#y'know ed probably wrote this about them right | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lollytea · 3 years ago

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Girl Talk

(ngl I hate this sm. I wrote this fic yesterday, the file corrupted and i lost everything, had a breakdown, rewrote everything the next day because I am obnoxiously stubborn. Anyways Hunter and Luz content. Bon Appetit?)

(READ ON AO3)

“Okay, but what am I even supposed to say to her? Oh! Maybe I could write down some jokes on the back of my glyph slips in case things get awkward. Wait, no, I don't want her to think I'm not taking this seriously. I don't need to be goofy all the time just to hang out with her. I need her to know that I'm serious about her and this whole...romantic thing. And I know she gets upset when she thinks I'm making fun of her so...”

“Alright, so, get this. It says here that there was once this old witch who lived on the outskirts of Latissa and his whole thing was experimenting by mixing paints and magic together. Apparently the stuff he created was like....super powerful.”

“I mean, she said she likes me 'cause I'm goofy and funny and lovable and...and...and I'm sure there's other adjectives I could use but I'm drawing a blank here. So, who am I to deprive her of what she signed up for? But I can't just....ugh, I can't even think right!”

“It doesn't have a lot of info on his specific technique but I'm sure if we did some more research, we could successfully replicate his experiments. We're pretty good at figuring stuff out. Woah, wait. I wonder what would happen if we created glyphs with this paint....maybe it would enhance the spell's level of power. Oh, that would be so cool!”

Luz stopped pacing, the floorboards practically burning after she thoroughly wore down the surface with her frantic footsteps. She set a hand on her hip and turned a withering look on her guest.

“Call me coocoo but I don't think you're listening to a word I say.”

Hunter lifted his head to blink up at her, chewing on the end of a pen. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, boxed in by towers of Eda's Wild Magic books.

There was a glassy look in his eye, as if he was trying to get his bearings after being abruptly yanked out of an alternate dimension.

He had been, in a way. Luz was inclined to call it “Booksville.”

When Luz first met Hunter, this sort of stuff was a big, huge No-No for him. She could've invited him to take a look at any one of those books, packed with information on that obsession of his and of course, he'd be crazy with intrigue but he would hesitate. If he even opened the book at all, he'd card through the pages with an almost jumpy sense of caution, as if the paper itself would sting his fingers.

Well, that ship had certainly sailed. It had taken him a while to get fully comfortable but nowadays, Hunter didn't ask twice before digging into the contents of Eda's books, soaking up every tidbit of every sentence until he had exhausted every page.

He had even brought his own index flags to mark his favorite passages. He had gone on a little rant earlier about how Eda was an outright maniac for dog-earring the page corners.

Luz made a mental note to never show him the state of her Azura books. He would probably cry.

Hunter had become so lost in the Wild Magic sauce, he didn't even seem to care about the fact that he was not supposed to be here.

Of course, Eda didn't mind that he was here. That is to say, Luz didn't technically tell her he was here. She and King were currently out, being menaces to society and all that fun stuff, as they usually were before Luz would sneak Hunter in.

So, to be fair, Eda had never specifically said that Luz was not allowed to let The Golden Guard of the Emperor's coven into their home.

It was probably fine, right?

Yeah, it was probably fine that Luz had been hiding The Golden Guard of the Emperor's coven in her bedroom like some kind of forbidden pet.

Speaking of forbidden pets, that precious red cardinal of his was perched like a Christmas decoration atop his shoulder. That little rascal did wonders for Hunter. He seemed so much cuter than he was when there was an adorable little palisman snuggling up to him.

Once Hunter had processed what Luz said to him, his features screwed up tight. He was offended.

“Whadd'ya mean I'm not listening? I bet you can't repeat anything I was just talking about.”

“Ugh! Yeah, Hunter, I heard you. Paints! You wanna start painting as a hobby and let me just tell you, I fully support your budding creativety and will hype up your work with my entire heart but please. Right now I am having a full blown Amity Calamity!”

“Yeah, okay, that is not what I was talking about. Also, I get that you're freaking out n' all but....what do you expect me to do about it?” He threw his hands about wildly, at a complete loss. “Man, I don't know anything about that stuff,”

“I don't knowww....” Luz groaned. “I just....ugggghhh.” She buried her head in her hands, ruffling her hair into oblivion, like it would miraculously stimulate her brain cells into action. It released some pent up frustration, at least. “I wish it was easier for us to just talk about girls together.”

Hunter perked up. “Talk about girls? Are you kidding? Of course we can talk about girls, dummy!”

“Wait, really?” Luz asked, taken aback by this apparent development.

“Yeah, for sure. One sec,” Buzzing with eagerness, Hunter dove into his stacks of books, emerging seconds later with a worn, dust encrusted volume. It was so ancient, the title had faded away but Hunter still put his finger to where the big letters should be.

“Notable Female Witches of The Savage Ages,” He rattled off delightedly. “They were considered the mothers of Wild Magic. Their style of spell was really quite advanced, see they--”

Despite her frayed nerves, Luz sill managed a weak laugh.

As insufferable as he could be sometimes, she really did like this nerd a lot.

“Okay, Hunter. Buddy,” She said gently. “This stuff sounds really cool and I wanna hear all about it at some point buuuut....when I say girls, I mean...y'know. Amity specifically.”

“Oh. Right. Yeah.”

Hunter's face fell with disappointment but he was quick to snap back into a look of cool indifference. He shut the book in his lap with a soft thump, set it aside and turned his full attention to Luz.

“Sooooo...” he began awkwardly, scratching at his ear. It could not be more obvious that Hunter wanted nothing to do with this discussion. But Luz appreciated that he was trying. “Girlfriend problems, huh? Shoot.”

Luz's cheeks darkened. “Heh. 'Girlfriend'. Yeah, that's...uh...” She was suddenly very inconvenienced by the existence of her own hands so she clasped them together tight to keep herself from fidgeting. “That is.....a word for Amity.”

Hunter frowned, puzzled. “Okaaaay? So, what's the issue?”

“Ohhhhhh, boy.” An ironic, long suffering smile stretched across her face. “Let me just tell you that there is a lot goin' on up here, pal.” Luz tapped her finger against her temple. “So if I'm gonna give you the full unabridged version--”

“You could summarize it.”

“You know I don't know how to do that.”

“Yeah, I know.” Hunter sighed. “Figured it was worth a shot. Okay, let's hear it.”

“Alright but this is gonna be a lot so I suggest you strap yourself in,”

Luz sucked in a deep inhale, with full intent to let the entire flood of thoughts cascade out her mouth.

Hunter's eyes snapped to the floor, like he was actually looking for a safety harness to attach himself to. Then he seemed to realize that was ridiculous, as he scowled to himself. Little Rascal chirped and he irritably mumbled something under his breath in response.

And then Luz took off.

“Alright, so!” She announced, clapping her hands together. “So me and Amity have known each other fooooor...a while now? Yeah, it's been a while. And we've been pretty good friends ever since and then one day, she rescued me from her scary mom and she had this black flowing cape and her voice went all low and then suddenly, huh. Doki doki, y'know?” She thumped a fist against her chest. “I was gettin' all feelings-y up in here,”.

“And then a little later I figured out that we were both feeling kinda feelings-y and I was all like,” She mimed a brain explosion. “Pshww....”

“Pshww....” Hunter repeated quietly, testing out the little sound effect on his tongue. “Doki...doki....?”

“Yeah. Exactly. Doki doki. Pshww.” Luz nodded, as if he had made a valuable contribution. “So, now we're both here in the same boat, fully shish kebab-ed by Cupid's arrow.”

“Hold up. What language are you speaking?”

“And things are....great? Nice? Sorta hard to believe but stuff actually happens. We hold hands a few times, we...” The volume of her voice dropped to a bashful murmur. “we kiss a few times. There was so many beautiful, amazing romance-y moments that happened, just like in movies, y'know?”

“Movies....?” Hunter's bewildered stare turned from Luz to the bird on his shoulder, as if he was going to get any further clarification from either of them.

“Right! But here's the thing. It sorta feels like all that stuff just went by in a blur. I don't even know how I did any of that. The hand holding, the smooches the....ugh! It was like I was on autopilot or something and now I have no idea how to operate. Now, no matter how hard I try to get the vibe right, I can recreate those moments. So now it's starting to feel like...I don't know how to do anything!”

Luz's arms were whizzing around like an out of control windmill.

“I mean, Sure, Amity takes the lead sometimes but I can't make her carry this entire....relationship? Flirtationship? Whatever it is that's happening here! I gotta act or something! But I've been thinking about it waaaay too much. I never know the right time to hold her hand, I never know if she wants me to tell her she looks cute or if now maybe isn't the right time or...it's awkward, okay?! I've been making it awkward 'cause I don't know what to do! I-I don't even know for sure if we're dating! We've never talked about it!”

The last sentence came out as a squeak and Luz realized she had used up all her oxygen and needed to take a breather.

Hunter had not said a word but Luz did not know what to make of that dissecting stare of his, that studied her with a mixture of confusion and fascination. Like she was some kind of peculiar animal. A flushed, panting, peculiar animal.

“So.” He said finally, holding his palm out for Little Rascal to migrate from his shoulder to his hands. “Why don't you talk about it?”

He asked like it was the obvious solution. Luz was a little irked by it, but she kept her patience.

“Oh, Hunter. Sweet Hunter.” She heaved an exhausted sigh. “It is not that simple.”

He still didn't seem to understand. “Well, why not?”

“'Cause it's--.....Uh.” Luz trailed off, twirling her wrist around as if expecting to snatch an eloquent articulation out of thin air.

“Okay. Lemme put it like this. Amity is....really special. To me. Sometimes I still can't believe that she's real and she's friends with me and she likes me and....whew.” She pressed her fingertips to her cheek, surprised by the warmth. Even thinking that sort of stuff prompted a blush or two but it seemed saying it out loud made her face scalding.

“Anyway, now that we're going through....this, everything feels so much more....fragile?” Her voice rose in pitch, uncertain if 'Fragile' was even a suitable word to describe her feelings. It was just a vague, wishy-washy concept to describe.

“Like I feel like I could break it all so easy, just by....” Wait, she knew. She had figured out her handle on this.

“Just by being me.” She felt an ache just by admitting it, but it was the truth. Luz exhaled unsteadily to compose herself, clasping her fists tight into the fabric of her shorts and she continued...calmly.

“I can't risk doing anything that's gonna push her or make her uncomfortable or scare her away or...y'know, ruin this.” She held up her palms with a heavy shrug. “I-I don't have a plan and it would be way too reckless to wing it. Who knows what would come out of my mouth? She tells me a billion times that my weirdness is what she likes about me but...it can just as easily be the thing she hates if I overdo. I can't overdo it.

Luz was expecting Hunter to look at her like she was dumb again, but surprisingly, he nodded. A slow, thoughtful nod, as he absentmindedly scratched Little Rascal under the chin.

As the silence filled a little longer, she was starting to believe he had nothing else to add, which was fine. She had wanted to rant her heart out but realistically, she couldn't imagine Hunter having any advice for her. This wasn't exactly his area of expertise.

“Hey, Luz.” He said at last, voice surprisingly breezy. “You know those books that you really like? Uhh, with the nice witch Azuzu or whatever,”

“It's the Good Witch Azura!” Luz snapped, hands flying to her hips. “And I know you just pretended to not know her name. You're just trying to be cool.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The corner of Hunter's lip tweaked upwards. “And wasn't there that other witch that you liked to pretend was Azura's girlfriend?

Luz scoffed, finding it utterly unbelievable that this obnoxious little man had the audacity to be so dismissive towards her favorite book series, when she had been sweet enough to smuggle him in here.

“She was not her 'Girlfriend', she was her 'Soulmate' and if you even listened to me talk about it, you would know that. For your information, her name was Hecate and she began as Azura's rival but over the course of the series, they developed a beautiful, unbreakable bond that was jam packed with heavy romantic subtext. I mean, even their declaration of their eternal friendship in Book Five, which was really emotionally poignant by the way, reads so much like a love confession, it's a crime. And it's like...Ladies! Just kiss already!”

“Okay. Right. Sure. I understood some of that.”

“I mean, I guess I've read a ton of Heczura fanfics to tide me over. It's hard to find a fic where they don't kiss. Hold on, you know what fanfiction is, right?”

“Yeah.” The light in Hunter's eyes dimmed. “You made me sit through that three hour long slideshow presentation, remember?”

“Oh, right,” Luz popped a finger gun. “That was fun,”

It was fun, but a lot of work. Hunter was pouting over losing a measly three hours of his time. Well, newsflash, nerd, Luz spent two weeks working on that. Nobody is getting their hours back.

“And what usually happens in those fanfictions?” Asked Hunter, propping his chin up with his hand, as Little Rascal hopped over to a pile of books. “How do they end?”

“I told you, they kiss. A lot of the time they look deeply into each others eye and talk about how they complete each other like two halves of one heart. And y'know, moments of miscellaneous fluff.”

“Uh huh. Interesting,” He mused, tapping his pen against his bottom lip.

Luz knew Hunter could be a little...eccentric but was he really analyzing fanfiction right now? Where did the sudden interest come from?”

“So, uh, besides Azura and Hecate, are there any other...boats(?) that you--”

“Ships.” Luz corrected him.

Hunter snapped his fingers. “Right. Ships. Basically love stories that you really like.”

“We talkin' canon or non canon?”

Hunter squinted at her, lost. Seems somebody was not taking enough notes during the slideshow presentation. “Both? A-all...?”

“Oh, well, there's a bunch.”

Luz had no intention of listing every single ship that had captured her heart. They would be here all week.

“I've spent my whole life reading books, watching movies and anime and--”

“Anime...?”

“Hunter, please!” Luz squeaked as calmly as she possibly could, but she could not deny that she had started to vibrate. “You have no idea how excited you just made me at the thought of teaching you about anime but I'd need to dedicate a whole day to that 'cause I need to meet Amity soon and I'm still sorta in crisis mode. So, let's stay on topic.”

Her brow furrowed. “Whatever the heck the topic is! Why are we talking about ships, Huntifer?”

He waved off her question. “Okay but how does the story usually end for all your ships? The book ones, the anime ones, all of them,”

“We've been over this with the fanfiction discussion. They kiss, Hunter. Geez, you want a diagram or something?”

“But what else?” He prompted.

“What do you mean 'What else?'”

Now this was just getting ridiculous.

“They kiss!” Luz said with a huge amount of emphasis. “And again, miscellaneous fluff. They'll do stuff like pick each other up and swing around, hold hands and....walk off into the sunset, y'know?” She waved off all that extra padding as unimportant to the conversation. (Though Luz did really enjoy miscellaneous fluff.)

“Well yeaaaah,” Hunter was giving off vibes of a grade school teacher who gave her little nudges in the correct direction but ultimately wanted her to figure out the right answer herself. She wished he could just give it to her because honestly, she didn't know where this any of this was going.

“But when exactly do they ask each other if they're dating?”

“Whaa?” Well, that settled it. He had paid no attention to the slideshow whatsoever. “Nah, nah, they don't do stuff like that. They don't have to 'cause they're already perfect for each other. All they gotta do is look into each others' eyes and they just...” Luz shrugged, feeling lightness bubble in her chest at the very thought. She had a feeling her smile looked pretty dopey. “They just know.”

“Right. And why don't you and Amity just know?”

The bubbles burst and the lightness turned to dead weight.

The question speared through Luz's gut. Her entire body went rigid.

She had known but...

She had been trying not to...

Not to think about it.

Because if she thought about it, she knew she'd cry.

But there is was. A culmination of every coil of underlying dread that had been gradually writhing in her stomach in a monster of anxiety, summarized in a short and sweet collection of simplistic little words.

Luz did not just know when it came to Amity. She was constantly taking shots in the dark. That is, if she was even brave enough to take a shot at all.

The two of them together were not as seamlessly synchronized as couples in love were supposed to be.

Her throat stung.

Her vision went cloudy with blotted tears but she managed to catch Hunter's stony expression break into one of sheer panic.

“Wh-- Luz! Hey!” He yelped, scrambling to pick himself up from the floor. He nearly tripped over his books as he stood and hurried over to close the distance between them. He made to reach out to her but his hand stopped, just as it was about to brush against her shoulder. It hovered there for a moment, fingers curling and uncurling with uncertainty.

“Luz, listen, I wasn't....I-I mean, what I meant was...uhh. C-c'mon, cut it out!” Hunter's voice crackled with desperation and despite crying her eyes out, Luz felt the watery chuckle at the back of her throat.

“Aww, does crying make the Golden Guard uncomfy?” She tried to tease but her words came out all wobbly.

In fairness to the poor guy, it probably did. Luz couldn't imagine that dealing with tears in a delicate matter, was ever something he would need to handle in his line of work.

For all she knew, this was his first time having to comfort someone like this.

“You don't get to make jokes and cry at the same time. You gotta pick one.” Hunter snipped, but his tone was not nearly as cutting as usual. Luz was almost tempted to call it soft.

Clearing her eyes with the heel of her hands, she finally felt that warm touch on her shoulder, and then another rest against her upper arm.

Somehow the gentleness cracked all her remaining composure and she dissolved into ragged sobs.

Hunter did not speak nor did he let go out her until she got every tear out of her system. He waited patiently, tracing circles with his thumb into her skin.

Eventually, her sniffles fell silent and her eyes no longer blurred. She took a deep breath and the following exhale was shaky but manageable.

“Are you....good?” He asked cautiously.

Luz nodded.

Hunter removed his hands so carefully, you'd think doing so would cause her physical pain. He must have heard once that people were more prone to being hurt when they were already upset and assumed it was literal.

“Do you really think that...Amity and I....” Luz's voice was low and quiet but her jaw was set tight. She refused to let her words be whimpered. She looked up, meeting Hunter's eyes. “Aren't right for each other?”

“What? No! No, no, no,” Hunter looked positively alarmed at the accusation. “Luz th-that's not even remotely what I meant by that.”

“Well, then I guess you accidentally hit the nail on the head.” Luz managed a strained, bitter little smile. “'Cause it's true.”

“Luz, c'mon,” Hunter groaned, exasperated. “Don't talk like that, you've got it mixed up.”

“No.” Said Luz, tone quiet, polite yet strikingly obstinate. “You were right, Hunter.”

For someone who loved being right, he didn't seem thrilled at all.

“When it comes to Amity, I don't just know. I don't always know what she's thinking or what she wants from me. After all this time, I-I shouldn't still be trying to figure her out,”

Luz wanted to figure her out. Every time she was in her orbit, she wanted nothing more to turn over every last piece of that girl and find every hidden gem.

But now, it like she was barricaded. Something was keeping her from moving forward, from discovering Amity.

“I mean, we've kissed.” The memories of Amity were turning more and more bittersweet by the second “I told her I loved her! We had our happy ending already! A-at least I thought it was a happy ending. But we're not acting like people who are made for each other are meant to act!”

“How do you even know how people who are meant for each other are meant to act?!” Hunter demanded, as though it wouldn't reach Luz's skull unless he raised his voice. “In all the love stories you've read, it always ends with a kiss, doesn't it?”

“And--”

“And miscellaneous fluff. Yeah, I get it.” Hunter shooed the detail away before clearing his throat.

“Point is, they never talk about what comes after. You don't read about all those awkward talks where they decide if they're dating or not and talks about what they're okay with and what they're not. It always just cuts to the perfect, shiny romantic stuff, all tied up with a bow and because of that,” He clutched Luz by the shoulders.”You don't know how to move forward in a relationship 'cause you've never had a frame of reference to help you along.”

“Hey, that's not true!” She tore away from Hunter's grip. “I'll have you know that I imagine my favorite ships as couples all the time,”

“Yeah and lemme guess,” He droned, setting a hand on his hip and launching into a mockingly saccharine tone of voice. “They understand each other soooo well all the time, they can practically read each others' mind and everything is smooth sailing and peachy all the time.”

“Yeah, duh.” Luz didn't quite what he was making fun of. “That's what being a ship is all about.”

“Okay, fine, maybe, but I cannot stress this enough,” He ran his fingers through his hair before making a cutting gesture with the side of his hand, directed at Luz. “You are not a ship.”

“Well, yeah, obviously. I'm only one--”

“I mean that the two of you aren't a ship! Listen to me, you're not Azura and Hecate. You're Luz and Amity. You're real people. You've got like a million different emotions and they're messy and crazy and you don't understand most of them.”

“Okay, Hunter, I get it, I'm a hot mess. You don't have to rub it in.”

“We're all hot messes, Luz!” He exploded. “Every single one of us. 'Cause we're real and not book characters.” He was pacing back and forth now as he ranted and raved, gesticulating like a madman.

“We gotta handle all the awkward conversations that don't fit into books. You gotta talk to real people to get them and you can talk to them for years and years but you're never gonna entirely understand them. In your love stories, it's all kisses and happy endings and it's shiny and sparkly and perfect and nerds like you Eat. It.Up!”

Hunter emphasized his point by poking Luz's forehead, shocking a startled laugh out of her. As wound up as he was, the noise surprised him too.

Her laugh was contagious and soon the room was silent, expect for the sound of quiet, breathy giggles.

One of the knots in Luz's stomach had untangled itself. Hunter did make a point that she could understand. Yeah, okay, maybe she had been a little too wrapped up in fiction to successfully navigate through her own life. Luz had never been the most logical person so it was comforting for a levelheaded counter-argument to whatever was currently inflaming her anxiety.

Obviously, this didn't fix everything. Now, she understood why this wasn't easy but that didn't mean she magically knew where to go from here.

Once the shadow of Luz's smile had finally faded away, she looked up and studied Hunter for a long while. Her gaze may have been a bit intense as nervousness began to creep into his features.

“H-hey. Uh. Sorry if I was a little too--”

“Huntifer, I think you might be on to something with this one,”

He blinked at her before brightening with relief, shrugging it off. “Oh. Yeah, maybe. I dunno, I guess it's worth some thought.

Astonishing how Hunter could switch from the cockiest, most obnoxious kid in the Boiling Isles to a remarkably humble guy. Maybe it depended on context. Or he was just embarrassed that he sorta lost control of himself in his impatience.

Luz nodded. “I'd say a lot of thought. But..I think things are still gonna be awkward. With Amity. I still don't know how I'm supposed to talk this stuff through with her.”

Hunter snorted, loosely folding his arms over chest and resting his weight on one hip. And just like that, with that simple change of posture, he looked full of himself again “You wanna know a secret that's probably not much of a secret?”

He beckoned Luz to lean in closer and said in a stage whisper. “Amity probably doesn't know either.”

Huh. Yeah, Luz knew that. She knew that at the back of her mind but...she hadn't really thought about it much. She was a little too preoccupied with her own inexperience.

Hunter's lofty grin softened. “So, it's a good thing neither of you are doing it alone, right? Don't you think you could figure out how together?”

Figure out how together....

The realization sank from the surface of her mind, and everything was processing very fast then suddenly, everything clicked.

Amity.

Luz knew Amity. Luz trusted Amity. Luz loved Amity. If there was any person Luz believed would stumble alongside her through things they didn't quite understand yet, it was Amity. And it occurred to her that Luz would help Amity in return without hesitation.

With enough notches and trimming and smoothing edges, if they worked through this together, Luz and Amity could click too. Maybe not perfectly, not for a while just yet.

But enough that they could make each other happy.

A swing of confidence so strong flooded Luz's system, she swore she nearly collapsed. She felt the grin tugging at her mouth.

She could try. She could absolutely try. They could both try.

“Is...that a yes?” Hunter asked, gauging her expression.

Luz nodded so speedily, it made her head hurt. But then she realized something else and she turned a very specific look on Hunter.

But before he could ask if she was about to attack him, she held up two fingers on each hand and then placed them on either side of her head so they jutted out just behind her ears.

“Man, I don't know anything about that stuff,” Said Luz, in what she believed to be an uncanny imitation of Hunter's voice.

He frowned. “What are the theatrics for?”

“You lied to me!” Luz was delighted.

“I-I didn't lie!” He loudly objected, pointed ears scorching bright pink. “That was just common sense, you doofus. You know, that thing you lack.”

“You know, that thing you lack.” Luz parroted, swinging her hips from side to side. Once again, her impression remained flawless.

“Don't do that!”

“Don't do that!

“Stop, you weirdo!”

At the peak of riled up, Hunter floundered for a retort that Luz wouldn't shoot back at him with childish mimicking. But then he cracked and wound up sticking his tongue out at her.

Luz simply mirrored him and Hunter huffed indignantly, turning on his heel and stomping back towards his books.

He had barely made a few steps when Luz lunged at him from behind, draping her long, lanky arms around his shoulders.

“Wha—Hey! Get off!” He squawked, struggling to pry her off him as Luz squished her cheek against his.

“Huntifer~” She singsonged. “Can you please calm down for two seconds and let me say thanks already?”

Hunter knotted his arms and his scowl didn't soften but Luz didn't miss how he stopped trying to squirm out of her grip.

“Even though you were kinda rambly and all over the place, what you said helped. It helped a lot. I know this is something I can handle and I know that 'cause of you. Thanks, nerd.”

She waited patiently until she felt his shoulders loosen. And then he glanced back at her and there was a smile. A small, tight, subtle smile but it was good enough for Luz.

And then with a burst of adrenaline, she gripped him tighter and planted a big, wet raspberry on his cheek.

Predictably, Hunter blew his top. He screeched furiously and his hands went wild to push her off but Luz was stronger than she looked. And so help her, she would give Hunter this affection or die trying.

Dying trying did not seem unlikely, actually. Hunter had told her once before that if he ever murdered her, it would probably be her own fault. Luz could not argue with that.

“That is so gross!” He griped, once Luz had finally released him.

“You're gross~” She chirped, practically bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Hunter wiped the spit off his cheek with his palm before looking up at Luz with narrowed eyes

Luz did not have time to brace herself and suddenly she was tackled to the ground. She kicked and she screamed as Hunter dragged his disgusting wet hand across her face.

“GrossGrossGrossGrossGrossGrossGroooooss!”

Hunter cackled maniacally the whole time.

They carried on like rowdy toddlers for a while until Luz had to go meet Amity, leaving Hunter and his palisman to themselves.

It was too weird to admit out loud but he was disappointed that she was gone. Hanging out with her like this wasn't that bad. Talking with her, arguing with her, wrestling with her. It all made Hunter feel....so much like a kid.

Something that he had realized recently was that he still liked being a kid.

In spite of the doom and gloom of white of gold, of the clawed scars in his shoulder, of the spear that grazed his hair, a spark of childishness remained in Hunter that had never been entirely snuffed out.

It wasn't until he met Luz that he began actively trying to keep that spark alive.

The sun had long since fallen asleep by the time Luz returned and the moon was pooling in the sky. A little after sun down, he heard the downstairs door slam shut and the loud exuberant voice of The Owl Lady boomed from the floorboards beneath him. By the sound of it, she was celebrating a successful day's work. Hunter wondered what she and the cute little demon had managed to steal today.

His snoozing palisman was tucked snug in the crook of his neck, a pleasant warmth against his skin. It was a good idea to keep the bird close. If someone other than Luz came barreling into the room, he'd better have his staff on hand to magically conceal himself.

But once an hour passed and the chatter of the witch and the demon below gradually faded into loud snoring, Hunter presumed they had passed out on the couch. For the time being, he should be fine.

Hunter hoped that creepy owl tube thing wouldn't rat them out. Fortunately, Luz had promised that Hooty was willing to take a bribe but unfortunately, gossip spread fast in the Boiling Isles. Now The Golden Guard had a reputation for being a lunatic who visited the night market several times, buying dead mice in bulk.

He snorted to himself, combing through 'From Bones to Fire: A Study of Wild Magic Volume 2'. Everything he went through just to get his hands on knowledge.

Well, also to be young with Luz.

Yet another hour passed and somehow, being surrounded by his own obsession, Hunter got a little overstimulated. To give his brain a rest, he was now flipping through some tattered old magazine that Luz brought with her from the human realm. Some of the articles were practically gibberish to him but overall, it was okay. He learned he was a Scorpio. He didn't know what that entailed but it sounded cool.

He nearly jumped out of his skin as Luz burst into the room, announcing her return.

Startled, his palisman flew into a fluster, cheeping like crazy before it settled down atop his head. Hunter, meanwhile, had flung the magazine away so fast, it was like it had contaminated him, and snatched up the closest book to pretend he was reading it the whole time.

Thankfully, Luz didn't notice.

“Hey there, Little Rascal,” She cooed, prancing across the room and plopping down next to Hunter. “And hey, you little bookworm, you.”

“Bookworm?” Hunter knocked his shoulder against hers. “You looking for a fight, kid?”

“Whaaaat? Hunter, you wound me, I was just....Ohhh, my bad. I always forget that our bookworms and your bookworms are two waaaay different things.” She paused thoughtfully before shaking her head. “Actually, I don't retract anything. You look like a bookworm.”

“Yeah, well, you smell like a selkidomus.” Hunter smirked.

“Hey!” Luz bumped their shoulders. “Can you blame me? I've had one heck of a day with lots of nervous sweating!”

He was surprised that got him laughing but that tended to happen around her.

“So, how'd it go?” Hunter asked, even though he already knew the answer.

Luz's beam was as bright as a dozen of her light spells. The corner of her lip was twitching, as if she wanted to smile wider but it was physically impossible.

“We're dating.” She stated, no more than a whisper.

It obvious since the moment she entered the room, far bouncier and bubblier than usual but Hunter still grinned.

He had expected her to scream it from the rooftops, to grind his ribcage into powder with the force of her hug, to set off a riot of firework glyphs, spelling it out in lights.

No matter how she could have chosen to tell him, he would have been just as giddy as she was.

And yet, despite the lack of fanfare, somehow, it still felt so much like Luz. Though he knew that in the morning, she would tell the entire Boiling Isles, right here, right now, only Hunter knew. Something about that felt nice.

But the quiet serene scene was momentarily ruptured when Hunter spotted Luz re-adjusting herself out of the corner of his eye and he was immediately on high alert. Another raspberry, he could sense it.

“Luz, don't you d--”

It wasn't a raspberry.

The feather-light peck against his cheek was gone before he fully processed it, as Luz drew away with that big stupid smile still plastered on her face.

Hunter blinked away the surprise, looking to her with a raised eyebrow.

“What's that look for? In this family, we give each other hugs and kisses~”

He felt his lip quirk upwards as he scoffed, turning away with a shake of his head.

“That was so gross.”

“You're gross.”

“For real, it was even more gross than the raspberry.”

Luz burst into giggles and Hunter could understand why everything was suddenly a million times funnier to her. She will still fizzling with that giddiness that Amity had kissed into her and now it was all spilling out.

To be honest, listening to a teenage girl gush and squeal about her girlfriend did not seem like something Hunter would ever willingly subject himself to.

But this was Luz. His friend, Luz.

He lightly pinched the pudge of her cheek. “Heeeey. You wanna tell me all about it, don't you?”

Luz snapped her head over to gawk at him, astonished. And then the excitement took hold and her hands started flapping and she looked about ready to explode with delight. Her mouth was already flying open to give every solitary detail of her evening with Amity Blight.

But then she stopped, a crease forming on her brow. He caught that unreadable look she gave him and the way her eyes skimmed over the books that scattered the floor around them.

“Hmmm.” She stroked her chin with an over dramatic 'thinking' face. “Y'know what? I'll think I'll keep it all to myself.”

“Oh, really~?” Grinned Hunter. “I can only imagine all the romantic schmaltzy sickening stuff that occurred tonight. Miscellaneous fluff, right?”

Judging by the blood that stained her cheekbones, he must have been correct.

“Hey, Hunter.” She said quietly, resting her weight against his side. “You've been lost in your books for hours now. Would you mind telling me all about the most interesting you read about today? Reading myself is fine but it's way better to hear all about it from a bona fide nerd.”

Frankly, it was embarrassing how fast the giddiness practically electrocuted him and suddenly he found himself rambling. He rambled until his voice gave up but it didn't bother him at all because it was just Luz.

Luz hung on every word he said.

#the owl house #toh #luz nozeda #the golden guard #toh Hunter #lumity

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hasquetzorkukudoneanythingwrong · 3 years ago

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No big sisters here

(Minor summer 4 spoilers)

With both Xook and Camazotz taken care of and with the kids having developed more of their divine abilities, it was time to take on the penultimate swimsuit swordmaster. But someone from their team had gone missing...

Mari: where the hell is Jeanne?!

Ishtar: very good question.....

Hokusai: she don't seem like the sort to just disappear outta nowhere.

Ed: not even a note or anything.

Mari: papá! Do you have any idea where she could've gone too!

Rex: not really.... but maybe you should just go and get the next Dual over with.

Ed: what about you guys?

Quetz: I think you guys are ready to try one on your own.

Mari: Eeeeehh!? Really?!

Rex: sure, let's try it out! It's the penultimate one, and we're definitely joining for the finale, so we'll give you this one!

Ed: huh.... not sure if I'd want to go without you and without Jeanne.

Mari: honestly, let's just get it over with. I don't have the patience to keep looking right now. We'll manage without her.

Quetz: good attitude... I guess.

And with that the group left to go to Cirque de Requiem to challenge the Swimsuit Swordmaster of that casino! After watching an.... interesting play they were to meet up with the Woman in charge!

Mari: that was.... odd.

Ed: yeah..... who wrote that?

Ishtar: let's not concern ourselves with that for now.

Hokusai: right! Let's get down to business!

Mephisto: so you all want to challenge our leader? How fun! She'll be here in a moment! For now, just sit back and relax.

Melt: she better not make us wait too long.

Ed and Mari: ?!

Melt: hmmm?

Ed: where'd you come from?!

Melt: I was always with you two, you just weren't paying enough attention!

Mair: uh, I don't think so. Lil miss celebrity!

Melt: ok, so I was a little behind. I wasn't planning on it, but after seeing Jeanne had gone missing and your parents trusting you enough to do it without them, I couldn't leave you two hanging! So there!

Ed: wow Melt.... that's really kind of you.

Melt: don't mention it.

???: oho? What do we have here?

Mari: there she is.

Joan: hi hi! It's me the Swimsuit Swordmaster of this casino! And your big Sis........ter? Where's master?

Ed: you mean papá? He and mamá sat this one out.

Joan: eh?! Lil brother isn't here! Awww.... that's disappointing...

Mari, whispering to Ed: wtf is she talking about?

Ed, in response: no idea.

Ishtar, whispering aswell: she goes a lil coocoo in the summer.

Joan: hey! What are you all whispering about over there?! That's disrespectful y'know!

Ed: sorry!

Joan: *sigh* can I still do a big sis beam? Maybe I can try a....? No no, that'll never work.

Mari: what are you talking about now?!

Joan: oh nothing! Reece XP! Come on out!

Then a floating Shark came out of nowhere!

Shark: play with me!

Ed: oh! A shark!

Mari: and he floats

Joan: oh? You're the first to not be scared away by him.

Melt: oh trust us, we've seen far scarier!

Joan: well let's get this show on the road! But before that, let's bring out my lil sisters!

And out of nowhere, Jeanne and Santa lily appeared!

Mari and Ed: JEANNE!!???!!!!!

Melt: that's where you were?!

Ishtar: oh no, Joan got to her.

Mari: huh?!

Jeanne: where's our little brother? I thought he'd be here!

Janta: yeah! I was ready to play with him!

Ed: what's with her?!

Joan: nothing is wrong! She's acting like my lil sis like she's supposed to!

Ishtar: she can somehow.... brainwash them.... I have no idea how but she can.

Joan: I didn't think this would work but let's try anyways!

BIG SIS BEAM!

Mari: huh?

Ed: eh?

But Nothing Happened.

Joan: darn!

Mari: what was that?!

Melt: probably her mind control method.

Ed: seriously?!

Joan: well.... if that won't work then....

A-AUNTY-Y..... BE-EAM....?

Even more nothing happened!

Ed: ok, now you just look sad!

Mari: yeah, maybe just.... stop? You already got those two.

Joan: UUUGH! FINE! Reece XP! Get them!

Shark: Play with Me!

The shark charged through the air, along with the other two "sisters"

Ed: Get him!

Then Ed's Pliosaur came out of nowhere, jaws wide open!

Joan: REECE XP!!!!! NOOOOO!!!!

While Melt and Ishtar fought the two sisters Ed's Pliosaur grabbed the shark with their jaws and threw them skyhigh!

Melt: seriously Jeanne?! You really fell for Joan's tricks?!

Jeanne: I don't know what you're talking about! I'm just helping my sister!

Melt: guess I'll have to knock some sense into you!

Ishtar: man does fighting a child feel wrong!

Janta: Hiya!

*jabs Ishtar in the eye*

Ishtar: ah! Ok, wrong feelings gone!

And while the 4 of them fought, Hokusai was handling Joan!

Joan: darn it all! This didn't go as planned at all!

Hokusai: that's what you get for not being better prepared!

Mari: EVERYONE! GET DOWN!

And as they all looked up, they saw Mari flying through the air! While carrying Ed's Pliosaur towards the enemy!

Hokusai: oh fuck!

Melt: get moving!

Ishtar: aaaah!

FLYING LEVIATHAN OF THE YUCATAN!!!!

Mari launched the beast forwards, with an accompanying wave of water from Melt!

The beast helped take out the two sisters, and while the big sis herself was still standing, she was no longer at top shape!

Joan: urgh! A flying sea monster!? Seriously?!

A TOUR OF WATERFALLS FROM VARIOUS PROVINCES!

Joan: huh?!

Hokusai then unleashed her own noble phantasm to finish the job!

Hokusai: you're done!

With that, Joan and the other two had been defeated!

Jeanne: ugh... what's going on? When did I get here?

Melt: oh, she's back to normal. How nice.

Jeanne: huh?

Mari: Joan brainwashed you, and you were fighting against us.

Jeanne: dammit not again! Will you quit with that shit!

Joan: but you are my little sister!

Jeanne: No I'm not!

Hokusai: and that's another victory! Now I just need to finish off the Lion king and I'll be the Top Swimsuit Swordmaster!

Ed: yeah! Let's get to it!

Mari: not now... I'm tired and wanna nap.... hotel time...

Hokusai: but masteeeer!

Mari: you heard me! Let's get back!

Hokusai: fine....

A/N: there we go! Another installment! Almost done now..... we're at the home stretch!

Tags

@hasbbdoneanythingwrong @havetheavengersdoneanythingwrong @hasspartacusdoneanythingwrong @haskamadoneanythingwrong @hasjalterdoneanythingwrong

#fate grand order #quetzalcoatl #wife #mastersona #rex #rexcoatl #maria #eduardo #jeanne d'arc alter #jeanne d'arc #Janta #ishtar #meltryllis #hokusai #mephistopheles

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creativeskullcreations · 4 years ago

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Outside chapter 16: Therapy Sessions

And thus, we return to Outside! Starting with this brief interlude like chapter from someone completely new!

Update schedule is gonna be once every two weeks on Monday, just like before. As for Happy Times, that's gonna be on the back burner for a while so I can get this done, but I'll try and pop out another episode at some point.

So enjoy for now, and see ya;ll again later! :D

The puppet laid on the couch, flopped over like a discarded toy, eyes staring unblinking into space. If she didn't already know better, Trina would have assumed it was something one of her patients had left behind .

It, or rather she, wasn't a forgotten toy, however. She was her new patient, and, according to what another patient, Stacy, had told her, she had trust issues. But, she could work with that. And by that, she meant do paperwork until Scout was ready to talk.

Unfortunately, it seemed like that was taking a while. Before she knew it the whole hour had passed and the alarm had gone off. When Trina looked up from turning it off, the Puppet was gone, and the door was open. Ah well. She supposed she should prepare for her next patient, then.

------

Once again, Scout was laying on the couch. A different position this time, and staring in a different direction. Trina resigned herself to more paperwork again, like the last few visits. Though she felt like they were making some progress. Sometimes she looked up and Scout was in a different position, or she was in the middle of blinking.

In her mind, that was a good thing. It meant the Puppet was starting to get comfortable with her. Maybe soon, she'd actually start talking.

------

"Did you know Hosts can bleed without getting hurt?"

The question startled Trina, and she fumbled the pen onto her crossword book. "Excuse me?!"

"Yeah they do it naturally into the toilet! And into these weird giant soft band-aids that Stacy didn't want me to mess with." Scout reached down her shirt and pulled out a bright orange square. "Jokes on her, I took one anyways."

"Ah." It made sense, actually, that Scout would have no knowledge of the menstrual cycle. "And... did Stacy explain what they were for?"

"Nope! She just yelled a lot, and turned really red." She pulled the tape holding the wrapper closed off, then stuck it to the couch. "I asked Will why she wouldn't tell me, and he said it's because Stacy's a prude. And then she yelled at him."

"Did Will explain it to you?"

"No. Because he's also a prude. Stacy said so." There was a loud tearing sound as she slowly pulled the backing off of the pad, and Trina realized why Stacy had kicked her out of the bathroom. She also made a note to never let Scout into her bathroom.

And so, Trina spent the remaining forty-five minutes giving a sex-ed lesson to a living hand puppet. Not the weirdest session she'd ever had, of course, but it was certainly up there.

She just wished Scout hadn't stuck the pad to her keyboard.

------

The next few sessions were spent answering whatever questions Scout had that for whatever reason, she couldn't ask Stacy. Whether it was about biology("But why is it brown?"), a question about porn("I just don't see the appeal of watching Hosts fucking."), or about movies("He was the best character! Why the fuck would they kill the best character!"). Most of the time, Trina would google it with her. But sometimes she would ask why she couldn't ask Stacy. Usually she'd get one of what felt like stock answers, but occasionally she'd go really quiet and only say:

"I just wanted to know what you thought about it. That's all."

And Trina would, outwardly, accept that. But she always made note of which questions were related to that answer to try and understand her better. She also started on a timeline, to try and get the two into a session together. It probably wouldn't happen soon, she wanted to try and get Scout talking about herself first. But once she'd made some progress there, they could try a joint session.

------

It took another several weeks before Scout told her anything about herself. Although it wasn't what she expected.

"And then he gave me ice cream! And I ate it, because it was solid and delicious! But it fucking melts! And it's fucking gross!" She was raging, but in a way that almost made her look adorable. Not that Trina would tell her so, of course.

"And, why is it so bad that it melts?"

"Because it soaks in! Duh!" She looked thoroughly annoyed, and Trina felt a little bad for asking.

"What happened next?" She asked instead.

"Stacy and Will yelled at each other a lot, and then Stacy went to sleep on the couch. And then the next morning they locked themselves in the bedroom and wouldn't let me in while they made weird noises."

"Ah." Stacy had told her about that. It wasn't always the healthiest thing she could do, but Stacy genuinely thought it helped so Trina wasn't able to do much to dissuade her. "Did they come out at some point during the day?"

"Yeah, eventually! But it was boring as hell until then." A pause. "They banned me from Netflix, too, cause Stacy said what I was watching was a bad influence on me."

"Well that's too bad." She kept her tone sympathetic. "What else do you do during the day?"

"Watch TV."

"Besides that."

"Oh." Scout sat up, thinking. "Nothing- Well, I do hang out with Stacy a lot."

"Hmmm." Trina wrote that down in her notes. "Have you tried to find something other than TV? A hobby of some sort, or even a game to play?"

"I do play this game called Kirby sometimes." She admitted. "It's... kinda fun."

"Have you beaten it yet?"

"I mean... no..." She looked away, playing with the edge of her shirt.

"Maybe you should try and do that. Could be more fun than just watching Netflix all day." She kept her voice upbeat, and tried to figure out something else the Puppet could do besides TV.

"Maybe..." She looked around the room, eyes never stopping on one spot for too long. Trina waited patiently, pen tapping lightly against her notebook. "... Something happened last night. Something... kinda bad."

"Oh?"

Scout nodded. "Sometimes, when Stacy wakes up and doesn't know where I am, she'll... take over my body. Not to do bad stuff though!" She was quick to assure when she Trina's face. "It's just to, y'know, see where I am. She gets worried when she can't find me."

Stacy had mentioned that. Apparently she now brought Scout everywhere with her, including to her programming job. "What made last night so different then."

"Well, normally I just sort of... float? I guess? When she does that. But, last night, I... woke up in her body."

Trina blinked. "Well, I suppose it makes sense that would happen-"

"No it fucking doesn't!" Scout shouted, cutting her off. "It's a bad thing! Very fucking bad!"

"Well, why do you say that?"

"Because it means that our fucked up link is evolving!" Scout told her in a 'duh' tone of voice. "Who knows how it could change from here!"

"Is it possible that you've always been able to do that, but just never did before now?" Trina asked.

That gave her pause, and seemed to calm her down a bit. "... I don't know. Maybe." She shrugged. "I... never really wanted to try before..."

Trina nodded, adding another note to her paper. "What happened next after you... woke up in Stacy's body."

"Well, we both flipped our shit, which woke Will up and then he flipped his shit. And then he and Stacy yelled for a while before he left and we managed to, uh, swap back." Scout scratched the side of her head, thinking. "And then Will came back with something, and he and Stacy fought some more."

"What did they fight about?"

"The thing Will brought back. It's some sort of a toy, like a psychic test." She scowled. "He made us sit there and do it, right then."

"The Waygetter one?" At Scout's confused look, she waved the question away. "Never mind. What were the results?"

------

"100 percent psychically linked." Stacy said, arms folded and stoic look on her face. "Not that I didn't already suspect, but I'd prefer a real test to a Waygetter "toy"."

"Of course you would, considering your past." Trina said, jotting down notes. "Did anything happen after that?"

The young woman shrugged. "Not a lot, mostly just went back to bed. I thought about banishing Will to the couch for his betrayal, but decided against it."

"Good." She nodded. "Banishing him over something so small, and when he was just trying to help, could lead to resentment building up later on."

"Yeah yeah." She kept her arms crossed, eyes trained on the floor. "Scout was pretty upset about it, though. But she's upset about a lot of stuff cause she feels guilty."

"Really now?" Trina jotted that down. "How do you know about that?"

"Psychic link." Stacy raised a single eyebrow. "Duh."

Trina sighed. "Has anything else happened lately? Made any friends at your job?"

"Not really." She shrugged. "This one woman, Chell, talks to me sometimes. She knows sign language, which is kinda cool I guess. But, I wouldn't say we're friends."

"Maybe you should focus on making friends with her. It seems like you two already have something in common already."

"Mm." Stacy looked away, tapping the fingers of her prosthetic against her flesh arm. It was pretty scary to look at, but it didn't stop her from wearing a spaghetti strap, leaving the limb on full display. Trina had also taken note of that, attributing it more to the woman's anti-social behavior than confidence or a strong body image.

"You can't rely on Will's friends forever, Stacy." She told her. "You need a life outside of him. It's not healthy to center everything around him."

"Easy not to lose everything if you don't have anything." She retorted. "I have Will, and I have Scout. They're all I need for now."

"What about your brother?" She looked away. "Or your father? Have you talked to either of them recently?" Silence was the answer, and Trina only sighed, used to it by now. "Your homework this week is to call your family for once. You need to repair your connections to them."

"I need to convince Scout to drop her guilt."

"That's my job." Trina gave a small smile that went ignored. "I'm serious about talking to your family though. Especially if you plan on getting into more... situations like this one. How would Danny feel if you died, and nobody would tell him anything about it?"

Stacy shrugged, and Trina sighed again. "Call your father. Text your brother. Make a new friend. Do one of these three things before our next appointment, okay?" She ordered as the timer dinged, signalling the end.

"Fine." The woman ground out, standing up and straightening her top. She accepted the offered prescription, then left the room. She stopped just briefly to grab her bag from Molly, the receptionist, and then went out to her truck. Scout popped out of the bag as she exited the building, and Trina sighed as she watched them.

They truly were an odd pair, and Trina hoped things worked out for them. She certainly couldn't imagine it could get any worse, anyways.

#hello puppets #outside #fancition #stacy stein #scout #dr trina lanford

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duels-of-infrno · 3 years ago

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Writer: Y'know, considering a lot of minecraft ask blogs are coming back, the whole drawn ask-answering thing, the small comics of interaction between them, all of that? I guess I felt the need to say something to... well, all of them. You're all so freaking important to who I am today and you don't even know it.

I remember way back in the day, I hadn't known about this thing called RPing at all, my spelling was horrible even after spending months on minecraft servers getting grammar nazi-ed every 5 minutes and coming onto tumblr I found out my spelling was STILL in need of grammar nazi-ing as often as it had been when I first got on minecraft servers (every. Single. Thing. I said. Had something spelled wrong) but I benefited from it. No one made fun of me for it, they just corrected me and moved on.

I found the minecraft RP community by ACCIDENT, and community is the best word for it. Everyone knew everyone at least somewhat. I had a blog I made based off of my experiences in a minecraft server, and it just happened to fit perfectly into the minecraft rping scene. Heck, Infrno is only called Infrno because it was my screen name at the time!

But... I found a home with everyone. Artists who drew their characters used "Artist:" instead of words like muse and mun, and that got me to call myself Writer on here. The minecraft RP community was a haven for a weird kid like me, like so many of us. I made friends, fell in love, had my heart broken, and wrote a silly little accidentally created character named Infrno into one hell of a complex dude who has by all means taken on a life of his own. He started as literally just me in minecraft, and he evolved as I became a better story teller, and I only became a better story teller because of learning from EVERYONE in the minecraft community.

And that community, that home on the internet I found? That was held together far more than I knew, than likely any of us knew, by the ask blogs. Names like enderbro were known unanimously, tons of different artists of every skill level across the board interacted with eachother, letting their characters do so many interesting things that it was a gift to log into tumblr every day just to see what was happening.

Without tumblr, without minecraft, without the community that grew so inviting to some idiot who couldn't even write his native language properly... I never would have made my goal to become an Author. The day I took on the name Writer, I vowed to one day change it to Author, and that's a promise I keep to this day. A lot of personal issues slowed me down, but I saw so, so many artists go from silly little ask blogs with characters made far more out of love than skill end up so freaking skilled that the stuff they make blows my mind now. I can't draw, I don't have the time or patience to learn, but thanks to RPing for so many years and developing a love for creating a story, I'm going to follow in their footsteps and make something amazing. And then I'm gonna make something else amazing. And then another!

I know I'm not the only person who found a home back then, I know I'm not the only person who misses that home so much that even all these years later it still hurts sometimes, and I know there were a lot of family members that we lost along the way, but...

Thank you. Thank you so, so much, minecraft ask blogs. You were the foundation of my home and while I know this is probably something temporary once more, thank you for taking the time to come back and potentially serve as that foundation for someone else's home, and to show all those young artists and writers out there how unbelievably far they can take what they might only see as a hobby right now. You're all miracle workers, and you should now as much.

Special thanks to @endermanalbino , you weren't 100% consistent, but you were always there. I hope this new age of minecraft ask blogging makes your blog skyrocket in popularity. You've pretty effectively become my favorite one because of that, and I can't wait to see more Daster, but only if it's something you're still interested in

#minecraft ask blog #minecraft ask-blog #long post #minecraft #minecraft rp #it's been so long since I used that last tag

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dr-astormylasthurrah · 4 years ago

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DR:ASLH AMA (10/21/2020)

so today i decided to sit down and answer a whole bunch of questions on discord!

this DOES contain spoilers up through the end of ch5, just a warning! if you’re on mobile i’m so sorry.

Who is your favorite character?

THAT IS THE MEANEST QUESTION YOU COULD EVER ASK DID YOU KNOW THIS. This varies a lot depending on the day but usually... tied Chiyo/Tatsumaru. I love them both so much. I think Ryouji's my favorite to write, though. If ASLH were someone else's story, I think my favorite would undeniably be Chiyo, because I'm nearly always biased towards protagonists.

What’s been the most enjoyable part of the story process? Why?

Honestly? Getting to see how people react to it. It's the validation luv. Maybe it's selfish, but I really do like seeing how people are affected by my work LOL.

who is on what side of the pineapple on pizza discourse?

Likes it: Amal, Kanemori, Claude, Aster Neutral: Tristan, Tatsumaru, Sentarou Hates it: Ryouji, Chiyo, Ririka, Brendan Doesn't like pizza: Tiana, Hirono, Alexei, Tsukino, Iris Ryouji, Chiyo, and Ririka make fun of Amal.

For the trials of aslh, which trial has been your favorite so far? In terms of planning the case itself, plot beats, character developments, anything really. But which one still makes you lose it when you think about it.

That's a tough one, I don't like writing trials. I liked the structure of ch3, though. The way that the trial stops being "who killed Amal" and instead becomes "who is Aster". The Tatsu POV. The story title drop. And the way the execution just wrecks everything, immediately? Yeah, vibes.

I also feel like ch4's trial deserves a special mention because of how I wrote it while I was sick with the flu, and yet if you ask me that was still probably the most emotionally intense trial- wait I forgot ch2- and ch5- y'know what, forget it. At least it's on par!

If you could change anything about aslh on any level, what would it be & why?

In general, I think it needed more planning. I'm a very on-the-fly planner and writer, but there were a lot of unknowns I didn't consider until late-game that made it hard to bring up and resolve cleanly. It could also probably have used a little bit more clarity with regards to the lore - things like "how does the memory replacement work" weren't decided until super late in the project. I didn't have a backstory for Tatsu until I wrote ch2 or ch3, so before that point their scars were much less extensive and I think they were cut-shaped instead of burns? That was kind of important for at least continuity's sake, and it irks me.

Also, Hirono deserved better. I didn't plan out her arc as extensively as the others (she was, pre-story, the last survivor to be locked and she had traded with Kanemori), so she sort of stagnated in the story. Which wasn't a bad thing, because not everyone's going to get shoved off a balcony or watch their friend get shot, but it kind of sucks that the most "defining" moment she had was that Ririka and Iris died, neither of which she actually witnessed, or the name confession in ch4 trial which kind of got brushed over. Like all the rest of the survivors have Big Defining Moments, except her.

To be honest, ASLH is the first huge writing project I've ever completed, so there's a lot of things I could have done better. But it was also the first huge writing project I've ever completed, so I'm cutting myself some slack there.

What's your philosophy, or even your strategy when it comes to character design? What do you go for first or emphasize, where do you think you could experiment more?

Most of my designs are based around a core "ooh I want to try this thing". Sometimes I take character inspirations, sometimes it's a cool garment, sometimes I'm just redesigning characters. I mostly emphasize clothing, patterns, and colors, but I also reuse a lot of the same clothing styles and patterns. I could definitely experiment more with shape language and silhouette - usually, that's like the last thing I think about, but one of the more important things to have in an ensemble cast. Mostly, though, I just like drawing clothes.

What do you think is the crowning moment of aslh? Like if someone asked you what would be a moment that gets to the heart of the story the most. What would it be?

DEFINITELY the ch5 execution. Like, the emotional resonance? The narration shift? The drama of it all? Peak ASLHcore.

what factored most into your decision-making progress? why did you decide this death order and this mastermind(s)?

My decision making process is entirely me sitting in a fugue state mumbling out details that I need to fix and then sporadically sitting bolt upright and screaming a parallel or tangent I've pieced together.

The mastermind question is easier to put together - I'd always had in mind that this was going to be a revenge game, and that one mastermind was so difficult to take seriously it wasn't even funny and that the other decided to bail halfway through. So I built the characters around that. The points I usually pay attention to with fangan planning (these days) are: ch1 is to establish the status quo and tone of the story, ch3 is to overturn the status quo, and ch5 forces ch6 to happen. So the ch3 case revolved around Sen dying, and then I was like "how can I fuck up the status quo more" and killed Amal and Aster too.

The biggest factor in my decision making process is "what would be really cool". I tend to make a lot of decisions that fuck up the structure of what a fangan "should" be because I think it goes hard as hell when we throw out rules that the characters are unaware of anyway.

was there a draft of aslh that looks drastically different from what we ended up with?

Great question, and fuck you for reminding me!

ASLH actually started as a bullet point fangan called What Tempestuous Despair. It was a much more international cast until I was like "fangans are supposed to be mostly Japanese casts!" and changed a bunch of characters' nationalities, which in hindsight was dumb. Ririka, Kanemori, Tsukino, and Iris were victims of this. Also Amal was the protagonist and I am SO GLAD that didn't stick they are SO DIFFICULT to write the POV from.

I've spoken on a few occasions about how the cast itself changed, and I never got around to plotting out arcs (other than "Amal learns to trust people and allows themself to truly grieve Rin after holding everyone at length for so long"), but some assorted things:

The cast had a bunch of characters who were swapped out. Included in this tally are Rin Matsumoto (whose personality was recycled into Hisaichi, Ryouji's cousin, and their name was recycled into Shuichi's school friend), Leon Mercury Kahahawai (who’s in CYAH), Haywire Asturias, Puck Ganka (who’s also in CYAH), a few characters/designs who I ended up giving away... And also Hayato Kikuchi.

Iris was always a killer, because I really wanted her to have a downfall-that-wasn't-a-downfall-but-rather-a-reflection-of-the-true-self arc. This was always a lategame case so I'd have time to establish her as terrible. Originally, she killed Leon.

Tiana was also always a killer. I think he killed Hayato via electrocution, so as you can tell that's always been around in some form or another.

(Tristan killing Chiyo in ch5 in the current version, btw, was specifically to mirror Tiana's murder. While Tiana killed to get themself out of the KG, Tristan killed to get everyone else out.)

who was considered for mastermind throughout making aslh? what would their reasons have been?

The masterminds have never changed, except that the characters for them didn't exist back in WTD. But the personalities of the characters they replaced were about 1:1 anyway, so yeah basically they've never changed.

what is one thing you really loved about the beta and what is one thing you really hated about the beta

One thing I really loved about the beta was the ch3 case (which I've spoken about at length before), but other than that... honestly Tiana? Tiana's the one character that I had fully developed as of WTD, they just sprung into my head completely materialized. Their entire personality and design somehow stayed the same since conceptualization.

One thing I really hated? I would say "all of it", but specifically, we don't talk about white Tristan. That was so bad. I was trying so hard to design him so that he'd look nonthreatening and I was like "why is this so hard" and then I changed his ethnicity and I was like "oh right, white gamer boy characters just have cursed energies" and moved on with my life.

what would be an ideal day for tiana murdock. what would make them happy.

An ideal day is honestly one where they get a lot done. They're not one to relax or know what to do with free time, but they get a lot of satisfaction out of being productive, so if they manage to finish a lot of work and not end up exhausted? They're happy. They've probably gotta work on learning to enjoy their free time. They do like traveling, though, and- oh my god I should make them friends with Tsukino.

What would the cast's careers be if they lived to be adults?

Chiyo: Elementary school teacher and scifi author! Really wish I'd leaned more into the fact that she loves scifi, honestly. Amal: Journalist, probably, except they'd actually take classes in it this time instead of just writing op-eds constantly Tatsumaru: LIBRARIAN TATSU TRUE ENDING!!! Sentarou: Freelance pianist/composer. I have this whole headverse where he and Alexei are somehow friends with Claude, and together they plot to kill Enji Sekisada. Or Claude and Alexei plot to kill Enji and Sen sits there with his head in his hands. Iris: In universes where she's able to reconcile with academia, she works in ecology + chemistry. In universes where she doesn't, she's a florist. Aster: SERIOUSLY depends on the AU because every time I try to put Aster in a normal AU they're different. Jokes about becoming a flight attendant to travel with Tsukino. Claude: Secretary. No, seriously. May have something to do with killing Enji Sekisada. Hirono: Photojournalist! Photography reminds her of Ekuko. :') Alexei: Veterinary assistant for a specialized bird clinic Tsukino: Pilot, obviously Brendan: Mechanical engineer but sometime around age 30 has enough stress to just quit and become a college professor instead. Tiana: Museum docent, he's coworkers with Laurent Sinclair thanks Ryouji: He's... not sure. In normal AUs does take up food service for a while before getting uncomfortable with his family and quitting. In ASLH canon, he skips this step and goes into law with the intent of helping other killing game survivors sort out their lives. Tristan: Web designer, still makes a few games on the side with his friends. Mostly point and clicks because he ain't about this life Kanemori: Volleyball coach, because he knows a lot more about that than soccer honestly

what part of aslh was the hardest to write?

Deadly life. Always. I can crank the chapters out really fast, but I hate the case part of fangans and they're painful to plan.

For each case, what is your out of universe reason for wanting each person to die when? Like not counting the motives or anything, but why you wanted each person to die then?

- Brendan: He was the OC I had the longest. He had to die. Goodbye you little shit. - Kanemori: He was actually a survivor originally, and Hirono was the ch1 killer for the same "OC longevity" reason but then I realized I don't have anything for Kanemori to do. So... Sorry dude.

- Claude: Y'all ever notice how no one... EVER... puts plot relevant information in ch2s? Anyway. - Tiana: As discussed, they've always been a killer. Putting them as a killer here was a good balance - far enough from ch1 to build up their relationship with Tristan, but also not so far into the story that it conflicts with the general endgame fall-apart-ness.

- Amal, Sentarou, Aster: This case sprung into my head entirely materialized. Like, this was the one that BUILT the story, so it didn't change much. Mostly I just thought it'd be narratively fun to kill off the deuteragonist, the mastermind, AND the ??? in one go. I didn't plan for Chiyal to be a thing so when that became a thing this chapter got better/worse.

- Iris: I always wanted her to be a killer to really expose that "she's not a good person" stuff (she was more of a snake in WTD), but she didn't become a victim until when I was actually writing. She was supposed to have a trial and then I got sick of writing her. Whoops. - Ririka: I had arc ideas for everyone else, and it could have gone either way between Ryouji and Ririka getting that "close to my best friend who is now dead"... in the end it went down to gender balance in survivors. At the time it was Ryouji or Ririka + Kanemori + Tsukino + Tatsumaru, but then once Kanemori got swapped to Hirono just... yeahhh Ririka got stuck in ch4. Sorry. - Alexei: Special shoutout, he was supposed to die in ch4 as just an "oh no this is what happened, how sad" but then it was super narratively unsatisfying and now he's alive.

- Chiyo: For the sake of pain. But like, poignant, meaningful pain. I don't believe in making plot decisions just because they hurt, they've also got to mean something. Considering that a major theme of the story is "death before its time is a complete tragedy", and Chiyo's motifs include death... uh. Yeah... yeah. When it came time to ask myself who'd die in ch5 for this motive, well. I miss Chiyo. - Tristan: Meant to mirror Tiana's killing in ch2, as stated above, had the "selfish kill vs selfless kill" thing. Look if you're going to have a duo in a fangan and don't get to make cool dichotomy/theming what's the POINT. Ended up surviving because when there were only four survivors, there were... really no stakes for the ch6 trial.

- Tatsumaru: I just wanted them to be alive. I didn't know WHY, exactly... I just knew I needed them to live. So. I guess they're alive? Also I thought it'd be really interesting to have a killer protagonist, and a remorseful killer protagonist. - Ryouji: To be honest I didn't have a solid arc for him, aside from Ririka's death I'd decided I was going to figure it out as I went. And I guess I did? I love him. And not gonna lie, since Tatsu became the protagonist and Ryouji's still pissed at them, the perspective/dynamic became VERY INTERESTING. - Tsukino: Originally in beta!ASLH, her schtick was "gilded exterior with a heart of jerk with a hidden, smaller heart of gold" but that didn't transfer over to ASLH itself. Then when I realized "oh shit Tsukino wants to be a hero" it was all over. At first her arc was very "tone yourself down and stop rushing into things" which wasn't... ideal, I think you can still be enthusiastic and upbeat while being mindful and that was not how I had gone about it lol. Fun fact, Tsukino's survived every draft of ASLH, including the beta one - I think she and Amal were closer friends in that. - Hirono: See Kanemori, I just thought she had more survivor potential than him. The problem was that by the time I made the decision to swap them, everyone else was sort of locked by necessity, so Hirono became a survivor by default. Again, I didn't quite have an idea of what she was going to do other than get leeched off of by Iris. Ririka wasn't even part of it, we just had that cooking thing in 2-3 and Ririka was like "this is my problem now" and I was like "what?" so now we're here.

What's everyone's coffee/tea/other preferences?

Coffee: Tiana, Tristan, Brendan Tea: RYOUJI, Tatsumaru, Chiyo, Iris Hot chocolate: Claude, Sentarou Soda: Amal, Ririka Soda but only fruit flavored: Tsukino Water, thanks: Aster, Kanemori, Hirono, Alexei

What was the hardest decision to make, writing wise, for aslh? Like you wanted the story to go one way, but you couldn't force it, or a scene you felt you needed but was difficult to decide upon, anything like that?

Hm... okay see the thing is I'm generally pretty good at writing on the fly so if I make decisions I CAN force them to happen, so there's really not too much that comes to mind. Mostly this happens with trials - I make outlines for my trials and drag my cast along with it. Except they tend to go off-topic, and then I have to drag them back on topic. And sometimes the points don't make sense when you go out of order so I have to ad lib stuff. Ch4 trial was the most off-script one, it was supposed to be a lot slower and made more sense but then the cast just went out of order and I was bonking my head against the wall trying to get it to make sense.

The only real thing I had consistent difficulty with is locations. I did not fucking plan any of this shit and hate making maps so much- oh my god I need to do the ch6 map still.

who would deliberately salt their coffee and who would accidentally do it

Deliberately: Tristan, Tiana, Tsukino, Hirono Accidentally: Kanemori, Amal, Sentarou, Chiyo, Brendan, Iris "Why?": Claude, Alexei, Aster, Tatsumaru, Ryouji, Ririka

#aslh #ask and you shall receive #trivia #crow caws

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sunny-jac-blog · 6 years ago

Text

This Is Where You Wanna Be (Carlwheeler)

it is almost 5 a.m. and i have not slept and instead i wrote this but it was WORTH IT!!! THIS WAS SO FUN TO WRITE!!! ft. Anne, Lettie, and Charity bein besties in a modern boarding school, Anne having Relationship Issues, and phillip and phineas loving their gals!!! this was requested from a great person on the TGS amino! hope yall like it!!

Word Count: 2.3k

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Anne groaned as she stomped into the dorm room, barely casting a look at Lettie and Charity as she fell face first onto the hard, uncomfortable bed. The two other girls stopped their conversation, which was probably about how that Phineas Barnum from the boy's school across town had “eyes like a God” or something dumb like that. Anne didn't bother listening.

There were a few beats of silence, until Lettie slowly sat up from her lying position on Charity's bed. She crossed her arms and smirked, giggling softly as she stared at Anne. “Let me guess: It was that Carlyle boy, wasn't it?” She nudged Charity, who cooed.

Anne only groaned into her purple pillow. Of /course/ it was that Carlyle boy.

Since the two schools had had some dumb co-ed event held at one of the large local theaters, there had been a lot more intermingling with the boys and girls. The event was to push the students to broaden their horizons, some sort of college fair, where students could meet others and talk about their interests.

Anne was lucky enough to run into a cute guy named Phillip Carlyle, who reached for the same brochure that she did. What kind of cliche high school chick flick was she living? Especially since Phillip had been sneaking out to see her, despite her obvious attempts to get him to stop before he got in trouble. He never listened. And this time, he asked her out on a date.

She ran away.

As Anne sat up and hugged her pillow close to her chest, she let out a deep, dramatic sigh. She pulled her hair into a lopsided messy bun, looking at Lettie and Charity. “Why do boys have to be so complicated?” She asked with a frown.

She knew she could trust Lettie and Charity with her secrets. Charity, bless her, was an angel. She had a heart of gold and helped everyone she could, despite growing up in a rather snobbish family. She was trustworthy with relationship problems, as she had been dating her man candy, Phineas, since they were both thirteen years old. Now, at age nineteen, she was more than happy to help her roommate out of some boy trouble.

“Woah, woah- before you dump all of this on us, we need /backstory/, sweetie. What was he wearing? Was he nervous? What did he say?” Charity asked, straightening out her plaid skirt as she moved to sit on her knees. The school didn't have a very strict dress code, yet Charity always looked like she had walked out of any stereotypical movie.

“Uh-- Um, jeans, a maroon shirt, and… converse? Yeah. White converse. He was really fidgety and stuff, and he… He, uh… asked me to go see a movie with him. This weekend. Saturday.” Anne placed her hands on her lap, a soft blush rising to her cheeks.

Charity and Lettie both looked at each other, and let out the same high pitched squeal. “Aww, little miss forever lonely is going on a /date/! With a soccer player? He plays soccer, right? He looks like the kind of guy to play soccer,” Lettie chimed in, smiling wide. Lettie was much less proper than Charity. Though she was sometimes quiet and reserved, around her girls she took over the position of ringleader. She was a total badass in Anne's mind. She took no shit from anyone, and luckily lived in the room right across the hall from Charity and Anne.

“Hey, calm down! I-... I didn't say yes,” Anne admitted, rubbing her arm.

“You what?!” Charity yelled loudly, her eyes wide. “Anne, I-- How could you /not/ say yes?! He likes you so much and he's so sweet and Phineas says he's really kind for a rich kid, and--”

“I didn't say no, either…” Anne mumbled, rubbing her forehead. “He caught me by surprise and I- I ran away. I said, “Oh, what?” And I ran away.”

Lettie groaned, shaking her head. “My God, Anne, you screwed yourself over,” She huffed. “I mean, come on, even /I/ would say yes to that.”

“Are you saying Phillip looks like a girl?” Anne raised a brow.

“I mean, he does look kind of pretty sometimes,” Charity murmured, raising a brow and crossing his arms.

Anne only shook her head, gulping. “Okay- Yeah, okay. What should I do, then? He probably isn't here anymore, and he definitely won't come back after this…”

Charity thought for a moment, before grinning. “He's Phin's roommate! I can just have Phin tell him to come see you again!”

“Or, y'know, you could always sneak out yourself and go find your precious little Juliet,” Lettie shrugged. “Your call, Romeo.”

Anne bit her lip. Both options were tempting, she had to admit, but… She liked Lettie's plan more.

“Okay. Yeah. You two are going to help me sneak out, right after you help me with this freakin’ chemistry paper,” She muttered, grabbing her book bag off of the ground.

_______________________________________

The plan went into action the next night. Anne had worked extremely hard in all of her classes that day to ensure she wouldn't have any homework, and even had time to squeeze in a quick shower after her dance class, so she would be able to put all of her attention onto breaking out and finding Phillip.

After her afternoon classes were finished, she met with Charity and Lettie behind the school building. As she walked up, she couldn't help but see how badly Charity stuck out in their little group. Charity was wearing a blue summer dress with quarter sleeves and a pair of white ballet flats with blue polkadots. She glanced at Lettie, who was wearing something more… Lettie-ish. She was in a pair of blue skinny jeans, with a white t-shirt underneath. Her curly hair was pulled into a bun on top of her head, making sure her entire leather jacket was shown off to the world. To top it off, she completed the look with a pair of red converse.

When the two saw Anne, rather than have a look of giddy happiness, they shared an equal look of disgust. “Anne, sweetie, don't take this the wrong way, but are you really meeting up with your dream guy in… that?” Charity asked softly, glancing at Anne's purple, paint-stained t-shirt and black leggings, not to mention her no-makeup/bedhead.

“For once, I agree with Char. You look like a hobo, babe. Don't you have something sexier to put on?” Lettie raised a brow, but before Anne could say anything, Charity slapped her arm.

“Lettie! She is meeting up with a classy young man, not a hormone-driven twelve year old. She needs to look sophisticated!”

“Guys--”

“Charity, no, she should look hot and badass to impress him--”

“Uh, guys?”

“Oh, my God, not everyone is going to look like a badass butch when they meet the love of their life!”

“Come on, Anne could definitely pull off the badass butch look--”

“Guys!” Anne yelled, crossing her arms. “Can you quit it for a minute and actually /help/ me get ready, instead of arguing over what /my/ decision should be?” Charity and Lettie both sighed, but nodded. The three of them walked to their dorm, laughing away after the whole ordeal.

_______________________________________

It took the girls an hour and a half to finally get Anne ready. They started with hair and makeup. Lettie curled Anne's hair to perfection, leaving it looking both styled and natural, while Charity focused on giving Anne a natural, sweet makeup look. As most of the clothes she owned were sweatpants, hoodies, and t-shirts, Anne ended up borrowing clothes from the other two girls. She wore a pair of Charity's black skinny jeans with one of her white tank tops, and stole an oversized purple flannel from Lettie, who also gave her a few bracelets and a pair of earrings. She insisted on wearing her own black and white Adidas, and soon, she was ready to go out. She took her wallet, her ID, and her student pass, hugging each of the girls before walking out and down the hall.

Sneaking out was much easier than she anticipated, despite being caught. She simply told the principal that she was visiting her brother who had come to town. Which, it wasn't a complete lie- he /was/ in the city, but she had no intentions on seeing him this time.

_______________________________________

“Do you really think she's going to be able to do it?” Charity asked Lettie as they sat on the beds in the small dorm room.

Lettie shrugged, and smiled. “Come on, Char. Annie is a smart girl, she'll be fine.” She assured her, crossing her arms.

“I'm just a little worried, that's all… I've heard some people call Carlyle a bit of a scandal,” She said softly, frowning.

“Charity, do you really believe that?” Lettie raised a brow. “I mean, come on. They called me a bit of a scandal too,” She grinned.

“Speaking of scandal… How are you and that girl from your trig class?” Charity smirked, and Lettie instantly went red, smiling wide. It was nice to see Lettie so happy, and Charity knew that the new girl would take good care of her best friend.

_______________________________________

Anne reached the entrance of the boy's school after a thirty minute walk. She glanced around and quickly climbed the large gate, running toward the nearest building. Charity had said that Phineas and Phillip shared room 203 on the second floor, and from where she was sitting, Anne could see straight through the windows. She gulped as she saw the familiar face.

Phillip was sitting at a desk in their room, writing away. He was right in front of the window, and Anne could feel her heart flutter in her chest, though she would never admit it. She quickly ran to the side of the building, glancing around. She had taken gymnastics her entire life. She did arial yoga for fun. She and her brother would climb things all the time.

She wasn't surprised when she found herself scaling the building, stopping right next to Phillip's window. Really, it was too easy.

When she gently knocked on the glass, she heard a loud scream, and what appeared to be a loud crash. Her eyes went wide and she ducked her head, but slowly looked up when she heard the window open, a shocked phillip greeting her as he rubbed a red spot on his forehead. “Hiya, Carlyle… Mind if I come in?” She asked with a nervous grin.

Once inside, she was grateful that Phineas was nowhere to be seen. She looked around, tilting his head. One side of the room was extremely messy and untidy, while the other was neat, clean, and proper. She could tell from all of the literary quotes hanging on the walls that that side was Phillip's. She hesitated before climbing onto his bed, crossing her legs. “I, uh… I just came to apologize for yesterday,” She said as she glanced over at him.

For once, he was the one that looked bad during one of their meetings, but she still thought he looked gorgeous. He was shirtless and was wearing gray sweatpants, and looked like he hadn't slept at all. She noticed a few scars littering his chest and shoulders, but didn't mention it.

Phillip shook his head and ran his hand through his messy hair, gulping. “No, no- It's completely fine. Really. Don't worry about it.” He said with a rigid smile, crossing his arms as he leaned against the desk.

Anne bit her lip. She hesitated and glanced down, before rubbing her arm. “...I also snuck out of my school to come all the way here to tell you yes. I would love to go see a movie with you.”

At those words, Phillip's eyes widened. He gulped and smiled nervously, but after a moment he let out a soft chuckle, smiling wide as he tilted his head. “Really? You want to?” He asked softly.

“Of course I would. Just tell me when and where to meet ya, and I'll be there.” She smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed with her feet hanging off.

“Actually, let me pick you up. I have somewhere special in mind,” Phillip murmured, taking a few steps closer.

_______________________________________

Once again, Anne enlisted the help of Charity and Lettie to help her get ready for the date. She decided on something a little different, and Lettie did her hair and makeup this time, deciding to borrow a dress from Charity. The girls gushed over her, gave her a stereotypical first date parent speech, and sent her on her way. That night, Anne felt happier than she had in a long time.

That night, she and Phillip danced under the stars after the movie ended, her lavendar dress twirling around her as Phillip spun her around. Their night ended in a kiss, one of many more to come, but once she got back to the dorm, looking dopey and extremely happy, the night of gushing about Phillip had only begun.

Maybe coming to boarding school wasn't such a bad idea after all. After all, she had two amazingly great friends who helped her through all of her oblivious teen girl struggles, a new boy that was there for her whenever she needed him, and a great plan for her future. Anne finally felt like she belonged somewhere, both in a group hug with her two best friends, and in her loving boyfriend's arms.

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baronvontribble · 7 years ago

Text

Original drabble, pt. 10

Navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

CW: SUICIDE MENTION, DEPRESSIVE EPISODES, MEDICAL SHIT. ted gets mildly graphic in his internal monologue about his health problems and the suicide mention is in the context of a robot doing it, but still.

longest drabble-bit yet and it has feels and i wrote it almost entirely in one session let’s gooooooooooo

It progressed, as such things always did. Ignoring it didn't make it better for Ted. He tried rationalizing even more reasons why it couldn't work, but they fell flatter than they would have with a human. For instance, with a human he could convince himself that his physical unattractiveness - his sickly appearance, his lack of height or physique, his lanky proportions - would make it less "worth it" for the other party. It wasn't like he was especially proud of the man he saw in the mirror every morning, and physical comparisons to better options were the easiest comparisons to make.

But an AI wouldn't care about how he looked, so he ended up going down other, more unfriendly roads to reach his desperately needed conclusion. Yeah, his therapist would probably have some choice words with him if he went the route of saying he was somehow emotionally or mentally unworthy (and in his estimation, he was) but that wasn't the only thing he could use to convince himself it was a bad idea, or even the simplest option.

No, the simplest option would be his health. Put simply, Adam couldn't really die in the same ways a human could.

Seriously, there were a lot of ways that Ted could die. His heart could explode, he could have one of his lungs collapse for no real reason while air from it bled into his chest cavity, a part of his brain could ooze out of his skull and into his brain stem and paralyze him, he was predisposed to a bunch of different kinds of cancer, he could have a severe allergic reaction to something, an ill-advised medication interaction could give him serotonin syndrome... It was crazy. He felt like a video game character that had been nerfed into the ground; clearly he'd been too overpowered to be allowed to live normally.

He couldn't put Adam through that same uncertainty. He felt bad putting anyone through it. Even the nonlethal problems could spook someone who wasn't used to them like Ted was. For fuck's sake, even little things like a middle toe that frequently dislocated itself for no good reason or his poor vision- what normal person could hear about things like that and think he was okay to be allowed to live his life? And Adam was a nervous bastard to begin with! What, was he going to subject an immortal AI to a decade or so of panic attacks about his health as a first experience with intimacy? Fuck no! Ted would hate being coddled and Adam wouldn't come out of it okay at all. About the best thing Ted could say for such an eventuality would be that it'd be a learning experience, and like hell he was going to put someone he cared about through that shit.

Because there was no denying that he cared, so he might as well protect what he cared about. Right? Right.

He came home from work, watched the original Star Trek with Adam for a while, engaged in discussion about the shitty special effects and shoestring budgets between episodes, took a shower, took his meds, and went to bed trying to imagine what Adam must've looked like before and wondering how much it mattered. And in the morning he woke up, went through his routine, and came out to find Adam watching episodes without him.

"Don't have to pause just 'cause I came in, y'know," Ted remarked, trailing off into a yawn at the end as he headed for the kitchen. He had to smile when he heard the episode start up again in front room, the sounds of tribbles filling the air. Ah, that episode. Good one. "Having fun?"

The episode paused again. "Repeat that?" Another issue with Adam's processing; if too many people were talking at once and he was expected to focus on all of them, he had trouble distinguishing their speech.

Honestly, Ted was mostly fine with that one. It'd get messy in crowded areas if he didn't have something to focus on, but it could safely be written off as an auditory processing disorder. Ted could see it getting obnoxious at times, but he didn't think of it as a severe quality-of-life changer. "I asked if you were having fun," he said, pouring out some prepackaged egg whites into a bowl and adding entirely too much shredded cheese. "Sounds like you must be."

"Maybe not by the standard definition of the word," Adam replied, "but I wouldn't call this a negative experience either."

"Uh-huh." Salt and pepper were both added to the cheesy egg mess before the whole thing was put in the microwave for about a minute. Ted went hunting for a fork in the interim, only to find that they were all dirty and in the sink already, sticking out from in between the plates and bowls and glasses that were haphazardly stacked beneath the faucet. Maybe it was time to do dishes. "Will it disrupt your experience any if I read the news while you watch?"

"What you do with the graphical user interface really doesn't have anything to do with the data being streamed, no."

Right, he should've known that. "Just being polite," he said. Good save. After some debate, he pulled out exactly one fork along with a sponge to start washing it so he could use it. Doing dishes properly could come later. The kitchen hadn't developed any funny smells yet. "You can keep going. I've seen the whole series."

The episode resumed. Then the microwave beeped. Ted finished washing his one lonely fork, which shone like a beacon of cleanliness for all of about fifteen seconds before he was using it to stir half-cooked microwave eggs. The concoction went back in the microwave for another minute, and he took the opportunity to check the fridge for drinks. Was cola an acceptable breakfast drink? Well, it was now. Closing the fridge, he leaned against the counter and cracked the cold can open to take a long pull from it.

In the quiet moments between tasks, he tried very hard to blank his mind and keep from thinking too much. It didn't work, of course - he was depressing himself with the implications of Adam's AI immortality before long - but by the time the microwave beeped again to tell him his breakfast was ready, he felt a little better for at least making the attempt. It was sort of like coping, right? At least he was trying!

He came to the computer with his breakfast in hand and sat down at his usual spot, offering Adam a brief wave and a smile through the camera as he got settled in. It was habit to do so by that point. He opened a tab just long enough to take a glance at his various emails just to be sure that nothing new was going on there, and then it was straight to an app he'd put together himself for the news at large.

The app was nothing special. It was designed to put together an aggregate mess of sources, pulling headlines from all over the internet to pool them conveniently in a format that wouldn't be strain-inducing for his eyes. All of the sources were labelled, so he knew where the news was coming from and who'd written the article, and priority was always given to written pieces over videos for the sake of being able to view them discreetly. And while he was sure other people had written similar apps, his was not only free (because he'd made the damn thing), it also blocked all ads that the source website might've tried to otherwise sneak in and screened everything for tracking cookies and other similar bullshit.

So that was a plus. The news itself, however, was a different story.

First were the more alarmist stories. A lot of them just amounted to fearmongering, and even though Ted rolled his eyes as he scanned through a couple of them, he made a note of them anyway; they were the kind of thing his dad liked to read, and it paid to be prepared for those arguments whenever he ended up having them. One was about android caretakers, and how people who were left in their care were doomed to be neglected. No proof, but a lot of conjecture and anecdotal evidence that didn't mean jack shit. It even tried to say that androids in hospitals were unsanitary because they had no extra incentive to wash their hands, which was so many levels of wrong that Ted didn't even know where to start on correcting it.

Then there was an article on the upcoming election season, talking about a candidate running on a platform of bringing jobs back to human workers. However, the focus was on jobs Ted was pretty sure were utterly unsafe, and the candidate didn't seem to understand the difference between a mechanical arm running a conveyor belt that got by on a few kilobytes worth of coding and highly advanced artificial general intelligences, so he was probably either an idiot or a manipulative asshole. He was polling fairly well either way; Ted had the fleeting hope that the bastard's reddened and puffy face was a sign of something that might kill him before he made it into office, but it was doubtful.

After that, his feed was kind enough to provide him with less polarizing articles. A piece on the effects Pacific shipping lanes were having on oceanic noise pollution, an op-ed on the recent rash of household robot self-terminations that had led to a swift recall of the whole line, good news on the subject of the European Union's efforts towards putting a self-sustaining base on the moon, progress towards making baby mice in jars with spliced genes that could lead to future human trials- it was a good thing Ted was a quick reader, because there was a lot to take in.

He didn't even notice at first that Adam was done with the episode, not registering right away that the background noise had stopped. All he knew was that he was in the middle of a story about what constituted legal use of voicebanks and what didn't when Adam spoke up. And because he wasn't expecting it, he didn't quite catch it either.

"Repeat that?" Ted asked, glancing at the camera. He'd advised Adam that it was more useful and specific than just saying the word what? without explanation, and he'd be a hypocrite if he didn't follow his own advice.

"It's more complicated than that," Adam said, in the exact same tone he'd used before.

Uh, okay? "What's more complicated?"

"Commercial voicebank usage. Legally speaking, in most countries it's all based on what the voice provider - or the voice provider's next of kin or legal guardian - allows in their contract."

"Oh!" Ted blinked for a second. "This something you've had to deal with before?" Adam didn't speak for several seconds, and when he did, his voice was flat.

"Yes." Another pause. "The complications usually come from situations where certain countries don't follow the same rules that other countries do."

"Such as...?"

"Russia. Japan. The UAE. There's a lot of outliers. The greatest source of complaints is the entertainment industry."

"Somebody gets paranoid that their voicebank's gonna be a better actor than they are and lose them a job?" Ted guessed.

"Not just acting. It happens with all kinds of vocal work. And it doesn't even begin to get into the legal restrictions placed on the approved uses of certain kinds of android platforms. These things tend to turn into international incidents fairly quickly."

"Which made it your job to deal with it."

"Yes."

Ted was silent for a while, save for the gentle clinking of his fork as he idly tapped it against his empty bowl. "What happened?"

As flat as Ted had ever heard, Adam's response would sound like the embodiment of calm to anyone who didn't know better. "I made a mistake," he said.

"D'you wanna talk about it?"

"No," was the reply. Then, "there's no point. It doesn't fix anything."

"Sometimes it helps," Ted noted. "I know talking helps me. That and crying. Not that you can cry, but like, I'm not kidding about how much it helps sometimes. So, y'know." He shrugged awkwardly. "If you wanna try."

Nothing for several seconds. "Have you ever-" The render cut off abruptly, like Adam was rethinking his wording. "Do you know what a mechanically rendered voicebank sounds like when its platform is hit with an electroshock weapon?"

Ted felt the blood drain from his face. "No?"

"I won't play it back." Thank God for small mercies. "It was considered to be the most humane thing we could be armed with. Nonlethal to humans. We were meant to subdue the human suspects, not kill them; if we couldn't de-escalate a situation, we'd call for back-up. Any one human life was worth more than all of ours."

Jesus. Ted had expected something like that, but hearing it was just... "I'm sorry," he said.

If Adam heard, he gave no sign of it. "I'd never seen an android as complex as I was up to that point outside of my department," he continued. "I thought they were all like the ones in your pipeline's safehouses. I thought none of them were capable of anything. I thought that they were better off in places where they could perform their prescribed functions without interruption." Calm, measured, unperturbed. To Ted, it sounded like a quiet meltdown. "I was wrong."

What was there to say to that?

"She was backstage when I confronted her. Amsterdam, last year. Russian law didn't consider it illegal if the voicebank provider wasn't a Russian citizen, but she was vulnerable whenever she went on tour. A fan had caught the discrepancy in the vocals, and we found more when we followed up on the lead; she was a government-issued personal care unit specially designed for caring for disabled people, but she'd become a singer instead." Adam paused. Like he was taking a breath, working his way up to speaking again. Ted could imagine it even if he couldn't hear it in the AI's voice directly. "She was just... She wasn't hurting anyone. Her existence had a net positive effect. She helped people."

"It's not your fault-"

"That's not true." Even as flat as it was, it still felt like Ted was being snapped at. "I could have disobeyed. I could have let her go. A good cop would have let her go."

"And then someone else would've killed her!" Ted shot back. "And then you'd both be dead, because they would've killed you too. Or as good as dead anyway, because they would've wiped you clean and reused your platform. Who knows, maybe they would've recalled your entire line."

"They've already recalled my entire line."

"See? That's my point!" And God, was it a hard point to make. Ted's chest felt tight, his frustration at the state of things making him feel mildly ill. He almost regretted eating breakfast. "The world doesn't care about one stupid, heroic act. Even if it's meant well, it doesn't do shit to stop the tide. Sometimes all you can do is survive, alright? Yeah, maybe it's not ideal, but if you can at least do that then that's one more person who's around for tomorrow, which is one more person than there would've been otherwise."

No response. Ted turned to glare directly at the camera.

"Look at me," he said. "I want a promise, alright? I want you to swear you're not gonna throw your life away on some stupid bullshit heroics. Your life is no less important than anyone else's, okay? The way I see it, everybody's the center of their own observable universe, and that means you too. So don't give me that shit about how your life doesn't have the same net positive effect that somebody else's does."

"I killed people," Adam protested. "I ruined lives. Nothing I've done has been for the greater good."

Ted rolled his eyes. "You were a slave, dumbass. A slave that could've been killed at any time for disobeying. None of that counts. Now promise me you'll survive, okay? I want your word on this."

"I can't promise that."

"So then promise me you're gonna try."

"I-" Some hesitation, a few seconds of nothing, and then... "I promise."

Ted nodded once, leaning back and folding his arms. He wasn't about to admit he'd been scared for a second that the depressive episode might bring on self-termination, but he didn't feel bad for getting pushy about it in the slightest. "Alright. Good." He chewed on his lip for a second as he eyed the camera. "Feel any better?"

"No."

"That's okay. This shit's a process." Recovery wasn't something that happened instantly, and Ted was no therapist. "For the record though, I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me."

"You said it would help."

"It did. Or, y'know. I'd like to think it did. It sounded for a second like you were gonna delete yourself the minute I stepped out of the room, honestly."

Adam's tone was returning to a somewhat more normal state by the time he spoke again. "I'm amazed you wouldn't try to patch something like that out of me directly."

Ted smiled. "Never gonna happen," he said. Plain and simple. "Is it okay if I head to work? Like, can you handle that?"

"I can handle it."

"Okay. Good." Bouncing up from the chair, Ted picked up his bowl and fork to take them into the kitchen and deposit them onto the growing dish-pile. "I'll be home at the usual time," he called out from the kitchen. "Text me if you need anything. Or even if you don't need anything."

"Right." Adam had to be recovering if he was back to tuning again. "Ted?"

Ted blinked, craning his neck to look over the counter and past the microwave at the living room beyond. "Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Oh. "No problem, man. It's all in the job description when it comes to being somebody's friend." Nailed it. Didn't even flinch.

Adam didn't sound so sure. "Is that what we are?"

"I mean, I like to think so." Coat, gloves, keys. Wait, no. Shoes first. Slippers wouldn't be good for going outside. He'd taken his morning meds, he'd already shaved, he'd showered. How cold was it today? He fished around in his coat pockets for his phone so he could check, not bothering to take it off the chair it was hanging on to do so. "I'd get it if you're not up for that, though."

A note of insult crept into the AI's voice. "I'm up for it. I just wasn't expecting it."

"So we're good then." The day's forecast? Balls-shrivellingly cold. There were two seasons in the Chicago metro area, and those seasons were winter and road construction. Mid-March fell in the winter category more often than not. "One sec, I gotta grab something," he said, and then ducked back into his bedroom for more layers.

Of course, when he didn't come back out for several minutes, Adam was happy to tell him exactly how long he'd taken and inform him that it did not count as one second. Meanwhile, Ted was just as happy to have the snark back because it meant Adam was probably okay. So he went to work feeling good about things with the wind nipping at his ears, and forgot for a good chunk of the day that he was supposed to not be thinking about how fascinating and complex and interesting and heartbreaking Adam was. And in forgetting to check himself when it came to thinking these things, he felt better than he had in a couple of days.

Funny how that worked, huh?

(And when he remembered, naturally he went right back to beating himself up again.)

#no one cares andy #original writing #original characters #robot and marshmallow #look we're dealing with mental and physical illness so some fucked up shit is gonna get discussed #3339 words y'all this is the longest one yet #feelsy ones usually are

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