Agrippa

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 100 – Komachi Hikigaya Can’t Get Some Much-Needed Sleep

Komachi Hikigaya

Not that long ago, my brother went, at length, on one of his rants regarding something incredibly pointless and farfetched that he treats like the most important thing in the world.

The subject in question?

Anime parents.

Like, how they are often absent so that the main character can be gross with girls lured into an empty house—I mean, enable a harem plot. Or how they can be absent so the protagonist doesn’t reso...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 107

Dragon

I feel… out of sorts.

Unlike Lisa.

“Yes! Suck it, Tagg!” she says, pumping her fist exaggeratedly enough that her seat on the wall of my latest carrier bobbles.

“Okay. Now tell him that face to face,” Taylor drily comments from her right.

“Tell him what? That we just dismantled an entire AI-driven exclusion zone with the power of friendship and a flawlessly executed Thinker seven’s plan? Why, don’t mind if...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 99

There are plenty of differences between anime and Western animation, but there’s one that particularly stands out when you know what to look for.

Take a classic Disney film like, for instance, Fantasia. Each and every frame was hand-drawn, with staggering attention to detail. You can feel the animator’s strength in every meticulous pen stroke, in every flowing line of motion.

In anime? Recycled cells, lip flaps, backgrounds that clash horribly with the foreground… all of tho...

A Pure Knight’s Natural Enemy – Chapter 15

So.

The party system.

Party management, sidequests, companion events, random skits… there are a lot of things that make the party system shine, and we’ve touched upon plenty of those subjects already.

But they are not the party system in itself.

Because, at its core? RPGs are, as the acronym cleverly disguises, games. Of the murder simulator family, to be more precise. You can have a lot of things in an RPG taken out without people complaining more than In...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 106

Piggot

A last goodbye with Jasmine.

It’s… tempting. To confess. To tell her just precisely who Emily’s niece is. To admit that, yes, I’ve been monstrously stubborn. Needlessly antagonizing. That I could’ve saved myself and so many others plenty of grief if I’d just…

Accepted help.

It’s not that easy.

I stare at my hand holding the empty cup of paper taken from the water dispenser near the elevator. It has a colorful onoma...

Puella Monstrum Madoka Moecha – Chapter – 14

Sayaka – No Rest For the Wicked

Sooo, that thing about guys falling asleep right after they come that I only have Kyousuke as a vague indicator that it may actually be a thing rather than hilarious slander? That an (ideally) shared orgasm is a great way for a boy to overcome the worst case of insomnia ever?

I may be a bit more of a tomboy than I realized.

Because, well, it takes me quite a while to wake up on top of Mami’s drool-slicken...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 98

So. Long-running series. Do you know what’s an issue that they often run into?

Descriptions.

Admittedly, that’s not as much of an issue with visual mediums such as manga or anime, but in light novels? In things that are shoveled out the door as quickly as the publisher can arrange for the murder of a few more trees? And with the criminal lack of imagination that will make it so Zaimokuza has an actual chance in that over-saturated industry?

… Yeah.

Some very few ...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 104

Piggot

“My appointment was half an hour ago,” I say to the secretary barring me from Tagg’s office.

My former office.

My former secretary.

“I’m very sorry, Miss, but the director is taking an important call at the moment,” she says with genuine apology, even if the excuse is anything but.

That’s part of what made Jasmine so…

Not useful.

No, not that.

“Fine,” I grunt with a bit more emotion t...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 97

The formula is an inherent part of every long-running series. You know what I’m talking about: if it’s a magical girl show, the monster of the week is it; if you’re watching a romcom, the tsundere’s violent outburst will be it, and if you’re watching a shounen battle series that is still, somehow, also a romcom, the tsundere’s violent outburst doing absolutely nothing against the monster of the week other than set her as the aggro target will be it.

Apparently, regretfully, ...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 103

“So. Armsmaster’s back in the roster,” Tagg says, leaning forward over his desk and bulldozing over my frantic blinking at how to tactfully inquire precisely why he thought my lateness would relate to a pool boy—

Tagg’s concern with chlorination—

… I’m pretty damn sure this isn’t about the sanctity of his precious bodily fluids.

I hope.

Lisa Wilbourn’s unfounded optimism—

You goddamn troll—Hey! ...

Periodical Cicadas – Chapter 15

It’s a sad statement about the past state of my social life that coming to Florida keeps getting me in stereotypically teen-themed situations that I never experienced back in Brockton. From confusing flashes of hormones that have nothing to do with broody people wearing black jackets,  or often clueless yet piercing blue eyes, not to mention tender hugs in the middle of a night-clad forest or even tanned cleavage firmly pressed to my face, to…

… Fuck you, Brooke.

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 96 - Shizuka Hiratsuka Is Too Compassionate

“Pity?” Hana asks as if she doesn’t understand the very concept.

“Funny, isn’t it?” I say, looking away from her eyes to follow the stream of smoke coming from beneath the armrest and between my fingers hanging barely past my sleeve. “I wonder how many times it has spoiled a deal for you.”

I don’t.

Not really. Not after these past few days and what she tried to pull with that stack of papers whose hard facts I’m blissfully unaware of because it’s far ea...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 102

As has already been explained often enough, Taylor’s application of her powers in her culinary pursuits is, far from the horribly disturbing mental image that it incites on unwary Thinkers at first (and second, and third) blush, a thing of beauty.

From hidden corners in my open kitchen, her swarm, only visible because of the jumping spider herald she’s taken too fondly to, with her adorably big eyes, her bashful, hunched posture, and the endearing energy of its expressive front legs...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 95 – Shizuka Hiratsuka Never Surrendered

I’m not familiar with political games.

Most of what I understand about the whole thing? It comes from faculty meetings and talks with yet another befuddlingly miffed principal. I know about alliances and presenting one’s needs as the most pressing concerns to ever be encountered in a learning institution. I know about keeping a poker face while the PE moron demands yet more supplies for what usually amounts to (barely) supervised recess. I know about not pressing Inoue when he looks...

November’s Plot Bunnies Poll and Retrospective

Yet again, thank you all for staying with me for another month. To say that I couldn’t do this without you is factually true, yet also bordering on the understatement of the year because I don’t think I’ve properly processed how much I’ve grown thanks to you all.

No, I’m not talking about my waist. Shut up. I’m working on it.

Anyway, you may have noticed that this month’s polls have come out later than usual, and that’s mostly due to my rushing to get as much done ...

Wake-up Call Halloween Special 2023: Eves of Future Past

(For optimal immersion, play this before reading.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORbseYAkzRM

A thin man dressed in a black suit and with his hair combed back steps from behind a house and into its well-cared yard, a smoking cigarette dangling from his fingers.

“Time is something that we take for granted,” he says, walking around a frozen man opening the...

Periodical Cicadas – Chapter 14

“School’s the other way, you know?” Audrey comments with characteristic concern for a newcomer getting twisted around in Lakewood’s urban jungle.

Or actual jungle.

Seriously, how do people stand all these trees just hanging around like teenagers in a convenience store’s parking lot? It’s quite clear they’re up to no good.

“She’s not going to school,” Noah, being Noah, explains to the audience.

“No shit, Sherlock. I just want her to tell us where w...

Periodical Cicadas – Chapter 13

Brooke

“Can’t I just skip?” I ask the woman fretting on the other side of the kitchen counter.

“You know what your father would say,” she replies with…

Weirdness.

“Are you sure you don’t need a hand?” I ask her as she keeps checking her phone while carefully arranging the ingredients for pancakes.

“I’m just making you breakfast. It would be counterproductive to have you make the breakfast I’m mak...

A Pure Knight’s Natural Enemy – Chapter 14

A series of interesting choices.

That, according to the veteran game developer Sid Meier, is the definition of a game: having the player choose and having that choice be interesting in some way.

This, sadly, immediately disqualifies most JRPGs.

Should I equip the +1 sword or the +5 sword? Should I grind for a few more horribly monotonous hours or get trounced by the dungeon boss and then grind for a few more agonizingly tedious hours? Should I hit the fire monster with an ic...

Tales from a Lewd Fantasy World – Tale 8 – The Sword Bearer

A white horse is rarer than most people think.

Mostly because people are uneducated and often illiterate, so they don’t know what a white horse is.

It is understandable, given how short-lived humans tend to be, that they wouldn’t study as much as elves do through our infancy. Knowing that just having a white coat doesn’t make a horse white, that, more often than not, those are merely gray horses, born with a different color that pales with age? Well, nobles and horse breeder...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 94

Unfair.

It’s an accusation often heard of in anime, usually thrown around by sulky, younger girls who may as well be tugging on somebody’s sleeve while a slow blush creeps up their cheeks.

But let’s (for once) not talk about Iroha.

What is, indeed, fairness? Is it fair for the heroine and her power of friendship to gang up on the poor villain of the week after the blonde, twin-tailed, furthest possible thing from an ojou-sama delivers a cringy lecture on justice and th...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 102 – Waking Up

Colin Wallis

After so much time in a coma, I guess it’s no wonder that my circadian cycle is screwed up.

By which I mean that I end up waking up earlier than usual.

Earlier than usual and with a slender arm draped over my chest that, when I follow it in the near darkness only partially mitigated by a sliver of streetlight coming from the nearly-locked door, leads me to Dragon’s face.

She’s sleeping.

And beautiful.

I ...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 93

Fanservice.

Fanservice has often been vilified, the herald of poor writing, of a show racing to the lowest common denominator. A clear sign of the creators running out of ideas and bogging down the narrative with anything at all that won’t force them to advance a plot or a character arc while still keeping the fans engaged, no matter how much the very forces of nature may need to be subverted to grant yet another gratuitous pantyshot or a nipple slip that will only be uncensored from ...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 101 – Winamp Playlists

Colin Wallis

For reasons I would rather not explore, there’s only one line running through my head:

I never asked for this.

“There. He’s awake now, and the surprise’s ruined. Are you happy now?” Minnie asks Dragon without dropping her sharp smirk in the slightest.

“I… I just—there’s the question of consent—”

“What? You three don’t have an ‘It’s all right to wake me up with oral sex’ clause? What kind of pr...

Wordsworth – Chapter 32

I’m too used to walking in beauty like the night.

Unseen, unnoticed, each footstep light as that of a fairy bringing ice to a winter lake’s surface.

Each movement a dance.

Because poetry never hid its roots. Poetry is rhythm and rhyme, the beauty of the spoken language on full display.

Song.

And so, I move with it, with the song wrought by Byron two centuries ago, with the cadence of verses flowing in and out of me, repeating and twirling around one another a...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Chapter 92 – Shizuka Hiratsuka Knows Him Too Well

A baton pass.

He can be so goddamn corny at times.

It’s one of the things I like best about him.

One of the others has to do with how he’s looking at me right now, hovering over me, making me feel unable to move away from where he’s laid me down across my kitchen counter. Making me feel…

Wanted.

Desired.

Loved.

“Hachi…” I murmur in a languid tone that matches my smile as I squeeze his hand before letting go and moving to his hair, caress...

Wake-up Call – Chapter 100 – The Mouse Uses Protection

Colin Wallis

‘You may experience some disorientation,’ the doctor said. ‘The next few days may be a bit rough,’ he warned.

“Wheeeeeeeeeeee!” Mouse Protector squeals as my wheelchair speeds down the hallway and away from Hannah’s door.

“Minnie! Minnie, no!” Hannah yells as she tries to run after said wheelchair.

The wheelchair I’m sitting on.

With a manic teleporter alternatively nuzzling into my lap ...

Wordsworth – Chapter 31 – Colors 11

Gallant blasts my back.

The boom makes me fly over the roof’s edge.

And euphoria takes over.

I’m covered in Amber, the world slowing down as I take everything in. As I note each of Crusader’s ghosts’ positions around Lung, Kaiser throwing a wedge of steel down the street, angled just so Hookwolf can take refuge from the latest beam of blinding fire coming from between Lung’s claws.

I bring my arms close to my body, Armsmaster’s halberd aligned with my heigh...

All Right! Fine! I Will Take You! – Dietary Restrictions – Omake

Author’s Note: So, this was supposed to be an omake prompted by a comment on the main thread of this story on QQ. A small extra to write if I had the time through a week that went not according to keikaku ™. It would contain a subject matter that some readers may be turned off by, but no big deal for an omake.

Now it’s almost 5k words.

… I’m sorry.

We’ll come back to our regularly scheduled train wreck next week. For now, this is a ...