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#You Guys Aren't Like Me | Non-Despair Verse
bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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@queenxfjustice
Fuyuhiko stared out the window of the car at the pretty average looking high school, reading the sign plate that declared it as “Shuji Academy”. According to his research, his target was the Student Council President here with a reputation for being something of a teacher’s pet, or more specifically, a principal’s pet. The reputation didn’t match the rumors spread through the criminal underworld that had reached Clan ears, but he knew better that reputation didn’t always mean anything.
“Would you like me to accompany you, Young Master?” Peko inquired, sitting stiffly beside him as usual. He really wished she would relax some.
“Would you quit it with that ‘Young Master’ shit?” he grumbled, turning back toward her when she spoke. When she didn’t respond to that, he continued, “Nah, it’s just a regular high school, even if it’s one that tries to act more uppity than it is. Doubt any of the pussies here will have the balls to start anything.” With that, he exited the car and headed up the stairs.
Once inside, he could instantly feel the stares and hear the whispers of the students around him who noticed his presence. He was used to those kinds of things happening around him, so he just brushed them off in favor of finding his target. Sweeping the building for all exits and hiding spots more out of habit than any actual threat, he approached the first person that looked like staff. Luckily for him, the fact his target was Student Council President gave him a convenient excuse for being there. “Hey, you know where I can find the Student Council Room? I’m here as a representative of Hope’s Peak Academy,” he told them. Since he had already changed out of his school uniform into the clothes he usually wore for “the family business”, he flashed his Student ID, enough that they could see the school’s emblem and his picture but too quickly for them to be able to read his name or his talent. No need to put people more on edge than they already were around him.
The teacher or whatever she seemed rather offended by the way he addressed her, but upon hearing he was from Hope’s Peak, she immediately lost any fight she had in her. If she was going to fold that easily to simply a prestigious name, he really couldn’t give two shits about respect. After she gave him directions, he didn’t stay long enough to hear her try to talk up her school or herself in a desperate attempt to raise her social status. He had a job to do and didn’t have time to spend on irrelevant civilians.
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Finding the room easily enough, he only knocked once to announce his presence before entering to several pairs of eyes staring back at him. Oops, seemed he walked in on a meeting of some kind. Well, he also didn’t have time to wait for her to be done.
“I’m looking for Makoto Nijima.”
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Switching Lanes With St. Vincent
By Molly Young
January 22, 2019
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Jacket (men’s), $4,900, pants (men’s), $2,300, by Dior / Men shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Rings (throughout) by Cartier
On a cold recent night in Brooklyn, St. Vincent appeared onstage in a Saint Laurent smoking jacket to much clapping and hooting, gave the crowd a deadpan look, and said, “Without being reductive, I'd like to say that we haven't actually done anything yet.” Pause. “So let's do something.”
She launched into a cover of Lou Reed's “Perfect Day”: an arty torch-song version that made you really wonder whom she was thinking about when she sang it. This was the elusive chanteuse version of St. Vincent, at least 80 percent leg, with slicked-back hair and pale, pale skin. She belted, sipped from a tumbler of tequila (“Oh, Christ on a cracker, that's strong”), executed little feints and pounces, flung the mic cord away from herself like a filthy sock, and spat on the stage a bunch of times. Nine parts Judy Garland, one part GG Allin.
If the Garland-Allin combination suggests that St. Vincent is an acquired taste, she's one that has been acquired by a wide range of fans. The crowd in Brooklyn included young women with Haircuts in pastel fur and guys with beards of widely varying intentionality. There was a woman of at least 90 years and a Hasidic guy in a tall hat, which was too bad for whoever sat behind him. There were models, full nuclear families, and even a solitary frat bro. St. Vincent brings people together.
If you chart the career of Annie Clark, which is St. Vincent's civilian name, you will see what start-up founders and venture capitalists call “hockey-stick growth.” That is, a line that moves steadily in a northeast direction until it hits an “inflection point” and shoots steeply upward. It's called hockey-stick growth because…it looks like a hockey stick.
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Dress, by Balmain
The toe of the stick starts with Marry Me, Clark's debut solo album, which came out a decade ago and established a few things that would become essential St. Vincent traits: her ability to play a zillion instruments (she's credited on the album with everything from dulcimer to vibraphone), her highbrow streak (Shakespeare citations), her goofy streak (“Marry me!” is an Arrested Development bit), and her oceanic library of musical references (Kate Bush, Steve Reich, uh…D'Angelo!). The blade of the stick is her next four albums, one of them a collaboration with David Byrne, all of them confirming her presence as an enigma of indie pop and a guitar genius. The stick of the stick took a non-musical detour in 2016, when Clark was photographed canoodling with (now ex-) girlfriend Cara Delevingne at Taylor Swift's mansion, followed a few months later by pictures of Clark holding hands with Kristen Stewart. That brought her to the realm of mainstream paparazzi-pictures-in-the-Daily-Mail celebrity. Finally, the top of the stick is Masseduction, the 2017 album she co-produced with Jack Antonoff, which revealed St. Vincent to be not only experimental and beguiling but capable of turning out incorrigible bangers.
Masseduction made the case that Clark could be as much a pop star as someone like Sia or Nicki Minaj—a performer whose idiosyncrasies didn't have to be tamped down for mainstream success but could actually be amplified. The artist Bruce Nauman once said he made work that was like “going up the stairs in the dark and either having an extra stair that you didn't expect or not having one that you thought was going to be there.” The idea applies to Masseduction: Into the familiar form of a pop song Clark introduces surprising missteps, unexpected additions and subtractions. The album reached No. 10 on the Billboard 200. The David Bowie comparisons got louder.
This past fall, she released MassEducation (not quite the same title; note the addition of the letter a), which turned a dozen of the tracks into stripped-down piano songs. Although technically off duty after being on tour for nearly all of 2018, Clark has been performing the reduced songs here and there in small venues with her collaborator, the composer and pianist Thomas Bartlett. Whereas the Masseduction tour involved a lot of latex, neon, choreographed sex-robot dance moves, and LED screens, these recent shows have been comparatively austere. When she performed in Brooklyn, the stage was empty, aside from a piano and a side table. There were blue lights, a little piped-in fog for atmosphere, and that was it. It looked like an early-'90s magazine ad for premium liquor: art-directed, yes, but not to the degree that it Pinterested itself.
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Coat, (men’s) $8,475, by Versace / Shoes, by Christian Louboutin / Tights, by Wolford
The performance was similarly informal. Midway through one song, Clark forgot the lyrics and halted. “It takes a different energy to be performing [than] to sit in your sweatpants watching Babylon Berlin,” she said. “Wherever I am, I completely forget the past, and I'm like. ‘This is now.’ And sometimes this means forgetting song lyrics. So, if you will…tell me what the second fucking verse is.”
Clark has only a decade in the public eye behind her, but she's accomplished a good amount of shape-shifting. An openness to the full range of human expression, in fact, is kind of a requirement for being a St. Vincent fan. This is a person who has appeared in the front row at Chanel and also a person who played a gig dressed as a toilet, a person profiled in Vogue and on the cover of Guitar World.
The day before her Brooklyn show, I sat with Clark to find out what it's like to be utterly unstructured, time-wise, after a long stretch of knowing a year in advance that she had to be in, like, Denmark on July 4 and couldn't make plans with friends.
“I've been off tour now for three weeks,” she said. “When I say ‘off,’ I mean I didn't have to travel.”
This doesn't mean she hasn't traveled—she went to L.A. to get in the studio with Sleater-Kinney and also hopped down to Texas, where she grew up—just that she hasn't been contractually obligated to travel. What else did she do on her mini-vacation?
“I had the best weekend last weekend. I woke up and did hot Pilates, and then I got a bunch of new modular synths, and I set 'em up, and I spent ten hours with modular synths. Plugging things in. What happens when I do this? I'm unburdened by a full understanding of what's going on, so I'm very willing to experiment.”
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Coat, by Boss
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Jacket, and coat, by Boss / Necklace, by Cartier
Like a child?
“Exactly. Did you ever get those electronics kits as a kid for like 20 bucks from RadioShack? Where you connect this wire to that one and a light bulb turns on? It's very much like that.”
There's an element of chaos, she said, that makes synth noodling a neat way to stumble on melodies that she might not have consciously assembled. She played with the synths by herself all day. “I don't stop, necessarily,” she said, reflecting on what the idea of “vacation” means to someone for whom “job” and “things I love to do” happen to overlap more or less exactly. “I just get to do other things that are really fun. I'm in control of my time.” She had plans to see a show at the New Museum, read books, play music and see movies alone, always sitting on the aisle so she could make a quick escape if necessary. But she will probably keep working. St. Vincent doesn't have hobbies.
When it manifests in a person, this synergy between life and work is an almost physically perceptible quality, like having brown eyes or one leg or being beautiful. Like beauty, it's a result of luck, and a quality that can invoke total despair in people who aren't themselves allotted it. This isn't to say that Clark's career is a stroke of unearned fortune but that her skills and character and era and influences have collided into a perfect storm of realized talent. And to have talent and realize that talent and then be beloved by thousands for exactly the thing that is most special about you: Is there anything a person could possibly want more? Is this why Annie Clark glows? Or is it because she's super pale? Or was it because there was a sound coming through the window where we sat that sounded thrillingly familiar?
“Is Amy Sedaris running by?” Clark asked, her spine straightening. A man with a boom mic was visible on the sidewalk outside. Another guy in a baseball cap issued instructions to someone beyond the window. Someone said “Action!” and a figure in vampire makeup and a clown wig streaked across the sidewalk. Someone said “Cut!” and Clark zipped over for a look. It was, in fact, Amy Sedaris, her clown wig bobbing in the 44-degree breeze. The mic operator was gagging with laughter. It seemed like a good omen, this sighting, like the New York City version of Groundhog Day: If an Amy Sedaris streaks across your sight line in vampire makeup, spring will arrive early.
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Blazer (men’s) $1,125, by Paul Smith
Another thing Clark does when off tour is absorb all the input that she misses when she's locked into performance mode. On a Monday afternoon, she met artist Lisa Yuskavage at an exhibition of her paintings at the David Zwirner gallery in Chelsea. Yuskavage was part of a mini-boom of figurative painting in the '90s, turning out portraits of Penthouse centerfolds and giant-jugged babes with Rembrandt-esque skill. It made sense that Clark wanted to meet her: Both women make art about the inner lives of female figures, both are sorcerers of technique, both are theatrical but introspective, both have incendiary style. The gallery was a white cube, skylit, with paintings around the perimeter. Yuskavage and Clark wandered through at a pace exclusive to walking tours of cultural spaces, which is to say a few steps every 10 to 15 seconds with pauses between for the proper amount of motionless appreciation.
The paintings were small, all about the size of a human head, and featured a lot of nipples, tufted pudenda, tan lines, majestic asses, and protruding tongues. “I like the idea of possessing something by painting it,” Yuskavage said. “That's the way I understand the world. Like a dog licking something.”
Clark looked at the works with the expression people make when they're meditating. She was wearing elfin boots, black pants, and a shirt with a print that I can only describe as “funky”—“funky” being an adjective that looks good on very few people, St. Vincent being one of them—and sipped from a cup of espresso furnished by a gallery minion. After she finished the drink, there was a moment when she looked blankly at the saucer, unsure what to do with it, and then stuck it in the breast pocket of her funky shirt for the rest of the tour.
A painting called Sweetpuss featured a bubble-butted blonde in beaded panties with nipples so upwardly erect they actually resembled little boners. Yuskavage based the underwear on a pair of real underwear that she'd constructed herself from colored balls and string. “I've got the beaded panties if you ever need 'em,” she said to Clark. “They might fit you. They're tiny.”
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Earrings, by Erickson Beamon
“I'm picturing you going to the Garment District,” Clark said.
“There was a lot of going to the Garment District.”
As they completed their lap around the white cube, Clark interjected with questions—what year was this? were you considering getting into film? how long did these sittings take? what does “mise-en-scène” mean?—but mainly listened. And she is a good listener: an inquisitive head tilter, an encouraging nodder, a non-fidgeter, a maker of eye contact. She found analogues between painting and music. When Yuskavage mourned the death of lead white paint (due to its poisonous qualities, although, as the artist pointed out, “It's not that big a deal to not get lead poisoning; just don't eat the paint”), Clark compared it to recording's transition from tape to digital.
“Back in the day, if you wanted to hear something really reverberant”—she clapped; it reverberated—“you'd have to be in a room like this and record it, or make a reverb chamber,” Clark said. “Now we have digital plug-ins where you can say, ‘Oh, I want the acoustic resonance of the Sistine Chapel.’ Great. Somebody's gone and sampled that and created an algorithm that sounds like you're in the Sistine Chapel.”
Lately, she said, she's been way more into devices that betray their imperfections. That are slightly out of tune, or capable of messing up, or less forgiving of human intervention. “Air moving through a room,” Clark said. “That's what's interesting to me.”
They kept pacing. The paintings on the wall evolved. Conversation turned to what happens when you grow as an artist and people respond by flipping out.
“I always find it interesting when someone wants you to go back to ‘when you were good,’ ” Yuskavage said. “This is why we liked you.”
“I can't think of anybody where I go, ‘What's great about that artist is their consistency, ” Clark said. “Anything that stays the same for too long dies. It fails to capture people's imagination.”
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Coat (mens), $1,150, by Acne Studios
They were identifying a problem with fans, of course, not with themselves. It was an implicit identification, because performers aren't permitted to critique their audiences, and it was definitely the artistic equivalent of a First World problem—an issue that arises only when you're so resplendent with talent that you not only nail something enough to attract adoration but nail it hard enough to get personally bored and move on—but it was still valid. They were talking about the kind of fan who clings to a specific tree when he or she could be roaming through a whole forest. In St. Vincent's case, a forest of prog-rock thickets and jazzy roots and orchestral brambles and mournful-ballad underlayers, all of it sprouting and molting under a prodigious pop canopy. They were talking about the strange phenomenon of people getting mad at you for surprising them. Even if the surprise is great.
Molly Young is a writer living in New York City. She wrote about Donatella Versace in the April 2018 issue of GQ.
A version of this story originally appeared in the February 2019 issue with the title "Switching Lanes With St. Vincent."
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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@from-across-the-stars
Fuyuhiko wished he could say that this was the first time he woke up with a splitting headache in an unknown location, hands bound. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. Luckily, due to his vast experience with this kind of thing, he could instantly tell that whoever was responsible for this either didn’t know who exactly they’d just kidnapped or were complete fucking amateurs. His legs weren’t even bound, and his hands were tied together in the front. In only one place! And it wasn’t even that tight! He hadn’t looked at the knot yet, but he bet it was shit, too.
Despite the pain throbbing in the back of his head, he tried to remember what happened leading up to this. There... was something he was suppose to be doing... something he was suppose to be getting. He was meeting with someone for it too, but...
He couldn’t remember anything else until he heard a pained grunt coming from behind him. “Souda?” he whispered harshly. That’s right, he and Kazuichi were going out to buy supplies for the next class event. They had almost gotten to the shopping district when he was suddenly grabbed and pulled into an alley. He would’ve been able to fight them off easily if he had been alone, but with a gun to his classmate’s head, he hesitated. Before he could recover, his attacker struck and knocked him unconscious. And now, they were both here.
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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First tall person he sees, it’s on sight. He plans on breaking last year’s record.
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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@ultimatexdetectivexsaihara​ | Continued from here
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Shit. Really? Guess the wimpy detective had more balls than he gave him credit for. The black eye had started swelling, though it hadn’t developed much color yet from what he could tell. Or maybe the boy used make-up to cover it up? Fuyuhiko himself had used concealer and foundation quite a few time to mask small injuries.
“Then you’re lucky that black eye was all you got out of that. People can fucking die from muggings, ya know?”
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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“I’ll protect you.” (From Peko~)
@bunnysmultimuse | Soft, Comforting Starters
"Stop. Just.... stop."
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This wasn't what he wanted. It's not that he didn't want her to protect him; he didn't want her to feel she had to. What he wanted more than anything was for them to be equals. They should be protecting each other.
"You don't have to do this shit anymore. I can protect myself just fine. I'm not little kid. You just need to focus on being a normal student." She didn't need the Kuzuryu Clan weighing her down, and she didn't need him. Even if it hurt to distance himself from his best friend, it was the only way either of them would learn to be more independent.
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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Cookie (I doubt Makoto would ever shove a Cookie down someone's throat, but he could offer him one)
@cloveredhope | "Cookie" Meme
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Fuyuhiko stared between the offered chocolate chip cookie and the one offering it. How.... How had Makoto known he had been craving something sweet? No, it was probably just a coincidence, but still... He couldn't just take it; he had an image to uphold! But it had been so long. It was hard to sneak sweets when he lived in the dorm.
"Wh.what... what the hell are you giving that to me for?"
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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“Cookie” - @breakthroughtheconfusion (Chiaki)
@breakthroughtheconfusion | "Cookie" Meme
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Fuyuhiko sputtered at the sudden crumbly intrusion. Having been unexpected, some got too far back, and he had to cough to keep it from choking him. He pulled the offending object from his mouth before it could fall or choke him further. With the sweet taste in his mouth and light brown circle in his hand that could only be a cookie, he turned to the person who tried to kill him with a sweet, only to find his quiet classmate.
"..... What the fuck?
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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“Is the media still following you?”
@cloveredhope | "I know you from the news" Starters
"I don't fuckin' know. They better not be," he replied casually. It wasn't exactly the truth; he had gotten pretty good at telling when people were following or watching him. Being born with a target on your back will do that to a person. He just stopped trying to scare them off every time.
Despite the Kuzuryu Clan being the largest and most feared crime syndicate in Japan, most of the inner workings were unknown to the clean, day world. It would be too easy to get caught if everyone knew everything about them. So, for the longest time, only criminals knew Fuyuhiko was the Clan's heir.
But when he got invited to Hope's Peak as the Ultimate Yakuza and showed up to class, it was more than just his first day of high school. He was also officially making his daylight debut as the Kuzuryu heir. After that first day, on top of the usual media circus that tried to catch a glimpse of any Ultimate, he had more eyes than ever watching him.
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"A well-aimed middle finger and promise to gut them like the fish they are usually dissuades them from further attempts."
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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@from-across-the-stars​ | Continued from here
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“Tch. Fine. I was just told to make sure you hadn’t fallen asleep in here again. What do I care if you starve?” He said that, and if Kazuichi asked him later where the plate of food that showed up on his workbench came from, he’d vehemently deny having anything to do with it.
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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“Oh, this is your notebook? ..Should I not have drawn dicks on the empty pages then?”
@oopsiliedagain | Chaotic Roommates Starters
Visibly shaking, Fuyuhiko grit his teeth as he stared down at page after page cover in phallic images. He was just barely keeping himself from exploding in anger at the other boy; he had been trying to reign himself in since becoming closer with those in his class. Still, he wasn't going to let Kokichi get away with thinking he could just deface someone else's property with no coincidences. Especially his.
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Slipping a knife out of a hidden pocket in his blazer, he growled, "Hey, shitface. Since you like dick's so much, how about a chop your's off and shove it down your throat!"
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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🗡️ +reverse //yes pls scare the shit outta my pink son thank u uwu
@from-across-the-stars | Weapons Meme
Fuyuhiko had been focusing on homework for class in the dormitory's common room when he felt a chill down his back and arms that told him someone was watching him. He didn't look up from his work so as to not alert whoever it was that he was aware of them, but he changed his focus to his surrounding environment to pinpoint their location.
Whoever it was was pretty shit at sneaking around, saying he could hear their footsteps as they tried to tip toe up directly behind him. When he felt the presence of a hand reaching for his shoulder, he whipped around as fast as he could to grab it, pulling a knife from his pocket. Using his momentum to flip them around and hold their arm up to their back, he held the blade up to their neck, close enough so they could feel it but not putting any pressure as to actually cut them yet.
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With adrenaline coursing through his veins and his heartbeat in his ears, it took him to recognize the pink hair and neon green jumpsuit Kazuichi prefer to wear instead of the school uniform. "What the fuck?" he breathed out. "What made you think it would be a good idea to sneak up on me, dumbass?"
He notably had not taken the knife away from his throat yet or release him from the position that allowed him to easily pull the mechanic's arm out of socket.
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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🗡️ (or more likely a game controller that happens to LOOK like a weapon) - @breakthroughtheconfusion (Chiaki)
@breakthroughtheconfusion | Weapon Meme
"Is this suppose to be some kind of joke?"
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He stared at the Ultimate Gamer as she pointed the "gun" that very clearly was connected to an arcade machine of some kind. It was very awkward in her hand, and she was holding it wrong. All that made it very hard to be intimidated by her. Not to mention that the person doing it was Chiaki of all people.
Where did she even get that arcade machine and how did she get it in the classroom? More important, why was it in the classroom?
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bxbygxngstx · 3 years
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@hxpelessnurse​ | Continued from here
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“K-Kuzuryuu-san?” She tilted her head as she looked up from the magazine she’d been reading. “I… I’m always here on m-my free time. No one comes in here and I… I like being here. What are you doing here?”
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Right, he supposed that did make sense. He had completely forgotten that she’s supposed to be the Ultimate Nurse since she’s so clumsy all the time. “Tch. I just came to change some bandages, but... nevermind. It’ll be weird if you’re here.” Even if it’s only his top, it would be wrong to strip in front of a girl, especially one of his classmates.
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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It had been about a week since he had been back to school. After helping the clan deal with.... some terf issue, he ended up getting injured pretty badly. It only took him about a day to recover enough to move around, but his parents wanted him to lay low as well. He doubted anyone would notice his absence much since he tried not to get to friendly with anyone, but he wasn’t looking forward to getting an earful from Yukizome-sensei.
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bxbygxngstx · 2 years
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[ CARRY ] Nagito ( if you want fff ) *rosanimemuses
some angst idk y’all i like crying | @rosanimemuses
[ CARRY ]  for one muse to find the other injured and carry them to safety
Fuyuhiko could barely even see what was in front of him, partly due to the blood dripping down into his eyes and partly due to his throbbing head causing his vision to blur. What... happened? The last thing he could remember... was walking to school. It was something he just recently started doing after getting into yet another argument about being driven to school everyday.
Did he get attacked on his way? It was the only thing he could think of. Fuck, he wasn’t in the mood for a “I told you so” lecture.
Because of his foggy mind messing with his senses, he didn’t register the approaching footsteps or figure immediately. In fact, he didn’t register them at all until he felt himself being lifted. Instantly, his heartrate skyrocketed as he began to panic. He tried to punch and kick at whoever was touching him, but in his weakened state, there wasn’t hardly any force behind them.
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He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to go.
He felt pressure on his wrists, like they were being bound, but it didn’t stop him from being able to retaliate. Whispers in his ears spoke of a gag and tranquilizer, of ransom and revenge. It was all things he’d heard before, but he didn’t realize that was all in his head. 
He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to go.
Get away. Get away. Get away. Get away. Get away. Get away. Get away.
Escape. Escape. Escape. Escape. Escape. Escape. Escape. Escape. Escape.
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