#one of my favorite games of all time honestly. give ghost trick a try too if you want. it's very good as well
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arttsuka · 2 months ago
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would you recommend ace attorney
Yes, definitely, absolutely
Some out of context screenshots from the original trilogy
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heartfullofleeches · 1 year ago
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Chief wich one of ur ocs is the best to take out on a Halloween night? With full costume and shi
We don't have Halloween here but I got curious 🤔 -🎃
My monster/sheet ghost oc Casper only comes out around Halloween and raids countless neighborhoods to bring you your favorite treats.
Liu embraces their hidden horrors and walks around in their parasite form, ready to bite the next person that tries to touch their face and carrying you around like a purse dog
Screamscicle. Screamscicle. Halloween is quite literally year round for this goofball. They stitch together a new costume leading up to the big day nearly twice every month. It breaks their heart each year to decide between a scary, "are you sure those aren't real organs" costume and a soft, innocent "I demand all your candy" vibe. Either way, you'll be returning to town at the crack with trash bags full of sweets. If the town holiday is in swing, you'll get up to a bit of mischief before you head out. Please don't give Apple or Milk Tea heartaches...again.
Cinnabar and Izzy love autumn/winter as a whole. As the weather cools, Izzy is able to venture outside with you more - and Cinnabar loves to welcome you home with a fresh batch of rolls and your drink of choice. As for Halloween, Cinnabar makes or looks for matching costumes for your trio (any suggestions lemme know). She makes popcorn balls and rice treat bars for treaters that stop by before you head out for the night - hiding a few in the back for you.
Honestly all of the candy fiends are good for the holidays. Gumi and Lollie rob trick or treat with you, but they also make you goodie bags out of their own flesh and blood like Sucrose, Jollie and Mocha.
D.Kay, Devlin, and Silas are the night's greatest tricksters. D.Kay sets up a haunted house in whatever location they can find, and doesn't let anyone leave until their smiling - while also ripping their mask off and revealing the endoskeleton underneath... probably covered in the skin of the last person that fucked with you. Devlin and Silas stage robberies and shot each other dead to sell the show. Whoever brings you more junk - whether it be money, candy, or lawn statues, gets to pick the night's movie and eat sixty percent of their haul as you cuddle. Silas goes as Ghost face. Devlin is the headless horseman. D.Kay is....D.Kay
Alien takes you to go alien hunting.....it doesn't go well with their shiny ass costume and platform boots. Once again, the only thing that's extraterrestrial is the time that you spend together - and their bones as they crack their neck and scare passing trick or treats out of their bags. This is the one night you can get them to try some ghost summoning rituals and if there's a ghost in the mirror... There's no more mirror. They're cool with a ghost from an ouija board because they can touch your hand.
C.C takes you out to a rave...after starting the night at a haunted house with Amyas if he's involved and ditching him there. Ass out, tits out - C.C is showing you his best moves and doesn't quit until he's passed out on your couch. Unfortunately, you'll have to sleep there too as his claws are quite literally embed into your clothes/clothes.
Gus, Ventri and Rush... (With the reluctant help of Sir) put together a mini circus in your living room/backyard. Popcorn machine, balloon station, face paints. If you can think it, they'll probably do or have it. Ventri steers clear of the apple picking game because they are afraid of their paint rubbing off - Gus is found head first still in the bucket. Sir is a little Jealous of Rush's candy giving methods (they are a living candy machine that dispenses them through their mouth), but he'll just tongue kiss you to get over it.
It's already been shown in last year's Halloween event that Host upstages this all. His entire stage and crowd becomes a circus for you, and he dons a new persona to fit the part. You'll always be the star here, but he has so many wonderful things to give and reveal to you. Aren't you lucky?
Miller hosts a big stream. With your consent, they hold costumes up at different goals for you to put on. They're all met before the first hour is up, and you're left changing countless times during that period. Miller orders whatever your heart desires and ends the stream earlier than planned so you can get up to something without the attention
Pin is another who makes costumes for you, and they're probably the best of the bunch. If you hand out treats they made the perfect prop and scare for your yard. You can convince them to take off their body, but they'll make the most elaborate and attention catching husk if you don't. Rag doll, scare-crow, or what makes them happiest and whatever goes along with yours
Ruthieland is great for the holidays. Despite being over the age limit, you're given a bucket for treats and allowed to wear your costume. Farmer Crow is especially active and always looks for you in a crowd when it's time for one of their "staged" kidnappings. Ruthie hovers around you and just dumps all of his candy into your bag when it's refilled
All hell breaks loses with the fast food yans. Halloween is when the fog that separates your realty from the ball pit entity is weakest. The mascot traverses outside the establishment to find supplies for their big surprise. The janitor is barricading you in the break room with strange symbols drawn in blood on the door. The ice cream machine ghost is searching for you and comes across your other coworker still smoking in the bathroom. Kidney Guy has gained a few more mouths from a passing van of college kids... and is singing the monster mash to lull you into false security.
Elliot creates the perfect film for the two of you to watch, mixed in with a few classics. If you think you recognize any of the actors...no you don't. More popcorn?
To round things out with the person who I think is the worse on halloween.... it's V it's always fucking V. If he has his way - you'll be walking around in strings... only for him to get jealous at the thought of others seeing you when you've finally worn him down to go out and do something. At least he buys candy and rents whatever films you want to see?
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shebeafancyflapjack · 2 years ago
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!! as someone who watched red dwarf a while back, i was pleasantly surprised to bump into a fan of it while i was scrolling through a whole other blog (you know how tumblr binges go..) i haven't watched it in a while otherwise i'd come up with a more interesting question to ask you, but as it is i'm curious to know what you like about it! not in a judgemental way (sorry it probably sounded that way ahaha) but srsly, what specifically about the characters or the premise or whatever it may be draws you in? (thank you in advance for your answer, i'm sure it'll be delightful to read)
Woah, sorry if this is late I literelly just spotted it in my inbox and somehow missed the notif!
This answer might be disappointing but basically; I was raised on it. My earliest memory and how I learned what Fridays were was knowing "it's Red Dwarf night!" It was the best night because it meant I got to stay up late with my dad and brother and watch this show which would have us all laughing in stitches. I remember me and my dad had a game where I would ask "Why is it called red dwarf?" (Because it was series 6 and the only ship was Starbug) and Dad would say "Because that's the name of the spaceship!", which made no sense to me because Starbug was green, so I'd keep asking and eventually he'd just reply with random things like "that's the name of the cat." or something. 😂 I guess you had to be there but, yeah, a lot of my love for this show comes down to nostalgia and happy memories with my dad.
Now what kept me into the show as an adult? So many things. It's my favorite British style of humor; a group of people who annoy the smeg out of each other while also willing to die for each other. Its the absolute zaniness of the sci-fi where anything can happen, where humanoids evolved from cats, or a computer becoming senile, or a guy who is his own dad etc. It has all that insanity going on and yet each episode is so smegging COSY! Because an episode where the gang is fighting an insane robot is the same one where they throw a party for android friend who they think is about to die. Because the last man on earth tricks his ghost frienemy into confessing about his soup trauma for a laugh but also maybe free therapy.
And it's hilarious! No show has ever made me laugh so hard and I've watched it too many times to count over the years.
I honestly don't know how to sell it for someone coming in fresh or isn't fond of British humor but I always encourage everyone to give it a try; and I always recommend an episode from S3 - 6 as those are peak Red Dwarf eps imo. I love the whole show but the first 2 seasons can come off a bit slow for newbies and the comedy definitely took a hit post s7.
If there was one clip I'd show to kinda sum up the show in a nutshell it's this one:
youtube
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light-wolf · 2 years ago
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Ok, time for some thoughts regarding yesterday's Nintendo Direct!
Pikmin 4: Nothing too revolutionary, just taking the Pikmin formula and refining/expanding it, like Pikmin 2 and 3 did before it. And honestly, that's not a bad thing! I love the Pikmin games, they're really fun and charming and this one seems to continue that trend. It seems we're getting all the existing Pikmin types in addition to the new Ice Pikmin so that'll be cool. And the new doggo is adorable! I'm really looking forward to this one.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective: This is a game that I always wanted to play and never got to do it, so I'm glad to see it ported to the Switch! Maybe this will be the time I actually play it.
Sea of Stars: Absolutely gorgeous and looks really fun as well, taking inspiration from one of my favorite games ever. Apparently it got a demo so I'll probably give that a try. I still need to play The Messenger though...
Game Boy and Game Boy Advance added to Nintendo Switch Online: Finally! And now I actually have the Expansion Pack thanks to a friend so I can get hyped about GBA too. The libraries are a bit limited for the time being but that's to be expected. Looking forward to replaying some of my favorites from that era and also try a few classics for the first time. Although the games I'm most hyped about are the ones that were confirmed to come in the future, like Oracle of Seasons/Ages, Pokémon TCG, Metroid Fusion and of course freaking GOLDEN SUN (yes, I'm ready to replay it for the millionth time).
Metroid Prime Remastered: Okay, I wasn't expecting this one, even though it had been rumored for a while. While I would've liked to see the entire trilogy in one package, the first Prime is arguably the best one and also one of the best games ever made. The remake looks amazing and much more polished than just a simple HD port. Seriously, if you haven't played this game before, give it a try, it's a masterpiece, and this is coming from someone who hates shooters (Metroid Prime isn't really a shooter).
Baten Kaitos I & II Remaster: HOLY SHIT. Another one (two?) that I always wanted to play but didn't get when it first came out before it became impossible to find, and never bothered with trying to emulate. I'd love to give the series a chance on modern hardware.
Professor Layton And The New World of Steam: HOOOOOO BOY!!! This might seriously be my favorite announcement of the Direct, even though they didn't really show us anything! I was a HUGE Layton fan during the DS era and I was so sad that the series kinda just died all of a sudden. I'm honestly so fucking hyped for this! Please be good, please be good, please be good!
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC Wave 4: The new track looks amazing! Yoshi's Island was one of the defining games from my childhood so this gets me extremely nostalgic. Also Birdo was a nice surprise! I wasn't expecting characters in the pass! While I don't really care about Birdo in particular, this opens the door for more characters so maybe this means I can finally have my boy Diddy Kong again. Please. It's been so long.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: Honestly I don't have a lot to say about this one. Am I hyped? Absolutely. But we still know so little about this game! What's the story about? How does it differ from BotW? Although, part of me kinda wishes it stays this way. Trailers tend to spoil too much stuff these days, so I'm fine with keeping the surprises for when I actually play the game. Oh, and it's a minor thing, but I hope they bring back Wolf Link and/or a similar mechanic (and not locked to amiibo this time). I just loved exploring Hyrule with a doggo.
Overall a really exciting Direct, and there were also a bunch of other cool announcements that I didn't touch here. Now to work on my backlog so I can play shiny new games without feeling guilty, lol.
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clickbliss · 2 years ago
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My favorite ways to play GBA
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by Amr (@siegarettes)
The GBA is one of my all time favorite consoles. With an iconic, pocketable form factor and an expansive library of games, I’m still finding ways to enjoy it, over twenty years after its release. And with so many different options to revisit that library, it can be easy to get wrapped up in finding the “perfect” way to play it. But the truth is, so much of the handheld experience is wrapped up in the hardware you play it on, that the best option is going to be different for each person. 
So today I’m going to run through my favorite ways to play GBA, why I picked them, and what makes each great. 
***
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Before you start whipping out your wallet, look around your room, check your drawers, or dig through your garage and see if you’ve got a DS Lite hanging around. 
This was my GBA standby for years, and it still remains a great option. With a great clamshell design, rechargeable batteries, a built-in backlight, and perfect compatibility thanks to its built-in GBA hardware, it’s an accessible and fuss-free way to revisit old titles. As a bonus it plays, ya know, DS games. 
Audio output is clean, if a little bit low volume at times, but that can be fixed by pairing it with the right earbuds. The only real downsides are the aging hardware can make it a little harder to find good condition units, and the older screen and slightly higher resolution mean there’s slight ghosting and the image won���t fill the screen without stretching. 
The DS might not have the fidelity of modern options, but it’s an off the shelf solution with nearly every feature you’d want, with minor compromise and zero setup. 
***
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If you want something closer to the original experience, a modded GBA can’t be beat. I prefer an original model GBA, since it’s less cramped than the SP. With a new lens and an IPS screen, and custom shells, you can get a unit looking nearly like new, with an image that easily outdoes the DS, and of course, has perfect compatibility and integer scaling. 
The biggest drawback is by far the price. The components for modding are reasonable alone, but quickly add up, especially if you want options like rechargeable batteries, or a fix to the noisy GBA headphone jack. Power consumption rapidly becomes an issue as you add additional mods, or use a flashcart. At one point I thought I had bricked my console, but it turned out the combination of the increased power usage of my flashcart combined with the new screen was simply drawing more power than the depleted batteries could put out. 
Even with those hassles and drawbacks, when I need that uncompromised, perfect compatibility, this is my personal favorite way to play GBA. Modern screens might give an experience closer to emulation than slightly blurred, washed out colors of unmodified hardware, but it looks so good it’s hard to make a fuss about it. 
If you’re lucky to live in a place where you can access professional modding services, through Etsy, eBay or otherwise, you can buy a pre-modded GBA for not too much more than it’d cost to build it yourself, and save yourself the anxiety of trying not to break anything in the process. 
I got mine from Gamechanger Mods in New York. They’ve got tons of fantastic custom colorways, and Greg was prompt and quick in making adjustments and sending the unit back and forth. Honestly, it was easily worth what I paid for it, but it’s difficult to recommend this option for anyone other than the most particular players. 
***
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For people not going for original hardware, emulation is the easiest and best option. There’s a bit of a preconception that emulation is inherently and noticeably worse, but with over 20 years of emulator development, emulation has progressed to the point where, with the right hardware and software, it’s near indistinguishable from the real thing. The process itself introduces some inherent latency, but unless you’re playing a rhythm game or you’re a speedrunner attempting frame perfect tricks, you probably won’t notice. In return you get an incredible suite of features and flexibility. 
For my money, mGBA is hands down the best out there, with incredible accuracy and robust features that I didn’t even know I wanted. Tuned correctly, performance was even consistent enough for me to play games with tight timing, like Rhythm Heaven. It can’t make me good at them though. 
I do have to shout out VisualBoy Advance though, which hit early and paved the way for a lot of future efforts. I was legit emulating games as I kept current with physical releases, thanks to VBA. 
***
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When I need a pocketable GBA emulator, to me the Anbernic 351P is the only option. The 351P has just enough power to run mGBA smoothly, with low latency, and just as importantly, has a screen that matches the GBA’s 3:2 aspect ratio, at a  perfect 2X integer scale. Basically no other portable emulator can say that. 
The shoulder buttons are similar to those on a GBA SP, but with microswitches and landscape form factor closer to the original GBA, as well as a good dpad, four responsive face buttons, dual analog sticks that click in, secondary shoulder buttons, and a rotary volume wheel. 
The same factors that made it ideal for GBA compromise the other systems it can play, but it’s generally still adequate otherwise. On top of accurate emulation, you can even configure it for save states, rewind and fast forward, and remap the controls as you please, which is a godsend in difficult action games like Mega Man Zero. 
The biggest problem is how much work you have to do to get it up and running. It’s not even worth using the stock firmware, and you might as well throw away the SD card it ships with, leaving you to flash a custom OS and load up your own SD card with ROMs, if you want it to meet what I’d consider the minimum standard for emulation. No matter what firmware you go with, you’ll be stuck with Retroarch, which is a miserable hassle to navigate, even after you get over the learning curve. 
Quality control is hit and miss too. My first unit had its headphone jack come loose through regular use, and the replacement I was sent had the same issue, even after I took extreme care with it. I ended up opening it up and resoldering the joints myself to repair it, which should NOT be a required step. 
Personally, the 351P is still by far the best portable emulator in terms of features, form factor and price, but it’s up to you if all that work is actually worth it. 
***
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Now if price is no issue, and you somehow don’t care about portable play, the MiSTer project offers an incredible suite of alternatives to emulation. While software emulation still has it beat in flexibility, accessibility and diversity of options, a lot of the common conveniences are here, bolstered by an FPGA solution that emulates the system at a hardware level. It’s probably one of the most accurate ways to play GBA, barring original hardware, and still cheaper than trying to get a GBA Player running on modern screen, or modding a GBA into console form. 
There’s a lot to love in the MiSTer’s GBA core--from the infinite controller choices, micro adjustments you can make to the display and sound options, and even support for the same rewind, fast forward and save states you’d get elsewhere. 
By far my favorite feature is the 2 player GBA core. It’s a bit of a pain to import and edit save data, but it’s otherwise one of the fastest ways to get GBA multiplayer up and running, without the need for two systems, carts or link cables. There are so many ways to display the two screens, including outputting the second player to a separate screen. It opened up the possibility to easily play a lot of the multiplayer modes I’d never had the chance to check out. 
I legit brought my MiSTer to my local fighting game meetup and played loads of multiplayer GBA games, some for the first time. We tried everything from Sonic Battle to competitive Mega Man Battle Network. All with our own controllers or arcade sticks. 
***
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And those are all my favorite ways to play GBA!
Each of these are great options, but don’t get wrapped in thinking they’re the only choices.
Regardless of which way you choose to play the GBA, there’s an incredible library to dig into, with ways to personalize the experience to fit exactly the life you’re living. 
The important part is to get out there, and play the damn games. 
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ashdumpsterpile · 4 years ago
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ASH’S TMA HURT/COMFORT/FLUFF REC LIST 
For the gays. (And @damcrows who’s been dead for the past 24 hours. Rest in peace babe. Read some gay fic. Deny the inevitability of canon. <3)
___
the end, but the start (of all things that are left to do)  by @ajkal2
Jon wakes up.
aka. mag200 tore out my heart
(Very smol, very short, very spoiler. Def recommend for anyone who just finished the podcast.)
remind me how to smile by @tamerofdarkstars
Jon is probably fine, just hiding out somewhere while the whole murder thing blows over and that's... fine. Martin is fine with that explanation. Really. He's got plenty to distract himself - like listening through the entire What the Ghost episode library, for example. Or watching Georgie Barker's Instagram livestreams.
(Yea this was in the last rec list, but you don’t understand THE ADMIRAL GIVES CUDDLES)
Chamomile by Dribbledscribbles
Whatever the ex-tea was, if it really had ever been that last bag of chamomile Martin claimed he’d found tucked in the back of the cupboard, it was fast now.
Martin had tried catching it, chasing it, blocking its way with shoebox lids and plates and an upended footstool, but the thing was just too quick. Jon knew as well as Knew that he might have left off the attempts completely if not for the creature’s preferred game.
The game was, See How Many Times I Can Push Martin Towards Cardiac Arrest Before He Comes at Me with The Broom.
(Scottish Honeymoon Era. Adorable and weird. A vampire gets harassed.)
hey stranger by @ennuijpg
It’s a late night Tesco run, how eventful could it be? It’s not like Martin is going to run into his boss who’s wearing something absurdly different from usual and get the most acute form of whiplash possible from seeing him, right?
(Martin runs into Jon at the grocery store and has an existential crisis.)
roses roses, roses. by @judesstfrancis
Rose scented laundry detergent. Running into Jon in the breakroom. Running into Jon on his way back to his desk. Rose scented detergent. Running into Jon. Roses. Jon. Roses, roses, roses. 
(Canon enemies to friends to lovers au-ish. Martin POV. Very pining much sweet.)
go softly by doomcountry
And there is nothing else besides this. 
(More hurt/comfort than fluff. Scottish Honeymoon Era. Mild eye mutilation.)
Not Alone by @backofthebookshelf
After the coffin, Daisy and Jon are both fragile. They hold each other up. 
(Post-buried Jon&Daisy starter pack. Very hurt/comfort.)
trust my love by antlsepticeye
“you… you’re real, aren’t you?” jon whispers, the fog slowly dissipating from his mind. “it is not a trick?”
“i’m here,” martin says softly, reaching up to grab jon’s hand that was resting on his cheek, intertwining his fingers with jon’s and squeezing. he moves jon’s hand to martin’s chest, resting it over his heart. “you’re alright. i’m alright. take your time, love. let’s just take some deep breaths, okay?”
(TOUCHSTARVED JON HAS ENTERED THE CHAT.)
reaching out by Athina_Blaine
By the time things settled, when Martin had finally managed to crack through his cold shell, feel some of his old self returning to him in bits and pieces, they had found their little routine.
One that had the two of them sleeping in the same bed, making breakfast, going to the mart. Where Jon reached for his wrist while they slept, and Martin luxuriated in the gentle warmth of his fingers.  
But not one where Martin reached back. One that had Martin kissing Jon awake or taking his hand over the breakfast table, because ... Martin never had the courage to try. And then it never became a part of the routine.
And Martin desperately wanted it to be.
-
Martin and Jon have an important conversation.
(More Scottish Honeymoon Era for the soul. Hurt/comfort/fluff.)
Belabor by @janekfan​
Jon's given the position of Archivist and is falling apart at the seams. Tim and Sasha are upset and playing games. Elias is overbearing and manipulative.
And poor Martin is stuck cleaning up the mess.
(THEE first fic I ever read for tma. Season 1, hurt/comfort/fluff, and hints of Jmartin. janekfan is the absolute master of seasons 1-3 hurt/comfort. This is my favorite, but pls check out the rest of their fics.)
tea, blankets, and a damnable stubborn attitude by ivelostmyspectacles
“Are you really gonna stay here and pester Jon all evening?”
“I’m not pestering him,” Martin retorted, sounding vehement if not busy going through the cupboards. “I’m heating up soup.”
“Oh, you might as well make him another cup of tea while you’re at it.”
“Oh, good idea.”
Jon shot Tim a withering look.
(The one where Jon is ill, Martin makes tea and they watch doctor who together. Fluff 1000%.)
A Kind Hand by @voiceless-terror
Jonathan Sims was adjusting just fine, thank you very much.
In which a minor workplace spill causes Jon to realize that he might have friends.
(Ah yes, the other master of seasons 1-3 fic aka voiceless-terror being my other fav author in the fandom. This one is also season 1 hurt/comfort/fluff.)
A Weather In The Flesh by @cuttoothed
"There is a span of years where Jon doesn’t touch anyone other than the occasional hand shake. It’s not so bad. He’s never been someone who’s needed physical affection."
*
Jon has never been any good at making people want to stick around.
(More touched starved Jon! Much hurt/comfort!)
Something Old, Something New by @cirrus-grey
Months have passed, and everyone is doing better than they were. Daisy and Basira are getting married, Melanie is feeling her old self, Georgie is as much herself as she has ever been, and even Jon has stabilized on his wild fall away from humanity. Everyone is doing better.
Well. Almost everyone.
(Daisy/Barsira wedding! Melanie is a bitch and we love her! Jmartin dance! Post-canon (almost) everyone lives!)
The Weight of Love by @voiceless-terror
Jon is a restless sleeper. Martin attempts to adjust. 
(The fic where Jon is literally me and Martin attempts to sleep for 1k words.)
The Art of Conversation by @voiceless-terror
"Do you ever stop talking?"
Jon has a complicated relationship with words. Difficulties come and go.
(Jon has adhd and Martin is in love.)
Novelty by @backofthebookshelf
Jon experiences A Sexual Attraction; Martin has A Concern. They figure it out.
(Any fic that explores the ace spectrum is a 10/10. We stan all ace interpretations of jon on this blog.)
Half a Hug by Dathen
I know you weren’t going to hurt me, I trust you, he said again and again. And then a different kind of fear shone through, hollow and echoing: “Please don’t stop touching me."
-
Or: Life is hard when you're touch-starved but have trauma related to your closest friend.  Spoilers through TMA 132.
(Honestly bless every author who saw jon&daisy and was like. They’re siblings. No I will not elaborate.)
the loneliness never left me (but i can put it down in the pleasure of your company) by Athina_Blaine
It was about Martin making Jon feel safe, treasured, and loved. And it had been so, so long since anyone made him feel that way.
And, in the face of it all, Jon was starting to flounder.
(At this point I just need to make separate rec list for Scottish Honeymoon Era.)
you can watch me corrode by scarletfish
"So, how long have you been pulling this shit then?"
"I… excuse me?" Jon’s indignant, certain she can’t mean what he thinks she means.
"When was the last time you ate?"
(Georgie decides Jon and Melanie need a normal day off. Jon learns that he and Melanie have more in common than he thought.)
(Look, Melanie isn’t my favorite person in tma, but she and Jon are like THE SAME PERSON and I adore fics that elaborate on their relationship.)
Out of the Wind, In From the Cold by @ostentenacity
There are two bedrooms in the safehouse, and two beds.
For a moment, Jon considers asking to share, but decides against it with a wince. “I really loved you,” Martin had told him. Loved. Past tense. And Martin doesn’t exactly have a lot of choices right now in terms of company; it would be cruel to demand he play at feelings he no longer has just to make Jon happy.
(For a moment, Martin considers asking to share. But he dismisses the idea with a shake of his head. Jon has already done so much for him. Martin isn’t about to ask for more, especially not when it’s something he doesn’t really need. He has his right mind back, and he has Jon’s friendship. That should be enough for him. It’ll have to be.)
---
Jon thinks that Martin doesn’t love him. Martin thinks that Jon doesn’t love him. They do not, of course, discuss this. Unrequited love is already awkward enough, right? No need to dwell on it.
(THEE SCOTTISH HONEYMOON ERA FIC. IT’S ABOUT THE PINING, BEING MUTUALLY OBLIVIOUS AND FALLING IN LOVE. 10000/10.) 
I Do by @voiceless-terror
“I, um- this was supposed to be a lot more romantic, I swear.” Martin looks down at the dirty bar floor. “I had it all planned out, I-I was going to take you somewhere nice, and then we’d go for a walk in the square- I’ll still do it!” He hurries to explain, as if that’s the most pressing part of this situation. “It’ll be really nice, I’ve already hired a photographer-”
In a fit of protectiveness, Martin proposes to Jon.
(Everyone lives, Martin accidentally proposes and Jon is crying in public.) 
________
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neuxue · 3 years ago
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Hi, neuxue......If you don't mind me asking, who are your favorite “villains” (or antagonists) in MXTX works? Whether it’s a final boss like Jun Wu or more of a side character like Xue Yang. (Whether you want to do a ranking or just write out in no particular order)...Sorry if you've answered this question before....
If I don't mind??? If I don't mind? Please, my friend, you give me an opportunity to talk about favourite villains and I am yours for as long as you'll listen.
Not going to attempt to order them so we'll just go by story:
CQL
Xue Yang - characters who don't realise what they want, or that they've found a way to have it, until the moment when they destroy it!! Who destroy it because on some level they don't truly believe they can have it at all, and because it's easier to lose something when you can convince yourself you were always going to, and that it was your own choice. The whole time-bomb of Yi City just wrecks me.
I'm also generally here for his brand of competence and mercuriality - the knife-edged playfulness that doesn't quite mask a deeper darkness, the tendency to dance just a little too close to the edge with the particular carefree abandon of one who cannot imagine living beyond youth.
Finally... oh man do I even want to try to articulate this? So, he has several traits that often get used as a shorthand for not just ‘evil’ but ‘inherently evil’. Which... frustrates me. But with Xue Yang... yes, he's cast as a villain and yes he loses everything and yes he dies alone and unmourned... but there's a sense of 'it didn't have to go this way'. If the cart driver had been kinder; if his capability had been put to some use other than ‘weapon’. Or that moment in Yi City where he seems to delight just as much in cheating at a silly game of choosing sticks as he does in tricking Xiao Xingchen into killing people. This idea that there could have been another path. (And also, via Yi City, that he is not... inherently unlovable). His story ends in tragedy, but it’s not framed, at least the way I (choose to) read it, as ‘your story can only end in tragedy, because of the way you are’. It gives the option to read it as ‘you are not inherently monstrous’.
(Which then almost feeds back into the tragedy of the first point, because it’s only there in a kind of meta sense: Xue Yang himself? only ever receives the you are a weapon, you are a monster, that is all you can be side of it. Oh man okay I’ll stop here before I get pulled into a whole essay on this because suddenly I want to).
Jin Guangyao - I love a schemer! I love a pragmatist! I love ruthless competence beneath an inscrutable smile! I love characters who will tolerate nothing less than absolute perfection in themselves because they have learned the hard way that it’s the only possible way to survive. Characters who are not exempt from their own ruthlessness, their own cost-benefit analysis. Characters who have learned from their world that happiness must be sacrificed at the altar of survival, and who will do so with heartbreak but without hesitation when necessary. The only way is forward; to look back is to fail, but the irony is they can still never outrun their pasts.
Also he’s another one where there’s such a sense of it didn’t have to end this way. So many points at which things could have been different, so many alternate versions in which his capability could have been channelled towards a different goal, if the goal carved into his bones didn’t have to be survive, in a world that will try to make that impossible. 
I love villains and antagonists of all stripes and moralities, but in this instance what I love is a character who doesn’t want to be a villain, doesn’t want their hands stained with blood, doesn’t want to hurt those they love... but they do not see a choice. 
Wen Zhuliu - he’s highly competent and wears fingerless gloves; what more do you want from me?
Honestly though, he fascinates me. In part it’s the fact that we just don’t get much interiority to him, and only one exchange of dialogue that really suggests his motives, but we also get these little moments, that collectively build this sense of a kind of... lawful neutral, I suppose? Not even villain-by-necessity so much as villain-by-...debt? loyalty? But he also so clearly has such a strong sense of honour, and I just love trying to reconcile all of those pieces into a cohesive whole. 
The other thing that really gets me about him is his extraordinary power and how it’s regarded - especially when juxtaposed with Wei Wuxian’s. In both cases you have a single individual who holds a terrifying and mostly unique power that threatens or pushes the boundaries of their whole society and world. Wei Wuxian commands ghosts without a sword; Wen Zhuliu can extinguish someone’s power with his hands. But, crucially, the difference between them seems to be... that Wei Wuxian is a wildcard; Wen Zhuliu is leashed. And so I have to wonder once again at the strength of that leash, and at what would happen if Wen Zhuliu, like Wei Wuxian, decided to rebel. And in that whole question lives in this really interesting space of... what is it people truly fear? The power? The wielder? That person’s ability to choose? The uncertainty of what they will choose? The possibility of them realising they can?
***
TGCF
He Xuan - I mean the theme here obviously is competence, and He Xuan has a killer aesthetic to go with it, but mostly it’s just... the way his whole character is an exploration of revenge, and the line between vengeance and justice, and the question inherent in the irony of... throwing away the very thing you wanted vengeance for, in order to exact that vengeance.
(And also the whole cycle-of-revenge in doing unto another what was once done unto you, in the process of exacting that vengeance).
I’m just. Unbelievably here for a good betrayal story, and this one has it all! The intimacy! The self-betrayal! The emptiness and hunger!
And while with Xue Yang I love that moment of realising what he wants, or what he’s losing, only in the moment when he destroys it... with He Xuan what I love is that he goes into this, in so many ways, knowing what he’s doing. This is not spontaneity; this is the ultimate premeditation. He knows what he has, in his guise as a heavenly official. He knows, intimately, the person he is betraying. He has given great thought to the how of that betrayal. 
(Is it worth it, in the end?)
(After all, he’s still here)
Bai Wuxiang - one of the dynamics that will wreck me pretty much every time is what I like to call ‘intimate enemies’. Enemies-to-lovers can fit under that umbrella, but it’s a broader umbrella than just that. The idea of characters who (either one-sided or reciprocally) know each other so deeply, and can wield that knowledge to wound. The awful gentleness and precision of holding a knife to the core of someone’s identity. 
That, plus the identity fuckery in general. The way Bai Wuxiang frames himself as Xie Lian’s mirror, and the way he then reflects and warps and tugs at those pieces of Xie Lian’s self and name and will, trying to shape them in his image, but so gently. The way he talks to Xie Lian! The way he strokes his hair as he stabs him! It’s just so much, okay!
So yeah, a lot of it is that I’m just very into the highkey fucked-up dynamic he has with Xie Lian. But also Bai Wuxiang’s own story hits me in a kind of... if you’ll forgive a Wheel of Time reference: betrayer-of-hope betrayed-by-hope kind of way. That he tried so hard once, only for it to fall to ruin in his hands, and now he watches another try (and fail!) as he once did. And the way he seems to, in trying to mould Xie Lian’s present to his own past, be searching for a kind of... vindication? A confirmation of that inevitability? That of course he failed, that he could never have succeeded, because this is the nature of humanity, and it is not worth saving, and so his attempts weren’t failure. 
But the thing with that is: it’s a lose-lose situation. If he succeeds and Xie Lian fails, yes, it gives him that sense of ‘there was never another way, and no point trying to find one’ but is that really... winning? Is finding vindication in despair truly a success? And yet if he fails and Xie Lian succeeds, then does that not also feel like a sword to the heart: that it wasn’t inevitable, and that means he has to come to terms with his own failure and the heartbreak it wrought?
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steve0discusses · 3 years ago
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Yugioh S5 Ep 23: No One Expects Bakura
Got a lot of lore in this episode, which I didn’t really expect in any part of this arc, but it sure happened. And it’s so wild I’m still processing it. So lets dive into some lore because I need to write some words about the places this episode is going to go.
We step out of the magical glowing door, only to arrive at the original map.
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And out of no where this guy shows up. Alexander the Great decides he’s done stalking the crew and wants to join them at the very, very tall fire they lit in the woods. Honestly, Maybe Alexander the Great was like “holy crap these city kids are going to burn down my entire woods holy crap.”
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Tea does throw Alexander directly under the bus upon meeting him, maybe not as bluntly but still pretty blunt. And Alexander is like “Don’t I know it.”
And while I’m sure y’all are like “wow, Yugioh sure thinks a lot of themselves to put the literal King Alexander in their TV show.” Don’t worry. There’s a bigger twist coming.
(read more under the cut)
First thing he does is whip out his coat with this stance that conveniently also shows off his built arms, to which all the men were like “woah” while Tea rolled her eyes. Not sure what Alexander the great is lifting out here in the middle of nowhere, maybe a couple of duel monsters? Maybe some trees? But clearly he still has the energy to do his daily HIIT.
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I really can’t think of a worse punishment for a famous warrior than the worst armor ever made.  After introducing his armor, he decides to give us a history lesson, which literally no one paid any attention to because of the glaring situation hanging underneath King Alexander’s neck.
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YEAH.
I keep falling for it. Every time I’m like “ah, Yugioh is calming down for a spell” they do this to me. Here I was kind of wading through this predictable arc and then the writers were like “We’re losing them, we have to pull out the rug” and they did. They pulled out that one spice in the back of their cabinet that seems to fix so many seasons of Yugioh.
Bakura’s back. Welcome. Hell knows, we missed this mess.
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I guess he’s not literally “here” here, but the same ghost inhabited both these boys, and one of the boys went so nuts he decided to conquer the Old World before he turned 32, and then the other boy spent his time stabbing himself to trick people to take him to the hospital, pulling out false eyeballs, shooting lasers, and killing old minibosses in graveyards.
And just...the implications here.
Like everyone who uses the same millennium item throughout time has some soul-similarities, almost like a reincarnation. Like Yugi and Pharaoh are such a good blend at this point that Yami answers to Yugi’s name basically always. Even when people know Yugi is dead, they stilled didn’t call Yami Yami. There’s some type of soul that has to use a certain item, and when you mess with that, you get Marik, who couldn’t control his millennium item properly if Seto (who was supposed to own it) was nearby.
So the implications here are that while Pharaoh is pretty powerful, Alexander the Great...conquered Egypt. And you got Kaiba who I guess was Rosencratz in a video game and Yugi also was Henry the 5th once...
...but Bakura was Alexander the freakin Great and I’m just letting that sink in because now he’s just going to hang out with them as if he’s a normal guy. As if he’s just a Bakura hanging out with his frenemies around a camp fire.
Which...the last time they hung out around a campfire with Bakura, he did end up murdering all of them 5 minutes later to try and steal the necklace but like...
...holy crap literal Alexander the Great might be nicer than actual Bakura...
So, you may be wondering how Yugioh explained what the hell happened to Alexander the Great, and what that has to do with card games. Don’t worry, we have that other guy who we only see show up once a blue moon, that’s right, you completely forgot about him, and I know you did, because I completely forgot about him, too.
It’s everyone’s favorite life-ruiner, Shadi! He even has a new belt!
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Bro was like “lol what if he has a millennium belt?” and um...it does seem to have an eye on it, so chances are high that’s a cursed belt for a spinoff.
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So I’ve been giving Alexander such a hard time about this convoluted game of nursery rhyme riddles but...it was Shadi. Which makes a lot more sense because Shadi has been not really alive for a really long time. He might not remember how people work. 
And, in Shadi fashion, he actually is doing the Season Zero thing of judging whether you have authority over your item which...about time. He forgot to do this to Marik (or maybe he did and Marik got through by accident?) and he didn’t seem to care about Ishizu (which...yeah) but he did show up about 12 years too late to be like “Yo I think you might be disrupting all of mankind, Alexander.”
It’s all Shadi’s fault. I can’t believe Alexander the Great was Shadi’s fault! Shadi has screwed us a lot, but I can’t believe he’s been screwing humanity for That Long and at That Scale.
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Bakura is just in so many places--because he’s also in Yugi’s necklace right now, watching this and being like “Oi, it’s my ex. Awkward.”
So the nice part of the ghost that has since moved on and currently lives in modern Bakura hangs his head in shame, because his nice side has been cruising around this horrible tabletop game for like thousands of years.
TBH he deserves it, Alexander the Great killed like.....so many freakin people.
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and no, the show never tells us that Bakura ever entered this pyramid, and there’s a good choice that the Ghost side of Bakura has learned to keep it lower key so he doesn’t have to deal with Shadi’s BS...but Shadi WAS on the same blimp as the rest of them, right? He knew all the items were in one place, he told us.
But ah, I am remembering now, that he then he looked at Bakura passed out on a bed, and then up at Tea who was possessed by Bakura and holding onto that ring, and Shadi was like “oh it’s this dumbass. Well, DnD pyramid’s full, maybe next time.”
So while they definitely wrote this arc looooong after S2, it does work into the lore that, because Bakura was already shadow realmed, Bakura missed this wonderful opportunity to hang out in the ghost pyramid with his early incarnation that also has a British accent for some reason.
HOLY CRAP.
The British accent was foreshadowing. That’s insane. I can’t believe the foreshadowing is that he was 1.) British and that’s it. No other things. Just British. Other than that, nothing else really feels Bakura about his look, he’s a completely opposite body type.
Freakin this guy is towering over the rest of them at like 10 feet tall. Ancient Bakura was a roided giant. Like Pharaoh is still tiny in his era like Yugi is, but Bakura? A freakin beast.
So Alexander OldBakura pulls a riddle out of his pocket because he couldn’t figure it out himself all those years ago when he hella died in this pyramid because the only smart part of Bakura is ever in ghost form--”nice” Bakura is always kind of a sweetie dumbass that habitually does bad things.
Although this one is played off as more a himbo in this show, which is crazy, because I never thought I’d call Alexander the Great a himbo. But compared to the other villains...yeah...
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PS, you may be wondering...but he didn’t die in India, Alexander left India, didn’t he? You’re right. He didn’t die in India. The show has a loose interpretation of history at the best of times, but they addressed this and inferred that Alexander went full ghost after half of him got lost in the pyramid, which lead to him getting hella betrayed and he died. They leave it very vague since IRL we don't know what happened to Alexander’s body and he died in kind of a weird way, which I think I went over already in a previous episode. People like to make Alexander’s death kind of mysterious IRL, but that’s mostly History Channel propaganda--he most likely just took a while to die and they called him dead too early.
Well...at least this clears up what his tomb is doing in India, because this isn’t a tomb. It doesn’t exist! Shadi’s ghost magic at work, this place is fake. Which is how no one else has found it.
How did Joey end up with a ticket here? How did Grandpa get a message from Alexander the Great, who I guess was his protege and closest friend (according to the...other Alexander standing outside who...I’m not sure who that guy is actually.) So many questions that I have that we will not get to because we still have to do the riddle Macguffin quest that every episode of this arc has to do.
I can’t believe the audacity of this show that they’re going to explain away Alexander the Great. How close are we to bringing in Atilla the Hun or Ghengis Khan? I shudder to even say this but like...they thought about Hitler right? Hitler was definitely on the table to have some sort of eyeball implement in his pocket? Thank GOODNESS we finally stepped away from alternate Hitler in media lately because there was a period of just...too many Hitlers in movies and TV (I say knowing full well they’d probably just write an alt Robert E Lee instead with way too many belts on and it’d probably whip ass.)
Anyway, the last riddle is kind of dark.
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Hey guys, just an art tip, never draw a dragon so it’s tail goes in between it’s own legs like that. It’s like...I mean you can see it, right? Phallic dragon in a big way? Like Kaiba can do it because we all know that’s what he’s after, but I don’t think the spooky Dragon Cult was going for the same suggestive stance.
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So we start off this riddle by walking in on a girl who is ready to fling herself off of a cliff, as you do, in order to power up the White Eyes Blue Dragon, which sure is a weird lore footnote for this kid’s show to shove into a side arc. Pharaoh and Joey are like “woah guys, this seems super unnecessary, like I get that everyone here is fake, but come the hell on.”
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And what’s crazy is that we have seen this story before about the 5 headed dragon at the end of S1. It came back.
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Kaiba’s bad VR experience is so far better than Shadi’s, I’ll give him that. Almost like Kaiba makes games for a living.
There’s also this dragon chick who I wish was that girl that Seto Kaiba hallucinated once in a card game, but it’s instead just some weird ass girl (yes, I looked this up). Still thinking she might turn into a dragon though because...she’s just really freakin weird.
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And so the writers had us go to 5 separate locations in this very short episode, when all I want to do is discuss why the hell Bakura and Alexander the Great share the same damn necklace. But sure, we’ll go to 5 different locations, why not.
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Also Joey does this without skipping a beat it’s like...yeah, Tristan almost dies (and literally dies) all the time, this is probably the right choice.
Then they get a little tour of the city by the dragon sacrifice girl, where we meet a plot relevant sword, because swords in this arc are kind of like Legend of Zelda keys. We got like 9 different types of swords at this point, but we gotta keep stacking em out of a paranoid fear that we’re gonna miss one and get softlocked out of the water temple.
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Yes, the nasty-ass Bakura-god Alexander the Great was not pure enough for the sword of “divinity” and that sure is an understatement.
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Pharaoh also can’t lift the sword and he just shrugs and says “We’ll get to it later.” because Pharaoh knows how DnD works. He decides to follow the DM’s clear pathing and go to the 5 locations although we all know this won’t matter. He already knows this is a pointless quest.
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Luckily, they did remember they can fly this episode, and so fighting their dragons with the other dragons, they quickly realize “yeah these are invincible actually.” And Yugi is like--”Quick, to the plot sword!”
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Yugi picked up a monster at Lava Lava Mountain, but I do not remember it’s name. I only know is that, when fused, it makes very busy Xenoblade armor. Like kind of if an AI bot made Xenoblade armor.
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I don’t like it. Anyway, he puts down his crazy shaped decorative blade that wouldn’t be able to cut freakin anything, and picks up the normal shaped blade.
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And after this they actually had a really good idea for some visual spectacle. Problem is, it just wasn’t executed well, I couldn’t even cap it because it went by in too few frames. They wanted to have the energy from the dragons swoop into this sword and then light it up into a 10000 ft light saber that fills the screen as he flicks it around. This could have looked pretty neat, I think that the story-boarding intended it to be cool, but wow, the execution. Man.
A shame, how much potential there was in this sword fight that didn’t make it because this side arc is so compact that they only had like 10 seconds to work with.
Not like it mattered.
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Behold:
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Look, it’s every one of us walking out of quarantine. mm. I feel you, 5-headed dragon. Same. Big Same.
Anyway, next time hopefully we’ll just get through this dragon fight quickly because um--Bakura, what the hell?
Anyway, I’ve been hella slow about doing these, but hopefully I’ll get back into the swing? (and maybe I’m just a one post a week person now ((two weeks? OMG when was the last time I posted?))) Anyway, now I’ve since learned not to do 3 side-projects at once.
And to read these in chronological order, here is the link: https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono
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ktheist · 4 years ago
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heartbreaker of mine
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muses. jungkook x reader
synopsis. ah, here we are again. the overtold, cliche as hell story about two best friends who might or might not be in love with each other. except you can’t - wouldn’t dare to dream about being with jungkook.
alternatively, wherein you fell for the one who could break your heart.
words. 7.5k
universe. university / slice of life
warnings. mentions of physical insecurities; appearance, commitment issues
x
you should have known that in the absence of two of your best friends, nothing ever goes right when you decide to hang out. it isn’t the fact that you’ve known each other since diapers and basically know anything and everything about the other, that at some point you feel like your friendship is stale and need new additions - that’s where park jimin and kim taehyung comes in; a year older but several younger at heart, you couldn’t have imagined going through uni life with someone but them - but it’s the fact that realization hits you at the end of your final year that makes you drift apart. 
the fact of the matter is, you prefer the solitude of your room, the library of that one spot in the cafe that you’ve claimed as yours. and jeon jungkook prefers the blare of music, strobe lights and bodies grinding against him.
by your final year, as you receive a job offer at the company you interned in on your second year, taehyung is already working part time at the company he interned in, jimin thinking about that modeling offer he just got scouted for and jeon jungkook is getting daddies of the girls he’s having a thing with to get him to work at their office just so their daughter can see their favorite boy more - yours and jungkook’s friendship has dwindled down to mere silences as you wait for the other two to knock on the door and fill the place up with their endless bickering about whether dumplings are better than mochi.
 “shouldn’t you like, give me advice?” are the words jungkook said to you while you type away on your laptop, trying to do some light reading for tomorrow’s class before your mac gets confiscated for ‘pooping the party’ as taehyung likes to call it.
and you know what he’s talking about without even having preambles of the topic make its way into the conversation.
yet you still take off your glasses and set it down in your lap and ask, “what could jeon jungkook possibly have not known and needed advice on?”
he scrunches his nose, not appreciating your sarcasm but humors it anyway, “you know,” he shrugs, as though shrunk into the sofa from either shyness or embarrassment - you don’t know, “on like, how to start being serious about life - and settling down.”
the silence that stretches is a stale one, filled with your blank stare and jungkook’s peering eyes - even at the age of 22, the stars still glimmer like they’ve been freshly plucked from the skies.
“you want me to help pick, out of the many job offers you got from your girlfriends’ rich parents, for you to do?” is your conclusion - though if you were 2 years younger and had a little bit more faith for the boy you basically called your twin, it would have been a good natured jest. but you’re older and jungkook isn’t exactly portraying characteristics of an upstanding citizen either.
“no,” his hair brushes against his brows as he shakes his head almost too eagerly - as though he saw that coming but still got upset and wanted to prove you wrong, “like how to start taking things seriously like settling down with someone and no, not with out of my many girlfriends - can we not call them that? it makes me sound like an ass.”
it takes you less than five seconds to digest his words, eyes drifting to the white screen of your mac for the sole reason you can’t bear to hold his intense gaze while you conjure up a response, “well for one, you are but there’s honestly nothing i can tell you that you don’t know already and there’s nothing i can possibly say to make you want to change - it has to come from you. or like, a professional that could help and if you think you need one, i’ll be with you all step-“
the brief scoff is what puts a rest to your racing thoughts while the smile on his lips put your heart at ease, “i’m not addicted to sex.”
“oh, okay.” is all you say, not seeing where the conversation is going as you watch the boy scratch the back of his ear, lips pulled into a pout - one way you know he’s trying to strum words into existence. and when he does, confused is an understatement to describe what your face is portraying.
“okay,  i’m saying if and if you’re looking for a husband, no, scratch that, would you even introduce someone like me to your parents?” but that’s the thing, you’re not confused because you don’t know where this is going but you’re confused because you don’t pretend to be oblivious.
but you’re also not a master at the art of heart-to-hearts and the gargantuan elephant that it brings. so you settle with a, “uh, i don’t know, you already know my parents, don’t know how i can reverse that and reintroduce you-“
“that’s not the point,” he blinks, the sight almost endearing as he freezes in his spot for a split second in contemplation of how to approach the matter and explain it to you who seem like you’re way off, “the point is-“
“i get it.”  you nod, arms crossing over your chest as jungkook’s wide eyes peers into you like a mixture of relief anticipation.
“you do?”
“you’re worried if your future partner will be insecure about the bodies you’ve seen before them,” there’s a knock on the door just as you’ve finished speaking.
as you get up to get up to answer it, knowing already who’s there from the obnoxious chatters - more like argument - you’re not sure if your brain is playing tricks on you or if jungkook’s shoulder line really falls as well as his face.
but the, “uh, yeah, i guess,” is what makes you push the image of dimmed stars and downturned pink lips to the back of your mind as you unlock the door, welcoming the two halfway-into-a-deep-quarreling men and their two bags of take-away roasted chicken, chips, mashed potatoes and whatever else they thought necessary to fill the game night with.
“thanks, shortcake,” taehyung smiles at you after you take a plastic bags off his and jimin’s hands and proceed to place it on the coffee table.
“tae, you’re literally taller than everyone,” throwing him a side glance, you shrug as you begin taking out the packed chicken wings and placing it in front of jungkook while taehyung helps with unpacking the add-ons from another bag, “calling me short isn’t exactly an insult.”
“i’m just saying we should demolish mint chocolate chips all at once,” jimin plops down on the couch adjacent to jungkook, “and no, we can’t let these savages go eating them - we need to educate-“
somewhere in the middle of jimin’s colonial-esque speech, you turn to the boy who’s never said a word since the two came in. not that those too needed an additional converse partner with how taehyung is advocating for leaving mint chocolate chip eaters alone and jimin staying with his stance that these people haven’t had a taste of all flavors in the world yet.
the way he seems to look at something past your shoulders tells you enough - he’s still deep in his thoughts about settling down, or changing or whatever. you don’t know why exactly he wants to change his heartbreaker ways but- “there’s nothing wrong with two adults having a - or multiple - consensual sexual relationship prior to finding their significant other. and if they have a problem with that then that’s something they need to work on, not you so no, i don’t think you should change anything unless you want to.”
x
it’s some days later that taehyung brings up the remnant of the conversation he overheard before the four of you began arguing about what movie to watch and ended up putting the fate of humanity in rock paper scissors. and so you tell him, without ever thinking of the one thing that spurred his ridiculous thought and the hesitance of pouring it onto you.
“don’t look at me, i’m not snitching.” jimin’s round, disbelieved eyes stares back at taehyung as though surprised the latter would ever think he’d do such a thing.
“okay but someone’s gotta tell her.” taehyung lowly mumbles, upper body turned to jimin, gracing you with his beautiful side profile - whoever gets to date him will forever be the lucky one.
“guys, i’m literally right here.” the sound of your voice warrants a turn of heads and a wide-eyed stare as though they’re seeing your ghost rather than your physical form that entered and picked a spot together with them.
it takes a moment for the elephant to settle somewhere in the corner and crush you with its invisible weight before taehyung turns to you, hand behind his mouth as he fake coughs into it. then, another moment for you to register taehyung’s words as you watch his mouth move and his gaze trained on you like a father teaching his daughter a life-lesson before he lets her out into the world. once his mouth stops moving and a second passes for you to take in the information, only two words leave your lips.
“you trippin’,” with a half-manic smile and brows knitted together, you look almost like you’re made for the asylum- but understandably, your admittance is overdue.
as your heart palpitate inside the confines of your rib cages and the scene from that night replays at the back of your eyes like a broken record - jungkook’s hesitant glance, the windows to his soul shutting tight with hesitance and the teeth that traps his lower lips as though his body is forbidding him to say whatever his heart and mind wanted - as much as it pains you to admit it, the signs were all there.
you just didn’t want to admit it.
that’s what pining over a best friend you’ve known for over a decade does.
the denial that comes after realizing you don’t want anyone else to touch jungkook when im nayoung stood on her tippy toes and pecked jungkook’s lips before running off with a flustered expression - you were both in elementary and jungkook was more into sleepovers with the abundance of plushies you had than hanging with ‘other kids’.
then comes the ugly head of self-loathing and guilt as you fixed park jihyo a smile as jungkook introduced you two. one, as his girlfriend and the other, his best friend.
both, in love with him.
it’s ugly and disgusting, jealousy that is. but you’re uglier for smiling and laughing with jihyo over the things you would with a best friend who’s a girl - there were things you couldn’t share with jungkook as a girl. but you’d let your eyes linger a second too on them as they shared a peck when he’d meet you too in front of the school gate after his extra class was over - you lost count of the times you wished you were her.
you carried the pathetic little mask of a smile to uni. by then, jungkook had broken up with jihyo. there was a lot of tears and consoling and empty words of assurance.
“hey, if you guys are meant to be, you’ll meet again someway somehow.” you’d fixed her an encouraging smile as your heart bloomed with hope for when you’ll get jungkook’s attention all to yourself once you start uni.
getting into the same one had been pure luck.
it didn’t bring you far though. jungkook started gaining attention for his friendly nature and bunny smile that attracted both males and females. it wasn’t long until he’s bringing you to parties where he’d keep you by his side because he knew you didn’t know most of these people. tried to get you involved in the conversation but there was nothing interesting about the dude who drank himself silly and woke up in front of an old lady’s door butt naked or about that girl who woke up a five minutes before class in a city an hour away from where her dorm is.
well, at least, none of them seemed like jungkook’s type. he never had a girlfriend throughout his years in uni though he had plenty of other experiences that makes you wonder what in the world he hasn’t tried yet.
being in a relationship, is probably the only thing he hasn’t done.
jungkook liked kind people. ones that didn’t point at a random person and say an offhanded comment and collectively laugh about it. someone that laughs and smiles a lot because and didn’t have a single bad bone in their body.
liked.
because you don’t know what kind of person jungkook likes now. but you never thought him asking a hypothetical question from what seems like another person's perspective about his lifestyle would be, as taehyung calls it-
“i’m telling you,” he slams a hand on the table, a loud pap! resonating in the air but he doesn’t seem bothered by the pain - if there is any - as his eyes bore into you, “that was jungkook shooting his shot!”
“i don’t know,” you take a sip from the metal straw of your matte black tumbler for the sake of doing something, “it doesn’t feel real but i can kind of see it?”
“take it for what it is, love,” the pull of his eyebrows together couldn’t have been more frustrating, “jungkook has every reason to have the fattest crush on you - i mean look at you, you’re funny, adorable and nicer than all his friends combined.”
jungkook has multiple friend groups he hangs out with. funny how you started out as duos and merged into a quadruplet and ended up being that friend group that jeon jungkook doesn’t really look like he fits in but he’s probably hanging out with you guys from time to time because you’d known each other the longest. or so word has it.
“that’s basically everyone who’s not his friends.” with an eye roll, you wrap your mouth around the straw. this time, for the sake of hiding the smile that threatens to bloom on your face as it is in your heart.
x
and that’s how you find yourself in more than one ‘don’t you dare’ moments. jimin has begun randomly pointing out something about your hair accessory to your clothes to your fucking strawberry printed socks. 
to prove a point, he said.
“hey beautiful,” oh, and he’s resorted to calling you all the adjectives in the world - but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work in making jungkook’s face scrunch in displeasure for the briefest moment as he glances at jimin as though he’s an adjective away from beating the man into a bloody pulp, “nice shirt.”
despite knowing the comment is every bit staged - and probably doesn’t mean that your minnie and mickey mouse shirt is anywhere compliment-worthy, you still look down at the two mice, one kissing the other on the cheek.
the “uh, thanks,” couldn’t have been more dubious and skeptic.
and so begins jimin’s not-so-secret mission to bring jungkook’s attention to you.
“isn’t the stickers on ___’s mac cute, jungkook?” 
jungkook skims at the grizzly, panda and ice bears scattered across your mac before breaking into a smug smirk, “of course they are, i bought them for ___.”
you can almost hear jimin and taehyung high-fiving on the row behind you just as the professor walks in.
while jungkook seems to oblivious to it all, eyes trained to the display on the on the front, you allow yourself to indulge in the heat that seeps through your pores and warms your heart.
it’s not like jungkook stopped going to parties.
but finals season is almost upon you and he’s been hanging out with you more. sitting next to you in class while jimin and taehyung dozes off at the back. 
“they sleep in class just to spend hours on end studying at the library,” jungkook huffs, eyebrows knitting together adorably as he stresses over your two friends’ stamina for sitting in one place for six hours straight and only needing a bottle of water at their disposal, “i mean, why can’t they just focus in class so they don’t have to study a whole semester’s worth of syllabus in the last minute and drag us into it?”
the six hour mark ended and they’re out getting some snacks for you to secretly munch on until the library closes.
“i mean,” you begin, eyebrows jolting upwards at the more-than-obvious fact he’s supposed to already know, “you technically came here with your own free will, you’re free to leave whenever you want.”
another sigh hits the air as the boy slams his onto the book he has open in front of him, “yeah, but i need to study to pass and i needed you guys to push me,” he laments.
ever since then, there’d been far too many moments of where you’re stuck with jungkook to wait for the two non-time-abiding asses. at first, excuses like ‘sorry we’re late, we were getting mcdonald’s’ or some other poor fast food restaurants’ name that became the patsy, but they started dwindling to ‘oh hey, sorry, we didn’t notice the time’ and eventually a ‘hey, jimin’s got a meeting with a professor and he’s my ride so you guys go first’.
and before you know it, finals pass and you’re visiting your hometown while jungkook stuck around for a part-time job with taehyung whilst jimin drops off the face of the earth after having mentioned that he’s going on a family vacation at some private island with apparently the worst wifi connection ‘like ever.’
the two now-co-workers keep spamming the group chat with pictures of them in their uniforms, holding different drinks which they personally every time. when you’re staying over with your grandmother, it’s your turn to spam pictures of her great black cat who seem to only like sitting in her lap and glaring at you in every picture you take of the two watching tv together. almost as if he had a sixth sense when it comes to cameras.
“when are you coming back?” jungkook grumbles from the other end of line.
you’ve just got a shower and he’s just got home from a night shift. he’s probably haven’t even taken off his jacket yet when he proposed calling you like the sporadic times you both did throughout the break.
“i don’t know. i don’t feel like going back maybe even until the ceremony,” you confess, half-meaning it. the gardening, and saying hello’s to everyone you see while buying groceries because everyone knows everyone here, and the best-tasting cookies your grandma make, and waking up to her cat suffocating you in your sleep, isn’t so bad.
“i’m dying here,” he sighs, sounding more relaxed and probably lying on his bed now, “if i have to insist that i can’t ‘reheat’ coffee and can only make a new one and end up having to hide in the kitchen for five seconds to pretend like there’s a secret microwave only for coffees,” he says all in one breath before letting a suspenseful silence hang in the air and then finally revealing the next big thing he’ll do, “i’m seriously going to spit in their coffee while in the kitchen pretending to reheat it with an invisible microwave.”
the laughter that tumbles out of your mouth is probably ugly and you probably snorted a couple times but jungkook doesn’t seem to notice. or care as he keeps insisting ‘i’m really gonna do it’ whilst you end up laughing until your stomach hurts and tears begin to prick your eyes.
“is this the same regular that like, wants their coffee like super hot?” you finally manage to ask, traces of laughter still threatening to spill from your lips.
“yeah,” his sounds impressed, “how’d you know?”
“tae told me,” you make an incredulous face and shrug even though he can’t see, “you do realize you work at the same place, right?”
“yeah but i never see him talk about it in the group but i probably missed it-”
“oh no,” your hand goes up in a dismissive wave, “we talk on the phone and he told me about it.”
“you guys talk on the phone too?” there’s a strain in his voice, possibly out of surprise.
“yeah, like every day.” you say, tongue subconsciously lapping over your bottom lip.
“oh,” is all he says for the longest moment before chirping out the billion dollar question, “why aren’t we talking every day?”
“i don’t know,” your shoulder line rises, almost swallowing your neck as a war breaks out within yourself, “we did try at the beginning of break but you always had a party to go to so...”
“oh,” this ‘oh’ is a little bit dejected and perhaps hits a little different before he continues, “i don’t go to those anymore.”
this time, it’s your jaw that falls. your voice is small, almost as though cautiously teetering on tightrope as you ask, “...why not?”
“i just didn’t see the point of going anymore you know? once we graduate, i won’t even talk to these people anymore - but i wanna continue being friends with you guys.”
the ‘you guys’ meaning you, taehyung and jimin. the bros. the homies. it’s no secret that he probably sees you all as the same gender, not a guy nor a girl but just friends.
well. it’s not the first time jungkook’s friendzoned you.
“that’s great,” you can’t help but nod even though you know he can’t see you, “i wanna keep being friends with you too, jungkook.”
ever since then, you talk almost everyday. sometimes in three’s and when taehyung had a shift and jungkook got off his, it’d just be the two of you. and for the first time, in ages, it feels as though the ‘best’ in your friendship has somewhat reintroduced itself once more. jimin somewhat manages to get a connection somewhere along the way and the first thing he did was complain about the three digit number in a red bubble in the corner of the message app and then managing to get one picture of him in flowery trunks, and a baby monkey eating a banana perched on his shoulder with the beach in the background before disappearing for the rest of the month until two weeks before the graduation ceremony.
“so like, do you have anyone to pick you up?” jungkook asks from he other end of the line. he sounds more free since it’s the last day of his job.
“yeah,” you announce, attentiveness laced in your tone for your next words might be indicative enough, “my sister.”
“what.” he drags out the word in a disbelieving tone and it’s no secret why he’s doing that- “i haven’t seen you in ages! and you’re going to your sister’s? wait - this isn’t like a permanent thing right? we’ll get to hang out before the ceremony, right?”
it takes you a moment to register the series of questions he bombarded you with and before you know it, the silence has already turned your voice into a small and guilt-ridden, “um, yes and no?”
a groan.
“i haven’t seen seulgi in forever too and she kept nagging me to visit her during break but i never did so now she has like a whole week’s worth of itinerary planned out for us to do before the ceremony,” the excuse trickles out of your mouth hurriedly, “jungkook, i have to do this, or the next time we’ll meet it’s at my funeral and you’ll be talking to my dead carcass before they bury me.”
it takes a moment of anticipating silence before he grumbles out a “fine. but after that, you’re staying over at my place.”
“okay but i mean if we’re having stay over’s wouldn’t tae’s place be better since he has a whole ass apartment for himself?” you’re at that point where you’re discussing stay over arrangements before actually consulting the owner of the place.
“i guess,” his voice is a little lower and smaller but it revives at the mention of the new pizza place that just opened before you decided to invite the other two in the call to make plans to visit there.
when the day finally comes for you to don the royal blue robe and cap, you do so with barely enough grace and composure for someone who’s about to receive her blood sweat and tears on a stage all because you and your sister are - this must be karma for shading taehyung and jimin for being - a bunch of non-time-abiding asses.
the double doors are almost closed as you struggle with not tripping on your high heels whilst trying to keep your hair out of your face.
“where have you been?” you almost didn’t recognize the golden man who tapped you on your shoulder from behind.
“jimin! you made it!” is the first thing you say.
“rich coming from someone who barely got to her seat in time,” he gives you a once over and you’re not quite sure what he sees because your back which he’ll be looking most at is clad is oversized blue robe. but despite that, you reach out to give his hand a squeeze and he takes it with just as a tight, ‘we made it’ kind of squeeze before you turn to the chancellor that’s beginning his speech.
you’re not sure which row jungkook is at or if he even sees you and you read taehyung’s ‘i feel like a proud momma’ text because his major adds another year to his studies than you, jimin and jungkook.
the ceremony goes on without a hitch and you’d like to believe your picture is as perfect as your make up which your sister claims to be ‘out of this world!’ - only because it’s her that did it.
“so you guys talk everyday?” jimin pulls you into him, a smile gracing his beautifully tanned skin as he steals a glance at something behind your shoulders - possibly jungkook whom you saw was being swarmed by his friends to take pictures with.
“yeah, i guess,” you casually say with a shrug.
“it’s true, i was there,” taehyung comes up next to you, replacing jimin’s arms with his in a side hug.
“man, i really wish i witness it all,” jimin grumbles, “but the connection on that island was shitty.”
“i’m sure you connected in different ways,” the taller man adds, a strain in his voice which the shorter doesn’t seem to notice as he try to wave off the belatedly relayed fact that his family is a different kind of family.
like the kind that invites sex workers and other business colleagues alike to enjoy themselves for as long as they wanted, as long as the park family was there.
“okay but how long is he going to take?” jimin quizzes, eyebrows soaring whilst you and taehyung follow his gaze to the growing size of people a few feet away who clearly look like they’re here for a photoshoot than a simple graduation ceremony, “my parents kinda skipped work to see me go on stage and get a piece of paper they paid a lot for so i kinda want to get the family pic done before i go to my second family...”
time doesn’t seem to stop like they do in the movies. it happens all too fast, in fact - jimin’s voice fading into the background, the countdown of the person taking the picture of the group of graduates jungkook’s in starting from three, two, one! and a girl with the prettiest curls that seem to bounce as she turns around and stick her tongue into jungkook’s mouth.
it must have been your uncanny silence that draws the attention of the two boys and a ‘oh shit...’ from one of them - you’re not sure who even though taehyung and jimin has two distinctly sounding voice.
all you’re sure of is the involuntary movements of your feet as they carry you away from the scene. your eyes are dry but that’s probably only because your brain hasn’t registered what exactly happened though deep down, you’re perfectly aware of the fact that those daily calls, the spams of good mornings and randomly sending each other selfies were nothing more than exchanges between two people who were onlu ever connected through a childhood bond that got translated into best friendship just because there was no other name for knowing someone for so long even though you probably stopped being friends first year of college.
“___! wait!” someone calls for you and you wish it so badly to be jungkook but you know better than to expect for the impossible. a modern day fairy tale.
“hey, don’t cry. jungkook’s a fucking dick,” the tall stature that finally caught up to you and trapped you in his arms, whispers. gentle, understanding and pitiful.
it’s not just the comforting warmth, it’s also the hand that’s rubbing your back that you know is probably jimin’s that makes you break out into your first sob. whilst the day isn’t exactly free of tears, those who did shed them did it out of gratitude and a sort of ‘i did it’ kind of relief but not you.
today, your cheeks are marred by the excruciating pain of a heartbreak. you might as well tear your chest open, take out the beating organ and hand it over to jungkook so he could crush them with his own two hands.
maybe it’d hurt less.
somewhere amidst your fit, you choke on your laughter as you catch the two bickering.
“that’s not how you comfort a crying lady, taehyung, what the fuck?” jimin doesn’t hold back with his colorful words.
“what? what did i do?” the taller man sounds all the more confused but still pass you on to the shorter one like a gift basket when a hand pulls you into another pair of arms.
a hand patting your head as jimin murmurs, “there, there, you’re going to be okay, sweetie,” he hugs you just a tad bit tighter as though to say i promise, “you’re young, you’re beautiful and you just graduated with honors. in five years you won’t even remember your little crush for jungcockhead.”
you would have laughed if not for the shadow in your periphery stopping dead in its trek just a few feet away from you and close enough to hear every word jimin uttered in his attempt to placate your rising desire to flee the scene.
“what?” even a simple syllable is enough to tell you who the voice belongs to. perhaps it’s because you’ve heard it in real life and on the phone countless times and countless more during the span where he worked sporadic shifts and you were gardening and getting scratched by your grandmother’s cat that you tried relentlessly to befriend.
“nothing, jungkook.” you wish it was you who said it but it’s jimin who’s hugging you tighter like a mother comforting their heartbroken child, “why don’t you go back to your girlfriend and stick your face where it’s actually wanted?”
almost as though physically slapped in the face.
with a brick.
jungkook’s shoulder line jolts as he flinches, brows knitting together as you can almost see the rewind of the moment your heart gets split in two. she has the prettiest, softest tanned complexion, luscious curls and body that fits the definition of a glowed-up.
he takes one step forward but stops when you shrink into jimin’s arms, almost as though seeking protection. but it takes everything in you not to run to him and make up an excuse about feeling hot and stuffy and that being the reason you left, when the crestfallen expression mars his otherwise ever-smiling features. 
“that wasn’t what you thought it was-” you could almost swear he chokes at the end of his words but the pause is too short to tell, “i left her as soon as i saw you running off.”
“oh my god, cut the bullshit! this isn’t the first time and this won’t be the last. don’t talk to ___, don’t even look at her, douchebag,” the rumble of jimin’s voice vibrates against you as he pokes taehyung in the rib, making the boy cry out in pain.
the assaulted man has half a mind to ask for further instructions when he turns to you and jimin but decides against it, squaring up his shoulders and placing a warning hand, “just leave, man. ___ clearly doesn’t wanna talk to you right now.”
“ever.” jimin half-shouts.
those deep brown eyes search for yours as though holding on the last strand of what you call best friendship - hoping, wishing that it isn’t true. but as soon as they find your puffy eyes, you throw your gaze to the ground, finding the crack in the asphalt in a better state than your heart.
you can only imagine jungkook’s face falling at your refusal to affirm the strength of years’ worth of friendship. because the fact of the matter is, you’re not so sure if you want to keep pretending to be oblivious as he wraps his arms around another person and kiss them like he means it.
x
“___,” the bed dips as you feel the weight of the blanket get yanked off you. seulgi’s sweet peaches perfume filling your senses, “get up, it’s been days since you had an actual meal.”
“i’m not hungry,” you grumble against the pillow just as your stomach starts making the most monstrous sound ever existed in history of mankind.
“yeah right,” she scoffs but her hand on your arm is warm and soothing, “come on, please eat something - i’m saying ‘please’ here and you know i never say ‘please’. people say ‘please’ to me.” 
you can’t help but laugh at that. seulgi’s never truly begged anyone for anything in her entire life. she would have asked once and left you be until you were done moping around over jungkook getting with jihyo. it was after you did get over your first heartbreak, did she get you ice cream and you’d spent the night in her room with fairy lights and forts, watching the notebook.
“don’t let a boy hurt you like that again, ___, promise me.” she held up a pinky, and yours felt like a ton of weight just dropped over you.
in the end, you hooked your pink with hers and made a promise of sisterhood.
but she hadn’t been there when you needed your off days in college when rumors started spreading about jungkook and a different girl every week.
the wounds to your ever bleeding heart don’t heal. but you got used to picking yourself up and you got better at that with that one class you failed, that one presentation you blew, the humiliating mistake you made in front of your supervisor and every time after that. seulgi had her own ways to deal with problems and you had yours - or maybe patching yourself up after a fuck up was more of your forte.
who knows?
“what’s for dinner?”
“really?” at your inquiry, the face you thought would light up like a christmas tree - doesn’t. if anything, she bites her bottom lip just like you just caught her red-handed for doing something you probably won’t like.
“what?” you ask plainly, at this point, you won’t even be surprised if she said the sky is falling.
it’s not.
but her next words are far more foreboding than the end of the world, “look, jungkook came over like he always did everyday since that day and today i wanted him to stop coming for good so i told him if you at least have the energy to get some food, i’d let him see you,” her eyes glimmer with a sort of remorse that you can’t even hold her against.
“then can’t you tell him i still don’t wanna eat?” is what you say, completely unperturbed or rather not registering the fact that your best friend whom you’ve been in love with for as long as you can remember is in your sister’s living room because he probably heard about your hunger strike. 
but the only problem is, he’s not in the living room-
“he’s right outside the room. i told him he can stand there and see for himself how bad he fucked you over so he’ll feel bad enough to leave you alone.” she says in a hurried whisper, eyes glancing to the half-agape door every second.
a spark lights up inside you, like smolders blown by wind and flares into flames, “seriously? you couldn’t talk to me first about it?”
her eyebrows furrow as her mouth opens and closes for a moment before she confesses, “...i didn’t think you’d say yes to lunch.”
“whatever just-” you tear your gaze away from your sister’s involuntary puppy eyes just so you wouldn’t end up clawing them out yourself, “...just go, seulgi.”
for the longest yet briefest moment, the only thing you can hear in the room is your steady breathing. the flame still burns but it doesn’t flare into a raging fireball. and you know full well it probably isn’t easy for jungkook to pass to through the door after having heard how you reacted when you found out he’s just outside.
when he does, he doesn’t even hide the way his doe eyes shine with something you can’t pinpoint as he takes you in. all of you. with your mused, oily hair and three day’s worth of hoodie and puffed eyes.
“hey,” he murmurs ever so softly, the bed dipping where seulgi sat.
you echo the same greeting back but with a hoarser voice compared to his velvet one.
“so, what do you want for dinner?” he begins, cautious eyes finding yours.
“i don’t want it anymore,” is all you say as you shrug casually.
“oh.” he sounds fragile. nothing at all like the self-assured jeon jungkook you’ve come to know.
silence fills the room like a big, blue elephant. seconds stretch on into minutes and you find yourself leaning against the headboard, drawing invisible patterns over the sheets while jungkook-
you don’t know what he’s doing. he could be fiddling with his fingers like how 10-year-old him would whenever you met at your favorite spot after a fight. but you’re both no where near 10 and if there’s any traces of the boy you once called your best friend, it’s probably only his appearance that’s never really changed.
either way, you don’t dare to even steal a glance his way.
“i like you too.”
the words hit the air like a drop of water that vaporized faster than what science dictates it too. you almost thought you were hearing things if not for the way he looks at you. as though waiting for something. anything.
“i...” you trail off before shaking your head, almost as though coming to your senses, “i can’t do this.”
jungkook laughs awkwardly, hand scratching the back of his head, “yeah, i understand - i’m sorry i- i just wanted to make sure you’re fine and then i got carried away- i should leave.”
but before he takes a step towards the door, you call for him, “jungkook, wait.”
“i’m leaving for japan in two days,” you finally let the cat out of the bag.
“what?” comes out a second later - you don’t dare to look up from your hands to see what kind of emotion he’s making.
but he at least deserves an explanation, “for the longest time, i feel fucked up because i get so jealous of the girls that dated you...” taking a deep breath, you continue, “but i know it’s because i think i’m not enough-”
“you are - you’re more than enough,” the interjection is what makes you look up involuntarily, if not to confirm it yourself - the knitted eyebrows and heartbroken gaze proves it and then the sinking realization settles in, “but you don’t believe me.”
you shake your head, a bitter smile on your lips, “i’m not enough for me and that’s something i have to work with.”
“by running away?” his voice rises to the ceiling, confusion and frustration pooling in his eyes.
“by finding myself,” you correct, “you know like how people go to a different country and come back a different person except i’m hoping to find that person.”
“in japan,” he sounds like he’s a word away from hooking you up with a specialist - not that you haven’t thought of one but-
you laugh and he looks at you like he’s stuck in the middle of a never ending maze, “my mom’s planning to visit my aunt in japan and since i’m officially unemployed i guess, i’m tagging along.”
“oh,” his shoulder line sags as he sighs in relief, “so like a vacation.”
it tenses back up when you say, “i might look for a job there.”
“you’re permanently moving to japan?” jungkook’s body seems to be here but his conscience seems to have flown out - probably to japan.
you want to laugh but it doesn’t seem like a proper setting for it. especially when you’re confessing to your crush that you like him but also subtly admitting that he’s partly the reason you’re leaving the life you know for a new one. and you might not even do it willingly.
“i might find a job with a branch company in korea - work there for a year and then transfer here,” you shrug, “i don’t know.”
“i-is this because-” he starts but you shake your head.
“yes and no?” you say, “none of this is your fault but i’m projecting my frustrations onto you and this isn’t healthy... i need- i need to go away for awhile and figure myself out.”
and that’s how jeon jungkook finally comes to the realization that nothing’s been the same. you haven’t been the best friend you prided yourself to be for a long time and that best friend completely disappeared in second year of college after he started spending nights at parties and only lunches with you. until eventually, you’re stuck in a habit - a cycle that you can’t break from until something dramatic or life changing happens.
and so it goes, he sees you off at the airport with taehyung and jimin. unsure of whether they were still friends after they’d deliberately stopped him from running after you on your graduation day, they were the first to approach him. they understood that it’d only be worse if he chased after you but they didn’t hate him - dislike him at times when - as they called it - he was so damn clueless, yes but they didn’t hate him. and that was a relief.
nothing major changed. he moved in with taehyung and jimin and even got a job at the same company as jimin. you went off radar but still kept in contact every once in awhile - it was like that time jimin went to that private island except you had all the reception you needed, just not the time to text as much as you used to.
job hunting was tough and he understood the competition. when you got a job, you were plagued with a newbie’s role, having to do overtimes to finish up work that was piling before they gave you that position.
then one year turned to two and two years turned to three. jungkook became a manager while jimin took up the position as a secretary in their rival company - it’s funny because everyone at the office would shit-talk him and they would make fun of those people as they drink into the night.
jungkook lost contact with most of his party friends - they were great with hooking him up with a potential client but besides that, he was basically living the workaholic life with his two apartment mates as his only source of social interaction outside of work.
from meetings to gatherings to meetings and then private dinners with clients. the cycle goes on until that one evening where arrives at an invites-only event.
“jungkook, come here,” the director gestures him over and because there’s a server blocking his view, he only notices the girl standing in front of his superior, when he’s finally by his side.
“...a hardworker - every project he’s ever handled hits the internet like a boom!” the director was saying.
“ah jungkook,” the man taps him on his shoulder but he can barely feel it when his eyes are trained on you, stunning in that deep toned dress and new hairstyle, “meet ___, you guys will be working on the twin tower project together.”
x
“so you’re back for good?” he asks when you’re finally alone, lingering at the balcony and away from your superior’s eyes.
“not quite - i still have to fly to japan every week,” you shrug casually.
“oh,” he nods.
“you look great by the way,” he adds a moment later, scuffing his foot against the floor.
you can’t help but giggle at how boyish he is, even at the age of 25, he still acts like a child, “thanks - you don’t look half bad yourself.”
he echoes a “thanks” as well before throwing his gaze over the magnificient view of the cityscape. artificial lights from the buildings appear like stagnant fireflies. it’s sad that they’re the reason you can’t see stars anymore.
but fate is too cruel.
because hoseok, your partner is calling you over - a couple of middle aged people standing next to him, smiling that mechanical smile that isn’t any different from your business smile.
“i gotta go,” you sigh but shoot him one last melancholy smile, “i’ll see you this monday?”
“yeah, see you this monday.” jungkook smiles a smile that says he’s not so sure where you stand. colleagues. ex-best friends. acquaintances?
with a wave goodbye, he watches as you strut to the couple, transforming into a woman so sure of every gesture, even a smile and a throw of your head back as you laugh. everything you do, every movement you make is mesmerizing. 
and he knows he’s not the only one who thinks so as he watches your partner gaze at you with eyes that doesn’t seem to see anyone else but you. laughs at something you say as if he’s completely enchanted.
jungkook turns around, hand propped on the railing as he takes a sip of the wine he’s been holding. without realizing it, a smile slips onto his face, he makes a mental note to check your company’s dating policy.
most forbid office romances anyway.
x
note. i’ve had this in the draft for forever! and thought i was never gonna finish this but i somehow got a burst of inspiration yesterday and here we are! hope yall enjoyed!
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feminaexlux · 4 years ago
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Dragon, Viper, Tiger
Tossing my hat back in the ring for @lovebugs-and-snakecharmers AU sprint challenge!. I went with the Thief/Heist AU since I’d been kicking this idea around for a while.
I gave myself an arbitrary editing deadline of 6pm so I hope it both makes sense and reads alright, but shrugs
Hope you enjoy! Find on AO3 here :)
Viper was sometimes glad he had a longer running gait than the woman on his tail only a few meters behind. He put his long legs to use and leapt up onto a couple of filing cabinets, scrambled up to the bare industrial support beams of the so called modern office building he’d broken into, and jumped over the dividing wall via the exposed ceiling.
Post-Modern styled offices just lent themselves so well to the good old B&E.
The wiring crisscrossing through the exposed ceiling allowed him to occasionally cut the telecommunication lines in his hasty exit, which was great in trying to prevent any of the security cameras from tracking him. If he also took out the internet lines that was just an added bonus, since that’d probably slow down anyone trying to access the proprietary blueprint he pilfered. He just needed to buy some time.
He probably could have gotten out a few minutes ago since he already had the memcube in his pocket, but this was really the only opportunity he had to see Officer MDC in action. Oh, nice, there she was, waiting for him in her combat stance at his specified exit point. Even at 5 foot nothing she’d landed him on his ass waaaay too many times, but honestly he loved the challenge of facing her. She always had new tricks up her sleeve.
But so did he, with some of the info that Tiger kept leaving him. Like, for instance, even if MDC had gotten the EMP disruption lace installed in her gloves, it could easily be counteracted and redirected by the additional aluminum alloy mesh Dragon had added as the inner lining to his wetware, so the memcube wouldn’t be completely fried if MDC did manage to land a hit (and she usually did). The only problem was trying to find where to ground the pulse… But the priority order was, as ever, keeping his identity safe, then getting the payload, then trying to escape unscathed. Paris PD’s Special Circumstances wasn’t ever going to figure out his identity (unless he died), nor would they get to know that the same general producer for their own tech was his boss (unless he died).
Viper didn’t relish the idea of dying, so he’d been doing his best at avoiding that particular outcome. He’d done well so far, even if he did come out of MDC encounters with more bruises and scars than when he went in. He had landed in front of Marinette and smiled. She rolled her eyes at him. And before he knew it, she had launched herself at him with her classic opener: a roundhouse kick to his solar plexus.
Viper slid underneath the food truck and unlatched a hidden panel, hauling himself through the opening feet first as quietly as he could. He toed the hatch closed behind him but caught it with his fingers before it made impact. He couldn’t give up the game now by being loud, that’d be so, so lame. He heard the gravel get scraped below his temporary entombment and he knew it was Marinette. She felt at the truck’s undercarriage and probed for any particular weaknesses or different materials and he heard her muffled voice as she worked with her TIKKI AI to scan any infrared signals and find any potential structural modifications done to the vehicle.
Here’s to hoping that Markov did its job correctly, he thought. Otherwise they’d be out of a job… and a food truck.
A few minutes later he heard her curse and slam an open palm against the undercarriage in frustration. “I know you’re in here, Viper!” she yelled.
“Ma'am?” He heard another voice chime in. “Why are you under our truck?”
A very cramped 3 hours later after a thorough inspection and nearly complete teardown of the food truck, Viper finally popped the floor panel and took in some fresh air. Well, relatively fresh, it smelled like greasy food all around him. The truck was already on the highway, having been released from the PD’s temporary impounding for being present at the scene and potentially housing a wanted criminal. The scans came up with nothing, the truck’s workers came up clean through the ID system, the truck’s visit and movements were tracked and scheduled and above board.
The actual food truck owners were unaware of his presence, which was just the way he liked it. He stretched his legs out a bit after being folded up into such a tiny space for so long. It was the sole disadvantage of having long legs, but he was the best in class at his job for all the contortion required. Plus he wasn’t claustrophobic like Tiger was. Speaking of… he checked his watch.
ur late, asshole
cg again? u simp
special 4u 0xdeadbeef
Oooof course. He could always count on his sister for ribbing on his infatuation with Cafe Girl, their codename for Marinette. He took one last relatively fresh breath of air and went back into hiding, sealing the latch shut. He listened for the engine knock signature: 4, 5, 1, 4, 2, 5, 5, 6, opened the bottom panel, dropped onto the street with his camouflage on, and kicked the panel closed before the truck took off. A bus drove over him and he hitched a ride, holding on underneath for 4 blocks, then rolled into the gutter drain.
It was a pretty quiet evening at Cafe Orriko, a cozy little cafe that had some steadfast regulars. One of Luka’s favorite hangouts due to the owners letting him lounge around and play his acoustic without complaint. There’d been another reason Luka loved this particular cafe, though.
Nathaniel heard the door chime and looked up, smiling at the newcomer. “Hey welcome to–oh hey Mar–oh shit MARC WE HAVE A CODE PINK!” There was a hastily tossed pillow from Marc that Nathaniel covered with a tea towel and passed to Marinette. She pulled up the pillow to her face and screamed into it for a good 20 seconds. Nath grimaced. “Bad day?”
She lowered the pillow. “Stupid fucking Viper I swear I will rip him in half and tear him to fucking shreds once I finally get my hands on him!”
Luka chuckled, having stopped playing his guitar when he noticed that Marinette had come in. “Careful, sounds like he might like that,” he winked.
“Uuuuugh,” Marinette groaned. “Thank you, Nath. Just… just gimme my usual, please.” She looked pretty dejected this time, handing back the pillow and tea towel, walking to Luka’s couch, and plopping down next to him. “Please, Luka, could you play me something soothing?”
“Anything for you,” he said, starting up an easy tune. “I know you can’t talk a lot about your work, but… what went wrong today?”
“Nnng, just… just I knew where he was and we still didn’t get him. He’s like a fucking ghost, he just… disappears! Poof!” She usually discussed what was already covered on the nightly news broadcasts, just to be safe.
“Then he’s pretty good,” Luka said neutrally enough, but hid a smirk behind a cough when Marinette gave him the stink eye.
“He only needs to fail once,” Marinette huffed. “He can’t always have luck on his side.” Marc came by with her salted caramel hot chocolate. “Thanks, Marc,” she sighed, relaxing a little bit as she took a sip of the steaming hot drink.
Luka set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “You’ll get him one day, I know it.”
“I’d still have my work cut out for me. I have to find the Dragon after him,” Marinette groaned again. “And Adrien’s still obsessed with that stupid Fencer lady so he’s no help.” Marinette shut her eyes tight and shook her head. “But enough about that. How are you, Luka? I’m glad I was able to run into you today.”
Luka wasn’t going to mention that she’d already run into him earlier as the one and only Viper. “It was going alright, but it’s better now that you’re here,” he smiled. Marinette blushed a little and smiled back, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Sorry about your rough day though,” he added quickly.
Marinette shrugged. “It’s work. It’s… it’s so weird what the Syndicate goes for, it’s not even like… anything really valuable? I swear they’re doing it just to mess with us and wreak havoc.”
“You haven’t figured out a pattern?” Luka asked. Marinette made a zipping motion across her mouth. “Oh, right. Sorry.”
She shrugged again. “No more talk about work, please. I’d just… like to hear you play, if that’s alright?”
“Yeah, no problem,” he chuckled.
She closed her eyes as he started playing the guitar again, something soft and pleasant that reminded him of her. She leaned her head against his shoulder while he played and he felt his heart beating faster.
One day, when the jig was up, he’d love to take her out for dinner. Assuming, of course, that he hadn’t been torn to pieces by her hands.
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toukenramblings · 4 years ago
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Modern!Au: House Husband!Shokudaikiri Mitsutada
Man Mitsu sure is popular huh? I don’t blame y’all at all! He’s a goooood man <3
Warnings: NSFW WHOOO BOI
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SFW
See you and Mitsu live in utter marriage bliss. He always wakes up early to make you food but then there are days when he just stays in bed. Half asleep but mostly just observing you and your form. You married him for a reason, him and his scarred self? Hello? It makes him want to cry at the thought. 
He’s a morning person no doubt, and there’s already a full course breakfast ready for you when you wake up. Lateness tends to happen and depending on how much time you have before you go to work, he’ll adjust the food to the amount/time needed. If you’re super late, you’ll at least have some kind of sandwich all wrapped up for you as you leave. 
He makes the cutest fucking lunches, social media worthy - posting it all on Instagram the minute he finished cooking and decorating it. EVen when it’s just you two and you have time together like lunch or dinner or a brunch on a day off, he will ask you to wait for a moment while he takes a good picture of the food he had made! Even if you two are out and about, he has to show everyone!
Whenever he does make something and post it on to the social media sites, there is always some kinda sugary sweet caption like, “Maybe this delicious meal for my spouse! I think I did pretty good, I hope they will like it!!”  ヽ(*⌒▽⌒*)ノ or “I made their favorite food today and their eyes lit up like stars! Ah, I’m so luckyyyy”  o(>ω<)o
If you do forget your lunch/have time during lunch break at work, expect Mitsu to always come and visit! He will drop everything just to be there! Will always arrive some minutes early, thirty minutes most likely; mostly to either beat the traffic and spend more quality time with you! He doesn’t mind waiting! You’re more than worth that wait!!!
Yeah a lot of people will be asking a lot about your husband, you may have to fight them off lmao. But Micchan publicly will say over and over again that you’re the only one for him! No need to worry!!! Will publicly kiss you as well!
Expect a lot of PDA in public. Sure Micchan will get all flustered but will quickly recover to press all sorts of kisses to your face and hold you hand!!! Hold hands!!!
Will get pouty as hell and will text you about it too if you don’t give him a morning kiss.
Will also send little silly texts to you at random times! It’s mostly little tidbits about his day and how much he misses you. Joking little things like, “Counting down the hours until you come home~<3″
When you do come home, kisses and hugs first! He has dinner all ready for you and had been sending you sneak peaks all day about what he’s making! Of course he posts the damn thing on the internet anyway but like it doesn’t hurt to play a little guessing game!
Expect Tsuru, Kuri, and Taikogane to visit a lot! It’s kinda like a game night for all of you!
Of course speaking of date nights, you always get food for Mitsu, he works and cooks a lot anyway. You always have date nights where you just order take out or go out to eat, just to give him a break and kisses and stuff! Spoil him!!!! Take him out to dance! Go for a walk! Hold hands!! Have a movie night!!!
Micchan is also the kind of man who will take your surname after you two married, that or combine them somehow!
NSFW
Kitchen off limits when you’re gonna do that do. No way man. Sure you can tease each other in the kitchen, like that banana trick, but like actually doing the do? No that’s for the bedroom.
If you two send each other naughty texts, be prepared for...audio clips, videos, and the ilk. He wants you to know how you make him feel, and how lonely he is without you. You have to excuse yourself to deal with his shenanigans. Of course those are rare, he prefers softcore sexting.
Yes he will do a naked apron thing, yes he will make YOU do a naked apron thing.
YEAH PRAISE KINKS ARE STILL A THING. YES HE’S GOING TO PRAISE YOU ALL THE TIME YOU TWO ARE DOING THE DO. NOTHING BUT PRAISES MAN. 
Is also that kind of man who will prepare himself when you get home, “Welcome home darling, would you prefer dinner, a bath, or me?” and while his cheeks are flushed, there is a big ol smile on his lips. He’s rEADY. 
Micchan is more than prepped when it comes to aftercare. Water, fresh bedding, kisses, cuddles, so on and so forth!!!
Your wedding night well uh, none of you slept okay? Micchan honestly had a long cry before you two started having sex. He just couldn’t believe that this happened??? YOu two are married now! TOgether! Tied the knot!! HOw could he not be happy???? And then when you two have sex for the first time as a married couple Micchan is so happy. You’re the only one who can see him like this, and he is the only one who can see you like this. It’s private and intimate, he adores it and you!
As said in my general NSFW headcanons, Mitsu is a wildcard in terms of wanting to do the do. It’s kind of sporadic, and it’s easy to tell when he wants to do the do though. His eye will wander your body, and his hands will ghost everywhere~
Glove kink and hand kink stays. He loves your hands, especially when they’re wrapped around his cock, hehehe. 
As a house husband, the house is his to watch. So he won’t lie that he hasn’t fantasized of fucking you in various parts of the home you two share. 
Isn’t afraid to lightly tease you in public either, especially if someone is trying to make moves on you.
Overall, it’s not that much different than normal TouDan Mitsu but if anything, the body worship is WAY more prominent here. 
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skimblyshanks · 4 years ago
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CATS Pokemon AU
Made with help from @roxycake and @whitmerule
This is. Definitely not set within any proper game continuity. I’m picking and choosing my favorite aspects from the mainline games regardless of region. Technically, this is located in Galar, but it uses traditional gym challenge-Elite 4 format, and trainer classes that don’t appear in gen VIII, along with a different set of gym leader types. Also, contests and battle subways are here bc those were the shit.
**While I had help w/ categorizing characters and their types, I have headcanons that differ from those of the ppl who helped give input. I’m gonna try and not define relationships in this post, but if I do more with this, then I’m working with my own headcanons/ships/etc. If anyone wants to do anything with this that differs, go ahead!
Main 3 trainers+their partner pokemon:
Jemima-Fletchling
A cyclist-class trainer
Electra-Toxel
A dancer-class trainer
George-Tyrogue
A young, hiker-class trainer
Gym Leaders:
Etcetera-Bug
A friend of the main 3; she invites them to her gym as their first challenge. She was probably holding back during the gym battles with the 3, but don’t tell anyone.
Jennyanydots-Normal
A matronly but stern, disciplined trainer who has held her title for decades. She runs the gym next door to the pokemon school, and offers the students free time to practice and train with their pokemon.
Plato-Ground
A talented trainer who all the same doesn’t like his position as a trainer of ground types. He takes his loss as an excuse to begin training in Etcetera’s gym.
Pouncival-Flying
Another young gym leader. the trio first met him while taking a flying taxi between towns, as he’s also a cabbie. He’s got an unsinkable personality, and appears deceptively oblivious. He knows his way around flying-type pokemon, and he’s not one to overlook.
Rum Tum Tugger-Electric
A dazzling and maybe slightly overconfident leader who’s one of the newest to his title. He’s also well known in the Contest World, as he got his real start as a wildly successful coordinator. There’s his pikachu, too. People are obsessed with his pikachu.
Victoria-Ice
A figure skater as well as a gym leader. Her gym is sleek and elegant; balance and dexterity are musts to even reach her spot. Don’t be fooled by her gym’s cold presentation, though; if there were ever a trainer more excited than Pouncival to experience a wide variety of challengers, it’s her.
Coricopat and Tantomile-Psychic
Better be ready to see double. Sometimes they move in sync, mirroring each other’s attacks perfectly; other times, they’ll wipe you off your feet by acting beyond prediction. Can they really see your next move? Have they simply been doing this too long to be surprised? Yes.
Mistoffelees-Fairy
Are you put off by people who simultaneously view you as inferior while also lacking proper self confidence of their own? Good luck making it through a battle against Mistoffelees. A highly capable trainer, he’s still a bit uncomfortable with his position as gym leader. Most people wouldn’t pick up on this though, as he makes quick work of them.
Elite 4:
Bombalurina-Fire
A passionate and ruthless trainer, Bomba has dedicated her life to cultivating a team that’s always ready to win.
Alonzo- Water
A laid-back, casual, young researcher more interested in swimming and surfing than paperwork. He’ll disarm you with his sweet-talk and inviting demeanour, then hit you like a tidal wave.
Cassandra-Dragon
An elegant, intimidating force to be reckoned with, her battle style mixes beauty with ferocity. Don’t worry about being tricked into security, if you feel at all on her level, you’re likely over-confident.
Demeter-Poison
A former member of Team Enigma and a steadfast ally to the main trio. She gave Electra her Toxel when it was just an egg, and has an Amped Toxtricity as her own partner. Demeter is a genuinely kind soul. Her drive to empower young trainers has kept her in The Elite 4 for some time, and she doesn’t plan on giving that up any time soon. She won’t hold back in battle, but she does, notably, avoid status-changing attacks.
Champion
Munkustrap
Smart, kind, powerful, and stressed, Munkustrap has been a familiar face to the trio, much like Demeter. He’s honestly eager to be usurped, ready to step back and re-evaluate his goals in life.
Former Elites/Champion:
Director Gus-Dragon/Rock
Former member of the Elite Four, he has returned to his true passion of theatre, owning and maintaining a space in Wyndon. He’s also a frequent judge at contests.
Grizabella-Steel
A former league champion, she has since retired to The Crown Tundra. In her time away from the league she has journeyed to multiple regions, and has many pokemon foreign to the Galar region.
Professor Deuteronomy-Grass
Former member of the Elite Four, he left the league after a few years, drawn instead to pokemon research. Understanding the root cause of type distinctions has become his life’s work. Of his recent experiments, he has been testing type determination in-egg through gene splicing and nesting conditions.
OTHERS
Skimbleshanks-Battle Metro Boss
Currently overseeing the Battle Metro, Skimble is under pressure to keep attendance up as people have begun migrating to other battle spots. Unlike other rail workers, he does not specialize in steel or ground types, instead holding a roster of largely Normal and flying pokemon.
Jellylorum-Pokemon breeder
You can find her in a quiet corner of Wyndon, nearby Director Gus’ theatre. She runs a daycare and a breeding center.
Tumblebrutus-Research Assisstant.
A friend of the main 3 and frequent conduit to Professor Deut. He checks in at irregular intervals.
Bustopher Jones-Gentleman
A jolly, round man who likes to frequent cafes, and take picnics on the countryside.
Team Enigma
Macavity-Dark/ghost
The leader of Team Enigma, Macavity is a criminal mastermind hellbent on stealing Deuteronomy’s research on type distinctions, and exploiting it for his own benefit. He has no particular worldwide aspirations beyond expanding his realm of influence, but while he’s no mere thug, that doesn’t mean he isn’t a brutal fighter.
Henchcats-Poison/Dark
The Henchcats are Enigma grunts. They’re easy enough to best once you’ve figured out their routine, but they always fight in pairs. Macavity expects many of his grunts to use poison types for their status-changing attacks.
Jerrie and Teazer-Poison
Notable grunts who seem to have reservations about their job. The two appear to genuinely enjoy battling the trio, and, unlike many grunts, seem to have connections beyond Team Enigma. 
Other Notes
Jellylorum, Jennyanydots, Skimbleshanks, and Bustopher Jones are all childhood friends, and are still in touch. They are currently raising 4 Skwovet siblings between them all.
Many gym leaders also work with Professor Deuteronomy to study type distinctions.
Personally, I see the main 3 (+Etcetera and Pounce) as middle/older teens; 15 at the youngest. If the player character in the games can wait until age 12 to even get a pokemon when there are preschoolers battling pokemon, these three can be older teens who decided one day that they wanna go on a journey across the region.
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all-souls-matinee · 4 years ago
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Paranormal Activity
I went through ‘a very strange time in my life’ a few years ago where I watched every single Paranormal Activity movie, some multiple times, thinking that would have no impact on my psyche. So here I am, someone who thinks the the franchise is bad and yet can remember every plot thread and every scare, and I might as well do something with that. These will be graded on a curve (scale of 1-5 stars) and not by their overall worth as movies.
Paranormal Activity (2007)
★★★★☆
Today the first movie in the franchise is lampooned for being boring and amateurish, with unlikable lead characters and a plot that doesn’t really go anywhere, but how are those not points in its favor? Isn’t that what found footage is all about? Critics and scholars contend it’s singlehandedly responsible for the genre craze that swept the United States in the 2010s after a relative lull in the early aughts, and it’s easy to see why. I’m not going to go so far as to say Paranormal Activity is a good movie (it’s not), but it is a very easy and engaging watch. 
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With a cast of only two people and hardly any outside characters the story plays out as a domestic drama; yes, there are long stretches of nothing happening but it ratchets up suspense in a way that was unusual and refreshing at the time. Using a camera to feel in control of an out-of-control situation was a theme broached by the much better Blair Witch Project, and Paranormal Activity leans into it as a central thesis, making sure it’s a white hetero rich guy that’s doing the recording and only subverting that expectation in later films. The movie was even supposed to end [mild spoilers] with Possessed Katie beating her obnoxious husband Micah over the head with his beloved camera and the film cutting to black, and I think it leaves the story weaker and more scattered for having left that out. 
Paranormal Activity 2 (2010)
★★☆☆☆
Before I get into why this one sucks, I’ll give it the benefit of being the most solid entry in the franchise by far. As a prequel to the first movie it does its job by introducing additional family members in a bigger house with more cameras. They have to contend with the same demon, so it’s the same thing we’ve seen before but with much higher stakes, and that’s a perfectly good idea for building a franchise. I admire it for that.
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Anything beyond structure and pacing is so much worse it’s laughable. Where PA1 had some originality going for it PA2 throws in every horror stereotype it can think of, including an insanely awful running bit about how the family’s Mexican housekeeper is the only one who can sense ghosts. The most novel addition to the franchise is extensive lore about the demon wanting to own a baby because of a pact made with a coven of witches, which made audiences across America lean forward in their seats and say ‘... what?’ Decisions like that cost the movie any kind of levity, scares, or interest in the characters, which were kind of essential things for the movie to have.
I’d honestly give it 1 star if it weren’t for the extensive drama over the automated pool cleaner. We spend so much time watching this thing I think I developed an emotional bond with it.
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Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)
★★★★★
Paranormal Activity 3 is another prequel that takes us back to when the leads of the first two movies- Katie and Christie- were little girls experiencing demonic activity in the 80s (their stepdad is a videographer, which gets us past the question of how anyone in the 80s would have tens of video cameras skillfully set up around their home.) Objectively it sounds like even more of a pathetic cashgrab than PA2, but, and this might be the hottest take I will ever have when it comes to horror movies, it does its job it in a way that’s such a prefect mixture of original/bizarre content and safe bankable boringness that it’s the best movie in the franchise. It certainly cemented it for what it is today.
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Movie no. 3 drops the ‘this really happened’ show the first two movies put on in trying to be like other found footage horror (read: The Blair Witch Project.) No more actors and characters sharing names, no more title cards thanking the police for footage, we’re all in on the game at this point and you don’t realize how much of a relief that is until it’s happened. Instead of trying to make the characters realistic and falling flat, they let them be a little more like characters to great success. Everyone plays their role in the story and makes the shaky plot work. It’s not good writing, but it has people react to things in interesting ways and builds up the lore of the franchise more effectively than either of the first two movies (helped along by a batshit insane finale that makes no sense but is so much fun it doesn’t actually matter.) 
This is also by far the ‘scariest’ movie in the franchise, and I think it’s a combination of practice and not taking everything so deadly seriously. Comedy helps balance things out (my favorite is a sex scene that folds into an earthquake scene that folds into a shot of earthquake dust landing on a ghost), and they’ve gotten tension-building nothingness down to a science. Using a camera attached to a slowly oscillating fan and a camera trained on a mirror in a dark room? Perfect ideas for freaking your audience out.
Paranormal Activity 4 (2012)
★☆☆☆☆
Paranormal Activity 4 was the long-awaited actual-sequel to the events of the first movie, using the hours of information and lore given to us by the prequels as a backdrop, and it... really flounders under that responsibility. We’re introduced to an all-new cast of characters, with a teenage girl taking the lead for a change of pace that doesn’t really go anywhere, and spend the first half of the movie wondering why the family we’ve spent so much time with was pushed to the side (it must be important.) The reason we’re given is that this new family has an adopted son who is (twist!) the witch-stolen-demon-proxy baby from movie two.
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PA4 has the opposite problem of PA2; it’s not awful, but is so shaky and has so much lost potential it seems to drop all of the pieces at once. It does some cool things with suspense an xbox kinect, and the acting is fine, but while no one is watching a Paranormal Activity sequel for the screenplay this one needed good, grounded writing and didn’t get that. The loose plotting of the third movie was saved by its characters and by being a little more tongue-in-cheek, but 4 doesn’t have that to fall back on and has way more moving pieces than 3 ever did. The ending is especially egregious, bizarre even by nth-sequel-in-a-horror-franchise standards, and is never brought up again. Points for a convoluted weird plot that makes no sense, points redacted for a convoluted weird plot that makes no sense.
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones (2014)
★★★☆☆
Paranormal Activity 5 is so off-the-rails insane that it gets the coveted 3 stars, deserving or no. After back-to-back prequels and a disappointing long-awaited sequel, no one was sure exactly what this was going to be, and the movie seems to feel the same way.
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Gone is the lore-heavy and tension-heavy stuff from the preceding years of footage. For the first half of the movie we follow a first-gen high school graduate named Jesse, who breaks into a mysterious neighbor’s house with his best friend. He gets bitten by a ghost and infected with ghost superpowers, then he and his friend group + love interest have a grand old time doing skateboard and levitation tricks using the ghost superpowers. I’m not exaggerating for comedic effect; it’s so dumb I love it ardently. Why aren’t all sequels like this??? 
Obviously the ghost superpowers turn out to be A Bad Thing tenuously connected to all the witch/demon stuff, and we have to get back to jump scares (now with added body horror), but the ways in which it does eventually tie back to the franchise are so ridiculous it’s delightful, and the twist ending, for once in this entire nightmare, is fantastic.
Paranormal Activity 6: The Ghost Dimension 3D (2015)
This one came out after my original paranormal activity run, and I considered watching it for the sake of being able to finish the article in good faith but I just can’t you guys. I couldn’t do it. Look at this.
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That said, the thing about these movies is that none of them are a complete waste of time; even the worst entries in the lineup are entertaining and fun in a reality-tv-trainwreck sort of way, and that’s all very calculated. No matter what your opinion they earned the right to make this a franchise with too many movies and extensive lore. Happy halloween.
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writingbakery · 5 years ago
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Happy Halloween, You’re The Only Sugar I Need
[i didn’t have a lot of time to come up with halloween ideas, so have these cute lil hc’s about what it would be like to trick or treat with the bnha babies!💓]
*☆*゚ ゜゚*☆*゚ ゜゚*☆*゚ ゜゚*☆*゚
Izuku Midoriya
did someone say couple costumes?
plans his costume out in july, and has it perfect by august
he knows all the best routes and houses like the back of his hand - nothing but full size candy bars for his baby (you💓) duh!
no haunted houses for him, he just wants to hold your hand as you walk through the neighborhood
he’s the most fair when it comes to candy negotiations, offering up two skittles bags for one set of jelly chew jolly ranchers and making sure the butterfingers were evenly divided
since he’s an expert on trick or treating (your words not his, he blushes for a full thirty minutes after you tell him) you’re both home fairly early, only out a little under an hour
which means: halloween jammies, takeout, and all your halloween candy piled up on the table while you watch spooky godmother together <3
and perhaps there’s a heated makeout session that ends with your hands down the front of his onesie ;)
Katsuki Bakugo
he always wants to go as something horrifically extra - he pretends it’s all your idea, but you know he’s been pinterest scrolling it for a solid month
his goal is quantity over quality here; the more candy he has the better, so you’re both hitting every neighborhood till the streetlights flicker on
he also wants to do every “haunted house” he spots along the way, dragging you in to suffer with him
he likes the spook
you’re out the latest, but it’s still fun - mainly because you’d convinced him to piggy back carry you home after
he’s fair but strict in his candy negotiations - he won’t let you cheat him out of a full sized kitkat bar just because you’re adorable his s/o. he requires at least three kisses and two mini crunch bars in exchange
you watch endless slasher films and bad horror classics, and cuddle under the biggest fluffiest blanket you own
somewhere during the “scary movie” series he’s got you pinned, kissing a hot trail up your neck and there goes the movie session ;)
Hanta Sero
hanta 1000% wants to do meme couple costumes, and you’re whipped for his smile, so-
plans his costume out a while back, but procrastinates getting it together until two days before (and yet, it still looks amazing?)
doesn’t really have a route or plan in mind, he just wants to wander around holding hands and kissing every time you see a pumpkin (like punch buggy but sweeter <3)
he’s honestly probably the most confusing with his candy negotiations - “how does a mini snickers and a bag of pretzels equal a york patty, hanta?”
the boy has weird candy tastes but you love him anyways
you’re out a decent amount of time, a little over an hour & change
he wants to watch every cult classic horror film ever, so prepare not to sleep
halfway through he’s too busy smiling with his tongue in your mouth though, so its a win in your book ;)
Hitoshi Shinso
hitoshi always wants to go as some super obscure film or literary pair
he’s not too early in his planning, or too late. he finishes his costume with time to spare but he doesn’t rush, either
he’s not keen on being out too late but he indulges you for a bit, sneaking kisses here and there
he’s not big on candy either, so he ends up giving you most of his basket anyway - although there’s certain things he won’t part with.
“you’re serious? i cant even have one?”
“no. all the reese’s cups are mine, & that’s final.”
you’ll get smooches because he feels bad
you’ll spend the rest of the evening with your head on his chest, listening to him read you Poe snuggled under a blanket with tea.
and halfway through lady ligeria his hands will creep up the back of your sweater, and suddenly you’re doing much more kissing than reading ;)
Yaoyorozu Momo
momo definitely wants to do something elegant and fancy with you for costumes
she gets everything tailored and ready weeks in advance, duh
momo’s house is the one giving out full sized candy bars, so is trick or treating even necessary? yes it is
you spend about an hour giggling and sharing a candy basket, everyone awwing over the pair of you
there’s no candy negotiations because you share <3
you play board games with the charlie brown halloween special in the background
she wins every time that girl’s a menace
“since i’ve won twenty four of our twenty six games, i’ll be claiming my prize now.”
her prize is kissing you senseless on the floor, smiling into each other’s mouths with wandering hands ;)
Tsuyu Asui
dorky costumes? dorky costumes. think dorothy and the tin man, but cute
she plans both your costumes in advance cause she’s just that amazing
you’re out almost as late as possible only because tsu gets excited everytime she sees a decorated house and you’re soft for her
candy negotiations with her are tough; she plays hard to please and you both like too many of the same candies
you end up sharing anyways
halloween movies with tsu are a big mess of funny to scary to animated to wholesome - she loves all of them and you love her, so you’re watching everything
you’re cuddled up in a blanket fort, snuggled into a heap of blankets and it’s so comfortable that you almost fall asleep halfway through poltergeist
until tsuyu starts kissing her way up the sensitive skin of your back, and suddenly kissing is the only thing on your mind ;)
Ojiro Mashirao
he always wants to do a cutesy/romantic couples costume, he’s your prince charming without fail
the two of you work on your costumes together well before halloween - he calls it couple bonding like the cutie he is
you’re not out too late, mostly because you have too many activities planned for when you’re back home
there is no candy negotiation with ojiro; he gives you your favorites and steals your pretzels and m&m’s without a word
you carve pumpkins even though you already have six, make candy apples, and finally snuggle together on the couch to watch some cheesy halloween hallmark specials
he makes you both hot chocolate with plenty of mini marshmallows <3
by the end of the second sappy film you’re licking the chocolate out of his mouth, and he’s only complaining a little
“but (y/n), she’s about to leave it all behind for the lovestruck farmer!”
Eijiro Kirishima
kiri loves halloween, so he’ll gladly be the counterpart to any costume you choose
he’s definitely a procrastinator though, only finishing it the day of
he’s so excited and hyper that you spend nearly two hours trick or treating, being dragged by holding hands with kiri as he marvels at the tiniest of things
he’s the worst at candy negotiations - he’s so soft for you that he’d give you anything you asked, and he’s a sucker for all types of candy so he’s way too easy to please
“sure baby, you can have my crunch bar and my twix for the nerds.”
“eiji those are both full size candy bars-“
“so?”
he wants to watch the scariest of movies because he’s manly, of course, and he promises to protect you from anything too frightening
he ends up curled into your arms, peering at the screen through his fingers and you’re trying really hard not to laugh
distractions come in the form of kisses, though, and soon he’s too busy nipping at the son of your neck to pay attention to the terrifying film ;)
Tamaki Amajiki
tamaki definitely wants to do cheesy pop culture costumes with you - he spends most of his time reading or watching it
his nerves about the whole thing make him finish his costume way too early, but it’s cute
once he’s in costume though, he gains a sort of confidence - he’s somebody who’s not him for a little while, and he boldly holds your hands and kisses your cheek as you wander
tamaki loves candy, so negotiations are difficult - but he loves you a lot more, so he parts with some of his precious stash
you decide on reading scary stories to each other, sitting with your back against his chest in the big armchair, by the fireplace
it’s warm and cozy and you could almost fall asleep like this, until tamaki’s voice wavers as you shift in his lap
the book is quickly forgotten about as you make out softly, and maybe the costume gets a little shredded. oops ;)
Mirio Togata
mirio will literally dress up as anything as long as you match with him
he insists you plan together, takes all of your thoughts into consideration; this is a team effort!
he doesn’t want to be out too late but he can’t help himself, he wants to show you everything
plus he keeps running into people he knows and he wants to show you off
he splits all his candy evenly with you; you’re his baby, he’d give you his kidney if you asked
he’s one for paranormal movies, he gets so wrapped up in the plotlines it’s almost funny
“okay but if i were a ghost, i’d haunt people in the fun way. like, we’d play games or something.”
“you’d make a very nice ghost, babe.”
he gets so caught up in the movies though that he doesn’t even realize when you pounce, tickling him to draw his attention again
it quickly turns from tickles to kisses and kisses to nibbles and suddenly he’s not thinking about ghosts at all ;)
Nejire Hado
the poor baby’s so excited she can’t even choose a costume, so you end up deciding
she’s very involved in the process though, helping out any way she can
trick or treating with nejire is like going with a hyperactive six year old, but it’s adorable. she drags you around for hours
“look! that pumpkins as big as my head! let’s take a picture!”
she’s a candy addict, good luck trying to negotiate any sort of trade. she steals yours when you aren’t looking
you totally notice but you indulge her
you’re watching a movie, making cookies, and playing a board game all at once when you get home
she’s so excited she can’t even sit still, bouncing from activity to activity until you give up and pull her in for a kiss
you get so distracted you forget all about the cookies ;)
“NO! MY PRECIOUS SUGAR PUMPKIN BABIES!”
Uraraka Ochaco
she’s had your costumes planned since last halloween
“but we’ve only been dating four mo-“
“shush and try this on.”
she’s running around the neighborhood with you for hours, isn’t even tired
another big candy thief, shamelessly digging in your basket but she’s cute so you allow it
wants to watch all the sappy halloween movies and compare you guys to the main characters
“that’s so us, oh my god.”
“he’s a baker. and she’s in real estate.”
“it’s us!! im the baker though.”
drinking lots of spiced cider and giving out leftover candy to the few stragglers, she’s got a soft spot for them
lots of cheesy, silly kisses as you cuddle
she’s easily distracted though, kissing down your cheek to your jaw, neck and oops! the movies long forgotten ;)
Denki Kaminari
another meme costumer, but he also wants to look cool. it’s a tricky balance
he keeps putting off getting his costume together, and then he forgets, and then he’s calling you frantic the night before for assistance
he’s a little more relaxed as you walk through the neighborhood, but that’s only because he’s waiting for everyone to discover the pranks he’d set up beforehand
needless to say, trick or treating ends early before he can be murdered
denki’s a candy whore, but he’s willing to make negotiations with you as long as he gets kisses out of it - which you take advantage of to get all his good stuff
you’re curled up together watching nightmare before christmas, a tradition between you because you’d argued for a week straight about whether it was a halloween or christmas movie
the compromise is that you watch it on both holidays
he gets bored after twenty minutes though, restless like always and before you know it he’s kissing wherever he can reach
the movie’s ignored for the rest of the night as the pair of you kiss and giggle and get a little carried away ;)
Mina Ashido
she’s all over the place with her planning but she definitely wants to do something complicated - she loves going all out!
she needs your help to stay on task but your costumes are finished in a decent enough amount of time
first you’re trick or treating, then you’re pulling pranks with denki, then you’re chasing the neighborhood kids around in a silly game of tag - you’re doing so much that you don’t even realize how late it’s gotten
at home she’s still got all that wild excited energy so you make pumpkin pie together despite the hour, making stupid jokes and flicking flour at one another
“if this sticks in my hair you’re dead, (y/n)!”
“love you too, princess.”
somewhere between baking and eating the pie you start making out against the counter, and there’s definitely flour handprints all over the both of you ;)
Mezo Shoji
shoji likes halloween, but he lets you pick out the costumes - he wants you to have a good time!
he’s very helpful throughout the entire process of getting the costumes ready, and you’re done in no time
he lets you drag him all around, using the majority of his arms to carry extra candy baskets - it’s not cheating the system because everyone thinks it’s part of his costume, and there’s six times as much candy now!
he gives the majority of it to you once you’re home again to see you smile - it has been his plan all along to drown you in excess candy, and you’re not complaining
he gets an equal amount of kisses in return
you spend the evening helping the local kids collect as much candy as they can, and shouji makes it his job to escort all the children that are scared up to every house so they don’t miss out
he gets a whole lot more than kisses for that, but who can blame you? your boyfriend was just too sweet for his own good
“i think you’re the only sugar i need, (y/n).”
“you flirt. kiss me again.” ;)
Tokoyami Fumikage
whenever halloween comes around, he goes big. all out. ridiculously detailed, amazing costumes
you help as much as you can, but he’s in his element; he handles most of it himself
his excitement isn’t obvious, but you can see it in the way he slightly pulls you along as you wander. it’s downright adorable
dark shadow is also having the time of his life, popping up to make snarky comments at passrersby and steal candy whenever possible
“god, did she pull that costume off of last years clearance rack?”
“dark shadow, enough.”
he’s not wrong though
candy negotiations are done through dark shadow - your boyfriend would’ve given you all the good stuff without questioning it, and his counterpart can’t have that
you end up sitting outside to watch the stars, tokoyami cuddled into your chest and all it takes is a few well placed kisses to his plumage to have dark shadow sweep you up and take you right inside for some evening fun ;)
[i tried to write as many as i could, i hope you all enjoy bbs! happy halloween 🎃 🧡]
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annsparksthegmr · 4 years ago
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Pokemon Black Nuzlocke - Part 1
Hey! Wanted to try something different because quarantine is boring and since where I am, lock down is happening again, I thought about doing something I thought I’d never do: why not attempt a Nuzlocke of one of my favorite Pokemon games? Sounds crazy, I know. But I could at the very least put the game down in between sessions. And I thought by doing one, it would be interesting - and I kind of wanted to work on a Pokemon OC idea based on that run.
One I hope to get to drawing soon enough. But for right now, it is Nuzlocke time. (I should be finished Shield, but honestly I’ve gotten too bored and disappointed with that game to even finish the main story.)
So if you’re interested in reading the little notes I have regarding this Pokemon Black Nuzlocke, you can read more below. And if you don’t, that’s fine too!
So with all that being said, I'll try and keep things in bullet points since I’m not entirely sure how to format this. But I’m going with Nuzlocke Rules as follows:
I can only catch 1 Pokemon each route that is my first encounter. If it faints, I can’t have any other Pokemon from the route. (Gift Pokemon also do count as an encounter if given in a specific area. Such as the one before the first Gym counts as my Dream Yard encounter.)
However, I am involving a dupes clause in case I encounter the same Pokemon back to back on routes. So I can’t have two Lillipups but I will allow myself to capture a Purrloin and Liepard if they are on separate routes as encounters. But if the Purrloin has evolved to a Liepard by the time I encounter the wild Liepard, I can use Dupes clause to not capture it. (I hope to not have to use this rule. But I just don’t want a team full of the exact same Pokemon when I have to face the champion.)
If a Pokemon faints, I can not use them again since they are considered dead.
All Pokemon on my team must be nicknamed. No exception.
Shiny Clause is here in place by some random odds a Shiny Pokemon appears. I’ll catch it, but I won’t use it.
As challenging as it would be to play without items, I will only restrict myself from using the battle enhancing items such as X Speed.
Any additional ones shall be added if I feel like things are getting too easy.
Now to the actually notes regarding the beginning of this Nuzlocke.
Current name of my character is Avi. It is a placeholder name for the time being. But I like how it could be a nickname.
Starter Pokemon is Snivy. !!!Female!!! Nickname shall henceforth be Queen. (Could have probably gone Fire or Water Starter, but I am bias toward most Grass Starters.)
Route 1 encounter is a female Lillipup. Nicknamed Puppy.
Fought N and Queen was brought into yellow health. Switched out to Puppy for the easy victory. Kind of forgot N just decides to challenge you out of nowhere, but thankfully I was healed for the battle beforehand.
Route 2 encounter is a female Purrloin. Nicknamed Ghost Girl - Yugioh Vrains reference. Later, I came to regret the name choice.
Ghost Girl nearly died to a critic hit from a Level 4 Patrat. Survived on 1 hp.
In Striaton City fighting Cheren at the school. He manages to burn Ghost Girl and reduce her to 2 HP. Still alive as Puppy finished off the Tepig. Puppy also finished off Purrloin and defeated Cheren.
Dreamyard Patrat also brought Ghost Girl to red yet again. Purrloin seemed nice but appears to be a liability.
In the Dreamyard, I took the Panpour to help out against the upcoming first Gym battle. Despite the fact I doubted to use it in the long run, I decided to name him Fountain
Striaton Gym is primarily a Fountain and Puppy show in the battles. Got the first badge after beating Chili without any losses.
Fennel comes to bug me about Dream Mist and stuff while my Pokemon are still injured. So I healed everyone up before heading there. Bianca just watched as a Munna got hit by some Team Plasma members before one of them decided to come and hit me. Hit me as if battling me. Which i quickly defeated one no problem. Then the other met the same fate.
Thankfully a Musharna stepped in while Bianca was too scared to do anything. Fennel also got her Dream Mist which I will probably have no use of considering the fact everyone has moved onto the Pokemon Switch games and forgot Fennel even existed.
Also Fennel prevented me from leaving town so I got to hear about the useless feature I’ll never fully get to use. And I doubt to hear from her again.
I decided to visit the little daycare center instead of getting a new encounter right away. Just because I wanted to level up primarily Puppy and Queen. Because Ghost Girl and Fountain were not going to be big party members in the long run. At least I do not think so.
But on Route 3, Cheren challenged me after I beat up twin girls. And I wasn’t entirely confident about the fight. Though I did have Pokemon around the same level as Tepig, I was starting to realize how much I did not remember regarding levels of opponents of this game. And how I might need to prepare for upcoming Gyms and battles. 
Though luckily, Fountain and Puppy managed to carry me to victory. Then Team Plasma decided to steal a young girl’s Pokemon and I have to go with Cheren to fix it while Bianca comforts the young girl. Which, both of us proceeded to wipe the floor with the Grunts no problem. Plus it did help in the double battle they decided to keep biting Tepig, leaving Queen to get off a Growth before using Vine Whip to knock them both out.
I did decide to get my encounter in the caves once Team Plasma left and found a Roggenrola. It was female - which usually it was hard for me to get female Pokemon whenever I played. So I tried catching it, since even though I could not fully evolve it to its final form, I didn’t think it was a truly bad Pokemon to pick up. So Pebbles joined the team! Never used a Roggenrola but I kind of hope if she survives it will make the fourth Gym battle easier.
Now before I went grinding up Pebbles to catch up and everyone to a similar level, I needed to get my Route 3 encounter. Though I had completely forgotten the Blitzle trainer existed, so when I switched in Pebbles she nearly died. I kind of forgot that right now, those defenses suck. And it might have also been a crit. That or Shockwave. And out of everything for my runs, I fear the random crits knocking out my Pokemon. Second is me suddenly being under leveled or not prepared for a battle.
So I wanted to try my luck in the dark grass for a double encounter to increase my odds of finding a more unique encounter. But I got a Blitz, who was a male and I caught him in a Heal Ball. His name is now Zigzagzop because funny reference. And he was holding a Cheri berry for some reason. Nice.
This route was also when I realized I could have gotten a Pidove, but at the very least using them to level up Zigzagzop would be nice.
And here is where I’m going to be ending any story progression and solely focus and trying to get everyone up to Level 15 who is on my primary team. Because I did look up there is a Trainer Battle with N where he’s around Level 13. Though me being dumb did not realize I had Queen attack a Patrat twice with Vine whip and it was about to unleash its powered up attack. Luckily I had Pebbles who had Sturdy tank the hit and then switch back to take it out. 
But I am considering maybe leveling everyone up to around 18-19 to prepare for the Lenora battle. Mainly because I know she is going to be a challenge as none of my team knows any fighting type moves. That and I recall her Watchhog using Retaliate giving me lots of problems when I was younger.
I have no real plans besides trying to either tank out things with Pebbles or pray I can easily knock out Watchog. Not sure if there are any tips or tricks regarding how to beat that in terms of Nuzlockes. But next time I update everyone, I should have beaten Lenora with hopefully no deaths, but considering the situations… I got a feeling I’m going to mess up and get some deaths. And I got a strong feeling it may involve Ghost Girl considering the amount of times she has nearly died already. Or if I screw up Pebbbles’ Sturdy.
Team Recap:
Queen - Female Snivy (Lvl 14)
Puppy - Female Lillipup (Lvl 14)
Ghost Girl - Female Purrloin (Lvl 11)
Fountain - Male Sampour (Lvl 12)
Pebbles - Female Roggnerola (Lvl 11)
Zigzagzop - Male Blitzle (Lvl 12)
Deaths: 0
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willow-salix · 4 years ago
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Isolation update! I was planning on doing the prompt of "Sight" for @gumnut-logic challenge for the next chapter of the big fat fic (which I'm still gonna do) but this came out too. So I let the boys roll with it.
Day 76 of Isolation on Tracy Island
“Scott?”
“Hmm?”
“Do you know anything about this?” I held up my headphones, which had been previously missing for maybe the last eight months and that I had just found in the cutlery drawer.
“Yeah, they’re headphones.”
“Thank you Captain Obvious, I meant why are they in with the knives and forks?”
He shrugged. “Why are you asking me?”
“Because you were hiding socks around the place for over three weeks.”
“Only because it took you so long to give them back to me. I started after we watched Half Blood Prince, I thought it would make you laugh but you just kept ignoring them.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry I didn’t realise you needed to be freed!”
“Of course I did! I was your house elf!”
“House elves do chores! They don’t sit around being fed and demanding attention!”
“I’m a progressive house elf that is fighting for elf rights!”
“No you aren't, you’re a lazy bum!”
“Lazy? Me?”
“Yes, you!”
“I will never understand the conversations you two have,” John muttered as he pushed past us to fill his mug with the coffee I had just brewed.
“It’s affectionate arguing,” Scott laughed, sliding his mug over to John for a top up.
“So no one knows why my headphones have just suddenly turned up from wherever they vanished to and magicked themselves into the kitchen?”
“Nope,” Scott gave up waiting for John to pour him a drink and stole mine. I narrowed my eyes in his general direction. John slid a fresh cup over to me. Such a great guy.
“You know,” John mused. “I found one of my world geography books in the bathroom cupboard.”
“I found my utility knife in the piano stool,” Virgil added, wandering over to snag some toast that had just popped up.
“I just made that,” I told him.
“Thank you,” he continued to butter it. I stared at his plaid clad back for a few seconds but when he failed to burst into flames I gave up and dropped some more bread into the toaster.
“Now that I think about it,” Scott mused, “I found my guitar pick in the fruit bowl, the one that I got from that little shop in Texas. I thought I lost it for good years ago but it just appeared out of nowhere.”
“Something strange is going on,” Virgil declared. “If stuff we lost is returning there has to be a reason for it.”
“Parallel universe,” I answered confidently.
“I don’t think that's a thing,” Scott said gently.
“Apports then?” I offered.
“No, I don’t think...what’s an apport?” Virgil asked.
“An object conjured out of nothing by a ghost, obviously.”
“I don’t think this is the work of a ghost, love," John said, squeezing my shoulder as he passed by to take a seat. “There’s only one person that borrows things without asking and that’s Gordon.”
“That was going to be my next guess,” I admitted.
“Yet you went straight for ghosts and different universes?” Scott asked, clearly bemused.
“Well, maybe, just for once, I wanted something interesting to happen around here that I could actually deal with,” I huffed. “Sue me.”
“Only you could think ghosts and different realms were something that’s easy to deal with when you were the one that screamed and climbed me like a monkey because a crab ran over your foot on the beach last night,” John laughed.
“Crabs have pincers, any sane person would get away from one of them,” I pouted, reaching for some toast off Virgil’s plate. Honestly I don’t know why we don't just have communal plates in this house, no one seems to eat their own food.
“So what are we going to do about Gordon being a kleptomaniac?” I asked.
“We’ll deal with him after breakfast,” Scott decided, leaning over and biting the corner off my toast. See? No boundaries whatsoever.
***
The klepto in question was sneaking suspiciously around the lounge when we tracked him down and we caught him in the act of leaving a magnifying glass behind a book on the bookcase.
“Busted,” Scott yelled, making Gordon jump about a foot in the air.
“So it was you that’s been leaving our belongings scattered around the house,” Virgil sighed.
“Why are you doing this?” John asked, although his tone said he was debating the wiseness of even posing the question and was unsure he actually wanted an answer.
“Can’t a guy do something nice for his family?”
“He can when he’s not the one thats been stealing things in the first place,” I shot back, arms folded, foot tapping.
“I’m offended!” Gordon gasped dramatically. “A Tracy doesn’t steal unless its Virgil and a bell takes his fancy-”
“That was one time and it was an accident!”
“I may borrow things,” Gordon continued.
“For three years?” Scott snorted.
“I borrow on extended loan-”
“Without permission,” John added.
“But you always get them back eventually,” Gordon finished triumphantly. “I got bored and cleaned my room and it was like unearthing buried treasure. I may have forgotten that I borrowed a few things but you’ve got them back now, so no harm no foul.”
“Is that all you needed to return?” Virgil sighed.
“There might be a few other things scattered around,” Gordon admitted.
“Go and get them,” Scott ordered.
Gordon staggered in half an hour later weighed down by a massive box overflowing with his plundered loot.
“Seriously?” Scott gaped as the box thumped down on the table.
“All of that?” Virgil couldn't believe his eyes.
“Not surprised,” John muttered.
“How did you manage to borrow all that?” Alan asked in awe, having been summoned from his pit to claim any lost items that may have fallen into Gordons possession. “I’m not even allowed to borrow a pen.”
“It’s because he doesn’t bother asking,” John told him.
“That’s where I’ve been going wrong!”
Gordon shooty finger winked at him.
“No!” I yelped, intervening for the first time and grabbing Alan, pulling him into my arms. “Do not corrupt this precious bean.”
“Too...late,” Alan wheezed, trying to escape my python like grasp.
“Oh, sorry,” I let go and Alan took a dramatically deep breath.
“What’s in the box, Squid?” Scott asked.
Gordon tipped the box up and out tumbled a mass of things that shocked even me.
“That’s my baseball cap,” Scott snagged it.
“My gloves,” Virgil claimed them.
“That’s my camera,” John snatched it up. “I thought I left that behind on the beach and the sea took it.”
“Well, technically the sea’s representative did,” I giggled, then noticed something in the middle of the pile. “Why do you have my headscarf? You know that I use that when you guys force me to get in a boat, it makes me feel fancy.”
“Are those my sunglasses?”
“Yes, I broke mine and was going fishing.”
“Is that my lipstick?”
“Yeah, I used it to draw blood on my neck so I could be a zombie at halloween.”
“There’s my ocarina.”
“It was so weird I had to try it.”
“Is that my belt?”
“Yeah, remember that date I went on with Penny? It went really well with those navy pants.”
“I thought I lost that harmonica.”
“I was going through a depressed week and wanted to play the blues.”
“Is that my cologne?”
“Same date.”
“Why do you have my toothbrush?”
“I used it to clean the sand out of one of Four’s filters.”
“My playing cards!”
“Yeah, I wanted to learn card tricks.”
“My travel chess set!”
“Four of the pawns are missing now, sorry.”
“Seriously, my drill?”
“I wanted to put up a picture.”
“Why did you need my tie?”
“That's classified.”
“That’s my favorite pen.”
“Yeah, I’ve got no excuse for that, I used it, put it in my pocket and forgot about it.”
“Gordon, why do you have my flip flops?”
“Mine broke and your’s were nearest.”
An endless stream of lost objects had suddenly returned home and it was a tad overwhelming but along with his more recent acquisitions were items that hadn’t been seen in forever.
“I remember this game!” Alan exclaimed, grabbing the box. “John and I used to play it all the time when I was little. You had to be astronauts and fly through the meteor showers and land on different planets and fight aliens. It was great. We had the best scores, no one could beat us.”
“Actually, I had the best scores,” John corrected him.
“No way, it was a team effort, we played that together every night after I got home from school.”
Virgil chuckled.
“What?” Alan looked confused. “Why are you laughing?”
“I may have taken the batteries out of your controller and just let you think you were playing.” John admitted.
“What! That was one of my greatest achievements in life!”
“Alan, you went into space when you were thirteen,” John pointed out.
“Oh yeah!”
Virgil spotted a book and picked it up. “I haven’t seen this since we were little.”
“Oh, I remember that one,” Scott smiled. “Mom had it when she was small and she used to read it to us every thanksgiving.”
John was busy sifting through the pile. “Hey, my first star globe, why do you have this?”
“Remember when I used to get upset when Dad went away? Well you used to point out all the different stars to me on it and where the moon was near them.”
“Oh yeah,” John smiled, “I remember that, I let you borrow it to keep beside your bed so you could see where Dad was every night.”
“That’s my old teddy bear,” Scott smiled, picking it up and sitting it on his lap. “I left him with you when I went to college.”
“I know, I told you that I was too old to have a plushie in my room but you insisted. I passed him on to Alan and when we moved I guess he got packed up with my things.”
“That’s the children’s guitar that Mom taught us to play,” Virgil picked it up and strummed a few cords but the tuning was terrible.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Alan said quietly. “In fact, I don’t remember much of any of this stuff.” He gestured to the pile of things that still remained scattered on the table top. “I don’t know that pencil sharpener, that snow globe or those shell bracelets, I don’t know any of it.”
“Neither do I,” I reminded him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
“I don’t have any memories of them so they don’t mean anything to me.”
“But that’s what’s so great about things and why I keep telling your brother that not everything has to have a use all the time. Things are there to remind us of the good times, just the sight of them can conjure up images, but they are also there to encourage us to share those memories. I used to love looking through my Nan and Grandad’s cupboards because I discovered so many things that were interesting,” I told him. “I’d ask them about them and they would tell me where they got them or who they belonged to before they got them and it was so nice to see the joy that the memories brought them. Pick something and ask about them, let’s share memories.”
Slowly Alan reached out to touch the small pile of shell bracelets.
“Where did these come from?”
“We were on a trip to the beach,” Scott started.
“Gordon was running all over picking up little shells and bringing them back to Mom,” Virgil continued.
“She ended up with a huge pile of them,” John laughed. “But Gordon didn't want her to put them back.”
“She ended up asking Dad to drill a tiny hole through each of them and she made them into bracelets for us as a reminder of the vacation,” Scott picked up the story.
“We wore them for a few days but Gordon kept stealing them because he loved the shells,” Virgil added.
“I remember that,” Gordon smiled. “There’s a picture in the album of me wearing them all, I don’t look any older than five.”
Alan picked them up, rubbing one of the shells between thumb and finger. “Why are there five of them?”
“Because Mom was pregnant with you at the time and said that you were there too so you should have a bracelet,” Scott smiled, reaching over to take one. “This was mine.”
One by one the others each claimed a bracelet, leaving Alan with just one.
“You’re right, that’s a nice story to hear,” he admitted, slipping the bracelet over his hand.
“Hey, here’s an idea,” I suggested. “This has been a mad few months, how about we start a new memory box and in ten years time we’ll look back in it and remember the longest vacation ever.”
“Yeah,” Alan nodded. “That could be cool.”
The box slowly filled up with bits and pieces.
Here are some of them.
-Some of our finished colouring pages.
-Gordon’s tablet that hadn’t recovered from its unscheduled dip in the bath.
-Brains’s broken glasses and a broken piece of his microscope that fell off of Alan when we played human buckaroo
-A small pile of post-it’s which Scott had used on April fools day to label everything in the lounge.
-The rubber spider John had pranked me with.
-A pair of the bunny ears the boys wore to deliver Easter eggs.
-The empty bottle of ‘Chill Pills’ Scott got for his birthday.
-A selection of our pictionary artwork.
-The beauty blender Virgil ruined on Gordon’s face.
-An empty popcorn bag Alan found stuffed between the couch cushions from one of our many movie nights.
-One of Scott’s socks that hadn’t been found before.
-A gaudy necklace from our lip sync battle
-A clue list from our scavenger hunt
-A shell I picked up on the beach the day they taught me to surf.
-The evil Furby
-The purple wig we made John wear (he was very glad to donate it to the memory box)
“OK, so, we don’t take anything out but we can add more for as long as isolation goes on?” Alan confirmed.
“Yep,” I nodded. “Who’s going to be in charge of keeping it safe?”
“Gordon should,” Alan said. “Since he seems to be the keeper of everyone’s things.”
“Even without permission,” John muttered, tucking his pen into his pocket in case it went walkies again.
“Actually,” Gordon said, “I think Alan should look after it for us.”
“Really? You mean that?” Alan grinned.
“Sure, kiddo,” Scott agreed. “After all, they’re your memories too
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