#ie someone she looks up to who is kind of terrifying

[leupagus]

Team Stark, Team Targaryen, Team Black, Team Green, whatever. I'm on Team Let Shireen Have Nice things

x

Sansa's horse's name was Ninny; he had one blue eye and one brown, which Northerners thought was lucky.

"More likely means he's deaf in one ear," Father remarked. Ninny's ears, which seemed to hear well enough, flattened and he nipped at Father's horse. (If it had a name, Father either hadn't asked or didn't want to tell her, since he'd ignored her question when they'd first mounted.)

"I think he feels insulted, Your Grace," Sansa remarked, pulling Ninny's head back around and settling her arms more comfortably around Shireen's waist. She'd been kind to let Shireen ride with her, since most of the Northern horses were needed to carry two or even three soldiers apiece, along with whatever equipment they could drag out of the snows. Mother and Lady Melisandre had chosen to ride two of the surviving Southern horses, but Mother had said there wasn't room on hers for both of them.

So instead of riding in the back of the train, Shireen was next to Father near the front, just behind the beautiful banners that snapped and curled in the breeze. It was still bitterly cold, but Sansa's cloak was warm wrapped round them both and she had even brought a pair of Northern boots for Shireen, with the fur thickly lined on the inside. Only the right side of her face was chilled, tears pricking at her eye. Sansa said they would make camp late tomorrow at this pace; her stormseer had promised them blue skies and clear nights. Shireen had hoped this would make Father — not happy, since she had only rarely seen him so, and never since Uncle Robert had died — but less unhappy.

Instead, it had turned him surly, the sort he only got when he had been frightened about something. He had been like this once when she had gone sailing with Devan in his little skiff and it had capsized, sending them laughing into the calm waters of the western bay. They had managed to swim toward land, pushing the hull of the boat before them, and had found Father and Ser Davos wading out to retrieve them. Davos helped Devan drag the boat in, laughing all the while, but Father had picked her up and carried her to shore, holding her so tightly she could feel her bones creak. "Get to your rooms and change," he'd ordered, all but dropping her to the stony beach, and for the rest of the day had scowled and muttered whenever she'd spoken.

She could not think why he was acting this way now, but she had long since given up trying to coax him out of his sulks the way she could Ser Davos. Instead she asked Sansa more questions — about the Wolfswood, where she and her army had hidden themselves, and about the Goldgrass Coldblood horses that Northerners rode.

"Not just Goldgrasses," said Sansa. "The mountain clans breed and ride their Breakstone Garrons, which are even better than the Coldbloods when it comes to surviving the winters. They're more like goats than horses — they eat like goats, too," she added with a wrinkle to her nose. "The other day, a Garron managed to open Lord Flint's saddlebags and ate his linen smallclothes."

Shireen covered her mouth to hold in her giggle, but Father had dropped behind them to speak with Davos a few lengths behind. "Was Lord Flint very cross?"

"Oh, yes, but you can't throw a horse into the stocks, even if he does eat your underthings."

#spoilers: stannis is surly because he was about two episodes away from murdering his own daughter #and he's having some Feelings about himself as a result #which: GOOD #honestly still cannot believe that anyone thought that character arc was a good idea #anyway I love the idea that sansa is to shireen as margaery was to sansa #ie someone she looks up to who is kind of terrifying #MORE WOMEN RELATIONSHIPS PLEASE #game of thrones motherfuckers #got: bitches get stuff done

[clock-06]

Had a conversation with that same able bodied neurotypical guy from a few months ago except this time one of my girl classmates was part of it.

It started after I left our lab table to go get pain killers and he was like “what’d you just take” and I told him “painkillers” and he asked why and I did a brief explanation of hEDS, ie; so I lack the connective tissue you have so my muscles hold everything together and they get tired and stuff slips, I took those specifically for a rib slipping. And he gave me the typical able bodied look of horror and then the girl in our group is just like “oh yea I took four pain killers this morning” and we high fived and he looked even more terrified. He looked flabbergasted when we talked about our mutual large doses of high strength painkillers it takes to get through the day.

We then go into a conversation about our experiences with pain killers, why we use them, and the shittiest times we have to take them (for her it’s migraines that she gets for an entire week each month where they’re bad enough she vomits) and I’m like oh those absolutely suck I’m sorry they’re that bad and at one point the guy chimes back in with “I can’t remember the last time I had to take pain killers” and we’re both just like :| good for you buddy.

As we keep talking, she reveals that earlier in the month she was in enough pain and delirium that she accidentally got drugged by non-human approved medicine that her mom told her to take (her mom later realized her mistake and apologized profusely). Her dog had gone through surgery and she’d accidentally taken those pain killers for her migraine, and found she was almost physically incapable of moving once it kicked in. She brings up that she thought she was dead once she realized the medicine wasn’t approved and was just laying there unmoving waiting for it. Guy classmate looks like he’s never heard anything worse and is shocked and irked when I sympathize with her.

During this conversation, we bring up the medical malpractice and consistent disbelieving of AFAB patients seeking pain relief. This is something I’m glad to be seeing more stories about online and more awareness being brought to, but it’s a continuing problem in the medical community. And it’s even worse for women or afab individuals of color, as medical students tend to continue to be taught POC are “naturally more resistant to pain” and therefore don’t need pain killers. This, combined with drug abuse stigma, blocks a ton of POC from getting the proper care they need. This problem is only made worse when coupled with commonly misdiagnosed or overlooked chronic illnesses/pain, and it is absolutely disgusting and horrific the amount of people who die or are permanently affected by this kind of malpractice.

TL;DR

Disbelief towards POC and AFAB individuals when it comes to medical situations and pain can and does hurt and kill people. There is a problem with the system which causes many to seek alternative and potentially dangerous treatment/relief, and many people are in enough pain that they will take anything with little question behind what it is they’re taking if it will help them feel better in the moment. Next time someone tells you they’re in pain or you see them take pain killers seemingly out of nowhere, don’t judge them or ask them invasive questions, try to have more empathy and if possible, make things you’re doing easier for them to handle. (Don’t overdo it obviously, but like, maybe get them in a chair with backing instead of a stool if possible or have a place where they could sit when they would otherwise be forced to stand)

#disabled #chronic pain #chronic illness #heds #chronic fatigue #hypermobile eds #self medication #medical malpractice #remember to be kind to others #you don’t always know what they’re going through

[mudinyourshoes]

More thoughts on Novoland! I'm up to ep 9 and:

-Ji Ye winning the martial arts contest was brutal to the point of being hard to watch. Not just physically, but also emotionally. He publicly shamed his dad - I don’t think that was what he was aiming for but it was the result - and in the process made his rawest emotional wounds public. (Btw I’m sure he’s going to pay for doing that to his dad. His family sucks). And then he’s abandoned. Neither his family, nor his fellow soldiers, nor the servants of the king he (theoretically) just won glory for come to help him, even though he’s bleeding and staggering. The people in the stadium don’t cheer his victory; none of them help him either. Only Asule and Yu Ran cheer and only they follow and help him. He’s met Asule and Yu Ran two or three times! Their friendship and their kindness seem to me like pricks of light in an otherwise bleakly dark landscape.

-Yu Ran has a crush on Ji Ye. She could not stop looking at him. Asule definitely noticed her looking and I wonder if he’s clocked the crush or if he’s too young to understand.

-I do not ship Yu Ran and Asule. I’m surprised by this because I expected to ship them and to be heartbroken on Asules’ behalf, but no. I really like them as friends. They should be bff’s but I can see potential and room for romantic growth in Yu Ran and Ji Ye’s relationship and I don’t see it with Yu Ran and Asule. I feel like Asule needs someone who can match him in the “still waters run deep” department.

-The bit where Ji Ye is told that a spear is not like a sword because it can be drawn back but not sheathed?! Ominous, especially when taken with the advice that Asule was given in the first episodes - that the real sheath for his sword was his heart. Yikes for Ji Ye?

-The contrast between the king debating his advisors and ordering, like, 12 people around while trying to control the outcome of the contest and IMMEDIATELY losing control of it vs. Asule quietly interfering twice (once when he stops Ji Ye’s peers from beating him up and once when he orders his sworn brother to lose the fight) and controlling the outcome of the contest without anyone knowing. Also the king was fixated on the outcome of the contest (ie. short term gains) while Asule, in addition to trying to repay a kindness, was thinking about long term relationships and fostering the growth of Ji Ye’s potential.

-The entire display of Asule’s nascent puppeteering abilities makes me rabid at the thought of him being a king one day. No idea if it’ll ever happen, but if it does I will be frothing at the mouth.

-Asule’s confrontation with his uncle - where he does not reveal the orders he gave about the contest, but instead confronts his uncle about “kin slaying”. This. Omg. This is not a conversation about Asule’s sworn brother. This is Asule calling out his uncle for killing Asule’s adopted dad and also - I think - pointing out that if anyone has the right to be kin slaying it’s ASULE. Because I’m pretty sure, based on was he’s said about vengeance killing, that Asule would be within his rights to kill his uncle in vengeance for his dad. Omg wtf. THIS SHOW.

-I ship the soft spoken, peace loving general and the wise but terrifying Lady Su. The minute I realized they had some kind of star crossed lovers thing going on, I became convinced one or both of them were going to end up dead. Now I’m waiting for it the tragedy to unfold.

-Asule has precognition in his dream sometimes?

-Lady Su’s asshole son seems to think he’s about to have more power than the king. So…he’s planning on killing the king? Or doing something related to the Bare Teeth or the Heavenly Samurai that he thinks will give him more power than the king? I hope someone unleashes hell on him. Not even being Lady Su’s son can save him from my ire. Honestly, I’m kind of startled she’s that attached to him because thus far he has zero redeeming qualities and she doesn’t seem like a “love is blind” type.

#novoland eagle flag #the past few episodes have been like: what if we took toxic masculinity personified and pitted him against enlightened #masculinity personified. what then #me: i throw a bucket of soapy water with a little bit of lemon juice mixed in over toxic masculinity personified and he melts like a wizard

[atypicalacademic]

SOLAS I want to cause Drama

why would you do this to me

First impression: Okay so my first time meeting Solas "in-person" (ie not watching my dear friends stream the game), there was something very appealing about the combination of music and his cadence. Like I had that "I did nothing, the credit is yours," stuck in my head for a solid while lol. Pleasing to the ear, would be my first impression. Until it got super, super old. The rest I'll put under a readmore so I wouldn't spoil those who haven't finished DA:I, perchance.

Impression now: I would, unironically, hunt him for sport. For someone so consumed by regret he is pathologically opposed to changing, and for someone who's so terrified of dying alone he's so determined to not see people as people. Sure it's a defence mechanism which makes for great narrative, but by god my Inquisitors shouldn't have to save him. But Narein Cadash is nicer than me so he tries. Ugh. All that aside, I think Solas is bound by what Fen'harel represents. I'm not sure whether it is godhood or self fulfilling prophecy or sheer fucking delusion, but he is bound to deceit itself. It is both his power and his downfall. He deceives his friends and deceives his people and he deceives this world that could have needed him, and a lot of the time he deceives himself. Everything he touches and everything he does turns eventually to a kind of betrayal in a cycle he cannot break on his own and wouldnt let anyone else. I'd almost pity him if I didn't want to hunt him for sport.

Favorite moment: I actually really like the banter of him playing mind-chess with Iron Bull. An inkling of who he might have been in a previous world and a previous life seemed to shine through in those little hints of playfulness. I also absolutely adore the fresco he makes in his room in Skyhold. Genuinely beautiful.

Idea for a Story: I like stories where Solas has to stop himself before he sees to much of personhood in his companions whom he is inevitably going to betray. And not in a romance way, even. Just him laughing at a joke Varric made and suddenly this world is too real and these people have lives and these people are beside him.

Unpopular opinion: I don't think he's so fascinating that he merits being centered in the overarching narrative the way he is. I'd have preferred if his arc was wrapped up in Inquisition. I also don't see him as a revolutionary figure who has the charisma to pull all these elves to his side. The elves of Thedas, I'm sure have or should have their own political formations and their social reformers (hello, Briala?).

Favorite relationship: I would like to study whatever fuckshit he had going on with the Evanuris like a bug.

Favorite headcanon: I hc that he had a wife back in Arlathan, who died in the Fall like so many others. I imagine they did love each other very much, and she was this dreamy, witty, creative woman who shared his love for art and frilly cakes. There must be a portrait of her, somewhere in one of the older ruins, and I like to think whenever he dreams he looks for a lingering trace of her.

#solas critical #jic #swinging WILDLY at the hornets nest

[terezis]

📚

what's that it's atla with a steel chair

so this is a canon divergent au inspired by several fics (it's a p popular premise, i think? off the top of my head there's this one and this one, but i know i've read more) where, when ozai asks his father to make him crown prince instead of iroh, azulon responds by saying either

"you must suffer the pain of losing a first-born," not meaning "kill zuko" but "i'm going to take zuko from you and have iroh adopt him instead"

or

"you must suffer the pain of losing a favored child, ie "azula instead of zuko"

so like, okay. what if both? azulon responds to ozai's disrespect for iroh's grief by giving iroh custody of azula.

SURELY EVERYONE INVOLVED WILL BE HAPPY ABOUT THIS

even better if when the fire lord says this, ozai and azula (who is eavesdropping) both take this to mean "you must kill azula to prove your loyalty." and worse, ozai says "yes."

so etc etc later that night ozai tries to kill azula but she holds him off long enough for help to come, because hello someone is trying to assassinate the princess, and then when the powers that be realize it's prince ozai, well—that is not what the fire lord meant, thank you. so now ozai has both disrespected his fire lord (who thinks ozai would rather kill his daughter than let iroh raise her, if i can't have you no one can, etc) and he's tried to kill the fire princess, the soon to be second in line for the throne...

that's treason, baby!!!

that's not the focus of the fic though, it just gets ozai out of the picture. the focus of the fic would be azula dealing with the fact she had done everything right by her father (as far as she was concerned) and he still tried to kill her anyway. so what does that mean about her relationship with him and others?

and then to make matters worse (in her opinion)—now she's being adopted by her awful fuddy-duddy uncle who would no doubt rather have had lu ten, would have rather had zuko. he abandoned the seige of ba sing se. he gave azula a doll and sent zuko a knife. and now he's her father?

at some point there would also be a conversation with azulon where he's like "look, you may think me a poor grandfather, and maybe i am, but as fire lord do you really think i would let talents such as yours go to waste by killing you, it'd be a detriment to our nation, poor strats in wartime, etc." which like isn't a GREAT way of letting your granddaughter know you didn't want her dead, but this man is an evil imperialist, so, what can you do.

iroh at least winces at this, but azula would take it completely seriously. love is hard for her to wrap her head around, but to azula this explanation is totally reasonable. she thinks about it.

"…father would have squandered that talent," she says. "he would have," azulon agrees. "i believe you will grow up well under crown prince iroh's guidance, and perhaps one day become a great fire lord yourself."

ain't that a terrifying thought!!!

so anyways yeah it'd mostly be about "what would an azula who got raised by iroh look like" but also "uh oh, azula's crown princess now in a completely legitimate way, unless something changes in her that's not great for the world!" kind of au. i think that would be very fun.

#Anonymous #atla #nature vs nurture... #nurture vs other better nurture etc

[boo-moved]

woe! romance asks be upon ye! 1, 14, 16, n 31

THANKYOUUUUUUU

1. What drew your character to their LI and vice versa?

So what drew gale into Komi was their wit and intellect, despite their sharp comments and general meanie attitude- he can see a lot more in them then they let on

Maybe it was a mistake, but seeing them be so genuinely kind to children and people who were forced into fucked up things (IE see them beating the shit out of Kagha and needing to be held back as soon as she threatened Arabella. Or like when Komi was poisoned and rather then killing her- he saw the way they looked at the wyvern poison, he was terrified for them and himself.)

Komi.... Stupid fucking wizard man with pretty brown eyes and is too kind and full of hubris for his own good... Dumbass could never sway them over with his sweet voice and kind words as he makes sure they don't hurt themselves and heal them after battles when they're too stubborn to admit it... Stupid human that does research into dragonborns and getting them scale cream....

Gale was too kind to someone who didn't deem themselves worthy, and he was too full of hubris for them not to want to keep him safe.

14. Is their anything they associate with each other?

Gale associates small reptiles and rats with Komi!! Also stuff like gloves and boots he gets for them <3 Or like dark chocolate ^^

Komi associates books and food with him, as well as purples and soft cloth.

16. Jealous at all?

SDFKLJGHDSFKLJGFH, Komi didn't think they had the capacity to be jealous until Gale. He talked to another sorcerer one time and they felt like he was gonna replace them </3 from there it's just like- not really jealous but still anxious

He learns not to be jealous over Komi, they were a brothel worker, they have done things. Yet they always come back to him and he has no reason to believe they would stop.

31. Share anything you would like about the couple!

Komi has taken three chunks out of Gale in canon. One during the Orin incident, one when he scared them during the first act and they were drugged by the Absolute forces (Minty moment) Then post game when they lose themselves <3 Gale proudly wears these scars too

#asks #Scaleweave #THANKYOUUUUUUUUUUU

[nulfaga]

aahhh!!! ok… 7, 23 for neneldi, 5, 6 for orpheus, 20, 26 for lavinia and 13, 16 for mr darkworth :]

YES THANK YOU. huge brained question choices <33

here's the prompts

for neneldi:

7: Describe them in three words. Now let them describe themself in three words.

i might say "pragmatic; tangled-up; transgressor (not as in 'an outlaw' but etymologically as one who crosses [a border; a norm; etc], a goer-across)".

she'd say, with no hesitation, "speaker neneldi velvassius". post-brotherhood: "neneldi umayra velvassius".

23: Stability or novelty?

i think she thinks she's looking for stability. in fact she's convinced she's doing everything in her power to secure stability and life just keeps throwing weird curveballs. but in practice she keeps putting herself in volatile situations (ditching her family & signing on with the brotherhood; even falling in with lucien, a disruptive element, the rare recruit who was there absolutely against his will; THEN killing a room full of high brotherhood officials to save lucien; THEN deciding to knock on the door of the champion of cyrodiil for a little walking-around money). you can work backwards and understand the reasoning for each step: the hope for familial stability in the arms of the brotherhood; the hope for relational/romantic stability in picking up w/ lucien who is her oldest most consistent friend in her new life; dashing across cyrodiil to save him in order to preserve that long-standing relationship; but due to bad luck and/or poor judgment it keeps backfiring and wrecking her stability. like every time. (the question arises: isn't she just geared for novelty and in denial about it? you know. maybe.)

for orpheus:

5: Speech! Speech! Speech! Speech! Will they give one, and what about?

only among friends, and only to get on somebody's nerves (ie 15-minute ode to a notoriously self-effacing friend who looks like he wants to drown himself in his tankard the entire time). that's orph's main thing is he's on layer 8 of ironic detachment and would die on contact with a drop of sincerity. (martin is sort of terrifying to him for this reason: he mopes sincerely, he loves sincerely, he gets sincerely angry.)

i think even in a """professional""" setting like, idk. making a pitch why he should be allowed onto the elder council. he might do his best and deliver a rousing speech etc but in his mind he'd be convincing himself it's all a great big gag, that's the only way he can begin to approach it.

rare exception to the rule might be like, the blades hold a little memorial service for martin once they're back at the temple and before all hell breaks loose w/ chroniclers wanting the inside scoop and succession disputes and whatnot. i think (after a lot of prodding by his very good friends) he'll get to his feet...kind of removed from himself, hasn't slept in 72 hours, numb etc etc and he'll say something simple and (to his own ear) kind of dim-witted like "you were with us for a while. you had a good voice. we won't hear it again".

6: Who will they take advice from, no matter what it is? Who won’t they take advice from, no matter what it is?

respectively: neneldi and jauffre. he's terrible at setting his personal feelings aside in either direction. he is a big ball of feelings. he'll let his impression of someone be colored 90% by pathos and 10% by authority and after that their fate is sealed. jauffre treated him dismissively in the beginning and so orph isn't disposed to listen to anything he says ever again. neneldi on the other hand...well. that's his sister

for lavinia:

20: What do they like that nobody else does?

she has a variety of niche interests. you might even call some of them unbecoming for the (at one time) archmagister of the mages' guild. copperhart thinks of her as a misunderstood genius and will take any opportunity to enable her (bringing round obscure texts he's found on his travels, esp. treatises on magic practices that are stigmatized or out of use). this is why, by the time of her appointment to the archmage's office, she is a part-time necromancer, the proud owner of a talking sword, and the second-ever known practitioner of [redacted] <- keeping that one to myself in the event i do write this fic

26: Talent or effort?

both. her mother's line is full of naturally powerful mages, but none of them have historically been very ambitious. she's the first in a long time to seek out a formal education instead of teaching herself and/or referring to the family lexicon of useful but unrefined spells. it is in fact the rare combination of talent, effort and a deeply unorthodox approach that got her to archmage.

for the shrimpy wizard (aka mr. p. copperhart darkworth of wayrest!):

13: Name one thing their parents taught them.

copperhart is the son of lord darkworth of wayrest and [redacted], who promptly disappeared again, returning every five or ten years or so just to check in on the strange child she made. she didn't contribute much to his upbringing except to give him his first name, prochorus. on the other hand, lord darkworth—who had no plans for children and was perfectly content to remain a bachelor—became a dedicated father in very short order. as for what he taught his son: everything he possibly could. notably that his father loved him. and not to wear clashing patterns together. copperhart has taken ONE of these lessons to heart.

16: If money wasn’t a limit, what would they wear?

as hinted above money isn't a limit. he's the spoiled little oopy schmoopy apple of his father's eye and he wears whatever horrid and beautiful ensembles he can convince a self-respecting tailor to make. the exception is when he's undercover for spy work and has to tone it down severely. jury's out on what he does with his hair but probably a temporary spell. i don't think he could stomach dyeing it

#THANK you the thoughts r broiling... i remembered at least 4 plot points from the lavinia fic while doing this #orpheus velvassius #neneldi velvassius #p. copperhart darkworth #<- i thought he had a tag already but i guess not! #lavinia #also the legal situation is murky re: is copperhart formally a member of the darkworth house. but he carries the name day to day #if not on paper

[planet4546b]

ok sam is the narrator right. right. u definitely said that somewhere i’m not making that up. imagine me sticking a microphone and obnoxiously large camera in ur face while i ask this: do you have anything to say on sam and jackie’s relationship specifically in the sense of narrator vs person trying to escape the narrative. what does that look like

leans directly into the microphone. no comment

hgkldsahjkgld but no youre right sam IS the narrator and sam and jackies relationship is weird on SOOOOO many levels as a result. what it mostly looks like is a mess that ends up with jax dead and sam even more haunted than she was. lets go.

sam and jackie are parallels in one of the like. most literal senses of the word. like :

both take objectively selfish actions that cause huge amounts of destruction for personal gain (sam leaving her tower, jackie abandoning their universe). both of them justify this as necessary, on different axes (jackie justifies it on a very small and personal scale, sam says she's trying to save the world)

both of them have families that they love deeply, and are deeply motivated by the loss of. similarly, unlike almost anyone else in the story, both sam and jackie are taking actions to try to get their dead family back. jackie will actively acknowledge this and talk about it. sam refuses to acknowledge it even in her own fucking head

both of them are 'outsiders' to this specific universe. sam is a woman out of time, jackie is a person out of place. if you cant guess the pattern by now, they also react to this one in inverse ways - jackie does a lot of going 'wowwwww this shit is crazy lol haha' while sam mostly feels terrified, lonely, and deeply unsettled by seeing the world as it is now

both of them know that the end of the world is coming. and this is where the narrator/person escaping the narrative dynamic comes from: jackie just wants out before the end of the world. sam wants (or tells herself she wants, it's complicated) to save it. their respective roles come entirely from this difference in response. they also completely and utterly trap each other in these roles as a result of their inability to communicate/understand each other

so they already kind of hate each other because they're so similar and HATE seeing in the other what they see in themselves (ie. jackie being open about saving their family when sam is doing the same thing and wont admit it makes sam constantly livid) and then all of that completely comes to a head wrt their position about the apocalypse. they sorta argue for each others positions here, if that makes sense - sam, the narrator, knows that she is doomed but silently wants very, very badly to find a way out, which she is equipped to do AS A NARRATOR but WONT because she thinks shes doomed, while jackie, the character in the story being told, does everything they can to get out while knowing silently that they will never be able to, and makes sam worse as a result. and jackie only realizes that its sam that's the narrator, that it's sam that's the reason they can't get out, like AS sam is about to kill them. it sucks so bad.

the parts of s/n that aren't about grief or various communication breakdowns causing the apocalypse are about responsibility, and thats a LOT of what this mess of a relationship hinges on. jackie completely gives up their responsibility to the world they were in. sam, who has been motivated COMPLETELY by senses of obligation - to the world, to her job, to her family, to eric, the list goes on - sees this and is so fucking resentful of it (why can't SHE give up and go home, why cant SHE stop this stupid quest entirely when they can, it's not fair) that she genuinely and actually cannot allow jackie to live, which is what their final confrontation comes down to. sam kills jackie because she cannot imagine a world where someone (read: sam herself) can give up their responsibility like that and still be forgiven, and this is the EXACT SAME REASON she becomes the narrator at the end of the day. if her and jackie had been able to see eye to eye, if they had tried to understand each other, maybe sam would have realized that she could have been forgiven and would make a different choice at the end, but they can't because theyre the same and they hate each other for it. its so messy. it is so fucking messy

thank you for the DELICIOUS question bc i could literally talk about these two and their fucked up relationship and how it makes sam worse and makes her specifically look terrible for like. days.

#asks #luna #signal to noise #hilariously in almost every previous version of this story these 2 were in a relationship. can you believe it #they really do make me bonkers to think about though. like UGH sam you have SO MANY problems i love youuuuuuuuu #thank you again though muah you like exactly understood the core of their relationship even though i havent talked about jax a ton #like you just Get It. ilu <3

[attiredpan]

So with all the shit going around about what’s gonna happen to Copia during the Summer tour next year, I thought it’d be neat to torture my OC, so here we have the idea of:

What If Jackie got put in the position of Papa?

Some context that I am absolutely gonna butcher in explaining! This is a concept I came up with where it is made known to her that Copia is gonna get deposed at the end of the European Summer Tour and after confronting Sister Imperator, Jackie ends up hammering out a deal with Imperator where he lives and continues working at the Ministry, but she gets put in his position for the time being until they can find a “proper replacement” after she finds that Imperator hasn’t found a successor to Copia yet. And at the final date of the tour, there’s a surprisingly peaceful transfer of power on stage takes place at the end of the final concert through DATHOML.

(Also, this is kind of a lead-in for a ‘Copia War Ark’ idea I’ve had jumbling around in my brain, cause let’s all be honest, that man deserves to go batshit for a bit and go on a revenge ark for what happened to his brother’s all Inigo Montoya Style™️.)

Moving onto the headcanons:

•At first, she fucking hates it. Just fucking hates it cause she’s pissed off and terrified at the same time. Pissed at the Clergy, at Imperator, and any higher-up involved. And she’s terrified at the idea of what could happen now that Copia has been deposed. They killed his brothers the same day he was named frontman, so what’s to say they won’t decide to do the same to him?

•The paperwork part, she’s fine with, it’s the performing part that has her racked. She can’t perform, not like Copia or Terzo or Primo or Secondo did. But, in spite of this, she ends up forcing herself through it. Out of her, the brothers, and Nihil, she might be the most relatable to the crowds, considering she knows the pain they felt when Terzo was dragged out and later killed. And now with Copia as well, along with the fear of him meeting the same fate as his brothers and that helps her along with the whole performing shtick. She ends up bringing a more angry honesty in during her first tour or two, most of it, very obviously, directed heavily at Sister Imperator. And she has no qualms with making such known to anyone and everyone in attendance. Also spills the tea on stuff revolving around the Emeritus Brothers, but that’s more in a good natured and humor full manner. And while she knows that that shit could get her killed when this is over, she does not care whatsoever. And Copia (satan bless his parental figure brain cell self) fucking hates this. The protective fatherly senses are kicked into high gear during the first tour or two. All of his ghouls are there as added security, whether The Clergy or Jackie is aware of it or not, they are there, lurking in the rafters, down in front of the stage in disguise as human security guards, or backstage.

•She’s constantly getting the “she’s just a child” shtick from just about any of the fucking crusty-ass ancient higher-ups. And she honestly couldn’t agree more considering the fact she’s fucking 26. Cause in comparison to the Emeritus Brother, all of whom were in their forties or well over that when they started/probably had the whole thing planned out ahead from the moment they were conceived, she’s just some random 20-something-year-old who until then worked in lighting and pyrotechnics. Their ascensions were planned out over long periods, hers was done in a bit under a month.

•Also nightmares. Vivid fucking night terrors that leave her making the oldest Emeritus Brothers look like newborns. Usually woken up by Crescent, if not her own terror. Crescent ends up coming up with some ways to combat this; IE: meditation, a small bedtime ritual of Jackie letting her remove her paints, lighting a chamomile incense to help them both calm down, etc.

•Very big on the “I’ll give them a fucking reason” in terms of how Nihil was when Copia first took up the role. If Shithead wants an honest reason to say someone’s not worthy of the role of Papa, she’ll gladly fucking give it to him.

•Along with the very welcomed tsunami of advice coming from Copia during all this, she also tries to find some sort of guidance in any of the writings on the role she’s in and that was done by the other three Emeritus brothers. Just anything to help her rationalize what she’s gotten herself into and what she can do to do it in a way that feels fluid and right to her.

•Heavily contemplated necromancy to bring back the dead Emeritus brothers early on, but ends up deciding against it after researching the possible negative effects it could have on them. Tried a couple of times to see if she could get any of them to talk to her through an Ouija board. Usually only asks yes or no questions, being very concise and to the point with whatever she needs to know. Although on occasion, she’ll get a paragraph's worth of an answer, usually coming from Terzo.

•While Imperator would rather she lead a mass/sermon/whatever at the Ministry, Jackie takes it in more of a, per se, social direction. Always letting anyone who wishes to do sermons of their own do so while beaming from across the room like a proud mother. Although it took a couple of weeks before someone actually took her word for it and stepped up.

•If you thought Terzo or Copia were casual, here we see the literal figurehead of the church chilling with a group consisting of ghouls and Siblings of Sin in sweats and a hoodie, with some (kids temp) hot cocoa.

•(based on the idea that the Emeritus Brothers had paintings done of them.) She has said paintings hung up somewhere people commonly walk through/go. Does this as a sort of reminder of her predecessors and always pays respect of some sort whenever she happens to pass them.

•Every morning right at the crack of dawn, she goes down to where the brothers' caskets are kept. Sometimes she ends up talking to them, mostly Terzo, and there are moments where she thinks she sees a small twitch of a proud smile when she mentions that something went well. She usually chalks it up to her eyes deceiving her, but hey, one can dream can’t they?

•Anything she does in terms of outfits she does herself by hand and with her own money. Rather wanting to put the budgets towards things that would help with the Ministry and such. She never found a point in spending what could go to helpful services on indulgence.

•Shifts between a more casual and more professional version of her face paint for Rituals. She also took a small note from Copia, basing it on corvid skulls. The whole paint look has small details to honor the brothers in some small way (basing it on an animal for Copia, the cheek shapes for Terzo, and faded lines over the lips for Primo and Secondo)

Casual

Performing

•Her robes are meant to be more ‘practical’ in the sense that they’re easy to move in, having taken inspiration from the below image and the designs of the robes typically worn by Cardinals as an underlayer with a poncho or cape over top.

While mainly for comfort and maneuverability, it’s also because she cannot control her body temperature at all, so a lot of times when she’s wearing them and it’s during one of those in between bits of songs, she’ll be kinda wrapped up in the vestments like a burrito. Does not wear the mitre, and she does not do hats of any kind whatsoever.

More casual stage outfits (think like the numerous amount of suits Copia has) lean more towards this sort of stuff.(also would like to add: ✨jackets✨)

•If you thought Terzo/Omega or Copia/Aether was something, Jackie and Crescent outdo that tenfold. Do not even get me started on what happens during Ghuleh/Zombie Queen.

•Makes a point to get to know her ghouls personally. Always making sure they’re comfortable with everything and that they’re alright in every possible aspect. She and Crescent are very much the parents of the group.

•And now for the daily dose of projection, here’s her favorite song to do from the current albums;

Opus Eponymous: Stand By Him, Elizabeth, and Ritual.

Infestissumam: Ghuleh/Zombie Queen, Monstrance Clock, and Year Zero

If You Have Ghosts: Waiting For The Night, Crucified, and If You Have Ghosts

Meliora: From The Pinnacle To The Pit, He Is, and Deus In Absentia.

Popestar: Missionary Man, Square Hammer, and I Believe.

Prequelle: Faith, With Image, and See The Light.

Impera: DATHOML, Kaisarion, and Spillways.

Special mentions include Griftwood, Life Eternal, Respite On The Spitalfields, Cirice, Mary On A Cross, Death Knell, and Zenith.

•Album cover is based on this painting of Joan of Arc (Jackie, your French is showing).

Album Name is Libera, Latin for “to free, liberate”. But also with a double meaning, Libera is also “a Roman Catholic responsory that is sung usually at funerals after the Mass and prior to the final prayers for the deceased”

Tiny details would include:

The text on the chest plate being changed to “Sic semper tyrannis”

Two different versions of the album cover, one where the flowers would be Black Clematis to represent rebellion and one where the flowers are Strelitzia to represent freedom

The Emeritus brothers watching from the church behind

•Overall theme of her album is rebellion/freedom. Specifically rebellion against corrupt religious figures and especially freedom from that control they had over you. It’s kind of a mix of what would be happening within the Clergy (ie, Copia’s upcoming uprising against them) and her more personal issues with corrupted religious forces (ie, considering she grew up in what was effectively a cult)

•Near fully instrumental album, starting in that state of control and fear and moving swiftly into the feelings of war/rebellion and later freedom. There’s also a lot of violin. Only song with lyrics is a cover of the partisan version of Bella Ciao set at the end of the album.

•So we know how it looks as though the ghouls are being outfitted for war? Yeah, so that’s kicking into second gear now.

Also, here are her ghouls:

picrew I used

•Takes a more active role in the band, occasionally doing guitar (having been taught by Omega back during Meliora Era when she decided to pick the skill back up) while Crescent, Apollo, or Pluto does the lead vocals on some songs.

•And to top this all off, there’s a good number of times that the thurible gets lit up and she nearly sets herself on fire much to everyone, and I mean everyone’s, disapproval cause she and Mary Goore had a bet that she wouldn’t when the concept was brought up. He now owes her 200 dollars cash. We can also thank Mary for her being able to do the vocals during Mummy Dust and From The Pinnacle To The Pit

#ghost band #repugnant #repugnant/ghost crossover shtick #ghost band oc #Jackie’s Ghouls #Jackie As Papa #oc | jackie creed #papa emeritus iii #papa emeritus i #papa emeritus ii #papa emeritus iv #mary goore #sister imperator #papa nihil #gonna be adding onto this later when I get more stuff done

[dilatorywriting]

How to Survive a Shovel Talk

Pairings: Malleus Draconia/Fem!Reader; A Bit of Reader/Everyone; Azul Ashengrotto/OC Word Count: 9k Rating: Mostly SFW (some NSFW humor towards the end - ie. includes some literal kink shaming, so...)

Summary: It's not your fault that your best friend is hopelessly, obliviously, in love with Azul Ashengrotto. But a horrible pair of moray eels are going to make it your problem. 

A/N: A commission for a friend of mine! Pure, unadulterated, insanity

.

“No.”

“Awwww,” Floyd whined. “I know she’s your best friend and all, but what’s a little gossip between other friends, hah?”

You gawked. “You asked what her weaknesses are. Like a stupid video game character, or—or—”

Floyd threw a too-long-arm across your shoulders. “But we’re all friends here, yeah? And she hasn’t been around as long as you have, Shrimpy! At least, with like, y’know,” he pressed down a bit too firmly, “a ‘corporal form’ or whatever. So sometimes you gotta’ reach outward to ask for someone’s bits and bobs. It’s just kidding around stuff, anyways!”

You twitched. Because, yeah, maybe—maybe—joking around about someone’s metaphorical Achille’s Heel could be gentle banter between friends. Maybe. But this was Floyd, so it was clearly a stick up. Or an attempt to destroy you all. Or something. 

“No,” you repeated, firm, and wriggled your way out from under his stupidly strong grip.

“Wahhh, you’re no fun,” he pouted.

“I don’t want to be your kind of fun,” you snipped. Other students were starting to crowd the hallways, and at one point you might have thought that allotted you some kind of safety. But no. Not at this stupid school, with its stupid lack of morality and building codes. And especially not with Floyd of all people shadowing you. Even the foulest faces turned tail when they caught sight of his pointed grin.

And then, just around the corner there was a familiar flash of crimson.

The Heartslabyul Housewarden lifted a hand like he meant to wave to you, but you saw the exact moment he realized just who exactly who was hanging off your back like a literal leech. He froze, fingers half-uncurled, and you saw the panic in is silver eyes. ‘Don’t you dare,’ that look said. ‘I’m so sorry,’ you mouthed before taking a deep breath.

“Wow, would you look at that! Heya, Riddle!”

Riddle immediately went as red as his hair, but Floyd took the bait. The eel-man cooed and clapped his hands together excitedly.

“If it isn’t my long-lost Goldfish!”

“DON’T YOU TOUCH ME!” Riddle roared, already half-spun around as he tried to make a hasty retreat into the depths of the hallway.

“But, Goldy!” Floyd bemoaned, lips spread eerily wide in his trademark leer. “Wahh, if you won’t come over here, I’ll just have to come get you!”

“NO!”

With that, the shark-toothed student bounded along down the hall—prancing through terrified students as Moses had once parted the Red Sea. You crossed yourself, just for good measure, and silently sent Riddle your well wishes. You would have to bribe Trey into making him a dozen apology tarts. You already owed the Vice Housewarden so many favors, but he never seemed too bothered when you came knocking at his door. You would bring him the ingredients of course, and maybe a nice, new, toothbrush set or two. Maybe offer to make him some of those candied violets he loved so much—There was a boom-boom-crash somewhere in the distance, and Riddle’s enraged scream echoed through the halls. You mentally began tallying up the cost for two dozen tarts.

.

.

.

The next time you ran into Floyd, Jade was with him.

Which, of course, was not in itself entirely unusual. The wicked, predatory, grin pinching the former’s cheeks was also nothing out of the ordinary—especially around lunch time. There was a vicious sort of gleam in the eel’s mismatched eyes that set your hackles on edge, and you narrowed your own eyes at the pair suspiciously.

“What do you want?” Grim garbled through a mouth full of tuna casserole.

The pair slid neatly into a set of vacant seats on the opposite side of the cafeteria table.

“Can’t a guy just want to say ‘hiya’ to his favorite Shrimpy in the whole wide world?” Floyd beamed. He slouched forward so he could comfortably prop himself up on one elbow. “Besides, it’s got to be a bit lonely without your little ghosty around to haunt you, huh?”

“She’s taking her lunch in the Mostro Lounge,” you said matter-of-factly. Caterina had excitedly bobbed about all morning, rambling about introducing Azul to the Southern Wonders of fritters, and gravy, and deep-fried butter. ‘It’s about the culture!’ the brunette had declared proudly as she busily stuffed her tote bag with jugs of frying oil. ‘It’s about the pancreatitis,’ you had grumped silently.

“Ahh, we know, we know,” Floyd trilled. “Our great leader kicked us out into the cold, harsh, world all on our own. He’s lucky we like her so much, otherwise a guy might start to get a bit resentful, y’know?”

Jade hummed in affirmation, and took a dainty bite of his risotto.

“It must be nice to have such a lovely confidante,” the more composed twin mused, shooting you one of his patented softly twisting smirks. “You must tell each other everything.”

You poked at your own plate of half-eaten spaghetti—partly to keep your hands busy, but mostly to make sure you had a fork in hand in case you needed to stab one of them in the eye to make a hasty escape.   

Grim snorted. “They never shut up, is what they do. You freaks, and your stupid Octo-boss, and his—”

You pushed him off the table and he fell to the floor with a yowl.

“Hey!” Grim whined at the same moment Jade’s smirk curled into something menacing, and you knew you’d already lost.

“She talks about Azul then?” the eel beamed.

You stabbed at your spaghetti harder.

“No answer can be an answer too,” he continued, leaning forward across the table with that same, frozen, smile. His pointed teeth snapped just a bit too close to the skin on your cheek when he spoke. “Would you mind slaking my curiosity about a few things? Purely business of course. We have to look out for Azul’s best interest after all.”

You were going to have to stab him. You were going to have to throw your cold pasta in his newly stabbed face and run faster than you’d ever run before. And then they’d still catch you, because they were fast, and tall, and terrifying and you were short, and stout, and utterly magicless in a world saturated with the stuff. So, no. You should probably keep the fork to stab yourself with. It wouldn’t be a clean death, let alone an honorable one, but—

You were yanked up and out of your seat before you could even think to scream.

“Oi, herbivore, where’s the stupid food you promised me?”

The whiplash almost sent your head spinning right off your neck and straight to the floor. But the hand gripping your arm was not pale and too-slick. It was tanned, and familiar, and wrapped in strands of colorful beads and leathers. You could see Floyd’s grumpy pout in your periphery as you were bodily dragged out of the lunchroom—your abductor loudly complaining about morons and starvation the whole while.

The double doors shut behind you both with a resounding thud and Leona released his death grip on your wrist.

“Jeesh, take a breath, idiot. You look like you’re gonna’ vomit.”

“I think I might,” you slurred.

The lion went pale and took a few hurried steps backwards. “Aim that shit at me, and you die.”

You swayed a few too many times and decided that leaning against the wall would not be too demeaning all things considered.

After taking a moment to slow your breathing and let your mind chew over the last few minutes, you finally had enough wherewithal to look back over at your savior. The grumbly beastman had taken up residence against the wall opposite, seated comfortably on the carpeted floor and tail swishing at his side.

“What the fuck was that?” he snipped. “What’d you do to piss off the Octopunk?”

“Nothing. I mean—Nothing I can think of. Lately. Just. I think…” Your brow furrowed, before your eyes widened and you muttered softly to yourself, “I think they’re shovel talking me. By proxy.”

Leona with his stupid fluffy cat ears and stupid cat hearing that could probably pick up your whispers if you were another hallway over, just nodded—clearly bored—but comprehending. “Ah. The other idiot.”

Your head snapped up and you fought the urge to point at him in accusation. “You knew too?!”

He scoffed. “It’s not like the Octopunk is fucking subtle. Everyone knows.”

“Everyone but Caterina apparently,” you grumbled, burying your head back in your hands. “Oh my god. Are they going to keep this up until she realizes? Because I cannot do this forever, and sooner or later they’re going to just give up and eat me—”

“Relax, herbivore,” Leona cut in with a yawn. “You’ll be fine. You normally have more than enough meat shields lurking around to throw at them. Maybe you’ll even give the freaks food poisoning,” he snickered. “But speaking of, where are tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum?” the big-cat grumped. “Normally all you idiots are fucking connected at the hip. I don’t want to have to do this shit again because those idiots wandered off into a ditch or something.”

“We were making hair dye potions with Crewel this morning,” you mumbled. “And when Deuce wasn’t looking, Ace dyed his hair red, so Deuce dyed Ace’s hair blue, and then they blew up the lab.” You could see Leona’s lip twitching like he was about to start howling obscenities to the wind. “So they had to stay after to scrub the floors.”

“Fucking idiots.”

“I know.”

“That includes you.”

“I know.”

You both sat in silence for another few minutes before Leona stood with a long, lithe, stretch.

“Whatever. They’re not going to actually kill you or anything, so get over it.”

Oh, if only you could be so optimistic. And besides, there were worse things than death. Psychological torture was surely only one bullet point on Jade’s extensive list of misery.

“Besides,” he continued with a drawl, “as much as I hate him, I doubt that fucking horned bastard would let them get away with anything.”

You tilted your head, confused. That certainly seemed to have come out of left field. “Why would Malleus care about that?”

Leona rolled his eyes so far up into his skull that you were almost worried he was about to have a stroke and collapse to the floor. He sighed, clearly long-suffering and far-too-put-upon. “Whatever. You’re all fucking idiots.”

He turned and walked away with a dramatic flick of his tail.

“Thank you!” you hurriedly called after him. He lifted a hand to wave you off, unbothered. “And I didn’t actually forget that chicken dish you asked about! I was just going to bring it to you later when I knew you’d be skipping class!”

Another over-the-shoulder-wave, this one perhaps a smidge less exasperated. “Whatever, herbivore.”

.

.

.

 “How was lunch?” you asked.

Caterina had positively floated back into Ramshackle that night. Because of course lunch had turned into afternoon tea and studying, which had turned into dinner, then dessert, and coffee, and late-night snacks—and it was just easier to ask about lunch at that point.

“He loved everything!” the brunette gushed. “And the Lounge cooks are the best, and they made everything taste so good. It was amazing! And I always feel so bad,” she rambled, “because Azul never lets me pay for anything when I’m there, but at the same time, it’s his business? So I feel bad taking advantage of his hospitality like that. But also I don’t want to shove money at him either, because that also feels rude, you know? And I like him a lot, so I don’t want to ruin anything, so I’m just being very cautious, but also myself. If that makes sense. And besides, if books taught me anything, it’s that I should be really careful to be genuine around people like him, you know?”

You did not know.

You weren’t sure you wanted to know. So you just nodded along as Caterina talked about barbecue rubs, and note-taking, and the board game they played once they’d finished putting together dozens of lists of bullet points.

It was past midnight by the time she’d started to wind down. At this point, the brunette was more or less repeating the same beats, fawning over the same highs, for a third or fourth, or fifth time, so you felt it was finally safe to interject a bit. 

“So,” you hummed, breaking off the corner of a tortilla chip between your teeth, “Azul is amazing.”

Caterina beamed, all warm and pink, and you took a silent moment to question each and every person who had ever thought to call your friend ‘emotionless’ or ‘stone faced.’ Because the heat coming off the brunette’s cheeks could have melted the icecaps, and her smile was almost so sappy it verged on nauseating to look at. You wanted simultaneously to coax that happiness like a small flame—watching it grow into a roaring bonfire of ridiculous infatuation and joy—but also maybe instead throw her out the window and leave her to pine out on Ramshackle’s crusty ass lawn. Because ew. Emotions.

“What do you think of Floyd and Jade?” you asked instead.

Caterina swallowed her own mouthful of chip chunks and tapped her chin, looking thoughtful. “They’re pretty nice. Or, well. They’re weird, but they’re nice to me at least.”

You waited.

Caterina reached for the bowl of chips.

You waited some more.

Caterina starting meandering over to the fridge to fish around for a soda.

“And…?” you pressed.

“And what?” Caterina repeated, looking perplexed. “They’re pleasant, but creepy. They’re Azul’s friends, and they’re nice to me when I visit the Lounge. What else is there to say?”

You thought of the fork from lunch, still tucked away in a pocket of your backpack because you’d been too embarrassed to return it after bolting from the cafeteria. You thought of twisting grins on mouths full of shark’s teeth, and of that whole ‘scenting blood on the water’ expression that you’d never really thought would be very applicable to your life as long as you stayed in the boat. Then you thought of pink-cheeked smiles and tote bags stuffed full of frying oil.

You sighed and waved your hand. “Nothing. Forget it. What kind of barbecue rub did you say the cook used again?”

“Oh you’ll never believe it,” she immediately starting gushing all over again, “it tasted just like Sonny’s somehow! Which is crazy because I know I described it to him a couple times, but still!—"

As Caterina happily planned out her future lunch dates, you began to plan for funeral expenses. Because by now you owed Trey so much money for all the sympathy tarts he’d had to bake for Riddle that you weren’t really sure you were even going to be able to even afford a coffin at this point.

.

.

.

The third time Floyd and Jade slithered out from the shadows, Ace and Deuce were with you.

“Good morning, Shrimpy!” Floyd beamed, moving to toss a gangly arm across your shoulders. “Your friend is quite the catch, yeah?”

You looked to your companions for help, but they too appeared to have been paralyzed in terror.

Meat shields indeed. You were going to beat Leona with his own tail.

“Is she in good health?” Jade popped in, leaning far too close and smiling far too wide. “No recent brushes with mortality?” He paused, looking amused. “Except for the obvious, of course.”

You gulped.

“Uhm… She’s… fine.”

Jade nodded sagely. “Good, good. That’s good.”

“Of course it’s good!” Floyd grinned, rocking back on his heels and nearly sending you toppling over in the process. “But we gotta’ make sure everything’s in tip top shape, yeah? You get that right?”

Your head spun.

“Uh—”

“Any allergies?” Jade piped in. “Any reactions to medications? Any history of exposure to rabid animals?”

“Uh—”

“You guys are freaking creeps!” Deuce squawked, seeming to finally shake himself out of his panic induced stasis. “You can’t just go around asking for someone’s medical history like that! Think of the confidentiality agreements you’re breaking!”

You wanted to die. “Dude. That’s not the point—”

“Yeah!” Ace shouted, also taking this glorious moment to surge forward. “Why do you sound like the bad guys in a comic movie trying to figure out the hero’s weaknesses?!”

Silence.

You gulped.

The pair of vicious, carnivorous, eels stared on with matching smiles—teeth too white, too sharp, and too, too, close.

Ace and Deuce withered where they stood, flaming confidence seemingly sapped out of them in one go.

After a moment, Jade sighed and his frigid grin melted back into his usual, self-satisfied, smirk. “Well, looks like you’ve caught us out.”

“Awww, you’re never any fun, Shrimpy!” Floyd bemoaned, squishing you so hard against his side, you were a bit worried you might just pop. He grinned down at you and winked. “But you’ll still tell us, yeah?”

You weren’t sure if your tongue was working anymore, so your just shook her head slowly back and forth.

Floyd sighed dramatically. “Wahhh, all you land dwellers are so stupidly loyal. Don’t get me wrong! It’s kinda nice, but right now it’s just frustrating.”

He released his death grip on your shoulders and you spiraled downwards into an inelegant pile in the dirt.

“Apologies for the inconvenience,” Jade smiled. “We’ll be seeing you.”

“Yeah! See you tomorrow, Shrimpy!” Floyd waved, flouncing off merrily alongside his brother. It was like watching a pair of devils returning to Hell after a brief vacation topside.

The trio stared after their antagonists’ retreating forms for far too long. One bell rang, then another. The sun rose high in the sky, too warm and too bright. Finally, you sat up. You pawed uselessly at the patched knees on Deuce’s uniform.

“I feel like we just outpaced the grim reaper.”

He nodded mutely in agreement.

“You should have dropped a cauldron on them,” Ace muttered, still looking far too pale.

Deuce immediately bristled. “Well excuse me for not acting more appropriately while you were over there practically pissing yourself!”

And ah, the color in Ace’s face came back real quick when he lunged at Deuce with a battle cry.

“Hey!” Caterina called, bounding over with a stack of notebooks. She trotted up to the rumbling duo. “What’s going on with them this time?”

You just shook your head. There were no words to politely describe the horrors which you all had just survived. At least, not in any sort of polite way that wouldn’t also indirectly insult a certain octopus mafioso.

Caterina shrugged. “Alright then. I didn’t see you in class. Anything wrong?”

“I just had a religious experience,” you said. A demonic encounter—just short of possession.

Caterina’s brow shot up. “You definitely look shaken.”

“To my core.”

Another shrug. “Good for you I guess. Anyway, I wanted to ask if you all wanted to come to lunch at the Lounge with me! We’re taste testing a bunch of new barbecue recipes, and the more mouths the better.”

Ace and Deuce froze, like a pair of scuffling cats who’d just had a bucket of ice water upended on them. The duo shot to their feet faster than you had ever seen either of them move.

“Thanks! But—”

“—we both have to—to—uh—”

“—go back to the dorm, and—”

“—ah, paint!—”

“—the roses!—”

“—yeah! The roses!—"

“See you!” “Bye!”

They shot off in a cloud of dust and betrayal, and Caterina stared after them with a furrowed brow. Her lips pulled downwards into a consternated frown.

“You know,” she mumbled, “if I didn’t know any better, I’d say they were actually scared of going to the Octavinelle dorms.”

You collapsed back into the dirt with a groan.

.

.

.

You always looked forward to your late nights with the Gargoyle Studies Club. Could it actually be called a club if it was only two people? Whatever. You weren’t normally a fan of the dark (read: total wuss who would use a nightlight until the day you died), but with your tall, horned, friend walking at your side, you felt like the darkness was your bitch, rather than the other way around.

But tonight, the normally entrancing architecture was nothing but another shadowed nook hiding who-knew-what. Every snarling, stone, façade just made you think of other snarling faces—of those jagged teeth and smiles, and horribly strange motives that you couldn’t really parse out.

To the left of you, a shadow stretched and grew. Something was in there, hiding, just waiting to jump out and grab her, and—

You squeaked, fingers clutching at your sleeves.

A raven shuffled forward from the darkness, readjusting its wings before settling back in to roost.

You huffed and burrowed further into your jacket with a shiver. This was pathetic. You couldn’t live the rest of your life like this. You were going to have to go to Professor Crewel and ask if he knew of a magical equivalent of Prozac. Or horse tranquilizers.

“Are you cold, Child of Man?”

You looked over at Malleus, feeling guilty. This club meant so much to him, and here you were probably ignoring everything he was saying because you were so caught up in your own head. The dark Fae had his arm held out awkwardly in your direction and immediately you felt more guilty.

“You can walk with me, if you’d like,” he said. “I’m not the warmest creature, but…”

You hurriedly waved him off. “No, no, no! It’s alright! You don’t have to trouble yourself! I’m not cold, just… uhm… distracted.”

He nodded, looking solemn, and slowly lowered his arm back to his side. “What has your mind so tangled this evening then, if I may ask?”

“I don’t want to bother you…” you mumbled. “It’s kind of stupid.”

He smiled that awkwardly small and stiff smile of his that made your stomach do stupid things. “It’s no trouble, I assure you. No matter how insignificant you may think this problem is, if it’s bothering you, it is something worth addressing.”

You nodded, grateful. Right. Of course. He wouldn’t have offered to help if he hadn’t meant it.

“I’m worried that I’m going to be killed and eaten if I don’t spill my best friend’s deepest, darkest, secrets.”

Malleus almost tripped over his own feet.

“What?”

“I… Uhm… I’m worried that I’m going to be killed and eaten if I don’t—”

He waved you off, looking more frazzled than you’d ever seen him. “No, I heard that part. I just… Give me a moment.”

You waited patiently, fighting not to fidget in the silence.

After a moment, Malleus lifted his head, looking gravely serious.

“You believe your life to be in danger?”

“I—Well. A bit.”

“And that you will be killed and eaten?”

“Uhm… Maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration,” you mumbled. It did sound ridiculous when someone else was saying it out loud. “But, well… yes.”

“I’m going to send Sebek to guard you while I look into this,” he said firmly.

“Sebek…?” You repeated, feeling a sudden chill crawling up your spine. The green haired fae had never seemed to like you much. You’d only really interacted him once—during the whole incident surrounding Savanaclaw’s shadiness and the Spelldrive. After that, you’d only really made eye-contact with him from across hallways, or from different corners of the court gardens. Despite saying maybe three sentences to the dude in total, it seemed like each time you both ran into each other he was angrier. Like you’d spit in his cheerios and then dumped the bowl on his head. Oh god. How many people on this campus hated you? Was it everyone? It felt like everyone. How many super powered, magic wielding, demon people wanted your head on a spike? You were probably better off just running off into the woods with a potato sack filled with dried bread to ration and never coming back—

“—Do you understand?”

You blinked. Oh no. You’d been ignoring him. Again.

“Uhm. Yes?”

The fae nodded, stern, and turned back to the stone path. “Good. I’ll get this figured out. I promise you.”

You nodded again, not really having the heart to object.

.

.

.

“How was your date?” Caterina crooned around a spoonful of chocolate tart.

“How’s your octopus boyfriend?” you shot back, toeing off your boots.

Caterina turned back to her tart with a grumble and red cheeks.

.

.

.

Sebek showed up the next morning bright and early, looking as annoyingly constipated as always.

“I am here on the orders of my young master!” he boomed. Loudly. Directly over your head. At the ass end of 8AM. 

Caterina looked up from her place sprawled on the couch. First, her glower fell on the vibrating, emerald, monstrosity standing in their living room, then to her flustered friend.

“Will you be here every morning?” the brunette asked.

“For as long as my young master wishes it!”

You swore you could see the windowpanes rattle when he spoke.

Caterina nodded and took a long, long, drag from her coffee. She turned towards you with a smile that promised all kinds of heinous things.

“I’m going to kill your dumbass dragon,” she said, perfectly chipper.

Sebek gasped and immediately began to rattle off every righteously indignant retaliation in his repertoire. There was lots of arm waving, and stomping, and the commotion even had Grim rolling down the stairs a full hour before his usual wakeup call.

“Look at that,” you sighed, taking a sip from your own mug as Sebek continued to screech. “You broke him.”

Caterina scoffed. “Yeah, I wish.”

.

.

.

The next time the twins appeared, there was an actual meat shield standing in the way. A very pointy, very green, meat shield.

“Did you make a new friend, Shrimpy?” Floyd drawled, looking a bit too feral. “Hello again, Little Crocodile.”

“We are acquaintances, by order of my young Lord Malleus!” Sebek thundered, clasping his hands firmly behind his back.

Jade looked entertained in the way that one may look upon a feral animal with some degree of amusement. His mismatched eyes scanned Sebek from top to bottom, and you shuddered on the fae’s behalf. The green haired man stood firm—unbothered by the optical filleting or unaware, you could not tell.

“Well then,” the eel hummed, “we won’t keep you long. Have you thought on our inquiry, Miss Shrimp?”

Oh, so it was Miss Shrimp now, was it?

You puffed up, a bit more emboldened knowing that if one of them tried to bite you, Sebek would at least stand in the way. And Sebek looked like he would be very hard to chew. “The answer is no.”

“No you haven’t thought about it?” Jade asked, a bit too patronizingly. “Or ‘no,’ you still refuse to cooperate?”

“No,” you repeated, firm. “Besides, Caterina doesn’t have any weaknesses.”

Jade’s brow shot upwards. “No? Hmm… That’s interesting.”

And with that, the twins slithered back off from whence they came. Sebek stared after them with cold eyes and a squared jaw, and for a moment he reminded you a bit of a Doberman. Maybe you could forgive his early morning wakeup calls. At least a little. Leona always seemed to rib the guardian of Diasomnia—jabbing cruelly at his hair cut, his emotional intelligence or lack thereof, the very obvious stick wedged up his ass… But maybe Leona’s harsh words had been just words after all. Maybe Sebek wasn’t so bad.

“I think,” the fae said, slow as molasses and just as awkwardly sticky, “that they may have been coming on to you, miss.”

You dropped your head into your hands.

“Let’s just go to class.”

.

.

.

“What did you mean earlier when you said that Caterina has no weaknesses?”

Deuce shot a whole foot in the air and Ace squealed at a pitch fit to shatter glass.

“You can’t—You can’t just do that!” the pair squawked. “Don’t just pop out of nowhere like some kind of freaky ghost!”

Jade smiled. He was flying solo this time around, which somehow made things even more unsettling. Because yes, while Floyd was openly a few fries short of a Happy Meal, Jade hid his crazy. He’d tucked it away behind a perfectly manicured persona constructed with good hygiene and the occasional ‘yes, my lord.’ Outright insanity was one thing, but controlled crazy? The kind of coocoo that you could dole out in specified increments depending on the situation? Now that was terrifying.

You took a shaky bite of your sandwich, silently cursing Caterina for being off on yet another luncheon rendezvous and leaving you to the wolves—er—well, moray eels.

“It means what I said,” you grumped, fighting back the tremor in your voice. “We’re not like you all. It’s not like we’re weak to one elemental magic over another, or like there are ways to dampen our abilities because there aren’t any abilities.” Another bite. “So ergo, no weaknesses. Not how you mean, anyways.”

Jade nodded, looking pensive.

“So there are other things then?” he surmised with a smile.

You narrowed your eyes.

“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to say,” you frowned, “But whatever it is, I’m not going to say it. It’s Caterina’s business, not yours.”

“Of course,” the eel smiled, teeth poking out from under his lip. “If you’ll excuse me.”

And, just as all those times before, the slippery bastard darted from the room as quickly as he’d come. Sebek glared after him with dark eyes. You could see something going on there—some thought or other bouncing around in his skull that he just couldn’t quite make stick. It was sort of like watching a toddler trying to stick the cube into the triangle hole of those wooden block puzzles.

“What is with that guy lately?” Deuce hissed, stabbing angrily into his eggs. “Why won’t he just leave us alone?”

Sebek straightened in his seat, and you could practically see the numbers flying around behind his eyes.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Ace grumped, licking some of the leftover gravy off his fingers. Deuce made a face. “He’s doing that Ashengrotto bastard’s dirty work.”

Deuce turned to you, as if seeking confirmation. You shrugged.

“Maybe. It’s all a bit muddled to me.”

“I see…”

Sebek slammed his hands down against the table and Ace fell face first to the floor.

“Dude!”

“So that’s it!” the fae boomed—green eyes wide and wild. “It all makes sense now! No wonder my young master was so concerned!”

You winced. Uh oh.

“Sebek, I’m not sure what you think you realized, but maybe you should tell us what it is before you do anything rash—"

“I need to report this to Lord Malleus right away!” he spluttered, and was off in a flash.

The trio watched him disappear around the corner, practically skidding into a wall in his rush.

“Why was even here anyways?” Ace asked.

“To make sure I didn’t get dismembered and eaten,” you sighed.

Deuce gaped, horrified, but Ace just started laughing.

“Well. That sucks.”

You nodded in agreement.

.

.

.

Maybe you were a bit too sleepy from eating such a large lunch to pay much attention, maybe it was because Sebek had startled you awake far before you were ready to join the living, so something as simple as recon was lost on you. Or maybe it was just bad luck. But the second you stepped out into the hallway—alone, stupidly, moronically, alone—you felt two sets of hands snag your arms and drag you off into the shadows.

Standing at the precipice of death so many times in so few days was starting to make you a bit numb. Not quite sedate enough to not be terrified, but muted enough that you weren’t putting a hole through the carpet with your vibrating.

A set of identical grins shone down at you from the gloom.

“Hello again, Shrimpy!”

You sighed. This was such a pathetic way to die.

“Hello, Floyd. Hello, Jade.”

The latter inclined his politely. “Good to see you again.”

Your head fell back against the wall with a thunk.

“What could you possibly want now? I told you. I don’t know whatever it is you’re asking.”

“Oh,” Jade hummed, “I think you do.”

“Neh, neh. Tell me, Shrimpy.” There was that smile again—bright, and pointed, and hungry. “We’ve been so nice, haven’t we? And what we want to know? It’s in everyone’s best interest, isn’t it?”

“So—” Jade wedged a finger underneath your chin and craned your head back, and back, and back until you were forced to lock gazes with his left eye. “I’m going to ask one more time, hmm? And you’re going to tell us.”

Your mind blanked. Not in the way you’d become familiar with—the rush of fogginess that accompanied fear and adrenaline. No. This was a full blackout. Like someone had gone in and pulled out whatever plugs and circuits you had going on up there. All that there was, was Jade. His voice, his crooked grin, and his horrid, glowing, golden, eye.

The eel smirked, sickly pale iris flashing as he asked—

“Now. Tell me—What would bring your darling friend to her knees?”

“Azul in that blue suit that’s too tight around the ass and crotch. She talked about it for ages”

Mismatched eyes widened in shock and you rushed to clamp a hand over your mouth in mortification. Floyd made a sound like he was about to start choking.

“What did you just say?” Jade gawked, jaw falling open.

“She thinks his ass is to die for,” your said through your fingers, like some kind of goddamn traitor. “She has a mafia fetish and she wants to boink your boss on his work desk so bad.”

That was it. You deserved death. Dismemberment. To be eaten alive by these goddamn eels and their stupid pointy teeth. You’d broken the bro code, the sacred bond between sisters from other misters. All those late nights drinking spiked cocoa and giggling over, uh, assets—and this was the outcome? This betrayal? No! You would not stand for it!

“You might as well get rid of me now,” you spluttered, horrified. “Because Caterina is going to murder me anyways.”

At that, Jade seemed to shake himself out of the funk he’d fallen into, and he turned to his brother with a smile that was suspiciously soft.

“Not exactly the outcome I was hoping for, but I think Azul will be more than pleased nonetheless. Go inform him, will you?”

You paled. “You can’t tell him that! Oh my god! You’re a monster!”

Another smile, equally as stupidly soft, and you wanted to punch it off his smug face.

“Azul is our friend, no matter what you make of that. And he has his… concerns. His endless fretting over flaws that he sees in himself but which simply are not there. Are you saying I shouldn’t inform him of this new development? He would be ecstatic.”

“I—You—He—That’s not the point! Caterina is going to disembowel me!”

That sugary smile turned sharp once more.

“That would be interesting to see, I’ll give you that.”

You wanted to pull out your hair, to pull out his hair, and then Floyd’s hair, and then—Wait. Where was Floyd? You swiveled back and forth like a woman deranged. Oh no. Oh no. Oh no.

He wouldn’t.

“He would,” Jade beamed.

You took off down the hallway like a bat out of Hell, with the eel’s delighted laughter echoing behind you.

.

.

.

You were not a runner, never had been. Outside of a brief swimming career, you were never what anyone would consider athletic, let alone agile. But here you were, tearing through the mirror to the Octavinelle Dormitory at speeds that could put Usain Bolt to shame.

Swoosh through the dank halls of the Academy Campus.

Zoom through the room of Mirrors.

Sprint sprint sprint through the chambers of oceans, and shells, and blue. All the way to the Mostro Lounge.

And there, just slipping in through the front door, was a familiar head of choppy teal.

No. No, no, NO! You were too late!

You bolted through the plush entrance, hurtled over a misplaced chair, and threw open the doors to Azul’s private seating room with a thunderous roar fit to shake the Heavens.

“DON’T YOU DARE SHAME HER FOR HER MAFIA KINK, YOU EEL BASTARD! SO WHAT IF SHE WANTS TO FUCK YOUR BOSS?!”

Inside the room was… not Floyd.

Instead, there sat Caterina and Azul, neatly tucked up against each other on one of the plush couches. Caught in a snapshot of blissful domesticity. Caterina stared back at you in horror—mug frozen half-way to her lips and already starting to tip. Coffee dribbled down the porcelain rim and into her lap. Azul’s eyes were as wide as the saucers scattered across the table. Wider, even. But—But. No. This couldn’t—You had seen him come in here. You were sure of it. And he was going to—Jade had said he was going to—to—

There was a flash of blue and yellow off in the corner, and Floyd slid by like a shadow—tossing you a wink on his way out.

Oh God. Oh God. Oooooh God—

“Oh my God,” Azul whispered, face a startling shade of red that was verging on purple.

Caterina wasn’t looking much better. She turned to her boyfriend lover crush very important person, looking like she’d just been run over by a truck. Everything was moving so slowly, so horribly slowly.

“Azul…?” she croaked, barely able to get the word out past her nervous spluttering.

“I have to—I—You—I have to—” He jumped to his feet and nearly toppled over in the process. “Please excuse me!”

And then he bolted. Poof. Across the room in a split second and slamming the door to his office behind him the next. Caterina stared after him in silent shock—expression flickering back and forth between mortification, rage, a horrible sort of sadness, and more rage.

“I didn’t—I didn’t mean to,” you whispered, horrified.

Caterina stayed silent, but the twitch in her jaw was telling.

“Floyd was going to—He and Jade—They—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” the brunette snarled, lunging forward and off the couch. “What the fuck?! What the FUCK!”

“I didn’t mean to!” you wailed again. “He made me!”

“Oh? He made you run all the way here?” Caterina seethed. “He made you scream out one my deepest, darkest, secrets about the man I love to the man I love?! He made you do all that?! And why would he even know about any of it?!”

“I—I’m so sorry! Please!” you panicked, waving your hands back and forth in a poor show of platitudes. “I—It’s not my fault I told him about your dumb kink! I swear! He put me under mind control! Or persuasion! Or something, and I—”

“MY dumb kink?!” Caterina shrieked. “Wanna’ say that again Miss ‘I Get Off On People Ordering Me Around?!’”

You stared back, slack jawed. Then laughed, and laughed, and laughed. “I’m sorry, want to run that by me again? What was it you said the other day? Oh. That’s right. I didn’t say I’d fuck the tentacles, but I’d totally fuck the tentacles.”

Crack went the plate as it whizzed passed your head, exploding into a mess of shards against the wall behind you.

“Oh, shut the fuck up, you degenerate, bottom!”

Shwoom went the couch pillows as you lobbed them at Caterina’s face.

“Get over yourself, you fucking gold digger! Call your stupid rich boy kink what it is! You money grubbing—”

Wham!

Caterina wielded the silvered serving tray like a baseball bat, and it rang out as metallic and boisterous as a gong as she clocked you over the head.

“Omega wannabee!”

“Yeah, bitch,” syouslurred, shaking your head like a wet dog, “only because you wannabee! Beta hag!”

Slam, went the tray. But this time, you caught it in your shaking fists before Caterina could ring you skull like a bell. And a vicious tug a war for the weapon began.

“Fish fucker!”

“Dragon fucker!”

“We’re just friends, you whore!”

“Oh, deal with your goddamn self-worth issues like an adult like the rest of us!” Caterina seethed, giving one last wrench of her bludgeoning tray before deciding the weapon may be a lost cause. Her eyes caught sight of a pretty vase sitting just off to the side. And it was already teetering so precariously with all the ruckus they were causing.

“Well at least I don’t get off to back rubs!”

“Oh, no, you just get your rocks off to fucking fake, bullshit, wolf anatomy dynamics like any other normal, mentally functional, adult!”

Caterina lunged for the vase, and you teetered backwards with the lost momentum. The lovely, intricate, ceramic creation flew through the air and smashed neatly into your chest. You doubled over, huffing and puffing, before lifting you head with a sneer.

“Well, you know what! Have fun getting yourself off all on your lonesome for the rest of your life! But that should work out just great for you! And you know why?” You leaned in close to hiss. “Octopuses have detachable penises.”

Caterina screamed and lunged. The pair went down in a flurry of splintered furniture and rage.

.

.

.

“I didn’t expect it to go this far,” Jade muttered, brow furrowed in distaste.

“Oh?” Leona sneered. “And what exactly were you expecting?”

“A bit of bloodshed,” he responded with a shrug. “A few colorful insults. A chance for a dashing Prince Charming to rush in and save the day with a proper, contractual, compromise.”

“You’re lucky I don’t beat your goddamn face in, you low-life, bottom feeding, piece of—”

“Enough,” Riddle cut it. “Fighting amongst ourselves won’t do anything to address the problem at hand.”

“It’d make me feel better,” Leona snarled, low in his throat.

The redhead sighed and pushed a hand through his bangs, frustrated.

“Jade, what exactly did you and your godforsaken brother do?”

“We pushed where perhaps we should not have,” the eel mused. “A lesson learned, I suppose.”

Another sigh—this one even more put upon than the last. “Perfect. That doesn’t help us at all in trying to come to a solution.”

“We need to stop this!” Ruggie paced, looking a bit panicked. “Look. I get it. Dominance fights are a thing, but they never end will when they get personal like this and—”

I don’t want either of them to die.

Leona sighed and ran a hand through his mused hair. The sentiment may have remained unsaid, but he couldn’t say he disagreed with it without lying through his teeth. These were his… friends, as much as it pained him to think it. And a premature death in the fighting pit didn’t befit either of them.

“Maybe we should get Malleus,” Riddle muttered. “He’s strong enough to stop this.”

The lion bristled and took a confident step forward.

“We don’t need that horned bastard. Lionesses fight all the time. I can deal with it.”

Riddle looked concerned, for Leona’s sake or for that of the brawling duo destroying the room before them the Beastman couldn’t tell.

“If you’re certain.”

“Of course I’m certain,” he mocked, before pushing forward towards the warzone.

It was only you and Caterina. There was nothing to be concerned about. You were weirdos, freaks, herbivores. Harmless. This was just a little catfight. There was nothing to be—

“Throw one more vase at me bitch, and I swear I’ll—"

“You’ll what? Is Miss Pillow Princess going to put me in my place? Why don’t you go choke on a knot, you alpha-obsessed-whore!”

“Well I would if I could! It’s not my fault my jaw is fucked!”

“Oh fucking please. Put on your big girl panties and practice on a banana like the rest of us!”

“Knots don’t work like that, and you know it!”

Leona swiveled on his heel.

He hardly even remembered the short walk back to the main group. They all looked at him in barely concealed horror as he returned. Leona didn’t know what his face was doing. He didn’t want to know.

“Call Malleus,” he said.

Riddle just nodded in silence.

.

.

.

“—Oh fucking please. Put on your big girl panties and practice on a banana like the rest of us!”

“Knots don’t work like that, and you know it!”

“Well, maybe you’re just a quitter,” Caterina spat. “No wonder you’ve never gotten out of the pining stage.”

“Oh my God, I’m going to kill you!” you snarled, hands wrapping tight around your friend’s neck. “How’s this for choking, you ungrateful, single-minded, no safe-word-having—"

“Oh, yeah?” Caterina gasped, fighting to pull in a breath around your spiked fingernails. “Choke me harder, daddy.”

“AAAH! You can’t just—Don’t say shit like that!” you squawked, rolling over and away in a panic.

Caterina sat up, spluttering through a few fragmented inhalations. “Oh? Why? You gonna’ get off on me giving you orders too?”

“SHUT UP, YOU MONSTER FUCKER!”

“LIKE YOU’RE ONE TO TALK, YOU BIGGER MONSTER FUCKER!” The brunette’s eyes filled with hot tears and she wiped at them furiously. “And I’m never even going to get to fuck my monster because you ruined it! You ruined it,” she wheezed. “Why did you have to ruin it?”

You froze, hand already outstretched before you’d even realized you’d done it. Slowly you lowered it back to your side.

“I’m—I’m sorry, Cat. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—I really didn’t for…” you swallowed, fighting back the lump in your throat, “for any of this,” you gestured around lamely. To the smashed vases, and the torn pillows, and the coffee stains, and the tears.

The brunette rubbed at her cheeks. “Yeah… I… I know.”

You scrubbed at your own salt smeared face. “I did this all wrong.”

Caterina laughed, dry. “Maybe…” She paused, looking more unsure than you had maybe ever seen her. All curled up on the floor in the middle of a furniture tornado. “Do you think…”

“Do I think…?” you prompted.

Caterina snorted humorlessly. “He’s going to hate me after all this, isn’t he?”

“If he does, he’s a fucking idiot and I’ll beat the shit out of him myself.”

Another snort, though this one was accompanied by a soft uptick of her lips. “Yeah. You do have a nasty right hook. I’m gonna’ be feeling that one for weeks.”

“Do I ever,”you laughed, flexing your battered fists. You paused, picking nervously over a few pieces of shattered dishware. “…I’m sorry I called your kink stupid.”

“It’s alright. It’s a little stupid.”

“Mine are worse.”

“Just a little,” Caterina hummed. “I’m not sorry I threw that plate at you,” she said, considering her words. “But I am sorry for all the other things I said.”

“I might have deserved it a little,” you shrugged. “And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you earlier about all the stuff Floyd and Jade were stalking me about.”

“Uhm. Fucking what?”

“He also used his magic thingy to crack open my brain,” you said, wrapping a knuckle against your forehead. “That’s how he found out about your kink.”

“Oh my god, I’m going to kill them,” Caterina seethed.

“I’ll help you.”

“Best friends bury bodies together,” the brunette muttered, settling more heavily against the floor.

“Yeah…”

“God, not to be a wimp, but I am really fucking sore right now,” she winced, pressing a hand against her bruised throat.

“Dude. Same. That vase definitely cracked a rib.”

“Sorry,” she winced.

“Meh. All’s fair in love and war.”

With that, the door opposite creaked open and a pair of bespeckled eyes peered out at them from the darkness.

“Holy—”

The door closed. And then opened again. And closed. And reopened.

“Are you… both alive out there?” a tentative voice called, and Azul’s fluffy head finally poked itself out from behind the threshold.

The pair nodded, to varying degrees of success.

“Sorry about your lounge,” Caterina muttered.

“I will never be able to pay for all this damage on top of the tarts,” you muttered.

Azul took one look at Caterina’s purple-ringed neck and blood caked knuckles and rushed forward.

“Oh Great Seven, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—I didn’t mean to run away. And now you’re—I mean, you’re both—”

Caterina blearily smushed a finger over his lips.

“Shhhh. Shhhhhhh. No more words. I’m too tired.”

“Uhm… Right. Of course.”

She paused, and looked over him with droopy eyes. You leant forward to poke her knee with the toe of your boot. Caterina sighed. “I’m… sorry if I embarrassed you earlier.”

“What?” Azul backpedaled. “Of course not. I would never be embarrassed of you. I mean, I was just embarrassed for—for—”

“Yourself?” Caterina tried.

“…Yes. That,” he spluttered, looking away.

Caterina sighed, bone deep and weary. “Well. There’s not exactly any point in hiding it now. Azul?”

“…Yes?”

“I like you a lot.”

The octopus man went pink from the butt of his chin to the tips of his ears. “O-Oh! Well. Of course you do. I mean—not in that you should be obligated to. But because I should have been expecting it. And I—”

You, with just enough energy left to perform one last act of kindness, hawked a piece of rubble at the man’s head. Factory reset.

He startled for a moment before clearing his throat. “I care about you very much as well.”

Caterina nodded. “Good.” A brief pause. “I’m really exhausted and I’m worried I might have a concussion. Could you hold me up?”

“Oh. Oh! Yes! Of course!” Azul spluttered, before ducking forward to wrap his arms around her waist and prop her upright. “Is that better?”

Caterina hummed, letting her head flop back against his shoulder. “Yes. You smell great. Have I ever told you that before?”

Azul grumbled, face ducked down to hide his puffy, red, cheeks. “You definitely have a concussion.”

“My bad,” you sighed, flopping down into the dust.

“I am going to have to pay you back eventually,” Caterina mused from her place curled snugly in Azul’s arms. “Just out of principle, you know.”

“Oh, no worries,” you waved her off. “I totally get it. But at least this day can’t get much worse,” you said hopefully.

So, of course, at that moment a field of twisting, black, vines sprung up through the cracks in the front door and curled hastily through the room—filling the lounge with an eerie glow and the scent of packed earth. Malleus stepped through the door, looking like every bit the vengeful fae prince that so many feared.

“Oh no.”

Despite the head trauma no doubt clouding her mind, Caterina still had the wherewithal to smirk.

“Oh yes.”

Malleus rushed forward, and you flicked at the magical thorns twisted up and around your limbs.

“Are you alright?” he fussed, hands trailing over the bloodied gashes, and wincing sympathetically when he brushed against the chicken egg forming at your brow. “What happened?”

“It’s alright,” you sighed, letting him sweep you up. “Really, I’m fine. I got smacked around worse during Leona’s overblot. We just… There was a bit of a, err, misunderstanding.” Malleus’s mouth curled sourly like he was getting ready to argue that glaringly obvious understatement, so you reached out as fast as you could to grip at his sleeve. “But we sorted it out! I promise.”

“…Are you certain?” he muttered, looking incredibly unsure.

You nodded. “Don’t worry. I had it coming.”

Malleus sighed and reached up to rub at his temples in frustration. “Forgive my doubts, but… If you’re certain.”

“Of course. I don’t want you to worry about me, you know? Especially when I end up in a sticky situation because of my own dumb mouth. Or brain. Or lack of foresight. Or just… When it’s all my fault anyways, you know?”

“But then I’d never be allowed to worry about you,” Malleus intoned, bland, and you laughed.

“No. I guess not.”

Caterina observed the scene before her with a soft smirk. She looked up from her place in Azul’s arms—face battered, and bloody, and beaming. ‘Vengeance’ her dark eyes said. ‘Retribution.’ You made eye contact and went pale—beyond pale. ‘Have mercy’ you wanted to shout. But then again… you didn’t really deserve mercy, did you? ‘An eye for an eye’ and all that. Or well, ‘a mortification for a mortification’ in this case.

The brunette’s smile sharpened into something poisonous and she turned to Malleus.

“You know,” she spoke. Loudly. Directly. “Now that we’re out of the danger zone and everyone’s all sorted, there’s something you should know.”

Malleus arched a thin brow. “Oh? And what might that be?”

“Our favorite Ramshackle Prefect really wants to fuck a dragon.”

You squeezed your eyes shut in resigned embarrassment. But there was no horrified gasp, no judgmental glare burning into your back, no instant withdrawal from your person as he backpedaled in horror. Instead, Malleus’s grip on your arm flexed reassuringly and you cracked open a single eye to peek up at him.

He smiled down at you—brilliantly bright green eyes far too soft and far too besotted.

“Well, thank goodness for that.” His lips twisted upwards into something a bit sharper, and you could see the pointed, white, flicker of a fang poking out over his lower lip. “I was really hoping to fuck a human too, you see.”

Azul squawked, mortified, and Caterina made a noise like she’d just taken physical damage. Your cheeks went red, then redder, than nearly puce, and you burrowed your head into Malleus’s chest, hoping his swirling robes would open up and swallow you whole. Instead, he just laughed. Low, and dark, and deep enough that you could feel the rumble of it against your fingers.

Caterina sighed, sounding entirely too resigned.

“Well, damn. Happy endings for everyone I guess.”

“Hmm…Is that so terrible?” Azul hummed, curious.

Another sigh, this one perhaps a bit less put upon. “I suppose not.”

#Malleus Draconia x Reader #Malleus x Reader #Twisted Wonderland #Malleus Draconia/Reader #Malleus x Yuu #Malleus Draconia x Yuu #Azul Ashengrotto #Tweels #Jade Leech #Floyd Leech #Malleus Draconia #Crack #My Writing #Twisted Wonderland Imagines #Twisted Wonderland x Reader

[owo-shenanigans]

How about S/O who is a sweater house husband with a dangerous ultimate, their personality is the polar opposite of what it ought to be. Without a loss of self-confidence. For Mahiru, Fuyuhiko.

Dont fully get it but yeet - update two months after that last comment, way of the househusband my beloved

Mahiru and Fuyuhiko dating a house spouse with a dangerous Ultimate

MAHIRU KOIZUMI

When she first heard your Ultimate, she was wary. Wouldn’t you be dangerous? Actually, why were you even accepted to Hope’s Peak?

And then you met. And wow, you were… A lot nicer than she was expecting.

You two get on like a house on fire. She prefers to divy up work equally, so if you do the couple thing of making lunches for each other she’d like it to have a schedule of you doing it for a week, then she does it for a week.

You first showed off how terrifying you could be when Fuyuhiko was sitting in the corner of the room, a dark aura around him. When Mahiru finally asked why the hell he was so unhappy, he snapped out that a murderous bitch shouldn’t be talking to him.

When Mahiru backed away in shock (and terror that he knew about the coverup), you stepped in and clenched Fuyuhiko’s shoulder in your hand, a look on your face that made everyone else pale.

You made sure that Fuyuhiko didn’t go within 10 feet of Mahiru after that.

In the far flung future, depending on whether you want to continue with your job after graduation (whether online or every now and again), Mahiru is willing to be the money earner!

People are always willing to hire a former Hope’s Peak student, after all. And she does love seeing you in an apron….

FUYUHIKO KUZURYUU

Depending on your Ultimate, he’s ready to break your kneecaps. Or at least, that’s what he repeats to himself in the mirror once Peko delivered the news of your enrollment at Hope’s Peak Academy.

And then he arrived. And you were there, the… Exact opposite of what he had been expecting.

Honestly, he’s pretty hostile for the first few weeks. His family held high expectations for him (while they wouldn’t ever hurt him and if he truly wished to he would be allowed to give his heir status to his sister, they still believed that he wanted to be the next to lead the family), and this resulted in him being unable to believe someone like you would act like THAT.

Once you start hanging out (whether through a group project or voluntarily), he realizes that… You’re actually rather nice to be around.

You help him realize that he’s not actually that happy as he is. While he wants to lead the clan, he does….. Kind of want friends. You tell anyone and your ass is with the fish, though.

Whether he leads the clan or not is a coin flip ie i really cant decide. Let’s go with yes.

He’s always known that you knew your shit and that you kept up with it even after retiring from your Ultimate, but apparently someone from a rival clan didn’t know about your past after deciding to abduct you to teach him a lesson.

Fuyuhiko got home to the would be abductor tied up and sobbing as you systematically broke their fingers and toes.

Damn if you don’t scare him sometimes.

#dr x reader #danganronpa imagines #danganronpa x reader #fuyuhiko x reader #fuyuhiko kuzuryu x reader #mahiru koizumi x reader #mahiru x reader

[linkspooky]

TogaChako - Good Girl and Bad Girl

Toga Himiko and Uraraka Ochako embody the classic good girl slash bad girl dynamic. It’s a classic dynamic in which one girl will represent what is the traditionally held notions of what a “good girl is” ie/ pure, nice, friendly and the other girl will embody the opposite of that a “bad girl” impure, mean, slutty. Inevitably, these two girls will fight. However, the crux of the good girl bad girl dynamic is that while the girls are total opposites on the outside, inside they’re the same, cuz they’re both girls after all. 

Uraraka and Toga are written to be compared, they’re character foils, because the conclusion we’re supposed to come to isn’t one of them is good, one of them is bad, one of them is selfless, one is selfsh. Rather, they’re written so we see it’s the difference in circumstances that made them who they were. Toga became bad because bad things happened to her. Uraraka is good, because she was born into a good life. What makes a bad girl bad and what makes a good girl good? More under the cut. 

1. Good Girl

Describe Uraraka Ochako. She’s a normal girl. She’s spunky. She puts other people first. She became a hero to help her parents make money, and feels bad because her motivations aren’t as selfless as say her close friend Izuku Midoriya’s. (But that’s wrong because she literally is being selfless, her reason for becoming a hero has entirely to do with benefitting someone else and not herself). She’s supportive, and friendly. She’s always cheerful and never lets herself get too down. 

Uraraka represents the standard of a good girl in hero society. She’s always ready to help her friends, but ultimately she’s kind of passive. She works hard but is not too ambiitous. She’s selfless and always thinks of other people before herself. She has all of these good qualities. 

However, I would argue Uraraka is a lot more complex then this. On the surface she seems to be just a good, nice girl who wants to help others, but her internal mechanisms are complex. While yes I agree Uraraka doesn’t have much of an arc so far due to lack of focus, there’s a difference between not having an arc and not being a complex character. 

A simple character - what you see is what you get.  A complex character - Has internal mechanisms that show the surface isn’t as simple as you thought. 

A simple arc - character moves through the plot without changing who they are. A complex arc - character struggles in a way that fores them to change. 

Uraraka’s inner mechanisms are complex in that there’s more too her in what we see at the surface, it’s just she hasn’t been challenged in any way. The plot doesn’t address her flaw and try to force her to change. 

With that in mind let’s get into Uraraka’s character. Uraraka is defined to her goodness. Uraraka pushes herself to always be good to others. The reason being is that Uraraka is a very sensitive girl who is attune to the feelings of other people. 

Uraraka gets serious for just a second, and people remark that she doesn’t seem like her normal self. 

Uraraka then immediately backs up and gets embarrassed. She goes out of her way to beat herself up and denigrate herself in front of others, insisting her motivations are much more selfish than people like Ida and Deku. 

Uraraka then tells Deku and Iida that she’s not becoming a hero for her own sake, but for someone else’s. Her entire motivation is to help both of her parents live easier lives, because she feels like she’s been a burden on them and pursuing her own dreams would be too selfish. 

Uraraka is very secretive of her own feelings. She’s almost afraid to come off as selfish which is why she doesn’t share what her real goal is. Also, when she starts to get a little motivated to accomplish something for herself, everybody around her remarks how different this is from the fun-loving Uraraka they all know. Also, one last detail Uraraka never even talks about herself, and her friends don’t really think to ask, because Uraraka just so naturally makes things about others and not herself. 

It’s already been elaborated why the reason Uraraka grew so perceptive. Uraraka’s parents were struggling to make ends meet and she grew up in poverty, and even if she has good parents that try really hard not to let the effect of this struggle show in front of her, Uraraka saw it anyway because kids are always watching their parents. 

Uraraka learned to be sensitive to her parents needs, to never demand too much for her parents, her behaviors all became centered around not becoming a burden to others. 

Uraraka thinks it’s only natural to put others first and help others before helping herself. That other people’s happiness is more important than her own. Because she’s someone naturally empathic. Because she’s someone naturally able to see the pain and struggle other people go through, because she grew up seeing it. However, the problem with this behavior is it makes Uraraka essentially a support to everyone else. 

Uraraka is constantly putting others up on a pedestal and using that as an excuse to lower herself further and further. As cute as her admiration for Deku is, it’s also a bit unhealthy - as she uses it as an excuse to beat herself up. She sees Deku as this amazing person, whose always struggling to help everyone, whose always saving everyone for completely selfless reasons and she always suffers in the comparison.

I think part of Uraraka wants to stand out like Deku does, and has the same desire to go all out to save people, but Uraraka is so used to being secondary in her own life she can’t bring herself to. 

Uraraka can’t even cry in front of others. I think, the most telling behavior she has in the entire series is the moment where she breaks down on the phone describing everything she did wrong because this is how Uraraka sees herself. She’s so extremely critical of herself, and constantly apologizing for herself, while at the same time hiding what she really feels from others.

Uraraka has all these self esteem issues that she basically just shelves so she can play the good, nice girl, that gets along well and is friends with everyone. 

Uraraka assigns the role of group placater and peacemaker for herself because it’s something she’s so naturally good at and she’s always thinking of others, but because of that, Uraraka herself suffers. Uraraka only knows how to help people by belittling herself and her own role in things. 

Uraraka’s greatest fear is being selfish. She doesn’t want to look like a bad girl. That’s the connection between Toga and Uraraka, because what Uraraka is afraid of ultimately is living her life the way Toga does. 

2. Bad Girl

Toga is everything that Uraraka is afraid of being, and lives the life that Uraraka is afraid of living. Uraraka is someone so afraid of being selfish, and getting distracted that she is not even allowed to have a crush on a boy. Whereas, Toga lives her life chasing what she loves. Everything Uraraka represses about herself, Toga expresses. That’s the difference between the two of them. 

When Uraraka first encounters Toga, her willingness to chase what she loves looks from Uraraka’s perspective to be entirely monstrous. Uraraka sees Toga as a selfish monster, because in part she is afraid of appearing that way. 

Toga Himiko the bad girl. 

However that’s far from the whole picture of Toga. When we see her away from Uraraka’s perspective she’s entirely different. She’s someone empathic, capable of being kind to others, and thinking about others feelings. 

Toga’s just as capable of reading other people and addressing their feelings as Uraraka is. However, there’s still a key difference in their behavior. Uraraka acts to avoid conflict. When she intervenes, what she usually does is act in a way that avoids stepping on toes, and touts the “we should all get along and be friends’ line. Whereas, Toga is someone who directly addresses the conflict and the hurt feelings of others. 

For Uraraka the most important thing is getting along with others. For Toga the most important thing is being true to her own emotions. Which is why she’s able to directly address the problem with Twice, she didn’t tell him to bear with it, she told him she knew he was in pain but that the two of them could take down the mafia together. 

Even Himiko’s most selfish monster moments aren’t really that monstrous. Himiko’s reason for stalking both Uraraka and Deku is not because she’s weird and creepy, but because she wants to be a normal kid just like them. 

Himiko’s reason for sucking the blood of high school girls and taking on their appearances isn’t because she’s preadtory, it’s because she’s been a runaway with no home for two years and she’s terrified of getting caught. 

Himiko who is framed as a selfish monster, is actually quite the normal girl. She’s a normal girl reacting to the pressures of the society around her. The kicker is that Himiko isn’t someone who just decided to flip and turn out this way, she is only the way she is because she tried to live like Uraraka did at first.

Himiko tried to push everything down and live like a normal girl. She tried to lie about herself so she’d be a good, nice, harmless girl. She only became so selfish, because she tried to live selflessly first. She only prioritizes herself, because she was used to putting herself down before this. We see her classmates react to her, they all describe Himiko was the kind of girl that Uraraka is right now. 

However, behaviors in Uraraka that are self-defeating and unhealthy, are absolutely ruinous in Himiko. Himiko has no sense of self, because she spent so long trying to be what others wanted her to be. Himiko is who she is, in reaction to the pressures of everyone around her. 

When Himiko tries to figure herself out, she always gets the same response. Why do you have be so selfish? Why can’t you just act normal? Which completely ignores the fact that she TRIED and that’s what got her here. 

The main difference between Uraraka and Toga is not one of them being good, and the other being bad. Toga’s been through way harsher life circumstances. Uraraka has parents that affirm her identity, and Toga’s parents deny her over and over again. 

The point of the good girl bad girl dynamic is that they’re both girls in the end. Yes, Uraraka’s never reacted as badly as Himiko has. However, Uraraka’s also never been pushed so far. In fact someone as empathic as Uraraka can be oblivious to the suffering of others. 

Uraraka doesn’t see what Himiko is going through, because she hasn’t suffered the way Himiko has. 

It’s like. When you have a good sibling and a bad sibling. The good sibling always behaves because they conform to the pressure their parents put on them. The bad sibling acts out in response to that pressure, and because of that their parents have to discipline them and they end up soaking up most of the parent’s attention. In that situation the good sibling can come to ressent the bad sibling for acting out and needing attention in the first place. 

Reasonable child and unreasonable child. There exist these black and white categories to define children into where one looks good and one looks bad, that actually totally fail to address the child’s behavior because people are complex and therefore don’t fit into black and white categories. But, Uraraka is still working with that black and white logic when it comes to heroes and villains. Even though she’s usually so good at sussing out the complex nuance of other people’s feelings. 

This is what’s happening here in this chapter. You can apply the dynamic between the two of them to the conflict at large. Toga is selfish for acting out and causing problems for others, because she wants her own personal grievances to be addressed. Uraraka is sefless because all she cares about right now is helping the most amount of people. Uraraka is willing to repress herself, and put others needs before her own, because what’s most important is everybody gets along.

However, Uraraka insinuates, the same way that Himiko’s parents once insinuated that Himiko’s acting out just makes her selfish. 

We’ve seen this conflict before. Himiko literally went into the conflict to ask this question. Do problem children like her count as “everyone”. However, no matter what happens this arc, no matter what critcisisms the villains levvy against the heroes we get the same hollow repettition of “Heroes save everyone”. Which is why Himiko looks just about to snap here.

Uraraka who is used to brushing conflicts aside and avoiding them for the sake of “everyone gettling along” sees the girl who can’t get along with “everyone” and calls her selfish. To Himiko, this is the same words she’s been hearing her entire life. “Why are you making a fuss? Why can’t you just be normal.” 

From one perspective, yes Uraraka is the one fighting seflessly because she’s just trying to save as many people as she can and Himiko is getting in the way of things. However, Himiko is someone who grasps the bigger picture. Himiko addresses the problem directly rather than sweeping it under the rug, there are people who aren’t saved by the hero system. Those people are just as in need of saving as what heroes deem to be innocent people. You can’t claim to save everyone and then ignore the suffering of people you deem as “bad”. Himiko seems like she’s acting selfishly, but then again she’s acting for the sake of people like Jin who died because heroes insisted that his life was less important. 

Uraraka is at the same time very perceptive to the suffering of others, and also very oblivious, and it has much more to do with personal hangups than anything else. She doesn’t want to see Himiko as someone similiar to her, because Uraraka is someone so deathly afraid of coming off as selfish. To the point that she treats people with genuine grievances against society as selfish childrens making demands for atttention. 

Uraraka is the one who can’t face herself, and therefore the answer she gives Himiko is to the effect of “Shut up and deal with it.” It’s a very personal thing for Uraraka once you realize that Uraraka has also been shutting herself up all this time, pushing herself down, always letting people walk all over. Uraraka is capable of putting herself aside for the sake of others, so as a result she sees people who can’t put themselves aside as selfish. 

“I can do it, so why can’t you? Why can’t you be normal?” 

I hammer down so hard on this point because there’s a difference between placating and conflict resolution. 

Placating comes from a place of “I want the conflict to go away” or “I want the hurt feelings to go away.” Placating is just saying whatever you think the person you’re talking to wants to hear in order to please them. It’s behavior that’s based entirely around avoiding conflict. Uraraka placates, she sweeps it under the rug, she swallows her grievances for the point of everyone happily getting along together. 

This placating also applies to the hero system at large. It’s not really designed to save everyone, so much as make the vast majority of people feel safe at the cost of the minority. 

When there is a problem does Hero society directly address the issue? Or do they sweep it under the rug for the appearance of everyone getting along?

I think the fact that every time a villain brings up a problem this arc, the heroes just shout “Heros save everyone” and “Heroes never give up” is evidence of the latter. That’s why, when Uraraka says it, when Hawks says it, “Heroes save everyone” just comes off as hollow because in the very same breath they both make it clear that Toga and Twice are not part of the everyone who gets saved. 

#himiko toga #uraraka ochako #mha meta #my hero academia meta #my hero academia #mha 288 #mha 288 spoilers #bnha 288 #bnha 288 spoilers #himiko #uraraka #ochaco #ochaco uraraka #toga himiko

[katyatalks]

Mob Psycho 100: The Stage Play 3 - Final performance content spoilers

Here are all the notes I compiled after getting the chance to see the final performance for ‘Mob Psycho 100: The Stage Play - A Clash with Claw’s Seventh Division!’ live. Note this is essentially a write-up of the play from beginning to end - this will also likely be the version of the play that is used for the DVD release in December. I will also edit this when the recording becomes available for viewing and I can gain some clarity on sections I missed...

PRE-SHOW

- Reigen and Mob do a pre-show announcement relating to covid prevention measures (referred to not by name as Covid but an evil spirit) plus standard theatre etiquette rules (don’t use your phone, put it on silent, etc.)

SHOW

- Begins where stage 2 left off as a ‘Previously…’ segment for the audience. We once again witness Koyama knocking Mob out with the spray and kidnapping Ritsu.

- In the Teru/Dimple/Mob discussion part of the stage 2 recap, Teru takes the bird’s nest off his head and throws it off stage - we hear the birds within fly away.

- ((We immediately see how the reduced audience affects the play - a funny physical gag where Teru and Dimple bash heads happens but this receives no response from the audience))

- We reach the end of stage 2 recap with Mob stating he’ll destroy Claw as he does at the end of stage 2. The screen goes black and we hear the echo of a voice saying ‘Give [it] back… give [it] back, [It’s] mine, give [it] back…’ - this is implied to be Mob talking about Ritsu but the lights turn on to reveal S&S and turns out it’s Shou talking to Reigen about Touichirou’s card

- Reigen gives the card back to Shou, calls him a ‘baggy-clothed asshole’ and tells him to leave since Reigen is busy. Reigen puts his feet up on his desk and goes on his phone, leading to;

S: “What are you doing?”

R: “Reading the news.”

S: “You’re not busy, you’re bored!”

- Shou mentions that he’s also got 10k yen missing from his wallet and accuses Reigen of stealing it - Reigen insists he didn’t but starts doubting himself

- When Shou leaves, Reigen salt splashes in his direction (An English translation is now given under each of Reigen’s special moves ala Olympic parody)

-Reigen calls Mob, leading back to the Mob/Dimple/Teru scene - Terada and his cronies enter and Mob tells Reigen he can’t talk right now, hang up which leads to…

***

OPENING

- Yoru no Honki Dance - Call Out (as the previous two plays)

- Action takes place on the upper and lower stage - Ritsu and the lab kids on the lower stage with Ritsu in anguish with Mob, Teru, Dimple on the top stage

- Action shot with the show’s “Yeah!” line focuses on Reigen and Mob on the top level

***

- Teru tortures Terada with a taser rather than water - Terada is also wearing a ballgag with multiple kazoos inside it leading to a great sound whenever he screams

- Mob and Dimple are terrified of Teru’s taser torture whenever he does it

- Matsuo’s performance is sensual and slimy - great stage presence

- Ishiguro’s voice is distorted using a pitch filter resulting in something creepy rather than the female voice used in the anime

- Ritsu and the lab kids are seen in the jail cell - great banter with them and their Claw guard (Guard to Rei: “I won’t hit you because you’re a girl!” Kids: “A gentleman!”). Guard tells them they won’t get any food and they start rioting

- Mutou is VERY creepy and accompanied by terrifying music - he skulks around the stage with his ridiculous silicone chin

- When Mutou “kills” Kaito off screen we get a ridiculous extended segment featuring Daichi reacting to what is initially cries of his brother’s pain that turn into pleasure as if he is getting a massage - then turns back into pain

- Kaito is wheeled back on in a luggage/weight carrier with 4 knives in his chest

- Teru vs Terada is visually very fun - movement choreography is great, lots of Teru’s dance techniques that got cut from the anime

- Back in the jail scene Ritsu states he doesn’t remember the kids names so they re-introduce themselves to the audience

- Asahi and Hoshino heating up the spoon/bending spoon/on repeat is very well performed

- Ritsu tries to high-five with with one of the other kids when they escape the jail but finds he has no-one to do it with :(

- Back to Dimple/Mob/Teru - when Dimple-chan(puppet) says “Oh who’s that good looking guy? A model?”, Nadagi pulls a whole bunch of model poses

- When Teru tries to knock the security guard out he screams for AGES leading to one of the funniest moments in the play - he finally is knocked out but when Dimple tries to possess him he takes ages to be possessed - Taa (Teru) breaks character completely and doubles over laughing and Itou (Mob) refuses to face the audience making it clear he is losing it as well

- Muraki is creepy looking but his cloak is see-through and sparkly - his actor plays him as quite a timid guy

- Great visual gag with Mob throwing Koyama around and then sending him through the stage wall

- Ishiguro has a moment where he talks to the audience/the new recruits where he shows off the Claw face mask available as part of the merch

- Great fight choreography between SG!Dimple and Gen (played by Baba) - ends with SG!Dimple pulling his trousers down

- Teru tasing people left and right in this play…

- Great stage effects in Teru vs Miyagawa - Teru tases Miyagawa as well

- Tsuchiya calming down Mukai is lovely - followed by Mukai finding a puppet that she believes hasn’t been destroyed by Mob and getting excited - but the head rolls off so she breaks down crying again

- ((My stream cut here so I didn’t see the start of the Ritsu vs Shou interaction and whether or not he recognised Shou from their interaction in stage 2))

- We see a little Shou vs Ritsu - Ritsu flings an array of spoons at Shou - Shou lands a punch that sends Ritsu off stage

- Character design for Takeuchi has been corrected slightly from the anime

- Matsuo vs SG!Dimple stage effects are great. They’re both very flashy actors which creates fantastic visual comedy

- Matsuo takes off his jacket like he’s at a strip club - it’s all very flamboyant and fun

- ((Stream cut again so I didn’t actually see the joke, but some kind of adlib happens with Reigen in the taxi scene that causes Baba to break character))

- When Mob uses his powers to blow Takeuchi away someone comes on stage with a leafblower to blow his hair away

- Screen goes black and we cut back to Shou delivering the final blow on Ritsu. Shou says someone interesting is coming and leaves stage for Mob’s entrance

- Mob finds Ritsu passed out and holds him, finds he’s breathing but won’t forgive who did this to him

- Mutou enters and stalks around the back and creates the image of Ritsu dead on the floor with a knife in his chest for Mob which causes his freak out

- “What a great pair of brothers” - Shou leaning over Mob and Ritsu’s passed out bodies

- Shou floats Mob and Ritsu into the room with Sakurai/Teru/Ishiguro

- Small cut away to Reigen - he sees 500 yen on the ground and immediately runs to go pick it up

- Mob and Ritsu’s hug is very emotional - Ritsu is more panicked asking Mob if he’s okay and Mob is more emotional responding than the anime

- Mob pats Ritsu’s head to calm him down

- Visual gag where Shou steps on Ishiguro’s shoe - Ishiguro freaks out trying to clean it and Muraki offers emotional support

- Guy walks into the room with Sakurai/Muraki/Ishiguro/Matsuo/Shou and informs them “The boss is coming”, which piques Shou’s interest and he comes along to meet “the boss”

- Play then gives us a “5 minutes earlier” scene. Baba’s performance in the Claw break-in is more on the eccentric/aggressive side than the calmer calculating tone Sakurai had - changes the atmosphere for the scene

- The whole scene with Reigen saving the lab kids is redone to be so eccentric with everyone chanting BOSS! BOSS! BOSS! at the end for Reigen

- When Reigen starts making a comment about Teru’s wig and cuts himself off to not offend him, he goes to Mob like “wtf” and Mob whispers in his ear what happened

- Shou included in the scene when Ishiguro etc. face off against Reigen

- ((ARGH my stream cut out again, when it came back Shou had moved over to Reigen’s side - probably some good dialogue there between them that I missed))

- Shou says to Reigen ‘Give me back my 10,000 yen’ - Shou decides to stand back to watch the show

- When Ishiguro attacks, Mob protects Shou as well as everyone else

- We have Shou/Teru/Mob/Ritsu/Reigen all on one side vs the Claw guys on the other (Ishiguro/Sakurai/Muraki/Matsuo)

- When Reigen does his Anti-Esper Drop Kick, they choose to translate this in English as “Dropkick to the espers”

- Shou: ‘You’re really taking [Muraki] on? lol’ Reigen: ‘Shut UP you brat’

- When Sakurai attacks Reigen (first time), Ritsu helps him up

- Lots of good banter between Shou and Reigen (”Stop calling me ‘old guy!’”)

- Shou sits to the side and enjoys the show while Sakurai/Muraki/Ishiguro/Matuso vs Reigen/Mob/Ritsu/Teru happens, makes some comments (ie. “Damn you’re in a pinch, whatcha gonna do now?”)

- When Reigen is getting sucked up by the anti gravity bubble, Shou helps Teru/Mob/Ritsu out with saving him

- Sakurai cutting off Teru’s wig is made into such a Dramatic moment

- Shou joins the fight against Ishiguro - Ishiguro manages to knock him out of the field and Reigen expresses concern (‘Oh crap! Kid are you okay!’)

- Lots of stage theatrics - now that Shou is no longer in play scene plays out as it does in the anime

- Lots of Reigen protecting Mob and leading him away from danger until the climactic moment where Mob decides to fight

- Mob’s scream of ‘Shishou!!!’ is filled with emotion - Reigen collapses quickly and without theatrics, facing the audience

- He doesn’t get a cut in his jacket, nor does he remove it

- When Reigen destroys Matsuo’s pet - ‘Oh Jesus I’m sorry I didn’t mean to destroy your toy’

- More protective Reigen - puts his arm out to protect Teru and Ritsu & get them behind him

- Reigen’s “Purifying Salt Punch” -> English given as Prime Salt Punch

- ‘It’s rude to wear a mask when talking to people!’ - here his mask doesn’t come off - unsure if intentional

- ((The bento story is REALLY well performed comedically but doesn’t land with attending audience))

- Sakurai shoots Reigen and Reigen catches the bullet

- Reigen uses the spray to spray his armpits

- Reigen at Muraki’s forehead “what is this? A doorbell? Ding dong ding dong”

- Lab kids start making fun of Muraki as well (Rei: What is that, cosplay?)

- Rei has a crush on Reigen in the same vein as her crush on Ritsu - Calls him cool and stuff and tries to reach for him

- Mob: ‘Having powers doesn’t make you popular’ Rei: ‘Lame.’ Reigen: ‘Well there you have it.’

- Shou comes back in centre stage and knocks Ishiguro out - goes to Reigen and says it’s time to repay the debt he owes Reigen - knocks Ishiguro out fully as per anime/manga

- As Shou leaves he pats Ritsu on the shoulder

- When Reigen says ‘is this an evil spirit?’ He hold his nose as if Dimple stinks, then grabs his head and shakes him around. Gets some salt from his pocket and throws it at Dimple

- Rei goes up to Sakurai and asks to date him

- Shou goes on the phone on stage top level and calls Touichirou as per manga/anime lines

FINAL SCENE

- Shou returns to S&S - as it turns out Reigen had the 10k stuck in his pocket the whole time and returns it to Shou

- Mob and Ritsu (with a bag) enter S&S while Shou is still there but leaving - Mob thanks Shou for helping them and asks Ritsu to do the same - Ritsu complies

- Shou looks back at Reigen, then toward Ritsu and Mob and tells them all they’ll meet again

- Mob and Ritsu share a heartfelt moment - “Ritsu, you’re amazing” - “No you’re the amazing one Nii-san”

- Ritsu gets out Takoyaki for Reigen/Mob/Ritsu to enjoy and Dimple joins them

ENDING SONG - ‘mob.’

https://katyatalks.tumblr.com/post/659597484715278336/mob-ed-for-mp100-stage-3-a-clash-with-claws

- Itou’s voice is STUNNING

CAST COMMENTS

- Kawaharada Takuya (Teru) addresses the fact that he’s the person who laughed the most out of everyone

- Nadagi says he wants to do a stage 4 and that’s the general vibe with everyone  and it’ll be nice if the anime gets a S3 too

- Lots of talk about stage 4 and it only being possible if everyone comes together

- Itou: ‘Us being able to do this again out of the blue so suddenly is thanks to all of you’

ENCORE

- Itou and Baba

- Lots of crying from Itou relating to covid and how it has cut the audience - he is grateful but he’s still upset about it - Baba gives him a huge hug

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #mp100 stage play #shou stans we won

[larenoz]

Guerenti - Michael and Kyle - I Like It

I’ve been Team Guerenti for a while now, but it’s a ship I want to see in fic, not in canon (because of my thoughts about the importance of straight Kyle). For me it’s also based on my thoughts about what happened in Roswell while Liz and Alex were away. I don’t see either of them returning to Roswell often. If they did, they kept there interactions to a very limited number of people (ie not Max or Michael). So my thoughts are definitely grounded in what happened to the people who stayed in Roswell during the Lost Decade, especially Michael, Maria and Kyle.

We know that Kyle spent a fair bit of time outside of Roswell at the start of the Lost Decade, getting his degree, doing his residency etc. It’s during this period that Kyle’s outlook and attitudes undergo a fairly massive change, so that when he returns to Roswell he is a changed man.

For me that period where Kyle returns to Roswell and starts to integrate himself back into the life of the town is the period where he and Michael start to interact. I don’t see Michael and Kyle having interacted much during high school, but Michael was very aware of how Kyle treated Alex, and how Kyle’s taunts applied to him as well, even if no one knew it. Since Kyle does his emotional growth while outside of town, the first step in their relationship developing is Michael seeing that Kyle has changed.

There are any number of scenarios for how this could happen but since we know Michael is a hard no for doctors and hospitals, their connection has to happen outside of the hospital. For me, the scene I always imagine is something like Michael finds Kyle sitting in his car on the side of the road that’s broken down. He initially starts out giving Kyle a hard time but realises pretty quickly that Kyle isn’t taking the bait. In fact he’s on the verge of tears. Cause Kyle has had a REALLY bad day at work, lost a favourite patient or couldn’t save someone or some other tragedy. Something that makes Michael begin to realise that maybe Kyle isn’t the person he remembers.

So Michael stops giving him a hard time, hooks up his car and drives him back to town. On the way he checks in with Kyle, does he want him to call anyone for him, his mum etc. Kyle says no but he takes note of Michael being kind.

That then sort of begins Kyle noticing Michael around town, seeing him quietly helping people, doing odd jobs for free or for barter. And Kyle starts to realise that maybe there’s more to Michael than the macho cowboy swagger that he presents to the world.I think Kyle seeing Michael help people, especially those who might otherwise slip through the cracks or have nowhere else to go would be something that flags Michael as a caring person willing to act on that compassion.

In turn, Michael sees Kyle helping people with their medical issues where he can, fixing minor wounds, health advice, maybe prescriptions etc. These interactions then go from random to deliberate, from the 18+ Discord discussion, which totally sums up how I see it playing out:

“Over a series of encounters-- Kyle happens by as Michael is helping someone who has spun out into a ditch and they need some medical help.... Michael gets Kyle to stitch up a bartender's hand at the Pony when he slices it on a broken glass, etc... they start to build a rapport and trust with each other. And the supports keep getting bigger-- Michael drives a kid who was injured in a fight to the hospital, gets Kyle to treat him because he's figured out the kid is half-fallen through the cracks like he was and needs the help. He fixes Kyle's car for free in return. Comes to Kyle one time because he's trying to get Sanders to get his blood pressure checked, since the guy keeps having dizzy spells. Kyle comes to the junkyard to do it...stays for a beer. Kyle gets Michael to fix a patient's car because the finances are so tight that the mom is having to ration her insulin and is about to lose her job because she can't afford to fix the car that gets her to work.” (@daughterofelros)

All of this slowly builds up trust and a grudging respect between the two. But being who they are (especially Michael), they both fight it and their interactions are all snark and sharp edges.

“I see them as very... hungry and unintentionally self-soothing with each other and just like, this connection they can't understand but can't get away from. Like all rational thought leaves their head when the other is close.

like those moments of softness are something they crave but never ever acknowledge or talk about bc they're terrified to admit they actually care about each other.” (@chasingshhadows)

Eventually, one day after seeing Michael trying to work with an injury, Kyle forces him to sit down, looks after the wound (feeding my very strong H/C kink, ngl) and then, one thing leads to another....

Both Michael and Kyle strike me as action oriented people. Despite what some people on the show seem to think, Michael is constantly helping people. He comes across as very service oriented, very action oriented (even if he doesn’t always think those actions all the way through). He doesn’t trust what people say, people lie. People have spent his entire life judging Michael and getting it very wrong. He assesses (not judges) people by their actions, not what they say. So he needs to SEE Kyle be this changed person, and that’s what happens over the Lost Decade.

For his part, Kyle is also very action oriented, although he manifests that in being hyper-focused in all that he does (he only has 30 seconds to talk to Jesse on his run!!). But that focus is tempered by compassion and the Valenti Code and while Michael may not necessarily always act within the law, because he acts from a place of care and compassion, he is unknowingly acting with the Valenti Code, especially when it comes to protecting his family - who for Michael have ALWAYS been more than blood.

So, that's my random Guerenti thoughts. What have I missed? What have I gotten wrong?

Guerenti Fics

“small towns make for small friends” by @AnnCherie -

“This Hard Lie” by @lambourn - Chapter 5 of the “This Hard Life” stories focused on Michael Guerin.

Guerenti on Ao3

Shout out to @lambourngb, @chasingshhadows, @daughterofelros, @finditagain24

#roswell new mexico #roswellnm #roswell nm #michael guerin #kyle valenti #guerenti #rnm meta #guerinti

[mp100fanworkstranslation]

Reigen gets a Smart Phone

Reigen thinks: When did they all switch to smart phones?

So does that mean I’m the only one still using a flip phone?

No... No that cant be, the main purpose of a cell phone is to communicate. In that respect, it does great. More functions are not necessarily useful. Most of it is just entertainment and pointless frills.

The battery drains faster, the screen is a lot easier to break and they’re more expensive. 

Haaaaa!! Check it out Losers! Six super rares! Told you I’d get ‘em!

Serizawa: WHOAA!! Ekubo Senpai, you’re amazing! That’s so much grinding, I’m not even close.....

Mob: My mom won’t let me to play on the phone at night, so I never get the  chance to grind. 

Ekubo: HAHAHAHA That kind of skill is difference between you ordinary people and gods like me! um... not including shigeo’s ???% form that is.... 

Reigen: Um.... Guys?

Reigen: Aren’t you guys spending too much time playing phone games at work?

Serizawa: Ah! I... I’m sorry. 

Mob: But isn’t this our lunch break? 

Ekubo: HAHAHAHAHA What, you guys can’t tell? Reigen’s just jealous cuz he doesn't have a smart phone. 

Reigen backpedaling: I’m just curious is all. Why did you guys all decide to switch to smart phones all of a sudden? 

Serizawa: The GPS app is really helpful, now that I’m no longer at home all the time. The other apps are really useful for work and school.

Mob: My mom got it for me after I did well on midterms. 

Ekubo: How should I know. It came with the body.

Some time later, Reigen is outside the phone store looking at the ads. 

The phones are free. The plans range from 90 to 100 dollars monthly.

Reigen: It’s almost a hundred dollars a month! Several times more expensive than my flip phone. 

This is a money sink that’s not going to contribute meaningfully to my life.

Ugh.. when I really think about it, I don’t need a phone with so many functions. The phone I’ve got now is by no means old, and I’m pretty used to it. 

Reigen: I can’t get carried away by vanity. I don’t blindly mirror the choices of others, that’s not who I am and how I want to live. 

Little girl: Mom, that basic guy has one of those basic phones.

Mom: Shh! Not out loud!   ------

Cashier: Thank you for the purchase!

-Later at Reigen’s apartment-

So this is the cutting edge of communications technology... It feels like opening a treasure chest. - as he opens the box -

WOOOOOW!!

Ah! so this is the user manual. I see... I see. What was the game they were playing? 

Found it! Ooooooo! My avatar looks so cool.

Hahaha found Ekubo! What a fitting avatar for an evil spirit!

Ah! Mob’s avatar is adorable. Aww he’s going to sleep now. 

-The next morning-

Ugghghhhh can’t keep grinding....

You can’t get past any of the bosses without seriously strong upgrades.

-Gets up stiffly-

Okay time to spin for the powerup bonus. 

-He taps to draw a new powerup.-

.....................

NO RARES, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!  

-throws phone- -nervously catches it again-

No gems left, no gold left.... is making an in game purchase the only way to get more draws? 

No wait Arataka, it’s just an app game... be reasonable!

Calm down... think about this...

-LIMITED TIME ONLY! 100% CHANCE OF RARE ITEM-

Reigen taps “buy” and there is a cash register sound effect.

As the scene zooms out, the sound effect rings several more times. (ie, he makes a bunch more in-app purchases)

Mob: Master’s been working really hard recently. He didn’t even take a lunch break today. 

Serizawa: Did something happen? 

GODDAMMMMIT I maxed out my funds on in-app purchases. Have to take on more jobs to make up for it.  

--For the first time in his life, Reigen Arataka realized the terrifying allure of escapism.--

I’m switching back to my flip phone. 

By Tamadango

.

.

This is one of my absolute favorite comics. It’s got everything I love about ALL of the characters.

- The spirits and such team just hanging out around the office, not doing any work, just casually sharing something they all enjoy. 

- Ekubo having to be THE BEST... Canonically he refers to himself as Ore-sama or “本大人” which is more accurately translated as “Your Majesty, I....” He is clearly better than everyone else and he needs to show it at even trivial things like a phone game.

-Ekubo possessing his host to play for hours and hours just so he can one up his FRIENDS (two of the most powerful psychics in the world)...and justify them as “followers” with “much to learn”.

- Mob is the most powerful esper in the world and can flatten cities effortlessly, The three adults treat him as an equal, and Serizawa even treats him as a superior. Yet he’s still a kid that needs boundaries. His MOM bought him the phone as a reward for good grades and takes it away at night. 

- Serizawa stopped being a shut in and his GPS app is allowing him the independence to be out and about for the first time in his life. His smartphone gives him the agency to start living on his own terms, just as Reigen’s flip phone allows him to stay focused on what’s important to him. 

- Reigen for all his sweaty conman disasterness is a dilligent, organized, autodidact, that started his own successful business at 25. He doesn’t play games, he’s constantly working on his business, and he understands and is proud of how offbeat and uncommon that is....but he’s not beyond moments of insecurity driven impulsiveness. It’s incredibly consistantly depicted, him being a spoilsport about the game, buying the phone, but also throwing it when he doesn’t get the in game item he wants. 

- Reigen isn’t someone that does a half assed job. He gives 110% even on jobs he’s not being paid....so it makes perfect sense that he can’t seem to stop himself from becoming overly dedicated to a phone game.

-But lastly, some culture/language meta. The characters and series is japanese, the artist that drew this comic is chinese, and it’s being translated into english by an american. The little girl at the phone store says “Mom, that basic guy has one of those basic phones.” what she really says, is “Mom look that guy has a flip phone, it’s so provincial/rural.”

China has this interesting divide between the urban and rural population. Where people living in cities view people out in the countryside as dumb rednecks that are decades behind in education, technology, social norms...etc. This is not true, but saying that someone is from the countryside is a massive insult. No one wants to be seen that way. 

English lacks this divide between urban vs rural, and the only word that fits even a little is “basic.”

So even if this is a fanart for a japanese series, the context of that line can really only be understood in chinese, and there’s no word that really comes close to that idea in english. From a translation standpoint I find that really interesting, when media hops countries it loses, but also gains things. 

God I love this comic so much

#ekubo #serizawa katsuya #shigeo kageyama #reigen arataka #mob psycho 100 #mp100

[pixiedoodlein]

10 days until school and I’m no more decided than I was a week ago. I flip flop ten times day about what might be best. A is sick of hearing me talk about it. He doesn’t disagree with my risk assessment but he is sick of talking about it.

It caused an issue with his friend, a friend who is his best friend and is unvaccinated and works in a jail. Months ago we told friend he could only visit (this place is their boyhood dream) once he’s vaccinated. Friend typically believes in science and is very health conscious but his gf is a moron Trump lover and her family the same and that’s who he’s been spending all his time with since this all started. When I asked friend why he’s not vaccinated he said he’s young & healthy, didn’t trust the vaccines, would do it when they got full fda approval. Plenty of young healthy people are dead of this. Anyway then I asked ok so what if you give it to someone who isn’t and dies, people incarcerated in the jail he works in and don’t have the luxury of social distancing, and he was like eh whatever. So yes friend is an asshole, but his best friend for decades, friend has always been kind of an asshole but has many redeeming qualities too. So we said no visit. But then in July when there was no covid here and no covid where he lives and we were blissfully living our covid free lives we loosened up and said he could visit with two negative tests. But then covid got bad again and when asshole friend contacted A the other day to say he took time off in late Sept to visit, A said sorry, it’s fully fda approved now you have no excuses not to vaccinate, we’re worried about our unvaccinated kids, and as of now you can’t visit but hey maybe if you get vaccinated and the numbers look better we can reassess in a month and you can come. Friend was a total dick about it, didn’t understand our point of view at all, stressed A about it, who was in a bad mood about it for days afterward.

Then there’s the neighbors. I had a chat with the kids and a chat with the mom. I framed it as we love them so much and I know they’re careful but I think we should all be more careful while the numbers are so rising (aka only outdoor hangouts) and we are careful but I’ve heard terrifying stories from doctor friends about kids and babies getting very sick, and they have a baby who I don’t want us to make sick, and she said she agreed. The kids have been pretty good about making the adjustment from constant sleepovers to playing outside but M keeps asking me “the kids need to pee are they allowed to use the bathroom, the kids are hungry are they allowed to come inside even for one minute for a snack,” and I feel like the villain (I’ve been saying yes to pee, snacks I’ll bring out). Everyone’s been understanding but nobody is getting what I mean when I say only outdoor socializing. All the kids keep asking me when I’ll take them to town again for ice cream, “but it’s outside” (um yeah but the car’s not), asking their mom to ask me for sleepovers even though they know what the answer will be. The other day they were playing in our yard then it started raining and they were like “we can’t walk home in the rain”- I don’t want them to walk home in the rain, but again the car is indoors!- so I drove them home (but made M stay at our house). They’re not my kids so I can’t make them wear masks and it feels like now I am in the position of being the mean parent who’s psycho about covid, which in a way I am, but it would help me to stick to my guns and feel okay about sticking to them if the government policies matched the severity of the situation, ie mask mandates in public places (instead of stores posting polite recommendations), vaccine mandates, virtual learning options, etc.

Which brings me to school. After selling M hard on real school, then I sold her hard on home school. She already “did” 3rd grade last year (as much as me teaching her in my pajamas counts as doing), but this district has an earlier cut off than the city, so she’s in 3rd grade again here. Which is fine by me- her birthday is the same day as the very late nyc cut off (12/31) and I hated that she was the absolute youngest. I used to beg the school to hold her back and they’d say “but why she’s doing so well!” not understanding that I was thinking ahead to the teen years. But anyway, despite her haphazard pj’d professor, she seemed to learn a lot last year so homeschool this year could basically be unschool. She’d traipse around the forest identifying birds and trees with A and her brother, reading for pleasure, and I’d spend an hour here and there reviewing some worksheets with her so she’d be on track when she starts real school after she gets vaccinated. She was into the idea, until she found out she and one of the neighbor kids are in the same class. Now she absolutely wants to go to real school, AND ride the school bus. The school bus part makes me very nervous. While there is now a school mask mandate (but will it be enforced? what are their lunch procedures, what % of teachers are vaccinated, what % of the older kids in the same building as the little kids are vaccinated, did they actually really update their ventilation system?) and a bus mask rule, it’s a long rural route (15 min drive or 45 min bus) and I have no faith that bus windows will be open and all riders will be masked the whole time.

So just tell her she can go to school but has to be driven by a parent, right? Not so simple. I was offered a job at a (somewhat, commuting distance) nearby nonprofit- an easy low stress job in a bastion of liberalism with very very nice smart coworkers, excellent work life balance, a writing job that sounds made for me, like the job description is exactly what I would put together if I were putting together my dream job (except the pay, which is half what I was making at a fancy DC nonprofit, but high for this area, and our housing cost is half so it should be fine if A can get away from little guy long enough to bring in some money too). It’s mostly remote but approx one day a week in the office and some days there will be things I need to attend out in the community (not necessarily our community, they serve the whole region). It won’t always be the same day in the office and the office is an hour away- so on those days A would have no car to get her to and from school, since I’d need to leave before school starts and get home after it’s done. So I guess we need to buy a new car? Aside from this issue we really don’t need a second car now, were planning to get one eventually, but not until A’s business has enough projects to justify the cost.

Despite its many demands/challenges/ stressors, home school is sounding easier to me at this point (especially because she already did this grade), except she WANTS to go to school. Someone talk me out of putting some lipstick and a pantsuit on her and taking her to get vaccinated. I know, I know: the 5-11 dosage is 1/3 of the 12-adult dosage. The doctors I’ve spoken to are split on this hypothetical kamikaze mission. The doctors I’ve spoken to are also split on me and A going to a pharmacy now for booster. It’s been almost 6 months since our 2nd dose. We do not have compromised immune systems. This county has way more doses than demand and I would feel better sending M to school (bus or not) if we had our boosters and she had a first dose- moral and scientific quandaries aside- because there is A LOT of covid here now, a lot of covid everywhere now, and I feel like we are returning to regular life at the time when we should be most hunkered down.

Which brings me to the data. Per capita there are as many known cases here as in nyc, except nyc has a 50% higher vax rate, much more mask usage, better medical system. People are not getting enough tests here, there is a higher positivity rate, and so I think the actual number of cases is much higher than the reported number of cases. It seems like, friends here and in the city and in the suburbs (I just broke up with a friend in the suburbs because she professes to be a good democrat but is hosting a bonafide super spreader event and vacationing in a place with 39% positivity and a collapsed health care system), are thinking of covid as something you catch from strangers- they wear masks in stores- but aren’t careful at all around close friends and family (so many extended family gatherings, so many, cousins and grandparents and half-siblings and aunts and uncles and whoever), when this is a disease that kills via the people you love most, the ones who’d never intentionally hurt you.