#It actually super pisses me off that the one time I tried to reclaim something that turned into a trauma has turned back into that

[girlyliondragon]

There's not and has never been such a thing as "taking shipping/self-shipping too seriously". How one person selfships and treat fictional characters will always be different (or hell, even similar) to others and should be their own damn business.

Treating fictional relationships with as much realness as one with an actual person is something I'm very familiar with and has been degraded for multiple times. I treat my F/Os like they're their own real thing in my head but because that sort of connection is so fragile nowadays due to that former thing it's hard to really stick to one for a long time now. (My longest F/O was only 3 years before people decided to be assholes about that one) But it isn't a bad thing to treat characters like that, especially if real people have hurt you for such a long time that you decided to find comfort in the non-real. I felt bad about it until I saw that my long-time selfshipper friend follows someone that did the same thing as me, and I found out through that that there are other people that selfship with just as much intensity as I do, living with their F/Os, having a good life with them despite the odds, dating them, getting married, staying with them for years and maybe even a decade.. I've wanted to be that and COULD been that. I just wish it could just happen already and I wish that I could not have my own mental fibers regarding this snapped every time. And yes, that even includes being jealous or uncomfortable with shit, That is not weird, nor should that be treated like a damn dirty word ffs.

They are not delusional for that or anything (plus calling people such unless they actually have delusions is ablest af). Nor do said self-shippers need a reason to be pushed to interacting and befriending/dating real people (that might not even like us in the long-term) or even getting along with them if that hasn't worked out before. Not saying to be a misanthrope (idk you do you, I'm not gonna come at you if you are or not anyways), even if I'm on the verge of that, but still, it helps to be wary. When real people can't be there for us at least they (the fictional characters) can. Not everyone is as serious or intense about selfshipping to want to do all of those things and more with fictional characters, and that's literally okay, seriously it is! But don't talk down to people that are more intense in that regard.

Taking a hobby/coping mechanism/means of happiness/way of life for some and saying they need to "not be so srs" about it is not anyone else's business but your own self to decide that. It never was anyone else's business, and that needs to be respected too because we're still people by the end of the day.

Anyway dumb rambling over.

People that are rude/assholish to selfshippers just because they do things in a way you don't like please DNI hhh

[sam-t-a]

Okay. 

*Deep breath* 

I think I’m finally calm enough to put into words exactly why I hated the finale and why I wasn’t completely surprised that I hated it. 

(Heads-up: this is really long and pretty negative. If you disagree, I would of course appreciate your point of view and love to hear it, but just thought I’d let you know in case this is the kind of post you would like to avoid.)

To me, it felt like every character on the show got betrayed in some way or another, but the main ones are Han Seo (devastatingly), Chayoung (obviously) and Han Seok (bear with me). 

Cha Young: 

She started out as a solid FL who annoyed some people for sure, but who had so much promise as someone unconventional and bold. The way her mother’s death affected her and caused a clear shift in her personality was a super interesting plot point that really never got explored. We have no idea how she came to sacrifice her morality in joining Wusang, just that she wanted to spite her father, which is a very superficial exploration. She gets cute idiosyncrasies in lieu of an actual character and an actual character arc. 

We also, halfway through the show, seem to forget that her father's death was the initial trigger. Cha young does not suggest bold ideas or intricate plans, she doesn’t fill the gaps Vincenzo is incapable of filling (because that would require that Vincenzo have flaws, and that’s not something the writers can abide), and she’s literally victimized in episode 19 and bedridden in episode 20, and that is IT. 

Someone who started out supposedly as Vincenzo’s equal just became another piece in his chess set, no matter how important a piece she may be. 

So her role as a badass avenger is trashed. That leaves her role as a love interest. Now, as Vincenzo’s love interest, she was supposed to get kidnapped in like episode 5 or 6 at the most if the villain has any brains whatsoever (Han Seok may or may not, more on that later). We need a reason for that not to happen too early. Cue villain is somehow in love with her for all of 15 minutes or so throughout a 20-episode series because a love triangle is inconceivable with the show’s current structure and for its purposes. 

So, she spends 15 or so episodes making the first move on Vincenzo, every time, putting herself out there, creating cute moments, getting nothing in return, and then he leaves. No confession, nothing much, he wasn’t even going to say goodbye or give her the choice of coming with him. 

I’m sure more chayenzo-oriented fans have already expressed all the necessary outrage over this, so I’ll move on to the part that I’ve personally been way more emotionally invested in from the get go: the Jang brothers. 

Han Seo: 

I was among the minority that  hated the “Vinny hyung” angle from the get-go and I’ve ranted about it in another post, so I won’t get into it here in-depth, but basically it was because I felt like Vincenzo hadn’t earned it, so to have the last words Han Seo hears be “You deserve to be my brother” or whatever the fuck he was on about PISSED ME OFF. It’s VINCENZO who doesn’t deserve to be Han Seo’s brother and hasn’t done a single thing to earn it. He was a good ally. The situation he allowed Han Seo to be a part of was beneficial to him, but Han Seo’s attachment to him was neither healthy nor heartwarming, and it certainly wasn’t returned on the level he offered it.

Vincenzo’s disregard of his death didn’t strike me as odd because I never saw enough indications that this was a two-way street and Han Seo’s safety and well-being came second so often that I didn’t get the impression Vincenzo was doing much to keep him alive. This is what I meant when I said the show was glorifying a torture survivor’s trauma responses. Han Seo himself, as a torture survivor, meant nothing to them. He was just there to create one more contrived comparison between Vincenzo and Han Seok. Instead of recovering from the trauma, it’s simply employed to someone else’s favor. He doesn’t go to prison for Han Seok, he takes a bullet for Vincenzo, and we’re supposed to see that as so much better.

All of that might (JUST MIGHT) not have ruined the show for me if he’d died better. 1) It was narratively pointless and totally avoidable, 2) they could’ve framed it as heroic, but instead Han Seok’s hand patting his head is pushing it down, so he can’t even get shot with his chin up and his back straight, Taec’s already taller, so the angle’s fucked and the whole cinematography screamed “kicking an injured puppy” and most certainly NOT “survivor finally stands up to his abuser”. The final nail in the proverbial and literal coffin is that he is mourned by no one. They’re FLIRTING not 3 MINUTES LATER, it felt so tone deaf and left such a bad taste. As I said, I didn’t expect significant mourning from Vincenzo (gotta say, I didn’t expect no mourning, that was a shocker), and Cha young and the tenants had no real interactions with him and no reason to mourn him, which left only one person who could. 

Which brings me to Han Seok. 

Han Seok started out as a solid villain, clear goals, clear skills that help him achieve his goals and basically make him a villain worth defeating, and a very complex relationship with both his own psychopathy and his brother. 

Let me get it out of the way: I do not believe Han Seok is capable of killing Han Seo because he had every reason and every opportunity to do so in previous episodes and couldn’t do it (I say couldn’t because a certain degree of reluctance is in itself inability). Han Seo’s danger far outweighed his material value the minute he shot Han Seok and then completely lost any value once he came out to the world as the chairman and it became clear that the prosecution would be going after him if anything happened, and not his brother. But time and again, he’s proven he’s all bark and no bite when it comes to Han Seo (killing-wise, specifically). 

The scene where he asks him to beat Vincenzo to death could be interpreted as him wanting to give Vincenzo the “painful death” he would have given him, but honestly, I think he was way past that point. He just wanted him dead in the “You crazy? we have to kill him before he kills us” sense. To that end, killing off a key ally of Vincenzo’s, who betrayed you and almost got you killed a bunch of times, should take priority, but Han Seok’s priority is reclaiming Han Seo by forcing him back onto his side. Now, much like his “love for Cha young”, Han Seok’s keenness on not killing his brother was essential to the writers so that Han Seo can justifiably make it this far and still be useful to Vincenzo (he can’t help if Han Seok completely excludes him from all events, plans and management processes, so Han Seok needs to want to keep him on his side enough not to do that even when it’s more prudent). 

All of this isn’t to say it’s unbelievable that he would kill Han Seo, but it’s DEFINITELY unbelievable that he would stay the same man after killing him. Someone here (I’m sorry, I don’t rememebr who) once said that Han Seo had become, over time, far more of a foil to his brother than Vincenzo was. To me, this means that Post-Han Seo Han Seok would be out of balance (tilted screen), unhinged in a way he never was before. The Han Seok we see shrugs and “oh, well”-s and moves on in a flash, not really any different from the villain he was four minutes and a whole brother earlier. 

This is very consistent with the way the show has been de-humanizing him from the start. I’m not saying this to defend Han Seok in any way, he’s a serial killer, an abuser and a total maniac. But you can be all those things and still a human being. In fact, you can ONLY be those things if you’re a human being. The show used its villain vs villain idea to justify a lot, but in the end, Vincenzo had to be a protagonist. He had to follow up every “I’m a villain” with a contrived “but at least I’m not (insert something worse)”. 

On the level of humans:

1) Vincenzo is supposedly different because he doesn’t hurt children or women (unless the women deserve it, and shooting a parent in front of their kid doesn’t count as hurting.) 

But we never see Han Seok hurting women or children either. In fact, if we proceed with the “chayoung is the myung hee of the good guys” comparison, he hasn’t hurt any women nearly as badly as Vincenzo did. 

2) Babel vs Mafia 

Babel’s corruption is compared a lot to the mafia, with Vincenzo commenting repeatedly that the people are WORSE than the mafia...which is bullshit. Babel is a set of companies that provide goods and services, but use illegal means to maximize their profit, so they hurt/kill people in the process because they want more money and care about money more than ethics. The Mafia is an inherently criminal organization that functions PURELY on the basis of its criminality. Every single dime Vincenzo spends is blood money. None of it is clean. And while we’re on the topic, I find the whole “taking Miri under his wing” thing pretty unreasonable too because he tried to have her killed you guys, I cannot believe we’re just glossing over that. He had everyone who worked on that vault killed, just random fucking construction workers. And he’s not sorry. And the show tells you he shouldn’t be. 

3) Repentance

Han Seok says outright he won’t atone, and while Vincenzo says no such thing out loud he just...doesn’t repent, I guess. He keeps the blood money, he goes back to being a full-time mafia dude doing mafia things. He leaves the same man he arrived. 

So, if on the level of harm inflicted upon humanity, Vincenzo and Han Seok are pretty much equal (and Vincenzo might actually be worse), then why should we root for Vincenzo? 

Well, my friend, that’s where the dehumanization comes in! 

I was initially very excited to see their portrayal of a psychopath because of the very interesting ways in which the informal moral code and official justice system surrounding a psychopath/sociopath/narcissist affect their behavior and their chances of not turning out rotten, and the show looked like it was looking at corruption in general. 

But as the show went on, the villain vs villain thing proved not to be enough, Vincenzo has to be better in some way (or if you’re as obsessed with him as the writers are, then ALL ways), so it became a villain vs monster narrative. Vincenzo isn’t ethical or fair or in any way interested in having a remotely positive impact on society, but at least he’s A HUMAN BEING unlike SOMEBODY. So, the characterization goes to shit, Han Seok becomes a cartoon card-board cut out of a villain and emphasis is put on how pointless his violence is, as opposed to how purposeful Vincenzo’s is. 

This is dangerous on multiple levels (and I promise this is the last point I’m making). 

1) For people in general, dehumanizing abusers/murderers/etc. makes us very liable to forget that you don’t have to be “a monster” to cause harm, and it makes people complacent in their belief that they are “not bad people” since they aren’t total monsters. The Banality of Evil is a thing, and in this series, it goes completely ignored. No one is inherently incapable of good or inherently undeserving of humanity. 

2) For victims of abuse in specific, it’s dangerous to portray abusers (including serial killer and non-serial killer ones) as entirely bad and unlovable, because it poses the dual risk of making victims less likely to acknowledge their abuse if it comes from someone who cares about or loves them on some level because the idea that someone cannot both love and hurt you is so stereotypical. Your abuser can genuinely want you in their lives and need you and, on some level, love you, and IT DOESN’T MATTER if that love doesn’t stop them from hurting you. 

On the other hand, portraying the victims of abuse as capable of flipping an off switch and hating the abuser with no hesitation or second thoughts to the point of unapologetically and cheerfully helping someone kill them and having no mixed feelings about it sends the message that if you CAN’T do that, then are you really abused? Are sure you’re not complicit in your own abuse? Do you even want to get rid of them? 

So this is basically why the way the show ended was so painfully disappointing for me. And the main reason it hit so hard was that it was initially so good and had so much promise. I really expected more.

[isolavirtuosa]

U-Turn

[fanfiction] NaruSasu

Started out as a short story exploring Reason #837 why Naruto and Sasuke didn’t get together in canon, Naruto is STRAIGHT!, but then it became this.

U-Turn

Isola Virtuosa

 - 10 -

  I didn’t even know that they had reached a verdict in Sasuke’s trial when I opened my door to find him standing there.

“But… how…?” I trailed off, staring at what must have been a mirage.

“They released me,” he said with a shrug.

I felt my mouth fall open, but no words came out.

“Can I come in?” he asked irritably.

“I, uh, yeah, of course, of course,” I said, standing aside.

He pushed past me, kicking off his shoes and making a beeline for the living room.  He closed the curtains with a harsh tug, his eyes stuck in a seemingly permanent squint.  I had fought with Kakashi for hours over how keeping him blindfolded wasn’t right, because something about light deprivation that Sakura had painstakingly explained to me but I just couldn’t remember.

No one listened to me about anything.

I’d also been removed from the proceedings for being too ‘emotional’ and ‘disruptive’.

And now it was all over, and Sasuke was here.

He sat on the couch, an arm tossed over his eyes like it was still too bright for him here in the dark.

I felt myself drawn to him.  I moved slowly, letting him feel me coming before I leaned over the back of the couch and wrapped both arms around him, stub and all.

He breathed out heavily.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said quietly, leaning in closer and pressing my cheek to his.

He swallowed.  “I…” he started to say, and stopped, his arm dropping from his eyes as he leaned back into me.

I couldn’t help but grin, squeezing him tightly.

Sasuke’s eyes met mine and his cheeks flushed.  “Enough,” he muttered.

I bumped my forehead to his, then backed away.  “Do you need anything?  Are you hungry?  Oh, you know what, we should have a party!  We could get everyone together and-”

“No.”

“Whaaaat?” I protested, climbing over the back of the couch and sitting next to him.  “But you’ve been in prison for like months, and you’re finally free and you can do all the things that you missed out on!”

“I didn’t miss out on anything,” he said flatly.

“But everyone-”

“My head hurts and I just want to be here with you, okay?”

“I, uh, yeah, I mean… yeah, okay,” I said, not sure how to take that, but overall feeling happy.  I just felt right when Sasuke was next to me.

We were both quiet, but it didn’t feel strained.  Since the Valley of the End, our relationship had gotten easy.  Late night talks in the hospital faded into daily visits to his holding cell.  We’d probably spent more quality time together in the last year than we had in total the rest of our lives.

“You can finish that book,” he finally said, eyes closed and his head leaned back.

“Ah-HA, so you do like it,” I said, grinning.  I had been reading Sasuke an assortment of books during his blind imprisonment, and the latest had been what I had assumed to be a cheesy teen romance recommended by Sakura, but had ended up being a really interesting mystery that also happened to have a surprisingly engaging romantic plot.

“It’s fine,” he said with a shrug, because Sasuke could never say anything nice about anything or anyone.

I bounded off to my room to pull the book from my ‘prison visit bag’ that I suddenly realized I wouldn’t need anymore.  I grinned, coming back to flop on the couch and cracking the book open to start reading.  I realized it was too dark to read, so I flipped on the table lamp.

Sasuke kept his eyes closed, but his posture seemed to relax the longer I read.

I found my eyes darting over the book to watch him, so close I could reach out and touch him if I wanted.  Sasuke was really here, and I could feel myself smiling stupidly.

I tried to focus on reading, but I was starting to spend more time staring, and Sasuke finally caught on, eyes drifting open to meet mine.

Those eyes were mesmerizing.

“You stopped reading,” he observed drily.

“Nuh-uh,” I said.

His lips quirked into a crooked smile.  “You definitely did.”

“You stopped reading!” I declared.

The smile evened out, soft and secretive.  “Idiot.  Pick up where you left off.”

“Who is the idiot here?” I grumbled.  Then I startled as I felt a squeeze around my hand.

Sasuke’s eyes were closed again.  “I like hearing your voice,” he said quietly, already reclaiming his hand like he hadn’t just reached out.

I swallowed.  It was one thing to have the new-and-improved, vulnerable and now-fifty-percent-more-honest Sasuke in front of me but out of my reach due to a set of iron bars.  It was quite another to have him sitting on my couch.  I wanted to move heaven and earth for him, but I settled for reading him some fiction instead.

We finished the book.

Sasuke slowly unsank from the couch, eyes blinking open.  “Thanks,” he said, standing up and stretching.  His nub of a left arm barely reached over his head.

“Anything for my felon best friend,” I said, standing up, too, since that seemed to be what we were doing.  “Are you hungry?  You sure you don’t want to see anyone else?”

“God, no,” he said, which I assumed was his reply to the second question.  He did look a little thin, though.  “I just don’t want to think for a while, okay?”

“How does one not think?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I just watch you and do whatever you’re doing.”

“Jerk,” I said, giving him a playful shove.

He definitely looked like he wanted to shove me back, but he somehow restrained himself.  “Naruto.”

“Yes?” I said, standing at attention.

“I know you said I could stay if I got out…”

“When you got out,” I corrected him.

He half-smiled at that.  When had he started doing that?  I hoped Sakura didn’t see because she claimed to be over him and didn’t need to be having any relapses.  “Yes, well, here we are.”

“Here we are indeed,” I agreed.

“You don’t have to feel obligated.”

“I don’t.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“Naruto.”

“Sasuke.”

He looked at me.

“I want you here,” I said.  “I need you here,” I correct myself.

“Lame,” he muttered, but there was that crooked half-smile again.

“Stay as long as you need,” I said firmly.

And he did.

 - 9 -

  Sasuke was simultaneously an amazing and terrible house guest.

He was always picking up after me, which made my apartment really clean, but also resulted in me never knowing where anything was.

He also cooked for me, which was delicious and nutritious, but the lack of cup noodles was a little depressing.

He was always there for me to come home to, but I knew he was there because he had nowhere else to go, and I knew he wasn’t happy here.

It had been almost five months now, and when I came clomping through the door, Sasuke already had dinner on the table.

“Hi, honey, I’m home!” I chirped, snagging a piece of fried chicken from the table and munching on it as I moved towards my room to dump my bag.

“Wash your hands,” Sasuke grumbled after me.

I was starting to think that living with Sasuke was probably what having a mother would be like, if said mother low-key couldn’t stand me.

“I don’t hear running water!” he yelled when I had dallied too long.

“Yeah, and I’m touching everything I possibly can!” I yelled back.  We did enjoy pissing each other off.

Sasuke was scowling at his rice bowl when I came back.

“All nice and clean,” I said, waggling my fingers at him.  The fingers of the prosthetic were a little stiff as I did so, but Tsunade said the arm would start to feel more natural eventually.

“You’re a pig,” he muttered, picking up the bowl and starting to eat.

“Yep” I agreed, picking up my own bowl and shoveling in as much food as could fit in my mouth.

He sneered at me.

I grinned.

There was the smallest uptick at the corner of his mouth.

I couldn’t stand to look at him anymore, so I focused on eating instead.

“I’ve got a place,” he said suddenly.

I opened my mouth to protest, but it was stuffed with food.

“Disgusting,” he growled at me.

I informed him that he shouldn’t just spring stuff on me while I was eating, but I don’t think he understood a word of it.

Or he was just pretending not to understand.

I swallowed the last of the food in my mouth as loudly and dramatically as possible.  “I told you that you can just stay here.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because we’re best friends!”

“What does that have to do with anything?” he asked, seeming to actually be getting annoyed now.

“Uhhh, because best friends being roommates is awesome?” I said.

That seemed to irritate him even more.  “I’m not really interested in being your live-in butler.”

“You’re not-” I started to say, but that was actually pretty accurate.

“Realized the truth, then?”

“It’s not like I asked you to do all this stuff for me!” I protested.

“It’s just that you’re a lazy, pathetic slob, and I have no choice as long as I’m here if I want to maintain my personal dignity?”

“You’re an asshole,” I complained.

“Naruto, really, really think hard about who the asshole is in this situation.”

I thought about it really, really hard.  “Shit, is it me?”

Sasuke swallowed down a smile.

His eyes wouldn’t meet mine, so I leaned into his vision.

The whole smile came out, lighting up his face.

“Why are you so good-looking?” I complained.

He quickly looked away again.  “Jealous?” he muttered.

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

“Good,” he grumbled.

“Sasuke, don’t go.”

“I already put down my first month’s rent.”

“Why would you go and do that?!” I cried.

“You’re a big boy, Naruto,” he said, looking down his nose at me.  “I’m sure you can live by yourself.”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to,” I said.  “I like living with you, even if you’re a nag.”

‘A nag?’ he mouthed at me.

“I mean, you’re super uptight and obsessive combustive or whatever, but you’re pretty alright sometimes,” I said, trying to sound casual.

“You’re ridiculous,” he informed me, going back to eating like the conversation was over.

And it was.

He moved out the next day.

“This is dumb,” I told him as I dumped the one and only box of things he had from my apartment on the floor of his new place.

“You’re dumb,” he answered easily.

“You don’t even have any pots and pans!” I said, gesturing around.  “How are you going to eat?”

“You have literally one pot, Uzumaki,” he said, shaking his head.

“I have TWO!” I yelled.

“I don’t count the rusty one.”

“Why not?”

“How have you survived this long living on your own?” he asked, shaking his head.

“Very well, thank you!” I snapped.

“Naruto,” he said, shaking his head harder.

It always gave me a strange thrill when he said my name.

Somehow we ended up getting take out, sitting on the floor of Sasuke’s semi-furnished apartment and passing a bottle of cheap wine between us that Kakashi had given Sasuke as a housewarming gift.

It got late and the bottle got empty, so I made myself at home on Sasuke’s futon.

“Why are we still living together?” he complained, nudging me with his foot to get me to slide over onto the second futon that he set out.  “I specifically moved out so we wouldn’t be living together anymore.”

“I like living with you,” I whined, kicking my feet around to show my protest.

“You’re a child,” Sasuke said, throwing a blanket over me and getting into his own futon.

“Sasukeeee,” I complained, creeping over to him and snuggling in close.

“Knock it off,” he muttered, turning his face from me.

“Jerk,” I said, closing my eyes and starting to drift.  It was possible that I was mildly intoxicated.

“Naruto, move,” Sasuke said, startling me awake as he pushed me away.

“Neveeeeeer,” I complained, attaching myself onto him tightly.

His face whipped around to glare at me, and then our faces were just right there in front of each other, millimeters apart.  Whatever he was going to snap at me died on his lips.

I snorted at that.  If he could only see his face.  He looked so uncool at that moment, and it was a memory I wanted to treasure forever.  I leaned in closer, feeling the heated skin of his forehead against mine.

Sasuke’s breath caught and his eyes locked onto mine.  There was something… hopeful… in his eyes.

I could feel myself going soft, reaching out my hand to rest against his cheek.

Then he pressed his lips to mine, warm and gentle.

It was just a brief touch and then it was over.

I shook my head at him, smiling.

It was like a signal, and suddenly his lips were back and it was much more than a simple touch, it was full of need and want and other nameless things, and what had I just done?

“Sasuke,” I said gently.

His mouth paused against mine.

“Sas’, I’m not gay,” I said, stroking his cheek with my thumb.

He stared at me.

I stared back evenly, trying to convey with my eyes that I was unbothered by this turn of events and still loved him like a brother.

He seemed to get the message, and he seemed to not like it very much, shoving me away and moving to make a run for it.

“Sasuke,” I repeated, grabbing his arm.

He turned back to look at me.

“It’s not a big deal,” I told him.

Something broke behind his eyes.

I realized that that had been the completely wrong thing to say.

He snatched his arm out of my grip and stormed out of the room.

“Sas’, come on,” I called, chasing after him.  “This is your house, where are you going anyway?”

“Away from you!” he snapped, finally speaking for the first time.

“Okay, but… this is your house?” I tried again.

“Just fuck off, Naruto,” he said, and I could hear all the cracks in his voice.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I was definitely awake and sober now.  What had I done?  What had I done?  Oh shit.

“Go,” he said, his voice getting smaller and smaller.  “Please just go.”

“Sasuke,” I tried one more time.

He was standing in front of the kitchen sink, his back to me, unmoving.

“This doesn’t change anything…” I tried, wondering if I was cutting him with every word.  “You’re my best friend.  I don’t care if-”

“Go,” he growled, strength returning to his voice even as his shoulders seemed to be shaking.

“I’m going,” I said, backing my way towards the door.  “I’m going, okay?  I just want it to be clear that I don’t actually want to go and am only doing so because you asked me to.”

He didn’t say anything else.

There was nothing for me to do but leave.

 - 8 -

  “Naruto, no,” Sakura said, shaking her head.  “No, no, no, you did not leave him like that.”

“What else was I supposed to do?!” I cried, knocking my heels anxiously against the counter that I was sitting on.

“Anything!” she cried exasperatedly.  “Just don’t leave!”

“Well I did leave, and that’s where I’m at, so can you please give me some advice?”

Sakura sighed loudly and dropped herself onto one of her kitchen chairs.  “Naruto.”

“Yes?”

“Are you sure you’re not gay?”

I looked at her.  I hesitated.

Her expression perked up at that.

“I’m not gay,” I said quickly before she could get too excited.  “I definitely like girls.”

“Okay, but you could be bi,” she pointed out.

“I don’t like guys,” I said with a shrug.

“Okay, but you like Sasuke.”

I let her words sit between us for a moment.  “I can’t say clearly that I… I don’t know.  As you love to point out, I talk about Sasuke all the time, I think about him all the time-”

“He’s basically your reason for existence.”

“…that’s fair.”

She smiled at that.

“Like, I get all that,” I said.  “I get that our relationship isn’t normal.  But there’s no… spark?”

“You two literally set each other on fire,” Sakura said, not buying it.

“It’s hard to explain,” I said, shaking my head.  “But when he kissed me, it was warm and it was nice and all, but there was no spark.  It wasn’t… I don’t know.  If I was in love with him, wouldn’t I have felt something… more?”

“So what you’re saying, if I am getting this correctly, is that the warm, nice feelings that Sasuke gives you are nothing compared to the cheap sparks you feel with all your floozies?” Sakura asked, giving me an unfriendly look.

“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” I grumbled, glaring at her.

“Interesting how you started going on all these dates after Sasuke came to live with you,” she commented.

“Interesting how?”

She shrugged.

“After the trial was finally over, maybe that was the first time in my life that I had time to put myself first,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest and daring her to find fault with me just living my life for once.

“I…” she trailed off, shaking her head.  “We all want you to be happy, Naruto.  But really?  Those underclassman girls?  Couldn’t you find someone… better?”

“What’s wrong with them?!” I cried.

“They don’t have any… substance,” Sakura said.  “They just like you because you’re the hero of Konoha; they don’t know anything about you.”

“That’s why we go on dates to get to know each other,” I explained to her.

“There are plenty of girls our age who like you, too, you know.”

“Yeah, but…” I trailed off.  I didn’t know how to explain it without Sakura hitting me.

Her look turned suspicious.

“I just… need something different,” I said with a shrug.  “I need… a break?  I guess?  Sometimes it’s nice to be around people who didn’t go through what we went through?”

Sakura was suddenly up on her feet and moving towards me.

I flinched.

“I’m not going to hit you, jerk,” she complained, punching me in the arm anyway.

I cringed, rubbing at the spot she’d hit.

“You want to be normal,” she said, her voice gentler now.  “I get that.  I do.  Everything that’s happened the last few years…  And then it seemed like things were finally going to get better and all that stuff with Sasuke being arrested happened…”

We were both quiet at that.  Sasuke’s arrest and confinement had been a sobering reminder that things were not right with the village.  When I thought about how Sasuke had been mistreated, tortured even, and had just endured it so he could stay…

Everything always came back to Sasuke.

“You really aren’t gay?” Sakura asked, sounding almost hopeful.

“I’m not gay,” I affirmed.

“What are you going to do?”

“I came here to ask you that!” I cried.

“You’re the Sasuke-whisperer,” she said, shaking her head.  “All I ever seem to do is make him annoyed.”

“The Sasuke-whisperer?” I repeated incredulously.

“He listens to you, even if he belittles you the whole while,” she said with a smile. Then her face went serious.  “He loves you.”

That was a heavy word to throw into the conversation.

I dropped my head in my hands and yelled my frustration, kicking my feet anxiously against the cabinets.

Sakura rested her hand on my head, calming and soothing.

“His face…” I mumbled.

“What are you going on about?” Sakura asked.

I finally sat up properly and looked at her.  “His face when I rejected him…  I hurt him.  I really, really hurt him, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“He does have his pride.”

“Ughhh don’t remind me.”

“Just be your usual jackass self, and I’m sure things will go back to normal eventually,” she said, patting me on the head.

“You think so?”

“Yeah,” she said, climbing onto the counter and sitting next to me.

I leaned my head against hers, kicking my feet absently.

“It really doesn’t bother you, though?” she asked quietly.

“What?”

“That he likes you.”

“…no…?”

“It can be stressful on a friendship,” she said carefully.

“Are you trying to say something about my childish crush on you?”

“More about my childish crush on Sasuke, but that, too,” she agreed.  “You could be so annoying, and it was uncomfortable.”

“Sorry,” I said, tapping her knee lightly.  “I know.  But it’s not like Sasuke’s anything like me, yeah?  I mean, I act more like I have a crush on him than he acts like he has a crush on me.”

“That’s for sure,” Sakura snorted.  “You really do.  But I see it in him, you know?  He’s just different with you.  I think you don’t always notice, because how he acts when you’re around and how he acts when you’re not are completely different.”

“What, does he suddenly become a nice and charming guy?” I asked with my own snort.

She shook her head.  “He’s… softer when he’s with you.  He smiles more.  His shoulders relax.  When you two fight, he gets this wrinkle between his brows, and he finally looks young, he finally looks like the teenager he’s supposed to be.  But when you’re not around, he’s just dark and… hard to approach.  He has this impenetrable armor up that only comes down around you.”

I squinted at her.  “And you don’t still have a crush on him, right?”

“What do you care?” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Well you just seem to have put a lot of time and effort into your observations…”

“Don’t you keep like a diary about your Sasuke observations…?”

“That was for the trial!” I cried.

Sakura laughed.

I tried to laugh, but I felt tired and defeated.  “Did I lead him on?”

“Yes,” she said flatly.

“Crap.”

“It’ll work out,” she assured me.

It didn’t work out.

 - 7 -

  It felt like we were twelve again.

“Is that all you’ve got?” Sasuke scoffed at me as he easily dodged my attack.

“It’s not even half of what I’ve got!” I roared as I chased after him.

He stopped mid-step, spinning around effortlessly and putting his sword to my neck.

I jerked myself back, leaning away from the glittering steel.

“Pathetic.”

“Is it?” I asked, my clone suddenly attacking from above.

“Absolutely,” he affirmed, taking his sword from my neck to slice through my clone.

It gave me the time to dive-bomb his legs.

Sasuke let out a grunt as we hit the ground, then took advantage of our momentum to flip me onto my back.

I got a foot free and kicked him in the stomach, sending him flying backwards.

Unfortunately, he had a grip on my leg, and I went flying with him.

We were a mess of fists and kicks and pain and blood, and I wasn’t quite sure when this training session had turned into a street brawl.

“What is wrong with you two?!” Sakura asked exasperatedly as she patched us up at the clinic.

“We were training,” Sasuke said, a sullen look on his face as he held a cold compress to his black eye.

“Is that what you call it?” she muttered, slathering the antibacterial ointment on my gaping sword wound with a little more roughness than seemed necessary.

“Owwww…” I whined.

She smacked me upside the head.

“You’re the worst doctor ever!” I cried.

“And you two are the worst patients!” she snapped back.  “Why are you wasting my time with this juvenile nonsense?”

“We were training!” I protested.

“This is not normal training!” she yelled, smacking me again.

I stuck out my lower lip at her, rubbing my head.

“And don’t think I only blame this on the dumb blond!” Sakura said, turning her fury on Sasuke.  “What were you thinking, using your sword on his prosthetic?!  There could be permanent damage!”

Sasuke glared at her but didn’t speak.

“You’re being a child,” Sakura said, eyes locking with his.

Sasuke’s expression immediately transformed into rage, and I took a step back.

Sakura just raised an eyebrow.  She had really grown in the last year and a half, and I was very impressed by it, which was the reason I was letting her stand between Sasuke and I now.

It wasn’t because I was hiding.

“Naruto, just go,” Sakura said irritably, gesturing me towards the door.

I glanced at Sasuke, but his gaze was still fixed on Sakura.  “Are you-?” I started to ask.

“Go!” they both snapped at me.

So I left.

Things between Sasuke and I hadn’t been right since the night he moved out.  Since he… you know.  And now he was saying that as soon as his probation was over, he was going to leave the village.

It was all so stupid.  I didn’t understand why things couldn’t go back to how they were before.  Well, I mean like how they were after the war, not to how things were when we couldn’t be honest with each other and just fought all the time instead, which was basically the same as things were now.

“What happened to you?!”

I slid into the booth across from my girlfriend Moe, grinning sheepishly.  “Training.”

“I’ve never had a training session like that,” she said with a laugh.  She laughed a lot, smiled easily, and was in general a pleasant, happy person to be around.

‘Easy to be happy when there’s nothing between the ears,’ Sakura had been known to say.

I mostly ignored her snide little comments.

“Oh, the stupidest thing happened on our mission today,” she said, still smiling.

I felt myself smiling for some reason.  All the heaviness I’d been feeling all day suddenly seemed to drop away.  I leaned in closer, and listened intently to her story.

 - 6 -

  “I don’t agree to this,” I grumbled, slumping into Sasuke’s couch.

“Good thing it has nothing to do with you, then,” he replied, putting down a bowl of popcorn on the coffee table.

I reached for it, stuffing the popcorn into my face as angrily as I could.  “It has everything to do with me!” I yelled with a full mouth.

“You are disgusting,” he informed me, giving me a light shove.  “Move over.”

“There’s plenty of room,” I complained, gesturing to the open space next to me.

“Why do you always have to sit in the middle?” he asked irritably.  He gave me another shove.  “Sit next to the armrest like a normal person.”

“Oh, I’m a normal person now?” I asked, feigning surprise.  “Because you keep telling me how weird and crazy I am for not wanting you to leave.”

“Because you are weird and crazy,” he said, sitting as close to the armrest as he could, which subsequently meant he was sitting as far away from me as possible.

“In what way am I either of those things?!” I demanded.

“You know what the village did to me,” he said, his voice low and dark.

I stopped at that.  We were being serious now, no more play-fighting.  “I know.” “Nothing has changed, Naruto.”

“No,” I agreed quietly.  “But I’m trying.”

“You’re one man.”

“Sometimes I’m a hundred men.”

He gave me a withering look.

I reached for him then, my hand resting on his shoulder as I sought out a physical connection.  “Everything that’s happened… it’s never going to happen to anyone ever again.”

“Oh, really?” he asked, looking unimpressed.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my voice cracking.

Sasuke softened.  “Don’t be like that.”

“Be like what?”

“You’re blaming yourself for something you fought tooth and nail against.”

“I couldn’t stop them.”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly what?” I asked, starting to feel blubbery.  I always felt so frustrated and helpless thinking about what had happened to Sasuke and how I hadn’t been able to stop it.

“If you couldn’t stop them, then no one can,” he said.  “Konoha won’t change, so give up and move on.  Now can we watch this damn movie already?”

If I wanted to continue the tentative peace that we’d developed over the last couple of months, then I would back off and watch the movie.

“We have to be the ones who start the change,” I said, still holding onto his shoulder and staring him down.  “I need you here with me, fighting the Council, fighting all the backwards-thinking clan leaders, fighting-”

“-the hokage?” Sasuke suggested, raising an eyebrow.

I took in a breath and let it out slowly.  “Baa-chan is doing what she can-”

“She approved the terms of my surrender.”

“You approved the terms of your surrender.”

“Pretty sure I didn’t agree to abuse and torture.”

“She didn’t… know…”

“The beatings, sure, even you didn’t know, and you were there to see me every day,” he said, meeting my gaze calmly.  “But the constant blindfolding and the binding… you fought about it with Kakashi.  He had to be reporting to her.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly, feeling my heart break all over again.

“All of that doesn’t matter,” he said, pushing me back into my seat.  He stood up and pressed the tape into the VCR.  “Ninety-eight more days and I get what I wanted.”

“…I wish you’d told me.”

“Because you were making so much headway on the blindfolding issue.”

“Yeah, but that guard…”

“And what did you do when I told you?”

I flushed.  Maybe I had rushed off to the prison in a blind rage and had only come back to my senses when the guard was lying bleeding on the floor while a hysterical Sakura held me back.

“You can’t be so emotional, Naruto,” he chided me, adjusting the volume of the TV as the coming attractions played.  “I was never in any danger-”

“He beat you for no reason-”

“He was scared of me,” Sasuke said with an easy shrug.  “And for good reason.  He could cover my eyes as much as he wanted; I could have broken out and broken him any time I wanted.”

“You didn’t have to endure all that.”

“I did.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did it for you, you dumbass,” he said, staring very pointedly at the TV.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, feeling weirdly happy while also simultaneously pissed off.

“You’re so ignorant,” he muttered.

“Use your words,” I complained, giving him a shove.

“Use your brain,” he shot back, giving me a return shove.

This was about to dissolve into more schoolyard brawling, which I thought we had moved past, but clearly we had not.  “Just explain it to me,” I said, the grip I hadn’t even realized I had on his collar loosening.  “Since I’m so dumb and all.”

“You are dumb,” he agreed, his own grip relaxing.

The movie started playing, but it was just background noise now.

“You can’t be associated with a missing nin,” he finally said.

“Why not?” I asked, leaning back against the couch.

He clearly wanted to say something cutting but swallowed it back down.  “I’m not going to take your future away from you,” he said, the words straining to come out.

“How-?” I started to ask.

Sasuke made a very frustrated-sounding noise.  “Stop asking questions.  What are you not getting?  You following a missing nin around like a lost fucking puppy does not exactly instill the Council with trust in your ability to lead.  So I did my fucking best to be reinstated to this bullshit village that murdered my family just so you could stop fucking up your future, and then you fucking go and still fuck it up anyway by losing your shit on that guard.  You’re right, me enduring all of that really was pointless and I should have just…” he trailed off, running out of steam.

“Wait, wait, you did all this just so I could be hokage?” I asked, scratching the back of my neck.

“Go die,” he muttered.

“You are the most awful human being I have ever met,” I informed him.  “Sas’, I… I mean, I don’t get it.  You have so much pride, and I can’t imagine you…  He hit you!  He left marks on you, and you’re saying that you just put up with it so I could hypothetically be the leader of the village you hate one day?”

“I need you to be the hokage,” he said, his voice so soft it was hard to hear.

“Why?” I asked, inching closer and trying to get him to meet my eyes.

“Can you just drop it?” he asked, skillfully avoiding my gaze.

“No.”

He took in a breath and let it out loudly,

I put my hand on his knee, fingers curling into the loose fabric of his pants.  “Why do you need me to be the hokage, Sas’?” I pleaded.

His eyes slid shut, a worry line forming between them.  “Why can’t you just let things go?”

“Because when you keep secrets from me, our relationship gets all messed up,” I said.

“It’s not a damn secret, you’re just incapable of connecting the dots.”

“Well if it’s something I’m apparently too dumb to understand without further explanation, then you are keeping it from me by not explaining.”

Air escaped from his nose in what was either a smothered laugh or an exasperated sigh.

“Naruto…”

My breath caught a little.  Sasuke just had a way of saying my name.

“You’re the only one I trust, okay?” he said, eyes flicking to mine and then flicking away again.  “You’re the only one who can fix everything.”

“…but you’re always telling me I can’t change anything…”

“You are very, very incompetent,” he agreed, that sideways half-smile making a reappearance on his lips.  “But I… I told you.  At the Valley of the End.  It was my loss.  I’ve thrown away my revenge to follow you.”

“You don’t… follow me in anything…” I said, not sure why my face was suddenly heating up.

“I’m not going to be one of your mindless sycophants and just agree with whatever you say and do,” he said.  “And I don’t think you want me to.  You know you only reach your highest potential when I’m challenging you on everything.”

“Yeah,” I said quietly, squeezing his knee.  “So why are you leaving then?”

“It’s what’s best.”

“Well I don’t think it’s what’s best, so…”

“Naruto,” he said, eyes finally meeting mine without running away.  “If you…” he paused, licking his lips like he was nervous.  “If you really… if you ask me not to leave, then I won’t leave.  I’ll listen to you and I’ll follow you, but… if you keep me here, I don’t think I can… I feel trapped, Naruto.  It’s painful to be here.”

I could see the pain in his eyes, and it made my stomach knot up.

“I didn’t want to tell you all this because now you know how much power you have over me,” he said, his hand pushing against mine like he wanted me to move it, but then his fingers laced into mine.  “I don’t show my weaknesses to anyone, and I feel… exposed.  But I trust you with that.  Do you understand me?  I’m trusting you not to exploit this.  I’m trusting you to do the right thing.  Because if you don’t, then you’re just showing me that I was wrong and that you’re just like everyone else.”

Vulnerable Sasuke was the most cutting Sasuke.  “Sneaky bastard,” I muttered, because how could I ever ask him to stay after he said all that.

“Do you understand everything now?” he asked, taking his hand back and looking away.

“No, not at all,” I said.  “But I guess I get the important stuff.”

“Good.  So what the hell has been happening in this movie?”

I laughed.  “Rewind it.”

He got up and hit the rewind button.

“Sas’?”

“Yeah?” he asked, his back still to me as he crouched in front of the VCR.

“What if I don’t want to be hokage?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“What if I don’t want to be, and I want to go with you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” he repeated.

I sighed loudly.  “Fine.”

The tape finished rewinding and Sasuke hit play, coming back to sit next to me.  He rested his head against the back of the couch, then turned to look at me.

I turned to look at him, too.

He smiled at me, soft and sweet and a little sad.

My lips parted.

He sat back up straight, attention focusing on the TV.

We watched the movie.

 - 5 -

  Sasuke was annoyed.

Of course, he was always annoyed when he was in Konoha, and he had to check in every six months, which meant that twice a year, Sasuke was very annoyed.

He was annoyed a lot of other times throughout the year, too, but he was particularly annoyed now.

“If you want to go and breed with your female, then just go,” he grumbled at me.

“Did you really just say ‘breed’?” Ino repeated, cracking up.

“Don’t forget ‘your female’,” Sakura chimed in, and the two of them started laughing harder.

“Hey, nothing is more important than spending time with you,” I slurred, significantly inebriated.

Rino waved at us from across the bar where she was getting more alcohol to inebriate us farther.  Her boobs jiggled in her low-cut top as she did so.

I smiled dreamily.

“At least she’s a chuunin this time,” Sakura muttered, losing her amusement at the sight of a young, attractive female.

I suddenly found myself being punched in the arm.  “What the hell!”

Sakura glared at me.

“You said that out loud,” Sasuke whispered to me.

“Oh…” I said.  “Oops.”

Sasuke smiled at that, making me feel warm and happy.

All I had to do was act like an idiot to make him smile that amazing smile.

He looked away, flushing.

“You said that out loud, too,” Ino said, laughing.

“Umm, maybe I’m too drunk for this bar…” I trailed off as Rino reappeared with our drinks.  “Thanks, babe,” I said, taking a beer from her.

She grinned at me as she passed out the rest of the drinks.

“Maybe it’s time to head home,” Sakura suggested, having finished her entire drink in one go.

“Aw, what, no way…” I complained.

“Sasuke seems tired,” Ino said.

If I wasn’t mistaken, Sasuke was shooting her a grateful look.  But that was ridiculous, because Sasuke only liked me.

“People are allowed to like more than one person,” Ino informed me.  “And I am very likeable.”

“Not that much,” Sasuke said, taking a casual sip of his drink.

Ino’s mouth twisted into a snarl.  “To think I was going to save you from-” she started to say, but stopped.

Sasuke and Ino seemed to be having a conversation with eyes and head tilts that was completely unreadable to me.

“What’s going on?” Rino whispered to me.

“I have no idea,” I whispered back, sliding an arm around her waist.

She smiled at that, pressing closer to me even though our chairs were already plenty close together.

All of the sudden the other three were standing up.

“Okay, we’ll see you later,” Sakura said, patting me on the arm.

“Bye, ‘kura,” I said.  “Bye, Ino.”

Sasuke moved to walk past me.

I caught his arm.

He looked startled, which couldn’t possibly be, because Uchiha Sasuke was never startled.

“We’re training tomorrow, yeah?”

“If you can find your way to the training field,” he said with a shrug.

“Your ass is mine, Uchiha,” I said cheerfully.

Sasuke just frowned at that, shaking me off.  “Tomorrow then.”

“Bye, Sasuke,” Rino said, waving to him with a friendly smile.

He inclined his head towards her and made his exit.

Rino giggled.  “He lives up to all the rumors.”

“What kinda rumors?” I asked, trying to narrow my eyes but it felt more like I was going cross-eyed.

“That he’s mysterious and hot,” she said.

“Oh,” I said, relaxing.  “Yeah, he is definitely those rumors.”

Rino laughed.

“Let’s get out of here,” I suggested, and she nodded happily, linking arms with me.

We stumbled along to my house, and I somehow managed to get the door open and get us inside.

“You’re drunk,” Rino teased.

“Drunk on you,” I said, leading her to my room.

It felt different than usual.

I couldn’t stop myself, pushing her onto her stomach and staring at the white skin of her back.

“Naruto!”

I was lost, moving like an animal.

“Naruto!”

“Sasuke!”

 - 4 -

  “So you’re definitely not gay?” Sakura asked.

“I’m not,” I confirmed, pacing around my kitchen.

“Okay, but you called out your male best friend’s name during sex, so…”

“I don’t know why that happened.”

“Well, I mean, you were having sex, and you were thinking about Sasuke while you were having sex, so…”

“I’m not gay,” I said flatly.

“How are you so sure?”

“Because I don’t like dicks,” I explained.  “And I feel like liking dicks is a very important part of being gay.”

“I mean, it could be important, but I don’t think it’s the defining factor of whether or not a person is gay,” Sakura offered.  “Do those cookies have peanut butter in them?”

“They do,” I confirmed, picking up the package from the shelf and handing it to her.

“How do you even know that you don’t like dicks?” Sakura continued.  “Have you ever tried touching one that wasn’t your own?”

I wrinkled my nose at her.  “No, thank you.”

“How do you know you don’t like it if you don’t try it?”

“Have you touched a dick that isn’t your own?” I shot back.

Sakura gave me a withering look.

“Well?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

“A lady doesn’t stroke and tell,” she said with an enigmatic shrug.

“Sakuraaaaaa,” I groaned.  “This isn’t helping.”

“There’s no help for you if you insist on staying so deeply closeted,” she replied.

“How do you just decide a person’s sexuality for them when they’re clearly telling you that you’re wrong about it?” I asked irritably.

“You’re in love with a man,” she ground out, just as irritably.  “That, by definition, makes you gay.”

“I love him,” I said, waving her off.  “That’s not the same as being in love.”

“Okay, then stop calling his name out during sex and everything will be fine.”

“…I was thinking about him…” I whispered.

She looked at me, waiting.

“…I was imagining it was him in front of me, and it just…” I trailed off.  “I was drunk, it didn’t mean anything!”

“We are venturing into TMI territory here, but Naruto, you need to explain this to me,” she said, nibbling on a cookie.  “Why were you thinking about Sasuke and not about your girlfriend?”

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head.  “I really don’t.  I mean, I really like Rino.  She’s so nice and friendly, and she always smiles, and she’s really pretty…”

“Sounds like you’re describing me, but okay…”

“You in an alternative universe, maybe…”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“You’re very nice and friendly and pretty.”

“Thank you,” Sakura said, finishing off her cookie and pulling out another one.  “I know you don’t want to hear this again-”

I groaned.

“-but you tend to date girls who don’t have a lot of substance,” she forged ahead.  “And at first, it made sense because you were young and unattached…”

“I’m still both of those things…”

“Funny that you think so.”

“I am in the prime of my youth!”

“Uzumaki, you are twenty-five years old,” Sakura said, shaking her head.  “Your dad was already the hokage and married with a baby on the way younger than that.”

“Like you’re dating anyone!” I cried.  “I mean, who from our generation is even remotely on track to get married?!”

“And why is that?” Sakura asked, tilting her head to the side.

I looked at her.

She looked back at me.

Since the war, Sakura had been my best friend, despite me always giving the title to Sasuke.  We told each other everything, whether it was easy to hear or not, and she had certainly dropped a lot of hard-to-hear truths on me over the years.

“Because we’re all traumatized from being child soldiers?” I asked.

She nodded at me.

“So I choose to date girls who I can’t form meaningful relationships with because I’m not ready to confront… something something,” I concluded.

“Close enough,” she said with a rueful smile.  “I want you to be happy, you know.”

“I know,” I said, knowing better than to protest that I was happy.  “I want you to be happy, too.”

“Maybe Sasuke isn’t so crazy…” she said quietly.

“Whaddya mean?”

“Maybe leaving the village…” she trailed off.

It wasn’t the first time we’d broached the topic, but we never saw it through.

“Baa-chan said the Council is thinking about making me hokage soon,” I said.

“She’s been saying that since the war ended,” Sakura said with a frown.  She would always love Tsunade as much as I did, but we both knew that things weren’t right in the village.  Kakashi tried to act as a go-between, but the more he asked us to compromise while literally nothing changed, the less we were inclined to.

We were both quiet.

“So your thing about dicks, is that because of the Kiba Incident?” Sakura finally asked.

“DON’T BRING THAT UP!” I shrieked.

“But I was thinking…”

“About Kiba’s dick?!”

“God, no,” Sakura said, making a face.  “I was thinking about the time we were on a mission, and you were on watch while we were sleeping-”

“Sakura-chan, you stop right there.”

“-and you went to get Kiba for his watch, and he was in flagrante-”

“I told you to stop- wait, what is ‘foie gras day’?” I paused, scratching my head.

“Caught in the act, dick in hand-”

“OH MY GOD, SAKURA, STOP!” I cried, covering my eyes with my hands even though the vision was burned into my memory for the rest of time.  “It was so red and angry…” I whispered.

Sakura made a face but laughed.  “See, but what if it was Sasuke?”

“IT’S NO DIFFERENT!” I yelled.

“Really?  ‘Cause I definitely don’t want to picture Kiba in your story, but if it were Sasuke-”

“Sakura-chan!” I cried, incensed.  “Don’t sully our Sasuke like that.”

“He’s an emotionally stunted asshole, but he’s still eye candy,” Sakura said with a shrug.

“Okay, but you clearly like dicks,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

“‘Like’ is a strong word,” she said, shaking her head.  “I tolerate them.”

“Gross,” I muttered, and then unbidden the image of Kiba in the tent reappeared in my mind, only with Sasuke’s face floating over Kiba’s.  I gagged.  “Nope, nope, nope.”

“I don’t understand you,” Sakura said, shaking her head.  “So if Sasuke was like in between your legs right now going down on you, you’d be absolutely disgusted just because he’s a guy?”

Sakura certainly painted a picture, because now there Sasuke was between my legs, mouth full, eyes creased in concentration before suddenly darting up to meet my gaze.  He smirked, and I felt my entire body shudder.

“You got turned on!” Sakura accused me, pointing her finger.

“I… did…” I trailed off, thoroughly confused.

Her expression softened.  “I’m not trying to push you into something,” she said, patting my head.  “I just... I look at you two, and I wish that someone would love me the way you two love each other.”

“Sakura,” I complained, shaking my head.  “You know I love you.”

“You wanna marry me?”

“Definitely not.”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t want to marry Sasuke either,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, but you want him to blow you.”

“Oh my god, Sakura, never say that out loud again!”

She shrugged.

“Sakura-chaaaaaaan,” I whined.

“I won’t,” she said, serious again.  She hopped onto the counter and put her arm around me.  “I won’t bring any of this up again, okay?  I promise.  We’ll only talk about it if you bring it up.”

“Which I won’t,” I said, but I could feel her side-eyeing me.  “Unless I picture him in fois gras day again.”

Sakura cracked up.

 - 3 -

  I woke up on Sasuke’s floor, a blanket tossed over me.  I groaned, sitting up and stretching my aching back.  “Sas’?” I called.

He didn’t answer me because he was an asshole, but I could hear water running in the kitchen.

I stumbled to my feet and took a quick stop at the restroom before stumbling the rest of the way to the kitchen.  “Saaaasukeeeeee,” I whined, dropping onto one of his kitchen chairs.  “What did you make me drink last night?”

“Don’t blame me for your bad decisions,” he said with a shrug.

I squinted at his shirtless back, watching as he moved around preparing breakfast.  “Hey, you,” I said.

“Hey what?” he asked, cracking an egg over the frying pan with one hand.

“When’d you get all… manly?” I complained.

“This might surprise you, but I’ve always been a man.”

“No, no, no,” I said, shaking my head.  “You were a boy before.  You had some muscles and all, but not all this finely-chiseled definition.  You look like a freaking statue that some old statue guy would make.”

“‘Old statue guy?’” he muttered incredulously, flipping the eggs.

“You know what I mean!” I said, flailing my arms around.

“No, not really.”

I sighed loudly.  “I wish I looked like you.”

“Why?” he asked, genuinely perplexed.

“Your body is amazing.”

“Are you fishing for compliments or something?” he mumbled.

“Huh?”

He stayed silent, his back rigid.

I had as usual stumbled into the ‘danger zone’.

I found myself stumbling into it more and more since the whole Wrong Name Incident.  It wasn’t like I was trying to flirt with Sasuke all the time.  It happened by accident.  I was really just trying to give the guy a compliment and express my jealousy over the fact that his body was a work of art.

...was that gay…?

I stared at those rippling back muscles, mesmerized.

Then I was having eggs slammed down in front of me.

Sasuke sat across from me, stabbing his food with what seemed to be much more force than necessary for something that was already dead.  “You’ve grown up, too, you know,” he finally mumbled.

“I have?” I asked with a mouth full of food.

“Swallow.”

I swallowed.

“I take it back,” he said, not looking at me.

“No takesy-backsies.”

“This is how you convince me that you’ve grown up?”

“…yes…?”

There was that half-smile.

I grinned, shoveling my food in my mouth and feeling content.

 - 2 -

  Sakura came into the restaurant, looking around furtively before her eyes locked on mine.  She made a beeline in our direction.

“Hey-” I tried to greet her.

“Sasuke is here.”

I blinked slowly, then broke out into a grin.  “Really?  He’s early!”

“He’s pissed,” she said, trying to drag down my good mood.

“About Tsunade trying to give him that mission?”

“He told her he doesn’t take orders from Konoha,” Sakura rushed on.  “So she said, ‘then maybe you don’t need the immunity that your Konoha headband gives you,’ and then he did his sneer face, you know the one, and he said, ‘make Naruto hokage or I walk.’”

“Whaaaaat?” I cried.

“And Tsunade was playing it cool, like, ‘well, walk then,’ and Sasuke said, ‘I walk, he walks.’”

I stared at her.  “…and then?”

“He stormed out of there without waiting for a reply in typical over-dramatic Sasuke fashion,” she concluded.

I groaned.

“Who’s Sasuke?” my girlfriend Naomi asked cheerfully.

We both looked at her.

“What do you mean, ‘who is Sasuke’?” Sakura finally asked incredulously.

“He’s my best friend…” I tried.

“Oh, the weird guy who’s never around?” she asked.

“Yes,” Sakura said, nodding her head and tugging on my arm.

“He’s not weird!” I cried, feeling offended.

“We need to mediate this before it turns into something bigger,” Sakura urged me.

“But I was-” I started to say, glancing over at Naomi.  Then I realized that we were talking about Sasuke and felt myself rising out of the booth, date long forgotten.

Naomi looked at me, confused.  “Naruto?”

“Rain check!” I called, already moving after Sakura.

She turned back after we got onto the street.  “Where do you think he went?”

“Training grounds,” I said, nodding my head in their direction.

“Okay,” she said, taking to the rooftops.

Sasuke was there as expected, angrily setting things on fire with his katon.

“Are we talking him down or beating sense into him?” Sakura asked, cracking her knuckles.

“Oi, Sasuke!” I yelled.

Sasuke stopped setting things on fire.

Sakura shook her head.

He sat down on the grass, and we came over to sit on either side of him.

“I didn’t know you were here,” I said, nudging his side with my elbow.

“I had business with the hokage,” he replied with a shrug.

“Business,” Sakura grumbled.

“You know I’m right,” he grumbled right back at her.

“Of course I know!” she snapped.  “But if what you’re saying to Tsunade-sama gets back to to the wrong person, you’re going straight back into the Bingo Book!  And then what?!”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You know if you leave the village again that we’re going to follow you,” Sakura muttered.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at that.  “Do I know that?”

“You know that Naruto will,” she said dismissively.

“I didn’t know that you would.”

Sakura shook her head.  “Underestimating me like usual.”

“Underestimating that you wouldn’t be as dumb as Naruto?” Sasuke asked.  “Yes.”

There was a pause, and then Sasuke grunted and I knew that Sakura had inflicted some kind of hurt on him.

“Sas’, it’s just reconnaissance,” I said, hoping to change the direction of the conversation.

The glare I received did not ease my mind.

“And what is the illustrious Council going to use that reconnaissance for?” he ground out.  “Because you know they’re stirring up shit with Lightning again.”

“Sas’…”

“The whole point is that you become the hokage and stop all this nonsense,” Sasuke said.  “It’s the whole point, and the Council knows, and they know that as long as they keep dangling the carrot and saying that they’ll make you hokage one day that I have to do whatever they tell me.  They fucking own me, and I can’t… I can’t breathe, I can’t…”

I was at a loss.

Sakura put her arm around Sasuke, and he leaned into her, away from me.

This was all my fault.  I had let this drag on, I had accepted all the soon’s and the be patient’s.  I looked at my two best friends, both hurting, and I knew that I couldn’t keep on just going with the flow.

“I’ve got you,” I said, standing up.

“What does that mean…?” Sakura trailed off as I walked away.

“Naruto.”

I stopped and turned back to look at them.

“Don’t do something stupid,” Sasuke said, already on his feet.

“Just trust me,” I said.  I grinned at him.  “I’ve got this.”

 - 1 -

  Sasuke unzipped the flap of the tent, his toiletries tucked in a bag under his arm as he entered.  “You’re not asleep?” he asked.

“You’d think I would be, with how friggin’ long you take to get ready for bed,” I complained.

“I was checking the perimeter, dumbass,” he replied, putting his things away in his pack.

“He’s over here calling me ‘dumbass’,” I muttered.

“He’s over there talking to himself,” came his easy reply.

“Okay, but would it kill you to show me like a modicum of respect?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“It would not!” I cried.

“Oh, but it would,” he said, getting into his sleeping bag.  “Good night, Junior Hokage.”

“Okay, see, you’re still alive.”

Sasuke didn’t answer.

“Very alive and not dead.”

He still didn’t answer.

“Jackass,” I complained, throwing my pillow at him.

He caught it and threw it back at me, amusement twinkling in his eyes.

I melted a little.

“What’s that stupid look for?” Sasuke scoffed at me.

“What look?  There’s no stupid look!” I protested

He rolled his eyes at me.  “You have clearly never seen your own face.”

I gave him the most shocked and offended look I could muster up.

His haughtiness softened around the edges, the left corner of his mouth twitching upward.  “Sorry, sir.”

I bit my lip a little too hard.

Sasuke looked pleased with himself as he settled more comfortably into his sleeping bag.

I tried to pull myself together, but being on a mission in close proximity to him was starting to become a mission in its own right.  The Council had agreed to my three-year transition plan, and had begrudgingly accepted Sasuke as my ‘chief adviser’ or whatever they were calling his job to make an Uchiha in power sound more palatable.

What they didn’t get and never would get was that Sasuke was my partner.

“You lead and I’ll follow,” he’d told me the night it was decided that I was the hokage-elect.

“Like you’ve ever followed anyone a day in your life,” I’d scoffed.

Four months into the transition, and Sasuke had yet to just do something because I told him to.  That wasn’t what he meant by following me.  What he meant was that I could tell him to do something, and then he would give me ten reasons why he wasn’t going to do it.

And it was exactly what I needed.  I felt re-energized.  I felt hopeful.  I felt like I was making a difference.

And I felt like I was probably most definitely in love with Sasuke.

“Are you going to sleep?” he asked.

My eyes flicked over to him nervously.

He gave me a strange look.  “I’m sleeping,” he said, rolling so his back was to me.

“Don’t be boring,” I complained.

“You’re the one who dragged us out to this god-forsaken place to do charity work,” he grumbled at me.

We’d had this conversation a hundred times already, but with us, what was a hundred more?  “You said that I need to change what it means to be the hokage,” I said.

“Okay, but you could change what it means to be hokage somewhere… better.”

“Somewhere better?” I asked with a snort.  “Are the accommodations not to your liking?”

“I’m just saying that helping some podunk little village rebuild from flooding isn’t going to do anything for you politically,” he said, sitting up and running a hand through his hair.”

“Uh, duh,” I said.

He looked at me.

“That’s exactly the kind of hokage I want to be,” I said, smiling happily.  “Someone who helps people for no reason or personal gain.”

“Stellar strategy, I’m sure the Council won’t find a way to back out of your agreement and make someone else hokage.”

“You know you support me one hundred percent,” I said with an easy shrug.

“Maybe one percent.”

“Ninety-nine percent.”

“Zero percent?”

“One hundred and fifty percent!”

Sasuke was shaking his head, but I could see his smile.

I lived for that smile.  “Hey, Sas’?”

“What?”

I looked at him.  I really looked at him.  I wanted to tell him.

“Did your brain break?” he asked.  He stifled a yawn.

“Probably,” I said.

That got a little laugh.  “Go to bed, Naruto.”

“Yeah,” I said, settling into my sleeping bag.  “Good night.”

Sasuke snapped off the light we had hanging in the tent.

I lay there, staring into the dark, and it was driving me crazy.

“Stop,” Sasuke finally grumbled.

“Stop what?” I whispered.

“Whatever you’re doing.”

“Breathing?”

“Yes, stop doing that.”

“Do you want me to die?!” I snipped.

“Why are you so damn loud in the middle of the night?” Sasuke sighed.

“You’re the one wishing death on me!”

“Just get it out, already,” Sasuke said irritably.  “Obviously something is on your mind.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I protested.

“Then why are you all… frenetic?” he asked.

“Who’s frenetic, I’m not frenetic.”

“I can hear your leg bouncing,” he muttered.

I hadn’t realized I’d been doing that, and I quickly stilled my leg.  Then I found that my fingers were tapping against the ground.

“It’s not like you,” Sasuke said quietly.

“Huh?”

“You don’t usually…” he trailed off, thinking over his words carefully.  “You don’t usually keep things from me.”

Why did this man know me better than I knew myself?  “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“I really don’t care.  Just say it or go to sleep,” he said, but I had the feeling that he did actually care.

I opened my mouth and nothing came out.

“I’m going to sleep outside,” Sasuke growled.

“No, you’re not,” I said with a sigh.  “I just… I’m not ready to say it.”

“Well get ready or figure out how to stop crawling out of your skin.”

I’d planned this.  Not consciously, but now I could see how my sneaky subconscious had brought us to this point, alone on a mission just the two of us, sleeping in the same tent like we used to when we were twelve, with no one to interrupt us until the construction started in the morning.  I wanted to tell him.  I needed to tell him.

But should I tell him?

I thought back to the night that Sasuke moved into his own apartment, both of us a little drunk, the gentle touch of his lips to mine.  Then the betrayal in his eyes when I told him that I wasn’t gay.

I wasn’t, but apparently it didn’t matter.  I’d been too young and dumb at the time to realize it.

Sasuke was special.

Maybe I could just tell him that without getting into the whole calling his name while I was with women, and having almost daily sex dreams about him part.

I mean, he probably wouldn’t care, anyway.  That kiss had been like ten years ago, and surely he had moved on since then.  It wasn’t like he… stayed connected with a village he hated just because of me…

It wasn’t like he only smiled for me.  I saw him almost smile at Sakura once.  It was the smallest uptick.  Nothing compared to the crooked smiles he showered me with, but…

“I’m going to slowly choke the life out of you,” Sasuke informed me, suddenly sitting on my chest with a hand wrapped around my throat.

“Uhhh…?” I said.

“You are so fucking annoying,” he ground out, applying light pressure.  “What?  What is it?  Just say it.”

“Well, you’re kinda making it more awkward,” I squeaked out.

“Good,” he growled.  “What did you do?  What stupid thing did you do?  Did you forget to do some important paperwork?  Did you tell Sakura that her hospital clothes make her look like an middle-aged woman after I specifically told you not to?  Did you piss off the Council and they decided to just cancel your whole hokage probation?  Just tell me already.”

“Um, it wasn’t any of that,” I gasped.

Sasuke rolled his eyes, letting up on my throat and sitting back a little.  “You’re still going to be the hokage in three years?”

“Duh.”

His expression relaxed and he gave me one of those smiles that, okay, were only for me.

I felt myself smiling back.

He pinched my cheek, then moved to go back to his sleeping bag.

I caught his hips, pulling him back.

Sasuke raised an eyebrow at me.  “You into being sat on?”

“Yes,” I replied without thinking.

“That’s an odd fetish,” he said, his eyes searching mine.

I should just say it.  What could be a more perfect moment than this?  I should definitely just say it.

“Naruto.”

I swallowed.  “I’m.”

He waited.

I nodded my head.

His brow lifted.

“So,” I said.

He tilted his head to the side.

“Good,” I said.

“Did your brain break?” he finally asked.

“Yeah…” I said quietly.  “Can you… come down here?”

Both of Sasuke’s eyebrows shot up.  “Down where…?”

“Next to me,” I said, letting go of his hips.

He looked at me for a moment, then slid down beside me, propping his chin up on his hand as he lay on his side facing me.

I just had to get it out.  I opened my mouth, and then remembered that I needed to get it out, but in a way that wasn’t going to piss Sasuke off.  That’s what kept on silencing me.  “I’ve been confused lately,” I said, deciding to be as honest as possible.

“How is that different from usual?” he asked.

“Are all the little zings really necessary?” I grumbled.

“The way you’ve been dragging this out, yes.”

“Okay, fine,” I said.

“Better be worth it,” he muttered.

“I love you!” I blurted out.

“Okay,” Sasuke said.  “That’s not getting you out of telling me whatever horrible secret you’re hiding.”

“No, that’s the horrible secret,” I explained.

Sasuke let out a sudden bark of laughter.  “What kind of secret is that?”

His sheer good-naturedness told me that he didn’t get what I was saying.  “Sasuke, I’m in love with you,” I tried saying.

A little of the humor left his eyes.  “What’s this about?”

“It’s about me being in love with you,” I said, feeling stupid and small.

“You’re not gay, Naruto,” he said flatly.

“No, I’m not,” I agreed.

Sasuke’s frown deepened.  “I’m a man, Naruto.”

“I’m aware,” I said, trying to exude sincerity.

“Then do you see why what you’re saying is ridiculous?” he asked, sitting up.  His arms crossed over his chest, a physical sign that he was starting to close himself off.

I sat up, too.  “I know it doesn’t make sense, okay?  I’m not gay, and you’re a man, but I love you so much it’s crazy.”

“That’s one word for it.”

“Yeah, it is, because I don’t get it, okay?” I said.  “I don’t know why I feel this way about you, but I do.  And I’ve asked you to do this huge thing and be my partner when I become hokage, but I can’t start off the new Konoha lying to you, yeah?  I have to be honest or this is never going to work, and honestly I’m in love with you.  So.  Yeah.”

Sasuke was staring at me, and definitely not in a good way.

“Sas’…” I tried.

“I fucking hate you,” he whispered.

Oh, fuck.

“You piece of shit,” he said, his voice getting louder.  “You fucking piece of shit.  Don’t you ever fucking say another word about this to me ever again.”

I knew all along that he was going to react badly, but I didn’t really know why he would.  If I asked him why, he was going to react even more badly, so I was kind of stuck just staring at him pathetically.

“Do you hear me?” he growled, grabbing me by my shirt and staring me down.  “Do you understand what I’m saying?” “…no?” I said quietly.

He shook me, then dropped my shirt in disgust, standing up in a crouch in the low tent.  “I need to go.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, trying to get him to stay.

“Fuck your sorry!” Sasuke snapped at me.  “And fuck you,” he added for good measure.

“Do you think I’m joking with you or something?” I asked, not used to being the target of Sasuke’s venom after so many years.  “Do you think I’m not being sincere?”

“Of course you’re not being sincere!” he yelled.  “What kind of straight man tells another man that he loves him?”

“What, just because I’m not gay, I can’t have feelings for you?!” I cried, standing up and crouching in front of him.  A tent was a terrible place to have an argument.

“Yes, Naruto!” he said.  “That’s exactly what it fucking means!  Not being gay means that you are not attracted to men, you dumb shit!”

“Okay, but maybe consider that I’m Sasuke-sexual!” I snapped.

Sasuke opened his mouth but then immediately closed it.  He sat down on his sleeping bag and stared up at me.  “Sasuke… sexual…” he repeated, shaking his head.

“I am…” I tried to assert.

“There’s no such thing as Sasuke-sexual!” he yelled, but he wasn’t as mad anymore, and I felt some of the tension release from my shoulders.

I sat down across from him.  “Well, that’s what Sakura said…”

“Sakura knows about this?”

“Well, I told her about all the sex stuff, so…”

“What.  Sex.  Stuff.”

I could feel my face burning.  “Just sex stuff.  About you.  Um.  Sexy dreams and uh… other stuff.”

“I don’t like it,” he said.  “I don’t like it,” he repeated.  “Naruto, don’t do this to me.  Please.”

“I’m not doing anything to you,” I protested, feeling a little annoyed now.  “I’m telling you how I feel.  That’s more than you’ve ever done.”

He looked like I’d slapped him.  “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No, Sasuke, I’m not fucking kidding you,” I said irritably.  “You kissed me, and then you ran away.  You acted like it never happened.  And maybe if you had used your goddamn words instead, we could have figured some of this shit out.”

“You told me you weren’t gay!” he yelled, getting mad again.

“Yeah, and it’s pretty fucking weird that a non-gay guy was so cool with his gay best friend kissing him, wasn’t it?!” I snapped.

“You told me you weren’t gay,” he repeated, his voice getting softer.  “You humiliated me.”

I was gobsmacked.  “I humiliated you?”

“I was so sure you felt the same way about me,” he said.  “I was so sure, and then you pushed me away and said you weren’t gay, and I felt so… beneath you.  Like you were looking down on the poor little queer, telling me that it didn’t matter and you would forgive me-”

“I never said that-”

“Oh, okay, then how am I supposed to interpret all your little good-guy speeches about how it wouldn’t affect our friendship, how you still looked at me the same, whatever bullshit you came out with that clearly said that I’d done something wrong, but you were such a great guy that you would just overlook it?”

“That’s not what I meant…” I mumbled feebly.  “You just gave me this look like… I betrayed you, and I kept rambling, trying to make sure you wouldn’t just throw me away…”

“You threw me away,” he muttered.

“Sasuke…”

“So you suddenly want to fuck me now?”

“I…” I trailed off, feeling strange.

“No, really, tell me all about these sex dreams you’ve been having about me after telling me you weren’t gay.”

I was red again.

“Do you picture me with a pussy so you can stomach it?” he growled.

“No...” I said, cringing.  “Sas’, it’s not like that.”

“Then what is it like?”

“Is that the most important thing to fixate on when I’m telling you that I love you?” I asked.  This conversation was getting way off course.

“I just want to understand what a straight man sees in me,” he replied, eyes meeting mine in an unwavering stare.

“Oh, that’s easy,” I said, relaxing.  “You’re strong, you’re smart, you’re nice when you want to be, you’re good at making ramen, you fight for the people you love, you always stand up for what’s right even if it’s hard…”

“…none of those sound like romantic attraction,” Sasuke muttered.

“What, do you want me to tell you how attractive I find you?”

“Honestly, I think you just want to be me and are confusing that with physical attraction,” Sasuke said with a shrug.

I gaped at him.  “Jerk, who would want to be you?!” I snapped.

He smiled at that.  “You.”

“Ohmigod, you are the most narcissistic asshole on the face of this earth!”

He shrugged again.

“Please explain to me how it makes more sense that I want to be you than I want to be in you,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.

Sasuke startled at that.

I thought back over what I’d just said carefully.  “Uhhh, I mean… be with you…?”

“Do you even know how gay sex works?” he asked, eyes very carefully not meeting mine.

“I researched it,” I said confidently.

“And you’re just fine with it?” he asked.

I swallowed.  “I… don’t know if I’m ready for everything, but… I’m very interested in some of it.”

“You’re very interested in some of it?” Sasuke scoffed.  “Which parts?  Please do elaborate.”

I was red again.  “Is that what you want to hear?”

“Most definitely.”

“I mean, how much detail…?”

“All the details.”

“All the details?”

“All the details.”

“I mean, do I start with you, um…”

“With me what?” Sasuke asked, clearly starting to feel back in control as he looked me in the eyes.

“Well I guess um… you know… with your mouth…”

“So you’d like to get blown,” Sasuke said, nodding his head.

“I mean… yes…?”

“Interesting, and were you planning on returning the favor?”

I looked at the ground.  “If you wanted me to, I could… try.”

“So really you just want me to suck you off and then you give me a pat on the head for a job well done?”

“You asked me what I was interested in and I told you,” I growled, crossing my arms over my chest.  “This is all new to me, I’m not a professional gay like you.”

Sasuke very slowly raised an eyebrow.

This was already a disaster, and I seemed to be adding more flames to the fire.  “Forget it.  Forget everything I said.”

“Oh, are we just going to pretend that this didn’t happen?” Sasuke asked in that jackass tone of voice of his.

“Yes,” I said.  “We’re going to go to sleep and wake up tomorrow in a world where I never said anything, and then I’m going to tell you in a non-offensive way that I love you, and you will graciously listen to me and shake my hand at the end and agree that you don’t mind me having feelings for you and that you still want to work with me to build the new Konoha.”

He didn’t say anything at first, and I held my breath waiting.

Then I needed air and pulled it in with a loud gasp.

“Idiot,” he grumbled.

I gave him my biggest, roundest puppy dog eyes.

“You’re serious?” he asked, his voice taking on a vulnerable quality.

I nodded my head enthusiastically.

“Okay,” he said, getting back into his sleeping bag.  “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow!” I agreed, clamoring back into my own sleeping bag.  “So…”

“So?”

“We’re… okay?”

“Well, we’re pretending nothing happened, so we can also pretend that we’re okay,” Sasuke reasoned.

“Saaaaasukeeeeeee,” I complained.  “I’m sorry,” I added.

“Sorry for what?”

“For my behavior for the last… fifteen-ish years.”

“You’re going to need a lot more sorries than that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, as sincerely as I could.

“Weirdo.”

“I know.”

Sasuke sighed.  Or maybe he was taking a breath.  “Naruto?”

“Yeah?”

“Tomorrow…”

“Mm?”

“When you tell me whatever it has that you have to tell me…”

“Uh-huh?”

“What if I…” he trailed off and was silent.

“Tell me tomorrow,” I said.

“Okay.”

I slept fitfully, constantly waking up to every little noise.  The ground was more uncomfortable than usual, and I found myself constantly shifting and readjusting.

It was barely what could be called morning when I opened my eyes and found Sasuke right in front of me.

“Tell me the thing,” he said quietly.

“I’m in love with you,” I said, still half-asleep but never surer of anything in my life.

“Not just as friends?”

“Definitely not just as friends,” I said, trying to blink my eyes awake.

“Promise?” he asked, looking into my eyes.

“Promise,” I said, looking back and smiling.

He took a breath and shifted closer, then stopped.  His eyes kept staring into mine, asking a silent question.

I didn’t want to misread him, but it seemed like the longer I hesitated, the more anxious his expression got.  I reached out, curling my fingers gently behind his neck and pulling him in until we were sharing air.  “I promise,” I repeated.

“Okay,” he said, his voice soft.

We just breathed together, both of us about to have mutual nervous breakdowns.

“Naruto,” he said, and there were those eyes again.

All I had to do to answer the question…

It was the most tentative brush of lips in the history of brushing lips, but Sasuke endured it silently.

I looked at him.

He looked back at me.

I wanted him to talk to me.  I wanted him to tell me exactly what he expected.  What he wanted.  But in this moment, I knew there was no way that he would expose himself like that.  I had to be the one to take the risks.  I had to be the one to be vulnerable.  And it was scary.  It was really scary, and my breathing was getting more and more erratic, but Sasuke was just looking back at me and waiting, so I knew what I had to do and I kissed him like I meant it.

It was sparks.

It was fireworks.

It was home.

 - 0 -

  Naruto was spread-eagled across our bed like the whole damn thing belonged to him.

I sighed, dropping my travel bag on the floor before giving him a light kick.

He grumbled and shifted over about an inch.

“Uzumaki, you need to move,” I growled, peeling my shirt over my head and tossing it into the hamper.

“But I’m comfy,” he mumbled, smacking his lips sleepily.

“Get comfy somewhere else,” I complained, adding my pants to the hamper and walking over to the dresser.  The room was dark, so I felt along in the drawer with my hand until I found my nightclothes.

Naruto made some incoherent sound that probably meant he had gone back to sleep.

He worked hard every day, and I hated how tired he always was, but I had just traveled eighteen hours straight to get home, and he needed to move his ass over.

Dressed and ready for bed, I gave his bottom a much more significant kick that jarred him enough away from my side of the bed that I could squeeze in.

I don’t know why I bothered, because he immediately rolled right back over, wrapping himself around me.

“Hey,” he said, kissing my shoulder sleepily.  “I missed you.”

I was ready to be annoyed, but our bed was comfortable, Naruto was warm, and it was nice to be home.

“How was your mission?” he hummed into my skin.

“The usual.”

“That’s a pretty crappy mission report.”

“Well, you’re a pretty crappy hokage.”

“What is wrong with you?” he snorted, nudging me until I turned on my side to face him.  “Show your hokage-to-be some respect.”

“No,” I said, which only seemed to make him smile even wider.

Naruto didn’t mind my shit when he knew I didn’t mean it.  He rested his hand against my cheek, grinning dopily.

“I missed you, too,” I finally acknowledged, giving him a chaste kiss at the corner of his mouth.

His face lit up and I found myself being aggressively cuddled.

Our breathing started to even out as we both drifted towards sleep.

In moments like this, our relationship was easy, but when we woke up in the morning, the world would come crashing back in and everything would be complicated again.

“It’s in less than a week,” Naruto said, breaking up the silence.

I breathed in sharply, coming fully awake again.  “Yeah, it is,” I agreed.

“Will you stay home more?”

I couldn’t answer that.

Naruto sighed, kissing the top of my head.  “I need you,” he said quietly.  “I’m not… I can’t do this on my own, ya know?”

“I know,” I said.  I was the one who’d put the responsibility of changing the entire ninja world on his shoulders.  I just found it easier to support his ideals when I was as far away from Konoha as possible.  “I’m here now.”

“…for how long?”

I took a breath, weighing my answer so it didn’t turn into a fight.  “Until you send me on another mission.”

“Okay,” he said, rubbing his cheek against mine.  “Sorry for keepin’ you up, I just… every time I start to fall asleep, my mind starts goin’ a million miles a minute…”

I took his hand that was resting on my hip and laced our fingers together.

Naruto relaxed, some of his nervous energy dissipating.

“You’ll be a great hokage,” I said quietly.

“If I make it to my inauguration without being assassinated…”

“That’s the spirit.”

“…is that why you rushed back here so quickly?” he asked.

“I didn’t rush,” I said, despite how obvious it was that I had.

“Aw, did you wanna proteeeeect me?” Naruto cooed.

“Idiot,” I muttered.  Of course I wanted to protect him.  He had almost as many enemies as I did now after all his campaigns for reform.  He also had just as many loyal allies willing to lay down their lives for him, but try as I might I just couldn’t trust anyone else to watch his back.  I had to be here, making sure that nothing happened to stop Naruto’s becoming the sixth hokage.

He was smiling at me dopily, reading my thoughts clearly.  “Tomorrow morning, I’m gonna totally rock your world, okay?”

I rolled my eyes at that.  “Okay, let me get out my day planner and pencil in a world rocking from 7:00 to 7:02.”

The look on his face was priceless.

“Saaaaasukeeeee,” he whined.

“Go to sleep, Naruto,” I said, squeezing his hand.  I was always being meaner to him than necessary, but he understood.

“I’ll try,” he said, snuggling into me.

Fuck, he was adorable and more than I deserved.

I tended to be insecure about our relationship, and that led to me being an unnecessary asshole.  Our sex life was especially complicated, and we still had to tread lightly sometimes.  If I didn’t like something that we were doing and promptly informed Naruto, he would immediately stop, give me a kiss, and do something different.  If Naruto informed me that he didn’t like something, I took it as a personal insult against myself and my lineage that needed to be avenged immediately.

Naruto dealt with the fact that he was a straight man in a gay relationship better than I did.  ‘Heteroflexible’ he called it.

Not that Naruto was always perfect and kind and understanding.  We fought at times, mostly about the village.  He sometimes forgot to take off his rose-colored glasses and remember what had been done to him by the people claiming to have his best interests at heart.  No matter how many times I tried to convince him that the Third Hokage had neglected him, he refused to hear it.

I wanted Naruto to recognize the wrongs done to him, but that was a losing battle.

Much faster to just remind him that the Third Hokage covered up the slaughter of my family.

Naruto always got pissed off on my behalf.

Maybe one day we’d work out all of our psychological issues, but until then I just wanted him to understand that condemning the atrocities of one’s followers while helping them to cover it all up did not a good leader make.

I don’t know why I worried.  Naruto was already the best hokage Konoha had ever seen, and he hadn’t even officially taken the title yet.  Because in the end, Naruto always did the right thing.

I held him close, listening to his obnoxious snoring.  It lulled me into sleep, my eyes sliding shut.

We didn’t have it all figured it out yet, but we’d figure it out together.

Starting with a world rocking promptly at 7:00, apparently.

I stayed curled up in bed as Naruto shuffled around after, getting read for work.

“You sure you don’t want breakfast or anything?” he asked softly, the mattress dipping under his weight.

I mumbled something that probably resembled “no” and buried myself deeper in the blankets.  I felt the warmth of his hand as he touched my cheek, my eyes staying firmly shut.

“Okay, I’m off to save the world now.”

A little smile twitched at my lips.

“Love you,” he said, leaning in and pressing his lips to my temple.  “Come in before noon with your mission report, or you’re fired!”

My smile got a little wider.  Naruto’s fake power trips were cute, mostly due to how obviously fake they were.  “Like you would ever fire me,” I hummed.

“Try me,” he said, his voice teasing.  He pat my head, fingers running through my hair lingeringly before disappearing.  “See you at eleven fifty-nine.”

I scoffed, because I certainly hadn’t been planning to arrive exactly one minute before the deadline he gave me just to be contrary.  “Bye.”

“Bye!” he called, his voice drifting in from the hallway.

I listened until his steps disappeared and the front door closed.

Naruto had seemed so lost and aimless after the war, never knowing which direction to go in.  Ever since that day in the training field, though, when he forced the Council’s hand to name him officially as the sixth hokage...  Ever since that day, it was like Naruto had finally gotten on the path he was always meant to be on.  He moved with purpose again, his inner light filling him up after being dim for so long.

That light illuminated my own path.

I was still working on myself, trying to sort out the anger and the loss and the helplessness and the longing for revenge that never quite went away, but when I watched Naruto moving forward with no trace of doubt, it was like I could see my own path forward.

Naruto’s face was priceless as Shizune let me into the hokage’s office.

“You’re… early…” he said, glancing at the clock which read, ‘9:01’.

“I like to keep you on your toes,” I said, striding across the room and dumping my mission report on Naruto’s little desk that was pulled up next to Tsunade’s.  I didn’t spare her a glance, because it had long since been established that I only answered to Naruto.

“Consider me toed,” he said, raising his leg over his desk and pointing his toes.

Everyone in the room stared at him.

Naruto laughed his stupid laugh, and I felt myself almost smiling.

This idiot was going to be the hokage in five days, and I would move heaven and earth to make sure he was the greatest hokage Konoha ever saw.

[dramaclover]

Ending & Thoughts: Al Cappuccino

Another wacky and zany drama. Now I’m telling you now. Do not go into this drama expecting a dark thrilling undercover cop show. Cause this ain’t it. It’s more on the hilarious, lighthearted take on the police and triads. It’s not realistic in any way. Well I mean, no drama is fully realistic but this one is the exact opposite of how things should’ve gone down.

The amount of times where they talked OPENLY LOUD about who and who is undercover is ridiculous. It’s like they don’t even try to hide the fact. Typically only one or two people would know a certain someone is undercover. In this drama the handlers whole teams know, as well as her superiors. The amount of times they would meet up in public spaces or just casually call them over their personal phone is mind blowing. At first it was annoying, cause every time they did something so openly, I would think well “cover is blown”. But that’s not the case. As you continue to watch, you start to ignore it and pretend everyone is deaf and blind to this. When that happens the drama starts to become entertaining.

This whole drama just focused on one storyline and that is investigating who killed the triad boss. We don’t find out who it is until the very end. The stories in between talks about Chiang Sai Lung (Vincent Wong) taking over the head triads role. A lot of struggles in between with him trying to stay in this role. Side stories dealing with love lines, fan service scenes of bromance. The bromance was a huge factor and what made me so compelled to keep watching. Honestly Sai Lung and his 4 love interests were totally boring to me. I enjoyed his bromance with Go Bun (Owen Cheung)more. Also really liked Koo Yan Yi (Crystal Fung) as the handler and watch as the 3 become very close. This trio was fun to watch compared to those unnecessary side love stories.

Sai Lungs love story features heavily in this drama, so I can’t just not talk about them. The 4 woman in Sai Lungs life comprises of Koo Yan Yi aka Madam Koo, his handler that has a strong sense of justice & loyalty. So Tsz Shan (Kathy Yuen) a timid woman who aspires to be a teacher. Chong Ming Lai (Samantha Ko) a haughty actress. And Yiu Ching Shui aka Shui jie (Angel Chiang), the confident, outspoken business woman. Out of the 4, I only liked Madam Koo & Shui Jei. I guess this is TVBs attempt to make him similar to Chor Lau Heung where everyone falls in love with the male lead despite him not even trying.

Tsz Shan is so boring and easily bullied. She was not fun to watch, I didn’t think she had chemistry with Sai Lung and odd enough she was a huge fan favourite. Which I can’t wrap my head around, her character was just so bland to me. She’s so oblivious to her Dad and brothers wrongdoings. It gets annoying when she’s so blind to it all. I know it’s hard to believe your family member is evil, but really? Her role here is basically to be the main love interest to Sai Lung since she plays no role in solving the main mystery. She hasn’t even tried to help Sai Lung to uncover anything. She’s always so timid and getting put into a position where she’s in danger. Way too damsel in distress for me.

Ming Lai was super annoying, all she does is bother Sai Lung and threatens to make him stay by her side. And when she forces him to announce that their dating (they actually aren’t) she gets pissed when he leaves her for someone else. Like girl, you know he doesn’t like you. You blackmailed him into staying with you. Like what did you expect? Also her character could be written out and no one would notice her gone. That’s how unnecessary she was. She’s literally a filler character created to fill up the 30 episode slot. Samantha Ko is a great actress, it just sucks her role here is so unneeded.

Shui Jie was a breath of fresh air. Originally she was sent to seduce Sai Lung but she ends up falling for him instead. I really disliked how she fell for him though, it came out of nowhere. They met 4 times and suddenly she’s in love? It was to rush and random for me. But as a character itself, she was a breeze to watch. She’s super confident and smart. Unlike Tsz Shan she’s able to help Sai Lung in solving a lot of his problems and find ways to warn him of danger. I love how brave she is. She’s not afraid to tell someone she loves them and pursue it.

Madam Koo was also another likeable character. She doesn’t want to be known as just a pretty rich girl. She wants to prove that she can be a successful cop. You can tell how much faith she puts into Go Bun and Sai Lung. She treats them fairly and always finds way to help them. I really like how she can remain calm and think things through. When Go Bun and Sai Lung seemingly betrays her. She doesn’t get angry instead she goes and secretly investigates what’s going on. That is how she figured out how her Father was one of the masterminds. And she did that all alone.

Another side love story would be between Go Bun and Chiang Chin Ha (Winki Lai). They were fun to watch and had awesome chemistry. From the beginning we see that they both liked each other but won’t make a move. Chin Ha with her pride and knowing Go Bun would not reciprocate. Go Bun on the other hand is a cop. To him he can never be with someone involved with the triads. So it becomes a can’t help but love each other story. They were cute together but it was unrealistic for Chin Ha to forgive Go Bun so easily after finding out 1) he’s an undercover cop and 2) he only approached her to solve the case. Essentially Go Bun used her infiltrate the triad. The fact that it was glossed over so quickly made no sense. Chin Ha is a strong minded business person who strongly cares about her family. Yet, Go Bun lied to her all this time and used not only her but her family as well, and she’s okay with it? I’m glad they got a happy ending but I wished it showed more of the internal struggle with her finding out.

I’m always hoping for a good plot twist so I was secretly hoping that Cheung Sai Lun was actually Chiang Sai Lung. And that he was faking it the whole time cause he was upset that his family left him in the orphanage. The amount of scenarios that ran in my mind LOL. I also thought maybe he is Chiang Sai Lung but he himself didn’t know and it just became a case of mistaken identity (this would’ve been sooo good especially towards the end where they had a DNA test done). My third theory was Chiang Sai Lung is not dead and that he would show up in the end to reclaim his identity. But as you can see none of that happened. Don’t worry though, cause there were other plot twists that caught me off guard.

The first one is Sai Lung getting so caught up with his method acting that he actually becomes cruel. He along with Go Bun betrays Madam Koo and turns to the dark side of the triad. I was so invested in this. I really thought Sai Lung could no longer break his character and that he had fallen into deep. This has happened in real life where actors could no longer separate real from fake. I love that they added that into the storyline cause it makes it all real and scary. Of course turns out it was all an act to sniff out the real killer. Unfortunately it was easy to figure out that it was an act once he had a “fall out” with Go Bun. That part was a little too much for it to be real. And that’s when the surprises stop.

The second one would be the development of Szeto Shun (Jack Hui) a cop that relies on dirty tactics to climb up in ranks. He is one of the many antagonist, what makes him different though is that he repents and redeems himself by the end. His character had the best development if you ask me. He went from someone whose dream was to be a cop, to using underhanded methods to get his way to finally becoming a human again. He gets so caught up in promotions that he forgot why he became a cop in the first place which is for justice. When he helped Madam Koo arrest the bad guy he said something along the lines of “I have done bad things, but in the end I’m still a cop”. He said that as the reason why he decided to do the right thing for once. At first I thought he’d be the typical evil cop that ends up dying. But this character proved me wrong. In the end he turns himself in as he wanted to take responsibility for his actions.

I was shocked that no one died in this drama. And when I say that I obviously meant the main characters. Usually the obligatory best friend, love interest, family member heck even one of the bad guys would die. But that didn’t happen. They all survived, even the bad guys just quietly went to jail. Speaking of bad guys, their problems were resolved so quickly that it was pointless. We did not sit through all of that drama just for the bad guys to one by one casually reveal what happened. It was so unoriginal too. Like Madam Koos father got touched by her speech about good and evil that her father confessed to the crime. Tsz Shans father out of guilt for being the cause of her daughters injuries confessed to everything to “repent”. Even the ultimate black cop just spewed the truth out once asked. Like I understand he was caught red handed but he literally revealed all of the information once questioned? He’s not even gonna try to fight it? He doesn’t even have an emotional backstory for him to feel guilty to admit the truth. It just happened. It was so nonsensical that I got confused that it all ended so quickly. There wasn’t even a huge fighting showdown. Which is why I say despite this dubbed as a undercover triad thriller drama. It isn’t! Being an undercover cop was like a backdrop, even the mystery death was sidelined. The focus was on the familial and bromance relationship. The drama would’ve been short if they hadn’t added in the random romances.

Acting wise, I’ve seen a lot of hate against Crystal. There were so many complaints in the international forums I literally thought she was a train wreck. Well she wasn’t. I don’t see how she ruined the drama? I’m convinced that people just complain about her cause they aren’t happy about her being promoted by TVB. But guys you need to chill. Her acting is pretty decent. She isn’t screaming her lines or bulging her eyes out. She is stiff and needs more work on enunciating. This was her first leading drama and she’s still so new. I really thought her acting would be like Sisley Choi from 2012 with the screaming or Charmaine Sheh from 1998 with the overreacting. But she wasn’t. Also people complained about her wardrobe cause she was dressed so fashionably. Are you guys blind? All the main males in this drama are dressed in suits 24/7 whether they’re a cop or not. Literally Go Bun and Sai Lung wears a suit everyday walking around. They’re not wearing causal wear. Why is no one hating on them? The double standards are scary. But then again it could just be hate against Crystal in general. Back when Niki Chow and Kate Tsui played as cops they would wear high heels and pretty clothes as well but no one said anything. And this drama was anything but realistic. I find that it’s the international fans that are complaining, Hong Kong netizens are actually satisfied with Crystal.

Owen Cheung has finally found his niche and that is comedy. Every drama he’s been in, I’ve always been unimpressed with him. But then I figured out it’s mostly cause he gets typecasted as the “hot” guy in which I personally think he’s not. He’s more suited for nerdy roles like (The Offliners) or comedic roles like this one. It’s like how Benjamin Yuen is wooden in serious roles and only good in comedy ones as well. The bromance between him Vincent was great. So hilarious that I sometimes wished the drama just focused on their bromance only.

The ending was open ended in a way. Go Bun and Chin Ha gets married. The Chiang family has left the triad behind and deals with legal business only. Sai Lun has to make a choice of staying in Hong Kong or pursuing his acting dreams overseas. And between the 4 woman in love with him, he doesn’t end up with either of them. Only ending with saying how he’s happy he met the 4 of them. Obviously he loves Tsz Shan the most. No question about it. The 4 woman knows that as well. So I don’t know why they ended it like that. This is the first drama where the female lead loves the male lead but they don’t end up together. Instead he falls fall for the second lead instead. I’m okay with it as I prefer Madam Koo and Sai Lun as good friends but it’s surprising to see them go down this route instead. Sequel? Hmm I don’t know. What could the sequel be about? Sai Lun can’t just go undercover in a different family again. Unless they shift the focus from triad/ cops to something else.

Despite the flaws I love this drama. I kept wanting to watch the next episode compared to Death by Zero. I was just so into the bromance and the hilarious antics. It’s just so entertaining. I know I complained a lot, but this is one drama I highly recommend you to watch. Just don’t go into it believing it’s like Infernal Affairs or Line Walker. This is in the running to be one of TVBs better dramas of 2020 along with Brutally Young and Death by Zero!

[jamiebluewind]

Character Descriptions for Fantasy High 2.9!

***

As always, let me know if I need to edit or add anything and tag/ask/PM me about art and stories so I can check them out!

Warning: trauma, abuse, mental abuse, neglect, starvation, manipulation, memory loss mention, dark themes, isolation, imprisonment, fantasy racism, vomit mention (please let me know if I missed any)

All pronounciations typed out have a rolled R.

***

Facts

The party is currently at 44,100 exp. each. Next level is at 48,000 (which will probably take 3 more big battles, 2 if Brennan is super generous with RP awards).

Abernant family had all their land and wealth reclaimed by The Court of Stars for their treachery and failure to prevent a war with Solace. Elianwyn committed treason and betrayal as well.

To save Adaine, the group decided to break up into 3 teams: Pylon 1 (Ragh, Tracker, Cathilda, and Sandra Lynn), Pylon 2 (Gorgug, Fabian, and Riz), and Recovery (Ayda, Fig, and Kristen). Team 1 and 2 would simultaneously take out the pylons. Then, the recovery team would go in (invisible and/or disguised) and gets Adaine and Aelwyn. They would all meet back at Van where they would most likely use Ayda's teleport to leave Fallinel (or regroup to plan their next move).

***

New Characters

Tell-ah-mine Low-men-el-da

Fabian's grandpapa

Tall elf with regal green robes, a silver circlet, long platinum white blond hair with a widows peak, and shimmering blue eyes

Crinkle in the corners of his eyes shows his age in sort of an Elrond way. He look of a dude in his late 40s/early 50s who took excellent care of his body and kept it tight

Moves with supernatural grace

Can turn into silver sand and float away

Has no concept of what time means

Obsessed with the fact that his grandson will die before him (Your human blood has brought mortality to this family. You will one day die.)

Offers to send word to an elf who is a fabled eye smith who lives on the high mountains at the heart of Fallinel that can craft a working eye (from songs, whispers, beams of moonlight, jeweled edges of the blue of the sea, and shimmering poems pulled from the ether itself) for Fabian, but has no clue how long it will take (a moment, a year, or a hundred years).

Can't pronounce words in common very well, especially words he's never heard before (which delights Fabian and pisses off Gorgug)

Calls Fabian Aramais Seacaster fa-bee-ahn ah-rye-ah-my-ess Seacaster (which might actually be the proper pronouncations of his name in that region as "Seacaster" was said correctly and that's how all the other elves say his name as well) and calls Hallariel ha-lair-ee-el

Weeps without moving his face, but also sometimes makes a soft eeehhhh sound when he cries (at one point he cried over a drop of water)

Gifted stewardship of Khy-low Meh-new-rah 3000 years ago after he crafted The Sword of the North Star (he was the smith of fung-dran-ghoor) for the ancient king of Fallinel Th-wrist-win Eversong.

"Without the Elven Oracle, we are lost."

Saw the Abernants as power hungry and cruel and can't understand why they would leave Fallinel. He found Anguin in particular to be a crass and small man with no nobility, only a thirst for power.

Thinks Riz has a harsh energy, is "a little dick", and calls him "a strange green mouse thing"

Got physically ill when a gun was explained to him, calling it gross and some dwarven kind of thing before vomiting which he turns into a flock of white crows

Vhan-lair-ee-el

Fabian's aunt

Tried to heal Fabian's pneumonia with elvan singing

Said "I have failed" when her singing doesn't work before she fades into starlight and vanishes

Hal-door-in and [unnamed youth]

Elven teens in white linen shorts arguing because [unnamed] believes Hal-door-in took his lute.

Calmed by a distant song which stopped their fight.

Faf-threth-riel

Lithe elven youth (around 17 or 18 years old) with a blond mop of hair covering one eye

Bakes elven whey bread

Lived a sheltered life

Ragh was the first half-orc he met

Mostly into Ragh due to Ragh being half orc, excessively talking about his green skin (like the boughs of a tree leafy, my leafy man), being big and beefy (your legs are like the mighty trunks of trees), was really into rage (like when Ragh punched a seat cushion) to the point of it making Ragh uncomfortable

Sang in bed

Treth-thren-ren

Elven youth who does morning dance yoga

Tried to get Fabian to eat a grape

Oak Warriors

Elemental plant based automaton soldiers made of pure magic

Look like 8 foot tall green men with leaves coming from their faces

***

Changes to Established Characters

Aelwyn

Matted long blond hair

Dry skin, chapped colorless lips, and thick bags under her eyes

Severely dehydrated and trance deprived (probably hasn't been allowed to trance for nearly a year)

5 points of exhaustion. Only magic is keeping her from going to the 6th level and dying.

Her "room" is a large large beautiful elven chamber with silver and marble. Ambiant light glows from the white stone.

Trapped inside a 15 foot diameter orb that's constantly turning so she can't trance

Crawling on hands and knees while trapped, shaking with the effort

Doesn't give Adaine up to Kear

Can still remember how to cast the message cantrip

Feels strange and addled (unable to think clearly; confused), can't remember what's real or imagined anymore, doesn't clearly remember what happened in her past (including what she did to get imprisoned), and forgets what she and Adaine have already talked about (causing a lot of reputation).

Thinks her parents "tried their best they could" and that "they expected quite a lot of us, but isn't that what- doesn't that... didn't that make us great?" (possibly due to something her father said or did since her imprisonment as it echoes a few things he's said)

Gilear

Looks scruffy (from not shaving), dirty, and has pit stains

Somehow didn't mess up being diplomatic with Fabian's grandpapa

Unbuttons the top button on his shirt when he "lets loose"

To Fig about Sandra Lynn and Garthy: Are you aware of such... hanky panky?

Learning of Sandra Lynn's infidelity with Garthy "Honestly? Perhaps this is... fucked up. It makes me feel... like there wasn't something uniquely wrong with me. Maybe a tiny little w for Gilear."

Spent the night walking through the forest with Hallariel's father, reciting poetry (badly)

To Fabian after Hallariel's father threw up "You're low and he's low. It's Gilear's day baby! It's Gilear's day."

Tried to ask Hallariel's father for her hand, but even though Fig gave him bardic inspiration and Riz helped by covering Fabian's mouth, he failed... so much. ("Lord Tell-ah-mine of Khy-low Meh-new-rah I like you am-" *makes himself throw up* "We get it. We both get it. We... We're the throw up boys." *passes out*)

Ayda

Hid in the van the entire visit

Might have rejection sensitive dysphoria (which is common in those with autism or ADHD)

Did a sending spell to Zelda for Gorgug for 150 gold (after reminding him that she very much does not like anyone in her debt or visa versa)

Offered to exact vengeance on Zelda for Gorgug

Is powerful enough to know teleport and learn plane shift (so level 13 or higher)

Stated that Adaine is her best friend and decides that since Fig is also Adaine's best friend, by the transitive property she is best friends with Fig as well (and Fig agreed). Learning this, she says "Fantastic. I grow richer by the day. I'm emotional." before starting to cry fire "I'm emotional. I'm gonna fly away." She then flew away, returning after she had calmed down.

Ragh

Ate grapes and started burping musical notes after he left Khy-low Meh-new-rah.

Lost his virginity to Faf-threth-riel who then got creepy and kinda racist, making Ragh very uncomfortable (and want to get out of there asap)

Fabian

Lost both points of exhaustion thanks to the 8000 thread count elven sheets (did they get to keep the sheets or at least one sheet for help with exhaustion?)

Felt really good when he tried out dance yoga, even wondering if he should be some kind of yoga dancer instead of a fighter (how about a whirling dervish dancer like Cathilda?)

The grapes he put in his pocket (after refusing to eat them) turned into song

Indifferent towards saving Aelwyn and doesn't want to be on the retrieval team

When he started feeling anxious about the Aelwyn stuff, Riz told him to lose himself in dancing again to feel free (Riz: You are the only one that I wanna see dancing right now.) It made him feel much better.

***

Other Characters

Adaine

Taken by Court of Stars

Her jacket and spellbook were taken

Trapped in an orb which is soft and doesn't hurt her, but the constant movement of its slow turning doesn't allow her to be still or trance

The walls of her room glow with runes and there are many perminant magical effects, making her captors capable of some crazy things (like prepared directional counter spells), but the setup wouldn't counter cantrips

Escaped the orb with dispel magic (dc 15) which makes a couple counter spells go off and an alarm sound

Hid in Aelwyn's room. The sister's spoke before she was recaptured and placed back in her orb. Adaine told Aelwyn that she was going to get her out

Discovered that her room was close enough to Aelwyn to talk to her via the message cantrip

Repeatedly cast Ray of Frost to turn her orb into a slip and slide to stay entertained

Instead of speaking to her father in elvish, she responded in common. Also cast Tasha's Hideous Laughter on him.

Anguin and Kear said she would be executed for treason for staying in Solace and refusing to cooperate. She demanded a lawyer and then the Ambassador to Solace, citing her age and being a student at Augefort Adventuring Academy which summoned a recorded hologram of Arthur Augefort.

Arthur Augefort

Has a recorded hologram that is activated when a student claims the need of his diplomatic help in foreign affairs.

It threatens the listeners with graphic and terrifying violence and doom, giving them the options of either rectify the actions that summoned him (Yes) or refuse and welcome the aforementioned punishment for their actions (No).

Gorgug

Fabian's grandfather called him Jhor-judge

Finally got a message to Zelda via Ayda using her sending spell (Zelda. Safe in Fallinel. Gonna finish cell tower soon. Sorry about everything, but hope your break is going well in spite of this. Miss you.) and got a reply the next morning a little while after waking up (Sorry. Was at a party. You don't have to build a cell tower. That's crazy. It's all whatever Gorgug. I don't blame you.)

Didn't sleep well, but still got the benefit of a full night's sleep due to elven sheets.

Kristen

Got in a fight with Tracker and then got 3 nat 1s on persuasion checks when she tried to make up with her.

Slept in Adaine's room

Doesn't know how to make a cell tower

Took one of the 40 to 50 foot long diaphanous silk scarves with her

Gave (inspiring?) speech ending with "Friendship is thinker than water and we need water to live." which gave everyone 11 temp hit points

Accidentally called Pok a "smiling elf" and then blew it off as being due to her being human

Can now see Shadow Cat in the picture (along with Tracker, Sandra Lynn, Garthy, Riz, and Sklonda and possibly the dead cambian, Pok, Jace, and Adaine's mom) and reacted by saying "Was I spooning the cat all night in the milk!?"

Sandra Lynn

Dropped out senior year and got her diploma after the fact to join an adventuring party

Joined as a replacement member for an existing adventuring party that was already active in the world and included an older much more powerful married couple.

Fresh out of high school, fell in love with one person from the couple (nonbinary or gender intentionally hidden) who "did not treat her very kindly"

When it all came out, she was ejected from the adventuring party, her romantic partner took great pains to smear her name (so no one would accept her), no other party would take her as a replacement, and she was forced to become a Celesian Ranger

Gilear knows who the couple were, but doesn't want to tell Fig (could she know the people involved?)

Key-heir/Khear

Child-like elven maiden with long brown braided hair, a white gown, and a large staff.

When confronted by Arthur Augefort's hologram, she chose to not heed his warnings.

***

More from 2.9!

***

Previous

[yaachtynoboat711]

Fonder 5.2

A/N: So this is obvi a follow-up of Ch.5 as well as its conclusion. Hopefully, the plot won’t be as shook up as it was in 5.1 or will it? I hope y’all enjoy.

Word Count: little over 3K

Warning(s): Plot progression, fluff, specks of angst(?)

NEW YEARS DAY 2015, 11:47 A.M, Malibu, California NEW YEARS DAY 2015, 11:47 A.M, Malibu, California

Peace and serenity—the most fitting way to transition into the New Year. The overlapping sounds of seagulls and crashing ocean waves outside would usually pull Yaa out of her deep slumbers. If it wasn’t the beach sounds, then it was her actual alarm. But let’s be honest: no one really has an alarm go off on New Year’s day, especially if you had the night that Yaa had had. Yaa’s snoring went in sync with the crashing waves and her wavy, honey blonde locs scattered at every which way across the silk taupe pillow case. Boom boom boom. The heavy knocking on her bedroom had startled her out of her post-sex slumber. Who was banging on her door like the feds before noon? The trio of knocks continued until she reluctantly got out of bed and searched for anything to put on.

“I’m comin’...damn!”, she tried to yell, but her hoarseness wouldn’t allow her. She winced in pain as she hopped into a pair of shorts and a tank top and began limping towards the door. She opened the door to see that it was her best friend, Tanisha. “Bitch...somebody better be dead, hurt, or dying.”

Tanisha chuckled. “Well, Happy New Year to you, too. Lover Boy is down there making brunch.”

Yaa looked at her friend in total confusion. “Is that what I’m smelling? Tanisha nodded. “Well, I’m surprised you aren’t somewhere fighting a hangover.”

Tanisha rolled her eyes. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. Between you gettin’ your cervix tickled, and trust me, it sounded like he was giving’ you the BUSINESS, and me throwing my night up, I was going through it. Started the new year off on the wrong foot.”

Yaa felt herself turning red and her eyes bugging out. “Were we really that loud?”

“Sis, he might’ve worn you out, but you must have that voodoo pussy. Wanna know why? You got Michael B. Jordan in your kitchen cooking yo magical pussy having ass a 5-star brunch on New Year’s day. If that ain’t power, then I don’t know what the hell is. Done turned this nigga into a damn domestic overnight. Speaking of, text me when breakfast is ready. I deserve whatever he’s whippin’ up.”

Tanisha went back into room, presumably to catch up on her missed Z’s. Yaa went downstairs to see Michael for herself. The further she got down the stairs, the louder the “All About the Benjamins” got. She carefully hopped off the stair landing and Diddy bopped her way through the den, making a slight left to go through the back way into the kitchen.

She pursed her lips to keep from laughing as she watched Michael also Diddy bop back to the stove to finish cooking whatever he had cooking on the stove. Wearing only a pair of heather grey cut-off sweats and Nike slides with socks, his shoulders and upper body bounced to the beginning of Total’s “Can’t You See”. He placed a kitchen towel over his shoulder before plating his brunch creation.

“So what’s on the menu, Mr. Jordan?”, she spooked.

He seized, clenching the small saucepan he had in his grasp. “Shit!”

Yaa chuckled, “I’m sorry I couldn’t help it.”, she stopped to look over his shoulder, “you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Cajun catfish and cheese grits, fruit, and peach bellinis.”

“Oooh shit! Lemme find out the B in your name stands for ‘Brunch Daddy’! I’ll get Tanisha up.”

Yaa called Tanisha from the bottom of the stairs. Tanisha came down moments later. The three sat at the table passing bowls, skillets, and pans to each other. The room was filled with the sounds of clacking plates and satisfied stomachs.

“Who would’ve known Michael B. Jordan was a whole ass chef? I learned something new today.”, remarked Yaa as she sipped her Powerade.

Michael chuckled at Yaa’s comment, “Word? Well, to be honest, if this acting thing didn’t work out, Plan B was being a chef. My mom taught me how to cook and I haven’t looked back since. Now from what I hear, you know how to get down yourself.”

It was hard for Yaa to be humble, but she managed to keep her cool. “I mean, I’m a country girl. Carrie, my maternal grandmother, taught me most of what I know. She and my Rainey raised me and my siblings when my parents were working pretty much around the clock for a few years.”

“How many siblings?”

“2. I have a twin sister, Farrah, that’s fraternal as hell, and a brother, Jahlil, that’s 5 years younger.”

He laughed at her statement about her sister Farrah. “I also have two other siblings--I’m a middle child. An older sister and a younger brother.” Tanisha, the oldest of four, and Yaa both cringed at him being the middle child. “I couldn’t imagine having two sisters though.”

Yaa shot him a look. “Watch it, son.”

He placed his fist in front of his mouth as he chewed. “So, I heard you say you were a country girl, so how country are we talkin’?”

“I was born in Alabama and graduated high school and college in Alabama, but I was raised in a massive mansion in rural Louisiana, so I’m a Louisi-Bama. You’re a Jersey-Cali boy from my understanding?”

He shook his head in the affirmative, impressed with her knowledge about him. “Ok! President of the fan club is showing herself worthy of the title.”

“Boy, don’t get cussed out.”

*****

Missed Call: Maybe: Winny the Pooh

Yaa tapped on the missed call notification without hesitation. She almost forgot they weren’t talking. Immediately after their last exchange, Winston’s number went to the good ole Block List. Something told her to unblock his number the day before leaving for California. So she did and now here she was, returning her ex’s ca—

“Hello?”, Winston answered.

“He-heyyyy you! Happy New Year! I saw you called and I’m just seeing your text.”, Yaa replied. Silence. You could hear a rat piss on carpet.

“Ummm…”, he cleared his throat, “...so you down for lunch?”

“Oof. I just had brunch. How does coffee or tea sound? Bean in Beverly Hills?”

“That’s even better. Meet me at 4ish?”

“Make it 4:30 and we’ve got a deal. See you then!” Click.

*****

Yaa walked out of the bathroom from her shower feeling renewed. Skin washed away of the little makeup that remained on her face from her...celebration from the previous night. Skin glowing thanks to the best shea butter Ghana had to offer. Locs looking healthy as always. Her glow increased when she saw Michael laying in her bed reading his phone but looking up when he sensed her presence. He stopped looking down at his phone to admire the beauty that was Khalida Abdullah.

Even in such a simple task as putting on clothes, Michael could see why her exes were head over heels with her. Every move she made was graceful. From the little twerk she did to get her chub into her light gray yoga capri pants, to the overhead jig to get into her oversized black monogrammed tank top with a gold fleur-de-lis. She walked to his side of the bed to retrieve her new Apple Watch from its charger. Before she could walk towards the door, he snatched her up onto the bed with him, playfully gnawing at her neck.

“Where you goin’ looking all good and delicious for, hmm?”, he implored.

“Well, Kari, I’m meeting someone for coffee. It ain’t your business who gon’ be there, either.”, she answered with sass.

“I see. Secondly, who gave you this trash ass Saints shirt? I need to get you at least two Falcons shirts.”

She escaped from his grip and returned a sour look. A record scratched in her head. “I-I-I’m sorry. I SLEPT WITH A FUCKING FALCONS FAN?! MY FAMILY RAISED ME BETTER THAN THIS!”

“Oh, you some super fan or something?”, he questioned.

“I’m surprised Tanisha didn’t tell you. Have you know, one, my family holds minority stake in the organization, making us minority owners, and two, my first boyfriend and best friend to this day is a proud SUPER BOWL-WINNING Saint. Now if you excuse me, I have to rush to my meeting and go reclaim my dignity.”,she bragged as she walked out of the door. But before she could walk out of door, she poked her head through the door and flipped him off.

“You so fucking CHILDISH, Khalida!”

BEAN BEVERLY HILLS, 2:19 P.M.

Yaa had accomplished many things in her life, from graduating college at 18 to receiving 4 degrees before turning 25, but nothing was as nerve-wrecking as meeting up with Winston. Let’s face it: their last meeting left such a distaste in her mouth.

Her left Chaco tapped softly yet persistently against the dark hardwood floors, while the right rested underneath her bottom.With one hand rested against her warm cup of honey-sweetened hibiscus tea and the other texting Tanisha for guidance into this awaited meeting, she attempted to clear her mind of the past and concern herself with the future. Would he be on that bullshit again? Will I have to smack a bitch? Has he decided to grow up? Does he look dusty? She looked out of the window and zoned out as she watched Beverly Hills slowly wake up after the wild night everyone had.

“Khalida?”, Winston called loud enough to pull his ex-girlfriend out of her daze. She shook her head and looked up to lock eyes with her former lover.

“Hey, hey!”, she greeted. She slowly got up and limped two steps to hug him. It was almost like they’d never skipped a beat. For a moment in time, it felt like they were the only people in the coffee shop, which if you exclude the employees and maybe three other people scattered around the shop, they were. Bitch, get offa him. He spazzed on you, remember?

Immediately upon having the thought, she separated from him and she gestured for him to sit. “So, I might’ve ordered a blueberry scone or two for you. I’m pretty sure you’ve put yourself on some depressing ass diet, but treat yourself.” Almost if on cue, the barista placed a small pink box in front of Winston, along with a caramel latte.

“You didn’t have to do that, but I appreciate it.”, Winston acknowledged. The two shared a nervous laugh and got themselves comfortable in their seats. The tension between could have been cut with a cleaver; so much could’ve been said, after all. The two looked at each in an attempt to find their words.

“I wanna apol-”

“Sorr-”

“You firs-

“No, you fir-”

“Gotdammit! Somebody finna fuckin talk out of sync.”, Yaa finally said by herself. “Guess I’ll start. Lemme cut to the chase—why are we here?” She sipped on her tea as she waited for his answer.

He pondered before speaking, “Well, first, I just want to apologize for acting like...being an ass a few months back. I wasn’t in my right mind in that relationship. Michelle was a nightmare after that night and we broke it off not even a week after our last meeting. I tried to call you, but I’m more than you confident you blocked my number. Hell, I don’t blame you. Now, I called you on a fluke last night and after analyzing what I said and even getting some choice words from my mom, I was wondering if your offer for friendship was still on the table? I messed up twice, and I don’t want to do lose you anymore.”

Yaa looked around the coffee shop and firmly gripped his chin to get a better look at him. “Is this the same Winston that I saw a few months ago? I’m almost afraid to hear the answer.”

WInston grimaced from the pain shooting to his jaw. Though small, Yaa’s hands had strength, or “country strength”, as she called it from years of herding large animals and even people. “Woman, I need to resize your strength.” Winston moved his jaw from her grip and moved it from side to side to alleviate the pain. “If we’re being transparent, I cried just about every night thinking about how I treated you when we broke up. I’m pretty sure I’m the biggest idiot for allowing a woman such as yourself to walk out twice. At this point, I just want us to be back on good terms.”

“Don’t fucking play with me, Winston. Are you sure? Is this what you truly want?”

“Yes. I just miss you. Aside from the romantic aspect, I just miss the little things, like your random calls in the middle of the day about some tea you just got, your spirit, and even getting cursed out by you.” Poor Winston. Though she knew his sincerity, Yaa found it hard to believe his sap story. If he could help it, he would’ve been on his knees pleading for a second chance.

Yaa’s face was unreadable—stoic, yet unreadable. It was a face that was over apologies and all for corrected behavior. A face that was finding itself conflicted with two men. Deep down, she wanted to be back with Winston. After all, he was her true love. But true love is tested. The plane needed to be taken apart, diagnosed, and rebuilt in order for it to be cleared for service. Everything was sounding good, too good to be believed without doubt. Yet, she still felt the urge to suplex Winston for crumbling her heart and her feelings back in June.

Khalida sipped the rest of her tea before breaking the painful silence built between her and her pitiful ex, “Do you want me?”

“What? Of course, Khalida! What are you talking about?”, Winston replied confused and taken aback from the question. Khalida chuckled—shoulders and all—as she nodded her head.

“No,no, no, baby boy. Do you want me? As in a your lifelong partner, forever and always? Not just in the physical or in lust, but as your better half, trusted confidant, your No Limit Soldier, ya yeah wit da yeah? How we should be instead of how we used to be?”

Winston paused to word his answer, “...Yes. You shouldn’t even have to ask me that question.”

“Well, if you want me, then you have to earn me.”

“Obviously, Olivia Pope, but you make it seem easier said than done. How do I earn you back?”

“Stick with me for a moment. You remember that plane analogy I used in Louisiana?” He nodded. “Aight, so boom: right now, the plane is completely outta service, y’eardme? The best way to have it back in service is to completely dismember the plane—start from scratch. Next, we gotta find the parts of the plane that caused the malfunction. We get better parts and rebuild, bit by bit. Soon, we’ll have an improved plane that’s better than the old plane. The crew’s gotten more experience, been with other pilots and co-pilots, and next inspection, the plane will be ready for service. It’s not an overnight process, but we’ll get through it. So...are you in?”

Winston offer his hand to shake on the new agreement, an offer in which Yaa accepted, along with a hug. “To new beginnings. A clean slate. Let’s start: I’m Winston. You are?”

Yaa snorted, “Khalida,but you can call me Yaa.” They shook hands once more, sharing a laugh. The laugh led to two genuine smiles. Their hearts skipped beats as they saw each other’s smiles.

“So...I’ve been meaning to ask, what or who’s got you glowing like this? There’s only so much Shea butter in the world…”, Winston inquired as he stirred the remainder of his caramel latte.

Yaa’s mind flashed back to nearly 12 hours ago when she was calling God’s name more than Kirk Franklin and the Family. Mental vignettes of Yaa and Michael moaning and the sound of skin slapping flashed throughout her mind, causing her to re-adjust her sitting position in her seat.

“I...I...uh…met someone last night. Everything happened so fast. Once the smoke clears and we establish something or the lack thereof, I’ll tell you more about him.”, Yaa stopped herself from turning flush.

While he smiled, Winston felt a small part of him die, but he realized that it was only fair that she get her shot of a relationship. But he knew her and the person she was—she was the prototype. Any man or woman would be stupid to not fall for her in some way. His smile widened as he locked eyes with her. Oh, how he’d missed that look.

The two began catching up about life beyond the romantic aspect. The basic “how ya momma nem?” conversations. After that, they walked about of the coffee shop, but not before he helped her out of her stiffened position from the seat. They hugged once more before going their separate ways. Not even 10 feet away, he turned to speak again. “I’m sorry.”

“You just apologized like 20 minutes ago, moe.”, Yaa yelled.

“No.”, he closed the distance between them, “I’m sorry for not knowing how to be a decent boyfriend to you. You’re a special woman with who needs a special man in her life. I know I’m that man, but just not right now. Whoever he or she is that you met last night, I hope they understood that the moment they laid eyes on you and plan accordingly. I wish I did when I met you. Sorry...I just needed to get that off of my chest.” By this time, his large hands enrobed her small hands and he hadn’t realized it. When he did, he promptly removed them.

“It’s ok, love. Today was fun. I gotta bounce, but be safe and have a happy new year.” She walked to her rental Prius and honked at him as she passed him.

He chuckled to himself as he walked to his car, “Oh, I will, Dr. Duke, I will.”

MY LIST, MY LIST, BETTER THAN YO LIST!!

@muse-of-mbaku @kumkaniudaku @eriknutinthispoosy @whoramilaje @mbakusthrone @mbakuwife @crushed-pink-petals @inlovewithmakeupcomicsanimelove @jackburtonsays @randomwordprompts @bartierbakarimobisson @wakandan-flowerz @blackpantherreblogs @babygirlofwakanda @eerythingisshaka @washyourlinens @turn-thy-paige @doublesidedscoobysnacks @wakandas-vibranium @oceanscorazon @oshasimone @destinio1 @sonofnjobu @teheeboo @sarahboseman @iamrheaspeaks @chaneajoyyy @lovelynervouschaos @cay-cah @coonflix @katasstrophey @mareethequeen @jozigrrl @great-neckpectations @thememoireeofme @forgottenthoughtsandmemories @ljstraightnochaser @jellybean531 @yofavcocoa @storibambino @maya-leche @blackgirloneshots @royallyprincesslilly @texasbama @certifiednatural @abeautifulmindexposed

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 214: 4th Popularity Poll and 5th Set Climax

Previously on BnHA: Deku met a Hellboy-looking dude in another one of his One For All Dreams and they had a chat! This friendly yet intimidating fella told Deku that the power that had just exploded out of him was actually the dude’s quirk, Blackwhip. It turns out that OFA hasn’t just been stockpiling physical power; all six of the prior wielder’s quirks are included in the package as well! It’s just that up until now, none of the other wielders has ever been able to access them. Before vanishing back into the dream abyss, Deku’s new friend told him he needed to gain better control of his emotions, as his anger toward Monoma was what triggered Blackwhip’s rampage and made it so difficult to handle. Back in the real world, Deku awakened unharmed thanks to Ochako and Shinsou’s efforts. But since the teachers hadn’t called off the battle yet, Monoma came rushing in to attack, with the rest of Team B not being far behind. Mina and Mineta showed up to battle Yanagi, Shouda, and Kodai (they really need to do something about that number disadvantage), while Ochako battled Monoma and Shinsou got ready to take on Deku. The teachers are still watching btw, but it seems like they want to see how this plays out.

Today on BnHA: The newest popularity poll results are revealed and I have a lot of thoughts. A lot of thoughts. Vlad and All Might question why Aizawa wants to let the kids keep fighting, and Aizawa says it’s cuz they’re all still trying their hardest to win. Mineta saves Mina’s life and then completely ruins it because of course he does, but she takes it in stride and uses him to attack the others by flinging him at high speed to ricochet endlessly off of his grapes in a Gran Torino-esque fashion. Monoma tries to attack Deku with One for All but it doesn’t do anything (fortunately for Monoma), and Ochako then takes him down while Deku goes after Shinsou. Deku by the way is fighting quirkless because he’s worried that if he tries to use OFA right now he’ll lose control and put everyone in danger again. He and Shinsou start tusslin’ and we have a flashback to when Ponytail!Aizawa (omg) was training Shinsou on how to use his capture weapon. Back in the present, Shinsou uses the scarf to send a bunch of heavy pipes crashing down towards Deku. But Deku chooses this moment to make peace with himself and his quirk, and catches the pipes using Blackwhip.

(As always, all comments not marked with an ETA are my mostly-unspoiled reactions from my first readthrough of this chapter. I’m caught up with the manga now at chapter 225, so any ETAs will reflect that.)

how are BnHA’s Jump covers always so epic you guys

Shinsou you better watch out, Deku’s fist is too close for comfort. well you’re the one who wanted to fight him again buddy

all right now let’s check out that character poll

oh, nice

BUT WHERE ARE MY POLL RESULTS. HOLD ON A SECOND, I’M GOING TO THE WIKI TO INVESTIGATE

...okay so apparently the results were actually in chapter 207? but the color spread wasn’t released until this chapter wtf why

okay well let me analyze the color page first, and then I’ll go find and complain about the poll results

BAKUGOU AND DEKU’S SWORDS. okay I’ve seen this image before and I love it so much, and that is of course because it’s a sequel to the color page from chapter 120. and the two of them are now each carrying one half of All Might’s sword. basically this is symbolic confirmation that the two of them together will carry All Might’s legacy forward. this is so important to me you guys. this brings me so much joy and happiness

can we talk about what Hawks is wearing. I thought this was a medieval AU, but he’s looking rather steampunk to me. what, are you too cool for D&D, Hawks? also is that a literal hawk. that you’re holding. for some reason. huh

can we talk about what Todoroki is wearing?? and also what the actual hell is going on with his face? he’s wearing some sort of weird mask. and his outfit looks nothing like it did in the previous AU color spread. was Horikoshi just being extra or is this some indicator of a crazy plotline coming up for him somewhere down the road?

I notice my boy Aizawa is missing from the top ten, which is AN ACTUAL CRIME THAT SHOULD BE REPORTED TO THE POLICE, but! on the other hand! BEST FUCKING JEANIST OH MY GOD. WELCOME BACK BEAUTIFUL PRINCE. PLEASE HEAL UP SOON

loooooool Endeavor being in the top ten must have pissed off lord knows how many people. it would have pissed me off, before the Endeavorhawks arc. but I’m cool with it now. I get it. having him as your favorite doesn’t mean you’re giving a ringing endorsement of all his actions; it just means he’s a compelling character who’s been getting some really good development lately. still absurd that he’d be ranked over Aizawa, but if I’m honest with myself it really should be Jeanist who was bumped down for that. he’s just there because Japan apparently shares the same weird tastes as myself. by the way how fucking strange is it to see Jeanist without any Jeans holy shit is that even allowed

and winding down here, (1) I’m glad to see All Might still in the top ten ranks at least, (2) Iida is a handsome boy and I love how his armor is reminiscent of his Ingenium costume here, and that he’s the one actually riding the dragon (be careful Iida or my idiot son is going to fall right off its head), (3) Kirishima is still as popular as ever I see, and lastly (4) Momo being in the top 10 is giving me life and I hope she gets some more spotlight this year! it was great to see her as the head of her respective Joint Training battle team

okay! so now let me find the list from chapter 207

holy shit, okay so first of all let me just say that apparently this poll received almost 81,000 votes. for comparison, the third poll only received about 36,000

so having said that, it is absolutely astounding that my boy Bakugou came in at number one yet again, with a margin of over 1000 votes. glad to see you being appreciated boyo

and Shouto made it to #2 for the first time! good job hot and cold! the Endeavorhawks arc definitely gave him a boost as well I think. and well deserved!

and my boy Deku at #3, but while the difference between Katsuki and Shouto is only about 1200 votes, the difference between Shouto and Izuku is more than 7,400. basically the top two are in a league of their own here goddamn

and Hawks is all the way at #4! holy shit! more than 4,500 votes between him and Deku, mind, and Kirishima is nipping at his heels less than 200 votes away from him, but still, that’s amazing given how recently he made his debut and how relatively few chapters he’s been in. I expect the number of votes for him to skyrocket in the next poll, assuming we get more of that double agent storyline. Touya -- I mean Dabi -- is probably gonna get a boost too lol

my boy Finest Jeanist on God’s Green Earth is next at 6th, and then MOMO IN 7TH PLACE YAAAAAY GO MOMO

and Endeavor made it to 8th! HOLY SHIT ENDEAVOR YOU FINALLY BEAT ALL MIGHT IN THE APPROVAL RATINGS. THESE TRULY ARE MAD DAYS

Iida beat All Might as well and made it to #9! though only by 100 votes

and All Might is in 10th, and then Aizawa is at 11th. oh Aizawa. you were upstaged by a crotchety old man seeking to make amends for his past sins, and a denim-clad meme who nearly made the ultimate sacrifice against AFO and then proceeded to not be in the manga for 120 chapters and counting. but it’s okay you were never in this for the fame

anyways the rest of the results are listed here, but some quick parting remarks:

Gang Orca came in at 15th, presumably thanks to his EXTRA GUIDANCE

my boy Denki is in 16th place and I want him to keep moving up! go kick Shindou’s ass. how the hell did that tool make it all the way to 14th place

Ojiro is still inexplicably popular to me. he’s a nice guy but you could replace him with a cardboard cutout of himself probably and I bet you it would take some time before anyone noticed something was off

Jirou is at 21st despite her performance in the Band AU arc and that is fucked up, people. WHERE IS THE RESPECT

Shinsou somehow went down despite finally making his reappearance in the series?? I seriously don’t understand how popularity works, at all

Overhaul beat Mirio by 3 votes and while I’m so psyched Mirio did better than the last poll (up to 26th place! these 455 people have impeccable taste), this fact is utterly depressing to me. did these people actually read the arc, for real

NIGHTEYE IS AT 27TH AND I’M SO SAD. not about him being at 27th, because that’s actually pretty good. but just, you know. because once again I am reminded that he’s dead sob

lastly, in the American popularity poll Bakugou received 38,000 fucking votes holy shit. we may not have any fucking clue how to vote for presidents but at least we fucking got something right, goddamn. and Mirio in 9th place. and Aizawa in 6th. you guys are all right, US fandom

anyways that took like 25 years and if I’d known it was going to be this long I would have saved the poll to be its own damn recap lol. but now on to the actual chapter!

lol so Vlad is like ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS, YOU DON’T WANT TO STOP THEM??

Vlad this is just how we do things around here. not all of us can be ~safe~ teachers whose students don’t get attacked and abducted every Wednesday afternoon. some of us like to live on the edge and be super irresponsible because we’re lazy and also because the students will honestly manage to get into trouble regardless of whether we do our jobs or not

and anyways Aizawa says that if Deku’s quirk acts up again he’ll stop it so it’ll be fine

and All Might’s asking Aizawa why

well it’s obviously because he wants to give Shinsou a chance to complete his examination. and maybe he wants to see how the kids deal with this unexpected twist as well. so long as nobody gets hurt, why not

oh my god Aizawa

this man is fighting to reclaim that top 10 spot. never give up. never surrender

so we’re cutting to panels of all 9 battlin’ kids, and he says all of them are still trying to win this battle

because fucking plus ultra, in other words

sob I should be more indignant shouldn’t I. has this school actually made me come around to their way of thinking

nah, it’s only because everything is clearly fine now. had this scene taken place even 90 seconds earlier I would have been all “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, OF COURSE YOU SHOULD STOP THEM”

lol what

he just shows his affection in some very strange ways tbh

anyway so here we go! back to the kiddos! Deku and Shinsou are each holding onto Shinsou’s scarf and staring each other down!

and now Shinsou has GONE FISHIN’

this is beyond hilarious to me. oh my god. Deku you could just let go

but I guess he thought he could out-muscle him. like if anything, he’d be the one pulling Shinsou down to where he is. but instead he’s falling off of the platform where he and Ochako were standing

and Ochako’s running over and she’s all “Deku lost...?! in a power struggle?!”

that makes it sound like Game of Thrones lmao

Deku’s glancing back up at her and says he can’t use his quirk right now because he’s worried about putting everyone in danger again

yeah, that’s probably a good call. at least until you get a handle on your emotions. even ol’ Hellboy was all “much as I love my awesome fucking quirk, it’s been powered up to here and back now so results may vary”

Ochako says that in that case they should retreat and regroup

lol how are you going to fucking retreat. this has already turned into a melee battle, they’ll just follow you

and Deku says that if they retreat now, they’ll lose

ah, good point

this is their chance to capture him, when he’s exposed and his quirk which relies heavily on stealth and surprise has been neutralized

Ochako’s jogging over to him

oh my god

IT’S THE BATTLE HE’S BEEN PREPARING FOR HIS ENTIRE LIFE

oh to see Katsuki’s reaction to this. sigh

oh. but Deku is dotting and he says “not exactly”

what are you up to you mysterious little chia pet

meanwhile ASHIDO MINA IS BEING A TOTAL BADASS AND I’M HERE FOR IT

THIS ACID MAY STING! A BIT!!

(ETA: you know, I made fun at the time, but given all the other shit we’ve seen today, I have to give her credit for at least warning her opponents before attempting to maim them.)

and class B is just doing the same damn thing as before

I’m surprised they’re not trying to go on offense. mind you, it shows that they have a lot of respect for Mina’s offense and they don’t feel like getting pummeled by acid this fine afternoon, which is understandable

oh shit but here we go

MINA YOU BETTER DODGE THAT SHIT, SHOUDA’S QUIRK HAS A LOT OF POTENTIAL TO BE RIDICULOUSLY BROKEN IF HE USES IT RIGHT

...holy shit

QUICK, LET’S ENJOY THIS BEFORE HE SOMEHOW RUINS IT. WHY CAN’T WE LIVE IN THE ALTERNATE UNIVERSE WHERE HORIKOSHI GAVE US A LOVABLE, FUNNY, AND COOL MINETA AND NOT THE HOT GARBAGE PERV THAT WE HAVE TO PUT UP WITH INSTEAD

good job Mineta. how many panels before you say something stupid to enrage us all again

oh shit I scrolled down to the rest of the page and SO FAR SO GOOD?! wow this is like a record

Mineta did something smart and creative and swooped in to save a teammate and didn’t say or do anything perverted to ruin it?? better get me an umbrella cuz I suspect the other shoe will be dropping shortly

(ETA: 3... 2...)

aaaaaaaaaaaand the very first panel on the next page is him being smacked into Mina’s chest as a result of the twin impact, apparently just as planned

well so much for that. he made it a whole five panels though

hey, imagine if Horikoshi had written that scene and then not thrown in that last part in for absolutely no reason. imagine if Mineta was like that all the time. underestimated and mostly overlooked because of his mascot-like appearance and oddball quirk, but impressing us all with surprisingly clutch saves at crucial moments. kind of like the little niche that Aoyama has established for himself. it honestly wouldn’t be that hard to make Mineta an interesting and actually funny character, and the fact that we’re going on five years of the same old shit instead is kinda disheartening

anyways, enough mourning what could have been, I guess. in the meantime Mina is grabbing him and hurling him lmao

and he’s bouncing around like a ping pong ball and class B is trying to avoid getting hit by him

oh my god. he is the special attack

ain’t nobody wanna get hit by that. that’s a smart move

Shouda says he wants to pull back, but they’re kind of surrounded now and it’s hard to come up with a plan in the spur of the moment

all credit to Mina’s astounding creative mind, which has fucking flourished in these last couple of arcs and I hope it continues to do so. she is brilliant

Tsuburaba says Shouda is having to protect the other two because they’re weak at close-range combat? say what now?? how is a telekinesis quirk weak at close-range combat, exactly?? just float some metal shit into the air and wait for Mineta to inevitably ricochet into it and concuss himself and just like that you’re free to take on Mina three against one. even someone as awesome as her would struggle with that

meanwhile, Jirou is wondering why the hell the teachers haven’t stopped the battle yet

and here’s the first we’ve seen of Katsuki since The Thing happened, so yeah you bet I’m posting that shit

he looks openly confused, and not in his normal “I don’t know what’s going on and that pisses me off so Imma make an angry face” way. but in a more overtly “what the fuck” way. not that dissimilar to the way he looked when he was watching All Might battle AFO, but with less panic, thankfully

it definitely says a lot about how far his relationship with Deku has come that this is his reaction, though. confusion and maybe slight concern, rather than anger or jealousy or automatically thinking this is something new Deku had up his sleeve that he was purposely hiding from him. he really has come such a long way since Ground Beta

anyway so here’s Deku and Ochako taking on Monoma

at least someone is using that TK quirk. or is that twin impact that he’s using. well either way, at least he’s doing something and not just standing there

oh look more Monoma monologuing

officially the most dramatic motherfucker who ever lived. but more importantly,

OH MY GOD HE’S GOING TO USE ONE FOR ALL LASKDFLKJSLKDJFLK DON’T DIE MONOMA

why he would attempt to use a quirk that he has seen breaking its original owner’s bones and only MOMENTS AGO causing its owner intense pain as he flailed around out of control is beyond me. he kind of snapped here and got all go big or go home, I guess

Deku I assure you it very much can

now Ochako’s telling Monoma to stop and that it’s dangerous! and she’s charging toward him!

OH MY GOD

HE WAS FUCKING BLUFFING?? HOW

AND OH MY GOD OCHAKO, I STAN YOU SO FUCKING HARD RIGHT NOW THOUGH. IS IT JUST ME OR ARE THE LADIES THE UNDISPUTED MVPS OF THIS FIGHT!? DEKU DOES SHE HAVE TO DO EVERYTHING HERSELF OR WHAT

wow what??

so he was trying to activate it but it wouldn’t work?

well (1) he’s damn lucky it didn’t, and (2) is that because Deku’s technically quirkless? or is it because the nature of OFA makes it so it can’t be copied or passed on to anyone against the owner’s will? that is really convenient if so

(ETA: or (3) he did copy the quirk but not the accumulated power stored within it. oooh I have some thoughts on that. gonna try and take some time this evening to type out that OFA essay.)

Shinsou’s trying to save his partner, but!

oh shit

he looks so caught off guard sob. Deku are you gonna punch him. please be gentle he is still new to this

once again, I submit for your consideration: your MVP

you see Monoma, this is how you take a supposed “supporting character” quirk and elevate it to its max potential

so now Deku’s tackling Shinsou and they’re tumbling onto the ground

Shinsou’s making another attempt to get Deku to talk but our boy is too smart for that shit now. fool him once, shame on you. fool him twice, shame on him. but you still haven’t managed to fool him thrice so it looks like he can be taught!

and Shinsou is again saying he’s not the same as when they last fought

ahhhhhhhh we’re cutting back to the teachers now ARE WE GONNA GET SOME SHINY MENTOR FEELS

YESSSSSSSSSSS

HOWIRHFALSKDLFJL THE PONYTAIL LIVES, MY FRIENDS

oh my god oh my god

mentor feels! All Might you’re not the only one who’s been training kids out in the woods in the wee hours of the morning!

Aizawa is self-taught holy fucking shit this man’s talent is severely underrated

THE PONYTAIL. I NEED TO MENTION IT AGAIN FOR OBVIOUS REASONS

and I don’t think I’ve rambled about this yet, but! now we’re finally getting to see why Aizawa took such a personal interest in Shinsou, and I’ve been waiting and waiting for this and I’m so happy we’re finally getting to it. he sees himself in him. they both have powerful quirks capable of incapacitating even the strongest opponents, but the catch is that those quirks are mental rather than physical. physically they are essentially quirkless, and so if they ever get caught off-guard -- or pitted against giant robot opponents, or opponents who are otherwise immune to their abilities -- they’re at a huge disadvantage

so here’s this kid who’s very much like him, and Aizawa has no obligation to reach out to him, but he does so all the same, because he cares, and if he can help this kid fulfill his dreams and not have to stumble along and make it up as he goes the way he had to, isn’t that worth doing?

Aizawa Shouta let me just once again say that it’s a war crime that you were not ranked in the top ten, and I think we need to conduct a special investigation into these poll results. I’m only seeking justice and the truth

OKAY BUT THIS IS SOME INDIRECT HIGH PRAISE FOR THE ENTIRETY OF CLASS “NOT A SINGLE ONE OF US WAS EXPELLED” 1-A THOUGH AND I CAN’T EVEN DEAL

AND THEN THE FLASHBACKS TO SHINSOU AFTER HIS FIRST BATTLE, AND BEING SO HARD ON HIMSELF. BECAUSE HE WANTS TO LIVE UP TO AIZAWA’S FAITH IN HIM. OH MY GOD I CAN’T, THIS IS SO GOOD THOUGH AND I’M EMOTIONALLY COMPROMISED

so now Shinsou’s shouting again that he’s not the same as he was back then!

and he’s using his capture weapon to bring a bunch of heavy pipes crashing on top of them!

BUT NOW DEKU IS HAVING SOME MENTOR FEELS OF HIS OWN OH GOODNESS

;________; WHY DID THAT MAKE ME TEAR UP, SOMEBODY EXPLAIN

(ETA: I think because it’s a reminder that all of the past wielders of OFA are just as good and pure as All Might in their own ways, and they’ve all been working tirelessly to fight evil this whole time, and it’s like Deku doesn’t have just one mentor, but he has eight now.)

AAAAAHHHHHHHH

LOOK AT HIM USING BLACKWHIP IN THE SAME MANNER AS THE CAPTURE SCARF WEAPON, THOUGH?? DID SHINSOU INSPIRE HIM

(ETA: of course he did. this is Deku, he takes and learns from everyone. I love it.)

AND JUST LOOK AT THIS FUNKY LITTLE SUCCESSOR LIVING UP TO THE FAITH THAT’S BEEN PLACED IN HIM

oh my god. what a damn chapter. this recap is almost 4000 words and it was worth it. I love this arc

[ask-anyone-from-the-tick]

Bellow the cut are my spoilery thoughts after watching season 2 of the Tick

I’m kind of glad Dot turned out to have a super power because being the only hero with no powers is sort of Arthur’s whole thing. I also like that she didn’t outshine Overkill and just step over him, but still looks up to him a bit and appreciates his approval. They feel like equals, and he’s still an awkward turtle socially.

THEY WERE SO CUDDLY AND AWKWARD ON THE COUCH, Overkill is def the kind of guy who can’t move if there’s a pet on his lap. He’s so soft I can’t...

I LOVE that we get to see more of Joan and her relationship to her family, she’s awesome and I love and support her. She’s just doing her best, and I hope those lobster babies come to visit.

Superian and Larry’s relationship continues to baffle me just a bit. Larry seems to just be a willing servant to cater to his whims I guess. I kinda hoped they were more buddy buddy than that. Apparently it makes Superian feel better to toss him way up and catch him lawl

The way Hobbs reacted when Tick broke the arm wrestling machine thing makes me wonder if Tick is actually the strongest superhero in the world, maybe second only to Superian ??? Or at least the strongest ever registered with AEGIS.

I really, REALLY like Sage. He’s fantastic. He’s also really attractive, is it just me? DAT VOICE THO. [take me on a wild nipple ride! jk omg I’m sorry]

That twin woman who was impressed with Arthur’s nerdy organization came off as REALLY OBVIOUSLY flirting with him, and his reaction was to just shrug it off like he wasn’t in to her, even though she was gorgeous, and Tick immediately picked up on it that she was flirting and got DEFENSIVE AS HELL like she was taking Arthur away and I just-- that’s pretty gay guys. That’s really... wow. And then she comes back and continues to hit on Arthur and he never once acts like he’s in to her, I don’t... I don’t know what to say but if Arthur suddenly starts pining over her in season 3 out of no where I’m gonna kms [not because he’s not gay but because it’s pretty clear he’s not interested in this woman. Don’t establish this and then force romance after we’ve seen there’s none.] Also when Arthur was picking out fancy clothes Tick had REALLY specific fashion descriptions and opinions on what looked good on him. He was like enjoying Arthur modeling clothes ajdlfdjas

Someone needs to draw Overkill being lovingly rescued by dolphins STAT

I honestly, unironically, think Edgelord’s entire look is cool and he’s very handsome. I think he looks like if Johnny Depp and Adam Driver had a baby.

SUPERIAN FEARS THE TUMBLRS. We’re his kryptonite. 

Dangerboat... plane... whatever he is, kinda deserved a little more attention toward the last half of the season. The episode centered around him was the most emotional and it brought everyone together more, I really dug that. It made me cry. ALSO WE STAN MICHAEL, HE WAS TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD. I’m so proud of Arthur for seeing Dangerboat more as a person and making an effort to connect to him as a friend. <3 good job Arthur-- at the same time--

I HATE they way Arthur acted like Dot has a specific thing she should or shouldn’t be that was out of character. It’s like the writers wanted the female character to undergo some sort of oppression to rise up against, some form of misogyny from her male family member that she had to point out. You shouldn’t have to tear down a good character because he’s male, to make the female look good. If misogyny was gonna come out of Arthur, let it come out another way other than “this isn’t want you’re supposed to do” like mother fucker, she’s been taking care of you your whole life, she’s done martial arts training, she’s a paramedic, she is way more qualified than you. He’s the last person to talk that way to anyone and it’s pissing me the fuck off. He’s the one struggling with mental illness and no phyical ability to fight anyone, it makes no sense.

Arthur’s actor Griffin Newman, he just does such a fantastic job. The whole undercover scene was so perfectly on pitch, like... just the right level of second hand embarrassment and pride came outta me. He was so close to  blowing it because he’s an anxious person by nature, but he pulled it off and came off more as just an awkward criminal with tons of money that was just believably nerdy. I loved it, it was so funny. Please give him all the awards. And that scene where Tick is on one side of Lint, way too close to her, and Arthur is on the other, and they just work her forking nerves was so hysterical. I died. I think they need to play up that comedic chemistry more often because Tick and Arthur bounce off each other really well when they’re not busy trying to solve serious problems. 

Ok so the whole human furniture thing caught my eye immediately. The pose we are first introduced to is an infamaously disturbing pose by a real life serial killer who ate people and posed their bodies in weird positions and used them for sex and I forget what else. Anyway I tried to brush that off as coincidence, but then later on Dot and Overkill go to where they think this Duke guy’s lair is, and his house looks exactly like John Podesta’s house that had a statue of that EXACT same serial killer’s victim in that pose, and podesta’s walls were covered in creepy pedo art of little girls and drowning women. And the walls of Duke’s lair were covered in creepy human furniture art. I mean there are all kinds of parodies this season that are in your face, but I don’t think anyone who didn’t follow pizzagate carefully would catch this one.

Speaking of parodies OMFG I lost it when Superian reenacted that Superman scene where he’s like “Can you read my mind?” as he’s dragging the screaming guy across the night sky. 

Ugh, I’m so sad that Tick and Arthur don’t get to keep those precious baby lobsters, and where did they get all the cute toys?? I wanna think Joan picked those up for them. Kawaii lobster voice: “Joaaan!” Tick is such a good dad...  A family can be a giant Tick man, a moth boy, a hobo, a mimaw, and a bunch of singing lobsters. "SHE'S THE MOTHER OF OUR CHILDREN!" Tick drinks respect woman lobster mom juice.

I think I don’t know what to make of the reverse Green Goblin twist going on with Ms. Lint. The creepy voice is telling her to become a hero I guess, but not really? I think the joke is we think it’s telling her to be a hero, but really it’s teaching her to be a  better villain LMAO

I’m glad kevin has a power and he was welcomed to come help even before said power was revealed.-- woah wait where tf is Karamozov?? I gotta tweet his actor he loves this show and he wasn’t in this season ???

I don’t blame Dot for being upset they want to defrost The Terror, but at the same time due process is a thing. I don’t know how that would work in a society full of super powers though. Because the moment you defrost him he’s going to find a way to escape. He’s the oldest, and the worst super villain of all time. This is why I’m ok with the death penalty and killing villains lol

I was expecting Walter to be some sort of MK Ultra sleeper agent, but the plot twist was, that’s what Overkill would become I guess. And Lobstercules. OH BTW I think she’s voiced by the same actress who played Captain Liberty in the old Tick sitcom! “Walter isn’t Walter? My feet don’t feel so good.” Aw Tick

Ty Rathbone drinks respect mothers juice.

Acting agent commander doctor agent Hobbs, honestly I suspected he was the main villain like the moment he was headed toward Lobstercules because something about the lighting and the camera work seemed to telegraph that.

I bet the reason Ty Rathbone feeds his black hole heart monster mice, is because it requires frequent blood sacrifice and that's the smallest sacrifice he can think of that he can quickly just put in there and placate it and go on with his day. I don’t know if he’ll be season 3′s villain or if it’s the aliens that just came back to reclaim Superian. 

Which btw, I called that shit from season 1 episode 1. Superian showed up crash landing inside Big Bismuth which is the only thing that could trap him. He was a prisoner, probably because he did some bad shit, and he told Arthur he helps humanity because he just wants to be a good person. Like he wasn’t one before and now he wants to try to be one.

I want to talk about these, nearly involuntary dance parties Overkill rewards himself with... but I uh... I still can’t compute that that’s actual canon. That that’s a thing Overkill and Dangerboat enjoy together and he... he can’t seem to control himself when the music plays... And also that Dot AND Overkill both know how to floss dance... I just... wow...

Oh and that hug with Overkill made me an emotional mess, he just... he really needed that, thank you Dot.

This concludes my rant and ramble.

[mizunocaitlin]

A Synopsis of Le Mouvment Final, the Sailor Stars musical

Here is my mostly comprehensive synopsis of Le Mouvement Final, the final Sailor Moon revival musical that opened in Tokyo on September 8th, 2017. This synopsis is full of spoilers. And pictures. You have been warned. 

Also, I apologize for errors and omissions. I took notes for this one, but it’s a tad hard to take comprehensive notes in the dark. 

The musical opens at the airport where Usagi is seeing off Mamoru. He's gotten into Harvard and they're both quite sad about being separated, but Usagi wants him to see his dream through. Mamoru presents Usagi with a ring, but holds back actually proposing marriage. [Overture ~Prologue~]

Around the same time, the Three Lights arrive at the airport from presumably an overseas concert. Lots of fans to dodge! Usagi has no idea who they are and what all the hoopla is about. Walking by, Seiya and the gang sense the “Star Light” coming off of Usagi and Mamoru, but Yaten doesn't want to get involved. They are on a mission. Suddenly, the baddies show and Mamoru is taken/killed right in front of Usagi, who doesn't have time to transform or anything. He never even gets on the plane. No ambiguity. He's dead. She's frozen in terror. The Three Lights come to her aid and she collapses in their arms.

Usagi recovers physically, but she’s not all there mentally. Chibi Chibi makes her first appearance and serves as a distraction! Usagi pretends nothing happened and sees this stray child and decides to help her. Brings her to the authorities, I think. 

...and cut to the Music Festival. I missed some dialogue so I'm not sure if it was supposed to be a student/school music festival or a general music festival, but the first act we see is the Sailor Band. Just like in the previous musicals, the inner senshi are a band. Usagi is late so they go on without her.  They sing [Otome no Michi] and their performance clothes are so manga-like! Jeans jackets! Lace shawls! Minako's keytar made me laugh.

The act that follows the Sailor Band is a duet: Haruka on paino, Michiru on violin. Though we don't get to see the duet, one of the other senshi comments that the piece they perform is written by Haruka for Michiru. Haruka and Michiru are really THE couple of this musical. Japanese Twitter identified the dress on Michiru, btw. It’s available online. 

Instead of seeing the Haruka/Michiru performance, we watch back stage as the inners chastise Usagi for being late. She says she'd gone to the airport to see Mamoru off. She's already PTSD forgot about his death. It was that traumatic. The girls gush about how the Thee Lights are performing at the same music festival they are. Amazing! And here they are now! The girls spend some stage time fawning over how perfect the boys of Three Lights are. The inners all in the fan club, too! Each of the inner senshi proudly recites her fan club membership number. Naturally, the punchline of this joke is Ami. Everyone else's fan club number is in the hundreds or thousands. Ami's is #7.

Usagi still has no idea who this boy band is, and begins listing off good qualities in a man, but comments at each one that Mamoru is better than these cheesy boy band guys. Seiya, who remembers that Mamoru was killed in the airport, instantly feels terrible for Usagi. He wants to correct her and comfort her, but when he tries everyone accuses him of being sweet on Usagi.

We see the Three Lights perform next. They're so cool! But, their song [Wandering Stars] is full of novelty English. A little too much for me, personally. We see Haruka and Michiru come off stage after their performance and meet the Lights. I believe at this point is when Haruka shakes hands very pissing contest style with Seiya and everybody sense everybody else's magic powers.

At the end of the Three Lights song, the power cuts out and Iron Mouse appears. Before she can really get an attack in on the Thee Lights, Sailor Moon is on the scene. She whips out a powerful attack that knocks down Iron Mouse. I believe this battle song is [Sky of Jewels]. Quickly pretty much all the senshi show up to join Sailor Moon in the fight with Iron Mouse and she's forced to retreat. The youma costumes in this musical aren't nearly as cool as before. All black and gold. Meh. In the battle, the Three Lights are outed as senshi to pretty much everyone. The outers are concerned. The inners are super stoked their favorite boyband is just like them.

Then, we see Galaxia and get her intro song, [Dictator of Densetsu/Dictator of Legend]. Very rock opera. There's a ton of English in it. She sings her motivations and plans for taking over world domination. Pretty badass, really. Her costume glitters beautifully on stage. Galaxia is pissed that Iron Mouse took the initiative to attack, but didn't get any Star Seeds/Sailor Crystals. Iron Mouse pleads that there were more senshi than she expected. She gets punished by Galaxia for her failure.

After Galaxia's intro, we see the Animates talking among themselves. Tin Nyanko defends Iron Mouse and says they should stick together because they're friends. They should support poor chastised Iron Mouse! But Lead Crow and Aluminum Siren say, fuck no. We are not friends. We're henchmen in Galaxia's army. Fuck off. Iron Mouse leans on Tin Nyanko for comfort and says she's hungry, let's go get something to eat. So, two couples in the Animates and they want nothing to do with each other.

We cut to the Three Lights in school uniforms on the roof of Azabu Jyuban High School, where they've just enrolled. They lament to each other how they've been on this planet a whole month-ish and they still haven't found Kakyuu. They wonder aloud if it's because their singing isn't good enough. They accuse each other of being off key and then sort of test their pitch against each other, mocking each other's failures. Singing is very much the sign of power on Kinmoku.

Usagi ends up on the roof, too, writing a letter to Mamoru – Even though she's had no contact from him since she thinks he left for Harvard. Even though the Three Lights are aliens, they still dis her shitty grammar and kanji. Seiya tries again to spill the beans, but Setsuna, who appears to be the school nurse, finds Usagi with the Lights and intervenes. When she touches Seiya, she feels his power first hand and tells him to stay away from Usagi. Then, Setsuna freaks out because OMG she touched the hot lead singer of the coolest boyband ever. Kya!

That afternoon, they hold a meeting at I believe Rei's place, to discuss these Three Lights and the new threat. Chibi Chibi just shows up to the meeting like it ain't no thing. She sings an adorable song [CHIBI CHIBI] that reminds me of the Kewpie dance and everyone guesses she must be a new, mysterious relative of Usagi's. Another child or a grand child or something, maybe? And they just let her stay.

The meeting commenses. Setsuna has drawn up chibi faces of the Three Lights on a white board as a visual aid for the meeting. They talk about what the Lights have been up to since transfering to the senshis' school. Seiya is on the baskeball team and is naturally the best player. We see Seiya in a ridiculously poorly fitting basketball jersey playing around with a ball. Taiki has scored better than even Ami on that one test. Yaten is such a sassy gay that he called out Michiru on her make-up choices, which pissed off both her and Haruka. Like, literally. He called her out on her makeup. What the hell, Yaten?

The senshi speculate that they must have arrived in the meteor shower that happened last month. And, Setsuna further speculates that since she and Haruka both felt spiritual energy from them, that all three must be senshi.... Which means they can transform... Which means that they must put on sailor collars and short skirts and Setsuna starts to draw sailor fuku on the chibis she's sketched of the Three Lights on her white board and EVERYBODY FREAKS THE FUCK OUT. Partly at the idea of boy band guys in short skirts. Partly, seemly, at the idea that they might not be boys at all. Which, that part is a tad disappointing.

After the meeting, Chibi Chibi wanders off and Usagi bumps into Seiya looking for her in a nearby park. Since they both already know each other are senshi, Seiya takes this opportunity to sing [Wandering Stars Ballad Version] about what the Starlights are doing on earth. He gets just emo enough to release some of his spiritual power, which lures the baddies to the scene. Senshi and baddies convene on the spot and transform/arrive to the song [Sailor Make Up!].

In the battle, Siren an Crow sing about their back story in [Crow to Siren]. They kinda sorta were senshi, you see, but their worlds were not well off and relatively peaceful like Earth. Shit was bad, and they're with Galaxia now. Sailor Moon manages to get Iron Mouse and Tin Nyanko in a Gorgeous Mediation attack, healing them from the brainwashing and breaking their power bracelets. Mouse and Nyanko say even more about Galaxia and her insane slaughter across the galaxy. Before they get too far, however, Siren and Crow kill them for betraying Galaxia and reclaim their Sailor Crystals/Star Seeds.

This freaks Sailor Moon right the fuck out. Seing senshi-on-senshi violence and watching two people die in front of her, triggers her PTSD and she's basically frozen in trauma until we hear the snap snap snap. The Sailor Starlights appear! By now we've got basically all the senshi and all the baddies on stage, Galaxia included. Galaxia kinda mocks Sailor Moon and the senshi for being overly attached to their mortal, human bodies. We are so much more than that! I believe she then kills Mercury and Jupiter.

A sweet aside, Neptune laments that they're at war again and she's so tired of war. But Uranus says it doesn't matter, because they can face anything if they're together. Aw.

After the battle, we see Chibi Chibi walk on stage in the darkness. She starts to speak about Galaxia and the battle, then her speech is taken over by Sailor Cosmos who appears behind her.

Seiya is back in human form again, and shooting hoops to let off some steam. Haruka shows up to basically beat him up just because. Stay the fuck away from Usagi, bitch! She's ours! And Seiya once again has to be all, there's just something she needs to know. Something I have to tell her. Seiya relly gives off the vibe that he relates to Usagi's loss on a deep, traumatic level. He seems to correlate the trauma of him losing Kakyuu to the trauma of Usagi loosing Mamoru. Haruka's like ok fine you can talk to Usagi about whatever... BUT ONLY FOR 5 MINUTES I'M WATCHING YOU PUNK.

At some point here they sing [Scent of War].

The outers have a moment where they lament maybe putting up a shield around the solar system. Fucking, outers, man. WHY DIDN'T YOU DO THAT BEFORE ASSHOLES????

Everyone is freaking out about the new enemy. Usagi has a PTSD flashback about Mamoru's death but still can't quite accept it. Mars reads the Tarot and turns up a Death card, says this fight is different from all the rest. Minako complains that she just wants to be a normal teen for once and get a boyfriend. Yaten comment that this is foolish. They've all pledged their lives and their very souls to their princess. Romantic entanglements are for people without a mission. Minako quickly agrees.

Usagi sings [My Only Love], lamenting how much she treasures Mamoru and misses him and needs him. Seiya joins in her song, sort of realizing that his sympathy for Usagi is sort of turning into a crush on Usagi. Oops. Chibi Chibi sort of pushes the two together and Usagi finally fully remembers Mamoru's death. Seiya explains to Usagi more about Galaxia and this massive, universe wide war they're in.

But Usagi gets no rest. Galaxia ambushes them and kills Mars and Venus, again right in front of her. Galaxia says she's doing this whole murdering your loved ones in front of you thing on purpose, too. She says the anger and fear will rev up Sailor Moon's power and make her more ripe for the picking. Ugh. Asshole.

The Lights show up and Seiya wants to intervene, but Yaten pulls a Switzerland and rants that this is not their fight. The outers show up, though, and yell at them for this bullshit. They school the Lights all about how awesome Usagi is. She's so kind and gently and compassionate and everyone who meets her loves her and didn't you just sense her virtue standing next to her??? Aw, outers, I didn't know you cared so much!

This battle features Neptune and Siren so we get to see two water users battle it out. They “flood” the battle area. Pretty awesome, really. Siren is not nearly the ditz she was in the anime. They really go at it. When Usagi joins the battle, Galaxia unleashes the pain. Her massive attack hits the outers. Pluto uses herself as a human shield to protect Saturn (and secretly sends Saturn to the Time Gate) and Uranus and Neptune are fatally wounded. They reach out for each other as they die.

Sailor Moon is now alone, and Galaxia sets about the destruction of planet Earth. Chibi Chibi suddenly shows and stops it, however. And, Kakyuu comes out of hiding to join the fight. Holy shit, you guys. Kakyuu's voice? Basically opera. She's an opera singer. She sings [Saigo no Kibou/Last Hope]. On Kinmoku, singing ability = power for sure!

Intermission

Back from Intermission, Chaos is having words with Galaxia about The Plan. Blah, blah. Who cares.

Cut to Usagi. She's in her school uniform, just standing there. Alone. Grieveing. Then, suddenly, Ami, Makoto, and Minako appear! They form a playful ring around her Dogeball style saying they need to protect her. Tee-hee! Then they bring up this, basically, rape whistle that Rei apparently gave Usagi if she was ever in trouble. She blows the whistle and Rei comes running. Everybody laughs, and laughs. Usagi is tearful. Why is everyone so loyal to her? Why do they care so much? But the emotional manipulation is not over! The girls say that a special chef has prepared a meal for Usagi. It's Mamoru! He's made a special pun laden dish he calls “Tuxedo La Smoking Hamburg” and why hasn't THAT been on any of the cafe menus, huh?

The peace is broken by Galaxia, and the apparent dream becomes a nightmare. Chibi Chibi then wakes Usagi, who finds herself on the couch in the living room of the house the Three Lights all share. Kakyuu explains that she was always searching for Usagi, because Usagi is pretty much the most powerful being in the universe. She says her own lover was killed, and that's what set her off. Usagi laments that the Silver Crystal always starts conflicts.

Seiya is now in full angst mode. His princess is here, but Usagi is suffering. He wants to comfort Usagi, but feels he can't. He gets down on one knee before Usagi and vows not to leave her side. Meanwhile, Yaten is a catty bitch. Yaten wants nothing to do with these Earth people. Kinmoku First! Kakyuu shuts that down fast. No, we help.

They decide to seek out Galaxia where she lives. They band together and, in a great light show and bit of projection mapping, end up at the River of Memories that acts as a moat to Galaxia's Palace. It's a river of sand. Everyone is separated. We don't see Lethe and Mnemosyne, but the back up dancers that hassle Sailor Moon as tries to remember who she was and why she's here are dressed just like the pair are in the manga before they reveal themselves.

Usagi comes to herself and... poof! Heeeerrrrreee's Chibi Moon! Turns out when Pluto used herself as a human shield to protect Saturn, Saturn went to the future to fetch Chibi Usa. Genius! Nice shipper moment for Hotaru and Chibi Usa there. A battle occurs between Saturn, Sailor Moon, Chibi Moon, Siren and Crow.

Usagi manages to break the hold of the brainwashing bracelets, but Crow and Siren have much more complicated loyalties. Siren says she's sick of fighting. Crow talks about their home worlds. Kinda deep. They guilt Sailor Moon about her super powerful crystal being too strong a lure for bad people and things. They urge her to basically commit suicide for the good of the universe. Sailor Moon... considers it.

Naturally, Galaxia kills Siren and Crow for their betrayal. So, Kakyuu attacks! She's no real match for Galaxia, though, so she takes a fatal hit and dies in Star Fighter's arms. Seiya just can not win. All the Starlights get an attack in. Then, the inevitable. Galaxia revives Tuxedo Kamen and the solar system senshi as baddies complete with super charged abilities thanks to their power bracelets. They have special, Galaxia version of all their attacks and Tuxedo Kamen is the leader instead of Sailor Moon.

Sailor Moon can't bring herself to attack her brainwashed friends. Naturally, Galaxia has also brainwashed Tuxedo Kamen to be in love with her and they kiss just to fuck with Sailor Moon some more. Mamoru is really sexually abused throughout the series, isn't he? Chibi Moon wants to intervene, but Chibi Chibi stops her. When Tuxedo Kamen comes at Sailor Moon, apparently as an attack, the touch forms a telepathic connection. Mamoru assures Usagi that all of them are still alive and intact on the inside and it's just the push she needs!

Sailor Moon upgrades to her ultimate form and we get to see the wings again. Yay! She sets in on Galaxia. Galaxia mocks the fragility of life and human connection. Usagi sings the virtues of love and comradiere and compassion. The battle shifts to the Galaxy Cauldron.

Galaxia wants to make this shit final. She takes all the Sailor Crystals/Star Seeds she's collected and throws them in the Galaxy Cauldron to melt them and destroy them forever. She calls Sailor Moon the ultimate senshi. Galaxia makes a move to kill Sailor Moon, but it stopped by Chaos. Meanwhile, Chibi Chibi and Chibi Moon stand off to the side of the stage, seemingly helpless, watching.

Chaos reframes the argument. Chaos calls back to all the evil Sailor Moon has faced, and calls them the siblings of Sailor Moon. Everything powerful ever was formed in the same Galaxy Cauldron as Sailor Moon's Sailor Crystal/soul was. They are all one in the same.

Galaxia is injured, dying. Sailor Moon says she is lonely. Deserves compassion herself. Needs to be saved.

Chibi Chibi now speaks up. She builds on what the Animates and Chaos have said in the second act: If power exists, it will be used for evil eventually. The only way to achieve peace is to destroy the power that made the Silver Crystal and Usagi in the first place: The Galaxy Cauldron itself. Usagi objects. Wouldn't that mean no more souls would be created? Wouldn't the universe slowly whither and die? Yes, says Chibi Chibi. But there would be no more evil. There would be peace.

Sailor Moon doesn't really hesitate. Life is better. Deeply flawed life is better than peaceful nothing. She pledges to endlessly fight the battle against evil no matter what it takes, because life is worth it. She takes on the responsibility.

The injured Galaxia dies. Chibi Chibi disappears and is replaced by Sailor Cosmos. It's a dramatic moment. Everything is silent. Seeing the Cosmos and Sailor Moon on stage together is freaking amazing you guys.

They manage to revive the solar system senshi and Sailor Moon asks for their help to defeat Chaos. Cosmos and Chibi Moon both sit out the fight together, on the same part of the stage as before. This is the point where I started to suspect Cosmos and Chibi Moon were the same person.

The melted Sailor Crystals are pulled from the Galaxy Cauldron and reformed. Cosmos talks to Chibi Moon. She calls herself the future Sailor Moon. She says that she fled here from a distant future because the battle was too hard. She basically presented Sailor Moon with the moral choice she couldn't make. She says at one point “I have returned here many times”. Very cryptic. I plan to analyze the fuck out of this dialog when the DVD comes out. Usagi barely interacts with Cosmos. It's all Chibi Moon here. I really thing she's talking to her past self. Cosmos calls this Sailor Moon the best Sailor Moon. Read into that what you will. Cosmos promises she won't run away anymore.

Now with the battle over, everyone de-transforms and is reunited. The girls are all in white dresses and pose on the stage after hugging each other, happy to be alive, recreating an artbook scene. Mamoru is so happy to be alive and see Usagi that he wastes no time. Proposes marriage on the spot.

The last scene in the musical is the wedding of Usagi and Mamoru. Mamory is in the green embroidered tuxedo jacket from the artbooks and Usagi has on her pretty white wedding dress. They embrace and are so happy. SO HAPPY! Usagi tells Mamoru that she thinks she's already pregnany with ChibiUsa. I can't remember the exact phrasing but it's something along the lines of “I can already feel the light of a new star growing within me.” Mamoru is ELATED! I cried, you guys.

All of the other senshi flood into the stage, also in white. I believe it's Minako who says that Usagi it's not fair that Usagi be only one to wear a pretty dress. They pose on the stairs in a facimile of the artbook wedding dress image used in the musical promos. Usagi tosses the bouquet and Rei catches it. Whatever, we know Haruka and Michiru are getting married next.

They fade to black and a highlight montage of past musicals is projected on the stage. I cried again. At the end of the montage it says “The end.”. Noo!!! Do Sailor V or the side stories or ANYTHING! More! More!

There were 5 encore songs. Tuxedo Kamen, all senshi, Uranus/Neptune, Endymion, everyone doing Ai no Starshine, and then everyone doing Moonlight Densetsu. I didn't just cry, I bawled like a baby.

The musical was amazing. The story was much faster paced than, say, the Sailor Moon S musical. The way several characters framed the final battle as a moral choice was really masterful storytelling for one of these things. With the exception of the backup dancers, every costume was awesome. Super 90's civilian clothes! Super shiny senshi ensembles! Wedding dresses! The best! I can't wait to see it on DVD. Wish I could have gone again. And again.

Thematically, this musical really puts Usagi to the test. It presents her with the ultimate moral choice surrounding her power. She actively chooses to fight evil forever. She chooses to preserve life. She never wavers in her love for Mamoru. Seiya might start to fall for her, but she doesn’t seem to even notice. I feel like the writers really listened to criticism of previous shows here. So much worked so well! 

[superoderick-blog]

i believe we’ll be okay | joderick

WHO: Roderick Meeks & Joe Hart (@itsjoehart) WHAT: Roderick makes his first friend at WIU. WHERE: Waldron Quad. WHEN: Saturday, November 11th, mid morning. WARNINGS: Nah!

Roderick could smell delicious food - his stomach gave an appreciative rumble as he made his way to the Quad. He could hear laughter and shouting, and he steeled himself for the rush of emotions that would swamp him as soon as he got closer. It was an awful lot of people. Hopefully nobody would be having a meltdown over brunch before school even started - a lot of happier emotions were always easier to deal with. He got in line for food - it was a long line - and sighed to himself as he looked around him. WIU really was beautiful.

Joe sighed. His toes felt crunched in his shoes, boots made specifically for the colder seasons. He missed his sandals dearly, but he knew they were meant for the warmer months (although if Joe thought he could get away with it without receiving frost bite in return, he absolutely would wear them in 5 ft of snow). Luckily, the comfy scarf around his neck gave him some inner peace to walk graciously into such a large group of new students. The food smelled delicious, and he was happy to find there were vegetarian options for people like him ( was there a super power that made you unable to eat meat?), as well as drinks like Kombucha and Coconut Water instead of soda and juice. With a hum, he joined the line for sustenance just like every other student, and happily waited his turn. His eye caught a boy in front of him. He tapped a small with lizard-like eyes in front of him and politely requested to take a step ahead of her to talk to his friend. With a smile, she happily let him through. It wasn't necessarily a lie, Joe thought. Everyone was a potential friend if you tried hard enough. "Excuse me," he was standing what he was sure was probably too close, but Joe often pushed boundaries until they were set.

Roderick turned in surprise and found himself face to face with...yeah, no, he didn't know this guy, but he felt safe enough - a cursory swipe at the guy's emotions didn't reveal anything that made Roderick any more wary than he already was--no desire to do ill-will, at least not right on the surface--so Roderick slid his oversized headphones off his ears and raised his eyebrows. "Yeah?" Had he met this guy already? Should he know his name? Roderick felt like he would remember him, if only because of all the dreads. "Do you...need something, or?"

A grin formed on pink-tinted cheeks. "No, not at the moment. Food would be great, but no complaints here." Joe shrugged his shoulders, long dreads falling all to one shoulder. "I'm Joe." He stated simply, eyes warm and hand out, expecting Roderick to shake. While he knew that some super-humans and fromians didn't shake hands simply because of something power-related, Joe didn't feel any different vibes from him, just a nervous awkwardness that came with a lot of teenagers their age. Or what Joe assumed was their age. "I like your headphones. What are you listening to?"

Roderick hesitated for a moment, glancing between his outstretched hand and the line of people around them. "Um, I'm Roderick." On the one hand, he could just do it and not be weird about it, but people got pissed when he went poking around in their feelings, no matter how much he tried not to. "And I'm an empath. If I shake your hand I'll have a way better idea what you're feeling, so if you don't want me minding your business..." Roderick shrugged, fully expecting the hand to be withdrawn. People didn't like their privacy invaded. He moved forward, following the line's movement. How much food did it take to feed like a gazillion hungry college kids? "Sinatra. And thanks. Do you like music?" Roderick blinked. Do you like music. What sort of dumbass question. Everybody liked music. He sighed through his nose and quickly caught his annoyance before it could spread to other people - he was annoyed at himself and he didn't need everybody else to be annoyed too. Stupid.

Joe frowned for a short moment, before perking back up again. "I don't mind," he promised. "Unless you mind. In which case, nice to meet you, Roderick." He grinned once more, sending out more calming emotions with his new knowledge of his potential-friend's power, "You ever go by Rick?" Following the line, Joe fiddled around with the cross that settled heavily across his chest. "I love music. I'm more of a Christian-rock and Reggae kind of guy, but Sinatra is a classic. Fly Me to the Moon is one of my mom's favorite songs." He tried again to smile more reassuringly this time, Roderick giving off more tense vibes. Maybe Joe was making him uncomfortable? "By the way," he interrupted before the boy could speak, "if you need me to like, cha cha real smooth back a few steps, feel free to let me know." A musical joke. Heat flushed to his cheeks at such a dorky callback.

Roderick's mouth quirked into a smile, though his brow knitted in confusion. Joe Christian Music Guy talked a lot. That wasn't a bad thing, necessarily, because Roderick didn't mind listening, he was just never sure where to start with people like that. "You're okay." Roderick promised, amused more than anything. With this many people around, a difference of a few inches wasn't going to be much, but it was nice of him to offer. "Christian-rock and Reggae? That's cool." So the stereotype wasn't totally false - he wondered if Joe Christian Rock Guy had pot-leaf decorations in his room. "People mostly just call me Roderick," he added with a shrug, "but I don't mind the nickname, I guess." He'd been called way worse things. "Um, are you...a first year too?"

Humming, Joe reclaimed his place closer to Roderick again after his acceptance of the distance. If he didn't mind, neither would Joe. "Yep! Just got here. I climbed that tree in the main courtyard since I had some time to kill after doing my Sunrise-Yoga in the parking lot." He pursed his lips. "How about Rod?" Pausing, Joe claimed Roderick's eyes again, seemingly forgetting himself for a moment. "For a nickname, anyway."

Roderick raised his eyebrows as Joe spoke. Tree-climbing at sunrise? Man, college was something else - there were so many things about that he wouldn't do even if forced, and here was Joe Christian Rock Guy doing them voluntarily. "I guess I don't mind either way," Roderick said with a shrug of his shoulders. "Call me what you want." The line moved forward and they were finally close to the table - Roderick grabbed two paper plates and handed one to Joe, followed by a Never-Dirty Napkin and an all-in-one utensil. "I wonder how much of this stuff isn't actually hand-made," Roderick mused quietly, mostly to himself but also to Joe. "It's crazy what food replicators can do nowadays."

Joe nodded along, piling vegetables and dressings onto his plate. The crowds of people around them grew larger with each passing minute and Joe hummed thoughtfully. “You want to go eat somewhere more private?” He gestured to a grassy knoll a bit further away, knowing that the people would further Roderick’s empathetic abilities. “Grab some of those cookies too,” long fingers pointed to chocolate chip and m&m cookies, and he smiled.

Roderick glanced around them, momentarily distracted - the bodies carried emotions, and it felt like they were pushing up against him. It wasn't new, by any means, but the people themselves were unfamiliar, and thus their emotions were - at least for a moment - overwhelming. But then Joe was asking him to grab cookies, so he focused on that - he loved cookies - and willed the pressure of everyone else's feelings to ease as he finished piling his plate. "Over there sounds good." Roderick agreed, moving toward the hill Joe had pointed out. Even that little bit of distance would help with the ambient emotion; just Joe's feelings wouldn't be too bad. He got comfortable and sat down, then offered Joe half the cookies he'd grabbed. "Good idea."

Joe let the happiness seep from his bones as they plopped down together. He always enjoyed company, and he was sure that the positive emotions shouldn’t be too overwhelming for Roderick. “I figured this would be better than being bombarded with everybody’s feelings. I’m sure it can’t be easy walking in the fog of people’s day to day lives,” he murmured, stacking his cookies and munching on a carrot. “Is it difficult to maintain?”

Roderick couldn't help the little smile as he focused on the shift in Joe's emotions. Either he was genuinely elated to be doing what they were doing, or he was focusing on his own happiness on purpose to make Roderick more comfortable. Either way, Roderick was touched. "I wouldn't call it maintaining, exactly," Roderick said around a bite of hot dog. He swallowed and considered before he spoke again. "It's hard to focus. Like how sometimes you accidentally eavesdrop on someone else's conversation, because they're talking loudly right next to you? It's kind of like that. But everybody is talking loudly, and you literally can't help but listen." Roderick shrugged. "The harder part sometimes is not...like, meddling, I guess. Making someone not sad if they're unhappy. Because that's...like, I don't know why someone feels a way. It's not my business. People should feel however they feel." Roderick munched on some chips. "It's weird, but it's also all I've ever known, so it's just kind of how it is."

Joe hummed thoughtfully, listening to Roderick's words with interest. "Oh, so you kind of imprint on people if you're not careful? That has to be stressful." Joe smiled reassuringly, "I'm pretty good at projecting myself, even if I don't have a cool power to go along with it." Winking, Joe began to gobble down his food. It had been a long morning for him already, and the only think he'd had was his oats for breakfast. "After a while, he spoke up again, unable to help himself. "You must be very strong to deal with so many people at one time. You looked a little overwhelmed in line - no offense - and I'm glad that I took the step forward to talk to you. You're really nice, Roderick."

Roderick blinked; he could feel the absolute sincerity with which Joe spoke. He meant it. Roderick could tell already that Joe wasn't like most people - and to him, this just solidified that fact. "You're really nice too, Joe," Roderick said, once he'd swallowed his mouthful of Fromian No-Bake Cake. "I dunno about being strong or not but...thanks. And thanks for talking to me, man. I was kinda worried about making friends here," Roderick admitted with a slight shrug. It was rare that he find someone he could just be with, and he appreciated it more than he could express - at least to someone he'd just met. "You don't need powers to be awesome, dude."

[garden-ghoul]

appendix blog, part 3

“working out... is.... good?”

Hey so I’m skipping Eorl, I already blogged him, or at least I read him. I don’t conceptually separate those processes any more, thanks fiends. I, uh, I meant to type friends there but let’s call it a Freudian typo.

Ah fuck yes after the list of Rohirrim kings it’s time for DURIN’S FOLK

So “Durin is the name that the Dwarves used for the eldest of the Seven Fathers of their race.” Are we ever going to hear about the other six fathers, or is it one of those things where dwarves are extremely close-mouthed about it and only Durin, who they cannot ever shut up about, is ever mentioned near other races?

Durin “slept alone” until the awakening of his people. Did all dwarves sleep alone? Is this a gem kindergarten situation? Please say yes. Please say there is a Durin-shaped hole somewhere that is only known to dwarves and they like, sometimes try to fit themselves into it. The one who is the same size and shape as the original Durin becomes Durin the N+1th. “This hole was made for me,” he declares, and fits himself into it. Everyone cheers, and then they fish him out with a hook before he can slide too far into the mountain. Anyway during the time of Durin VI the dwarves, who are in an absolutely defensible position but are too bored to stop mining, wake up a balrog and have to flee. Durin VI’s son Nain goes to Erebor and finds a very nice rock; most of the Khazad-dum dwarves go to the Grey Mountains in the north, because exploring is fun and profitable! Unfortunately north of the mountain everything is full of dragons. “At last Dáin I, together with Frór his second son, was slain at the door of his hall by a great cold-drake.” I really like the implication I just made up, that the north is full of dragons because they migrated from Angband.

BTW Dain’s other sons are Thror and Gror. Apparently there’s something absolutely essential about the fabric of Ea that makes all peoples independently name their kids dumb themed names. Someone during the Song of Songs or w/e they’re calling it these days accidentally kept repeating one of their trills and it became a line of code essential to the nature of life. Fuck this.

Thror goes to Erebor again, and he makes lots of friendly alliances with other dwarf clans and the humans who live near Erebor (’northmen’). UNFORTUNATELY you cannot have a great and extremely wealthy time around here without a dragon hearing about it, so Smaug the Golden comes to say hi. Thrain II and his dad Thror (original flavor) flee in secret, and then Thror goes into Khazad-dum (possibly it was a suggestion of his Ring). Thror’s bff creeps over to the doors of Khazad-dum and a bunch of orcs are hiding behind the doorframe with Thror’s corpse, presumably working his jaw like a puppet, and laughing their asses off. Written on Thror’s face is the word AZOG. He is king of Khazad-dum now. Thror’s bff tries to take his body for burial, but the orcs throw a sack of small change at his head. It sounds pretty funny to me, but for Nar it’s probably a horrifying parody of a weregild, and an insult. When he looks back, the orcs are hacking up Thror’s body to feed to the local crows. Omg I hope orcs and crows are friends.

Thrain and Nar muster a ton of dwarves to fight, because this will not be borne. They cut through most of the orc strongholds like butter BUT Azog has been saving his strength in Khazad-dum. “So began the Battle of Azanulbizar, at the memory of which the Orcs still shudder and the Dwarves weep.” I LOVE. The fact that absolutely everyone who was involved with this battle in any way has inherited trauma about it. War is no good for anyone at all! Azog has a jolly old time doing murders, until he realizes that HIS guys are actually getting more murdered! He kills Nain and laughs at him, but Nain’s son Dain unexpectedly kills him. It’s accounted extremely heroic, because Dain is like, 16 in dwarf years. It says that “long life and many battles lay before him, until old but unbowed he fell at last in the War of the Ring.” Wait um. Do you mean... the one that takes place in Lord of the Rings? Were dwarves fighting in that?? This is taking place WAY after the Last Alliance isn’t it?? No okay I looked at the end and found the answer, which is that the War of the Ring actually was like 100 years long but relatively low-intensity for most of it.

Anyway,

When at last the battle was won the Dwarves that were left gathered in Azanulbizar. They took the head of Azog and thrust into its mouth the purse of small money, and then they set it on a stake. But no feast nor song was there that night; for their dead were beyond the count of grief. Barely half of their number, it is said, could still stand or had hope of healing.  

Half of everyone is dead or dying, and the dwarf alliance still uses their last bit of energy to be petty. Iconic.

Thrain wants to claim Khazad-dum and live there, but everyone else flat-out refuses. Still a balrog in there, dude! I mean, it didn’t bother the orcs, though. I don’t think balrogs really discriminate between orcs and other sorts of dudes, so maybe they could sneak up and kill it in its sleep! But Dain says that the world must change and some other power come before Durin’s folk will live again in Moria. That was Gandalf, right? He did slay the balrog. I hope the dwarves can come back now in the fourth age!! It’s going to take so much fixing up but like... it still exists, mostly intact. A chance to reclaim their heritage.

Thrain and his son Thorin go into exile with the few people who will still follow him--almost everyone is pissed that he got their entire families killed and they can’t even go get treasure in Khazad-dum. So Thrain and co settle in the east of Ered Luin. There’s a bit here about how the Seven Rings turned out to be totally pointless for Sauron because you simply Cannot enslave dwarves.  “They were made from their beginning of a kind to resist most steadfastly any domination. Though they could be slain or broken, they could not be reduced to shadows enslaved to another will.” I love the implication that because dwarves were sculpted--note that we never hear AFAIK what elves or humans are made of!--they are more substantial and solid. Mmm I think they have a super solid connection to Arda, and just as even Arda Marred is still largely influenced by the Valar dwarves cannot be wholly corrupted. IDK it’s just the,,, shadow vs stone thing. Sauron enslaves people and it destroys their substance. Dwarves are too substantial? Someone help me out here.

Thrain is still influenced by the Ring, though, driven to go in search of Erebor and its treasure again.  

As soon as he was abroad with few companions he was hunted by the emissaries of Sauron. Wolves pursued him, Orcs waylaid him, evil birds shadowed his path, and the more he strove to go north the more misfortunes opposed him. There came a dark night when he and his companions were wandering in the land beyond Anduin, and they were driven by a black rain to take shelter under the eaves of Mirkwood. In the morning he was gone from the camp, and his companions called him in vain...

I love how fairy-tale-ish this passage is. Wolves pursued him! Evil birds shadowed his path! He vanished utterly into air! Sauron was the boojum all along! I’m jazzed about this. Less jazzed about the following explanation: he was kidnapped and tortured in Dol Guldur. Whatever, I guess.

Meanwhile Thorin, who is now king, hammers away on his anvil. It will keep his arm strong. Hella.

Thorin meets Gandalf by accident in an inn in Bree and is like “hey I have been having dreams about you, that’s pretty weird right?” “No no,” says Gandalf, “actually I have been dreaming about you too.” And THAT is how The Hobbit happened.

Wait omg it says here Fili and Kili are Thorin’s “sister-sons.” THIS IMPLIES THE EXISTENCE OF A SECOND DWARF GENDER... WTF... don’t fucking toy with my heart like this Johnald. AH--

Dís was the daughter of Thráin II. She is the only dwarf-woman named in these histories. It was said by Gimli that there are few dwarf-women, probably no more than a third of the whole people. They seldom walk abroad except at great need. They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart. This has given rise to the foolish opinion among Men that there are no dwarf-women, and that the Dwarves 'grow out of stone'. 

 It is because of the fewness of women among them that the kind of the Dwarves increases slowly, and is in peril when they have no secure dwellings. For Dwarves take only one wife or husband each in their lives, and are jealous, as in all matters of their rights. The number of dwarf-men that marry is actually less than one-third. For not all the women take husbands: some desire none; some desire one that they cannot get, and so will have no other.

Why did they even mention Dis? She doesn’t do anything. I’m retconning, this, obviously. Dwarves just have a super low fertility rate, and woman gender is one of those things that like... doesn’t translate well. There’s no woman gender, because dwarves haven’t invented gender. There’s just dwarves who are currently capable of bearing children. I can’t remember if I got this from Pratchett or not, but it’s a good chance. I just really like the idea that dwarves kind of nod and smile uncertainly when asked to understand a culture that has genders. “Humans really do have an exceptionally high fertility rate,” murmurs one to another. “A lot of ‘women.’” “One just can’t keep track of them,” sighs the other. This is kind of incoherent because Tolkien is actively trying to ruin it, but whatever. Moving on.

After the fall of Sauron, Gimli brought south a part of the Dwarf-folk of Erebor, and he became Lord of the Glittering Caves. He and his people did great works in Gondor and Rohan. For Minas Tirith they forged gates of mithril and steel to replace those broken by the Witch-king. Legolas his friend also brought south Elves out of Greenwood, and they dwelt in Ithilien, and it became once again the fairest country in all the westlands.

Nice! Gay! Also holy shit, mithril gates. Where the hell did they get all that. Hey maybe Sauron had a huge stockpile of mithril and some people went to sift thru the wreckage of Mordor and reclaim it. Radical.

We have heard tell that Legolas took Gimli Glóin's son with him because of their great friendship, greater than any that has been between Elf and Dwarf. If this is true, then it is strange indeed: that a Dwarf should be willing to leave Middle-earth for any love, or that the Eldar should receive him, or that the Lords of the West should permit it.

Hey. Hey. That’s gay.

[randomnameless]

Chapter 7 - Darna to Alster!

Seliph finally finishes this Naga forsaken map and says good bye to the Desert.

RETCONS RETCONS WHO WANTS RETCONS?

(joking, FE4 happened before FE5 so FE5 is the retcon game but)

Ares wants to talk to his friend - the reason why he turned blue to begin with 

but an idiot is here, blocking the doors.

so the only thing he can do in this situation, since he’s grey and can’t move, is talk to the guy.

don’t ask that

no “it is I, Ares the Black Knight”? Vengeance leaves no place to theatrics.

uh... yeah? Siggy couldn’t kill Eldie even if he wanted, he didn’t have the stats for that!

Poor Graine. Here you see miscommunication at its finest, granted, given how Eldie ignored his wife/son to run to his sister’s side and Siggy’s help, I understand why Grainne never got the true side of the story. Her version, and I believe the version of most Agustrians is “Siggy led an invasion in Agustria, Eldie died while defending his homeland and his King” which isn’t that far from reality actually! I love how Ares calls his mother “noble” and not just, my mother. Seliph is of course completely clueless, no one bothered him to keep him in touch with the Augstrian campaign - Aidean what were you doing?

uh... well, i’m sure they hold no hard feelings against each other because they were knights and knights simply do what they’re told, if they hate someone it’s the king who orders them to fight, but Eldie wasn’t totally happy at Siggy’s invasion/occupation. Hopefully Siggy went all “i’m just listening to orders i’m trying to write a letter to Azmur don’t worry” and Eldie believed him. If Chagall wasn’t such a douche the blame could be shared, but hey, we have the most perfect scapegoat so let us all blame Chagall, it makes the Augustrian campaign less catastrophic.

haha Seliph doesn’t understand a thing, Ares is the son of dad’s friend so we can be friends, right? It’s still kind of insensitive to call Ares’ lifelong grudge a “misunderstanding”, OTOH it’s clever because Seliph isn’t calling Ares’ “noble” mother a liar to his face!

Genealogy of the Holy War : sons must pay for the grudges of their fathers? S

Subverted here, Ares drops his grudge. If only we could have asked Brian or even Scipio to do the same :) But their dads had ugly sprites, so they couldn’t be Siggy’s friends so we don’t give figs about them :)

Not totally subverted though, Ares still has doubts and will murder Seliph if he lied.

i cringe a little at this line from Seliph tbh, the fate of the world resides on your shoulders (lel) because you’re the only Naga alive (lelel) F!Lewyn said so, and you’re willing to die just to please Ares? Seliph no :’(

hey you know what you could have met him when you were 3 weeks old if Eldie wasn’t such a douche and didn’t ignore his son and wife. During the occupation he could have sent them to say “hello” to Siggy and his family (or invited them at his place) before Chagall became a douche, but no, Eldie never gave a crap about his family - save for Raquie.

Once he is finished with Seliph Ares pushes him and runs to find his true friend

Here she is! He worries about her, how cute.

:’(

Ares apologises and calls himself a fool, poor Ares. And Lene confesses that she isn’t alright but she still trusted him even after he made himself a fool with that “killing Seliph” nonsense.

Daw! Why IS didn’t give them any lover convo?

Of course he won’t! He will take you home to Agustry! and then you’ll be eaten alive by the agustrian court

“are you the guy Ares wanted to kill?”

“Ares told me about you, he said “move imbecile i have to rescue Lene” when i tried to talk to him earlier”

No dancers in Isaach? 

i don’t know if that would be the word i’d use. Seliph is flustered seeing scantily clad women. Granted, any scantily clad woman would have been captured in Dozel!Isaach so...

and now for the retcon: Raquie’s children!

“who are you random knight?”

what are you talking about? Wait you didn’t knew you had a bro? But in FE5...

that’s understandable - save the part where Lewyn only tells you now that you have a sibling but fig that guy.

off screen, crawling after Shanan and Oifey because they said they could only carry one child and that one child was Seliph

hoho, so Nanna’s Leonster born, it fits with the timeline. The thing that doesn’t is Nanna still ignoring she has a bro :’(

is it me or FE4!Nanna seems to miss Raquie more than FE5!Nanna?

??? I thought you said you didn’t know you had a bro and now Raquie told you she left to meet him in Isaach??

Poor Nanna, she waited to see her, she had no mother figure during all those years

only kaga knows

she took her horse and fled with her horse in the desert with figging sand and it’s not like Quan did the same mistake but no 

meanwhile, two cousins chat

at least - well yeah at least because he had to backtrack to Darna and it took around 15 turns or something (thanks Naga for Lana’s warp staff)

prelude indeed, since Arvis hired Travant and co to assist in his coup

bad Leif, you forget how Travant first set your home in flames and only afterwards Blume arrived. You were sleeping during Finn’s history time or what?!

“my knight Finn” sounds... not strange, but I can’t see FE5!Leif calling Finn “his knight”. Finn is his father figure, he is Finn, not a knight. Heck I doubt FE5!Leif would even call Carrion and co “his knights”. August/Dorias would.

this is so... well, not strange because in FE5 Leif says retaking Leonster was his dream (Finn’s dream) but before chapter 6 he was happy living as a peasant in Fiana with his sisters (and Jugdral’s best mom) killing pirates. Maybe that’s not something you can tell to your kingly cousin, so it’s better to say that he wanted to fight since the beginning...

pff would you have helped against Raydrick when he stoned Eyvel - i mean when Dorias and co tried their multiple attempts at murdering Blume in his sleep? I don’t think so but it’s something Seliph has to say. He doesn’t have to apologise per se but... Well, the way Leif told his story we could think we should be berating Seliph/Siggy for the BBQ’s aftermath that impacted Leonster - in that regard Seliph HAS to apologise.

but this vision, of course, throws Travant in the “ignored” trashcan.

But Leif quickly apologises, it wasn’t his intention to put the blame on Seliph. It’s squarely his fault. RIP Dorias :’( (well Miranda has to share the blame too)

?? Of course he was worthy of being dubbed a knight of Nova he was a crusader. But Leif bragging about being the son of Quan? Heck, that’s something Finn/Dorias would say “don’t lose hope prince you’re the son of quan”, the words of support Ced shared with him when he was down! FE4!Leif is so... confident and assertive, it’s super... weird considering my only Leif experience was FE5!Leif.

It’s so weird that I don’t recall FE5!Leif saying something like that, or reclaiming himself of Quan’s legacy even once. 

“Marty, Othin, pack your things we’re going with Seliph now. Lifis too.”

“But Lord Leif, we’re returning to Fiana now” “don’t you dare i said we’re leaving.” Haha, restoring honor to Granvalle? It’s not about stopping the child hunts and stopping Loptyr’s resurrection? this is so un - FE5!Leif - like! remember the guy who screamed about honor and glory? he would have said those lines!

uh... sure, Quan helped Siggy a lot. And given how Quan died for/because/ during his quest to help Siggy, their deaths are linked.

OMG OMG OMG SOMEONE REMEMBERS

Indeed, but i can’t totally ignore the fact that maybe Ethlyn, even if she wasn’t a Chalpy anymore, wanted to restore her “birth” house’s name clean too, and was also worried about her dad - who didn’t even mention her but that’s how we roll in Jugdral daughters are worthless.

Again, Seliph apologises. Not for Leonster’s fate, but for Quan and Ethlyn on the behalf of his dad.

yes, the stories August told me said that Siggy manage to pierce Arvis’ plans before everyone else! He was a wise man!

As do I? What about “don’t hate the people, only the evil in their hearts?” “oh fig it”. 

pff hahaha if only you knew what were your dads’ last wishes! it was only about restoring chalphy’s good name!

he already said he was going to lend you his scrubs!

“damn that new blade shoots beams of light it’s so cool!”

“I GAVE YOU THOSE RIBBONS!” “hilda did and told me to hang myself with them it’s not a kindness”

hey look, it’s the imperial princess!

“Fear me else I’ll tell everything to daddy and he will Valflame you to oblivion”

because...

“THE MYSTELTAINN CRAVES THE BLOOD OF MEN”

but i thought Julius wanted to throw his party there? You can’t just rewarp in it, it’d be lame!

Wow no mercy for Blume? But yeah, per Aidean’s history lesson, when a baron escapes he will return to piss you off again until you kill him.

it could have been helped if we put men to block the exits, re you really a strategist? or maybe Blume just rewarped when Ares was busy screaming his finishing line for the finishing blow...

??? They’re happier than the Isaachians you fred from Danan’s rule? I honestly can’t believe it.

a real hope, not a joke like Leif’s failed attempts^^

yeah, they’re all stronger than you. Even your wife Larcei!

“have you seen that kid with Leif’s group? She can steal stuff with a magical staff!”

“just as planned and if you don’t i have a backup plan involving a minor character with naga blood”

lol Julia isn’t part of any plan.

[god-hunter]

Astonishing X-Men #7-12

I know I already talked about Issue 7, barely... But as it’s part of this 2nd (and technically final) arc of Soule’s story, I had to include it in the photo set.

So this was the “A Man Called X” arc, which was very cleverly titled.  But it was ridiculously convoluted, which kept me from reviewing it for months!  Admittedly, it was way better on a 2nd read, so here goes:

Issue 7:  X reintroduces himself to the X-Men in this issue.  They had just defeated the Shadow King and rescued Charles Xavier, but it was at the expense of taking over Fantomex’s body.  And Charles acted younger and hipper, now suddenly.  He wants to be called X now.  There’s something they don’t trust about him, and I don’t blame them.

I brought this up before, but in this issue X fixes Archangel.  The first thing X does is stop Archangel dead in his tracks, who was in the midst of an air-battle with the Air Force, or whatever.    Basically, he force-calms him down, so that Warren can still cognitively think and feel like himself, rather than being cold and death-driven.  The Ministry of Defense is concerned about this sudden attack and subsequent ceasefire, and also that more chaos seems to be ensuing elsewhere in London.

This involves Bishop & Gambit, who are still under some sort of spell.  Only it isn’t the ShadowKing this time. It’s something else, which X has yet to discover.  Before Psylocke and the others let him help them though, she needs to see for herself what happened to Fantomex.  So she dives in his head via telepathy, and finds that Fantomex volunteered to stay behind in the Astral Plane. He sacrificed his physical body in order to bring Xavier to the fore.  [Which means that this can be reversed...]

Anyway, Bishop looks into this Green Sun that is looming over the people in his area and is controlling them.  It’s a Future death incident called the Mindkiller Apocalypse, apparently, which is a huge cause for concern.

X tries to stop this green thing, whatever it is.  But instead, all he did was set the green thing free.  This being is called Proteus.

Issue 8 - So, we went from stopping ShadowKing, to somehow setting Proteus free in the aftermath.  How those 2 connect, I don’t know, but I was still curious...

“The ShadowKing must have been using shards of Proteus’ soul to create a psychic feedback loop. It nearly ripped a hole between the Astral Plane and this World...” as X puts it.  The London X-Men quickly get fed up with this, but Psylocke reels them in.  “Can we just set everything else aside until we stop him?”  [That’s fair.]

Bishop spots Proteus absolutely eating people’s souls for energy.  He tries blasting him with his guns, but that only makes him more powerful too.

Old Man Logan claims that he knows how to kill Proteus.  They have to use Metal, which he and Archangel have in spades.

Then... this issue takes a left turn.  This is where I come out of it.

X and Psylocke get in Proteus’ head.  Apparently they’re in Scotland, where the human form of him is really Kevin MacTaggert? Moira’s brother???

He brings up their past history, which I’d rather not get into.  He does a lot of self-victimizing for his past crimes, and says that after years in the Astral Plane he’d like a 2nd chance. Something X should understand big time.

At the end of this issue, X attempts to kill Kevin with psychic guns(?) and Proteus retaliates.  He X & Psylocke together, leaving the rest of the X-Men confused and worries as fuck on the outside.  They’re literally melting into each other, which is quite horrific.

Issue 9 - I didn’t know what the Hell was going on, but Soule still had my curiosity.  

We come to find that this was some sort of mind-meld or something.  Archangel & Logan immediately use their metal to strike/guard them.  Warren protects Psylocke which is touching, because they were once an item.  And Logan decides to stab X in the shoulder, because Fantomex had healing powers.  Same body, same powers, he figures.  But no, that’s not the case.

He couldn’t heal and writhed in pain until Psylocke put him to sleep.

They imediately brought him to the Blackbird to recover, while Proteus shifted over to Scotland to... reclaim his Kingdom, as it were.

He literally invades a bar, where some random civilians are chilling, and.. ‘gives them what they want.’  One civilian was flirting with someone’s fiance big time, and by Proteus doing this, now he caused the person to just savagely kill his best friend. I already skipped a lot of stuff though.

First, Proteus makes this community. He literally builds a spherical wall, and convinces these people that he is their leader, and everyone gets what they want.  Having mind powers, presumably, this is not hard.

So bam. The chaos ensues in this community, and some people are transformed into soldiers

“NO!” X snaps awake, while the Blackbird Jet flies over to Scotland.  {And then I gave away the ending already.  Jealous boy wanted his friend gone, so boom. He blew up.}  This can only mean worse in the bigger picture.  Some sort of all out war, in this community, which may spread to the rest of the World.

Issue 10 - On their way to Scotland, they tell X that they voted that Psylocke is in charge of this gang.  “Nothing personal. We just don’t trust you. At all.”  Thanks Mystique.  He utters something about wanting to drop an atomic bomb on the place, which is super OOC for Xavier.  They remind him that that’s exactly why he is not leading and then say that they’re the X-Men. They Save people.

“You’re assuming there’s anyone left to save,” X says with a dark spin on life.

This is where it gets whacky.  We see all sorts of dragons and soldiers attack the Blackbird jet, while other civilians are having orgies, or exhibiting other such chaotic behavior.

Yet again, the Blackbird crashes, but our X-Men are fine, because telepathic device.  

Then the real fight goes down.  It’s quick and rushed, to get to the point, which I like.  Crazy layout of panels across 2 pages, or our guys fighting random people and creatures.  [I doubt this is what they wanted, and more of what Proteus wanted.]

Suddenly the people stop fighting, and the ground seems to sprout up to capture some of our team.  The Shadow King’s face can even be seen within the ground as Proteus talks to them.

“The Shadow King wanted a Hellscape... so that’s what the Astral Plane was.  But I think there’s another way.  That’s why I did my little experiment here...  If you create a World using only one mind’s ideas, you get something twisted, stunted.  But if you use many minds...you get a Garden.”

Logan is pissed because he believes he killed them 100%.  Proteus explains that he gave them what they wanted.  They’re just different now.  Then he shifts the conversation over to Xavier’s dream.  “Do you still believe in that dream?”

“I do,” X proclaims.  He also says that none of them would have chosen this, if they knew it would turn out this way.

Proteus then says it’s time to let his garden grow.  On the last page, the spherical walls are broken down, and I guess this reality is lopping itself onto the rest of Scotland.

Issue 11 - The Garden quickly spreads into Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Philadelphia, Dublin, Cairo... Tokyo!!

[Whenever things get Worldly like this, I can’t help but wonder, where are the Gold & Blue teams in on this, then??]  Or anyone else for that manner??

Proteus is at the point where he feels he’s won.  But Logan and Archangel go after him with their metal.  While Psylocke and X try to attack him from inside his head.

There’s a lot of slashing and beam throwing.  It’s cool to watch, but where’s the substance or the stakes, here??

X & Psylocke use their brain waves to calm down the people in Japan.  Or ‘stop the seed’ as they call it...  [Seed of Proteus’ ever-growing Garden, I presume.]

Inside Proteus’ head, Moira appears to comfort him, but he’s not buying into the illusion.  At least, not at first.

They pull a fast one on Proteus and X gets cocky.  He says that with this kind of power, they could do anything, with a sinister grin.  

The fight on the outside gets somewhat exciting with Gambit & Rogue involved.  Bishop jumps in to try to convert his energy as well.  I like the semblance of teamwork, happening here.  Proteus shrieks, “Why? Why?  Why won’t you ever let me live?”

Then at the end of this issue, X, drunk with power cracks open his skin to reveal that he is really the Shadow King, after all.  [THAT explains those black and white dialogue boxes!]

Issue 12 - This was Soule’s big bad conclusion, and I couldn’t care less by this point.  It was morbid curiosity by this point and a quest for all things to end, which was why I got it at all.  The artistry was way better on this, from Gerardo Sandoval, though.

So despite killing the Shadow King on the Astral Plane, Mystique confirms to Rogue that none of that is real.  He he is, living, breathing before them in the Real World and it’s a double splash page of the whole bunch ganging up on him.

Then we see something crazy.  Shadow King got to Old Man Logan and made him kill himself.  I recall reading that and being super-shocked, thinking that it could actually be permanent.  Everyone else dealt with their own shit as well, and as X narrates “Only Psylocke still stands.”

Psylocke fights him in panels, while we see Bishop feeling guilty that he let the Mindkiller Apocalypse happen.  Gambit apparently tries to kill himself with his cards.

Rogue and Mystique apparently have a fatal embrace with her glove off.  Archangel feels shame, and I think flies himself into space, where he can’t breathe, then lets himself fall to the ground.

But then, we eventually see Xavier put himself back together.  He’s wearing a new outfit now, but still looks young and buff.  He uses his mind powers to help Psylocke defeat the Shadow King.

We get to see more X-Men than just the Astonishing Team, which is neat.  (It’s a bunch of heads in the background, making me believe that it’s a psychic thing.) Betsy asks, “What is this?” and he says, “All of us. Together.”

As if he mentally siphoned the power of every living Mutant, to mentally help them against the Shadow King, I guess.

And it’s their bravery, which seems to shrink the Shadow King into a little bug, which X flicks away.

Betsy asks if he’s Xavier now.  He affirms that he’s still X, but whatever shadow was in him is gone now.

By the end of this, none of them still trust him, and he just tells them, “I said I had gifts for all of you... and so I do.”

[This was kind of interesting.]

He gives Warren choice, so I guess he can go back to Angel, Archangel or just Warren. Whatever he wants whenever he needs...  He gives Remy purpose and tells him to find Fantomex and pay him back whatever he owes him.  He gives Mystique & Rogue understanding.  This one, I don’t care to understand.

He gives Bishop permission to enjoy the world, and not always worry about the future.  He gives Logan vision, to see that he is walking towards the light from his dark past.

And then, the most fucked up, but also brilliant thing is him giving them all Oblivion.  “Forget.”

He tells them.  Then he mind-wipes all of them!  Except for Betsy. She gets to remember.

“For now, you’ll be the only one who knows I’ve returned. You’ll watch me. Keep me honest.”

After they exchange threats, she asks him what their Psychic be-all-end-all was.  She suggests that maybe he could find the stronger empaths, and bring them to the school.

He tells her, nah, though.  “Why would I go back to the School? I’m sure Kitty Pryde has things well in hand.  The school was Professor Charles Xavier’s place.  His dream... There is nothing for me there.” He smirks as the sun sets in the background.

“I am not Xavier. I am X...  I have a new dream.”

-The End-

Jeeeez.  Cool that he’s back, but man oh man.  Where was Soule going with this.  He just planted this giant seed, in hopes that someone else could pick this up and run with it???

I’m not sure if Astonishing got cancelled, or if it was always meant to be a 12-part mini-series.  But either way, Soule’s story was done by this point.

And I was NOT interested in getting Issue 13, with a new writer coming on board.  But I accidentally got it in my pile anyway.  And it was waaaay fucking better than any of this.

All things considered...  I like that Charles is back.  Even if he's younger and different... and, in the background.. and none of this really matters, ‘cause it’ll get reset anyway.

In the meantime, it’s still interesting.  And I guess that’s why I collected this in the first place.  Because it seemed interesting.  So that’s that.

[modernpolymath]

Eurovision Semis #1

a.k.a. Aria’s running commentary.

Intro:

Mel, I don’t know how you’ve kept getting these assignments, but please don’t stop. I know GBBO isn’t around anymore, but please don’t leave just because you are now our default entertainment presenter. 

Ukranian rap/hip-hop artist? Eyesore? I’m confused. 

Okay so top of head braid ponytails are a thing now? Is this a trend I’ve missed out on.

Who are these three guys? I don’t think I could pronounce their names if I tried. Having three presenters is weird enough, not having a male-female double act is just wrong. I still think they missed a trick with not bring Verka back. EPIC FAIL UKRAINE.

#eurogenius The term is accepted.

I wonder if they actually speak French, or if he just learned these phrases. 

“And the odd horsehead.”

Their smiles are REALLY WIDE. 

And we’re off!!!

Sweden:

First act to ever start backstage? I mean sure, why not. 

I can’t get over these super 90s suits. The haircuts and the mock turtlenecks. Also his suit is purple? Props for diversity though. 

And I just gotta say: didn’t we move past the treadmill performances when OK GO did it like 8 years ago?

WHAT IS WITH THE OKAY SIGN????

I think Sweden is trying to go retro and reclaim their former glory.

Georgia:

I LOVE THIS ALREADY. Her hair. Her cape. Her dress. Red and fog and minor keys. YES. 

That eye make is on point. Wink on point. 

CAPE IS OFF. THE CAPE IS OFF. 

I think she can actually sing...? Or not. She does well until the refrain, so I don’t know. 

FIRE FIREFIREFIREFIRE We have our first fire!

I really want to like this song. And I think I do.

OH SHIT, it looks like she stole the UK’s ball graphic. 

EPIC END. 

“Several key changes and a cloak.” Mel knows whats up.

Australia:

“Which I don’t feel bitter about in any way.” Say it Scott. We all hate them.

OH MY GOD he’s in the graphics in the background. OZ!! I think you figured out how Eurovision works. Sorta. Hot guy who can sorta sing, over-do it on the effects

I am distracted by his lack of socks.

This song needs something more.

MORE FIRE

When I meant more, I didn’t mean riff Issiah, you’re not a strong enough singer for that. So In that, good job Aussies, you put forward an appropriate contender this year. You have learned your place.

“Another sockless man on stage.” MEL KNOWS WHAT’S UP.

Albania:

What’s with all the ballads this year? 

Her eyes are so big.

Albania’s feeling like the white, purer version of Georgia. 

Wind machine. We have wind. 

I’m not sure she can walk in this dress.

Whoa? Did we move from sort of clock to a futuristic floating world? Don’t get it, but sure. 

At least this song picked up more than Oz did. But it still needed to drop the beat or something. It just stayed so constant. Meh.

Belgium:

It’s so Mumford and Sons. But wow, the audience is so into it. 

I am not entirely sure she’s singing more than 2 notes. 

This song is good but your staging sucks. 

UGH all of these ballads need to pick it up mid-song. They’re so monotonous. This one in particular. 

She should have sung in her head voice the WHOLE TIME. 

She seems like a super sweet girl who is maybe a bit overwhelmed. 

Montenegro:

YES YES YES SLAVKO

WAIT IT’S DETATCHABLE?!??!?! I am slightly less impressed now.

Nevermind. OMFG I love this entire thing so much already. 

This whole thing is so Eurovision. 

PANTS PANTS PANTS

Rock it to the stars. Yes let’s do that. These pants need to shining down on us at all times. 

This overhead shot of him laying down on his face is amazing. 

It’s cheating if you twirl your braid with your hand! THERE WE GO. 

I get the feeling this is probably a better to watch on TV than in the audience. 

“Absolute quality.” MEL KNOWS WHAT IS UP.

Finland:

This postcard posing is so Finland.

Fog so much fog this year. 

First singer who is actually singing and singing to the way their song is written. 

I still don’t get this song though... I mean I kinda get it, but the lyrics with the composition doesn’t make sense to me. Also is this a Eurovision song? Maybe? 

IS THAT A BURNING PIANO?!??!?! No, just a bit of fog, but I’ll count it. 

We’re red and angry now. 

I do honestly like this song, and she may be one of the best signers in the competition.

Azerbaijan:

OH MY GOD I LOVE THIS POSING AND LOOK SO AMAZING YES YES YES

Azerbaijan, super props for making up for your rather sucky act last year.

This act is amazing. It is so out there, but it’s also so amazingly perfectly Eurovision? In a way that Germany’s last year was not but tried to be this. 

They are committed. Is she seducing a man with a horse head? Are these people actually members of the band, or just prop men? I don’t know but it’s working. 

Consistency and thematic integration A++ for Azerbaijan.

“Only at Eurovision.” “We have told Finland their piano is on fire.” CALLED IT.

Portugal:

“That means if you think she’s rubbish tonight you cant even tell him.”

Oh, we have a mini-stage!

What.... what is this? 

Don’t get me wrong, I love jazz and lyrical contemporary music. I go to jazz clubs for fun. But I.... what is this? What happened to Eurovision this year? 

Okay, but he’s adorable. And I 100% love the audience for getting into it with him. 

Is this ballad year though?

“Pure art alert.” True story. I feel like this is Australia 2016 all over again: Portugal came back to win and forgot that this is not an event you send your best artist to. 

Whatever, I’ll take it. 

Greece:

Ooofffff, harsh entrance girl. 

This is traditional Eurovision right here. 

I don’t even have anything to say about this act other than it’s a back to basics. Half-naked men, electric upbeats, high notes, dancibility, light shows, some odd staging gimmick. 

Yup.

Poland:

VIOLIN

Here’s our quintessential be yourself, be stronger, ballad. 

WIND MACHINE

This is very Rise like a Phoenix.

Could she be bound any tighter to get some cleavage out of her though?

Have I won ESC Bingo yet?

UBER WIND 

Moldova:

EPIC SAX GUY

Violin and sax and tuxedos.

This song will so get stuck in my head for the next 3 days....

EPIC SAX GUY

This leg move can’t be good for your hips though. 

Because I can’t get it the beat out of my head, it’s probably going onto the finals. 

Iceland:

Damn girl. You’re postcard is A+++++++++++. Be my friend. “In her spare time, she likes to bathe in unicorn tears.” YESSSSSSSSS

This is like Jessie J meets Madonna meets Gwen Stefani. And I’m kinda of digging it?

Capes are in this year. 

Her shoes are AMAZING

Iceland is my lady crush of ESC 2017. It’s official. 

I so wish this staging was more epic though. 

WAIT WAIT WAIT HERE IT COMES

Laser show, lighting breakdown. Where’s the wind????

Awesome. Yes, more please. 

Czech Republic:

Wait, isn’t their country now Czechia or something??

I appreciate this outfit?

CZE is probably winning best use of lighted floor award tonight. 

I think this song would have been much better received earlier in the night. 

She can sing though. Which is always nice. 

Cyprus:

“Lots of sockless behaviour this evening.” MEL KNOWS WHAT IS UP.

This song has promise, despite your ankles showing. But maybe that’s a positive to show off your footwork?

LOOK IT’S RUSSIA’S BLOCKS FROM LAST YEAR!

Camera work is good on this one. 

Okay the silhouette thing is cool. 

Sorry CZE, Cyrpus just stole your staging award. This whole performance is really well thought out and maybe a bit too good for ESC? I’ll allow it. 

Armenia:

Okay, I was going to count Armenia out 20 seconds in, but then the beat picked up and the camera jumped. Good. 

This has got to be so much better on TV than in person. 

I kinda dig this song. My pole dancing self would totally rock to this.

FIRE

Dancing is good. 

Slovenia:

He’s cheeky. 

I do like this song, I’ve heard it before. It just get weirds at point. Like maybe there should be the opera guy in here somewhere?

You know, it’s basically like a Josh Groban song.

Latvia:

Group act, bring it!

WHAT IS THIS 

Neon. Crazy eyes. Insane hair. I don’t get this outfit. I don’t get this song. I don’t get this staging. Am I missing something?

Oh, well here it is. Maybe this is it. 

Nope still don’t get it.

My TV stream is confused by what to do and how to render all these lights and colours. Pixelation central.

I just don’t get it. Is this Georgia all over again for me?

Voting:

These guys are too stiff. Please just stop trying to be funny. 

OH MY GOD - bringing it back to the OMFG new scoring rules and how fucking stressful that was. I am so ready for it again this year. 

I am still not over the political FU that has happened over this song and over Eurovision. I mean, on the one hand it’s just a song competition, but on the other, shit man, this is why Eurovision has a ban on political songs. That said the Drama has been delectable.

VERKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA  YES. Okay, but still. Ukraine fail that this wasn’t your host. I will never forgive you. Yes yes, Jamal’s great, but we really want Verka and laughs. Ukraine you’re not keeping it fun enough. 

“Wazitgutenuf.” I swear, I am normally good with accents, but wow, Aleks is taking this to a whole new level of speed and incomprehensibility. 

Moldova - duh, of course. 

Azerbaijan - I am so glad, I am so down with this whole thing. 

Greece - eh, sure, it’s traditional, but I thought others were better. 

Sweden - I dunno, this feels like a thank you more than deserved.

Portugal - I am secretly really happy?? He’s adorable.

Poland - nope, sorry, no. You were fine. Iceland was WAY better.

Armenia - okay, sure, but I don’t think you’ll hold up. 

Australia - fiiiinnnnnneeeeee.

Cyprus - totes, 100% well deserved. 

Belgium - ugggghhhhhhhhhhhh, I want to like this song, but it was as shitty performance. 

Montenegro was robbed in that you know this is what Eurovision is about and really he should have gone through on that alone. Ultimately, it wasn’t a strong performance though....

I’m pissed about Iceland. She should have been there. 

At least some of the crazy and stupid slow songs didn’t make it. 

BRING ON ROUND 2!!!