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yandere-daydreams · 4 years ago

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Tanjiro insisting that his darling needs his protection. He’s used to being the hero so helping his s/o is just second nature. No matter how little they need his help.

It’s been too long since I’ve written for Tanjiro, especially as a classic Protective! Yandere. He’s just so caring… it’d be a shame not to accept his help, wouldn’t it?

Title: Simple Things.

TW: Implied Imprisonment and Mentions of Death.

Anger was a simple thing.

Blazing, bright and furious, but simplistic, not difficult to understand for someone as accustomed to it as you were. It was one of the few aspects of your personality Tanjiro couldn’t seem to snuff out, regardless of how much effort he put into keeping you smothered. You took pride in maintaining it, feeding into your rage and keeping it as scorching as ever, hot enough to keep anything more negative at bay. You didn’t have to think about anger. You didn’t have to try to be angry. And, more than that, anything Tanjiro did to calm you would only make you angrier. It was a simple, constant thing, and you cherished it.

Recently, it was all you had to cherish.

Tanjiro was good at that, stripping you of everything you were and replacing it with something more docile, something less substantial, leaving you with little to say and even less to do. Even now, it was all you could do to keep your head up, your chin resting on your fist as you listened blearily to him go on about his latest mission, his newest apprentice, people you would never meet and places you would never go, unless you finally managed to separate yourself from your self-proclaimed ‘caretaker’. But, you had your doubts that escape was still a possibility. Your last bout of freedom had ended with a new pair of shackles around your wrists and a broken ankle, neither of which you cared to revisit.

You’d hardly pulled yourself out of your thoughts by the time Tanjiro remembered to include you in the conversation, hardly glancing over his shoulder as he spoke. “Tea, love?”

You nodded, silently, and opened your mouth to give a verbal response, but a ceramic cup was already being slid onto the low table in front of you by the time your lips parted. Steam rose off the surface of a golden, translucent liquid - jasmine, you guessed - and without thinking, you reached down, moving to take a sip before Tanjiro stopped you, grabbing your wrist and pushing it back into your lap, only letting you go once you stopped trying to resist. “It’s too hot,” He explained, his voice strict, but gentle, as if he was explaining something to a small child who couldn’t know any better. “You’ll burn yourself, and neither of us want that. Wait for it to cool.”

“It’s barely luke-warm,” You mumbled, well-aware that the drink would, most likely, cause injury. That didn’t matter, though. What mattered was that he was trying to stop you, and you didn’t want to be stopped. “I can handle it, and I’ll deal with it if I can’t.”

That earned you one of Tanjiro’s rare frowns, the expression accompanied by a sharp glare out of the corner of his eye, your captor now seated a little too close to your side, but no amount of disapproval could quell the mounting resentment building up in your chest. It was a familiar feeling, an irrational desire to do anything save for what Tanjiro asked, and there was little you could do except lean into it, tend to it, let it overpower your fear of captivity or boredom or anything else he could do to you. It only got worse when he spoke. “I promised I’d take care of you,” He said, repeating his favorite mantra for the thousandth time since you’d first done something to displease him. “That means protecting you from yourself, too. I know you think you’re invincible--”

“It’s tea, Kamado,” You interrupted, as eager to end this conversation as he was to have it.

“It’s tea now, but do you know what’s next?” He shook his head, clicking his tongue, signaling that he didn’t want an answer, or any answer you would give, at least. “I’ve tried letting you take care of yourself, but… it doesn’t work. You need someone to remind you what’s possible and what’s not. I don’t mind, I like seeing you happy, but you have to work with me.” There was a pause, then a sigh. The hushed sounds of Tanjiro acting like he wasn’t dying to continue. “Remember what happened to your village?”

You bowed your head, narrowing your eyes towards the tabletop. Your discontent didn’t waver, but Tanjro pulled you into his side regardless, an arm wrapping around your waist and drawing you closer. His free hand came up, nimble fingers starting to card through your hair, and reluctantly, you forced out the only response you could think of. “I don’t want to talk about my village.”

“We have to.” He wanted to. You were the one being forced to listen. “Don’t you remember how it felt to see your home destroyed by a handful of careless people? How terrible all that pointless bloodshed was to watch?” He kissed the top of your head affectionately, his hand dropping to your cheek, cupping your jaw in his palm and holding you to his shoulder, just above his heart. The way he always held you, when he thought he was being kind. “I won’t let a demon touch you, not again, but there are other threats we have to be wary of. Threats that I can’t keep away if you run off every time I’m preoccupied.”

Your voice was small, almost inaudible. You could feel a knot forming at the back of your throat, your vision blurring ever so slightly. Suddenly, you wished you had ended up like most of your village. “Please stop.”

“You need to hear this. It keeps you grounded.” Slowly, you were pulled into his lap, and Tanjiro let you have a moment of silence to bury your face in his haori. That did little to drown out Tanjiro’s tone, though, so sickeningly patronizing, you could hardly stand to think he was talking to you. “No one would’ve been there to save you, if I hadn’t come. You could’ve been maimed, or killed, or worse. You still could be, if you’re too stubborn to accept my help.”

You pushed yourself away from him, intent on putting as much distance between you and Tanjiro as possible, but it was all you could do to straighten your back, to take a deep breath and choke down the familiar, merciless sobs threatening to overpower your resolve. You didn’t know whether you should be disappointed you still cared for a life you lived so many years ago, or relieved you hadn’t been desensitized by Tanjiro’s so frequent ‘reminders’. But, you knew you were angry. You knew you couldn’t stop being angry, even if there was nothing you could use that anger for.

Tanjiro loosened his hold on you, wordlessly permitting you to lean forward, to rest your arms on the tabletop and take up the long-forgotten teacup. He didn’t try to stop you as you drank, this time, only slotting his chest against your back, keeping you close enough to feel the broad, self-satisfied smile now pressed against your neck.

You were angry, but you didn’t do anything to stop him.

You supposed fear was a simple thing, too.

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fletchphoenix · 4 years ago

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I’ll See You When I Fall Asleep

Hi All! This is Chapter 10 of the Varigo Coffee Shop AU! Also!! A lot of you have asked and yes, I do have an Ao3 where I cross-post called ‘fletchphoenix’ too! Anyway, thank you for all your support and onwards with the chapter!!

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Thunder rumbled and lightning crackled outside the window as Varian shook, holding a small test tube in his hands. Where even was he? His eyes weren’t adjusting properly, until the sudden flick of a lightswitch brought about a blinding light. Varian attempted to cover his eyes to block it out, his attempts not working in the slightest. He lowered his arms with a frown and glanced around the room as he regained his vision slowly. Nothing seemed right here - a fantastical vibe surrounded the whole room as he took in all the small details.

The room was dank, the aroma of rotting wood filling the room which, coinciding with the light, made for an awful pairing that made Varian queasy. Uneven, cobbled floor made his feet slip slightly and he struggled to keep his balance as he felt himself feeling sicker and sicker. There was almost no natural light in the room either - only one half-oval window that sat above a creaky table, covered in journals and various scientific apparatus that he had used many times. A raccoon sat on the table too, snoring with a large sheet of paper lying underneath it. The cause of the bright lights were around six lanterns hanging from the ceiling, and now that his eyes had time to brace themselves, he could see it really wasn’t that bright, with an eerie mood being set in the room. Paper and chalk also littered the wall with frantic scribbles about something he didn’t understand. The sundrop…? He didn’t know. The thing that put him off..were the rocks.

Black rocks shot out of the ground in clumps of two or three, reaching so high they almost pierced the rotting ceiling of the makeshift laboratory. He reached out and rapped his fist against the rock quietly - it seemingly was not breaking. Huh, invincible black rocks? Makeshift labs in an ancient house? It was strange how much they put him off, unease building in his stomach for some reason unbeknownst to him. His eyes set on a large figure in the middle of the room, covered by a towering sheet with small patches of different fabric scattered over the sheet. The stitching looked poor though, as though someone who’d never sewn before had done it. Come to think of it, his clothes were the same, a cyan shirt with a patch on the left arm that was significantly darker than the rest of the fabric. The shirt, however, was almost completely covered by a leather apron, also swamping the brown trousers that he was wearing, stopping shy from the top of his boots. It didn’t seem right for him to be wearing this. A frown crept onto his face as he rested his hands on the sheet, taking in a deep breath before pulling it away and revealing the thing it was concealing. A gasp left his mouth and he doubled over, taking in sharp breaths as the tears instantly built in his eyes. His head shot back up to stare at the sight in front of him.

A hard, amber substance twisted in harsh turns, sharp spikes of it trailing high and curling at points. His boyfriend was trapped in the amber, his hand outstretched with a note in his hand, a clear expression of pain on his face forever. Tears welled in his eyes and rolled freely down his cheek, his shaky steps inching closer to the amber and his hands resting on it. “Hugo?” he whispered, unsure of whether his father could even hear him from his crystallised prison.

“Varian, what have you done?” Varian’s head snapped around to see Rapunzel, hands raised to cover her mouth in shock of the scene unfolding in front of her. She looked so frightened - but not of the amber, of him. She looked different too - blonde locks that must’ve measured over sixty feet were tied back into a mix between a ponytail and a braid replaced her brunette bob. She also wore a purple dress, akin to one an elegant princess would wear. He opened his mouth to say something, before being rudely interrupted.

“This is all your fault.” Another voice. Eugene’s. He slowly moved from the darkness and placed his hands on Rapunzel’s shoulder, her turning back to wrap her arms round him in a fearful embrace. He glared coldly at Varian, as if he’d done something wrong.

More and more voices joined the symphony of blaming Varian, each declaration cutting deeper and deeper each time. He covered his ears, a futile attempt to try and block all of the noise out but it only got louder and louder. People he loved were calling him a monster. All except for..

“Hugo! Hugo, I’m so sorry!” he cried out, forcing himself to raise his head and eyes darting around the room and staring at the prison of the boy he loved so dearly that he’d created. He couldn’t bear to look at his frozen corpse, too many people crowding and screaming at him about his faults. It was all becoming too much. The yelling, the closeness..he couldn’t handle it. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, moving closer and closer towards the floor. “Hugo!”

“HUGO! He yelled and sat up, grasping the bedsheets and letting out heavy, shaky breaths, startling the safe, sleeping form of his boyfriend beside him. His knees curled against his chest, trying to steady his breathing to no avail as his small form shook with every sob that left his mouth. Sweat formed a gross blanket over his skin, presumably from his body reacting to the panic he was feeling. What even was that place? Why did everyone look so different? Why wasn’t Hugo there? The questions flooding his head only caused more stress to take its toll on his body as his breathing quickened once again.

“Varian.” His boyfriend’s voice called from beside him, “Hey, can I touch you? Is that okay?” he questioned, Varian giving a small nod before Hugo’s hands rubbed soothing circles onto his back carefully in an attempt to help comfort him until he was ready to talk. Still shaking, Varian leaned in closer to his boyfriend, comfortably moving so they were laying down in a gentle embrace, swaying slightly as Hugo whispered sweet nothings to his boyfriend and placing kisses to the top of his head. “Hey, whatever it was, it wasn’t real. I’m here now and you’re safe. You’ve done nothing wrong.”

As he felt more comfortable and safe, he looked at Hugo’s face. Concern covered it - his eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he held Varian’s hands in his own, peppering kisses over them. “I..woke up in a lab. I didn’t recognise it. It was covered with all there..black rocks that stuck out of the ground. And there was amber in the middle. You were stuck inside. Everyone was yelling at me and saying it was all my fault. It was terrifying, Hugo. I couldn’t breathe. I just..” his arms tightened around the blonde, gripping the fabric of his shirt. “I was so scared that I’d hurt you. That I’d actually lost you..I don’t want to lose you, Hugh. I love you too much.” he whispered against his boyfriend’s shoulder, the muscles underneath his shirt tensing tremendously in reaction to his words.

Hugo sat in silence, holding the boy closer to him and staring blankly at the wall. How..how could he respond to that? Amber..? Black rocks? He let out an exasperated sigh as he pet the hair of the younger boy. He’d never seen his boyfriend so distraught over a nightmare, the other gripping his shirt as they embraced. He reached for his glasses, putting them on before picking up his phone to check the time. 3:54am. Well, they weren’t going back to sleep anytime soon anyway, he decided before shuffling back in the embrace, resting his hands on his boyfriend’s shoulders. “How about we put on one of those crappy romance films you love so much and make some hot cocoa? How does that sound, sweetheart?” The sight of Varian’s slight smile and a nod was all the confirmation he needed. “Okay love, you go make the cocoa and I’ll sort out the snacks. After all, you are the cocoa master.” He added with a chuckle before swinging his legs over the bed, pushing the fuzzy slippers Varian had randomly bought him one day onto his feet and striding down the hall to the living room.

He set up a mini bed for them on the sofa, bringing over a blanket and pillows for the both of them. He knew Varian’s would go unused though, the younger would most likely opt to lay on top of him with his head on his chest, not that he was complaining. More pillows for him, he thought with a grin as he walked into the adjacent room to get some snacks. Passing his boyfriend, he decided on a wide variety, including candy, chocolate and some ice cream in case that’s what Varian decided to opt for. He glanced over at his boyfriend, whose attention was solely focused on making the perfect beverage for both of them. A lovestruck smile drifted onto his face as he strutted over, placing an unexpected kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek, throwing off his concentration for a split second. “Smells wonderful babe, keep up the immaculate work and maybe I’ll teach you the art of making the perfect vanilla latte. Who knows?” Varian chuckled, Hugo silently praising himself for making the boy smile at least a little bit before heading into the living room, an abundance of snacks in his arms.

Carefully he set them out on the table, being sure to empty out a packet of cat food for Ruddiger into his ceramic bowl, the cat graciously jumping from his perch on the cat tower and beginning his meal. Hugo rolled his eyes, a smile playing on his lips at his peace offering being accepted so willingly by his arch-nemesis. Hopefully now the cat would let him spend some time alone with his boyfriend, letting them cuddle on the sofa and watch one of Varian’s….admittedly terrible romance films free from any intrusion from the attention whore.

He understood the cat’s worry though - according to Varian, he’d taken him in when he was a kitten and extremely malnourished, taking care of him. From then on, Ruddiger had been extremely loyal to Varian, never straying from his human’s side (because let's be real, Ruddiger owned Varian, not the other way around. That cat had almost everyone wrapped around it’s metaphorical finger and it knew that...terrifyingly well) even when he’d executed some very much illegal acts in the name of helping his father.

Hugo didn’t blame Varian for his past, loving the boy either way. His dedication was difficult for the other to understand. He’d never really learnt to form any bonds with...well, anyone. Having no parents and growing up in an orphanage that couldn’t have cared less about any of the kids there didn’t help either, even after Donella ‘adopted’ him, it still didn’t do anything. Varian was the only person he’d ever really had an official relationship with, the rest just being out of boredom and the complete and utter loneliness he’d felt because of the distance Donella had put between him and her. He never really had anyone there for him, so he’d just keep on using people for his own personal means and throwing them away without so much of a glance back with no remorse when he was finally done with them. He knew it was wrong - that he was hurting people who didn’t warrant it - but he just didn’t care at all at the time, because he knew he’d never see them again. Right? He guessed that was it - devotion never coming easy to him anyway, so of course it would be a difficult concept for him to grasp anyway. He let out a sigh and laid down on the sofa, pulling the blanket over himself quietly before scrolling through his phone and waiting for his boyfriend to join him.

“Heya Hugh.” Varian called as he entered the living room, setting the mugs down on the coffee table in front of them beside the snacks before shuffling under the covers, sitting in between his boyfriend’s legs with his back pressed against his chest. Hugo reached out to grab their mugs and sipped the hot cocoa, making a slight moan of satisfaction. “Oh my god, this is so good, Varian!” he cried as he kept chugging the delicious drink, an arm wrapping around his waist, giving his boyfriend time to push it away if he wanted. Varian didn’t seem to mind, already turning on the film and beginning to eat his ice cream happily.

They sat in silence for a while, Varian watching his film and Hugo drifting in and out of sleep repeatedly. The only thing keeping him awake was the occasional sound of his boyfriend’s laughter or mumbling to himself at how ridiculous a certain character was being. It was kind of adorable listening to the younger man rant under his breath about something completely fictitious. He kept his gaze on Varian happily before a frown developed on his face. That dream Varian had sounded terrifying, if he was being honest, and it scared him to death. Just how much self loathing was the boy harbouring without even speaking up? Sure, he’d done some bad things in the past, but everyone had forgiven him for that, so why couldn’t Varian forgive himself? It weighed on Hugo’s mind, his nimble fingers tracing small circles onto the other’s stomach gently to keep himself grounded.

“You’re thinking so hard, I can almost hear the cogs in your head turning.” Varian commented, not even looking at his boyfriend as he kept his eyes focused on the TV. “If you’re thinking about what I think you’re thinking about, I’m fine. It was just a dumb nightmare that really spooked me at first. I was so scared of the concept that I’d lost you for good that I couldn’t breathe or even focus. I didn’t even know what I’d done or if I’d even done anything, I’d just accepted that yes, it WAS all my fault. What I did in the past was...well, it was atrocious in all honesty..but that doesn’t reflect who I am at all. You know who I am. I was just so lost without my father, and I couldn’t turn to my mother...I felt like everyone had turned their back on me and that I wasn’t even deserving of the very air I breathed. It’s gonna take me awhile to forgive myself for what I did to Rapunzel and Eugene and, well, everyone. But I’ll get there. Okay?”

Hugo’s fingers braided a section of Varian’s hair as he spoke, taking in every word he spoke and giving it time to process, admiring his work mid-speech. “Okay doll, I just don’t want you thinking I’m gonna just..up and leave one day, y’know? You know about my old reputation in senior year..how I’d date around and leave a trail of broken hearts behind me but..I just want you to know I’m serious when I say I’m fully committed to you, okay? I adore you for all I’m worth. I’ve never met a guy as spectacular as you are, but I would never ask for anyone different. Varian, I really do love you.” Hugo confessed, subconsciously pulling the boy closer to his chest and shutting his eyes. “More than you’ll ever know. You’ve taught me...so so much about unconditional love and what it takes to be so in love you’d do anything for them so...thank you. Just- thank you.”

“Aw, Hugo being sappy? Are you the real Hugo or are you an imposter?” Varian said with a grin and a laugh, leaning his head back before closing his eyes. “Let’s just watch the movie, babe...okay? I love you too, for the record.” he whispered back, intertwining their fingers. And thus, the boys slowly drifted into a deep slumber, wrapped in each other’s arms and ready to face whatever the universe threw at them.

Well, almost anything the universe threw at them.

They awoke, limbs tangled, on the couch to a loud banging at the door. Hugo groaned, rubbing his eyes as he slowly started to sit up, Varian stirring too on his chest. “Who the fuck is here and why the hell are they banging the door so goddamn loud?!” he exclaimed, Varian removing himself from his boyfriend’s lap and heading towards the door. Hugo didn’t understand. Does no one in this modern age have any respect for anyone? All he wanted to do was cuddle his boyfriend on the couch all morning before the inevitable angry texts from Donella swarmed his phone.

Oh shit. What if it was Donella at the door? Oh god. He’d ever introduced Varian to his side of the family (and quite frankly, he didn’t want to, considering how...dysfunctional it was. It wasn’t even officially a family unit, Donella only being a mother figure) and he didn’t want Varian to meet her when she was mad. Donella had a supernatural strength when she was mad - not even kidding, he’d seen her make one of the strongest men in the workshop, a man who had LITERALLY been nicknamed ‘Skullcrusher’ when he was in a gang for...obvious reasons, cry like a baby on the floor. It was a feat in its own right, however he didn’t want Varian to suffer through that same treatment. He hurried into the hall. “Hey Goggles?-” He froze.

There was a woman at the door. Her ginger hair was tied into a neat bun, fringe falling and stopping just above her right eyebrow. She had the same eyes as Varian, except a slightly more vibrant, electric blue than his beloved’s, along with freckles scattered all over her face, hands and what was visible of her arms. She was slightly taller than his boyfriend, still smaller than him, but nonetheless she still possessed some height over Varian. She looked exactly like the woman in Donella’s pictures, the one who used to be her old research partner...though who was she?

He walked over and rested his hand on Varian’s back, leaning forward slightly to catch a glimpse of his face. He looked astonished and shocked - his mouth and eyes wide in amazement as he spared no mind to Hugo, solely focused on the woman in front of him. His hands shook slightly as he pulled them to his sides. “Mom..?” Varian hardly whispered, taking a step towards the woman, who reached her hand out to cup his cheek gently.

“Varian-” She called out, a soft smile on her face and tears building in her eyes as she took him into a hug. Oh, yeah. Now Hugo could place the name, his eyes narrowing in disdain towards the woman before him. She was the one who had stopped Donella’s progress in the scientific field, stealing her research and disappearing to the other ends of the earth. She was the one who had ruined her life, and consequently, his too. Her eyes met his and she smiled slightly, extending her hand out to him. “Oh, where are my manners? Let me introduce myself, I’m Ulla. Ulla Ruddiger.”

His boyfriend’s mother was his motherly figure’s worst enemy.

Brilliant.

#varigo #varian and the seven kingdoms #varian x hugo #varian tangled #tangled varian #hugo tangled #tangled hugo #alchemy boyfriends #varigo coffee shop au

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journeysintowebcomics · 6 years ago

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Worm Liveblog #70

UPDATE 70: Mannequin

Last time Mannequin had arrived to crash Skitter’s attempts to do damage control in her territory. Things are bound to get bloody if these civilians don’t get away as soon as possible! Which seems...rather unlikely. So all they can do is hope for the best. Let’s continue.

Mannequin doesn’t waste time! Mr. Wildbow continues his streak of the chapters starting with action immediately, with Mannequin lunging forward so quickly his arms just...flail behind himself. It’s scarier than it sounds when I put it like that, because, you know, blades. Besides, it’s effective, the speed gives momentum to the arm when Mannequin stops and swings, the arm at the end of the chain flying forward to slice Skitter’s head off.

I parried it with my baton. The hit was heavy, more like trying to fend off a sledgehammer than what I’d expected. I almost lost my grip on my weapon.

What was Mannequin’s...entire being made of, again? He was a parahuman that was pretty good with self-sustaining enclosed environments, so I’m sure he had access to rare stuff. I thiiiiink I once read something about this shell being made of a ceramic-looking material. I bet he made it specifically to give strength to his attacks. Weight can increase the force of impact, as far as I know.

Mannequin’s first attack was blocked, he spun in the opposite direction, flailing his other arm towards her, without missing a beat. Instead of blocking, Skitter dodges, the chains wrap around Mannequin. Looks like his strategy is to make circles with his arms and blades. Keep Skitter away, all that. Not that she could do much, anyway! Armsmaster could, because he had the nanomachine halberd. Skitter doesn’t. I think all she can do in this fight is try to keep him away from the civilians, deter him in some way. Defeating him seems like a bit too tall of an order.

As his detached arm reeled in, the fingers folded backwards around the end of one of his feet, gripping it. He retracted the blade at the toe of the other foot and dropped that foot flat on the ground. The motion seemed to unbalance him, and he teetered, almost falling over. Then in one sudden motion, he righted himself and thrust out with his other leg and the three-foot blade that was now attached to it.

Hm. Maybe that can be a way to try to get an edge over him. I’m not sure, but this gave me the impression making him lose his balance could be a possible strategy. How to do such thing, though? And how would that help? Because he could right himself up with ease, you know, a strategy can’t rely on that too much.

I didn’t have time to get out of the way, to bring my baton up to defend myself or even to do more than belatedly realize his near-collapse had been a feint.

Oh, nevermind. Good thing her costume is very resistant against blades. Skitter can only be on the defensive, try to conceal her movements and roll around. It fails and she gets struck, chance Mannequin uses to come and slit her throat – or at least try to.

In one heartbeat, I formed and initiated a plan. I grunted and made a choking sound, which was all the more realistic because he’d just pulled a length of metal hard against my windpipe; I did want to grunt and I did choke. Then I went limp and had every bug in the area cease moving. Like snowflakes, the flies began drifting down from the air.

Kudos for thinking of a plan so quickly. I hope she can think of something else just as quickly, because if he thinks Skitter is dead now, then he’s going to kill everyone else here, that’s a guarantee, and it won’t take him long to slice through many civilians. The challenge here is that Mannequin excels at endurance. He can’t feel tired, so he’ll continue pressing on no matter what. He’s strong, fast, has range...and some extent of physical resistance against attacks. Honestly I’m stumped. I can’t even begin to think of a potential plan.

He could sense me somehow. How? It had been reckless of me to assume that he used sight to get by, especially when he didn’t have eyeholes in his mask. The fact that he hadn’t noticed I was faking meant he wasn’t relying on sight, or his sight was limited enough that he couldn’t make out the lack of blood through the cloud of bugs around us. If he wasn’t hearing my breathing, I doubted he had super hearing either.

Well...on his favor I’ll say that a swarm of insects isn’t a good wall when it’s about hiding from sight, unless it’s really cluttered, and even then if the swarm moves along with her that would make it easy to pinpoint her location. That said, maybe something like heat sensors? That could be it! It’s not like a dead body would cool down immediately, he wouldn’t notice right then and there that she isn’t dead.

It’s said in a moment of crisis the processing power of the brain increases. I can believe all these thoughts are happening in the half a minute or so that’d take for a civilian to lose their cool and try to run.

If I was going to attack, I needed to find a weak point. But he was smart. Before the disaster that had turned him into this, he had been on the brink of solving many of the world’s crises. Overpopulation, renewable energy, effective recycling, world hunger. Even with tinker abilities offering the means, it took someone special to manage that and actually make progress.

I had to go check what Dragon had said about Mannequin, about how his wife and children were killed by the Simurgh. I can imagine Jack and whoever else was in the team back then would get a kick out of destroying a promising parahuman’s future and life by throwing salt into his wounds until he joined the team. Something like what Bonesaw did to Panacea! But it sure sucks that one of the few people who would be able to improve the world went into the hardcore villain life.

Despite that, being smart at these science feats doesn’t make him invincible. There must be a weakness somewhere, right? Because Worm isn’t ending here. Skitter must have been able to do something.

What would I do in his shoes, with his power?

I wouldn’t leave any vital openings uncovered. That was a given. My focus -Mannequin’s focus- would be on designing way to make himself a completely closed system. It wasn’t just sensible, it was the whole point of his transformation.

In that case...hm. Well I think it’s a given he won’t be destroyed by Skitter, no way, no how. Maybe she could disable him for enough time to get everyone away from him? Hardly, since once he recovers he would go pursue them. The more I think about this the more it seems like driving him away is the only option, and that can only be done with something he can’t overcome. The problem is that an abandoned warehouse/factory/where they are right now is not the kind of place that has anything that could be used that way.

intake of energy by absorption of heat

For a moment the possibility of depriving him of heat crossed my mind, but there are problems: one is that they have no way of depriving him of heat, the other is that I bet he has some sort of batteries inside to supply energy if that’s cut.

I’m growing more convinced he may perceive the world around him thanks to heat.

Putting myself in his shoes, I had to think of his motivation. Why this form? I’d make myself resemble a doll or a store mannequin because… it was an eternal reminder. Didn’t his wife and kids die when the Simurgh attacked? There was a story there.

But what else? Why resemble a human?

Mobility’s sake? Being used to a humanoid shape for who knows how many years and not wanting to delve into uncharted territory? A wish to use the uncanny valley effect to unsettle people? Who knows.

To mislead? Maybe the configuration of ‘my’ organs and parts wasn’t human in the slightest.

And then it will turn out Mannequin divided his brain into pieces and buried them in, say, his ankle. Hah! Okay, no, I think many physical attackers would be deterred by the hard carapace, and even if they got through it, I’d have a few failsafes. Just in case. I think Mannequin’s brain or something is here, inside the body instead of somewhere else.

If I were him… I would have spent hours carefully balancing the ‘ecosystems’ of each individual part of my body. Something that exacting and that fine tuned would be sensitive, fragile. They’d be resistant to impacts, I wouldn’t go around getting into fights if they weren’t. But heat and cold? A crack in that exterior of his? It could wreak havoc.

Then I insist he’d have failsafes for such situations. Crush anything he has? Another three start working surreptitiously. I’m just picturing Mannequin as if he’s some sort of underwater city: since it’s, you know, underwater, you need to have there everything you need in case something breaks, like replacement pieces, machinery, etc, already inside the environment. That’s the logic I’m following with Mannequin here, that it’s likely he’d be ready for when anything breaks inside him.

Bugs dealt with threats that were encased in hard shells all the time, didn’t they? They dealt with other species of bugs. There were a hundred solutions there, if I was willing to look for them.

That was the spark of inspiration I needed. In a matter of seconds, I had a plan.

You know what, I’ll ask Google. No useful results. That’ll make whatever Skitter planned a surprise, then. I sure won’t see it coming because I’m still stumped, haha.

It wasn’t a good plan, but it was something. As a just-in-case measure, I could try some other smaller plans, on the off chance that they might distract or even work.

...hm. In personal experience, no plan worth doing is started with ‘it wasn’t a good plan’. I hope it goes better than I expect by now, Skitter.

Whatever plan she has right now requires two minutes of preparation, since she needs materials from her lair in order for it to work. Meanwhile she has to wait, hope nobody will make Mannequin attack, and try not to move. It’s nerve-wracking for her to have to do all that, to stay still and not let anyone know she’s still alive, and keep hearing how Mannequin is getting ready for mass murder. A kid gets Mannequin’s attention. She can’t afford to wait any longer and stands up, all bugs in the area rising from the floor. So...all she can do is try to endure until the supplies are here. With as little pain as possible, hopefully!

Mannequin either doesn’t care Skitter just told him to stop and fight her, or he wants her to do something harsh in her attempt to save somebody from him. Most likely the second one, I think. So of course Skitter obliges, thanks to the hero instinct that makes her fight for the civilians, and tackles Mannequin’s legs. He does fall down. Hah! Well that gave enough time for Mannequin’s targets to run, so sure, that works! Except the part of getting a leg around her throat, but that’s nothing she didn’t see coming, I bet.

Not counting the time I’d spent lying on the ground, buying time, how long had I lasted? Less than thirty seconds?

You make it sound like nothing, Skitter! That’s a fourth of the time you need. Good enough! Supposing she was lying there on the floor for another thirty seconds, that’d mean she’d have half of the time already. Not bad, I’d say!

Mannequin has Skitter in a headlock, and he’ll try to chop her into bits with his blades as if they were a fan, she manages to damage those blades enough to make the unable to spin quick enough for that. In a rather daring effort, she strikes at the joint of the leg several times, mere inches from his face. That’s dangerous! She must have one heck of a steady hand! Even though her costume is good against blades, something with enough force to pierce it could injure her, right? I bet this didn’t amuse Mannequin at all, because he throws Skitter into a pile of wooden boards with nails and screws, while still holding her. It’s the perks of having limbs that are attached to your body with a chain.

To get herself free, Skitter uses her knife as a crowbar, getting away with just a headache, bruises and a blurry spot on a lens of her mask. All in all, she’s not doing too badly against a Slaughterhouse Nine member! She sure has lasted much longer than before this time. Still not enough for the bugs to arrive with what she needs for her plans, apparently, but that was longer than when she got shoved into the floor and Mannequin tried to kill her

Could I hold out for long enough? Could the bystanders? The moment my bugs arrived would be the moment I could begin my plan. I’d still have to survive after that, and there was no guarantee it would work. In fact, my gut was telling me it was a long shot.

A long shot is better than nothing. I don’t think Skitter has mentioned exactly what supplies her bugs are bringing. It can’t be anything too heavy. Whatever she’s planning will have to be very clever, since she can’t rely on strength or weight for whatever she wants. She needs around a minute more before her bugs arrive.

What was going on behind that expressionless mask? Was he coming up with a battle plan? Maybe, maybe not. He didn’t really need one. It could be that he was calculating how best to destroy me: not just killing me, but ruining me. There were enough ways he could do it. Inflicting lifelong scars and injury. Or he could go down the opposite road and murder the civilians, leaving me as the only one standing. Both were very real possibilities, both devastating in their own way.

He already tried to kill Skitter, I really doubt he’d maim her, kill everyone else and call it a day. He’s going to try his best to destroy her. Kind of a double-edged sword here, the more he thinks, the more time the bugs will have to arrive, but he also may think of better and cleverer plans.

Or maybe, behind that hard shell, he was in the throes of mental anguish. Maybe he was spending every second of every day reliving the day he lost his family and his dreams to a nigh-unstoppable, malignant force.

I don’t know if at this point that’s possible. Wouldn’t anyone take measures to not to think about that? He sure has the means better than anyone, being a tinker and also having Bonesaw in the team. I lean more towards he planning Skitter’s horrible, horrible demise.

Not having any other option and maybe not wanting him to come with novel ways to kill her, she goes with Plan A: jam the mechanisms with bugs. While he bludgeons Skitter with some of his weapons, she manages to cram insects inside the slots those weapons came out from, and tries to clog the system. Well if the bugs are large enough and the mechanisms are small enough that could work.

Mannequin stepped back, and I watched as he retracted all of his blades, the slots they’d speared out of sealing closed behind them. A wave of pressure and heat killed off every bug and likely most of the gunk I’d managed to smear inside.

Ooooor he could do that. Self-contained environment, with ways to counter common problems like insects. Oh well. It was worth a try. For Plan B she’ll need her baton. How exactly she’ll use it...well she sure won’t be able to jam the baton anywhere, that’s for sure! While her bugs go fetch the baton, he lunges at her.

This time, his attack was frenzied. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought he was irritated.

She said heroes and villains better than her have faced Mannequin before, but I wonder how long they have lasted? Because Skitter sure hasn’t done badly! And maybe that does irritate him. I’d like to think it does.

Mannequin flails around, blades and limbs going around, hitting her and throwing her back into the pile of wood. She acquires one to try to deviate a blade towards the floor, another two strike her chest, getting stuck in her armor. See, I bet that’s another thing that may be frustrating Mannequin. Skitter is not a parahuman known for being invulnerable, she has no amazing physical strength, she’s as squishy and defenseless-looking as she can be, yet he can’t kill her, he just hasn’t been able to do it yet. That must be frustrating, especially for a killer, yeah?

She lasted long enough for her swarm to arrive. They don’t seem to have brought anything. Hm. But if they had to come all the way from her lair instead of using bugs that are here and now, then...I think I’m onto something, but I just can’t take this train of logic to the last station. I feel like I’m forgetting something important, like I should have figured it out already, but I just can’t pinpoint it, no matter how hard I think.

There’s emphasis on how the bugs are moving in a symmetrical pattern, and on Mannequin’s peculiar way of sensing things. He can feel the bugs somehow, so maybe I was wrong about it working with heat sensors. Every time the swarm sweeps over him, he staggers. Hm... Skitter’s getting her behind kicked pretty hard here, yet the bugs keep passing over him, three times by now.

The swarm consisted of pairings of flying insect and arachnid. Every spider from my lair was clutching a bee, a wasp or a larger dragonfly, who clutched the spider in turn. A thousand pairs.

That’s what I was having a hard time remembering! Right, she has all of her strong silk-making spiders in her hideout! The ones with the strands that can get really strong when weaved correctly. If she had to bring them, then her plan is to use it against Mannequin somehow. So the reason why the swarm is passing over Mannequin is because they’re leaving silk on him, then? Trying to...restrain him? That’s where this thought is kind of falling apart. True, these strands can be resistant, but that’s only when weaved properly and when there are many strands together. They’ll have to pass many times more over Mannequin to have enough silk for that.

That said, looks like Mannequin can’t detect something as minute as spiderweb strands. That could be worth noting and remembering, perhaps? Hm...

The very next paragraph confirms what I think Skitter is doing. Her focus is on his joints; I suppose that means she’s going to again try to mess with the mechanisms inside his body. What may stop this from not working just like it happened with Plan A is that he can’t notice the spiderweb, as I said not too long ago, I think. So...the moment he realizes it is the moment the plan is over, most likely. Hey, worth a try, anyways, since the Plan B of bending and damaging his blades didn’t work.

When Mannequin fires the arm aaaaaall the way to where Skitter is, she focuses her spiders and webs onto the chair, trying to gum it up as much as possible.

The last quarter of the retraction process was a fraction slower. Silk glue gumming up the works, I could hope. I saw him look at his arm, then flex the fingers, as if to test them.

It’s working! I admit I’m surprised. She wasn’t wrong when she said it was a long shot, it’s a good thing it’s working! It doesn’t take long for him to realize what Skitter’s doing, but he doesn’t seem able to counter it. He swings a blade, most likely trying to sever any strings that may be around him, and strikes down a couple civilians. Dang, it was all going so well and not-so-bloody so far. It’s a good thing he’s far too busy to keep slicing at people.

When he moved to retract that chain, the mechanism stalled.

I remember he had closed everything before he was able to incinerate the stuff inside the shell. If he can’t retract the chain all the way, then maybe he can’t. So now he’s going to have that arm hanging around, that may throw him off balance a bit.

A better cape than I might have had a quip there, an insult.

Add a campy pose and maybe it will work.

Since he can’t retract the chain, Mannequin snaps the chain and slams the hand in its spot again and, in what I’m interpreting as a move that shows how irritated he feels right now, he gets all his blades out and spins them to cut as many webs as possible and goes towards the civilians. Even though he managed to cut most of what was over him, Skitter wastes no time in throwing more webs on him.

He doesn’t stop advancing towards the civilians, so Skitter goes with the second part of the plan: turns out half of the swarm did bring objects, and they throw everything on Mannequin. Pieces of costume, paints, glue, everything. There’s a lot of stains on Mannequin, the pieces get stuck on him, it’s...it’s actually rather rewarding to read about. Against all odds, she’s managing to fight and humiliate him. It’s very impressive.

Taking advantage of the moment, Skitter hits with a piece of wood and makes him fall to the floor, chance she uses to grab the arm and pull, pull so hard she snaps the hand off. She also throws from the head, until she separates it.

Mannequin must be lighter than I expected, Skitter’s managing to drag him a bit. She’s struggling, so a burly civilian comes forth to help. Good thing it’s safer now than before. Between the two of them they manage to get the head all the way to a few steel bars, where she ties the head. Her plan is that Mannequin may not want to leave without his head, so...if the chain is too strong, then he won’t break it, and therefore he won’t be able to leave.

Even with stuff gumming up the works, his chest clearly had stronger mechanisms inside it than the rest of his body did.

Guess that confirms all that’s important is right there in the chest instead of the head. She tries to continue, but she can’t, she wanted to hit the head with the cinder block. Hoping to crack it open? Unlikely she’d have been able to do it, anyway. Mannequin stands up...

Had I pissed him off?

Oh, definitely. No doubt about it. His body is all damaged, he lost an arm – arm that’s trying to crawl towards the rest of his body – and he has a lot of spiderwebs and many assorted stuff all over him. He never seemed to me like someone who didn’t have emotions anymore, so yeah, I’m pretty sure he’s royally pissed off right now.

To stop him from reaching his hand, Skitter gets in the way. That must have been the last straw, because he reaches into his neck and takes out a knife that has Armsmaster’s nanomachine technology. Ah. I suppose he took it with him when he went to recruit him, or he recreated it from what he saw at that moment. Okay, Skitter has to dodge that no matter what.

She’s actually dodging it! And while she does, that burly bystander does what she wanted and hits the head with the cinder block a few times. Say, maybe you should consider offer him a job, Skitter. He deserves some sort of reward. He may have saved your life right now. The head disconnects from the chain and falls onto the floor. The hand tries to return to the body, Skitter covers it with more webbing, stopping it in its tracks. Victory?

If disabling the hand wasn’t decisive enough, then carrying and gluing the arm to the ceiling may be, Skitter even uses that chance to make him lose his balance again, falling to the floor. She even asks him if he wants to keep going. It takes a moment for him to answer, he stands up and makes a gesture of disapproval before...leaving. He’s actually leaving. I think I need to say it again:

Skitter just managed to drive away Mannequin of the Slaughterhouse Nine. That’s a feat no matter how you look at it.

The moment Mannequin is many blocks away, Skitter gives herself time to rest, falling to her knees. All around her people start murmuring, and Charlotte comes to help. Oh hey, Charlotte, you still were around! Quite an impressive show, eh?

I couldn’t take the criticism, and I didn’t deserve any praise. How many people had been hurt while I fought Mannequin? How many people had died because I hadn’t been on the alert?

The narration said like five people got hurt during the fight, and before it all happened, Mannequin killed two paramedics and the woman who was so against Skitter. Not a negligible amount of wounded and casualties, but...she really stopped it from getting worse. If it hadn’t been for her, maybe someone would have been found cut and strung with chains, just like one of the unfortunate victims from the Wards interlude.

Mourning the loss of the lives that were lost, Skitter apologizes to the corpse of the woman that was killed, and instructs Charlotte to throw the head and the arm down into the ocean. Mannequin abandoned the head because it seems it was damaged enough to require being abandoned, there’s some fluid starting to leak from it. Leaving it all in any random place could be risky in case Mannequin can track it down and wants to recover it, so yeah, to the bottom of the ocean it will be. Not wanting to face the residents of her territory, Skitter leaves.

I’d won. So to speak.

Somehow. Seriously, that was a feat.

Now that was the end of the chapter. That was the fight with Mannequin! I...I have a couple opinions. Judging by the reactions I got from my inbox when I expressed my dissatisfaction last update, I think one of those opinions may not be entirely welcome, but hey, that’s what happens with a liveblog. It’s the risk I take when I say what crosses my mind about a story!

Before voicing them, though, I’ll do what I said I would do. An anonymous contributor messaged me. There were reasons as to why this was a good place for the Mannequin fight, and why it’s good it’s happening. At the time I didn’t read more than a few words, so I wouldn’t be influenced and I could get to the fight in more or less the same state of mind I had when I stopped last time. Blind liveblogs thrive when opinions are authentic at the time of the reading, I’d say! So now that I finished reading the fight, I think I can pay due attention to the message. Let’s see...

Anonymous says: We know from 11.d that Mannequin likes to target people who are helping others or trying to make the world a better place. Basically anyone who's trying to succeed where he failed. Right now, skitter is doing more than basically anyone else in the city to help people survive the attack. It makes sense that that world make her his number one target.

Good point. It was mentioned that was some of Mannequin’s preferred targets. He did show disapproval at Skitter’s actions of trying to save people. Quite the fast reaction from Mannequin, though. It has been...what, an hour since Shatterbird made all glass and sand explode? Word sure traveled fast to Mannequin. I’m blaming Cherish for that.

Anonymous says: Plague stands for the spreading of scourge. This arc is the stablishing of how to deal with the arrival of the S9: You dont. Because this isn't your generic story where by villains throw themselves one at a time to be picked off. The group acts as this individual all-encompassing threat of escalation, where each member is going so all out each of them is an umoredictabke disaster. Except we KNEW Mannequin hates people trying to help others. The glass thing was a tone set for the scale of CONT...

Nnnnnot entirely convinced. When you put it like that it makes it essential for every other member to be out there causing chaos right now. Maybe they’re doing it offscreen, maybe they’re not, but right now, from what I read and see here in the story, and leaving Shatterbird’s song aside, Mannequin’s looking a bit like a lone incident, in terms of attacking people in the city.

Anonymous says: Cont... Things to come, how terrible is the plague. I cant imagine writing an entire arc of skitter and co helping people in the sameish manner while the S9 just stand by when they have just officially announced that they are here and the games have begun. It just doesnt make sense tome that the murder hobos wouldn't be out there murdering, just for the sake of our character having a breather. All other problems at the start were for groups. Even the glass, but its a testament to WB's CONT...

...yeah, I suppose...it wouldn’t make sense. I thought they’d be busy enough...I don’t know, discussing what to do regarding Tattletale’s challenge. They have/had to discuss it, after all. Change their plans accordingly. Modify their tests plans to make sure they’d win. Maaaaybe they already did so, and now they’re out there having fun. I don’t know.

Anonymous says: Writing that we were so into Taylors mind that it seemed like her problem to solve. "but fuck me most of all" she says as she walks away from the HUNDREDS of people she just saved while her legs probably cramp up from all the lactic acid. Now mannequin, THIS is a threat to Taylor as a powered individual, THIS is the response for her first majorly heroic acts in a while. I would love to hear more of your opinion though!

I like the thought that this is the consequences of her efforts to save as many people as possible, I admit. The universe balances good actions with bad consequences, that’s how the Worm universe works. All in all...hm...well it’s time for my opinions now that I read the fight.

First, I’ll admit it was better than I expected. I came to this fight without many expectations, mostly because, well, you know by now I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Now that it’s over, I’m looking back and I find my opinion has improved. It was mostly the last part what made me change my mind, though. Until then, I was feeling kind of underwhelmed – because I couldn’t know what exactly Skitter was planning, and because if she had lost and everyone had been slaughtered, well, it’d have looked like gratuitous death to make things harder for Skitter. It’d have been a sentiment stemming from how outmatched she’d be against a killer that’s a worldwide threat.

But that didn’t happen! She actually was able to fight and do her best. Even if she hadn’t won, the fact she was able to hold her own would have been enough for me. I think that’s what turned this fight into something worthwhile. I didn’t take for granted she’d win since Mr. Wildbow isn’t afraid of letting the main characters suffer defeats, and this time I’m glad it didn’t happen.

So...yeah, I’m okay with this turn of events now. Fine. You win, Mr. Wildbow, you convinced me. Kind of at the last moment, but you did.

I will stop for now. See you next time.

Next time: in two updates

#worm #worm liveblog #webserial #liveblog #webserial liveblog

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redqueenmiku · 7 years ago

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Luigi’s Mansion: A Lore Study

So, I just finished Luigi's Mansion once again (did all the stuff, got A-rank, beat Boolossus on the first try like I never could in the past, etc.), but, this time, I decided to play through the game with a very critical look at LORE.

Luigi's Mansion is full of dialogue from Luigi and it actually gives a lot of insight into both his character and other things, so I wanted to see what kinds of things I could find out. There's also a couple other topics I found myself curious about as well. Wanna hear about it?

So, before we jump into Luigi, I actually first want to talk about three other quick subjects. The first of these is the game's story. There are definitely people out there that have already realized this, but the entire game was actually kickstarted by Gadd capturing Boolossus, prompting King Boo to get involved to free his trapped Boo comrades (and also freeing the portrait ghosts while he was at it). This little bit of information is something you only really get if you talk to Gadd in the gallery and ask “What is this?”, so I think it's just out-of-sight enough to be interesting.

Continuing on the story front, I always kind of wondered why all the money is put toward a new house at the end of the game. As it would turn out, the game tells you that Gadd was actually the one that spent Luigi's money on a new house...despite saying he doesn't care about the treasure earlier on. My theory is that it's possible Luigi didn't want all of the money, telling Gadd to keep it, but Gadd insisted, ending up buying a house for Luigi with it. In the end, Luigi still lives with Mario, but uses the house occasionally so as not to seem rude to Gadd (he's in the house in the beginning of Dark Moon, as most people know). It's just a theory, but I think it's a plausible one.

Also, the game is directly stated to take place within a single night, so there's that too.

The next of the three topics I'm covering before diving into Luigi is Gadd. Gadd actually drops a lot of hints about himself throughout the game. He says he's lived in his shack since he was 20 and that he's been in the field of ghost research for 60 years. In Partners in Time, Gadd is seen as a younger scientist not yet doing ghost research and his lab on top of Thwomp Mountain is destroyed in an eruption. It's entirely possible that Gadd went from this setback directly into ghost research. This would also make his estimated age at least 80 years old.

Gadd is also an eccentric fellow, having devoted basically his entire life to ghost research and saying he doesn't care about the treasure in the mansion. After the Boolossus fight, he invites Luigi to a dinner of dandelions and diesel marinade. I can't even BEGIN to imagine what Gadd's diet is like if THAT'S the kind of stuff he eats. Is Gadd even human, eating stuff like diesel???

Final topic before Luigi: Mario. Mario's not in the game for all that long and nobody really says too much about him, but there are actually a few hints we can glean about Mario from what is said...or what he did. It's obvious that Mario got to the mansion ahead of Luigi, which leaves me wondering what happened to get the brothers so separated. Could Mario have found out about Luigi's big win before Luigi did? Second, Mario's note, “Watch out for Boos, Luigi”, was “hastily scrawled”. It makes me wonder what exactly Mario went through before he was captured. Third is that one of the items Mario brought with him to the mansion was a Star. Where did this star come from? Is this a Power Star, a la Mario 64, or is it an Invincibility Star? What does the latter possibility say about Mario's intent coming to the mansion? Fourth, Mario also lost a glove, shoe, and his hat in the mansion, but these things are all still clearly on his person when he's rescued. Why and how?

The final thing about Mario is a bit more minor, but, in the washroom, when inspecting the washing machine, Luigi talks about not just throwing a hat into the washing machine, but says that Mario still “carelessly” does it anyway. There's also a set of weights in the Rec Room that Luigi says Mario could probably lift.

Now on to the man in green himself...

More than half of Luigi's responses to things around the mansion are based on cleanliness or interior design. He remarks about dust, he reviles at the sight of moth holes, he comments about things being messily strewn about, he says he can't stand broken things, he says he likes things to be nice and clean, and he even comments on things in the mansion he likes with statements like “Now that's what I call interior design!” and “ A simple design with a dash of casual elegance”. One line that really sticks out comes from Luigi's reaction to a chair in the Ceramics Studio, where he exclaims “What a hunk of junk! You expect me to sit on that? Please! I have standards!”.

A good chunk of Luigi's other responses to things in the mansion are money-related, being somewhere along the lines of “I bet that would fetch a pretty penny” or various related things, which is odd considering all the money and jewels Luigi is finding all over the mansion at the same time.

There are multiple items in the mansion that cause Luigi to say that he's “always wanted one of those!”. These items include a ceiling fan, a pool table, a chess table, a china cabinet, every single clock in the Clockwork Room, and, in the same aforementioned room, a creepy marionette head...even though in the same room STILL, he comments on the marionettes on the wall as being “disturbing”. A similar line, “I've been wanting one of these for a while”, is attributed to a toy car and a toy truck in the same room as the toy train mentioned earlier.

Luigi apparently knows when the right season for flowers is.

Large torches (notably found in the Mirror Room and the Dining Room) allegedly make Luigi feel “profound sadness”, while, in the Dining Room, Luigi reveals he likes candlelight.

Going back to the washing machine line from earlier, it's clear Luigi knows how to wash a hat.

In the Conservatory, Luigi reveals he doesn't know how to play the piano.

Examining a cupboard in the Conservatory prompts the line “If only there were a couple cookies in there”.

Examining the birdhouse in the backyard has Luigi say “Wouldn't it be nice if I could raise carrier pigeons here?”.

In the Observatory, Luigi says “I'd like to visit outer space someday.”. Little did he know that wish would someday come true...

In the Twins' Room, Luigi says he prefers the bottom bunk.

When examining the treadmill in the Rec Room, Luigi calls himself a “good runner”. In the same room, he also says he doesn't care for bikes and admits that he should probably work out more.

In the Safari Room, the leopard rugs cause Luigi to say “How could anyone treat an animal that way?! I won't stand for it!”. The deer heads on the wall, though, warrant no response.

Luigi thinks that the suits of armor in the Armory would make him look tough. He also thinks they look comfortable.

That's all the stuff I really felt was interesting. What do you guys think?

#Luigi's Mansion #Luigi #E. Gadd #Mario #headcanons #actually more objective than anything #but i'm tagging it headcanon for organizational purposes #in fact there's only one really super-subjective tangent soooo #congrats to me for stating things

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bolbianddolanhouse · 5 years ago

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BNHA self insert AU

New to the AU? Start here!

Chapter 36: Miss Keisha, Miss Keisha! Oh My God She Fuckin Dead.

Tenya couldn’t believe it, Shinso was standing right there and the tension was thick. Should he start the conversation? Or should they start? Either way, answers will come out of this.

“...and we’ll have you working out of here” Tenya said to finish the agency tour to Shinso “I’ll get one of the security robos to get you scanned as an associate.”

Shinso watches Tenya summon the boxer sized robo “I can’t believe she did it” his eyes follow the robo “she really is amazing, wish I’d seen her rise to the top.”

“You know, she never told me why you left” Tenya obliviously stated “I know you two moved in together but not when you two split up.”

Shinso went pale and clammy “Wait, you talked to her? Is she okay? Since when? Does she ask you about me?”

“Slow down, I’ve started to talk to her again in early spring” Tenya recalled “when I asked about you, all she said you two broke up before her 20th birthday and the subject never came up again.”

“Oh I see” Shinso sighed “of course it’s like that, why would she want to talk to me again after what I did.”

“If you don’t mind me asking” Tenya leaned in “why did you two break up? You two had an unbreakable bond from what I saw before we graduated.”

“It’s a touchy subject” Shinso felt uneasy again “maybe I’ll tell you after a while but please” he begged “don’t tell her I’m here, it won’t end well.”

“Why? What is she going to do?”

“Just trust me” he sighed and turned to the robo “she’ll lose it if she finds out, I trust that you’ll keep this secret for me.”

Tenya feels the conflict in his heart, on one hand, he’s a trustworthy friend. But on the other, Ita is his love and deserves to know that Shinso is back in town. The weeks go by and Shinso has managed to fly under the radar and is closing in on his term with the Ingenium agency.

-Ingenium agency, night shift-

“Who’s texting you?” Shinso asked Tenya, who has been distracted by the high amount of texts the past hour.

“It’s Ita” he said as he responded to her text “she’s at her agent job and is not having it with her co-workers again” he chuckled and put his phone back down on the table “her co-worker Hila HATES her for being young and rich, so they try to embarrass her but you know Ita, always ten steps ahead of everyone and it backfired but today was one of those-” the chime of his text tone interrupted his sentence. Shinso saw on his lock screen was a picture of Ita T-posing in front of her coffee maker in the hoodie Shinso gave her on their anniversary.

“Thats...the sweater I gave her” Shinso looked at the text notification, it’s from Sweetheart “Oh, I see you have a nickname for them too. Still can’t tell her huh?”

“Oh um actually” Tenya got red-faced and flustered “she’s my girlfriend now, for a few months actually. Reuniting brought it out of me and she told me she’s always felt strongly towards me, even after hurting her and drifting apart. We’ve been inseparatable since and she’s happier than ever.”

Shinso heart sank but tried not to seem hurt “She moved on huh” he looked at his phone to see his lock screen photo of Ita napping on the couch with the cat on her belly, the memory hurts to look at now that he knows she’s moved on “I’m happy that she’s happy now, the months leading to our end were sucking the happiness out of us, especially her” he put his phone back in his pocket “and all I did was make things worse.”

“I still don’t know the fully story” Tenya said, almost demandingly “why can’t you tell me?”

“Honestly, the memory is so painful to remember” Shinso was having trouble breathing, like he was going to have a panic attack “I’m still hurting over it, but ask her about it, she’s stronger than me and will probably explain it better.”

That scene fucked up Tenya for a few days, Shinso was known for being serious and collected. But to see him on the verge of a panic attack scared Tenya to the point where he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to ask Ita what happened. In his heart, he knew there was needed closure and there was no other way to get it than breaking his silence.

-Ita’s house, 7pm, dinner time-

“Thanks for dinner” Tenya thanked Ita, for the 10th time “what do you call this dish?”

“Arroz con Frijoles y Carne Asada” I responded.

“I love it when you pronounce your ‘R’s” he gushed “it’s so exotic and alluring.”

“Shut your fuck and thank kami-sama for the food!” I blushed hard and tried to hide it.

They start eating, then Tenya spoke up “It’s been slipping my mind, but Shinso has been a temp at the agency for a while now.”

The sound of silverware dropping on a ceramic plate startled Tenya to look up at a very pale and sweaty Ita “OH HE-HE’S IN TOWN! Coolio! How is he?!”

“Are you alright? You’re being shouty and stressing your words” Tenya started to regret his words.

“Naw this is my normal voice hehehehe! Did he tell you where’s he’s been?!” she starts to hyperventilate and sweat harder “How’s his cat?! Is he back for good?!”

“STOP!” Tenya stands from the table “What is with you? He told me not to tell you he was back because you might freak out” he walks over to her side of the table “I believe him now, but what happened between you two?”

Ita was feeling very cornered but gave in and took a few calming breaths “I guess you were going to find out sooner or later” I motioned him to sit and held his hands “let my preface everything with I love you and I will never leave you unless I have a good reason to and we’ll talk things out if we’re running into problems.”

“I love you too, I’m listening” he squeezes her hands to give her reassurance.

“Okay, everything started around the time I was entering my second term of college...”

Flashback to 3 years ago...

I was going through usual couple things like small fights and compromise with lots of affection. With life picking up the pace and with no signs of stopping, I felt invincible. Everything halted when I found out I was pregnant with Shinso’s baby, college and my want to start up my company had to be on hold. Everything was fine up until the incident that changed our lives.

“Hitoshi! Can you help me put on my boots?” I whined from the living room couch, it was 10am and I had an important day ahead of me.

“Let me just set this here” Shinso set a teacup down on the table and kneeled to rub my feet to ease the swelling “are you sure you’re fit to work? You’re getting huge to be doing fieldwork.” He put on her boots and kissed her growing belly “kick once if mommy should stay home, twice if she should go to work.”

“Silly! I’m only 5 months, they have me on light footwork if I have to go on a mission” I put my hand on his face, a small kick was felt on my left side “just today then I stay home to get the house ready for our baby.”

“I don’t know babe” Shinso looked into my eyes “with all the raiding being done in Sumida lately, it’s becoming dangerous to be in the business district.”

“I’m a toughie! I can manage myself just fine” I sit up and hold my arms out for him to help me up “today I have to do paperwork for the monthly report, you know how I get when I do paperwork.”

“Fine then” Shinso kisses me “just come home as soon as you can.”

I head off to work and my light field-work turned disastrous when the bank I was at to gain intel was getting robbed in the middle of me reviewing security footage. I get the footage and get the workers around me to safety and contact authorities and rescue to get me out. Before they came, a blast was set off and a heavy filing cabinet fell on top of me and my water broke. I was rushed to the hospital to save my baby. The baby didn’t survive and died in my arms, all the guilt of not listening to Shinso to stay home stabbed my heart and ripped me apart. Shinso was in total shock, he wouldn’t even look at me nor speak. He didn’t want to see where I buried our baby, he didn’t want to me to touch him and he didn’t sleep in our bed. He just droned with glazed eyes and barely ate anything for days.

“Hitoshi, are you in here?” I softly asked as I pushed open the door to the office “hey, did you eat dinner?” He didn’t respond, just sat at the desk writing something “look, babe, it’s been two weeks” I take a deep breath “can we talk? It doesn’t have to be about what happened, I just want to hear you.” He stopped writing for a second, like he was considering what I said, but he continued writing “I suppose it is a bit late for talking” I knew I was just making up excuses “well, I’m going to bed, if you’d like to come” I turn to leave “good night, I love you.”

I went to bed, alone. I tried to stay up as long as I could to see if he’d come to bed after-all. In the morning, I see that he didn’t come to bed and I woke up 15 minutes before I was supposed to be up. “Hitoshi?” I called out, no response. “I guess he’s still asleep maybe” I sat up and after rubbing my eyes a bit, I see the room was cleaner than I left it last night “oh he did laundry?” I said as I saw that the basket with overflowing dirty clothes was picked up and maybe in the laundry room. I go to the bathroom and see it was also cleaned “he threw out all the empty products? It’s so cleared of clutter” I brush my teeth and notice his wasn’t in the holder, I check the cabinet and see a lot of his things weren’t there. “Weird, I know he keeps his deodorant and eye drops in here” I finish up in the bathroom and go down stairs “Hitoshi? Why is-” I start but stopped myself because something wasn’t right. The cat’s bed, toys and tower wasn’t in it’s usual spot and the cat was no where to be seen or heard. “Hitoshi?! Biscuit?! Please meow if one of you is there?!” I call out, nothing. I look in the laundry room and all of my clothes were folded but his were no where to be seen. I check the office and it was cleared out of all his things, same in the garage and our closet. “I don’t understand?!” I get worried and I walk into the kitchen to see that coffee was brewed and the kitchen was cleaned. There was a note on the fridge addressed to me:

Ita,

I can’t talk about what happened and I can’t keep living here. It’s painful to be around here and even more when you tell me you love me through your pain. I need time and distance to really heal from everything, there’s groceries in the fridge and three months of my part of the rent and bills on the counter to last until the end of the co-lease. I cleaned the house and took all of my belongings, including the cat. Don’t come looking for me, please take care of yourself but until we meet again, I love you.

-Hitoshi

I was devastated and just broke down on the kitchen floor. Unable to move or know what to do, time flew by and everyone at work noticed that I wasn’t there. Mimi got special permission to come check up on me. She found me on my kitchen floor and read the note, they got filled with rage that once again I got hurt by a man. After blowing some steam and consoling me to my feet, they asked “Okay, you’re up now” she put her hands on my shoulders “what’s the plan?”

“I’m not sure” I squeeze my eyes shut to think of something “nothing makes sense in my head, I just want to lay down.”

“No! You are a bad bitch!” she shook me “I’ve seen you pull yourself together when a boy hurts you. You’re going to pick up everything he made you drop for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Going back to college!” she points to the small dog grabbing the tissues off the ground with his robot arm “start our company! Nothing will come out of you just laying down and waiting for him to come back.”

“You know what....YEAH!” I pump myself up “I’m going to work on myself! And if Hitoshi does come back and doesn’t like the new me, then he can fuck off!”

“Yes bitch!” she yelled and carried me to my office to get started on myself. But the loneliness came back when she left, I found it hard to sleep in that bed. The couch and the floor of the office is were I slept for months. The day I graduated college was when I slept in that bed again, nobody was there to wake up to when I felt lonely. A price to pay when you succeed beyond your wildest dreams in less than a year. I lost the warm and loving part of myself in the process, sex meant nothing and there wasn’t an alcohol strong enough to make the pain go away. I didn’t let anyone come too close to my heart because who the hell would want a broken woman. I convinced myself that if I just work and keep working, there will be no room for things like love to get in the way. Slowly but surely, I changed into this mysterious and unattainable person you see on magazine covers and business articles.

End of flashback

I finish my side of everything with tears streaming down my face “...I haven’t talked to him since the night before he left” I look toward the stairs “I’ve asked around for his whereabouts but lost track a year and a half ago. Amajiki told me he was going north for work but he didn’t say where.”

“North? He did come from Hokkaido” Tenya remembered “he’s a contract basis hero, so he’s never in just one place.”

“I figured” I sighed “now that he’s back, I don’t know if he wants to talk” I wiped my tears “I’ll let him do that on his own time.”

“It’s not like you to be non-confrontational” he questioned “and it wasn’t like Shinso to get all panicked when I mentioned the past. This really hurt you two.”

“Yea, sometimes I imagine how life would’ve been if I had our baby” I rubbed my stomach “our little boy would’ve been turning 3, maybe showing signs of his quirks” I smiled “he had dark purple hair and my nose, probably had his eyes and my personality traits. I like to think that we would’ve been a happy family but at the same time, none of the things I worked hard for would’ve came true. I’d be stuck in that lacky agent job and be a housewife for the rest of my life.”

“Well if it makes you feel any better” he wiped her tear “I don’t think you’re broken, you’re still that warm and loving person and you can start your happy family over with me” she looked up at him “we’ll get married, have as many children as you want, raise them with love and nurturing care to be whatever they want to be, I’ll do housework and cook too when you’re working and-”

I start laughing “Whoa there! One thing at a time Tenya!” I throw my arms around him and squeeze “thank you, for listening and unpacking my baggage. I needed it.”

“It seems like it’s what I do best” he holds her “thank you for being brave enough to retell your past. I love you.”

-One week later, Ingenium Agency-

“Just one more week huh Shinso-kun?” Tenya said as Shinso walked in the locker room.

“Hm? Yeah heh” Shinso takes off his voice changer “I was thinking about staying in the suburbs of Tokyo, I forgot how nice this area actually is.”

“You’re here to stay?”

“You could call it that” he took off his boots “I have a friend in Chiyoda that’s been looking for a roommate and the work around here is better than up north. So I’ll stick around and see if I can get an agency to keep me.”

“That’s wonderful news!” Tenya exclaimed “I’m happy you’ve settled back, from what Ita told me, I thought you might not want to stick around because she’s so close by.”

“I know and I guess she told you why I left huh?” Shinso turned to Tenya and saw him nod “it’s a lot to unpack but I have to say my side. I don’t blame her for anything, I blame myself for being so selfish. I thought having a baby would solve all of our problems but they were really my problems. She was talking about the future and starting her own things, it was like she was maturing too fast and I wanted to keep her the same laid-back and feisty girl I fell in love with. Getting her pregnant just made her more mature and I was regretting it, I love her but not her ideas and dreams.” he closed his locker “how can I say that when she’s carrying our son! So when she lost the baby, I was relieved but also saddened that he was gone now. My coldness wasn’t her fault, it was all mine. I was afraid to tell her how I really felt, so I just didn’t talk or looked at her when she begged me to. I’ve been planning my move out for a week and the final straw was when she told me ‘I love you’ after begging me to talk to her because she wanted to hear my voice. It was painful to leave her alone in that house, I still loved her enough to leave her a clean house with food and paid bills.” his voice started to crack “I hid away from her and our friends to avoid getting confronted by her. And even after all this time, I’m still not ready to talk to her because I’m deathly afraid of seeing her heartbreak over my truth and selfish ways. I don’t think she’ll forgive me. But on my hardest days, all I could think about is her arms around me as she kisses me and the warmth we share when we make love.” he stops and turns red “but um, I bet you already know about all that now, lucky you.”

“What do you mean?” Tenya asks as he wipes his face with a towel.

“You know...making love” Shinso makes some suggestive hand gestures to fill in the gaps “or I don’t know what you two call it but isn’t she just so warm and freaky in bed? God I miss it.”

“I don’t? Understand what you mean?” Tenya was more confused “I’ve never shared the bed with her.”

Shinso’s jazz music stopped in his head “WAIT HOLD UP!” he tried to hold it together “are you telling me that you, an adult man, have never asked Ita ,your adult girlfriend with a high sex drive, for sex?!” he laughed in disbelief “I can’t believe it! You’re an adult virgin!”

“I wouldn’t know the first step to ask!” Tenya turned red in embarrassment “I don’t even know how to any of the moves!” that just made Shinso laugh harder “don’t laugh! Nobody taught me how!”

“Oh man, I haven’t laughed that hard in years!” Shinso wiped his tears “oh fuck, look Iida-kun, the first step is to have her in that little kissy mood” he puts his arm on his shoulder “get her nice and flustered, then run your hand on her inner thigh, lean in to her ear and say ‘wanna take this to the bedroom?’ or ‘baby, I wanna give you a Detroit Smashing.’ and the rest will follow.”

“Won’t she laugh at the last one?”

“She did, and it was super awkward every time we heard Midoriya yell it in class-”

“YOU HAD SEX WITH HER IN HIGH SCHOOL!?”

“WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED?!”

After that little talk in the locker room, Tenya pondered how he was going to ask her, as he was going to meet up with her later that night at her place. Everything was going the way Shinso said to start out.

“Oh you’re getting handsy” I giggled “don’t be shy, my body is all yours to feel.”

“If you say so” he took it as a cue to do the inner thigh touch “is this too much?”

I start to quiver “N-n-not at all” my voice was choppy “it feels naughty, don’t stop.”

“It’s so warm” he kept running his hand and observing her expressions “um, can we, um” his mind was blanking on the spot, he had to stop stammering and say something! “can we take this to Detroit?”

“To where?!” I started laughing at his panic sentence “I’d love to see you point to Detroit on a fucking map Tenya but what in the actual fuck?”

He sighs in defeat, her roast was too much “I mean- I meant to say, er, ask if you wanted to, IF YOU WANT TO I’M NOT FORCING YOU TO DO ANYTHING!” he panics again “if you and me, shared a bed tonight?”

“You can say sex Tenya” I looked at his nervous face and put my hand on his “and I would like to partake in intercourse with you” I kissed his lips “I’m consenting.”

“You didn’t have to say it like that” he chuckled, feeling a little less nervous.

“Like ‘can we take this to Detroit’ was a better phrase” I roasted back as I levitated us off the couch “I won’t drag you upstairs, lets go” we get to my bedroom door “welcome to my bedroom, it’s huge” I open the door and flip on the lights.

“This...I see why you don’t like sleeping alone” he looked around in amazement of the opulent aesthetic “that bed is way too big just to have you sleeping in it” he looks at the furniture and the slightly ajar closet “it’s so luxury feeling just floating in here.”

“Heh just a few ten thousands of dollars can really change up the look of a room” I said as I floated onto the middle of the bed and set him down on the edge “Muffin, can you set the lights to ambiance 3 in this room and put the house on Do Not Disturb mode?”

“House set to Do Not Disturb, lights in bedroom to ambiance 3″ the sound of the small robo could be heard from downstairs “now powering down to sleep mode, good night Mom.”

“The dog calls you- Oh wow the lights” Tenya got distracted by the sudden change of light from bright to dimmer and slightly rose in color.

“Where were we?” I sat up to get his attention “come here love, I’m cold” I softly spoke to coax him in “I know it’s your first time, it’s not scary, just relax.”

He crawled up to her held her “I want to do good for you” he was trying to relax but the anticipation was getting to him “just like you said in the tree the night after the dance.”

“Well, lets start with some visualizing” I straddle him “In second year, after we talked over apples, I touched myself pretending you invited me to stay and we kissed for hours until we gave in and rubbed each other to climax.”

“You’d think about me?” he felt the heat rise from deep inside his body “what made you so turned on back then?”

“I love how your arms just envelop me and your hands are big and soft,” she ran a hand on his chest “your large and strong build is something to fawn over, I imagine myself under you as you just have your way with me” I rest my hips on his “the only time I’d obey orders is in bed.”

“I didn’t know you felt lust over my body” he cleared his throat “is it getting too warm in here?”

I take off my shirt “Ever wonder why clothes get ripped off durning sex?” I felt a poke on my thigh “the body gets hot and bothered, looks like you’ve sprung up to the occasion” I teased as I lift his shirt a bit, showing his tummy “take it off, I want to see my man in his raw form.”

He takes off his clothes and helps me out of mine “Oh wow the tattoos do trail down your back” he commented before I flipped onto my back “may I see your-” I open my legs before he could finish his sentence “Oh goodness me, this just made things more confusing” he scratched his head and oogled at it “how do I...move around in there?”

I laughed “Give me your hand and come closer” I give him a mini anatomy lesson but with hands on learning “...does that make sense now?”

“Yes it does” he touched over it again slowly “if you’re ready to receive me, I’m ready to start.” I nod and he positions himself “I’ll try my best.” It began a bit awkwardly at the start but picked up a bit once he found his rhythm “I love to hear you moan, it feels like I’m doing something right” he kisses her neck “my love, my heart, my everything....I want to make love to you every night and be the one you see in the morning” he goes faster, making me short of breath.

“Tenya~I’m gonna-”

“Hold on to me, I’m close.” he moans right before he finishes, he gives a few final thrusts and drops his weight on top of me “excuse my weight, but was that good? Because I feel amazing.”

“Yeah~ you’re amazing Tenya” I said breathlessly “I thought I could handle your size but you gave me quite the pounding” he pulled out of me “cuddle me, I’m needy.”

“Kiss first” he asked and I obeyed “you weren’t kidding when you said you’ll obey in bed” his arms wrapped around me “was I everything you imagined?”

“I couldn’t imagine something better if I tried” I nested myself on his chest “did you mean what you said?” I got timid “about the every night and morning thing?”

“I did, I don’t think I can go back to sleeping alone” he stroked her sweat damped hair “and I don’t think I want you to go to sleep alone either. You’ve spent enough nights alone with your fantasies.”

“I have, it finally feels like I’m complete” I pull the sheets over us with my telekinesis “stay the night, please?”

“Can I just...move in?” he hesitated to ask.

“Just like that?” I tilted my head up to see his face “well, lets see...it’s November and the new lease starts in January” I muttered to organize my thoughts “can you make a down payment of 220,000 yen by the 1st of January? Co-rent is usually like 22,000 a month if you’re down.”

“That’s doable” he squeezed her lovingly “I love you!”

“Not possible, I love you more!” I squeezed back.

They slept in each other’s arms and dreamt of domestic life. In the morning, as usual, Tenya was the first one up. It was 6am and the mess of black curls under his chin greeted him before the familiar face of squished and sleepy. Not the best look on her but how he adores her and her genuine expressions. He waited patiently for her to wake up, he didn’t want to hold back on his promise that he’ll be there in the morning. Finally, at around 8am, she came around.

“Oh shit, good morning” she sleepily moaned “I lowkey forgot we fucked last night and that it was all real.”

He watched her rub her eyes and stretch her back “It was like a dream” he kissed her properly “I’m here like I promised, so good morning love.”

The door slammed open, ruining the moment “Good morning Mom, you have 20 new client emails, 2 events for today and review documents for this month’s company overview.” Muffins blared as they’ve been programed to rude awaken her at 8:15am everyday.

“Thank you Muffins” I stressfully groaned “I’m up now.”

“Is that-”

“Daily, yeah” I sat up, forgetting I was naked “the life of a CEO should be starting at 5am but I’m a sane person, my day starts when I want it to” I float lazily off the bed and towards the bathroom “you can use my shower if you’d like, I’m not kicking you out yet.”

He blushes as he sees her just do her routine, naked “Can I ask you a weird question, about your body?”

“Sure? What’s up?”

“You have so many tattoos now” he runs his fingers on the sunflower patch on her hip “and they’re beautiful works of art, what do they mean?”

“Well, I got them as I got scars from my agent work” I pulled my hair up in a bun to show the ones on the back of my neck and shoulders better “the one you touched was to cover a stab wound I got before I got pregnant, this koi fish one on my shoulder was from the time I got a bullet wound like a year ago.”

“How are you still in agent work?” He stopped her tattoo tour “if you keep getting hurt like this? Yes I have scars and such but you have so many more.”

“I’ve saved lives too Tenya, not all my scars are because of my recklessness” I point to the tattoo on my left thigh “see this one? I nearly lost my leg in a tussle with a super villain, the one in Ichikawa that leveled the agency there. There was this family that was struggling to escape and I didn’t have time to get them all out of the way of a direct attack incoming, I jumped in front and took the hit that almost shattered my leg and left a lighting scar. The family was safe but I was in the hospital for sustaining a direct hit, when I got discharged and got my leg out of the cast, I got this cool rose tat.”

He traced the rose tattoo with his fingers, feeling the slightly raised scar tissue that was covered by the blue inks “I remember that attack, I couldn’t reach out in time to fight” he felt guilt “it should’ve been me that took that hit.”

“None of that!” I put my hands on his face and squished it to stop his thought “I’m here and alive, you’re here and alive, lets not dwell on the what if’s and just love each other in the moment.”

“But I still worry” he remembered something from the past “when I saw you get that ice shard in your abdomen and your body going limp” his voice cracked, it was traumatic to remember “I carried you to the hospital, running faster than I ever could to save you, screaming to open your eyes and to stay with me. I couldn’t function for days, I wanted so badly to see you and make sure you were really alive because I couldn’t stand the idea of you dead before you had the chance to go back home.” Tears poured from his face, hands trembling to hold her “even in the time we were apart, I worried about you. If you had enough to get by, enough to eat, enough attention, if you went to bed cold or if you got sick , and my worst fear, if you were being loved and cherished enough.”

“Tenya, all that just for me?” I wiped his tears “well, no use crying over spilt milk! Now we can lead our lives, together, and you won’t have to worry if I’m hungry, cold or sick. And I don’t have to worry about being cold, ignored nor feel lonely” I bought him in for a tight embrace “because you’re here to stay and I’m not going anywhere. I love you and your feelings are valid.”

He felt his chest swell with that familiar feeling of genuine emotions after listening to her. She always knew what to say and it was one of the thing he missed the most about her. After a brief moment, he remembered that they were both still naked, in the bathroom “As much as I love you” he started as he broke the embrace “can you cover up and look that way as I’m showering?”

“No, my house, my rules” I got cheeky “you have to look at my naked body until I dress for the day, I paid good money for this art” I turned around and wiggled my ass “or I’ll cut you a deal, take a bath with me and then I’ll cover up in a robe.”

“I- ahem- I’m-” he was flustered “oh goodness, you don’t play fair.”

I walk toward the bathtub and turn on the hot water “When have I ever?” I gave a flirty giggle as I adjusted the temperature of the water “will you join me? I promise to keep my hands to myself.” He didn’t have words, just a head nod and walked toward the running bath. Sharing a bath, trying to get used to her tattooed and naked body just made their bond stronger. To think this was what he was missing all this time, his heart was full and ready for the future they’re going to build together.

-Chapter 36, End-

#bnha #mha #self insert au #chapter 36 #not canon #will update regularly #ask me anything #the flashback chapter #sorry for the slight delay yall! got caught up in some heavy work #but as a treat! I'll post the next chapter tomorrow!#also can you believe THAT happened? It gets more intimate in the next chapters #ALSO I HEARD YALL WANT ME TO PUT IN THE TAGS WHEN I DO MY LIL COMMENTARY #now with//Palma-sama Speaks// at the beginning of the commentary

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unpublishedcollection-blog · 6 years ago

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Artist Spotlight: Roberta Klug, Ceramicist

1. Introduce yourself- where you’re from, what you do, and your favorite food to eat

Hi! My name is Roberta Klug and I am an L.A. based artist. I was born and raised in Italy, and moved here for the last leg of high school. I attended Cal State Long Beach where I studied Studio Art. I spend most of my time creating with clay and am currently working at a non-profit that provides art programs to LAUSD and charter schools. As a proud Italian, I’d have to say my most favorite food to eat is my mama’s pasta. I love her “pomodori saltati”, a pasta dressed with sautéed cherry tomatoes and garlic. So simple, but so delicious. It’s happiness in a bowl!

2. When did your interest in ceramics begin?

I was in my last year of college and felt this pull to use my hands. I was really drawn to the idea of playing with clay so I decided to enroll in a wheel throwing class. I remember it being frustrating, but felt ferociously determined to practice as much as I could. It was love at first throw (pun intended). It was incredibly therapeutic and quite literally centering. I was infatuated with the idea that touch, or hands, could birth anything I felt or imagined. The wheel was like home and I found myself in the studio all the time. That’s when I realized it was my passion. It was all I wanted to do, and it’s been a love story ever since.

3. How has growing up in Italy influenced your artistic vision?

As a romantic and extremely nostalgic person, I believe growing up in italy is a fundamental part of me and is equally embedded in my work. I look back to my childhood often, and consider it a privilege to have lived in a small town of no more than 10,000 people at the foot of the Swiss Alps. My childhood was spent outdoors, which led to an unspoken respect and admiration towards Nature. I understood that happy cows gave hearty milk, and nurtured soil gave the sweetest fruits. The earth that was cared for, would care for us in return. It was wonderful.

My siblings and I were encouraged to take the time to learn how things were made and made well. I inherited this innate sense of history, tradition, and profound appreciation and respect for craft. These sacred lessons of my childhood are reflected in my pieces and I carry them with me wherever I go.

4. Is there a process you have for creating each piece since each one is a unique one-of-a kind item?

It’s quite an organic process. I constantly think about what I’d like to make. I sketch every day, and keep a visual diary of things that i find interesting or make me feel good. I rent stacks of books on all sorts of subjects from the library, and take stills of films that I find visually potent. I believe my work to be a product of my observations and appetite to see and experience everything. My inspiration emerges from the continuous pool of research and information I’ve accumulated. I have an insatiable desire to learn and experiment. When I end up at the studio, even if I have a plan for the day, I tend to just grab clay and go at it. I allow myself the freedom to play and create diverse work, both conceptually and in form.

5. Who/what inspires you to create these pieces?

I feel deeply about the health of our environment and what it means to be a woman. Some of my work raises questions about the status quo and act as an invitation to be proactive in our everyday lives. However, my family is the champion out of the many topics that inspire me. Spend a day with them and you would feel like you’ve just experienced the end of every feel good movie. Walking away feeling invincible and with a renewed sense of happiness. I hang on to this feeling of overbrimming love and acceptance, and funnel this energy and intention into what I’m making. In hopes of creating vessels that spark the same wonder, magic and playfulness that we see in children.

6. What is your favorite part of your job?

Most aspects of it are my favorite, but it’s very special to catch people’s reaction to my work and see them feel what I hoped they would.

7. Is there a specific type of denim you prefer to wear for working with ceramics? An artist uniform perhaps?

I need to be able to move freely in the studio and always manage to get dirty, so I tend to wear a pair of loose fitting and durable pair of jeans.

8. What is your favorite thing to create and why?

I love to make works that look like precious relics but are created with the intent of being functional, everyday objects. Blurring the line of what is meant to be looked at, and what is meant to be subjected to slow and constant wear.

#artistspotlight #unpublished denim #ceramacist #ceramics

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mayoperry-blog · 8 years ago

Text

Porcelain Dolls

A short story surrounding dialogue that I wrote freshman year in creative writing. The first line had to be the title of a random song, the first song that came up in a google search.

Porcelain Dolls

“Love is a mutt from hell.” “Come on, George.” “What, Wes? What do you mean, ‘come on’?” “Don’t talk like that.” “Talk like what? You mean, don’t speak the truth?” “You’re just upset.” “Upset? Me? No!” “Cut the bullshit.” I finally gave in. “What do you want me to say, Wes?” “Say you don’t mean it. Say you don’t really think love is something out of the pits of hell.” “I can’t. I really can’t describe it as anything else.” I threw my hand in the air in defeat. “Where’s my friend from high school? The George who planned months in advance, just to ask a girl to prom? Or the guy who quit basketball, as a starting point guard may I add, just to be with a girl?”  “Clearly he’s back in fantasy land.” “What do you mean? He’s right in front of me. He’s just a little sad because the ‘love of his life’,” Wes said, using air quotes, “Was being an idiot and left him for another guy?” “He’s gone. I’ve grown. I know it’s just a stupid thing that Disney made up.” “Where’s my best friend who made playlists, who serenaded her in the middle of lunch, despite the principal shouting over the whole performance, just because he wanted to let her know how much he cared about her?” “He was delusional. That’s where he is. He’s in some state of mild insanity.” “Exactly. I think he’s still in there somewhere, probably fighting against a bunch of nasty thoughts trying to crush him. He’s somewhere.” “Is he though? I don’t think so.” “He’s right here.” Wesley reached in his back pocket and pulled something out. He kept in clenched in his fist until his hand was right in front of my face. He let his fingers flatten out, revealing a crumpled piece of notebook paper, words scribbled across the lines. “What even is that, Wes?” I sighed. I settled onto the park bench behind me as Wesley started to unfold the paper, standing before me. “It’s you. Maybe three months ago. Probably less.” “How did you get that?” I whispered, knowing exactly what it was. “You left it in my car after practice the other day. About a week after she left.” “Lies. I haven’t seen that since I gave it to her last month.” “What about when she gave it back to you, in the middle of the court on Friday? I’m pretty sure you saw it then, Georgie.” “Tried not to.” I admitted. “You make me smile.” Wes read aloud. “You make me want to be the best I can be-“  “Stop.” “You make my stomach twist into knots when I see your face, and you give me butterflies when you speak.”   “Wes. You have no right.” I said, sitting up a little straighter, wondering how far he would go. “How could someone, who I’ve known for less than a year, have such an impact?” Wes easily dodged my hand in it’s attempt to swipe the paper from his grasp. “You make me insane, but I’d prefer to be psychotic if it meant that I have you.” “Wes, stop this.” I stood up to him, trying to block the words with my hands. “We’re shielded. Something is there, that protects us from everything. Nothing can hurt us. We’re invincible, baby. Everything you do makes me fall a little harder. Nothing you can do will make me not love you. I don’t care if you’re dragging me to my death, because it means that I get to hold your hand. If you held me at gun point, I wouldn’t shy away, because I’d rather die at your hands than anyone else.” “Wes, you’re done.” I grabbed the paper, finally stopping his momentum, so I thought. “I’d follow you anywhere, woman.” He recited from memory, pushing me back forcefully. “You…memorized what I wrote?” “You’re eyes are my favorite color. The grey blue is the most hypnotizing, enchanting, captivating color I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. And when your eyes turn that shade of brown? My heart. I die a little inside. Every time you say my name, I think that my heart stops for a second.” I slumped onto the bench in defeat, trying to cover my ears. My own words clocked me in the face like a world class boxer, not even giving me a chance. “Wes, you don’t have to be so mean.” “I know you love to straighten your hair, but my favorite is when its curly and wild. When you just let it down from the pony tail after practice, and your face is a little red, it’s my favorite. I love when you walk down the hall, you have a quiet confidence. You know who you are, and no one else can tell you different. I love the small dots all over, no matter what they are. You think they’re blemishes, trying to cover them up. I think they’re stars. They’re the small bit of heaven on you, invisibly connected like constellations placed by the gods of who knows what. I say I’m a Christian, because that’s what my parents say I am. I’m not. I’m whatever you want me to be. I don’t believe in God, or any god, for that matter. People say that God creates all humans equal, but I know that’s not true. God doesn’t exist, because if he did, why would he-“ “Make someone so perfect, even though everyone is supposed to have imperfections?” I finished for Wes, gingerly holding the rumpled paper. Wes looked at me, sad. “Next time, man.” “No next time. It’s only Sophia.” “Don’t say that.” “Why not? Why can’t I want her?” “Because she’s a stupid girl!” Wes yelled. I shoved him back. He stumbled over his feet, toppling to the rough concrete. “Don’t you ever say that.” I growled at my friend laying on the ground. “She’s not stupid. She’s not a girl. She’s the most perfect thing in the world, human or not. She’s my girl.” “She doesn’t deserve you.” Wes said quietly. “She doesn’t deserve me? Me? I’m the one. I still can’t believe that I was able to get her, that I was able to be the one to call her mine, and have her be okay with that. Anyone would be more than lucky to have her look their way, and she chose me. She came to me.” “Bad choice by her.” Wes grumbled. “Bad choice? Bad choice?” I roared, stepping closer to him. “It wasn’t even a bad choice. It was a fatal flaw. It killed me. Her games ended up being my death.” “Let her go. All she’s doing is hurting you. You can’t see it. You’re just a love-––“ Push. “sick––“ Push. “puppy.“ Push. Wes shoved me back to the bench. “You follow her like a dog. And she treats you like one. She only pets you when she feels like it.” “Don’t you dare. She loves me.” I shouted. “Not enough.” “AN ounce is enough, Wesley. A fraction of an ounce is a godsend.” “Someone can love you more. Someone can and will give you more than an ounce. Someone will give you their whole heart.” “Yeah? Who? Who could have the same effect?” “Me.” Wes shouted. “I will. I do. You don’t see it. You’re too busy diving headfirst into her fiery pits of hell disguised with a smile and her enticing voice, and you get burned every time. Every. Fucking. Time.” “You? You want me? What?” I was stunned. “Yes. And you’re too blind to see it. You’re too busy nursing your burns, with my help, so you can just jump back into the fire!” “No. Don’t do that, Wes.” “Don’t do what? I can’t not do it anymore. I watch you crash and burn every time she leaves, like clockwork. She comes back, and you’re higher than the moon. She leaves and you come crashing back to earth faster and harder than the time before! And I’m the one who helps pull you back together. I keep the endless supply of crazy glue in the back of my truck, ready to pull it out and glue you back together, piecing you back into a fraction of the man you were before she came along.”  “Wes, what are you saying?” “You’re broken. You may think you’re fixed, and every time you crash again. You’re like a porcelain doll. When it breaks, you can fix it, but you can still the the cracks in that motherfucker. And guess what, George?” “What, Wes?” I asked slowly. “I’m the only one who will play with the doll. I see the cracks. I see the missing shards and the warped glass, and I still love it. She didn’t. She doesn’t. But I do. Every time, I love it. And if you can’t see that, then you do deserve her.” “What does that even mean?” I whispered. “I deserve her?” “Yeah. You’re both too fucked up to notice that you’re hurting each other, and you’re hurting those around you, more than you know. You can’t even see the damage you’ve done. You’re ceramic body is cracked, and so is hers. You two had some twisted agreement to punch out each other’s chests, smashing your bodies and hearts at the same time. I stand in the middle, waiting for you to notice me, and you don’t. You’d prefer her smashed surface, to my porcelain one. You’d prefer her broken frame to my reinforced one. I’d never break you. I put you back together.” “Wes. Stop.” I stood up to leave the park, slinging my jacket over my shoulder. “George.” He called. “Georgie.” “Wes. It’s still her.” “George. No, it’s not. It won’t work. You’re killing each other.” Wes pleaded. “I’d die for her.” I left that park and never returned.

#creative writing 1 #november 2015 #assignment #flash fiction #dialogue

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