#writing with regalli
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regallibellbright · 1 year ago
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WIP Wednesday, or, I Guess I'm Writing This Now, the idea would not leave me for two days.
“Neku… why the hell are you dating him?” Rindo asks. “Actually, forget that, why didn’t you shoot him?”
“A question we have all been asking ourselves, some of us daily, for the last three and a half years,” Mr. H says.
“Speak for yourself,” Neku says.
“You’re the only one who hasn’t. I have, Beat and Shiki have. Rhyme got a sense of your emotions at the time and they still question your judgment,” Joshua says.
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itsdabatt · 2 months ago
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made a SUPER rough ref sheet for my red robin design
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gummi-ships · 11 months ago
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pain-in-the-butler · 1 year ago
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A compilation of art for my Dadbastian fanfic Coattails that I commissioned from the incredibly talented @tomoyoo! They went above and beyond with the details... Each picture feels as cozy and warm as a storybook, right? I'm so delighted with how they turned out!! Thank you for making each one so beautiful! 🥹🥹🥹
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thicc-ray-of-sunshine · 14 days ago
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looking through my old stuff that I never posted and was absolutely GUTTED by this bit I wrote about Maul
"You dared to follow the contours of his face even further where you found he had a literal crown of horns. How befitting. A creature so divine, hosting a physical crown to solidify their own majesty in whatever system they deemed so worthy."
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jessamine-rose · 2 months ago
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*lovingly tackles Aine*
Read my Yandere! Pierro longfics first ♪( ´▽`)
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Last week, my beloved mutual @ainescribe surprised me with Savior! Darling fan art and AHAI9232@2-!/! CRYING SCREAMING I WANT TO LOOK AT THIS ART AND WORSHIP YOUR VERSION OF SAVIOR THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR BLESSING ME WITH YOUR ART—
*clears throat* Anyway, now that I finally have the time to properly sit down and comment on the fan art, I’ll do just that. Feedback will be in the tags and it will be unhinged. Once again, thank you so much to Aine for drawing this <3
#feedback#fan art#ainescribe#AIIINE ;-; once again. thank you so much!! it rlly means a lot to me that you enjoyed my writing and felt inspired to draw this :'>#and as someone who loves fashion and character design. it's so so interesting to analyze your version of savior#there's so much symbolism and visual storytelling in each sketch/ outfit and i shall now proceed to pick apart each detail as best as i can#her snezhnayan fit.....god i love it. it's regal. distinctively snezhnayan. and draws attention to her--and you just know that was pierro's#intention when he dressed her in those garments. IT'S JUST SO...!! savior's wardrobe scrubbed clean of her original culture and preferences#replaced with the foreign garments of her captor's nations.....in line with this. i love how her kokoshnik and khaenri'ahn earrings are big#and attention-grabbing. you can't look at her without taking note of those accessories. it begs the question:: how many times has savior#looked at the mirror after being dressed up in snezhnaya and was unable to recognize her own reflection?? :'>#also shoutout to some details aine shared with me: 1) the face marks are inspired by weeping angels 2) the kokoshnik was traditionally worn#by married noblewomen BUT the veil was normally for unmarried women so savior's outfit can be seen as a form of compliance + rebellion#(though later on in history it became accepted for married women to also wear that veil. also my apologies if what i said is inaccurate)#lastly shoutout to savior's expression!! very poised and mysterious....due to her emotional state or pierro's rules on how to act as his#spouse in public?? we'll never know~ the first drawing hits even harder when you compare it to the next one!! such an interesting contrast~#savior in her plain attire. casual and domestic with a smile on her face....i'm guessing this is her pre-fatui version?? she looks so warm#and friendly. and i can definitely understand why pierro fell for her smile <3#also i fucking love the caption. sorry pierro but you are cursed to be a loser/ simp/ pathetic man in all of my fics and AUs xD#NOW ONTO GODDESS! SAVIOR AAAHHHH!! i love the greek goddess motifs. she looks so regal and awe-inspiring but in a different way from her#snezhnayan attire--archaic. divine. and more suited to her personal style.....yet both versions of her look so painfully isolated :'>#her blank eyes. emotionless face. and veil give me the vibes of a spooky victorian ghost...or would a statue/ portrait be more fitting??#the lack of a necklace is also an interesting design choice given what happens in the fic. and now i realized i forgot to comment on your#version of her snezhnayan necklace oops. similar to the kokoshnik and earrings. the size + grandeur makes it impossible to ignore#that and big jewels = expensive af. ohhh and i love the sparkles on her veil!! pierro rlly spared no expense in dressing up his wifey <3#it's also funny how all of these outfits are similar to my own version in terms of 'savior wore grand clothing during her glory days as a#goddess -> wore simple attire after her decline for practicality and to blend in with humans/ disassociate from her old identity -> is now#dressed in even grander clothing as the harbinger's spouse. but it's used to reinforce her new identity and pierro's control over her'#tldr:: your design is so creative and i can see the effort you put in analyzing her character and depicting her based on your interpretatio#thank you for being my mutual + reader and i hope we can share even more harbinger/darling brainrot in the future :>
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clonemando · 6 months ago
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A Kiss a Day in May
Day 20- Keldabe Kiss
Bail/Fox/Breha (ft. Trans!Fox)
Each day this month I have a 100 word drabble featuring a different clone with a kiss prompt. Not all are romantic and they include all sorts of pairings and relationships. Feel free to offer pairing/ character suggestions for future days.
Breha held tightly to Bail's hand as they waited in the medical ward in the palace for news. Thankfully it didn't take long for someone to come out and usher them into the room where Fox was. The sight that waited for them made herself squeak and Bail gasp.
Fox looked exhausted but had his forehead pressed gently to the newborn's that he was holding in his arms. Tears started to spill down Breha's cheeks as Fox looked up at her.
"Meet our daughter, Kit." He said and Bail started giggling until she smacked his arm.
"It's a cute name."
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thlayli-ra · 29 days ago
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Looked at the whump prompts and the “sensory overload” prompt spoke to me.
And since I feel like I very much relate to Punk and project my issues into him sometimes in my private writings and I’m autistic sooo…. I wanna see Punk suffer in a relatable way but not written by me✨✨
😬
(Oh Kat, you chose the only prompt on that wheel I had no idea what to do with. Sensory overload is not something I'm personally familiar with, but I've given it my best shot and hope it captures some of the experience. I also had to watch that lovely Punk/Regal match so that's an added bonus!)
Trick - 'Sensory Overload'
Characters - CM Punk, William Regal
Rating - Teen and up
Warnings - Blood, mention of vomit, in-ring cruelty
It wasn't that he expected Regal to be an easy opponent. The opposite, in fact. As soon as he heard those deep, ominous thrums announcing the English veteran as his 'mystery opponent', Punk knew he was in for a rough night.
It's just that... he didn't expect it to all to go to shit as suddenly as it did.
In the beginning, it was pretty standard. The pair of them traded blows, Regal stiffing every single one of his as wrestlers of his generation tended to do whenever they faced against a younger, fresher-faced opponent. Didn't matter to Regal that Punk had been in this business for nearly half of his life now, he was still some upstart that needed taking down a peg or two. Didn't help that Punk was a little more mouthy and confident than most.
Despite the added bite to each blow, Punk gritted his teeth and dug his heels in deeper. Absorbing the punishment to prove his toughness. For in the end, that's all that mattered to these old-school boys - toughness, grit. And in his heart, Punk had always considered himself old-school.
But then he got flung into the corner. The second punch made contact. Right on the crooked point of his nose. Pain erupted across his face, his eyes began to stream and the porcelain crack hit his eardrums from inside his skull. He crumpled to the ground, knees clattering against the boards beneath the canvas, making them bounce and his body sway as he tried to asses the damage done to his nose.
Broken, he was certain of it and when sticky gloop began tricking down the back of his throat, it all but confirmed it.
Regal hadn't noticed. Or had but didn't care. Probably the latter. Next thing Punk knew he was being man-handled further onto the apron, shoved down onto his back. And he could feel the course fibres of the canvas scrubbing against the bare skin of his shoulders and back and thighs and the blood began to flow down the back of his throat and now it was clotting around the rims of his nostrils, on the brink of bursting free-
When Regal's mammoth boot punched against his temple! Smashing the other side of Punk's head against the metal turnbuckle with a clang and the pain went fucking nuclear. Screeching down every vein and vessel and synapse in his brain like a high-voltage electric shock and when he tried to sit up, he nearly fainted or threw up or both.
Shit!
Yet even then, Regal gave him no room for breath, no mercy. The nightmarish shark had smelt the blood now splattered across its prey's face and had rolled its eyes in, readying for the kill. Clubbing Punk in the back of his head, he palmed him across his busted face, forcing him back down before plunging the solid plate of his knee cap (and all 240lbs of his body weight) into the shattered cartilage. The agony burst, the frame of his skull buckled beneath the pressure before snapping back. And the canvas scrubbed his skin and the blood gushed out his nose and down his throat and he coughed to try and shift it, gurgling on his own red-soaked spit.
And still Regal attacked. Like a feral dog shredding a chew toy. Grinding his knee again and again and Punk tried to fight back but the agony was over-whelming and his hands were clumsy, his arms flailed and the canvas was rasping against his shoulder blades like sand-paper. He wanted off the canvas, he needed off the canvas!
But Regal mounted him, pinning his tattered shoulders against the mat. Punk kicked out. Another pin. Punk kicked out. Regal shoved him down again, driving his entire forearm into the splintered shards of Punk's nose. Punk turned his head, tried to fight off the assault and found enough strength to kick out again.
His face was a sticky mess now, splatters across his cheeks and lips and even across his chest. Wet and gluey and hot, burning even compared to his flushed, sweat-skimmed skin. And his head pulsed from temple-to-temple, vibrating like the struck symbol of a drum kit. The arena was spinning around him, a blaze of contorted faces and bright lights and blaring noise, turning in uneven, heaving circles and the feeling in his gut was getting worse and he really thought he was going to be sick but he couldn't be sick, not until he finished the match and got to the back and a voice suddenly piped up in his skull, wondering if his vomit would be red too and he shook it away because that wasn't fucking important right now and the boards were bouncing again but it wasn't him moving it was-
Regal grabbed him by the shoulder, yanked it back. The other hand gripped a fistful of his hair, creaked Punk up onto his knees in order to snare his other shoulder. Those same chafed, red-raw shoulders were now being slowly prised out of their sockets, the pain trickling from his head into his deltoids and trapeziums and even then the agony in his head was still all-consuming and the blood gathered up in his throat again and he had to gasp through it to scream 'no' whenever the ref asked him if he was giving up. And his shoulders were hauled back even more, large palms driving his neck forward, dull throbbing shooting back and forth across his upper back. Regal was trying to weaken his shoulders, prevent him from being able to set up his finisher, the GTS.
Fight back! Fight back!
He listened to that voice. Pushed through the pressure to find his feet, those same feet began stomping on Regal until he relinquished the hold but before he let go, the propelled Punk towards the ropes. He fell horribly on them, catching the top one across his throat. His head snapped back like a coiled spring released and a fresh agony seethed in the base of his neck and a spray of red mist smoked from his bloodied lips into the moist air along with a gross, wet dollop of... something, and his legs wobbled beneath him and the world revolved frantically around him and he clutched his guts as he fought another wave of nausea and-
Regal's punch sent him clattering back against the canvas. Another knee in his mangled nose. Another forearm scrubbed against it. Punk put up his arm to fend the rabid Englishman off of him, when his wrist was snared, twisted, compelled against his will beneath the power of a brutal knee to lie flat on the mat for another pin. Kick out. Pin. Kick out.
These multiple kick outs were tiring him. They were meant to. Each one taking longer, the ref's count creeping closer and closer to two, two and a half. But kick out he did, he wasn't finished yet, not by a long shot.
He just needed everything around him to shut the fuck up for two fucking seconds! Let him think!
Fingers wrapped around his chin, scraggy nails digging in like a falcon's talons. Punk was woven into another hold, targeting his shoulders again, the breathy heat of Regal's body flat against his, and his brain screamed 'NOPE' and he fought his way out of it and his mind bellowed 'FINISH THIS' and he dipped beneath Regal in an attempt to roll him up and get a sneaky three count.
Regal escaped. Struck Punk across the throat to chastise the upstart.
Then grabbed Punk by his shattered nose!
Two thick fingers jammed themselves into his sopping nostrils up to the first knuckle, deep enough to prod against the split cartilage at the bridge. Punk's bloodied lips opened wide and a terrible wail ripped from his throat. Above him Regal laughed and panted and wheezed. And the crowd were going insane, like a pack of hounds when the fox was being torn to pieces, drunk with blood-lust and the aphrodisiac of his suffering. And the ref was yelling at Regal to let go, let go, one, two-
And Punk was released but the throbbing remained and Punk tried to breath through the blood and spit and pain and exhaustion and the noise and the lights and Regal had him by the hair again. Drove the hard part of his forearm into Punk's ringing temple, once, twice, and Punk was failing, was running out of energy and running out of time.
Another hold, the worst yet, wrenching his neck and shoulders until he was grotesquely contorted. Held for too long, too painful. His whole body squealing, from the fog in his skull to the anguish in his shoulders, from the sharp tenderness of his nose to the burn in his throat. And his guts strained and squeezed and his ears rang and his eyes streamed and he wanted this to be over. For all of this to be over.
That desire spurred him on. He found the strength to fight back. Kicks, chops, punches, blows, knees, he sparred back with everything he had and more. Threw his body over the Englishman for a near-fall. He wiped the mess from his face with his wrist tape, spat out the last of the blood in his throat through his bared teeth.
But just when he found his feet, they were taken out from right under him. The arena flipped, Punk tumbling through the air, landing nastily on his face, and Regal pounced on his lifeless corpse, a black-hearted crow swooping in to peck the juicy jelly out of his eyes, and Punk was suddenly aware that his trunks had risen up on one side and had wedged right into the split of his asscrack and despite the pain, despite the noise and the dizziness and the nausea, all he could think about now was the sensation of his stitched seam pressing through his speedo into the sweaty recesses of his ass and he was done, he was fucking done with all of this shit!
Regal hauled him to his feet. Punk bend down and managed to lift him up onto his shoulders. His knee made short work of the veteran and within seconds he had pinned him for the one, two, three and the victory.
Punk stuck around for the post-match shenanigans - the blaze of Kane's pyro was the last thing he needed at that moment in time - and as soon as the programme moved on, he disappeared into the back. Grabbing up his headphones, he stumbled through every corridor and hallway until he found an empty room and slammed off the light. Sliding his bare back down the cool wall, his long hair pulled back off his face, he placed his headphones on. No music played, he just wanted to drown everything out.
Silence
Darkness.
A cocoon of peace wrapping around him.
The pain remained, the throb and stick and choke and hurt but with everything else at bay, he could re-frame the torture in his body, re-direct it. He sat and he breathed and he mentally re-wired his body, taking as long as he needed to wrestle back control of his frantic senses.
As he started to calm down, he began to think back on the match, how everything had suddenly felt so raw and potent. How it had completely over-whelmed, even the feel of his skin on the canvas.
Tomorrow he had a day off, he'd be heading back home to Chicago.
Perhaps it was time to book an appointment with his doctor. Get tested.
Get a diagnosis.
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jacksprostate · 9 months ago
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Wrapped up in Marge's arms, I'm always thinking of her as my mother. I think she knows this.
When she hiccups and cries her way through recounting how her husband left her as soon as she told him about the cancer, I speak up. I never speak up.
It's a good thing he left.
Marge, I hear the confusion and pain in her voice when she asks me, the woman she'd cried her life into every Monday night for the past two years, "Why would you say that?"
I say nothing. I'm still in her arms. She holds me closer, but it's angry. Her rage is a rare sight.
"Connie," she says. "Why would you say that? You know I had nothing. It ruined my life. Why would you say that?"
I say, when a man is the type to do that, it's better if he doesn't stay.
She holds me out at arm's length. I'm at the edge of Eden, original sin. Questioning the story I've been told, how could I forget. I can't take it back.
She says, "I had a newborn at the time. And a toddler. How could it be worse than being dumped on my own, no job, no savings, nothing?"
Accusing. I am insensitive. Unknowing. Foolish.
I say, I'm sorry. I've been stressed. I do not say anything about the nonexistent cancer.
When you say nothing, people always assume the worst. It's a cheap move.
Marge tucks me back into our hug, though, and I shudder.
"Where's your mother in all this? Is she here for you?" Marge asks, always caring. Even when I've hurt her. So I tell her.
My father kept a loaded pistol in his bedside drawer.
She says, "What?"
My mother, she'd said she'd finally worked up the courage to leave him, in a call to me the day before.
My father kept a loaded pistol in his bedside drawer. I found out she'd been shot dead from the police. I hung up before they said whether it was murder or suicide.
Marge says, "Oh." Loose around me, sails cut. I snuggle closer to her. Marge, my sun on a cool day.
She says, "I'm sorry." It's as useful as mine was.
I tell her, it's okay.
I feel like I stole a little of her honesty to try it out for myself.
It's my turn to cry now, but as always, Marge cries with me.
I hope it's relief. I think of my mother.
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regallibellbright · 12 hours ago
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Between my joke about him and Ray hating each other in a Ghost Trick crossover and what I have planned with Mr. Mew post-Reel and Deal, I really do like giving Joshua beef with sentient objects, huh.
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shayberri789 · 2 months ago
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Here's a short (600 word) story I rewrote today; a revised version of one I wrote last year. We've done a lot of study on doubles, the uncanny, madness, ghosts, etc in my Gothic Lit course and it inspired me, and I thought to rewrite this piece. I'm really proud of it.
Something Wrong With you
There is something wrong with you.
I can see it in your eyes: a glint of predatory focus. In the sharp corners of your smile: a flash of white in your almost-sneer. I see it in the emptiness of your expression, despite it all.
There is something wrong with you.
You sit opposite me in the sterile gray cotton chair, legs crossed at the ankle, a teacup balanced on your knee. You take a sip, and there’s a taunt in your movements. You don’t look away–perhaps, a challenge, then. I sip my own tea in response. 
There is something wrong here. 
The floor-to-ceiling mirror behind you stretches from corner to corner of the wall, a vengeful accomplice to the floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the only light. There’s too much fog to see anything outside, but that’s okay. We’re too high up to see anyone else anyway. The mirror reflects on a pair of chairs. No, that’s not right. There’s two people in those chairs. No, they’re empty, and it's just a memory. I tear my eyes away from the lying mirror, blinking out the flickering vision. I look back at you. That’s right, it’s just us. There is no one else to see—
—There is something wrong with you.
Your face is familiar to me; the curl of your eyelashes, the light dusting of freckles, that mole on your right cheekbone–it’s all the same. Your features are the same, and yet, they are all at once too straight, too small, too sharp, too big, too smooth, too graceful. That smile of yours—the way you hold your cup–all of it is too polished, too careful, too delicate. 
I want to throw my cup at you. Let the hot liquid distort your expression into something—anything—else. Mar that perfect, serene–taunting–face of yours. Fill the emptiness with pain, or anger, or fear. Something to make you human again.
There is something wrong with you.
No one else seems to notice. But I do. 
There is something wrong with you.
There is something wrong with you.
There is something wrong with you.
There is something wrong with you that is also wrong with me. 
The shadows creep along the floor as the light flees, but still you do not move. You do not move except to hold my gaze and lift your cup and take a sip. You settle it back in the saucer with a delicate, deafening, clink.
Somewhere, I hear the ticking of a clock. Some part of me registers the impossibility, because there’s no clock in the room. Maybe that’s the clinking of our teacups. 
There is something wrong here. With you. With me—you. 
The empty room yawns, and there’s the ticking again, like a heartbeat. Is this room alive? Am I? Are we? Do I care? 
There is something wrong with me. 
Time does not touch me; it slips through my fingers like an errant breeze—unseen, unnoticed, unaffecting but for a gentle, cool sensation. Like the fog outside. No—no, that’s not it. You are the fog: empty and unsubstantial, hiding things from me. 
There is something wrong with you.
Your gaze is coy and knowing. You think you’ve won. We haven’t said a word; no words are needed. But you think you’ve won. You don’t know. Oh, if only you knew. 
There is something wrong with you.
There is something wrong with me.
There is something wrong with us. 
I was meant to be the only one. 
I was not meant to be at all.
Why are you here?
We should not be.
We should not be.
We do not belong.
“Go away,” I say.
You vanish. 
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welcome-to-ratterrock · 7 months ago
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A little snippet of a one shot I (@suzie-guru) wrote for @bajingoarts and mine’s boys ♥️
Because some days the characters demand horniness and you have to write a one shot of one of them having a sexy dream.
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friendlyneighbourhoodelf · 5 months ago
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whenever i’m writing cody i’m thinking about that description of him as regal btw. it’s important to me
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yoshiyakiryu-archive · 2 years ago
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Some fresh nonsense about joshneku losing over at @homoeroticbetrayal
"Fancy seeing you here," Joshua chimes from his perch on the cafe seat as Neku approaches the table. It's not Wildkat, but this side-street shop feels unnaturally empty, and all the more unreal for the presence of the smiling Composer, casually seated by the window.
He could be the most powerful entity in the city, but Neku's urge to roll his eyes and tell him to go fuck himself has the budding inescapability of an oncoming sneeze. Only four words in, Neku's already reminded that no matter how much he misses the asshole when he's gone, he's a pain in the ass to have a straightforward conversation with.
"You invited me," Neku gripes, unable to resist giving the eye roll. He slides onto the seat across from Joshua, feeling another one coming on already.
"Hmm, did I? I suppose I must have. Hee hee." Joshua slides one of the two cups in front of him towards Neku. "The coffee here is decent, you should give it a try."
"…Thanks."
He continues being suspicious for a moment, but ultimately trusts Joshua, and the knowledge that poisoning wasn't really his style. If he wants Neku back in the UG, there's nothing stopping Joshua from rattling another bullet through his poor, pre-punctured brain matter. The old one must still be in there, making him think humoring this conversation was a rational idea that won't just end in a headache.
Joshua smiles, two hands on his own paper coffee cup, fingers striking it in sequence, a steady expectant rhythm. As he watches Neku, the motions change. Taking a sip, the scales shift to an energetic tempo, striking keys he cannot see in time with music he cannot hear. Weirdo.
"What did you want, anyway?" Neku asks, setting the coffee down. There's little point in wasting time on pleasantries when Joshua deemed something catastrophic enough to take the risk of actually talking to him.
"Nothing to say about the coffee?"
"Not really." It's pretty average, as far as coffee goes, and it's not a surprise Joshua knows his order.
Joshua hums, digging his phone out of his pocket and adding to what seems to be, from Neku's view of the phone upside down across the table, a personal review log of local restaurants. "That's hardly a riveting opinion, but I'll include it. We wouldn't want to find Players erased of sheer boredom, would we?"
Whatever UG bullshit Joshua was pursuing, Neku wasn't making it his problem to know. He could guess, but he won't. He won't even think about it. Nope, no dead people business here.
Joshua frowns at him through the silence, bordering on a pout, and sets his phone down. 
Neku tilts his head, gesturing with his free hand.
"Well? Did something happen? Why are we here, Josh? Is reality about to collapse in on itself? Did someone important die? Double die?"
"No, no no no, nothing like that," Joshua says waving off his tone. "Well, people die of course, every day. But that's not my concern." He cuts Neku off before he can reply that yeah, it kind of is, by snatching his phone back off the table and waving it in Neku's face. "I'm here about this."
Oh.
That.
The homoerotic betrayal thing. He'd heard about it after the fact when three of his friends texted him their condolences on losing to Brutus and Caesar. He needed to ask for context, and to be frank, didn't know what to make of the whole thing. He could have gone without knowing that "iconic homoerotic betrayal" was a tournament he'd been nominated in, and privately thinks Joshua has got to find more normal ways of hitting on him. Ways that don't involve firearms.
"Isn't that over?" he asks, with little else to say. If it was over, they shouldn't have to worry about it. Problem solved. Neku out. The arcane and meta machinations of the multiverse can remain not his problem.
"Yes," Joshua says, all business, "but we lost."
"So?"
"So, we lost! After all our fans put in such heartwarming work about us too."
Neku mulls over the word "fans" for a long moment, and decides he doesn't want to consider the implications of that either. He shrugs. "Okay."
"Neku," Joshua says, placing the phone between them and folding his hands loosely over his drink, "I don't think you're taking this very seriously."
"No shit, Sherlock," Neku snaps, indulging that eye roll. "You're not telling me why I should."
"Because we lost," Joshua says, forced patience, as sincere as he ever gets, "and because I have reason to suspect there was UG involvement." He picks up his phone again, opening an app before handing it over. "Take a look. Do any words stand out to you?"
Neku takes the phone, and scrolls slowly, taking his time to make sure there was nothing obvious for Joshua to scold him about missing, and to make him squirm, until he sees a familiar word. "Memes?"
"An astute observation Neku! I knew I'd chosen you for a reason."
He's insufferable. Neku hands the phone back and sinks down in his seat. Unbelievable.
"Memes, yes." Joshua twirls a lock of hair around his index finger, and Neku takes a sip of coffee to disguise how closely he followed the movement.
"You think that we lost because everyone was Imprinted to vote against us?"
"In short, yes again," Joshua says, smiling once more. "Someone put on their thinking cap today."
Asshole. Bastard. Little snot.
Neku takes a deep breath and swallows the growl climbing his throat.
"Explain."
Joshua hums, then shrugs, palms up and put upon. "I believe there was a site-wide Imprinting campaign leading up to the bracket. Disguised as a celebration of the death of Julius Caesar. You of all people know how easily folks can be swayed by a trend." He slumps down onto his elbows, resting his chin in his hands. "Then we lost," he continues, annoyed. "And I don't like losing."
"Obviously. Isn't it kind of far-fetched to Imprint memes on a whole website?"
"You'd be surprised what some of the Higher Plane get up to in their spare time.
"…Right, don't tell me." He doesn't want to hear about angel hobbies. He doesn't want to think about angel hobbies. "I still don't get why you submitted us to that thing in the first place."
"I didn't."
Eye rolls must come in threes. Joshua has the audacity to look affronted.
"Okay. Sure. I'll believe that. Then why is this so important?"
"I can't tell you," Joshua says, gazing meaningfully into the middle distance fingers tangled in a stray lock of hair.
He is so full of shit. There is not one iota of Joshua that isn't composed of compacted, steaming, fresh shit. This is what happens when you cross the guy's competitive streak with a crush. He should confiscate Joshua's phone. Joshua should talk to him more often.
"But! We could get a second chance," Joshua says, affected wistfulness gone. "I know how big a fan you are of second chances. We'll win the revival match." Joshua leans in, devious and conniving across from him, and Neku knows what's coming even before Joshua does a fingergun in his direction. "You will win us the revival match. By any means necessary."
"And how am I going to do that?" Neku crosses his arms.
Another shrug. "Start Imprinting memes on people yourself. Find the culprit rigging things from before. I'm not fussed about the strategy, as long as we win."
Neku closes his eyes. "I don't get a choice here, do I?"
"It's a homoerotic betrayal tournament, Neku. That's against the spirit of it, wouldn't you say?"
"Fair enough." It isn't. Not really. But Neku's learned to pick his battles. He's learned to pick them very well. "But I set the terms."
"Oh?" Joshua's pitch rises in surprise. "Intriguing. Go on."
Neku lifts up a finger. "One. No penalties for losing." Joshua grumbles against his palm. "Two, if we win, you're showing up for group outings. No excuses or leaving early. Spend time with us."
There's unmatched satisfaction in the way Joshua looks like he's swallowed something far too sour. "These aren't very nice terms, Neku."
"Take them or leave them. And no funny business."
"…Fiiiiiiine. I guess you'll just owe me."
Joshua pulls himself from the table and stands, all drawn-out, fluid movements and exaggerated resignation. His coffee sits abandoned on the table, half finished.
"Owe you!?"
"Hee hee. For being so generous, of course. I'll pick you up when the polls open." Joshua touches his sole fingergun to Neku's temple before leaving the cafe and an exasperated, incredulous Neku. "Toodles."
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thekats · 5 months ago
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Me @ a piece of media: Yay, something new I can latch onto! It stimulates the brain juices just right! This is my newest special interest!
Me when it ends: who am i. what is existence. empty. cry. yes cry. give me back my safety.
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jay-junebug · 3 months ago
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“Dexter, you said you like bugs, right?” Sylvester spoke up from the other side of the door, voice loud enough for him to hear.
“Yes. Why do you ask?”
“Well… we’ve been friends for a while now, and I wouldn’t usually tell someone so quickly, but I trust that you won’t freak out. You seem like a really cool guy.” The doorknob twisted, the door opening ever so slightly before being swung open to reveal Sylvester. His jacket was hanging off his shoulders, large orange and grey moth wings sticking out freely from his back now that the fabric wasn’t there to conceal them. Standing tall from his head were orange antennae, previously hidden by the red beanie he always wore. “I’m a moth person.”
Dexter’s jaw dropped as he took in the sight of his new friend’s wings and antennae. “Wow! Your wings look so cool! Are you a… regal moth?”
“Regal moth?” Sylvester said at the same time as Dexter did. “Yeah. You really think they look cool?”
“Of course.” Dexter said with enthusiasm, an emotion that Sylvester hadn’t seen come from him yet. He couldn’t hold back the big smile that appeared on his face.
“Thank you. I’m really happy to hear that.”
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