#(very silly behaviour on my part but I am also a person who has climbed on top of my fridge just to see if i could do it) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

teeztheflag · 3 years

Text

─────────────────────

S i e b e n S i n n e (Seven Senses) I

⋆ pairing: catking!san x reader (x human!woo young)

⋆ genre: yandere au, fantasy au, suggestive

⋆ trigger warnings ⚠️ strong language, yanderish behaviour, possessiveness, violence

⋆ words: 6,700

part I part II part III

a/n: this is (obviously) inspired by The Cat Returns (Studio Ghibli) and A Whisker away (Netflix); my Halloween gift to you guys & in celebration of ateez halloween performance video the black cat nero

⋆ „Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. There has to be a logical answer for this! For everything!“

─────────────────────

„You are really out of your mind sometimes, (y/l/n) (y/n).“ Your friend Jang Mi side-eyes you suspiciously when she drags you through the streets of Seoul.

The only thing replaying in your mind endlessly the cat you just managed to rescue from a speeding car. How she or he stood up on the hind paws like a real human being. Those intriguing eyes that judged you mercilessly first and than seeming to spotten the wound on your head. When you crashed down on the side walk with the cat in your arms shielding it from the pain that would come. It felt like the cat would’ve known and understood what you had just done and that was quite fascinating.

No, never. It didn’t understand. It’s a cat. Just a cat. And it’s not uncommon they’re able to stand like you or me. Maybe it has an owner that trained him to do so.

Anyways. You were glad you did it. You love cats and in a big town like this it was common those beautiful creatures were driven over often. Also the cat you just rescued had such a beautiful reddish fur with a cute rosy pointing nose. It behaved like a damn human with it‘s gaze and attitude though...

You chuckle at this earning you another glare from Jang Mi. „That isn’t funny! You could’ve died, (y/n)!“

„I didn’t. And that asshole that drove the car should’ve known better to not speed so carelessly in a 30 zone.“

Jang Mi rolls her eyes and groans out knowing it‘s pointless to argue with you over these things. She knows you only since two years but in this short time the two of you became the best friends someone could imagine.

„Hey, Jang Mi. You know what? I am buying you some ice cream! To get that grumpy look off your face.“ The last words you emphasize with a funny voice to which your friend laughs out and pokes her tongue at you.

„Silly girl, you always know how to get me. Oh, gosh. Your head...“ Since she’s got a better look at you now your wound is not a nice sight to take in. You absentmindedly touch where her gaze lands and frown when you see the blood on the tips of your shaking fingers.

„Don’t worry. It’s nothing...“

„Yeah, hell no. We’re getting to a pharmacy first. I don’t even understand how you didn’t notice it yourself.“

You frown again. Suddenly it actually starts to hurt and you could facepalm yourself. Sometimes your clumsiness got on your nerves because you slowly became aware of the questioning gazes on your form by the passengers on the streets.

„Come on, babes. We get you treated. Don’t want your lover boy to freak out tomorrow!“ With that she started to speed away leaving you endlessly flustered. He wasn’t your loverboy but Jang Mi was so fast you had to catch her to get revenge.

This girl...

Your head hurt but the work due tomorrow wasn’t finishing itself. Your fingers found their way so often to the wound and everytime a picture of the cat flashed your mind.

„I hope it’s ok...“

Finishing the last task you groan out and sink back into your writing chair. Crap... The chilly summer air fills your room with a comfortable silence. You loved your windows open the whole night listening to the music of the town. It was a different atmosphere than back home on your farm. There you would only hear the crickets and rustling of the trees. It took some time to adjust to the new surroundings but you managed well. Hopefully...

After getting ready for bed you snuggled yourself under the covers and listened. Thinking back to when you came back home earlier a smile crept up your face.

„Did you got beaten?“ Your mother asked you wide-eyed. You couldn’t hold back the laughter that erupted afterwards and the look on your mother’s face of misbelief. But she smiled. She heartily smiled at you when you told her the story.

„Ah, my stupid daughter. You and animals. But you know what? How people treat animals says a lot about their personality. So I am proud my (y/n) is a good girl!“ She hugged you and you laughed again. Quite cheesy but okay.

Your eyelids got heavier and you felt yourself drifting into the dreaming land. Everything was calm and you felt safe.

Drums? You’re sleeping. It’s becoming louder and it annoys you. You groan and toss around in the bed coming more to your senses. How long were you asleep already? Making a move to look on your clock only confuses you. There were no numbers or anything.

Still in a foggy state you sit up and your gaze drifts to your window where the sound seems to increase in its volume more and more.

„At this rate they will wake the whole neighborhood.“

Curiosity killed the cat so you stood up and made your way to the window. Peaking out carefully you first see nothing. The street lights are on but the houses are dark. Nobody woke up yet? Turning your head to the left and to the right repeatedly you wanted to give up but then you heard it again.

A loud drum that makes your heart beat quicken and goosebumps rising.

„Aish, what is going on?“

You suppress a scoff when you see lanterns at the end of the street emerging. A festival move at this unholy hour? Oh wait, you don’t know how late it is.

Are you dreaming? You look back to the clock and still no numbers. You are definitely dreaming. It feels so real but you managed to have a lucid dream?

Suddenly a smile brightens on your face and you take a look at your hands in front of you wondering how everything‘s so realistic. No time to think longer you run downstairs and open the gate to the street looking for the lanterns and drums.

You only register now that you’re still in your pajamas but it is a dream so who cares. The music‘s becoming louder and louder. Your eyes shine with curiosity and your hands become sweaty what might happen. Then the first persons come into sight and you gasp at the rich clothes they’re wearing.

Hanboks with the most astonishing and eye-catching colors. Beautifully handmade lanterns and flowers of all colors. But something knocks the air out of you and you take a step back. The figures leading the festival move aren’t humans... They’re cats! Cats that are seeming to walk on their hind paws. Like the one you rescued today.

What a weird dream. The move goes on and on and you register the cats sometimes peaking at you mischievously. Until it comes to a halt in front of you and you can see a cat with grayish-brown fur stepping down from a sedan chair a huge smile on it‘s face.

The cats were still much smaller than you and you felt like an idiot standing there on the streets barefoot only in your pajamas.

You shriek back scared when the cat seems to bow and all the others follow suit.

„Mrs. (y/l/n). My name is Kim Hong Joong and I come in the names of our prince Choi. Our kingdom is very thankful you rescued our young prince. In his behalf and others we want to thank you with a gift.“

„How can you speak...“

The cat named Hong Joong looks up and takes something from his back which looks like a necklace. You carefully reach for it after every cat seems to wait patiently. When your fingers touch the material the cat‘s eyes seem to glisten and the others start to meow happily.

„Ehm, eh, okay? Thank you?“ You inspected the necklace and wonder what material it was. It was very thin and almost seemed transparent. Beautiful nevertheless.

„I am so happy you accept the offer, Mrs. (y/l/n)! My prince and king will be very happy! We will pick you up tomorrow evening when your quarters are ready.“ He bowed again and all the other cats, too.

Suddenly they continue their way leaving you dumbfounded in front of your house with the necklace tingling between your fingers.

Your teacher rambled about one of her favorite musicians since probably twenty minutes leaving the whole class groaning unhappily. With a pen between your teeth and the head supported by your palm your gaze drifts out the window to the school yard.

The dream you had was so confusing. After the cats were gone you climbed back into your bed not knowing how to stop your sleep. It also worries that you are able to remember every little detail. Maybe it’s like this when you’re lucid dreaming?

„Ouch!“ You pat you the back of your head where something hit you a few seconds ago. Turning around you come face to face with no other than Woo Young himself. The boy smirks at you and you roll your eyes picking up the little note he smashed in your direction.

„What‘s with your head?“

You deeply inhale and have to suppress a laugh. Scribbling down your answer and sending it back to your classmate you watch Woo Young‘s reaction.

He wears an apologetic look and then frowns and smiles.

„Because you just hit me with the killer paper? Jokes, you should see the other guy :‘)“

Woo Young quickly writes down while looking to the teacher once in a while.

You liked Woo Young for quite a while now. His open-minded and kindhearted character let you feel butterflies in your stomach so often. While you watch the boy like a lovestruck teacher he sends a paper back to you again but this time you catch it.

Earning the attention of the whole class and also your teacher.

„Mr. Jung! Mrs. (y/l/n)!“

After detention with Woo Young and some other students you and the back walk back the way to your house. Between chattering and laughing Woo Younh suggests to buy you some strawberry milk and take a last chill at the playground in your neighborhood.

Both of you sit on a swing next to eachother while the boy‘s eyes are glue to your form every so often.

„Oh, look!“ You point up to the sunset and giggle at how nicely the colors of red and purple seem to merge.

„It’s beautiful...“ Woo Young takes a sip from his own milk and agrees while not taking his eyes off you.

„Thank you, Woo. I mean I was really angry at you earlier but you made up for it!“

„Well, it’s not by fault your skills are so bad.“ He smirks at you challenging but you just keep your comments to yourself and start to swing a little bit.

„(y/n)? Would you go on a date with me?“

You caugh out some milk and Woo Young quickly stands up to help you by holding you.

Great, how embarrassing. Sometimes you wish the ground would open and you could hid away.

„Are you okay?“

„Yes, yes to both.“ You smile and Woo Young reflectors your face expression.

„Great, I was really nervous to ask you.“ His hand caresses the nape of his neck while he helps you to stand up.

Cute.

„I will plan everything! Maybe a picnic or we could do something adventurous!“

„I trust you to find something good and if you’re not we could always just take a walk in the park.“

„Alright. Then see you tomorrow, beautiful.“ Woo Young tries to be brave and places a chaste kiss on your cheek to which your body responds immediately with butterflies in your stomach.

You try to hide your face and say goodbye to him making your way home, too, with the palms on your cheeks to cool them down. Oh god what was this boy doing to you.

„Mrs. (y/l/n). We’ve searched everywhere for you!“

What was that? You turn around to find the source of the voice but you cannot spot anyone. Did you just imagine that?

„Down here, mylady.“

„Oh my god!“ With a loud thud you stumble back and land on your butt shock evident on your face.

„Y - you... you are...“

„Kim Hong Joong, at your service.“ The cat from your dream bowed to you and landed back on his four paws to tilt his head.

„Are you okay? Did this unworthy human harassed you or something?“

„I don’t understand... How and why. I am not dreaming?“

„You aren’t. If you thought so yesterday you weren’t, too. I am a cat and you a human and we‘re having a chat right now.“ His eyes pierced you and your actions carefully but you were just so confused everything started to spin around you.

„Cat - you’re a cat. You shouldn’t be able to talk!“ Hong Joong starts to emerge your form and meows sadly when you try to rob away from him.

„Mh, well, we don’t have time. They’re already waiting so we should go.“

„Go? Where?“

„To the kingdom of cats of course.“ Hong Joong’s meows loudly and you cannot believe your eyes when about a dozen cats emerge from the bushes and jump down from the roofs.

„I am not feeling good.“ You black out when the cats seem to get you on top of them and start to speed away with a magical fast pace.

„Oh no, she’s out...“ Hong Joong sits in front of you on the train of cats and observes you quietly.

You’re out of the town and it’s noise faster than ever and pass trees and farms in the last rays of the sunshine from today. While you’re still unconscious it’s already to late to flee when the train of cats slide through the portal and enter the magical world to the kingdom of cats...

You wake up with a groan clutching to your head immediately. Slowly coming back to your sense you can feel a fluffy blanket with your fingers and you turn over to snuggle deeper into the covers and cushions. It was only a dream...

Opening your eyes carefully your breath hitches and you sit up abruptly. This can’t be real! Where are you?

„Hello?“ You stand up and wander around the room you’re in. It is definitely out of time as it looks like back in 19th century out of a royal castle. The bed is huge with gold decorations and also the furniture looks of expensive wood and materials. It seems to be evening because it’s already getting dark outside.

How long were you gone? It was evening when the cats got you and... the cats got you here. Speaking cats. Oh god, you were finally loosing your mind.

„The fucking hell...“ Is that you in the mirror? The person looks like you but... there are (y/h/c) ears on your head. Cat ears... You touch the area where your human ears should be but there are not to find.

You feel the room spinning again.

„Don’t freak out. Don’t freak out. There has to be a logical answer for this! For everything!“

The door opens and you feel yourself tensing up and backing away when about three females enter the room looking just like you. But with the difference that they also wear a tail on their backs that swing around happily which makes you think they’re excited for anything.

„Oh my! The cat ears and tail suit you nicely, Mrs. (y/l/n)! You’re purrrrfect!“ The other ladies giggle and you just stand there mouth open and shocked. You point at them hastily and scared.

„Who are you! What am I doing here? Where am I?“

„Sh, sh... You’re in the Kingdom of the cats and more precisely in the castle of king and prince Choi.“

„Are you joking?“

„No, we aren’t. You’re in a magical world and are going to live every cat‘s dream! Marrying our wonderful and gorgeous cat king Choi.“ The smiles doesn’t leave their faces despite knowing how worn up you are and exhausted, too.

„I - I, who am I going to marry?”

“Mrs. (y/l/n), you’re going to marry the king of cats! Isn’t it wonderful?“

„He, ehe, I don’t know what game this is but just let me go home and - “

„No times! We have to make you presentable for meeting our king! He will absolutely fall in love with you! Your fur already looks so nice and fluffy and that tail!“

Ah, yes. Don’t listen to me. And what’s that funny thing on your back? You turn forth and back and jump away when you see the thing swinging from side to side. You carefully touch it and feel that it’s very sensitive and almost ticklish.

„I’ve never known cats could feel so much with this thing...“

„Oh, we are. But humans are just plainly dumb and think it would be funny to provoke us with the smallest things.“ The others agree with the lady that talked the most out of them and you just hum at her.

„So let‘s get you ready and the king will help you with all your questions. In the end he will be your husband soon!“ They giggled again and emerged your form to sit you down in front of a smaller mirror in the room starting to brush your hair and comb it nicely.

After a while some of them come back to the room with a few dresses and let you pick one. What else could you do right now? You weren’t convinced this all was real by but maybe that king or whatever could help you. Also the ladies seemed to be very persistent on dolling you up.

„Look! What a beautiful queen we will soon have!“ The girl named Ye Ri says and points to the mirror while the others gather around to admire their work.

Suddenly someone knocks on the door and Joy walks over to open it. You frown when you see a man standing there bowing to the girls and you.

„Mr. Kim! The Miss is ready!“

„Oh, I can see. Are you feeling better, mylady?“

„Hong Joong?“

He smiles just like he did as a cat but now he also has only the cat ears and and a tail. He was still very cute and looked happy to see you.

„Yes, it’s me. It’s nice you recognized me in this form.“

„This form? So you can change?“

„Yes, every cat is able to change its form but we rather do that in our kingdom where no humans can see us.“

„Oh, wow. So can I change, too?“

„Yes, you can. But for now it should be better for you to stay in this form. We usually are how we are right now when being in society. You will soon see yourself. For now I am here to bring you to the king.“

„Of course, the king...“

The girls usher you out to follow Hong Joong through the long corridors of the castle and you often find yourself slowing down to look at all the art hanging on the walls and peaking into one room and another.

Suddenly he halts in his tracks and motions for two guards in front of the door to open it. They’re bowing for you and Hong Joong motions for you to enter the big hall where a throne and other furniture was placed like - indeed - for a king.

You step inside and they close the doors behind you with a thud that makes you jolt nervously.

Then you see him. Black ears and a black tail that is swinging calmly from side to side while he looks out of the window. His arms are folded behind his back and he’s wearing what seems like a red king jacket with golden emblems, a white blouse and dark trousers.

He indeed looks like a king, more like a prince so because he’s so young. The king smiles to himself hearing you walking to him warily and with careful steps. He looks down into his palm where your necklace is placed and caresses the texture.

You watch him turning around and it nearly knocks the air out of your system. He’s deadly gorgeous with black hair like the night and piercing eyes that resemble cat ones so much. If this wasn’t the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen you didn’t know. Or should you say cat?

„You’re here.“

You gulp and stupidly nod at him not being able to form an accurate sentence.

„Finally. My brother didn’t lie when he said you were the purest soul and lovely human he ever layed his eyes on.“

You cannot suppress the effect he has on you and wish that hole would finally appear. Before you can look away the king emerges your now a little bit trembling form and seems to analyze everything.

You can feel him looking at your ears with such fascination. He really resembles a cat. His tail touches your dress so often and you feel like he does it on purpose but when you look up he’s still right in front of you dazed by your looks and eyes.

You should ask him now. Although he was so beautiful and mesmerizing he was still a cat and in no way you could stay here and marry a cat. A cat king. But that didn’t matter right now.

„King Choi I - “

„San. My name is San.“

He purrs at you and you could’ve drop dead at the sound. It felt almost lewd like it was his way of flirting with you and damn it he was getting you with it.

Hence you and your love for animals and especially cats! They were just too elegant and cute to resist.

„S - San, I don’t know how to say this but - why am I here?“

His eyes widen and his orbs darken at your question, something that doesn’t go unnoticed by you. Then he flashes you a dazzling smile with little fangs showing.

„We’re marrying, (y/n).“

„But - I mean, why me?“

„Because you rescued my brother, prince Jong Ho. You would’ve given your life to rescue one of us and you were lucky it was the prince himself. We take that very serious!“

„Ah, so that cat was your brother!“ He nods rapidly his eyes seeming to turn into crescents at your reaction.

„A thank you would have been ok, San. We don’t have to marry! I mean I am a human girl and you’re a cat, the king of cats to add. There will be better options for you, right? You don’t have to feel obligated or something, really!“ With every word you stutter San‘s mood seems to change from a playful into something tense.

„My love, cats only fall in love once in their life and after my brother told me about you I knew you were the right one! Also the king‘s wish is not to be declined, never.“

Your smile now also vanished from your face and you could facepalm. He didn’t want to let you go? Fine, you would find a way yourself.

„(y/n), you accepted my marriage proposal so there’s no turning back. In a week we‘re going to marry and there‘s no way out of the kingdom without my acceptance.“ He leans down and mewls into your cat ears that instantly react to the soft touch of his fingers. You tense and try to hold back from letting out any sound. He takes out the necklace of his pocket and places it around your exposed neck.

You groan unintentionally. This was the marriage proposal!

You want to talk to him longer and tell him that you wouldn’t marry him but when you smell the scent of food on the table at the end of the room your stomach has other plans.

San seems to be back to his sweet and inviting aura and glances down to you with loving eyes. „Let’s eat, love. You have to be hungry after the long journey.“ He professionally lays his arm around your waist and guides you to the table where you carefully start to dig into the delicious meals.

Thing two you loved endlessly. Food... Maybe one or two days with these expensive dishes wouldn’t be too bad? Hell, no, (y/n).

San‘s aura is calm again and he watches you with interested eyes how you’re eating everything the cooks prepared for this evening.

„From tomorrow on we will sleep together in my chambers. Today I well let you get adjusted to everything. If you want or need something Hong Joong will be your personal contact everytime.“

The slice of apple nearly slips into the false tract when he speaks about sleeping together. „I - isn‘t it too early to sleep in the same bed?“

„Don’t worry. Cats play by other rules. But I won’t touch you until we’re married. Then we will mate and I’ll take what’s mine, my beautiful (y/n).“

A sick feeling makes itself comfortable in your stomach at his words. He almost sounds possessive over you. Were cats like this? A thing you never payed attention to.

Still, there had to be a way out of here. Tomorrow you would try to leave the castle and get back to your world, as dumb as it sounded.

You were very tired and after eating San brought you back to the room you woke up earlier and left you there. As soon as he vanished out of your sight you felt like the air wasn’t suffocating you anymore.

He was charming and dazzlingly handsome but something just seems off. Fear and worry he would really not let you go crept up to you like paws with long and sharp claws.

He would understand. If he really liked you and fell in love he would let you go. That’s what you would do for the person you love, right? Let them be free and happy. Oh my, hopefully he would change his mind...

The next morning you wake up rested and stretch out to wake your still tired limbs. Instead of a yawning a long meow leaves your mouth leaving you to startle.

„Well, I have to get used to this...“ You stand up and find the bathroom to take a show having minor problems with your tail that seems to swing away everytime you try to wash it properly. It was funny how in everyone of their clothes a little hole for the tail was. You were also thankful your wardrobe didn’t only consist of dresses and changed into a pair of light trousers and a red blouse that you tucked into. The maids also arrived early to make your hair and make up which felt nice. You’ve never had anyone to make you feel so beautiful.

Being happy with your appearance you left the girls seeing Hong Joong already waiting for you in front of your door.

„Good morning, mylady! I am here to escort you to the breakfast.“

„Good morning to you, too!“ You smiled at the boy and followed suit. The room was opened with large windows where the sun peaked inside and outside you could see a big garden with many flowers and a big pond. It looked dreamingly...

„I am also admiring the view of the morning, my queen.“ Your ears twitch and you feel San coming up behind you his eyes only set on you which makes you flustered.

„You’re exaggerating, my king.“

„I am not. But maybe your right. No words can describe your beauty, (y/n).“ You giggle a little bit helpless and take a seat next to San to start the breakfast.

Then suddenly the door opens and a young man with reddish hair enters the room equally dressed to San.

„Brother!“ Jong Ho smiles spotting the two of you. The poor boy doesn’t know what tragedy he got you into.

„(y/n), my dear. Do you recognize me?“ A smile creeps up your face at the sight. The cat you rescued in it‘s other form.

„Oh my! You are him!“

„Yes, I am the cat. I am still so thankful for what you’ve done!“

„It wasn’t anything. You didn’t have to make your brother have to marry me.“ You giggle embarrassed but Jong Ho frowns at your reaction.

„Why? Nothing can be enough to thank my hero... Aren’t you happy?“ San‘s speak up before you’re able to.

„She’s a little bit overwhelmed but it will cool down after the marriage.“ He slips from his tea wearing a mischievous smile while you glare at the king. His brother suddenly smiles again being obviously relieved. That boy also seemed to be too pure for his own good...

The breakfast continued while the three of you have little chit chats with you asking more about the world and maybe getting information on how to leave from here.

San told you he had some business to do for the marriage leaving you to roam around the castle and the yards on your own. The perfect opportunity to get out of here. Your ears hang down at thought of leaving the nice people you met here but they would understand.

With the enhanced hearing and moving you were able to explore the ground and find a way to sneak out of the place through a door where no guard was.

You ran as fast as you could and after a while you emerged a little village where many cats in their original form and the other form were walking around. Meowing and talking everywhere leaving you fascinated. There was a little market where you saw a couple arguing over something and children playing around.

It was magical and beautiful. Probably more beautiful than the human world could ever be. Cats were watching you with interested eyes and you only realized you were caught when a little girl pulled at the hem of the dress of her mother pointing to you.

„Mummy, look! The lady!“ Oh no! You had to get away quickly or they would tell a guard. You turned around corners and saw the end of the village but before you could sneak out someone grabbed you by your arms and pulled you back.

It was a man with blondish ears and a loose blouse eyeing you suspiciously. „Please, let me go!“ His gaze turns down to your neck and he frowns loosening the grip around your arm.

„You’re the queen. What are you doing here? Without a guard?“

„I - I am not the queen. I have to get out of here. Of this world!“

„You sneaked out of the castle, right?“ You looked away ashamed of being caught and trembling of fear not knowing how San would react.

„Why do you want to go?“

„The king... he wants to marry me but I am here against my own will. I am a human being kidnapped into this world so please cat, have a heart and help me!“

„I think I understand and see your worry. You will adjust. I promise...“ Slowly he turned away something flashing in his eyes you couldn’t point out.

„No, please! I have a life outside of this world! My mum is alone and my friends and...“ Woo Young. It seems like the longer you were in this world the more you forgot about your own.

„Listen, mylady. I am not interested in our kingdom at all and couldn’t care less but if I help you they will probably kill me.“

„They would kill you? I thought cats wouldn’t be so cruel...“

He scoffs at you and looks around if no one is listening to you talking. „The king is merciless. If something gets in his way he...“

„I knew something about him was off... but I don’t think somebody knows that I am gone. They will probably only realize until it’s time for lunch. I have a real chance if you just told me where I can get back to the human world! I am begging you!“

The boy thinks hardly before answering. The portal was only half an hour away in one direction. If they caught him helping the queen to escape he would be so dead... but the desperate look in your eyes warmed his heart.

„For god‘s sake... you’re one persistent person.“ Yeo Sang explained how to leave the cat‘s kingdom and you didn’t wait another second to thank him quickly and speed away.

That necklace on yours would tell everyone who you were. Hopefully none other would cross your way now. He watches you running away with a frown. Good luck...

Your feet hurt by now bow after a while you emerged a forest and entered it with mindful steps. It was dark and you could hear so many things. When you stumbled over a fallen tree you landed perfectly on the ground on all fours and suppressed a laugh. Wow, that was really helpful. You stood up and went deeper and deeper into the woods until you saw something glistening and shining on a meadow.

That had to be the portal!

You run over the grass and stopped in front of it. Holding your hand out you reached for the light but before you can take a step forward something crashes into your side forcefully.

„I have her!“ You try to struggle out of the grip and a hiss leaves your mouth sounding like a very pissed of cat. Soon other person are coming and you can see black ears between them definitely belonging to the one you’re running from.

„Great work, men! Especially you, Min Gi!“

„Ah, thank you mylord!“ The men stands up and quickly other guards are taking your wrists and holding you up. You can see Hong Joong looking concerned at you while San seems to be something between amused and pissed off at the same time. Knowing you failed fear rushes through your system what would happen to you know. San comes up and stands in front of you to let his tail embrace your waist and push you forward to him. He takes your face in his hands and brushes your cheeks with his palms.

„I was so afraid. You seem to have lost your way, my little clumsy kitten.“ He sounded so honest everyone cooed at the two of you but you just gulped and didn’t loose the eye contact with the cat king.

„I am sorry, my king. I am really clumsy. Always been.“ He smiles sickenly sweet down to you and places a long and possessive kiss on your forehead. „And then someone tells you the wrong way, too. Tsk, tsk. There are bad cats out there, (y/n). But we will take care of those that are trying to hurt my beloved ones. I promise you.“

It feels like all colors leaves your face at the thought of the cat that helped against all his concerns.

„Please don’t hurt him.“ San ignored your pleading and takes you into his arms to guide you back to a carriage his tail not leaving your waist any second. Suddenly breathing feels suffocating again.

Back at the castle San enters his chambers with you still by his site and he emerges his king sized bed where he sits you down. He positions his hands on his waist and his ears twitch in annoyance. „I will torture that boy to calm my anger, (y/n). If you try to escape again he’s dead.“ His eyes are dark and you feel your eyes watering at his words.

„My king, please! I won’t try to escape again! I promise! Just don’t hurt him!“ You’re begging him and move to sit down on your knees in front of him but he just scuffs and moves away so your tail cannot long encircle around his legs.

„You should’ve thought about that before you ran so quickly away from my side. I will see you at dinner.“ You were hiccuping and crying for him but the merciless king locked his chambers and made his way to the dungeons. No one got into his way and he always got what he wanted. Yeo Sang knew about that and helped you anyways... What now? You were so close... You curled up on the bed calming down from the crying. How could you get out of this? How long would you still be able to remember your home? Your mum and Jang Mi... and Woo Young. He asked you on a date, right? Would’ve been it today?

„Gosh, Woo Young... Mum. Jang Mi. I am so sorry.“

It had been days you were missing. Woo Young sat on the swing his eyes glued to the sand in front of him. You sat next to him. Right there. You were here. Why did you leave? Did someone take you?

„Shit, (y/l/n) (y/n). Where the heck are you!“

„Problems in paradise?“

Woo Young slowly looks up to see a young man leaning casually against one of the playground furniture. He’s wearing a black hanbok looking very mysterious but he wasn’t much older than the boy himself. A small mobile stand is next to him adorned by many masks of all colors and forms.

„Who are you?“

The young man opens his eyes and tilts his head to the side grinning from ear to ear. „I am the one to help those in need.“

Woo Young scuffs and stands up to leave the playground.

„I know where (y/n) is. Well, more where she’s being hold.“

Woo Young feels a shudder going down his spine and rage rushing through him. He turns around and emerged the man with quick steps to take him by the hem of his hanbok. „You asshole! What have you done to her?“ He hisses out through grilled teeth feeling only more provoked by the latter.

„Hey, friend. Calm down. I have nothing to do with her missing.“ He carefully reaches for Woo Young‘s hand and takes it down.

„There you go. I can help you friend. Only if you are willing to do everything of course...“

„You - why would I trust you?“ Suddenly the man‘s gaze darkens and he chuckles deeply.

„I am your only chance to get her back.“ Woo Young thinks for a second. There were no signs of your leaving and no one has seen something... Maybe it was his only option to take the opportunity.

„Who are you and where is she?“

The smiles is back on the mans face and he takes a mask from his stand to hold it in front of his face and down again. „They call me by Seong Hwa. I am the one that you can also find by the ‚mask seller‘.“

„Daeng, I should’ve know you just want to sell something!“

„Hold up, Woo Young. Why would I know of her and your name? Why would I know you were the last one that saw here and asked her out on a date?“

„That‘s not possible... How can you?“

„I know many things. And I also know where your dear (y/n) has been taken to.“

„Okay, this definitely doesn’t make any sense but let’s play your game. Where is she and how can I get to her?“

„She’s far away. Very far away. In a world we also call the kingdom of cats. And... you can only enter it when you’re a cat yourself.“

„Tsk, and how do I become a cat?“

„It’s easy. This mask can turn you into cat. I will sell it to you and will show you the way. The rest you will have to do yourself.“

„How much?“ Seong Hwa‘s eyes widen. He wouldn’t have thought Woo Young would agree so easily.

„We will talk about the price after you rescued your princess, how about that?“

„Alright.“ With that Seong Hwa hands the mask over to the young boy and motions for him to wear it. When nothing happens Seong Hwa chuckles and pushes the boy so that he does a role and - to all surprises - changes into a small cat. „How magical, right?“ Seong Hwa chuckles darkly and tilts his head in amusement.

─────────────────────

↺ back to navi

─────────────────────

#ateez au #ateez fantasy #ateez yandere #ateez fic #ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #ateez writing #ateez x reader #ateez san x reader #choi san x reader #woo young #wooyoung x reader #ateez yandere au #ateez fantasy au

263 notes · View notes

commentaryvorg · 5 years

Text

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.11

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as trial 4 (trial 4!) began, Gonta was doing a very big confuse but still trying his hardest to understand and be helpful, Kaito’s own attempts to be helpful started up what’s going to be a long string of him being wrong about the case, Kokichi was so desperate to make his point about it being stupid to trust people that he kind of shot himself in the foot with it and perhaps also finally realised that making it to Kaito was always hopeless, and Kaito absolutely refused to compromise on his convictions about staying true to himself and believing in people, because he is Good.

Those last parts derailed the actual deductions for a while, but we’re resuming here now that everyone’s starting to talk about whether or not Kokichi really met Miu on the rooftop.

Kokichi: “Here’s my answer – I never met up with Miu.”

Gonta: “Hm? You didn’t?”

Aww, look at Gonta still trying to piece together a picture of what happened. Plus, to Kokichi, this would seem like Gonta going “huh, okay, I guess you’re going to lie about that part, I’ll make sure to keep my lies consistent with that”, even though that’s not what he’s doing at all.

Kokichi: “I tried to go to the roof to meet up with her, but the door was locked.”

…

Kokichi: “Also, I never went to the roof, not even for the meeting.”

These two lines confused me on my first time through as being seemingly contradictory – I assumed by “not even for the meeting” he meant that he didn’t even go up the stairs and try to open the door to reach the meeting place, which blatantly contradicted what he’d said only a few lines ago. It’s probably a bit of a mistranslation and is supposed to mean something like, “Also, I never went to the roof for anything other than the meeting either.”

Maki: “But, was the door to the roof actually locked? When I was on the roof before logging out, the door wasn’t locked.”

Presumably she’s talking about when she went to check if Kaito was there. It’s a bit much for her to assume the door would still have been locked from the outside after the murder had happened and the culprit had left, since she doesn’t know the culprit could have left by climbing down. Kokichi could have actually told Gonta to lock the door behind him before sliding the body and climbing down, to create something of a locked room mystery. Doing so would have made it literally impossible to get back onto the rooftop to investigate it, though, so maybe that’s why he didn’t.

Kaito: “When I went to the roof, it wasn’t locked, so you gotta be lying.”

That argument… doesn’t make sense, Kaito, you were there before the murder ever happened. Anyone else could have come to the roof and locked it after you were logged out.

Kokichi: “What good would it be if I lied? I don’t wanna die either, y’know!”

Himiko: “Lying would do you a lot of good if you’re the culprit.”

For someone who’s not the blackened and doesn’t want to die (yet), Kokichi sure is doing a lot of unnecessary lying just to drag this out and fuck with people anyway.

Kokichi: “Oh! Mm-hm, I see! I didn’t realise that!”

Kaito: “What kinda response is that!? That’s suspicious as hell!”

Shuichi: “Wait, there’s no point in arguing about that now. The truth will come out eventually. Before we get to that, we need to discover the truth behind Miu’s death.”

I like the contrast here between Kaito being riled up and needlessly argumentative, and Shuichi being rational and logical and actually moving the discussion along.

Kokichi: “Wow, Shuichi! You know your way around this game! Yes, keep up the hard work! The fate of our lives rests in your hands!”

Aaaand here we go. Kokichi Doing The Thing Count: 4! I knew he continued to do this a bunch of times during the trial and was pretty surprised I got through my entire previous post’s worth of the trial without it happening.

As a reminder, or in case you didn’t see the previous posts during the investigation where I started this count: this is about Kaito. Kokichi is targeting Kaito’s feelings of jealousy and inferiority to Shuichi by stressing how great Shuichi is and how he’s the only person who can save everyone. The last time he did this he made it obvious who it was about by also calling Kaito useless and annoying in the same breath, but even when he’s not mentioning Kaito at all, it’s still targeted at him. Kokichi does this praising Shuichi thing so many times during this case and only this case; it really being about Kaito’s issues is the only plausible reason for that.

Himiko: “If you look at where her avatar fell… it’s right next to the chapel.”

“So she *was* at chapel!”

Look at Gonta still trying to understand and piece everything together in his head! I’m pretty sure he’s being way more talkative in the white noise in this trial than in any other.

(Also, kudos to the localisation team; in Japanese, Gonta’s white noise lines wouldn’t be as easily identifiable because he has a normal speech pattern, but they’re still picking up on which lines are his and localising them into his speech pattern based on their content.)

Maki: “There was no bridge over the river.”

Keebo: “A bridge would be the only way to get across.”

“No can swim across?”

He’s trying to make suggestions and be helpful! Swimming across must have been an option with this river they’re talking about, right?

Himiko: “It won’t be that easy to figure out. It’s called a secret method for a reason.”

Kokichi: “No worries, guys! As long as we leave it to Shuichi, everything will be a-okay!”

Shuichi: (…What?)

Kokichi Doing The Thing Count: 5. Man, that didn’t take long to happen again. Shuichi also seems to be slightly picking up on the fact that this is odd of him to do.

Kaito: “What are you saying? We can’t just rely on Shuichi all the time. This class trial’s for all of us! We’re here to solve this together!”

And, see, it’s working. It’s getting to Kaito, just a little. Back in trial 2 he was all about focusing on Shuichi in order to give him the confidence that he could do this. But now he knows Shuichi doesn’t need that any more. Instead, it’s bothering Kaito that it really is pretty much all down to Shuichi, and that nobody else (especially not him) is all that necessary to solve this, so he’s trying to insist that that’s not the case.

Kokichi: “Nee-heehee… You would just slow down Shuichi.”

Kaito: “Shut up!”

Kokichi, come on, you were at least being subtle about it a second ago.

(I like how Kaito doesn’t even have a proper comeback.)

Shuichi: (…I don’t have time to deal with Kokichi. Right now, I need to focus on the case.)

Shuichi definitely seems to have noted something odd about Kokichi’s behaviour – but, to be fair, this particular behaviour isn’t relevant to the actual case.

Gonta: “Or, instead of bridge… Miu use some kinda vehicle to go over!”

“Like a plane?”

“Like a rocket?”

KAITO NOW IS NOT THE TIME TO BE A GIGANTIC SPACE DORK.

I can only imagine that it was probably Tsumugi who suggested a plane, because nobody should be seriously suggesting that, but she might say something like that anyway if it was a reference to something – and then apparently Kaito jumped on that and was all no! rockets are cooler! even though it makes even less sense to cross a river in a rocket. What a doofus.

This is possibly my favourite piece of white noise just in terms of how adorably ridiculous it is – the text is even vertical and flying upwards, like a rocket! – and I am very sad that none of the many blind LPers I’ve watched play this game have ever noticed and remarked on it. It’s not something you need a second playthrough to appreciate, and it deserves to be noticed, dammit!

(Also, again, points to Gonta for trying to understand and contribute suggestions even though he’s never seen this river himself!)

That was the game briefly interrupting the deeply issuey Kaito content for some extremely silly Kaito content. And now, back to his issues.

Shuichi: “We *do* know that that wall was set so that only objects could pass through…”

Kaito: “Don’t be naive, Shuichi!”

Kaito butts in mid-sentence here for his Rebuttal Showdown. The way Shuichi was talking, he was almost certainly just about to explain that Miu turned herself into an object in order to walk through that wall. Kaito would usually have enough faith in Shuichi to believe he’d have a reason for saying something that seems impossible at first glance and wait for him to finish. But here, he’s desperate to prove that Kokichi’s wrong and Shuichi can’t quite do everything all by himself, so he jumps in the second he hears something that doesn’t make sense to him.

Kaito: “Hmph, you don’t even realise your mistake? Are you losing your edge?”

There’s an edge to Kaito’s voice here that we only hear a few times, specifically when he’s jealous of Shuichi. He almost certainly knows that Shuichi hasn’t really made a mistake and already has the answer to this, and somewhere inside him he hates that Shuichi is so much more on top of things than he’ll ever be.

I really like how he’s staying as positive as he can and not letting his jealousy turn him against Shuichi, though. Even as Kaito’s trying to insist Shuichi made a mistake that Kaito doesn’t truly believe he made, he’s not saying it means Shuichi isn’t awesome any more – “losing your edge” acknowledges his awesomeness and just means he’s currently slightly less awesome than he usually is.

Kaito: “Oh well! My sidekick’s mistakes are my mistakes! I’ll make it right!”

See, look, he’s helping! So long as Shuichi made a mistake, that means that Kaito can help him with it and still be useful! That’s what he’s supposed to always be there to do for his sidekick, right?

(This is rather delightfully like his final FTE where he insisted Shuichi needed to talk to him about his problems when he really actually didn’t.)

Remember Gonta’s Rebuttal Showdown last time, which was all about him trying to be useful in the slightest way even though he knew he didn’t fully understand the case? That’s almost exactly the same thing that Kaito’s doing here. Just like the bonus scenes during the Daily Life were parallels of each other and both showed Gonta and Kaito’s desperation to be useful, this trial’s two Rebuttal Showdowns are doing that, too. I love the way this chapter handles Gonta and Kaito so much.

Kaito: “We gotta take a whole new approach here!”

Kaito, what does that even mean? Do you have an approach in mind? Or are you just trying to sound big and impressive and like you know what you’re talking about when you actually wouldn’t have a clue how to fix Shuichi’s “mistake” if he’d even made one in the first place?

Shuichi: (What’s on Kaito’s mind?)

Oh, Shuichi, if only you really knew.

Kaito: “You get it? So let’s go through this one more time.”

More words to sound big and impressive even though he definitely doesn’t know how going through it all again is going to achieve anything and find something new.

By the way…

Kaito Refutations: 2. Let’s keep a count of these as well, why not? (I’ve actually counted these before and know what the final tally will be, but this count is worth sharing, too!)

Kokichi: “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Kaito. We need to listen to everything Shuichi says. I already told you. The more you try, the more you cause us trouble. It’s soooo totally lame that your own sidekick is dissing you!”

Unfortunately, Kokichi sort of has a point. If Kaito hadn’t been so overzealous, then we wouldn’t have wasted time here because Shuichi would have explained it much more quickly than he did while discussing it with Kaito. Not that it really matters that he wasted a minute or two of time, since the trials don’t have a time limit, but the real blow is that Kaito just once again only made himself look more wrong and obviously inferior next to Shuichi than he would have done if he hadn’t even tried to help in the first place.

(Should I count this as Kokichi doing the thing? He’s not strictly praising Shuichi, but he’s still trying to hurt Kaito in a way that revolves around him being inferior to Shuichi. Yeah, that should totally count, shush. Kokichi Doing The Thing Count: 6.)

Shuichi: “Kokichi, enough! I wasn’t arguing with him, I was just explaining—”

Kaito: “Heh, I don’t care. That doesn’t bother me at all.”

Kaito’s got his evasive face for this line, and his tone of voice makes it very clear that he does care and it very much does bother him.

Kaito: “It just means even I make mistakes. Don’t worry about it, Shuichi.”

Yet in literally his very next line, he’s back to his big grin and thumbs up, and his voice genuinely sounds like he’s not worried about it. It has to be a façade, but it’s impressive how quickly he put it back up. He’s trying his hardest to push this aside and not let it get to him, and definitely to not let it get in the way of his friendship with Shuichi.

Shuichi: “O-Okay…”

Shuichi still seems a little sceptical and worried here, but unfortunately he doesn’t really have the time right now to be trying to figure out how Kaito is feeling.

Kokichi: “Nee-heehee… It’s pretty funny seeing Kaito try to act all tough like this.”

Oh my god, Kokichi, you’re still not done? Of course you also have to point out that Kaito was only pretending to be fine to cover up how much it got to him so that everyone knows he’s not as okay as he seems. Of course.

They move on to trying to figure out what the point of Miu being able to walk through the wall was, which begins a long sequence of Shuichi being annoyingly slow on the uptake about the looping world.

Kokichi calls Miu a bunch of vulgar things that I refuse to quote here in order to manipulate Monotaro into jumping to defend her and confirm that she wasn’t lying about there being nothing past the wall. This is more of Kokichi being deliberately helpful towards Shuichi figuring out Miu’s plan. It’s almost like he wants them to eventually realise Gonta did it and is actively sabotaging the mercy kill or something.

(It is weird that Monotaro knows there was nothing past the wall but doesn’t know the world was a loop. But, you know, got to give the players a game to play.)

Gonta: “Gonta will help, even though Gonta not know what you’re talking about!”

Oh, poor Gonta. He genuinely has no clue, but he doesn’t want to let that stop him helping!

This should not be as hard as it is for Shuichi to figure out. As soon as he considers the fact that they heard sounds from the mansion that actually occurred by the chapel, and that Miu was presumably killed on the mansion roof but ended up next to the chapel, he should immediately come to the conclusion that the mansion and chapel are in fact closer to each other than we’ve been led to believe. Especially because Shuichi was the one to pick up on the relevance of the fact that Miu made the map, so he should already be considering that the layout of the world isn’t necessarily how Miu wanted them to think it is.

Kokichi: “There was another mysterious phenomenon in the Virtual World, wasn’t there?”

Gonta: “Kokichi talk like he notice something… Pretending not to know?”

Look at Gonta noticing Kokichi’s strange behaviour! He’s utterly clueless as to everything regarding the Virtual World, but perhaps because of that, he’s paying much closer attention to the people in the trial and is able to notice how they’re acting and still be just a tiny bit useful that way.

Kokichi: “Even Gonta is suspicious of me? I always thought you would be the one to trust me!”

Kokichi’s obviously saying this because he believes Gonta remembers and is still supposedly on a “team” with him to try and get this mercy kill. But if that were true, then it would help their cause for Gonta to act like he thinks Kokichi did it! He’s just being a dick even though this would hypothetically be Gonta being clever and helping the plan!

This might be more deflection. Never mind that it’d make sense for Gonta to pretend to suspect Kokichi for the sake of the plan, how dare Gonta even vaguely remind Kokichi that he’s also guilty here.

(There may also be a tiny grain of real truth in here drawing from the very heavily suppressed part of Kokichi that actually appreciates the way Gonta has always trusted him despite everything. More on that a lot later.)

Gonta: “S-Sorry! Gonta not mean it like that!”

But of course Gonta doesn’t really think Kokichi did it (because he doesn’t really want to face the idea that anyone did it – he’s even more about believing in everyone than Kaito is) and really just said it to point out that Kokichi was being unhelpful.

And now for possibly the stupidest Psyche Taxi segment, where the entire “new deduction” we make is “oh look the signboard ended up apparently in the opposite direction than you’d expect based on the river flow”. Such deduction. Much logic. I would have assumed that the point of this was to figure out something meaningful – like, when it asks “Compared to the river’s current, which way did the signboard float?”, you’re meant to say “with the current”, because it did float with the current, that’s how currents work, and then the real question is how the current could have brought it to the mansion side anyway. Or when it asks you “Where is the end of the river?”, you’re meant to give the correct answer of “the transition point”, because while the river is really an endless loop, if any part of it counts as an end then it’s there. But no. No thinking ahead or piecing things together allowed here, just point out what is blatantly obviously in front of you while ignoring what you might already know to be the real truth.

Kokichi: “I dunno. But Shuichi should know, right?”

Shuichi: “What?”

Kokichi: “We would be in a lot of trouble if you didn’t. The only one who can solve this mystery and save us all… is you!”

My god, Kokichi, leave Kaito the fuck alone already.

(Kokichi Doing The Thing Count: 7.)

Kaito: “…”

Here’s the camera panning to Kaito saying nothing with his evasive expression, making it clear that while Kokichi didn’t mention him this time, this is still very much about Kaito.

(To reiterate, while I am in-universely frustrated at Kokichi for being such a dick to Kaito, on an out-universe level, I absolutely love this. Look at how much the writers are thinking about Kaito’s character arc and contributing to it in even the subtlest of ways! It’s so good.)

Shuichi: (How could the signboard pass through the wall but end up on the mansion side? What would explain that?)

Kokichi: “Leave it to me, Shuichi! I, your partner, will give you hints in times of trouble!”

It’s still ridiculous to me that Shuichi even needs one. Come on, Shuichi, literally every one of these pieces of evidence you’ve been discussing indicates that the mansion and chapel are actually very close to each other, this is not hard.

(also fuck off, Kokichi, you’re not his partner and you never will be.)

Kokichi: “This is the Virtual World. We should throw away all of our common sense, okaaay?”

This isn’t even that helpful of a hint! Apparently what Shuichi really needs to hear as a hint is the idea that the mansion and chapel must be close to each other, or the idea that our understanding of the world’s layout based on Miu’s map might be wrong (which Shuichi himself should already know, grr). Kokichi’s hint here only really makes sense if you already know he’s getting at the world being a loop, but if you don’t know that then this isn’t really going to get anyone any closer to realising that, because there’s so many other possible ideas from throwing away common sense that aren’t that.

From the hint, Shuichi somehow figures out the ends of the river are connected, and from this he figures out that the supposed two vertical walls are actually the same wall, because Miu only set up one, and from this he is finally, finally going to figure out the whole world is a loop. This is the completely backwards way to figure it out. There is no reason to even think that these two very separate-looking walls are the same wall unless you already know about the loop. The world being a loop should be the first thing you realise that then leads to realising that the wall is singular.

Kokichi: “See, didn’t I tell you? Everything *is* connected.”

Kaito: “Dammit, Kokichi! Just tell us—”

Kaito can clearly tell that Kokichi has already got this whole thing figured out, so he is quite right to be pissed off at Kokichi for being a dick and leading everyone along instead of just being properly fucking helpful and telling us the answer.

(But of course Kokichi’s got to do it this way, because he’s got to let everyone see how awesome and indispensable Shuichi is, riiiight? And by everyone, I mean Kaito.)

Tsumugi: “Just like in old games, right!? Like, for example… When a character goes off the left side of the screen and reappears on the right.”

I would say that Tsumugi should have been able to help figure this out due to her nerdy knowledge of such games. But of course, she most likely already knew the whole time. Miu set up the wall and all, but Team Danganronpa designed the Virtual World, including the fact that it loops. Tsumugi was very quiet throughout this entire meandering debacle, probably because she didn’t want to accidentally let slip that she knew.

Tsumugi: “Huh? It doesn’t explain everything, does it? Cuz we still don’t know why we heard that one sound or Keebo’s voice.”

So in the end, the sounds aren’t being used to deduce that the world is a loop; instead we’re using the established fact that the world is a loop to deduce why the sounds happened like they did. That is so backwards to how this deduction should be, my god!

Shuichi: “Actually, if we know that the world is a loop, we can explain that as well.”

Gonta: “Huh? Really?”

Shuichi: “Yes, but first we need to be clear *where* the loop starts.”

No, we don’t. Technically the loop doesn’t even start anywhere, because it’s a loop. All we need to be clear about to understand the deal with the sounds is that there wasn’t another loading zone inside the wall, and therefore sounds could go through it. Based on the loop existing, we should have already figured out that the mansion and chapel were next to each other. Geez.

(And, really, we should have figured out the mansion and chapel were next to each other first based on the sounds and used that to deduce that the loop exists, graghrghjr.)

Kokichi: “Mwa-hahahahahaha!!! Impressive, Shuichi! For you to get this far! Yes! Yeeeesss! You are useful, indeed!”

Kaito: “‘For you to get this far’? What are you, some villain pulling the strings?”

I’m going to be charitable and not count this one, because this seems to be more about Kokichi playing up his evil villain thing and therefore presumably vaguely attempting to back up his future lie at the end of the trial.

Kokichi: “But we solved this mystery, thanks to Shuichi! All hail our saviour!”

However, this…

Kokichi, Leave Kaito The Fuck Alone Count: 8.

Tsumugi: “Yeah. If Shuichi wasn’t here, then we never would’ve solved this mystery.”

Himiko: “That’s right! Good work, Shuichi!”

Gonta: “Thanks, Shuichi! You saved us!”

Shuichi: “Ah… You’re welcome.”

Kaito: “…”

Aaaand Kokichi set everyone else off. Guess which face Kaito is making again there. While nobody else is deliberately doing this to get under Kaito’s skin, this is not helping. Usually praising Shuichi and telling him how awesome he is would be Kaito’s thing, but now that Shuichi’s become so obviously awesome that everybody can see it, it’s like he doesn’t even need Kaito for that any more.

(Not that Kaito has stopped believing that about Shuichi. He knows they’re right; he just hates to admit it now that all it does is make him think about how awesome he isn’t.)

{Later addendum edit: Let me just further clarify why Kokichi Doing The Thing here so obviously has to be about Kaito, even aside from how Kaito is frequently shown reacting to it and how Kokichi occasionally directly puts Kaito down in the same breath while doing it. See, it literally doesn’t even make any sense being about Shuichi in the first place.

One could see all this as an attempt by Kokichi to have some kind of effect on Shuichi – I don’t know, to try and gain favour with him, or to try and put pressure on him by making him feel like he’s carrying everyone’s burdens, or something. But whatever Kokichi would hypothetically have been trying to do to Shuichi here was never going to work on him, because Kokichi’s words talking up Shuichi are so screamingly insincere. It is blatantly transparent that, even as he’s praising Shuichi as their sole saviour and the only person who can solve the case, Kokichi already had it all figured out first and doesn’t mean a single word of his praise. Shuichi’s not dumb enough to fall for that and actually think that Kokichi genuinely sees him this way. And Kokichi should not be dumb enough to ever think that he would, either.

But from Kaito’s perspective, it doesn’t matter how sincere Kokichi is or isn’t being about Shuichi, because Kaito genuinely does see Shuichi this way. Kokichi once had a line that went, “Whether I’m lying or not, what I’m saying is still true,” which actually does make sense if you parse it as: “whether I sincerely believe what I’m saying or not, it’s still true to somebody listening.” And that’s what he's doing to Kaito here. Kokichi very obviously doesn’t really see Shuichi as their sole saviour – but him talking about Shuichi that way, blatantly insincere as it is, constantly forces Kaito to think about and confront the way he genuinely feels about Shuichi.}

Kokichi: “Actually… this culprit hunt just got to the exciting part! Even if we know all the tricks, it’s pretty meaningless if we don’t find the culprit. That’s how a class trial works, after all!”

Gonta: “Kokichi talking like Monokuma again…”

And again, Gonta, who’s confused as hell by all this stuff about Virtual Worlds and loops but can at least pay attention to the people in front of him, notices the way Kokichi is acting and points it out.

Kaito: “Tch… No matter what you say, I’m not gonna believe your lies… I’m gonna believe in everyone! That’s how I’m gonna reach the truth!”

Aaaa, Kaito. The way he says this kind of out of nowhere feels like he’s just desperately trying to cling to the one thing he knows he still has – his belief in others – because by this point it’s been hammered home that his deductive skills are useless in comparison to Shuichi’s and Shuichi apparently doesn’t even need him for encouragement or support any more.

And it seems he’s also still clinging to the thought that Kokichi did it, because that way his belief in everyone except Kokichi will still be able to help him reach the truth.

Kokichi: “Nee-heehee… I can’t wait to see what happens next.”

Yeah, aren’t you just looking forward to watching Kaito fall apart.

(I mean. So am I. But I’m watching a fictional character do what fictional characters do best. Kokichi is watching a real person suffer, so he kind of is a bit of a sadistic asshole. Not as much of one as he’s going to claim he is, but that’s not going to be completely a lie either.)

Let’s talk about this a bit more, actually. Kokichi just dropped a heavy hint that he’s expecting Kaito to have a bad time as the trial reaches its climax (this comment comes just after Kaito’s outburst so it’s clearly about him), and that he’s excited to watch that unfold. There’s two potential reasons for him looking forward to this: that he just thinks it’s fun to watch Kaito in particular suffer, or that Kaito being incapable of accepting Gonta’s guilt will totally spell Kokichi’s victory in their ongoing clash of values about trusting versus suspecting people, even if Kaito won’t admit it.

The second of these does seem like the more likely one for him to care about, given how much Kokichi’s everything has revolved around trying to prove that point this whole time. It could potentially be argued that all of Kokichi’s doing the thing to draw out Kaito’s insecurities has also been in aid of making Kaito’s upcoming breakdown as spectacular as possible in order to prove Kokichi’s point most effectively. But I don’t quite think that’s it, because as we saw last time, Kokichi isn’t actually that good at carefully plotting out the best way to prove his point. He’s just kind of blindly, automatically flailing around at doing so even in ways that he should realise clearly aren’t that great if he’d think about it for a second.

Which means that Kokichi jabbing at Kaito’s insecurities like he’s been doing this part is presumably just for the sake of it to watch him squirm, with no real goal in mind beyond that. And honestly there doesn’t have to be much more of a reason than “for the sake of it”, because it’s basically the same as all of the bullying and being a dick to people Kokichi always does – Kaito is a very inviting target for that right now given that he’s emotionally vulnerable and he gives satisfyingly noticeable reactions when prodded. If Kokichi’s being more subtle about this than he usually is, it’s only because Kaito’s insecurities are more subtle than most people’s. There is a bit more of a personal angle to this than his usual bullying since Kokichi has such a beef with Kaito’s values, but the jabbing at him because of that isn’t especially connected to trying to prove his point.

So, to the question of if Kokichi is looking forward to Kaito falling apart for the sake of watching him suffer or for the sake of proving a point? I think it’s a bit of both, but also that those two reasons are pretty separate and both just things Kokichi is kind of instinctively doing because that’s what he’s like, without having much of a calculated plan in doing so.

Shuichi: (What is Kokichi’s plan here? He’s definitely prodding at Kaito on purpose.)

It’s a little strange that Shuichi picks up on this. Sure, Kaito just reacted at Kokichi, but Kokichi hadn’t done anything to specifically provoke that out of him. And for Shuichi to understand that Kokichi praising him has actually been purposeful prodding at Kaito, he’d need to understand that Kaito is jealous of him, which he very definitely never has any idea about until Kaito admits it to him. (Why would Kaito ever be jealous of him? It’s Kaito who gave Shuichi the strength to do all these things he’s been doing!)

The only times Kokichi has been doing the thing in a way that was clearly him making it about Kaito were times 5 and 6, which was a while ago given that we’re at 8 now. So I guess Shuichi was just paying attention to those explicit jabs at Kaito from earlier (he did seem to be noticing it at one point) and is finally having a moment to stop and reflect on it now.

(However Shuichi managed to notice it, this is also the writers drawing attention to what Kokichi has been doing to Kaito, making it even more clearly deliberate and something they care about enough that they do want people to be aware of it even if it’s subtle.)

Shuichi: (Well, there’s no time for distractions like him.)

While Shuichi definitely should be worried if he thinks Kokichi is trying to get under Kaito’s skin… it’s also true that he doesn’t really have time for it in the middle of a trial. Got to have that Ultimate Detective tunnel vision in order to reach the truth. Maki warned him not to forget who he is, but maybe that’s kind of happening a little right now.

That and he definitely doesn’t understand the extent to which Kokichi’s prodding is actually getting to Kaito. He’d assume that Kaito can just brush it off and remain mostly okay, because Kaito’s always okay, right?

(Kaito is not okay.)

---

[Next post]

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #chapter 4 #class trial #commentary

4 notes · View notes

vithyahairandmakeup · 6 years

Text

Who can you trust?

You may know people or see people who have a lot of friends, who have a very good social life, and who are invited to all these cool parties, and who everyone wants to be friends with.

You may even think that about me.

But it is far from the truth. Having many people and an exciting social life does not define us. If defines what we do, but not who we are.

I get called an “Illicha Vai” (fool in Tamil) by my parents and sister all the time. And I have had that title for many years, maybe even since I was a child.

I had no friends in school until I was about 10. The only friend I had was my dads friend’s daughter who I met when I was 6 years old and she is still my best friend to this day. The moment I entered high school in Germany, I made a tonne of friends. No idea how that happened, but everyone wanted to be my friend. This in turn made me pressure my parents for new clothes and stay trendy and cool, so I will remain liked and popular. From the ages of 10 - 14, I was really enjoying school life. Everyone wanted to be my friend.

When I moved to the UK at the age of 14, it changed for me again. I sat in the back of every class, spoke no word of English, and was bullied again. You would think that wearing a school uniform like everyone else would disguise me, but no, I stood out like a sore thumb. The way I spoke, or the way I walked was an indication enough that I didn’t apparently fit in. But only one girl spoke to me, who also came from abroad, struggled to fit in and was also bullied. Today she is one successful lady who is one of the kindest people I know, may I add. She is also my best friend to this day.

When I entered College is when all my troubles really started. From boys, to missing classes, to a lot of other things Teenagers are exposed to, and you feel pressured to doing so. During these confusing times is when you seek out someone you can trust and can talk to. My childhood friend still lives in Germany, and my high school friend had moved to Scotland at the time, and we had no mobile phones back then, so you relied on speaking to the person you saw on a regular basis, and man I cannot even count the amount of people I trusted and who stabbed me in the back! Figuratively speaking.

I then enter adulthood, and you meet a lot more horrible people at work, or you end up in a relationship with them, or you find out your extended family cannot be trusted either. It gets from bad to worse.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the reasons of being so depressed and on medication most of my early adulthood was due to all these people and factors. I just couldn’t fathom the things that were happening around me at the time.

You will not believe how poisonous, the industry that I work in, really is. I think that is when it hit me how people can be and what power, desperation, and jealousy can do to people. Ever seen the movie, The Purge? A horror film based on a 12 hour time period where all illegal acts are de-criminalised. So basically you can kill anyone in whatever way you like, and you will not be prosecuted. Well, if that did really exist, I am pretty sure I will be on most of these people’s hit list. Not because I am a mean person, but just to eliminate any competition they may feel, or jealousy, or whatever it is that causes them to treat me the way they do sometimes.

I love my job, I really do, and I get to meet some amazing people, and some of these people become really good friends. Whether it is from my industry, or outside of it, I meet really nice people. The problem I have been facing recently is figuring out the reasons behind some of these new people who enter my life. I have had quite a few people through the social media world who I became very good friends with, who I have allowed into my home, and who I have trusted with a lot of personal stuff, to use me and abuse my trust. With some of these people I got over it very quickly, but with others, it took much longer to get over the hurt, or still am getting over the hurt.

But you know what I have started realising?

It is not them, but me.

I need to stop blaming them, and blame myself. People are who they are. What their reasons are to act in the way they do is not our problem. Their issues and problems are not our problem. The demons they are fighting every day is not our battle. The bitterness they carry is not for us to deal with. But how we react to these people, how we behave around these people, and how we deal with these people does define us. It is in our own head. How we react to negativity is entirely up to us, not anyone else.

If I trusted the wrong person with a lot of my personal information who then went and told others, or helped someone in the industry who then used me to climb up the ladder, is not their fault but mine. We see the good in people, and we should be kind and helpful and generous, but there should be a limit no? It’s like eating cake. It tastes so nice to begin with, but the more you eat you end up feeling sick. Whose fault is that? Definitely not the cake’s. You should have known when to stop. And that is how life is people. Cannot believe it took me until my early thirties to figure it out.

When we are not in a good place, we tend to unleash our sorrows on others, and it is very easy to blame the other, or find excuses and justification on our behaviour. I do that a lot. I always pretend it is never my fault, but someone else’s. That I am always the victim, and that other people are bad. But this is not always true. I am still learning that I shouldn’t have such expectations. I put people on a pedestal and expect them to put me on one too. Why don’t we put ourselves on a pedestal? Why don’t we respect ourselves and not let anyone make us feel inferior? People need to stop hashtagging squadgoals or relationshipgoals. What does that even mean? You see a pretty picture with a group of people or a husband and wife who seem to have it all? Who seem to portray a life of perfection? You think that there are no problems or issues? Any relationship is all about problems and issues, because that is how we learn and bond. So don’t feel pressured to have anything that is put up on Instagram. It is ok to be “abnormal”. It is ok to not have everything that society demands, or social media demands. Don’t even ever feel that way from my posts. Those are just pictures. And pictures tell a million stories. My social media is for business purposes, more like a magazine that sells a brand, if that makes sense? But the real me is when you see me live, or via these blog posts, because that is real life. Not an image with my gucci bag, or posing next to Vijay Sethupathi. You don’t need trendy clothes, designer bags, or an awesome car to be cool. You don’t need to have a flashy and luxurious lifestyle to be cool. Because people who become friends with you based on these, or your fame and popularity, or whatever else they may benefit from, are not real friends. Which is something I am still learning the hard way.

The moral of this post is not that you cannot trust anyone, but be selective of who you trust. There is no rule here. Some people say you can only trust your family, but I am sure a lot of us can agree that this is not always true. Some people think that when you meet someone who has faced the same problems as you must be trustworthy, but that is not always the truth either.

I base my trust on not what they do for me, but how they are with me. How they treat me. I don’t need gifts or beautiful captions under an Instagram post, my few friends who knew me before I had x amounts of followers on social media are the real friends who I can fight with, cry with, and laugh with.

So stop for a moment, and think of the people who have been there for you from the beginning, who have supported you, who sense when you feel low, who can laugh with you for hours about silly things, who also share their most inner secrets and allow you to be a part of their pain, and who will stay loyal to you no matter what.

If this post has made you realise that there are a lot of fake friends in your life, just cut them out. People come and go, don’t ever feel sad. And don’t ever long for someone who has hurt you.

As long as you trust yourself and trust and stay true to yourself, it will all be fine.

Now go and hug those people who are good to you. Hehe

135 notes · View notes

supergirlimaginesfic-blog · 7 years

Text

Dating Lena Luthor (a crush on you would include)

Request: Can you please do a lena luthor having a crush on you would include

a/n: I mean listen I’m fully aware having a crush on you implies not dating just yet, but I have a very inconsequential title system I feel compelled to stick with now sooo, just disregard that little oopsie LOL

these are always super fun to do!! tbh I’m in a little bit of a funk right now so these types of posts help me get my imagination going again. Thank you so much for reading y’all! And thanks for your patience if you’ve been waiting for a request to be filled... I am definitely a person who loses track of time lol. I’m so happy I have a hobby I can kinda speak for now though, and that’s all thanks to you folks! Have an awesome day everybody!! :D

- - - - -

much to your surprise (or perhaps not at all, if you were really to think about it properly), Lena is a very tenacious person and as such, there are some things that get her attention and she just has to chase it

you’ve come to realize that so it’s turned out, you are in fact one of those things that have piqued her attention, and you’ve been a happy mixture of flattered, confused, and bashful

Lena, in her not so subtle interest in you, still refuses to say anything specific regarding her feelings, and instead you find your answers in the things she does and in the roundabout way of sneaky compliments she gives you and her well-timed flirting

it didn’t take much for you to figure out she liked you, but it also took quite a lot to convince you that you weren’t just projecting your wishes into some unfounded fantasy - most of the Superfriends (even Winn, especially Winn) could see through both of your behaviours, and they’re all both parts exasperated and absolutely amused by your song and dance of total avoidance

but really, who could blame you that you didn’t quite believe your luck that Lena Luthor, the absolutely brilliant, wonderful, incredible woman you have the honour of knowing would possibly reciprocate your feelings? It was a marvel, indeed - you won’t question a miracle when you recognize one

Lena having a crush on you involves a lot of games, and the biggest one particularly is waiting to see which one of you breaks and admits your feelings first - it’s more fun than it is exhausting, and you suppose Lena thinks the same way, if the way she smiles at you meaningfully sometimes like she has a secret is any indication

there are a multitude of changes both major and trivial that you’ve started to take notice of the more time you spent around Lena. For one, you’ve become a more familiar face in the office and Jess, her secretary, smiles at you more often in your slightly embarrassing frequency of dropping by unannounced

you realize it’s just slightly unnerving that Jess is friendly enough to you that you now have a casual rapport with her enough to have playful small talk

you know that when you see Jess smirk whenever she hears the tell-tale opening of the elevator indicating your arrival that she’s in a particularly talkative mood, and you have to brace yourself for whatever trouble she’ll cause this time

“you know you don’t have to check in every single time you get here. Ms. Luthor’s given you total clearance, but I’m flattered you think to grace me with that remarkable face of yours” “well, it’d be a bit rude of me to just walk past wouldn’t it? Besides, who else is going to feed your caffeine addiction, neither of you know how to take care of yourselves” “look at you, charming and well-mannered - Ms. Luthor definitely knows how to pick them”

you know almost for a certain fact that you blush more whenever Jess makes remarks like that than when Lena outright flirts with you, but you suspect it must be because you’re just that transparent and you should probably really tone down your puppy-like eagerness when it comes to seeing Lena

you also have the ever increasing suspicion that Jess and Lena are on some mission to make you blush as much as possible - in all honesty, there is more proof of the affirmative than not and you’re positive they have schemed to embarrass you in good nature to some capacity

Lena’s become more comfortable with her terms of endearment, and you’ve nearly forgotten your own name and have begun to think your name is “darling”, or “sweetheart”, or some variation of it

you will never admit that you respond to it with unfailing attention

Alex nearly passed out from laughing so much when Kara and Maggie were discussing home remedies during one game night and you answered in distraction when one of them mentioned “honey”

you drowned yourself in whatever drink of choice was closest to you and Lena eyed you with that dangerous look of hers that was all parts mischief, teasing, and some deeply attractive want that you didn’t want to name just yet

you spend a good portion of your time dragging Lena out of her office and also bringing the food to her - you’ve been vocally adamant about not leaving her office until you watch her consume something, and Lena, you realize, has become more susceptible to taking her sweet time just for you to stick around longer... and you entertain that

for all of her talk about distractions and not being able to afford any missteps or mistakes, the soft smile she gives you whenever she sees you, outside of work or not, is more than enough to make your heart flutter with happiness

hanging out with Lena, surprisingly, is a lot of spontaneous, unplanned excursions that you both are more than happy to indulge

you’re pleased that you both share an equal appreciation of the godly gift that is coffee, and as such, you often find yourselves in some hole-in-the-wall cafe and bookshop, sitting side by side pressed against each other on the floor of the astronomy section or in the humour section

a lot of your time together consists of stupid jokes and also riveting discussions of the human condition and of life

you have far too much fun exasperating Lena, but you know secretly it’s because of the fond smile she gives you despite rolling her eyes and groaning at your lame jokes

“hey Lena, where do dogs go when their tails fall off?” “I don’t know, (Y/N), where do they go?” “the retail store”

“Lena, how is imitation very much like a plateau?” “I’ve no clue, but I suppose you’re going to tell me aren’t you-” “they’re both the highest form of flattery”

Lena Luthor inspires a childlike wonder in you, something you’d thought you lost as you got older - you spend a lot of time convincing her to do vaguely reckless things like climbing fire escapes or sneaking onto roofs

somehow, you’ve managed to get her to spontaneously break out into song and dance with you in public, and you wonder just how it is you’ve coerced Lena into making a total fool of herself with you

she entertains your inclinations; perhaps it’s because you’re an enabler, perhaps it’s because she enjoys it, perhaps it’s because you let her do things she’s mostly tentative to do, or maybe it’s in solidarity and to not abandon you in your silliness - regardless of what it is, Lena always joins you in your antics

you don’t say it, neither of you have, but there’s a mutual understanding of comfort and vulnerability you know is shared and you know you can be safe in

Lena is playful with you, often stealing your hats when you’re out and she puts them on herself, or taking your sweaters when you’re just at home and she wants something comfy to wear - you never deny her the little things... she looks much better in your clothes anyway

as good as she looks in your band shirts and oversized hoodies, she looks just as magnificent in her dresses and gowns that she wears whenever she takes you to one of her events

quite long ago, you’ve stopped calling it dragging you to these galas and instead just took it for what it was: more time to be around Lena

for as much as you think she looks great in literally anything and for how irresistible she finds you and has explicitly mentioned of your usual, casual street look, she is adorably speechless whenever you show up to accompany her in your formal attire - you’re as equally blown away every time you see her, and you think she looks like magic

at some point you’ve stopped wondering about the platonic-or-not nature of her holding onto your arm and introducing you to everyone she encounters at these events, and instead have opted to consider how natural it feels when she’s pressed up against you like this

most of these nights involve a lot of socialization and champagne, and you know that Lena is never intoxicated to the point of forgetfulness at these events, but still, when the evening is done and you spend the night at either of your places, there’s always a softer vulnerability and a palpable disregard of inhibition that neither of you call out but know very well is a tension that pulls you together

you’ve lost track of specifically when, but you find yourself entangled in her when you fall asleep, sometimes on her couch, sometimes in her bed and you wake up and try to respect boundaries, but she just brings you closer anyway whenever you try and who are you to deny her sleepy, mumbling wishes?

for your own sake, you try to ignore the happy sigh she makes whenever she rouses from sleep and nuzzles closer to you, but it’s more effort to deny the inevitably of falling for her when she just makes it so easy to feel relaxed and unreserved

you’ve always figured that Lena Luthor was trouble, and you never realized the extent of that truth until you started writing again and she made a damn poet out of you

the woman makes you soft; she always has, and you’ve stopped fighting that reality and instead opted to perpetuate it

she half-heartedly chastises you whenever you sneak a picture of her on your phone or on one of your cameras, but she always smiles bashfully whenever you show her and you can both see, clear as day, the evidence definitive and candid, how happy she is

there’s far too many close-calls in the form of emotional freefall - that is, if you’d kept a tally of who was close to kissing the other first, you’d be at a loss of knowing who was more culpable (you’re becoming impatient, and this once, you think to concede this particular battle)

it’s a fair fight; Lena’s had to catch herself more than once whenever you leave her office and she, distractedly, almost kisses you. You almost kiss her one night in the middle of your dancing in the kitchen foolishness and you forget for a moment she’s not actually yours to kiss - you think you saw in her eyes something that wordlessly said the contrary, and you almost believe it was worth finally crossing the line for

your friends are tired of your shit, frankly, and they’ve convinced you perhaps that Lena is too. Alex never fails to lament that it’s absolutely rich if you don’t think you’re already dating, to which Lucy also helpfully supplies, don’t make any moves just yet I’ve got stakes in a bet that says Lena will make the first move, and even Kara’s got a piece to say, which is of course worlds more comforting than Alex, Lucy, and Maggie’s bickering when she tells you that Lena is happier with you, and I think she’s more than fine with whatever pace you’re willing to take

you are never one to keep a woman waiting, however, and you think it’s time to steel up and get your shit together

you’ve planned an exceedingly romantic evening, the works for someone who deserves that and so much more - dinner in a quiet restaurant, candlelight and flowers, all thanks to some connections your friends have pulled together

Lena shows up then and you’re floored by how radiant she looks always. She’s become the person in your life who has to remind you to breathe, and simultaneously gives you reason to live and to experience, and you’re finally set in your belief that she deserves to hear your truth

you finally admit to her and say out loud everything you’ve kept quiet and hidden all this time, and though you’re relieved, you’re also wide-eyed and admittedly petrified when Lena says nothing and is equally as wide-eyed as you are

“please don’t get me wrong when I say I’m shocked, this is just a little bit of a turn for me and I’m frankly a bit embarrassed-” “no, Lena, don’t apologize- I don’t ever want to pressure you into something you’re not willing to partake in and I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable-” “(Y/N), it’s not that... not at all. It’s just- I’d kind of already presumed we were dating...” “what? But- how long? Really?” “I suppose I’m partially to blame for not explicitly addressing our circumstance either-” “are you saying I could have kissed you all this time?” “well, I am most certainly not opposed to the suggestion, I merely thought you just weren’t ready-”

if you were asked to retell the story, you wouldn’t mention how close you were to knocking into the table in your haste to finally kiss Lena, and frankly though you feel a little bit robbed by your own hesitations, you finally feel a long-desired sensation of profound relief, a weight of uncertainty lifted from your chest

even still, it hadn’t felt official - at least, not until you and Lena walked into L-Corp one morning holding hands and Jess, hardly looking away from her computer screen, merely muttered something that sounded suspiciously like oh my god, finally, and you nearly tripped on your own foot at her off-handed observation

#lena luthor x reader #lena luthor #lena luthor imagine #lena luthor fic #katie mcgrath #katie mcgrath fic #lena luthor fanfic #dating lena luthor #supercorp #supergirl imagines #supergirl fanfic #lena luthor x you

331 notes · View notes

ciathyzareposts · 4 years

Text

Gobliins 2 – Making an Omelette

By Ilmari

I am happy to tell that so far Gobliins 2 has been mostly a positive experience. Lot of my positive feeling is due to an improved interface, so let’s begin with that immediately.

The game interface has clear similarities to that of Ween: The Prophecy, which is somewhat of a novelty for Coktel Vision, since I can’t recollect them ever having two games with similar interfaces. It is quite easy to work with, compared to interfaces in many of the earlier games of the company, so I don’t really wonder why they decided to use it in several games. Take a cursor over a thing, you see its description. Left-click and you use it – or if it is one of the characters, change it as the active character – right-click opens the inventory and at the top of the screen you’ll find the menu. Within menu you can save and load (the diskette), access game’s hint system (the joker), write down notes (piece of paper), go to your inventory (backpack), change items between the characters, move to another screen (sign post) and set up things like music (the screw).

Compared to the first game, Gobliins 2 has got rid of the ridiculous HP line, and in fact, goblins are now, the manual says, incapable of dying. This is a clear improvement in a game where a lot of the charm lies in experimentation and finding out what silly things the producers have hidden in the game. Furthermore, while in the first game only one goblin could hold and use items – and inventory had room for only one item – now both goblins can take and use items. Inventory is mostly shared by both goblins, except sometimes one goblin has an item that the other doesn’t and you have to press the change items -button on the menu to switch it between them (I really don’t understand when an item is in the possession of only one goblin, but it seems to have something to do with which one has recently handled the item). Finally, the goblins are not limited to completing one screen at the time, but they can move around in several.

I began the game from a little village adjoining the castle where the evil demon was supposed to live. According to manual, with the exception of few privileged individuals, all the villagers were dying of starvation and thirst.

No wonder they don’t want their milk bottle taken

I don’t know whether the producers did it on purpose, but the first screen felt almost like a short tutorial, because it introduced many of the features of the gameplay. Just to name few:

Differing behaviour of protagonists: The two PCs, Fingus and Winkle, are meant to have different personalities, Fingus being very proper and strict (he even sounds like Mickey Mouse on steroids) and Winkle being the silly clown. I could see their difference even in simple interactions on the screen – Winkle would just eat one of the yellow flowers, but Fingus would actually pick it up.

Placing of the protagonists is important: If I put one of the gobliins on a platform on the upper left corner of the screen and pushed the nearby button with the other goblin, the first one would fly to the roof of the cottage.

I still couldn’t get the sausage

That round thing is flattened Winkle

You’ll need to synchronise your gobliins: When I tried to pick the milk bottle with one character, the other one would advise that I should at first distract the old timers guarding it. The simple solution was to try and take the sausage with the other goblin. While the cottage owner whacked the poor goblin, the old timers laughed and the other goblin had a chance to snatch the milk.

I could access two other rooms called fountain and giant (by the way, I am mostly using the movement icon from the menu, since it is way easier than finding the hotspot to move to another screen). I started by going to the giant, but since narratively the other choice makes more sense, let’s begin from the fountain.

The fountain was situated on the yard of Tazaar, a mage I was supposed to meet. Problem was that the old man didn’t want to let us in. I couldn’t get to the roof, cellar door was locked and even the frog wasn’t of help.

That’s what you get when you try to tickle a frog

The key to the solution was the statue. Pushing the statue released a gush of water, which the other goblin could then catch in the milk bottle.

Considering what part of the statue Fingus is pushing, this scene is a bit disturbing

Winkle could then spew water on the frog that escaped, leaving behind the rock it had been sitting on (this was an example of a puzzle only Winkle could solve, because Fingus couldn’t do such nasty things to others). Throwing the stone onto the contraption on the roof revealed a ladder I could climb up. After a few false leads…

…like the window…

…I ordered one of the goblins to enter the chimney. He couldn’t get in there, but luckily the wizard was impressed by our persistence and let us in.

Gandalf?

Wizard Tazaar was a bit of a disappointment, since he really had nothing to tell beyond things I already knew from the manual – the demon Amoniak, who had captured the prince, had also stolen a nearby castle from its rightful owner. Luckily, wizard’s cottage at least had useful stuff I could take with me.

One thing was hidden inside the strange rug on the wizard’s floor. When Winkle pulled its tail, it was revealed to be still alive and opened its mouth. Within the mouth there were matches that Fingus had to quickly grab.

With the matches and the bottle full of water I could turn the kettle on. Steam coming out of the kettle loosened the diploma, and behind it I found a spring key that could be used to wind the cuckoo clock. The cuckoo came out, with a large key in its mouth. I managed to get the key by throwing the cuckoo with the stone. The key opened the cellar on Tazaard’s yard, and behind it I found some wine.

Before going to the room with the giant, let’s do a quick return to the starting room. At one point I noticed I could give some water to the yellow flowers, which grew somewhat taller because of it. When I gave one grown flower to the sausage owner, he sniffed the flower and then fell asleep. With him out of the way, I could pick up his sausage.

Getting finally to the room with the giant, there were two obstacles on my way: the angry dog and the sleeping giant (naturally). There was also a chicken in the room, and it took me quite a while to find out what to do with it. Winkle could pick up the chicken and hold it for a while, and it was pretty obvious Fingus should now do something to it. Ultimately I just tried every object I had, and finally Fingus hit the chicken with the sausage, making it lay an egg (the chicken, that is, not the sausage).

Why did Winkle have to pick up the chicken? Because Fingus couldn’t handle it

The screen also had a few holes, the idea of which appeared to be that when a goblin put his hand in one hole, it would come out of another (and to make this more complicated, it would depend on goblin, where the hand would come out).

Like this

Or like this

Fingus could use this trick to fool the dog with sausage, while Winkle could sneak past it. Winkle could then go through another hole and at the time remove one tile from the wall, allowing Fingus also to avoid the dog.

Now it was just a matter of moving past the sleeping giant. Having faced another puzzle where I had to awaken someone in the first game, I had a pretty good idea what to do. Simply put, I had to use some kitchen utensils for just this purpose. Using first matches on a pile of wood and then egg on the campfire, the odours of the omelette found their way to the giant’s nose. Having awakened the giant, it was just a matter of giving him some sausage and wine to consume.

After passing the giant, the goblins were closing in on the castle where the prince was held as a prisoner, which seems like a good place to stop. So far the game has been a positive experience, I hope this will continue.

Inventory: stone, bottle, matches

Session time: 4 hours Total time: 4 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/gobliins-2-making-an-omelette/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

0 notes

katesjourneytofindhappiness · 6 years

Text

Sunday, May 6th 2018 Day 1

I feels ridiculous to be back on this silly website. But I think during the next few months it could be very therapeutic to get my thoughts in order and in the past this has been a really good outlet for me. So. Anyway. Due to recent events I am beginning a quest for self betterment. Today is Day 1. And it will go on for the rest of my life I think. It starts with me journaling again. Something I've wanted to go back to for a long time. Let this be the first accomplishment of many to come.

It feels surreal.

But I’m okay. Everything I thought I was so sure of is cloudy now, but it’s okay. I’m pretty angry with myself. But I also feel incredibly driven, angry in a positive way, if that makes sense.

It makes it that much worse that I also truly saw all of these things during the past couple weeks. And I was so ready to let all of it go, to start over, to move forward with new purpose, direction, and confidence. Stress has been eating me alive, and the jury is out on whether that is something you can control. Can you just chose to get over it? To put on a smile and actually believe it? Or is it something chemical, beyond my ability to reign in. I’m sure it’s probably a mix of both. Is it an excuse to say it’s something you can’t control? Probably.

It’s funny because everything I had put so much pressure on myself to achieve seems so insignificant now. How does any of it matter anymore? I know of course that it does, and of course I still want to make the best future for myself, but it’s as if my eyes were closed for the past year and now suddenly they’ve opened. I think the hardest pill to swallow about all of this is that I had this epiphany while watching Hector’s Journey to Find Happiness or whatever the hell it’s called, and you know that feeling when it just HITS you? Not in the typical way when you have little flashlight moments and you’re like, “ohhhhhh, hmm there’s a thought”. No, I mean one of those rare, major, life-changing moments when it’s like, “HOLY SHIT THIS IS IT!”. Well that’s how I felt a few days ago, and when I came home that over-the-top stress and anxiety should have hit me. But it didn’t. I felt really happy honestly. Aside form the unshakeable feeling that something was off. On Friday I watched this Bat-dad video and I was laughing with such care-free joy and I realized that it was all okayyyyyy. And sure, people have been telling me that for the past year of my life but this time I really felt it, really knew it.

And I was so damn excited to just start over, to be free, and happy, and lighter, and turn over a new leaf and all that cliche bullshit and I did my hair in the morning, and had real conversations with patients, and I had so much to tell him and then he started down that road and I just knew. It was all too little too late. And that really fucking sucks. I feel like I rediscovered him the last week. I realized that he was what matters, what I wanted, and whatever work I had to put in to make it work on any level was completely achievable. The previous weeks I KNEW that I was blowing it and I had that “WOAHHH RED LIGHT” conversation with myself after which I was SO DAMN READY to go a whole new direction.

I really liked who I was in the beginning. I wasn’t stressed about anything then, aside from going to acting auditions. And I was open to everything, and so excited to learn new things and try new things and see simple things. My god, that seems so long ago. And I remember I was worried about a relationship getting in the way of everything that I wanted to accomplish. And I remember at some point just completely letting go of all of my concerns and giving myself totally and completely to him because he was the best thing life. And somewhere along the line I let everything I wanted for our future get in the way of where we actually were in the moment.

It’s almost laughable because it’s like this event has completely cured me of all the stress. Like it just seems so SILLY! I guess it put everything in perspective. Like it’s all just so unimportant compared to things like friendships, relationships…. you know, the real shit.

So where to go from here…..there are a lot of things about myself that I had recently been thinking about bettering. Self betterment. And I feel like such an event forces you to face the reality of how important these things really are. I just lost the most important aspect of my life and it’s my own damn fault. Damnnnnnn, right? Fucked up. Well, I don’t want to accept that this has happened. That that’s just it. Maybe I’m not accepting it, maybe that’s why I’m surprisingly composed right now. Well regardless of what is driving this sudden alarming motivation right now (I just worked out for an hour, tf???) I’m going to run with it. Points of self betterment that I am choosing to work on now, not in the future, not when it’s convenient, now because I’ll be damned if I am EVER letting this happen again.

1. Stop being so afraid of everything. I am so afraid of dying, of terrorist attacks, of everyone I care about dying, of people not liking me (that warrants its own separate point), of cars, freak accidents, etc. This is another point that the Hector movie really made me think about. The woman who was dying on the plane said, “people who are afraid of death are afraid of life”. I used to be fearless. And thirsty for adventure. Free, reckless, light, honestly I think I used to have a really beautiful soul. Creeping on my old tumblr makes me realize that. I used to be bursting with poetry because I thought everything was so damn beautiful all the time. Where did she go? Now the idea of climbing mountains, or driving in the fast lane, going to concerts scares me because something bad could happen. Someone could die. Well you know what that’s always going to be true. But someone could also have the time of their life. They could see the most breathtaking view, share it with the most breathtaking person. They could….omg… feel alive?? And isn’t that what life is? Risking everything to get the most out of a time that’s limited no matter how cautious you are? I want to get that lust for adventure back.

2. Learn how to deal with stress. I think a lot of my first point is relevant here. I’m just generally very worried. Sometimes not even about something specific. Just generally worried, and I think a lot of that comes from fear. Fear of not succeeding, fear of losing someone, fear of getting hurt. Everything always works out. The work always gets done. I know that. So I need to learn how to embrace this knowledge in the moment and let it be.

3. BE HERE, NOW. I live in the future. It’s the classic case of pushing happiness off into the future, instead of appreciating what is now. I set deadlines for myself to get things done. And I don’t mean concrete things in the sense that school work has deadlines. I mean I set deadlines for myself to have everything lining up. Like having my friend circle be healthy at the same time that both of my houses are perfectly clean at the same time that I am proficient at all of my instruments at the same time that I am working at the perfect job etc etc etc and none of it is realistic. Everything here, right now is enough. It is perfect. And it is everything that I need.

4. Learn how to cook. I need to stop being so damn helpless. A funny aspect of this situation is that I suddenly realized I have to feed myself this week. Bring it the Frick on.

5. Make time for hobbies everyday. I feel upset when I feel like I’m not doing something to better myself in a well-rounded sense, meaning I am not improving artistically. This also all goes back to a previous point I made about getting STRESSED when I don’t feel like I’m moving forward, and I mean in EVERYTHING! So even if I get a lot done in one field, I feel stagnant in another. And the problem is that I have a hard time allowing myself to take on multiple things at once. And that might sound like the opposite of what a stressed, anxious person needs but actually I think it is exactly what I DO need. I think it’s more of a stressor to expect myself to only be devoted to ONE thing all day everyday and not take any breaks or think about anything else. In this case I mean studying. There’s no reason I can’t study while also taking some time to play an instrument, or sing, or spend time with friends. It’s funny because I’m always so upset that I never write anymore. And now it’s the only thing keeping me sane.

6. Sleep. This is major. Probably the underlying root of all issues. Actually its hard for me to not blame a lot of things on lack of sleep. For example it would be easy to say that if I could just have slept then none of this would have happened. And honestly in part maybe that would have been true to an extent. Even if other issues were in play you could make the argument that it at least would have bought me some time to get my shit together. To realize what was happening. Lack of sleep causes me to be irritable, which may take life in the form of being judgemental, or moody, or passive aggressive, or getting way too upset about something small. But ultimately there are plenty of other things I need to take responsibility for and I am going to do that. By working on a lot of these other things, I think sleep will also improve. Because it is definitely largely linked to anxiety. I’ve already made an appointment with a psychiatrist who specialized in behavioural therapy for insomnia and I am very excited to start this new chapter of ZzzzzZZZzZZzzs.

7. Express vulnerable feelings. When I feel sad or hurt I often express it passive aggressively or through anger. This is not acceptable and it needs to change. It is something I am going to be working on daily, and I have decided to begin keeping track of each time I succeed and each time I fail. Additionally, sometimes I fail to express feelings of gratitude, love, or appreciation. Sometimes I feel silly telling someone I really care about them or appreciate them. I think it’s really important to express these feelings and not assume people always know how you feel.

8. Take care of my body. Start working out, build endurance. Live a long and healthy life.

9. I meant to go back to this earlier. Stop worrying about what other people think. I mean this in that I put a lot of pressure or myself when I know that it’s really important for someone to like me. I read into everything that they say and I worry about what I’m going to say back. I worry that I’m not funny enough or I won’t say the right thing and that really holds me back from having a good relationship.

10. Write poetry again.

It all just hit me and it hurts.

So. Badly.

11. Keep going.

0 notes

harleytherapy · 6 years

Text

New Post has been published on Harley Therapy™ Blog

New Post has been published on https://www.harleytherapy.co.uk/counselling/feeling-suicidal-or-like-self-harming-techniques-to-stop-distress.htm

Feeling Suicidal or Like Self-Harming? Techniques to Stop Distress

By: Martin Cooper

This holiday season might be festive for some, but for others it can feel like sheer torture.

If you suffer from depression, are isolated, feel alone, or suffer from low self-esteem and feelings of failure, this can be the time of year that suicidal thoughts run riot in your mind.

Is there anything at all you can do to help yourself climb out the hole when suicidal or self-harming thoughts hit?

You are not your thoughts.

First things first, let’s get something straight – all those crazy, destructive thoughts in your head? They are not who you are. They are just negative thoughts. And you are not your thoughts, you are something bigger.

Take a moment to repeat that a few times and feel into it. Say it out loud if it helps. “I am not my thoughts.” Can you feel a sense of space between your thoughts and something else, another ‘you’?

Not sure you can believe you are not your thoughts? Or even your actions? Ok. If you were suddenly handed a million pounds, all yours, no question asked, and told you could have an entirely new identity and start again, would you still be thinking what you are thinking right now?

What just happened there was what is called a perspective shift. In this moment, you are stuck in a harsh perspective. But it is not who you are. You are a worthy human. Got it? Good.

The next few techniques are about shocking you out of your overwhelming emotions. They might sound weird to you. But if you can even manage to do one when you feel suicidal or like self harming, it can help. These are based on “TIP skills” for managing distress that form part of dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT).

These techniques won’t stop your negative mood, but the idea is to create a brief window from your intense pain, so that you can focus enough to use coping techniques that offer longer results and push you farther out of your distress thinking. You might be able, for example, to have enough energy to call that friend.

TIP skills is an acronym for Temperature of your face, Intense aerobic exercise, and Paced Breathing and Paired Muscle relaxation.

Techniques to bump you out of serious distress.

1.Cold water and ice.

By: kizzzbeth

No, this is not a joke, it’s science. When you are intensely distressed, your mind is beyond logic, and you are in a fear state.

The body, however, is never illogical, it is a machine that can be counted on to respond in certain ways. If you do certain things, it will release chemicals into your body that counteract stress and help you calm down.

It’s been found that cold water on your face combined with holding your breath (triggering the ‘human dive reflex’) can lower emotional arousal and make you feel back in charge of yourself again.

Bend over, hold your breath, and dunk your face in a sink of cold water for between 30 and 60 seconds. You don’t want the water to be so cold it hurts, just cold enough to feel shocking. You might need to do it a few times.

*Note that this technique has a powerful enough affect on your body it’s not recommended if you have a heart condition or are physically weak.

Some people find that ice cubes can be just as effective, and can distract from the urge to self-harm. If you feel you are going to self-harm, grab some ice cubes in a Ziploc or wrapped in paper towels and hold them in your hand. The intense sensation becomes a stand in for the escapist sensation of self harm, helping the desire pass.

2. Breathe from the gut.

By: A Rod

Breathe from your diaphragm ( put a hand on your bellybutton, and aim to make your hand rise and fall).

You want to start taking long, slow, deep breaths, and your out breath can be longer than the in breath. Count in your head so that you reach a pattern, such as four counts in, eight counts out, four counts in, eight counts out. This is called “Paced Breathing” in DBT.

It might feel boring. Keep going. If you can do this for up to ten minutes or so, you’ll feel real results. Remember, you are creating a window here, where you can feel a tiny glimmer of yourself beneath your suicidal or self-harming urge.

If you can, pull up an image of something that is positive in your mind, even if it’s silly, like a kitten or puppy or field of flowers, try to think about it as much as you can as you do this breathing. Be careful here. Only use a neutral image, not someone who you love but who upsets you.

3. Move away from the mind and into the body.

Get away from your churning thoughts with a bit of body-based mindfulness. Put your attention on your feet. Just really notice that your feet are fully on the ground. Stamp them a bit. How does it feel?

You can just focus on your feet or another body part for as long as it feels good and brings you any peace. You might want to just move around one or two body parts this way. Or, you might want to slowly but surely putting your attention on each bit of your body, working upwards from your feet, or down from your head (this is called a ‘body scan‘).

Another proven technique used by DBT to get you out of distress is around muscle work, ‘paired muscle relaxation’. Basically, it involves clenching then releasing all your major muscle groups while breathing in and out in time. A very simplified start can be to repetitively clench your hands as tight as you can into fists while breathing in, then relaxing your hands fully open, breathing out. Read our article on progressive muscle relaxation to try a full sequence – it’s proven by science to leave you feeling relaxed and better.

4. Move It. Now.

By: Adam McGuffie

If you jump up and down, put music on and force yourself to dance through an entire song, or can manage to put one foot in front of the other and walk around the block a few times, your body chemistry will fight back long enough to give you a slight lift so that your other ways of coping can work. Ideally, you need to keep up the exercise for 20 minutes.

Again, don’t take our word for it, try it. Dialectical behaviour therapy calls this “Intense Exercise”. Getting your heart rate up to 70% the recommended intensity for your age is shown to increase positive emotions.

Read our piece on ‘How to exercise even if you are depressed‘ for more on exercise and mood.

5. Call the right person.

Using the body-based techniques above, you have created a gap between you and your distress big enough to take a more powerful action against your destructive thoughts. Our next piece in this series will be on tactics to work through suicidal thoughts. But you know the best one already – reach out.

By: Alon

If you know someone you trust to help, and you now feel enough energy and drive to call them, it’s a great idea. Do it now. Don’t overthink it, just call or text. Of course don’t call anyone who might make you feel worse or not understand. Put yourself first here.

If you are desperate to talk to someone, but just don’t have someone to trust, do call a hotline. Don’t feel weird about it. Millions of people call these hotlines each year. That’s what they are there for. Don’t feel it’s not manly, either. Reaching out for help is a strong thing to do, and there is a hotline in the UK just for men (listed below). The trained listeners on the other end of the line are happy to talk to you. They are there because they want to be. They want to help you. Just call.

And you know what we say now…

If you really feel you are going to hurt yourself, or someone else, please, please, please use emergency services. You can go to any hospital A&E department, or call 999 for an ambulance (or get someone else to call 999 for you). If you don’t want to go to the hospital, you can also call NHS emergency services at 111. NHS 111 is open 24 hours a day, every day of the year, and it’s free to call from any type of phone.

Hotlines to call if you feel suicidal in the UK

Samaritans (116 123) – This hotline is open 24-hours a day, 365 days a year. If you hate talking on the phone or don’t have privacy you can email them at [email protected] and get a response that way.

SANEline (0300 304 7000). This is a national after-hours hotline open from 4:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., 3645 days a year.

Childline (0800 1111) – This hotline is for you if you are a kid or even a teen. You can call it, and the number won’t show up on the phone bill, so nobody in your family needs to know. You can also go to their site to have a online chat.

HOPELineUK (0800 068 41 41) – this is a hotline just for teens and people under 35 who are feeling suicidal. It’s open 10am to 10pm weekdays and 2pm to 10pm weekends and holidays.

CALM (0800 58 58 58) (Campaign Against Living Miserably) – this is for you if you are a young man feeling depressed. They are open for calls from 5 to midnight, all year round.

The Silver Line (0800 4 708090) This is a charity for older people that provides advice and friendly chats 24 hours a day, every day of the year.

Nightline is a website for students, and connects yo to your university or college’s night-time listening service. You’ll be talking to other students who understand what you are going through.

Sometimes feel suicidal? Stop living a half-life. Reach out for proper support. Harley Therapy connects you with experienced and kind counsellors and psychotherapists across the UK, and you don’t even need to leave the house. You can do your sessions via Skype.

Do you want to share your story about surviving feeling suicidal with our readers? Use the public comment box below.

#Depression #self-harm #suicide

0 notes