#like two friends actually having a chat instead of two characters in a video game

[glitchdecay]

i saw this scene being uploaded in english the other day and i can't not rewatch the japanese version because, you know, seiyuu brainrot and whatnot. translations (completely my own) under the cut.

Prompto: What're you doing?

Noctis: Nothing, really. Just spacing out.

Prompto: Huh. I see.

[ Leave him alone / Talk about something random / Wait for him to speak ]

Noctis: Hmph—

Prompto: We went through so much today, huh?

Noctis: Everything's so new to us, too.

Prompto: You can say that again. Things have been super hard, but I didn't expect every day to be so much fun. Y'see, everything I see is new to me.

Prompto: I never expected things to turn out this way or to go out on a trip together.

Noctis: Yeah.

Prompto: How long have we known each other again? It's since high school... So five years?

Noctis: But I've known you for longer. Was it since elementary school?

Prompto: Eh? How'd you remember that?

Noctis: 'Course I'd remember. You stared at me so much.

Prompto: Ugh. [nervous laughter] You see, that's because I have my reasons...

Noctis: But you were still like, "Nice to meet ya!" at the high school entrance ceremony.

Prompto: I had to really brace myself to talk to you that time.

Prompto: [sighs] Kinda takes me back.

Noctis: You could've just talked to me, you know.

Prompto: I know it's easy for you to say— You wouldn't understand, Noct.

Prompto: Back then, I—

Prompto: Sorry, man. It really is nothing.

[ Ask him out of concern / You're concerned but you don't force it out of him / You won't get mad so ask him to be honest ]

Noctis: What is up with that? Just say it.

Prompto: [sighs] All right.

Prompto: You see...

Prompto: I used to be unable to reach out to other people.

Prompto: And I... didn't have anyone that I could call a true friend.

Prompto: I was always by myself.

Prompto: So sometimes I end up thinking maybe I'm not worth anything.

[ "You're joking." / "I kinda noticed." / "Didn't expect that." ]

Noctis: You've always gotten hung up on loads of things.

Prompto: Hehe.

Noctis: See? You're getting hung up on something right now.

Noctis: Like, "I'm the only commoner," or "I'm weaker than the others..."

Noctis: "At least I gotta try to make it so everyone feels at ease," so that's what you've been doing, right?

Prompto: Ah—

Noctis: Being considerate of others is pretty cool by itself. It doesn't come easily.

Noctis: The fact that you do that is just like you, and it's a good thing.

Prompto: Huh? You're saying I can just be myself?

Noctis: Yeah. What's wrong with that?

Prompto: Yeah... well... Sorry if I said anything weird.

Noctis: Besides, I'd never let anyone useless hang around me in the first place.

Prompto: Eh? Why are you mad about that?

Prompto: ... Thanks.

Prompto: Oh, man. I feel like a weight's lifted off my shoulders.

Noctis: Heh. What's up with that?

Prompto: Right, I'm gonna keep doing my best with the things I can do.

Noctis: I'd appreciate it.

[ Obtained the "Pop" photo filter effect. ] ※ Yep, you read that right: This photo filter is called "Prompto" in the Japanese version.

[bookuce]

Change My Mind

SUMMARY: Josh and Alina are great friends most days. Other days, they want to tear each other apart. Some days, they’re in love with each other, but neither of them will admit it. 

*DISCLAIMER: This is a multi-part series. I do not own any of the characters in the writing except for the OC. The book also uses the actual names of the wrestlers. Gionna is Liv Morgan, Austin, is Xavier Woods, Josh is Jey Uso, Jon is Jimmy Uso, Trinity is Naomi, Alina is just Alina. The book is not realistic and does not take place during real events, but some actual events could pop up in the story eventually. I DO NOT GIVE ANYONE PERMISSION TO REPOST OR TRANSLATE MY WRITINGS ANYWHERE.*

PAIRING: Jey Uso x Black OC

TROPE: Friends to Lovers

WARNINGS: Language

WORD COUNT: 1,827

PART TWO

PART THREE

“Say, I have a question for you,” Austin says, giving Alina a bright smile. She smiles back at him, a sign of friendliness. 

“What’s up?” She asks.

“How does one manage to be as beautiful as you? I mean, you are stunning, whew!” He exclaims. Alina giggles softly at the compliment. She places her arm on the back of the couch, propping herself up on it. 

“That’s really sweet to say, Austin, thank you.” She grins.

“No, thank you for blessing me with your presence. I can end the night now knowing I got to talk to you.” She rolls her eyes at his words. She wasn’t sure what he was trying to do and why he suddenly took interest in her, but who was she to be rude? They’ve talked a few times in passing, but it was never for long. “We should get you on UpUpDownDown.” He says. She immediately begins to shake her head.

“I don’t really play video games. I’ve never been good at them.” She answers honestly. To let her come on the show would be a waste of time. She also wasn’t comfortable embarrassing herself like that in front of several people. She has watched a few episodes and knew it was a fun show, but her participating? Not happening. 

“I doubt you’re as bad as you say you are.” He assures her. 

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” She promises. “I am terrible at games.”

Jon still had an amused grin on his face while he watched the two talk. This man is stupid, he thought. Either Austin was crazy, or he didn’t care. Shit, probably both. “That man is going to kill his ass,” Jon mutters to Trinity.

“That’s on him.” She says, not looking up from her phone. “He warned him.” Jon looks up, catching the moment Josh pauses in his tracks at seeing Austin and Alina talking. 

The eldest twin taps his wife’s thigh. “Look, look, look…” He points in Josh’s direction. This was going to be good.

Josh was happily on his way with Alina’s drink until he saw Austin had done the opposite of what he told him. They were sitting close, too close for his liking, and they seemed deep in conversation. Alina would smile at him, and Austin would smile back.

Nothing he says could be worth smiling over like that, he thought. Josh glances down at the drinks in his hand. Just go over there and give her her drink. He’ll move. Don’t cause a scene. It’s nothing, he tells himself.

If jealousy could kill, Josh would be dead ten times over. He craved the attention that everyone else got from Alina. The way she smiles at them, the way she talks to them. He wanted her to do the same to him. Instead, she’s awkward and quiet at times. That was frustrating to him. She never really hints at what goes on in her head. It made him question whether or not he should even feel how he felt. Then he’d see her trying with guys and failing, and it would make him feel some way. He just wanted to make her happy. 

Josh sniffles, quickly regaining composure. He resumes his stride over to the group. When he approaches, he holds Alina’s drink out between the chatting pair. He was purposely blocking Austin’s view of her face. Alina turns to look up at him. “Ay, I got your drink.” He says, his eyes fixated on the guy next to her. Alina slowly takes the drink from him.

“Thank you, Josh…” She says. 

“No problem.” He says quickly, now slowly swaying from left to right, a sign of impatience.

Alina continued to stare at him, but he would never meet her gaze. No, he was watching Austin, who was smirking at him. “You gonna sit down, Uce?” Jon asks, leaning forward. The elder twin was ready to jump up to stop his brother from doing anything stupid. 

“Nah, I’m good.” He says, not breaking his glare. “You good, Uce?” He asks Austin. That was him telling Austin to move. Here he goes, Alina thought. She finally looks away from him, her lips touching the brim of her cup. She slowly tilts the cup back, drinking the cup full with no breaks.  It’s going to be a long night. Austin scoffs slightly, his smile still intact. 

“You got it.” He says finally, putting his hands up in defeat. He moves back into his previous spot. Josh moves to sit down in his seat. 

“Was that necessary?” Alina asks.

He reaches down, grabbing her legs and pulling them between his own. “Yep.” Alina probably shouldn’t have giggled, but the two mixed drinks she shotgunned and tequila shots were beginning to creep up on her. He shouldn’t grab her like that.

“And who are you supposed to be?” She asks. Josh doesn’t answer her. Instead, he takes a swig of the beer in his hand. She places two fingers on his left cheek, forcing him to look at her. She lifts her eyebrows, waiting for a response. One never came. “That’s what I thought.” She drops her hand from his face. They would exchange stares until Josh would glance down at her lips. Lina would suck in a deep breath before inevitably looking away. He shouldn’t look at her like that. “Well, I want another drink.” She mutters to herself. “Who wants drinks?” She asks. 

“I do,” Austin chimes in. 

Alina moves to stand but is pulled back down to Josh. She plops into his lap, a gasp leaving her lips as she does so. He really shouldn’t grab her like that. “Nah, get someone else to do it.” He says. Alina’s brows furrow at him before she reaches down to remove his hand from her thigh. 

“Please, go to hell.” She says, prying his hand off of her. 

“Or I can go with you to the bar. How about that?” When she stands, so does he. She doesn’t argue with him, but she does roll her eyes. Alina turned her attention to the group again, only to find them staring at the pair. They weren’t sure what they were seeing. Was it fighting, flirting, or some sick combination of both? “Drinks?” She asks, gesturing to everyone.

“Get me another beer, Uce,” Jon says.

“Vodka Cran for me.” Orders Trinity.

“Two more shots of tequila.” Gionna requests.

“I’ll have a beer too.” Austin adds. 

Alina steps around the couch, marching over to the bar. Josh follows behind her, leaving the group once more. Everyone exchanged glances at each other after the exchange. “They get like this every time they drink together,” Jon says, shaking his head. “How long before they fight and get us kicked out?” He asks, looking at Trinity.

“Depends. How many fruity drinks have Alina had?” She asks. It was always the fruity drinks that got poor Alina. 

“Just one so far.” Gionna answers. 

“It’s that bad?” Austin asks.

“Yes, fool!” Jon exclaims. “That’s why I said leave her alone! Them folks are crazy!” Alina and Josh, with alcohol in their systems, are a match made in Hell. Josh had been drinking since before Alina got to the club. The beer in his hand was his seventh. He had about three more in him before he was at the point of no return. Alina was on her third mixed drink, two of which were fruity. The tequila shots would bring her up to five drinks in total. She swears she has a high tolerance for alcohol, much like Josh does, but doesn’t. Neither of them do.

Separately, they were fine, but together? It’s a whole other story. 

Josh follows behind Alina, his pace slower than hers. To him, it seemed she was trying to put space between them. She would tell him he was correct if he had to assume out loud. She shouldn't be turned on by the way he was acting tonight, but here she was, practically foaming at the mouth. Alina makes it to the bar, eyes fixated on the alcohol on the wall before her. The bartender would immediately come to her, ready to take her order. “One tequila sunrise, three beers, and a Vodka Cran.” Alina orders. She turns to Josh, who’s watching her. “I’m forgetting something.”

“Gigi’s shots.” He answers.

“Oh, right! And two tequila shots!” She says, turning to the bartender. The bartender walks away, leaving the couple alone. Josh placed his beer on the bar top and leaned in towards Alina.

“You look good.” He tells her. 

She glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “Okay.” 

 “Here you go.” He huffs, shaking his head at her. 

“What do you want me to say? Thank you?”

“Uh, yes? That’s the normal thing to say to compliments, Alina.”

She wasn’t much of a compliments person. It makes her feel like someone wants something from her when she hears them. The people pleaser in her would forever deliver even when she didn’t want to. “Thank you, Joshua.” She says finally.

“You’re trying to be funny.”

“I said thank you!” She says, laughing. Josh places his hand on the barstool behind Alina, blocking her in. After a bit of silence, she turns to him. “You look good too.” She says, leaning into him. The bartender put out her tequila sunrise, and she immediately grabbed it. 

Josh glances down at his appearance. “Do I?” She nods. “I put this on for you.” He jokes. Alina would take a sip of her drink, humming softly at it. “Is it good?” Josh asks, leaning into her again. 

“Yeah, taste it.” She brings her glass to his lips, all while still holding his gaze. Her stare always made him weak in the knees. All she had to do was look at him, and Josh was under her command. He’d part his lips slightly, allowing the rim of the glass to touch his lips. She’d tilt it back, letting the orange liquid touch his tongue. The taste of Orange Juice came and went quickly. All that was left behind was the strong taste of tequila. Josh pulls his head back. “Yeah?” She asks, lowering her drink.

“Nah,” He says quickly, shaking his head. “That drink is strong as hell.” They both start to laugh. God, they were drunk. Alina leans into his arms, burying her face in his chest. His hand would move from the chair and touch her back. That touch was the catalyst for what was to come. His fingertips would trace her spine, sending shivers along her body. She’d arch towards him, lifting her head to look at him. They were very close, their noses almost touching.

“You shouldn’t touch me like that.” She whispers.

“My bad.” He whispers back. His hand would curl against the small of her back, now closing and opening in a scratching manner. She shakily breathes, her head tilting down to break his gaze. “Lina.” He calls to her.

Ah, fuck it, Alina thought as she pulled his face to hers in a bruising kiss. 

NEXT PART

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A/N: So y'all blew the first and second parts of this up...that's cool lol.

Thank you to everyone who is reading this so far! I really do appreciate all the kindness and support I am receiving! It means a lot to me!

Stay tuned for part four!

🏷️list: @paigereeder @wrestlingprincess80 @thesamoanqueen @whatdoeseverybodywant @alichesmi @reci1996 @cyberdejos2 @empressdede @trashbin-nie @meannaim @siriuslycee

[ssivinee]

✧New Game, New Player✧

part 1 | part 2

BEBE! Bada Lee x Dancer! F Reader: Jeon Y/n joins SWF to prove that her being the sibling of an idol doesn't make her any less of a dancer, but while trying to do so, she makes new friends and potentially something more.

Word Count: 4.7k

Note: Double post cause why not, have too many drafts rn lol.

Character Vision Board

In the world of dance, many professionals look down upon idols who seem to have a passion for it. Many of them saying, it's a different world and aren't really wrong.

Most idols lack in freestyle and versatility which caused a lot of the disapproval last Street Woman Fighter, with idol Lee Chaeyeon.

Jeon Y/n, on the other hand, had a different dilemma.

You were the younger sister of the famous Jeon Jungkook. He was only a year older than you so you two had a close bond, and you love him with all your heart.

Yet you can't deny that once your name was involved, so was his. Your hard work being discredited and diminished by all his career alone.

It upset you as an individual whose danced all your life, going to multiple countries worldwide to gain experience, yet there was always back talk about you.

Deciding to finally make your mark as just Y/n, you opened a studio last year and create your crew Aesthete. Consisting of you, Choi Lyn, Enyo, Heaven Lee, and Kim Aria.

On a Friday morning, you walk into the studio and see the three youngest sitting around, waiting on the rest of the team. Your teams youngest, Lyn, notices you walk in from the mirror. Her bursts of energy activates as she runs up and hugs her beloved unnie extremely tight.

"O-okay, let's calm down before you squeeze all the air out of me," you joke, and Lyn pouts as you pat her head. "Aria isn't here yet?" You ask your juniors as you settle all your items into the closet.

"She was the first one here but wanted to get us all coffee."

Ironically the door opens, revealing the face you were looking for, "Speaking of the devil." She heads to everyone, handing their coffee to them and puts her own personal belongings in the closet.

"Everyone begin stretching. The studio opens in 30 minutes."

You clap and rally the girls together, stretching along with them, then check the list of students coming into the class today. The song chosen for the class was "Con Calma" by Daddy Yankee & Snow. Once class started, you got in the groove of things, and as it went smoothly, you picked a few students and grouped them up to film them for a YouTube video.

When class ends, the girls chill around in a circle as they sit and chat. You scrolled through tiktok, liking dance trends while Enyo leaned her head on your shoulder.

Your phone alerts you, an email sent to your work email instead of personal so you knew it was of importance. Opening the sent mail, your eyes widen at seeing the Mnet logo.

The girls see your face and give a look of concern to each other, "What's going on?"

Your hand over your mouth, and you read, announcing, "Mnet invited us to Street Woman Fighter 2!"

All you can hear is gasps, and after a few seconds, jumping and screaming while you still stand thinking of how unbelievable the opportunity is. Aria grabs your arm and jumps, "Unnie, this is your time to shine!"

You smiled to yourself, now believing that people may actually appreciate you for your dancing.

It was a day of filming on a Saturday morning, and you had finished filming the introduction segment of each crew a week prior.

You get to the main building of the show in your own car and, with another coffee in hand, walk into the lobby to see your team waiting for you.

"Y/n-unnie! Isn't this place so cool?" Lyn says, coming up to you full of energy. Your eyes scan the building, and you must admit, for an assumingly fierce competition, it looked very subtle from what you expected. "It's definitely something,” you mumble.

"Come on, ladies, let's head into our rooms,” you command.

We headed up the stairs and into the halls, passing every crew's room and seeing what they had written on their board.

"It seems like someone tampered with 1Millions board already," Enyo points out, you then frown at their antics. The thoughts of these grown women acting like this irritated you. They were acting like children whose toys were stolen from them.

Yes, you understood bad blood, but pettiness like this isn't a good look on anyone.

The crew sees the Aesthete in a lightly script font in royal blue. You let the girls write on the whiteboard and enter to find the blue room, getting a bit overwhelmed with everything happening so fast.

Everyone sat down and you did breathing exercises, and as the nerves calm, your anticipation and excitement overthrow the previous emotions. The screen then flashes and tells us the dancer on the team with the most no-respect, which was Aria, causing you to look at the screen in confusion.

"Um, okay?" They all laugh at your reaction, mainly because Aria wasn't a weak dancer, but you assumed those stickers were there because of you.

You felt terrible and rubbed her shoulders, "They probably picked you since you’ve been my longest student."

She smiles at you, "It's alright, unnie. I'll just show them why I haven’t left your side."

Aria had been the first student you trained about 7 years ago and has stayed by your side ever since. You always thought it was because she wanted to meet your brother at some point, but over the years, your friendship blossomed, and she reassured you. Aria took your classes because she loved your style, movement, aura, and passion for dancing.

She indeed became the little sister you never had.

Then, the TV signals us to head to the main stage. You all walked down, your team following your lead, and looked around at each group. Every crew was there, but Jam Republic, being the grand finale, you assumed.

Your appearance began to cause everyone to mumble. You kept your hand in the pockets of your cargos, inducing a chill persona.

“Y/n-nim looks so cool.”

“Her eyes look ready to kill. Like she’s ready to punch anyone who disrespects them.”

“And I thought Bada would be the only person here who would be many girl’s type.”

Before you can all take your seats, you stand in the middle and see your team video playing, hearing "Backseat Freestyle" by Kendrick Lamar.

Then, the comments begin to flow in. Starting with Lady Bounce.

"I wanna say I'm intrigued about this team, but only because of Jeon Y/n."

"She's been known as the mother of HYBE. I mean, she's choreographed so many songs for so many groups. I guess that's where all the comments stem from." Lia Kim also speaks, addressing it to her team, and they nod.

"I don't understand why a team like this is on the show. They're like team Bebe, but instead of Bada, they have Y/n," Mina Myoung of Deep N Dap comments, and you stand there with a still, stoic face.

“The team has only been around for one year. They shouldn’t even be in this competition with us,” Wolf Lo’s Halo speaks out with her opinion.

You weren't amused by their comments in the slightest, but you wouldn't give them the satisfaction of getting any major reaction out of you.

Yoonji of Mannequeen then says the comment that ticks you off the most, "Not only are these the shadow of Jeon Y/n, but she is in the shadow of Jeon Jungkook. Even coming on this show, there is no escape from that."

Everyone keeps their eyes on you, trying to see any movement or expression of anger, but you give them a smirk. You knew a comment like this would be said, which didn’t surprise you.

You got those comments quite often any time a choreography of yours went viral so it was nothing you haven’t heard of.

Then, the crew with the trendy Bada Lee appears on the screen, "I'm gonna be honest, I don't know much about them." Lusher begins. " I'd say they're probably our biggest rivals due to our dance styles," Tatter adds.

"Maybe dancing is in Y/n's genes. She just has to prove it here. As a leader, I'm sure she knows many people look down on her due to her connection to her brother." You stare at the screen, a little surprised at the more neutral comment by their leader.

“Their style is very appealing and trendy. I feel we’re gonna see a lot from this crew,” Tsubakill’s Rena says with a soft smile.

The women of Jam Rebuplic were on screen, and you couldn't help but smile a little. Kristen and Ling met you during their time with the Royal Family, and knowing them for many years put you at ease. You also became a fan of Audrey's dance style with her appearance on the World of Dance.

"I know we're in a competition with these girls, but knowing Y/n personally, I know and believe her talent goes beyond imagination and can lead this team to success." The video then ends and shows the status of no-respect stickers given. You had gotten 2, while Lyn had 4.

As you sit, you think of having 3 level-headed crews on the show that didn't disrespect you. If anything, they looked respectful and sincere about all their comments.

The large room began to buzz in whispers as crews chatted about other teams. "I can't believe they think of you like that," Enyo shakes her head, but you shrug. "Their comments were honestly what I expected. I didn't expect the nicer things that Tsubakill and Bebe said."

"Agreed," Lyn mumbles, feeling down due to the comments. "I knew Jam was gonna be nice, but everyone else was truly a fifty-fifty."

Jam Republic then comes down with an energy that no one could match in the studio. They were the ones who felt as if they were at the top, and there was no denying it. They were at the top. The girls were the most unique with their versatile dance arsenal.

You knew your abilities as a dancer, and one thing you couldn't do well was Afro-dance, as the rhythm was genuinely different.

They stand in the middle as they react to their video, but every other team can't help but stare at the girls. The video played, and as every minute passed, their reactions were solely entertained rather than angry. In some way, you were engaged by the comments, too.

Some groups said they'd rather have Paris Globel there, but you know that in the popularity game, every team would have lost right then and there.

Nearing the end, you couldn't help but smile at Audrey's reaction to her 6 stickers. Your crew didn't have anything bad to say about them, and they took note of this as they took their seats right next to yours.

Ling and Kristen give you a fist bump and smile, which is noticed by Bada, who sits one team away from Aesthete.

“They seem close, huh,” Tatter whispers to her leader, who nods, intrigued at your relationship with the international team. After hearing the praise from Jam Republic, she knew you shouldn’t be underestimated.

If people from other countries were saying good things on your behalf, you couldn't be as weak as the other crews said. The large screen then shows the show's logo as the lights begin moving around on the runway area of the stage.

"Is it starting?" Enyo asks, but her questions are answered by Kang Daniel coming out. All the women were cheering as he had the mic and queue cards in hand.

"Hello. Welcome to Mnet's original dance series, Street Woman Fighter 2, and I'm your host, Kang Daniel. Not only will we see the competitions between some of the best dance crews in Korea, but we have gone international this season - with global named crews, making the competition more intense."

Heaven and Lyn act out a fight, punching each other lightly. "Yah, chill out, please," Aria warns the two younger girls causing them to abruptly halt the play fight.

"You'll fight to crush all the other crews and reach the top. Only one crew can do that. Here's the first dance battle to be the winner of this competition."

Kang Daniel did very good at amping everyone up. As you leaned forward, arms laid on your knees, hiding the lower half of your face, you hid your smile of amusement.

"The signature of the dance series is your first mission, the no-respect battle with the weakest dancer." You were all told to change, and you take your water with you as you return to the stage.

As you leave your room, you see the tall figure with the Oreo hair leave the room right beside yours. You bow when you see her, and she reciprocates. Given that you were tall, standing at 5'8, looking slightly up to meet her gaze, it was surprising.

"Hello, Bada-nim," You reach your hand out, and her eyes go wide, looking stunned. "I just want to thank you for not saying anything negative on behalf of my team."

She gladly accepts your handshake with a friendly grin, "Hey man, I know what it feels like when people compare you to the idol instead of acknowledging your talents."

"You're telling me. I've been getting compared to my brother ever since everyone found out about us being related."

"I had those moments when dancing with Kai, but people warmed up to it, especially the more I choreographed for him."

You smile at her with envy, "I bet it's nice to hear the love from people." You lower your head and lean against the wall, feeling somewhat ashamed for feeling this way. "I'm a little jealous Bada-nim."

Bada tilts her head, confused at what you, out of everyone, had to be jealous about.

"My one wish after this entire show ends is for people to see me as Y/n, the leader of Asthete. The one who puts a lot of effort into their craft and passion. Not just a shadow of my brother."

Bada's eyes soften at your determined gaze. She could feel how much you meant every word you said to her. She could only assume how bad it was for you, but Bada never realized how much it affected your mental until you spoke to her.

Somehow, that being your first proper interaction and conversation with each other made Bada's heart race. She wasn't expecting you to open up, but she really appreciated it, as it motivated her.

You notice all the noise in the room behind her, "You wanna head down with me, or are you still waiting for your team?"

"I'll probably wait to make sure they don't take their sweet time," Bada jokes, and you give her a genuine laugh, knowing how it feels to have a team all younger than you. "Don't worry, I totally understand."

You then bow, excusing yourself to get to the main stage, where you see all of Jam Republic ready. "Kristen! Ling!" You say, coming up to the leader with a massive hug. You met the girls on your travel to New Zealand for a dance collaboration and loved their energy, causing you to keep in contact. "Hey, girl! Long time no see."

You pout, "I know, I've been busy, so I never got to visit you guys over there," you tell her as you point to Ling, trying to involve her in the conversation. She also hugs you and plays with your long, silky hair that was currently ashy brown in color. As the three talk, Bebe comes down and sees the interaction. "She's close to all of them?" Bada mumbled to herself. Lusher looks in their direction as well. "I guess so."

You begin telling jokes and stories about the recent classes you've taught. The newly arriving team saw you showing them a sample of a choreography, you probably made. You looked so happy and smiled brightly as you moved for them, not going all out to save energy. A smile frames Bada’s face as she takes a seat, comparing your energy to a child showing off a piece of candy they got.

Rather than the serious personality you showed when you first came in, you did a 180, displaying your doe eyes and bunny smile. "Oh, Audrey, I've meaning to say how big of a fan I am of your dancing."

Bada's thoughts stray away as she can't help but keep her eyes locked on your figure.

She wasn't gonna lie to herself. You are super attractive as you carry yourself with confidence and assertiveness.

The genes were strong, too. You looked like the female version of your brother, which was a given, but your nose just seemed a bit smaller and your lips were evidently plumper. From the eyes down to the smile and even tattoos that she could see, you were almost a carbon copy of him.

"Oo~ our teacher has some interest in the leader of Aesthete," Tatter teases, and Bada scoffs. "I'm just realizing how much she looks like Jungkook-nim."

"You got that right," Tatter says, and Minah butts in, "As hot as him too." The girls giggle at her comment, but they can't help but agree. "She's so cool," Cheche says.

You begin to raise the sleeves of your flannel, out of habit, as you continue your chat with Jam Republic and team Bebe's eyes widen. You had a few minimal tattoos on your left arm, but your right arm was what caught their attention.

Inked on your arm was a full sleeve covering your forearms and down to your hands. The tattoos were all in a delicate art style, but as they covered your entire arm, the combination was badass. It did suit you, but now your adorable image was flipped upside down in Bada’s mind.

If only you saw her gaze. It looked like she wanted to do unimaginable things to you, but in a quick flash, she realizes the setting she’s in and shakes her head a bit.

"She looks like she would beat someone up," Tatter mumbles, but Bada can't help but think your face doesn't match your body. You had innocent doe eyes and a cute smile while your body looked ready for a boxing match, from the tattoos down to your noticeable muscles. "The Jeon bloodline must be strong," Minah mumbles, but everyone agrees.

The rest of the crews begin entering, and you wave off the girls, returning to your team.

"Whoever is battling first better hype up the entire crowd. My hands are literally sweating right now," Ling says, but you side-eye her with a questioning stare. Emma noticed this, nudging Ling in your direction, causing the two of them to laugh.

Once they commence the battles, everyone gets nervous. "The first no-respect battle is... 1Million Redy."

Your gaze follows Redy as she comes down from her spot. "The person I pick as the weakest dancer is..." She teases the crowd, approaching Deep N Dap or Lady Bounce. Redy then does a complete reverse and stands before the light blue team, "Bada of Bebe."

An obnoxious squeal could be heard, and you covered your ears at the sudden pitch. Looking over your shoulder to see it was Heaven, your eyes grow wide. You never knew that sound could come from her body, as she was always the quiet one on the team.

"THE Bada Lee dancing? Take my money now." Enyo rolls her eyes and slaps her, "Dude, don't be embarrassing us...Have some dignity, please."

Your chuckle pulls the two girls out of their tiny argument, and they continue to pay attention. If Bada got Heaven to react that way, you knew you had to pay attention to her in this battle. The younger girl barely gives anyone a reaction but her members, yet here she was, fangirling over Bebe's leader.

You look over and see the taller woman nod her head. "Redy of 1Million picks Bada of Bebe as the worst dancer."

"I just don't respect you," Redy ends straight and clear. "That's it."

Bada slightly paces and smirks, "Not Redy. Soobin. You're still an eighth grader to me." You smile at the comment, feeling the hype after the comments. "Whaaaa~ unnie. This. Is. Amazing." Lyn jumps up and down as she holds onto your shoulders, keeping her balanced. You stayed seated as the battle began and couldn't help but stare at Bada. Her cold face would get countered by her confident personality.

Redy dances, and you nod your head ever so often. While the battle continues, you feel a pair of eyes staring at you.

You look across the stage and around until you see the pair of eyes that cause your alertness. It was Manequeen's own Barbie doll, Redlic. Your attention was back to the dance where you see Bada about to begin.

Your eyes travel all over her body as she teases the younger girl with her dance, the grinding, body rolls, the taunting? You loved seeing it all. She dominated the stage as a one-man act, and you applaud her for that, which she notices and bows. That was the first time you gave someone a reaction as you all filmed, so she felt good about her performance.

"Cards are open in 3! 2! 1!"

The judges flipped their cards quickly, showing Bebe winning 3:0. Monika picked up the mic and told Redy, "Compared to Bada, you did dance like an eighth grader." Saying it in a casual tone made even you feel hurt.

Everyone sits, and the following battle is about to occur, "Mannaqueen's Redlic, please take the stage."

She wastes no time, walking up to your crew and giving you a seductive look. "The dancer I pick with no respect is Jeon Y/n." You smirk at this and grab your mic.

"Redlic, why did you choose Y/n as the no-respect dancer?"

"I wanted to see if she could set the stage on fire with me on it," causing a very evident chuckle to come out of you. "I can. I can even make it burn," you say confidently.

"Alright, the fight shall begin!"

When it begins, Redlic starts feeling up her body to "Needed Me" by Rihanna and swaying her body. She gets closer to you, going around and shaking her ass in front of you, causing you to bite your lips at her antics. You’d never deny a beautiful woman making moves on you, even if it was just for her dance.

She adds some floor work and ensures she shows out using all her space. Redlic had you entranced for some time, and before you knew it, it was your turn, "3! 2! 1! Switch!"

Your song was "Or Nah" by Ty Dolla $ign, and as you begin, you take off your jacket, revealing your sleeveless white top, and everyone's eyes go wide seeing your arms and full tattoos. You were starting to look like a hot commodity on stage, and Redlic couldn't help but lick her lips at the sight.

Behind you, Bada was still trying to gather herself after her battle, but her face flushed again once you removed your flannel. She felt her body heating up and hoped to cover up her reactions by hiding behind her hands.

You grind on the floor, body rolling on Redlic's body while kneeling, then pull yourself up. You did some ticking moves and mixed in some slow motion in there. As you slow-mo a hip-grabbing movement, you go into a motion of locking and popping. Then, slide on the floor, adding a flip to finish your sensual dance.

Bada stares, the hardest she probably ever has, and you lock eyes for a second. Seeing her face and body language formed a sly grin on your face, making her look away, now blushing furiously. She can’t even keep her head in the game when she hears your win of 3:0 against Redlic.

"Unnie?" Lusher stares at her leader, who follows the direction of her eyes, and laughs at the realization. "Unnie, this isn't like you at all!" The sub-leader claps as she laughs, and Bada can't do anything but tell her to shut up, which only causes her to laugh harder.

After a few more battles, you could all take a 30-minute break before resuming.

Everyone sat down chatting, and you were again talking to Jam Republic. You and Audrey had tied 3 times in battle until they decided you won your last match. "Dude, I need to know how you did that neck-breaking move," you ask Audrey, and she giggles shyly. "Let me show you."

She shows you the move, and as you copy it perfectly, she claps for you, "Yes! Well, you got it, fast girl." You laugh at her and talk about her first dance battle. "Man, the first bone-breaking move was insane."

"Which one?"

"Oh, uh, this one," You show the move she hits during "Low" by Flo Rida. Audrey begins jumping excitedly, almost fangirling for you, even if it was her own move. Everyone in the studio notices your interaction with JR and gossip about it.

"I saw them talking before, so they must know each other."

"Well, I'm pretty sure Y/n has taught a class with Latirce and Kristen before, so it's unsurprising."

You make more friends and move to Bebe, who doesn't notice your presence. That was until Kyma looked like she'd seen a ghost in front of her, causing them to look behind and gasp, seeing you standing there in front of them.

"Hey," was the only thing that came out of your mouth, yet all of the Bebe members stared at you like you had just told them the most remarkable speech on the planet. Well, everyone other than Bada.

She stared at you with enticing eyes, and you quickly took notice of her motive. Regarding the No-respect battles, you had already danced in 5, most girls explaining it was just for fun. In every action you participated in, your eyes met with Bada's, and you never knew what ran through that head of hers as you couldn't even think while dancing.

But you figured it out now.

"Ah, Y/n-nim, I'm a big fan," Minah bows, and you wave your arms, trying to deny any praise. "You're an excellent dancer, no need to deny it. Pretty face and stage present too," Tatter says, mumbling the last part, but you heard it. Your hand guides Tatter's head to face you, and you smile, "If I'm pretty, you're gorgeous."

Her face turns bright red, and you pat her head, finding it cute. You then see a familiar face amongst the crew, "Lusher, it's been a while since you've been to one of my classes." The sub-leader's face is full of embarrassment for being called out. "Don't worry, I'm not mad about it," you tell her, and Lusher's tense body relaxes.

"I've just been more focused on Bebe the past year, but maybe after the show, you'd let me back in?"

"You're always welcome at my place. Any of you are, honestly. Nothing wrong with expanding your horizons in dance." You announce, but Bada scoffs a little. "This feels a bit insulting to me. I am their teacher, you know."

You had no ill intent behind your comment, but you wanted to tease her, "You can always join me too. I'm sure you'll be my number one student."

The two's faces are just inches away, both having a condescending smirk on their faces. Members of Bebe look at each other, feeling the intensity of their stares, but their eyes go large at your pitched idea.

"How do you think about this? After the show, we collaborate in a choreography and class, and then we can dance together. No competition needed." Your fingers then point to your crew and Bada's crew, "We can all dance together."

You were now leaning your arms on the bench, Bada sitting between your sleeveless arms. Lusher and Tatter can't help but giggle at the sight. It was like a fox versus a fox.

"Sure, but I don't know if I can wait that long to be a top student again." You read the subtly in her voice, implying something you couldn't put your finger on. You lick your lips at her gaze and grin.

"Win two more battles, and I'll take my top student out to dinner?'

Bebe's eyes widen again in shock. Never seen Bada's eyes look so mischievous as they did now.

"Deal~"

A/n: The ending feels super lacking on this one, but I might make a part 2 to satisfy myself😭.

-sivine

[sharkboywrites]

please, a sal fisher x autistic male reader

ur writing is so good and I wish I could write like you. lots of love! <3

Sal Fisher With an Autistic Male S/O

A/N: Yayyy writing for Sally Face I love this game sm, I'm considering replaying it (I need to but it on my switch tho). I just love this game and all of the characters, it holds my heart, so exited to write for it, Sorry it got a lil angsty at the end, but I guess we all know how the game ends :(

Male Reader, Autistic Reader

The two of you probably met through school

You were the 'weird" quiet kid, didn't talk a lot, needed some help in class, and all around didn't have many friends

It was the average school day, the average torture of high school, when Sal showed up

A new kid from New Jersey is what you overheard from all the other kids, but you figured with your luck a new student wouldn't take any type of interest in you

That was until you saw him

A shorter boy with blue hair and a prosthetic mask

He was in your geometry class, and since the rest of the desks and tables were filled up, except for yours because you wanted to sit by yourself and nobody else wanted to sit with you, he sat right next to you

Normally the popular groups of kids would beg the new student to sit with them, find some way to open up a seat, but not this time

But not with Sal, his prosthetic mask and rather cold and blunt demeanor putting everybody else off

Not you though, you knew what it was like to be different

You didn't mind his mask, or his personality, in fact you could relate to him, not that you started talking to him at first, you were still too scared

As the year went on, the two of you did start talking a little bit, chats about the lessons, how much you despised the teacher, and even giving each other the homework answers when you forgot to do it

You saw him in the hallways and on the way to lunch, hanging out with his friends like Larry and Ash, but you never joined them

You would probably sit with them at lunch, that is if you went to lunch

The cafeteria was way to loud, so you were able to sit in the counselors office for lunch instead

It was after Sal defended you from Travis that you actually started to become closer

The two of you talked more often, found you both have similar interests, and bonded on what made the both of you different from everybody else

You even started to get closer with his friend group and finally felt like you belonged there

It was in your junior year when the two of you got together, although you kept it under the radar for obvious reasons (Travis)

You'd spend days going over to the apartment, meeting his dad, listening to him play the guitar, petting Gizmo, playing video games, and doing the usual spooky apartment activities

You never really got into their shenanigans, sometimes Sal would tell you all about them and sometimes he would be more hesitant

But the whole bologna incident was hard to hide, good thing you never ate those sandwiches

It took a while before he took his mask off in front of you, but when he did he was a bit worried you'd leave him completely

It took a lot of reassuring and comforting that day, but he was more assured and felt a lot better, more comfortable around you

After high school you didn't live together, but you were still close

You'd come over to the boy's place as often as you could, to the point they joked that you lived there

Larry and Todd would poke fun of you and Sal about your relationship, but you would do the same to Todd and Neil

When Ash showed back up, you couldn't help but feel a pang of jealousy with the time they were spending together, although you trust the both of them and would probably never admit it

Of course, with Sal doing his best to keep you out of the paranormal activity, you didn't know when things started to go down hill

When it came out about the murders, you were terrified

You testified up and down that Sal would never do such a thing, but the evidence was all there

Before he was gone, he told you that he had to do it, although you couldn't really understand what he was trying to say

And just like that, you were alone again, people constantly bugging you, trying to get information for whatever true crime podcast they were running, even though you tried to ignore it

Once again you were alone, constantly pointed and poked at, and now Sal wasn't here to comfort you

Uggh I hurt my own feelings at the end. I heard there's supposed to be a second game at some point, which I'm super exited for, ty for reading and have a nice day

[starsetven]

Charalz. On the brain. But whats this? Link is also on the brain..... AND WHATS THIS?!?!?! VIC! ON! THE! BRAIN!!!!! I CAN'T STOP THEM!!! THEY ARE TOO POWERFUL!!!!

Just for fun, here’s some more info on each of them!

Under the cut cause it got long

Vic

Vic has messy handwriting because of how hard he grips his pencil when writing.

Vic is a straight edge. He doesn’t smoke or drink. If he did, he’d get inebriated very easily.

He enjoys dancing, although he isn’t really good at it.

His neighbors love him! He enjoys chatting with the local residents after his nightly run.

Vic likes to feed the stray dogs. Sometimes he successfully gets them into foster programs!

Vic is an incredibly emotional person. So much so that his audience have made compilations of him crying on stream.

He doesn’t enjoy sweet foods because they hurt his stomach. He has a sensitive g.i track, so he gets sick a lot. :(

Whenever Vic gets sick he acts unbothered. He doesn’t want anyone taking care of him, instead he defaults to taking care of others.

Vic is a very social person! As long as someone doesn’t show interest in you, he’s genuinely happy to be around them.

Link

Link knows three languages! English, polish, and French

Though he aspires to learn many more <3

Has a moderate fear of the ocean (Thalassophobia)

He has a gym membership he never uses. He never has the time, anyways.

Link does creative writing in what little free time he has. He writes a lot of sappy poems regarding his aspirations for the future with you <3

Is really bad at video games . Like seriously bad. :(

He doesn’t really enjoy coffee. It’s too bitter for his palate.

He keeps in contact with old med school friends!

Link has an ever growing collection of rare first edition books within his home that cost up to a small fortune. (Around 100k at least)

He hosts book club every week on Saturday! Some of your coworkers joined recently :)

Link is used to being the mediator, so he’s incredibly capable of handling certain rowdy clients accountable.

Link’s dream is to one day operate a mobile library, he aspires to bring some of his books from his personal collection to the local community. 

Has a knack for growing poisonous plants

Link knows every single one of your coworkers on a personal level- As well as their sensitive security information.

Charles

Has a personal culinary staff to cater to his picky palate. He will not eat certain foods, like asparagus, peas, and onions.

So he eats lavish meals prepared by culinary experts he hired from around the globe instead :) ✨

Drives a motorcycle he calls Harley

Charles has a full team of body guards within his manor, he has at least two with him at all times.

Is one of the reasons behind the inner cities crime

He enjoys sitting in local cafes during his free time, it’s how he scopes out his latest victims! :)

Really likes characters like Negan from twd. It’s where he gets in clothing inspiration. Charles is a walking red flag, really.

He owns all of Johnny cash on vinyl -because of the fallout series. Has a secret vault boy collection

Really likes old western movies- so sometimes he daydreams about riding horseback instead of driving Harley

Unlike his brother, he’s actually pretty good at video games! Some of his other favorites are RDR, GTA, Subnautica, and spirit fairer.

He stole Nala from an illegal tiger cub petting ring.

Is incredibly sentimental and sensitive. But due to his crushing toxic masculinity, he downplays his own feelings to avoid being seen as soft by his local community.

Man secretly craves attention. He wants nothing more than a tight hug, and reassurance every once in a while.

[nanasparadise]

A Visit

☆彡 Yan! Zeke x fem reader (Modern AU)

☆彡 Part 1

☆彡 Word count: 1039

☆彡 I do not condone any 'yandere' behaviour in real life.

☆彡 A/N: I was kinda hesitant to post this because it's super self-indulgent and I feel like many people hate Zeke (which is totally fine, you can like/dislike any fictional character, I just don't want anyone to judge me for writing this), but maybe someone else might enjoy this as well!

! TW: yandere behaviour, noncon touching, implied age gap (since reader and Eren are around the same age and Zeke is ten years older than him), just Zeke being a weirdo, MATURE AUDIENCE ONLY/MINORS DNI !

Summary: You want to visit your friend Eren. Instead, you end up being alone with his brother Zeke.

You really hoped Zeke wouldn't be there this time.

He wasn't mean or rude to you. On the contrary, every time you went to visit Eren, his brother was accomodating to you and played the perfect host.

Maybe a little bit too much.

Eren was always annoyed by his behaviour and grumbled to turn it down. You, on the other hand, didn't want to be a bad guest, so you just chuckled awkwardly and kept quiet. You'd always wondered how the two brothers could live together, since they couldn't be any more different. Eren had once mentioned that his father wanted them to get along better, but this topic seemed to be a sore spot, so you let it drop.

Right now, you were in front of their shared apartment, waiting for someone to let you in. Eren had spontaneously texted you to come over and play video games. Not one to turn down a chance to finally beat him at Mario Kart, you quickly accepted. Though your excitement was quickly squashed when you saw Zeke open the door.

"Ah, Y/N", he spoke your name with such familiarity. "To what do I owe this pleasure?" He shot you a warm smile.

You gave him a nervous smile in return. "Hey Zeke, I'm actually here for Eren. He asked me to drop by."

"Oh, did he?" His head tilted slightly to the side. "Are you sure he asked you to come now? He's currently not home, he should be still at the gym as far as I'm aware."

You furrowed your eyebrows. He wasn't home? Why would he say to come over then? You took out your phone and checked the chat, just to make sure you didn't misunderstand anything.

No, he clearly wrote two p.m.

Not wanting to bother Zeke, you played dumb. "Oh yeah, you're right, he did say to meet later. I must have confused something." You let out a quiet chuckle, trying to cover up for the unease you felt. "I'll come back later, sorry for bothering you." You turned away from the entrance door, angling your body towards the stairs. Giving Zeke one last smile, you bid goodbye. "See you around, Zeke."

A hand shot around wrist and stopped you from moving any further. "Wait, Y/N!" Zeke gave you an intense look. Your heart started beating faster, startled by the sudden touch, and you pulled your wrist out of his grip. Noticing your discomfort, he schooled his expression into his typical calm smile again. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you. But how about you wait here? I've got an hour left before I need to go to work, so I can keep you company. That way, you don't need to come back later."

You didn't like the way he seemingly stared into your soul, trying to get an answer from you. Would he be upset if you refused? In the end, it'd be easier to stay, wouldn't it? "If that's okay for you, I don't want to impose", you hesitantly replied.

His smile reached his eyes now. "You wouldn't impose at all! In fact, I'm glad I don't have to be alone now." Zeke put his hand on the small of your back and gently guided you inside the apartment. You took off your shoes and were about to do the same with your coat, but Zeke was faster. Quickly, he grabbed the fabric and forced you to wiggle out of it.

"You didn't have to…", you uttered, embarrassed by his action.

He, on the other hand, gave you a chuckle in return and winked. "Only the best for my guest."

The two of you ended up playing Mario Kart instead. When you admitted that you didn't think he'd be so good at the game, Zeke answered he 'was talented with his fingers'.

You prayed he was only referring to his job as a surgeon.

Luckily, that one hour passed quickly. Zeke stood up from the couch and made himself ready for work.

Before you could realise his intention, Zeke had already bent down in front of your seated form and pressed a kiss on your head. His right hand gripped the back of your neck, making an escape attempt difficult. "I'm looking forward to doing this again with you", he whispered close to your ear, causing a shiver to run down your spine. The smell of nicotine and expensive cologne permeated the air and clouded your senses as you were fixated on his longing gaze. What the hell was going on?

Wordlessly, he got up again and offered you a small wave and innocent smile, as if the whole interaction hadn't happened.

You were about to say something — anything, to make clear that you were definitely not happy with this —, but Zeke had already turned around and left the room.

Still too perplexed by the situation, you stared at the TV in front of you, hoping the device would miraculously give you an answer on what to do. Of course, such thing didn't occur, so you grabbed your phone instead and sent Eren a message, telling him to get his ass home now.

A few moments later, the front door's lock clicked open and a sweaty Eren came to the living room. Relieved by his appearance, you got up from the couch and went to greet him.

"You could have told me the correct time instead of making me wait here with your weird brother for an hour!" You playfully boxed his shoulder, yet your words were genuine.

Eren shot you a puzzled look. "As much as I'm happy to see you, I have no clue why you're here." Now it was your turn to be confused. "I didn't ask you to come over today. In fact, I forgot my phone, so I couldn't have texted you."

„This can't be, look, I've got a text from you that clearly said-" as you showed him the chat, a sense of dread began forming in your stomach, heavy like a stone.

Realisation hit you hard. Eren couldn't have written that message, but someone else, who had been home the whole time, definitely could.

You wouldn't come back to Eren's place again.

[homestuckreplay]

some times video games, DOES CAUSE violence: Who Is Dave Strider?

Character Deep Dive 3 - 7/7/2009

TG: im wearing them ironically TG: because theyre awesome TG: the fact that theyre ironic makes them awesome TG: and vice versa TG: are you taking notes on how to be cool?? jesus get a fucking pen (p.110)

With an ‘OH PSYCHE’ and a dramatic sword slash into the digital world, Dave Strider made his dramatic entrance into Homestuck on June 29, 2009. We’ve previously seen a few of his instant messenger chats with John, which establish him as a disaffected and irony-poisoned guy who values the idea of being ‘cool’ and dismisses his friend’s earnest interests. Actually seeing Dave as a point of view character gives a very different impression - he's emotionally dependent on the people around him, doesn't have a strong sense of self, and is scared to express an earnest thought. And he's not even the tiniest bit cool.

Below the cut is an analysis of what we learn about Dave in the first 350 pages of Homestuck, through the framework of his stated interests on p.315. It's about 4.4k words because much like Dave, I can’t shut up.

1 - You have a penchant for spinning out UNBELIEVABLY ILL JAMS with your TURNTABLES AND MIXING GEAR.

Dave’s computer (p.323) has two desktop files for his jams - ‘ILL BEATS’ and ‘DOPE RHYMES. SO DOPE’ which I can only assume are two separate musical genres that Dave understands the nuance of, even while his listeners do not. However, despite Homestuck regularly featuring music as part of the story, we don’t hear any of Dave’s sick mixtapes. Instead, we make them for him (p.338) - meaning Dave’s first stated interest is one that the audience has control over. This is like if on page 4, each reader got to enter a list of movies for John to love, and those movies were substituted into the later comic, giving every reader a unique experience of John’s taste. 

John is established as someone who has a very specific taste, staying firm while other characters and the narration criticize him. Dave is established as easily influenced by other people’s creative impulses and opinions on art. Whether the reader seriously creates something they enjoy, or layers all 16 or 20 beats at once in an unlistenable mess, the next page still reads ‘Those beats were so fresh they belong in the produce aisle’ (p.339). Dave thinking whatever the reader does is cool is similar to him thinking whatever his bro does is cool, which he mentions throughout his pesterlogs and narration in reference to diverse topics like the sylladex, video games, and puppets. 

He’s also easily influenced by John, perhaps even gullible, as John’s talk of a monster pissing in apple juice at the factory is enough to get inside Dave’s head and stop him from drinking the bottle he was excited about, and Dave switches instantly from parroting the GameBro review of Sburb to believing that Sburb can save Rose’s life, based only on what John says. A big question I’m interested in with Dave is what he actually likes, and where to draw the line between his own interests and opinions, and those of other people that he copies without exploring for himself.

Dave being a technology guy is the first thing we learn about him because of his username, turntechGodhead. We see Dave protective of his turntables, not wanting to spill anything on them (p.315) and we see him refer to his technology by the model name, suggesting that the specifics of the tech are important to him (p.337). Three of Dave’s six stated interests relate to music - unbelievably ill jams, bands no-one’s heard of, and phat rhymes. As music was notably absent from John and Rose’s interests, despite them being skilled instrumentalists, this over-focus on music is really notable. Dave’s musical interests explore the full spectrum of creating vs appreciating music, with Dave creating remixes as the exact middle point, a form of creation that is based on incorporating other artists’ work that Dave enjoys. This is kind of perfect for him as someone whose personality might just be a remix of his brother’s. 

We get no sense of Dave being religious, so the ‘godhead’ in his name apparently refers to how Dave presents himself and his creations. He talks as though his opinions are objectively correct, even in narration, and describes himself as being ‘worshipped’, with people prostrating themselves before him and kissing his shoes. However, music itself can be a religious experience. In Christianity, for example, songs of praise are a form of worship and a way to bring believers closer to God, and all major world religions have their own musical traditions. In secular culture, for many people, music intensifies emotions, creates community, and can create feelings of reverence and catharsis similar to those experienced in religious worship (see this article and this deviation for examples). I can easily imagine Dave feeling the same way, and music being his truest expression of emotion and therefore the thing that hits him most deeply and defines his life.

2 - You like to rave about BANDS NO ONE'S EVER HEARD OF BUT YOU.

We are taking this one on faith, because so far, we haven't seen Dave raving about any bands. He does own an extensive and colorful record collection which he keeps beneath his turntables, but he hasn't looked at any, or given the reader a chance to rifle through them the way we did with John's game collection. This interest parallels Rose's 'RATHER OBSCURE LITERATURE', and similarly, I don't think Dave's bands are genuinely underground - they're probably well regarded indie bands who aren't in the pop charts. If I’m headcanoning Dave’s favorite bands it’s Dirty Projectors, Porcupine Tree, The Streets, Animal Collective, Modest Mouse and LCD Soundsystem. The only real world media we know for sure Dave likes is Starsky & Hutch (2004), and Ben Stiller as an actor. Some of Ben Stiller’s work is definitely ironic comedy, but it’s still fairly mainstream.

It's also possible that Dave already got his only three friends to listen to his obscure bands, and now they have heard of them, meaning Dave can no longer act smug and superior about being the only one that knows them. This is a tragic and self defeating prophecy, and there's no direct textual evidence for it, but I came up with the idea while thinking about the Midnight Crew comic. Dave has a poster and bedspread of this comic but '[hasn't] looked at it in a while' (p.327), so he's less of a fan than he used to be. John also reads Midnight Crew and its predecessor (p.112), so I wonder if Dave got John into mspaintadventures and it then lost its magic of being something cool to Dave. There is a real loneliness in not being able to share your interests with somebody for fear that it will ruin them somehow, or that other people won't understand them the same way - Dave also mentions that it's hard to explain the 'subtleties' of his ironic appreciation (p.318). John likes everything so earnestly in a way that seems uncomfortable for Dave.

3 - You collect WEIRD DEAD THINGS PRESERVED IN VARIOUS WAYS.

Much like the record collection, we can see evidence of Dave's weird dead things in his room, but it's not an interest he's explored in the comic. Page 337 gives us a good view of his specimens, which appear to include an embryo in a jar of liquid, an assortment of scorpions, centipedes and beetles encased in solid material, a fish encased in a different solid, and various rocks, fossils and bones just chilling on the shelf. We don't learn whether Dave collects and preserves the specimens himself or buys them like this, but I found guides online for preserving specimens as a hobby using commercially available supplies, and those sunglasses are kind of like safety goggles (or at least better than nothing). Either way, this interest sticks out - all the others are very typical for a selfconsciously cool indie guy, but even if it's ironic, this is some confirmed nerd shit.

I do think Weird Science will become important to Homestuck. John's interested in ectoBiology and paranormal lore, Rose lives next door to a mysterious laboratory and has the ethos of a mad scientist, and now Dave displays biological specimens on a shelf. I'm always thinking about how the comic is setting itself up to explore some fascinating dichotomies (spectrums?) like physical vs digital and technology vs religion, and I'm now adding art vs science to that list.

I also think we can interpret this interest non-literally, and think about what other things Dave might like to preserve. Vinyl was thought of as a dead medium for decades, until a recent indie resurgence that Dave is helping with. Photography, Dave's next interest, is a way of preserving a moment in time that can't be relived. And one popular argument for why the Internet is good is that while physical items like a paper book will degrade over time, digital data like a website can be preserved forever. Maybe part of the reason Dave feels a lot of responsibility towards his websites is because he knows that people could still be reading them decades or even centuries from now, when he himself is a weird dead thing. In a story where Sburb represents the near-limitless potential for creation and destruction, it is very interesting that Dave, the biggest Sburb hater, is associated with preservation.

4 - You are an AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHER and operate your own MAKESHIFT DARKROOM.

Again, Dave hasn't discussed his photography, but his pictures are strung up around his room. This is fascinating because it implies that the makeshift darkroom is also Dave's actual room, not the bathroom or a spare room or closet. This might suggest that like John, Dave doesn't have much control over the rest of the house. His brother has puppets strung up in the hallway and bathroom, but Dave either isn't allowed to hang his photos there, or he's not comfortable hanging them where the rest of his family might see. It also suggests that Dave simply draws the blinds, switches off the lights and screens, and exists in his room in darkness, navigating by touch and memory alone. This might tie into how half his hobbies are related to sound, not sight - and Dave wearing sunglasses indoors could be a way of practicing finding his way around with reduced sight, or an effect of regularly doing so, if Dave spends enough time in darkness that he now struggles with bright lights.

Three of Dave's four visible photos are selfies of him in different poses, despite a host of interesting things to photograph in his room. I'm thinking of a line from House of Leaves where a character, famous for her smile, is described as practicing it every night in front of the mirror when she was fourteen. Dave is the same to me. He's regularly associated with muting and masking his emotions - for example, saying 'Nah.' to retrieving his arms from cinderblocks (p.313), where John and Rose had far stronger emotional reactions to similar commands (p.5, p.218). Dave photographing himself in the perfect expression or pose surgically designed to look effortless, then studying those photographs and iterating from there, is so easy to imagine.

Conversely, for someone who is so dedicated to concealing emotion to the point of wearing sunglasses and hiding his eyes even while alone, making art (like photography and music) is probably the only way Dave knows how to process his feelings. Sadly we are in a post-cassette tape world, but Dave is such a 'make a mixtape for his crush' type of guy that I can imagine him finding a bunch of limewire rips, compressing them into a zip file and emailing them to John, who replies like 'I don't know how to open this'.

5 - You maintain a number of IRONICALLY HUMOROUS BLOGS, WEBSITES, AND SOCIAL NETWORKING PROFILES.

We are treated to two of Dave's ironically humorous websites - sweet bro’s hella blog, a blogspot page, and SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF, a dot com that really exists (and redirects to the SBAHJ comic on mspaintadventures). This explains everything. A blogspot is one thing but owning a dot com makes you a Guy Who Owns Web Domains, which feels extremely cool despite being ultimately meaningless. These sites also establish how much Dave has to say - we see this in pesterlogs too, where Dave will message John every few minutes asking for updates on the Sburb beta (p. 26, 35, 110) or send twenty messages in a row even after John has said he’s leaving the chat (p.204). 

On sweet bro’s hella blog (p.325), Dave’s just yelling into the void with no real goal in mind, just an idea he thought would be funny. I do think his March review is pretty funny, but I also think Dave likes GameBro for real. He respects their opinions - ‘did you see how it got slammed in game bro????’ (p.26) - and changes the subject when John criticizes it. He’s also adopted the lexicon, as the GameBro review of Sburb (p.42) is written similarly to how Dave types. But mostly I’m interested in Dave’s blog’s followers. He has at least twelve, and maybe more. The Ghostbusters icon is almost certainly John, but none of the icons jump out as Rose or GG. They could be real people - or they could be more of Dave’s accounts, with him creating an extensive social network of characters who interact with each other’s posts ‘ironically’. If Dave is someone who craves social interaction, this could be a way he copes with loneliness.

In SWEET BRO AND HELLA JEFF (p.326), Dave is creating something. He’s a webcomic artist! He might even have been inspired by the Midnight Crew. He’s only made four comics so far, which I’ll call ‘stairs’, ‘HE HE HE’, ‘jelly’, and ‘BARACK’. These all feature two characters, who are presumably Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff, but it’s not defined which is which, so I’ll call them Red and Blue. Red’s mom makes an appearance in HE HE HE, and there’s a squirrel in BARACK, but these are side characters. The dynamic seems to be Red getting into situations, and Blue expositing/commentating on them. They are both gamers, might also be stoners, and Blue is possibly transmasc. BARACK suggests that the two characters might represent the American political parties, which makes sense, because the recent 2008 election is probably the first political moment Dave’s been old enough to have real knowledge and opinions on. 

SBAHJ is clearly intended to be near impossible to parse, filled with nonsensical dialog and plot points and horrific jpeg compression, so it’s extremely hard to analyze right now. I think this might be on purpose, and that part of Dave’s layers of irony are him not wanting people to learn too much about him through his art. The line between irony and sincerity is something really fascinating to me, because these concepts are so embedded into internet culture. Dave tells himself he’s making something that’s bad on purpose, and that he’s doing it ironically. But he actually believes that what he’s making is good. He thinks it’s good because of the irony, but he’s still making art that he’s proud of, he’s still showing vulnerability by posting it on the internet and getting people’s honest reactions, no matter how many layers he tries to cloak that in. 

Dave does think of his blog as a responsibility - ‘ive got a lot of shit on my plate, i am sort of a big deal ok?’ (p.333) - and I think that’s a really common feeling. Having any kind of following, even if it’s just John, his bro, and a couple of strangers on the internet, can easily turn into feeling like there’s an obligation to create content for them. If Dave’s cool bro has promoted Dave’s work, that becomes even more pressure, since those are people Dave probably wants to impress. So when he says he doesn’t have time to read Midnight Crew (p.332) or play Sburb with Rose (p.333), I don’t think he’s lying, or making himself out to be busier than he is.

Much like Dave’s sick beats (p.338), SBAHJ is the first time a Homestuck character has created something that also exists in our world. I think it’s very interesting that John, Rose and Dave all have meta roles to play in the story, but they are all different flavors of meta. John’s meta role is explicitly that of a character, but one that the reader, player, and narrator are all able to control at times through the various layers of the narrative (p.90, p.253, etc). Rose’s meta role is that of a player, able to control John’s environment in godlike ways and be immune to the commands of the Vagabond, another player (p.139, p.277, etc). Now, Dave’s meta role is that of the narrator, as he infodumps and exposits even when nobody is around, posts commentary, and creates an entirely separate narrative on his own website.

6 - And if the inspiration strikes, you won't hesitate to drop some PHAT RHYMES on a mofo and REPRESENT.

The phatness of rhymes can’t be quantified scientifically, but I did my best. I tried reading both of Dave’s raps aloud, doing my best to put them to a beat. The first four lines (p.287) went well, and it all fell apart from there. 

This didn’t feel like a fair test as I’d never usually read rap lyrics before listening to the song - so I read the lyrics to Lil Wayne’s 2008 song A Milli, and Kendrick Lamar’s 2009 remix of the same song, which I hadn’t listened to before. These were both much easier to read in rhythm, and when I listened to the songs afterwards, they were decently close to what I’d imagined. To further control the variables, I read Andrew Hussie’s 2005 comic And It Don’t Stop, which centers around rap battles. Here, too, the rhymes and rhythms are crisp - so this is a Dave issue, and not an author issue.

Dave is trying to use the word ‘McConaughey’ in a rap. He is probably inspired by far more experienced rappers who might be able to pull that off, but Dave definitely can’t. I think he’s skipping steps and trying to make something complex before he has the basics nailed down. His raps also highlight how self centered he is, much like his infinite recursion of ironic websites. John reveals that his life was in danger, and Dave’s instant reaction is: ‘how can I make this about my art?’ 

However, I’m concerned about the cultural implications of Dave’s raps. We don’t know Dave’s race and he definitely could be black, but there’s no specific indication of that. He’s represented in #ffffff, which is closer to a white skin tone than any other - many black and white comics use shading to denote a dark skinned character. Due to the nature of white privilege, white is culturally seen as the ‘default’ or ‘unraced’ option. In books, race or skin tone will be described for characters of color but not mentioned for white characters, and both Lego and The Simpsons use yellow skin for the majority of their characters as an ostensibly universal option, but still depict characters of color with brown skin tones, implying that the default yellow actually means white. 

Written by a white author, it’s likely that Homestuck has the same problem - and two factors make this even more concerning. The first is And It Don’t Stop, which was co-created by Black artist Tauhid Bondia, but was entirely written by white artist Andrew Hussie. The comic includes multiple instances of the n-word as well as a couple other race related jokes. The second is Dave’s raps themselves, one of which is an irreverent analysis of black presidents in movies at the start of the Obama era. Real life black people have incredibly varied opinions on race and politics, but Dave is a fictional character, and even if he is intended to be textually black, it’s uncomfortable for a white author to write him rapping about living in a post-racism world. 

I think it’s likely that the author - and by extension, Dave himself - are justifying their racism by claiming that it’s ironic and doesn’t represent their actual beliefs, failing to see that the effects of their words are exactly the same. I can give Dave the benefit of the doubt because he is 13 years old and doesn’t exist, but I think the very real 29 year old creator of this work should do better.

7 - The Absence of Gaming

John and Rose shared one common interest, which was video games. We know that Dave reads GameBro, owns the Sburb beta, and has played Problem Sleuth and And It Don’t Stop with John (or at least enjoys the art of these games). And yet, he doesn’t cite gaming as an interest, which I've been puzzling and theorizing over in my mind.

Dave likes gaming unironically and loves playing games with John. He reads GameBro to find out what the Correct Contrarian Takes are that’ll be socially acceptable in Cool Guy Circles. He does this to keep up with his bro, who he has a ‘campaign of one-upmanship’ with (p.314) not dissimilar from the Prankster’s Gambit between John and his dad, and who plays a very important role in his life. The magazine is called GameBro, Dave’s comic features Sweet Bro, and Dave effusively compliments his brother in both pesterlogs and narration, such as ‘my bro taught me a few tricks he basically knows everything and is awesome’ (p.35). 

Dave tells John to brush up on his data structures and allocate his strife specibus, but never actually demonstrates his own knowledge of data structures, and doesn’t know the specific procedure for allocating the specibus (p.35). Dave’s not an expert himself, he’s just parroting the sylladex tricks his bro taught to him. Dave never states a reason for his disinterest in Sburb beyond ‘it sounds so HELLS of boring’ (p.110), and we know that Dave’s bro also doesn’t plan on playing Sburb (p.314). Dave also implies that he’s a little bit scared of his brother with the mildly threatening ‘hes not gonna be happy about [my taking his Sburb discs]’ (p.294).

It’s highly possible that Dave’s love of irony also comes directly from imitating his bro, who is probably a 16 year old high schooler involved in a weird theater kid subculture, based on typical sibling age gaps and the puppets strung around the house. To Dave at 13, of course an older, alternative teen is going to be the absolute height of cool, even while it all looks silly to an outsider. I think that John’s stack modus is actually a very standard option for a sylladex, and that Dave and his bro are the weird ones insisting that hash map is usable - I can imagine them being like ‘why is everyone always using “plates” and “bowls”? I eat all of my meals out of aluminum foil folded into the right shapes.’ 

Dave’s post-ironic hipsterism isn’t exclusive to men, of course, but it is a very specific type of masculinity - ironic sexism is a known phenomenon. Dave, who confines his emotions to an expressionless nod, solves the minor problem of someone getting his name wrong by making a violent sword attack, and makes gay jokes but gets defensive the second someone suggests that he might be gay, is definitely falling into some toxic masculinity. 

Gender roles (both male and female) are unachievable ideals for even the most cisgender and perisex of people, but I think there’s a reading of Dave as a transgender man who came out when he was young and passes well, but always has to put in more work than the other men around him, because he has to work against biology and other people’s perception of his gender. Whether Dave is trans or cis, I think his ninja sword could be a metaphor for masculinity - it’s allocated to his strife specibus, but his actual strife portfolio is empty, and the sword is displayed on the wall. To me this says that Dave is a man, but he’s more concerned with the outward performance of masculinity than actually buying into those gender roles.

Final Thoughts

Just like Rose, Dave has meticulously crafted the personality he wants to have, but there are plenty of cracks in his facade. All three of our main characters so far are easy to understand and easy to relate to - right from their early appearances, we can see the clear disconnects between characters’ words, thoughts and actions, and effortlessly synthesize them into a coherent character. The author is simply gifted at characterization. The patterns of character introductions are very cool too, making readers both want and expect to see certain things, such as the characters allocating their strife specibus or playing a haunting tune (personally I’m most excited to explore Rose and Dave’s houses further like we have John’s). Establishing these patterns means I have a better sense of where the story is, and don’t have as many questions, though of course some mysteries remain, such as:

Just what is Dave’s cool brother’s deal, really? 

Will Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff (the characters) eventually cross the boundary into the Homestuck universe? Will we ever find out which one is which? 

Are the characters’ interests intended to be things they’re bad at (when they’re skills)? Could this be why music isn’t featured in John and Rose’s lists of interests, but is in Dave’s? Could this mean that Dave kicks ass at video games? 

To what extent are the images in Homestuck literal and to what extent are they representational? Or, in other words, do Dave’s sunglasses really gleam when we get his name right?

Dave’s message to John about apple juice (p.324) is almost identically worded to the preceding narration (p.320). Is the narration a perfect representation of character thoughts for everyone all the time, or is this only true for Dave because he’s positioned closer to the narrator?

[pandaren-hunter]

i've done more than enough fuh naff redesigns it's time for charles entertainment cheese and his gang to receive a makeover

what i had in mind while doing this was a (personal dream job) HYPOTHETICAL!!! scenario where somehow i've gone back in time and convinced the execs of showbiz pizza time inc to not only keep both cec and showbiz open, but begin a gimmick wherein we lean into the whole "pizza wars" thing and actively pit the characters against each other in a friendly rivalry sort of deal.

firstly youll probably notice that i replaced munch and pasqually with two ptt characters i like much better- pleasemunchandpasquallylikersdonthurtme- that being crusty and harmony. due to my own personal tastes but also because i think adding a second female member of the animatronic lineup evens things out pretty well.

second, is that they all are brand new incarnations of each character, and have their own blurbs i've decided to write down below under the readmore to explain. because this caption is insanely long already. happy reading!!! the rockafire counterpart to this post is coming shortly. so keep an eye out ;)

FIRST AND FOREMOST is the big man himself!!!! chuck e cheese!!! this chuck is an archetypal rebellious teen and cool kid whose primary hobbies include skateboarding and video games. he's got a sort of arrogant i'm-the-shit attitude about him and he definitely can come off as cocky. but he's not necessarily mean spirited either, he really does care for his friends, he's just full of himself.

now, for his rockafire rival (which you will find all the bots have their direct counterpart on the showbiz side of things) you may expect billy bob because mascots of the restaurant and all. but billy bob actually acts more as a mediator in all this, being the only one who has no rival, instead chuck's is beach bear. which will explain why beach has such an aversion to skateboarding - he associates it with the rat boi! chuck doesnt necessarily have anything personal against beach (because this is all in good fun and not anything malicious at all) but beach does feel like chuck's a bit too stuck up for his liking. and also, he can't stand sore losers, or folks who brag about their accomplishments. chuck in turn thinks beach is a bit of a stick in the mud and goody two shoes who doesnt know how to have REAL fun. again these are all FRIENDLY rivalries so nobody's truly mad at anyone just some reasoning.

secondly my gal helen henny. is the direct opposite of mitzi mozzarella of course, who is the popular girl in their high school and head of the cheerleading squad. helen meanwhile is the nerdy type who gets straight a's and sucks up to the teachers a lot. she doesnt get out much besides doing gigs singing in the pizzeria and otherwise is a bit of a shut in. mitzi thinks helen should loosen up, but helen thinks mitzi should be more focused on her future and realize that after high school "popularity" means nothing. theyll still eventually end up being gay married, but thats not until way after they both have graduated from college in which they will reconnect after a chance meeting in the local in universe starbucks, sparking a slow burn romance that eventually leads to the two being wed. but for now, they simply pass each other in the hallway with a friendly nod and perhaps a light chat about the weather.

crusty is in a sports college on a scholarship playing baseball and is one of the strongest team members on campus. he's more reserved and shy most of the time, but really comes out of his shell and shines on stage singing with the others. his dilemma mirrors high school musical in that he's embarrassed to admit that he loves to perform on stage to his fellow baseball players, who are currently unaware of crusty's thespian side. for his rival, fatz geronimo is actually a professor at crusty's college and crusty thinks it's a bit weird how theyre both performers in rival pizzerias. fatz wishes crusty would own up to his love of both baseball and theatre, sometimes giving him dad lectures about being yourself and you only got one life to live so you better make the most of it, while crusty just wishes the old man would mind his own business and butt out of his personal matters. deep down though he appreciates that at least someone cares about what HE wants though.

jasper t jowls in this era is a he/him lesbian because i say so and i make the rules here. he and harmony are open about them being a pair and are often uber affectionate with each other, in front of guests and their friends and all. they really dont care who sees lol. jasper is a farm dog that puts off his chores to go hang with his girlfriend and their friend group. he'd rather spend his hours practicing the banjo and wooing his lady than doing any sort of work, he's real lazy like that. his family thinks his dreams of being a rockstar are ridiculous and so jasper internalizes this way of thinking when it comes to dook larue, who dreams of being an astro physicist and has the support of all his folks. in reality jasper is jealous of dook not having to deal with criticism from his family and being able to freely follow his passions without outside pressure. dook sees jasper as weak willed and thinks he should grow a backbone, but the space doggo most of all just feels bad for the farm doggo and resents his family for not being supportive of his dreams. still, dook's idea of a pep talk is telling jasper to let his folks know what he REALLY thinks and jasper isnt too fond of the idea.

and finally harmony howlette is the resident ranch coyote!!!! shes an expert at wrangling wild mustangs and taming them and preparing them to be farm horses. shes sassy and blunt and takes no shit. sometimes having a hard time keeping her comments to herself. but shes also sweet and genuine, real down to earth type of gal. its what jasper likes best about her. shes rolfe dewolfe's rival, she thinks hes almost as stuck up as chuck can be but to her at least chuck has redeeming qualities about him. in her mind rolfe is just some washed up comedian that lets his assistant earle pick on him to get a cheap laugh out of the audience. which, rolfe doesnt necessarily deny the part about letting earle pick on him, but he thinks harmony needs to learn to take a joke and worry about herself a little more. he says that having a southern accent and country charm isnt a personality trait and wonders what jasper sees in her.

[yourlocalartsonist]

ROTTMNT Moths Fly In Packs - Chapter Eight

A/N: I AM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG OH MY GOD. I genuinely didn’t expect it to, chapter 8 was supposed to be way shorter but uh yk my brain didn’t like that apparatnly. So now it’s uh 10K words. I think it’s genuinely worth the wait and read tho so hey, alls well that ends well or something. I’m gonna try to be faster with updates now. I’m FAIRLY CERTAIN chapter nine will be much shorter or at least nothing crazy like 8 or 10k. But what I can guarantee is chapters 10-13 will most definitely be short and lead up to the grand arc finale of chapter 14. We’re getting pretty close to it and I’m literally vibrating from excitement but no spoilers. Anyway enjoy the chapter! :D

Credit to: @sweaterrat and @yosajaeofficial for being my beloved beta readers! This story wouldn’t be able to have the quality it does without them so please give them some love and check out their ROTTMNT stories too!

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter | Chapter One

Disclaimer: Chapter involves depressive thoughts, mentions of bullying, depressed behavior, mentions of Kr*ng, PTSD behavior, violence, very lightly graphic description of injuries, blood, and curse words. If you’re sensitive to that stuff, scroll past and stay safe!

Outside the window, you can make out a bird’s nest sat in one of the trees. It’s been here for a week now, perfectly timed with when I got back to a consistent school life. But lately, the mother’s been staying at the nest more often. I’m guessing they’ve got babies on the way, she’s probably incubating her eggs right now. I think I’ve gotten attached to them, that small family of robins. The parents are so dedicated, aren’t they? The mother especially, never leaving the nest unless absolutely necessary. 

On the contrary to my peaceful view, the classroom is noisy, hectic, and cluttered. No real science work for today so everyone’s just doing their own thing. Very loudly. Jaiden and Zane are chatting and laughing with each other next to me. I think things are better between us, I still don’t really know where Jaiden and I stand right now but at least Zane seems fine with me. Though I won’t lie, I’ve been feeling more and more like a third wheel around them. 

“Dude! I’m telling you, we have to play this game together! We’d have so much fun!” 

“I already said I would, Jaiden! Man, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh like this. Shame you’re letting such a pretty smile go to waste.”

“Yeah? Let’s hang out more often then and maybe I won’t do that.”  

Like right now.

Lowkey, I’ve been feeling invisible around those two. Jaiden barely pays any attention to me, it’s as if Zane was their best friend instead of me! I mean, I know friends can drift apart, I definitely know. But still, I never imagined it would happen to us. I still don’t wanna believe that’s what’s happening. I wanna keep hope.

“And ironically, you’re being pretty quiet today, Salena. Did you two switch personalities or something?” 

“You are weirdly quiet, actually. What’s up?”

Oh lookie, I’ve been acknowledged. “Nah, you guys don’t have to worry about me. Just lower on energy than usual.” 

I went back to my routine of staring out the window like the main character in a music video. In the reflection, Zane was still watching me. With the way his eyes lingered, I had a feeling he’s not falling for my excuse. 

Seems like Jaiden’s not too worried, though. “Oh, Zane! You wanna hear about this new skate park I found?” Just went right back at it with Zane. Who’s weirdly still staring at me.

“…Actually, I’m kinda hungry. Jaiden, you mind getting me a snack from the vending machine?”

“Huh? But I wouldn’t know what to get you. N-not that I don’t pay attention to what you like! But, you know… Salena has better taste in these things! She should go-”

“She always goes.”

“‘Cause she knows what she’s doing.”

“Jaiden.”

“Guys, it’s fine! It’s fine. I’ve got this.” I didn’t want them to fight again so I got up from my seat. “Be back soon.”

Jaiden gave me their most gleeful smile I’ve seen them make in a while. I think seeing them smile makes this gesture worthwhile. Even if it’s just for a little bit.

The walk to the vending machine shouldn’t have been long, it’s not super far away. But my legs dragged on forcing each step to be slower than the last. I feel guilty thinking like this but a part of me wants this dumb walk to go on forever. I can’t stand being near them and I don’t know why! It’s not like we’ve got bad blood, they’ve both been normal towards me since I came back. So why am I acting like this? I’m seriously starting to doubt Splinter’s theory of me not being the problem here…

I approached the machine, stopping as I heard a struggling voice in front of me. 

“Argh! How’d she say these things worked again?” 

His finger pressed against the glass, tracing the code for the snack he wanted. He tapped the buttons on the screen. Nothing happened. Scratching his head, he leaned forward to read the next instructions. Finally, he pulled out a dollar bill.

…Before proceeding to insert it in the wrong way. And taking it out. And inserting it back in. And repeating the process. I can feel my soul exiting my body from second-hand embarrassment. 

I recognized the fluffy black hair. With a crooked smile, I pulled out my own wallet.

“You’re supposed to put it in this way.” I slid my bill into the slot, the granola bar he selected successfully being pushed down soon after. “Good to see you again.”

“Woah, cool!” He stared at the giant food box almost with a childlike wonder, pausing for a few minutes before turning to me. “And hey! Yeah, it’s really nice seeing you again, too.” His eyes remained locked for a while before he scrambled to hand me the bill he had. “Here! Let me pay you back-“

“No, no, no, don’t worry about it! Really! Consider it my apology for, um, last time.” 

“Apology? I mean, you weren’t the one doing anything weird so I don’t think you’ve gotta apologize.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Casey Jones Jr. I was gonna introduce myself the first time we met but, you know.”

“Salena Moni! So, how’s everything holding up? You joined pretty late in the year so if you need any help reviewing stuff I’m more than happy to.”

 

“Oh, don’t worry! It’s actually going alright. Still technically my first time going to a real school, so it’s a little bit of a challenge but I already knew most of the material anyways. I didn’t have to catch up on much.”  

“Wow, that is… remarkably impressive.” If only I handled transferring as well as this guy. “Wait, hold up, real school? Were you homeschooled?”

“You could… say that. My uncle taught me everything, he was the smartest person I knew! Just turns out it was literally everything.”

“Cool! I guess we can check grades off the box, then! So, is everyone being nice? Made any friends?”

I bit my lip as I received my answer in the form of his face freezing mid-speech. “W-well uh…”

Oh, you poor thing…

I guess he could read my face since he immediately tried reassuring me, as if he wasn’t the victim in this scenario. “I-I mean it’s not awful! A couple people were nice to me, including you! Sure, some are a little… hostile. But it’ll get better eventually.” 

“Y-yeah! It definitely… definitely will.”

And cue the classic awkward silence that stars in any first conversation. A little overdue for this one now that I’m thinking about it. 

I’m so conflicted. I know damn well he’s not gonna have the high school dream he’s probably imagining right now. No one does. I may not have been at this school for long, but I’ve been here long enough to know how the people are. April told me it gets even worse every year as cliques start getting established and people grow past the initial politeness. I’m glad she did, she never kept anything about high school from me no matter how bad it was. Nothing was in my control but at least I knew it was coming.

And here I am playing the exact opposite role for Casey. I hate giving people false hope, I hate it with a passion! But I’m supposed to, I think. In a situation like this I’m supposed to hype him up. Ignorance is bliss! Wouldn’t it just ruin his spirits if I broke the glass? 

“Anyway, it was nice to meet you! I guess I’ll see you around?”

“Y-yep! Hope things get better for you soon!” 

“Me too.”

Ugh, the guilt is eating me up! I’m acting like I’ve never told a lie in my life but it’s not that. It’s his pure mindset that’s completely fucking with my morality! 

I know to keep my mouth shut, I do. I don’t want him to hate me like everyone else does. I haven’t met someone who’s been so nice to me in this stupid ass school before, I don’t want to ruin this chance now that I finally got it. Plus, he might not even believe me…

I watched him turn to walk away. 

Fuck it, social norms are for losers!

“W-wait! Casey?” He turned back around and I nearly shit myself from fear. “So, don’t be mad but I may have um… lied about something?” 

“Uh, sorry?”

I took a deep breath, bracing myself. “Well, here’s the deal. Things aren’t really gonna get better, sorry. Or, actually! I don’t mean that extremely literally, I guess...” 

Focus on your hands, it’ll be okay. “Just… People here are mean. Really, really mean. You’re homeschooled, you’re new, and you’re nice. It’s a recipe for disaster here whether it’s today or even a year after you’ve settled in!”

I can’t even read his expression and get an idea of his reaction. He’s got a scary good poker face, I’m curious which relative taught him that one.

“Casey, please don’t take this the wrong way. I-I’m not saying any of it is your fault! Or that you need to change or do anything. I’m only saying this so you don’t have any… unrealistic expectations so to speak.” 

God, his silence is more terrifying than anticipated.

So much so I couldn’t help letting out a quiet breath of relief when he finally did speak. “You know, you’re the first person here who’s told me that.”

“…Is that bad?”

“Not at all. All my family, they never got the chance to go to school. Hell, I didn’t think I’d have the opportunity. But here I am! First time in a new building with weird people and absolutely no clue what to expect. I’m usually good with surprises but this one is just so… different. Different is scary, you know?” 

I nodded. I most definitely did know.

“Anyway, you’re right that people are just mean here. I don’t even know why, I mean, I’ve met my fair share of dicks before but at least they had good reasons! We were under so much stress… But that’s not what I hate. It’s the fact that any time I tell an adult, they say the same thing over and over again!” 

“Let me guess.” I cleared my throat and enhanced the performance with my intoxicated Mrs. Doubtfire voice. “Just ignore them and give it time and it’ll magically fix itself ‘cause boredom beats bullies or some shit, right?”

“Yeah, exactly!” His laugh is like holding your parent’s hand when you’re getting the flu shot, it’s magical! “They say that to everyone, don’t they? God, what’s up with that? I’m so not used to adults lying to me.”

“Dude, what? You’re kidding, your whole community’s gotta be amazing if you’ve never been lied to by an adult.” 

“Eh, more or less… Anyway, um, thank you. For telling me the truth. And the granola bar. I seriously owe you for this.”

…I take it back, Splinter might’ve actually been onto something.

I mean, he’s a little strange, I won’t lie about that. This is the first time I’ve heard someone actually be grateful for me telling the truth. In the past it either got me isolated or in huge trouble, depending on who I was honest with. Maybe this is why I’m so used to lying. I hate it but I’ve had to do it so much. I’ve never met someone who finally lets me relax about it, not until Casey Jr it seems.

Maybe he deserves me being a little braver for a change. 

“Well, here’s a way you can repay me. By us being friends!”

…

This was a lot more epic in my head without his speechless pause. Maybe I got the vibe wrong-

“REALLY!? OMIGOSH! That would be so cool! I’ve literally been thinking about asking you the same thing ‘cause I keep wanting to talk to you but never run into you but now we can talk whenever we want, IT’LL BE GREAT!!!” Spoke too soon, he is literally shaking me by the shoulders. It feels unnatural not being on the other side of this scenario. 

“Casey, my stomach doesn’t approve of this-“

“Sorry, sorry!” He finally stopped and allowed me to remember the pleasant feeling of absolute stillness. “I just can’t believe you actually wanna be friends with me!” 

Still, his surprising enthusiasm gave me a good laugh. “Dude, it’s alright! It’s kinda more surprising you wanna be friends with me.”  

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met in my entire life, anyone who’s friends with you is lucky to have you!” 

Lucky to have me?

Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit, unexpected compliments go burn in a fire but also don’t leave, it actually feels really nice. 

“Salena, are you okay? Did I say something wrong?”

“N-no, I mean, all I did was buy you a snack and tell you people are jerks. I’m not too sure I should be receiving the title of the ‘kindest person you’ve ever met’ and stuff.”

“O-oh yeah, you have a point.” He got a little flustered at that, despite it really being my fault for not being able to take compliments. “I don’t know, I mean, I still think you’re really cool. I’m just so happy you wanna be friends with me!” 

He looked like a child on Christmas morning as I tippy-tapped my number into his phone. Come to think of it, I know I’ve definitely reacted excitedly towards certain people - or turtles, I should say - but having someone do it to me? Feels kinda nice.

I looked up at the clock. “Shit. We should probably head back to class before we get in trouble.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. But hey,” his eyes closed as the corners delightfully wrinkled “it was great running into you again! Fate really wants us to be friends.”

He has a really nice smile. 

“Funny how life works, ay?”

I skipped my way back to class, mind too deep in thought to realize how fast I went.

This guy, Casey Jones, he’s giving me certain vibes. I don’t mean the creepy, stalkerish, "I need to get the hell outta here” vibes. More like deja-vu. I can’t pin what exactly, but something about him feels so… foreign yet familiar. Homey, if you may. Like a nice, warm fire in mid-winter night. It’s really soothing. 

And immediately I’m thrown into emotional whiplash as I went back inside the annoying ass classroom of teenage chaos. So much for soothing vibes. I plopped back in my desk as Zane slowly scanned me.

“You took a while. Did you get my snack?…”

…Fuck. “Sorry! I completely forgot!”

“How did you forget when it’s the literal reason you even left?” Jaiden doesn’t seem as chipper as before.

“I know, I’m so sorry. I got a bit distracted. Gimmie a sec, I’ll be right back-”

“No, wait! It’s fine, I’m not hungry anymore.”

“Really? Okay, suit yourself.” I shrugged, getting settled in again. He leaned closer to me, both confused and concerned.

“You seem happier right now. Did something good happen?”

“Oh, yeah, I guess! Just ran into a new friend.”

His face scrunched up, going back to chatting with Jaiden. I have no clue why he glared when I said that, I don’t think I said anything wrong or alarming. Honestly, bro has worse mood swings than I do. It's seriously annoying sometimes but whatever, they’ve gone back to their little bubble now so I shall go back to mine.

I pulled out my phone, greeted with Casey’s excited text already.

CJ: Hey! Not really doing anything in class so if you’re free too, text me back :D

Smiling, I let myself get engrossed in my phone, happily typing away. He’s a fun guy to talk to. His enthusiasm and bubbliness is a little surprising considering how borderline timid he seemed at first. Goes to show, never judge a book by its cover! I felt my mood lifting, less gloomier than before.

Until I remembered something he said.

“My uncle taught me everything, he was the smartest person I knew!”

Was?...

***

Ah, midnight. A time when the mentally sane and emotionally stable would be sleeping. Turns out I’m neither of those folks, I’ve got better things to do. I have weapons now but I’ve gotta actually practice using them if I don’t wanna render them useless. Besides, in bed or out here, I’m not falling asleep either way. At least this serves as a good distraction! And won’t give me a headache like my phone will.

The blades cut through the air as I twirled them, striking at an imaginary enemy soon after. 

I try not to think about life when I’m training, it distracts me too much. Sometimes I feel like Casey’s the only thing making school bearable anymore. We don’t share any classes so we text more than talk but I don’t have to do any mental gymnastics to figure out how he views me. I’m still confused as hell if Jaiden likes me or hates me and have no damn clue what Zane’s deal is anymore. He keeps staring at me. More than usual. Sure, I could always sit there and ponder for hours on end what the fuck is going on, but I doubt even that’d get any results.

The sickles, however, do show results. They feel lighter, smoother, easier to duel. I’m getting faster with them and my arms don’t feel as broken after training anymore! It’s something I can lose myself in, track the improvement. It’s so much simpler than everything else.

It keeps my mind occupied. If I focus on them, I don’t think about anyone from school or anything bad that’s happening! Or at least, I usually don't. I guess I’m thinking about it now, though…

“Someone’s training hard.”

“AHH!!!”

Immediately I jerked to turn and held up a blade in defense. However, it turned out to be a false alarm as instead of some midnight mugger I expected to see, I’m greeted with a smirking blue idiot standing in front of me.

“Woah, hey! I come in peace!” The stupid bitch held his hands up, mocking me with his fake fear. “Been a while, huh?” 

“Leo? Oh god, you scared me! Where did you even come from?” 

“The better question would be: Where did you disappear to? We haven’t gone out in like a week! You kept leaving me on read when I texted you but seemed fine in the group chat. What gives?” 

“…I forgor?”

“Really?” I could tell he wasn’t satisfied by my answer. “You just forgot to respond to me? Every single time?”

“W-well sorta. I mean, it’s nothing you did so please don’t take it personally! It’s with everyone. I’ve just been a little bad at responding to dms…” My social battery’s been so low lately I question if it’s even charged at all. “That’s entirely on me, though! I’m so sorry.”

He crossed his arms and looked me up and down. He’s doing that nonchalant poker face again, the one he does when he doesn’t wanna be read, otherwise he’s an open book. 

“You know you can tell me if something’s up, right?”

I guess he also does that face when he’s trying to read someone else. “Yeah, I know. I’m alright. It’s just… I dunno, things are a little weird but it’s fine. It’s really nothing to worry about.”

He hummed in response. I don’t really think he bought it but his eyes eventually drifted to my weapons, dropping the topic regardless. He must not wanna push it.

“Sooo, sick weapons! Where’d you get ‘em?”

“Oh, these? Draxum gave them to me!”

He gagged, interrupting me. “You met Draxum? The sheep guy? Oh, poor you! Was he awful to deal with? I bet he was! You know, like always.” 

“Oh come on, he wasn’t that bad! A little grouchy at first but in his defense, I caught him in the middle of his shift, so.”

“Please, sheep bitch doesn’t need a reason to be a jerk! He’s just an old cranky loser who spends his days yelling at kids and smuggling whatever mystic bullshit of the week he found from the Hidden City! It’s giving Oscar the Grouch, just missing the lemon. Oh wait, that’s ‘cause unlike Oscar, he doesn’t even have one single thing that makes him uncharacteristically happy!” 

“Wow, angry aren’t we?” It’s rude to laugh, but I can’t help myself around this dork. He looks like a kid who got denied an Xbox when he crosses his arms like that. “Leo, be real. This is because he threw you off a roof, isn’t it?”

“You know!? I mean-“ He laughed, trying to hide his poorly made lie. “What? Of course not… Maybe just a little but that’s not important.” 

Leo grumbled on with some incoherent noises for a minute, before cooling down and moving on from the “sheep bitch”. 

“Ugh, well anyway, if you got it from that moron, they’re definitely mystic or something, right?”

“Oh, absolutely! They’re actually super cool, I mean-“ For a good five minutes I kept blabbering on and on about the sickles and how they function and all my progress that I didn’t notice Leo - bless his heart - trying and horrifically failing to pay attention. He doesn’t really hide it well when he spaces out.

“And they- Uh, Leo, you good?” 

“…Would you be mad if I said I got like, none of that?” 

I sighed but gave a gentle smile. I knew he had a short attention span so I can’t really act like it’s his fault I forgot about that. 

“Actually, do you want me to just like… act it out instead? I think I’ve gotten pretty good at using these so I don’t mind showing instead of telling!”

He shrugged “Nothin’s stopping you. Go on, impress me!” 

Well, nothing except my nerves. But hey, it’s just Leo. If I mess up, he’ll laugh with me a bit and then I’ll just retry. No real pressure around him. I could use a progress check right now, anyway.

“Aight, so we only know two out of who knows how many powers for these things, they’re the only two I’ve been practicing. First up!”

 

I spun them around, careful to not mess up my handling. My goal is to form blades strong enough to crack a dent through the concrete edge of this building. So the sickles need to be made out of metal or steel. I usually go with metal but I do actually wanna impress him and steel’s stronger. I aimed at the edge and swung my arm forward, the sickle shot through the air and sliced through the concrete like a knife to a cake.

“OH SHIT!”

“I got it!” He teleported to catch the flying solo sickle and came right back within a matter of seconds. Oh, what I’d give to experience never having to walk again. 

“Sorry about that! They’ve never broken the edge like that before!”

“Sorry!? You’re not allowed to be sorry, that was so cool! It went clean through!” I’ve never seen him gush about something this way. I’ve gotta admit, it’s kind of adorable. “Okay, I’m hooked! What’s the other thing it can do?”

“Invisibility! But I can’t do it for long, at least not yet. I made progress, though! Went from only three seconds to five!”

“Wait, actually, back up a bit. I get that Baron Ass told you how the sickles work and blah blah blah, but how’d you learn how to fight with ‘em? Ya know, the non-mystic aspects.” 

“Oh, YouTube tutorials at first. But honestly, sickle fighting is mid so I did a lot of improv, really.”

He chuckled and eventually lost to his giggles as if me saying that wasn’t completely justified. “Did you just call an ancient form of martial arts mid?” 

“Stop judging me, I’m right! Sickles were improvised weapons. They’re good for the last resort, not the first choice!”

“I’m not judging, I’m not judging! Promise! I respect it, even!” He leaned against the roof’s edge, gradually collecting himself. “But if they’re that bad, why didn’t you ask for a different weapon? One that’s cooler and not ‘the last resort’?”

Oh boy, where to begin?

I then explained how I essentially found myself wrapped in some “chosen one” bullshit through the sickles. They still don’t work any time Barry touches them but are perfectly fine in my hands. It’d be pretty dumb to pass up these weapons for a different one, even if sickles aren’t the coolest thing to own. Although, he’s definitely acting like they are judging by how intensely his eyes are staring at them. They’re sparkling brighter than I thought eyes realistically could. 

“Well, now I’m offended! Mystic mystery sickles that do all kinds of glowy stuff for you specifically? How could you not tell me about these sooner!? They’re so amazing!”

“I know, I’m real sorry, Leon.” He’s joking around, his tone’s too light to be mad. But I do still feel bad for accidentally ignoring him like that. “Anything I can do for you as an apology?”

“Well…” His smirk revealed that thing was the main reason he came here in the first place. “We could make up for the lost time and go on a run together tonight. It is a weekend so you’d still have tomorrow and the day after to rest up. But hey, that’s just an idea…”

It's Friday again. Just like the first time we did this.

He held out his hand as an offer and I took it with a grin. “You make a convincing argument.”

And off we went, dashing through the night. It’s a bit humid today so the wind from sprinting so fast is greatly appreciated. Not to mention my speed is so much better than before! 

The daily restrictions of civil life can go suck my dick and feed my liver to their uncles ‘cause oh my god nothing beats this feeling! No one else is here, no one who could stop us! Sure, jumping off roofs isn’t the safest way to have fun, but everything else in my life is already so safe! I’m allowed to have this one thing, this one moment to be free.

I’m so distracted that I didn’t realize I’m actually giving Leo a run for his money this time! Hehe, run. God, I’m so funny.

“Looks like you can actually keep up with me now!”

“I know, right!? It feels fucking amazing!” 

Judging from his mischievous ass face, I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut. “I don’t mean to burst your bubble but…”

 A blue light appeared as a hole ripped in the sky and the lovely piece of shit went right through, appearing again somewhere way ahead of me. “I’m still faster!~”

“Hey! No portals allowed!”

“Uh, last time I checked, portalling is totally allowed.”

“Says who!?”

“Says me and I’m leader! Whatever leader says goes!”

To add insult to injury, he doesn’t just portal himself. As I’m trying to catch up to him mid-jump, the jackass opens a portal right under me, sending me back even further than I already was with no time to recover. 

“Leo, you cheat!”

Bro’s giggling his ass off as he blinked in and out of sight. I’m no different with how sore my face is, so I can’t even pretend to be mad. 

Instead, all I can do is try my best to speed up and catch up, plotting my revenge in the meantime. Easier said than done, that dude’s faster than the Flash right now since he’s, ya know, portalling. Doesn’t help that he keeps appearing right next to me every few minutes just to taunt me and disappear again.

A few minutes into our little cat and mouse game though, I lost track of him and he hadn’t shown up in a while to pester me. So, I started calling out his name, trying to look for him. You’d think it’d be easier to find a 5’5” giant, green turtle man but I guess they wouldn’t be ninjas if that were the case.

“Leo? Leo!? Le- Huh?”

I finally found him. But instead of the shit-eating grin he gave me earlier, he’s silent and still behind the edge of a roof, his back facing me. It’s starting to freak me out a little, he looks like he’s going fucking Blair Witch mode. No words, no witty remarks, nothing. Just ghostly staring at whatever the view is. Only thing I can see from here is a museum. 

“Hey, Leon, you okay?”

“Shh!”

With his eyes still fixed up ahead, Leo took my hand and guided me forward. He eventually looked at me and nodded towards the street below us. Gazing in that direction, I saw a large purple truck with the logo of that one weird shoe store I browsed a few years ago. From what I’ve gathered these past few weeks, big trucks mean bad news. 

But maybe that’s not what I should be focused on. Standing near the truck were two people, their skin an unnatural shade of purple. One’s large and brutish, the other tall and slender. They’ve got foot marks on their faces and flames on their bald heads. Exactly how Mikey described…

“The Foot Clan.”

He nodded. “I don’t understand, those guys were all turned into Krang during the invasion.”

Sorry, what? “You’re sure it was those two specifically? I haven’t heard about any cures or vaccines for the Krang victims on the news. It’d make headlines if there were.” I haven’t heard anything about them for a while now that I think about it.

“Yeah, I’m sure.” He leaned closer to the edge, as close as he could get without getting caught. “They’re parked a street away from a museum, the hell are they up to now?” 

I mimicked his actions, trying to hear the Foot people better. The slender one’s on the phone, sounding frustrated. He’s doing that whisper-yelling thing people do when they wanna be mad quietly to avoid societal shame. 

“Yeesh, someone’s having a bad day.”

“You can hear them?” Why does he look so confused?

“Yeah, can’t you?”

Leo shook his head. “Whatever, what are they saying?” 

I cocked my head to the side, spying in on their conversation.

His voice is scratchy, a little sore on my ears. “What do you mean you can’t get it off? Just bring the whole thing and hurry! We can’t risk alerting anyone!” Neither of us can tell what he’s referring to, unfortunately. The Foot dude avoids naming it. 

I looked back at Leo scanning around for any clues. He stared at the back of the museum for a minute before his eyes widened. “I know where we are. It’s the Historical Society Museum. Donnie mentioned wanting to come here once.” 

“I think I’ve heard of it. Isn’t there a lot of ancient stuff in there? Like, from centuries back?”

Nodded again. He’s being unnervingly quiet, considering it’s Leo. He stared at the clan, then at the museum, then back at the clan. He looked… scared. Scared in a way I’ve never seen him before. I felt my hand being subconsciously squeezed. I didn’t even notice he hadn’t let go in the first place.

…I have to help him.

I readied myself for whatever his idea was, no matter how outlandish or risky it may seem. “Alrighty, what’s the plan?” 

“Right.” He hesitated, before gripping his katanas and turning back. “…The plan is for me to portal you home, kick some Foot ass, and pick you up so we can continue our run.” 

WHAT!?

“What do you mean ‘portal me home!? I’m not leaving!” I was prepared for anything, but this!? “We just stumbled across the Foot Clan who are for some reason not freaky alien zombies and messing with ancient artifacts that do who knows what!”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m sending you home before your adrenaline junkie ass can do something stupid.”

“And what makes you think I’d do that!?”

He held up my scarred left arm and stared at me unimpressed.  

“…Okay, that’s a low blow even for you.” 

Though as much as I hate to admit it, he kind of has a point. I sighed. “Alright, tell me. If I leave, will you at least call your brothers to help you out?”

“Yes!”

“Leo.”

“Fine, I lied.” The steel fucking balls of- “But still! I’ll be okay! I’ve gone against them plenty of times before.”

“Doesn’t mean you’re invincible!”

Before I could say anything more, I heard the sound of a truck starting up. I looked down and Leo followed my line of sight to see the Foot getting ready to drive. 

Shit, they’re getting away!

“Okay, okay! Listen, I promise, I promise I won’t run off on my own and do something dumb this time. Anything the leader says goes! Just please let me join!” I can’t leave him alone!

I could sense him debating on what to do. His eyes look so conflicted, there’s definitely more than what he’s telling me. Nevertheless, I’m not budging. I don’t wanna sit at home being useless and worry the entire time.

He took a deep breath in, and let out a loud sigh. He looked at me with a defeated smile. “I’m not getting rid of you, am I?”

“Nope.”

“Alright, fine, but you’re sticking close.”

Before I could celebrate too much, I felt the ground beneath me disappear into bright blue light. Not anything sudden, more gentle really. Even then, I felt disoriented with my feet going from firmly grounded to touching the air! Not to mention how light my whole body felt. Gravity did a complete 180 and I got flipped around, landing under the truck. 

I nearly lost my grip but a hand on my back kept me in place long enough for me to recollect myself. Leo portalled us here.Well, obviously he did, it just caught me off guard again. It’s not really too bad going through his portals but it sure is a fucking trip when it’s unexpected. Either way, it got the job done. 

They drove for quite a damn while. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience having to cling on to the bottom of a moving truck as the only scents to breathe in were that of oil and gasoline, but we probably looked super cool! My ears disagreed but oh well. They parked in front of a mall this time. Not just any mall, the fucking World Trade Center! We’re literally on the other side of the city, what on Earth could they need here?

I wanted to follow them in but Leo was against it. He said it’d be safer for us to spy from a distance for now so we went to the roof of a neighboring building, looking in at them. The Foot are on one of the higher floors, almost seeming like they’re scavenging for something. 

Leo’s trying to figure out another way in for us. I still don’t understand why we didn’t just follow them. I know Leo’s not a total reckless nutcase or anything, but being this cautious felt a little unlike him. 

“Hey, look, I don’t mean to shoot your own words back at you or anything. But you know you can tell me if something’s up, right?” 

For a split second, he looked different. His eyes were dead, his lips shut and neutral. He stared at me but he looked so… lost. Empty. 

And then his smile returned, face back to normal. Or at least what he convinced me was normal. I’m not so sure anymore. He flicked my forehead again. Even softer than the first time he did it. “Stop worrying so much! You’re gonna give yourself a chasm worse than Raph’s.”

I didn’t know how to take it from there. So I just watched him.

He eventually decided on portalling us into the building’s vent system. It’s a little cramped but was the only place we can eavesdrop without being immediately spotted. Though honestly, I don’t mind this one bit! I’m controlling the impulsive adrenaline ,however, he didn’t say shit about internal adrenaline! I can’t help it if stealth makes me giddy!

“Hehe! It’s like we’re in a movie!”

“Love your enthusiasm as always but remember to not get too caught up in it.”

I momentarily shoved my excitement to the side as we both tried listening in on the Foot Clan. The skinny dude, who I now know to be the Lieutenant, is barking orders at the rest of the soldiers scouting around while talking to the giant Brute. 

“You disabled the cameras, correct? You know we can’t make it any harder for them!”

“Of course I did, it’s a no-brainer! Why’d ya have to ask it like that?” Woah, villain or not, his New Yorker accent is one to admire! “You know, sometimes I feel like you think I’m just stupid and nothin’ more.”

“Oh, don’t start now. Focus on finding good metal. The sooner we finish this the better.”

Hearing his raspy voice makes my own throat itch a little. I lightly clawed at it, trying to not make too much noise as I moved. 

I leaned a little closer to Leo “What do you think they need metal for?” 

“Not sure. Could be to make more soldiers or something? It’d be a cool upgrade from their paper soldiers.”

Leo’s tone seems a little lighter than before, I’m glad to hear him joke around again. “They could make paper soldiers?”

“Yeah! And they’re completely sentient, one of them even became besties with Raph! Anyway,” he pointed down at a handful of soldiers collecting metal artifacts “they’re probably trying to make those origami soldiers again with something stronger.”

“But how would you fold metal?”

“Beats me, Mikey would know more on this. He’s figuring out how to recreate whatever spell they used so we could get some help with patrolling. Word of advice though, salami origami does not work as a substitute.”

“No shit. Who’s bright idea was that?”

“...You don’t know him.” His guilty face says it all.

We were giggling a little too loudly, I suppose. One of the Foot dudes stopped and started listening for our voices again. He shrugged and moved on soon enough. I didn’t realize I was covering my mouth till I let myself breathe again.

“We should probably be a little quieter and take this stealth thing more seriously.”

I nodded in agreement. He’s not upset, honestly he’s struggling just as much as I am to choke down more giggles. It’s like we’re hiding under a blanket during a sleepover pretending we’re not awake in front of the parents and not in a likely life or death situation spying on the black-magic cult. I’m trying my best but it’s already hard enough to keep my adrenaline addiction in check and Leo being here makes it worse in the best ways possible. 

Still, I don’t wanna know what happens if we get cau- What was that creaking sound?

CLANG! 

It would seem those were not really sturdy vents. 

You know that moment from the Ice Age sequel when the vultures surround the main cast with hungry, devilish eyes ready to feast on them at any given moment? Yeah, let’s just say I wouldn’t be surprised if the Foot Clan randomly bursts into song about “glorious food” full on broadway musical style.

“Uh… Hey, fellas! Long time no see, am I right?” Despite his demeanor, I caught the real reason he raised his hands. I reached back for mine as well.

A sheath of metal filled the air as Leo took his katanas out their case, perfectly timed with the Lieutenant’s new orders.

“GET THEM!” 

“Run, hide first then get the stolen thingie if you can. I’ll keep ‘em busy!” Leo charged into the fight, holding them off to make sure they couldn’t get to me.

Unfortunately, there’s like a bajillion of them that can easily outnumber us. I’ve learned to be quite a slippery sprinter but even then two already managed to block my path.

Now would be a good time to turn invisible!

“Come on, come on!” I could barely get the sparks to even start spreading. Turns out stress is a huge fucking factor I neglected in my training. 

I wouldn’t have minded if it just took a few seconds to work but the real issue was I couldn’t keep it working. I didn’t even really go invisible, just sorta flashed in and out of transparency for a few seconds! The only reason I haven’t gotten caught yet is ‘cause these two morons are too busy laughing at me.

“Is that really the best you can do!? Whoever you are, little girl, you’ve got your work cut out for you!” 

“Oh no! She’s… she’s… blinking like an old flashlight!! We’re so scared!”

…BITC-

Resorted to traditional methods. I made the sickles the consistency of a metal pot and threw it at one of their heads, knocking them down. The other I kicked straight in the chest while they were distracted by their idiot teammate, also knocking them down. I’d love nothing more than to give some extra special attention to them but this old flashlight’s gotta run for the shadows while they’ve got an open chance. 

A blue portal opened in front of me. “Hey Salena, so this fight’s a little more intense than I expected and I wanted to quickly check if you’re really sure about-”

“Leo, I’m fine! I’m not leaving mid-battle!”

“No, no, that’s fine! That’s great! Just a reminder there’s no shame in calling it- DUCK!”

 

Without hesitance, I dropped to the ground right as his sword swung above me to block one of the soldier’s attacks. Maybe I should let Leo handle this guy since I can’t really do much while laying on the floor. Then again, doesn't mean I can’t do anything. And also I don’t have good impulse control.

“OW!!! WHAT THE FUCK!?”

I bit on to his ankle as hard as I desired despite his pleading cries. I didn’t let go until Leo broke out of his shock and finally punched him unconscious. Fighting might actually be a really good way to get out my urges.

“Why-“

“Don’t. If it works, it works.”

I flashed a grin, got back on my feet, and bounced away. I need a better vantage point if I wanna find the stolen item, especially with the chaos over here. I quickly made my way up to the indoor balcony thingie. Terrance? The second floor? Whatever the fuck it is. I’ll have to admit, despite how absolutely pumped I’m feeling right now, it kinda feels nice getting away from the clusterfuck for a bit. I heard Leo still spamming all his dialogue options to keep the main two creeps occupied. Actually, I’m pretty sure I can see them from up here, too. 

“So, you guys are looking great! Never thought I’d say this, but I am loving the old look making a return.” His hands did more tricks than usual, keeping his swords flowing like an intricate dance. There are multiple soldiers practically hounding him yet he’s fending them off almost gracefully.

“Can’t you stupid children stay out of our way for one night! There’s great evil being put on the hold right now for your antics!”

“Hey, speaking of evil, what’s with the normal amount of eyes? Not that I’m missing the other option but- GAH!”

And yet, even with Leo’s skilled moves, he’s struggling to keep up with the two leaders specifically. I deadass would’ve been slaughtered by now if I didn’t listen to him about hiding. 

“We got some outside help. Now, stop askin’ annoying questions and maybe we’ll go easier on ya!” He swung his axe again, thankfully missing Leo.

I gotta wonder, from Mikey’s stories, they’ve fought the Foot Clan with ease several times in the past. Leo was doing fine just now, too. So why does it look like this could be his first time facing off the Lieutenant and Brute? Nobody’s perfect but I don’t think either of us expected him to lose his grace and become borderline clumsy against them.

Wait, no! Distractions! Leo can handle himself, I need to focus on my own task. Stolen thingie! But where the hell is it?

Just as I was about to think they left it in the truck like common sense would dictate, a soft, reflective red glow caught my eye. The moon was on my side tonight.

“There she is!”

Or maybe I was being too optimistic. In fairness, I should’ve known I couldn’t stay here for long.

It would be really fucking nice to turn invisible now. Sickles? No? Oh, okay, fuck me then I guess.

I hopped off the edge before they could reach me and slinked to the other side of the room, following the red gleam. Despite the sickles betraying me with horrific timing twice tonight, I got them to cover me long enough to reach the ruby ring the glow came from. The light bled past the folds of the drape covering their stolen prize. I lifted it to find a… weird mannequin bust? With arms. Decorated with several ornaments and jewelry including the ring. What the fuck are they using this for, a fashion show? 

I flinched to the sound of a loud thud paired with Leo’s groan. Flipping my head behind me, I saw him cornered against a wall, swords shielding him from the Brute’s axes.

“Okay, either you two got a lot stronger or my body isn’t what it used to be.”

I gotta calm myself down, Leo’s a trained ninja and will likely be completely and totally fine! A tiny slip doesn’t mean inevitable doom!

 

…I hope.

I turned my attention back to the mannequin thing to mentally measure its size. I’m fairly certain it’ll fit inside my backpack, it’s not too big. Just gotta get it in now.

Another sound interrupted me. This time, it was loud metallic clanking off the floor. Leo’s katanas…

“On second thought, maybe it’s both.” His weapons were away from him, too far out of reach. His voice sounded weaker, arms wrapped around his torso.

Oh no.

Neither of them were holding back. As soon as he was down, they were practically hammering at him. His arms were up, defensively blocking his head. I’m supposed to stay away from this. I’m supposed to listen and focus on my task. But I can’t stop my body from turning when I see something like this happening. 

He’s in the air now. I need to move. He’s being swung. I need to be faster. 

“Let this be a lesson, turtle. Our battles have drastically changed.”

The window shattered from the force of his body.

“LEO!”

I don’t remember ever sprinting this fast, but I was out the window right after through the very hole he created. The height couldn’t scare me if it tried. My arm outstretched, I caught him with one hand and had my sickle in the other. Careful to not dare mess up my timing, it snatched onto a power line just as my blades turned to rubber, thick enough to not get us shocked from the voltage. 

“N-nice… nice catch.”

“Thanks.” It’s harder to talk when I’m panting like a dog and trying to limit my shaking limbs.

His weight felt like it would rip my arms apart. I didn’t expect a giant muscular turtle to be light but that doesn’t make it hurt any less. Still, some-fucking-how, I’m able to keep us both hanging from the wire, comprehending the fact that we’re not dead. Thank fuck for Raph forcing me to work out sessions.

“You, uh, you doing good up there? You’re breathing kinda heavily. Hey, heavily! Didn’t even mean to make that one!”

“Leo I will drop you.”

He convinced me to suffer a little longer and try to swing him, giving enough momentum for him to catch onto the side of the neighboring building. Then, I swung myself, Leo catching me to soften the landing. We scampered up to the roof, coincidentally the same one we were on a while ago. 

“And literally back to square one. Fantastic.” He sighed, clearly annoyed by our failure. His attention quickly shifted once he noticed me rubbing my sore arms. “Hey, you okay? Want me to take a look at you?”

“Me? Take a look at yourself first, idiot!” 

I’m not gonna pretend I’m not in pain, but it’s nothing close to the tragedies on his body currently. His arms are bruised and cut from the fight. One was actively bleeding with bits of glass still stuck in some places. Luckily it was the only fleshy place he took damage on, everything else was protected, albeit a little cracked.

“It’s… It’s fine. My shell took most of the hit, anyway.” This bitch. “Besides, I’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

Despite his condition, he started walking to the edge of the roof, heading back towards the WTC.

“Where the hell are you going?”

“To get my katanas back.”

“Oh, no, no, no, you are not going back in there! Can’t you just make new swords or something?”

“And help the foot by practically gifting them Hamato weapons?”

“You said they’re made from your magic! Shouldn’t that protect them from other people trying to use them?”

“I don’t know, we only learned about this ninpo stuff, like, last year! I don’t know enough to be sure nothing will happen if I leave them with the Foot. I’m not doing that.”

“Well, I can’t let you go back.” I stood in front of him to block his path. “We can figure something else out but you are not going back in there! Look at you, it’d be crazy!”

“I was crazy once-” My hand shut his stupid, smug mouth before he could complete the ritual. 

“Leo, you were thrown out a window! You’re hurt!”

“Hey, hey, it’s okay! I’ve been through worse! I’m just gonna get my swords back, that’s all.” He put a hand on my shoulder and threw on a fake smile to comfort me. The blood is literally dripping down his arm as he did, defeating the point. I looked back at his eyes, not bothering to hide how furiously concerned I am. If I’m reading him right, he’s not oblivious to reality. He’s a medic, he knows it better than I do.

He took a shaky breath in. “Fine, you’re right that I’m a little hurt. But we can’t waste time patching me up, I need to get my swords! Rule number one of basic survival is never let the Foot come into possession with highly mystic material ever.”

“Then I’ll go while you take care of yourself.” 

“NO!” His head perked up as his eyes grew wider. He tried saving his initial reaction. “No way, not happening. It’s a safer plan if I go in, I’m more used to them” Safer for us or for just me. 

“And yet, you got beaten to a pulp, isolated from your weapons, thrown out a window, and are now bleeding with shards of glass sticking out your body. Did I miss anything?” He’s neglected himself all night being overly cocky and confident nothing bad would happen to him. That’s what’s led to him turning out like this! “They didn’t exactly go easy on you, Leo-”

“Then imagine what they’d do to you!”

His brows knit together, staring at me, not blinking. I guess my wish was granted since he finally stopped disguising his true fear.

“Salena, please. Stay here, I’m going in.”

I almost let him go. Almost.

Too bad for him, I yanked him by the mask tails and pulled his stunned face back to face me. 

“Hey, wh-”

“Alright, listen. I know whoever these guys are, they’re dangerous as fuck. I know I’m nowhere near as skilled of a fighter as you and I probably never will be. And I know I am way in over my head about this. But none of that matters to me.” 

He kept quiet. So I continued. “What matters is that I’m your friend. Friends don’t let each other jump into losing battles, okay? You’re hurt, Leo. Please, just let me help you.”

I looked up at the sky. The clouds are covering the moon now and should stay that way for a little while. I could take advantage of the newfound darkness. 

I stood on the ledge, mentally preparing myself to reignite the flames. Sure, I talked big about being able to handle myself and whatnot but I’m just trying to fool myself into thinking I’m not scared. If I can keep myself level-headed and use my sickles, I’ll be able to stay invisible for a short bit. If I play my cards right, that should be all I need.

I felt a hand grab my wrist. Turning around, I readied myself to once again reassure Leo I’d be fine but stopped when he put something in my palm. I recognize them, they’re tanto knives.

“Hey.” His smile is forced but not disingenuous. 

“You’ve got this.”

So off I went with the last little push I needed. The cool night air feels fantastically refreshing on my skin. Every leap leaves me more confident I’ll succeed. I have to. He needs someone he knows he can depend on. 

I scouted around and found an open window to sneak back in through. Judging by how crazy strong these guys are, my best bet is the element of surprise and for these oversized lethal boomerangs to actually work in my favor. Which they hadn’t before. But nothing’s ever hopeless. The reflection off the moon was their main source of light, with the clouds hiding it now and my knowledge of the floor’s layout, I think I might have a working plan this time.

I rushed over to the balcony I was at previously, this time being more cautious of any look-outs. There were three of them up here so I’m glad I didn’t choose the reckless route. I took my sickles out my backpack, breathed in, and turned invisible. A little harder to do since my nerves haven’t completely disappeared but it’s going smoother than before. 

I snuck up to the soldier at the back of the trio, covering his mouth and dragging him to the dark, knocking him out shortly after. His two buddies were a piece of cake after that, hit one with a blunt-force sickle and take the other by hand at the same time. No one noticed a thing. 

With the balcony cleared, I reclaimed my little sighting spot and looked over the entire floor, making note of every nook and cranny I could hide in. The clan’s focus changed since last time, they’re trying to get out as fast as possible. Seems like they’re taking Leo’s katanas with them since Lieutenant Itchy McSore-Throat was holding onto them.

“All of you hurry up! We must get out of here!”

I spotted the stolen mannequin in the distance. It’s actually not too far and surprisingly not removed. The two leaders seem distracted by someone. Perfect timing. I crept down and started taking out some more soldiers, listening in to the conversation at the same time. 

“What about getting all the mystic metal we can?” That’s a new voice.

“Forget the metal, we’ve got enough for today. We need to leave or that turtle will bring reinforcements!” 

“Yeah, sure, whatever makes ya happy, boss.” 

“You better not be questioning my authority.”

“Our authority, he means. We’ve had your type before, and they grew to be traitors. I suggest you don’t test the patience of the Foot ‘cause it’s growin’ thin.”

“Nice phrasing! Even if you shouldn’t have interrupted me.” I can’t tell if these two have workplace tension or workplace bromance anymore. “But he’s right. You’d do well to remember your place, rookie.” 

“Hey, I wasn’t tryna question anything guys. Just sayin’ maybe we should’ve planned this better in case we got caught.”

“So you may be right. We’ll keep it in mind but work on your delivery when it comes to criticism. Now quickly, go join the others.”

“Can I at least hold the magic swords?”

“No.”

She grumbled and left through the door, likely exiting the building. Her attitude was a pleasant surprise. I’ll admit, I kinda assumed all the Foot soldiers had brain-numbing levels of obedience. 

The clouds were clearing up, though. The moonlight brightened the room back up, I can’t use the darkness for cover much longer. Alas, if only I knew how to use my literal invisibility powers for longer than a few seconds but you know what? This is genuinely perfectly okay. I’ve taken out enough of them to only leave a few left standing, not to mention the majority of them are already out the building. I gotta take these freaks head on if I wanna get Leo’s swords. No more hide and seek.

I let the light illuminate me. 

“Hey guys!~” I waved gleefully as the Foot idiots finally noticed my presence. “Remember me? Hope it hasn’t been too long.”

“You!” The Brute turned to me first. “You’re the Hamato ally from earlier!”

“What are you doing here! Why have you returned!”

“You sure have a way of asking questions that makes them feel like statements. Anyway, I’m here to collect something you stole from my friend.”

He gripped the swords as he scowled at me. I held my own sickles tighter.

“You foolish child! You leave us no choice but take you out permanently.”

“Oh, really now? You and what army.”

I scoffed when I caught his expression change. Everyone looked at each other, noting how very few of them are suddenly in the room. So distracted they barely noticed me going for my first blow. 

He quickly got ready to block me with Leo’s weapon, absolutely bewildered when I only zoomed past him and sliced at the leg of another soldier behind him. It wasn’t too deep but poor guy was still rendered useless. I dashed to my left at another soldier, dodging his attack and punching right up his chin. 

“What’s going on!? Those sickles were dull the last time she used ‘em!”

 

“They must be mystic…” 

“Right you are, Lieutenant! I kept them dull on purpose, my mistake.” 

I threw a tanto at a cultist’s shoulder. 

“You threw Leo out a window. I think you can bear to see some blood.”

One by one, I went around the room, sprinting past anyone chasing after me and immobilizing anyone with their guard down. I got in a groove good enough to keep myself progressing along while getting out my rage. I wasn’t kidding before, I would’ve kept my blades dull again. I’m still careful to not do anything fatal but I’m not gonna be exactly merciful, either. They deserve this.

Fighting felt like dancing, gliding across the room in an energetic fashion. I’m not crazy enough to go for the Lieutenant or Brute which ended up being a plus for me. They was more than ready to protect themselves, but not their team. At last, I got them all exactly where I needed them. 

Alright, stay calm. Turn invisible no matter what.

My sickles shone with a pink glow, allowing me to disappear from their sight. I scampered past them, reaching the bejeweled mannequin behind them. It feels a little different? But there isn’t any concrete proof for this so my brain’s just tricking me. Whatever, no time to lose. I shoved it in my bag, getting myself used to the weight, and aimed a sickle at his arm.

 

“Where’d she go!?”

“Stay alert! Don’t let her catch you off guard!” 

A bit late for that buddy. 

My blade sliced through, leaving a massive gash on his arm. He screamed and dropped Leo’s sword. I ran through, catching it just as I became visible again. I snatched the other one as quickly as possible and sprinted to create some distance.

I held my arm up to my face, making good use of the wraps’ built-in comms. “Leo! Heads up!”

I threw a katana out the window, smashing the glass as it flew outside. I stopped in my tracks with a smirk. I knew we won.

I dodged the last attacks of the night, accelerating faster than I realized I could go. “Well folks, this was quite a fun match! Hope to never see you again!” Blue light sparked across my body. I leapt in the air, gave a quick peace sign purely to piss ‘em off, and bid my farewell.

“Toodles~”

Teleportation isn’t actually too bad if you know it’s coming.

The cool night air returned on my skin. I was floating for a few seconds before crashing to the roof on my knees. I didn’t even care about the pain, I was too busy enjoying the hug I received for my success! 

“I DID IT! I FUCKING DID IT! WOOHOO!!!”

“Celebrations later, escaping now! Come on!” 

Leo dragged me up and pulled us through another portal.

***

“We are the champions!~

“Gone with the losers ‘cause we are the champions!” 

I handed another slice of pizza to Leo, half the box pepperoni for him and the other half plain cheese for me. We already dropped off the mannequin back to the museum and I gave an anonymous tip to 911 so now we’re simply chilling on the roof singing to celebrate our victorious night. I’m honestly still hyper as hell over it.

“I can’t believe we actually did it! I can’t believe I actually did it! Salena one, Foot Clan NONE BABY, FUCK YEA!”

“Man, I am so happy you came out okay. You have no idea how relieved I was when I saw you again.” He bit into the cheese, the least stressed I’ve seen him all night.

I couldn’t realize it earlier but that hug he gave wasn’t for my success. It’s clear to me now.

“Leo?”

“Hm?” He looked towards me as he bit into the cheese.

“Thanks for trusting me.”

He mirrored my smile. “Hey, we’re friends, right? That’s what I’m here for.”

The spring breeze feels so sweet. The view of the city is rewarding as always. A safe city, a safe night. I can see why they’re so into this whole hero gig. Everything about this moment feels absolutely perfect.

Buzz! Buzz!

I swear to god if my fucking phone’s gonna ruin it again. I quickly checked the notif to see if it was anything important. To my surprise, it’s Jaiden.

They sent me a text. The first one in weeks. It’s a dumb meme I saw earlier today.

We used to do this a lot in the past. Whenever we got into a fight, it’d be our way of ending it. We could never stay mad at each other for more than a day. In the past at least.

I guess this means they’re not mad at me anymore.

“Everything okay?” Leo stared at me, probably concerned by my change in demeanor. 

I double tapped to like Jaiden’s meme and put my phone away, going back to normal.

“It’s nothing important. Just, uh, highschool stuff. You wouldn’t get it.”

He laughed “Oh, okay, well. I know I’m too fabulous to be the average, uncool, normal teen guy doing normal teen things like going to highschool that you want right now but…”

“If you ever need someone to lend a shoulder, you know who to call.”

He’s an idiot, but a very sweet one when he wants to be. 

“Thanks, Leo, but I mean it this time. It’s nothing.” I raised up my slice to request a toast of some sorts. “Let’s go back to celebrating, shall we?”

He let out a satisfied chuckle, returning my toast. I didn’t wanna let anything ruin the way I felt tonight, even if their text tainted the vibe a bit. But hey, it’s technically a win, too! I got my confirmation that Jaiden and I are indeed still friends.

Though I gotta admit, I’m not as happy as I thought I’d be.

Next Chapter

[beachedmessagebottles]

Destiny Bond: ?????

Sequel to Return to Sender.

Synopsis: Gold, grief stricken and afraid what’ll happen to him when the time comes, jumps the gun of how fate works.

CW: Sentient video game characters, dissociation, light body horror (ie: wrong colors and staying as such.), game glitches, existentialism, data destruction as metaphor for realizing dissociative disorders.

GOLD could hardly stand it any longer. The time loss, the time gain, the memory loss, the memory gain. If his player was here, it was still the same choppy things in his memory. It was as clear as he could imagine. The brighter and million other colors in his daydreams continued to persist. He hated it. He was somehow sorry that he did hate it.

Sometimes he felt like he walked on his own, but he wasn’t really walking. It wasn’t like his player. It felt like he was holding a hand with his player, they both stepped at the same time. When he walked on his own, he felt like being guided but no longer holding a hand. That was never like that before. At least he didn’t think so. Did he?

Whatever the case, he needed out. He didn’t want this. He didn’t want the memory of all those Pokémon he could no longer see anymore. He didn’t want to shiver when staring at his Bug Catching opponents or his mother. The same cries felt dull. Callers ringing the same tune made him want to delete every number.

He wanted to see that movie of the two boys on the train. He wanted to talk with CAL again. He wanted KRIS to understand his plight. He didn’t want her to feel like there was a sword over their heads if she ever realized they were doomed to be old and remade.

He needed out. He just needed to find a way. Otherwise, he didn’t know how much longer he could take. He didn’t want it to be forever. Then he would just wait for his home to give up the plastic ghost. He hated that thought also.

Feeling like a jaded adult instead of being a child- He supposed he should do what all jaded adults did when they were stuck in a depressive rut, gamble. He stood up from crouching to the MACHOP in VERMILLION, grinning at its hard work, …whatever that was given that nothing in the Construction Site would ever be finished, before selecting the Coin Case. Just for fun, honestly, made him feel like he was counting his money, and then—

Ow. Owww. Where was he? The game crashed? Ah- What the heck?! GOLD looked down at himself. Wasn’t he—? What? The colors were just off. He was supposed to be— Well, he sure wasn’t red anymore. He picked at his hoodie, it brighter. (Duller?) Or maybe it wasn’t, maybe his eyes were just bleeding from everything being purple. No, it wasn’t just purple, it was blue, green, a lot of things. At least he, despite the duller (brighter?) colors felt… normal? It didn’t hurt. Oh gosh what did he do, was MEGANIUM hurt?!

It was not, he saw. Despite the apocalypse of color, everything was fine. He was just never going to use that thing ever again, actually. It freaked him out. GOLD didn’t like it. Terrified, he booked it towards his usual place of residence when the game was off but he was still here: The Trainer House. For he was already, in a way, not exactly ‘normal,’ and he wasn’t sure why, but he saw KRIS for who she was, and they could chat.

KRIS was used to her friend freaking out at this point. Confiding in his strange behavior and mourning of someone she swore never acted like he claimed. In her eyes, she saw nothing of what he was saying even now.

“This is weird! This is so weird!” GOLD yelped, shaking her shoulders, “Everything’s pink! You’re the normal one! The grass is blue, KRIS!”

“GOLD, GOLD, calm down!” KRIS stumbled on her footing when he shook her like she was a sentient rag doll, “What do you mean everything’s different colors?”

“I don’t know how to explain to you that really simple concept! Even the dex entries- I touched the coin case and everything was- It was-!”

“GOLD, breathe!”

“We don’t have to do that!”

“Well, you need to! Look, I’m not saying I don’t believe you—“

“You never believe me!”

“Oh, don’t be a jerk! I do believe you! You just need to breathe! Maybe it’s like when you check the Legendary Beasts but they sound wrong, but it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong-wrong. It just looks weird.”

“M-Maybe, no POKéMON are hurt. I check- checked.” GOLD sniffled. Getting somewhere, KRIS smiled, turning her backwards cap forwards as she got her thinking cap on. (GOLD wouldn’t be able to see it anyways, he saw her bandana, apparently.)

“Player sends a lot of POKéMON to the old game that they’re not supposed to, so if it’s okay here, it should be okay there. We’re in no risk of breaking.”

“Guess so… I still don’t like it. I’m not using the coin case, I’m not experiencing this again.”

“But what if Player wanted to? Are you stuck like this?”

“Then I guess it’d be okay… It doesn’t hurt but Player would know how to use it, not me, so not me, never. I don’t think so… maybe if I reset again I’ll be normal?”

“Exactly! Nothing to worry about.”

“The Time Capsule freaks me out though… We can send stuff to the past, but we can never get future stuff!”

“Here we go again…”

“KRIS, don’t you think about it sometimes?”

“Yeah, I have, but… I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“GOLD, as far as we have known it’s always been 1999 for you and 2000 for me! I’m new, GOLD! You’re always afraid we’ll be tossed out when we’re seen as old, but I don’t know if it works that way.”

“Maybe but- if I don’t try- I’ll-! I’ll-! I don’t know and that’s the problem!”

“You’re scared of adventure? Of what’s to come?”

“I’m scared of going, KRIS! Not being me! Not being GOLD!”

“I’m sure you’ll be you, GOLD. Not any of the names you think you’ll turn out to be.”

“… … …”

“Oh, please don’t go quiet on me… I’m sorry if I upset you.”

“‘S not you.” GOLD wiped his face with his sleeve, “I’m just scared.”

“I know… but I’m saying you don’t have to be. Maybe what you think isn’t so scary. Maybe it wasn’t so scary for Hikaru like he-“

“CAL.”

“…Right. Your nickname.”

“No, I- Never mind. Say, um, we were talking about glitches-”

KRIS squinted.

“I’m not! I’m not! I’m still seeing everything like HO-OH threw up! I wouldn’t dare!”

Her eyes squinted further.

“I promise I won’t mess with anything, cross my heart, hope to die, and pinky promise.” GOLD did the motions too.

“Good. You know you can’t break either of those.” KRIS shook the pinky with hers.

“Of course you can’t break either of those. They’re crossing your heart and pinky promising!”

“And I’ll kick your butt if you break them.”

“You kick my butt anyways, KRIS.” GOLD grinned as they laughed, soon talking about hypotheticals.

The guilt felt heavier than the egg in his arms. He didn’t remember the actions, only that he did it. It would hatch any moment. Then he knew what he had to do. GOLD wasn’t sure why. He would just follow it. He needed his out. This was the only thought of his out. And if he died trying… Not a fun thought, but he would do it anyways.

GOLD shuddered when he thought about the collateral damage, so he had to do it perfectly. His wrongly colored clothes felt like they were going duller. Untrue, maybe his heart was. He did break a promise. But he wouldn’t jeopardize everybody he cared about for nothing. He would do his best to make sure he didn’t wreck everyone. So when it hatched, he put everything in the PC.

Step two was just… the apology to KRIS. He got Flower Mail, specifically, and just wrote on it. Trying not to let tears stain the pretty paper. Then he traded. He tried not to pay attention to her confused face when she read aloud.

“IM SORRY. MEET ME

IN THE NEXT PLZ

GOLD, what the heck, you’re not—”

KRIS grabbed his arm, he pulled away, “I am! Use that when you get home, please! I have to.”

“GOLD, listen to me!”

“No! Listen to me! I can’t live like this!”

“You can’t expect to run away past 1999!”

“Watch me!”

“GOLD, you might kill yourself that way!”

“I won’t! I won’t go! Never!”

“Stop acting like this! Please! He wouldn’t want you—“

“You don’t know what CAL wants! I don’t either! He’s gone!”

“GOLD, he’s—”

GOLD left the Trainer House, tears streaming down his cheeks. He hiccuped. He just hoped that she would follow. He hoped she could follow. GOLD just hurried past trees and grass, one POKéMON in his party. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he should’ve gone here or the Diglett Statue. But he held the ball close to his chest, his breath hitching.

“Past when it happens… please… I don’t want to go, CELEBI. I want to stay. I want to be GOLD. I need to be GOLD.” He whispered at it, hoping it heard his prayers, heard his sobs.

His body felt like it was on fire. Color hit his eyes so bright it felt like watching another disappear again. But it was only himself. It was only him, duller (brighter?) clothes now on bright green grass. He coughed and spat, feeling like throwing up- despite the fact he physically couldn’t. Phlegm it was on the grass.

GOLD looked up, the sun beaming down on him, shadows from being blocked by the green trees. The wind blowing. He tried to stand up but fell on his knees. That kind of hurt. He checked his pockets for CELEBI.

…Where was CELEBI? There was no ball there. He checked his other pockets. No dice. Bag? Nothing. His berries were gone, but that was the least of his worries when he plucked out his trainer card. It was… broken. Broken how? He wasn’t sure. It just looked like he wasn’t there. All gone, blocked out. Something like that.

His fear of the future was still inside him, he could tell too. Wasn’t he in the future?

What did you do?

GOLD wasn’t sure what to tell that thought. He wasn’t sure if it sounded like his own.

GOLD. What did you do?

He didn’t know. He was in the future wasn’t he? If he himself wasn’t remade, he should be fine, right? Though his dreams of these colors, he was remembering, they had something else to them, right? How could he forget that part? Did he forget that part? No, he always remembers that part. They never had him because they couldn’t go past.

They couldn’t go past, that’s why he had to go forward.

But you don’t go forward. That’s just destiny.

Agh, shut up brain! Come on! CELEBI was maybe somewhere else. Maybe another one? But he- He didn’t- Ohhh no. No, no, no, no, he absolutely messed up. The weight of that set in as he started to breathe, started hyperventilating. He messed up. He couldn’t go forward. He couldn’t go back, he was still stuck in the past wasn’t he?!

GOLD thought of a trainer laughing as music played, a click of a camera shuttering following soon after.

What did you do? You’re not supposed to be here. You can’t be here.

“I don’t know.” GOLD found himself sobbing, “I don’t know what’s going to happen now.”

“That’s just life, GOLD. You almost destroyed yourself in the process of escaping it. I can’t say I didn’t either.”

“What am I going to do?! What’s going to happen to me now?!”

“I don’t know.” Hikaru said, “That’s Ethan and Lyra’s problem now. And whoever comes after them.”

===

KRIS banged her fists on the shrine. Her teeth grit and her ponytails nearly loose in her absolute frustration and grief.

“GOLD! GOLD, you idiot! Come back! Come back! Please come back! I’m sorry! Come back!”

She slammed the GS Ball what felt like thousands of times into the small hole. Nothing worked.

Nothing went forward and nothing came back. Destiny for remakes simply walked forward.

She’d see him again, she knew she would, one way or another, but would he see her?

[bluektw]

Ok it has been a couple days now, so let's talk about Moonvale

(it's quite long btw)

Spoilers Alert

Ok where do we start?

Well, let's talk about the story and things I like first.

I was hooked. Ngl. I'm not sure why exactly but from the first call I got hooked an wanted to understand what was going on.

What was weird though was how "easy" MC opens up with Ash about what happened in Duskwood, like maybe a little bit of reluctance? Of disbelief? Of trust issues after what happened with Richy?????

We don't know these people. So opening up like that is kinda weird, but moving on.

I actually like the video calls, it makes quite involving. Maybe we should have more of that in Duskwood.

So yeah that's it, I want to know the story and what's going on but I have to admit everything else makes me feel like I might give up.

Now for the characters

Eric is kinda... Cute? (His voice was so pretty though). Adam I have no words, the actor was amazing, I felt everything thing he felt and it doesn't look forced.

The others well... We'll talk about AI later, but the others don't really feel like... Friends? They feel a lot like coworkers. Like Adam and Eric feel like friends, but Eric and the others feel like not exactly friends (maybe next episode we get more of them this might change).

Oh and the unknown guy, scared the shit out of me, but like, I'm used to being threatened by masked people (cof Richy cof) so just another Thursday.

And let's talk about the star: JAKE SHOWING UP AT THE END. He's alive, thank God. And saying "X, I will find you" AHH THE FEELINGS (I'm a Jake girlie, sorry) (I want to talk to Alan too btw)

Now let's talk about what I don't like about it

- The minigames: I don't think they got harder, but I do think the dialogue was way too short in between minigames, like I'm pretty sure I played more than read messages. (I don't like the new style and miss the dark vibes, but I can look past that)

- P2W: I'm a hater on this. I get what they were aiming for, that not everyone can pay so they made this so everyone could have a chance but the execution was so bad. I hated this, especially the fact that EVERYTHING was so expensive like 19 gems for a photo of an envelope? 12 gems for changing profile? Hell 25 gems for a conversation?? If it was like till 10 gems I think it would've been a little less annoying. I'm not sure but that made the game feel way more like a game than a chat, it lost a little of the magic Duskwood had.

- The "flirting": Can you play without flirting? Sure, but does the story get more interesting if you flirt with Eric? Yes. That's the problem, it feels forced. In Duskwood many of the flirts were a lot more subtle, and took more time to start, you literally can flirt with Eric within the first messages. The flirting wasn't the center of the story, it was a background thing, and that's why it was cool and exciting, here it feels more like a way to progress the story than a connection.

- AI: I don't like this. I really don't. I mean, they had so much time and chose to use AI? Almost two years and they couldn't get actors? Or at least use like images from Pinterest instead of AI?. Besides that, the fact even our profile is made with AI it really takes away the whole "involving" thing, cause these are not people, I can't see them as people cause even the bloody cat is made of AI, they don't feel real and that makes the game feel way too much like a game, while Duskwood really made you feel like you were chatting with real people (just look at how many people fell in love with the characters), I hope they change this in the future, seeing the backlash it got.

I guess that's it.

I do hope they realize they messed up with the p2w and AI thing mostly, and hopefully they will find a way to change it. I can't say for sure I won't be playing when ep 2 comes out, cause again, the story is good, and the perspective of other characters (Jake and Alan for me) showing up it will keep me hooked, but I can't speak for the majority of people, but it's definitely a step down from Duskwood.

[todayimgonnaplay]

Today I'm Gonna Play: Love and Deepspace

I came across this video a couple months ago of a really high poly guy and thought it was CGI made by someone talented. Turns out it was an upcoming otome game for mobile?! I replaced my phone recently so this was a good time to look forward to trying something with high-end graphics for this platform.

My experience with Otome games isn't much. I've played those dating sims that a few friends were very into back in school on DeviantArt, notably by Zeiva and Pacthesis. This was my entry to the Visual Novel (VN) genre, but I didn't understand the appeal of of liking 2D guys. Fast forward and I've also played a couple otome VNs on mobile and dabbled slightly on PC and even though I find a few interesting love interests based on appearance and personality, I STILL didn't get the appeal, until I finally played Mystic Messenger two years ago and got my heart shattered and was rejected by my love interest lol. This idea of having a social messaging format with calls for a mobile game is one of the most creative things I've seen for both the VN genre as a whole as well as the mobile platform. I don't know if any other VNs have done something like this before.

What Love and Deepspace does, is basically take that same format and iterate upon it with its worldbuilding. But it doesn't stop there. The real selling points of this game is that it uses very high quality 3D models akin to Final Fantasy CGs and also have real-time action combat. This seemed like a combo I never thought would exist, but I'm sure as hell glad to see it. Apart from chatting and calls using your own created avatar, it includes other features such as micro blogs which are Twitter-esque, so you can like and comment on the other characters' posts, and sometimes make your own. There are interaction features with the love interest, by being able to touch him, ask him things, and even things like listening to heartbeats or blowing on him using your mic?? It's another level of immersiveness! Minigames also exist which add to the story, such as claw machines (which are actually not to rigged compared to real life), playing cards, taking photos, and mini stories or audio that you can obtain from gacha.

The gacha aspect is not related to obtaining your love interest like in other gachas, but rather it's unlocking additional content about them, such as the mini stories. These stories tend to look like casual hangouts or even romantic dates. I'm not sure if there are any intimate scenes or not so far.

The story is not bad, I'm intruiged by the lore and the overall world as I like futuristic settings. There's a lot of info dump in documents and such that you typically see in gachas or RPGs, but this is one of the few times where I actually read through them. And surprisingly, the protagonist (you) is actually a lot more competent than expected!

The only issue I have is that the way the story is presented makes the characters look like they don't know each other yet and are distant, which is fine. But the romance parts you unlock through gacha or other features of the game seem more affectionate so it feels quite disjointed. It makes me feel confused on how I can piece these moments together.

Another nitpick although minor is that the daily stamina that you can obtain through login times don't seem to sync up in local time, so I'm assuming it's based on China's time zone instead. I've mostly been on this game during the evenings which make me miss both of them. It's a bit of a weird decision for international players.

I've also seen comments online about the lack of a male character or other gender options. I also agree that this would be nice to have. But I also acknowledge that this game is primarily aimed towards women (therefore an otome game), and since it's a Chinese game, I'm not sure if they would allow any type of BL in it. This could cause a bit of disinterest for international players. The only option I can see is to provide a larger variety of options for the current female avatar (which is also a complaint even amongst women playing the game), which could also have the avatar look a little more masculine presenting, etc. This could be a slight workaround towards any censorship laws while also allowing for more diversity. Plus technically speaking, the advantage of shorter hair or buzz cuts etc. would also mean less complex hair rigging (like with long hair) so it may be easier to animate and handle.

Overall, this game has huge potential that could transform romance/otome games for mobile like Mystic Messenger if all goes well. This will be another mobile game I'll keep playing!

[dreamauri]

♪ — 𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗬 𝗪𝗘𝗥𝗘 𝗦𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗠𝗘𝗥𝗦 - part two lando norris x  fem! streamer! reader (fluff) series summary . . . After unexpectedly making a new friend during a stream, Lando finds himself addicted to playing video games with this girl who he can't get out of his head. His addiction gets worse when he somehow finds himself yearning for her company, eager to spend time with her in any shape or form, whether it's online or maybe possibly in person.

( fic master list | general master list ) ( requests ) ( previous | next )

“Lando get off my screen.” You were hyper focused on the game in front of you, but you could see the streamer clearly answer ‘no’ in the chat. “Bro, get off my screen.” ‘noh’ “What the fuck do you mean ’noh’? I’m so fucking buying gp tickets to beat your ass.” ‘play cod with me’ You couldn’t hold back the laugh at his demand. You tried to ignore him and concentrate on the task at hand but instead you got someone calling you on disc.

“What the fuck do you want?” You laughed, pausing the game and putting your phone on speaker. “Show me your build.” He demanded. You were wheezing on the floor at this point, and Lando, sitting on his bed across the world from you, bit his lip to hide his smile. Was he really making you laugh like this? He wanted you to laugh all the time.

“Come on, show me it. I need to fix my shit.” He urged you, not really good with pretending to be annoyed. “Stop laughing!” “I’m trying.” You tried to hold yourself together as you sat back on your chair. Going to settings, you went to your character build. “Go to weapons.” You did as he asked, scrolling through the list. “That one! That one!” You paused scrolling up a tinge to see what he was talking about.

“Open the shiny orange one.” You rolled your eyes at the order, clicking more details, letting him see all the stats. You tried to scroll down but you were only met with his shouts telling you he hasn't copied down everything yet.

“Are ya finished?” “Does it look like I'm finished?” “Watch the sassy attitude.” you scolded, clicking your tongue, exiting the settings which resulted in a loud ‘NOOOO’ from the voice chat. You giggled as you went back to gaming. “Any further plagiarising, you will have to pay for.” 

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Since we're on the topic, Lando, what the fuck."

Lando visibly scrunches his brow in thought as he messes around with the settings on his game. "What did I do this time?" he asks, audibly confused. He was a 'guest' on your stream (which was a result of hours upon hours of him nagging you to let him join for a few games). With a quick sip to his monster energy drink he went back to listening to you.

"Well, at least you can admit and know that you do stuff." you chuckled. "I got something in the mail this morning." Lando's attention was quick to change and fixate on you. "Did you finally get my Christmas gift?" "you actually got me a Christmas gift you little shit?"

Lando smiled slyly. "Now why would I do that? you got me something. terrible gift by the way--" "--whaaaat?" you laughed, looking at your monitor where Lando had his arms folded and legs crossed, gazing off to nowhere to listen to your voice.

"You're curses are much better now though." you tease, laughing. Lando looked at the camera, giving it a look of displeasure. "Chat, she got me a how to swear book, and a mug with a middle finger on the bottom." He shook his head and sighed in disappointment. You chuckled at his reaction, shaking your head.

"Tell you what, if I like your gift, I'll get you another gift." you try to reason. "Can I choose?" you thought for a second at the question, before shrugging. "sure."

you shake the box trying to listen to the contents. "why-- why don't you turn your camera on?" Lando tried to suggest, voice quieter as if he would scare you off like a small bird if he spoke too fast or loud. you dryly laughed, opening the box. "You'd like that wouldn't you?" you shook your head. "I just wanna make sure you're giving an honest reaction." the brunette tried to justify. you only shook your head and continued with the unboxing.

"Oh, would you look at that?" you giggled opening the little box inside. "He put a wrapped box inside a box. Everyone clap for lando, he wrapped the box nicely." You could see the proud smile that curls on the boy's lips at your words. 

"What's this handwriting? I can't read this--" "--My handwriting is nice!" "Sh! Where are my reading glasses. . . *clear throat* 'Merry Christmas, devi. the guy from twitch, signed, best f1 driver'. . . never mind guys, this is not from lando. I didn't know Max Verstappen knew my address." "HEY!" you laughed at his reaction, opening the box.

"I got a new hoodie- oh it's a whole merch set. nice." you hummed disinterested, pulling out the merch. You liked it more than you let on, your favourite colours as well. You recognized the designs from your tiktok feed where people talked about how pretty but expensive, LNFOUR WORLDWIDE.  "--and orange paddock pass. Everyone give it up to lando norris. A for effort." you giggled, inspecting the orange card. "When am I ever going to use this?" "Australian Grand Prix, duh." you rolled your eyes playfully, shaking your head. 

"Aww, okay that's sweet. He got me a new watch, it's cute.” “you like it?” You were too concentrated on inspecting the gears and design to notice the bright and hopeful look on the brit’s face, biting his lip in anticipation.”I do like- lando you piece of shit!" He was smiling very widely and laughing lightly, trying to hide the blush and joy by taking a sip from his drink and resting his fist on his mouth, trying to mask his expression. "How-- why?!" "What do you mean why? You don’t like it?" "This is more expensive than my whole existence. You're out of your mind."

 a stupid Richard Mille. That idiot got you the rm 88, smiley, richard mille. "No." you shook your head. "No? you don't like it? you're lying." He teased, scooting forward with his chair. "You are a piece of shit." 

"haha! Alright ladies and gentlemen. I'll be brainstorming possible gifts on my own time. Right now, i need some help with this, please." "Lando, we're playing minecraft." You chuckled, still admiring the watch that you did hesitate to put it on, a blush covering your cheeks once you adjusted your sleeve to admire the accessory. "Yeah, but how do I make a bed?" "Why? we already have 2 beds." 

"Yeah, but I'm going to break my bed." The look of confusion that covered your face at his words. "why would you break it?" "to put it next to yours." He answered nonchalantly. "...you're not smooth." you shake your head, trying to suppress a smile even if he couldn’t see you.

★ ☆ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Lando get- GET OUT OF MY WAY, LANDO!” You shouted trying to move your character to run away. “Good googly moogly, that thang is juicy.” was the voice that responded through the voice chat. You found a small giggle like laugh escaping your throat even in such a stressful situation.

“Lando please, we’re going to lose.” you tried to reason, trying to snipe a person from an enemy team. “Good. we can keep restarting rounds,” he answered, his character pushing yours. ‘that way I can spend more time with you’ he wanted to add on but stayed quiet. 

“Hey hey, the storm is getting closer, let's go.” He warned you, starting to lead the way of which you followed after taking your kill. “Did the train pass by?” you ask, raiding a building that you passed by for ammo. “Not yet- it’s here! Let's go! Lets gooo. y/nnn.” “Okay, okay.” You laughed at his antics, following him till you both made it on the train. 

Lando hates to admit it but he’s been fairly domestic for a while. Well he doesn’t hate to admit it, he knows he is currently in a domestic like state, but he knows he’ll get made fun off if he tells either maxes (fewtrell or verstappen), oscar would more of give him a look, carlos would scold him and explain how to court a woman properly, but he’d also get a laugh and some dopamine out of it.

You’d notice the change of behaviour as well. It's been a few weeks after new years and Lando wasn’t bothering you or nagging and annoying you in any sort of way. In fact, he was being pleasant. His presence wasn’t unwanted or annoying. For the past few games you played he’d take care of you. If you played minecraft he always had food if you needed.

If you played cod, he’d have your back. If it was fortnite he always had health potions and revived you, even doing things like keeping track on the train, storm, enemies, or other things you’d want to know.

You liked him like this, a calm and nice entity. You didn’t want to bring it up, because you were scared he’d stop. Scared he’d stop? No you weren’t scared. He’s just being nice. But it was no big deal if he stopped right?

It was just lando. Who you really like to hang out with.

[talenlee]

September 2023 Wrapup

Spring has sprung and with it the first thirty degree day since February. Oh, that’s not a hot hot day, but it is a hot day. I sit on that evening and sweat slightly and wrinkle my nose as I consider the wrapup for this month, almost two weeks out from it. Let’s get into it.

Normally I open this with a piece about the Game Pile articles that went up this month, presented as a bulleted list. Game Piles go up on (my) Friday mornings, which means that September had five of them, and those five lined up to put videos in three. I had planned all along to, at some point this year, put my three existing Commander Keen articles together into a script to make a big compilation video for my friends who Don’t Like Reading So Much, and then turn that into an easy video.

It was not easy.

It wasn’t easy because the first ‘article’ I wrote on Commander Keen was a rambling voiceover practicing the academic study of Stimulated Recall, which is super interesting but not helpful for script building. That meant instead of having scripts for four of seven games I actually had more like two and a half. That means this video features some of the most stuff I’ve ever put together for a single video. The script is over eight thousand words, about twenty pages of text with the notes appended. Normally, a video is about one thousand words, so that’s why it’s such a big beast of a story. I had to go break out some academic books and teach myself how an EGA interpreter acted so I could put that same idea away in a tidy fashion. I actually consulted with my friend Decay about my description of EGA because my first parse of it was just uh

Wrong?

Anyway, that’s the big Game Pile article this month and I did four other ones, which included two other videos:

Les Manley Shouldn’t Be For Sale, an updated video about a game I still want to talk about for how awful it is

Ring Fit Adventures, an incredibly painful diary of my relationship to my own physical body

The Wingspan video, where I took an old article about Wingspan and updated it the consider new experiences and the beautiful steam version of the game

Brew, a chat with Fox about a really nice looking board game that hides some brass knuckles under its coat

And of course, the Commander Keen Retrospective, where I consider all six of the PC games about Commander Keen. Yes, there are more. No, I don’t know much about them.

Five Fridays doesn’t mean five mondays, though, and that means we get four Story Piles on:

The Executioner and her Way of Life, a series I really liked and which has obvious problems like stupid outfits and the homophobia of its distribution service,

Ya Boy Kongming, a series I really liked and which has obvious problems like stupid outfits and the homophobia of its distribution service,

Nobody, a movie I really liked which has obvious problems like the glorification of masculine violence and the power inherent in the actions of the US state’s military arm

Beck, an anime I watched because I wanted to tease Clae about one of the singers only to find that the series absolutely rocks, even with all its really uncomfortable gross stuff about women

What else did we do this month? Well, a chonker of an article about the Halfling Trade Houses in Cobrin’Seil in Piton, Jura, Carpathia, Northumbria, a piece about the strange symbolism of the Otyugh, a new D&D culture and the place they’re from, a alpha print of the game Feinting Couch if you’re down for that, two different game prototype concepts in Lysen Co and The Wandering Samurai, writing practice to reconsider how I describe characters in One Stone, a consideration of the work of Donald Norman, a truly painful introspection on my childhood church and who’s allowed to wield power over you, the academic consideration of autoconnoisseurship, and oh yeah Jimmy Buffet Died so I got to be full of feelings.

Not just Jimmy Buffett — he just got to be the centerpiece of a single article. This month also took Steven Harwell of Smash Mouth, a well intentioned idiot who made fun of DJ Khaled, and Sheldon Menery, the godfather of Commander magic.

It has been a rough one for me!

Uh anyway, here’s a shirt design I did.

You can get this design in a bunch of colours, I like it a lot. I mean to get stickers of it.

Then uh, what was there, uhm,

Jesus, we lost Paul Woseen as well.

You know what, fuck it:

Screaming Jets - Helping Hand - Official Music Video

Watch this video on YouTube

The Screaming Jets scared the shit out of me growing up because they did a cover of Eve of Destruction that I heard that uh, I thought was literally a ‘next week’ thing.

Smash Mouth - I'm A Believer (Original Version)

Watch this video on YouTube

It’s so weird to think that I was a Smash Mouth fan before Shrek. Before there was anything like the Smash Mouth ironic hatedom. All Star sings about global warming and our helplessness in the face of it. But this song, this version of a fuckin ‘ Neil Diamond song, I think genuinely elevates the whole thing.

God.

I had Astro Lounge on a casette.

Beyond The End

Watch this video on YouTube

I remember this chorus sending me into horrified clenches in the dark of my bedroom in the cult. Beyond the end, it spoke, and it knew something that I had never been told.

He is beyond the end, and his music is his long and beautiful wake. We can say goodbye, my friend.

Loved outlasts living.

Fuck.

Uh I’m fine.

It’s a marking period at work. I’m down because I feel like I’m failing to connect to students’ minds. I feel like I’m not good enough. I feel like bits of my world are collapsing and the body I inhabit is a meat husk that’s lost something vitally important because I didn’t love it enough to fix it.

I don’t feel good.

Very proud of the writing I did this month though.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2023

#81 - Role Playing, by Cathy Yardley

Rating: 5/5 stars

Did the author write this specifically for me? I feel like she did. (I know she didn't.)

As a lifelong gamer, I get so tired of books in any genre getting gaming wrong by a) stereotyping gamer characters in any one of a dozen derogatory ways; b) clearly not having the first clue about what playing a video game, any video game, is actually like; c) ignoring, downplaying, or simply not even being aware of the misogyny women often face in the gaming community; and/or d) assuming anyone over the age of 25 who "still" plays video games is a complete loser.

Role Playing did none of these things, instead showing us adults who enjoy gaming as a hobby, who find friendship and society within gaming, and who aren't ashamed of being gamers.

Bonus for me, I also loved Jujutsu Kaisen and Arcane, and I don't mind the properties being name-dropped, because this isn't Ready Player One that did the name-dropping constantly because, hey, remember all these geek-cred things you liked in the 80s? 'member? 'member? I feel like the references here are for flavor, not to be a tentpole of the book's entire identity, because gaming is the focus, not animated shows. (I'm not going to get into the "is Arcane anime" debate here, that's not relevant.)

If I sound defensive on the subject of gaming, well, yes, I am. I played World of Warcraft for almost a decade and was a serious raider for about six of those years. My new loves Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail (because even games with microtransactions can still be less abusive than MMORPGs, there's a good reason I finally broke up with WoW.) I'm looking forward to trying Balder's Gate 3 when I can make a little more time for it, because my husband and my DnD group chat friends are all playing and I have to stay out of the chat now so I'm not constantly spoiled for everything.

I am a gamer, and I've spent a good chunk of my life being told I'm too old to enjoy what I enjoy, it's too cringe, I'm a loser, get a life, etc. etc.

This book says "hey look at these NERDS who are awesome and deserve LOVE AND HAPPINESS."

Because there is also an incredibly sweet romance, with two people who in some senses know who they are (Aiden is very much a caregiver and Maggie a charmingly ornery woman who takes no shit) but in other senses are still figuring themselves out (Aiden's demi revelation, Maggie's struggle to find purpose beyond her sudden case of empty-nest syndrome.)

Do you know how rare it is to find anything that depicts adult gamers as functional people with rich inner lives? Because I do. This is it, and I want more of it.

(My quibbles with the book are minor, and aren't serious enough to me to downgrade the rating by a star: Aiden and Maggie having the big, serious talk about his orientation came across as a little bit "internet therapy speak," and it would have been nice if nearly every female character aside from Maggie weren't awful people, because female friendships are often lacking in romance. I do understand why the plot warranted it here--Maggie is practically a recluse and Aiden's mother's machinations to get him married off involve women who are social vampires--but we could have spent a little more time on the two long-distance female friends/family Maggie has, as positive forces to counterbalance the unrelenting awfulness of Deb and Sheryl.)

[astrahannah]

So uh. I think I've seen that video. I dunno how much you actually care, or how much you still don't know, but I'm can tell you if you don't wanna play it yourself like some people suggest - so, spoilers for Mystic Messenger ahead.

You're right in that it's an otome game with its gimmick being it taking place in real time. Someone said it's about organizing a party. That's also true. I'll use the character's names and sometimes I'll describe who they are.

See, the MC opens an app on the phone, there's a guy in it telling her "hey, I found this phone, there's only this app in it and an address, could you go there and tell the owner I have the phone?" you can't think it's suspicious af, you gotta go there, and when no one opens, break in using a code for the door the guy texting you gives you, and once you do that, the convo disappears, you enter a chat app of a group of friends (mostly) in a charity organization that used to host fundraising parties. You shouldn't be there, they all suspect you of hacking (the dude who texted you at the start is the hacker, actually, calls himself Unknown), also, you're in the apartment of the organization's late founder, Rika. At the end of the prologue, they decide to give you a chance, while they backcheck you, you can join them.

The first four days are spent interacting with the characters and choosing a route based on your interactions, and the current leader, who calls himself V and doesn't come chat much, and was Rika's fiance before she died, decides that maybe be the new coordinator, since that was Rika's role and you're at her apartment. Maybe that's what she would want.

So, that's the start.

Then, you asked about the bomb. In several routes (which you enter on day 5 (out of 11) based on who you seemed to get along with the most based on interaction and what game mode you're in (every love interest is only available one of the three modes)), you find out that Rika had a bomb installed in her apartment for... Security, allegedly, IIRC (haven't played any route dealing with the bomb in a while), but a hacker (the one who let in at the start, Unknown, though you don't know that right at the start) tampered with it and can now go off any moment/if you leave the apartment (I think the latter, not sure). Depending on the route, 707(/Luciel/Saeyoung, he's a man of many names), the hacker and security guy of the group finds a weird palace in the mountains it's coming from, and your love interest might have to go there and deal with it (Yoosung's route) or maybe save you from kidnapping by the hacker (Zen's route). There's usually some confrontation between LI and the hacker (except Jumin, who never confronts the hacker face to face, and Jaehee, whose route doesn't deal with this bullshit except a very mild allusion, normal stuff happens there instead), if you get the good ending, yall win, MC and the LI get together (except on Jaehee's route, because she's a woman and I guess they were scared to make an explicitly wlw route, bcs South Korea).

Or, that's on the "casual story" mode (you're recommended to play that first, and it's the only mode not locked behind game currency anyway, routes of Yoosung, Zen and Jaehee available) and the "deep story" (usually second to be played, Jumin and 707 available). But, in 707's "secret ending" (every character has an "after ending" - an epilogue basically, but 707 has two secret endings after that) in which you find out that the place the hacker hailed from is a cult (BTW the hacker, Unknown, is 707's twin brother, as you find out on 707's route) founded by Rika (yeah, the founder of the organization you're in the whole game), bcs, VEERY basically (I don't understand Rika's psychology that well, I didn't actually play the secret endings or the DLC that's a visual novel about her backstory, but when you are in the fandom for over 5 years, you catch onto something), she hates suffering and wants to make an eternal paradise, where people are always happy, but making them always happy is ensured by giving them drug cocktails that make them weak and obedient to her, their "savior". V, her fiance, found out, didn't agree, and she ran away to create the cult. V pretended she's dead bcs I don't really know. He still had this love for/obsession with her, he didn't want to hurt the other members of the organization with that knowledge... Not sure (someone who played it all might know better). V and Rika also promised 707 to protect his brother while he hid away in a secret agent organization (the twins are illegitimate sons of the prime minister and he might try to kill them if he got ahold of them, a whole another can of worms), but as Rika left to start the cult, she took Saeran (the real name of 707's twin), made him into the hacker "Unknown" and brainwashed him to think 707 hates him.

That's just the casual and deep story, though (I think), there's also "another story", taking place in an alternate reality, a year before the other two modes, with slight changes to the characters - the prologje changes, Saeran pretends he's a game developer, is basically developing Mystic Messenger, wants you go be a playtester, but you have to get blindfolded into a car and let them drive you to the cult, and you live there for the whole game, while Saeran tries to convince you at first that the characters you chat with are just AI. You can date V and Saeran in it, also, Saeran has a split personality here (nice - Ray, and evil - Saeran, for the simplicity. I'm pretty sure it's drugs and brainwashing induced.). And there's that one bad ending of V's where you can end up with Rika (which is more then you ever get with Jaehee, who's my favorite, it makes me a bit mad).

I'm afraid I can't TL;DR this. Mystic Messenger is pretty wack, but I like talking about it.

Me, looking through youtube to find background noise to draw: oh sweet. A tier list of the bad endings of Mystic Messenger, a game I've never played and know nothing about. Sure, this should work.

Me 50 minutes later: What the fuck happens in Mystic Messenger.