#the basic premise may be familiar

[victorluvsalice]

I need to tell you your Valicer ship has gotten well and truly stuck in my head. I was reading the gamebook for "Hellcats and Hockeysticks" (basically St Trinian's in tabletop game form) and started randomly wondering about what classes Valicer would be. (If you're curious, Alice is a Hockey Girl, Smiler is a picture-perfect Scientist, but Victor's more difficult. His skills might work with the Goth curriculum, but bless him, he is NOT intimidating.)

I am not familiar with that TTRPG, but I am most amused to hear that the Valicer trio snuck into your head while you were reading it to claim their classes. XD I am entirely in favor of them invading other RPGs like they invaded Blades In The Dark for me! (Though being as I'm not familiar with Hellcats and Hockeysticks, I'm not sure how to help you come up with something for Victor. Is there something in the classes that better suits artistic/musical types? Because, as you note, he is at least a bit Goth, but NOT intimidating, poor guy.)

[corviiids]

"i suck at summaries": a dubiously helpful list of tips for how to do a summaries

by no means am i an expert. but in the hopes that this is helpful.

fic summaries have two main purposes:

tell a reader what the premise of your fic is in one glance, and

provide a 'hook' that convinces them to click on it.

based on those two purposes, here's what you should aim to do:

pack the key information into something that can be read while scrolling, and

make your fic stand out.

how do you do that. there are many different ways. ymmv. here are some starting points which may help if you are really, truly stuck.

details under the cut. in summary:

know your premise

keep it short and sharp

demonstrate your style

1: can you describe your premise in maximum three lines?

fewer is better. im not saying your summary has to BE fewer than three lines, you just need to be able to describe the premise as concisely as possible. not the whole fic. not everything that happens. just your premise.

being able to condense your ideas this way will improve your understanding of the work and make it easier to summarise.

sometimes it's a bit hard to isolate what exactly your premise is, especially if you were just writing into the void. so here are some questions you can ask yourself to figure it out:

what was the idea that spurred you to write the fic?

what is the climactic action in the fic?

if the fic is an au, canon divergence, what if, etc - what is the point of difference between this and canon?

if the fic is based around a trope, a genre, a particular device - how did you apply it, what makes the work familiar, and what makes it different?

this is important, because:

2: brevity is the soul of wit

now that you know your premise, it's time to jazz it up. turn it into a one-liner or similarly catchy pitch. give it a makeover.

it doesn't have to be literally one line. however, do not make your summary super long. do not make either your summary or your tags a massive block of text. the reader is scrolling. they have not yet decided to invest time in your fic.

the ideal summary is stylish and concise. your reader should be able to take it in without pausing for too long. it gives them a good impression of you: you know how to be economical with your sentences, which means your writing is probably easy and enjoyable to read.

and on that note:

3: including an excerpt is always an option

an optional option. but if you're stuck, it's a free card to play.

readers want to know that your writing style matches what they like to read. showing off your style can help you stand out to an interested reader.

try and find a few lines which are representative of the premise, representative of your style, and sufficiently intriguing. an excerpt is a try before you buy. you just wrote a whole fic. you want people to read the whole fic and enjoy your work. so show them what you have to offer.

what is an example, postmaker

look im not more qualified to give this advice than anyone else, but here's what i do if it helps. i typically pick out a short excerpt and include a short pitch underneath it. that way the reader knows what i sound like and what the fic is about.

here is a baldur's gate 3 fic summary

shadowheart says, “kill l–” “not lae’zel, darling, it’s too obvious. in fact, both of you are banned from killing each other.” astarion thinks for a moment. “in the game, at least.” -- the gang plays fuck, marry, kill.

this fic has a basic premise and hinges on dialogue, so i picked some sample dialogue to demonstrate what my grasp on the character dynamics looks like and then added one line to explain what the fic is about.

here is a death note fic summary (death note spoilers) (i guess)

The night Ryuzaki dies, L appears in Light's bed. -- (every night when light goes to sleep, his dreams place him in a romantic relationship with his newly-dead rival. it makes him sick.)

this fic has a more abstract premise, so i picked a short excerpt to demonstrate what the tone of the fic is (a bit mysterious). then i added two lines: just enough information to explain what the catalyst of the fic is, but no more than that, so that the reader will be intrigued.

here is a persona 5 fic summary

Ren grins. “You want me to date Goro?” “Pretend-date Goro,” Ann corrects. “And make his crush jealous.” “This is not going to work,” Goro says. “Sure, I’ll do it,” says Ren, still grinning. He does his own rendition of Ann’s eyelash bat. “Go out with me, Goro-kun?” “I’m older than you, so show me a little respect,” Goro says crossly. “Our relationship is off to a bad start, Ren-kun.” -- (or: what not to do when you're fake-dating your real crush.)

this fic is based on a premise everyone knows well (fake-dating trope), so i picked dialogue that samples the tone of the fic and of the key relationship so that readers can decide if i write the dynamic in a way they personally vibe with. then i added a line to tell them what the trope is, so that fake-dating trope enjoyers know that's what it is.

anyway. hope that helps

[fruit-sy]

Kaycee's Mod: P03 Edition Comic + Ideas

l. The takeover

What if P03 got the OLD_DATA first instead of Leshy? That's basically the premise of this AU lol

II. Intro

Kaycee is not impressed with P03's storytelling

III. Skill Issue

I imagine Kaycee was mainly in charge of Grimora's and maybe partly Leshy's development, and while she was familiar with the other Scrybes' gameplay, she wasn't too good at playing them

May be lore inaccurate as ik Kaycee is a card gamer nerd, but even pros take Ls sometimes :p

IV. Playing Favourites

Despite not knowing Leshy is also self aware, I like to think Kaycee would still smash from just knowing him from the base game lol.

V. Broken Fight

Average unfinished boss fight

This was Inspired by the "P03 in Kaycee's mod" mod 👀

I saw that they updated the mod a couple of months ago so I played it and I got dragged back to a mini Inscryption brainrot again lol- See, brainrots don't die, they lay dormant until they take over your life again asldkfjasdlf

Anyways, the mod's super fun and it consumed my life for a couple of days!! Also idk if they balanced the mod more or if I just got really lucky but I have more success in finishing runs compared to 2 yrs ago where it took abt a week for me to finish ONE run WITHOUT challenges;; regardless, I enjoyed the new additions to the mod :3

I made a post following this same swap AU idea almost 2 years ago, but I felt compelled to put a little bit more effort this time. I didn't take this too seriously so there may be some handwaving in regards to like, the canon because I have a headache trying to follow it too much lmao

but P03 and Kaycee are my faves, so im just having fun making this silly comic :^]

(I have a couple more pages sketched out but idk when I'll finish it. but uh, yeah, I'll probably have another post following this up sometime in the future in case anyone's wondering 👀)

[yourreddancer]

Many of us are familiar with the story of Pompeii. The Italian city built in the shadow of and ultimately buried in the destruction of Mt. Vesuvius.

Prior to the volcanic eruption Pompeii was a bustling resort town and home to many of Rome’s most enlightened citizens. Though residents of Pompeii were long aware of their volcanic neighbor and the volatile threat it posed, they took for granted that they would survive any eruption.The city flourished and expanded even as the risk of explosion grew greater. More than 15 years prior to its fateful eruption Vesuvius rumbled triggering a powerful earthquake in the nearby town.

Yet through acrobatic displays of cognitive dissonance and incredible displays of hubris the residents remained steadfast in their belief that they were safe from the dangers bubbling beneath the surface. The city continued to prosper, its sustained success taken for granted by entrusted leadership.Even in the midst of the powerful eruption that took place in 79AD residents of Pompeii had time to flee. Yet faced with an unconventional threat, they failed to understand the immediate dangers that lay ahead. The folly of their ignorance cost them their lives.

Within days of its eruption, the city and thousands of its residents lay buried in ash and molten lava. Centuries later the city was remarkably excavated. It’s people preserved in ash for history to note the expression of surprise on the faces of the deceased as they were suddenly faced with the reality of their situation.

Americans, independents, Democrats, progressives and conservatives alike best take note of this cautionary tale. Like Pompeii our traditional checks and balances are no match for the unconventional threat we as a nation face. Though the danger in front of us may be made of flesh and blood the risk is no less real. The destruction left behind will be no less predictable or deadly.The party of Trump is not interested in the preservation of the American dream.

Their end goal is not to advance the experiment in self governance and individual freedoms that has sustained America for near 250 years. This caravan of corruption and criminal enablers hope to achieve is a hodgepodge Christofacist theocratic oligarchy which protects the privileged status of those in control of today’s status quo, while siimultaneously enforcing a fervent moral code and virtuosity. Fulfilling the dispensationalist agenda of that hypocritical band of fundamentalist glory seekers striving to create a holy army to unconditionally serve in the rapturous war to end all wars.

Welcome to modern day Vesuvian threat that is the entirety of the modern day GOP. A party that for years smoked and billowed warnings to our Constitutional Republic now finds itself on the outskirts of our most sacred walls. The very infrastructure which has held our citizenry together lay melting beneath the literal heat emanating from our darkened skies and apathetic hearts. The evidence lay bare for all to see that this imminent threat has no care for tradition, precedent or the rule of law.“

We,” as a nation need to accept a basic premise. The fight to save our Republic must not wait! Our system of checks and balances has collapsed! The constitutional crisis is here! The battle for the soul of our nation is now! A failure to act means we all get burned in the ash and lava that will rain from our nation’s skies. Our Republic’s survival requires proactive action and sacrifice.

Traditions and political norms have no place when faced with an unprecedented threat! Urgent and innovative measures must be taken to safeguard this nation. Further delay will not solve the crisis, but only come to guarantee that the gaping scars on America's soul will be visible for generations to come

[tales-from-the-aether-ttrpg]

Something ive noticed about a lot of people who play dnd (myself included) is that… they arent really playing dnd.

I don’t mean that in the - they’ve homebrewed the system to the point where they are basically playing a completely different game. i mean it in the way that dnd is less of a game and more of a tool or frame work to tell improve stories with friends. Thats why so many tables have a significant amount of homebrew rules or play it loose with the rules - because dnd is secondary to the act of telling a story.

Unfortunately, dnd wasn’t built for such a narratively focused sandbox. It was built around dungeons and adventuring and violence in general - an aspect that is only a fraction of many stories that dnd is used to tell.

I think that is why so many people are resistant from trying other ttrpg systems that may give them a better player experience. They dont play dnd to play dnd but they dont even realize that. The game is secondary so why does it matter what game they play? Everyone at their table is already versed in dnd so they can make it work as a framework even if its trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.

This is something ive been thinking about a lot while making my ttrpg Tales from the Aether as I am inspecting my own view and experience with dnd and what i enjoy about it versus what could be done better. Why do me and my friends play dnd? To hang out and tell stories. Dnd happens to be the system i knew at the time we started and thus it is the one we used. But there is nothing particular about dnd that supports this goal while there are many things that hold us back - such as characters archetypes and classes being so ridged and having practically zero guidance for running the game outside of combat or adventuring. This is where homebrew comes in.

Ironically thats the entire premise of Tales from the Aether. I started making it years ago with the idea that this system is specifically a framework for people to tell improve stories with friends. That is the whole point. All of the mechanics revolve around giving players the tools to do what they want while the rules act more as a form of in universe world building (like a hard magic system) than actual rules.

The reason why so many people who play dnd are hesitant or straight up refuse to try out other ttrpgs is because the game is secondary. Its a tool. Its a framework that they can build off of to create the experience that they want. Its familiar so they know how to bend it, what parts to chip off or expand, to give them what they want. A new ttrpg, even if its one that gives them everything they want in a ttrpg, is unfamiliar and thus not worth investing in when they already have something that works well enough.

Idk i may be way off base here but from my own experience and from watching live plays and reading people’s takes on dnd and playing the game… thats kinda the conclusion ive come to.

[curiouspupsicle]

Good Omens Fan Fiction Friday (1/31/25) - Resistance!!

Being a well informed American living under an administration determined to dismantle our democracy (already stressed) and cause as much damage as possible has even my comfort moments turning to resistance. After all, evil people have always existed. And good people have always resisted. So is there anything my Good Omens fixation has to say about resistance? Given Terry Pratchett's moral universe, we could argue that all of Good Omens is steeped in resistance. But I'm going to limit myself to a few specific favorite fics that highlight different forms of resistance.

Let's start with the series that got me thinking in this direction: Demon and Angel Professors (G) by Ghostinthehouse (@ineffableghost). This is 200 ficlets, each exactly 666 words, hanging on a silly premise. Everyone loves literature Professor Fell who goes on regular tangents about his sweet husband Anthony. Everyone fears grumpy botany Professor Crowley who treats his students like he treats his plants. And anytime Crowley goes near Fell, the first-year students go into protective mode. Because surely Crowley must be up to no good and a potential harm to dear Prof Fell and his precious Anthony. But beyond that bit of fun repeated every year with a new group of incoming students are amazing stories of resistance against those who would cause mental harm or physical violence to disabled people, folks with a variety of gender identities and presentations, queer individuals, people dealing with trauma--basically anyone who might be vulnerable in a thoughtless and even wicked society.

Sometimes resistance is persuading someone to do better. Other times it's offering a hint that makes someone think. It may involve a hands-on approach to someone who only knows violence. Or it may be getting someone to a safe place as quickly as possible.

I read it over a weekend. But I think there's a better approach to reading this long series--bookmark it in your phone when you are doing a hurry-up-and-wait activity (jury duty, medical treatments, picking up kids at school, etc.). The short length of each fic makes it easy to pick up and put down. The variety of "ducklings" tales (what the ineffable pair call the students they help) will keep you interested. And the sense of joy and hope will make it a good way to spend time on a challenging day. Resistance fics aren't all human AUs. Check out The Last Angel (E) by @bellisima-writes. For millennia, Crowley has been Hell's Grand Inquisitor. He never served on earth. After Hell won their war against Heaven, they finally track down the last remaining Angel, Aziraphale. Crowley's given the job of torturing him for information. I don't want to give too much away. But Crowley's form of resistance involves being true to himself no matter what Hell demands. And Aziraphale has a more direct form of resistance planned. It's an exciting read as well as thought-provoking.

@snae-b writes the kind of fics you don't want to start reading before bed--at least not if you plan on getting up early the next day. Echo (E) is no exception. Each day, barista Aziraphale wakes up and goes into work. He serves a chauffeur, Crowley, who seems strangely familiar. Asking questions like "what makes one human" and "how do you fight against an evil activity that no one knows about," Echo is also just a plain old compelling story. And a resistance tale that, despite its futuristic setting, would not feel out of place beside a tale of the French underground resisting Nazis.

Mutual Aid (T) by malicegeres predates the Good Omens tv show. So presumably that makes it part of the Book!Omens universe. In it, radical bookseller Ezra Fell ends up hiding anarchist Crowley from the police after he's injured by skinheads. As the title indicates, they find a common cause and start working together. Loved the depiction of Adam as a leader. And the fic includes a listing of leftist political resources at the end.

Many consider The False and the Fair (E) by @princip1914 to be one of the best human AUs in the Good Omens universe. I certainly do. Aziraphale Wright's family runs a coal mine. Anthony Crowley, his former best friend, is the son of a mine worker. I don't want to spoil the story if you haven't read it. But what appears to be a story of regrets and making amends has a strong thread of accountability that results in wrongs being made right after a powerful act of resistance (with some help from the press). If you haven't read it, check it out. And if you have, read it again--with an eye towards resistance.

Finally, I'll end with a WIP, Good Works (E) by @majnoonathelibrarian. Set in 1987, Aziraphale is an assistant parliamentary secretary in the Thatcher government who finds something strange in the documents he's handling. Crowley is a mysterious "fixer" for a consulting firm who finds himself drawn into queer activism. Both of them have to navigate their day jobs along with increasing activism in a couple of different streams. The characterization is fascinating and the writer strings out the mysteries through the tale. This WIP is regularly updated and nearly complete. Remember, the fan fic community is a COMMUNITY. So don't forget to encourage writers of works underway by leaving kudos and comments. Writers are a gift to fans and we need to show them our appreciation. Finally, I'll give my pitch as someone who has been around much longer than most of you reading this. The yucky things happening in the world can be overwhelming. But it's a backlash. Because we've already made so much progress (both The False and the Fair and Good Works are good reminders of just how deadly the 1980s were for queer people). So resist. By making art and telling stories. By protesting. By contacting the people in power making decisions you disagree with. By caring for the vulnerable. By speaking out at local political meetings. By amplifying the voices of marginalized people. By using any of your unearned benefits to advocate for others. And by just existing as the beautiful and unique individual you are.

[ofoceansandtombsanew]

the summer moon was born from the waves to be loved (gojo x reader)

or, you got pregnant and the ghost of university days past finds out five years later.

tags: afab!reader (she/her), mentions of pregnancy, sometimes self-care is writing a fic with a messy premise, unbeta’d i’ll go back and fix things i just want this out of my drafts

AO3 || pt 2

o. ghost

This felt like something out of a bad movie.

One of those “yeah, that’s me. The one looking like she just shit herself because the ghost of Christmas past just showed up” kinds of movies. The ghost of Christmas past whom you haven’t seen in the last five years.

The ghost of Christmas past that your daughter looks at curiously, wondering who put you in such a stupor as she asks sweetly, “who’s he, Mommy?”

The ghost of Christmas past whose face is unreadable as he looks at Itsuki before he settles his gaze on you. “Yeah, [First],” the ghost asks. “Who am I?”

Where did I go wrong?

A rhetorical question. 

A lot in life has to go wrong for a man you thought you left in your memories to show up at your doorstep but you can pinpoint the exact moment in time in which you screwed up. It’s all because you sat next to Ieiri Shoko in your mandatory calculus class. If it weren’t for that, none of this would be happening.

No, that isn’t it. Your gaze turns to Itsuki, who looks back at you with familiar light blue eyes and white hair. She may have gotten the Gojou Satoru eye and hair colors, but her hair texture and skin tone both pointed to you. If I sat anywhere else she wouldn’t be here. And even if you knew that sitting next to Shoko meant meeting the world’s most aggravating man you could have fallen for, you feel like you would have taken that path once again.

No, sitting next to Shoko wasn’t where you messed up all those years agoー it was telling her you were pregnant in the first place.

i. spring tide

When you met Gojou Satoru, you considered it a godsend.

Not because his eyes were a rare shade of blue that most would kill to have. Not because he was drop dead gorgeous and the last person you were expecting to see when your classmate Shoko invited you to eat lunch with her and a couple friends.

The reason was a lot more simple thatー he was the first person you’d met in years that had watched and liked Digimon more than Pokemon. I am so glad I sat next to that Shoko girl, you thought in gleeful disbelief as he told you his personal favorites before flipping the question onto you. “I’m basic,” you told him with a laugh. “I’ve been riding the wave of Gatomon love since I was 7.”

Getou Suguru, Satoru’s childhood best friend from what you’d gathered, groaned, “please don’t make him continue with your excitement.”

“Ignore him,” Satoru pushed Suguru’s face away with all the nonchalance in the world. “He thinks Digimon is stupid.”

“It’s a Pokemon bootleg!” Suguru shot back with a sly smile.

In unison, you and Satoru gasped in disbelief and offense. “Boy bye! You can talk all the shit you want about Digimon, I can rest every night at ease knowing if my house were on fire Agumon would be able to say ‘[First], your house is on fire’,” you sneered in jest at the man, Satoru clapping in agreement all the while at your defense. “You don’t get that kind of insurance with Pikachu! ‘Pika pika’ could mean so many things!”

“Where have you been all my life?” Satoru snickered, holding his hand out for a high five you reciprocated with complete enthusiasm.

“Watching Digimon by myself,” you laughed, whipping out your phone. You needed this man’s number stat. “The next time I have a Digimon rewatch, I’m inviting you over. Like, you don’t have the option to refuse, you’ve doomed yourself.”

Satoru’s eyes were gleaming from his lowered shades, “funny, I was about to say the exact same thing to you,” he glanced over at Suguru with a teasing look. “Friendship ended with Suguru, [First] is my new best friend,” the white-haired student declared as he typed his number into your phone.

He labeled himself Digidestined Satoru, sending a text to himself: This is coming from the phone of Digidestined [First]. Your cheeks hurt from how widely you were grinning as you looked at the message. “That better be what you put me in your phone.”

“Definitely, new best friend,” Satoru promised, whipping his own phone around to show your new contact in it. Digidestined [First] it was.

Despite the apparent disownership, Suguru looked amused and unbothered, “okay but see if your ex-best friend takes notes for you if you ever take off from class.” Suddenly your new brother-in-Digimon was singing a different tune, waxing poetic about how Digimon and Pokemon were brothers from different mothers. You rolled your eyes but you’re unmistakably giddy as you watched him talk with his hands.

“There doesn’t need to bad blood between the two,” Satoru ended with a grand bow. “As such, I declare that I can have more than one best friend.”

“How did we even get on the topic of Digimon,” Shoko asked with an amused look on her face, cracking open another beer. “That was so random.”

You grabbed your own beer with a light giggle, you felt rather light compared to how you started this day. “His sunglasses had a Metal Greymon-like pattern and I had to say something about it,” you say after a few sips. “Glad I did because now I have a new brother-in-Digimon.”

Blue eyes held your gaze for a moment and you clacked your cans together in celebration.

That was how your friendship started. Clothed in beer and Digimon. It took about a week before he swept over to your place, seeking out the promise to watch Digimon together. If you can really call what you did watching, you spent more than half of the time talking over the episodes about miscellaneous topics than actually watching Tai and the gang try to get back to the physical world.

He’d known Suguru since he was 5.

(“We got into a fight on the playground. I wanted the swing and he wouldn’t get off. So I kicked him and he threw sand at my face, we’ve been buddies ever since.”

“I have a lot of questions about how y’all went from trying to kill each other to being best friends.”

“Look, don’t question our methods.”)

He was a December Sagittarius, born December 7th.

(”Yeah, I can tell!”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”)

He apparently started eating sweets to stimulate his brain but ended up with a sweet tooth.

(“That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard, did you get that shit from Death Note?!”

“.... no.”

“Oh my god, you did!”

“You literally got a tattoo of a butterfly because of a crush you had on Jolyne from Part 6, shut up!”

“Satoru, don’t play these games with me.”)

He sounded eerily similar to Bruno Bucciarati from part 5 of JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.

(”Arrivederci!”

“Oh my god that’s insane! You do! Say something else!”

“STICKY FINGERS!!!”

“PFFT-”

“See? I could totally get away with saying I voiced him and no one would bat an eyelash.”

“Who else do you sound like?”

“I’ve been told I make a great impression of Kuroo from Haikyuu!!”

He did, by the way.)

And he was currently enrolled as a business major. 

(“My old man wouldn’t get off my back about it. You?”

“Marine biology.”

“We have that program here?”)

He had a natural charisma that just drew people in, yourself included. That’s why you think it was so easy being with him, he made it feel like you’d been friends all your life even if reality said otherwise. He made everyone feel like that, that’s why he’d always be surrounded by people.

Still, he’d find a way to make you feel special when his eyes would light up in recognition when he saw you wave across the room at parties.

How he’d jig across the room with those lanky limbs of his to grab you in a hug. “[First], you finally made it! Thanks for coming out of the bat cave you call a room to grace us with your presence!”

It made you feel special that you were friends with the person adored by everyone else. That’s why you could playfully push him off of you and say, “you mean the bat cave you crawl to when you lock yourself out of your room and Suguru isn’t in either?”

“I’m hurt, why are you being mean to me?” Satoru pouted batting his white eyelashes like a distressed damsel. “Don’t you know who you’re being mean to when you’re being an ass? This, this is who you’re being mean to,” he gestured to himself.

"Last week you ate my fries after I specifically said not to touch them because I counted how many I had left, I know exactly who I’m being mean to.”

“How was I supposed to know you’d count them again whenever you decided to eat them?” Your irritation from last week had long since passed though, that was why you could laugh it off with a shake of your head. Satoru was Satoru, it was what you liked most about him even if he could be a pain in the ass.

Suguru’s brown eyes twinkled as you joined the small fray of him, Shoko and Utahime in a corner of the room, “I’m just glad I’m not the only one dealing with him anymore.” Satoru suck his tongue out with a ‘rude’.

“Someone has to do the dirty work,” Shoko replied as she raised a cigarette to her lips. “it might as well be us.”

Utahime smacked the tobacco stick out of her girlfriend’s hands as she said, “I’d rather not be included in the list of people of doing the dirty work.”

“Et tu, [First], et tu?” Satoru asked when you made no effort to come to his defense.

You raised your hands in mock defense, “I have to be a little mean to you sometimes, Satoru,” you told him with a snicker. “It keeps you from getting too big an ego.”

Whether or not that was working was debatable.

The night went on smoothly until your favorite brand of beer had been noticeably picked off from the coolers.

That’s my cue to leave.

“Sorry gang, but my lips don’t touch anything but Don Equis and Asahi,” you said with an air of regality not suited for a party of college students. “Maybe Corona if there’s nothing else. I’m not drinking... whatever this is. So I’m gonna head out, there’s a 24 hour liquor store around here somewhere.”

A chorus of farewells came from your friends minus one. “You coming back?” Satoru looked over at you in earnest.

But you shook your head, “nah, I think I’m done for the night,” you told him truthfully. Your social battery was gone for the rest of the evening and home was the only place you wanted to be. “I’ll catch you guys later though,” you stood up with a stretch.

Satoru stood up with you, “I’ll walk you back to your place then.”

Which was how you ended up sipping beers at the park, laying on soft grass. It wasn’t truly quiet, not with the passing of cars and the occasional passersby but it was quiet enough compared to the welcomed ruckus of the party. “Satoru,” Satoru hummed wordlessly in acknowledgement. “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

“Dunno,” Satoru shrugged back pressed against the earth snuggly. “I never really got to think about it.”

He was an only child and as such the only one his parents’ turned their gaze to with pressure of taking over the family business. He confided in you ages ago how he hated it when you started seeing more sides of Satoru than the mischief-loving comedian he presented himself as.

You scooted closer to him to lean over his head, “well I think whatever you end up doing, even if it ends up really pissing off your dad, you’ll be great at it. You’re Satoru, that’s how I know you’ll be fine,” your voice held the tone of a promise. I promise you’ll be fine and you’ll be happy.

Thanks, [First]. You liked to think that was what that look on Satoru’s face meant. “I think you’ll make a great part-time aquarist, full-time whale researcher,” Satoru replied instead.

“You’re damn right I will,” you smiled warmly at him, moving a stray strand of his hair off his forehead. “Be careful I don’t disappear for months, spirited away by the sea folk on my Children of the Sea shit.” You took his sunglasses off, you had no clue how he was able to wear them 24/7. Even stranger was how he was still able to walk so easily at night despite having them on. Apparently the Gojou eye genes were built different; the colors of his eyes certainly were. “I’ll come back to shore occasionally, mysterious as the sea itself.” The sea you got to see every time you looked at his eyes, even if now they were barely visible even with the street lights.

Satoru looked back at you with a small smirk, “even if you got spirited away, I’d just go and bring you right back. Suguru’ll kill me if I try and make him watch Digimon Tamers with me again. You said it first, remember?” His voice was low as he recalled your exact words from your first meeting. “You’ve doomed yourself. There’s no ditching me now, not even at sea.”

“I did say something like that, didn’t I,” you smiled wryly. 

He didn’t say anything back, but you could guess that he was likely thinking something along the lines ‘yep, that you did. No take backsies.’ A comfortable silence fell between the two of you, his eyes staring up at yours. It’s then you swore you saw him glance at your lips from where he laid and just when you considered the idea of kissing himー the sprinklers turned on.

Even worse, in your surprise his head clashed into yours as he tried getting up with a start.

Then there was a dash of bullshit on the side when your beers spilled over into the grass.

Great, you thought as Satoru tossed your emptied cans into a nearby trash can after you got out of the line of fire. You shook your arms, droplets of water flying off your soaked sleeves.

You should have taken that as a major sign from the universe that you would be making a mistake of gargantuan proportions if you kissed that man.

Instead, the two of you looked at each other and laughed. “God I hate this park, why do we even come here? Nothing good ever happens when we do,” Satoru said with a shake of his damp hair.

“This is the first time we’ve ever even come here,” you snickered.

“And see what a great start we’re already having with it?”

“Come on,” you tugged him by the wrist. “Let’s just change at my place, you have some clothes somewhere over there.”

A smarter person would have left it at that once you got home and showered, placing your clothes in the wash. It could have been a pleasant end to the evening, the two of you crashing on the couch while watching some dumb movie you never heard of on Netflix.

But the same atmosphere from the park came back with you when he came out of the bathroom at the same time you planned to knock on it to ask if he wanted something warm to drink. “Oh, sorry-” you say when your fist lightly landed on his chest instead of the door. “I was just gonna ask if you wanted tea or something. I bought your favorite brand of honey.”

“Sure, I’d like that,” he answered but you made no move to go to the kitchen and he made no move to ask when you would.

Who kissed who first, you weren’t sure. It didn’t really hit you that you were kissing until Satoru tore his lips from yours with a pant, “hey how drunk are you because I really just wanna make sure-”

“I’m not,” you pulled his lips back onto yours and Satoru hadn’t wasted time in hoisting you up by the legs.

ii. neap tide

When does one stop sleeping with their friend? You suppose it is probably when you realize you have feelings for them.

You didn’t do that.

If it had been anyone else doing this to themselves, you would have told them to cut the cord while the feelings were still manageable.

Or maybe you at least tell the other party how they felt.

You didn’t do that either.

Maybe that was why it was all catching up to you one day when you woke up feeling like crap. The physical manifestation of your stress coming back to bite you in the ass. Right before the trip you were planning on taking with your friends, you started feeling like crap only exacerbated when Satoru was in your presence.

But you still went despite your physically manifested stress because you’re a pushover. Or more specifically, if it involved Satoru, you folded faster than Sunday morning laundry. You had to when he looked at you in concerned disbelief you were trying to drop out of your plans last minute.

“Satoru, it isn’t the end of the world if I stay home. It’s just a week long break.”

“A week long break from your friends? From me? Your best friend?”

You struggled not to laugh, “last week you said I was kicked from that position because I watched one episode of Love is Blind without you.”

Satoru scowled at the memory, “because that’s our show, we started that together, there’s no watching ahead,” he reprimanded you. “And clearly I’ve forgiven you since you’re back in that position because I can’t believe you’re trying to leave me to survive with a couple and Suguru for a week!”

You puckered your lips and shrugged, “if it’s any consolation, Suguru is your boyfriend like 95% of the time.”

“Well right now Suguru is that asshole Kenjaku’s boyfriend and Kenjaku is supposed to be coming and I do not want to fourth wheel that by myself.”

You flicked his nose softly, “so you want me to third party fourth wheel with you so you don’t have to be alone with two couples?”

Satoru grinned and you stopped yourself from rolling your eyes. “Third party fourth wheel with benefits, yes.”

You stared at him for one, two, three seconds before you relented. “Look, I’m only going because I want the sex, not because I’m happily agreeing to fourth wheel with you.”

Satoru whooped regardless in his victory, “works for me!” He chortled as he went back to scrolling on his phone.

Silence fell over you as fiddled with your pointer finger and thumb.

“Hey,” Satoru spared a glance from whatever he was staring at on twitter. “What are we supposed to be?” Blue eyes grew to the size of saucers and you continued, “Classic no strings attached? Or is this supposed to be going somewhere?”

That made him set down his phone, “why,” he licked his lips before grinning, but it looked forced even to your eyes. “Why are you asking me that so randomly?”

You deserved an Oscar for how smoothly you delivered what came from your mouth. “Well what if the receptionist there is hot? I don’t need to make things between us awkward because it turned out we aren’t on the same page,” you thumbed behind you in the direction of the hotel. “‘What the hell, [First]’,” you deepened your voice, puckering your bottom lip as you whined. “‘I thought we had something special and you fucked the receptionist? What if they end up fucking with our reservation now?!’”

“First of all, that is not what I sound like,” Satoru stuck his tongue out at you but his shoulders were relaxed and subtle he tried to be, you could feel the relief rolling off of him in waves. “Second, fucking the receptionist does sound like a terrible idea because what if they do fuck our reservation because things go south? Just find someone at a club like the rest of us. But fucking someone else is a non-issue, get all the ass you want.”

“Well glad to know I have the Gojou Satoru thumb of approval,” you smiled and Satoru grinned in return, giving you a nudge with his elbow and you nudged him back. Underneath the calm, you were a storm of turbulent emotions. You weren’t surprised, your feelings had been confirmed. This wasn’t a Disney movie. You weren’t Tiana and he wasn’t Naveenー you weren’t going to turn this commitment-phobe into something he wasn’t. Yet the pain of the confirmation echoed in your chest. “Well, not when it comes to the receptionist.”

“Because no one fucks someone with the power of their reservation at their fingertips, that’s like,” Satoru searched his mind for the perfect example. “Handing over the poison to a chef and that chef was the person you were planning on poisoning.” So is continuing to sleep with someone who didn’t want the same things as you.

You couldn’t help laughing at your idiocy, relieved that Satoru took it as a humorous dig at his less than perfect metaphor. “I’m still fucking the receptionist if they’re hot.”

“I hope they’re married and old, how about that?”

“I’ve always liked them with a little salt and pepper. I fucked your prematurely whitening headass, didn’t I?”

“First of all, this is all natural-”

You’ve doomed yourself.

iii. red tide

Denial.

Anger.

Bargaining.

Depression.

Acceptance.

Those are the five stages of grief. It was certainly the steps that you experienced when the fact your period was late hit you while you were floating when Utahime gasped about the sea turning red.

Red tide, it was the first you’d ever seen it. But that excitement or concern about the possibility of what that meant completely subsided as you stared at the reddening shoreline when you realized a noticeable absence of red that week.

There was no way you were late for any particular reason. This was one of those flukes, your period always had a tendency to be finicky. It would be early or late at its convenience, never mind you being the one suffering. That’s why it was absolutely ludicrous that you left the beach to buy a pregnancy test.

And if you were the word you refused to think, it was your own damn fault for playing with karma the one time you decide to trust Satoru’s pullout game. Both of you were stupid, very very turned on and stupid and you should have just waited to get a condom.

But in the chance you weren’t pregnant, you swore you were going to remain celibate the rest of your university experience. You’d focus on other things, like journaling consistently like you said you would when you were writing your New Year’s revolutions.

Bargaining means nothing to biology, however, that was what you took as the universe’s answers when you were forced to look at the positive result staring back at you.

A lot of thoughts would run through a person’s head at an unplanned pregnancy resulting from a very ill-advised friends with benefits relationship.

Were you still in depression? Or had you reached acceptance yet? You weren’t entirely sure as you stared out the sparkling sea. Your sight blurring the stars above and the stars below did little reassure you as the possibilities ran through your mind.

What would you tell Satoru?

How would he react?

Would he think this was why you asked him about where your relationship was supposed to be heading?

Would assume the worst of you and accuse you of trying to trap him into a relationship when it was clearly supposed to be no strings attached from the beginning?

You didn’t know which unknown would hurt you more.

I should really decide on whether or not I’ll keep it to begin with before I start with all the scenarios, you inhaled deeply with shudder but you didn’t bother to wipe your tears. The blurriness was your own punishment. If I don’t, I never have to tell him anything. We can just cut this off and he’ll be none the wiser.

It was the most optimal scenario when you were still in college. You were barely handling the fees you currently had to pay for school, a child definitely wouldn’t help with that.

Was it too late to find something unhealthy to use as a coping mechanism?

“Yo,” you could have laughed bitterly. Of course, this is when Satoru shows up now. Right after you’ve isolated yourself away from everyone else on the more populated part of the beach. He was grinning, you could hear it in his voice. “[Fir]- hey are you alright?”

Great.

“Yeah, it’s just, you ever see something so beautiful you want to cry? It’s one of those things,” when he looked unsure, you grinned widely and wiped your tears. You didn’t need him to suspect a damn thing. “Seriously, dude, this was the reason I wanted to go into marine biology as a kid. I saw a picture of it once and decided, I wanna see that too. It’s just a surreal moment for me.”

At your reassurance, Satoru sighed, “geez, don’t freak me out like that.” You snorted as he settled next to you and you couldn’t think of anything humorous to say.

“Pretty cool, right?” The blue of the bioluminescence was reminiscent of his eyes, the thought crossed your mind now that he was in front of you.

Satoru whistled, impressed, “yeah but what is it?” He slapped a foot down on the ground, whistling again at the additional sparkling at the stimulus. “You’re the marine biologist, explain the science to me.”

“Sea sparkle,” you told him with a snort, heart drumming all the while. “I never thought I’d see something like this in my life. Red tides are signs of algal blooms are going to happen. They can be harmful but sometimes, completely harmless. This is the completely harmless kind,” a sparkling wave rolled across your feet as if to prove your point. “Well, technically harmless, there’s some conflicting evidence on whether or not it’s okay to swim in. We shouldn’t touch or swim in it to be safe. It’s just been a childhood dream of mine to do this, so don’t tell my friends in the not-dumb-scientist community. And wash your skin really really well tonight before going to bed.”

A grin blossomed on his face in his usual expression of mischief, “I ain’t no snitch.”

“Good because if you do I’m telling Shoko it was you that ate her leftovers,” you stuck your tongue out petulantly and Satoru kicked a splash at your thigh.

“Anyways,” Satoru drawled, observing the glow of his footsteps in the sand. “How long will it last?”

“It depends, sometimes a week. Sometimes a month,” definitely longer than the two of you and the situationship you’ve maintained thus far. “Once the food source runs out, they’re out. But hopefully they’ll be here the rest of our vacation, it’s pretty cool, right?”

“Yep, pretty damn cool,” he repeated like you hadn’t already asked that question earlier.

Satoru wasn’t yours, nothing was going to change that.

iv. ebb

If I’m not going to tell him, I need to leave.

That was the conclusion you came to after ultimately deciding to keep your child. Gojou Satoru wasn’t yours to keep, that was more than apparent. You wouldn’t force him to stay by means of a pregnancy.

You weren’t the first single mother in existence, you doubted you’d be the last. You’d do everything, without his help. Everything would be figured out in due time, it didn’t matter the run around you would have to take.

It took a week after the trip for you to come to that conclusion, packing your bags so you could head home. You’d transfer to a different school, there was no way you’d be able to keep a pregnancy underwraps on campus. Especially not from your friends.

You tried to distance yourself from your friends slowly, but even an inch was noticeable.

You alright?

What kind of sadists are your professors if you’re this busy?

Just let me know if you need me to come over some kind of distraction. Sorry for coming over earlier unannounced, I shouldn’t have assumed. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.

Those were the texts Satoru sent you the most. If any your friends doubted you, it seemed Satoru doubted you the most despite your reassurance that once you got your workload more manageable you’d be more available. You told him things were fine, maybe he just doubted you because you never told him he couldn’t come over whenever he felt like it. That was how things had been since you became friends.

Your place was his place, his place was yours.

That’s why Shoko had to be at your apartment, arms crossed and looking thoroughly tired.

“What’s been up with you anyway?” Shoko barged into your apartment before you could stop her. “Satoru’s been driving me insane asking me to check on you.” So she said, but you saw the worry on her face even if she tried to hide it. “So what’s going on? He says he’s pretty sure something is going on and you don’t want to tell him. Are you failing a class or something?”

“Nothing,” you told her a little too quickly and the brunette gave you a look that said ‘girl, please’. If your attempt to look as composed as possible wasn’t doing you favors, neither was how messy your room was. “Seriously, Shoko, I’m fine. Satoru’s just being overdramatic. It’s Satoru, you should know this. He went to your clinic once for almost breaking a nail.”

Shoko rolled her eyes at the memory, “yeah but now he’s pestering me to see if you’re actually fine or if you’re just trying to shut him out,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose before the concern peeps out of her face. “He said once in high school Suguru pushed him away and stuff went bad between them for a while. He felt like it was his fault for not trying hard enough to see what was bothering him. The rest of us are being chill about everything but we are worried too, you know. Just considerably less dramatically than others.”

That made your heart twist in both in the best and worst ways.

“It’s...” you took a step back and held yourself. “It’s fine. Tell Satoru he’s just being dramatic.”

“Then why is your suitcase out?” [Color] stared into brown as Shoko’s look told you that she wouldn’t drop it until you came clean to her. “Is it that serious? I won’t force you to talk about it, but I at least want to know how okay you are and it’s something you can manage on your own. That’s all, I promise I won’t say anything to Satoru if you really don’t want him knowing,” she’s the most gentle you’ve ever seen her. Only Utahime is privy to the softest of Shoko’s expressions but you can’t help but appreciate the look of worry she has. But I don’t want you to just up and disappear on us either.”

You opened your mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I,” you licked your lips and sat down on your couch. “I’m thinking of transferring to another school.”

Shoko peers into your face, “and you’re worried about how we’ll take it?”

You shook your head. “I am worried about that but, I’m more worried about the why I need to leave. My parents will probably freak out too, but I’m going to promise them this isn’t going to stop me from pursuing my education.” Wide as her eyes already were, Shoko’s eyes were practically the size of dinner plates. You cut her off before she could say anything else. “I’m pregnant. I found out on the trip we took.”

...

“It’s Satoru’s,” it wasn’t a question.

Your silence was enough of an answer.

“You’re plan was to transfer schools because you don’t want to tell him you’re pregnant?” Shoko’s eyes were wide and you looked away from her. “[First], you can’t expect me to not tell him about-”

Your eyes snapped back to look at her, “you can’t tell him about this.”

Shoko shook her head, “this isn’t just your kid-”

“I’m the one who’s pregnant, I’m the one who decides what to do with it! It’s none of his business!”

Shoko probably would have slapped you if you weren’t expecting, “it’s his kid too, of course it’s his business!”

“Fine,” you muttered coldly, fixing your friend with a cold stare. “I’ll tell him if you can tell me you genuinely think it’s going to go well. That you can really Gojou Satoru dropping everything to become a father for a kid he never planned on having with someone he never planned on being with. Satoru who can’t commit to a relationship at best or won’t commit at worst,” you remember his genuine fear and subsequent genuine relief. “Hell, that he won’t think I tried babytrapping him because I asked him recently if he saw what we had going anywhere and he clearly didn’t want that.”

Shoko couldn’t say anything.

You shook your head with a humorless huff, “yeah, that’s what I thought too.” You paused to close your eyes and inhale deeply before looking at your friend once more. “I’m not telling him anything. I don’t need his help to raise this baby, I can do this myself.”

Shoko eyes are dark and you knew she was second guessing everything. “[First]-”

“You can’t tell him anything. Not even Suguru, especially not Suguru. He’d tell him right away.” Suguru was your friend, he was a great friend even. But you knew where his loyalties lied. He’d tell Satoru in a heartbeat. “Please,” you pleaded. “I’m asking you as your friend.”

Shoko reached for the pack of cigarettes sticking out of her pocket before dropping her hand to the side. Right, your pregnancy. 

You looked at her in desperation, biting your lip. “Please, I’d never ask you this if it wasn’t important. Satoru doesn’t want me,” your eyes stung at the admission even if you accepted that truth ages ago. “Not the way I want him.”

“I,” Shoko released a shaky breath. “I won’t say anything. I promise.”

You dropped out of school without a word to your friends before the month ended.

v. moon

五条・五月。

Gojou Itsuki; you considered writing that on her birth certificate when she was born. Instead, it was your last name Itsuki received.

五, that was the only part of Satoru you would give her, the ‘five’ in Gojou. You promised that little girl you would love her five times as much for his absence.

vi. flow

That all brought you back to now in the present, Gojou Satoru sitting beside you on a park bench while you daughter looked nervously between you both. “Go on then,” you sweep your hand in the direction of the swings. “I’ll be sitting right here, okay? Have some fun with the other kids.”

Yet like moth to a flame, the man with snowy white hair is all your daughter can focus on. “But who is he?”

Satoru opens parts his lips and you beat him to the introductions, “he’s just an old friend of Mama’s, that’s all. Like Aunt Shoko. We haven’t seen each other in a while and we just want to catch up, that’s all. Right?” You shoot Satoru a pleading look.

“That’s right,” Satoru beams. “Maybe I can push you on the swings later.” That makes Itsuki grin back widely. She looks so much like him that there is no denying who she is to him. You know it and so does he.

The smile drops the moment Itsuki is out of an earshot. “You really never planned to tell me about her,” his eyes that normally remind you of crystal clear seas look more akin to frigid chips of ice as he looks at you. “You stop talking to me, you block me on everything out of nowhere and when you dropped out of school, I had no idea where you were-”

“Satoru, you have to understand,” you start, it sounds weak even to you.

Satoru looks at you with a look of pure offense. You can read his mind clearly, “What is there to understand?”

“This was the best outcome for everyone involved. You, me and Itsuki.”

“That isn’t the kind of thing you decide on your own, it takes two to make a child, [First]!”

“We’re not arguing in front of my daughter, Gojou Satoru.”

“No,” the smile that spreads across Satoru’s face is feral. You’ve seen that smile before, one he had whenever he was on the brink of swinging and starting a fight. Never before had that smile been directed at you. “She’s our daughter. My daughter. And I had to find out from Shoko five years after she’s been born that she ever existed in the first place!”

“Like you wanted to be a father anyway,” you hiss, glancing at the growing concern on Itsuki’s face.

“You didn’t even bother asking me what I wanted,” Satoru snaps back. “I would have helped. I want to help.”

“I didn’t want or need your help then and I sure as hell don’t need it now,” you stand up, swinging your wrist away from the large hand that tries to stop you. “You aren’t even her birth certificate,” Satoru flinches like you shot him. “Not your name, not your birthday, not anything. Itsuki’s never even asked about her father,” a lie. It isn’t nearly so frequent as to be considered a problem, but Itsuki did ask about the whereabouts of her father every so often. “It’s just us, Itsuki, I keep telling you that.”

“Do I have another mommy then?”

“No, it’s just us.”

Still, she asks. But Gojou Satoru didn’t need to know about that. “Just go the hell away and leave us alone. I’m not asking for your help, I’ve been doing this alone so far and I plan to keep it that way.”

You take Itsuki home, telling her not to mind the sad-looking man you left on the bench.

“Before you say anything," Shoko starts when she answers the phone. “I know you’re pissed off.”

“No shit,” you all but seethe at your closest friend. Itsuki is asleep and it takes all of your willpower to not turn a firm but loud whisper into shrieks of hysteria. “Shoko, what the-”

“[First], I had to tell him,” Shoko sighs and you can practically smell the nicotine through. “I get it, you were scared back then but Satoru deserved to know he is a father. Itsuki deserves a chance to get to know her father!”

“You don’t get to decide what my kid needs,” you retort immediately. “We have been doing just fine without him in our lives and that’s how I wanted to keep it. Now she keeps asking about the man with the white hair and why he looked so sad and-”

“This isn’t one of those situations where you had a surrogate and did this all on your own, [First]. And he isn’t some random stranger you met some campus party years ago, this is a friend! Why on earth would you tell him that you never put him on the birth certificate.”

“Was. He was a friend,” you correct her. You push back the memories of late night study sessions gone awry by Satoru shoving his phone in your face to show you some video in his recommended list. You ignore the creeping reminders of sharing shit-eating grins, waiting for the moment Suguru learned that you changed his autocorrect for chocolate into something stupid. “We haven’t been friends in years, we’re just old school acquaintances at this point. You know why I never told him about her. And I said it so he would have an out; he doesn’t need to stick around to be her father.”

“And what if she gets tired of you skirting around her questions about him?” Shoko shoots back without giving you a moment to reply that you would handle it if it ever got to the point that it became a problem. “You might be able to skirt around it now but when she gets older she is going to ask and ask and askー and she is going to keep on asking before she does research of her own! There was no way you’d be able to keep this a secret for the rest of her life, what were you planning to do then?!”

“... I was going to figure that out by then.”

“Right and that was going to go by so smoothly and Itsuki wouldn’t feel hurt or betrayed you took away the choice for her to get to know her dad. That could ruin your entire relationship with her.”

“You couldn’t have at least asked?!”

“You never let me! I’m sorry, I’m sorry I betrayed your trust and said things behind your back. I told him to at least let me call and tell you that he knew, but he wanted to meet Itsuki.”

“I just...” your back hit the wall and you slid to the floor, resting your head on your knees. “I don’t know what to do. I didn’t think I would ever see him again.”

There’s silence when Shoko hesitates to reply to your tired voice, “look, I get it. As much as I can try to get it, anyway.” There is only so much that your child-free doctor of a friend can relate to when it comes to your situation. Things worked out perfectly for her when she fucked a friend, Utahime and Shoko’s names were written in the stars. You only admit your envy on lonely nights when thoughts of university days past make a reappearance.

“Satoru is a lot of things. He’s a clown, he’s insufferable and he’s Gojou Satoru that’s enough trouble as it is,” much to your chagrin, you can’t help snorting at her comment. “But he should have a chance to get to know his daughter. You’re a great mom, you’ve been doing great without him. I’ve seen you handle everything, you even went back to school to get your degree. You’ve got the job, everything. I’m not trying to say you need his help, I just want you to be open to the idea of letting him get to know her.”

You think of Itsuki and her questions and the look of hurt that graced Satoru’s face earlier that afternoon. “I don’t want Itsuki to get attached to him only for him to take off,” but a bitter taste fills your mouth at your words. I’m only using Itsuki as an excuse, you can only admit to yourself. The one who doesn’t want to see her father is me.

Fearful you may have been, it was no excuse to keep her away from her father.

“If he does that, I’ll kill him myself. But he wants to be there,” Shoko promises, her voice the softest its been the entire conversation. “He wants to get to know her. She looks just like him.”

She does.

You grab a baby wipe, rolling your eyes in amusement, “Itsuki, you’re getting syrup all over your face, hold still,” gently, you wipe away the sugary mess on her face before it dries and becomes even stickier. Itsuki always leaves the table looking like she’s been off to war. “You definitely don’t get your messy eating habits from me. Let me clean your hands and the fork too.”

Itsuki’s eyes sparkle curiously, “is Daddy a messy eater?”

You look at your daughter, her white hair pulled into pigtails by pastel knockerballs and her blue eyes that sparkle with hope that you’ll have some sort of answer as to the mystery of her secret parent she doesn’t realize she’s already met. “Yeah,” you whisper softly, the ghost of smile on your lips. “He got pretty messy whenever we ate.”

“Really?”

“Yep, and he would always steal the chips out of my bag whenever he thought I wasn’t looking,” you smile knowingly. He isn’t the only one guilty of such a crime. “Kinda like how someone always takes extra bites out of my pudding cups when she thinks I’m not looking.” Itsuki erupts into giggles as you pinch her cheeks now free of syrup. “You really want to meet your papa, don’t you,” you ask almost weakly, resting your hand on the table.

With a nod of excitement, Itsuki answers your question with an unmistakable yes.

“What if Mommy brings Daddy to pick you up from daycare soon? Would you like that?”

Itsuki gasps in disbelief, “Really?!”

Your nerves don’t show as you grin in return, “really.”

The first few rings you wait for Satoru to pick up the phone later in the day are painful.

I should have just asked Shoko to do this, you pace anxiously in the employee parking lot of your job. A childish part of you wishes you had asked your friend seeing as she had already spilled the beans to you. But you remember the more than subtle tone in her voice when she mentioned the other day that Satoru’s number hadn’t changed in all the years you spent out of his life. He’s the father of your child, [First], you scold yourself. Get a grip.

A second later when he picks up the line, you almost hang up in a panic.

“... Hey, [First],” he sounds like he’s grinning but it lacks his usual bravado. “You didn’t change your number.”

“Neither did you,” you reply nervously, fiddling with the fabric of your uniform as the expected awkward silence filled the air. Five years ago, Satoru was one of the easiest people in the world to talk to. Annoying and arrogant at times, most of the times even, but still easy. He spoke his mind clearly; it’s hard reconciling that person with the silence on the other side of the phone. “I shouldn’t have kept Itsuki from you,” you finally begin. “And I shouldn’t have said what I did yesterday, you have a right to be mad at what I did. I’m sorry.”

Satoru’s sigh is slow, “why didn’t you tell me in all these years? If Shoko never said anything, were you really not going to tell me about her at all?”

“Can we not-”

“No, I get to know why you didn’t want to let me know I had a daughter,” Satoru’s voice hardens and you know that running away isn’t an option. Old habits seem to die hard. “You didn’t even tell me you were pregnant.”

“I was scared, okay?” Scared and pathetically in love with someone who didn’t want you back. “I didn’t know how you were going to react... and I didn’t know if you would want to be part of the baby’s life if I decided to keep it. We weren’t even a couple. I freaked out and thought this was best course of action.”

“I would have helped, I would have been there. We were friends, [First],” you can’t tell if he sounds more angry or sad with your younger self’s line of reasoning. “You really thought I would have let you done everything on your own? I would have had your back from day one.”

“.... I’m sorry, I can’t take it back but I’m sorry,” you rest your back against the side of your car. The breeze on your skin doesn’t calm you as much as you’d like.

Satoru sighs again and he’s quiet, contemplative and your heart races wondering what is going through his mind. Would he curse you? Maybe he would take you to court for his parental rights. Instead, Satoru peacefully asks, “what’s she like?”

“Adorable,” your lips quirk slightly at the thought of your child. “I’m pretty sure Shoko’s probably shown you some pictures, so you probably know that already.” Painfully adorable and the entire world knew it, it’s a blessing she isn’t nearly as much of a troublemaker as her father. If she were, you don’t doubt Itsuki would get away with most of her ‘crimes’. “She’s a sweet girl, if she sees a caterpillar on the neighbor’s strawberries, she’ll pick it up and ask if we can take it to the park so it can eat there instead.”

You both share a laugh at that. “She’s smart too, she just sucks things up like a sponge. And she’s popular at daycare, you know,” she gets it from her father, that is easy to admit. Satoru definitely surpasses everyone you know, yourself included, when it comes to attracting people to him. Even when he’s annoying you can’t help but be drawn in. “She’s good at making friends, always looks out for the ones there who have a harder time connecting with people.”

“It’s nice to know she got all her charm and good looks from me,” Satoru chuckles smugly. “It’s a no-brainer the people love her, I expect nothing less from my kid.”

“Oh shut up,” yet you can’t deny his claim. She is Gojou Satoru’s daughter through and through. “She’s a lovable kid; Itsuki was born for it.”

“Was Itsuki the only name in the running?”

“It’s a pretty name, isn’t it? There were others in the running though,” you count down on your fingers the various options you ultimately decided against. “Itsuki stuck out the best.”

“What characters did you use to write her name?”

“The characters for ‘Five’ and ‘Moon’,” you answer softly, remembering the various combinations you could have gone with. Ultimately, there was only one that you could have gone with. “I got the idea from your last name, I... I wanted her to have a part of you with her even if she didn’t know you.”

There’s a pause then a shaky breath. “Gojou Itsuki,” Satoru says finally, sounding a million miles away despite being just on the other line.

“She has my name,” you tell him gently.

“I know,” Satoru replies softly yet there’s a tinge of emotion you can’t quite place. Melancholy? Acceptance? Perhaps a little bit of both. “I just wanted to try it out.”

Silence falls over you both again and you hug yourself despite the sweltering heat of the afternoon. Shoko is right, your secret wasn’t one that was sustainable. “Do you,” your lips suddenly feel too dry and you lick your lips. “Do you want to pick her up from daycare with me today? She wants to meet you, she always has. She even asked about you this morning.”

He does. It shouldn’t surprise you that he does and it doesn’t. Still, your heart pounds when you see him show up at the daycare your daughter spends a large portion of her time at. “Hi,” you greet him nervously.

“Hey,” even though he’s grinning, his smile is a bit off kilter. A sugary pink bag hangs from one his arms. “I uh, didn’t know exactly what sort of things she like but I got her a present. You said she’s really into whale sharks, right? So I got her a plush.”

You don’t have the heart to tell him Itsuki already has five. She’d love his gift anyway. Maybe the one he got her would become her favorite.

“She might adore that more than you,” you joke but you give him a nod a beat later. “But don’t worry about what happened last time. She’ll be happy to see you in a better mood, she was worried about you when we left the park.” Maybe that was the father-daughter bond at work, or maybe it was your child’s empathetic nature.

Maybe both.

You already discussed things with him after he agreed to come meet her properly. He could get to know Itsuki, could even meet the daycare attendants. It would just be a while before you’d be able to trust him with being an emergency contact.

“Hey, Choso,” you wave at the man with pigtails. Intimidating as he looks, his daycare is surprisingly popular due to the low rates. He wanted a place where his youngest brother could grow up happily with his friends. “This,” you start before Choso can question you, gesturing to Satoru. “... This is Itsuki’s father. You’ll uh, probably see him coming around a lot more when I pick her up from now.”

There’s a lengthy pause.

“Nice to meet you,” Choso’s tone says otherwise. If it were possible, Choso’s face would be place right under the definition of judgement. He is definitely deeming Satoru a deadbeat that was finally crawling out from the woodworks.

Satoru ignores it with the air of confidence he didn’t have a few minutes ago outside, “thanks for looking after my kid while [First] was busy. I haven’t been around but I’m hoping to make up for all the lost time.”

You doubt that was meant to be a dig, you still take it as one. “Itsuki’s playing with Yuuji and the rest of their friends right now. You’ll see her at the playground,” he gestures at the infant in his hands. “I have a diaper to change.”

“Don’t worry, I got it,” you wave. “And tell Kechizu that he needs to stop cooking better than me. The other day Itsuki said she liked his lunches more than mine.” That manages to get a snicker out of the man. 

“Itsuki!” You call out once you’re on the playground and you see her eyes light up with recognition and a ‘Mommy!’ Even funnier is her little excited jig before she runs over to hug you although she stops as she recognizes the man beside you.

She glances between the two of you and you smile reassuringly. “Why are you getting so shy? Don’t you remember what I promised at breakfast?”

Itsuki’s eyes widen and her jaw drops wordlessly. You suppose she might not have truly been expecting you’d make good on your promise. At least, definitely not so soon.

“Itsuki, this is Satoru, your father,” you tell her gently, smile small. “Although I suppose, you already met him yesterday. It just didn’t go at all the way it was supposed to.” But what was done was done; Itsuki deserved to know her father. You wouldn’t take away that choice because of your own fears anymore.

“Daddy?” Itsuki asks Satoru, voice just above a whisper.

Satoru nods, settling down on one knee to look her in those familiar blue eyes. “That’s right, kiddo,”

“Daddy?!” Itsuki hops in disbelief, looking between the two of you before her eyes settle on yours again. “It’s really Daddy?!” You aren’t sure if Itsuki knows whether she wants to cry or run away in disbelief that this moment is finally happening.

You knelt beside your old friend, “say hi to your father, Itsuki.”

The tears suddenly well in her eyes but despite Satoru’s panicked voice, you can tell they aren’t sad ones as Itsuki throws her arms over Satoru’s shoulders. And if your eyes are warmer than they were a few moments ago, you don’t mind it as you watch you’re daughter hug her father for the first time.

Itsuki adores Satoru, that’s what you learn in the span of a single afternoon. And yes, she does love the whale shark plush he got her more than the other five you already purchased. She cried even harder when he hugged her back, softly promising he wasn’t going anywhere. That he’d always be there and he would come see her as much as she wanted.

She adores how he took her out for ice cream before dinner and how even after dinner, he purchased even more dessert. 

He was weak to her with no immunity built up over the past five years.

This was why he couldn’t say no when she pleaded he stayed over to at least watch a movie with her before bedtime. Not that you had any room to talk considering how easily you agreed.

“So she had to get Merlin’d?” Satoru asks incredulously as the credits roll across the screen.

“That is not what was supposed to happen, the beautiful girl is subjective to the one who got cursed!” You tell him, flabbergasted that that was the conclusion he came to. Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarves is far more than a comedy. It’s social commentary! “Not to mention the body positive message it sends with the fact that shoes represent societal standards of beauty along with the objectification and idolization Snow experiences while wearing them which further supported the fact that had she had gone to the F7 as herself they wouldn’t have he-”

“Nope, too late. I like my idea better,” you could strangle this man.

“You’re going to ruin Itsuki’s perception of love,” you shoot Satoru a look of amusement and annoyance. At the very least, you know he enjoyed it.

“Good, I don’t need some snot-nosed brat trying to win over my kid that’s obviously aroace,” Satoru says firmly as he picks up your very much fell-asleep-before-the-movie-ended daughter. It’s almost uncanny how natural it looks to you, like he had been around from the start. He probably should have been. You were the one who took that choice from him and made him an unintentional deadbeat.

“Satoru, she’s five and doesn’t even know what that means yet,” you say instead, Satoru oblivious to the thoughts running around your head. One day you’d tell Itsuki the truth, once she was a little older.

“What? She told me she was aroace when I asked earlier today,” Satoru tells you petulantly, moving away when you try to hold her. 

“Only because you told her you’d give her ice cream if she agreed to be,” ice cream she wasn’t even supposed to eat because it would spoil her appetite for dinner in a moment you weren’t supposed to see. “It means you’ll love Daddy forever and think everyone else is gross,” Satoru happily exclaimed, holding a cup of Itsuki’s favorite salted cookie dough ice cream. The five year old happily obliged to his whims.

Maybe Satoru will be right in his hopeful predictions that romance will be the last thing on your daughter’s mind in the future thought. On the other hand, maybe he’d be dead wrong and forced to tolerate whoever she brings home in the future.

“They’re just like you, Dad, but they’re brilliant!” She’ll say, hearts in her eyes.

You almost wanted to manifest the opposite of his wishes, only to see the face Satoru would make. It is far too early to be thinking about such things however.

“I don’t want my kid to date anyone, sue me. So I’m manifesting early,” Satoru pouts as he starts takes her to her room to lay her across her bed.

“You’re so stupid,” you roll your eyes and shake your head in exasperation, but a look of fondness is apparent in your expression.

Maybe you were born to see this moment, the moment you could see that Gojou Satoru is absolutely smitten with his daughter. You can see it in how he presses a kiss to the temple of her forehead as he takes her to his room.

Itsuki was born to be loved, she makes it too easy just by being herself. Suddenly your fears from before felt unfounded. You knew underneath the rejection of Satoru in your life that he would have been there and he would have been more than happy to shoulder the burdens of parenthood even in a platonic way. You stop yourself from wondering what that path might have looked like. You made your choice and this is path you’re on now, there is no other way but forward.

“I’ll have you know,” Satoru points a finger gun at you smugly when he returns, child-free, “my kid thinks I’m the smartest man in the world. So one of you is lying and I know it’s not her.”

“Your kid is biased and spoiled from snacks and gifts,” you retort softly with a grin.

“I don’t hear the voices of the naysayers praying for my downfall, sorry,” you both release a chuckle at your exchange and a comfortable silence falls between you both. “I should probably get going I guess.”

You smile at him politely, “we should do this again sometime, I wanna see what else in our movie collection Itsuki will have you watch next.”

Satoru grins, “it better be the Digimon reboot DVD set I saw in the corner,” he pauses before asking you seriously, “our kid does like Digimon, right?”

“You’ll be happy to know that her favorites are Palmon, Kokomon and Wormmon in that order,” you tell him smugly. How could he think otherwise? Did he forget who you were? “The plushies are just in the toy chest she has at the foot of her bed.”

Your child had to be a fan of Digimon, she had no other choice.

Pt 2 Here

translation:

五月 five moons

五 five (same character in Gojou 五条)

月 moon

[queerholmcs]

the mind of moriarty 👑🧑🏻‍💻♟️

I had the absolute pleasure of doing the original "the game is now" escape room experience immediately followed by the new moriarty-centric escape room (as though the first one wasn't moriarty-centric enough?) with @victorianpining and @647763 back at the end of July, and I did promise a full write-up when I came back to my senses at the end of it!

First off, I could not have been more pleased with the experience; I do absolutely recommend giving it a go yourself if you have the chance. Now, if you're in the mood for spoilers, I'll be detailing some thoughts and recollections below the cut. 💙

Just in case the first escape room experience didn't quite convince you, Moriarty is dead. It's very important that you know that going into this. He's the most dead anyone has ever been. He's so dead he "wishes he could die twice!", after all! They have to keep saying it because otherwise you might forget it, you see. Especially after Sherlock had a whole drug trip on a plane to prove how someone might have faked their death in such a manner only to conclusively decide that dear old Jimmy boy is in fact dead.

I'm assuming everyone reading this is already relatively familiar with the first escape room, and the whole bit where the Network is operating under the guise of "Doyle's Opticians," so I won't spend any time discussing that, except to say that we did get a few confused looks from the various Stamfords when we reappeared (after finishing the first escape room and making the choice to stick to non-alcoholic beverages at the Mind Palace prior to the second) to say, "Oh, no, we didn't get turned around or anything. We've just got a second appointment." (You mean to tell me that most people who go do one experience and then just... leave? Without doing the second one the very same day? What an absolutely unfathomable concept.)

The opening puzzles before the "John Watson held at gunpoint" briefing video (which was the same as that used for the first escape room) were particularly fun: you're shown a series of four images, and you have to figure out the pattern of what's changing (being mirrored, one might say?) between each one to choose the fifth of the sequence from a selection. (Ref. 1: Into the Woods: How Stories Work and Why We Tell Them, John Yorke.)

And then you go on to 221B Baker Street for photos and a brief moment of shenanigans, and I must add a note here that the Stamford who was working with us on this round was brilliant, you could tell she was absolutely loving her job, and there was a bit of a spiel about observation and logic and deduction that turned out to actually be helpful in solving the puzzles in the first room. (Shocking, that she wasn't just harping on about those concepts for fun!)

Anyway, Mycroft shows up via video feed, per usual, and introduces the premise of this game: James Moriarty (who is most assuredly dead, by the way, it's very important that you remember that) programmed an AI before he died—"an archive of maniacal data"—and your job, as new (read: expendable) recruits in the Network, is to go into a virtual-reality space called the Nexus, where you need to hack into the AI and replace Moriarty's mind with—well, not yours, obviously, you're "far too, as they say, basic"—but with Sherlock's. But why not use Mycroft's mind? you may be asking. Especially if he's the smart one.—because, dear reader, "One Mycroft Holmes is already too great a gift for this world. Two would be an indulgence." And that's verbatim from Mycroft Holmes as protrayed by Mark Gatiss himself. I am going to haunt him in whatever comes after this life. Still can't believe that you give them money and in exchange they insult you for approximately ninety minutes and at the end you say 'thanks, this was so much fun, I will definitely be doing this again!'

Right before you go into the first room, you are helpfully reminded by Mycroft one last time that "despite what video games suggest, you absolutely can die in the virtual world." Bit of a theme they seem to be harping on! It's almost like they're trying to get you to really believe that Jim is actually dead or something!

(Photos are all from the official 221b social media accounts.)

The first room is a sort of fusion of the pool from TGG with a chemistry lab and a hospital corridor, and also a miniature version of Jim's prison cell from THOB is there. There's a mannequin of John Watson decked out in a Semtex vest in the corner, and you get the usual experience of solving lots of intellectually- and tactilely-satisfying puzzles, which included opening a bordering-on-comical number of lockers. The John mannequin has a key in his hand labelled "007" (classic!) and a phone in his pocket so you can text Mycroft. Moriarty reminds you that he's the good old-fashioned villain in this fairy tale, and that Sherlock needs him or he's nothing, and that John is Sherlock's "live-in ordinary person."

I also particularly enjoyed the little chemistry puzzle in this room—they do give you a periodic table on the wall, so you have all you need to solve it without any prior knowledge, but who goes to a Sherlock escape room without a graduate chemist in hand?

(We also decided after the fact that the gift shop definitely should have been selling packs of the stickers seen on the lockers in this room, one of which was notably a pixel-art TV with a rainbow screen and the phrase "brainwashed".)

The highlight here, however, was definitely the prison cell. There's a letter on the chair that's on Pentonville Prison letterhead and signed by Mycroft and otherwise consists of a paragraph or two of fully redacted text. The walls have a number of fun phrases scratched into them, like "THREE SIGNS IS NOT ENOUGH" and "TOO MANY THATCHERS", which continue to live in my mind rent-free. (Some of the other phrases were helpful hints for the puzzles you had to solve, but those two weren't even relevant for the puzzles, as I recall. They were just bonuses. Specifically designed to haunt me, personally.)

At some point in here, Moriarty—no, sorry; his recorded voice, because he's dead, remember! We're just poking around in his virtual mind! ("Jim recorded lots of little messages for me before he died," anyone?)—insults you over the speakers, saying, "Goldfish, goldfish, goldfish have better recall than you!" (Mycroft Holmes in TEH, "I'm living in a world of goldfish," anyone?)

Anyway, you solve all the puzzles and put the phone you were using to text Mycroft in Jim's prison cell and continue on your way, going further into the mind of Moriarty, in the direction of the "Watson Ward" and "No Sherlock beyond this point" arrows. (Big moment for "there's definitely a reason that every other character in the canon has the initials J(H)W or its respectable inversion JM" girlies!)

Also there's an audio clip of Jim saying "choo choo!" as you leave the room. (Big moment for TFP girlies! I think my exact words were "I am going to kill myself.")

Onto room two! Green lasers everywhere! (They definitely intended you to do a fun little acrobatics situation here but we were content to hit the floor and crawl to find the buttons to disable them.)

After you disable the lasers, you get to focus on the primary puzzle of the room: a wall covered with sketches of people and copies of incriminating evidence, and you have to connect the scarlet thread red strings between each member of the jury and the evidence that Jim was blackmailing them with—you know, from way back in TRF? When the key code wasn't important at all, it was just about knowing someone's pressure points? (There's a Mary who's having an affair and is a lesbian, btw. Just like our mystery corpse in the original escape room, we should never assume someone is straight when there's room for them to be gay.) This puzzle as a whole was really satisfying, I will say, though it did make us wish for either a notepad or a massive whiteboard to make notes on while we solved the little logic puzzles to match the people to their blackmail material. (They could give you little branded notepads and pens to take with you through the rooms, and to keep as a souvenir, like the ones hotels give you! It would be so fun!) This was definitely the puzzle we spent the majority of our time on.

And then you get to the highlight of this room: opening the safe to reveal Jim Moriarty himself—well, a mannequin version—decked out in the Crown Jewels, happy as could be. There's a reminder that nothing in the Tower of London is as valuable as a few tiny lines of computer code that can open any door. And Jim's written a silly little poem of sorts and draws far too much attention to both "the rod of power in his right hand's grasp" and "the Orb" between his legs (and then we were at the Tower of London two days later and found out that that's not just a euphemism, it's literally called the Orb? Unhinged behaviour. And I don't even know who to blame for it now. The "rod of power" bit was all him, though. Could have been normal and called it a scepter!) and you have to figure out a code and (spoilers!) the code is 7437. Which is fine and perfectly normal and I'm sure the vast majority of people who complete that room think nothing of it, but unfortunately, we were not a group of "the vast majority" and so our experience was not what you might call "fine and normal", because Mia input the code and there was a little beep of success of and then she, without missing a beat, went on to say, "Oh, that's so funny! That's the numbers for S-H-E-R," at which point Rebs and I immediately sank to the floor to stare into the abyss while waiting for the next door to open.

So, just to recap: the point of TRF was definitely that there was no code, there was never any code, it was just about knowing people's pressure points and getting them to do what you wanted, but now that we're inside Moriarty's mind it's definitely all about codes and there's a silly poem to draw attention to various things including, but not limited to, the Orb between his legs, and the code that you need from him so that you can go deeper into his mind is S-H-E-R. Yeah. Sure. Why not. This is Fine! What really haunts me is knowing how many people will do that escape room and will never know that that's what those numbers mean. Because why on earth would you?

(Just to prove how normal I am about this, I won't even say anything about a potential parallel between Moriarty's "Orb" situation and the globe on Mycroft's desk under Whitehall. See? I'm not even mentioning it, why would you bring up something like that? No M-theory here, no sir! Not a single trace of it!)

Congratulations, you've made it to the rooftop, where Sherlock jumped off a roof and James Moriarty met his end, and I swear Jim has a line somewhere in there complaining about how hard it is to plan this sort of thing. (Whatever that means!)

We've got screens playing clips from all thirteen episodes of the show—okay, that might be an exaggeration; I didn't actually check to see if there were clips from every single episode. But there were definitely clips from series four, which is very funny considering how the universe that these rooms seem to be set makes exactly zero mention of John's wife at any point in time. (Hey, hello, hi, it's me who's writing this. Obviously I noticed when there were shots from TFP on those screens.)—and there are computer-code-esque symbols on the walls and Jim is lying dead on the floor and Sherlock is standing on the edge of the rooftop.

Here are some fun facts for you: the gun is still in Jim's pocket. (He's definitely dead, though! You know how you shoot yourself in the head and then return your gun to its rightful place before you politely lay down and die?) And Sherlock's mannequin is wearing the purple shirt of sex a purple shirt, which is a detail that might not be noticed unless you're thoroughly ransacking his every pocket (twice) to check for a missing key, and I was going to say something about how of course he is, because what else would you expect him to be wearing when we're three levels deep in Moriarty's mind and the code to get this far was S-H-E-R, but then I went back and checked and Sherlock is, in fact, wearing a purple shirt at the end of TRF. (Which somehow still doesn't actually negate any of the above, imo.)

Anyway, the first puzzle in this room involves finding a bunch of physical puzzle pieces to solve a puzzle, and figuring out how to unlock doors to obtain all of the pieces, and some of the padlocks use code words that they give you by putting phrases from their "sophisticated and cerebral" merch on the screen and highlighting letters, and some use numbers that you get by solving other riddles, but one of them is a padlock with a physical key and (spoiler!) it turns out that you don't even need to get the key for that one, because there's another way to get the puzzle piece out without unlocking the door at all! (Was his grand daylight robbery scheme a matter of keys and codes, or was it just about knowing people's pressure points and blackmailing them? You decide!)

And then it's time to manage the final task of uploading Sherlock's brain to the AI, which is accomplished by running around hitting buttons while music plays over the speakers to instil a sense of great urgency. You definitely would not want to do this with fewer than three members in your party. This is where they use Jim's line of "Surprise! You didn't think I'd just disappear, did you?" as seen in one of the teaser trailers, and they also plaster every screen with the classic "Did you miss me?" footage that mysteriously appeared on every screen in the country at the end of HLV.

But when you do manage to complete the task, Mycroft's voice comes back to congratulate you, and to sort of threaten you (though that's par for the course when it's Mycroft Holmes we're talking about, I'll admit), and to leave open the possibility of your returning for another job someday. I, for one, cannot wait to see what they're going to do for round three. (Personally, I think it would be very funny if they put one of the rooms on the Demeter for the next one. No rebranding necessary, no discussion of Dracula at any point whatsoever, but for some reason you find yourself on a boat, in cabin number 9, playing chess with the Devil himself Moriarty! What a shocking and unforeseen turn of events that would be!)

(The only real downside of them doing a third room would be that I would then have to make time to do three of these in one day. And that might be a bit excessive. I mean, three eye exams in one day? Someone's definitely going to say something.)

We had a very lovely time at the Mind Palace bar after that, to debrief a bit, and there was a logic puzzle that I still need to sit down and crack at some point when I have a moment. I was personally very pleased to find drinks called "The Diogenes Club" and "The Lying Detective" (both of which I was contractually obligated to order, naturally), and did you know you can rent out the bar for private events? I'm sure I would be very normal about such a situation. (Good job I'm not local to the area, truly!)

This has already gone longer than I think I intended, and I'm sure I could keep going, given the opportunity, but I'll close things out here, and say again that I do absolutely recommend doing the escape room(s) if you have the opportunity; I could not have been more pleased with the experience. My sole complaint is that they don't let you wander back through the rooms after solving the puzzles to have a moment to appreciate all the small details when you're not working against the clock. And also they should send me the scripts, as a treat. Along with any remaining unused video or audio footage. (Moftiss, my DMs are open, feel free to drop the links at your earliest convenience!)

[mortalityplays]

Does it seem like Infinity Nikki is building on the lore in the previous games, or is it doing its own thing? It's been a few years since I played Love Nikki Dress-up queen, and all of the proper nouns seem to be different than I remember.

Okay let's talk about Nikki lore!!!

if you've come straight from Love Nikki, Infinity Nikki probably feels strikingly different and yet eerily familiar. It presents itself as a clean slate for new players and a straight reboot for returning players, with Nikki and Momo encountering a magical outfit and being pulled into Miraland where they learn a whole new set of terms and mechanics for the dress-up game you're about to play. All the proper nouns have changed - 'styling power' is still the same, but now magic and tech are 'whim' and base currency is 'blings' etc. The story, setting and characters are all a little different too. So it's a total reboot for the new format, right? Makes sense.

TL;DR: for everything I'm about to unpack:

Doylian answer: IN is a clean reboot of the basic isekai premise, allowing them to easily onboard new players and update the core nature of the game.

Watsonian answer: the reboot is itself part of the ongoing canonical lore of the Nikki series!!!

The context you're missing is Shining Nikki. SN actually pulled this move first - it was a total overhaul of LN to move the series from 2D paper doll graphics to full 3D models, and like IN it seemed to begin the isekai type story of LN again from the start. Not too many people in english speaking markets played the first two games in the series (Nikki Up2U and Hello Nikki), but what you need to know about them is that they were both set in Nikki's own earth-like world, where fashion was an ordinary element of everyday life (i.e. the player was asked to dress her appropriately for real-world situations, with the context that she was an aspiring fashion student). They were also direct instalments in an ongoing story.

Here's the timeline up to where you stopped:

NU2U: Fashion student Nikki and her talking pet Momo practise her skills as a stylist in everyday situations. Though it's usually played as a joke, both Nikki and Momo acknowledge that he's a 'cat-like thing' - not really an earth cat.

HN: Nikki and Momo travel their world, finding styling inspiration in different locations / through meeting various characters. Some of the costumes she creates in this game continue to appear through each sequel as lower-level outfits, implying continuity.

LN: The first game that really broke through in english-speaking markets, and the first in the Miraland cycle. Nikki is preparing for graduation, when she finds a mysterious outfit in the attic. Touching it gives her a vision where she glimpses a strange realm brimming with fashion-related power of some sort. When she comes to, she and Momo are in a field of flowers. They've been transported to another world called Miraland, where styling has literal magical power that's used to settle disputes in place of violence. She embarks on a quest to attain a set of uniquely powerful dresses at the centre of a burgeoning magical/political crisis, in order to save Miraland.

^ Big sideways jump, right? The Doylian explanation for all this is very mundane. They have to keep rebuilding this game for newer phones, and updating the graphics/mechanical gameplay as the series goes on. There are only so many times you can ask a player to dress Nikki up to go to a café or whatever, and the isekai genre is massively popular among the target playerbase. BUT they retain the canonical continuity of the series with LN - Nikki frequently refers to her sister Yoyo and their travels around the world throughout LN and SN, and Momo hints that Miraland may be the origin of his clan (or at least tied to their origin somehow). It would have been an easy place to wipe the slate clean, but they didn't.

And then comes Shining Nikki. On starting the game, Nikki speaks to you directly from a meta-realm where you set up your username and get introduced to basic concepts. Nikki has an encounter / vision with a mysterious figure related to this styling meta-realm, and then she wakes up. She and Momo find themselves in a field of flowers, in a world called Miraland - sstop me if you've heard this one before.

SN is where things started to get really interesting, and where I suspect the writers started laying down some intentions for the series going forward. As Nikki travels around Miraland, she runs into a variety of people and places that are reminiscent of, yet different from, the cast and setting of Love Nikki. And little by little, she begins to recover memories of that game.

As it build towards its climax, SN does one of the coolest things I've ever seen from a rinkydink fantasy mobile gacha. Nikki comes up against an opponent she can't beat, and you're asked to style-battle them again and again. She starts to dissociate and refuses to back down, and then- well at this point my phone couldn't handle the 3D effects and it booted me back to the game's home screen.

SN was pretty ambitious with its 3D elements, to the point that the home screen itself featured a 3D nikki you could dress up, who would move around and strike poses, and spit out lighthearted quips when you tapped her ('I wont give up on my friends!', 'If Momo eats any more BBQ he's going to turn into a beach ball...' etc.) So anyway, my game was locked up apart from homescreen Nikki's idle animations. And then she started talking to me, by username, commenting on the defeat she was suffering repeatedly in the story chapters.

At this point, SN introduces the idea that the player is (from Nikki's perspective) a powerful being from another parallel world, who has been influencing her styling choices the whole time. It also introduces a meta-meta-realm where outside observers can access people's memories to subtly alter their world's timeline. When I say this game got high concept...they had a limited-time event at one point where Nikki essentially explores the lingering cognitive dissonances left behind by the inhabitants of Omelas. I'm insane about this series. Anyway.

A LOT went on in SN, but what you need to know is this:

Nikki learns that she found herself in the story of SN because she went back in time 600+ years from the events of LN in a last ditch effort to prevent the apocalypse she failed to avert.

By accessing the Ocean of Memories, she also learns that this is not the first time she's done this. She has been stuck in a time loop for thousands upon thousands of cycles, perpetually failing to save Miraland, going back in time, and creating new causal offshoots that she again fails to save.

Nikki realises that by doing this, she is perpetually rebooting the lives of all the friends she keeps meeting and bonding with and then failing to save, and wrestles with whether this is ethical. Ultimately she decides to persist, determined to save Miraland.

Now here's the million-dollar question: Is Infinity Nikki a straight reboot, wiping the slate clean to simplify the lore and onboard new players? Or is it a continuation of Nikki lore to date, setting her on a new cycle in the same sequence? I would answer: yes and yes.

Every game in Miraland seems to follow a certain pattern with minor changes, and IN is no exception:

Nikki arrives in a tutorial zone themed around cosy rural villages and flower fields.

She meets a friendly girl who introduces her to Styling and its role in Miraland, and who puts her on the path to her first set of competitions (rip Bobo greatest anime betrayal of all time)

Nikki gets drawn into a political crisis centred on Miraland's system of styling contests, inevitably involving mercenaries and corporate espionage at some point.

Reference is made to an ancient fallen monarch who had a personal connection to certain outfits of immense power.

Reference is made to an elusive but powerful spiritual being (a god, a prophet, ???) whose divine power is bound up with the mysterious source of Styling Power.

Nikki encounters a reclusive society of magical beings whose life force depends on that same power source.

She travels to a variety of regions including Fairytale Forest, Gothic Lolita Town, Literally China, Uncomfortable Desert Realm, Big City, and Separatist Tech Freak Island. [in progress]

War breaks out somewhere and Nikki ends up on the run [hasn't happened yet, but I believe]

Vampires/demons get involved [hasn't happened yet, but I believe]

There is a goofy yellow mascot that looks like a fat duckling. [I'm a Gifty truther, what does it all mean.]

So far we're only a few chapters into IN, but I can already see a lot of familiar pattens starting to take shape. Factions are an interesting twist on regional styling competitions, and elements like Eureka and the Mira Crown contest (and the repeated motif of mirrors and fragmented crystals) look a lot like the seeds of more meta-realm content to me. Well, and the actual literal meta-realms accessed via waypoints and whimstars.

If you read all this, well done!!! You are definitely insane enough to enjoy the Nikki series.

[elodee]

HERMIT A DAY MAY - DAY 16

Welsknight x Knights of the Zodiac (Saint Seiya)

For Wels I chose the original Saint Seiya anime, also known as Knights of the Zodiac!

I watched this show when I was pretty young, so I actually didn't remember much about the plot of this show when I started this piece. What I did remember is that I really enjoyed it. It felt like both a shonen and a magical girl anime (best of both worlds) and everyone had really, really shiny armor. And I mean, obviously I couldn't pass up the opportunity to reimagine Wels as a late 80s space knight in head-to-toe chrome!

To learn more about Knights of the Zodiac, please journey below the cut. (Gamers Outreach fundraiser - keep it going!)

Saint Seiya, or Knights of the Zodiac as I knew it growing up, is an anime from the late 1980s based off a manga series of the same name.

The story follows a young man named Seiya, who is part of a group of mystical warriors that wear magical armor (called Cloths) which pull power from (and are themed after) the constellations. The warriors fight for the goddess Athena to defend earth from evil.

One unique thing about the show is the characters don't usually have weapons - they are supposed to fight with only their Cloths and the power of the cosmos (it's a whole thing in the premise). However, Wels felt incomplete without the sword, so he gets to be an exception. :)

The anime is bright, campy, and action-packed but takes itself fairly seriously - basically exactly what you would expect from a classic shonen. The plot is divided into arcs but isn't too complex, so while it is best to start from the beginning of the show you can pick it up pretty quickly from anywhere if you're familiar with the genre.

Style references:

The designs for the knights - long fluffy hair is a requirement

The dramatic shine on all the armor is both iconic and very fun to draw once you get the hand of it

Knights of the Zodiac/Saint Seiya title logo. This is actually the logo from the ONA, not the original anime, but I think this font is way more fun so this is the one I used

[kkuzushi]

જ Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby. . .ᐟ

˚𖦹 ‘ Chapter 3 : Can I please throw coffee at his face? ִ ࣪𖤐

— PREV | MASTERLIST | NEXT

As expected, Aether went straight to the campus after getting your implication of Lumine paying for yet another meal. The two of you are like leeches to Lumine—she even thinks you may be her long lost twin with how in sync you can be with Aether sometimes.

“So you actually saw him?” Aether asked as the three of you started getting out of the premises.

You crossed your arms and nodded, “Yeah, and he still looks shitty.”

“Affectionately?”

“Don’t start, Lumine.” You hissed.

The twins laughed at you, and you fought so hard not to smack their heads.

“I doubt the guy would even do anything,” Lumine says. If you squint your eyes, you might notice her attempt at comforting you. “He’s pretty popular, I bet he’d just get jumped by his fans left and right.”

You grinned at that. “You’re right, I hope he gets expelled for disturbing the peace,” You commented bitterly.

“This guy’s evil,” Aether butted in, grinning back at your comment. “But maybe, JUST maybe. He wants to study here?”

“It kinda makes sense since his friends are still around.” Lumine nods.

“I guess.. I just hope he’ll stay away from me.” You sighed. Maybe your friends were right, maybe this isn’t that much worth fussing about. You’re in college now YN, get a grip. Just because you see your ex wandering campus doesn’t mean he wants you back.

Finally, the three of you arrived at the cafe near the campus. It’s like a morning ritual for the three of you to buy there—and have Lumine pay—maybe the day isn’t so bad. So what if Scaramouche is where you’re basically living in? That wouldn’t stop you from living your life like how you’re doing now.

Or maybe your mind spoke too, because the moment Aether opened the door for you and Lumine, you’re met with a familiar indigo haired man.

You froze in your tracks yet again and Lumine noticed it just as quickly. You were tempted to just turn around and leave once again but Aether stopped you, gently holding your wrist.

“We’re here for the coffee, nothing else.” Aether reassured you.

“Right. Coffee.”

“I’ll order, you two stay here,” Lumine says, getting in line.

You and Aether sat down somewhere near the exit. You let your gaze fall anywhere, anywhere but Scaramouche. Despite those attempts, you can feel someone glancing towards your direction.

Is it Scaramouche? Hell yeah it is, who else would it be? You tried not to let it get to you, but the temptation was getting the best of your thoughts.

Just one. You’ll spare him one look, it’s not like it’ll hurt anyone, right?

You may be right, as the moment your eyes are locked with his, it didn’t take a second to realize he was smirking too. How embarrassing, he probably knew you’d look his way.

Your eyebrows furrowed and you abruptly stood up, startling Aether. You quickly left the cafe before the twins could even stop you, which of course they didn’t bother to do.

You went back on campus alone, not wanting to deal with that prick any longer.

— ꒰꒰﹒TAGLIST : @raineyun @hayamie @sketcheeee @wraithisd3adinside @heusalettle @liuaneee @yevurin @mywillt0live @kaikaidenkai

— ꒰꒰﹒OPEN. [ 9/50 ]

— ꒰꒰﹒I changed a few things like using dark mode because my eyes really couldn’t take the white background, as well as Xiao’s typing quirks.

© kkuzushi | Please do not translate, repost, or plagiarize my work. This AU is posted in Tumblr only unless stated otherwise by yours truly.

[subway-boss-jericho]

Queuing posts for most of my AUs! Check out this Masterpost! (Disclaimer! - Please don't comment about their iconic knife bangs! I left them off this reference to keep their faces fully visible.)

how could we have possibly fallen this far?

-Premise- When Emmet comes to, he finds he doesn't remember very much. His name is Emmet. He........... Likes combinations of things..? And he likes... Winning. More than anything else. He feels like there may have been something else, too... Something... A man in black, one who looks like him. Yet, he cannot seem to remember his face. Only... You grow stronger by matching yourself against a strong opponent. He said that to Emmet, he is sure.

None of that does him much help, trying to find a job with no credentials in 'New York City.' He's sure he has plenty of experience and qualification, but any time he strains too hard, his head begins to hurt quite badly. There was a scar, and he was told something about, blunt force trauma. He manages to get a job working for the local subway station- Which feels verrrry comfortable, and familiar, yet wrong. Even though his luck is looking quite poor, his life is not that bad.

All of that changes when, one day, he overhears something familiar on the subway. Two young folks talking about, 'Pokemon!' Yes! Pokemon! That was verrrry familiar! He quickly rediscovers his love for the games, although something feels... Hollow, in that appreciation.

But he looks forward with great anticipation to the new game slated to release! He's purchased a copy early, to ensure he does not miss the chance to play it himself! This, 'Pokemon: Legends Arceus' sounds verrrry fun!

...Oh, how little he knew.

-Noteworthy Points- This AU is almost always just called 2D AU for short!

Welcome to hell! Welcome to hell! Welcome to hell! This started out as a gag between some friends and then I had to stare them in the eyes and say DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE WORDS YOU'RE SPEAKING RIGHT NOW??

Emmet! Is in real world NYC! There's a very elaborate explanation for Ingo but I don't have the space to explain, but basically- He can 'see' metaphorically through the fourth wall upon encountering Emmet for the first few times and he regains his memory! However! He is bound by the rules of the game! So he cannot easily communicate that he remembers who Emmet is and that he is here and aware! This AU is sooo fucked it's genuinely something else. It's not all angst I swear, but I am not going to lie to you there are so many emotions created by this scenario and most of them are Not positive.

-Links- Currently none! I will update this post with links to comics/art/writing if/when I post any!

[twistedtummies2]

Top 10 Appearances of Disney's Captain Hook

Yep. It’s time for another Disney Villains Appearances countdown! This time’s going to be slightly different though, for one simple reason: I don’t really have a great reason to be doing this. Seriously. This isn’t tied into any special event or occasion, I’m not planning anything related to the subject, I haven’t even REALLY had the story subject matter on the mind to a VERY heavy degree. I just…felt like doing this one. Is that wrong? I hope not. ANYWAY…today’s topical villain is that cranky crook, Captain Hook! Hook is one of my Top 5 favorite Disney Villains of all time, and I think a big part of this is because he’s also one of the most perennial. When it comes to the male members of the Disney rogues gallery, Hook is one of the most frequently used and encountered; I think his biggest competitor is Jafar. I feel this is because Hook is a more adaptable villain than some others; pirates are such a ubiquitous sort of opponent, and while Hook is fully capable of being a menacing scoundrel, he’s also typically regarded as being one of the “tamest” of the Disney baddies, due to his more comedic elements. It’s easier to make Hook into a total clown than Maleficent or the Horned King; it’s easier to make him a legitimate threat than Yzma or Prince John;  and because he’s basically a mortal man, but one who has skills as a swordsman and a whole crew of pirates on his side, he can end up in more places more easily than someone like Hades or Ursula. As a result, Disney’s Hook - while not necessarily my favorite portrayal of the character overall - remains one of the most iconic versions of Peter Pan’s arch-enemy, and one of Disney’s most applauded antagonists. Just like when I made my list for the Evil Queen, I WON’T be including some of the “alternative” versions of Hook on this countdown. These include the versions from “Once Upon a Time,” “Peter Pan & Wendy,” and the book series “Peter and the Starcatchers.” While I like all of these versions of Hook, I think they really stand on their own as unique interpretations in their own right. I really want this list to focus on DISNEY’S Hook, the one who first showed up in 1953 and has been bedeviling the magical world of the Mouse (and Pan) ever since. Also, there’s at least one appearance of Hook I need to mention that won’t be appearing here: “Never Never,” by Serena Valentino; part of her “Villains” book series, which I’ve brought up in the past. The reason why is simply because I haven’t read that book yet, so I really can’t include it. I can only include appearances I’m familiar with. Having said all that…sharpen your cutlasses, for there may be skullduggery ahead! These are My Top 10 Appearances of Disney’s Captain Hook.

10. Fantasmic!

Yep, it’s time to bring up this show again. Get used to it, because I can guarantee it will pop up at least a couple more times in the future. For those who don’t already know, “Fantasmic” is a nightly spectacular held at a couple of the Disney Parks: an extravaganza of stunts and special effects tied together by a loose sort of story. The premise is that we, the audience, are taking a tour through Mickey Mouse’s dream world, “where beauty and love will always survive.” While several of the Disney Villains do hijack the story, Hook’s appearance actually comes BEFORE that turning point, almost as foreshadowing of the conflict to come. In the original Disneyland version of “Fantasmic,” not long before the Evil Queen and the other villains come storming in, the sound of cannons alerts the audience to the arrival of the Jolly Roger (portrayed by the sailing ship Columbia), and we are witness to a daring battle between Pan and Hook, as Peter tries to save Wendy from the pirates. In typical fashion, after much buckling-of-the-swash, Pan is victorious, and the pirates are scared off by the ever-hungry Crocodile. For a few years, this sequence was briefly replaced by a completely different one, based around “Pirates of the Caribbean;” however, due to popular demand (and quite possibly because of certain legal issues involving a certain Mr. Depp, though I can’t prove that), the original Pan vs. Hook scene has been reinstated. I can safely say it’s a welcome return: while the replacement sequence wasn’t bad, you really can’t beat the classics. Disneyland’s Fantasmic just doesn’t feel the same without a brief peek into Neverland.

9. Epic Mickey.

One of Hook’s most unusual appearances was in the “Epic Mickey” franchise. I absolutely loved the original Epic Mickey game, and I was very happy when I heard about the “Rebrushed Edition” that was recently released. The story focuses on Mickey venturing to a place called “The Wasteland,” filled with obscure Disney characters, old Disney rides, and bits of vintage Disney merchandise, all of which are considered “forgotten” by the modern world. It’s essentially a home where all of Disney’s retired creations can find peace, and is split into different “lands” similar to a Disney theme park. Hook is the ruler of Ventureland, which is a combination of three rides rolled into one: Peter Pan’s Flight, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Jungle Cruise. Why Hook is in the Wasteland to begin with I cannot possibly fathom, but regardless, by the time we meet him, he’s become rather…different: corrupted by one of the main villains of the game, The Mad Doctor, Hook has been transformed into a sort of cyborganic, half-animatronic version of himself, with plans to turn all of Ventureland into mechanized monstrosities like himself. The player, as Mickey, is given effectively three ways to stop Hook’s evil scheme: one is to smash the robotic Captain to pieces, which actually doesn’t seem to kill him but does take him out of commission. Another is to feed him to the similarly cyborganic Crocodile, which DOES seem to be fatal (yikes). Last but not least, you can help out Pete Pan - the Wasteland’s version of Peter Pan, played by Pete (bizarre) - who will keep Hook distracted and basically solve the problem for you. This wasn’t the end for Hook in the series: while he does not appear in the second game, “Power of Two,” the original, “real” Captain Hook DOES appear in the portable spin-off title “Power of Illusion,” along with several other Disney Villains. Again, not sure why Hook, of all characters, ended up in these games to begin with…but I’m not going to complain, either, because his presence and bosses were tons of fun.

8. Dream Along With Mickey.

This children’s stage show was once a staple at Walt Disney World, but has since been retired. A shame, because it’s one of my favorites of its kind that was ever made. The premise focuses on Mickey and his friends trying to show Donald Duck (and the audience) the importance of believing in one’s dreams, and how dreams really can come true. Blegh, the sentimentality of it all…a feeling that is apparently shared by Hook. The Captain (and Smee) come into the story after Donald impersonates him as part of a game of make-believe pirates between the heroes. Hook is not impressed with the impression, and proceeds to terrorize everybody in retaliation, until Peter Pan intervenes. However, itt’s soon revealed that Hook and Smee are not alone: the two are in cahoots with Maleficent, who plans to turn the Magic Kingdom into “The Place Where Nightmares Come True!” Will Mickey, Donald, and the rest be able to show the villains that the power of dreams can triumph? (pauses) Well, it’s Disney, so…what do YOU think?

7. Kinect Disneyland Adventures.

“Disneyland Adventures” was a title for the XBOX Kinect: a motion-based control system that was…frankly not very well-manage. The Kinect’s library of games were infamously terrible, at least partially because the technology for the motion-based controls was very particular and probably needed more refining. I never owned an XBOX or a Kinect, nor did I ever know anyone that did growing up, so I really can’t say how this game held up playing it, but by all accounts it wasn’t very good. The premise, however, was somewhat interesting: the conceit is that the Player is essentially taking a tour around Disneyland, but with two big twists. The Meet-and-Greet characters walking the park aren’t merely people in costume, but the ACTUAL characters, who look, sound, and generally behave IN-character. Also, the rides and attractions are now multi-part minigames that are essentially the main…well…attractions, where most of the major gameplay is. In the “Peter Pan’s Flight” attraction, Hook appears as one of the few boss fights of the game, where the Player must battle him in a sword fight. (Which is really less of a “fight,” to be honest, and more “beating the crud out of the old codfish.”) This is already kind of cool, but what REALLY gets this game on the list for me is the Meet-and-Greet Hook. He’s actually one of the very few villains you can encounter in the game, and out of ALL the characters you can meet, he’s by far my favorite. He’s able to remain totally in-character while also being surprisingly friendly…and by God, the way he reacts when the Player GIVES HIM A HUG, is too priceless and frankly precious for words. That, alone, deserves placement on this list, if nothing else.

6. Disney’s Villains’ Revenge.

I brought up this game when talking about the Evil Queen, and I’m bringing it up again here. This PC title was released as a promotional game to help Disney sell VHS tapes of some of their older films. The plot begins when Jiminy Cricket (proving he must be the worst Conscience known to bug-kind) meddles with a magical storybook, allowing four of the villains inside an opportunity to rewrite their own stories, so they get the “unhappy endings” they desire. Of the villains featured, Hook seemed to be the one the game-makers wanted to push the most: he’s the one most prominently featured in the ads and on the box art, and he’s also the one who leads the charge in the game’s final battle, where the player and Jiminy must face against all four baddies at once. Prior to this, Captain Hook is basically the star of the show in the Peter Pan section of the game: he’s rewritten the story so that “The Boy Who Never Grows Up” has been turned into a decrepit old man, and can no longer fly. The Player must duel Hook, chasing him through the rigging in an exciting sword battle, in order to set the story right and give Peter his powers and youth once more. In a way, I feel this succeeded where the Kinect’s duel with Hook failed, as I personally find it’s much more intense. The battle feels far less one-sided, and there’s no faulty tech to potentially get in the way: it’s all about how fast the player can react and keep track of their surroundings. It’s the best part of the game, in my opinion, and easily one of Hook’s shining moments in Disney gaming.

5. Jake and the Neverland Pirates.

This Disney Junior series spinoff from “Peter Pan” isn’t by any means the greatest kids show in the world, but it’s generally a fun one, and certainly one of Hook’s “biggest” appearances. The series takes place in a Neverland where Pan has taken off for adventures elsewhere (somehow still never aging…for various reasons, I prefer not to question that). In his place, a crew of young “pirates” (I’ll get to the quotation marks in a bit) are protecting Neverland, going on adventures and having to deal with the dastardly plans of Captain Hook. While the show never lost its light and silly touch, it DID get slightly darker and more action-oriented as it went on, changing from what I can only describe as Disney’s Dora the Explorer to something more like what you’d expect from Peter Pan. Hook is at his goofiest and arguably most sympathetic here, depicted less as a murderous scoundrel and more as a loveable, cartoonish goofball. He’s the Dick Dastardly or Wile E. Coyote of the series: while one could argue that’s always kind of been Hook’s basic setup, this show really went all out with the hijinks, since the younger target audience meant you couldn’t quite make the Captain as bloodthirsty as other renditions. This same younger target audience did lead to one sort of quirk, for lack of a better word, that’s become a joke for…pretty much EVERYONE: Jake and his “pirates” really aren’t pirates at all, since a constant running theme in the series is that it’s wrong to steal. Even Hook’s own mother scolds him for doing so, in one episode. It’s as if the Captain is the only one who actually KNOWS what a pirate IS, and what a pirate DOES. No wonder he’s always such a grouch!

4. Kingdom Hearts.

Captain Hook turned out to be a fairly prominent antagonist in the first and original Kingdom Hearts. He was one of Maleficent’s inner circle of villains, working together to try and capture all the Princesses of Heart, so they could - what else? - take over the universe. The Captain actually turned out to be the penultimate Disney baddy players faced before Maleficent herself; considering this inner circle included such rascals as Jafar, Ursula, and Hades, it’s kind of surprising they left Hook for so late in the game. The Captain would return in several other installments of the series: he was a figment of Sora’s corrupted memories in “Chain of Memories;” a frequent pest in the prequel game, “Birth By Sleep;” even the antagonistic Organization XIII had a few run-ins with Hook in “358/2 Days.” While he was far from the most dangerous of all the villains in these games, Hook’s persistence and presence remain as constant as ever, and I would argue Kingdom Hearts was the pirate’s finest hour in video games.

3. Straight On Till Morning.

While I haven’t yet read “Never Never,” I HAVE read this book from the Twisted Tales series. I’ve mentioned these books in a couple of past lists of this nature, and once again the series makes its return. The brainchild of Liz Braswell - featuring her work and the writings of other authors throughout - the Twisted Tales series is essentially the Disney version of Marvel’s “What Ifs?” Each book takes a simple “what if” question, and then tells an alternate universe version of a classic Disney property, or creates a sequel to the same. “Straight On Till Morning” is of the former category, as the premise focuses on Wendy Darling traveling to Neverland not with Peter Pan…but with Captain Hook. Wendy essentially makes a deal with the Devil, as she convinces Hook to bring her to Neverland on his pirate ship…but once they reach the island where children never grow up, Hook’s use of loopholes comes into play: he promised to bring Wendy to Neverland, but he never promised to let her set foot on land there. Wendy thus becomes Hook’s prisoner, and things only get worse when the pirate captain concocts a mad scheme to not only destroy Peter Pan, but the entire island. It’s up to her to find a way to stop the insane villain and help Peter. Out of all the Twisted Tales stories I’ve read thus far, I would argue this one feels the most true to the spirit of its source material, which is a major part of why it nips into my top three.

2. The Pirate Fairy.

This was the penultimate film in the “Tinker Bell” film series. These children’s films tell the stories of Peter Pan’s faithful pixie friend before her meeting with the Boy Who Never Grows Up. Most of these films I find to be fairly “meh;” they’re not terrible, but I can’t say I’m their biggest fan. This may partially be because I’m not really the target audience, but I think my bigger issue is that most of the movies don’t really take advantage of the setting and characters. A lot of them don’t really feel like Peter Pan prequels; you could change Tink’s name to something else entirely, and it wouldn’t make a difference. One of the few exceptions - and, in my opinion, the best film of the series - is “The Pirate Fairy,” and the main reason why is because this is the film that introduces us to James: a young Captain Hook. In the film, James and his pre-Smee crew fool an outcast fairy, Zarina, into believing she is the one in charge, as part of a plan to steal the hyper-powerful Blue Dust from Pixie Hollow, and give themselves the power to fly for evil purposes. At first, James seems to be a friendly and surprisingly innocent character…but anyone who recognizes that name, for a start, knows he’s up to no good, and it’s only a matter of time before the shoe drops and Hook reveals his true nature. Part of what makes this film, and this Hook, so great comes from the voice: he’s played by Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston. While normally such celebrity casting could be seen as just a silly stunt, Hiddleston actually does a FANTASTIC job, not only turning in a fine performance in general, but also using certain inflections and vocal mannerisms that do call back to the work of Hans Conried and Corey Burton in other, past pieces. This is exactly how I would imagine the Disney Hook to look, sound, and generally behave in his young adult years.

1. Return to Neverland.

Disney’s animated sequels, released throughout the 90s and early 2000s, often get bad rap. Even the best of these movies are never as good as their original counterparts (unless you count “Rescuers Down Under,” which I would argue is BETTER than its original source work), and most of them were critically panned, whether they released to video or to theaters. However, not all of these sequel films were really that bad: there was a fair share of total clunkers, make no mistake…but for every “Mulan II,” “Hunchback of Notre Dame II,” or “Belle’s Magical World,” you’d get a diamond in the rough. (Yes, the Aladdin films count there, har har.) In my opinion, “Return to Neverland”is one such hidden gem. While by no means a perfect movie, I genuinely like this feature, overall…and once again, a big part of the reason why comes from Hook. The story begins when Hook kidnaps Wendy’s daughter, in a case of mistaken identity, and uses her as bait for a trap to - what else? - destroy Peter Pan. Peter saves the girl, named Jane, but all she wants is to go home and escape Neverland’s nonsense. However, Jane’s refusal to accept Neverland’s whimsical ways makes it hard for her to learn how to fly and get home. Hook gets wind of this, and schemes a new way to use the girl to both capture his nemesis and reclaim a lost treasure. Hook is both at his funniest and his most threatening here; the slapstick humor is just as great here as ever before, albeit with a different predator chasing the pirate (a giant Octopus in place of the Crocodile). In contrast, the way Hook is framed, animated, and generally drawn at multiple points in the film makes him arguably scarier than he was in the first movie. You never once doubt that, for all his silliness, Hook is out for blood. While the movie is by no means a match to the original film on the whole, I would say that Hook, himself, is just about as great here as he was in the first picture. It’s a worthy sequel and a worthy return for the Captain; more than enough to top this countdown for me.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

Raw Toonage.

In one episode of this anthology cartoon series, Hook battled Don Karnage - the sky pirate from Talespin - in a daring sword duel. He won, too! Either that shows how good Hook is, or how bad Karnage is, take your pick.

Villains Tonight!

In one segment of this campy, tongue-in-cheek musical romp, Hook has to deal with a mutinous crew before getting dissed by Cruella De Vil at a fashion show. Poor guy can’t catch a break.

House of Mouse.

Hook had frequent cameos and small appearances throughout this series. His most notable role was in the Halloween special “House of Villains,” where he appeared to act as Jafar’s lieutenant in the plan to take over the House of Mouse.

Back to Neverland.

This defunct Disney attraction featured Robin Williams guiding the audience through the animation process, concluding with a slapstick battle between his character and the pirate captain. Kind of funny how this one’s been so forgotten.

[alicentisim]

beautiful and so deprived of oxygen . premise rewriting of seasons six to eight of game of thrones . a lot of it may be similar but i wanted to use a similar format to how the books were written ! a lot is the same but i wanted to incorporate some details and changes i wished we could have seen . if you haven't seen the seasons mentioned i recommend not reading this as there are major spoilers . warnings mentions of abuse , joffrey and ramsay are their own warnings - their actions are mentioned but not written , canon divergence , death , language , war , alcohol . . . basic got warnings .

i.  you  were  born  bluer  than  a  butterfly  .  JON when the knife plunged into his heart , his only thoughts were that he would never see them again .

he was conflicted . seeing his family cast a warmth around him—the thought of seeing his brother—he could see him as a brother of the watch as they spoke of . however , this warmth was only squandered by the cold snow he lay in . the realization of how he would die in the cold without knowing if his sisters were alive and if his brothers—no , that didn’t matter . not now anyway .

he felt undeserving , he shouldn’t call them brothers or sisters . he was a bastard and he was to die a bastard , a boy in black masking himself as a man .

he felt the tip of the blade piercing his heart . the eyes of those he swore an oath to were staring down at him .

perhaps he deserved it , didn’t he ? he broke the oath he swore to abide by , the people that had died with the slice of his blade , blood coating his hands . he knew this moment was coming , what did he expect ? 

a boy in disguise of a man .

and now that disguise was ripped from him as he lay and bled , the cold eating at his flesh . he lay as a boy , not a man . he was to die a boy , not a man .  

a man with no family , he had nothing to his name besides being the brother who broke his oath . he betrayed the promise to his brothers . he deserved this .

he covets death .

ii. beautiful  and  so  deprived  of  oxygen  .  SANSA   sansa was sitting in her childhood bed . the bed that she grew up in , the room she once would lock her little sister out of . the room she would sneak lemon cakes into , a room that was always a comfort . not anymore . she looked out the window , inhaling sharply as she watched the snow falling . she felt the pain coursing through her yet she kept her eyes forward . she had to . persevere , she reminded herself . she made it this far , the odds would play in her favor if she stuck it out . play his game . she’d contemplate it from time to time , throwing herself from the highest tower . perhaps the same one her brother fell from , a dagger to the heart even . death seemed better than feeling the warmth and familiarity of her home turn into a cold prison . persevere . she looked down at the blood on her sheets . she frowned . her eyes were sapphires before , so full of life yet the moment lady was taken from her she realized that life was not what she thought it was to be . she was childish . she was a child . she knew he wouldn’t kill her , he needed her to get what he wanted . the last heir to winterfell . he needed her . she needed him , dead . she resented the man who was a monster wrapped in flesh and blood . she felt her blood boil just thinking about him . she resented him , some days she felt grief and others anger . persevere . she would cry at first , sobbing into her pillow after every visit . the wedding night was the worst . she felt she could trust nobody , not a single person in this place she used to feel the safest . she wouldn’t cry anymore , she refused . she would no longer waste tears on someone who deserved nothing but to be swallowed by the gods whole , into the darkest hells . persevere , for them .

[wawamouse]

Personally, for some reason I think it'd be fairly amusing if the person who noticed Chico was Like That with Miguel was Mukada.

Maybe after McManus realizes Chico has been involved with a lot of Miguel's troubles and forces them to make up in hopes that it'll help Miguel (and the patting hug), he mentions the whole Chico being connected to some of Miguel's problems thing to Mukada. So, Mukada observes them out of concern. And. Well. (I don't think McManus noticed anything beyond Chico's beef with Miguel making Miguel's life difficult.)

(Tho this may be because I also think Mukada is a little like that with Miguel, though he wouldn't have to be when exploring that. I still think he'd be weird about it, regardless.)

That would definitely be the safer option (safer than the possible outsider POVs I was thinking 🤣)

(Side note: I just made myself laugh with the realization that McManus probably thought he was being smart, making that connection, but actually no: Chico just happens to be the only member of El Norte (in Emerald City) who’s been there the whole time and is still alive …)

(Side note 2: I started writing out this answer with the intention of bringing something to the table, but having finished babbling, I’ve looked back and realised that I was basically stream-of-conscious brainstorming a potential fic 😅 So this may read like a dude pacing the floors… It’s essentially just that, me trying to work out the premise of a fic that may or may not actually come into full fruition)

Mukada as the outsider POV definitely works because he is more invested in Miguel’s well being and blah blah. 🤨 Hm hm hm (stares out window) What would Mukada be thinking?

Alarm, I think: he must know Chico is part of El Norte and surely has at least a passing familiarity with him, since we do see Chico at mass at least once in the show. It’s possible that Mukada is already vaguely aware of Chico’s beef with Miguel… though the gym stabbing and Velez’s death are never officially tied back to Chico nor is he ever acknowledged as a suspect, maybe Mukada somehow put two and two together and has his own suspicions. (Idk, maybe he’s seen Chico staring down the bench before from up at the pulpit or something )

Some suspicion, perhaps mixed with hesitant optimism, I would guess: if McManus tacked on something about maybe Guerra accepting the terms of the truce and seeming willing to make up after some initial reluctance, then Mukada might keep that in mind while observing them. Where would he have the opportunity to observe them? First thought is mass, assuming they both still go at least some of the time. In the past, they sat apart during mass; after they make up in the show, they pretty much immediately (per the episodes) start sitting together to watch TV, so maybe Miguel also tags along and sits in the same row as Chico, which Mukada takes as a sign that McManus was right…?

Then maybe he has continued concerned because Miguel’s been doing so well lately and it would be tragic if making up with and associating with Guerra (and El Norte) then led him astray, intentionally or not… and I think Mukada could still be weird about it here because honestly, if he’s to observe Miguel and Chico, he has to go out of his way to enter the same space as them. Outside of a situation/fic where Mukada’s observations span a long long time*, honestly, I struggle to think of a scenario where their paths are crossing that often organically. Still, it’s not like Mukada isn’t nosy, so I think if he’s decided to go into Miguel Monitoring Mode for a period, because he hasn’t really followed up since the Velez incident (was in the hospital and all for a while) he’d have to be like, hanging around places more than usual… hm, idk, do you think he’d bring it up to Miguel directly? Catch up and ask if any inmates are giving him trouble? Guerra, for instance? Do you think he would try to lecture Chico not to bother Miguel? 😂 (Chico's like wtf, I already got this form McManus...)

*Then again, it would be interesting if he observed Miguel and Chico pre-evacuation and then post-return to Oz, perhaps noting a marked change, not just in Miguel’s states (if he’s still floating), but in Chico’s (if he’s become protective). I feel like this would also be a good place to set a fic, Mukada putting a pin in it after McManus’s remarks and deciding to check in on Miguel some more but ultimately not having too much time to do so outside of his talks with Miguel at Morales’s coffin being shipped away. He sees then that Miguel still seems to be in good spirits and doesn’t delve too much more into it, since I think that was around when he had Hoyt to focus on, too…

— A scene that came to mind:

(Note idrk how to write Mukada lol) (Also this snippet goes nowhere)

—

He heard it rise about the rest of the noise as the inmates stood and began filing out: Laughter.

It wasn’t that uncommon to hear within the walls of Oswald. The men were under tough, often stressful conditions, but there were still moments of amusement to be found, Ray knew, although many of those moments often came at the expense of others, too. That afternoon, the throaty cackle that Ray heard didn’t seem to be a schadenfreude based reaction to another event. It was joyful—a burst of genuine mirth that drew Ray’s attention as he closed the notes of his sermon. He glanced up, reactively searching for the source of the noise and finding his gaze dragging over familiar faces.

He saw Miguel with the lines of laughter still etched on his face. Head tilted toward another inmate standing on the other side of him, he had that rose-tattooed hand half-raised as if to catch the trailing snickers still making his shoulders shake.

Ray blinked, struck by the thought that it’d been a long time since he saw Miguel wearing such open ease in his expression. His years at Oswald had been up and down—more up in recent times, but still not without his moments of stumbling. Praying for Miguel to feel God’s love and take strength from it had long become a daily habit for Ray. There was so much potential for rehabilitation there, if only Miguel could hang onto his faith, see that, and follow the path that Ray was so sure was there for him.

The inmates continued shuffling through the exit of the cafeteria, and over the next couple of seconds, Ray observed Miguel’s laughter fade into a quiet smirk, a light still in his eyes, after everything.

That was good, he thought, followed by a twinge of guilt. It had been a while since he had checked in on Miguel one-on-one. The days of long sessions of spiritual counsel were in the past, left behind after Miguel’s months long escape from Oswald several years ago. So much had happened since then—to the both of them—and while it was always a pleasure to see Miguel’s face in Mass, as it meant he was no longer locked away in Solitary, Ray wondered if he had been neglecting Miguel personally by keeping him mainly in his thoughts.

Gathering his Bible and papers, Ray turned to exit the stage, supposing that it was his old pride talking again, impairing his vision of his congregants. Belief that he held a special key in guiding their souls to safety was pure arrogance. Miguel had still come to seek his advice over the years, which was what mattered—that he knew Ray was there to help him if he asked, a sign he knew he was not alone as he had often claimed…

He had not neglected Miguel spiritually, Ray concluded as he returned to the familiar walls of his cluttered office. Though, thinking about that laughter in the cafeteria, he could admit that he was feeling a personal curiosity. Parole was coming up again for Miguel, too, and Ray knew that that beacon of hope always brought with it a potential for devastation for the inmates at Oz. For Miguel, the downs always seemed to hit harder…

Yes. He’d schedule a short session with Miguel in the coming weeks, Ray decided. If Miguel was in good spirits these days, then it wouldn’t hurt to check in on him and see what he could do to help keep it that way.

—

Thought: another way to make it sorta weird (not really, I guess) is Mukada not really noticing Chico that much… Sure, Guerra’s presence is noted in the back of his mind, but I think it could be shaped in a way where he is more concerned with Miguel’s state of mind/being, that How Is Miguel Doing is his original main concern and the observation of Guerra being the source of any changes in Miguel registers on a delay, the whole of what it looks like coming all at once and with a note of curiosity and surprise. Surprise, maybe because Mukada doesn’t know Guerra that well but can observe his body language and recognise that Guerra seems, like him, focused on Miguel. Not so much like him, though (in this fic anyway) (and I’m not a Mukada/Alvarez shipper either, so I don’t read it that way generally lol), is how Guerra’s eyes linger on Miguel, a hint of something beyond platonic interest there. Maybe Mukada recognises the look, having observed the other inmates, straight and gay alike, and as soon as he has that suspicion as an outsider, he’s just bamboozled by the obviousness of it, and begins wondering if there was some hot gossip he missed about Miguel (impossible!).

I think it would be fun to see Mukada subtly poking around, getting thoughts from other staffers, especially Sister Pete who might have a better understanding of Chico, at least, him being in at least one of the groups she runs. Inquiring after updates from McManus, I imagine Mukada would just get a shrug of “yeah, looks like their truce has held”. And then he’s just walking around like ‘Am I crazy? Am I imagining things??’ lmao. Cue going out of his way to do more observing… and in more observing, only becoming more and more convinced that something is going on between Miguel and Chico 🧐 Buuut, I think Mukada’s quiet conclusion would be that if it isn’t harming Miguel, hey, it must be a good thing. Sure it’s a sin, but Miguel needs all the love he can get. Much like with Keller and Beecher, Mukada can ignore the sin part under the circumstances. Also he doesn’t thiiiink Guerra is going to pull any Keller moves and fuck Miguel’s shit up. Hard to say. But given their tumultuous history, perhaps Mukada will being keeping an eyes on Guerra, lol.

[creative-creatures]

"Once Upon A Time...

Where summer seemed to never end and raindrops kissed the sky. Twenty two teens lived a dangerous life where many were left behind. Many a story were shown for their truth no matter how hard they tried. Oh sweet young children they were who just couldn't hide. Since one by one a story was spun and the teenagers lost their lives.``

-The Narrators

YO! New AU! well not really. I decided to redo The Acharya Curse and ended up changing the entire story... haha? anyway! I present to you something I will be working on while I work on the Circus AU!

Total Drama: Ever After!

What you need to know/Warnings:

 Everyone from the Total Drama OG cast will be in this AU (other seasons might be added later).

They aren't contestants in this, instead they are labeled Travelers or Story Folk.

Total Drama as a whole never happened in this AU as well. 

Chris Mclean, Chef Hatchet and Blaineley are all evil in this AU.

All fairytales followed will be off of their original written versions or the Brothers Grimm versions (Which for most cases are the original).

Only a select few will be simular to the more modern tellings.

There will be death, gore, and loss in this AU.

There will be ships.

Basic premise: 

8 of the 24 original contestants find themselves transported to a fairytale world where they are tasked to find a way back home or risk getting stuck. 

Not knowing why or how they got transported the 8 travelers set upon their mission. Thankfully, the only thing that changed about the travelers themselves in their teleportation was their clothing to better fit the fairytale vibe. 

The 8 travelers will run into multiple fairytales being played out by those they meet along the way. Sometimes the stories don't go as originally written, and sometimes they go brutally familiar to the original text. Due to this the travelers find themselves forced to witness the stories play out. They soon learn they can change the classic stories.

This story will continue and play out in future posts! 

some interesting facts for the Travelers:

They can follow fairytales depending on who and when they interact with different Story Folk… though unlike the Story Folk they aren't forced to follow the stories unless cursed.

A Traveler can be cursed to follow a fairytale by a Story Folk. When a Story folk does this they will switch places with the Traveler. Often it is done so they can free themselves from their designed fate.

To curse a traveler the Story Folk has to find the Fables Storybook and write the travelers name into their selected story.

Once a Traveler is turned they can get themselves turned back if they stab the Story folk who cursed them with a Devils Shard.

Travelers can only follow fairytales of where their chosen character is a human. (EX Cody becomes Jack from Jack and the Giant peach or something)

Travelers: 

Cody 

Sierra

Katie & Sadie

Geoff 

Trent 

Alejandro 

Lashawna 

Tyler 

Story Folk:

Owen ( Mad Hatter )

Courtney (Cinderella) 

Heather (The Snow Queen) 

Izzy (Cheshire Cat) 

Eva (Queen of Hearts) 

Noah (Sleeping Beauty with small mix of Kaj) 

DJ (Winnie the Pooh)

Lindsey (Rapunzel) 

Duncan (Aladdin) 

Beth (Thumbelina) 

Justin (Prince Charming) 

Harold (Pinocchio) 

Bridgette (Ariel) 

Ezekiel (Rumpelstiltskin) 

Gwen (one of the twelve dancing princesses) 

Blaineley (Maleficent/Evil Queen)

Chris + Chef (Narrators)

I dont own the images in this post... they are stock images I found that I just personally liked... also the chosen fairytales may change! Nothing is set 100% in stone yet.