#mixer slayers

[loudlyhappycupcake]

The powerpuff girls in mixer slayers @shironezuninja @snoopierdass @ppgxrrblove @ppgdaily @adriennsposts @wispsshadow @collector-noceda-clawthorne @cartoonfan21 @bitter-yet-civilized @untitled14360 @kuskicanlove @sakulovejulius12 @homuncvlus @enchantedchocolatebars @evander2511 @waltdiegi-theartist @d-blue02 @aamericanotaku @gametoon

[snoopierdass]

[c-rose2081]

The Rose-Beauty Twins

There is no such thing as bad genes in the Rose-Beauty family. Both Briar and Rosabella can say with confidence ‘my mom’s cooler than yours’.

Damascena and Delilah Rose-Beauty are twin sisters with opposite personalities, both attending Ever After the generation before the show takes place. One can definitely fix him, while the other just got kicked out of the library 🤭 if you manage to catch the eye of either of these feisty ladies, it should be an immediate A+ in Advanced Wooing as that’s not an easy feat.

If you’re looking for a good time (or to get stoned behind the school), Damascena Rose is your best bet. She’s easy to find as she carries a boombox around wherever she goes, both to hype up whoever, whenever, but also to help keep herself awake. She is the party animal of her class; it’s no question where Briar gets it from. Damascena is a known flirt and likes to play around whenever possible, but it’s all in fun. After all, her true love isn’t coming for another century…right? (Not true, she falls head over heels for star dragon-slayer Valor Prince Charming, but that’s an entirely different story). Much to everyone’s surprise, Damascena actually wants to settle down and raise a large family, but she needs someone with enough spunk to keep up with her active lifestyle.

If you’re looking for someone a bit more studious, Delilah Rose is a hexcellent choice of companion. She’s intelligent, well-read, and a defender of justice wherever she goes. You can usually find her in the library, or spitting fire across the table in debate. Where Delilah is less likely to jump into a relationship than her twin, she has a very…bad…taste in men, something she and her daughter Rosabella share. She likes the bad-boys and the rebels; those guys who are ‘no good’ for anyone else. But, like her sister, Delilah isn’t looking for serious love either. She’s more likely to sit you down to address your past trauma or poor grades than for an actual date. (Delilah finds love too with Valor’s estranged beast of a brother, Vincent, making Briar and Rosabella double-cousins). Delilah is opposite her sister in the family department; she worries about not being a good mother, and prefers the company of books rather than people.

Random Headcanons and Facts:

- Damascena and Faelyn Thorn (Faybelle’s mom) are incredibly close friends.

- Delilah is two minutes older than her twin, making her the ‘big’ sister. This is why she has the favored of their two destinies.

- Delilah is on the debate team, while Damascena helps run Ever After’s radio station and newspaper. (Damascena also does music for school events like dances and mixers)

- Absolutely no one expected Damascena and Valor to hook up. Many thought Valor was actually Snow White’s destined true love.

- Delilah and Damascena are roommates (not by choice) and they hate every second of it despite living in the same room at home.

- Damascena and her mom don’t get along due to differences regarding the outcome of the Sleeping Beauty legacy. She’s not close with her dad either for the same reason.

- Contrary-wise, Delilah is very close to her mom and dad and is the ‘favorite child’, as she’s looking forward to her story playing out.

[rorywritesjunk]

Tell me ur latest obsessions

Aw man okay hang on

1. Buggy is still my #1 obsession. Not even so much One Piece, just Buggy the Clown. And I never cared for clowns until I saw him on the live action and was like "fuck is he supposed to be hot?" And here I am over 6 months later.

2. I love making homemade butter. I even bought a small tabletop butter churn but it doesn't do a good job so I use my KitchenAid mixer. Just throw in heavy cream and then the mixer on. You'll have butter after the heavy cream turns into whipped cream and it keeps going. Once you hear a sloshy noise you got butter!

3. I'm constantly looking up recipes that make me think of what hobbits would eat. I then will cook for myself mostly because my brother is sort of a vegetarian and my mom mostly will eat what I cook but not always.

4. Also this is a bad obsession but I am trying to collect all of these cute lil blind bag Demon Slayer characters. I'm missing Tengen. I have everyone else. I keep getting duplicates at this point. I just want my flashy boy.

5. At some point I'm gonna start cooking over the fire with cast iron. I just have to re-dig out my fire pit and probably re-season my cast iron but it's coming.

6. Visiting Japan again is big. I went in January this year and I loved it. I was there for a week which was perfect for the first time but next time will probably be 2 weeks and we will see more of the country than just Tokyo.

I think that's all 👀

[omies-odd-writing-spot]

Doom Prompt 23: Cookies!

A Prompt from my Doom Discord. Based on the Garnets Story, slayer is such a brat, and ass, even to those he loves but not bad to them if that makes sense?

.

23: “Lily is teaching Loral how to make [her] chocolate chip cookies, but John and Heather keep trying to eat the batter”

“Don't you dare!” Lily grabbed one of the baking cups and chucked it at the massive form starting to lean over the bowls set up on the tall counters. The little green cup did nothing but splat a bit of flower on John's shoulder as he caught the cup after it bounced off him.

Looking up, John was highly amused about the defensiveness over what was being made. Lily was glaring at him and had one of the mixing spoons ready to sacrifice if needed to throw at him as well. “Hmm?���

“You don't have an innocent face, big guy,” Lily pointed to his right hand, “And I see that frozen swordfish steak you're chewing on. Don't you dare cross contaminate the batter!”

The not quite man looked down at the frozen piece of meat he had gotten out of the bin in the walk-in freezer that was marked for him. John looked back at Lily, tilting his head and debating on still doing something. Only for the shorter Loral to come up behind the Demigod and with the confidence of an older grandmother and former matriarch of her family. As well as who had learn she can safely get away with things. Loral reached up behind John as she walked by to smack him with the handle of her spatula.

The bigger Demigod grunted, even though it did not hurt he still reached up to rub his neck and turned with a hurt look. Only to scramble away as the spatula was held up again, the older woman shamelessly chased John away from their work area.

“Shoo! No cookies for you if you contaminate everything with raw meat!” Grandma Loral demanded, shaking the spatula like it was the only thing that could defend their cooking project. There were a lot more people on the Doom Fortress itself, and the fortress city was hidden in the broken moon now. 

Frozen? John signed, showing the chunk of fish meat, safely standing behind a corner and looking over. He was chased off, so now John was interested in what they were doing. The Slayer did not seem to take offense, if anything just let the smaller, weaker human ‘bully’ him around the kitchen. It was a lot more life he could see in Loral and Lily then before, and he liked seeing it.

“It's doesn't matter,” the woman crossed her arms, staring up at the taller man as a mixer was turned on behind her. “It's still cross contaminating. If that ice gets in the batter? Taste is ruined. No cookies for anyone.”

John pouted, hunching his shoulders and took a bite out of the frozen steak. Chewing through it as he leaned on the safe counter, watching as Loral walked back to pick up the bowl she set down with the eggs. Chicken eggs, that's what they were called. When Lily looked back, John tried to make a low sound at her. 

He wanted to see what they were doing!

“No.” Lily said firmly, pointing at the Demigod with the mixing spoon. “Finish your snack and wash your hands before you can see.”

John snorted, but stayed in place for a bit, not hurrying with his current favorite snack. It was cold, crunchy and was just a tasty protein! He shifted, got eyed by Grandma Loral and hesitated. It did not matter he was well over 2000 years older than her, she was grandma and John did not seem to mind letting some humans bully him. So when the Demigod did move, he gave the work area a wide berth of space.

At least until he found a new spot on the other side of the big island counter from the two humans. Head tilting back and forth as he eyed all the ingredients, trying to guess what would come out of it.

John recognized the chocolate chips now! There was also an orange-tan bowl that smelled different, and another of white chips? Chocolate chips came in different colors? 

…did they taste the same?

John tilted his head, finishing the fish steak at last and looked around. He stepped away to find a sink to wash his hands as he had been taught to do when around food. The Demigod rumbled in a pleased way out of sight as he found something. When he returned, John had not a something in his grip, but a someone. Heather was settled in his arms and getting nuzzled. The little girl was more than happy to get attention from her new guardian. Grasping the loose shirt John had on, Heather tried to humm back and mimic what she was feeling. 

Heather liked being held by John the most, some of the protective… Sentinels had good hugs too! Grandpa Valen had really good hugs, just not the same as getting a cuddle and hug from John. Her guardian was warm and just felt the safest. Heather looked up and put her hand on John’s cheek, getting his attention back on her, and then a cheek pressed against her head. 

The girl turned to see what was going on. Tilting her head before looking up at her guardian, signing a question. What are they baking?

John carefully set Heather down so she was sitting on the edge of the counter in front of him. Slowly starting to use the human sign, having only just learned it not long ago. Cookie.

Heather gasped at that, turning around and saw Grandma Loral eyeing them. Cookie?

You wait. The older woman signed back as she shook her head. They need to cook first.

Heather pouted, looking up at John. The big man was blinking slowly, thoughtfully before rumbling as he leaned forward. Arms around Heather he snorted against her shoulder and grinned at the little squeal of laughter that resulted. Seemingly distracting the girl from the cookies. 

John did not have to stare at the other side of the counter as he leaned forward to track Lily and Loral’s movements. He reached forward in a moment of distraction, grabbing some of the chocolate chips and shared them with the giggling Heather. The girl was trying to hide her delight so much that Grandma Loral looked over to see her shoving something in her mouth. John doing much the same where he was hunched over.

Far too experienced as a parent, and grandparent, Loral sighed, “Goodness. Watch out Lily, we have some cookie thieves.”

“What?” Lily turned from focusing on fishing that one little egg shell fragment out of the bowl. Blinked and then stood up, “Oy! No stealing ingredients!”

John blinked and tilted his head around Heather, still hunched over the girl to let her finish eating her share of the loot with some cover. “Hmm?”

“Go to the stores to get some,” Lily tossed an egg shell at the demigod. Who reflexively caught it, blinked slowly staring at the shell. Before he looked back, John then ate the shell, looking surprised at the crunchy.

“Oh my gods,” Lily sighed as she turned away to get the little fragment. There was a small sound and a giggle, Lily spun around, and saw John mid-motion of taking the whole bowl of butterscotch chips. “Hey!”

The Demigod grabbed Heather and the bowl, trying to get away, only moving slow enough to not disturbed the little girl was his downfall. As Loral took aim and chucked a heavier ‘glass’ measuring cup. Her aim was true and the old pyrix thing clunked against John’s head, then shoulder, hit a counter on the way down and bounced off the floor. Twice. All the while not breaking

That was actually impressive!

John stared down, after making sure that Heather on his right arm was safe, then grunted in surprise as Lily popped up in front of him. The bigger not quiet man held tighter to the bowl, but his adoptive daughter was a half step ahead and just scooped most of the chips from his new bowl, all into another bowl that she had. Then Lily ran away, John trying to step after, only to get a good smack from  behind.

The Great Slayer King, the only predator of hell, the Beast… he whined at the second smack from a spatula.

“You fiend!” Grandma Loral yelled. “Food thief!”

“Aarh?” John tried to say something, shifting to hide Heather as she was laughing. He flashed a grin but tried to get away with what few little bits of chips left in his bowl.

“Don’t you sass me! Heather! Smack him!” Loral said and signed.

Not sure what was going on, but delighted at the idea of adding to the fun chaos. Heather bapped at John’s neck and shoulder, not hard, but it had him giving a mock bite back with a low fake growling sound. It took a good ten, maybe fifteen minutes before the two calmed down to nibble on the few butterscotch chips left in the bowl. John sat up to look around a corner, debating on if there was anything to steal. 

Eyeing the closer bowl, he rolled onto hands and knees, then rocked up, trying to be stealthy for once and creep closer. It did not help that there was a giggling girl following, but he could work with that. Trying to circle the two cooking and looking for something to steal. His second attempt resulted with John couched behind a counter with a big bowl of… butter? Whipped butter? It tasted good, okay, but was not that sweet.

How did this turn into cookies?

“...JOHN!” Lily yelled, noticing the lack of giggling and now a missing bowl. 

The Demigod grabbed Heather, and the bowl just because, and fed into the dinning room. Grinning the whole time, debating if he can hold the butter hostage for something sweet for him- and Heather!

[drkroots]

comfort dash game !

comfort food: chilli con carne or mexican in general.

comfort drink: wet pussy ( ITS A BRAND OF MIXER I PROMISE ) and lemonade, cordial, choc milk / hot chocolate.

comfort movie: the crow, practical magic, ginger snaps, the lost boys, the craft, the lion king and i'm sure there are more but these are the core of my personality lmfao.

comfort show: charmed, the crow: stairway to heaven, buffy the vampire slayer, merlin.

comfort clothing: pyjamas. always. if i'm not out, i'm in pjs.

comfort song: p much nightwish's discography, the crow soundtrack and score, the vtmb soundtrack and score bc asking me to name just one is near impossible.

comfort book: the crow graphic novel, blood and chocolate, wicked.

comfort game: vtmb, skyrim, digimon world ( ps1 ) and did i nearly mention the god awful crow video game that i've barely played just to keep up with the theme? yes i did and no i haven't played it bc its just terrible lmfao.

bet ya'll can't guess my favourite intellectual property, can you?????

tagged by: stolen from @diemauer tagging: @nightsuffer / @snkts / @painofhumanity / @parainvestigate / @agentnash / @teardownheaven / @eclipsecrowned / @00sgoth / @paddyfuck / whoever else wants to do the thing

[tsukiyadori]

Reading Log 2024.04 - April

Previous: Reading (Watching) Log 2024.02-2024.03 - February-March

Reading languages: German, English, French, Japanese, not listing which was what. (There's also been some feeble attempts at Chinese.)

Titles are as I’ve read them either first or most and thus remember it for that title mostly

Not going to bother putting in the original titles of translated reads unless there is something worthy of note to it

Cursive titles have been completed

Some notes' content may be subject to repetition here and there, as I also copied some older notes from casual conversations over and didn't go through any rounds of cutting things down.

——————————————————————————

APRIL

I now have a new phone lockscreen wallpaper. (See entrance image. It's from How to Survive as a Villain's webtoon a.k.a. To Be or Not to Be chapter 71). The moon being pretty, and a thing for me is kinda self-explanatory given my alias names, but usually you find images with moons to have them being all on the upper part of the image, because obviously moons are up there in the sky. However, for phone lock screens this is incredibly unpractical, because on the upper part is the time display and that one's white... So this one is perfect with the moon not being on the upper part but the lower part of the image. I wonder what blossoms there are supposed to be. I'd guess peach blossoms (with the village being called literally Peach Blossom Village, but wasn't it supposed to be summer in that timeline? And peach blossoms bloom in March to April.)

I found out that you can add any number of tags, but tumblr kicks everything bar the first 30 somethings upon saving and among those displayed only the first 20 actually will count for showups if you want to filter posts with that hashtag. Or like search on the phone app. What the heck. What do you mean I need to actually choose the most important ones now each time. D:

Maybe I should try do monthlies after all, so there won't be as many tags to begin with.

I feel like this is gonna just be a rambling about one particular series this month anyway...

I have learned something new this month. The Chinese have a slang word called 'dog blood'. It's apparantely coming from theater where death scenes were enacted with dog blood and first was about extended nonsensical farewell speeches of death scenes but eventually expanded to describe all sorts of cheap cheesy lines in general. Or in other words, this is basically synonymous to what I call bad, rotten or trash cheese.

Light Novels:

7th Time Loop v2

Brunhild v1-2

By the Grace of Gods V12

Dragon Live Online p8-11.5

Hell Mode v3p1-3

How to Survive As a Villain Novel ch46-57, ch181-183, Ch58-75, ch209-210, ch206, ch196, ch76-136 (and some other random scene cheery picks completely out of order)

Is it wrong to pick up Girls in a Dungeon v9

Mushoku Tensei v1p1-6

The Case Files of Jeweler Richard v13p15-56

The Eminence in Shadow v2p6-8

The Executioner and Her Way of Life v1

The Faraway Paladin v1-2

The Saint's Magic Power is Omipotent LN v2p1-v3p6

Unnamed Memory After the End v1p16-22

Unnamed Memory LN v1p1-2

Wolf and Parchment v4-5

Your Forma v4

Manga:

Aiko und die Wölfe des Zwielichts v1-3

Ano Natsu ga Houwa suru. ch17

Are You Okay with a Slightly Older Girlfriend? Ch2.4-16.1

August 15th

Buta no Liver wa Kanetsushiro ch35.1-2

Dance in the Vampire Bund The Memories of Sledgehammer v2ch5-8

Delinquent Daddy & Tender Teacher v3

Domestic na Kanojo v5-8

Don't Call Me Daddy

Ein schicksalhafter Bund mit dem Fuchs v1-v2ch11

Fake it to Break it Ch1-8.3

Feng Yu Jiu Tian ch1-4

Flying Witch v11-12ch73

Get the Moon

Goblin Slayer The Singing Death v4ch16-19

Goblin Slayer Year One v8

Goblin Slayer v12

Hallo, ich bin eine Hexe und mein Schwarm wünscht sich einen Liebestrank von mir v3ch15

Hiso Hiso v4-6

How I Attended an All-Guy's Mixer Ch1-4

In Sachen… Geheimnisse (v3)

In Sachen… Vertrauen (v2)

Intoxicated East Wind Skimthrough

Iron Cock Skimthrough

Isekai Transporter ch1-4

Isekai de Ane ni Namae wo Ubawaremashita ch18.1

Kakan no Oukoku no Hanagirai Hime ch12.3-13.1

Kakko Warukute Kakkoii Kimi v1

Ki ga Au to Iu Koto wa v1

Kijima-san & Yamada-san Ch17.3-24.2

Knitter's High ch27.1-2

Koisuru (Otome) no Tsukurikata ch82-83

Kono Koi wo Hoshi ni wa Negawanai ch12.3-13.1

Korsar der Liebe v1-3

Like Milk & Honey v1-2

Living With My Brother's Wife Ch12-15-48

Lonely Castle in the Mirror v1-3

Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijou wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyuu Kimama na Hanayome Seikatsu wo Mankitsusuru ch31

Maid-san wa Taberu dake ch48

Mein Isekai-Leben v1-v4ch12

Mir dir im Wunderland v2 (ou of order read)

Miryou no Otome to Katabutsu Hittou Majutsushi no Hatsukoi Kiroku bangaihen3-4

My Awkward Senpai Ch71-75

My Elder Sister v5-6ch44

My Not-So-Fair Lady is Doomed! (But Not If I Can Help It) Ch1.1-4.1

My Roommate is a Cat v6-8ch24

My Unexpected Marriage Ch1-10.2

Okazari Ouhi ni Nattanode, Kossori Hataraki ni deru koto ni Shimashita ~Usagi ga Iru no de Hitorine mo Sabishiku Arimasen!~ ch25.2-26.4

On or Off v1-4

Rebirth Two Lives I Still Love You ch0-2

Ryuko v2

Sasaki & Peeps v1

Shuumatsu Touring ch37.1-2

Soko ni Suwaruna

Suicide Notes Laid on the Table Ch20-35.1

The 6th Loop: I'm Finally Free of Auto Mode in this Otome Game Ch1.1-3.2

Tokyo Aliens v7ch29-33

Unamed Memory ch36.1-2

Watashi wo Tabetai, Hitodenashi ch38.1-3

Yomei Ichinen to Senkokusareta Boku ga, Yomei Hantoshi no Kimi to Deatta Hanashi ch11.1-2

Webtoons:

Breed my Dear Enemy Ch182-194

Fall in the Night with You Ch72-73

Flowers in the Secret Place Ch89-155

Her Atypical Story Ch0-5

Ice Lamp: The Chronicles of Kira Ch45-48

Taberare Usa ch99-101

The Blind & The Homeless Ch8-42

The Goddess of Healing Ch67-79

To be or not be Ch24-95

Notes:

To Be or Not to Be (reread on Comikey in progress): So well, the first time was a bit not as attentive and then too quick on binge last month so I simply started from the beginning again. And it's so funny in hindsight that it took me until starting the novel to realized this fellow is just about as aroace as you can be (who slowly drops into a demi-romance). Like, I should have had caught the hint latest with this:

(Difference between a brotherly love or one between lovers)

This is, if you think about it, not the sort of question you'd normally ask, especially not when somebody just confessed to you and there is no homophobia theme nor desperate denial at play, and you don't even doubt that it's meant seriously and can even see that the feelings are genuine. It's.... totally a question I'd also ask, tho. No wonder, this entire progression of that romance and him taking so long to catch on just felt so plausible to me.

Other than that, I still think the first season (up to their first separation) is a pretty great adaption, it takes shortcuts and adds some more flourish at places. The second and third seasons however, after reading the novels now feel excruciatingly chopped, although it still manages to do the most important scenes right. But much of its worldbuilding and side characters is just gone, and some things are still there but don't exactly make any sense - like that hairband from eunuch Zhao that snapped, it ever was only shown intact in the webtoon, but when Xiao YuAn goes to bury his box of mementos there is Hong Xiu's hairpin this broken hairband. Or the list of names of fallen soldiers. Other little changes make sense, and some just seem clunky. (Like this whole "I want to bed him" in the last arc has an entirely different vibe considering they had been at it before already unlike in the novel.) And my complaint after the first read that the last third just seems way too focused on the two MCs with zero inclusion of the side characters or expanding the world, the novel in fact is like that still in that arc, but it already has done all that in the second season, which was nearly entirely cut in the webtoon (or if you look really closely there are some one-liners or random panels showing it) and does some more in the extras, which the webtoon doesn't adapt. Still it does get many of the most important scenes right and the art remains pretty. (Except the last third still has me had this eyelashes issue. Whyyyy.)

How to Survive As a Villain Novel ch46-57, ch181-183, Ch58-75, ch209-210, ch206, ch196, ch76-136 (and some other random scene cheery picks completely out of order): When you go like, let's read it slowly so it lasts longer!! and that even works, but then you just start reading backwards and then all across all over the place out of order anyway. Oh, well....

I already got some clear aroace moods with Xiao YuAn in the beginning that I read last month but upon reading on.... this fellow's really about as aroace as you can be without naming it. It even goes all the length of establishing him as somebody who doesn't understand it at all, has to ask about it, and questions the veracity of the answer at places. (And I still think the "sexual orientation" bits on the official character bios on both him and Yan HeQing are a complete riot. 😂) They both look very demi to me; if that original novel is to still apply Yan HeQing falls for somebody who extends their hand when he's in anguish and suffering and over that emotional attachment he develops feelings (and then it's a dam breaking). For Xiao YuAn it's obviously very slow burn and building one little pebble atop another until a wall that makes him feel safe has been built.

What I thought was incredibly interesting tho, Xiao YuAn still comes off as pretty ace even after all is said and done. And he doesn't exactly know it - he continues to live with a misconception that's just incredibly widespread and not known. In that same scene from the above webtoon snippet he asks Yan HeQing what sort of like/love is he even refererring to. Does he know the difference, is it a brotherly/comradery feeling or one between lovers. That's also what is in the webtoon in Chinese (I actually went to check that one out), but the novel (which scene I also went to check out, at least what web version I could find in Chinese) has him be much more crude and to the point to put that question between that brotherly like/love or if it was one where Yan HeQing would want to have sex with him. (Which he answers rather clearly as having very much some voracious appetite for him in that respect, the answer is still there in the webtoon.) Now put this next to each other. That's his idea: The love of lovers is something that includes sexual desire. Sound familiar? Uhu. He even suggests in lieu of answering him that they simply do the deed. In order to learn and find out. The man's got some very wrong ideas right there. A few of them seem way too dumbly familliar.

The hilariously funny part is, Xiao YuAn proceeds to be incredibly unhinged about this spice stuff afterward. He is going for it, he does the most outrageous things, but he does them in a way that just feels entirely clueless or he realizes just how extreme they are after it's already done or shortly about to be done and he reflects on it and feels incredibly stupid. And most of all, if he causes a dam break in Yan HeQing who, all seduced and riled up, can't help but eat him up rather ravenously he always winds up wailing for him to please stop, because kinda, he didn't have that in mind at all so much. It's like he never really is aware of what he's gonna get himself into and doesn't really learn his lessons either. But also, once he gets touched, he is plenty able to feel sexual pleasure, he doesn't exactly hate it. It's just... it seems more like a passive body reaction, a sort of being okay with it, rather than an innate desire out of attraction? He never seems actually thirsty for it (unlike Yan HeQing who is incredibly straving for it, but knows it and restrains himself constantly.)

He's the first to initiate and propose them doing it and is notoriously stubborn about getting Yan HeQing to do it, but also says it's not like he is in a hurry (or like coming off as badly wanting it because of an actual proper desire like Yan HeQing always has), but it's just he feels like they'd never get the right timing to do it at all otherwise. It makes him sound desperate, like he feels a duty to actually do it and guilty for not doing it, almost as if he has to prove something. And whenever Yan HeQing kinda distances himself from him for whatever reason his go to is to try seduce him and break his self-control for forced up intimacy. (And then just winds up regretting it, because it's too much.) And it seems to entirely not align with what he actually wants and needs most fo have exactly that connection he seeks. After that last dramatic reunion in the third part where Yan HeQing is so out of himself and selfcontrol he wants him so badly tied to bed and everything like those innermost desires he once told him (but never actually executed like that, because he doesn't want to hurt him), Xiao YuAn instead just wants to hug him. He's wanting physical intimicy, but it's more about lying in one another's arms for a peaceful sleep. Every single time when he's still oblivious to it all, but clearly already attached, he just has Yan HeQing accompany him to spend some quality time together. He's the one who wants to have dates even as they weren't named such and even has to explain that thing about it's simply to just spend some good time together to him. (All the while Yan HeQing is so thirsty wanting to steal kisses from him.) And whenever he fawns over the man, it's kinda suspiciously in just aesthethic ways...? (well for what I've read anyway.)

30% of it feels more like a sort of playfulness, a sort of stubborn competition, fueled by those "tyrannical president" antics, which trope he entirely is not, but spent his entirely past life being forced into being and still very much influences his thought process. Almost as if if he doesn't get Yan HeQing to jump at him, it's like he is lacking in attractiveness, something that chips away at his self value. Another 30% is him appearing like he considers it the thing to be done, almost as if he owes it to him, especially as he knows that Yan HeQing's wants in that regard run much deeper and notorious. Yet another 30% is him kinda just enjoy everything before the actual act. Like as if getting him to do it is the goal rather than actually doing it. He clearly enjoys the teases to break Yan HeQing's defenses, his self-control, his stoism. And even as he knows some of his things are kinda outrageous, he, to some extend, still enjoys them. It's kinda the same thing with his fixation on terrible tropes and cheesy lines and everything 'dog blood', it's excruciatingly terrible, all trashy, but he can't help but also kinda look forward to it. The last 10% are... really just him having no darn clue. Like however did he think that red silk bondage was a good idea??? 😂 Maybe I should not laugh as me, surely I'd be just as dumb myself if it ever came to be...

Other than that I quite like how the isekai/transmigration thing plays out.

Xiao YuAn doesn't really get to be all OP or a sort of cheater because of being from a modern world - that is not as a plot device. There are some indications and little details that he does bring in some modernization, like proposing that meritocratic exams system the actual historical China also has had, but it's never really played as a plot point that flaunts his superior knowledge or anything. What he ultimately winds up tackling - corruption, decandency - are things entirely the same still in the modern word and he's also struggling with it all the same as he would in any modern world as well. He knows the future by the plotline, but beyond having a better grasp at insight to their character and be nice to them Hamefura-style, it's at the same time also kinda the obvious thing to do as a decent person. And he's having plenty ability to have an insight on human nature and getting other people liking him even without the cheat skills from the novel plot as his time in the TaoYuan village proves.

I still absolutely do not like that bit about Xiao YuAn's brother, he just remains a complete plot device, but that the doppelgänger from Wester Shu gets to wake up in the modern world as him to improve on his own depression and helplessness was a nice touch. (One the webtoon should have rather have, when it had them actually have a conversation with each other, rather than how in the novel Xiao YuAn only every saw him from a distrance and asked about him. He remained a completely stranger there, so him kinda not having as much compassion to upkeep his past identity's honor seems more plausible. Especially as he's introduced as a good guy, unlike that Nothern emperor who is a scummy villain (and then even he got to have a little bit pity left for him by the original book's ending for him with is love affair.))

That and how it's part of how Xiao YuAn has a few deep seated traumata and in that way that they don't seem obvious at all, because he drowns it all in his smiles, his goofy riduculousness, his apparant ability to just let grudges go when all he does is just to bury them and run away. All that load, it didn't just magically disappear in his new life, no, they come to wreck him even in this new world. He has baggage and a new life doesn't magically fix it nor is this fantasy escapism world it the solution to it in the end. How many isekai tales actually make use of this oppotunity to add some more emotional development? We never really learn much about how he lived his life in the modern world, but little insight is there only describes titbits to establish the origins. But it was never really addressed in his childhood and it wasn't cured at all either, nor is it likely that it's curable at all. Those scars are there and with his futile struggles they only got worse culmating in his rash and terrible decisions. What ultimately keeps it in check and just puts a lid on it without erasing it, is being showered with that love he was missing his entire life by Yan HeQing and his found family in the village and also realizing how the easy way out of it has devastating consequences.

Speaking of that found family, it's really too bad, that got cut so much in the webtoon. While there is still a tinge of it with Lin Shengling getting all touched that Xiao YuAn's place is kinda his maiden home of sorts and Xiao YuAn and all accepted in that village with really close bonds with especially the Zhan family, which family to begin with is a patchwork family. Yang LiuAn and Xiao FengYue kinda become brothers of sorts to him, and old lady cohabitating with them is a sort of motherly aunt there. There's just no ill will in that village (which is its whole point with being kinda called a little paradise on earth.) And also it's just got these beautifully blossoming trees. (Now are those peach blossoms or not??)

Oh and speaking of found family and all closeness and intimicy that there is and which is being perfectly aknowledged as something Xiao YuAn holds dear and misses and seems just so attractive, even as he is perfectly fine with living in the capital with Yan HeQing, which the latter also perfectly respects and encourages. There is also this bit in the extras about Hong Xiu, how it was Xiao YuAn, who tended to her worst fears she never expected anyone to expect and treated her with gentleness, a sort of she hadn't phantomed to ever get. And as the man speaks fondly and caring about her and Yan HeQing get jealously concerned over "do you like her", Xiao YuAn is all he's probably jealous about the girl again, but also that Hong Xiu never was part of of his harem. And then he has this to say to him:

Way to just get things right. (And she definitely ripped a hole into his heart, once she was gone and even keeps visiting her grave years later. Also really too bad that the afterwards about how curruption cut short his support for her family forcing her sister to become a maidservant, too.)

Other than that I just want to scream: Why could I not discover this a mere two darn month earlier?! That the pre-orders for that Singapore Rosmei edition is already closed and me not having entirely any idea at all how to get it anymore sours me, doesn't help at all, that apparantely that edition is gonna get some new unrelease extra chapter (although that is to be in v3, so technically I won't be missing that one............ whenever the other two volumes are going to be released anyway.) Apparantely there's even another chapter exclusive to some Chinese Edition from a publisher called Via Lactea and I have absolutely no idea how that one's supposed to look and how to get it. And to learn this right when I pondering about looking for some Chinese proxy for getting the books in Chinese, too, now obviously I want that edition to learn what that extra chapter is about. Hhhhnnnng. (Apparantely there's also a Spanish edition licensed with the art of the Rosmei edition, but I know no Spanish...)

Other than that, I still riducilously miss out on those footnotes the aggregator sites have just went and killed. Also, I just found out that the one single site that had the extras beyond chapter 210 kinda did some move and the entire title has vanished from that one's new site. With that there's porbably no place to read the fantraslation of it anymore. (At least for that one I had the epiphany of going though all the chapter sites to make a safecopy last week, I don't really want to know how dkfhkdjfhkjdfh I would have been, if I missed out on reading them just like that from one day to the other.)

In any case, this one as rekindled my interest in the Chinese language, too. Linguistically/writing style speaking this novel is also highly up my alleways. It's chock full with idioms (I image them to be complete utter pain to translate), historical references in those idioms, but also it has all that meta stuff about tropes and everything along with modern slang usage. And it's just having the right amount of twinkling parody of tropes, indulging just enough in it for some guilty pleasure but still managing to have an well build up emotional rollercoaster plot of its own that dances with Xiao YuAn's goofy ludicrousness at times in one hand and heavy hitters in the other. And considering, that it has not newly invented any wheel whatsoever - about every single element in there is something that on its own you can find elsewhere as well - but still manages to get me this invested into it is kinda rather impressive.

Speaking of impressive---

Mein Isekai-Leben a.k.a. My Isekai Life v1-v4ch12: Now that on the other hand is an entirely different sort impressive, or more like, I am astounded by it. Which is to say if I had to use one word to descibribe it it's 'listless'. This is an incredibly listless OP MC cheat skills power-fantasy. It's also... incredibly boring. Brainless. Everything you get to see here is something that has been done elsewhere in way, way better already. I only read all those vols because I just happened to have them there and then I just kept going after the first volume because I wanted to know how in the world is this managing to survive at all. It's a manga adaption of a light novel, both are sitll ongoing and runnning. How does this manage to be this reasonably popular to warrant this??? (After v4 I still didn't really know, so I gave up.)

Wolf and Parchment v4-5 (5 sitll in progress): Ok, so volume 4 was kinda okay in the end, not so much a slog anymore, although the the conversation between Even and Col about how Col would definitely go and prioritize Myuri was pretty interesting, putting into question how long he's gonna last to stick to his he's gonna be a priest and not just take Myuri's handand he's still all that's never gonna happen. (Like hell it won't?!) Then volume 5 started and I was kinda blown by surprise over that bit about them being in this weird space of having a bond, about how she keeps calling him brother despite also saying she is romantically in love with him, because there is no other way to qualify this at all and him also realizing the weird place he is with his attachement to her, too and then the whole crest thing is there, and how every single one involved with it immediately understands it's significance. Something for them, only the two of them, something special, but it's not lovers or marriage. Something else. And it's also hard to get, because how in the world are you gonna explain two people with no tangible relation neither blood nor marriage, wanting to share a crest together? are you just gonna pretend something that pleases general plausibility, while it kinda contradicts its actual purpose? Owoooh, how cool is that. I suppose I really had no trust in this series (or media in general) that this wasn't going down your bog standard romance route.

The Case Files of Jeweler Richard v13p15-56 (that's somewhere into chapter 2): I am making some progress in reading that one off, but admittedly even I am surprised how slow going it is sonsidering how hyped I was about it before its release and then put it off for health reasons because I totally expected I'd just binge with in a marathon with no regard to sleep and food. If I had to put a finger onto it, it's kinda, the first chapter wasn't exactly uninteresting, but also really not very getting be invested either. The second chapter just entirely starts of with discomfort with having this Chinese classmate sobbing about how he is terrible in school and his father is livid about it and just the general vibes of Chinese mentality. Like. Ouch. And it also immediately stiffled my interest in Chinese again that How to Survive as a Villain has sparked up again. Distancing from that language is kinda like distancing from that general mentality for me and looks like I still can't really separate them enough to just enjoy the language without having the culture behind it poison me.

Unnamed Memory After the End: Still very much at the start, but it docks onto where the first series stops before the grand time skip. It also just picks up on a few things that were left unaddressed in its second half. And here is me wondering, if Myralis and Valt will show up again or not. How it ended for them - which by world mechanics has to be a bad end and then they don't even get mentioned - still feels narratively very unfair to me, with all the effort spent on describing their motives and backstory.

Flowers in the Secret Place - finished: This is another series I just read though chapters over chapters wondering why even, until it kinda went decent enough somethiing around chapter 70? from 155 chapters. The only reason I looked into it was because the art is kinda decently pretty. The reason I made it across the first chapter was that.... the MC wears bunny hair ties. Yes, stupid reason, but here we go. The male MC is possitively annoying, the second male lead is much more interesting but takes a whole while to pick himself up. The backstory and its resulting triangle constellation actually winds up being decently interesting.

Rebirth Two Lives I Still Love You ch0-2: Same author as How to Survive as a Vilain, different artist, which... doesn't look exactly bad, but not even half as appealing. This one's also not Isekai, but Regression. Also it looks incredibly cheese. Motivations for reading on were a bit low, but maybe it just takes a bit? Knowing me I will check it out anyway...

My Unexpected Marriage Ch1-10.2: This isn't even an Isekai, but it uses the Isekai cheat skill trick of using some pretty modern contemporary things and common sense, put them into an Ancient-y setting to make everything run overly smoothly for the MC. In terms of plot and characters I cannot say I am wowed. Nevertheless, it is set in Ancient China-ish of a setting and even if the female MC's big eyes innocent gentle shoujo face kinda clashes with the rest, there is definitely some effort spend on all the wardrobe and ornaments. It's pretty enough to keep going. The mystery plot that points to court intrigue is okayish enough, too.

Mushoku Tensei v1p1-6: The way the horny is put in really is a bit "...", there it really just goes, does an overly genuinely touchy feely monologue about how someone is great and how the guy is emotionally touched and everything, only to destroy it with the twist that he stole her unwashed panties. It was a whole block of text about how in his previous life he was a shut in a loser, somebody with serious problems, social anxiety and getting out of the house issues included and the girl took him out for a magic exam, insisted it had the out there and he really is unconfortable with it, you can get really into how this little bit is just a major milestone for him, something nobody in his old life has managed or even tried. But then it just had to goe like and then he remembered that he still had those unwashed panties in his room that he had stolen some month ago. Argh.

At least that horny father seems to have at least some punches to get, and the setup of this guy being a completely loser, but actually it's not like he always was, he was even better but never learned modesty and that being his entire downfall out which he has now learned. This character is a pretty well set up antihero, he is all sorts of terrible, but in that one moment where Truck-kun came he pushed that whoever away with no regards to himself. (and it doesn't get flaunted as that one big good deed.) He also helped Sylphie, and that started without any horny ulterior motives either. (I was half wondering there actually if, with all that attraction to her, when he still thought she was a he was opening up some queer route, but looks like not.) He, at the bottom of his heart, does not seem to be a bad guy, and he has some serious baggage, that he is trying to treat himself with this new life and gets the occasional unintentional help. Will be interesting how his own inhibitions and knowledge about all the bad things of himself bring him on the road to serious betterment. But then also. He is already entirely, totally hopelessly horny cringe.

Loop 7-kaime no Akuyaku Reijou wa, Moto Tekikoku de Jiyuu Kimama na Hanayome Seikatsu wo Mankitsusuru a.k.a. 7th Time Loop ch31: (That's the chapter about Arnold and Rishe talking about the ring, once it was delivered). I wanted to scream at Arnold and Rishe rocks with giving him a piece of her mind like that and also totally underestimates the amount of heart flutter she gets into when she goes and gives the man such a free pass to court her. A very wide load of good faces.

Intoxicated East Wind, Iron Cock, August 15h, Feng Yu Jiu Tian: Stuff from the artist of How to Survive as a Villain's webtoon from some 10 years prior. You know when you like one thing of somebody and then go check out the rest? And then you find out it's dubCon, nonCon, rapey, horny porny whatevers and melp. And by the translator's note from August 15th, apparantely that title is some slang euphemism for buttocks. Because the moon is the roundest on that date, so it's the perfect moon so it's buttocks. I'm like what? The art also look nowhere nearly as good as the artist is able to be pull off in How to Survive as a Villain. I wonder if they are going to have some new work. Couldn't find anything from after its end in 2022.

Don't Call Me Daddy: Nice to have some adult characters there. Like adult and then elderly. And how homophobia has wrecked their life, but it's not even the main theme. Again some discussion about different sorts of wants, but uh, the one that solves that one was that guy getting... a boner from a kiss? Huh. What would ye have done, if he didn't? (Well probably that would have been an entirely different story I guess...)

Domestic na Kanojo v5-8: Collection of notes made upon/right after reading the vols:

v5: Let's continue the exhibition of the worst of cheese afflictions. But I did not see that escalation downwards coming... okay, cheese affliction puts other people into danger, both intentionally and unintentionally... Actually the latter case is even worse as it is a danger of livelihood one... ....... ok, wait, isn't this already sexual harrassment now???

v6: Just go for them both already, those sisters don't even look like they'd mind it that much.

v7: Your cheese affliction is gonna ruin your life.

v8: So, now we have blackmail, coercion, extortion and a kidnapping as well as faking somebody's identity without their knowledge nor permission. Alright….

….. this however

(Title: How to recover, panel 1: My humble self has a bun, panel 4: RESSURECTED, the bun: HAND OVER THE SNACKS)

.............. is just some supreme truth out of complete nowhere.

Are You Okay with a Slightly Older Girlfriend? Ch2.4-16.1: I thought this was called into quesitonability because of the age gap and at the beginning I had some qualms, because she is outright deceiving him, but that gets wrapped up quickly enough and then I thought it was just gonna be cheese with age unsecurities, but I suppose if those massive boobs didnt alrealy make an indication, this thing's just way to much flaunting them and playing the horniness bits in way too much of an extremely.... kinda dumb way. With a tint of seriously thinking about these issues. (Also mentions of kink and no shaming allowed there, that sister knows how to enforce authority.) And that makes it both hard to outright drop, but also a pain to suffer though...

Brundhild v1-2: Volume 1, 'Dragon Slayer" is a revenge story out of titular Brunhild's love for the gentle and wise dragon, who is killed, gone haywire. She does all her misdeeds wholly aware for what they are and how innocents are getting in the crossfires and how it'll land her in hell - where she can never be together with the dragon again who went to paradise and had very much warned her to not go for revenge when he fully knew he was gonna get slain. She… is kinda, well, yandere isn't the right word, but she definitely is very much badly obsessed by things and worst she knows it herself, that the one she loves doesn't want it and still doesn't stop. I can't say I was wowed, but maybe that's partly because I read it in French and for the second half I was in deadline before expiry pressure and forced it though without looking up a bunch of words I wasn't too sure of. It feels pretty conclusive, so volume 2 'Dragon Princess' at first was incredibly confusing, with it having a Brunhild as a MC again and also some other guy having the same name as v1 Brunhild's brother. And suddenly the dragon is an evil one. Was wondering, if it was some sort of reincarnation next life plot, but then the personality of the characters are very different. Eventually it turns out to be a prequel. V1's Brunhild and her brother were names after the characters of v2 who lived centuries before them and in her family those famous names were often bestowed to children again. V2 I think is pretty good, interesting characters, has some more side characters, very good world building, again a love story but it's entirely different, also very much different ending and lore and it twists your expectations for the world coming from v1 and then actually winds up explaining v1's worldbuilding, which in v1 I thought that outside of the dragon island on its own was, uh, kinda, yeah, it's sorts of just there?

V2 also has a side character who suffers from not feeling love of any kind and having little empathy. Yet he is not entirely unfeeling either and he can be very much devoted looking much the part almost as if there was love. It looks a lot like it's the usual story about yeah and then this magnificent awe inspiring good natured lady is gonna make him find those traits again. It ultimately does not play out this trope the way you'd expect and I thought that it had the galls to do that was downright courageous.

[letsbenditlikebennett]

TIMING: Pre-Goo Current-ish PARTIES: @mortemoppetere & @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: Alex wanders into an alley and finds herself stuck in a square... Emilio happens upon her and of course does not fuck off. The worst game of Get Along Or Else Candyland ensues. CONTENT: Domestic abuse, emotional abuse, parental death, child death, sibling death.

While Worm Row was considered the “bad” part of town, Alex always thought that was being way too generous to the rest of the town. You were just as likely to get eaten by a random monster on a block in Worm Row as you were over in Harborside. The only real difference was the tax bracket which meant the latter was decidedly not where one went to check out pawn shops for a potential new guitar. 

Mike's hadn't been the score she thought it would be based on their instagram posts from earlier, but she had gotten a pretty sweet hand mixer from the vending machine instead of the Hot Cheetos she'd wanted, so Alex would still call it a win even if she was still craving hot chips. 

It was that line of thinking that had her absentmindedly walking toward the smell of something sweet. Given how cooped up Alex had been in the cabin following her injury and the fact she could actually walk a little bit on it now without a lot of a pain, she was enjoying just wondering the streets even if the buildings were all run down. It was kind of more her style anyway. Lived in. 

Her nose led her straight to the edge of an alley that she almost wouldn't have noticed as she hummed to herself if it was for the fact the ground under her feet turned a bright shade of green. 

“What the,” Alex muttered as she stopped in her tracks and actually looked up. It was the same shitty buildings to the left and right of her with rusted signs hanging from the windows, but the alley looked like that one board game she always saw the normal kids in their neighborhood playing. 

Ahead was a curving path of colored squares lined with candy... which while it smelled delicious, seemed a little bit ominous. ”Not today, Satan, not today,” Alex said to hereself. She moved to leave the spot she stood in only to find she couldn't. She lifted her boot off the ground but when she tried to move it out of the barrier of the green square, it was like it hit an invisible wall.

”Greaaaaaaaat,” Alex grumbled to herself. She looked around for some kind of clue for how to get out of this weird game only to see a certain slayer approaching her. This really wasn't her day. “Don't you dare take another step closer,” she spat at Emilio. 

—

It was a detective night instead of a slayer night, and Emilio always liked those less. Detective nights tended to contain a lot less violence and a lot more sitting still, and he was so bad at that. His hands trembled, his leg bounced, his head spun. He could never manage to maintain the stakeout for as long as he could keep up a patrol, always came home feeling more restless and less at ease, somehow. Like the paranoia of being watched fit just as well into the head of the person doing the watching as it did the target of it. He was wired; he still wanted something to fight.

Usually, walking home in Worm Row would provide him with that. If you took the right route and moved slow enough, someone or something would show up sooner rather than later to give you something to hit. Emilio ached for it, longed for something to bruise his knuckles against the same way he longed for a swig of whiskey from the flask in his pocket. The latter was easy enough to obtain, but he’d had no luck with the former just yet. It only made the paranoia worse.

But maybe his luck was about to turn around. There was a noise from an alley as he passed it, something… strange. Like a bell dinging, but warped and unnatural. Not his usual fare, but Emilio was desperate enough for something that he was drawn to it with just as much eagerness as a man alone in the desert might have moved towards a cold glass of water.

As he entered the alley, he caught sight of a flash of red hair. For a moment, he thought it might have been Andy. She’d been in and out at his apartment for a while now, fixing things and crashing on his couch or using his shower occasionally, but not as much in recent days. His brow furrowed as he moved closer, only to see that it wasn’t Andy at all.

To Emilio, the alley still looked normal. Alex stood in place, seemingly unable to move in a way that looked almost comical from the outside looking in. Like some invisible force held her still. He might have thought she was messing with him, but he didn’t think Alex liked him enough to do that, especially not after their last conversation. 

Unsurprisingly, he didn’t listen to her order not to come closer. He took a lazy step towards her, then another, bad leg dragging behind him a little more than usual. “What exactly are you —” He cut off as he stepped down just next to the spot where she stood, and the alley transformed for him, too. The concrete beneath his feet became a board game, stretching further than should have been possible in the small alley. He stood on the same green square as Alex, and a step back found him hitting against the invisible barrier. 

Immediately, a surge of panic cut in. Emilio shoved his shoulder forward like he was trying to barge through a locked door, but whatever force was there didn’t budge. He kicked it hard, first with his bad leg in a way that elicited a long string of Spanish curses, then with his good leg in a way that delivered the same result, but with less pain. A fist slammed into the barrier, stopped by that same invisible force. Emilio was bad with tight spaces, and Emilio was bad with things he couldn’t see. This felt an awful lot like both.

“What — What the fuck is this?” He turned to Alex, trying to smooth his expression into something neutral. He wasn’t sure how successful he was.

Above their heads, that bell dinged again. Inside the game, it sounded less warped, but not pleasant. It was unsettling, to say the least.

A disembodied female voice rose up around them, robotic in its inflections: “Welcome, Player One. Welcome, Player Two. Prepare for the game to commence.” 

“I don’t want to play a game,” Emilio yelled back, looking up. 

“Prepare for the game to commence,” the voice repeated. Fucking great.

—

If it had been anyone else, they might have actually listened when Alex said to stay away. Of course, this wasn't anyone else, it was Emilio who she was pretty sure was actually physically incapable of fucking off. Hell, she didn't even give him the usual 'fuck off' in a different language greeting to really drive the point home. She was pretty sure that he actually just enjoyed being a pain in the ass. Not that she could fault anyone for enjoying that but she really wished she wasn't on the receiving end of it. The last person she wanted to be stuck in a small square of space with was Mr. Irish Spring himself. 

“No, stop,” she demanded desperately before he was beside her in the green square and equally as perplexed as she was. Alex crossed her arms over her chest in annoyance and watched him with a scowl on her face as he cursed in Spanish and kicked at the invisible barrier that was keeping them trapped in the square. If she wasn't stuck with him, she probably would have found the display hilarious. Seeing as she was stuck with him and already felt like the space was entirely too small, she was pissed. “I swear I could fucking stab you for not listening for once in your god damn life right now,” she spat. 

Almost immediately, the strange dinging in the air  put Alex on edge. The sound of bells was a little too high pitched for her when she wasn't agitated which meant at that moment it was practically grating against her ears. It was like nails against a chalkboard right on her ear drums and it made her want to punch Emilio or the barrier... or both. Definitely a little bit of both. 

Then there was some eerie sounding autonomous voice calling them Player 1 and Player 2 like this was one of those video games that Cass and Van talked about. Except, this looked like that one kid's game Alex had all but begged her mother to buy for her to no avail. It seemed almost cruel that this was the version of the game that she finally got and it wasn't even her choice... because god forbid anything in her life ever be some choice of her own. “Game,” she spat out, “This isn't funny.” 

Emilio expressed not wanting to play the game and the voice told them prepare to commence. Well, Alex did not like this one bit. In fact, she was pretty sure she hated it and she hated Emilio a tiny bit for not listening and getting sucked into this with her. Hell, she thought she might actually prefer to have Thea along for this ride than Emilio because at least Thea knew how to game. 

“Doesn't look like it's giving us a choice,” she grumbled, “You know, if you listened to me I could be stuck playing this with someone who's less of a pain in the ass.” 

Almost immediately, she felt an electric shock jolt her and she jumped in place, hitting the edge of the barrier as she moved. “Ow,” Alex shouted, “What the fuck was that? Who gave Private Asshat over here a taser?”

Another shock hit her and she was getting even angrier. What kind of game was this? It definitely wasn't the cool version of Candyland that Alex had begged her maman for, that much was clear. She turned to Emilio, arms still crossed over her chest and brows still knit together in annoyance. “Are you any good at games? Doesn't look like we have much of a choice.” 

—

Blood was rushing in his ears, half rage and half panic. Emilio had never been particularly good at accepting situations he couldn’t control, but he’d become so much worse at it since the massacre. Things slipped from his carefully curated command, and it felt like the world was on fire, like he was back in the midst of a massacre watching everyone he loved bleed out. Alex was speaking, but he barely heard her. He was six years old, locked in a shed with something that was both dead and alive. He was thirty-two, and his family’s blood was staining the soles of his shoes. 

Then, Alex jumped beside him, and Emilio flinched violently despite the fact that he wasn’t the one who’d been shocked. He turned to look at her with wild eyes, trying to calm the pounding of his heart. She was insulting him. That wasn’t entirely surprising. There was a strange comfort in the familiarity of it, and he let himself cling to that. He could ground himself through the familiar back and forth he’d accidentally built up with a kid who reminded him a little too much of himself and hated him just as much as he hated himself, too. 

“You think I want to be here? I would like to be trapped with someone who smells less like my dog when it rains,” he snapped. Immediately, a jolt went through him, sending him scrambling so quickly that his bad leg screamed in protest. He let out another long string of curses, kicking at the invisible barrier again. “¿Qué chingados está pasando? Did you do this? Is this — Is this your idea of a fucking joke?” 

He didn’t recognize the ‘game board’ stretched out in front of them, barely understood what a board game was at all. The Cortezes had done everything in their power to ensure that their children knew nothing of the world outside of hunting, had made a very active effort to raise weapons rather than children. They’d done a good job at it — Emilio had very little capability to function as a person in society, and this was proof of it. But while the specifics of a board game were unknown to him, he did know at least the basics of what games in general were. He knew that there were goals, that there were winners and losers.

He knew that there were rules.

He looked over at Alex with a scowl. “No,” he replied flatly. Then, feeling ridiculous, he looked up at the empty sky. “What are the fucking rules? What are we supposed to do? How do we win?” The questions were in quick succession, one after another. 

Another ding sounded. “Players 1 and 2 may only win the game together,” the voice said. “You will be presented with a number of riddles. Answer each riddle with an associated memory to move across the board. If both players offer a memory, you may move multiple spaces. If only one complies, you may only move one space forward. If neither complies, you must move back. The game is cooperation. You cannot win without giving something.” 

Emilio stared blankly at the sky, heart still pounding in his chest. He turned to Alex, expression deadpan. “We are going to die,” he said simply.

—

Okay, the whole electric shock thing was way more amusing when it was happening to Emilio and not to her. Alex only barely stifled a laugh as the slayer let out yet another string of Spanish curses. She was pretty sure they had to be breaking some kind of record for the most swear words said in the most languages in a 5 minutes timespan. It was really a trilingual trifecta of curse words going on in the green 5 by 5 square they found themselves trapped in. 

“I just need you to know that I have a really good comeback for that one,” Alex declared with an air of smugness, ”But clearly this shitty game is trying to Pavlov us into being nice to each other.” There was some satisfaction in knowing that Emilio would not know who the hell Pavlov was, which was maybe a little bit mean, but she doubted the game knew enough about science and their dynamic to know that. 

“No, I didn't do this,” she chided with an eyeroll, “If I was gonna trap myself in a small space with someone it'd be a pretty girl and not a stinky man.” Zap. She flinched as the shock hit her, but decided it was worth it. Emilio needed to know he was stinky and it probably pained her more physically to hold that in anyway. At least she'd say as much for dramatic effect anyway. 

At least Emilio had the smarts to ask for the rules of the game. Alex just assumed it was gonna be like Candyland... which she'd never gotten to play, but she imagined how it was supposed to go in her head. Actually, Ariadne probably would have been the perfect partner for IRL Candyland, but then the game announcer spoke and this wasn't that. 

They had to cooperate. That was already a tall order for Alex and Emilio. From the moment she'd met him, she'd been trying to irritate him into leaving her the fuck alone and he seemed to take joy in irritating her right back. Then sharing memories? Ok, yeah, he was right. They were doomed, but she wasn't going to tell him that. 

“Buck up, grandpa,” Alex said, giving him a sportly smack on the back, “I'm not dying in a 5 by 5 game square with a man. That goes against my entire brand as the gayest cousin.” 

The bravado was decidedly false. Alex was nervous as hell about going through some sort of bonding experience with the slayer. He already had an annoying habit of saving her life and she didn't know if the memories shared would exuberate or squash that feeling. A girl could hope for the latter, but that seemed like... the opposite of what the stupid game wanted. 

“Come on,” she gestured as she reached for the card that was now floating in front of them. Alex turned it over in her hands and looked over the words. Bubblegum goes in hard and comes out... Before she read them aloud, she knew the answer and felt her stomach lurch. No. Not that word and those memories. This game was a bitch, she decided, but read aloud all the same. “Bubblegum goes in hard and comes out....” 

She couldn't bring herself to say the last word. It always tasted like acid on her tongue much like the tone her father took when he spat the word in her face. Alex really didn't want to go there and not with another hunter at that. He'd already seen firsthand that she was too soft and couldn't fight for shit, why'd she have to tell him about it to get out of this hell loop. “You're the grownup, you go first,” she murmured with her shoulders already hunching in on themselves to protect her from the rejection that seemed inevitable. 

—

“What the fuck is a Pavlov,” Emilio raised his voice an octave at the word, mimicking Alex’s accent poorly. Apparently, it was enough of an insult to earn him another zap, which seemed incredibly unfair. She wasn’t zapped for the implications she’d been making in announcing that she had a ‘great comeback,’ even though that great comeback doubtlessly would have involved calling him stinky or something equally childish. Why did he get zapped just for changing the tone of his voice? He shot a glare back up at the empty sky to voice his displeasure, but he wasn’t sure how effective it was. If there was someone or something watching them, he couldn’t see it anywhere.

In any case, Alex got a zap of her own shortly after, and there was some childish satisfaction in that. Emilio didn’t dislike the kid. He didn’t want her hurt, didn’t want to see anything happen to her. If anything, the opposite was true. He wanted Alex to be safe because of what she represented to Andy, because of the way Andy had given her all for her the way Emilio would have given his to Flora if anyone had ever given him half a chance. But he wasn’t the type to take bickering sitting down, either. If someone picked at him, he tended to pick back. Even if it meant an electric shock.

Alex wasn’t responsible for this; he’d known that even as he’d asked it. Since they met, Alex had made it clear that she wanted to spend as little time with Emilio as possible, even if doing so meant risking death. There was no way she would have intentionally trapped herself in a tight spot with him, game or no game. Normally, he might have found some dull satisfaction in the fact that, at the very least, she wasn’t having any fun, either. As it was, though, he was far too on edge to find enjoyment in any of this. He wanted out. 

And it seemed there was only one way to do that.

The idea of sharing memories with anyone made bile rise up in the back of his throat. There were so few memories that Emilio was okay with other people knowing about, and he doubted that this ‘game’ intended to aim only for the easy ones. If it had, it probably wouldn’t have trapped them here, after all. Sharing with Alex seemed especially daunting. He knew she disliked him, and she knew that plenty of the memories in his head would prove her right for that.

But what other options did he have? He could stay here forever, until whoever was holding them in place either grew tired and freed them or until he doomed them both to starvation with his stubbornness, or he could play the stupid game. Alex would hate him by the end of it, but how was that different than how she felt about him now? 

Still, he felt sick. It was as if there were bugs crawling over his skin — or maybe beneath it. Emilio wasn’t much of a talker. There were so many things he’d never said aloud, and he had such little desire to change that. He scowled as Alex picked up the card, heart in his throat as she read it aloud. The answer was obvious, but he thought it was probably supposed to be. The riddles weren’t really what the game was about. It was the memories.

And it had started with a hardball. 

There were so many to choose from. The word had defined so much of his life growing up, had become a knife sharpened on the belt of everyone responsible for shaping him. He could have plucked a thousand different memories from the arsenal, but none were ones he wanted to share. Closing his eyes, Emilio inhaled a trembling breath, exhaled just as shakily. 

“I was twelve,” he said hoarsely, the words sticking to the back of his throat. “And there was — We didn’t do funerals. When someone died. Funerals are for people, and we weren’t meant to do that. But my… We lost someone. And I was fucking twelve, and stupid, so I buried his fucking knife in the yard. His favorite one, you know, the one he always kept with him. Stuck a stick in the ground. That’s how my mom found it. And when she was done… with the real — paliza, she said…” He trailed off, pushing his tongue against his teeth until he tasted blood in his mouth. “I was always too soft. That’s what she used to tell me. And the family would have been stronger if it were me instead of him, because he was better. I knew that, she knew that. Everybody knew that. I was soft. Guess I still am.” 

There was a ding from the sky above them, and the spot in front of them turned the same shade of green as the one they were standing on. Emilio scrambled forward, but the barrier wasn’t gone — it had only moved a few feet. He slammed into the new boundary, cursing again before turning back to Alex. “You — It said it’d go faster if we both say something. I want to get the fuck out of here. You want to get the fuck out of here. So it’s your fucking turn, kid. Answer the pinche riddle so I can go home.”

—

How painfully easy the riddle was almost seemed mocking. Alex was good at actual riddles, but it was evident the point of this game had little to do with the actual riddles. It was all about cooperation with a person she decidedly didn't like to cooperate with. What a weird and miserable turn of events. She wasn't sure if the word soft held the same acidity for Emilio as it did for her. It'd been spat in her direction more times she could count in the short time she had with her parents while they were alive. It was the word that repeated like a broken record in her mind every time she felt even a shred of inadqueacy. 

She'd seen Emilio fight. Even with his shitty knee, he still knew how to move and deliver the hard blows in a way that Alex never could. She couldn't imagine the word being spewed at him with the same vitrol. But then he spoke and her eyes widened in surprise. Even though he fought like the weapon he was born to be, the word had been hurled at him all the same. 

The memory made her frown. It was hard to imagine Emilio as a little kid, not that she had ever tried. Not surprisingly, it was easier to keep someone at a distance when you didn't know them too well because really, Alex knew she didn't actually dislike Emilio. He'd saved her friends on more than one occasion, he was there for Andy, he saved her— it wasn't as if she had some real grudge or sleight to cling to besides the fact he could bicker with the worst of them. Something in him seemed smaller as he spoke and she could imagine a sad kid just missing someone they loved and lost. Then there was something so familiar in the way he called it stupid. Fucking game. She didn't want to give the game the satisfaction of it actually working, but she did want out of the square. 

“It's not stupid,” she murmured quietly as she followed him into the square ahead. Alex knew what came next. It was either another riddle or she shared a memory too to get them the extra spot. Emilio was already prompting her to share her memory to make this whole game from hell experience move faster. 

Alex's eyes found the pink square below her feet. She really wished she was with someone who would get a Barbie reference so she could cut through the tension a little bit. She was pretty sure saying 'Hi Barbie!' would only warrant a very blank stare from Emilio which would be a lot funnier if they weren't essentially trapped. At least the space felt a little bigger now that they moved forward though that didn't stop the way sweat was pooling in the palm of her hands. It still felt like she had no space and he was rushing her to share her memory. 

“I didn't rush you,” Alex huffed as she snapped her eyelids closed. It was hard to think of a memory with her father that didn't have the word being thrown at her like it was an insult because it was. Knives and bullets weren't meant to be soft. They lived in a world of monsters and she was meant to be the blade. Turns out she was a pretty shitty knife. She chewed at her bottom lip and settled on the one she remembered best. 

“Elle est trop douce,” Alex finally said in barely a whisper. The words burned in her throat and made it feel impossibly tight, but the game was waiting. “I was 4 the first time I heard papa say that to maman. She's too soft. I guess Andy had been better at throwing knives by four years old than I had... Probably because she wasn't just human.” Now Alex found it hard not to wish that she was just human. “I kept cutting myself on the knives I was trying to throw... I was 4. It hurt, I cried.” 

She shrugged it off like it didn't matter, but Alex hated how the same still held true. The sight of blood was still enough to make her sick and pain did make tears well up in her eyes despite how hard she tried to fight it. She wasn't even human, she was a monster and she was still too soft. This game was really fucking rude for pointing it out like that. 

The square rudely did not light up again yet. “Really,” she pestered the sky, “That was the memory.” It didn't light up still. “Ugh, fine,” she spat, still refusing to look at Emilio, “He punished me after. Smacked me to get back up and I wasn't allowed to sit back down until I got a knife in the fucking bullseye. You happy?” 

The square lit up. “Yeah, fuck you too.” Zap. She cursed again. “Hey, I meant you the game, not you Emilio.“ 

The next card hovered in front of Emilio and she wasn't particularly keen on having him read it. If the rest of the riddles were this hard hitting, Alex really didn't want them, but like most things, what choice did she actually have? 

—

He didn’t look at her. He couldn’t. Not when he told his story, and not when she told hers. He didn’t want to see the way her expression shifted at the revelation that he was more of a failure than he let on, didn’t want to see her eyes soften with… pity for a kid who was never meant to be a kid at all. This, this tightness in his stomach and this sharp pain in his chest, this was exactly the kind of thing that had earned him the punishments his mother doled out to begin with. This feeling of being too small, it was why the word soft cut through him like the blade he was never much good at being.

So he was surprised, a little, when Alex said it wasn’t stupid. He’d known she wouldn’t judge him for it — he might not know her, but he knew the woman who’d raised her, and Andy wasn’t capable of bringing up someone who would judge a child for mourning the dead even when that child became a man who was still so much softer than he should have been. But he hadn’t expected… comfort, either. It felt wrong. She’d said it, hadn’t she? He was the grown up. He ought to be the one doing the comforting.

“You called me grandpa,” he mumbled, but there was no heat to it. She was right — she hadn’t rushed him, and it wasn’t fair for him to rush her even if his heart was pounding, even if he wanted so badly for this to be over. When she started speaking, he found he wished he hadn’t asked her to share at all.

Her story was as familiar to him as he suspected his might have been to her. He’d been four years old once, too, holding a knife too big for his hand and trying not to cry when it cut him. He tasted ashes on his tongue, thoughts moving inevitably to Flora, who’d died at four with hands that never held a knife at all, and he wondered if one option was better than the other. Had it been kinder for her to die just four short years into her life with no scars from nicks and cuts littering her fingers? Or should he have wrapped her small hands around the hilt of a blade, showing her how to thrust it forward just so?

In any case, he couldn’t imagine doing to his daughter what Alex was describing her father doing to her. He’d never been able to wrap his mind around the concept. And hadn’t that always been another mark against him? Another piece of evidence his mother could point to when saying how soft he was, how disappointing? Maybe he could have done it without cruelty. Maybe he could have shown those small hands a way to hold a knife that might have protected her without hurting her. He’d never know now.

He swallowed, unsure what to say. What was there to say? I’m sorry your father hit you. My mother hit me, too. I probably deserved it more than you did. Or I’m sorry it hurt. I tried to find a way to make it not hurt, and it ended bad anyway, so maybe there’s no answer that doesn’t end in blood. Or maybe there was a question he wanted to ask, an answer he was afraid to hear. Would you have loved your father more if he’d never put the knife in your hand? If you’d died for it, would you have forgiven him in the end? Have you forgiven him now? 

Alex wasn’t Flora, because no one was. Alex wasn’t Flora, because someone had loved her and had gotten her out, and Emilio hadn’t done that for his daughter. Alex wasn’t Flora, but for a moment, she was, and he wanted to ask her everything his daughter would never be able to tell him and pretend her answers meant something.

Another space lit up with a ding, and Emilio felt like a coward for finding relief in the fact that he didn’t have to say anything at all. He didn’t want another riddle, but he didn’t want to talk about the last one, either. He moved forward, picking up the new card and staring at it for a moment.

“It can not be seen whenever it's there. It fills up a room, it's much like the air. It can not be touched, there's nothing to hear. It is quite harmless, there's nothing to fear.” He read it carefully, slowly. His accent wrapped around each word, his brow furrowed. A little less straightforward than the last one, but still not particularly difficult. Looking up at Alex, he held out the card. “I went first,” he said quietly, “last time. You can go first this time. And then me.” There couldn’t be too many of these, could there? If they both answered each one, they’d be done in no time. He told himself this, repeated it like a mantra. He needed it to be true.

—

Nerves twisted in her stomach as she waited for Emilio to read what was on the card. He never said anything about her own story, but he didn't have to. Alex had the feeling these riddles weren't going to get any lighter as far as the memories they were linked to went. Almost as if to mock the very thought, the words that Emilio read aloud all pointed to 'darkness' being the answer. It felt as if the square they were standing on was somehow shrinking as he read the words and her throat felt impossibly dry. It felt too tight as the obvious memory tried to scratch its way to the surface. 

Alex didn't even feel her nails digging into her own palms until she drew blood that she did not dare look down at. Emilio was saying something again, but she couldn't hear it. The rush of pressure in her head made his voice sound distorted. 

The game dinged impatiently and she was back in that room with the yellow door that had grayed over from years of wear. The last rays of sunlight from the day flickered on the door from the small window above. It was the only source of light in the room and it was quickly fading. Her tiny hands desperately threw the knife towards the target only for it to clatter against the floor again. Clumsy fingers picked the blade back up and blood spilled from them in the process. She could still feel that desperation as the night fell and the room turned to black. 

Another ding. Alex was pretty sure she was going to be sick. ”There was a room,“ she finally said, her voice as hoarse and small as it was when she'd cry for her father to let her out. She didn't dare look up at Emilio. A harsh glare from an older man when she was thinking about her father was the last thing she needed, but even looking down at her own shaking hands didn't help her find the words. 

“It was where,” her voice trembled and she hated the sound of it— wished she could rip it from her own throat. The space felt even smaller and her breath couldn't seem to find her lungs. “I don't think— I'm sorry,“ she gasped. She slowly backed away only to hit the barrier which only made it more difficult to breathe. There were no walls, not in the physical sense, but she was trapped and the animal in her wanted to rip her way out. Not do... whatever this was. 

Alex had to fight the feeling of claws trying to break from her skin and push the memory back down. “I'm sorry, I don't think I can... We're gonna die in a fucking alley,“ she heaved. 

—

He could see it. The way she shifted, the way she squirmed. The discomfort there, the way it was similar to the one building in his own gut. Did this game know them, somehow? Was it designed, specifically, with the two of them in mind? Or was it all an impossible coincidence, the way each riddle seemed so pointed. Emilio looked down at the card so that he wouldn’t have to look at Alex, traced the curve of the letters with his eyes over and over again like maybe he could change the answer if only he tried hard enough. But it was what it was. There was no getting around it, and he doubted another card would appear until this one had been satisfied.

A room, Alex said. He didn’t know what kind, but he did. He could feel it tugging at the edge of his own memory, pulling him back in time. Time travel, he thought, was a useless thing when it operated like this. His mind had a way of pulling him back, sending him sprawling into events that had ended years ago without the ability to change them. He relived them a thousand times over. Awake, asleep, everything in between. Alex, he thought, must have been a time traveler, too. It was the only way to account for the quivering of her voice.

“It was a shed,” he said, so quiet that his voice could barely be heard at all. The dinging — which had grown insistent and impatient in Alex’s refusal to answer — stopped abruptly, as if the alley wanted to let him speak. “For me. I was… She’d stick us in there sometimes by ourselves, but I was six the first time she put something in there with me. A ghoul.” He didn’t say who she was. He didn’t think he had to. Based on the last memory he’d shared, Alex would probably be able to guess. “Locked it from the outside. Chain, padlock. Gave me the basics. Knife, stake, holy water. Left me in there overnight.”

The memory was more than a memory. He could see that ghoul, dead for almost thirty years now, lurking at the edge of his vision. He still thought about what his mother said to him, sometimes, just before she shut the door. When I open this in the morning, either the ghoul will be dead or you will. Either way, this family is stronger for it. Killing the ghoul proved he was allowed to keep living, just as dying to it would have proven he wasn’t. It was the same for Victor, for Rosa, for Edgar. It had been the same for Jaime, just a week before that massacre. Had the massacre never happened and had Emilio not made good on his plan to take her away, Flora would have been placed in the same shed this year. 

“Slayers see in the dark,” he said, glancing up to the sky as the riddle was ‘answered.’ “So that didn’t bother me much. But it was… small. The shed. Couldn’t take more than a few steps, even then. Ghoul was close, but it was clumsy. Still… took me hours to kill it. Nearly killed me before I did. Next day, she comes and she lets me out. And I’m — I’m bleeding, yeah. Barely on my feet. Pretty much fall into her when the door opens. Was leaning against it, you know, trying to put space there between me and the body. So she opens the door, and I fall. And it’s — She’s pissed.” 

It was funny — he didn’t notice the way he slipped when he spoke about it. The event was nearly thirty years past now, but his words fell into present tense as if he was six years old still, as if he was still leaning against that shed door. Maybe part of him was still in that shed the same way part of him died in that living room floor, the same way part of Alex was still in that room. Maybe they’d both left pieces of themselves behind every time they time traveled. Maybe that was a part of it.

Clearing his throat, Emilio continued, leaning against the invisible barrier now. “She’s pissed,” he said again. “Because I let it get as bad as it did or — or because I’m still there, and she doesn’t think I should be. So she tosses me back in the shed, and she shuts the door again. Sun goes down, comes up. It’s dark, it’s light, but it’s all the same, you know? Slayers see in the dark, so it’s all the same. I’m thirsty, I’m fucking dying for a drink of water, but I know I’m not allowed to say anything, so I’m quiet. By the time my uncle opens the door again, it’s been a day. Yeah. Maybe two. Nobody ever tells me. He opens the door, and I’m not leaning against it anymore. And he lets me out, and I think — I figure it’s because of that. Because I’m not leaning on the door, not falling out into the grass. So he lets me out. And it’s still dark, you know? Dark when I went in, dark when I come out. But I don’t know, I don’t know how long it was.” He paused for a moment, chewing at the inside of his cheek, biting down on it even though it hurt. “Next week,” he said quietly, “she puts me in there again. Guess I didn’t learn the lesson.”

—

It was hard to find relief in the fact that Emilio had taken over with sharing his memory, not when Alex still couldn't bring herself to look up at him. Something akin to guilt twisted in her gut as it became obvious that he was stepping in to save her yet again—- that she still couldn't save herself and relied on a hunter she was trying to keep at a distance. It wasn't murder this time. She had to remind herself of as much. Emilio was just sharing a memory, one he probably didn't want to share, but neither of them were given a choice in the matter. 

The same theme seemed to be present in his story. They'd both been kids without a choice once. While Alex couldn't look at him, couldn't bring herself to see the strain in the slayer's face as he tried to hide his own pain, but she felt his words as if they were her own. In a way, they practically were. Replace shed with small basement training room and ghoul with random small beast and it was her story. Lock a kid with a room with a monster or in a room until they get their movements right... his mom and her dad must have read the same parenting book. She wasn't so sure anymore that it was a good one. 

Because Emilio's voice was just as strained as hers had felt. 

Because it was so easy for his words to slip from past to present tense, as if Emilio was transported back to that moment like she always was. 

Because Emilio had what it took to fight but there was still something so broken in the way he recounted the memory. 

How could breaking your kid be good? There'd never been much hope for Alex to be the weapon her parents had wanted her to be, but Emilio had that. She'd watched him fight, watched him save her because she fell short in a fight... but he sounded just as broken as she was. He was still too soft by those standards... and Alex wasn't sure she thought being the opposite of that was better, not if it meant he'd hurt Ariadne or Mack without a second thought. 

Emilio shared the memory and it was like looking through a clouded mirror. She could see him, smaller almost—- small as she had been— and some part of her wanted to comfort the kid who never had a chance to just be a kid. Because even all these years later, the memory still had a hold on him and he still didn't know what the lesson was. 

And that was the root of it, wasn't it? How Alex found herself endlessly frustrated with the slayer despite the fact he saved her ass on more than one occasion— saved her friends' asses on more than one occasion even. Being around Emilio was like holding up a mirror and she didn't like herself... but she didn't hate Emilio and that was too big a contradiction for her to wrap her head around. 

She wasn't sure at what point during Emilio's story that her hands uncurled from the fists they'd been clenched in. Alex looked down at her fingernails and grimaced at the blood caked underneath them. She couldn't find anything to say as the next square, a sunny shade of yellow that was almost mocking, lit up so they could advance. 

”Thank you,“ she murmured, unable to find the usual vitriol she threw in the slayer's direction. 

He shared his memory. It was only fair she shared hers so they got to move forward two squares. Cooperation. Alex laughed bitterly at the thought. ”This game fucking sucks,“ she finally said, finding her voice again. It still sounded small, frustratingly so, but she wasn't going to fail this time. 

”It was a basement for me,“ she said after a moment, staring ahead at what looked like a face in a puddle of melted chocolate. Somehow the ridiculous aspect was something to hold onto and keep her grounded. She sure as hell wasn't about to cling to 5-in-1 soap guy for comfort. Even in her thoughts, the insult was starting to lose its zing. “It was small too,” she breathed out finally, ”Felt smaller the longer I was locked in there. Sometimes with small beasts like agropelters, sometimes just with my knifes and targets I wasn't very good at hitting.“  She looked down at her left index finger and the small chunk that was missing. It had scarred over a long time ago, but she still traced over it sometimes. 

“The only light was from a small window... and we lived in the sticks,” she explained, “Uh... English American talk for out in the middle of nowhere.” She wasn't sure why she felt the need to clarify. Confusing Emilio was usually more fun, but this wasn't random science terminology. It was something they shared that some part of her wished they didn't. 

“When the sun would go down, it'd get really dark in there,” she almost whispered, “I don't mind the dark, but in there it felt suffocating. Made the room feel smaller.“

She looked blankly at the purple square ahead, willing it to light up, but it simply wouldn't. ”I don't think I learned the lesson either... He'd come in and wouldn't even look at me. Like I—-“ 

Her voice cracked and caught in her throat. 

”It'd be like I wasn't even there. He'd walk into the room and look at the knives on the ground like they were a couch cushion out of place and I didn't even exist. I used to think he wished I didn't.“ 

Now Alex knew as much, especially considering she existed as a werewolf of all things. The square ahead of her glowed purple, but it didn't feel like a victory. She took the step ahead, still eager to feel like she had more space. She didn't and neither did Emilio, but she grabbed the card anyway. 

“If your uncle's sister is not your aunt, what relation is she to you,” Alex read aloud and then answered, “Your mother.” 

What was with this fucking game? Had it been curated specifically for those with family trauma or was this personal to them. Alex didn't like the answer either way. 

“Not sure if it wants us to talk about our mom or uncle... or dad and aunt,” she shrugged, “Pretty sure my aunt tried to kill me. Don't remember much on account of being 7 and my first full moon.” 

—

He wanted to tell her she didn’t have to go. He’d said his piece, and they were another step closer to freedom, whatever that looked like. They didn’t have to take two steps every time, didn’t have to cover the most possible ground with each riddle. They could take one step, and it would be fine. He could fall on the sword, and it would be better. He wanted to tell Alex that she could be quiet, that she could just listen, but his throat was dry and his limbs felt heavy and the air in the alley felt like it was going to suffocate him with the way his words still clung to it, the way his story still seemed to echo long after he’d stopped telling it.

The truth was, Emilio wanted her to say something. He wanted her to add her words in with his, wanted something to cleanse his honesty from the air. And it was a selfish fucking desire, wasn’t it? He’d been raised as both sword and shield, designed to deliver blows just as well as he was meant to take them. His uncle told him once, not long after that first incident in the shed, that his job was to bleed. We bleed for others, he’d said, gripping the back of Emilio’s small neck in his hands. He still couldn’t decide, sometimes, if that grip was a threat or a comfort. Even now, he had trouble telling the difference between the two. We bleed so that they don’t have to. We fight, we die so that they live. 

But here, in this alley, Emilio wanted desperately not to be the only person bleeding. 

So it was a selfish, unforgivable relief when she spoke. She talked about her basement the same way he talked about his shed. And he understood what she meant by it, understood how it was to feel the space grow smaller the longer you spent trapped within it. The shed seemed to shrink with each hour he spent there. By the time Lucio freed him that first time, it had seemed as though the walls were so close that his chest couldn’t expand to take a full breath. Like it was crushing him, somehow, crumpling himself up like paper in its hand and tossing him into the mouth of a wastebasket. 

He hadn’t been good at it. At the shed, at whatever it was he was supposed to learn in between those walls that seemed so intent on swallowing him whole. Between Emilio and his siblings, he was doubtlessly the one who spent the most time there, was the one who was pushed inside most often. Victor grew out of the shed by the time he was ten, Edgar stopped being locked inside at twelve. Rosa was eight the last time their mother wrapped that chain around the door with her on the wrong side of it. There was never any fanfare to it — one day, Elena just stopped putting them inside.

But not Emilio. For Emilio, the shed was a constant. At six, at ten, at seventeen. At thirty-two, he’d still been afraid of it, still spent every day wondering when the next time he’d be locked away might be. He was as slow as he was soft, apparently.

He wondered if it would have been the same for Alex, had her life gone differently. If not for that night, with the werewolf’s bite and her parents’ deaths, would her father be putting her in that basement even now? He had to imagine that Andy would have stepped in regardless, would have saved her even without the wolf forcing her hand. And he didn’t have to wonder why no one had stepped in for him, because he knew. Some people were worth saving, but some people weren’t. Alex’s basement had been cruel, but Elena’s shed had been a lesson. Emilio just hadn’t been smart enough to learn it.

“I was always like that, too,” he offered, unsure why he was saying it without a riddle to force his hand. “The… decepción de la familia. I wasn’t what they wanted me to be. I think…” He trailed off, thinking back to the first memory he’d shared. “They all wished it was me. When I was twelve, when my… I think they thought it would have been better if it were me.” Saying I think felt like a lie, because in reality? He knew it. Rosa had said as much, just a week before the massacre. But saying that felt too heavy, and the alley felt cramped enough as it was. They didn’t need to go filling it with any more ghosts than necessary.

Especially not when the game seemed intent on opening up a seance full of them.

The words Alex read from the card seemed to echo, ringing in his ear. She didn’t know what the game wanted them to talk about here, but Emilio had a pretty good idea. “Everything it’s given us so far has been to make us talk about things we don’t — Things that we didn’t want to say. Maybe your aunt. Maybe…” He trailed off, swallowing. His heart was in his throat, and he didn’t want to say anything, but he had to, didn’t he? This game wouldn’t let them move forward until they’d ripped their fucking hearts out and laid them on the brightly colored sidewalk. 

“My uncle didn’t try to kill me,” he said quietly, “but I killed him. Stuck a knife in his gut and left him to bleed out in the streets. And I thought — I thought I would feel better. Or worse. You know? One or the other, I figured. It would either help, or it would hurt. But it just — It did nothing. I killed him, and it did nothing. I didn’t feel better, and I didn’t feel worse. I put a knife in the man who raised me and I left it there, and I felt nothing.” He thought of the cursed necklace that had nearly driven him mad, of the murderers’ choir in his head, the chorus of terrible voices all coming together. He thought of his voice among them, of the thought that echoed and the way he could have pinpointed the exact second he’d first thought it. I should have killed him sooner. 

“I never knew my dad. Died when I was a baby, you know, on a hunt nobody ever talked about. But I knew my uncle. He stepped up. Never had his own kids. Said he was too busy with us. Loved us like we were his, and we loved him back. And when I killed him, when I did that, all I could think was… I should have done it earlier. When it might have mattered more. That’s all I could think.” He looked at Alex for the first time in a while, though it was a fleeting thing. His eyes landed on her for a moment before darting away. “That’s why I helped Andy when she did what she did. Because when I did it, when I put that knife in my uncle’s gut, I was too late. But she wasn’t.”

The ding filled the alley again. To Emilio’s surprise, two spaces lit up. He eyed them suspiciously. “Maybe your story was good enough,” he offered. “Or… I don’t know. I don’t know the rules.”

—

Something about the way he spoke made the words feel all wrong. When it was Alex locked in that room or being the child her parents wished they never had, the pieces seemed to fit into place. After all, even if she had never been bitten, part of her had always known she never had what it took. It was why she hid the cuts and bruises that took too long to heal— she was a broken thing. Not a single part of her was what it was supposed to be and even now it felt so evident, but she couldn't imagine Emilio not fitting. The fact he'd survived to see his 30s was a testament enough to that, especially when she knew the slayer wasn't one to run from a fight. Maybe that wasn't always true when he was a literal child, but he had what it took in him without the shed, without anyone wishing he had been the one who died. 

It highlighted a certain cruelty that she couldn't see so clearly when it was only applied to her. Alex hated how clear it seemed now. Emilio's mother wasn't a good person. Emilio had been a kid who was born with what it took to fight and raised him into a shell of a person. She knew because wasn't that what she felt like? Couldn't she slip into the past just as easily and feel that same tightness in her throat that she could hear in his words? And if Emilio had never deserved to be treated that way somehow that made her father worse. Alex had never had heightened senses or strength to rely, she didn't heal quickly from the blows that seemed to be delivered day after day. She had been just human. No bells, no whistles— simply a kid. And weren't simple kids and humans who didn't know better the ones who were supposed to be protected? Isn't that what her family's code had stressed? At what point had legacy become more important than that? 

Alex decided in that moment that she hated both of them. His mother and her father weren't good people. It made her stomach turn to think ill of the dead, but she'd spent her whole life hating herself for everything she was and wasn't. The dead could deal with a little bit of hatred lobbied at them. 

“I don't think it would have been better if it was you,” Alex finally spoke, only barely managing to direct an understanding glance in his direction. It felt strange to admit when she'd spent so much time fighting the man at every turn, but it was true. 

He was there for Andy and something about that ate Alex because she hadn't been there for her sister. Maybe she didn't understand what either of them were supposed to be, but she knew Andy deserved better. She deserved friends who would look out for her and have her back like Emilio had. 

“Something tells me whoever it was that isn't here anymore.... wouldn't have been so quick to save a werewolf,” she murmured, “Or be a good friend to Andy. Or look out for Nora because god knows nothing is scaring her enough to not walk right towards it.” Nothing scared Nora... which was a little bit scary when you were someone that gave a shit about Nora's wellbeing. 

Her next memory had been easy to share, so Alex wasn't too sure it counted. Hell, she barely remembered it. She just remembered being far away from Lyon when she woke up, with Andy looking over her shoulder constantly. Even then, she'd been able to put the pieces together. Maybe even before when the bite never really healed like it was supposed to. 

Emilio's was decidedly not. It wasn't that his uncle tried to kill him, but that he had killed his uncle? Alex found her eyes trained on the candy cane ahead because the words made her feel sick. Not because she wasn't sure that Emilio had a good reason, but because there had been a reason in the first place. It was one thing to be a trained blade and know you were a weapon against evil--- but to have those lines blurred so intimately.

And he spoke of being too late. Andy hadn't been because they were both still alive. While Emilio didn't say as much, she couldn't help but wonder who wasn't there anymore because of his uncle. It had to have been someone Emilio really loved to have killed the man who raised him and the thought didn't sit well. 

Because Emilio had been soft once and maybe that wasn't a bad thing, but whatever led to him sticking a knife in his own uncle took that away from him. The candy cane was starting to look sickeningly sweet in contrast. The whole colorful and happy atmosphere seemed like some twisted joke as they were both forced to bear their souls to each other. It was mocking and Alex didn't like it one bit. 

But two squares lit up in front of them and it seemed generous to count her memory, so Alex took it for what it was. She wouldn't say anything about his story because she didn't know what to say. She wasn't going to press for more details, not when they had both been forced to share more than they ever would have. And maybe helping Andy hadn't been a bad thing even if some small part of Alex wished she'd been brave enough to fight for herself so that her sister never had to. 

“I don't either,” she shrugged, “But I'll take the two squares forward as win.” 

She stepped forward and took the next card in her hand. Alex found herself looking ahead--- they were so close to the end. Four more squares, two more memories if they both kept sharing like they had been. Pink, green, yellow, blue. They could do this. 

She turned the card over and read. “Some try to hide, some try to cheat; but time will show, we always will meet. What am I?“

She wanted to answer 'weirdly cryptic' but directing sarcasm at the game was starting to feel weaker as it went on anyway. 

”So it obviously wants us to talk about death,“ she huffed with a bitter snort, ”Really think this game needs to come with like a bottle of antidepressants or something.“ 

She wasn't sure if that was actually how antidepressants worked. It wasn't like she'd ever been to therapy and she avoided even the entry-level psychology courses. That would call for far more reflection on her past than Alex really wanted to give it... but that was kind of the name of this game. 

Real Candyland had to be better. 

”Gonna guess that the fact I killed a moose on the full moon doesn't count,“ she seemingly asked the sky. She didn't bother to look to see if Emilio found her joke amusing. He probably didn't... or maybe he did appreciate the deflection from how serious this whole exchange was. It was hard to tell.

“I guess it probably wants me to talk about my parents,” she finally breathed, looking down at her feet, ”We were on a camping trip. I think it was around my 7th birthday. It was supposed to be a survival excursion sort of thing.“ 

The one aspect of training she didn't fucking suck at. 

”Guess there was a local pack of werewolves my parents pissed off,“ she explained, finding it odd that she didn't feel the same anger towards the pack that she used to, ”I remember being in the tent. I'd gotten sent in there for time out for something I don't remember. I was crying... I wasn't supposed to cry.“ Then her father would yell like that did anything to get a child to stop crying. ”Andy snuck in there with me at one point... she'd do that sometimes when I was upset. I don't think he liked it.“ The he of course did not need to be specified at this point. Emilio knew. ”The next thing I remember is hearing snarls and growls... I think my own scream? I couldn't move. I just... watched as they got ripped apart, as they ran towards me.” 

Not being able to look up to meet Emilio's eyes seemed to be the theme of this stupid fucking game. “I don't remember at what point Andy grabbed me and got us the hell out of there... The next thing I remember is being on a plane and squeezing her hand tighter than I've ever held anything.” 

Alex found she wanted her sister's hand to squeeze right now more than anything else. If she was honest, she'd been wanting as much from the moment she pushed her sister away and this whole fucked up game of Overshare Candyland only seemed to highlight that absence. Listening to how closely Emilio's past mirrored her own despite the fact he wasn't defective... made it harder for her to grasp the frayed threads of memory that said she was the problem. 

She didn't bother telling Emilio it was his turn and instead simply whispered, ”That's all I got on death... unless the game really does want to hear about the moose. It was pretty tasty.“

—

Alex said it like it was easy. I don’t think it would have been better if it was you. The words seemed heavy and light at the same time, like their mere existence was some impossible contradiction, and Emilio found himself startling just a little as they settled. It wasn’t just because Alex had fought him tooth and nail at every opportunity since the first moment he found her facing off against that lapir on her own, though that did add to it. No, there was more to it than that — Alex was the first person who’d ever expressed this particular sentiment.

It had been an unspoken thing when he was a child that Emilio was wrong. Not in the same way he’d learned Alex had been considered wrong, of course; he had all the makings of a slayer, and that made it seem worse, somehow. He’d been born to do something, been made for it, and he still managed to fuck it up more often than he didn’t. He had eyes designed to help him see in the dark, but he still shivered when the sun went down sometimes. He had strength that made it easy to drive a stake through a chest and into an unbeating heart, but there were days where his hands shook where they gripped the wood. He was a weapon, but he’d never been a very good one.

He’d spent years of his life trying to figure out what it was that made him different, made him wrong. Was it the father who’d died before Emilio had ever known him? Edgar had had at least vague memories of Hendrik Visser, and Rosa and Victor had had entire stories of a man Emilio had never even seen a photograph of. From what Emilio knew of his father, he’d been of the same thinking as his mother, of the same school of hunter. Perhaps without two pairs of hands shaping him in those formative years, some development had been lost. Or maybe it was something else. Some broken thing within him, shattered when he was young in a way that forced him to grow around the pieces. Biological instead of situational, some defect that had been present in Santiago Cortez a century before Emilio was born, when he’d let Monty go and sealed his own fate. That thought scared him a little, made his palms sweat and his throat itch. 

He wondered if Alex felt the same. 

She’d been born broken, too, hadn’t she? In a family of hunters, but without the gene that made her one of them. Maybe there was another part to that gene, too — some inherited behavior that made it easier to abandon your humanity and allow yourself to be nothing more than a blade with a beating heart. Was that what Emilio was missing, he wondered? Was that the part of him that was wrong?

He shrugged, either in response to his own silent question or as an answer to Alex’s foreign statement. Even he wasn’t sure which. Both, maybe, because both seemed equally unknowable. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. He didn’t know if it was better for him to have survived instead of Victor. He didn’t know why he didn’t know. And, as Alex went on, he realized he didn’t even know if she was right about Victor not being the type to save a werewolf.

It was funny — Victor had been dead longer than he’d been alive now. Alive for eighteen years, gone for twenty-two. He was more a ghost than he’d ever been a person. Emilio had idolized him as a kid, the way twelve year old boys always idolized their oldest brothers. He’d been larger than life, a superstar. And then he’d been dead, and no one wanted to talk about him much at all. He’d gone from a superhero to a monument in an instant, from a tangible person with thoughts and opinions to a story that was half cautionary tale and half a vision to aspire towards. 

Victor had never been much of a person the same way Emilio wasn’t much of a person, but he’d become less of one over time. When a person was dead for as long as he had been, so much of them was lost. They became clay, their memory shaped into whatever it needed to be in the moment. Victor did what he was supposed to do, his mother had said once when Emilio was trying not to show her his grief. Victor was foolish, and he got himself killed, she said on another occasion, when he tried to use his brother as an excuse to do things she didn’t want him doing. 

Victor had been a good blade in life, capable of slicing through whatever was put in front of him without thought or emotion, but he was a far more effective weapon in death. Nothing was sharper than memory. Nothing cut deeper than grief.

So would Victor have done what Emilio did? Would he have saved Alex, even after she’d confessed to being a werewolf? Would he have helped Andy bury that corpse? Would he have stepped up for Nora and had her back? Maybe he would have done a better job at saving Flora, or been smart enough to help Teddy in the mines, or been fast enough to keep the blood from spilling down Wynne’s throat. But Emilio realized with something of a jolt that he didn’t know. He’d mourned his brother longer than he’d known him and, for the first time, it had him wondering how well he’d ever truly known Victor at all. How much of who he was had been replaced by the memory of him? 

“I’m not sure,” he admitted, even though it hurt. That was what this was about, wasn’t it? That was what this game wanted from them — to hurt. Emilio found himself wishing, with a hint of vitriol, that whoever had done this had chosen a more straightforward method of torture. Give him blades dragging across his skin, give him broken bones, give him his own guts resting in the palms of his dirty hands. He understood that so much better than he understood this. He would have been able to carry it so much easier. 

Something told him Alex would have agreed with the sentiment, too. If nothing else, the game was doing a good job at showing him how painfully similar they were. If Andy was what Emilio wanted to be — the hunter who had gotten out before it was too late, the person who’d saved the child in their care and spared her from the wrong end of someone else’s blade — then maybe Alex was a lot closer to what he actually was. A scared kid who couldn’t figure out how to carry the parts of herself that no one had ever liked. A child locked in a small space with the darkness closing in, someone’s angry voice ringing in her ears. She was soft the way he was soft. She was still in that basement the way he was still in that shed. Her aunt tried to kill her the way he’d killed his uncle. Two sides, one very pissed off coin.

So he found himself agreeing with her more than he normally would have. Two squares was a win, and he wouldn’t be looking any gift horses in the mouth when wins seemed hard to come by in this game. He thought it might be nearly over now — the end was in sight, even if he didn’t like the things they’d have to do and say in order to get there. Already, his chest felt tight. He’d said too much, revealed too much. But there was some selfish comfort in knowing that Alex had revealed just as many terrible secrets. Maybe she’d still judge him, but at least she’d have less room to do so. And she was like him — she didn’t like hanging out in places where she didn’t have a lot of room.

He followed her forward, letting her take the card again. He listened to the words as she said them, let them spin around for a moment before the answer popped out like a revelation he didn’t particularly want to have. Death. 

What a fucking doozy. 

There were so many he could have talked about, so few he wanted to say. Alex spoke about her parents, and Emilio listened. It was a story he’d heard before, but not from this point of view. It was funny — it was the same course of events, but Alex and Andy told it differently. They remembered different parts of it, different pieces. Age was probably a factor there — seven was still pretty young, and Alex’s memories were bound to be far hazier than Andy’s had been at fourteen — but Emilio suspected point of view had something to do with it, too. He thought Andy would be relieved that what Alex seemed to remember the most was being protected. Not just when the wolves came, but before, too. How much of a difference had it made, having someone in that tent with her? How much was it worth, having another hand in hers? Emilio thought the answer was something far larger than what anyone might have guessed.

He’d been alone, for most of his shit. Victor had been a dutiful soldier, playing his part as the eldest no matter what it meant. Rosa had taken over the role with just as much vigor when he’d died, adding in the desperation that must have come with being a daughter in a family full of sons. Edgar had been afraid, even if he never would have said so. None of them had ever stepped up for Emilio, but Emilio had never stepped up for any of them, either. He had just as many scars from his siblings as he had from his mother or the undead things he fought.

Even Rhett, when he’d come into the picture, had been a separate entity. Never cruel, not to Emilio, but not a savior, either. And why would he have been? The Cortezes did what every hunter family did, what hunters were supposed to do. Rhett would have seen no more reason to argue against it than Emilio had. 

But Andy had fought back. Andy had held Alex’s hand in that tent, had carried her away from danger. Andy had looked into the face of a monster that she’d been taught to hate her entire life, had looked into eyes and teeth that must have looked so much like the ones that had torn her parents to pieces, and she’d seen only her baby sister staring back at her. She’d seen someone to protect, and she’d done that. She’d kept holding that small hand. None of his siblings would have done it for him. He wasn’t even sure Rhett would have. But Andy did.

And Emilio thought that Alex deserved that, but with that thought came a question he’d never asked before. This cruel game had pointed out similarities between him and her, had unwoven threads he never would have picked at on his own. If Alex had deserved that… what was there to be said about him? If Alex had earned that protection just by being, was there a chance that, maybe, Emilio might have deserved something a little more as well? It seemed blasphemous to even think it, like the concept alone would be enough to pull his mother from her grave and send her dragging him back to that shed or carving his mistakes into his skin.

He huffed a quiet half-laugh at mention of the moose, though it was a hollow thing. Alex was done, and he knew the rules well enough to know that that meant it was his turn. Death was a thing Emilio had so much experience with — but what could he say? He’d made it this far without mentioning the massacre, and he didn’t particularly want to bring it up now. If he could finish the game without saying his daughter’s name, he wanted to do that. And it was cowardly and it was stupid and Flora deserved so much more, but he clung to the desire all the same. So he swallowed, fiddled absently with his ring, and went in another direction.

“It was my brother,” he said quietly. “Who died when I was twelve. He, uh… His name was Victor. There were four of us, but he was the oldest. He was… It was a hunt.” As if that needed saying. It was always a hunt, wasn’t it? When you lived the way they’d lived, there was only one event that would ever kill you. 

“He and my uncle went out together, some town near ours. Normally, we all would have gone, but… My sister had taken a bad hit on a hunt the night before, and I’d let her, so I was…” He shook his head, swallowing again. He was suffering the effects of his punishment, Edgar was tending to Rosa, his mother was doing the punishing. He’d always figured that made it his fault, just a little. “It was a small job. My tío was sure they could handle it alone. But they were gone too long. I think… We all knew, yeah. Before he came back, we all knew something was wrong. Should have been gone a few hours, didn’t come back for days. But I was…” He sighed. “I hoped.” He muttered it like a confession, like he was begging someone to tell him how many Hail Marys he needed to do to wash away the sin. “I hoped it was nothing. But when my uncle came back, he came back alone. There was no body, you know? Never found out what happened to it. Nobody wanted to talk about it at all. Victor died, and it was like he stopped existing. Like dead was the only thing left for him to be. Not even a thing to be buried, or a person to be remembered. Just… gone.” 

Another ding. Two squares lit up, and Emilio ducked his head as he crossed them robotically. He didn’t look at Alex, but he didn’t look away, either. They were here, they were miserable, but they were more a team than they had been when the barrier first closed around them. 

There was one card, and two spaces. If they both answered this one, and the rules didn’t change, they’d be free. There was a sense of relief as Emilio wrapped his hand around the paper, a sense of that same treacherous hope he’d just confessed to holding too tightly at twelve rising in his chest as he unfolded it. 

And, just like it had at twelve when his hope was crushed by news of Victor’s death, that foolish optimism strangled him now.

“I sleep all the time,” he whispered, “but keep everyone else awake.”

A baby. 

—

They were both able to take the crutch of humor for what it was. The hollow lilt in Emilio's laugh felt so similar to her own. It was harder to cling to the threads of hate for herself when she was looking at a man who held all the parts of herself that she hated, but Alex couldn't hate him. She could put on a good show, to be certain, but the vitriol she spewed never really had much behind it. It just felt safer to keep him at a distance. Emilio couldn't ever become someone he hated because of her if she never put him in that position. It was the same small fear she always held onto with Andy, too— one that had only been forced to the surface when Andy had killed someone, a human someone, to keep her safe. 

The hatred that Emilio clearly already possessed for himself contradicted that fear in a way Alex wasn't quite sure how to swallow. With or without doing anything to help her, Emilio was already someone he hated. It wasn't a comfort so much as a jolt, a reminder that she wasn't that big. She didn't have the power to make him hate himself... and something in that was freeing. 

She held onto the hollow crutch of a bitter chortle and the dose of clarity as Emilio readied himself to speak. Alex knew it'd be heavy. Did anyone really have a memory with death at the forefront that wasn't heavy? No matter how many years had passed, the memory of death could still wield a raw power that could bring someone to their knees. Both of them still stood, but she could see the slump in Emilio's shoulders become a little heavier as he spoke. 

The lit up rainbow path in the alley really was taunting, but somehow almost thematic. Something about crossing a rainbow bridge and all of that. It was a kind way to refer to death, one that had been unfamiliar to Alex until she'd begun volunteering at the community center and saw the way normal people spoke to children. As Emilio spoke of his brother, she knew no one used such kind words to describe Victor's death. She doubted anyone showed that kid back in Mexico any kindness at all and she felt a deep sadness for him. 

Because maybe their parents wanted them both to be unfeeling weapons, but they had just been kids. Emilio didn't need to say that he felt he was the one to blame because his voice was thick with that same guilt, that same disgust he seemed to carry for himself. Alex knew how it felt to hate everything you were, every shortcoming in training, but she had something he didn't. No matter how much she hated herself, Andy always found a way to hold her hand and soften that anger that threatened to consume. 

Nowhere in any of his stories was there anyone looking out for the kid that Emilio used to be. Alex wasn't sure if it made her more angry or sad. For all those moments she seemed to be sucked back into the past against her will, she almost wished she could go back. Not to her own past, but to that twelve year old kid who had the weight of the world thrusted onto him too young, to that kid who'd been blamed for things that were never his fault and carried burdens that should have never been his in the first place. She could tell him it wasn't his fault and that he'd grow up to be braver and kinder than any of them, but she wasn't a time traveler, not really. She couldn't go back in the past and be the Andy to someone else who had so desperately needed it. 

Emilio was still a broken man. Alex was still a broken monster in the sense that she wasn't one at all. If this fucked up game had highlighted anything, it was that. She was just as soft as she had always been in that room, but that felt less like some fatal flaw. 

If there was one thing Alex knew, it was that nothing she could say would necessarily change that guilt Emilio carried. This wasn't even something he wanted to share with her... and it wasn't as if she had been so keen on sharing her worst memories with him either, but there was a certain clarity that came with speaking them out loud. 

“It wasn't your fault,” Alex said simply. Because that part was simple. The rest... well, it wasn't like her parents had a grave either. She wasn't even sure she'd want to visit if they did, not anymore. But maybe his brother was different. She didn't know. “If you ever wanted to remember... I think planting something is nice. Wynne and I are planting something for their brother. My garden's got plenty of room.” 

It was an invitation that he would or wouldn't acknowledge, but it was there. Alex felt inclined to show him something of a kindness because maybe it hadn't been a bad thing he saved her life. Maybe she'd known that the whole time, but hadn't been able to let go of the idea she wasn't worth saving. 

They moved ahead their two squares and Alex felt something close to relief. They weren't quite out of this quite frankly homophobic rainbow alley... torturing the gays with rainbows was homophobic and no one was telling her otherwise. Emilio was reading the riddle and she could practically leap out of the square. Metaphorically anyway. She wasn't trying to bonk herself with a barrier again because that was decidedly really not fucking fun. Not that any part of this game had been. They weren't even being given actual candy to comfort them through this de facto heart-to-heart. Just vaguely mocking lollipops and candy canes staring at them from the sidelines. 

But this riddle was easy. Given this memory didn't exactly paint Alex in a positive light, none of the previous ones had either and this was like in the same vein as everything else. Her dad didn't love her so she stole a stuffed animal from a baby. Boohoo. 

She could probably even spin it as a joke and still have it count. Alex answered, “A baby... Weird, but I've got this one.” 

She staged her best dramatic deep breath and announced, “I stole a stuffed otter from a baby once because my dad didn't love me.” The deadpan delivery was practiced and nowhere near Nora's, but the lack of immediate ding sent Alex right back to her regularly scheduled rambling. “I mean, that's kind of the gist of it. I was like.... 5 I think and at the mall with my mom,” she explained nervously, “I needed new shoes, I think and we were waiting in line behind a dad with a baby in a stroller. And... he was just looking at his daughter with so much adoration and love and... I hated that baby a little bit because of it so when her dad was paying for their stuff, I stole the baby's stuffed otter.“ 

She shrugged, ”It was petty and like... only steal from rich connards or corporations now. Not babies. I guess in my kid brain that baby felt rich.“ There was probably some Hallmark card about love making you rich, but she usually got handmade cards. The markup on Hallmark cards was a little much for two broke kids on the road though she did steal Andy that ”over the hill“ card when she turned 21. 

”If you also stole from a baby I'm going to Walmart and burning every copy of Candyland. I can't be twinning with an old man, it's illegal.” The joke was just as hollow, but Emilio looked like he was about to have a complete mental break and Alex wasn't really sure what she was supposed to do here. She needed him to tell this story so they could get out of here, so that the barrier could stop feeling like it was somehow closing in on both of them. 

—

It wasn’t your fault. He hadn’t said it aloud but, somehow, Alex had known exactly who Emilio figured was to blame for what had happened. And he was less surprised by that than he would have been at the beginning of this little game. Through their shared stories, the similarities between the two of them had crept up to the surface. It didn’t matter if the things they’d shared had been exposed unwillingly, didn’t matter that they never would have said any of it if not for the strange happenings of Wicked’s Rest forcing their hands. Once their memories were out there, they were out there. The understanding came for free. Alex knew Emilio blamed himself for what happened to Victor the same way he knew she blamed herself for what happened to her parents. It didn’t matter if neither experience of guilt made any logical sense. It didn’t matter if no one in their right mind would blame a twelve year old for his brother dying a town away with a guardian who was responsible for protecting him or a seven year old for her parents dying at the hands of people they’d doubtlessly wronged. Grief rarely adhered to rules of logic, and those who were grieving were never in their right minds.

“Wasn’t yours, either,” he offered quietly, though in Alex’s case, he knew she’d likely heard it before. Andy wouldn’t sit by and let Alex blame herself for that attack without telling her, probably more than once, that none of the fault belonged on her shoulders. Alex probably didn’t believe it, because Emilio wouldn’t have, either. Even now, hearing it from her, he had a hard time accepting that what happened to Victor didn’t happen because of him. But it needed to be said, sometimes. And it was one of those things he suspected carried more weight when it came from someone who didn’t know you quite as well. Although… Emilio certainly knew her better now than he had a few hours ago.

He sucked in a trembling breath at her offer, glancing to the side like he half-expected someone to chastise him for considering it. Victor would never have a grave, but there was something nice about the idea of planting a flower for him. There was something nice about the idea of it growing next to a flower planted for Iwan, even though the two had died decades apart in different countries. There was no connection between them besides the fact that their siblings met one another after their deaths. But Emilio found he liked the idea all the same. Like Iwan and Victor could rest side by side, free from a world that had failed them both so completely.

“I’d like that,” he said quietly, offering her a small smile. “Thanks, Alex.” It wasn’t a word he said very often. Rhett had pretty much plucked it from his vocabulary not long after they’d met, removing it with great care and telling Emilio in no uncertain terms that he ought to forget the syllable altogether. But the letters fit easily in his mouth now, sounded less foreign than everything else in English, somehow. 

But any relief he might have felt, be it from the newfound understanding with Alex or the end that was now in sight, melted away quickly with the riddle on the page. He should have known it was coming. He should have known. This game, whatever it was, seemed to know enough about them to know exactly what existed within their pasts, seemed to understand precisely what they didn’t want to say. He’d been stupid to think there was any shot of him getting out of this without having to reveal the corpses in his past. It wasn’t enough to talk about Victor, whose ghost had haunted him for more than half his life now. The game wanted more. Everything always wanted more.

Alex was talking, but it was like Emilio was listening from somewhere underwater. Like he was sitting on the bottom of a lake, drowning or about to drown or already having drowned, while she spoke at the surface, unaware of the corpse floating beneath her. He felt guilty for not listening, somehow, but maybe the guilt was misplaced. Maybe he felt guilty for a thousand things at once and the shame was looking for a home, looking for something tangible and current. There was a weight on his chest, and he didn’t know how to get it off. It was going to suffocate him. There was no way around it.

Her story finished, and it was simple. Sad, still, because she’d been a kid who was unloved and angry about it, but not quite as heavy as the basement or the tent she’d shared about before. This riddle wasn’t for her, he realized. It was for him, but he couldn’t wrap his tongue around the words, couldn’t force them from his throat. They were stuck behind his teeth, heavy and acidic. 

A buzzer sounded, insistent. Emilio remained silent. The buzzer went again, and again, and again. The game wasn’t patient. His breathing picked up a notch, each inhale a quick gasp and each exhale a shudder. He scrambled towards the last square, shoving himself against the barrier like he’d done in the beginning, like an animal stuck in a trap preparing to chew through its own arm to find its freedom. The barrier was just as solid now as it had been before, and he sat down ungracefully with his back against it, pulling his knees to his chest. And the buzzer, in its unforgiving cruelty, continued to sound. There was no other riddle offered, no other escape. 

Emilio let his forehead drop against his knees, trying to calm himself down. Was it rage or grief that was swirling in his chest now? He couldn’t tell the difference anymore. It always felt the same. The buzzer sounded again, and he let out an animalistic sound, half groan, half growl. “Okay,” he shouted, hoarse and broken. “I’m — Fine. Fucking fine, okay, I’ll go.”

The buzzer silenced immediately, and the world seemed to still as if the sky above him was holding its breath. Another trembling breath, a shudder shaking his frame. He didn’t lift his head; when he spoke, it was muffled by his position. He pretended it made it easier.

“She was born on a Friday. I still remember it, you know? She was — Fuck, she was tiny. They handed her to me, and I could’ve held her in one hand if I’d wanted to. But I was scared. Yeah. Never been so scared in my fucking life. Faced off against ghouls and spawns when I was a kid, already gone against a fucking elder vampire at that point, and none of them scared me half as much as holding her. She was… It felt like I’d already failed her, you know? First time I held her, I already felt like I was fucking up. Wasn’t ready for it, didn’t know what it meant. Almost missed the birth, I was so scared. My sister had to kick my ass to get me back in the room. She didn’t sleep much, first few months. Her mom said that was my fault. Slayers, you know, we don’t need much sleep. And that’s what she was, because that’s what I was. So she was up all the time. Cried a lot. That scared me, too. Worried I was doing something wrong. Holding her wrong, or something. Her mom, she was less of a mess than I was. Babies cry sometimes, that’s what she said. Doesn’t mean there’s a problem, just means she’s a baby. She was right. Yeah. She usually was. But I was so fucking scared.”

There was no pleasant ding, still. And Emilio knew. He knew what it wanted. It wouldn’t let either of them out of here with parts still hidden, wouldn’t let them keep anything for themselves. They didn’t get that. Not here, not anymore. They weren’t allowed. So he swallowed against that lump in his throat, thought about the whiskey waiting for him when he was finished here. They hadn’t made it this far to fail. It wouldn’t be fair to Alex for him to refuse now. And besides… she probably knew. It wasn’t hard to guess. He told a story about a baby, and it was clear that he didn’t have one in his life now. She probably already knew. All that was left was to say it.

“It was a Sunday, when she died. She wasn’t a baby anymore, but she still felt like one. Four years old, already acting like she was her own person. Whole personality, you know? Whole life, all wrapped up in those four years. But there — There’s days when it doesn’t feel like it. When everything gets… mixed up, yeah, in my head. On those days, it’s like… Like it was all at the same time. You know? Like the only thing between her being born and her dying was the weekend. I failed her in the beginning and I failed her in the end, so what’s it matter how many days were between them? She still felt like a baby. She just wasn’t crying anymore.”

He went quiet and, for a moment, a suffocating silence filled the alley. He wasn’t sure he was breathing, wasn’t sure Alex was. And then…

Ding ding ding! 

The colorful ground beneath them flashed. Confetti fell from nowhere. The barrier he was leaning against dropped, and he didn’t bother stopping himself from falling backwards into the alley. The same robotic voice from the beginning sounded again. “Congratulations, PLAYER 1 and PLAYER 2! You have completed the game!” 

It sounded far too celebratory to match the mood in the alley, too excited and cheery to go with the weight of what he’d just dropped on the concrete between them. His throat ached, his eyes burned. He didn’t move from where he’d fallen on the sidewalk. Everything felt so goddamn heavy, like just sitting up would take all the strength he had in him. He wanted to leave, but he didn’t think his legs would hold him even if he gave it all he had.

—

If you had told Alex only a few short hours ago that she would be inviting Emilio Cortez to her garden and that he'd be accepting the invitation, she would have scoffed and made some joke about how the fumes from his 5-in-1 Irish Spring would kill all her plants. Even before, there wouldn't have been any real hatred behind it except for herself, but the idea itself didn't seem so laughable now. All her broken parts were so clearly reflected in the slayer and it was sobering in a way. It made her want to hold onto Andy and Kaden just a little tighter despite the fact she had been trying so hard to push them away. 

“We'll pick something good out,” she said softly. It wasn't the first time she made the offer. Kaden and Wynne readily came to mind, but Alex thought maybe this would heal something in her too. Maybe that was a little bit selfish, but part of her knew Emilio would rather help her than himself. Her words of reassurance didn't magically take away the hatred she knew he held for himself just as his hadn't magically turned guilt and self-hatred into anything but anger. Because anger was easy. They both knew that. 

Her story fell mostly on deaf ears. Alex could pick up some hint of acknowledgement in his features, but no words followed. The cheerful music played like something out of one of those soda shoppes but somehow the silence felt so much louder. 

It was funny the way so much could be said by not saying anything at all. Even before Emilio spoke and the buzzer sounded insistently, Alex knew that whatever he had to say next was going to somehow be heavier than everything they'd covered before. The word 'baby' now left an acidic aftertaste on her tongue that seemed to coat her whole throat as realization hit her. There was only one reason the word would elicit such a physical reaction from the slayer and somehow it crushed her too. 

Alex found she didn't want him to say the words. She could already piece it together and she felt a part of herself break for Emilio. Because he had been a kid who never wanted this. Because he'd been too soft and if there was a baby, she knew he loved them. She knew he was the kind of man who would look at his baby the way that father at the mall did, the kind of man she'd always wished her own father knew how to be. 

Suddenly, the way all his broken pieces fit together made sense. His insistence at making sure Alex was safe despite her best efforts to sabotage his efforts at every turn, the way he softened when he saw the way she recoiled from his harsh words.

Emilio had a delicate heart and no amount of beating from his mother had ever beaten that out of him. Alex found she didn't think it should have been when she could so clearly see just how much he loved his own child in the way he was breaking down on the glowing yellow square they stood on. It seemed to illuminate every labored breath and she had to look away. 

When he spoke, Alex wanted so badly for his words to not confirm what she'd already pieced together. They didn't do that. Everything was as she thought and she wanted to tell him he didn't have to continue. She didn't know if it'd be selfish or kind. She didn't want to hear the memory that came out as more of a confession because it tore her apart, too, but she also didn't stop him because his grief made the barrier feel like it was closing in on both of them somehow, as if it could swallow them whole. 

So she let him continue to speak and for once didn't bother to hide the tears that pricked at the corner of her eyes. It wasn't fair. Alex knew life wasn't fair, but this was especially unfair. The love Emilio felt for his daughter was still so present even if she wasn't here to feel it. He loved his baby like he was supposed to. She could have grown up to be better than either of them. She could have loved herself but she never even got that chance. 

He'd held that little girl like she was the most precious thing in the world, worried over her, and he lost her. The word Sunday felt heavy and the confetti that rained on them didn't feel like a celebration. They'd both just ripped their hearts out in some warped, rainbow alley and the sounding of horns felt grating. She wished there was an actual trumpet player for her to kick or argue with... that'd feel more satisfying than unceremoniously stepping forward into the blue square and then out of the game altogether. 

Alex was still for a moment, unsure of what to say or do. She remembered the night in the kitchen with Kaden, when he spoke of Damien. How she'd reached out and hugged him... and despite how it seemed foreign to him initially, it seemed to help in a way, too. It was a small show of acceptance, a wordless way of saying I see you and what you're carrying and it changes nothing. Or maybe it changed everything. Did she not trust Kaden more after he told her about Damien? 

So before her own doubts could come back and steal her courage, Alex reached out to Emilio and wrapped her arms around him. She didn't both with the apologies, she knew they rang hollow because nothing really changed grief. Apologies rang hollow after a while. He flinched at first, which she had almost expected. The action didn't make her doubt her own standing, for once, because well... she knew more about the slayer than she ever wanted to. 

She stayed like that for a moment. It was easier to show support than speak it sometimes. Alex wasn't even sure what words could help heal a wound that was gaping. She wasn't sure the words existed. The gesture itself said more than she ever could. 

When she pulled away, everything still felt too raw. Everything Alex had spent so long trying to shove down was forced to the surface and right now, Emilio was probably the only person who really understood the confusing mess of emotions she found herself lost in. It all still felt too heavy though, she wanted to feel as light as the candy-coated trail had suggested. 

”I have an idea,“ she said with a smirk that didn't quite hold the same mischievous glint it normally did, ”I think you'll like it.“

Something told her Emilio was the kind of man who appreciated a little bit of arson... Or maybe it was more destruction of property. Alex was no lawyer even if Elle Woods had been her first childhood crush. Maybe part of her also wanted to buy the stupid game too. A nice little gesture of 'fuck you' to her parents for not letting her have any amount of joy as a kid. 

”I hope you like breaking the law and lighting things on fire,“ she gestured ahead, ”We're going to steal some board games and light them on fire... And buy one of them. I'm sure you can figure out who that one's a fuck you to.“ 

There was still a heaviness in the slayer's shoulders and in her own words, but Alex knew he'd take her up on the offer. They both had all of this shit dredged up that needed an outlet and Alex could think of no better form of catharsis than lighting some games of Candyland on fire and watching them turn to dust. 

—

The barrier was gone now, but the alley felt smaller than it had before. Like his story had filled it to the brim, like the force of those words was going to force the both of them out like a pot boiling over. He heard the trumpets and the confetti and the triumphant sounds that came with ‘winning’ the game, and he was so angry that it was hard to breathe. He was so furious that he thought it might smother him like a pillow shoved over his nose and mouth, like a wet cloth designed to drown him on dry land. He was angry. He was so fucking angry. 

But he wasn’t. Not really. And hadn’t that always been the problem?

Emilio looked for rage to warm him, clung to anger because it was a fire in the hearth in the middle of a blizzard, but it was never real. He called his grief by an alias and pretended that was its name, and sometimes, he was a good enough actor to fool himself. Sometimes, that anger felt like anger, and he let it hold him when nothing else did. He let it wrap itself around him, curl up beside him like a dog. But there were days when the disguise slipped, days when it was embarrassingly bad like a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and a costume shop wig that wouldn’t fool anyone who looked at it for more than a moment. 

Today was one of those days. The rage burned, but it didn’t. The fury festered, but it didn’t. Emilio was angry, but he wasn’t. 

And he thought Alex probably knew. Because they were alike, weren’t they? Right up until the end, their stories lined up with one another. They were soft, they were shoved into too-small spaces, they carried death with them everywhere they went. And maybe, in a way, even those final memories stood side-by-side in a way that still made sense. Alex was unloved by a father she was better off without. Emilio carried too much love for a daughter he could no longer hold. They were both angry, but they weren’t. They both wished, more than anything, for the rage to be real. 

He heard her shuffling in the alley beside him, heard her coming in close. Nonsensically, he half-expected a blow. As if, after everything, she might make good on that promise to kick his good knee, as if she was the type of person who might literally kick him while he was down. She wasn’t. He knew she wasn’t, but she came close and he tensed anyway. When you spent all your life as a punching bag, even a supportive hand on your shoulder could look a little like a swinging fist at first. 

Her arms wrapped around him and, instinctively, Emilio flinched. His body was still trembling, still shaking, still so painfully his. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a tight embrace, and it took him a moment. A heartbeat, maybe two, to recognize that it wasn’t an attack. When his mind caught up to his body, there seemed to be a second of hesitation before he allowed himself to relax.

How many times had someone hugged him? It had happened in Wicked’s Rest so much more than it had ever happened in Mexico, he knew. Before moving to this strange little town, he was sure he could have counted the number on a single hand and still had fingers left unused. Unsurprisingly, the Cortezes weren’t big on physical displays of affection. Even Emilio, who’d loved his daughter so much more than he’d ever loved anything else, had hugged her so rarely that he hated himself for it now. 

He took a deep breath, and then another. He tried to calm himself. Every stuttered beat of his heart sounded like an apology, like a plea for penance. He was sorry to Alex, who had deserved a love she’d never been shown by parents who should have been better. He was sorry to Andy, who’d given up her childhood in an attempt to make up for that. He was sorry to Flora, who died young and terrified just four years and a weekend after she was born. He was sorry to Victor, who was a memory instead of a person. 

And maybe, between all of them, he was finding another apology to carry, too. Maybe he could learn, somehow, to be sorry to that kid in the shed with a knife clutched in his trembling hand, leaning against a door he wanted so badly to open.

Alex spoke, and it took Emilio a moment to come back to himself. She was smirking, and it was less genuine than it normally would have been but he had neither the space nor the desire to call her out on it. There was no path forward that allowed them to recognize what had been said here and still breathe around it, he knew. There was no way to talk about what had been said without getting lost in it. It was still too raw. It would always be too raw, even if a century separated them from this alley and the things that had been said within it. Talk was cheap. Action was better.

And he really liked the sound of the action she had in mind.

Leaning back, the detective nodded. He brought a trembling hand up, shoved some of the wild curls away from his face. “Yeah,” he agreed, his voice hoarse and foreign, even to him. “Yeah. Yeah, I like that. Let’s burn that shit to ashes. And… I’ve got a couple of bucks in my wallet. I’ll buy you one, too.” 

Neither of them could repair the damage done to them. There were things that couldn’t be fixed, no matter how much duct tape and chewing gum you used to stick the pieces back together. Glass, when shattered, would never slide back into place just the same. The cracks would always be there. The cold air would always creep in around them. But that didn’t mean you didn’t try, did it? That didn’t mean you didn’t do everything you could.

They were broken. And they probably always would be, despite anyone’s best efforts to change it. But there was something to be said, maybe, in being broken together instead of alone. 

And arson. There was something to be said for that, too.

“Come on,” he said, pushing himself to his feet in a way that creaked and ached. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” And on to whatever came next.

[lola4563747]

@allhallowsthemepark

@shaydystheshadowqueen

Lunar New Year ideas

Kappa Sushi: a pop up sushi stand run by two Kappa brothers, Kibi and Dango(their names are a pun on the Japanese food called kibidango which was famously the ration of the oni slayer Momotaro) Kibi is jovial and speaks in rhyme, Dango is more serious and is often found chewing on dried cucumber. The stand is only open at night because the brothers are gathering the ingredients during the day.

Kappa Sushi menu:

Nogappa-maki: a version of the cucumber based kappa-maki roll, this not only has cucumber but also carp,dried ginger,carrots, sweet peppers and trout.

Heikegani roll: named for the crab yokai said to be the restless spirits of dead samurai, this feisty roll has crab, red onion , scallions,chili peppers, and radishes.

California Roll: the US Staple, it’s the exact same as any roll you can get at the supermarket.

Kappa river rampage : a fun cocktail with a sake base, cucumber juice, crushed mint,and green apple soda, topped with a cucumber slice.

Shinobi roll: the rice on this roll is dyed dark blue, just like the clothes actual ninjas wore! Consists of salmon,dried plums,green onions and cream cheese.

Oboroguma snack cart: This snack cart actually moves on its own! Oboroguma are a yokai created when rich people get so jealous that they hit other people’s cars. This fella’s a bit friendlier than his angrier brethren though, and decided to instead bring people joy with delicious food.

Oboroguma snacks:

3 flavor kibidango: this sweet treat on a stick comes in 3 flavors, mango, matcha, and strawberry.

ONI-giri: this punny snack is a traditional sour plum rice ball, except the rice has been dyed red and the ball is shaped like an oni’s head.

Tanuki leaf cookies: sweet frosted shortbread shaped like banana leaves. Tanuki used leaves in their tricks, now you can make a disappearing act of your own!

Tangulu: a traditional Chinese snack, fruit kebabs dipped in molten sugar and left to harden, consists of apples, strawberries, peaches,grapes, oranges and bananas.

Drink ideas:

Danzaburo’s Payday: named for the powerful Tanuki king of Sado Island, this glittering golden drink consists of mango sake, luster dust,apple juice, and peach nectar. It comes on the rocks with a bunch of white chocolate coins on top.

Shuten Douji Surprise: named after the legendary Drunken Demon, this boozy beast of a beverage consists of peach sake, durian vodka, Jack Daniel’s, coconut rum, and cherry brandy.

Momotaro Mixer: named for the hero born from a peach, this drink is made entirely of peach flavored boozes. Peach schnapps, peach sake, peach liqueur, peach brandy, and peach juice. Topped with peach slices.

Wild Wukong: named for the immortal Monkey king this drink is as tasty as it is pretty. Banana sake, coconut rum, peach syrup, plum brandy, starfruit juice and cream soda. Topped with starfruit and bananas.

[brookston]

Holidays 4.23

Holidays

Alfred G. “Alferd” Packer Day (Colorado)

Aragon Day (Spain)

Army Reserves Day (US)

Asian Corpsetwt Day [Every 23rd]

Boice Day (South Korea)

Book Day (Canada)

Book Day and Lover's Day (Spain)

Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day

Castile and León Day (Spain)

Children’s Day (Turkey)

Community Day (Spain)

Content Creator Day

Copyright Day

Day of Aragon (Spain)

Day of Books and Roses (Catalonia, Spain)

Drive It Day (UK)

Electric Mixer Day

English Language Day (UN)

Flag Day (England)

George Castriota Day (Albania)

Hawthorn Day (French Republic)

Impossible Astronaut Day (Dr. Who)

International Choro Day

International Creator Day

International Day of the Book

International Fibrodyysolasia Ossificans Progressive Awareness Day

International Nose Picking Day

International Pallas Cat Day

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

International Share a Secret Day

International Sing Out Day

Jurgi Day (Ancient Latvia)

Khongjom Day (Manipur, India)

La Diada de Sant Jordi (Catalonia, Spain)

Linnaeus Day (Sweden)

London Marathon Day (UK)

Lover's Day

Movie Theater Day

National Bryan Day

National Email Day

National Grief-in-Public Day

National Lost Dog Awareness Day

National Lover’s Day

National Lugaw Day (Philippines)

National Read Me Day

National Sovereignty and Children’s Day (Turkey, Northern Cyprus)

National Take a Hike with Nick Day

National Vagina Appreciation Day

Navy Day (China)

Penny Day

Pet Tech CPR Day

Psychologist Day (Ukraine)

Public School Day

Sigurd the Dragon Slayer's Day

Slay a Dragon Day

Spanish Language Day (UN)

Take a Chance Day

Talk Like Shakespeare Day

Teach Your Children To Save Day

Veterans Day (Estonia)

Visalia Priora

Wild Hyacinth Day

World Book Day (UN; except Ireland, UK)

World Book Night (Ireland, Germany, UK, US)

World Laboratory Day

World Table Tennis Day

YouTube Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Allagash Saison Day [original date]

Bavarian Beer Day

Biertag (Germany)

Cherry Cheesecake Day

German Beer Day

International Cava Day

International Reinheitsgebot Day

National Asparagus Day (UK)

National English Muffin Day

National Licorice Day

National Picnic Day

National Taffy Day

New Coke Day

St. George's Day (traditional end of Bavarian lager brewing season)

4th Tuesday in April

National Library Day [Tuesday of Library Week]

National Library Workers Day [Tuesday of Library Week]

School Bus Driver’s Day [4th Tuesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning April 23 (4th Week)

Global Road Safety Week (UN) [thru 23-29]

National Princess Week (thru 4.29)

Independence & Related Days

Australland (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized)

Conch Republic (Declared; 1982) [unrecognized)

Israel (a.k.a. Yom Ha’atzmaut; Declared; 1948)

National Sovereignty Day, Day 2 (Turkey)

Festivals Beginning April 23, 2024

Les Printemps de Bourges (Bourges, France) [thru 4.28]

London Marathon (London, England)

Feast Days

Adalbert of Prague (Christian; Saint)

Antoine Vollon (Artology)

Cervantes (Writerism)

Chance Day (Shamanism)

Cynical Bastards Day (Pastafarian)

Day of the Glorious Fuckup (Church of the SubGenius)

Feast of Hephaestus (Greek Blacksmith God & Brewer)

Felix, Fortunatus, and Achilleus (Christian; Martyrs)

Festival of Saint Sarah the Egyptian (Sara Kali the Black Queen; Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France) begins [until 25th]

George [England, traditional end of Bavarian lager brewing season] *

Gerard, Bishop of Toul (Christian; Saint)

Giles of Assisi (Christian; Saint)

Gerard of Toul (Christian; Saint)

The Goddess is Alive Day (Everyday Wicca)

Ibar (a.k.a. Ivor) of Beggerin (or Meath; Christian; Saint)

Ji-Young (Muppetism)

J.M.W. Turner (Artology)

J.P. Donleavy (Writerism)

Miltiades (Positivist; Saint)

Shakespeare Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Snood Day (Celtic Book of Days)

Toyohiko Kagawa (Episcopal and Lutheran Church)

Vinalia Urbana (a.k.a. Vinalia Prima or Priora; Ancient Roman wine festival)

Vulcan's Day (Ancient Rome)

Walpurgisnacht, Day I (Pagan)

William Shakespeare (Writerism)

Lunar Calendar Holidays

Full Moon [4th of the Year] (a.k.a. ... 

Awakening Moon (Neo-Pagan)

Breaking Ice Moon (Traditional)

Budding Moon of Plants and Shrubs (Traditional)

Egg Moon (Alternate)

Fish Moon (Alternate)

Flower Moon (Cherokee)

Gold Star Spouses Day

Grass Moon (Alternate, North America)

Growing Moon (Celtic)

Hunter’s Moon (South Africa)

Moon When the Ducks Come Back (Traditional)

Peony Moon (China)

Pink Moon (Amer. Indian, Traditional)

Planter’s Moon (Colonial)

Seed Moon (England, Wicca)

Southern Hemisphere: Blood, Harvest, Hunter’s

Wildcat Moon (Choctaw)

God of Medicine Day (Taiwan) [15th Day, 3rd Month]

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Prime Number Day: 113 [30 of 72]

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Premieres

The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, by Richard Hofstadter (Political Theory; 1948)

Benny & Joon (Film; 1993)

Black and Blue, by The Rolling Stones (Album; 1976)

The Black Marble, by Joseph Wambaugh (Novel; 1978)

Cherrybomb (Film; 2009)

Dogville (Film; 2003)

Election (Film; 1999)

The Excursions of Mr. Brouček to the Moon and to the 15th Century, by Leoš Janáček (Opera; 1920)

Fall Out - Fall In (Disney Cartoon; 1943)

Frog Jog (Tijuana Toads Cartoon; 1972)

Gregory’s Girl (Film; 1981)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou (Autobiography; 1969)

Indian Summer (Film; 1993)

A Jolly Good Furlough (Fleischer/Famous Popeye Cartoon; 1943)

Lemonade, by Beyoncé (Album; 2016)

Man on Fire (Film; 2004)

Merry Wives of Windsor, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1597)

Nexus, by Henry Miller (Novel; 1959) [Rosy Crucifixion #3]

The Penguin Parade (WB MM Cartoon; 1938)

Ramones, by Ramones (Album; 1976)

Return to Paradise, by James A. Michener (Novel; 1951)

Shadow and Bone (TV Series; 2021)

Sita Sings the Blues (Animated Film; 2010)

Snow Place Like Home (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1966)

Sticky Fingers, by The Rolling Stones (Album; 1971)

The Stories of John Cheever, by John Cheever (Short Story Collection; 1979)

Symphony No. 1 in C Major, by Mily Balakirev (Symphony; 1898)

Symphony No. 2 in D Minor, by Mily Balakirev (Symphony; 1909)

Teen Titans Go! (Animated Film; 2013)

There’s Good Boos To-Night (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1948)

13 Going on 30 (Film; 2004)

Touch of Evil (Film; 1958)

Two for the Record (Disney Cartoon; 1954)

When I Was Cruel, by Elvis Costello (Album; 2002)

Who Scent You? (WB LT Cartoon; 1960)

Today’s Name Days

Adalbert, Georg, Jörg, Jürgen (Austria)

Toma, Tomislav, Tomislava (Bulgaria)

Adalbert, Đurđica, Đuro, Juraj (Croatia)

Vojtěch (Czech Republic)

Georgius (Denmark)

Georg, Jürgen, Jürgo, Jüri, Jürjo, Jürnas, Jüts, Ürjo (Estonia)

Jiri, Jori, Jyri, Jyrki, Yrjänä, Yrjö (Finland)

Georges (France)

Georg, Gerhard, Jörg, Jürgen (Germany)

Georgios, Giorgos, Thomas, Yorgos (Greece)

Béla (Hungary)

Giorgio (Italy)

Georgs, Jorens, Jurģis, Juris (Latvia)

Adalbertas, Daugaudas, Jurgis, Vygailė (Lithuania)

Georg, Jørgen, Jørn (Norway)

Adalbert, Gerard, Gerarda, Gerhard, Helena, Jerzy, Wojciech (Poland)

Gheorghe (Romania)

Vojtech (Slovakia)

Jorge (Spain)

Georg, Göran (Sweden)

George (Ukraine)

Brayan, Breana, Breanna, Breanne, Brian, Briana, Brianna, Brianne, Brielle, Brien, Briona, Bryan, Bryana, Bryanna, Bryant, Brynn, Bryon, Shirlee, Shirleen, Shirley (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 114 of 2024; 252 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 17 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Saille (Willow) [Day 10 of 28]

Chinese: Month 3 (Wu-Chen), Day 15 (Ding-Si)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 15 Nisan 5784

Islamic: 14 Shawwal 1445

J Cal: 24 Cyan; Threesday [23 of 30]

Julian: 10 April 2024

Moon: 100%: Full Moon

Positivist: 2 Caesar (5th Month) [Leonidas]

Runic Half Month: Man (Human Being) [Day 14 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 36 of 92)

Week: 4th Week of April

Zodiac: Taurus (Day 4 of 31)

[loudlyhappycupcake]

Human rayman and juniper lee @snoopierdass @shironezuninja @random-name-here @untitled14360 @sonicasonic @kbarts01 @kuskicanlove @evander2511 @waltdiegi-theartist @enchantedchocolatebars @collector-noceda-clawthorne @cartoonfan21 @serentiydraw5678 @nevaehjwilliamsvaeh @onceupona-crossover @d-blue02 @adriennsposts @clairaquos @aamericanotaku @moneneki @gametoon

[snoopierdass]

For you, made of mixer slayers.

Love it! Thank you :D

[brookstonalmanac]

Holidays 4.23

Holidays

Alfred G. “Alferd” Packer Day (Colorado)

Aragon Day (Spain)

Army Reserves Day (US)

Asian Corpsetwt Day [Every 23rd]

Boice Day (South Korea)

Book Day (Canada)

Book Day and Lover's Day (Spain)

Bulldogs Are Beautiful Day

Castile and León Day (Spain)

Children’s Day (Turkey)

Community Day (Spain)

Content Creator Day

Copyright Day

Day of Aragon (Spain)

Day of Books and Roses (Catalonia, Spain)

Drive It Day (UK)

Electric Mixer Day

English Language Day (UN)

Flag Day (England)

George Castriota Day (Albania)

Hawthorn Day (French Republic)

Impossible Astronaut Day (Dr. Who)

International Choro Day

International Creator Day

International Day of the Book

International Fibrodyysolasia Ossificans Progressive Awareness Day

International Nose Picking Day

International Pallas Cat Day

International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

International Share a Secret Day

International Sing Out Day

Jurgi Day (Ancient Latvia)

Khongjom Day (Manipur, India)

La Diada de Sant Jordi (Catalonia, Spain)

Linnaeus Day (Sweden)

London Marathon Day (UK)

Lover's Day

Movie Theater Day

National Bryan Day

National Email Day

National Grief-in-Public Day

National Lost Dog Awareness Day

National Lover’s Day

National Lugaw Day (Philippines)

National Read Me Day

National Sovereignty and Children’s Day (Turkey, Northern Cyprus)

National Take a Hike with Nick Day

National Vagina Appreciation Day

Navy Day (China)

Penny Day

Pet Tech CPR Day

Psychologist Day (Ukraine)

Public School Day

Sigurd the Dragon Slayer's Day

Slay a Dragon Day

Spanish Language Day (UN)

Take a Chance Day

Talk Like Shakespeare Day

Teach Your Children To Save Day

Veterans Day (Estonia)

Visalia Priora

Wild Hyacinth Day

World Book Day (UN; except Ireland, UK)

World Book Night (Ireland, Germany, UK, US)

World Laboratory Day

World Table Tennis Day

YouTube Day

Food & Drink Celebrations

Allagash Saison Day [original date]

Bavarian Beer Day

Biertag (Germany)

Cherry Cheesecake Day

German Beer Day

International Cava Day

International Reinheitsgebot Day

National Asparagus Day (UK)

National English Muffin Day

National Licorice Day

National Picnic Day

National Taffy Day

New Coke Day

St. George's Day (traditional end of Bavarian lager brewing season)

4th Tuesday in April

National Library Day [Tuesday of Library Week]

National Library Workers Day [Tuesday of Library Week]

School Bus Driver’s Day [4th Tuesday]

Weekly Holidays beginning April 23 (4th Week)

Global Road Safety Week (UN) [thru 23-29]

National Princess Week (thru 4.29)

Independence & Related Days

Australland (Declared; 2021) [unrecognized)

Conch Republic (Declared; 1982) [unrecognized)

Israel (a.k.a. Yom Ha’atzmaut; Declared; 1948)

National Sovereignty Day, Day 2 (Turkey)

Festivals Beginning April 23, 2024

Les Printemps de Bourges (Bourges, France) [thru 4.28]

London Marathon (London, England)

Feast Days

Adalbert of Prague (Christian; Saint)

Antoine Vollon (Artology)

Cervantes (Writerism)

Chance Day (Shamanism)

Cynical Bastards Day (Pastafarian)

Day of the Glorious Fuckup (Church of the SubGenius)

Feast of Hephaestus (Greek Blacksmith God & Brewer)

Felix, Fortunatus, and Achilleus (Christian; Martyrs)

Festival of Saint Sarah the Egyptian (Sara Kali the Black Queen; Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, France) begins [until 25th]

George [England, traditional end of Bavarian lager brewing season] *

Gerard, Bishop of Toul (Christian; Saint)

Giles of Assisi (Christian; Saint)

Gerard of Toul (Christian; Saint)

The Goddess is Alive Day (Everyday Wicca)

Ibar (a.k.a. Ivor) of Beggerin (or Meath; Christian; Saint)

Ji-Young (Muppetism)

J.M.W. Turner (Artology)

J.P. Donleavy (Writerism)

Miltiades (Positivist; Saint)

Shakespeare Day (Starza Pagan Book of Days)

Snood Day (Celtic Book of Days)

Toyohiko Kagawa (Episcopal and Lutheran Church)

Vinalia Urbana (a.k.a. Vinalia Prima or Priora; Ancient Roman wine festival)

Vulcan's Day (Ancient Rome)

Walpurgisnacht, Day I (Pagan)

William Shakespeare (Writerism)

Lunar Calendar Holidays

Full Moon [4th of the Year] (a.k.a. ... 

Awakening Moon (Neo-Pagan)

Breaking Ice Moon (Traditional)

Budding Moon of Plants and Shrubs (Traditional)

Egg Moon (Alternate)

Fish Moon (Alternate)

Flower Moon (Cherokee)

Gold Star Spouses Day

Grass Moon (Alternate, North America)

Growing Moon (Celtic)

Hunter’s Moon (South Africa)

Moon When the Ducks Come Back (Traditional)

Peony Moon (China)

Pink Moon (Amer. Indian, Traditional)

Planter’s Moon (Colonial)

Seed Moon (England, Wicca)

Southern Hemisphere: Blood, Harvest, Hunter’s

Wildcat Moon (Choctaw)

God of Medicine Day (Taiwan) [15th Day, 3rd Month]

Lucky & Unlucky Days

Prime Number Day: 113 [30 of 72]

Taian (大安 Japan) [Lucky all day.]

Premieres

The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It, by Richard Hofstadter (Political Theory; 1948)

Benny & Joon (Film; 1993)

Black and Blue, by The Rolling Stones (Album; 1976)

The Black Marble, by Joseph Wambaugh (Novel; 1978)

Cherrybomb (Film; 2009)

Dogville (Film; 2003)

Election (Film; 1999)

The Excursions of Mr. Brouček to the Moon and to the 15th Century, by Leoš Janáček (Opera; 1920)

Fall Out - Fall In (Disney Cartoon; 1943)

Frog Jog (Tijuana Toads Cartoon; 1972)

Gregory’s Girl (Film; 1981)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, by Maya Angelou (Autobiography; 1969)

Indian Summer (Film; 1993)

A Jolly Good Furlough (Fleischer/Famous Popeye Cartoon; 1943)

Lemonade, by Beyoncé (Album; 2016)

Man on Fire (Film; 2004)

Merry Wives of Windsor, by William Shakespeare (Play; 1597)

Nexus, by Henry Miller (Novel; 1959) [Rosy Crucifixion #3]

The Penguin Parade (WB MM Cartoon; 1938)

Ramones, by Ramones (Album; 1976)

Return to Paradise, by James A. Michener (Novel; 1951)

Shadow and Bone (TV Series; 2021)

Sita Sings the Blues (Animated Film; 2010)

Snow Place Like Home (Chilly Willy Cartoon; 1966)

Sticky Fingers, by The Rolling Stones (Album; 1971)

The Stories of John Cheever, by John Cheever (Short Story Collection; 1979)

Symphony No. 1 in C Major, by Mily Balakirev (Symphony; 1898)

Symphony No. 2 in D Minor, by Mily Balakirev (Symphony; 1909)

Teen Titans Go! (Animated Film; 2013)

There’s Good Boos To-Night (Noveltoons Cartoon; 1948)

13 Going on 30 (Film; 2004)

Touch of Evil (Film; 1958)

Two for the Record (Disney Cartoon; 1954)

When I Was Cruel, by Elvis Costello (Album; 2002)

Who Scent You? (WB LT Cartoon; 1960)

Today’s Name Days

Adalbert, Georg, Jörg, Jürgen (Austria)

Toma, Tomislav, Tomislava (Bulgaria)

Adalbert, Đurđica, Đuro, Juraj (Croatia)

Vojtěch (Czech Republic)

Georgius (Denmark)

Georg, Jürgen, Jürgo, Jüri, Jürjo, Jürnas, Jüts, Ürjo (Estonia)

Jiri, Jori, Jyri, Jyrki, Yrjänä, Yrjö (Finland)

Georges (France)

Georg, Gerhard, Jörg, Jürgen (Germany)

Georgios, Giorgos, Thomas, Yorgos (Greece)

Béla (Hungary)

Giorgio (Italy)

Georgs, Jorens, Jurģis, Juris (Latvia)

Adalbertas, Daugaudas, Jurgis, Vygailė (Lithuania)

Georg, Jørgen, Jørn (Norway)

Adalbert, Gerard, Gerarda, Gerhard, Helena, Jerzy, Wojciech (Poland)

Gheorghe (Romania)

Vojtech (Slovakia)

Jorge (Spain)

Georg, Göran (Sweden)

George (Ukraine)

Brayan, Breana, Breanna, Breanne, Brian, Briana, Brianna, Brianne, Brielle, Brien, Briona, Bryan, Bryana, Bryanna, Bryant, Brynn, Bryon, Shirlee, Shirleen, Shirley (USA)

Today is Also…

Day of Year: Day 114 of 2024; 252 days remaining in the year

ISO: Day 2 of week 17 of 2024

Celtic Tree Calendar: Saille (Willow) [Day 10 of 28]

Chinese: Month 3 (Wu-Chen), Day 15 (Ding-Si)

Chinese Year of the: Dragon 4722 (until January 29, 2025) [Wu-Chen]

Hebrew: 15 Nisan 5784

Islamic: 14 Shawwal 1445

J Cal: 24 Cyan; Threesday [23 of 30]

Julian: 10 April 2024

Moon: 100%: Full Moon

Positivist: 2 Caesar (5th Month) [Leonidas]

Runic Half Month: Man (Human Being) [Day 14 of 15]

Season: Spring (Day 36 of 92)

Week: 4th Week of April

Zodiac: Taurus (Day 4 of 31)

[dragon-stones]

Kokushibo Headcanons 

Relations with the Harshiras 

While Kokushibo didn’t like the idea of Yuichiro and Muichiro joining the Demon Slayer Corps, he allowed his sons to do as they please. If he is destined to die, he’d rather have his children be the ones. But, one headache he still has is with the current Hashiras and his relations with them. 

Gyomei Himejima 

Since the Tokito Twins are Hashiras, Kokushibo would visit the boys as often as he liked. The Hashiras didn’t like the fact a demon had found their hideout, but didn’t do anything. They didn’t want the Upper Moon destroying the place or giving the location to Muzan. So, a deal was made. Kokushibo could visit the Twins all he wanted but; he couldn’t give the location out, harm or kill the Hashiras, and could not kill Ubuyashiki Family. In return, the Hashiras would leave him alone. The one to tell him of this deal was Gyomei. 

Kokushibo didn’t expect Gyomei to have a natural physical abilities have been trained to their absolute peak, when they first met, but this greatly pleased the demon. Having not seen a warrior of the Stone Hashira’s caliber in three hundred (300) years, Kokushibo felt excitement in the prospect of possibly fighting the man. But, he kept his side of the deal and didn’t suggest a fight, even a friendly one. 

Overtime, the two had gotten to know each other and had become friendly. Due to the close bond the two had, Gyomei is one of the few Hashiras that Kokushibo allows to babysit his kids. 

Gyomei is the Hashira that Kokushibo spends the most time with.   

Giyu Tomioka

Kokushibo and Giyu don’t speak that much, but are cordially with each other. He had even given the Water Hashira tips on how to handle the Twins and later, Zenitsu and Kaigaku. 

Kokushibo is one of the few that Giyu will confide in when needing help.  

Sanemi Shinazugawa

Kokushibo and Wind Hashira do not get along. But, due to the deal in place, Kokushibo do not harm the man. Sanemi had tried many times to get the demon to attack him, even using his katana to cut his arm and using the blood to temp the demon. 

Kokushibo had tended to the wound, parroting Gyomei’s warning about keeping his blade clean.   

Mitsuri Kanroji

Kokushibo does not like Mitsuri’s uniform and upon hearing why she wears her uniform that way, the demon wanted to have a “talk” with the tailor, but had decided to get it go when he learned that Shinobu had burned hers and the others in the Butterfly Mansion and that Mitsuri is too kind to reject it. 

Over all the demon doesn’t mind the Love Hashira. 

Obanai Iguro

Kokushibo and Obanai only have brief-single-sentence conversations. 

Shinobu Kocho

Kokushibo will visit the Butterfly Mansion if one of his boys is staying there. Most of the time the demon leaves the Insect Hashira alone, unless she comes to him for any reason. 

Shinobu did ask the demon to test a poison mixer she was creating to fight against demons. He stated that the mixer will easily kill normal demons , but is ineffective against a lower rank, let alone an upper.   

Kyojuro Rengoku

Kokushibo finds Rengoku’s loudness annoying, but Yuichiro and Muichiro liked the Flame Breather. With the Hashira always having a positive attitude and  passionate spirit, Kokushibo can see why. 

Since Kokushibo had known the Flame Hashira for a while, he wasn’t too concerned when he learned that Zenitsu, Kaigaku, and their little group were spotted with him. 

When he learned of the Hashira’s death, the Upper Moon envisioned the man’s spirit and thanked him for not judging him harshly and keeping his sons safe. 

Tengen Uzui

Kokushibo did not care about the Sound Hashira, in fact he found the Breather childish at times. But, did acknowledge that the man was strong and that if he were to fight Daki without the assistance of her brother, he could easily win. 

When he learned of Daki and Gyutaro’s deaths, he was not surprised or saddened. 

[farm-witches-fic-recs]

“Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble!” (WS)

The farm witches are extra pleased to bring you double the reading goodness this Friday with a special Halloween edition!

Grab some candy, get comfortable, and enjoy! Be sure to leave these creators some love for their festive offerings.

I think we’re alone now (@likerealpeopledo-on-ao3, @rockinhamburger)  “David the Slayer has a meet-cute in a graveyard late at night. Perfect jokes and wonderful banter ensue in this dialogue-only fic.”

I’ve only ever wanted fire  (doingthemost/ @sarahlevys​, rhetoricalquestions/ @rhetoricalk​) “The world-building in this Twylexis magic AU is next level, but it's the gentle way their relationship develops that will leave you truly charmed.” 

In character (bigficenergy/@fraudulentzodiac) “The denizens of Schitt's Creek become even zanier than usual when a spell gone awry turns everyone into their Halloween costumes. Two words: Dinosaur Roland.”    

Magical Practicalities (@blueink3) “Practical Magic AU. What more do you need to know? We're witches; we know what we're talking about.”

Monster Mash (dairaliz/@schitthappens)  *ART* “Your faves are looking a little monstrous (but still cute af) in this cardstock cut-out art.” 

My heart is like a haunted house (@dinnfameron) “David Rose is a ghost. A ghost that Patrick Brewer is falling in love with. Sweet, soft, and funny with a mystery to solve, this is the perfect Halloween treat.”

Rose Apothecary (@ratchet) *ART* “It's Halloween at the Apothecary, where even the spooks are locally sourced and one of a kind.”

Silence Lay Steadily (@davidbrewer) “The Rose family has an enemy - the hotel they’re calling ‘home’. This Schitt’s Creek adaptation of “The Haunting of Hill House” will thrill you all the way through.”

Team Free Will takes a case in Schitt’s Creek (@bebecas) *GIF SET* “Someone must've made a deal with a crossroads demon to get a SPN/SC crossover set that works this perfectly.” 

Thank God I found you (@norskheks) “Patrick meets David & Alexis at a Halloween parade in NYC. Queer themes and costumes, oh my!” 

Vampires are people, too! (@petrodobreva) “David is a vampire and Patrick has some concerns in this high school AU that's the perfect blend of sweet and spooky, fluffy and frightening. (Okay, it's way more fluff than fright. This is still SC, after all.)”

You’re here (@lisamc-21) “David and Patrick meet at a Halloween party and sparks fly in this sweet and sexy story.” 

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

FROM THE HEARTH

This sweet, sticky delight is sure to make any mouth happy. 

Pumpkin Honey Bun Cake

You’ll need: (for the cake batter) * 1 box super moist yellow cake mix * 1/2 cup vegetable oil * 4 eggs * 1/2 cup sour cream * 3/4 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix) * 2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice * 3/4 cups brown sugar * 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (for the glaze)  * 1 cup powdered sugar * 2 tablespoons milk * 1 teaspoon vanilla to make: 1. Heat oven to 350*. 

2. Grease the bottom and sides of a 13x9 inch baking pan.

3. Place the cake mix, oil, eggs, sour cream, pumpkin and pumpkin pie spice in a large bowl. 

4. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for about 2 minutes until ingredients are just incorporated.  Measure out 2 cups of batter, place the batter onto the bottom of the pan.

5. In a small bowl combine the walnuts with the brown sugar. Toss to combine. 

6. Sprinkle evenly over the cake batter.  

7. Spoon the remaining batter evenly over the filling. Using a spatula, carefully spread batter over the filling to the edges of the pan.  

8. Place in the oven and bake for about 35 - 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. 

9. Put the pan on a cooling rack.

10. Make the glaze. Place the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla in a medium bowl. Whisk to combine. Pour the glaze over the top of the hot cake, using a spatula to cover the entire cake with glaze. 

11. Let the cake cool completely before serving.

[halsresources]

QUICK PSD RELEASE: TOMIOKA. a simple psd that highlights primarily anime caps, but works particularly well on tomioka giyuu of kny (demon slayer). comes with an adjustment folder. this psd should not whitewash from my test batches. quality varies on quality of source images. works well on black and white manga images, tends to darken the lines and will add a bit of a blue hue. good mixer / frankenstein psd. feel free to splice it with other psds to see how it works!!

DOWNLOAD HERE.  i am available to answer any questions!! if you cannot download the psd, DM me and i will send it to you!! LIKE OR REBLOG IF USING!! do not claim as your own. credit is appreciated!