#I think that will be the easiest way to keep track of stuff
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Next to Normal, part 2
Joel Miller x female reader
Co-written with @absurdthirst
Rating: E for Explicit! 18+
Word Count: 9k
Warnings: Reader's age isn't pinpointed but you/she are old enough to remember the way the world worked before the Outbreak. Swearing, food. References to reader's past, trauma responses, Joel being the absolute softest and most gentle partner. Emotional vulnerability. Mutual nudity. Fingering. Hand job.
Summary: In the months since you started your relationship with Joel, he has never pushed you for more. But Ellie thinks it's time to take the next step.
Notes: As usual, I apologize for any typos that I might have missed. Ya girl is sleepy and there's a lot going on in life these days. This story was only going to be a one shot. And then it was juuuust going to be a two-parter. Well...this is part two of three. Stay tuned next week for the conclusion!
Read part 1 here!
Ellie fidgets at the table, frowning at the plate of breakfast that Joel put in front of her. Not because she doesn’t want it, but because she’s thinking hard about how to approach her question. It seems straightforward to her, but she’s learned in the last several months that he is touchy when you are the subject of conversation. He’s always in protection mode when it comes to you. She picks up a piece of unevenly toasted bread and frowns at it like it’s offended her until her eyes track back to Joel. “Are you gonna ask her to live with us?” She asks finally, knowing she doesn’t have to clarify who she means.
Joel stops with his fork halfway to his mouth, his own eggs nearly falling off as he stares at Ellie. “Why? What do you— has she—” he stops and drops the fork. “Why?” He wonders if you’ve dropped hint or if this is just the girl’s curiosity.
“That’s…what you’re supposed to do right? Like…old people style courtship?” She doesn’t really know what adult dating entails except that Joel seems to be spending every second of free time with you, and she likes you. You’re fun to have around and a lot easier to talk to than Joel or Tommy about some of the shit that she’s dealing with. “She hasn’t said anything. I just wondered.”
“Sometimes.” Joel admits, picking up his fork again and looking back down at his plate. “What do you think about that?” He tries to keep it casual, in untested waters dealing with this. He had never really dated while Sarah was young, too busy trying to keep everything together.
“She’s nice.” Ellie says, as though it was the easiest thing in the world. “And…we can trust her. That’s a hell of a lot better than some other people in this town.” In general she likes Jackson, but people are people and not everyone is trustworthy. Ellie knows that better than most. “Would you, like…marry her? Like Tommy and Maria?”
“I don’t know if she would ever want to get married.” Joel hasn’t discussed any of your past with Ellie, so she might not be aware of some of your hangups. He’s not ever even mentioned marriage just in case it might have been one of them. Not like he was a wedding vows kind of man himself. “I would. If she wanted to.”
“But you’re not gonna ask.” Ellie nods vaguely, not quite understanding why anybody bothers to get married anymore anyway. It seems like one of those things that doesn’t make sense in this world. A relic. “So…” The only part of it that still matters is safety, and the emotion behind all of it. “She could be here with us all the time, and I’d pretend like I don’t hear you doing stuff and that’s it? Like…” Her eyes tick up to Joel’s with rivers of curiosity in them. “Like a family?”
Joel snorts, amused at that comment because beyond kissing, doing stuff hadn’t happened. “Kind of like that. If she did, she would have say over what happens here.” He cautions. “Another adult to ‘ruin your life’.” He had rolled his eyes and laughed the first time she had come out with that statement. A true measure of a teenager, even in the shithole state the world was in, Joel could ruin her life.
“She’s better at it than you,” Ellie announces immediately, tongue stuck out as far as it will go. She doesn’t want to admit that you’re the one she goes to for advice most often now. Not him, not Maria, and definitely not Tommy. She goes to you, and you always answer her honestly.
“Ruining your life?” He lifts a brow and hums. “Maybe I need to ask her for tips then.” He’s joking, but it’s nice to see that she has found a mother-like figure in you.
“She’s better at advice.” The teen clarifies, not wanting Joel to think you’ve done anything wrong. “I mean…I’m not gonna ask you about girl stuff.”
Joel snorts and shoots her a grin. “Why not? I love everything about women.”
“But you aren’t one.” The exaggerated roll of her eyes calls him an idiot and she huffs. “Whatever. You should ask your girlfriend to live with us. That’s all I was saying.”
“Yeah?” He hums and shrugs. “I’ll see what she thinks. She can sew here, she does often enough.”
“‘Kay.” She mumbles simply, as if she didn’t just suggest an enormous change to both of their lives as casually as commenting on the color of the sky. Ellie finishes her breakfast in three bites and pushes back from the table abruptly. “School,” she adds, before grabbing her supplies from the counter nearby.
Joel watches as she bolts out the door. Since it’s not a FEDRA school, Ellie has actually been enjoying going each day. Picking up his coffee, he shakes his head. It’s Chicory but it’s better than nothing. Expecting you in a few minutes, he finishes his breakfast in peace with your own plate still warm on the stove.
The soft knock at the door comes just minutes later, and you crack the door open to slip inside without letting any heat out. The typical place for your sewing is in a large canvas bag unless it's a delicate project, so you can move it between your house or Joel's without effort. All those years of making costumes by hand for plays and parties has truly paid off. "Joel?" The smell of breakfast is welcome and comforting, and you peak around the corner to find him sitting at the table. "I just passed Ellie on her way to school. Seemed like she was in a good mood."
He chuckles and stands up, ready to pour you a cup of the coffee that is still simmering in the percolator. “She should be.” He snorts. “Christmas is coming early, apparently.”
"Or very late, depending on how you view it." Now that spring is here and the winter is solidly behind you, Jackson is flourishing again. It seems to be affecting everyone, including Ellie. A soft murmur of thanks comes with accepting the cup of coffee he has made – Joel's is far better tasting than your attempts ever were – but you set it down on the table to step closer to him with a smile. "Good morning kiss?"
“Of course.” When you ask him for a kiss, or to hold you, he’s never turned you down. Nearly in disbelief that you are so affectionate despite the past years. He steps towards you slowly and bites his lip. “Can I hold onto your hips, beautiful girl?” Sometimes you want him to and other times you would rather he not, so he still asks where you want his hands.
"Yes, please." You're feeling brave today, maybe reinvigorated by the spring just like Ellie is, and you nod as you step closer to him so he can hold you close. Maybe it's the spring, or maybe it's months of Joel always calling you his beautiful girl finally starting to sink in. You never thought anyone could think of you that way ever again, but it seems so easy with him.
He hums softly, licking his lips and shuffling closer. You are the one who moves quickly when you feel like it, but he still treats you delicately. Not because he is afraid you will shatter, but because you deserve it.
His short hair is always the perfect place for your fingers, and your arms come up around his shoulders so you can play with the hairs on the back of his neck when he leans in. These morning moments are your favourite, if you're honest. The bright sunlight and birdsong make it seem like a romantic little cottage scene, and it makes you wish that you had had the courage in the colder months to suggest that he sleep over. Or that you sleep over his place. Even just to sleep side by side would be wonderful, but you try to be cognizant of not changing things too much on Ellie all at once.
His lips are much softer since he’s been kissing you. Not as dry. Tommy rags on him, making him roll his eyes, but he would never admit that he does put a little oil on them at night to keep them from chapping and cracking when it’s his turn to stand watch at the gates.
The domesticity of the whole thing is appealing in ways that harken back to the feeling of near normalcy that Joel gives you, and you’re smiling when you finally force yourself to lean back from kissing him. “Busy day? Or do I have you to myself until Ellie gets home?”
“Nahh.” He shakes his head. “Mud’s too thick to try to set more posts, so we are waiting for it to dry in the southern area of the community garden.” He tells you. “Since I had to pull watch last night, I’m off for the next day or so.”
“It wasn’t too bad, I hope?” Overnights are tough just for the sake of a sleep schedule, but you know Joel’s shift ended at dawn and it’s a fair few hours past that now. “Did you get a nap in?”
“Not yet.” He hadn’t wanted to sleep while you were over. Not when he could spend time with you. “I will when I get tired.” He promises.
“I would have waited until after lunch to come over.” You pout at him, rather viciously, but aren’t really upset. You just don’t want Joel tiring himself out for you.
“And I wouldn’t have slept then, either.” He grumbles at you and motions towards the stove. “Eaten yet? I made you a plate.”
“Thank you.” Though you couldn’t put a finger on when it became tradition to eat breakfast together, it has certainly become a mainstay. “I brought over a few things that I’m mending for Maria, so I have plenty of work to keep me busy.” Or not is the unspoken follow up. There are definitely days that you spend entirely wrapped up in Joel.
“That’s good.” Joel nods as he motions you towards the table and brings the still warm plate over with a small hiss when it burns one of his fingers. “It’s hot.”
“Careful!” Though how he can feel anything through those callouses on his hand, you just don’t know. “Don’t need you burning your fingers off over a plate of eggs.”
He rolls his eyes and sits down beside you with a groan. “Eat.” He tells you, pointing to the food. “Pretty sure you skipped dinner last night.”
“Not intentionally.” There had been a call for anyone available to come help out with chasing some escaped animals up on the pasture north of town last night and you had gone out to help without hesitation. “But thank you for looking out for me.”
“Of course I’m going to look after you.” He huffs off your thanks and sits back down with you, his own refreshed coffee in hand. “Ellie wanted me to talk to you about something.”
“Oh?” That has you stopping with your fork halfway to your mouth. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah…everything’s good.” He quickly reassures you, frowning because he hadn’t meant to worry you. He doesn’t like the scared look in your eyes, like you’re about to be punished for some imaginary wrong. “All good, I think.”
“Okay.” Dropping the tension from your shoulders is automatic — you didn’t even realize you had seized up until you were relaxing again. “What’s going on?”
“Not sayin’ we’re doin’ this, or that we gotta—” Joel reassures you to start with, knowing that you might not think that it’s a question. “But Ellie was asking me about the future, me and you.”
“We haven’t really talked about it.” For the simple reason that in this world, the future can never be determined. There’s usually no point in betting on a horse if you don’t know it will even finish the race, so a lot of people — you and Joel included — have chosen to remain undefined. Other people, people like Tommy and Maria, have held onto the old relationship conventions as a comfort in an ever changing world.
“No, we haven’t.” Joel admits. “But maybe we should. She – and me too – we were wonderin’ if maybe it’s not a bit silly that we’re trackin’ back and forth between your place and ours.”
“It’s not too much trouble, is it?” The ice cold fear in your heart is instant, and even though he had said that nothing was wrong, you can’t help the feeling of doomed certainty that the inevitable end has been reached in this otherwise happy arrangement. It was bound to come, sooner or later. Or, at least, you’ve feared that it would.
“No,” he can see that you’re still worried and he offers you his hand. Silently asking permission to hold yours and he squeezes yours gently when you slip onto into his. “We were thinkin’ that maybe you could just— live with us?” He ventures softly. “I wouldn’t— you don’t have to worry about me expectin’ anything more—” he promises quickly. “Maybe we could just, I don’t know, sleep in the same bed? If you don’t want that, I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“Joel…” It isn’t a great commendation of strength on your part that you start to tear up immediately, but it’s an honest reaction if there ever was one. You squeeze his hand tightly in yours for the half-second it takes you to move out of your chair and to his side. “Can I hug you? Please?”
“Of course you can.” The fact that you ask him is probably due to him asking you. Or needing to make sure you won’t get in trouble on some subconscious level, but he easily stands and holds his arms open.
The crush of how hard you push into his arms to hug him exactly as tightly as you can gets a small oof out of him, but his arms come around you just as securely. “I’ve been trying to think of how to bring it up for weeks,” you admit quietly, feeling silly about that now that he’s broken the topic himself. “About… sleeping together, I mean…”
“Oh.” He’s not sure if you mean sleeping together or sleeping together, but he doesn’t ask. “You should have said something, beautiful girl.” He murmurs quietly into your neck, enjoying the way that you curl into him.
“I wasn’t sure how.” Joel is the only person you’ve been able to be completely candid with about your fears and anxieties, and if anything it has only made him more protective. But really? You don’t mind that. “But I’m feeling braver.”
“Do you like the idea?” He asks softly. “I know you have your own space and are used to it, but we can share ours. Ellie loves the idea, so no teenage pushback.”
“I had considered asking you to move in to mine,” you admit, overwhelmed tears turning to happy in an instant. “But I didn’t want to displace Ellie.”
“If you want that, we can see what she thinks.” Joel immediately offers. “But I think our place is a little bigger. And yours is closer to everything.”
“Bigger is better.” You can agree to that right away. The room you could give Ellie in your own house is too small to be comfortable. “I don’t mind being a little further away from town if I get to be with you.”
“Yeah?” Joel smiles slightly at the comment and nods. “Okay. Well, we’ll get you moved over here as soon as you want.” He knows you will bring your supplies so he nods towards the little nook off the living room. “Thinkin’ that could be your little shop, unless you need more room?”
“I think it should work.” The little reading nook off of the living room has space for a chair and a desk, and even a small closet built into the wall of the house that has shelves for your supplies. “If you don’t mind sacrificing the space, I think it might actually be perfect.”
“Was thinkin’ I could make you some organizers for your cloth and threads and such.” He tells you, leaning into the idea. “The bookshelves would be good for that.”
“You’ll spoil me if you do that.” It sounds wonderful, and you prop your chin on his chest to look up at him. “But I’ll spoil you with cooking if you let me.”
“I’ll get working on them today.” He promises with a grin. His cooking is okay, but yours is amazing.
“And I’ll make us a celebratory supper.” It’s the least you can do, really, but the smile on your face is bright and wide.
“Yeah?” He grins at the idea and nods. “Do you wanna start moving stuff over? I can get Tommy to help.”
“That would be a heck of a surprise for Ellie.” And you laugh a little at the idea, enjoying the ease of it. “Leave for school just having posed the question, and come home from school to find me moved in.”
“Up to you.” Joel chuckles. “She likes the idea of a family.” He wants you to know that, that the girl wants you here with them.
"I know she isn't technically either of ours." You shrug slightly, not wanting to specifically bring up the children that both you and Joel have lost. "But sometimes it feels like it."
“We worry enough about her. Annoy her enough.” He frowns slightly. “Sometimes family isn’t always blood, but the people you wish were blood.”
"Family can be the people that you adopt along the way. Or the people who adopt you. It works both ways." The two of you sit back down again, hands twined together at the table as you slowly work your way through the modest breakfast that Joel made you. "After this I'll go back to my house and pack some things up while you go see if Tommy is able to help?"
“Sounds good.” He clears his throat and bites his lip. “I don’t expect you to do any more than we’ve established you’re good with.” He reminds you quietly. “I’m gonna knock before coming into the bedroom. In case you’re, uh, changing or something.”
"I can change in the bathroom," you assure him, putting down your fork to concentrate on the far more important conversation at hand. "Or...maybe it's time we crossed that bridge. Maybe not all the way to the other side, but...we could put off a little of the moving to have...private time? Before Ellie comes home from school?" Reminding yourself that you have been feeling braver lately is the key. Joel has proven endlessly that you are safe with him, and never once given you reason to doubt it.
“Is that what you want?” Joel asks seriously. He doesn’t want you to think you have to push yourself into something you aren’t ready for because of where you will sleep at night.
"I want it, and I want to be ready for that step." Wanting is the key. Or at least you hope it is. "And I hope I know you well enough to think that you won't be upset if we reach a point that I'm not comfortable with."
“You just say the word and I’ll stop, beautiful girl.” Joel can easily promise you that. “If that’s what you’re wanting, then I guess you better finish your breakfast.”
As nerve wracking as taking that next step is, you do want to. Letting fear rule your life helps no one, and reclaiming your own strength through large and small steps is something that Joel has really helped you with. Nothing says that today has to be the day that you throw off every worry, but as you finish your breakfast you do feel absolutely certain that the decision to put one proverbial foot in front of the other and move toward intimacy with the man you’ve genuinely fallen in love with.
He lets you think about it quietly, taking his own plate and coffee cup over to the sink to start on the dishes. Knowing that despite what you might say, you could change your mind before you even finish your meal. That's okay with him. He's never pushed you, even when he's straining under his jeans and has to take himself in hand when he gets home after leaving you. He would still never push, not with something like this.
He doesn’t let you do your own dishes when you’re done eating, but he never does. Joel has deeply ingrained caretaking tendencies even if he doesn’t like to admit it. “We should…go upstairs,” you murmur, leaning against the kitchen counter beside him. “It’s more comfortable than the couch.”
Joel watches you for a moment and then nodes carefully. “We can. Do you— uh, want me to give you a minute?” He asks, unsure of what you want and how far you want this to go. “Let you…get ready?”
“I’d rather have you next to me.” His presence is, after all, what makes you feel safest. For this next step you’ll need that more than ever.
“Okay.” Reaching out, he offers you his hand with a reassuring nod. “You are in charge here.” He reminds you.
“I don’t really have any expectations for this except that we’ll lay in bed together and have some privacy.” But you can now fully admit that you hope to have the courage for more. “Let’s just…start there and see what happens?”
“That sounds good to me.” He guides you towards the stairs and lets go of your hand so he can let you go up in front of him. “We’ll take it nice and slow.”
The last time you were this nervous about being in a bad with a boyfriend was probably losing your virginity in high school, but there is a hell of a lot more emotional weight involved this morning than there was then. Joel means more to you than any of the others ever did, and that just makes you want this to go well even more. At the top of the stairs he’s beside you again and you slip your hand into his.
The walk to the bedroom doesn’t take long, the door open and his bed still rumpled. He’s never been a make the bed kind of guy and he bites his lip a little sheepishly. “Didn’t think you’d be up here.” He admits with a rueful grin. “Would have at least tossed the comforter over everything.”
“I like it better knowing the real you.” Your hand in his slips around his waist to keep him close.
Joel hums and walks towards it and then pauses a few feet from it. “Do you want to lay down with me, beautiful girl?”
“I feel like I should at least take my sweater off first.” The t-shirt you have on underneath it is typically worn but comfortable, and you find that today stripping off your warm sweater feels like taking off a lot more clothes than it really is.
Joel takes off his boots, but he leaves everything else on. It’s just a t-shirt and a flannel with his jeans. “Make sure you’re comfortable. What side of the bed do you like?” He’s a middle of the bed sleeper, so wherever you want is fine with him. He’ll adjust.
“The left, usually.” Being boxed in doesn’t feel particularly good to you, for obvious reasons. That doesn’t matter right now though, and you take off your own boots to leave to the side with Joel’s, socks stuffed neatly inside. “Is that okay?”
“Perfect.” He nods and motions to the bed. “Test it out. See if you like yours better.” If you do, he will drag that damn thing down here.
You won’t, you know that, but getting into Joel’s bed with him is a surprisingly emotional moment. Without any extra preamble — only because you’re restraining yourself from babbling out of nerves — you slide under the rumpled covers and inhale a breath of the scent that is purely his. It’s infinitely relaxing, and you close your eyes for a second to revel in how right it feels. Fear has made you think it might be awkward, but no. You’re supposed to be next to Joel. This is where you belong.
Joel is slightly tense beside you. Not wanting to jostle you too much, but he clears his throat. “I’m going to put my arm behind your head. Is that okay?”
“Let’s…” looking between you, you know that Joel asks about every single action to be courteous. To be cautious, even. And while you don’t mind being delicate to him, this might be a chance to start moving past some of that hesitance. For you, too. “Let’s just say we’re going to get comfortable?” You suggest. “Asking about every single movement…it’s going to make this harder than it needs to be. So…it’s okay with me that you touch wherever you need to while we figure this out. This…how to be comfortable together.”
He huffs out a small laugh at himself and nods. “If you don’t like something, you tell me, you got me?” He tells you, raising his brows seriously. “This bed, it’s gonna be your refuge, not your prison.”
“Okay.” Nodding, you slide closer to him under the blanket and move your arm so he can slide his under your pillow if he wants to. “I’m sorry if this is awkward…”
“You’ve got nothin’ to be sorry about.” Joel chides softly, used to hearing that when you want to pull back. “We’re just getting comfortable, that’s all.” His hand settles on your arm and he strokes his fingers over your skin lightly. “We got all the time in the world.”
Shifting even closer, you tuck yourself into his side and sigh at the bulk of him. It really is something primal in the way it relaxes you, having that broad frame of his nearby but never threatening. Sliding your arm around his waist is easy like this, and you press yourself into him comfortably. “Kinda wish I’d gotten brave enough for this ages ago,” you admit quietly.
“It’s okay, beautiful girl.” He promises, slowly sliding his hand up and down your back as you start to slowly cover half his body with your own. He pauses for just a moment before his hand ventures very sedately past the small of your back and over the swell of your butt. Giving you time to tell him no if you wanted.
Instead of hesitating it actually makes you grin, the slow and careful way that he reaches forward. Feeling admittedly cheeky, you shift your hips to wiggle your ass under his tentative fingers and end up smiling again. "It's okay, handsome," you assure him, giving him the permission that he's silently seeking. "Go ahead."
Joel groans and cups your ass firmly. “You have a great ass.” He growls softly. “Thought so from the beginning.”
"The beginning, huh?" It's something of a relief to find out that Joel was just as interested in you as you were in him early on. The first time he'd admitted it, you had literally sighed. There was a breath then, like there is now, that you didn't realize you had been holding. "I'm glad you like it."
He smirks slightly and moves to caress your ass like he had your back. “When you’re feelin’ up to it, my lips are lonely.” He teases, puckering them slightly.
It's small, and it's teasing, but it lifts so much of the tension in the room that you actually laugh and move in a little more with eagerness. If there's one undeniable truth about Joel Miller it's that he's a fantastic kisser, and you're not one to give that up when it's being offered. Especially not right now. Not when your time alone with him is both assured and indulgent.
Your lips aren’t hesitant this time. They are sure and still curved into a smile when you press them to his. Making his own laugh into your mouth that much sweeter. He wanted this to light, there’s so much heaviness in your lives, this should be as light as it can. Especially with your past. Taking the moment for the simplicity that it is.
There's something different about the taste of him this morning, like kissing Joel is somehow sweeter for the pure and simple reason that you're in bed together and nothing else. Your hand creeps up his arm and around his shoulder so your fingers can find their way into his hair, and the bubbly, joyous feeling in your chest bubbles over when you summon the courage to be the one to run your tongue along his lower lip in an open mouthed kiss. It's probably bolder than you've ever done before but the rightness of this feeling just can't be overstated.
Humming in surprise, Joel settles back slightly and lets you take charge of your kiss. Waiting to see if you would slide your tongue into his mouth or if you will leave it at just opened mouth to breath into each other. His hand squeezes your ass gently, encouraging you to do whatever you want and immediately goes back to caressing like it had before.
His hand feels huge like this, but not in an overwhelming way. In a way that makes you feel precious and...unexpectedly...a little worshipped. Up here in this bedroom nothing can hurt you, and that is another step forward in this sort of emboldening feeling that is brewing inside you. It's that burst of boldness that has you pushing into his side just a little bit more, tongue sliding into his mouth to relearn that part of him that you have explored only a handful of times before.
Joel grunts, his cock twitching and starting to harden in his pants, but he ignores it. Focusing on you as he continues to kiss you and caress you. Enjoying how you are unfurling for him.
The heat that rolls off of him in waves is intoxicating, making your head swim like it does whenever the two of you let the urge take over. It isn’t often, but it’s always good, and this morning feels even better.
The kisses are slow, languid. Pretending that time doesn't exist and every breath shared between you is suspended. He feels the way you are slowly starting to grinding on him, his thigh between yours.
Shallow, short, panting breaths are all the two of you can manage. Some gulps of air and soft, muffled moans. The floods your mind and your instincts and for the first time in over a year pleasure is what overtakes every thought, not fear.
He watches you, your eyes closed and your finger tight in his hair. Not because you are afraid, but because you are wanting more. He groans into your mouth and his hands settle on your hips, encouraging you to move if you want to with a small nudge.
It's like your mind has gone blank of everything except him, and the bliss of it is that you finally can let it go blank. The only thing you even need to know about in the world is Joel, and he is right here beside you. Half underneath you, technically. He not only wants you here with him but is actively devouring you at the same rate you are devouring him, and the freedom is nearly electric. Rocking hips have a mind of their own, and it really does take longer than you're proud of to realize that you're evening doing it. Catching yourself, you barely manage to pull back and force yourself to look Joel in the eyes through hazy vision. "Is...I didn't ask...if it's okay?"
“It’s always okay, beautiful girl.” Joel’s voice is rough, lust filled. “Whatever you want, you just do it to me.”
“I—I don’t really know what I want,” you admit, trying to catch your breathe and keep your entire body from setting on fire in his arms, but not succeeding very well. “Except…more.”
“You could let me— unbutton you jeans?” He asks as he nudges his nose against your pulse. “Use my fingers to make you feel good?”
It would be a lie to claim you hadn’t imagined what it would feel like. That you hadn’t actually dreamt about how pleasurable time with Joel would play out. While this isn’t quite like any of the scenarios you had dreamt up, it is real and it is happening right now, and you nod fiercely before pushing in again to kiss him with every ounce of courage built up inside you.
He knows this is a big step for you and he doesn’t rush it. Kissing you back while he slowly pulls his hand around your back to the front of your jeans. Pausing for a second to wait for any protest before he flicks the button open and leisurely pulls down your zipper.
He gets no protests at all, but a deep sigh bordering a moan that comes out of you with that deceptively small act of opening your pants. Your free hand slides just under the hem of his shirt, hot skin burning your fingers at first contact but only in the very best way.
“Tell me if you don’t like something,” he reminds you softly when his fingers first dip below the threadbare elastic band of your panties. “Only want you to feel good.”
Any flash of discomfort, even a small one, is too much and you lean back to find Joel’s dark eyes watching you. “Let me just take them off?” You ask quietly, not wanting to verbalize the fact that the fight pull of fabric against your skin hits a memory you don’t want to relive. As exposing as it is, naked is better.
“Whatever you want.” His hand eases out of your panties and he lays back, showing you that he’s not going to keep on.
“I want you.” The clarification is important, even as you slip off your jeans and underwear, letting them fall off the side of the bed in irrelevance. Shirt and bra are next, and even the act of shedding your own clothing — making your own choice to do this — frees another layer of fear from your shoulders. “I don’t want fear to be in the way of I can help it.”
“Do you want me to strip down?” Joel asks, wondering if you won’t like him being clothed and you naked. “How do you want me, beautiful girl?”
“How ever you’re comfortable.” Just because you stripped down does not mean that he has to. The state of your relation as always been respect and not reciprocity.
He decides that he wants to strip down too. He knows he’s not going to do anything that will make him cum, but if you’re going to live here, you should be comfortable with him.
It definitely more than you ever expected to happen today, but as Joel sheds his clothes beside you, there’s also a sense of peace in it. Reclaiming intimacy — not even sex, just intimacy and closeness — is like relieving an enormous burden that you aren’t ever sure could be lifted.
When he reaches the tired, worn out boxer briefs he is wearing, the outline of his hard cock clearly showing, he hesitates. “Would you like me to leave these on?”
A fair question, and though you hesitate for a moment, you decide firmly on, “No.” This decision to move forward together is too important to you, and it’s not as if you aren’t attracted to him. You have eyes, after all. “If you’re okay with it, I…I want to see you. Maybe…touch you?”
He groans quietly, nodding as he hooks his fingers into the band. “You can touch me wherever you want.” He promises.
He has never protested once about waiting for you to be ready. Never pressed and never pushed. Now you only hope that you won’t disappoint him when you’re actually ready to take the next step. “You can touch me, too.”
“My daddy was never good for much.” Joel starts as he slides his hands down, bringing the boxers with him. Grunting as he bends over to steps out of them. “But he taught me something that’s stuck with me.” Standing up, he looks you in your eyes. “It was about holdin’ a gun, but I guess it’s the same with holdin’ a woman.” He tells you. “Hold her like you love her. Slow and gentle, steady. That’s what I aim to do with you.”
“I—I do love you.” He wasn’t trying to get you to say it, or even saying it himself, but sitting up in his bed with a blanket around you instead of clothes…if you can’t say it now, then when can you? “You don’t have to…to say it back or anything. I just—it felt like the right time to say.”
You are sitting down, but he steps closer to you and kneels down, not wanting to tower over you to intimidate. “Baby, you should know that I— I love you.” He murmurs quietly, reaching for your hand. “Everything about you.”
"Get back in bed, Joel." Even with one of his big hands holding on to both of yours, you tug at him slightly to urge him to join you. "I...I really want to be close to you right now."
“Okay.” He groans again as he gets to his feet. “Fuckin’ knees.” He complains quietly. “Too fuckin’ old.”
“No more grand romantic gestures that involve kneeling,” you tease, pulling back the blanket so he can climb in beside you.
“Don’t worry about that.” He chuckles as he slides into the bed. “Probably the cold, but it’s been actin’ up.”
“Still.” Your arms are open to him this time, reminding yourself that there’s no need to hide. “I like you in one piece.”
This time, he is the one that is curling up to you, making sure he doesn’t seem to hover over you just in case. His cock is against your hip and he leans in to kiss you again. “You have me.”
To have it put for you so easily — that he’s yours are much as you are his — makes so much difference. It’s freeing instead of entrapping. Love rather than possession. It makes you melt into his kiss, hands grasping for him rather than being tentative about their touch. Not exactly greedy, but definitely no longer afraid.
It’s almost too easy, the way you eagerly fall into his kiss again. Your determination shining through and his hand lands on your hip again, warm and seeking. “Spread your legs, beautiful girl.” He murmurs against your lips.
It isn’t an order, but an urging that you happily agree to. Laying back on his pillows and letting him come that much closer to you, urging him to lean over your body. It isn’t looming, like he’s afraid it could be. Instead it feels like protection.
He starts at your shoulder, hands deciding they want to touch every inch of skin you will allow him. Lips kissing your chin, your jaw, just behind your ear. “So beautiful for me.” He rasps out. “So soft.”
Joel is full of endless praises, and you’ve caught yourself sometimes wondering if that’s something he does just for you or if it’s an old habit of his that goes back to the time before. It doesn’t truly make a difference, but you’ve wondered. The feeling of his hands everywhere on you could get overwhelming — or you fear that it could — but it’s just Joel. It’s the man who only makes you feel safe and protected and appreciated, and you sink down into the mattress with a sigh when his hand moves down from your shoulder. “Only for you,” you gasp out, his lips pressing the sensitive spot on your next just below your ear.
When his hand cups your breast, he doesn’t squeeze. It’s more of a massage, a gentle caress and he rubs your nipple with his thumb. “That’s my good girl.” He hums. There’s been plenty of times that you’ve gone over phrases or nicknames that might trigger you, so he’s confident that you won’t react negatively.
“Joel.” Things that seemed silly years ago aren’t so silly to you now, and the cooing softness of Joel’s usually deep, rough voice is so soothing as his work-calloused hands slide over your skin. Your far hand is tangled in the blanket as he leans over you, but the other anchors you to him instead. It explores the parts of his body you haven’t touched before — trim waist and strong thighs instead of the soft stomach and broad shoulders that you know so well. “Joel. Joel.” His name is a chant on your lips, growing shallower and lighter each time.
“That’s it.” He encourages, continuing to play with your breast until he feels your thighs press together and shift, wanting friction. “Gonna take care of you.”
It’s a promise, one you want to drown yourself in as much as you want to drown in kissing him. Deciding that you can only really do one of those things, you surge upward to press an open mouthed kiss to his lips, inviting him to devour you, too.
His hand has to nudge your thighs open again after his palm skims over your belly. Caressing it softly and he would say something, but reminding you of your past wouldn’t be right for this moment. Instead, his fingers comb through the soft curls covering you, gently working through them to slick skin underneath.
The deep sigh that emanates from you is almost revolutionary, and for the first time in longer than you care to remember, your eyes slip shut in pleasure to focus solely on the feeling of Joel’s hands on your body. Forgetting where you end and he begins was a seemingly impossible task not so long ago, but now you moan softly and shift your legs open for him even wider like a flower opening up for the sun.
“Fuck, you’re doing so good for me.” He moans, cock twitching at your surrender to the pleasure and he loves that you aren’t tensing up. His fingers slide through your folds, gathering the wetness and he starts a slow figure eight around your sex. Curling your entrance and coming back up to slide around your clit through your lips. “Feel good, beautiful girl?”
“So good.” It’s unbelievable just how good but this is part of Joel’s magic. He can just make everything else fade away. Your hips tilt up and you sigh again, sinking further into the mattress. “More, honey? Please?”
“You want my fingers inside you, beautiful girl?” He asks as he kisses down your throat. His mouth waters at the thought of suckling at your tits and he looks up at you to make sure you’re still on the same page. ‘More’ could mean just more of his rubbing your clit.
“Yes. God, please.” Nodding almost frantically, the hand that you had had tangled in his blanket comes up to grasp his shoulder and hold him close so you can kiss him endlessly.
He wants to chuckle at how desperate you sound but he just hums softly. Aware that you are actually starting to enjoy yourself. His fingers make another trip around your clit and this time, he doesn’t circle your entrance, just slowly starts to press, feeling you start to yield.
The soft moan he gets from you almost immediately makes him shiver, but you’re lost to it. Every sensation in your body has narrowed down to Joel’s touch and pushed every other thought out of your mind. Maybe he is that good with his hands or maybe it’s just how much you love him, or maybe it’s both. No matter what it is, it’s floating away with you on a cloud.
Your body doesn’t resist, you aren’t pushing him away. If anything, your hips are rolling down to meet his touch. He groans your name and nuzzles your breast with his cheek, his nose, before he finally wraps his lips around the stiff peak.
That extra burst of sensation makes you moan out loud, back arching off the bed and fingers digging into Joel’s arm to keep him from reeling back or second guessing himself. Close Is where you want him and you’re going to keep him there.
He hisses in pleasure against your breast, drunk on the sight of your eyes closed and lips parted so perfectly as you moan again. He doesn’t stop, just slowly curling his fingers up inside you to search for that pleasure spot.
Each time you moan for him is like a revelation all your own. Your body is doing all of its own talking now, rolling like waves in the ocean and pulled toward Joel’s own body like a magnet. The pull between you is so strong that when he finds your g-spot you keen and moan out his name loud enough that anyone in the house could have easily heard, but you’re too wrapped up in him to care or notice.
“That’s it, beautiful girl? That’s your spot?” He pulls off your breast long enough to crow about finding that place before he is suckling again, his fingers concentrating on that small spot just to hear you keen again.
“I—fuck—yes!” If he had asked if you even have a spot you would have said no, but he’s found it with seemingly no effort whatsoever. Like his intuitive ability to read your body language for emotions, he can read it for your pleasure as well. There’s no doubt in your mind that he could probably pluck you like an instrument of he wanted to but right now all he wants is to hear your pleasure so you do not hold back. The shock of being so vocal is one thing, but for Joel? For Joel you would repeat your yeses and moans and chants of his name for the whole world to hear.
He listens to you, feels you. Wanting to make sure that no old ghosts come between you and your goal. He moans, cock twitching and throbbing against your thigh as he continues to focus on you, ignoring his body’s demands for your own.
It might surprise him even more than it does you, when you reach for him. Your other hand had settled on his hip and was surely squeezing imprints into his flesh, but pleasure has so much taken over your mind that the slide of your hand from his hip to wrapping your fingers experimentally around the thickness of his cock makes both of you gasp.
His eyes close and he can’t help the experimental rock of his hips before he pulls himself back. Reminding himself that he needs to focus on his task.
“It’s okay.” Murmured just as soon as you turn your head, you open your eyes and place lingering kisses on Joel’s jaw. “I want to. Please?”
“Whatever you want.” Joel promises you, his dark eyes on you and alight with passion. “Just let me know what you want.”
“I want to make you feel good, too.” It is the shared aspect of the experience that makes all the difference. That one of you isn’t taking everything from the other, but that you’re sharing the moment together. That’s what makes it an act of passion and love rather than just a sexual encounter. And for you? That makes all the difference.
“You are, beautiful girl.” He promises, his fingers slick and making the most beautiful sounds as they move in and out of you.
As the pair of you devolve back into moans and sighs of each other’s names, the coil of pleasure that tightens in your belly is unmistakable. The experimental strokes of your hand wrapped around his length become surer, pace quickening, your whole body rocketing toward your own end and wanting to take him with you despite knowing that it probably isn’t going to happen that fast. It’s the haze of actual, beautiful, loving pleasure that’s settled over you like a blanket, and it’s what you want more than anything.
“That’s it, sweetheart.” Joel is moaning his encouragement and huffing against your breast. “You’re so fuckin’ pretty when you’re on the edge. You gonna cum for me?”
It’s possible you’ve entirely forgotten how to speak with how close you are, and your eyes slip closed again when you nod almost frantically. The moan from your lips is half his name and half incoherent begging, asking for the release that is so literally right at his fingertips. That only he can give you and that you hope past hoping that you can give to him too with each stroke of your fist.
He smirks, “yeah, you are.” He coos, his voice heavy with lust. “You’re gonna cum all in my hand for me.” He can feel the way your body is tensing under him, ready for the perfect moment to break apart in bliss. “My beautiful girl’s gonna cum.”
It is as much permission as you could look for, and your body seems to know it. The bow and bend in your back sharpen as the sound is strangled from your throat, cutting off his name with a desperate cry as you fall apart for his hand.
There’s something breathtaking about the way you cry out. Body quaking and trembling, not in fear, but in rapture.
The world stands still for those few moments. There is nothing at all except bliss, and the bulk of Joel's broad body above you, and the way he twitches in your hand seeming to run in perfect sync with the spasms of your own body as you come down from the clouds.
Joel doesn’t rush you, drawing it out with the slower curl of his fingers than before, kissing up your body before capturing your moans for him greedily with his mouth. Wanting to keep them for himself as he enjoys your orgasm with you.
“Joel.” It’s more of a whisper than a cry this time, when you finally open your eyes to look at him. “Tell me what you want?”
“Touch me.” He begs. “However you want. I want you to just touch me.”
Your hand had fallen away from him to make sure you didn’t squeeze too hard and accidentally hurt him at the peak or your own orgasm. Now you touch your fingers between your thighs to wet them with your own slick and wrap your hand around his cock again, feeling it twitch with the pressure and friction. Every stroke builds on the last, wanting him to feel every bit as good as you do right now.
Your touch, this time so much more sure of itself, makes his eyes fall close and his body rolls onto his back. Your own follows him so you are draped over him like a perfectly warm blanket. “Fuck, fuck, you are so— so fucking perfect.” He moans quietly. “So fuckin’ pretty.”
Praise is absolutely not lost on you, and every murmur and moan makes you work that much harder. Learning what works for him and what doesn’t isn’t difficult when Joel is so vocal, and before too long his hips are stuttering as he tries to chase the rhythm of your hand.
A shudder runs through his body, unsure if he would ever have you touch him like this. Panting as he curls his toes and his stomach tightens. “Gonna cum.” He warns you roughly.
“Show me.” You keep the pace of your movements and the same pressure with your hand and watch every movement in his body. “Let me see you, honey.”
He grunts, nodding seriously and his eyes flutter open again to focus on you. “Love you.” He knows you adoring hearing the words and he’s worked on being more vocal with you. It hadn’t helped him with Tess, he regretted not vocalizing his feelings before she died and he wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“I love you too, Joel.” And what a hell of a morning for it to be said for the first few times. You’ll never forget a single thing about any of it. Especially not the blissful relaxation on his face just half a second after every muscle in his body tenses, that moment of explosive pleasure washing over him in an enormous wave.
In the last year, orgasms had been necessary. Functional. Something to be dealt with quickly when the need came over him. Often hurried and moved on from, but from the way you keep stroking his cock and cooing after he starts to cum, he knows you have every intention of drawing this out for him. “Fuuuuuuuuuuuck.”
The splatter over his stomach and down your hand is a beautiful sight, one that you take in greedily before laying back beside him in bed. “I love you,” you murmur again, letting yourself sigh and bask in the moment.
Joel pants, nodding as he tries to catch his breath. “Hope to hell you do.” He chuckles. “Holy shit.”
“I do.” And it rests gently in your chest like a bird happily resting from its flight. “So much.”
He reaches for you, wrapping his arm around your back and he starts to stroke it idly. “How was that, beautiful girl? Was it worth the risk?” He knows it’s cost you to expose yourself again, mentally and physically. So he doesn’t want you to regret it.
“I’ve never been safer than I am with you.” Of that, you are completely certain. And you’ve never been more certain than you are in this moment.
______
Master Tags: @pixiedurango @chattychell @winter-fox-queen @lady-himbo @artsymaddie @princess76179 @paintballkid711 @missminkylove @pedrosbrat @ew-erin @sarahjkl82-blog @sharkbait77 @justanotherblonde23 @lv7867 @recklesswit @mylittlesenaar @f0rever15elf @gallowsjoker @steeevienicks @athalien @sherala007 @skvatnavle @thatpinkshirt @jaime1110 @girlimjusttryingtoreadfanfics @goodgriefitsawildworld @greeneyedblondie44 @katheriner1999 @littlemousedroid @harriedandharassed @churchill356 @ajathegreats-blog @haylzcyon @beardsanddetectives @kirsteng42 @ladykatakuri @adancedivasmom @madiebear @tanzthompson @emilianamason @bigsdinger @xocalliexo @pedr0swh0r3 @avaleineandafryingpan @charlyrmv @avidreader73 @iceclaw101 @loveslide @elegantduckturtle @becsworld @julesonrecord @its-nebuleuse @itsrubberbisquit @mikeyswifie @guelyury @lizzie-cakes @for-a-longlongtime @vabeachazn @purplerain04
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#Pedro Pascal#Pedro Pascal character fanfiction#Pedro Pascal fanfic#Joel Miller#Joel Miller x you#Joel Miller x reader#Joel Miller x female reader#Joel Miller x f!reader#The Last of US#TLoU#TLoU HBO#reader with trauma
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Y’know, I never really got constellations. Like sure, the myths are fun and the night sky is amazing to behold, but like, they don’t actually look like what they’re supposed to be. It just feels like: look up at the sky, see those three stars there? You can draw this weird box around it and it looks like a man! And it doesn’t, it’s just a stupid box or line of stars that don’t look anything like anything. And it isn’t even that the shapes of the constellations themselves are asspulls, it’s how arbitrary they are. There are stars Everywhere in the night sky, why is this star part of dragon or virgo or whatever but not this one? I could just look to the sky, trace some random points and go “hey look it’s the constellation sixtyninus” and it probably would look More like what I said it would look like then the weird ass boxes and sticks that are supposed to be fish and scorpions and waterboys and bears.
Constellations make more sense when you start thinking about them on the timescale of multiple years instead of on a single night stargazing.
The sky changes. This is the number one thing everybody knows about the sky. The sun moves through it, making everything bright and warm. When the sun isn't there, things are dark and cold, but there are stars - untold billions of tiny lights, fading in and out as the sun leaves and returns. There's the moon, moving and changing every night but reliably visible, sometimes even faintly during the day. There are bright stars that move, where the other stars don't.
That is a lot of stuff for the pattern-recognition brain to think about.
It doesn't initially look like the stars move. That is, they move through the night at the same rate the sun does - tracing great circles - but they don't move relative to each other, except for the unusually bright wandering stars that seem to be doing their own thing.
Except over the course of a week, or a month, the stars have moved. Some that used to be visible have set. Some new ones have risen. Why is that?
The moon moves quickly and predictably. The wandering stars move slowly, and some of them are more predictable than others. On rare occasions a star will fall, but these events are unpredictable. The "fixed stars" don't move, except that which stars you can see change during the course of the year.
What does it mean, that different stars dominate the night sky at different times of year? Why does one star's heliacal rising herald the coming of rains? Why does a red star shine before the cold sets in?
It's very important to know when the cold is coming. Maybe it's a good idea to pay attention to some of those stars.
What's the easiest way to keep track of which stars are which? Some are brighter than others, a handful are reddish - but ultimately one star is much like any other, a shimmering pinprick of light. How do you keep track of which stars herald the cold, the rains, the harvest?
You find patterns.
At the height of summer, in the pre-dawn hours, we begin to see a cluster of seven stars that sits behind a large V-shaped pattern that centers on a single red star. If we envision the V as horns and the red star as a blazing eye, we find the Bull of Heaven. If we follow the bull's gaze as the days grow shorter and the nights grow colder, we see another figure slowly emerging from below the horizon. We find the rough shape of a man, one arm raised high over his head, three stars shining at his waist. Perhaps we imagine this man to be a hunter. Perhaps he is hunting the bull, turned back in furious challenge. Perhaps he is hunting the clustered stars on its shoulder. Perhaps we envision the seven stars as sisters, running from the hunter as they arc across the night sky. Perhaps we notice that, where our grandmothers described seven stars, we can see only six. Perhaps we wonder where the seventh sister went.
As the year turns on, the seven stars disappear. The bull fades in the light of sunset. The hunter gets closer to the sun. And far behind him, on the opposite side of the sky, another red star rises as the hunter falls, the heart of a hook-shaped silhouette flanked by two grasping claws. Perhaps we envision this ominous shape as a scorpion, chasing the Hunter from the skies. It sits high in the sky as the warm spring rains turn to burning, arid nights; perhaps we feel justified in imagining it as a dangerous desert creature.
In the north sits a star that does not move, and circling it as its guardian, two rectangular arrangements with long, trailing tails, one large and one small. It is good to know how to find your way, and these patterns can steer you north on moonless nights. Perhaps you see the trailing stars as hunters in pursuit of enormous prey. Perhaps it appears to you as a celestial plough, slowly churning the skies, never touching the earth. You note the resemblance between the large and the small pattern and wonder if they are mother and child. You wonder about a lot of things when you're alone in the dark.
But are you alone? When you look up, it is difficult to feel that way. The stars are the same ones your ancestors walked under, and you think of them and their stories as you trace the patterns they once guided your eyes through. Perhaps you imagine them, gone but not forgotten, warming themself at a stellar campfire in the high, infinite halls of your gods.
And because of them, you know when the rains will come.
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the absolute beginners guide to twine part i
I've posted this in the tutorial channel in our decoding twine server, but I figured it might be helpful to keep on here. As someone who found learning twine incredibly daunting especially with so many things to read, often using coding language I was expected to already understand, I want make coding in twine alot simpler for beginners.
So, with this, I'm unleashing the absolute, absolute, begginers guide/series of sorts for people looking to pick up twine, but might be intimidated. Here I'm talking about the 'stuff you should already know' 🙄 you see when going into tutorials. I really hope some of this helps, and I'll be happy to answer any questions I can in the future, or at least, send you to someone else who can too.
so, with that being said, here's the absolute beginners guide to twine, part i
So, this is the most basic basic basic stuff you're going to use within sugarcube twine, that I thought would be helpful for those of us who are just learning, there are plenty of more in depth guides out there, but I wanted to keep this as simplistic as possible in a sort of explain-to-me-like-i'm-five style.
Once you've gotten twine installed and switched your format over to sugarcube -> (This is done by opening up a new project, clicking in the bottom left of your screen with your game's title, and clicking on the 'Change Story Format' Option and switching over to the latest version of Sugarcube (sugarcube2.36.1))
PASSAGES These are what hold the content of your story! They hold your main body of text and LINKS which what connect passages in your story. Think of passages as pages in your choose your own adventure novel, and links are the choices that tell you (or the program) which page to flip to. Passages have TITLES and BODIES Your Title, is you guessed it, what your passage is called. This will not show up in game, but I'd recommend naming your passages something bland incase code-divers hop in and look at your code lest they find something embarrassing in your titles. Your body, is what is in the actual passage itself, this is what shows up in game and contains links.
LINKS links are what tie ALL of twine together across the formats, and in sugarcube you can style them a series of ways, connecting one passage to the next. The easiest way to include a link looks like this:
[[LINK]] This is a link that will appear as the word 'link' in-game, and will take you to the next passage entitled LINK. For this route, it's necessary to wrap your link in two sets of brackets OR [[]] These, which will actually make it function as a link.
[[NEXT | LINK]] This is another approach you could take, where players will click on a link that says "NEXT" in game, but will take the player to a passage called LINK. For beginners think, left is what will appear to the player and right is the title of the passage just for you the developer.
USING VARIABLES - variables are an incredibly useful tool that can be used to keep track of things throughout your game, whether that be your character's name, whether or not the player's visited a passage, the response to a question or numerical stats.
For our purposes there are three types of variables, Boolean (true/false), Numerical, and String Variables.
The two macros that will be useful in reference to variables are:
<<set>> and <<if>>
First things first, when you have your list of variables ready, you're going to want to define them first in the StoryInit Passage. This is the first passage that will run in your game, you won't see it when the game is played BUT it does get run in the background behind everything else. By setting your variables ahead of time and modifying them later it allows for a smoother run through of the game that eliminates problems further down the line. You can of course, define your variables as your game progresses in individual passages BUT you might run into trouble later down the line.
So, let's set up your variables in a mock StoryInit Passage here:
:: StoryInit
<<set $characterfriendship to 0>>
<<set $yesornoanswer to false>>
<<set $eyecolor to "null">>
SO, what this does is it sets a variable called $characterfriendship to 0 using the <<set>> macro. What this does is set my friendship points with said character to ) that can progressively grow throughout the game.
VARIABLES whatever you call them ALWAYS have to be proceeded by a dollar sign ($) for them to function in game, and you can format the <<set>> macro a number of ways. For example:
<<set $characterfriendship to 0>>
<<set $characterfriendship = 0>>
Both will function the same and make it so that variable will equal 0.
Now moving on, if we want to alter those numerical values further down the line in a passage we can do so in a number of ways, whether that be adding, subtracting, dividing or multiplying. For example if I want to ADD 1 point to my friendship my code would look like this.
<<set $characterfriendship += 1>> OR IF WE'RE JUST ADDING ONE you could simply do this: <<set $characterfriendship ++>>
To subtract you'd do:
<<set $characterfriendship -= 1>>
To multiply you'd do:
<<set $characterfriendship *= 1>
To divide you'd do:
<<set $characterfriendship /= 1>
This of course can be altered to any number, just by changing that 1 to the number you'd like.
BOOLEAN VARIABLES are useful when an option has two outcomes, helpful for things like yes or no questions or passage visits. Setting those variables looks something like this:
<<set $yesornoanswer to false>>
<<set $yesornoanswer to true>>
when setting the variable it is NOT necessary to add quotations around the words true or false, this will mess up your work down the line if you don't continuously use those quotes again.
STRING VARIABLES These are helpful for options with more complex outcomes, things like multiple options, names, or character customization.
<<set $eyecolor to "null">>
So far in StoryInit I've only set it to null because I haven't set it yet in-game, and by setting it to "null" it just gives me an option that isn't really an option.
SETTING VARIABLES WITH LINKS SO, moving forward, no that I have defined my variables in StoryInit, I want to change them when I'm in game.
You could do this of course, by setting them at the top of your passage in game. So looking something like this:
::passagethree
<<set $eyecolor to "brown">> Her eyes were brown. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur.
But another sometimes more effective way to set them with actual links! You can go about that a couple of ways.
One is with the brackets method and it'll look something like this.
[[BLUE | LINK][$eyecolor to "blue"]]
Using this method, it's important NOT to include the word set, simply skipping ahead to your variable the to and what you're defining it as.
The other method is through the <> method. This is simply another way to style your links. I like the brackets method, but it's all up to you.
<<link 'blue' 'passage-four'>><<set $eyecolor to "blue">><</link>>
The first quotation (blue) is what the player will see as the link in the passage, and the second quotation (passage-four) is what the associated passage is called. You can set the $variable within those <<link>>
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Bonjour Bonsoir
May I request headcanons for Andrew Kreiss where he has to protect the person he has feelings for in a match ? Like all fluffy and stuff !
Thanks !
Of course I can do that for you!
You first, Your Body Second. (grave keeper x gn!reader)
Roxman_ on Pinterest
I've been writing for idek how long now and I still f up grammar and spelling. Warning as always.
What is love? And what lengths would you go to protect the ones you do?
But you don't have to worry about that. Not when you've got the Gravekeeper to protect you from the dangers that present themselves in every match you play in.
He'll keep you safe, always and forever.
-
The Grave Keeper has only felt so much love in his life, which really only amounts to a couple specs of sand. He can't wrap his head around the concept of it all-let alone the feeling of it.
Out of all places to fall head over heels in, he had to in this hell hole? Nobody expects it, and it's surely a surprise to all who welcome the feeling.
Which is something that Andrew doesn't do at first. The poor boy doesn't think he is anywhere near deserving of all the love and attention you give him.
Andrew hasn't differentiated the difference between being generally kind to going out of your way to do something for someone who's developed a crush. He knows what he feels, but can't figure out if your trying to tell him you reciprocate these undying feelings.
He's new to love, having been void of it for almost all his life he's forced to take baby steps. But for you? It'll be worth it.
-
Your one and only game today is a regular match, thank gosh.
None the less, you find yourself chatting it up with the Grave Keeper. The others cannot fathom the fact that you seem to be the only one in the manor who could keep up a regular conversation with the man. But to the two of you, this is just another chat.
It was weird y'know, how quickly the two of you seemed to click. Out of all the Survivors, you find him the easiest to talk to. It's so easy to find tranquility in each other's presence that you lose track of time. (You and Andrew may or may not have accidentally been late to a couple matches because of this.)
The Grave Keeper has told you more about his life than he's told anyone else. You've excepted him for who he is, scars and all.
It's more than enough for the man to catch feelings.
He isn't entirely sure how to show it though, but maybe this match will be the perfect time to demonstrate it.
-
"Two ciphers left!" The Priestess shouts into her radio which allows the rest of the team to know to keep up the pace. She's stuck having to take over the kiting while she bides time for the Doctor to self heal herself, which shouldn't take long.
You're halfway through decoding your cipher before you hear the sound of teleporting, you're soon greeted with the sly smile that belongs to no one but "Fool's Gold". Seems the hunters changed targets.
"Shit," you mutter into the radio as you quickly throw down a pallet, almost risking a hit. "Hunter's here, continue decoding at all costs!"
For the rest of the decoding period, you weave your way through pallets and windows. Unfortunately, you take a hit which leaves blood pouring from your back and you in excruciatingly pain.
In the distance, you see a blurry figure with hair white as snow running towards you.
"Fuck, Andrew? Andre you've got to get out of here-"
Your voice is cut off by Andrew picking you up and slinging you over his shoulder.
"Wait are you seriously going to kite with me on your shoulder?"
"Of course not, I'd never risk you getting more hurt than you already are now. Just hold in there, I won't let you get hurt again, I promise." Andrew says as he makes a mad dash across the map. You soon see a glowing blue and black portal.
"Go now, I'll take over the kiting."
"Andrew no I can't let you do tha-" Your voice is silenced (again...) from Andrews lips on yours.
Does it catch you off guard? Yes. But you soon lean into the quick peck, rapping your arms around his neck.
"Mh, Darling I'd love to continue but I'd rather you be safe okay?" With another quick peck on the lips, the Grave Keeper helps you through the portal, which is quickly destroyed by "Fool's Gold's" pickaxe.
"I'll see you soon, my love."
-
The whole match seemed to have been an entire blur. Even while you got bandaged up and the entire team was able to get out you still can't comprehend what just happened moments earlier.
I guess that confirms my suspensions then... You say to yourself as you make your way back to your dorm room. Only to be stopped when you feel a strong hand grip your shoulder, turning you around.
"H-hey, um, how are you?" Andrew stutters and stumbles over his words, obviously worried about the move he pulled on you earlier.
"Hi Andrew. I'm doing more than okay, how are you feeling?" You ask him with a smile tugging on your lips as you rock back and forth on your heels.
"I'm d-doing okay, uh, so-" You cut off Andrew with a kiss to the lips. Honestly you've been waiting too long to do this.
He leans into the kiss, putting his hands on your hips and you rest your arms around his neck. The kiss is slow but passionate and secretly sends him over the edge with happiness.
He promised to protect you, and for the first time in your life, you know you can count on it.
note: No, I am not an Andrew fan. No, I do not know why I made this fic so long. Yes this does suck ass but you still read it so (THIS IS SO OOC IM SORRY) (This is so ass what the heck)
©️2023 fishermanshook — do not steal, translate, plagiarize, or repost my work on any other platform
#⋆˚ 💗˖° HEAD OVER HEELS!#identity 5#idv#idv andrew#idv grave keeper#identityv#fanfiction#fic#idv x reader#idv x you#identity v#begginer writer#2nd person pov#fanfic#grave keeper#grave keeper idv#andrew kreiss#identity v grave keeper
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bg3 build: beast priest (shadowheart respec)
i'm playing around with some new builds! after scrounging the internet for good build guides, i didn't find any that i thought were interesting. in my current playthrough, i'm trying to respec all the companions to be the classes they would have chosen without their various traumas.
the beast priest is my respec for shadowheart. if you haven't noticed, shadowheart's basic build isn't great. when you find her, she's already level 1, which means the game chooses her subclass for you: trickery domain. and that doesn't make sense at all, narratively or for the stats she's been assigned. so to make her a good trickery domain cleric, you would want to respec her anyway just to fix level 1.
but i don't want her to be a trickery domain cleric. i don't even want her to be a healer. i want her to be an emo bird girl. the Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way of bg3, emphasis on raven. by endgame, we learn that shadowheart loves animals and nature, and she's a bit of a rebel (my graffiti queen). without having been kidnapped by the mother superior, i can see her either noping off into the woods or staying in the city to be the type of person who accidentally acquires really a lot of cats. so my goal is for her to have lots of animals, do a fuckton of damage, and fight off the darkness with lots and lots of light.
you can find the full build on eip. more detail and a level by level breakdown under the cut.
the beast priest build involves taking 6-7 levels of beast master ranger and 5-6 levels of war priest cleric. you start off as a ranger, because rangers have great early game damage and are also imo the easiest class for beginners. you stand in one spot and you shoot stuff. you can also get Harold (crossbow) pretty early on and it can be your main weapon through most of the game. it does insane damage and casts Bane.
i'm not familiar enough with armor and weapons to include recommendations in this guide (beyond Harold. get Harold). that is too much for me to keep track of, and i swap things out a lot. use whatever you find most helpful and/or looks the coolest. you probably can't use this build for lone wolf tactician or anything, but i do think it's very fun for an explorer or balanced playthrough, and it fixes a lot of the problems in shadowheart's base build.
this build does a few things:
uses war priest weapon buffs to increase ranged damage
minimizes concentration spells to prioritize ensnared strike and hunter's mark
backup heals (unfortunately this means either respeccing another companion to take on main healing duties or building a main heals tav. i'm working on a bardadin build for this very purpose. there is also always halsin, but he takes a while to acquire)
it's very beneficial to astarion that the bird can blind enemies near him so he can gain advantage to sneak attack (i'll share my build for him too eventually; he is also part ranger)
toolkit against undead (guardian spirits is a must)
important team utilities like guidance
what this build can't do:
be the "face" of your team, by which i mean initiate dialogue. we have no charisma or proficiency in anything related to talking to people. we are a gloomy emo girl sequestered to the back of the group and we shoot stuff and hang out with our bird
steal shit, disarm traps, lockpick. i mean, you can, but you'll probably have another character better equipped for it. we'll be wearing medium armor or heavy armor (optional), so we'll have a disadvantage on stealth anyway
here's how i've broken down each level:
initial build
if you're respeccing shadowheart, you won't be able to change her race or background, which means she'll remain an acolyte and have proficiency in insight and religion.
if you're making your tav a beast priest, you should choose whatever background and race makes sense for your character's narrative. the caveat being, as stated above, stealth and sleight of hand are kind of useless here, as well as dialogue proficiencies like persuasion, intimidation, deception, performance, etc.
what *is* helpful is having proficiency in the things you walk up to and go "oh shit, what's that?" so survival and perception are pretty important. folk hero and outlander are therefore both good background choices, but again, what's important to me in a build is that the story makes sense.
note you will not need investigation because we'll be taking bounty hunter as a favored enemy.
level 1: ranger (1)
proficiencies: survival, nature, animal handling (see above for more explanation; really just take whatever you think will be useful)
favored enemy: bounty hunter
bounty hunter gives disadvantage to enemies hit by ensnaring strike. very helpful for astarion and your companion. however, it's sometimes difficult to choose when to use hunter's mark versus ensnaring strike.
natural explorer: beast tamer
all of these are kind of useless, tbh. but i chose this one because early game, your companion dies very easily and this way you'll be able to bring it back without using a spell slot.
from my understanding, in EA you could either have your summon pet OR your companion out, not both, but in full release you can now have both summons out at once.
level 2: ranger (2)
fighting style: archery
we are going to be very far away from our enemies and Harold is going to be very dear to us.
spells: hunter's mark, ensnaring strike (ranged)
both spells require concentration so you can only pick one. ensnaring strike gives disadvantage to an enemy but hunter's mark does more damage, and your companion does more advantage to it as well. for cc situations, i'd choose ensnaring strike; for taking down one big dude at a time, hunter's mark. hunter's mark can be recast as long as you maintain concentration.
level 3: cleric (1)
deity: any (if you're respeccing shadowheart, your deity will remain shar)
domain: war domain
cantrips: guidance, sacred flame, light
the only one that's important here is guidance. the other two can be whatever your party needs most. the reason we're taking one level of cleric early and the others later is because guidance is a must. if someone else on your team has it, or if you have a bard, you can stay as a ranger until 5.
level 4: ranger (3)
subclass: beast master
spell: cure wounds OR speak with animals
for shadowheart's respec, i would say cure wounds so that she can start subhealing. however, if you don't have anyone in your party who can speak to animals yet, that's pretty important. the strange ox you meet in the grove provides a lot of endgame help, and it's fun talking to the owlbear and scratch.
level 5: ranger (4)
feat: resilient (wisdom)
taking resilience in wisdom gives us a proficiency in wisdom saving throws, which we'll need for both cleric and ranger spells.
level 6: ranger (5)
spells: anything that would be most helpful to your team.
you probably already have somebody who can cast longstrider as a ritual spell. enhance leap is helpful although this is pretty late in the game to be getting that. i try to avoid concentration spells because of hunter's mark and aoe spells because astarion and karlach are always in the thick of it and i don't want to hurt them.
what's important this level is that your companion's AC and damage increases, and it gets an extra attack.
level 7: cleric (2)
you get turn undead and guided strike this level. both are very useful, particularly guided strike. nothing to choose though.
level 8: cleric (3)
new spells! these can be prepared based on what you think you'll need for a given scenario. lesser restoration is a must if you're letting astarion bite you every night. but if that's the case you probably already have it.
level 9: cleric (4)
cantrip: whatever's most helpful at this point
feat: ability improvement (1 in wisdom, 1 in dexterity)
if you have auntie ethel's hair, then you might want 2 in one or the other.
level 10: cleric (5)
here's where you get guardian spirits, which is the single most important mid-game spell you can have (although in this build you get it pretty late). make sure when you cast it, you have as many movement speed spells and potions you can get. you're going to cast it and run around like mad killing everything.
level 11 & 12: ranger OR cleric (6 & 7)
here's where you have a difficult choice to make. your last two levels can be ranger 6 and 7, which will give your companion a huge buff. or you can choose cleric 6 and 7, which will give you war god's blessing, which gives you a +10 attack roll to give to someone else on your team.
you an also do cleric 6 and ranger 6, which will grant you war god's blessing AND allow you to take ranger knight as a favored enemy, which gives you the ability to wear heavy armor (if you want that). you can also gain resistance to cold, fire, or poison, but since you encounter all of those things in pretty equal measure, i never know which to choose.
i think it'll depend on what sounds more fun to you. personally, i think seeing my animal companion destroy everything is very fun. but if you enjoy reactions and buffing your teammates, i can also see wanting to stick with cleric through the end.
unlock to level 20
you might be thinking it's not worth it to only take two half classes instead of one whole one and lose out on late game spells and abilities. and i agree with you completely. my favorite part of beast master is when your companion gets two special abilities at 11. if you're playing completely vanilla, this is the major sacrifice of multiclassing. you're prioritizing creativity and cool combos over fancy spells and abilities.
but if you install a mod that lets you level to 20 (no class can go beyond 12, but you can multiclass to 20), you can take 11 levels of ranger and 9 levels of cleric. level 11 of ranger maxes out your animal; level 8 of cleric gives you divine strike, and level 9 gives you flame strike.
i didn't find anything from 10-12 in cleric very helpful. there's divine intervention which you can only use once in the game, ever, and i used it at a very integral time and it didn't do enough. heroes' feast is helpful but halsin has that too. heal, which should be the best healing spell in the game, is currently bugged and i don't know when they'll fix it.
you could also do level 12 of ranger for the extra feat if you don't have both wisdom and dexterity to 20, and stay at 8 for cleric.
if you do unlock to level 20, i would download the double xp mod (although i haven't gotten mine to work yet) so you can get to 20 at about the same pace you get to 12 in vanilla. this obvs is extremely unbalanced and makes you very very OP but that makes the game more fun for me. and anyway, if it gets too easy you can always play tactician or honor mode.
i hope you found this helpful! i'll probably be tweaking and updating it as i go. i'm working on respecs for astarion, karlach, halsin, jaheira, and wyll right now. gale, lae'zel, and minsc i'll be able to look at once i play around with them more. i haven't used them much yet in my teams.
if you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to send me an ask!
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Can I request a platonic yandere Bucky Barnes? Like just general headcannons on how he would act or be? Thank you!
Thanks for the request!
Warnings: Yandere themes, Bucky being a grade-a stalker (and has murdered some people for you)
Ooh, let's see.
I think that having Bucky as a platonic yandere would be like having a big brother or a fun uncle you're close to.
Except like any typical big brother/fun uncle, he's terribly overprotective and fully willing to kill for you.
Bucky isn't overprotective in the way that most platonic yanderes would be. He's not trying to lock you away just because somebody flirted with you or you scraped your knee from tripping.
Instead, he's one to stalk you heavily.
He's not good with modern technology, but he is good at adapting.
Most of the time, Bucky would prefer to follow you physically. It's easier when dealing with your safety. If you get put in a dangerous situation, he can get to you fast and protect you.
But Bucky also plants quite a few trackers and microphones on different objects of yours that you carry around often. Your phone, a bag, your wallet, etc.
He knows that a lot of a person's social interactions can occur online now. It is easier to talk, he can admit that, and Bucky also can admit it makes watching you easier too.
Tapping into your phone allows him to keep track of who you're talking to. who they are to you, and what they're saying to you at any given moment.
He's not about to limit your social interactions, though.
I've talked about this before with Bucky, but he's not the type of yandere to keep a tight leash on his darling. He has his own trauma from everything being taken away from him and being held captive for years, so doing that to someone he claims to love is not something that even crosses his mind.
Bucky will let you have a life outside of him. He won't kidnap you unless you're put in extreme danger. You can have friends, a job, you can go to school, and maybe even a romantic partner.
With that being said, he would kill anyone who ever put you in any type of danger.
To Bucky, danger can be a range of things.
Of course, someone actively threatening you is the easiest way to get on Bucky's list. He doesn't tolerate someone even saying that they're going to hurt you, much less actively trying to do so.
Danger can also include someone trying to hurt you mentally. Bullying you, damaging your reputation, etc.
These sorts of people won't be around for long after Bucky figures out what they've done to you, and he's very good at hiding what he does to them.
You'll never find out he does any of this. He's a very well-trained assassin, so he knows how to clean up after his messes.
To you, they'll just disappear from your life, lifting whatever burden they gave you off of your shoulders.
But besides stalking you and sometimes getting rid of a potential threat, Bucky's pretty great to have as a platonic yandere.
As I said, he allows you to have a social life. He can be a bit overprotective with your friends, and even worse with a potential romantic partner.
The minute you introduce them to him, Bucky's asking them questions with narrowed eyes, and you can bet your ass he's doing a background check on them later.
He might scare off a few people, but hey, he always gets you food, and he's always up for an all-night movie marathon (saying that his sleep schedule is already messed up.)
So long as you don't go looking into the deaths of some people or watch your back too closely, Bucky's just the tad bit (more than you know) overprotective brother/uncle.
And it's not like he'd let you figure that stuff out easily anyway.
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P5R: Rebel Girl (A FeMC Story/P5R Rework)
Chapter 195: This is Halloween
The next day, as Ren was heading to school, there was a message in the Phantom Thieves group chat. She checked it.
Yusuke: Pardon me. I know today is Hallowen, but does anyone have time to meet after school?
Yusuke: I have a lot on my mind, and I want to discuss it with people.
Haru: Unfortunately, I have to decline.
Haru: There’s an important meeting at Okumura Foods, and I'd like to be a part of it.
Makoto: I can’t make it either.
Makoto: I’m helping someone today.
Futaba: And in case you forgot, I’m busy looking through our notes and contacting Riko and Akechi.
Lena: Oh, be sure to contact Goro first.
Lena: He and I have a date tonight.
Ryuji: Oh, nice!
Ryuji: As it so happens, Ann and I also have a date.
Ann: Yeah, but I’m sure we can help you Yusuke.
Ann: So long as it doesn’t take too long.
Sumire: I can be there too!
Ren: Same.
Ren: And I think if we meet at Leblanc, Morgana can also make it.
Yusuke: Personally, I’d like to meet there as well.
Jose: I’d like to come too, but I promised the theater club something.
Yusuke: Will I see you at the Kosei Halloween party at least?
Jose: Yeah…
Yusuke: I guess I’ll talk to you then.
Jose: Sure.
Lena: I can make it too if we can do it before mine and Goro’s date.
Lena: In case that wasn’t clear.
Yusuke: Alright then.
Yusuke: See you after school.
Ren: See you then!
Ren put her phone away, and continued towards school.
Meanwhile, Futaba was looking through stuff, when she decided to hack back into Akechi’s phone.
???: Greeting Detective Akechi!
???: This is Phantom Thief Alibaba.
Goro: Huh.
Goro: I thought she’d have told you by now.
???: Who are you talking about?
Goro: I gave one of your associates a list of people who I suspect to be Phantom Thieves, and you for sure were on it.
???: Well, maybe you just don’t know my associates then.
???: Because I’ve never heard of this list.
Akechi was frustrated, but didn’t feel like pushing this point at the moment.
Goro: Well, in any case, how goes things on your end?
???: We ran into a few complications.
???: But we shall overcome.
Goro: Do you need my help?
???: Perhaps.
Goro: How may I be of assistance?
???: We need to ratchet up the pressure on the director.
???: He’s planning something, and we need to figure out how to undermine him.
Goro: That seems tricky.
Goro: But I may have a solution.
???: Go on.
Goro: I’ve been tracking down his associates, but none of them have been all too helpful.
Goro: So maybe we should just play into his sense of superiority. We make it look like we aren’t accomplishing anything, and then surprise him when you accomplish your next goal.
???: That…actually works with what we’ve been planning.
Goro: May I ask what that is?
???: Do you still want to arrest us after all this is said and done?
Goro: I see your point.
???: It’s not that we don’t want to work with you further…
Goro: I understand.
Goro: To be honest, I have my own goals that letting you in would complicate.
???: I can imagine.
Goro: Still, I like this balance we are striking.
Goro: Perhaps in another time, another place, we could be good friends.
???: Perhaps.
Goro: Well, good luck on your mission.
???: You too!
Futaba cut off contact with Akechi.
“Hm,” Akechi grinned. “I don’t think I was given wrong information on who ‘Alibaba’ was. Still, I can’t let them know that entirely. I do hope that the director can remain more composed than to let it slip when his back is suddenly against the wall. It’s a bit of a risk, but it’s the easiest way to keep The Phantom Thieves off his trail. Sorry Phantom Thieves, but he’s mine!” Akechi got another message, this time from Lena.
Lena: Hey Goro!
Lena: I’m helping a friend after school, but don’t worry.
Lena: I should be back around 5:30-ish, and I have our costumes ready, so you can just come over.
Goro: Can’t wait! See you then!
Akechi put his phone away and continued onward.
Meanwhile, Futaba sighed, relieved. “I can’t believe he bought that.” She then went back to looking through the various notes Riko had given her.
Afterschool, Yusuke, Ren, Morgana, Sumire, Ann, Ryuji, and Lena met up at Leblanc. “Soooo, what’s this about?” Ryuji asked.
Yusuke hesitated. “...I…know it was the right thing to leave Madarame…but ever since then, I’ve felt torn. When I was living with Madarame, I could think of art purely. But now, I’m being confronted with the reality that if I were to survive in the art world, no, in the world in general, I need to think about other things than art. I have to use my art to survive. In that way, I don’t think I can purely see art ever again. It’s all just a means to an end.”
He looked over at the Sayuri hanging up. “The reason I wanted to come here was to take another look. I have often felt inspired by Sayuri. And knowing its true nature, it’s only more beautiful.” He sighed. “But alas, my mind is so cluttered with the poisonous trappings of everyday life that I don’t think I can create something even half as good.” He looked back at everyone. “So, what do I do?”
Everyone looked at Yusuke. “Um, no offense,” Ryuji said, “but can’t you focus on both?” Yusuke seemed intrigued. “I mean, I started running because I liked it. And I thought if I could be successful enough in track, I could help my mom. So I just kept doing what I loved.”
“Yeah,” Ann said. “Doing what you love is wonderful! I admit that we don’t live in an ideal world, and we do need to focus on how to survive, but if you can do it by doing something you love, then there’s no worry, right?”
“I’m not sure that’s entirely helpful,” Morgana said, “but I get the sentiment. It’s like ‘you’re already doing it, might as well go all in.’ And if a Phantom Thief can’t go all in, well…”
“Huh,” Yusuke said. “I understand.”
“I get that it’s not easy,” Sumire said. “And believe me, even with all the help in the world, there will still be road bumps. But if you are determined to strive forward with your dream, then instead of thinking of the road bumps in a completely negative light, think of how you can use them to your advantage.”
“Yeah,” Lena added. “I mean, I left my home to pursue my dreams. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m still trying. And I’m glad you asked us. Being able to reach out is hard, but I know it’s worth it in the end.”
“Everyone…” Yusuke said.
Ren smirked. “Remember: Kosuke told you to be the best damn artist you could be, right? I bet you’d hate to disappoint him. Or us, for that matter.”
Yusuke started to remember Kosuke’s words after they defeated him. He smirked as well. “Yes. And he told me something else. He said I ‘always had eyes on the bigger picture.’ I guess I just lost sight of it once everything changed. I thought I had to change with it, I suppose I still do, but I think I need to change in a way that suits me, you know?”
“Yeah!” Ryuji said. “Being yourself is what a Phantom Thief is all about!”
“I agree!” Morgana said.
“Hey!” Ann said. “Look at you two getting along!”
“Huh?!” Ryuji and Morgana gasped.
“I mean…We just agree here,” Ryuji said.
“Yeah,” Morgana protested. “It’s not like we’re close or anything.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Sumire said. “After everything we’ve been through, there’s nothing that can tear us apart. And that includes you two.”
“Well…” Ryuji tried to follow up.
“Hm hm,” Lena giggled. “Even if you butt heads from time to time, you’re still good friends in the end, right?”
“Mreeeee…” Morgana groaned, not wanting to admit it, but being unable to lie.
Yusuke chuckled. He took out a sketchbook and started sketching. He soon presented it to everyone. “Behold!” It was a sketch of Ryuji and Morgana being angry with each other, but in the background was them admiring each other. “I call it ‘Tempest Friendship’.”
“What?!” Morgana shrieked.
“You’re…not going to make that into a full painting, are you?” Ryuji asked.
“I might,” Yusuke said. “But I have a lot of other paintings in mind. But this one is nice.”
“I like it,” Ren said. “It’s a commemoration of you getting out of your slump.”
“Yes,” Yusuke said. “But I still need something more. This is nice, but I want my first full piece to be GLORIOUS!”
“I understand the feeling,” Sumire said. “Once you overcome an obstacle, you want to show the world just what you’re capable of.”
“Yeah!” Lena added. “I know you can do it. You can set the art world on FIRE!”
Yusuke chuckled. “Thank you, everyone. I don’t know where I would be without you.”
“The feeling is mutual,” Ren said.
Emperor-Yusuke Kitagawa: Rank 8
Lena stood up. “Well, I should get going. I need to meet up with Goro to go on our date.” She opened the door. “Bye!”
“We should get going too,” Ann said. “We gotta make sure your costume fits!”
“Co-Costume?” Ryuji said. “I thought we were just hanging out.”
“On Halloween?!” Ann said. “No way! We’re here to have FUN!” She grabbed Ryuji’s arm. “Let’s go!”
“Ah!” Ryuji said, jolting up. “Alright then. Let’s see what you got!” The two of them left.
“I should get going too,” Yusuke said. “I missed last year’s Kosei Halloween Party due to Madarame. I don’t want to miss any more.”
“Take care!” Ren said. She and Yusuke waved at each other as he left. Once he was gone, Ren looked at Sumire. “I’m sorry I didn’t plan anything.”
“Huh?!” Sumire said. “Oh, uh, no, it’s quite alright. Well, I mean…” She sighed. “This is my first Halloween without Kasumi. We always used to do adorable twin costumes. I really liked doing that. I guess I’m not ready to do something big yet…”
Ren grabbed Sumire’s hand. “It’s OK. Just go at your own pace.”
Sumire smiled. “I guess doing a little something with you would be nice.”
Ren chuckled. “I think I know just the thing.” Ren glanced at Morgana. “Are you OK on your own?”
“Please,” Morgana said. “A black cat on Halloween? I couldn’t be more at home. I bet I can find something JUICY!”
Ren nodded. “Just be safe OK? And get back home at a reasonable time.”
“Right!” Morgana said. With that, the three of them left. Morgana headed off in his own direction, while Ren was leading Sumire somewhere.
Meanwhile, Makoto and Eiko arrived at Eiko’s house. “I’m home!” Eiko called out. No response.
“Is no one home?” Makoto wondered.
“No, my mom and brother are home,” Eiko said, pointing at the shoes.
“Oh. Right,” Makoto said. “Sorry…”
“It’s OK,” Eiko said. “You’re the one rescuing me from this after all.”
Makoto smiled. “Right.” They took off their shoes and headed in.
Sure enough, Eiko’s mom and brother were there. Her brother was watching TV, while her mom was baking. “Hi,” Eiko said.
“Oh, Eiko honey,” Eiko’s mom said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Eiko glared at her, but kept her composure. “Um, this is my…friend Makoto,” she said, remaining civil. “The girl I told you about.”
“Hm?” Eiko’s mom said, looking over. “Oh that’s right. You said you were moving in with her.”
“That’s right,” Eiko said.
“Um, hello,” Makoto said, unsure of what to expect.
“Hm,” Eiko’s mom said. “Well thank you.” Makoto was surprised. “I’m glad Eiko found a friend like you.”
“Um…thanks…?” Makoto replied.
“I know she can be a handful,” Eiko’s mom said, “but I’m sure you’ll manage. From what I’ve heard, you’re quite capable.”
“Oh, she’s really no trouble at all,” Makoto protested.
“I know you’re trying to be polite,” Eiko’s mom responded, “but we both know that Eiko is…how you say, rambunctious. I mean, look at Asahi over there. He gets good grades. He’s popular at school. He’s the leader of the soccer team. You can tell he’s meant for great things. But Eiko? She bends and breaks so easily. She’s a follower by nature. She barely gets by, and is only friends with miscreants. Er, present company excluded, of course.”
“Of course,” Makoto repeated bitterly.
“But hey, maybe with you, she’ll turn her life around,” Eiko’s mom said.
“Well,” Makoto said firmly, “I think that’s the first thing you’ve said that I agree with.” Eiko’s mom looked at her intently. “But you’re completely wrong about Eiko. She’s smarter than you give her credit for. A lot braver and a lot kinder too. But I think she’s being stifled by your expectations. So that’s why she’ll be in my care from here on.” Eiko was stunned by Makoto’s fiery rebuttal.
Eiko’s mom glared at her. “It’s going to be like that, is it?”
“I’m afraid so,” Makoto replied.
Eiko’s mom went back to baking. “Well, whatever. It’s not like she’s going to be my problem for much longer.”
“The fact that you think of her as a ‘problem’ is very much the reason she’ll be gone soon,” Makoto said. “Though I doubt you ever really thought of her as ‘yours’.”
Eiko’s mom grew more bitter. “Did you just come here to argue with me?”
“As a matter of fact, I didn’t,” Makoto said. “This was just a fun bonus.” Eiko laughed, while Eiko’s mom groaned. “I came over to help Eiko pack a little, and then we’re going to catch a movie.”
“Hm,” Eiko’s mom said. “Well, if you leave before you can taste my Halloween cookies, there won’t be any when you get back.”
“We’ll probably grab dinner afterwards anyway,” Makoto said,
“Suit yourself,” Eiko’s mom said. “Like I care at this point.”
“It seems the feeling is mutual,” Makoto said. “Eiko?” Eiko nodded, and they headed over to her room.
On their way, Eiko whispered “Don’t worry. Mom’s cookies suck anyways.”
“And she calls you imperfect,” Makoto whispered back. They shared a giggle before entering Eiko’s room to pack up a little.
Meanwhile, Haru arrived at the boardroom. The members there were shocked, and one of them asked “Erm, Miss Okumura, um, what are you doing here?”
Haru answered with “I know I’m still a student, and I’ve not attended many of these, but now that everything has changed, I wish to take a bigger role in the company. I will start by attending these meetings whenever I can. Of course, I can’t make any policy decisions, but I wish to at least have a voice.”
“But Mis Okumura-”
“Let her stay,” an older gentleman said.
“Takakura!”
“What she said isn’t wrong,” Takakura continued. “Although I wish you didn’t have to worry too much about the company at this stage.”
“I don’t mind,” Haru said. “But as I’ve said before, I’ll inform you of my decision once I come to it. In the meantime, I wish to do whatever I can to help.”
“Very well,” Takakura said. There were some whispers around the table about Takakura’s disposition towards Haru, as well as her father. “Anwyas!” Takakura commanded. Everyone went silent. “If we’re all here, let’s begin.” Everyone nodded. “As you may know, things haven’t been going well since Mr. Okumura’s heart was stolen. But he is no longer a part of this company. We are the future of Okumura Foods, and we have to make sure we salvage this sinking ship. We’re doing all we can to make up for Mr. Okumura’s past transgressions, including that new order that came in just a few days ago, but-”
“Um,” Haru interjected. “What new order?”
Takakura looked at her. “We’ve been ordered to recall and shut down Starfall Coffee.”
“How come?” Haru asked.
“We’re not sure,” another executive said. “All we know is that we’ve been told that there’s a major issue with it.”
“By whom?” Haru wondered.
“The Special Investigations Unit,” another executive answered. “It was found as part of the investigation into your father.”
“Huh,” Haru said. I should tell the others that.
“Anyways!” Takaura said, steering the conversation back on task. “While everything we’re doing to correct the mistakes of the past, it’s imperative that we start thinking about the future of Okumura Foods.”
The future of Okumura Foods, huh… Haru pondered. What do I see for the future?
A little later, Akechi was checking his phone. He saw the news of the Starfall Coffee recall. “Hm. I suppose that was inevitable at this rate. I’m sure he’s already figured something else out by now.”
He arrived at Lena’s house. He knocked on the door. Lena answered. “Goro!” she cheered, leaping into his arms.
“Heh heh,” Goro chuckled. Lena looked up and the two shared a kiss. “I can’t wait to see what you’ve whipped up.”
“Oh right!” Lena said, letting go. “Follow me!” She led him inside. They went up to her room. Lena had two mannequins setup with homemade costumes.
Akechi looked at the masculine mannequin. He saw a formal outfit with a really hairy wig and tail coming off of it. “So, I’m a formal werewolf?”
Lena giggled. “No silly! It’s a couple’s costume. We’re going as Beauty and The Beast.” Lena presented her costume on the feminine mannequin, which was an adaptation of her persona.
“I see,” Akechi replied.
“It’s perfect!” Lena said. “I’ve always loved the story! BUT it works for you as well?”
“Does it?” Akechi wondered.
Lena nodded. “Now we can go out and about in public and nobody will know it’s you because you’re covered in hair.”
“I see,” Akechi said.
“ALSO!” Lena said. “I gave the chestpiece a little bit of padding so you don’t need to wear a binder. I know you shouldn’t wear that all the time.”
“Hm hm. You know, that was quite thoughtful of you,” Akechi said.
“Hm hm. Thanks,” Lena replied.
Akechi smiled. “Well, shall we get changed?”
“Oh!” Lena said, stunned. “Yes! Um, do you need help?”
“I think I can manage,” Akechi said.
“Great!” Lena said.
A few minutes later, both of them were changed and ready to head out. “You know, this costume fits me like a glove,” Akechi noted.
Lena giggled. “Well, you did tell me your measurements.”
“Right,” Akechi said. He offered his hand. “Well then, shall we?”
Lena curtsied. “Let’s. She took Akechi’s hand, and the two of them went off to celebrate.
As they left, Tamako looked on, smiled, sighed, and remarked “Tail as old as time.”
Meanwhile, at Ann’s house. Ryuji was in one of the restrooms. “Does it fit?” Ann called out from outside.
“I think so,” Ryuji said. “It’s a little lose, but I imagine that’s part of it.”
“Yeah,” Ann remarked. “Well come on, let me see!”
Ryuji walked out. He was wearing a slightly ill-fitting green tuxedo jacket and pants, with a maroon shirt underneath, a white bowtie with red polka dots, and a large green hat with a tag sticking out of it reading “In This Style 10/6”. “Hah, this was a GREAT idea!” Ryuji exclaimed. “And this costume is AMAZING!”
Ann giggled. “Thanks.” Ryuji looked at his girlfriend to see her wearing a blue dress with a white apron, black and white stripped stockings, and a black hairband over her head, which was all the way down, since she removed the pigtails. “What do you think of my costume?”
Ryuji smiled. “You look adorable.”
Ann giggled again. “Thanks. So, are you ready to paint the town red?”
“Absolutely!” Ryuji answered. “And I believe that we should party even harder than usual. Not only is it Halloween, but I believe it’s both of our unbirthdays.”
“You’re right,” Ann said. They took each other’s hands and went off to celebrate.
Morgana was walking around town. He saw people celebrating by dressing up and being a little more raucous than usual. Still, he didn’t mind. He loved it when people were having fun. Besides, he was on the prowl for information, and tonight seemed like a night where people were a little more loose-lipped .
Morgana was trekking around when he passed by a police station. He noticed they were throwing out their coffee maker. “Why are we doing this again?” one of the officer’s asked.
“Because,” another officer answered, “the SIU told us to.”
“‘SIU’?” Morgana wondered. “I should get closer.” He stealthed his way to the officers talking.
“I know,” the first officer said. “But it tastes so good!”
“I know Okumura’s Starfall Coffee is good,” the second officer said. “But it’s dangerous.”
“How come?”
The second officer looked around. “Don’t mention this to anyone, but I’ve heard that it’s one of the causes of those mental shutdowns we’ve been looking into.”
“WHAT?!” Morgana shrieked. He slipped from his perch and landed in front of the two officers. He was a little nervous.
The second officer sighed. “It’s just a cat.”
“Yeah,” the first officer said. “Imagine if that was a person. But still, that gives me chills. To think a cup of coffee could make someone go insane. Usually if I don’t get a cup of joe, I go insane.”
“Trust me, you’re plenty insane with or without coffee,” the second officer said.
“HEY!” the first officer shouted. They both went inside.
Morgana sighed, relieved. “I guess…this body has its uses.” He stood up and shook himself off. “I should go home and tell Futaba.” Morgana started heading back.
At Kosei, Yusuke emerged from his dorm room wearing his regular clothes, as well as a set of fake cat ears and cat tail. He moved out to where the party was being held.
Upon arrival, he got a few looks. “Hey, Kitagawa!” said one of the other students, who was wearing a succubus costume. “That’s…an interesting costume.”
“Forgive me,” Yusuke said. “I didn’t have enough money for a full costume.”
“No no, it’s great!” the other student said. “It’s so…you!”
“Why thank you,” Yusuke replied.
“Well, uh, help yourself to some punch,” the other student said. “Oh, and take some sweets too.”
“Hm. Don’t mind if I do,” Yusuke said. As he was getting his food and drink, he turned and asked “Oh, has Jose arrived yet?”
“Um, I don’t think so,” the other student said.
“He told me he was doing something with the theater department,” Yusuke clarified.
“Oh!’ the other student said. “Well, you’ll see him soon then.”
“Huh?” Yusuke wondered.
Suddenly, the front of the room lit up. “It’s starting!” the other student said.
“The Kosei Theater Club proudly presents: The Dance to Summon The Pumpkin Prince!” Yusuke’s attention was focused on the makeshift stage. In the middle of it was a big leaf. The various theater kids, dressed as all sorts of Halloween classics, began dancing around the leaf, attempting to summon The Pumpkin Prince.
Soon, two sides formed, and they began giving each other cues to act and react. Slowly but surely, the leaf started to blossom. Once it fully bloomed, there was a pumpkin in the middle of it. The pumpkin slowly got up, turned around, and revealed himself to be Jose in a pumpkin costume. “THE PUMPKIN PRINCE!” the other performers exclaimed. Jose smiled. There was a round of applause.
Later, Yusuke met up with Jose. “I must say, you did an excellent job.”
“Oh, you saw that, did you?” Jose said, embarrassed.
“Indeed,” Yusuke siad. “I feel inspired.”
“Eh heh,” Jose laughed. “Well, I didn’t do a whole lot. They just needed someone short, and I fit the bill.”
“Nonsense,” Yusuke said. “You were the star of the show.”
“Well…” Jose said.
“Don’t be so modest,” Hifumi said. Yusuke and Jose turned to look at her. She was wearing ancient Japanese regal attire. “You did wonderfully.”
“Thanks,” Jose said.
“Pardon me,” Yusuke said. “Are you supposed to be Queen Himiko?”
Hifumi giggled. “You’re the first person to guess correctly.”
“But it’s so obvious,” Yusuke said.
“Well, you look pretty either way,” Jose remarked.
Hifumi chuckled. “Thanks. You know, you look adorable yourself.”
“Eh heh,” Jose chuckled, blushing. “Oh right.” He looked up to Yusuke. “Do you still need help?”
“You need help?” Hifumi wondered.
“Well, I suppose I could tell you,” Yusuke said. “I’ve sorted things out, but more voices wouldn’t hurt.” He explained his earlier meeting to Jose and Hifumi.
“I see,” Jose said. “Well, to be honest, I think I’d mirror what they said. But I would add that doing something like this is a seeminglessly endless task, but doing so is its own reward.”
“If I may,” Hifumi added, “I think the issue you may be having is that, pardon my bluntness, you don’t really have any immediate family members. I know I’m doing shogi for my father, but…”
Yusuke grinned. “I see. While it is true that I don’t have any relatives, I do have friends, and they’re like a family to me. If I can do it for them, then there’s nothing I can’t do.”
“That’s the spirit!” Jose said.
Hifumi giggled. “I could really use courage like yours.”
“Oh right,” Yusuke said. “Do you-?”
“I’ll figure that out later,” Hifumi said. “Tonight, I just want to have fun. Shall we get more punch?”
“Of course,” Yusuke said. The three of them went off to enjoy the party.
Later, Makoto and Eiko arrived at the movie theater. Makoto sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t realize how bad it was at your place.”
Eiko chuckled. “It’s alright. Besides, I loved seeing you put my mom in her place.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to move tonight?” Makoto said. “Because we can skip the movie, and-”
Eiko shook her head. “It’s alright. I can wait until then.”
Makoto nodded. “Well, if you say so. So, what movie do you want to watch?”
“Well, it’s Halloween, right?” Eiko said. “So something scary!”
“GAH!” Makoto shrieked. Eiko was confused. “Sorry. It’s just…I don’t take to horror too well.”
“Oh!’ Eiko said.
“But if you really want to-”
“Shhhhhhh,” Eiko said, calming her girlfriend down. “It’s OK. I can watch it on my own time. Tonight is about us!” Makoto nodded. “So, what do you want to watch? Maybe a Buchimaru-kun movie.”
“Well, one isn’t playing until December,” Makoto said. “And that’s a special event showing off the classic Christmas with Buchimaru-kun.”
“Woah,” Eiko siad. “I was joking.”
“Oh, uh…” Makoto said, embarrassed.
Eiko chuckled. “It’s fine. I think it’s really cute that you’re into it. Most people would feel like they’re too cool for it. But I still like it as well. Granted, it has been a bit…”
Makoto smiled. “Thanks.”
Eiko smiled back. “But, is it anything like that, or Buchimaru-kun specifically?”
“Well, I like similar shows,” Makoto said. “But Buchimaru-kun just resonates with me. Always has.”
“How come?” Eiko asked.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Makoto said. She noticed one of the posters. “Oh look! Like a Dragon is playing! Are you up for some hard-boiled action?!” Eiko was stunned. “Oh. I guess not.”
“No no no no,” Eiko replied. “I, um, I really like that kind of stuff. But I’ve never told anyone because it doesn’t seem ‘girly’ enough, you know?”
“Hm,” Makoto said. “Well, women can appreciate all sorts of things, right?”
Eiko smiled and blushed. “Yeah.”
They went up to the ticket booth. “Two for Like a Dragon,” Makoto said. They got their tickets, and headed in.
Meanwhile, Ren took Sumire up to Shinjuku. Sumire was a little nervous. “Are you sure about this? Shinjuku isn’t known for its restraint.”
“Trust me,” Ren said. “We’re going straight there, spend a little time, and then we’ll be out. Besides, one of my friends runs it.”
“Well, if it’s one of your friends, I trust you,” Sumire said. They held hands as Ren led the way.
They soon arrived at Chihaya’s fortune telling booth. “Ah, hello,” Chihaya said.
“Hi,” Ren said. “This is… There’s no point in me hiding it, is there?”
Chihaya giggled. “I foretold that you were coming with your lover. So unless there is a boy hiding in the shadows somewhere...”
Ren sighed. “No, you got us.” Chihaya giggled again.
“Um, who is this?” Sumire wondered.
“Oh, forgive me,” Chihaya said. “My name is Chihaya Mifune. I’m a fortune teller.”
“I see,” Sumire said. “And a very good one at that, I can tell.”
“Thanks,” Chihaya said. “And your name?”
“Oh, right,” Sumire said. “I’m Sumire Yoshizawa. Ren’s girlfriend.” She bowed.
“Hm hm,” Chihaya chuckled. “So, what brings you here tonight, of all nights?”
“Well, um, Sumire isn’t 100% in the Halloween spirit, but I convinced her to do something a little fun. So perhaps she could have her fortune read?”
“I see,” Chihaya said. She turned to Sumire. “Are you alright with this?”
“Well, if Ren trusts you, I trust you,” Sumire said.
“Very well,” Chihaya said. She and Sumire set up the reading. Chihaya drew three cards. “I see.” She flipped the first one. “The Fool, upright. It tells that you are about to embark on a new journey.”
“Huh,” Sumire said.
Chihaya flipped the second card. “The Faith, upright. This journey will help you realize your true potential and do away with the lies of the past.”
“I see…” Sumire said.
Chihaya flipped the last part. “The Hunger, in reverse. This journey will end once the forces that try to suppress you are revealed to be nothing more than a shadow of lies and deceit. Only then will the truth come to you.”
“Hmmm,” Sumire said. “Well, that was a little intense…” Ren was a little worried. “But it was interesting.” Ren was relieved. “And given your penchant for seeing the truth, I imagine something like that happening.”
“Do you know what it is?” Chihahya asked.
“I have an idea,” Sumire said. “But it’s rather personal…”
“Say no more,” Chihaya said. “Just know I’ll be rooting for you.”
“Thanks,” Sumire said. “Oh, how much do I owe you?”
“Don’t worry,” Chihaya said. “This one’s on the house.”
Ren was stunned. “But, um, you know?” Sumire was confused.
“Don’t worry,” Chihaya said. “It will be alright in the end.”
Sumire looked at her. “Are you also undertaking a journey?”
Chihaya nodded. “And I know I’m coming up to a crossroads soon. I just have to believe in myself.”
“Well, you know I’m here for you,” Ren said.
“Me too,” Sumire replied.
“Thanks,” Chihaya said. “I think I’m going to need it.” She turned to Ren. “Especially from you.” Ren nodded.
“Um, if you believe in Ren as much as I do,” Sumire noted, “then I think things will go well for you.”
Chihaya giggled. “Well, I can’t believe in her as much as you do.” Sumire slightly blushed. “But I can tell that Ren is a force to be reckoned with.”
“Well, Sumire’s no slouch either,” Ren said.
“I can see that,” Chihaya said. “And if the two of you are together, then you’d be unstoppable.”
Ren smiled and blushed. “Thanks.”
Fortune-Chihaya Mifune: Rank 6
“So, do you want to stay and watch some other fortunes being read?” Ren asked.
“You should go…” Chihaya said. “Not that you wouldn’t be interested, but Halloween in Shinjuku attracts more of the bizarre crowd.”
“I think she’s right,” Sumire said. “But I had fun.”
“Well that’s all I need to hear,” Ren said. “Bye!”
“It was nice meeting you!” Sumire said.
“Bye bye you two!” Chihaya said. Ren and Sumire left. They shared a kiss before getting on the train.
Ryuji and Ann were still out and about having fun. "Man, this is the BEST Halloween I've ever had! Thanks for dragging me out!"
"Hm hm, no problem," Ann said. "To be honest, I think this is the best Halloween I've ever had too."
"No kiddin'?" Ryuji said. "Well, I know one thing that'll make it even better."
"You read my mind," Ann said. The two shared a kiss.
As Akechi and Lena were heading back, Lena leaned on Akechi’s shoulder. “Tonight was fun.”
“Indeed,” Akechi replied. “To be honest, I never really liked Halloween before. I didn’t like some of the costumes I was given, but, well, you know why.” Lena chuckled. “And then after getting big, I didn’t have time or couldn’t get a costume to hide me enough” He looked deep into Lena’s eyes. “But tonight was really fun. And I feel like with you, I can enjoy anything.”
“Oh, stop!” Lena said. They were both blushing.
“This is a really nice costume,” Akechi said. “I wonder what you’ll come up with in the future.”
“Right…” Lena said. Do we have a future? Am I going home? She looked up at Akechi. Or is this my home?
Meanwhile, Akechi was distracted with his own thoughts. I can’t let her know I’ll probably be busy. Once the plan is set in motion, I might not have time for big stuff like this. But I’m sure she’ll understand. I just need everything in place.
He looked back at Lena. He leaned in, and Lena met him for a kiss. “Happy Halloween,” Akechi said.
“Happy Halloween,” Lena replied. The two continued onward.
Once Haru got out of the meeting, she got out her phone.
Haru: Everyone! I have some big news!
Haru: The SIU told Okumura Foods to recall its Starfall Coffee venture.
Haru: Something has to be up.
Futaba: Already know!
Futaba: Morgana overheard some police officers talking about it.
Futaba: He said that they heard they were causing the mental shutdowns!
Haru: WHAT?!
Sumire: That’s absurd!
Futaba: Maybe, but nothing about this case is “normal”.
Sumire: I guess you’re right.
Yusuke: Have you talked with Riko yet?
Futaba: Not yet.
Futaba: I was looking over my mom’s notes, and the notes about the director.
Futaba: I lost track of time.
Ren: It’s OK. Now we have something else.
Ren: Something big!
Futaba: Right. I’m on it!
Jose: What else did you find?
Futaba: The director is a very crafty person.
Futaba: His profile is full of twists and turns.
Futaba: I imagine that if he did kill his wife, he’d know how to make it look incidental.
Futaba: As for mom’s notes, I found something interesting.
Futaba: Apparently if you amass enough fame, you can tap into the collective unconscious.
Sumire: Mementos!
Jose: But if whoever killed your mom has these notes…
Futaba: That’s what I figured.
Futaba: We’re not the only ones in there.
Yusuke: Do you think it has anything to do with that body of water?
Futaba: Probably.
Ren: We should check, just to be sure.
Futaba: Right.
Futaba: Anyways, Haru, can you get the schematic for Starfall?
Haru: I don't think so.
Haru: I’m not great with computers to begin with, and I don’t think I’d have access to something like that.
Futaba: Plan B then.
Futaba: Come over, and I’ll give you the Futaba special. I’ll take care of the rest.
Haru: Got it.
Ren: See you all later!
Futaba: Seeya!
Futaba then went to work contacting Riko.
Futaba: Riko!
Futaba: Something big just happened.
Riko: What is it?
Futaba: Did you know that the SIU instructed a recall on Okumura Foods Starfall Coffee?
Riko: I was.
Riko: Sae told me about that.
Futaba: Well, it turns out that it’s because somehow Starfall Coffee is causing the mental shutdowns.
Riko: Oh right.
Riko: The director mentioned that.
Futaba: And you forgot?!
Riko: Forgive me. A lot was happening.
Riko: The fake calling card, Eirs, it was a lot to process.
Futaba: Well, I can’t say I blame you.
Futaba: BUT we have an idea as to how this was being used.
Riko: Go on.
Futaba: Well, looking through my mom’s notes, there’s a special concoction you can make to infiltrate people’s hearts. But you need to get them to ingest the blood of the person infiltrating after they drank it.
Futaba: So I suspect that Starfall Coffee was the means to do just that.
Riko: That seems like a lot.
Futaba: Right, but if this organization is so big to include Madarame, Kaneshiro, Okumura, and Principal Kobayakawa, they may have more numbers at their disposal.
Futaba: You don’t need a lot of blood, you need a lot of people.
Riko: I see.
Riko: Want me to get the schematics for Starfall Coffee?
Futaba: I'm on that on my end.
Futaba: But I do need you to do something.
Riko: What is it?
Futaba: Can you get the file on the murder case involving the director’s son?
Futaba: We suspect that he may have been involved, and that maybe he also murdered his wife.
Riko: Oh my!
Riko: I’m on it!
Riko: Oh, and I have a plan.
Futaba: You do?
Riko: Yeah. I asked Sae last night about what happens if you challenge her.
Riko: She told me that if that happens, she’s confronting the director.
Riko: She believes that once you’re done with her, you’ll meet up with him somehow.
Futaba: So we know where she’ll be.
Riko: And you told me when.
Riko: So all that’s left is to figure out what comes next.
Futaba: Right.
Futaba: Well, regardless, we need a way for Sae to get out.
Futaba: I think I have an idea for that.
Riko: We do need to fish for more information from the director too.
Futaba: Right. Akechi said not to ruffle any feathers until it’s time to strike.
Riko: You’re in contact with Akechi?
Futaba: Tentatively.
Futaba: It’s an uneasy alliance.
Riko: I see.
Riko: Well, regardless, I think I know a way to get some information once things go off.
Futaba: It can't involve us, because we’ll be busy in Sae’s palace.
Riko: Right.
Riko: My plan still works then.
Futaba: Well then, let’s see if our plans can work in tandem.
Riko: OK!
The two of them discussed their plan. Once they finished…
Futaba: Damn! You’re really clever.
Riko: Thanks.
Riko: You’re really smart yourself.
Futaba: Thanks.
Futaba: Now all we have to do is make sure we do well protecting Sae, while also making her see the error of her ways.
Riko: You have my confidence on that front.
Futaba: Thanks.
Futaba: Goodnight!
Riko: Happy Halloween!
Futaba: Happy Halloween!
Riko put her phone away. She began looking through more notes.
Sae came out of her office. Riko looked up. “Oh, how are you doing?”
“I’m feeling great! Sae said. “This upcoming trial will be easy, and soon I’ll have The Phantom Thieves in my grasp. Hm. You know, I saw a bunch of people dress up as Phantom Thieves today. Thinking that they’re heroes.”
“Well hold on,” Riko said. “People dress up as villains too.”
“I guess that’s true,” Sae said.
“Phantom Thieves aside, how do you feel about Halloween?” Riko said. “I wasn’t too big on it as a kid, but when I grew up and could pick what I wanted to dress as, I suddenly got it.”
“A late bloomer, I see,” Sae noted.
“Yeah…” Riko said. “That.”
“Hm,” Sae said. “Well, I’ve always liked Halloween. But lately, I haven’t had the time for it.”
“I see,” Riko said. “It is busy here, huh.”
“Well, there are occasions where things let up,” Sae said. “Last year, I got out of work early and dressed up as a werewolf.”
"Ooo. Spooky," Riko remarked.
“Eh, not really,” Sae said. “It was kind of a last minute thing.”
“Still, I bet it looked great on you!” Riko said.
“Um, yes…” Sae said, slightly blushing. “Anyways, what’s your favorite costume you’ve ever worn?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Riko said. “One year, I wore this immaculate female Vampire costume. It just felt so GOOD, you know?”
“Hm hm. You didn’t need to add ‘female’ to that,” Sae pointed out.
“Oh, uh, right…” Riko said, nervous. “Well, what about you? What was your favorite costume?”
Sae paused. “Don’t laugh.” She sighed. “It was Makoto’s first Halloween. I wanted to dress up as something spooky, but my parents were worried that would upset Makoto. So they made me wear this Buchimaru-kun costume. I hated it. I was miserable for the first few hours.
But then there was a loud noise. My parents were worried that something bad happened to the neighbors, and rushed outside to check on them, leaving me with Makoto. Suddenly, I was alone with her. Carrying her. I was so nervous. I did my best, but I was so unsure of myself.
But you know what she did? She smiled. That was the first time Makoto smiled at me. My parents came back and assured me that everything was alright. They noticed me taking care of Makoto, and I got to do a lot of things. I fed her. I burped her. I played with her. It was nice.
So that’s why that’s my favorite costume. I don’t know why I’m telling you that. Usually, I say it’s the one time I went as the Black Featherman.”
“Hmmm,” Riko said. “You know, I’m partial to Pink myself.”
“I figured you would be,” Sae said.
“But that story was really sweet,” Riko said. “And don’t worry, I won’t say anything.”
Sae smiled. “Thanks. Let’s go home.” Riko nodded, and the two headed off. As they were leaving, Sae glanced at Riko. Alright Sae. It’s a deal. Once I’ve captured The Phantom thieves, I’m asking her out!
#p5#p5r#persona 5#persona fanfiction#persona 5 royal#p5 rework#p5r rework#p5 femc#femc#female ren#ren amamiya#sumire yoshizawa#futaba#makoto niijima#morgana#ryuji sakamoto#ann takamaki#yusuke kitagawa#jose#Lena Minamoto#haru okumaru#hifumi togo#chihaya mifune#sae#akechi
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Hi, this is more of an ask than a request, but personally which yandere in one piece do you find the scariest and why? Which one do you think will be the best to be with?
On a personal level, any yandere that has strong connections to the WG are going to wig me out. They're already comfortable on some level to the celestial dragon's treatment of others and it's not a leap to assume they'd do similar things. It was a while ago but I did a broad ranking on who'd be easier to run from and obviously those well connected are going to have an easier time tracking you down if you left.
Folks like Doffy would definitely do some fucky shit like make you walk on your hands and knees or something. Assuming you manage to keep those limbs at all.
I actually don't tend to go into darker yandere stuff cause it's not a very comfy subject to me, but a lot of these characters would be... A little too comfortable liberating you of limbs or vital organs (looking at you Law, just cause they don't die doesn't mean it isn't fucked up you rip out their hearts). So a lot of characters are very unideal unless you get cool really quick about a lot of things.
And best to be with? Wildly depends on how chill you are with restrictions and punishments versus explanations and justifications. As well as general attitude. I wouldn't like sticking around someone that acts like I'm their new dog or a wittle baby who needs help with everything, as an example. I'm pretty chill but I suspect I'd quickly find my no tolerance zone with some characters.
The easiest to get along with would be devious bastards who have an answer for everything and are invested in maintaining an illusion of normalcy. They won't cut off fingers or toes for backtalk but that doesn't mean they wouldn't be assholes in other ways.
Or maybe I just don't like people enough to live with someone who has such control over everything. Also a possibility.
And that's about as much detail as I can fit into my lunch break, hope it's what you were looking for!
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Hi! Sorry if you've answered this before, but how do you keep track of all the details (e.g. characterization, worldbuilding, etc.) when you write something long? Love your books, and hope you're getting rest!
I really just depends, anon! I have different methods per story.
For example, re: A Stain that Won't Dissolve, I have nothing except what's in my head and what's in the story. I'll ctrl+F for any details that I need to double check before writing future chapters.
For The Nascent Diplomat, I have nothing except a single 4 page Word document that mostly just differentiates between the different clans with vague mentions of appearance. That's it. Oh and ctrl+F to look up details.
For Underline the Black and the rest of the Rainbow I have an Obsidian Vault. Obsidian is free program (unless you need it to sync between devices, and then it's a one-time very modest payment and they entirely deserve it) and I like it more than World Anvil because I can build my world the way I want. I can give you an idea of what that looks like for Underline the Black here:
The folders on the left are all like Wiki articles on all the characters. The graph view allows me to identify node categories by colour, and find what I'm looking for. I'm actually in the character pages for this about once or twice per chapter, but I don't need to use it often anymore because I remember a lot of the details now (except, for some reason, Caleb's eye colour). Here's an example of how detailed I get for the articles:
And obviously for more main characters, the articles are either more detailed, or way, way less detailed lmao. (Also Efnisien is in the 'omega' category not because he's an omega, but so I can more easily find him, lmao).
For Vexteria I have what's in my head, but I'll open a vault for that eventually. I'll need to.
For Fae Tales canon, I had a bunch of Word articles that I didn't often need to check for any reason. They were like...good early on, but then became kind of redundant. I get frustrated if I can't keep 95% of the details in my head at all times. Towards the end of The Ice Plague I actually started to sometimes use the Fae Tales Wiki to find details, lol.
Which is why the Mallory & Mount Obsidian Vault is pretty intimidating to me, but that's mostly because I haven't started writing yet:
For Falling Falling Stars and Spoils of the Spoiled I had nothing at all, except for what was in my head.
As you can see, anon, it really just depends on the story! My longest story (Falling Falling Stars) had no worldbuilding notes at all. And then other stories do get some worldbuilding. Underline the Black does because I knew I'd be spinning off couples/stories, and keeping track of like 10 different characters in 5 different couples can get overwhelming.
When I'm winging a story, I actually go to my documents less than I search through the stories for what I want to know. It's very common for me to open a story, go to 'Entire Work' and then literally just search through keywords that I know I use, to double check hair colour, eye colour, or something else. It got a bit unwieldy with Fae Tales because there was an awful lot to search through, but it's a lot easier with stories that just have one or two parts.
And I think folks might be surprised how much just...perma-lives in my head. That stuff is pretty much on tap. There's exceptions, especially depending on the time or fatigue (if I'm asked a detail about one of my stories and it's 1.00pm and I'm too tired to write, then I'm also too tired to talk about details without having to search for them myself). Generally speaking I can trust myself to write a story with solid continuity based off nothing except what I remember, and the ability to search the story before committing to something. That has led to minor, fixable continuity errors, but to my knowledge, no major ones.
Character details I find the easiest to remember, honestly, outside of cosmetics (fashion choices, eye/hair colour etc.). Like, I often don't have nearly as much in my worldbuilding notes about their histories or personality details, because that stuff I know I'll remember, and a flaw of mine is sometimes assuming readers will just naturally know it too.
I enjoy worldbuilding, but I don't need it for a lot of my writing. I would say the majority of my writing on AO3 has never had much by the way of worldbuilding or character notes, and even the stories that do like Fae Tales, I was checking those notes once every 10-15 chapters, because I didn't need them more often than that.
Er yeah so I keep track of the majority of it by just...thinking about it or recalling something to do with it. I have a good mind for this kind of storytelling, and I would say it's one of my strengths that allows me to write stories this long, because otherwise I'd feel SO frustrated always having to check documents and vaults etc. before I got started with each new chapter. But I have to admit that worldbuilding for Underline the Black finally forced me to give Kadek a last name, lol.
#asks and answers#pia on writing#pia on worldbuilding#it feels like showing off but frankly i have a metric fuckton of weaknesses#like timelines#which are my nemesis if i write them out or not#because of my dyscalculia#i just prefer to focus on my strengths as a writer#while quietly working away on the weaknesses in the background lmao
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I would love to hear about you going on a tangent about British politics and stuff. I find stuff like that so fascinating especially as an American so please do tell and any book/media recommendations would be cool Tysm
Whoa, thank you so much and I even feel honoured! :D I'm always happy for an opportunity to bang on about politics. And I'm sorry, but this will be a pretty long post, haha.
Well, I was sort of into politics ever since my school days (oh, the good old days when I had to explain the German electoral system for my exams haha) and I guess I might have studied something politics-related at university if I had the qualifications...but sadly I don't, so it's just something like a hobby for me. Anyway, at first I mostly just followed German politics, but then I got really into British politics in 2016 after the Brexit vote. I started watching the parliamentary debates on Brexit when they showed them on German TV for whatever reason, then later online and idk, that got me hooked. I have been following current events to varying degrees ever since (mostly via the Guardian and the BBC News because I'm sort of a leftie...lol) and I would say it has definitely become one of my main interests. I think nowadays I'm probably better informed about the events in the UK than about the political landscape in my own country (bit sad, but true). Still, I'm definitely no expert and I've got a bad memory, so I find new and interesting bits and books all the time, haha.
Anyway, book recommendations! This will be by far the longest part of this post…of course this is only just about the stuff I've read, so not exactly comprehensive and probably biased because of my personal political preferences, but…hopefully still a bit useful. :)
(Sorry for the Goodreads links, but since I use that site to keep track of my reading it was just the easiest solution. Here's also a link to my non-fiction shelf for more stuff…I didn't mention every single book I've read or else this post would be even longer haha)
For a more general overview I would recommend this series of books: UK Politics Annual Update. They are actually for A-level exam preparations, but I found them pretty useful (especially for earlier years when I didn't follow politics yet) and bought almost all of the older editions.
Or alternatively, this book was alright if you want want less detail, but still a quite comprehensive overview. Although I didn't really like how the author's personal opinion got obvious from some bits.
For a more light-hearted approach, British Politics for Dummies is also pretty good. I've read a few of this series and it's one of the better books.
Getting a bit more specific now…two pretty good books which are mostly about what happens in Westminster and what could be improved about the way British politics work are How Westminster Works...and Why It Doesn't and Code of Conduct. Especially the first one is really good, and it has lots of interesting stuff in the 'further reading' section for the more hardcore nerds. Yeah, I'm currently going through that list, haha.
Also pretty good, but also quite specific are Chums and Butler to the World. The first one is about how modern politics is mostly shaped by people who went to Oxford (and it was quite depressing sometimes, but very interesting), and the second is about how Britain occasionally helps rich people hide their money to pay less taxes and all that. Another good one is The War Against the BBC, but as it's mostly about, well...the BBC it's only politics-adjacent…still worth reading especially since the Tories these days are attacking the BBC all the time and try to undermine it.
As for Brexit, I'm still looking for a really good book about that…but the best one I've read so far is A Short History of Brexit. It's pretty complicated and technical though, and goes into detail about how the UK joined the EU in the first place, so I wouldn't 100% recommend it.
Three quite different, but interesting books written by British politicians are Go Big, Seven Ways to Change the World (ideas about how to improve British or even world politics from two former Labour leaders) and Unspeakable (despite the title it's not just an autobiography but also explains quite a bit about the work of the Speaker of the House of Commons).
Also, no matter whether you're a rather left-wing person or whatever you think about Jeremy Corbyn, this book was really interesting.
Of course it's written from a sympathetic viewpoint, but it was generally really interesting to see the phenomenon of Corbynism in the context of the history of the Labour Party.
Same goes for this book, although it's also written from a left-wing perspective.
Also surprisingly good and insightful was this short essay about politics by Frankie Boyle. Yes, the comedian.
Oh, and last but not least: I also genuinely think that watching HIGNFY is pretty useful when it comes to getting an overview about current British events. (Well, "current" depends on whether you're watching an old series or the latest episodes, of course. But it's just as good for older stuff, I think. Some things like, idk, scandals usually don't get mentioned in the books, at least not the ones I've read.) Same goes for the Private Eye annuals, although I assume these are more fun if you do have at least some knowledge of what happened in the corresponding year already.
#ask#uk politics#reading#if anyone wants to add something to this post please feel free to do so...i'm always happy about recommendations too!#no matter if it's books or articles or podcasts...really whatever kind of media
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Would you say that a midi piano is needed when composing music? I'm still pretty new to this (only got a couple of rough tracks done) and have been on the fence on whether I should get a midi piano so I thought I'd ask
There is no answer to this question unfortunately, as it really comes down to how YOU work best.
I can talk about my own workflow, and where having a MIDI piano is helpful to me; whether one will be helpful to you depends a lot on your particular workflow, comfort level with the piano, expertise, etc.
For me, I actually start composing in MuseScore first (aka by writing it out in Western notation). I find it easiest to write that way, especially when it comes to doing cool things with rhythm and counterpoint. So I'll write it in notation first and then export MIDI from there, and then use that MIDI in my DAW to flesh it out into something more. A lot of people don't do this but they compose by "playing" into the DAW directly with a MIDI keyboard; in that case the keyboard would be invaluable.
At the DAW stage, however, I do find the keyboard useful. I use it in two ways:
- if it feels like something is missing, I might set the track on loop and "play" to it with the keyboard, and then once I figure out what's missing I'll use the keyboard to record the new part. If you have a non-MIDI instrument (including your voice) you can just as well do this by layering a recording on top instead - I do this with cello often. But the MIDI keyboard can help if you want to just record a part and mess with instrumentation later, and I also use it to bang out percussion parts sometimes.
- it really, really makes a difference if I actually "perform" the MIDI especially for melodic parts. So I will sometimes use the MIDI keyboard to record myself playing a part, instead of using the perfect performance exported from MuseScore. You can get the same effect by doing lots of detail work by editing the MIDI itself: nudging notes before or after the beat, changing velocities, modifying lengths. So a keyboard isn't strictly necessary. However if you're proficient at it, it's generally faster to play it in and then tweak it than doing all of the modifying in the piano roll. Up to you though!
Now there's one thing that a proper MIDI keyboard (as in not mine which is just an electric keyboard from like 1998 that has MIDI out, but no CC's) can really help with: recording "performances" of synth parameters. Currently I do that entirely by just adding automation manually and playing it back to see how it sounds, but playing with knobs and sliders live can really help make working with synths faster in the same way playing the notes in makes humanizing a MIDI part faster.
Anyway, I know I didn't actually answer your question, but hopefully this has given you some idea of how a MIDI keyboard might help and where in a composer's workflow it might be of use. If I'm honest my teachers in grad school tried so hard to get me to use my keyboard more, and it wasn't until I ignored them and started writing in MuseScore that I ended up writing music I liked better. So it's all personal preference and if I told you definitively yes or no I feel like I'd be doing a disservice.
It's a great tool, but only if you think you'd use it. Good luck, try stuff, see what works, and keep making music! There is no "right" way to create.
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Mage Ranks the JD2023E Map… Locked Out of Heaven
IT’S BLORBO TIME BITCHES. Um, I mean, we’re getting a bit dramatic now in our story line, as we meet Jack Rose, the flamboyant superstar son of our main villain!
MAP: Locked Out of Heaven - Bruno Mars
DIFFICULTY: Medium
EFFORT: Moderate
JD+ NEEDED?: No
SEASON: Base game/Enter the dancerverses playlist
youtube
Category Seven Autism Event inbound under the cut! Seriously, though, this one is long, ramble-y, and overall just a big excuse for me to infodump the fuck out of this map. It might not make a lot of sense, but putting it all down made me happy, so I hope it makes you happy to read it :)!
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I don’t need to tell you this song is good, right? It’s Bruno fuckin’ Mars, of COURSE it’s good! This song was actually pre-Uptown Funk, and it’s honestly one of his best songs from that time. I actually hated a lot of early Bruno Mars stuff (Grenade my beloathed), but now he’s probably one of my favorite vocalists. So yeah, I don’t need to tell you the song fucks! You already know that!
However, it’s the way that this song is used that fascinates me. The original context of the song is just “wanting to spend the night at someone’s house because they’re real good in the sack”, and the JD team saw that and went “But What If It’s About Parental Neglect” and ran with it. During the second verse, Night Swan’s face keeps taking over the background, that’s supposed to just be reflections of Jack dancing. And during that final chorus, after the first gold move where Jack is on his knees, and Night Swan Tower reveals itself, the jumbotrons that had Jack’s face on it are replaced by the tower’s visage, as the chorus sings “I’ve been locked out of heaven/for too long/for too long” and it fades back to his room, right where we started. Hell, even before that, he’s pointing to the audience during the lines “Can I just stay here?/Spend the rest of my days here?”, telling us in pretty fucking clear terms that his passion isn’t what he’s supposed to do, but what he wants to do - perform. He’s been locked out of heaven for too long, he’s been kept away from the love a mother should express for her child. And now he’s trying to find that happiness in his performance.
Speaking of, the routine! It’s fucking great! I think it’s ranked pretty fairly in terms of difficulty and effort, but if I can be honest, I found this routine shockingly easy. It’s not the easiest thing in the world, but after the technical nightmare that was Rather Be, and the (slight spoilers) upcoming technical nightmare that is Majesty, I would consider LOoH as almost a breather level. Almost, I say, if it wasn’t for the FIFTEEN SPINS you have to land. Seriously, between the one leg spin-hop, the full circle he makes during the chorus, and even the spin you have to do before the final Gold Move, there’s a reason a lot of people were joking that this song should’ve been called “Spinned Out of Heaven”. But maybe it’s the theater kid in me (it’s probably the theater kid in me), I didn’t find the spins all that difficult or demanding. And both the Gold Moves in this routine are fairly easy, with one being the jump you have to do at the start of the final chorus, and the other being the final move in the entire song, the hand raise that you started with. If I had to complain about one thing, I would say that I wish they had you “holding” the microphone in your right hand more. It’s easy for me to imagine holding the mic while doing certain moves, the bridge of the song being the most obvious, but most of the time it’s “in” your left hand when the game only tracks your right hand. It’s just a bit of a dissonance in my head, where it goes “wait, but i AM holding something in the right hand, why are you saying there’s something in my left?!”. But at that point, that’s just a nitpick.
The whole choreography tells us so much about Jack as a dancer. He’s flamboyant, he’s a showman, he lives for the dramatics. He knows how to work a crowd! His stage presence is amazing.
Speaking of! Jack Rose! The blorbo that has ruined my fucking life!!!
Quick note before I get into this... I’m not crazy when I say his name, Jack Rose, probably comes from the two main characters from Titanic, Jack and Rose, right?! No one else has pointed this out, not even the wiki, and I feel like I’m going fucking crazy. Like I know “Jack” is a very common guy’s name and “Rose” ties into the face his main color is red, but together? That’s a Titanic reference, baby! I’m not the only one who saw that, right?????
Anyways! Look at this man in his red suit, his stupid (affectionate) feather boa shoulder piece, his lipstick matching his hair, his gold glove, his stupid little microphone!!! All of this combined makes for one hell of a memorable character, at least for me. I love love love love LOVE monochrome character palettes, I love the mix of reds and blacks, I love it when random strappy things are on a character, I love a little pop of fur...
... wait a god damn second. Those are all the elements my ultimate blorbo of all time has!!!
(pictured: my ultimate blorbo of all time, aka my warrior of light in final fantasy xiv, ahrora, in her current outfit. note the reds, blacks, strappy things, and pop of fur. no matter what, she’s always gonna be my absolute favorite just because she’s my oc i poured so much into. don’t worry rora, you’re not getting replaced, you never could be <3) (it doesn’t help that her main class is quite literally dancer ALDFSKJAS;DFLKJASLD)
Okay, that’s a bit of a stretch, but I do adore red-coded characters, and honestly with the feathers it’s reminding me of one of my top 5 favorite characters of all time, Yamato Kazakiri from Animal Sentai Zyuohger, mostly because they’re both red and both give off Bird Vibes and not much else. But Yamato could sometimes serve this type of cunt. But now we’re getting twenty miles off from the topic so let’s get back the fuck on track.
Okay I’m sorry this is so much longer and more disjointed than the other reviews but this map makes me scream cry and throw up.
The map starts with Jack as a kid, dancing alone in his room. His mother, Night Swan, looks on, and motions in a way that says she’s disapproving of her son’s actions.
How it’s supposed to come off: Night Swan disapproves because Jack is supposed to be training to be the leader of her army, and shouldn’t have time for frivolous shit like “his own happiness”.
How it comes off to a lot of people: Night Swan disapproves because Jack is expressing his interest in a traditionally “feminine” hobby.
I’m not sure how many people related to that second interpretation, but I did see a LOT of people say that’s how they felt when they saw this cutscene for the first time. Personally, my interpretation was more like the first one; Jack wasn’t being absolutely perfect, and she thinks that if he’s not, he shouldn’t even bother. Of course, a bit of parental neglect never stopped anyone! It just traumatizes and yassifies you!
Honest to god, when I first saw this transition from his child self to his adult self, it made me gasp a bit, Even after his mother has expressed disapproval, he’s still going forward with being a performer. Sure, he is the main leader of her assimilated army, but he just wants to perform in front of people! And he loves it! And the audience loves him too!
But at the end of the day, the one person who he just wants to get some form of approval from won’t give it to him. He’s not good enough.
No, not good. She doesn’t care much for good.
He’s not perfect enough.
God, the love of performance and heartbreak over still not getting any love from his mother after all this time is portrayed so well by his dancer. Makes me feel extremely insane.
I think a question that’s fair to ask is “well if she wants Jack to follow all her orders, why not assimilate him, too?”. And I think the answer is twofold. One, she needs someone who’s able to make snap decisions outside of her own brain to lead her army successfully. If you’re left to your own devices, you may end up making a huge mistake you didn’t foresee. And secondly, no matter how much parental neglect she’s shown Jack, on some level she can’t bring herself to assimilate him because he is her son. She doesn’t care about his happiness, but she doesn’t want to lose someone who may potentially be the final tie to her life before Night Swan, since the dad seems to be M.I.A. And her disapproval of Jack being a performer might stem from her own insecurities of being a failed ballerina; she’s already gone through the pain and humiliation of trying to be a performer and failing, and she doesn’t want Jack to go through the same. Of course, there might be an element of jealousy there too. He IS a successful performer. He’s performing in front of an arena of people, for god’s sake! She’s seeing him live out a dream she couldn’t have, and wants to shut that down for him.
Many thoughts, head full, blorbo living in there.
Of course, by the end of the map, the Just Dancers make it through to where he’s staying...
But for now, that’s where our story must stop.
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GENERAL RATING: THUMBS UP!!!!!!!!
SPECIFIC RATING: 10/10
Holy shit this is my favorite map in the whole game. I don’t give a shit. The choreography is fun and easy for a theater kid like me to grasp while still being genuinely challenging in a fair sense, the story of the map is told so well in less than five minutes, Jack Rose is just an iconic coach, everything about him just rattles my fucking brain like a cup of dice. Does he know how much I care about him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And to top it all off, he gets a song that already fucked hard and gets it recontextualized to be about an emotionally distant, neglectful mother, and how he just wants that closeness with somebody, anybody, and that he just wants to perform!
He just wants someone close to him to care about it, too!
... Is that really too much to ask?
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THANK YOU for reading, especially if you actually DID read my absolute fucking brain rot on a page and didn’t just scroll down to the end. No shame if you did, I would do the same LMFAO. Next time, we’re looking at the penultimate song in the playlist, Majesty! There’s no obligation to follow me (especially not after the absolute thesis i just wrote), but if you wanna see my rankings of all the other JD2023 maps, please stick around! I promise they won’t be as long/disjointed/nonsensical as this one ended up being! Have a good day!
~ Mage <3
#just dance#just dance 2023#jd2023#jack rose#jack rose just dance#mage's rankings of just dance 2023 maps#danceverses rankings#i need a just dance tag#SORRY FOR THE WORD VOMIT IN ADVANCE. THIS DOESN'T MAKE ANY GOD DAMN SENSE.#the Mage rambles#i have a lot of thoughts about this man and i cannot succinctly word it to save my life#so you will have to be subjected to a glorified stream of thought#a lil behind the scenes here but i write these rankings late at night#it's almost 3 am on sunday and my brain is fucking BUZZING like crazy#also! cameo appearance from my most beloved oc ever! say hello to her or i will blow you up!#ANYWAYS THANKS FOR READING. I AM GONNA SCREAM MORE NOW <3
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Always been you: Part 2 - DRxfem driver!reader
Masterlist
Summary: Some snuggles and some future plans are all they need as they hide from the world in their own little world.
Pairing: Daniel Ricciardo x fem driver!reader
Warnings: Some angst, swearing and all the fluff in the world.
Word count: 4.7k
A/N: Holy shit this took me forever. Okay, keeping it short, 246 notes on part 1? Are you all insane? Cant even start to describe how happy that makes me, so I’m just gonna say thank you! It means the world to me for real. Okay, part 3 its gonna be the last one and is on its way. Let me know what do you think that will happen?? 👀 Also should I make like a general taglist?? Let me know that too?? Kay, bye, kisses in all your foreheads and see u soon!♥️✌🏻
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Part 2.
Everything was perfectly fine between her and Daniel. Everything was easy when they were together. Everything just worked out perfectly, as if they were just meant to be together from the beginning. Being so terrified of admitting her feelings for Daniel felt silly, and she really didn’t understand why she wasted all that time when she could have done it back then when they were teammates. It was so easy that sometimes it was scary, but she loved every single second of it. Everything was easy as it was falling in love with Daniel. She knew it was gonna happen at some point, so after so much time trying to avoid it, she finally let it flow. It happened and didn't take her by surprise at all, especially now that they were together. Besides, loving Daniel was probably the easiest thing she ever did besides driving. It felt like she was meant to drive, but also meant to be by his side and love him.
Everything was working perfectly fine, except for work and their schedule, obligations, events, contracts, publicity, filming, photoshoots, interviews and everything that came with being a Formula 1 driver. Between her spending most of her days at the factory in Switzerland, race weeks where they would normally be in different hotels, and then race weekends where they would barely see each other for counted minutes where they would be never alone, it was nothing but hard to spend time together.
Sometimes they would act like they casually stayed in the same hotel and as carefully as possible they would sneak into each other's rooms to at least sleep in the same bed, all knowing their teams had their backs to cover them. Sometimes they would do the same thing in their trailers on some European circuit, saying that if the rest of the drivers could do stuff together, they also could have dinner together. It was almost normal to find Daniel at the door of the Alfa Romeo hospitality to talk to her in the same way he did it more than once going to the Redbull building to talk to Max. It was already a regular thing to find them standing together as they went around the track during the drivers’ parade on Sundays, talking with some other drivers but mostly joking between them. She was normally the one giggling uncontrollably at his silly jokes because he was clearly doing it to make her laugh. But all that always lasted some short minutes, and then it was to work, forgetting they were a couple for the next few hours. It was like switching to a weird flick that made them go from being a couple to being just friends until they left the paddock on Sunday night.
It was hard. It was really complicated when they weren’t really doing anything wrong, but it was worth every time they were together. When they managed to sneak some days or even some hours together, it was just pure beautiful bliss and happiness and nobody could take that from them. Sometimes they would manage to spend some days away in some other place, like a week in New York, some extra days in Miami or Montreal, or even one week of the summer break in LA. But besides their little getaways, they were always together in Monaco. The nights they didn’t have plans or things to do, they would normally stay in one of their apartments having dinner, watching tv, fucking each other until they were exhausted and then sleeping tangled in the sheets. It was easy and simple and she loved it.
But probably nothing was as easy as seeing Daniel coming home to her. Nothing was as beautiful as to read a text or hear him say over the phone ‘I’m on my way home’ and know that he wasn’t referring to his apartment or hers, he was referring to her. He was coming home to her, not really mattering where she was or where they were going to be. Things were like that from the beginning. After their first kiss and especially after their first dinner –which ended up being their first date and first time together– in her place, they got stuck together and there was nothing anyone could do about it. They started dating that exact same day, not really wanting to play games simply because they were too tired to run around trying to chase each other.
From that day things moved fast, probably for the fact that they got counted minutes to be together. They started dating the week after the Imola incident; she managed to run away with him to New York before the Miami race and then stayed with him there until they had to fly back to Europe. In June they sneaked onto the terrace of the hotel, they were ‘accidentally’ sharing in Baku, and she finally admitted that she was in love with him right there, and everything became way better when Daniel said that he loved her too. They spent their first week of summer break together in LA and then they got to meet each other's families and friends as an official couple and something more than just teammates like they did back in their Renault times. It happened fast, but somehow it didn’t feel rushed. It felt right and somehow on time, so they were happy.
But from all that long list of things they did together, her favorite one was when Daniel gave her the keys to his apartment. He did it one day as she was joking about how stupid it was having to wait until he buzzed her in. She didn’t make the comment with double intentions or waiting for something from Daniel; she just threw it out because she really thought it was silly. In fact, she was waiting for some silly joke as an answer, but instead he got up from the couch, came back with the keys in his hand, ready for her to take it. She did take it, but in exchange she gave him a kiss and the promise to give him the keys to her place, whispering in his lips a sweet ‘What’s fair is fair’.
That’s how Daniel went to her apartment that night, opening the door with his own keys on one of the counted free weekends they had, right before they left for Singapore and Japan. He came and found her in the kitchen making dinner, and the smile on their faces when they saw each other was just too big, even when their lips were together. The first thing he did was to give her a kiss, but then he wrapped his arms around her waist, letting her finish what she was doing as he covered her neck and shoulders with kisses. They were just too happy in their little bubble of love and happiness, not letting anything ruin it. She promised to herself and to Daniel to not let anything ruin what they had; not people, not racing or anything at all was gonna get in the middle of them and their relationship, and they were keeping their word so far.
They were doing a good job so far, and it was being an easy job to keep their love for each other and their relationship safe in the middle of a crazy bumpy ride, but some days it was harder than others, at least for some minutes. One of those counted moments happened once dinner was done and they were talking, all cuddling on the couch with two glasses of red wine in their hands. Everything was perfectly normal as they were kissing and watching some NBA game that Daniel put on the tv, but then he asked if she had plans for the weekend before they left for Singapore, and she remembered that in fact, she had plans.
“Why don’t you come with me? It's just dinner with friends. Antonio is gonna be there and you know him and my friends, so it won't be that bad” she asked, stroking his cheek as she practically begged him to go with her. Normally she wouldn’t don’t do that, but knowing how complicated everything was going to be from that moment to the end of the season, she just wanted to spend as much time as possible with him. “It's just dinner and maybe some drinks but no big deal”
As soon as she saw Daniel’s face, she knew what his answer would be. He didn’t even have to speak for her to know what he was going to say, but she let him answer after he gave her a sweet, short kiss that tasted like nothing but love and fine wine. “I would love to, but if someone sees us we are screwed, babe. Besides what would I be there doing with you and your friends?” Daniel asked, stroking her legs that were resting over his as she was snuggled right by his side and almost on his lap.
"We’re friends too. We’re just hanging out with friends. Having dinner ain’t illegal, right?” she shrugged, and even if it was a joke for Daniel, it really wasn’t. Normally he would drop some silly joke about the issue, but this time he just let his head fall over the back of the couch. “Hey, we’re not friends. I spent too much time being your friend and I’m not doing that again. I love you too much to do that” I love you too much to do that” she assured, covering his cheek, jaw and neck with kisses to prove her point.
The whole ‘We’re just friends’ thing was probably as hard as hiding. She hated those words as much as Daniel did, but days like that one, it looked like he hated it a bit more. Maybe it was the fact that they were in the friend zone for three long years, but now, every time one of them had to describe their relationship as ‘friendship’ it was like a knife going to throw their hearts. It was nothing but weird to hear people talk about them being one of each other’s best friends when they were planning a future and building a life together.
She could feel his body tense when she said the world ‘friends’, but he relaxed again as soon as the ‘I love you too much’ left her mouth, and then he was back to normal when she kissed his skin, but she could see a little almost imperceptible frown on his forehead. “I love you more” Daniel affirmed, squeezing her waist a bit, turning his head to give her a kiss.
It was his brown eyes that could make her do anything. She couldn’t with that warm chocolate color. She couldn’t with the way he looked at her, just as if she was the most precious creature in the universe. She just couldn’t when he looked at her and all she saw was love and adoration. She couldn’t ruin one of the counted free weekends they had, so she took a very easy choice. “I’m gonna reschedule”
“No fucking way, babe. We can see each other later. Why don’t you come over when you’re done?” Daniel offered, trying to keep her from doing something silly, but heaven knew that she was damn stubborn, even worse than him.
“We could do that, but I’m gonna reschedule” she insisted, snuggling even closer to him if that was even possible, all while she rested her head over his shoulder.
“I’m not letting you. I’m calling Antonio myself”
“What if we meet at whenever we go after dinner? You can go with the boys and we pretend we just ran into each other. But no flirting with girls because I’ll kick your ass” she proposed, trying to find a solution to the problem.
But her favorite thing was feeling Daniel smiling against her forehead when she dropped the silly comment. She felt his grip around her tightening as he kissed her head, and for a second every single preoccupation disappeared and was replaced with nothing but love no and adoration for the man by her side. “How could I flirt with anyone when I got you? And how am I supposed to keep my hands off you in public?” Daniel asked.
Her first response was a little shrug and it was followed by a little kiss on his neck. They had been doing it for a while, but after months it was still hard to keep their hands away from each other when they were in public. Touch was their love language, not matter if it was just hugging, holding hands, or kissing. It was the most normal thing for them to be sitting together and have one hand over the others leg or Daniel’s arm around her waist or shoulders. It was so normal that it was almost impossible to stay away from each other while they were in the paddock. It was normal for her to suddenly feel Daniel’s fingers ghosting over her waist, acting like he was casually resting his hand in some place behind her or to have him standing too close to her, pretending he had no idea what person space was. They really had no idea what personal space there was between them, but she loved it. She loved Daniel with every single fiber of her body, so having him all around her was just too wonderful, just like it was terrible hard abot being able to touch him when he was away, even if for some hours.
“Same way we do it while we work, but we have enough of that bullshit at the track, so that’s why I’m canceling” she insisted again, kissing his neck once more.
“No fucking way I’m letting you do that” he repeated, but this time he tickled her, making her lay down on the couch. “I don’t want you to cancel your plans for me, so I’m going with you. I’m telling Michael and Blake to come with me and that’s it. Its not like they don’t know your buddies”. It was that simple answer that made her warm even more. It was the fact that he didn’t want her to change her plans for him and that he was ready to change his so they could spend some extra hours together. She knew it was absolutely normal, but bad luck, bad decisions and clearly a bad taste -that was clearly over- for men made her always pick up the wrong boyfriends. She wasn’t used to having that because somehow all her exes wanted to be the center of her attention, not really understanding how busy her life was and how she was trying to do her best with her life outside racing tracks. Then it was Daniel who just understood everything because his life was even busier than hers. Daniel, who was trying to do everything in his power and putting everything from him so they could make it work together while also trying to protect her and their relationship. Daniel, who was the center of her universe but never wanted her to take time away from her family and friends. Daniel who loved her so much that he was ready to do anything for her, even risking getting caught. “Just know I’ll kick assess if someone gets too friendly with my girlfriend. I won’t care who’s watching” he stared, laying down beside her on the couch, opening his arms so she would get closer.
“Same if someone gets too close to my boyfriend” she smiled as the word ‘boyfriend’ left her lips. She still couldn’t believe Daniel was her boyfriend, so a little smile appeared on her face every time she said it. “You know, the worst part it’s pretending I’m not in love with you. All the time I think someone’s gonna realize and that we’re gonna be screwed” she murmured, placing both hands on his chest while she looked at the pair of brown eyes that she loved so much.
“Don’t even mention it. Blake says I need to stop looking like a love-sick puppy all the time. Maybe Netflix makes a whole episode about us” Daniel joked, kissing her forehead and then her nose.
“Why do you think they asked us about the other last week?” she asked in case Daniel forgot about what they called ‘The Netflix incident’.
Just like any other weekend, the Netflix team was around doing interviews and filming material for their new season. Everyone was used to seeing cameras and people around the circuit following different teams or drivers, but that last week was particularly different. That week she was supposed to have the Netflix crew with her around the track and going from one place to another in Monza. It was okay after all; she agreed with it because Daniel convinced her it would be fun, but then she found out they were following Daniel, too. Then she realized they were pretty much following them. She tried to ignore it, and that Thursday afternoon she really thought she was going to answer the same all questions about her team, about a particular event or a particular race, but she didn’t. The straightforward question was ‘Are you and Daniel together?’ and she froze. She laughed out of the nervous attack she had at that moment. She laughed in front of the cameras of one of the biggest stream services that existed. She laughed, and she lied and knew if looks could kill, then the big part of the room would be dead and gone. She answered with a simple ‘No, we are not together. He’s just one of my best friends’ and the answer should have stayed there, but it didn’t. The politically correct answer was that, but then she had to add a very serious ‘Did you ask this to someone else? Did you ask Pierre and Charles or Carlos and Lando? Or is it just with me because I’m a woman? Wanna ask if I’m with someone else? Wanna ask about the other eighteen drivers?’. The room went into absolute silence as she stood up and left the room, followed by her team and the Alfa Romeo team. Her team just wanted her to stop for a second; the Alfa Romeo team wanted her to go back, but all she did was turn around and tell them to leave her alone. That was one of the lucky times where she and Daniel were in the same hotel, so it took her no time to go straight to him because she needed to hide from the world. It took Daniel a long hour to calm her down that day and now they could laugh at it, but back then it was one of the worst days of her life, and she was nothing but thankful to have Daniel by her side.
“And how fucking hard it was to keep my face straight when they did” Daniel joked, because he had the exact opposite reaction to the tricky question. Since he was warned by her about the question, for Daniel it was all about payback. He went into that room and answered the question with a serious face that was nothing but weird on him. Suddenly the joker was gone, and nobody in the room knew what to do except keep it short and change the subject of the questions. Daniel said that if they made his girl feel like shit, then he was going to make them feel like shit and that’s exactly what he did, even if deep down the grin was fighting for coming out and screaming in front of those cameras that yes, she was his girlfriend. Daniel wanted to yell that she was his Cherry, but he kept it quiet. “We’ll figure it out one day, y’know? We won’t keep it a secret forever, but meanwhile I’m happy I get to kiss you here at home” he affirmed, just as if he was reading her mind and the questions running wild inside it. And what he also did was answer them with a sweet, slow and perfect kiss that eased her mind.
Just as she kissed Daniel again and again without a hurry in the world was when an idea came to her mind. She knew it was going to be hard to make it happen and that it was perhaps impossible, but she couldn’t help but drop the question as she stayed with her lips ghosting over his. “Why don’t we go somewhere? We can take some days off, maybe go to Italy”
“We just came back from Monza” he remembered, and damn, she knew, but she couldn’t care less about it. “You wanna go to your secret cave in Verona, Juliet?”
“You’ve never been there, so I still gotta show you my little secret piece of heaven in the form of a villa by a lake” she murmured, stealing one last kiss in some way to convince Daniel. Even when they lived between Monaco, London, Switzerland and whatever country they were in for a race, she had a secret house in Italy that counted people knew about. She had been promising Daniel to invite him there even back when they were together in Renault, but it didn’t happen. Now that they were together, they talked a couple times about going and she had been dreaming about spending some days there with Daniel, but again, it never happened no matter how badly they wanted it.
“You got a lot of little secrets, Cherry” Daniel murmured, moving down on his place to bury his face on her neck and place some kisses around her skin which helped make her relax more than any other thing in the world.
“But you’re the best of all of them” she whispered, closing her eyes and letting herself go in the feeling of his lips over her neck, his stubble scratching slightly at her skin and his fingers moving under her shirt to stroke her waist. “C’mon, babe, let’s get out of here, even if just for the weekend” she purred as she practically begged. And she hated to beg, but he could even make her do that.
“Sounds like a little piece of heaven indeed, especially because you’re gonna be there”
It was then when she realized it was impossible, and Daniel was just probably looking for a way to remind her that they just couldn’t do it. He was looking for a soft way to say the words than none of them wanted to say, but she had to do it, even if it hurt. “Yeah, I know, we can’t. I gotta fly to Switzerland this week, we are going to Austin the week before the race, then the next free week it's between Mexico and Brazil, and then the season it's over and you go home” she listed, remembering how the next couple months of their life were absolutely planned and nothing could get canceled or changed. “Forget I said anything” she whispered with a little shrug and a kiss on his forehead, trying to ignore how it broke her heart a little.
The sadness in her voice was all Daniel seemed to need to move from his spot and look at her. She tried to put a little smile on her face, but looking at Daniel’s expression, she was failing miserably. “Hey, don’t put that pout. We can go the first week after the season it's over. I won’t have to be locked for two weeks in a hotel room in Perth, so we have time before Christmas” Daniel offered, clearly desperate to make her feel better.
“No, babe, it's okay. I don’t wanna take time away from your family. I was just daydreaming. Wishful thinking, I guess” she stated, stroking his cheek with the back of her hand.
“You’re not taking time away from anyone because you’re my family too, baby girl” Daniel affirmed, grabbing her right hand to kiss her knuckles, her palm, and then her wrist. “What if we cancel our week in Austin?”
“We are not canceling Austin. You love Austin, so it's a no” she shook her head, and she might sound like a stubborn, but there was no way she would ever let him miss those days that he was waiting for so long. Besides, she was also expecting that weekend, so canceling their small getaway there wasn’t even an option.
“Then we cancel whatever we were going to do between Mexico and Brazil” he offered again, kissing the back of her hand and giving her his best puppy eyes.
“And deal with the jet-lag just because?”
“Cmon, Cherry. When we are not jet-lagged, baby?” he asked with a smile on his face trying to convince her, and even when she knew her boyfriend was right, she just didn’t want to say yes because it was useful to travel without reason. “Hey, I just wanna make you happy. If Italy will put a smile on your face then we’ll find a way”
“You make me happy and you put a smile on my face. I don’t need an Italy getaway to be happy” she insisted, stealing one long and loving kiss trying to make him drop the topic.
She really thought she had made it. She really thought it was forgotten between sloppy kisses, soft strokes, and little whimpers, but then Daniel moved apart to look at her. “Let's go when the season it's over. We spent a week there, just you and me. What do you say?”
“I say that I love you more than anyone in the world” she whispered, absolutely lost in him, finally a smile appearing on her face because she really couldn’t believe he was doing such a thing to make her happy.
“I love you more, but I have two conditions for that trip” he stated, kissing her nose before he kept talking. “After that you come to Perth. Not for Christmas because you’ll spend it with your family, but for New Year. I think some farm life would be good to make us relax” Daniel negotiated, making her smile even more.
“Deal. What’s the second condition?” she wondered, kissing his lips a couple times as both of her hands rested on his cheeks.
“Let's move together”
She could have sworn she was imagining things. She could have sworn it was all because of the wine they were drinking before. She could swear it was a joke, but Daniel wasn’t laughing. There was no ‘I just made a bad joke’ smile, it was a genuine smile. It was an ‘I’m very serious’ smile, and that’s how she knew Daniel wasn’t playing games with her, but even then, she couldn’t help but whisper an imperceptible ‘What?’ that she even though Daniel didn’t hear. “You hear it. Let's move together. Let's get a nice place here in Monaco for, you and me. We can get an apartment together and make it our place when we’re not working”
“You’re not kidding, aren’t you?” she asked again to be sure, as her jaw was still hanging, trying to understand what was happening.
Daniel wanted to live with her and for them to have a home together.
“No, I’m not. With our job we don’t have much time to be together, but the time we spend here, I wanna spend it with you. We can see if it works, and if it doesn’t, we’ll figure it out, but let’s do it, Cherry” he repeated, grabbing her chin between the long fingers of his tattooed hand.
“It’ll work” she nodded probably too hard and too fast. “We’ll make it work. We’ll come home together and it’ll work. I promise it’ll work, babe”
“So that’s a yes?” Daniel asked with the biggest smile on his face, and she couldn’t help but smile back.
“Its a fuck yeah” she giggled, placing her arms around his neck as she kissed him as many times as it was possible, and then some, but it felt like it was never enough. “Oh God, we’re insane”
“We drive the fastest cars in the world, so what’s new with us being insane?” he asked with a little shrug before he went back to kiss her, but even when their lips were together, none of them could help but smile because they were going to get a place to live together, but they were already home.
#daniel ricciardo#daniel ricciardo imagine#daniel ricciardo one shot#f1#f1 fic#f1 one shot#formula one#formula one fic#formula one imagine#formula 1 fic#formula 1#formula 1 imagine
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why is it, you think, that I understand neurodivergence so well and in jungian psychology I get all the little ‘functions’ (can’t remember their real name) behind the myers briggs types. but when it comes to this shadow stuff? I’ve got no way of placing it and don’t know how to make head or tail of it most of the time. I’ve heard it said ro be the last function in your stack (Si for me as an ENFP) or the secondary four functions that aren’t your main four (the opposite introvert/extrovert orientations) but like. I’m not sure that explains it, from your post I kinda feel like it’s anything that we mask and suppress. Like neurodivergence, which means for some of us our shadow could be our entire self pretty much. And I’m conscious of not basing entire theories of real life psychology on fivtional characters but there really needs to be a way to integrate jung’s stuff with neurodiversify, even though I’ve not really seen anyone do jt. I’ve got more thoughts but I’m gonna leave it at this for now, what do you think?
okay. so. i do have thoughts here. first off, jung is about as much philosophy as he is actual psychology. secondly, the fact that there is no one single definition of the shadow i think is a good definition for the shadow in and of itself. it's nebulous. it defies the neat boxes of mbti and enneagram and the dsm-5. i've heard a number of interpretations of the shadow, everything from the evil, antisocial side of the self to your "last function in the stack."
personally, i define the shadow as your mental early warning system. the shadow prompts your ego to act on the needs, wants, emotions, desires that you've been processing subconsciously while you do other things. the shadow tells you, "we're angry," prompting us to choose between yelling at that guy and walking away from him. the shadow tells us, "we feel like shit," prompting us to make a choice between a shower and bed or grabbing another can of red bull to keep chugging. the shadow tells us, "we're hungry," so we go downstairs, decide on rotini for lunch, the shadow goes "ah, shit," when we discover we don't have rotini, and the persona is what doesn't say that out loud. the shadow is also the impatient, bad-ideas thing, it wants the easiest laziest now solution (yell at the guy, grab another can of red bull, sulk) to whatever it's prompting you about and it's up to the other parts of you to make a decision, do we answer the prompt from the shadow with its presented elementary schooler decision or do we choose something different.
as for neurodivergence, i think it's fair to treat the archetypes a bit like the old medieval concept of humors and the way they can become unbalanced. if dsm diagnoses like autism and sociopathy are "you've got tuberculosis," then the archetypes are "too much yellow bile." cluster b disorders are when your persona's a little bit skewed. executive + social function disorders like autism, adhd, pda, depression, anxiety are when your ego is a little bit skewed. and then fear-based, mood-based and hallucinatory disorders like depression, anxiety, ptsd, shizophrenia, etc, are when it's your shadow that's out of sorts: your early warning system overreacts or underreacts or invents.
personally i like this model. while the proper psychiatric definitions are important and empowering in their own way (saying "i have disorder, disorder, disorder, and possibly disorder" gives me something targetably specific that i can do something about), the three archetypes model i find better in practice for the lay day-to-day non-scientific setting. when, instead of, "i have disorder, disorder, disorder, and possibly disorder," i say, "my ego's a bit wrecked and my shadow's a bit wrecked," it helps me de-clinicize and re-romanticize my existence without losing track of the ability to define where i'm not like the machine expects me to be. i don't feel pitiable, or like a patient, or a statistic. the official diagnostic criteria helps me when i sit down with the psychiatrist, when i research the solutions and the issues. but in the day to day, when i need to do laundry/do homework/make lunch/etc and i don't wanna? when i think "disorder, disorder, and disorder are impacting executive function" i get a very i know this and it helps how? feeling from it. when i think, "ego's a bit fucked, shadow's a bit fucked," the snarky exhaustedness with which if remind myself of that leads me to an actual solution: i put jessica jones on the television and body double with her as we both drag ourselves through the shit we didn't want to do today.
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The problem with anime with me is I grew up watching those silly dubs on Cartoon Network and Toonarmy, and like 90% of those were probably abject garbage, but they built me as a person in ways I don't entirely understand. But now tracking DOWN those late night anime that in many ways all looked and sounded the same, is not the easiest thing in the world.
Negotiator who also has a mecha for example. Not a clue what that is. Does anyone else remember that? That was a weird one.
Tenchi. Which Tenchi? There's like five of them.
I know what Dragonball Z is but there is no way I'm watching that again. I'm not strong enough for that.
Outlaw Star was a formative experience for me. I think it's good. IDK what everyone else thinks.
The Sailor Moon dub was NOT good, but is very important to me.
Gumdan Wing. There's a load of them as well isn't there? IDK which one I watched.
And, like, "TRUE" anime fans who get deep in to this sort of stuff will tell you how bad the dubs are for this that and the other, and you're talking about anime from nearly 30 years ago in some cases, so these things just don't exist any more cause they weren't worth saving to people.
I'm sure it still happens out there but the dubs vs subs debate is what knocked me out of keeping up with Anime. I couldn't watch subs cause of my dyslexia (still really struggle with it).
Anyway, Tenchi Universe is only available in Region 1 DVD and but it is only £30.
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very metal
fem!reader x eddie munson one shot
a/n: okay hello here goes one of my eddie munson ideas.... my god am I whipped for this man. jhsfdbajsdfagjshds. anywhos. let’s go. I hope I write him good. I also hope this won’t turn into a series because I have that tendency to turn one-shots into series and then never finish them. god help with that. also I made up some little very brief background on eddie’s parents – just my version, my imagination, don’t hate or say it’s wrong. just my take. happy reading!
summary: fem!reader is eddie’s friend, and goes looking for him. not only does she find him, but she comes to learn of things about her hometown and the world she never could have predicted.
masterlist
stranger things masterlist
word count: 3.2k
tags: mentions of chrissy's death, fluff
gif credit goes to owner!
eddie has always been hard to catch or keep track of, even before all this hell shit that’s happened to hawkins in the last two and a half years. he’s always following his impulses, constantly going somewhere, changing plans, doing something completely opposite of what he’d promised to do, and everything that follows.
so being friends with him hasn’t been the easiest thing, either. he’s a great guy, a good friend, and overall a charming person, but damn would you like for him to be punctual sometimes. he doesn’t think beyond himself sometimes, and doesn’t care for ruining others’ plans when it comes to certain things. his campaign is a different story, of course. you’d love for him to just keep to his schedules and be reachable sometimes.
and you’re surprised that it surprises and even disappoints you that he’s nowhere to be seen now. with the terrifying murder of the sweet girl chrissy last night, a possible killer on the loose, eddie not being in anyone’s reach terrifies you. what if he’s the next victim? what if he’s been kidnapped or something? this stuff only happens, but with what’s happened in your hometown the last few years, anything could be going on.
the possibilities are endless, you cannot think or want to think of all of them, much less any of them involving eddie. he’s been your friend since before high school, even before secondary school, and you hate for him to be in any sort of trouble. much less in pain... that’s where you try and stop your brain from running further and just digging yourself a grave by assuming the possible worst of anything and everything.
your last resort, the last place—you actually don’t know why you didn’t think of it first—you think to look for eddie, is his supplier’s, rick’s house. out by the lake, quite the middle of nowhere even for your small town of hawkins. you’re scared shitless to go there, of course, because what if the killer is lurking around somewhere here, especially preying on young girls walking around alone at night? and what if the killer has already got eddie, if he’s at rick’s house, and now you’re just walking into certain death?
but you hurriedly walk alongside the dark, empty road, your arms crossed over your chest, a flashlight squeezed in one palm, illuminating the way. you’re not a fan of the dark, especially with the recent murder, and you don’t particularly like flashlights, either. they illuminate only some of the way, and anything could be in that instant darkness beyond the white ellipse of light. anything! you’re even scared to lift the flashlight higher to see, because what if someone or something is there?
at least you know the way to rick’s house well. eddie usually drives after school over there for new stashes of drugs and rounds of drugs in pill form. and he usually takes you with him, because day to day he drives you home or drives you both to his band practice or the occasional bar gigs. and eddie knows he can trust you, you won’t talk to anyone, it’s been clear since the very beginning.
it’s not exactly your ideal plan of kicking off spring break - running around your hometown in the dark in desperate search for your best friend. but you’re worried about him. you were supposed to have him drive you both to a flea market in another town near-by, right in the morning hours because it’s a half-hour’s drive and all the good records and clothes get sold out quickly there. so when he didn’t come to your door, knocking that special theatrical knock of his, not at ten, when you were supposed to leave, not at half past, not at eleven... you got really worried.
first you ran over to the trailer park, where he lives with his uncle, wayne. and his uncle was there, wide awake, alright. and so were the police. and so was the body of chrissy cunningham, which, thankfully, no one let you see. especially wayne. throughout the years he’s said you’re like a daughter to him, and he’s always treated you as such. he sat you down and explained what’s happened, and that eddie was nowhere to be found. that raised your worry to quite the height.chrissy murdered in the munsons’ trailer? that raises a lot of questions.
“he’s probably hidin’ somewhere, scared out of his damn mind,” wayne said as he drew smoke from his cigarette, shaking his head, “neighbours are already talkin’, makin’ up a story...” he sighs, “they’re sayin’ eddie did this, but... there ain’t no way. you and i both know that.” he’d looked at you, and you’d nodded your head without hesitance.
“he wouldn’t,” you said to him with a certain shake of your head, “they’re crazy for saying that, and believing it.” you shot a look over the trailer park, seeing all the people staring and peeping like the creeps they are. you sighed. “i’ve gotta find him.” you said and lift your eyes up to wayne’s. “wanna come with?”
“wish i could, kiddo, wish i could...” wayne shook his head, “i’ve gotta answer all kinda questions from the boys in blue, and it wouldn’t look very good, either, would it? they’d think i was hidin’ him or something.” wayne looked at you. “but you be careful. don’t wanna see you wind up like this poor girl,” he said and you nodded, “if you ain’t found him ‘til dark, don’t keep lookin’ until tomorrow mornin’.”
and though you promised him you’d do exactly that, you’re now breaking that promise. you’ve just gotta find him, and this is really the last place he could be. you’re so near rick’s house, anyway, it would be stupid to turn back and go home now. every little noise you hear makes your head shoot in its direction, your eyes go wide and you make a gasp, but every time it’s some bird or animal. and you curse yourself each time for getting scared of such a little thing. but since your nerves are about electrified right now, you also can’t blame yourself.
finally you reach rick’s property, and nearly breathe a sigh of relief. there’s no sign of eddie so far, and even if he’s not here, you have shelter for the night, as disgusting and stereotypical for a drug dealer’s house it is, because there’s no way you’re going home now. you’re exhausted, anxious and even hungry, too. it must be... you glance at your electronic wristwatch. eighteen minutes past midnight. you sigh. as far as your parents know, you’re at eddie’s place. you’ll worry about your alibi later, anyway.
your first destination in the property is the house, of course, so you sneak in through the already open door? interesting. if that’s a hint towards eddie being here, then great. if it’s someone else... you’re in not that much luck. you tread around the house slowly, as quietly as you can, scared that any noise from you will lure in the other person here more, and maybe even attract the killer – but that’s just paranoia.
funny or not, to calm your mind, you start humming paranoid by ozzy quietly to yourself while looking for signs of life or eddie around rick’s house. it keeps you focused on something, and a little distracted from the stressful reality you’re facing right now. but even in the upper floors of the house, there’s no sign of anyone here. you huff. where is he?
you plop down onto the couch at the front of the house, the shadows and the dark making your legs shiver. you draw your knees up to your chest and look anxiously around. but then your mind lingers on the stretched shadows displayed on the other side of the room from you. you see your own shadow, your silhouette, and that makes you realise there’s a light behind the window, somewhere outside, making those shadows.
hoping against hope that it’s no one predatory holding a flashlight from the outside, you turn around in your seat, and are met with the boathouse down by the lake. the boathouse’s porch light is on, and that’s what’s creating the shadows you see. you sigh deeply in relief and hop off the couch. maybe eddie is here, after all.
excited, you run down the small hill to the boathouse, nearly trip along the way, and stop at the door. eddie better be here.and the door better be open. you press your empty hand down on the handle and jiggle it. it jiggles around pretty freely, and so you swing the door open. you’re met with nothing but the dark and silence, except for the gentle splashing of the lake water against the house’s base. you huff.
“eddie?” you call out in a whisper, hoping he’ll come lurking out of the shadows, alive and well. you close the door after you and make a few steps into the boathouse. it’s not much, just swimming and boat necessities, and one boat with its waterproof cover on top, slightly swinging with the soft waves of the water. quite literally sounds like there’s no signs of life here. “eddie?” you call again, but your voice betrays the disappointment and stress you feel. you reach the window that gives a view of the lake at night, and you see nothing but the dark water and sky. you huff again.
but a floorboard creaks somewhere behind you, and only as your turn, you notice an empty cereal box by your feet on the floor. your body is almost frozen in fear, and so you turn slowly and cautiously towards whoever might be there. and all you’re met with is eddie’s hairy silhouette, only there’s also an oar in his hand (??). but as you both stop and take each other in, eddie comes into the moonlight, where you can see him better, and he drops the oar as relief and surprise takes over his features.
“y/n?” gets past his lips in an emotional whine, and you can barely confirm it’s really you before eddie closes the distance between you both and pulls you into the tightest hug ever. though by the way his hands feel on and around you, you realise it’s he who needs to be hugged more. so you wrap your arms around him, squeezing him tight as well, and close your eyes as you breathe a sigh of relief. “it’s really you.”
you don’t think you’ve ever seen him like this before. he’s never been scared of teachers and any kind of other authority, he’s never shown to be scared of anything, really. sure, there were the times with his father before the fatal car crash, where you’d seen fear in eddie’s eyes like you never had before, and it opened a different perspective on your long-time best friend. that kind of fear, a version of it, you only see for the second time now, so something must have happened. “i’m so glad i found you,” you tell him, rubbing a comforting hand across his back, “i’m so glad you’re not hurt. i was so worried... looked everywhere for you.”
you don’t want to be delusional, but it sounds like eddie could be sobbing into your shirt. you can tell he needed to hear those words. before you can question his state, he pulls back, though still holds onto your shoulders as he looks at you. his big brown eyes bigger than usual, darting around, searching yours, shining with tears. you reach up your hand to his face and flick away a spot of dirt on his cheek, and the movement makes eddie’s eyelids flutter. “physically i’m not hurt, but otherwise, well...” eddie makes one of those sarcastic smiles, which already is a give-away that something’s wrong, “what are you even doing here? didn’t you have plans tonight?”
a laugh at his worry for you escapes you unfiltered, and you shake your head. “thanks for worrying, but that doesn’t really matter right now. you weren’t there to pick me up in the morning, so i went looking for you at your place, but you weren’t there. what was there, in return...” you shake your head, remembering glimpses of the cops’ dialogue about the body, “a crime scene.”
surprisingly, eddie nods. “yeah, i know,” he says. you’re still aware of his hands on you, and though you’re not a person who is friendly with the language of touch, you ignore that for now. for eddie. you can tell he really needs this, he’s always been a touchy person. which raises the question of how you two could ever even be friends, but... it’s pretty easy to respect each other’s boundaries. he needs this. “i, uh... you know, my mind’s kinda all over the place right now, so i hope i’ll make some sense of what i’m about to tell you.” he admits and lets go of your shoulders, “let’s... sit down,” eddie says and leads you away from the window, towards where there’s a bench by the wall in this boathouse. you both sit down, and you bring your backpack into your lap. you cross your knees in front of you and lean against the wall as you listen to eddie.
while he tells you all of these crazy things and you listen intently, without words you offer him your hand to hold. and you feel his mood and thoughts shifting with how he holds your hands. how when he tells you about dustin and his friends—including, apparently, steve harrington—visiting, his hands are calmer then than they are when he talks about what happened with chrissy. turns out eddie was there, and he witnessed her murder. which is traumatic enough, and you completely understand why he ran away. you believe him, you believe what he said happened did happen, and you can’t imagine what that’s like.
his thumb also nearly digs holes into your palm when he tells you about the upside down and the monster, you guess, dustin and he think killed chrissy. the connection between that guy and a wizard from dungeons & dragons is spot-on, actually, and seems even too fitting to be true. but you believe him nonetheless. eddie may be a lot of things, but a liar or a murderer he certainly isn’t.
after he’s told you seemingly everything, you can’t think of things to say to put him at ease. but you remember what you have in your bag. “you want some giggles?” you ask him as you’re opening the zipper of your bag. they might not be very metal, but they’re one of eddie’s favourite snacks. you take the pack out of your bag and see eddie eyeing it quite hungrily. you always make sure to be carrying a pack or two of giggles, anyway, knowing eddie likes them. and he loves you for it. you hand eddie the small box over and look into his eyes, pondering his silence. but then you realise it’s probably because of your own. “you know i’m not good with words,” you tell him.
“yeah,” eddie says quietly with a nod and opens the giggles box, “but... but you believe me, right? i feel so stupid asking that, but...”
“no, no, it’s not stupid,” you assure him, “it’s just a lot to take in. you’re still processing, and i can’t imagine what it’s like—what you saw.” you say and shake your head. “god, it’s just horrible...”
“i can hardly believe it happened,” eddie says with a shake of his head, “has my name... gone public yet? the cops after me?” he gives you a look. but you shrug, even though you hate to crush his hopes.
“i have no idea, eddie,” you tell him, “i haven’t been home since, like, eleven am.” he gives you a worried look.
“you should go, then,” he says and you look into his eyes. is he asking you kindly or is he pushing you away? “it’s already late.”
“go home alone? by foot? with a killer on the loose? yeah, no way,” you dismiss his suggestion or whatever it was quickly, “besides, i don’t wanna be anywhere else but with you. and you may not admit it, but you need the support.” you make a point. “you’ll go insane, all cooped up in here with no one to talk to. while dustin and the others are looking for a solution... you need a friend.” you say and turn to look at eddie with a smile.
he gives you a half-sad, half-cheeky smile in return as he eats his giggles. “you wanna hang out with your cult-leader, freak murderer best friend?” he offers teasingly, always trying to make humor out of any situation. you shake your head.
“you’re not a cult leader or a murderer, eddie,” you assure him, “i don’t believe you killed chrissy, especially like that. i don’t believe that at all.”
eddie wanted to express his gratitude before he made that stupid, teasing comment, so he decides that now’s the right moment again. “thank you,” he says, “really. i know how... how all this sounds, and how shit like this can twist people’s minds... you could have thought anything of me and of what’s happened.” there’s a solemn look in his eyes, the eyes that shine in the moonlight of this beautiful night.
“no one could ever convince me you killed someone,” you pat his hand, “i like to think i know you like no one else does,” you say with a smile, “and i know you’d never do something like this,” you say as your eyes connect, “and i’m not the only one that does. wayne, too.”
eddie breathes a deep sigh of relief at that fact, even closes his eyes and leans against the wall behind him with his back. now he’s on his way to being at some sort of peace. “i was worried about him,” he admits, “i even thought the cops might think he did it. later, of course, i didn’t have any time last night, to think about him, or anyone or anything else besides...” you both know besides what, he doesn’t need to say it out loud. you give him a nod.
“come on,” you start to say, “you might have your disagreements with wayne, but he’d never think you a murderer. he knows you just as well as i do, if not better.” you assure. “there are people on your side, okay?” you look into eddie’s eyes again, having leaned a bit closer to him now. eddie just looks back into yours. “one way or another, we’ll figure this out. until then, i’m here with you.”
finally eddie gives you a nod in response. he rubs his thumb over the skin of your hand in that certain way that only says one thing. “thanks, y/n, really,” eddie tells you quietly, earnestness in his eyes and in his voice, “it’s very metal of you.” he says, knowing it will crack you up. eddie doesn't always know how to best communicate his feelings, even if he wants to be straight-forward. so he expresses his feelings how he best knows to. he tries to hide his smile as he says those words, but he cracks once he sees you laugh.
“i do try,” you say between heaved breaths and laughs. very metal indeed.
tags: @d4td7ewmachine
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#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson oneshot#eddie munson one shot#eddie munson imagine#eddie munson fluff#eddie munson fic#eddie munson fanfic#stranger things fic#stranger things fanfic#stranger things oneshot#stranger things imagine#stranger things one shot
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