#wait this is so funny because for me it's Pro: Make & Con: Thing

[timetoletmyimaginationfly]

Coffee

Nanami Kento x Reader

(Song inspiration: Coffee Breath by Sofia Mills)

“We have one already?” Nanami said.

“But this one is different.”

“Our coffee pot makes a bunch of coffee. Why this?”

“It makes espresso.” Nanami was quiet and put in a bunch of pros and cons in his head. You held his hand and placed your head on his shoulder. “Please! It’ll save money because I won’t have to buy eight dollar lattes!” Nanami sighed. It was a good reason and you convinced him more with puppy dog eyes that he could never resist.

“Alright,” he said. “Go pick one.” He watched your smile grow.

And when you two arrived home, you happily set up the new coffee/espresso maker next to the coffee pot. Nanami watched and smiled. He loves doing anything to make you happy. Once you finished setting up, you sat on the couch next to him and went on the website.

“What are you doing now?” he asked curiously.

“Ordering the espresso. We need to go to the store so I could buy flavored syrups and more milk for my lattes,” you said.

“Can we go tomorrow? We should’ve just gotten it before we arrived home.”

“I forgot.” Nanami shook his head at your sheepish smile. He pulled you in closer and looked at your phone screen.

“That looks good,” he said. “Caramel.” You added it to the cart. “Really? An intense one? I thought you hate bitter.”

“It won’t be after I add all the sugar and milk in it.”

“So when are they coming in?” Nanami asked.

“It says sometime this week,” you said, reading the notification. “That’s really quick. Do you want some coffee, Kento?”

“Sweetheart, it’s four in the afternoon. You really need coffee?”

“I’m gonna need it for the grocery store.” Before you could add coffee grinds to the filter, Nanami grabbed you by the waist. “Kento!”

“Sweetheart, don’t worry about it right now. I promise you’ll get your things before the espresso comes in.” He leaned in and kissed your pouty lips.

“Sorry, I’m just too excited.” Nanami lightly chuckled.

“I know. It’s very endearing on you.” You gave him a bright smile and kissed his lips. “Now, you keep bugging me all week about this new show you found.”

“I totally forgot about that! Kento, it’s so funny!” And you grabbed his wrist, excitedly dragging him to the couch.

You stirred in bed. You swore you could smell coffee in your dream. The idea of your new coffee machine made you so excited. When you woke up, Nanami’s side of the bed was empty. But with the door slightly ajar, you could hear the news from the TV. And the smell of coffee…it smelt different. You got up as you rubbed your tired eyes. When you left the bedroom and headed to the kitchen, you watched Nanami place your coffee mug on the counter. He smiled when he saw you.

“The espresso came, sweetheart,” he announced. Your eyes widened.

“Already?!” you exclaimed. Nanami nodded his head. “Wait, did you make one?” Nanami nodded to your mug.

“I went to the store,” he said. He opened the cabinet, where it used to contain the spices, were various syrup flavors. “I bought one of each. Except the vanilla and caramel. I bought three of each. And I have a project for you.”

“Which is?”

“I bought a new spice rack since the syrups are taking over. And I bought those empty spice containers with the cute labels that you love showing me on Pinterest.” You hugged him tightly and kissed him.

“Thank you, Kento.”

“You’re welcome, sweetheart. Go try your latte.”

“Okay!” You skipped over to your mug. You smiled. He added whipped cream on the top with sprinkles of cinnamon. You took a sip and smiled. “Mmm that’s delicious.” Nanami walked over to you. You took another a sip and before you swallowed it, Nanami passionately kissed you. He pulled away and licked his lips.

“Very tasty,” he said with a wink.

[midnightecko]

Again- names in an incorrect quote generator

BUT THIS TIME BATFAMILY

----

Jason: Pros and cons of dating me.

Jason: Pros. You'll be the cute one.

Jason: Cons. Holy shit, where do I begin-

----

Jason: Everyone, calm down! We're grown-ups, let's deal with this like adults!

Steph: So, we're just going to wing it and hope for the best?

Jason: Obviously. Now, Damian, pass the shovel.

----

*Tim and Damian are planning to break in somewhere*

Tim: We need to distract the guards.

Damian: Right.

Tim: What are we gonna do?

Damian: I'm gonna break their elbows while you poke their eyes.

Tim:

Damian:

Tim: Deal.

----

Jason: But who gets which pencil?

Damian: Since they're my things, I get the good one, Steph gets the broken one and you don't get one because fuck you.

----

Steph: I’ve never smoked marijuana. I ate a brownie once at a party. It was intense. It was kind of indescribable. I felt like I was floating. Turns out there was no pot in the brownie. It was just an insanely good brownie.

----

Steph: Did you have to stab them?

Damian: You weren’t there. You didn’t hear what they said to me.

Steph: What did they say?

Damian: "What are you going to do, stab me?"

Steph: That’s fair.

----

Cass, looking over Damian’s shoulder: You can draw?

Damian, stopping what they were doing: You can speak?

----

Some random kid that they saved: They called me the B-word.

Damian: Motherfucker doesn’t start with ‘b’.

----

Duke: I’m a bad person, I’m a very bad person, I’m a horrible person.

The Squad:

Duke: No you’re not, Duke! We still love you, Duke!

----

Dick: Guess who just found out the difference between wax paper and parchment paper the hard way?

Steph: Wait, what’s the difference?

Dick: One you can use in the oven safely, and the other you can also use in the oven... if the thing you are trying to make happens to be fire.

----

Jason: Hi, I'm Jason, and only you can prevent forest fires... seriously, it has to be you. I'm sure as hell not gonna do it.

----

Bruce: Breaking News, Jason has disappointed us.

(And this one is just funny)

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

First shared in The Saiouma Pit discord server, parts said by other members are in quotations, unassigned bullet points are my messages

Hina: "It could go either way but... if it's Shuichi demonic royalty instead of parent, it's his uncle or Shuichi's parents and uncle being there and he's managing to perfectly play shit off to his parents while his uncle is just not buying it?"

his parents being the rulers of hell but his uncle being the one that cares to visit

Dra: "Shuichi tells Kokichi about what's going to happen, Kokichi agrees to help him find someone to marry (they are stupid) but before they can think of anyone time Runs out Shuichi's uncle appears from his silly little red demonic circle, looks at Shuichi, notices Kokichi and just "your human is rather small" And Shuichi loses it because oh fuck he didn't want to get Kokichi involved in this"

Hina: "The fact they really thought an hour was enough time to find a fiancé is just sad"

Fuwa: "we can extend it to 6 hours." And then I said: "no, an hour is perfect"

also Shuichi knew beforehand and just waited helplessly until it was last bell to do anything so he asked Kokichi for ideas

Fuwa: "they do fucking tinder, try to get a demonic looking match. They use a goddamn fake face app, to like, see who's demonic enough, and they point it towards Kokichi on accident at the very end, and it's like "perfect match". "Wow it's truly satan!!""

Hina: "WHY THE FUCK WON'T ANYONE MATCH WITH ME??? I TRIED A THIRST TRAP. I POSTED A PHOTO WITH A DOG. DO YOU NEED A FUCKING FISH??? IS THAT WHAT WE NEED??? SHOULD BE GO FISHING???"

Dra: "Does Kokichi get pros/cons of suddenly being married to demon royalty?" me: "like, what could the cons even possibly be? but yes he does"

after that dinner he stays up at night, pulls out his trusty white board

Dra: ""What if they don't have wifi in hell"", Fuwa: "Shuichi's family" (also listing cons)

Hina: "Pros: Demon Royalty, Would Protect You, Live in Castle, Rich, Cool Uncle, Husband Kinda Cute Ig Cons: The Signal Sucks, Parents are Meh, A lot of fire, Hot. Everyone Here lowkey wants to kill you"

idk about the killing part, I think Kokichi could gain respect in hell, they'd think he has what Shuichi lacks, he was always deemed too timid and soft for a heir to the throne, now this human he brought on the other hand…

Dra: "Ok but it'd actually be so funny if the other demons started going with Kokichi's lies and introduced him as the most powerful demon ruler that just happens to look like a lil dude (it's totally so he can fool sinners into thinking he's harmless) and Shuichi is just watching this go down like "huh""

I love fake dating AUs so I'll try to add a little more to this.

Neither of them has realized their feelings yet when that fated night happens, but something's been brewing through months of their living together. They're just friends that help each other in situations like needing an emergency fiancé. It's cool.

Until it's serious and they're told to pack, so they can begin preparations for the wedding and coronation in Hell as soon as possible. So things get a little tense, but they can go with the flow. It's just another adventure in the life of a supreme leader. And then the shenanigans begin.

The chambers prepared for them obviously have only one bed. They have to show off their affection to sell it to everyone. Learning new details about each other when they're made to pick out stuff for the wedding together. Some frosting on one's face while trying potential cakes. Waking up face to face after swearing to stay on far off sides of the bed the night before.

Kokichi learning things about Shuichi's childhood, Uncle shows him pictures. Shuichi watching Kokichi as he impresses demons with his act, looking at the faces he makes and being not only impressed too, but falling a little bit in love with the joy it brings Kokichi to have a receptive audience.

The realization of feelings being followed by the assumption it's unrequited and wallowing in it. The mixed feelings when trying on suits, dreading the approaching wedding day while thinking the other doesn't feel the same. Something pushing the tension past the limit and causing the confrontation. I've been thinking of maybe introducing a little magic to Hell's wedding traditions; they would each have to throw an ingredient into a huge jug of a special alcoholic drink that is prepared for weddings some days in advance and those specific ingredients have to be thrown in by the couple because the mixture will turn a pretty color when someone in love does this step.

Those idiots. These two morons. When it turns out alright they jump to the conclusion that the other is in love but with somebody else. [This could also be done with Kokichi hearing Shuichi mumble something about love in his sleep, or overhear him venting to somebody who knows their situation, probably Uncle or a friend, say "I think I'm in love" all tragically and the same misunderstanding happens]

So accusations fly, "If you're in love with someone, then why didn't you go to them with this?"

"I didn't know then. Why did you agree to this if there's someone you-?"

"I didn't know. And I expected this to be over by now. I thought that they wouldn't approve of me, or find out it's a farce and then kick me out."

"You should be with the one you love. I can open a portal for you. I can come clean to everyone, I got you into this mess-"

"No. It's not that simple" Shuichi looks at him questioningly, so he sighs and continues "... I am pretty sure it's unrequited. Doesn't matter anymore. What about you? I promised to help. Whatever that means now."

Whether they resolve it at that point or continue without talking things out [Shuichi claiming that his feelings are unrequited too, so their only option is to stay on track.] is up to you.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 59

First - Previous - Masterlist - Next

“– so Jack grabs the rock, right, and Enma asks him to pass it over. And then he –.”

“Ito, c’mon,” Enma groaned, his face in his arms, his ears tinted red.

“– tried to bite the rock?!” Ito continued to explain, incredulously.

“I had to know, okay?! Grim’s always talking about how those things taste amazing! What if he was right?!”

Kuroki grinned, rolling his eyes. “And how did it taste?”

Enma seemed to be trying to disappear into the side of Kuroki’s mattress. “Like a rock…”

“Rocks taste good,” Grim said, firmly, patting his stomach. “Especially the ones that come out of those Phantoms.”

Kuroki scratched the monster behind his ears, smiling. “Well, I’m sure those blot stones are worth a fortune, so I’m glad you’re satiating yourself for free. I don’t want to go into debt to feed you.”

“Oh,” Ito said, snapping their fingers. “That reminds me. So, you know how we kinda ruined a fourth of Ashengrotto-senpai’s restaurant?”

“I thought you said it was a sixteenth?” Grim said, confused.

“I did do that, yes,” Ito said, their lips curling into a grin. “Anyways. I’ve been thinking. Ashengrotto-senpai is gonna make us sign a deal again to make him pay off that debt, soooooo… I think we should tell the Headmaster that the Lounge got trashed during the Overblot.”

Kuroki, who was always down to make the Headmaster suffer, nodded vehemently. At the end of the day, even if Kuroki wasn’t particularly fond of Azul Ashengrotto, he hated Crowley and everything he represented. If something hurt Crowley, he wasn’t going to pettily toss the idea aside simply because it might help Azul out.

He also liked not being in debt.

“I could still make you pay regardless!” a voice chimed in.

Kuroki reconsidered whether he hated Azul or Crowley more.

Yeah… still Crowley.

But this thought was immediately swiped from his mind, because Azul wasn’t walking into the infirmary on his own. No, he was being carried on Floyd’s back like a child.

Kuroki pressed his lips into a thin line to hide a smile. The paycheck. Just think about the paycheck and keep a straight face.

It was much harder when Jade waved at Enma when the boy lifted his head to see the newcomers. Enma immediately seemed to go through all five stages of grief. And then he ducked his head once again, trying to become one with Kuroki’s hospital bed.

“Oh?” Jade said, waiting for just a moment so Floyd could deposit a grumpy Azul on one of the cots, before making his way over to poke at Enma’s shoulder. “And here I thought you were eager to fight me… why not now? We’re both free, are we not?”

Kuroki narrowed his eyes.

His expression immediately softened when Enma’s hand found his own, squeezing a little. “Even if – if –  y’know, I’m not really intending on leaving right now.”

Jade tipped his head to the side. Probably considering which choice on his dialogue tree would mess with Enma the most.

“Am I missing something?” Ito not-so-quietly whispered to Kuroki.

“We saw –.”

“I will suffocate you with a pillow while you sleep.”

“– absolutely nothing,” Kuroki decided. He could always tell Ito later, if they didn’t figure it out themself.

In the meantime, though, Kuroki considered the pros and cons of letting Jade mess with Enma. It was, slightly, unfair, he thought. He figured that, had he liked men, he would have probably been unable to look someone in the eyes mere hours after having seen them naked, especially not in such… strange circumstances.

But it was funny, so… as long as it didn’t go too far, Kuroki decided to let it ride.

Azul Ashengrotto, ruiner of plans, had other ideas:

“Nice to see that all of you can still be so… lively, in these sorts of circumstances,” he said, in a tone that suggested he did not, in fact, think it was ‘nice to see’.

“This is – like – Overblot number four, forgive us for not caring that much anymore,” Ito sighed.

“Four? I’ve only heard of three,” Jade said.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ito waved him off.

Jade looked like he was very much going to worry about it. Which was unfortunate for Kuroki, since he worked with him.

… wait, he was definitely fired at this point. Yeah! He had never been so happy to be at risk of dying of hunger!

Okay, admittedly, it was much harder to be pleased when he thought about the ‘at risk of dying of hunger’ thing.

He glanced at Azul, laying in his cot, trying valiantly to ignore Floyd poking and prodding at him.

“I do have to admit,” Kuroki said. “This is the first time someone actively tried to kill one of us. Like, most of the time, we were just there.”

Azul winced.

Kuroki pulled Grim onto his lap, carefully running his hand along his unfortunately-slick back. Floyd was right, he was like a little seal. It was cute, he supposed. He still missed the fur, though.

“... listen, Azul –.”

“I never gave you permission to call me that.”

“You literally tried to murder me. I’m done being polite.”

Azul flushed.

“All jokes – most jokes – aside… regardless of the fact that I do not like you, I can admit that you’re very hard-working. Sometimes hard work doesn’t beat natural talent, but it still does a lot, and most bosses prefer a hard worker over a naturally talented person, anyway. Naturally talented people kinda suck. See Kingscholar-senpai for an example.”

Azul’s face, slowly, flushed.

“Awww, what's the matter? Are you gettin' teary-eyed, Azul?” Floyd cooed.

“Dear me. You've gone back to that ink-spewing crybaby again.”

“Hey! You two signed an NDA covering that exact topic!”

“Right you are. My mistake,” Jade said.

Azul looked like he doubted it was a ‘mistake’. Probably because it definitely wasn’t one.

But, in the end, perhaps because he was simply too drained to deal with it, he turned back to Kuroki and said, “Your attempts to console me are clumsy at best.”

“Suffer, then,” Kuroki said. He’d tried his best. If Azul decided not to take it to heart, then what was he supposed to do? It was officially no longer his problem.

Enma grinned. “Aw. Kuroki. You were almost heartfelt for a minute there. Are you feeling okay?”

“No. I might be concussed,” Kuroki deadpanned.

… damn it, now Ito and Enma had noticed that he hadn’t even gotten halfway through his potion and were shoving it toward him again.

He, reluctantly, mostly just to assuage their worries, brought it to his lips again.

“What’s that?” Azul said.

Kuroki, pleased to talk and therefore have an excuse to not drink the potion anymore, lifted it high above his head. “A health potion.”

Azul blinked.

“... the fuck is a health potion?” Floyd asked.

“Is that a… thing from your world?” Jade asked, a little hesitantly.

Something like dread curled in the back of Kuroki’s mind. His hand fell back to his lap, his fingers tightening around the neck of the flask. “The Headmaster gave it to us, actually.”

(A little unwillingly, sure, but Kuroki would never admit that to them of all people.)

If anything, that answer just seemed to make the three mermen more confused. They looked between themselves, unsure.

“There’s no such thing as a ‘health potion’,” said Jade.

Which, of course, raised the question of what the fuck was it, then?

Kuroki worried his lip. Man, he really didn’t need any more world-shattering revelations today. Or tomorrow. Or, frankly, for the rest of his life, but he would settle for, like, a week.

“Can I analyze the rest of that?” Azul asked, his eyes gleaming.

Kuroki, who really didn’t want to drink anymore, jumped at the opportunity to rush out of bed and hand it over to Azul.

Grim immediately flew over and grabbed Kuroki by the back of his shirt, dragging him back to bed, his curses muffled by the shirt in his mouth.

Azul’s pupils narrowed at the potion for a moment. He held it up to the light, tilting it this way and that. His lips pressed into a thin line.

And then the door to the hospital wing started to open, and Azul rushed to hide it beneath his pillow.

They all smiled, innocently, at the Headmaster.

Crowley looked over all of their pleasant expressions, his wings fluffing up briefly, before he smoothed himself out, smiling in a way that was clearly supposed to be pleasant, but was instead coming off as blatantly nervous. “I’m here to assist you all.”

“Took you long enough,” Kuroki said.

The tension broke.

Enma cuffed Kuroki over the back of his head.

Kuroki flipped him off. “Bitch?! I’m injured, you can’t hit me!”

“I just watched you run across a room, you’re fine,” Enma said.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Crowley said, cheerily, striding over.

Kuroki, of course, thanks to the not-health-potion, was declared to be perfectly fine.

But Crowley still wanted him to stay overnight for monitoring. Something about how, when you survive drowning, you can later do something called ‘dry drowning’, where your lungs decide to be a bitch and fill with water a second time for funsies.

Kuroki was half-tempted to simply see whether he should test out the limits of his possible immortality, but that voice in his head sounded distinctly like Enma, and he never listened to Enma, thank you very much.

So, he shrugged and nodded. Monitoring his health would, perhaps, actually be good for said health!

“And,” added Crowley, squinting at them. He pointed at Ito and Enma. “You two have to leave when the hospital wing closes in a few minutes, and you can’t come back until it opens again at 7 tomorrow.”

Their expressions immediately darkened.

If you looked carefully, you could see their minds all racing, trying to find a loophole.

Enma, after a moment, brightened back up. “Okay, Headmaster. We can do that.”

Crowley’s victorious look dropped into a slight frown. “Why do I feel like I’m losing?”

“I don’t know, why do you?” Enma asked, so very innocent.

“Can’t you three behave for, perhaps, a day?” he damn-near begged.

“We just killed an Overblot for you,” Ito deadpanned.

“... that you did!” he coughed, awkwardly, and then turned to go deal with the victim of said Overblot.

Azul, too, was mostly fine. Though the broken leg was still there. Whoops.

Crowley, after a bit of magic to make sure Azul’s bones were in place (everyone pretended that they didn’t hear the boy gasp in pain for a minute there, they were assholes, but not evil), made a quick splint for the injury.

And then he ushered the Leech twins out the door, Ito and Enma in tow, calling for Azul and Kuroki to sleep well and to simply say his name if they needed help.

Kuroki and Azul looked at each other in awkward silence, unsure what to do. Should they just… sleep? Talk?

Kuroki scratched behind Grim’s ear, his lips pursed into a thin line. “So, uh, am I fired?” he asked.

He no longer had a contract assuring that he wouldn’t be fired for no good reason. And, even if he had, he was pretty sure that ‘breaking the kneecaps of your boss’ and ‘trashing your workplace’ would count as being ‘good reason’.

To his surprise, though, Azul shook his head. Vehemently.

“No. You make my life miserable for fun. I haven’t even done anything to you! There’s no way I’m going to give you an actual reason to dislike me.”

… Leona, you have been forgiven. Your claims of Kuroki being evil might have just saved half of the Ramshackle student’s income.

“Sweet,” said Kuroki, slumping against his pillows. He was pretty sure that Crowley would have made him work in the infirmary if he had no other options, but he also knew Ito’s paycheck was around half of his own, and that included all of the hours where they simply ‘forgot’ to clock out.

They would have been able to scrape by, but Kuroki liked having some disposable income. The ability to slowly fix up their house was nice. And not cheap.

At least a certain birdman had stopped crashing in through their windows when Kuroki started making him pay for the damages.

Speaking of…

There was a knock on the window.

Kuroki raised his eyebrows when he saw Floyd Leech, perched on the windowsill, smiling and waving at them.

After a second’s hesitation, he hefted Grim in his arms and made his way over. “Hi…”

“We’ve come to take you guys home,” Floyd answered the unasked question.

“How did you get up here?” Grim asked, his eyes wide.

“Jumped, Azarashi-chan,” Floyd said, as if it were obvious.

Maybe it was. Azul didn’t look particularly surprised.

Kuroki sighed, peering past Floyd. The others were on the ground. Ito and Enma were chatting, but they brightened up and waved at him when they noticed him looking.

“... how do you expect me to get down?” Kuroki asked.

Floyd smiled.

“Fuck.”

~

The Ramshackle and Octavinelle dorms were quick to part ways. The moon hung in the sky, tinted just slightly green as always. The campus was quiet, barely a whisper of conversation on the wind – two people rushing around, clearly looking for someone, though Kuroki couldn’t say he knew who their Waka-sama was, so he wouldn’t be of help.

Not that he was particularly interested in helping either way. On the one hand, Grim was asleep on his shoulders and he didn’t want to wake the monster, and on the other hand, he certainly wasn’t kind enough to help people for free (ew). Basically, he saw no reason to be nice right now, try again later.

Ito yawned, rubbing the tiny tears that formed in their eyes away absently. “Can’t wait to get back home,” they murmured, briefly bumping their shoulder against Kuroki’s.

“Hope the Leech twins haven’t trashed the place,” Enma said.

“We can make them pay for damages,” Kuroki decided. “Plus some – for emotional damages.”

Enma hummed his agreement.

Kuroki stuffed his hands into his pockets. “... so…”

“So?” Ito said, lightly.

He took a deep breath. “Um. I didn’t – I’m not going to say I’m sorry for making that contract, okay? If I had the opportunity, I’d do it again.”

And, seeing as that contract with Azul had dissolved along with all of the others, this was actually something he had seriously considered.

“But,” he said. “I honestly… didn’t think it would affect you guys at all. I mean, sure, my anxiety was telling me that you guys might make a deal with Azul one day, but I didn’t… actually think you would. I didn’t think it would change anything, or mean anything, really. I kind of just expected it to be a quick deal that would never come up again. I didn’t… want to hurt you guys. I didn’t think you’d ever have a reason to know.”

Enma and Ito glanced at each other.

“... has anyone ever told you that you suck at apologizing?” Ito asked, lightly, their shoulder bumping against his.

Kuroki smiled, a little sheepishly. “I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve ever done it, so I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Enma sighed, lifting a hand to ruffle his hair. For once, Kuroki didn’t even give a halfhearted complaint.

“One day the ‘I never really had friends or a family’ excuse isn’t gonna work, y’know.”

Kuroki peered out from under the hand on his head, warily. “Is it working now, though? Because I can pull the ‘ooh ouch owie I am in so much pain’ excuse, too, if it’s not.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Enma said, his lips starting to twitch into a smile. He pulled Kuroki into his side. “You – you know that we weren’t… we don’t hate you, right? Like, you’ve seen how Ito and I are when we hate people. We just needed a little time to deal with it.”

“I still don’t get why you were upset, really,” Kuroki admitted. “If you guys did it for me, I’d be thankful – flattered.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” Enma muttered.

Kuroki opened his mouth to argue, but Ito beat him to the punch: “It doesn’t matter how you would react, because we aren’t you.”

“... I mean…”

Ito flicked him in the shoulder. “Yes, yes, our fundamental framework seems to be the same or whatever, but there are still more than enough differences for us to technically also count as different people.”

Kuroki huffed.

Ito sighed. “We know you… didn’t take it very well that we were avoiding you, but, frankly… that was the nicest I could be at the time. I mean, if I talked to you, I’d treat you how I treat Trey-senpai, and I can guarantee you would like that less.”

Kuroki considered that. It wouldn’t pick at his insecurities in the same way, but he did appreciate not having a broken nose…

“Like, really, did you want me to treat you like Ruggie? Or Jade Leech-senpai?”

“I definitely don’t want to be treated the way you treat Jade Leech-senpai,” Kuroki said, rolling his eyes. “But you cannot call what you have with him ‘hate’.”

“How do you know that, hm? You’re not me!”

“It’s painfully obvious. I mean, dude, I thought you were a good actor.”

“It’s not obvious… is it?”

He looked to Ito for help. Ito looked away, whistling innocently.

Poor Enma’s face went beet red in the moonlight. He groaned.

“Do you think he knows?”

Ito shrugged. “Even if he returned your feelings, I doubt he’d confess to you, he’d rather watch you flounder. And I think you’d be too prideful to risk making a fool of yourself to confess. So… I don’t know if it matters.”

“... is that a no?”

“It’s an I can’t read that guy at all.”

“Either way, as the only male figure in your life, I don’t approve,” Kuroki pitched in, because he had to. “There is no way in hell I am letting you date Jade-fucking-Leech of all people.”

“What’s wrong with him?!”

“What isn’t wrong with him?”

“I refuse to be Floyd Leech-senpai’s brother-in-law,” Kuroki added.

Ito blinked. Once. Twice. “You guys’re related?”

Enma and Kuroki immediately went tense.

“No, no,” Kuroki said, scrambling for an explanation, because he doubted that the truth would go over well with Ito in particular. “It’s just… since Enma and I don’t have any siblings, and we probably have similar genetic makeups, we’ve decided that we count.”

Ito’s eyebrows knit. They glanced between Kuroki and Enma. And then seemed to shrug internally. “I mean. I wouldn’t define it that way, but you can do that, if you want.”

~

Oh, the Leech twins had cleaned up their house for them in preparation for the Mostro Lounge branch they had wanted to turn it into.

Nice. Free labor!

They enjoyed this for all of five seconds, before immediately trudging upstairs and collapsing into bed as one.

~

Kuroki rested his hands on his hips. “Why would I let you come with us? You didn’t even come and visit me in the hospital wing yesterday!”

“I was busy stealing that mattress for you,” Jack said.

“... forgiven,” Kuroki decided, suddenly recalling that the Tetanus Spring was strangely missing from their bed the previous night. “What’s you two’s excuse?”

“We got roped into helping clean up Octavinelle!” Deuce defended them.

“How?! Why?!”

Ace and Deuce looked as if they had been struck dumb.

“I think we were so used to the crazy shit you guys drag us into that we just kinda went along out of habit,” Ace admitted.

(All of that work conditioning their friends over months, and the Octavinelle people might have ruined it for them! Nooo! They were waiting to cash that in for something big!)

“Sucks to suck,” Grim said, smirking.

“Says the guy who doesn’t even notice when they’re roping him into their schemes,” Deuce said.

“They don’t rope me into anything. They’re my familiars,” Grim sniffed.

Jack gave the three Yuus a glare. The Yuus simply smiled serenely.

“He’s right. He could order us around, if he wanted,” Ito said, lacing their hands behind their back.

Kuroki hugged the monster closer to his chest, smirking over his head. “We would never manipulate him into anything.”

Enma batted his eyelashes. “He helps us because we’re his darling, well-behaved henchmen, and he’s an amazing boss.”

“Exactly!” said Grim, nodding his approval.

“This is seriously fucked up. This is – like – brainwashing,” Ace said, horrified.

Kuroki hummed, pressing a kiss to the top of Grim’s head.

“They don’t even deny it,” Deuce said.

“... I’m starting to think that I shouldn’t be hanging around you three,” Jack muttered.

“Nah, you’re stuck with us now,” Enma said, giving Jack a pat on the shoulder, a mockery of comfort.

“Speaking of which!” Ito lifted their backpack, full of leftover water-breathing potions. “Let’s go on a field trip!”

~

The museum was closed. Again.

Kuroki frowned. It… wasn’t supposed to be closed today. He glanced at the sign outside the door to confirm, and found that he hadn’t remembered wrong.

A short chat with the guards revealed that someone had privately booked the place just last night.

Enma pouted up a storm.

Kuroki sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine. We can go to the library. But you have a budget on how many books you can st – check out.”

Ito looked at him, now, their eyes gleaming.

“One piece of jewelry.”

“Five.”

“One.”

“Four.”

“... two,” Kuroki offered.

“Seven,” Enma pitched in, because he sucked.

“Oh, yeah, seven,” Ito nodded along.

“Three!” Kuroki amended, a little desperately.

“Three it is!” they chirped.

Kuroki narrowed his eyes at them. He, suddenly, strongly suspected that Ito had been going for three the entire time.

But he sighed, nodding. “Yeah. Fine. Let’s go get your jewelry now, since Enma’s definitely going to spend the rest of the day in the library.”

Ace, Deuce, and Jack immediately backed off a few steps.

“Yeah, no, we’re going to wait outside. You guys have fun,” Ace said.

“You guys are literally so gay,” Ito said, rolling their eyes. “You cannot tell me that you’re scared of going in a fucking jewelry store.”

They were.

And, in the end, the Yuus were happy to let the three of them go and grab some food for everyone while they shopped.

“Aw, man, and they were so cute, too,” said Ito frowning at the price of a set of earrings and a matching necklace. From the way they had bee-lined to this store, Kuroki suspected that they had spotted the jewelry pieces sometime over the past three days. Perhaps when they went to get food with Floyd, way back on day one?

But they were disappointed to learn that that shit was not cheap.

The woman running the store gave a slightly apologetic smile. “Seaglass is pretty easy to come by down here, but welding isn’t particularly fun to do. The heating vents are…”

Enma hummed, his eyes gleaming. “It must be hard when there’s no fire.”

“Oh, there’s fire, if you can get a mage to help you, but it costs a pretty penny,” she said, lifting her arms in a shrug. “And, frankly, I don’t want to get near the stuff. It’s freaky.”

Grim sulked.

Ito smiled, reaching out and scratching behind Grim’s ears. “Fire’s not all bad, just a little misunderstood. Y’know, people used to make giant forest fires on purpose, because the ashes would make good fertilizer for their crops.”

Grim brightened up again. “And it cooks your food, after, too!”

“And it cooks your food,” Ito agreed, softer than Kuroki had ever seen them.

Now, if Kuroki had to guess, Ito had probably never had a pet before, and therefore didn’t hold the same reservations against caring for Grim as they did for Kuroki and Enma. There was no mental turmoil to be had, no ‘oh gosh am I betraying my original family?’ so why shouldn’t they indulge themself? Add Ito’s fondness for children, and their openly favoring Grim was inevitable.

This didn’t make him feel any less jealous.

It certainly made him feel stupid for being jealous in the first place, though.

He sighed as he took in the price. It… honestly wasn’t that much more expensive than he was expecting…

“This is about the amount I thought it’d be, if you really want just these.”

Ito lit up, leaning over to press a quick kiss to his cheek.

Kuroki smiled a little, his bad mood dissipating instantly.

The woman laughed. “Why does the little one get to decide whether you can buy things?”

“Little?” protested Kuroki.

But his friends seemed to not care for defending his honor on that front. Or any front.

“Because he likes budgeting, and if we don’t follow his budget he complains for days,” Enma lamented.

“I’m trying to keep us from starving to death!”

Grim raised his paw. “But you don’t let me get the fancy tuna.”

“It literally doesn’t even taste any different!”

He shook his head. “The extra money makes it taste better.”

Kuroki scowled. His life sucks.

At least Ito was happy, beaming as Enma helped fasten the necklace in place, sliding the pendant under their shirt for safekeeping.

With that, they were off in search of a library they could definitely-not-steal-from.

“Not going to wear the earrings?” Kuroki asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Not underwater,” Ito said, slightly forlorn as they carefully tucked the box into their pocket. “Swimming with earrings is always a little risky. If you’re not careful, they can pull their way right through your earlobe. And then you can’t wear any earrings.”

“... I’m not sure that ‘not being able to wear any earrings’ is the worst thing about that scenario,” Kuroki said.

“No, it is.”

“Okay.”

~

Jack, Ace, and Deuce came back empty-handed.

This should have been considered a crime, but alas, they couldn’t prosecute their friends. They just glared at them as hard as they could.

“They like raw fish down here,” Ace grumbled. “And not in the sushi way, in the straight-up raw fish way.”

Grim frowned. “What’s wrong with that?”

“We’re trying not to get food poisoning,” Jack said.

“... what’s that?”

“Oh, to be a monster,” Enma sighed.

“Yeah, so you could eat rocks?” Ace asked, smirking.

“You’re on thin ice for not coming back with food, Ace, reconsider what you just said.”

Ace looked like he had considered it very heavily and was willing to face the consequences, but someone saved him:

“Koebi-chan!”

“How does this keep happening to me?” Kuroki whispered.

And then he was bowled over, arms latching themselves around him.

He scowled, pushing at Floyd’s face. “Get off. Why are you here?!”

“We live underwater. Why are you here?” Jade asked.

Enma scowled at him, crossing his arms over his chest. If asked, he would definitely say the flush in his face was due to annoyance. “We’re shopping.”

“Actually, we’re going to the library,” Grim corrected.

Enma gave him a betrayed look. Grim merely blinked back at him, confused.

Ito sighed. “We were gonna go to the museum, but it’s closed, so we’re gonna grab some books from the library.”

“And, let me guess, you have no intention of returning said books?” Azul said, raising an eyebrow. He was still in his human form, for some reason, getting dragged along by Jade.

But who cares about his weird choices? He was currently suggesting that they would commit a crime, which simply would not do!

“I plead the fifth,” Ito said, solemnly.

Unfortunately for Ito, no one understood their joke. They slumped against Enma, sulking. Enma patted them atop the head.

Kuroki pressed his hand over his chest. “What they’re trying to say is that you really can’t believe that we, the people who organized a heist to steal a photo for you, would steal from a public institution.”

Azul rolled his eyes.

Floyd hummed. “If you guys’re wanting to get into the museum, we can take you.”

Kuroki tipped his head back against Floyd’s shoulder. “It’s closed for the day.”

“And why is that?” Jade asked, smiling behind his hand.

“‘Cause someone’s rented the place. I didn’t even know you could do that,” Enma mumbled.

“You wouldn’t have been able to afford it even if you had known,” Azul said.

“... no way,” said Deuce, catching on first, surprisingly.

“Yes, we have decided to rent out the museum for the day,” Azul sighed. “I have to put a photo back in its rightful place.”

Azul glared at the Leech twins. The Leech twins, of course, were unperturbed.

Kuroki, however, was also more than a little miffed. “Really?! It was so hard to get that photo, and you’re just gonna put it back?!”

Jade tipped his head to the side. “Azul here wanted it because he wished to erase his past. Considering what happened yesterday… clearly, he cannot outrun it, so facing it is the only option he has left.”

Kuroki’s heart thudded in his throat.

He smiled around it. “So, if he’s facing his past, shouldn’t he be in his merman form?”

“You’re pushing it,” Azul gritted out, his businessman’s smile straining.

Kuroki snickered.

Enma waved his hands for everyone’s attention. “No more banter! Let’s go to the museum!”

Kuroki smiled. He was acting like a little kid who was very excited about a field trip. It was funny, but also a little cute. So, he shut his mouth, and allowed the Octavinelle kids to lead them all to the museum.

~

The museum was nice. Kuroki couldn’t say it particularly interested him. He’d never been a history buff, like Ito, or fascinated by the world around him in the way Enma was.

So, he let them have their fun while he hung back near the entrance with Azul to make sure he didn’t try anything while putting the photo back.

“It’s a nice photo,” Kuroki offered.

Azul stuck it to the wall, scowling. “It’s a perfectly fine photo, just not a good one of me.”

Yeah, Kuroki had kind of guessed that much. Between the octopus-themed Overblot, and the ink-spewing crybaby’ line, and Leona calling him a ‘cephalo-punk’, putting together the pieces wasn’t that difficult – Azul was the little octopus Jade and Floyd were annoying in the picture.

And, considering how far their little group of three was from the rest of their class, and how they all looked different from the others… well, Kuroki had a few guesses as to why Azul was the way he was.

No wonder he’d fixated on Kuroki.

Kuroki was still taking it personally, though. If only because he didn’t generally appreciate it when people tried to kill him.

Azul stared at the photo of himself.

“I thought… if I could just erase all proof of my past, I would feel better,” Azul admitted, leaning against his cane. “I managed to get all of my classmate’s yearbooks, the negatives from the photographers, even this. But…”

“It didn’t make you happy?” Kuroki guessed.

Azul snorted. “Not in the least. All I could think about was how one day, somehow, someone would find out, and everything would just… end. And I’d be back there. Never did I think that it would be my contracts that would fail me, though.”

Kuroki thought about it, and then shrugged, leaning against one of the turnstile machines. He wasn’t at all qualified, but Azul was talking to him for some reason, and therefore it fell on Kuroki to fix things.

“Well… I think your problem is that you focused on the wrong thing. You wanted to make it so no one could make fun of you, right? But the people making fun of you… okay, they were the problem, but that’s not something that you can change. Sometimes, your situation is shitty, and you just have to move on, because there’s nothing else you can do.”

Azul gave him a slightly tired smile. “You’re bad at this.”

“I’ve been told I’m bad at apologies, too,” Kuroki shrugged. “Speaking really isn’t my strong suit, I think.”

They stayed there in silence for a long while.

“... did that work for you? Moving past it?”

“Our situations are different.” He walked over to peer at the photo. Slowly, he lifted his hand, thumb up, covering Azul’s past self. “I wasn’t… bullied, per se. I just… wasn’t.”

If Kuroki had never existed back in his own world, would it have changed anything?

Had he been born here, would he have been better off?

There was no point in ‘what ifs’, and yet it was hard to dismiss the thoughts entirely.

“And, as for moving on…” Kuroki smiled, wryly. “I think this is a ‘do as I say, not as I do’ kinda situation.”

~

Enma hooked his arm through Kuroki’s the moment he saw him.

“C’mon, you have to see the dinosaur skeleton,” Grim said. “It’s huge.”

“It’s not a dinosaur, it’s a sea dragon,” Jade corrected, lightly.

“Yeah, yeah, the definitely-not-an-ichthyosaur,” Enma said, rolling his eyes.

“What’s an ichthyosaur?” Jade asked, raising his eyebrows.

Enma’s eyes gleamed. “Okay, so, it’s this species of big water dinosaur, and it –.”

Kuroki tuned Enma out. Not because he wasn’t necessarily interested in dinosaurs, he is a guy, after all, he had just heard this particular rant before.

He watched as Deuce admired the craftsmanship on a nearby cauldron, which was said to belong to the Sea Witch. Ace was laughing at Deuce, but he took pictures when asked.

Ito and Floyd had taken to the gift shop, which housed one very stressed out worker who looked like they might start swimming belly-up if Floyd stayed for much longer. Ito, of course, was probably doing this on purpose in hopes that, should the woman pass out, they would get the chance to loot the place. They were owed one more piece of jewelry for the day, after all, and if there was anything they took seriously it was certainly their physical appearance.

As for Jack, he was currently looking at the different bioluminescent plants and small fish that were being used as makeshift lamps. He poked one of the fish. The fish, being a fish, swam away. Which, unfortunately, seemed to ignite a latent hunting instinct, and now Jack was chasing it around.

Kuroki smiled, his attention turning back to Enma.

“– took out a whole T-rex, it’s so cool, I wish I could show you the movie –.”

Ah, it was still going.

Perhaps at least partially because Jade was egging Enma on, nodding along with interest, but…

Now that Kuroki thought about it, Enma’s dinosaur rants usually lasted the longest, since it usually devolved into talking about Jurassic Park, which was… a movie series from Enma’s world. Apparently, it had dinosaurs in it. Lucky bastards don’t even know what they have going for them.

Ito walked over, a new shell bracelet on their wrist. Kuroki rolled his eyes. They simply shrugged, entirely unrepentant.

Which was fair, it wasn’t like Kuroki was going to get onto one of his friends for theft.

His eyes flicked to Deuce, who might also commit theft, honestly, judging by how he clearly coveted the cauldron, and found Azul standing by him, giving a sales pitch:

“I do understand how mages create fire underwater, but I should warn you now – my knowledge doesn’t come cheap.”

Deuce and Ace started rifling through their pockets.

Had they learned nothing from the entire anemone situation? Maybe Ito was right, they should have let Azul have control over them for at least a little while.

… well, it was officially the start of Winter Break for them, Kuroki supposed, and Azul was only asking for hard cash. He could let them have their fun.

In fact.

Kuroki nudged Enma in the side. Enma paused in his rant about how the moral of the first movie (something about how ‘You were so focused on whether you could, that you never stopped to consider if you should’) was stupid and annoying, actually.

“Azul is going to explain how fire works underwater.”

“... hold that thought, senpai,” Enma said, before immediately rushing to join the others.

(Kuroki sighed as he was dragged with him, relieved. Crisis averted. Jade and Enma could not become friends – or, worse, more than friends.)

Azul raised his eyebrows at the new addition to his audience but, having been paid, he seemed more than happy to comply. Probably because Ace and Deuce had shoved some extra thaumarks into his hands.

“Well, you see, understanding fire and its properties is important. It feeds on oxygen, which means you must provide it with air to breathe. You start off with a wind spell…”

[mysticcollectionbee]

Loki S2 Ep.2 (Breaking Brad): Pros & Cons

(SPOILERS!)

First the Bad to get it out of the way:

• Biggest thing I got a problem with: NOT a fan of the TVA brutality thing and really hope the TVA isn't seen as a 'flawed' system but just a system built to be awful. Only thing I agree with Sylvie is that the overall system is bad. And the protags shouldn't be chill using these tactics. Gonna hope this was just a one time thing because of X-5 just being a massive dick and pissing them to an extreme extent (Doesn't make it right, but if someone blamed me for a loved ones death...I might loose my morals a bit too).

• Sylvie being a bitch to Loki FOR NO REASON. Like everything else going on with her I love, but, why is she being horrible to Loki? He didn't betray or stop her. SHE BETRAYED HIM AND SCREWED EVERYTHING OVER, BUT SHE'S THE PISSED ONE?

Now that we got all the bad out of the way, onto the good stuff:

•Badass Loki, with MAGIC, with a bit of intimidation? YES. Sure, I don't like him and Mobius torturing X-5 BUT I'm all for Loki weaponizing his villainous history. And surprisingly keeping his temper under control. Nice.

• Unlike Mobius...My dude ya good? I love what this could be hinting and going for. And also showing that he isn't pure good, but as Loki said, Not all good which is why they get along.

• Loki being the one that kept a cool head and is the one trying to comfort is so interesting! He's never tried doing that for anyone besides Thor in a few small scenes. And that's his brother! He just wants to be there for Mobius and let him have some pie while they chill and talk stuff out, even trying to relate to mobius (albeit a funny ridiculous comparison).

•Both of the time duos being horrible with tech makes a bit too much sense. They are great at manipulating and reading people, but they probably can't build a single IKEA chair.

•CASEY! I love Casey actually becoming more of an important/useful character. And apparently a fan of O.B. So maybe our tech guy won't have to wait hundreds of years for a visitor anymore!

•B-15 being the heart of the team and the TVA, she should be in charge. Please. Also I need an offical name for her and D-90 because I really want to call them by actual names.

•X-5 is an asshole but a well written and neat asshole. I do kinda want him to get back to his movie life, that way he won't be such a dick to the characters I like and he gets to keep having his dream life. Win-win.

• Sylvie gets a fun retirement life please! I don't think her being on the team is good for her or for the team. I think she should only join when her life is endangered and when it's all over get back to it. I used to think she might join Loki and Mobius on maybe continuing fighting Kang after the season is over but like...That's not her fight? Leaver her be. And bad for the team cause well...The morale is already kinda shit and she's gonna be miserable and make everyone else miserable too.

• Just realized this: Is everyone keeping secrets??? Loki seemed to not have been planning to tell the others about the Ravonna and HWR convo until it was needed to mention (Mobius literally was asking, "When were you gonna-" then was caught off), Mobius seems to already know or have a serious fear that he's hiding, B-15 has yet to mention what she saw of her past life despite it obviously leaving an impact, etc.

[hurlumerlu]

Bitter, bitter

(another little Not Me fic)

They take way too long to spot him – especially Gram, who should know better and who, when he finally realizes they aren’t alone, just pushes Gene behind him and then fucking freezes, the moron.

Funny, the effect Black tends to have on people.

"Gonna have a panic attack ?" He does not bother to sound sympathetic.

"Heart attack, actually." Hard to tell what’s more insulting : that Gram relaxes when he recognizes him, or that he doesn’t relax entirely. "And if I drop dead because of you Eugene will hate you for life, and that will serve you right."

"Don’t decide what I would or wouldn’t do", she chides, her head popping up over his shoulder. Her cheeks are flushed – unsurprising, given how giddily and enthusiastically they were making out a minute ago – and she seems a little embarassed, but her gaze has its usual quiet, attentive quality. Did he even know she could kiss like that, so recklessly ? He was always careful with her. Caution is all you’ve got when you're bad at tenderness. "Good evening, Black. It’s been a while."

"Eugene."

"Really ?" cuts Gram, propping himself up on his desk. "This is how we’re gonna do this ?" His lips are very red. That makes sense. They would be.

"Mind your own business," Black shoots back before he can think better of it. Behind strands of bleached hair, two incredulous eyes meet his :

"This is my dorm. My door which lock you picked –"

"Great job noticing it, by the way."

"– my beer you’re drinking in my chair. But please tell me how this isn’t my business."

"Eloquent," Black deadpans. "What happened to property is theft ?"

"And what happened to anarchy is an ideology for artists, only applicable in the abstract ?" retorts Gene, because she has a phenomenal memory when it comes to winning an argument.

He shrugs. "I stand by it."

"I’m with him on that one."

"Yeah, because neither of you will open a history book that doesn’t have Laws written on the cover."

For a moment, it almost feels like nothing has changed, like everything is the same as before – before he’d understood just how urgently Todd had to be dealt with and that this was something he needed to do alone.

But if nothing had changed Gene would be nestled against him, not positioned carefully equidistant from the two people facing her. He wonders how Gram feels about that. How he felt about it back then. He always looked happy, and inordinately fond, but – as Black should have kept in mind – that doesn’t actually mean shit. He certainly feels neither joy nor fondness at Gram’s red lips and Gene’s flushed cheeks. Maybe that’s his punishment for choosing Todd over them.

"I came to talk," he says, and drowns Gram’s sarcastic "he wants to talk but it’s not my business" with "I didn’t know Eugene would be here." A mistake.

"What, you can’t talk when I’m here ?"

"No." It’s the truth. Black’s a lousy liar, and he always tells her the truth. The problem is that he can’t voice the rest of it : that he wishes he could, that he’s never been good at it and that wanting only makes things worse. That he remembers exactly how soft her hair was under his palm, and that he may not know how Gram’s hair feel but he does know it smells of basil. That those two phantom sensations burn in his throat, not unlike teargas.

"I promised I’d get out of your life."

"So I should just let you two discuss me between men ?"

"That’s not –" starts Gram. Black shuts him down fast.

"You take it however you want. I have no right to tell you how to feel."

"You could explain, Black ! For once in your life, you could explain yourself !"

"No," he repeats, and pushes himself up. "I’ve taken enough of your time. I’m off."

"Wait !" Gram grabs him by the arm, then winces and lets go before Black can finish weighting the pros and cons of punching him in his fucking mouth. "Wait, please."

"Did you come on your bike ?" asks Gene. She’s eyeing the empty beer bottles. "You should spend the night here."

He doesn’t remind her that she is mad at him, or that this isn’t her room. "I’m not drunk." Maybe he would have been if White hadn’t teased him the other day. Eugene said you’re sooo gentle when you’re wasted. Perhaps he is. He couldn’t risk it.

"But you wouldn’t pass breath-testing. Sleep here, man. Eugene can take the bed and we can take the floor."

"Stop acting like you’re not dating her."

"It’s a one person bed."

"Right. You were absolutely planning to sleep on the floor tonight. That’s why you came in with your hands so far down her –"

"Enough." Anger is back in Gene’s tone. Good. He cannot stand one more second of sad concern. "We just want you to stay."

"Yeah, well," and he’s finally outside, in the corridor, in the clear. "We don’t always get what we want, do we ?"

He turns to look at them, both standing in the doorway, so close to each other like a proper couple, cheeks still a little flushed, lips still a little red. What a waste of an evening.

"See you later I guess," he says, and makes his way down the stairs.

[strawberrystepmom]

kendall, im loving these astrology asks sm <3 but i’m curious !! what are your thoughts on your f/o big three? and with your big three, what would you consider the pros / cons? hehe i can’t wait to see what you have to say !!

whimsy thank u so much for asking me this!!! it made me smile so big to read it aljdfakdsfjaksjdflasjkfd bc i love talking about just everything having to do with astrology and my f/o sun/moon/venus placements are so funny bc they're so similar. i tend not to do rising signs for them but just to give you a taste:

satoru: sag sun/pisces moon/cap venus

hyoga: sag sun/pisces moon/cap venus

sanemi: sag sun/pisces moon/cap venus

umemiya: aqua sun/aries moon/cap venus

so as you can see there is a type here and rather than unpack them all individually i think it's more fun to discuss what i like about them in relation to myself.

my big three + venus are pisces sun, scorpio moon, cancer rising with aquarius venus. i would describe myself as open minded, loving, and a person who does a lot for others because i love people for people's sake thanks to cancer's warm energy and pisces' childlike wonder. those are my positives. my negatives are that i am prone to melancholy and subsequently withdrawal, aided by the protectiveness of my internal world by scorpio moon and the anxious attachment flightiness of aquarius virgo. small note: i am only speaking about myself i'm not saying that these traits suit anyone else with these placements

love for me isn't hard to fall in but it's hard to for me to feel accepted in. i greatly value self expression and having the freedom to do it is the difference between living a full life and being nothing to me and there are times where i worry someone is gonna clip my wings so to speak and can get a little elusive. i like the chase, i like to be courted, i like to feel like i'm always being treated like someone you're impressing for the first time even if it's in subtle ways bc grand romantic gesture makes me uncomfortable bc distrustful scorpio tells me you're faking it.

i digress.

my attraction to earth venus placements is their steadiness. even when i feel like i'm ready to bolt, they're steadfast in what they've said. they love me, they want me, they've planned our life together and they're simply waiting for me to get over myself so that they can give it to me. once i feel comfortable in love and feel that the amount of myself i've given is being equally given from the other party, then i'm good. that anxious attachment need to bolt is gone.

it's interesting to me how self shipping has helped me realize these things about myself too. i've always struggled with feeling misunderstood (a hallmark of all aquarius placements sadly) and i just need someone to sit me down, hold my shoulders, look at me and go "i know who you are even if you wanna hide it from me" and mean it. a capricorn is the perfect person for this LMAO

[yourlocaldisneyvillain]

just because I’m curious: does it bother you at all to wait to post chapters on a certain day or do you like having a posting schedule?  I have the disease where I absolutely have to yeet things into the void immediately or I will start climbing the walls LOL, even when I briefly tried to keep a schedule to finish older stuff (prisoner draft 2 and songbird) it just made me crazy and I ended up posting way sooner than intended!

dskjfhadfjs okay so this is the first time in my life i've had a posting schedule, and that was bc with "particular" i was trying out a method where i write the entire fic and then post, bc otherwise i have a tendency to like.... just let it sit for months unfinished lol. and tend to lose momentum. this way, i'm driven by the Overwhelming Desire to yeet the thing to the people and receive Sweet Dopamine of comments and kudos, but i don't allow myself to until it is Finished, and somehow this method works for my impulsive ass? idk, i've found a loophole in the neurospiciness i guess.

i did struggle IMMENSELY with keeping a consistent posting schedule once it was written though asjkdfhg. i picked wednesdays to post bc it's the wednesday fandom (haha i'm so funny) and just the meme of it all was keeping me on track tbh lol (i am a simple woman sometimes). multiple times i posted on a different day, either bc my impulsive brain just said hehe Yeet(TM), or bc i didn't proofread/edit the chapter fully on time bc i was busy. but overall i did like. okay, i think! i think what was keeping me from sticking to it more is that i wanted to start posting relatively early bc i am Impatient (i was done with this thing in october), but i wanted to space it out so that the christmas epilogue was posted a week or two before christmas, and this equaled to posting once a week. if it weren't for that i'd for SURE have posted more frequently and just picked a posting schedule that's more realistic for someone with poor impulse control lol.

so i think the trick is like edging yourself lololol, like do the max amount of time you can last without posting (and if that's like two days, that's good enough) and then the sweet dopamine of Yeeting it into the void is even sweeter! also accept that sometimes you will Not Stick to the schedule and that's okay, and you can still return to the schedule once you've had a slip-up!

i'm now done with my next longer fic and i think i'll just yeet it all into the void all at once, but that's simply bc i expect hordes of weirdos in my inbox calling me a pedophile lol. otherwise i would likely have posted thrice a week tbh. that is like the ideal schedule that wouldn't make me insane i think!

but yeah, for me i think this method's pros outweigh the cons!

[ysabelmystic]

Top 5 worst times you got into trouble as a kid.

Ohhhh man this is gonna be a hard one to answer because undiagnosed ADHD and Autism does not mix well with authoritarian bullshit. Plus, the stuff I got away with is generally worse, a lot funnier, and more extensive. But here's 5 things I can think of off the top of my head.

I caused several thousand dollars worth of damage because 2-year-old me decided that our rented house's white carpet needed an introduction to my mom's red nail polish- color theory hospital style. Thankfully, our landlord was my mom's best friend, and after several cleaning attempts, she decided to eat the cost. I only know about this because both of them bring it up at least twice a year.

From ages 6-9, my parents forced me to do this stupid church soccer club thing because my dad was obsessed with soccer and my brother was practically a soccer prodigy. I didn't care for it one bit. We always had to rush dinner to make it to soccer practice on time, so in my head, I figured that if we couldn't eat dinner, we couldn't make it to soccer practice. We were having spaghetti that night, and you can't have spaghetti without sauce, so after a lot of unsuccessful crying, begging, and pleading, I took the whole pot of spaghetti sauce and dumped it on the floor. I avoided soccer practice, but I also got ultra-grounded for a month. All I had in my room was a mattress. Everything else was taken away. And that's when I discovered the power of dissociative daydreaming, and I can now mentally check out of any situation at, and against, my will! (My mother has since apologized, but also I am the reason I will never have biological children lmao).

Here's a funny one. On their anniversary weekend, my parents left my brother and I with my grandparents on my dad's side. This had its pros and cons. On the one hand, they had a pool, and never supervised what we watched on TV. On the other hand, that set of grandparents wouldn't let us skip church, and they went to a different church. It didn't even have a Sunday School. I was about 9 or 10, so I was deemed old enough to pack my own suitcase. I purposefully brought along my most raggedy yard clothes, thinking that would get me out of going. Come Sunday morning, I learned that unfortunately, cargo shorts and an old t-shirt did not grant me an exemption, so I had to come up with something else. After getting my brother and I fed and dressed, my grandparents went off to attend to themselves, leaving the both of us unsupervised. Their mistake. My brother and I went out into the backyard to play catch while we waited. It was then that I had an idea. My brother was about 7, still young enough that he would do just about anything I asked him, so it took him about 5 seconds to convince him that it would be both hilarious and fun if he jumped in the pool, fully dressed in his good church clothes. My grandparents were fucking piiiiissssssssed. My brother didn't have any spare clothes so my grandma had to throw everything in the dryer while I got the "wait until your parents come home" speech and a TV ban for the rest of the day. However, when my parents found out, my dad thought it was so funny that I pretty much got away with it. Oh, and we still had to go to church. We made it to the last 30 minutes of service.

My mom's contribution: I was taught about Jackon Pollock in kindergarten and inflicted my newfound splatterpaint skills upon our white cabinets, the kitchen walls, and the hallway. There's a theme with my crimes. My artistic expression could not be stopped.

I earned my first formal exorcism because I had the audacity to ask what happened to the fish during The Flood. "They didn't need to be in the boat" Well Sharon what about water salinity? How did the fish not die from the change in water chemistry? Did Noah have wooden fish tanks? Did someone have to go to every country to get the fish and a sample of their native waters? Anyways, because I was like...8, this was a sign that I had Demons, and this required them to drag me into the hallway and spend the next 30 minutes dousing me in anointing oil and demanding that Satan leave my body. Yeet!

[lilflowerpot]

hello again~

I'm here to ask a question about LoZ. so, I have a friend who plays and recommended it to me because she knows I love open world games and breath of the wild is (apparently) one of the best open world games ever and I've been hesitating ever since. she might be a little biased tho lol

and like. there's a sale going on right now for botw, so the recommendation just kind made itself known in my memory again

anyway so, basically I'm here to ask if it'll be worth it? I mean, the general consensus wherever I go seems to be 'amazing, go get it u won't regret it'

(and, this is totally optional, but if you could answer asap that would be great because idk when the sale ends, thank you)

p.s I love little blade. you're amazing

I think it's obvious by now that I am a //massive// Zelda fan so tbh I'm likely no less bias than your friend lmfao, but that being said I'm going to try and give as balanced a response as possible!

Pros

BotW is beautiful, and I mean b e a u t i f u l . The graphics have this lovely watercolour quality to them as an ode to the artstyle used in Skyward Sword, but more crisp & refined. Unlike a lot of the big open world games (looking at you skyrim) BotW doesn't sacrifice colour or try to be "gritty", but rather leans into that soft-apocalypse, studio ghibli vibe.

The narrative is equally lovely and fulfilling, and depending upon what order you collect Link's memories in you will likely have a different gameplay experience. You'll also meet a lovable cast of characters to whom you'll end up unreasonably attached, which will ultimately break your heart in the end,,, I apologise in advance, but I promise you it's worth the pain.

On that note, do it for my bitch-ass bird son. You'll know him when you meet him.

Link can jump. This will mean very little to you if you've not played a LoZ game before, but my boy can fucking JUMP.

You can also climb pretty much everything (bar like one specific material) which means if you want to get to that Cool Thing Over There, then with a mix of mix of ungodly arrogance, sheer willpower, and a lot of stamina potions, you can. If you suffer from the magpie brain (ie. you see a new shiny thing and become immediately sidetracked from your original objective) this will mean that you take about 10x as long as you should to do literally anything, but my god is it fun.

The soundtrack gives me feelings that I cannot put into words, and the voice acting is //phenomenal//. Importantly, Link himself does not have a voice actor which is the only correct choice considering he's been heavily implied throughout the entire LoZ franchise to be an elective mute, and I would have //hated// hearing him speak.

Link is also just a very sweet & funny golden retriever boy who occasionally sasses back like nobody's business. 10/10 protagonist.

If you like women, you will like them even more by the end. If you don't like women, there's a 90% chance you'll seriously reconsider it upon meeting [REDACTED].

The game has something for everyone: you like exploring? Well you're going to do a lot of that. You like collectables? There are so many outfits (that you can dye to your liking!) and a wholeass compendium to fill out. You like puzzles? You'll certainly find your fair share. You like combat? The basic mechanics are what you'd expect with there are enough different enemy types to keep it interesting, but dO NOT FIGHT A LYNEL WITHOUT MAKING SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH WEAPONS BC THEY WILL BREAK AND LEAVE YOU WITH A VERY ANGRY VERY MEAN MAN TRYING TO KILL YOU.

It is genuinely very good value for money, and even more so if you can get it on sale! Not only do you have the mainline game & all its side-quests, but there's also the expansion pass, and, of course, an entire sequel just ready and waiting!

Cons

Sometimes the open world can feel a little too open. Considering the game's context, it makes sense, but comparatively games like Skyrim feel more densely packed with Things To Do, whereas BotW has several areas of overgrown nothingness that are lovely to look at, but not especially interesting (though this is better rectified in TotK).

You can't swim underwater. This was not rectified in TotK, though I dearly wish it had been.

A lot of fans used to complain about the temple format of p much every Zelda game up until this point, so the developers essentially removed temples altogether and instead replaced them with only four (technically optional) Divine Beasts, plus Hyrule Castle itself. I... did not like this. I'm a big puzzle girlie, and though BotW has shrines scattered across the landscape—most of which are puzzle-based—I personally felt that this substitute was lacking in comparison to the original. TotK does improve on this by reintroducing temples, but I still could have gone for a few more (Skyward Sword was the opposite of this, with very linear gameplay which a lot of people hated, but I personally will stand by SS's Ancient Cistern until my dying breath, and Twilight Princess had some really innovative temples that I have replayed several times over).

On a semi-adjacent note, the final boss just... wasn't my favourite. That's not to say it was bad, only as boss fights go I've had better (I did, however, like the final segment of that fight).

You will develop an immediate fear response to the Guardian music.

Ultimately though, I absolutely do think you should buy it, and am jealous that you'll get to have that bright-eyed bushy-tailed first-time experience, because believe me, if I could erase my memories and play BotW all over again, I would.

[debaroohoo]

So I'm buying a house. Like. A whole dang house. As someone who's pretty terrible at being an adult, this process is terrifying. I keep going back and forth between being excited and wondering what the hell I think I'm doing. In an effort (probably in vain) to keep my brain focused on the latter, I'm making a list. All pros, no cons since I don't need that in my life right now.

Hopefully no more very brief power blips at the start of minor storms that like to happen when I'm in the middle of playing a video game. This actually happened earlier and what prompted me to start typing this up as I waited for my internet connection to come back.

No more sharing a wall with a guy who likes to crank up his music for a couple hours each night. Headphones are useless, my brain knows it's there, so it seeks out the annoyance against my wishes.

No more sharing a…floor? with people who like to yell at their barking dog and crying child to shut up.

I'll finally have a bathroom (2 bathrooms!) that hasn't been used by strangers. Removing the sliding shower door and cleaning the questionable crud on the bottom a few years ago nearly made me throw up three times (that is not an exaggeration) and I've never felt truly clean since then.

No more living right next to the county fairgrounds. Hearing cows and sheep and roosters once or twice a year is kinda fun. Concerts so loud that the noise makes my walls and windows shake, not so much.

More room for activities!! And storage. Really looking forward to the storage and having more shelving so I don't have to keep any of my favorite junk hidden away in boxes.

A better kitchen! There are some recipes I haven't tried in a while (or never tried at all) since I don't have enough storage space (see above) to keep various cooking gear on hand.

A GARAGE!!!!!! My poor car hasn't had a roof over it's head for most of its life and I'm tired of how filthy it gets. The headlights have so much built up gunk on them I haven't bothered trying to clean since being outdoors 24/7 means it'd probably get bad again eventually. I'm weirdly looking forward to cleaning those and wonder if there'll be a noticeable difference in the light quality.

No more lugging groceries up the stairs. The garage leads right into the kitchen plus I won't have to shut the back hatch between trips if I can't carry everything in one go since I'm paranoid someone might try something funny in the few seconds my car would be out of my sight. Plus, I won't have to worry about wasps trying to build a nest in the door cracks. ...Hopefully.

Garbage and recycling pick up! I'm mainly happy that I won't have to take my recycling to a drop off center anymore. I tend to let it pile up…

Closer to family! I currently live on the opposite side of town. It's not a long drive to see them, but it'll be nice to be only 2-5 minutes away.

Customizing!!! I know I can technically paint the walls in my apartment if I wanted to, but putting everything back to normal before moving out would be a headache. If I want to go ham and Jackson Pollock up a wall I can do as I damn well please.

I will have a patio! It's small but it's a place to put a chair outside!! I can sit outside and not have to worry about making eye contact with neighbors!!!

Complementary to #13 - I will have a YARD! I can GO TOUCH GRASS. I can get a DOG someday. I'll have to get a fence installed first which won't be cheap, but that's okay because DOG.

The front door is purple. PURPLE. That was actually a paint choice the builder had and I took it. When I give directions to my house I can tell people it's the one with the purple door. No one tell my dad. He would uh...totally approve and I want it to be a surprise. Yeah.

I can mount a TV. Again, I technically could do it in my apartment but I don't really trust the walls to hold up… Anyway, I have a plan to move my consoles and other things currently hooked up on the TV stand to a shelf where I can have better cable management. That means no more cable jungle! Seriously, I wonder if the space behind my TV can be considered a fire hazard.

I think that's all I've got for now? I'll probably think of more to add to the list, but that covers most of it. If you read all that…what the hell man, I appreciate it but I know you've got better things to do with your time.

[nellie-elizabeth]

The Legend of Vox Machina: The Sunken Tomb (2x03)

Liam O'Brien, how dare you...

Cons:

This isn't really a con, so much as a point of confusion... where did Kash and Zahra go at the end of the episode? They seemed to find Purvan's tomb and wander down it, but then Percy also found the tomb? So they're in the wrong place? It just felt strange that they ended up somewhere else with no resolution or cliffhanger for those characters. I guess we'll find out in episode four?

Pros:

Such a good blend of tone in this episode. So many funny moments, and then mixed with such abject tragedy... the basic structure of the plot is just that the gang goes on a journey to find the Deathwalker's Ward, which is the first Vestige of Divergence they've been told about. Along the way they banter, they fight weird fish people monsters, they have a not-so-friendly rivalry going with Zahra and Kash...

There are lot of moments I could shout out here, but a few of my favorite comedy beats include when Kash tells them about Purvan, they all start laughing and making stupid jokes, and then Kash just says "wow, you guys suck." In that same scene, I loved Grog celebrating his new beard, and when Kash is dismissive of it, Grog gets furious and in his face. Kash... immediately backs down and says it's really cool.

Zahra and Vex... perfection. This vibe between them started up in episode two, but this episode we really got to see it in action. They're totally playing it like they're bitter exes who still find each other sexy and I am living for it. Such good energy, and a natural extrapolation from the vibe they had on the original stream. I  loved when they were fighting over who got to be the hero and save the other one. And Vex's exasperation when she realized Zahra had run off was so funny.

The whole fight sequence was good fun, everyone teaming up and being bad-ass. Kash falling off of Scanlan's hand made me laugh too. The only hint of real worry in these scenes is Grog, whose bloodlust seems to be a little more intense than it should be, as he's using that hungry, hungry talking sword... Pike seems to pick up that something isn't quite right, but she can't figure out what's up just yet. Also, as I said, we finally got our bearded Grog! I've been waiting for that guy to turn up.

A couple other details: Pike has a vision to check in on Emon, and sees Thordak ruling the roost, demanding tribute and burning humans alive when they run out of shiny things to give him. So that's not great. Also, in Trinket news, he actually got to be useful in a fight for once, which was exciting to see!

And then there's the stuff with the twins. I mean. Where to even begin with all of this. It was so good. Pitch perfect. Liam and Laura fucking knocked it out of the park. The episode has flashbacks showing them younger, during an incident in which their father yelled at Vex for breaking a tiara, calling them worthless because of their status as half human. Vax decides they should storm off, and they do, but it's clear Vex didn't really want to leave. She gets mad at him for always trying to protect her and tell her what to do, and then we cut to later, where Vax is sobbing because his sister has left him. Vax says that it's not that Vex needs him, it's that he needs her.

Just. If you know where this is going it's just... just... the perfect distillation of the whole thing with the twins. They were so cute and squishy as little baby half-elves, and their dad sucks so hard.

The episode also cleverly builds up the fact that the Matron of Ravens' temple is full of traps. We see Grog discover one, we see Vax checking ahead to be sure, we see Trinket sniffing out a hidden latch in the floor that raises up a tomb... it's all very treacherous. Obviously I knew this was coming, so every time Vax insisted that everyone wait and be cautious, I was getting more and more tense. It happens so suddenly, so unceremoniously. Percy reaches in to take the Deathwalker's Ward, and it sets off a trap. Vex is caught in it. She falls to the ground. Dead.

Again, just... LIAM. With the full on SOBBING. I cannot deal. It's so raw and real and I'm beyond excited for the consequences of this one moment to follow us through to the very end of the show. It's gonna hurt so good.

So yeah. This episode was fantastic. I'm eagerly awaiting more, and can't believe I have to wait a full week to see it resolved. Even knowing how it all turns out isn't enough to calm me down. This was excellent TV; I continue to be so happy and so blown away by what these folks have managed to pull off with this adaptation. Can't wait for more!

9.5/10

[whatisreggieshortfor]

February Fifteenth

James x MC

It started with a note.

A week before Valentine’s Day James had found it, weirdly someone had managed to slip it into his own pocket. It was simple, just saying they liked his smile and other sweet things, and they had signed it as a secret admirer.

Then he found another one in his bag the next day.

And then another on the counter at the bar.

Then another.

Each one addressed to him, each one naming different things they admired about him, but each one signed the same.

He thought maybe it was a joke. His coworker, Anissa, seemed to find it funny every time she saw him stumble across one. After all Valentine’s Day had come and gone and he still didn’t know who it was.

But still, when he walked into work on the fifteenth, Anissa was grinning at him, “Find any new ones, lover boy?”

“Not today.” He answered with a sigh and a smile, he may not know who it was but it gave him something to talk to her about that wasn’t drunk patrons and drink orders. He tied his apron around his waist, hearing a crinkle in the pocket as his brow furrowed and he wondered if he grabbed the wrong one.

Another note.

Hearing a mocking gasp, he glanced back at Anissa, “Are you lying to me, Jimmy boy?”

He rolled his eyes with a chuckle, “Yes. Clearly I psychically knew this was there.”

“What’s it say this time?”

James almost didn’t want to read it. Sure, the notes he’d been getting were cute, but nothing compared to the feeling he got of just sharing them with Anissa. He shared everything he could with her, even his stories- she was basically his beta reader. His closest friend, and he still only really saw her at work. Still, determined to kick away this one sided crush, he opened the note, ‘I’ll be waiting for you outside at close. If you don’t want to see me, just turn out the light in back. I’ll be gone before you leave.’ The light in the back. The one he routinely left on because otherwise he stumbled and tripped over everything on his way out.

“Ooooh,” Anissa cooed, “Secret admirer won’t be so secret anymore.”

“Maybe.” James answered, wondering if he really wanted a who. He had until three to decide, and a glance at the clock told him what he knew- it was only six. He had hours to come to a decision.

He was coming to no decision. There were just as many reasons to do it as there were reasons not to. Pros, it could be someone he might genuinely come to like, someone that understood him. Cons, was he ready to give up on what he felt for Anissa? Was he ready to try to move on when he still found his eyes searching out her smile?

Bruno had stopped in, getting the run down and encouraging him to just go for it.

Valentina had told him that only he could make the right decision.

Hazeem had listened intently before telling James that he should turn the light out, because if he didn’t think he could give himself to someone new it may not be fair.

But none of them were really helping. Val was the closest to right, it was a decision he needed to make himself.

And as he traded loosely veiled jokes about patrons with Anissa, he wondered if he knew what to do- if he could even figure out what his gut what telling him.

Closing came far too quickly for him, and he busied himself with making sure glasses were clean as Anissa swept the floor. When she finished, he expected to hear her usual goodbye, but what she said instead was “Hope to see you soon, Jameson!”

It wasn’t the nickname that was odd. She regularly called him by any variation of James she could think of. But she usually just said she’d see him next shift. Was he being too hopeful? Reading too much into it?

The deciding time came, he only needed to lock up on his way out. But he stood there, light switch to the back room under his hand as he debated flipping it off.

He was almost blinded by the streetlights when he walked outside, locking the door as he ducked his head to see, a faint voice behind him almost went unnoticed. But he knew that voice well. “You left it on.” Turning, James saw Anissa standing there, not looking anything the confident bartender he knew, no sign of the woman he once saw grab a biker by the ear when he tried to start a fight under her watch. She stood before him now, flushed in the face as a shy smile curled her lips.

“It was you?” James felt a wave of confusion mixing with a swarm of warmth and joy. “Why didn’t you just say something?”

Her fingers fidgeted with her bag, “How could I?” She asked, laughter in her voice, “You’re too smart. You know that, right? You could be the next- I don’t know, Mary Shelley? Samuel Clemenson? I don’t know a famous romance writer- but you do, and you’ll become the next one. And I’ll just be-“

“Fist fighting men way bigger than you because they think they have a right to do whatever they want and no one will stop them?” She stopped, staring up at him with wide eyes, James smiled at her, “You could change the world, ya know. Maybe just the way you’re doing it now. One person at a time. No one acts up again when they return because they know you won’t stand for it. Kelly hasn’t been bothered by drunken flirtations since you put your foot down. Lexi hasn’t been as snippy. Even Dylan has seemed to change. That’s not because of me.”

“S-stop.” She tried to glare, “You’re making me sound better than I am.”

“I’m really not,” he laughed, “Now how about I walk you back to your flat?”

“Not yet- shit- I was supposed to- I wanted to-“

“Do you want to go to dinner with me tomorrow?” James didn’t know where this confidence came from. Maybe just because he finally knew she felt the same.

She glared again, “I was supposed to ask.” He waited, watching as she gave him a small smile, “But yes.”

“Good.” He carefully took her hand, “For now it’s the middle of the night. Let’s get you home.” But then a thought occurred to him, “Why today, by the way? Why not yesterday?”

She made a face, “And be an even bigger cliché than the letters already made me? Hard pass. The fifteenth… that feels more like us.”

He couldn’t really argue with that.

Masterlist

[dinosaurchurch]

It's hard having to think about what comes when the sun sets or when the curtain closes for the last time. Death is inevitably part of life whether we like it or not, it's not always clear when one's time comes but that's why it's important to cherish what you have currently.

For the longest time a part of me wanted to say I was mad at the man that I called 'father' once but I don't think I can. I'm not someone who likes to back down but there's even a point that after everything that's happened and the rocky times we've had I didn't want to see him suffer, not in the way he did. I didn't think it would've dragged out this long, four months is a hell of a long time to be a former shadow of yourself knowing you could go at any point.

It's bizarre watching everything unfold from what seemed like I was beyond a glass window. I don't talk much about my emotions that I hide underneath or really like to flaunt them for someone to tell just by looking at my face but I've had a lot of thoughts on this whole thing. How I'm sad at the outcome that current circumstances is what turned out to be the bitter end; maybe it was me being hopeful that things would've healed before we got to this point and I could once again look at the man I fondly remembered as a child but that doesn't seem to be the case.

There's a lot of little actions that leave the loudest impressions on people. Things that you probably wouldn't of thought twice about normally. I've mulled over the negative long enough that I had with my father especially during the course of the last several years where we had drifted apart to the point I didn't hardly breathe a word to him for two years. I want to hopefully focus on the good going forward and the positive impact that he had on me even if it was because of negative events - the lessons I learned for myself not to make the same mistakes. That was something that really clicked with me during the first quarter of 2023. Now that the inevitable is around the corner it almost feels surreal.

It's the funny, little stuff that comes to mind when I look back on my childhood with my father. Having ravioli for breakfast straight from the tin, waiting in line for him to do his banking while I played with my power ranger figurines, seeing the phantom menace in theatre and having to wake him up before the finale of the film, playing Atari games, going on long car rides with Styx or Journey playing in the background, even getting up early for Sunday breakfast of fried eggs, toast, and bacon were all things I cherished from my childhood although not all of them I appreciated at the time what I gained from life's simple pleasures. There's a lot more I could mention but those are just some that pop into mind when I think about growing up with my father.

After all of this time I wonder where did this go? Did I grow up losing my childhood spark - that rosy lens or did things really become as bad as I thought. I think the biggest thing I'm going to miss left a long time ago, it's a crazy thought to tell myself that I feel like I've already said goodbye to someone who was still here. There's times where I ask if there really was anything I could've done but then I realize that even if I could've done more, would it really of mattered in the long run? I cannot blame myself for someone who didn't utilize the potential they had but at the same time I can't entirely fault someone for giving way to being human either. Everyone has pros and cons - myself included.

It's really up to those of us who are still here to carry the torch onto making life a little better if we can. That's why death hurts so much even if you weren't close because you know that there was someone who was. It's part of what makes humanity so special is the empathy and the love we feel for our fellow man, the hardest struggles bind us - makes people realize that we do in fact need one another to move forward even if we don't want to admit that.

I think that's why this hurts even if I told myself I had already said goodbye and that I was done mourning. You never really are, everyone on your journey leaves their mark - even if it's just a footnote at the bottom, it's still there and that's what mattered.

I don't think I would be the same person without my father in my life, the good or the bad that's for sure. I would've liked to say the sunset was gold like it was in the movies but nothing is like the movies.

Until we meet again...

[leaflovescloud]

Hello

It’s insane how time flies, and it’s definitely been awhile since the last time I checked in here. I’ve been relying on a physical journal instead, carry it with me whenever possible, and it’s slowly becoming one of my habits. 

Today, is unfortunately one of those days where I really want to be in a dark room and cry & scream the shit out of me. I want to scream so loud till I couldn’t hear myself, I want to throw things around, I want to break things, I want to be out of control. 

Today is also the day that I’m not the “nice” girl, I feel like I’m impatient, a little mean even. I am short on my temper, easily annoyed and yeah, things don’t feel like they are within my control.

And here I’m in Spita, gonna sit on my cranberry vodka, I just feel like, I need a drink. As much as I don’t want to rely on alcohol to numb my nerves and mind, I decided to do it today. I just feel like I’d really feel like shit if I decided to go back just now. So I hope I make the right decision. 

My mind is so messy, I feel like things are out of my control, I’m dealing with very very severe body image issue, BED, anxiety, mild depression. And with each circumstance hitting me like a rock thrown to me, I feel like I’m slowly resorting to what the old Winnie would do, and just got consumed by the inner voice that I hear. 

And it really does make me ponder - Why is living ..so hard? 

And as soon as I say this, I feel very entitled and ungrateful. That’s why I feel conflicted. Like I want to be that nice girl, but I’m not so nice anymore. 

It’s a very terrible feeling. 

Oh wait, I instantly feel better now after my cranberry vodka. Yums. 

I feel like I’m living in guilt. 

Like there are so much pent up feeling just slowly encroaching my sacred territory. Maybe I feel like there are so many things that I want to do, but it’s not within my capacity, or it is within my capacity but I choose not to do because I’m selfish... 

Guilt, is a scary thing. Very very scary. 

let’s list out first, what makes me feel really bad.

- not being there with Mum; 

- not being able to contribute to NKF; 

- nightmare of my sister leaving me; 

- snippets of my accident scenes flashing back during massage session; 

- not financially independent, like i really have to worry a lot... 

- me, being a very imperfect person, so imperfect that, it makes me feel almost impossible to be loved... 

Funny thing is, despite the above, I’m still trying to be that person for others, I want people to rely on me whenever they’re stuck in their own viscious cycle. Because I was in there and I know how dark and lonely it is, I want to provide comfort, I want to provide a safe space, but in so doing, I really wish I have someone that I can count on, I really wish I have a safe space to ventilate too. But I’m still dealing with expressiveness, the only space that I feel comfortable in - is journal (whether it’s digital and physical). Because this is really a space where, there won’t be any reply, any suggestions, any feedback... But a space for you to shit it out, and it will be there to listen, quietly. It has its pros & cons of course.  

But also I think I have too much of a hard time to try trusting a person. I think deep inside I don’t believe that anyone could be there for me. 

Honestly, I’m really at the verge of collapsing. LOL 

I think being vulnerable is really a very hard thing to do, being vulnerable with yourself, with your feelings, and it’s really during those times that I feel the weakest. So weak that I could easily be blown away (no pun intended). 

Plus, my health is also what really concerns me. I’m very that I may have PCOS... It’s insane. And I’m so afraid to get it checked. But I really should. Next thing that worries me - if I got PCOS, can I afford the medical expenses... 

That’s why things like this really make me hate myself a lot. 

I’m not earning enough. Am I too greedy to want more? 

WC 

[ca-3]

please tell us about cons and pros of p5! i'm really curious

I'm only halfway through the game so I can't really give it a definite review yet 🥲maybe I'll further write about my thoughts when I finish cause wow this game is WAYYY longer than I thought.

The game play itself is good and I don't have any real complaints there. I've been playing the game on hard mode and I'm still having a good time, the only times I lose a battle is cause I make a careless decision or simply cause I'm a newbie who didn't know what to do at first lol

Also I love a lot of the dialouges and interactions with other characters, some of it is really funny too.

All my grievances so far mostly comes from parts of the writing or how some characters are handled to sum it up. Also there are some problematic elements too... for example your character is a teenager and you're able to date any of your female friends and also grown women (including your teacher btw) but God forbid you date your male best friend who's been with you since the beginning, or any of the other guys who do seem to have some actual interest in you.

You can apparently even say you prefer men in a specific dialouge option; yet you still can't be gay??? Like make it make sense?? omfg

Game would be ranked even higher for me if I was allowed to be gay lol

Fanservice isn't too bad in this game and most of the girls thankfully aren't excessively sexualized except for poor Ann so far, like it's too the point I feel bad for her cause she used for that a lot when she's actually not like that at all, and is actually a real sweetheart.

I'm playing Persona 5 Royal to be exact which is the better version of the game it seems and I heard the game changed some pretty homophobic dialouges and one scene in particular from back in 2016(?) that was apparently controversial...but apparently the way they fixed it wasn't that much better either and I didn't even know about it until now :/

Edit: Also one personal thing for me exclusively, I kinda get overwhelmed on how to spend my free time in the game because how much you can do. Like I get caught in wondering if I should go raise social stats that could potentially really benefit me later or when theres like 6 different text messages in game and I don't know which character to hang out with, especially when it's multiple characters I really like. Jobs and many areas to walk around in and shop at and then other small mini games and activities you can do... I get a tiny bit overwhelmed yet I still can't put it down 😅 so my brain sometimes feels exhausted while playing. This is only a personal me thing.

But yeah tldr;

Pros: I have mostly positive feelings, game play is fun, I like most of the characters and I like being able to hang out with them, and I'm invested in the story and I can't wait to find out what happens next.

Cons: Don't have a lot bad to say. Just some of the writing and some details/aspects in it are kinda annoying/problematic or just a really weird choice in my opinion and it makes me a little bitter because I do like the game.

My feelings might change when i actually finish the game, but who knows lol