#(and btw my life has only really looked like this for six months so far)
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
thyme-in-a-bubble · 2 years ago
Note
dang even tho im only 2 years younger i think i wanna be you when i group up now??? every time you post ab your cat or bread i look at my depression-meas dorm room and wonder what i am doing with my life 😭
https://www.tumblr.com/thyme-in-a-bubble/711804966822674433/djfjsjdj-yeah-3-i-finished-all-my-stuff-for-my
-🐝
(the link)
omg, you are so sweet! thank you! I just live the most calm and gentle life that I can, both to balance out my past where it was anything but that, but also just because that is a good life for me, not the neurotypical ideal that was always so glorified by the society we unfortunately live in. I hope and wish that if you do end up here, if this is what fits you best as it does me, that you will get there in a much less traumatic way than I did. you don't need that to stay fuck you and change the way you live in a radical way.
and btw being told this by someone who only two years younger then me, someone who is an adult, who has experienced the world sufficiently and explored themself enough to know their own mind is so much more touching then if a teenager told me this. just saying.
3 notes · View notes
lisa-grdjc · 18 days ago
Text
how should i even start…
im sorry in advance if some things don’t make sense, im still feeling like a mess that ep really did a number on me;-;
i think what really got me was that so far we have never seen someone as kind as takaaki getting that upset before, to the point where he became physically violent.
and that goes for hiro as well.
Tumblr media
two young men who let their emotions get the best of them after months of running away from their problems and calling each other out on it, when they weren’t in the right headspace and both battling with their own inner struggles. hypocrisy, to put it bluntly…
we have takaaki, who i assume has been dealing with guilt of some sort (making assumptions for now since we don’t have the full story yet, it seems), guilt over running away from his family after his kid brother’s death, over not going to visit his grave for reasons we’ve yet to know, and so on… what i can confidently say is that, it’s complicated.
meanwhile, hiro is scared. he’s scared of dying, so much that he’d rather look away and pretend everything is fine (which is understandable…).
Tumblr media
he keeps putting off his hospital appointment, because if he goes, and the doctor tells him the same thing he did six months ago and this time takaaki is with him to hear it, there’s no running away from that anymore—funny thing is, it didn’t matter that much to him back then, but that was before knowing how fun fishing is and how warm and fuzzy dinners at the back of Everymart and a friend’s kindness feel. that might be what he is afraid of losing, along with his life.
Tumblr media
and maybe, just maybe… thinking that takaaki might care and worry about him only out of guilt for the little brother he couldn’t save hurts way more than hiro can admit but i wouldn’t be too sure. takaaki’s always been super kind from the start, before finding out about hiro’s disease. (btw i still can’t think of a reasonable explanation for why he offered to take care of his debt and live at his home without asking for much in return, so that hiro, who he barely knew at the time, could get a fresh start…)
whoops im kinda straying from what i initially wanted to talk about and went off on a tangent but im not even really sorry these two lads and their relationship mean so much to me—
anyways. back to their fight… hopefully i still have a few somewhat coherent thoughts left in me but that would be overestimating my cognitive abilities…
Tumblr media
cuz now all i can think about is how darn attractive takaaki looked during the whole scene—
Tumblr media
and how when i said i wanted to see him pin hiro against the wall this isn’t exactly the context i had in mind…:(
Tumblr media
genuinely wondering how come fictional men get ten times hotter the more miserable they feel… that’s crazy…
okay enough.
Tumblr media
i want them to talk it out in the next ep. have a real, calm heart to heart. and a fucking hug
boy i need them to hug like their lives depend on it im so serious.
also huge props to hiro’s voice actor because holy shit these cries were gut wrenching i felt them in my soul—
48 notes · View notes
apieceofsushi · 1 year ago
Text
ladies and gentlemen the annual post you never asked for
summoning plans!! (2024 addition because man I have a mild addiction and as a f2p I cannot afford to be broke over banners I do not actually care about that much and-)
feel free to use this as well, I have found that it is rather helpful!
here's the initial layout (subject to change per the usual)
Tumblr media
My ramblings under the cut :) :
Cutting down from last year's eleven banners to five?! insane. this is due to a) really thinking about what cards are actually the most appealing in my mind and b) time constraints. I really only play prsk for half an hour a day (at most, sometimes I may go a few days without due to having a life (a shock)), so I realized this year that the time required to successfully acquire the cards I wanted was nonexistent. so we're being reasonable! I think I had to cut out little bravers, the valentines event, both of the Kohane focus events, the toya dragon event, the Kanade Zamza (so excited for song btw) event, light up the fire, holy shit this is a lot, the latest akito event, and the third-anniversary event?? I mean, that last one should have the dream pick, so obviously, I'll try to pull a little, but we'll see how the savings are.
A reminder that doing these is kind of just a way for me to personally organize my thoughts and that anyone is welcome to try this!! visually this just helps me a lot.
Okay, now some more reasoning (again half for my own benefit) to pull on each banner:
In the Corner of a Resonant Town (ALL OF THESE CARDS ARE SO PRETTY WTF)
Shiho: I technically have a limited of her among a couple of other four stars, but the theme of this whole set shot an arrow through my heart the moment I saw it. It's just??? I have no words
An: similar reasoning as Shiho, I have her fest card and two other normal ones, bUt HeY oNlY tHe LiM cAmE wItH a CoStUmE-
Ena: did I just say that I was skipping her fest because I gained a lim of her this year? yes. do I still want this one and will fight to acquire it? yes.
Miku: I actually have a couple of Miku four stars already, but I feel like seeing her on a rate up nowadays is becoming...rarer? probably due to the need to put other virtual singers on banners to balance out how many she had at the beginning of the game, but there's no doubt the frequency at which she's on banners is significantly less (unless she's the focus or smth). not to mention that because she has six versions of herself, it's even rarer for one that you might like a lot to be on a banner?? so far this is one of three Leo/need Miku four stars, and the only one that's limited, so you know damn well that if it's this pretty I'm going for it.
Our Escape for Survival
So quick note: because this one is only a month after Resonant Town, idk how much I'll actually save for it. time-dependent ig
Mizuki: hot take the 3D outfit isn't that good but the art of it is AMAZING. I saw a comment somewhere saying "wow they look like k-pop idols" and as a fan of the genre my fate was sealed. while it is a mizuki banner, it's a limited one, so I feel like there's a bit more reason to summon. again, it's time dependent, so if I can't it's not the end of the world.
Mafuyu: MAFUYU. this card was my computer wallpaper for a period of time so it'd be a crime not to try for it. I'm trying to only get mafuyu lims/focuses as I have an abundance of her (as a mafuyu collector any mafuyu is accepted), and this one is really nice, and the hairstyle is refreshing imo.
Luka: partly out of desperation to get some of the newer virtual singer cards that release (many of the ones I have are quite dated at this point), but also this is so pretty hello?? easily one of my favorite Luka cards if not my favorite. k-drama set lessgo baby
Saying Goodbye to My Masked Self
Mafuyu: at this point I've come to accept that I automatically pull on Mafuyu focus banners, and that's been quite successful! the only mafuyu focus I still have not claimed is the intersecting melodies one (one day... one day...), so I can say that all normal rate-up banners have gone quite well. while I haven't been following the story very closely lately, I know that this event is very important for her arc, and as bittersweet as it is her trained card in this set is relieving.
Kanade: tbh her and ena are here because this is just a mafuyu focus that I will summon on, but hello they're actually pretty?? the cards in the Snow White set were mid outside of mafuyu (so basically just mizuki and rin), so I would happily pull more even if I already got Mafuyu. also. I currently only have one kanade card, and it doesn't have a costume, so I'd like to fix that.
Ena: same reasoning as Kanade (except I have a solid supply of ena cards and I just find this set pretty)
N25 World Link Event (oh boy)
Since all of these cards are fantastic (even if they're not limited (?)), I'll just come out and say that I love them all and I hope that they come home. Genuinely was at a loss for words when I first saw them and I'm very excited for the event when it comes to global.
Now, here I was thinking: man, with the Sanrio collab, I think that's a good amount of gacha for the year!
And then the new year banner came into existence. Not even kidding it has altered my plans so much, I won't go back and edit each thing as that's confusing but list them below:
Resonant Town will stay the same, I only need to do 200 pulls to spark for someone I want (as I have ten stickers, I'm assuming that's still how it works? I've never saved enough to spark lmao)
May skip Survival depending on how much I spend on the previous banner. It'll probably end up being leftovers from Resonant Town if I have any. But from here on out, it's hardcore saving time!!
Masked Persona will have to be a pull-until-Mafuyu-and-then-quit because as much as I could use a Kanade four-star, I'm hoping to get that from the World Link event. At this point, I make sure to summon on Mafuyu banners because I have all of her standard focuses, and I've been pretty lucky with not having to spend too much to get her each time (fingers crossed it stays the same).
World Link event will depend on what happens over the first ten months of the year (damn, they really had to put the best banners in the last two months of the year didn't they), but I hope to spend a bit on this one. Then again, there is the chance to get them on other N25 banners, so even if I couldn't get all of them I wouldn't be too worried.
Sanrio Collab (not pictured) is still a must!! If I have to limit the World Link event for this, then I shall! It presents the opportunity to pull for characters I don't usually want to (Saki, Airi, and Emu), so I'm looking forward to it!
New Year's Banner......all of these characters are stunning (and Mafuyu is a 3-star and an amazing one at that, literally better looking than some of the earlier four stars), so...I really don't have any words
Obviously, as the year goes on, I'll see how I feel about these sets, but I'm pretty happy that I managed I've managed to cut down on how much I want to summon (it's like a diet guys). Again, I put my thoughts down here not only because doing all of this rambling helps my thought process but also because I think it's helpful and encourages others to use it if they're unsure of what they want to pull on!! Happy New Year's, folks, I hope 2024 is a good one !!!
2 notes · View notes
ahtsumu · 4 years ago
Text
long shots ; miya osamu
Tumblr media
pairing: miya osamu x f!reader
synopsis: miya osamu is the teacher’s assistant for food chemistry i. you can’t stop thinking about him.
tag(s): college!au, slow burn, TA!miya osamu, grad student!reader, fluff, reader is a go-getter!! ; warning(s): profanity, suggestive themes, talk of insecurities and imposter syndrome ; wc: 5.6k
a/n: happy birthday to @starrysamu​! i love u. pls excuse any errors. i’ll weed them out later! btw this fic is not a sugar daddy au LOL
Tumblr media
HIS NAME IS Miya Osamu and he always looks like he has it all figured out. Comes in every class with his black hair perfectly tousled, the sleeves of his dark button-up rolled to his elbows, a cup of coffee in one hand and the strap of that black messenger bag in another.
“He drives a BMW, did ya know?” Isla says in your ear one morning. Your only friend in Food Chemistry I gives you a pointed look before sitting back in her chair in the lecture hall with a smirk on her face. “Saw it this morning. Bet he’s loaded.” The two of you watch the subject in question walk across the classroom and settle in his seat at the table in the corner.
“Shut up,” you whisper with wide eyes. A grin–– far from innocent–– makes its way onto your face. “Imagine being Miya Osamu’s sugar baby.”
“He’s not old enough to be a sugar daddy.” Isla looks at her nails disinterestedly. “And that’s too many AUs in one. He’s already the TA, for god’s sake. This isn’t some shitty Wattpad novel.”
A light giggle slips out of your lips. “I can see the title already. My Sugar Daddy is the TA?!”
Now, if anyone had been listening in on your conversation, they would’ve assumed many things about you. The first being that you’re both gold-diggers. This is untrue–– at least, in your case. Isla, you’re not so sure about, given how your friendship only goes back about one month. But she tags you in memes on Instagram so maybe it’s as real as real gets. Their second assumption would be that you have a big fat crush on your TA. That one’s complicated, mostly because it’s true, but only kinda. It all started in the second week of school when Isla caught you staring at Osamu and slipped you a post-it note with both your initials encircled in a heart. And, because you’re shameless with a good sense of humour, you made a show of kissing it while she was looking. And thus began your meaningless but incredibly entertaining, satirical, co-written fantasy about Miya Osamu.
It also didn’t help that on the first essay you got back, Isla’s paper had been marked up with “are you sure?”s and “this is a jump”s, while yours had “excellent reasoning” and “insightful analysis”. You’d even gotten a little comment at the bottom: y/n, fantastic work. you should speak up in class more often. –– OM
But Miya Osamu doesn’t play favourites because the next week you’d gotten another essay back, this time with another comment at the bottom: y/n, not your best work. you could’ve done better by connecting your first paragraph with the second using grant’s reading. conclusion lacked punch, too. all the best. –– OM
Every time you’d read the words scrawled in blue ink, you’d felt a pair of eyes on you. But you chalk it up to Osamu being a careful grader. A good TA. Someone who cares about his students.
Isla calls bullshit on that. You’re not really sure how to feel about her stance.
The classroom door opens and shuts again. You don’t have to look at your phone to know that it’s nine on the dot. Instead, you and Isla straighten your backs, pull out your notebooks, and focus. Your no-nonsense professor says “good morning” in her usual perky manner before jumping right into her keynote presentation.
“Did you all find the reading okay?” Professor Lee asks an hour into the lecture.
A chorus of “yes”s fill the air. You bite your lip, wondering if revealing that you didn’t understand shit will out you as the class idiot. Or maybe your silence is telling enough–– maybe the people in the seats beside you have noticed the grimace on your face and are having thoughts like ‘gee whiz, am I glad I’m not dumb like her’. Heat rushes to your cheeks. Sometimes you really wonder if you’re smart enough to be here. Occurrences like these do nothing to dispel your insecurities.
You vaguely hear her ask something like, “Any thoughts about the reading?” It’s not that you’re actually dumb. It’s just that this class is ridiculously hard for an introductory course, even for a graduate programme. From the start of the semester til now, fifteen people have dropped the class. There’s just twenty of you left. Guess a ridiculously hot TA can’t save a course’s drop-rate.
Before you can make your mind up on what to say, your professor moves on from her question.
As you look off to the side of the room for a break from your thoughts, you find a pair of blue-grey eyes pointed in your direction.
Everything about you, from the expression on your face to the way your muscles tense, makes you look like a deer caught in headlights–– even though he was the one caught staring in the first place. So maybe your shamelessness works on a scale.
Miya Osamu lifts one corner of his mouth.
And as if the exchange hadn’t happened at all, he looks back down at his laptop and continues typing.
The rest of the lecture goes through one ear and out the other.
“Everyone, I believe Osamu has something he wants to say,” Professor Lee says as everyone begins packing their bags.
The raven-haired TA slides out of his seat and sits on top of his desk. “Yeah.” Osamu clears his throat and crosses his arms over his chest. You notice how the muscles in his arms bulge from the movement.
“Whipped,” Isla mutters, grinning mischievously.
“Him for me,” you whisper back, though your eyes do travel back to his face where they should’ve been all along. Osamu catches your gaze and holds it. And then he looks away again.
“Now, I know you’re all Nobel prizewinners in the making,” he begins, garnering a round of snickers and giggles from your classmates. Most people say that cliques dissolve in college. That there’s no such thing as popularity amongst graduate students. That much, you agree with. But no one ever said anything about popular teacher’s assistants. Especially smart, attractive, witty teacher’s assistants like Miya Osamu. “But in case you didn’t understand the reading or would like to develop a deeper understanding of it, don’t hesitate to email me. I’ll try to host a review session all of us can attend.”
Professor Lee smiles appreciatively at Osamu, adding, “That’s a wonderful idea, Osamu. Guys, please take this opportunity if you struggled with the reading. I know eighty pages is a lot, but our next three classes are structured around the concepts in the reading and the mid-term next week will almost exclusively be about it, too.”
Well, shit.
Tumblr media
Hi Osamu,
I was wondering if I could get some help with the reading from last class. To be frank, I couldn’t make it past page 15 and I’m lost like a snot-faced five-year-old in a shopping mall on Black Friday. Sorry. Thanks in advance!
Regretfully,
Y/N
MS Candidate
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Haikyuu University
no problem. is 5 pm tomorrow at jack’s okay? we start on the concepts from the reading next class so i want to get you up to speed asap. let me know. thanks.
OM
PhD Candidate
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Haikyuu University
Tumblr media
It’s five minutes to five when you pull into the parking lot of Jack’s Diner. The shiny, retrofuturistic eatery is a university favourite but the empty parking lot tells you it’s completely deserted right now (and rightfully so–– who eats dinner before six?). The black BMW parked a few spots from your car, however, says that you’re not alone.
Osamu’s figure comes into view as you reach for the handle to the front door of Jack’s. The twenty-six-year-old sits by himself at one of the bright red tables in the back, typing away on his dark grey laptop.
His head lifts up at the sound of the opening door. Osamu calls out your name and waves you over.
“Hi,” you greet with a smile, sitting down across from him.
“Hey.”
You look around before leaning forward on the table. “Is anyone else coming?”
“No.” Osamu sits back in his seat. “I thought about hosting one big group, but then I realised that it’d probably be stressful for the staff here.” He nods his head in the direction of the kitchen. “And I had a hunch that everyone would have different questions. Forcing everyone to review concepts they already know is a waste of time.”
At first, you nod. That makes sense. But then you furrow your brows. “So how long have you been here?”
Osamu blinks. He hadn’t expected you to ask about him. “Hmm? Oh.” He taps his phone to check the time. “Just a while.”
Quirking a brow, you ask, “And how long is ‘a while’ to you?”
“Seven hours,” he admits, chuckling lightly when he sees your jaw drop. “A lot of people had questions. They just don’t act like they do. Anyway, time flies. Really, it does.” Quickly, he clears his throat and sits forward. “So, about your email.” He grins. “Not sure if you meant it to be funny, but it was.”
“I’m glad my distress was entertaining for you. Do you TA just to watch grad students suffer?”
“Perks of the job,” Osamu says. His grin widens when you giggle. He’s never heard you laugh before and he realises at that moment that it’s really nice. And then that same grin falters. Gracefully, of course, and imperceptibly to you. But not to him. Is it okay for him to be… thinking things like that? About a student? But you’re not really his student since he’s just the TA. Right? Osamu ignores the weird feeling that comes over him and clasps his hands together at the edge of his laptop. “Back to your email. Can ya tell me what you’re confused about?”
Three hours and two Impossible Burgers later, you suddenly understand everything about food molecules so well that you wonder why you’d even been confused in the first place. But besides that, you’ve also picked up things about Osamu. As a person and not an idea. Not that you’d been actively searching for fun facts about your TA. But they’d stuck to your brain like gum at the bottom of a desk. He likes to slip sarcastic quips into a conversation every now and then. Eats burgers upside down (“The right way,” as he’d said, smirking). Is friendlier than he looks.
“You’re really good at explaining things,” you comment as Osamu shuts his laptop closed.
“Well, I kinda have to be,” he says. And maybe it’s the mental fatigue catching up on him or the fact that he’s real fond of the reason why he can break big concepts down into morsels but suddenly, the rest of his thoughts spill out his mouth like wine. “I have a twin brother with potato salad for brains.”
“Oh?”
And before he can stop himself, he tells you about Miya Atsumu, the pro-athlete you’ve definitely heard of but never gave too much thought. And then you hold onto the fact that they were both on the volleyball team and you ask of which school, so then he tells you about Inarizaki, the high school he attended, and then his decision not to go pro to go to college, and then––
“Sorry,” he laughs, cheeks turning pink. “You probably didn’t need to hear all that.”
“No, it’s fine,” you say–– and you mean it. “Your life is interesting.”
Osamu leans back in his chair. “Well, I’m sure yours is, too.” He holds your gaze like it’s the key to your presence. It’s an invitation. The kind that comes from people who don’t really know if they want you around but also don’t want you gone.
You take it.
Osamu shouldn’t–– he really shouldn’t–– but he wonders about the things you didn’t tell him the entire drive home.
Tumblr media
Isla laughs when you tell her about what happened at Jack’s. You lay in bed with your phone next to you on speaker, your face turned on your pillow so that you’re staring out the window at the city below.
“He wants you,” she sings.
“Or he was just being nice.”
“Methinks not!” Isla giggles. “He’s intrigued, girl! You’re like that cute little new mystery in his life and he just wants to get to know you.”
“I think he was just being polite.”
“Or he’s crushing on you!”
“In your dreams.”
“You mean yours? Boo, you’re no fun today. Usually, you go along with the jokes.” Isla’s tone is playful on the surface but full of implications.
A few silent seconds pass. Yeah, you think, agreeing. I do.
“Girl,” Isla drags out the word in a high pitch, saying it like a scientist says ‘eureka’. “You’re not playing along anymore because it’s real now. You're actually catching feelings!”
“Am not!” you laugh.
“The Y/N I knew would’ve said ‘nah, bitch, he’s catching feelings’ and I think that says all there is to say.”
“Okay, I think he’s cute but it’s not a crush,” you concede, grinning. “And he’s the TA, Isles. It’d never happen.”
“Not while he’s still a TA in a class you take.”
“Isla.”
“Ask him out once this semester ends! Unless you’re chicken.”
“I’m not asking him out.”
“Knew you were––”
“Have you seen me? He’s asking me out.”
Tumblr media
Miya Osamu walks through the door at eight-fifty as usual that next morning, dressed in his usual button-up, holding his usual cup of coffee. But this time, as the rest of his tall frame passes through the doorway, Osamu’s eyes subtly scan the faces in the lecture hall, lingering for just a while over yours. The corners of your lips turn up. You hope he saw that.
“Bitch!” Isla whisper-screams. The students sitting around you turn around at the noise and grin at each other when they realise it’s just Isla being… well, Isla. She shoos them away jokingly.
“What?” you whisper back.
“Care to explain why our TA was literally eye-fucking you?”
“That was hardly eye-fucking,” you retort. “Maybe like an eye-handshake.”
“Yeah, a naked eye-handshake where his thang is handshaking your––”
He does it again the next class.
And the next.
And then he doesn’t. Miya Osamu walks through the door to Food Chemistry I at eight-fifty in the morning in a navy blue button-up with a cup of coffee in his hand and looks through the rows of seats in the lecture hall for your face, only to find it missing.
He debates pressing the matter.
Tumblr media
hey osamu,
i wasn’t in class today because i’ve been sick with the flu (no big deal, just feel like i’m dying). a classmate sent me pictures of the slides from today so i think i should be fine, but is it okay if i email you with any questions? thank you very much!
miserably,
Y/N
MS Candidate
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Haikyuu University
y/n,
of course. sorry to hear that you’re sick. let me know if i can do anything to help you. the midterm is next week. get well soon.
OM
PhD Candidate
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
Haikyuu University
Tumblr media
“You writing that the midterm is next week did not offer me any peace of mind, by the way,” you say, spinning around in your chair as Miya Osamu enters your pod in the library.
He offers you a wry grin. “Hello to ya, too.”
“Was that an accent?” You thought you’d heard one at Jack’s, but you couldn’t be sure because it’d been so spotty.
Osamu slips into the seat beside yours and pulls out the laptop in his messenger bag. You catch a whiff of his cologne–– something spicy and woody, but clean. It suits him. “Nice catch. Yeah, I speak a regional dialect. Took me a while to smooth it over but it still resurfaces every now and then.”
“Why?”
“It just didn’t seem fitting for a PhD candidate, I guess,” Osamu explains, opening the slides from the class you missed. A day after your initial exchange, you’d emailed him again (with a much clearer mind) and asked if he could go over the slides with you in person.
i literally feel like i’ve been given the homework from russian lit, you’d written. except the russian has been translated to hieroglyphs and my task is to choreograph an interpretive dance based on the hieroglyphs.
Osamu had snickered when he saw your email. that doesn’t even make sense. must be the fever talking, he’d been tempted to write. But that strange feeling had come over him again, the one that’d screamed at him to keep it professional, goddamnit, so he’d played it safe instead and sent is eight pm at the main library okay? He hates that you’re getting a watered-down version of his personality. Osamu swears he’s a lot more interesting when he’s not, well, a TA.
“I think it’s fine,” you say, smiling. “I like it. It’s you.” And suddenly, you’re wondering if it’s okay to be complimenting your TA. If it’s okay to say that you like things about him, or if that crosses some grey, unclear line. Is it weird to treat your TAs like they’re your friends? It’s not like TAs are real teachers. Right?
A grin–– wide and genuine and almost excited–– grows on Osamu’s face. He rubs the back of his neck as his eyes flit over to the laptop screen. “Thanks. Really.”
You nod. But you feel like there’s more that he might want to say, so you wait.
“I got a lot of shit for it when I came here for my master’s, y’know. Not to my face, of course, but people would refer to me as ‘the guy with the accent’. A professor once said it made me seem crass. Said it’d hold me back in my career.”
“So you changed.”
“Adapted,” Osamu corrects. “It’s hard to admit but conforming is sometimes all you can do when you don’t have the power to change the system. Can’t really make everyone suddenly respect a dialect.”
“And after you’re finished with your PhD, you’ll go back to speaking in that dialect?”
Osamu looks out the window and smiles, probably imagining the plans he’s already made about the future. “Yeah.”
“What if you have to speak the standard language at your job? Like, your boss is all, ‘hey man, if you don’t speak––”’
“I’ll be the boss.”
“Oh?”
And with a little more prodding, Miya Osamu tells you about the restaurant chain he plans on opening after graduation, the slides about food additives left completely untouched.
The librarian knocks on your pod a few minutes before eleven to tell you they’re closing.
“Shit,” Osamu murmurs, running his hands through his hair. You’re still laughing about something he’d said before the librarian interrupted him–– one of his stories from high school–– and he thinks that you’ve completely forgotten that the reason you came to the library was to catch up on the material you were already behind on. And now you’re behind on that. But you look so carefree right now and, actually, you’re very pretty and you’ve got such a good heart and it’s a lot for him to process but he knows he just wants to see you happy a while longer. So Osamu just slumps back in his chair and laughs along with you.
He says your name as his chuckles grow softer. “It’s pretty late. How’re you getting home?”
“I’ve a bike,” you reply. It’s good for the environment and is a pretty solid form of exercise if you do say so yourself. Sometimes you just don’t feel like driving. 
Osamu presses his lips in a thin line. Would it be too much to offer you a ride? “I can drive you home. It’s really not safe for you to be alone outside, especially near midnight. You can get your bike tomorrow. Or I’ll get it for you.”
Tumblr media
He drives fast. Not the unsafe fast that speed demons drive at, but the kind of fast where you know he’s got some edge to his character. You bring it up to him–– especially since it’s nighttime, for god’s sake, he could hit something–– and all he does is remind you how there are lamps as bright as the sun lining the entire road to your dorm. And the fact that you live in the least accessible dorm on campus.
“A twenty-minute drive?” he’d exclaimed when he saw the GPS monitor.
“A bunch of roads are closed for construction. It’s a ten-minute bike-ride because I can cut through campus.” And suddenly feeling a little burdensome, you’d added, “Sorry. I can still bike––”
“No.” He’d held his hand out in front of you, gesturing for you to stay in the passenger’s seat. “It’s not a bother at all.” Because it wasn’t. Osamu was… happy. Not that he’d admit that.
“So this BMW,” you start in a teasing tone.
Osamu smirks. “A gift.”
“Can I guess from who?”
“Sure.”
“Atsumu.”
His brows rise. “Colour me impressed.” He hadn’t expected you to remember anything he’d said about Atsumu. Or maybe he had but told himself otherwise to lower his hopes.
“I’m smart like that.”
He snorts. “Not if you keep distracting me and using your review time to…” hang out with me, get to know me, tell me things about you… “…goof off.”
You grimace. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”
Osamu makes a turn down a familiar street. It dawns upon you that you're ten minutes away from your dorm and suddenly you wish he’d just make the wrong turn at the next intersection so that you could talk to him some more. It can even be about the health benefits of fish or the molecular makeup of kale–– you don’t mind. You just want to be around him longer.
“I think you’re really smart,” Osamu says quietly. “I think you’re not processing the readings because you’re distracted, or just not fully applying yourself. Obviously, last class’s slides are a different thing, since you were absent. But you really are smart. I’ve seen your papers.”
You bite your lip to hide your grin, feeling heat rush to your cheeks. “Thank you.” You look out the window, too jacked on dopamine to think straight. “I think I still need you, though.”
And that innocuous little sentence floats right out your mouth into the air, settling between you like a little wedge before either of you even realise it. Neither of you says anything. You marinate in the awkwardness before stuttering out a clarification. “To, um, to explain things. Y’know, since you’re, uh, so good at… explaining things.”
Osamu clears his throat and chuckles stiffly. There’s a slightly pink tinge to his cheeks. “Thanks,” he says, looking straight ahead. He can’t even look at you. Fuck. It’s so awkward. “I’ll try to keep… explaining things.” Fuck. What does that even mean?
A few uncomfortable minutes pass in silence. The night can’t end like this, you think. It can’t when everything else had gone so well. You still have to see him for a few more months. “Did you know,” you start, catching Osamu’s attention, “that Jack’s Diner has a location in Italy?”
“Oh?” he asks, making the final turn to the street where your dorm is. He actually hadn’t.
“Yeah. I asked the owner about the chain a while back. Have you ever been to Italy?”
Osamu shakes his head. “I’ve been to Paris, though. To see a friend. He’s a chocolatier.”
Now, if Osamu had been your friend, you would’ve said something like well, let’s go to Italy together, except he’s not. He’s your TA and you’ve been reminded that enough tonight. So instead, you say, “When you open that restaurant of yours in Italy, let me know.”
“That’s gonna take a while,” he laughs. He appreciates how you said ‘when’, though. And he tucks that little bit of confidence you have in him somewhere deep in his mind so that it doesn’t get lost.
“Isn’t that just seven hours?” you shrug, grinning. Osamu’s BMW pulls up outside your dorm and parks as he marvels at what you just said. You’re amazing. You unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to face your driver.
“Thank you for driving me,” you say, offering him a smile.
“Yeah,” he replies.
You stretch out your hand. With a puzzled look on his face, Osamu grabs it and shakes it. Firmly. You can’t help but notice how nice his hands are. Calloused for sure, but they feel nice.
“Goodnight, Osamu.”
“Goodnight, Y/N.”
He watches you jog into the building before driving away. And it’s like you’ve possessed his car or something because the smell of your shampoo and perfume is everywhere and it’s too much but it’s also not enough at the same time and he can feel your palm against his as he spins the steering wheel to make a turn and for the first time in his life he doesn’t turn on the radio to fill the silence in his car. Osamu replays everything you said in his head.
But he especially thinks about that part where you said you need him.
Tumblr media
Weeks melt into months. You turn in essays after essays for Food Chemistry I, each coming back with detailed commentary in an all-too-familiar blue scrawl. All your other classes go well–– extremely well, actually. You might just end the semester with a 4.0 if Food Chem doesn’t fuck you over. Isla still tags you in memes on Instagram. You still tell her about everything that happens with Osamu.
Speaking of.
“That’s the wrong equation,” he says behind your ear as he settles in the seat beside you. The sound of his low voice so close to your ear sends a small shiver down your spine. “You gotta switch the hydrogens.” Osamu knocks on your skull lightly. “What’s goin’ on up in there? Ya got somethin’ on your mind?”
You laugh and elbow him in the side. “Shut up, ‘Samu.” He’d told you during one of his office hours that he’d gone by that nickname because he had a teammate with a foreign name in high school. It sounded so cool, he’d said, grinning.
I think Osamu sounds pretty cool already, you’d teased.
And he’d replied, Let’s trade. I like yours, you like mine, why not share?
You teeter on the line between friends and less-than-friends and, oddly enough, more-than-friends. Sometimes you still play it safe. Sometimes he pauses between texts and real-time conversations, no doubt to scrap an instinctive reply for something more “professional”. Sometimes you say things that make him look at you with the ghost of a smile at the corners of his lips. Sometimes he calls Atsumu to scream about you.
“S’not a no,” Osamu points out. He’s dressed in a black sweater and grey trousers today. You’re suddenly reminded of how the weather’s been getting colder when someone opens the door to the university café and lets in a gust of chilly autumn air.
“Okay,” you admit, setting down the pencil. “I just… don’t really feel prepared for this next test.”
Osamu frowns and looks down at your worksheet. “Your process is correct, though.”
“Right, but… I don’t know. I’ve just not been feeling great about myself lately,” you laugh, looking down at your feet. “Food Chem’s the toughest class I’ve ever taken. And remember how I completely embarrassed myself in that class discussion last week? It’s not really making me feel like I belong here.”
“Imposter syndrome,” Osamu remarks.
“Correct-o.”
He says your name softly and puts a gentle hand on your shoulder. “Maybe you’re not the smartest, but you’re definitely smart. And you belong here. I’ve seen your papers. They’re just as great as anyone else’s and I don’t hand out compliments for nothin’. You’re gonna do some great things but ya can’t improve if you ever give up.” Osamu searches your eyes for a sign of your understanding.
There’re a lot of things you want to say but you don’t know how to put them into words. “Can I hug you?” you finally ask.
Osamu doesn’t even think about it. “Of course.”
He feels you smile against his chest and wonders if you can feel his heart beat faster.
Tumblr media
Isla camps out in your dorm as finals come around the corner.
“I don’t understand shit!” she wails, throwing her notebook into the air.
“Isles, it’s okay,” you laugh, slipping out of your chair and walking over to her nest in the corner. “You gotta chill, dude.”
“Not fair! I didn’t have a hunk holding my hand through this course all semester,” she retorts, humour glittering in her dark eyes. “I had the Organic Chemistry Tutor and his accent’s cute enough but, girl, you had Miya Fucking Osamu!”
“You’re literally the worst.” You giggle and sit down beside her. “Tell me what you’re confused about. I’ll try to explain it to you.” The way Osamu does.
You text him that you’d channelled his brains later that night.
His reply comes seconds later. all you, einstein.
Tumblr media
From: osamu
good luck on the exam
you’re going to kill it
To: osamu
would u like to divulge any… information about it? 😏 😏 😏
From: osamu
bye
To: osamu
i was kidding :(
From: osamu
fine. tip #1: write your name
To: osamu
not very helpful. 0/10
From: osamu
keep running your mouth and 0/10 is what your score’s going to be
i’m kidding
you got this, y/n
Tumblr media
“Holy fuck,” Isla groans as you cross the street to head to lunch at Jack’s. “If you don’t see me next semester it’s because I’ve gotten my grade back and decided to drop out.”
“What would you do?” you ask, amused.
“Maybe move to New Zealand. Raise some sheep. Marry a hot, blond shepherd and fuck off to a cliffside cottage.”
“Solid plan.”
“What about you?” she asks.
“What about me?”
“Remember that conversation we had at the start of the year? About your man?” The two of you reach another red light for pedestrians.
“We’re friends. He’s not my man,” you laugh. Though it pains you to. Something about being Miya Osamu’s friend doesn’t really sit right with you, but you don’t know how to not be his friend. You don’t know how to move out of the corner you’ve backed yourself into.
“But you wish he were! And now you can finally hit him with that ‘Hey, Osamu, I’ve been madly in love with you since the start of the semester, wanna fuck like rabbits and then open that store in Italy?’ and he’ll be all––”
A throat clears behind you. With wide eyes, the two of you turn around.
Holy fuck.
Miya Osamu stands behind you with his hands in his pockets and an enormous smirk on his face.
“He’ll be all what?” he asks, eyes fixed on you.
Isla murmurs an excuse and starts walking on her own to Jack’s.
“Um.” You swallow nervously and shrink in your coat. “You heard all of that, right?”
“Yep.” Osamu grins. He grins. He’s grinning. He’s smiling like he’s won the fucking lottery and you honestly don’t know what to do with that information.
“So, like,” you look down at the sidewalk and kick at a pebble, “what are your thoughts about that?” God, you could die. “‘Cause I know you’re a TA and it’d probably look pretty bad and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you because I like you and it’s cool if we just…”
Osamu interrupts you with a laugh. “My thoughts,” he says, “are that I want to kiss you.” His fingers lift your chin up. “What are your thoughts about that?”
Well, shit. “I think that’s pretty cool, yeah,” you breathe, eyelids fluttering shut as his face comes closer to yours.
He tastes like mint. And his lips move softly, slowly against yours like he’s savouring the moment. And then you feel his hands snake around your waist to pull you closer–– closer because you both are tired of forcing the distance between bodies that want to be near each other, closer because he’s thought about kissing you just like this for so long, closer because you remember the last time he’d touched you was three days ago and it was just a brush of his fingers against your arm and that feeling of wanting more haunted you for the entire night. But holy shit, Miya Osamu is kissing you. He’s kissing you.
And then he pulls away. His dark eyes flit over yours. “I,” he breathes, “I need your course load next semester.”
“What?” you ask, disbelief written all over your features, chest rising and falling as you try to steady your breathing. You just kissed, for God's sake, and he's––
“I need to know which courses not to apply to TA for,” he grins, cupping your face in his hands. “Can’t be teachin’ in a class with my girlfriend as a student.”
“So we’re official?” you ask, beaming.
“If you want,” Osamu replies with a smirk.
You grab the front of his coat and tug him down for another kiss. “Hell yeah, I want to be official.”
Tumblr media
1K notes · View notes
shorkbrian · 4 years ago
Note
I’ve noticed a shortage of yan! Shoto :0 Whilst Kiri is my absolute fave, Todoroki needs some love too! Could I request some Yan! Shoto being absolutely touch starved and obsessed with a sweet, loving, motherly and smol reader? (it can be nsfw if you so wish!) Thank you!! (Btw, I love reading your stories, it’s a blessing in my day, even just looking at your shitposts/memes. And if you ever want to talk, jus say so. I hope you have a good day!! 🥺💞) - Sugar Anon 🧚‍♀️
Sugar anon! That is such a cute identifier and I hope to see you in my asks again!! Hopefully this is along the lines of what you were thinking!!!
It’s a very good concept btw cause like mhm him getting completely overwhelmed and overstimulated during diddly times cause he’s never had anyone be intimate with him.
Like moaning and his cheeks are flushed and oh
(Y/N) is a new doctor  at Shouto’s agency in charge of patching him up between missions and basically being his doctor. Shouto likes her gentle hands and soft touches, lets himself get a bit more scraped up then he would normally.  He’s just so touch starved and she’s so motherly and its such an intimate setting and he’s never had feelings like this before and he doesn’t know what to do.
Has yandere tendencies but tries to squash them down or hide them, tries to be normal.
One day gets hit with an aphrodisiac quirk, stumbles into her office and she’s immediately worried, once she figures out what’s up she tries to get out, lock him in there until someone stronger than he can come escort him home but he grabs her before she can get to the door. 
He’s crying cause he’s so horny it hurts (he’s never been this aroused in his LIFE) and he wanted everything to be perfect and he wanted to woo her but now he’s forcing himself on her and he can’t stop his hips from moving and he’s confessing all the bad things he’s done while he’s known her and she’s absolutely horrified, traumatized.
Warnings - NSFW, noncon, very hard noncon. Aphrodisiacs (spelling?) and a low-key weird comment about Shouto’s mommy-issues at the end. Dude is so twisted and sad and touch starved.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Todoroki-san, I have had to patch you up six different times in two days.”
Shouto cocked his head, staring at you with his bi-colored eyes, studying your face as you tended to the wound on his shoulder. The lilt to your voice suggested you were teasing, making small talk to distract the man as you swiped a disinfectant pad over the cut. You knew what you would be expected to do when you applied for this job, knew that heros were often injured. 
He had overseen the hiring process himself, his last doctor had left the agency for a job in a different country. Shouto held no hard feelings for the doctor, knew that as a hero he often got himself into trouble, needed a lot of attention and care. Not everyone could be expected to spend so much time with him, attending to his health - even if he was paying them a more-than adequate salary.
Most of the candidates had bored him when they came in for their scheduled interviews. Too many of them were looking at this position as a way to launch them into a nice comfortable position in a prestigious hospital. They seemed… uninterested, or too interested, some of the candidates invading his space when they came for a handshake, babbling about how much of a fan they were.
  You weren’t like that. There was a professional distance when you shook his hand, smiling at him pleasantly as you introduced himself. Then you sat down, waited for him and his team to begin asking you questions. Shouto couldn’t keep his eyes from straying to your hands, letting himself wonder whether those hands would be the right ones for the job. You looked so delicate, at least to him, a pro-hero.
But he already liked you better than any of the other candidates.
So you were hired, on the condition that you would be on a trial period for the first two months, with halved pay. It was still far above minimum wage, but Shouto was weary of hiring seemingly-normal employees only for them to turn out to just be trying to get to know him, whatever their reasons. The trial period was for his own sanity.
Currently he was sitting in your office, perched on the edge of the exam table tucked into the corner. Today he had managed to escape his most recent fight with only a few mild scrapes and bruises, but as his doctor, you needed to make sure he was okay, clean his wounds and patch him up before letting him go home for the day. It wouldn’t do anybody any good if one of the top pro heros collapsed on the job because of a lack of medical care. 
Your office was stocked with everything a doctor of your caliber could possibly need. Your “office” was really a mock hospital room, in a medium sized room located at the back of the agency. Having you on site meant that Shouto never had to bother with trips to the hospital, being swarmed by fans when he wasn’t feeling good or having someone who didn’t understand the capabilities of his quirk try to treat him.
It also meant he could relax, know that he was being taken care of. With you being so new, Shouto still had his guard up, ready for any-and-everything. So far you had been nothing but gentle.
You had hardly talked to him, other than the expected “This might sting” or “Deep breath in”. You warned him before you touched him,  but otherwise were very quiet, working diligently and professionally.  Shouto enjoyed it honestly, being able to step away from the buzz and hubbub of his agency and into his doctor’s office, where it was quiet and calm and peaceful.
Being with his mother had felt like this. Felt safe and refreshing and like a secret haven tucked away from the rest of the world.  
Clicking you tongue, you gave the pro hero a thumbs up as you stepped back. “Alright, you’re good to go! Please be safe on your way home Todoroki-san.” Shouto nodded, a stiff smile passing his lips as he rose to his feet. You were a good doctor, always took the best care of him.
“You as well Y/N.”
——
The next visit to your office revealed that you had added a few personal touches. 
A cheesy poster on the wall, directly across from the exam table, a single plant on your desk, A bowl of mini lollipops on the shelf by the door.
Cute.
Today was a short visit, just a quick once-over to make sure there weren’t any cuts or wounds that he hadn’t felt, the normal questions any quirks used against him during the day.  Shouto found himself wishing the visit had been longer as you gave him the all-clear,  moving away from the exam table so he could stand up. Before he walked out the door, you stopped him, silently handed him a lollipop. He took it,  noticing how soft your hand felt against his as he withdrew.
Shouto didn’t like sweets, but he didn’t mind accepting a lollipop from you. He could just offer it to his secretary when he passed her desk, no biggie. It was easier to do that than hurt your feelings by refusing.
Well, he knew it probably wouldn’t hurt your feelings.  He just liked seeing the little twinkle in your eye when he accepted it. He assumed the lollipops were a gag, something usually given to small children for being brave at their checkups.
He wasn’t your only patient, much as he would’ve liked. His agency had several other up-and-coming heroes, and several sidekicks, and you tended to all of them. Shouto liked to think that you saved the majority of your tenderness for him.
One time he had come in while you were setting one of the sidekick’s shoulders. You had asked him to sit down in your office chair, to give you a minute so you could finish up with his coworker. Shouto had done exactly that, watching as your soft hands gripped the sidekick hard, fingers digging in. 
“One, two, three.” You gave a countdown, forcefully jerking the shoulder back in place on “three”. The sidekick groaned at the pain, head shaking as if to clear his head from the intense sensation. You went over to your lollipop bowl, ignoring Shouto as he sat in your chair, returning to the sidekick to give him the sugary treat.
The sidekick sucked on the lollipop while you bandaged his arm into a sling, immobilizing it so it could heal. When you were done, you sent him on his way with a soft smile, before turning to Shouto.
“Todoroki-san, thank you for waiting.  How are you feeling today?”
Todoroki moved to the exam table when you motioned for him, immediately stripping off one of the boots of his hero costume.
“Hello (Y/N), it’s good to see you. I’m feeling good, got nicked by a spike during a fight today. Luckily it hit my ankle, and it’s not very painful.”
“Mm, let’s have a look.”
You kneeled down,  giving him a small warning before pulling his foot towards you, examining the tiny cut gracing his ankle. Shouto paused, closing his eyes as he relaxed at your touch. He didn’t remember the last time he felt this at-ease with another human. He didn’t know what it was about you; maybe your gentle, soft demeanor? Perhaps it was your kind touch, how you never pressed too hard and always respecting his personal space.  
Even as your fingers prodded at the cut, feeling the bone underneath, Shouto felt relaxed, content. He liked being around you, being with you. Even if the two of you hardly conversed. Maybe he could change that?
“(Y/N), how have you been finding working here?”
You looked up at him, bright eyes warm and kind. Shouto felt his chest tighten. “Oh, it’s very nice Todoroki-san! I hope I’m doing a good job attending to everyone.” With a smile, you returned to his ankle, producing an alcohol wipe from seemingly nowhere.
Shouto nodded, hands gripping the edge of the exam table. “I certainly appreciate your service. You have very tender hands.”  Just like his mom.  When he was younger, before his scare… Shouto remembered the care his mother would give to a scraped knee or a bump on his head. The soft touch, the kindness, the gentle hands - Shouto didn’t want to insult you by comparing you to his mother, so he stayed silent.
With a start, the man realized you were beaming up at him, wrapping a bandage around his ankle. He smiled back, felt his cheeks flush a little. What was this?
“Thank you! I know how important my patient is to the world.”
Ah, yes, his job. 
His job that he should probably getting back to.
Reluctantly, Shouto accepted the usual lollipop from your hands, wishing you would linger so he could feel the brush of your skin against his own.
Was he developing feelings for you?
——
It was a startling idea. Shouto never thought himself the type to have /feelings/ for someone else. When he thought of his future, it never involved another person. He didn’t want a family, didn’t want the opportunity to make the same mistakes as his father.
But as he gave the idea more thought, Shouto realized that he was feeling… something towards you. It was different to what he felt for Izuku, for Bakugou and Kirishima. He didn’t crave their touch like he did yours. Had physical contact always had such an appeal?
His last doctor had touched him, it was necessary of course to patch up his various wounds from fights. But somehow it wasn’t the same as when you touched him. 
Shouto spent each exam studying you, your features, the way you moved, how you almost skipped over to the lollipop bowl to retrieve him one at the end of the exam.  He felt drawn to you, wanted to touch your hair, hold onto your hand when you handed him the lollipop. Would you touch him if he asked? A hug maybe?
In his penthouse, Shouto mulled over his feelings, his wants and needs and how you fit in. Would it be prudent for him to start a relationship at this point in his life? Would you even consider him as a partner? No, probably not. You were much too professional, wouldn’t even think of starting a relationship with your boss. 
Maybe he could fire you.
No, no, Shouto couldn’t do that, it would make you hate him. Plus, he wouldn’t be able to see you as often. And Shouto was quickly becoming of the opinion that he wouldn’t mind seeing you more often than he did now.
He wanted more from you. He didn’t know what he wanted, but… maybe he could learn. 
——
If you noticed how frequently Shouto seemed to be visiting you, compared to his usual once-daily check up, you didn’t say anything.
Tabloids were beginning to comment on how eager the pro hero seemed to engage in hand-to-hand with villains. His usual strategy involved using his quirk, only getting his hands dirty if absolutely necessary. But now? He was constantly looking to get hit, kicked, clawed, wounded.
He had to come see you after every over-dramatic scrap with a villain.  You didn’t seem to notice, nor mind seeing his face pop around the door 3-4 times a day, sheepishly asking if you could patch up a new cut, check out a new bruise, make sure his nose wasn’t broken.
Shouto could feel himself falling, further and further into the rigid embrace of love, or at least, his version of it. Did other people experience attraction this vividly? 
He had come to terms with the fact that he was attracted to you, not just your body but your mind, your personality, your very existence.  He wanted to stay in your office, lingering after every visit and awkwardly attempting small talk just so you would interact with him, just so he could be with you a little longer. 
In the privacy of his own apartment, Shouto found himself researching on his laptop. “How to get the girl” “Ways to let her know you like her” “What does love feel like”. He felt so juvenile,  but the man was genuinely at a loss for how to deal with his feelings for you. Telling you outright wouldn’t be appropriate. You would never enter a relationship with your boss, Shouto knew this, you were too good of an employee. Flirting was not his forte, and was completely out of the question. 
So he stuck to what he knew how to do - keep his mouth shut and watch. You never turned him away from your office, never showed irritation when he showed up, never gave any sign that you were becoming tired of his presence. Shouto took this as an invitation, a sign that maybe, just maybe, you had feelings for him too. He found himself bringing his lunch down to your office, asking if he could eat there, just to get away from everyone for a little bit. You always let him, nonchalantly scrolling through your phone as you ate during your lunch break. 
Shouto was a bit embarrassed of himself when he pulled your file from the employee records. If anyone asked why, he would just tell them that he was considering giving you a raise, but wasn’t sure. That’s a valid reason to bring out an employee’s file, right? He just wanted to know where you live, if it was far from the agency. The man couldn’t stomach the thought of you, gentle, little (Y/N)  having to walk home alone at night, or take the train with all the creeps that could be there. 
When he came upon your address, Shouto made a note to ask if you’d like him to drive you home. It was at least a thirty minute drive, he didn’t want to think about how you usually got home. What if something happened to his doctor? When he broached the subject, Shouto thought he did pretty well at acting nonchalant.
“The weather’s getting colder, isn’t it?”
You nodded, wrapping gauze around a nasty gash on his calf.
“I feel bad for anyone who has to walk during the evenings.” He stated.
“Aw, it’s not that bad in my opinion.” You took the bait “I walk home from the train station every night and the weather isn’t awful. It’ll probably get nasty as winter comes though.”
“You have to take the metro to get home? Where do you live.” As if he didn’t know. But you’d recoil if he offered just yet, probably be weirded out that he knew your address.
“Yeah, I live over in the Shikuyu district. It’s a really pretty walk in the fall though, all those trees turning different colors.”
Shouto wrung his hands, taking a deep breath. “Let me drive you home tonight, there’s been some criminal activity going down over there and it’s not one of my sectors. I need my doctor safe.”
You tried to protest, and Shouto let you, but ultimately pulled the boss card, insisting that he needed to take care of his employees, especially one that he bothered so much.
“You never bother me Todoroki-san.” You laughed, dropping a lollipop into Shouto’s lap.
Shouto kept his face from souring, missing the usual contact of your gentle, silky-soft hands as you handed the treat to him. But it was fine, he would get more time with you. In his car, just the two of you, outside of work.
Then he registered what you said, and his head snapped up, eyes wide and roving over you as you turned away, cleaning up the exam table and messy supplies. 
It was all the confirmation he needed.
——
After the first time Shouto drove you home, you refused to let him go out of his way to help you out. Still, he was your boss and he could insist that you at least call an uber, or a cab. He didn’t feel comfortable sending his little doctor off onto the train every night after work. Shouto even upped your pay so you could afford it easier, saying there was no reason to be unsafe.
It was hard for him to know if he was being too suffocating.  He didn’t want for you to regret your statement about him never bothering you.
So he had his agency install new security cameras. 
One was placed in your office, where there hadn’t been one before. You weren’t too pressed when Shouto asked you what you thought of the upgrades, said you could see the sense in making sure the building was safe, especially the doctor’s office, where the heroes would be at their most vulnerable. 
Shouto agreed - he was always at his most vulnerable when he was around you.
But now he could stop letting his body take a beating in order to see you. He could sit in his office, busy himself with paperwork and have the security feed from your office pulled up on his laptop. Half the time Shouto got distracted, abandoning the paperwork in order to watch you work, treating sidekicks and heroes-in-training and anyone else the agency had hired. 
He tried to ignore the bitter pang of jealousy that reared it’s head.
Shouto knew jealousy, knew anger and negative emotions very well. His childhood had been littered with nothing but bad memories and negative moments. The only time he felt at peace was when he was curled in his mom’s lap, the woman running slender fingers through his bi-colored hair. Sometimes, when he was still very small, she would have the time to read him a story before bedtime. 
She was such an amazing woman. 
Shouto saw her in you.
The way you tended to him so gently, delicately treating his wounds. How you carded through his hair, just like his mom used to, when you were checking for head wounds. The way your lovely hands pressed against his back when you felt to see if a rib was cracked, rubbing each rib slow and soft, pressing. It was just like how his mom would rub his back.
The man swore your touch was addictive. He wanted more and more and more and he didn’t have a clue as how to get it.  Shouto had to be satisfied with fleeting brushes when he moved before you were ready, accidentally jostling you against his body. Or telling you (lying) that his body was hurting, sore, it didn’t quite feel right. You would do your best to check for any injuries, asking where it hurt (usually his torso “hurt”) and then skimming your hands very carefully over the skin there.
Shouto imagined how nice it would be to fall asleep with your hands on him. He wasn’t stupid.  He was getting too attached, too invested, was practically stalking your at this point. He shouldn’t be doing this, lying to you, watching you. But he didn’t know what else to do.
Guilt was beginning to take root in his mind.
One day he knew he would have to tell you, confess his feelings and deal with the outcome. You would accept him, hopefully. Shouto felt afraid for what he would do if you didn’t.
——
Shouto felt hot, disoriented, thirsty. He was pretty sure he was in your office, had gotten hit with a villains quirk during a fight. Apparently it had knocked him out, as he didn’t remember even coming into the agency.
Muffled voices could be heard past the closed door, and Shouto winced at the noise, at the light, at the feelings of his clothes against his skin. Everything felt  too much.  He stumbled off the exam table, yup, your office, and moved towards the light switch, stripping off his shirt as he did so. 
The voices outside were still making noise, but with the light off Shouto felt a little better. His remaining clothes were still bothering him. His head felt fuzzy. His boots came off, followed by his pants. He wanted to take off his boxers, but his rational mind supplied how bad of an idea that would be. What if you came in?
At the thought of his little doctor, Shouto’s stomach jolted in arousal. Confused, the man peered down, surprised to find himself completely hard in his boxer briefs. He knew he considered you very attractive, but it usually took a fair bit of stimulus before he found himself aroused. 
Shouto gulped as he climbed back onto the exam table, immediately curling onto his side towards the wall. He was practically panting with the heat of the room, sweating and drooling. Wait, drooling?
The door opened.
“Todoroki-san, I have bad news.”
Your voice was so sweet, like warm honey. Shouto shivered when he heard it, his cock twitching between his legs. He wanted to turn to you, stand up, pull you close. But he… he shouldn’t.
“You got hit by an aphrodisiac quirk. It’s going to take a bit to leave your system, and will probably be uncomfortable until then. I’m going to leave some supplies in case you would like to use them, but I will be taking my leave after getting you settled. The rest of your team and I have decided it’s safer for you to remain in this room than attempt to move you back home. We will be locking the door so no one can come in.”
And you can’t get out.
You didn’t have to say it,. Shouto heard you shuffling around the room behind him, he was so hot, sweat was beading all over his body.
“(Y/N), Why am I so warm?” Shouto groaned out, trembling. It felt like he was sick but with… arousal.
Objects were set down on your desk, before Shouto heard you step towards him.
“The quirk is going to make your libido hyperactive for the next twelve hours or so. It’s very likely that you will be aroused and craving stimulation.”
You sounded so clinical, so robotic, none of the usual warmth in your tone when you talked to Shouto. He wanted to whine, cry that you weren’t treating him the way you usually did.  And when he needed your help too! His rational brain was telling him that you were trying to be professional, give your mostly-naked boss privacy. 
HIs rational brain told him to stay still, wait until you left the room to grab whatever you had left for him on the desk.  It was entirely possible that he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back from grabbing your hands if he turned. He wanted to feel your hands on him, running over his torso, rubbing his back, cupping his cheek. He wanted your touch, so, so bad. 
Shouto decided it was time for his rational brain to shut up.
When he turned over, sitting up, you looked like a deer caught in the headlights, already halfway to the door.
“(Y/N)” Shouto rasped, rising to his feet unsteadily. The arousal pooling in his gut was overwhelming - he couldn’t remember a time when he’d been so hard.  His penis was so rigid that it hurt, throbbing in his boxers.
You took a step back, eyes trained firmly on Shouto’s face, determined to not let them stray below the belt.  
Shouto didn’t know what was happening, couldn’t rationalize any of it. The man wasn’t even in control of himself, feeling as if some demon from hell had invaded his body, taken his dirty thoughts and insisted that he act upon them right now.
The pro hero didn’t even know when he had grabbed you, but then he was pressing you up against his body and it felt so good that the man whimpered. A low, needy sound, softer than the spluttering and shocked noises tumbling from your mouth as you pushed against your boss, trapped in his grip.
“Todoroki-san! Please let go! The quirk-!”
Shouto didn’t listen, didn’t want to. He started grinding his hips against yours, breathing hard through his nose at the pleasure roaring into his veins at the simple contact, his dick pressing into your stomach. 
It wasn’t enough though, he needed more.
Shouto dragged you to the exam table, manhandled you up against the flat surface and bent you over despite your struggling, the shouts of “No! Stop!”. Should he stop? Probably. But he wanted this. Had ever since he realized that he loved you, although it hadn’t been this intense before. With one quick movement, Shouto pulled off your scrubs, discarding your underwear in the same movement. He wasn’t concerned about foreplay - he needed, he needed all of you right now.
But the man couldn’t resist falling to his knees behind you, hands moving their iron grip from your palms to your thighs. His fingertip dug into your flesh, dimpling up your skin as he leaned forward, your pussy exposed oh so prettily for him.
Shouto didn’t know if you were screaming or crying or begging for more. He was too focused on the juicy flesh in front of him, leaning forward quickly to greedily slurp at the pink slit. He felt you jump, try to straighten your back but he let his hold on his quirk weaken, simultaneously heating and freezing each thigh held in his grasp. 
You quickly resumed the position he had put you in.
The pro hero couldn’t get enough, licking and sucking with fervent desperation at your folds, no rhythm or technique whatsoever. He couldn’t think, not with his face buried between your legs, your thighs shaking in his hold, your sweet little cries (“Todoroki-san /please/! Stop!”) filling the air. 
It could have been seconds, or minutes, Shouto had no concept of what was happening, only that you were the best fucking thing he had ever tasted in his life, and he needed everything you had to give him. He couldn’t stop himself from trying to burying his face closer, trying to spread your thighs further and further so he could reach deeper into your puffy pussy.
Your cum gushed onto his tongue, and the man slurped it up, reveling in the stick, wet sensation. 
He couldn’t ignore his dick any longer.
Letting go of your thighs, Shouto stood, pushing his boxer briefs down his legs as fast as he could, desperate to sheath himself inside your cunt. He could barely breathe, was so aroused he was light-headed with need.
With his boxers off, the man pressed close to you again, lifting one of your legs to brace it on the table, forcing you to go on tiptoe. When the head of his dick met your folds, Shouto felt his cock jump, the strange sensation making butterflies rise in his stomach. 
“Mmhm, (Y/N) I don’t know-I don’t know what’s happening.” Shouto confessed, one hand on your hip, the other guiding his thick cock into your pussy. “You just-oh, you look so good, always - always do. I need to feel - need to feel you so bad.”
He could feel your body trembling, and it briefly crossed his mind that you were probably crying. But his arousal slammed into him like a truck the moment he let his hips twitch forward, sliding his length into your wet pussy. “Oh god, oh-oh god, oh!”
Shouto came, crying into your neck, saliva dripping from his mouth and onto your heated flesh.
To his surprise, his dick was still hard, and the arousal was still pushing, urging, needy.
“(Y/N), I don’t - I’m so sorry.” Shouto stuttered, pulling back just to have his hips plunge forward again. You were so warm, so wet from your own orgasm and from his cum sliding inside you. It was heaven. 
Shouto had never touched, nor been touched this much in his entire  life. He didn’t know what to do, how to feel; it felt like his brain was on fire, and with each desperate snap of his hips, he was throwing on more and more gasoline. He had longer stamina this time, pounding you into the edge of the table for what felt like forever until his hips stuttered, his legs shaking as he orgasmed inside you.
When Shouto felt himself steady, he was horrified to find himself /still/ aroused. “I’m sorry (Y/N), This isn’t - I didn’t want to do it like this.” He was crying as he rutted against you, tears dripping hot onto your back. “I’ve been trying to be perfect, plan - plan dates, a relationship, anything, as long as it’s you.”
The man buried his head into the crook of your neck, inhaling raggedly. “It can only ever be you.”
His clarity was returning, each orgasm making him feel less and less feverish. At this point, his cock hurt, and he was too sensitive, but still, his hips wouldn’t stop. 
“I was going - going to ask if we could go out.” A lie, but it felt like the right thing to say. You were definitely crying underneath him, Shouto would be lower than trash if he didn’t try to comfort you. You didn’t need to know that the pro hero would rather have made you his home-doctor than ask you out. That way you’d be at his house, waiting for him, just like a pretty little wife, like a mother.
“I love you… think I always have.”
It felt good for Shouto to admit it out loud.
716 notes · View notes
makeste · 4 years ago
Text
BnHA Chapter 291: The Endeavor Pamphlet
Previously on BnHA: Dabi showed up atop Gigantomachia’s back and was all “you’ll never guess who I really am!” and the readers humored him and were all “who?” and he was all “TODOROKI TOUYA” and we were all “WOW └(・。・)┘ OH MY GOSH I WOULD NEVER HAVE GUESSED”, except for Shouto and Enji who were GENUINELY SHOCKED. Anyway so Touya was all “and guess what I’m doing right now!” and before anyone could even try, he was all, “STREAMING MY EMMY-NOMINATED MINISERIES ‘HELLO, I’M EVIL BUT ALSO TRAGIC AND SEXY, NOW LET ME TELL YOU ALL ABOUT MY DAD WHO SUCKS’’, THAT’S WHAT.” And everyone was all “oh my god” and Touya was all “ヽ(⌐■_■)ノ♪” for basically the rest of the chapter, and that’s pretty much it! Oh, wait, except for the part where he also doused himself in bleach in a fit of pure theatrics, which is actually pretty much the main takeaway from the entire chapter really because it was just wild af. ANYWAYS.
Today on BnHA: Horikoshi introduces Baby Touya, the world’s most enchantingly sweet character, and is immediately all, “I sure can’t wait to tell you guys all about how his fucking jaw burnt off.” Thankfully he doesn’t (YET), and we cut back to the present pretty quickly, where Dabi explains how he took all of his brain cells that should have been used to stop him from pouring bleach over his head, and instead put them all toward his big brain plot of releasing an elaborate video detailing Endeavor’s various abuses and crimes, and even throwing Hawks under the bus as well because WHY NOT. He then leaps off of Gigantomachia’s back (like I said, no brain cells) all set to blast them with a Prominence Burn, only to be stopped by none other than THE LEGEND HIMSELF, MOTHERFUCKING BEST, PRETTIEST, NICEST, MOST OUTSTANDING MOTHERFUCKING JEANIST. Who’s no doubt outraged by the crime against hair he witnessed only moments earlier. GO GETTIM JEANY BOI.
so I haven’t had time to answer any of them because this has been the stupidest week, but I just wanted to tell you guys that I received no fewer than nine asks about Dabi’s hair. which, in a week filled with election memes and tumblr’s most cursed fandom briefly rising back up from the dead, is a pretty impressive feat for him if you ask me. like, I know I was making fun of it basically nonstop, but it sure did generate a lot of discussion so maybe I should rethink my opinions on Dabi’s PR strategies now, idk
anyway. it’s Saturday. time to catch up on this shit. let’s see how fucked the Todorokis are
OH NO HE’S CUTE
Tumblr media
HOLY SHIT THIS IS TOO MUCH TO FUCKING PROCESS. I’M JUST TRYING TO ENJOY MY DAY HORIKOSHI, ARE YOU REALLY GOING TO TRAUMATIZE THIS POOR CHILD RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD
“thanks for being all right” the fuck
who allowed this child to be so cute. I’m serious. who signed off on this
how could a child this adorable possibly want to murder his equally adorable baby brother. please, your honor. there must be some mistake here
guess how prepared I am to read all about Touya’s tragic past. mm. that’s right. zero ready. none ready
anyway. TWO THOUSAND DEGREES LOLOLOL. NO TRACE OF A CORPSE HOW CONVENIENT. A PIECE OF HIS LOWER JAW BONE FFFFMSGHKLSh. LOVELY. LOVELY
LMAOOOOO
Tumblr media
listen you guys. I just want to take a moment to appreciate that Horikoshi Kouhei did one of two things here. either (1) he planned it out FROM THE VERY START that Touya would be born with red hair Because Fire Powers, but would then have his hair turn white due to trauma, thus making the Dabi/Touya connection very slightly less obvious, although Let’s Be Real Who Are We Kidding. OR, (2) the anime got it wrong and gave him red hair, and rather than allowing this plot hole to continue to exist, Horikoshi took it upon himself to concoct this elaborate storyline and pretend it was never a plot hole at all! in which case I sure hope someone at Bones is sending him a VERY nice Christmas card this year. got this man sweeping up all your messes for you. you’re just lucky he has some sort of wild compulsion to address these things
anyways!!
Tumblr media
FATHER AND SON. how sweet. :| still zero percent ready for any of this btw
STOP BEING CUTE
Tumblr media
THIS IS RIDICULOUS. I’M SO MAD RIGHT NOW. HE IS THE SINGLE CUTEST CHARACTER IN THE ENTIRE SERIES, and do you even know how many other baby characters I’m betraying in order to say that?! baby Kacchan, baby Deku, baby Ochako, baby Shouto, Eri, baby Hawks. I’M LOOKING YOU DEAD IN THE EYE RIGHT NOW AND TELLING YOU THAT BABY TOUYA IS CUTER THAN ALL OF THOSE PLEBS. AND YOU’RE LOOKING BACK AT ME RIGHT NOW ALL “YEAH IT SURE IS A PITY ABOUT HIS JAW MELTING OFF THOUGH.” THAT’S IT, I QUIT THE SERIES
and Enji’s smiling at him. he’s so proud of him. but then Touya won’t be able to do it, and Enji’s gonna stop training him, and Touya’s gonna feel like a failure and keep pushing himself in order to try and win his dad’s affections back, because that’s all kids fucking want, all they want is just love, that’s fucking it, you couldn’t just give him that?? and then he’s gonna immolate himself fflkdlskfh THERE YOU SEE HORIKOSHI, I KNOW THE WHOLE STORY ALREADY, YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THE WHOLE “SHOW THEM THE DEAD DOG” THING YET AGAIN YOU PIECE OF SHIT
OH SNAP THERE GOES THE TWIN THEORY. R.I.P.
Tumblr media
BABY FUYUMI. PRETTY CUTE. NOT AS CUTE AS TOUYA THOUGH. HEY LOOK, NO REASON TO GET MAD AT ME I’M JUST STATING A FACT HERE
YEAH THIS IS GONNA GO REAL WELL OH BOY
Tumblr media
I keep pressing the emergency stop button but this industrial tragedy machine just keeps on chugging along anyway, I’m pretty sure this thing is not up to code
Tumblr media
:| I am so sorry sweet boy, Horikoshi is only getting started with you
FUCKING HELL WITH THIS NARRATION
Tumblr media Tumblr media
but he wasn’t actually a child to you, he was just a little puppet child for you to live vicariously through!! and then you went and did the same fucking thing with Shouto afterwards and never learned your lesson until just six months ago!! fucking hell, Enji
so now he’s all “Touya is dead, that’s an unforgivable lie” fflkdhflk motherfucker does he look dead to you. if you really think that, tumblr and twitter have got a little over five years’ worth of archived theory posts to show you
oh shit Touya’s countering with “it’s an unforgivable truth”, which, damn. I actually think Horikoshi’s dialogue is one of his weaker points as a writer a lot of the time, but that comeback was snappy as fuck
Tumblr media
actually guys, now that I’ve seen how ridiculously fucking cute baby!Touya was, I can almost understand why Shouto and Enji never put the pieces together before lol. any passing similarities would have easily been dismissed on account of he’d need to be at least 10x more adorable in order to get the full resemblance
OH MY GOD
Tumblr media
NOW YOU SLEEP??? SO YOU POINT BLANK REFUSED TO PASS OUT WHILE YOU WERE BUSY MAIMING ALL OF MY FAVORITE CHARACTERS, BUT NOW THAT THERE’S AN OPPORTUNITY TO SEE YOUR REACTION TO THE “YOUR LIEUTENANT WAS SECRETLY RELATED TO ONE OF YOUR WORST ENEMIES THE WHOLE TIME” BOMBSHELL, YOU FINALLY DECIDE TO GET YOUR FORTY WINKS. I SEE
WOW DABI
Tumblr media
I’M SURPRISED YOU DIDN’T ALREADY HAVE YOUR ANCESTRY.COM RESULTS PRINTOUT READY TO FOLD INTO A PAPER AIRPLANE AND ZOOM ON DOWN TO HIM
LOL NEVERMIND
Tumblr media
gotta say, so far The Endeavor Pamphlet is just about as spicy as I could have hoped
Tumblr media
(ETA: Natsuo’s face as he watches his beloved dead brother come back to life only to literally and metaphorically set everything on fire in one fell swoop is :/. why must you do this to me Natsu. can’t you see I’m trying to throw a Welcome Back Jeanist party here.)
HAVE YOU READ THIS?! TODOROKI ENJI ABUSED HIS OWN HEIR, AND DABI WROTE IT DOWN RIGHT THERE
Tumblr media
WELL HE’S NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / NEVER GON’ BE NUMBER ONE NOW / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT / THAT’S ONE LESS THING TO WORRY ABOUT
btw I neglected to mention this last week, but yes I do recognize and appreciate that this is Can’t Ya See-kun himself whom Horikoshi has chosen to be the face of this existential crisis which the general public is about to experience. rip CYS-kun
OOF
Tumblr media
excuse me. putting aside the implications of Dabi sharing this context-less murder video of Hawks with the entire world for a moment, I just have to pause for a sec here, because when exactly did he get a chance to edit this all in?? complete with voiceover that seamlessly ties in with the prerecorded footage of him with DNA test results sans shirt?? you’re telling me this motherfucker, with all the smoke that was in the room thanks to his own quirk, somehow got a PERFECT SHOT of the PRECISE MOMENT when Hawks drove his feather knife into Jin’s back, using his MAGIC CAMERA THAT HE I GUESS HAD THE ENTIRE TIME IN THE POUCH RIGHT NEXT TO HIS BLEACH BOTTLE, and then immediately somehow got this very next shot as well FROM AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ANGLE
Tumblr media
ALL THE WHILE IMMEDIATELY RUNNING THROUGH SCRIPT REVISIONS IN HIS HEAD, WHICH HE THEN PROCEEDED TO RECORD... WHERE, EXACTLY?? WITH SKEPTIC, WHILST RIDING ON MACHIA’S BACK??
AND THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE TO SAY FOR YOURSELF???
Tumblr media
and this after I just wrote that whole long paragraph positively GLOWING about this man’s ability to plug up a plot hole. jfc. just scratch out every damn word I said lol. just forget all of it
are you fucking kidding me, the footage was from the cameras Skeptic planted on Hawks??
Tumblr media
that’s... actually... okay you know what, it still doesn’t make any sense in the slightest, but the determination to address it nonetheless... just, dammit... I feel like I’m constantly at war with myself over whether or not I want to shake this man’s hand or slap him lmao. whatever, then!!
anyway, since Shouto and Enji can’t actually see the damage that Touya is dealing to the hero industry even as they speak, Touya is taking it upon himself to give them the highlights
Tumblr media Tumblr media
I think it’s a testament to how much Endeavor cares about Hawks that he managed to zero in on that comment even amidst all the craziness of his eldest son returning from the dead to announce how he’s been carefully plotting their destruction for years and years. like, he heard “Hawks” and his face immediately went like that. you think he’s worried that Dabi did something to him? because he’d be right to worry lol
so the Endeavor Pamphlet narration is now explaining all about how Hawks totally killed the Number 3 Hero Best Jeanist as well! yep... he sure did... totally...
OH MY GOD WE’RE CUTTING TO HIM AHHHHH
Hawks, that is. lol. not Jeanist. NO, JUST MY POOR HALF-DEAD WINGLESS BABY SON
Tumblr media
NOOOOO HIS LITTLE WING STUMPS. BUT SOMEHOW HIS FACIAL HAIR IS STILL INTACT. OH TO BE AN ANIME PRETTY BOY BEING SET ON FIRE. “HEY, TAKE IT EASY, WATCH THE FACE”
EXCUSE ME WHAT
Tumblr media
interesting! we suspected as much, I think, with the clues that Ending dropped, and the little flashback right after the name reveal. still not clear how Dabi found out about it though!
looooool okay here we go, breaking out the heavy-handed holier-than-thou shit now
Tumblr media
you know, I do find it interesting how trying to model themselves after All Might’s noble Symbol of Peace image has kind of ended up being the heroes’ undoing here. like, I could write a whole essay on this, but what it basically boils down to is that they were all trying too hard to be perfect. All Might went out there and did his thing and was amazing, and so the powers-that-be built an entire system centered around this seemingly-infallible person, and they acted like the system was infallible as well. and so most of the population ended up becoming complacent over the years, and meanwhile the people who were unfortunate enough to fall through the cracks understandably wound up disillusioned and perceiving the heroes as these false idols
anyway, but I think one positive takeaway from this is that the new up-and-coming generation of heroes represent a breakaway from that system. like, imo what we’re witnessing is the downfall of the Perfect Hero, and the rise of the imperfect hero. and this new generation doesn’t shy away from their failures or pretend like they never happened. they pretty much can’t pretend, because their failures are all right out there in the open for everyone to see. Bakugou Katsuki, just to name one example off the top of my very biased head, has had his own personal character journey basically play out right in front of the media’s eyes. his humiliation at the sports festival, his kidnapping by the League, and all of the fallout afterward. this isn’t someone who can ever go out there and convince the world that he’s perfect. but what he can do, instead, is show the world that he’s trying. that he’s trying with everything he has to do his best, to be the best. rather than this untouchable godlike image, it’s instead the image of someone painfully human who is nonetheless striving with everything he’s got to keep moving forward, flaws and all, and work his way to the top
and ultimately I think that’s going to be a much more positive image to send out to the world when all’s said and done. because rather than merely inspiring awe, heroes like that inspire people to take action themselves. or at least that’s what I hope! and not just Bakugou, but the others as well. we’ve got Shouto, whose own personal trauma is being aired in front of the whole nation even as I sit here ranting. we’ve got Deku, who cries at the drop of a hat, and who fought to become a hero despite being quirkless (and I think it’s only a matter of time before that eventually becomes public knowledge as well). tl;dr because I’m getting way too long-winded here, but these kids have effectively been humanized in a way that the old generation never was, and I think that’ll go a long way towards building trust between them and the people they’ll someday be protecting, and inspiring the next generation in hopefully a much healthier way
anyway so where were we. ...oh yes, Dabi was explaining that heroes only protect themselves, and is presumably building up to his grand conclusion of “therefore you should all just let the villains take over and burn down the world”
omfg. YOU GUYS
Tumblr media
DOES CAN’T YA SEE-KUN’S SHARK FRIEND ACTUALLY CALL HIM “CAN’T YA SEE-KUN.” HE HAS A NAME YOU KNOW!! UNLESS HE LEGALLY GOT HIS NAME CHANGED TO CAN’T YA SEE-KUN. OH MY GOD
ALSO, IS THAT CAN’T YA SEE-KUN CRYING IN THE BOTTOM RIGHT THERE OMG. GIVE THIS CHILD A HUG. EVERYONE STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING RIGHT NOW AND HUG HIM
BAKUGOU IS BARELY HANGING ON THERE LOL. GOTTA STAY CONSCIOUS... SO MUCH TEA BEING SPILLED... FOCUS... CONCENTRATE
IIDA’S ANGLING HIS HEAD IN A WEIRD WAY, LIKE DUDE. LOOKING SUSPICIOUSLY SNUGGLY THERE. MMM THESE IIDABAKU CRUMBS
HADOU IS ALL “WHAT EVEN IS ACTUALLY GOING ON” LMAO
LASTLY, POOR SHOUTO OMFG. WHEN YOU’RE ALL FINISHED HUGGING CYS-KUN THIS CHILD NEEDS YOUR ATTENTION!!
so now Dabi’s leaping off of this ninety-foot-tall gargoyle man like that’s a normal, smart thing to do. unless he can fly too now? saw his dad doing it back at Fukuoka and was all “hmm”
OH MY GOD SOMEONE TELL ME RIGHT NOW WHAT WORD SHOUTO IS USING TO ADDRESS ENJI, THESE TRANSLATIONS LOVE TO MESS WITH MY HEAD
Tumblr media
ENJI GET MOVING DO YOU NOT SEE THOSE TEARS!!! SNAP OUT OF IT YOU BIG TREE
AHHHHH
Tumblr media
OH KACCHAN YOU WOKE UP A LITTLE MORE THERE, HUH
lol he and Deku both look so determined but they’re basically sitting ducks. their “oh shit” faces do look remarkably like their “TIME TO SWING INTO ACTION” faces but don’t be fooled, they have one good arm and about six pints of blood left between the two of them. looks like this one’s all on you Shouto
-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH --
Tumblr media
BAH GOD... WHAT’S GOING ON HERE... THAT’S BEST JEANIST’S MUSIC
y’all. can’t even talk right now, my brain has completely shut down lol. just. ...
  °˖✧◝( ̄▿ ̄)◜✧˖°
475 notes · View notes
nonasuch · 4 years ago
Text
Today I listened to the Rent cast album for the first time in... a number of years, and it sure does hit differently now that I’m an adult and not an extremely sheltered suburban tween.
(the first time I heard any of the songs was at Jewish sleepaway camp in the Poconos. yes, really. we sang it on hikes. the girl who actually owned the cast album was in a different bunk, so I exclusively heard the ‘as sung by 12-14 year old girls’ version until I got home. yes, the lyrics were bowdlerized)
anyway! some notes:
Mark’s mom is still very funny and her voicemail is, perhaps, the most realistic thing in this musical.
I was definitely well into my 20s before I noticed that a Tom Collins is also a cocktail? whoops
wow but Benny looks different to me that he did when I was younger. like. the things his friends are mad at him for are Very Different from the things he does that are actually bad?
actually let me break this down.
Things Benny’s Friends Are Mad At Him For:
leaving them behind to marry a bougie lady
gentrification
‘stealing’ Mimi from Roger
Things Benny Does That Are Genuinely Bad:
cheats on his wife with a 19-year-old HIV+ heroin addict
okay, yeah, gentrification, I’ll grant you that
Things Benny Does That Are Good, Actually:
lets his friends live in the building he owns rent-free for a year
pays for Mimi’s rehab
left what must have been an absolute nightmare of a living situation, to marry a bougie lady
seriously can you imagine what that apartment was like
an unheated squat occupied by Benny, Mark, Roger, Collins, and Maureen? nope, no thank you
also Roger has only been clean for six months at the start of the musical, so he was still a full-blown heroin addict when Benny left
actually I would bet that the sequence of events went: April kills herself (IN THEIR BATHROOM) -> Roger spirals even further -> Benny gets the fuck out of there
and tbh good for him
anyway
I don’t love that they make the same “Maureen is a lesbian now, lol” joke twice in the space of like five minutes
the timeline of “Maureen dumps Mark, keeps him as her production manager for a month, then replaces him two days before her show” is... bad. Mark, you have a noodle for a spine.
Joanne’s parents’ voicemail: also still funny. “and wear a bra!” is perfect.
btw Joanne and Mark are both clearly slumming so idk why it’s only bad when Benny does it
hey it’s actually very fucked up that Angel killed Benny’s dog???
not sure when I first noticed this, but Mark, Roger and Collins all use he/him pronouns for Angel, and Mimi, Joanne and Maureen use she/her. huh.
“I’ll Cover You” is still extremely good.
Collins and Joanne are the only adults in this musical.
“Over the Moon” is a perfect parody of bad performance art, so props for that
oh good, “La Vie Boheme” still slaps
I have a lot more sympathy for the Life Cafe waitstaff than I used to, though
btw please envision 13-year-old me, on a hike in the Pennsylvania woods, with 20 other 13-year-olds who are all word-perfect on “La Vie Boheme” but definitely don’t know what a dildo is and kind of mumble their way through the swears.
god I loved “Take Me Or Leave Me” so much as a kid but WOW Maureen would be a nightmare to date IRL
tbh everyone except Collins and Angel should just like. be single for a while. take some time to work on themselves.
you know what, my decision to skip “Contact” on most play-throughs was both correct and, in retrospect, a Big Ace Mood
unsurprisingly, the reprise of “I’ll Cover You” still makes me tear up.
“What You Own” isn’t bad, as such, but it does make me roll my eyes at both Mark and Roger. Especially Mark. my dude, you have by far the fewest problems of any of your friends, and you need to take it down a notch.
the little moment where Mark corrects “Muffy” to “Alison” is really interesting to me? the implication is that they know her well enough now to feel bad about the nickname. I choose to believe that Alison is actually way too good for Benny and his friends all come to recognize that.
aw, Roger. “Your Eyes” is very heartfelt. it’s not good, but it’s heartfelt.
I still like the finale a lot, but boy, these kids have a LOT of problems, huh.
hm apparently I have extensive opinions about what would happen to the characters over the next 25 years.
okay just right off the bat: I doubt that Mimi lives more than a year. sorry! but her odds are Not Good
I would like to think that Roger makes it a little longer than Mimi -- at least long enough to record an album
does Benny bankroll the album and get him a record deal, out of guilt? probably.
does Roger, when he dies, leave the IP and royalties to Mark anyway? also probably
his album reaches a Jeff Buckleyesque level of posthumous cult fame, which is nice for him
sometimes he is featured in listicles about 12 Artists Who Recorded Their Last Albums As They Died
assuming Alison doesn’t leave his dumb ass, I would like to think that Benny chills the fuck out and learns some empathy once they have kids
regrettably, he probably does manage to become a dot-com billionaire
Joanne is 100% married and living in DC by today, and she and her wife both work on the Hill. I can guarantee that they send their kids to either Sidwell Friends or the Maret School. maybe Duke Ellington for high school
Maureen has joined a cult at least once and has almost no contact with her friends from her New York days 
I bet she’s the only one who actually lives in the Southwest now
she goes to Burning Man every year without fail
Mark has never made a commercially successful film
he still lives in New York, though
mostly because the royalties from Roger’s lone album let him buy into a co-op before he could get priced out of Manhattan
some of his old footage has made its way into various documentaries, most recently on Netflix
in his free time he volunteers at an after-school program where he teaches filmmaking to at-risk youth
they keep trying to get him on tik-tok but he doesn’t understand what that is
Collins is happy, healthy, gainfully employed in meaningful work, and in love.
FIN
461 notes · View notes
dameronology · 4 years ago
Text
a good jedi {obi-wan x reader}
summary: obi-wan kenobi always knows what to say, and he's always right - most the time, it's pretty annoying, but when you need advice? you're in luck. (this is platonic obi-wan x padawan! reader btw! for @raeshin -- i hope you enjoy!)
warnings: it probably has language in it somewhere? at this point i don't even know when i do and don't swear.
enjoy!! if you'd like to read more about commissioning a fic, the faqs are here :)
- jazz xx
Tumblr media
The Jedi Temple had been scary at first.
With it's high walls and long, tangled history, you felt the pressure of being a warrior weigh on your shoulders almost the minute you set foot in the grand corridors. You'd been just a kid at the time - wide eyed and filled with some kind of weird, naive hope - but in your few, short years in the galaxy, you had heard more than enough about the Jedi. Who they were, and what they stood for; the adventures they went on and the way they brought balance to the Galaxy. The connection you felt to them had never seemed to be anything more than a youthful obsession with a world you wanted to be a part of.
Then, not long after your sixth birthday, things began to make sense. A mysterious man in a cloak paid your home planet a visit -- for you. Your interest in the Jedi hadn't been coincidental. Not in the slightest. Your connection to the Force was almost overwhelming, and it was something that Obi-Wan Kenobi could sense the minute he met you for the first time. For a young kid who had been torn away from their family and had the trajectory of their life changed entirely, your upbeat approach to the change of circumstance was pleasantly...surprising. It was clear from the get-go that you had a thirst for adventure, and a strong sense to do the right thing. Two things that, arguably, would have made you the perfect Jedi.
Obi-Wan was a good example of one; he was calm under pressure, patient as a mentor and things were never boring. It didn't take long for him to become like an older brother to you, and for that, you were grateful. There were other Padawans who hadn't been as lucky -- their mentors were either obsessed with the rules, or they were more preoccupied by their outstanding missions and meetings with the Council. Obi-Wan had always made you his main priority, focusing on your training and making sure that you didn't make the same mistakes as him (but let's face it -- were there many?).
Perhaps, it was that idolisation that had lead you to become scared of opening up to him about your own fears. Of course, he would never judge you, but the irrational, anxiety-induced voice in your head didn't know any better. You were terrified of letting him down, and even more fearful that he might lose faith in you for having doubts. Doubts in yourself, doubts in the Jedi, doubts in everything they stood for. What kind of warrior questioned their dedication and the morals of the order to which they were seemingly destined to be a part of? A bad one - or so you told yourself.
It had been easy to push them down at first; to brush aside your worries and tell yourself you were being silly. But, what had started as a little voice in the back of your head soon became a loud, all-consuming bellow. It was hard to ignore, especially now that Obi-Wan had thrown around the idea of beginning practice for your trials. You were no longer a child anymore, but a young adult. It was time for you to start moving up in the world, and in the Jedi Order, and that would mean reaffirming your commitment to them. You'd near enough dedicated two decades of your life to the cause, but it was only now that the doubt was truly starting to plague you.
It was becoming harder to hide it from Obi-Wan. Not only was he extremely intuitive and pragmatic in himself, but the Force connection that your Jedi-mentor relationship had provided you with made it even harder to kick your emotions under the fridge like ice and pretend they weren't there. Even when you gave him your best fake smile and promised you were excited for what was to come, he saw right through it. Your thinly-veiled emotions were no match for a man who could read you like a book.
"We have to report the council." Obi-Wan said. He stepped aside, allowing you to exit the ship with him in tow. "It might be useful for you to deliver the mission report. Good practice for when you're out there on your own-"
"- master, we haven't even got a date for when I'll be doing the trials." You cut him off. The Temple wasn't too far of a walk, but it took you through the gardens. "I'd rather not get ahead of myself."
"It's always better to be a few steps ahead then a few steps behind." He shot back.
"Yeah, I suppose." You muttered. "I think I'm where I need to be right now. Not ahead, nor behind."
He thinned his eyes at you. "If you're sure."
"Very." You forced a smile. "Besides, I'm tired out. It's been a long few days."
"I find myself doubting the sincerity of your statement given that you threatened Anakin over a game of holochess just mere seconds ago-"
"- he was cheating!" You exclaimed. "But really, master, I am shattered. I'd be grateful if you'd let me retire for the night, unless you're really that desperate for my presence in front of the council."
"Very well." Obi-Wan nodded. "Get some rest. I'll see you in the morning for training?"
You stopped in your tracks, just in front of the corridor that lead to your chambers. Normally, you were pretty good at coming up with excuses - now, your ability had failed you entirely. It wasn't that you didn't want to wake up early and train, but rather that you were so caught up in your own concerns and doubts that it would affect your ability to fight at all. And, with all due respect to Obi-Wan, the last thing you needed was to be thrown half-way across the room at 5AM on a Saturday morning during combat training.
"I'm not sure," you nervously shuffled from one foot to another. "I might skip training tomorrow and focus on my readings."
Obi-Wan folded his arms across his chest. "Something is going on with you."
"There isn't." You tried to sound confident in your words. "I'm just-"
"- tired?" He raised an eyebrow. "Have you been getting enough sleep lately?"
"Of course." You replied quickly- perhaps a bit too quickly.
"Hmm." Obi-Wan clearly wasn't taking your bullshit. "You know that you've been my Padawan for the better part of twenty years, don't you?"
"Right."
"I can tell when you're lying." He continued. "We'll finish it here tonight but I'm not done with this conversation."
"There's nothing to talk about." You coldly said. "Good night, Master."
Obi-Wan sighed, blue eyes flittering to the floor. "Good night."
--
True to your word, you slept through training the next day. You didn't even bother setting an alarm, instead choosing to snooze right through til late morning. It was a much-needed lie in -- between your missions, your late-night stressing sessions and constantly running away from the subject of your trials, you were shattered. The sleep had been good, but it didn't much when it was your soul that was tired.
You found yourself in the Temple gardens not long after you woke up. They were the most peaceful place in the entire building -- fields of fresh, green grass, and tangles of unkempt plants that stretched out as far as you could see. The late-morning sun was hanging high in the sky, casting a golden glow on your skin as you slowly wandered down the path. There were a few other people sat on the lawns, either meditating or reading a book. Instead of doing either, you simply meandered. It was hard to remember the last time you weren't doing something...Jedi-ish.
"That isn't reading."
You froze at the sound of your Master's voice -- he was sat on one of the benches, lunch laid out beside him. Knowing Obi-Wan, he'd probably risen at 4AM and done ten times as much in his waking hours than everyone else in the Temple had done in a week. He was always on the go, always dedicating himself to something. Sometimes, he took you along for the ride.
"I was taking a walk." You shot back.
"I can see that." Obi-Wan said. He tossed his sandwich into the bin and stood up, dusting off his trousers. "Let's walk and talk."
"Master, I'm going to be honest with you, I really wanted this time for myself." You explained. "And with all due respect, most of the Padawans out here are alone, and not with their masters-"
"- so you're too cool to be seen in public with me now?" He raised an eyebrow. "I can sense your anxiety and I think it would be good for us to get to the bottom of it."
You sighed to yourself -- the gig was up. But, to give credit where credit was due, you had been able to hide your woes from him for the better part of six months. You could feel your heart-rate picking up in your chest at the thought of coming clean. What if he was disappointed in you? Or worst, insulted that you were worrying about the Order he had sworn his life to?
Obi-Wan placed his hand on the small of your back, forcing you to start walking beside him, through the gardens and towards the temple. So much for a peaceful morning.
"Talk to me." He said. "What's troubling you?"
"I..." you let your eyes fall to the floor. "Look, if I tell you, can you promise me one thing?"
"Of course."
"That you won't be disappointed in me?"
"I could never be disappointed in you." Obi-Wan replied. "If you've made a mistake, it's fine. How else are we supposed to learn?"
"It's not so much a mistake, so much it is a feeling." You began. "I've dedicated most of my life to this Order, and the things it stands for, and by the looks of it, the rest of my life will be too. That was amazing when I was a kid, and not entirely capable of thinking for myself. Now I can, and I find myself full of...doubt."
"Right," He pondered on your words for a moment. "Doubt about what, exactly?"
"The Order." You replied. "There are so many rules to follow, and so many codes. It's been okay up until now but what if one day, I find myself wanting to make a decision that goes against it? Or making a choice that I think to be correct, but the Council see as wrong?"
Obi-Wan was quiet for a moment. He felt your words in his core -- he'd had his moments like that too. Many, many moments of doubt, sprinkled throughout the last three decades. But, just a few was plenty enough for him to remember - the hesitation, the worry, the endless thoughts of leaving and breaking free plaguing in his mind. There had been so much loss; so much grief and hurt that had pushed him to the edge. Qui-Gonn, Satine, members of the 501st who had fallen victim to the ongoing Clone Wars. There were days where he came closer and closer to his breaking point - in the same way there were days that it felt like it was inching further away. Like the day that the two of you went to Corellia, and he saw you hold your own in battle for the first time, or the day that he managed to get himself kidnapped, and you and Anakin came to rescue him and make a joke out of it. It was the days like that which he'd clung onto so tightly.
You never would have known, not from his outward appearance. From where you were standing, Obi-Wan Kenobi was calm and collected. He always stood his ground and did the right thing, and aside from a few grey hairs that had cropped up in his otherwise-strawberry-blonde hair, you never would have known the losses he had faced. The sacrifices he had made.
And it broke his heart that you feeling that same misgivings and apprehensions that he had.
"Master, you've been quiet for a really long time." You murmured. "Maybe I should just forget it, pretend I didn't say anything-"
"- Not every decision that I've made has been in line with what a good Jedi is." Obi-Wan cut you off. "But you don't need to worry, I can assure you of that much."
You peered up at him. "What do you mean?"
"You might not always be a good Jedi, but you'll always do the right thing." He explained.
"You think so?"
"I know so." He replied. "I see it in you. Whatever way you interpret the Jedi Code, you needn't worry, because you can't be a good Jedi until when, stripped back to the very core of your humanity, you're a good person. And you are, undoubtedly so."
You smiled. "Thank you."
"There are going to be times when you doubt everything you stand for, and everything you dedicate your life to." Obi-Wan continued. "And when I find myself doing that, I look at it from a different angle. The be-all-and-end-all of what we do is to help and protect others, whether that's under the guise of the Jedi, or as a civilian. That's what matters."
"That makes sense." You nodded. "Thank you for listening. I was worried you were going to be disappointed in me."
"I've been disappointed with the Jedi Order itself hundreds of more times than I've been disappointed with you." He said. "Your ability to question authority when necessary is going to get you far. It's better to be overly cautious than overly naive."
"Does that apply to your authority too?" You grinned.
"If need be - but I like to think I'm a pretty relaxed master." Obi-Wan replied. "I could be a lot harder on you. Especially on mornings when you lie to me and sleep in."
You groaned. "It won't happen again. I can assure you that your current methods of teaching are more than sufficient."
"Sufficient enough that you're ready for the trials?"
"Maybe." You cautiously said. "I suppose we could at least talk to the council about it."
"Thank you." Obi-Wan grinned. "Then you can finally get rid of me."
"I could never." You shot back.
94 notes · View notes
insomniziam · 4 years ago
Note
Seeing how the women of Little Mix have announced their pregnancies goes to show there's something fishy as hell about the 1D pregnancies. They've done open and friendly with their partners whereas we've never seen any of the boys with their partner while pregnant. All very suspicious
Hi, nonnie. I sincerely apologise for how long it took me to answer your question, but here it is 😅
Now, I've never really been a massive fan of Little Mix, especially after how quick they were to throw Zayn under the bus and make him out the be the bad guy after the ending of the PR stunt that was Zayn and Perrie's "relationship".
In case you're confused, I'm referencing the constant insults those girls threw at Zayn - even while they were publicly dating. Then you also had Perrie crying on stage for some extra sympathy points, as well as her adding fuel to the rumour that he apparently broke up with her over text even though he himself denied it.
Not only that but they kept a sign from a fan calling Zayn irrelevant - ironic considering that's exactly what they would have been without the promo his 'relationship' with Perrie offered them. Oh, and let's not forget the incredibly overplayed break-up song that they made to look to be about Zayn. I'm sorry if I don't have respect for the kind of people who throw a completely innocent person under the bus - who was a major reason behind their popularity, btw - to keep themselves in the public eye.
(I know you didn't ask for my opinion on the group specifically, but I feel like sometimes people need to be reminded of the kind of people they are. Their actions speak volumes to me.)
But you do bring up a good point, Nonnie! Two girls in a relatively popular girl band were able to keep their pregnancy a secret from the public for quite some time. I don't know how far along the two of them are, but just from looking at their bellies I would say that Leigh-Anne is at least six months, and Perrie wouldn't be that far behind. And there were no articles released from sleazy tabloids like TMZ leaking the fact they're pregnant, and they're not the only ones. Kylie Jenner, who has a substantially larger following than G, was able to hide her entire pregnancy. Hell, Ariana Grande was able to get married without anyone knowing until after the fact.
According to the TMZ article, it was 'family sources' that revealed the news to them:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Does G really think people are dumb enough to accept the fact that there is someone close enough to her to reveal the news of her pregnancy if she didn't want it out there in the first place? She's been in the public eye thanks to her mother all of her life, she would have a close-knit group of people that she knew she could trust with such news.
She loves to pull the privacy card but the reality is that she is anything but. Not only does she call paps to take photos of her walking her daughter, the paps themselves have confirmed this to be the case:
Tumblr media
But she's also constantly posting photos of her daughter, and even uses them as advertising opportunities:
Tumblr media
And I definitely agree with your second point, too! Liam was in a completely different country for pretty much the entirety of C's pregnancy (as well as after she gave birth), and Zayn was going out of his way to talk about everything but his supposed daughter and baby mumma 🤣
Let's play a fun game of spot the difference:
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Both Perrie and Leigh-Anne are smiling in their photos but G isn't (G posted like 20 photos and wasn't smiling in any of them, I just find that interesting to note).
But another glaringly obvious difference: No father present in any of G's photoshoot photos:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
(there's more but Tumblr is dumb and has a limit of ten photos per post 🙄)
And it's not like they haven't done a photoshoot in the past, so you couldn't really argue that Zayn was too shy to be a part of it:
Tumblr media
So the question is: Why wouldn't Zayn want to be apart of the pregnancy shoot if her were in fact the father of the baby?
I just think it's hilarious how blatantly obvious both Liam and Zayn are being in regards to their relationship with these children. They're both very obviously trying to remain as far away as possible from this stunt, and I hope they are able to keep it that way.
Have a good day nonnie!
49 notes · View notes
lambourngb · 4 years ago
Note
re: your tags on that one post abt plotholes in rnm: what are the plotholes that make you lose the most sleep?
(this is my main btw, my rnm blog is @curlyguerin )
Hi! Okay... strap in, because there are a lot of little and big things that wiggle into my thoughts and makes me wonder ...am I the only one who couldn't follow that plotline?
In my opinion RNM suffers more from abandoned narratives and continuity errors than plot holes I guess, since we only have 2 seasons, with at least 2 more to go I guess I can hope they come back to these issues... but: [Under the cut plus some spoilers for season 3]
Things I would like explained :
1. What did Jesse Manes fund with family money in 1x08 ? I'm guessing it was surveillance of the town and the search for more aliens that could have escaped the military in 1947-1948. The idea that Jesse funded Caulfield is just laughable to me, along with how he was able to get his Army-assigned son moved from Germany to New Mexico for 5 years and no one noticed?? Caulfield has to be separate from whatever Jesse was doing in Roswell. Clearly there is still an ACTIVE military project focused on aliens because Flint isn't AWOL, Flint also takes Noah's body to Area 51, so where was Jesse in violation of his orders (Alex's threat to Jesse in 1x08 and then shipping him to Niger)? Surveilling citizens and setting up cameras all over town?
2. Did they ever build an Air Force base on the Fosters Homestead Ranch? (1x01-1x02) ...then it's never mentioned again.
3. I am aware I am the only one who cares about this little bit, but the show seemed to set up a narrative in season 1 about the spotlight Roswell shined white victims of crimes - like Katie and Jasmine, that the town of Roswell holds quite a lot of racism regarding justice- vilifying Rosa for over 10 years, ignoring the deaths of people around Ranchero Night, and then Noah kills Wyatt Long's best friend Hank Gibbons in 1x13. I dunno, I was expecting more from Wyatt in season 2 about this than picking a fight with Michael over Mimi's missing persons sheet and showing up with a crossbow in 2x04. And like, there was a theme of people going missing in season 2!! Mimi, Jenna, the weird twins from 2x06, Charlie -- but yet, no closer scrutiny by Sheriff Valenti other than her focus on Max Evans and the story about Mexico- Like this felt not like a plot hole, but a dropped narrative -- to wrap up the fate of Racist Hank in a missing persons sheet in 2x01. To treat him weirdly like all of Noah's other victims (who were women and men of color and poor), but for a few factors like he was white, he had actual lines in the show over a couple of episodes, and he's one of the few townspeople we learn his first and last name still sticks out in my mind as strange. The Doylist explanation is the actor wasn't available for season 2, but the Watson-perspective of this is just someone the in-show universe doesn't care about ...? Okay. I will keep that in mind, and try to ignore the fact that the town of Roswell swings wildly back to caring about white victims again in 2x13 with Jesse Manes.
4. The Alighting from 1x13 - just how far away was it from happening? Noah was ready to stick a sheriff's deputy, the town event planner and Michael (who probably would be been the only one to go missing without much fanfare, except maybe by Alex) into a pod...for how long? Months? Years? What was his endgame? how did he expect to go unnoticed by the town while he waited for his alien salvation/alien UBER to arrive? Could he just mindwarp everyone into forgetting about the pod squad? Since we didn't see any alien ships show up in the six months from 1x13 to 2x13, and no further follow up by any of our heroes about what Noah was babbling about... I'm going to say this should come back into play for season 3, otherwise it's the most egregious plot hole from season 1.
5. Why did Flint want to work with Helena? Jesse had this master plan that Helena knew all about apparently but she never shares the plan with Flint? Jesse never shares this plan with Flint either? Why? As far as I can tell from the plot of season 2, Jesse takes the console piece from Alex, he was going to kill Alex to keep him out of the way, use the console to blow up civilians, he created a paper trail that pointed the finger at Max, and then when everyone knew the truth about aliens, he was going to use HIS atomizer bomb to release the toxin that Charlie had already developed for Project Shepherd to kill all the aliens.... WHY would Flint want to stop that, especially since they fight in 2x11 over how slow Jesse was moving in his plans? Other than objecting to killing Alex, why would Flint turn Alex over to Helena to blackmail Michael into building a second atomizer bomb? He should have just kept Alex out of the way until it was all over and let Jesse proceed with his plans. Flint's desire to work with Helena Ortecho remains a plot hole to me, that is explained in the most flimsy way of he thinks his dad isn't serious about killing all the aliens even though he has the means? And if he takes Alex from Jesse's control so easily, why not steal the bomb Jesse had too?
6. These are more gripes about continuity, not really plot holes, but the fact we have this loose timeline of events but it doesn't match the weather of filming.... Like Heather Hemmens looked so gorgeous in that little silk outfit in 2x01, but she's wandering outside in Dec in Roswell New Mexico looking like that. I get that it was filmed in August/Sept of 2019 but come on... so my main frustration is I have no idea what season and month is supposed to be on screen. Universe timeline says Winter but filming schedule meant it was early fall with still having the heat of summer there...then the show ends in May/June in the universe, but we all know RNM wrapped in Dec 2019/Jan 2020 so they are all bundled up in winter again.
7. Also on continuity, small things like Rosa's birthday being wrong, the fact her astrological sign isn't Pieces for either date, openly letting Greg Manes see Rosa, not seeming to care that Liz's ex-fiance hears that Rosa is alive - like i'm sure her "dead" sister came up in conversation between Liz/Diego
- the show gives us this beautiful conversation with Michael sharing his background with Alex in 1x10, but then Alex completely forgets it in 2x04 by dropping some line like "this is what you do with family" when Michael expresses confusion about a height chart. Also, on the same note- the jabs about the Library being a dive bar, also felt like a drop in continuity because Alex knows that Michael just lost his mom (1x12) , the government IS studying aliens, and his brother is in a pod, so like, he has some very valid reasons to drink if that's what he wanted to do with in his life in early season 2!! but, also he knows Michael is a genius??
- Why Alex never mentions Rosa, Isobel's blackouts/why Michael gave up UNM, or even hint about what happened with his dad in the shed during his conversation with Maria in 2x05 is also beyond bizarre to me. It was an "information" dump conversation that Alex still doesn't share all the information he has about a situation and just ends up looking kind of judgmental in my opinion.
- the truck conversation in 2x06 between Maria and Alex, why Maria prompts a girl's name when Alex says he's never been in a real relationship INSTEAD of addressing the very real elephant in the room, Michael Guerin, that they had a conversation about in 2x05- also feels like a gap in continuity.
8. Science wise- the pathogen that Charlie developed? It was supposed to be so specific that it could kill a leader of Al Quada and all of their direct descendants but leave the rest of the population unharmed. [Which um, that's a war crime, but whatever!] How was Maria affected? the DNA they had at Caulfield to develop it - like, Maria was descended from Louise and Louise lived free. The only person that pathogen SHOULD have affected was Michael (if they used Nora to base it on) Unless you're telling me that there's some protein in "alien dna" that is so specific to aliens, that no other human shares it, but also so completely undetectable that Kyle couldn't find it in Maria's blood... ? I suppose it's possible. I hope we get more explanation about that in season 3. It makes me wonder why Caulfield/Project Shepherd ever let Patty Harris go after she volunteered for some study then, and remained content to just pay her medical bills through a fake insurance company? [But also didn't flag Mimi and all the doctors that Maria took her to???]
9. Michael's hand. I'm going to reserve judgment about this, because some of my salt on this is based on season 3 promo pictures, but I really thought that moment in 2x13 when he takes off his hat, while Alex is singing, you see him without the wrapping on his hand, that maybe he found some peace with Jesse dead and demolishing the shed with Alex. But then it looks like the hand-danna is all over season 3, right up until the finale of season 3, so... was that a mistake in wardrobe AND not a beautiful moment of character growth??? I wish I could extend some grace to RNM about that, but alas... see above for why I have trust issues.
10. Perhaps I wasn't watching season 1 closely, but I thought Noah's madness was brought on by the fact he was stuck in his pod? That it was "lower class travel accommodations" and Isobel's scream at 13 got his attention? I assumed that he stayed in the pod, possessing Isobel on and off, right up until he used her body to kill Rosa in 2008, absorbing enough power to break out. So how did Noah find Jim Valenti so quickly? If it was through Isobel's memories, then why did Jim not immediately have Noah, some random alien approaching him about his recently dead daughter, hauled off to Caulfield? Jim pays $1,000 for Rosa's body, putting her in a pod [Noah's broken pod??] and stores her, waiting for...something? An alien to come along to bring her back. So did Jim know about The Savior? Why would Jim work with Noah and vice versa? Again, I'm hoping we get more about this in season 3.
11. Was there a point of keeping Alex in the Air Force? He arranges a place for them to work on bringing Max back, but I feel like anyone could have done that? Like Isobel had money, she could have rented a storage facility. All of the equipment was borrowed from the hospital, not the military. The information about 1947-1948 was from the drives decoded from Caulfield or the AAR report left by Flint in the Project Shepherd bunker (which again was decommissioned, not an active military installation). I could support the decision if it had provided some richness to the plot or some conflict within the character, neither of which really happened. Alex hacking the government and going undercover in the Air Force to protect Michael is basically fanon. I love that fanon, but alas...
12. Finally, the time jump. What year are we jumping into? 2020? 2021? Why does it make me think none of those questions above will be answered.
19 notes · View notes
themonkeycabal · 4 years ago
Text
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Episode 1 SPOILERS
If you need to blacklist, I will be tagging all things as #tfatws and/or #tfatws spoilers
My roommate keeps calling this The Falcon and the Snowman. I'm not entirely sure it's accidental.
I was going to watch at midnight and then fell asleep. Betrayal. I will not forgive this, brain.
Bucky Barnes character development. Sam Wilson character development. Six full episodes of Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson. When we watched Civil War, did we think we'd actually be lucky enough to get a buddy idiot cop movie? Let alone six hours of it? #blessed
What are we expecting here? I have no idea, honestly. I think all the clips we've been seeing are from the first couple episodes, so they've hidden any sort of plot from us. We know Baron Zemo's around with his stupid purple ski mask and burning hatred for superheroes and probably specifically for Bucky who he tried (and honestly kind of succeeded, before then ultimately failing dramatically) to set up. And Sharon Carter will turn up at some point. OMG guys, Sharon Carter character development!
I'm just here for the buddy bickering and badassery.
SPOILERS BELOW
New World Order: Sam Wilson and Bucky Barnes realize that their futures are anything but normal. *Realize*? lol
Also, it's tagged as "science fiction, action-adventure, buddy" Awww.
Aww, Sam looks sad as he gazes at The Shield.
"How's it feel?" "Like it's someone else's." "It isn't."
That's right, Sam! Listen to that voice. That's yours now, baby.
We're just going to roll right into a mission. Rescuing a Captain Vassant, whose plane fell out of contact shortly after take off, from the ridiculously named group LAF, somewhere over Tunisia. Sam's got to keep LAF from doing bad things and the US Military can't be seen doing anything blah blah blah, violation of treaties, yada yada. And Sam's all "blah blah got it". We're on the same page, Sam and me. Nobody wants to hear it, Briefing Exposition Guy.
We will have a Lt. Torres on the ground following along and offering helpful commentary as they go.
Sam is warned to be subtle as he falls backwards out of the cargo plane in very dramatic fashion and then swoops off on his brightly colored wings. lol
Sam gets to the captain's plane but the pilot is dead and a shady LAF guy is piloting. Oh no. Hey, it's Batroc. Last seen getting his ass kicked by Captain America in "CA: The Winter Soldier". He makes some jokes about their prisoner - presumably Captain Vassant. Awful cocky for a guy with a history of getting stomped on, you know.
Anyway, he's about to get his ass kicked by a Captain America again as Sam breaks into the plane. You might just be using wing shields now, Sam, but you're Captain America in my heart. Also, hey, dumb bad guys, don't open fire with an automatic weapon inside a plane or the ricochets might kill your pilot. And his body will slump forward and put the plane into a steep dive.
Batroc distracts Sam while the bad guys gather up Vassant and jump out of the plane with him. They have wingsuits, but Sam has, you know, wings. And like a jet pack. Don't hit the canyon walls, Sam!
Somehow the bad guys have waiting gunships. Did they expect to jump out of the plane over this canyon? I can only assume. Red Wing takes care of one of the helicopters. Man these guys are a pain in the ass. They wing suit into one of the many many helicopters that just happen to be right in the right spot. They're racing for the Libyan border. Then Sam shows up, they throw Vassant out the copter again — this guy is having the worst day — and glide into another chopper.
Man ANOTHER gunship? The hell? They're causing serious ecological damage to this canyon, what with all the zillionty missiles they're firing at Sam. How strapped is this thing?
LT Torres is trying to keep up, and you know, trying to get Sam to not fly into Libyan territory and cause an international incident or some such. Sam is struck by inspiration and not by a missile. But, the missiles are following Sam and Sam is following Batroc's chopper. Sam zooms through the open doors of the chopper, knocks poor Vassant out of the chopper AGAIN (but then catches him), and LAF blows up their own helicopter. Alas, Batroc escaped.
Sam saves the day and LT Torres is like super excited. Don't break your humvee, Torres.
Torres and Sam stop by a tea shop in Tunis, or somewhere. Sam's trying to fix his tech that got a little shot up and Torres buys the tea. A man comes up and thanks Sam for saving his wife. It's sweet. And then Torres gets up and wanders about a bit with his phone as he exposits about LAF. Is Torres about to become a pin cushion? Only instead of pins it'll be bullets? I'm not feeling good about his continued health. He's too cute and earnest.
Oh, he's looking for some sort of hidden, augmented reality tag on the walls. A red handprint, id'ing some group that calls themselves the Flag Smashers. Bad guys are really scraping the bottom of the evil name barrel. Anyway, they think the world was better during the blip. Nothing says better like mass failure of infrastructure and probably world wide famine. They want a unified world without borders. I have big doubts the world would be a borderless utopia during a blip-like event. Power vacuums invite trouble, seldom unity.
Anyhoo. Sam kind of agrees with me, "every time something gets better for one group, it gets worse for another".
Torres will track the 'online chatter'. But he's also heard some wacky things about Steve Rogers, conspiracy theory stuff, "they think that he's in a secret base on the moon, looking down over us". LOL. What? Is Steve a moon angel now? or Santa Claus? "You didn't like fly him to the moon?" Sam assures him that's all very much silly foolishness. Steve's in Boca working on his tan.
Sam's back in D.C. giving a talk about Steve at the Smithsonian's National Air & Space museum. "And he mastered posing stoically". Hey, I have that picture. Also, RHODEY! Hi Rhodey!
"A few months ago, billions of people reappeared after 5 years away. Sending the world into turmoil." Again. I know this was meant to come out before WandaVision, but timeline-wise this works better.
"We need new heroes. Ones suited for the times we're in. Symbols are nothing without the women and men that give them meaning." Sam holds up The Shield. "I don't know if there's been a greater symbol." Aww, he's retiring the shield. He hands it off to museum people and they put it in a display case. I think Rhodey has some thoughts about this. I suspect Rhodey maybe doesn't agree.
Sam and Rhodey wander through the Cap exhibit and Sam's talking about how when he left (or got snapped, it's not like you had a choice about that, Sam), his nephews were babies and now they're little men. Awww. Rhodey says Sam should bring them to D.C., he'll teach them how to fly, "the right way". lol.
Rhodey says it's crazy to think nobody will be carrying the shield. Sam points out they went 70 years without, so like …
Rhodey wants to know why Sam didn't take up the mantle. BTW, this is a cool exhibit, marvel peeps. Sam says it feels like it belongs to someone else … Steve. Rhodey says everything's broken. Allies are enemies, things are torn apart. People are looking for somebody to make it better. Having made his pitch, Rhodey leaves Sam to stare mournfully at the shield. I think you're afraid to pick up the shield, Sam. Afraid you won't measure up. But, you can do it. I have faith. Also, Steve was kind of a disaster in his own way. He wasn't perfect, which was the point of Steve as a hero. Pick up the shield, Sam.
A fancy hotel, chatting people in the lobby, up to a mezzanine, a group of very Russian oligarch looking dudes and their security. And lo! A metal arm punches through a wall and the Winter Soldier, looking very Winter Soldiery appears and stabs some dudes in the neck. This has a sepia, dream/nightmareness to it. Oh yeah, it's his old shiny silver arm. Totally a nightmare/very bad memory. "Hail Hydra" and he kills the head Russian guy. The poor dude who was just chatting in the lobby is caught trying to get into his door. He swears he didn't see anything, begs for his life and the Winter Soldier shoots him. Bucky wakes up, breathing heavily. Poor Bucky.
Glad he's in therapy. I'm sure goat herding in Wakanda was good and peaceful and all, but, goats will only get you so far. Also glad we've skipped the "wanted terrorist" part and gone on to traumatized hero.
I get the feeling he's not the best patient. He lies to his therapist straight off. Twice. lol. "You're a civilian now. With your history the government needs to know, you're not gonna … [therapist makes stabby motion]." lol (I love this actress by the way. She's been in everything for ages. She's great). "It's a condition of your pardon. So tell me about your most recent nightmare." "I didn't have a nightmare." She starts writing, Bucky objects and tells her she's being passive-aggressive, but he gives in.  
He has a list of amends to make and three rules to follow. He crossed a name off. There's a Hydra pawn who's a senator, he helped her get into office. "After Hydra disbanded, she continued to use the power I gave her." Hmm. He tracks her car and listens in on her plotting to have a congressman killed.
* Rule number one: Can't do anything illegal.
He's hijacked the Senator's car and is remote controlling it, making it drive all out of control and freaking her out. He says he was collecting intel to give to an aide to convict her. Absolutely only did that. Not one illegal thing about that at all, no ma'am.
"Rule number two?" "Hmm. What was rule number two?" "Nobody gets hurt. It's a big one." "Then why isn't it rule number one?" Oh, Bucky, you're a jackass.
* Rule number two: Nobody gets hurt.
"I didn't hurt anybody. Promise." He totally broke a dude's hand and then punched him in the face, knocking him out. I mean, there's levels of 'hurt' I suppose.
"The whole point of making amends is to fulfill rule number three." "Of course I completed rule number three."
* Rule number three: "I am no longer the Winter Soldier. I am James 'Bucky' Barnes. And you're part of my efforts to make amends." He says to the corrupt senator he's just been terrifying. And then he walks away as a tac team pulls up. lol.
What I'm getting from this therapy session is that Bucky is a big fat fibber.
Also he's got a little black book full of names. Including, I see, H. Zemo. That's not going to go as smoothly as taking down a shady government fatcat, I think.
"So you did it all right, but it didn't help with the nightmares?" "Well, like I said, I didn't have any." Fibber.
People wanna help you Bucky and you can trust them. "I trust people," he mutters grumpily. She asks for his phone and he hands it over. Look, lady! Trust! Probably government mandated trust, but still!
"You don't have ten phone numbers on this thing." … I don't have ten phone numbers on my phone. :( "Oh, and you've been ignoring texts from Sam." Well …
"I am the only person you have called all week. That is so sad." lol. Tough love from the therapist. I'm feeling a little judged myself, though. "You're alone." ALRIGHT DON'T RUB IT IN!
"You're a hundred years old. You have no history. No family—" "Are you lashing out at me, doc? Because that's really unprofessional." I love you Bucky, but you are a disaster patient.
Bucky relents. "I'm trying. This is new for me. I didn't have a moment to deal with anything. I had a little calm in Wakanda. And other than that, I just went from one fight to another for 90 years." Get this man a goat farm!
"So now that you've stopped fighting, what do you want?" "Peace." A goat farm. "That is utter bullshit." lol "You're a terrible shrink." "I was an excellent soldier, so I saw a lot of dead bodies and I know how that can shut you down. And if you are alone, that is the quietest, most personal hell." Get some friends, Bucky. "I know you've been through a lot. But, you've got your mind back. You're being pardoned. These are good things. You're free." "To do what?"
On the streets of Brooklyn. Bucky breaks up an argument between neighbors about trashcans. Hey, Bucky has a friend! Yori Nakajima who's probably like 80+. Did you babysit him back in the day, Buck? har har. They were going to meet for lunch, but some punk named Unique was putting his trash into Mr. Nakajima's trash can and just derailed the whole day. The horror. No joke, though, people get so nutted up about that. It's weird to me. Of course, I did also have a neighbor who never put out his trash for pickup and just snuck out at night before trash day and distributed his garbage into in other people's bins. Cheapass.
"Hey man, I'm Unique. Like Monique but it's got a 'u' in there for uniqueness." Yeah, you should have let Yori smack him, Buck.
Well now Yori is just not in the mood for lunch. Bucky tries to persuade him, but one grumpy old man out grumps the other. "But Izzy. We always go to Izzy on Wednesday. What if I buy?" "Fine. But no talking." lol. BFFs!
Yori is looking at the obituaries. "Look, nobody made it past 90 this week." Bucky tsks "So young, such a shame."
Bucky kind of smiles at the girl behind the counter at the sushi joint, Yori tells him he should ask her out. Bucky makes a "are you nuts, shut up" face. That doesn't stop Yori. "He would like to take you out on a date. Maybe to bingo or a night of pinochle." You're a wild man, Yori!
She's down by it, though, and she and Yori hammer out the details while Bucky's like uh, okay, so wow, that's happening. "There's a dance to these things. You can't … you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943."
Yori sees something and suddenly gets sad. His son loves red bean mochi. His son was a consultant, working abroad and he was killed. Oh. Oh Bucky, why you gotta … Yori's son was the innocent witness he killed at the hotel in his nightmare/memory. "I will never know what really happened to him." Brutal.
Delacroix, Louisana
Sam's on his way home. Wilson Family Seafood. Aww. His nephews are helping mom with the catch. "Blue for the snapper, orange for the white fish," Sam calls out. The boys run over to him. They do look like fine gentlemen. It's weird, Sam, I get it. I recently realized my oldest nephew will be 13 in May and it's like "no, he's only in kindergarten, what are you talking about?"
His sister greets him then tells him he's looking all sneaky. Sam deflects. Their boat has seen better days. The Paul & Darlene. Aww. Is that his parents names? "Baby being held together by duct tape and prayers." Just needs to float long enough for his sister to sell it. But Sam's all, uh I thought we were going to *discuss* that. Uh oh, family drama. "We did, and then you were off fighting Dr Space Cape or whatever (lol), while I was holding it together for five long years." Ouch.
Sam is not down by this selling the boat thing. His sister doesn't seem to think they're in a position to hold on to it. Also, she'd really like to not hash this out on the pier with like twenty other people around, Sam.
They get into more of an argument on the boat. The family biz is not doing well financially. Sarah won't let Sam help for some reason, and he makes some comment about the house and loans and she punches him in the chest. lol "I forgot how hard you hit."
Sam insists they can turn it around, consolidate loans. And she's all, been there done that, I've come to terms with this. He's a persistent little jerk. This is such a perfectly sibling argument. Notably he has moved himself out of punching range.
Aww, she wants to believe he can save the boat, but she has DOUBTS.
Back in Brooklyn. Bucky attempts his date. He turns up at the end of the sushi girl's shift and gives her flowers. "Well, if that's not the most adorably old-fashioned thing anyone's ever done."
They chat while she tidies. He tried online dating oh lol. It didn't take. She tells him "You sound like my dad. Wait how old are you?" "Hundred and six." Oh yeah, what a funny joke. Next she wants to know why he's wearing gloves. "I have … um … poor circulation." He grimaces at himself and glances out the window. Smooth as silk, Bucky. Smoooooth.
"Let's play a game." Now, I'm thinking like some weird dating word/get-to-know-each-other game or something. I don't know. But, nope, she means Battleship. lol. I like her.
The drinking game version of battleship. Bucky sucks at it. "You sure can drink." "Yeah, well." Super assassin, unfair advantage.
We're just going to rub in this whole The Winter Soldier killed Yori's son thing, as she says it's nice that he's spending time with the old man. Since he was all messed up after his son was murdered and how it was extra hard because he didn't know what happened. I'm not sure this is healthy, Bucky.
"There's no word for someone whose kids die." Okay, ouch, lady, jeez. Bucky looks like he wants to puke. Or crawl into a deep dark hole. Or something. "Because it's the worst thing that can happen." Bucky nopes right out the front door. So, maybe they should have played pinochle instead.
Bucky goes to Yori. Are you really going to tell this man you murdered his son when you were a brain-washed Hydra assassin? Yori asks how the date was, and Bucky sees a shrine to the man's son in the apartment. Poor Bucky. He makes some excuse about owing Yori for lunch and leaves. Yori's name is in his book of amends. :(
Back in Louisiana. Sam and the kids are packing up meals. His sister maybe wants to sell meals in addition to fish. Sam says they've got to get going to their appointment at the bank. She's says it's in an hour. Sam must be just the worst brother to live with "There's no such thing as on time. You're either early or late. Pick one." Man, no wonder he gets punched.
Switzerland
Lt Torres is walking down a street with an unusually large number of people just sort of milling around in the middle of the street looking at their phones. He's got his kind of hidden, recording. He stops a guy and asks if he knows what they're supposed to be doing. Oh it's the flag munchers, or whatever. There's a weird phony bird whistle and then people gather around a person handing out masks with red handprints on them. His decoy bad guy phone chirps and gives the order to run. A guy jumps out of a nearby building with two huge duffle bags (of money it seems) and walks off while the previously milling people become a seemingly panicked mob, distracting police and whatnot.
Torres tries to arrest the jumper guy, who appears to have some super strength as he kicks a policeman halfway across the street. Torres, you're cute, but not super bright. Torres gets body slammed and then stomped. He survives again, however, defying the odds.
At the bank. The account manager keeps giving Sam the side-eye as he goes through their paperwork. "Do I know you from somewhere." Sam's all modest, "I don't know. Do you?" And then he makes a little wing flappy move with his hands. lol. What a nerd. "Falcon!" Then he takes a selfie with Sam. Sarah is very done with all this. She tries to get them back on track. Account guy wants to know how Avengers make a living. Probably not looking good for your loan, Sam.
"Is there some kind of fund for heroes? Or did Stark pay you when he was around? My condolences, by the way."
Yeah, financially this is looking bad, my dude. "You have no income over the last five years." Well, but, he was blipped. I mean …
Alas, shot down for the loan.
Sam and Sarah argue on the street. Ah, Sam ran off to the Air Force and didn't deal with what was going on at home. Oh my, this is getting ugly. Speaking as someone who got disowned on account of a family business, let me just say, they're not easy. Nuh-uh.
"Half the boat's mine and so is the house. We're not selling our family's legacy." "You gonna do me like what when you know I'm right?"
I get it might be awkward to ask, but I bet you could have asked Pepper for a loan, Sam, and she would have given it to you gladly. Come on, man.
Later. Sam's working on the boat's engine, and it's not cooperating. In the cabin he looks at the family pictures on all the walls. He's having a rough day. About as rough as Torres who texts him to find a secure line and call him along with a selfie of his bruised and battered face. #important (lol, really?)
Sam watches the footage Torres caught and they chat about how Torres was supposed to be doing that stuff online and not getting his face kicked in in Switzerland.
Sarah interrupts and turns on the TV. Some guy is giving a speech about how everybody needs a hero. "We need someone who can inspire us again. Someone who can be a symbol for all of us. So on behalf of the Department of Defense and our Commander-in-Chief, it is with great honor that we announce here today that the United States of America has a new hero." hmm, no comment. Except, you should have taken up the shield, Sam. Now it's Sam's turn to look like he's going to puke. What did I say about power vacuums? Somebody will fill them, whether you want them to or not. 
This new guy looks like a goober. There, I said it.
credits
So … lots of setup. And very clear on the two guys trying to figure out where they fit in this world post blip and big wars. Both of them trying to fix broken families.
Plus a goober in a Cap suit.
So far so good. 
30 notes · View notes
blueberrypossum · 4 years ago
Text
The Daily Hardship of Loving You
Dastardly Danny x reader
Danny is love, Danny is life. Who wouldn’t want to be saved by this wonderful rat?
This is another trade with @greaser-wolf ( so freaking excited for this trade man it’s gonna be amazing!!). Part of this scene is from the movie Suicide Squad, where Joker comes in to save Harely (btw I am not comparing Danny to Joker, Danny will treat you like gold, not like trash). I love writing action scenes and partners working together and supporting each other!! This my weakness. Hope you guys enjoy!
⚠️WARNING: ⚠️This fanfic will have explicit words and violence, viewer discretion is advised. Also a lot of angst!
Big Mama’s words will be colored green
Word Bank:
Zoot Suit- A certain style of a suit
Tawdry- made out of cheap or poor quality 
Pennies from heaven- Easy money
Passing the buck- Placing the blame on someone or something
The crowd cheered and booed around you as you stepped in the Battle Nexus sitting area, the foul air of sweat and snacks from the concession stand filled your nose as you took in the fight below you. The atmosphere around you was warm and rigid as you eyed the crowd, your eyes landing on Big Mama on her throne, her six red eyes darting back and forth. 
Your head turned to look down at the fight below, the two yokai’s fighting were at each other’s throats, their weapons clashing against each other’s as dirt clouds danced around them. 
This was only the first match, you and the boys had the whole night to do this plan perfectly. 
You slowly turned yourself around and away from the yokais, the keys you had swiped jiggled in your pocket as you went down the stairs. 
For weeks you had been working for Big Mama, just like the Mud Dogz, but you were a shiftly one and was able to gain her trust, the keys to her vault below the Battle Nexus practically falling into your hands. Of course you knew about the vault she had in her hotel, but Gus guarded that one like the loyal dog he was, but you knew he couldn’t be at two places at once. 
You were on the first level now and took a hard right, your eyes falling on the three figures that kept their bodies within the shadows. You came to a halt next to them, your hand now wrapped around the keys as you threw them over to one of the shadows, his hand instantly coming up to catch them. 
“Guessing you guys didn’t have much trouble?” You asked as the dark figures finally revealed themselves. The infamous Loathsome Leonard, Dastardly Danny, and Malicious Mickey came out in front of you, each having their own signature shit-eating grin. Leonard twirled the keys in his hands as they followed you to the basement door, “not at all, Big Mama’s guards don’t really know the difference between criminal and worker,” he joked. 
You moved over so then he could unlock the door, your body slipping over to Danny as the eel and the ogre took the first few steps down into the underground. 
“Where’s Big Mama?”
“Still sitting on her throne, watching as her subjects tear each other apart,” you laughed out as you trailed your fingertips against the brick wall, the indents and curves in the wall pushed against your hands. The tall rat took a hold of your hand as the stairs started to get steeper and the only source of light was from torches.  
“I really don’t understand the whole torch in a secret basement thing.”
“It’s tacky.”
“I would’ve done glow worms.”
“But they wouldn’t stay in one place.”
“Exactly. It’s unexpected.”
You rolled your eyes as you all finally made it to the last step, stones surrounded you instead of dark bricks and a long hallway strolled in front of you. Danny stood slightly behind you, his thumb gently sliding over yours to show that he was still there. He didn’t say it, but he honestly didn’t want you to go on this mission. You were basically walking over landmines for them to get the keys to Big Mama’s secret vault, but if they were caught down here then you would be punished too, possibly far worse than the Mud Dogz since you had been working closely with the spider yokai. 
The thought of it created a bad taste in his mouth and he quickly told his mind to think of something else, to think how after this he was going to take you to one of the best restaurants in town and buy you an expensive outfit to show you off in. His mind wandered to what kind of outfit would look best on you until you and the two other yokai’s came to a harsh halt. 
All four of you had walked down the hallway and had come to a hard left where two yokai guards stood, behind them a huge metal vault door stood silently.
You eyed the two yokai, your minding working to see if they would be an easy or hard fight. 
The rat laid his head on top of yours as you both continued to stare, a sneer rising against his face. 
“Jeez, Big Mama must be desperate for new recruits to have two geezer’s watching over her dough,” he whispered, his breath and whiskers slightly tickled the top of your head and you gently shook him off, mouthing sorry as he gave you puppy dog eyes. 
Leonard looked at the ancient weapons the yokai’s were holding and then back at the gang. 
“Alright, Danny, you’re going to go up to them and distract them-”
“Hold up, why me?”
“Because you got that suit, make ya look like the richest one out of all of us.”
“Well it is a zoot suit. I’m also an ace at persuading people.”
You let out a tch as he puffed out his collar, his eyes falling onto you. 
“Mickey and I will come up when you got them distracted and then Y/N will open the vault up with the passcode.”
The eel next to you snapped a bolt between his nubs as you gave a small nod, your hand landing gently on Danny’s back before he got up.
“Hey, be careful.”
He gave you a charming smile as he took the hand that was on him and gave a light kiss, his whiskers once again tickled your skin. 
“Always, love.” And then he came out from the corner and headed over to the two guards, his voice flaring throughout the basement like a singer at a concert. 
You could barely make out what he was saying to the yokai’s, but you could make out the words clothes, Big Mama, and tawdry. Of course he would spark up a conversation with those two about fashion.
A minute barely passed as Leonard and Mickey walked away from you, their bodys sticking to the walls like glue as they stalked over to the distracted yokais. They pounced right before the two guards had time to react, Mickey taking out one with his electric shock and Leonard busted one in the back of his head, both of them falling as Danny ended a corny one-liner about them. 
One of them smacked up against the keypad that was behind them, sending off a loud alarm in the tunnels.
You sprinted behind them and quickly pulled one of the guard’s keycards, scanning it and quickly typing in the code to turn off the system and the alarm. 
“Do you think anyone heard that?”
“No, and Big Mama won’t get a warning about it. It has to go off for a long while before she gets notified about it.”
The Mud Dogz let out a relief sigh as you pushed the vault door open and you entered into a golden palace. Piles of gold, cash, unicorns, and armor that looked like they were dipped into liquid diamonds were all placed in long rows. Each one of your mouths dropped at the beautiful sight, Mickey the only one squealing in glee as he dove into one of the many loose piles of unicorns and cash. 
You didn’t know that Big Mama had this much cash, but it didn’t surprise you either; with her cheating on the Battle Nexus and bleeding customers and opponents dry, you wondered if she had multiple vaults hidden within the city. 
Your ears perked up as Danny let out one of his roaring laughs as he dug his fingers into one of the several piles of golden coins. 
“OOOH boys we’ve hit the jackpot! It’s practically pennies from heaven!” He cheered out and then he wrapped himself around you, planting a tender kiss against your lips. You took in his sign of affection and kissed him back, your middle finger flying up as Leonard and Mickey let out fake gagging noises. Danny broke the kiss for just a second to whisper against your lips.
“It’s all thanks to you, doll.”
You let out a shy giggle as you felt your face go red with appreciation, you could never get used to how Danny treated you, it had only been a few months of dating and the yokai made you feel more respected and loved than any kind of royalty. His hand stayed wrapped around your hip as Leonard pulled out the infinite small vacuum he bought in Witch Town, the magical machine swiftly sucking up every last drop of gold, silver, and diamond until there was nothing left but the afterdust of the treasure. 
The battle above you roared and stomped louder as another fighter was taken down by the champion, you were honestly surprised that none of the wealth done here was painted with blood.
You couldn’t help but feel good about this, even proud. You craved for appreciation from Danny, from his friends, to the point that it almost blinded you from the trouble ahead. As Leonard placed the vacuum back in-between his shoulders, you all made your way back to the entrance of the safe.While Danny gave you his hand to help you up, Mickey looked behind with a nervous smile. 
“Ah, there were two guards, right?”
“Yes.”
“Oh that’s bad.”
You looked over from your place inside the door and only saw the yokai Mickey had knocked out, while the other one had disappeared. 
“Ah, I say we make it like dogs and run!” Danny ordered and you all quickly leapt off the safe door and sprinted down the hallway, your feet barely touching the ground as you kept up with the Mud Dogz. When you made it to the door, you weren’t at all surprised when the knob didn’t give in to your force and you looked down at Leonard. 
He got the hint and threw the bundle of keys back to you and you unlocked the door, your fingers barely pushing up against it so you could peek out. There was no sign of any yokai or Big Mama and you briskly got away from the door, the weight of the Mud Doz trying to peek out as well almost drowning you. 
They each gave their own sheepish smile as you glared at them and continued to look around. This was...strange. The only thing you could think of was that the guard went straight up to Big Mama to warn her, which meant you and the guys were gonna to be in deep shit in about five minutes. 
The crowd was barely a buzz in your ears as you followed them through the building, the lights from the Battle Nexus painting inself across your body like lights.
The four of you were almost to the exit of the Battle Nexus when a large guard came in front of your path, your feet coming to a slamming halt before you could run into the bug yokai. You took a step back as he took a step forward, your body instantly bending down as he swiped at you. 
More bug guards came around almost every hidden corner, giving each member of the group someone to fight. But, more and more kept coming, until you were surrounded. Each of you let out a litter of cuss words as you tried to push past, but there was no way out. Danny stood next to you, his arm barely lifted up as a form of protection. Fear screamed its way into your blood, your head racking through itself at how this plan had failed, how this could possibly be your fault for not double-checking things. And when Big Mama rounded the corner, you wondered if you would make it out alive. 
Danny couldn’t help but swallow as the spider yokai walked in, her long legs creaking against the concrete floor. His tail encircled itself around your ankles as Big Mama’s henchmen came closer, their eyes like daggers stabbing it each and every one of them. He knew he should’ve told you to stay out of this one, he knew that something always bad happened to them, and now you were caught in the middle.
“Ah! If it isn’t my wonderful yokai’s, the Mud Dogs. And my new assistant,” the female cooed as she switched to her human form. She circled around you, as if you were prey and she was a predator, even though all four of you towered over her with her being human. The anger that was held within her eyes blazed into you as she stalked over to you, her finger wiggling in your face as if you were a child. 
“Now, now, aren’t you a little disappointment,” she hissed, a slim finger curled under your chin and you quickly shook it off, your eyes narrowing at the woman. Big Mama only let out a rough chuckle as she snapped her fingers and you were separated from the Mud Dogz, your body barely having time to react as you gripped onto Danny’s hand. Danny instantly reached for you, the strength in his hand curled into your slipping hand as the guards came in between you two.
“Hey! Let go!”
“You keep yer slimy hands off of them!”
Leonard and Mickey lunged to help Danny keep ahold of you, their hands batting off the bug’s arms from the rat’s suit. You let out a cry as you felt the rat’s hand slip out of yours and the bug interlocked their arms around yours and slowly started to pull you away, Big Mama following behind them. 
“Finish them for me, I’ll deal with this one.”
Anxiety raced through Danny’s body as they placed their hands around you, dragging you away from them, from him. He couldn’t stop himself from watching you struggle in their grip, small grunts hissing out of your mouth as you were pulled further and further away from him. 
Rage didn’t even cover what coursed through his body, the blood within his veins almost boiled to the point of a fever as his nails dug into his hands. His eyes turned to Leonard and Mickey, and both of them looked at each other, because for a split second, they believed they saw murder within the rat’s eyes. Danny gave his friend’s one look and Leonard and Mickey nodded to the silent order that the rat gave and they each turned towards one of the guards.
You could barely see past the broadening shoulders of the soldiers, but you heard the brawling of fists and the heavy breaths from a fight. You struggled within the hold and then stomped your foot against the guard’s foot, your arm coming free to slam into the other guard’s face. The pain that pulsed through your hand was dull as you turned around-
And watched as Danny’s limpless body hit the ground with a deadly thud. 
For the first time, your mind went blank. You couldn’t focus on Leonard or Mickey or anything else around you except for Danny. He wasn’t getting up, why wasn’t he getting up, he had to get up.
“DANNY!” You called for him, Big Mama’s arms capturing you as you tried to race over him. His name drilled out of your mouth like a siren. You’ve seen him get knocked out, beaten up in a fight, but not like this, the way his body slammed into the ground was an inhuman sound that burned your ears. Your arms swatted against Big Mama’s resistance as you continued to wait, you waited for him to wake up, to give a signal that he was fine, just one flick of your ear Danny!
“Danny! Danny get up!!” You wailed to him and you could feel the clear liquid spill from your eyes. Big Mama changed back into her yokai form and spat onto you, cobwebs spilling over your wrists and mouth. But that didn’t stop you calling for him, reaching for him over the spider’s shoulder as she took you away. You thrashed around in the grip, sobs now clogging your throat with no release as the guard you had hit lifted you up and turned the corner, your eyes never leaving Danny as you were dragged away.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
   
You blinked a few times as you took in the bright lights of the Battle Nexus. You believed it had been a few hours, but you honestly didn’t know. There were no more battles and the stands were empty, it was just you, a few guards, and Big Mama looming over you. 
Your eyes felt raw with no moisture and your body went weak everytime they made you stand. 
Your mind was still empty, even with the female spider talking your ear off with her weird words. Your legs ached from sitting on them and you could feel exhaustion come over you like a storm. Her webs were sticky and tangled within your hands, almost as if it was sinking into your skin.
If you were caught, what about the others? Wouldn't they be next to you getting the “big” talk from Big Mama. Or maybe there was no one left to talk to.
The images of Danny flashed through your head and you tried your hardest to keep the tears at bay. You didn’t know you could be so emotional over someone, but he was Danny, he was your Danny. You hated your mind for thinking was.
You felt heat vibrate against your face as the spider backhanded you, your eyes closing hard as you took in your surroundings and the pain. 
“Were you even listening?!”
“Sorry, I don’t speak dog.”
Big Mama smiled at you and lifted her hand, your face scrunched up to prepare for the blow. But the woman turned around, her fingers instead messed with her outfit as she smoothed out the wrinkles. 
“You won’t be saying that when you become a chew toy for my new Battle Nexus Champions,” she chirped, a wicked smile on her face as she walked away, the echo of her high heels ringing in your ears. 
You didn’t listen as the woman gave specific orders about you to the guards, how once dawn comes, you will be nothing more than table scraps. 
Maybe this is how it’s supposed to go. You were nothing more than a lying thief, you went behind yokai’s backs and would tear them apart until there was nothing left but the money in their pockets. Maybe your death will be quick, maybe Danny is waiting somewhere for you, it’s almost like you could hear him calling your name.
Wait a damn minute, you could hear it.
As the bug guards walked towards you, a knife struck the ground, barely a inch away from one of the yokai’s feet. You looked up to see one of the large flying birds that was used as transportation in the Hidden City, it’s bat-like wings flying effortlessly above the Battle Nexus as it came into view. 
Music blasted into the circular arena and you quickly rolled forward with it, aiming the webs perfectly with the blade as it tore your bondage into two. The guards next to you went flying towards the wall, the sound pushing them against it. Once free, your hand pulled the knife out and raced over to the nearest thing to protection, a large shield with half of it buried into the dirt of the arena. 
You gave a swift peek from behind the shield and watched as sound waves were perfectly aimed towards the guards that were rushing in, not even giving the yokai time to protect themselves. Confusion jittered inside of you as you finally looked up at who was on the birds. 
You could make out the band members of DIGG and you could recognize the singer, Prairie Dog, singing her heart out into the mic as her band members played their instruments alongside her. 
Big Mama came running into the arena and then was slammed into the wall by the bass of the music, the uncomfortable look on her face was unforgettable. 
“Y/N!”
Your body instantly perked up. Your head poked out from behind the shield as you looked for him. It had to be him, you heard it, you knew that only one voice could say your name like that, to call your name as if it was a melody. 
There he was, standing alongside Leonard and Mickey, beaten up and swollen, but as you watched his chest rise and fall and as he smiled when his eyes laid upon you brought everything back to you. 
As ideas and thoughts raced through your head like a car track, you came out of your hiding spot to fully show yourself to him. 
When you finally showed yourself to him, Danny swore that he felt like a whole new man. After you were taken away, Leonard and Mickey fought off the rest of the guards and dragged Danny out of the Battle Nexus and went to the closest place they could think of: The DIGGS apartment. Once he woke up and treated his wounds, all six of them came up with a plan to get you back, and after stealing a few birds from the stables, it seemed that they came just in time to get you. 
One side of your face was red and a dried up blood trail went down from the corner of your mouth. But you stood tall, you stood proud to show him that you were okay, and that you were ready to get the hell out of there with him.
 The sound of you screaming for him will never leave his head, for years to come he will think about it, even now just seeing you the flashes he barely saw during the fight when you were taken away crossed his mind. It was as if his heart was being scorched into charcoal. 
Danny was known for holding the best promises, and once he got you back, he will promise you that you would never feel like that ever again. 
And when you wake up in the morning after all of this, he will remind you that he is still there, and that he was not going to go anywhere at any time, not when he had you.
You had to find a way to get up to him, even with the music blaring the guards away, you noticed they were starting to break against the mold of the music. Then you saw the rope that Danny threw down, landing perfectly in the middle of the Battle Nexus. 
“Come on, darling! I’m waitin for ya!”
You released a heavy sigh as you sprinted towards the rope, the wave blasts of music barely missing you as you felt the guards chase after you. Every fiber in you was being burned but you made yourself go faster, and once Big Mama started to spit webs at you, you made yourself do twists and turns to dodge them. She kept calling your name, saying what she will do to you will be far worse if you ran, but you continued onward. 
Her words no longer mattered to you, nothing else mattered but one thing as you jumped onto the rope and out of one of the guard’s reach.
Him.
 Leonard sent the bird up and flew you above the large coliseum, the DIGG band following gradually behind, giving out howls and thanking the guards and Big Mama for being a good audience. 
Your fingers and waist were wrapped around the rope as you were taken over the city, you and the guys waved good-bye to the band DIGG as they flew back to their apartment and the ogre steered the bird towards home. You took in the musty and polluted breeze and looked up to see Danny looking down at you. 
“Aren’t ya gonna climb up?”
“And risk falling? No thanks.”
He opened his mouth to answer back but you interrupted him by saying, “and don’t say you’ll catch me because last time that happened I fell on the floor while we were dancing.”
“Oh, that was one time, doll.”
“And it will be the only time I will get off this rope when we land.”
He let out a breezy chuckle as you situated his hat back on his head and then Mickey came into view, waving his left nub at you.
“Hiya Y/N! Did ya miss us?”
A faint laugh rumbled in your throat as you looked up at the Mud Dogz, at your boyfriend and your friends. Just mere hours ago you were crying, believing that they were all dead, that Danny was gone. And here you are, soaring over the city, a new enemy to track you down and an infinite pocket full of treasure. There were new tears sparkling in your eyes as you looked up at them.
“Of course I did.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
Danny carefully wiped the cut that was on your arm outside of his apartment. Leonard and Mickey were counting and almost rolling in the money they had taken out of the vacuum. You had taken a shower once you got there, cleaning off the dirt and sweat, your new wounds stung against the hot water. After it, your boyfriend called you to the balcony of their apartment to clean your wounds in peace, but you knew it was to get you two alone. 
You winced against his touch as he placed a binding around it, the alcohol burned into your body as he tugged your sleeve down.  
He placed a tender kiss on your shoulder as a way to say sorry and started to examine another wound on your leg when you finally spoke. 
“I thought you were gone.”
The rat paused in his place, the alcohol wipe in his hand had gone stiff. You looked away when he looked down at you, your eyes gliding over the hanging lights of the town, the liquid gold dripping over you and consuming you. 
“I know that this life is dangerous, we’ve had our fair share of beat downs and injuries,” you commented, the laughs of your friends barely reaching your ear as you continued.
“But when I saw you go down, I thought that was it. No more heists, no more dates, no more seeing you every day, no more hearing your voice or dancing in the kitchen at one in the morning.” He held up a hand to calm you, but you continued, new tears spilling from your eyes. 
“We never got to get married, to have kids, that I would never get to see you become a father and it killed me to the point that I accepted that Big Mama was going to-”
“Stop.”
You closed your mouth as Danny lifted your head up, his long fingers gently curling around your chin and you let out a heavy sigh as you dropped your weight into it, taking in his touch, the warmth in his hands. He put the medical stuff down and scooted himself closer to you, the shiny tears that shot down your face continued as his other hand ran through your hair and he kissed you. 
Every kiss from Danny was different. There were the kisses before work, they were quick and meaningful, the kisses during good news, how he held you without effort and his mouth gave you goosebumps, as if he was saying good job within the kiss. The kisses in the bedroom were deep and he hunted for your lips every second to feel your moans, to taste his name on your mouth. And then this kiss, the kiss he gave when you came back to the apartment beaten up or when you both had a fight and he would crawl in bed, his tail lightly wrapping around you as you cave in and dashed into his arms, entangling your mouth with his. 
It honestly hurt that he kissed you like this, the importance behind each one filled you up with love, with something you never had while on the streets, the one thing you’ll always be greedy for, not money or the adrenaline of being a thief, it was him. 
When you separated, you swore that his eyes were watery, but he bent back down to go back to work on your wound. After he banaged up the last gash he turned back to you, his hands going into yours as he carelessly brought his face close to yours. His comforting scent slowed down your senses as his whiskers once again brushed across your face. 
“I’m not going anywhere, doll. Not without you. So, don’t be worrying about marriage and children and stop passing the buck onto ya. I’m here with you, I promise.”
“Good, I need at least someone to handle these emotional outbursts.”
“Well, I do know a yokai that would do the job perfectly. He’s tall, got a tail, and wears a suit that makes everyone swoon.”
“Oh he sounds charming, can’t wait to meet him.”
“Me too, sweetheart.”
You giggled into his whiskers as his arm wrapped around you. As you got comfortable under his arm, Danny finally felt his body loosen up. He didn’t know that you felt like that, of course he knew that you cared, that you worried, but when the tears started to form and how each fear about him started to bubble up and out your throat. 
He never knew his heart could break like that. 
You were a whole new significance to him. He has had lovers, but no one like you, no one has stuck around as long as you, no one has talked about marriage or children with him. Even with being a criminal, Danny still wanted a family someday, and to hear that you wanted one with him was now going to be his reason to get up everyday, to get enough money until you both have enough to live without worry. Images of living somewhere with just you and your children came over him and he brought you closer. 
You both still had a long way to go, your futures weren’t drawn-out and he feared that you wouldn’t be in his life in the long-run. But with how you curled into his touch and planted a kiss against his neck and then settled yourself into his chest, he knew he would fight for you. After today, he would fight for you and with you to reach what you wanted: Happiness. 
45 notes · View notes
strangerays · 4 years ago
Text
Nothing in Particular Update #1
Hello, hello!! It’s been a really long time since I’ve written an update for this story! (this is a real update btw, forget the “first” one I had) To be honest, I haven’t been able to work on this story as much as I would like, being busy with classes and... well just life in general. (what I mean by this is that Shadow and Bone was released on Netflix) But! I do have some excerpts I wanted to put out there as well as some overall changes to the story.
Before I start: here’s the actual link to the story synopsis/characters!
TAGLIST (ask to be +/-): @wannabeauthorzofija @a-completely-normal-girl @baguettethebooklover @corkytheguar @writeherewaiting​ @raenawrites
STORY CHANGES/IDEAS:
First off: I had to rewrite 30,000 words and basically turn it into 10,000. The first draft was icky, but I turned it into something I really enjoy! This is a sign that writing is always worth it!!
I added in a couple of characters! I was starting to feel like the story might not have been balanced enough. Luckily, the muse struck me and I created Mars and Theo! Mars is a lovely (and enigmatic) older woman that Ray meets at a bird sanctuary and Theo is a new friend of Lonan’s.
There wasn’t much action in the beginning of the story, so I wrote a confrontation between Jude’s friends and another person that Ray spies on. This is how she meets Jude, and I am in lovvve.
The timeline for the entire story might be a little bit longer than I intended! I went into this project thinking it might only take place over a month, but in order for Ray’s mental health journey to be realistic, I’m going to shoot for an entire school year (around six-seven months). Honestly, I’m just happy I get to write a Halloween scene. As for the word count total HAHA I have no clue what that will look like.
I think Lonan will be a bit of a back-burner character! At first, I was a little wary of this decision since he’s my favorite, but I think it would be very exciting to have Ray hype him up before he ever appears in the story. That way, the reader sort of starts to think about him in one way, yet he might be completely different when he finally shows up...??
Chapter titles are one of my favorite things about this story. Also! I am a huge fan of short chapters! They move the story right along.
I prefer to write slower and use other projects to balance out this one when I get a little tired of it. Over the last month or so, I’ve gotten really into short story writing again! This has been really helpful in working on my specificity and pretty prose. Even though the short stories don’t contribute to Nothing in Particular, I’ve been taking a lot of what I’m learning and applying it!
EXCERPTS (UNDER THE CUT)
CHAPTER ONE: THE SPY
#1
During the summer between my sophomore and junior year, Lonan Herrings packed me into his Dad’s repainted Chevrolet, left his name sharp on his mother’s tongue, and drove to New York City at six in the morning. For the first time since we’d become friends, jealousy weighed our silence. He buzzed across the highway, even though we knew his mother had no intention of finding us.
#2
“Which animal would I be,” he asked, “if I left tomorrow and lived in the forest?”
“Why would you want to do that?” I smiled even though I knew he was probably serious.
His shoulders squared and he looked out his window. Two men in the next car shouted at each other, their windows down. Something about a mortgage. “You would come with me, of course.” He turned to me. “Which animal gets along best with a doe?”
#3
I shut my eyes to snap the cold. It might have been the fact that, most times, his gentle voice pulled ragged words from his throat, as if he had just stepped out of the rain after standing in it for hours. It might have been the way he cupped the rim of a camera with humble demure. I was never afraid to tell him anything in the patience that bled from him. His eyes were milky blue and he wore an olive jacket covered in pins that kept strangers interested. Since he seemed like he felt out of place most times, I never did. We were a grade apart; our friendship bloomed late. So long as I had a friend at all, I didn’t care how we’d met.
“You would be a blue jay,” I decided. For only a second, I’d been worried that I offended him, until his mouth curved to one side and he laughed softly, as though he wasn’t sure he was allowed. His head hovered over the steering wheel. A patch of freckles absently creeped over the bridge of his nose like winter weeds.
This first chapter is a flashback to exactly a year before the second chapter takes place! After an argument with his mom, Lonan drives out of state with Ray. I plan for it to be all we see of Lonan (in the present) up until the halfway point of the story.
CHAPTER TWO: I WAS QUIET
#1
I was a firm believer that the best art was created when the artist was alone, angry, or depressed.
After Lonan secured his train ticket to New York, I was surprised to find that I became none of these things. We buried a time capsule, painted his walls cerulean, and drove two-hundred miles without a word to anyone. Some of my most colorful memories were unplanned in the beginning.
#2
Katherine Herrings’ bakery loitered over the coast of town, sheltered in pitch crags and shallow tide pools congested with cigarettes. I often ate lunch on the deck on my break. She was the only person I knew who – after everything her nephew had said – didn’t make him the first topic of our conversations.
An indie rock song that I recognized buzzed from a radio below me. I pulled my tablet screen down and pushed my chair out so the plastic legs kicked up and scratched the backs of my legs.  Slowly, I peered between my ankles, through the patio boards, and into the boat lodge below. Pumpkin-red hair plastered to my forehead in the heat that clung to the late days of September. Waves bubbled and crashed, peanut oil dripped from hot dog buns, and muffled gossip chirped like a family of cicadas. I bit my tongue at the bitter smoke that warped the wind.
#3
Jude laughed then, and her shoulders tipped, haughty. Waves hissed in her silence as the lights in the kitchen behind Katherine flickered. Her mouth opened slightly at the ring of dishes and laughter that danced with each other inside. A moment passed before she took a wide step back.
Together, her accomplices waltzed after her as she ran down the pavement, flecking sand until the night’s blue air gulped their outlines. Katherine beat a towel against the patio leg, then she slid and locked the door. Frogs jeered in the silence that pervaded the sea.
I whispered the name back to myself so I wouldn’t forget it. Jude Ahuja. I took a sip of ginger ale, and she buzzed on my lips.
The story cuts to Ray’s senior year of high school. Summer has just ended, Lonan has left for college, and her camera is broken. Jude is a bit like a character out of a film to her, and she wishes she could know more about her after witnessing a loud argument with Katherine Herrings, Lonan’s aunt.
CHAPTER THREE: PEOPLE-WATCHING
#1
Early into our friendship, I’d learned this patience. The first time he brought me to Sugarfell, he told me that all of the paths led back to the same place. As long as you played the game, you were guaranteed a prize. He didn’t speak much, but I knew he wasn’t a very good liar.
Less than an hour passed when I was met with silence. I crept up and down the same path four times. Each step sent a shock through my legs to my chest. The sun hadn’t risen to the highest point in the sky, still glimmering through tree branches in golden fractals, pulling on static darkness.
#2
“Are you crying?” he asked.
I shook my head fast. “No.” My voice barely reached a whisper. It was a lot deeper than normal.
He puckered his lips as though I had offended him. “But you were about to.”
“You said that all the paths lead back to one another.” I stood up from the jagged stump and shuffled through the leaves until the tips of our shoes were inches apart. “I knew you’d come back. And you did.”
#3
When I turned back, sore curiosity teased the emerald in Lonan’s eyes.
“Do you ever people-watch?” he asked softly.
This chapter is another really short chapter that I’m ultimately not sure I’m going to keep! I sort of included it by accident while Ray was riding her bike to the forest, but I ended up really liking it as a bridge into the next scene. Hopefully, I find I way to make it fit!!
CHAPTER FOUR: SUGAR-COATED
#1
Years with Lonan had prepared me for being alone. If you spend any long amount of time with someone, you’ll become a thief to their behaviors. Lonan observed too much. If I stared long enough, trees began to replace all of the people we’d ever seen. Oaks with roots that serpentined the ground like children splashing in the bay, pines with needles like spindly old hands, maples with hollows like watchful eyes.
#2
I did remember, but I couldn’t then. Blood gushed too close to his eyelid and dripped down his cheek like tears. There was a grace period in my life – likely when I was a newborn – when I couldn’t picture what my blood would look like on the light side of my skin.
And this is where I’ll leave off on the excerpts for now! I’ve been really focused on taking my time and setting things up before the next chapter, which is going to have lots more action in it. Things are going to start picking up again, so I’m really excited for that!
Thanks for reading if you made it this far :)
11 notes · View notes
sociallyawkward--fics · 4 years ago
Text
Last Christmas
Here it is, lol. The fic I wrote last night with Wham!’s “Last Christmas” on repeat for literally Three Hours Straight lol. It is entirely unedited except for me having a friend read it over briefly and them go “you’re missing a period here” and nothing else lol. Please be kind though, I have not written for months and any Christmas fics I’m posting are more just warm-ups to get me back to the level of writing I was before I accidentally took a break, cuz no way I’m jumping back into my Big Projects without getting myself back up to par lol
ALSO, I know Jaskier seems like,,, really aggressive towards Yen in this fic. She's not meant to be a villain! Jaskier just is jealous and sad so he takes it out on her a little bit, which is definitely not the right thing to do but I think it's a very human thing to do. After this I imagine them going for coffee or smth and just lovingly trash-talking Geralt and realizing "wow we can actually be decent friends" lol
------------
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Category: M/M
Fandoms: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types; Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game); The Witcher (TV); Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Relationship: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Characters: Jaskier | Dandelion; Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia; Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg; Triss Merigold; Zoltan Chivay; Iorveth (The Witcher); Eskel (The Witcher); Vernon Roche
Additional Tags: eskel triss iorveth and roche are barely-there btw; Jealous Jaskier | Dandelion; Mistletoe; Getting Together; Misunderstandings; Miscommunication; Past Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg; Alcohol; Drinking; Smoking; (very briefly) - Freeform; Communication; Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings; Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia; Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia; Jaskier | Dandelion Has Feelings; Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion; Mutual Pining; Kissing; Hugs; Alternate Universe - Modern Setting; Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers; Alternate Universe - No Powers; Holidays; Christmas; Christmas Party
Word Count: 3614 words
[ao3 link]
------------------------------------------
It took an embarrassing amount of time for Jaskier to work up the courage to leave his car. Instead he sat there, heat off and car growing increasingly frosty, forehead against the steering wheel as he bemoaned his own very existence. He did not want to go to this party, which was very out of character for him.
But Jaskier couldn’t take another repeat of last year’s holiday party. And he knew the second he saw Geralt, he would be back there again.
They had both been decently tipsy, which was their first mistake, but Jaskier knew that neither of them were drunk. That’s why he had been so shocked when Geralt made the first move, pressing him up against the wall to the men’s room and ravishing his mouth. They’d gone home together to Jaskier’s flat and had a wonderful night together, but Geralt had been gone come morning.
They never spoke of that night. And by the next week, Geralt had been back in his on-again, off-again relationship with Yennefer.
Jaskier thought he’d gotten over it. As much as he didn’t regret it, it was clear that Geralt did, and he wasn’t going to push his feelings onto the man when they were so clearly unwanted. It was a miracle their friendship survived it, with how testy they had been with each other for weeks afterward.
Jaskier took a deep breath and tightened his scarf around his neck, finally leaving his car to make his way into the hotel ballroom that Foltest had booked for the night. At least their work holiday parties weren’t held in the offices, Jaskier wouldn’t have been able to force himself back to work after last year if they were.
Jaskier’s traitorous eyes immediately sought out Geralt the moment he walked in. He wasn’t hard to find, with his striking silver hair and refusal to wear anything but black. He stuck out like a sore thumb, in the sea of red and green and gold. But god, did he look good. Unfortunately, he was already occupied with the only other person in the room who refused to wear color: Yennefer. 
Jaskier forced his eyes away, directing them instead towards the makeshift bar. Zoltan was already there, and, judging by the red on his cheeks, already several drinks in. Jaskier couldn’t exactly judge. He was going to need quite a few drinks to get through this night as well.
“Good old Dandelion!” Zoltan crowed as he approached, words only slightly slurred.
“Zoltan,” Jaskier greeted with an easy smile, nodding at the bartender. “When are you ever going to give up on that silly nickname?”
Zoltan snorted. “You’re the one who calls himself a flower, Julian.”
Jaskier shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Soon enough, Jaskier had a drink in his hand and an earful of Zoltan’s voice, accent only growing thicker and harder to understand the drunker he got. He was barely following what Zoltan was talking about, anymore. Something about his ex father-in-law’s business tanking? He seemed rather pleased by it, in any case. Jaskier probably would be to, if he wasn’t still so anxious.
“What’s got a stick up yer ass?” Zoltan asked after a while, winding down from his latest story.
“Just… not in a partying mood, I suppose.”
Zoltan laughed uproariously. “You? Not in a party mood? Never thought I’d see the day!”
Jaskier gave a half-hearted smile, knowing Zoltan was too far gone to notice that fact, and let his eyes wander the crowd. After a few drinks, he was beginning to feel pleasantly tipsy. The idea of lasting out the party was actually beginning to feel manageable, though he still felt like giving Yennefer and Geralt a wide berth. They always exploded at these things, and Jaskier didn’t want to be caught in the middle of that.
Again.
That was one fight their friendship almost hadn’t survived, and it was the worst six months of Jaskier’s life. And that was including the past twelve months after the last holiday party.
“Come on, Dandelion,” Zoltan said, and Jaskier’s attention was drawn back to the bar. “Sit down for a game of cards with me! Or perhaps a round of dice?”
Jaskier laughed, his first true laugh of the night. “I know better than to gamble with you, old friend. It’s about time I mingled, don’t you think? Give the masses what they desire.”
Zoltan laughed again and gave him a sloppy wink. “Go get ‘em, tomcat. I’ll find some other poor fool to swindle.”
Jaskier grinned. “I don’t doubt it.”
Jaskier slipped away from the bar and into the crowd. He greeted people with hugs and kisses on the cheek, making them laugh and shove him away with teasing grins. He twirled between groups of people in a carefully perfected dance, muscle memory even with the alcohol in his system.
Unfortunately, that muscle memory rather quickly led him to Geralt’s current circle of companions. Yennefer and Triss were there, clearly making an intense effort to not be at each other’s throats. Eskel was there, which wasn’t surprising: as much as a sweetheart as he was, Eskel’s social skills definitely needed some development, and he tended to use Jaskier and Geralt as a social crutch (despite the fact that his brother was even worse with people than he was). Iorveth and Vernon Roche were on opposite sides of the little circle the group had formed, and Jaskier dreaded that disaster waiting to happen.
Really, how did Geralt attract such dramatic people to him so easily?
Despite how suddenly off-kilter Jaskier felt being so close to Geralt, last year flashing through his mind, he knew he couldn’t show it. Geralt would notice, and then it would be awkward for them both, and Jaskier would never forgive himself for ruining Geralt’s Christmas two years in a row.
So he flitted around the group, being his charming self. His smile felt forced as he gave Iorveth and Roche (very awkward) one-armed hugs. His stomach churned as he kissed Triss on the cheek. His balance felt off as he waltzed into Eskel’s arms for one of his patented bear hugs (though that was likely the alcohol, now that he thought about it).
“How is it that you’re already drunk, Jaskier?” Geralt said as Jaskier pulled out of Eskel’s arms.
Jaskier shot him a cheeky grin. “Not drunk, my dear--friend. My dear friend. Merely tipsy.”
“With a stutter like that forming?” Yennefer teased, holding out her hand.
Jaskier indulged her dramatics and pressed a gentle kiss to her knuckles, chest burning white hot all the while. His smile was probably slightly too-sharp when he stood back up again, but he couldn’t be bothered to fix it.
“The heavier side of tipsy, perhaps,” Jaskier replied, smoothly sliding in beside Geralt to drape himself over Geralt’s shoulders.
A chorus of titters and chuckles went through the circle and Jaskier furrowed his brow. He rubbed his face and ran a hand through his hair, searching for imperfections but finding none. He then looked toward Geralt for an explanation, but the poor man looked just as confused as Jaskier was.
“Aren’t you wondering why none of us were standing all that close to Geralt?” Triss asked, that coy smile Jaskier was all-too-familiar with making its way onto her lips.
And now that she mentioned that, it was odd. Yennefer was usually glued to Geralt’s other side, and Triss was almost always trying to butt her way in. Her jealousy tended to be a great deal more obvious than Jaskier’s, deliberately trying to provoke the two of them. Jaskier simply got drunk and wrote songs about unrequited love, he knew better than to try and put himself between them.
Roche rolled his eyes as Jaskier and Geralt still just stared at the group rather dumbly. He pointed upwards and their eyes followed his finger.
Geralt, very unfortunately, was halfway into a doorway. Taped to the top of the frame of said doorway was a little sprig of green. Jaskier felt his heart stop. He had to swallow to keep the bile from rising up in his throat. He pulled away from where he was leaning on Geralt. The group was still laughing and teasing good-naturedly, but Jaskier felt like his world was crashing down around him. He looked toward Eskel for help, being the kindest of the group.
Only Eskel just shrugged with a grin. “It is tradition.”
“Oh come on, now,” Yennefer said, her voice twisting around Jaskier’s throat like a noose. “We’re all adults here. Just get it over with.”
Jaskier slowly met Geralt’s eyes. He was impossible to read, even moreso than normal, and Jaskier felt that familiar pit open up in his stomach. He needed to get this over with and then smoothly make his escape. Perhaps claim he’d had more to drink than he thought and needed to call a cab.
“Jaskier?” Geralt asked quietly, barely more than a whisper.
Jaskier gave him a small smile and leaned forward. He pressed a feather-light kiss to the scruff of Geralt’s cheek before pulling away, his heart not able to take much more than that.
Jaskier couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes as he walked away.
Jaskier’s kiss was a barely-there peck to the cheek. Before Geralt could even hope to respond, he was gone.
The group’s teasing had quieted down, and Geralt dared to look up. Iorveth and Roche seemed confused, not close enough to the rest of the group to be caught up on the drama. Eskel seemed torn between beating himself up and beating Geralt up. Triss seemed guilty.
And Yennefer was just smug.
Geralt found himself grinding his teeth. Of course she was behind this (though it was clear that Triss had some hand in it, as well). Their most recent breakup, for once, had been amicable. The past few years had been hell for them, trying to make their relationship work even though they both knew it was never going anywhere. Jaskier was Yennefer’s last straw.
Geralt was more horrified that Yennefer had so easily picked up on his feelings for Jaskier than hurt by the breakup. If she had picked up on them, then surely Jaskier had?
Is that what that hauntingly sad smile Jaskier gave him before he kissed him was for? Did Jaskier pity him? Was he trying to let Geralt down easy?
“Go after him,” she said simply.
“Yen, this isn’t one of your games--”
“No,” she replied, voice suddenly terse. “So stop treating it like one and act like an adult, Geralt. I think we’ve all had quite enough of you two being like this, and it only got worse after last year’s party.”
“Which you still won’t talk about,” Triss chimed in, raising an eyebrow.
“So go talk to him.”
Geralt resisted the urge to growl. “Fine.”
Jaskier wasn’t hard to find, when you knew him as well as Geralt did. He liked to be high up when he was upset, saying it made him feel like he was getting some perspective on his problems. Geralt liked to joke that it was because he was more at home with his head in the clouds.
Jaskier was on a balcony overlooking the city, a pack of cigarettes sitting on the railing. A lit one rested between his fingers, the smoke curling into the air and entwining with the condensation trailing from his lips thanks to the cold air.
“I thought you quit,” Geralt said quietly.
Jaskier turned his head, not far enough to face Geralt but far enough to let Geralt see the wry half smile on his lips.
“You know how the holidays are,” Jaskier replied, taking a long drag from his cigarette and turning back to the cityscape.
Geralt moved forward to lean against the railing next to him, letting out a heavy sigh and watching the white vapor twist into the air. He didn’t know how to have this conversation. Between the two of them, Jaskier was by far the more emotionally intelligent one. With him shutting down like this, Geralt didn’t know what to say.
“Are you… okay?”
Jaskier snorted. “Yeah, Geralt. I’m great.���
Geralt considered the words for a few moments, turning around the tone of voice in his head. “Sarcasm,” he decided. 
It was much easier to decipher when he himself was using it, rather than try to pick out when others were.
Jaskier sighed, hanging his head. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Geralt shook his head. “What’s going on?”
Jaskier took another drag of his cigarette. “Nothing, Geralt. Don’t worry about it.”
Geralt let out a frustrated growl, not sure how else to express himself in the moment. He snatched the pack of cigarettes off the railing (breathing out a sigh of relief when only one was missing -- the one between Jaskier’s fingers) and ripped the lit one out of Jaskier’s hand, tossing both items over the edge of the balcony.
“What the fuck, Geralt?!”
Geralt stared at him. “You told me last time you quit to not let you start up again.”
Jaskier groaned and put his head into his hands. “Shit. I did, didn’t I?”
Geralt hummed an affirmative.
“Aside from saving my lungs, was there something you needed, Geralt?”
Geralt leaned back against the railing, clasping his hands together. “To know what’s had you acting so weird all night.”
He felt Jaskier’s eyes on him, could see him staring out of his peripheral, but Geralt kept his eyes on the lights of the city. With all the light pollution, it was probably as close to stars as they would get without driving out to the mountains.
“You really want to know?” Jaskier asked eventually, his voice low.
“Yes.”
“Tonight I was pressured into kissing the man that broke my heart, about a year ago now.”
Geralt flinched back, finally looking over toward Jaskier. Jaskier was still staring at him, his blue eyes almost seeming to glow in the dark of the balcony.
“Who--Who broke--”
Jaskier raised an eyebrow, face remaining impassive.
Geralt hesitated. “I broke your heart?”
Jaskier sighed and turned away, looking toward the horizon. “Last holiday party, we went home together. We made love for hours. I told you I cared for you deeply. And when I woke up, you were gone.”
Geralt wanted to say something, wanted to defend himself, but his voice felt like it was glued in his throat, unable to escape.
“Barely any time had passed before you were back in Yennefer’s pocket, not a thought given to us. And we never talked about it.”
Geralt swallowed. “I didn’t realize--”
Jaskier threw his hands up in the air, a frustrated laugh escaping his lips. Geralt’s frown deepened when he saw Jaskier’s eyes glistening.
“Didn’t realize what, Geralt? I thought I was being pretty obvious about the fact that I’m in love with you!”
“Yennefer and I broke up,” Geralt said, deciding to tackle the topic he knew how to talk about first.
Jaskier snorted, leaning his back against the railing and crossing his arms. “What else is new?”
Geralt shook his head. “For good, this time.”
Jaskier only stared at him. Geralt huffed out a breath as he searched for his words, running a hand through his hair.
“You know how… Sometimes, you can have a great friendship with each other, but when you try to date you end up being really toxic and horrible to each other? That’s me and Yen.”
“Could’ve told you that three years ago. Oh wait, I did.”
Geralt sighed. “I know. I’m sorry I didn’t listen, Jask. I just… I wanted it to work so bad, we both did. Even though we knew it never would.”
Jaskier looked down at his feet. “I know. I’m sorry for snapping like that.”
“It’s okay.”
Jaskier looked back up at him. “So what was the final nail in the coffin? What sealed the deal for you two?”
Geralt looked away, choosing a specific building to look at and staring at it intensely. His fingers itched to fiddle with something, but he forced them to stay still, clenching the freezing metal of the railing.
“I love Yen. But she and I both realized that I would never love her as much as I loved you.”
The silence stretched on for far too long and Geralt could feel his skin prickling with anxiety. His throat felt like it had swollen shut, making it difficult to breathe and impossible to get any words out. He wanted to look at Jaskier, see his reaction, but his body was locked in place.
“And if you love me so much, Geralt,” Jaskier said, his voice even more icy than the balcony railing leeching the warmth from his fingers, “why did you leave me?”
Geralt gave into the urge to fidget, reaching up for the pendant on his chest. His fingers were clumsy and numb from the cold, making him fumble, but the action was still soothing.
“I didn’t realize you meant it. Jaskier, you flirt with everyone. You’ve probably slept with half the company, and while I don’t judge you for that, I couldn’t help but feel like I was just the next notch in your bedpost.”
Jaskier dropped his face into his hands. “God, Geralt, I only slept with most of those people to try and get over you. You had Yennefer, and I was just me. I knew you would never choose me over her.”
“I am now.”
Jaskier stayed silent for a moment. “And if I decide that it’s too late?”
There was an uncomfortable burning feeling behind Geralt’s eyes and he did his best to push it back down. 
“Then I would respect your decision, and hope we could still be friends come tomorrow. I don’t want to lose you, Jask.”
Jaskier didn’t reply.
“I’m sorry I made you wait so long. I’m sorry I was so blind to your feelings.”
“And say we did do this,” Jaskier said, his voice still guarded. “What about Yennefer?”
Geralt shook his head. “There’s nothing left for me and Yen. We’re done hurting each other for a relationship that will never feel good.” Geralt couldn’t help the grin that tugged at his lips as he tacked on, “Plus, with the looks Triss has been shooting her, I don’t think Yennefer will be too lonely.”
Jaskier shot him an incredulous look. “Triss and Yennefer hate each other!”
Geralt chuckled. “Yeah, when I was involved. Yen can, quite frankly, be a jealous bitch, and Triss certainly wasn’t letting up on the flirting.”
Jaskier searched his face. “And Triss?”
“There was never going to be any me and Triss, and she knew that. Honestly, I think her flirting these days has been more to toy with Yen than to actually try and woo me.”
Jaskier turned his gaze toward the night sky, a muddy brown-black-orange that ruined any hope of seeing the stars “Huh.”
“They both know there’s only one person I’m looking to woo me, anyway.”
Geralt watched Jaskier break out in a goofy, giddy smile, clearly involuntarily based on the way he quickly bit his lip to try and suppress it. Slowly, carefully, Geralt reached out for one of Jaskier’s hands, tugging gently until his arms came unravelled.
“I’m so sorry, Jaskier.”
Jaskier shook his head. “I’m sorry, too. I should’ve said something.”
“Can I hug you?”
Jaskier’s goofy smile was back and Geralt felt his heart clench. He hoped to see that smile so much more.
“Only if I can kiss you,” Jaskier replied, bouncing on his toes a little.
Geralt grinned. “I find that an acceptable trade.”
Jaskier laughed then, pulling him into a tight hug. They stayed like that for a long while, sharing heat and just soaking in each other’s presence. Slowly starting to accept that this was real, that this was happening. Geralt clenched his hands tightly into Jaskier’s sweater.
And then, some long minutes later, they pulled back from the hug just enough to press their lips together. It was soft and chaste, but by no means short. Geralt decided that kissing Jaskier felt like coming home.
They slipped away after that, deciding not to head back to the party. Their friends would assume things, sure, but they didn’t care. They had lost time to make up for, they could make up for not saying goodbye later.
Geralt drove them home, back to Jaskier’s flat just like last year. Jaskier fiddled with the radio as the streets blurred around them, trying to find an appropriately-themed holiday station. He burst into cackles the second he found one.
“Tell me this is not Wham!,” Geralt begged.
Jaskier was laughing too hard to reply.
“I hate it,” Geralt said, despite being on the verge of laughter himself. “I hate it so much. Stop laughing, it’s not funny.”
“It’s so funny!” Jaskier wheezed, clutching his stomach as he doubled over in his seat.
Jaskier had only just barely calmed down by the time they got to his flat. They curled up on his ratty old couch with some hot chocolate and put on a Christmas movie, but it became more background noise than anything. 
Instead they talked. They talked about their past together and how it hurt them, and their future and how they would prevent that from hurting too. They talked until Geralt’s throat was sore and Jaskier was nodding off on his shoulder. Geralt couldn’t find the energy to carry him to bed, so he simply readjusted their position on the couch to be something more comfortable and settled in to sleep himself.
“L’ve ‘ou” Jaskier breathed out against his neck.
Geralt smiled, closing his eyes. “Love you too, Jaskier.
27 notes · View notes
beanfic · 4 years ago
Text
Late Night Adventures
Pairing: Tyler Joseph x reader
Word Count: 2.3k
Warnings: mr.joseph says a bad word :o but besides that, none!
Request: can i have the reader, tyler, and josh getting into some late night shenanigans on tour and maybeeeee there’s a confession involved from a certain joseph 👀 - @nonsenseverses​
Author’s note: I loved writing this request so much!! (theyre still open, btw, so if people want to send in more requests!) also fun fact! This is my first fic written on my new computer :D usually i write them on my laptop but this time I wrote it with a fancy keyboard so it went *click* *click* *click* 
Tumblr media
“You know what I am thinking?” Tyler spoke up between his bites of the Hawaiian pizza he was munching on. Both you and Josh looked up towards him and saw his mischievous look.
“What?” you were nervous for his answer, usually when Tyler had a look like that on his face, it meant no good.
“Late night shenanigans?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Oh hell yeah!” Josh clapped his hands together and rubbed them together, as if he was creating an evil plot.
“Tyler,” you sighed. “Do you remember how much trouble we got in last time? You literally crashed the golf cart into the wall of the amphitheater and caused like, what?, 2k worth of damages?” 
“Y/N! C’mon! We will be safe.” Josh chimed in before Tyler even had a chance to respond.
“Yeah! We’ve been on tour for like two months now and we only have had like 10 late night shenanigans. We gotta make them tradition.” He smiled to himself as he thought about everything he could do. 
“Okay, fine.” You raised your hands up in defeat, but you couldn’t help to feel a little bit of excitement. You enjoyed the late night adventures you spent with the boys on tour. The first time Josh had invited you on tour was back during regional at best era, and you quickly were invited to every tour in the future. You liked helping out in the back, plus you really liked spending time with Tyler and Josh. They were like your best friends, even though you did have a little bit of a crush on Tyler, you couldn’t lie about that. 
“So, Joseph, what do you have planned this time?” Josh asked. Tyler thought for a second before standing up and grabbing his laptop and bringing it over to the couch that you were all sitting on in the tour bus. 
“Hear me out! They have these electric scooters, and I think we should ride them downtown across this bridge.” He pulled up a photo of a large bridge that was lit up with rainbow lights. 
“Whoa, that’s pretty,” you whispered.
“It really said gay rights,” Josh chimed in making you all snicker. 
“Can I just say that I have never ridden an electric scooter before?” you confessed, your stomach bubbling with nervousness.
“You think we have?” Tyler laughed.
“I have.” Josh spoke, making both you and Tyler to look over at him.
“When?”
“Back when I was visiting LA! They have them all over!”
“Are they pretty easy to use?” you asked.
Josh nodded, “You’ll get a hang of it quick, Y/N, trust me!”
“It won’t be bad, I promise!” Tyler added, trying to help ease your nerves. You smiled at him before taking a deep breath. 
“When are we headed out?” 
“I was thinking like around 1?” Tyler looked at his apple watch. It read 12:38 am. 
“Do you think it will be cold out? What should I wear?” you tend to ask a lot of questions when you were nervous, and they seemed to all be making an appearance right now.
“The weather says it’s around 65 degrees so I would suggest something comfortable but warm? Maybe sweatpants and a sweatshirt?” Josh suggested. You thank him before excusing yourself to get into better clothes. You squeezed into the tiny bathroom and you stared at yours;f in the mirror. For some reason you were more nervous for this late night adventure than you have been in the past. You weren’t sure if it was because you all had gotten in trouble with the boys’ manager last time, or if it was because you did not want to make a fool of yourself on the electric scooters in front of Tyler. 
“You okay in there?” you heard a knock on the door. It was Tyler.
“Yep!” You unlocked the door and walked out, now in warmer and much more comfortable clothes. 
“I like your sweatshirt!” Tyler said with a soft smile. You felt your cheeks blush.
“Thanks, is it because it’s yours?” you teased. It was an older style of a twenty one pilots hoodie. 
“It looks way better on you than it ever did on me!”
“Sure, Ty,” you rolled your eyes and laughed. 
“If you guys are done flirting, are you ready to head out?” Josh peeked his head into the hallway between the bathroom and the living area. 
“We are not flirting!” Tyler snapped back at him and your face fell without you realizing. You think Tyler might have noticed too, because his eyes softened when he looked at you. “I’m sorry.” He whispered to you and you just responded with a small smile.
“I downloaded the app for the scooters and it looks like there is a group of them like five minutes from here, we just have to go left out of the parking lot!”
“At least one of us is good at directions!” you teased Tyler, reminding him of how he got you and Josh lost in new York city once, which also happened to be the most fun night of your life, but that is for another story. All of you piled out of the bus, saying goodbye to the others that were playing Mario kart. The air was chilly, and you wrapped your arms around your body to try to keep yourself warm. You followed the boys down the dark street, and you wished there were more street lamps. 
“It’s spooky out here,” Tyler spoke.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe!” Josh turned around and patted Tyler’s shoulder.
“Thanks, love,” Tyler snickered.
“Ew,” you pretended to gag at the boys. 
“I see the scooters!” Josh pointed to a rack of the scooters. He helped you and Tyler set up the app and make sure everything was working. You wished there were helmets, but hopefully you wouldn’t crash or anything like that. 
“Whoa!” Tyler zipped off as he pressed on the power of the scooter, You watched in awe as he effortlessly made and loop and returned back to you and Josh.,
“You’re a natural!” you complimented him, making him beam. 
“Watch this!” Josh said. He hopped on the scooter and started to forward but then he did a little hop and spun in a  circle.
“Show off,” Tyler grumbled. 
“Your turn, Y/N!” Josh looked over at you and you nervously looked down at the scooter. It seemed to be mocking you. 
“Alright.” You took a deep breath and placed both of your feet on the scooter, holding tightly onto the handles, and gently gave the scooter some power. It moved forward with a jolt, making you lose your balance a little bit. “It’s much more powerful than I was expecting.”
“You’ll get used to it!” Tyler reassured you. “Try again.”
You nodded and tried again, preparing yourself for the power. You stayed balanced as it started to move and then you practiced moving the handle bars left and right, and Tyler was right, you were able to get the hang of it fairly quickly. 
“Onward!” Tyler raised his hand and pointed forwards as he rode off into the street. You laughed at how silly he was and followed him. Josh rode next to you, making sure you were doing okay. 
“How far away is the bridge?” you asked. Josh looked down at the GPS on his phone. 
“One more left turn and it should be down that road!” You thanked him and continued riding. It was peaceful. Tyler would start singing one of his songs, Josh making drumming sounds with his mouth, and you would just look at the night sky and take in your surroundings. There were quite a lot of murals on the walls of the buildings, which you were really pretty. 
“I see the bridge!” Tyler shouted. You looked past him and saw the bridge, it was bright and lit up in the dark. You all rode until you reached the top of the middle of the bridge and you all stopped to look out over the river below. 
“This is gorgeous!” you stated, looking down at the waves crashing below you.
“Like you,” he whispered. You weren’t quite sure you heard him correctly. You whipped your head around and looked at him with your mouth open, not sure what to say. 
“Wait what?” you stumbled over your words and you could see Tyler’s ears turn a beet red.
“Oh, I um, said you look gorgeous? Like you said the view was gorgeous and-”
“Thank you, Tyler,” you stopped his stammering. “You’re pretty gorgeous yourself too.”
“Not true,” he scoffed.
“Tyler, it’s true! Right, Josh?” you turned around to see Josh who was on the other side of the bridge taking photos, not even realizing that you were talking to him. You turned back around to Tyler and shrugged. “I mean it.”
“You think I’m gorgeous?” Tyler placed his hand on his chest, dramatically acting surprised that you could think such a thing.
“Yes! I always that you were, like have you seen yourself Ty?” you laughed nervously. Usually, you weren’t this open about your feelings with someone, especially if you didn’t know if they felt the same.
“I mean that’s what I think about you. Every time I see you, I lose my breath because of how attractive you are!” he was looking out and you saw his eyes widened when he said that last part. “I’m sorry, hopefully you didn’t think that was creepy. Shit, I’t just I really like you, Y/N, and I don’t know how to flirt or talk to people I like and-”
“Tyler.” You took a step closer to him and placed your hand on his arm, giving it a small rub to calm him down. “It’s okay. Can I confess something too?”
He nodded with wide eyes, still not saying anything. 
“I like you too! I’ve had a crush on you for the past six months but I’ve been too afraid to say anything! I get nervous around cute guys.” You poked his side, making him laugh. 
“You have a crush on Tyler?” Josh asked as he walked over to join your guys conversation.
“Apparently Tyler also has a crush on me!” you smiled.
“I knew it!” Josh fist pumped the air.
“What?” Tyler looked over at Josh with suspicion
“C’mon, Ty. I know how you get when you like someone, and you have been acting like that around Y/N for the past few months! So are you guys going to, like, date now?” Josh crossed his arms and wiggled his eyebrows at the two of you. You played with your sweatshirt sleeve nervously.
“Y/N?” Tyler asked. You looked up at him. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”
“Duh,” you laughed. 
“Sounds like a plan!” he leaned over and placed a kiss on your cheek. 
“Ew, no kissing ion front of me!” Josh covered his eyes and Tyler punched his shoulder. 
“Shut up, Dun, or I am going to kiss you!” 
“Y’all are too much,” you laughed as you watched Tyler chase Josh around on the bridge. 
“Dude, it’s already 3am!” Josh told both of you. “Ready to head back to the bus?”
“Yes,” you responded with a yawn. All three of you hopped on the scooters once again and rode back to the bus. 
“Wait, look at that!” Tyler stopped his scooter and pointed to something that was crawling across the street.
“Ew, is that a rat?” you recognized the long eerie looking tail. “Disgusting.”
“Maybe it needs a friend,” Josh suggested.
“Hell no,” you stopped him right there. “This is how you two get in trouble, let’s get back to the bus before you two decide on some other shenanigan to get into tonight.”
“They have a point,” Tyler added.
“You were more fun when you guys weren’t together,” Josh mumbled.
“Dun, it’s been ,like fifteen minutes.”
“If anything, Y/N is gonna make me more fun!” Tyler teased.
“Exactly!” You scooted over to Tyler and gave him a high five. 
“Where’s my high five??” Josh frowned.
“You get a fist pump.”
“Good enough,” Josh fist pumped you and continued on towards the bus. The warmth of the inside was nice and after you convinced Tyler to pay for all of your scooter fees with the band's credit card, it was finally time for bed. You got into pajamas and while you were brushing your teeth, you saw Tyler walk by to get into his bunk.
“Goodnight, Y/N!” Tyler said. “I’m glad that we went on our little adventure tonight, because I don’t think I would have had the guts to tell you if we didn’t.”
“Agreed.” Your lips turned upwards as Tyler leaned in and planted a kiss on your lips. Your first kiss with Tyler. It was short, but so perfect.
“You taste like toothpaste,” he chuckled.
“Your lips are very soft, like more soft than I think lips should be, do you use a lip scrub?” you questioned.
“I actually do,” he confessed. “It’s from lush and is chocolate flavored.”
“You’ll have to share!” 
“My lips or the lip scrub?” he joked and you rolled your eyes.
“Both!” you leaned in for another peck on the lips. Tyler was smiling like an idiot, and it made you so giddy inside. 
“Okay, I really need to sleep for the show tomorrow. Night, Y/N.”
“Goodnight, Ty! Tell Josh I said goodnight too even though I am sure he is already asleep. Sleep well!”
“You too!” You watched Tyler head towards the bunks and you finished up in the bathroom. You pulled out the couch into your bed and hopped in. You replayed the events of the night, and even though you were exhausted, you had a hard time falling asleep because of the excitement of Tyler confessing his feelings for you. 
This was probably one of the best late night adventures you had. 
75 notes · View notes
austennerdita2533 · 3 years ago
Note
Yes! I had heard about the spin off about their kids it’s on my tbr! Not sure when I’ll get around to it but I’ll get there eventually. But ooh their other series sounds interesting too I’ll put it on my tbr too!! But that’s exactly why I loved Coballoway too (plus I’m also similar to Rose so their love story felt more personal that way)
Yay!! I’m glad the atlas six interested you, I hope you like it when you get to it I’m really loving it so far! I can already tell there is at least one ship I’m going to love it just hits all of my favorite tropes/things I enjoy. But the magic system is so cool and they are all so powerful.
Also glad you want to know about my reading too! I will keep you updated I have some books/series I really want to read but I try to be good and not read more than 2/3 at a time (and not buy anymore till I’m finished). Right now I’m also working through the throne of glass series which might take me awhile but I’m enjoying that too! Right now the books up next on my list are: Ugly Love, The Ravenhood Series, The Hating Game, Zodiac Academy, and Twisted Games (it’s the second book in a series that come out this month I loved Twisted Love by Ana Huang-highly recommend it if you love grumpy/sunshine and brother’s best friend tropes plus the twists were amazing-this one is a different couple but I’m excited!!)
Also! Don’t think I mentioned it yet maybe I did but I also read the Folk Air Series that you recommended! It took me a little while to get into but I ended up really loving it and Jurdan. I loved loved loved Jude and how power hungry she was and how Cardan was just obsessed with her. Their relationship build up was so good too.
All the best!!
-ACOTAR Anon
I keep meaning to get around to the Like Us series myself but I haven't managed it yet. It's been sitting on my tbr (and my Kindle) for a good couple of years now. 🤦🏼‍♀️ I know I'll read it eventually...but when eventually will be is anybody's guess.
(This is a good commentary on my reading life in general, I think. It's impossible to keep up with everything!)
The Atlas Six is pretty fascinating so far! I'm only about 25% into it but the magical world building is unique and I like how the narrative switches between the different POV's. Usually I don't care for more than 3 or 4 alternating perspectives in books because it makes it harder for me to invest in the characters, since I don't have as much time with them, but it works exceedingly well in this one. Helps to preserve the mystery of Atlas early on. And also allows readers to see how different all of the characters are in magical skill, background, personality, etc. I can't wait to see what unfolds!
I'm also currently reading Anxious People by Frederik Backman. I don't know if you've read anything by him before but he's such a good storyteller. Grabs you by the hearstrings. He's funny as hell, too. I've loved everything I've picked up from him so far. He has a knack for crafting beautifully flawed relatable complex characters. And this book is no exception. It might end up being a 5-star read for me, which is rare.
The next books on your to-read list sound fantastic, btw! Some I have read already or have them snuggled on one of my many wishlists. Like the Zodiac Academy and the Ravenhood series. And The Hating Game is one of my contemporary romance obsessions. It's just so enemies-to-lovers charged and fun. That book is packed full of a bunch tropes I adore. I've already read it twice and will likely revisit it again in the future. Thanks for mentioning Ugly Love (I need to get off my butt and read Colleen Hoover) and Twisted Love because those are definitely right up my alley. Grumpy/sunshine is one of my favorite romance tropes. I live for it!
And yayyy! I'm so happy to hear you enjoyed The Folk of the Air! It does take a bit to settle into the world of that story, as well as to become engrossed in the characters, but once you do, it's full speed ahead. Jude is such a badass. I love that she's ambitious to the point she's willing to take people out/down to get what she wants. Her fraught relationship with Madoc is fascinating to me as well. And Jurdan is just such a delicious ship. I love it so much. It's true enemies-to-lovers excellence. They have so many quotable lines!
I'm excited because Holly Black has a new adult fantasy series coming out next year, in 2022. It's called Book of Night and the premise sounds cool as hell. I've already been stalking NetGalley in the hopes that I have a chance at first dibs on an ARC lolol.
Also, if you can find self-restraint enough not to buy any more books until you've read most of the ones you have then I salute you! I try oh, so hard to enact this rule upon myself...but it never works. Like ever. 😂
It's my own fault, really. I get daily emails/alerts from Kindle, BookBubs, etc. letting me know about titles that are on sale for less than $5, and when they're that cheap, I can't seem to justify NOT buying a whole hoard of them even though I know they're more than likely to remain unread for a long, loooong time to come. Better than paying full price, though. Right?
If you haven't email subscribed to any of these sites, and you're looking to save some cash on audio or e-books specifically, you should. I'd spend a whole ass fortune on books if I didn't use them. (I check out a lot of books from the library, too.) I dropped the links to some of the ones I use in case you or anyone else who reads this is interested and doesn't know about them:
Book Bubs (you can set preferences/alerts based on your favorite books, genres, authors; you can rate stuff and curate your own wishlist too)
Early Bird Books (I use this one a lot to find classics that are on sale/free)
Book Riot (this site has a lot of book sweepstakes you can enter for a chance to win gift cards to Barnes & Noble, Book Depository etc.)
Kindle Book Deals (there are tons of deals offered daily, weekly monthly; I'm not a Kindle Unlimited member but there's that option, too)
NewInBooks (new releases; has links for Kindle, Apple, Audio, and hardcover)
Anyway take care, sweets, and happy reading! 💜
3 notes · View notes