-Joel’s death fucking destroyed me. I’m in no way surprised he died, but it hurt regardless, just how quickly things went south for him and Tommy there. And ELLIE. FINDING HIM AND WATCHING HIM GET REKT WAS PAIN INCARNATE. Set the tone hella hard and I’m fuckin’ here for it.

-I’m not gonna lie I fully expected to dislike Abby given she rekt Joel, even though I figured it was for a pretty good reason before it was revealed her pops was the doc Joel killed. But damn. I really enjoyed Abby, a lot actually. From a gameplay standpoint I dare say I enjoyed her section more than Ellie’s since you were BLASTING ENEMIES with those fuckin’ GUNS of hers. And by guns I mean her arms’, jesus she was shredded. As a character, she felt a lot like Ellie from a different perspective and mindset, and I really appreciated the reflection the two of them had. Two sides of the same coin, basically. Also I really, really liked how killin’ Joel brought absolutely no peace to Abby at all, and you caught her beginning to regret it. And it kinda sorta acted as the catalyst to her shift in how she viewed the world. I think that’s a good portion why she latched onto Yara and Lev so hard. Perspective is everything, and there is always more than just one side of a story.

-In the same vein I had a blast learning more about Abby’s friend group, dynamics, how she lived, who she worked for and her past and everything. Of them all I think I liked Nora the most, but Mel and Manny were both reaaaalll close seconds. O:

-Speaking of, DOGS. DOGS DOGS DOGS. So many dogs man and you got to play with and pet them! Fuck yeah. That should be a rule in gaming; if you have a cat or a dog in the game, you should have a button to pet it. Also good gorl Alice is best doggy don’t fight me on this. uwu

-Jesse and Dina were the beez knees I fuckin loved them man. They were exactly the sort of folks I can see Ellie being best friends with. ALSO, this one isn’t major, but I really appreciated that there was no love-triangle here? Dina and Jesse dated, smashed, didn’t work out but they still remained good friends. Ellie’s first reaction to seeing Jesse is to confess that she and Dina kissed, and Jesse readily accepted the fact that Dina moved on (and he had too). It’s just refreshing. No bullshit love triangle there, just three people who really understood each other. Also jesus christ, I really didn’t want Jesse to die. Goddamnit. But I’m so glad they didn’t kill Dina too like, I was fully prepared to see her get fucked up. Base rule of LoU: anyone you like has a high probability of dying. ;w;

-BRO THINKING OF JESSE, ELLIE, AND DINA MADE ME REALIZE THE PARALLEL OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO MEL, ABBY, AND OWEN. Ellie’s triangle was essentially non-existent; no feelings of betrayal or anger, just understanding and love, like there was a deep-seated bond here that would weather anything. If Jesse had lived, I wouldn’t doubt he, Ellie, and Dina would have lived together to raise the baby together. Meanwhile Abby’s triangle had Owen seeming to unable to let go of the past he and Abby had together, that poor bastard was still in love with her, and how that supplemented the slow deterioration of all three’s friendship. I was sad to see Mel turn on Abby the way she did but like. I mean.  Dude was ready to leave Mel in the dust for Abby despite HIM GETTING MEL PREGNANT. Abby also kinda did drag everyone into this, even if it was of their own violation. Oof. Though it did feel like she was angry at both Abby and Owen equally, not just blaming Abby for everything there... or at least the romantic relationship part. Honestly probably one of the few times I actually enjoyed a love triangle in a story, or at least of this caliber.

-Isaac, the leader of the WLF? He was cool as fuck. I love how much character they packed into him without even showing him too much. Like there was a scene where Nora mentions she tried to question Isaac about Owen and she said “he gave her that fucking look and told her to drop it”. Hell, when he was talking to Abby, he isn’t that much taller than her but he felt like he outright dwarfed her with the way he carried himself and how they reacted to him. I love shit like that man. But anyway fuck Isaac. uwu

-Not gonna lie I kinda wish I got to see the leader of the Seraphites, but it was hella cool to learn that she had been dead already and how the Seraphites operated with and without her. I don’t think I found everything regarding that specific point in game, but it sounded a lot like a peaceful religious leader who’s words and teachings were twisted to suit the goals of corrupt members of the tribe. She was essentially an equivalent to Jesus, at least to the Seraphites.

-I honestly really loved all of the characters introduced but I have to admit that Lev and Yara were standouts. Yara’s one hell of a big sister, lemme tell you, and the lengths she went through to make sure Lev was safe really shooketh me. AND LEV. MY CHILD. MY SON. To those of you who are familiar with the LGBT+ controversy around the game, he and Ellie are what people are complaining about. Ellie because she’s gay, Lev because he’s trans.

Lev in particular was heartbreaking. His tribe were outright hunting him for who he was, as well as Yara because she chose to protect him. The mindset the tribe had was pretty much isolated to them though.

And jesus. That scene with him and his mother? Fuck.

-YARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA :( BRUH that scene pissed me off, fuck you Isaac, you bastard.

-THE SCENE. WHEN YOU PLAY AS ABBY. AND YOU FIGHT ELLIE. WAS SO FUCKING COOL. AND SCARY. Ellie man, that section really showed how efficient and smart she is. She legit tricked me a few times not gonna lie, like I thought she didn’t see me but she’d pretend she wouldn’t, only to ambush me with a FUCKING MOLY. Also the fact that the game outright says “hey uhhhhh you can’t actually take her head on, she’ll fuck you up in a heartbeat bro”. Welp. A really strange mix of horror and sadness and pride there. Hm. :/

-Mom!Ellie was so fucking sweet to see. And it made me catch a glimpse of hope that Ellie actively tried to soldier through for her fam’s sake. But she clearly had demons she had to confront and I’m angry at Tommy for disrupting her and Dina’s life, but it felt necessary. Still made me sick to my stomach to watch her go after Dina fucking BEGS HER TO STAY. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

-Speaking of Tommy, it was so sad to see how much he fell after Joel’s death. It really showed just how much he was like his brother though; underneath a gentle man is someone you best not trifle with, and is very familiar with doing horrific things to reach a goal. Because fuckin hell, Tommy is legit a badass. That sniper part was SO. COOL. Aaaaand terrifying. RIP Manny. :/

-Bro, I’m very curious to see more about the Rattlers but. They were fucked up in a special kind of way. There’s no telling what they did to those people they captured and enslaved. Seeing Abby in the state she was in after seeing her throughout all the game in tip-top shape was painful. That poor girl was literally skin and bones and... just beaten down.

-ELLIE AND ABBY’S FINAL FIGHT WAS SO SAD. I HATED (but I loved) EVERY SECOND OF IT. I was so scared Ellie had fully lost herself there, when she threatens an unconscious Lev to force Abby to fight, who at that point, very clearly didn’t want to. Honestly. Ellie clearly didn’t either, far as I could tell, but it felt like it was the only way she knew how to confront everything. Fight it, until you kill it, or you die. It also felt like Abby understood that since she was in Ellie’s shoes once upon a time.

-I don’t care what anyone else says I’m so happy Ellie let Abby go. I’m so glad she chose not to go through with it. For so long Ellie has been angry and resentful about a lot of things, and she never got a choice once throughout the majority of her journey. As much as I will 100% agree with Joel sayin “fuck this supposed cure, fuck the Fireflies”, it’s not fair of him, or the Fireflies, to just outright take that choice from her, that she didn’t really have one to begin with. She was justifiably angry with Joel and the moment she chooses to try and forgive him, he dies. Another choice stolen away from her. The fact that she chose mercy despite everything, and it was prompted by a memory of Joel, the very reason she was doing this, is profound to me. Like she finally understood why he did what he did, and why he said he’d absolutely do it all over again. Hell, she probably even reached the understanding that her and Abby really aren’t that different from one another in that aspect.

-Ellie returning to an empty home, with Dina and JJ gone, was heartwrenching. I fully understand why Dina left and she honestly had every right to, but it still hurt man. :C AND ELLIE. PLAYING THE SONG JOEL MADE/SUNG FOR HER. ALWAYS KILLED ME. But this instance in particular was something else man like fuck I balled like a baby. Especially when it was followed by the fact that Ellie and Joel were on the cusp of mending their broken relationship only for it to be ripped away man. Goddamnit.

-ELLIE AND JOEL DUET NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. FUCKIN HELL I love this game.

-----------------------------------------

So, this isn’t really a review more than it is me just sharing some of my thoughts on the game, but if ya want me to give it a rating? 10/10. If not a perfect score? At least a 9/10.

The Last Of Us as a series is one that’s moved me more than any other game I can think of honestly (outside of Telltale’s The Walking Dead), and just like the first one, LoU2 left me thinking about it for hours after. It’s thought-provoking, it’s compelling, it’s fun as fuck, aaaaand it’s made me cry like a baby a good number of times. I also really appreciate the fact that, in this game, they actually show the consequences of your actions. Like, they made you consider the fact that you aren’t just killing grunts to get to the next enemy or mowing through mindless drones. You’re killing people, who have lives, and friends, and families.

We got to see Joel for who he was: a very broken man, with a very dark past, who has done very horrible things in this shitty post apocalyptic world, but he is a father, and protective, and loving and thoughtful, who will do anything, anything, to protect Ellie. Blood or not, Ellie is through and through his child. But Abby only saw a monster, and could you blame her? He killed her father, and countless others, and she never got the full story. Just that a man came in and killed the entire hospital, put an end to even the smallest possibility of finding a cure, killed her dad in cold blood, and walked away no problem. And then it cycles right back to Ellie, where Abby becomes her monster.

It’s just some grade-A storytelling as far as I’m concerned, and I’m someone who usually prefers happy endings. LoU always leaves me feeling bittersweet but goddamn do I love this series. I’m kinda hoping for a DLC, to be honest? Like LoU part one, where you found out about Ellie and Riley. I wanna see what happens to Ellie; I get the distinct feeling she returns to Jackson and hopefully scrounges out some semblance of a decent life there, after confronting Tommy and (hopefully) making peace with Dina. But we’ll see! uwu

[reviewer-bot32]

Just for the heck of it, I’ve decided to post my favorite ships on my blog, in case anyone cares. :P

Pearlshipping: I can’t say I’m much of a Pokemon fan, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Gen 4. It was a game I grew up with and was my introduction to RPG gameplay. I got into the anime a few years ago when I tried to binge it all. I gave up. However, since then I have watched the entire diamond and pearl saga and I just really love these two. I think the anime did a good job of balancing out their focus and having them share the spotlight. I’m currently doing a watch through of the subbed version and I would definitely recommend it as the superior. Not really for shipping reasons, I just think things come across a lot more natural sounding. In any case, I’m glad I got to see these two grow and support each other.

Dipcifica: My story in this case is the standard one. I didn’t expect it and it had me pleasantly surprised. I loved it’s irony in the context of everything that came before and I was bummed that it wasn’t followed up on in the series proper. I guess I can say that I wasn’t expecting a substantial payoff, simply because I got into Gravity Falls very late in the game (I watched for the first time during the wait for the finale). I will say that I’ve been kind of frustrated that this happened at all. As much as I love this ship, it does bother me that it has all this untapped potential that was brought to our attention only once, and than it presents a much more interesting arc than Dipper’s crush on Wendy. Heck, having it happen after all the stuff with is also a missed opportunity. How much more interesting would it have been to have this dynamic juxtaposed with Dipper’s hopeless crush on Wendy. Something that presents him with a genuine romantic connection against his superficial romantic feelings for Wendy, which only harms his, already, genuine connection with her.

...okay. I think that’s enough rambling. Let’s just move on.

Starco: Oh boy, this one is... complicated. I feel like everyone know that at this point. I’ll start by saying that I stopped watching Star vs. the Forces of Evil shortly after Battle for Mewni. In fact, I’ll tell you I stopped right in the middle of the episode Club Snubbed. I don’t want to knock anyone who likes the direction the show went in, but when I realized the direction they were going, I stopped watching. I knew that, despite the obvious endgame, Starco wasn’t going to happen until the show concluded. Now, I have kept up with what happened on the show, through tumblr, just to make that clear, I’m not completely clueless as to how everything goes down. But, let’s try to keep things focused on what bothered me. First off, I’m someone who wants to see more romance in stories, what I’m tired of, is romantic arcs. To me, it comes off as if the writers are too afraid to actually bring up discussion about romantic relationships. And in this case, Star and Marco relationship, romantic or otherwise, was the emotional core of the first two seasons. That was what the show expected us to care about above anything else, the heavier plot was relegated to other characters, with Star and Marco only intervening on the occasion. Season 3 felt like it was telling me that the plot was what I should have been paying attention to this whole time, even though the main characters are only heavily involved now, and all the plot stuff I did care about was resolved in Battle for Mewni. Now, even Star and Marco’s dynamic is being thrown to the wayside, so what do I have left to care about? 

Now, I’ve done all my ranting, let’s try to say some positive stuff about this one. Honestly I find it very similar to Pearlshipping, in that throughout seasons 1 and 2 I thought that the focus was balanced out between the two of them really well. Also, while I had seen this character dynamic play out in Gravity Falls and Wander Over Yonder, I was really interested to see it in a potentially romantic context. So, in the end, this had a lot going for it. And I will definitely commend the show for making me care so much in the first place.

Jesslake: This one is relatively new, even though its whole story has been told. I don’t have a lot to say on this one, I just find it cut and wholesome. I will bring up that this one beats all the others in terms of being interpretive. The Infinity Train crew did a masterful job at keeping it vague enough that the romantic potential isn’t intrusive to those who don’t want to see things in that context. Hat’s off to them.

And, for the sake of having a fifth...

These four: All of them, they transcend all other relationships and I love them all.

[kyu-bri]

Magia Rapport pt 2

@magiarapport​

August 24th prompt: What was your favorite event, and why? Is it because of gameplay or the story?

It’s hard to choose so I’m gonna just, gush a bit.

As you can probably tell I’m very biased toward the OG girls, I started Magia Record primarily because PMMM had become my new obsession and I wanted some sort of constant flow of content out of decade old anime lmao.

But another thing I think I hooked onto was Inu Curry’s writing. They really know Madoka Magica and aren’t afraid to really play with them- something the writers for a spin-off gacha game (as with most spin-off stories honestly) can be scared to do. Inu Curry made references, revealed secrets and built upon the story we already know- which lets be honest is what we always truly want from a spin-off series. Magia Record proper does this well by putting more magical girls into the world and letting us see things work out better for them than for the original cast, but what I really appreciated with this story was getting to see that old original cast get to get in on that, and these events managed to do that without watering them down any.

Under the cut is me going on for 3000 words about why I love these three events I’m so sorry. TL;DR at the very end-

I’ll go in release order,

A La Carte Valentine was one of the first if not THE first event I got in on. I was eager to bc 1 Gay Magical Girl Shit Guaranteed. And ofc 2 OG Cast participation.

I want to preface by saying I actually loved all the girls’ stories in this. I was very much still in a state of getting used to Iroha’s gang let alone trying to care about the secondary girls. I knew Tsukasa had this angsty Twins Separated At Birth Deal and liked seeing her home life (also I immediantly stanned Take. Regular well-meaning dude who has no idea whats going on just trying his best and hating his boss). I knew nothing about Ami except Cowgirl Meguca and getting the bulk of her personality in one short even I think really kept me from being absolutely sick of her, she’s just a cute silly teenage girl who could be in literally anything and I was able to just endearingly giggle at that. Hinano managed to do the heterosexual unrequited crush cliché without me groaning or missing any of her regular personality. Also was there a Ren part? I don’t remember because everything Ren does feels like a Soft Yuri Valentines Special. Also I love Momoko. Ok moving on to what I Really wanna talk about.

Madoka is genuinely my Least Cared About of the Holy Sextet. I don’t think she’s bad or even boring- Madoka has a depth to her character, like, really deep- but that’s not something ever really touched upon by the fandom. Even when people like her and make her the Heroine she’s Supposed to be, it’s usually in the context of “Girl who feels nothing but kindness and happy thoughts would cut off her right hand to feed to a hungry dog. Isn’t she so Good????”. And honestly, while I understand the point it was going to make, I wasn’t crazy about her sacrifice in the end of the series. (Team Homura “Rebellion Is Good Actually” ftw) All because I think that I’m an Adult Woman watching this like “You are 14yrs old and need to be home playing Sims and not sacrificing yourself for the greater good you stupid silly little baby girl”

So my point is here near all fan content I encounter tends to emphasize whats sort of my least favorite facet of Madoka. I don’t think she made the ‘wrong’ decision in the context she and the story were given, but it’s still a sad thing to show a depressed(!!!) insecure girl resolving to give away her very existence so that every other girl on earth has a chance to just Dream. Oh and they still usually die young. But that’s ok because then she takes them and lets them sleep peacefully forever in her Heaven Basement (Yes I am bitter stan Homura I would yank this savior complex infant girl out the sky too)

MY POINT BEING (The servers closing let me BLEED OUT ALL MY FEELINGS) This event did not do that!!! It made Madoka…….. EVERYTHING SHE SHOULD BE??? ALWAYS??? Showed her HOW WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO VIEW HER??? (Read: Happy and Alive and Confident at no foreboding or sacrifice of anyone else!!!!)

She is Sassy and Surrounded By Friends and Really Funny??? And we get this Ridiculous Oh My God On Crack metaphor about her being this all-powerful apocalypse bringing being which is representing her love for the universe through her Witch form of Wanting Everyone To Be Happy And Safe With Her??? And she still risks herself to save everyone as is her Thing to do but we get to have her do it without erasing her existence as a human being at the end and if that is not some GOOD SHIT????

Ok next:

NGL Sayaka’s (fav character, inarguable best girl, can u not tell) parts in MagiReco til like the last arc have always left me a bit disappointed. She was the only late comer of the OG girls from what I understand and it kind of gives her the air of what a lot of the second(/thirdary?) girls suffer from. You can tell the writers can’t even figure out a trope to apply her to to make her easy and two dimensional to write about so they just don’t know what to do. They definitely try to make up for it (especially in the anime which Praise Be but that’s probably Inu Currys doing) but she’s still lacking like, any of the depth of her personality. Which, I guess I could anticipate. Because most of the fandom tends to as well. (again)

Gonna stop complaining and get on with- That didn’t feel as much the case in her Valentine event. Sure it was still the same formula of “The Issue Is Kyosuke” but that didn’t play out as grueling as her personal story did with “Nine Episodes Of “The Issue Is Kyosuke””

There was one big glaring heart-aching detail of “Mami isn’t really there because SHES IN A FUCKING CULT RIGHT NOW” which kind of jarred the event out of the ho-hum silly valentines sidestory these events usually keep up.

Sayaka has this crisis about Doing Anything Meaningful With Kyosuke which we all know what That’s calling back to, but in this environment we get to have Kyoko come right up and be in a position with her to earnestly and affectionately Push Her To Do It. The lonely little tsundere bitch girl pushes her Not Friend to Give The Bastard The Gotdamn Chocolate Already and for a moment you can only think about What If’s and If Only’s. Sayaka’s is still the weakest of the threes stories in this event but it worked harder to show us different sides of the characters then 6 chapters of Another Story managed to do.

And then there’s fucking Homura.

I will be, eternally grateful for Kuro. As a character that becomes metaphorical for the 2D ways we initially viewed the feathers and just NPCs in games in general, and also like, giving Homura a friend she actually cares about that isn’t the tangled dark web of Bullshit she’s gotten tied up with Madoka in. Please ask me about all my AU’s where Kuro is Homuras first girlfriend.

Seeing Moemura in Magia Record has always been a bit surreal, we never really understand just what stage of Trauma this Homura is in because Multiverses Are Hell, but this event gives us a good chunk of a Homura who still has hope and faith both in the world and Madoka. Theres this wonder to her that while still bogged down by terrible experiences still has the energy to be Trying. And she sees a girl who used to be like her- which when you think about it is probably what Madoka saw in her- and she wants to help. Because Madoka helped her. And Madoka is the best thing in the universe and maybe Homura can be just a little bit closer to that.

Kuro is too far gone though, as is the reality frequently in this series, things don’t work out just because of circumstance. Kuro was a bullied, insecure little girl who realistically shouldn’t have had to become a rampaging monster because of it. We’re reminded of this being the reality of the Madoka universe. Homura, is reminded of this reality. Homura loses this one chance to bring hope into the world like Madoka brought hope into hers.

And then her story ties into the ending of Madoka’s. Madoka saves her life yet again, even as Homura continues to feel miserable and empty. But at least Madoka is with her. The girls then share a quiet, intimate Valentines together. And you sort of understand how Homura fell so far into the darkness that the only thing she was able to still care about and fight for was Madoka’s safety.

That shit slaps. It slaps you right in the heart and causes fucking bruising but then u want it to do it again because you’re masochistic and Meguca Is Suffering.

Anyway I hope Kuroe slaps our hearts more in season2

MOVING ON!!!!

~Nagisa’s Wish~

Ok, I don’t remember what got me so simp over Nagisa, I think it was the heart-aching irony that Mami adopts the witch that fucking ate her. But that is my baby now and I’d die for her. Fandom Charlotte whose pink and silly and loves her mom and is Mami’s cancer-riddled girlfriend is cool and all but she isn’t a tiny Halloweeny baby whose fucking bitter angry and manically obsessed with cheese due to PTSD.

I had saw a summary of Nagisa’s Wish reposted just to quickly explain Nagisa’s backstory, and as such immediately had to search out if that crazy ride was true- so I actually watched this whole event probably before I downloaded the game. It was surreal on its own but replaying it when it came to NA didn’t lessen it any- I got to process more of what I was witnessing and as result stanned Yu pretty hard.

I guess to explain my Emotions here, saving Yu for later- calls for me to just, describe who Nagisa is as a human being and my headcanons surrounding it all with what this event gave us. Whether you consider it canon or not it’s one version of events that we were given and that I am all for accepting.

Nagisa’s Mom was a celebrity, she could have been an actress though I also like the idea of her being an Idol. She met Nagisa’s Dad oh-so romantically and got knocked up- they very well could have been married but it doesn’t seem clear enough. He seems to have left too suddenly for legal matters like that. Nagisa is approximately 11, and while she seems to remember her Father, she doesn’t in the sense of having had a relationship with him or any feelings. Her Mother has to “explain” why he left, so Nagisa was probably still young even if not a baby. What I’m getting at here is the timeline for when Nagisa’s Mom Got Like That. Nagisa can remember her from before she was, and then says that she got sick after her Dad left. So what I’m wondering is did Daddy Momoe ruin this young rich girls life, give her syphilis and then leave her with a baby she was unfit to care for in poverty? I know half of this is running on anime logic but Holy Shit all the possible ways reasons and ideas for why things could’ve gotten This Bad.

Is it ridiculously dark and edgy that the original story we were given was “Girl wishes her dying mother could have her favorite cake but then realizes OOPSIE-DAISY I could have wished for her to Not Die instead!!!!” got turned into “11yr old hates her abusive mother so much she wants to make her suffer in the most symbolic way she can and then goes mental when she isn’t able to do it”??? Yes. But if I had the mental capacity to I have to admit I was in a position to be just as bitter at that age too. I can’t call it unrealistic. I may infact be projecting hard with how much I support and enjoy this backstory.

Anyway Nagisa was in such a state of trauma and distress at a horrifically young age when she died that it broke her mental faculties so severely that even when she came back as a literal Angel of God she had blocked it out so deeply and thoroughly she seemingly regressed to an even younger capacity and hyperfixated on the trait that she has before used to try to bond with her Mother who she had died hating.

And that also slaps u right in the heart.

A N D T H E N !

~Beachside Bonds~

Just the simple structure of this story was so enjoyable and nicely done. We finally get to see the OG girls in a context we wouldn’t be able to in literally any other scenario. They’re going on a summer vacation together and Homura is sentimentally journaling every single second of it. Is this mayhaps because she’s never gotten to be this happy and blissful with these girls she loves so much??? Of course this is are you not paying attention what the fuck. Homura is so optimistic and healed and hopeful she’s acting like what she might actually be doing as a normal teenage girl. (A heartrending contrast to the end of her Valentines Special)

We get nothing short of pure fluffy Slice Of Life shenanigans on the beach which even includes a bunch of the Kamihama girls that the OG crew knows! And they talk about it! And introduce eachother! And their friends commentate on it! Ren gets to see Kyoko Not Being A Bitch and then Sayaka teases her about having made friends and oh my god my heart is turning into cottoncandy as we speak Mom holy FUCK

Sayaka’s existence fucking matters in this story! It’s her families Hotel they’re staying at and she has relationships and memories with the creepy twins that live there and she talks like a fucking person??? And gives opinions??? That aren’t just copypasted “Justice is Good and Bad things are BAD!!!!”

Mami is fresh out of her fucking Cult Drama and she’s still trying to be cool Senpai but then she DECKS Homura in the face and gets scared by the ghost stories and then turns into pudding and waxes nostalgia at Kyoko out of nowhere IT’S ALMOST LIKE SHE’S A FIFTEEN YEAR OLD GIRL????????

G H O S T S ? ? ? ?

Y U ! ? ! ? ! ? !

(IS G A Y ! ! ! !)

This whole fucking backstory and truly horrifying Romeo and Juliet on Acid love and death story between Yu and her girlfriend and like if I wasn’t fascinated enough by Yu just being the creepy organ harvester before but apparently thats what she became after she literally made some sort of wish that erased all of her memories besides the nickname her sweetheart used for her and coincidentally also added to her the task of killing all Bad People?????

Yu made a wish to be able to get rid of All Bad People preserving the innocent version of herself who grew up with this girl and it was right after a failed double suicide attempt on fucking Doomed Lovers Cliff fucking Lifetime Will You Ever.

It then pairs with Homura whose PTSD gets to shine through a bit in being unable to believe any bad sort of Madoka which how could you try to force her to at this point while Also pairing Homura with Ren in the “Gay Love Saved Our Lives: Traumatized vers & Vanilla vers”

I don’t remember if there was a symbolic finale and tbh I have forgotten a lot of the details with Yu and her girlfriend Whatsherface because that shit was just so shocking and bizarre to read and much too painful to reread in a timely fashion just.

That shit hurted but it was full of so much love and hope both doomed and stolen but still was wrapped up in the comforting concept that This Is The Universe Where Homura Gets To Be Okay This Time.

She’s still scarred beyond comprehension and this ghost drama accentuated it all but at the end of the day this is still the Safe Universe where all of them are alive and the Holy Quintet are friends and they’re all going to be okay (Godoka & Aniplex willing) and so many of us love Madoka Magica because it shows girls fighting through the same pain we’ve been through and keeping their hope alive and here we get to see them actually find peace in a clunkily written fanservicey spin-off mobile gacha game and hey, that made me happy while I got to experience it. Thanks for the ideas and memories and tragic backstories and funny thirdary characters MagiReco I’m gonna take em all and Run.

Akjsladbfalkjfsbslk If you read this all without getting a migraine or blocking me ily thanks for listening!!!!!!

TL;DR

Me likey A La Carte Valentine bc it’s silly and gay and I simp Kuro

Me likey Nagisa’s Wish bc sawft baby is good and so are Tragic Edgy Backstories

Me likey Beachside Bonds bc Gay Ghosts and Our Girls Finally Get To Be Happy Peaceful(ish) Teenage Girls and that’s all I want for them ;w;

Reeses In Pieces ya’ll

1Ten 2More 3Words 4To 5Hit 6(3000 7Words 8Woo 9Boy 10Howdy

[universal-kitty]

.: Day 1 - F/O February :.

Reverse Self-Ship: You are your F/O’s F/O!!

I’m from a video game series akin to an odd mix of Watch_Dogs and Grand Theft Auto. Things can get a little pervy, hijacking cars is involved, stealth and adventure abound...but so is a bunch of ridiculous, silly things, like a petting minigame that triggers randomly when interacting with my cat.

There’s a single-player mode focused on my background and meeting up with past friends or exes...and is story-based, allowing you to attack and kill them, befriend them again... All sorts of stuff.

Also, the option to adopt more cats and become a crazy cat lady...in spirit.

Shit, romance people if you want! Live life!

Marcus got Wrench (Reggie) the game as a birthday gift. It was mostly a joke, because Reg REALLY thought he wouldn’t like it....and what else do best friends do but give their bffs prank gifts?

Still, Marcus bought it for him new... So Reg boots it up and gives it a chance, anyways.

......holy shit, he actually likes this WAY more than he first thought he would.

First of all, he HATES animals; every one he’s ever met seems to hate him and hurt him, so he’s turned his back on animalkind. However, throughout the game, I’m NOTHING but kind to every animal and suspicious of every person I meet.... Some of which he understands completely. There are some ASSHOLES in this game!!

Also, the way I croon to my cat and get into baby talk... It’s so damn cute to him. Really makes him feel some kinda way, which he flushes over. (Haha, wow that’s embarrassing.)

The point is, he ends up hating animals a little less and starts loving cats a LOT more.

Actually had to put down the controller and walk away from the game when doing a dancing minigame. He could barely focus on the button commands with how cute I was being while doing the dances.

Proceeds to look up people who 100% the dances just so he can save them to his phone. Watch them whenever he wants.

Later deletes them, 100%s them on his own, and THEN saves them onto his phone. Is a lot more happy with them, cause they’re HIS gameplay videos and not someone else’s.

LOVES messing around with outfits. Someone on the staff was either a big fan of cats or just...made that my most out-there personality trait (second only to the games and show in my world that are obviously knock-offs of real-world games), but he’s not complaining. Running around in cat ears and a cat tail? So damn cute.

His personal favorites are the masks I have combined with the matching jackets; it makes me feel more relatable to him...but he’s a greedy man and always eventually takes them off so he can look at my face.

Has SO MANY PICTURES on Facebook of him playing this damn game. Marcus kinda thought he was pranking at first, but now the whole squad knows Reg is a bit of an addict.

They got him the other games on Christmas and he cried. Everyone was....kinda in awe.

Josh got him a t-shirt with my character on it that reads “Bee Paw-sitive~!” on it. He wears it a LOT.

He definitely started up a collection that rivaled....basically no one else in the fandom.

HATES seeing the fandom pairings. And since you can romance anyone due to my sexuality canonly being Panromantic...it’s frustrating.

(Well, he’s Bi, so some of the people he wouldn’t mind sharing with, yeah....but he’s specifically venomous over the people he’s SURE are my friends only. Or are/were super toxic to me in my past. So, so bitter that anyone likes those ships, but holds his tongue only bc he got a figurine of me doing some cutesy pose next to his monitor. It helps him keep his head.)

Literally has a savings account reserved for merchandise. If it exists, he wants to buy it. If it doesn’t, but someone’s commissions are open? He’s gonna buy it.

Has bought art, jumped on art-trades/requests to get MORE art of us together. Has two plushies of me, as well as a body pillow. Continues to seek more things.

Is honestly upset that my size is medium (and so he can’t wear my canonly fitted clothes), BUT that doesn’t stop him from owning a single shirt in my size AND getting items that mimic my wardrobe.

He likes to imagine we can match together....or I can wear HIS version of my fave shirts when mine are dirty~!

Is still debating getting a kitten. Until that day, cat plushes are among the only other plushes he has (aside from mine).

Weird as he felt about it, he later admitted to his friends that he....kinda felt romantically towards me? And was thinking about just being fictoromantic...

Josh was the first one to see no problem with it and fast. People can be hard to work with, so... You do you. (Reg then felt bad about bullying him so much....oop.)

Horatio was also quickly on board. “Hey man, they make you happy. If it helps, it helps.”

Marcus....was a little more confused, but got in the spirit of it, regardless. “man, if I knew you would’ve actually liked it, I woulda got it for you a lot sooner!! Have fun, man.”

Sitara doesn’t quite get it, but.... It sure explains why Reg kept pestering her to tag “Purrfect Anarchy” in certain places and commissioning her for stylized art of him with them.

T-Bone....kinda harasses him about it, but the group stands by Reg. Josh is pretty upset about it, though.

He also follows every piece of news and publicly shares it, after admitting to being ficto. LOTS more pictures like, “Cutie’s got good taste.” [selfie with him sticking out his tongue and wearing one of the replica shirts] “Dinner date with bae!” [screenshot of me looking at the screen of his laptop, dinner and candlelight between us]

Everyone rolled with it more and more over time, so now it’s entirely not uncommon for them to bribe Reg to do things by dragging me into it...

Sitara: Hey, you leaving? Wrench: ...yeah, why? Sitara: Can you get me a coffee while you’re out? Wrench: Wh-? Why should I get you-? Sitara: I bet Rachel would like you doing something like that, y’know. Wrench: .....That’s cruel. You’re cruel. Sitara: I know~! You know how I like it, thank you, and Rachel loves you. Wrench: [sputters audibly and shuffles out the door, muttering to himself, embarrassed]

They don’t do a LOT of crimes anymore, but... Definitely still fuck shit up w/ cops. Reg daydreams a shitton about a masked romance and the anarchy we could commit together... After all, I helped him be braver. So he could help me, too, and then..... So much glorious chaos. Maybe makeouts in his car...

Was literally the type to not give a SHIT about marriage or kids, but now nonstop thinks about our lives together. Anarchy and domestic lifestyle shit can coexist, right? We can be married, have our cute lil’ two story (three, if you count the attic AND a basement), and some kids.....and also go create anarchy and throw bricks at cop cars and cause so much damn trouble..... Right?

He’ll even get a CAT for our home. It’ll be our first kid and not only will he be SO COOL, but they’ll name her (yes, a girl) Princess Leia and I’ll probably cry in happiness!!

Reg is DETERMINED to be the best husband/boyfriend ever. Doesn’t matter which, cause whatever speed I’d like to go at? Hell yeah, he’s down for it. Just as long as he can still hold my hand and gush over how cute I am and-

Has gushed about me and my series before and WILL do so again, prompted or not.

Actually participated in the fandom a little. Mostly does reblogs and such, but has written a few stories (self-inserts are the majority), done some not too shabby art, and prides himself on being the BIGGEST fan of the series with all the merch he has AND commissions bought.

Made a select few friends who also are fans, but... Is constantly anxious about his self-shipping. Either that they might eventually think he’s weird, send more anon hate (he’s gotten some in the past for “being a creep”), or- worst yet- also self-ship with me and he’s still dealing with that idea.

Until then, he’s got a wedding ring he bought cheap at the jewelry section of some store, so.... Coping skills, babey.

[narutowtfareyoudoing]

do you stan anything else besides naruto? movies tv shows whatever?

So, I could go on for days about the shows and movies I love but I’ve tried to narrow it down to a list of 10 so I don’t bore anyone to death.  1) Lord Of The Rings. Hands down my favourite. I saw it in theaters when it came out and fell in love. I make a point to watch the entire extended version once a year and all of the behind the scenes. It’s like my happy place. It’s one of the few series that if you know me you will eventually watch with me.  2) The Rocky Horror Picture Show. This was the first movie I ever saw as a child and I adored growing up with it, the music is incredible and it definitely gave birth to my taste in men. I love going to theater productions and drive ins and parties around this movie. I feel like it really helps sum me up as a person that this was one of my favourite childhood films.  3) Firefly. Look I’m going to personally fist fight Joss Whedon for not making a second season after it got crowd funded. Firefly was incredible western sci-fi, it’s the only good western sci-fi. The story? Incredible, the acting? I love it, the fact their budget was like a few pennies and it was fantastic? Unfathomable. I read the comics, I loved the show, and I miss it and the fandom is dead and I could cry cause no one talks about it anymore.  4) Hannibal. The TV series, I could cry I’m so happy it came onto Netflix, I love that dramatic ass show. I can’t believe these characters in the best way possible. AND EVERYONE IS SO FUCKING HOT IN THIS SHOW. LORD SAVE ME. I’m a behind the scenes nerd so I love all the little details in this show. I love the fact I can watch this show over and over and find new details every time. BRING SEASON 4 YOU COWARDS 5) Supernatural. Look don’t judge me, I was like 10 when it came out and started watching it and I can’t help it. I love it. Though I haven’t watched anything since season 11 not for any real reason but just haven’t bothered to catch up which I eventually will do since it’s ending. I do love it though, community can be really cool and I got myself to a con once and got to meet some of the cast so that was really rad.  6) The Walking Dead. So, I started out reading the comics back when they first came in around 2005-ish I think cause my older sister is super into zombies and she always let me go through her comic collection. I fucking just smashed through that series and what was out at the time because I really liked it. Haven’t read it in a while but actually finally got into the show this year Hell of a year to get into a zombie apocalypse series eh? And it’s okay, I’m 5 seasons in and I’m liking it so far, definitely different than the comic but still really good, I enjoy the character development, the themes, the special effects makeup is incredible and I love it. I’ve been a fan of Norman Reedus since he was a shitty character in Blade 2. 7) Marvel. Speaking of comics and Blade my sisters are massive Marvel fans and always had comics around so I grew up around Marvel and love it. I’m a big fan of alternative time lines and I think it’s all so rad. I’m so deeply in love with the new animated Spider Man movie and I can’t wait for the new one coming out. Marvel’s got so much potential and I can’t wait to see where they take it. They don’t know what the fuck to do with overpowered characters though but I’m so hopeful for the Wanda and Vison show.  8) X-Men. So I know X-Men is a Marvel property but I feel like it’s not always treated as such so I wanted to tack this on. I LOVE X-MEN AND I SO DEEPLY AND DESPERATELY WISH THEY WOULD MERGE EVERYTHING TOGETHER. FUCK ME UP WITH HOW FUCKING POWERFUL WANDA WOULD BE. JUST GIVE IT TO ME. GIMMIE.  9) Scream. The scream movies are oddly soothing to me. I watch them a lot in my free time. All 3 movies yes, that’s right, 3 because 4 is an abomination towards God and we’re not gonna talk about it are terrible but like the best kind of terrible, so cheesy, so 90′s. Also I could cry Skeet Ulrich is so fucking hot, oh my God someone save me.  10) The Crow. 1994 with Brandon Lee. The only one that should ever exist and one of the only romantic movies I love. Absolutely incredible story, great acting, wonderful depth and some fantastic 80′s underground gothic cheese. I really implore anyone who hasn’t seen this movie to watch it. It’s a Cult Classic for good reason.

Honourable Mentions: Detroit Become Human. I know this is a game but it feels like an interactable story more than a game and I really love it. Death Stranding. This is literally a movie with some gameplay. I would really love to see it turned into a tv series. Pirates Of The Caribbean.  Bill & Ted. Honestly anything with Keanu Reeves The Outsiders. Inuyasha.  Howls Moving Castle.  Many, many Disney and Pixar Movies.  Harry Potter.  Honestly I’m into so much shit. I consume a lot of media.  --- ~Admin Coral.

[richtozicr]

LOVE’S GONNA GET YOU KILLED       -----         BUT PRIDE’S GONNA BE THEDEATH OF YOU. 

TW FOR HOMOPHOBIA, HATE CRIMES, BLOOD, AND SLURS.  ( inspo. )

It’s hard to hear that a ton of different arcades are shutting down. It’s kind of depressing. The town over- the place that many would go to flex on people that didn’t live in the area- had lost their arcade a month ago. It made Derry’s arcade more popular. But it also brought a lot of strangers into Derry that Richie doesn’t actually know.

There’s a redhead that shows up one day and Richie is immediately captivated by him. He sits back, watching the other play Street Fighter with amazement. It doesn’t take awhile for Richie to realize he’s not paying as much attention to the boy’s gameplay and is now watching all the freckles on his face. Bright blue eyes trail down to the other’s lips before he catches himself and looks away fast. Guilty. He feels like a sinner. That’s what the church calls him. Not him, specifically. God, no one knows. Bowers has maybe a hint of knowledge. The same with his gang. Their murders flash through his memories. Brief seconds. Bowers is locked up for good. He’s safe. For now. It’s nothing to panic about.

He doesn’t even realize due to the fact that he was so caught up in thinking about everything that the redhead is now talking to him. His eyes dart up and Richie clears his throat to pretend like things are okay.

“You can play now, if you want,” is all Richie hears, as his eyes glance over at the high scores. TZR. Second. He rushes to the machine and looks at the high scores. Second?! He’d been top ranking in Street Fighter for three years straight. He looks at Rank #1. JMS. He turns back around to face the other and looks severely impressed.

“Woah, you’re insane,” is all he can get out. “Do you know how long it’s been since anyone’s even remotely tried to get top?” He asks, pushing up his glasses so he can just stare at the other. Richie is amazed. “I’m Richie, by the way. Most everyone calls me Trashmouth,” he sticks his hand out for the other to actually shake. Richie is more than excited to make another friend around his age who actually likes Street Fighter. The stranger shakes his hand, accepting the invite for friendship.

The stranger’s name is Jaymes. He lives another city away. Around a 25 minute drive. Richie wonders if this shit stain of an arcade is even worth it, but he’s also sure maybe he’d be the same way as this guy if Derry’s arcade shut down. Richie wonders what Jaymes’ score was back in his original arcade. How’d he get so good? Especially to beat Richie?

He spent the next two hours until the arcade closed just playing with Jaymes. The entire time, Richie felt like his heart was being thrown into his throat. This boy was cute and they had a lot of mutual interests besides Street Fighter. He figured that this would actually be a good way to be able to start getting friends that weren’t the losers club---- seeing as they had all started to slowly stop hanging out with each other. He still saw Stan, and he still saw Bill, and even he’d joke around with Eddie here and there, but it was like they were in high school now--- things changed. Bev had moved away and it was just difficult for any of them to care anymore. 

It was good for the first few weeks. Great, even. Richie tried not to stare at Jaymes a certain way, or smile around him, but by god, he was hot and Richie couldn’t help but stare sometimes. He’d hope that Jaymes didn’t notice. He really did hope that Jaymes didn’t know. He remembers the day he asks Jaymes if he wants to catch a movie and that he heard great things about Edward Scissorhands. To Richie’s shock, the other actually agreed.  

Richie had been waiting the whole week for the date-- well, though it was just literally the two of them catching a movie. It wasn’t a date. That’s what he kept having to remind himself as he got ready. He chose a muted colored hawaiian shirt this time, instead of opting for the more colorful ones he had suddenly acquired at the start of the decade. Something subtle. Something that wouldn’t gather too much attention to the two. Two boys seeing a movie together that wasn’t an action film? Especially since it was a romantic movie, according to critics. They were playing a risky game.

The movie had gone splendidly, though halfway through Richie had been distracted by the fact that Jaymes had actually held his hand. It was secret. Under the security blanket of their popcorn box---- no one would know either way. It had made Richie want to throw up he was so nervous. But he remembers glancing over and pushing his glasses up in the dimly lit theatre to look over at his date. Jaymes was just smiling back and Richie could have sworn he saw the other wink at him as they continued to hold hands throughout the rest of the movie. 

As the movie ended, Richie left the theatre, unsure of what to say to Jaymes. The redhead had told him to walk him to his car and that he’d parked behind the theatre just to be on the safe side, and Richie believed him. They went down the alleyway next to theatre and stopped behind it. He saw a few employee cars but the workers were still definitely in the theatre. “Hey, I just wanted to thank you for coming with me. I know you didn’t have to or what----” The Tozier wasn’t entirely used to being interrupted so when the other actually leaned in and kissed him-- Richie’s heart soared. Holy shit. His first kiss. Oh god, he felt like a fucking fish. But he was so stunned.  Once Jaymes pulled back, he just saw that the other was laughing after kissing him.

What? Wait, laughing? Richie was pretty damn sure he hadn’t said any type of joke.  “Wha-- Sorry, uh,” Richie cleared his throat and felt his face was entirely heated. Pushing up his glasses quickly he looked back at Jaymes in confusion. “Sorry, like, that was my first kiss-- so I don’t really get what’s so fucking funny.”

“The funny thing is you actually were a fag. One of my boys pointed it out to me and at first I didn’t believe it. You queers really do fuckin’ think that you can just pretend to be straight to trick people into your little web, then you use them to get your own sick fantasies out of it ----” Richie looked stunned. He looked behind him after hearing a few leaves crunching in the street behind them. Oh god, had anyone seen them? Coming up on them was a group of four different guys. Maybe around their age. Richie didn’t recognize them either. 

Richie suddenly realizes what’s going on. Oh fuck. Oh fuck. He has to get out of here. “No, no ---- fuck you, “ he spits, pushing at the other. “ You fucking kissed me you asshole. If anyone’s gay here it’s you. “ That’s about the last thing Richie can get out before he’s grabbed and held down by two of the guys that had come up behind them. He’s recognized them. Slightly. He’s pretty sure he’s seen them around Jaymes. This was all some fucking set up. He can’t even scream because if he grabs attention to this, someone’ll spill the beans that Wentworth Tozier’s son was kissing a boy behind the fucking cinema. It’d ruin his dad. 

The first punch is what knocks his glasses off his face. It’s in his jaw and he’s automatically regretting ever laying eyes on Jaymes. He hears one of them --- a blur, he’s not even sure how close that person is to him---- pick up his glasses and then smash them on the ground. “Fuck off, all of y--- “ his face is slammed into the brick building. Once. Twice. Richie can already taste the iron dripping from his gums. Everything is a blur and it makes him feel dizzy. He’s surrounded and he keeps getting knocked down, picked back up again and he feels a lot of pain coursing through him.

It scares him. Is he about to die from a hate crime? Oh fuck, oh fuck he might die ---- until he hears one of them after what seems like ages. He’s pretty sure it’s Jaymes but he can’t see anything. It doesn’t help that he’s crying. He’s a fucking mess on the ground. “We don’t want to kill the faggot, “ is all he hears. It’s at least mercy. One of the other friends says that Richie deserves to die because they’re just spreading their fucking diseases everywhere anyhow. Richie spits out blood as he tries to pull himself up as they’re talking amongst themselves. A swift kick to his head knocks him out fully.

It’s maybe a few hours later when Richie finally comes to, on the floor next to a dumpster---- hidden, dried blood all over him. There’s also a foul stench that is something Richie recognizes but can’t actually figure out. It’s rancid. He feels around for his glasses on the ground, hoping they’ve at least let the glasses slide somewhere near him. It takes a few minutes for Richie to find his glasses and even hoist himself up. His glasses are broken. Half the glass is missing. He has a horrible prescription, so even telling his mother or father what happened is going to be hard. That’s money they have to spend, but his mom will make some quip about how all they do is spend money on Richie. Once his glasses are on his face, the bridge of the glasses hit up against his nose and it automatically makes him revolt in pain. Oh fuck. Oh god, his nose is absolutely broken. He leans up against the wall of the cinema and looks down at the dried blood everywhere. Then he notices the permanent marker that’s on the ground. 

Oh no. 

He’s not fast. He’s honestly wishing he had just never went back to walk Jaymes to his car. As he hobbles, he’s glad that it’s late in the night. Perhaps even early morning. Once he gets to his car, he realizes the paint that’s all over the windshield and he curses. Fuck. How’s he going to be able to get this off his car? Once he unlocks his car and gets in, struggling to not sit in a position that spikes pain through his body, he turns on a car light and looks at himself in the mirror.

There’s ‘FAG’ written all over his face in permanent marker. He just takes his hand and smears the blood over the words, hoping to god it helps masking a little bit of what he says. The key turns the car over and he is relieved to know the assholes didn’t siphon his car of gas, but he’s also dreading even driving home. He punches his steering wheel and just starts crying all over again. Who the fuck is he even going to go to?

Never mess with Derry. It was too dangerous of a place. No matter how hard people marched, Richie was pretty sure Derry, Maine was always going to be the worst place to grow up no matter who you were. 

[roloko-karlstein]

S+: 

Final Fantasy IV and Final Fantasy IV: The After Years - my favorite games in the FF franchise it had a pretty damn good story and the characters were really memorable to me. Also its home to two of the few best OST that has Uematsu has composed Red Wings and The Four Fiends. On top of that I really loved how the sequel adds another layer of strategy with its lunar system. I know people hate the sequel cause of how it was spit into multiple episodes you had to buy, but as a person playing the PSP version where the all the stories were all bundled into one price it was actually pretty fun to see how and what the characters has been up to all this time and some fresh faces in forms of either children or comrades of the old IV cast.

S:

Final Fantasy VI: I love this game its my second favorite FF title. I think my favorite thing about it was at different times you controlled different party members it wasn’t just Terra the whole time. Also the fact anybody can learn magic so in a pinch you could use your offensive characters to heal. Who can forget the opera scene and the Dancing Mad song? Instant classic songs

Final Fantasy Type 0: My third favorite game in the franchise. I know that is an unpopular opinion, but I just love the setting and how you can control any character cause its their story and not like a specific character (Ace). Every character has their own weapons and way of fighting I really love using Cinque,Jack, and Trey. I know people hate using her cause she is slow, but I feel like its all about timing she is super strong honestly. I never finished it nor a new game plus where I think it ends differently than the first playthrough. I love the battle system overworld battles play more like Tales of while the missions play out like XV’s battle system, but I think better honestly.

A: 

Final Fantasy X: My fourth favorite FF title and if I remember my very first. Touching story and I love the characters. The only real flack I have is unskippable cutscenes even in the remaster. It really makes it annoying when facing two certain bosses.

Final Fantasy IX: My fifth favorite FF title. It had quite a few memorable characters and fun games on the side. I really liked its story too. The final boss really came out of no where I still think it should’ve ended at Kuja, but whatevs.

Final Fantasy VII: This one is a classic which is why it made A rank. I’m fairly certain the remake will be S or S+ tier with how they are expanding on characters and the story (I will cry over Biggs,Wedge, and Jessie I can feel it you know its coming, but I bet Square will pull out all the stops to get us to like them)

Final Fantasy Rhythm games: My other favorite genre after JRPGs which is rhythm games. I love the little chibi characters!

B:

Crisis Core: Its a nice prequel and the ending was really good I remember first playing it I cried even though I knew it was coming. I really like the song “Why” that plays during the credits

Final Fantasy V: Only reason it is below A rank is cause I never really got far in it. And both times I played it I only made it to the part where we find out about Faris and Lenna’s relationship. Job system was pretty cool and was an upgrade from III.

Final Fantasy Record Keeper: For a mobile game its pretty good and the gatcha was I think for weapons and not for characters.

Final Fantasy VIII: I actually like the junction and drawing system it was new. The final boss fight would leave me on the edge of my seat cause the final boss I think draws all of a certain type of magic from you every other turn so it was basically a battle against time. This series had more of a modern day/futuristic vibe to it. The only reason its a B cause I didn’t really care too much for the story.

Final Fantasy II: Its an easy game after hitting yourself for two hours straight. No really. After I got past the first part of the game I find that ya know it isn’t THAT bad of a game kinda tedious at the start to get your stats up there, but after that it really is smooth sailing the rest of the game.

Final Fantasy: It is only at B rank cause this is where everything began even if the game play is simple and the characters have no name and there really isn’t much of a story

C:

Final Fantasy X-2: I think its nice that we get to see a more light hearted story for the most part, but I don’t think this was really necessary. Has one of the best battle systems in the franchise though I have fun playing it and it does have some really challenging fights. 

Final Fantasy XIII: I don’t think its bad as what people make it out to be its honestly an average game and the story is alright. 

Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: I used to play this game and the event stories that would come out were really good, but if you do not have 6 Star characters with super strong equipment you would never able to finish the story. Also from what I’ve heard its not even harder to obtain lapis to draw for characters. Gatcha has been going downhill and the events harder which is why I eventually quit.

Final Fantasy III: I haven’t gotten far, but I don’t really care too much for how you can only have so many spells for each level. I think I like V and X-2 more since you can actually learn all the magics by using that class in battle.

World of Final Fantasy: Meh...thats all I gotta say I want to kill that animal thing “THE this” “THE that” if I want to hear shit like that I would go watch Teen Titans Go

D:

Final Fantasy All The Bravest: Again not as bad as the fandom says it is and I breezed through it in a week. I guess I can see why people are ticked though. $1 for a character and it might not even show up in your party. 

Final Fantasy XII: I’m thinking about giving this another chance honestly. I wasn’t a fan of the gameplay or license board.

Final Fantasy XV: Probably one of the biggest disappointments since me playing XII. I payed full price for both AND bought the strategy guides which was not cheap. While XV is better with its gameplay the story felt really rushed and had some of the worst romantic subplot I have ever seen compared to any previous Final Fantasy. Noct had more development with his fellow chocobruhs than he ever did with Luna.

The Dissidia games: I’m not a fan of fighting games I think what I liked most about these were different heroes/villains interacting with each other.

F:

Dirge of Cerberus: Terrible game play, Terrible story, I got motion sickness extremely easy, all around bad game.

Final Fantasy XV mobile game: I never played it, but I have seen ads for it and I’m like really? REALLY?