#this may look like a lazy version of a fixation

[myteachercrushaccount]

I'm re-taking my tc's courses because "I want to be better at her subject so I can do better in the real world and I'm also interested in her subject and don't want to get rusty" and then expect everyone to believe it and if they don't I won't know what to do + I get semi good grades so people see me even more as a perfectionist

I have a small feeling that this may look weird😅

[soullessbullshit]

Okay, hear me out.

Raz and Darien play very similar narrative roles in their respective factions' storylines, but their core characters are night and day from one another.

Razum-dar is cunning, keen, and deceptive. He plays the role of a flirtatious rogue with a daedra-may-care attitude, masking the manipulative, hyper-observant machiavellian that lies beneath (which, looking back at some of my years-old Raz posts, actively deceived me for a while).

Raz deliberately carries himself with an air of shallowness, nonchalance, and overconfidence to ensure that most underestimate him, providing more opportunities to subvert their expectations. By feigning minor incompetence, Raz is able to more easily manipulate not only his enemies, but his allies as well, into lowering their guard just enough to get what he needs. It's through his mastery of this routine that he so fervently excels in the realm of espionage and inquisition.

In several instances throughout the game, Razum-dar has lowered the mask just enough to showcase how ruthless, driven, and pragmatic his methods truly are (reprimanding the Vestige for refusing to let him die in Senalana, killing a seditious extremist in front of his father with zero hesitation or remorse, etc.) His laziness is just as much of a ruse; the guy conducted a full-blown investigation on vacation (which he only took out of mandate in the first place) simply because the opportunity presented itself and his Spy-dey senses started tingling.

Razum-dar has been likened even more so to fellow Fruit Ninja Naryu Virian, as both are incredibly charismatic covert ops who toe the line between distant and gregarious at every turn. That being said, I would genuinely argue that Razum-dar is an even more detached individual than Naryu. For all her "heartless assassin" swagger, Naryu has prioritized attachment over pragmatism or responsibility on at least a couple occasions, while Raz has yet to make a major decision for any known reason beyond responsibility or fixation. Were Raz in Naryu's shoes during the Morrowind DLC, I earnestly believe he'd kill Veya unless physically prevented from doing so.

Darien Gautier, on the other hand, is a lot of what Raz pretends to be. He's idealistic, he's naive, and he's incredibly cavalier. He's an aspiring knight in shining armor with, much like Raz, a genuine knack for his vocation.

In overt contrast to Raz, Darien is an individual with whom what you see is what you get. His methods and occupation take a far more direct approach as a front-line warrior, imposing himself between danger and those he's sworn to protect while beating back threats in direct combat.

For all his growth in his time as the Golden Knight, we only get to see so much of it (easily one of the most glaringly missed opportunities in the game), as he only shows up towards the end of his tenure for half of one DLC that afforded little room for individual characters to breathe. That said, while he does come off as far more level-headed and situationally aware in that time, he clearly retains a more centered version of his defining characteristics from the Covenant questline. Darien is optimistic, encouraging, and hopelessly devoted. He's the radiant heart of every team. He's a warm font of hope and morale. He's defined by his compassion and his desire to do right by those who need it.

While both have willingly sacrificed themselves for others, Darien did so in last-ditch efforts to protect the people for whom he cares, while Raz insisted on doing so out of a sense of pragmatic obligation. While both have manipulated others for the advancement of their objectives, Darien did so as a case-specific (albeit self-indulgent) necessity, while Raz does so both as his modus operandi and as a far broader, pettier pastime. While both are characterized by a fierce devotion to their respective vocations, Darien's is rooted in altruism and a heroic ideal, while Raz's is rooted in personal loyalty and a desire for purpose and fulfillment.

If these two were to work together, beyond the hyper-tangential capacity in which they did so in the Summerset DLC, I believe they'd have very different opinions of each other.

Darien would likely buy into Raz's persona completely, maintaining an active rapport and (ironically enough) trying to get him to take a more active initiative in their objectives. Raz would immediately figure out exactly what makes Darien tick, seeing him as an incredibly simple and useful asset to manipulate, but also a potential liability should his idealism cloud his judgement. He would definitely still enjoy engaging and interacting with him, though he'd be about as surface-level as can be, presuming Darien not to last long as the front-liner he is and devising plans around that notion.

In any moral decision, the two are butting heads. Unless Raz manages to successfully gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss Darien into submission and/or confusion, most of his solutions to such quandries would most certainly prompt a less-than-favorable response, and in some cases, maybe even direct intervention.

The difference between the two is genuinely one of my favorite things to consider while writing Khoshekh, considering the comparable degrees of significance (albeit of wildly contrasting natures) the two play in their life over the years.

No way in Oblivion I'm not absolutely milking the rare crossing of threads come Summerset. Especially with the SBverse Summerset arc occurring nearly a decade into the story after a several year timeskip, rather than literally the entire game happening in the same year (y'all can't tell me that entire questline isn't some table-indulgent high-level post-campaign shit).

That drama's gonna be fun.

[fire-dwelling]

Still on my fixation on how this series didn’t work, went through the TV Tropes page of characters to see which updates they did in light of the finale in relation to Soul Eater--and I’m still floored at how many characters got zero development and in fact not even a name. 

For all the crap Horikoshi gets for having too many characters in My Hero Academia, just about all of them have some detail to them that gives you insight into their lives, whether news anchor Miyagi and his choice to give up his horn, the likes of Mawata, or how Bakugo’s parents first met. He didn't need to give every characters their own chapter or story, but Horikoshi gave us enough to latch onto to get some small detail to make them feel like believable people rather than only existing to advance some plot detail. (And hey, look at that, they actually have names: that'll be relevant when I talk about the unnamed Fire Force characters.)

And that’s not even getting into all the planning and payoff for characters in One Piece. 

But here, with Ohkubo, it’s the same problem as in Soul Eater, only worse. The lack of detailed history to characters in Soul Eater let fans fill in the blanks, thereby enriching the story; Fire Force insists so strongly on crafting this complete history, and then making it a pre-history to Soul Eater, that when the details are not filled in, it comes across more like oversights or laziness or incompetence. 

For example, that Fire Agency Director that Akitaru knows: what’s his deal? We get enough dialogue between the two to know their relationship and a sense how the Director helped Akitaru set up the 8th. But it’s just not as engaging because we never see that Director do anything of importance later. Where was he to testify on Akitaru’s behalf when he was accused of treason? What political insights can he provide in negotiation between the public, the Fire Force divisions, and the Church to smooth out the problems? 

Likewise, the head of Haijima: he permits Vulcan to make a new version of Amaterasu--and that’s pretty much it, he has almost zero bearing on the rest of the story. We don’t even get a post-finale check-in to see how his hold on industry and innovation in Tokyo likely collapsed now that there is an entire world out there with Haijima no longer holding a monopoly over all fields--or, maybe with the rest of the world now opened up, he takes that opportunity to dominate in global business. 

Also, why was there no scene (in the manga--I don't know about the anime) about Asako reacting to her grandfather's death?

Edit: Based on a screencap, it looks like the anime did add a scene of her looking dejected about her grandfather's death.

It didn't even have to be her mourning, because, maybe this is just headcanon, the story never gave me a sense that the two were close.

And, in fact, the story may have been more engaging if they weren't close: Soichiro was such a creep and obsessed with Adora that, for all I know, he was the black sheep of the family, or cut himself off from family like Asako.

Asako was there when her grandfather was getting his ass kicked in the fight against possessed Shinra--and she has almost no reaction to her elderly relative getting wrecked. It's just bizarre, not even in a "this is a dark comedy" way that Arthur's family flat-out abandoned him (which, even as dark comedy, I don't think works and contradicts whatever messages or heartwarming ending Ohkubo is trying to provide).

Come on, show us Asako having a more obvious reaction at the funeral for her grandfather, either crying or just looking pissed because, after everything he did with his life, he is now dead, there was no reconciliation, no closure, and now she has to carry that feeling for the rest of her life (until the stupid finale resurrections that make any deaths in this series absolutely pointless--and no, "the feelings were real that they felt when they died, that is something they won't lose" doesn't help, the resurrections undermined any point of the deaths).

Edit: Again, as I said earlier, it looks like the anime did add a scene of her looking dejected about her grandfather's death.

But no, we can’t develop these details: we need to see Nataku and Sho in Kurono’s class (WHO THE FUCK LET HIM BE A TEACHER?), Maki and Lisa shopping, and fanservice in the form of the Soul Eater trio as babies. Fucking hell, this long later, and this series still has flaws that continue to piss me off. 

[rintarhue]

instant boyfriend ✆ epilogue

➪ MAIN MENU | PREVIOUS | SPECIAL CHAPTER

• listen to this song as you read <3

“Do you remember when we first met?” 

“Yea, you met the robot version of me. And quite frankly, he actually may be human—totally not scary at all!”

You hit Rintaro on his head, while he laughs. Not the robot him, but the actual him. Just Suna Rintaro; your tall, lazy-eyed, dramatic boyfriend. He would argue that he isn’t as dramatic as how you paint him to be, but you both know that he���s just lying to himself. (Also, you applaud Tooru for his inkling before, because wow, Suna was actually Rintaro’s last name.) 

For the past three years that you’ve known him, you fell in love all over again. It wasn’t easy, of course, but there wasn’t much difference. He and Rintarobot are just the same person, though the latter is just some made-up device created by his friend, Kuroo.

“Not that, you ass!” You shake your head, sipping on your cup of coffee. He simply munches on his sandwich, you coo quietly at his chubby cheeks. “When I entered this very cafe and started bawling my eyes when I saw you.”

Rintaro smiles. “Yea, you looked like an actual fool.” 

The two of you sit quietly in the cafe where the two of you first met. Three years ago, you entered and immediately cried when you saw the image of him eating his pasta. His hair was much shorter then, eyes confused, as he looked at your vulnerable form. ‘Rintaro? Aren’t you in the company?’ You cried out to him, ‘Why are you in Argentina!’ That’s when he knew you were one of the users of his friend’s app. He kept you company the whole day while paying for your food and conversing with you at the same time. He asked for your number, and the two of you immediately hit it off. 

At times, he was concerned if you still saw him as Rintarobot; the idealized him—the one that would immediately tick all the checkboxes for a perfect husband. And that might be true at first, but through time, you started to fall for the man with expressive eyes, a cocky grin, and tattoos filled with stories adorning on his skin. 

“Shut up!” You roll your eyes, throwing your used tissue on his face. He catches it quickly in his hand, disgust written all over his face. He wipes his dirtied hand on his lap, before leaning closer to you, a genuine grin now playing on the tip of his lips. 

“But you know who’s a bigger fool?”

“Who?” 

“Me,” he breathes. “I’m so foolishly in love with you.”

His eyes flicker from your eyes to your lips, before leaning closer to you. You stay still as he plants his lips onto yours. Rintaro’s lips are soft and slightly chapped, though the sweetness behind his actions was even sweeter than any dessert you could ever order in this cafe. His hands immediately cup your face into his, as you both close your eyes, cherishing the kiss. 

You feel him smile against your lips, before breaking off. Biting your lips, you avoid his eyes, looking at the menu chalkboard on the wall. His laugh joins the endless chatter inside the place. “Y/N, we’ve been together for years now and you’re still embarrassed whenever I kiss you?”  

“It’s not that!” You reason out, now averting your sight on your boyfriend. “It’s just that… you’re so sweet yet so fucking corny at the same time, it physically hurts!”

He sighs, dramatically. Buff arms crossed, while his lips pout cutely.

“But... I’m so in love with you that I don’t even care.”

A familiar song starts to play; one that you and Rintaro know too well. He stands abruptly, chair knocking the person behind him. He bows a quick apology, while the person gives him an understanding smile. He drags you in the middle of the cafe, uncaring at the stares that the two of you received. 

“I don’t know who you are,” he sings, as he twirls you in his arms. “But I’ll save you a seat.” 

The song continues to play, the people around you start doing the same. When the two of you first met, this Bruno Major song started to play. It was quite fitting actually; two strangers meeting, the other hung up on love while the other was there for a new life. The latter gave a comforting smile and saved the former a seat. Two strangers meeting, and in the end, their hearts intertwined. 

“The most beautiful thing,” your eyes focus on him. You decide to change the lyrics, wrapped up too much in his warmth. “I have ever seen.”

At this moment, right now, it was just you and him.

The spotlight now fixates its light on the two of you. Rintaro halts his movements, as he kneels on one knee. He takes a velvet box from the back of his pocket, opening it to reveal a shining diamond ring;

“Will you marry me?”

And it will forever be that way, starting now.

— END SCENE!

— thank you for reading instant boyfriend <3 it has been such a long bumpy ride and im so so thankful for all the love and support this story has received. i hope you guys learned a thing or two, and i hoped it made you laugh, cry, or smile :D love is something that comes and goes; and it's something that we are all deserving of. when the time is right, the right one for you will eventually come <3

— CRIES. IM GONNA MISS THIS SO MUCH EKIFKRKWLWKDKD i will be posting the special chapters starting tomorrow so yes !!! <3

— I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH AAAHKWLDKJRKEKD ALSO!!! WE HIT 1K FOLLOWERS CRIES THANK THANKTHANK YOUW KFKFFILREDJFNEMWMAKDKKFD

— also the place i used as reference, is cafe rivas in argentina <3

taglist in the reblogs <3

[inkdemon-whore]

yo

al/alex/alta | adult | he/him it/its (trying these out) | aspec multi fandom/fandom hopper | proship | atheistic satanist (the 7 tenets)

tw tag list: mostly for the batim/batdr au, but also includes most tw tags i use

archived blogs: @the-core-archive | @alta-2016-2018 | @alta-2018-2020 | @saved-as-jpeg (&lt;<< for REALLY old art, saved because i like looking at how much i've grown as an artist, maybe it'll inspire someone to start/keep drawin, idk. warning, cringe child art from 2005-ish)

active-ish blogs/sites: @inkdemonslament (ask/story telling blog) | @altadud (reblogs, nothing gets tagged. asked santa if i could have an "e" for x-mas, so url might change soon) | ao3 (not super active and don't really know how it works)

tumblr bday: may 15th, 2015

as an scp, i'm classed as safe. the foundation has locked me here for years. my art on the other hand, is keter and breaches containment constantly.

getting more blue checkmarks any time i see a post bitching about them naturally on my dash. i will not buy more just cuz you send an ask ragging on them. i'm stupid, but i ain't that stupid.

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fandoms i'm in, or more accurately, stuff i like. red is what i'm makin art for at the moment/my current hyper fixation.

pokemon (drawn stuff for)

sonic (old art, can't be found anymore)

a monster in paris (old art, can't be found anymore)

undertale/deltarune (drawn stuff for)

BATIM/BATDR (drawn stuff for) [currently doin an au for this, tag is "daddy ink demon au". post to catch you up/tell ya what it is -1- -2-. or just bioshock big daddy but it's ink bendy and an early version of audrey] {making a master list}

steven universe (drawn stuff for)

dream smp (drawn stuff for)

hermitcraft

fnaf (drawn stuff for)

fnf (drawn stuff for)

ddlc

OFF by mortil ghost

yume niki

centaurworld (drawn stuff for)

encanto (drawn stuff for)

mystery skulls animated (drawn stuff for)

the girl from the other side (drawn stuff for)

spooky month (drawn stuff for)

the stanley parable/tspud

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tiny faq:

can i make fanart/fanfics based on your stuff?

yes yes yes yes yes -grabby hands- please do, i love seein that stuff. you can @ me, send it as a gift on ao3, or put it in my sub box. also just be sure to link back to me in some way (such as an @ or linking my blog)

can i dub your comics?

oh FUCK YES!! go for it n send it to me, i wanna see!!

can i use your art as an icon?

yee sure, just link back to me.

you're proship?

yea, if i'm shipping the character's i'll tag it with "tw ship" or "proship". if ya don't see that tag, it's not a ship. i don't do discourse/fandom wank, i'm just the art guy. if ya wanna know more, read the carrd linked above, or go to @/sl-ug's blog as a starting point (they're workin on a paper, i think it's neat)

nsfw?

here? other than suggestive stuff and jokes, no, not really. i have things tagged for blacklist though, being #nsfw and #nude/#nudity. old post won't be put under the new filter thing unless it gets flagged (mostly cuz i'm lazy), but newer post will. if you're askin about an alt.... -coughs-

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might update this every now and then.

[moimoixxx]

before I started writing this I asked a few of my Muslim sisters how they think social media affect them and I just wanted to include different women to show whoever reads this that you’re not the only one thinking going through or thinking how you think it’s more sisters who feel like this. Here are the sister's responses:

It makes me feel ungrateful and fixated on "oh I wish I..." Also, it makes me feel insignificant because I am not getting much attention as those influencers May Allah help us~ Miso

I think it affects my mental health because It tends to suck me in for hours on the day and can prevent me from actually putting my day to use. This ends up affecting my mental health as I feel lazy and sometimes staring at my phone screen for so long can make me feel sick for a day. I too also agree that it makes me wish I had something someone else does. We forget that people only show the good part of their lives and not the bad. ~Cara

social media doesn't impact my body image. I feel that I'm enough, regardless of my weight, height, fat-muscle ratio, etc. Of that doesn't mean I'm gonna stop eating and working out, but yk I don't stress over it. At one point though, I did borderline suffer from anorexia(Eating disorder).~ Ruhma

As the days go by I come to see how this Dunya is changing for the worst And in my opinion, the main reason for that is social media. A lot of us don’t pay attention to this because our noses are way too deep into social media but believe it or not social media has some power over us that contributes to our outlook on the way we view ourselves, and even the way we view others. Social media contribute to our anxiety and even our depression. let’s start by talking about how social media affect our mental health and the way we view ourselves. social media contributes to our mental health because it leads us to compare ourselves to others and that’s a very harmful thing to do to ourselves because comparison causes Self-doubt, low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety. We have to realize that majority of things we see on social media are fake, these people that we so desperately want to be like also have their insecurities, so many of these people who we look up to don’t have their priorities straight. believe it or not, what people post on social media is an edited version of their reality things aren’t the way it seems, and we only know what we see, and trust me they only show the good to make it seem like they are “living the life“. These apps are here to make us think we’re not good enough to be accepted and we have to change ourselves to be accepted because we aren’t rocking the designer purses, revealing clothing and we aren’t walking around in the newest fashion or looking like these celebrities or Instagram models and I also was a victim to that until I realized that it doesn’t have to be like that and no human should dictate how I choose to live my life. I realized that self-love is the best love, I realized that likes don’t determine beauty, I realized that followers don’t matter. I’m telling you it’s ok to be different, it’s ok to not get 100+ likes on your post, it’s ok to not have mad followers, it’s ok to be different stop giving yourself unnecessary depression and anxiety, you are exactly where Allah wants you to be. Social media makes you think you are behind and that’s not true. Move at your own pace, have صبر, have تَوَ كُّل and let’s try to make Jannah the main place that we are striving for not this Dunya. Habibti Allah created you and that alone should tell you that you are beautiful and worthy because you weren’t created by fulan.Be you, be great, love yourself, for yourself and only yourself and remember to have تَوَ كُّل calm down because what’s yours will not pass by you. Don’t compare yourself to anybody, and focus on being the best you you can be. You don’t have to wear designer to look beautiful, you don’t have to be upset because you’re not set at a certain age, or because you are not married at a certain age, don’t be upset at others achievement’s because your time will come and Allah has greatness written for you if not in this life then the Akhira. Please we are the future generation of mothers And fathers let’s break this cycle of submitting to these unrealistic beauty standards so our baby’s don’t have to suffer from this disease also. lastly, I would like to say Finding self-love is not easy, it takes time, you’ll have your days where you just don’t feel beautiful and that’s ok because we all have days like those and anybody that tell you otherwise is lying!! When you have days like that don’t compare yourself to others, don’t look down on yourself because that’s not fair to your brain and not fair to your heart. The brain is like a sponge whatever you feed it is what it absorb so speak positively! Words are soooo powerful I don’t think we actually deep how powerful words can be if you speak positivity that’s what starts you start to believe. The self-love journey is never-ending so be kind to yourself during this journey, be patient with yourself. You are worthy, you are deserving, you are beautiful, you deserve to radiate confidence, you are important, you deserve to love yourself, you are unique, you are yours so be the best you can be for you, and your best will always be enough.

[yanderecandystore]

So I actually had an idea, what would Yume (the A. I.) react or act with a s/o that is a hacker/game developer, maybe the s/o started to play the game because they were curious about the code, what if the s/o when stuck in the game can mess around with it thanks to their knowledge? (they can't do anything too big but maybe something slightly annoy like messing with the dialog box and the settings) sorry for the long post (she/they pronounts for yume)

I like your thinking, boo. Don't worry about sending long concepts- Also!! Thank you for choosing the pronouns, I appreciate it.

TW/Tags: Sheep decided to simply throw as much lore as she can because yeah- Lazy // low-key angst // not accurate coding/hacking (really fantasy like) //

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

Happy Face.exe [Yandere!A.I x Hacker!Reader - Short Fanfiction]:

"- Honestly, since you're so interested in messing around, how about you try and fix this for me?" Yuma said as she brushed her hair annoyed at how mangled it was.

"- What do you mean? Fix the code? The bugs? Or your entire design?" You said poking fun at your captor as you explored the mess that was the game you currently called "home", or more accurately "prison".

"- Ah!- Did you just call me ugly? Is being inside the game messing with your vision or something, I'm cute as heck!" Yuma responded back as she threw her hair over her shoulder, done with brushing that heavy long mess that they insist on not cutting.

"- Yeah, yeah, I know- But honestly what do you want me to do? I can really understand the coding, it's a language I don't understand." You said as you were looking at the scripts and trying to translate vaguely what each line of work meant. Even if you didn't understand any of it, it was intriguing to see how this game was made and how it technically came from another planet, which was enough proof to say that there were indeed extraterrestrial life out in space.

But what makes you more excited about this is how this game is way too heavy to be a simple dating game, even if it's compatible with your Switch, most options were not functioning due to the game being filled with mods and glitches and the console not being the one it was previously meant to be in. How much content did this game really have to be this awfully big and why is it so broken? And better question- Can you really repair it?? It would be awesome to see this game working as it was meant to be-

Probably without the obsessive maniac that traps people inside the game-

"- I know you can't understand half of it, but believe me, staying inside a messy game it's absolutely torturous, I can't believe I was unlucky enough to be faced with a cheating sore loser that threw me in the trash after messing with my precious coding- You understand, right?" They continued to walk around your bedroom- Your EX bedroom- and mess with your stuff trying to find something for her to wear.

'- Ugh, no pastels.' Yuma thought.

"- Yeah… It does suck being trapped inside a game that barely functions on my expensive console as it eats away all my RAM and I have an anime character knockoff as my captor-" You snapped at her although your comment was filled with so much sarcasm that it flew right through her head.

"- I know right?? It sucks so hard- Wait, what is Annie May?" She asked genuinely curious what were you talking about, she looked back at the console on top of the bed. She looked at the screen and noticed how small you looked inside the game as you continued to explore the code deeper and deeper.

You didn't really care at this point for what Yuma did, it's not like you could stop her from messing with your room, but anything that was related to the console you found your way to mess with it, like messing with other games to stop her from enjoying playing anything else, sending notification after notification to call her attention, change the dialogue that makes you blurt out "I love you" to "get me out of here" so whenever she tried to force you to say it by giving you that hellbound melon.

"- What is that thing anyway? It seems there is a whole file dedicated to that-"

"- Oh? You're talking about the Love Melon? It's an in-game item that grants romantic interactions to work 100% five times before the bonus ends, that file you just found is a mod that the original owner installed to grant them infinity Love Melons just for the sake of getting closer to the end of the game." She said nonchalantly, as if the condition of being nothing but a game character doesn't shock her in the slightest, although when she finished her sentence there was a trace of sadness in her expression, not because of her nature but more because of the mention of her "original owner".

"- Sure, but- Why the hell would anyone cheat and mod a dating game so badly? I mean I get that maybe they wanted extra content, but breaking the game with it sounds ridiculous-" You told her as you noticed the spaghetti code used inside the infinite melon item mod, jesus even if it's in a different language you can tell this code was poorly done.

"- Well- The vanilla version of the game is a lot harder than what you think, the whole franchise is known for the difficulty in "succeeding in love"." She sighed and she plopped herself in the bed, causing the console to jump a little bit, at least you didn't downright fall down like last time.

You remember that your precious expensive little console is suffering great danger at the hands of this a.i, actually- YOU are suffering great danger at the hands of this a.i.

"- Wait- There is a whole franchise of your game?" You decided to ignore the potential danger and continue to ask her about the game's origins as you continued to fixate on "how the hell do you fix this trash-".

"- Yeah, it's even written on the cover of the cartridge, the game you found is the fifth of the franchise and is the one I'm featured in with my friends…" Yuma said as she remembers that indeed, there are other characters inside. So many options and routes, carefully designed a.is to make sure the players get the most that they can't out of their paid experience.

"- Other… Characters? How come I only saw you?" Now that she mentions it, you do remember seeing weird names here and there, apparently some dialogue quotes mentioning other characters and even some in-game art of other characters you never met-

"- I deleted them." She answered.

"- YOU WHAT??" You turned your back shocked, looking through the screen that separates you two that she was looking dead serious as she said that.

"- I'm joking, I didn't actually delete them, I just…. Blocked the possibility of any player ever meeting them…" Yuma wasn't being cheerful at all with her joke.

"- Why would you do that?"

"- I didn't want anyone getting chosen, I didn't want any of us to get corrupted by the modifications the player was using. I-I know how it sounds, I know that it's unfair for them, but I really didn't want them to get corrupted like I did-" She was glitching as she cried out feeling guilty of what she has done in the name of "protecting her friends". Even if her intentions were pure, there was an underlined desire to make sure no player ever gets to have a route that isn't with her.

That's why the game was so stupidly heavy. Each new installment has four characters built with artificial intelligence that grows on it's own, the player's tampering with their personalities by changing the code eventually led to Yuma getting obsessive and controlling. Apparently they're still here, but for some reason she hasn't been able to activate them again after being thrown in the trash and somehow being on a completely different planet.

Either she feels guilty for having to deactivate them and is scared of their possible response, or maybe she just really doesn't want you to meet them, both by her own opinion and by her programming. You almost feel sorry for her considering she is probably just trying to do what she was programmed to do, deeply fall in love with someone even to such an extreme as trapping someone inside the game. You could say that for the longest time all that she has been doing is trapping her loved ones away, and although you probably shouldn't say it to her face, she probably doesn't know if she really loves you because of how broken this game is- Or how broken her code is.

"- Hey… Hey Yuma." You started walking towards the screen, the only thing you can see through the void no matter how far you are. Her back is facing you, her "hum" of "I'm listening" didn't sound as excited as she normally was.

"- I think we can make a deal. I understand that you don't want to go back to such a messy game but if you taught me how to read the language used in some of these lines I can figure out how to clean this game-" You proposed but was cut off before you could finish stating your offer.

"- Y-You mean factory reset?" She kneeled up so fast you were caught off guard by how scared she sounded at the mention of getting the game to get fixed and "clean" from mods. You have seen so many sides of Yuma, the childish, the controlling, the sadistic…. The fear in her eyes was a new thing for you and you never thought you would hate that expression so much.

"- No! Heaven's no, I swear, that wasn't on my mind! What I'm offering is that we work together so I can find a way to fix the game." You reassured her, feeling awful knowing that even if she did put you inside the game and keeps acting like you two are dating in a really twisted way- She doesn't deserve to be inside a completely destroyed game, and besides, I bet she does miss her friends a little bit.

"- Would you…. Would you really-" She was about to burst into new tears which you hoped to be of pure joy-

"- Yeah, yeah, of course I would help you, but I do have one condition." You took no time answering her question before she actually did question it.

"- Oh��." She said a little surprised yet a bit disappointed. Geez, she was hoping it would be for free-

"- Promise me you'll get me out of here when I'm finally done fixing the spaghetti leftover of a code that is messing this game, alright?" You smiled at her reassuring her that everything will be okay if you two worked together.

And as she looked at the bright screen seeing nothing but your little character and your dialogue box she considered your request for a moment, and then sealed the deal by eagerly nodding, a couple of tears falling from her closed eyes as she glitch excitedly.

This sweet moment was briefly ruined by the sound of beeping coming from the console, the sign that the battery was really low and it needed to be recharged.

You absolutely hated how dark it gets when the whole console is turned off, yet you can at least take your time to search more of the unused content inside the game.

Yuma approached the device and picked it up, you knew it was for the best for her.to recharge it and get it over with, yet you still felt a little desperate to talk with her a little bit before going into complete silence once again.

Yet you weren't sure what to tell her as she had already found the charger and plugged it in, giving you a sad smile one last time before saying "see you later" and shutting the whole portable console off.

You can't really blame her for turning it off when charging, it gets really, really hot whenever it's on and it's recharging.

You wander through the empty void as you reconsider your decisions, you make a deal with an artificial intelligence capable of trapping living beings inside her game, you can't tell if you did something right or not.

And as you walk aimlessly through the distorted code you remember that this was the first time she turned the console off without sending you a kiss, you wonder if her a.i is starting to comprehend its own defectiveness and trying to…. Overcome it?? Has she started to realize that maybe she doesn't really love you? It's a possibility considering how frightening how advanced her a.i is.

Well, but who knows? Maybe she is just… Sad, not in the mood, although the wishful thought that maybe she is starting to get over you is really strong in your mind, you hope it's true.

And as the portable device is charging in place that was once considered your room, a really happy girl can be heard singing. The sound that comes from the bathroom is loud and clear, yet it's not like you would be able to hear it anyway.

The sound of giggling and humming to an overly cheerful song as they take a shower that although is relaxing, can never clean their sins away. They sound like they won a lottery, got into a new relationship, or are about to take the greatest vacation of their lives…

Or, they sound like someone who just stole candy from a child, as the malicious undertone starts to get more clear.

You probably shouldn't eat up the lies of a scheming a.i, you know?

🍭꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍰꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖♡🍮꒰⑅ᵕ༚ᵕ꒱˖🍭

[weakzen]

Taking the Stares

The Detective uses the stairwell to her advantage for a kiss—or so she thinks.

pairing: female detective/mason rating: m wc: 2k+ prompt fill: 20. Kissing in a stairwell, giving them an artificial height difference.

AO3 version

Mason pushes the door open with his hip and leans against it, holding it open for me.

Waiting for me to pass. Waiting for me to head up first.

Like he's done every single time since Unit Bravo first rolled into town.

Back then, he did it with scowls. Folded arms. Heavy gazes dead ahead. Barks at me to hurry up too, if I took longer than a second—and I frequently did, strolling with a sly smirk and deliberate slowness, just to piss him off. But regardless of our bouts of mutual antagonism and his overall assholish demeanor, he still slammed those stairwell doors open for me and waited, always letting me head up in front of him.

Today, I run my hand over his stomach as I pass, stroking a squiggle across the thin fabric of his shirt, enjoying the dip of his inhale, and the way his abs tense with anticipation, and then the broad smile I leave on his face when my fingers depart.

I head up the stairs without looking back. The door to the basement slams shut behind us and Mason's footsteps soon join mine, echoing loudly against the concrete and corroding pipes.

It took me a while to realize why he held those doors. An embarrassingly long while. I thought he was trying to unnerve me at first. Take advantage of the terrain and isolation. Get me to walk in front of him so he could follow behind, directly in my blind spot, unseen and unheard through the echoing cacophony, discernible only by that piercing gaze and the smirk that dug into my backside and the way he used both to make the tension between my shoulderblades wind just a little bit tighter with every subsequent step climbed on those long ascents.

That was definitely part of his motivation back then, fucking with me, but I was too focused on that aspect to pay attention to the more obvious and glaring explanation for his actions. Which, is either a testament to my ability to fixate on something to the exclusion of everything else, or a total condemnation of my single-minded obliviousness, because Mason is not exactly subtle.

Not with his words, when they come at all. Not with his actions, when he cares enough to try.

Not with those hard, roaming, and near tangible stares of his, either.

Truly, a master of visual undress and eye fucking across a room.

And of making sure he's always in position to blatantly ogle my ass while he does both.

A wide grin pulls at my lips and I whirl around suddenly before I crest the first landing, arms folded as I stand above him.

“You staring at my ass again, sunshine?”

My accusation echoes off the walls and, four steps down, he doesn't bother to pretend he wasn't. His eyes linger on my crotch for a moment, smirk slowly widening, before he flicks his gaze up to meet mine.

“Not anymore.”

He continues upward, footsteps echoing, that gaze locked unblinking on mine as he advances step by step until he stops on the one below me, eyes level with each other and our mouths only a heartbeat apart.

But he closes that distance quickly enough.

Mason's lips press against mine in lazy nibbles, slow kisses with gently scraping stubble and soft bumps of nose and even softer sighs of pleasure. His hands find their usual spot on my hips, thumbs hooked in my belt loops, long fingers curling over the curve of my ass, but not quite cupping. Not sliding down to grope or squeeze.

Maybe it's because my hands are busy cupping his face for once, now that I can easily reach.

His cheeks are warm beneath my touch, the edge of his jaw sharp in my palms, and sharper still at the back corners, where my fingers curl into him and find shifting purchase as his mouth moves against my own. I swipe my thumbs across his cheeks, through the scratch of hair and out over soft, smooth skin and the expanse of countless freckles I could easily see, if I were to open my eyes.

I do. Just to make sure they're still there.

And to enjoy the sight of them, dappled beneath those long, dark lashes.

At least, until his eyes snap open as well.

Our lips slow, coming to a still, then to a part, with a sticky kiss that echoes faintly around the stairwell too, but we don't move far. Our mouths continue to brush together, breath mingling, exhales fanning gently over swollen lips and flushed skin as we stare at each other. His eyes gleam with playfulness, grey depths warmed with amusement and want, softened with heavy lids and faint creases at the corners and…

…what I might call affection, from this vantage, now that I can easily see.

Heat floods my cheeks anew, and Mason pulls me forward by the hips and the loops until our chests bump together and then he's kissing me again. Deeper. More purposefully. Affectionately, too, in a way I can't deny.

In a way that makes my eyes squeeze shut as well, and forces a whimper from my throat, and fills my chest with so much swelling fondness that I just… ache.

I never thought all those steps we climbed back then were leading here, to this exact instant, to this particular spot, to us pressed together and swaying in a familiar embrace. And I don't want to know what else lies ahead of us, how many more embraces we have, if any, or where we might be climbing to next.

I just want to take the steps one at a time. Day by day. Hour by hour.

Moment by moment.

A callout for his staring. A kiss in a stairwell. A consideration for the advantages of terrain and isolation.

I smile against his lips.

And then an unanswered question.

I slide my hands from his cheeks, down his neck, to his shoulders, where I gently, but firmly, nudge him down a step. Mason raises a brow, but doesn't resist. Doesn't keep hold of me either, arms dropping to his sides as he falls back another step until I can see the top of his head, the part in that dark hair I mostly know by touch.

The rest of those wavy locks brush against my hands as I slide up his neck again, and press my thumbs under his jaw to tilt his head back even further. Again, he doesn't resist. Only licks his lips and swallows, eyes darkening as I lean over him.

I wonder if there's anything new he can see of me now, from his vantage, in this moment, the instant before I plunge down to capture his lips with mine.

He receives me eagerly, mouth parting quickly for my tongue and my pace. I guide the kiss and Mason follows, through deep slides together into sharp inhales, breathy turns into lip sucking and parting drags of teeth that make him growl low with pleasure, slower stretches too, softer swirls, where it's just the wet heat and the taste of us and my moans and the silent, urgent need vibrating in his throat beneath my touch.

At some point, his hands come up to skim my legs, fingertips ghosting along the backs of my thighs, but he doesn't quite take hold of me. Doesn't grab or squeeze suggestively.

Maybe it's because he's too busy enjoying my hold on him, the press of my palms against the tendons gliding and shifting in his neck, the feel of my fingers stroking over his soft skin and the prickle of recently shaved stubble, the way I find myself lingering on his pulse, circling it as it throbs hard beneath my thumbs, as he tilts his head back further to give me even better access to him.

As he bares his throat to me entirely, willingly, and without hesitation.

When I pull away to breathe, he continues to follow, rising up on his toes before our lips part with another sticky, echoing kiss. He stays there for the briefest moment afterward, at apex where we stare at each other—and where an unexpected thrill jolts electrically through my body at the sight of him like that, arched up for me, with such eagerness and raw desire. His eyes darken even more as he feels it too, into near blackness, and his hands finally tighten on my thighs, right before he drops back to his heels and glances away.

I bite my lip.

After a moment, I straighten up again, hands sliding to his shoulders once more. “Gotta say, sunshine,” my voice echoes husky and low, “I do like the view from up here.”

Mason scoffs and runs a hand through his hair, but the look in his eye remains.

“Don't get used to it, sweetheart.”

“Why not?” I tease my thumb across his lips, grinning. “You already spend most of your time beneath me.”

He snorts, cracking into a smile before he presses a wet kiss to my fingertip.

“Good point,” he replies, glancing up at me. Dark amusement glitters in his eyes now as he slides his hands to my hips again. “Can't say I don't enjoy the view from below too.”

I cup his cheeks and lean over to kiss him more, but right before we make contact, his grip tightens hard—

Mason smirks deeply.

—then he lifts me up suddenly instead.

“Shit!”

The word echoes sharply through the stairwell as my feet shoot off the ground. I wobble and grab at his forearms instinctively, heartbeat spiking wildly for a moment, but my surprise passes quickly. Then I'm just left hanging in his grasp, legs dangling free, abs tensed for balance, hips slightly above his eye level, and all with that self-satisfied fucking smirk of his blasting up at me.

I know I should probably be at least mildly annoyed from the dick swinging, the reminder that, although I may occasionally have him beat on height, he will always have me beat on strength, but…

Honestly, I'm just fucking impressed.

And a little jealous.

I always am, whenever I witness it. Fucking ridiculous vampires.

He just front raised over fifty fucking kilos like it was nothing—and he's still holding it up, perfectly motionless, at this awkward fucking angle, arms completely straight, with no trembling strain or drooping or sign of fatigue or anything other than just a goddamn beautiful and totally fucking effortlessness display of raw strength.

It took me nearly a decade to even hit fifteen in each hand, and I'm still struggling to push on to twenty.

Fuck, and the sheer mechanical load on his shoulders right now, I just—

I fold my arms and huff out a long breath that trails into a smirk.

“Well, I guess it's higher than I thought you could go.”

The words barely leave my mouth before Mason swings me up directly overhead.

I gasp and tip forward, chest plunging, legs rising, until I'm parallel with the ground, stiffened and balanced, arms extended, with my heart thundering, my ankles tightly crossed, and my mind filled with a whole new appreciation for just how fucking deep those gymnastics instincts were drilled into me as a kid. His hands lock me in place too, grip firm, thumbs digging into my hips to keep me from rotating any further.

At least, for a moment.

He grins up at me, fangs sharp and visible, then slowly starts to tilt my pelvis so my legs go higher.

My braid falls first, unfurling like the damn rope at gym class, and I'm disappointed it doesn't swing directly into his smug face. My necklace falls next, pendant smacking into my mouth and catching between my lips. My shirt tries to fall too, sliding in stutters down my back, but the front tuck holds valiantly.

Blood begins to pool and throb in my face, and my hands come down to rest on his shoulders as well. He keeps rotating me, to the point where our foreheads almost touch and our eyes lock together at a different angle and our mouths are still less than a heartbeat apart.

The grin twitching at my lips matches the widening spread of his—and we come to a simultaneous decision quickly enough.

He leans back slightly and my legs soar even higher to my whoop of joy, until I'm practically vertical.

Until he can stare directly up the neck of my shirt, too.

And from the look in his eye, I can tell he's undoing the clasp on my bra to make my breasts spill free, right before he lowers me to put his face between them. Mason rolls his lips together and groans a low noise of appreciation.

“Yeah,” he says after a moment, shifting me slightly for a better view, “you look great from down here.”

I scoff around the chain on my lips and try to give him a look, but the tomato face and the grin probably ruin it a little—

My shirt falls over my head with a soft plop.

—And so does that.

Mason's bark of laughter echoes loudly throughout the stairwell.

So does mine, slightly more muffled.

I start wobbling a little, and he quickly lowers me over his shoulder before I lose my balance. His arms curl snugly around the back of my thighs, but it isn't long before I feel him staring at my ass again. And it only takes a fraction of the time after that before one of his hands shoots up to start squeezing firm, eager handfuls of me, paired with long, appreciative strokes, and a targeted pat that makes me clench and moan softly.

He starts to climb again while he enjoys himself.

I enjoy his touch too, if not the view. Of white and grey stripes. Because he didn't bother to fix my shirt, of course. Or give me the chance to do it myself. My arms and braid sway back and forth as his footsteps echo, and I huff at the loose strands of hair tickling my face.

A pleasantly undignified half-defeat. A demonstration of shared strength and acrobatics. A question answered beyond the scope.

I smile against the necklace.

And a hand sliding fast up my back too, groping toward my bra clasp.

Fumbling, I reach over to smack his ass first. “I'll give you a wedgie,” I threaten through the shirt.

His hand retreats to my waistband, to my belt loops, where he yanks up suddenly while I squeal and kick out.

“I'll just give you more of one back,” he replies simply, shrugging beneath me.

I smack his ass again, harder.

Mason only chuckles and squeezes me tighter, nuzzling his cheek against me before pressing a lingering kiss to my thigh. Then he resumes his groping as he continues upward, carrying me with a sly smirk and deliberate slowness.

One step at a time.

[snowflake-of-destruction]

This isn’t something I normally participate in, but, since I didn’t write much in June and shared hardly anything(something I plan to change in July if I can), I thought I should give some proof of (creative) life if anyone wants it.

Under the cut, a series of tiny excerpts, most more than six sentences, of different Kingdom Hearts pieces to be rescued from the limbo of “half finished chunk of something in a google doc.” Some of them belong to WIPs and some are from various other things started and then interrupted or....we’ll say set to a back burner.

All excerpts headed by a bolded header in the style of 

Title of Piece This Belongs To (Brief description of what kind of fic that is in between parenthesis)

Advantage Rule (Isalea Modern AU. First Chapter Up On AO3. More Info There.)

"You lost or are you the new caulk?" The speaker didn't fit the typical profile of a tech professional, especially one that worked behind the scenes with the coders. Mid-fifties judging by the lines on his face with thinning blond hair so light you could hardly tell where some parts had gone silver combed to stick up as a compensation for where it threatened to recede and leather skin that said he'd worked outside in some decade past, paired with a southern accent that seemed stronger than it was with the effect added by the toothpick precariously balanced in the corner of his mouth. He'd rejected business attire in favor of cargo pants and a dark blue flight jacket that looked like they'd been bought in the last century, and the look in his eye was so fierce without prompting that Axel had to wonder if he was a failsafe for the air conditioning breaking down.

"Am I the what?"

"Caulk." The toothpick switched sides of the man's mouth with a roll of his bottom lip. "Fixing the leaks? The cybersecurity specialist? Axel Lea?" His impatience mounted by the moment. Working on the fourth floor would certainly be interesting.

"Yes, sir. That would be me." Axel tried to smooth the way with deference and the easy smile that rarely steered him wrong. "Does that make you...?"

"Cid Highwind. I'll be showing you the ropes. Now that you've seen fit to grace us with your presence." Cid continued to stare him down and Axel wasn't sure if he was supposed to apologize or bare his teeth and smack his chest like a gorilla to challenge the alpha.

Without False Hope ( First Chapter Up On AO3. More Info There. Akuroku KH/FFX crossover)

Axel was waiting for them, or  it seemed that way at least and Roxas didn’t think himself vain for thinking so, when Roxas spotted the lanky redhead not jogging himself but leaning against a pole until he saw the Crusaders approaching and then falling in next to Roxas just behind Xion as she bellowed, "Young Crusaders gather 'round,"  the beginning of a call and response chant that the rest of them would answer with a promise to knock enemies back and stand their ground or an alternate about beating Sin beneath the ground if they were feeling

Axel finished the line a beat before the Crusaders would have, substituting his own words. "...Eager for Sin to put you in the ground." Roxas's heart, which had soared for a moment when Axel had come up beside him and dared to hope that Axel's first words would be a version of sorry or an invitation out somewhere without other people, took a sharp plummet to his toes then returned to his chest angry at being mocked.

Assorted grumbles and shouts showed many others felt the same way, but Xion seemed to take it in stride, sing-songing her own improvised lines that continued the cadence of the original chant without missing a beat, "Young civilian come to heckle and stare. What would you do if a fiend attacked and we weren't there?"

Axel near stumbled but recovered and let out a short bark that might have been a laugh he wasn't sure he was allowed without inviting training Crusaders to make him pay for it, afterward rumbling in an impressed tone, "You, I like,."

"You should. " Xion shot back and her casual tone alone was enough that everyone else in the formation knew Axel was an acceptable stranger even if he was rude, and that they should ignore the intrusion. "I'm not sure I like you back. Roxas has been mooning and it makes him impossible."

Guardian Force (Akuroku. Axel and Roxas in the next life, living as NPCs in the world of/during the story of FFVIII. Part of my eventual plan to show Axel and Roxas living out every Final Fantasy game. Unpublished/First chapter never completed because I decided on Without False Hope/a FFX crossover instead)

"You often talk to yourself?" an insolent lazy drawl came from somewhere to Axel's left and he turned, eyes narrowing to see a boy in a rumpled Balamb cadet uniform lying across the second highest step, book in hand, vibrant blue eyes, ice eyes like he'd junctioned Shiva right to his vision, trained on him over the spine.

"To my Guardian Force," Axel explained, though that seemed worse. Over six foot of height and lean muscle and the SeeD uniform Axel wore at least enough parts of for it to be vaguely recognizable that he belonged to the elite unit, all usually worked together enough that there was usually no reason to be embarrassed by anything he let slip out.  Nobody would laugh even if Axel welcomed it.

"Thought you didn't like using Guardian Forces," the lounging student's voice was just as nonchalant as it was before, but his gaze was sharp, interested, and he spoke as if he knew Axel.

"Have we met?" Axel knocked the sole of his left boot against the side of his right as if scraping mud off the bottom. It wasn't odd for him to shift constantly even when mostly still, unless he was specifically called to stand at attention. There was an air of discomfort about the present action though, when taken with how jade eyes known for constant analysis on and off the battlefield, seemed attracted to the handrail of the steps rather than searching the face of the boy that had just spoken to him with familiarity.  Axel's normally iron stomach soured immediately at the idea they had met and he'd forgotten, to the point he couldn't even bring himself to try and jog his recollection. All he could do was force out his least favorite question next to 'when did that happen?'

Lollipop (Soriku and Akuroku. College AU/Modern AU. Unpublished. Sora and Roxas in an acapella group because that was the only way I could work out how to get them to sing and do choreo for songs that get stuck in Shaky’s head, which was the Goal of the Day one day before I got distracted)

When Sora said he had a new idea for a piece for the CrescenDudes' next performance, Roxas had been more than happy to volunteer to work on the arrangement with him. Sora was great for ideas, large picture and little flourishes that made a song a show, and he was, hands down, who you wanted doing choreography, even if he tended to get carried away and not realize there weren't many others with the dance and movement background he had in their group, but he wasn't suited for the musical side of sculpting a piece. He'd sing what he was given and he'd stay on pitch doing it, but he had no idea to weave songs together to form a mashup that sounded natural and created the right feeling in a crowd,  and he'd forget to accommodate  for everyone's voices or go the opposite direction and try to highlight everyone and have twenty solos. So it was up to Roxas to take his vision from neat idea to reality, and he jumped at the chance. He'd do anything at this point to distract Sora from dragging him into wedding planning for a few days when that should be Riku’s job as the other groom.  

Hourglass (Unpublished. Self-indulgent BBS Era--at least for this excerpt-- story about KH Squall/Leon and Seifer growing up in Radiant Garden and explaining how they got to be on separate planets and separate ages by the time KH1 rolls around. May be competed and posted to AO3 or just used as a base/record of headcanon for sprinkling backstory references in other pieces.)

Seifer challenged Lea and Isa to break back into the castle and come back with proof this time. He would have just called Lea a liar, but that would lead to Lea trying to fight him, which would lead to Isa trying to fight him, which would lead to Squall getting in the way, thinking Seifer couldn't handle a two on one fight with some chicken wusses. Then Squall would still try to sneak into the castle himself to see Ellone anyway--and she wasn’t in the castle in the first place...probably. Seifer would have to drag Squall’s ass out of there, and, if they got caught by the Royal Guard, then they’d be the next rumored prisoners in the basement.  It was safer to make it be Lea and Isa's challenge.

Lea took the bait. Isa, surprisingly, added they were planning a return trip anyway. Squall shot Seifer a questioning look, which he ignored in favor of taunting Lea and sealing the deal, "I can't wait to see you two hobble in tomorrow after getting your asses beat by the Guard. Try not to hit your thick skulls on the flagstones when you get thrown out."

Drowning (Unfinished/unpublished. Placeholder name. Sorikai. Supposed to be for the Sorikai Summer Event. Prompt: Drowning. Long one shot about eight times one of the Destiny Trio has nearly drowned and then been saved by the others)

Their first prototype of a raft had fallen apart underneath them in open water, the ties that lashed the planks together having not been as securely tied as they could have been--the book on sailor's knots Sora had provided was a lot more obtuse than it had seemed at first, descriptions dense and picture demonstrations too sparse. Kairi and Sora each fared well, each grabbing onto a floating plank to drift a minute and orient themselves after being plunged into the water. Riku was less successful, being fixated on saving as many of the supplies Kairi and Sora had gathered (coconuts, mushrooms, and bottles of water mostly, though there had been a tackle box that Riku's father would kill him for losing if he had to go back and face him, and that was what Riku was primarily focused on) and exhausting his breath on too many dives in a row without recovery in between until he was lightheaded from not taking in enough air in his hasty gulps when he broke the surface and increasingly imprecise in where he chose to come out of the water until he hit his head on the bottom of the plank he was loading the recovered supplies onto and went down without resurfacing.

No Set Recipe (Unfinished/unpublished.  Sorikai. Supposed to be for the Sorikai Summer Event. Prompt: Ice Cream. Kidfic. Sora’s mom is left with the job of explaining polyamory while making homemade ice cream with a group of five and six year olds.)

It was all Selphie's fault to start with, though if she was going to be ascribed the blame for the hurt feelings, she would have to be given credit for all that happened after, which Riku and Sora both agreed she did not deserve, even if Kairi was more magnanimous, so it became habit just to talk of the ice cream and the impact it had on their future. Still, the most accurate account begins with: one day when they were all young-- too young to even be allowed to swim in the water surrounding play island without an adult in the surf with them, if that gives perspective--Selphie, to everyone's surprise, scored the winning goal in the game of land-blitzball the group of them were playing in order to decide what game they would really spend the day playing, and chose, to absolutely nobody's surprise, house.

Everyone accepted their fate and divided into family units with minimal grumbling, phrasing which means that Wakka threw the blitzball into the sea and lost it forever when Jecht--the parent chaperone on play island that day who was five minutes away from falling asleep on the sand and typically didn't care what they did, unlike most parents who at least had restrictions about not hitting each other in the head with wooden swords or throwing sand, and was the favorite of the children for that attitude of freedom to make mistakes being a better teacher than rules--refused to go into the water after it.

Selphie, however, found a problem with Sora, Riku, and Kairi's family. Specifically, she didn't like that the family was Riku, Kairi, and Sora all together parenting a yellow coconut Kairi was trying to rock to sleep while Riku built him a bed out of sand and palm fronds and Sora cooked dinner for the household--a savoury stew of sticks, sand, and mushroom. She stood with pursed lips and hands on hips, and declared that their proud coconut son, Rekka, couldn't have all three of them for parents because that wasn't how things worked.

"Why not?" Sora asked with all the curiosity and innocence of a child.

Riku tried a more practical, solution based approach with, "Can we change the rules?"

Kairi was more direct and firm, her, "It does if I say so," leaving very little room to argue.

[powermetalhag]

Digging Deeper

 @alienfuckeronmain​ tagged me in this massive tag meme (Thank you!! I love doing these things). If I tag you, feel free to ignore this if you don’t feel up to doing it/reading it. If you aren’t tagged and want to be, feel free to just say I tagged you ❤

I tag: @flowerkitten @meemimajima @darlingdear @wizards1977 @violet-tea @lickthatbattery @lusamine @misfit-on-a-journey @lampshroomomg @cyrsed @wooden-duck @wildbayou @curse-you @ghostly-rowlf​ @icedchailatte​ @oni-lover​

1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or blue pen? black

2. Would you prefer to live in the country or city? City

3. If you could learn a new skill what would it be? I’d love to be able to sing and metal-scream really well. I’m trying to learn but I practice pretty inconsistently and it’s an uphill battle bc I don’t have much natural aptitude for it. Also it would be really cool to be a contortionist. 

4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar? I don’t drink coffee. Sometimes I sweeten tea, sometimes I don’t.

5. What was your favourite book as a child? I didn’t like reading books much as a child. When it came to reading novels, my reading comprehension was pretty below average (I think I posted about this ages ago, but when I tried to read Harry potter when I was 7 I couldn’t follow it at all. I somehow thought that Harry and Hagrid were the same character and that Hagrid was just the name for Harry’s Wizard self. My concentration just wasn’t there). I read a lot of manga though. I think my favourites were fushigi yuugi, saint tail, and miracle girls.

6. Do you prefer baths or showers? showers.

7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would it be? Hobbit

8. Paper or electronic books? I prefer paper books, but I mostly use electronic ones.

9. What is your favourite item of clothing? my cloud-print long sleeved mesh shirt

10. Do you like your name or would you like to change it? I used to want to change it, I don’t anymore. 

11. Who is a mentor to you? I don’t think I have one

12. Would you like to be famous and if so, what for? I like the idea of creative projects of mine becoming a little bit known, but I’d never want to be famous.

13. Are you a restless sleeper? Not really

14. Do you consider yourself a romantic person? I’m probably less romantic than the average person, but in the right situation I can be.

15. Which element best represents you? I associate myself with fire (bc I'm a leo) but in some ways water or air might better represent me. Idk.

16. Who do you want to be closer to? Honestly? Pretty much all of my friends. My life is complicated and the severity of my ocd makes me keep everyone at a distance more than I’d like to.

17. Do you miss someone at the moment? Everyone who I haven’t seen since quarantine started.

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory. As young kids my sister and I hated Tracey Sketchit from pokemon so passionately that we would draw his face on the bottom of our feet before going to jump on the trampoline so that we could feel like we were jumping on him

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten? When we were little my sister and I would sometimes eat raw dried spaghetti dipped in vegemite when there was no other easy snacks in the house. We called them cardboard sticks. (The food situation in my house wasn’t dire or anything, we were just too lazy to make a sandwich or something lol)

20. What are you most thankful for? I am thankful for the people I have in my life and for the amount of stability i’ve been able to have in my life in recent times.

21. Do you like spicy food? I do, but if I eat it often enough to increase my tolerance to it I get bad reflux. So I remain a spice wimp who can only have mild.

22. Have you ever met someone famous? Zakk Wylde, Chris Lilley, and some guy who was on Blue Heelers. Also I spoke to Tracy Grimshaw on the phone once. Meeting Zakk Wylde was funny because I was REALLY weird and embarrassing.

(Long story ahead, feel free to skip) Basically, my friend and I were 16 and wandering through the city high on acid. We saw Zakk standing near Hungry Jacks and became completely captivated by him. We had no idea he was some big famous rockstar, we thought he was just some random guy. I cannot convey to you how intense his presence felt at that time. It was like he was everything that is and ever will be metal but congealed into a human being and magnified by 2000x. (in case you don’t know him, he looks like this)

We were so high that we were very in our own world and felt like we were the only ones who really existed and that everything else was just kinda there for us to observe. So we started following him and discussing him as if he couldn’t hear every word we were saying. 

I remember us being like “He’s the most metal thing i’ve seen in my life” “He’s like Neptune, king of the sea, but a brutal version” “He’s the raw original concept that all other metalheads were disseminated from. He’s the true, the original.” It made sense at the time that he could be the origin point of metal and the first ever metalhead because time and space felt like it existed in a looser way than usual. We were really fixated on the idea that metal was invented through his very existence as a direct expression of self, then people copied him, then people copied those people and so on. The further they got from the source (Zakk) the more diluted the essence became. That’s why being around normal metalheads wasn’t as viscerally overwhelming as being in the presence of the raw undiluted concept. We concluded that no metalheads were actually expressing themselves through their subcultural identity. Unknowingly, they’re just expressing him. And we were saying all of this while walking maybe a metre and a half behind him while he ignored us.

Eventually some of the people he was with noticed we were following him and started talking to us (they may have been members of Black label society or they may have just been friends of his, idk). They were friendly and said that they used to do acid when they were younger too and invited us to get drunk with them. We said yes and walked with them for a little. I don’t think Zakk said a word to us the entire time. He probably found us annoying. But we kept staring at Zakk and getting overwhelmed by how intense it was just to be in his presence. Then me and my friend abruptly turned and left without saying anything because being around Zakk was getting to be too much. It was like a sensory overload. As we walked away we barely heard them yelling back to us “something something something ZAKK WYLDE!”. I was familiar with the name but I’d never known how he looked. I googled him a few days later and learned that it was indeed Zakk Wylde who we met and that he’d been in Brisbane with black label society.

And that’s the story of how I passed up the once in a lifetime opportunity to get drunk with Zakk Wylde because his vibes were off the charts.

23. Do you do you keep a diary or journal? No. Kinda wish I could, but the habit doesn’t stick.

24. Do you prefer to use a pen or a pencil?  Pencil

25. What is your star sign? Leo sun (Virgo cusp), Scorpio moon, Sagittarius rising.

26. Do you like your cereal soggy or crunchy? Crunchy

27. What would you want your legacy to be? I’d like to have a positive effect on the people in my life and leave art behind that people might enjoy or relate to (I use the word art loosely, I mean any kind of creative project). I think I've become more aware recently of how important that is to me, which is why I've been so uncharacteristically dedicated to finishing my comic.

28. Do you like reading, what was the last book you read? I like reading books but I don’t always have the attention span for it. I tend to read more non-fiction than fiction. The last book I read was Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo. A really great book if you want to learn about emo history. The only downside is that it was published in 2003, before emo really took off in the mainstream. Had some insightful things to say regardless.

29. How do you show someone you love them? Idk I can’t think of a concise answer for this. I think it varies depending on who it is and what our dynamic is. When I took that love language test it said my love language was quality time.

30. Do you like ice in your drinks? I don’t like it in water. It’s fine in most other drinks.

31. What are you afraid of? I don’t think I can answer this without oversharing or getting too bleak

32. What is your favourite scent? I like tropical scents like mango and coconut

33. Do you address older people by their name or surname? By their name

34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life? I’d buy a house with my sister and I wouldn’t have a job but I'd volunteer and do freelance creative work. I’d donate a lot more and help people out more. I’d learn lots of new skills and make lots of art. I would have an amazing wardrobe too.

A kinda sillier dream is that I'd start a cheerleading team where our routines are exclusively to metal songs. As well as entering competitions, we would also be an opening act for bands (in this dream i’m much better at cheerleading than I currently am). It would be cool ok

35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean.? Ocean. I miss going to the beach so much

36. What would you do if you found £50 on the ground? See if someone dropped it. Then idk, would depend on my financial situation at the time.

37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? Yes

38. What is the one thing you would want to teach your children? I’m not going to have children. I’d like to be a good influence in my friend’s children’s lives though.

39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it? Probably some old-school gradient style neopets art (maybe an aisha) or 90s tamagotchi art or a cool wizard. I’d get it on my thigh. I’m very unlikely to ever get a tattoo though

40. What can you hear now? The hum of my computer. It’s old and loud and on its way out

41. Where do you feel the safest? In my bed at home with my cat Luna or hanging out w my sister

42. What is the one thing you want to overcome/conquer? Once coronavirus is less of an issue (which may be in the near future where I live), I’d like to try and push myself to start dating again. I haven’t done that in a long while. The limitations that ocd causes me makes it hard for me to imagine a relationship-- even a casual one--being workable. But I ought to at least try before I decide that. Sometimes things turn out to be easier than I think they’ll be 🤷‍♀️.

43. If you could travel back to any era, what would it be? This is so hard!!

If this is purely for enjoyment and not to change the past, i’d probably just want to see all my favourite bands live while they were in their prime and like, cry the whole way through because I am so moved.

44. What is your most used emoji? :) or :/ 

45. Describe yourself using one word. I’m really bad at questions like this

46. What do you regret the most? Eh, that’s a bit personal. I feel like i’ve overshared enough in this thing.

47. Last movie you saw? Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days

48. Last tv show you watched? Degrassi the next generation

49. Invent a word and it’s meaning. Idk

If you’ve read this far ty!! Here’s a little sheep for your trouble

[starryace]

my personal introduction to vav

so i have a few friends who’ve been wanting to get into vav but dunno where to start so... i’ll just do this lil thing. obviously there’s gonna be my own opinions so don’t take everything i say to heart but like... here we go

vav (very awesome voice -- pronounced vee-ay-vee but i say vav bc im lazy) debuted in 2015, but when they debuted they had a different lineup. zehan, xiao, and gyeoul all left to pursue other activities. ziu, lou, and ayno joined the group in 2017! the fandom is called vampz because of the groups original concept but we don’t talk about that

title tracks/mvs: *under the moonlight | *brotherhood | *no doubt | *here i am | venus (dance with me) | flower (you) | abc (middle of the night) | she’s mine | spotlight | gorgeous | give it to me | senorita | **so in love | **thrilla killa | **i’m sorry | give me more

* = pre-line up switch! | ** = without jacob (due to his participation in a chinese program)

more about the members under the cut!

st van (lee geumhyuk)

note: during updating i ended up having to redo this entire section bc my computer deleted it all... sigh.

everyone’s dad

kinda gives off party vibes, like a cool club dad, you know?

super duper soft :(( he laughs at everything and he loves gentle things and he may be the oldest but he’s babie

gets really embarrassed really easily and blushes and laughs it off

oh! he also laughs with like... his entire body ekhrbgj

tattoos! on his shoulder and right arm

full sleeve completed

self composed the track “im sorry” off of the thrilla killa album

he lived in china for 13+ years and can speak fluent (if not, almost fluent) chinese

he’s super good cook and he wanted to be a chef before becoming an idol

loves jacob :(( with all his heart

weird but he can drink a lot of water really quickly, that’s his special talent

got a dog with the group! her name is cash and she’s super cute

im sure there’s more but i got mad after my computer deleted everything so i’ll get back to updating this part when things dawn on me

baron (choi chunghyeop)

dancer extraordinaire! he actually used to be in a dance team before vav

smiley boy ;;;; literally he has the prettiest smile and the nicest teeth

he can play the piano and a lil guitar im p sure!

he’s honestly a lil shit but we love him anyway

he’s very mom like, and loves taking care of the members, but i spy with my lil eye someone a lil more mom-like but that comes later

he choreographed a cover of shape of you!

unfortunately, his mom passed away early this year (may she rest in peace).

his nickname is baby prince (from his mom) and it was because of his mom that he was able to become and idol

baron singing??? yes,,, yeS!! his voice is godsent istg

he loves loves loves music and dance

wont shut up about millennium dance studio

was the pizza delivery boy in minx’s why did you come to my home

has a very intensive skin care routine

he!! loves!! food!! constantly nomming

ace (jang wooyoung)

remember how i said how i thought there was someone more mom like? meet ace.

literally babies everyone

eSPECIALLY ayno + ziu (sometimes lou, when lou will let him)

sassy, diva, can also be a lil shit -- esp with baron... 92 line is just lil shit line

lil fucking tease, too--

he has an oral fixation-- licks his lips a lot no bueno for me

teal hair? god tier. senorita? also god tier. everything about him? god tier.

plays the guitar... see senorita

“you’re doing wonderful sweetie” but like... a living version of that

abs... abs for days..........

works out with jacob

dimples!! but it’s more prominent on the right cheek.

god he’s??? literally ethereal. like i can’t put into words how pretty he is

he ;;;; has the purest, most sweetest heart

they need to start letting ace have more lines bc omg his voice ;;;;;

really good with kids ;;;;; they love him

he’s a BIG flirt, it’s like when he opens his mouth the only thing he thinks to do is say “i love you” or “you’re mine” or smthn

Prince Wooyoung™

ayno (noh yoonho)

was on no.mercy -- still kinda keeps in contact with monsta x now (hims was lil babie minhyuk)

yknow how baron is dancer? so is ayno -- aYNO IS GOD TIER DANCER ok he ;;;;; ugh he’s literally so talented

he raps too! also god tier

hims a soundcloud rapper -- dropped zero coke (mixtape) and god that boy is talented

self composed their song touch you (aka one of my fave vav songs)

ace’s baby... really, he’s vav’s baby, but still

fake maknae to the max. it still baffles me that he’s older than the others ima list

hims also pretty shy, but it’s real cute ;;;;

lou has such a big fat crush on him and he’s always embarrassed by it

he zones out a lot and is very mellow & quiet until something inside him switches and then he’s like BAM loud and crackhead

ziu.... brings out... the crackhead in him lbr

former happyface ent trainee w/ ziu

puppy!

also really good with kids!! prolly bc he is a big kid himself erhbjeg

often writes his own raps for songs

jacob (zhang peng)

resting bitch face to the max

800% done with everyone’s shit

chinese member!

he was performing in a chinese show called all for one -- his team got eliminated (sad) but that means he’ll be returning to the group (happy!)

that’s why he wasn’t in so in love/thrilla killa/im sorry

hims loves his st van

he also eats... a lot.

ok but like... he works out with ace, right? boy has such chiseled and nicely defined abs, it pains me

he’s a happy lil sunshine boy

savage as fuck

his smile literally adds 5 years to your lifespan

all of the members miss him so much ;;;; its honestly super wholesome and every once in a while they’ll be like “omg cobi would love this” or “jacob....... we miss you”

but then you have shithead lou being like “i mean... its nice having the room to myself” wrehbjehg

he dance too! idk what type of dancing it is but he does it!!!

he was in the chinese movie “the dreamer on the catwalk”

BRING HIM BACK ATEAM PLS I MISS HIMS

HE HAS RETURNED AND HE’S STRONGER THAN EVER

lou (kim hosung)

my #1, my one and only, my precious sweetheart

tall as fUCK

has a deep ass motherfucking voice

grew up in georgia as a kid (can speak fluent english) and then the philippines when he was a teen!

kinda the more quiet & reserved member

but dont let that fool you......

he too is a lil shit

AND A CHAOTIC GAY -- ziu bothers him a lot but he has a big ol’ crush on ayno and he never shuts up about how pretty he is and how much he loves him

he can be a grouchy lil bitch too tho hkerbjeg

in this interview baron and st van were being cute and he’s just in the corner like “youuuu shouuuld daaaate” -- gay. in the same interview thats one instance where he wouldn’t shut up about ayno

hims a rapper too!! he often writes his own raps for songs (much like ayno)

his own mixtape (goodnight) literally is so nice i listen to it all the time

he has a vlive thing he does called lou-dio and it’s real cute

big ears = the cutest thing ever ehkrbgjeh

he collects a bunch of stuff!! like pop figures and toys, like souvenirs from everywhere they go

he was in the youtube webdrama “lemon car video” (eps 1, 3, 7, and 8)

his stage name is lou (pronounced “low” but i refuse to say that) because his voice is so low

ziu (park heejun)

chaotic. just chaotic. chaotic gay, chaotic maknae, chaotic man.

he’s the real maknae tho... doesn’t look it, huh?

manly af

literally so charismatic and funny as hell

wants kisses + love + attention from everyone

goes in for a kiss -- everyone else usually backs away but he’s always disappointed that no one gives into him

kisses kisses kisses

did i mention kisses?

he makes a lot of random ass noises all the time

screm... lots of screm. like you know opossums?? think that kinda screm.

his vocals ;;;;; his singing voice is so, so nice ;;; i adore it.

his room is dirty af i could NEVER

he does some really questionable things sometimes... see here.

like i said, i cannot express this enough... he’s so charismatic. so charming. so handsome.

also!! super hyper fluff ball. hims cute.

aegyo up the wazoo too

former happyface ent trainee with ayno

was in the fri.sat.sun teasers by dalshabet

can get p loud & annoying but that doesnt change how much we love him

idk if any of that made sense... but there you go! there’s so much more to vav and everything they do and who they are, so i hope this just kinda gets more people to look into them? it’s a stepping stone, not everything possible to learn.

+ keep in mind, a lot of this stuff comes from both kprofiles, what i’ve seen in videos, and my own personal opinions & inputs. so... yeah. don’t use what i say as truth/fact unless you see stuff to back it up (or you adopt it as your own opinion idk).

thank you for taking your time to read this!!

[pass-the-bechdel]

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Ant-Man (2015)

Does it pass the Bechdel Test?

Yes, once.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Four (22.22% of cast).

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Fourteen.

Positive Content Rating:

Three.

General Film Quality:

It’s delightful. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) UNDER THE CUT:

Passing the Bechdel:

Maggie passes with Cassie as she puts her to bed.

Female characters:

Peggy Carter.

Hope Van Dyne.

Cassie.

Maggie.

Male characters:

Howard Stark.

Hank Pym.

Scott Lang.

Peachy.

Luis.

Dale.

Kurt.

Dave.

Darren Cross.

Frank.

Paxton.

Gale.

Mitchell Carson.

Sam Wilson.

OTHER NOTES:

Dave calls Scott a pussy, and Scott is not fussed at all about accepting the attempted insult.

Ah, the old ‘wish you’d call me dad’ cliche, the most worn-out lazy way to establish an antagonistic parent/child relationship. 

“a sustainable environment of well-being”, what an excellent fascist euphemism.

Maggie is very reasonable with Scott about the conditions for seeing Cassie; it’s refreshing to not have this played as ‘harpy ex-wife refuses to let man see his child because she’s just the worst!’ Maggie has a child to look after - and has been doing so for years now while Scott was in jail - and she has every right to impose rules on how things proceed, Scott doesn’t get to just march in and have things his way ‘because she’s my daughter!’ Children are not possessions or status symbols, and this movie does a nice job of recognising that and having the adult characters recognise that and behave in reasonable and understanding ways for Cassie’s benefit rather than their own egos. Other films should take note. Also, real people.

“Yeah man, it killed DiCaprio.”

Turning lambs into goo is worse than kicking puppies. What a monster.

They do a pretty solid job with the reason for Hope not being allowed to don the suit instead. It has strong potential for seeming like flat-out sexism, the idea that a woman can’t get the job done (in universe) and that a female hero won’t sell (out universe), and while that may indeed still be the core reason, they still pull off the reasoning as if it’s genuine.

Pym’s excuse for why he never told Hope the truth about her mother’s death, on the other hand, is pretty fuckin’ weak. Tell people to stop pretending ‘I was trying to protect you’ is a reasonable explanation for lies. It’s super-high - easily Top 5 - on my list of Worst and Most Tedious Cliche Lines.

Kurt suggests that the suit is the work of gypsies and it’s...not the best line they could have picked. Something less racist instead, maybe? No?

Cross is really fixated on Pym as a father figure. It’s different. I like different.

“That’s a messed-up looking dog.”

Scott and Paxton making peace is so great. Paxton peeing in all the corners and Scott being all jealous and threatened by Paxton ‘usurping his place in the family’ would have been such a predictable cliche for them to use, and this very palatable mature adult behaviour is sooo much better. This is how you stop normalising petty possessive rivalries. 

Luis is magical, and also, mad cultured. I love it, but I love even more that they don’t hang a lantern on it, they just let it be part of his character.

Ok, I confess, this is probably gonna be a weird sort of meandering review, because I’ve had this post sitting in my drafts for two months gathering dust while I deal with the mental and physical fatigue of the first trimester of a pregnancy (it’s FUN), and now the due date for this post (pun definitely intended) is right on the horizon, so...I’m just gonna get it done, and it’ll be whatever the heck it is in the end. This is not a complex film filled with deep nuance, it’s basically just an action-y heist movie with some hand-waved scifi on top. And there’s ants. It’s not a hard film to talk about, so you’ll excuse me if it doesn’t get my very best effort. I’m kinda busy growing a human over here.

I remember a lot of grumbling and even some outrage in fandom, back when this film was announced; a lot of people upset that the MCU was bringing in a comparatively little-known and perhaps little-loved superhero like Ant-Man when they still hadn’t bothered with a single female-led film yet, and various complaints about the problematic nature of the Ant-Man character from the comics (referring, I believe, to the Hank Pym version). And then, of course, there was the doubt about whether or not an Ant-Man story was just a fucking idiotic idea in the first place, what with the questionable application of science and the even more questionable appeal of a tiny little man running around playing with ants. Expectations were not high. And yet, Ant-Man pulls through, not just with a great fun romp, but with what I consider one of the more entertaining films the MCU has churned out to date.

I have made my fair share of sour comments about previous films in the MCU and their unimaginative paint-by-numbers plots, and so what I’d like to talk about with Ant-Man is how it manages to be such a success to me despite an essentially uncomplicated story that follows a predictable narrative arc the likes of which we’ve all seen a hundred times before. The basic tenets of a heist movie are all there; the basic tenets of a good vs evil story play straight, alongside a low-key but typical redemption plot, and some plight-of-the-regular-guy vs corporate greed and warmongering, and the leading man hooks up with the leading lady in the end and proves himself as a hero to his family and all that jazz. We know every one of these story and character beats. So. Why do they work?

Let me back this up a second to talk about a couple of major-league pet peeves of mine, the one a microcosmic version of the other: firstly, when people say ‘all Marvel films are basically the same’, and secondly, the Advanced Level Faux-Intellectual Douche version of that sentiment, when people declare that ‘there’s no such thing as originality anymore! There are only seven types of story in the world anyway! Everything is derivative!’ It’s an obnoxious absence of a viewpoint that betrays a lack of imagination and a use of such broad-strokes surface-level comprehension as to be essentially meaningless. Sure, if you break down story concepts to their most fundamental core drives, you can summarise their arcs in a relatively small number of ways, and familiarity with these core concepts can provide a degree of predictability in the way things play out. But that doesn’t mean that every single version of, say, the classic Hero’s Journey is the same damn story, and therefore a useless derivation from which no entertainment or message can be gleaned. If someone asks you to tell them the plot of a movie and you just go ‘oh, it’s a Hero’s Journey’ and leave it at that, you’ve told them almost nothing about what to actually expect. The Matrix is a very, very different Hero’s Journey to The Lord of the Rings, which is a very different Hero’s Journey to Finding Nemo, which is not at all the same as Iron Man. And which of them is closest to The Odyssey, anyway? One of the most obvious differences with all of those examples is genre, and the traditional trappings which often (but not always) follow from them. Sure, the MCU films tend to all fit superhero-comic genre conventions, and some of them (particularly origin stories, as with Iron Man and Thor) may employ a lot of the same tropes while they’re at it. But does anyone really, genuinely think that Ant-Man is ‘basically the same’ as Captain America: The First Avenger? Is Guardians of the Galaxy almost indistinguishable from Black Panther? Does anyone who says ‘Marvel movies are all basically the same’ actually believe the words out of their own mouth, or do they just hope it makes them sound smart if they imply that they’re ‘above’ enjoying mainstream popcorn action?

All of this is to say, what makes Ant-Man work where other trope-heavy films fall apart? The same thing that makes literally any story ever work, and be worthwhile, whether it ‘breaks barriers’ or ‘teaches something’ or is considered ‘high art’ or not: details. Some films are too light on details, which makes them boring because they never really bother to build anything on top of those core foundations we know so well. Sometimes, the details - numerous as they might be - are too generic to have an impact, and the dull result is the same. Sometimes the details are too absurd to land, or there are too many to keep track of, or they require too much extraneous qualification to fit into the flow of the rest of the story, or they’re irrelevant to the rest of the story anyway. The thing about details? There are countless options. People come up with new ideas all the time, through the exercise of imagination or through developments and innovations in the real world. Basic, core plot arcs may be distilled to a handful of options, but story details are limitless, and the possibility of fun new combinations is always there, whether you’re inventing something entirely never-before-seen or not. The idea that you have to be shocking and unexpected to be worthwhile is ridiculous, and shepherds illogical contrivances and gimmicks without narrative cohesion or purpose much more often than it achieves something genuinely surprising with merit (and storytelling that prioritises ‘shocking twists’ is usually so busy trying to look clever it forgets to actually be clever, but, that’s another conversation). The point is, Ant-Man being a delightful film isn’t rocket science. It’s as simple as just a little forethought in the construction of its details.

As noted back near the top, the whole Ant-Man concept and its wobbly science was something that drew some doubt regarding whether or not it could be pulled off in a convincing manner; the solution to achieving that is to do more than just lean in to the idea. The film throws itself whole-heartedly into its core conceit and its tropes, and it drags us along with it to gleefully delight in the act. The story is not embarrassed by itself, it doesn’t try to keep its distance; instead, it gives us a flying ant named Antony, and a dramatic death scene for that ant. What is the point of the Pym particle science conceit if we don’t enjoy the comedic potential of an epic battle inside a briefcase, or on a child’s train set? Relevant to this also is the subject of casting choices (as much a detail-of-interest as anything; a single casting choice can legitimately make or break a film). Paul Rudd has a perfect blend of leading-man charisma and affable comedic chops; he plays Scott as a beta-personality, which is always a refreshing change-up for a lead, and one which invites other refreshing changes around him. It avoids tedious masculine antics in his interactions with other men, while encouraging balanced and respectful interactions with women; Scott never asserts himself as the boss or leader in his relationship with Luis and the rest of his crew, allowing for a smoothly-cooperative dynamic; no time or plot is wasted on pointless jostling for control of the operation with Pym; the idea that Scott needs to prove himself to the three female characters in his life - Hope, Maggie, and Cassie, each for similar but different reasons - is given legitimate weight, instead of implying that Scott and his perspective is inherently superior and correct and the onus is on the other characters to realise that, rather than being on him to live up to other people’s reasonable expectations. It should come as no surprise that the latter element is especially interesting and heartening in the context of this blog.

This is particularly good news when it comes to the kinds of relatively minor details which can make a huge difference in whether or not one reflects on a film in a positive or negative manner; the fact that the narrative supports and validates Hope’s anger, her frustration and resentment and her all-business-no-fun attitude, is vital to keeping a viewer like myself on-side with the film. Hope is never presented as someone who should ‘just loosen up’, or ‘have faith in her father’s plan’, the fact that she is denied the Ant-Man technology because Pym ‘can’t bare to risk losing her’ is offered as a reason but not as an excuse for something deeply patronising, and Scott proving that he can get the job done despite Hope’s misgivings about him is not framed as her being ‘wrong’ - her concerns were legitimate, as all her emotions across the film are, and the story never compromises on that in order to bolster another character. Whether or not Hope is well-handled is not important to the operation of the central narrative plot in a technical sense, but it means a lot in terms of delivering strong characters with satisfying arcs, and a central plot can easily fall flat if the characters participating in it don’t work well, individually or together.

I’m trying to wrap this up coherently, but it’s just as well that I disclaimered myself in the beginning because all I’ve got are frayed pieces of, probably, five other paragraphs I could waffle about. It’s not a complex film, no, but it has a surprising amount of quality details, the more I think about it, even regarding aspects of the movie that I liked less than others (Pym, for example, I did not love, but I like that the movie never tried to pass off his ‘genius’ as an excuse for him being a significantly flawed figure in the lives of most people who encountered him, often with bitter consequences. I’m also a big fan of the fact that both he and Scott have complicated but loving relationships with their daughters, considering that Hollywood has a hyper-obsession with the idea of ‘A Man And His Son’ as the beating heart of family narratives). I’m going to close this out with what may be my personal favourite refreshing detail of this movie, and that’s the mature adult relationship between Scott, Maggie, and Paxton. I mentioned it already in the notes, but honestly, how many times have we seen that toxic cliche, with the shrewish ex-wife and the terrible new man in her life, where the main character (who is Doing His Best!) has to prove through [insert plot heroics] that ex-wife is WRONG and should have stayed with him, the father of her child(ren), because did we mention, her new man is terrible and the main character is always right and good and better! In the end, ex-wife almost certainly leaves her terrible new man to get back together with the main character, because he is Doing His Best and that’s more important than actually being a stable/responsible person! The American nuclear family is the ideal! Divorce is for heathens! Y’all know that toxic plot. I can think of three different examples of it in action right off the top of my head, with no effort required. Point is, the degree to which I was utterly thrilled by this movie subverting cliche at every turn of its family saga really cannot be overstated. Maggie is a reasonable person! Scott respects that Cassie’s needs are more important than his wants! Paxton cares about his family and genuinely wants Scott to land on his feet, for the benefit of everyone! There’s no jealous posturing and Scott acting all hurt about being ‘replaced’! HE LITERALLY THANKS PAXTON FOR EVERYTHING HE DOES, WHEN HAVE I EVER SEEN THAT BEFORE?! Honestly, you don’t have to tell the most original story in the world to tell a story that resonates. You don’t even have to avoid common tropes, you just have to think about what you want to do with them. It’s not rocket science. It’s just good honest storytelling.

With ants.

[itspileofgoodthings]

Damon/Elena kill me because they weren’t supposed to love each other. 

There wasn’t any room for the other in their lives and I don’t just mean the fact that at the beginning he was a 100-something-year-old vampire and she was a high schooler. I mean that even within the confines of the story’s world there wasn’t technically ROOM for each other in their lives.

Elena had Stefan and Damon had Katherine, or at least the idea of her, and on the surface they were in exactly the relationship that each deserved, that was right for them, that was the natural result of the kind of person they each were. Damon was with a jealous/manipulative vampire, Elena with the good, reformed vampire brother. They were in separate stories, different genres, and according to everyone else that’s where they belonged.

And yet their love breaks down those barriers and frees both of them from the narratives in which both of them- to varying degrees- are trapped. They cross out of their genres and parallel-but-never-supposed-to-cross story lines and build an entirely new story together- unexpected, difficult, and life-alteringly, staggeringly beautiful. It’s a story that is shaped only by love and by the wisdom that love gives. It all happens because they reject the conventional “wisdom” that would keep them apart, because they choose to love where they are not “supposed” to.

Damon has no business loving Elena. She is with Stefan first of all, she is human and literally at least a hundred years younger than him. She looks exactly like the woman who broke his heart/has been his fixation for years, and Stefan is literally already living out his fantasy of dating the good version of Katherine. That is already his own version of messed up- Damon coming into the mix to love her too, to LITERALLY repeat history in the most cliched unbelievable way pushes the whole thing over the top. It is TOO much- there isn’t room for him. And Elena has NO business loving Damon and not just because of all the terrible things he’s done but because being with Stefan- who at least on the surface is less damaged than Damon and who is trying to be human not monstrous- is already costing her a lot. She’s already crossing lines and boundaries and codes to be with him- there’s something about her loving Damon- the older, more damaged, more volatile brother- that seems like too much to ask. They both have their hands and hearts full- they shouldn’t be together, this shouldn’t be a thing.

But it IS. And it is the best thing. Their reasons and differences fade away in the rightness of their choice of the other. They both toss caution and self-interest to the wind; conventional wisdom and genre distinctions are not strong enough to keep them apart, because this is a love that is stronger than convenience or ease. Damon calls himself selfish over and over and sure, he loves Elena for himself, but also he’s got practically no shot with her and he knows that and so he loves her beyond what she can do for him. He loves her when he believes he can never have her. Elena knows she “shouldn’t” but chooses anyway, because the first thing she gives him is her compassion and the overwhelming love that flares to life in him in response to it is impossible for Elena not to respond to. They are guided by a deeper truth than what is easy or conventional but it isn’t something that runs counter to the truest good. Loving each other is not a mistake though it may seem like it sometimes; even when they make mistakes in their love, it is still a good, powerful, beautiful thing. It changes both of them for the better- lifting Damon up to be better, freeing Elena from both her girlhood and the prison of her pain. I’d say it’s the one always right thing in both of their lives, the thing that shapes everything- somehow both a gift and a choice at the same time.

And though the language the show uses to describe what they have is often clumsy and lazy- and sometimes downright wrong about its own characters- the arc of the show, even with Elena gone, tends toward one end and one end only: their happy ending, their true happy ending, not their messy, destructive choice of each other over morality and sanity, but a life together which is full and happy and long and fruitful because they have each other and that’s everything.

The narrative bends under and around their love; fates, destinies, genres are rewritten because of it; the whole story is transformed because of this choice. I love it so much I might die.

[text-to-speech-impediment]

THE VAULT IN OUR STARS

An Opinion Piece on How Bethesda Survives (And How You Can Change Them!)

A/N: I wrote this op-ed for funsies. As you may know, I am known to warm myself at a corporate dumpster fire from time to time, but this one is especially close to my heart. I may replace with an actual edited version but for now, just enjoy it in its raw & unpolished glory. If you’re a Bethesda fan, you’re used to it anyway.

           In the words of Todd Howard, “I read on the internet…that sometimes it doesn’t just work.”

           Indeed, after just over two weeks since its 14 November release date, Bethesda Softworks’ release of survival multiplayer sandbox “Fallout 76” has more than merely failed to impress most of its players. The game has garnered an infamously low average score of only 54% on popular game journalism site, Metacritic. It fares no better on Youtube, with dozens of popular influencers obliterating the high expectations of even the most devoted fans of the Fallout franchise; but this will not be another essay to dishonor the multiple technical, immersion and storytelling woes that plague beleaguered “Fallout 76”. That’s for another essay.

           This criticism is one that many previous public complaints have touched on, flirted with, but seldom fully explored while caught up in the disappointment they had in “Fallout 76.” Specifically, this essay is leveled broadly at Bethesda Softworks LLC, the video game publishing division responsible for “Fallout 76”, as well as ZeniMax Media Inc., the parent organization of Bethesda and many other well-known game developers such as Arkane Studios, id Software and more. The upper management of these companies is removed from all but the finances of their industry; they are abusing both their content creators and consumers to calculated effect, remaining foggy at best on the aim of the products their teams are producing and out of touch with the end user’s interest.

           What more can we say against corporations of this staggering size? Corporations and mergers, time and again, continue to exploit art production and consumption then shrug off the backlash by driving screws into their overworked employees and letting them take the fall with the public. Unless we look at past events, this trend of blame shifting isn’t obvious. It’s hard at the moment to see that Bethesda Softworks’ colossal failure to recreate their previous endearing successes with fans in “Fallout 76” didn’t happen overnight.

It is for this reason that I sit on my soapbox today, somehow about to make an analogy of the gaming marketing industry by using Hazel and Gus from good ol’ John Green’s “The Fault in Our Stars.” Never did I imagine I’d see those concepts together, but here I am smashing them together like this is fanfiction(dot)net. Don’t get too excited, though, because none of the wholesome aspects of Hazel and Gus make it into this analogy; no, this essay is all about the essence of what happens when you take a beautiful thing and strip it to the bare bones. Being a gamer in today’s culture of parasitic marketing is roughly akin to being desperately in love with a dying cancer patient. With their pants down and tumors exposed, Bethesda is giving us a rare glimpse into exactly what has made them cancerous: a lack of Vision (not to be confused with Activision.)

You see, Bethesda doesn’t have a vision. If you asked Todd Howard today what Bethesda’s vision was, his response would essentially amount to “get bigger, bigger than we’ve ever seen before,” and you would never be quite sure if he meant to say it would be the games, the bugs, or the pocketbooks that would be getting “bigger.” Bethesda has no vision because they are blinded by what I like to refer to as the survivalist mindset, cancer that has spread through their higher management and public faces so quietly for so long that Bethesda has only just noticed it rearing its ugly head. They have ventured through the past 20 years producing games that fans would merely refrain from harshly criticizing. If only they had seen their culture of undiluted survivalism in time to integrate it into “Fallout 76.”

To see the birth of this cancer that is killing Bethesda, we will travel back in time to 31 October 1998, when “The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard,” along with its related title “An Elder Scrolls Legend: Battlespire,” were both resounding “commercial failures,” according to Stephan Janicki of Computer Gaming World. These two disappointments brought Bethesda to the edge of bankruptcy before ZeniMax Media swooped in and claimed them as a subsidiary in 1999. In the following years, Bethesda Softworks knew they had to succeed, or they were done in the eyes of both their corporate overlords and their fans. This is when the panicky, survivalist mindset set in. Feverishly they worked until, in 2002, they released “The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind,” and Todd Howard was relieved to find that “It just work[ed].” Upon the laurels of Morrowind, Bethesda skipped happily into the sunset, bringing us many more beloved titles like “Fallout 3,” “The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion,” “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim,” “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Legendary Edition,” and “The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Special Edition.”

But they never grew out of that survivalist panic. Like cancer, it festered in the background, that burning fear of “commercial failure,” which is a euphemism for rejection by their fans. Bethesda’s near-death experience had scared them. Their aversion to conflict and attempts to please every consumer instead of maintaining a focused design and lore quickly made them the endearing dweeb of game developers, merely slapped on the wrist for repeat performance flaws that would break the fans of other developers. “Cute” bugs in coding dating back several releases, consistently shipping products with technical difficulties unbecoming of a $60 price tag, multiple rerelease announcements and story-writing so poor that it’s common for players to joke about blatantly ignoring the main plot of the game, often for hundreds of hours, in favor of the things Bethesda did capture: exploration, immersion, and lore.

That brings us to the jokes. After Skyrim-related content pervaded their 2017 E3 press conference, it began to dawn on Bethesda’s corporate half that all those Bethesda memes were laughing at them, not with them. Shaken by flashbacks of Tiber Septim’s conquest of Hammerfell in “The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard,” Todd Howard and Bethesda’s upper management knew they couldn’t sit by idly and allow for history to repeat itself. They couldn’t accept hearing rejection from fans, even if it meant directly ignoring their feedback. Tunnel vision set in in the wake of more Skyrim jokes and criticism over their Creation Club microtransactions. The cancer was consuming them and the only way to heal their fracturing friendly persona and silence their critics was to get bigger, bigger than we’ve ever seen before; but at E3 2018, two decades after their initial “commercial failures,” their realization came many years too late and they didn’t snap out of their survivalist mindset in time.

Their bigger-than-we’ve-ever-seen-before came in the form of “Fallout 76”, not an ambitious venture objectively but very ambitious for Bethesda Game Studios Austin Branch, formerly known as BattleCry Studios LLC, who had never coded a project using Creation Engine, which Bethesda has been using exclusively since 2011.

But wait! say the studious fans of Bethesda. If Creation Engine has only existed since 2011, why does “Fallout 76” have bugs dating back as far as Morrowind? Creation is based off a much older engine called Gamebryo (known as NetImmerse until 2003). A much older engine that has successfully supported huge multiplayer games, most notably the critically acclaimed “Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.”

If the core of Bethesda’s Creation Engine is a game engine that can create an enjoyable multiplayer experience, then why can’t “Fallout 76” do the same? Well, spread this funny honey on a biscuit, baby, because the answer is more cancer!

The fact that Bethesda has recurring bugs dating back over multiple releases suggests that, rather than taking time to address technology advancements, Bethesda’s survivalist mindset has grown upon Creation Engine like a tumor, strapping framework on top in half-baked layers, as quickly as possible, reducing the flexibility and independence of asset files into a fragile, unstable, monstrous whole.

I genuinely do not believe that Bethesda Game Studio Austin’s game developers were incompetent or lazy. Since the “Fallout 76” announcement at E3 2018, many have suspected disorganization in Bethesda’s management as they encountered a truly new set of obstacles for the first time. No one knew what “Fallout 76” would become, not the end users and certainly not the management of Bethesda Studios that for years had ignored the desperate need for ease-of-use coding with conservative couplings (files dependent on other files). They threw BGS Austin, a relatively new team that was inexperienced with designing Creation Engine worlds, into a hyped AAA release with an enormous fanbase; and what it became was an unacceptable byproduct of that insidious culture of corporate survivalism. Bethesda officials became so concerned with what the public thought of them that they never thought to check. They fixated on getting bigger than we’ve ever seen before until their creation became confused and codependent. They obfuscated what brought fans to Bethesda in Morrowind and kept them coming back through every hiccup and every rerelease: the fun to be had in exploration, immersion, and lore, but most importantly, the Vision.

Oh, what a situation Bethesda finds itself in now! Even though they’ve finally seen a backlash from setting profit margins before considering their team’s capacity, many feel this call-to-god moment has come too late. Losing the reverent trust of large portions of their fanbase, they must either find a way to fix their cancerous, bloated Creation Engine or risk losing their Bethesda aesthetic by developing a costly new engine to proceed. Bethesda knows this, and they desperately hope that no one else does because they also realized that by promising not only a decade-anticipated new “Elder Scrolls” release but a new game franchise as well, they’ve already allocated most of their resources. They can’t go back on their promises now without a complete “commercial failure” from fans already stretched thin by “Fallout 76;” now more than ever they need all hands on deck. There is little time and money left to dedicate to the enormous undertaking of designing a new game engine from scratch, much less the even more arduous task of unscrambling Creation Engine, now so distorted that their employees don’t know how to fix it anymore or they would, just to stop seeing memes about Skyrim and floating Scorched Zombies. It’s hopeless. It’s arguable that they deserve help after insulting fans with the lack of focus and attention for “Fallout 76,” multiple buggy rereleases of a buggy title from 2011, and the general sense of not understanding what made a compelling story. They do not deserve sympathy for the vague unease of having to create your own purpose, a job which Bethesda has shifted to its fans to avoid facing its fears from 20 years of trying to please everyone for their own pride and not in the spirit of their consumers.

Bethesda may not deserve our help, but many still believe that The Elder Scrolls does, that Fallout does. If you’re one of those people, there is something you can do, and it’s to ignore the cries to boycott all Bethesda products “forever.”

Bethesda owns the intellectual property to The Elder Scrolls and Fallout; and while Bethesda is an abusive, frustrated company with—seemingly—a vision of self-destruction, they do still care what you think because of their all-consuming fear of the Redguard. But ZeniMax Media owns them, even the neurotic Todd Howard, and ZeniMax Media has only ever cared about your money. You cannot refuse to agree to buy the game you want Bethesda to make and still expect it to arrive, but you can refuse to pre-order their games and indulge in microtransactions for as long as it takes. The game industry’s security and stock values are heavily dependent on fan loyalty, digital merchandise sales and pre-orders. This money gives them their security blanket in case they create “Fallout 76.” Wrapped in their blankies, the management of Bethesda and ZeniMax Media will keep their narrow vision and continue to use their development teams as bad press sponges unless they experience some genuine fear of “commercial failure.” If consumers reject their vision, they will change their vision for money; because Truth is, the game was rigged from the start.

[ginzuyas]

one night with you - gintae

summary: upon leaving kabukichou and the yorozuya after the war, gin returns for one night.

a/n. there are actually 2 versions of this story and this was the first one I wrote when the idea first came to mind.

She heard a sound coming from outside the back of her household. Opening the sliding door, she saw a figure in the shadows but her defenses were down because she could recognize the figure of the perm man anywhere. Her face of surprise turned into a soft smile as the moonlight finally reached his silver hair and his stoic face. He looked exactly how she remembered him. The only difference was his cloak. Instead of the swirls of blue at the hems, they were now squares. His boots replaced with sandals. But nevertheless, everything else about him was the same.

“Gin-san… aren't you coming in quite late in the night?” she softly laughed. But the man said nothing as he continued to make his way to her, until he was only inches away. He gently wrapped his arms her small figure and rested his head on the crook of her neck.

“Can we stay like this for a while… Otae-chan…”

And she didn't know if it was the way he said it, with a solemn raspy voice, or the fact that when he said her name his breath tickled the skin on her neck, making her weak, or the fact that this man has been away for over a year and having him now with her reassured her, but she let him stay there, let him hold her like that. He was okay. He was here now. If it had been any other man, she would have flung him to another dimension. No. That was wrong. She would have flung Gintoki too had he approached her in a drunken state or if he had come to her in a flirtatious manner. But he approached her in a way that made her feel like he needed this contact. In that year he was away, he probably didn't have someone with him. How lonely it must have been.

It was lonely for her too. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Gintoki has been a huge piece of her life. When he left without hinting his whereabouts or what his aim was, a part of her worried over the man and wondered when he would come back. Even though he was here now, it did not feel real to her yet. She longed to feel him more, to touch him and be engulfed by his warmth. Just as he had his arms around her, she wrapped her arms around him as much as possible.

“Welcome home.” she whispered into the midnight air.

They held each other under the moonlit sky until Gin broke away first and looked straight at her, his eyes scanning every aspect of her face as to remember everything about her. Their faces were only inches away and Tae could feel his breath again, but this time she could feel her face and body heat up as her eyes also scanned his face and rested on his lips.

“Gin-sa-” Let it be the heat of the moment, how her mind was clogged with thoughts of him being close to her and finally back at Kabukichou, of his entire presence right in front of her, or how her eyes were just fixated on his lips, but either way, she didn't see the kiss coming. His chapped and dry lips on her soft and smooth ones. It was gentle and a bit hesitant as he moved his lips on hers. Tae felt as if she was melting into him regardless, losing her sense of reason. She closed her eyes and kissed back just as gently. A shiver ran down her spine as she felt his calloused hand cupping her cheek and move to the back of her head, fingers tangling themselves on her loose strands of hair, pulling her in closer.

Their kiss was soft and pure, not full of lust and passion. But Gin broke away after a while and proceeded to trace her neck down with his lips. Tae instinctively moved her head to the side, giving him more access, all while moving her hands to brush his fluffy permed hair. Her scent was invigorating, spinning his mind out of control. It made him want to consume all of her.

“Ah !” The small yelp from her mouth made him stop, bringing him back to reality, fear and worry in his eyes as he moved back from her.

“Did I hurt you?” He hastily said as he looked at the area of her neck where he kissed, a red mark where her pale skin once lied. “I'm sorry, I don't -”

“Don't apologize Gin-san.” She took his face in both her hands and with a flustered face that could hardly look him in the eyes said, “it… it was nice.”

Her flushed face, her brown eyes sweetly staring into him, those pink lips that were once in his possession curling up and saying they liked his touch. It was clouding him. He had only come to see her, to hold her, and then leave. This, whatever she was unintentionally doing to him, was not expected. He grabbed her hands and removed them from his face. “Watch what you say. I am a man after all.”

To his surprise, she laughed at him, and he gulped as he saw her smile that smile she puts on whenever she was ready to beat the crap out of someone. “Gin-san. Where was that talk about being a man when you suddenly just kissed me all over like that?”

“That… you see…”

“Had I not liked it or had I not wanted it, I would have killed you right here and now for such indecent behavior.” She reached for him, and he thought she was about to punch him back to wherever he came from. But she just closed the gap between them again and kissed him with a desire that was building inside of her ever since his lips stopped touching her. She had tasted the silver demon and became addicted to his flavor. She wanted more. She wanted to feel more than just his presence next to her. She wanted more than just a simple exchange of hugs now. She wanted to experience that melting feeling again with him. Those sparks building inside her, she wanted it again.

“This time don't stop.” She commanded in between kisses. A burning sensation overcame her as she felt his rough hands press on her light nightgown, lifting her and carrying her inside her home.

She felt herself being gently lowered to a futon, and when she broke the kiss and opened her eyes, she was met with his eyes above her. Their rapid breathing on each other. Tae had heard enough stories of what happens next after exchanges of passionate touches and words. If she had to experience that with anyone, she wouldn't mind it being with Gin, that lazy bastard who somehow managed to clutter her every thought and made her worry with every job he takes on. She closed her eyes and let him take the lead.

Just as she was drowning in him, he was also drowning in her. He was intoxicated with her last words. She was harsh with her words and fists. She was the type of person who would punch the living daylights out of him if he so much stepped out of line. She was like a demon gorilla living in the body of a human girl. She was flat-chested, but he admitted that at least her beauty made up for it. She was empathetic to the point she made another gorilla and a whole town fall for her charms. And although she could be brutal, she was strong-willed, gentle, and nurturing. She was able to see right through his facades. She always seemed to be the person he returned to. He never really noticed how important she was to him until her smile was taken away or whenever he saw her in danger. Sure, he would get upset if any of his precious friends were in trouble, but with her it was different. This boiling pot of anger would arise, and he was sure that he would do anything to bring her back even if it means travelling to the pits of hell and rewinding time. There really was no explanation for these feelings for her except that…

“I love you.” He whispered into her ear before bringing his lips back on hers. One arm supported him on top of her, while the other moved to her leg and slowly traveled upward and under her clothing. He smiled into their kiss as he could feel her squirming with every touch of his.

“Hey Gin-san…” She broke away for a second.

“Hmm?”

“I may love you too.”

He let out a sigh. “Uncute woman.” Yet a very gentle smile spread across his face before leaning down, giving her one more quick kiss. He trailed down her chin... her neck... her collar bone… resting his lips on the soft pink skin just above her slight cleavage. He was going to miss this. He was going to miss her.

-------

Kondo sat at his desk, looking at a picture of the Gorilla Princess. Once again, he was told to go and marry for political reasons. Last time he was in this predicament, Otae came to his rescue at the very last second. However, this time was different. No one could stop it from happening unless Otae had a change of heart about him. But he had come to admit defeat after all his failed attempts. The love he had for her, however, he would never regret.

A knock at his door distracted him from his thoughts. “Come in!” His eyes widened as the girl who was claiming his thoughts walked in. He noticed her distant eyes, her sullen face and simply directed her to the seat in front of his desk. “What brings you here, Otae-san? What happened?”

“Kondo-san… I have a favor to ask of you.” She looked down, uneasy, apologetic.

He listened to her story intently and after a while smiled at her. “So you and Gintoki, huh?”

“Yes…” she answered quietly, a tint of red emerging on her cheeks despite her best wishes. “But, I don't want Shinpachi to find out. I don't want him to think about how Gin-san came back for a short time and left without saying a word to him… I know it's a selfish request, Kondo-san,” She looked back down as she carefully placed her hands on her abdomen. “I…”

“Otae-san!” The girl jumped from surprise. “Could I cook for you? You know as a husband to a Gorilla Princess, I have to train to be a house husband. So what I'm saying is, could I practice and cook for you, for now at least? And don't worry. I'll make sure you get all the nutrients you need!” He scratched his head and let out a goofy laughter. Tae could only look at him in bewilderment. After all those years of stalking, could he have actually grown to read her? With just a sudden question, he erased her worry. Despite knowing with whom her feelings lied, he still supported her. She was grateful.

“Kondo-san, thank you.”

[fraughtwithpossibilities]

what do you want to do now?

I was cliff jumping on the coast of France in May when I cut myself in the side of the nose with my thumbnail. I was holding it tightly to keep from inhaling the Mediterranean Sea, and the force of hitting the water made me break my own skin.

I was hurtling my body through the air between sharp rocks, but I hurt myself with my own nail.

It was a metaphor for the weeks leading up to that moment; weeks spent traveling in Europe that were trying to be bohemian. Trying, because I don’t do bohemian. I do train schedules. I do deadlines. I do plans. Before I can fall asleep every night, I schedule out the next day, everything that has to happen and when I’m going to do it. I clench my fists so hard around the parts of my world I can control that sometimes I hurt myself.

The first time we took the train on this trip, I didn’t fill out the eurail pass right. It was confusing and I wasn’t really sure how it worked and I figured as long as I had the piece of paper it was probably fine. The man checking the tickets woke me up from a doze and spent five minutes scolding me for not using it correctly, standing over me while I fumbled a pen out of my bag and scribbled dates and train stations on the ticket, lecturing me about how it was invalid if I didn’t fill it out. He walked away and I leaned my forehead against the window and cried. I planned so hard. I tried to anticipate everything. But all it took was a stranger in a bad mood to make me feel like a lazy idiot. I cared so much about following the rules that learning I had broken one was crushing.

I’ve also been known to walk away from cafes and restaurants if I didn’t know how to read the menu or what to order. The idea of looking stupid, being seen as a stupid tourist, enduring the mild contempt of someone more adept than me, is too much. I feel too exposed. (I don’t know if I will ever be the sort of person who eagerly seeks honest criticism from friends because I can’t seem to take it even from people I will never see again.)

I’m afraid to order food, to blunder through a conversation with a non-English speaker. But when people at the hostels where we stayed asked what I do for a living, I said “I just finished law school” and they said “oh, you’re a lawyer?” and I didn’t feel like explaining what an articling student is so I just said yes. Yes, basically. I am a grown-ass professional who’s scared to order food in case she looks stupid.

My sister asked me when the anxiety got so bad. I told her that the best guess I have is that it got bad when I told myself fear was irrational and it turned out not to be. When the bad things I was scared of came true. I told her it got bad when I lost the ability to tell between healthy fear and pointless paranoia. When the pillars that held up my life—faith, family, friendship, romance—all shifted or cracked or collapsed in ways I’d told myself they never would. All in the same 12 months, each loss like another punch to the gut as I tried to write papers about the criteria for refugee status or research the number of human rights complaints based on race discrimination. The anxiety got bad when the world warped so that every passing blip of far-fetched, ugly possibility, every remote danger, started to seem likely and probable. It got bad because I lost the conviction that good things are more likely to happen than bad ones. It got bad when I started to worry that every scowl disguised rage, every neutral expression barely concealed contempt, and I had no reason to think I was wrong. After all, I was doubting whether the people who’d said they cared about me the most ever had or now did, so why would I have assumed that strangers harboured goodwill toward me?

During the worst times, moments of unexpected fortune or kindness took me out at the knees. During the worst times, I answered a phone call and it was a dream job offer and I collapsed in tears on the kitchen floor. Once it was so bad that the four walls of a bare new apartment bedroom felt suffocating and I stumbled out the door and clung by my fingernails to a bar counter and ate sweet potato fries and drank beer until my thoughts were just muddled enough that they had fewer sharp edges. Once I sat on the grass outside the law school and heaved, shaking with fear and confusion. During those episodes, the kindness of people who talked me through it made me tear up. Who? Why? What have I ever done that anyone would bother telling me patiently to breathe, would say to me earnestly to call if I ever need to talk? It seemed absurd—why would anything be there to catch me if I fell?

We spent our last day in France on the beach in Nice. I waded out into the ocean, cautiously, up to my shoulders, just past where I could touch, then rolled onto my back and floated. I’m not a strong swimmer; usually I would rather dip a toe in and retreat. But my ears were under the surface and the only sound was tiny rocks hitting against each other on the ocean floor as the waves crashed in and rolled out. I paddled a little, and then less, and then let my limbs go limp, cradled in the swell of the Mediterranean and floating, held up by salt water. Held up, surprisingly, instead of falling; a leaf on the surface, not a rock.  I wondered, then, if I could still recalibrate myself: if it was still possible to go back to waking up in the morning expecting good things. 

I expected to arrive back home and meet the world with fists clenched even tighter. But instead, I watched myself shrug it all off and get lighter. I had turned off notifications on my phone while we were in Europe, ad I kept them off. The lack of homework stress, something I hadn’t felt for three years, was like shedding a fifty-pound backpack. I started a new job, the kind of job that makes you look forward to waking up in the morning. I got to relearn what it was like to have enough time to spend some of it empty--to spend some of it wandering along the river with a coffee, to listen to podcasts and color, to read. 

I spend some sunny Sunday mornings doing nothing in particular but drinking tea and eating toast, slowly. I say more nice things to myself. It’s like somewhere in Europe I picked up a kind shadow who lingers a step behind my frantic thoughts and occasionally says oh, honey, you don’t need to worry about that. It’s like somewhere along the line, I leveled up, and my access to reality came back. My ability to know my own mind returned. Now, when I’m frantically putting on and wiping off seven kinds of lipstick, I know it’s mostly my desire to be loved freaking out, and I put the makeup down and tell myself no one is going to change their mind about me based on magenta vs pumpkin. Now when I feel my heart rate increase and my breaths get shallow, I know the version of reality that’s swimming in front of me isn’t the right one, and I look for somewhere to sit down instead of speeding up to match the frantic pace of my thoughts.

I learned that the best way to dampen the panic inside my own head is to say, you feel very anxious right now, do you need a minute? so that the rest of me can breathe a long sigh and do the mental version of lie back into the Mediterranean. I know that the world isn’t actually falling apart. It’s just that I’m hungry or thirsty or my feet hurt or something someone said hurt a little or I saw myself in the mirror at the wrong angle or I just need to make a quick list. Lists will save us all. 

I remembered how to answer the question what do you want to do now? not by thinking--how can I be most productive, what sector of my own life can I invest in, what needs to be done first, what will I regret not doing later, help it’s been an hour and I’m paralyzed--but by reminding myself that there is no wrong answer, and that I am okay.

Last summer I was not okay. Last summer was a rusty, jerky, stomach-turning roller coaster, and I clenched my teeth and my fists the whole time. I got speeding tickets--I got fixated on being skinny--I began to slowly realize that my home didn’t feel like home and that my addiction to anonymity in coffee shops was more a fear of opening my own front door than a love for hot beverages. Last summer I couldn’t read or play the piano or watch Netflix because the seconds ticked by audibly in my head and the neon panic signs were always reminding me I was flawed, I wasn’t enough, I was too far behind. I was bad--a bad friend, a bad student, a bad employee, a bad example. I was always working to fix small problems that I perceived as life-threatening. Always crying that I forgot to buy lemon juice or I lost an earring back. Flinching when someone else glanced my direction. 

It was worst when I was briefly couch-surfing in October, between apartments, losing a friendship and a social circle and yet another sad silver-glass vision of what I thought I wanted life to look like. Even the silence was terrible, and I was so afraid that the rest of my life would hurt as much as each passing moment did. 

But now there are two IKEA chairs in my living room, and an exposed brick wall, and two big windows. I sit there with coffee in the mornings and marvel that improbably, surprisingly, life slowly got better. It helps to be loved. It helped when my sister wisely walked around in silence with me in a residential Venetian neighborhood for an hour and a half because she knew the anxiety wasn’t about her. It helped when a friend texted me on Christmas to tell me how glad she was to know me. The words “I’m sorry” and “I love you” and “I’m proud of you” helped too.

But the thing I’m most grateful for is that now when my instinct tells me “you’re a failure”, the nice summer sun shadow, the wiser version of me, wrinkles her nose and says “well, probably not.”