anyway rotates how silva constantly went through people saying that others wouldn't accept her but instead of her going :( oh... she went okay well i'm going to accept everyone because it'll help more if i have a positive outlook on everyone and that attitude was encouraged to the extent of growing unhealthy attachments.

Sequel to my "Best (human) boy for periods" ranking; here comes the worsties (Affectionate)

Ace - Ultimate teenage boy(tm), is gonna make a big stink and fuss over how he doesn't wanna hear about you being on or think about it. "No poops, no farts, no periods"! kinda guy. He'll get better when he's older but in your first year as friends? He's gonna tease and antagonise you. If you're the emotional type when you'er on, you can turn the tables on him by crying and getting the whole class to go "Wow, what an asshole" at him for the rest of the week tho.

Vil - This guy holes everyone to the same standards as him, fully believing everyone can give 110% at all times. He's gonna come at you about how just because you're on the rag doesn't mean you can start snacking on chocolate bars all the time (or any comfort food). He WILL critique your skincare routine if your skin breaks out. One day he'll look back at how he treated you and thank Rook for literally carrying him away from you before you killed him.

Epel - Not really his fault, but considering his "old fashioned" upbringing, things like periods were just Not Discussed, even between the women in his family, so Epel's first reaction to learning that you're on is just a sound "I didn't hear that" slowly evolving into a "Why tf are you telling me this?" (Because I bled through my trousers and can't get up from this chair Epel, jeez). Just will not engage with the subject at hand.

Deuce - More of an inbetween than actually the worst(tm), he earns a lot of brownie points for wanting to help you and is the type to panic buy every item on the shelf. BUT! if you're the type to get moody or aggressive when you're on, he's instinctively gonna meet aggression with aggression and you two will have to be seperated for a while.

Idia - Just straight up wont deal with it, he'll send Ortho to help you. Best you're gonna get from this guy is a "RIP LMAO" when you text him that you're on :(

Honorable mention: Silver. Not his fault either, but being raised in a predominantly fairy based family unit, periods are an alien concept to him. Won't really understand what's going on when you try to explain it to him, and with Lilia as his main guide, is gonna make a LOT of mistakes before he gets things right but he get's a lot of points for trying to help. Might even use his UM to see into your dreams/memories to get a feel for what it's like, just so he can better know how to help you.

Aww, see I get that it would be realistic for some of the boys to be immature and get grossed out, but it's a fantasy world! Maybe my fantasy is that the boys are semi-educated on the human body and are gonna support me during my periods 😭

I really think both Vil and Deuce should be given more credit, though. Vil is very in touch with his femininity, and doesn't really disrespect others unless they disrespect him or cause trouble, based on his interactions with others at least. I think he'd be excellent because he can make the best pain potions for your cramps, and might be willing to give you tips on how to care for your skin during your hormonal periods. But only if he likes you.

Deuce was raised only by his mama, and based on what I know of her from the JP event, she def gives off the vibes of "I'm teaching my son how to care and respect women." He'd probably understand that you're not being aggressive with him for the sake of it, you emotions are being messed with due to all the hormones fluctuating in your body. But I do agree that he is the type to panic buy one of everything to help you out.

The others, I can see it, though I would like to this that Epel's case is less of being raised old-fashioned (nothing about him and the way he interacts with others screams old-fashioned to me), and more of being one of the few young people in a town of old people. The folk that can have periods don't because they've probably gone through menopause! It doesn't occur to them that he should probably know about periods!!!

Ace and Idia are just immature and dumb and I love them. Also, rip Silver, he's never interacted with another human outside of Sebek's dad.

Anyways my headcanon for the TWST universe is that they actually teach biology and anatomy so people aren't taught to know nothing about things like periods. Cause that's stupid why do we do that?

what is jack and toby's relationship like?

oohh ive covered this a few times. i love them.

this post i did on their relationship basically sums it up !! ill do more under the cut

jack helps the proxies so that slenderman lets him stay in the forest as refuge. he doesn't like toby at first, seeing him as too violent, too aggressive, viewing himself even in his monstrous form as more human than toby - which is true, in a sense . toby kills for slenderman. he wouldn't be killing people if not for that, BUT he absolutely finds release in it - he makes a game out of it, he detaches himself from the victims and reflects all he wanted to do to his dad onto them. sometimes he catches himself saying exact phrases his dad screamed back onto them. bro probably called his victims 'npcs' at some point LOLLLL

and jack RARELY EVER does his own killing. he gets a lot of his bodies as a dark web human remains disposer(cuz he gets paid for it too), or from jeff. and it took a while for him to be able to stomach the shit he has to do to survive, so it's rough for him.

jack hates it, jack hates what toby does, but he can see so much in toby that goes beyond that and it fucking sucks and it hurts and jacks prob cried FOR toby before. not in front of him, but anytime jacks confronting his own mortality and humanity, toby is one of the first people that comes to mind each time, and he wants to throw up thinking about it. only nina can rival how emotional jack is LOL

it's kinda weird for toby the way jack treats him - sometimes he gets mad and accuses him of treating toby like some research paper in a book, because he knew jack had a decently privileged upbringing in comparison to himself, and hates the supiroirty complex. jack asks too many questions and is always just trying to grasp whats going on in tobys brain and its fucking infuritating for toby.

but jacks just always fucking there. jack is easily the most present person, always easy to find, usually calm. tim/brian are rarely around, kate is unsettling and hiding away half the time, jeffs a dick, bens unreliable, ninas in love with jeff and has a life seperate from the creeps. even natalie has long periods of time where she just cannot get herself to confront toby because she has her own issues and is struggling to even maintain her job as a waitress. she can't be there half the time.

but jacks never gone. jack rarely tells him to get the fuck out. jacks so welcoming, even if he's an annoying uptight prick who thinks he's better than everyone - and half the time, toby knows jack is. he knows jacks better than everyone else around him and it sucks fucking ASSSSSS being around someone like him, but its also something toby needs really bad

after a year or so of knowing toby jack would be able to comfortably say he loves him, whether its as a friend or a brother or whatever the fuck sort of fucked up shit is going on in these freaks heads . again, jack is INCREDIBLY FUCKING HUMAN hes emotional he loves so hard he hates himself he wants people he wants connection he feels so alone he wants everyone to be there he wants his mom he wants his siblings he wants to read he wants to walk around he wants to cook he wants to breath in fresh air. and toby really does put in some work for that. maybe not correctly, honestly he might fuck it up more often than he gets it right, but who the fuck else is gonna invite jack to go swimming on a random summer night ? how badly he wish he could see tobys face when toby asks to hang out

also this one shot from necroromantics if ur looking for good jack toby content . sorry for stealing tomb. u just get them so much . also sort of in the same vein of this drawing i did ... jack was full of life and empathy and love and joy for so long....... doesn't understand how toby never had any to begin with.

Omg guys I really need to talk briefly about the PPG Movie. I actually never watched it as a kid because this movie didn't get release in my country and I actually didn't know they even have a movie until recently last year. I remember when I was a kid they kinda promoted the movie on CN by showing clips of the girls being interviewed seperately on a red couch and lmao my 6 yro brain thought it was cool and I didn't understand a thing at the same time because girly doesnt understand English so I actually didn't know it was for their movie.

Anyway, holy fuck this movie is everything to me because who would've thought a cute series about 3 little girls with superpowers has the saddest backstory ever???? I'm not going to talk about the plot in details, I rarher you guys watch it and understand the grief and pain I went through.

I honestly bawled my fucking eyes out after it ends because bITTCHHHH HOW DARE THE WHOLE TOWN TREATS MY LITTLE GIRLS LIKE THAT?????? 😭😭😭😭

I like how they build the girl's character here, when they were uh...born, all three of them look like a doll, you can't really tell their personality early on until the Professor assigned them their names. And I find it funny that Buttercup won't be as grumpy and tough as she is in the show if Utonium gives more thought into naming her lol. Also i won't shut the fuck up ever about this but I just love how Utonium just made them because he wants kids, he wants to be a parent and just raise them to be good kids. And him being new to the parenting thing (like legit he just thought of wow I want to be a dad because this town fuckin sucks and hours later procured a triplets in his lab) and he being very extremely freshly new to the parenting thing was like "oh shit it's their birthday I should get gifts!" When it clicked on him that it was their birthday and just ran out of the house to get them a car load of gifts while talking to gimself about how excited he is to be a dad (and also reminding himself not to leave the kids home alone anymore so after the incident he only leaves the kids with babysitters at home if he needs to go out at night)

It's so heartbreaking to see the whole town turning their backs on these innocent girls. They totally didn't know how the world works, they're literally 1 day old and poor Professor totally didn't know how to take care of them. They don't understand why people hate them and flew out and cry on meteors trying to process why everyone hates them. Idk seeing all three of them up there had me fuckin bawling like a dumb baby I am. I think I saw people say the Professor is bad at this time too because he didn't believe them and abandoned them and like honestly, no???? I don't accept Utonium slander in this house. He didn't hate them at all, it was just too much for him to handle in one day and he looks more like he is disappointed than he hates them and wants to get rid of them. If you ever notice, at the near end of the movie he ran back to the town with Antidote X and frantically looked for the girls to tell them he has ways to defeat Mojo. He didn't give up on them at all, he immediately ran home and quickly whipped out the Antidote from his lab and drove back downtown just to save the city instead of leaving it in chaos despite how much the people terrorised him and painted him as a villain. He still loves his native town very much and even though he is human, he wanted to give a helping hand to stop the rampaging monkey from destroying the city more. I wont shut the fuck up about Utonium in this movie ever ughhh 😩😩😩💕💕

I don't hate this movie at all despite the ill treatment on them in the middle of the movie. I really appreciate how their backstory has more meaning and also I don't blame on Townsville at all, I would be freaked out by them too. They have rampaging crimes and monsters visiting them by weekly. That's already a threat to them and then suddenly 3 little girls are rampaging the city while playing tag and this time they know who made them and you can arrest that person? I would be knocking on Utonium's door with picket fence and sporks and screams angrily at him too lol.

Anyway, 10/10 will terrorize my moots to watch this and made them cry too 🤧

Hello ! How are you ?

I am actually sending you this because I have some scenes in stranger things that really make me doubt that byler is endgame and I am going to tell you those scenes I am really interested in hearing what you think about them

So the first scene is the end of the battle of starcourt when mike is running to el and then he’s hugging her and she is asking him if he’s ok … I hope you get wich scene I mean haha I am really bad at explaining 😂

Next scene is the end of season 3 when el is kissing mike and telling him she loves him . I know everyone is always saying mike was sooo shocked and clearly didn’t like the kiss but if you look close to the end of this scene you can actually see mike looks happy ( at least that’s how I remember)

Next scene is mikes and wills crazy together scene.Yep i know that’s a byler moment actually but you can see in that scene even tho will has problems and he’s being honest and kinda romantic with mike , Mike is still thinking about el you know when will said “ please don’t tell the others they wouldn’t unterstand “ and mike says “ eleven would “ ( could this also hint will and El’s connection ?🤔)

Next scene is the reunion in season 2 and the fight mike has with hopper right after . As soon as Mike recognizes el he is almost crying and you can really see that they are both really happy to see each other again ( I know that that’s also how you would react if a friend that was missing for almost a year but still kinda makes me doubt ) than after that scene Mike and hopper get into … wills room I think , and mike is yelling at hopper for hiding el almost a year. So some byler shippers think he yelled at him because of self hate but to be honest I don’t think so …

Next scene is the scene where Karen is telling Mike to throw away some of his old stuff . He is grabbing his one Star Wars thing and his dinosaur that had obviously reminded him of El and that’s why he didn’t throw it away

Next and last scene that makes me doubt ( I have way more but it would be way to long if I added them 😅) the goodbye hug . Mike and el have hugged twice ( I think ) and their hug seems like they are together again and it also seems to be romantic

That’s it I am really sorry my question has turned out being so long and just to clarify I love byler and I love your blogs I just don’t think byler is endgame ( btw sorry for every grammatical mistake I made I am actually from Germany 😅😂 ( and sorry I didn’t add any punctuation marks I was in a hurry ))

Hope you have a weekend ! ♥️:)

Hi anon! I'm in the middle of finals for the next 2 weeks but things are going well! :) I hope you're doing well! <3

I love answering questions like this, thanks for the ask! Also your English is so good, I love learning where people are from! And thank you for the sweet comment about my blog 💜 I hope it's okay I numbered the scenes you mentioned just to keep track when I was writing this :) Also sorry this is gonna be a long post LOL

1. The first scene you mentioned is s3 ep.8 right before Billy dies. The conversation is:

This is right after Billy sacrifices himself to save El & everyone else. Previously, Billy knocked out Mike, Max & El and took El away, seperating the 3 of them. Mike knows Eleven is a target for the mindflayer because of the conversation when El looks into Billy's memories & then talks to him in her mind when the mind flayer says he is after her. It's a very sweet scene, and it makes total sense. Mike is concerned for El's safety, she disappears after they all get knocked out, he wakes up to her missing & knows something is wrong, so seeing her again, alive, is a relief. It is really important to remember that Mike & El do have a special bond, although it isn't romantic, it does not mean that they don't care about each other because they do. They're friends. He was the first person to treat her like a human being, and he took her in to save her life. Mike would do anything for his friends, he jumped off a cliff ready to DIE for Dustin's teeth not knowing El would save him. He's a very compassionate person at heart. This little clip doesn't diminish byler in any way, just shows Mike & El's friendship, and their concern for each others safety, because before they see each other here, they don't know if the other is okay, or even alive.

2. The "I love you too" scene.I know you mentioned Mike looking happy at the end of the scene, but I don't see that. He seems confused at first, and then shocked. Here's the full clip of the kiss and his reaction (sorry there is no sound):

I talked about this scene in-depth in my byler proof master slides, here's the link to this scene's specific pages :) But just to quickly summarize; He doesn't smile or anything when Eleven says she loves him. He stands in front of an open closet, but she doesn't. They're in Will's room, it's will's closet, and Will's teddy bear she is holding - in between them during the kiss. His eyes are open, he doesn't touch her or reciprocate the kiss, but she does close her eyes and touch his face.

Another important thing to remember is this scene is after the Mike & Will "not possible" scene...He shares a cute moment with Will that indicates care & loyalty and then El says she loves him and he is unresponsive. It's very telling.

3. The "crazy together" scene. When Mike mentions El in this scene, it's partially because he misses her as a friend and wants to do if she is okay, because again he is portrtayed ads kind of this "angel friend" kind of person when crisis strikes. But also because at this point in his life, he is not aware he is gay. This moment is clearly romantic & intimate, they're wearing the ghostbuster costumes, & the subtext of crazy = love, is all hugely significant, and Mike mentioning El doesn't undermine this. Mike is aware he cares for Will, but he is determined to like El. Part of him mentioning her is out of concern for her, but also to remind himself he is supposed to like her. He's young in this scene, and it's early in the season so a lot of these thoughts are just instinct, before he even understands why he is doing it himself.. He hasn't processed his sexuality at this point in his life yet. Bringing up El here partially shows the beginning of Mike's suffering from serious heteronormativity in s3. It may also be a little nod to El & Will's connection because Mike implies that El would understand Will. I don't see Mike bringing up El here as a genuine romantic thing at all.

4. Mike & El reunite in s2, & Mike and Hopper's fight. Of course Mike is happy & relieved to see her, he hasn't seen her in a year and they are friends! Also just moments before she returns, Mike tells Max she's dead.

As far as Mike's fight with Hopper, I think he is mostly talking to himself, taking his anger out on Hopper. Because of the subtext of the words, stupid, lying and bullshit. I also think he is yelling at Hopper for hiding her, because he believes El was around him during that year, he would be 'normal' and like her like he is 'supposed' to.

We also need to compare how Mike reacts to El and Will's respective disappearances. He gives up on El, and he doesn't give up on Will.

4. When Mike doesn't want to throw out his dinosaur. It's partially because it reminds of El, and again they are friends and he cares for her, and at this point in time he doesn't know where she is or if she is okay. When he holds the millennium falcon in this scene, it's yet another reference Mike & El are non-romantic, because it's a Star Wars reference.

There's also a Star Wars reference in s1 during the D&D game (that Mike wrote) where Mike plans out that he wants King Tristan to give him a medal, not Princess Leia to symbolize how he wants a king instead of a Princess. Cheesy I know but still valid. He wants Will to award him the medal and to be his hero.

5. The goodbye hugs at the end of s3 😭 Again, they're friends and it's hard to say goodbye to your friends, especially when you have such a strong connection to them, like them saving your life several times. All the hugs are during Hopper's letter, which is very byler centric. I would suggest checking out this section in my byler proof slides since this post is already so long LOL.

And Mike & El only hug once here, but Mike & Will are shown hugging twice.

And El is the one initiating the movement of his forehead onto hers during the hug. El also initiates all of Mileven's physicality. In the opening s3 kiss, she puts his hands on her, and he takes them off of her & breaks away to start singing, and once they resume kissing he puts his hands back in his lap, and El reaches for his face again. If Mike is straight & likes her so much, why doesn't he ever want to touch her in a romantic way? Because he isn't straight & he's not romantically in love with her. I don't see this as a romantic hug because Mike doesn't reciprocate the romantic touch or anything with her as usual, and there are plenty of hugs like this in this scene, but people do not say the other characters hugs are romantic, because it's between friends :)

I also don't think we can assume just because they hugged they are back together. We never saw them get back together on screen, so as far as we know, they are still broken up. But again, they are deeply bonded and care for each other, so that's what the hug expresses. And then we also have Eleven's whole issue of her idea of romantic love coming from purely soap operas she watches, so her idea of romantic love is warped. She has very little real world experience at this point, and she may not realize they aren't back together since in soaps the couple always ends up together, even after they break up.

Thanks for the ask!! I hope I could answer your questions :) ♥️ I hope you have a good weekend too!

Hello beaujester fans I made a little list of f/f book recs for no reason other than i love beaujes and i love sapphic books

(the last two are bonus vexleth + some of my general fave f/f books by authors of colour)

more info and transcript below the cut;

these are a range of genres & are based on various tropes & things that might appeal to beaujes/ cr fans!

pls don't treat them like beaujes fanfic or anything, they're all great books on their own!!!

check goodreads reviews for trigger warnings if you might need them :)

oh also! if you have a library card, download the libby app! you can borrow ebooks for free!

transcript:

The Never Tilting World by Rin Chupeco 

cool fantasy world split into day & night, with asian characters & author

bodyguard + princess who’s lived in a tower her whole life

they met in a bookstore & one loves silly romance novels

(& there’s a m/f pair too)

a duology, complete

The Mermaid, The Witch & The Sea by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

this is actually f/nb (one MC is genderfluid)

a rich sheltered girl travelling to meet a husband she’s never met gets taken by pirates, and one of them helps her escape

fairytale-like, pirates, mermaids, & magic!

Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova

a girl who accidentally sent her family to a kind of Latinx fairyland must travel to get them back

best friends to lovers!

a bi love triangle

(start of a trilogy based around 3 bruja sisters)

We Set The Dark On Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia

two girls (forced to be) married to

the same man in a Latinx dystopian fantasy world fall in love with each other

& become involved in the revolution

friends to rivals to friends to lovers!

a duology, complete

The Falling In Love Montage by Ciara Smyth

grumpy + sunshine girl ya contemporary romance

girl who doesn’t believe in romance or happy endings meets a girl who

loves romcoms & they plan to date

just for the summer

their dynamic reminds me a lot of bj tbh

The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake

sapphic retelling of Twelfth Night

shipwreck hunting & family mysteries

honestly i’m partly putting this here just bc there’s a chapter called ‘sapphire of the sea’

Under The Lights by Dahlia Adler

lesbian korean-american actress in a new teen tv show falls for her bi coworker

(dual pov w a straight guy who’s kinda a dick but they end up friends in the end)

The Weight of The Stars by K. Ancrum

two girls bonding over their love of space

scrappy teens in a small town

found family

rivals to friends to lovers

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

dystopian future ruled by an AI by keeping children of world leaders as ‘hostages’ in isolated schools

slow burn best friends to lovers And oh my god they were roommates....

(there’s a love triangle w a boy but she ends up with the girl)

Crier’s War by Nina Varela

fantasy world where automae rule over humans

human rebel / sheltered automae princess

lots of yearning, enemies to lovers

a duology, complete

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

adult sci-fi with an ambassador from a small station travelling to the empire

interesting alien cultures, court intrigue, politics (if u like that side of CR)

slow burn allies to friends to lovers

Honey Girl by Morgan Rogers

new adult contemporary novel where two women get drunk married in vegas

smart girl + creative girl

queer found family

coming of age & dealing with family expectations

[i have not read this one yet!]

BONUS: VEXLETH

Ash & Huntress by Malinda Lo

two seperate books set in a chinese inpisred fantasy world

a cinderella retelling where she ends up with the huntress instead of the mysterious fae man

and two women on a quest to save the world from a fairy queen freezing it

Of Fire And Stars by Audrey Coulthurst

a princess goes to another kingdom to marry a prince, but falls for his horseriding sister instead

one has fire magic, the other loves animals (their hair colours are swapped from vexleth too 😂)

magic, fantasy world, dragons

a duology, complete (with a prequel too)

Breaking Legacies by Zoe Reed

a huntress gets tasked with finding runaway princess but falls for her instead

dragons, wolves, magic & found family

[I have not read this one yet]

These Feathered Flames by Alexandra Overy

awkward redhaired lesbian who can turn into a giant flaming monster bird

& a swordfighting dark haired palace guard

sister relationships & politics

MC has a pet bear that she rides...

[have not read this one, I don’t think it’s out quite yet]

BONUS: some fave f/f books by authors of colour because half of the above are by white authors

Girl, Serpent, Thorn by Melissa Bashardoust (ya persin fairytale fantasy)

The Space Between Worlds by Micaiah Johnson (adult sci-fi)

Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan (YA asian high fantasy trilogy)

Each of us a Desert by Mark Oshiro (YA latinx fantasy)

Cinderella Is Dead by Kalynn Bayron

Tell Me How You Really Feel by Aaminah Mae Safi (YA contemporary romance) You Should See Me In A Crown by Leah Johnson (YA contemporary romance)

The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar (YA contemporary romance)

Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee (YA contemporary/superhero/dystopia)

In The Vanisher’s Palace by Aliette de Bodard (adult beauty & the beast retelling w a dragon)

If you could make a trigger warning list for Tsukihime, what would be on it? There's a lot of people who are just getting interested in it with the remake (myself included) and I think having a tw list would be a really nice thing for those getting in now. If you can't remember every scene, a general list is good enough!

Oh boy.

Ohhhhhhhh boyyyyyyyyy.

Alright. So. A little bit of explanation: there's a reason why Nasu actually wants to remake this game. Tsukihime is by miles his darkest and most brutal work, and a lot of it is completely unnecessary edginess made by poor and almost literally starving Nasu and Takeuchi. Kara No Kyoukai wasn't exactly making waves, and the two were living on cup noodles and working other jobs to keep themselves afloat. To finish the VN Takeuchi even made Nasu quit his job and worked two in his stead (biking home in-between said jobs to do art) just so Nasu would have time to write. The nastiness of what they felt at the time is everywhere in the script, and it speaks to Nasu's talent that what came out wasn't complete edgelord garbage.

Did you ever read the original Fate/Stay Night? Did you get taken abrupt when Illya and Berserker first attack Shirou, Rin, and Saber, and Illya orders Berserker to behead Saber and rape the corpse so that Saber would rather die than continue to regenerate and fight? Did you think that kinda came out of nowhere and was unnecessary? The Realta Nua rerelease didn't just remove all the bad sex scenes, they removed lines like those entirely.

Tsukihime has waaaaaaaay more of that, and unlike Fate/Stay Night it couldn't easily edit all of them out and get rereleased without changing the story. It needed to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Personally, I've been so excited for the remake because Nasu has expressed regret before on how misogynistic his writing was before. Specifically he was asked in an interview about his focus on female characters in his works and he something like "I've been told before 'Nasu respects womens rights' because of all the powerful girls in my works, but looking back I can clearly see my own prejudices" especially singling out how Shirou treated Saber in the Fate route and how Tohno Shiki needed to get uppercut by Arcueid. I'm far more excited to see how Nasu will approach Tsukihime with that hindsight in mind more than I am about the visual and music upgrades the VN will get. I don't think Nasu wants to (or even should) remove all the problematic content of the original Tsukihime as this IS a work of horror, but a lot of editing would greatly improve the script.

Releasing Tsukihime R on PS4 isn't just a message of a console release, it's a sign that things will be different this time due to Sony's strict rules (that do not apply to its first party games apparently).

With that being said, a general trigger warning list from memory:

1.) There is a LOT of rape and sexual assault. Mentions of the act, internal narration from characters witnessing or attempting to find someone to rape, Shiki can straight up rape two of the girls on two seperate routes if he makes the wrong choice (he will be killed the day after). There's also a line where Shiki tells Ciel that if she doesn't do what he says, he'll rape her. The context there is that he's extremely weak and she can snap him like a twig so he just shouts the most hurtful thing he can think of, but it's still dumb. If I remember correctly, there's a choice that makes Shiki sexually assault Hisui and it DOESNT lead to a dead end, with most guides recommending that choice to get the CGs. I got annoyed and that's when I made my own guide for the route.

2.) Unknown to Shiki, his family's bloodline carries a powerful violent impulse to kill any non-human they see, strong enough to temporarily take over their wills and delight in murder by conflating it with sexual pleasure. The first time Shiki sees Arcueid, he falls into a trance and stalks her back home before brutally cutting her up into 17 pieces and experiences multiple orgasms while doing so. He then comes to his senses and starts vomiting and crying from what he just did and the shame of how much he enjoyed doing it. They're not taking this scene out (It's in the remake PV) but I'm preeeettyyyy sure Shiki's narration won't suddenly talk about how much his dick is loving this.

3.) Incest. Akiha is Shiki's sister. She's also a romantic interest. Technically they're adopted so it's not incest and they haven't seen each other in 8 years so it's not like they grew up together the whole time, but any tine you got to say "technically it's not incest", it's not great. I heavily doubt this is getting removed from the Remake as it's, you know, a whole route. On the other hand, Akiha has a biological brother, and he is creepy about her so that's 100% guaranteed ick right there, but fortunately he never goes far enough that you can tell if he's a sicko or if he's just really possessive of his sister.

4.) Kohaku's backstory. Koha-Ace once joked that this is the true reason the Remake took so long. It forms the backbone of Tsukihime and one of the main threads that ties everything together, but also Kohaku is the middle link between Fujino and Sakura. You can guess what that means.

5.) Heavy gaslighting, heavier drugs. Both Shiki's past and his present in the far side routes involve an almost hilarious relationship to the truth. Everyfuckingbody is lying to Shiki, and his father literally gaslights him with magic by using hypnosis to conveniently erase some traumatic memories that the old man is responsible for and replace them with falsehoods. Shiki nonchalantly talks about his terrible memory when it comes to his childhood throughout the VN, but the actual reason for that is that he got gaslit to hell and back. In the present, Shiki gets drugged out of his mind by someone in his house, and experiences long and detailed hallucinations, all the while being told by his family that nothing is going on. It becomes difficult to tell what's really going on; if he's really walking around town or if he's in bed babbling at the ceiling. It is terrifying and is a part of what gives the Far Side routes great psychological horror, but it still deserves a TW.

6.) Suicide. At least one character kills themselves onscreen.

7.) Torture. In the Ciel route, Roa tortures someone by repeatedly and slowly stabbing blades into them while Shiki is forced to watch. It goes on for a while.

8.) Grooming. This particular bit isn't a part of the Tsukihime VN itself, but more of a fandom joke thanks to Carnival Phantasm. A big part of Shiki's backstory is meeting the mage Aozaki Aoko as an 8 year old and her teaching him about life in the short time they have together. Due to Shiki's nature he almost certainly would have become an evil person, but meeting Aoko instilled a moral compass in him that is the only thing he has to fight his impulses, which is why Shiki loves his sensei so dearly. Melty Blood later made a joke that Aoko is mad she never got a route in Tsukihime, and Carnival Phantasm later had a whole scene stating the real reason Aoko cared for Shiki was that she was grooming him to be her boyfriend as soon as he turned of age. It's super gross and a perversion of what is literally the sole wholesome relationship Shiki has and the only reason there is any good in him at all. I really fucking hate this joke among all others in the Tsukihime fandom.

Lexa and her evil fucking cat makes me wonder what your other Clexa's feel about animals. Also does CI Clarke even like pets? 😂

CI Clarke is strange because on the surface she would say no she doesn't. She'd hem and haw over other people's pets and not really care, generally actually telling people straight up if you show me another picture of your dog I'll pull the fire alarm. And of course their first pet together is satan's naked spawn from hell who even if she did want to like, she can't because the little shaved chicken hates her. I mean it hates everyone who isn't Lexa (which you'd think would make them kindred spirits and yet this little fucker seems out for Griffin blood), but it's like this damn cat has made it her goal in life to have Lexa all to herself and Clarke 6 feet deep. It's a constant underground war between the two that they tacitly agree to keep seperate from their favorite human

But then I think they'd get another cat, like the floofy white one, and that is actually not a direct decedent from the devil (at least to Clarke, everyone else still has to keep a wide berth) and that's when Clarke's more pet ftiendly side comes out. That's when Lexa starts noticing that they run out of treats faster than they should and suddenly there's fucking cat toys everywhere and scratching posts and mini cat mansions in random rooms that Lexa certainly didn't buy so like 🤨👀 where'd they come from, Clarke?

The others I mean, magic au Lexa would get a kick out of always having a black cat even if she is much more of a dog person. Vamp clexa don't really do pets much but they feed neighborhood strays wherever they are. They've always got a steady supply on hand and leave a few bowls of water and food out for whatever critter runs by and wants something. They know what it's like having to scrounge for food sometimes. Demon Clexa, hard no. After Penny passes they don't bother. Animals kinda go haywire around Clarke anyway. CoA Clexa are pet people through and through, animals love Lexa so that's not really a shocker there. MBFW become more pet friendly when they settle down and start a family, and you'll meet professor Lexa's dog the first night Clarke comes over 😌

I think that covers everybody

Downpour Information Post:

There isn't MUCH to learn about Downpour other than that it's rainy all the time. But lemme go into detail.

The Rain:

The rain actually works different in each place. In the ruins, it's naught much but a small drizzle, much like a water sprinkler. Toriel doesn't need an Umbrella in the ruins so she has a hat because...Fashion. In Snowdin, it's your average rain. It pours and pours and that's just how life is.

The people in Snowdin will need an umbrella...But at the same time, that's only if they choose to. Sans usually has a poncho on whenever he's outside, he doesn't want his clothes getting wet. Same with Papyrus.

In Waterfall, it's practically a waterfall, as it is in the name. It's also sometimes storming there....Well, a lot of the time. It's hard to find some place that isn't practically a swimming pool. Undyne lives above her house because...Well, it's flooded and all the stuff she has is just...Poof.

In Hotland, it's practically dry. The water evaporates. The people in Hotland have no clue about the rain. Except for Alphys, of course. They're still trying to figure out how and why it rains in the underground.

For the place Asgore lives in. It's again, only a small drizzle. He likes the drizzle, cause it waters his flowers. He tends to stay in the throne room to water the water peacefully hit the petals of the flowers.

The Characters, Personalities, and Story:

Now, again, not much has changed in these three core parts of the entire lore. But for those that did change, I will explaining briefly.

Frisk:

Frisk doesn't look like your usual Frisk. No double striped shirt that's blue and purple and no closed or squinting eyes. This Frisk is different. For starters, I can't exactly explain what their eyes have going on.

But, you know, I'll think of an explaination sometime soon.

Frisk always carries an umbrella with them. It's helped them do a lot, despite being a mere umbrella. It's their weapon, transportation, and shield. They never leave this umbrella behind.

Their personality is quite understandablely, none. Their personalities all determines which route/timeline they're in.

Genocide: Blunt, rude, hostile, apathetic.

Neutral: --All depends on the amount they spared or the amount they killed--

Pacifist: Stubborn, Generous, Helpful.

The two main things that hasn't changed is the fact they continously have a straight face/poker face on and that they don't talk. People still find Frisk unsettling in the pacifist timeline.

Sans and Papyrus's relationship:

Now, I wouldn't say their relationship is the best but it also isn't the worse. Sans still makes dumb puns (Rain Edition) and Papyrus still wants to capture the human. Both have completely seperate goals, so they tend to bicker a lot. Sans tries to convince him to not capture the human, Papyrus's determination overshadows his thoughts, someone says something they don't mean, bickering ensues. They're still brothers overall and would do anything for each other.

....

Kinda.

Chara:

Now, Chara is a topic all on their own. They're story hasn't changed but the personality has along with appearence, kind of.

Chara is your helpful ghost friend...With their own intentions, of course. Frisk and Chara are actually siblings, with Chara being older. Chara didn't like how they have been treated, so they just left. Ended up falling into the Underground, and soon after perishing due to an illness. Chara is like a guide for Frisk, appearing only to instruct them on what to do, and of course, using them to test things they weren't able to do.

They show up a lot more during the genocide route, only to reflect on Frisk's actions, acting as their own actions. They mean no actual harm, they're just very curious and like testing things out a lot. Ever since they found out about Frisk's power, that's when the true curiousity kicked in. They'd like to not only test the limits, but as well as the power.

Flowey:

OKAY SO THAT WAS REALLY IT OF THE POST BUT WHAT IF FLOWEY WAS AN ECHO FLOWER?! WOULDN'T THAT BE SICK!?!? IDK

Sad news folks.

Unfortunately a few weeks ago KathFIN passed away. She suffered from Dropsy and after three days of salt baths, quarintine and heavy monitoring her short time was bid a due:(

With this said, I thought I should maybe share the symptoms and effects of Dropsy so that it doesn’t happen to anyone else.

The first symptoms are a lack of eating, hiding away, seeming slow, staying near the surface or the top and lethargic. The main causes of Dropsy can be the environment, poor water conditions, stress or simply a lack of luck.

Unfortunately when I noticed Kath it was basically too late. She was insanely round and swollen, with ‘pinecone scales’ (when the scales fan outwards. From the top she kinda looked like a corn cob), she was hiding a lot, her spine was bending and she was sticking to the surface. I knew she wasn’t well so I got to research.

To treat Dropsy, it’s better to be treated ASAP as it’s an internal disease. I bathed her in a salt bath (room temperature, one eighth of a teaspoon to two cups of water) and then left her there for ten minutes before putting her back in some water, making sure it was always clean and not too cold. If your fish has a friend with them (in my case FINch) you should seperate them ASAP.

I continued the baths for a few days, knowing that the salt reduced swelling and pain. Unfortunately by the third day she was barely moving, right at the surface just floating with her lil face up so she could breathe. Her fins were barely moving (it can be really painful, to the point where movement feels like too much)

At that point I should have simply put her to rest but I thought she still had a chance. I was wrong and she passed away that night. If I could go back I would have put her in the fridge until she went into a slumber, then froze her to put her to rest a humane way. She still had a wonderful few weeks with me and FINch, always playing together. It’s such a shame that she succumb to her illness, as I still wish she were with us. She was buried out in the garden that next afternoon, and of corse a few nice words were said.

FINch is now in her tank again. She’s actually going very well, so worry not for her. RIP KathFIN. You were loved by many, and I hope you’re a lot happier in fishy paradise 💖💖

I created an AU for Psychonauts called Broken Link. Let me explain it. Warning, it contains very dark material.

It takes place after the events of Psychonauts 2. Sasha and Milla were tasked to help Raz overcome some issues. In which they did, but they ended up beig seperated… unfortunatel, Milla ended up discovering Sasha and Raz’s talk after the casino mission. And she was LIVID at Sasha for not letting Raz apologize. After fighting the monster in Raz’s mind. Milla and Sasha had an argument of how Sasha treating Raz wrong. And well… Sasha said something very bad to Milla… and well… she stormed off. This causes them to no longer work together. As Sasha felt guilty and Milla was enraged. This comes into the Ids and Superegos. They are very dangerous think of them as the metaphorical Angel (Superego) and Devil (Id) on the shoulders but in worse ways, Ids guilt trip their users and Superegos justify their users’ actions. And if Ids and Superegos aren’t dealt yet, it could lead to suicide (affected by Ids), and become cold hearted (affected by Superegos).

|||||||||||||||||||||||

So I don’t know Milla and Sasha’s personalities too well, because I only played the second one and not the first, but I don’t think that Milla would become that upset at Sasha for leaving Raz before he could apologize. Like from what Milla said when Raz talks to her, she and Sasha are always talking through their minds, so I have a feeling that she already knew and probably talked to Sasha about it if it did upset her.

However! Let’s say she did get mad and all this stuff did happen, I think the way you are portraying the Id/Ego/Superegos is a bit... I don’t know how to say it, but like “wrong”? Like the Id is supposed to be the innate pleasures that humanity wants on a basic universal level. So I think the Ids would be more like, super indulgences catered to each person. Sasha being like, smoking or something like that. I don’t think these would lead to suicide in the sense someone would kill themself, but more in the sense that they would overindulge until they die. Kinda like how Bob could have died to alcoholism if Raz didn’t help him.

The Superego is societal morals, those would probably be something close to the Judgements we see in game. Maybe more like full on rules that you have to fight or something, because sometimes societal rules are not good. It would be like Raz helping people find their own moral code instead of blindly following the rules given to them by society that might not actually be good to follow and are causing problems inside the person.

And then there’s the Ego which is the mediator of the Id. I can see this as something similar to the Enablers where Egos are trying to satisfy the Id in a way that is acceptable to society. If anything, I would say that this would be less an enemy and more of something Raz would need to save. So like, Raz would need to fight both the Id and Superego in order to give more power to the Ego and help bring balance to the person’s mind.

This is just my thoughts on this kind of thing from what I remember from my psychology course along with some extra research to refresh my brain on this topic. I can definitely see Raz having to help Milla and Sasha reconnect mentally over something, I just don’t think that Raz not apologizing would be the breaking point. But this is still a really good concept and I can see you going pretty far with it and getting into some really deep internal struggles and intrusive thoughts that a lot of people have.

Homesquared Chapter 14

lol gotta love John’s enthusiasm of being part of the movers and shakers getting shot down cuz he hasn’t actually flexed his Main Character Muscles in quite a long time

though he’s honestly taking his mid life crisis very well all things considered, its good he cares more about his kids than anything else and I like the bond he’s getting to make with Harry, it’s nice!

Now what’s a million times funnier though is the same thing happening to Vriska, she is decidedly NOT taking her midlife “but but I want to be important too!!” crisis not nearly as well as John is haha

VRISSY: I guess you Did go Viral, 8ut the news moves so fast these days. I don’t think Any8ody is like...

VRISSY: Glued to their phones Waiting for your New Hashtag Resistance content.

Yeah Vriska, you’re so 15 minutes ago :P people have moved on

what, did you think you were going to be important forever?

VRISKA: What’s the point of me even coming to this shitty fake reality if I’m not supposed to fix it?

to have a mid life crisis about not being important anymore obviously :P

VRISSY: Yeah, they told me about That stuff, but a Lot of the Shit that Happened in the Session if just not in the History Books.

VRISSY: You weren’t Really mentioned that Much.

VRISKA: Excuse me?

I Am Living For This Whole Conversation

VRISKA: I SINGLE H8ND8DLY!

VRISKA: CURED YOUR MOTHER’S FUCKING ALCH8LISM!!!!!!!!

JOHN: uh, vriska, everything okay over there?

VRISKA: EVERYTHING’S FINE, J8HN!

JOHN: okay.

JOHN: do you girls want a snack?

ASJHGFSHFHWE yeah calm down Vriska have a snack 

ahh, loving it

Turns out, History is written by the people who were left who decided to give a damn about writing it, and if those people Don’t Like you, they can just decide to not mention you, no matter who you are or what you did

All your “important” accomplishments are for naught and have become meaningless because you’re an asshole and other people didn’t like you enough to decide that you mattered in the long run

Congrats! Infamy doesn’t matter as much as Connection

Aww, cute with Annie getting hug bombed by her moms

Though, Rose definitely has a stronger bond with Annie than just being her surrogate it looks like

I understand this family situation just fine, if Annie really was just supposed to be a way for Jade to overcome her lonliness, and Rose was her only functional way and only person she could approach with this idea, and Rose responded out of care for her friend

Rose, shouldn’t really have a distinct mom attachment here, because then it implies a stronger than platonic relationship with Jade

but it could just be a great example of “this is why you don’t agree to create a child with your friend purely because said friend was crying out of lonliness out of failed relationship and wanted a child to fill that void of lonliness but who then shoves said child off the sidelines and doesn’t interact with her at all and leaves her in the hands and care of a supposed enemy and

yknow, I think I’m just gonna stop there before I remember Jake also knew about Yiffany existing so if the only ones who didn't know were John/Dave/Karkat and Kanaya then what was honestly the point of hiding her in the first place

Its not the fact that Yiffany exists that Im finding hard to believe, its just hows she treated narratively after she started existing thats stretching my rubber band into a dangerous area

“ROSE: Is it the libidinous power rush that comes from snapping your fingers at men with guns, or are you worried that you might accidentally do something heroic?

(its the latter)

“She stopped thinking about how she would be received, and more about how she could play to the people she knew would receive her favorably.

Looking up she sees Tavvy with tears in his eyes. Rage and guilt surge inside her. This situation is not her fault.”

Gotta Justify It. Gotta Justify It.

Doesn’t matter if I’m Right or Wrong, if enough other people validate me than Everything is Fine and I’m a Good Person.

JANE: So before you accuse me, take a look at yourself!

JANE: I'm the only one who has taken any interest in her upbringing or education!

JANE: Or have you forgotten who has been paying for her schooling and taking charge of her introduction into society?

JADE: i never asked you to do that!

JADE: you offered!

Okay but Jade, you DID let Jane have Annie in the first place and then presumably washed your hands of her, when supposedly the only reason Annie exists is because you wanted a daughter with whom you could have a loving relationship with

You gotta, explain you’re thinking there Jade cuz I still don’t get this bit

Though in thinking about it, I think I know why this happened

Jade grew up isolated from any person, but still loved her grandfather, despite his absence

to her, family relationships didn’t involve any sort of personal work, they were just things she had because she had them

did she just believe the same would happen for Yiffanny? that she could paradoxically still have a relationship despite long absences? Annie doesn’t seem to have any resentment here for Jade or Rose so I mean ???

“ If they were to kill Tavros, the entire world would see them commit this war crime. And weighed in the balance, Lalonde and Harley would be off the playing board. Saving your daughter certainly counted as a heroic death, and with the damage they'd done to humanity, it would also probably be just. “

She hates them both so much she’d let Tavros die for it

But also, she really does calculate everything in terms of how the Masses would view their actions as Just or Heroic

so yeah, she was absolutely about to let Tavros die, damn Jane

literally the only thing that stopped you was that Jake viewed the threat as a real threat and was about to do something stupendously Heroic to save Tavros and you decided you didn’t want Jake to die a heroic death

On the flipside, oh damn, Yeah Vriska’s going full throttle right on the nose ahead with the obvious audience expectation, that there gonna make another sburb session and get the obvious group of important 4 kids to god tier

that’s clearly the path vriska wants and expects, but hey, just imagine if what Vriska wanted to happen didn’t happen this time, imagine if the kids were just like “nah im good?” when it comes to a god tier

The narrative is making it super clear that at least 3 out 4 kids are kinda not feeling all the outdoorsy action and excitement of a game of life and death

Annie though I could hella see her down to play sburb and get a god tier, shes got that whole “isolated childhood trauma and parental issues pressure cooking her a strong will to take her life into her own hands” energy

Vriska, go see Annie, her strong willed butt is more of the action girl you’re looking for I think

At least if they do end up playing the game and getting the tiger, Annie feels like the first one to do it or the action catalyst of their session, like how Vriska was for hers, or Dirk for the alphas, or

hmm. who was is that kinda, moved things along for the Beta’s again? I think it was Rose, but Dave did a ton to move things along as well, but also their trolls like Terezi and them gave everything big nudges, I think Rose counts as the equivalent Beta in session mover and shaker though

Side note: the panels with vrissy and vriska here very feel cartoonish and light hearted, interesting choice

but it does give off Major “Play Game: Level 1″ vibes if that makes sense

What the fuck is with the Dave Soldiers

I mean, they look more like Red Johns?Jakes? with the black hair

the glasses throw me off though-

UHH DID THEY JUST FUCKING KILL HARRY ANDERSON??

HOLD ON. HOLD UP

TAVROS AND ANNIE: WITH ROSE/JADE/JAKE/JANE

VRISSY: WITH VRISKA DOWN BELOW

HARRY: WITH JOHN. ON JOHN’S COUCH.

JOHN IS ALSO STILL HERE, MEANING HARRY SHOULD BE WITH HIM.

yeah he literally just went outside for a second to see where the V’s went and then the house gets bombed, and we get three whole panels dedicated to John slowly sitting down in the wreckage

Harry Anderson just got fucking killed holy shit.

oh my god, they were leading up to it too.

We just had three seperate death flags for the other 3 kids in a row

Brain Ghost Dirk warned Jake that Annie was gonna die via electrocution unless he stepped up

Jane was gonna let Tavros die vie neck snapping (even though Kanaya really wouldn’t have)

Vriska and Vrissy discuss god tiering, and what it would mean for Vrissy, death is a subtle implication there but still there

Now to see if Jane’s ever revived Harry Anderson before in the next update I suppose :o

*edit*

They did not kill Harry Anderson, I saw pumpkins in front of the house that got exploded and didn’t see it looks different than the other bland white suburban house that John actually left, so no one died, Harry just got his implied death threat turn

Harry is at Roxy’s House, John sits in the smoldering ashes of his childhood home, languishing in the idea that Jane, the girl who might have in another reality been his loving grandmother, actually wants him and his kids dead for realsies

he never really got to sit and think about the hole where his home was that the meteor struck when he entered sburb huh? (I know his house came with him, giving the allusion all was well in the Medium, but a real meteor still struck the place that he stopped existing on OG Earth, to an outside observer, it would look like a meteor destroyed his home)

with Vriska talking about sburb to Vrissy, it is nice imagery to imagine the implications of the Kids god tiering from Earth C

and the destruction left in their wake

Fic: Iris

For FowlFest2020: Obscure Character Appreciation Day. Iris is actually an OC, but her family is mentioned so... that counts right? Shoutout to @ms-nothingspecial for betaing  and listening to me stress about word choice for far too long.

--

The fairy shuttle port at Tara was an impressive operation. Ten thousand cubic metres of terminal concealed beneath an overgrown hillock in the middle of the McGraney farm. For centuries, the McGraneys had respected the fairy fort's boundaries and, for centuries, they had enjoyed exceptional good luck.

- Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident

--

Iris McGraney is born at midnight on a full moon, which for a McGraney is the very best of luck.

The birth goes smoothly and without complications, and Iris is born quietly, wailing briefly to let the world know she’s arrived, before settling on her mother’s chest, quietly basking in the comfort of her family around her.

Iris McGraney is born lucky. Then again, her family always has been.

--

When Iris is 7 she gets sick, as children do.

Plans are made to see the doctor in the morning, but McGraneys have a certain way of treating illnesses first that most others don’t.

Iris is well enough to listen to her Dad tell her to keep the bedroom window open all night, even as he bundles her up in blankets and turns the heater on.

He puts a note on the sill along with a single gold nugget, just in case.

“We’ve invited them in before, but it’s better safe than sorry, isn’t it? And you should never ask without offering something in return. It’s rare they take it but it’s only polite.”

The McGraney’s were always digging up gold, especially near the fairy fort. Iris knew it was a secret though, or else everyone would want to come dig on their farm which would make the cows sad.

“Now, go to sleep,” her Dad tells her, tucking her in tight. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Iris doesn’t wake all night, and in the morning, the note is gone, the small piece of gold now sitting on her night stand.

Iris picks it up and runs to the kitchen.

“It moved, Daddy!” she announces proudly, the picture of a healthy child. “They didn’t take it but it moved.”

Her father laughs and hugs her.

“That’s how they let us know they were here.”

--

When Iris is 14 a severe looking boy in a suit sits down across from her at a cafe she’s in, and puts a phone on the table.

Iris recognises the model, it’s seven months away from being released and the hype is already intense.

“For a moment of your time.”

Iris stares at him.

“My parents are gonna think I fucking stole this.”

The boy sets a letter down on the table as well. Iris has a brother so she ignores the letter at first and continues staring at the boy, hoping to unnerve him. He seems unbothered, maybe he has siblings too. She picks up the paper and reads a very official looking letter from the phone manufacturer congratulating her on being selected to test an early release prototype.

It’s fake of course. Iris isn’t an idiot, she is however a teenager in a tiny village with not much going for it. In short, she’s bored and whatever the hell this is, it’s interesting. Also her parents don’t know shit about technology or how major releases work.

She shoves the phone in her backpack.

“What do you want?”

“The fairy fort on your property, I want to know about it.”

Iris raises her eyebrows, that’s hardly top-secret information.

“I don’t know, man, it’s been there for ages. We take care of it, respect the boundaries, and we get lucky.”

“In just the past fifty years your family has uncovered a lost work of Holbein the Younger, a sword owned by Íriel Fáid and seven seperate stores of gold. You’ve also never lost an animal to bovine spongiform encephalopathy in all the history I could find of your farm.”

Well it was more gold than that at last count but they’d stopped being so vocal about it and also-

“Yeah... what’s that last one?”

The kid gives her a disdainful and patronising look. “Mad cow disease.”

“Right.” This dude is a dick. “Like I said. Lucky.”

“It seems a bit more than lucky.”

Iris shrugs. “Look man, you don’t need to believe in the People if you don’t want but you’re in the wrong town. We eat that shit up here, the Hill of Tara borders our farm, there’s three fairy-dedicated gift shops in this village alone.”

He looks interested now though, leaning forward in his seat.

“The People?”

His eyes are weirdly intense, Iris can’t wait to tell her friends about this. Orla is super into vampires right now, she’s going to love it.

“Fairies, the fae, the fair folk, aos sí, whatever you want to call them. Maybe it is just luck, I’ve never seen one-” She frowns, a memory bubbling up then she shakes her head, brushing off a dream of a small winged figure on her windowsill one night. “The People is what my grandparents called them though. Capital P.”

“What else did your grandparents tell you about them? Did they have any superstitions specific to your family?”

Iris doesn't even need to think on that one.

“Grandpa Rob had this thing where he would make everyone wash their hands after we came back from church. Said it was not to harm the People with the holy water, but no one else I know does that, even the Creideamh Sí families.That means -”

“The Fairy Faith,” he interrupts. “Yes, I’m aware. I’ll need to know anything else your family knows about them.”

He pulls a laptop out of his bag which looks like nothing Iris has ever seen and her family is pretty well-off (selling lost works or art tends to help).

“This is getting to be more than a moment, dude.”

“I can take the phone back.”

Iris laughs, he’s not wrong that the phone is worth more than a short conversation, but the threat is just plain funny coming from a pre-teen who looks like he’d never seen the sun in his life and a stiff breeze would knock him over.

The man standing behind him, who Iris initially assumed was his dad but now isn’t so sure, clears his throat and there’s something in the way he does it, or maybe the way he glances down at her, that makes it very clear this tiny undertaker looking child would be leaving with either his answers, or the phone.

If Iris were older or wiser, she would be suitably unsettled but today she just waves a hand at the mountain of a man.

“Chill, I don’t mind, just weird to be honest.”

“You’re welcome to whatever opinion you please so long as you answer all of my questions with as much detail as possible. Now, tell me more about the holy water.”

This phone better be worth it. (It is.)

--

When Iris is 19 the world ends.

Kinda.

Her PlayStation is ruined at least which is annoying as shit.

More importantly, the fairy fort is gone and there’s an actual fucking fort there.

“I always thought it would be a bit less… concrete.”

She’s not sure who she’s talking to, her brother’s moved to London and her parents are out at lunch with friends. But it’s rather the sort of day where Iris thinks she might not believe anything at all if she keeps it just in her head.

The door gives a loud bang and Iris yells and leaps backwards. The banging continues and she realises there’s someone on the other side.

“Are you okay?’ she calls, trying to keep the sudden nervousness in her chest from coming through the words.

“There’s a fire in here, and the suppression systems aren’t working.”

Iris takes several long breaths, processing several things. One, her family is not mad, fairies do exist. Two, they do in fact have a fort on their farm. Three, she might be about to meet them for real. Four, it’s kinda ugly and dull, she expected a bit more… magical?

She looks up to try and centre herself and catches sight of a plane, trailing smoke and flying disturbingly low before it disappears over a hill. In the distance there’s the sound of thunder.

Right, the world is possibly ending, perhaps that should be higher on the list. That part is plain not registering in her head.

She tells herself she imagined the plane, there’s no room in her head to process the alternative right now.

“Who are you anyway?”

Iris’ head snaps back up at the question. Right, fairies trapped in a burning building. Focus.

“Iris McGraney! Stand back, I’ll kick the door in.”

“This door is built to withstand more than you, human.”

Iris frowns, annoyed. “You prefer to suffocate?”

There’s a long pause then, from what sounds like a distance, the voice calls back, “Alright, give it a go.”

Iris is a farmgirl through and through. She’s been stacking hay and climbing fences and eating well her entire life, she wouldn’t be carrying the Dinnie Stones any time soon but she could best all the local boys in an arm wrestle and carry a small calf several fields if she had too.

Her first kick connects with a satisfying crack. The second gives more of a crunch and on the third the door snaps and slams inwards. It’s a pretty cool moment, Iris wishes the day wasn’t so surreal so she could bask in it more.

Smoke starts to billow out as soon as it meets the outside air and there’s a lot of yelling and organised panic as thirty-odd fairies of differing colours and various sizes of small come pouring out, most coughing.

One, in an official looking uniform, makes a line for Iris.

“You’re a fairy,” she tells him.

“Yes, a gnome if we’re getting technical.” He pulls out a handkerchief and starts dabbing at his forehead. “Thanks for that, by the way, Frond only knows what’s going on. One moment we’re getting the call that Haven’s locking down the next the electronics start sparking and melting off the walls.”

“The same thing happened in the house.” Iris tells him, rapidly compartmentalising, there was far too much to take in today. Fairies sure, but gnomes? She pushes it in a box for later. “My phone melted, and the TV almost started a fire.”

The gnome shakes his head worriedly. “This is not good, not good. No contact with Haven and all our tech going bust. I bet it’s that Koboi pixie somehow, right crazy one she is.”

Iris nods for a moment, then shakes her head. “No, I don’t know what that means.”

“Not good, is what it means.”

Iris looks across the fields to several columns of smoke rising in the distance, the further she looks in every direction the more there are.

Not good at all.

--

When Iris is 32 her parents die.

It’s sudden and so plain, after a life of quiet magic and unrelenting luck. Her mother took a turn too fast and hit a patch of ice.

They didn’t suffer at least.

She blames the People at first, but even as the anger bubbles inside her she knows it’s only grief behind it. She’s learnt over the years they’re just people themselves, no capital letter. They can do extraordinary things but miracles are miracles for a reason.

After the wake is passed and the friends gone home, her brother reluctantly back across the channel, promising to call that same night, Iris is at a loss.

She had expected to be but still.

The knocks at the door are so frequent she doesn’t even startle when another comes. She’s not sure she’s in a mood for more well-wishers but she’s not doing well alone either so- she sighs and goes to open the door.

On the other side is a black-haired man in a three-piece suit, still pale but Iris felt less concern now that he might combust if the sun ever does manage to find him.

“Artemis Fowl, I didn’t expect us to meet again.”

“You remember me.” He doesn’t seem surprised.

“Being interrogated by a ten year old tends to stick in a girl’s mind.”

He smiles. “I was 12.”

Iris invites him in and makes tea.

It’s a welcome distraction right now because you have to be living under rock in Ireland not to know how just very extraordinary Artemis Fowl the Second is. Three doctorates, Time Man of the Year at 22, already one Nobel Prize and smart money’s on a second soon.

If anyone could have done it at 12… well.

For a moment she almost hesitates, but Artemis gives her a real smile, as if he already knows what’s on her mind.

(In the years ahead she will come to know him well enough to realise that’s exactly the case.)

She hands him a cup and sits down.

“Tell me, Dr. Fowl, did you ever find the People?”

random thoughts about better handling the calypsos

i’m just gonna ramble a bit on ideas that maybe could have been done a bit better while still keeping the whole ‘The twins are streamers’ idea of the story and as much as the base lore as possible

I think the beginning is pretty ok.  Typhon and his wife find Nekrotafeyo, have kids and stay on the planet. Tyreen and Troy are conjoined and have to be seperated in some way leaving Tyreen stronger then Troy and Tyreen kills her mother with her siren powers. Typhon thinks of Troy and Tyreen as sorts of ‘monsters’ or at least Tyreen. here’s where im thinking we add a bit more lore or change things up.  Typhon doesn’t hate the kids,  but holds a resentment towards them, kinda like he did but even more so. Maybe some bursts of anger or breakdowns along with the fact that Typhon could technically build the ship at any time to leave but doesn’t want to makes the twins uneasy of their dad. They’re lonely. There’s no other humans on the planet and just weird creatures and stuff they don’t understand. They become starved to meet people, and with dad telling stories all the time they wonder if this is some sort of punishment for them.  One day dad snaps pretty bad on one of the twins as the whole siren/dead mom/ being alone on a planet is hard and the Twins decide that enough is enough. So much like in the actual lore, they work on the ship behind dads back but instead of really going out there to seek stardom and ‘escape the cage’ it’s more of a ‘scared and we’re fed up with this world’ I know it’s kinda the same so far but like i said the beginning is pretty ok except for really the goal of ‘being the biggest star in the sky’ I can see that as still being a goal of the Twins but really they is no reason explained for in it in game. If we maybe made the approach that Typhon didn’t treat the Twins right at times, was a wreck, overprotective along with the stories he told and maybe the fact that when the got to Pandora seeking their own lifes and meeting other people for the first time the see all the great stuff about Typhon. And they get pissed. ‘That’s not who dad is, dad isn’t like that he’s an asshole, he treated us so bad, kept us there, told us we were monsters’ So in order to get back at dad they decide that their gonna be ‘bigger stars’ then him by becoming even better vault hunters. They are gonna open more vaults, do more with them, just so they can get more popular then their dad and wipe his name clear from history. So they decide to try to open the great vault, a feat only heard of in legends. They get the cult following of the bandits, perhaps leaning more towards a sympathetic attitude towards them then streamery ‘your our fans’ they’re still assholes, they want revenge on their dad more then anything and use people to get what they want but i just feel like even a small change like that would make things a little bit more motivated and make more sense.  As for the whole streaming aesthetic of the twins it’s... not the best. Yes it’s popular now but that’s just it. It’s kinda a trend. Handsome Jack is a good villian cause part of his reasoning and character isn’t back on a trend idea, he’s kinda timeless in that sense. Now if we took the idea of streamers and just sort of replaced it more with the cult like stuff as cults have been around forever then it may work. No real references to Let’s plays or tiers of subscribers or youtube poops. Maybe take more inspiration from real cults and just have them broadcast it through the echonet.  In a way they’d still be streamers, could still have charisma as most cult leaders do have but it’s less dated in a sense.  More towards the god king and queen, doing this for them, going to the great vault because they are prophets of some sort more then just because they are streamers and cult mentality with fans. You’d still have that undertone of streamers/internet personalities just not as in your face about it ya know? Also i’d like to see a bit more on the mom. We have no idea what she looked like, just her name and her supposed personality. Maybe not alot but just enough to make it interesting. Like maybe Tyreen or Troy wearing something of hers, or an echo log with a message of her talking found on Nekrotafeyo or with the Twins or a picture ya know? Maybe the twins would idolize her more then the dad then and maybe twist her ideas around in some way to go against Typhon or use her words as an intensive to start shit. Oh and don’t make Typhon a ‘Turd Farmer’ what the hell is even that. He can be goofy but like...really? And stop having the Twins use that as insults it gets real old quick. Typhon could have any other low shitty job. I get that it’s suppose to be like ‘i came from nothing and now im something’ but he could have just been a different farmer. I do like the fact that Typhon looks nothing like how he’s really depicted so that’s pretty good but the design for him is maybe a bit too off like yeah that’s not what I was expecting but it also seems a bit off? Also less talk about their sex lives.  I don’t wanna know where Typhon fucked. I don’t want Troy to fuck Aurelia (which Aurelia got messed up in this game tbh she should have been handled better and differently) The only one I could accept is Tyreen  hinting a bit that she can’t have a love life cause she some how kills people during. That’s what I could accept cause that’s just another tragic thing to put on her. But like I wouldn’t rub  it in or be like ‘OH HEY I CAN’T FUCK’ like have it be some off hand thing to just make you realize ‘oh that’s actually really sad and would fuck with someone mentally’ Other Twin things. Maya’s death could work if it was maybe played a bit better but I think it’d be more interesting to show what Troy could do without siren powers and instead being some sort of weak, leach that has alot of accessories like his arm to help him cope. Like hell give him the split mouth everyone wanted. Show off the fact he had a sword more. He was the tech guy show off his weird tech shit. Have him maybe slowly change cause of wanting to be better and fucking himself up into a monster or because he took so much energy from Tyreen. Don’t have Troy die before Tyreen. Have them start to have that spiral into sibling fighting to just down right different views like how they were going to the point in the end where they’re really just sick of each others shit but are still doing this to prove a point and have them both merge with the Destroyer but while in the Destroyer fight have periods where the destroyer is attacking itself or does attacks that include weirdly tearing itself appart. Like show that even though they ended up back together (cause its a good book end to the being together at birth) they just fucking hate each other now.  Make Troy fell just as much as a threat as Tyreen instead os just second fiddle

(( ENJOY A MASSIVE POST ABOUT MERFOLK TAXONOMY, because biology has long been my BIGGEST special interest ( yes I’m including paleontology under this, I know it’s more considered an earth science and part of geology, shush ).

Merfolk as a whole are a part of an ancient group of animals that diverged from basal amniotes around the same time amniotes themselves came about, 312 mya (million years ago). I say about, because I haven’t fully decided where exactly to put them in this case, whether they’re fully counted as amniotes or no, and I still need to do a large amount of research into this.

I classify this split as happening there, as opposed to somewhere else, because merfolk are obviously tetrapods, and have some adaptations for full land living that amniotes have, though the merfolk themselves are fully adapted for a watery niche. Their eggs certainly were carried internally for a long time, so there’s probably some convergent evolution to how mammalian live birth happened, hence all the more reason to put them under amniotes, but they’re definitely not synapsids and thus definitely not mammals.

These early ancestors also retained their gills and ability to breathe water. They do have lungs too, and conceptually they filled a very fluid niche, where they had to be able to rapidly switch from aquatic life to terrestrial life, with most being oppurtunists who used this wide variability to be able to get a wider variety of food and resources that other animals couldn’t.

I will say these early ancestors mostly resembled newts/salamanders or small lizards, and somewhere along the line they independently evolved scales, both for providing armor and for retaining water when they were on land, along with all the other reasons to evolve scales. 

( Ideally, I’d say they never evolved hair, but considering that I can’t fully redesign Miranda for this blog for fear of inability to use my icons and basically making her fully an OC, she has to keep the hair on her head. Her eyebrows are a maybe, since I joke aplenty about them just being markings or her drawing them on. Landfolk get weird when they see her without any eyebrows, so she has to appear to have them! )

They also generally retained the same amount of digits as other tetrapods, so that’s how Miranda has five fingers still, though merfolk lost one of the toes on their feet, bringing that total down to four.

And yes, all of this does mean that merfolk have plenty of ancestors in deep time that probably fossilized and could be found by even human scientists, but they’re probably thought of in this world as an offshoot of tetrapods that has no extant relatives, with what fossils remain being sparse or incomplete, or even caught in nomen dubium hell. Certainly they weren’t featured in this world’s Jurassic Park, that’s for sure, and if they are represented it’d be in something like ARK.

This also does mean that there are plenty of ancestors that fell into more unique or odd niches, with stranger body plans or something much more different from the rest. 312 mya is a long time, after all! Lots of time for there to be more experimental species, though they didn’t pan out in the long run.

So, with merfolk themselves, I generally have the idea of them as coming from a branch of that tree that hung around the ocean’s edge, sticking closer to the shoreline than the mer alive today, though they were oddly social for a tiny, lizard-like species, probably already communicating through small squeaks and chirps. Lizardy kinda sounds. They spend a good amount of their time on rocky shores and cliffs, so they’re good at climbing over and up them. Likely already had something akin to their fins on the sides of their face, used for communication and display, along with pushing additional water over their gills, or maybe even the fins being used in addition to the gills to extract extra oxygen from the water is basal to merfolk, but only the abyssals really retained most of that feature.

As token as it sounds, I think the K/T extinction event was probably what pushed them to evolve into the branch that became merfolk. The death of much larger marine creatures opened up the ability to go more fully ocean-bound, and to take over a role akin to marine reptiles in the past and the marine mammals that were also evolving at that time, but with the addition of having gills to not have to surface for oxygen.

Their evolution from that point probably was a bit like primates - lots of trying out different shapes and styles, more of that basal form than true merfolk, except their roles being out competeted or otherwise led to extinction, until you get the “true” merfolk - which would occur with a focus on social behavior and language, along with tool use, as was the bonus to being a tetrapod that went back into the ocean but never lost their hands.

This is where we get to the merfolk family tree. I’d say probably the first mer was mid-size, generally had all of the traits of the merfolk you see today, very general, but very adaptive.

The abyssal (royal) merfolk were probably the first to branch off. Their tails resemble mosasaurs’ and early icthyosaurs’ a lot, having a much larger lower lobe of their tail where the bone is, and the upper lobe, being all fleshy, isn’t too pronounced. They went down into the deep sea, branching off early from the rest of the merfolk, and thus were generally super isolated from the rest, which you can see today in how the Merkingdom itself generally is conducted.

There are plenty of other species of merfolk, however, and the abyssals (and Miranda) are not representative of the entire group. There’s a lot of different takes on the same body plan, with different niches and different adaptations and different types of behavior associated with each. They’re all super vocal and adapted to be able to hear well, so that’s also basal to the group, but that also means when they all started forming their own societies and cultures and general settlements, it’s even weirder than how humans do it.

Effectively, merfolk are a lot like the homonid family tree, and for that reason they also generally take after the concept of the “braided stream” more than just the tree of life. It’s also why I can feel more confident saying they’re seperate species and not subspecies, despite being able to reproduce and make viable offspring - and anyway species as a whole are fake and weird. There’s a lot of hybridization going on, with some populations getting some genes from others that benefit them and get genetic and physical variation. In more nomadic merfolk, there’s a lot of their genes spread around in other species and a lot of genetic variation in them, because they roam and run into different species - meanwhile, the abyssals are much more genetically restricted, since the abyss is a generally isolated place that isn’t easy to access unless you’re made for it.

I’m pretty bad at clarifying when I’m talking about abyssal mer vs all merfolk, since there’s a huge amount of difference between the two. Abyssals are probably the merfolk with the most bioluminenscence - while some species probably do have a little or even a lot, it’s not as much of a need as with the abyssals. The abyssals also might have gone through deep-sea gigantism? They’re pretty big by merfolk standards. And yes, that is taking into account how tiny Miranda herself is - since she’s kind of an exception to the rule, being that she didn’t really grow right and her bones didn’t get the chance to form correctly, leaving her as a rather unhealthy-looking runt of an abyssal. I’m generally thinking mer grow throughout their entire lives, as something that’s also basal to the group, they just slow down after a point - so if you got proper care for Miranda’s health issues she might be able to fix some of that problems, and mer medicine is waaaaay more sophisticated and generally ahead than current human medicine, so if it was treated she might be able to come up to a respectable height and avoid some of the isssues of that kind of deformity that’ll occur later in life.

I do believe as a whole, merfolk are rather large. Some are more sleek than others, but especially with abyssal mer, they put on fat and muscle really easily. They’re a lot like large crocodiles in that respect. Again, Miranda is an exception to this rule, as she’s really not healthy - but overall, merfolk are DENSE. Abyssals tend to have tough armor, dense bones, put on muscle and fat easily, and generally should be MUCH heavier than a human of the same size. Not to mention their tails, as unless a mer is in the really late stages of starvation, they keep most of the muscle on their tails. It’s how they swim and get around, so losing that muscle is basically a death sentence to merfolk.

There’s also variation in diet, dentition, and what they can digest. I will say all merfolk generally can handle meat - some of them are more adapted towards eating coral or plant matter or filter-feeding, but generally they can all digest and handle it and won’t turn it down if they do get it. The abyssals do tend towards being carnivores and most of their diet should be meat, but they can handle other biological material as well. They’re equal parts predator and scavenger - their jaw strength is a lot like a hyena’s or a T. rex’s (at least, in the theory of them being scavengers and not predators). It’s VERY useful in getting into any hard material the ocean can throw at them, cracking not only bone but shell and scale and cartilage and shell too, and to extract as much nutrition from any food they find. I can say their jaw strength is probably the strongest among the merfolk for that reason. 

This also means, while abyssal mer have their triangular, serrated teeth like a great white shark’s - that tooth shape is more unique to them and their specific niche than to merfolk as a whole, who have a LOT more variation. I imagine at least one has teeth that come together a bit like a parrotfish’s beak, and one has teeth more similar to a crabeater seal’s, useful for seiving through water. 

Abyssal mer are also the ones that really retained the ability to extract extra oxygen from the water through their facial fins. That’s why Miranda’s fins are so fluffy and large - they’re basically pseudo-gills, and that’s why they’re so sensitive. Other mer do also have some of that ability, but it’s to a lesser degree than abyssal merfolk, and most are probably less sensitive because of that. That being said, the shape of the fins is kept, as is the “fluff” closer to the cheek. That fluff actually has a purpose beyond oxygen extraction - they’re little outgrowths of flesh and skin that act a lot like an owl’s facial feathers. They’re effectively radar dishes, helping pick up on sounds in the water and assists their hearing and communication. The fins are also universally used for communication and display - they move with a merfolk’s emotions for a reason! They’re really good silent communication when hunting.

I also think mer do universally have the pads on their hands and feet. Honestly, they aren’t really anaogous to a cat’s or dog’s paws. They’re far closer to what you’d find on an Osprey’s foot, and provide a lot of the same uses - namely being used as a grip in holding onto slippery prey, but also in movement, when mer cling to sheer rocks or climb over coral or what have you. Normally they’re very rough and thick - but because Miranda is a royal, she files hers down, and so they’re much softer and thinner. They’re all pretty squishy though.

I’d add more but I think that’s MOSTLY it. Can you tell I have a special interest? 

Could I request headcannons for SHSL Biker Gang Leader Maki and SHSL Nurse Kaito?

Thank you, anon, for sending us our first AU/talentswap ask! This one was such a joy to write! I had to think a lot to make a scenario where a biker gang leader and a nurse could meet and grow closer together, but the ideas really started to flow pretty soon. And in the end, it became the longest piece I've ever written on this blog... so long, in fact, that I converted it into a full fanfic! Did I do your idea justice? What do you think? Your fic is under the cut, so please enjoy!

~Mod Shuichi~

Maki Harukawa is the roughest, toughest, most ruthless gangster the world has ever seen, standing at the very peak of street hierarchy and feared not only by the other gangs (many of whom are double her age) but also the police themselves. She routinely prowls the streets with her gang, clad in her signature red and black leather jacket with a dagger strapped to her thigh and revving her bike's custom engine as loudly as she can as she tears through the streets like the queen of the road she is. And this would have been like any other day, had a rival gang led by Shirogane Tsumugi not decided to mount a sneak attack on her to 'reclaim the streets'. Two of her goons got a van and t-boned Maki's bike in an intersection in a very underhanded move.

They should have known better. Maki Harukawa does not go down that easily - and even if she can't fight them right now herself, her well-trained subordinates are lightyears better than Shirogane's bear-handed misfits. Still, she knows she'd be dead if it weren't for her natural agility and reflexes, and she also knows she's extremely lucky to have gotten off on just a broken arm and leg.

She's rushed to the hospital and Korekiyo, her second-in-command, drops by with some of her gang members to check up on her once the operation's over. Maki tells him not to mind her too much, and to go wage war on Shirogane and her band of idiots instead. He heeds the command with much gusto, but not before pre-paying her bills to the best service the hospital can afford. Never say crime doesn't pay, she muses.

(Other gang leaders would be worried about their second-in-commands usurping their rule while they're out of commission. Not Maki, though. She knows her subordinates like the front of her hand, and they will never betray her while she's still alive.)

Now that she is effectively relieved from duty, the only thing left to do is to rest and mend her bones. Easy, huh?

Apparently not, as the personal nurse assigned to her is the single most annoying human being she has ever seen. His spiky purple hair and goatee clash horribly against his scrubs, and every fifth word out of his mouth is a space pun. He also doesn't appear to be intimidated by her at all - doesn't he know who she is? Any hope that he would be somewhat tolerable is dashed to pieces like her bike when he immediately gives her a despicable nickname in the first minute they meet.

"Hi, I'm Kaito Momota!" he announces way too jovially to someone who just had two limbs wrapped in a cast. "I'll be your nurse for the next four months. Nice to meet you, Miss Maki Roll!"

"Maki Roll?!"

He then proceeds to spend the next three hours explaining how he made her that nickname (because her first name is Maki, you see, and his mom just so adores his maki rolls that it's become a reflex whenever he sees the word, oh did he mention that he makes some wicked maki rolls?) and Maki is ready to either strangle him or rip her own hair out of her scalp when Momota is finally called away by intercom. The reprieve is short-lived, however, as the purple idiot barges back in a mere ten minutes later, ready to torture her with more bad puns and incessant storytelling. At this point, Maki would rather strangle herself. One thing is clear: she cannot take this for four effing months. She'd go mad by the second week.

She takes advantage of one of his bathroom breaks to flag down a passing doctor, a lady with deep purple hair and lavender eyes (was purple hair a thing in medical personnel these days?), and begs her to get her a different nurse, a doctor she could talk to, anyone other than Kaito goddamned Momota.

The doctor, 'Mikan Tsumiki' according to her nameplate, apparently cannot understand Maki's adverse reaction. "B-but didn't your friend ask for the best we had?", she replies quizzically. And right then and there Maki learns from Doctor Tsumiki that Kaito Momota the imbecile in purple is in fact the Super High School Level Nurse what the hell?!

"Everyone's so energetic and cheerful after meeting him," Doctor Tsumiki continues, and Maki can barely contain her incredulousness. Momota chooses that moment to reappear, and Doctor Tsumiki excuses herself. Maki forces herself to think for the best - if he's the Ultimate Nurse, at least he'll be good at treating her enough for her to ignore his prattling.

And he is very good at his job, indeed. He can change her casts without her feeling a single thing. He's always ready on call in case she needs anything, and he's making a visible effort to ramble less after the first few days. He still doesn't seem to acknowledge at all that he's treating the number one gangster in town, though.

He knows who she is. He'd be an actual idiot if he didn't, considering her name still shows up on the news at least once a week (including the report on her 'accident').

Yet he is still as friendly and, dare she say it, charming as the first time he met her. (What? He is annoying, but there is a certain charm to him.) It's nice, but it's also scary. If what he's showing her is a facade, it's a better mask than any she has ever worn and she's terrified of it.

One day she just goes 'fuck it' and decides to ask him herself. Time in the hospital is supremely boring, so Maki can at least blame the situation for her curiosity getting the better of her. She puts on her best game face and calls him over.

"Hey, Momota."

"Yes, Maki Roll?"

"Do you know who I am?"

"Well, duh." He gestures to her patient card at the foot of the bed. "Why wouldn't I? Maki Harukawa, the SHSL Biker Gang Leader. I'm not that stupid, you know."

"Then why aren't you scared of me? Why do you keep trying to get closer? Do I look like a joke to you?"

There. She said it. Now all she needs is answers.

Kaito pulls up a chair and plonks himself down on it. His eyes have a serious look she's never seen before as he opens his mouth.

"I'd be lying if I wasn't a little bit scared. Your eyes have that look down pat. But I'm not gonna let that bother me. At all."

"Why?"

"I became a nurse because I wanted to help people, make them happier and healthier, and I won't stop just because some lady has an unconventional job. The queen of England could be sitting here right now and I'd treat her exactly the same way. To me, you're not Maki Harukawa the gangster. You're Maki Harukawa, the girl with a broken arm and leg."

Maki is thrown for a loop at his words. Nobody had ever considered her identity seperate from her title before. No one has ever treated her like everyone else before. The nerve, part of her mind screams. It's kindness, another part yells back. Maki thinks the latter is more likely.

And as she's thinking, the idiot just has to add, "Plus, I think you're kinda cute."

She takes pleasure in watching Momota duck to avoid the pen she throws at his face.

As the days pass by, she finds herself opening up more and more to Momo... Kaito. (He had insisted upon calling him that, reasoning that they weren't strangers anymore. He wasn't wrong, so she obliged.) As the SHSL Biker Gang Leader Maki is used to a life of hushed voices and fearful glances whenever she shows up, and she deals with it because being the top of the food chain means she has to keep her image intact. But Kaito is different. She feels like she can be actually personal with Kaito, in a way even Korekiyo cannot provide. Maybe it's because whatever she tells him, he doesn't judge - he just listens.

He listens to her past as an orphan, tossed from foster home to foster home. He listens to her recounting the brutal world of street crime and how it burned her childhood into ashes. He listens to what she feels about Korekiyo, how she's grateful for him because he was her first real friend. She can tell he's genuinely interested in whatever it is she's saying.

And then, when she's done talking, he'll share something about himself. He used to want to be an astronaut, before deciding his talents would better be used helping the sick and injured. His best friend is the SHSL Detective (one of them, at least). He helped set him up with his crush the SHSL Pianist, and they've been dating for almost a year. He can actually make some delicious maki rolls. (He brought some over one day to share with her at lunch and she's never tasted a better roll. Maybe the nickname isn't too bad after all?)

It's all very new to her, and Maki is both unnerved and excited by it at the same time. One thing is sure, though - it feels very good to have someone who understands her.

The four months are gone in a flash, and soon Kaito is removing the last pieces of her leg cast as she reads a text from Korekiyo saying he'll head over to pick her up. Maki steals a glance at the nurse busying himself with the cast saw. Is it too sentimental to think that she'd like to see him some more? First impressions aside, she's really grown attached to him - and a part of her wonders if that attachment could become something more. Dammit, Maki thinks. She's been away from action for too long. She must have gone soft. Lost in thought, she jumps in surprise when Kaito's face abruptly fills her field of vision.

"Earth to Maki Roll," he says, "As I was saying, your arm and leg have mended splendidly, so you'll be cleared in the next hour - so I got you a good health present!"

He hands her a bundle wrapped in glittery purple wrapping paper. She tears it open, only to find... her old jacket?

It's not her old jacket. Her old jacket got shredded to ribbons in the crash and they had to throw it away. But this one, also black leather with crimson highlights but shiny new, fits her perfectly in both style and size.

"I saw the interns throwing out your jacket the day you got here. I guessed you might miss it, so I got you a new one. It's not the exact same model, but..."

"How did you know my size?"

"You're joking, right? You went through more than a hundred hospital gowns. Of course I remembered." His smile is blinding, and Maki can't help but give a small smile back in return. For a split second, as she holds the clearly heartfelt gift, all her emotions do battle debating what to do. She settles for hugging him awkwardly around the midsection with a muttered "Thank you."

"You're welcome! It wasn't a big deal, really." Kaito's smile is positively radiant as he hugs her back.

She could really get used to this.

NO. Stop it, Maki. You're the SHSL Biker Gang Leader. You have a reputation. You can't be this soft.

Speaking of soft, Kaito's shirt feels really soft...

Maki. STOP.

She recoils quickly, ducking to hide the blush on her face, and spits out "I bet you give presents to all the patients you treat!" to hide her embarassment only to immediately regret it when his face visibly falls.

"I'm not that kind of person, you know," he mutters, "you were the first time I bought someone something." It's the quietest she's ever seen him. Great, now she's the one feeling bad.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. Kaito gives her a small smile as he escorts her to the doctor's office. "It's okay. I guess I should tell you you're also the only one to get a nickname?"

She laughs out loud, and it feels good again.

True to Kaito's word, the doctor soon gives her the all-clear. He does, however, remind her to go easy on her limbs and keep doing physical therapy for at least another month.

Korekiyo is, true to his word, waiting for her just outside the door with a full brigade of riders in tow. As Maki strides out to meet him, he wordlessly hands her a cracked pair of glasses and a bloody ribbon. Maki grins as she inspects the trophies. Shirogane won't be bothering them anytime soon.

He beckons her to the new bike he just dismounted and mounts the one next to it, just behind the rider. "It's all yours, boss. Just out from the shop."

But before she can get on her new bike and leave, she is reminded of Kaito standing just a few steps behind her, his eyes fixed on her back. Maki's no mind-reader, but she can clearly see the thinly veiled longing etched in his face.

It should be a tough decision. She has a reputation to keep, control to reassume, and underlings to whip into shape, after all. But Maki didn't become queen of the road by doing what everyone expected her to do, did she? It's that moment she decides to do what she does best - follow what her heart tells her. She asks Korekiyo for a pen.

Kaito has decided he's stared enough and just turned to go back inside when Maki's voice rings out from behind him.

"Wait!"

He turns back around. Maki saunters toward Kaito, new jacket glinting in the sunlight. She leans in close to his ear.

"I might come back a few times for my physical therapy... surely you wouldn't mind walking me through the steps a few times?", she whispers, her warm breath tickling his ear. Pleasant shivers run through Kaito's spine.

Kaito gets the message. His smile could call the Sun too dark as he replies, "I'd love to!"

Pulling the boy close into a hug, Maki stuffs a note in his pocket and plants a quick kiss on his cheek before walking back to her bike and the waiting Korekiyo. A few throaty revs and a hand signal from Maki later, the bikes all zoom away leaving only a small cloud of fumes and some skid marks behind.

Left alone in the parking lot, Kaito fishes out Maki's note and opens it, pumping his fist when he sees its contents - a phone number underlined twice, with the name 'Maki Roll' written next to it. The short message below simply reads 'Call me'.

Back at their headquarters, Korekiyo dares to ask Maki about the purple-haired nurse she seemed quite close to. Her only reply is a smile and "Someone I can tolerate being close to."